by Mark Hayden
I looked at the field again. My bad leg twinged in anticipation. ‘Yes.’
Woody set herself up by the gate and I got Maddy’s tube out. I’ve found that I get the best results going anti-clockwise and working inwards from the edge, and the archaeological diggings were to the left of the gate. I went to the right, leaving them until last, and got myself ready.
I have two magickal talents. Very minor ones. Just enough for me to count as a Mage. One is being a Navigator, a life-saving talent in itself but something you’re born with, so not recognised as having any importance in the world of magick. My other talent is Geomancy – sensing the flow and direction of Lux, the mysterious force that causes magickal effects. If I went to the Invisible College as an undergraduate, the only module I’d pass would be basic Geomancy. Basic. Advanced Geomancers don’t just sense Ley lines, they create and repair them.
I opened the Egyptian Tube, closed my eyes and shook the willow wand into my hand.
Water. Trickling water running over granite stones and bubbling happily in the sunshine. I always get water when I meet Maddy, and I’ve no idea why. Usually it stops with a sense of water, and a sense of her presence nearby. In places of great power, it turns into something visible. I’ve had the sea, lakes and a river. With a jolt, memories turned into perceptions, and there she was.
‘Who’s that gel?’
Madeleine died during the Edwardian period, and dresses appropriately. Today was something floaty and white. Perfect for a picnic. She also has an unmoderated upper class drawl, hence gel for girl. She was staring at Woody, and Woody was staring back.
‘Well?’ said Maddy. ‘Are you going to stand there like a broken statue, or are you going to introduce us? And mind your feet.’
Ermmm? What? I looked down. Water was flowing towards me over the grass. Literally over the grass, as if the field were made of tiles, not dry soil and thirsty plants. This did not look good. In visions with Maddy, water means Lux, and Lux is power. That much power meant a serious injury. I stepped back, but it was gathering speed.
‘Shut her down!’ shouted Woody. ‘Now!’
I still had the Egyptian Tube in my left hand, and rammed the willow rod into it.
‘NOOOOO!’ screeched Maddy.
Her scream nearly pierced my ears. She made a grab for my hand as I fumbled for the cap. Ice water fingers gripped my arm. It was the first time we’d touched, and her Spirit fingers were colder than a burial at sea in Arctic waters. My arm was frozen in place and I could feel crystals of frost forming on my skin.
Woody jumped out of her chair and started to run towards us. The growing lake of Lux-water was in the way, and she was going to run right through it. ‘Please, Maddy,’ I said, trying to force the nerves in my fingers to listen to the screaming in my brain and close the tube.
Maddy glanced up. ‘Stay back, stupid girl,’ she said.
She slackened her grip enough for the signal to get through, and my fingers closed the cap on the tube. I twisted the magickal seal and everything went grey. Then black.
Is that coffee I smell? Real coffee?
‘C’mon, Conrad. Wake up. Please.’ Woody sounded upset about something.
‘Coffee,’ I mumbled.
‘What?’
‘I smell the coffee, therefore I must wake up. That’s wrong. I should wake up then smell the coffee.’
‘What are you on about?’
I risked opening my eyes, and saw an ant. An ant-sized ant, on a blade of grass. Woody had put me in the recovery position. I groaned loudly, just to reassure her that I was alive, then started to move things. They all worked. ‘Give me a hand to sit up, will you?’
Woody eased me into a sitting position. ‘Look at my finger,’ she said, holding up a digit in front of my nose.
Aah. A concussion test. I did what I was told.
When she’d finished, and decided I didn’t need an ambulance, she rocked back on her heels and asked what a normal person would ask. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I don’t know. Could I have some water and an actual cup of coffee. A chair would be good, too.’
‘Yeah. Hang on.’
She scampered off, and I lifted my right sleeve. My arm was bruised and burnt in four small places, where Maddy’s delicate, ghostly fingers had gripped it. When Woody came back with a chair and bottle of water, I showed it to her.
‘Ouch. How bad is it?’
