by Jan Siegel
‘Too late.’ Kwanji’s voice had shrunk to a croaking whisper. ‘No treatment … for this.’ She swallowed again, a brief pain convulsing her face. ‘I knew the risk. To die here, like this, is better … than to live in the Pit.’
‘You must be in agony,’ he said helplessly.
‘Not now. Nerves mostly … dead. The rest of me will catch up soon.’ He gave her more water, hoping it would ease the remainder of her suffering. He could think of nothing else to do. She went on talking, as far as she was able, pouring visible effort into every word. ‘It is good … that you came. You must take it … take it back.’ She attempted a gesture, but evidently it was too much for her. Looking down, he saw what she held – the object she was trying to pass to him. He would have known what it must be, if he had taken the time to think, but his thoughts had been full of her. Her hands were locked around it; she had no more strength to release them. He had to uncurl her fingers one by one. ‘Take it,’ she went on. ‘To … Osskva. He will know … the spell.’
‘Who is he? How will I find him?’
‘My father.’ She hadn’t mentioned her father before; only her grandfather. He thought the twitching of her face might have been an attempt to smile. ‘He didn’t approve … but no matter. Your dream will find him.’
He said wretchedly: ‘I can’t be sure of that.’ He had to take the Grail back to his own world, but he couldn’t tell her that, not when she was dying.
‘You found me,’ she said. ‘Fate guides you. I must believe …’
‘The other things – the crown, the sword – where are they? Shouldn’t they be here?’
She made a tiny movement with her head, negation or bewilderment. ‘Only found … the cup. Grille locked – but I knew the word of release. Grandfather … told me. I think … you will find … the rest. Hope …’ Her voice was growing fainter, more laboured. He took her hand and then let it go, afraid of hurting her, but she nudged it back into his clasp. ‘Chosen,’ she whispered. ‘You … chosen, to save us …’
He sensed she was clutching at that idea because it was all she had left, it gave meaning to the last moments of her life, to her death. He didn’t think it was true, but he couldn’t say so. She didn’t try to talk any more. They sat in silence for some time, he didn’t know how long, perhaps hours. He thought: I’m waiting for her to die, and that seemed dreadful to him, but to leave her, dying alone, would have been worse. Anyway, he had no notion how he was going to get back to Arkatron, let alone to his own world. There should be an opening from here to the sunken chapel in the Darkwood, but he didn’t know how to use it. He couldn’t solve the problem, so for now, at least, he tried not to think about it. Instead, he found himself remembering how Annie had told him once about sitting at Daniel’s bedside – Daniel who he assumed was his father – while the life ebbed out of him, sitting and waiting for the end. He had said: That must have been awful, and she had said: You will do it for someone one day, maybe for me, and if you are lucky, someone will do it for you. Death gives life meaning, and when we share it with another we accept that, we face it without fear, and maybe we can go beyond it, into a wider world.
He waited with Kwanji Ley, to share her death.
Annie woke early the next day, knowing there was a burden on her mind. Nathan – the police … (And in the background, still the pulse-churning recollection of Michael’s kiss.) She went through the routine of washing, dressing, making herself tea and toast for breakfast, putting off waking Nathan because that would hasten the moment when she had to call the inspector. Perhaps he had found the Grail, in his dreams – although then Pobjoy would be certain he’d taken it, even if they didn’t proceed with charges. It was a ludicrous paradox. Returning the cup might be the end of the matter, but in the eyes of the law it would be a confirmation of guilt. She worried about this for some time, knowing it was futile. You could only try to do right, and never mind what people thought. Teenagers hardly ever seemed to be prosecuted even for wanton vandalism or habitual theft, so surely they wouldn’t prosecute for a crime when they believed the motive was pure …
She emerged from reflection to notice that it was nearly nine and there was still no sound of Nathan stirring. She went up to his room, tapped on the door, called out, and went in.
The bed was empty.
She was sure he hadn’t gone out earlier: in her present restless state, his movements would almost certainly have woken her. Besides, he was good about things like straightening his bed, and the blanket was still rumpled over the duvet, and the pillow, unplumped, was dented from the pressure of a head. He’d have folded the blanket, she thought. He’d have changed his clothes. He’d have left a note. For the first time, she noticed where the Mark of Agares had been torn off the wall.
She ran downstairs to the telephone.
Bartlemy was out. His machine answered, requesting her to leave a message, and she tried to talk coherently, not to babble. ‘Nathan’s gone. He went to bed early, like I told you, to try and find the Grail. He hasn’t left the house: I’d have heard. If he gets up before I do I nearly always hear him. The bedding’s all rucked up, as if he’s still there, but he isn’t. He must’ve – dematerialized, got stuck in the other world. The Mark you drew him, it was on the wall over the bed, but it’s torn down, I don’t know why. Supposing he can’t get back … Please call me. Please call me.’
She hung up, and waited, watching the clock, but no call came.
By ten she could stand it no longer. She had to talk to someone, go somewhere, do something. She locked up the shop and headed for Riverside House.
