The Firehills Page 6

Charly and Sam both turned to look at the far-off figure. It was possible, thought Sam, that what he had taken to be two staffs or spears could be the uprights of a doorframe. He turned back to the stranger.

  “And what do you think?” he asked.

  “Me? I reckon ’e’s a windsmith.”

  “A windsmith?” Charly frowned.

  “Used to be a lot o’ windmills round ’ere; still is one over by Polegate. Used ter be a lot o’ call fer a man as could read the winds. Windsmith used ter go round, studyin’ the wind, learnin’ its ways, an’ givin’ advice to them as wanted ter build windmills. Could almost see the wind, some o’ they old windsmiths.”

  “I see,” said Sam, exchanging a glance with Charly that said, Let’s get out of here. “Well, we better get going. Goodbye.”

  The stranger fixed Sam with an odd look, almost pleading. “Think on it, lad,” he said. “A windsmith, a man as reads the wind or a man holdin’ open a doorway. Think on it.”

  Charly pulled Sam away by the arm. “Come on,” she hissed. “He’s weird.”

  Sam stumbled after her, looking back over his shoulder at the figure on the bank. He had returned to his sandwich, all signs of his recent intensity vanished. They continued along the track, warm now in the late afternoon sun. The pathway looped across the field in a wide curve, taking them far out of their way before swinging back to the foot of the carved figure.

  “Come on,” said Sam, “let’s cut the corner off—it’ll take forever otherwise.” With that, he set off into the field of young barley.

  “Walk in the tramlines, you idiot!” Charly shouted after him.

  “Eh?” Sam looked puzzled.

  “The tramlines—the tractor tracks!” Charly pointed down to the parallel strips of bare earth left by the wheels of the tractor that had sown the crop.

  “Oh, right.” Sam hopped sideways, looking embarrassed. As they shuffled side by side through the knee-high barley, a thought occurred to Sam. He glanced back across the field and saw that the stranger had risen to his feet. Lost in the haze of distance, he seemed to be staring steadily back at Sam. In each hand he held a long staff.

  “That’s it!” exclaimed Sam.

  Charly paused in her tramline and looked back at him.

  “What now?”

  “What he was trying to tell us!”

  “Come on, spill the beans. Time’s passing.”

  “The gates into the Hollow Hills are linked to the elements, according to Mrs. P.’s book—earth, fire, air, and water. And here”—he gestured up at the hillside ahead—

  “we’ve got a windsmith, a man who studies the wind, OK?

  The air? Standing in a doorway.”

  “You mean . . . ?”

  “Yup, I’m sure that’s the Gate of Air, where the Long Man is standing. Come on!” Sam strode off toward the foot of the slope, the barley hissing against his pants as he walked.

  “How are you going to open it?” Charly called after him.

  “Well,” Sam shouted back over his shoulder. “I could go up and knock three times, like it says in the book, but somehow I don’t think that’s how Amergin would do it. I think he’d be able to open it from here.”

  Sam stopped in his tramline and raised his arm, fingers splayed. “Let’s see what I can do!” Eyes closed, he sent out his mind, probing the earth of the hillside. The short grass and the thin, chalky soil tasted familiar to him, comforting, like putting on a favorite sweater. He cast about, moving the focus of his consciousness upward, until he encountered the base of the Long Man. His mind shied away from something strange, alien. He rolled the new sensation around in his brain, getting to know it, letting it wash over him. And when he was comfortable with it, he thrust forward, searching for weaknesses. Yes, he thought to himself, I see. With a flick of his will, it was done. Opening his eyes, he saw that a vertical line was shooting through the grass of the hillside, upward from the giant’s feet. With a deep, subterranean rumbling and the sound of tearing roots, the earth began to part. But something was wrong. All around him, the air was starting to shimmer. The hairs on the back of his neck and arms stood up, and his head was buzzing, the pressure building.

