Intangible

by C. A. Gray

  “The one you won’t tell me,” said Peter automatically.

  “I will in due time,” said Isdemus, “but it is not important at the moment.”

  Peter wanted to argue that it was critically important: Eustace had said the prophecy could apply to any of three people. He was certain that it could not refer to him, and if he had been the one to stop the car the night before, then there had to be some other explanation for it. If he could prove that the Watchers, the penumbra, and the Shadow Lord had been wrong about him, then he could prove to whoever took Bruce (if he had been taken) that they might as well let him go. But he couldn’t find the words for all of this before Isdemus went on.

  “Until that time, no one outside of the Watchers had ever read or heard even pieces of the prophecy, but although Kane did not have access to the prophecy in full, because there were so many different contributors, pieces of it were quoted in other documents. In his case, this may have been even more problematic. Kane has probably already told you that he is telekinetic.”

  Isdemus paused, and Peter thought of the little girl levitating off the ground, and the sweat pouring off Kane’s brow. He nodded.

  Isdemus went on, “It’s a particularly impressive gift, flashier than most, which only contributed to his ego. Not only that, but he continually pushed the edges of his limitations in terms of the size and momentum of objects he could manipulate. People in Carlion have a tendency to stick to practical uses of their gifts, to contribute to society. Most of them do not test their limits, and so from Kane’s perspective, he was much stronger than they were. You’ve probably already guessed the conclusion that he came to.”

  “He thought he was the Child of the Prophecy.” So Lily was right, Peter thought.

  Isdemus nodded. “First, Kane had never met another Seer who knew of the penumbra and nimbi while still an outsider, so he thought that must make him special. Second, he considered his gift far more powerful than anyone else’s. Third, he did not know at that time that the Watchers believed you to be the Child of the Prophecy, and the bits of the prophecy that Kane found could also have applied to him –”

  “I thought the prophecy could apply to any of three people, though!” Peter couldn’t stop himself from interjecting. “Why are you so certain it’s me?”

  There was a stunned silence, and then the gruff-looking woman demanded, “Who told you that?”

  “Eustace, no doubt,” growled Sully. “Remember, he somehow weaseled his way into our meeting two months ago? We swore him to secrecy, but I suspected that would be totally useless.”

  “Was it Eustace?” Isdemus asked, and when Peter nodded, he sighed. “I will have to have another talk with him.”

  “It’s true, then?” Peter demanded. “There are three?”

  All of the Watchers exchanged uncomfortable looks.

  “It was true, until last night,” said Isdemus. “You probably know from Bruce’s stories that the Child of the Prophecy must be of the line of King Arthur. Kane was an orphan and knew nothing of his parents, so he concluded that he might be in the line, and I believe he suspected the fact that I sought him out personally and raised him myself was proof that he must be.”

  “Couldn’t you have just told him that wasn’t true?” Peter demanded.

  “I did what I could,” said Isdemus. “But I had no way of determining how much he already knew, until he approached me a few years after he had come to the castle. In the course of the conversation, it became clear to me that he had pieced together enough of the prophecy to do some very serious damage, should he persist in his belief that the prophecy had been written about him.”

  “Damage?” Peter repeated.

  “We’re afraid he wants to find Excalibur,” Dan said plainly. “He’s obsessed with it.”

  “It’s the weapon the Child of the Prophecy eventually uses to finish off the Shadow Lord,” Sully cut in.

  “It’s also the means by which he returns, and nobody really understands how both of those can be true at the same time, since it has to be destroyed in order for him to come back,” said the woman.

  “How do you destroy the sword, anyway?” asked Peter.

  “We don’t really know that either,” Dan admitted. “No doubt the first step is to find it, though.”

  “So Kane wants to find it, but you want to make sure it stays lost,” Peter guessed, and they all nodded vehemently.

  Isdemus waited for their side conversation to play out, and then went on, “After that conversation with Kane, I approached the existing members of the Watchers with my concern for not just Kane’s welfare, but the integrity of the secrets of the Watchers, and potentially even the fate of the world.”

