Strangeness and Charm cotf-3

by Mike Shevdon

  "Hmm," said Blackbird. "Perhaps he was talking about the corbels, Well, look at that."

  "What am I looking at?" I asked her.

  She pointed out a rather grotesque figure. Its hands seemed to be pulling apart its abdomen.

  "That's a Sheela Na Gig," said Blackbird. "It must be one of no more than a handful that survived."

  "What's it doing?" I asked her.

  "She's showing us her genitals," said Blackbird, "which as you may imagine, did not go down well with the puritans. I thought they'd destroyed them all."

  "What an odd thing." I looked up at the strange image. "Why would you put that on a church?"

  "Where's Gregor?" said Blackbird.

  I looked around. I had assumed that he was waiting for us, but he was nowhere to be seen. "He must be in the church," I said.

  "Come on," said Blackbird. "He's up to something."

  She walked briskly back around the church and placed her hand on the door. It clunked and swung open under her hand. Inside the church to our left was a font, an ancientlooking parish display and wooden steps leading up to a choir gallery. To our right was the body of the church with darkoak pews arranged to either side.

  Beyond that was the apse, where the altar was placed, and between was a tall arch, similar in shape the main door, but larger. Gregor was beyond this, muttering to himself.

  "Look," I said, pointing out the carvings on the arch to Blackbird.

  On either pillar there were monks carved into the stone, one above another. They looked grim, each bearing a token as if it were a great weight. On the left the monks were holding a sceptre, a key and a scourge, and on the right they were holding a cross, an arrow and a feather.

  "I guess we're in the right place," I said to Blackbird.

  She was watching Gregor through the archway. He was kneeling behind a pew which was placed on the far right of the arch. For a moment I thought he was praying. On the stone flags beyond the arch he had chalked the six symbols we saw in the book.

  "It has gone," he muttered to himself. "What will we do? How? How can this be?"

  "What's he saying?" I asked Blackbird.

  In one motion he jumped to his feet. "You!" he proclaimed. "You know who did this! You must tell me." His words boomed around the church.

  "Did what?" asked Blackbird. Her words were spoken quietly, encouraging him to calm himself, but he was not calmed.

  "Thief!" He proclaimed. "You do not know what you have stolen."

  "I haven't stolen anything," said Blackbird.

  "I saw you," said Gregor. "The tarot does not lie. The Priestess and the Hanged Man, you were in my laboratory."

  "You said I should visit you," said Blackbird. "Gregor, you invited me."

  "What's he raving about?" I asked her.

  "You came to me with stories of travel to the Americas, but there is no trace of American in your accent, your clothes are from England and your skin is as pale as ever it was. You were never in America."

  He looked from her to me. "Your friend, he trains with a sword, walks like a warrior and speaks of thieves with concern in his voice. He worries for them, why?"

  "What have you lost, Gregor?" she asked him.

  "No!" he said. "You know who has taken it. You will tell me or you will not leave this place."

  He sketched a sign in the air, and the door behind us slammed shut with a sharp bang.

  Blackbird glanced back and then at Gregor. "Party trick?" she asked.

  "I will show you party tricks," he said. He sketched another sign in the air and it was as if all the air had been sucked from the room. I found myself suddenly gasping for breath.

  Gregor seemed to grow in size. "Tell me!" he roared.

  Blackbird was unaffected. "You dare to call upon air with me?" she said with scorn in her voice. She snapped her fingers and the air was restored.

  "Blackbird?" I said. This situation was getting out of control.

  "I knew it," Gregor was elated. "You will pit your mastery against mine! You will return to me what was taken!" He gestured grandly and the room vibrated to his words.

  "I haven't taken anything," said Blackbird, "but you are not quite what you appear to be, are you Gregor?"

  "I challenge you!" he shouted. "Your mastery against mine."

  "I do not accept," said Blackbird. "This is not a game. Something was taken and you will tell me what it was."

  "You already know," said Gregor.

