He couldn’t handle the expression in Olwen’s eyes. He wasn’t ready for it.
She sat at the kitchen table. ‘You know, George,’ she said, ‘if somebody managed to reach the Zen Self, they might have extraordinary powers. It’s possible someone like that might be able to manipulate this solid world as if it were the software of a fantasy game. We saw that possibility, you will remember, and made nothing of it. The goal was far off, and we were probably mistaken. But that was my quarrel with Caer Siddi, long ago. For them, reaching the Zen Self was everything, it was the end. I believed someone must go, and come back.’
‘Why bring this up now?’ said George. ‘What are you telling us?’
‘Go to Rivermead. Now, right away, all of you.’
So they went to Rivermead.
It would be harsh to say the staybehinds were collaborating. They were living with the situation. The Heads walked together through the campground, bare-faced. They knew they were recognised, but you have to rely on your instincts, and they felt safe. The long-familiar scenes, revisited, seemed extraordinarily vivid, full of detail: the faces like tiny portraits in a Bruegel, maybe. There was a sorrowful gaiety in the air, mirror image of the anger and the joy of Dissolution Summer. Now we are grown, we know how terrible life is and that there’s no way to fix it. But the sky is still blue, the grass is still green, and we stick by the choice we made. We’re staybehinds, we’ll stay.
The Rivermead complex was definitely enemy territory, occupied and run by Benny’s version of the Counterculture. But no one challenged them when they walked in. They went up to Fiorinda’s rooms, which felt like the first port of call, wondering what they would find. The door to the suite was open.
‘Anyone at home?’ called George, peering into the solar.
No answer. The room looked as if it hadn’t been used recently, but it was clean and the plants had been tended. A mass of living honeysuckle, trained over an arch, stood by the windows: flowers, foliage and green berries all together. Someone stepped from behind the flowers and stood looking at them, the living skull quiet and sombre.
‘Oh, fuck,’ said George. ‘I thought no one ever came out of Caer Siddi.’
‘No. Usually you can’t.’
The time when they would have been overjoyed to see the boss was long gone. They stared. ‘What happened?’ demanded George. ‘We’ve been trying to reach you since Ax was kidnapped, why the fuck didn’t you take any notice?’
‘Your messages didn’t reach me, I’m sorry. Just hang on a minute. I’m looking for something, and I’m not sure—’
He forgot to finish the sentence. They watched him prowl around the room: a big, thin bloke in anonymous blue jeans, a biker jacket and that unmistakeable mask. That sounds like Sage’s voice, and that looks like the way Sage used to move, but who was this? How could they be sure? He stopped by the piano, the skull frowned a little, he passed a skeletal hand over the polished wood that finished the treble end of the keyboard. A small recessed panel appeared, where there had been none before. At Sage’s touch (if this was Sage), it slipped aside.
‘Oh shit—’
He sounded so like himself they came to have a look, and that was a barrier crossed. The secret compartment held Fiorinda’s saltbox, and a tightly folded envelope addressed to the boss. He picked it up, as if it might burn him, and opened it.
Dearest Sage,
It’s completely irrational to write to you, but my letter to Ax might not get out of England, and anyway I’m not feeling rational. I want to tell you what I did and why, so that you can tell him when you see him. I know I was an idiot about Fergal Kearney. We all were but especially me, because I knew, and I didn’t listen to myself. As you’ll know by now, when you and Ax were both gone he came and took me. I couldn’t do a thing, because I won’t use magic and anyway I didn’t dare. He said if you tell anyone I will kill them. I knew that could mean like, the next second, so I kept my mouth shut and tried to think of an answer. It comes to me now that he’d made that promise in my bad dreams, so even though really I knew all along what was happening I couldn’t tell. Rufus would have killed you, killed Ax, and put you both in Hell. I know I used to dream about you two dead, or being tortured. But maybe I’m just making excuses. Anyway, that’s how I turned into Fergal’s girlfriend. I lost some friends and I don’t blame them, I was acting very strangely. But the Few stood by me. You must tell Ax that whatever they let happen and whatever they did, it was because I said so and they trusted me. Tell him I was trying to save lives, and anything else was secondary. Like a chess-playing machine. Me, Deep Blue. No brain, no ideas, just one simple objective. For the record, I don’t think there is a way out. I think we are all doomed, and it makes no sense to keep trying. But it made sense to Ax so I did my best, because I love him. I had hoped that Rufus would give up and go home, taking me with him: but don’t get me wrong. Chip and Verlaine were right to do what they did. They didn’t know the real situation because I hadn’t told them, and they did rescue me. I hope someone keeps telling them that. Well, that brings me to where I am now. Which is not so bad. It’s a lot better than the option I thought I was facing. I don’t want to stop writing because I don’t want to give up the illusion of talking to you, but I think I must, and now I’m going to hide this by magic, how irrational can you get?