I drank deeply. ‘I think it looks worse than it is. I’ll try to get up, if my leg will let me.’
Woody looked down at my leg and shuffled uncomfortably. ‘I saw it. You thrashed around at first, and your trouser leg rolled up. I thought Maddy had done it to you, then I realised it was an old wound.’
I gripped the camp chair and levered myself into a half-stand before flopping on to the seat. ‘The wound may be old, but the pain is new every morning.’ I reached into my pocket. ‘You deserve this.’
I held out the specially printed Merlyn’s Tower Irregulars badge. She took it dubiously and turned it over in her hand. ‘What is it?’
‘You ran towards the danger. You might have been destroyed when you hit the river of Lux. Telling me to shut Maddy down saved my life. It’s just a token.’
She looked at it again. ‘Nice picture, ugly badge. What the hell happened there?’
‘I was going to ask you the same thing. Maddy has never appeared before without enough Lux around to light up the sky. A Dwarven Hall or something. There’s nothing like that here.’
She looked away, towards the centre of the field. ‘I’ll get us some coffee and bring my chair over.’ We had brought three flasks of decent coffee with us. As she walked towards the gazebo, she put the Merlyn’s Tower Irregulars badge in her pocket without thinking.
My arm was starting to throb a little when she got back. Getting at the first aid kit would be my first job when I stood up. After coffee. And a cigarette.
‘I think it might be me,’ said Woody. ‘I think I may have given Maddy a window.’
‘A window?’
She let out a deep breath. ‘When I spoke to the Constable, I asked if you’d had any experience with Spirits. She told me about your Great-Something-Grandfather.’
‘Spectre Thomas. He haunted the family home for nearly four hundred years. I’ve also met Helen of Troy.’
Her head jerked up. ‘Helen? And you survived intact?’
‘Yes. Another time, Woody.’
‘Right. Well, in the world of Spirits, Helen is at the top of the tree, and Spectre Thomas is – was – about half way down. Thomas did a physical manifestation, didn’t he?’
‘He did. He also drank my single malt whisky.’
She nodded. ‘And that’s the difference. Thomas retained all his memories, and all the physical elements of his earthly life. Most don’t.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The Spirits I deal with aren’t all there. They think they remember the taste of whisky, but they don’t. They can just remember liking it. There’s a big difference. No matter how much Lux was available, your average ghost couldn’t manifest physically as a complete person.’
‘Right.’
‘And that’s where I come in. What do you know about the different planes of existence?’
I remembered standing by a hedge outside a golf course in Warwickshire. I remembered my partner in the Watch, Vicky Robson, drawing Lux from a magickal post and disappearing in front of me. According to Vicky, she then walked through the hedge as if it wasn’t there, and when she was inside the golf course, she entered the Realm of the Fae. I said as much to Woody.
She nodded, calibrating my levels of ignorance. ‘I studied at Salomon’s House, and they use different terms there, but I’ll stick to the old ones. A Necromancer can open a window between the Spirit world and this one. It allows Spirits to see and be seen, and to interact more easily.’
‘Sounds dangerous.’
‘It can be. All magick can be dangerous, but you’re right, bringing
another entity into the equation makes it inherently unpredictable. The real Art of Necromancy is dealing with them after you’ve found them.’
‘You seem to be making a good job of it.’
‘Thanks. Every Spirit wants something different, of course, but nearly all ghosts want to be at peace. They’re not happy where they are. My job is to find out what’s causing the problem and to smooth it over. Sometimes I pass on messages, or promise to. Sometimes I offer reassurance.’ She looked down at her coffee. ‘And sometimes I have to intervene. Sometimes I have to unravel them. Exorcise them. Destroy them. Call it what you like, but it’s not easy.’
I gave her a moment. ‘When I met Helen of Troy, she’d been brought in by a Summoner. What’s the difference?’
‘What’s the difference between you and a murderer?’
Ouch. Where did that come from? The surprise – and hurt – must have shown in my face. And maybe a little guilt, too.
She bit her lip. ‘Sorry. That was meant to be more theoretical than it sounded.’
