'I need your help like I need my eyes burned out,' she replied, but he
noticed she didn't lead the travellers past him.
'OK,' he said, 'but I was only doing my Good Samaritan bit. You're lost
in the middle of Salisbury Plain with some very unsavoury things on the
loose. And they're possibly very close on your trail.'
'What makes you think we're lost?' a red-headed teenage girl said
contemptuously.
'You're heading into the heart of the Plain and I don't think you'd really
want to be doing that at this time of day. Not without tents, food and
heavy ordnance.'
Sophie looked from Mallory to the sun that he had obviously read.
Mallory could tell she was fighting the urge to be confrontational. 'Perhaps
we did make a slight mistake,' she said. 'And you would be able to lead us
out of here, would you?'
'If you promise to say thank you.'
'OK, I'm sorry,' she snapped. 'If you're offering to help us, we're very
grateful. But we're not Christians and you stand no chance of converting
us. So why would you want to help us?'
'I help everyone,' Mallory said blithely. He thought for a moment, then
added, 'Except people with very bad body odour. And Chelsea fans. I've
never forgiven them for David Mellor.'
He marched off a few paces, then realised that no one was following
him. Doubt was clear on their faces. A flash of their crippled leader slowly
dying in bed mellowed him and he said, 'I'm offering to get you back to
Salisbury, after a short detour to pick up a friend, and I don't want
anything in return. Understood?'
Sophie nodded. She silently reached an agreement with the others and
they all set off together.
After they'd gone about half a mile, Mallory realised that Sophie had
increased her pace so she was just behind his shoulder; the others trailed a
few yards behind. He slowed, and she accepted the unspoken offer.
'What
were
you doing there?' she asked, without looking at him.
'Waiting for you.'
'Don't lie.'
'I'm not.'
They walked a few more paces in silence before she snapped, 'Have you
lot been spying on us?'
'By
my lot,
I presume you mean the Knights Templar. Possibly. Quite
frankly, I wouldn't put anything past some of the people involved.' She
was taken aback by his candidness, and for the first time looked him in the
face. He stared back into her eyes, enjoying what he saw there. 'If you're
up for an unbelievable story, I'll tell you the truth.'
He proceeded to describe his encounter with Rhiannon, although he left
out the nightmare that preceded his journey to that other place. He ended
the account with, 'So, I was in Fairyland,' and then waited for her laughter.
Instead, she appeared unduly serious. 'The Celts called it Otherworld,'
she said, 'or T'ir n'a n'Og, the Land of Always Summer. The place where
the dead go.'
'Well, I'm alive and kicking.'
'The five who everyone says saved us in the war after the Fall,' she said,
impatient at his jokes, 'they were supposed to have travelled to T'ir n'a
n'Og.'
'The five,' he repeated. He'd heard all the stories about the heroes who
had fought during the Fall and dismissed most of them as unbelievable,
but now they took on a new significance. He wasn't in any mood to face up
to what Rhiannon had told him about following in their footsteps, so he
tried to make light of it instead. 'We've come to a right state if I say, "I was
in Fairyland," and you treat me like the sanest man on the planet.'
'You were really there?' She looked at him in a different way that he
found encouraging. 'What was it like?'
'It
was .
.
.'He
pictured the Court of Peaceful Days and instantly felt a
yearning that brought a swell of damp emotion. '. . . heavenly.'
'I wish I'd seen it,' she said dreamily.
'Maybe you will one day.' He scanned the landscape carefully, trying to
recall any landmarks from his vision that might reveal where Miller was.
He hoped he would be in time. 'So what are you doing out here?'
'We took a trip up to Stonehenge.' She hugged her arms around her
against the cold; she was poorly dressed for the time of year. Mallory took
off his cloak and put it around her shoulders in a dismissive
way
so she
didn't think he was doing anything so lame as being courteous. She
attempted to fend it off at first, then relented, pulling it tight. She flashed a
nervous glance back at the others, but none of them were paying any
attention. 'Thank you.'
'Don't mention it. It's not really the time of year for trips, is it?'
'There's a problem with the ley. I can sense it . . . some of the others
can, too, the ones who've worked on their abilities with the Craft. It's
weakened, almost seems to be dying out, and it was so powerful before.
Stonehenge is one of the main nodes of the Fiery Network. So is Avebury,
and Saint Michael's Mount, but Stonehenge was close enough to investigate. We wanted to see if there was any sign of what was causing the
problem.'
'That's not very smart, indulging yourself like that. You know the risks
on the Plain.'
She bristled. 'Indulgent? The earth is responsible for the wellbeing of
the planet - and humanity, for that matter. We've taken it upon ourselves
to be the guardians of the Fiery Network, as the Celts were, and the
ancient people who were custodians of the land before them.'
'The new Celtic Nation.' His comment sounded more mocking than he
had intended.
'Exactly,' she said defiantly. 'There's nothing wrong with continuing
their traditions. They believed in the interconnectedness of everything, in
being supportive of nature and the planet, which is perfectly sensible in my
books.'
'As well as slaughtering anyone who got in their way.'
'That's right. So don't get on my tits.' She swung the cloak around her
with a flourish; her delicate features disappeared into the depths of the
cowl.
'A big, important mission in life. You couldn't just do stuff for food and
beer like everyone else?'
'I'm not like you, Mallory.'
'Yes, they broke the mould.' He spotted a skeletal tree standing alone on
a ridge that looked familiar. 'Let's try over there,' he said.
'What are you looking for?'
Mallory ignored her; it was the place, he was sure of it. He picked up his
pace and called Miller's name, suddenly terrified he was too late.
Why does
it matter?
he thought as he broke into a run.
The way things are, he's going to
be dead soon enough anyway.
He didn't want to let it get to him - he didn't
want anything to get to him. But it did. And he knew it in the speed that he
was driving himself across the turf, the desperation that made the blood
surge through his head, obscuring Sophie's yells.