Napier's Bones (19 page)

The seat of his
power, the place where he could not fail in his search.

Slow down,” said
Arithmos. “Coming up soon there should be a sign for Seil Island. Take that
turn and follow the road.”

About
two minutes later Dom passed the sign. He flicked on his left-turn signal and
turned in, then followed a small road that was surrounded by trees and farms.
Soon they were at a bridge, a stone structure that crossed a small body of
water no wider than eighty feet, the bridge a single high arch. Underneath the
bridge was a small green patchy-looking motorboat, heading south, one person on
board using one hand to steer the motor and the other to bail out the boat,
regular sweeping motions casting a fair amount of water over the edge, enough
to make Dom wonder how the craft stayed afloat.

“The Bridge Over
the Atlantic, the locals call it,” said the numbers in the back seat. “It’s
been a problem ever since it was built, back at the end of the eighteenth
century.”

“Problem?”

“Made it too
easy to come across,” answered Arithmos. “Things stay hidden easier when fewer
people can stumble across them. Cross the bridge and follow the road south.
We’re almost there.”

“Right.”
Dom put the car back in gear, waited for another car to come his way across the
single track lane on the bridge, then did as he was told. More trees, more
farms, a few other buildings.

Parked in a
small lot on the island side of the bridge were two large tour buses, several
dozen soggy seniors milling about in a parking lot, checking out two small
buildings that were likely tourist traps of some sort. As the rain began to let
up, others spilled from their buses and walked as quickly as they could to the
bridge, looking anxious to cross it on foot before the rain returned.

A couple more
terse directions from Arithmos, and then he had Dom park the car on the side of
the road, directly below an old grey stone church that was perched high on a
bluff. They climbed out, the numbers sliding through the rear window and
standing beside Dom. “Right,” said Arithmos. “Follow the road below, leading to
that farm in the distance.”

“We’re going to
a farm?” asked Jenna.

“Deeper. The
road to the farm is only to lead you in, and to fend off the mildly curious.”

Dom and Jenna
followed the road down, passed one driveway into one farm, kept going until they
were near to another. “We turn right here,” said Arithmos.

Dom looked. To
their right was a barbed wire fence, several cows standing on the other side,
watching them with the usual mild disinterest of domestic farm animals.

He turned around
and looked to their approach. The car sat below the bluff, the three stained
glass windows of the church sparkling, the sun finally having broken through
completely. Sheep sat further up the hill, behind a fence towards the car, most
of them calmly grazing, but one big ram, with immense curled horns and
testicles hanging down practically to the ground, stood on a rock and watched
them, keen eyes seeming to study every move Dom made. “I don’t like the way
he’s watching me,” said Dom, staring back.

“It’s not you,”
said Arithmos. “It’s me. That old fellow isn’t like what most folk expect of
domestic sheep; he can sense my presence, and wants to protect his harem. Let’s
move on before he gets so anxious he keels over from a heart attack.”

Dom and Jenna
walked over to the fence. There were small wooden steps built into a fence post
to make passage over the wire easier. “Aren’t we trespassing?”

As soon as
they’d crossed into the pasture the cows had spooked and run to the most
distant point they could find. “Private property is a little different here
than you might be used to, Dom. And we have had an agreement with the
landholders for centuries, now. I also understand that this place has become
something like a park, although the amount of visitors is kept down, numbers that
stay and help make it a little less visible. Even if you have a map, those that
are laid out here mean it’s an easy place to get lost in.”

“Numbers have an
agreement with the people who live here?” asked Jenna.

The mass of
numbers shifted, a shrug. “We work through others when needed.”

They crossed the
pasture, then climbed over another fence to a path, the road still in view to
the right. It wasn’t too hardscrabble, but there were a few rocks and holes to
avoid. By now the clouds had been banished from horizon to horizon, and Dom
paused for a moment, took off his jacket and tied it around his waist. Jenna
did the same.

“No traffic,”
said Jenna, as she pulled the knot tight. She was right; the road had been
without a single car since they had gotten past the bridge.

