by Susan Cooper
Porpoises played above their heads; great grey sharks cruised and turned, glancing curiously down as the two Old Ones flashed by. Down and down they went, to the twilight zone, that dim-lit layer of the ocean where only a little of the day can reach; where all the fish—long slender fish with great mouths, strange flattened fish with telescopic eyes—glowed with a cold light of their own. Then they were down in the deep sea, that covers more of the surface of the earth than any land or grass or tree, mountain or desert; in the cold dark where no normal man may see or survive. This was a region of fear and treachery, where every fish ate every other fish, where life was made only of fierce attack and the terror of desperate flight. Will saw huge toad-like fish with bright-tipped fishing-lines curving up from their backs, to hang cruelly alluring over wide mouths bristling with teeth. He saw a dreadful creature that seemed all mouth, a vast mouth like a funnel with a lid, and a puny body dwindling into a long whiplash tail. Beside it, the body of another began to swell horribly, as a big fish, struggling, disappeared inside the trap-like mouth. Will shuddered.
“No light,” he said to Merriman, as they flashed onwards. “No joy in anything. Nothing but fear.”
“This is not the world of men,” Merriman said. “It is Tethys’ world.”
Even in the darkest sea they knew they were observed and escorted all the way, by subjects of Tethys invisible even to an Old One’s eye. News came to the Lady of the Sea long, long before anyone might approach. She had her own ways. Older than the land, older than the Old Ones, older than all men, she ruled her kingdom of waves as she had since the world began: alone, absolute.
They came to a great crack in the bed of the sea, an abyss deeper than all the ocean deeps. A fine red mud covered the ocean floor. Though they had left all vestige of daylight long behind, miles above their heads, yet there was light of another kind in the black water, by which they could see as the creatures of the deep water saw. Eyes watched them from the darkness, from cracks and crevices. They were reaching the place for which they were bound.
As Will and Merriman slowed their rushing course, there in the lost places of the ocean, they could sense all these watchers around them, but slowly, vaguely, as if in a dream. And when at last the sea brought them to Tethys, they could not see her at all. She was a presence merely, she was the sea itself, and they spoke to her reverently, in the Old Speech.
“Welcome,” said Tethys to them out of the darkness of the deeps of her sea. “Welcome to you, Old Ones of the earth. I have seen none of your kind for some little time now, for some fifteen centuries or so.”
“And then it was I,” Merriman said, smiling.
“And then indeed it was you, hawk,” said she. “And one other, greater, with you, but this is not he, I think.”
“I am new on the earth, madam, but I bring you my deep respect,” said Will.
“Ah . . . .” Tethys said. “Aaaaah. . . .” And her sigh was the sighing of the sea.
“Hawk,” she said then. “Why have you come again, this hard voyaging?”
“To beg a favour, lady,” Merriman said.
“Of course,” she said. “It is always so.”
“And to bring a gift,” he said.
“Ah?” There was a slight stirring in the shadows of the deep, like a gentle swell on the sea.
Will turned his head to Merriman in surprise; he had not known of any gift-bringing, though he realised now how proper it must be. Merriman drew from his sleeve a rolled piece of paper, a glimmering cylinder in the gloom; he unrolled it, and Will saw that it was Barney’s drawing of Trewissick. He peered closer, curious, and saw a pen-and-ink sketch, rough but lively; the background of harbour and houses was no more than lightly outlined, and Barney had given all his attention to a detailed drawing in the foreground of a single fishing-boat and a patch of rippled sea. He had even drawn in the name on the boat’s stern: she was called the White Lady.
Merriman held the drawing at arm’s length, and released it into the sea; instantly it vanished into the shadow. There was a pause, then a soft laugh from Tethys. She sounded pleased.
“So the fishermen do not forget,” she said. “Even after so long, some do not forget.”
“The power of the sea will never change,” Will said softly. “Even men recognise that. And these are islanders.”
