Please, take me, she mouthed in her coma. Take me too.
But Hope, slumbering at the bottom of the box, summoned two images from those still living: Morval Seer, slipping free of her hateful companion in the cage in Lost Acre, and young Tyke’s face, beautiful and impassive in the firelight in the changelings’ treehouse.
Orelia awoke with her spirits marginally revived. She left Everthorne’s body on the platform beneath the mixing-point and she checked the rock wall, but it had returned to its solid, wholly impenetrable state.
Wynter’s farewell had had an epitaph ring: ‘Let her lie with him for ever.’
She was immured.
*
Back in the cavern, her nostrils twitched. Mrs Banter liked to smother herself in exotic essences, but this fragrance released images of summer: bees and blossom, bare-armed bathers, meadows ready for harvest. Nature’s gift, surely – but from where?
The tree, while rich in leaf out of season, bore no flowers, but a climber twined its way high into the branches.
She squeezed through the narrow space between the trunk and the rock wall – and there it was, rising through a tangle of roots, unmistakably a rose with dark crimson petals. The stems had parted, exposing a dark space at the base of the tree. She tightened the isolarion, the beige linen scarf which Professor Bolitho had left her, around her neck and squeezed through.
She did not so much fall as spiral down between the roots, aghast at how a single tree could sustain such a vast network. Tunnels opened on either side, looking more like inverted branches. They were sentient too, withdrawing or bending to let her pass. Silvery shafts of light permeated the gloom. She felt disembodied, no more than a tiny life force, until the violent jolt of landfall.
*
She found herself on a circular stone platform in a bowl surrounded by high cliffs: a place of extremes. On her left, one cliff face, sheeted with ice, rose from a frozen lake dotted with ice floes like stepping stones. An effulgent blue liquid seeped from outcrops at varying heights. To the right, lava flowed from fissures in the opposite wall into a fiery lake dotted with islands of pumice. A shiny marble pavement divided these contrasting lakes, a temperate middle way – and her only realistic route out. Vegetation hugged the banks of the path, the lanceolate leaves variegated red-blue, but without flowers as yet.
In each lake stood a mottled-white ovoid sculpture on a plinth about a metre high.
Halfway down the causeway she found a stone bench with its ends raised and smooth like pillows: an invitation to lie, rather than sit.
‘It felt like a holy place . . .’
It felt like a holy place.
On lying down, the stone under her back had the yielding quality of soft ground. Gazing into the ribbon of the Milky Way and inhaling air both warm and fresh, her anxieties eased and she fell deeply asleep, and this time it was a restorative slumber.
The dawn light woke her, bringing the marble to dazzling life. She walked on to find a steep staircase in darker stone winding its way up to the crater’s rim. The steps, wide enough for two abreast, were vertiginous but safe. Looking down one last time at the opposing lakes, Orelia reflected on other polarities: passion and reason, engagement and aloofness, instinct and judgement. She thought of the personalities of her friends and prayed that Rotherweird could hold its middle way.
Beyond, the rocky ground gave way to the spongy peat of a high heath in ordinary winter weather. She saw two familiar buildings: close by, Bolitho’s observatory, and far in the distance, the bell tower of Rotherweird’s church. Oblong must have placed his sphere in the mixing-point, and maybe Bole had too somehow.
Everthorne’s death had induced in Orelia a devil-may-care attitude. If hostile life forms barred her way, so be it. The observatory it had to be.
She changed her mind within a few paces when a scaly snout erupted from a hole in the ground. A bloated, elongated wood-louse with a shark’s crescent mouth and teeth nearly removed her ankle, only retreating when she stamped hard on the ground. Similar holes pockmarked the slope like a sieve. A more ambitious lunge from another hole fell short.