  He paused. It should have sounded melodramatic, but in a room the size of a city block lit only by firelight, in Isdemus’s understated, gravelly voice, the words raised goose pimples on Peter’s arms.

  Isdemus went on, “I could think of only one solution. Though he would be the youngest ever inducted, I proposed that Kane should join the Watchers, simply because the induction ceremony would force him to take the vow of secrecy in the Ancient Tongue. A vow in the Ancient Tongue is not like a promise in English, which is only as valuable as the speaker is trustworthy. Vows in the Ancient Tongue are impossible to break, and so membership in the Watchers would require Kane to willfully sacrifice his ability to betray what he knew.”

  “Betray it to whom?” Peter demanded, and the others exchanged another uncomfortable look.

  “That’s not important at the moment either,” Isdemus said finally. “Suffice it to say, the secrets are kept for a reason. I believed induction was the only way to restrain Kane. Not that I believed he would do anything to purposely betray the Watchers or the secrets we keep –” (Dan coughed and raised an eyebrow) – “but I did agree that at that point, Kane had too much information for comfort. Several of the other members argued aggressively against my proposal, because while I would prevent Kane from inadvertently revealing what he had already managed to learn to certain dangerous parties, or willfully using that information contrary to the desires of the Watchers, it would give him access to far more information, and particularly to the identity of the one we believed to be the Child of the Prophecy.” He paused, and if possible, his gaze became even more intense. “I agreed that this was an undesirable circumstance, but, because I suspected that Kane believed himself to be the Child of the Prophecy, I argued that perhaps the knowledge that we believed otherwise might finally do for Kane what no amount of moral instruction could, to convince him of his own limitations. I convinced all but three members of the Watchers, which was still a majority, and Kane was inducted.”

  “Three members,” Peter repeated, and gestured at the three strangers around the table, who smiled at him wanly.

  Isdemus nodded. “These are Jael, Sully, and Dan, if you haven’t gathered that already. They are three of my most trusted advisors, but I did not listen to them in this case. I think that some degree of parental feeling on Kane’s behalf may have influenced my decision.”

  “What happened?” Peter asked.

  Isdemus sighed wistfully. “At first, of course, Kane was fiercely proud of the honor of becoming the youngest Watcher in history. But, in very short order, he discovered that the Child of the Prophecy was his own age, and was being brought up incognito in Norwich, unaware of the prophecy, of the existence of Carlion, or indeed of anything he could not calculate, measure, or observe.” He smiled at Peter. The smile was grandfatherly, but his words made Peter shiver.

  “Kane is my age?” was all Peter could say. “I… thought he was like seventeen, at least!”

  “Bitterness will age a person,” said Dan knowingly, “and Kane is the bitterest person I know.”

  Isdemus sighed and closed his eyes. “Many teenagers have a rough time of it for a few years,” he said, but then he went on, “That said, Peter, I do realize now that I must apologize to you. I should have protected you better from what my advisors and
dear friends warned me would happen. Once inducted, Kane suddenly had access to almost all of the information we had ever accumulated about you, and although he managed to hide it, he became obsessed. From your lineage to your personality, your photos, your friends, your hobbies, and your interests, Kane spent nearly all his time studying you. The purpose of all this, I am nearly certain, was that he was searching for a loophole. He was hoping the Watchers were wrong about you. The fact that you had never displayed any aptitude for the Ancient Tongue that anybody could tell, and could not see the penumbra or the nimbi filled him with righteous indignation, I think. On more than one occasion, in spite of the fact that you were perfectly safe with Bruce and no surveillance was required for any reason, I caught Kane following you, just to get a look at you in person.”

  Peter glanced at Isdemus’s fingers absently, just to have something to focus on, and saw that he was wearing a gold ring that bore a symbol he vaguely recognized. It took him a moment to place it as the symbol of yin and yang, which he had always associated with Asian philosophy. It seemed strangely out of place in a medieval British castle. Jael saw him looking and pursed her lips, but at the moment, Peter did not have any curiosity to spare.

