“Nothing, just thinking out loud.”
The car park was at the rear entrance to the center and it was a long walk. A steady procession of people flowed past. Rhian noticed that most were male but that they could be grouped into two quite separate categories. The first category was slim, thin even, carrying lightweight shoulder bags and wearing trainers. They bounced along like they were suspended from sky hooks by elastic threads. The second category sported beards, rucksacks, and impressive beer guts that could only have been achieved by sustained and rigorous consumption. They rolled from foot to foot like a stately vessel in heavy seas.
Entering the center was like being dropped into a vast arcade lined with shops. The broad center aisle was filled with bars, restaurants, and sales booths. People wound through the complex singly, as couples, and in groups. A large red banner announced the imminence of the London Marathon. Arrows directed athletes to the checking-in booths, which explained the athletic looking types.
Frankie had her eyes fixed on her divining rod, muttering Latin phrases. She walked briskly through the crowds the same way she drove, with a complete disregard for everyone else. Miraculously, people moved aside for her. Perhaps they worried that her particular brand of madness was catching. Rhian walked behind, smiling apologetically, trying to convey that she was only there to prevent a mad relative from coming to harm.
The rod guided Frankie to a seating area around a booth selling genuine eel pies and mash, and a variety of continental lagers at ludicrously inflated prices. A party from France were examining the Olde Englishe Fayre with a kind of fascinated horror. They looked like condemned souls who had heard about living conditions in Hell but were nonetheless astonished to find imps with real pitchforks when they got there.
“Hm, I think I’ve lost the signal,” Frankie said, waggling the divining rod. “There is so much energy swirling around. I just need to reboot.”
She removed the wooden rod and kissed it, smoothing it down gently with her hand while crooning a lullaby in Latin.
Frankie replaced the rod and did some more waggling. Pursing her lips, she said, “Right, you’ve asked for it.”
She banged the rod vigorously on one of the pie shop’s plastic tables, yelling, “Work, you bastard or I’ll use you as a firelighter.”
The customers at the table leaned back in horror, one spilling a hot tea in his lap. Leaping to his feet, he danced around, pulling faces and screaming like a New Zealand rugby player performing the Haka. Rhian put her hand over her face as Frankie reengaged the rod and tube.
“Ha!” Frankie exclaimed in delight as the rod flipped to the right, and she was off.
The rod guided them to a large entrance guarded by men wearing red tops emblazoned with a logo boasting that the wearers were South London Warmakers. Rhian had to double check to make sure she had read the last word correctly.
“What are those people exhibiting?” Frankie said, eyes widening.
“Maybe it’s a wargame show,” Rhian replied.
“Wargames, is that where corporate human resources make middle-aged, middling obese middle managers run round in circles firing paint balls at each other, ostensibly as a team building exercise?”
“But really in the hope that some of them will have cardiac arrests and save the cost of redundancy payments?” Rhian asked.
“Precisely.”
“I don’t think so,” Rhian said. “I suspect it’s more about orcs and elves.”
“They make them dress up as orcs and elves and hit each other with swords?” Frankie asked in horror.
“No, I knew this bloke who collected little miniature figurines of orcs and elves. He spent hours painting the models and mounting them on little stands that he decorated with bits from the garden.”
“Why?”
“So he could line them up and fight battles with them against his mates.”
There was a pause while Frankie considered this. “Just when you assume you’ve plumbed the depths of male stupidity, they come up with something new. I suppose it’s better than lap-dancing clubs.”
Apparently, Frankie still hadn’t forgotten Suze with an “E.”
“Only one step more ridiculous than Gary’s trains,” Frankie said.
“So you know about them,” Rhian said, looking sideways at Frankie.
“He, ah, invited me up to see them.”
“Makes a change from etchings,” Rhian said, straight-faced.
Frankie went beetroot-colored. “We’d better go in,” she said, hurriedly.
