Part 23 (1/2)
”It doesn't matter,” Mabb declared magnanimously. ”You were unprepared. You may send your gifts later, with my subject here. This apple is from my special tree,” she added. ”No other in the world has the same sweetness.”
”Thank you,” Fern said again.
Gaynor felt it was time to rush into the breach. ”How is the house-goblin-Dibbuck?” she asked. ”Will he be able to go back to Wrokeby now?”
Mabb's face seemed to darken. ”None of goblinkind will go there for an age and more,” she said. ”When all the spirits are driven out of a place by some great evil, it brings the abyss very close. Sometimes, it is an act of sorcery; sometimes, a mortal deed. Mortals talk loudly of honor and chivalry and the code of war, but they surpa.s.s werefolk in evil, when they wish. Are not the witchkind mortal, at birth?”
”We are always mortal,” Fern said bleakly. ”We just forget.”
”About Wrokeby,” Gaynor said hastily.
”Even the birds will not go back there for a long while,” said Mabb, ”or the little nibblers and sc.r.a.ppickers who live in old houses. Only malignant elementals will roost in its rafters, the kind who are drawn by the nearness of the void and the black humors that gather in such places. If the house-goblin returned, they would send him mad.”
”Will he be all right with your people?” Gaynor inquired.
The queen shrugged, twitching her wings. ”Maybe; maybe not. He is not strong like us wild goblins. He pines for his lost wards.h.i.+p. He may pine away until he loses his hold on existence and sinks into Limbo. Or he may live, and brood, and wither slowly in a long, long autumn. Who can say?”
”I wish him well,” said Fern. ”Tell him that.”
Unexpectedly, Mabb inclined her head in acknowledgment. ”The wish of so great a sorceress is a potent thing,” she said. ”I will tell him.”
Gaynor saw Fern suppress a wince.
The queen declined a gla.s.s of wine, to Skuldunder's disappointment, and departed, leaving behind the barkload of gifts and the lingering reek of Dior and dead fox. Studying Fern's face, Gaynor replaced the chardonnay with gin.
”Mighty,” said Fern, almost musingly. ”Such a horrible word. It sounds heavy heavy, like a mailed fist. Mighty is righty. I don't look look mighty, I don't mighty, I don't feel feel mighty, but I am a great sorceress. I destroy my enemies even when they think they are invulnerable and I slay my lovers lest I grow too fond of them. That is what I have become, or what I will be. It is written.” mighty, but I am a great sorceress. I destroy my enemies even when they think they are invulnerable and I slay my lovers lest I grow too fond of them. That is what I have become, or what I will be. It is written.”
”Written where?” said Gaynor.
”In the annals of Time-in a prophecy of stone-in the rus.h.i.+ng wind and the running water.”
”In other words, nowhere,” said Gaynor, determined to be pragmatic. ”Nothing is written till we write it ourselves.”
”Who said that?”
”I think I did.”
”It's a good one,” said Fern. ”I like it. But I already wrote my my fate. In blood.” fate. In blood.”
At work the following day, a prolonged session with the creators of Woof! Woof! magazine did much to take the edge off her mightiness. Hitches sprang up like toadstools: Gothic rock star Alice Cooper, invited to the launch because he was rumored to sleep with a couple of pythons, admitted to a snake phobia, and writer Carla Lane had gone into print to boycott the party since so many of the superstar pets were endangered species. A joke memo circulated the office saying that Richard Gere would be bringing his collection of gerbils, Freddie Starr a born-again hamster, and Tara Palmer-Tomkinson her new coat. (The last item turned out to be true.) Fern did not smile. She was about to quit her desk for an unavoidable stint in the Met of socializing with clients when the phone rang. Her hand hovered, hesitated, lifted the receiver. She wasn't looking forward to the bar. magazine did much to take the edge off her mightiness. Hitches sprang up like toadstools: Gothic rock star Alice Cooper, invited to the launch because he was rumored to sleep with a couple of pythons, admitted to a snake phobia, and writer Carla Lane had gone into print to boycott the party since so many of the superstar pets were endangered species. A joke memo circulated the office saying that Richard Gere would be bringing his collection of gerbils, Freddie Starr a born-again hamster, and Tara Palmer-Tomkinson her new coat. (The last item turned out to be true.) Fern did not smile. She was about to quit her desk for an unavoidable stint in the Met of socializing with clients when the phone rang. Her hand hovered, hesitated, lifted the receiver. She wasn't looking forward to the bar.
