by R. A Humphry
The masked magicians attacked as one and Harrington was a blur as he blocked and dodged and countered. Manu blazed like the sun and he screamed and ran at the group, diving straight for the first masked man he could see. Henry started casting. It became apparent in an instant that this was a mistake. They were outclassed. Manu slashed at empty air and found himself immobilised by constricting pythons, which squeezed and held his arms. Henry had his staff blown out of his hands and was seized in a choking grip, floating in mid air. Manu struggled as he saw Harrington stagger and then get seized by two of the masked men. It all looked to be over.
Killynghall incinerated two of the masked magicians before they even registered that he was there. The other three scattered in panic and both Harrington and Henry collapsed to the ground. The snakes vanished around Manu’s arms and he leapt on the back of an unsuspecting masked magician, driving the old blades deep into neck and spine. Killynghall dealt with the remaining attackers with a series of clinical detonations from his outstretched hand. Manu had the impression of an army officer executing deserters with his pistol. Crack, crack, crack and there were two still figures lying in the grass. Manu crawled over to Henry who was wheezing. Harrington looked up at him with exhausted eyes.
“Manu?” he asked in a thick Irish accent, “is that you boy?” Manu nodded as Killynghall loomed over his father’s battered friend.
“Ranger,” Killynghall said to Harrington in his expressionless manner and giving a short, formal bow. “What dire need allowed you to bring Feylings to my door?”
“Keeper,” Harrington nodded, “many thanks for your help. I bring news. But first I must speak to that boy,” he said pointing at Manu, “then we will talk.”
#
Killynghall brought them into the empty Chapel. He disappeared to find some medical supplies to help Harrington who was wounded and weak. Once he had gone Harrington pulled himself up into a seated position on one of the pews and gestured for Manu to come over.
“What are you doing here?” Manu blurted, unable to stop himself. “Who were those people?”
Harrington winced and leaned his head back. “Your parents sent me. Bad things are happening. I wish I had better news for you but…” he shrugged. “It looks like you are at least ready to hear it. I am glad. This would be much harder if you knew nothing of the other side, if you hadn’t manifested your father’s gifts.”
Dark dread built up in Manu and he sat down. “What news?”
“We have lost control of the rift,” Harrington said with a sad shake of his head. “It has been getting tougher and tougher. We were just about getting along, your parents and I and a few others, with some aid from the old orders. When that stopped we were fighting a losing battle. Things are slipping through the seals now, at will. Worse than that, the ancient defenders are all gone. The tribes are broken and purposeless and have lost their magic. They can’t oppose. The Feylings grow stronger and she moves unseen behind us all. Our strongest join her; our weakest are crushed by her.”
“Who? What are you saying?”
“The mad-woman. The Dread-Witch. Circe reborn, they call her here. Her followers burnt your farm, Manu. It is all gone. Your parents were forced to flee. We got them out, just. Robert is dead. So is Warimu. Your parents are deep in the frontier now, trying to rally the Elmolo.”
Manu stared at his hands and tried to adjust to this new reality. All gone. Everything he had ever known and loved was now windblown ashes. He had nothing, now, to go home to. Nothing but Darkwells and the grace of his friend. “Arap Milgo?” he asked.
Harrington shook his head. “Died defending your mother. Your father and I were delayed and she passed out from too much casting. He kept them off for long enough so we could get back.”
A sob escaped Manu before he could master it and he felt hot tears rolling down his cheeks. He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to see Henry, his face full of understanding and sympathy.
“Before he passed, he asked me to remind you to cast the bones. He said it was vital. And I am also to give you this, from your father.” Harrington pulled out the familiar shape of the curved Arab dagger. “A Bedouin Warden’s blade. He feared you might need it.”
Manu accepted the ornate dagger with gloomy foreboding. Why hadn’t his father kept it? Wouldn’t he need it? “Thank you, Harrington.” He said, sniffing hard.
