The Rules. Book 1; The End

by Jon Jacks

  ‘Yeah, considering he thinks I did it! How’s that for trust, eh? The suspicious…jerk!’

  It suddenly dawned on Beth that Lynese might be responsible.

  ‘We didn’t do it, right? Did you let that odrad go?’

  Now who’s being a suspicious jerk? Of course I didn’t! As lover boy put it, someone, or something, had already reordered most of the energy surrounding us. Once someone’s done that, it isn’t easy to make it flexible again.

  ‘He said it felt like it had been hardened. Does that make sense?’

  Only in the sense that he was trying to express it in a way you’d understand. To put it even simpler; first, you can keep on moulding a piece of clay until you let it begin to harden, can’t you? In which case you could end up stuck with what you have. Second, if a lump of clay is left shapeless – rather than someone making the effort and taking the time to create something from it – it’s not easy to work out who was responsible, yes? Genius really; you can put a vast area of energy out of use with relatively little effort. And without drawing attention to where the forming’s coming from.’

  ‘So…if you didn’t do it – are you really, well, you know, bad? Or did those firemen make a…well, a mistake?’

  We both know they made a mistake darling. They ended up killing your poor mother instead, didn’t they?

  That last part upset Beth. She tried not to think about her mum’s death.

  ‘I…I still don’t think you’re answering my question. I know you’re not telling me everything. That sword, Hugh – the way it flew into my hand. The way I could use it so easily. Why would a water fay need a sword?’

  Well, first off, it’s Hew, darling. As in hewing wood.

  ‘Yeah, or bodies. Or flesh.’

  I came from a time when everyone needed a sword, dear, remember? You’ve just seen how it wasn’t always possible to use magic. What’s a poor little girl like me supposed to do? Just hope someone like lover boy comes along to protect me?’

  Before Beth could insist yet again that Galilee wasn’t her ‘lover boy’, the air around them cracked, glowed and punched her hard on the back.

  The armoured car finally exploded, with shells and bullets loudly detonating in quick succession.

  Beth forced Gerry into a faster walk, urging her on.

  Wisps of tar-black smoke passed high above their heads.

  ‘So, were you bad?’

  Bad, good. It’s all semantics darling.

  ‘So you were bad! Oh no, this is terrible!’

  Oh stop fussing child! I was young! I got mixed up with the wrong crowd; that age old story! But I thought I was doing the right thing, if you must know. Because it was simply a difference of opinion between–

  ‘Difference of opinion? A war, you mean?’

  Please don’t interrupt; we have to make the best of this situation, which means showing a little politeness to each other, yes?’

  ‘Okay, sorry.’

  So, as I was saying; it was between those who wanted life to carry on as it always had, and those who wanted change for change’s sake. Those who wanted everything to remain fluid, so that we could continue to do magic. And those who insisted that, for the sake of the humans, everything needed order – even if that meant they too would no longer be capable of magic. That’s hardly bad is it; wanting to keep magic?

  ‘I suppose it could be used to do bad things.’

  And good, too. I healed humans. I temporarily strengthened their own, weakened spirit by exchanging some of it for some of my own spirit. I was originally nearer to what you would call a mermaid than a human. But I gradually became more human than magical spirit. And besides, if it makes you feel any better, I did change sides in the end.’

  ‘Hmn, why?’ Beth said doubtfully. ‘Why change sides if you wanted to continue doing magic?’

  I realised that not everyone on the side I’d chosen had the wellbeing of humans in mind after all. The island of Lyonessee I mentioned earlier; it didn’t just sink out of sight through some sort of natural catastrophe. It was deliberately sunk.

  ‘Why? Who’d do such a thing?’

  I’m not sure who she was – someone powerful, though, that’s for sure. Morrigan; I think that was her name. Very beautiful. I tried to stop her, naturally. It was hopeless, I knew that, but I was so angry. I would have died but…well, thankfully that’s when it all happened, isn’t it?

  ‘What happened?’

