Rainbow's End - Wizard (26 page)

*

‘Agriculture,’ said Izzy of the next floor, and in answer to Thomas’ new puzzled look, put a hand on the boy’s jacketed shoulder. He explained, ‘The Rainbow Corporation owns several farms, Thomas. Three in the United States - cattle in Texas, wheat in Kansas and oranges in California. Three here in England - mostly vegetables; one in South Africa and one in Australia - both fruit. Sheep in New Zealand; three vineyards - another in South Africa, one in France and one in Spain.

‘
Their related industries as well: meat, fruit, and vegetable processing. Packaging plants. Fertilizer manufacturing, insecticides, packaging materials, transportation… And marketing, of course.’

He answered Thomas’ questioning look with a wry grin
and a shake of his head. ‘No profit,’ he said.

*

‘This is our Banking division,’ said Izzy when they stepped onto the fifteenth floor. ‘Rainbow Banking has two specialities - large loans to other Corporations and other banks; and home loans to lower and lower-middle income people. The first is extremely profitable, the second extremely unprofitable. Our bank has never taken somebody’s house; never foreclosed.’ He grinned. ‘Numerous people who have found themselves destitute and on the brink of losing it all, have suddenly found themselves the winners of a competition they could not remember entering, or the beneficiaries of an unknown uncle - who had passed away somewhere in Mongolia’s - will.’

Thomas waited
, and Izzy held the tips of his thumb and forefinger a half an inch apart.

‘A small profit,’ he said.

*

‘This floor
and the next,’ Izzy said of the sixteenth and seventeenth, is taken up by our property division, acquisitions, accounts, salaries and other admin. The corporation owns a lot of property: this building and two smaller ones like it; the houses and land taken up by our children’s homes; the food and clothing factories; houses and flats in various other countries, farms…

‘We also employ almost
seventy thousand people, mostly in the mines and the food and clothing plants. The monthly amount of paperwork is horrendous…

‘One of our most recent acquisitions,’ said
Izzy, ‘is a small cottage in Rockham, Northumberland. It’s been purchased from a certain Mr. Grimple, and now belongs to a young Master Thomas Ross.’

*

They were back where they had started from. ‘The eighteenth floor is split into ten almost equal sections,’ said Izzy. ‘Eight for my vice-presidents.’ He ticked them off on his long fingers. ‘One for the clothing division; one for jewellery; two for mining - gold and gems; two for banking - corporate loans and home loans; two for agriculture - one for the farms, the other for the factories and infrastructure. The two remaining sections are my office and the boardroom.’ He looked at his wristwatch. It was almost six. ‘And now we have to go,’ he said. ‘Louis is waiting for us and then we have a dinner reservation at “Christina’s”.’

*****

“Louis” was one of the shops taking space on the ground floor of the Rainbow’s End building. It was a men’s hairdresser, where Izzy had a shave every weekday morning, and a trim of his remaining hair once a week. The pillars on the side of the door had red and white stripes, and just inside stood a large glass cabinet, displaying a variety of smoking pipes, mouth-organs, hairbrushes and combs, hand mirrors, aftershave lotions and eau de Cologne. Also Brylcreem, dubbin and shoe polish. On top of the cabinet, a large bottle of lollypops and an old-fashioned cash register with a lever on its side.

Louis and his two assistants wore white linen jacket
s with scissors in their breast pockets, black pants with knife-edge creases and shiny shoes. Their side whiskers were long and they all smelled of the same heavy cologne. They looked like brothers and Thomas later found out they were.

Izzy’s was only a perfunctory trim; Maurice gave Thomas a neat, short cut suited to
Rainbow’s End’s weather; and Louis himself attended Orson - giving the old Traveller’s grey mop a distinguished cut and taking off his patchy beard with a straight razor. The barber talked all the time and Thomas couldn’t hear them, but Orson cackled a lot.

*

“Christina’s” was a small restaurant - one of the best in London, with a very select clientele. They had a five year waiting list for membership, and everybody called “Mr. Izzy” by his name. Their speciality was seafood and Thomas chose Fish and Chips (the best he’d ever had); Izzy and Orson shared a huge seafood platter, and a couple of bottles of very expensive wine.

Izzy talked to Thomas about
Rainbow’s End’s finances. About non-profit organisations and tax-shelters… and thanks to the memory transfer part of his initiation, Thomas understood principles and terms and a hundred other things which would have been just a lot of gibberish a week ago.

*

Later that night - just before bed - in Izzy’s beautiful sunken lounge, he gave Orson and Thomas some papers to read and to sign. The first was the transfer document for Pine Cottage.

‘
As I said earlier - it is now yours,’ he said, showing Thomas where to write his name. ‘The transfer should be completed in a month or so, and you can take Orson there then. I have also taken the liberty of arranging a Headstone for Rose…’ Izzy cleared his throat. ‘I think you will like it.’

‘Thank you Izzy,’ Thomas said softly.

Izzy’s eyes were kind. ‘You are welcome, Thomas. But never forget that Rose
was
one of us too.’ He took another set of papers out of the yellow folder in front of him. ‘These are papers declaring me your legal guardian,’ he said. ‘The process was made a lot easier and faster because we know the right people to call on. People… officials we work with in conjunction with the orphanages; we prefer to call them children’s homes, by the way.

‘
The ideal situation of course, would have been for it to be your grandfather.’ Izzy glanced slyly at Orson, who went red and grumbled something. ‘But unfortunately he does not exist, and therefore cannot claim domicile.’ The two old men laughed.

