Darkhenge (27 page)

Stubborn, Chloe snapped, “Everyone always thinks they know best—”

“We do,” Mac growled.

Rob edged a step closer. There was one way he could stop her. If he could get past her, he could sit in the Chair himself. But a flicker of doubt came and went, the thought of Chloe and his parents without him, and it must have shown on his face, because with a gasp of anger she turned from him and ran, dodging Mac, sliding between the fires.

“No!”
Rob yelled.

Something shoved past him, a musky-smelling roebuck, its flank iced with sweat. Between Chloe and the Chair it ran, and shivered into a man in a dark coat, breathless and weary. Before she could stop herself Chloe ran right into his arms. She screamed and kicked in fury; Vetch held her tight.

“You won't stop me!”

“I know I won't.” Vetch sounded worn; he forced her to turn her head. “He will.”

Rob spun in surprise.

The King of the Unworld stood behind them in the circle. He wore his final mask, of ice and silver birch, and in the red light it was a shimmer, and his face and hands and clothes were garish in the heat and scorch. Sparks rose from the flames behind him.

“It's me, Chloe,” he said sadly.

“You!” She stepped toward him; Vetch kept hold of one wrist. “You were the one who brought me here in the first place!” She tipped her head, trying to see him clearly through the smolder. “Why did you do that? Who are you?”

He came forward. And as he reached out and took her fingers they saw that his hands were crusted with bark, his nails gnarled and lichened. Small threads of root clung to his clothes.

“I didn't bring you. You called me and I came for you, and I wanted you to stay. You know who I am, Chloe, because you dreamed of me, put me together from all the words and syllables you know. That's what poets do. They make people out of sound and images. Out of leaves and seeds.”

She stepped back, eyes wide.

He smiled. “
You made me from the forest, Chloe.
I'm anything your imagination wants me to be.”

Vetch let her go. Carefully, and very slowly, she reached out to lift off the King's last mask. He stood still, letting her, his eyes dark behind the silver. Her fingers touched the icy bark. Then, as if she feared what she might find beneath, she pulled her hands back.

He smiled at her.

“Do you still want me to stay?” Chloe whispered, “Won't you be all alone without me?”

The King said, “I want you to make your own choice.”

She looked at him, then turned to Rob, and Mac. “What about you?”

“He's right,” Mac said unexpectedly. His voice was a rasp of pain. “Decide, girl.”

Rob couldn't look at her. His face was hot; when he raised his eyes he could only see how much she had grown, how much she looked like him.

“Rob?”

He nodded, silent.

Chloe turned to Vetch. The poet said gently, “You see, you do have power. Words give you power, to create or destroy.” His eyes flickered to Clare. “Even to forgive. Be generous to yourself, Chloe. Go home.”

She sighed, then walked around him to the Chair.

None of them moved. She gazed down at the velvet seat and Rob knew that she could sit there now if she wanted to, that none of them could stop her; that she could settle herself back against the cold stone, and raise her hands and command the weather and the words and the Unworld.

They had come to the seventh caer, and the decision was hers.

The machines are silent.
We are a dark ring around the bed,
a forest of trees.
Neither of mother or father
were we made,
not our body or our blood.
But of nine kinds of elements,
of God's fruits of Paradise,
of the flowers of the primrose,
the blossom of trees and bushes.
From the earth's roots we rose,
from the broom and the nettle,
from the water of the ninth wave.
The Wisest One made us in
the earth's dawn,
knowing what the stars know
before Time, before the World.

Under the root of the tongue
is where the battle is fought.
The war is won
In the mind's mazes.

“T
HE
B
ATTLE OF THE
T
REES
”

T
here was something strange about the Chair. For a start the snow didn't settle on it. And from the tree on the left as she watched, a hazelnut slipped and fell, plopping into the darkness of the pool. In the water a fish moved, a flicker under the surface.

Behind her Vetch said, “The waters of Wisdom.”

“I could drink some of that?”

“If it helps.”

She knelt and scooped up a handful; it was brackish, peaty water, dark with fibers. As she sipped it, it drained from her palm. It tasted cold, and of nothing.

Then she straightened, walked to the Chair, and touched the red velvet seat. When she turned, it was to face the ring of silent faces.

This wasn't right, she thought. There should be something now, some panic, some adventure that would startle her, that would make her see her life with new eyes. An attack from the outside that would save her from having to decide.

They were all here. The trees, the people.

She could make it happen.

Almost as she thought it, Rob gasped. Over her shoulder he glimpsed movement; he yelled, “Vetch!”

Vetch raised his head.

Beyond the stones, over the high banks, the forest had invaded.

Trees shot up, cast a cannonade of acorns and chestnuts, hazelnuts, berries. As soon as they touched the soil they split, sprouted, grew. Roots unsprawled, branches rustled out, uncoiling twigs and leaves. With rustling, horribly accelerated slithers and groans, the wildwood crawled over the henge, gathered, darkened the stars, closed overhead. As it thickened, the moon dimmed; the watchers on the bank were swallowed by it.

Mac swore. “Stop this, girl!”

“It's not me, Mac, I swear!”

The henge had a green roof. Acorns and conkers and sloes dropped from it. Squirrels ran rustling from stone to tree.

“It's not me!” This was the panic she had asked for, but she couldn't control it, the wild fear of the wood, what it contained. She turned to Vetch and he caught her hands as they reached out for him. “I wanted power, I always wanted it, but it's stronger than I am! I can't control the Unworld, Vetch, or the real world either. I can't make it do what I want! The forest is too strong.”

Vetch crouched, his narrow face close to hers. “You will, Chloe. I promise you.” He glanced at Mac. “Ask him. God gives no one a gift he cannot master. Right, Priest?”

