Obsidian Pebble (40 page)

There was another low rumble of thunder, followed by five seconds of breathless silence, until Ellie finally voiced what they were all thinking.

“OH. MY. GOD!”

“Did you just see that…?” Ruff whispered in awe.

But Oz didn't reply. He couldn't find any words to speak. Something huge and warm had burst open inside him and a trembling mixture of grief and elation and wonder overwhelmed him. His father, the Michael Chambers he missed and loved so much, had, incredibly, unbelievably, just spoken from beyond the grave. Tears poured down Oz's cheeks, but he didn't care. Everything that he'd hoped for since he'd heard the ghostly footsteps all those weeks ago had just happened in front of his stunned eyes. He wiped them now, hardly able to contain the urge to climb onto the roof in the rain and shout to the world in triumph. But then he heard a sound in the darkness, a stifled sob followed by rapid footfalls as someone half-stumbled down the stairs. He got up and hurried after.

“Ruff, ask Soph if she can fix the lights,” he said, voice wavering as he passed Ruff's silhouette. But no sooner had the words left his lips than the lights blazed on and he heard Ruff whisper, “Now that's really scary.”

When Oz got to the landing, the door to his father's study stood ajar. Mrs. Chambers leaned heavily on the desk, peering at the larger, framed version of the photo they'd just seen his father take from his wallet in Achmed's. Oz pushed the door fully open and entered. His mother's face was tear-stained and stricken, her eyes full of pain and confusion.

“Mum,” Oz said gently.

“Was that a ghost I just saw?” she whispered, her voice cracked and barely audible.

“Yeah. In a funny sort of way, I think that's exactly what it was.”

Mrs. Chambers put her hand to her mouth. The gasp that emerged was tremulous.

“Mum,” Oz said, “you've got to listen to me. What we just saw was all because of the artefacts. I kept them, Mum. Dad wanted me to have them. You saw that.”

“But it was so real,” whispered Mrs. Chambers. “When he kissed the photograph, I…I felt his lips…” Her fingers strayed slowly to her cheek. “It was so…incredibly real.”

“You saw it, Mum. We all did. And you saw that Dad sent the pebble back to me for a reason, even if he didn't know what that reason was.” Oz hesitated. What he was about to say to his mother was the most difficult thing he had ever said to anyone. “Maybe he sent it back to let us see the truth.”

“What do you mean?” She turned from the photo to fix her tortured gaze upon him.

“That was my dad I just saw. The dad I remember. I don't care what anyone says, Mum, that man we just saw would never try to kill himself.”

Oz saw the change in his mother's expression as she battled with the truth of it. The fresh agony and grief laid open by the holotrack seemed to be fighting with something else.

“I told them that he never drank anything,” she said in another hollow whisper. “One glass of wine sent him to sleep. But there was the whisky bottle on the seat, and in his stomach—”

“Rollins told me that this house has secrets,” Oz interrupted her, wanting desperately to ease her pain. “Penwurt and the artefacts and Dad, they're all tied together. And I'm part of it now, we all are. And the only way we're going to find out what those secrets are is if we stay here.”

Mrs. Chambers studied Oz's face, her brow furrowed. “I miss him, Oz. So much. And you are so like him.” She put out a hand and her shaking fingers touched his cheek. Oz reached up with his own hand and took hold of hers.

“Caleb knows about this stuff, Mum. You have to let him talk to you. You have to listen to what he has to say.” Oz looked steadily into her face, willing her to believe him.

She didn't look away, but her eyes were clouded with doubt as she shook her head in bewilderment.

“I don't want the black dog to come out of its cage ever again, Mum,” Oz said, and it took a huge effort for him to keep his voice steady. “Please?”

Mrs. Chambers choked back a sob, the fingers of her free hand coming up to somehow try to still the uncontrollable quivering of her lips, while the other squeezed Oz's hand so tightly it felt like his own fingers might break. She tried speaking, but had to swallow her words in convulsive gulps as fresh rivulets of silent tears ran down her mascara-striped face. But finally, she somehow managed to nod and whisper, “I do believe you, Oz. And yes, I will talk to Caleb.”

