“OK,” I said. “Who were you sent to fetch? One word.”
“I…” Rob’s voice failed. He slumped back on his pillow.
“Not me?”
“No,” Rob admitted, and his voice failed further. His eyes closed.
“Perhaps you’d like to tell us, Nick?” I said.
Nick was now lying face-down on the carpet. He looked up at me ruefully. “Maree,” he said. “Rob said his uncle had to talk to her.”
“Not you as well?” I asked him.
Nick shook his head. “But I wasn’t going to miss something like that.”
Janine, I thought, couldn’t know her son very well if she thought she could keep him away simply by not inviting him. But this sort of ignorance seems to be a failing in most mothers. My own mother obstinately fails to notice the queer things I do as a Magid – the queer things all three of her sons do.
“The conversation you and Rob and Maree had in the lift must have been quite interesting,” I said.
Nick and Rob looked at one another. There was both exasperation and complicity in the look. “I hadn’t thought you’d noticed,” Nick said irritably.
“Like to tell me about it?” I asked.
There was a fairly long silence, broken only by a mutter from Maree. In it, I picked out the words “tell him”, but I had no idea if she was instructing Nick to come clean or if the words were in fact “don’t tell him”. But it proved she was attending. That impressed me. Even allowing for my accidental working, she was showing far more resilience than I expected.
At length, Rob looked at me limpidly and said, “Well, I told Nick we were cousins of course. But I thought I was going to pass out—”
“And there wasn’t time to say very much before you two hauled the lift back down,” Nick cut in quickly.
“Did Rob explain how a centaur and a human could conceivably be cousins?” I asked. “It seems a little unlikely.”
“Oh, by adoption of course,” Rob said. His beautiful features blazed with innocent sincerity. “My Uncle Knarros adopted Nick’s mother as his sister.”
“When was that?” I asked him. I needed to ask why, but I knew Rob would not tell me that.
“Fifteen years ago, before she left the Empire,” Rob replied.
“So Janine is definitely a citizen of Koryfos?” I said.
Rob nodded, eager to oblige. “She was born in Thalangia.”
This, from a centaur, would be the truth. We had got somewhere. But I couldn’t see us getting much further with Nick there, not if I was to have Nick’s help with Maree. Will was looking at me anxiously, trying to convey this. All at once, I felt deathly tired. I nodded at Will, suggesting he had a go at Rob now and, fetching clean clothes out of a drawer, I went into the bathroom to wash and change. That felt a great deal better, even with the front of my hair missing. I put salve on my burns and came out.
Will had made no headway. I could see at once. Rob was still shining with sincerity. Nick looked sulky. I went to the cocktail fridge and sorted myself out a little bottle of brandy. “Want some, Will?”
Will is never a great drinker. “Not with a big working coming up,” he said, “but you look as if you could use it.”
I turned round after the first heavenly, pungent, warming swig, wishing I could confront Rob with the death of Knarros – he ought to be told anyway – but with Nick there I thought it safest to confront him with Maree instead.
“Do you know what’s happened to her?” I said, pointing to the wheelchair.
Rob’s eyes reluctantly travelled to the little bent, blanched figure. “She’s been stripped, hasn’t she? I heard they go pale like that.”
“That is correct,” I said. “Maree was stripped. Furthermore, the gate opened into the heart of a volcano. And that wasn’t an accident. The other half of her was destroyed.” I took another swig from the little bottle, watching Rob across it, hoping this might make a dent in his huge, false innocence. Perhaps it had. He was looking pale and ill again, but this time I thought it was genuine.
Unfortunately, the Room Service waiter arrived just then, with praiseworthy promptness, bearing a vast tray loaded with cheeseburgers, an outsize basket of chips and an enormous pot of the hotel’s excellent coffee. I gave the guy a large tip. The way the node was behaving, he deserved it, although I shuddered a little at how much this extended weekend was costing me. When I had leisure to look at Rob again, the colour was back in his brown cheeks and he had the slightly smug look of someone who thinks he has successfully wriggled out of an unpleasant situation.
