"Don't you feel the aching in your eyes, Stephen? Don't you feel the deep desire to change, to use the sight? Yes, I know you do. And soon you will want to use the sight forever, to pick out the jewelled souls around you, gather them to you, toy with them, discard them, feel the fire course through you and soar above the world like a bird in flight."
Stephen made to speak, but his brother cut in on him. "Don't bother to deny it. Your gifts are weak and you are weak with it, but you're fated to this. So listen, keep your head down today, and you might still profit by tonight."
"What's happening tonight, Michael?"
The smile flashed back. For an instant, even without the sight, Stephen sensed the tapering snout, the array of teeth. He shuddered.
"A liberation for us all," said Michael.
With a wave of his hands he was back in the crook of the tree. The glade was streaming with early morning light, but Michael, leaning against the toppled trunk, seemed curiously insubstantial, still cast in shadow.
"I'd better go," he said. "They'll be up at eight."
"What about Sarah?" asked Stephen.
"All being well, we'll let her go tomorrow. Maybe even later tonight. She'll be OK."
Stephen sensed a tremor in his head, a flinch in the shared wavelength, and knew that somewhere deep down, Michael was unsure.
He said, "I don't see any reason why I should trust you."
Michael made a dismissive gesture. He was looking up at the sky, sniffing the air. "Because I've risked myself to come here. You don't think they would trust me enough to send me, do you? Not after the cock-up in the fields? Sawcroft and Pilate would rather I burn!"
"In that case, Michael, why stay?"
"Because their fear is rather a compliment. And because they need me. But most of all because I need them. And so do you, Stephen. We're in serious trouble, you and I. But I'll cure it for us, you'll see."
He rose suddenly, into the space at the centre of the glade. Stephen felt a rush of air as it was whipped upwards by the heat above him. There was a rustling. Michael passed in among the smooth, canyon-deep folds of leaves high above the earth.
His voice came calling back from nowhere: "Body and soul, Stephen, body and soul! You'll thank me for it – one day!"
The voice faded. Stephen was alone in the forest. All of a sudden, birds from every tree about him came screeching, wheeling, calling, erupting endlessly into the anxious sky.
34
On his return, Stephen found Tom still sleeping against the bole of the tree. He woke him unceremoniously, and told him of his encounter. Tom was alarmed.
"But if he knows where we are, what's to stop them attacking us?" he said, trying to get up, but finding his limbs dull, cold and unresponsive.
"He won't tell them. Mad as he is, he's still my brother."
Tom shook his head. The chase in the fields still preyed heavily on his mind. But he groaned aloud when he heard confirmation of Sarah's kidnap, and hid his face.
"We can't do much about it now," said Stephen. "But we may have a chance later. From what Michael said, they'll be too busy later today to keep an eye on us."
"Yes – busy." Tom raised his head back against the tree and sighed deeply. "Too right. Oh, what have I done?"
"You needn't get self-pitying. We don't know what they're up to, and it's hardly—"
"My fault? Of course it is! Who unearthed the seal? Who brought it out, leaving part of it in the ground, so that anyone could steal it? How long had it been safe there, until I came along and dug it up? Until I . . . came . . . along! Oh Lord!"
Stephen said nothing. He too had grasped what Tom knew only by intuition. 'A liberation', Michael had said, and at those words, the dragon in his soul had stirred. His eyes ached, a fiery pleasure seemed to flare within him. He longed to be free, to soar above the forest—
"What are we going to do?" whispered Tom.
Stephen blinked. "Urn . . ." Guiltily, he thrashed around for something constructive to say. "That stuff you read – what did it say about Win – who was it?"
"Wyniddyn."
"Wyniddyn. You said some poem mentioned his fight with the dragon. What did it say?"
"Oh, it was only a fragment. 1 don't remember. It was typical Welsh stuff, totally obscure."
"You must remember some of it, something it mentioned."
"Stephen, I only read it once."
"Well try, damn it!" Stephen kicked out at the trunk of the tree and bruised his toes. He rubbed his foot, cursing. Tom seemed to take an interest in this; he watched him for a moment, then looked above him.