”Can I speak to Fern Capel?”
”Speaking.”
”Dane Hunter.” Of course: the American accent. A little to her surprise, she remembered him at once. ”I'm the archaeologist you met at the site in King's Cross. You were right about that inscription. We won't be working there much longer-the developers never give us enough time-but I thought you might like to come and have a look before they build over it.”
”Yes,” she found herself saying. ”Yes, I would.”
XII.
Fern went to King's Cross the next day, stretching her lunch hour. It was raining in a thin, drizzly, disheartened manner, but despite rat's-tail hair, dripping noses, and crumpled windbreakers the volunteers were still working with enthusiasm. Dane came to meet her in a damp sweats.h.i.+rt and straggling ponytail, his tan faded to sere in the gray of a British summer, his smile switched on a little too late, as if something about the sight of her disconcerted him. He was thinking she had lost weight and looked indefinably more fragile, less perfectly composed than before. He said: ”Those shoes won't do.” She wore high-heeled mules that seemed to hang loose on her feet; even her ankles appeared brittle.
”d.a.m.n,” said Fern. ”They'll have to. I forgot to bring any others.”
He took her arm to a.s.sist her over the rough ground.
”How did you get my number?”
”You wrote out the inscription on the back of your business card,” he reminded her. ”I hope you didn't mind my calling.”
”No, of course not.”
”I tried you two or three weeks ago,” he went on, ”but they said you were on holiday. Since then, things have been a bit busy. I've been attempting to convince the developers this site is important enough to be preserved, but we can't get any backing from English Heritage-they say it's 'interesting' but there isn't enough here. What they mean is, there's nothing to pull the tourists. And no one but you has been able to decipher the language on the stone. Take a look.”
The trench was much deeper now, the fallen stone raised so that the engraved lettering was visible on the side. Dane sprang lightly down and, without asking, lifted Fern after him. She leaned closer to read the words she had already seen in her mind. The script was Roman, not the far older Atlantean alphabet that is similar but more complex, including a separate sign for th th and several different vowels for variations on and several different vowels for variations on e e. ”Uval haade. Uval nean-charne.” ”Uval haade. Uval nean-charne.” A tremor ran through her as she recalled what Mabb had said about Wrokeby. ”I think . . . something happened here a very long time ago, maybe thousands of years. It's left its mark. It isn't a place for the curious to stand and stare.” A tremor ran through her as she recalled what Mabb had said about Wrokeby. ”I think . . . something happened here a very long time ago, maybe thousands of years. It's left its mark. It isn't a place for the curious to stand and stare.”
”My team don't seem to mind,” Dane said. ”At least . . . one of the girls was diagnosed with depression, but she probably had it anyway. Someone fell in a trench and sprained his ankle, we had the usual cuts and bruises, and one guy's eczema came back. Is that enough to justify a curse?”
”Not a curse,” said Fern. ”Just . . . leftover evil. The aftertaste of emptiness.”
He didn't mock. ”I guess I know what you mean. I always need a drink when I quit the site. But that's pretty standard, too.” He scrambled back up out of the hole and reached down to swing her up after him. ”I could use a beer now. How about you? There's a pub around the corner.”
”I have a meeting at three-fifteen.”
”That gives us at least an hour.”
The pub was small and poky inside, yellowed with cigarette smoke, patronized by a handful of barflies who looked as if they had been there since the Stone Age, or so Dane said in a murmured aside. ”So has the beer,” he added.
”I don't drink beer,” said Fern. She asked for a mineral water.
”No alcohol at lunchtime?”
”Not really. Oh all right, a G and T. Thanks.”
The barflies stared at Fern, but were evidently accustomed to Dane. He paid for the drinks and led her to a corner table. ”If you're hungry they do sandwiches, but they're not very good.”
”I'm not hungry.”
”Excuse me if I'm being too personal, but have you been ill lately? You look kinda thin.”
”Stress,” said Fern. ”Lots of stress.”
”I thought witches could just wave their wands and magic their problems away.”