Buried Fire (15 page)

After Vanessa Sawcroft had recovered from her coughing fit, she helped Mr Cleever and Paul Comfrey carry the wheelchair back upstairs to Mr Hardraker's room. Her clothes, like those of the two others, were badly scorched, and with her arm hanging loosely in its blackened sling, she looked in pitiable shape. Paul Comfrey's hands were shaking so much that Mr Cleever told him off sharply for unsettling the chair; and Mr Cleever himself, though he seemed to have escaped the worst of the inferno, was limping a little as he ascended the stair, and cursed more often than he was wont.

Michael followed along behind. He had a spring in his step.

Once Mr Hardraker had been removed to his room, Mr Cleever and the others took themselves off to wash and find what new clothes they could. Michael stayed in the room with the cross, studying the plans and sketches with a detached interest. He had no difficulty in recognising the Pit, but the reproductions of the cross's carvings puzzled him.

"Well, Michael." Mr Cleever had returned. He had on a new shirt and his face was scrubbed and beaming, but he limped as he crossed the room. "Would you have guessed you were capable of that, when you came with me this morning?"

"No. Of course not. Although I don't think it was all me. It was in response to— Mr Hardraker. It was a kind of challenge. If I hadn't—"

"And you responded admirably. Quite took us aback. We were expecting something, of course, but nothing that fierce, or we wouldn't have stood so close, would we, Vanessa?" He laughed, but Ms Sawcroft, who had just entered, did not. She sat herself down on a chair beside the table with the cross, and after a moment Michael and Mr Cleever did the same.

"Get on and tell him," she said.

"Just getting to it. Now – Michael," Mr Cleever adopted a serious tone. "You were quite right to say that Mr Hardraker had a hand in that little effect, but not exactly in the way you think. In fact, the pair of you produced it together, through a mingling of both your energies and his will."

"I drew on my own energy to fight off his," objected Michael. "He didn't shape it in any way."

"Ah, but he did. Otherwise Vanessa and I would be black smears on the wall of that unfortunate room. Mr Hardraker shielded us from the full force of your fire. And more than that, it was only because of his direction that you were able to bring forth so much power in the first place." Michael frowned at this, and Mr Cleever went on, "Try it now if you want. You'll be able to set fire to things, but nothing like on that scale. I can see you're getting resentful, but you don't need to: you've far more power bubbling inside you than either Vanessa or I have, let alone the others. The point is that as yet you don't have the will to use it. Mr Hardraker does. The strength of his will you would find hard to imagine."

"So why doesn't he try out his special effects on his own?" Michael was quietly furious – the thought of being used by that horrendous old man set his teeth on edge.

"Ah, that question digs down to the heart of our problem, Michael, and it's your problem too, so try to keep a level head."

Michael breathed deep and sat back in his chair.

"We are all of us linked," Mr Cleever went on, "because the dragon has claimed us. And although for a time that makes us fortunate, it carries us into a kind of hell at last. Look at Joseph Hardraker. He was claimed when still in his teens, back in the days when bicycles were a new invention, and the first car had not been built. Oh yes, he's well over a hundred now, is Joseph, and who knows how long he might linger, in his living death, before his heart finally gives out. He doesn't move, he doesn't eat or drink; he doesn't need to any more. Time means nothing to him, he's past all that, reduced to a single flame of willpower burning endlessly in his head. Do you want to know why? It's because he has gone where the gifts must lead us all eventually."

"They make us immobile like our master," Vanessa Sawcroft said.

"They are a dragon's gifts. It gives us its sight, its flame, its flight, its power over the minds of men. For a while we can use them, as long as we stay within a few miles of the Wirrim. If we travel further, we grow tired, our eyes ache, pains wrack our bodies and we die."

"It happened to a man twenty years ago," Vanessa interjected in her flat, level voice. "I didn't have the gift then, but I remember the incident all right. He must have grown desperate, because he took the overnight express from Stanbridge station. That train doesn't stop till it gets to Paddington. And not long after they'd set off, other passengers heard scuffles and thuds from his compartment. They found him thrashing about on the floor with his hands over his eyes, and a minute or two later, with the train pulling ever further east, he was dead."

