by Chrys Cymri
‘So it is,’ I agreed. ‘Sorry about that.’
‘Alfie had some very interesting things to say about baptism,’ Skylar said quickly. ‘All about becoming clean and forgiven and new. And that’s what baptism is, new life in Christ. But what about communion? What does that mean to you?’
The boy chewed on a thumb for a moment. I felt my iPhone buzz, but I left it tucked away. ‘Taking communion means, well, it means I want to be part of Jesus, and for Jesus to be part of me.’
‘Great answer,’ Skylar said, clapping her hands enthusiastically. ‘I bet a lot of grownups couldn’t have done better. That’s what it’s all about, communion, the Eucharist, it’s about coming closer to Jesus and making him part of our lives so he can live through us. Just remember that every day--’
A knock on the door interrupted her. A dark-haired woman entered. ‘So sorry I couldn’t be here sooner,’ she told us both. ‘I'm Sarah, Alfie’s mum. I got called into work, short notice, you know how it is.’
‘Mum!’ Alfie jumped off the chair to throw his arms around her chest. ‘I’m going to be baptized!’
‘With your permission,’ I added quickly.
‘We always said he could make up his own mind,’ Sarah said, sounding slightly dazed. ‘We won’t stand in his way, but it’s not something our family usually does. Christening and all that. None of the others have been christened.’
Alfie pulled back to grin up at her. ‘So I’ll be the first?’
‘The first in the family, yes.’ Sarah looked over at me. ‘It doesn’t cost anything, does it?’
‘It’s free,’ I assured her, wondering if she were the sole wage earner in the family. Her clothes were clean, but looked well worn.
A date was set for a follow up visit to the family. Skylar and I walked out of the school. Afternoon sun warmed my cheeks and reminded me that August was not far away. I’d have to think of what I might do with the two weeks which I’d booked off for my honeymoon.
‘Sarah seemed surprised that Alfie wants to be baptized,’ Skylar said as she hurtled the Beetle down the hill.
‘Non-churchgoers are usually quite successful in raising non-churchgoing children,’ I commented. ‘She might be wondering where she went wrong. Mind you, just because he’ll be baptized and going to communion services in school doesn’t mean he’ll end up a churchgoer when he grows up.’
‘It’s not whether he goes to church,’ Skylar said. ‘It’s whether he commits to Christ and acts as a Christian. We have people in St Wulfram’s who come to church every Sunday, but are they really committed to Christ?’‘As the first Queen Elizabeth said,’ I replied, ‘“I have no intention of making windows into people’s souls”. Even if they only come so they’re not lonely for an hour a week, I'm still happy to see them there.’
Skylar frowned. ‘I’d like to see more discipleship. House groups are the best way for people to really support each other in the faith. Would you mind if I tried to set up some in St Wulfram’s?’
‘Feel free to try.’ I winced inwardly at my resigned tone. ‘It’d be good to have them in our church. You might want to consider opening it up wider, though. For example, to people in other churches in our area?’
‘I’ll look into that.’
We screeched to a halt on my drive. I waited a moment to allow my heart rate to drop back to normal. ‘Great. We could launch the scheme with a special service, if you’d like. Just let me know.’
It was only after I had made myself a cup of tea and gone into the study that I remembered the last buzz on the iPhone. I pulled it out and saw another text from Sue. I’ve sent you an email. Have a look.
I powered up my computer and clicked on the mail icon. Sue’s email consisted of two files. I opened up the first one, then took off my dog collar to swear at the document. The minister had sent me the biographical details of each crew member on the HMS Themis. Dates of birth, names of partners, details of children, pets, and hobbies. The second file was a Powerpoint slide show, which provided me with photos of the crew enjoying time with significant others. Names had been helpfully added to the bottom of the images.
Lieutenant Charlie Smith grinned at the camera, his arms around a blonde woman, two small children perched on their laps. Captain Elisabeth Burrows wrestled with a large golden retriever on a pristine green lawn. Chief Petty Officer Oliver Jackson looked tired but happy as he stood next to a sign stating ‘Mount Kilimanjaro.’ Petty Officer Samantha Jones was laughing as she lifted a baby into the air.