  “Charly, get back!” he shouted, and then there was a loud crack, close by. Looking up, he saw a sphere of intense violet light, hovering just above his head, rotating at incredible speed. With another sharp snap, three smaller spheres broke free from it and drifted off, coming to a halt several meters away. Blue white energy was crackling to the ground like miniature lightning. The barley around his feet began to sway. He was at the center of a vortex of energy. He could feel the currents racing around him, and there was a metallic tang of ozone in the air. There was another crack, and each of the three smaller spheres spawned three offspring of its own. They in turn drifted away and took up their stations in the air, tethered to the ground by lightning.

  Sam was swaying on his feet now, at the center of a radiating pattern of intense purple white light. He felt as if all the molecules in his body were under the influence of some alien gravity, a strange tide that sent them flowing in circles within him. His vision began to sparkle around the edges, narrowing gradually as though the world was receding. Just before he blacked out, he saw every stalk of barley in a circle around him suddenly soften like hot wax and droop to the ground. And then his mind fled. He opened his eyes to find Charly shaking him. “Come on!” she said. “It’s closing!”

  Sam pushed himself up on his elbows. He was lying at the center of a perfect circle of fallen barley, every stem lying flat and neat. Around the perimeter, equally spaced, were three smaller circles. Beyond those, he could just make out others, decreasing in size as they spiraled away.

  “Hurry!”

  He looked in the direction Charly was pointing. In the hillside behind her, vast doors of white chalk stood open, monumental slabs of white rock fringed with the torn roots of grass. But already they were beginning to close. The ground vibrated beneath him as the doors swung through their slow arcs.

  Scrambling to his feet, he shouted, “Come on, then!” and began to run. Charly set off after him. They were still some distance from the gateway, with a long slope of grassland between them and the lip of the opening. The doors were past the vertical now, their speed increasing as gravity took hold. It dawned on Sam that they were never going to make it, not at this speed. With his head down and his arms pistoning by his sides, he accelerated, his breath rasping in his throat.

  Charly was dropping farther behind. Try as she might, she was not as fast as Sam, and it was clear that even he was not going to make it to the opening in time. The huge doors were nearly closed now, a gap of perhaps five meters between them. She was about to give up when Sam suddenly seemed to vanish. Then she spotted him, a small, brown shape against the green of the hillside. He had turned himself into a hare.

  No, she gasped to herself, Sam, no. I can’t! She tried to form the shape of a hare in her mind, to capture the particular feeling that accompanied transformation, but her thoughts were in chaos. The more frantic she became, the more impossible it was to hold a shape in her mind’s eye. Sam was close to the threshold, long ears pressed back along his spine and powerful hind legs pumping. The gap was only as wide as his human arms could have stretched now, but he was so near. With a final kick from his back feet, he launched himself through the closing gap. Skidding to a halt in the darkness, he heard a vast, hollow boom as the mighty doors slammed shut, and he thought, Yes! Made it! And then he realized Charly was still outside, and there was nothing he could do. If he tried to open the doors again, he risked triggering another discharge of energy like the one that had created the crop circle. He reverted to his human form and sagged back onto the dry dirt floor, eyes pressed tight against the darkness.

  Outside, on the short-cropped turf of the hillside, Charly buried her face in her hands, gave in to the frustration and the anger, and let the tears come.

  CHAPTER 4

  Amergin struggled to raise h
is chin from his chest; a face swam into focus before him—high cheekbones, pale, flawless skin. He’s awake. Amergin heard the voice in his mind. The face withdrew into the gray blur.

  Amergin mac Mil, came a deeper voice. I am most surprised to see you again. And little has surprised me for centuries. The wizard raised his head once more and tried to focus. Off in the gloom, he could make out, with difficulty, a seated figure. “Finnvarr?” he croaked.

  Aye, Finnbheara, Lord of the Sidhe, came a lighter voice, high and proud in Amergin’s head. A figure broke free of the shadows and came toward him. The clicking of footsteps echoed off unseen walls. A pale face framed in dark hair loomed into his field of vision. You look tired, old man.

  “And the Lady Una.” Amergin sighed. “Lovely as ever.”

