The Sword of Straw (18 page)

Bartlemy placed his fingertips gently on the boy’s temples, still murmuring the soft cold words of the spell. If it was a spell. It sounded more like a kind of exhortation, a ripple of persuasive phrases insinuating themselves into the blankness of Damon’s mind. Presently Bartlemy began to pull his fingers away, and there was something black attached to them, apparently drawn out of Damon’s head, like long strands of clinging vapor that gradually disseminated in the candlelight. More of it came…and more…Nathan watched in fascinated horror as one great dark clot adhered to Bartlemy’s hand like an inky goo, though it seemed to have no more substance than mist.

“What is it?” he ventured, in a whisper.

“An infection,” Bartlemy responded. “It was clouding his mind, pressing on his thoughts, infiltrating and distorting them. It would inflame the darker aspects of his nature—we all have them—and obscure conscience and moderation. Think of it as a culture of magical bacteria, feeding on his spirit as a sickness feeds on the body. He was perhaps weakened and vulnerable because of his age and problems in his family life—such infections are much less effective when the mind is healthy. Part of him would probably have welcomed the darkness, since it blotted out many things that troubled him.”

“How did it happen?” Nathan asked. “Could it attack—like—anybody?”

Bartlemy was drawing the last few threads of shadow from Damon’s head. When he spoke, he sounded quite matter-of-fact. “Oh no,” he said. “It was put there.”

“By whom?”

Something like a shaft of lightning struck the circle. For a millisecond the whole room seemed to flick into darkness, so that even the spellfire was quenched. The rug scorched and smoked; the curve of the perimeter was burned into the pattern. Damon’s glazed stare flashed livid flame. The lightning crawled around his bracelet, which split into two jointed halves and fell to the floor. His mouth opened with a cry of rage in a voice that was not his own—behind him, a huge figure loomed up, shadowy and ominous, leaning forward as if to seize him. The livid fire fled from Damon’s gaze to flare briefly in the eyes at his back.

“Vardé!”
Bartlemy cried.
“Néfia! Envarré néan-charne!”

The figure vanished, imploding into its own lightning. The spellfire blazed and sank. Faint glooms settled gently back into their corners. Except for the scorch mark, the patterns on the rug seemed to fade into their customary obscurity. Bartlemy rose and blew out the candles, returning them to a cupboard at the end of the room. He picked up the bracelet, pocketing it without comment or explanation. Then he cleared the hearth with surprising speed and lit an ordinary fire, despite the summer warmth. Damon sat in his chair with his face blank and his eyes now closed.

“Will he be all right?” Nathan said.

“He will be—himself,” Bartlemy answered. “It may take him a little time to remember everything he has done. Then he will need help dealing with it. He will have more nightmares than you about what happened in the woods.”

“I shan’t have nightmares,” Nathan said. “I cried, though. I couldn’t stop myself.” He felt it was important to say it.

“It was only the pain,” said Bartlemy. “Crying was natural. It need not trouble you.”

“Is that why people do those things?” Nathan asked after a pause. “Torture and abuse and stuff…Is it an infection in their heads?”

“It can be.” Bartlemy sighed. “Some are born with their spirits already warped and darkened; we do not know why. Some are damaged by circumstances and invite the infection in. In other cases it can be put there, as you have seen, though not always by such magics as were used here. There are many forms of the Gift, and all too often it turns to evil. If you have that talent, you don’t necessarily need spellpower to control the weak and the willing. Gifted leaders in politics or religion can attract these bacteria—elementals too primitive to have voice or thought, black humors, tiny fragments of living darkness—using them without knowing it, afflicting those under their sway. Sometimes whole nations can be diseased. But remember, such infection
can
be resisted; without a degree of acceptance, it cannot take hold.”

“Can it—can it be cured?” Nathan said. “Without the sort of exorcism you did?”

“The only cure is total self-revelation. It is always traumatic, and can scar the spirit for life.”

Nathan considered this. “But…Damon was infected deliberately,” he said. “By someone with powers like yours.” And: “What was that—apparition just now?”

“A spirit that had been conjured to instill the infection. The person who did it wanted to be very sure it would take hold.”

“Who was it?”

But Bartlemy was bent over Damon, touching his forehead. Calling his name.

Damon blinked and looked around, vaguely bemused. “What on earth—”

And then: “The dog. The dog bit me.”

