The Hollowing (25 page)

She slept. Richard sat in an armchair and listened to her breathing, the words she murmured in her sleep, and her cries of pain, coming not from her broken body but from her broken memories.

At midnight he abandoned the vigil and went to bed. He lay awake for ages, staring at the moon, thinking of Helen and his son and the broad, good-humoured Frenchman.

Three years!

Lacan had expected to be gone on his own journey for six months, so he was far too long overdue. The thought of his loss brought tears to Richard’s eyes. Should he have stayed with them? Should he have waited for Alex to come back? If he had stayed, would Alex have returned? Perhaps he should have
believed
in his son more. And yet, in a way he
had.
How could he have known about the trickster figure of the Jack, drawing his own needs from his mind, making them real…? He should have
believed
in his son. The voice had been there, warning him. Not everything had been deception.

He drifted into sleep. His last thought was that he would invite Elizabeth Haylock to stay for a few days, after taking her to the hospital. He would piece things together with her.

He woke, in the dark, to the sound of horses and murmuring voices. Light flickered in the garden and he went to the window, looking down at the torch, held by a cloaked rider on a grey mount. The man saw him and called out a warning. There was a sudden flurry of movement in the house below and Richard ran downstairs to where Elizabeth Haylock had been sleeping. The couch was empty. At the back door he watched helplessly as the band of riders cantered back towards Hunter’s Brook, the flame from the torch streaming behind the leader, Elizabeth held in the arms of one of the riders, slumped or curled against him, asleep perhaps, or unconscious—perhaps content?—he would never know.

She had been removed from him, and from her own world, and this time she would not return.

He ran frantically along the bridleway, shouting at the raiders, not thinking of the possible consequences of his action, but by the time he reached the edge of the wood the torch had long since vanished into darkness. He eavesdropped the silence. He brushed through the undergrowth, a night shadow between two worlds, listening for horses, or voices, hearing only the breeze.

At first light he went back to his house and cried, partly for the woman, whose terrible journey to freedom had so suddenly been frustrated, partly for himself, for the loss of a contact with both Alex and Helen that he realised, now, he had needed desperately.

*   *   *

From Richard’s notebook:

—many signs of activity in the ruins of Oak Lodge. A large pit, filled with charred wood and bones—axe and knife marks on trees, dried excrement (both human and animal) and discarded raggy clothing, all suggest that the place has been in regular use recently.

No sign of Lacan’s machinery, although there are traces of the wires he used to create the boundaries. Usual feeling of being watched, but feels like a girl … No sign of her.

—round and round in circles again, but suddenly came to the horse shrine. The monolithic stone was overgrown with ground ivy, which I cleared to expose the carved image of the horse. Found a feathered arrow, point missing, and two rusting cans, the remains of Lacan’s encampment. From here I can at least begin to follow the right path to Old Stone Hollow.

—back to the shrine again, but this time climbed a tree and saw a high cliff in the distance, and am hopeful that this is the Station. Have made a friend of a Roman legionary carrying a treasure and shared his food. He’s a splendidly tanned man, black hair cut short, face weathered and full of good humour. His helmet is lost, but he carries a bronze-bladed spear carved with running animals, and a well-used and battered short sword, plus an equipment pack complete with tin and copper kitchen gear. His “treasure” is the Eagle standard of the Twentieth Legion. He himself is Catalonian, of a local royal birth, banished by his father. He joined the Legion in a town called
Burdigala,
which I think is Bordeaux, and was separated from his troop after a terrible skirmish. He carries the standard as a rallying point for the scattered men of his army.

—he shared crusty bread, made very palatable by dripping olive oil onto it, strips of very tasty dried meat and spiced sausage, and used leaves from his pack and water from the brook to make a sharp drink that tasted remarkably like spiced wine. All the time we ate he talked and gestured, made maps in the air, quizzed me and laughed. I learned this little about him, but not his name. His name he will not reveal.

—the Roman accompanied me along the river and probably just as well. Bone-armoured man, heavily painted, wild grasses attached to arms, shoulders and legs like bunches of quills, dropped on us from the heavy bough of an old willow. Murder clearly in mind, and the Catalonian dispatched him with great ferocity and determination, a massive strike from his spear, and then a series of punitive stabs, demolishing the stone axe of the opponent and splitting his bone corselet as easily as a butcher cuts through the breast cartilage of a chicken. One grass-bedecked head left hanging from the branch, turning in the wind. The Catalonian made a charm of one of the bits of our assailant’s protective bone, I thought for himself, but he presented it to me, an animal’s tarsal, now scratched with the sign of Mars.

—the cliff again, seen from a high bank through tall beeches, closer now. To my surprise, the Catalonian knows the place and is frightened of it. He calls it Spirit Rock, or Ghost Rock, and describes it as the scene of a terrible massacre, perhaps referring to the remains of mythagos at its perimeter. When I tried to question him more closely he became agitated, quite irritable, then whispered (using small signs too) that he believed in the Gods, but had never thought of magicians as anything but market-place charlatans. But many magicians had lived below the rock, and had been destroyed by their own evil charms. The ghosts of that magic remained, like a honey trap for a bear. He advised me against going there, but smiled and seemed philosophical when I shook my head. “You are part magician yourself,” he said, and prodded me in the chest. “Make a charm for me!”

—the Catalonian pointed me along a trail to Spirit Rock and I have finally broken the circular defences of this watching, thinking wood. I wrote my telephone number on a page from this notebook, folded it and inserted the paper roll into a section of rush. The legionary seemed pleased. It will be as useful to him as will his image of Mars be to me.

