It was high up in the trees. It might have been a bird, although he was belatedly aware that he'd seen none in Gulshaw, not so much as a seagull. When the foliage rustled again he glanced back. The branches of more than one tree were shaking against the unseen sky, as if some creature had leapt from one to the other. Fairman couldn't help thinking of the zoo, which—together with the Leafy Shade and Sprightly Sprouts—was somewhere in the murk beyond the priest's house. Another treetop quivered, and at the same time one shook on the opposite side of the road. Whatever was on the move up there sounded larger than a bird, but it was indistinguishable from the clumps of greyish branches. Fairman turned away, and as his suddenly unstable legs threatened to let him down he grabbed the nearest tree. His fingers recoiled, and he tramped faster towards the church. Surely the trunk hadn't squirmed like a wet scaly limb in his grasp, but he didn't touch any more trees. Even when the floppy sounds in the treetops multiplied he refrained from looking back.
The trees gave out as the road brought him to the Church of the First Word. He could have fancied that the grey stone walls puffed up at his approach, just as the fog seemed to swell with a vast breath as it withdrew across the empty promenade and the deserted beach. He lingered between the mossy gateposts to examine the signboard, having noticed that the definite article had been inserted in smaller letters between the two lines of the name. Patches of lichen obscured parts of the sign, but he thought the last two words had been altered, though he couldn't be sure whether they had originally been Saint Mark.
The same grey lichen had run riot on the gravestones surrounding the church. Some of them were so distorted that Fairman could have imagined the fog had infected them with its amorphousness. A stone urn seemed to be sprouting tendrils like a giant seed if not a tentacled denizen of the sea, and the pale mass dangling from an angel's bowed head was less devoid of features than Fairman liked, as if it was on the way to forming a new face. As he hurried down the path from the rusty gate he saw that quite a number of the mounds that extended from the memorials had crumbled seawards. That needn't remind him of anything, and he tramped to grab the encrusted ring on the door within the grey stone arch.
The door lumbered inwards on its massive hinges, scraping the uneven flagstones, and the stagnant Gulshaw smell came to meet him as though the church had let out a moist breath. The interior was so dim that he left the door open. All the arched windows in the side walls and flanking the altar were at least partly overgrown by a greyish fungoid substance, but Fairman couldn't judge whether this or the fog was responsible for leeching all the colour from the stained glass, where the outlines of the figures were so malformed that it was impossible to tell who or what they were meant to be. As he made his way along the aisle between the pews, all of which were empty even of books, he saw that the form on the cross that overlooked the altar seemed bloated, its ill-defined grey shape drooping forward as though poised to plump on the floor. Whatever Father Sinclough had said, the church was surely no longer in use, at least not in any conventional sense. Had the priest espoused a new faith? That needn't concern Fairman so long as he retrieved the book.
The pulpit stood to the left of the altar. As Fairman climbed the creaky steps, the banisters seemed to turn moist in his grasp. A book was resting on the lectern, and he could have thought it quivered a little with eagerness—his own. The embossed colophon showed a night sky in which unfamiliar constellations hinted at the features of an inhuman face. A stagnant smell that Fairman recognised rose from the pages as he opened it to confirm that it was the eighth volume, Of the Dreaming of Creation. He felt his eyes bulge with the strain of reading in the dimness. "All creation is a dream of itself. The universe dreamed itself into being and continues to do so..."
In that case, he thought, the book must be a dream as well. Perhaps he was on the edge of understanding why his time in Gulshaw had grown to resemble one—and then another thought overtook him. At last he grasped something Father Sinclough had said. Although he no longer had the street map, he could visualise the layout of the town, and he had indeed been led a dance. The route he'd followed to collect the books had described the first steps of the dance he'd watched at the Shaw.
At once he felt as if more than the insight had taken hold of his mind. He heard a huge prolonged dribbling breath behind him. It was surely just a wave that had sprawled onto the beach and lingered over retreating, but it felt like a symbol or an omen. So was the book, unless it was more than that. As he read on he could have taken it for a dream he was having, even if not on his own behalf, and was about to waken from. "Who hath shared the dreams the old stones dream, or those of the earth or the sea? Who hath beheld the sleeping visions of the mountains, or been a party to the reveries of the moon? The Ancient Ones partake of the dreams of the farthest stars, where universe and void consume each other for eternity. Let the mage prepare himself before venturing to invite them into his mind..." This and much more seemed to sink past Fairman's comprehension to root itself in his brain. The unchanging dimness gave him no sense of how long he had been at the lectern when he became aware of activity in the churchyard. A crowd was advancing on the church.
Father Sinclough led the procession, and the mayoress supported him on her arm. Though their progress seemed so furtive that Fairman hadn't noticed them until they were past the gate, their faces suggested that they meant to be respectful. They were followed by everyone who had taken care of the books, even Rhoda Bickerstaff, who looked not quite resigned nor yet just nervously expectant. Behind them came people Fairman had encountered in the town— Janine Berry and her staff, the proprietors of Fishing For You and Fish It Up, the Gulshaw players apart from Eric Headon—and then people he thought he had passed in the street or seen on the beach. It occurred to him that while he was reading at the lectern he'd heard a good deal of traffic on the promenade but hadn't realised its significance. By the time Eunice Spriggs and Father Sinclough crossed the threshold, much of the crowd was still outside the gate.
