Motherstone (13 page)

‘He’s got a streak of lightning on his chest.’

‘Yer could boil spuds on what ‘e keeps in here.’ Jimmy tapped his forehead.

‘So it fits. I knew someone like him would come. I didn’t know who. I thought for a while Thief might be the Red One. But it had to be someone human of course.’

‘I don’t understand all this,’ Nick said. ‘Can’t we just go home?’

‘No,’ Susan said. ‘No, we can’t.’

‘Tough luck, son,’ Jimmy said.

‘Well, what do these stories mean? And what do we do?’

‘What do
I
do. And Soona. And the Hotlander boy.’

‘You’re not going anywhere without me.’

Thief hissed and stepped towards him.

‘Don’t talk so loudly, Nick,’ Susan said. She took his hand. ‘You’re coming, wherever we go. Jimmy too, and Dawn. We’ll go together. But in the end it’s me and Soona and Aenlocht.’

‘Doing what?’

She shrugged. ‘I’ve got to meet Aenlocht first. Is he on the boat?’

‘He’s awake,’ Dawn said. ‘His mind is clear. But his wounds will be several days healing.’

‘Can he walk? I want to take him into the house.’

‘Nick and Jimmy must carry him.’

Susan nodded. ‘Soona, you and I will make him ready.’

‘He wants to kill Soona.’

‘We’ll take Thief. They’re enemies and they’ve got to get used to each other.’

She stood up and walked to one side and Thief slunk forward and stood with her. ‘Now, Soona.’

The fishergirl went towards them. Thief growled and the hair stood up along his back.

‘Don’t be frightened. Keep on the other side of me.’

‘Susan, can I play a tune for him?’

‘Yes, play.’

Soona lifted her flute. She moved carefully round to face Thief, and played a tune that spoke of ease, of comfort, calm of mind, acceptance of all things – that at least was how it seemed to Nick. At the end his hand was resting on Ben’s neck. It did not work quite so well for Thief, but at last his rumbling stopped and the hairs on his back lay flat. Soona kept on a little while, and in the end he yawned and looked indifferently at her. He rubbed himself against Susan’s leg.

Soona stopped. She slipped her flute into her sleeve. ‘There,’ she said, ‘better than I thought. Distant friends.’

They went down to the beach and approached the barge. The old seal, Watcher of Furthermost, was by the stern. ‘Susan, we will rest on the neighbouring island. Call when you need us again.’

‘Thank you,’ Susan said. ‘We’ll have to hear what Freeman Wells says first. Rest well, Watcher.’

She and Soona climbed on to the barge, and Thief came up with an easy leap. They stood on the deck and looked at the cabin. Thief took a step towards it. A soft anticipatory wicked hiss came from his mouth. But Susan said, ‘Thief, no! Listen to me, Thief.’

She ‘spoke’ to him, and she had learned a kind of shorthand now. An image of her hand on his head meant
stay
, an image of her standing with someone else meant
do not attack
. She could not be sure he would always obey, but in some way he wished to please her; he allowed her things, but took no orders. If his instinct to attack overrode their friendship then she would have no influence with him.

She tried to show herself and the Hotlander boy. She had not seen him and it was hard. But she found the image in her mind reinforced – colour and precision added to it, features she could not know about; and she sent a startled glance at Soona. The fishergirl was ‘speaking’ too. Somehow their minds had joined, had woven round each other like two vines. In her wonder at the strangeness, she almost lost Thief. The Bloodcat took two steps to the deck-house door, and paused, and crouched. From inside came a cry of rage and fear. Aenlocht thought they had sent the cat to kill him. But they made their image again – combining with an ease neither stopped to question – and made the animal stay, they held him by the force of their need. Without this boy O would be destroyed. Then Susan went forward and looked in the door.

Aenlocht had thrown his blanket off. That was all he had strength for. He bared his teeth and snarled like the cat. He would fight with fingernails and teeth – for the moment it would take Thief to kill him. But in savagery he was the Bloodcat’s equal.

‘Thief, Thief,’ she said; and held the cat. She stepped into the doorway and turned her back on Aenlocht. She felt Soona’s mind increasing her own, and again presented Aenlocht as friend – while behind her the boy hissed and spat.

Thief tried to force her out of the way. He did it with care. She sensed that, behind her, Aenlocht was looking on with disbelief. No one treated Bloodcats in this way. She held the door-jamb with two hands, resisting his pressure. He could so easily knock her aside. ‘No, Thief.’ Then to Soona, ‘Play your flute. Show him O.’

