Awakening (45 page)

Sinistral was astonished. He had assumed that Blut was unbreakable.

‘Enlighten me.’

‘It is the chef for the banquet that you ordered us to have.’

‘The chef?’

‘You said, “Find the best one in the Empire” and unhappily I did.’

‘You would. Did he come from the spicelands of Asia, perhaps? Or the succulence of the Arabian littoral? Or is he an expert in the wholesome fare, robust and good, of Americky and the Antipodes?’

‘No, my Lord, he comes from Brum, city of your birth.’

The Emperor was pleasantly surprised.

‘I don’t think of Brum as being the home of good food, Blut. Fatty chips, mushy peas, overcooked meat and flatulent fish and cakes so heavy that they numb the stomach and slow the mind. Or have things changed?’

‘One chef has changed them, Lord. A genius of the kitchen arts, a magician of the meat, a star with the sauce, who creates heaven with herbs – I quote his literature about himself.’

‘Have I heard of him?’

‘I doubt it, my Lord; he emerged into the light of day while you were asleep.’

‘His name?’

‘Parlance, my Lord. He was the High Ealdor Lord Festoon’s chef. Since then he works for the highest bidder, who this week is yourself.’

‘And?’

‘He is temperamental and demanding.’

‘Give him what he wants and praise him.’

‘He wants praise from you, not me.’

‘Then tell this Parlance that if his food pleases me, his Emperor, I shall personally present him to the Court on the night of the presentation of the gems.’

‘Thank you, Emperor. Now . . .’

‘My robes?’

‘Later, perhaps . . . I have a meeting with the generals to discuss security.’

‘Is there an issue?’

‘For me, yes. They are more relaxed.’

‘You should get your family out of here, Blut, or have I already mentioned that?’

Blut nodded and wiped his spectacles. ‘You have.’

‘Blut?’

‘Lord?’

‘I think my hair is falling out.’

‘Lord . . .’

‘Blut . . . I am terrified and don’t know what to do.’ He wept.

‘Shall I fetch my Lady, Lord?’

He shook his head as Blut wiped his tears.

‘No, fetch Witold Slew, I have a new task for him.’

‘May I ask what it is? Is it something I might better do? He is a fighter, not an administrator.’

‘It is for a fight I need him.’

‘Against whom?’

‘My greatest enemy.’

‘My Lord,’ began Blut, much alarmed, ‘name him and I shall have him arraigned.’

‘I mean myself,’ whispered Sinistral.

38

A
NCESTOR

T
he last time Jack passed through a door in the Chamber of Seasons he ended up in the place he needed to be.

This time, as the door of Summer shut-to behind them and the world whirled for a few moments before coming clear again, he was not so sure.

He had expected to arrive somewhere that would take him closer to their destination, which was Bochum in Germany. Maybe on a green road outside Brum heading towards the East Coast; or on the coast itself at any of the hydden ports from where they might make passage over the North Sea; or, if they were really lucky and the Mirror-of-All, which he guessed held the secrets of the doors, decided to be benign they might arrive on the further shore.

As it was they found themselves huddled in a circle on a patch of grass at night, like a small tribe of hunters in prehistoric times, but in what looked, smelt and sounded like a tiny island of wasteland in a vast urban human jungle.

‘We stay just as we are,’ said Jack at once, for at least where they were they felt safe and protected, as if they had been put there for a reason and that reason had to do with the ground itself.

He alone stood up. His stave felt alive and good in his hand, as if it approved of where they were.

There was little light close by, and even standing up Jack did not attract any. But the sky above his head was lurid with ambient city glow, and whichever way he looked there was no end to the lights of roads large and small, of tower blocks and modern offices, chimneys of industry, high-speed trains, a wide canal and, overhead, the lights of aeroplanes here, there and everywhere.

‘It’s all right,’ he said, ‘this is a no-man’s-land between a canal and river and we are not overlooked. For now we’re safe.’

As well as the endless stretching lights and buildings there was a constant hum of fast traffic, the occasional clackety race of a speeding train, and once at least the sudden shrill hoot of a ship’s klaxon from the larger of the two canals.

When Jack had passed through the door of Spring with Katherine, Festoon and his chef Parlance, they found themselves on Waseley Hill, a few miles from Festoon’s residence. This did not feel like Brum or even Englalond.

‘No point in moving until we’ve worked out where we are,’ said Jack. ‘Any ideas, anyone?’

The only one of their party who did not shake his head was Feld.

‘Something’s familiar about the place,’ he said.

‘And something else,’ said Jack. ‘Although we’re in the middle of the largest city I’ve ever known, this particular spot has a good feel to it. Almost as if our kind has been here before.’

Their eyes had adjusted to the night and Barklice said, ‘I’ll just go and . . .’

Jack nodded to the others to let him go. He knew no hydden as good as Barklice at working out where he was and what direction he should take.

They watched as he walked slowly towards a stone of some kind across the grass.

He reached it, circled it, went close and peered at it, touched it and came back.

‘Human. It’s got writing on it, but it’s not in any language that I know. Stort, you’re the linguist, over to you.’

‘Feld, go with him. Stort’s in the habit of getting lost.’

But Jack was not too worried about that; there was an air of rightness about the place, as if here and no other was where they were meant to start their quest from.

It looked like the Mirror-of-All had, in its wisdom and knowing the nature of their quest, set them down where they needed to be.

When Stort reached the stone he went closer than Barklice had done, Feld at his side.

‘By the Mirror,’ he cried after only a short examination, ‘we’re not in Englalond but in Germany.’

Feld laughed with relief.