Orelia froze. Her neck prickled; she scratched, but the needling sensation persisted, prompting her to unwind the isolarion. A green fleck glowed in the material, then another beside the first. Holding the scarf in front of her, she experimented, step by cautious step. The green specks continued to move and finally she understood: if she kept to the green, nothing attacked. The isolarion was a map and like all Bolitho’s bequests, a gift with purpose. She crouched and, probing the ground beneath her feet with her fingers, discovered she was walking on a seam of greenish rock where the creatures could not burrow. Bolitho had placed the observatory where only someone armed with his map could safely go.
The maze-like path coiled and double backed on itself, which made for tortuous work, but her pace improved as she gained confidence. She was not attacked again.
The door to the observatory held fast. ‘But I’m an invited guest,’ Orelia said out loud, fingering the isolarion. She tapped in search of a mechanism, to no avail, but a glance through the spy-hole provoked a sequence of clicks and the door swung open.
‘Eureka!’ she shouted.
Once inside, globe-lights on the walls oscillated and flared into life.
The journey from Rotherweird had not disturbed the books, a silver pencil on the work surface beneath the telescope or Bolitho’s spectacular untidiness. Sheets of paper were strewn across the floor like confetti from a giant’s wedding.
The telescope looked out only at blue sky – maybe that was the point. The dark star, whose dying streamers had been conspicuous even in daytime, was nowhere to be seen.
Beneath the telescope, she found a single piece of paper with a numbered list:
1. Robert Flask?
2. Ambrose Claud(s)?
3. Rootwork.
4. Spring Equinox.
5. Cobbled together.
The first name she found disturbing. Bole had chosen his victims carefully for their knowledge, skills or potential for deception – in Everthorne’s case, all three. In the flurry of events they had overlooked Robert Flask, Oblong’s predecessor as the outsider Master of Modern History at Rotherweird School – and the person whose disappearance had coincided with Slickstone’s arrival.
The second on the list sounded vaguely familiar. It took her a moment to remember that Fanguin had once bought a book by Ambrose Claud, an eighteenth-century antiquarian, at the Hoy Book Fair. He had never portrayed the book as in any way remarkable, but the plural Clauds was puzzling. More hidden connections?
The third she linked to her recent journey through the roots of the great tree, but any wider significance eluded her.
As to the fourth, the seismic events of recent months had occurred on Midsummer Day and the Winter Solstice, so the Spring Equinox would certainly fit a final curtain call.
The last made no sense, unless to suggest that the other four all interacted.
The isolarion and the eye-recognition device meant these cues had been left for her to find – but would Bolitho have gone to such extreme lengths if he had expected to survive Wynter’s return? She recalled the woman’s scream beneath the marsh. Morval Seer? She crossed herself and placed the sheet in her trouser pocket.
Orelia continued her search for clues, suspecting Bolitho was testing her. Only the worthy shall know. A steel arm with a nib set above a spool of graph paper in a glass case had run a line like a regular heart-beat – until it suddenly fractured into a series of violent loops and stopped. The dark star’s dying moment? she wondered.
She closed the door, fearing the worst.
As she walked on, the heath gave way to meadowland and the isolarion turned from green to red. In the far distance the river disappeared at the base of a range of hills. She thought she could make out a sluice-like structure, like a mouth with teeth, but she had no wish to investigate. Luck had been ominously generous so far.
Some hour
s later she recognised the great tree silhouetted against the skyline. There she and Ferensen had faced Ferox-alias-Bole and Sir Veronal Slickstone in the snow. Below the white tile, not far from the river’s edge, the grass had been flattened by a circle of shaped stones set in the ground like a pavement. They ran in one direction, but had no grooves and gave no indication of their use.
Enough mysteries for one day. She ran up the slope to the white tile.
They had treated the tiles as bus stops, each serving one route between Lost Acre and Rotherweird, but this time the tile misbehaved, delivering Orelia to a high clearing shadowed by towering yews. Swathes of ferns wore a veneer of frost. A chill mist dampened her face and hair.
She jumped as a bearded countrysider detached himself from a nearby tree trunk. He walked up to her, sank to his haunches and ran his hand across the tile’s surface.
