Tenfold

by Mark Hayden

  I wasn’t ready to stand up yet, so I crawled to the rucksacks and got out his thick fleece. Perhaps he was going into shock, and getting cold. I helped him get it on, and he said, ‘Tie up the left sleeve, will you?’

  When I’d done what he asked, he leaned back and looked at the opposite wall. ‘You know we’re mostly human, right? Well, the bit of us that’s not human is part rock and part Dæmon. When we’re underground, we get access to Lux and other powers that humans can’t even begin to understand. We’re also vulnerable to possession. It’s our blessing and our curse, and that’s what happened to the old chief.’

  Vicky and I looked at each other. This was clearly news to her as well.

  ‘A Dæmon must have attacked Niði. I think it must have happened when my grandfather opened the doors. That’s why the barge was blown up, and why the humans died up there. The chief must have gone down to help the Dwarf, and during the battle, he must have overreached himself, and the Dæmon possessed him. Turned him into a Svartálf. When my father and Wesley came to investigate, my father must have been killed trying to drive the Dæmon down to the lower level.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Vicky. ‘I should have checked more closely. I knew that the bloodstains and death site were from either your father or your grandfather. I should have narrowed it down.’

  ‘Wouldn’t have made a difference. It does now, but we’d have found out anyway.’ He gave her a smile. ‘You were spot on about the horse. You’re good.’

  ‘Aye, well what about the Fae?’

  ‘The Fae?’ That was my question.

  Vicky answered the question. ‘Only the Fae can tame a Hell-horse, or Black Unicorn as we used to call them. There must have been one of them involved at some point. There’s no trace of Fae magick up there or down here. And you should tell him, Lloyd. He won’t figure it out for himself.’

  I do like Vicky, and one of the reasons is that she never skates delicately around my ignorance.

  ‘Tell him what?’

  ‘What the old chief said.’

  Lloyd tried to look innocent. Gnomes don’t do that very well. ‘I didn’t know you spoke Old High North Germanic, Vicky.’

  ‘Don’t need to. He told you to get out. Told you it wasn’t your fight, didn’t he?’

  I had figured that out on my own. I was waiting to use it later. Never mind.

  ‘Yeah. A Svartálf can’t – won’t – attack one of its own brood. When I made with the axe, it used the Hell-horse to attack me, and that was the only way I could get it to spill blood. So now you know.’

  ‘And you didn’t do that for ten pounds, did you?’ I said. ‘Or a medal. Or because you love us. And don’t try the Shylock routine.’

  ‘You what?’ said Vicky.

  ‘If you prick me, do I not bleed?’ said Lloyd. ‘Shakespeare. We get taught that early. You’re right, though. I did it because it needed to be done, and because I could only guarantee to get one of them, and because I’m going to ask you for a boon in return.’

  I paused. ‘You can ask. Later. First, tell us about the Labyrinth. We need to get out of here.’

  ‘It’s like a living maze. It’s part of the Hall in some way beyond my understanding. There are only a eight tunnels in a Labyrinth, like a noughts and crosses board with a border. Trouble is, any tunnel can be closed or opened dynamically, and they can move while you’re inside them. The legend says that Ariadne went down the tunnels with Theseus. She was a red hot Geomancer, and she followed the trail of Lux back to the start, and that’s where the Dwarf was.’

  ‘Sorted,’ said Vicky, hauling herself to her feet.

  Lloyd frowned. ‘You’re not a Geomancer.’

  ‘No, I’m not, but I know someone who is. It’s time for Maddy to go into bat, isn’t it, Conrad. We need to get a move on, before one of us conks out.’ She held out her hand to me. ‘Here. Your leg will be stiff.’

  It was. I used her help and went to get the Egyptian Tube from my rucksack.

  23 — As One Door Closes…

  The first person who had any time for me as a Mage wasn’t Vicky, it was a Witch from Lancashire called Julia, who is Mother to a coven at a remote location near the Trough of Bowland. Thanks to them, I was given a powerful dowsing rod to help make use of my Talent for Geomancy – detecting and following the flow of Lux, usually through Ley lines. The only trouble is that the dowsing rod is possessed by the spirit of a woman called Madeleine.

  All I know about Maddy is that she died in 1902 and that she has unfinished business somewhere in the Lakeland Particular. She makes a damned good dowsing rod, though.

