The Forever Man

by Eoin Colfer

  He fired and the bullet pierced the mould, but, given that the crucible could withstand molten silver, it did not shatter as an ordinary urn might; instead it merely sprung a leak, forcing Cryer to hold the jar at arm’s length but still the constable continued towards Chevie.

  Riley cursed the man and vowed to tear the crucible from his hands, but he had ground to cover and Garrick was rousing from his stupor and taking stock of the recent happenings.

  Garrick’s first glance was towards the sky and he saw that the rift had disappeared, which pleased him greatly, for with it had disappeared the wormhole’s attraction for his person.

  I am safe, he thought. Albert Garrick has survived yet another dastardly attempt to destroy him.

  Garrick’s second glance was at Riley. The boy was mounting an offensive, as he might have said in his army days in far-off Afghanistan. And he’d be damned if the boy was not charging his way.

  A third glance, over his shoulder, confirmed to Albert Garrick what he had instantly suspected. Chevron Savano yet drew breath and here came her horseless cavalry riding in to save her.

  If Garrick’s first objective had been to banish the wormhole, which had somehow been achieved, had not his second been to murder the maid in front of her dearest friend?

  And beloved now, if I am not mistaken. How much the sweeter?

  Riley almost made it past Garrick to the pyre itself. He was a hair’s breadth from success and probably would have succeeded had he been a shade lighter on his feet, which he would have been were it not for the heavy breastplate weighing him down. But, as it was, he was a shade heavier and that gave Garrick the second he needed to lunge sideways and snag Riley’s boot heel with his fingers. It was not the firmest of touches but it was plenty to send the lad flailing on to the dais, with only the faceplate of his helmet saving his nose from flattening. Down he went with an oof and Garrick was after him, not yet the full shilling but recovering fast. He staggered to his feet just long enough to take two steps and fall on top of Riley, pinning the lad with his full weight.

  ‘Do not trouble yourself with trickiness,’ he said into the boy’s ear. ‘For was it not Albert Garrick who drummed those tricks into your noggin, son?’

  Riley beat the stone dais with his fists. He was so close: the pyre was within reach. Could the fates be so cruel as to allow him this far and no further?

  ‘Do your duty, Constable!’ Garrick called to Cryer. ‘Pour the Devil’s Brew.’

  Cryer did not require the telling. He was climbing the wooden steps to the top of the pyre, bringing himself level with Chevie’s head. On any other day a match between these two would barely have been any competition at all, but now Chevie was bound from chest to toe, with none of her martial arts training at her disposal.

  However, in spite of the direness of her straits and the whirlwind of worldly and, indeed, otherworldly events that had battered her emotions, Chevie felt a sudden resurgence in her natural energy. For the first time since exiting the wormhole near this very spot, the fugue and nausea that had dogged her suddenly evaporated and she found herself focused and motivated.

  Riley was down. He needed help. And looky-looky who was coming at her with a jug of molten metal.

  I guess if I can’t play by the Queensberry Rules then I’ll have to fight dirty, she thought. In the pause when Godfrey Cryer was considering how he would accomplish a two-man job on his lonesome, Chevie used every inch of the wiggle room she had struggled so hard for and every pound of force she could muster to headbutt Cryer on the bridge of his nose, snapping the bone and sending the constable stumbling backwards down to the dais, where he bashed his crown on the flagstones. So, two injuries – neither critical – but the crucible took a series of unfortunate bounces and dumped its remaining contents on the constable’s face. And Cryer might have survived even that injury had not his mouth been gaping to cry out in pain.

  Chevie winced and turned her face away as the silver melted the constable’s flesh. His cry never made it past his throat, for the silver forced it back down. Godfrey Cryer expired without making a sound, apart from the hiss of steam jetting from his nostrils and ears.

  Garrick watched this turn of events with a sense of disbelief and a twinge of amusement.

  ‘Your young lady don’t go easy,’ he said to Riley, who struggled vainly underneath him. ‘I’ll say that for her. But nevertheless I have publicly proclaimed she is a witch and at the very least she must burn. At the very least, says I.’

