He put his arms around her, and she didn’t flinch.
“Let’s go home, Rob,” she said quietly.
Over her head he looked at Vetch. The poet was leaning on the back of the Chair, his hand on Clare’s shoulder, and to Rob’s amazement the blond woman reached up and touched his scarred skin, even though they watched Chloe, both of them, absorbed.
Rob said, “I don’t know how.”
“I do.” It was the King who spoke. “You must climb, of course.” Pushing Rob gently aside, he put his hands around Chloe’s waist. “Are you ready, my lady?”
She looked at him closely, then gave him a shy kiss on the brittle mask. “I won’t forget you,” she whispered.
The King laughed sadly. “Ah, but you will. Though you’ll search all through the poet’s bag to find me again. And one day, perhaps, among the echoes and images, among the tales, something will seem familiar.” Easily, he lifted her, her white dress drifting against him, hoisting her up into the green canopy of acorns and hawthorn. Chloe grabbed a branch, and stepped up onto another.
She climbed, quick and agile.
She didn’t look back.
“Wait for me!” Rob scrambled after her into the foliage, looking down to see Ceridwen’s upturned face, and Vetch’s calm smile.
“Will you be… Will I see you again?”
Ceridwen shrugged. “The Cauldron-born cross many worlds. We live in yours, just as we live here. Part of me will be in Clare still. But hurry, Rob. The sun’s rising.”
He nodded, glanced once at Vetch and looked for Mac, but the priest was no longer there. Instead, streaming from the east, light was breaking into the Unworld. Brilliant, horizontal, the lazy red fire of the dawn shot through the trees. As Rob climbed quickly, he felt it warm him, knew a slit had widened, as if somewhere an eye was opening, and the slushy drifts of snow slithered and melted and fell wetly on his face.
Leaves surrounded him. There was no sound from above but a rustle that might be Chloe or might be birds; he called again, “Wait for me!” but there was no answer, and the tree trunks rose around him like dark timbers, an enclosing circle that he was climbing up through the center of, and the boughs of the tree were black, fossilized with age, pitted and cracked with time.
He was climbing the highest tree in the forest, and he came out above the canopy, and swung there, and saw all the Unworld below, in its sunrise.
Then he reached up, and touched the sky.
The sky was warm. It was soft as cloud. It licked his face and nudged itself against him, and then it snuffled and scratched ferociously at its fleas.
It also stank.
Rob lay quite still. When he opened his eyes he saw, inches in front of them, the gnarled smooth wood of Darkhenge. A spider was making its careful way over a dewdrop, tickling his cheek. As he breathed out, the web spun from his face to the timber quivered.
Tearing it, he sat up quickly, grabbing the upturned tree.
He was soaked, and shivering. The dog gave a short bark of displeasure, then shook itself, sending drips flying.
He was lying inside Darkhenge. Chips of wood scattered the enclosure, and the chainsaw notch in the central trunk looked raw. Rob caught hold of it and pulled himself up, staggering slightly. He was winded, as if he’d run a long way. Putting his feet down carefully, he pulled himself along to the entrance and stared out.
The field was empty, except for litter.
It looked like the aftermath of a rock festival. Bottles and cans glinted in the grass. Abandoned banners were soaked with dew; the rising sun lit the letters of SAVE DARKHENGE with a golden glow.
“Hey!”
A policeman was crossing toward him. “Where the hell did you come from? I thought we cleared everyone out.”
Rob rubbed his face. He was desperate with thirst. “I fell asleep. Look, I need a phone. It’s an emergency.”
“There’s one in that trailer, but—”
He didn’t wait. Dodging the man’s grip, he raced up, threw the door open, and dived for the desk. The number of Mac’s cell seemed endless, then there was a crackle of sound.
The policeman’s bulk darkened the doorway. “You can’t just—”
“Shut up!” Rob turned. “Mac? Mac!”
Noise.
People crying. His mother crying. A babble of voices, high and hysterical. Dan’s voice and Rosa’s. Nurses. Pandemonium.
“Mac! What’s happening? What’s happening?”
His godfather’s voice was hoarse. “She’s here, Rob. She’s with us again.”
“God.” It was all he could say, could think. “Oh God.”
“Talk to her,” Mac growled.
The phone crackled. He heard breath and rustles. He heard the moving forest.
Then Chloe’s whisper. “Rob?”
He gripped the phone so tight his hand throbbed. “Chloe,” he breathed.
She sounded small. She sounded as if she wanted him.
“Where are you?” she sobbed. “You should be here.”
He swallowed, made himself smile. “This is your time,” he whispered. “Your time.”
They all wanted to talk to him. He was to get a taxi and race there. His father whooped and gabbled nonsense; his mother could only sob. Finally Mac’s voice came back, gruff and exhausted. “She’ll sleep again for a few hours but get yourself here as soon as you can. She needs you, Rob.” There was a pause. Then, “Where’s Vetch?”
Rob scraped a hand down his face. He felt light-headed. “Home.” Then he said, “Has she … is there anything around her neck?”
An empty second. Then, “No. Why?”
“I’ll … explain. When I come.”
Mac sounded sour and silly with joy. “I can’t wait to hear that.”
The phone clicked off.
On the steps of the trailer Rob stood and saw the sun through the trees. There were so few trees left.
Beyond them the downs stretched, green and smooth, small sheep on their back. The policeman scowled at him. “You’d better get home before I think better of it.”
“I’m going, believe me.”
He stumbled to the gate and looked back.
In its hollow, beyond the destroyed fence, Darkhenge stood silent and remote. But not still. It moved, and blurred, and at first Rob thought it was his eyes, tired and playing tricks on him, and then the movement became clear, and he understood that he was seeing the swarming of thousands of beetles, tiny wood-boring creatures, their hard carapaces glinting as they scrambled up from the soil.
The Unworld had sent its messengers to devour the henge.
By the time anyone realized, it would be eaten to the ground.
Rob smiled a weary smile. One day he’d do a painting of it. He would be the only one who ever could.
He’d leave it to Chloe to write the story.
Excerpt from Corbenic
O
ne
His mother kept him there and held him back…
Conte du Graal
Very far away, the voice said, “Who drinks from the Grail?”
Jerked out of a doze, Cal opened his eyes. Then he tugged the earphones off and rubbed his face wearily. The woman who had been sitting next to him must have gotten off at the last station; now her seat was empty. A man in uniform was wheeling a trolley down the aisle of the train; it was crammed with crisps and sandwiches and piles of upturned plastic cups around the shiny urn. The man caught Cal’s eye. “Drinks? Tea? Coffee?”
It would be embarrassing to say no, so he muttered, “Tea,” knowing it would be the cheapest thing. Then he dragged some coins out of his pocket and sorted through them, trying to look careless, as if money didn’t matter.
The train was a lot emptier now. It rattled viciously over some points; the trolley man swayed, balancing expertly in the aisle as he filled a plastic cup under the tap, the trolley rocking so that a small packet of biscuits slid off onto the empty seat. Chocolate digestives. Cal scowled. He was so hungry he almost felt sick. “Those too.”