“I’m afraid so,” Bartlemy admitted.

“What am I doing here?”

“You came to steal something,” Bartlemy explained. “You brought your father’s gun; it’s over there against the wall.”

Damon’s roving gaze found Nathan, focused. He frowned suddenly, then his face paled into shock. “I did—I tried to—”

“Yes, you did,” Bartlemy said. “Happily, you did not succeed. You were not entirely yourself at the time. People are coming soon; someone will take you home. Meanwhile, I think hot chocolate is in order, with a slug of brandy. And something to nibble.”

Nathan followed him into the kitchen, leaving Damon silent and shivering at the fireside.

“Shouldn’t we ask him who did it? Who put the bacteria in his mind?”

“It isn’t necessary.”

“His father,” Nathan concluded, shocked at the concept. “It must have been Giles Hackforth, right? He’s the one who wants the Grail. It was his own father…”

“In a way,” said Bartlemy.

F
OR ALL
her anxiety, Annie obeyed Bartlemy’s injunction to delay her arrival at Thornyhill for an hour. As the drive from Ffylde took nearly that, even in a police car with blue light flashing, she didn’t actually have to hold herself in check for very long. When she got there she hugged Nathan rather tearily, demanded explanations, and knew immediately, from the look on his face, she wasn’t going to get them. Not in front of the inspector, anyway.

Nathan, to his own surprise, found himself playing the whole episode down. Bartlemy hadn’t asked it of him, but somehow he felt it was the right thing to do. Whatever anger he nurtured had withered at the sight of Damon’s frozen stillness, his stammering attempt at apology, abruptly cut off when he realized no words would heal what he had done. Dimly, Nathan glimpsed the abyss into which Damon was staring—the knowledge of his own capacity for evil. “The dark is in all of us,” Bartlemy had said. “You and me as well as Damon. We have to face it, and conquer it. That is the measure of our strength. When the soul is infected, or diminished, that is when our demon takes over.”

“It was just a game,” Nathan told Pobjoy. “A…a kind of joke. It went a bit far.”

“You said Damon kidnapped you.”

“Yes, but—it wasn’t meant to be for real. It was just…”

“Just a joke?”

Annie threw a somber look at the kidnapper, but refrained from joining in. Experience—or instinct—had taught her the value of noninterference.

“Were you alone in this game?” the inspector asked Damon.

“Yes, he was,” Nathan said hastily.

“You’re covering up,” Pobjoy said with a trace of bitterness. “None of you has ever told me the whole truth—about anything.”

“Consider it simply adolescent high spirits,” Bartlemy offered. “Rites of passage.”

“Which?” Pobjoy’s tone was arctic.

“Either. Both. It’s up to you.” Bartlemy produced his gentlest smile. “I expect you’ve missed your supper. Can I get you something?”

“No,” Pobjoy said without thanks. “I’m going to return Mr. Hackforth to his family. I’d like to hear his answers to some of my questions. He hasn’t had much to say for himself so far. I may also have to take action concerning his illegal possession of a firearm.”

Nathan looked alarmed, but Bartlemy was unruffled.

“Damon is a little overwrought,” he said. “He may tend to exaggerate what has happened—for effect. Teenagers do like to shock their elders, don’t they? Especially those in authority. As for the gun, I understand he took it by mistake. It was in a bag that normally contained a pair of skis.”

“He would be going skiing,” Pobjoy said, “in a wood in summer.”

As he turned to leave, Annie laid a hand on his arm. “Thanks,” she said. “Thanks for everything.” There was nothing left of her old resentment for suspicions past. “I’m sorry if we’ve wasted your time.”

But Pobjoy wasn’t in a mood to be mollified. “You always do,” he said.

N
ATHAN SAW
Hazel that weekend and told her what had happened, but George was with them, and perhaps because of that he curtailed his account, not mentioning the cigarette burns (he hadn’t shown those to Annie, either). Even so, George was impressed. “Wow!” he said. “Cool! I mean, you read about the stuff that goes on in private schools, but I didn’t know it happened for real. Sixth-formers kidnapping people, and tying them up, and initiation rituals and so on.”

“It wasn’t an initiation ritual.”

“Whatever. Were you awfully scared? I would’ve been.”

“Nathan’s never scared,” Hazel said. Somehow, it didn’t sound entirely complimentary. “You know that.”

