Beneath the Tor (32 page)

It's hopeless. Even if Shell careered straight down the hill, Morgan could stop her tracks by raising one finger.

Shell does not move, except to reach up and grasp the hem of his long coat, tugging. “Come on, my tantric lover. You can do this. Mmm?”

Step by step, controlling Selkie's leash, Morgan le Fay walks the distance between them. She puts her hand around his hand, which is grasping the wooden staff. She lifts the rod, and, with her tremendous strength, she lifts Ricky also. He's dangling, looking down on Shell's honest face. She cannot see the danger.

Morgan's movement is so quick. A flick of her wrist. Even before he has registered the action, it is done. The staff is balanced, not in the grass of the Tor, but at the centre of Shell's neck, at the point where the flesh dips before the bones begin. Shell's eyes flash wide and her hands come up to grasp the staff.

“Ricky!” Her voice sounds odd. She's pulling at the staff, both hands tight around it, but she can't budge it, she can only make things worse by struggling, heels digging into the ground, knees thrashing from side to side. A hand slams the ground. Each time she bucks and kicks, the rod slips deeper. She makes a sound, the sound that comes from someone in trouble.

In dire need.

Morgan is driving the pain into his head as she drives the point of the staff into Shell's throat.

Your weapon is in your hand. Finish her.

He feels Morgan's grip on the back of his fist. It's like stone from the fire. He looks down the shaft, towards Shell. Her legs are stiff now, the heels hammering as the windpipe closes. Her eyes are like balls that might roll out of her head. Her mouth is open, gasping. All at once, he's begging. “I made the sacrifice! I won my spurs, I dealt the blow …”

He dealt the blow. Each blow sickened him. This blow will defeat him.

Selkie leaps on its hind legs and lashes with its claws.

Finish her. The sacrifice must be made.

Will this death save the wasteland? His hands are burning. The staff is burning. Shell's face, below him is burning. Everything is on fire.

“How will more blood get us into the Hollow Hill?”

He holds his breath and waits.

Morgan places her hand on his forehead and while it lies there, the headache lifts. The nonpresence of that throb is so intense, he gasps. She nods once. Affirmative. Yes. One more death. The Foolish Knight. That will get them in. It will.

She takes her hand away. A shaft of pain accelerates through his head. He tightens his grip on Wolfsbane's staff.

“Death of beauty!” the acolyte shrieks. “Death of grace! Death of love!”

thirty-one

the foolish knight

Anagarika was kitted out
in sensible walking gear—lace-up boots, waterproof trousers with gaiters, and an insulated jacket. That was better at least than his monk's habit.

I'd hotfooted it from my car as the sun began to set, afraid they'd start without me, but Anag was alone in Wellhouse Lane, standing under the only streetlamp, eating from his hand; chips wrapped in paper. I could smell the grease and vinegar as I came up to him.

Even if I could do nothing at all to help matters, I needed to be there when Anag showed Ricky the labyrinth path.

When you eliminate that which you no longer need, one possibility will remain
. I'd taken away all the things that were not needed and the answer—impossible, unimaginable—came clear. It had been late in coming, too awful to contemplate. Perhaps if I'd taken this leap of faith earlier,
Marty-Mac
might still be alive.

I saw her spirit rise
… Alys's death had been a cosmic explosion, expanding into this night on the Tor. Once I understood that, the entire picture had formed. A trail of bloody attacks leading here—Glastonbury Tor—where it had all begun.

Eijaz made me sit down and eat a sandwich before I left the student house. He cut the mouldy rind off some
dried-out
cheese and grated it onto white bread. I put the kettle on again and sneakily put two separate tea bags into our empty cups. After that I'd flung my shoulder bag onto the back seat of the Vauxhall and driven south towards the action. I could not let go of this until Ricky was safe from the influence of Morgan le Fey.

I'd been hoping, as I took the
ninety-minute
drive from Bristol to Glastonbury, that a plan would emerge, but so far I'd come up with nothing.

A walk up the Tor in the moonlight, had Anag and I been alone, would be a lovely thing. But Morgan le Fay's savage presence would be there, hidden out of sight, around a corner, behind a tree.

Find Morgan le Fay. That was the plan.

That was the jeopardy too.

“Hi there.” Anag raised his food in the palm of his hand. “These are
de-lish
. Want one?”

I took a chip, absentmindedly. It was greasy in my fingers. “Where are Ricky and Shell?”

“Dunno. I sincerely hope they're not letting me down.”

“When did they say they'd get here?”

He checked his watched. “Sundown. And yeah, the sun's properly down.”

“I thought you said you were meeting at the Living Rock?”

Anag shrugged but moved off, gravel crunching under his big boots. We reached the start of the labyrinth walk, the Living Rock. It was an outcrop of sandstone, one of two on the Tor. Ricky was nowhere to be seen. I grabbed that opportunity.

