Buried Fire (14 page)

Michael stood in the porch until he heard the car approaching along the lane. Then he walked down the drive to the gate. The car pulled in at the side of the road, and Mr Cleever smiled up at him through the window.

"Very good to see you, Michael," he said. "Care to hop in?"

He leaned over and opened the passenger door. Michael walked round the front of the car and got in. Mr Cleever reversed in the driveway and sped off along the green lane, past the Monkey and Marvel, and sharp right onto a rough farm track.

"A short cut," Mr Cleever said. "It's a little bumpy, but you won't lose your breakfast."

Michael looked out at a row of copper beeches at one end of the field, beyond which the tower of St. Wyndham's could just be seen. Then he said: "The Four Gifts. You said you'd tell me what they are. And how to use them." His voice sounded curiously flat and small, sucked away through the window into the blue immensity of the day. He disliked its weak and tinny sound, its irritating lightness. It would not suit him at all.

Mr Cleever gave a little laugh, and tapped a jig on the steering wheel with his fingers. "The Four Gifts," he said. "Yes, the Four Powers. Well, you've already used the first two quite proficiently. I hardly need to tell you what those are, do I?" He looked sideways at Michael, eyebrows raised.

"The Sight," Michael said. "That must be the first. And Fire is the second."

"It is indeed. And you can feel very pleased with yourself for demonstrating it so early. In some of us it took weeks to unleash the flame."

"I didn't do it on purpose. It just came."

"Fuelled by anger. Quite. It's a hallmark of all the gifts, Michael, that they are deeply given, and closer tied to our emotions than our rational minds. Although with practice, as you've found with the Sight, we can learn to control them. Whoops!"

One of the car's front wheels dropped into a tractor rut and they lurched forward violently. Mr Cleever struggled with the steering for a moment, then got them back on track.

"Four-wheel drive would be preferable for this route," he said, "but needs must. I don't want us to take the village road just at the moment. Right, you've experienced the first two gifts, and it might shock you to know that some of us never get beyond them. Paul Comfrey, for instance, good man that he is, has never got close to the third. Doesn't have the knack for some reason."

"You mean I might never— What are the other two?" Michael felt a shock of pride at the thought of any limitation.

"Oh, don't worry. I'm just telling you it's possible, that's all. Personally, I think you'll achieve the others in no time. You're very strong. The Third Gift, now that's in some ways the most delightful of all. It's flying, Michael; or Levitation if you prefer. That really is something."

"Flying!" Michael could hardly restrain his wonder, or impatience. "How high can you go? How long can you keep it up? That's . . ." Words failed him. "Wow."

"How high?" Mr Cleever laughed softly. "My boy, truly I do not think there is any limit to how high we might go. I say might, because of all things we must not be observed, and if you go above tree level in daylight, you will be observed by every man, woman and child in the whole parish."

"But at night though?"

"At night – yes, it's different then. Once, about ten years ago, when my gifts were young in me, I flew on a moonless night above Fordrace, as high as the Wirrim. I looked down on the orange lights and the dark rooftops, and using the Sight, I saw the owls floating below my feet. No one could see me; they were jewelled ants beneath my silent flight. Now say that is not a glorious power to have, Michael my boy! And here, we go right."

He turned through a gate, into another field, filled with sun-ripened barley. A narrow gap just afforded them room to drive along the edge, beside a shallow ditch. Michael's eyes were ablaze with a savage delight.

"When I receive that gift," he said, "I shall use it every night, and sometimes during the day. I can't think why you don't use it more often, or go further. I shall go to London, and cross the sea with it, and spy on people in their houses!" He chuckled with delirious glee.

Mr Cleever shook his head sadly. "Nice thought, but sadly, it doesn't work like that. There are limitations."

Michael frowned. "Such as?"

"Such as being unable to go too far from the Wirrim. And a worse one yet . . ." He let the sentence drift away, and seemed reluctant to discuss it further. Instead, he continued in a cheerier tone: "But the Fourth Gift, if you attain it, gives you the most power of all of them. I have this, and I use it as regularly as I am able. It's the power to enter people's minds, Michael, and encourage them to give up their secrets to you. You can do it in various ways, with various degrees of subtlety, but just imagine the power that gives!"

Michael said nothing. He was imagining.

"You have to be careful with it," Mr Cleever went on. "When done at full force, it leaves even the least intelligent person a little distressed. They take a dislike to you without quite knowing why. But used in discrete moments, once in a while, you can learn anything you wish, and with that knowledge, a lot of things can be achieved."