"How do you know he had the sight?" Michael asked.

"Joseph knew him. We always know each other for what we are. This man was getting on, maybe in his fifties, and he was slowing right down and losing his powers, so seeing the prospect of an endless old age trailing before him, he tried to break free. But it didn't work."

"You haven't told me why Hardraker is like he is. Why shouldn't he – why shouldn't we die like anyone else?"

"Because," Mr Cleever said, "with every passing day, we become more like the worm itself. We've breathed its breath in to us, we have its gifts, and so we change. And because it has lain silent and still under the earth since time out of mind, needing neither food nor water, nor air nor light, so our souls will grow still too. Our energy leaves us, first slowly, then more rapidly, until we are joined to the dragon in endless waking silence, where once we were joined with brilliance and power."

"When that happens," Vanessa continued, "there is no way out. You cannot even lift a knife to kill yourself, since all your energy has been lost. Only your mind lives on, trapped in your body, feeling the power there, but being unable to use it."

"Most people," said Mr Cleever, "choose to finish themselves before they reach that state."

"Or have their lives finished for them, by ignorant fools," said Vanessa.

"She means the witch scares, but that's all in the past. Nowadays, suicide is the most likely outcome."

"But not for Mr Hardraker," said Michael.

"No, not Joseph. Joseph is unusual, you see. He always was, perhaps because like you he received the gifts at an early age. From what he's told us, he had a wild disposition, and used his gifts unwisely. He had a particular fondness for the Second, which he would practise at night in lonely valleys on the Wirrim. Well, there was soon talk, of course; there always is, when someone uses the Second out-of-doors. It led to trouble, and to a busy-bodying fool butting his nose in, and in the end Joseph had to silence him, which he found easy enough to do. But it shows how careful we've got to be, Michael. Joseph's youthful exuberance put himself – and others – at risk."

"And it hasn't stopped causing trouble for a hundred years," Vanessa added. "Tell him about Willis."

"It's quite irrelevant, my dear."

"Not according to the Reverend Aubrey it isn't."

"He is quite irrelevant too, Vanessa. We must not overburden the boy."

Michael felt this patronising. "What's Tom Aubrey been up to then?" he asked.

"Willis, the interfering nobody, who's been burnt and dead a hundred years, unfortunately left a few scraps of speculation to be published by the vanity press. They touch on the nature of the Wirrim and what lies in it. I'm afraid that the good Reverend has read it, and has set himself against us."

"He always was a meddling idiot," said Michael.

"However, as I say, that will prove irrelevant. To return to Joseph, he refused to cow-tow to his dwindling energies, and has remained here until his soul slowed to a standstill and his body has almost entirely ceased to function. He refuses to accept the inevitable, and so do I."

"So do we all," Vanessa Sawcroft said.

"How many of us are there?" asked Michael.

"At present only five. Vanessa, myself, Paul, Geoff Pilate—"

"Old Pilate! No way!"

"He's a cagey one, is Geoffrey. And very useful to us. Acts as our eyes and ears, sieving all the village news that passes across his counter. He's the fourth. And you're the fifth."

"And . . ." Michael was reluctant. "I suppose there's Stephen."

"I'm afraid we cannot count him, Michael. This afternoon I came upon him in the company of our dear vicar. They were on their way to take you from the cottage and imprison you in the church. If I hadn't phoned you, and you hadn't used your powers to escape, who knows where you would be by now."

"They wouldn't have held me."

"I'm sure they wouldn't, Michael. But I'm afraid your brother is a traitor to us. Why that is, I'm not sure. How did he come to be offered the gifts?"

Quickly, impatiently, Michael told him. He was reluctant to speak about it, partly because he did not want even to think about his wretched, cursed brother, but also because he was ashamed of giving the undeserving fool the power.

Mr Cleever listened without giving any indication of his opinion. His face was a mask.

When Michael finished, Vanessa Sawcroft said, "I don't understand. It's never happened so close together as that. First Michael, then – less than a day later – Stephen too. And how could Michael see the gift rising? How could he predict where it would come out? We've never known when. Sometimes it's been fifty years before another person received the gift. That's why there are so few of us. It's always been pure chance."

