Prospero's Children (18 page)

“What would happen,” she asked, “if you just—stepped across?” She pictured a forcefield, a thunderbolt, instant annihilation. None of them seemed feasible.

“I would have broken one of the ancient laws,” he responded gravely. “That would not be tolerated. Retribution would come soon. Even the Old Spirits fear such transgression.”

And I invited Javier in, thought Fern, when he came on Thursday.
I
invited him. And now I dare not ask Ragginbone . . . “We have the key,” she said, meeting him eye to eye.

“Are you sure it’s the right one?”

“It burned me,” said Fern. “There was no mark, but it burned me
inside
. It didn’t harm Will, though.”

“He’s too young. Even if he had the Gift, it could not be stirred. The touch of the Lodestone wakes its own power— when you are ready.”

Fern ignored the implication. “Would it restore yours,” she asked bluntly, “if I gave it to you?”

“It might.”

“Is that why you want it?”

“Perhaps.” He sighed. “When I was young and hungry I used power for selfish ends, as so many do. Then I discovered the seduction of benevolence, and playing at God to dispense justice and punishment. Only when I was powerless did I try to do good for its own sake—or for mine: who knows?—and by then there was little left I could do at all. I am a Watcher; action is for others. Still, I have dreamed of being able to act again.” Unexpected mirth wrinkled his face, twinkled in his eyes. “I am only human, as the saying goes, for all my longevity. What a wealth of meaning in an idle cliché! I am only mortal, desperate, urgent. Spirits have endless ages in which to do nothing, if they so choose, but humans have death to hurry them on. Near or far, the end is always in sight. We have no time to stand and stare. Make your choice, Fernanda. Talking of time, you are wasting yours. If you don’t give me the key, what
will
you do with it?”

“And if I do, what will
you
do with it?” she countered quickly.

“I’m not certain,” he admitted. “I have always believed that when I had the key, I would know.”

“Damn,” said Fern. Suddenly she smiled. “That’s what I thought, and I was wrong. You’d better come in.”

She called Will downstairs, adjuring him in a murmured aside to keep the key hidden in his pocket for the time being, and they all went into the kitchen. Seeing Ragginbone seated at the big wooden table, drinking very sweet, very strong black tea from a stoneware mug, struck Fern as curious simply because she found it so easy to accept: he fitted into the domestic scene as effortlessly as he had blended into the hillside. And Lougarry lay in front of the stove, her chin on her paws and her ears pricked, like any dog who finds the warmest place to couch, regardless of the summer outside. It should have been difficult to credit that this slightly eccentric figure, drinking tea and munching biscuits like an ordinary visitor, had once been a wizard who still retained authority if not power, while his companion toasting her flank against the Aga had hunted as a werewolf in a northern forest and slaked her thirst on human blood. It should have been difficult; yet somehow it wasn’t. Belatedly, Fern realized it was she who had changed, broadening her scope to embrace two worlds, the old, safe, hidebound world that would be forever childhood, and the new, terrifying, unfamiliar world of broken rules and illusory enchantment—the world that was teaching her to grow. Now, the two merged naturally, light and werelight, shade and shadow, here in this kitchen where Will kept the key to the Gate of Death in his pocket and Fern related the events of the past few days as if such happenings were part of her normal routine. She started with the process of finding the key then jumped back to Javier, her dream, the incident with the idol. Ragginbone waited until she had finished before he offered any comment. A little to her surprise, it was the dream and the idol which exercised him the most.

“Azmodel,” he said. “I feared as much. You saw no one?”

“Only the images in the temple.”

His face clouded, as if with a memory both abhorred and desired. “I have passed through the Garden of Lost Meanings when goblin-paw and cloven hoof danced among the leaves, and music thrummed from concealed grottoes. I have stood with the worshippers in the tabernacle, and breathed the fumes of incense and opiate, and seen the blood of sacrifice running over the feet of every idol. Only the colored lakes are always deserted. None can long endure their vapors, and neither bird nor beast will linger there.”

“I saw a bird,” said Fern, “drinking in one of the lakes. But it was only a dream—wasn’t it?”

“Was it? Describe this bird.”

“I knew what it was,” said Fern, “the way you do in a dream. It was a phoenix.”

