The Realms Thereunder aet-1

by Stephen Lawhead

  He came across a group of small buildings near a sign that read Bainabruich. He pulled the Land Rover up a dirt driveway, killed the ignition, and let himself in through a cattle gate. After knocking and receiving no reply at the front door, he circled around the house to the large open barn.

  Through the doors in the back he could see a tractor moving across one of the fields. He spotted the path to the field and started along it. When the man in the tractor saw him, he turned off his engine and climbed out of the cab.

  “Hello,” Alex said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a wallet that he had stuffed his police badge into. “My name is Alex Simpson. I’m with the Northern Constabulary,” the truth; “I work in the Special Crimes Unit,” the lie.

  “Oh, aye,” the farmer said cautiously, reaching into his jacket pocket for a tobacco pouch and a packet of Rizlas.

  “Can I ask your name, sir?”

  “Rab Duthie.” He stuck out his hand.

  Alex shook it. “My department deals with crime patterns by location and sociological region. I wonder if you wouldn’t mind answering a question or two about the area.”

  The farmer licked his cigarette paper and nodded.

  “Grand,” Alex said, pulling out his notebook, more to stall for time than anything else. All that nonsense about worming your way into the affections of the local folk by handing out cigarettes and making sly comments was pure fantasy-something just to keep the mystery serials on TV moving along. The farmers he’d grown up around weren’t that gormless. He was going to have to blag his way through and hope that his officiousness carried him to where he needed to be.

  “There have been reports of animals missing in the area. Anything of your own gone walkabouts?”

  Duthie lit his roll-up and took a puff, squinting as he thought. “Nothing missing, as such. But there have been some . . . breakages. Vandalism, ye ken.”

  Alex scribbled in his notebook. “Where did this occur?”

  “East Fold,” he said, gesturing. “Hedge been flattened.”

  “The hedge?”

  “Aye. Flattened right down to the ground. Torn up places, but mostly”-he made a squashing motion with his palms-“had to put up some planks to stop the sheep all from wandering awa’.”

  “That’s odd. Could we go an’ have a look?” Alex asked, looking out across the field.

  “Sure, nae problem. Hop on.” Rab Duthie started up the tractor and they rolled off, Alex perched on the footstep, holding on to the cab After some maneuvering around dirt tracks and muddy paths, they came to a long thick hedge that must have been, Alex judged, at least a hundred years old. It was only about five feet high, but over four feet wide. The tractor shuddered to a stop and Alex hopped down.

  “Ye can see it there,” said Duthie, climbing down and discarding his cigarette and pointing to a gap in the hedge. “I no ken how it happened. Too narrow for any car or tractor-and I’ve seen both get stuck trying to travel through thinner-in addition to there bein’ no tracks. No animal I know of would have the power tae do it. Except an elephant, mebbe.”

  Alex poked around a little but found nothing peculiar. “You really have no idea what did this?”

  The farmer looked at him for a second and then shrugged and shook his head. He stuck his hands in his pockets.

  Which meant that he did have some idea, but that he wasn’t willing to share it.

  “Anything else odd in the area?”

  “Weel, there’s been carjackings. Joyriding and the like. It’s been awhile since we’ve had that up here,” Rab Duthie said, looking off into the distance, his voice getting high, stressed. “It’s like a wee crime wave up here. Been thievings, fights most nights down at the pubs, even the quiet ones. People are fashed-right desperate, ye ken? Spirits are low. We’ve had a bad season-nae enough rain or sunlight. Everything ye put in the ground comes up weak and yellow, if at all, and that gets ye doon, natural, but folks took it hard this year. Some farmers hae kilt themselves and done tried kilt themselves. Children. Children done kilt themselves. Teenagers with their lives ahead of them-” Duthie paused and spat on the ground, twice. His voice was getting low and raw now. Alex said nothing.

  “Their lives ahead of them and they can no see a way for’ard.

