The Left-Handed Booksellers of London

by Garth Nix

  Susan followed, almost bumping into Merlin, who could obviously see her better since he swerved aside. Susan looked down at herself as she ran and almost fell over, it was so disorienting not to see anything.

  They made it to the road in front of the pub—which Susan now could see was called the Ambrose Arms—when Vivien suddenly reappeared in front of Susan, stopped, and doubled over to vomit. That done, she drew in a series of racking breaths. Susan saw Merlin reappear and looked down, to see her own feet and legs coalescing into visibility again.

  “Sorry,” gasped Vivien. “Couldn’t . . . uh . . . keep it up!”

  “Well tried,” said Merlin. “Guess we’ll have to hurry a bit more.”

  He reached into his bag, took out the Smython, and rushed to the door of the pub. Susan followed, with Vivien more slowly bringing up the rear.

  There was only one customer in the pub, a surprised-looking sixtyish man in crumpled work clothes and a flat cap who had picked up a cheese and Branston pickle sandwich and was about to take a bite of it when Merlin burst in.

  “Out!” ordered Merlin, gesturing with the revolver. “Leave the sandwich.”

  The man put the sandwich down and hurried out.

  “Here! What’s all this?” cried the large, no-nonsense publican, coming out from behind the bar, flapping her apron as if Merlin were an errant rooster who’d somehow gotten inside. “You put that away and don’t be stupid.”

  “I’m very sorry,” said Merlin. He swapped the revolver to his right hand, stepped forward, and gripped the woman on the shoulder with his gloved left hand, his fingers finding and pressing key nerves. She shrieked and slumped down, knees suddenly weak. Merlin propelled her forward and pushed her out the door, as gently as he could.

  “Lock it,” he snapped to Susan. “Viv, find the phone. I’ll make sure no one else is here.”

  He moved to the door behind the bar, listened there for a moment, then went in. Vivien scanned the room, didn’t see a telephone, and went through the swinging door into the smaller parlor. Susan clicked the deadlock on the front door and pushed home the top and bottom bolts.

  “Susan!” Merlin called out from somewhere within. “Look at your watch, tell me when five minutes is up. That’s all we’ve got.”

  Susan looked. Her Swatch had stopped again. There were beads of moisture under the face, from Morcenna’s well.

  “It’s stopped!” she called out.

  Merlin didn’t answer.

  Susan shrugged. She went back into the main bar and sure enough, there was a clock there. She was setting her watch again in vain hope it would dry out when she saw a flash of movement through the window, causing a sudden blip of fear. She ran over to make sure the windows were all latched shut, and saw the publican and the customer who’d sensibly walked straight out. They were on the far side of the road, talking to a woman in a clerical dog collar who listened intently and then all three swiftly walked away.

  “I think the vicar’s gone to get help!” called out Susan.

  “Traditional,” replied Merlin, coming up behind her. “Someone’s probably already used the police radio in the Granada. I should have disabled it. Don’t worry about your watch—we might have a bit more time than I thought. Viv, you on the phone?”

  “Yes!” came a cry from the other bar.

  “There’s a door from the kitchen,” said Merlin. “We’ll go out, through the car park, across the green to the pond. Give me the sword.”

  Susan handed him the ancient sword, and he buckled it on his belt.

  “Why are we going to the pond?” asked Susan, frowning.

  Again, Merlin didn’t answer. This time it was because he was staring out the window.

  Susan looked. The sky was darkening above the field to the east and she suddenly heard and felt a constant low vibration, the bass humming of thousands upon thousands of wings. . . .

  “The birds,” she said. “The starlings!”

  The full murmuration had come together again and was swooping in over the fields, tendrils composed of hundreds of birds leaping out ahead of the thousands in the main body, almost touching the ground before gliding up again, looking into every dip and hollow in the ground and behind every tree and building.

  “Viv! We have to go now!”

  Chapter Nineteen

  How far away lies Silvermere?

  A thousand leagues and none

  Where shall I find the hidden way

  If you don’t know, none will say

  MERLIN’S SHOUT ECHOED THROUGH THE PUB AS HE GRABBED SUSAN’S elbow and dragged her away from the window, then hustled her towards the door behind the bar.

