The Road to Farringale

by Charlotte E. English

‘Why are you eating that?’ said Jay, coming up behind me. ‘Why is everybody eating all the time?’

  He did not receive an answer either. The troll did not even look at Jay, but went on chewing, oblivious.

  I turned away from the uncommunicative troll and stared around in dismay. ‘You know, Jay, while that’s a relevant question and all… I’m also inclined to ask what they are eating. Where did they get all this meat?’ I was thinking, of course, of the two alikats at South Moors, who had been seconds away from being turned into dinner when we had intercepted them.

  ‘Oh,’ said Jay, and then added: ‘Shit.’

  9

  I do not know how Miranda got down to Gloucester so quickly.

  It wasn’t that fast, I suppose; not compared to the (relative) ease with which Jay darts about the country. But she arrived a full hour sooner than I’d expected, and she brought approximately half of the Society with her. Soon, those eerily quiet caverns were awash with frantic Society agents racing to save, protect and preserve as much as they could.

  The worst discovery was the crude pit that had been dug at the rear of the Enclave. Its aroma first announced its presence; we lifted our noses to the putrid scent of something rotting, and followed the stench.

  It proved to consist of lots of somethings rotting. The pit lurked behind a pair of ramshackle, abandoned buildings both leaning dangerously to the left. A narrow track wound in between, and at the rear was the crater: perhaps ten feet deep and eight wide, roughly covered over in tarpaulin in a crude, futile attempt to conceal the horror of its contents. It was a bone pit, and filled nearly to the rim with the half-rotted corpses of dead animals. Most of them had had their flesh roughly stripped from their bones before they were discarded, though by no means expertly. Looking at the mess of bloodied flesh, the pale glint of bone here and there, the thick carpet of maggots crawling with grotesque enthusiasm over the whole, I could imagine the clumsy haste with which each beast had been dispatched to its fate.

  They were not all magickal beasts, but too many were. Severed heads and tails and paws, dislocated beaks and feathered crests, claws and teeth, patches of decaying fur — each sad little remnant announced that here lay far too many of the precious creatures we fought so desperately to save.

  I wished, too late, that Miranda had been far away when we found that pit. It broke her heart. She stood on the edge of it, shuddering uncontrollably, and looking so near to collapse that I had to steady her.

  ‘How could they?’ she gasped. ‘How could they do such a thing?’

  ‘Miranda.’ I gripped her arm hard, holding her up by sheer force of will if I had to. ‘They are sick. Can you understand that? This is not cruelty, it is desperation. They’ve been eating this much and they are still wasting away. They are starving.’

  I don’t know if she heard me, or registered the import of my words, for she made no reply. She took a deep, deep breath, mopped her damp cheeks on the sleeve of her jumper, and left me. ‘Right,’ I heard her calling as she walked away. ‘There must be some creatures still alive down here, let’s find them! Quickly, please!’

  Well and good. Miranda’s job was to take care of the animals. I needed to find someone who could help the trolls.

  They were already being helped, I soon saw as I trotted gratefully away from that terrible pit. But ineptly. The Society had not yet realised how futile it was to try to communicate with the trolls of Darrowdale; we were too late for that. They needed more direct help, though of what nature, who knew?

  A young man in a blue jacket raced past on his way to somewhere; I caught hold of him. ‘Did they send any of the medical staff down here? I need to talk to them.’ I’d asked for a doctor, but requests and instructions sometimes got a little garbled along the way.

  ‘Uh,’ said the boy. ‘Foster’s here somewhere.’ He did not stay to argue the point any longer, but dashed off again.

  That was all right. They’d sent Rob, and that was all I needed to know. Robert Foster, with all his might, was also a doctor, a fact I sometimes forgot. I went in search of him, but ran into Jay first.

  ‘I was looking for you,’ said Jay. ‘We’re finished at Darrowdale, they can handle it from here. We need to move on.’

  ‘Yes, but first I have to talk to Robert.’

  Jay’s brow snapped down. ‘Can’t it wait?’

  ‘No. Help me.’

  ‘Right.’ We resumed the search together — a frustrating process, for there were so many people down there, so much furious activity taking place, that it was hard to know where to begin. I saw Miranda once, striding past us with a thunderous look, and Zareen looking unusually grim, but no Robert.

