Buried Fire

by Jonathan Stroud

  A little further forward, squeezed down between two upright stones, Tom lay on his stomach with the spear pressed close beside him. One rust-covered curve of the spear-head was so near that it brushed against his cheek; he smelt the sharp metal tang, saw its unfocused reddish-blackness in the corner of his eye as he looked down on Sarah crumpled fifty yards away on the floor of the hollow. His heart thudded painfully against the ground, his mouth was clagged with dry spittle.

  Oh God, help me, he thought. Tell me what I must do.

  His head moved slightly. The old iron pressed against his cheek, marking it with a brown scar.

  Now the note of the Third Gift echoed round the hollow. Vanessa Sawcroft, standing opposite the grocer with his hands on fire, stiffened where she stood. Her bad arm was pressed against her chest, the other was rigid by her side. Slowly she rose from the ground, at first with a fluid ease, and then with sudden checks and judders. Stephen noticed a spasm of pain break over her face, and felt her thought suddenly lash out across the gathering music of the circle.

  'George,' it said. 'Quickly. The pull is terrible.'

  Immediately came the response. The Fourth Gift, the internal eye, was all around them, seeing into their every doubt and fear, rolling over the pain of their effort and reassuring them with its presence. Mr Cleever's energy was unleashed. He flooded the hollow with it, immersing and cradling each one of the other three, nursing their reserves ready for the final summoning.

  Tom felt the iron burn cold against his cheek, and at that moment, Mr Cleever's presence passed over him between the stones, ignored him, and was gone.

  Stephen was taken unawares. He had no time to mount a defence, and it would not have done him any good had he done so. He ducked, instinctively and vainly, but Mr Cleever's eye fell hard upon him. There was a raging and a buffeting all about him; he cried out in terror and despair – then the fury receded at a great pace, and Stephen, to his own amazement, was left alive, sprawled back among the boulders of the crag.

  In an instant, Tom was with him, bounding back between the rocks with spear in hand.

  "Stephen – what's happened?"

  "It was Cleever; he was all over my mind. No, I'm all right. He pulled back, for some reason. Didn't he see you?"

  "No. But if he's spotted you, we'd better move."

  "There's no point – we're not the issue any more. Can't you feel it all around us? It's like a song."

  "I don't hear anything."

  "It's not a song in that way – but all the powers, used at once. I can't think straight. And it's getting worse – Oh God, too loud—!" To Tom's horror, Stephen fell back, clutching his head in clawing fingers. There was a sudden sound behind him from the hollow. Unwillingly, Tom turned.

  The first stage was over. The gradual build up, of gift upon gift, power upon power, until the sky and earth were ringing with them, was now complete, and Michael knew his time had come. He had watched impassively, with a tiny voice always speaking in his ear, readying him for the task ahead.

  'Yours is the finest of all powers (said the voice), equalled only by mine. Why do I whisper? So that George Cleever does not hear us. He is too busy concentrating, setting us free – we must not disturb him. Kind George. Brilliant George. I applaud his insight. But his power is dirt and dust and broken things before yours and mine. Ah, Michael, I have hung on waiting for you for such a time. My road was squeezed into a thread by the cursed trundling of those damned seasons. Bones and hide, I was, bones and hide. Softly – can you feel it? The woman struggles, George joins the harmony. Now, tighter, hold my hand. Empty your mind of all things. We must break the earth, Michael, you and I. Empty your mind. We shall receive all, and pass it to him.'

  'Now— (Mr Cleever broadcast his thought)— All four of us – direct everything to the centre, and do not stop until I tell you, or be damned to hell. Curse Vanessa (this to himself); if she ruins this through her cursed weakness—'

  Sarah saw the fire erupt with a savage joy from the grocer's fingertips. It crossed the circle directly over her in a yellow arc which sputtered tiny ropes of flame. Down into the centre it poured, and in an instant, her brother was consumed. She hid her face.

  The fire was only one of the four powers which hit Michael at that moment. All four entered him, he felt himself a vessel, a hollow thing, which was being filled. Flames licked all around, the world scorched, but the cold hand in his own protected him. In the middle of the inferno, he shivered.