  All this thing you think this Merlin character did. Suddenly, we’re all just sort of sucked up – well, that’s what it felt like anyway – and then, well, nothing. I can’t remember anything else immediately after that. There were just odd, brief moments when I felt like I was waking up from a long, drugged sleep. But I was seeing things through other people’s eyes. I had no control over anything. And life had changed. And it changed all over again the next time I thought I was waking up.

  ‘This waking up; this is what made my ancestors think we were, what – possessed? Had a demon or something inside us?’

  Probably. Some saw it as a gift, set themselves up as fortune tellers – not very good ones, I suspect. Others, well, to them it was a curse; some were burnt as witches. But fortunately it was always when it was too late, when they had already had a daughter.

  ‘So let me get this straight; you say you changed sides, but no one was around to see that you’d changed sides, yeah?’

  Well, I suppose it was what could be called a late conversion. That’s probably what’s confusing lover boy; are you good or bad, it’s hard for him to tell. Oh, wait – do you still want to wake your friend up?

  ‘Yes, I–’

  A fountain of freezing, muddy water erupted from the nearby ditch. It struck Gerry directly in her face.

  ‘What the, what’s wrong, what…’

  Gerry spluttered and cursed, her eyes widening in shock.

  She immediately straightened, shaking off the last of the water as the spraying fountain came to an abrupt halt.

  Everything’s fluid again. We’ve either moved out of the affected area, or the original spell has faded.

  ‘Gerry, we need to get to the farm as quickly as we can.’

  Beth began to help Gerry wipe the water away from her drenched face.

  ‘Can you run?’

  ‘I could never run, me dearie. But I’ll give it a try!’

   

   

  *

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

  Chapter 43

   

  Gerry didn’t so much run as force her body into a speedy wobble.

  But, at last, they were covering ground reasonably quickly.

  In the farmyard, they came across the husks of two soldiers. Guns lay to one side, bent and mangled.

  The odrad’s squirming tentacles had mingled with wood and metal as the writhing, dying soldiers had uselessly clung on to their weapons.

  Inside the farmhouse, they could hear screaming, yells, crashes, bangs and the rushing of violent winds.

  The front door was smashed and splintered, and hanging off its hinges.

  As Beth and Gerry ran inside, they felt the incredible pressure of the whirling squalls being conjured up by Galilee.

  The whirlwinds weren’t as powerful as Beth had expected them to be. Perhaps, she reasoned, he had to be careful, making sure he didn’t injure anyone.

  Heddy, her father and Police Commissioner Frobisher were flat against the floor, covering their heads.

  As Galilee was the only one standing, it looked as if they were all cowering from the gusts spiralling from his waving hands.

  The heavy table Heddy had been working on earlier had been shattered, what was left of it leaning steeply on its two remaining legs. Sideboards and cupboards looked like they had been smashed with a sledgehammer.

  The large, white sink was upturned and crazily shaped, almost as
if it had melted at some point. Every wall was crazily fractured and partially bulging, with cracked pictures hanging at wild angles.

  The brick and tiles of the fireplace quivered like they were shivering. Almost instantaneously, a broken dresser and its shattered china plates squirmed and rippled as if transformed into some enormous, exotic jellyfish.

  Next, the odrad swiftly slithered down through an armchair leaning against the wall. Its tentacles rose and fell as it swam through cloth and springs.

  It hurtled at incredible speed into the floor, passing as effortlessly through the stone and carpets as a shark through water.

  ‘Beth, keep still!’

  Galilee’s face was creased with the pain and frustration he had displayed earlier when struggling to conjure up his miniature storms.

  ‘Don’t move!’

  Suddenly, the odrad turned sharply towards Beth.

  A whirling squall struck the stone flags just in front of the onrushing odrad. The demon ran into the squall, abruptly jumping back with an agonised squeal as if it had struck an electrified fence.

  It shot away from the wind as swiftly as it could, rippling up and along the nearest wall.

  Behind Galilee, Frobisher quietly rose up from the floor.

  Raising his gun, he brought it down hard on the back of the boy’s head.

   

   

  *

   

   

  The squalling wind stopped.

  Galilee flopped forward, disappearing behind what was left of the table.