“There are other
reasons tourists come here besides the bridge,” said Arithmos. “But that’s the
main one. Perhaps today the storm and the numbers that accompanied it convinced
many to do other things. Here,” it said, thrusting an appendage to the left.
“Follow the path into these trees.”

The change was
almost immediate. Where they had been in a farmer’s field that could have
passed for one almost anywhere in North America, now they were in a wood that
looked like every magical forest from a fairy tale. It was old, so very old,
and it seemed to breathe on its own. The numbers here were flat and low to the
ground, dwellers of the forest floor that somehow couldn’t reach up and escape
from the branches of the trees that bent over to look down on them.

“Welcome to the
Ballachuan Hazelwood,” said Arithmos, voice barely a whisper.

The trees were
low, stunted, and gnarled, branches spreading out like slender fingers of an
arthritic, many-handed giant. Branches and trunks alike were covered by mosses
and lichens, and it seemed to Dom’s eye to be a different species not only for
each tree but even for each branch. Like elderly spinsters at a society ball,
each tree wore its jacket of lichen proudly, unashamed of the tattered look of
their coats, each fiercely proud of the latest fashion it could muster and
acutely aware that its glory days had long since passed.

Billy gently
cleared Dom’s throat, then spoke:

“Hear the voice
of the Bard!

“Who
Present, Past, & Future sees;

“Whose
ears have heard

“The
Holy Word

“That walk’d
among the ancient trees!”

“That’s a poem,”
whispered Dom, feeling the meter as Billy spoke it. “What’s it from?”

His shoulders
shrugged. “I don’t know. A distant memory, one that somehow felt right for the
moment.”

“Well,
if we get a chance, when we’re all done we’ll try and find it. Maybe it’s a
clue as to who you really are.” Jenna grabbed Dom’s arm and pointed. A small
animal was walking through the undergrowth, but at best Dom could only see a
dim shadow as it moved, more aware of its progress by how the trees seemed to
defer to it than by its actual presence. The last two trees seemed to bow down,
blocking their view of whatever was approaching them.

Then Dom and
Jenna slowly stepped forward, swept the weathered branches out of the way. “Jesus,”
whispered Dom.

In front of them
stood a badger, staring calmly into Dom’s eyes. Leaves on the trees trembled
for a moment, even without a breeze, and then settled.

“This animal is
a familiar for this part of your journey while in the land of Napier,” said
Arithmos. “The numbers that live here are old, senile, and therefore
ill-equipped to carry the memory of what has been placed here. And before we
were placed in the package that went to America, we were given only enough
information to take you to your first stop.”

“So this badger
is to help us?” asked Billy.

“The numbers
here may be ancient and tired,” replied Arithmos. “But they are more than
enough to hide something if needed, completely unable to be enticed or forced
to reveal that same item, or to work in any way with a numerate.”

“Ancient
and tired?” Jenna knelt down and touched some numbers poking out from beneath
the undergrowth. They made a feeble effort to slide away from her, but unlike
other numbers couldn’t get away, and were all bent and warped in odd fashions.

As she did this,
Dom again found himself looking through her eyes. Just as quickly, he was back
in his own body, but before he could say anything, Arithmos spoke again.

“You might say
they’re senile. A good numerate can still call upon them, but we doubt even
Napier would be able to compel them to do what he wanted for more than a few
seconds.”

“So how does the
badger fit in?” asked Dom.

As
if in answer, the animal walked past them and, with one glance over its
shoulder to make sure they followed, picked a path through the raggedy ancient
forest. Dom and Jenna both had to duck low many times, dodging limbs and
lichens and pale numbers all.

After only two
or three minutes they arrived at a copse of trees that, if anything, looked
older than all the others. The badger nosed at the base of one tree, then sat
back on its haunches.

“Your turn now,
Dom,” said Arithmos.

Dom raised an
eyebrow. “What? I’m supposed to sniff the tree?”

“Just touch it.”
Arithmos said this with a hint of impatience. “That’s the tree the badger has
picked out, so the next move is yours.”