Kwanji’s eyes had closed, and he thought she must have slipped away without his realizing it, but then they opened again. They were bloodshot, but they appeared to clear and brighten, or maybe that was his imagination. She gave him a look that seemed to reach deep inside him, into his mind, into his soul, then a tiny sigh escaped her, barely audible even in the silence of the cave, and the look faded. Long afterwards, he said: ‘There were people there. I couldn’t see them, but they were there. I don’t know that I was aware of them at the time, but I remember them. They came for her.’ Then he was alone.
He closed her eyes again, the way he had seen it done on television. He wondered if he should arrange the body more formally, laying her down, crossing her arms on her breast, but it didn’t seem to be necessary. She was still propped against the cave wall, and she looked quite comfortable, which mattered to him, even though there was no one there to feel comfort any more. Then he picked up the Grail, holding the torch to illuminate it, looking at it properly now. He half expected it to glow at his touch, like the vision in the chapel, maybe to fill with blood, but the stone, though pared to fineness and polished to a dull lustre, had no sheen but that of the torchlight reflected in the curve of the bowl, and there was nothing inside. A gem or two glinted in the coils of the design, like the eye-blink of a furtive animal; that was all. The gnomons must have followed it, or so he reasoned, and he listened for soft snake-voices creeping from the shadows of the cave, but heard none. He didn’t know that although Ozmosees may migrate from world to world on a thought-wave the Gate – the legitimate passage between states of being – is forbidden to them, and so they avoid the dying and the dead, and though they bring fear and madness they never kill. Death is inimical to them. But Nathan knew only that they had gone. He gazed at the Grail for a long while, awed by its ancientry, the might of legend that it carried and the power it was rumoured to encapsulate; but if any spirit lived within the stone, it was hidden. At last he tucked it inside his suit, where it made an irregular bulge that dug into his side. Then he drank a mouthful of water – there was hardly any left now – and made his way cautiously to the cave entrance.
Even wearing his goggles, the sun was dazzling. It must have been around midday: the glare was right overhead, bleaching the blue from the sky, reducing shade to mere wisps and dimples etched on a colourless landscape. The vastness of the Grokkul had disappeared into sand a
nd rock, melding with its surroundings. He knew it was there – he could see the double row of its spines – but somehow, the threat seemed barely real. Some torn fragments of cloth lay outside the cave; the blood spots had long since evaporated. He thought: I’m trapped. Even if I could get past the Grokkul, I have no transport, and the city is hundreds of miles away, and the suit might protect my skin but the heat would kill me in under a mile … His only chance was to sleep, and return home the way he came.
Back in the cave he explored the recesses, sliding his fingers between the bars of each grille, but the rock did not waver. He kissed Kwanji’s swollen hand, thinking he should have done it before, and returned to the entrance, leaning against the wall in an attitude similar to hers, eyes closed, searching his mind for the portal that would take him back. But although he found it, now the wrong-coloured blotch was dark and opaque, with no fizzing snow effect. It was like approaching a door, unexpectedly sealed without handle or key: his thought beat on the panels, but it would not yield. In the end, unexpectedly, he slept.
When he awoke he was still in the cave. Beyond the entrance the sun was sinking towards evening. His neck was stiff from the awkwardness of his position, and he was very thirsty. He drank the rest of the water and stood up, squirming through the narrowness of the cave mouth, halting just outside. He couldn’t simply wait here to die, he had to try something, even if it was pointless. Anyway – better quick than slow. Maybe the power of the cup would help …
He stood in the lee of the cliff, screwing up what was left of his courage, watching the sun crawl down the sky, behind the barrier of the mountains.
Eric had taken to sleeping in the back room of the antique shop, guarding Rowena’s treasures, or so he said. She lived in the flat above. He had come upstairs for a meal a few times, when specially invited, but appeared hesitant about intruding on her private territory. However, they usually breakfasted together in the back room, sharing her daily paper, the Telegraph of course, while he asked questions about Tony Blair, and the aftermath of the war, and what the world was all about.
That morning Rowena was on the phone from an early hour, still chasing up contacts in the faint hope that she might pick up the trail of the stolen cup. She had just drawn a blank with a dealer in Oxford and was exchanging general courtesies and comments on the summer weather. ‘Well, we had that big storm on the day of the robbery but it’s been very hot ever since … Yes, it was unlucky – if the lights hadn’t blown the thief might have had no opportunity … A dwarf, really. Police want me to say it was a child but I know what I saw – would’ve had to be a bloody young child … Ran off into the woods. The kids went after him but he got away in the rain. Coming down like a monsoon … You didn’t? Lucky you …’ She rang off, remarking: ‘They didn’t have a storm in Oxford. Nice for them. We only had it here – almost like someone laid it on.’
‘Is possible,’ Eric said. ‘Force can do many things. Control weather – control minds.’
‘Really believe that, don’t you?’ said Rowena. ‘Sometimes, you almost convince me. Uncanny, the whole business.’ She poured more tea for herself, and coffee for Eric, who had acquired a liking for it bordering on addiction. ‘Stealing a cup you can’t sell, Von Humboldt dying like that – now they say it’s natural causes – too many things that don’t fit, little things, niggling at me …’ Her voice petered out; she replaced the coffee pot, frowning. ‘That conversation just now – there was something, something that didn’t quite …’
‘You think they lie?’ Eric asked.