Oz pulled her to him in a fierce hug, and it didn't matter that the study swam as his eyes blurred over again. It didn't matter one bit.

A few minutes later, he went in search of Caleb and eventually found him in the kitchen making tea.

“How is she?” Caleb asked without looking up.

“Having trouble letting what just happened sink in.”

“We all are.”

“But she wants to speak to you,” Oz said.

“Me?” Caleb sounded unconvinced.

“I think she's ready to listen.”

Caleb nodded and the ghost of a smile briefly brushed his lips. But as so often was the case with him, Oz sensed that the smile was tinged with bitter sadness. Caleb poured the tea, put down the teapot and motioned to a kitchen chair. “Sit down for a minute, Oz.”

Caleb placed a steaming mug of sugary tea in front of Oz and then sat opposite him. It took a moment for his eyes to find Oz's waiting face, and when they eventually did, they seemed sunken and dark-rimmed from too many sleepless nights.

“The artefacts are a poisoned chalice, Oz,” Caleb said quietly. “Bad things are coming, and Gerber will stop at nothing to get what he wants. But it doesn't have to be this way. If you like, I can make them disappear again. Hide them for another generation to…”

“No,” Oz said firmly. “Soph needs our help. Someone needs to find out why she's here, and I think that it's meant to be me.”

“For what it's worth, I think so, too. But it won't be easy.” Caleb's words emerged low and full of foreboding.

“I sort of figured that out already. So, I'm probably going to need some help.”

Caleb nodded. “Obex are sworn to protect the artefacts, whatever the cost, even if that means doing nothing when action is possible. But I'm beginning to believe that the cost of such devotion is sometimes too high.”

He paused, and it was as if there was some inner battle raging behind his deep-set eyes. “I will help you, Oz, but you need to know that maybe I'm not quite the man you think I am.”

His eyes slid away again and Oz thought he saw a sudden, haggard regret etched in the historian's exhausted face, as if the weight of a terrible burden pressed down on him.

“You're my dad's friend. Isn't that…” Oz began, but was silenced by Caleb's raised hand. When he looked up again, the regret had been replaced by something else. Something that Oz couldn't quite put a finger on immediately.

“Fate has dealt you a fickle hand, Oz. What happened to your dad was bad enough, but then having to cope with Heeps and his poisonous daughter, and now Rollins…” He shook his head. “I have to take my hat off to you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that the right way is not always the easiest. Many would have given up long before now. Left the pebble on that driveway under your window for a magpie to find, or just given in to Rollins. No one would have blamed you for any of that.”

Oz blinked rapidly. He wanted to speak, but his tongue seemed welded to the roof of his mouth. But Caleb hadn't finished.

“You've chopped off the head of the Green Knight, Oz. But then, I think you and Sir Gawain have a lot in common. You don't do things the easy way either, do you?” This time the rare smile that crinkled the skin under Caleb's eyes was full-blown and warm. “Where all this leads is anyone's guess and I, for one, don't have a map, but if anyone can handle what's coming, I believe it's you. Oh, and you'd better warn Ruff and Ellie, too, because they're made of the kind of stuff that sticks like glue, whatever happens. Value that, Oz. It's worth more than any amount of money.

“But you know what's impressed me most?” Caleb continued. “It's the way you haven't given up on your dad. You believe in him. You've kept his memory pure in your heart, despite all the gibes and the so-called evidence of ignorant authorities who can only see what's in front of their noses and don't have the gumption to look beyond it. Frankly, I don't think Gerber stands a snowball's chance in hell against you. I'm proud of you, Oz. And I know your dad would have been, too.”

Caleb held out his hand and, swallowing the lump that had for some unaccountable reason appeared in his throat, Oz took it.

* * *

While Caleb took tea up to his mother, Oz went back up to the library to find Ellie and Ruff picking up books.

“Where did Soph go?” he asked.

“Disappeared as soon as you left the room,” Ruff said.

“Looks like she's only here when you are,” Ellie said. “Nothing happens when we press the pebble.”

Oz went to the artefact and put his thumb on the mark. Instantly, Soph appeared in the middle of the room.

“Welcome, Oz,” she said pleasantly.

“That is so buzzardly awesome,” Ruff said in wonder.