“And these are islanders.” Tethys played with the words. “And they are my people, if any are.”
“They do as they have always done,” Merriman said. “They go out to the sea for fish at the going down of the sun, and with the dawn they return again. And once every year, when spring is full and summer lies ahead, they make for you, for the White Lady, a green figure of branches and leaves, and cast it down as a gift.”
“The Greenwitch,” Tethys said. “It has been born again already, this is the season. It will be here soon.” A coldness came into the voice that filtered from the shadows. “What is this favour you ask, hawk? The Greenwitch is mine.”
“The Greenwitch has always been yours, and always will. But because its understanding is not as great as your own, it has made the mistake of taking into its possession something that belongs to the Light.”
“That has nothing to do with me,” Tethys said.
A faint light seemed to glimmer from the blue-black shadow in which she was hidden, and all around them lights began to glow and flash from the fish and sea-creatures waiting there, watching. Will saw the dangling bait-stars over great gaping mouths; strings of round lights like port-holes running the length of strange slender fish. In the far distance he saw an odd cluster of lights of different colours, that seemed to belong to some bigger creature hidden in the shadow. He shivered, fearful of this alien element in which by enchantment they briefly breathed and swam.
“The Wild Magic has neither allies nor enemies,” Merriman said coldly. “This you know. If you may not help us, yet it is not right for you to hinder us either, for in so doing you give aid to the Dark. And if the Greenwitch keeps that which it has found, the Dark will be very much strengthened.”
“A poor argument,” Tethys said. “You mean simply that the Light will then fail to gain an advantage. But I am not permitted to help either Light or Dark to gain any advantage. . . . You speak deviously, my friend.”
“The White Lady sees everything,” Merriman said, with a soft sad humility in his tone that startled Will, until he realised that it was no more than a delicate reminder of their gift.
“Ha.” There was a flicker of amusement in the voice of the shadow. “We will have a bargain, Old Ones,” Tethys said. “You may in my name try to persuade the Greenwitch to give up this . . . something . . . that is of such value to you. Before the creature comes to the depths, this is a matter between it and you. I shall not interfere, and the Dark may not interfere either, in my realm.”
“Thank you, madam!” Will said, in quick delight.
But the voice went on, without pause, “This shall be only until the Greenwitch turns, to come to the deep sea. As it always comes, each year, to its proper home, to me . . . and after that time, Old Ones, anything that is in its possession is lost to you. You may not follow. None may follow. You may not return here, then, even by the spell which brings you here today. Should the Greenwitch choose to bring your secret down to the deeps, then in the deeps for ever it shall remain.”
Merriman made as if to speak again, but the voice from the darkness was cold. “That is all. Go now.”
“Madam—” Merriman said.
“Go!” Rage filled the voice of Tethys suddenly. There was a great flashing and roaring in the depths, all round them; strong currents rose, tugging at their limbs; fish and eels darted wildly round them in all directions, and out of the distant shadow a great shape came. It was the dark thing that carried within it the bright lights that Will had seen; nearer and nearer they came, looming larger and larger, white and purple and green, glaring out of a swelling black mass as high as a house. And Will saw with chill horror that the thin
g was a giant squid, one of the great monsters of the deep, huge and terrible. Each of its waving suckered tentacles was many times longer than his own height; he knew that it could move as fast as lightning, and that the tearing bite of its dreadful beak-like mouth could have annihilated either of them in a single instant. Fearful, he groped for a spell to destroy it.
“No!” said Merriman instantly into his mind. “Nothing will harm us here, whatever the danger may seem. The Lady of the Sea is, I think, merely . . . encouraging . . . us to leave.” He swept a low, exaggerated bow to the shadows of the deep. “Our thanks, and our homage, lady,” he called in a strong clear voice, and then with Will beside him he swept up and away, past the looming black shape of the huge squid, away to the great open green ocean, the way that they had come.
“We must go to the Greenwitch,” he said to Will. “There is no time to lose.”