“It’s nothing. I’m sorry. It appears my curse to always be the storm crow. But we have to forget that. I need your help. I have the feeling the Keeper is going to be uncooperative.” He reached into a pocket and pulled out a tatty piece of paper. “I am looking for something. Something that might be able to seal the breach in the rift. I think it might be in Darkwells, or one of them might be at any rate. It is probably in the form of a ring, but might be other things as well. It will have this symbol on it, have you seen it anywhere?”
The paper displayed a circle with strange script around the outside with a pentagram enclosed within it. The edges of the five-pointed star were sealed in a pentagon and the inside held another contained pentagram.
Henry took one look at it and jerked back as if he had seen a cobra. “Christ almighty that is the Seal of Solomon,” he said backing away.
“Yes,” Harrington said, giving Henry a gauging glance, “that’s right.”
“Henry? What is it?”
“It doesn’t exist,” his friend replied firmly. “Or it shouldn’t at least. The legend says that it is a ring given by the Archangel Michael to Solomon to defeat the demon Ornias. The ring lets him imprison the demon in a vase of bronze. Solomon uses the ring to imprison more demons and command them and learn their secrets. He builds a temple using their power but then falls into worshipping the very foul beings he imprisoned and so falls into evil. The Seal of Solomon is a cautionary tale, Manu. It is warning on the nature of power, on the temptation of righteous action. It is not real.”
“Oh but it is,” Harrington said with an unpleasant grin. “And there are seven of them. Where they came from no one is quite sure. They were used to bind the old spirits away. The great purging, it is called. It is what allowed this so called modern world. We pushed back the nightmares of the ancient world and trapped them in our seals. We harrowed out this planet of its monsters and allowed such a golden age of man as can be scarcely imagined. But it is coming apart. We fear that one of the rings is in the hands of the Dread-Witch and her Feylings. We fear that they are undoing the seals. She wants to tear it all down. This whole modern world. So self confident and arrogant and deceitful. So rotten at its very core. She wants the world to tremble again.”
“Why here?” Manu asked, trying to keep his hands from shaking. “Why do you think there is a seal here?”
“Merlin started it,” Harrington replied. “Right up that hill in the Tor. Merlin and his Warden, Arthur - the greatest Aegis of them all. They banished the faerie host and the burnt-face warrior. They started the purge that Solomon’s weakness let lapse. I believe it is in the school somewhere, buried with him.”
Henry whirled to face Harrington. “You think Merlin is buried in Darkwells?”
Harrington laughed - a wet, unhealthy sound. “No, no. Merlin is buried in a tree. We are also unsure if ‘buried’ is correct. ‘Imprisoned’ or ‘waiting’ might be just as accurate. No, I am looking for Arthur.”
Killynghall returned into the stunned silence. He tended to Harrington’s wounds with detached competence. “I heard your plan, Ranger,” he said as he finished up. “And I cannot allow it. The tomb will remain sealed. The wards will be unbroken.”
“You know the stakes,” Harrington replied, his voice calm and measured. “Leave your personal history out of it. You know we are being picked off. We must have help. What else is the Seal for but for this?”
Killynghall shook his head. “I will convene a congress. We will discuss your news.”
“We have no time!” Harrington shouted. The sound echoed in the empty Chapel but Killynghall was unmov
ed.
“The tomb will remain sealed.”
Chapter Twenty Two: Answers
Harrington waited until Killynghall left with Henry to do a round of the Darkwells perimeter before he spoke again. Manu waited, eager and starving for any further morsels of information about home, about his parents, about anything and yet terrified at what he might hear.
“That stubborn old fool. Anyone else and I would say that he was doing it out of pure spite, just to pique your father.”
Manu looked at him mystified. How would Killynghall know his father? Before he could ask Harrington spoke again, “Anyway lad, we should make use of this time alone. Who knows when we will have another opportunity eh? I’m sure you have millions of questions, I know I would. What would you like to know?”
“Are my parents safe?”
“For now. They are with the Elmolo, who have some strength still up in the north-east territory. I doubt the Leopard King would try and assault on them there. Your parents will have time to regroup - but they have never been ones to seek safety for long.”
