Digital Magic (The Chronicles of Art Book 2) Page 13

  These protuberances were not even enough to make a human take notice unless perhaps they stubbed a toe against them. The Seed knew and saw more than they ever could. This had once been a place of worship and a place of summoning. Now it was merely one of the places of power that surrounded Penherem. The animals could feel it, and most importantly, so could the prey that the Seed was waiting for so patiently.

  It didn’t take long. The bright silvered moon and the whispering of the dying leaves called to them like a siren’s song. Yet they had learned to be cautious. The mortal world was not as safe for them as it had once been.

  They were the smallest of the Fey, barely tall enough to be seen by mortal eyes. Ever so gently, they stepped onto the earth and made no sound. Their bodies, slight and subtle things, were just held together by faint magic. Under the moon’s grace they gave a soft glow.

  They drifted by, very close to the Seed, so close that they almost brushed against one of its splayed limbs. It did not rise up—not yet. The moment could be sweeter still.

  The Mother’s Children were bolder now, seeing nothing but the moon and the forest.

  Finally sure that nothing mortal lingered nearby, the sprites gave up silence. Voices of light and beauty like a thousand tiny chimes were raised in praise of the moon. They called down the ancient and powerful Mother; begging her to ring the village with her power. They scampered up the ancient oaks and raised their arms in supplication.

  It was a little ritual, begun by little creatures, but it was a beginning. The Seed did not suppose that such a thing had been done in this realm for more than five hundred years.

  A flood of its Master’s rage and loathing smothered those thoughts. The sprites would be the ones to fail, not it.

  They leapt and spun in the air, trailing silver light, weaving minor spells into this world with voice and body. It was a beginning —a beginning that the Seed could not allow to flourish.

  Finally exploding out of the leaves, muscle and anger drove it swiftly among the sprites. They were such tiny things that there was barely anything for it to destroy. One snap of its mandibles, and many screamed and died. They were not fast enough, and moth wings were not going to carry them free—not when the Seed was among them. They died quickly but not easily. Their killer was cruel enough to let them live a heartbeat; long enough to realize how they’d failed.

  Even when dead, there were still magics in them. The Seed swallowed, and power filled the empty crevices inside its head. The sprites might have been small, but their Art would sustain the Seed for a long while yet. As always, the Master's design was perfect economy.

  Revived, it could now send its senses down the hill towards the village. More sprites and touches of magic were revealed, but stronger still was the taste of the pooka. The Seed had a particular hatred of that one. Its Master recalled great humiliation at his hand. Filled with power, it contemplated action.

  Tempting as it was to grind the shapeshifter to dust, the Master’s will was stronger. The way had to be secured; there was no more important matter.

  Turning on its clawed feet, the Seed left the trammeled earth and turned towards the Hall.

  Edmund Claremont was drunk even before he got home. As he rode his tractor back to the farmhouse, he slipped the silver hipflask out and drowned the last of the whiskey in almost one hit. He wasn’t a very good drunk—people had told him as much. But it made his prison easier to bear.

  As he looked out blankly at the growing dusk, Edmund could remember when the farm had been a beautiful place; full of dandelion fairies, chirping birds and the sound of laughter. That had all ceased with the end of his childhood, and now those days were just a bitter memory to trouble his sleep.

  “Sleep!” He choked on a laugh—like he knew what that was anymore. The farm was royally buggered, as his father would have said. Penherem was more of a joke than ever. It was still the fat arsed shopkeepers that made the money, not a rundown family farm that hadn’t been able to afford decent equipment in living memory.

  Edmund raised the hipflask to his lips once more in the vain hope he’d missed something inside. He hadn’t.

  If only he could have got away, but everything had been against the only child of a rough-handed, bad-tempered farmer. The farm had become a prison, and before long they’d probably lay him in the cold earth of St Michael’s, right next to the father who’d done the same before him. Edmond almost looked forward to that. It had to be better than this.

