by Garth Nix
‘I know very little Teutonic magic,’ said Ambrose. ‘Surely there must be someone else better—’
‘You’ll have a grimoire, dear,’ said Lady S. ‘You can read Old High German?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘That’s settled then!’ exclaimed Lady S. ‘Our new doctor will cut that demon out for you, he’s a darling boy and such a fine hand with the blade. Major Kennett will accompany you to Solingen, by the way. In case you need … assistance.’
‘What about the attack on me today?’ asked Ambrose quickly. The windswept figure was retreating further into the dark, and the candle was guttering. ‘They were Anatolian demons! Why would the Emir be sending them against me now?’
‘You will be protected,’ said Lady S. Her voice was distant now. ‘D-Arc takes care of its own.’
‘I know it does!’ shouted Ambrose. ‘That’s why I want to know who really sent those demons! Did you set this all in train—’
‘Au revoir, my dear,’ said a very remote voice, no more than a whisper on the wind.
The door behind him snapped open, and an inexorable force propelled Ambrose back out through the doorway. Landing on his injured leg, he fell and sprawled lengthwise across the carpeted hall. Kennett looked down at him for a moment, sniffed, and helped him up.
‘Doctor Lambshead is all ready for you,’ he said. ‘Gunderbeg is standing by to eat the demon when it’s cut out, and we have all the recuperative apparatus prepared. Best we get a move on, I think.’
Ambrose looked down at his leg. The bandage of Sekhmet was now just a few strands of rag, and it was being chewed on by a mouth that had grown in his calf muscle, a black-lipped, razor-fanged mouth that was trying to turn itself upward toward his knee.
‘Yes,’ said Ambrose faintly. ‘If you don’t mind.’
At noon the next day, his leg salved, bandaged, and entirely demon-free, Ambrose and Kennett were on the boat train to Dover and thence to Calais. An uneventful channel crossing was complete by midnight and after changing trains only twice, they were in Solingen the following morning.
Ambrose spent a good part of their traveling time reading the grimoire that Kennett had handed to him in Edinburgh. The book had come wrapped in a piece of winding cloth cut from the burial shroud of the Scottish sorcerer Thomas Weir, a fabric made to stifle sorcery, indicating that the D-Arc librarian believed the grimoire had the potential to act of its own accord. Accordingly, Ambrose treated it with care, using reversed gloves to turn its pages and marking his place with a ribbon torn from a child’s bonnet.
The grimoire was a typeset version of a much older text. It had been printed in the late sixteenth century, and according to the letter with it, was attributed to the German sorcerer and botanomancer Bertin Zierer, though as the flyleaf was missing and the original binding had been replaced several times, this was noted as being speculation rather than fact.
The section of the grimoire dealing with the Waldgeist of the Primeval Wood that had once stretched across much of modern Germany was, as per usual, couched in rather vague language, apart from the description of the actual ritual. It did not describe the form the Waldgeist usually took, or go into any details of its powers, beyond a warning that these would be employed against anyone who dared wake it who was ‘not of the blood of Wotan.’ The only clue to the nature of the Waldgeist came from an etching that showed a disc of ground covered in trees rising from a forest. Entitled, in rough translation, ‘Tree Spirits Rising,’ it did not help Ambrose very much, though it did make him wonder if the Waldgeist manifested as some sort of gestalt entity composed of a whole section of modern forest.
Apart from the grimoire, the duty librarian had also included a large-scale map of the area around Solingen and some typed pages of research and observation. The map indicated that the locus of the Waldgeist was in the middle of a small but very old wood some twenty kilometers south of Solingen. The notes cross-referenced the ritual cited in the grimoire with other known practices of Teutonic magic and affirmed that it looked to be complete and not designed to trap or harm the caster by some omission or intentional change.
Shortly before their arrival, both men assumed their appointed disguises, which had been placed by unseen hands in the next-door compartment. Ambrose became a full colonel from the staff sent to join the British forces of occupation on some mission that was not to be denied or inquired about by anyone. Kennett, on the other hand, simply put on a different and more conservative suit, topped with a gray homburg identical to that worn by the late King Edward, and thus assumed the appearance of a mysterious civilian from the upper echelons of Whitehall.
