The Greenstone Grail (38 page)

Hoover put his head on one side, and thumped his tail.

Nathan was in the woods, searching. He had avoided the police cordon, concentrating initially on the area between the house and the valley, then moving into the Darkwood, calling softly as he went: ‘Woody! Woody!’ Twigs snapped, leaves crunched, midges swarmed, but of the woodwose there was no sign. He would have liked to have brought Hoover, but he was afraid the presence of the dog would deter his friend. He must have seen something, Nathan thought. He sees everything in the
woods. Perhaps he ran away, because he was frightened. He saw the murderer, maybe he saw the murder itself, and now he’s hiding somewhere, shivering and alone … I must find him.

Nathan called and called, whispering encouragement, but no one came, and eventually he went home, anxious and frustrated.

Woody was still on his mind when he went to bed, and slipped over the borders of sleep without speculating on whether he might dream. And so, of course, he dreamed.

Once again, he
felt
the transition: the whirling tunnel, on a collision-course with stars and planets, the sudden plunge into blinding light. And then – reality. A different reality. He was leaning against a wall, a curving wall, in a pale, hollow place. The Pit. In front of him, Kwanji Ley sat staring at him with widening eyes. She was altered, he thought, in some indefinable way – thinner, edgier, more tense. Time must have passed (how much time?). At first, perhaps, the Pit had offered a kind of relief, the respite after interrogation; but now her sense of peace had gone and she was fighting, uselessly, with no visible enemy, no focus for her resistance, no witness to her struggle – fighting the terrible sameness, the nothing closing in on her, holding her like a fly in amber – fighting the creeping onset of despair. The struggle had worn her down; her face was all bones now, bones and shadows, though in that diffuse light it was difficult to see where the shadows were supposed to lie, or what was casting them. Maybe they were shadows under her skin, in her soul.

She said: ‘Who are you?’ Her voice, too, was altered. It was the voice of someone who hasn’t spoken to another human being in a long while.

‘My name’s Nathan.’ It sounded very similar to the way he would have said it in English, except that the
th
had become
t
, and in his mind he knew it would be spelt
Naithan
.

‘Why did you come back?
How
did you come back? You’re
real – I know you’re real. There’s been no one else. No holocasts, no visions, no wereghosts sent to trap me. Touch me.
Please
.’

He took her hands, and her grip was tight and strong. Like a man dangling from a cliff-edge, clutching at a tree-root to save himself …

‘I’m real. I told you, I dreamed my way here. Because I wanted to.’

‘Why did you take so long?’

‘I’m sorry. It wasn’t long for me. Just a few days. But I don’t have control over it. The dreams come when they will.’

She said: ‘Aaaah,’ and released his hands, but her gaze still held him.

‘Will you tell me about the cup?’ he asked at last. ‘I know it’s part of a spell, but they say even the Grandir doesn’t know it, or not all of it … but if you were trying to steal it, you must have some idea how the spell works …’

‘If you’re from another world,’ she said, scorn and disappointment in her face, ‘how do you know this?’

He told her about some of his other dreams, and about time, and when he had finished the scorn was gone, and there was a glitter in her eyes like twilight on a purple sea.

‘You saved him,’ she said, talking of Eric. ‘You pulled him out of the sea, out of this world – into yours.’

‘Yes.’ He knew what was coming.

‘Then you can do it with
me
. Not to your world – just
out
, somewhere here, anywhere. Get me out, and I’ll tell you what you want to know. You can do it – you said so.
Get me out
!’ She caught his hands again – her face looked feverish, lit from within with the freakish gleam of desperation, panic, returning hope and recurring fear.

‘I’ll try,’ Nathan said unhappily, ‘but it may not work, and
if it does, it’s dangerous. I can’t guarantee to keep you in this world; you could end up in any universe, anywhere.’

‘The power is in your mind,’ said Kwanji Ley. ‘Use it.
Think
.’

‘I’ll try,’ he repeated. ‘But you must talk to me first. When I pull you out of here –
if
I do – I’ll probably lose track of you. I did with Eric; it took me ages to trace him. I need to know about the Grail now.’