  More afeared of life than they are of death. Every one of them is a blow, even the ones that pull through. It gets to you. It mounts up in your soul and you find yourself looking at a bottle of pills or a rafter in the barn, and you think, weel . . . weel mebbe . . .”

  Duthie cleared his throat noisily and spat again. He didn’t look like he felt like saying any more after that.

  “Well,” Alex said eventually. “It seems to me as if you have more problems than just a gap in your hedge.”

  Duthie forced a laugh.

  “What do you think is causing it?” Alex asked.

  The farmer turned his head.

  “Crime, suicide, depression, violence, drunkenness, vandalism . . . and this gap in your hedge. To you, they all seem connected. What’s causing these things?”

  Duthie turned to stare Alex straight in the eyes. His sturdy, weathered frame swayed slightly in the brisk morning air. “Aye, I have a ken of what’s causin’ this-this atmosphere of hate and fear.”

  “And?”

  “You would nae believe me!” Duthie shouted, almost angry in his desperation.

  “Try me.”

  “The De’il!”

  Duthie seemed shocked to hear himself say the words out loud. He stood, trembling. The Devil.

  “Aye, now we’re getting somewhere,” Alex said, grinning.

  Duthie turned to look at Alex out of the corner of his eye. “You don’t think I’m crazy?”

  “Not at all,” Alex said. “I think you’re clever and brave to say that.”

  Duthie nearly broke down completely. His eyes became watery and he had to look away. “My wife-she dusnae get up most days. Says she can feel the presence of evil here-like a giant hand that’s pushing everyone doon.”

  “Who hereabouts-or in the village perhaps-would I go to find out more about this?” Alex asked. “A town official? Mayor? Priest? Wise old woman?”

  Duthie pushed at his cheekbones with his palms. “Rector,” he said, clearing his throat. “Rector Maccanish. He’s your man.”

  “Where will I find him?” Alex asked.

  “Down the kirk. I’ll tak’ ye to him,” Duthie said, climbing into the tractor once more.

  “If it is the De’il,” he said before he started the engine, “is there anythin’ a man can do about it?”

  “Of course there is,” Alex answered. “That’s why I’m here.”

  3

  “Oh no, not again.”

  Sitting upright, Daniel looked around. Everything was different. He was now in a meadow covered with lush green grass that stretched out, vast, flat, and empty, in all directions. Ahead of him, just visible on the flat horizon, was a thick green line between the sky and the plain. A forest?

  He twisted around. Behind him, the ground seemed to slope up slowly, over the miles, and far, far into the distance rose an enormous mountain. It was so far away that it was actually rather hard to see-it blended in almost perfectly with the sky, so that only the edges and top could be traced. It rose to a single peak and its sides flowed down smooth and straight. It was as if someone had poured an enormous pile of sugar out onto the landscape.

  But that was it-there was nothing else around him, not a hill, not a bush, not a tree stump. The sun in the sky above him seemed massive and that, along with the mountain, gave him the feeling that he was now inside of a larger world than the one he had been in just a few moments ago. This thought-that he was in a different world-a different planet-made his stomach lurch. He stood and scanned the horizon, looking for any detail at all, but there were just those few elements: the plain, the forest, the mountain, the sky, and the sun. And each of these was so absurdly simple, so . . . iconic, as if a child had drawn them.

&n
bsp; He stopped turning and listened. There was the sound of a gentle wind blowing past his ears, but nothing more.

  “Hello?” he asked out loud.

  There was only silence.

  Well, there was no point in staying in one place. He had two options now-the mountain or the forest. He chose the forest. At the very least there would be some sort of basic shelter against the sky, and perhaps food.

  He started walking.

  After more than an hour of walking, the forest didn’t seem any closer, nor the mountain any farther. Looking to the sky he saw that the sun had moved, but not by much, not as much as should have. Living on the street had given him a well-tuned sense of time of day. This was undoubtedly a different world. He had suspected this from the start, from a dozen almost indefinable differences in the air, horizon, gravity, the distance he was able to see-all these things, differences in constants he had known from birth, added up to a general feeling of unfamiliarity with what was around him.