  It was Jay who spotted him at last. We had found our way back to that odd little square, where we had met the troll in the suit. Where it had been serene before, it was now swarming with people. ‘There,’ said Jay, pointing.

  Rob was bending over the old lady under her blanket, tending to her with all the gentle care so characteristic of him. He was not trying to speak with her, but examined her face with a look of intense focus.

  ‘Rob,’ I said. ‘I think there’s some kind of a sickness here. They’ve all got it. Have you been to South Moors?’

  Robert straightened up at my words, and directed a frowning look at me. He shook his head. ‘Should I?’

  ‘Yes. South Moors is going to end up like this, I know it. They’re displaying the same kinds of symptoms, only I think they are at an earlier stage. It’s like… some kind of wasting disease, and they’re all eating and eating but it’s not helping them.’

  He nodded thoughtfully, casting an eye over the old lady, who still had not stirred. ‘That would make sense with what I am seeing. I’ll look into it.’

  ‘There’s another thing. The things they are eating — they’re mostly going for magickal beasts. Not exclusively, for I saw a fox and a lot of rats in that pit. But either by knowledge or instinct they’re targeting the magickals, and that has to be relevant.’

  ‘Thanks, Ves.’ He nodded to me and to Jay and turned back to his patient.

  ‘Can we go now?’ said Jay.

  ‘Immediately, and at once.’

  If I could, I would be delighted to forget the urgent bustle of the next two days. Jay took us across England, into Wales and Ireland and back again; three great, gigantic, exhausting leaps every day. By the end of it, I was ready to collapse. Jay looked like he wished he had died three weeks ago.

  From Darrowdale we proceeded to Parrow Hollow, Warwickshire, which to our relief was hale and well — merely Reclusive. Five of the other names on our list proved much the same, but the final one… that one was as bad as South Moors and Darrowdale put together. Baile Monaidh Enclave was a decimated wreck, well on its way to becoming a ghost town like Glenfinnan. Its handful of surviving citizens were skeletal, withered almost to the point of desiccation, and sunk in such deep stupor they were barely breathing. We summoned all the help we could, but we both knew it was bordering upon too late for them.

  By the time we finally made it Home, my trembling legs threatened to dump me face-first into the cold, unforgiving stones of the cellar Waypoint, and I came close to decorating them with a liberal helping of my stomach contents besides. How Jay held himself together I do not know, but somehow he did. As the swirling winds of our passage slowly died away, he stood with his arms tightly folded, jaw clenched, sweat pouring off him.

  I eyed him with a view to offering assistance, but he would not meet my gaze.

  ‘I want a bath,’ I announced. ‘A bath, two meals, three desserts, six cups of tea and sixteen hours in bed.’

  Jay made a faint sound that might have been a chuckle, or perhaps it was a choked gasp of pure longing. ‘Three meals for me, and make that twenty-four hours asleep.’

  ‘You’ve earned it.’ I hesitated, reluctant to give voice to my next thought. But it couldn’t be helped. ‘Right after we talk to Milady.’

  Jay backed up a step, his eyes widening in ho
rror. ‘No! I am not doing that climb!’

  ‘Well…’ I forced my jellied legs to walk me to the door, and took hold of the handle. ‘This might be one of those times when…’ I opened the door and took a peek beyond. ‘When House loves us. Look.’

  Instead of the narrow, dark passage and staircases of the cellar, the room beyond the door was clearly Milady’s tower. ‘Just six or seven steps and we’re there.’

  ‘Three, if you don’t have short legs.’ Jay demonstrated one of his long strides, which dwarfed mine. But he never made it to a second. He wobbled and stopped, swaying like a sapling in a strong wind.

  ‘Right, come on.’ I took his arm, propped him up against my shoulder, and hauled us both through the door.

  Jay promptly collapsed all over Milady’s floor. I winced, for he hit the ground with a thud and that had to hurt. The carpet might be handsome, but it wasn’t especially thick.

  The air sparkled.

  ‘Jay Patel,’ said Milady. ‘Are you well?’

