I didn’t like you, Carly, but I liked all the treats.
‘I think I once saw you in bed with my mum and Rufus,’ she said. ‘Do you remember? I didn’t know what you were doing to her, I didn’t understand that I was seeing magic, of course. But I was scared to death.’
Carly stared with large, grey-green eyes. ‘Kill me,’ she whispered.
‘Not a chance. I want you to grow very old.’ She twisted off the lid of her saltbox, flicked her wrist and sent a white spinning curl of salt to fall around Carly’s skirts, a circle on the floor. ‘Try getting out of that, shit-for-brains. You’re not going to help Rufus. Nor do any more magic tricks on my Sage. Got it?’
Carly made a keening sound and stared at Fiorinda out of the place where Fergal Kearney had been. ‘For pity’s sake. Kill me.’
Oh fuck.
She didn’t look very different from the first day Fiorinda had met her. Ten years isn’t long, for a fashionable woman with access to every cosmetic aid. But there was a deadness in her features. Carly’s face was a mask with something looking through the eyeholes. Her hand came down, slowly and as if steathily—Fiorinda watching, fascinated—and swept a break in the ring of salt.
Fiorinda crouched, instantly: shoved it back in place, and felt an appalling rush. What a rush. Her ears were ringing, her eyes darkened.
‘My bossy little girl,’ murmured Carly.
The slim hand came down again, same stealthy intense gesture.
Fiorinda made the ring whole again, thinking furiously. She wasn’t afraid to use the saltbox, although the box had been a present from Gran, which meant it was very dodgy. So what? All magic is untrustworthy, and hey, I can take over the means of production as a revolutionary act. I’ve read about that… But she could see where this was going. He moves, I move. I’m pinned down. If I break and run, I’ve lost him. I could kill Carly, but no, I won’t do that. I won’t murder this horrible woman, who is completely helpless, that can’t be a good move. There, he’s broken it again, and I fix it. The rush was indescribable, it tasted of metal and blood; it tasted of something huge beyond measure: but it’s okay, I’m doing the hard thing not the easy thing, fixing not breaking, holding him off, refusing, like when I was in prison, only I mustn’t lose my concentration.
She lost her concentration—
Carly rocketed to her feet and leapt over the ring. Her robe caught fire; she screamed and beat at the flames with her hands, but already, trailing little whirls of smoke, she was scrabbling the tables, the desks, searching for focus material—paper, pencil, wax, cord, anything a witch could use. Fiorinda had been knocked out, flung away somewhere. She came back, into her body, ran at Carly and caught her by the hair and saw, with a sickening delight, how the imprisoned creature looked at her: Carly’s head pulled back, Carly herself still in there, mortally terrified, just the way my mother was. Oh God, Sage, this is dangerous. I will kill her, and then there will be no way back. I will be what Rufus is—
Oh, my Sage, fight for me, and I will fight for you—
The swordfight went on and on, a hard, archaic slog. No one came running, though the lights must have looked very strange and the dogs in their kennel were kicking up a hell of a racket. Perhaps there were often strange nights, when the dogs at Drumbeg yelled their heads off, and Rufus’s peasants and his men at arms just knew to stop their ears. Imagine it: Rufus pays well, demands complete loyalty, and gets obeyed: implicitly obeyed. It’s nothing you can persuade anyone to talk freely about, but he’s a very ill feller to cross.
Sage had taken a couple of slices, including a bad one in his right calf muscle that he’d copped one time when he had Rufus down for a moment. These cuts, like the bitewound in his scalp, were not worrying him, but they were bleeding freely. Rufus was unscathed. On the other hand, the fight had moved out of the bawn: Sage still falling back, and Rufus racing joyously after him. They were through the gates—which the duellists had found standing open, the gatehouse deserted, the alarms silent. Sage did not know if he had disarmed the system himself, or if Fiorinda had done it; or even Rufus, the better to pursue the joy of battle. All the magic runs together, as if to one end.
The fight was on the grey road now, that ran through the castle’s grounds, along the top of the cliffs. Sage wanted to get down to the beach, and there was a path, but he couldn’t get Rufus to take it. Never mind: he was on the right track, he could feel it.
