End of the Century (29 page)

“You about ready, love?”

Alice turned down the television. “Sure.” She began to stand. “Say, is something burning…?”

Then the world went white before her eyes in a flash, and Alice fell.

Alice fell for what seemed an eternity. No sense of time or place, only an awareness of presences around her, and the unshakable sense that there was some meaning behind it all.

Indistinct voices called at the edge of hearing.

Over the city, the eye turned.

A flock of black birds blotted out the sky.

A mirror-still pool of water and the man with the ice-chip eyes.

And at the center of it all, the jewel.

“…okay, love?”

Stillman had his hands on her shoulders, holding her steady. Her lips felt rubbed and chapped, and her left hand was describing circles on her belly.

“Y-yeah,” she said, blinking rapidly, shaking her head minutely from side to side. “Yeah, I'm fine.”

Stillman leaned in close, his eyes narrowed, and Alice could smell the mix of aftershave and bacon on his skin. “You don't look all right, you'll excuse me saying.”

He steered her into the kitchen and sat her at one of the chairs at the low table, the Formica of its surface scratched and stained with age.

“You saw something.” Stillman sat in the other chair, facing her with his hands on his knees. “I know you did.”

Reluctantly, Alice nodded. “I…I have Temporal Lobe…”

“Epilepsy,” Stillman said, interrupting. “I know; I saw the Depakote in your bag when you got the cigarettes out last night.” He looked at her, thoughtfully. “Tell me, does the name ‘Omega' mean anything to you?”

Alice shook her head before even thinking about it, but then said, “No, I don't think so. Last letter of the Greek alphabet, I think. And maybe a kind of watch? I don't know. What's Omega?”

Stillman breathed in through his nostrils, deeply, and sighed. “I suppose you could say that once upon a time I served two masters and now serve none.”

“You were…What? A double agent?”

Stillman smiled slightly. “Something like that.” He reached out and placed his hand over Alice's on the table. “Tell me, what do you see when you experience a seizure?”

Alice shifted, uneasy under his close gaze. “Well, I call them ‘visions,' actually. Promise you won't laugh. Anyway, it's always the same elements, in differing combinations. An eye over a city. A body of water. A man.” She paused, looking at him for any sign of reaction. “Ravens. And a jewel.”

“Hmmm.” Stillman took back his hand, got up, and walked into the living room. When he returned, he had one of Alice's spiral notebooks in hand.

“Hey, that's mine!”

“Of course it is, love.” Stillman smiled. “But I wasn't just going to leave a mystery like you snoring on my couch without doing a bit of snooping. I mean, come now, I'm a spy, after all. It's what I
do
.” Stillman sat down and flipped the notebook open on the table before him. “Whose phone number, by the way? This the same Roxanne you mentioned?”

Alice nodded, eyes narrowed and glaring.

“Mmm.” Stillman hummed and nodded thoughtfully. Then he read aloud, unfazed by the mirror-writing, occasionally pointing to images sketched in the margins. “So you believe that you're receiving messages. You're not sure from whom, precisely, but you think that God's the one reversing the charges. The problem is, you can't work out what the message
means
. Now, the eye over the city is the London Eye, you surmise. And the ‘still water' and man both refer, I assume you've decided, to me.” He paused and looked up at her. “Tell me,” he said with a smile, “are my eyes really ‘ice-chip blue?'” He chuckled. “The ravens are, so far as I can tell, just ravens. Sometimes a cigar, and so on. But
this?” He stabbed a finger at the image of the smooth-surfaced gem, carefully rendered in purple ink. “That's the jewel you mention?”

Alice nodded.

Stillman replied with a nod of his own. Then he picked up the spiral in one hand and took her hand with his other, and led her back to the living room. He pointed to the television. “Is it something like
that
?”

There, on the screen, was a smooth-surfaced gem, like a glass teardrop falling in midair, just like she'd seen in countless visions, just like she'd sketched in her notebooks.

“Yeah,” Alice said, her voice low. “Something like that.”

Authorities were reporting the discovery that morning of the theft of the so-called Vanishing Gem.