"That was one thing," he said.
"What?" Stephen was in no mood for politeness.
"Oak. That was in it somewhere. And stone."
"Oak what? Stone what? It must have been more specific."
"It wasn't, I promise you. What did it say . . .? Oak . . . stone . . . fire . . . I don't remember. No, wait! Iron was in it too."
"Iron what? – Swords? Spears?"
"Yes! Spears! Willis reckoned that Wyniddyn fought the dragon with a spear made of oak and iron. And there are spears carved on the cross, too."
Stephen walked around the tree, gazing up at the branches. "Spears . . ." he said. "I suppose we could make one." Tom got up and came after him.
"Make a spear? What good would that do? We're up against fire, for heaven's sake!"
Stephen turned on him. "Listen," he said. "We have little time, and less opportunity. Tonight, or sometime today, Cleever is going to try something which may or may not work. If it doesn't work, we are no worse off. If it works, and the dragon does come, neither you, nor I, nor anyone else in the wide world is going to have the faintest clue about what to do. That poem gives us a faint clue. We know it mentions stone: who's to say that isn't the cross? That's real enough. It mentions fire: we've seen plenty of evidence of that too. OK. So iron and oak make little sense, and sound too fragile to work, but they are all we've got to go on. We can't afford to ignore even the slightest chance."
Tom nodded. "All right," he said. "Here's an oak tree. We need a spear. How shall we go about it?"
"I have a penknife," Stephen said.,
35
Dawn had come at last, and thin hard spears of light were piercing the cracks in the boarded windows, creating a ghostly half-glow in the shrouded room. Pale, hulking forms were illuminated on all sides, lumpen and mysterious, their identities concealed under dusty sheets. A grand piano, grey with sediment, occupied the centre of the room, and it was from under this, soon after dawn, that several sneezes erupted in quick succession.
Sarah had been having a bad time. Escorted to this room the afternoon before, by a silent nervous man who paid no heed to her cries of outrage, she had been forced to remain there ever since, surrounded by decades of allergy-inducing dust. She had made the mistake once of trying to lift a sheet that covered a sofa; the resulting plumes had made her eyes stream for an hour. After that, she avoided touching anything.
Her calls and cries had not been answered. The door was huge and thick; her beatings upon it had been weak and muffled. Through chinks in the boards she had seen the scrubby hillside behind the farmhouse, but her efforts to remove the barrier had only resulted in bleeding nails.
So she had lain in the centre of the carpet, under the piano, and given herself over first to despair, and then exhausted contemplation. Over and over again, through the evening hours, as the half-light faded and the room grew dark, she had tried to make sense of her kidnapping. Time and time again, the memory of Tom's assertions rose up: the cross, the folklore, the theft, the dragon. None of it made sense, but nor did her capture. What were these madmen doing?
What would they do to her?
She had not seen anyone, though food had been left for her just inside the door while she was in a doze. But she had heard things, things which increased her sense of unreality. There had been a loud bang during the afternoon, and distant sounds of coughing. Voices had passed the door
occasionally, and she had definitely recognised Mr Cleever's voice more than once. Mr Cleever, the parish councillor . . . The world had gone mad.
Night had fallen, and apart from occasional footsteps on the floor above her, the farmhouse had been silent. Sarah had slept.
Now, with dawn, she stirred, and this set the dust rolling at her nostrils again. It took five minutes for her streaming eyes to open. When they did, her younger brother was standing in the room.
"Michael!"
Sarah struggled to her feet and rushed to embrace him. Michael stood his ground, accepting the hug without returning it.
"I can't stay long, Sarah dear. I just came to find out how you are."
"I'm fine. How did you get in? No, first get me out of here. They've locked me up."
"Yes. I've got the key. I've pinched it while they slept."
He held it up slowly, rotating it in his fingers.
"Quick then. Let's go."
"Sorry Sarah, you don't seem to understand. I'm not here to let you out."
"What? Don't fool around, Michael! We haven't time—"
"Shut up!" Michael's furious whisper stunned Sarah into silence. "I'm risking enough as it is. In twenty minutes they'll be up. So shut up and listen. You'll be all right. We'll let you out later."
