“Okay, okay! Watch the road!” In her turn, Tanya wiped her forehead.
Mr Craig had been frightening; this was pure terror. On every curve, either way, the big car swerved wide, out into the centre of the road; clipped the verge fifty yards later as Beth over-corrected... At least they had no problem about overtaking; the only things that didn’t pass them were bikes. Beth nervously swung in towards the side whenever a car swept past.
After a while, relaxing a touch, she dared to go up to third gear, to a fairly steady thirty miles an hour. “This is fast enough.”
“Yeah!” If anything, it was too fast. But Beth was doing her best. Tanya could have done better herself. About thirty miles an hour better. But it was Beth’s mum’s car.
Roadworks held them up, too. At one junction the road was a single lane alongside a deep ditch where drains were being laid. Beth nearly knocked a blue-tagged post into the ditch, but then stopped almost neatly in the queue at the traffic lights, a cautious twenty feet from the car in front, changed carefully into neutral, and with relief pulled on the handbrake. She sat back, easing her shoulders, rubbing her hands to dry them, quite pleased with herself. “So far so good! Halfway. Only about five miles now, into Nairn, and then another half mile on the other side. Here we go again.” She gritted her teeth, crunched into first gear, and was moving cautiously forwards when suddenly she gasped. “I feel dizzy.”
Tanya put a hand to the wheel, to steady it. Just in time. Beth suddenly screamed and jerked wildly. A traffic cone went flying. The tarmac edge crumbled under the front wheel...
“Ey up!” Tanya hauled at the steering wheel and just managed to turn the car back from going over. Beth was holding her head, crying out in pain, kicking out, pressing raggedly on the accelerator. “Ey, stop it, Beth! What’s wrong? Stop!”
Beth couldn’t stop. The car, fortunately only in first gear, jerked and raced up to over twenty miles an hour as she thrust herself back in her seat, moaning, clutching her head and shaking it wildly.
They had been going so slowly that there was a long gap in front of them. It was just as well. Under Tanya’s desperate hand, the big car was weaving unsteadily from side to side. At the end of the single lane, she managed to steer out onto the full-width road, past the staring faces in the cars waiting to pass the red light at their end. Stop now! Glad it wasn’t an automatic, she banged the gear lever into neutral, steered to the side of the road, and hauled up the handbrake. The car engine was roaring. So what? It wasn’t a bad place to halt, other cars could pass easily, but she wouldn’t have cared if it had been in the middle of the rush hour. They were stopped. That was all that mattered.
Suddenly, as quickly as it had overcome her, Beth’s fit was over. She relaxed, took her foot off the throttle. The engine’s rage died gratefully to a throb.
Nearly as shaken as Beth, Tanya put an arm round her cousin’s shoulders. “What were that, Beth? Him?” Beth nodded, staring in fright.
“He’s woke up? He knows?”
“He’s raging. He’s coming after us.” Beth had felt it, somehow, when Mr Mandrake recovered his senses. She knew what he was doing.
He had staggered to his feet, oddly alert but light-headed, sick, detached from his surroundings. One thing filled his mind; the stone. His stone. Those girls had stolen his stone. Again. Get it back. Now!
He was in a different room. Mary wasn’t there. Furious, he transmitted a wideranging blast of rage. Everyone inside the hospital winced at the sudden jab of pain. Mary cried out, and the nurse bringing her some tea jumped and spilled it.
For the moment, though, he had lost much of his control. The frenzied outburst hurt him, too. He had no energy to spare. Nor time. He’d deal with Mary later. Now, he must hurry, catch those brats, get the stone.
Get the stone. Then they’d see what he could do!
How long had he been unconscious? Ten minutes? Longer? Where were they? He was still faintly tuned to Beth’s mind since he had helped her dowse. He felt carefully along that frail link... She was driving. They weren’t near the quarry yet. His anger struck out at her, and in satisfaction he felt her scream and swerve.
Follow her. Get the stone. Some fools were trying to hold him back. He pushed past them towards the exit. He felt as if he was in a bubble. The world outside was clear, but at the same time distant and unimportant. He had to get the stone.
“Keep still, wait, have a cup of tea, lie down! Well, if you must go, you’ll have to sign yourself out, we can’t -” The staff nurse swung round, waving the unsigned form angrily. “We should have stopped him!”
