by Robin Jarvis
The crowd gasped as one. This was a staggering revelation and the Harlequin Priests dropped to their knees. Jangler removed his spectacles and bowed his head in reverence.
“I bring unto ye the Word,” the Ismus cried. “And the Word is – Enter.”
He gestured to those at the front of the stage to clear a space and they parted like the Red Sea.
“Bring the suffering little children unto me,” he commanded.
Jody, Christina, Lee, Maggie and the others were impelled by firm but gentle pressure towards the stage. When all thirty-one of them had been guided and herded into place, the Ismus addressed them like a kindly father.
“Too long you have endured your grievous isolation alone, shut in the purgatory of this grey dream. Now you shall know the bliss and acceptance you have always yearned for. Wake up to your true life and give praise to He who must return! Even now He is reaching out to gather you home. Hearken to His call.”
Lowering his outstretched arms, he closed his eyes and uttered strange words under his breath. His hands closed into fists and a tremor shook his frame. A spasm of pain contorted his face and he clenched his teeth.
Alasdair stared at him curiously. What was the nutcase doing?
The Black Face Dames appeared uneasy. The Harlequin Priests clasped their hands in prayer. The crowd held its breath. Something momentous was about to occur.
“Commence the reading!” the Ismus ordered in a strangled voice.
At the back of the stage, choristers took up their copies of Dancing Jax and began reciting the chapter as they had been instructed.
“’Twas the Night of All Dark, the Witching Eve, when unclean powers are at their height and malice stirs sleeping bones.”
Jody looked back at the crowd. They were already nodding and under the book’s spell, back in the fantasy existence they were addicted to. She glanced up at the Ismus and was shocked to see the transformation that had come over him. His face was deathly pale and he was shuddering uncontrollably. His eyes were hidden beneath crunched-down brows and sweat poured through his hair. He was exerting all his strength, straining and marshalling some tremendous force.
The girl put her arm round Christina and drew her close. She didn’t like this.
“Thirteen lamps must be lit at the boundary stones,” the choristers chanted as they too rocked backwards and forwards. “The fiends that prowl abroad must be kept at bay on this, the most treacherous night of the year. Ne’er let the lamps fail. Bar the unknown shapes that creep about the village. Ware, Mooncot, ware!”
The warm spring sunlight grew dim. Colour and brightness drained from the world. The blue of the sky sickened to a sombre slate and shadows deepened. A wintry chill crept into the camp.
Tommy and Rupesh held on to one another. Marcus couldn’t understand what was happening. This wasn’t right. It was eerie. He shivered, partly from the sudden, unnatural cold, mostly from fear. Dread stole into every heart but one.
Charm could hardly contain her excitement. She could feel the hairs on her neck prickling and gooseflesh bumped through her spray tan. This was going to be it! She was going to wake up in the White Castle and be a princess or a noblewoman of high birth. She was about to close her eyes so that she could open them in Mooncaster when she saw a thread of black smoke rising from the Ismus’s collar.
“Oi!” she cried in panic. “He’s on fire! He’s burning!”
The children watched, dumbfounded, as oily clouds poured from the back of his jacket. Then tips of ragged flame went licking up the nape of his neck.
“Do summink!” Charm shouted to the Black Face Dames.
They did not hear her. They saw nothing. They were oblivious to everything here. They were worlds away, in Mooncaster.
“Someone!” Charm yelled.
But the Priests had prostrated themselves on the floor. The Jacks and Jills were rocking in their seats and the choristers continued reading.
Charm snatched the nearest goblet of ale. She rushed at the stage to douse the flames, but Lee pulled her back.
“Let it be,” he told her. “Don’t you mess with what’s going down with that sick trash. The show’s only just started.”
The Ismus let out an agonised scream. His knees buckled, but he remained standing. Then his entire jacket burst into flames. The leather burned like paper, turning to ash in moments. He thrashed his arms wildly, tearing it from his body, flinging the glowing tatters away.
The fires raging over the Ismus’s back dwindled and his shrieks of anguish became a triumphant, crowing yell.