Only a few weeks before the jewel had been discovered in the basement of the museum, forgotten to history, with no record of it in the museum's holdings. The museum's director had commissioned a routine examination of the gem, to identify its makeup and hopefully pinpoint its origin, when it was discovered that the gem appeared to be
shrinking
. Looking like highly reflective glass, almost like a small spherical mirror, the gem apparently resisted any attempts to peer within, either by electron microscope or fluoroscope or functional magnetic resonance. However, a pair of simple measurements on highly calibrated scales showed an all-but-imperceptible, though measurable, reduction in mass over time. And given enough time between measurements, a slight reduction in size could also be detected.

The museum had dubbed it the “Vanishing Gem” and issued a press release to the public, outlining the facts as then understood. Plans were announced to put the jewel on display within the British Museum itself, and investigations were launched in the hope of discovering its provenance.

The hope came to an end that morning, Saturday the twenty-fourth of June, when it was revealed that the gem currently under lock and key in the British Museum was a fake, a simple forgery of glass. The discovery had apparently been made on Thursday morning, when researchers arrived to
make another set of measurements, but not revealed to the press and the public for another three days while authorities investigated the apparent robbery. Now, they were alerting the public and soliciting any information that might lead to the recovery of the gem.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” Stillman said, switching off the television.

Alice was sitting on the couch, trying to work out what it all meant. Now she'd found everything from her visions but was no closer to understanding what any of it meant. And worse, in meeting Stillman with his crazy stories about occult spies and other universes, she'd only ended up with even more questions.

“I've got to find that gem,” Alice finally said, staring at the floor. “That's all there is to it. If I find the gem and hold it in my hand, then maybe I'll understand. No, I
will
understand.”

Alice heard Stillman sigh, heavily, and looked up to see him smiling wistfully.

“Come on, man,” Alice said, jumping to her feet. “You've got to help me. You believe me, don't you?”

“That you're receiving messages from some unknown source?” He chuckled. “Believe me, love, that's the easiest part of your story
to
believe.”

“Then you've got to believe that you're mixed up in it, too!”

Stillman shook his head. “Not necessarily. And even if you
are
receiving messages, which I'm not saying you're not, then who's to say that they're telling the
truth
?” He sighed again, and shook his head. “But no, you're right. For good or ill, I'm mixed up in it, whatever it is.” He glanced around at the living room, at the kitchen behind them, at the library down the hall. “I've been hiding down here in this hole for more than a decade, getting older, waiting for death to come for me, hiding from the past and the future alike.” He smiled. “Maybe it's time to get back in harness again, after all.”

G
ALAAD WAS SURPRISED
to find he'd drawn his Saeson sword, its point wavering uncertainly before him. His pulse pounded in his ears, almost drowning out the sound of the spectral white hounds loping towards them.

The Huntsman advanced, slow but steady, his sword like a red brand on his hand, while his dog pack coursed ahead, bearing towards the seven, their teeth and claws glinting red in the moonlight.

Artor and his captains said not a word but sprang immediately into action, fanning out across the street, preparing to meet the charge.

The dogs reached their quarry far in advance of their master, their unearthly baying like the calls of birds in flight, half a dozen in number. As if guided by some uncanny intelligence, each of the hounds chose a prey, snapping and clawing at the High King and his captains. Seen close to, it was apparent that they were not like true hounds, but longer in the body, with shorter legs, and completely white but for the splashes of bright red on the ends of their long ears. Still, their claws and teeth were no less sharp, for all of that.

Artor slashed with his long spatha at the hound which harried him, the silver and gold hilt of his sword glinting, the long blade flashing like lightning in the gloom. The force of his blow swept the hound to one side, its bite failing to find its mark, but the hound landed on its feet and immediately resumed the charge, bounding back toward him.

Lugh lay about him with his own sword, howling imprecations at the white hound which dogged his heels, while Caius used his own blade as a club, battering the head of his tormenter, but though the sword battered again and again at the hound, it failed to draw blood, doing little but annoying the seemingly indestructible beast.

Galaad counted himself lucky that he had himself been so far unmolested, until he looked back and saw the Huntsman heading straight towards him, his red blade held high. The spectral figure's advance was slow, but inexorable.

Tightening his grip on his Saeson sword, Galaad raised the blade's tip. He'd never wielded a sword in combat, never even struck a blow in anger, and he quavered at the thought of facing such an imposing opponent. But the others were all engaged in their own struggles with the strange beasts, and even had he wanted to cry for help, he found his throat constricted with fear, his voice choked off.

