Undoing Nik’s ward was easier than I thought. My palms suckered to the clear surface, eating at the magical aura with hungry mouths, devouring it until the molecules in the air smoothed out and rearranged back into their natural order, as if never tampered with.
The lock clicked free, and I checked my surroundings, hoping Father hadn’t registered some disturbance in ‘the force’. That would be just typical of him.
Let him try to stop me. See how far he gets. But no one came. I held the mirror, a cold, dead weight sticking to my hand and stinging the skin like ice. I turned it away from my face. The thing disturbed me. The Serpent, an ouroboros, was actually an ivory ring that unscrewed from the base of the handle, revealing a cavity stuffed with a tight scroll.
It unfurled all by itself, a wet fish slithering in my fingers, the writing throbbing in my Anchored vision like living blood. The ink was from someone’s vein, that was for sure. The English was old and scrawled.
Mirror cannot smash nor break,
A soulless creature it traps and takes.
Listen not to it nor look,
It shall be free at Ragnarök.
I stuffed the parchment back and shut the mirror in the cabinet without a second glance, trying to warm the cold spot it left with my thumb. I shivered, feeling slimy inside. Thank Jörð it was empty and no ‘soulless creature’ was staring out of it.
You might need it one day, the Gatekeeper whispered.
I replied. Odin, Thor, and Freyr, I pray I’ll never meet a person worthy of it.
The Gatekeeper book had been hidden in the undercrofts, and I doubted two items of such magnitude would be kept in the same location. If only I could get inside Father’s head.
I had gotten into Thor’s head, once – and I’d ended up floating above Hellingstead. What had Father said? Your attention span is the width of a hair and as itinerant as your soul. Maybe it was risky to try it again but this time I was Anchored. Was it possible that I could access the Gatekeeper’s memories but see through Father’s eyes instead of Thor’s, and discover where he concealed the amulet?
To be someone else was to shed the shell of self, to step inside shoes not made for your feet. The Gatekeeper claimed it couldn’t reveal another soul’s particular thoughts, but it said it could observe their actions. It was observing me; how else could it pipe up and speak at the right moment? It had observed Espen Clemensen too.
It overtook me like a shadow in the noonday sun, and I saw my mother asleep on my parents’ blue-white and gold bed, her chaotic, tumbling hair contrasting with the intricate panels and sculpted edges. Except it wasn’t my parents’ bed – it was mine. It was my wife, so young and blissful, her sleek legs tangled in Egyptian cotton sheets.
I was naked under my dressing gown, a building anxiety in my gut. I knew I’d have to tell her soon, about the truth of what I was, what our future children must become. These came as vague impressions, a fundamental understanding running through the current of my life. I sat at my distressed writing desk that overlooked the rather sparse front lawn, compulsively sipping water from a glass.
A to-do list, scribbled in a lined notebook, contained numerous tasks: repairing the stone wall, filling the muddy driveway with gravel, and hacking back the thorns overtaking the woodland at the perimeter.
I set aside my empty glass and switched on my sleek, tapered table-lamp with its oversized clamp, the off-white shade and golden frame matching the desk and the bed. The house was Isobel’s domain, and she was the judge, jury, and executioner of the decorating committee. I was in control of Hellingstead Hall’s forlorn exterior. How my legs itched to run through the knobbly fields and wild meadows, the fiery magic seething in my muscles constantly trying to ignite my engine and set me into motion.
But my hand lingered on the lamp. I glanced back at my wife, smiling to myself, my throat constricting with longing. The lamp was heavy as I raised it up an inch above the desk. An exchange, a soundless conversation took place between my hand and the base, and the bottom of the raised disc popped out into my waiting fingers. I felt inside and found the silver box with the boar engraved onto the lid.
Quickly, I took the key from my dressing gown and undid the box, sighing with relief when I saw the golden square nestled in its satin cushion. The little trinket that stood between my family and death – the end of everything – was still safe.
Isobel rolled in the sheets, her knickers visible under her nightdress, groaning the soft exhalation of dreamers thinking of waking. I shut the case and returned it, clicking the base back into position, casting the illusion on it again, so if anyone else moved the lamp the balance would feel right.
