"Only that it"s exceptionally pure silver. Said it might be antique."
Chris was pulling on her shoes. "That gets us nowhere -he thinks that because it looks old, now. If he"d seen it Sat.u.r.day... He was sure it was silver?"
"He was sure. Told me to take it to the museum. Said it might be worth something."
"Worth a whole lot of trouble!" Chris snorted. "Hang on. If I"m going out, I"m putting my slacks on."
She went up the stairs two at a time. Holly, holding her scratched and aching arms, watched in wonder. But the silver athletics cups on the sideboard caught her eye, and she smiled, thinking, She has a reputation to keep up. Tough girl.
The television occupied her until Chris returned.
At the top of Stonegate Street, looking across the Junction in the hot June sunshine: "OK, where is he?"
"Over by the newsagent"s. Dark hair and Levis."
"With bare feet. I got him." Chris unconsciously tidied her hair. "Let"s go."
"He"s seen us." Holly waved, suddenly aware that her jeans were shabby and that she was untidy and hot. Fletcher came quick and lightfooted through the five o"clock crowds.
"h.e.l.lo, Holly. Chris. Have you the coin?"
Chris glared at Holly. "You tell him about me?"
"Not a word," Holly disclaimed. Then, to the boy: "Are you going to explain? Everything?"
"Yes, but-" he was hidden for a second in the crowd, then pushed his way back to them "-but not here, I think."
Holly tasted the traffic"s dust in her mouth. People swept round them: workers going home as the factories changed shifts, holidaymakers going down to the beach. She wished she could go swimming and cool down.
"The park?" she suggested, wanting clear s.p.a.ce more than anything else at that moment.
"If you wish."
Stonegate Street and the path beside Holly"s house was the quickest way down to the park. As they pa.s.sed the field a whickering neigh rang out over the hedge.
"What-?" Fletcher shied away.
"It"s only Strawberry. I"d"ve brought an apple if I"d thought." Holly pointed to a low wooden building just visible through the greenery. "That"s her stable. She"s due to foal pretty soon."
The white mare neighed again, hearing them clatter down the hill.
There were several benches under the pines by the pond. Holly picked an unoccupied one and they sat down, Chris as far from the boy as possible-she obviously didn"t trust him.
"Well?" Holly prompted.
"The coin is my father"s. He is a collector and dealer in antiquities; that coin is one such." He smiled briefly. "I was taking it to a friend of my father"s when I lost it in the Old Town-Holly, I saw you find it; but then I lost you in the crowd. It was pure luck, to find you on Highrock."
Holly"s thumbs strayed to rub the sticking-plaster on her hands. Some luck, she thought.
"And Sunday?" Chris put in, single-minded.
"That? I heard of that from a friend of mine who lives near to you. I tell you this, you are lucky nothing worse happened.
That coin has a whole history of misfortune- like certain precious gems, ill-luck follows those who possess it. Well, you saw. There was no reason for my losing it, save bad luck."
Chris was sceptical. "Your father don"t mind bad luck?"
"He has had little-yet."
Holly, doubtful, said, "Is that luck bad enough to make two harmless animals attack us without provocation?"
"Hardly. It"s my guess that the cat and gull were engaged in a scuffle over food, perhaps; and chanced to be scared by you-and in consequence, attack."
Could that-? Holly grabbed for the rational explanation, but her memory denied it. They went for the coin. Both of them. On purpose.
"Why not just come and ask for it back?"
"It took me time to find you. And, you kept it Sat.u.r.day.""Accident."
"We were not to know that; there are other collectors who would give much for it. So if I could have it back...?"
"Well-sure, I guess." I bet his father"s foreign. He sounds like a student himself. And I"m almost sure he"s lying- but he might not be-I"d like to believe him-and anyway, what else can I do? She held the coin in her palm. "Here."
Then she stared, not hearing his exclamation. The coin was the size of a sixpence, no bigger. Three heads bent over it-it was shrinking as they watched-pea-sized, pinhead...
Gone.
Holly rubbed her thumb across her palm. A faint silver dust sifted into the air. There was nothing left of the hawk-coin she had found in South Street.
Fletcher"s hand closed hard on her arm. "It was the same one? You are sure it was the same?"
"Of course!" She twisted violently out of his grip, on her feet in an instant. Abruptly she realised he was bigger than her, older and stronger-but not faster, she thought, on edge to run.