But Mr Cleever's face was being split by a huge, slow grin, which widened all the time, until it seemed every tooth in his head was majestically displayed. Then he lowered his jaw and brought it up again suddenly, with a single sharp click.

"I've got it," he said. "All of a sudden, I've got it. And I know more certainly than ever that we are in business. We've got it right."

He leapt from the chair and began to pace the room, forcing Michael and Vanessa to swivel constantly where they sat. His great pink fist slapped against his palm as he spoke.

"The seal was split on Monday," he said. "On that afternoon, the cross was removed from the earth by our good friend the Rev. Aubrey, leaving one arm in the ground. On the same day, by chance, Michael was sleeping in the Wirrinlow, in the Pit. The master stirs, it senses that the seal is split and weakened. It sends forth its breath, which Michael receives, becoming stronger than any for many generations. All well and good. That night we take the remaining arm, breaking it for ever. Under the earth, the master responds. Michael is drawn to return to the Pit, bringing another with him. He sees the gift, he lets his brother receive it. But for whatever reason, for whatever personal inadequacy, Stephen rejects it. He only breathes in the barest fraction of what he could have had, if he had been wise."

He paused. The others sat there, drinking it all in.

"But what does this tell us? It tells us exactly what we hoped! That the master is ready for release. It only remains for us to break the bond, and we shall be freed too!"

Much of this Michael did not understand. Talk of seals and bonds meant nothing to him. But talk of freedom was important; his soul had been weighed down with the fate of Hardraker and those others who had gone before him.

"Do you mean that we shall avoid the slowing down of the soul?" he said. "The endless death that is not death?"

Mr Cleever sat down again. He bent forward with sparkling eyes, whose excitement stung Michael's own.

"For the last twenty years," he said, "I have experienced the joys of my gifts. I have lived as well as any man could dream of: all my appetites and desires have been fulfilled. But during those years, a nagging fear burrowed deep inside me. I knew that time was running out. Almost daily, I felt my energy sapping, my life growing rotten deep inside me, like a maggot-ridden apple that still looks good and shiny on a tree. I saw what had happened to Hardraker. I knew the limitations of our condition, our appalling fate. But I would not be quelled! I thought long and hard about what had happened to us, to all those poor, exalted, cursed ones who had been picked out over the centuries. I knew how close we were bound to our master under the Wirrim. And then it came to me. Its fate was our fate. If we wanted to live, live on perhaps forever, rejoicing in our power, going wherever we wished about the world – we had to release it from its prison in the soil. Make no mistake about it, that is why we have received these gifts. We have an obligation, which we must fulfil, and once we have done so, we will be well rewarded."

His voice was almost gone now, thinned out to the barest hiss which filled the room with a conspiratorial tremor. His face was inches from Michael's own. "To free ourselves," he whispered, "we must free the dragon."

Stephen had left the village by the allotments, running up the hill among the trellises and bamboo canes, until he found a small gap in the fence which opened out into the fields. He squeezed through, and lay in the dust-dry grass for a few minutes, peering through the hole back down towards the mill-stream with his heart racing and sweat dripping from the side of his face. No pursuit came, and there was no unnatural feeling in his head. Mr Cleever had lost him.

Once his breath had returned, he got to his feet and began to lope across the field, angling toward a thick scrubby hedge which ran away from him along the right-hand side. The land still rose upwards, and he knew he was conspicuous from the houses behind him and below, but once beyond the hedge a safe barrier would protect him from any watching eyes.

He reached it safely, and worked his way along it till he found a gate. On the other side, an enormous wheat field stretched along the rolling hillside. The chimneys of the Monkey and Marvel pub could just be seen at its opposite corner.

Stephen knew his way about this area blindfold. Two fields and fifteen minutes away was his cottage and his brother. He began to run, but immediately the stabbing pain of a stitch halted him. This reduced him to an uncomfortable fast walk, around the side of the shimmering wheat.