"We'll?"
"Shut up, I said! We've got something to do today, and after it's done you can go free. Even go to the police if you want, we won't care. So just keep quiet."
"Michael, what are you talking about? Give me the key!" Tears of bewilderment appeared in Sarah's eyes. Michael flushed and stamped his foot in the dust.
"Don't give me any of that! It's your stupid fault, coming nosing about here. Trying to spy on me, and stop my power. It just serves you right, that's all! Why didn't you leave me alone?"
Sarah was crying now. "You're mad! I didn't come up here spying! It was my job! He told me the place was deserted! It had nothing to do with you at all. You're mad."
Michael narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean, 'He told you'? Who?"
"Mr – Mr Cleever."
"What! Don't lie to me." Michael was furious now. But Sarah just stood there, holding her head in her hands. Suddenly, she felt a sharp pain in her forehead, which flared up and just as suddenly died away. There was silence in the room. She looked up to see her brother staring at her with doubt and indecision on his face.
"Cleever did tell you about the farm. He didn't mention that to me." He frowned and clenched his fists. A wave of heat smote Sarah in the face.
"Come on, Michael!" she said. "Let me go. I don't know what you think you're doing, but it's wrong. Can't you see that? Please, whatever's going on here, whatever you've done, we can sort it out, only let me go. I can help you . . ."
"I can help myself!" Michael snarled. "You, Stephen, Aubrey, Cleever – I don't trust any of you! Well, we'll see who has the most power at the end of today. We'll see!"
"Michael, do you know how stupid you sound?" Sarah raised her dirt-and-tear-stained face. "You sound like a spoilt six year old. Just grow up and let me out!"
Michael's face contorted with rage. Then Sarah's disbelief turned to a desperate fury. She leapt towards him, stretching out for the key. But as she reached him, Michael slipped upwards, out through her hands, so that her clutching fingers brushed his shoes. He hovered above her, waving the key and laughing. Sarah gave a moan of terror and sank to the floor.
Her brother floated across to the door. Descending to the ground, he unlocked it and stepped through. He did not look back. The key was turned on the other side.
Sarah's head dropped to the carpet in despair. A halo of dust rose up all around.
36
It took a long time to make the shaft.
The oak under which they had slept had proven too old and and gnarled to provide anything straight or slender enough for their purposes. Close by, however, Tom had discovered a much younger tree, no doubt a direct descendent of the master oak, which had sprung up in a sunny spot. It had erupted in three or four places, strong, narrow and pliable; of these trunks, one, for perhaps two metres, was ramrod straight. Tom set about sawing this off from near the base, at a point where the wood became narrow enough to grasp firmly in the hand. Stephen held it straight, and busied himself snapping off small leafy offshoots. When Tom grew tired, they swapped roles, and after half-an-hour's sweat had run down their faces, the wood was severed.
The next stage was to chop the foliage from the end of the spear. They decided, arbitrarily, that the spear should be the height of Tom; at this place they made a nick in the bark, and set about carving through. The going was slow, for the penknife was by now growing dulled and blunt. It was while he was struggling with this that Stephen said, between curses, "You know, this spear will never be sharp enough to scratch anything."
"I was thinking about that. If you don't mind persevering with the knife, I thought I might test an idea."
"Such as?"
"Something I saw a day or two back. Don't worry, I won't leave the forest." He stood up. "Which way's the road?"
Stephen indicated. "Where are you going?"
But Tom was already heading off. "Oak on its own is not enough," he said over his shoulder. "I won't be long."
Stephen shrugged and turned his attention back to the spear. He was nearly half-way through, but the penknife was very blunt. Stephen flexed his aching arm, massaged his fingers and methodically began to saw.
There were always insects in Crow Wood. The strong sunlight, which flooded the ruins with a green-gold haze, was awhirl, alive with movement. Quick, delicate things passed by Tom's head, too swift to be sensed in full – a white wing-tip beside his eyes, a brief hum against his ear. But Tom walked unawares, stalking through the mortuary of bricks, his face turned to the ground.