"Wait, please. I must think. There"s much in this. More than you know." He swung round, staring away from them, unseeing.
"Let"s get lost," she whispered.
Chris stood up beside her. "We can run any time."
"Well... yes." She looked out of the shade: crowds of holiday makers and rowdy children, and the blue sky burning overhead... rea.s.suring. "If we wait, we might get the truth."
The pines creaked above, the underside of their branches dappled with light reflected in ripples from the water. Her panic subsided. At last the boy turned back to face them.
"This changes all. The reason must be found. I admit I have lied to you; but the truth is not believable. Tamburrand -the cat-was sent to recover the coin from you; and because of the gull he failed, and attacked you. But as for who sent them..."
Holly said, "Tell me."
He shook his head. "No. You will have to come with me. He will want to see you, my father Elathan, in his own place."
"Where"s that?"
"Do you know the reservoir? I will meet you there in a short while, and take you from there. I should warn you; it will be a shock. Elathan is-not quite like the rest of you. But I shall have to take you to him."
"Hey, man." Chris was c.o.c.ky, and scared. "You just try and stop us coming. Right, Holly?"
She knew there was no arguing with Chris in that mood "Right," she said. "You"re on."4 The Gates of Orione Clam"s Hole is a large muddy reservoir north of Fern Park, and Downdingle the stream that flows into it. The stream comes from Ridgeway, the hills that block the town from the farming country inland, in a steep-sided and wooded ghyll that snakes down through Cornton Estate to the Park; as if the country had thrust an arm into the town, reaching seaward.
Holly sat on the bank at the beginning of Downdingle, trying to ignore the sour smell of the mud. She was attempting to make a daisy-chain and failing because her nails were chewed down to the quick.
The view upstream was hidden by elms and beeches that grew on the steep banks. Twigs scattered on the narrow dirt-track that followed the watercourse. Chris stood on a rock in midstream throwing pebbles into a pool, calm and uncon-cerned.
Taking his time, isn"t he? Holly thought. We won"t see him again. Dammit. But maybe it"s better that way.
"Maybe he"s not coming?" Chris missed her footing, recovered and came ash.o.r.e carefully.
Birdsong rang in the cathedral arches of trees; rustles in the undergrowth were-what? Only the evening wind. The two girls were solitary in gold sunlight.
Holly was not happy. She had had To Not Go With Strangers drummed into her since early childhood, and even though this looked like the one exceptional case, she felt guilty. "I got an idea. Let"s go back to St Kevins, get some chips and go home. We could listen to my Starren LP."
"One: the chippie ain"t open. Two: I"ve heard Starren till I"m sick of him. Three: I"m staying to find out what the h.e.l.l"s going on. What"s the time?"
"Seven, or thereabouts." A pebble skittered past her head and plopped into the water. "Hey!"
Fletcher grinned at their amazed faces. Girl with gold hair too short to touch her white collar, in blue skirt and plimsolls: Chris. Girl with dark brown hair cascading over a pink T-shirt, in shabby jeans and dirty shoes: Holly. Both astonished.
Neither had seen him come; he moved with a wood-animal"s quietness. He stepped out on to the path.
"About b.l.o.o.d.y time, too," Chris muttered. "Now what?"
"Up the Dingle." He turned, not waiting for them. "Shall we go?"
"Yes; but where-?"
"No time to argue. The sooner we"re at Orione, the better."
He began walking upstream. Chris followed without hesitation. Holly saw no way out and so went after her. Fletcher set a fast pace. Even in high summer the path was dank and slippery, so they could not spare attention for talking.
The mile and a half of Downdingle pa.s.sed in a dream for Holly. The place was as familiar as her own garden; she had been coming there since her infant school days and she knew every step of it. Four sets of stepping stones, a safe wooden bridge, an unsafe wooden bridge, then along by a cool stone wall where hanging ferns brushed her face, the huge grey double-arching bridge that carried the main road over the Dingle. A rickety footbridge led them by that, their feet and breath echoing... Shafts of sunlight fell down between the high banks and lit the mossy steps of a waterfall she had once climbed...
They crossed the last bridge and found the Dingle closed by a barbed-wire fence. Holly automatically turned right towards the steps leading up to Cornton Estate, but Fletcher lifted a stake and set the barbed-wire aside, motioning them through.