His eyes snapped open and he grinned at the stupefied, frightened young faces staring up at him. Spinning on one heel, he executed a perfect revolution and the children drew their breath.
The man’s naked back blazed with a pattern of fierce, angry light that swirled through his skin like paths of lava. Mystical symbols and words from an ancient language covered his shoulders. They flowed down his spine and snaked along his arms. It was the living contract he had made months ago in Felixstowe when he had endured the Great Ordeal, sitting upon an iron throne filled with red-hot coals.
“The way is opened!” he exulted.
He raised his arms and fire spat into life along them once more. Then, to the children’s disbelief, he rose from the stage. This time there was no harness, no cable – no helicopter high above. The Ismus ascended into the air unaided. He floated up over the heads of his bodyguards and sailed out over the upturned young faces.
“Sweet Jesus,” Lee uttered.
“That’s impossible!” Marcus spluttered. “It’s a trick – can’t be real!”
“No way,” Alasdair whispered. “No bloody way!”
“I told you it were true!” Charm squealed, clapping her hands. “Me ma wouldn’t lie to me! This is so wicked – it’s awesomeness on a plate! Yes! Yes! Yes!”
“That is so cool,” Tommy breathed.
“Yes,” Rupesh said, marvelling at the levitating man. “And also it is scary.”
“Flame on,” Jim murmured, his wonderment mixed with jealousy.
The Ismus drifted directly above them. Then, hanging in mid-air, he joined in the reading. He needed no copy of the book. He knew every word.
“And on the Night of All Dark,” he declaimed, “the peasant children made neepjack lanterns and paraded them around the boundary stones…”
His voice was different. It was rough and loud. It came rumbling from his throat as though rising from some deep region beneath the earth. It boomed out over the campsite and the day grew even darker. Soon there was no other sound but the words bellowing from his mouth.
Charm stopped jumping up and down with glee and covered her ears. Jody held Christina more tightly than ever and tears streamed down her face. The voice was thundering inside her head. It hammered and squalled inside the children’s minds. The youngest screamed. Then the teenagers did the same.
All around them, the crowd uttered cries of pain. The horses stamped and reared. The Jacks and Jills slumped on their thrones. The choristers dropped their books and cradled their heads in their hands. The Black Face Dames collapsed and the Harlequin Priests writhed in torment on the stage. Kate Kryzewski fainted and Sam fell on his camera. Jangler sank to the ground, emitting a pitiful wail.
“My Lord!” he whimpered as he passed out. “Too much! Too strong!”
Over six hundred devotees of Dancing Jax sagged and sprawled on their faces. Only the thirty-one aberrant children remained standing.
The forces channelling through the Ismus intensified. He arched his back and the patterns seared in his skin burned more fiercely than ever, spitting flames and shining with white and violet light. The throbbing glare beat down upon the stricken youngsters.
“It hurts!” Jim bawled, clawing his scalp.
Marcus doubled over. Lee thought his temples were going to explode. Rupesh hugged Tommy. Spencer covered his face with his Stetson and sobbed into it. Alasdair was yelling abuse at the Ismus, calling him eve
ry obscene name he had ever heard. Maggie was shrieking and Jody clung desperately to Christina.
It was then she felt something warm and wet in the little girl’s hair. Lifting her shaking hand, she saw her fingers were stained crimson. Then she felt a trickle down her own neck.
Bright ribbons of blood were streaking from the back of every child’s head. There was a flare of white flames from above and the blast overwhelmed them. The children were hurled to the ground. Their cries ended and they lost consciousness. Tommy’s hand was still clasped in Rupesh’s.
“Get a move on, Tully!” an exasperated voice came echoing inside his head. “We’ll be late!”
Whinnying in terror, the horses bolted from the camp.
IT WAS THE Night of All Dark in the Realm of the Dawn Prince.
The last lump of flesh was scraped out of the head.