‘No – nothing like that. A false note. Bugger – can’t find it. It’s there, but I can’t find it.’
‘What is this bugger that you always mention?’ Eric said. ‘Is word I hear often, but I not understand.’
‘It’s a swear word,’ Rowena explained. ‘You use it when you’re angry.’
‘What does it mean?’
Rowena told him. Eric looked rather surprised. ‘In my world,’ he said, ‘we have swear words, but not like that. We use words for story, corruption, untruth. What people do in sex is not bad. Is just a matter for them. I must use this word?’
‘Not if you don’t want to,’ Rowena responded. ‘Use any word you like.’ She left Eric to choose and reverted to her former problem, glaring furiously at the middle distance. Then her face changed. ‘But … how odd. Why should he –?’ She picked up the phone again, re-dialled Oxford. ‘Sorry to bother you again. Need to check about the weather. Are you sure it didn’t rain? – Not anywhere round there?’ She hung up, and looked at Eric. ‘It didn’t rain anywhere near Oxford that day,’ she said.
Eric was murmuring to himself, presumably trying out potential swear words for size. ‘Fantasy!’ he essayed. And then: ‘I tell you, storm not natural. Someone make bad weather.’
‘It’s not that.’ Rowena thought for a long minute, then dialled a new number. Evidently no one was there.
‘You are upset,’ Eric said, watching her expression, concern imprinting his own features. ‘Who do you call?’
‘Annie.’ She shrugged off the worry with a visible effort. ‘Never mind. Nothing important. Time to open up.’ Her assistant wasn’t due in that day, and she wasn’t going to take time off sorting out minor inconsistencies. Eric started work polishing a walnut side table, and Rowena decided to think of something else.
She tried Annie’s number again half an hour later, without success. She tried Bartlemy, and got the machine. Then she closed the shop.
‘Come on,’ she told Eric. ‘We’re going to Eade. Probably a wild goose chase – but I think something’s wrong.’
‘What is wild goose?’ Eric demanded, in the van which was Rowena’s standard means of transport. ‘Is dangerous?’
‘Don’t know. But we’ve got one dead body – two if you count Effie Carlow – and the Grail’s gone, and … why tell such a damn silly lie?’
‘What lie?’ Eric said. ‘Who lie?’
Rowena explained.
TWELVE
Bluebeard’s Chamber
The spellfire had told Bartlemy little that he didn’t know, and beneath his customary placidity he was growing anxious. A further period of reflection had given him a new idea, the same idea which had occurred to Nathan. He was mildly irritated with himself for not thinking of it before. ‘The woodwose,’ he told Hoover, as he pulled on suitable boots. ‘Nathan’s retiring friend. If anyone saw anything, it would be him. No, you can’t come. You’ll make him nervous. I’ll go alone.’
He wandered through the trees for some time, well away from the path, moving very quietly for all his bulk. Few twigs snapped under his feet; the leaf-fall of a dozen winters scarcely crackled. Birds watched him, but piped no warning. On the border of the Darkwood he came to a hollow oak, struck by blight or lightning years before: nothing now remained but the outer husk of the trunk, colonized by insects and parasitic plants, deep in a thicket of nettles. Nathan had passed it twice in his searches, but he hadn’t stopped to look inside. Bartlemy glanced through a fissure in the bark, drew back a short way, and sat for a while on a bank nearby, patient and immobile, while the wood grew indifferent to his presence. When he got up, his movements were slow and altogether noiseless. He parted the nettles with hands that felt no sting, clearing a way into the secret heart of the tree. Through the fissure, he saw something like a bunch of bent twigs, half buried in leaf-shreds and wood-dust. It sat motionless, petrified, the elongated head in profile, returning his gaze with one whiteless eye. Remembering Nathan’s name for it, he said very softly: ‘Woody?’
If something already still could become even stiller, it did. Bartlemy thought the very beat of its heart froze. He said: ‘I’m Nathan’s friend, you know that. I’m your friend. We’ve lived side by side a long time without disturbing each other. I’ve always known you were here. I’ve always left you alone. I mean you well, little one. You have no need to fear me.’
The woodwose still didn’t answer, but he thought its heart began to
beat again, a tiny fluttering drum somewhere beyond the edge of hearing.
‘I know you’re in trouble,’ Bartlemy said, keeping his voice very low, very gentle. ‘I can help you.’
The woodwose jumped like a grasshopper, hitting its skull against the inside of the tree, then shrank even further into the hollow, willing itself into invisibility against wood-grain and dust-shadow. But Bartlemy’s eyes were long trained to see things that didn’t want to be seen.
‘It’s all right,’ he went on. ‘I can protect you. Come to the house; stay in my garden for a while. Nobody enters there without my permission.’ Except a dwarfish thief – but he had taken precautions since then.
‘It will find me,’ Woody said at last, its voice less than the whisper of a whisper.
‘Not if you stay with me,’ Bartlemy said with quiet authority. ‘I have power: you can sense that. In my garden you will be safe.’