Grindhelm's Key

by Nick Moseley

  The Greenweave represented the source of the druids’ power. All plant life was capable of absorbing the psychic energy that humans – and other sentient beings – shed, and as such formed a loose “network” that a druid could access by making contact with a plant and entering a trance state. The larger and older the plant, the more energy it could hold, so areas of ancient woodland were very important to the druids.

  ‘You didn’t really explain why you were helping the druids out, either,’ said Trev. ‘Didn’t they excommunicate you for using the Greenweave without their permission?’

  Cled nodded. ‘Yeah. I got an official notice from the Council of Druids, and everything. On parchment. Bloody parchment! Can you believe it? All flowery language, of course, but basically what it said was blah, blah, blah, uninitiated druid, blah, blah, blah, unsupervised use of the Greenweave, blah, blah, blah, permanent exclusion from the Order. And that was that, or so I thought.’

  ‘But?’ said Trev.

  ‘Well, the Primal Druid – the big boss – was a bloke called Simon Alder,’ said Cled. ‘Total wanker. He hated my old greenman, Ted, because he wasn’t interested in all the robes and ceremonies and Council politics. He was just about being a druid. If Ted had decided to put himself up as a candidate for Primal Druid, he’d have wiped the floor with the likes of Alder, and Alder knew it. He objected to Ted training me, because I wasn’t “of the right lineage” or some bollocks. So of course when Ted died Alder made sure that nobody else would take me on as a student, and without a greenman to put you forward to the Council, you can’t take the initiation. So I was fully trained but couldn’t become a “proper” druid.’

  ‘And using the Greenweave without permission was the final nail in the coffin.’

  ‘Right. So I thought I’d had it. But then something happened. Alder thought that the Primal Druid should always look like the Primal Druid, so he wore his robes of office all the time. One morning he trod on the hem at the top of his stairs and fell. And his house had a lot of stairs.’

  ‘Was he badly hurt?’

  ‘Broke his neck,’ Cled said. ‘With the Primal Druid dead, there had to be an election. Alder had a small group of cronies who’d always backed him, but without him they all stood against each other and split the ultra-conservative vote which allowed a more moderate candidate to sneak in. Bloke called Arthur Vale.’

  ‘And he’s willing to let you back in?’

  Cled shrugged. ‘Maybe. He didn’t much like Ted either, but there weren’t many on the Council who did. Vale’s not stupid enough to cut off his nose to spite his face like Alder was, though. He knows I’m good and he knows that with their numbers falling, the druids can’t afford to leave me out in the cold. But he can’t just welcome me back in – the conservatives don’t like the idea of letting me take the initiation having been banned by the last Primal Druid. So I have to jump through some hoops.’

  ‘And dealing with the elemental was one of those hoops?’

  ‘I wasn’t doing it for shits and giggles, chief.’

  ‘Wow. It’s like a low-budget remake of the Labours of Hercules,’ said Oscar. ‘Though I seem to remember that he got disqualified from one of the Labours because he had his nephew helping him…’

  ‘Does it matter that I helped you?’ Trev asked Cled. ‘Were you supposed to do the job on your own?’

  ‘I wasn’t allowed to ask the Custodians for help,’ Cled said. ‘And as you still aren’t officially a Custodian, I think we’re all right.’

  ‘You’re welcome,’ said Trev, pointedly.

  ‘Oh yeah, right, sorry,’ said Cled. ‘Thanks for your help. Owe you one.’

  ‘Bloody right,’ Trev replied.

  They arrived at the Land Rover and Trev stamped his feet and blew into his cupped hands while he waited for Cled to force the frozen doors open, which was finally achieved by the use of a screwdriver and some colourful language. Trev settled himself on the threadbare seat and waited for the heater to do something other than blow cold air at him. It was quite a long wait.

  ‘Shouldn’t be too hard to find a pub that’s still serving,’ said Cled, bouncing them across the field and onto the road. ‘Even the Spigot’s got a late licence these days.’

  ‘Cled?’ said Trev.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Might be a stupid question, but you did know how to trap that elemental, right? You didn’t drag me out here to keep that thing busy while you tried to figure it out on the fly?’

