Hollow Earth (10 page)

‘Who else could have convinced so many to question our authority? Renard wants us to reform rules that have been sacred for centuries, ancient tenets that go back to the beginning of our time. What gives him the right?’ snapped Sir Giles. ‘Sir Charles has been more than patient with Renard.’

‘We must make our decision about the Calder children, irrespective of where they might currently be,’ said the elegant woman, checking her sparkling watch for the fourth time. She lifted a pencil and began to doodle on the pad in front of her. ‘And what about the reports that the Hollow Earth Society has reformed? This split in our ranks is diverting our attention from what is potentially a serious situation.’

The other members of the Council shifted uncomfortably.

‘The Society was wiped out years ago, Henrietta,’ said a mousy, younger woman named Frida Adler, sitting across the table.

‘The Hollow Earth Society is
not
reforming, and is not the subject of this meeting,’ snapped Sir Giles. ‘Renard’s grandchildren are. We gave them a reprieve at their birth. It’s time we reconsidered that decision.’

‘If the Hollow Earth Society is indeed active once again,’ said Luigi Silvestri, a portly Guardian who had travelled from Italy for the meeting, ‘then that makes the twins all the more dangerous. Either way, they should be bound immediately.’

‘But Luigi,’ said Tanan, now spinning a pencil between slim fingers, ‘if you allow the rumours about the Society to affect today’s decision, you will be violating the most sacred of your ancient rules – that a child’s imagination cannot and should not be bound – for something that may not even be true. The Calder twins are only twelve, remember. Binding them would be repugnant—’

‘Given what they did at the National Gallery yesterday, Tanan,’ Blake interjected, ‘the twins are already more powerful than any Animare we’ve ever known. Age cannot come into it. The Council allowed them to remain with Sandie until now because she assured us she could control their development.’

‘A decision, I might add,’ said Henrietta, smiling at Sir Giles, ‘that Sir Charles fully supported.’

‘Yes, well, I’ve always thought they were dangerous,’ said Luigi angrily. ‘The Calder twins are living examples of why we must hold steadfast to our traditions and rules. Those children … they’re … they’re
scherzi di natura
. Freaks of nature!’

There were murmurs of agreement around the table.

‘I haven’t heard anything about the Hollow Earth Society since university,’ said Frida absently.

‘Hollow Earth is a
myth
,’ said Sir Giles, thumping his fist on the table and rattling the tea service at its centre. Frida shrank back against her chair. ‘We all know that an Animare’s drawings have a limited existence beyond the Animare’s imagination. To believe that somehow there’s a place where these …’ he waved his hand in front of the tapestry of the Grendel, ‘these beasts and other creatures have been trapped is beyond absurd.’

Tanan strode across the room and placed his hand on Sir Giles’s shoulder, trying to calm him, but to no avail.

‘Despite the Society’s resurgence every few decades,’ Sir Giles ranted, ‘this Council has never found any proof that Hollow Earth is anything more than a tale told round campfires. As Luigi stated, what we should be discussing is that the Calder twins are an abomination of our kind. A dangerous hybrid of Animare and Guardian. And that’s why they should be bound!’

The room erupted in a cacophony of shouts and accusations as the members of the Council weighed in on whether or not the Calder twins were indeed an abomination. Putting her fingers to her lips, Blake let loose an ear-piercing whistle to restore order.

‘Ladies and gentleman, please,’ said Tanan. Tall and immaculately dressed in a grey tailored suit, he cut a commanding presence. ‘You are Councillors. You are above petty squabbles. The fate of the imaginations of two young Animare is in your hands. This should be a solemn undertaking.’

‘Where is Sir Charles anyway?’ asked Henrietta restlessly. She gazed at the empty chair at the head of the table.

The double doors opened and Vaughn Grant entered the room, carrying an ivory box inlaid with the images on the Celtic coins still lying untouched in front of the Council members. He handed the box to Henrietta de Court. Taken aback by the gesture, Henrietta quickly adapted and shifted to the empty seat at the head of the table. Vaughn placed a phone in the middle of the table and set it to speaker.

‘Sir Charles, everyone is present,’ said Vaughn, taking Henrietta’s former seat.

‘Good, good.’ Sir Charles Wren’s voice sounded reedy and cold. ‘My friends, I am unable to join you for this important vote because of a matter beyond my control. I have, however, let Vaughn know my vote, and with your permission he will act as my proxy. As has been the case since the twins were born and he took his stance on our rules, Renard’s chair at the Council table will remain empty. He will not have a vote in the matter before us.’

The gathering murmured its consent.

‘Before the vote proceeds, let me say I am as saddened as all of you at Arthur’s sudden death … and in such a brutal manner. I know that you’ll trust my associates, Tanan and Blake, to remain on top of this and to keep us all informed.’

Again, the gathering murmured its consent.

‘Now, to the Calder twins. We must make a decision today about their future.’

‘Sir Charles,’ said Frida, leaning forward to be heard. ‘We have never taken such a vote without the Animare in question being present. It’s a violation of our ancient protocols.’

‘Unfortunately, the twins are already in Scotland,’ replied Sir Charles dismissively. ‘We will take our vote without them present.’ Through the speaker, the Council could hear muffled voices and what sounded like an ambulance siren. ‘As you know, twelve years ago Sandie Butler and Malcolm Calder violated our Fourth Rule. By all means love and marry, but an Animare and a Guardian must never have children together. The mix of abilities can result in a fusion too dangerous to control.’