‘It’s hard not to take something like that personally, Woody. Go on, you did just save my life.’
She scratched her arm to get rid of a sudden heat rush. ‘It’s down to intent, is what I was trying to say. Being a Necromancer is just like learning Urdu or Polish: it allows you to deal directly with the Spirit world instead of having to go through translators, but a Summoner wants to get something out of a Spirit, either by bribery or force. And yes, before you say anything, some of what I do uses the same techniques that Summoners use.’
It was time to risk standing up. I held on to the back of the chair and steadied myself. Everything appeared to be in working order. ‘What about Maddy?’ I said. ‘Can you tell me anything?’
‘She’s not a complete Spirit, I can tell you that much. There are chunks missing. Not many, but some. They may have been in the wand, anchoring her to it, or they may have gone forever. I’m in no rush to find out.’
‘Can we try again, and can you suspend your talents for the duration?’
‘Yeah. No problem.’ She picked up her chair. ‘Oh. One thing. What did you mean by river of Lux?’
‘That great sheet of power that looked like water flowing over the grass. You nearly trod in it, and I dread to think what would have happened if you had.’
She stared at the grass. It was green again and posed no threat. ‘I didn’t see that at all,’ she said, ‘and I have no idea what it was or where it came from.’
‘I’ll be careful then.’
Woody retreated, and I psyched myself up for a second encounter with Madeleine, after a quick application of burn-cream from the first aid box. I closed my eyes and opened the tube.
The water bubbled and rose. I gripped the wand tighter and tried to exert some sort of control over her manifestation. I might as well have tried plaiting the sea. I was not the one in control here.
I felt her presence growing near me. Growing, but not growing more solid. It was just a sense that she was with me, in the field but not in the field. If you see what I mean. No? Not surprising. I’ll try again.
Instead of being next to Maddy, it felt like my personal space had expanded and that I was sharing it with her. A sort of blindfold psychic three-legged race. There. That’s as close as I can get to explaining it.
I still had the sense of water, of course. I’ve shared an ocean liner with Maddy, and a canoe. This time the water was near, but not underneath us. Like a picnic on the shore of a lake. I caught a phantom image of her in the white muslin dress, lifting a glass of something. Memory? Vision? A bit of both, I think.
The first few steps, still with my eyes closed, were a set of stumbles and near-misses. The field was flat enough to land a bomber, but not billiard-table flat. I found a rhythm and walked slowly forward, expanding my Sight to look for Lux. Specifically, to look for a Ley line or something similar. A flow of Lux.
Nothing. Magickally, Draxholt was as mundane as the field next to it. So far.
Now that I’ve done a fair bit of dowsing, I’m learning to open half an eye as I walk. Saves bumping into hedges. I parted my right eyelids and saw that I’d wandered towards the middle rather than the edge. I corrected my course and moved steadily east. I was looking for something agricultural as well as magickal, some sign that the Draxholt field had once been subdivided.
Every other field was bounded by land drains or ditches. This one had never had them. Why not? Why increase the chances of flooding? The drains were put in long before tractors, so there was no mechanical advantage from a bigger field. Was this important? No idea.
My leg was aching before I got to the first corner. It was really aching by the second, and still nothing. I paused for a few moments to shake it out, closing my eyes and trying to work out something nagging at the back of my mind. Maddy was still in picnic mode next to me, and could I smell her scent, or something from the lake where she’d had her fun? Something floral? It reminded me of something, as smells often do. Before I could capture the memory, it was blown away by a wet, salt wind with the smell of the sea, which was odd. We were miles from the sea, and then the cold winds of Pickering snatched the ghost fragrances away, and I moved on.
The last corner was in sight, as were the tents and the dig site. I was staggering from the pain in my leg. Not only did it throb, it had started to burn. I desperately wanted to put the wand down and scratch. I resisted, and made it past the tents. Ahead of me, Woody got up and moved out of the way.
