The Firehills (19 page)

Sam’s eyes widened with surprise as something cold
entered his back, pushing impossibly through and out. There was an unpleasant
scrape of metal on bone as the blade was withdrawn but no real pain. Not yet.
The pain would come, he was sure. For the moment, though, there was just
surprise and a feeling of loss. The world was slipping away, a world that he
had once felt so connected to, such a part of. In slow motion, Sam sank to his
knees. There seemed to be a wall in front of him, a green wall. He reached out
for support, but part of the wall came away in his hand. He hit the boards of
the stage, slumping sideways, and just as he slipped out of consciousness, he saw
that he was holding a sprig of green.

Finnvarr turned to the horrified crowd, sword raised in
triumph. Turning on his heel, he spun, the sword hissing horizontally through
the air. Effortlessly, it severed the crowned apex of Jack-in-the-Green from
its conical body, narrowly missing the cowering head of the man inside the
green framework. With a flutter of leaves and ribbons, the severed crown rolled
across the boards and dropped into the crowd.

“Jack is dead!” Finnvarr cried in triumph. “Attis is
gone, his power dispersed. The legacy of his dark brother, the Malifex, is ours
to claim. Life and death, the cycle of the seasons, they are ours now. Your
dominion in this land is over, mortals!”

Sam, in a dark place far away, felt something stir behind
him. No, not behind him, for he was turned in upon himself, his senses at an
end. Behind his mind, then, something moved—a familiar presence. He thought
he heard a chuckle, deep and musical, and perhaps, far off, the sound of pipes
and horns. He felt a tingling sensation, reminding him of the flesh that he had
so recently left behind. Perhaps it was like the ghostly itches that people
felt in limbs that they had lost, old nerves firing from habit. But there it
was again, in his fingers, spreading into the palm of his hand. The darkness
that had been closing in on Sam receded a little as his curiosity was aroused.
There was a definite sensation, spreading up his arm now.
Perhaps I’m
not dead after all,
he thought, and with the thought came a further rush of sensation,
washing up his arm and into his damaged chest. He opened one eye a crack and
peered down the length of his arm, lying limply on the boards of
the stage. From fingertips to shoulder, it was covered in green leaves. Sam
closed his eyes once more, and in his mind hunting horns were blowing.

Finnvarr pointed to Amergin and shouted, “Bring him
here! Bring me the Milesian!” Tall faeries converged on Amergin and seized
him by the arms, dragging him toward the stage. Megan tried to pull them off,
but they slapped her away as if she were an insect. Amergin was thrown down at
Finnvarr’s feet.

“Now,” began the Lord of the Sidhe, “the time has
come for retribution. My first use for the freed power of the Malifex will be
to rip the living soul from the last survivor of the race that stole my home
and destroyed my people.”

“And you’re quite sure you have that power?” asked
Amergin quietly.

“Of course, fool. The power of the Green Man is ended,
the balance destroyed. Nothing stands in my way now.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” replied the bard, staring
over Finnvarr’s shoulder.

Finnvarr turned. Something was rising from the boards of
the stage. Indeed, part of it seemed to be made of the boards, the wood
blending seamlessly with the leaves that covered its legs. Dense foliage
cloaked the arms and torso, but Finnvarr could just make out enough of the face
to recognize Sam.

“No!” he cried. “No. It can’t be. I killed you.”

Leaves spilled out of Sam’s mouth and nostrils, and the
last traces of his face were hidden. He continued to grow, until he towered
over the Lord of the Sidhe.