‘They sicken, or fear sickness to come,’ he said. His voice, though mellow, had a distant, matter-of-fact quality and he spoke as if the trees were colleagues and she an interloper. Indeed, he had an arboreal quality himself, his face burnished, trunk solid and tall; even the tow-coloured hair had a spent, autumnal quality. ‘Best follow me,’ he added.
He moved lightly for his build, with a long stride. Orelia struggled to keep pace. He neither asked why she was here nor who she was, so maybe he knew – or maybe he didn’t care.
The path held level until they reached a deep gorge, where a roofed shelter festooned with pulleys and wheels hugged the precipitous slope. The vertical supporting struts were beautifully carved with recognisable insects and birds. Far away a cloud of moisture marked a waterfall. She pointed.
‘It feeds the Winterbourne stream,’ he said.
‘So we’re in Rotherweird Westwood,’ she murmured, although the landscape was far wilder than she had imagined it would be.
For the first time he turned to look at her. ‘Townsfolk never come here, and who can respect what they do not know?’
She ignored the implicit rebuke. ‘Did that clearing have a name?’
‘Which clearing?’
‘Where you found me.’ She decided against where I arrived, as she could not read him.
‘There are several such places.’ He knelt and tugged a lever in the decking. A heavy rope coated in pitch snapped up from below. It joined the platform at head height and ran taut across the chasm. He attached a contraption to the rope with hand holds and stirrup-like rests for the feet.
‘Don’t twist to look at the view,’ he warned her. ‘Don’t lean in or out. Keep the knees together and slightly up. What do you weigh?’
‘Average for my height.’
‘That’s meaningless.’ He rummaged in a box of weighted belts.
She indulged an urge to ruffle his deadpan demeanour. ‘Naked or dressed?’
‘As you are,’ he said.
She gave him her weight; he gave her a belt and they shuffled forward to the platform edge.
‘Don’t be surprised by the acceleration; we need the momentum. The air will sting. And be sure to drop off as soon as we get there.’
She did not take his warnings seriously – as a child she had used a similar device from cliff to beach without a problem – but now the line sagged dramatically as they launched into a breakneck descent. The air slapped her face; her arms shook with the strain. The slower climb up to the receiving platform was in its way worse.
The ordeal was repeated twice more, from woodland over gorge to more woodland. The view opened to the northeast and far, far below on the lower slopes she glimpsed meadows filled with livestock. She released one hand for a better look – but her remaining arm could not hold her weight and the carrier swung violently. He twisted, seizing her by the waist as the carriage limped to the finish.
‘Bloody fool,’ he muttered, as he set off up a steep incline.
‘I’m so sorry – thank you—’ stammered Orelia.
He did not acknowledge the apology. In silence, he took the path into the deep shadow thrown by the escarpment rim. Welcome handrails appeared at the steepest sections. In failing light they arrived at a planked forecourt illuminated by globe-lights.
‘The Witan Hall,’ he said.
Columns on either side of a double door had been carved with birds, insects, plants and animals, the motifs complex and intertwined, but without the grotesquery favoured by the Woodworkers’ Guild.
‘Is this your seat of government?’ she asked.
‘No, it’s our place of refuge. We have dormitories cut into the rock, stocked larders and abundant fresh water. This is the only way in.’
The exterior suggested a modest chamber behind and so it was – but platforms reached by ropes and ladders multiplied to the left and right, leading to narrower doors and more passages. A chimney snaked through the ceiling from a huge fireplace. The twisted flue reminded her of the changelings’ treehouse.
A welcome figure strode towards her, arms wide.
‘Ferensen!’
‘The fire has a most efficient back-burner,’ he said. ‘Wash off the toil and a little of the grief, then we can talk.’
Oralia gladly accepted the offer. Megan Ferdy appeared and led her to a rudimentary shower cubicle smelling of resin. Simple woollen dresses and shawls hung from pegs. She abandoned her outer clothes: time to renew.
Refreshed in mind and body, she returned to the Hall to find Ferensen installed by the fire.
