Rainbow's End - Wizard (41 page)

And then the cosh hit the side of his head, and Thomas, abruptly boneless,
dropped to his hands and knees. The Night Walkers, like a pack of wild dogs smelling blood, all rushed in and began kicking him.

*

Izzy picked up the intercom handset next to the lift’s door. ‘Yes?’ he asked.

It was Billy from the foyer. ‘Mr. Greenbaum?’

‘Yes. Good evening, Billy.’

‘Good evening, sir.
’ Billy sounded flustered and out of breath. ‘Mr. Greenbaum, I think that you should maybe come down here, sir. There are police vehicles and an ambulance on the street. They say a boy has been badly hurt, sir. I think it might be young Mr. Thomas…’

*****

Tessie was on her rug, head resting on her paws, and for once not looking at the television set - which was switched off in anyway - but at her friend. Her sad eyes reflected the hurt in his own. Neither of them had eaten in days, and no cork had left its bottle, but who cared?

The knock on the door was soft, and Orson, without being conscious of it, thought it open. John came around each day, bringing food that stood un
touched - an ever-longer row on the counter every day. It didn’t go off; it was too cold for that.

Tessie scrambled to her feet and Orson turned his
head towards the door, then stared and gaped; and in a whisper asked, ‘Ariana?’ It was the first time ever that she had come to his house; come to think of it - it was the first time ever he had seen her away from her pool. A terrible sense of foreboding started squeezing his chest; he got up off the couch, and asked, ‘What are you doing here? What’s wrong?’ He saw the shadows in her eyes, and knew then.

‘It’s Thomas, innit?’ he asked
, and when Ariana nodded, ‘Has he been hurt?’ Anxious. He took a step closer and stared into her face, his eyelid fluttering nervously. ‘Well, tell me,’ he demanded; and then staggered back with a strangled “no!”; desperate denial at the young goddess, ‘Thomas is dying, Orson.’

*

‘How?’ Orson asked. Ariana’s face was very pale, her eyes huge dark pools of blue.

‘He was assaulted
,’ she said. ‘Beaten up. In an alley next to the Rainbow Building in London. Izzy said a policeman happened by before they were through with him, and his attackers ran away. Thomas would have been dead already, if he hadn’t…’

Something in her voice made Orson lift hi
s face out of his cupped hands - it had aged twenty years in the last few minutes; his eyes were haunted, his voice haggard. ‘Who’s “they”,’ he asked. ‘Did the policeman
see
them?’

Ariana nod
ded. ‘The man’s a police inspector and had just come off duty; he was on his way home when he interrupted them, so I think we can trust in his powers of observation…’ Orson nodded impatiently, and she carried on, ‘He says there were between eight and a dozen young boys; all dressed in black - just black.’

And then she had to shout his name and “Push”
: Very hard, so that Orson fell limply back on the couch. For he had sprung to his feet - face suddenly puce, and screaming in a terrible rage: ‘I will kill them! I will kill every last one of them - every one of the bastards!’

*

Later… Orson looked at Ariana with tragic eyes and asked, despondently, ‘What about time-curves? Can I not get there before it happens?’

She
shook her head, forlornly. ‘There are none suitable until five days from now,’ she said, ‘and by then it will be too late. The doctor in charge told Izzy that Thomas is fading fast, that it’s a question of mere hours… He has massive internal injuries and intracranial bleeding. They cannot operate - his injuries are too severe… His body is too weak to survive the additional shock. He will die on the operating table…’

Orson
put his face in his hands again, and huge hurting sobs shook his shoulders. The goddess shared his pain, and took his hand, holding it for a long time in consoling silence. And then made a decision.

‘Orson…’ She squeezed his hand -
hard. ‘Orson, stop it! Listen.’ He looked at her with washed grey eyes, in mute despair, and Ariana took a deep breath.

‘There is only one way to do this,’ she said. ‘Given time, you could do it by yourself, but we don’t
have
time. Every single second counts, and exceptional circumstances sometimes justify exceptional means.’ Another deep breath. ‘Now listen very carefully. The sun rises in just over an hour, and not a minute can be lost…’

30

‘What?’ asked Kraylle from Bryan Stone just as the boy was about to leave, having stood watching the slumbering giant for several minutes. He sat on his icy throne, chin supported on one huge fist and not deigning to open his eyes: infinitely bored by his surrounds and what happened in them.

‘I, uh… I came to tell you that we’re back,’ said Bryan, shuffling his feet self-consciously. He was - against his normally proud self-nature - seeking the acknowledgement of his god.

The demi-god opened his eyes then, and lifted his eyebrows; sat watching the uncomfortable Bryan for a few long seconds, as one would a roach.

Leaned forward then, and asked, ‘Are you dense, Bryan? Are you a half-wit?’

Said: ‘
I bring you back
...’ then sat back and shrugged, and held out his hands in supplication, finished, ‘How could I
not
know you are back, then?’

‘I’m sorry.’ This from a properly castigated Bryan; but not grovelling, K
raylle noted, secretly pleased - not like Rudi.

He relented a bit
then, and sat up straighter, rearranged his bulky fur coat around him. ‘Did you have any problems?’ he asked.