By the time the slideshow had finished, my tea had gone cold. I took the mug through to the kitchen and poured the contents down the sink. Then I went to my bedroom and changed into travel clothing. Although it was a warm June day, I collected my coat and restocked the pockets with oatcakes and a bottle of water. My iPhone went into a waterproof case.
Snail sharks angled eyespots towards me as I stepped out into the back garden. No sign of Jago, Morey, or Clyde. I bent down to lace up my old hiking boots. Little point in destroying a new pair on this trip. Sea water was deadly to leather.
The pocketknife was warm in my hands. I studied the worn wooden handle, once bright green but now more of a dull brown. Raven had never explained how he always knew when the blade was exposed to air. Nor had he ever made clear why he’d given the knife to me in the first place.
Then I hesitated, remembering the Abbot’s warnings. If Raven were still battling against the spirit of the Noble Leader, did I really dare call him out of seclusion? According to Gerard, Raven had chosen to become an oblate and put himself into the care of the monastery. What if pulling him out led to another relapse?
The images Sue had sent to me swirled through my mind. Children, husbands, wives, partners, kids, dogs, cats. Triumphs at the tops of high mountains and laughter at the antics of small children. My stomach lurched as I suddenly realised that the dead crew member was the young woman who had been photographed lifting a baby. Over a hundred women and men were trapped in a cylinder of metal somewhere off the shores of Alba. Who else in Great Britain knew of any way to find them?
Dear God, I prayed fervently, please don’t let me regret this. I took a deep breath, and opened the knife, first to the half way point, then all the way. Sun caught in the mottled metal, and I added, Raven’s yours now. He was baptized in your name. I can’t keep him safe, but you can. Please do so. Please.
Chapter Sixteen
There was no mistaking Raven’s elegant form in the sky. Blue-green wings sliced expertly through the air as he swooped towards my house. His chiselled head swept from side to side, and I could see his eyes narrowing as he looked for any imminent danger. I folded the blade and slipped the knife away.
Raven landed lightly into the mixture of grass and weeds which comprised my back lawn. I opened my mouth to speak, but found my throat was suddenly dry. His unique smell of wood smoke and leather filled my nostrils and made my heart race.
Raven cocked his head. ‘I outflew an abbot and a half-dozen monks to answer your call, precious Penny. What is the urgency?’
‘Yes, precisely why have you removed him from his place of safety?’ The owner of the high-pitched voice emerged from behind one neck spine. The pied black and white rat spread his wings and glared down at me. ‘I thought Father Gerard had made things clear to you. Oblate Raven wasn’t to be disturbed!’
‘You must be Bastien,’ I said as sweetly as I could manage. ‘Thank you for looking after Raven. And it is important, or I wouldn’t have asked him here. A British submarine is missing, and Raven’s the only person I know who can help me find it. And save its crew.’
Raven snorted. ‘Why should you care about a missing boat?’
‘I care about anyone who is in danger,’ I replied. ‘The crew have people who love them and want them back home.’
The search dragon closed his eyes for a moment. ‘I’ll need more information to locate this submarine. Do you have anything which belongs to one of the humans?’
I shook
my head. ‘No. And it’s not that simple. A nest of nessies is holding it captive.’
‘I’m not afraid of overgrown sea serpents.’
‘But you can’t do much against them either,’ I pointed out. ‘You can’t fight them in the water, and if you tried to flame them, they’d only dive. And possibly take the submarine with them. The Consortium suggested that I speak first to Abella’s shoal.’
‘The Consortium?’ Bastien squeaked. ‘Don’t trust him. Nasty piece of work. Now my own rat king, the Enforcer, he’ll always treat you fair.’
‘I could take you to Abella’s shoal,’ Raven agreed. ‘But you disappoint me, perspicacious Penny. You opened the knife all the way, and yet this doesn’t strike me as an emergency.’
‘One of the submarine crew has died--’
‘Humans die with great regularity.’
‘And Abella is missing. It appears that she’s being held captive.’
Raven cursed, long and low. Nearby snail sharks turned red-orange in disapproval. Then he raised his head, blue tongue flicking, horns twisting. His bellow made me stumble backwards. ‘I can’t find her!’