  Where was he?

  And why was he alone?

  Oddly, he didn’t feel hungry or tired-well, no more hungry or tired than he did when he came here. It was something in the air that felt nourishing-or maybe sustaining was the correct word. There was a fairly stiff wind, but he felt warm. He had taken off his heavy jacket for the first time in months. Then he unslung his sword from his shoulder and fitted it around his waist. He didn’t feel the need to hide it now. In fact, it was probably better that anyone he came across did see it.

  Perhaps it was only his sense of time that was distorted, and not the world’s. He counted silently in his head and then out loud. He measured that against the steps he was taking and the progress that he didn’t seem to be making. Everything he was doing seemed to be normal and easiest explained by the fact that he was somewhere very vast.

  And where was that? Another planet? Another dimension?

  Could he be in his own mind-a hallucination? Perhaps he had been hit by a car and was lying in a coma somewhere. Maybe what he was experiencing was only a representation in his mind of what was really going on.

  The steady regularity of his footfalls started to entrance him and his mind started to idle, not really thinking much of anything. After a time, he was aware that he was holding something- the slip of paper he’d been given in the church. It fluttered in his hand, spinning gently in the wind. It seemed an ordinary slip of paper, but . . . what was written on it? Was there anything on it? If there was, then he felt he should be able to read it, but he couldn’t. Perhaps it was blank.

  He twirled it between his fingertips. It was comforting to him.

  Hour after hour passed and he was gratified to see that he was definitely getting closer now. Not only had the green brushstroke along the horizon grown thicker, it now nearly encompassed his whole field of vision. This was encouraging to him, even though he doubted that he had traveled much more than half of the distance necessary. The sun, he could see now, was descending directly behind him, gently warming his neck and shoulders. He judged it would hit the mountain around the time that he reached the forest.

  Evening, in other words, just as he met the border of two different places. The phrase like a pillar of smoke through a field of fog went through his head. He began to feel strongly-though acknowledging he had no reason to-that he would meet someone once he reached the forest. There would be a coincidence.

  He started to pepper his pace with bursts of jogging, eager to get the meeting under way, if it was to happen, or just to reach shelter if it wasn’t.

  The bottommost edge of the sun touched the very tip of the mountain, which was now very clear against the sky, being a dark purple. Daniel felt he would be able to say to himself that he was “almost there.” He could now pick out individual trees from among the leafy mass, but they seemed huge, like the redwoods he’d seen in pictures.

  A couple more hours-the timescale was making him feel anxious now-and he was about throwing distance from the first trees of the forest, which looked to be fairly tightly packed. The sun was low enough that the mountain seemed to be wearing it as a halo. It threw a long shadow across the plain, overtaking him and making him cold once more. He put his coat back on.

  Daniel approached the forest cautiously, on the lookout for any sign of someone besides himself. His eyes searched the landscape for anything else in this place that wasn’t grass or trees, and he found it in a speck of white that moved along the base of the tree line, far to the left of his vision. It was a cloud of dust rising from the ground and speeding towards him. Ahead of the cloud was a frantically moving speck of light grey that occasionally flashed white.

  There was a moist, nostalgic smell of decaying leaves coming from the forest. The setting sun, now bisected and peering out from both sides of the mountain, displayed two orange sections that bathed the trees in a reddish light, making the treescape eerily beautiful. It reminded Daniel of another wall of incredibly beautiful trees . . .

  A feeling of nervous anticipation grew inside of Daniel as the white fluttering shape grew nearer-it was a person on horseback. Daniel stopped near one of the trees and waited for the rider to catch up to him. He wondered if he should draw his sword.

  In this new vast and slow place, he was able to watch the small image grow larger and larger until it slowed and stopped before him. The rider was a man, a young man, on a brilliant white horse.

  “Hail,” the rider said, halting his magnificent animal.

  “Hail,” responded Daniel. The two took a moment to study each other.

