Controlling one’s own body is such an innate act that once his slipped from his control, Peter did not even know how to struggle. He observed as his body slipped out of the room and took one step along the hall. He paused. Notice that something is wrong, he silently urged Veleur. Help me.
After a moment his body turned and flitted across the bare floor to the front door. If any of them had looked up, they would have seen him. He glimpsed their bowed heads, oblivious.
There must have been a gust of wind, a faint sound as he went out the front door and down the stone steps. He jogged down the grass verge to the side of the gravel path and into the shrubbery out front, down a path he did not know. The scroll was still in his hand, curled protectively against his chest. He tried to reach for the art, but only felt dull emptiness, presumably the chain still doing its duty.
Was it the League? Was it him they wanted, or the Scroll of Summoning?
The knowledge of the scroll seemed to have seeped into his mind. The Scroll of Summoning with which Saint Patrick could be brought forth and bargained with. The information must be coming to him somehow from the one who controlled him. Much as Peter wanted to scream and struggle and rail futilely, it seemed he could do nothing to stop his magical abduction or even alert Veleur to what was happening. But he could try and glean what was going on, at least.
Peter thought furiously. Summon Patrick why? The question went unanswered. He tried to do as he had before, forming the first part of a thought to see if the rest would follow. They would summon Saint Patrick in order to ... extend the ward. To give him the power to cover all Britain with his protection.
Marley, the woman from the League, stepped out onto the path before him. He could feel the texture of her mind lying over his like a heavy woollen blanket. She held a cell phone to her ear, frowning. Because ... her colleagues had not responded to the agreed signal. She had to assume their position had been exposed. She ended the call and dialled again.
“AA Taxis,” she asked.
Peter followed on meekly behind, still groping blindly for control.
Chapter Ten
It became a long trek. The taxi took them first to a hotel, but Marley was gone only shortly. Peter sat still, making no response to the cabby’s asides. He did not see, but blackly felt the correct sign was not showing at the window. She sent a coded text, and they went on to a location far into the verdant hills while the cabby sought reassurance about cost and tariffs and, finally, payment in advance.
“Don’t say much, does he?” the old man said with a nod to Peter, who had been staring at the seat back, feeling increasingly travel sick -- and screaming on the inside. The crucifix and chain were still in his hand, so even bypassing his body and reaching for the art directly did not work. He could still feel it dimly, the earth flicking where the car tires travelled the dull asphalt. But it would not answer him.
He disembarked stiffly at the end, and they waited at the corner of a yellow blooming field, where Marley consulted some device he did not recognize. She checked her watch, looked down the dirt road, and then looked appraisingly at Peter. That was the last clear memory he formed.
Awareness was no great gift. Peter’s head pounded with a slow, tidal regularity, as though his temples were filled with pulses of ice-cold water. There was a silence, replacing a sensation he had not previously noticed -- the subtle roar of the earth that had been building beneath him. Never more than an inarticulate murmur -- or was it a muffled shout? -- except for two most memorable moments.
The earth was silent now, and all but dead, in terms of the magical arts. He could hardly tell what position he was in, but even before opening his eyes he knew that it was dark. Opening his eyes revealed little more. It was most absolutely dark.
A light flared in the darkness, illuminating a windowless cell, small and made from dry stone. The lighter was held in a familiar hand. Father Michael started his pipe fussily, making sure it had caught properly.
“Sister Marley was sure you would not survive,” he said gruffly. He sat on a chair immediately in front of the stout planked door. “But then, she is jealous of the time I spent with you. She wished to be my only student, and in the end she was -- at least for a while.”
Peter closed his eyes again. He was in Ireland, he supposed. He felt quite calm and wondered at it. He did not answer.
“Of course, she was an excellent student in her way; you were rather less so. But it was perhaps ... unrealistic ... to set your feet on the path to priesthood. We had hoped that the voice of God would be heard above the voice of lust.”