  Suddenly Isdemus pulled two unfamiliar-looking golden coins out of a fold in his robes. He began to rub one of them between his fingers, and to Peter’s astonishment, they both glowed white-hot, even the one he wasn’t touching. He dropped them on the table immediately.

  “What – are those?” Peter gaped.

  “Good idea,” murmured Sully to Isdemus. “Just in case.”

  “They’re sixpence coins,” Isdemus said to Peter, “obsolete in the outside world, but that means they’re untraceable here – and these particular coins are entanglement devices. I will keep one, and give you the other.”

  “Here,” said Dan, withdrawing a leather pouch from his pocket and emptying a similar but slightly different coin from inside. He tossed the empty pouch to Peter. “You can still feel the heat, but it won’t scald you if you put the coin inside. A little personal experience speaking: don’t keep an unprotected coin in your pocket, if you know what I mean.”

  “What is this, like a tracking device or something?” said Peter, bewildered.

  “Exactly,” said Isdemus. “I am not one of the nimbi, so even if you call my name I can’t respond to your location instantly. These coins are the way we get around that. If you rub your coin, it will glow white-hot, and its twin,” he held up the other, “will glow also, enabling me to pinpoint your location.”

  “Then what?”

  “Sully is a space specialist,” Dan said again, jerking a thumb at his white-haired friend. “So as long as we’re all together, we’ll be able to find you.”

  Peter shook his head. “I don’t understand. Where do you think I’m going to go?”

  “Nowhere, I hope,” said Isdemus firmly, and raised his eyebrows at Peter. “However, I want you to have a way to contact me, just in case.”

  Peter looked at the coin and furrowed his brow, and then looked up at the three unfamiliar Watchers. If this was the team that was going to rescue his dad, assuming it turned out his dad was really missing, then Peter wanted to know they were good. “What are your specialties, then?” he asked, gesturing at Jael and Dan.

  “We call her Rambo,” Dan said automatically, and grinned at Jael.

  “Dan!” she snapped, turning slightly pink. “It’s bad enough that you two have to call me that, without teaching it to new people!”

  “She’s what we call a muscle specialist,” Sully explained. “You may have heard stories of great feats of strength in the outside world during times of high stress?”

  Peter nodded.

  “The reason is because most of the time we can’t use our muscles to capacity due to a failsafe mechanism to protect them from damage. Jael can override hers at will.”

  “The Golgi Tendon Organ,” said Peter automatically. “I read about that once – it’ll reflexively keep muscles from over stretching unless there’s a lot of adrenaline present –”

  Jael shook her head and Dan stared at Peter in amazement and then looked at Isdemus. “You weren’t kidding about this kid, were you?”

  “I don’t even know what a Golgi thingamajigger is,” said Jael.

  Up until that moment, Peter had thought her face was permanently etched into a frown, but her lips twitched a little, which he figured was probably as close as she ever got to a smile.

  “Doesn’t that mean you tear your muscles more?” said Peter.

  Jael shrugged. “It’s like any gift. It depends how much energy I have to spare to absorb the difference.”

  “Once she couldn’t sit up for two weeks because she stopped the south wall from crushing a couple of kids,” said Sully.

  “Nah, I think she was faking it so I’d have to keep feeding her jelly in bed,” Dan winked at her, and she blushed furiously.

  “What about you?” Peter said to Dan.

  “Me? I’m a water specialist,” he said. “Not very useful unless there’s water lying about somewhere. If there is, then I can bend it to my will,” he said, cracking his knuckles with a boyish grin.

  “You’re all going to rescue my dad, then?” Peter demanded.

  Suddenly their expressions became grave again.

  “We’ll find him,” said Dan firmly, and looked at the others, who also nodded. “If he needs rescuing, we’re up to the job. Count on it.”

  ***

  The Jeffersons were bickering.

  They remained in the Great Hall after Jael, Dan, and Sully had arrived long enough to gather that they suspected something awful might have happened to Bruce.