‘The rat king said she was hiding herself from dragons.’
‘She’d never want to hide herself from me,’ Raven snarled. ‘I should be able to sense her, wherever she’s being held.’ Then he stilled. ‘She can’t be dead. I must go to the shoal.’
I hurried across the garden. ‘We’ll go together.’ The dragon was shifting restlessly, which made clambering up his side a greater challenge than usual. I’d only just flung my right leg over his neck when he kicked us upwards.
Bastien plummeted into my lap. ‘I’ll be coming as well,’ he said grimly. ‘I owe that much to Raven.’
Northampton was now far below us. ‘I thought Raven trapped you under a fire grate.’
‘That was days ago.’ The rat turned to dig sharp claws into my shirt. ‘We’ve since come to an understanding, and now we’re confidants.’
I wondered if rats could suffer from Stockholm syndrome. ‘How long do you plan to stay with Raven?’
Bastien glared at me. ‘Until he has Father Abbot’s blessing to leave. Which he doesn’t have right now.’
‘And then what will you do?’ We’d dropped through a thin place, and Raven was flying through a red stone canyon, his wings nearly clipping the cliffs on either side. A river gurgled far below. ‘Go back to your rat king?’
‘Of course. No rat likes to be away from his king for too long.’
‘Won’t you be in trouble for being away?’
‘The Enforcer trusts his subordinates,’ Bastien said proudly. ‘If we’re out of contact, he knows it’s for a good reason.’
Raven turned and aimed us towards a rocky outcropping. The green trees crowding the flat top came closer and closer. The dragon showed no signs of either slowing his flight or raising us higher, and I forced back a scream. The fossil-studded rock was only a few feet away when we passed through another crossing.
‘He likes cutting it close, doesn’t he?’ Bastien commented as we emerged over a large city. The grid pattern and the starred flags told me that we were somewhere over the USA. The air temperature was several degrees higher than in the canyon or in Northampton, and I felt my forehead dampen with sweat.
‘How does it work, anyway, between rats and rat kings?’ I asked as Raven took us higher. He swerved to avoid a helicopter, and I had a quick glimpse of the pilot’s disbelieving face as he met my eyes. I gave him a friendly wave as the dragon carried us away.
‘If we’re more than thirty feet away, we can’t hear his thoughts, and he can’t hear ours.’ Bastien’s claws pricked my skin as he crawled across my front, angling his head downwards for a better look at the cityscape. ‘But the kings can network with each other. Well, the ones they’re friendly with. So if I take a message to the Enforcer, and it needs to be sent on to someone a long flight away, he’ll link up with one of our allies who’s more local to the recipient. That king will send out one of his rats to deliver the message.’
‘So not all of the rat kings work together?’
‘Of course not.’ Bastien released a paw to point at the motorway system sprawling grey and white below us. ‘What are those moving things?’
‘Cars.’ I felt again a pang of loss for my old Ford. ‘So the rat kings compete with each other?’
‘All the time. It can be quite bloody.’
Raven turned suddenly and went into a steep dive. Bastien was nearly torn free from my shirt. I grabbed him with my left hand, and my right dug deep into the spine in front of me. A second helicopter swerved away from us as we went through the crossing.
Blue ocean filled my vision. I took deep breaths of clean, salt-tinged air, settling my stomach. Bastien squirmed against my fingers, and I let him go. ‘Does Raven always fly like this?’ the rat demanded.
‘Oh, no,’ I told him. ‘This was a pretty tame flight by his standards.’
A group of wooden platforms floated on the calm sea a short distance away. Raven spread his wings and we glided towards the merpeople. A number of them were sitting on raised logs. Others splashed in the water nearby. As the dragon approached, voices called out in English and in Welsh. ‘It’s Hrafn!’ ‘Y ddraig!’ ‘Friend Hrafn!’
‘Climb onto my shoulder,’ I warned Bastien as we drew near.
‘Why?’
‘Do it, or be prepared to get wet.’
Raven pulled up into a brief hover. Then he folded his wings and we plummeted down to the surface. Although I’d been expecting it, the cold water splashing up my legs and chest still made me grimace. Raven waited until we’d bobbed back up again, and then his legs churned through the sea to bring us alongside the nearest raft.