Father Michael’s voice was not cold; it was the same warm voice of counsel and support, even in this. They had known that an elf would come to him. They had known and planned for it. Even as they planned to push the elves further back, even to the point of extinction.
Peter moved one hand, feeling the weakness in it. He could tell from this that standing was well beyond his current resources, even if he had a place to go.
“Had I been better warned, I might have done better, Father. I never claimed a saint’s resources, nor even the character required to be a priest. In the end, a student may only learn what he is taught and make his errors in the silence between.”
“How poetic,” Father Michael said, puffing a fragrant fog into the air. But Peter could tell that his interest was caught. “And whose student are you now?”
Peter stretched both hands and with them found the edges of his cot. “I have only my conscience as my guide, and I can only judge people by how they have acted, and how they act, towards me.”
“We could not trust you,” Father Michael said, a hint of sympathy colouring his words. “Not knowing that one of them would come for you. We could not tell you anything that you might turn against us, even when I knew ... I knew that telling you of our long duty, our mission, would have given you strength. I hoped that faith would be enough. That it should have been, if you were really one of ours.”
“And now?”
“I am an older man than I once was, more understanding of human failings. Perhaps that is a weakness in me, but I have heard enough in confession to know we cannot expect each other to be saints. Perhaps you are right -- making it easy for a man to sin is never fair, even if the choice in the end remains his.”
In that moment, Peter knew that underneath it all, Father Michael’s warmth had been real. He wondered how he could use that and then stopped, disgusted. Sin in the end is to act against conscience, to distance oneself from God. Peter had felt no sin in letting Veleur in, in loving him. He would not step into deception even for the best of reasons.
He meditated upon the pounding in his head, ebbing in and out, and wondered if he might die after all. His fingers trembled, and his arms hardly moved at his command. He heard Father Michael’s shuffling feet and felt rather than saw the old man looking down at him.
The soft footsteps receded, and the old door creaked. Peter tried to raise his head a little to look, but it did not move, just lying heavy like a rain-soaked flower-head on a slender stalk.
“He’ll need a doctor still,” Father Michael said.
“We cannot bring a doctor to a cell, not even an understanding one,” Marley replied coolly.
“We’ll move him upstairs; a room will be secure enough.”
Peter saw little difference in the small room, except a window and the dim sound of the sea. It was a small window and not one that would ordinarily give him much hope; he knew himself to be a large man, but days without proper food were changing him. Father Michael came to see him often. He asked a lot of question to which Peter gave few answers. He felt his last strength leaking from him like water from a cracked vessel. It was gradual but inexorable.
Answers to questions seemed less important to him now. He turned a single image in his thoughts: Veleur. Veleur as he last saw him, solemn and concerned. Veleur lying still as the binding encompassed him, lying in the cold ground.
After an indeterminate per
iod, a doctor stood over Peter and examined him with instruments both mundane and occult. The doctor turned to Father Michael, overheard by Marley, who stood guard at the door.
“Direct use of the art is dependence, as you know,” the doctor said. There was no sympathy in his pouchy eyes; he looked down over his bristly white beard like a vivisectionist at an interesting pinioned specimen. “His experience of their direct use is limited and so the process is slow. But if he is to survive, he must leave Ireland.”
“Can you say this for sure?”
“For sure except that everything is, of course, in God’s hands.”
“And there it shall remain,” Father Michael said. “I have faith that he will survive. That he will come back to us.”
From where Father Michael stood, he could not have seen Marley’s sneer. Peter barely saw it; it was as if the room was still full of smoke, thick white smoke. His limbs felt dead already, clammy and cold. Leaving Ireland would not be enough, he knew. After tomorrow, Britain and all of Ireland would be covered by the binding -- and as far as he could tell, without warning. If his little experience was enough to kill in days, he feared that many would have only moments, not even enough to flee.
Then in the doorway, he saw it.