“If there are the two of us,” Will cried to him as they swept along, “and we work on the Greenwitch the spell of Mana and the spell of Reck and the spell of Lir, will it give up the manuscript to us?”
“That must come afterwards,” called Merriman. “But those spells will command it to listen, and hear, for only they harness the magic with which the Greenwitch was made.”
They flashed through the sea like bars of light, out of the deep cold, up to the tropic warmth, back to the cold waters of Cornwall. But when they came to the place, beneath the waves beating their long swells against Kemare Head, the Greenwitch was not there. No sign remained. It had gone.
CHAPTER EIGHT
WHEN SIMON AND JANE ARRIVED BACK AT THE COTTAGE, THEY found Fran Stanton setting out plates on the dining-room table. “Hi,” she said. “Want some lunch? Mrs Penhallow had to leave, but she made some great-looking Cornish pasties.”
“I can smell them,” Simon said hungrily.
“Lovely,” said Jane. “Did you have a good time, where you went?”
“We didn’t go far,” Mrs Stanton said. “St Austell, round there. Clay-pits and factories and that sort of thing.” She wrinkled her friendly face. “Still, after all that’s what Bill came over for. And there’s a real magic about those big white clay pyramids, and the pools so quiet at the bottom of them. Such green water. . . . Are you having fun? What’s everyone doing?”
“Will and Great-Uncle Merry went for a walk. Barney’s over at the Grey House with Captain Toms. We’re supposed to go there too this afternoon, the captain wants us all to stay for supper,” Jane said, boldly improvising. “That is if you don’t mind.”
“Perfect,” Fran Stanton said. “Bill and I shan’t be eating here anyway—I left him seeing some guy near St Austell, and I have to go back tonight to pick him up. This afternoon I came back just to be lazy. Let’s eat—and you can tell me all about that Greenwitch deal I wasn’t allowed to watch, Jane.”
So Jane, with some difficulty, gave a description of the making of the Greenwitch as of a gay all-night party, an outing for the local girls, while Simon wolfed down Cornish pasties and tried not to catch her eye. Mrs Stanton listened happily, shaking her blonde head in admiration.
“It’s just wonderful the way these old customs are kept up,” she said. “And I think it’s great they wouldn’t let a foreigner watch. So many of our Indians back home, they let the white man in to watch their native dances, and before you know it the whole thing’s just a tourist trap.”
“I’m glad you weren’t offended,” Jane said. “We were afraid—”
“Oh no no no,” said Mrs Stanton. “Why, I’ve already got enough material to give a great paper on this trip to my travel group back home. We have this club, you see, it meets once a month and at each meeting someone gives a little talk, with slides, on somewhere she’s been. This is the first time,” she added a trifle wistfully, “I shall have had anywhere unusual to talk about—except Jamaica, and everyone else has been there too.”
Afterwards Jane said to Simon, as they scrambled down towards the harbour, “She’s rather sweet really. I’m glad she’ll have us to talk about to her club.”
“The natives and their quaint old customs,” Simon said.
“Come on, you aren’t even a native. You’re one of they furriners from London.”
“But I’m not so much outside it all as she is. Not her fault. She just comes from such a long way away, she isn’t plugged in. Like all those people who go to the museum and look at the grail and say, oh, how wonderful, without the least idea of what it really is.”
“You mean people who used to look at it, when it was there.”
“Oh lord. Yes.”
“Well anyway,” said Jane, “we’d be the same as Mrs Stanton if we were in her country.”
“Of course we would, that’s not the point. . . .”
They bickered amiably as they crossed the quay and started up the hill towards the Grey House. Pausing to get her breath, Jane looked back the way they had come. All at once she clutched the wall beside her, and stood there, staring.
“Simon!”
“What is it?”
“Look!”