“How did you meet them?”
“Oh, well. That’s quite a tale. I’ll have to give you the short version. Before I met your parents I spent a lot of time in India. They have the same problems there, you know. Worse, in some ways. My Warden and I were a strong Aegis on the sub-continent when I was young, until she got killed. When I lost her I didn’t cope well. I… went through a bad patch until your mother found me drunk out of my mind on home-brew rum under a palm in Bali. I’m pretty sure James wasn’t happy about it but your mother insisted that they help clean me up and bring me back in line. When I sobered up they explained to me about what they were planning to do in Africa. How they were defying the Raven-Banner and taking on the abandoned responsibilities themselves. It was an easy choice. Kari and I had been doing the same for years. It gave me purpose and direction again.”
“What have they been doing? What are you fighting?”
Harrington paused then gestured for Manu to sit next to him on the bench. “Come, sit here. It is going to be easier for me to show you. Faster too.”
Manu moved over and sat on the hard bench while Harrington stiffly moved and eased himself up. He placed his hands on Manu’s forehead, closed his eyes then opened them again.
#
Manu watched the tall windswept figure walk on the ridge of the dune. Its face was wrapped exposing only the eyes. Behind the figure the rippling sands of the Kalahari rose and fell into eternity. He knew that the figure was his father. A rifle was slung from one shoulder and the Arab knife was at his hip. He slid down a dune face and then Manu’s mother was there. She was in desert clothes and was sat cross legged in a small circle chanting with Harrington and a short brown skinned man that Manu knew was a bushman. Spirals of power peeled off the circle and rose up into the dry desert sky.
“It’s done,” James Wardgrave announced in a rasp. “The Scorpions are sealed back.”
The bushman leapt to his feet and started to click, click, click at the others in his strange language, overjoyed.
“How long?” Harrington asked as he took a long swallow from his flask. Manu’s mother answered, her voice commanding and regal and nothing like Manu remembered.
“Five years at most, if the Feylings don’t find it. Five years and they will worm free.”
Then Manu was in the jungle looking up through the tight canopy at misty mountain peaks. “They’re coming James!” Harrington warned as he crouched down in the undergrowth, gripping his staff. “What is Aroha doing?”
“She’ll be ready,” James replied, glowing gold in his combat armour as strange calls started echoing through the trees.
“Here they come!” Harrington cried as huge black shapes bounded out of the forest. They were silver backed gorillas and they came in numbers. Manu watched as his father calmly raised his assault rifle and put controlled bursts into the attacking creatures from one knee. Frrrirrit, Frrrirrit, Frrrirrit.
Harrington was seizing other silver-backs and tossing them high and deep into the forests like a trebuchet with a levitation spell. His father changed magazines and the gorillas kept coming in a howling, furious mass. Manu watched as his father was forced into hand to hand combat, parrying and weaving with the giant animals using the stock of his rifle. He was calm and unruffled. James Wardgrave was always one step ahead. He managed to get the magazine loaded and he started firing again from close range. Then a light blazed from one of the mountain-tops, bright as the breaking dawn. The silverbacks cringed back and melted into the forest under a hail of gunfire and spells.
Harrington collapsed to his knees, breathing hard. “That was close.”
“She always gets it done,” James replied, scanning the perimeter through his scope.
“You think it will hold this time?”
James glanced at Harrington, uncertainty on his face. “It has to. I don’t think we’ll manage this again, do you?”
#
Next he was in a small aircraft with Robert sat in the pilot’s chair. Below them was the never ending nothingness of the stone desert. The plane banked left and jagged peaks became visible with little green broccoli trees. Robert levelled the plane out and headed straight for the mountains.
In the back of the plane Manu saw Harrington in fatigues with what looked like a parachute strapped to his back. Robert’s deep voice sounded over the radio. “Ten seconds till jump on my mark.” Manu watched as Harrington hurried down the aisle where two figures waited. Manu saw the small shape of his mother by the door. “Mark,” Robert called and Manu gasped as his mother jumped out of the plane. His father was next then he was following Harrington as they fell through the earth, the mountains of Africa rising up below them.