I took off my gown and crawled back into bed, even though it was the middle of the day.
When I became Theo again, I was no longer in the library. I was in Father’s bedroom, unaltered since the time of my vision, which I guessed was not long after my parents had purchased Hellingstead Hall.
I’d inhabited another person in a different time. I’d seen my mother, long dead, but she had been alive, so very real. The scent of her perfume had clung to my – Espen’s – dressing gown. I had felt the passion as he’d watched her, listened to the rise and fall of her chest. The memory of it swam in my head and made me queasy.
‘Theodore, it’s customary to knock.’
Startled, I spun round and found Father plumping up the tartan pillows on the bed. I opened my mouth but no words formed. Here he was, the person I had been. The man who, still strong and powerful, would never again have to worry about diffusing a trainload of pent up energy every morning, whose vibrant, blond hair was slowly fading into silver. ‘I’m glad you’re awake. I was starting to worry.’
‘I-I’m fine,’ I stuttered. After the trick I’d pulled, I was no longer Anchored. I hunted for my resolve, which was dying under his fatherly concern. ‘I’m here for the amulet. I know where it is.’
He threw the last pillow onto the bed and stepped toward me, invading my personal space. ‘You feel the call?’
I nodded.
‘Be warned, Theodore. The amulet’s call is always greatest when we are in the most danger of forfeiting it.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Soon after I came of age, after the avalanche, the amulet vanished. I didn’t find it again until I moved to England with your mother, and we bought Hellingstead Hall. It appeared in one of the cardboard boxes, the very last one I unpacked.’
‘So you misplaced it?’
‘No, Theo.’ He said, firmly. ‘It was taken. By whom and for what purpose I couldn’t decipher. But it felt like a punishment for the disaster I had unleashed upon my village. Nikolaj lost it too, and it was only returned to him when he left Alfheim.’
‘That doesn’t make any sense.’
‘Maybe not. But facts are facts, Theodore. It has a will of its own, or is beholden to another. Either way, we believe whomever or whatever steals it can destroy it.’
‘Then they can destroy me. They can destroy the world.’ I turned away from him and made for the lamp. Opening the base, the silver trinket box was mine at last. I stuck the key in, and turned. Click, finally.
We both jumped when the buzzer on the front gate rang through the Hall for the first time in years. Moments later, Nikolaj burst into the bedroom, jolting when he saw me. I thought you were still asleep, his eyes said. He tried to fashion a mask to conceal his fear, but it was too late. The air constricted, Father’s fists clenched.
‘They want him, Espen.’
‘Me?’
‘You. They’re waiting out front.’
‘Who?’
Father’s complexion was ashen. ‘The men who drove your mother to her death,’ he said, about to confirm my eleven-year long suspicion in one stroke, that they had been involved in some way. ‘The Guardians of the Praetoriani.’
END OF PART TWO
III
Inquisition
THEO | LORENZO
26
In
to The Labyrinth
Father and Uncle Nikolaj marched at my shoulders, escorts to my fate. I focused on the sound of my lace-up shoes crunching against the gravel instead of the gates looming up ahead. I couldn’t appear weak or afraid; my best chance was to use my family’s position in Pneuma society, make the Praetoriani wary of it, whilst acting dutiful and relaxed. I hadn’t committed any crime. Whatever questions they pounded me with, after Father’s partial revelation, I had a wagon-full for them.
Lorenzo had fought fear after our entombed land-sprites had paralysed him, controlling his terror when faced by Father’s threats. I aspired to that stubborn confidence now. But Lorenzo could die and the world would keep spinning. My existence wasn’t so inconsequential – Jörð needed the Gatekeeper.
As the gates parted, and I crossed the Clemensen boundary, exchanging one set of guardians for another, my lips curved into a snarl, sucking in the acrid current of hatred seeping from the animated, stone gargoyles. They were petrified incarnations of Father’s violent suspicion and they didn’t trust these men. Neither did I.