  The vessel was filled. It burst. Michael's gaze, his mind, his soul was directed on the ground. All four powers tore into the earth. From beside him, unannounced, came a tremendous energy which joined the others, and augmented them, and seemed to Michael to have no limit.

  The ground was ripped asunder.

  At the Hardraker farm, the first stone fell from the topmost chimney. All along the sagging roofs, slates and tiles shuddered against each other, setting up a gentle chattering which echoed round the yards. Old doors, jolted off latches, swung themselves open with sudden violence. The people of Fordrace, who were clustered in the central yard beside the solid reassurance of their cars, were filled with panic, and moved closer to each other.

  "An earthquake!" said one man, his voice hushed with awe.

  "Don't be stupid – you don't get earthquakes in England," said a woman.

  "It could be the wind," a large man added, in a small voice.

  "We must go now." Mrs Gabriel spoke from the seat of the police car. "The place is giving us warning."

  Some of the people were so much in agreement that they opened their car doors. But others looked worried.

  "Joe and Lew are still inside," said one. "We can't go without them."

  "Don't you believe it."

  "Well, you go then. I'm staying."

  There was a sudden shudder across the whole surface of the yard. Cobblestones here and there were shaken loose from centuries of dirt, and half rose from the ground.

  "Christ, that does it!" said the large man. "I'm going." He sat heavily in his driving seat. "Anyone who's not stupid, get in."

  More than one made ready to join him, but a young man raised his chin and shouted out at the top of his voice. "Joe! Lew!"

  The farm took up the shout: mocking echoes resounded on all sides. A wooden cross-beam, somewhere in the great barn behind them, fell thirty foot with a crescendo of crashes.

  A white shape moved in the gloom of the hallway.

  "It's Joe!" cried a woman, "and he's carrying—" She broke off in bewilderment. Joe Vernon, his face suffused with red blotches of effort, appeared at the door. Behind him was Lew Potter, also staggering under the strain of the weight they carried.

  "The cross!" said someone. "The missing piece."

  "Help us take it!" Joe Vernon's voice was a croak. "We can't carry it any more."

  A dozen hands reached forward. Joe collapsed to the side. Behind him, in the darkness of the hall, was a sudden roaring.

  "Dear God," said Lew. "The walls—"

  Mrs Gabriel was suddenly amongst them. "We must take this back!" she cried. "Right now, back to the church. No argument. Sean, William, whose is the car with the door at the back?"

  "What about the boys?" said a man. "They might be—"

  Joe Vernon interrupted. "There's no one in there," he said. "We must leave. Now."

  Three windows on the first floor shattered. Glass shards sprinkled down upon the courtyard. The crowd melted into their separate cars, and doors were slammed fast against the farm's destruction.

  The fire bit into the earth. A cleft of flame and billowing smoke had been opened where Michael and Joseph Hardraker stood encased in flame. The black chair had turned to ash; now Mr Hardraker hung suspended like an unused puppet at the centre of the fire. His legs, arms and head were limp, his feet trailed over the deepening pit. Michael stood on a jutting promontory of soil, eyes closed, head bowed.

  The earth below was turned to glass, which bubbled, hardened, cracked and shattered, th
en fell away in quick succession, consumed by the furnace-heat. Michael looked below it. His sight was clear beyond anything he had imagined; he saw diamonds and quartz stones, emeralds and lodes of gold, all at unknown depths and distances.

  And there, right below him, the worm in the earth. Coil upon coil, motionless, trapped in its pore. He called out to it, looking for a response – but the stillness of centuries had to be unlearnt and the coils had fused.

  So Michael summoned it with the third and fourth powers. He rose into the air, lifting the spindly Hardraker doll with him. 'Look up!' he thought. 'Remember the sky! The most marvellous of your gifts!' He directed his mind downwards, towards the mass of scale and spine. 'Look up!' he called. 'We have heeded you at last!'

  On the edges of the circle, Mr Cleever, sensing the moment of crisis, exhorted his flagging troops to one final effort.

  Among the rocks, with his hands to his ears, Stephen opened his mouth with a soundless cry. There were flecks of blood between his fingers.

  The cords that bound Sarah's wrists blackened and snapped in the heat. Now she was on her feet, running away from the column of fire which extended into the sky. The soles of her shoes melted as she ran.