At once the music came. Soona understood. Streams running on pebbles, pools deep and green, ferny grottoes, bracken slopes warm in the afternoon sun; giant trees, deserts red and hot, caves and mountains, green swelling seas bursting on reefs – and the vast sweep of yellow plains, and blue jungle, blue hills, with curtains of shifting rain: all was there, the music held it all. And Susan understood that for the first time in his life Thief the Bloodcat saw O in colour. He trembled, seemed to lose the use of his legs, and sank on his belly. He gave little growls and mews of wonder; and in the cabin the Hotlander boy made the same sounds. The music had entered him.

Then suddenly, like a crushing of the mind, colour went out. The music changed – and Soona’s face, as she played, was white with the horror of what she was doing. O became a grey world, dead and dry. The hills were piles of ash, the jungles dead, and deserts grey, and streams gone dry. The seas lay still and seemed to rot. Susan wailed with grief, and the Bloodcat howled, and Aenlocht howled; and tears ran on Soona’s cheeks. She did not stop. She played until the horror of it put out all their sounds – and then, only then, let a little thread of colour in. It trickled in the grey deserts like water, it curled through the dead soil like a root. They held their breath: this was life. Then Soona let a river flow, she let a green tree heave up its head in the wind. It swayed and sang. And Susan found her mind in the music too, helping to make it. And the three, Susan, Soona, Aenlocht, with Thief at their side, stood under the tree and held up their hands, and with the flat of their palms pushed death back, turned back the grey, and made colour stand in O again. The fight was hard. Pain was in all of them at the hardness of it. Death and evil beat on them, grey winds, and tried to rip the courage from their minds. But they stood, they held it off with the flat pressure of their hands. And so it went on – and would go on … but Soona stopped. She came to an end, and with a little sob lowered her flute, and stood swaying on the deck of the barge. Susan stumbled to her, held her in her arms.

‘Who played, Soona? Who?’

‘I don’t know. I began it. Then something came in and took it away. It played with me – it made the colour, and the grey, and showed us all together. You and me, and him – and Thief too.’

Susan looked at the door. The Hotlander boy had crawled from his bed and lay against the jamb, supporting himself. Thief was by his side. Neither seemed aware of the other.

Soona said, ‘Whatever we must do, it is dreadful harm. A necessary harm. And greater good.’

‘Yes,’ Susan said. ‘Now we’d better listen to Freeman Wells.’

The others, Jimmy and Nick and Dawn and the Varg, were standing by the prow of the barge. They too had heard the music. They helped the girls down, and Jimmy and Nick climbed into the barge and made a sling of blankets and carried Aenlocht to the side and lowered him on to the beach. Thief had gone to Susan. He stood between her and Soona, and both of them had a hand on his neck. There were no more questions about friendship. Not with the Bloodcat or the boy. The music had shown them how it was.

Nick, on the outside, could not argue. He knew his use was to give what help was asked; and so he made the sling again and carried Aenlocht up the island. Jimmy was, for Jimmy, very quiet. The Varg walked with a ponderous gait. Dawn kept by Aenlocht’s side, watching his wounds, frightened they might open. At the mound of glaciated stone Nick and Jimmy put him down.

Susan said, ‘This is Freeman Wells’ house. Watcher showed me how to open the door.’ She put her palm on the rock as if to feel its warmth, and murmured something, and a slab swung away on hinges, revealing a square room. ‘Open Sesame,’ Nick said, and Susan grinned at him. She stepped inside and touched another wall, murmured again. A second door opened. ‘Come in. There’s room for everyone.’

They stepped into the ante-room and the door closed behind them. Susan and Thief and Soona went ahead, down wide stone stairs into a larger room. It was lit by lamps glowing on the walls. The air was sweet and cool. Jimmy and Nick laid Aenlocht on a couch against a wall. His eyes darted about – for an outdoor being, a nomad, this descent into stone must be terrifying. Yet he made no sound. Dawn tried to touch the wound on his shoulder but he put up his hand and kept her away. He watched while Susan closed the inner door. They were all inside, Ben and Bess too, yet the room was not crowded. Doors opened off into sleeping chambers and workrooms and a kitchen; and, Nick supposed, some sort of bathroom and lavatory. The couches against the walls had woven covers. The chairs and the long oval table in the centre were stone – but stone made light, carved and turned like wood. Everything was simple and comfortable, and Susan seemed very much at home here.