  Amergin, old friend, continued the voice of the Lord of the Sidhe. Leaving aside the riddle of how you come to be here, alive, so many long years after you stole my country and butchered my people—

  “Ah,” said Amergin, “you remembered.”

  You may be able to help us with another puzzle. We have recently noted that there is a power abroad in the land. The Old Ways crackle with it and overflow. It is as if the snows of a thousand winters have thawed, and the meltwater is come to burst the banks of the streams and ditches that men make. Why should this be?

  “The Malifex,” replied Amergin. “He was defeated, dispersed. His power is spread throughout the land.”

  Ah, said Finnvarr, that one. I see a great tale waits to be told. You will tell it to us, later. The Lord of the Sidhe shifted forward in his seat. We would have his power, old friend. We would make it our own. And then no longer would we skulk in the Hills. We would reclaim the land that your peo- ple stole from us. Aye, and more. But something stops us. The power that opposed the Malifex, the Old One, Attis, the Green Man—something of him also remains?

  Amergin remained silent.

  If my lord were to think that you were withholding something, said the Lady Una, peering once more into Amergin’s face, it would go ill with you. The wizard stared back into her deep black eyes for a moment and said, “My lady, I am the last survivor in this world of the race that destroyed your people and stole your land. I fear it will go ill with me whatever happens.”

  The Lady Una threw back her head and laughed.

  ‡

  High on the flank of Windover Hill, Charly sat with her arms around her knees and gazed out over the valley. The sun was low in the sky now, throwing a soft, golden haze across the air. Below her, the pattern of crop circles that had formed around Sam was stamped onto the landscape as a reminder of her failure. Her vision blurred once more. She blinked away the tears, then wiped her nose on the back of her hand. It’s not fair, she thought. If she had Sam’s power, she would revel in it, use it to its full, do good works with it. Not like him. He’s such a . . . such a boy! she thought. And she just trailed in his wake, blown along against her will, being turned into things when it suited him. Well, she was a fully initiated Wiccan now. It was time she took charge of her own destiny. She scrubbed at her eyes and stood up. Right. When brute force fails, it’s time for female brain power.

  She turned and examined the figure of the Long Man, spread-eagled against the green hillside, but there was no sign of the doorway. The edges of the great slabs had merged back into the turf. If she couldn’t follow Sam, she needed to get back home and decide what to do next. She’d done it once before. The previous year, when Sam left her to pursue the Malifex, she had made her own way home. No reason why she shouldn’t be able to do it again. Closing her eyes, Charly concentrated on a shape. She chose the swift once more; its feel was fresh in her memory. That previous time—last year in the woods on Dartmoor, when she had taken the shape of a flycatcher—it had helped to spin. She began to rotate on the spot, arms held straight out at shoulder height. Eyes tightly closed, she concentrated on the shape and feel of the bird. Nothing.

  Feeling rather ridiculous—and more than a little dizzy—Charly sat back down on the grass. She pulled her braid from behind her neck and fiddled with the band of elasticized fabric that held the auburn hair in check. Then she jumped to her feet again.

  “Got it!” she exclaimed, out loud, and set off down the slope.

  Taking up position in the center of the biggest crop circle, she held her arms out once more and felt the faint, leftover prickle of power radiating from the fallen stems. She began to spin, and moments later, a swift flicked its long wings and with a scream headed eastward.

  ‡

  It took a while for Sam’s eyes to grow accustomed to the dark. As he lay there in the black void, he thought, This is it. She’s going to kill me. There’s no way she’s ever going to forgive me for this one. He sighed. Why couldn’t Charly have just kept up? She made everything so complicated, typical girl. Oh, well. He was almost certainly better off without her. But he was going to be in so much trouble when he saw her again.