  ‘What are you doing Frobisher?’ Farmer Hayart demanded, reaching out and grabbing Frobisher by his ankle.

  Sensing the movement, the odrad started to ripple along the wall, darting towards them.

  Frobisher calmly shot the farmer twice in his back.

  The odrad came to a halt in the wall just above the farmer’s lifeless body.

  ‘Daddy! No!’ Heddy wailed, leaping to her feet.

  ‘Do as I say!’ Frobisher screamed at the odrad with the authoritative tones he used on the parade ground.

  He raised a hand high into the air, forming it into a fist, yet holding the two outer fingers up like horns.

  Ignoring him, the odrad flowed down through the wall. It surged through the stone flags, heading across the floor towards Heddy.

  Without even having to think about it, Beth raised a calming hand towards the distressed Heddy.

  The girl immediately became strangely peaceful and still.

  ‘Obey me!’

  Frobisher leant towards the odrad, his hand an urgently waved, horn-fisted sign.

  Sensing the new, more exaggerated movement of the Police Commissioner, the odrad whirled towards him.

  ‘Obey me! Obey me!’ he screeched, his face contorted with fear.

  ‘Stop!’

  The odrad stopped.

  Frobisher nearly fainted with relief, his whole body trembling.

  Foley had entered by the smashed door.

  He pushed his way past a stupefied Gerry, a horrified Beth.

  His hand was clenched in the same horn-fisted shape Frobisher had made.

  As he stepped farther into the room, he shouted out another command to the stilled odrad.

  ‘Reveal yourself!’

  He kept his hand firmly clenched.

  Frobisher shivered in fright as the odrad began to slowly move closer towards him once more.

  At the last second, however, the odrad twisted off to one side. It sickeningly slithered into the lifeless farmer Hayart.

  Beth made a slight movement with her hand towards Heddy. As if in a dream, Heddy turned to stare out of what remained of the main window.

  Farmer Hayart rose to his feet, a quivering mass of swaying feelers.

  His sagging head suddenly straightened up, a tentacle protruding and waving from its very top.

  He stared blankly at a trembling Frobisher.

  But the multiple eyes of the odrad looked out of his back, towards a triumphantly beaming Foley.

  ‘An odrad! Well well well! And I’m so used to Solly letting me down!’

  Foley’s eyes narrowed as he more closely observed the weirdly swaying amalgamation of farmer and odrad.

  ‘Foley? What’s going on around here?’ Gerry demanded.

  She looked more bewildered than when she had been drunk.

  ‘Has someone been dropping certain substances into my drink?’

  Foley ignored her. He stepped closer towards the odrad.

  ‘Hmn, but you’re not Solly are you? I was right when I thought he’d be a holak, wasn’t I?

  Beth was about to speak when Frobisher fell to his knees before Foley.

  ‘My…my liege?’ he burbled unsurely.

  ‘My liege?’ Foley gave a satisfied chuckle. ‘Hah, I like it! Yes, I like it!’

  He noted that Frobisher was still wary of the nearby odrad.

  ‘Lucky for you, isn’t it, that I noticed someone’s been holding back the use of magic round here. I came to see what was going on.’

  Foley glanced about himself, like he was attempting to find the source of this remarkable power. He stared at Beth with a mocking smile.

  ‘And it isn’t you, is it Annie?’

  Beth shook her head.

  ‘I don’t know who’s doing it,’ she admitted.

  So it’s happened again, she thought.

  That’s why Galilee was struggling to conjure up his whirlwinds!

  But…but then how did I manage to calm Heddy? And without even really thinking about it too?

  She looked over to where Heddy was still dreamily staring out of the shattered window. The girl seemed to be thankfully oblivious of the horrendous things that had happened to her poor father.

  ‘The odrad, my liege,’ Frobisher was saying to Foley. ‘I was told it would be my servant.’

  ‘Yours eh? It didn’t seem to me that it wanted to be your servant. But, as you wish–’

  He waved his hand nonchalantly.

  The odrad swung around, the farmer now curiously staring towards the wall.

