Alchemy, Book Two of the Mercian Trilogy (26 page)

Rachel and Eloise came into the room and Rachel said, “She’s made of tough stuff, this one – I don’t think there’s any lasting damage.” She looked sternly at Eloise though, and said, “But remember, if you have any of the symptoms I mentioned, it’s straight to the hospital.”

Eloise nodded and said, “Thanks, for everything,” and gave Rachel a hug.

As she pulled away again, Rachel said, “I’ll make you some tea, or do you want to get back to school?”

Eloise threw a glance at Will who understood immediately and said, “I think Eloise could use some tea, but we won’t be going back to the school. We’ll be staying in the city for a few days.”

They remained only half an hour longer, the
conversation trailing over the same ground already covered by Will and Chris. Rachel’s questions and concerns prevented Chris asking anything further.

And when they left, the city streets were deep with snow, though it had finally stopped falling. They walked to the church through the hollow air, immune to the beauty of it, lost in silence and in thoughts they both shared.

When they entered at the side door, Eloise said, “Do you mind if I have a moment?” She looked towards the altar.

“Not at all.”

He walked along the nave with her, but she turned off into the Lady Chapel where she knelt, head bowed in her own private prayer. Will stayed some distance away. He thought he heard her weeping quietly at one point, but when she arose, her eyes were dry and she looked stronger.

They descended to the crypt and from there to his chambers, and once he’d lit the candles, they lay together on the daybed. She held on to him and leaned her head against his chest. Will put his arm round her shoulder in return and idly stroked her hair. For all that had happened this evening, these recent days, to be with her and hold her was enough to give him some peace.

They lay like that for a long time, until finally Eloise spoke, her voice hushed as she said, “What did you learn?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Earlier, you told Chris you’d learned a lot tonight.”

“Less than I would have liked, and though we have dealt Wyndham some sort of blow, I fear there’s so much more he can do. I said that in part because I have little doubt that Chris will tell Wyndham.”

Eloise didn’t question his logic this time, but said hopefully, “But you did learn something?”

“I learned from Edgar that we are close to Lorcan Labraid, though perhaps he did not know that the labyrinth is now impassable.” He thought back to noble Edgar, the only one among those creatures he wished he could have spared, and to the words they’d exchanged. “Of course, I told him that, and yet he remained insistent, so perhaps he refers to some other place, or some other way of gaining entrance to the gateway.”

“If only you’d learned as much from the queen.”

“I learned something more precious from the queen, something that offers both more hope and also more danger for you.”

Eloise looked up at him before lowering her head back to his chest as she said, “What?”

“I need you, you need me, Jex said so, the medallion
said so, the witches believe it, yet both Asmund and Elfleda tried to kill you.”

“Only because they were so desperate for blood.”

“Possibly, and yet their whole existence was apparently aimed at fulfilling my destiny. But more, when I told Elfleda that you were the girl spoken of in the prophecies, she said, ‘Don’t you think I know that,’ before trying to feed from you. Why would someone who had endured so much to fulfil my destiny, to see the prophecies realised,
why
would she respond in such a way to learning your identity?”

Will had already had time to consider it, but he was impressed that within a few seconds, Eloise turned, leaning with both hands on his chest, looking into his eyes as she said, “Because the prophecies conflict! Because you have two possible destinies! She tried to kill me because you need me to help you reach that other destiny, the one that frees you from Lorcan Labraid.”

She looked joyful for a moment, then hopeful, then a little less so as she accepted there was more hope than fact in this. She moved back into her previous position, putting her head back on Will’s chest.

“Everyone wants to kill me,” she said.

“I don’t,” said Will, stroking her hair again now that she was settled.

“No, you don’t.” She was silent for a little while, then said, “I wish we could stay here forever.”

“Me too.”

He thought of the city far above, covered with snow, and imagined that snow never melting, the world falling into an enchantment that would not be broken. For so many centuries he’d despaired of being trapped in this body forever, in these chambers, yet right at this moment, he could think of no better fate.