I haven’t finished with you yet, my lad! I thought.
But for that time we were all preoccupied with food, even Nick, who, as I expected, found the smell of it irresistible and tore into the chips. Maree, to everyone’s distress, seemed unable to eat. Nick induced her to drink some sugary coffee at least, leaning over her with surprising patience, coaxing and encouraging, while Will and Rob cheerfully demolished Maree’s share of the food. It was quite a sight to see Rob sitting up and munching into a cheeseburger, his dark eyes sparkling, and a hoof or so trailing out from under my duvet. Centaurs not only recover quickly: they need to eat a lot.
So too, it seems, do quack chicks. I had clean forgotten them and I couldn’t think what was happening when two fluffy yellow bundles emerged from under my bed, cheeping urgently. Will fed them pieces of bread and a chip or so. And their effect on Maree was quite startling. She sat up, leant forward and followed the little birds with her eyes, avidly. There was even a faint smile on her pinched, colourless face. Of course, I remembered, she was going to be a vet. She had clearly been led to it by a love of small creatures.
Before she could lapse again into mumbling semi-life, I cleared the tray away and tipped every scrap and crumb left on to the carpet in front of the wheelchair. The chicks sped eagerly to the heap, and Maree leant over, watching.
“Right,” I said. “Time for serious stuff. Rob, we are going to perform one of the deep secret workings here and you are going to witness it perforce. I must ask you to swear not to speak of it to anyone.”
“You could put a geas on him,” Will suggested.
“Ah, please!” said Rob. “I swear not to say a word. I’ll make myself sleep if you like.”
“No need, as long as you swear,” I told him.
He swore, formally and devoutly, by the name of Koryfos the Great. Will winked at me. “Got enough candles, Rupe? Mine are all down in the Groundraker. Shall I get them?”
Just as Maree seemed to travel everywhere with her vet-case, I never go anywhere without a bag ready packed with the things I might need for a working. I fetched it from the stand and checked. I had eighteen plain white candles and a stack of wire stands for them. “These are enough,” I told Will. “I don’t want anyone leaving this room until we’re through. There are at least two powerful hostiles out there. You start setting up the strongest wards you can. I’ll find the road and explain to Nick.”
We both stood with our backs to the door, concentrating. I could feel Will building something so thick and strong that I began to feel as if I was working in a vault. He was doing it very carefully, separating us from the node and keeping us that way. I was grateful for that. It meant that I could put my entire mind to thinking through the Babylon verse that was mine, my piece of the deep secret.
Where is the road to Babylon?
Right beside your door.
Can I walk that road whenever I want?
No, three times and no more…
Nick and Rob were staring at us with nearly identical awed respect. Nick suddenly said throatily, “I need to pee. Is that all right?”
“Get it over with now,” I said. “Rob too. Go on.”
Nick sped to the bathroom. Rob slid all four hooves carefully to the floor, tossed aside the duvet and heaved upright. “Yow! he said. His hand clapped itself to Maree’s numerous stitchings along his side. Maree’s eyes turned to him with blurred professional interest. She was de
finitely more alive than she had been. She watched Rob as he tottered gingerly around the quack chicks and across to the bathroom. I supposed there was just space in there for him. Nick could help him. I turned my mind back to the rhyme again.
The road was there in the room, of course, more or less at my feet. It always would be, for me or anyone, since it was, in some sense, like itself. This Babylon working was old, old basic magic. I ignored Nick coming back, and then Rob, and paced out the part of it that lay inside the room. It lay in an odd slantwise way. I had to move Maree’s wheelchair against the bed in order to follow it right. When I had it, I came back towards the door, putting down a candle in its holder to the right of it, every few steps. The first two candles were only a step apart, the others had to be more, and then more, until there were nine laid in a line. Then I went back again, putting another candle opposite the first ones, until there were nine again that side, a foot or so away from the first nine. Then I went back to the door and looked to see if I had it right.