  Cled tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. ‘Well.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I knew the theory.’

  Trev’s left eyebrow slid upwards of its own accord. ‘The theory?’

  ‘Come on, it’s not like I could’ve had a practice beforehand, is it?’

  ‘And where did you learn this… theory?’

  Cled shrugged. ‘You know. The, um, druidic oral tradition.’

  ‘So, pub anecdotes that very old druids told each other across the campfire, then? “Hey dude, did I ever tell you about the time I, like, totally banished this earth elemental?”’

  ‘The druidic oral tradition is far more solemn and dignified than that,’ said Cled. ‘And the ancient druids only occasionally called each other “dude”.’

  Trev ran a hand through his muddy hair. ‘So you had literally no idea whether the theory would work?’

  ‘No, I knew it would work,’ said Cled. ‘The druids managed to capture all those earth elementals back in the day, right? I just wasn’t sure that it would work for me.’

  ‘Two pints,’ said Trev. ‘Two pints and the crisps.’

  ‘Cheap date,’ Oscar remarked from the depths of Trev’s pocket.

  ‘Right, two pints and a packet of crisps,’ said Cled. ‘You risked your life, you should be rewarded. Fair.’

  ‘And I get to choose the flavour of the crisps,’ said Trev. ‘No bloody fobbing me off with prawn cocktail or cheese and onion or something. Smoky bacon, minimum.’

  Cled held out his hand. ‘Deal.’

  Trev shook it. He was sure that he ought to be angry at his friend, but all he really felt was tired. Tired and sore. ‘Almost got myself killed for two pints and a packet of crisps. I was going to say “this is a new low”, but the scary fact is I’m not actually sure that’s true.’

  ‘Not even close,’ said Oscar.

  ‘I’m not sure I want to know, but out of morbid curiosity I have to ask,’ Trev continued, ‘what did the solemn and dignified druidic oral tradition actually tell you?’

  ‘Quite a lot, as it happens,’ said Cled. ‘The druids take this stuff seriously. It’s not like Chinese whispers, there are strict rules about how knowledge is passed down. There aren’t many books. The Council have always made sure that the only way you can learn to be a druid is by training with a druid. I had to learn it all from Ted. The Council doesn’t like druidic lore being written down.’

  ‘How did you remember it all?’

  ‘I wrote it down.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So it was all in my notes. I had to draw the energy out of the Greenweave, so it formed a sort of net in the air, then bind it back to the trees’ roots. An elemental is mostly energy itself, so it gets caught up in the net and bound to the roots with it. Job done.’

  ‘Where it’s trapped for hundreds of years, alone.’ Oscar’s voice drifted up from Trev’s pocket. His voice was missing its usual mocking tone.

  Trev paused. ‘And… what would’ve happened if you hadn’t pulled me out of there?’

  ‘Ah, but I did pull you out, didn’t I?’

  ‘Cled…’

  Cled puffed out his cheeks. ‘To be honest I’m not a hundred percent sure. But it might have, you know, pulled your soul out and trapped it with the elemental.’

  ‘Three pints,’ said Trev.

  ‘OK, fine. Three. Still want the crisps?’

  ‘Of course I bloody do.’

  ‘Just checking. So what have you been up to lately? Pro
perty market lively?’

  ‘Not really,’ said Trev. ‘Lots of lookers in the New Year, but not so many actual buyers.’

  ‘Speaking of lookers, did you ever track down your runaway girlfriend? What was her name, Sarah?’

  Trev frowned. ‘Just for bringing that subject up, it’s now four pints.’

  ‘What? Seriously? That was a perfectly reasonable question.’

  ‘Five pints.’

  ‘Oh come on. Have a word with yourself. No need to get your arse in your hand just because you discovered your girlfriend was only seeing you because she was spying on you for some mysterious organisation that possibly wants you dead. We’ve all been there.’

  ‘You carry on like this, and you’re going to end up buying me a whole pub,’ Trev growled.

  Cled stroked his chin. ‘I don’t know about that, but I might run to another packet of crisps.’