‘We are not just in Germany, Stort, we are in the Rhineland, and in a very, very special part of it. A part I happen to know . . .’

‘What’s written on the stone?’

‘I shall read it,’ said Feld. ‘It is a sign put up by humans . . .
Hier wurde 1963 bei Baggerarbeiten im Rhein-Herne-Kanal ein Neandertalerrastplatz (180,000 Jahre alt) entdeckt . . .’

Feld fell silent, Stort stood still.

‘What’s it mean?’ asked Barklice in a low voice.

The two came back.

‘What it means,’ said Stort, ‘is that the ground we now sit on marks a place of great antiquity and holiness. It’s a burial ground.’

‘Also, we are only a few miles from the entrance to the hydden city of Bochum,’ said Feld, ‘and I am a fool for not recognizing at once where we are, since I was brought to this very spot as a child.’

‘I heard the word “Neandertal” in what you read out,’ said Jack quietly. ‘Were they not the first of our kind?’

His stave shimmered, its carvings crackling with blue light.

‘They were giants-born, Jack,’ replied Stort, ‘from whom humans and hydden came by blood and by deed. They were the originators of mortal kind and the word you said you heard you did not quite complete. What “
Neandertalrastplatz
” means is a place where one of the Great Ones was buried. Your ancestors were here, Jack, and that’s why we were brought here.’

Jack was silent, as were they all. He felt connected to the Earth and to the past, yet very present in the here and now.

‘We should not forget,’ he said, ‘that humans have honoured this spot. Whatever the name of he or she who was buried here their spirit is with us now. Let us honour it for a time before Feld shows us the way to go.’

They stood up in silence, feeling that this was as good an omen as there could be. A giant-born leading them from one of his ancestors’ resting place. Their determination to do what they must in the days ahead felt all the stronger for knowing that and seeing with their own eyes that his stave was alive with the power of the past.

‘Some say that a spirit will linger about a place, especially a wise one, for many centuries,’ observed Stort, ‘to give what help it can to those that follow, until a Great One comes along and frees it to journey on, knowing another will see the tasks of mortal kind fulfilled.’

Feld said, in no way lightly, for there was a gravity about the place, the night and themselves, ‘Yet I doubt that any spirit would still be here after 180,000 years, unless it was a truly Great One waiting for another just as great.’

‘Well,’ said Jack, ‘be that as it may, we will honour it with fire.’

He found some newspaper in a bin, gave them each a sheet to scrunch up and set a small flame going with a single lucifer. He placed it on the ground and invited them to join theirs to his. ‘We keep the flame alive until we all have shared our spirit here. That’s the way ’tis done.’

How he knew this he did not know, but he felt driven by the same ancient impulse as he had on the night when Judith was born and he made an offering to the gods.

His flame leapt up as Barklice, next Stort and finally Feld added their paper.

‘We honour you,’ he said, placing a last ball of paper on the burning ashes of the others.

As he stood up once more, staring at the flame, his stave began to tremble and the flame on the ground, whose life was surely almost done, grew bright, taller, bluer, so much so that they all stepped back a pace.

Then the light began playing about the carving of his stave again, brighter now, crackling louder, jumping from one of them to another, circling their circle until the flame on the ground, higher than they were now, whooshed up into the sky, a wind catching their hair and cloaks, a great flash across the sky, to north and south, until as suddenly as it came, it was gone.

Jack stood transfixed, the others around him in awe.

‘We honour you,’ he said again, adding, ‘A Great One has finally returned home to the Mirror this night. Let us remember him as we seek the gems of great Beornamund, which is now our quest.’

They stood in silence a few moments more before Jack commanded General Feld to take them on.

‘I will, Stavemeister, I will!’

Feld explained that the site they were on lay between the River Emscher, a little to their north, and the Rhein-Herne Canal, to their south. These waterways ran east–west and Feld led them eastward, along the narrower Emscher.

It was not what most hydden would call a river at all, but a man-made conduit on a large scale, cleanly landscaped with grassy banks rising sharply on either side and the occasional bridge spanning them, quite high above their heads. The riverbed itself was artificial and looked like an oversized gutter.

It was artificially lit, but not greatly so, and the occasional human who came that way, on bicycle or foot, was easily enough avoided.

They walked fast and steadily, with barely a word said. The night remained clear and not quite warm, and though their position between the two rising banks of the river obscured the wider view, they occasionally caught a glimpse of human structures, factories, and a power station. Unlike those in Brum these were modern, clean-lined, and a few brightly lit in yellows, reds and greens. It was impressive.

From time to time Feld scaled the right bank to get a broader sense of where they were.

‘We’re not going to arrive at the entrance to the Bochum tunnels until past dawn, so we may have to hide up if the day is bright and our route gets busy with humans, which I think it will. So this might be a good moment to show you something.’

They followed him up to the top of the embankment, from where they could see how vast the metropolis they were in really was.

‘It’s really a number of human towns joined together: Essen, Bottrop, Gelsenkirchen . . . Bochum is where that group of taller buildings is,’ he said, pointing to the south-east.

‘The hydden city of Bochum is to the right, under the collieries between that nearer town, Wattensheid, and human Bochum itself. So it’s a lot more subterranean than Brum. As for the area straight ahead, there are the tunnels Bochumers do not go near as they are occupied by the Remnants.’

‘The hydden not under the Empire’s control?’ asked Jack, who remembered Feld’s briefing. ‘But that’s a larger area than Bochum itself !’

‘Much larger,’ said Feld, ‘and largely unknown to civilized hydden. Same goes for the area to the south and east of Bochum, over to our left . . . but I’ll point that out later.’