  ‘What if we get sucked in by the Labyrinth?’ I said.

  Vicky shrugged. ‘Makes no odds. Just means we’ll die in two groups instead of one. You need me to hold the lightstick while you frolic with Madeleine.’

  Desi briefly zoned in and said, ‘You’ve definitely been spending too long with him if that’s your attitude.’

  ‘Sorry, Desi, I mean…’

  ‘I know what you meant. Hurry up, yeah?’

  Vicky looked at me as I shook the Egyptian Tube like a maraca. ‘What you waiting for, Conrad?’

  ‘I’m trying to remember which way electrons flow relative to the magnetic field.’

  ‘Eh? Won’t there just be a Ley line in the floor, or in the roof?’

  ‘If only. That Dwarf has generated a pseudo magnetic field, and that only happens when there’s electricity – or Lux – flowing round the field.’

  Vicky’s eyes glazed over. Physics has that effect on her. I feel the same about genetics. I rubbed my chin, turned to face what my senses were telling me was the South pole and moved my arms in a circle, to mimic the flow and get it fixed in my head. Right. That way. I hope. I opened the tube and took out the dowsing rod.

  There was so much Lux in these tunnels that I didn’t need to go deep into the wand to activate its powers. Around me, the vague sense of warmth turned into a rotating heater, like being in the centre of a giant tumble dryer. Better yet, a heated corkscrew, because it was slowly moving, and coming from that way, the way we’d come.

  I moved down the tunnel, almost to where we’d entered, and instead of Niði’s crest on the right hand side and an opening on the left there were two blank walls and a right turn. Fine. I turned right and soon came to a T-junction. Vicky came next to me and waited. How the hell did this work? I looked at the roof, and I could see a line where the two tunnels joined. As best I could, I planted one foot in the tunnel we’d come from, and one in the new passage. I moved the rod from side to side, across the line and closed my eyes. Deep in the stick, Maddy woke up.

  She always appears to me in a vision associated with water, perhaps because she drowned, or because she was a water witch. One or the other. Usually, we’re on the bridge of a ship, sailing on an ocean. Today we were in a canoe, with me in the back, paddling upstream through a rocky gorge, and struggling to hold our own against the current. Maddy was wearing her usual Edwardian costume and paddling gracefully. She didn’t turn round. We were coming to a widening of the rocks, a pool with two ways out. I tried to figure which way the water was flowing in to the pool, but I couldn’t get a grip on the currents.

  Madeleine has only ever spoken once (she said Oh!), so I wasn’t expecting a reply when I muttered, ‘Come one Maddy, give us a clue. Which way is it coming in?’

  She took one hand off the paddle and pointed left. Wow. I withdrew from the vision carefully and blinked my eyes open. ‘That way,’ I said to Vicky.

  We came to two more junctions, and both times the vision became more real. I got sounds, I got spray in my face, and I got the clean, cold zing of mountain water in spring. The third time, when I tried to go into the dowsing rod, it trembled, and Madeleine pushed herself out. With a shimmer, she glowed into form in front of us.

  ‘I’ll go to the foot of our stairs,’ said Vicky. I couldn’t agree more.

  ‘Where am I?’ said Maddy, looking around with fear creeping into her eyes.
As a fully materialised Spirit, she was completely different. For one thing, she’d borrowed most of Vicky’s wardrobe. The white blouse and long black skirt had been replaced by a long purple top and skinny jeans. She’d forgotten her head, though.

  ‘Hat?’ said Vicky. ‘You might want to lose the hat. And we’re in the Halls of a Dwarf.’

  ‘What hat?’ said Madeleine, pronouncing it Wot het? With a very plummy voice. She turned to the wall and sketched a rectangle with her fingers that immediately turned into a mirror. ‘My Lord! How silly.’ She brushed her hands over her head and the straw boater disappeared. Long black hair cascaded over her shoulders as the pins vanished, too. Vicky had said that Maddy was thirty-nine when she died. She looked a lot younger than that now. Her inner image of herself, probably. I look nowhere near thirty-seven in my head, so I don’t blame her.

  I glanced at the floor. Maddy wasn’t casting a shadow, so she hadn’t materialised in the flesh. She looked around again, nervous eyes flicking down the tunnels. She pointed to the right. ‘Down there. A hundred yards on the left, that’s where it’s all coming from. So much power.’

