by Sarah Rayne
Fael-Inis said, “You have been sleeping the sleep of the soulless, sir,” and Calatin turned a look of great astonishment on him.
“Have I? Well, do you know, that’s a very curious thing. Inside the Prison of Hostages, was I? Well, now there’s a place not many escape from … well, there isn’t anyone that has that I can think of offhand. Now I come to think about it, that pesky Lad was dancing about somewhere outside. Did he get in? Did he? I suppose he told a good tale and the boys let him in. Kind hearts every one of them, but no brains. Just like their mother. Dear me, she’d have been sad to see this day.” He drew out an enormous red spotted handkerchief from a capacious pocket somewhere and mopped his eye.
“Of course, the Lad can be very clever,” he said, having blown his nose vigorously. “And the boys would never see they were being fooled.” He moved one arm cautiously. “Yes, I am a bit stiff,” he said. “Dear me, I must have been asleep for … No, I’d better not be told, because I should only begin counting up all the things I’d missed, and you’re better off not knowing what you’ve missed.”
“Indeed you are, sir,” said Fribble, fascinated.
“Well, if the boys let the Lad in, it’s their lookout,” said Calatin. “Time and again I’ve warned them, but they think they know best. They like things to be loud and dramatic, and if there’s one thing you can’t have in good sorcery, it’s loud noises and drama. Bless my soul, it’s all down in the Amaranth Chronicles. Get the spell right, I tell them. Keep the Looms well oiled and follow the Chronicles, I tell them, but they don’t listen to a word I say. You’ll forgive me, sirs, but I’ve forgotten your names for the moment. My memory isn’t what it was, although I daresay your names would come back to me if we waited a bit.” He tapped his forehead. “Old age,” he said. “Dear me, it’s a sad trial at times. A very sad trial.” And looked at them expectantly.
Fael-Inis said, “We are merely travellers, Calatin. But seeking your assistance,” and Calatin sat up straighter and looked pleased.
“I’m often sought out,” he said. “All kinds of people come to ask my advice, you wouldn’t believe. Well, we had to make a better road through the forest, although I see through the window that it’s grown up a bit. And of course, the boys don’t tell me things these days. They’d like me to retire if the truth was told, but what I say is, why retire when you don’t want to?” He beamed amiably at Fribble, who at once said, “Quite right. Dear me, sir, you possess good sense, I see,” and Calatin looked pleased, and slapped Fribble on the back, which, as Fribble later pointed out, was rather alarming, because — “Although he’s quite a small giant as giants go” — Calatin was still twelve feet tall and his hands were like York hams.
“I was bruised for days afterwards,” said Fribble, “but I didn’t say anything, because it wouldn’t have been courteous. And he’s very amiable. It’s all very interesting, isn’t it?”
Calatin was very amiable indeed. He insisted on them taking supper with him, and would not hear of a refusal.
“We’ve eaten supper,” began Taliesin.
“But we can always manage another one,” put in Fribble. “And the Tyrian has some rather good wine.”
“Oh, so you’re a Tyrian, are you?” said Calatin, inspecting Taliesin with interest. “My word, our ancestors had some rare old times together, didn’t they? Haven’t you heard of the sorcery wars between the Amaranths and the Tyrians? Haven’t you? Well, it makes a very good tale, only I don’t know if I could remember any of it —” He beamed on Taliesin, and then said in an aside to Fribble that he had never yet heard of a Tyrian who didn’t judge his wine remarkably well.
Taliesin, hearing this, at once uncorked the wine flask and offered it to Calatin, who accepted it, said he took it very kindly of Taliesin, and drained the flask in two gulps.
“Very good,” he nodded, mopping his mouth. “I never thought to see a Tyrian at my table, but you’re very welcome, sir.”
Taliesin said, “I will dine with any man who will serve wine, and I will talk with any race who will provide interesting discourse.” He raised his glass to Calatin. “You are providing both, sir,” he said, and Calatin said, “Am I really? My word, that’s very true,” and turned with relief to Fribble, who was trying to explain about their journey and about Medoc having taken Tara.