At the front entrance, the porter was furious. “That your car? Get it shifted! Now!” Mr Mandrake didn’t bother arguing; he was as keen to get it moved as this fool was. The engine started with its usual deep snarl. The tyres screeched.
“Hang on,” Tanya was saying. “Better not be moving when he finds the glass, eh?”
Beth moaned in anticipation. “Oh, dear... Oh!” She sat up with a jerk. “It’s blown. He’s stopped... Agh!” She was rigid with the agony in her head. “I can’t see!” Her vision was full of black and red whirling spirals of pain and tension.
“Hang in there!” Holding her tight, Tanya muttered in her ear. “Oh, what’s he doing to yer? He’s a monster!”
A thought came to her. She felt in her pocket for the stone, and held it against Beth’s forehead. It was warm to her touch, and seemed almost to quiver... “Does that help at all?”
Beth’s eyes opened painfully, and she nodded. “I can see. Don’t let go, Tanya!”
“Should I drive?” Tanya asked.
“No!” Beth could even laugh a little. “No, I’ll manage, thanks. In just a minute.”
Even though the nuts spun smoothly under the wrench, though the car rose steadily on the jack, changing the wheel still took time and attention. As Mr Mandrake turned to the practical details before him, the pressure on Beth eased. She sat up. “Let’s go! I can drive. Yes, I can. I’ve got to!” She slammed the car into gear.
“Watch out, now!” Tanya cried.
“Okay. Okay! But he’s not going to beat us! You’d better keep the stone handy” she said, trying to smile. “He’ll be back. And Tanya, please, hold me. It’s easier when you’re touching me. Maybe you keep him off me, somehow.”
Tanya moved as close to Beth as the seats would allow, to shelter her, strengthen her with her prescence. She hugged Beth’s shoulders and held the stone against her neck, ready to grab the wheel again if she had to.
Beth knew it when Mr Mandrake tightened the last nut. He didn’t even stop to pick up his spare wheel. The stone was getting away! The wheels screamed on the road. Straight through a red light at the hospital entrance he whirled, and paid little more attention to the roundabouts than Beth had done.
“He’s coming.” Beth’s voice was flat. “He’s after us.”
Tanya bit her lip, her hands itching to take the wheel. “Fifteen miles, just... He’ll be up wi’ us in no time. Can’t yer go faster, Beth?”
“No.” Beth’s tone was quite definite. “Not if you want to get there in one piece.”
Tanya turned to stare out of the back window. They were stuck behind a bus, just coming into Nairn; and the Porsche streaking after them...
Maybe it’d get caught at the traffic lights at the single-track section.
It didn’t. A big gold car roared past.
All the time, Beth was fighting against a twisting surge in her mind. ‘Stop!’ it urged her. ‘Swerve, there’s a child in front of you! You’re going too fast! There’s a bike! Too fast!’ Keep to the facts. Check speed -twenty-five. Not too fast. The bus slowed, stopped; she passed it. ‘Swerve right!’ No, keep straight. The road was clear, no dogs or children or bikes. Round the roundabout, carefully. Change up to third. Not far now. Road clear. Keep going, don’t let him distort what you see, what you do. ‘Slow down!’ No. ‘Dodge that cat!’ No cat. Go on.
At last, there was the lane. She just st
opped the car at the side of the road and they piled out. Down the track, over the gate, through the barbed-wire fence, amongst the bushes.
“Ey, were only the day before yesterday we was here! Seems like months!”
In the tiny clearing, Beth sank down onto the stones above the water’s edge, exhausted, her hands shaking. “Well, I’ve done all I can. And he’s right behind us. I can feel him, closer and closer.”
Under the reflections of sky, leaves and their own faces, the rust of the old cars gleamed in the dark water. Tanya took Kenneth Odhar’s stone out of her pocket. “Ain’t much, to cause such a kerfuffle.”
“Can we really just throw it away?” Beth asked. “Won’t he just fish it out? Use his magic to - call it, somehow?”
Tanya puffed in exasperation. “Oh, no! The iron’ll stop ‘im. He ain’t - what’s the word? Omnipotent. Got his limits. An’ he won’t hurt us, neither. We’ll see him off. You ain’t got no squash bottle handy here, but you’ll find something. An’ I’ll curse him!” Beth almost smiled. “We’ll be okay. Listen!”
A powerful car roared up the road just beyond the bushes, and screeched to a halt.
