Fool on the Hill (37 page)

Sounds. Wolf, witch, whatever, the thing was still coming, very close now.

“It’s all right,” Noldorin said, holding Fujiko tight to him. “It’s all right.” Not stopping to think, he raised his ring hand and called out with as much surety he could muster: “Listen to me! We’re in the Circle! Do you hear? We’re in the Circle, and you can’t come in!”

Fujiko gasped. “Look,” The stones forming the Circle had begun to glow, a strong witchlight that cut easily through the gathering fog. Noldorin’s ring glowed as well; all at once the air did not feel nearly as cold.

The sounds of approach had stopped.

“That’s right!” Noldorin shouted, his voice firmer. “You can’t have us! We’re safe in the Circle, and you can’t come in! There’s nothing for you here!”

He waited, and Fujiko with him, wondering if the thing would leave now
that it had been thwarted. For a long moment there was silence. Then a loud rustling began, very near them. It was the white sheet being pulled free of the undergrowth where it had fallen. Though both strained their eyes to see, only Fujiko caught a glimpse of the creature, and a vague one at that: a dark shape with two blue sparks where eyes might have been.

Approach-sounds were now departure-sounds; it was leaving them, crashing back through the trees as if remembering an important date elsewhere. Noldorin relaxed, slumping limply back against Fujiko, his relief a thing almost too great for expression.

“What . . . what was that?” he stammered. He rested his head on Fujiko’s shoulder, shaking. Around them the ring of stones began to dim, their magic no longer needed.

“I don’t know,” Fujiko answered, a tear running down her cheek. “I don’t know, but Preacher and Jinsei are going to be walking right into it.”

V.

The white sheet had become animate at a touch, and now, as the obsidian-walled elevator rose swiftly up to the main floor, it wrapped itself around the Rubbermaid like a living shroud. The sheet was a spur-of-the-moment thing, a casual addition; the Rubbermaid’s search for a weapon was more deliberate.

On the first floor, seeking an exit, the mannequin discovered the Michel Delving Mathom-Hole. The Rubbermaid surveyed its collection of relics, each marked with its own label:
THIS IS THE HORN OF BOROMIR; HERE IS ANDURIL, THE SWORD THAT WAS BROKEN
. In one case that drew the ‘Maid’s particular attention lay a long black mace shod with iron. The label pronounced
THIS WEAPON WAS WIELDED BY THE LORD OF THE NAZGûL, THE WITCH-KING OF ANGMAR.

Glass shattered as the Rubbermaid thrust plastic hands into the display case like a weasel puncturing an eggshell, groping for the treasure within. The mace was solid, with a good heft. The Rubbermaid swung it once as a test, sending another glass case crashing to the floor, then hurried out into the night in search of prey.

VI.

Preacher actually spent a good long time necking in the front doorway of the Library before finally disentangling himself from Jinsei. The beckoning voice of the head librarian interrupted their reverie, and with a last peck Preacher turned and set out across the Arts Quad. It was 11:22.

He might have gone down the Slope, crossing Fall Creek Gorge along Stewart Avenue and so coming to Tolkien House that way; instead he chose to cross the Gorge on the suspension bridge. Ultimately it made little difference. Preacher’s movements as soon as he left the Library were tracked most closely, and compensated for.

Oblivious to his own peril, he half walked, half floated past McGraw Hall, whistling some or other love song that he’d heard that morning on the radio, snow swirling blithely around him. He cut left between White and Tjaden Halls, laughing out loud when he slipped on a patch of ice and almost fell. In front of the Johnson Art Museum he paused to listen to the wind chimes. In the cold winter air they made a flat, haunted sound, but Preacher found them cheerful. He found damn near everything cheerful tonight.

The bleak—but cheerful, oh so cheerful—glow of one of the campus Blue Light Emergency Phones marked the way down to the suspension bridge. The Phones had been installed several years ago after a series of at-gunpoint rapes. That had been a nervous time, back then; the rapist had been black, and Preacher, who was often abroad at night, had been stopped on no less than four occasions by Campus Safety. In the end the best efforts of the police had done nothing but drive the criminal to other hunting grounds, which turned out to be enough. Near the end of Preacher’s freshman year the rapist attacked one Donna Winchell of Cayuga Heights. Like her assailant, Donna Winchell carried a handgun, and in the crunch she turned out to be a hell of a lot faster on the draw than he was.