  "I do not, but I will soon." She went to walk forward, but he waved his hand and a shimmering curtain came into being across the arch. "You are not leaving here until you tell me," said Gregor. "I am master here." He smiled at her from beyond his barrier.

  "You do not understand," said Blackbird. "I am not playing games." She shrugged her shoulders and her image wavered. Before me she transformed into the younger Blackbird.

  "Is that wise?" I watched as Gregor's eyes went wide.

  "You are the priestess," Gregor intoned. "Just as it was foretold."

  She clapped her hands together and it was like thunder in the room. The barrier shredded into tatters before her and she strode forward. Gregor shrank back, sketching some defensive symbol in the air. Blackbird barely paused. She swept it aside with the merest gesture. He fell backwards and sprawled before the altar. He held up his hand to ward her off.

  "Mercy," he whimpered, his eyes squeezed shut.

  "Get up, you old fool," she told him. "I am tired of your games."

  "You will spare me?" His voice recovered. "You will not take my soul?"

  "Take your soul?" she demanded. "How in the world would I do that, you bumbling idiot? Now get off your knees and tell me what they have taken before I lose patience and beat you to death with a prayer cushion."

  He looked from her to me and back to her. "I do not understand."

  "No," she said, "you don't, and you probably never will, but something here is very wrong and you will tell me what it is."

  He pushed himself to his knees and then rose hesitantly to his feet. "But you… you have lost decades. You are a young woman."

  "Far from it," she said, "and getting older by the second." She went to the corner where he had been kneeling. "What is this?"

  I went over to peer behind the pew. She was looking down at a slab of stone carved with the symbol that had been in the centre of the six symbols in the book at the British Library. It was a cross of sorts, made from four separate lobes like shields, arranged inside a circle.

  Gregor edged towards her, still hesitant. "I am sworn to secrecy."

  "You test my patience," she said. Somehow her quiet words developed more menace than his booming had.

  "Yes, but… I promised to keep the secret until death."

  Blackbird narrowed her eyes. "That," she said, "can be arranged."

  He blanched under her gaze, but still he said nothing.

  "Let me help you," she said. "Something was stored here, protected by some kind of warding. The key was in that book; six items brought together will open the warding and whatever was inside is yours. Someone has taken it."

  "You know who did it," he said. It was part statement, part question.

  "Perhaps," she relented. "This has been planned from the beginning. Someone has been researching this for some time and their plan, whatever it is, involves what they have taken."

  "It is not for humankind," said Gregor.

  "That's OK," said Blackbird, "They're not exactly human."

  Gregor's eyebrows shot up at this. "It must not be used until the end of days," he said. "It is to be kept until the final battle when it will open the gates for the Gods themselves to intervene."

  "We do not believe in Gods," said Blackbird.

  "The four horsemen, the pantheon, the end and the beginning," said Gregor.

  "You're babbling nonsense again," said Blackbird.

  He stepped forward. "Each of these represent a dimension, Earth, Air, Fire and Water," he said, pointing at the shields, which were ac
tually more like lobes.

  "I am familiar with the concepts of classical philosophy," said Blackbird, icily.

  "No, you misunderstand," said Gregor. "These are not elements like chemical elements. Our universe exists, if it exists, in the interstitial space between four pure planes surely you know this. Each one is anathema to the others. Fire, water, earth and air; they are not literal. These are labels, expressing a fundamental difference and separateness — they might as well have been called truth, beauty, strangeness and charm. Each is distinct, each has its own properties and energies. Only here, in the space between universes, can they exist together."

  "The void," I said.

  "Yes!" said Gregor. "We exist in the void between universes. True magic is the borrowing of energy from these planes, bringing new energy, new matter, into the void. What we call our universe is a scratch, a blemish, on the heart of reality. Aeons from now it will be absorbed back into the four planes, but for a while, all that we know exists."

  "You can't bring things from another universe," said Blackbird.