‘My possessions are dispersed I know not where, but I retained one tin of Black Bodrum Nightraiser Special,’ he said. As they waited for the coffee to brew, he opened bluntly. ‘No doubt you have tragedy to report. Wynter always brings death.’
‘Why did you abandon us?’ blurted Orelia. Loss has worsened me, she immediately thought. No words of welcome, not even a narrative; I open by blaming a friend. ‘I’m not accusing,’ she added quickly. ‘I just want to understand.’
Ferensen took no exception. ‘No need to apologise. I lost myself to the river – it’s an addiction; the other half takes over. But thanks to my sister, I’m my old self now. So please, tell me . . .’
She had no wish to say the names out loud, but Ferensen’s understanding gave her strength. ‘Hayman Salt is dead. An artist called Everthorne, who loved me, is dead, and I fear for Fortemain too.’
Ferensen poured the coffee. ‘Fortemain. That is grievous news, but yes, he would be the first casualty.’ A roll-call of the victims of my inertia, he reflected.
He waved over her guide as he reappeared. ‘Orelia, allow me to introduce Gabriel. Gabriel, this is Orelia. I trust you both absolutely and we need shared minds in this complex matter.’
Orelia lacked the will to protest, or even to probe. Without a word, Gabriel sat beside Ferensen and she continued her story.
This time she did not hold back. She told them about Valourhand, how the ice-dragon had immolated Salt, the unexpected mixing-point beneath Rotherweird’s marshland, Madge Brown’s true identity, the paradox of Bole resurrecting Wynter by killing him, the transportation of Bolitho’s observatory to Lost Acre and the mysterious open-air temple.
Ferensen’s eyebrows rose and fell, but he did not interrupt. Gabriel sat impassively, with no sign of incredulity.
Once finished, she drained the richly scented coffee.
‘So Wynter has Bole’s knowledge and Bole has Wynter’s appearance,’ said Ferensen. ‘There may be a weakness there, with so many personalities loose in the one mind. Did they discuss an end objective?’
‘The retaking of Rotherweird,’ replied Orelia.
‘And anything beyond that?’
Orelia shook her head as the tears came suddenly.
‘We need more wood for the fire,’ Gabriel said, tactfully walking away.
Orelia whispered to Ferensen, ‘Bole stole Everthorne’s appearance – he seduced me.’ She wiped a sleeve across her face. ‘I feel abused. Stained.’
Ferensen, a sufferer himself, knew the art of comfort: directness, no soft banalities.
Orelia looked up at him, surprised by the question. ‘Yes, very,’ she replied, remembering the houseboat, the rugs, the charcoal glowing in the grate, the gentle tilt of the hull.
‘Bole does not know tenderness. What survives of Everthorne made love to you. That’s all you need to know.’
Orelia pulled herself together, pulled a piece of paper from her pocket and unfolded it. ‘What about this? Does it mean anything? I found it in Bolitho’s observatory.’
Gabriel returned and built the fire while Ferensen studied Bolitho’s enigmatic notes – or, rather to him, Fortemain’s.
‘Jones’ presence here is no surprise.’ Ferensen lowered his voice. ‘When he brought young Vixen Valourhand to me with her poisoned leg, I knew instantly he had endured the mixing-point. More to the point, when Salt came to my summer entertainment, I realised Jones shared Salt's peculiar aura. Both have played the Green Man.’
‘That means Jones is over a thousand years old,’ muttered Orelia.
Gabriel broke his silence. ‘My parents knew him, and my grandparents before that. God knows what he’s seen over the centuries – and learned.’
‘Gabriel owns the land where the white tile sits,’ explained Ferensen, ‘as did his family before him.’
Ferensen’s revelation reassured Orelia. It made sense of Jones’ unknown origins, his secrecy and ‘play the fool’ cover, and his rush to the marsh.
Above their heads, occasional birds had given way to occasional bats. Men, women and children appeared from a passageway above them, some of the adults with bows in hand.
Lost Acre Page 5
