John was slumped against the fallen trunk, thinking of the yellow walls of Fir Trees Care Home, of the tired, hopeless look in the eyes of the other families he sometimes saw there, as they lost a loved one to dementia.
"My mother," he said. "She took the curse from me."
He knew now what he had avoided hearing when he'd phoned Fir Trees, the truth that should have been clear from his dreams that night. His mother was dead. He wept, and when the old man who looked like a boy knelt beside him and put a hand on his shoulder, he did not push him away. He sobbed like a child for the lost chance to tell his mother he loved her, and for the way he had interpreted her distance as lack of love when it had been the opposite all along.
When John had stopped crying, Gai created a fire and hung a wooden kettle filled with stream water and dried leaves above it. Despite the obvious flaw with a wooden kettle, John was unsurprised when the flames left no mark on it as the water boiled. Gai poured two cups. The tea was rich and complex; bitter to the taste with a sweet finish.
"Magic use is restricted to three families on Earth. Your family is one of the Three. Your mother was an Adept."
John knew it was the truth. He had surrendered to the illness, or, as he knew now, the curse, sinking away from his life, and his mother had pulled him back. She had searched for him in the white landscape, cradling her son like an infant when she had found him. John had opened his eyes in a hospital room.
He finished his tea, and Gai refilled his cup. "My mother lived with that curse for three decades before it destroyed her."
"Then she was truly powerful. I wish I could have known her."
"What does it mean, to be an Adept? What do they do?'
"Your mother maintained the Accord, along with the other two Adepts. The Three use their ability, when necessary, without exposing the existence of magic in your realm."
"And that's what I am? One of these Adepts?"
Gai's mischievous smile was back. "Well, you're a riddle, John. The Three, the noones, all of them would answer no to that question. In fact, they'd go further. They'd insist, because you're male, that you are genetically incapable of using magic. My father will be delighted that you can. His theory was right. He's always been derided for his interest in human science. Now he's been vindicated." Gai took another sip and frowned. "That's bad, actually. He'll be insufferable."
"What theory?"
"Oh. Right. Well, I am yet to study humans in the same depth as Father, so my knowledge is a little patchy, I'm afraid. As far as I understand, every human is born with two crime zones, correct?"
"Two what?"
"Er... crime zones? Creamy sons? Damnation. Tiny things that tell you, when you are unborn, whether you should be male or female. They are why, and they are hex."
John's blank stare changed to dawning realisation. "Chromosomes?"
"That's what I said, yes, good. Crummy zomes. Saying hex and why."
"X and Y. Women have XX, men have XY."
"Yes, yes, of course." Gai was becoming animated, pacing around the fire and illustrating his points by jabbing a stick in the air. If he hadn't been sure before, John was now convinced Gai had only the vaguest idea what he was talking about.
"Now, females are the only magicians in the Earth realm because of the way they mirror the natural order within their bodies. Or so we've always believed. Like the moon, females follow a monthly pattern. The story of life and death is re-enacted inside them every moon. What they take from the earth in food and drink, they give back in blood. The female can grow new life, containing it inside her."
John looked unconvinced, and Gai, noticing, poked his arm with the stick.
"Father said it was rubbish. He thinks it's all down to this why crummy zone. It prevents a man from using magic.
"Okay," said John. "But if your father is right, that doesn't explain me. I have a Y chromosome as far as I know."
"Ha!" said Gai, with a flourish of his stick. "You have one, yes. But your scientists have discovered that the why chrome thing has gradually been weakening. Not disappearing, but losing its purpose. He says it's like an organ in the human body. The foreword? No, the epilogue? No. What is it, come on, the useless organ, what's it called?" He prodded John in the stomach.
"Appendix?"
"That's the fellow! Yes, it's like the appendix. Or, rather, it will be like the appendix, eventually. It's heading that way. It's still present, but it is losing its usefulness. Father said there would be individuals who would leap forward, whose why chromosome—that's it, told you I knew what it was—would become redundant early. That's you! You're a mutant!"
"Thank you so much," said John. "So, there will be others?"
"Other mutants? I don't know. Very unlikely any other mutants are the sons of Adepts though."
"But when the Y chromosome has gone, all men will be able to use magic?"
"Yes. Father said it'll happen in about...," Gai screwed up his face, "a hundred million years."
"Right. So for now, it's... just me?"
"Almost certainly," said Gai. "The first male Adept. You're making history. If you survive."
"Thanks for that."
Later, after Gai had shared a loaf of flatbread flavoured with herbs, John found his instinct for self-preservation had been joined by a wish to avenge his mother.
"Tell me about the time cage," he said.
"It's designed to imprison a being with significant magical power. The cage is kept within the Blurred Lands so that Earth's magical resources can maintain its integrity. If Astarte can't break out, the only feasible way she might escape would be if another powerful magician took her place. When you were younger, she must have thought she could make you so obsessed with her you would be willing to sacrifice yourself. She is the god of love after all. What chance would an unprepared human male have against her allure?"
"She wasn't easy to resist. But she hadn't reckoned on Chris and Alison."
"Who?"