  "They are not universes like our universe," Gregor said, "and not bring, only borrow. All that is taken must be returned. We are a vibration in space-time, and that vibration can be tuned so that it resonates with the planes beyond. With skill, we can sing to the universe and it will join us in our song. We can become giants."

  He went to the centre of the apse and sketched the six symbols in the air above each mark on the slabs. When he sketched the sixth symbol, the circle with the four lobes fell into a deep lightless hole in the stone. "This is where it was kept."

  "Where what was kept?" asked Blackbird.

  Gregor came to kneel again beside the hole and put his arm into it, as if he could not quite believe it had gone. His arm vanished where it entered the hole as if he was dipping into the blackest oil.

  "An orb," he said. "Older than the pyramids; it was brought here from Egypt long ago, but it did not come from there. Perhaps it fell from the heavens, or was stolen from the Gods."

  "What does it do?" asked Blackbird.

  "Do?" said Gregor. "It does not do. It simply is."

  "Let me put that another way," said Blackbird. "Whoever has taken it, what can they do with it?"

  "They can sing to the universe. They can wake the Gods themselves," he was still fumbling in the hole.

  Blackbird reached down and pulled Gregor up by his shirt front to look him in the eye.

  "We do not believe in Gods," she told him slowly, "so what will it actually do?"

  "It will restore balance and harmony. It will purify reality and leave everything as it was meant to be. It will cleanse the blemish that formed between the planes and make it as if it never existed."

  "You're talking about ending the universe," I said.

  Gregor looked up at me. "Yes," he said, "that too."

  "Where?" said Blackbird. "Where are they taking it?"

  "It doesn't matter," said Gregor. "Soon there will be no here or there, no good or evil. Everything will be still, cold and silent."

  "If they could just do that here, it would already be done. Where have they gone?"

  "I do not know," he said. "It takes power to use it. They will need a nexus, a convergence. There are a few such places. The great stone circles, perhaps, or one of the old places."

  "That's not good enough," said Blackbird. "How can we find them?"

  "Even if you find them, it will not help you," said Gregor. "It wards itself. Once it is active, no one will be able to get near enough to stop it."

  Blackbird dropped him and he collapsed onto the stone floor, all the energy drained from him.

  "We have to find them," she said. "We have to reach them before it starts."

  "But where?" I said.

  She turned back to Gregor. "You said it wasn't meant to be used until the end of days. Where would you take it then?"

  "I do not know," he wailed. "It was meant to be at the final battle, but where the battle will take place is… obscure."

  "An old place," I said. "He mentioned a stone circle."

  "There are lots of stone circles," said Blackbird, "and the obvious ones are not the oldest."

  She went back to Gregor, dragging him up to his knees. "If we hadn't waited for you, we could have been here first," she told him.

  "That's not helping," I said to her. "He's wretched enough as it is."

  Gregor's eyes were puffy as if he was going to cry. All the stuffing had gone out of him.

  "Do you have your cards," she asked him.

  "What cards," I asked.

  Blackbird smiled thinly. "He knows what cards."

  Gregor's expression changed, and suddenly he looked sly. "You will not take them. They won't work for anyone but me."

  "I don't want to take them, you buffoon. I want you to use them. Tell us where they've taken the orb."

  "I suppose I could…" he wavered. "But only if I come with you. You must promise to take me with you."

  "We're not waiting for you," said Blackbird. "There isn't time. If you fall behind then so be it."

  "Agreed!" said Gregor. "I will not fall behind. You'll see. We'll be there together to witness the end of all things."

  "We will if you don't get on with it," said Blackbird.

  NINETEEN

  Gregor took a box from his pocket from which he extracted a deck of cards.

  "Tarot cards?" I asked her. "Are you serious?"

  "I need a table," said Gregor.

  "We can use the altar," said Blackbird, turning towards the end of the apse.

  "No!" I said. "You can't use an altar for tarot cards. That's… that's…"

  "Oh for goodness sake," said Blackbird. She grabbed Gregor's lapel and dragged him through the church to the back where a table had been spread with souvenir leaflets and postcards. She swept the lot from the table in a single gesture.