  “That is the most utterly ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” said Mr. Jefferson scornfully, and his eyes flashed at his wife and younger son. “You think that Peter’s father was abducted by a bunch of fairy tale creatures?”

  “Yes!” Cole insisted, “because Pete’s the Child of the Prophecy! And they’re called penumbra, by the way!”

  “I’m sorry, are we in Oz?” Mr. Jefferson shot back.

  “You saw them!” cried Mrs. Jefferson, her plump cheeks reddening. “Besides that, there were Thomas’s stories when he came back last night –”

  “Which made absolutely no sense at all,” Mr. Jefferson pointed out gruffly, “and he repented the whole thing this morning if you remember, and swore he must have had some bad cheese last night to make him dream up such a ridiculous story! He said he must have hit a tree or something when he veered off the road, and he wasn’t sure where the boys had gone –”

  “We went here!” cried Cole. “Obviously!”

  “Henry, I don’t see how you can deny the evidence of your own eyes, the creatures were just everywhere in the city, everywhere! Then there was the elf that went to find the boys in the forest, and he was glowing, don’t you remember? And that hideous little cherub, Fido Dingus or whatever his name was…” she pointed above her head, though he was no longer there.

  Mr. Jefferson’s expression hardened. “It’s bright here,” he said firmly. “That was just the glare from the sun through the windows. Nobody was glowing, Polly. Don’t be ridiculous.” Then he turned to his older son and demanded, “What about you? Have they got you believing in leprechauns and fairies now too?”

  “Of course not!” said Brock immediately, puffing out his chest. “I’ve thought it was a load of rubbish from the start.”

  “That’s my boy,” grunted Mr. Jefferson sourly, and Brock gave Cole a superior smile.

  “Well, why do you think the penumbra attacked us last night, then, if they weren’t after Pete?” Cole demanded of Brock, his voice escalating.

  Brock opened his mouth as if he were about to retort, but then faltered. “I... I’m not sure anything did attack us,” he said finally, his voice beginning to gain strength as he caught his father’s glance of approval. “Dad’s right, it might have just been a trick of the light or something...”

 
; Cole gaped at him, but pressed on as if he hadn’t heard him. “So how do you think we got here? We warped here, didn’t we? And how do you explain the fact that this city is here in the first place, and it’s enormous and very close to where we grew up, but none of us has ever heard of it? That’s not even mentioning how we managed to survive that accident in the first place!”

  “Right, I’ve had about enough,” said Mr. Jefferson, his tone clipped and hard. He turned to Brock and said, “We are going now, son!”

  Brock looked relieved. “Excellent! Get me out of here!”

  Cole stared at his brother incredulously. “You mean you’re just going to leave? When Pete’s dad has been kidnapped? You’re not going to stay and help?”

  “His dad is fine,” Brock shot back. “He probably just didn’t want to come, and I can’t say I blame him. This place is mental. Besides, even if something did happen to him, that’s not my problem, is it?”

  Cole was speechless. Then he turned to his mother. She shrugged at him helplessly, and his expression hardened. “If something happened to Pete’s dad, I can’t just leave him! I’m staying to help!”

  Mrs. Jefferson’s eyes widened and she sidestepped towards Cole for solidarity. “If Cole is staying, I… I’m staying too!”

  “Like hell you are,” Mr. Jefferson growled.

  His wife cowered under his glare. “But… one of us has to stay here with him,” she said in a tiny voice.

  “You will both come home with me where you belong,” said Mr. Jefferson through gritted teeth, “and that is final.”

  “You can’t make me!” said Cole defiantly, planting his feet and crossing his arms over his chest. Even as he did it, his eyes widened, as if he couldn’t believe his own nerve.

  Mr. Jefferson’s face flushed puce. He grabbed his wife by the arm so tightly that she whimpered, but to Cole’s surprise, his eyes narrowed, and he said to Cole, “Fine. I can’t say I ever expected any sort of rational thought from you anyway. I’m sorry to see that you’ve proven me right.”