They handed over ten pounds each to a spotty youth who stamped the back of their wrists with ink marker. He handed them each a plastic carrier bag colored a particularly revolting shade of orange. After some wrangling, Rhian secured a handwritten receipt from said youth in order to exploit the “plus expenses” part of their agreement with Max.
The first thing that struck Rhian was the enormous size of the show space. Aircraft hangars were modestly proportioned in comparison. It was filled with beards and beer guts, some trailed by bored looking women carrying stuff. A pervasive fug of testosterone filled the air with the scent of rugby player’s jockstrap. She had never before been in an enclosed space with so many men. It was like a wildlife park where you could observe the male of the species in its natural habitat—geekville.
Rhian peered into the carrier bag and discovered a map of the event, which she passed to Frankie. She also discovered a model of a large-breasted space girl in skin-tight clothes, clutching a ray gun that looked like a hair dryer. The space girl needed the weapon to ward off a 1950s robot who menaced her with pincers on concertina arms. The intense fascination that large-breasted space girls in skin-tight clothes inspired in robots and weird aliens was never adequately explained in the story plots.
She recalled a discussion with another girl about the future as depicted in sci-fi movies. The girl had gloomily noted that very good legs would be needed as the skirts were so short. Rhian had countered that large breasts were of equal importance. How a girl was supposed to grow ginormous mammaries while keeping slim, toned legs was a mystery until technology came to the rescue with silicone implants.
The divining rod started to rotate slowly through 360 degrees in Frankie’s hand.
“There’s magic everywhere but no focus,” she said.
“Which means?” Rhian asked.
“There’s no open portal to the other world, but the whole area is leaky, like something is thinning the walls of reality.”
“Deliberately?” Rhian asked.
“Very deliberately,” Frankie replied. “But I can’t do anything unless there is a focus, do you see. I need something to fasten on.”
“So we wait for something to happen?” Rhian asked.
“Precisely,” Frankie replied. “Of course, if we are lucky, the problem will fix itself and nothing will happen.”
Rhian looked at the woman sharply. From Frankie’s anxious expression, she did not believe that for a moment.
“In that case, we may as well look at the show,” Rhian said.
CHAPTER 18
WEIRDNESS
The display covered the equivalent of four kitchen tables and depicted a bright blue seascape as seen from the air. It included part of a mountainous mainland covered with tropical foliage. At the sea’s edge a port complex was modeled with cranes, warehouses, and docks. They were in a much smaller scale than Gary’s trains but still beautifully painted.
Airships of various designs rose from the dock on wire stands to defend against a similar armada swooping in across the ocean. Some of the flying machines looked like zeppelins with various combinations of balloons. Others were more like ironclad battleships. A vicious melee swirled around volcanic islands. Burning airships dropped from the sky trailing black and white smoke. Wreckage floated in the sea or lay scattered in the island jungles.
Rhian leaned over to examine the brightly colored models and found that the defenders sported little Stars and Stripes whereas t
he attackers were decorated with the Rising Sun of Japan. An idea hung at the back of Rhian’s mind like a waterlogged branch floating just below the surface. The battle reminded her of something but she could not quite remember what.
She sought out a spotty youth who was part of the display team and tapped him on the shoulder.
“Excuse me, is this display inspired by an actual event?” Rhian asked.
The youth looked at her in horror, spooked at being spoken to by a girl. An older-beard-and-beer gut moved him gently to one side.
“It’s Pearl Harbor, reimagined as a steampunk campaign,” the beard said.
“Pearl Harbor was . . .” Frankie began.
“I know,” Rhian replied, somewhat nettled. “I am not completely ignorant, you know. I saw Ben Affleck in the movie.”
“It was a real battle as well as a movie,” Frankie said dryly.
Rhian turned her back on Frankie and walked away.
A disembodied voice over the tannoy announced that the Buckinghamshire Bravehearts were looking for Gary, who was supposed to be bringing the eight-sided dice and the rubber dragon.