The circuit was complete, and I’m 100% sure that no Ley lines ran in or out of Draxholt. I didn’t dare stop again, and I turned sharp left to take me back into the field and towards the dig location. I got to the edge and fell in. Of course I did.
‘Conrad! You OK?’ shouted Woody.
The grave-sized holes had tempted me to fall into them, but I’d resisted, landing on compressed dirt and rolling to avoid a crash landing. Maddy interjected an audible Oomph when I hit the deck.
‘I’m good,’ I said, desperate to keep Woody at bay. I heaved myself up and closed my eyes. There was something here. Something trickling. Faintly. No, not here. Over there.
The twinge in my willow wand was pointing to the cordoned off second-dig area, a good fifty metres closer to the middle of the field. I let Maddy guide me towards it.
My leg hurt too much to climb over the rope barrier, so I just blundered through it like a robot. So sweet, came a thought. Where from? No idea. And not sweet like sugar, or sweet like a child’s smile: sweet like a morning breeze over water. Sweet like freesias and nicotiana after the rain, tickling the back of your nose and making you …
Achoo!
The spell was broken. Maddy was still there, but there was no life in the dowsing rod. I sat down and felt the earth under the grass dampen my trousers. I closed my eyes and let my senses drift down through the earth. Under the grass, under the topsoil, under the compacted alluvium, there was something. A spark of heat, a spark of Lux. So deeply buried that I couldn’t tell how big it was or whether it was moving; I just knew it was there.
More water fell, running down my neck.
My neck? Shit. That wasn’t magick, that was rain. I was about to get soaked. I closed my eyes and said Thank you, Madeleine. I hope we meet again soon. My nose tickled again, but no more. I stowed the wand and got to my feet. Woody had already moved under the gazebo, out of the rain. She held up the Thermos and waved me over.
4 — The Big Guns
‘Well?’ she said.
‘There’s something out there, all right. Oh, cheers.’ I took the mug of coffee and lit up. ‘And it’s under the second dig site. Deep, but definitely under there, and before you ask, I have no idea what it is.’
‘Right.’ She stared through the rain, across the grass. Her eyes had widened a touch, and her lips had pursed just a fraction. She was worried. So was I.
‘How did you know about the bribery?’ I asked.
‘Sorry?’
‘How did you know
that the landowner bribed the air ministry?’
‘I put two and two together. There was a letter in the file gushing about the quality of the site. There’s nothing special about it that I can see, so I assumed the civil servant who wrote it had been given a back-hander.’ She grinned. ‘Who knows – perhaps it was a homage to Sir George Cayley.’
‘Is he local?’
She pointed up the road, and over the river Derwent. ‘He’s buried two miles up there, in Brompton.’
I turned and lifted my hat, as every RAF officer should. Sir George is truly the father of aviation, and worked out the physics of flight decades before the internal combustion engine made it practical.
‘If you’re listening, Sir George, all help would be gratefully received.’ I nodded slowly. ‘I’m not saying you’re wrong about the bribery, it’s just that there might be other factors at play. Do you know Vicky Robson?’
‘By reputation. We’ve not met.’
‘She’s got a great future in the Watch, I reckon, and that’s because she’s learnt to think outside the circle. Most Mages think they see the world more clearly, and that blinds them to other things. They’re rubbish at cyber-security, for example.’
She grinned. ‘It’s a good job you’re not after me, then.’
‘But someone else might be. Think about it.’
‘Oh.’
‘Anyway, ignoring magick, what can you tell me about this field?’
She got up and went to the edge of the gazebo. She looked around for a minute before shrugging. ‘It’s quite big, I suppose.’
‘It is, and it’s always been big. They dug the drains around it for some reason, and have a look at the levels.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Every other field is level with or below the road. This one is a good three inches higher.’
‘That’s nothing.’
I shook my head. ‘Three inches means a lot to water. In a real deluge, this would be one of the very last fields to flood along here. Why? I have no idea except that it’s yet another coincidence.’ I checked my watch. It was three o’clock on a Friday afternoon. I’d have to be quick. ‘I’m going to call Ruth Kaplan.’
