Hugo Rune placed a hand upon the Inspectre’s shoulder, “You won’t get in this way, I’m telling you.”
“Leave the fence to me,” said Hovis, shrugging off the podgy fingers. “I’ll get us into the compound, you open the gasometer.”
“Please yourself then.”
The bulldozer struck the fence once more and this time a charge of electricity crackled through the vehicle, scrambling the ignition system and setting the driver’s crowning glory ablaze. The erstwhile demolition team leapt from the cab, howling and fanning at themselves. The bulldozer began to turn in circles, its digger rising and falling.
Meek wound down his window. “Back up!” he shouted towards the goggle-eyed policemen in the convoy behind. His words were of course lost in the noise of the screaming engine. The bulldozer struck the bonnet of the lead car. Meek threw himself out of the vehicle as it upended to fall upon the car behind. Hovis leapt up and down shouting through his loudhailer and brandishing his gun. Meek watched in horror as the bulldozer minced the line of police cars into unrecognizable scrap. Rune turned upon his heel and strode off up the road whistling a tune of his own making.
“Now, Jim!” cried Professor Slocombe. Jim fumbled with the phial and dropped it beyond the reach of the circle.
“Your little diversion has come to nothing. Goodbye, Professor!” cried the Soul of the World.
Jim flung himself towards the silver bottle. As he left the circle, darkness closed about him, the world came to an end.
Pooley clambered to his feet, brushing away the strands of long coarse grass which clung to his clothing. The land about him was flat endless tundra, relieved only by the occasional gnarled black tree. Somewhere nearby a river ran, but Jim was unable to see it. Shielding his eyes against the curious magenta glare of the sky, he sought a habitation, a hostelry perhaps? There was nothing. But then there was something.
Borne upon a wind, so light as to scarcely stir the grass, he heard the faint sounds of chanting. And then the jingling of bells, the rattle of harnessing, the tread of the heavy horses. The creak of the wagon wheels. A procession wound towards him, those at the van swung censers, and intoned the chant. Their garments were of rough brown cloth, soiled through much hard travel, their feet unshod, their faces grave. These men and women were exhausted, they had travelled many miles without rest, they stumbled, staggered, but they marched on.
Pooley watched them sadly as they passed. The heads of the great horses were down, their flanks ran wet. The wagon wheels turned in faulty circles, their unequal spokes wrought with the signs of a former zodiac. And Jim watched those who rode the high-sided wagons, the witch-faced women with their bearded chins and tattooed brows. And he glimpsed the treasures which they guarded. Sprawling upon the cushions of hay were infants, swollen and grotesque, the size of oxen. The children of the great folk. The last of their line. They gurgled and croaked, their naked skins grey, their eyes without lustre. Now behind them, in the far distance, the thunder rolled and broke. The sky seethed angrily and muttered threats.
Pooley heard the cry, in a language he knew not, yet understood. “Onward, onward to the Iron Tower. Onward to the sanctuary.”
The witch-women drove hard upon the faltering horses and those that maintained the endless chant marched on upon wooden legs. And Jim limped after them across the plain and now the wind grew and howled and drove him onward. And there upon the horizon he saw the tower, stark and black, a distant needle piercing the sky. And the cry went up from the marchers and the women drove ever harder upon the dying horses. “Onward, onward, King Bran is coming.”
And from the heart of the dark and rolling clouds, lightning broke and scoured the land, and the thunder was now the hooves of an approaching army. “Make haste to the sanctuary.”
And of a sudden the tower filled the sky, and a drawbridge fell like the hand of benediction. The marchers broke into a run. A horse floundered and dropped dead in the shafts of the lead wagon. Men and women tore it away, rolled the body aside, dragged and heaved at the wagon, swarmed towards the drawbridge. “Make haste, make haste.”
Jim limped after them. A wagon overturned, spilling its ghastly load. The witch-women deserted it, ran screaming. The horsemen thundered nearer. The horsemen of King Bran. And Jim ran, as though the devil was at his heels. And now two called out to him, called through the crashing elements, the terror, the lightning and the pounding hooves of the approaching warriors. A man and a woman, braced against the driving winds, crying through the maelstrom, “Hurry, Jim, this way!” — Pooley shielded his eyes. “John,” he gasped, “Jennifer, I’m coming.”
Then hands grasped him, pulled him back, back from the drawbridge, the threshold of the sanctuary. “Stop, do not enter, you must not enter.”
“Take the bottle,” cried Paul Geronimo, “uncork the bottle!”
“Do it now!” his brother urged. “Only you can!”
Jim’s brain reeled, torn with doubt, indecision and fear.
Paul thrust the silver bottle into his hand. “For the Professor, do it now, open the bottle!”
Pooley stared towards Omally; he was stepping back into the iron tower. Only one wagon had entered, the others were abandoned, people screamed, fled, the winds tore. The horsemen of King Bran bore down upon him. The drawbridge began to rise. Pooley ripped the stopper from the bottle.
40
A beaming face beamed out across the nation. “This is the London Olympics.”
Old Pete switched off the television set. “It’s not the same without Anne Diamond,” he complained bitterly. The sound of his letter-flap creaking on its rusty spring drew his attention. “Hello,” said Old Pete, “it’s not Giroday.”
Upon the unwelcoming mat lay a silver-foil envelope. YOUR PERSONAL INVITATION TO THE BRENTFORD OLYMPICS. “Gold dust,” said Old Pete, pressing it to his lips. “Thirty-carat gold dust.”
“Gold dust,” said Inspectre Hovis. “At each of the sites where disturbances occurred, and last night it was in the air, on my clothes.”
Rune sat over a bowl of Tibetan muesli. The mess-room of the Brentford nick was crowded with bandaged officers hunched over their breakfasts. “The alchemist’s quest,” said Rune. “Pure gold. It is a powerful instrument in any hands.”
“Whoever is at the bottom of this is taking the piss,” said Hovis, applying himself to his cornflakes. “Having a pop at me personally.”
“I don’t like to say I told you so,” said Hugo Rune. “Well, actually I do, as it happens.”
“A bulldozer,” spluttered Hovis, spraying the magus with half-masticated flakes of golden corn. “A bulldozer wouldn’t go through the wire. I’ve got six police vehicles smashed to a pulp, a dozen officers banged up in the Cottage Hospital, my reputation, for what it was, is in tatters. My job will be on the line for this.”
“To offer you my sympathy would be as futile as it would be fallacious. You wasted your opportunity.” Rune brushed cornflakes from his shoulders. “Your man was distracted, I could sense it. It will be more difficult now.”
“Don’t even think about raising your fee,” said Hovis.
“You must do it my way, Inspectre. It will take a few days. Keep the gasometer under constant surveillance, arrest anyone who attempts to leave it. Other than for that, bide your time and wait for me to give you the word.”
Hovis pushed his breakfast bowl aside and took to the contents of his cane, pecking a hearty blend of Moroccan Black cut with cocaine in his left nostril. “If you cross me, Rune,” he said, “I will have your wedding tackle for cufflinks.”
“I am Hugo Rune,” said Hugo Rune. “Lord of the seven spheres. Master of the cosmic consciousness, Laird of Cockpen and hereditary heir to the Grand Mastership of the Golden Dawn. I think therefore I’m right.”