The Fall (The Last Druid Trilogy Book 1)

by Glen L. Hall

  There was a chorus of alarmed voices. Sam and Emily pressed their faces against the books, trying to hear every word.

  ‘I’m sorry to burden you with such news, but these reports have been validated along the whole of the borderland. The Way-curves are silent, so we remain blind to what moves against us. That is why I have asked you back here. It is essential we are not caught sleeping. I will let Brennus tell you the news he brings.’

  Sam edged a little further to his left and through a gap in the books he could at last see those gathered around the table. To his amazement, one of them was his mother.

  Professor Stuckley stood before them. He looked ten years older than he had yesterday. A great weight seemed to rest on his shoulders.

  ‘The boy is in great danger,’ he said. ‘We can ill afford to let him out of our sight.’

  He paused, letting his words wash over the assembled company.

  ‘I warned him this morning not to venture into Northumberland,’ Jarl said.

  Sam let out a long breath. At his side, Emily put her head into her hands.

  ‘It is clear the enemy is moving,’ Professor Stuckley continued. ‘In the last few days alone it has sought to neutralise our charge in Oxford and has moved quickly to cut off our path to the one thing that can guide our next move. If it succeeds, we will pay dearly.’

  ‘Then what chance do we have here in Gosforth?’

  ‘It is a good question, Morcant, and one I cannot answer. I do know there will be days when we won’t trust one another. I also believe we face not one enemy, but two – possibly more.’

  An uneasy murmur arose from those seated in the circle.

  ‘There is a new danger that stalks the boy – a Shadow I have seen for myself.’

  Despite their predicament, Sam heard Emily let out a little gasp of disbelief.

  ‘We have been caught unawares and we have no defence against it. The boy is in danger and we have little time to move him. I sought counsel whilst in Oxford and now I must seek answers from the Dead Water.’

  Consternation filled the room.

  ‘I thought we said we’d never return to the Dead Water!’ exclaimed Sam’s mother.

  Morcant was on his feet. ‘Why the Faeries, Brennus? None of them can be trusted!’

  ‘I sought counsel from the Keepers and that is what they advised. So that’s where I’m going.’ Professor Stuckley was adamant.

  ‘This is madness!’ Morcant cried out. ‘Your fear makes you reckless, Brennus.’

  ‘If you don’t fear this thing, Morcant, that is truly reckless.’ Professor Stuckley met his gaze calmly. ‘There is a new malevolence out there.’

  Professor Whitehart now stood, his cards flicking from hand to hand.

  ‘Tell them what happened to you in the house of the Keepers,’ he said. ‘Tell them, brother. Tell our good friend Morcant what you suffered and what you gave of yourself.’

  Brennus shook his head. ‘Drust, now is not the time…’

  ‘Of course!’ thought Sam. ‘That night in the Fellows’ House Professor Stuckley called Whitehart Drust!’ He tried to meet Emily’s eye, but she had her head turned away.

  ‘I’ve been following the boy for almost a year,’ Drust said firmly, ‘had him under close observation for months, and still we’ve been negligent, we’ve been caught asleep, we’ve let this abhorrence walk right past us.’

  ‘Drust,’ warned Brennus.

  Drust ignored him. ‘There is nothing in this world that could have unpicked our defences at Magdalen, or walked into the Keepers’ house. I see your shock, friends, but shock will not defeat it, and there is every chance that it will follow us here. The calm has now passed and we must await the storm that will bear down on us all. Oscar visited the boy and told him the Circle was broken and a Shadow was moving through the Otherland. If that doesn’t chill your hearts then we’ve become fools in our complacency.’

  There was stunned silence.

  Brennus broke it. ‘There is something that worries me greatly – the Keepers say that we could face several enemies. It is important that we understand where this new one crossed. I must travel to the Dead Water.’

  One by one, he looked at the faces of those gathered.

  ‘Later this evening I will meet the boy and will ask him to go there with me. You must make sure the way is safe.’