I had. Although I had put the candles down in two parallel lines, from where I stood at the door the lane of candles appeared to narrow sharply towards the further end. The illusion of perspective made the room seem suddenly twice the size.
I beckoned Nick over. “Listen carefully,” I said to him. “You and Maree are going on a journey. She has to walk. That’s why you have to go with her to help her. I can’t tell you much about the journey, because nobody knows much. But I know it won’t be easy. You’ll have your work cut out to get her there – and back. It’s just as important to get her back here as it is to get her there. Have you got that?” Nick nodded. “When you get wherever the end of the journey is,” I said, “it may look like a city, or a tower, or something quite other. We don’t know. But you’ll know when you get there. When you do, you are each allowed to ask for one thing only, and that thing has to be something you need very much. Make sure Maree asks to have the other half of herself restored. Keep telling her. You can ask for anything you like for yourself, but make sure Maree asks for the other half of herself or you’ll have wasted the working. OK?”
Nick nodded again, very seriously. “And we walk down there?” He pointed to the double row of unlit candles. He sounded as if he was trying hard not to seem incredulous.
“When the candles are lit,” I said, “you should be able to see the road. I hope so, but I’m not sure. This isn’t a thing we do every day. There is one other very important thing, though. You have to complete your journey – there and back – while the candles are still burning.”
“That’s only a few hours,” Nick said. “Isn’t it?”
“I’ll be working hard to force them to burn as slowly as possible,” I said. “But, yes, you can’t afford to hang about. Try to keep going, whatever happens. Have you got all that? Are you ready?”
Nick nodded. I went and helped Maree out of the wheelchair, small and tepid and light in my hands. She stood all right. She even walked when I tugged at her, but she went in a slow, tremulous shuffle, with her head bent limply sideways, watching the quack chicks still. Nick took hold of her firmly by her other arm.
“Come on, Maree,” he said. “You’ve got to walk. You’ve got to fight. You know how strong you can be when you get fierce. Get fierce – come on.”
Maree responded to this. Her head went round to look at Nick and I saw her lips mumble what seemed to be the word “fierce”. One hand made a small, vestigial gesture, trying to push her glasses up her nose.
“That’s it!” Nick said. He led her up beside the door, to the start of the two lines of candles. “What do we do now?”
“Will and I light the candles,” I said, “and we’ll say the words while we do. You join in with the part you know. And the moment you see the rest of the road, start walking. Ready?”
Nick, with Maree draped against him, gave a forced smile. “Going, ready or not.”
Will and I hurried to the far end of the line of candles. We both had petrol lighters. Candles are harder to light with those, but you do all old magics by striking flint with steel if you can. As soon as we had the first two candles alight, we went on to the next pair and began speaking the well-known part of the secret. Like all old spells, it contains its own instructions.
“How many miles to Babylon?
Three score miles and ten.
Can I get there by candle-light?
Yes, and back again.
If your feet are speedy and light
You can get there by candle-light.”
Rob was saying the words too, I noticed. Interesting. Maree seemed to be murmuring them along with Nick. Nick spoke them out with a will, until I saw him realise that he was going to have to coax Maree along through seventy miles – no, a hundred and forty miles – before these candles burnt out. He faltered a little and stared at me in some horror, but he kept on speaking the verse.
I spoke my own verse next. That seemed to me to be where it should come.
“Where is the road to Babylon?
Right beside your door.
Can I walk that way whenever I want?
No, three times and no more.
If you mark the road and measure it right
You can go there by candle-light.”
Halfway through this verse, Nick’s eyes widened. I could see him focus on something well beyond the walls of the room. He pulled at Maree and they both began slowly to walk forward, between the two rows of candles. We moved towards them, striking light from increasingly hot lighters, lighting a candle, moving on. I said Stan’s verse next.