If anyone’s reading this it’s almost certainly not you, so I won’t get too sentimental.
I want to say always love me, but I don’t want you to be miserable. There, I said it anyway. Still your stupid brat.
Fiorinda
‘Fiorinda—’ He stared at the place where her pretty handwriting faltered, as she wrote that Chip and Ver had done the right thing, then he put the saltbox and the letter in his pocket and turned to the band. They’d accepted Fiorinda’s secret compartment without a flicker of surprise, and he wondered at that.
‘What the fuck happened to you?’ repeated George.
They sat down together on the storm-timber chairs. ‘I don’t know where to start,’ said Sage. ‘The Caer Siddi people didn’t tell me anything, because… It’s a long story. Can it wait? We need to talk about the jailbreak; that’s why I’m here.’
They felt very unsure. This is Sage, but it’s not Sage. George almost thought of asking the boss to unmask… The double doors to the solar opened quietly. A young man stepped in and closed them behind him. His golden brown hair was a smooth bell to his shoulders, he wore the red and blue livery of Rivermead, which the enemy, had retained. He looked like pre-Raphaelite page, at ease in his archaic costume—
‘Rambo?’
Sage didn’t seem surprised to be called Rambo. ‘What is it?’
‘They know you’re back, and they figured out what it means. I shouldn’t tell you this, but…you’d better get to London. Right now. I mean, really quickly.’
Fiorinda had realised that the news of Ax’s return might have the ironic effect of hurrying her death. She hadn’t known that this was the day until they came to fetch her. No chance to choose a last breakfast, huh, there’s another myth shattered. But she didn’t mind. She went along with everything, thinking about animals in slaughterhouses, people in concentration camps, condemned prisoners the world over, guilty or innocent. You should fight to the last, but you don’t. It’s a hormone shift, and pity the people who aren’t wired for it. Or who haven’t had the experience to prime them for it. Fiorinda was lucky; she had already given up. It didn’t even bother her that she would not see Ax. She’d been used to that idea for a long time. She was genuinely glad to be cuffed, to hear the roaring and thumping of the other prisoners giving her a send-off, to get in the back of the van. The noise kept up. It reminded her of different rides, through different crowds: most of all of the time when she and DARK drove into Newcastle on the Rock the Boat tour—playing Pictionary in the back of the bus while Tyne and Wear went berserk with terror over the refugee hordes.
Not shocked.
No, I’m not shocked that they’d do
this to me. It was always in them, that was the whole point, the fact that we knew this kind of thing is in everyone.
So it’s okay, Ax. Not new bad news.
She climbed the steps unaided. The bloke who strapped her to the pole wanted something, oh fuck, he wants me to forgive him. Okay, okay, I forgive you, now leave me alone. It was horrible, unbearably horrible, having her arms strapped up, but it won’t be for long. Actually this is the good bit, so enjoy. Count the moments. Think of Ax and Sage. You must not leave your body (she remembered that she had made this bargain), but there are infinite degrees just this side of the escape from time and space. Find a tiny niche where it’s possible,
where it’s possible, even now,
To live, in one embattled island after another, and feel—
The state of affairs that morning at Westminster was chaotic. Inside the House of Commons the Members (the ineffectual remains of the Lower Chamber) were debating whether Fiorinda should live or die. They knew what was going on outside, but they kept fighting this verbal battle, as if it were as vital as the other. On the way from Holloway to St Stephen’s a mass of people had poured out of a fleet of buses, surrounding the van and giving belated support (sort of) to the story that she’d been dragged here by an uncontrollable mob. This crowd had now collided with another violent crowd: Fiorinda’s defenders, alerted by the grapevine. The police, also piling out of buses (though many police had already been on the scene) defended the lynch-mob from the protestors, with measured insanity. Fiorinda’s escort had brought her to the scaffold, and were proceeding in an orderly fashion, while the battle raged.