There was a jerk as the parachute opened. Manu watched in stupid relief as his parents’ chutes also deployed. They glided down to the mountainside and set off up the hill at a quick march. Manu noticed that his father had unslung his rifle and was scouting ahead with caution.
After a few hours of walking they came to a dark cave and Harrington paused outside. “Aroha?” Manu’s mother pushed ahead and the three of them walked through the dankness of the cave which narrowed into a tight tunnel and then opened out to a wide chamber that glowed in red and orange. The heat was intense and Harrington cast a quick shield to protect them from it. They looked down the ledge at the bubbling magma. Above them was a clear sky which had turned to a starry night during their hike. “How strong, Aroha? Can you bind it?”
His mother shook her head. “No. I am not strong enough for this. We need a Seal.”
Manu saw Harrington swear and then spit. “Who do you think will come through first?” he asked.
“I can’t be sure, but I think the Leopard King.”
Manu saw his father straighten. He walked up to his wife. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, my love. I think so.”
“He’ll come for you James,” Harrington said, his face glowing in the volcanic light. “You know that.”
#
His last vision was one of a coast. He saw Harrington jogging, shirtless, down a long beach of pure white sand. Waves were breaking and foaming at his feet as he passed bent coconut trees and scuttling crabs. Gulls circled overhead and Harrington slowed as he reached a small wood and thatch hut.
He dove in the clear blue waters and rinsed off the sweat from his run before wading back to the shore and walking to the hut. As he arrived Manu saw his father emerge from within, a pistol in his hand.
“Easy James,” Harrington called. “It’s only me. Is she up?”
James nodded and tucked the gun back into its holster. “Can I see her? Can I see him?” Before James could answer Manu’s mother emerged in the doorway. She was holding a blanket wrapped bundle to her shoulder and cooing to it softly. Manu saw his father’s face light up. “There he is,” Harrington said reaching out a hand. “Oh Aroha, he’s beautiful.”
“He is, isn’t he?”
It was his father who answered. “It’s Manu. Manu Wardgrave.”
#
Manu came back to the chapel with a gasp and felt the hot build up of tears that he struggled to keep back. Harrington’s comforting hand was on his shoulder. “Thank you,” Manu said when he mastered himself. “Thank you so much. I had no idea.”
“No, you wouldn’t. They worked so hard to ensure you had a normal childhood, a happy one. No one was sure you would inherit you know. They wanted to give you every chance.”
“That’s why they sent me to Darkwells.”
“Yes, that and other reasons. But they wanted you to be safe.”
“I will help them. Henry and I will defeat whatever it is that has broken free.”
“So much of Aroha in you, Manu. So much of her fire. Alright, quiet now, the Keeper is coming back.”
Chapter Twenty Three: The Master
Henry gripped his cane tight as he re-entered the chapel. He had been drawing energy through it for a spell the whole time that he had patrolled the ground and, he realised, it wasn’t for any potential intruders. He kept hold of the power in the fear that Harrington and Killynghall were moments away from erupting into a duel. His guts quailed at the idea. He had never sensed so much deadly potential in his life as there was in the prolonged stare between Ranger and Keeper.
“Calm yourself, Lord Grenville,” Killynghall said as he followed Henry back in. “Things have not fallen quite so far yet. We don’t harm our own. I have had word, the Magister awaits us. We go before the Emperors. Ranger Harrington will have his moment.”
The tension eased in his shoulders and Henry let out a breath he didn’t remember holding. It was going to be fine. The Order would take care of this and he and Manu didn’t need to be involved. Henry berated himself. This was a good example of how turbulent and dangerous the magical world was. Had his leg taught him nothing? Had his mother? He needed to tone it down. He needed to explain to Manu, who was upset by the news he had heard from home, that they should lie low. Heather would be annoyed but she would get it. No-one wanted to be in the middle of whatever it was that was happening. It was too big for them. No, much better to let others take care of it. Much better to avoid being on the Order’s radar at all.
