by Mike Shevdon
"And what about Jerry?"
"The Remembrancer?"
She nodded.
"I'm sorry, Claire, but I think he's probably dead."
Her eyes filled and she turned away, fishing a rumpled tissue from her jacket pocket and removing her glasses to dab at her eyes. "We don't know," she said. "There's still hope."
"I suppose there is a chance that he's just delayed or something," Blackbird admitted, though the sour note in her voice told me she didn't believe this herself, "but you must prepare for the worst."
"I'll do what I must," she told us, replacing her glasses after her moment of weakness, squaring her shoulders.
"The bad news is that if the Seventh Court find out it's you and not the Remembrancer that ensures the continuity of the ceremony–"
She folded her arms as if a chill had suddenly taken her, looking from Blackbird to me. "Then I'll be next."
SIXTEEN
Claire stood in the office, her arms held tightly around her. Despite her years of service, the reality of her role was only just hitting home.
"We have to go, Claire," said Blackbird.
"What can I do?" she asked.
"Maybe you could stay with some friends until this blows over?"
"I can't leave the office. What about the police? What about Jerry?"
"I don't think he's coming back," she suggested gently.
"What if they come here, after me?"
"Don't be here. They don't know you're involved and we won't tell them, but if they figure it out or if they get it from Jerry…"
"He wouldn't tell them."
"He may not have a choice. He won't be able to lie to them."
"I can't leave."
"There's no one to be clerk for, Claire. Either he comes back from wherever it is he's gone to or…"
"Or what?"
"Or he doesn't. You have to make sure the ceremony happens in either case. Otherwise things will get worse, not better."
"There are arrangements that will need to be made."
"Then make them. We'll be in touch when we know whether the knife can be fixed. In the meantime don't take strange phone calls and spend as little time alone as you can."
"I don't have anyone I can… That is…"
"Don't go where you're expected to go. Find somewhere else, someone else. Don't be alone."
"I don't have anyone…"
"Then find someone."
Blackbird's words came out harsh, but well meant. Claire's expression clearly said it wasn't as easy as Blackbird made it sound, but she simply nodded, accepting the principle.
"You need to take this with you." Claire retrieved the dark wooden box with the knives from the side table and passed it to Blackbird who accepted it reluctantly.
"Take care of yourself," Blackbird advised, slipping the box into her shoulder bag and zipping the bag closed so it wouldn't fall out.
"I'll try."
Blackbird ushered me through the outer office and into the corridor.
"Will she be OK?" I asked Blackbird.
She didn't answer my question, but marched ahead, out of Claire's earshot, leading the way down the steep stairway. She was down the steps and halfway across the entrance hall towards the exit before she spoke.
"Claire will be fine until the Seventh Court work out it's the clerk that's keeping the ceremony going, at which point she won't be fine."
We pushed through the exit gate across from the security station and stepped back through the entrance into the afternoon sunlight.
"We need to get the knife fixed before they work it out," she said. "At the moment they think they've won. They've eliminated the Remembrancer and they think the barrier is breaking down."
"It is breaking down."
"If the ceremony is performed successfully with the proper knives then it will reinforce the barrier. Meanwhile, the Council will realise that we know what they've done."
"The Council?"
"The rulers of the courts form the High Council of the Feyre. It's where they resolve disputes between the courts and discuss issues that affect them all. It doesn't have any powers over the individual courts. But if they entered into an agreement with humanity then they did it together. No single court could speak for all of them."
"We still don't know for sure that's what they did."
"Yes we do."
"We know they needed humanity to make the barrier, but we still don't know what the deal was, do we? Let's say humanity agreed to perform the ritual and carried it out for eight or nine hundred years. Why? What's in it for them? They don't even know the Feyre exist. Even Claire only knows part of it."
"That's the point, isn't it?"
"What is?"
"That's the deal. Don't you see?"
"What are you talking about?"
"It's all around us. Humanity goes its own sweet way while the Feyre sit back and let them. That was the deal, coexistence in return for security, peace in return for maintaining the barrier."
"You're guessing."
"Only partly. I've sat and listened to Kareesh's tales of how it was before. I know that when they first encountered humans, the Feyre made sure they knew whose land they were in. They hunted them, kidnapped their children, terrified them and murdered them in their beds. By the time the Feyre had finished with them they were literally afraid of the dark. Something changed, though. I always thought it was because there were so many humans and the Feyre were dwindling. No matter how many humans the Feyre scared off there were always more. Now I know different. This is what changed. They made a deal and they will know we have found them out. They won't like that. We could make some very powerful enemies."
"But if we don't fix the knife–"
"Then the barrier will fall. The Seventh Court will break through and Raffmir's sister will get her wish."
"So we have to fix it. If we don't fix it then the Untainted will come for everyone; us, my daughter, my wife."
"Ex-wife," she reminded me.