They were met at the Ohligs Wald station in Solingen by a young subaltern of the Black Watch, whose attempt at an introduction was immediately quashed by Kennett.
‘You don’t need to know our names and we don’t want to know yours,’ he snapped. ‘Is the car waiting? And our escort?’
‘Yes, sir,’ replied the young second lieutenant, a blush as red as the tabs on Ambrose’s collar spreading across his cheeks. ‘As per the telegraph message.’
‘Lead on then,’ said Kennett. ‘The sooner we take care of this, the better.’
The car, commandeered from the divisional general, was accompanied by four motorcycle outriders and three Peerless trucks carrying the nameless subaltern’s infantry platoon and a machine gun section.
‘We hardly need all this carry-on,’ protested Ambrose as he settled into the grandly upholstered backseat of the general’s car and Kennett climbed in next to him. ‘Surely it would be better for me to get changed and just walk into the wood as a tourist or something?’
‘I don’t think so,’ replied Kennett. ‘The fellow who is hoping to … carry out this deed … is the leader of a gang of militants called Die Schwarze Fahne, and they have quite a membership of former soldiers and the like. We’ll have the jocks establish a cordon around the wood, then you and I will go in.’
‘You’re coming with me?’ asked Ambrose. ‘The grim—’
He stopped himself, aware that the driver and the subaltern in the front seat were so obviously trying to not listen that they must be able to hear everything, even over the noise of the engines as the whole convoy got underway. ‘That is, the reference is specific about German heritage and the … subject’s response if … ah … in contact with others.’
‘My grandmother was Edith Adler, the opera singer,’ drawled Kennett out of the side of his mouth, so only Ambrose could hear. ‘So I have a drop or two of the blood. But I’ll keep well back, just the same.’
Ambrose nodded slightly and tried not to show how much he was discomfited by Kennett’s disclosure. Even from such slight information he would now be able to positively identify the man. Which meant that Kennett was either taking him into some inner echelon of trust, or he didn’t think Ambrose would be around long enough for it to matter.
It only took forty minutes to reach the fringes of the wood. Ambrose sat in the car for a few minutes while everyone else got out, and read the relevant pages of the grimoire for perhaps the twentieth or thirtieth time. The ritual was not complex, but he had to memorize it. It would not be possible to refer to the book in the middle of the process.
He felt quite calm as he slipped the grimoire inside his tunic and did up the buttons. They looked like the usual brass, but were in fact silver-gilt, part of the sorcerous protection that Ambrose hoped would help him if things went only slightly awry. Of course, when dealing with an entity like a primeval tree spirit, it was far more likely that if something did go wrong it would be on a scale so immense that no amount of sorcerous protection would make the slightest difference.
The lieutenant’s platoon, under the direction more of a leather-lunged sergeant than the pink-faced officer, were forming up in three ranks on the verge. The trucks were parked across the road to block other vehicular traffic, and the Vickers machine gun was in the process of being emplaced on its tripod some way off, up a slight rise, to enfilade t
he road.
Ambrose got out and orientated the map to north by the sun, shifting it slightly to get the road in the right relationship, map to real topography. The map indicated the beginning of a footpath a dozen or so yards beyond the machine gun position, and sure enough, there was a stone cairn there and a rotting wooden signpost that once upon a time had had something written on it.
‘We’ll follow the footpath,’ said Ambrose, indicating the way. He folded the map and slipped it in with the grimoire. ‘It goes to the … the agreed rendezvous.’
Kennett nodded and turned to the anxiously waiting lieutenant.
‘Send one section to patrol the perimeter of the wood to the west and one section to the east. Keep one section here. Your men are not to enter the wood, no matter what you hear. Cries for help, orders that sound like they come from me or the colonel, all are to be ignored unless we are actually in front of you. If we do not come out within three hours – my watch says ten twenty-two, set yours now – return to Solingen, report to your CO, and tell him to immediately contact General Spencer Ewart at the War Office and relay the code phrase defectus omnes mortui.’
