Fantastic Schools: Volume 2

by Nuttall, Christopher G.

  The towel was as soft as any he had used at home, and he began to wonder how much Lord Townsend was similar to his false parents. He felt a rough spot on the towel, and found that it was an embroidered coat of arms: an eagle treading on a serpent, a festooned, blue grey cone, some circles and scythes and a Latin motto. Then it occurred to him that his false parents probably wouldn’t let someone else use their private train car, and he began to think Townsend might be a nice lord. He finally stepped off the mat and examined his new clothes. The underclothes were folded on the floor below the rest, and they felt clean and light when he put them on, fitting him somewhat loosely though, as if his true family had overestimated his growth. The coat and knee-length breeches looked solidly made, and were a muted forest green, with tight, large buttons; they looked almost military.

  He had buttoned his breeches when Sandy knocked. He expected her to come in directly, but there was a pause, and she came in only after he told her she could: apparently she was unsure of his sensitivities, and it was another thing that struck him about how different she was since two years before. He remembered her bursting in on him many a time; with the great amount of privacy he had from others he never really had much from her, and had never really minded it. She came in now, smiling, looking very different in a knee-length pinafore of the same shadowy green and the same firm, military style. She wore also a striking black belt with a knife and something long, straight, and dark. He surprised himself with an urge to put on his shirt quickly and cover his chest. He did so slowly, and she came and took his coat from the wood hanger as he tucked his shirt in. She had carried several things in with her and laid them on the floor, and he tried to see them while she helped him on with his coat. He let her do most of it for him, for memory’s sake, and something familiar they could share.

  She now took from the floor a black leather belt like her own, and, as she began to put it through its loops in his breeches with a kind of reverence, he realised this was a ritual. She slid onto it the other things she had brought in: a black-handled knife such as hers; a square, leather pouch (she had three pouches of various sorts); and a long, dark object like that he had seen on her when she came in. It was a rod of polished cedar, dark, almost black, the exact length of his forearm and hand, with a hilt at the top marked off from the rest by a thin band. This hilt had a grip of many metal studs the size of insects’ eyes, and ended with a patterned, flattish, metal dome as a pommel. The rod was sheathed in leather as dark as his hair; with it belted at his side, he felt as though he stood much straighter. He ran his fingers along the grim material of the sheath, and felt as if he touched the clothes of a being.

  “What is this?” he asked.

  “It is the weapon of the witch hunter.” she answered with a spark in her eyes. “Let me show you how I can use it.”

  She went back into the other room, brought out a small, metal tripod, set it up on the floor, and lifted onto it the pot where his soaked night clothes lay. Then she stood in front of him and to one side, turned to face the pot, drew her rod and her knife, and held them out crossed. She spoke quietly and firmly.

  “Iorius, Bastien, and Lissanter, I khezek vocat: purge with the fire of the law.”

  With a silken roar, a solid pillar of white steam rose from the pot, billowing to the ceiling and spreading in rolls till it faded into the lamp light. After a moment it ceased to appear, and with a sound like a gas stove lighting there leapt up ruddy yellow tongues and forks of flame, reaching after the vanishing steam. The fire stretched out, brightened, and quickened its crackling, like the efforts of a straining creature, then it sank down below the sides of the pot, turning wholly red. The rushing sound of the burning and the angry glow died out to nothing in a few moments, as if racing away into the distance. Sandy uncrossed the wand and blade, and shook them as if they were wet. Arnould stepped forward and looked down into the pot: there was nothing left of his old clothes except a scattered handful of snow-white powder. Suddenly a pang went through him, and he looked about for Hyram. The old doll was lying peacefully by the mat as though he lived there, and Arnould picked him up gratefully. Sandy’s eyes were round, and her mouth a little slack; she put away her knife and rod solemnly but somewhat nervously.

  “I’m sorry Arnould, I forgot about your man. I’m glad he’s alright.”