“No!” repeated Finnvarr. “I will not allow this! I
have come too far!” He pulled back one hand, summoning all his power to hurl
at the figure of the Green Man. “Rally to me!” he shouted, and the remnants of the Host came running to
his side, summoning their own powers to bolster his. Sam looked down at them,
felt the force gathering within them, the ancient might of the wind, strong
enough to level forests and wear mountains down to sand. Even he could not face
such a blast and survive. He needed a weapon to replace the athame. He cast
about with his mind, sending a tendril of thought down into the soil. He did
not have far to look, for the bones of the earth were close to the surface
here. He soon tasted rock and sent his thoughts down through it, searching,
testing. And there he found it—the familiar blood-tang of iron. He drew the
sensation into himself, let it flow through him, until his veins pulsed with a
stream of molten metal. He remembered his time with Wayland and the smith’s
quiet patience as he heated and reheated the iron, tempering it until it was
hard but not brittle, flexible yet strong. And when he felt that he had
captured that balance within him, that he was tempered like steel, he struck.
The remaining Host of the Sidhe had gathered their power, channeling it through
Finnvarr. He stood, eyes ablaze, arms spread wide to summon the whirlwind that
would blast the Green Man, Attis, the May King, from the face of the land. His
hair streamed out behind him in the gathering storm, and he cried out his
triumph. But before Finnvarr could strike, a wave of force exploded from Sam,
the concentrated essence of iron, expanding out through the crowd. Spheres of energy popped
into existence around his head, hissing and spitting. A vortex of force began
to spin around him. Part of his mind recognized it—the crop circle power. As
Amergin had said, the land was overflowing with energy, the dispersed power of
the Malifex seeking an outlet. Sam opened himself to it, let it flow through
him, mingling it with the taste of the blood-metal. The humans in the crowd
flinched as the halo of steel blue light washed over them, and they felt
nothing. But as it touched the Host of the Sidhe, they were snuffed out like
flames, their forms fraying into smoke, out over the castle walls. For a few
moments, their screams rent the air and then faded away, until all that could
be heard was the high keening of the gulls.

Sam looked around at the devastation, the frightened faces
of the crowd, the exhausted Wiccans gazing up at him. Their expressions
frightened him—gratitude and hope, yes, but something else. Then it dawned on
him. It was worship. As if he were some kind of god. Panic gripped him. He was
only Sam, he didn’t want this, had never asked for it. He looked at the sea
of faces and tried to think what he could do for them. Then it came to him.
There was something that remained unfinished, and it was within his power to
finish it. After a moment, he raised one hand, gesturing at the sky, and then
sank into the earth without a trace.

Above the castle, the clouds parted, driven inland by a
fresh breeze from the sea. The sun broke through, pouring its warmth onto the upturned faces among the ancient
rocks.

Summer had come.

They found Mrs. P. at the foot of the stage, as they were
ushering the confused tourists out of the arena. Charly spotted her first and
cried out for her mother. But she knew, even before Megan arrived and checked
for a pulse. Amergin and Mr. Macmillan helped to carry her body, and a solemn
procession of Wiccans accompanied them as they made their way out of the castle
and down into the Old Town.

They had to tell Sam’s parents, in the end, when his
father arrived at the Aphrodite Guest House and found he was missing. There
followed a period that would always remain a blur in Charly’s mind, a time of
tears and shouting, confusion and worry. Sam’s parents refused to believe the
tales of shape-changing and battles against the ancient Sidhe and called the
police. But there were too many witnesses to the strange events in the castle,
and the authorities soon found themselves out of their depth. The police tried
to hush up the whole business, issuing vague statements about mass hysteria and
rampaging teenage delinquents. Sam’s parents were told to wait—their son
would show up when he was good and ready. ‡

Charly, Megan, and Amergin stayed on at the

Aphrodite for several weeks, wrapping up Mrs. P.’s
affairs, arranging for her funeral. A special ceremony was held, a
Wiccan
celebration of her life. Megan and Charly cried a great deal, even
though they
knew Mrs. P. would have been disappointed in them. Charly was welcomed
into the Hastings Wiccan community, taking part in their rites and
learning the discipline that, as a new initiate, she had lacked.

But most often she liked to wander on her own, much as she
had done back home in Dorset, after her father had left. Megan worried but
recognized it as her daughter’s way of working things through.

Charly’s favorite place was the Firehills.

And it was there, one evening toward the end of her stay,
that Sam came to her. He rose out of the ground beside her, wild and wary, his
hair a tangle of leaves and a fierce, amber light in his eyes. He shied away as
she moved toward him, his shape flickering through a series of halfglimpsed
animal forms.