  She grew an inch taller. No, she didn’t, she floated an inch off the floor. She wasn’t going to last long like this.

  ‘How can we help you?’ I asked.

  ‘I need to find my daughter. They took her from me. She … she was so young, so small, and I haven’t got long. Until the Spring Equinox next year, then I have to go.’

  ‘Just wait until I get my hands on Sister Theresa,’ I muttered.

  ‘What? Never mind. Look, squadron leader, I know my actual daughter won’t be with us any more, but her daughter’s daughter will. I need to find her. I need to tell her.’

  ‘Tell her what, Maddy?’ said Vicky. ‘If you give us the message, we’ll get there in the end.’

  Madeleine shook her head. Freed from the pins, her hair flew around. ‘I can’t tell you. Only her. Please…’

  She faded from the extremities, blurring and erasing herself. When she was gone, I looked at Vicky. ‘I’ll kill her. She did that deliberately.’

  ‘Who? Sister Theresa?’

  ‘Yes. I’ll murder the old witch, and before you say anything, she is undeniably old and a Witch. She gives Madeleine a year to find peace for her soul, then bars me from going to Lunar Hall to ask what happened. And I doubt she expected Maddy to materialise so early.’

  ‘You don’t know that. You could be barred for other reasons, such as being a man. I’m not barred. I’ll go and find out.’

  ‘Thanks. Now let’s find that Dwarf.’

  It was easy to trace the Lux to its source. Getting beyond that would be another matter. To the mundane eye, it was just a wall, and even Vicky couldn’t tell that this bit of tunnel was where all the Lux came from. With my dowsing rod, it was plain as a pikestaff. I took out the Hammer and got ready to eject the clip.

  ‘Shall I knock thrice?’ I said.

  ‘You can if you want, but you’re not the Constable, so I doubt he’ll answer.’ She was looking at the gun, and switched her attention to the hand holding it, focusing on my Troth Ring, a gift from the Allfather. ‘Try your ring. If anyone’s gonna answer the door to a friend of Odin’s, it’s Niði.’

  ‘I am not the Allfather’s friend.’

  ‘You gave him tea and biscuits. Hurry up.’

  I focused on the Valknut symbols in my ring and knocked as hard as I could on the wall with the back of my hand, making sure that gold touched stone.

  ‘And if that doesn’t work?’ I said while we waited.

  Vicky was scanning the wall, scratching her head in lieu of using her powered-down sPad. ‘We could … never mind. He’s coming.’

  We both stepped back, and a segment of wall slid down into the floor as quietly and efficiently as every other piece of Dwarven work. Behind the door was a well-lit tunnel, and in the tunnel was a Dwarf.

  ‘You!’ he exclaimed. ‘You! You’re the key! What are you doing here? And where is Odin?’

  ‘We come in peace to your Halls,’ I said quickly, before the Dwarf could panic and shut us out again. ‘We have been hurt and we seek sanctuary.’

  The Dwarf stroked his beard, of which there was a lot. You may remember that Hledjolf is a sort of dark-side R2D2, more mechanical than magickal, and creepy as hell. I’m glad to report that Niði was as thoroughly traditional as village cricket. Yes, his face was a bit grimy, as if the stone were leaking out from inside, but his skin looked like skin, his black beard looked like hair and his eyes were proper eyes, not a pair of diamonds.

  ‘You seek sanctuary? You come in peace?’ he said.

  Dwarves do like to repeat what you say. Perhaps it needed a little reinforcement.

  ‘As Odin is my witness.’

  ‘Then welcome.’

  ‘Our colleagues…’

  ‘…I know. Wait.’

  He took a small geologist’s hammer from his belt and moved to the wall. He used the pick end to scratch something into the rock, then turned to face the entrance, gazing behind us at the blank wall. I heard a rumble of stone on stone and turned round to look. Another section of rock dropped down and we were one tunnel’s width from Desirée and Lloyd, who were lying just the other side of the impaled Hell-horse. Vicky didn’t wait. She dashed over to see how Desi was faring.

  ‘Was this your doing?’ said Niði, pointing to the bodies.

  ‘Lloyd of Clan Flint took out the Hell-horse. I eliminated the Svartálf.’