“Anag, there's things you don't know. About Ricky. When he gets here, you have to help me persuade Shell that he has to go to hospital.”

Anag gawped at me. “Ricky isn't sick!”

“He is ill. He's ill in his head. He's out of his head, not responsible for his actions. He's a risk to himself and others.”

“Don't be a whacker. Little Ricky? He's fine.
Fiddle-fit
. He might be a stick insect, but he could carry a sheep on his back.”

“I don't mean that sort of ill …” I wasn't getting through. Anag refused to pick up the unease in my voice. As always, he was drifting in the fug of his own place in the universe. He hadn't even bothered asked how the funeral had gone. I pulled my jacket tight. The wind whipped around the cone of land after dark, even in summer. “The things I've discovered … I'm worried … you
must
call this off, Anag!”

“Stuff that! I can't wait for this walk, Sabbie. It was pretty okay, when we did it on the workshop, but I didn't really find my soul. Reach enlightenment. Yeah, that's how they put it. Reach enlightenment. They said we would, but they were pulling a fastie. You wouldn't, not on your first time, would you?” He picked out the rest of the good chips and screwed up the paper, and finding no bin, stuffed the screw at the base of the Living Rock.

I was sure Anag had a soul. A gentle soul, a young soul. It would benefit him to walk the Tor in the moonlight, had he not chosen precarious company. Anag wanted to do this far more than he wanted to listen to me. He was going to show us all how clever he was, how he could walk the labyrinth at night.

“What d'you know? Ricky's stood me up, the crummy bastard.” Anag pull printed pages out of his map pocket. “May as well bone up anyways. Might do it on my own. You game?”

“What is that?”

“A handout from the workshop. The plan of the labyrinth.” Anag passed it over for me to see. “We could start out without him? Ricky'll be all right to catch us up—he's got a copy—I sent him one.”

“What?” The page fluttered from my hands. Anag scrabbled for it. “Ricky has a copy of this plan?”

The first of the stars were coming out. An owl hooted, announcing that this time belonged to the creatures of the night, who would, quite soon, be sniffing out Anag's pack of chips.

High above us, St. Michael's Tower loomed, dark against the
blue-black
sky. That would be where Morgan le Fay would wait.

“Who are you?” I whispered. “Goddess? Demon? And where
are you?”

She was here. She was watching us.

I felt her pervade the breeze that was whipping my hair. I felt her in my marrow. I felt her try to pierce my heart.

If she was here, then so was Ricky.

I began to run. Up the gradient, steep as a wall. I felt my back ache, almost immediately. You have to be Olympic fit to run up the side of the Tor.

“Hey, Sabbie!” Anag yelled. “That's the wrong path, you dingo! That's the one that goes straight up to the top! We don't take that one.”

I kept going. I didn't stop to explain. I needed every breath I had for this race.

“Come back! We need to start from down here. Go round the side of the hill …”

Anag's voice was already fading as I made progress. Choking lungs, heaving diaphragm, thudding chest. My legs were lead. I kept going, one foot after the other, up the hill. The sweat on my forehead stung in the cold air.

I had to get to the top.

Morgan le Fay was up there. Ricky was with her. And Shell was with him. Even if my legs gave way, even if my lungs collapsed, I had to keep going.

The path levelled out as it zigged and zagged round hairpin bends. I tried picking up my pace. The way was lit by the moon, but my eyes were greying over. My ears buzzed with exhaustion. Each time I breathed there were flames in my chest.

I had no oxygen left. My calves pricked with the burn of lactic acid. Minutes were passing—long, awful minutes, while, tediously slow, the tower at the top drew nearer in my sights.

I rounded the last bend. The final torturous steps leading to the summit were before me. I was almost at the top when I collapsed onto my knees, letting the rich, sweet air into my lungs. As the buzzing in my ears receded, a voice floated down. The cry of a hawk. The cry of a madman.

“Death of beauty! Death of grace! Death of love!”

The words of the great bird in my journey.

I was running again, running towards death, my heart bursting.

I charged through the tower, onto the level plain of the summit.

And stopped.

Ricky stood, his lacquered hair blown by the wind. His face was chalky in the moonlight, even though his makeup had melted and run. His eyes were sucked deep into their sockets. He looked like a man who had not slept in days. He was gripping a staff with one hand, leaning on it, as if exhausted.

Avalon lay shrouded below us. Nothing was visible. A swirling mist rose from the warmer valley, its tendrils reaching ever upwards. By the early hours of the morning only the top of the Tor would be visible above the mist; an otherworldly ghost of a hill. Now I could feel it damp on my face—I could smell it—and yet, above us, the moon was a white lamp in the sky. Her shadows cast strange angles and patterns.

I was shivering from cold; I'd climbed through mist, sweating as I'd run, and my clothes were soaking inside and out. My legs trembled like a toddler's.