  The rider’s face was fair and unwrinkled and was wearing a wry grin. He had loose blond hair that was cropped short around the ears and neck and fell forward over his long brow. He was dressed in a loose white shirt that billowed around the chest and shoulders but was gathered up and bound down the forearms to the wrists with ornate bands of cloth that appeared to be woven with gold. He wore dun-coloured leather trousers that stopped just below his knees, and his feet were bare. He sat atop the horse on a blanket that was bordered with intricate patterns. The horse was of a medium size-Daniel had seen bigger-but it had a narrow muzzle and long sinewy legs that made it very fast.

  “Thanks be to the king,” said the rider. “I truly believe you are he.”

  Daniel didn’t know what to say, so he asked the question most pressing on his mind. “Where am I?”

  “You are in Elfland-the Faerie realms, to be specific. And because of that, I cannot speak long. It is important that you mark all that I say. When the sun’s last rays vanish, then I will be found, and at that time, we must already be parted.”

  Elfland? This was probably worse than he imagined. “What’s your name?” Daniel asked.

  “My name is Kay Marrey. But first, before any more is said-”

  The rider quickly and effortlessly dismounted. Daniel now saw that he was quite tall, around six and a half feet. He looked back to the horse, reestimating its height. Elfland was taking some getting used to.

  Kay took a long stride towards Daniel and snatched his coat from his hands. He started going through the pockets.

  “What are you-?”

  “I can feel it . . . like a buzzing insect. Ah, here.”

  Kay reached into the front pocket and pulled out the slip of paper that Daniel had been given. Except now, when Kay held it, Daniel saw it was a leaf. A large yellow oak leaf.

  “Where did that come from?” Daniel asked.

  Kay Marrey held it upright by the stem, between his thumb and forefinger. “You were given this, yes? In your world. Did you know what it was?”

  “At first I thought it was money.”

  Kay nodded. “It is a leaf of a different wood. It was taken to your world as a way to mark and snare you.” Still holding the leaf, he rounded the horse and opened a satchel that was attached to his riding blanket. He drew out a suede leather cloak that was a very light-grey trimmed with white. “I am allowed to give you three gifts for you to keep for as long as you are in this land,” Ka
y announced, unfastening his cloak. “And this is the first,” he said, whipping it off his shoulders.

  “Thanks,” Daniel said, reaching out his hand.

  “Wait,” Kay said, pulling it back. “Give me your coat first. Take what you need from the pockets.”

  Daniel did this and then handed his coat over. Kay told him how to fasten the cloak around his neck and then helped him on with his backpack. “How do I look?” Kay asked, pulling on Daniel’s coat and holding his arms out for an appraisal.

  “Very . . . odd,” Daniel replied.

  Kay laughed and stuck the leaf Daniel had been given in the pocket of the coat he was now wearing. “Now, listen-this is what you need to know . . .”

  Kay put his hands on Daniel’s shoulders and looked him in the eyes.

  “This place is not like yours-it obeys different rules. The most important of these, for now, is that objects have ownership. It is essential that you don’t take anything that isn’t given to you-for if you steal something, then that thing will own you and not the other way around. For instance, I gave you my cloak. If you had taken it, you would have been beholden to it. Do you understand?”

  Daniel nodded slowly.

  “Now I may give you your second gift.” He held out a sewnup skin covered in soft fur and laced with intricately woven straps. It was evidently a water container of some sort. “Carry it with you and take just a few sips at a time. It holds more than it appears to.”

  Daniel removed the stopper and took a gulp from it. He was parched.

  “You are about to enter one of the enchanted forests,” Kay continued. “If you take anything-a seed, a leaf, a pinecone-and put it into your pocket, you will not be able to return home. If you eat anything-a berry, a fruit, or an animal-then this land will own you, and you won’t be able to return home. Do you understand?”

  Daniel nodded again, his head starting to spin. What had he fallen into now?

  “However, this wood is a friend of my people. One moment, I will introduce you to it.”

  Saying that, he turned to face the line of trees and started to sing in a different language. When he had finished, the forest seemed less intimidating somehow.