Dom stepped
around the unmoving badger and reached down, touched the same spot where the
animal’s nose had touched. The trees all around shifted at the contact, and now
as Dom looked up he saw the last shred of blue sky covered by green. The trees
were no longer shrunken and low, instead stretched as high as they possibly
could, creating a green vault with reaching, arthritic limbs. He could hear
their groans as they did so, could see numbers the likes of which he’d never
seen drifting from the branches and falling to the ground like a gentle shower
of leaves in an autumn breeze.

The ground spoke
then, a chorus from the roots of every tree around them, a cacophony of voices
climbing into the air, most of them speaking languages or dialects
unrecognizable to Dom. He jumped back and looked at Jenna, but she shrugged and
shook her head, and in response Billy shook his head as well. Even the scraps
of words he could make out as English did nothing to tell him what was
happening, what was being said.

After no more
than a minute, the voices quieted. Everything was still and silent for another
few seconds, and then the tree Dom and the badger had both touched creaked and
groaned, and with a grinding and popping noise, its trunk split in two, from
the ground or below, reaching up almost four feet high. The bark peeled back
first, followed by the rest of the tree, and Dom instantly jumped back with a
yelp, landing on his butt with Jenna’s hand suddenly and painfully clutching
his shoulder. Inside the darkness of the tree several pairs of eyes peered back
out at him, curious, insistent and unblinking, reflecting green from the
surrounding light, with just a hint of yellow flashing through for the briefest
of moments. The weight of their gaze was heavy, but he couldn’t turn his eyes
away, scared as he was right now.

The badger
stepped forward then, burrowed its way into the open tree and came out with
something in its jaws. The trunk stood open for a moment more, and then the
attention of the eyes turned from Dom and was cast downward, and with more
noise, rustling of leaves and snapping and clacking of wood, the tree sealed
itself whole again. Dom felt himself relax, tense shoulders finally easing
down, and sensed the entire forest do the same. Sunlight returned to dapple the
leaves and ground, and the branches of the trees no longer seemed bent into
unnatural positions.

The badger
shuffled across fallen leaves and dropped the item from its jaws to the ground
in front of Dom, and with one last glance back, turned and disappeared into the
forest. With a look up at Jenna and Arithmos, Dom reached down and, thumb and
one finger only, delicately picked up the item.

Whatever
it was, it was covered in dirt and the detritus of generations’ worth of forest
floor, even though it had quite plainly been stored inside the tree. Inside,
something long and thin rattled. Dom went to wipe away the gunk as best he
could, but Arithmos stopped him with the soft but firm touch of a numerical
limb.

“It stays safe
from Napier’s eye as long as it remains covered, so don’t clean or open it
yet,” said the numbers. “Pocket it safely and keep it until we gather the other
two parts.”

Dom tucked the
cloth away as he stood up, and then he wiped off the seat of his pants. Jenna
reached out and stopped him, then proceeded to slap the dirt off his rear. He
smiled at her and said, “We have to do this two more times?”

“One is close
by, one a little further. We’ll leave the wood now.”

Dom and Jenna
stood still for a moment longer, just listening to the quiet of the wood.
Finally, Billy said, “I suppose we should go.”

Jenna nodded her
head, reached over and took Dom’s hand, and they walked back the way they’d
come. Back on the road, Arithmos pointed up above their car. “Your next stop is
the kirk.”

“Kirk?”

“Church,” said
Billy. “Is that where the next package is?”

The
numbers nodded. “We can’t go in; it’s consecrated territory, and we would
dissipate before we set foot in the door, completely unable to retain this
form. But there will be another familiar waiting for you inside.”

“Consecrated?”
asked Dom.

“Not like you’d
imagine. It’s a rite that uses numbers in order to keep certain other types of
numbers out. Numbers that once upon a time were considered demons.”

“Like yourself?”

“Like myself.”
With that, Arithmos faded from sight.

Dom looked at
Jenna, and then with a shrug he walked along the road to the edge of the long
driveway up to the church on the hill. Jenna kept pace beside him without
saying anything. The doors to the church were locked, but as a symbol of
everything that could possibly be different between this place and home, the
key was in the lock and a small sign was on the door, welcoming visitors to the
church and to view the stained glass windows, and asking that they lock the
door again on their way out. Feeling bemused, Dom turned the key and in they
walked.