I could not see Shell anywhere, but I hardly looked round, for Ricky pulled at my attention.

“Ricky?” I walked quickly towards him. “It's Sabbie. I've come to take you home, Ricky.”

As if returning from another world, he properly registered my presence.
“We don't want you here.” He looked down. I followed his gaze. I stopped in my tracks. Shell was flat on the ground, her legs and arms splayed awkwardly. The point of the staff Ricky held was resting at her throat.

No, not resting. Pushing.
Grinding
at her throat.

Shell made a single, strangled sound and took a hooping suck of a breath. I think the movement Ricky had made as he responded to me had taken some pressure off her windpipe, but she was in a dreadful condition. Even in the moonlight I could see her colour was darkening.

“What are you doing?” I kept my voice even. I didn't want to provoke him.

The silence hung, moment after moment. I trained my eyes on Ricky, waiting for him to respond to me. I didn't dare look at Shell. I didn't want him to think too much about Shell. I swallowed and felt the hollow of my throat and thought of how the point of the staff would press down, closing it over, closing it down.

“Please, Ricky, pass me the staff.” It felt like a long time passed with my hands out stretched. “You're hurting her, Ricky.” I held my position. Shell's breath gurgled in her constricted throat. She squirmed below him on the ground, her hands closing round the base of the staff in a hopeless gesture. “Don't hurt Shell. She wouldn't hurt you.”

He muttered to himself. The tone was monotonous, as if the emotional effort had overcome him. His head was bowed low, long spikes of hair flopping into his eyes. He hadn't taken in a word I'd said. “You're not welcome here,” he said.

“Who says I'm not welcome? Morgan le Fay?”

It had been a risk to utter that name. Ricky cried out, a sound that had no words to it, just the cry of desperate man. I took one step towards him, trying to be completely silent, but my heart was thudding at such a rate that each time I took a breath I had to work at controlling it, but it was worth it, for these slow breaths did steady my thinking.

I crept one further step. I began to make out his
run-together
words. “
Too-many
,” he intoned. “
Too-many
-
blows-too
-
many-blows
.
Pound-and
-pound.
Too-much
-
blood-too
-
much-blood
.
Life-from
-life. But not the Foolish Knight. Not the Foolish Knight …” There was no passion in his voice, as though Morgan le Fay had sucked the life from Ricky, leaving him a shell.

I was outside my remit here. Ricky's attacks were sudden, random, and violent because their reasoning came directly from Morgan. He had to obey the voice of Morgan, imbedded powerfully into his mind. She had taken him over. Not a psychic intrusion; those I can deal with as a shaman, with help from Trendle and my guardians. This was different. Neither my shamanic training nor my psychology degree equipped me to work with someone like Ricky. A doctor would describe him as manic. Paranoid. Schizoid.

I preferred to think of Ricky as possessed.

I knew what Wolfsbane would advise: Get out. Get professional help. But I was five hundred feet up on this Somerset hillside, where Ricky was slowly driving the point of a staff into a girl's windpipe.

The mania growing inside him had transformed him, but underneath he was unprotected and defenseless. Open to internal attack. I fancied that the voices in his head blocked things that came in from the apparent world. As if Ricky was stuck in the Middle Realm, unable to break free. Morgan had infiltrated that inner world, had captured him and was not letting go.

“Morgan le Fay has led you into terrible trouble.”

His eyes flickered to both sides. “Shush. She can hear you. She's here now. She's standing right next to me now.”

“She's only in your head, Ricky.”

“I know you can't see her. She is a powerful magician. But she is truly human. Her heart beats, same as yours and mine.”

A shudder passed through me. I wasn't only trembling from fatigue and cold. Something had shifted. The quality of the air felt different. Ricky was wrong. Morgan wasn't in the least human. And I did detect something. A presence.

I was close to him now. He shifted, observing the hand I held out, staring at it as if it was an alien thing. It took a huge effort of will to hold my hand out to him and yet not snatch at the staff and try to pull it away. I was terrified that if I made a grab he'd stop thinking and the staff would crush through Shell's neck until the skin gave way and sinew and cartilage split open.

“She has been a goddess,” he half crooned. “Taught by Merlin—powerful magic—old magic from a different time—powers of invisibility. She is only seen when she wants to be seen. She is only heard when she wants to be heard. I see her. I hear her. I am her acolyte. No! I am her
companion-at
-arms.” He began to sob.

As the tears came, Shell bent a knee and an elbow. He'd half forgotten the staff, and she saw her chance to break free. I needed to keep his mind away from what was going on at his feet.

“Yes! I can feel her, Ricky. Show me where she is. Show me Morgan le Fay.”

Fingers of mist and the moon's magic charged the air. Ricky shifted. His eyes flicked from one corner of the summit to the other.

“She has possessed you. I think you know that, Ricky.”