  Vivien came rocketing out of the parlor bar, but Merlin hadn’t waited. He and Susan almost fell out of the back door, running across the potholed car park to the village green. The pond in the middle of the green was roughly round and only about sixty feet in diameter, its clear water edged with reeds. Susan had no idea why they were running towards it, but the swiftest glance over her shoulder confirmed what they were running away from: dense, questing tendrils composed of thousands and thousands of birds.

  Merlin stopped at the edge of the pond, and knelt down. He looked back, too, and saw the probing fingers of the murmuration testing the windows of the pub, pushing down the chimney, battering at the doors. Birds stunned themselves, or broke their necks, and fell like crumbs around every searching tendril, but there were always more birds funneled down from the vast, pulsating mass overhead.

  The hum had become a roar, growing louder and louder.

  “I hope this works,” he said, stripping the glove from his left hand. It shone pale silver in the sunlight as he extended his fingers and thrust them into the water, at the same time muttering something under his breath.

  Behind them, the vast mass of birds swooped across the roof of the pub, cascaded down into the car park, and leaped up again, tendrils rushing towards the three of them in the pond. Hundreds if not thousands of birds seemingly intent on smashing straight into them. Many of them would die, fragile bird bodies crushed, but at speed so many small tough beaks and claws would be like grapeshot, or nails exploded in a lethal cone from an improvised explosive device.

  The water parted under Merlin’s hand, flung back to either side, and the bottom of the pond sank away, mud vanishing to reveal rough-worked steps cut into earth and then the totally incongruous sight of a familiar-looking door. A hotel door, with the metal numbers “617.”

  Merlin’s room at the Northumberland.

  Merlin ran down the steps with Susan and Vivien close behind, even as the leading finger of the murmuration reached the green, totally blocking the sun, the hum of all those beating wings now a roar, as if a waterfall cascaded down behind them.

  Merlin flung the door open and reached back to grip Susan’s left hand, pulling her in. Vivien followed, kicking the door shut behind her, accompanied by a sudden drumbeat like a machine gun as starlings smashed into it, dozens of small, feathery missiles.

  Then there was silence.

  “Where are we?” asked Susan, looking around. They were in almost total darkness, but she had a sensation of space about them and the air, though still, had the bite of frost in it; she felt it on her face. The only light came from the silvery glow of Merlin’s hand, and a moment later Vivien’s, as she took off her glove. But this was not enough to illuminate more than their faces, and the ground beneath them. Which, Susan noticed, was not bottom-of-a-pond mud but stone.

  “Nowhere,” said Merlin quietly. “Somewhere. An in-between place. Vivien?”

  It was cold, and becoming colder with every passing second. Susan shivered.

  “Vivien!” Merlin spoke more urgently, his breath a cloud of white.

  “We are atop a low hill, in the spring, when the air is neither warm nor cool,” said Vivien, gesturing with her hand, as if indicating a vista for them to gaze upon. “Under a crescent moon in a clear sky, so bright with stars we can see our way.”

&nbs
p; Susan blinked. The sky had lit up with stars, and a slim sliver of moon hung there, and in the sudden light she could see they were indeed standing upon a low hill, of purple heather and fallen stones. But beyond the hill and the sky there was intense darkness, a total absence of light and detail.

  The intense feeling of increasing cold disappeared. Their breath was invisible now, no longer frosty billows of white.

  “The old road follows the ley, the old road shows us the way,” intoned Vivien, once again gesturing. Her silver hand was brighter now, as bright as the stars and moon, while Merlin’s had dimmed to a faint glow.

  A road sprang up ahead of them down the hill and across the dark void. A straight, welcoming road, of dirt and not enough gravel and numerous potholes, with wildflowers growing on the grassy verges. But to either side of the road there was nothing but the dark.

  “Susan, keep holding Merlin’s hand and stay close behind me,” said Vivien. She stepped onto the road and began to walk, holding her hand up in front, as if she needed to feel the way or might come upon some unseen obstruction.