  ‘You’ll take the boy there?’ Morcant cried out. ‘You’ll take him north as our enemy moves south? Wouldn’t it be wiser to take him back to Oxford? Or to some other place?’

  ‘If the Fall is diminished, he won’t be able to outrun the Otherland and no place will be safe. It is time to do the unexpected, take the enemy by surprise. This is our only hope.’

  Morcant let out a long sigh. ‘We’ve spent nineteen years doing nothing and now we can’t do enough in no time at all.’

  Drust laughed. ‘Yes – come along, brother, you must have an inkling why!’

  Brennus sighed. ‘I’m sorry I can’t raise a smile to your humour, Drust, but I’m tired. It has been a long few days and protecting the boy is very much on my mind. You know the Fall is trying to speak to him and that she speaks to those touched by the flow. You know that better than most. We have to protect and nurture him.’

  ‘Yes, but do you actually know how?’

  ‘I do know,’ said Brennus carefully, ‘that the enemy will have learned much from its encounter. It knows the boy does not walk alone and it knows what protects him. It won’t seek a confrontation directly, but will come upon him by stealth.’

  Sam could barely control his anxiety. This was a conversation that he and Emily shouldn’t be overhearing. He took no satisfaction in her baptism of fire – he was too frightened by the knowledge that he was caught up in all this more deeply than he could ever have imagined.

  ‘He may not walk alone,’ Drust replied, ‘but it was chance that he survived – chance that brought him safely to the Keepers. That’s all.’

  His eyes were glittering in the light cascading down from the windows high above.

  Brennus was calmly observing him. ‘That is your conviction, but it is not mine. I have more faith than that. Come now, we need to prepare for the journey ahead. I am to meet Sam later this evening and I’ll persuade him to come with me then.’

  ‘I don’t want Emily travelling with him.’ Jarl’s voice was low and Sam could hear his anxiety. ‘Are they even going to be safe tonight? Should the boy stay with me?’

  ‘That is a good point, Jarl, but why not allow him one more night in his own bed? It may be his last for a while. And then let’s hope that both faith and chance travel with us.’

  ‘We may regret this, but—’

  Jarl broke off as a pile of books went crashing the full length of the wooden floor.

  ‘I see we have company – why don’t you join us?’ Professor Stuckley said smoothly.

  He smiled warmly as the plume of dust settled and Sam and Emily got to their feet.

  As they shuffled nervously forward, Sam could hear Emily trying to swallow. Briefly he felt her hand touching his. She looked over at her uncle, but he too seemed suddenly uncomfortable in his own skin.

  ‘Emily,’ he said, gathering himself together, ‘I really don’t know what you’re doing here and I’m afraid you can’t stay. Brennus would like to speak with Sam in private.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ thought Sam. He could imagine what her response was going to be to that. But her usual cheekiness seemed to have sunk to the bottom of her feet. Then she spoke.

  ‘All right. But before I leave, Uncle Jarl, I’d like to know…’

  It seemed her embarrassment had simply delayed the inevitable. Sam wondered how she could be so brazen. But before she could continue, Brennus interrupted her.

  ‘She would like to know,’ he said, with a hint of a smile, ‘why I go by different
names in different places.’

  ‘Yes! I’ve never heard anyone call you Professor Stuckley, but Sam seems to think that’s your name.’

  Sam sighed. But Brennus was smiling openly now.

  ‘I am known as Professor Stuckley in certain places.’

  ‘Not in Cherwell College, though, because no one at Oxford has heard of it!’

  Sam winced. But Brennus’s smile remained.

  ‘I understand your frustration, Emily. There is much to say and little time to say it in. What I can say for certain is that Cherwell College is real. It meanders through places in time, not unlike the river itself, places that cannot be easily remembered by the many, or forgotten by the few. It is a kind of physical and metaphysical crossroads.’

  This time he let the words settle upon her with the weight he had intended.