The police, mounted or in full riot armour, swayed to and fro. They did not fire on the crowd. Senior officers were still on the phone, making last minute attempts to delay the actual execution. Mr Dictator was in Paris, in a few days Benny Preminder and his junta might be history. The Metropolitan Police didn’t want to be caught out. But the drama had an unstoppable momentum. Fiorinda’s defenders kept pouring in to Parliament Square, but so did others: a second wave, not hired to play a part, genuine punters, determined to see the witch burn. There were bursts of gunfire (but the police still didn’t fire on the crowd) as Fiorinda climbed the steps, as she was fastened to the restraints. It wasn’t clear which side was firing. Her defenders kept fighting, hand to hand, but the water trucks that were supposed to get here must have been stopped, and somehow, however it happened, suddenly the bonfire had been lit.
Dilip and Allie were together. They’d been separated from Rob and Chip and Verlaine, in the mêlée. Dilip saw the first flames, he heard the huge gasp of indrawn breath: the whole crowd, the police too, stunned by this final enormity. The weather had been damp, but the wood was soaked in herbal oils, organic natural accelerant. Within seconds the pyre had flames running all through it.
‘Green branches,’ howled someone. ‘Put on green branches, put it out—’
‘Oh Sita,’ he whispered, ‘Oh Sita—’
Oh England, oh my country, how can any of us come back from this—
Allie, battered and trampled, eyes burning from teargas, saw a tv crew in the churchyard, still filming. She stared, dumbfounded. Are people watching this on tv? In the places that have reception? In their living-rooms? Is that possible—?
The long grey van scattered the crowd as it slammed to a halt. Sage leapt down. By now the flames were like a wall. George raced after him and grabbed his arm—
‘Boss! No! Come back! It’s too late, you’ll kill yourself. It’s no use. She’s dead, Sage, she’s already dead—’
Sage spun around, decked him savagely and raced on, going through the cordon of mounted police like a whirlwind.
He heard the crowd give a yell, fuck them, and jumped onto the charred and flickering wooden steps. Thank God, despite of the efforts of the people who were breaking green branches from the churchyard trees, there was far more flame than smoke. When the steps broke under him he launched himself upwards, onto the platform, where Fiorinda was hanging limply. He cut her free and leapt down again with her body in his arms, had to dive through a wall of fire, but that’s not hard, hardly even dangerous, it’s a circus act.
He was on the ground, and here’s the water trucks at last: a cold onslaught caught him, he and Fiorinda were drenched.
Into the van. George slammed the door, Bill gunned the engine. Out of here. Maybe the mod hdad changed sides now they’d seen Aoxomoxoa, but it was no time to take a bow. Sage grabbed the oxygen mask Olwen thrust into his hands and pressed it tight over Fiorinda’s mouth and nose. He held her, upright against him, in agonised suspense. It takes so little time for smoke to kill. But she was breathing, taking great gulps of the medicine. Her eyes opened. She saw the living skull and at once her whole body came alive, her smoke-scoured eyes alight with astonished joy. She reached up, still gulping at the oxygen, and got her arms around his neck. ‘Ah, my baby,’ he whispered, rocking her, the skull’s grin buried in her tangled, smoky curls, ‘my sweetheart, my brat, my darling. You’ll be all right now, everything’s going to be all right—’
He laid her down on the astronaut couch and watched Olwen and a Zen Selfer take over…
‘You okay, George?’
‘I’ll live.’
‘Didn’t break anything, did I?’
George rotated his jaw, tenderly. ‘Don’t think so.’
The city of London rushed by.
‘She’ll do,’ said Olwen softly. ‘She’s going to be fine.’
Sage left the couch, and came and collapsed at the kitchen table, head in his masked hands. Water from his clothes puddled on the floor. Peter was driving. Bill had pulled some vodka out of the freezer-womb. He poured a hefty shot and nudged Sage’s elbow with it. The living skull goes no—a very familiar miserable-toddler headshake. Bill nudged the elbow again.
‘C’mon,’ said George. ‘Get it down yer. You’ll feel better.’