  Merlin’s right hand gripped Susan’s left. She was comforted by his touch. His skin was warm, hers still icy. But she did not move.

  “Where are we going?” she asked quietly.

  Apart from their voices and footsteps, there was no noise here at all.

  “Silvermere,” said Merlin, his voice also low. “Where the Grail-Keeper resides. It can be reached through any body of water, but usually we pass through at the lake in the old quarry at Wooten, where Merrihew fishes for the ancient carp. The Greats open the way, and lead whoever’s going there. Viv and I have never done it by ourselves before.”

  “How far . . . how long do we walk through wherever this is?” asked Susan. She tried to sound calm, but she wasn’t. There was something eerie and deeply troubling about the space around them, beyond the road.

  “It varies,” said Merlin. Susan noticed his eyes kept flickering to either side, alert for something in that nothingness, beyond the narrow way.

  “It won’t be long,” said Vivien, with confidence. She was only a few steps in front, but she didn’t pause or turn her head behind to talk. “Remember to keep walking along the road, no matter what.”

  “Like the old straight track in Highgate Wood,” said Susan to Merlin. “Does that mean there’s something like the Shuck out there?”

  “Not like the Shuck,” said Vivien, momentarily reassuring Susan before she continued. “But there are entities entirely unrooted from the world, who might seek to return by using us as vessels,” replied Vivien, her face set on the road ahead. “They cannot harm us if we keep to the way and do not respond to their beguilement.”

  “Uh, okay,” said Susan. She sped up a bit, to keep closer to Vivien. The darkness beyond the road felt even more inimical now she knew there definitely were things in its dark reaches that might wish her harm.

  “I need to tell you quite a lot,” said Vivien. “We might not be able to talk in Silvermere. I’m not sure what will happen there. Time moves strangely and it’s weird in other ways. When I’ve been before, some of the people I was with didn’t seem to be there at the same time, even though we went together. And some came back separately as well.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Susan nervously. Her mind immediately leaped ahead to being left in this dark void alone. Would the sky be bright, and the road here, if it weren’t for Vivien and her shining right hand?

  “The Grail-Keeper decides what occurs in Silvermere, who may come and go, and on what terms,” said Vivien. “Don’t worry, we’ll definitely get there and it is much easier leaving, the Grail-Keeper sorts that out. But we might not be able to all talk together and we might be separated coming back. So you need to know what I learned from Aunt Helen and Aunt Zoë; a great deal of information has finally come in, and even though I don’t know what it means yet, at least we’re finally getting to grips—”

  “You got through, then?” interrupted Merlin. “Thurston and Merrihew didn’t commandeer the call?”

  “Thurston cut in right at the end, in a total flap, ordering us to surrender to the nearest police station and wait for ‘older and wiser counsel,’” said Vivien. It was weird her speaking without looking back, thought Susan; it almost made her voice seem disembodied. “But I talked to Zoë and Helen first, and they have dropped everything to work on this. Susan, the library card was in the name of ‘Coniston comma Rex.’”

  “Rex!” exclaimed Susan. “So my dad’s name is Rex?”

  “Not exactly,” continued Vivien. “As soon as she saw that, Helen remembered where she’d seen the drawing on the cigarette case. It’s—look down!”

  Susan obeyed. She had a split-second glimpse of a vast shadow blotting out the moon and stars, and two brilliant and strangely fascinating violet eyes before she refocused on the back of Vivien’s shoes. She kept looking at them. The shadow withdrew, but she could feel a presence nearby, and a sheen of violet light persisted in her vision.

  “Don’t look and you’ll be fine,” said Merlin, close behind her. His words were somewhat belied by how swiftly he had drawn the old sword, which he held high in his left hand, and his right hand closed more tightly on Susan’s.

  “Keep your eyes down. As Vivien said, it can’t touch us on the road, only lure us to leave it.”

  “What is it?” asked Susan. She hoped she sounded calm and conversational. She could feel the thing’s presence, keeping pace with them, a vast shape of shadow that loomed as close as it dared to the road.

  “Something ancient and forgotten, something banished long ago,” said Vivien. “Pay it no attention. As I was saying, Helen recognized the etching on your cigarette case as a stylized work after J. M. W. Turner’s A View in the Lake District.”

