There was nothing, he considered, like a little firsthand observation in one’s own home.
Ambrose and the Ancient
Spirits of East and West
By Garth Nix
Ambrose Farnington was not particularly well-equipped to live an ordinary life. An adventurer in the Near East before the Great War, the war itself had seen him variously engaged in clandestine and very cold operations in the mountains between Turkey and Russia; commanding an infantry battalion in France and Belgium; and then, after almost a day buried in his headquarters dugout in the company of several dead and dismembered companions, as a very fragile convalescent in a nursing home called Grandway House, in Lancashire.
Most recently, a year of fishing and walking near Fort William had assisted the recovery begun under the care of the neurasthenic specialists at Grandway, and by the early months of 1920, the former temporary Lieutenant Colonel Farnington felt that he was almost ready to reemerge into the world. The only question was in what capacity. The year in the Scottish bothy with only his fishing gear, guns, and a borrowed dog for company had also largely exhausted his ready funds, which had been stricken by his remaining parent’s ill-timed death, his father putting the capstone on a lifetime of setting a very bad example by leaving a great deal of debt fraudulently incurred in his only child’s name.
Ambrose considered the question of his finances and employment as he sorted through the very thin pile of correspondence on the end of the kitchen table he was using as a writing desk. The bothy had been lent to him with the dog, and though both belonged to Robert Cameron, a very close friend from his days at Peterhouse College in Cambridge, his continued presence there prevented the employment of bothy and dog by a gamekeeper who would usually patrol the western borders of Robert’s estate. Besides, Ambrose did not wish to remain a burden on one of the few of his friends who was still alive.
It was time to move on, but the question was: on to what and where?
“I should make an appreciation of my situation and set out my qualities and achievements, Nellie,” said Ambrose to the dog, who was lying down with her shaggy head on his left foot. Nellie raised one ear, but made no other movement, as Ambrose unscrewed his pen and set out to write on the back of a bill for a bamboo fishing rod supplied by T. H. Sowerbutt’s of London.
Jonathan Nix’s etching “Tree Spirits Rising,” honoring Dr. Lambshead’s period of interest in “bushes, bramble, herbs, and eccentric ground cover.”
“Item one,” said Ambrose aloud. “At twenty-nine, not excessively aged, at least by time. Item two, in possession of rude physical health and . . . let us say . . . in a stable mental condition, provided no underground exercise is contemplated. Item three, a double-starred first in Latin and Greek, fluent in Urdu, classical Persian, Arabic, Spanish, French, German; conversant with numerous other languages, etc. Item four, have travelled and lived extensively in the Near East, particularly Turkey and Persia. Item five, war service . . .”
Ambrose put down his pen and wondered what he should write. Even though he would burn his initial draft on completion, he was still reluctant to mention his work for D-Arc. Even the bare facts were secret, and as for the details, very few people would believe them. Those people who would believe were the ones he was most worried about. If certain practitioners of some ancient and occult studies discovered that he was Agent çobanaldatan, the man who had so catastrophically halted that ceremony high on the slopes of Ziyaret Daği, then . . .
“I suppose if I am not too specific, it can’t matter,” Ambrose said to Nellie. He picked up the pen again, and continued to speak aloud as he wrote.
“Where was I . . . war service . . . 1914–1915. Engaged by a department of the War Office in reconnaissance operations in the region of . . . no, best make it ‘the East.’ Returned in 1916, posted to KRRC, rose to brevet lieutenant colonel by May 1918, commanded the Eighth Battalion, wounded 21 September 1918, convalescent leave through to 5 March 1919 . . . no, that looks bad, far too long, will just make it ‘after convalescent leave’ resigned temporary commission . . . how do I explain this last year? Writing a paper on the Greek inscriptions near Erzerum or something, I suppose, I do have one I started in ’09 . . . let’s move on . . .”
He paused as Nellie raised both ears and tilted her head towards the door. When she gave a soft whine and stood up, Ambrose pushed his chair back and went to the window. Gently easing the rather grimy curtain aside, he looked out, up towards the rough track that wound down from the main road high on the ridge above.
A car was gingerly making its way down towards the bothy, proceeding slowly and relatively quietly in low gear, though not quietly enough to fool Nellie. It was a maroon sedan of recent European make, and it was not a car that he knew. To get here, the driver had either picked or more likely cut off the bronze Bramah padlocks on both the upper gate to the road and the one in the wall of the middle field.
Quickly, but with measured actions, Ambrose went to the gun cabinet, unlocked it with one of the keys that hung on his heavy silver watch-chain, and took out his service revolver. He quickly loaded it and put the weapon and another five cartridges in the voluminous right pocket of his coat, his father’s sole useful legacy, an ugly purple-and-green tweed shooting jacket that was slightly too large.
He hesitated in front of the cabinet, then, after a glance at Nellie and at a very old pierced bronze lantern that hung from a ceiling beam, he reached back into the cabinet for a shotgun. He chose the lightest of the four weapons there, a double-barrel four-ten. Unlike the other guns, and against all his usual principles, it was already loaded, with rather special shot. Ambrose broke it, whispered, “melek kiliç şimdi bana yardum” close to the breech, and snapped it closed.
The incantation would wake the spirits that animated the ammunition, but only for a short time. If whoever came in the maroon car was an ordinary visitor, the magic would be wasted, and he only had half a box of the shells left. But he did not think it was an ordinary visitor, though he was by no means sure it was an enemy.
Certainly, Nellie was growling, the hair up all along her back, and that indicated trouble. But the bronze lamp that Ambrose had found in the strange little booth in the narrowest alley of the Damascus bazaar, while it had lit of its own accord, was not burning with black fire. The flame that flickered inside was green. Ambrose did not yet know the full vocabulary of the oracular lantern, but he knew that green was an equivocal colour. It signified the advent of some occult power, but not necessarily an inimical force.
Readying the shotgun, Ambrose went to the door. Lifting the bar with his left hand, he nudged the door open with his foot, allowing himself a gap just wide enough to see and shoot through. The car was negotiating the last turn down from the middle field, splashing through the permanent mud puddle as it negotiated the open gate and the narrow way between the partly fallen stone walls that once upon a time had surrounded the bothy’s kitchen garden.
Ambrose could only see a driver in the vehicle, but that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be others lying low. He raised the shotgun and thumbed back both hammers, suddenly aware of a pulsing in his eardrums that came from his own, racing heart. Nellie, next to his leg, snarled, but well trained as she was, did not bark or lunge forward.