"We can't let that happen, even if it means the Council turning against us. Kareesh said that if I found the thing that was lost then I would have a place in the courts, didn't she?"
"Something like that."
"That's what she said," I protested.
"She said it was the sight of something to secure your place in the courts. She didn't say you'd live to enjoy it."
"It's a better option than the certain knowledge of what the Seventh Court will do if the barrier falls."
"Perhaps."
"Who knows, maybe the Council will be grateful and reward us?"
"I can tell that you've never had any dealings with the courts."
That was true, but I knew from corporate experience that the gratitude of those further up the hierarchy was unreliable at best.
"Do you have a better idea?"
"I guess not," she sighed.
"Then we have to figure out where we can hire a car."
"A car? What do you want a car for?"
"To get to Shropshire. It's two hundred miles, near enough. How did you think we were going to get there? I don't think the Underground goes as far as Shrewsbury."
My sarcasm bounced off her. "I thought we would walk," she said.
"Walk? If we walk, the ceremony will have been and gone by the time we get back."
"That depends on which way we walk."
She led the way down the Strand onto Fleet Street. I caught up and walked alongside her.
"You're remarkably sanguine about this for someone who has just decided to take on the Untainted and the High Court."
"You wouldn't understand."
"Try me."
She carried on walking while she thought about it.
"I'm far older than you," she said.
"What's that got to do with it?"
"I've seen a lot of Fey; when they get older they become withdrawn. They hide themselves away from harm. They hold their lives closed so they won't die, horde them like treasure."
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"And?"
"And they atrophy. They're still living but they might as well be dead for the all the difference it makes. I don't want to end up like that. I want to live before I die."
"So you'll spit in the eye of fate and see what happens."
"Maybe not spit, but I won't hide when fate intervenes. We were meant to discover this. They've been hiding it for centuries and now it's breaking down. If we hadn't discovered it then the barrier would fail and it would all go sour. Now we have a chance to fix it."
"And the consequences?"
"Let fate decide the consequences." She lifted her chin, determined.
"Fate isn't always kind, even to those she favours."
"That's true where I come from too. You see? We do have something in common."
As we walked down Fleet Street she appeared to be looking for something.
"So we walk to Shropshire?"
She gave me one of those cryptic smiles that meant she knew something I didn't, and she wasn't going to tell me what it was.
"A car is basically a metal box on wheels. You're not going to be comfortable sitting for hours in a steel box, are you?" She strolled along the pavement and then surprised me by stepping into a bookshop.
I followed her in. It was full of legal and history books, serving the local concentration of lawyers. The only fiction volumes were hardback best sellers, displayed on a stand by the door. Blackbird ignored these and went to the back of the shop where there was a display of maps.
"Ordnance Survey maps," she announced. "Perfect."
She began selecting maps and consulting the backs until she found the one she wanted. She fanned it out in front of her, resting it precariously on the shelf, and then took out the slip of paper Claire had given her and consulted the map with it.
"It should be here somewhere." Her finger circled the map around the area to the south of Bridgnorth.
The land on the map had been shaped by the same industry that had marked my own home county of Kent. I could see the places where the streams had been diverted, dammed and sluiced to power water wheels and where woods had been coppiced to provide charcoal for the furnaces. Iron making was engraved into the landscape like a signature. In the past, this wouldn't have bothered me, but now I wondered how I would react to the presence of all that iron. I rubbed the sore patch on my hand, conscious of the after-effects of my encounter with the iron gates at Australia House.
"There's the village." I pointed out the location on the map. "It can't be far from there."
"It looks like the right sort of place to find a family of smiths," she grinned.
She refolded the map and went to the counter to pay for it. I waited at the door and then we walked back along the way we had come, towards the Strand.
"Are you serious about walking to Shropshire?"
"Yes," she said. "And no." That teasing smile was back again.
We walked back past the Royal Courts of Justice and she led the way to the other side of the road and over to the church across the square from Australia House. We approached the door and she held up her hand.
"Wait a second. There's somebody in the hallway. We don't particularly want to be observed entering."
"Blackbird, we have a long way to travel, by whatever means. Now is not the time to be visiting churches."
"We need to visit this one."
We pushed through the glass-panelled door into a dim hallway before the main body of the church. I could hear someone in the open space beyond, moving what sounded like a heavy piece of furniture. We walked quickly around to the right, down a curving staircase and under an arch down into the crypt. You could hear the bass rumble of the traffic flowing around the church to either side.
The crypt was well lit around the white-plastered walls between the pillars. Gravestones and memorials were set into the plaster. The room was familiar to me, even though I had never visited the church before. The way the pews were arranged in ranks, the placement of the altar, even the arrangement of flowers. I had seen it before.