“Well, well,” said the Watcher, inexplicably gratified. “It may have been a sign, and it may not. It may have been merely fortuitous, a wayward illusion. Many have waited there to see the firebird come down to drink, and have sickened on the foul air and seen nothing.”

“
I
didn’t feel sick,” said Fern.

“You were dreaming,” said the Watcher, with his customary bizarre logic. “However, there are many kinds of dreams. The Gifted can tune in to the mind and memory of others, often through the medium of sleep. And the powerful can induce dreams to convey messages, to germinate ideas, to communicate, to deceive, to implant a reaction or a command deep in the subconscious. I suspect that is what has happened here. You may have traveled beyond the body in a dream-state or been subjected to an elaborate hallucination— the second is more likely, were it not for the phoenix—but the intent was to program you with a specific response. When you see the idol, you say its name. In our discussions, I deliberately left the Old One nameless: to name him is to summon him, and he has many ears. In naming the receptor, you conjure the Spirit. A bad idea.”

“But I tried it,” said Will, “this afternoon, when I got back. Fern didn’t come and I was pretty desperate. I called it Jhavé and Jezreel; I couldn’t recall any other names. Nothing happened.”

“You were saved by your defective recollection,” said Ragginbone, directing a fearsome scowl at him. “Of all the imbecilic things—to try calling up archfiends because you have nothing else to do. Fortunately for you, the idol represents the one demon-god, and reacts to no other appellation. Try not to be so stupid again: it might be terminal. What we have to do now—” he turned back to Fern “—is to clear the programmed response from your mind. We’ve frittered away time enough in small talk. You’d better get on with it.”

“M-me?” stammered Fern. “But I don’t know how—”

“I will tell you,” said Ragginbone. “First, we have to find it. Close your eyes, open your mind. Let the light flow in. Empty your brain of thought: let the light reach every corner. Soon, you should see it. It will appear as a blemish, a tiny burl of shadow that the light does not disseminate. Can you see it?”

Shutting her eyes obediently if without much hope, Fern attempted to evacuate any residual thoughts from her brain. The embers of imagination flickered and faded, quelled by the opening void in her head; she was amazed to find she could feel—she did not think that
see
was the correct verb— a kind of illumination entering her from somewhere above, flooding her inward self. And there was the unwanted response, like a fleck of darkness floating on the glimmering landscape of her mind. “Yes,” she said. “I see it.”

“Erase it,” said Ragginbone.

“How?” Her concentration did not relent: she focused on the shadow-blot, trying to fix it in one place. She was filled with a peculiar certainty which she had no leisure to analyze or understand.

“Use the light. Smother it.”

Without pausing to think or question Fern opened her mind still further, letting in more and more of the brightness which was not so much a radiance as an irradiation, a light from a dimension of light itself, where darkness could not live. The shadow began to shrink, growing clearer and more dense as she compressed it, until it was reduced to a pinpoint blacker than a black hole. And then she gathered all her strength and squeezed it in a fist of light, tighter and still tighter, destroying it with revelation. Will saw the blood rush to her face and the sweat-beads roll down from under her hair; he said: “Is she okay?” but Ragginbone did not answer. And then her color receded and her head drooped and she said in a wisp of a voice: “It’s gone.”

“Well done,” said the Watcher, and she saw he meant it. “That was a very hard thing to do. So hard, I thought it best to give you no time for reflection or doubt. As I hoped, you have the force I have lost. But it was a lot to chance on hope. The pressure of the dark could have damaged your mind for good.”

“Are you telling me,” Fern said faintly, “that you weren’t sure it would work?”

“Nothing in life is sure,” said the Watcher.

Too horrified to answer, Fern could only stare at him.

“It had to be done,” he said. “If the Old Spirit were to gain even so tenuous a hold on you, the implications could be appalling. Don’t you understand? The immortals cannot use the power of the Lodestone: it is a thing from beyond the Gate, and they are bound too closely to this world. He needed you to control it. Alimond is obviously getting out of hand: she has almost escaped his influence. You, however, are young and malleable, easily tempted, easily managed—or so he thought. He underestimated both your resistance and your Gift.”

“
Fern
has the Gift?” said Will.

“Of course.” Ragginbone’s attention was still fixed on the girl. “Why do you think the unicorn returned to you?”

