Sacrament (46 page)

The last Frannie saw of Will he was attempting to scale the rocky outcrop at the head of the gully. Then her
attention had been claimed by Rosa, who'd started to moan piteously, tearing at her bandages. When Frannie
looked back in Will's direction, he'd gone. She assumed at first he'd scaled the rocks and was now through the
passage and onto the slope beyond, but though she watched for him, she saw no sign. Slowly, a grim possibility
took shape: that in the minute or so that she'd been trying to stop Rosa re-opening her wound, Will had lost his
balance and toppled back into the gully. The longer she stared and failed to see him the more probable this came
to seem. She hadn't heard him cry out, but with the birds so loud was that any great surprise?
Fearing what she would see, she ventured from Rosa's side, and followed Will's route along the edge of the
gully, yelling to him as she went.

'Where are you? For God's sake answer me! Will?'

There was no reply. Nor was there any sign of his having fallen. No blood on the rocks; no place where the
grass had been uprooted. But these absences were little comforts. She knew perfectly well he could have slipped
down into the gully without leaving a trace: a straight fall between the rocks, down into the impenetrable
darkness.

She had almost reached the head of the gully by now, the spot where she'd last seen Will. Should she climb up
and see if he was simply squatting on the far side of the rocks? Of course she should. But something drew her
eyes back to the gully, and she stared into its abyss, afraid now to call his name; afraid he'd answer out of the
darkness.

And then she saw him - or thought she did - lying in the depths of the gully maybe twenty feet down. Her heart
beating feverishly, she got down on her knees and went to the very edge of the gully to verify what she was
seeing. There was no doubt. There was a man lying on the rocks at the bottom of the gully. It could only be
Will. She tried yelling to him, but he didn't move a muscle. Perhaps he was already dead; perhaps he was
merely stunned. Certainly she couldn't waste time going for help: half an hour back to the car, another ten,
twenty minutes to find a phone, how much longer before rescuers appeared? She had to do something herself;
find a way down into the gully and help him. It was a grim prospect. She'd never been agile, even as a girl, and
though the relative

slightness of her build would make it physically feasible for her to clamber down into the darkness, if she
herself slipped she'd end up broken-bodied beside Will and that would effectively be the end of both of them.
Two more fatalities to add to the headland's grim reputation.

But she had no other choice. She plainly couldn't leave Will to die. She simply had to put her fears aside and get
to work. Her first task was to find the safest route of descent. She walked back along the gully in the seaward
direction until she found a spot where the walls of the crevice were relatively close together, so that she might
descend using both sides for hand- and footholds. It wasn't perfect - perfect was a ladder with a large cushion at
its base - but it was the best she was going to get. She sat down on the tuffet of grass beside the spot and
dangled her feet over the edge. Then, without giving herself time to doubt the wisdom of what she was doing,
she slipped her bottom off the grass, and after a few heart-quickening moments with her feet in mid-air, and her
body sliding off the tuffet, her toes found a ledge on the opposite wall, against which she now braced herself.
There followed a minute of clumsy manoeuvring while she turned herself around so that she was facing the
grass off which she'd slid. There were probably ten easier ways to do what she was doing, she thought, but right
now her brain wasn't quick enough to think them through.

She glanced down before she made her next move, which was an error. Her muscles seized up for several
seconds, and she could feel the sweat oozing out of her palms and armpits, its smell sour with fear.

'Take hold of yourself, Frannie,' she chided herself. 'You can do this.'

Then, taking a deep breath, she renewed her descent, hold by hesitant hold, except that this time she didn't make
the mistake of looking down - at least not all the way down - but limited her gaze to the rock, studying it for
nicks and cracks where she might find purchase.

Only once, when she thought she heard somebody calling to her, did she look up, hesitating for a moment to
listen for the cry again. It came, but it was not a human voice; it was just one of the birds whose call had an
almost human timbre. She returned to the labour of descent determined not to look up at the sky again, whether
she heard cries or no. It was upsetting, seeing the light bounded by two walls of rock; getting narrower as she
descended. From now on she would look no further than her hands and feet, until she was down beside Will and
planning their ascent.

Rosa had long ago ceased to care what Frannie thought or did, but she was intrigued, albeit remotely, to see the
woman disappearing from sight into the crevice. Had she got too close to the Domus Mundi, and her wits
burned up? If so, it surely hadn't been much of a fire. Well, never mind.

She was gone now, and wouldn't be coming back, which left Rosa alone. She let her head drop back against the
shit-splattered rock and stared up at the sky. The clouds had covered the sun completely now, at least to human
eyes. But she could see it still, or imagined she could: a bright ball flaming in the glorious nowhere of space.