A fluttering of birds in the topmost branches watched him pause in his stride, bend suddenly, straighten empty-handed, and walk on.
From narrow cracks under angular boulders of brick and mortar, lizards followed him with eyes that turned implausible degrees in oily sockets. Every now and again, at shutter-speed, their filmy lids blinked his image in the darkness.
Him scouring the rubble.
Him levering a beam free of the clinging weeds.
Him plucking a piece of blackened metal from the ground, scanning it intently, casting it aside:
Him kicking a charcoal beam in frustration, smearing his shoe black.
Him looking, always looking, as an hour passed.
37
Up on the slopes of the Wirrim, in the Hardraker farmyard, there was much activity. Shortly after nine, Paul Comfrey had entered an adjoining shed, carrying a toolbox and a saw. Since then, the sound of sawing had filtered through the half-closed door, punctuated occasionally by furious hammering.
Mr Pilate, teeth bared in a rictus of displeasure, had left the farm soon after, driving back to the village to open his shop and assess the implications of the previous evening's fire.
Mr Cleever had seen him off, then returned to the house with instructions not to be disturbed. He had not been seen since.
Vanessa Sawcroft, looking pale and tired, had then emerged, and spent a lot of time coming in and out of the main door, carrying several rucksacks. She had opened the boot of her car, and arranged the rucksacks there in a row, carefully checking and rechecking the contents.
Michael sat on an old grindstone, examining his nails. He had lied to Stephen about the watch on the Russet, which was indeed far too big for any feasible cordon to be erected around. In fact, the night before, Mr Cleever had dismissed the idea of pursuit. He had opted instead to ignore them, realising that their desperation cut them off from the world outside.
Even as he sat idle, Michael was reading the atmosphere of the farm, opening his mind to the Fourth Gift. From the shed he caught Paul Comfrey's excitement – confused and nervy – mixed with a plodding concentration at his unknown task. In contrast, Pilate's mind, as it had passed, was dark and
furious, and Michael knew that Stephen was the cause. Geoffrey Pilate was not the kind of man to forgive an injury.
Vanessa Sawcroft, seemingly absorbed with the rucksacks, gave Michael the strongest readings. Her antagonism flowed out from her, washed against the walls of the farm-buildings and crashed back upon him from all sides. A day ago, he might have been inundated: now he absorbed it without effort.
Throw at me what you like, Michael thought. I am a rock.
He could sense Cleever too, somewhere deep in the house, a reading full of hard intensity of purpose. Michael frowned. Cleever had lied to him about Sarah. Though it was her own stupid fault for coming up here unannounced, it had been Cleever's invitation to value the farm that had got her interested in it in the first place. Cleever hadn't thought fit to admit this to Michael. Well, he would pay him back for that. Soon.
After a time, Michael grew aware that all these sensations were being swallowed by a subtler and greater presence, the source of which puzzled him. He could not trace it; it seemed to rise up from the dirty whitewashed stones of the farm-buildings all around – beside, behind, beneath him. It was almost as if it lacked a human centre, and that the ancient farm itself was alive.
Hardraker, thought Michael. It must be.
Perhaps the dreadful shrivelled body which had lingered long beyond its time could not encompass its own power. Perhaps that power had seeped out over the silent decades, to stain the stones of the farm around it, to sink in and lie there, awaiting the time when it could be harnessed again in full.
Michael felt the trickling movement all about him; sensed how every beam and stone was brim-full of a biding, dormant energy, and knew it to be true.
He's stirring, he thought. Ready for tonight.
For a moment, Michael knew himself to be small, bare and vulnerable. He closed his eyes, and a strange vision came to him. The farm was distorting, the barn roofs swelling and buckling in their centres, the beams breaking upwards through the roof in an explosion of spines and spikes. Lines of brickwork on every wall began to shift, and overlap each other like endless layers of scales. Whole rows of outbuildings twitched with a fitful impatience, and behind his back, the Wirrim rose to a colossal height, blocking out the sun.
Buried Fire Page 18