‘So it’s a trick.’ She sat back, the freak-light dying out of her gaze.

‘No.’

‘Then prove it.’

‘I
can’t
. I would if I could, but – you just have to believe me. Or not. It’s up to you.’

She breathed deeply, and stared at him,
into
him, with eyes that sought to read his mind – but failed. He was still a child in years, and a child’s thoughts are on the wrong wavelength for adult telepathy. Eventually she said: ‘What the hell. I don’t suppose I can tell you anything that the Grandir doesn’t know already. It’s just – there are things I am
not
meant to know. Do you understand?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘Well … where to start? I’m a third level practor. This means I have certain magical skills and I was originally licensed to use them for the authorities. But my grandfather was a first level practor, a mage of the Upper Chamber with knowledge of the Hidden Magics. He was eight thousand years old and died only recently, caught in the contamination. I believe his death was engineered by agents of the government. Before he died he realized he was out of favour – he disagreed with present policies – and he told me certain things. Are you following me?’

‘Things you’re not meant to know?’

‘Yes. He said the Sangreal and two other objects were made by the first Grandir for the performance of a Great Spell. The
first Grandir could see into the future – or maybe he just took a guess, knowing human nature and how it works – anyway, he anticipated a time when our universe would be heading for destruction, and we would have to escape or die. So he took one of the Great Spells, and adapted it, making the cup, the sword, and the crown to be symbols which, when brought together with the proper ceremonies, become the lever to open the barrier between worlds. The cup is the feminine principle, the sword is the masculine, and the crown is the circle that binds.’

‘What is a Great Spell?’ Nathan asked.

‘They are the deepest of the Hidden Magics, the most potent. It is said there are only seven, in all the worlds. They must always have the three basic constituents: the masculine, the feminine, and the element of binding. They require an enormous amount of power, far more than any one man – any normal man – can wield, and the fallout can be catastrophic. According to my grandfather, secret records show that a Great Spell was performed several millennia ago which resulted in the deaths of all concerned except the then Grandir, causing an entire galaxy to implode and disappear into a black hole.’

‘What was it
for
?’ Nathan said. ‘What did they intend to achieve?’

‘We don’t know. Something … big. World-changing.’

‘And nobody noticed what –’

‘It was thousands of years ago. I wasn’t there. Look, the theory is that it was a Great Spell which produced the magical inversion that caused the contamination. It would have to be a Great Spell to turn magic to evil, to make it work against the practors – and if it was done wrong, or carelessly, then the spin-off might well have been the poisoning of magic everywhere. That’s how Great Spells work. They can go
very
wrong – end-of-the-world wrong. Clear?’

‘Yes,’ said Nathan. ‘Sort of. You mean, you wanted to steal the cup – and the other things – to do the spell yourself. But how could you, if you don’t know what it is, and you haven’t the power, and if it goes wrong, it’s the end of the world?’

‘It’s the end of the world anyway,’ Kwanji said. ‘There are powerful people in our movement, secret sympathizers – I don’t know their names, I don’t know their status, but they are working to learn the spell. We may even have people close to the Grandir: I can’t say. We don’t allow any one individual to know too much. My job was to obtain the symbols. I failed. But if you get me out of here … Maybe I should go to your world, find the Grail there and bring it back. If your power is all you claim, you can help me.’

‘I don’t
claim
anything,’ Nathan protested. ‘My power, as you call it, is erratic. I told you. But the cup isn’t in my world any more: someone sent it back here. I think it’s probably in the cave again.’

Kwanji brightened again. ‘Then take me to it!’

But Nathan was pursuing his own thoughts. ‘I don’t understand about the Grandir. If he knew the spell he’d do it, wouldn’t he? I’ve seen him up close, in my dreams – he’s ruthless, but he wants to save the people, to save the rest of this world. I’m sure of it. He has the power, and he’s got some kind of a plan, even if it isn’t ready yet …’

‘He’s afraid to act,’ she said dismissively. ‘Or maybe he’s just afraid to fail. He’s been around a long time, longer than anyone can remember: his powers may be weakening. No one knows. He tells his councillors little and everyone else nothing. He might have a plan, yes, but it’ll be a plan just for
him
, him and his bridesister, his precious Halmé. He might have kept the Grail in your world because he wanted to open the barrier from there, without using a Great Spell – to open it just enough for two people to slip through.’