"But Mr Cleever," Michael said, "if you can read people's minds, you should be Prime Minister or something by now. Not just councillor of this crap place."

He was surprised by the force of Mr Cleever's reaction. The car stopped with a jolt in the track; Mr Cleever hit the steering wheel with the palms of both hands, and Michael's eyes flared with the pain of his reflected rage.

"You know nothing," Mr Cleever snarled, turning the force of his glare full on him. "Nothing but what I am telling you. How dare you doubt my abilities, when you, who have only discovered the Second Gift today, are being instructed in the powers by me, man to man? I have not done this with anyone before! None of the others has been so honoured. And I wouldn't do it with you either, if I didn't think your energy was vital to us! If you listen to me, boy, your powers will be truly limitless. But if you cross me, I'll leave you to discover your limitations entirely on your own. And you won't like them, believe me."

He turned away sharply, and started the car. It bumped along over the fields.

"I'm sorry," said Michael, though his heart raged within him.

"And don't lie to me either," said Mr Cleever. "You've forgotten already about the Fourth Gift. And it works all the easier with those of us with the Power. You should have noticed the bond already. The presence of one of us, and what we do, affects the rest, especially if we're close by."

"I've noticed. I felt it with you last night. And with Stephen."

"Ah, yes. Your brother. We're going to have to have a talk about him. But that can come later."

They were at the end of the field, which for the last few minutes had wound steadily uphill. Mr Cleever turned left through a gate fringed with dark low trees and almost immediately the hill steepened. The car advanced very slowly along an atrocious track. A bank of grass, caught in the shadow of the trees, rose on their right. All of a sudden, Michael saw a set of tumbledown roofs appear over the fringe of the bank.

"That's the Hardraker Farm!" he said.

"Got it in one." Mr Cleever fought with the gear-stick to bring the car up the last and steepest incline. At length, they emerged at the top of the bank and trundled slowly over the field towards the buildings. "This is our operational HQ," Mr Cleever said as they turned into the central farm yard. "Right now, it's the base for the most important thing that's happened in these parts for the last sixteen hundred years."

He pulled over in front of the farm house and turned off the ignition. "And you, Michael my boy, are the most important part of all."

Mr Cleever led Michael up to the front door of the Hardraker farmhouse and rang the bell. Michael stood beside him, uneasy despite his semblance of calm. The mass of ruined buildings all around made him feel suddenly alone.

"Who lives here?" he said.

Mr Cleever gazed impassively at the door. "Mr Hardraker does."

"But I thought he was dead."

"He might as well have been, until now."

A sound of rattling bolts came from the other side of the door. "It's me, Paul," Mr Cleever said loudly. In another moment, the whitewashed door swung open and the way was clear to enter. First Mr Cleever and then Michael trooped inside.

"Paul, this is Michael MacIntyre; Michael, this is Paul Comfrey." A slight whey-faced man with fair wispy hair pushed the great door to and turned to face Michael. He seemed quite young, perhaps mid-twenties, and his expression was dull, sullen and a little stupid. He was very vaguely familiar and Michael assumed he had at some time passed him in the village. They looked at each other, unblinking.

"So, you're not running this time," Paul Comfrey said in a slow voice. "I nearly caught you at his house. You were fast."

Michael narrowed his eyes. "No," he said, "I'm not running." He was thinking how foolish Paul Comfrey looked. 'I can well believe he hasn't made the Third Gift,' he thought. 'There's no competition there.' Then he remembered Mr Cleever's Fourth Power, and took a guilty side-glance at him. But Mr Cleever seemed to have noticed nothing.

"Have you had any trouble, Paul?" he asked.

"Yes. She came up, like you said." Paul Comfrey shifted uncomfortably, but made no attempt to explain.

"How far did she get? You can speak in front of Michael."

"She got upstairs." The man seemed most reluctant to give the details.

"As far as that? Dear me, that was remiss of you, Paul. Were you asleep?"

"No."

"Well. What did she see?"

"She saw the stone. And I think, maybe, she saw Mr Hardraker."

"She got as far as Joseph? Good heavens, Paul, that must have given her a shock. I hope for your sake that you roused yourself enough to catch her. Did you?"

"Yes. Had to chase her halfway across the bleeding farm. But she's safe now."

"Where?"

"The piano room. I put her car in the back shed."

"Who are we talking about?" Michael asked, having been bewildered long enough. His eyes were aching sharply and he wondered if he was responding to the tension between the two.