Jimmy looked around. ‘Some place. It’d take some makin’.’

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘How’d he do it?’

‘I don’t know. Freeman Wells – I think he was the greatest person who ever lived. He wasn’t a scientist, or a magician. He made magic a science and science magic. He saw more than anyone had seen. And understood it.’

‘It didn’ stop ’im gettin’ ’is neck busted,’ Jimmy said.

‘No, it didn’t. He was just human, like you and me. But as well as seeing what had been, and is, he saw what might be. So, in a way, he’s still alive.’

‘Don’t go makin’ too much of him, Susie.’

‘I don’t. He’s done his part. There’s nothing he can do any more. It’s up to us.’

‘Susan, you must tell us,’ Soona said. It was plain she meant her and Aenlocht. The others did not exist for her now. She walked across the room and sat on the couch by the Hotlander boy. He shifted and made room.

‘Yes,’ Susan said. She went into a workroom and came back with a plaited basket, which she put on the table. She opened it and set the lid on one side.

‘There are several things in here. Some I haven’t touched yet. I can only take them out with Soona and Aenlocht. This one though’ – she lifted out a white stone, polished smooth. It filled her palm. Nick saw traceries of blue and silver, like veins of precious metal – ‘this one is for all of us. Freeman Wells made it a long time ago, more than a hundred and thirty turns.’

‘Before the Halfmen?’ Nick whispered.

‘Yes, before that. Do you all know the story of Freeman Wells and Otis Claw? How Otis Claw stole the Halves from the Motherstone and humans became only half. They were good or evil, and evil won. But Freeman Wells took the Halves from Otis Claw. In his hall. And made a dome of light about the Motherstone. What Nick would call a force field. And then his strength was gone. They hunted him. He hid the Halves and came to Earth, and found me. He put the Mark on me – ’ she showed her wrist – ‘and then they captured him, and killed him, the Halfmen. And they found Jimmy and used him to capture me and send me to O.’

‘Yeah,’ Jimmy said, ‘what a bloddy no-hoper I was.’

‘But Nick and I, and Jimmy too, we found the Halves where Freeman Wells had left them, and put them back on the Motherstone – ’

‘It wasn’t that easy,’ Nick said. ‘And it was you.’

‘– and humans were whole again.’

‘Didn’ do no good. They give it all away to them priests.’

‘Yes,’ Susan said, ‘but that’s over.’

‘Tell us what to do,’ Soona said.

‘Freeman Wells will tell you. In the days before the Halfmen, when Otis Claw was Otis Hand and O was happy, Freeman Wells came to Furthermost with Marna, his wife, and they made this house, and Freeman Wells lived here and made – science magic, and magic science.’

‘Tell us.’

‘Yes.’ The eyes of the fishergirl and the Hotlander boy were fixed on her. The Pale One and the Red One, she thought. How clever he was to know, and how right it is. She smiled at them, then looked at the stone. The veins of blue and silver grew bright. ‘Freeman Wells,’ she said, ‘speak again. Let everyone hear.’

For a moment there was silence. Nick seemed to hear the thump of his blood, he heard the sound of Jimmy scratching his jaw, and a soft mew of anticipation from Thief. Then the air in the room began to hum. The voice, when it spoke, did not come from the stone, it came from all around them. It croaked and lurched, like the voice from someone waking from a long sleep.

‘If you hold the stone, you are One who knows, you are the Knower. If you hear my voice, the last days are come.’

‘A cheerful bogger,’ Jimmy said.

The voice grew more even and came with a faint echo in the room. ‘There is no mystery in my knowing. There are ways. And last is a fearful word, but words can change. And times with them. There is a path. It is a hard one. But last can be changed into first, if all is right.’

‘’e takes ’is time gettin’ to the point,’ Jimmy said.

‘Shsh, Jimmy.’

‘Listen! Here is what I have found. The fire that consumes the world. The fire that eats up stone, that swallows O. I have made it – and shall unmake. I shall tear all knowledge of it from my brain, I shall carry all the work of my hands to the deepest place and bury it, and no one will ever find it again. I shall do that. But – what I cannot do is tear it from the brains of those who follow. I cannot. And one day some clever human will find it – and then, be he good or evil, the last days are come.

‘Listen again! Because the fire destroys, humans will destroy. That is their nature – to increase, to dominate, to be master. Destruction follows. In their present shape, that is the law governing Humankind. I see the means to change it, but these are not last days – these days I speak in – and I have not the right. Yours is the right.