Interspersed among the displays were stalls selling all manner of models and gaming accoutrements. Rhian was quite gobsmacked at the range. She saw Roman soldiers, vampires, Egyptian chariots, aliens, panzergrenadiers, dinosaurs with ray guns, Confederate cavalry, and even some orcs and elves.
She stopped in front of a stall that just sold dice, thousands of different sorts of dice in all colors, shapes, and sizes. Dice sets made from semiprecious stones caught her eye: purple amethyst at fifty-two pounds, for seven, black obsidian for forty pounds and pale green and red unkite. The last was a snip at twenty-five quid. Were there really people willing to pay seventy-five pounds for a handful of dice in green-white jade? Apparently there were, as the stall was two deep in customers.
Rhian found a model of a werewolf in a glass display cabinet alongside vampires, ghouls, and less recognizable monsters. It depicted a girl in the moment of transformation. The miniature girl leaned forward, pulling off a cream blouse to display more front than Blackpool. Her head was tilted back in agony, or ecstasy. Long blonde hair streamed down her back. Her legs, projecting from a miniskirt, were wolflike. The figure was mounted on a stand that included the stump of a twisted tree and an old cracked Gothic tombstone leaning over at a crazy angle.
“How much is the werewolf model?” Rhian asked, pointing to it.
“Seven fifty,” replied the stall keeper, so she handed over a ten-pound note.
The man produced an unpainted shiny metal model in a ziplock bag and tried to give it to her.
“No, I meant how much for the painted model,” she said.
“That’s just for display,” the man said, disapprovingly. “You have to assemble and paint your own.”
“I’ll give you twenty quid.”
“Done!”
The stallholder removed the model from the display cabinet and wrapped it in paper for her, in exchange for another note.
“Present for the boyfriend is it, love?”
Rhian nodded. It was easier than trying to come up with a reason why she wanted the piece.
“Lucky boyfriend,” the man said.
Rhian had walked away before parsing the ambiguity of the remark. Men didn’t notice Rhian, except for James, of course. He didn’t count because he was special. She wondered what was different about her now. She pushed the thought away into the sealed box marked forbidden territory.
She moved on to a display marked “The Battle of Blenheim” on a table that must have been near six meters long. The banner proudly announced that it was on a one-to-one scale, which somewhat confused Rhian. Six meters was impressive, but hardly one-to-one. She was reminded of a Blackadder scene in General Melchett’s château thirty-five miles behind the line. Captain Darling proudly displayed a two-foot scale model of the ground captured in the last Big Push. That was at a one-to-one scale, as she recalled.
She wormed her way through the crowd to take a closer look. The table was covered in thousands of tiny little figures only a few millimeters high. One-to-one referred to the number of men represented by each model. She recognised the Redcoats, but not the uniforms of the other nationalities.
“How long do you think they took to create?” Frankie asked.
“Months and months,” Rhian replied, shaking her head. “Each one must have been painted using a magnifying glass. Look, you can see the white crossed straps on the Redcoats.”
“If one could just harness all that obsessive male behavior and attention to detail to something useful, we might have starships by now, or a cure for cancer,” Frankie said.
“Or silicone bra implants that don’t leak,” Rhian said, sardonically. “It is men and their interests we are talking about.”
Frankie laughed and the ice between the women melted.
“I’m sorry about that Pearl Harbor crack, Rhian. I tend to get snappy when I’m nervous.”
“That’s okay, I’ve had the misfortune of a modern British education, but I do read the occasional book,” Rhian replied.
“Things are hotting up,” Frankie said, diplomatically changing the subject. “Look!”
She stood close to Rhian to mask the divining rod. It was pointed towards the center of the hall, quivering gently as if excited.
The center of the arena was roped off and a poster announced it was an orc encampment created by the Royal Tunbridge Wells Fantasy Reenactment Society. Or, to put it another way, a bunch of weirdoes dressed up as monsters.