  The tractor bumped and juddered its arthritic way down the hill. The farmhouse lights were out, except for one in the family room. Good, Jayne remembered what he’d said last time about wasting electricity, though she’d probably burnt his dinner again.

  It was just something she couldn’t get the hang of. What could you expect from a sprawl dweller who’d bought all her food in packets before marriage? Edmond’s lips twisted. She’d been here for years, yet never seemed to make an effort, with the house, the food, or friends. She hardly ever bothered going into Penherem now.

  After parking the tractor with a lurch in the tattered barn, Edmond stomped towards the house. His fingers compulsively rubbed the edge of the hipflask in his pocket. The first thing he did once inside was trip over Aaron’s toy truck, left lying in wait for him. He swore and fell against the wall with a loud thump. But no query came from the family room, no ‘are you all right?’ Typical.

  Jayne hadn’t even bothered to come to Hamish’s funeral and, he thought bitterly, she would probably do the same when he was pushing up the daisies. Maybe she thought he’d smashed his head and was waiting for him to bleed to death. Edmond grunted. “Yeah that’d be right!”

  With a savage kick he sent the toy truck careening down the hallway to thump into the door. Only then did there come an involuntary squeak of alarm from behind it.

  He needed another drink, so he turned into the darkened parlor where, like his father before him, he kept the booze. There was still enough light coming through the window for him to find his way to the cabinet without further injury. He unscrewed the sherry, which was all that was left, and drank it straight from the bottle.

  Hamish and Robert had been lucky. They’d been born only a few years before their father died. They’d never had to hear that great voice booming down the hallway, never had to hear what failures they were. Lucky bastards, he thought savagely, even though Hamish was now dead. Perhaps that made him even more worthy of Edmond’s jealousy.

  He spun around and looked morosely out the window. You could see the lights of Penherem from here, but you might as well be a million miles away. No one ever came up to the farm. Ever since his father’s, time the villagers had kept away.

  The old house reeled, or at least that’s how it felt to Edmund. The sound coming from the kitchen made his head throb and his hand clench on the sherry bottle. Alice was shrieking with laughter and the hallway pulsed with childish giggling. Somewhere down the hall, her brother had done something foolish—he’d probably broken something, knowing him. And then Jayne’s voice came in a hushed murmur and that somehow was worse than that damn laughter. He could see her just like she was standing in front of him; eyes down cast, head bobbing up and down on her neck, fussing.

  That was it! Edmund slammed the bottle down, sloshing the sweet smelling liquid on his fist. He was going to go down there and show them who the man of this house was; who was in control. He’d almost made it to the door when the bear woke up.

  Alice hadn’t named the ratty old creature she’d found in the attic three years ago, but she always carried it round. So it was strange to see the teddy sitting right next to the doorway. Edmund was sure it hadn't been there when he came in. Perhaps that’s what made him pause for a second.

  The bear hadn’t been his, though he could imagine the quiet Robert with it. Still, what was it doing down here?

  He made to kick it across the hallway. But there came a shift in the air; a kind of heat accompanied by a sweet smell like the roses his long dead
mother had once grown at the back door. And the bear was no longer a bear, or at least not the type that his brothers had played with. It was suddenly taller, much taller than Edmond himself, standing on its rear legs with its mouth half open. The shiny brass eyes were now green and glaring down at him. That strange heat was now as strong as a blazing summer sun.

  Edmond staggered back a couple of feet. The bottle dropped out of his numb fingers while his eyes remained locked on the bear’s dark curved claws, as wicked looking as a pair of hay forks. That was death, right there. He didn’t need to ask its name—there was oblivion waiting to suck him down.

  Perhaps he was mad, or maybe it was the booze, or maybe he was about to get what he deserved, but the bear’s expression somehow seemed to alter. The shocking green eyes lost their look of vengeance, and then the creature spoke. Its voice was soft, much too soft for such a large creature, but it did not alter the power of its message.

  Edmond, poor boy, look at what he’s made you.