Beth looked scared. “Go on, then! Throw it into the water!”
“Yeah.” What else had they come to do? But the stone clung to her hand...
Mr Mandrake’s voice, full of power, echoed in their heads more than in their ears. “Don’t move! Stand still. Don’t move a muscle!” He was already in the lane.
Beth was trembling. He was coming for them....
Borne up by sheer temper, Tanya flung herself into her habit of disobedience. She’d had a lot of practice fighting him recently. She lifted her hands and threw the stone with all her strength. She sagged with relief. It was gone! Or was it?
No, it was still in her hand. It had wanted to be found; it didn’t want to leave her.
The gate creaked under Mandrake’s weight.
“Oh, no!” Beth was sobbing.
“Stand still!” The furious force of the warlock’s command was so great that they stiffened, even Tanya. But his concentration wavered as he got caught in the barbed wire. The fence squeaked and twanged. The bushes thrashed.
Suddenly, Beth reached over, took the stone from Tanya and tossed it into the quarry hole. There was a splash, small, insignificant, at the same moment that the warlock thrust into the little clearing.
He glared round. The girls stared back. He strode over to the edge of the pool, raging, “Stop! Come back! I command you! Rise!”
The water was disturbed by the reflected ripples, broken into tiny winks of grey, green, brown, blue...the red of the rusty cars, that stopped magic... It smoothed to ripples, to calm, and there was nothing but the dark water reflecting the trees and the sky.
Slowly, white with frustration, Mandrake turned on the girls.
Beth held Tanya’s hand, to give and get support. She wanted to be sick, to turn and flee. But not while Tanya was there. She was needed. She couldn’t leave Tanya to face him alone.
Tanya wanted to be sick, too. The anger she had felt in the hospital hadn’t been able to vent itself, nor had time and calm to ease away. It was boiling up again inside her, stirred up by her fear, heaving, hurting, burning mentally and physically. She let it swell. In the hospital, she’d been afraid to let rip. But out here, she didn’t care.
Beth, pale and shaking, was forcing herself to stay and protect her. A paper hankie against a hurricane.
Warmth for her older cousin, so gentle, kind and brave, flowered in Tanya, and she turned fiercely on the warlock, like a mouse facing a tiger, ready to fight for Beth as well as herself. Did he know she was so dangerous? Or was he in any state to care, if he did know?
She gritted her teeth. She’d make sure he found out, and if he didn’t care, she’d make him!
Unless his power was really so much greater than hers that he could wipe her out...
No, that just wasn’t true. It mustn’t be true! Deep down, she knew, without ever letting the thought take shape, that her certainty and confidence were her only defence. If she didn’t believe in it, absolutely, her power wouldn’t work. She had to believe, for Beth’s sake as well as her own. She did. She must. Of course she did.
Mr Mandrake regarded them for a moment, unspeaking. He didn’t feel light and detached any longer. His head was pounding and he was having some difficulty focusing his eyes. The girls blended together into a single, dark figure, solid as rock, outlined in gold light against the green blur behind them, and then split apart again into just Beth and Tanya.
The stone was gone. He said it, to be certain, to stoke his anger. “The stone. Kenneth Odhar’s scrying stone. It’s gone.”
“Yeah.” Tanya tilted her head towards the pool. “In among ten ton o’ iron. Yer can’t get at it now.”
His lips twisted in a soundless snarl. “But you’re still here.” His tone was heavy with menace.
Beth shuddered. To his astonishment, Tanya laughed.
“Something amuses you?”
“Yeah. You.” Teeth clenched, she stepped forwards between him and Beth. “Yer can’t do nowt. You touch us wi’ yer magic an’ whammo! I’ll blow up in yer face.” Scared, and more stubborn, defiant and aggressive because of her fear, she watched his certainty waver, and pressed on. He felt ill after the blow to his head; good! “It were you said us had power. Got more’n yer knows. Just busting out me skin this minute.” She was smiling tightly, inching forwards towards him, feeling the confidence, the rage, the pressure of power rise in her. “Just try casting a spell on us. Go on. Try. Or touch us. Go on. Touch us.” She held out her hand, almost eagerly.
Mandrake drew back. Round her the air was crackling with energy like static electricity. His arrogant superiority wavered. He wasn’t at full strength now, while he was still shaken. There was no hurry Leave them to think about it - yes, that would be best. Let them wonder when... Later, when he was fully recovered, he’d demolish her. Shred by shred!