‘It gives you an address here on
the Earth and it also gives me the authority to handle your affairs back here. Most importantly - the police have stopped looking for you.’ Izzy arranged the papers in a neat pile. He smiled at Thomas, ‘So, if it is all right with you, I am now officially - legally - your adoptive father.’

Thomas nodded,
speechless, and Izzy grinned at a scowling Orson. ‘
You
, grandpa,’ he said, ‘can call me son.’

*

They left London with the very first rays of sunshine, and Thomas, who had taken off his wristwatch before they left the penthouse, felt a sense of freedom when they landed in the Rainbow Pool at Rainbow’s End, where time does not exist. Both on their feet.

22

The sun had set a couple of hours ago.
Thomas was sitting on one of the benches outside the cave’s entrance, enjoying the solitude and the quiet. The other children were inside, the boys in the dining room (which had been changed into a games room for the night; complete with pool tables, and pinball and foosball tables); and the girls in one of their bedrooms, which had a ten-pin bowling alley in it, or shopping in the warehouse. The youngest children were already asleep. Thomas had joined Gary in a few games of pinball and one of pool, and then, feeling restless, had gone outside.

The meadows of
Rainbow’s End stretched away before him; darkly golden in the moonlight, and the river a silver snake bisecting them. Far away and against the lower horizon, the magic forest lay dark under the glittering canopy of stars. He got up, and after going down the steep, and into the valley, started walking. The well-trodden path was still warm under his bare feet, and the tall grass at its sides caressed his lower legs. He crossed the higher-up bridge and heard the music soft on the air when still a hundred metres away from Ariana’s Pool. He recognized it as he got closer - it was “The Blue Danube”, one of the pieces Grammy had taught him to waltz to. It finished, and then started over, and then he was at the pool. Ariana was on the Talking Rock, her knees drawn up under her chin, dark hair veiling her face, the moon and starlight casting an ethereal glow around her. The music was sublimely beautiful, soft, but loud enough to carry. Thomas could see no music-system and supposed (correctly), that there was none. The sound emitted from the very rocks surrounding the pool, pure and gooseflesh-wonderful, further enhanced by the small waterfall further down, whispering water-music. The frogs and crickets were busily and loudly croaking and chirping, and Thomas could swear they were keeping time - some carrying the tune, others croaking the shorter, and still others, the longer notes. He stood rooted in place, listening with delighted rapture, and when the combined orchestras finished with a loud and sustained crescendo, couldn’t stop himself, but involuntary, unselfconsciously, and loudly clapped his hands. And all was quiet suddenly, except the softly splashing water.

Ariana turned her head and smiled,
and her teeth were very white in the dark. ‘Hello, Thomas,’ she said, and patted the empty space on the rock beside her. He sat and she said, ‘I’m glad you came.’

Thomas, surprised, asked
, ‘You knew I was coming?’

‘
Of course,’ she said. ‘I willed it.’

‘Why?’

‘Shhh…’ Clapped her hands softly and another waltz started up, equally beautiful even though Thomas didn’t know its name. And then “The Moonlight Serenade”; and another…

A
nd then, after their last applause, the goddess clapped her hands twice, loudly, and all was quiet of a sudden. They listened to the quiet, and the rustling in the trees and the grass; to the hoot of an owl and the squeak of a bat, to the softly falling water… The music of the night.

Some minutes later, ‘Ariana?’

‘Mm mmh?’

‘
Will you tell me about Kraylle?’ Thomas asked.

The goddess
was silent another minute, then spoke, and Thomas had to strain to hear her at first.

*

‘We are twins but no two personalities could be further apart,’ she said. ‘He is a cruel god - was a cruel
boy
from as far back as I can remember, which is very far.’ Her small smile was without humour.

‘He calls the place he chose Desolation
, and no name could be more apt. It is a rock, with nothing on it but his castle and an icy sea. She saw the quick turn of Thomas’ head, his surprise, and nodded. ‘A castle, yes. It used to be a hill. He changed it.

‘His boys
: his soldiers as he calls them, are the Night Walkers. That’s what they call themselves. We just call them the “Walkers”, or the Boys in Black.

‘
Every person - including children - has a dark side, Thomas. In some, it is quite strong. Do you remember I told you about picking up a signal that told me you had to be fetched?’

Thomas nodded and Ariana continued. ‘Well
, most of the time, unlike in your case, the signal comes from the children themselves. A call for help. Subconsciously, of course.’ She paused, frowned in the moonlight. ‘How to explain it…? It’s like a baby crying, I suppose. We - Kraylle and I - receive signals from children who have usually reached the end of the line. The end of their own resources: Children who don’t know where to next… If the child has a dominant darker side, Kraylle would normally pick up the signal first. He tunes in to evil, or the potential of it - as is the case with most darker personalities - a lot easier than I. His Night Walkers fetch them, almost always at night - which is when they Travel.’

‘How?’ Thomas asked and the goddess held up a hand. ‘Just now,’ she said. ‘I’ll come to that just now.

‘Most of the children they pick up are so destitute, so… desperate, that they’re only too glad to go with them. To join them; supposing that anything would be better than their present circumstances. Those who don’t are taken by force… and they take only boys.’

Thomas’
head turned again and Ariana nodded in the half-dark.

‘In all the centuries of
Rainbow’s End and Desolation’s existence, I have only known Kraylle to take two girls. One was a Sioux - the girl I lost to him when my Traveller landed in the rattlesnake nest; the other a particularly evil girl called Eva, with a more vicious streak in her than any boy. I hardly felt her signal; Kraylle felt it so strongly, he immediately had her picked up.’