A small dog tiptoed along the corridor and ducked under a side table half-draped with a tapestry. A small white dog with red ears and a crumpled sheet of parchment in its jaws. Peter turned his eyes away and closed them.
He felt the silent regard of the room and the various wishes for his health. Somewhere in his heart, Father Michael still wanted Peter to come back to the fold, even as they turned their attentions to the murder of an entire race. Marley’s simple jealously wanted him gone, and the doctor assumed that this would soon occur.
Peter lay still and waited. They left, and Marley locked the door behind her.
The room was empty and still when he heard a slightly scratch against the door. Peter drew on all his reserves. He rolled very gradually over onto his front, to the edge of the narrow bed. The covers twisted about his legs, and he pushed with the utmost of his strength. He hit the dusty plank floor with a thud. Lying tangled, he saw the edge of a sheet of paper protruding under the door, shaking as it was pushed further.
Peter lifted one hand and placed it on the floor before him. The Marys had come to help him. He could not fathom how they had made it into Ireland, for their very substance must be magic, but they were here. They depended upon him, as did so many others. He felt the grit and dust of the floor beneath him and pulled, dragging his inert body forward a scant inch. He dragged out his other numbed hand, fixed his eye upon the paper, and pulled again.
It must have taken almost half an hour to make it to the door. Any moment somebody would come to check on him, still leery of him, even in such a weakened state. His shaking hand pulled the scroll under the door. He could hear the sisters’ canine form pacing beyond. Peering up at the door, he saw its keyless lock, an obstacle he could not overcome. The canine nose sniffed at the crack beneath the door -- a finger’s width, at least, but little help at that. Peter lay his head down wearily. He could see the dog’s feet padding and hear a slight metallic chime as she dropped something. He saw it before him. His own crucifix, an artefact that stopped magic from leaving or entering a form. He did not know where in his journey he’d dropped it, nor how they’d managed to follow him so far. But the sight of their humble avatar gave him renewed hope.
The dog’s nose sniffed tight against the bottom of the door. Peter couldn’t fathom what they wanted, but the sound was insistent. He pushed his grimy hand forwards, the tips of his fingers sliding under the door. The dog put her paw down firmly upon them. She had some kind of plan.
She shook her body, and he heard the crucifix fall to the ground. In a moment his hand was as cold as ice and the pressure on it lifted.
Stand up, young man. We have places to be.
It was Mary Theresa -- they were inside of him. And now he had the strength; shaky, but enough to stand.
Hurry, Peter. We must make haste, or we will be too late to stop them. Our strength will fade quickly now.
Peter groped for the chain. It had held them together this far.
No, Mary Rosalina chided. It will not help us now -- only speed. The window, quickly. We are near the coast; the binding will save us, and not only us.
Peter staggered to his feet with his borrowed strength. He scooped up the ancient text and folded it, gripping it between his teeth. A few steps returned him to the bedside and the window, not more than a foot wide. Looking out, he saw a two-story fall onto an uneven lawn, sloping down to ragged dunes. Where the water met the stones of the shore, a haze of colour arose, golden like a haze of pollen, but burning in a complex tessellation and shifting with every wave.
To the beach, they urged together, already weaker.
The window had no catch or sash; it was a single fixed plate of glass. Peter grabbed the pillow and placed it in the niche, then hit it with his elbow. It cracked and stubbornly gave way in its ancient putty. He pulled the torn pillow back. He felt it now, the urgency. He could see the binding boiling upon the beach, straining. Dark figures stood before it, and the brightest flames encircled them. The whole sky seemed to warp before them.
Peter put one foot on the edge of the bed and threw himself forward. He jack-knifed his body sideways, feeling small shards of glass slice his skin. He kicked and pushed, dangled and hung from his knees, and heedless of the height, he kicked out. His shoulder glanced off the stones as he fell. The ground hit him hard across his bowed shoulders, and he crumpled against the side of the old house.