‘Hear, hear!’ acknowledged more than a few around the table.

‘There is not one example in our history of a child’s imagination being bound. But I would posit that in all our history, there have never been two Animare so powerful at such a young age.’

‘Sir Charles,’ interrupted Tanan, ‘we could learn a great deal from the Calder twins by studying them instead of binding them. A vote to bind them will only widen the growing split among us surrounding this issue. I suggest a compromise. Do nothing about the Calder children until they face the full Council on their sixteenth birthday.’

‘I appreciate your position, Tanan,’ barked Sir Giles, ‘but you don’t have a vote.’

‘The gold coin will be a vote for waiting until the children are sixteen,’ stated Vaughn. ‘The silver for binding immediately.’

Tanan and Blake retired to talk in low voices at the window. Henrietta de Court slid the box to Sir Giles, who immediately picked the silver coin and dropped it into the box. He passed the box to Luigi Silvestri, who also picked the silver coin. Frida was next, dropping her gold coin into the box. This went on around the table until every member of the Council had chosen a coin and cast their vote.

Vaughn slipped Sir Charles’s silver coin into the box and returned it to Henrietta de Court. She unlocked the brass latch and emptied the coins in front of her. She counted.

‘The vote is five silver coins,’ she said, ‘and five gold.’

She stared at the two coins in front of her. She picked up the gold one.

PART TWO

SEVENTEEN

The Monastery of Era Mina

Middle Ages

I
f Solon had not been in such a hurry when he dashed along the wooded path from the monastery’s stables to the Abbey, he might have observed the eerie quiet of the forest around him. No morning birds were singing. No animals were scavenging for their breakfast underfoot. No wind was rustling the treetops. It was as if the forest was holding its breath, waiting to exhale when the coming danger had passed.

If Solon had not been in such a rush when he sprinted up the narrow stone steps of the Abbey’s north tower, he might also have taken a moment to glance out through the arrow slits in the thick wall, spotting the outline of a longship beached at the island’s cove, its short masts and square sail cloaked in the dim light of the coming dawn.

But Solon was excited, missing both of these occurrences, because this morning the old monk would begin inking the final image in
The Book of Beasts
, exactly four years to the day since he had first started this momentous task. Today was also Solon’s thirteenth birthday, and to honour the day the old monk had promised that Solon could assist in the inking. Solon could hardly contain himself.

At the top of the Abbey’s fortified north tower, Solon stopped in front of a wooden door. Carved in relief at the centre of the door was the image of a winged white stag: a peryton. On either side, equidistant from the carving, were two brass handles. Solon pulled a key etched with the monastery crest from the pouch he had hooked to his leather belt, manoeuvring it into an opening hidden under the peryton’s wing. Solon turned the key counterclockwise and pressed his ear against the carving, listening for the complicated series of weights and pulleys shifting inside the thick wood. When he heard the final pulley drop into place with a sharp click, Solon flattened himself against the door. With the carving digging into his back, he stretched his arms and grasped each of the handles.

When he was sure of his grip, Solon took a deep breath and pulled the handles inward. Immediately, the door flipped backwards, tilting Solon upside down and placing him on the other side of the wall. Without a moment’s hesitation, Solon released the handles, expertly somersaulting off the door seconds before the handles locked down against the wood, trapping anyone still holding them. The door flipped another one hundred and eighty degrees, crushing against the stone floor anyone who remained trapped in the handles.

Solon released the breath he’d been holding and let his stomach settle. He was in a small ante-chamber, no bigger than a monk’s cell. It was pitch dark. Solon edged forward, his arms outstretched, until he reached a second door. This one opened without any tricks, leading Solon into the turret room, filled floor to ceiling with manuscripts and scrolls. This was the monastery’s scriptorium, the place where the monks kept all their written work. The only light filtered in through an arched stained-glass window set into the peak of the roof, turning the room into the inside of a kaleidoscope every time the clouds moved across the sky.

The monks had built the scriptorium at the top of the north tower decades earlier, to protect the illuminated manuscripts from the ravages of fire and the destruction of robbers. When the old monk had first shown the room to Solon, the boy had been unable to stay for more than a few minutes at a time, his senses so overwhelmed by the power of the images captured in the scrolls and manuscripts. Solon had felt as if his head was going to burst. It was on that day four years ago that the old monk knew conclusively that Solon was a very special apprentice with imaginative powers of his own, and someone the old monk could trust with the monastery’s secrets. And so he had.

The most important secret Solon had learned was that a few of the monks could make their art come alive: a magical power that they mostly kept to themselves, using it to make their manuscripts more beautiful than those of any other scribes in Europe. Many of the kings and queens and scholars who owned a manuscript illuminated by the monks of Era Mina felt as if they were transported to another world when they read. The monks called themselves Animare, which Solon knew meant ‘gives life to’ from the Latin he was learning.

Solon was always a little stunned when he first opened the scriptorium’s door. Although the old monk had taught Solon how to concentrate, how to use his mind to quiet the explosion of sounds and images in his head, Solon couldn’t help letting his imagination loose whenever he was near the books. When fetching a scroll, sometimes Solon would stand in the middle of the room, allowing the drumming inside his mind to rise to such a crescendo that when he closed his eyes he could see the images from the manuscripts as if they were all flashing in front of him like the flip books he and the old monk made to entertain the village children.