The priest shuffled to the front pew with the mayoress, where they sat and gazed up at Fairman. As they entered the church he'd thought Eunice was doffing her hat as a mark of respect, but did women do that? Now he saw that the object she'd stuffed into her handbag hadn't been headgear in that sense. Everyone in the crowd uncovered their bald heads as they stepped into the church, the women included. Nobody was wearing beach shoes, despite their appearance and the way their rubbery feet slithered over the stone floor. Too many eyes to count were gazing up at Fairman now; it felt like being observed by a single consciousness, and not only from within the church. He ought to have suspected something of the kind, given all the phrases they had in common. He was watching the church fill up—all the pews were occupied, and newcomers were crowding three deep along the walls—when the priest raised an unstable hand. "Read, my son," he murmured. "Read to us."
To some extent Fairman was glad to return to the book. He'd caught sight of a group of familiar figures in a pew at the back of the church. As they tugged their scarves down, he could have thought they were dragging their faces lopsided or otherwise awry. The townsfolk who couldn't find space inside the church were massing around it, although not at his back, where the waves had grown slower and louder. Some of the spectators had managed to clamber up to the side windows, though he didn't know what they were able to see; the faces flattened against the panes were so blurred that he could have taken them for lumps of the fungus that clung to the stained glass. He did his best to ignore all these sights and concentrate on the book, beginning where he'd left off. Perhaps it conveyed more to the listeners than he was aware of understanding himself, because there was rapt silence except for his voice and the sluggish progression of waves behind him on the beach. At last he came to the end of the printed text and turned to the flyleaf.
"The grimoire is a tool for the unmaking of the world. What are these volumes save a nexus of ancient power? Happy the land which is bounded by them, for it shall be irradiated and
transformed. Happy the denizens of that land, for they shall renew the oldest ways of shaping, when all that lived partook of a single creation. More powerful still is the mage through whom the old words find their voice, and happiest is he whose lips Gla'aki uses to address the world. Wherever He is heard He shall manifest Himself to His worshippers..."
Fairman was no longer reading aloud, since the page was blank. He felt as though he was hearing someone else preach—as if the book had found a voice that wasn't his. He had to speak up, because the ponderous slithering of the waves had grown louder. He was about to continue, though he'd no idea what he would say, when he glimpsed a concerted movement in the church.
Everyone in the congregation had bowed their heads. Until he looked at them he was able to take this as a gesture of respect, and then he clutched the pulpit so hard that it seemed to sweat in his grasp. Although every head was lowered so far that he could see the back of every neck, all the faces were still turned up towards him, as if their raptness had dislodged them. They were no longer intent on him, however. All the wide dislocated eyes were gazing past him.
As the protracted cumbersome sound that he'd kept hearing was repeated at his back, he could no longer avoid realising that it wasn't the noise of waves, because it had left the beach. He felt himself tremble, and the pulpit shivered; he thought the entire church did. Perhaps the tremor that spread through the floor and rose up the walls to the gloomy timbers under the roof betrayed how massive the presence was, so weighty that it shook the earth, or perhaps the vibration was a sign of its power. Then the church grew as still as the multitude of unblinking eyes, and Fairman had to turn and look behind him.
He was being watched from beyond the altar. An eye was peering through each of the windows that framed it— an eye as large as Fairman's head. They looked as if they were using the church for a mask. He found himself struggling to feel equal to the sight; perhaps he could survive it, since the eyes were no less blurred than the vast pallid face out of which they were craning. Then a third eye swelled like a moist fleshy balloon through the wall above the crucifix and stooped towards him on a flexible greyish trunk the thickness of a tree. It was followed by the face, which absorbed the cross as it seeped through the stones around it—a whitish spongy moon-shaped face twice Fairman's height, featureless except for the stems of the eyes and a circular thick-lipped mouth. It was followed by a sample of the body, an oval mass bristling with restless spines as long as Fairman's arm, as the face leaned over the altar towards him.
He couldn't move. His hands might have been fastened to the pulpit, and his legs felt as if they would give way if he tried to flee. He did his desperate best to tell himself that he could bear the scrutiny if he closed his eyes, but worse was to come. A breath that smelled like the essence and the source of the stagnant Gulshaw odour overwhelmed him as the face descended to bestow a kiss that engulfed his head.
It made his skull feel malleable, close to gelatinous. As the sensations expanded through the whole of him he felt his flesh squirm like a grub. He even thought his brain shifted wakefully inside his cranium, an insect in a chrysalis. As long as the cold spongy lips lingered on him he seemed to forget how to breathe. At last they withdrew, and he heard a vast body shuffle backwards out of the church.