‘But that’s … uh … fail … failing … failure … all dead,’ said the lieutenant, busy trying to scribble the phrase in his notebook and set his watch, all at the same time.
‘Did I ask you to translate?’ snapped Kennett. ‘Do you have the code phrase?’
‘Yes, sir!’ replied the lieutenant. He closed his notebook and managed to successfully set his watch, his platoon sergeant surreptitiously leaning in to make sure he’d gotten it right.
‘Finally, fire two warning shots over the heads of anyone approaching. If they continue, shoot to kill. It doesn’t matter who they are. Civilians, women, children, whoever. Here is a written order to that effect.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said the lieutenant. There was considerable doubt in his voice and his hand shook a little as he unfolded the letter, his eyes flickering across the typewritten lines before widening enormously as they came to the short signature – just a first name and a capital letter – at the bottom of the page.
‘Yes, sir!’ he repeated, much more vigorously.
‘Presuming we return, I’ll want that back,’ said Kennett. ‘Carry on.’
The lieutenant saluted and whirled about, speaking quickly to his sergeant, who a moment later began to bellow orders. Ambrose ignored the sudden bustle of military activity and began to walk toward the footpath. His eyes were on the fringes of the wood, looking for signs of arcane disturbance. But there were none visible. This part of the wood was composed of beech trees, their trunks green and mossy, their foliage a darker green. The light changed under the trees, gaining a soft, green tinge, but this was the natural magic of leaves and sun, not anything sorcerous.
It was also cooler under the canopy of the forest. Ambrose led the way, with Kennett a dozen yards behind. They walked in silence, save for the occasional squelch of soft ground, or the snapping of a fallen twig where the footpath wound through higher, drier ground.
A half mile or so in, the beeches began to give way to oaks. They were much older, and grew closer together, the footpath leading into relative darkness. As they left the beech forest behind, Ambrose noticed that it was quieter among the oaks as well. All the bird-sound had vanished, and all he could hear were his own and Kennett’s footsteps. Then, not much farther on, Kennett’s footsteps stopped.
Ambrose looked back. Kennett was leaning against the broad trunk of one of the ancient oaks. He nodded and waved Ambrose on. Clearly this was as far as Kennett cared to go into the heart of the wood, and as he was far more in practice and so currently more attuned to the occult than Ambrose, this probably meant he had sensed the locus of the Waldgeist somewhere close ahead.
Indeed, no more than fifty yards ahead, there was a forest glade where the oaks parted around a clear expanse of grass. In the middle of this small clearing was an incredibly ancient, stunted tree, a king-oak that could well be thousands of years old. Blown over by some long-forgotten storm, it still lived, its branches spreading horizontally, its trunk twisted and gnarled, its bark as hard as iron.
Ambrose could feel the Waldgeist now, the sense of the sleeping spirit that had been born of thirty million trees, and would not fade until the last of those trees was gone. Humans had decimated the primeval forest, but the spirit still remained. It only slept, and in Ambrose’s opinion it would be best left to do so. But he knew he had no real choice. If Lady S wanted the Waldgeist awoken, then he had to do so.
He knelt by the trunk of the king-oak, and paused, just for a moment, to gather his thoughts, mentally going through each step of the ritual. Satisifed that he had remembered it all, he laid out everything he needed on the forest floor.
First of all was the silver athame, his sacred knife, the one he had used in Turkey and thought he had lost when he was at the Front, only to find it had been stored away in the D-Arc armory against his later use. They had always presumed he would come back.
Second was an acorn from this same wood, though from long ago. It was so old it was almost petrified, and though he had been assured its origin had been checked by thaumaturgic assay as well as in the D-Arc records, it was the one element that he doubted. If it was from somewhere else, it might well help to raise the Waldgeist, but it would not be a friendly awakening.