But Preacher did not think of any of this as he descended the metal-and-timber stair into the Gorge. He gave only a glance to the second Blue Light Phone at the bottom of the steps, with its instruction sticker:
PHONE IS NOT DEAD. TIME DELAY. PLEASE WAIT FOR ANSWER.

Still over a hundred feet from the floor of the Gorge, the suspension bridge hung elegantly, spanning the gulf with a quiet grace. The twin support cables were ice-encrusted and stretched away in perspective like beams of frozen light. A fresh layer of snow lay unblemished on the walkway, pure and white, the few random patches swept bare by the wind glittering with imbedded quartz. Preacher took a step onto that virgin layer, and remembered something his Orientation Counselor had told him during his first week here:
They say you’re not a true Cornellian until you’ve kissed and been kissed on the suspension bridge.
This Preacher had never done; he would have to bring Jinsei down here sometime, perhaps tomorrow on the way back from Tolkien House.

He took a second step, felt the vibration of the bridge under his weight . . . and another, much fainter vibration in answer. If he ever felt so much as a tickle of fear it was then, as he peered through the falling snow and caught his first glimpse of the white-sheeted shape coming toward him from the far end of the bridge. But the shape was alluring as well as unsettling. The white
wrap moved hypnotically, as if dancing not at the mercy of the wind but with its own will. Preacher could not help but wonder what sort of person was hidden within, so strangely garbed.

“Good evening to you,” Preacher said in greeting, as they met near the middle of the span. “Happy New Year.”

The shape paused, turned toward him as if to speak. The sheet flew open with a snap, revealing the Rubbermaid all bedecked in black leather, and Preacher’s last coherent thought was
My
God, her eyes are glowing.
Then the

Nazgûl mace swung up with deadly force, striking him full on the side of the head, blasting thought and balance to fragments. Preacher was felled like a tree, the flower Jinsei had given him flying out of his grasp. The Rubbermaid stepped over his prone form and readied the mace for a second swing, but none was needed.

The blow had spun Preacher completely around. Lying flat out against the snow, he saw through one unfocused eye the distant gleam of the Blue Light Phone. He no longer comprehended what it was for, but tried to crawl for it anyway. He got all of three feet before the Rubbermaid reached down, grabbing him by the collar and the belt, lifting him up, above the safety-fencing of the bridge.

“Gunnh,” Preacher mumbled from a broken jaw, vaguely sensing the long drop beneath him. One randomly flailing hand found and gripped a hank of the Rubbermaid’s hair, which was long and silky.
Jinsei,
he thought lovingly.

Jinsei,
his mind repeated, and the Rubbermaid hurled him into the void,
Jinsei,
he was falling, tumbling, it felt like flying, the wind rushing past him,
Jinsei I lov—
and a final shock as he plunged into the icy waters of Fall Creek, sharp rocks beneath the water, and beneath the rocks darkness, and long sleep.

The Rubbermaid did not even wait for Preacher to strike bottom. Mace in hand, it headed for Uris Library in search of Jinsei, Rasferret’s second practice victim. It was 11:35
.

VII.

Fairy lanterns illuminated the frozen surface of Beebe Lake, where the full company of The Hill’s sprites skated, danced, and cavorted, laughing and making merry as they anticipated the New Year. Only one remained aloof from the festivities: Hobart, who seemed to have aged tremendously since Halloween. Well wrapped in furs, he stayed near the edge of the lights, muttering to himself. Despite frequent requests he would tell no stories this night, though there was one tale he needed to tell.

Puck was matching riddles with Hamlet when Zephyr came to find him.

“What’s the matter?” Puck asked, seeing the concern in her eyes. She said nothing, only pointed off to where Hobart stood alone, half-shivering. Even from a distance the pallor of his face was frightful. “Is he sick?” asked Puck.

“I don’t know,” Zephyr told him. “He hasn’t been sleeping well, I think.” She caught his hand. “He says he want to speak to you. Alone.”

For no good reason at all Puck felt the first twinges of a growing unease at the base of his spine. “He wants to speak to me alone? What about?”

“He wouldn’t tell me. It has something to do with a favor he wants from you.”

“A favor . . .” Puck licked his lips nervously. He could not refuse, of course—in addition to being Zephyr’s grandfather, Hobart was, of course, Eldest, and you did not withhold a favor from the Eldest.