"If you're in discomfort, Michael, use your sight," Mr Cleever said. "It's good for you, because it trains your power.

"We have had a visitor," he went on, his dragon soul inky black and thickly flowing in the hallway. "And you may be a little surprised to hear who it is. But I won't keep it a secret from you, because you're so clever you'd soon find out. Your sister Sarah has decided to pay us a call. Yes," he continued over Michael's exclamation, "I'm afraid she has been poking her nose into your affairs again, and has seen things she shouldn't have seen. We will have to keep her here for a little while."

This was going too fast, even for Michael. "Hold on," he said. "What do you mean? You can't lock her up. Let her go." He felt his eyes flare with anger.

"Don't be weak, Michael. Don't forget how Sarah has tried to control you for years. Do you think she'd let you use your gifts as you'd wish? She'd do everything in her power to make you stop."

"I'd like to see her try. But that's not—"

"Exactly. You have moved beyond her. But listen, Michael. There are many things I must tell you shortly. If, when I have done so, you want to let your sister free, go right ahead. I won't stop you. Either way, she won't come to any harm. And soon, you'll be too powerful for her ever to control you again. What do you say?"

"I don't know . . ." Michael felt he was being weak. "Oh, all right, I'll listen to what you've got to say."

"Good. We have to be very careful, we special people. Nosy interferers like the vicar and your sister are constantly at our heels. And I'm afraid your own brother is involved with them too."

"Stephen? But he has the power himself! Well, a little of it." Michael corrected himself. "He didn't stay under long, you see."

The surface of the dragon soul broiled darkly. "I'm going to want details about how Stephen got his power," it said. "It was a very bad thing that he did so. I'm afraid your brother doesn't want to accept his gift. He's scared, and scared boys do silly things."

"Yes," said Michael. "He locked me in."

"Jealousy is a terrible thing, Michael."

"We've got to do it fast, George." Paul Comfrey spoke, and Michael looked at his soul closely for the first time. There was something strange about it. It was dragon-like too, but only in parts; the outline was smudged, as if another shape had been half rubbed out there. Nor was it quite as dark as Cleever's. Alongside the black was a strong hint of dirty yellow, especially around the edges. Then, for the first time that day, Michael remembered Mr Cleever's shout as he had run along another hall in terror the day before:

"What you see, you will become!"

There was something so confused, so mixed-up about Paul Comfrey's soul, that Michael now found himself wondering what the words actually implied. There was no doubt about it, Paul Comfrey's soul was in the middle of a change. It had been something else – possibly some sort of rat, or vole, judging by the shape – and now it was becoming reptilian. The awful implications settled like a weight in Michael's stomach. For an instant it threatened to disrupt his composure, then with an effort of will he brushed it from his mind.

What did it matter what had happened to this weak fool's soul? What matter if changes occurred to his own? He already knew the shape was unimportant. What mattered was that he was growing in power and setting himself apart from other men. Maybe Paul Comfrey was too weak to make the change properly. Well he, Michael, would be stronger, come what may.

"I quite agree, Paul." Mr Cleever was speaking. "Tomorrow night if all goes well. But there are things to sort out first. And introducing Michael to Joseph is foremost of all."

They had been walking slowly down the hall, and now stood before a large door, which Cleever opened but did not pass.

"Michael," he said, "I'd like you to wait here. Mr Hardraker wishes to meet you, but he will need assistance in dressing, so I may be a little time. When he does come, please don't be deceived by his appearance. Paul, go back and mind the door. Vanessa will be along soon, and Geoffrey can't be far behind."

He drew back, and Michael passed through into an immense living room, with high-backed sofas which were already old when his grandmother was young. There was ornate stuccoed plaster on the ceiling, and curly, twisting wallpaper unrelieved by any paintings or picture frames. The windows were covered with curtains as thick and heavy as carpets. He pushed one aside and looked out, and as the sunshine hit him, he realised the room must be in virtual darkness and that he was still using the Sight. It had become almost natural for him to do so, and the thought of turning back seemed strange.

The view outside was uninteresting, so he went to the sofa and lay out flat on it with his hands behind his head. He waited for a long while; how long, he could not have said.

Lost in grim thoughts about Stephen, he was caught by surprise when the door suddenly opened. He stood up in confusion. Mr Cleever entered and cast his eyes over him.

"Open one of those curtains, Michael," he said. "And if I were you I would stick to your ordinary sight while Mr Hardraker is in the room. It can be quite overpowering otherwise."