  Sam scrambled to his feet and looked around. The darkness was not complete. Here and there, small cracks in the ceiling and walls let in narrow beams of light, swirling with dust motes. His night vision had been unnaturally good since his encounter with the Green Man, and he found that he could see quite well. He was in a long chamber with an arched roof, presumably corresponding to the interior of Windover Hill. He turned to his left, hoping that this would take him roughly back in the direction of Hastings, though Mrs. P. had given him the impression that directions inside the Hollow Hills didn’t necessarily match those outside. Still, he had to go one way or the other, and left would do. The floor was dust-dry and chalky; clouds of white powder kicked up around his feet in the occasional shafts of daylight. The chamber gradually narrowed, the walls drew closer together, and the roof crept lower, until Sam found himself at a dark archway. From here, rough steps led downward in a tight spiral. Sam walked with the tips of his fingers trailing along one wall. The light was too faint even for his eyes. When he reached the bottom, the floor took him by surprise, and he stumbled. Opening his eyes, he found that he had emerged into a vast tunnel that disappeared into gloom in either direction.

  The spiral staircase had taken away his sense of direction completely, so Sam chose left once more. Close to the foot of the stairs, the floor was uneven and rocky, but as he moved out into the huge chamber, it became smooth and well-worn, as if by the passage of many feet. Keeping to the center, where the floor was smoothest, Sam made good progress. After half an hour, he was sweaty and covered in dust, but he felt as if he had put some distance behind him. The chamber twisted and snaked, so that the farther reaches were always out of sight, around a bend or lost in darkness. Otherwise, his surroundings seemed to change very little. In fact, Sam’s progress was so monotonous that the sound must have been audible for several minutes before he noticed it. He heard a dull rumble, made indistinct by the echo of the high roof but drawing nearer. Sam stopped and looked around, but there was nothing to see in the gloom.

  The light in the chamber was faint, rare shafts lancing down from the recesses of the roof far above, fading long before they reached the ground. Away from the central path was a jumbled chaos of boulders and slabs, a fragmented landscape of shadows and harsh angles. Sam could feel the vibration now through the soles of his feet and looked around for a hiding place.

  At that moment, he saw motion to his right. Out of the darkness came figures on horseback, five or six of them riding in close formation. Horsemen of the Sidhe, black hair streaming out behind them. Their horses’ hooves thundered on the hard-packed earth of the cavern floor, and the echoes boomed around Sam. Frantically, he looked for cover. He began to run, pounding along the path, peering into the pools of shadow between the great boulders, seeking an exit. The riders were close behind him now. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the leader, tall and pale, bearing down upon him. His horse was as black as night, and fire flickered in its nostrils. Without a word, the riders hauled on their reins and brought their mounts skidding to a h
alt, clouds of dust billowing around their hoofs. Sam darted off the path and began to scramble among the boulders. Behind him, in the silence, he heard a solid thud as a pair of leather boots impacted the ground. The lead rider strode toward him, confident, unhurried. Sam forced himself between two great slabs, ducked beneath a third and, on hands and knees, scuttled through the dust.

  The ground was sloping upward now, ever steeper. Pushing through a final gap, he came up against the wall of the tunnel. Turning, he flailed with his legs, kicking himself backward until he felt solid rock against his spine. He thought about changing shape and tried to picture something—a bird, a mouse, anything—but in his panic no clear shape would form in his mind. He stared at the gap in front of him, panting in desperation, waiting for the inevitable pale face to appear. I need a doorway, he thought. Why is there never a doorway? He cast his mind out into the rock behind him, straining for that alien strangeness he had tasted in the Long Man gateway, the Door of Air. And fell, tumbling over backward. Light flashed before his closed eyes—on, off, on, off—as, head over heels, he rolled down a long slope. With a crash that knocked the air from his lungs, he came to rest in a tangled heap against a thorn bush.

  ‡

  Charly reverted to her human form a short distance above the garden of the Aphrodite Guest House and skidded across the lawn. I must work on my landings, she thought as she came to a halt in the shrubbery. She scrambled up and brushed the dead grass from her clothes, then headed indoors.

  Her mother was frantic. She jumped up from a chair in the residents’ lounge at the sound of the door and ran out into the lobby.

  “Where have you been? ” she roared, “I’ve been worried sick!”

  Mrs. P. emerged from the kitchen, drying her hands on a tea towel, and stood in silence, staring at Charly.