He was still outraged. The assault on his jaw was nothing, and the bonfire stunt had convinced him this could only be his boss. But he walks out on us, he deserts Fiorinda, goes off on his own selfish trip, and then after a year, suddenly he’s back, with no explanation, nothing… However, he took the glass and stuck it in the boss’s mitt, closing the crippled fingers securely, as he’d so often done—
He started, and stared. The living skull looked back at him—
‘Boss. Will you take off the masks?’ said George, slowly releasing Sage’s hand.
Sage nodded. He unmasked and sat there, head bowed, blue eyes downcast, hands on the tabletop. ‘Cack Stannen,’ called Bill, ‘have yer co-pilot take over. Get yer arse back here.’
The Zen Selfer beside the driver took over. Peter came back.
They stared at the boss. ‘You made it,’said George. ‘You made it, didn’t you?’
‘You reached the Zen Self,’ said Bill. ‘Oh, fuck. That’s what Olwen meant!’
‘No,’ he said. ‘No. Not all the way. I couldn’t. Something turned me back.’
‘You didn’t go all the way,’ Peter was shocked. Sage always goes all the way.
‘So what happened then?’ said Bill, after a moment.
‘I was out for a long time. But I… I had to turn back. When I was reachable again, I found out how long I’d been away; and the people at Caer Siddi told me what was going on in England. So I called Olwen, and here I am.’
He looked at the glass in his hand, knocked back the vodka, and choked.
‘Shit. Sorry. That’s the first time I’ve tasted alcohol in a year and a half.’
‘You gone off it?’ wondered Bill.
‘No!’
Bill put his arms around Sage’s wet shoulders and hugged him. George did the same. Peter, never comfortable hugging anyone, grabbed Sage’s hand and shook it violently. His brother-Heads examined the boss, really looking at him for the first time. They were shocked at how thin he was. But not in bad shape, he’s surely not been lying in a scanner plugged to life support for a year… What t
he fuck happens at Caer Siddi?
‘What was it like?’ asked Peter, ‘what was it like, nearly getting there?’
The boss smiled. ‘It was good, Peter. ’Spite of everything, it was very fucking good. I’ll tell you about it, if I get the chance. But not right now, I’ve got other things on my mind. I came back to do something. I’ll see her safe, and then I’ll get on with it.’ He swallowed hard. ‘Just tell me one thing. How long? How long was she…did that bastard…? Shit. I can’t say it.’
‘My impression is he started hitting on her the moment you left,’ said George. ‘She held out, and put him off. I think she had to let him have his way, to save our lives, after Ax’s chip turned up and David died. That was last October.’
‘We didn’t know what was really going on,’ said Bill. ‘Fuck, how could we?’
Seven months. Sage reached for the vodka, poured another shot and downed it, with more success this time.
‘I don’t want to talk to Ax. Don’t let me have to talk to him.’
‘You don’t want to talk to Ax?’ exclaimed Peter. ‘Huh? But what’ll we tell him?’
‘You’ll have to do it sometime,’ said George, compassionately.
‘I can’t. What would I say?’ Sage set down the glass and wiped tears with the back of his hand. ‘What could I say to him, George? But I can’t anyway. Ax mustn’t know what I’m doing. I’ll tell you, but you’ll have to promise me you’ll keep your mouths shut. Ax and Fiorinda mustn’t be involved.’
Hours later, at the barmy army HQ at Easton Friars near Harrogate, he slipped into the room where she was sleeping. ‘Do you want us to go?’ whispered one of the medics. He shook his head. He’d just wanted to see her again, before he left.
From Easton Friars he returned to London, to the roof of a tower in the City that belonged to eks. Photonics, his father’s company. Before he went to Reading, to meet the Heads and search Fiorinda’s rooms, he’d arranged to borrow a helicopter and a pilot from his dad. Olwen was on the roof, with Joss Pender.
Fiorinda was rescued, but Ax was still going to have to invade, because Benny Preminder wasn’t going to fold. The Celtics wanted a showdown, and Fiorinda was not safe, though surrounded by an army of ruffians who would gladly die for her. Joss and his son, the skull-masked giant and the slight, dapper software baron, talked a little. How eks., had survived ‘Fergal’s regime, despite the anti-science backlash, due to Joss’s low cunning. Polite nothings, to take the place of the things that should have been said.
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