  Arnould felt a distance between him and Sandy which, small as it was, pained him hopelessly at that sensitive time. Forgetting Mr. Hunt was what his false parents would do. Then it finally struck him that he had himself forgotten about Hyram at the same time. If Hyram was hard to notice, he was hard to notice, and it wasn’t anyone’s fault. Arnould tried to think of something to say that would put right the confusion he felt in the silence.

  “Well, it is a good thing he wasn’t affected, or he would have made a burn mark on your friend’s carpet.”

  Sandy smiled again.

  “Is his name Hyram Hunt?”

  “How do you know that?”

  “You were about to tell me his name, and it is a strange name, so it stood out.”

  “You can see the future?”

  “Not really. It’s like when animals know when danger is coming, or when mothers know a child is in danger. But it’s a little more specific, and we have it in our heritage, you and I, from our mother. Still it was hard for me to learn.”

  Arnould took a moment to muse on this, and fiddled slowly with Mr. Hunt.

  “Did Mother teach you?”

  “Not only her. Arnould, where we’re going…” she stopped, as if to let her eyes sparkle, before she went on, “People call it a hiding place, but more than that it’s a fortress, a haven for hunted souls. But we also hunt: we’re witch hunters.”

  There was something different about the spark in her eyes now, as she stood in her uniform with her feet apart and her hand resting alertly on the hilt of her rod. The look of some ravenous creature was in her face and air, like a wolf or a wildcat, young, but eager for her first kill. He felt a shudder run through him, but brought by the same disturbance was a peace, that such a fierceness was in his sister and her friends, that he was in the hands of those who would spare nothing to protect him, and to protect others as helpless as he. A feeling had welled up in him when she had spoken the words summoning the flames of the law, a feeling as powerful as grief, and it had pulled him forward like the edge of a cliff, and made his hair raise. His head was beginning to feel giddy, and he asked a question to steady himself:

  “What is a witch?”

  “They are enemies of God and man; in particular they are beings, and even humans, who have allied with treacherous ministers of the throne of God in exchange for the power to destroy, deceive, and enslave all mankind. We are not so strong without such help, but with God’s blessing it matters not. We will fight as long as there is breath in our bodies or blood in our veins.” Her fingers tightened on her rod. Arnould could almost taste the thrill that went through her every time she said the word “we”. He held Mr. Hunt closer, and asked another question in a small voice;

  “Where are we going?”

  “To Hoarwell House, the Larkross fellowship of witch hunters: an old, old mansion in an ancient place, dyed solid with power and defiance. Father and Mother are there, and they and their friends rescued me two years ago. Ever since then they’ve been preparing and looking for a chance to rescue you. Once you’re inside the gate at Hoarwell, there won’t be anything our enemies can do to you.”

  Sandy stepped forward, braced herself, and took hold of Arnould’s shoulder; he didn’t understand until with a lurch the train started to move. She must have foreseen it, or had some warning he had not noticed. She smiled at him, and he sensed in it a great, concealed relief.

  “We’re on our way. It’ll be some hours though, so we had better sleep: come on.”

  She led him through the narrow door she had gone through earlier, and he found himself in a smaller room with bunks on each side and a small closet. Sandy stepped into this close
t, and returned with a gown that might have been the same as the one she had soaked in the rain, except that it was now neither damp nor stiff.

  “We’ll have to change again.” she said, “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t resist dressing you in the uniform straight away. You can take off your outer clothes and use this.” She handed him a folded dressing gown which smelled somewhat strange. “I’ll go into the entry room this time.”

  The door clicked shut after her again, and he was left in the dimmer light of the single lantern which lit that room. He laid out on one of the beds his coat and trousers, thinking they looked much more fitting for someone older than him, especially with the formidable appearance of the rod and belt. The dressing gown was certainly for someone older than him, as it piled up at his feet and was quite roomy. If it didn’t belong to Lord Townsend it must have belonged to a page boy of his. When Sandy rejoined him she almost laughed.