  Tom began to run down the slope towards her. He held the spear up near the head, and the base of the handle bumped against the ground.

  Then the dragon moved.

  And with that movement, the power of all those linked to the dragon by its gifts was multiplied. For so long dependent upon the worm's remembered energy, its sudden real activity flooded new life into their fading souls, creating a profound effect: of dizziness, confusion and drunken joy. This was the greater the longer they had been linked, the longer their powers had waned and shrivelled towards the deathly stillness of their master. For Michael, three days linked, the effect was minimal; he felt he had been dealt a buffet to the head, he staggered in the air and steadied himself. Paul Comfrey felt tipsy, but the sharpness of his First Gift waxed – he caught a glimpse of the coiling thing below him, and broke his sight off in fear. For Vanessa Sawcroft and Geoffrey Pilate, the effect was more pronounced. They reeled where they stood, as years of gradual dulling and slowing of the mind were reversed in seconds. George Cleever's was the most severe experience. He screamed in pain. It was as if a knife were scouring him from the inside; he tottered and half fell, and as his controlling intelligence was broken off, the summoning powers rolled upon the burning grass of the Pit in disconnected ecstasy.

  But Joseph Hardraker was engulfed by a blue fire. His hand was whipped away from Michael's, and he was curled and uncurled in mid air, surrounded by licking tongues of flame which obscured him from the sight of those below.

  I come.

  A new strength entered Stephen from outside him. The pain in his head subsided and he got groggily to his feet.

  Michael looked down into the gulf, from where there came a crashing and a rending of rocks displaced. The fire conjured by Geoffrey Pilate had vanished with the breaking of the circle, but now a new fire, issuing from the ground, rose to replace it. Behind it, rising slowly, was a whiteness. Michael felt a surge of triumph; he hovered in the smoke and surveyed his companions, who rolled like swine upon the ground. He was the only one still upright, the only one fit to greet their master.

  There was a movement at the edge of the hollow – something was trying to climb the slope. He narrowed his eyes and looked through the flames. A jewelled soul shaped like a dog's head was scrabbling on the soil, slipping backwards as it tried to ascend. Michael could not remember who this might be, and he found he could not refocus to find out. There was something else there too, just above the dog-shaped jewel; another jewel, shaped like a deer's head. It was bowed close to the other, as if in an embrace.

  *

  Beside him, the body of Joseph Hardraker jerked and contorted in its own blue nimbus. The fingers clenched and unclenched, the face blurred and changed.

  On the lip of the Pit, Tom grasped Sarah by the hand and pulled her towards him up the slope. Both tried to speak, but the roaring of the flames smothered their words. Tom pointed back towards the path and pushed her away, but Sarah resisted, holding her ground. Then suddenly he had hugged her and was gone, down into the hollow with the spear head flaring against the fire.

  Now Stephen entered Michael's mind again, stronger than before. The dragon's strength had surged in part to him. His voice carried above the gale of energy, pleading with him, but it was a hopeless plea, without any belief or fervour. Michael saw Stephen among the rocks now, a misshapen soul, in which the dragon was sullied by the stubborn nag. Michael approached him through the air and came down to land beside him. 'I told you it would be worth it. Even you are stronger now.'

  'Michael, your face—'

  'You're not still fretting! Look at us! The world ends all around us, and here we are still arguing! Everything has changed. It isn't Cleever any more. It's me – and maybe Joseph, if he lives. Well, I know you understand this; I felt you give up just then.'

  'I just haven't got anything to say.'

  'Your trouble, Stephen, is you're not one thing or the other.'

  Then Michael caught in Stephen's mind a fleeting pang of hope and fear. He saw through his eyes an image; a man running over burning ground, carrying a spear. For a moment the dislocation confused him, then he understood, and turned, in time to see the jewelled deer-soul moving fast across the hollow towards the rupture in the earth. Although with his sight he found the spear was invisible to him, he knew it must be there. He started forward, but at that moment, his brother's weight fell on him from behind, and he was borne down under a hail of blows.