—going deeper. Claustrophobia is my constant companion, and faces in the undergrowth, so many of which seem familiar. I call for Alex and Helen, and am answered by shrieks, the beating of wings, or silence. Mosquitos and other insects are a permanent and excruciating nuisance. The Roman was good company. I wish he hadn’t gone. Where is Lacan? I hope he’s not too deep. Where the bugs have bitten me, the skin is raw. I try all leaves, and mosses, to soothe.

—three years and I have dreamed for days only …

Where is Helen? I feel confused. The buzzing and the biting in this moist heat is infuriating. I am watched from inside my dreams.

Hungry—I have been six days. Very tired and faces everywhere. Someone is calling me from inside my eyes. My arms and hands are weak.

—to write down. The cold.

Lacan has the hare, skin round his ears, and fire, and elegant forepaws. Fire is dancing. The bats. Is elemental of course, and quite corrupt, like bone marrow, and Alexander as the knight.

Cold is coming. Slopes up and down. Is this it? The dying place, the dust, the cold, and the lake and down, swimming. To the castle where the pike rules the lake.

A fire was burning, up at Hunter’s Brook. They were dancing round the flames …

With a cry, his body twisting to relieve the cramp in his thigh, Richard woke from a fever dream, drenched with sweat and frozen. He was in a crude shelter, naked from the waist down.

He knew at once that he had been here for three days, increasingly delirious. The notebook was open and damp, and he read his last ramblings with painful embarrassment. He had a clear memory of writing, and of feeling such
sense
in the entries. The fever, perhaps from the insect bites with which he was covered, had turned him quite crazy, however.

He was starving, and desperate for water.

Through the trees he could see tall stones and recognised them at once, as perhaps he had recognised them days ago, but through the obfuscating barrier of delirium. He was in the Sanctuary. Ahead, the river flowed; and on the far bank of that river, Old Stone Hollow waited for him.

He collected his equipment together and stood, still shaking from the days of fever, still weak. His mouth tasted foul, his face itched with stubble. He walked cautiously into the Sanctuary, looking for hollowsticks but finding none, concentrating on remembering where the dangerous areas had been, the one-way hollowing.

The graveyard was a soft, mossy swathe of woodland corruption, all features gone save for the occasional jaw, or socketed face, that might easily have been the decaying bark of a fallen tree. To walk across the dead was no different to walking in the deep, soft mast of a beech forest.

He slipped down the incline to the river and tears surfaced. He waded through the deep water, hauling himself up to the broken palisade, desperate to hear the sound of voices. And with a sense not so much of foreboding, but of deep loss, he walked into what was left of Old Stone Hollow, moving first to the crumbled ruins of the longhouse, then to the shreds of the canteen tent, where glass shards among the claw-torn canvas told of the last of Lacan’s wine. Eventually, he sat down in the mouth of the painted cave itself, below the streaming, running shapes of animals, and gave vent to his grief and frustration, letting all the tears flow, all the anguish frighten the birds with his shouts and sobs of fury.

Later that day, more composed, he wrote in his notebook:

Damage Report:
The outer wooden palisade has been smashed down, the poles left scattered and re-erectable. The wooden guardians have been burned. Traces of wires, and infra-red and laser generating equipment remain. The generator looks serviceable, but I have no idea how to service it, or the amplifiers that control the defences themselves. Plenty of oil.

The longhouse has been demolished from the inside with apparent ferocity and very little subtlety. The roof torn down and scattered, the walls pushed through in places with a large battering ram, perhaps a log. Fragments of maps, chairs and tables litter the place. This house is renovatable, at least in part. I can make a new roof from the old turves. The canvas tents have been shredded all save that over the generator, which can be patched up and made good. There are several tins of food, stacks of firewood, and a good amount of kerosene; also, metal objects such as a shield, rusting swords, and decorations. The compound is high with grass and thistle, which I shall leave, making a crazy path through it for extra defence. I shall search it for other items left after the attack and perhaps also will find a clue as to what happened here.

The good news is that the kitchen garden has flourished, with tomato and marrow plants, apple trees, and scattered bushes of raspberries and blackcurrants. There is a small olive tree, a rosemary bush, wild garlic, and onions and potatoes everywhere.

The lake: I can see the hollowing. Lytton’s viking boat hull is out in the water, close to the danger area, apparently untethered but motionless. The sail is furled, but appears to be intact.

Proposal:

1. I shall use pieces of the palisade to make a defensive wall along the river gully through the rocks that leads to the lake, and across the path that winds up to the top of the overhang.

2. Rebuild one end of the longhouse. Fetch boat to safety.

3. Learn about generators by trial and error.

4. Collect and reconstruct all that remains of the electronic defences around the hollow.

5. Build a new Guardian by the river, as grotesque if not more so than the previous incumbents.

6. Make hollowsticks in case of the need to travel.

7. Construct fishing equipment and hope for a good catch.

8. Wait for something to happen, someone to contact me, and try to contact Alex or Helen by power of dreams, belief, and shouting loudly!

Salvage:

Heinz baked beans
×
2

Marinated herring
×
2 glass bottles

Old Oak ham
×
3 (one with spear-point damage)

Gentleman’s relish
×
1

Meacham’s Potted Beef
×
1 (looks disgusting)

Cans without labels
×
7

Côte de Roussillon Rouge, 1962,
×
2 (cheers, Arnauld!)

Olive oil 2 pt
×
2

Colgate toothpaste
×
2

Plastic hairbrush
×
1

Silver cigarette lighter (working)
×
1 (Lytton’s?)

Leather shoe, left foot, size 7 plus bones
×
1

Mirror glass fragment 6
″ ×
5
″

Effigy in willow of dancing man
×
1

When he had finished this “log” he walked again to the lakeside and spent a long while letting his thoughts drift across the bright blue water. Herons stalked the reed banks near by and he watched them until suddenly they spread wide, black-fringed wings and ascended with much noise, out across the lake and back to their high nests.