The Beast of Seabourne (42 page)

“Just so you both know, I am not enjoying this,” Ruff said in a wobbly voice.

“Okay. Let's just find what we came to get.” Oz didn't want to linger, either. This was a sacred place, and they needn't stay a moment more than was absolutely necessary. Ellie had edged across to where the floor of the chasm petered out. She was looking down into the depths.

“Wonder what's down there,” she mused.

“Don't know and don't want to find out,” Oz said. “Soph, tell us where to start looking.”

Soph beamed out another pencil-sharp ray, which scanned the wall above Oz's head, criss-crossing at a ridiculous speed until it stopped at a point four feet above Oz's left shoulder.

“There is the point source,” Soph said.

Oz turned to look at the wet, slimy, uneven chasm wall. Although it was not as icy out of the wind, it was still a cheerless and cold spot, and the constantly dripping water added nothing to its charm. It looked as if the sun, even when it was high overhead, would never penetrate this deep.

“You are wrong, Oz,” Soph said in response to Oz's brooding thoughts. “There are six days surrounding the summer solstice when the sun does indeed penetrate right to the floor and the very spot at which you are standing.”

“Not today, then?” Oz said.

“Not today,” Soph agreed. Effortlessly, she glided across the floor and illuminated the point at which her laser was focused.

“Hold on, I'll see if I can get up closer. Ruff, give us a bunk up.” Oz got a handhold and, standing on Ruff's bent back, managed to get up a couple of feet. The rock wall was slippery and treacherous, and it was clear he was not going to be able to get much higher. But with his arm at full stretch, he could just about feel the small crack in the rock where Soph's beam was pointing.

“There's moss and stuff inside it, and I can feel grit and dirt at the back.”

Ruff arched himself upwards to give Oz another couple of inches.

“Isn't there anything else in there?” Ruff asked with more than a hint of discomfort in his voice.

The wet, gritty dirt under Oz's finger was stubborn. He had to pull most of it out with his index finger. The crevice was jagged and tight, and now that he had cleaned it out, it was filling with icy water, which was quickly making his finger numb.

“I can't feel anything…” Oz pushed his finger in almost to the knuckle. Neither Ellie nor Ruff was talking now, and Oz could feel their disappointment beating out at him in waves. They'd come all this way for just this moment. Could Soph have been wrong? Was McClelland just a huge wild goose chase after all?

And then his clawing finger brushed against something right at the bottom of the crevice. He felt a curved edge, hard as the rock around it, but different because it was completely smooth. He tried rolling it out, and twice it fell back. His arm and hand were trembling from the effort, and he could feel Ruff beneath him struggle to keep his footing. With one final effort, Oz managed to roll the ring up and over the lip of the crevice. He grabbed it between his numb finger and thumb.

“Got it,” he yelled and stepped back off Ruff's back onto the cavern floor with a jolt. He held out his hand for the others to see. There, nestling in his gritty palm, was an octagonal ring, as black as the pebble, but as light as pumice. The surface was featureless, but inside the band, a network of fine golden filigree glistened, just as on the maker's mark on the pebble. Oz held the ring under one of the dripping rivulets cascading down the walls to clean it and held it up. In Soph's light, it glistened wetly, untarnished and whole after its years in the cave.

“Is this it?” Oz asked Soph. “Is this what we've been looking for?”

“Place it on your finger, Oz. I will know immediately,” Soph said.

Carefully, his fingers still trembling from the cold, Oz put the ring on the middle finger of his right hand. He wasn't sure what he'd expected to happen, but suddenly seeing himself standing there next to Ellie and Ruff made him woozy, and he took an involuntary step back.

“Wow,” he said. “Am I seeing myself through your eyes, Soph?”

“Yes, Oz. The ring, as you call it, is a remote cognitive link and neural interface. With practise, you will be able to use your own sensory input as well as mine.”

“What? You mean see what you see and what I see at the same time?”

“Exactly.”