  Niði walked through to survey the scene, touching various things on the way, rubbing his hand over the Hell-horse, the sword, the axe and making his way to Lloyd. ‘You must come down. I will carry the Gnome.’

  He went to pick up Lloyd, who looked a little panicked. ‘Easy, master. And the humans cannot carry the other one. She is too badly injured.’

  Niði glanced at Desirée, then whistled. As easily as picking up a pillow, he rolled Lloyd onto his shoulders and moved towards the entrance to the lower level, collecting the axe on the way. So it wasn’t just Gnomes who could use it. I was about to say something when a trolley came up the ramp and shot over the threshold. Vicky and I had to dodge out of the way as it careered into the dead Hell-horse.

  ‘Follow,’ said Niði as he disappeared down the slope.

  We examined the trolley dubiously. It wasn’t a hospital trolley, and I’m sure there were chemical stains on the top. Nor was it padded, but it was that or leave her here. At least it was a smooth runner. With great care, we lifted Desi onto the top. She only screamed once.

  The ramp down to the lower level was mercifully short. We were well under the limestone now, and the walls had a reddish hue, as far as I could tell in the dim, Dwarf level lighting. For his new, lower Hall, Niði had opted for a Gothic look. It looked rushed, unfinished, and several of the slender arches were only half knocked through. The spaces beyond were barely lit at all. In one of them, a shadow flitted across the light, something long and low, even lower than a dwarf.

  It was hot down here, and three forges were glowing at various points, long iron handles sticking out of the coals. Niði had placed Lloyd on a stone bench and was examining his leg. They conducted a conversation in their Germanic language, and Lloyd pointed to us, or to the trolley where Desi lying. Lloyd got quite animated and sat up to make his point. The Dwarf rubbed his beard and came over.

  ‘The Gnome would have you take the female to safety urgently, before our business is done, and one of you must go with her. I have a new door, but I have not used it yet, and I am not ready to share it with others. Would you agree to travel with dark minds?’

  ‘He means asleep,’ clarified Vicky for my benefit. ‘Yes, we would.’

  ‘Then take the trolley through there and wait.’

  We followed his directions, through an arch and into a cavern about the size of an underground station. Instead of train tracks, a canal flowed next to the platform, and on the water were three barges. One was a heavy-duty rock carrier (half full
of sandstone), the second was a beautiful rendition of the traditional residential narrow boat. I would have loved to linger and admire the way that Niði had used iron instead of wood to create a curved top and gemstones instead of bargework painting, but we were headed for the third boat, a plastic mini-barge with a flat bottom and buoyancy tanks fore and aft. Plastic? Had he had it for thirty years, or had he branched out from metalwork and jewellery and into synthetics? By the time we were there, Desi had drifted into sleep.

  ‘I’ll have to go,’ said Vicky, ‘and before you say anything, it’s not because I don’t like Dwarves. I like them fine when they’re not underground. I can’t cope much longer down here, and this is how bad it is: I’d rather speak to Tennille than spend another minute down here.’

  ‘Call Hannah first. She can pass on the news.’

  ‘Oh, I will call Hannah first, but if I don’t call Desi’s Mam meself, I’ll be in the deepest shit ever. Even deeper than you’re gonna be. How do we get her in there?’

  Niði appeared on the dock, carrying what looked like a dead animal. Oh. It was a dead animal, sort of. He had an armful of furs and pelts. ‘Who’s going?’ he asked.

  ‘Me,’ said Vic.

  He threw a selection of furs in the boat and told Vicky to get in and arrange them. When Vicky had realised that they didn’t smell as bad as they looked, we worked quickly, using the Dwarf’s enormous strength like a crane to swing Desirée over the dock and into the barge.

  He took two small rubies out of his apron and said, ‘When I put these on your foreheads, your minds will go dark until daylight hits the gems. If you could leave the boat adrift afterwards, it will find its way back to me. Lie down and close your eyes.’

  Vicky made herself as comfortable as she could. The Dwarf licked the ruby and placed it quickly on her forehead, where it started to glow, ever so gently. He repeated the process with Desi and cast off the boat. With a thump from his hammer on the stern, it started to move, soon disappearing into a dark tunnel.

  ‘I didn’t know Dwarfs could make water run uphill,’ I observed.