Down in the harbour, in the very centre of the quay, was the painter, the man of the Dark. He sat on a folding stool before an easel, with a knapsack open on the ground beside him, and he was painting. There was no urgency in his movements; he sat there tranquil and unhurried, dabbing at the canvas. Two visitors paused behind him to watch; he paid them no attention, but went serenely on with his work.
“Just sitting there!” Simon said, astounded.
“It’s a trick. It must be. Perhaps he has an accomplice, someone off doing things for him while he attracts our attention.”
Simon said slowly, “There was no sign of anyone else having been in the caravan. And the farm looked as if it had been empty for years.”
“Let’s go and tell the captain.”
But there was no need to tell him. At the Grey House, they found Barney perched in a small high room overlooking the harbour, studying the painter through Captain Toms’ largest telescope. The old man himself, having let them in, remained below. “This foot of mine,” he said ruefully, “isn’t too grand at climbing up and down stairs.”
“But I bet you he could see as much with his eyes shut, if he wanted to, as I can through this thing,” Barney said, squinting down the telescope with one eye closed and his face screwed up. “He’s special. You know? Just like Gumerry. They’re the same kind.”
“But what kind is that, I wonder?” Jane said thoughtfully.
“Who knows?” Barney stood up, stretching. “A weird kind. A super kind. The kind that belongs to the Light.”
“Whatever that is.”
“Yes. Whatever that is.”
“Hey Jane, look at this!” Simon was bending to the eyepiece of the telescope. “It’s fantastic, like being right on top of him. You can practically count his eyelashes.”
“I’ve been staring at that face so long I could draw it from memory,” Barney said.
Simon was glued to the lens, entranced. “It’s as good as being able to hear anything he says. You might even be able to lip-read. You can see every single little change of expression.”
“That’s right,” Barney said. He looked casually out of the window; breathed on the pane; drew a little face in the misted patch of glass, and then rubbed it out again. “The view of his face is terrific. The only trouble is, there’s no view of his painting at all.”
Jane had taken her turn at the telescope now. She gazed nervously at the face caught out of the distance by the powerful lens: a dark-browed face, grim with concentration, framed by the long unruly hair. “Well yes, from this angle of course you’re just looking at the back of the easel, looking down at his face over the top of the canvas. But that’s not important, is it?”
“It is if you’re an artist, like Barney,” Simon said. He clasped his head, striking an extravagant artistic pose.
“Ha ha,” said Barney, with heavy patience. “It’s not just that. I thought the picture might
be important.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Captain Toms did ask me what he was painting.”
“What did he say when you said you couldn’t see?”
“He didn’t say anything.”
“Well then.”
“Your painter doesn’t change his expression one bit, does he?” Jane was still peering. “Just sits there glaring at the canvas. Funny.”
“Not very funny,” Simon said. “He’s a glaring sort of man.”
“No, I mean it’s funny he doesn’t look anywhere else. If you watch Mother when she’s painting a landscape, you can see her eyes going up and down all the time. Flickering. From whatever it is she’s painting, down to the picture and then back again. But he’s not doing that at all.”
“Let me have another look.” Barney edged her aside and stared eagerly into the lens, grabbing his blonde forelock out of the way. “You know, you’re right. Why didn’t I notice that?” He thumped his knee with his fist.
“I still don’t see what there is to get excited about,” Simon said mildly.
“Well, perhaps it’s nothing. But let’s go and tell Captain Toms anyway.”
They clattered down three flights of stairs, and into the book-lined living-room at the front of the house. Rufus stood up and waved his tail at them. Captain Toms was standing beside one of the bookcases, gazing at a small book open in his hands. He looked up as they rushed to him, and closed the book.
“What news, citizens?” he said.
Barney said, “He’s still sitting there painting. But Jane just noticed something, he’s not painting from life. I mean he just looks at the canvas, without even glancing at anything else at all.”
“So he might just as well be painting in his caravan as painting here,” said Simon, his mind now in gear. “So, he can’t really be here to paint, he must be here for some other reason.”