Oz thought about what that meant and made an effort to try and look at Soph through his own eyes. The transfer was instant and smooth. Remembering seeing himself from Soph's perspective a moment ago, he thought about it again, and instantly, it was there too, like a split screen in his head. But not only was he seeing the world from two viewpoints, he was seeing what Soph was seeing. And that meant that her viewpoint also displayed a whole variety of data. The height of the wall and its composition, the rate of water flow in the little rivulet that trickled down. Above, he saw that it was 8.63 meters to the first frond of bracken. It was totally amazing.

“Oz, you all right?' he heard Ellie ask. “If your mouth drops open any more, it'll be scraping the floor.”

Oz turned to look at her and watched himself shutting his mouth in Soph's screen in his head.

“Fine,” he said, laughing. “Totally weird but brilliant.I'm seeing you, but I'm seeing me seeing you, and I know how tall the chasm is and how much calcium there is in the bones and…”

They were looking at him with bemused expressions.

“Have a go. You have to try this. They can try it, can't they, Soph?” Oz asked, suddenly worried that it only worked for him.

Soph answered in his head. “Though it is a genetic interface, and will not work as well as it does with you because of the genlink, many functions are accessible.”

Oz took the ring off and held it out. Ruff was the quicker off the mark and managed to grab it before Ellie.

“Hey,” Ellie protested. “What happened to ‘ladies first'?”

“I see no ladies,” Ruff said rudely, and slipped on the ring. His face lit up as he started looking around to see what Oz had seen. Suddenly, he was firing off all sorts of questions to Soph. But Oz was only half-listening. He was thinking about what Soph had said about the genlink. He had no qualms about allowing Ellie and Ruff access to Soph, but she would not work for them without his permission, and that was the most baffling thing of all. The genlock and the genlink—the DNA-based connection he had with the avatar, and which he'd never been able to find an explanation for—remained a huge mystery. Over two hundred and fifty years ago, some others had tried to get Soph to work, but no one had succeeded. His dad had been led to her in Egypt through the vaguest of connections, which seemed, on the surface, to have been little more than chance. Suddenly, Oz was thinking about Caleb, who was not convinced that chance had anything to do with it at all. He, at least, was certain this was all meant to be.

Ruff's “totally buzzard amazing” brought Oz back from his musing. Ruff was staring at the ossuary now, obviously seeing something in it that was overcoming his fear and distaste.

“Yeah, I know,” Ellie said, reading Oz's expression, “Look at him, Mr Fickle. Five minutes ago, he was ready to run out of here.” She sounded still quite miffed at Ruff for having taken first go with the ring.

Oz forced a laugh, his mind still preoccupied. He knew that Soph had answers to everything in her memsource, but until they found the pendant—he thought of it as some sort of external hard drive containing whatever was missing from Soph's memory—he wouldn't be able to find out. However, the ring was a significant step closer.

Ruff was running his fingers over the walls of the chasm like a man discovering that his house was really made of cheese.

“Come on, Ruff, give Ellie a go,” Oz said.

“I will, I will. Does it do anything else, apart from making me a cyber genius?”

“It is also a tactile neuro-interface.”

“A what?” Oz asked.

“Perhaps it would be easier to show you.”

Instantly, the ossuary melted away as Soph projected a three-dimensional holographic image into the chamber. Oz found himself looking in through a doorway on a dimly lit room, with a stone floor and oak trusses holding up the ceiling. A large mullioned window looked out onto darkness outside. There was a stale smell of burning fat coming from the sputtering candles on the walls behind him, and Oz had a fleeting moment to reflect on how on earth he was able to not only see but smell what Soph was now showing him, before his attention was drawn to something in the uncertain light of a storm lantern. There, a figure slumped against one wall, its arms bound behind its body with thick rope attached to iron rings set into the sturdy timbers. Gone was the dank chill of the chasm; instead, the air felt warm, and, combined with the smell of straw, Oz felt it must be summer wherever Soph's holotrack had been made.

The figure was not stirring. Its head was bowed and in deep shadow, and Oz wondered absently if it was sleeping.