T
his is not the end, far from it. This is the beginning. I never imagined it would be easy, that there would not be casualties. And I cannot deny that my thoughts and emotions are conflicted by the turn of events
.

This is evil I am facing, I have no doubt of it, but is the battle worth the cost? I don’t know. I continue only in the knowledge that good must always triumph over evil, no matter what price we pay for that victory. If I surrender now, how can I know what terrors will be visited upon the world?

But the losses! It seems he betrayed me, Marcus Jenkins, or rather that I misread his character or underestimated my enemy’s powers of persuasion. Yet he was brave, I’ll give him that, and honourable, and would have made a fine gentleman if given the chance. What future he would have had where he grew up, I don’t know, but that makes it no easier to accept his death, a death I lured him to with empty promises of a brighter future
.

If there’s a greater conflict within me than that surrounding the death of young Marcus, it’s my feelings regarding William of Mercia himself. Perhaps I’m confused only because it’s the first time I’ve seen him in the flesh, so to speak, the person my entire life has been dedicated to destroying, even before I knew it
.

When I saw him, it was within the context of battle and yet still he seemed somehow more decent, more honourable, more … human than I had imagined. His love for the girl is plain for anyone to see. And as shocked as I was by the ferocity with which he killed the vampire queen, I am certain he was driven by the fury of seeing her murder Marcus
.

I have witnessed a humanity of sorts in these creatures before, most notably in Baal, but William of Mercia behaved in a way that almost fills me with admiration. Almost, but not quite
.

It was impossible too for me to fail to observe that he was a handsome boy, tall and charismatic, and I cannot but wonder at my mother’s fixation with him. Did the young Arabella Harriman fall in love with this demon? And was the shock of seeing him so many years later born as much out of those impassioned, adolescent feelings as from the impact of seeing him unchanged?

Has the course of my entire life been determined by the fact that my mother’s first love failed to grow old?

If that is the case, how appropriate that she should inadvertently confer the same wretched fate on her own child
.

You may wonder that I speak as if cursed, but at this moment, I wonder if I was, if by appearing beside my mother’s carriage that night, William of Mercia handed me the curse of being his arch-enemy
.

Is it not a curse to lose the world in which you belong? Yes, I have adapted, in my language and my dress and my customs. I pass for a modern man more readily than these demons could ever manage to do, so much so that I would now be a stranger if returned to my own time. But the world I knew and belonged to has disappeared, and no matter how long you live, you are always tied in your heart to the time of your youth
.

I became an alchemist, yet the real alchemy is that which already lies within us, that makes us live and love and grow old, a magic we hand on to our children and they to theirs. I thought my alchemy had stopped time, but time continued relentlessly and merely left me behind. Yes, a part of me is locked eternally in the summer of 1753, the sports and the pastimes, the society of my family and its connections, the pretty smile of Lady Maria Dangrave
.

That is why I cannot stop, because nothing can get me back to the summer of 1753 and that smile. My
mother’s experiment cast me ashore here, in this distant future, and I was sent here to destroy the evil that is carried within the person of William of Mercia
.

I’ll grant the possibility that he does not know the evil he carries within, that he is merely a vessel, but he carries it nevertheless, and even if it is my last act, you have to understand that I have no choice but to destroy him. If you had seen the same things as I have, understood them as I have, I assure you that you would feel the same
.

T
he sun had been shining all day and the snow, deep as it lay, was thawing quickly. After weeks of bone-jarring cold, milder weather was promised, together with the hope that the worst of the winter might be behind them.

From the back of the car, Chris looked out at fields that still glowed white in the twilight and the part of him that was still young felt saddened that it would have all melted within a day or two. For weeks to come the world would probably look damp and dreary.

“Be glad when this has all gone,” said Field. “Seen enough snow for one year, don’t you think?”