  As Tom ran he felt his feet blistering from the heat through the soles of his shoes. He passed Paul Comfrey, who had risen and was looking about him in leaderless confusion. On his right, Geoffrey Pilate was also stirring. For a moment, Tom was tempted to deal with him before he recovered, but his priority was clear. The edge of the Pit was charred black; it shook, and lumps fell away into the void. Tom approached, holding the spear steady in both hands. The expectation of his own death hung heavily on him, weighing down every step. He hoped against hope that Sarah would have had the sense to get away, but he knew in his heart that she was still close by. Smoke billowed from the Pit. A hissing noise sounded above the rumbling which came from just beneath the lip.

  Tom crouched close beside the hole, just beyond the reach of the flickering heat. The spear was curiously cold in his grasp, and its rusty head showed black against the fire.

  Then a pale thing rose at the heart of the flames, oval in shape and swaying, a dull white sheen surrounded by blue fire. A poison plume of sulphur belched forth with it, blinding Tom for a moment and wracking his lungs. There was a high-pitched screaming which deafened him. His grip on the spear weakened, then grew tight again, and he tried to focus on the distance between him and the slender shape which still swayed sightlessly before him.

  A scream of hate from above. Down from the smoke came an unknown youth with jet black hair and eyes of fire, naked except for the charred remnants of an orange garment around his shoulders. His thin lips were set in a smile of madness. He gestured – and Tom was afire.

  Beside Joseph Hardraker, the dragon's head thrashed back and forth with spasmodic fury as it struggled to free its body from the earth. One great white claw lunged in the smoke and smote the ground. Cracks ran outwards across the breadth of the Wirrinlow.

  Sarah stood on the ridge surveying the chaos below her, consumed by indecision. Terror told her to run – run and not look back until her sanity was restored. Yet, even in her fear and amid the confusion of smoke and flames, which belched forth from holes and craters across the hollow, she could pick out three people with crystal clarity.

  Her brothers, rolling in the ashes, punching and tearing at each other like dogs. Tom crouching by the Pit, a silhouette against the flames. Then he was on fire, and something erupted in Sarah unlike any anger she had ever known. A madness had consu
med her family, and everything she held dear was being destroyed. Enough. It would not continue. Propelled by her fury she was halfway back across the Pit before she quite knew what she was doing.

  Outside St Wyndham's church, the people watched the smoke rise from the Wirrim. They were entirely silent now, except for desultory moans whenever a new flare showed against the darkening sky. Only Mrs Gabriel, orchestrating her helpers with terse commands, ignored the spectacle.

  "We shall use the main door. Is it open?"

  "I'll see." Joe Vernon ran across. "Yes."

  "Quickly then, pick it up. Carefully! We mustn't chip it. Are you ready, Lew? Right. As fast as you can. Keith, you hold the door. Now one at a time – you first Joe. Mind your backside."

  As they entered the church, a muffled explosion sounded from high up on the hill. The nave was lit with freckles of colour from the windows. Silently, with only puffs and wheezes from the men, they passed along the aisle to the vestry, where the curtain was already drawn back. The Fordrace Cross lay there on its trolley, its broken face towards them. Mrs Gabriel surveyed first it and then the single arm with a decisive eye.

  "Can you hurry, please?" Lew Potter begged. "My arm's killing me."

  "It looks all right," said Mrs Gabriel, ignoring him. "It is a clean break, thank the Lord. And positioned in the centre of the trolley. Right. Lower it down then – no, Joe, move around, can't you see you've got the top bit? That's it. Gently. As near flush as you can. Fingers out? Good. Now Joe, push it into place. Give him a hand, William. Well done."

  "Christ Almighty! What was that?" cried Joe. With drained faces the men looked at one another, and then as one they ran back down the nave, leaving Mrs Gabriel alone by the united cross. Without haste, she sat herself down on a nearby chair in the vestry, and pressing her lips together, began her vigil.

  The worm had not yet freed itself fully when the stone bond was renewed. As it felt the pressure return, a red line, studded with spikes, opened in its head and let forth a scream of rage which broke against the sky and rebounded across the Wirrim's slopes as far as Stanbridge and back again. Its newly waxing strength was weakened, but it had its response ready. Quickly, it drew on the reserves of its nearby cohorts to win free of the ground. Everyone, from the numinous Hardraker hovering in the air, to Stephen, who lay unconscious beneath his brother's furious onslaught, had their power sucked from them.