  "Do it," she commanded.

  He sat down and took the deck from its box. "I can't do it with you staring at me like that," he said.

  She turned her back ostentatiously. I stood in front of her. She caught her tooth on her lip and narrowed her eyes.

  "What does it say?" I asked Gregor over her shoulder.

  "I am still shuffling the cards," said Gregor.

  Blackbird balled her fists. If he didn't get on with it there would be blood.

  "I will do a simple reading," said Gregor. "We do not have time for a more sophisticated divination."

  "Really?" whispered Blackbird under her breath.

  "The fool. Oh," he said, "I think that must be me."

  Blackbird shook her head in despair.

  "The priestess and the hanged man. You see? I told you."

  "Get on with it," she called behind her.

  "Have patience. These things cannot be hurried. Do you wish me to make an error?"

  I could see her holding back her retort.

  "The Sun, The Moon and the Star? Where have they come from? I do not understand. One more — the Devil. There is evil in this."

  "We're getting there." she said, "Slowly."

  "Now we come to it," he said. "The world, flanked by justice and judgement. A moment of truth."

  "Nearly…" she said.

  "The lovers, and the wheel of fortune, flanking the seven of swords. Everything hangs by a thread," he said, "but why the seven of swords?"

  "One more…" she whispered.

  "Death." His voice held the loss of hope.

  "Do it again," she said.

  "It makes no difference," he wailed. "We will only repeat what we have in different ways."

  "The last card," she insisted. "Turn it again!"

  There was a pause. "The Tower," he said, as if he was seeing clearly for the first time.

  "Glastonbury," she said. "Glastonbury Tor, that's where they are."

  She grabbed my hand, pulling me towards the aisle of the church.

  "We will go together," said Gregor. "I will call the taxi. We can hire a car in H
ereford."

  "Sorry Gregor," she said. "I told you, we won't wait." She mouthed a single word to me.

  Follow.

  She stepped into the aisle of the church and I realised what I had missed in all the fuss. We were standing on a Waypoint. It hummed beneath us, under the flags. She stepped forward and the air twisted. She vanished.

  "What the…?" I heard Gregor behind me and turned.

  He stood with his mouth open.

  "Sorry," I said. "You heard what she said."

  "Wait!" he called, but I was already turning and stepping, feeling the Way rise beneath me, whirling me away on the breath of night, into the dark.

  Eve held the orb out in front of her, cupped in her hands as she walked up the path towards the summit. As she moved, the colours in it swirled and twisted. It reminded Alex of photos she'd seen of the planet Jupiter, except there was no red spot.

  "It knows where it's going," said Eve.

  "Which is more than I do," said Alex. "This is the middle of nowhere."

  "On the contrary," said Eve. "This is the middle of everywhere. Everything converges here — human and fey — everything and everyone."

  "But there's no one here," said Alex, scanning the top of the hill.

  "Don't worry," she said. "They'll know when it's time. You can be sure of that."

  Eve pushed on for the summit. Alex thought they would head for the empty windowed tower, but Eve stopped short in the flat space before it. "Here," she said. "This is a good place."

  Alex exchanged glances with Sparky, who was carrying the bag with all the things they'd stolen in it. He shrugged, "I don't need to go any further if you don't." He dropped the bag, holding it out and letting it fall from his outstretched hand.

  "Careful!" Eve glared at him. "If you damage anything in there at this late stage, you'll suffer for it."

  "All right," he said. "Keep your hair on."

  "Save your flippant remarks. We are at the culmination of years of research and painstaking study. Have you never wondered what happened? Where they all went?"

  "Where who all went?" asked Alex.

  "Long, long ago," said Eve, "the world was a different place. Creatures walked the earth that we now think of as myths and legends, but were as real as you or I. Griffons, manticores, dragons — even unicorns. The universe was a different place. Magic was a core part of existence. Without magic you were meat, something to be caught and eaten."