The Wizard of London (46 page)

“Yessir,”
she said, feeling oddly as if she ought to be saluting.

All
of them moved swiftly in a group to the doors leading onto the terrace, the two
girls having to trot to keep up. A vicious wind howled around the windows, and
in lightning flashes from outside it was obvious there was a storm
raging—wind, but no rain as yet.

They
emerged onto the terrace and into the icy teeth of the wind just as Sahib and
Mem’sab turned.

“The
avalanche has begun, Mem’sab,” Agansing said, eyes glinting.
“It is too late to make a choice among what will fall. The children
summoned us; they in their turn were summoned.”

We
summoned them
? For a moment Nan was aghast at the lie. But then—then
something told her it was not a lie, but the truth. Somehow she and Sarah
had
summoned the men, or at least, Agansing. She didn’t know how, but—

That
other presence within her smiled grimly; she felt it smile. Felt it tell her
how it had summoned a fellow warrior with a mental trumpet call to arms.

The
wind had begun to die, although eerily silent lightning still raged in the
clouds above them. “It is David Alderscroft.”

Mem’sab
was saying. “I don’t know what he is trying to do, but Robin
Goodfellow warned him off doing so, and I tried to echo that warning.
He—”

She
left whatever she was going to say unsaid, and merely shrugged, the gesture
more eloquent than words of what she thought about men who refused to listen to
sound advice.

“Then
we have to stop him,” Selim replied immediately. “By force, if need
be.”

“There’s
more nor that,” Nan piped up, urged by that silent presence within her
that felt strangely like some kind of version of herself, only older, stronger,
tougher. “If’n Robin hurts a mortal, som’thin’ bad
’appens. ‘E gets banished.”

Mem’sab’s
eyes grew wide in the light from the lightning. “Oh—” she
said, “Oh—that would be—”

“Not
only the end to magic in the Isle, but it would open the door to a great many
things that would make life very uncomfortable for the rest of us,” Sahib
said grimly. “With the Guardian at the Gate gone—”

“Run,”
Mem’sab said, suiting her actions to her words, as she picked up her
skirts in both hands and fled down the terrace like a racing deer. “
Run
!”

They
followed her; she ran like that girl in the Greek myth Nan had just
read—Atalanta, that was her name, or something like. Nan snatched Neville
down off her shoulder and cradled him in her arms as Sarah did the same with
Grey; the birds would never have been able to stay on their shoulders while
they ran. It was a good thing Mem’sab was wearing a white summer dress;
they were able to follow her, flitting along the paths of the estate like a
ghost, with Sahib like a shadow right beside her.

After
a little, Nan realized where they were going; the door in the hedge that the
arrogant man had ridden through.

And
that was where and when it all came together. The man that had nearly ridden
them down and the man that Mem’sab was angry at and the man who was about
to unleash all hell on them with his foolishness were all the same man, and his
name was David Alderscroft…

***

Sarah
was glad that she and Nan were used to playing hard. She would never have
believed that a grown-up could run like that. Mem’sab had hiked her
skirts clean up over her knees, and her legs flashed through the grass in a way
that should have scandalized anyone who saw it. It was just a good thing that
Mem’sab never did wear the kind of dresses people called fashionable; in
fact, Sarah was not entirely sure Mem’sab ever wore corsets either.
She’d never have been able to run in anything fashionable.

Sahib
put on a limping burst of speed and got to the door in the hedge ahead of
Mem’sab and wrenched it open. They all caught up to her and piled through
the door and—

And
they all stopped dead in their tracks.

Sarah
felt a tingle, and knew that this was
her
moment, at the same time as
Grey said urgently, “Go! Now!”

She
shoved through the adults, and saw what it was that had them paralyzed.

There
was a crowd of—creatures—lined up on the bridle path, standing as a
barrier between them and wherever it was that Mem’sab was leading them.
They weren’t physical. They might have been the ghosts of children, once.

They
weren’t now.