An attempt had been made to create a monster camp with the sort of wooden tepees that can be bought as children’s play houses. They had a campfire underlit by red bulbs to give a mock flame effect. Re-enactors sat around in animal fur costumes, pretending to sharpen swords. An orc with a gigantic plastic battle axe consumed a Pret-a-Manger low-calorie vegetarian-option, sandwich, which somewhat spoiled the effect. So far, so caveman but what really added to the weirdness was the monster masks that covered the top half of their faces and heads—and the green-skin makeup.
“They look like that Finnish monster rock band that won the Eurovision Song Contest,” Frankie said.
“Not something I watch,” Rhian replied, with a shudder.
“I don’t either, of course not. It’s just that sometimes one sees articles, in the Sunday Guardian,” Frankie wittered.
It was, Rhian reflected, an English middle-class conceit that one never watched television, except for the odd improving program on the BBC. Television was for the proles. Nevertheless, English middle-class ladies all seemed to know the plots to the soaps and the winners of the various game shows. No doubt it leeched in by osmosis since, of course, they never watched such lowbrow stuff.
Frankie walked around the encampment, following the guide rope. Rhian stayed put and watched. It looked about as menacing as a children’s tea party hosted by the Teletubbies, but the punters seemed to like it. The group were doing a roaring trade having their photos taken with customers who got to wave the swords and, if pretty girls, be abducted over a monster’s shoulder. Apparently being a monster gave one a certain license. One of the re-enactors came over to Rhian, waving clawed hands and generally pretending to threaten her. To keep in the spirit of the event, she shrank back, squeaking in mock terror.
“Har, har, a fair young maiden for the cooking pot,” said the monster, “or I could take you out for dinner after the show if you give me your telephone number.”
Rhian laughed and shook her head. “There are enough monsters in my life already,” she said.
She was starting to enjoy herself , despitethe silliness. Frankie reappeared, having made a circumnavigation of the encampment.
“Rhian,” she said in an urgent hiss, “this is serious.”
“Har, har, another maiden for my harem,” said the monster in a booming voice. Putting his hand around Frankie’s waist, he attempted to lift her over the rope.
“Will you get
off!”
Frankie struggled free, disheveling her hair and showing far too much leg. She pushed her glasses back on and smoothed down her skirt in an effort to recover her dignity.
“It’s about to kick off,” Frankie said.
“So I see,” Rhian said.
“I’m serious, look at this.”
Frankie showed her the divining rod, which thrashed and coiled around Frankie’s arm like a pet snake. The end lifted towards Rhian, and, just for a moment, she saw two eyes and a flickering tongue.
“The rope around the encampment show makes a perfect delineated area for a magical circle,” Frankie said.
“To do what?” Rhian asked, having a shrewd idea what, but wanting to hear it confirmed.
“To contain the magic, to concentrate it and raise a cone of force that will open a portal deep into the Otherworld. So deep that it links to places human beings can’t go,” Frankie replied.
The air thickened with static, something Rhian now associated as immanent to magic. Frankie grabbed the rucksack off Rhian and removed a chip of chalk rock from a side pocket. Kneeling, she carefully drew a thick circle on the plastic-coated floor around them, going over any thin sections as necessary to reinforce the line. She placed four candles, red, yellow, blue, and green equidistantly around the circumference of the circle.
“Sylphs of air fly to the circle,” Frankie lit the yellow candle.
“Undines of ocean depths, swim to me,” Frankie lit the blue candle.
“Salamanders, dancing on fire, join us,” Frankie lit the red candle.
“Gnomes of the earth, link the power of your tunnels to my cause,” Frankie lit the green candle.
There was something incongruous about a witch in large glasses invoking a magical ritual as old as mankind, especially as she used a cheap see-through purple plastic lighter.
“Har, har, we have a witch for the burning, boys,” said the man in the monster mask on the other side of the rope.
His voice sounded deeper and garbled, as if his teeth were too big. Rhian looked at him carefully. The silly plastic mask stuck closely to his face, looking more real, like a proper film prop. The man was bulkier than she remembered, his arms a little too long, his legs a little too short.
Wolf in Shadow-eARC Page 28