"This place was in my vision." I turned slowly around, trying to fit my visual perspective to the one in my head. "And I was over there." I pointed to the centre of the crypt and then walked over to a spot between the rows of wooden seats.
"You're sure?"
"I think so." I looked around, slightly disoriented by trying to overlay the fragments from the vision onto the reality, shifting position and feeling my balance return as the mental image and the visual image came into line.
"Can you feel it?" she asked.
"Feel what?"
"Listen."
I listened and heard the grumble of the traffic and the faint sounds of someone moving furniture upstairs.
"What am I listening for?"
"Under it all. Below sound, below hearing."
"How can I hear something below hearing?"
"You can't, so try."
I stopped and listened, standing between the rows of wooden chairs on the stone floor, and sure enough, there was something. When you subtracted the noise of the traffic and the hubbub of humanity, there was another sound that hummed beneath it. I cocked my head and it became more distinct.
"What is it?"
"You hear it now?"
"A sort of low rumble. What is it?"
"It's one of the Ways. It runs right under here. In fact it is why 'here' is here."
"A Way?"
"It's like a line of energy under the earth connecting places together."
"Like a ley line?"
"Ley lines are similar, but they're mixed up with other things like old roads and green lanes. But you know where there are Ways because you can feel them."
"Like here."
"Yes, like here. Do you trust me?"
Her question caught me out. It must have showed on my face because her eyes registered the doubt in mine. The truth was she had too many secrets.
"Do you trust me to show you something? Here and now."
"Yes."
Her hesitant smile acknowledged the gap between hope and expectation. Was my trust important to her? It shamed me, after all we had been through, that I was unable to offer my complete trust. Then again, she made it clear on a number of occasions that she had her own priorities and I had no idea how far they would press her. I wasn't ready to offer unqualified trust.
She walked around behind me, holding my shoulder to gently prevent me from turning with her.
"I'm going to ask you to follow my instructions. Where we're going I won't get chance to explain, so I want you to just do it and I'll explain afterwards, OK?"
"Why can't you explain now?"
"It'll make much more sense afterwards."
"So I have to trust you."
"Yes."
"You could just tell me."
"I could, but you've already found several disadvantages to being Fey. This is one of the advantages."
"Are you sure I'm going to like it?"
"Trust me," she whispered.
It was hard after the day I'd had. She hadn't led me wrong though. Perhaps I could trust her for this one thing.
She stood behind me, placing her hands on my shoulders, orientating me gently until I was facing the side wall of the underground chapel.
"After the first step, I want you to step aside and take a deep breath to steady yourself and then, when I step in after you, I want you to step back on the line of the Way and step again, straight away, understand. Don't say anything and try not to make a noise, OK?"
"What do you mean, steady myself?"
"You'll understand after the first step, I promise."
"Off the line and on again, don't make a noise. Got it." It was simple enough, but she was making a big deal about it.
"Remember what I said." She squeezed my shoulder and I nodded again. "Now, close your eyes."
I did as she asked, conscious of the pressure of her fingers on my shoulder.
"You remember how it was with the mirror in Cla
ire's office, how you connected with it, called to it?"
"Yes."
"Feel below your feet. Feel the flow of energy there."
I reached down to the low vibration under the floor and tentatively felt towards it. Whereas the mirror had been still, like a windless pool, this was a torrent. It raged and crashed beneath our feet, surging along. I swayed slightly, unbalanced by its momentum.
"Steady. You're just trying to create a connection with it, not to hold it. Just recognise it. Say 'Hello' to it, acknowledge its power and accept it."
"It's very strong."
"Don't try and fight it, you'll lose. Just connect with it and let yourself be known."
I reached out into the torrent as you might dangle your hand into the water from a speedboat, feeling the buffeting from it and knowing its power.
"Now make a connection with it and take a step forwards, I'm right behind you."
"But–"
"I'm right behind you. Remember what I said."
Tentatively, I reached to the darkness inside. It was eager to connect with the torrent below. I showed it what I wanted and the darkness snaked down, faster than I had anticipated. I felt the torrent rise beneath me. I took a step forward and it crested up under me and surged, carrying me off with it while I screamed and yelled at the joy of it, forgetting everything she'd said about being quiet. It was like surfing and skydiving rolled into one.
My foot hit the floor and I stopped, staggering forward slightly. The echoes of my yell died around me. I opened my eyes and it was dark. I could still feel the river of power beneath me. I remembered Blackbird's instructions and stepped off the line just in time. A breeze turned out of nowhere and she melted into existence beside me.
"That was fantastic! Where are we?" I was excited and elated by it.
"Shhh." She pressed her hand over my mouth. "Hush."
Light spilled downwards, revealing a cellar space with a staircase leading upwards in front of us, the light spilling down the steps from a door opened above.
"Is there someone there?"
The voice had a querulous quality to it that led me to think it hoped that there wasn't. A light bulb clicked on to my right.