  “This is where Townsend’s servants sleep. Will you want the top bunk because I always had it before?”

  “I’ll let you sleep on the top bunk because you always had it before. I always slept on the bottom bunk after you died… after you… while you were away.”

  Sandy got on her knees and hugged him. It was more awkward this time because he was tangled in his dressing gown; the shaking of the train was oddly noticeable in the seconds that followed. Sandy buried her face ticklingly against his neck. He felt like he was supposed to comfort her, but that didn’t make sense: she was happy, wasn’t she? She drew back and looked him in the face, and in fact she appeared to have wiped away some tears, probably on his shoulder. But it made her eyes more shiny than ever. She put her hands on his shoulders.

  “Thank God… that I’m alive again! Goodnight, Arnould.” then again, under her breath, “Goodnight, Arnould.”

  She finally got up, let go of him, and climbed into her bed. As she climbed in and got under the sheets, she looked to him hardly different at all from the girl she had been two years before. He didn’t bother getting under his own sheets, but simply flattened out on his bed, with his head on the pillow as if by accident. The lantern dimmed, and went out.

  He lay sleepless for many minutes, but not because of whispering this time. He had never been this far from… anything. Sandy was the only anchor he had in anything familiar, and it was she who was pulling him into a wild unknown which smelled of blood, and, strangest of all, had a home in it. Finally, he got out of bed. Even after two years he could remember how to tell if Sandy was awake or asleep by listening. He climbed up on one of the supports at the end of the bunk to look at Sandy’s face. He had often lain in bed on sleepless nights trying to remember her face clearly, only to have the hard and sharp-edged vision of her pale gravestone interpose itself again and again. He saw her face now, quiet and helpless: if she was a fierce creature, she was still a whelp, and in sleep at least she was as weak as he felt. He did not notice that the lantern had relit, and was shedding a soft light on her as he looked. He stayed for a while, ignoring how uncomfortable it was to stand on a metal bar. But then the room became oddly chilly, and he got down with a hushed sigh. After he had curled underneath the sheets and the folds of his dressing gown, the chill in the room vanished, and with it the faint glow in the lantern. He slept.

  Someone was at the other end of the hall, but the paintings were in the way, and he couldn’t see her. By the time he got through she had left, and his heart began to beat. He ran through the corridors, but there were too many places, and if he didn’t find her soon he would forget who he was looking for. Then he realised with despair that he didn’t know who he was looking for.

  Well-known voices called him, crying, “Hadrian! Hadrian!” He turned to run to the voices, for that was his name after all. But no, he stopped; “Hadrian” was the name his false parents called him, and he cowered in doubt. The voices came nearer, and the air rang like a bell, but the walls were still and silent; he hoped the walls would trap the voices, and that their silence would crush them, and quench the cries of “Hadrian! Hadrian!”

  He ran his hands over the cold surface of the wall, searching. Then with a great relief he felt a hand. He couldn’t reach into the wall, and her hand could not reach out, but he could press his hand to hers. Then he realised that he was only touching a smoother part of the wall. He heard other voices behind him, and a great light was shining. He was glad the hand was not in the wall, because that meant she was on this side, and he could see her face…

  “Arnould! We’ve stopped! There’s only a little way to go, do let’s hurry!”

  He wasn’t sure why he should hurry if he could hear her voice so clearly, but then she touched his arm, and he came all awake in a moment. Sandy was kneeling by his bed, again in her uniform, and the lantern was shining brighter than it ought to be able to shine if it was only using kerosene. Sandy pulled the sheet off of him.

  “Can I dress you?”

  Arnould sat up and nodded. She stood him on his feet and got the dressing gown off, which took some time as there was so much of it. She seemed so good at putting clothes on him that he was sure she had been dressing people at Hoarwell House; he wondered if there were many young folk there. Straightening and tightening seemed especially to delight her. Though she was clearly having fun, every deft and precise movement of her wrists and fingers told of how disciplined and serious the two years at Hoarwell House had been for her, and how much she had relished it. His clothes had looked too old for him the night before, now he felt too old for himself: taller, cleaner, more upright, even more human. Now there was the addition of solid, black boots.