  ‘I understand that blind faith can lead you down blind paths and that without questions there can be no answers,’ he continued. ‘But know that it wasn’t by chance that I happened upon Sam in Oxford. If you can suspend your disbelief for a moment, you might begin to understand that the world is far stranger than you could possibly imagine.’

  Sam could feel Emily prickling at the professor’s words. He had stolen her thunder almost without effort. Her cheeks were flushed and Sam couldn’t help but think she looked even more beautiful like that.

  ‘Now I must speak to Sam in private, Emily, and you must not feel hurt.’

  Without a word to anyone, Emily allowed her uncle to put his hands on her shoulders and propel her out of the room.

  * * * * * *

  Brennus emptied the room apart from himself, Sam and Drust. The space suddenly felt much bigger.

  ‘Sam, come and sit with us and I will explain what I can.’

  Sam placed himself down on a hard wooden chair.

  ‘We have news that the Shadow is no longer imprisoned in Magdalen.’

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘We don’t know for sure, but there’s no doubt where it’s heading.’

  Sam felt his mouth go dry. ‘How long do we have?’

  ‘It isn’t a question of how long we have,’ answered Drust, ‘but when it chooses to strike.’

  He was sitting quietly, his eyes following the incessant flow of his cards passing from finger to finger.

  ‘The Shadow has access to the Otherland,’ he continued, ‘and therefore time has little meaning anymore. The one advantage we had was taken away by your meeting with Oscar.’

  He stopped his card play and looked at Sam. In the harsh light, the wound to his forehead seemed longer and deeper than it had the day before.

  ‘A good point,’ said Brennus, ‘and we can ill afford to have a repeat of Oxford. We need to understand how it can be defeated. There is a place where we can seek help. I have travelled there myself over the years to seek counsel. And they have never let me down.’

  ‘I’m guessing we’re talking about the Dead Water?’

  ‘Yes, Sam. I think it has become our only option.’

  ‘Didn’t Oscar say it was lost?’

  ‘We’re not sure about that. Paradoxes are hard to break. Oscar could have been doing nothing more than repeating your words to the Keepers. After all, they travelled to meet him in Alnmouth and gave him the letters to give to you. There may actually be no truth in it.’

  ‘And if you’re wrong?’

  ‘Admittedly, we could be wrong. We thought you would be safe in Oxford.’

  ‘You can’t keep it from him, brother.’ Drust had resumed his card play. He kept his eyes on his cards, turning them over one by one, but there was an edge to his words, a tension that Sam could hear.

  Brennus took a deep breath. ‘Listen, Sam, the Shadow passed through Gosforth in the early hours of the morning. We lost it in the woods north of here. We have no time – we must leave for the Dead Water tonight. We cannot wait until the morning.’

  The words swam through Sam’s mind, but he couldn’t grasp their meaning. How could the Shadow have travelled three hundred miles in such a short time?

  ‘What if we don’t find a way to stop it at the Dead Water, professor? What if it catches us on the road there? What if it can never be stopped?’

  He felt chilled by his own questions.

  His words had struck a note with Drust. He stood, a fierce look in his eyes.

  ‘Sometimes, Sam,’ he said, ‘you have to face your nightmares in the dark. You have to face your fears or you will forever be in their shadow. Your only chance now is to travel with my brother Brennus. He will protect you.’

  ‘But do we really have to travel tonight? In the dark? I think it will increase the danger.’

  ‘If we don’t go this evening,’ Brennus said, ‘I can’t guarantee your safety. Also, if we stay, it won’t be just you in danger, but those who wish to protect you. The woman who came to you before the gates of Magdalen is real. I believe the answers are to be found from her kind, at the Dead Water.’

  Sam felt as though every word was pounding him into the ground. He covered his ears with his hands.

  ‘Sam, you must listen to me,’ Brennus continued. ‘This Shadow, it is a foe whose strength and power I’ve never felt before.’

  ‘Enough!’ shouted Sam. ‘I know its strength and power. I faced it under the Fellows’ House and at the gates of Magdalen, and believe me, I know we have to find a way to stop it. I want to do that. And then I want to go back to living a quiet life with what remains of my family. I don’t want to be afraid every minute of every day. And now I want to go back to my house and sleep there for just one more night.’