  The bear’s head turned to the sideboard mirror and Edmond, following its gaze, looked into it as well. It felt like the first time since childhood since he’d really examined himself, and he didn’t like what he saw. The face he’d somehow thought of as jovial, was a lie. What stared back at him was grey-blue and black with hatred. It was the face of a monster, but with eyes that were sad and frightened; the same eyes as his mother’s.

  A strangled sob erupted from his throat

  He’s made you hate yourself. And the bear’s voice was deeply sorrowful, as if he’d seen something beautiful crushed.

  A sound came from down the hall, Alice’s own muffled cry. She was afraid of her father, even as young as she was. Edmond could remember being that scared, while his mother cowered in that same kitchen, trying to protect them. What would she have thought of her son now?

  Edmond clawed at his face, watching in the mirror as he tried to rip that hateful expression away. “No! God, what do I do? What can I do?!”

  The bear was closer now and the scent was utterly un-bearlike. It smelt of roses and warm bread and a mother’s love. Edmond felt himself crying uncontrollably.

  You go. The bear said. You go and find if your heart is still alive and if the boy your mother adored is still redeemable. If he is, you come back and spend your life showing that to them.

  Edmond stood there looking at the bear. He saw no judgment in those mint green eyes, only deep sorrow and perhaps just a little hope. Something hardened in Edmond; a resolve, a chance that he never realized he had. He’d walk to Penherem and take the first VFT to his cousin’s in York. Sara remembered that boy and she might know how to reach him.

  While the bear watched, he wrote down a quick note, which seemed to contain a lot of apologies. Then with a nod to the creature and a sigh of relief, he left the house he’d been born into.

  The bear watched him go. After the man was out of sight, he dropped his terrible form. The child’s toy became just that, and the little brown figure stepped out behind it.

  He was a Robin, a Goodfellow, often confused with that far more mischievous and powerful Fey, Puck. This particular Robin took a deep breath into his little lungs and looked about the house which had been his home long before Edmond Claremont had been alive. There had been Thatchers and Millers and a young Norman called Clare du Mont on this patch of land before he’d been forced to leave.

  The Robin’s long nose twitched. It felt good to be home and to have humans once more in his care. What had happened to young Edmond would not have been allowed in any house a Robin lived in, and he could only hope that he had shown him the right path.

  For his wife and children, he was sure he had done the right thing. Terror had no place in a family. The Robin dusted off his little brown jacket. It might take a while to train the woman to put a little saucer of milk out, but the children would soon catch on—they always did. Right now, it was time for him to get to work.

  Five hundred years might just never have happened.

  9

  Divination

  It was not going to be a good day. Ella woke feeling as though she’d run a marathon, sweaty and exhausted. The dream she’d had was a jumble of jarring images, one where wings and swords had seemed to be full of dire portents. So when she staggered out of bed finally, it was made even less cheerful by the message flashing on her HouseTalk monitor.

  Ella thumbed the replay button and frowned to find the visual had been withheld. It didn’t matter, she recognized Doyle’s voice in a split second and her heart sank predictably. First, there was the question of how he’d found her number, and then came the question she’d often asked herself: what exactly did she feel for the man after all this time?

  Doyle, both real and virtual, was oblivious to the effect he had on her life. The message told her that immediately, for there was no flicker of concern for how she’d been in the nearly eleven months since he’d last seen her—no, it was straight to business.

  As he spoke, she could imagine him smiling that familiar guileless smile. “El—we need to catch up.”

  Ella turned away while the message played, stroked Qoth, put on her dressing gown and pretended he could say what he liked.

  “There’s people asking about you—the sort of people you might not want to meet in a dark alley, you know. You better call me back, or I’ll have to come see you in the meatworld.”

  It was typical of Doyle to fake Liner terms. He’d always fancied himself as one, though never had the courage to get the gear installed. Still, he knew how to make a threat sound flippant.