Suddenly, Oz was entering the room with three men. Two were dressed in leather waistcoats over rough shirts and breeches. Their hands looked calloused and dirty from manual work, their faces ruddy. The third was a stooping, slighter man, older and smaller than the other two. He was dressed in a frock coat, his face haggard with dark circles under his eyes. They walked across to the bound figure, which did not stir at their approach. One of the younger men lit another lantern and held it up as he lifted the figure's chin. Next to him, Oz heard Ellie's breath catch in her throat.

The face was that of a boy, not much older than they were. With the man's touch on his chin, the boy's eyes flared open, the whites visible right around the irises, like those of a wild animal disturbed in its slumbers. The boy struggled and twisted his head away from the hand that held it, but in the light of the lantern, Oz could see dark brown and ochre stains on the front of what had been once a white shirt. The remainder of his clothes were filthy, his hair matted, his face smeared with mud or worse.

Suddenly and most horrifyingly, the boy let out a low, inhuman growl. Yet, despite the feral hate distorting the features, it was obvious to Oz that the boy's face bore a striking resemblance to that of the older man. Whereas the boy's expression was hateful and wild, the man's was creased with pain and concern in the grimace that appeared in response to the boy's reaction. So much so, Oz felt his heart constrict on seeing it.

The boy's struggling wrenched his chin out of the lantern holder's grip. The latter instantly stepped back to place himself out of reach of the boy's snapping jaws.

“Sir,” he said to the older man urgently, “I know it is not my place to speak, but I must protest again at this folly. Much as I know how much you care for Master Richard, it is plain to see that he no longer occupies this body. Some demon or devil has taken his place, and I fear for your safety if we are to continue with this…” He sighed audibly. “In truth, I see nothing but misery and pain in this deed.”

The old man smiled, though his eyes remained mirthless. “You need not fear to speak plainly with me, Edmund Redmayne. Your loyalty to me is unquestionable, and your help with Richard over these last days…” He shook his head as if to clear it of some dread memory. “How you found him and brought him back, I do not know, but I am grateful beyond words. Here you address me as an equal, and you need not fear expressing your concern, for I, too, have the gravest of doubts that my actions will have any bearing.” His voice dropped lower. “And yet I see no other course before me, and I will not be swayed. If you feel that you cannot assist any longer…”

“Sir, I did not say I would not help in any way that I am able,” Redmayne protested with a kind of desperation. “It is not for our own safety that we fear.”

“We are both here to do your bidding, Squire Worthy,” said the second man.

The old man looked at them both and patted their broad shoulders in turn.

“Thank you, John. Thank you, Edmund. Without you I…I do not know what I would have done.”

Something passed between him and his helpers at that point, an unspoken understanding that a protest had been made—with great effort on their parts—and registered, but that duty would be done, and let no more be said about it. The old man looked up at the boy and shook his head.

“My greatest fear is that you are correct, Edmund. Perhaps it is a demon that we have here, and my poor Richard has already fled its clutches. Fled, and left bereft of reason in so doing. Yet what else can I do but try?”

The boy suddenly lunged forward against his bonds.

Teeth bared, his hands bound but still shaped into claws ready for tearing, he strained and made a noise from somewhere deep in his throat that was the least human thing Oz had ever heard.

Redmayne and Shoesmith, for that was who Oz now realised he was looking at, glanced at one another and nodded. They moved forward purposefully, one on either side of the boy. They grabbed at his tethered arms, leaning back to avoid being bitten, until Redmayne was able to get behind him. He reached for a leather strap attached to another ring and, with great difficulty, somehow managed to get the strap between the boy's teeth and buckle it. Another strap went around the boy's forehead until finally they had him tethered and secured. It was only now that the squire approached.

“Is it worth us praying, sir?”

“You may pray if you so wish. Yet I believe that where there has been cause to turn my son into a raving beast, there must be cure. There
must
be cure.”

He put his hand to his chest and reached for a leather pouch on a necklace. As he did so, Oz let out an involuntary yelp. On the middle finger of his outstretched hand was the ceramic ring. Oz watched with a sandpaper mouth as Squire Worthy undid a drawstring and emptied something dark and shiny into his palm.