Was it dread or some other factor that made it hard for him to open his eyes? When he succeeded in raising the rubbery lids he saw that the windows beside the altar were empty, the wall bare except for the figure lolling off the cross. As he turned to the congregation he felt as if something apart from himself was looking out through his eyes; he might even have thought there was movement within them. The sensation wasn't quite enough to distract him from the spectacle before him—the sight of everybody in the church raising their heads to let the faces resume their positions on the skulls like jellyfish sliding down rocks. In a few moments he was almost able to think he couldn't have seen that, since the congregation was so innocently intent on him, as though waiting for a sign. He had no idea how to respond, but perhaps the sight of him was enough, because Father Sinclough was rising to his feet, helped by his companion. The priest shuffled forward and stooped lower still, bowing not to the altar but to Fairman.
Eunice Spriggs followed his example before supporting him along the aisle. His fellow keepers of the books stepped forward to bow, and the other occupants of the front rows did. By the time the entire congregation had done so and left the church Fairman had no sense of how long he'd spent in the pulpit, resting his loose hands beside the book. Even the crowd in the churchyard had bowed in his direction or otherwise inclined their shapes towards him. He'd glimpsed the most uncontrollably misshapen at the back of the crowd before they flopped away towards the woods, he guessed, or wherever else they hid.
When he emerged from the church with the book in his hands he found Father Sinclough waiting outside the porch. He wondered if the priest was clinging to a remnant of his old vocation until Father Sinclough said "We were guided in our choice, my son. I was never the man for the task."
Fairman moved his unwieldy tongue around his mouth until they felt more familiar. "What task?"
"When your books were entrusted to me I wasn't sure how to proceed. I confess it, I was afraid to keep them with me, to take all that upon myself. Until you spoke today I didn't realise why I was guided to distribute them." He seemed to be apologising for some presumption as he said "I'm sure I haven't got your calling. You're the one who can restore the word."
"Edit the books, do you mean?" Fairman felt as if he was trying to recapture his old self too. "You'll want to keep us in Gulshaw, then."
"Not at all." The priest shook his head so vigorously that his scalp wobbled, and so did the bald woman beside him. "We'll still have the benefit," Father Sinclough said. "You go forth and seed the world."
The last cars were departing uphill or along the sea front. The newborn sea glittered beneath a piercing sun all the way to the horizon. While the fog had dissipated as if Gulshaw no longer needed to be veiled, Fairman seemed to feel it on if not within him. Had it impregnated everything it touched? When he made his way along the promenade, clutching the book in both hands like a talisman, he thought he saw the hotels and the buildings beyond them swell up almost imperceptibly as a greyness merged with them.
Perhaps it was just the angle of the sun, although this didn't quite explain how they glistened while his flesh prickled in a feverish response.
In his room at the Wyleave he opened the safe, even though it seemed unnecessary to protect the book. He sensed how the darkness welcomed the newcomer. He shut the door and gazed at the marks his fingers left, moist blotches without whorls. He plodded downstairs to find Janine Berry behind the counter, adjusting the hair on her head. "Would you like us to move you to the honeymoon suite?" she said with nervous coyness.
"I think that might be most appropriate."
"You'll be in there when you've fetched your lady."
"It's appreciated," Fairman said and was accosted by a thought. "Whoever moves me will need the combination of the safe."
"You don't think anybody still needs to be told that, Leonard."
He might have produced some kind of a laugh at his thoughtlessness if his mobile hadn't clanked with an incoming message. "Well," he said, having read it, "Gulshaw does it again. Think of someone and they come."
"You go and get her. Everything will be ready when you're back."
Sandra's message said that she was fifteen minutes from Gulshaw. Coming to collect you, he responded on his way to the car. As he drove uphill he saw that all the shops were open, and the streets were peopled too. It occurred to him that the Gulshaw Players weren't the only townsfolk to put on a performance. He didn't need to tell any of the inhabitants that the town had a new visitor.
He parked on the station forecourt and was on the platform in time to meet the solitary figure who left the train.
She looked unexpectedly vulnerable—too slight and slim by local standards—whil
e the profusion of red hair that framed her small delicate determined face seemed unfamiliar after his days in Gulshaw. He felt himself swell with a new emotion as he strode forward, stretching out his arms, not far enough to daunt her. "Sandra," he said. "Welcome to our town. There's so much more to see."
Acknowledgements
This book was written in quite a few locations as well as here at my desk. It started life at the Matina Apartments in Pefkos on Rhodes. It attended Fantasycon in Brighton and the Festival of Fantastic Films in Manchester. It went to Clevedon for the wedding of our good friends John and Kate Probert (who both saw how Jenny was inspired by an occult source to reveal the correct pronunciation of Gla'aki). It was in Hornsea to help celebrate the birthday of Nicky Crowther, PS Publishing's pretty face (but she's by no means just one).
As always Jenny was my first reader—at least, unless Gla'aki craned an eye or three at my back.
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