“I
was
scared,” Nathan averred. “Shitless. Damon seemed like he was mad—possessed—as if he didn’t care what he did as long as it was bad. That was really scary.”

“Thank God we’re at a nice safe boring comprehensive,” George said. “We just have drugs and sex and ordinary bullying—and I never get any of the drugs or sex. It’s pretty dull most of the time. Jason Wicks started an extortion racket last term, but Dale Jorkins told his mum, who’s like,
huge,
and does weight lifting, and she went to see Jason’s old man and picked him up with one hand, so we got most of the money back. Jason’s bully cred went through the floor. It was brilliant.”

“You didn’t tell me about that,” Nathan said.

“We probably didn’t see you,” Hazel pointed out. “Can I borrow your rugger shirt?”

“Sure, but—why?”

“I can’t find mine, and I—I want to wear a rugger shirt, that’s all. A real one, that’s had rugger played in it.” She added, improvising furiously: “It’s a style thing. You wouldn’t understand.”

Nathan looked bewildered, but appeared to accept this as part of the inscrutability of female fashions. “It hasn’t been washed.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

Later Hazel took home her trophy, feeling uncomfortable about it, and telling herself a little too often not to be stupid. After all, she had taken an item of his once before, for her great-grandmother, and nothing had happened to him. (That time the sweatshirt had been recently washed.)

She’d had no problem pinching a hair ornament of Ellen’s from her desk at school, but obtaining a “token” from Jonas had been much more difficult, though unattended by guilt. She had tried abstracting his sweater when he had taken it off at break, but Ellen had seen her, and she’d had to plead a mistake, retreating behind her hair, knowing she sounded unconvincing. Afterward, she had seen Ellen snickering with her current cronies, and it dawned on her that they thought she wanted to steal the sweater out of unrequited passion, presumably so she could snuggle up to it at night and dream of her beloved. Which wasn’t
quite
as bad as the truth but very nearly, since it meant the secret of her affection was out. Now, Ellen and Co. would be looking for telltale signs, the giveaway gestures and expressions that would betray her. And they would find them, Hazel knew, no matter how careful she was. Teenage girls on the track of weakness in a classmate are more observant than an MI5 surveillance team. She had to do something, quickly.

She had to do the spell.

Desperation made her bold. Jonas had a strip of bandage on his knee after a fall from his bicycle, and she managed to waylay him after basketball to offer a new-lamps-for-old deal. “You ought to change that,” she said, greatly daring. “It’s dirty. Here—I’ve got a spare one.”

He stared at her. They’d barely spoken before, and, if he’d thought about her at all, it was as the introverted type who didn’t talk much to anyone. He supposed it was part of his newfound popularity, that quiet girls would offer him Band-Aids out of the blue. He said: “Thanks.”

“I’ll get rid of that,” Hazel concluded hastily, snatching the old bandage from his hand. Despite her hidden passion, she didn’t want to prolong the encounter. It wasn’t exactly romantic.

Inevitably one of Ellen’s entourage, a lumpy girl known as Fizz, had witnessed the incident and followed Hazel, darkly suspicious, to see if she really did discard the mangled bandage. She cornered her quarry some ten minutes later in the cloakroom. “You kept it!” she jeered, the sparkle of glee making her appear, if possible, even less attractive. “Yeeurrgh! You kept a disgusting bit of icky Band-Aid just ’cause it belonged to Jonas. God, you are so pathetic. Wait till I tell the others about this—they’ll laugh themselves sick. Ellen ought to warn him: you might be after his used toilet paper next. You know, you’re creepy—really creepy. They’ve probably got a name for people who do things like this. You’re the ultimate freako.”

Hazel said nothing. The floor failed to oblige by swallowing her up. She grabbed her jacket and her bag, and fled.

That Saturday, after she left Nathan and George, was taken up with family and other impedimenta. On Sunday she was finally able to summon Lilliat. It was easy now; she did it without thinking and, this time, with little preparation. The language of the Stone rolled coldly off her tongue. As the image developed in the mirror it seemed to tremble and darken for a moment, as if uncertain what form and color it should take—then it settled into the high cheekbones and silver tones of the Spirit of Flowers. There was a second when the thought flicked through Hazel’s mind,
What does she
really
look like?
—but she dismissed it. It was too late now for doubts: she had chosen her path, and must go on with it.