  “Oh, Qoth,” Ella scooped up the cat and pressed her face into the thick brown fur. The warm cat scent was soothing somehow. Behind her eyelids flashed images of Doyle in Penherem. The villagers would never look at her the same way again.

  “Why can’t he leave me alone?” she asked Qoth fiercely.

  The delicate little mouth opened in a yawn, all pink gums and sharp white teeth, but if the cat recalled the ‘he’ in question she offered no opinion.

  Ella already had the answer; if Doyle was interested in her it meant there was money involved. He’d been rebuffed by her once. He’d spent months screwing anything female that crossed his path, slept with Ella while her vulnerability was still fresh and then had the nerve to claim he wanted to ‘be her friend’.

  That had been a sweet moment. From somewhere still unknown, Ella had found the strength to reply. “Be your friend? To be my friend I have to at least like you, and I don’t—so no, that’s not going to happen.” She still savored the surprised look on his face.

  Perhaps the best thing was that, finally and completely, it had been true. Doyle had looked in her face and, seeing not even anger there, known it. He’d gone after that. She was left to pick up the pieces of her self respect and start a new life.

  Ella went and took a long hot shower, got dressed in something a little nicer than her usual house clothes and prepared herself to find out why Doyle had crawled back into her life. It meant going back to the sprawl and that stirred up old emotions, yet she’d discovered her bravery in Penherem.

  Ronan remained silent. It took all his concentration to count how many people in all his years in this world had figured him out. It couldn’t be more than half a dozen. Not bad for nearly six hundred years, he supposed.

  Many thought him odd or unusual. Yet there were odd and unusual people too—some even stranger to the human eye than he. He'd grown used to blending in with humans. It made the current situation even more distressing.

  Glancing back, he checked to see if Bakari had given up yet; but despite the grueling pace he set through the back streets of the sprawl, the Liner was still dogging his heels. Dull rain had begun to fall on his hair and splatter onto those pitch-black shades. Perhaps Bakari thought that they afforded some protection from Ronan’s regard.

  The other grinned; he’d never had to rely on mere human senses. The scent rolling off his companion proclaimed his nervousness—which was good. Ronan
didn’t like it when people came out of a firefight as if nothing had happened.

  Greer had set Ronan and the Liner up, probably to boast of her cleverness, but the explosion of violence must have put her off. Still, she was the only one who might know what was happening with this mask.

  And he knew where she’d retreat to. The Greenhouse was not a place he’d wanted to revisit. In fact, the last time he’d seen Greer she had goaded him about that. “Afraid of a little greenery, mighty Ronan?”

  He wouldn’t put it past her to have instigated the whole mess just to get him there—she was that manipulative. It was very familiar. Her web of intrigue seemed to have caught him once again.

  Greer was not the person she’d once been, but she still had more magic than even Ronan had left. She’d sacrificed a lot of herself in order to gain it: mostly her humanity but also her sight. Even now, the thought of her lost emerald eyes gave him pain. It was she who had almost convinced Ronan that humans were beyond hope. Luckily, he’d pulled back from her all too easy solutions and found his love of people again. Yet now, here he was walking those same muddy, sullen paths back to her door.

  Ronan morosely sloshed his boots through the puddles and heard Bakari’s breathing change. That slight hesitation meant he was about to do one of only two things humanity was good at. Ronan clenched his teeth but the Liner did it anyway.

  He asked a question.

  “So what happens to the gun and stuff when you change?” Obviously the Liner’s logical mind had been whirring away as they walked. He pulled up close to Ronan’s elbow.

  How typical! It was always the same. Everything had to conform to some rule or other. Even with something as impossible to fathom as magic, people insisted on tying it down to rules and measurements. Sometimes Ronan wondered if it wasn’t because their tiny little heads would explode if they didn’t. What words could he possibly use to explain to Bakari what he was? How could he make him understand what it was to be magic, rather than constricted by any physical laws? Humanity was so obsessed with understanding that they insisted everything have a rule; something to be measured, something that could be replicated.