  ‘Fine,’ croaked Jay. Probably. It was hard to understand him with his face buried in the rug like that.

  Milady let the matter drop. ‘Welcome Jay, Ves. You have news for me, I collect.’

  ‘Tons of it.’ I gave myself permission to sit, too, if Jay was going to, though I managed the business with a touch more elegance than he. With the help of an occasional, muffled interpolation from Jay, I told Milady everything that had happened since she had sent us off to Glenfinnan.

  She heard us out in her customary courteous silence, and then said: ‘Very good. There’s chocolate in the pot.’

  I blinked, taken aback, for I had expected some form of comment upon our labours. A question or two, perhaps; confirmation of a point of detail somewhere; even a titbit of information we might yet be unaware of.

  Ah, well. If chocolate was all I could have, chocolate I would most certainly take.

  ‘Do take them back down, House?’ said Milady, which surprised me again, for I had never yet heard of anybody directly addressing House and actually receiving a response. But Milady spoke with the confidence of being not only heard but attended to, and so she was, for when we opened the door again we found ourselves stepping over the threshold directly into the first floor common room.

  ‘I like you,’ said Jay.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I was talking to the House.’

  ‘I know.’

  He gave me a tiny smile, barely more than a twitch of his lips, and sank heavily into the nearest arm chair. The chocolate pot, apparently taking its cues from Milady in the same fashion as House, obligingly poured itself out for both of us, and we disappeared into all the sweet, spicy pleasures of hot chocolate for a blissful two or three minutes.

  ‘Is that it?’ said Jay, when he had finished slurping up every last trace of chocolate from his dainty cup.

  ‘Doubtful. Now we wait.’

  ‘For?’

  I shrugged. ‘Milady does not yet know how to proceed, I would guess. She is most likely awaiting the return of our colleagues from Darrowdale and Baile Monaidh.’

  ‘Why do we have to wait for Milady? Isn’t there something we can do in the meantime?’

  ‘Besides sleeping?’

  ‘After the sleeping.’

  ‘Maybe, yes, and I do have an idea. But I want to sleep first. Don’t you?’

  ‘Desperately.’

  So we did that.

  My idea involved a day or two spent searching the libraries; always an appealing prospect, whatever the occasion. But before I had chance to get started, someone swept in upon me and knocked all my plans awry. I was reclining in the common room at the time, stretched across two wing-back chairs and half asleep. It was first thing of the following morning, in my defence, and though I had slept a great deal it did not yet feel like enough.

  ‘Vesper?’ said a low, beautiful voice, and I jerked upright, for I knew those delectable tones.

  Baron Alban was back.

  10

  And there he was, in all his gorgeous glory. He had chosen a red leather duster coat that day, worn with dark combat trousers, boots to match, and an ivory shirt. No hat; instead, his golden-bronze locks had been brushed into an attractively windswept arrangement, and a jewelled pin winked at this throat.

  I was suddenly wide awake.

  ‘Hello, the Baron,’ I said lightly, wishing I had taken a minute or two longer over my hair before I’d come downstairs. It probably resembled a hedge more nearly than I would like.

  The Baron, though, did not seem displeased, for he looked me over with a twinkle and a smile, and made me a bow. ‘It is early. I apologise.’

  ‘The pot would like to offer you some tea,’ I observed, for the delicate glass teapot I favoured was bobbing lightly up and down, its spout emitting enthusiastic puffs of steam.

  ‘Thank you, pot. I shall be delighted.’ He took a seat, and his cup shortly after, and sat looking thoughtfully at me. ‘How are you getting along with the matter of the Enclaves?’ he said.

  I sat up a little more. ‘Well, I have a theory, though it has some holes in it. But maybe you can help fill them in.’

  He smiled faintly. ‘Perhaps I might.’

  ‘I think there is some kind of wasting sickness. They eat and eat and still starve; clearly they are ill. But there has to be more to it than that, because there are too many questions. It seems to be affecting only trolls, but why only a few of the Enclaves? And there is no discernible link between those communities that are sick. They are situated far apart from one another, so how is the disease spreading? And they aren’t just starving, they are… it’s almost like their minds are starving, too. They have no energy for anything but eating, and barely that. They don’t speak; it’s as if they have forgotten how to form words, or simply lack the energy or the will to make the effort.’