‘Are the gargoyles necessary, Espen?’ A lad, younger than me, held his clipboard under thick-rimmed spectacles, while struggling to control a heavy lisp. He ignored me, instead marking his paper with a red pen. ‘A nice parlour trick but an exposure risk all the same.’
‘To children frightened by their own shadows, indeed.’ Nikolaj replied, pinching Father’s cloak sleeve as if that could restrain him, his nephew who currently shared more in common with an Arctic ice-drift than a human being.
‘Sapien children?’
‘Of course not. The gargoyles react only to Pneuma – and varmint.’
The lad’s pen hovered over the clipboard but he sighed without writing anything. There was no infraction to record; technically, the gargoyles, perched on the perimeter of our property, weren’t an overt use of magic in a public place, something long since banned by the Praetoriani.
‘And the sign? A little violent, isn’t it?’ He tapped his pen against it then noted down the words, mouthing them to himself. ‘Private property. Intruders will be staked. Survivors will be staked again.’
‘A little joke,’ said Nik, ‘nothing more.’
‘Hmmm.’
I was pleased he couldn’t get inside Hellingstead Hall. He’d probably drain his pen scribbling down all his grievances he’d be sure to find there. Staring right over his head, I addressed the thin, oriental man with a short, silvery beard, who despite his non-imposing stature, possessed the graceful dignity of someone in charge. ‘Do me the courtesy of an introduction.’
‘Forgive me, young warlock. I’m Julian Knight. I’ve forgotten my manners in my old age, but Isaac is immune to that excuse. He suffers from the zeal of youth instead.’
Isaac lowered his clipboard, abashed and proud at once, unsure whether to draw satisfaction or insult from his elder’s proclamation. ‘Auxiliaries are ruled by paperwork as the moon is ruled by the earth. It’s exciting for a boy to meet such an esteemed member of our community such as yourself.’
I went along with it, nodding mutely, but screaming in my head. Knight. His surname is Knight. Another puzzle piece fell from the sky and landed in my mane of curls, sinking into my brain and slotting into place. Could Julian be related to Menelaus Knight? He had to be.
There was a third man, a chauffeur-cum-bodyguard, square-jawed, and made anonymous by sleek, black sunglasses, raw knuckles gripping the steering wheel of the limousine that hummed in the middle of the road.
Julian gestured to Isaac, who stared at his feet as he held the rear door open. ‘After you,’ said Julian, and as he slipped in behind me and slammed the door, I pined for the security I was leaving behind. It was becoming a theme recently, wandering from the protected confines of my family and home, seeking adventure or at least answers, only to return with my tail between my legs.
I wasn’t sure if I would be returning. After Father’s initial outburst at the audacity of the Praetoriani showing up unannounced and demanding that he deliver me like some ransomed kid, Nikolaj had explained it was routine procedure because I was twenty-one. By Pneuma tradition that made me old enough to choose the allegiances that would define the rest of my life. As I was living within the catchment of the headquarters they had the ‘right’ to subject me to ‘Assessment’ to determine whether I would make the correct choices. That sounds an awful lot like what Raphael said to me, I thought. Nikolaj had explained it, parroting what he’d been told over the intercom: We sent Espen a letter weeks ago asking him to arrange a suitable time for an interview, but he failed to respond within the twenty-eight-day limit. Father hadn’t provided them with a mitigating circumstance for my non-attendance. Therefore, an escort was required by PVJD law to accompany me to HQ with immediate effect, or we’d have to submit our residence to a full inspection and pay a steep fine for the privilege.
The money wasn’t the issue. The inspection was. ‘They can try,’ Father had warned. ‘They won’t get far before I drown them in a flood reminiscent of the 1607 tsunami.’
‘If anyone will drown them in a flood, it’ll be me. I’m the weatherman around here.’ He cringed as I’d added, ‘I’ll go. I’ll play the innocent fool. Jörð knows I’ve done it masterfully so far.’ I was hardly in a position to protest after skulking around with a vampire and liaising, albeit accidentally, with a coven of suspect Italian witches. Besides, having my powers stripped or receiving a death sentence for killing a Guardian was not top of my to-do list, let alone Father’s, and that was the only way not to resist an official PVJD search warrant.