It was when he was halfway across the field that the road to the cottage came in view, and it was only a minute or so later that a large familiar car sped past the gap at high speed, and he knew that he would be too late. For the first time, he felt the tears welling, and a stinging hotness bathed his altered eyes. He tried to run again, but the pain lanced through his side, and, sobbing with frustration, he was forced to stumble along the edge of the field with the jerks and hops of a wounded bird.

"Tom, you fool, you told him!" He gasped the words out as he ran. "Couldn't you run too? Now we're done for, we really are!"

The field seemed to stretch out longer the more desperate he became. As in a dream, his movements became futile alongside the endless rows of corn and the vast impassive hill above him. Long before he reached the end, he saw the car pass back again towards Fordrace. Someone was sitting beside the driver.

He fell out at last upon the road, just below the pub. A goat-souled person was sitting on a trestle-bench beside the way, drinking a pint. It raised the glass in cheery fashion.

"Whoa, Stevie-boy! Steady on lad, where's the fire?"

Stephen switched his sight off for politeness sake – he had hardly known he'd made the shift – but didn't stop. He smiled as best he could with his tear-and-sweat-stained face, and passed on. A few more remarks fell against his back, but by then he was turning the corner and coming in sight of the cottage gates.

The door stood casually ajar. He saw the ash on the stair carpet. He caught the smoke on his breath. He climbed the stairs, going slowly now, and walked along the passage towards the bedroom door.

At first he thought it was open because of the light streaming through, but the shape the light made was somehow wrong. He soon saw why.

The ash was still cooling beneath his feet as he looked through the space, framed by burnt wood. He did not go in.

For a while he sat on the sofa and allowed himself a cry, but pragmatism soon returned. He went to the kitchen, drank three glasses of water and foraged out some food. After a few minutes of unenthusiastic crunching on a Tracker bar, he went upstairs and brought down his small rucksack, which he filled with bars, apples, crisps, chocolate and three roughly-cut ham sandwiches wrapped in cling-film. He added a bottle of water and stood back to consider it. Then he returned to his bedroom and rummaged through the clutter, unearthing a Swiss penknife, his pen-torch, and a thick winter jumper. These things were added to the sack.

Then he left the cottage, and locked the door behind him.

Goat-soul was still sitting outside the Monkey and Marvel, with a gleaming new pint before him.

"Hey-up!" he said. "You look in better nick now, lad."

"Jack, did you see Mr Cleever's car pass back this way?"

"Yes. But that was before you came this way yourself, huffing and blowing like a bull."

"I know. But did he have my brother in the car?"

"He did. You don't think our councillor's kidnapped him, do you?"

Stephen was beyond caring. "Yes he has. Did they head for the village?"

"Far as I know they did. But what's going on, Stevie? What's the game? Don't get hoity, lad. Answer me!"

Stephen walked on. He had not got much further when he was nearly run down by Tom's battered car, which was going much too fast. He leapt up against the hedge and waved his arms. Tom stopped ten yards up the road.

"You're too late." Stephen wasted no words as he got into the car. "You need to turn round. Didn't they pass you on the way?"

"Did who?" Tom looked dazed and ill.

"Cleever and Michael of course. I suppose you told him. Turn the car round."

"I'll find a wider spot." Tom drove on. Goat-soul watched them incredulously as they passed, turned in the Patrons' Car Park and sailed back towards the village.

Tom said, "He made me tell him. I don't know how. He just forced himself into my mind and I could hear my thoughts spilling out, telling him what we were doing. I told him about Michael, and about Sarah . . . God help me, I daren't think about it. I was sick afterwards."

"I'm not surprised," Stephen said. "And he's busted Michael out: the door's burnt down. It seems he can control fire too."

"They didn't pass me." Tom's foot was firmly on the floor. The village rushed towards them. "His car was gone, by the time I . . . felt well enough to drive, but I haven't seen it since."

"Any number of lanes they could have gone down."

"What shall we do, then?" At that moment, Tom was in no mood for decision-making. His head felt raw and bruised; it was difficult to think.

"We'll try Cleever's house. Just in case. Though I doubt he'll have gone back there. Then we try Hardraker Farm."

"Yes. Stephen, I'm worried about Sarah. I told him—"

"Yes, you said."