Mac growled. But he said, “Right.”

Then, turning swiftly, Vetch held out his hand to Clare. “Give me back the bag, Goddess.”

She looked at him, unsmiling. “Why should I?”

“Because they mustn't end up as we did, tormenting each other down the years.”

Clare looked at him, her eyes blue and clear. For a moment Rob thought she would turn and go, into the dark entanglement of the wood. Instead, she did something that astonished him.

She stepped past Vetch, and past Chloe, and walked around the pool.

As oak leaves wreathed above her, she sat on the red velvet of the Chair.

Instantly the forest halted.

Clare looked up. Three lanky cranes fluttered down and alighted, one on the chair back, two on the narrow strip of grass. Their long beaks snapped and clattered.

Clare said, “I'm sorry, Chloe. But this is my place and I resume it. I am Ceridwen here, Queen of the Seven Caers, always and forever the muse of all poets.” Her hand reached out, and from her forefinger hung the small crane-skin bag.

Vetch took it. His eyes met hers, and though he said nothing, Rob knew something had passed between them, something had changed, had dissolved. Then the poet turned and held the bag out to Chloe.

She seemed confused. “What's that?”

“It contains everything you need, Chloe.” Vetch came close.
“Words.
”

“I've got plenty of words.”

“Not like these. These are the ogham letters of the druids, the secret runes of the trees. The roots of language, Chloe, the seeds of story. Everything grows from them, all the worlds you want to make. They make peace and start wars, they burn cities, they wound and stab, they heal. They're the only way we have of making others understand our lives, how it feels to be a man, a woman, a boy, a little girl. While we have them we can shape-shift, we are never trapped in our own souls, our own skin.” He smiled, reached out, and opened her small hand, crumpling the bag into it. “There are a million Unworlds here in this bag, universes uncreated, races unborn. Take it, Chloe. Hang it around your neck. No one will see it, no one will be able to take it from you in all the years you live, not Rob, or Mac, your parents, any husband you may have, any children. Only you'll know. All your life, the secret gift the trees have given you will be there.”

For a moment she didn't move. She seemed small beside him, suddenly bedraggled and tired. When her hand closed around the soft leather it seemed heavy for a moment; her arm dipped as if there was a weight there that was too much for her.

“What about you?” she breathed. “What will you do?”

His eyes were dark. He said, “I've found my muse. She will have to do.”

Chloe looked at Clare, who nodded.

Then Chloe slipped the cord around her neck.

Vetch smiled. Under his dark hair the star mark on his forehead shone. He took her hand and led her to Mac.

Mac touched her hair gently. “Time to go, Chloe.”

She was biting her thumbnail, something small girls did, something Rob had not seen her do for so many months it brought him a stab of joy and terror; then she turned to him, her voice weary.

“I'm really sorry, Rob.”

Shaken, he said, “There's nothing—”

“Yes there is. Not saying. Being jealous.”

He shook his head, any answer choked up. “You look tired.”

“I am.” She laughed a little laugh. “As if I'd stayed up long past my bedtime.” Looking up at him, she fingered the cord around her neck, and he was suddenly reminded of Christmases when she was small, the early morning frantic opening of presents, the satisfaction, the sleepiness that came after.

He put his arms around her, and she didn't flinch.

“Let's go home, Rob,” she said quietly.

Over her head he looked at Vetch. The poet was leaning on the back of the Chair, his hand on Clare's shoulder, and to Rob's amazement the blond woman reached up and touched his scarred skin, even though they watched Chloe, both of them, absorbed.

Rob said, “I don't know how.”

“I do.” It was the King who spoke. “You must climb, of course.” Pushing Rob gently aside, he put his hands around Chloe's waist. “Are you ready, my lady?”

She looked at him closely, then gave him a shy kiss on the brittle mask. “I won't forget you,” she whispered.

The King laughed sadly. “Ah, but you will. Though you'll search all through the poet's bag to find me again. And one day, perhaps, among the echoes and images, among the tales, something will seem familiar.” Easily, he lifted her, her white dress drifting against him, hoisting her up into the green canopy of acorns and hawthorn. Chloe grabbed a branch, and stepped up onto another.

She climbed, quick and agile.

She didn't look back.

“Wait for me!” Rob scrambled after her into the foliage, looking down to see Ceridwen's upturned face, and Vetch's calm smile.

“Will you be… Will I see you again?”

Ceridwen shrugged. “The Cauldron-born cross many worlds. We live in yours, just as we live here. Part of me will be in Clare still. But hurry, Rob. The sun's rising.”

He nodded, glanced once at Vetch and looked for Mac, but the priest was no longer there. Instead, streaming from the east, light was breaking into the Unworld. Brilliant, horizontal, the lazy red fire of the dawn shot through the trees. As Rob climbed quickly, he felt it warm him, knew a slit had widened, as if somewhere an eye was opening, and the slushy drifts of snow slithered and melted and fell wetly on his face.

Leaves surrounded him. There was no sound from above but a rustle that might be Chloe or might be birds; he called again, “Wait for me!” but there was no answer, and the tree trunks rose around him like dark timbers, an enclosing circle that he was climbing up through the center of, and the boughs of the tree were black, fossilized with age, pitted and cracked with time.

He was climbing the highest tree in the forest, and he came out above the canopy, and swung there, and saw all the Unworld below, in its sunrise.

Then he reached up, and touched the sky.

The sky was warm. It was soft as cloud. It licked his face and nudged itself against him, and then it snuffled and scratched ferociously at its fleas.

It also stank.

Rob lay quite still. When he opened his eyes he saw, inches in front of them, the gnarled smooth wood of Darkhenge. A spider was making its careful way over a dewdrop, tickling his cheek. As he breathed out, the web spun from his face to the timber quivered.