Tully looked up from the turnip he had been hollowing. Finally it was done! It had been tough work. The creamy orange flesh was as difficult to dig into as frozen ground and he hoped he hadn’t ruined one of his mother’s precious spoons in the gouging. He had chosen this turnip from the pile especially. It was almost as large as his own head. The greater part of its fine, fat globe was as rich a purple as he had seen on any of the nobles riding through the village and the rest was a warm buttery colour, like the rind on a cheese. This specimen also boasted a cluster of fibrous roots at the bottom, which made for an excellent beard. Using his own sharp little knife, he busied himself cutting a fearsome face into what he had decided should be the front.
Across the table his brother, Rufus, watched him impatiently. He had finished his turnip some time ago.
“Make haste!” the older boy told him. “We’ll miss the bonfire and everything!”
“Don’t you leave those chunks and shavings on the table,” their mother cautioned as she bustled into the small kitchen bearing stick bundles for the fire. “Be sure to put them in the pot for the stew tomorrow and, when you’ve done later, put what’s left of your lanterns in the pail for the pig. Don’t go throwing it away and wasting it.”
Rufus promised, but Tully made no answer. Cutting out the mouth was a tricky procedure. He gave the turnip a wide, peggy grin and sat back to appreciate his handiwork.
“Where’s its nose?” Rufus laughed. “You can’t have a neepjack with no nose.”
“I don’t want it to have one,” Tully replied.
“Just two triangles for eyes,” their mother tutted. “Whatever next?”
“Should have a nose,” a sleepy voice piped up from the settle near the fire.
“There now!” Rufus said. “Grandfather says it should have one! And he’s nigh on seventy and the oldest person in Mooncot so he should know – seen more neepjacks on Ween Night than either you or I have.”
“Or me,” their mother added.
“Pog’s more fearsome without a nose,” Tully stated decisively.
“His name’s Pog, is it?” the old man by the fire chuckled. “There’s fanciful.” He rummaged in the pockets of his jerkin and held out the nubs of two candles. “Here – take this for him and whatever your brother’s is called.”
“Wet the Bed Walter,” Rufus declared with a giggle.
“Pog thanks you,” Tully said, taking the candle stumps from his grandfather.
“Got them from Malinda herself,” the old man said, with a wink to his daughter. “Must be mighty special I’m thinking.”
Tully gasped and took the stumps gingerly. He held one over the rushlight he had been working by, dripped a puddle of hot wax into the empty turnip and pushed it in place.
“Here, wrap up well,” the woman chided, tying the children’s hooded woollen cloaks about their young shoulders and placing a felt hat on her head over her coif. “There’s a mist rising off the pond. Now make haste – you’ll miss the flame dance if you dally so.”
Tully was almost done. He threaded a string through the sides of Pog’s head and up through the sliced-off top that served as the lid. Then he took the rushlight from the iron holder and pushed the flame in through one of the triangular eyes.
“Come, Pog,” he whispered an expectant incantation. “Come wake, come alive. Be my guard on the road this night. Keep me safe from foes and witches, as long as you’re alight.”
The candle within spluttered and burned with a bright yellow tongue. It shone through the lantern’s eyes and mouth, through the slot in the lid Tully had made as a chimney and glowed softly through the flesh.
“Hail, Pog!” he cooed. “Welcome to our hearth and home. This is my mother. That is my brother, he is nine, and yonder is my grandfather – he’s seen sixty-eight Witching Evens so you’ve probably noticed him before. I am Tully. I will be eight next spring.”
A whisker of smoke curled upwards.
“Look!” he told his family. “He’s very happy to meet us.”
“You’re a mooncalf,” Rufus snorted, lighting Wet the Bed Walter.
“Foolish child,” his mother chortled. “Leave magick spells to the likes of fairy godmothers, Court magicians and wicked witches. We don’t want none of that in our little cottage. Now let us be gone and join your father up by the mound.”
The boys picked their turnip lanterns up by the string handles, ran over to kiss their grandfather then hurried out of the kitchen.
“Just you mind to bar this door,” the woman told the old man. “With most of the village up at the fire, any roaming footpad or villain could make himself right at home and help himself to our supper.”