‘If that was what he wanted, he’d have done it already,’ Nathan retorted with a confidence he couldn’t explain.

‘Have you seen her?’ Kwanji demanded, with an abrupt change of subject. ‘In your dreams – have you seen Halmé?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is she –?’

‘She’s beautiful. Yes.’ Halmé the legend, the unseen face of Helen. He saw a trace of something like awe in Kwanji’s expression, foreign to her nature – until she banished it.

‘They say her father kept her hidden for a hundred years, for fear that her beauty would drive men mad,’ she said. ‘Anyone who set eyes on her was immediately executed.’

‘
Really
?’ Nathan was startled. ‘That’s ridiculous. I mean – overreaction! She’s beautiful, but – she’s still a woman. Like you. An ordinary woman.’

‘Maybe it was just a rumour,’ Kwanji said, and the hint of a smile softened her mouth. ‘Still, you are indeed a child – an alien. You don’t understand what beauty means.’

‘It doesn’t mean killing,’ Nathan said positively.

Kwanji gave a complicated shiver, as though throwing off some clinging foulness. ‘We’ve talked enough,’ she declared. ‘It’s time to go. You must dream now. Dream me out of here – dream me to the Sangreal.’

‘I
am
dreaming,’ Nathan said. He took her hands, and this time it was his clasp which was tight. He tried to recapture the urgency he felt when he rescued Eric, the surge of his inner will, but there was only a faltering, and the certainty of failure. He closed his eyes, picturing the desert beyond the cave, concentrating on Kwanji’s handclasp, on her need – reaching for the uprush of the dark. For a long minute he thought nothing was happening – and then it had already happened, the world had turned, he could no longer feel the floor of the Pit beneath him. He opened his eyes again, even
as her fingers slipped through his, and he saw the desert night stretching in every direction, and the pre-dawn pallor spilling slowly along the horizon. A dozen thoughts flashed through his mind at once – the giant lizard-monster, the distance to the cave, the sundeath that was coming inexorably with the advent of day. She had no mask, no protective clothing, only the inadequate garment of her imprisonment. He tried to shout: No!
No
! – he tried to hold on to her. But the darkness was too strong for him. He was sucked away, out of that world, out of consciousness, into a gulf of sleep …

When he awoke, it was morning. Morning in this world. The thread of sky between the curtains was grey. Thought was already there in his waking mind, jerking him upright, filling him with a terrible awareness. He’d dumped her there – out in the desert, with the monster and the sundeath. She had no chance. She might dodge the monster, but not the sun. The cave had been far away. She would die – because of him. ‘I must get back,’ he said out loud. ‘I
must
.’ But no one answered, and sleep was far away. He was back in his own world at the whim of an erratic fate, and there was nothing he could do about it. In his frustration he tore down the Mark of Agares where it was pinned on the wall. Then he went into the bathroom and scrubbed furiously at the rune on his arm, until it was almost obliterated. Perhaps without the Mark to hold him he would be able to get back – but when he lay down again and closed his eyes there was only the beat of his heart, and the shapes of vanished light on the back of his eyelids.

Inspector Pobjoy stared in bewilderment at the autopsy results. ‘This isn’t possible,’ he said to the assistant pathologist, who had been ordered to convey the bad news. ‘It
has
to be murder. Think of the blow to his head. It has to be …’

‘Not necessarily.’ The pathologist tried to look deprecating,
and only succeeded in looking smug. ‘There were plenty of low branches in the wood. He pushes one away from him, it springs back, catches him on the side of the skull – there may have been blood traces, though it’d be hard to find anything after the storm – the branch knocks him out. His face is pressed into the leaf-mould – nose and mouth fill with mud – he asphyxiates.’