We"re caught now. She looked ahead. The valley stretched on, a dusky tunnel where the trees grew over and shut out the light, twisting so she could not see beyond. There"s no houses up there. What"s he at? Chris, you said we could run, I wish we had.
There"s too many things not explained.
She went on. There was no path, so they must pick a way over the rocks and mud and shallow basins of water. The stream split into a hundred channels. They rounded the first bend in the valley.
She thought, grimly, Well, that"s it. No getting round that. Now we"ll see what we"re here for.
She craned her head. In front was a solid cliff of rock fifteen feet high, stretching from one high bank to the other. It curved back and from the overhanging lip a thin stream of water plunged clear to the river-bed, bubbling in a deep pool. The rock was damp and blackened with scabby moss.
"Wait."
Fletcher skirted the pool, using a narrow ledge. She saw him lay one brown hand on the wet rock-face and press. In ponderous silence the stone went back, an irregular slab the size of a church door; in the gap was a flame-lit darkness.
Holly saw then that a man had come out to stand by him on the ledge, not four feet away from her. She noticed first that he wore a long blue coat-and that it wasn"t a coat but a robe with a heavy silver belt-and then that his clothes were the least peculiar thing about him.
He had blunt features, a short beard and a mane of chestnut-coloured hair that appeared to grow down the back of his neck like a lion"s mane. His eyes were a startling gold, and slit-pupilled like a cat"s. His ears were delicate, pointed, and covered with fine red down. Holly dropped her eyes from his face and saw his hands. They were large and capable, the nails opaque, white and pointed. She looked up again, at his sadly smiling features. He terrified her.
But, she thought, he"s beautiful .
"My G.o.d." Chris"s voice was flat. Holly saw her go white, then red, the two new scars standing out dark across her cheek.
She began to back away.
"Wait. Hear me. There will be no hurt done to you. We need your help." His voice was deep, -and blended with the falling water. "The boy was foolhardy to bring you, yet I think he chose rightly. This matter of the coin touches many folk;perhaps you two most of all."
"Who are you?" Holly did not say: what are you?
"Elathan, Master Sorcerer; late of Caer Ys and Faerie, and now of Brancaer; a lord of the elukoi by my own right, and answerable to none but the King. I am not human."
"I don"t believe it." Chris spoke quickly. "I don"t believe you."
"That I am Master of the Left Hand Art? That I cannot undertake to prove here, the danger is too great, and we are watched. But that I am not human? Girl, I am elukoi: we are an ancient and an honourable people-and I swear to you, if you enter these caverns of Orione, no harm shall befall you; and you shall leave whenever you desire."
"Well, why not?" Chris was breathing as hard as if she"d been running, but she had recovered her self-possession. "We"ve come this far, we"ll see it through now."
To Holly, it took only a second to walk the narrow, slippery ledge, feel the damp rock and the spray and step into the darkness of the caves. She felt Fletcher"s hand on her arm as she stumbled and she turned to see the stone snick closed behind her.
It was too sudden. Fear had been growing in her since they pa.s.sed the fence; now she was light-headed and hollow with it, heart thumping fast. She had no voice to speak, no words to say, and she was shaking.
"I had forgot, you are not familiar with things of this nature... Fletcher, see if Mathurin is to be found. We shall follow."
She heard Elathan"s concern, but still could not speak. The air was cool and the change from sunlight to sudden cold raised the hair on her arms. She stared. Rough iron brackets were bolted into the stone at intervals down the pa.s.sage, holding flambeaux that smoked and flared and smelled bitter and sent shadows reverberating over the uneven walls.
"b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l." Chris sc.r.a.ped a hand down the rock. "That"s real enough."
"Come." He shepherded them both ahead of him, down the sloping tunnel. Holly stumbled, hitting her feet against loose rock; she wanted very much to sit down.
They pa.s.sed arched doorways cut smooth in the rock but the interiors were hidden by fantastically embroidered curtains.
Holly looked down each of the many corridors that intersected with theirs but saw only flame-lit diminishing perspective. She and Chris walked close together, shoulders touching.
Reaching the bottom of a spiral stair, they almost collided with Fletcher and another man.
"The boy bid me here. Well?" A half-amused, half-indifferent voice.
"Mathurin; this is Christine, this is Holly. Children of Earth, this is Mathurin Harper."