“All right,” he said, after a long hesitation. He excused himself to Hamlet, gave Zephyr’s hand a squeeze, and moved deliberately over to Hobart’s shivering form.

“You called for me, Hobart?” Puck greeted him. At first the old sprite, staring into the heart of one of the lanterns, did not seem to notice his presence. Only when Puck touched him gently on the shoulder did he look up.

“Good,” Hobart said to him, speaking barely above the level of a whisper. “Good.”

“Zephyr—” Puck began, that unease rising another notch. “Zephyr said you had a favor to ask of me.”

“A favor.” Hobart nodded. “I need an ear.”

“Beg pardon?”

“A listening ear. I have something I need to pass on, to an ear I can trust. One who can help me decide what needs to be done.” He drew a long breath, and coughed deep in his chest.

“Are you all right, Hobart?”

“Not in the least. So little sleep lately. Nightmares . . . you think they can get no worse, and then they do. Your plane carries two passengers, doesn’t it?”

“My biplane? You know it does. I brought Zephyr here in it.”

“Good. Good.” Hobart straightened up, seeming to regain a bit of his former strength. “I want you to fly me back to the Tower. We’ll have a drink, and a long talk. And then we’ll see if either of us can sleep.”

VIII.

At Uris Library, the letter R was at long last finished and done with. Rhetta Woolf had gone up into the stacks to take care of some last-minute business, leaving Jinsei to tidy up behind the circulation desk. Jinsei did this
effortlessly, whistling to herself thinking how she would soon be with Preacher.

Loud noises are always startling in a library, ordinarily a storehouse of soft whispers, and when the crash came, it was startling indeed. It jibbered in a splintering echo from the direction of the lobby, suggesting cataclysmic images: Superman hurling a glassed-in phone booth out a third-story window, an angry rhino taking issue with a chandelier. A silence followed which was not so silent as before.

“Mrs. Woolf?” called Jinsei, who had jolted upright at the sound, dropping a pack of borrowers’ cards to the floor. Her hand strayed to a convenient telephone; the number of Campus Safety was taped right on the back of the receiver. Then curiousity got the better of her, and, moving gingerly, she slipped out to the lobby to see for herself what had happened.

Apparently nothing had, at first glance. The lobby was multi-leveled; from where Jinsei stood, wide steps led down to the checkout desk; to the right of the checkout, the main doors remained shut and undamaged. Off to Jinsei’s left, a narrower stair climbed upwards, giving access on one landing to the Andrew D. White Reading Library.

The door to the White Library rattled in its frame, as if some prankster had hold of the knob on the other side.

“Who’s there?” Jinsei called, feeling foolish. Like the main doors, the entry to the White Library was made of glass, and she could see without moving that there was no one touching it within. Still . . .

She ascended the stair to the landing, drawn as if by a magic spell. The door continued to rattle; standing before it, she peered inside, straining, for the lights were out and it was difficult to see. Even so, enough light filtered in from the lobby and the outer windows for Jinsei to make out an amazing fact: it was snowing in there, actually snowing! And of course what had happened should have been obvious at that point, but for an instant she was completely taken by the illusion, it truly looked as if it were snowing indoors, and then the Tower Clock began to chime midnight.

“Magic,” Jinsei whispered, hardly realizing she had said it. As the New Year became reality, she laid her hand on the knob and pushed the door inward. A blast of cold air greeted her as she stepped inside.

IX.

As the Clock chimed its twelfth chime, Puck angled the biplane in for a final approach, a single wing-light his only aid in targeting the hangar entrance. “You did leave the doors open, didn’t you?” Puck asked, but Hobart made no response; he had been silent throughout the fight.

In fact Hobart did say one thing, as they swept in toward the Tower
pinnacle and the beam of the wing-light confirmed that the hangar doors were open. He said: “Something is not right here.” It was a mutter only, and Puck never heard it.

Then with a single bump they were landed inside, braking to a stop. The wing-light pierced the darkness, picking out the wreckage of Hobart’s glider at the rear of the hangar.

“Jesus, Troilus, and Cressida,” Puck muttered. “What did you do to that, Hobart?”

One again Hobart made no answer. The Eldest was otherwise occupied, sniffing the air. The hangar was crisp and cold, smelling principally of fresh snow, but beneath that there was another smell, far less pleasant.