Was that where she belonged, she found herself wondering. When she was no longer Rosa, which would be
soon, very soon; when her wounded body gave up the last of its life, would she ascend like smoke, and be gone
towards the sun? Or into the dark between the stars, perhaps. Yes, that would be better. To be lost in the dark
utterly and forever, a nameless thing that had endured too many lifetimes, and lost its appetite for life and light.

But before she went, perhaps she still had it in her to reach Rukenau's step; to knock and ask him: What was it
for? Why did I live?

If she was going to do so then she was going to have to do it soon: what little strength she had left was quickly
departing her body. She had thought it would give her one last burst of vitality if she opened her wound, like a
whip applied to her own back. But she'd simply traumatized her body further, and there was precious little
power left in her.

She took her eyes from the sun, and pushed herself into a sitting position. As she did so her instincts provided
some information she'd been expecting to receive: Steep had set foot on the island. She didn't doubt the report.
She and Steep had traced each other over vast distances in their time; she knew what his proximity felt like. He
was on his way. When he arrived he would do murderous harm, and she had little or no defence against it. All
she could do was to press her body to her purpose, and hope to reach the door before he did. Perhaps Rukenau
would play judge and jury; perhaps he would find fault with Steep, and stop him in his tracks. Or perhaps the
House was empty, and they would come into its chambers like thieves into a looted palace, expecting glory and
finding nothing. The notion gave her a thrill of perverse pleasure: that after this desperate pursuit they would
both end up emptyhanded. And she could die, and go to the darkness between the stars. And he would live, and
live, because the man he'd become was afraid of death, and that would be his punishment for being death's
agent, that he could never be delivered from existence, but would go on and on.

It had entertained Jacob mightily to go amongst the stoic fishermen of Oban as though the harbour were the
shores of Galilee, and he looking for disciples. He found one after a little search; a man in his late sixties by the
name of Hugh who had been pleased to take a passenger over to Tiree for a modest sum. The fee was quickly
agreed upon and they left a little after eight-fifteen, following the route of The Claymore up the Sound. The ship
was of course a great deal more powerful than Hugh's little boat, but unlike The Claymore they did not have any
ports of call to delay them along the way, so that they came into ,the little harbour at Scarinish no more than two
hours after the ferry.

The voyage had refreshed and replenished Jacob. He had not slept, but he had fallen into a meditative mood as
he watched the sea. He had never understood why it was so often thought to be a feminine element. Yes, there
were tides in a woman's body that were not to be found in a man; and yes, it was the place of genesis. But it was
also ambitious and dispassionate; slow in its workings against the land, but inevitable. Surely then it was the
earth that was woman's lot; the nurturing place, warm and fertile. The deeps belonged to men.

So he mused, as they sailed. And by the time he stepped off the boat onto the pier his mind was pleasantly
lulled, as though he had just finished writing in his journal, and was ready to turn a fresh page.

He decided against stealing a vehicle to finish his journey. The island was small, and though he doubted it was
well policed, this was not the time to risk being delayed by an officer of the law. He went into the post office
and asked the affable girl behind the counter if maybe she knew of a taxi service. The girl said that indeed she
did; the island's only taxi was owned and driven by her brother-in-law Angus, and she would be happy to phone
him. She did so, and told Jacob the car would be outside within a quarter of an hour. It took rather longer than
that, but finally the aforementioned Angus drove up in his twenty-yearold Volkswagen, and asked Steep where
he wanted to go.

'Kenavara,' Jacob told him.

'Now d'you mean Barrapol?'

'No. I mean the cliffs,' Jacob said.

'Well, I can't drop you there,' Angus replied. 'There's no road.'

'Just get me as close as you can.'

'That'll be Barrapol,' Angus said.

'That's fine. Barrapol's fine.'

What would have happened to him, he wondered as they drove, if he'd never left the islands? Never taken a
human name, never pretended to be something other than he was and in that process mislaid the truth of his
nature; gone to live instead far from enquiring eyes, on Uist or Harris or a piece of sea-girdled rock that was,
like him, nameless? Would he have found the silence he needed; and found God in it? He doubted it. Even here,
in this spartan place, there was too much life, too much distraction. Sooner or later, the passion for absence that
had driven him would have risen into his thoughts.