  Fairbrother Isles was used to being restrained and the men of the militia were more than accustomed to restraining him, for was not this the same Fairbrother Isles who threw a drunken fit once every full moon or so and built up a rage against the entire world such that nothing would calm him but a night in the stocks? Was this not that same individual who had been wrestled and booted and knocked about like a true dunderhead?

  Yes, it was.

  But then, also, it was not.

  That Fairbrother Isles had been trying to drink his way out of depression born of centuries’ worth of displacement, and in reality had never put up much resistance when the militiamen manhandled him into the jail or the stocks, unless they got a little free with their clubs and then Isles would throw in a jab to the kidneys or an elbow to the groin that seemed at the time like a lucky connection, but which were actually signs that his combat training was still lurking below the fuzzy, drunken surface.

  This Fairbrother Isles, on the other hand, had full access to his combat training and his mind was crystal clear and focused. His primary mission had been achieved, i.e. to get the professor close enough to do his science thing. That being accomplished, Isles saw no earthly reason that he should lie placidly beneath these militia guys like some kind of bearskin rug, and so he gathered his arms and legs underneath him and exploded upward, scattering militiamen like bowling pins.

  Secondary mission: locate and secure the release of FBI comrade Chevron Savano, currently being restrained by chains to a stake, having been accused of witchcraft.

  I swear, thought Fairbrother, there surely never was a time zone crazier than this one.

  Chevie was at his two o’clock, and Isles looked that way just in time to see her deliver the mother of all headbutts to that creep Cryer.

  Ouch, he thought, and then he spotted some movement in his peripherals that told him he had better get his focus back on his own fight, for the militiamen had apparently not learned their lesson and were back for more.

  ‘How now, good Master Isles,’ said their captain, a potato-headed farmhand with the teeth of a man who liked a punch-up but let his guard down often. ‘Know your place now, man. It’s only home you’re going, to the stocks for the night. Think yourself fortunate I don’t throw in a flogging.’

  Isles did not engage in conversation, nor did he vow dramatically that he would never be flogged again. He simply took the militiamen apart as a mechanic might take apart an old engine.

  Isles wasn’t as quick as he might have been a decade ago, but he knew more about incapacitating a human than almost anyone alive. The militiamen quickly realized that Isles was possessed by some kind of demon and the smartest thing to do would be to shoot him or run away. Since virtually every man jack in Mandrake’s militia and watch had shot their musket balls into the giant boar, they were only left with pikes and swords and, as they quickly discovered, jabbing a blade towards Fairbrother Isles was tantamount to offering him the weapon on a velvet cushion, for no sooner was the pike or sword thrust forward than it was spun round and making the journey back. Isles did not kill anyone, but he striped a few shoulders and pierced a few buttocks, which was all it took to scatter the militia.

  There were two likely lads with primed weapons who stood their ground, twin sons of Bartleby Primly, the richest merchant in Mandrake, who’d wanted his boys toughened up by serving with the militia but who’d also decided to flaunt his wealth a little by doubling up on their weapons. So, whereas your average militia member was lucky
to have a musket younger than his own self, the Primly boys were armed not just with long-barrelled muskets but with French screw-barrel pistols, which their father had purchased in London at immense expense. These extraordinary pistols had three revolving chambers, each fitted with its own striker and sprint, or simply put: three shots per load.

  Randall Primly had discharged his musket at the boar creature but had completely forgotten the screw-barrel, as had his brother Henry. Randall, though, now he remembered and called urgently to his twin: ‘The Frenchies!’

  ‘Egad, yes!’ said Henry, and both boys drew their triple-shot weapons.

  At this particular point, Isles was beating a militiaman with the flat of his own blade and knew nothing about the screw-barrel pistols until the first shot took him in the stomach and the second in the upper chest. He grunted twice but did not bleed, for he wore his FBI Kevlar, which had no trouble with seventeenth-century weapons of that calibre, but he still felt each strike like a hammer blow and was sent staggering backwards, his vision blurred and his legs turned to rubber.

  Encouraged, the Primly boys advanced, firing again. One slug would have pierced Isles’s kidney, and a second succeeded in worming its way between a strap and armhole, giving him a nasty flesh wound along his fifth rib. Big as he was, Isles went down as though struck by cannon-shot and lay winded on the thoroughfare, flailing helplessly.