“It’s OK,” she said softly, standing very still. And
then,

“I’ve missed you.”

Sam paced back and forth like a caged animal, his eyes
darting to Charly’s face, then flickering away. Then he stopped, shoulders
hunched, eyes closed, and whispered,

“Help me.”

She went to him and held him close, waiting until the sobs
subsided. When she thought that he might be ready to speak, she asked, “Where
have you been? We’ve been worried sick.”

“Everywhere,” replied Sam. “I’ve been everywhere.
I’ve traveled the length and breadth of the land, I’ve been
everything—birds, fish, insects . . .” His voice trailed off.

“I don’t know what to do,” he finished in a whisper.

“Sam, what’s happened to you? I can’t help you if I
don’t know.”

Sam sank to the ground, and Charly sat by his side. After
a while, he began. “It’s him—the Green Man again. Do you understand how
the festival works?”

Charly shook her head.

“Jack-in-the-Green’s just a bloke in a costume, right?

Just somebody inside a framework, covered in leaves. So
why were the Sidhe so keen to destroy him?”

Charly remained silent, letting Sam work through what he
had to say.

“Because, when enough people believe in something, that
thing has a power. And for a moment, at the end of the ritual, when everybody
is waiting for the summer to be released, that framework of leaves
becomes
something else. It becomes Jack, Attis, the
Green Man.” He paused. “And I was there, at that moment. I plucked the
first leaf, and something happened to me. Probably because of what happened
before, because there was a bit of the Green Man inside me already, I don’t
know. Charly”—he turned to her, amber eyes raw with hurt—“I’m him.
The Green Man. I’m him now, completely. Not just a part of him tucked away
somewhere at the back of my mind. I’m him, and he’s me.”

He turned away once more, gazing out over the golden
hillside.

“I saw the way they looked at me when the Sidhe had
gone. I’m not their god. I’m just a kid. And I don’t know what to do.”

Charly threw back her head and chuckled. “Poor old
Sam,” she said with a sigh and clambered to her feet.

“What’s the matter?” she demanded. “Afraid to be
different?”

She called up the spirit of the Goddess, feeling the power
of her other mother, Epona the Huntress, flow into her. She grew taller,
darker, and the light of a moon that had not yet risen shone from her.
“We’re all different, kid. Deal with it.”

Sam stared at Charly, barely recognizing her. He was torn
between wonder and hurt—wonder at what she had become, hurt that she
wouldn’t take him seriously. Charly continued. “The thing is, we don’t
have to deal with it alone.”

Sam scowled, but he knew how futile it was to argue with
Charly.

“We were never meant to be like everyone else,” Charly
continued. “You must see that? Everything changed when you woke Amergin and
set us on this path. Neither of us can go back to how things were. And it will
be hard. Of course, it will. It’s always difficult to be different. But
we’ll get through it, because that’s what we do. Don’t we?”

Sam stared at the ground, lost in thought. Was it really
as simple as Charly said? It was all right for her. She had always been the
strong one, through all their adventures. Whereas he was blown along by fate,
desperately trying to keep his feet as the tide of events swirled around him.
And now he was lost. That was it—lost to himself. His face, when he had
glimpsed it in still pools, was familiar, but inside, the landscape of his life
had changed. He was neither boy nor man nor god but a little of each. And to
survive, he would have to find a balance. He would have help. Amergin and Megan
were wise, and Charly—something had happened to Charly too. She would
understand what he was going through. He looked up at her then and
nodded, smiling despite himself. She held out her hand and hauled him to his
feet.

“Now, come on. We’ve got a lot to talk about,” said
Charly, and hand in hand, Horse Goddess and Horned God, they walked down
through the Firehills toward the sea.

To find out how it all began read

The
Malifex

by Steve Alton

Sam just wants to be left alone to play his video games as
another boring vacation with his parents looms ahead. But within days of
arriving in southern England, he mistakenly awakes the ancient wizard Amergin
from a two-thousand-year sleep. With Amergin, and his new friend Charly, Sam
finds himself involved in a timeless battle against the evil Malifex, and his
life changes forever.