At the last instant, just as the Huntsman bore down on him, Galaad tensed, anticipating the blow that would end his life. But instead he felt himself being struck from the side, knocked off his feet and sent sprawling onto the icy ground.

The moments that followed were a confusion of images.

Pryder stood where once Galaad had, having knocked him from his feet and taken his place, the hound that had worried at him only moments before kicked some distance to the side.

The Huntsman's sword had already begun its descent, but Pryder handily parried the blow, his own spatha catching the flat of the red blade and batting it aside.

The Huntsman immediately recovered and renewed his attack, reversing his blade in a backhand motion, sweeping back towards Pryder.

Pryder leaned back, raising his blade to block the Huntsman's blow, but the Huntsman's sword sliced into the spatha edge on.

The tip of Pryder's spatha clattered to the icy ground, Pryder left holding the hilt in a two-handed grip, the blade sliced clean through.

Galaad may have shouted out, but in the aftermath he wasn't sure if he had, or what he'd said if so. He could only watch with horror as the Huntsman raised his blade a final time, Pryder helpless before him, the
gelded stub of the spatha in his hands. In the instant before the red blade fell, the Huntsman locked eyes with Pryder and seemed to hesitate.

The blow never fell, but the Huntsman backed away, and while his face was still frozen like a death mask, the corpse-white flesh immobile, his eyes seemed in that moment to burn brighter, flashing red.

Pryder scrambled back, for the moment not questioning this unexpected reprieve, holding his sheared-off sword before him like a club.

The Huntsman stood still for a moment, regarding Pryder, and then lowered his red blade, its point to the icy ground. He opened his mouth, as if to speak. Instead of words, though, a strange series of noises emerged, each distinct utterance something between a click and a whistle, that taken together sounded to Galaad's ears like, “Tekel lili.”

All around them, the melee came to a sudden halt, as the white hounds froze in place and turned their baleful red eyes towards their master.

“Tekel lili, tekel lili,” the Huntsman repeated, and in a fluid movement raised his red sword. As the blade turned, it seemed to disappear from view. Then the blade reappeared as the Huntsman sheathed the sword and lowered his hands to his sides.

In the next instant, the hounds again exploded into motion, only this time instead of renewing their attack on the captains, they bounded away, back up the darkened street. The Huntsman closed his mouth and took a last look, his fiery gaze passing over the assembled captains, and then took to his heels after the hounds. He ran back up the street, his gait strange but impossibly fast, seeming to outpace even a horse at gallop, and within an instant the Huntsman and his hounds had rounded a far corner, disappearing back into the black night.

If Artor and his captains had harbored any doubts about the veracity of Geraint's story before, such had been entirely dispelled. The cuts they bore on hands, arms, and legs, inflicted by the scarlet claws of the strange white hounds, were evidence enough. And convinced as they were of the concrete nature of the pack, had they any question as to the truth of the stories about
their master, the Huntsman, they had only to regard Pryder's severed blade. The two pieces had been cleft one from the other so cleanly that, had they not known otherwise, the captains would never have believed they were originally whole.

Following the Huntsman's retreat, Artor and the others had given chase, though admittedly halfheartedly, and when they failed to discover any sign of the spectral figure or his unearthly hounds, they were scarcely crestfallen. Some of the captains made appropriately disappointed noises, but these were empty gestures for the sake of form.

Galaad, for his part, knew that should he never again come face to face with the lifeless-seeming visage of the Huntsman, never again peer into those baleful red eyes in that face of corpse-flesh white, then it would still be too soon.

Their cursory pursuit of the Huntsman performed, the captains were quick to suggest to their sovereign that they should retreat indoors, both to carry news of the encounter to their host and his people, and to seek the warmth and safety of the hall. Artor seemed reluctant to give up the hunt, the only one for whom the chase was anything but perfunctory, but a quick survey of his captains' faces was enough to convince him. There were wounds to tend, as he said, and frozen limbs to warm by the fire.

So it was that in short order the seven were pounding on the door to Geraint's hall, demanding admittance, and only a brief while after were sitting in places of honor before a large hearth, light and heat radiating out from the iron.