His driver was, of course, chatty. Where had Jacob come from, he wanted to know, and where was he staying?
Did he know Archie Anderson, of Barrapol? Jacob answered the questions as best he could, all the while
thinking about God and namelessness, as though he were two people. One, the human being he'd been playing
for so long, the man making small-talk with the driver; the other the being who moved behind that pretence.
The being who had left this island with murder on his mind. The being who was going home. It was in sight
now, that home. The long headland of Ceann a' Bharra, where Rukenau had laid the foundations of his empire.
Despite the conversation they'd had as they left Scarinish, Angus wanted to know if he couldn't drop his
passenger off at some particular house. He knew everyone in Barrapol, he said (it wasn't difficult; there were
less than a dozen houses); lain Findlay and his wife Jean, the McKinnons, Hector Cameron.

'Just take me to the end of the road,' Jacob said, 'and I'll make my own way from there.'

'Are you sure now?'

'I'm sure.'

'Well, you're the man who's payin'.'

Where the road withered to a track, Jacob got out and paid Angus twice what he'd charged. Very happy with
this minor windfall, Angus thanked him, and offered a card with his number in case Jacob needed a taxi for the
return journey. He was so plainly proud to have a card with his name printed on it (he'd had them made up in
Oban, he said) that Jacob accepted it graciously and, thanking him, began the trek through the machair to
Kenavara. The look of unalloyed pleasure on the man's face when he'd produced the card remained in Steep's
mind long after the car had disappeared and left him amongst the leaping hares. Oh, to have once known a
simple pride like that, he thought; just once.

He pocketed the card, but of course he would never have need of it. There would be no return journey; not from
the House of the World.

The polished grass had gone from beneath Will's feet. The clouded sky had vanished overhead. He had entered
a large room, the walls of which looked to be made of caked earth, which glistened faintly as though still damp.
Apparently his theorizing with Frannie about the abstract or metaphysical nature of the Domus Mundi had been
wide of the mark. It was a tangible reality, at least as far as his now-calmed senses could tell: the walls, the
darkness, the warm stagnant air, which filled his head with a stew of foetid scents. Things were rotting here,
some of them going to a sickening sweetness, some of them to a bitter smell that stung his sinuses. He didn't
have to look far for the source of at least some portion of this stench. All manner of detritus had been dumped
around the chamber, some of it in a drift against the wall to his left that was fully seven or eight feet tall. He
wandered over to inspect the rubbish a little more closely, wondering as he did so where the light in the room
was coming from. There were no windows; but there were, he saw, hairline cracks in the walls from which the
luminescence was seeping. It was not, he thought, daylight. It was warmer, yet not quite so warm as fire or
candlelight.

Examining the contents of the rubbish heaped against the wall, another mystery. Though most of the drift was
simply a clotted mass of incoherent forms, like the scourings of an enormous drain, there were several tree
branches amongst the garbled mass. Was this stuff that had been washed up against the cliff, he wondered,
which Rukenau had for some reason hauled up into the house? They certainly weren't native species; the island
had no trees. Nor were these small branches. The largest of the boughs was as thick as Will's thigh.

Turning his back on the filth he made his way across the room to an archway that led on to an adjacent
chamber. The scene here was just as dispiriting. The same earth walls and floor; a ceiling too high to be
properly made out, but surely raised of the same channless stuff. If indeed this house was built to hold up a
mirror to the world's condition, Will thought, then the planet was in a foul state indeed.

That idea ignited a suspicion in him. Suppose the substance of his conversation with Frannie had after all been
correct, and this stinking place was a mirror the Domus Mundi was holding up to his own psyche?

If he'd learned anything in the weeks since emerging from his coma it was that his mind and the reality it
perceived were not in a fixed relationship. They were like volatile lovers in the midst of a heated affair, each
constantly reassessing the state of their passion in the light of what they believed the other was feeling. So here
he was in a place so canny it could render itself invisible to the casual eye. It took no great leap of faith to
believe that such a place could have even more sophisticated ways to defend itself; and what more certain way
to traumatize trespassers than to confront them with the murk of their own minds?

He pondered how best to put this thesis to the test; how to pierce the buttery rot that surrounded him and find
the force that lay beyond it, if indeed there was a force to be found. While he plotted, he surveyed more closely
the contents of the room in which he was standing. There were, he saw, a few pieces of domestic junk amongst
the incoherent filth. Over in one corner were the remnants of a chair; and closest to them an overturned table, in
the centre of which a fire had been made. He wandered over to it, curious as to what clues it might offer up. A
meal had been had here. There was a partially eaten fish lying in the ashes; and beside it a scattering of fruit; a
couple of apples, an orange and a still succulent mango, which had been roughly torn apart and partially
devoured. Assuming this was all his mind's invention, were these perverse mementoes of Drew's love-feast?