  Brennus stood and put a firm hand on Sam’s shoulder. ‘I understand.’ His face softened as he held Sam’s gaze. ‘We’ll meet at first light.’

  With that, he turned and walked towards the door.

  Sam felt Drust pat him lightly on the back as he too left the room.

  * * * * * *

  Sam sat there for a moment in silence. It had been a crazy few days. At least Emily now knew some of the truth.

  His eye was caught by the tapestry on the wall. It was back – how come he hadn’t noticed that before? And it was spellbindingly intricate. He marvelled at its colour and depth. Quite what it portrayed was more difficult to say. He’d thought it was a map earlier, but perhaps not. He got up and went a little closer to it.

  He was trying to decipher the long-faded outlines when something caught his eye. A subtle movement – the tapestry was swaying as if caught by a gentle wind.

  All at once, a swarm of invisible hummingbirds were darting through the reading room. The air was crackling and Sam felt an unseen hand ushering him away from the wall and down the steps onto the wooden floor. Static electricity brushed against his skin with a million little spikes and his hair was standing on end. A sulphurous hiss was making his nose run and all his senses seemed heightened. The reading room was coming alive, even as it was fragmenting before his eyes.

  The tapestry began to dance, its woven strands unravelling in a blur of movement. The hummingbirds broke up into a thousand vibrating shades of moving colour and exploded against the tapestry in a pixelated shower of light. Sam was transfixed as a mesmerising flow of images passed before his eyes.

  A steep hill with a castle appeared, ebbing and flowing with each turn of the swirling birds. Fascinated, Sam felt himself reaching out to the rippling material, unable to stop himself from touching it. Instantly, a vibration ran through him, a cold resonance that hummed and flickered in his mind’s eye. A room appeared, full of light that flooded the canvas with a warmth that Sam could almost feel, a radiance that formed around a figure standing motionless at the centre of it.

  The room was the very one that Sam was standing in and the figure was Oscar.

  ‘Sam!’

  In the clamour of the kaleidoscopic sea, the voice
anchored his feet to the floor and he remembered who and where he was.

  ‘Why have you called me? The Way-curves are no longer safe.’

  The words fizzed and popped in his head. He opened his mouth, but his words were already there in the weaving streams of colour.

  ‘I have been asked to go to the Dead Water.’

  Suddenly the colour and light drained out of the tapestry like sunlight draining from the sky at twilight. In the blink of an eye it went black. Sam felt the pressure in the room drop. For a moment he didn’t know which way was up or down. Darkness swirled around him and he was back in the river Cherwell, cold and afraid.

  Then movement caught his eye. A deeper darkness was taking shape and a place he did not recognise was flickering out of the tapestry weave. A single figure was hunched in the gloom. It had its back to him, but Sam felt a new panic boil up through his stomach. He knew what it was before its image had fully formed. It had heard Oscar’s words and was standing slowly, a black-hearted stalker reaching for him through time and space.

  A single word reached him, spilled black against the streaming light: ‘Druidae.’

  Then it was gone.

  Light flooded back into the room and the air hummed and hissed with a hundred thousand tiny wings. Oscar was standing once more in the shifting colours of the tapestry. Or was he here with him in the room?

  ‘I told you the Way-curves were no longer safe.’ He seemed to be breathing heavily and looked exhausted. ‘Quickly now, listen.’

  His words waxed and waned in the charged air that swarmed across Sam’s face, prickling with energy.

  ‘You cannot go to the Dead Water.’ A picture of a mountain range gleamed against the glowing shards of light. ‘The enemy killed your father on the shores of the Dead Water. Now it knows you are going there. Do you want history to repeat itself?’

  An angry roar exploded and somewhere far away the noise of shattering glass echoed in the darkness. Sam stood in the middle of the streaming light whilst the vision of Oscar momentarily fluttered.