  The beast’s clump of dark eyes hooked hungrily onto the kneeling Frobisher.

  ‘No no, sir!’ Frobisher shrieked urgently. ‘He’s yours, he’s yours!

  With a mischievous chuckle, Foley waved a hand once more, taking back control of the odrad.

  ‘A fair exchange, I think. As my holak has disappeared.’

  He turned to peer accusingly at Beth.

  ‘But–’

  ‘No matter Annie.’

  As Foley interrupted Beth’s attempt to explain, he indicated that Frobisher should stand.

  ‘But I’m surprised you’d kill such a useful friend of ours. As I’m surprised you couldn’t control our pretty little odrad here.’

  His hand flicked from horned fist to a looser clenching of his fingers, as if he were pulling on an invisible thread.

  The odrad slithered forward, leaving the body of the farmer to crumple to the floor.

  Frobisher’s face creased in disgust and terror. The odrad supported itself on three tentacles as if they were legs.

  Five more tentacles splayed out in all directions, their positions on the body constantly changing.

  ‘You can go now,’ Foley sneered at the cowering Frobisher.

  Nodding gratefully, Frobisher bent down to pick up his cap from the floor.

  ‘This mess – I’ll send someone round to clean it up.’

  He forced his cap tightly on his head as if it would somehow restore his authority.

  ‘You do that.’ Foley grinned scornfully.

  Frobisher pushed his way past Beth and Gerry, hurrying out of the door.

  ‘Is it deaf?’ Gerry said, tentatively drawing closer to the odrad.

  ‘Deaf?’ Even Beth was surprised by Gerry’s query.

  ‘Well, that hand signal thing.’

  She mimicked Foley’s use of the horn-fisted sign.

&
nbsp; ‘It’s sign language for “I love you”.’

  Noticing that both Beth and Foley were staring at her curiously, she added, ‘I had a niece who was deaf.’

  ‘I love you?’

  Foley repeated Gerry’s comment with a satisfied snigger.

  ‘Hmn, pretty apt, I suppose. But haven’t either of you two noticed it on TV? In newspaper photos? Our politicians, our PM, the US President? The New World Order? They’re all using it for God’s – for the Devil’s sake!’

  He made the sign again, raising his hand this time so that Beth and Gerry could see it clearly.

  The horns. The thumb resting on the bent, middle fingers, like a pointed face.

  Yes, there was something about it that made it look like the face of the Devil.

   

   

  *

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

  Chapter 44

   

  Foal proudly strutted into the room, dragging one of the dead rabbits Foley had left her guarding outside.

  The rabbit’s leg dropped to the floor, Foal’s mouth falling open on sight of the odrad.

  She whimpered, looking to both Foley and Beth for reassurance. Should she be frightened? Was she expected to attack this strange creature?

  The odrad shifted slightly, curiously observing this new intruder.

  ‘Hah, it doesn’t know what to make of our little dachshund here,’ Foley snickered appreciatively. ‘They weren’t around, of course, in its heyday.’

  Foal began sniffing the air. She padded quietly around what remained of the table, where she began to urgently bark.

  Oh no! Galilee!

  Beth cursed herself for her lack of consideration. She had forgotten all about him!

  ‘Hello, what’ve we got here?’

  Intrigued by Foal’s yapping, Foley had stepped behind the upturned table. He crouched down, slightly pulling Galilee’s head up to get a better look at him.

  ‘I recognise this little man, I really do!’

  ‘He doesn’t mean us any harm Foley.’

  Beth rushed towards him, worried for Galilee’s safety.

  ‘Yes, he was at the fire; but he’s helped me! He saved me from the holak!’

  ‘At the fire?’

  Foley said this like he had never even considered it until now.

  ‘Helped you, did he?’

  He balefully stared up at Beth.

  ‘Saved you from the holak – which was attacking you, then, I suppose?’

  Beth nodded uncertainly. Foley sounded surprised, suspicious even, that the holak had attacked her.

  As he stood up once more, Foley let Galilee’s head fall back against the stone floor. The head stuck the floor so hard that Beth wondered if Foley hadn’t actually pushed it.