– You mean like Dolores, said Flapping Eagle.
Virgil did not answer.
XXIX Deggle
– BUGGER, SAID NICHOLAS DEGGLE.
He was standing on Calf Beach, having arrived through the “gate” he had despatched Flapping Eagle through two weeks earlier; and he was feeling very angry with himself, and, therefore, with the universe. He had made a mistake so elementary it was mind-defying: he had failed to consider where on Calf Island the gate would deposit him, and as a result, here he was, the wrong side of the Forest, with a mountainful of climbing to do.
Of course he should have worked it out: since the gate was at sea-level that would have been its logical exit-point. Except that in all the setting he had done with his wand, the Stem, he had aimed at a point above K; and he had blithely assumed that that must have been where Flapping Eagle had gone, once the passage of the days had made it clear that the gate had worked. He was, he told himself bitterly, an unadulterated fool; and then he put the thought from him; too much had to be done to waste time on self-criticism.
No point in trying to use the gate the other way, back to X, and then re-angling it; it was clear that the Stem was an unreliable setter, and it had taken him years to get this far. Besides, the gate was only a one-way affair: again a function of time. No point, either, in attempting to use the Stem to move him up the mountain; again, its unreliability might land him anywhere, perhaps in a worse situation than he was. There was nothing for it: he’d have to climb.
– Bugger, he repeated. His long, willowy frame was not meant for such physical labour; the very thought of it led his tongue forcibly into profanity.
He cheered himself up with a vision of the reaction of Grimus-and indeed Jones-when they discovered that he was back. Back, he said aloud to the beach. Back to do what he should have done so long ago, and what they had prevented him from doing. This time he’d make sure they didn’t.
Now he noticed that he was not alone on the beach. A woman sat some way from him, on the sands, beside an empty rocking-chair, gazing fixedly at the cliffs. He knew that rocking-chair; it belonged to Virgil Jones. He knew the woman, too: there could not be two women on Calf Island as ugly as O’Toole’s wife. Here was a mystery, then. He sauntered over to Dolores; she sang on, toothlessly, ignoring him.
– Mrs O’Toole? he asked.
Dolores stopped singing and turned slowly to look at him.
– Darling, she said, do sit down.
Darling? thought Deggle; but he was feeling tired, so he did seat himself in Jones’ chair.
Virgil, thought Dolores. The lilting voice in the baggy face. The soaring heart in the sagging body. Virgil, who took her from the soulless church-wax and gave her flesh. How lucky she was to have him.
– Virgil, she said aloud, taking pleasure in his name. Virgil Jones.
Deggle was watching her. -Is he here? he said, eyes piercing her.
– As always, she said, clutching at his hand. Virgil is here.
Deggle disengaged his hand with delicate loathing.
– Are you… his woman? he asked.
She looked up at him adoringly and sang in her awful voice:
– Till all the seas run dry, my love.
Deggle found the cracked old woman’s rendition of the song unaccountably hilarious. Between giggles he said:
– Quite a change from Liv, aren’t you, Mrs O’Toole?
– Nothing changes, said Dolores O’Toole. Does it, darling?
– I suppose not, said Deggle, to fill the expectant silence. She smiled happily.
– O Virgil, she said to the recoiling Deggle, I do, do love you.
Deggle made a quick decision.
– I love you too, he said, and fought back a wave of nausea.
– Let’s go home, she said. Time for breakfast. Give me your belt.
– My belt? Deggle almost squeaked.
– O, you are fussy, she said. Come on, now.
Blankly, Deggle handed her his belt. Unlike Virgil, he didn’t need it to hold his trousers up. Also unlike Virgil, he wasn’t fat; so his belt wasn’t long enough.
– I think I’ll manage without it today, said Dolores O’Toole composedly.
Nicholas Deggle, half-amused, half-frightened by the old madwoman, followed her up the cliff-path to the little hovel. I wonder what happened to Virgil Jones, he asked himself.
Later that day.
Dolores O’Toole was boiling up some arrowroot tea when Deggle came in, looking dishevelled, and even gloomier than he had when he arrived.
– Wherever have you been, my love? she asked. Have some root-tea.
He had been up the mountain a small way. Then he had heard it: the deadly whine. At first he had ignored it; then it became increasingly intrusive, and the dizziness came, and the sense of detachment. Fortunately for himself, Nicholas Deggle was a man of some presence of mind and had staggered and rolled down the mountain, out of the danger zone. Then (for he could recognize an effect of the Rose when he experienced it) he cursed Grimus silently and long.
– Root-tea, said Dolores O’Toole, giving him a bowl. It was revolting; in his anger he hurled the bowl to the floor, where it shattered.
– Tch, tch, said Dolores. Accidents will happen. She began to mop up the mess, uncomplaining.
When she had finished, she came to him and sat at his feet. He was in the rocking-chair again. -We’ll sit like this, she said, every tea-time, for ever.
– You know, said Nicholas Deggle, you could easily be quite right.
– You were clever to chase away the ghost, she said, full of admiration.
– What ghost? asked Deggle.
– O, don’t be falsely modest. You know. That Spectre of Grimus with the scar on its chest.
– Ah, said Deggle, that ghost.
Jones had obviously gone somewhere with Flapping Eagle; but where? Had they killed each other? Had they been mad enough to try and get through the Effect?
– One thing is certain, he told himself, if Flapping Eagle doesn’t get to Bird-Dog and then do what I was going to do, I’m stuck here for life. With a hag who loves me because she thinks I’m Virgil Jones. He wondered if Virgil Jones would see the joke.
He doubted it; because he didn’t see it, either.
He was asleep on the rush-mat carefully laid down for him by Mrs O’Toole, when a nudge jerked him fully awake. There was Dolores O’Toole, in the nude, her hump looming up behind her, her withered breasts swaying with her breathing, her face lit by a ghastly invitation, her lips snarling a smile.
– O God, said Deggle, and closed his eyes to think of the Empire. He opened them; she was still there, leering at him.
– Not tonight, Josephine, he begged.
– Dolores, she corrected affectionately and went back to bed.
Nicholas Deggle was perspiring heavily.
XXX Valhalla
– VALHALLA, SAID VIRGIL JONES.
Valhalla: where dead warriors live on in stark splendour, fighting their past battles daily, reliving the hour of glory in which they fell, falling bloodied once more to the gleaming floors and being renewed the next morning to resume the eternal combat. Valhalla, the hall of fame, the living museum of the heroism of the past. Valhalla, close to the pool of knowledge where Odin drank, shaded by the Great Ash Yggdrasil, the World-Tree. When the ash falls, so does Valhalla.
With a slyly amused flick of the tongue, Virgil was pointing at the town of K.
The ascent of the mountain had posed no problems once Virgil had regained his strength (though not his vigour); and now Flapping Eagle stood beside his guide at the very fringe of the forested slopes, looking across a surprisingly large plain.