The Shadow and Night (77 page)

Brenito nodded. “So that would take us back, what? Almost two hundred years? Intriguing.”

Merral wondered why such an inherited gift should have gone unnoticed. Then it occurred to him that, in a world where nothing much happened, the gift of seeing the future was hardly one to be prized.

“So,” Brenito said, his voice oddly resonant in the small room, “Jorgio, Merral, and Vero have told me about your visions, about the Assembly, about what's happening. Can
you
tell me about them?”

Jorgio rubbed his smooth, bald head and stared at the table. “
That.
That's why you're here, isn't it? 'Cause old Jorgio sees things.”

“I think God has given you a gift that we need.”

“
Tut.
We all 'as gifts,” Jorgio said dismissively and looked around. “Lots of gifts here.”

“I think so too. But we want to hear about yours. Tell us about your dreams, your visions. We need help and you can give it to us.”

So, prompted by Brenito, Jorgio recounted his dreams and visions. Although Merral had already heard what his old friend had to say, he still found his words both compelling and troubling. And from the tense, rapt expressions on the faces of Brenito, Vero, and Perena, he knew that the others were similarly gripped. And as Jorgio told them of his awareness of cold, creeping shadows under the northern woods, Merral felt as if the sunlight somehow faded and the day's warmth left the room. And when Jorgio told of his two specific visions of a threat to Farholme and the Assembly, Merral felt there was an almost electric tension to the room, as if a summer storm were brewing.

“Hmm,” Brenito said in the long silence that followed. “Extraordinary. Tell me, when the Gate went, Jorgio—when you heard the news—what did you feel?”

“Now that was odd. I felt anger.” Jorgio's forehead creased into a frown. “Yes, if you please,
anger.
It was almost as though it was the Lord's anger, if you like.”

“Would it surprise you to know that it wasn't an accident?”

Merral was aware that every eye in the room was turned to Jorgio's face.

“Accident?” His thick lips smacked in indignation. “Surprise me?
Tut,
I knew it weren't that. It was them in the north that was behind it.”

“Ah,” Brenito said; it was a single, long, slow word of discovery. “And who,” he continued, as delicately as if his words were on tiptoe, “are
they?
”

“I don't rightly know.” The leathery face wrinkled, revealing uneven teeth. “But I know as they aren't good. That's obvious anyway. And there's something there that ain't flesh and blood either, if my dreams are right. Or, at least, not
natural
flesh and blood. Not warm, living, flesh and red blood, like what you and I have under our skins.” He chewed his lip. “And I think this something is old—”

“Old?” Brenito's question was barely a whisper.

“As old as the hills. No—older. Older than the stars.”

“I see.” Merral caught Vero's glance.

“And they don't like us, Mister Brenito. They hate the King's people. Always have.”

“Hmm.” Brenito shifted awkwardly in his chair. “What else do you know about them?”

“Know? Oh, I know little. It's what I reckon, really.”

The old sentinel smiled. “Go on. I'm very interested.”

“We all are,” added Vero quietly.

“For instance, where are they?” Brenito asked “Exactly? Do you know?”

“Up north, I reckons. Beyond the mountains.” Jorgio shivered. “I get cold at night thinking about the north. The ice, the frost. But it's colder than that now. Now it has them.”

Jorgio fell silent, looking at the floor and twisting his gnarled fingers.

“Why are they here?” Brenito asked.

“It's 'cause the barrier is down.”

“The barrier is down?” Merral echoed and received a cautionary glance from Brenito.

“Yes,” Jorgio said, scratching his uneven nose, “leastways, that's how I look at it.”

“What barrier, Jorgio?” Brenito said in a soft voice.

“Well, see, I don't say as I'm right or I'm wrong. But I always reckoned there has been a barrier. Like a wall, see?” He tapped a finger on the masonry beside him. “I expect it's invisible except to the Lord and the angels. It's his handiwork, of course. Round the Assembly. And it keeps 'em out. Or it did.”

“Did?”

“Well, I reckon. No, I
knows.
But either they have been let through, or something—
someone
—has made a hole in the barrier. And they're getting through. Now.”

“This barrier—where does it lie?”

Jorgio gestured sharply upward at an angle. “Beyond Farholme. We're at the edge. We are Worlds' End.”

There was a long silence.

With a loud creak, Brenito leaned back in his chair. “Well, thank you, Jorgio. I think what you have said is very significant. I am delighted to have heard it from you personally.”

“Mr. Serter.” The sound of Perena's quiet voice made everyone turn toward her. “Just before the Gate went . . .” She paused. “I met a strange figure. A man—only he wasn't a man. He warned me that night was falling and the war was beginning. He told me that the Gate was under threat—” she swallowed—“he said he was an ‘envoy' sent from ‘our Lord the King.' I was wondering if you knew anything about him.”

Jorgio looked at her, then broke out into a broad smile. “Well, bless his Holy Name, I am glad to hear that.” Jorgio gave a little clap of pleasure. “Best news I heard in a long time. 'Course, it's not surprising. The King never leaves his people on their own.”

“So you know who he is?” Brenito asked with a raised eyebrow. “This envoy?”

“Oh, I don't know
who
he is but I can guess
what
he is: one of the King's warriors, he is. There's old stories as all the worlds have angels. He'll be ours.”

“Thank you,” Perena said quietly. “Thank you very much indeed.”

There was a long silence, a silence deep enough for Merral to hear the sound of Brenito's heavy breathing. Suddenly, the old man gave a sharp little gasp. Merral saw the look of concern on Vero's face and understood his expression perfectly; this was not a well man.