Certain that someone must have seen him, he stood quickly. He grabbed the scroll in his hand and made his best effort to run -- a shambling limp -- towards the sea.
“What must I do?” he muttered to the air.
The words are on the scroll. The words in red ink, said aloud and strongly enough, will allow you to speak to Patrick, Saint Patrick, who is in the binding.
Peter stumbled and landed face-down in the tussock. Speak to Saint Patrick? What good would that do?
That is all the League seeks to do, but there is one last thing that they have not realised. They cannot speak to Patrick. For that, they will need a very powerful medium, and charlatans aside, that is a very rare skill indeed. There is only you. Since Patrick himself, there has been only you.
Peter looked up through the swaying seed heads of the beach grasses. To the right he could see the black-clad figures of the League, five men that he could see. He cut to the left instead, down the dunes to the turn where the open beach curved towards a small inlet. It began to rain, the wind dashing each drop hard against him like a lash. He stumbled down onto the stony beach, turning his ankle in his haste.
“Is this close enough?”
It will serve.
He unfolded the crumbling scroll, and even as he read, damage and rain began to erode the ancient paper.
“Te advocamus ...”
In English, Peter. It is the sentiment that is important, and the will.
I summon you, Maewyn Scat, called Patricus. I call upon you in the name of Ireland. I call upon you from within the circle of your binding in the land of your protectorate. I call you, Patrick, to conference. I offer you goodwill, pure intent, and if it be necessary, at the forfeit of my life.”
The glowering clouds roared with thunder, and the rain tripled its weight and strength, tearing the last shreds of the paper from his grasp. He was not even sure he had read it correctly or in full. Heavy sea mist fell like a thick white curtain, so that he could see little further than a few feet. The binding shimmered, and it seemed as if a figure stepped towards him through the mist, a faint human form clothed in swirls of vaporous gold.
“What do you want of me?” said a weary voice upon the wind.
“I’ll tell you what you want from him,” said the quiet, steely voice of Marley, behind Peter. He spun to see her backing up her demand with
a handgun, pointed levelly at his chest. “You want him to expand the binding to all of Britain and Ireland, and we have the power to give him, the strength to do it stored in the talisman upon the beach.”
Peter backed down the beach, swinging his gaze from Marley to the wraith. Patrick’s form was becoming stronger and finer in its detail. A small, hunched figure in a long robe, with wispy hair and a full beard. Patrick looked at Marley.
“That is what those wailing priests wanted? Well. I cannot hear them properly from this realm. I can hear only what this one hears,” he said, pointing one long, gaunt finger at Peter. “I may speak only to those he sees.”
Peter back further away, horrified. In seeking to stop this atrocity, he was going to bring it about. “No, you cannot. Many will die ...”
“Witches,” Patrick dismissed. “Demons. Had I the strength, I would have made the ward encompass all of the continent and lands beyond. For all that I am tired now, I will do this last surface if it is put within my power.”
“The talismans,” Marley said with a loud but trembling voice. “You need only --”
“No!” Peter shouted. He put his hands over his ears, and with all his untrained might he pushed against the ghostly figure in front of him. Lightning flashed brightly across the whole sky, and thunder thrummed through the earth. Patrick towered higher, like a fanned flame, and turned towards Peter. He spoke to Peter with mind and voice and could not be drowned out.
“You are here as a tool of God, to make this possible. Submit your will to me.”
For a moment Peter could hardly remember who he was or where, the force of the ghost’s will so overpowered him. Then he remembered Veleur’s face.
“Not demons,” Peter shouted hoarsely. “And if witches, not sinners. You cannot do this.”
“What nonsense do you speak, child?” Patrick reached towards him, a towering hand of smoke and fire.
“The binding must fall, must fail,” Peter muttered. Marley could not shoot him now that she knew she needed him to speak to Patrick. Peter stood up tall and put both hands before him. The wind whipped him with rain and sea spray.
Maewyn's Prophecy: Pilgrim Heart Page 9