What is happening here is that two men, each of them able to engage directly with the whole fifteen-dimensional kaleidoscope, are trying whose ability to change the world is greater. Their super powers cancel each other out, almost. This male-animal contest, the cut and thrust of the heavy weapons, the bloody, sweating struggle, is the form that they have chosen; to decide the question. A sword fight has a rhythm that each partner tries to destroy: and that’s essentially what’s happening in all the dimensions. Whose rhythm will set the tune? Which of us has the edge? It’s overwhelming, it’s glorious, to argue your cause with the state of all states on equal terms. To handle the world as if it’s the contents of your own mind…(see that word handle there: you can’t get away from the physical, Magic is a physical thing—)
But Rufus had the same power as Sage, though he came by it differently. He’d been using magic for a long time, and he wasn’t losing.
The Irishman was singing. Tears of emotion stood in his shining eyes and ran down his cheeks. He had no death wish. He was sure he was going to win, though he knew by now he’d been disinformed. Sage chose to return to mortality, he did not fail. The bastard has much more control than he made out—
When I lie upon my bed of slumber,
thoughts of my true love rise in my mind—
I turn around to embrace my darling.
Instead of gold ‘tis the brass I find—
Sage didn’t feel like singing. He was here to kill a man.
A lock. Aoxomoxoa and Rufus O’Niall, knuckle to knuckle in a clinch neither could break, Sage holding off that wicked trident in Rufus’s left hand with his shortsword. Sage had put on the mask, for old times’ sake. The living skull shone in the dark.
‘When did you first know you were different, Steve?’ demanded Rufus, his hot breath inches away. ‘That you were more? Richer, stronger, too much? Was it when you were two, three years old? You found out that nobody could best you. So you found your way up to the rock stage, which is the greatest theatre of power, pure physical sexual power, in the whole fucking world, and you ruled.’
Rufus tried to force the disengagement. Sage wouldn’t let him.
‘So you’re on stage in front of a million worshipping punters, and it’s already over. You’ve become their meat, they’re giving you nothing.’
‘You shouldn’t let it get to you Rufus,’ gasped Sage. ‘It’s just a well-paid job, with foreign travel, weird hours and good holidays. Think of it like that, an’ you won’t go nuts—’
He fell back, Rufus leaping after him, and felt the change from paved road to rough grass under his feet; and heard the sea, closer now. A thrill went through him, a recognition so sharp he couldn’t tell if it were joy or terror: and then he knew. He was in the Zen Self dome, in January of the terrible year. He had taken a massive dose of snapshot, because he thought he could force the drug to tell him whether Rufus O’Niall really was a threat… Ax was in Amsterdam, Sage and Fiorinda were in despair. His eyes flew open, in the cold dark lab: and he knew.
So this is where I went. A clifftop. The dizziness of the blood I’m losing, the feel of these weapons, the sound of the sea at my back. The moon a blurred seal of silver in the overcast, not a star in the wide east, above that dark loom of rising ground… The details are not the same, but this is the moment from which I returned knowing I’d been right about Rufus, and that the only way I could beat him was by achieving the Zen. I tried again and again to find out more, until there were no more visions, until the naked imperative of the quest took over. But this is it… Oh, shit, I’m here! I ma
de it!
I’m on the wave now. I can’t go wrong. And then he clung to the pure, sweet air on his face, the scent of gorse and peaty earth, ah, cling to this—
Sage had faltered. Rufus laughed, and hauled back for a gigantic swing. His opponent, instead of parrying it, dropped on one knee, caught him and cast him down. Rufus went flying into empty air. He landed in a heap, five or six metres below, and lay still for a long time, long seconds. Sage looked down. Slowly but inexorably, Rufus rose to his feet. There was a billow of darkness that must be shed blood on the dim sand where he’d been lying, but he laughed again, full and hearty, and stretched his arms. ‘I could take on the world!’ he shouted. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know how I do this, you bastard?’
‘No,’ yelled Sage. ‘Because I know what it’s cost you, an’ I think you’re a fucking lunatic. Call yourself a rockstar? You can’t even run a balance sheet.’
This is who I am. This is my completion. Now I leap.
—into the dark.
Remembering the future is the same as remembering the past. Nothing stays the same; you never remember the same thing twice. He felt he should have leapt straight down, but no, it was a double somersault and a pike. He wished he could have made it three, partly to fuck Rufus up, partly to absorb some energy; jump straight down eight or ten metres, even superman would snap his shins. He landed rolling, arms spread, a weapon in each hand…and that’s the end of the preview, don’t know what happens next, only that it’s nearly over.