Bastien took off and circled as I accepted the help of merpeople to transfer from dragon neck to platform. I took a seat to remove boots, socks, and my jacket. As merpeople pulled on ropes and brought our platform over to the central structure, I put up an arm to call down the rat. ‘Water,’ he complained as he settled on my shoulder. ‘Don’t like it. Messes up my fur. Good grooming is so important.’
I resisted the sudden urge to pat down my own wind-blown hair. ‘Then stay well away from the edges of the platform.’
Raven released a burst of flame and dived underneath the structure. When he emerged on the other side, near the roofed shelter, he demanded, ‘Ble mae Abella?’
One of the mermen rose from his seat. I kept my eyes firmly fixed on his long face and away from the all too obvious signs of his gender. ‘Yanis,’ he said, introducing himself. Then he continued in Welsh, ‘She’s around, of course. Out fishing. We’ll tell her you called.’
‘Liar,’ Raven hissed. ‘She’s not here.’
‘Cadwch hynny’n dawel!’ a merwoman ordered, flicking green-tinged hair from her broad shoulders.
‘Why, Jasmeen?’ Raven asked. ‘Why should this be kept a secret?’
‘Maybe they’re like rat kings,’ Bastien offered in English. ‘Reputations and territory to maintain.’
‘We don’t want to upset our children,’ Jasmeen said, switching to English as well. ‘A shoal relies on the Pilot to decide our course. She finds the best fishing areas and forecasts when we need to hide from a storm. One of her daughters is in training, and one day will be our new Pilot, but she’s not ready to take on the role.’
‘It’s very unsettling,’ another merwoman added. ‘Our Pilot is grandmother to us all.’
‘Can you find her, Hrafn?’ asked Yanis. ‘You can find her, can’t you?’
‘No,’ Raven grumbled. ‘I can’t sense her.’
‘What happened?’ I asked. ‘Did she simply disappear?’
Their wide eyes slid away from mine. I was suddenly reminded of funeral visits, when the next of kin were desperate to withhold information from me. ‘What aren’t you telling us?’
‘We know who has her,’ Jasmeen said slowly.
Raven snorted. ‘Then tell me, and I’ll go free
her.’
‘What will you do against a ship of akhlut?’ Yanis demanded. ‘If you try to flame it, Abella will die too.’
‘Akhlut?’ Bastien flew down to the nearest raised log. ‘Madam, are you telling us that your revered Pilot is being held captive by akhlut?’
The merpeople nodded. I asked, ‘And is anyone going to tell a mere mortal what akhlut are?’
The rat twitched his whiskers. ‘In the water, they look like what you call an orca, or a killer whale.’
‘And on land, they look like something else?’ I looked around the gathering of merpeople, a suspicion forming in my mind. ‘They’re were-orcas, aren’t they?’
‘I wouldn’t call them that to their muzzles,’ Bastien said. ‘They have a reputation for being quick-tempered. And very dangerous.’
Raven growled. ‘A dragon fears no-one.’
‘Maybe not in the air or on the land,’ I pointed out. ‘But in the water? I’ve seen the David Attenborough documentaries. You don’t mess with a pod of orcas. Jasmeen.’ I waited until the merwoman met my gaze. ‘I’m pretty sure an akhlut is being held in my own country.’
‘Tarkik,’ Jasmeen agreed. ‘The tides pulled him through a crossing place. We understand that he was injured, and humans took him in. But then, rather than release him again, they kept him imprisoned.’
A suspicion was beginning to form in my mind. ‘Is it Tarkik’s pod which is holding Abella?’
‘The pod which took Abella captive has demanded him in return for her freedom.’
‘Rather than free her themselves?’ I asked.
Jasmeen gave me a curt nod. ‘Our lives are less important to them than their own.’
‘Why are you all just resting here?’ Raven demanded. ‘You should be doing everything you can to free her.’
‘We sent two members of our shoal to Tarkik.’ Jasmeen lowered her head. ‘We haven’t heard from either of them.’
I bit my lower lip. ‘I’m sorry to bring you bad news. One was found dead in Tarkik’s pool. My sorrow for your sorrow.’