  Henry’s third shot went wide of Isles’s head, but Randall hesitated to fire his final lead ball.

  ‘See here, brother. Hardly a drop of blood. His clothing is armoured perhaps.’

  Henry discarded his own pistol, which had grown hot. ‘Perhaps,’ he agreed. ‘But his head is not armoured.’

  ‘No, indeed, brother,’ said Randall, taking careful aim.

  Just in the split second that the trigger was pulled, a brown blur streaked from the shadows and threw itself between Isles and the bullet. Pointer – for of course it was Isles’s partner come in the nick of time to save his old friend – took a nasty graze to the ridge of bone above his left eye and spun away, whining in pain. The dog came to rest beside Fairbrother Isles, blood running back over his ears.

  Isles turned himself over with some gargantuan effort and held his partner’s head.

  ‘Donnie, Donnie. What did you do, man? You took a bullet for me.’

  Pointer’s brown eyes focused on Isles with some effort. ‘Well, you know. We’re partners, buddy. It wasn’t like I had a choice.’

  Then the dog whined and the tension drained out of him, which was a sensation Isles had felt too often from wounded men he’d held in his arms over the years.

  ‘Don’t die, you stupid dog,’ he said desperately, pulling Pointer close. ‘You’re all I got left. Don’t die.’

  Pointer licked Isles’s face. ‘I ain’t dying, moron. It’s a flesh wound. Concussion at worst. So I ain’t dying but …’ The hound’s eyes lost their focus. ‘But I think I’m going.’

  And then those doggy eyes closed, and Isles was left wondering what his friend had meant by that final statement. He would find out soon enough, but first he needed to have a little heart-to-heart with the Primly twins.

  ‘What kinda man,’ he said, almost growling, ‘what kinda man shoots a dog?’

  But he was talking to himself. The twins heard about two syllables of that voice and made a simultaneous decision, as twins often do, to run away as fast as their legs would carry them.

  Twenty feet away Albert Garrick shifted position, pinioning Riley beneath him with the palm and fingers of one hand cradling the boy’s head, forcing it into the dirt, and one knee pressed hard into a nerve cluster on Riley’s spine. This hold would do, he decided, while he figured an on-the-hoof strategy.

  Kill the girl and Riley is the general thing, he thought. Ideally the girl burns and Riley watches. But I do seem to be operating on my lonesome on account of the militia cowards fleeing. With the African down and the girl in chains, it is one on one. Man on boy. Perhaps it was always going to come down to this.

  Garrick turned Riley’s head to make sure the boy could hear him. ‘Do you remember your training, son? Do you remember our snatch-the-book game?’

  Riley was in no mood for the remembering of games. ‘Get off me, devil!’ he shouted. ‘Get away from Chevie.’

  Garrick pressed harder with his knee. ‘This is important, boy. This could save her life. Do you remember that little game?’

  Riley nodded curtly. He did remember. When they had dwelled in the Orient Theatre, books had been Riley’s only joy in life, as they transported him from the hell of being apprenticed to Albert Garrick. And, as a way to torture him further, Garrick would take whatever novel he happened to be favouring that week and place it on a small table on stage.

  You can have your precious book, my son, he used to say. All you need to do is come through me.

  So Riley, thus motivated, would charge his master over and over in an attempt to lose himself once more in the worlds of the penny dreadfuls or Sherlock Holmes. Initially Garrick rebuffed him almost casually, but with practice Riley’s attempts became more skilful and sly, until eventually one day he did make it past his master, only to find nothing on the table. The book had been magically spirited away from where it was supposed to be. How Garrick had laughed at that. How his eyes had teared with merriment.

  ‘That’s all it is,’ said Garrick now. ‘A little game of snatch-the-book. And the title of this little book is My Beloved Burns.’

  With that, Garrick punched Riley full in the ear, stunning and disorientating the boy.

  ‘Better be nimble, son,’ said Garrick, and suddenly his weight was gone from Riley’s back.

  Snatch-the-Book

  Garrick strode briskly across the square towards the nearest oil lamp and lifted it down from its hook. In spite of all the falterings in this day, it seemed as though events would end on a positive note.