  They went into the entry room, and Sandy took from beside the door an umbrella, which she opened with a “Thank you, Iorius!” It looked large, strange, and very black inside the room. The square section of the wall slid out and to the right. The lanterns went out as the grey light of an early, overcast morning came in, with a spattering of raindrops on the mat.

  Arnould smelled the wet ground, the rain tapped on the umbrella, and Hyram was tucked inside his coat as they made their way. He wondered now why last night he had thought the mist stranger than the moving door of the train car. He also did not remember noticing the curious behavior of the lamps.

  “Who is Iorius?” he asked.

  “No one knows.” Sandy answered with a mischievous look. “But what he is: he is called a hayl. Creatures that come from the Other Place. That place has many names: Merowinter is one of them. Almost no one and nothing comes from it, or finds a way in. I want to be one of those who find a way in.”

  He looked at her face, and at the moment she looked as she did when she was asleep, but had as well the light and firmness of all the determination he had seen in her.

  It wasn’t long before Sandy pointed out the roofs of Hoarwell House, and the conical spires clothed in slate that shone dully in the rain. They came to the stone wall that surrounded the grounds, and went along the cobbled street beside it. On the wall thick vines of ivy swung in the gentle wind like long hair, and the light reflected from the leaves with a gleam not unlike the tiled roofs. The arch of the gate was high, with the same coat of arms Arnould had seen in the train: the eagle crushing the serpent, and the festooned cone. Then it must not have been Lord Townsend’s coat of arms, unless they were similar. The motto read: “Sapientia est Scutum ex Deo”. Beside the gate a tandem bicycle leaned against the wall. Through the gate he could see level lawns, and the old-fashioned entrance of Hoarwell House flanked by two statues of jackalopes. The gate stood wide open. Sandy let out a long sigh.

  “You’re finally home, Brother. What a long time a few years can be.”

  She walked forward, but Arnould stopped under the arch at the threshold. A moment later Sandy noticed he wasn’t beside her, and turned round.

  “What is it, Arnould?”

  She didn’t think he was afraid, but perhaps he could be overwhelmed, nervous. But he did seem afraid, though more bewildered. She moved back towards him.

  �
��Why are you waiting?”

  “I’m not, I don’t want to stand here, but… I want to go forward, but instead I only stand still. Am I afraid?”

  Sandy was silent, staring at him.

  “Can you take just the one step forward?”

  There was a pause, then Arnould looked down.

  “I’m not doing it. Why won’t I do it?”

  Sandy came outside the gate and dropped the umbrella on the stones.

  “We’ll find out if it has anything to do with you: come, I’ll pick you up.”

  She took him in her arms and stepped up to the threshold. But, just as he had, she stopped there and stood as if that was all she had meant to do. Her face flushed, she stirred up her great desire to have Arnould with her inside, but nothing moved her feet: she could not go any further. She even tried to fall forward, but not even the slightest movement resulted. She walked away and back, went this way and that, tried to suddenly, even accidentally, step inside. She put him down and shouted for help, then screamed. Arnould winced. A slight breeze moved through the arch, blowing some of the rain onto them, and making the umbrella skitter a few feet along the ground. A clammy feeling ran down Arnould’s back. Then he remembered Hyram, and took him out.

  “Maybe we aren’t allowed to take him inside?”

  Sandy took Mr. Hunt and immediately walked straight through the gate and turned around. Arnould blinked.

  “He can go in… maybe he can give Father and Mother my regards.” He gave a short laugh, then broke into sudden tears. Sandy darted back, fell to her knees on the wet stones, and embraced him, with Mr. Hunt clutched in her fist. His tears were over as soon as his laugh though, and a weary quietness fell on him. Sandy stood up and wiped her eyes.

  “I’ll go and find someone to let you in. Stay well hidden here.”