“Ah, you’re from the Court, are you?” said Calatin. “Well, that is interesting. I daresay I shall be a bit of out of touch, of course. But the boys will tell me everything.” He took another sup of wine reflectively. “Dear me, Medoc’s got Tara, has he?” he said. “I never cared for Medoc. My word, it’s a bad business and no mistake. Dear me, I don’t like to think what the end might be. He’s arrogant,” said Calatin, nodding and tapping the side of his nose with a forefinger. “Very arrogant, that Medoc. One of the Northern lot, you can always tell. They think they can rule the world, well, to be fair, they probably could, only it’s as well if you don’t let them know it. And it’s always a good idea to let them think you’ve got better enchantments in your armoury than you actually have, if you take my meaning, even if you haven’t got any enchantments at all. But that’s for you to worry about. I’m only a plain sorcerer. An artisan. It’s all quite easy. So long as you keep the Looms properly oiled and follow the rules, you can’t really go far wrong. No need to pretend otherwise, although I could tell you some stories … But I mustn’t breach trade secrets. I’m going to write my memoirs one day,” he said confidingly. “That’ll make a few people sit up. I’m looking forward to that. But I don’t gossip,” he said again. “I’m quite safe. You can tell me anything you like. The boys are a bit over-chatty sometimes. I wouldn’t like to tell them anything that oughtn’t to be widely known. They go to all these get-togethers. Sorcerers and wizards, and a few necromancers as well, I shouldn’t be surprised. One of them had the effrontery to bring a wraith back once. Over my dead body, I said. You take that hussy out of here, or you go through that door and don’t come back. Well, we couldn’t be having that sort of person in here. I don’t know what his poor mother would have said. But they’re good boys. They work very hard.” He nodded portentously, and Taliesin said in an undertone to Fael-Inis, “This is terrible. We’ll have to tell him.”
“In good time,” said Fael-Inis gently.
“I won’t ask too much about why you’re here,” said Calatin, looking hopeful all the same. “Unless there’s a plot against the Throne. Now that is something I won’t have anything to do with. I’m very loyal.” He looked quite fierce as he said this, and Taliesin and Fribble both backed away, because when a giant — even a small one — looks at you fiercely, it is not easy to stand your ground. Fribble poured himself another measure of wine. “For courage,” he explained.
Taliesin said, “You may be sure, sir, that we are the Queen’s men through and through,” and Calatin said he was very glad to hear it.
“If you’re fighting for Her Majesty, you have my support,” he said, rather emotionally. “And you’ll forgive me for making the point, but you do get the odd rebel, of course.”
He nodded, and finished his supper with enjoyment. “Because,” he said, mopping his plate industriously with a piece of bread, “when you’ve been asleep for a bit, you’re bound to feel a bit peckish when you wake up.” He ate a gargantuan meal, starting with some plovers’ eggs they had overlooked earlier, working on through a few roast geese with a brace or so of ducklings on the side, and ending with one half of a cheese and a couple of bowls of fruit.
“And now,” he said, having mopped up the last crumb, “now, what is it I can do for you? I should mention the — dear me — the fee,” he added, lowering his voice to a whisper, as if this was rather an impolite word.
Taliesin said, “We have not the riches of the East, nor the wealth of the world, sir. But I believe we can meet your fee.”
“I have to be expensive,” explained Calatin, sounding apologetic. “For one thing there’s this house — you wouldn’t believe the way it gets thro
ugh money. If it isn’t the dry rot in the roof, it’s insects chewing the timbers. And the boys aren’t cheap,” he said. “They like their little get-togethers with other sorcerers — and why not, I say. But they will belong to the Sorcerers’ Fellowship, and then there’s the Old Boys’ Academy of Wizardry — mind you, I like to go along to that myself. And they’re all Comrades of the Loom, which of course is very useful. Secret handshakes and rituals,” he said, lowering his voice impressively which, as Fribble said, could still have been heard on the other side of the forest.