  The witch and her familiar are dead. Hell has been banished. All hail the conquering Witchfinder.

  But he was getting ahead of himself. The witch lived and the boy lived and they had overcome towering odds before.

  So buck up, Alby, and do your celebrating after the show.

  Half a dozen paces took him to the foot of the pyre, where he held the oil lamp aloft and projected his voice along Mandrake’s thoroughfare. ‘The gate of hell has been closed and to lock it forever all that needs doing is to burn the witch.’

  If Garrick had been expecting a rousing cheer in reaction to his proclamation, then he was disappointed. The people of Mandrake had seen too many horrors and were dismayed at the thought of another. Yet none had the temerity to question Albert Garrick after all he had done.

  To hell with all of you, thought Garrick. After all, this is chiefly for my own amusement.

  And he hurled the lamp into the kindling at the base of the pyre.

  ‘Burn, witch!’ he said. ‘Burn.’

  Riley got to his feet and staggered like an ale-sot. His ears rang like cathedral bells and there was a hot rod of pain in his jaw. He chose his hands to focus on and stared at them until the knuckles and nails were clear in his vision. When the ringing in his ears faded somewhat, the first sound he heard was the dry crackle of flames.

  Snatch-the-book, he thought.

  Riley steadied himself. When his feet would obey their orders, he turned to find Albert Garrick limbering up for a set-to, and behind him Chevie still tied to the stake, where she seemed to have been forever.

  ‘Come on, boy,’ said Garrick, cracking his knuckles as though he were about to attempt a tricky concerto, and not burn an innocent lass. ‘Let’s be having some sport. You don’t have all night.’

  Riley, goaded and terrified, rushed into the battle like a rank amateur, hoping against hope that he could bowl the magician over and then …

  And then what? Open those chains with your teeth?

  But what choice did he have?

  So Riley blundered in and Garrick swatted him aside simple as pie witho
ut hardly seeming to move.

  ‘That was so stupid,’ said Garrick. ‘I expected a ruse, but it was just stupidity. I taught you better than that.’

  Riley turned himself round, cursing his own foolishness. Chevie would not be saved by blunderings. He must play it smart.

  The flames took hold now in the kindling, spreading throughout the entire base of the pyre and reaching fiery fingers into the larger logs, which had been doused with oil and were eager to receive them.

  Too quick, thought Riley. Too quick.

  He attacked again, this time sliding in low, hoping for an upward strike against the inside of Garrick’s thigh or knee, but his former master sidestepped like a matador, then, grasping Riley’s collar, used the boy’s own momentum to roll him back the way he had come.

  ‘Slow, Riley son. You are oh so slow. And the flames are oh so quick.’

  It was true. Riley knew that it would take him several minutes to fully shake off the blow to his head and by then it would be too late.

  He appealed to the townsfolk for help.

  ‘Will no one stop this madman?’ he asked. ‘Do we burn maidens in England now? Is that how far we have sunk?’

  But there was no help forthcoming. The townsfolk dropped their eyes and turned their backs. Garrick had these people cowed and none would stand firm against him.

  And there was Fairbrother Isles flat on his back beside his man-dog partner, Pointer, a pool of blood gathering around them, black in the lamplight. So no help from that quarter.

  Or perhaps there might be, for Isles was rummaging in his pocket.

  ‘Kid,’ he said, and that was all. However, from his pocket he drew forth something that flashed silver, and tossed it towards Riley.

  A knife. Fairbrother’s beloved whittling blade, with which he had built most of the field office; both Riley and Garrick recognized what class of implement was twinkling through the air at the same instant.

  Now it was a race, for Riley would surely catch the blade and throw it at his target, which would be Garrick’s heart. Garrick knew this; he himself had taught Riley to aim for the heart in such a situation. He also knew that Riley could hit a bullseye blindfolded from twenty paces with any sharp implement a person cared to mention, and, though the blade could not kill Garrick as far as he knew, it could certainly grant the boy a few moments’ advantage to free his young lady friend, and this Garrick could not permit. So his part in the race was to move his heart to the right of where it currently was before the blade reached that point.