‘Where are you taking me?’ I strained to keep the apprehension from my voice and still my twitching fingers and toes. My stomach growled in protest, demanding fuel for the Gatekeeper. Scene after scene jumbled between the leather seats, imagined disasters playing out like holograms visible only to me. Father finding Raphael. The magistrates deciding to invade our property because I said the wrong thing. What if they found the Gatekeeper book or the amulet? Would they know what it was? Mostly, I dreaded being held prisoner whilst my father and uncle were investigated.
I felt like twine spun around a cotton reel as the limousine passed the checkpoint and completed the steep ascent to Praetoriani HQ. The colonnaded porch was built to intimidate, appearing suddenly from its hidden position in a forest of fir trees, and when we ascended the steps and gathered in the vast hallway the sweat prickled my skin like so many fine needles.
The wood panelling provided a rich background for the multitude of oil paintings, the subjects plucked from Greek and Roman mythology. A dome, similar to the one in the temple, hovered over a staircase that dwarfed Hellingstead Hall’s. I was lost in the number of doors opening and shutting as staff rushed across the gleaming floors, so sparkling that I could see my legs as a blurred reflection. Julian spun me round to face a mammoth desk jutting out from an alcove created by the curving arm of the staircase.
‘Where’s that pesky guest book, Kate?’ Julian asked, tapping his walking stick against the angular contours of the desk. ‘I have a warlock for Assessment.’
Kate – a pear-shaped woman with the sallow face of someone who rarely ventured outdoors – cast her attention upwards, ready to stamp me as a Big Fat Nobody, yet another Pneuma plucked out of their insignificant lives for a few hours. She glared at Julian as if he were intruding on time she could otherwise utilise staring into space, imagining herself on a deckchair by the sea on some tropical island, reading a trashy novel, and being served by a guy called Sergio with a chiselled six-pack. ‘Name?’
I was tempted to answer with ‘Sergio’ but she had already cleared her throat, suddenly aware of who I was.
‘Theodore Clemensen?’ Her pitch rose into the realms of squeaky. I felt pleased and disturbed by the recognition; long-term isolation had spawned fantasies of celebrity during my teenage years, fuelled by the knowledge that my family’s fame extended to me, to some degree, but it was disconcerting that total strange
rs could pick me out in a crowd without ever having met me. Right then I wished I could sink into the realms of obscurity.
‘Yes, yes, take a breath of your asthma pump will you and sign us in?’ Julian seemed to enjoy Kate’s discomfort as she blushed, fumbling in her desk for a book lined with signatures. She handed it to Julian, who scribbled something before pointing to a little box.
‘Sign here.’ I flashed Kate a modest grin as I wrote my name deliberately as Theo, feeling a little guilty for her embarrassment. That good humour evaporated as I read the name next to mine. Julian Knight. I quickly scanned the page for Menelaus but found no mention of the professor.
Kate stamped the book and fastened a wristband onto my arm, branding me as Praetoriani property for the foreseeable future.
Isaac drifted away as we passed the automatic doors that opened into a conference room, and another that led to cafeterias overlooking the courtyard. Julian didn’t try to prevent me from nosing around, but stopped and started with me, scratching his beard, and humming to himself. ‘This way, young Clemensen,’ he said at last, and I followed him down the spiral staircase that plummeted below ground, reaching a reception area surrounded by reinforced doors like you’d find in a bank vault or a panic room. Jörð, I’m close to panicking now, I thought.
Living in a grand estate had left me with a dislike of small spaces, and being packed in the tight, square room underground hammered on my big, red claustrophobia button. I counted the guards, ensconced in armoured clothing and holding batons, and Jörð knew what else. Ten in all, big guys, and one scary woman with cropped hair and muscles rivalling my own, who would’ve been at home in a wrestling ring. They were all staring at me.
The Assessment had already started, apparently; the guards scrutinised my composure as if scanning a field for hidden mines. I smiled weakly, avoiding piercing stares.
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