“And it all costs money,” said Calatin, shaking his head and refilling everyone’s glass.
“I oughtn’t to have any,” said Fribble. “Just a half glass perhaps. Well, if you insist — your good health, sir!”
“Yes, it’s all very costly,” said Calatin. “Subscriptions to this and that, and then suppers at people’s houses, and of course you have to return the hospitality. And my family weren’t what you’d term rich,” he added in another of his vast whispers. “Everyone thinks the Amaranth line was enormously wealthy, but so much of it went in the Sorcery
Wars — dear me, I intended no discourtesy, sir. But sorcery itself isn’t a well-paid profession, you know. We get what we can. But it’s as well to make these things clear.”
Taliesin murmured something that sounded like, “All the riches of the world we shall lay at thy feet,” and Fribble, who felt that a note of practicality was called for, said, “Be assured that we can pay your fee,” and Calatin looked pleased.
“And you know, you haven’t yet told me what it is that you want,” he said, and sat back, and eyed them expectantly, first one and then another, which Fribble found disconcerting.
“If he had two eyes like any one else,” said Fribble, “I could stand it. It’s this single unblinking stare I can’t cope with.”
But no giant single-eyed stare could prevail against Fael-Inis. He leaned forward and looked directly at Calatin.
“Well?” said Calatin, who was, truth to tell, becoming just the smallest bit afraid of this strange, golden-eyed creature, but who would not have dreamed of showing it, because you did not show discourtesy to guests, not if you wanted business from them. And so he waited for these really rather unexpected people to explain what they required, and hoped he would be able to do whatever it was.
And so when Fael-Inis looked at him and said, “It is something that is easily within your capabilities, good Calatin,” Calatin was very pleased, and said at once that he’d do his best.
Fael-Inis said softly, “Protect these men from the Time Fire.”
Calatin sat back in his chair and stared at the three strangers in his house and said, “Oh dear, you’re not going into the Far Future?”
*
“I’ll do it,” said Calatin at last. “I don’t like it, but I’ll do it.”
“Is there a difficulty?” asked Taliesin.
“Well, there is and there isn’t,” said Calatin, frowning, which made him look rather odd.
“A one-eyed frown,” murmured Fribble. “Dear me, I never thought to see such a peculiar thing.”
“The spell can be spun very easily,” said Calatin. “My word, it’s basic stuff, that. I can do it standing on my head, although I won’t. And fresh off the Loom it will be. And there’s the thing.” He leaned forward. “It’s a spell that has to be very fresh indeed for it to work,” he said. “You’ll have to be inside the spell and out of here into the Time Chariot so fast you couldn’t say ‘caterpillar’s boots,’ always supposing you wanted to say such a ridiculous thing, which I don’t suppose you do.
“But then you’ll want to come back,” said Calatin, “because it stands to reason that you won’t want to stay in the Future — well, no one would. A nasty place, the Future,” he said, with a shudder which rocked the table and made Fribble spill his wine.
“You’ll want to come back,” said Calatin, “and there’s the problem. You’ll have the spell with you,” he said, “but will it stay potent? And if it doesn’t, what will you do? I don’t know a great deal about the sorcerers of the Future,” said Calatin, who actually knew nothing at all about them, but thought it would sound unprofessional to admit this, “but I don’t think we should rely on them. For one thing we don’t know what they’d charge, and for another they might not understand about the Time Fire. It’s a bit risky. Are you sure you want to go? Yes, I can see you do.” He looked at them. “Shall we say noon today?” he said. “But you’ll have to remember that under no circumstances at all can you expect the spell to last longer than seven days.
“If you stay in the Future for longer than that, the spell will certainly be dead. You would never be able to come back.”
*
If the gallery outside the silver door had hummed and quivered and thrown out heat before, now the sensations were magnified and multiplied a hundred times as Calatin set the Silver Looms to harness the power of the sorcerer.