“I released him from the picture,” said Fern. “He was grateful.”

“Such creatures do not know gratitude. He came because you needed him—because he loves you. He responded to your power, your youth, your purity—”

“My what?”

Under outthrust brows the Watcher’s eyes gleamed with gentle mischief. “Don’t you know the legend? A unicorn can be tamed only by a true maid. You, I’m quite sure, are a maiden still. Make the most of the association: it won’t last.” Fern, to her fury, found herself blushing; Will giggled. “Where did he take you?” Ragginbone went on.

“It was a beach,” said Fern, still unwilling to speak of it. “A beach at night, under the stars.”

The eyebrows went up: for the first time Ragginbone looked unnerved. “Illusion?” he murmured. “Unlikely—the unicorn has no such skill. It must have been truth . . . Yet who has ever seen the silver beaches on the Margin of the World, save in a fantasy, a dream, a crystal gazing far away? It was said the place did not exist outside the realm of story—or if it did, who could ever go there? It seems the question is answered. There is a strange fate on you, Fernanda—or perhaps only a strange chance. But fate or freak, we must tread carefully. There are forces stirring here that I did not expect to rouse.”

“What forces?” asked Will.

“Even I don’t know everything,” snapped the Watcher. “I am several thousand years short of that. Now, will you show me the key?”

Will looked at Fern: she nodded. He lifted his T-shirt and fumbled in his pocket, his face blanching. “It’s gone,” he said in a pale voice. “It was here—I had it—but it’s gone . . .”

“It
can’t
have!” Fern jumped to her feet and dragged her brother from his place at the table. “Here, let me look. Pull your pocket inside out. Don’t tell me
you
have a hole—” She turned to the Watcher, who sat silent and still with thought. “Could it have been taken by—by magic?” She did not sound convinced of it.

“Oh no,” he said, “not
magic
.”

“But we’re alone in the house.”

“Not entirely.”

“He wouldn’t,” Fern said, as comprehension dawned. “He’s on our side—”

“He’s on no side.” Ragginbone stood up, drawing himself to his full height, taller than Fern remembered and infinitely more daunting. His face grew stern: the wrinkles of sorrow and merriment faded, leaving only gaunt bone-shadows and eyes that glittered in their sockets like sunken jewels in a cave. Casual eccentricity slid from him like a veil: for the first time since the circle she seemed to see the true man. “Go and watch for Alimond,” he told Lougarry. “Delay her if you can. We need more time. I will deal with this pickpocket.” Lougarry nudged at the latch on the back door and was out before Will had moved to assist her. The Watcher fixed his gaze on the entrance to the hall, making a slight but emphatic gesture with his hand and speaking in the language Alison had used to conjure and dismiss, words and rhythms that Fern was already beginning to find strangely familiar. His voice altered with the alien speech, acquiring potency if not power, hardening to the edge of harshness and crackling on the consonants as if the language itself generated an electrical force. The bundle took shape under the direction of his rage, quailing against the door-frame, one crooked fist clasping something pressed into his stomach. In his drawn face all sadness was lost in the distortion of terror.

“Malmorth—” the Watcher began, but Fern interrupted, leaping into the breach with the compunction that Pegwillen always roused in her.

“Don’t hurt him! He means no harm. He would never willingly betray us.”

“He understands neither loyalty nor treachery. He has forgotten what such concepts mean—if indeed he ever knew.”

“That’s not true,” said Fern. “He’s a house-goblin: he’s loyal to the people in the house. What did she do to you, Pegwillen? What did she threaten? You can tell me.”

The panic that gripped him seemed to ease when he looked into her face. “She summoned me,” he whispered. “I had to go. You can’t refuse. Even
he
—” he indicated Ragginbone “—can’t refuse. She told me—awful things. She said . . . she said she would send a stranger, with the red fever, like before, and you and the boy would go where Nan and Wat and Peter went, and never come back. No one would ever come back. She said she would see to it that I was alone for always. Always. Never able to sleep or forget. All alone here . . .”

“She can’t do that,” said Fern with unexplained confidence. “She hasn’t the power.” Ragginbone, his anger arrested, watched her with an expression of curious satisfaction. “That fever was long ago. You can’t reanimate the past.”