They
glowed a leprous white, and where their eyes should have been there were only
empty holes with a dull, red gleam to them, as if old, dying embers lay at the
bottom. Their unnaturally long fingers were crooked into vicious claws, and in
place of fingernails, they had talons. Their mouths were agape, showing feral,
pointed teeth, and a craving for fear and pain emanated from them in a way
calculated to make any sane person turn and flee.

Except—

Except
they
were
the spirits of children still. And under all that, they were
lost, alone, afraid.

And
that was what Sarah must reach.

She
put Grey on her shoulder, and felt the parrot spread her wings, as if giving
her shelter.

“Sarah—”
Sahib began, but Mem’sab shushed him.

“Give
her backing, my brothers,” she said instead, and Sarah felt a steady,
warm glow building behind her, a warmth of love and support, as Nan pushed
through also and came to stand beside her. She cast a glance aside.

Nan—Nan
was a warrior.

The
transformation was complete. Instead of the little girl in the pinafore, what
stood beside Sarah was a wild creature out of an old Celtic saga, a glowing
golden fighting maiden in a short, red wool tunic with a short bronze sword and
a slight smile on her face that was just the least little bit disturbing in its
enthusiasm.

“I
see what needs be done, sister,” Nan said, with no trace of her usual
accent. “This is old magic, and I know it well. I shall sever the soul
from the rider, so you can set the spirits free.”

And
with no more warning than that, she leaped at the line of waiting creatures,
then leaped in among them—

—and
began to dance.

That
was all that Sarah could call it. The creatures swarmed her, but seemed unable
to touch her. With Neville making vicious stabs at weirdly transparent faces,
battering them with his wings, Nan danced among them, feinting, leaping,
whirling, never staying in any one place for long, until—

Strike!

The
sword licked out, and there was a cry, and something with tattered wings and a
terrible face separated from the seething mob, as the spirit of a small child,
faded and frightened, dropped out of it.

“Come!”
Sarah called, holding out her arms to it, casting her heart toward it. It fled
to her, and as it neared, with a cry, Grey stood on her tiptoes and spread her
wings wide, and a bright light surrounded them both. The child ghost flung
itself at them, touched the light—and vanished.

The
thing that had separated from it uttered a scream of mingled rage and fear, and
popped like a soap bubble, just as Nan made another of those lightning strikes,
and severed another “rider” from its victim.

Sarah
lost track of what was going on; it took all of her strength and concentration
to help Grey keep opening that “door” to the beyond and persuade
the children to pass through it. But eventually, Grey settled down on her
shoulder again, shook herself and uttered a soft, tired sigh. The light around
them faded, and she blinked, to see that the golden warrior was gone, and there
was only Nan standing on the path with Neville at her feet, looking disheveled
and tired—but triumphant.

But
there was no time for congratulations. There was a cold, ominous glow beyond
the trees, and the clouds were swirling in a whirl over the spot, lightning
firing almost continuously from them.

“Run!”
Mem’sab called again. And they ran.

***

David
Alderscroft was beginning to feel misgivings about all this.

It
didn’t
feel
right. He couldn’t put his finger on why, it
just didn’t. Maybe it was the strange storm that had sprung up. Wind,
clouds, and more lightning than he had ever seen before, but no rain.

Maybe
it was the oddly eager light in Cordelia’s eyes.

Maybe
it was an uneasy feeling that he did not know nearly enough about what she was
going to do—or said she was going to do.

Or
that he sensed an invisible, icy presence lingering somewhere nearby. It was
not one of the Ice Wurms he was used to using. It was a lot—larger. And
it was able to conceal itself from him almost entirely.

Why
would it want to do that?

The
longer he stood here in the lightning-lit garden, watching Cordelia set out her
preparations, the more his instincts were overriding his control. From nagging
doubt to insisting, from insisting to screaming, they were telling him that
despite all appearances, this was a bad idea, that he should leave—

Except
that his instincts had told him this sort of nonsense before. He was more than
instinct. He was a rational, thinking man. And all this fear
could
be
the work of that very nature spirit that Cordelia meant to protect him against.