  Four

  Trev got his five pints, which was the main reason for him sleeping through his alarm the following morning. The part of his brain that dealt with boring things like responsibility, morality and good judgement shouted at him until he cracked an eye open and struggled to focus on his bedside clock.

  ‘Crap,’ he said, quickly doing a mental calculation that told him he’d need to leave for work in the next seven minutes in order to avoid being late again. He leapt out of bed. Or rather, he intended to leap out of bed. What actually happened was more of a slow-motion flop.

  He ran a hand through his hair, which was stiff with mud and dried blood. He’d drawn a few comments from the regulars in the Spigot & Ferret pub when he’d walked in with Cled the previous night, but that was par for the course. Douglas, the ancient landlord, had raised his eyebrows a fraction on clocking Trev’s dishevelled state, which was a dramatic reaction by his standards. Fortunately he hadn’t been shocked enough to spill Trev’s pint.

  Trev wasted a minute of his available seven in wondering which part of his morning routine he could afford to sacrifice; he had to have a shower, and he couldn’t in all good conscience skip the “getting dressed” stage, so he chose to go without breakfast instead. That decision made, he shuffled in the direction of the bathroom.

  He managed to get showered and dressed in nine minutes, which he thought was pretty respectable under the circumstances. He headed for the front door, pausing only to kick the side of the sofa, upon which Cled was snoring thunderously.

  ‘Wha’?’ said the Welshman. His eyes creaked open and he squinted at Trev before letting fly with the kind of belch that registers on the Richter scale.

  ‘I’m going to work, so let yourself out,’ said Trev, leaning away from the fumes.

  ‘Tidy,’ said Cled, rolling over and settling back down.

  ‘The parking on your car runs out in twenty minutes, by the way,’ said Trev as he left. A volley of swear-words followed him out of the door.

  The morning was bright and clear. It was also well below freezing. Trev hadn’t got a wide selection of winter coats to choose from, and the demise of his trenchcoat had left him with an old Army-surplus camouflage jacket as his only option. It looked ridiculous over the top of his business suit, but he preferred to be unfashionable rather than cold.

  He set off down the street. Although the pavement had been gritted there were still mounds of snow and patches of ice everywhere and Trev found it difficult to keep up a steady pace. He had a car, but the ancient Rover didn’t much like cold weather. In the time it would take to nurse the beast into life, Trev could walk to work, make a cup of tea, do a cryptic crossword and cure world hunger.

  He pulled out his phone to check the time and saw that he had a new voicemail, from a withheld number. He frowned. He’d put the phone in silent mode ahead of his trip to the woods with Cled and had forgotten to switch the ringer back on. The missed calls log told him that the message had been received the previous night. Trev dialled in to his mailbox.

  There was the sound of breathing, and then a familiar voice.

  ‘Trev, it’s me. Sarah.’

  Trev almost fell over his own feet. Sarah? He hadn’t expected ever to hear from her again. They’d been work colleagues first, then had ended up seeing each other; Trev had made a good impression by rescuing her from a demon. He’d thought things were going well but she’d then dumped him out of the blue, confessing that she’d been employed by an unnamed organisation to monitor him. She’d quit her job and left Brackenford, and Trev hadn’t had any contact with her since.

  ‘I’m sorry to ring you like this, but I’m in trouble and I don’t know who else to call.’

  ‘Sounds about right,’ Trev muttered.

  ‘The organisation I worked for, they’re called The Eyes of Nona. They found me. I tried to disappear but they tracked me down. They gave me a job and no choice about doing it. It went wrong.’

  Trev felt a wave of unease sweep through him. The major part of it was concern for Sarah, and the rest was guilt for having missed the call. What did she mean by “in trouble”? A rapid cycle of unpleasant possibilities rattled through Trev’s mind.

  ‘They sent two of us to steal an item. I still don’t know what it is, but it’s valuable. The Eyes weren’t the only people after it. The guy who had it caught us breaking in. He killed the man I was working with and he’s holding me as a sort of hostage.’

  Trev let out the breath he’d been holding. If she was a hostage then she was at least still alive. He hoped.