They circled on the sand, both men moving heavily now. I’m very tired. That’s all it feels like, I’m very tired and I want to lie down. But I’ve drawn blood, an’ I couldn’t do that before. I can finish him. Thank God his power is divided. Thank God Fiorinda came along. I could never, ever have done this alone.
Rufus didn’t even see the crucial stroke coming at him, the high sideways sweep that severed his vertebrae. He was thinking of something else. His blood leapt up like a fountain uncapped. The body stayed on its feet. The head had vanished. Where the fuck did it go? Sage dropped to one knee, leaning on the Drumbeg sword. The blurred moonlight was confusing, he felt very dizzy—
‘Steve!’
He looked around. Rufus’s head had landed on a flat-topped boulder, down by the sea. It was upright. The eyes and the mouth gleamed.
‘I’m not dead yet.’
Sage got to his feet and made for the boulder. He was so tired he could hardly stand. He was fascinated by this head. ‘Rufus,’ he muttered, swaying. ‘You’re kidding. You can’t come back from this.’
‘Hahaha!’ said the head.
Sage dropped his legionary’s sword.
‘You have her, but neither you nor Ax Preston shall enjoy her. Never again.’
Whatever. He took hold of the Drumbeg sword in two hands and heaved it over his shoulder. It felt heavy as lead. Raising it took for ever, but he was getting there, reaching the point on the arc where he could pitch forward, chop the fucking thing in two. His senses deadened by exhaustion, he didn’t realise until the last moment that Rufus’s headless body had come stumbling up behind him. He swung around and parried the body’s swordstroke, but the barbed blades of the trident were thrust into his unprotected right side and twisted there, the weight of a big man’s falling body behind them.
‘Hnnh!’ said the head, with deep satisfaction.
Fiorinda had realised that Carly was getting stronger. She had been exultant, and very frightened. She had to respond to the power turned against her, she’d felt herself leaping to meet it, and known she was done for, ruined if this went on much longer. But it didn’t… The last bout was in front of the cold hearth in the ground floor of the tower, under the picture of Fiorinda when she was twelve years old, the fairy girl with beestung lips and little rose-tipped breasts. In all the length of their duel they had only moved between the modern guardroom, and this hall. It had felt like light years. She didn’t know if it was early or late, or if a whole night and day had passed. She cast yet another arc of salt (the floor was scrawled with them), completed another circle, and this time the magician inhabiting Carly had no riposte. She felt a different rush, a dying fall. Blue flames leapt from the circle, wrapping Carly like a flickering pelt. A flame-shaped creature clothed in blue fire stood there: and then whooshed away into nothing—
—leaving the woman’s body lying on the floor, shuddering.
Fiorinda stared at the cruel picture of herself, the innocent and ruined child—
Sage!
She ran: out of the hall, out of the bawn, found the path and scrambled down to the moonlit beach. She raced to the tumbled bodies, shoved the Rufus hulk aside and bent over her lover. ‘My baby, my baby,’ she whispered, tears falling, stroking the bloody lamb’s fleece.
The head sat on its rock. Its eyes were half-open, already sunken in the broad, deep sockets. It was mumbling fragments of words, some kind of threats, but it shut up after she’d filled the mouth with salt and sand. She lifted it by the hair and dumped it where she could keep it in sight.
Sage opened his eyes. He was pinned to the sand by an incredible weight, not pain, something more fundamental. Fiorinda was there, holding his hand.
‘Hi,’ he whispered. ‘Cracked it?’
‘Yeah, we cracked it.’
‘You better get out of here, my brat, before the Gardia arrive. Take Serendip. The Lorien will get you home.’
‘No. Olwen’s coming with a helicopter. I sent for her.’
‘Ah, that’s good. Good you’ll have company. But you should still get back to the boat.’ He tried to raise her hand to his lips. ‘Oh. I can’t move.’
‘I’m stopping you from moving, my darling. Don’t fight it, lie still.’
‘Right,’ he sighed, smiling up at her. ‘Make it last… But I can talk to you?’
‘Don’t talk too much. You know what I want to do after this, Sage?’