Jorgio rose slowly. “Mister Brenito, would you like to lie down on my bed while I prepare lunch?”

“P-please,” said Brenito in an unsteady voice. “Thank you—I don't mind if I do. . . . And a glass of water? Thank you.”

Helped by Merral and Vero, Brenito managed to get out of his chair and into Jorgio's bedroom, where he lay down. After taking some water, he seemed to improve and asked that he be left on his own.

Perena insisted on helping Jorgio with lunch, so Merral and Vero left the cottage. It was turning out to be one of the first really warm days of the year, and they went and sat down on a grass bank in the shade of a big western oak that faced the cottage.

“Brenito's ill, isn't he?” Merral said.

“Yes,” Vero said and shook his head. “It was a risk bringing him today. But, I think, a worthwhile one. What do you think of what Jorgio said?”

Merral thought for a moment. “It's scary. The barrier being down, I mean. But it makes sense, doesn't it? The idea of something outside the Assembly managing to get in.”

“Yes. I just think it makes what we are doing even more urgent.”

“Perena told me that the FDU is growing.”

“Yes, I think it is, gratifyingly fast. And then I hear Jorgio and I wonder what we are up against.”

“No news on Gerry's quantum communication device?”

“None.” Vero shook his head. “She sent the message repeatedly; we have used up all the linked photons. There was no reply. Gerry wasn't surprised though. I guess I don't understand the physics. ‘We will know in fifty years whether it got through,' she said. But Clemant was
not
happy about it. ‘It should have been approved, Sentinel.' He didn't care for your account of what had happened at Larrenport either, when that got out.” Vero shook his head as if trying to shake off a troublesome fly.

“But he has come around to supporting you?”

“Yes. He is fundamentally a pragmatic man. It took him some days for the gravity of the situation to sink in, but when it did—” Vero shook his head— “he became very helpful. He doesn't care for what we are doing, but he acknowledges it is needed. But, Merral, tell me about your hunt for the ship. You really have found nothing?”

“Nothing.”

The look of disappointment on Vero's face was unmistakable. “I had assumed from your silence that that was the case.”

“Vero, I'm spending six or seven hours a day on it. I can't do any more. I'm now going over it square by square at a scale where I can make out individual trees. But it's slow.”

“How slow?”

“It could take me another three months to do the entire area.”

Vero gave a cluck of dismay. “I'm not blaming you, of course, but can it be speeded up?”

Merral explained the difficulties.

“I see,” Vero said. “It's like ‘looking for a needle in a haystack.' ”

“Not heard that one. Is that another of these pre-Assembly sayings?”

“Yes. All my reading is in that period now. When I find time.”

“ ‘A needle in a haystack' raises lots of questions; I mean, why bother trying to find it? Couldn't they have used a magnet?”

“It was probably a ritual.” Vero thought for a moment. “But are you staying fit?”

“I try and run every day. Why do you ask?”

Vero frowned. “Because when you—when
we—
find this ship, we will need to mount an expedition to it. You'll have to lead—”

“Vero,” Merral interrupted sharply, “you aren't serious?”

“Of course.”

“I really don't fancy turning up and knocking on the door, you know. Not at all.”

Vero laughed. “My friend, the work of almost my every waking hour is to ensure that if, and when, we do meet them again, we meet them on very different terms than we did before. But let's not talk of that now.”

Merral noticed that, by the cottage, Perena and Jorgio were putting out lunch on a table set up outside the door, and Zak was unrolling an awning from the cottage wall.

“Where did you get Zak from?”

“As soon as the FDU was approved I sat down with all the university academic and sports listings and looked up the best of the recent graduates in both areas.”

“Why sports?”

“I wanted them fit. If we have to go for the ship—” Vero left the sentence unfinished. “And I was also looking for the good team players. But Zak Larraine's one of the best. He learns fast. I think he could master anything very quickly. He was in the first thirty-six I had.”

“The first?”

A sheepish expression crossed Vero's face. “Oh, well. As I got them, we made plans and I realized we needed more than twenty-four. So we recruited another twenty-four. And so on—”

“ ‘And so on'? How many more are there?”

Vero peered intently down at the ground by his side. “Currently I have around a hundred people—all busier than these ants.”

“That was fast.”

Vero looked up, his face gloomy. “But we may not be fast enough. Things are happening and it's not good.”

“What sort of things?”

“At Larrenport the annual Team-Ball match between the Sunrise and Sunset sides was cancelled last week. There was abusive language between the supporters. Unheard of. ‘Stupid Setters.' ‘Risers are slugs.' Amazing stuff. And there've been problems in the Library.”

“The Library?”

“I'll tell you about it when it is confirmed. But, Merral, I fear that time is not on our side.”

By lunchtime, Brenito seemed to have recovered, and he and Jorgio engaged in quiet and close conversation. After lunch, Merral and the others drifted away to allow them some privacy. As he walked around Wilamall's Farm, Merral was disturbed to find how rapidly the complex was being run down. Shortly after two o'clock, they all returned to the house. The intense conversation between Brenito and Jorgio had ended, and Merral felt that the old sentinel had an oddly subdued air about him. They made their farewells to Jorgio and left.

On the rotorcraft journey back to Ynysmant, Merral noticed that Brenito barely said a thing but instead stared out of the window with a distant expression on his face.
It's his ill health,
Merral decided.

At Ynysmant strip, they clambered out of the rotorcraft and walked over as a group to the courier plane. Midway, Brenito raised a large hand. “A moment,” he announced and gestured Merral over. “I need to have a private word with our forester.”

The others withdrew out of earshot.