“We should ask her questions,” Oz said.

“Could I have an Xbox cheat sublimsert thingy?” Ruff said immediately.

Oz and Ellie both made eyes to the ceiling.

“I may be able to help you with your computer games, Ruff,” Soph said.

Ruff grinned maniacally and made a fist of triumph, while Oz just shook his head.

“When will you need charging again?” Ellie asked.

“I have sufficient power capacity for twenty years, at this point.”

“So, are you a computer?” Oz asked. He could feel the faint tickle in his head again.

“I have computing functions, in that I can interface with technology easily. In addition, I have cognitive linking capability.”

“Here we go again,” Ruff said.

“That means you can read my mind, too?” Oz asked.

“The link is shared. You have access to my database, but I can also act on your thoughts if they are directed towards me.”

“That's so cool,” Ellie said, shaking her head. “Send me a text, Oz.”

“What, now?”

“Ask Soph to do it. In your head, I mean.”

Oz did exactly that. He imagined the message and thought about sending it to Ellie. Two seconds later, her phone beeped. She looked at it and shook her head. “That's, like, so freaky.”

“Of course it is,” Oz said. “That's because we don't understand it. It's some kind of technology, but so far out of our understanding that it's—”

“Almost like magic,” Ellie said quietly.

No one spoke for several moments.

“But what about the hammer thing? Ask her why Lucy Bishop couldn't smash the pebble,” Ruff said, the words tumbling over one another in his excitement.

Soph turned her large, calm eyes to Ruff, who immediately frowned. The look of mild terror on his face made Oz giggle.

“The base unit is protected by a tutamenzon field.”

“Right,” Ruff said, blinking rapidly.

“It extends to whoever holds the base unit,” Soph explained. “I will be happy to demonstrate. If Ruff could pick up the unit.”

Ruff did.

“And if you, Ellie, could throw something at him,” Soph ordered.

“Really?” Ellie said, grinning wickedly and picking up the hefty
Victorian Gentleman's Guide to Herbalism
. “I've always wanted to throw the book at him.”

“Hang on a minute,” Ruff said. But Ellie needed no further invitation. She lobbed the book hard at Ruff, who was two yards away.

“Oy,” he yelled, and ducked as it sailed towards his head. But when the missile was two feet from its target, it slowed to a halt as if the air itself had turned to treacle. It stopped a foot from Ruff's nose and slid gently down to the floor, as did the next book and the next, which Oz threw just for good measure. The look on Ruff's face was priceless.

They asked lots more questions and learned that Soph could ‘tradurate' Oz's voice so that when he spoke in English the listener would hear what he said in any other language of his choosing, and vice versa. Then there was Mimtate, where his voice could sound like that of any person he had heard before. And, of course, there was Soph's Panvis holotrack function.

“But, I mean, how can you take a 3D video when the camera, if there is one, is in a tiny base unit the size of a pebble?” Ruff asked, clearly puzzled.

“Reflective omnivision,” Soph explained. “Miniscule particles of light are constantly emitted from the base unit, and these are reflected off thousands of surfaces in the immediate environment. These are recaptured and processed constantly. Of course, this is happening at a photonic level while nanoprocessors record sound and olfactory sensation, as well.”

Oz looked at Ruff, who was nodding as Soph spoke.

“Did you understand all that, then?” Oz asked.

“No,” Ruff said, his eyes glittering, “but it sounds brilliant.”

As a further illustration, Soph reran Ruff unnecessarily dodging the books inside the tutamenzon field. She had to show it at least twenty times because the look on Ruff's face was the funniest thing the other two had ever seen, and Ellie kept asking for replays. In the end, Oz had to crawl out of the library on all fours, making a noise like a very sick goat because his stomach ached so much he could neither stand up nor breathe. Too soon, it was time for Ellie and Ruff to go home and, since he was feeling pretty tired from all the excitement of the past two days, Oz didn't object too much.

“We are going to have so much fun with Soph from now on,” Ellie said as she put on her coat.

“But we have to help her, too, though. Try and find the other artefacts. I get the feeling that she's a bit lost, somehow,” Oz said, trying to stifle a yawn.