‘Mmm… No.’
‘I want to travel. You and Ax, you’ve been everywhere. There’s so many places I haven’t seen. I want to go to Milan. Will you come with me?’
‘Why Milan? There’s nothen’ there but a few shops…an’ a Formula One course. Oh, okay, Milan… How long…d’you think it’ll take them to get here?’
‘About five minutes.’
Sage’s eyes widened. ‘Huh?’
‘Er, fact is they’ve been waiting out at sea on a Navy frigate that Richard managed to borrow for me. Hey, remember Venezuela! Did you really think I would have come along without back-up? We couldn’t do anything for you going in. You had to be alone, you were right about that. But I reckoned it was okay for us to fetch you out, so I set it up and I didn’t tell you because you would have argued. You are so dumb, Sage. Didn’t you realise you might get hurt?’
He had not expected to be alive.
‘You’re a very sneaky brat!’
‘Hahaha. Me, Boudicca!’
His breath caught. ‘How long did you say?’
‘’Bout four minutes now. Sssh. Hang on, my baby.’
‘Talk to me.’
So they talked, softly, about the antics of little plastic armies on the kitchen table at Tyller Pystri, in the lamplight of an evening long ago, until Sage couldn’t talk, he could only look at her, and the seconds ticked by; and she knelt there by the tide with his life in her arms, flickering like a candleflame in a draught—
‘Will they get here, Serendip?’
‘Everything’s fine, Fiorinda. Don’t let him go.’
When the helicopter landed, that’s how Olwen and the Heads and the medical team found them: Sage lying at the edge of the sea. Fiorinda holding him, the magician’s head beside them. Olwen Devi saw the great dark ragged gap under Sage’s right ribs and stared at Fiorinda, open-mouthed in appalled amazement.
‘Just do it!’ snarled Fiorinda.
They had his riven body onto the stretcher and an IV pumping plasma into him as swiftly as George Merrick’s hands would move.
‘Hi, George,
’ whispered Sage.
‘Hi, boss. Got the bastard, did yer?’
‘I did.’ And at last he closed his eyes.
The helicopter rose and rattled away, eastwards, Sage’s body hooked up to all the life support they had. Rufus O’Niall’s head was in a sack, and Fiorinda kneeling on the floor, clinging to Sage’s lax hand, tears streaming down her face.
God send each good man at his end, such horse such hounds and such a friend.
Six days after Ax’s velvet invasion—as the media people were calling it—he was in Somerset, facing a pitched battle. At first everything had gone well. Benny Preminder’s régime was in disarray. A hastily commissioned emergency Prime Minister had welcomed Ax’s return. In Yorkshire and the North-East, people were celebrating now. In London they were ringing the church bells and throwing street parties. (Amazing. The mob that tried to burn Fiorinda must’ve been aliens, popped in from another dimension.) But it wasn’t over, by no means. The Celtics were digging in, wherever they held the balance of power, and in the South-West they were determined to fight. The success of an invasion is measured in hours, but the hours can stretch to days. Ax had come to meet them, because he couldn’t let this go on, and here he was, not thirty miles from his home town, facing a situation he couldn’t defuse.
The barmies were encamped on the north flank of the Polden Hills, facing the enemy across the valley of the Brue. Early on the morning of that sixth day Ax was in a canvas mess tent with his friends, waiting for news. Kathryn Adams had returned to the US. Alain and Tamagotchi were in Paris, and Mohammad was in Yorkshire. Rox was in London. Allie and Dilip and Rob, Chip and Ver, should have been there too, but they’d forced Ax to admit they had a right to come along with the army. To be here, on this neo-mediaeval battlefield—
The news that meant either peace or war would not reach them by telecoms. Negotiations would be over immediately, if the Celtics detected any anti-Gaia modern means of communication in use, and the Celtic netheads were good, so it wasn’t worth the risk. They didn’t know how the news would reach them. They’d been eating breakfast, a tired spread of bread and cheese and jam, some very suspect sliced meat; vacuum jugs of dandelion coffee. The Few, what was left of the Few, sat over the remains of this buffet, making hopeful conversation. Ax studied a paper map. He’d been so savagely in need of his chip, these last days, that if he’d been anywhere near a working neuro-prosthetics clinic he’d have demanded a replacement over the counter, do it to me!
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