  “And?” asked Susan. She was finding it hard not to look aside; it took considerable effort to keep her gaze focused on Vivien’s back. There was something about those violet eyes that she wanted to see again. . . .

  “Head down!” snapped Merlin.

  Susan almost wrenched her neck looking down again. She hadn’t realized she was starting to look up, which was deeply disturbing.

  “So, Turner, A View in the Lake District,” she said, talking more loudly to distract herself from the lure of the creature who stalked beside them.

  “It’s commonly believed to be a view of the Old Man of Coniston,” said Vivien.

  “Which is a mountain,” said Susan.

  “True,” said Vivien. “But the Old Man of Coniston is also one of the Ancient Sovereigns. And ‘Rex’ means ‘King’ in Latin.”

  “My father is the Old Man of Coniston?” blurted out Susan. “That’s almost as bad as being a stone.”

  But though she said that, there was something about the phrase “the Old Man of Coniston” that resonated inside her; she felt that fizzy, expectant sensation grow stronger, as if recognizing that its time drew ever nearer.

  “He’s not actually the mountain,” said Merlin. “I mean, he kind of . . . um . . . inhabits it metaphysically; it’s the locus of his power. Did the aunts have anything else to add?”

  “Yes,” replied Vivien. “I hadn’t got very far with the microfiche copies of the Harshton and Hoole records when I heard about the incursion at . . . at the safe house. But I asked Cousin Linda to keep going, and to tell Helen what she found. Which was almost nothing, which is suspicious in itself. A very selective fire, obviously—”

  “What did she find?” asked Susan urgently. She was having trouble keeping her eyes on Vivien’s feet, and now she thought she could hear faint music coming from the darkness, lilting, soft music that made her want to turn her head to catch it better, to fix the melody in her mind.

  “A carbon copy of a lockbox inventory at the main Birmingham workshop that included two silver-gilt cigarette cases, ‘for purposes of propitiation,’ and they were marked as delivered.”

  “What does that mean?” asked Susan loudly. She shook her head to tr
y to get the music out of it. It was like the worst earworm ever, made more intriguing because she couldn’t quite make all of it out. The urge to stop and listen and turn her head was intense, like an unbearable itch. Distraction was the only thing that kept her from pursuing that music, from looking at the eyes she knew were mere feet away, staring at her. . . .

  “And two? Why two cigarette cases?” added Susan. “Two! Two!”

  Behind her, Merlin started to sing Gilbert and Sullivan again, “A British Tar Is a Soaring Soul” from H.M.S. Pinafore in a gruff, very flat voice quite different from the tuneful baritone he’d employed back in the hotel. It was, Susan realized, more effective in blocking the siren call of the creature that accompanied them in the shadows by the road. The otherworldly music latched on to the true notes, but was repelled by flats and sharps.

  “Nearly all mythic entities can be propitiated or distracted with gifts; it’s in their nature,” said Vivien. She had adopted a droning, boring lecture tone, again clearly a tactic to counter the siren call. “They love precious metals and jewelry, and fine weapons and so on, which Harshton and Hoole make to help us when we need to do deals.”

  “So the booksellers were trying to organize something between my father and . . . who?” asked Susan. She was almost shouting, but neither Merlin nor Vivien objected. It helped block the lure.

  “I don’t know,” said Vivien, with great frustration. “But someone does. I mean, one of us.”

  “Thurston, I reckon,” said Merlin. He took a breath and sang on, “‘And his fist be ever ready, for a knock-down blow!’”

  “Maybe,” replied Vivien. “It might not even be one of the Greats.”

  “So my father is the Old Man of Coniston,” shouted Susan. “The Old Man of Conisto-on-on-on-on!”

  “It seems that is precisely so,” droned Vivien. “Let me cast my mind back to the Index of Ancient Sovereigns and Principalities of England. I cannot entirely recall the entry on your father, because he is not listed as malevolent, and we only made a particular study of the malevolents, of which there are approximately six hundred and nineteen. As of 1926, when the last edition of the Index was published. A new one is somewhat overdue.”