He went down on his haunches to examine the evidence, picking up the largest portion of the mango and
sniffing it. The juice was sticky, the smell sweetly fragrant. If it was an illusion, then it was a damn good one.
He tossed the fruit back amongst the ashes and stood up, surveying the room for other objects to scrutinize. He
was overlooking the obvious he realized: the walls themselves. He strode across the room and examined the
earth. It was, as he'd suspected, moist in places, almost as though it were suppurating. He touched one of the
wetter places and his fingers came away dirty. He touched it again, pressing his fingers into the muck. They slid
in maybe half an inch, and might have gone in deeper, but his hand was suddenly arrested by a tingling
sensation that passed up through his wrist and into his forearm. He withdrew his hand, aware on the instant
where he'd felt this before. It was the same order of sensation as had cursed through his sinews when he'd been
with Rosa in Donnelly's house, and later, when he'd confronted Steep. This bright matter was the essential stuff
of all three: Rosa, Jacob and Domus Mundi.

Once again, he longed to luxuriate in the feeling; but he had no time for such indulgences. He had to keep to his
purpose. He stepped away from the wall and perused it. Where his fingers had pierced the soil a tempting
luminescence was spilling out. This isn't something my mind's inventing, he thought to himself, his certainty as
sudden as it was absolute. The earth and the light it concealed, the fish and the fruit lying on the ashes, all of it was real. Charged with new confidence, he crossed to the nearest door (the room had three)
and entered a narrow but immensely tall passageway, which was so clogged with rubbish in one direction that it
was impassable. He headed in the other direction for maybe twenty yards, thinking as he went that either the
House occupied the entire summit of Kenavara to the limit of the cliffs, or else it was somehow constructed in
defiance of physical laws and contained an immensity belied by its perimeters. He was about to turn into
another chamber when he heard the sound of somebody sobbing further down the passageway. Following the
sound, he passed through a small antechamber into the largest room he had yet discovered; and the most
littered. There were heaps of rubbish everywhere, much of it, as before, unrecognizable. But there was also
evidence of somebody having tried to make some order of the chaos. A table, with a chair set close by; a pitiful
nest of twigs and leaves made in one of the corners, with what looked to be a garment rolled up for a pillow.

He didn't have to look very far to find the man whose dwelling this was; the fellow was kneeling across the
room from the door through which Will had entered. There was an elaborate arrangement of rubbish on the
ground in front of him, which he was studying as he sobbed, his hands to his face.

Will got halfway across the room before the man looked up. As soon as he did he was on his feet, his hands
dropping from his face, which was filthy, but for the places where his tears had run. It was hard to judge his age
when he was in such a pitiful condition, but Will guessed him to be less than thirty. His bespectacled features
were gaunt, his clogged beard and moustache in severe need of trimming, his greasy hair the same. His clothes
were in as beleaguered a state as the rest of him; his threadbare shirt and jeans glued to his malnourished body
with filth. He looked at Will with a mingling of fear and disbelief.

'Where did you come from?' he said. By his accent there was a welleducated Englishman under all the dirt.

'I came from ... out there,' Will told him.

'When?'

'Just a few minutes ago.'

The man got to his feet, and approached Will. 'Which way did you come?' he said. Then, lowering his voice,
'Could you find your way back?'

'Yes, of course,' Will replied.

'Oh God, oh God...' the man started to say, his breathing getting faster '... this isn't some trick, is it?'

'Why would I trick you?'

'To make me leave her.' He narrowed his eyes, studying Will with some suspicion. 'You want to have her for
yourself ?'

' Who?'

'Diane! My wife!' His suspicion was plainly deepening into certainty. 'Oh that's it, isn't it? This is Rukenau's
idea of a bloody joke, trying to tempt me away. Why's he so cruel? I've done everything he asked me, haven't I?
Everything. Why can't he just let us go?' His pleas hardened into assertions. 'I'm not going anywhere without
her, do you hear me? I refuse! I'll rot here if I have to. She's my wife, and I'm not leaving-'

'I get the picture,' Will said.

'I mean it-'

'I told you: I understand.'

-and if he wants to make me-'

'Will you shut up a minute?'

The man stopped his protests, and blinked at Will from behind his spectacles, his head cocked a little, like a
bird.

'I just wandered in here three minutes ago. I swear. Now, can we talk sensibly?'

The man looked a little embarrassed at his outburst. 'So the place caught you too,' he said softly.

'No,' Will said. 'I wasn't caught. I came in of my own free will.'

'Why would you do that?'

'To find Rukenau.'