And
yet—the spirit had been very specific. It had warned him against
practicing his Ice Magics here, and no more. Or actually, it had warned him
against practicing them against the countryside. As if there was any reason why
he would do that.

So
why was Cordelia so intent on protecting him from it? It wasn’t as if he
had any reason to practice any magic at all in this place. And the creature
hadn’t done anything worse than frighten him.

As
he stood there uncertainly with a tempest overhead, and growing misgivings in
his heart, the solitude of that corner of the garden was broken, not once, but
twice.

And
in that moment, everything changed.

A
bolt of lightning struck the ground to the east of where he and Cordelia stood,
blinding and deafening him for a moment. And when he could see again—

He
felt himself go rigid. It was the nature spirit again, but—different.
Very different.

It
was taller, its features were sharper, and it was dressed, head to toe, in
black. Surrounded by a coruscating rainbow of all powers, it stared at him and
Cordelia in a dark rage.

That
was when the thing that David had only sensed until this moment made itself
visible to the west of where he and Cordelia stood.

Or—more
visible. There was something about whatever the entity was that made him
struggle without success to keep his eyes on the spot where it stood, and he
couldn’t look directly at the thing at all. His eyes and his mind slid
around the edges of it, without being able to concentrate on it.

And
then—seven people strode into the garden as if they had every right to be
there.

Two
of them he did not know, but both were clearly foreign, probably from some part
of India. One he recognized as the servant that had let him into Frederick
Harton’s home and school. The fourth was Frederick Harton himself, and
fifth and sixth were the two little girls he had nearly run down. And the
seventh—

—the
seventh was Isabelle.

Cordelia
drew herself up in surprise. “Well,” she said. “I confess, I
had not expected you to turn up here. Isn’t it rather late in the day to
be playing the rejected lover?”

Isabelle
ignored her. The lightning made for a poor illumination source, washing out all
colors, and it occurred to David then that she looked like a marble monument.
Her hair had come down and tumbled in wild profusion down her back.
“David,” she called, her voice trembling a little. “You do
not want to be here.”

“Oh,
indeed,” Cordelia replied, her own voice utterly, coldly polite.
“And why would that be, I wonder? Surely you are not going to claim that
I have some nefarious designs upon him. Simple logic would show that if,
indeed, I had wanted something of his power and position, I would have had it
long ago.”

Isabelle
ignored the jab, and concentrated on David. “You need to ask yourself why
it was so needful that you be here now, in the middle of the night, alone. This
woman is not your friend.”

“And
you are.” Cordelia did not laugh. “This sort of flummery was all very
well when you were a girl, Isabelle, but it ill-suits a grown woman who should
have better self-control and a more realistic view of life.”

Isabelle
continued to ignore her. “David, when has she offered you so much as a
single moment of honest friendship?”

He
paused; there was something stirring inside him at her question. “What do
you mean?” he asked cautiously.

“Ordinary
friendship,” Isabelle persisted. “Spending time in one
another’s company not because you were expecting some sort of gain, but
merely because you enjoy spending time there with him.”

Friendship
.
David could remember having friends. He could recall hours spent playing parlor
games, or having discussions on anything and everything long into the night. He
remembered, dimly, the pleasure he had gotten from it. When had he stopped
doing that?

“What
nonsense.” Cordelia’s eyes glinted. “This foolishness is for
children. Adults have no such need. Begone.”

A
rumble of thunder followed the word, but overhead the storm was dying, and the
nature spirit was listening intently.

“I
am not one of your familiar spirits to be banished with a word,
Cordelia,” Isabelle said sharply. “David, you cannot go through
life in isolation, seeing others as objects to be manipulated and used, and
watching for the same behavior in others.”

And
that was exactly what his life had become. He saw it in a stunning moment of
clarity. He had not done a single thing he truly enjoyed in the last year, nor
spent a single moment in the company of someone he would have sought out on his
own. What had his life turned into?