Chris looked at him, head shaved, tattoos creeping up from beneath his collar as if they were slowly growing up his neck. Field was solidly built, but carried another whole body’s worth of padding. Apart from the possible uses of his doorman’s bulk, Chris couldn’t quite understand what Field was doing with them.

They turned into the school gates and Chris started to
tap his foot without realising he was doing it, a sudden release of nervous energy.

Wyndham picked up on it straight away and said, “Relax, Christopher, they’re in the city, you know they are, so there’s no one to see us, no one to hinder our progress.”

Field laughed, then looked at Chris with a puzzled expression for a moment before saying, “I know where I know you from! Don’t you run that hippy veggie-burger type place?”

Wyndham laughed, saying, “Mr Field, you are a tease.”

Field smiled, pleased with himself, completely unaware that he’d just been silenced. And then the car stopped and they climbed out, waiting only while the driver handed Wyndham a long cardboard box. Chris knew, of course, that it contained a sword.

Dr Higson met them in the hall and ushered them immediately towards the chapel. Chris noticed the headmaster’s hand was heavily bandaged, which filled him with misgivings, but Field, suddenly useful, allayed them by asking Higson outright.

“What happened to your hand, Doc?”

Higson grimaced at the way he’d been addressed, but lifted the hand up to display the bandaging as he said, “I run the perimeter of the school every morning, but the ground’s frozen of course, which I didn’t allow for. Took
a tumble, bruised the wrist, broke some fingers.”

Field produced an odd superior laugh as though the injury supported one of his long-held beliefs, then said, “I’ve never held with jogging.”

No one replied.

They stepped down into the chapel and Higson waited until the door was closed before saying, “Please, follow me.”

There were some steps to a crypt towards the left-hand side of the altar, but Higson led them instead to the right where, behind the altar, there was a small locked room that looked as if it had once been used for storage. It was empty now except for some electric camping lanterns in one corner.

Once inside, Higson locked the door, then opened a panel in one of the walls. There was another locked door beyond it, but before opening that, Higson reached down and picked up one of the lanterns, saying, “We’ll all need one of these.”

They picked them up and turned them on, then Higson unlocked the door and started down the steps on the other side of it. Before following, Wyndham turned to Chris and Field and said, “Very few people know about this tunnel, but trust me, this is not what we have come to see.”

They descended, and at the bottom of the steps they
followed a narrow tunnel for some distance until it opened into a small circular chamber. Chris moved around the walls, but could find nothing to suggest any further openings.

Field looked up at the roof of the chamber and said, “What is it, a priest-hole or something?”

Wyndham smiled and said, “It’s a gateway to another world, Mr Field, something quite extraordinary.”

Field said, “What d’you reckon, Tofu, you just looked around the walls, see any gateway?”

It took a moment for Chris to realise Field was talking to him, and he laughed and said, “No, as it happens, I don’t, but I’ve known Phillip long enough not to doubt him.”

“Quite,” said Wyndham. “You see, Mr Field, this gateway is designed to be opened by one person and one person alone. So though I knew it was here, I had no way of accessing it. Then Christopher suggested something, and I have to admit I was sceptical, but he convinced me, and I’m glad he did …” He opened the box and removed the weapon. “A sabre, used by William of Mercia himself, touched by him, if you will. Now stand back and behold.”

Higson immediately stood with his back to the wall. Chris and Field followed suit and then Wyndham drove the point of the sword into the floor of the chamber. It
was stone, and yet the blade slid through and the sabre stood upright when Wyndham let go and joined the others at the edge of the chamber.

The ground startled to tremble. Chris put his hand flat against the wall and realised that, despite the cold, his palm was damp. He could feel his heart racing too as the ground in front of him appeared to wobble and shimmer, then it peeled apart around the impaled sword, revealing a spiralling stone staircase descending into darkness.

They all stood in silence at first, matching the hollow stillness that now surrounded them. Unsurprisingly, it was Field who spoke first, laughing as he said, “Now
that
is amazing.”