"Friends. They reminded me that there was a world outside of Ash's bedroom. A world I realised she was no part of. I split up with her. That was the night she cursed me. I should have written a letter, but some stupid sense of honour made me want to tell her face to face. This is all my fault." John experienced a moment of shame and horror. He wasn't being entirely honest. That sense of honour hadn't been the reason he'd come back that final night. It had been lust. It had almost cost him his sanity and, in the end, it had cost his mother her life.
Gai shook his head. "When the god of love has sex with you, you are connected to her forever. That you resisted her at all is remarkable. For you to have transcended those bonds and rejected her is, I think, unique. Do not blame yourself."
"But here I am again. I'm not sleeping with her this time, but I'm trapped. You said the only way she can escape is if another powerful magician takes her place. And you think that's me?"
"I do."
"Well, if she can't wipe my mind to do it, I'm hardly going to volunteer. So what's her plan?"
"I don't know," said Gai, "and that's what worries me. Now, get back to the Between. If you are to master magic in any meaningful way, you need to get there at will. While you're there, you must learn how to use its knowledge. When you fought me, your defence was a mixture of protective charms and instinct. That won't be enough to defeat a god."
"What will be enough?"
Gai grinned. "It's time for you to learn a spell. And we're going to skip all the elementary lessons and go straight to the dangerous stuff."
John tried to look less scared than he felt. "I'm ready. Teach me."
"Not me," said Gai, walking over to the whitebeam and waiting for John to sit down. "I can tell you what to look for, but I can't teach you anything. Your sanctum will do that. Find a holding spell, John. A spell to prevent Ashtoreth attacking us. Let your sanctum train you until you're ready. No sap this time. You can find it yourself."
He told John what to look for. John sat down, leaned back, half-closed
his eyes and took a slow breath, wondering how long it would take him to find his way back to the no-place. Then he heard the crackle of a fire and opened his eyes.
He was in the Between. And, this time, something was calling him.
Thirty-Six
John sat upright in the Platonic Chair, listening. Whatever was calling, it wasn't doing it using sound. It was more of an insistent thought, a nagging sensation, like going on holiday and spending the journey wondering if he'd left the freezer door open.
He stood up. The study was the same, and the same slow-falling snow danced hypnotically beyond the non-existent windows of the house.
In the corridor, John ignored all the other doors and made straight for the library. Whatever it was that wanted him was there.
Once inside the cavernous stone space and its vast stacks of books, John picked up the lit candle and set off. There was no confusion, no sense of aimless wonder this time. He walked on with a sense of purpose, his slippered feet slapping on the dusty stone.
Gai had told him what he needed and, although he hadn't fully grasped what the noone was talking about, it appeared that his sanctum understood perfectly. Without any conscious thought about where he was heading, he allowed himself to be led between the shelves, further and further into the maze.
His relationship with the books was different this time. John had sensed an atmosphere from some of them on his first visit, but this time, the atmosphere seeping out of them was redolent with power, or—rather—with the potential for power. Each book was a tightly compressed source of energy waiting to be unleashed, and as he passed them, John sensed what some of those powers might be. As he walked, he sometimes rose from the floor and flew a few paces, or heard the distant scorched roar of an angry dragon. Passing one shelf was like walking by a half-open bedroom door and glimpsing an orgy in progress.
The temperature dropped in one corridor of books where some of the tallest shelves disappeared into the darkness above. Even as he followed the call, John was tempted to stop there. He fought the urge, but his steps slowed, and damp tendrils caressed him, sliding around his body, whispering their nihilistic message. To linger would be to risk giving in to despair. John pressed on, his mood lifting the instant he turned the next corner. He would have to learn to close himself, to block some of the more powerful books, he knew, or each trip to the library would be dangerous.
A third of the way into the spiralling maze, as he approached the centre, John stopped. The call was close now. He turned slowly, looking all around him. The light of the candle reflected on the gold letters on the spines, making their incomprehensible titles look like Christmas decorations.
The second shelf from the floor, to his right. He was certain. John put his hand out towards the books. Exactly as before, as his fingertips reached the first hardback, a dark-blue volume which smelled like the sea, there was a liquid sensation, and his hand went straight through, up to his knuckles. This time, John did not withdraw his hand, instead moving it along the shelf from right to left, his flesh passing through the books, each one giving a brief impression of what might lie within. Much of it made no sense to him. Rain, badeye, goldeater, sunburst, the curious madness, poison bringer, safety stones.
Then his hand hit something solid. Near the end of the shelf, a thick black book prevented John from moving his hand further. The call he had heard had fallen silent. He had found the book that wanted him.
He wrapped his finger around the spine and pulled. It didn't shift. It was stuck. Placing the candle holder on the floor, John reached out and got a good grip. But he still couldn't make it move, even when he rocked back on his heels and used his full weight. It wasn't coming out. Dismayed, John knelt in front of the book and tried to interpret the gold letters, hoping he might find a clue there. It didn't help. The lettering was rendered in stunning gold leaf. Some of the magic books Augustus sold in Bonneville's were beautifully bound, and John could never resist touching them.