  Sarah made a sound that was halfway between a laugh and a sob. ‘I don’t know what I’m expecting you to do about it. I don’t know where we are. I don’t know the name of the man holding me. I don’t even know the number of this bloody phone.’

  ‘Come on, give me something,’ said Trev.

  ‘I think he’s coming back. I’ll hide the phone and try to call you again when I can. Sorry to drop this on you. But please, if there’s anything you can… shit.’

  There was a rustle and the message ended.

  Trev took the phone away from his ear and stared at it. His heart was thumping. What the hell was he supposed to do? He had no way of tracking her down. He could report her missing to the police, but despite her having been his girlfriend – kind of – he knew very little about her. He couldn’t give them her date of birth, address or next of kin. He didn’t know where she’d been when she’d been caught, or where she was now. And he didn’t think the police would have heard of The Eyes of Nona, whoever they were.

  He made sure the ringer was working on his phone and put it back in his pocket. Got to get to work first, he thought. Then I’ll call Granddad. Maybe the Custodians can help. It wasn’t much of a plan, but his brain was still on low-power mode.

  Another time-check as he arrived at the offices of SmoothMove estate agents on Chilgate Street told Trev that he was just over ten minutes late. Considering how he’d started the day it wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been, and it would probably have gone unremarked were it not for the fact that his recent timekeeping had been diabolical. His colleagues were halfway through their morning meeting as Trev entered the office.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, taking a seat.

  Helen Frost, the sales manager, gave him a stare that lived up to her surname. She brushed her short blonde hair away from her face and turned her attention back to Phil Grant, the valuations manager. ‘Phil, you were saying?’

  ‘Er, yeah,’ said Phil. He was a tall, handsome black man with a fussily-trimmed goatee beard. He pointed to his laptop, which was displaying a photo of a nondescript semi-detached. ‘The house on Renton Road. Three-bed semi, good condition. Owner’s a bit of an arse but he’s realistic about the price. I’m going round there later to get the agency agreement signed, so we need to start lining up some viewings.’

  ‘All right,’ said Helen. ‘Barry, Trev, that’s your first job today.’

  ‘No problem,’ said Barry Clark, who was sitting next to Trev. He was a fat, pasty-faced man in his fifties. He glanced at Trev and flashed him an e
xpression of insufferable smugness. ‘I can think of five or six buyers off the top of my head who’d be interested in that place.’

  ‘Good, call them first thing,’ said Helen. ‘Trev?’

  Trev blinked. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Have you got any buyers for this house?’

  ‘Probably,’ said Trev. ‘I’ll have to have a look.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have to look, you should know,’ said Helen. She sighed. ‘What’s next, Phil?’

  Phil’s screen changed to show a tidy little terraced house. He began listing the details but Trev tuned out within seconds. He sorted through his frazzled thoughts and tried to come up with an idea for finding Sarah. No blinding insights or sparks of inspiration struck him. This was perhaps unsurprising, given that a combination of physical exertion, alcohol consumption and lack of sleep had reduced his mental faculties to a state only slightly above comatose.

  He became aware that the annoying buzz of conversation in the background had stopped. He looked up. His three colleagues were staring at him.

  ‘What?’ he said.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you, but we were talking about selling houses,’ said Helen. Her voice was expressionless but her eyes weren’t. ‘You know, what you’re being paid to do.’

  ‘For the time being,’ murmured Barry.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Trev again. He looked at Phil’s screen. ‘What’s the price on this one?’

  ‘I haven’t got it on the market yet,’ said Phil. ‘Going to see it today. We were discussing potential value.’

  ‘Some of us were,’ said Helen. She looked at her watch. ‘All right, it’s five to nine. Let’s get started.’ Trev made to go to his desk, but she stopped him. ‘Trev, I want to speak to you in the back office.’

  She didn’t wait for a response, disappearing through the door that led to the staff area. Trev gulped and went after her. When he reached the back office she was standing there with her arms folded. Trev had always fancied her a bit, but she didn’t look at all alluring at that moment. She definitely hadn’t called him to the back office for a romantic tryst.

  She looked him up and down. ‘God, look at the state of you,’ she said.