Of their wounds, the most serious was a bite that Lugh had scored on his right hand. The red teeth of the hound had bitten nearly clean through the smallest two fingers, and taken a considerable hunk of flesh from the middle one, but with the frigid air the bleeding had been sluggish, and so it did not appear that he'd lost an incapacitating amount of blood. Still, as the bitten fingers were cleaned and dressed, Lugh hurled imprecations at the attending physic that were just as foul and vicious as those he'd shouted at the beast who'd bitten him, if not more. Liberal application of undiluted wine, though, taken by mouth, had a gradual softening effect.

As for the others, their injuries were principally confined to cuts and abrasions. Galaad was embarrassed to admit that the severest injury he sustained
in the encounter was a large bruise to his backside when Pryder pushed him to the icy ground, and so instead of announcing his infirmity resigned himself to rubbing his throbbing posterior and refraining from sitting down as much as was practicable.

Galaad could not help but wonder about the Huntsman. Though disquieting, his strangely immobile face had been hauntingly familiar, though Galaad could not isolate the familiarity. And what of his relationship to the unearthly hounds who obeyed his whim, stark white but for the scarlet fringe of their ears and the bloodred hue of their teeth and claws? Seeming fierce, wild beasts, they had been instantly brought to heel when the Huntsman had uttered his eerie call. Thinking back on it, the sound now brought to Galaad's mind the scriptures, which told of the words that the prophet Daniel found written upon the palace walls of Belshazzar, king of Babylon. One of them had been
tekel
, which the holy writ said carried the meaning, “you have been weighed on the scales and found wanting.”

Was that why the Huntsman had called off his hounds' attack and stayed his hand against Pryder? Had those red eyes appraised the captains in some wise, and found them wanting? Or, instead, had they seen in Pryder or the others something it found of value, something that should not be cleaved with its unearthly blade?

Much of the discussion around the hearth, on their return to the hall, had been centered on the Huntsman's red blade, the shards of Pryder's spatha passed from hand to hand for inspection.

“I have never seen the like,” Caius intoned, holding the sheered edge of the neutered blade up to his eyes, squinting at it closely. “The cut is entirely clean, completely smooth.” He lowered the blade and looked around the red glow of the hearth at his fellows. “I'd go so far as to say I'd never seen so smooth an edge, ever. The frozen surface of a lake, perhaps? A pane of glass? But even those have bubbles and imperfections, none of which can be discerned here.”

Pryder shook his head, ruefully. “The blow didn't even jar my hands as the red sword passed through mine. It was as if my blade wasn't even there, and the Huntsman's swing carried only through empty air.”

“But you parried his earlier blow,” Galaad said, from his position standing behind the circle of chairs. He couldn't help but have noticed that
the captains had instinctively arranged their chairs in a near perfect circle around the fire, and wondered whether any of them were conscious of the fact that they had seated themselves in precisely the positions he had seen them adopt around Artor's marble circle in Caer Llundain.

“That I did.” Pryder nodded, thoughtfully. “And when my blade met his, both felt solid enough. I fair felt the impact in my teeth, so much force did the parry require.”

“That makes not a bit of sense,” Gwrol said, stone sober despite the number of cups of wine he'd quaffed on their return. He sat on the edge of his seat, tensed, as though he'd not yet calmed from the rush and quickened pulse of their encounter. “Either the swords were solid or they were air, it can't be both.”

Pryder shrugged, seeming to lack both the energy and the will to spar with his brother.

“Those hounds,” Bedwyr said, hands gripping the arms of his chair, staring into the red glow of the hearth intently, open faced, as though he saw some secret meaning writ there. “What were those hounds?”

Lugh, who may have had thoughts of his own about the beasts, snored loudly in his sleep, finally rendered insensible by the prodigious amounts of wine he'd drunk to quell the throbbing pain of his bitten hand. As it stood, the loud snort had an undeniably dismissive quality to it, in keeping with the Gael's spoken responses to Bedwyr's repeated litany of “those hounds, those hounds, what were those hounds” before losing consciousness.

Artor sat silent at the head of the ring of chairs, at his side Geraint, who had taken around the hearth the place he could not accept at the marble circle in the High King's court. Geraint's wife, Enid, had repaired to their private chambers, nursing their infant son away from the press of sleeping bodies close packed in the hall, enjoying some momentary measure of privacy. Both High King and Dumnonian ruler had kept their own counsel while the captains reviewed the details of the encounter, Geraint wearing a look that made evident his sense of embarrassment and shame at having proved unable to stand beside his erstwhile companions, and Artor thoughtful with an unreadable expression.