At the village, Tom parked on the edge of the green, outside Pilate's General Stores. He ran over to Mr Cleever's house, leaving Stephen waiting in the car. The green was quieter now; the Punch and Judy man was beginning to dismantle his stall, most of the children had gone, and the throng of cars had loosened around the grass's yellowed fringes. Fordrace was slowing down.

Stephen began to feel a deep misery and despair settling over him. Michael was gone, and there was nothing he could do about it. Whatever Cleever was, his powers were too great, and the changes to Michael too profound for Stephen to have any hope of reclaiming him. It was hopeless. Futile.

What was more, he was changing too. His eyes were always burning hot, and sometimes it took a great effort to stop changing focus for no reason. That struggle weakened him.

No, he hadn't the strength to go on with this. Let Tom do what he liked; he would leave him to it. He was so tired.

So tired . . .

– Wait –

Stephen had sunk down imperceptibly into a disconsolate slouch. Now he forced himself upright in the passenger seat, and shook his head violently like an animal which smells something bad. The weariness bore down upon him still, but he fought against it, knowing that it was artificial, and had been conjured in him by someone from outside. So subtle had been the attack that he had not noticed the delicate manipulation of his thoughts until he had almost succumbed to fatigue and despair. But the thought of just lying back and losing Michael had been too alien to accept.

And now he would fight back. First of all, he waited. Soon, little by little, he felt a delicate probing in his head. Something which had drawn back when he roused himself now came creeping in again, seeking to find entry into his mind. He let it come, trying to relax, all the time scanning the green for any sign which would reveal his attacker to him. People were walking here and there; the Punch and Judy man was sitting on a canvas chair counting his takings; a young man sat at a cafe table, looking moodily into a cappuccino. On his left, in the bowels of his shop, Mr Pilate was hunched up over the counter, reading a newspaper.

The thought probed a little deeper.

– so tired –

Stephen relaxed his mind, welcoming it in.

– so tired –

Then Stephen exploded his anger outwards, sending out a seismic shock of fury and defiance. He felt the trespassing thought shrivel before his onslaught and saw red bolts flash before his eyes.

The windscreen shattered.

In the shop, behind his counter, Mr Pilate staggered backwards as if he had been punched.

Stephen got out of the car, ignoring the startled faces on the green. The pavement was glazed with fragments of glass.

His sight had changed. He looked into the shop and saw, against the backdrop of soup cans and washing powder packets, a dragon soul hanging darkly. A red light throbbed in its eyes.

Tom came running over the green. He was still ten metres away when Stephen slammed back against the car with an impact that sounded like a metal crate being dropped. He fell on the pavement and tried to raise himself, kneeling on all fours with a dazed look on his face.

Tom skidded across the glass and crouched beside the stricken boy. Stephen's eyes were strange. In a whisper, his voice rose from his open mouth.

". . . Pilate."

Tom looked up. Beyond the open doorway, beside the cheerful Wall's Ice Cream sign and the postcard rack, Mr Pilate was walking towards him.

And Tom's shirt caught fire. A flame rose up impossibly from his right shoulder, tickling the side of his face with its heat. With a cry, he dashed his left hand down upon it and snuffed it out, stinging his palm with the pain. Immediately, a new flame appeared on his sleeve.

Mr Pilate was standing in the doorway, looking down on Tom. Stephen knew that his attention was for an instant elsewhere. In a flash he had risen to his feet, and launched himself at the grocer's legs in a low rugby tackle. Mr Pilate was taken completely by surprise. As his legs were swept from under him, he toppled back against the postcard rack, going down in a whirl of multicoloured cards. The fire on Tom went out.

Stephen picked himself up and pulled Tom by the arm.

"Come on!" he shouted. "Go!"

From garden gates and windows, the villagers of Fordrace saw their vicar run pell-mell down the edge of the green, with Stephen MacIntyre at his side. They saw Mr Pilate get slowly to his feet and stare after them impassively, before turning on his heels and going back inside. The door was firmly shut and the blinds drawn. The 'closed' sign was flicked over against the window.

Outside Pilate's General Store, glass and postcards lay strewn together like a covering of snow.