“He’s a very able sorcerer,” said Fribble, as they sat together in the banqueting hall. “He might seem a bit bumbling, but he’s very good.”
Taliesin said, “The bodies of the Sons …” and Fael-Inis said, “He will not see them.”
“The Cloak of Invisibility in addition to all else?” said Taliesin lightly, and Fael-Inis said, “Exactly,” and Taliesin looked up sharply, because although he had not been entirely flippant, neither had he been altogether serious.
Fael-Inis said tranquilly, “Calatin will not see the bodies until he has woven the spell we need.”
“Have you any of the higher feelings?” said Taliesin, and Fael-Inis looked amused.
“I have deeper feelings than ever you could comprehend,” he said. “When I walked away from the Great Rebellion, my heart bled with the pity and the waste and the anguish of it. When the doors closed on the place in which I had dwelled, and I found myself alone in the world of Men, I was in more agony than you could dream exists. There has never been a day, nor yet an hour, when I have not ached for the loss of that which existed before Lucifer led his followers against the gods. He suffered defeat and banishment, but there were others who had to suffer it with him. And though I cannot return until it pleases the gods to end the world, I have never ceased to long for it.” He looked at Taliesin. “I have many of the higher feelings,” said the rebel angel softly, “just as you have, Mortal.”
Taliesin said lightly, “I am uncaring and careless. I have no feelings for anyone.” He reached for the replenished wine chalice at his elbow, and lifted it rather challengingly.
Fael-Inis smiled. “You have imagination and sensitivity, and you care a very great deal,” he said. “You care for the future of mankind, and you care for the future of Ireland as well. That is why you accompanied Fergus and Fribble.”
“I cared only to escape from a life that was irksome and narrow,” said Taliesin, drinking his wine and reclining in the chair rather negligently.
“Rubbish,” said Fribble unexpectedly. “Guts and imagination, that’s what you’ve got. Unusual to find both together, you know. Especially unusual to find them in a Tyrian, because as a rule Tyrians only care about making money. That’s all very well in its way,” said Fribble, beaming, “but there’re other things to life as well as making money.”
“Other things in life —” Taliesin grinned at them both, and lifted the wine to his lips.
“Fribble is right,” said Fael-Inis, sending Fribble his sudden smile, and Fribble said at once, “Of course I am. People think I’m silly, but I’m not nearly as silly as I appear. It’s quite useful to let people think you’re silly sometimes. You get away with a good deal,” he said, looking at Taliesin thoughtfully. “It’s nearly as clever to let people think you don’t care as it is to let them think you’re silly. For a Tyrian you’re quite an interesting person.”
Taliesin laughed, and Fael-Inis said, “Why did you accompany Fergus and Fribble?” and Taliesin glanced involuntarily to where Fergus’s body lay on the velvet-cov
ered couch beneath the window that looked out on to the forest.
“To save the world,” said Taliesin in a mocking tone. “What else?” and Fael-Inis smiled.
“Is that also the reason you will assume Fergus’s mantle and go into the Far Future to bind the Apocalypse and turn back the Four Horsemen?”
“Must I do so?”
“Don’t you think you must?”
There was a silence, and Taliesin felt Fael-Inis’s eyes boring into his mind again, and thought, Of course he knows what I am thinking, and of course he knows what I am feeling. Does he? Do I know myself? Despite himself, he heard again Fael-Inis’s words earlier: Who told you that life was intended to be easy, Mortal? Aloud he said, “Is Fergus completely lost to us?” and for the first time saw the golden-eyed creature hesitate.
But Fael-Inis only said, “We have certainly saved his body from the Conablaiche, for the Lad will not dare to break his promise to me.”
“Can we be sure of that?” Fribble wanted to know.
“Assuredly we can. The Lad will not invoke my wrath,” said Fael-Inis, and his eyes glittered rather frighteningly. “Did I not say we were old enemies, he and I? Fergus’s body will stay as it is.”
“And,” said Taliesin, “his soul?”