He let the forefinger of his right hand make contact with the lettering. With a yell of surprise that echoed around the old stone walls, he jerked his hand back again. Something had moved, crawling across his fingertip. He looked at his finger and yelped again. It was covered in an intricate tattoo, so fine and complicated that it should have taken many hours to complete. But it hadn't been there before he touched the book.
Holding his finger close to his face, he studied one of the tiny letters there: a shape like a capital Q, but whose tail looped back over the top of the letter before penetrating the circle within. He looked at the gold writing on the spine again. The same symbol was in the title. There was no sense of danger, and whatever had happened to his finger had not hurt him.
This was a library of magic. He was here to find a spell. Did he expect just to pick up a book and follow instructions?
Trusting his instincts, John lifted his right hand again and, this time, placed all four fingers and thumb on the letters. The process began immediately, and he watched with fascination as his other fingers, then his hand, filled with the secret language of the book. Pulling at the sleeve of his dressing gown and pyjamas, he saw the black ink spread its thousands of tiny letters over his wrist and onto his forearm. Just before reaching his elbow, the tide of words stopped. At the same moment, the book lost its solidity, and John's fingers passed through it again.
Picking up the candle, he retraced his steps with no wrong turns and returned to the study, still allowing his instincts to guide him.
Sitting in the Platonic Chair, he picked up the book that had been there on his first visit. He flicked through the pages. As before, they were all blank. Once again leaving the decision-making to his gut, he opened the book at the first page and placed his right fingertips on the thick, textured paper. As he watched, the process he had witnessed in the library reversed, the letters crawling rapidly down his arm and onto the paper. When it was done, eight pages were filled with writing.
John leaned back in the chair, the book on his lap. Although the only source of light in the room was the fire, a soft yellow glow illuminated the pages. John looked up, then wished he hadn't, as the same mesmerising display of stars, planets, and galaxies filled the sky above him. With an effort, he wrenched his gaze away and back to the book. In a floating room in a place where time had no meaning, John Aviemore tried to learn a spell.
The words still didn't make sense. John had hoped that the next miracle would be a translation into English. Instead, the tiny, ornate letters were as impenetrable as ever, their secrets locked within a language he couldn't understand. For a few minutes, he examined the script, looking for repetition. The most common letter in the English language was 'e'. Perhaps there would be a common letter here. He gave up quickly, unable to find a single symbol that repeated, which seemed impossible. What kind of language used unique letters for every word? How could anyone ever learn to read it?
What made the task even more difficult was the way the letters and words were arranged on the page. Not a single line was straight. Instead, the author favoured an undulating movement, the sentences covering the distance from spine to edge-of-page like worms twisting in the beak of a bird. Even in the middle of a word, a letter might dart up half an inch from the one preceding it, then be followed by three letters forming a ramp down to the next word.
John put the book on the table, rubbed his eyes and stood in front of the fire. Subconsciously assuming the customary position of a British man in front of burning logs at night, he put out his hands and rubbed them together, despite the temperature already being perfect for his comfort. In the same unnecessary way, he turned his back on the flames to warm the other side of his body.
How was he supposed to learn magic written in an alien language? Gai had said everyone who visited the Between constructed their own sanctum to make sense of the no-place. The noone had said nothing practical about the method of learning a spell because the unique character of every sanctum meant there was no advice he could give.
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John was on his own. If this place was constructed by his own mind, then his mind was being unhelpful and obstructive. Conjuring, the profession John had pursued for most of his life, was straightforward. You bought a book, or a trick with instructions, practised until you could do it blindfolded, then showed your long-suffering family members before unleashing your miracle upon the world. John's preferred technique, when he invented his own illusions, was to read the description of an effect, then close the book and try to devise a method of achieving the same result. By the time he had finished, he had often invented a new effect that bore no relation to the one he had read.
Perhaps that was the problem. Maybe he was supposed to come up with his own method first after which the book would make sense. But how could he? Gai had told him he needed to learn a holding spell. According to the noone, each spell's potency depended on the power of the magician wielding it. The holding spell would slow down, or halt, the mental processes of the victim, damaging any magical defences and preventing attack.
It had all sounded straightforward back in the clearing. It wasn't straightforward now. This was real, organic, magic drawn from the earth, not pick a card, any card.
He looked at the offending book. Upside-down, and from his standing position by the fire, the writing didn't look like writing at all. John remembered the flute Sarah had kept from her school days. She would occasionally set up a music stand and play. John, who had never learned an instrument, had sometimes looked over her shoulder, trying to follow the rise and fall of the notes, marvelling at the complexity of melody that could be communicated by black splodges on five lines.
The words of the spell rose and fell like written music. And the magic Gai used, and that John had begun to discover, involved something close to singing.
With mounting excitement, John picked up the book again, looking at the first line on the page. If this was music, then it was far more complicated than the flute part of Fauré's Pavane. He wondered how each squiggle might relate to sound, meaning a shorter note, or louder, or held for longer. He couldn't work it out. The only immediate musical possibility that presented itself was pitch. What if the symbols that were higher meant just that - that they were higher in pitch? The same logic for those that were lower.
The Blurred Lands Page 17