“How do I go to Babylon?
Outside of here and there.
Am I crossing a bridge or climbing a hill?
Yes, both before you’re there.
If you follow outside of day and night
You can be there by candle-light.”
By that time we were on the last two candles. Even at Maree’s slow shuffle, she and Nick had nearly reached the wall of the room. Will struck a light. It burnt him and his face pursed up with pain as he said his verse.
“How hard is the road to Babylon?
As hard as grief or greed.
What do I ask for when I get there?
Only for what you need.
If you travel in need and travel light
You can get there by candle-light.”
We lit the last two candles, both stifling exclamations of pain from hot lighters, crouched in the awkward space beside the door. From there, to my awe and relief, we could see the road. It wound into undulating dark distance beyond the two candles at the end, and it seemed to be made of, or picked out in, faint grey light. There was a sketch of a countryside out there, but awesome because it was on a different plane from the carpet and curtains surrounding it. As Stan’s verse stated, it was entirely outside here and now. I was relieved, because the old magic had worked and, thanks to Will, worked without so much as nudging the node, and because it is so much easier to hold open a road you can actually see. And whatever plane it was on, the physical presence of the place out there was undeniable. There was a sharp downwards slope in the road just beyond the two final candles. Nick and Maree were going down it, only visible from Maree’s head upwards as they went. This meant they were going out of earshot. I was glad. There was still one more verse to say and I hoped they would not hear it. Rob again joined in as Will and I recited it.
“How long is the way to Babylon?
Three score years and ten.
Many have gone to Babylon
But few come back again.
If your feet are nimble and light
You can be back by candle-light.”
Nothing could have been less nimble and light than Maree’s faltering feet. It seemed an age before the two of them came into view again in the dark distance, going slowly up the next looping incline in the dim grey road, a large dark figure and a small bleached one, the large figure most gently and solicitously helping the small one along.
“W
hew!” said Will, sucking his sore fingers. “How come,” he asked Rob, “you know that last verse too?”
“It’s a nursery rhyme,” said Rob. “Everyone on Thalangia knows those two verses.”
“But you are mage trained, aren’t you?” Will said.
“Yes,” Rob admitted.
He would have to be, I thought, for Knarros to have sent him here. And I was very glad that we on Earth only know just the one verse. Nick would have been far less willing to go.
Rupert Venables continued
I took the wheelchair over to the awkward space by the door and sat in it while I concentrated, first on keeping that road established and in sight, and then on slowing the candle flames into eighteen small twinkling flamelets. After that, I checked the node – it was still undisturbed – and Will’s warding, which was in place like rock around us. It all took a while. Nick and Maree had traversed the next slope, and become too small to see in the dimness out there, before I felt I could release any of my attention from it. When I did, I found that Will had established himself in the frilly chair we had pushed against the bathroom door, and the quack chicks had gone to roost under it. Rob was very studiously asleep.
“Rob,” I said “Rob!”
He woke up artistically. “Yes?”
“Rob,” I said, “there are one or two things I couldn’t talk to you about with Nick here. First, I’m afraid that your Uncle Knarros is dead—”
I had to stop there. Rob cried. He cried like the centaur Kris had cried, tears swelling from his eyes and pouring down over his brown cheeks and shapely mouth, while he stared piteously from Will to me. He seemed unable to speak for some time. We did not like to interrupt his grief. At last he shakily wiped his face with his hands and managed to say, “How?”
“Someone shot him with an Earth-style gun,” I said. “I’m sorry. I should have prevented it, but I was stupid. I had no idea what was going on.” I felt terrible, because Rob had so clearly loved that old granite statue of a centaur. And I had not seen, even though I had realised that the youngsters at the gate had not been waiting for me, that Knarros was deep into double-cross and danger. I had bungled everything I put my hand to lately, from the trial of Timotheo onwards, and it took the tears of a centaur to make me see it.
Deep Secret Page 27