“Not tonight they won’t,” her father answered, easing himself back into the settle and closing his eyes. “The boundary stones each have their lamp. No evil thing will dare tread past our doors. I’ll have myself a nice quiet doze by the hearth while you’re gone.”
Pulling on a shawl, the woman bustled out into the night.
A chill was in the air. The first fingers of the approaching winter had crept over the northern hills. No moon hung in the night sky and autumn’s stars appeared colder and more remote than ever.
Mooncot was a small village. The humble thatched dwellings huddled either side of the single road that led from the White Castle. A half-timbered tavern, The Silver Penny, was at one end and the stone mill house was at the other, beside the pond.
With their lanterns swinging in their hands, Tully and Rufus ran diagonally across the empty street. They did not wait for their mother. Holding their noses, they hurried through the gap between Mistress Sarah’s two-room cottage which, throughout the summer, was always bedecked with fragrant flowers – and the rickety, stinking hovel of Dung-Breathed Billy the Midden-Man. Once clear of the pong, and the angry honking of Mistress Sarah’s geese, they charged up the gentle rise into the turnip field and beyond that, over the freshly ploughed strips that were waiting for next year’s sowing.
Pog and Wet the Bed Walter lit their way with slivers and wedges of orange light. The brothers called out to each other in scary, growling voices until a glow appeared on the horizon. A river of golden sparks and glowing embers was flowing up into the night.
“They lit the bonfire already!” Rufus cried. “Hurry!”
They raced to the hedgerow that fenced the strips in and jumped over the low stile. A grassy hill climbed steeply beyond and crowning that was a ring of ancient stones.
Every Ween the villagers lit a bonfire within that circle. Many years ago, wise men had calculated it to be the exact centre of the Kingdom and so bonfires were lit there and fed with herbs of virtue and protection. Invocations to the good spirits of the land would be sung and then the menfolk would dance clockwise round the stones as close as they dared, as their hats scorched and eyebrows and whiskers smoked and singed. The women would dance a little further away, widdershins, and then the children would dance in a third outer ring.
When Tully and Rufus reached the summit, the dancing had already started. Aiken Woodside the Ploughman, or ‘Aiken Fingers’ as he was commonly called, was playing a hearty tune on h
is fiddle.
The boys deposited their neepjacks on the ground, amongst a crowd of other ferocious-looking lanterns, and joined their young friends in the outer circle.
It was a glorious, happy time, filled with light, laughter, music and crackling flames. When the boys’ mother caught up with them, the fire was still blazing tall and the enthusiasm for the dancing had not abated. In the distance, behind them, the gleaming, milky walls and towers of Mooncaster Castle reared against the starry heavens. The Under Kings and nobles were having their own celebration that night.
Tully had an idea. He wanted to take Pog round the bounds of the village, to show him each of the thirteen marker stones and the enchanted lanterns that kept them safe that night. Rufus wanted to do it too. So did their friends Clover Ditchy, Benwick, Neddy, Muddy Legs Woodside, Peasy Meadow and Lynnet.
None of them would dare venture over the fields at night normally, but tonight was special. What harm could befall them?
Excited, they assured their parents they would return as soon as they had visited the thirteenth marker and swore not to step beyond the village bounds.
“I want to go too!” Clover’s six-year-old sister, Gunnhild, demanded.
“You’re too small,” he told her. “Maybe next year if you grow bigger.”
The little girl scowled and pouted.
The others took up their neepjacks, admiring one another’s handiwork, and pulled frightful faces to match those carved in the turnips. Then they raced down the hill and back to the village.
The first marker was at the edge of the millpond. Muddy Legs reached it first because he didn’t mind splashing across the corners. The boundary stone was a roughly hewn, diamond-shaped, weathered block of granite. In the side facing away from the village a deep niche had been cut and, placed inside that, was the first of the warding lamps. This was a tall cylinder, made of silver and set with coloured glass. It and the other twelve were a gift from the Holy Enchanter whose own hand had engraved words of power in the metal. A stout candle within was lit at sundown and would still be burning well after dawn when the danger was past.