'You came looking for Rukenau?' the man replied, as though this were tantamount to insanity.

'Yes. Do you know where he is?'

'Maybe,' the man said testily.

Will approached him. 'What's your name?'

'Theodore.'

'Do folks call you Theodore?'

'No. They call me Ted.'

'Can I call you Ted, too? Is that all right?'

'Yes. I suppose so.'

'That's a good start. I'm Will. Or Bill. Or Billy. Anything but William. I hate William.'

'I ... hate Theodore.'

'I'm glad we've cleared that up. Now, Ted, I need you to trust me. In fact, we have to trust one another, because
we're both in the same mess, aren't we?' Ted nodded. 'So. Why don't you just tell me about-' he was going to say
Rukenau, but he changed his mind at the last minute and instead said -your wife.'

'Diane?'

'Yes, Diane. She's here somewhere, you said?' Again, the downcast eyes and the nervous nod. 'But you don't
know where.'

'I know ... vaguely.. .' he said.

Will lowered his voice. 'Has Rukenau got her?'

'No.'

'Well, help me out here,' Will pleaded. 'Where is she?'

Ted's mouth grew tight, and his eyes narrowed behind his smudged spectacles. Again, that birdlike glance up at
Will. Then he seemed to decide that he would speak; and out it all came. 'We didn't mean to come in here. We
were just out walking, you know; on the cliffs. I liked to birdwatch before I got married and I persuaded Diane
to come along with me. We weren't doing anything we shouldn't. We were just walking, watching the birds.'

'You don't live on the island.'

'No, we were on holiday, going from island to island. A sort of second honeymoon.'

'How long have you been in here?'

'I'm not exactly sure. I think we came in on the twenty-first.'

'Of October?'

'No. June.'

'And you haven't stepped outside since?'

'Once I found the door, purely by chance. But how could I leave, with Diane still here? I couldn't do that.'

'So is there anybody else here?'

His voice dropped to a whisper. 'Oh yes. There's him-'

'Rukenau?'

'And there's others too. People who came in like Diane and me, that he's never let out. I hear them, now and
then. One of them sings hymns. I've been trying to make a map-' he said, casting a glance down at the
arrangement of rubbish on the ground. The twigs and pebbles and little heaps of soil were apparently his
attempt to recreate the House in miniature.

'Tell me what's where,' Will said, going down on his haunches beside the map. He felt like a convict plotting an
escape with a crazed felon, an impression that was only strengthened by the gleam of pride on Ted's face as he
crouched on the other side of the model and proceeded to explain it.

'We're here,' he said, pointing to a spot in the maze. 'I've made this my base of operations. This little white stone
over here is the man who sings the hymns. As I said, I've never seen him, because he just runs away when I go
near.'

'And what's this?' Will asked, directing Ted's attention to a large space which was criss-crossed with lengths of
thread.

'That's Rukenau's room.'

'So we're not that far?' Will said, looking round at the door that he guessed would lead him to Rukenau.

'You don't want to go there,' Ted said to him. 'I swear.'

Will got to his feet. 'You don't have to come with me,' he said.

'But I need you to help me find Diane.'

'If you know where she is, why haven't you fetched her yourself?'

'Because the place she's gone ... it's too much for me...' He looked embarrassed to be admitting this. 'I get ...
overwhelmed.'

'By what?'

'The feelings. The light. The things that come into my head. Even Rukenau can't stand it.'

Now Will was curious. If he was understanding Ted's ramblings correctly, there was still a part of this House
that delivered on the description that he'd heard Jacob make of it all those years ago. It's glorious, he'd said to
Simeon. If we were together, we could go deep, deep inside. We could see the seed of the seed, I swear.

That was where Ted's wife was, presumably. Deep, deep inside, where the weak-hearted couldn't go without
paying the price of trespass.

'Let me speak to Rukenau first,' Will said. 'Then we'll go and find her. That's a promise.'

Ted's eyes suddenly flooded with tears, and he came as close to a spontaneous expression of thanks as a sober
Englishman ever gets: he grasped Will's hand and shook it. 'I should give you a weapon,' he said. 'I don't have
much - just a few sharpened sticks - but they're better than nothing.'

'What do we need weapons for?'

'There's plenty of animals in this place. You'll hear them through the walls.'

'I'll take my chances.'

'Are you sure?'

'Absolutely sure. Thank you.'

'As you like,' Ted said. He went to the little cache of sticks that lay beside his bed. 'I'll bring two, for when you
change your mind,' he said. Then he led the way out of his little sanctum. The adjacent room was substantially
darker, and it took Will a moment to orient himself.