Michael pulled one of the great heavy curtains over, spilling light into the room. He adjusted his eyes dutifully, aware of a slight tingling across his body, which grew stronger by the moment; anticipation mixed with fear.

Then Mr Cleever stood aside, and Mr Hardraker entered. Michael felt a great wave of heat erupt through the doorway, filling the room in an instant. A shriveled thing sat in a wheelchair, pushed forward by Paul Comfrey, his face white and sweating. It was dressed in a pair of light blue trousers which displayed a horrible emptiness to the eye, and a thick pink woollen jumper, on which a head lolled. The bald skin was parchment-yellow and parchment-dry, and the two white eye-sockets glared from them unblinkingly. Michael felt a sick feeling in his stomach, but he quelled it, and stood firm.

The wheelchair came to a standstill. Michael waited. Everyone stood silently around, impassive. The figure in the wheelchair made no move, no sign that it was conscious or indeed alive. Michael was searching for something to say when he felt a cold presence slip easily past his guard into his mind, and lie there a moment before being withdrawn. He could not repress a shudder as it withdrew, but he still said nothing. He felt his own power wax hotly in response to the easy entry, and lash out angrily across the room, flailing without any target or control. To his satisfaction, he saw Paul Comfrey wince visibly as the waves hit him, but a smile flickered on Mr Cleever's face, and from the figure in the wheelchair there was no response at all.

Enraged still further, Michael did his best to muster a proper retort. With an ease which surprised him, he framed his anger into a thin rapier-sharp bolt which he directed at Mr Cleever. As he let it go, he saw the same burst of fiery lines across his vision which had accompanied his escape from his bedroom, only this time thinner and more controlled. Then, for a moment, he felt himself amongst another's thoughts – random, alien, and strange. Mr Cleever's smile dropped away abruptly. The thoughts shifted from amused complacency to baffled alarm, and since Michael sensed a defence being mustered, he rapidly withdrew his mind from Mr Cleever's and turned back to study the group as a whole.

He fully expected some sort of mental attack in revenge for his aggression, but nothing happened. Mr Cleever's smile slowly returned, and some of the tension drained from Paul Comfrey's face. There was a movement at the door, and Vanessa Sawcroft appeared. She wore a sling around an arm, and her face about her eyes was badly bruised. She gazed at him steadily, with her bruised face, but though when he had last knowingly seen her she had been checking out his books at the library counter, Michael was no longer surprised by anything.

Then Mr Cleever said: "Michael, Mr Hardraker is pleased to have met you. He wants to shake your hand."

The thought of touching that limp yellow claw, which poked out coyly from the woolly sleeve, was not the most pleasant Michael had ever had. But he was filled with a new confidence. In some way he had been tested, and his response had certainly surprised his new companions. He even had a notion that he had used the Fourth Gift on Mr Cleever, and this gave him a delicious thrill. So, trying not to notice the dead-fish eyes, he walked across to the thing in the wheelchair, bent down and picked up the hand.

The shock of it nearly killed him.

It was ice-cold, colder than ice, colder than the cold which bonds skin to rock and turns breath into frozen clouds of crystal shards. He felt the cold running up his arm, into his body, chilling, stilling, numbing him with the feel of death, thinning the blood and clogging his arteries with ice.

For a second, his brain began to grow numb too, but as his mind grew sweetly weary, his power responded with a desperate surge, and met the ice with fire.

Then there was an explosion all about him, a rushing of air and an orange light, and screams and shouts came from the doorway beyond. He felt his clothes ignite, heard the windows implode and the plaster on the ceiling crack. And, as if in a dream, he felt the energy within him raise him up, and his feet lift from the floor.

And in that moment of supreme delight, he dropped the hand which he held, and felt the energy fall back inside him. Then his feet returned to earth, hitting the charcoalled floorboards with a soft dry crunch.

The object in the wheelchair had not moved, except for its hand, which was palm up on the trouser leg like a great dead spider. Michael's own clothes were grey and smoking. He coughed twice; the noise was hollow in the ruined room. No windows remained, the curtains were gone. The walls were seared black and yellow with great scorch stains. The tall-backed chairs were skeletons, with wisps of fabric hanging from their bones. And of Air Cleever, Ms Sawcroft and Mr Comfrey, there was nothing to be seen.

Michael thought that he had burnt them all to ashes, but then he heard the gasps and coughing starting in the corridor.