‘Nothing really,’ from a relieved Bryan. ‘We’ve picked up one more soldier…’

Kraylle grimaced at the word “soldier”, and asked - ‘How old is he?’

‘Six -
he’s six,’ said Bryan.

Kraylle blew a belittling “
Gmmphf”, through his hawkish nose. ‘A baby,’ he said. ‘Are you recruiting babies now Bryan?’ Mocking.

‘He’s better than nothing,’ retorted his little general, in a tone
that caused the demi-god’s eyebrows to curve in amused little bows. ‘In anyway,’ Bryan added, ‘we didn’t go looking for him. We found them in an alley; we heard them talk.’

Another lift of Kraylle’s eye
brows. ‘Them?’ he asked, languidly.

‘Yes,’ Bryan nodded, ‘them
. There were two of them. The other was some rich boy. We couldn’t take him; he’d be missed for sure.’ He smiled a self-satisfied smile, adding, ‘He’s probably dead by now in anyway. We gave him a good kicking - one nobody can survive.’ His smile became a twisted grin. ‘I know,’ he said, ‘from experience.’

Kraylle straightened up a bit more: his morbid curiosity - if not exactly set alight, at least sparked.

Bryan saw this, and encouraged, continued, ‘He was holding Eamon’s hand - that’s our new boy’s name, Eamon - and was probably taking him home. He’s still very scared, but Eamon said the other boy - he called him Thomas - had asked him if he was hungry.’

‘Why didn’t you simply take the small on
e?’ queried Kraylle. ‘Why hurt - or kill this other boy? Why advertise yourselves? Your existence?’

‘He wouldn’t let us have the small one,’ answered Bryan, and then related what happened.

‘I told him to run along: that we were only interested in the little one, but no, he wanted to be the hero, didn’t he? Said: “I don’t think so” - all snotty-like.’ Bryan mimed a shrill voice. ‘And then he snapped his fingers, and there was this bright ball of fire. All crackling-like…’

He saw Kraylle’s eyebrows knit together, and
he leaned forward in his throne, paying more attention suddenly, and Bryan, with some small satisfaction, continued, ‘About the size of a football, it was. Fancied himself some kind of magician, I suppose…’ He smiled, remembering, ‘And then I hit him… and we gave him a kicking.’ A small shrug and his smile was smug. ‘He’s dead by now,’ Bryan reiterated, ‘I’ll wager on that.’

‘A Traveller.’ Kraylle had moved to the edge of his chair and was gripping its armrests, all boredom having fled his obsidian eyes. ‘Ariana’s new Traveller,’ he hissed, recalling the white pillar of light a month or more ago, and the images it held. ‘His eyes?’ he asked, and his voice had turned harsh, ‘Were they green?’

‘Yes,’ came the surprised reply - ‘
Strange
green eyes... I noticed that even in the light of my torch.’

‘And you’re sure he was dying when you left him?’ Kraylle’s knuckles were white on the armrest, his voice urgent, black eyes probing, hoping.

Bryan nodded. ‘Very sure,’ he said. ‘Some copper came along and we had to run; but he was this close,’ he held the tips of a forefinger and thumb a millimetre apart. ‘He will be by now - dead I mean. I’m sure of that.’ He paused, frowning. ‘There’s a funny thing, though,’ he mused, in a puzzled tone.

‘What?’ Kraylle’s eyes had narrowed to deep, dark slits.

‘Every time I kicked him,’ and Bryan looked at the metal-shod toes of his boots, ‘something seemed to drag at my foot those last few inches; something held it back... If it wasn’t for that,’ he shrugged, ‘he would have been long dead by the time the copper happened around.’ He shook his head, and still puzzled, lifted his eyes to Kraylle’s.

The demi-god’s lips were compressed in a thin, bloodless line. ‘His crystal,’ he muttered, and seeing his protégé’s confusion, explained: ‘His crystal protected him, Bryan. They do that, the Rainbow Crystals: the stronger the crystal, the better its protection. The fact that you were able to touch him at all, indicates that the boy was still a novice; that he carried o
ne of the lower-order crystals - most probably the red or the orange.’

Kraylle was lost in thought for a minute then, before coming to a sudden decision. ‘I need you to go back to London right now,’ he said, ‘I need you to go and make sure that this...
boy
... this
Thomas
, is definitely dead. It will be in their newspapers; and probably on that primitive thing you call television.’

‘Sure,’ Bryan shrugged, and then frowned, ‘But why?’ he asked, mystified, ‘What is so important about him? And what’s a Traveller?’

‘There’s no time for that now.’ Kraylle was impatient. ‘I will tell you everything you need to know when you get back.’

‘All right.’ Bryan turned to go, but the demi-god stopped him.

‘Bryan?’

‘Yes, Kraylle?’

‘If this boy - if this
Thomas...
’ Kraylle paused, and his long fingers beat a tattoo on the throne’s armrest, ‘If he is truly dead,’ he said, ‘you can ask me whatever you desire, and it will be yours…’

Part III

31

Article on the front page of the “London News”
, late edition, 17
th
April.