  ‘All good points.’

  ‘And they are eating magickal creatures, almost exclusively. Why? That suggests it is about something more than mere physical sustenance. Any kind of food would suffice there, but they are going for meat, and the meat of magickal beasts in particular. What’s that about?’

  Alban’s green, green eyes twinkled with amusement. ‘So many questions. You have some theories to advance, too?’

  ‘Of course I do. But I did not share them with Milady, yet, for I have no evidence.’

  ‘Let’s hear them.’

  ‘Right.’ I set down my empty tea cup. ‘The disease spreads, but if it were contagious in any conventional way, surely we would be seeing either a wider problem — or a more confined one. Some of the affected Enclaves have been at least partially Reclusive for years, with little or no traffic going in or out of their towns. How did they catch it? And since they did, why hasn’t it spread farther? I don’t think it is a contagion.

  ‘Meanwhile, their desperate need to eat, eat and eat is telling, but the fact that they are starving anyway tells me that whatever they are feeding, it isn’t themselves. I think there is some kind of infecting body — a parasite, if you will. And it is taking so much from each host that it’s killing them. But it does not need meat to survive.

  ‘We know that many magickal beings feed as much off magickal energies as from more conventional foods. Trolls are an example. You need meat, grain, vegetables to survive, but you need a replenishing diet of magickal energies in order to flourish. This is why Troll Enclaves tend to be located inside Dells; those structures as a whole are built around sources of strong magickal energy. It’s perfect. At a place like Glenfinnan, you eat, sleep and breathe magick, literally.

  ‘These parasites, then. I think they feed off magickal energy. If we go back to Glenfinnan, say, track down what is, or more probably was, their source of magick, I imagine we will find it drained. And that is what happened to its citizens, too. Whatever parasite they were carrying sucked them dry.’

  Alban just watched me, his face unreadable, and I began to feel a flicker of doubt. The idea made sense to me, but he d
id not seem to be impressed. ‘Is all of this based purely upon logic and deduction?’ he asked.

  ‘Is that not good enough?’

  To my relief, he grinned. ‘I suspect your theory of such a high level of accuracy, I wondered if you had access to some secret source of information after all.’

  ‘Some secret source of information I ought not to be going anywhere near?’ I tried to look coy, as though I might have just such a source.

  ‘Exactly.’ The grin faded and a frown appeared, the unsettling kind.

  So much for making of myself a woman of mystery. ‘Alas, no,’ I sighed. ‘You do, of course, but the likes of a Vesper can only dream.’

  The grin flashed again, wry this time. ‘You are occasionally talked of in my circles, you know. Your track record is impressive — so much so, I think there are those who suspect you of harbouring secret resources. But I begin to think it is merely an astuteness of mind that’s hard to hide from.’

  ‘So you do have a secret library!’

  He laughed. ‘Point ably proven.’

  ‘May I see it?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  Curses. ‘So why are you visiting me this morning?’

  ‘Take a guess.’

  ‘There is something you want me to do.’

  ‘You and your partner, yes. Jay, was it?’

  ‘It is.’

  Baron Alban paused, and looked around. The common room was mostly empty at that hour of the morning, but not quite: Miranda sat wearily nursing a coffee on the other side of the room, and another chair was occupied by somebody from the Restoration department whose name I can never remember. ‘Is there somewhere more private we can talk?’

  ‘It’s never promising, when they say that in films.’

  His lips twitched. ‘I have nothing nefarious in mind, I assure you.’

  ‘I don’t object to a little villainy, mind. I only draw the line at a lot.’

  This he acknowledged with a gracious salute, and stood up. ‘The matter is somewhat urgent.’

  ‘Ohh.’ How interesting. I led him out of the common room at once, down to the ground floor and around to the south side. One of my favourite retreats is the expansive conservatory that occupies about half of the south wall. It belongs to the Botany department, and they do a fine job of keeping it filled with all the most interesting magickal herbs and plants, many of which bloom gloriously and smell delicious. I cannot understand why it isn’t constantly swarming with people, but I seem to be one of very few who visit if they don’t have to.