The third thing was not in the ritual. Ambrose took his revolver from its holster and laid it down, to be ready at hand. If things went very badly wrong, he intended to shoot himself. It would be a far quicker and kinder way to die. Ancient spirits were not known for their sense of mercy.
That done, it was time to begin. Ambrose began to recite the words of the waking ritual. His voice was steady, and he spoke the words carefully as he sliced the end of his left thumb with the athame and let the bright blood drip onto the ancient acorn. As the blood dripped, the words became a chant, rhythmically repeated over and over again.
The acorn soaked up the blood like a sponge. When nine drops had fallen, Ambrose cut his right thumb and let another nine drops fall, without faltering in his chant. The guttural Old High German words sounded very loud in the stillness of the wood, but Ambrose knew it wasn’t so much the words themselves that mattered. It was the thoughts behind them, the blood, and the aged seed.
He finished the chant at exactly the same time he pushed the acorn into the soil with both his bleeding thumbs, and sat back.
Nothing happened. Ambrose waited, sitting cross-legged next to the ancient oak, his hand on the butt of the revolver, ready to lift it up to his temple and fire.
A slight breeze swooped down and rustled the leaves on the low, spreading branches. It was cold, ice-laden, and out of time and place, in this splendid German summer.
‘So it begins,’ whispered Ambrose. He could feel the Waldgeist stirring all around, the spirit waking in the wood. He looked up and saw the branches of the king-oak lifting, and then a moment later the trunk groaned and creaked as it began to straighten up. It was becoming the great tree of old, when it had stood sixty feet high or more, tall and straight and strong.
If it was a typical manifestation of a tree spirit, the tree itself would respond to Ambrose’s summoning, either to whisper with the soft sussuration of leaves, or to pin him down with a heavy branch and send a thousand green shoots to penetrate his body, slowly growing through skin and flesh until they did fatal damage to some vital organ. Or, even worse in some ways, the Waldgeist might force itself into Ambrose’s mind, remove everything of his personality, and create for itself a human puppet. That was likely one of Kennett’s main reasons for accompanying him, to guard against this eventuality, with his revolver and its exploding silver bullets.
The wind blew stronger, and the tree grew taller. Ambrose made his fingers uncurl from the revolver, though he kept his hand close. It was important not to appear with weapons in hand, for that in itself might sway the Waldgeist to enmity.
Then the ground shivered and sank b
eneath Ambrose. It was an unwelcome sensation, delivering sudden uncertainty, and even worse, the sharp memory of being buried alive. Wildly, he looked around, and saw that just as in the etching in the grimoire, the king-oak and all the trees around the glade had risen from the surrounding forest, as if a disc had been cored out and lifted straight up.
Ambrose looked down and saw the earth crumbling beneath him. His fingers closed on the revolver and he managed to get it halfway to his head before he was suddenly pulled down, taken into the earth as a shark drags down a swimmer, without mercy or any possibility of resistance.
The ground closed over Ambrose’s head, the revolver landing with a thud to mark the spot. Grass grew in an instant through the bare soil, eager tendrils of green wrapping around the blued metal of the gun, until in a moment it was covered in green and lost to sight.
Deep underground, Ambrose screamed and screamed and screamed, all inside his head, for his mouth was shut with soil. He relived the sudden concussion of the German shell, the blankness in his ears, the earth silently cascading into the dugout, the last glimpse of Peter’s terrified face, the lantern snuffed out in an instant … and then the darkness, the pressure of the earth, everywhere about him save for a tiny air pocket between two fallen beams, where he had pressed his face.
Then there had been the terrible, never-ending time of being trapped, not knowing whether he would ever see daylight again, or breathe the clean air, untainted by earth and fumes and the slowly building stench of the corpses of his friends as they began to rot around him. Alone in the earth, held in an implacable grasp and wreathed in silence. Slowly dying, but not quickly enough for it to be an escape.
Now it was all happening again.
But it was not the same, some fragment of Ambrose’s still-screaming mind observed. He was completely buried in the earth, this time, and so should already be well on the way to asphyxiation. But he felt no need to breathe.