He glared, frustrated by his unexpected doubt, and the thumping pain in his head. “You’ve thwarted me again, Tanya.”
He was backing down! “Heh! Where’s yer moustache to twirl?”
Sneering, he turned to the easier target. “You, Beth, you dared to strike me.”
Beth was having trouble staying upright. “Yeah.” Tanya spoke for her. “Belted yer a good one, didn’t she? Real squash champion.”
“I’m sorry,” Beth whispered. “I didn’t mean - I’m terribly sorry -”
“Ey up! Don’t crawl, Beth!”
“A pity you stopped her, Tanya. I was enjoying it.” His voice was again smooth and controlled. “Relax, you’re quite safe. For now. But don’t forget me, will you? Because I’ll be back. Some time. And then -”
“And then what? Know what you are? Cruel.” Her face showed her disgust. “You’re such a bully. Thinks you’ve got the right to do what yer fancies, just ‘cause you’ve got the power to.”
“Of course! What else is power for?”
She frowned, struggling to say what she meant. “Got to be more to it than that. Helping, making things better, not worse!”
“How childish!” he sneered.
“As you grow older, my dear, you may want to use your power for all kinds of things - good and bad.”
Tanya hesitated. “I doubt it. I want to help Beth and Aunt Mary.” She faced him bravely.
He raised a hand to stop her. “You’re quite safe, Tanya. And Beth. For the moment. But I’ll go past the hospital on my way home. I shall call in to visit Mary again. Briefly.” He paused to watch Beth’s face crumple. “Paralysed, deaf, dumb, blind, in constant pain - I don’t think your mother will enjoy her life from now on, Beth.”
Tanya leapt at him, her hands raised, forgetting her power, her fear, everything in a mad longing to claw the sneer off that handsome face. He laughed and hit her; not with power, but simply with a punch on the chest that knocked her down to kneel, winded on the grass. He looked down at her
in satisfaction. “Stay there, my dear. And say a prayer for your aunt. She’ll need it!”
“Oh, mum!” Beth was sobbing. She slipped to her knees beside Tanya; she couldn’t help it. “No, please!” she begged. “Oh, mum! No, please, don’t do it...” But she knew he wouldn’t stop, she couldn’t stop him.
He waited for a few seconds, relishing her terror, and then as Tanya started to recover he turned away. In another minute the roar of the big car’s engine faded up the road.
Chapter 10
Her face swollen and blotched with crying, Beth turned to Tanya. “Stop him, Tanya! He’s going to cripple mum! Stop him, please!”
Tanya knelt quite still. Her head was splitting with pressure of rage. Her heart was thudding, shaking her, hurting her with the pounding. She drew a great, shuddering breath. In her mind, she formed the words: ‘Curse him!’ She whispered them; called them aloud. “Curse him!” But they were just words. “Can’t do it. It don’t mean nothing.” Not yet...
The power was there, but she must deliberately pour it into her will. And that was a dreadful, terrifying thing to do. To kill someone - even him - knowingly.
She must be sure...
She turned to Beth. Beth’s trembling suddenly stopped. She rubbed a hand over her face, smearing away the tears.
Tanya’s face was solemn. “Beth?”
Beth was equally stern. She nodded, slowly. “Yes. You’ve got to. We’ve got to. We can’t let him hurt mum. Please, Tanya. I’ll help. Anything, anything at all, only stop him. Save mum.”
Tanya sighed. This was the reason, the permission, the spur she needed. “Right, hold me hands.”
Kneeling in the sunshine, they joined hands. A rush of force sparkled in every nerve of their bodies.
Beth carried their sight down a long tube, like a glass telescope. The image at the far end came rushing towards them. A great, golden car, racing along the road, well over the speed limit, but they were zooming in to poise close above it.
The driver was thinking about Beth, sending pulses of malice to increase her pain and worry for her mother. She winced, but the malevolence goaded her on, hardened her against him. His hair was blowing in the wind. He rubbed the back of his neck, shook his head as if he could feel their gaze, and looked round, but there was nothing there. They watched as he frowned, then laughed, tossing his head back in a vicious triumph and anticipation of Mary’s destruction. The car bulleted forward.
The Seer's Stone Page 9
