The Graveyard Game (13 page)

“Are you mad? It’s broad daylight. Anyway the mules will do perfectly well, the repair facility is nearby.” Nennius tsk-tsked as he saw the Enforcers. “Poor old fellows! Blood lust got the better of them again, did it?”

Joseph shook his head. “Actually it was a last-minute bunch of enemy reinforcements. You should have been here! The bastards just kept coming. Our guys followed orders, sir, you’d have been proud of them.”

“I’m sure I would have.” Nennius nodded, gesturing. The two maintenance techs lifted Albert’s body between them and threw it
over the back of a mule, where they bound it in place. A moment later they came back with a bucket for his head. Nennius watched briefly and then turned back to Joseph.

“So. The lamentable end of the original Ninth Hispania! All the details were recorded for data transmission?”

“Yes, sir.” Suddenly the horror of the last three days caught up with Joseph, the long trailing march, the snipers and skirmishes, the inexorably rising body count, the last full assault on an exhausted and demoralized remnant legion. His knees wanted to buckle. He settled for sitting down in the presence of a superior and leaning his head on his arms. “These are the last. No survivors. You’ll find the previous casualties in cairns along the route. I left a signaling device at each one.”

“They’ve already been collected,” Nennius assured him. “And if you’ll just be kind enough to do the same for the bodies down there, a transport will be along to get them after dark.”

“Okay,” said Joseph wearily. “Do you want the Brigantes too?”

“Heavens no. Leave them where they fell. We only want the legionaries, and of course all the gear and material from the baggage train. Mustn’t leave any evidence to conflict with recorded history, after all.” Nennius smiled graciously. “Though of course you know that, experienced field operator that you are. Really, you handled this very well, Joseph. Full marks.”

“Thank you,” Joseph replied, looking up to watch as Ron’s body was hauled away to the pack train. Nennius turned and pulled out a good-sized leather satchel and dropped it beside Joseph.

“Now, when you’ve finished sorting and stacking the corpses, you’ll need to remove everything you’re wearing and leave it with the rest. There’s a change of clothing for you in here, as well as money and trade goods to get you to the west coast. There’ll be a ship waiting in Morecambe Bay. We’re sending you back to Spain for a while, but you need to stop at a particular village on the way . . .”

Joseph just recorded and nodded, letting his awareness slip away.

He was back down on the field, poking through the bodies of his mortal command, when he glanced up to see the pack train winding away along the skyline, making for an even bigger and more steep-sided hill in the near distance. The next time he looked up, laboring antlike under his burden of carrion, the pack train had vanished.

. . .
WHERE THE WAVES
of Vulpos plunged screaming from their foul dens, racing in their sharp-toothed hatred toward the firm hooves of the Innocents!” shouted Jeffrey at the top of his lungs, flinging his arms wide as his black coat billowed theatrically behind him. As if on cue, there was a blue-white flash, and thunder boomed. For a second the mortal looked panicked, and then very pleased with himself indeed.

“Oh, dear, I think we’d better head back, don’t you?” said Lewis from inside the Land Rover, where he had more or less materialized a split second after the lightning struck. Joseph, however, remained where he stood, staring slack-jawed at the high steep hill, the setting of Jeffrey’s narrative.

“If you like,” Jeffrey said grandly, sauntering back to the car. “Sorry if I alarmed you. As you can see, this is a place of Powers.”

Joseph came to himself and scurried for the car.

You seemed spellbound
, said Lewis worriedly.
I didn’t think he was all that good a storyteller, frankly
.

It had nothing to do with him
, Joseph replied.
I just made a connection, that’s all
.

You’ll have to tell me about it later
.

Sure. Later
.

Jeffrey drove rather recklessly down through the rain that had
begun to fall. By the time they reached the Innocents, it was a solid torrent, sheets of water drenching them as they ran into the shop.

Jeffrey was in an expansive mood, suddenly more talkative than Lotus (the lady in purple) and very much in charge. They must stay for dinner, he informed them: savory tofu lasagna with its perfect accompaniment, Australian merlot. And they really ought to stay the night. This storm was not about to let up before morning, if
he
knew anything. The charge for a night was normally ninety pounds, but if they were short of cash—

“No, no, that’s all right.” Lewis waved his fork dismissively. “We’d planned on staying somewhere in the vicinity, and why not here? What remarkable luck we stopped in, eh, Joseph?”

“Mm,” said Joseph in a ghost of a voice.

“Your friend seems shaken by our little experience up there,” Jeffrey told Lewis, filling their glasses. He settled back in his chair, basking. “Understandable. It’s a powerful place . . .”

“Yes,” Lewis agreed, tasting the wine, “it simply reeks of power.”

“Normally I prefer not to let—well—outsiders in on our secrets, but you seem to be fairly discreet gentlemen,” Jeffrey began.

“There are all kinds of local legends!” said Lotus, coming back from the kitchen with the Choc-Tofu-Treats that were their dessert. “The name of the hill behind us is Arthur’s Seat, you know.”

“Oh?” Joseph turned to look at her.

“Is it really?” Lewis said. “How fascinating. Any connection with King Arthur?”

“Well, they say that—”

“It’s the sleeping knights legend,” Jeffrey said, firmly retrieving the lead. “You can find it in a few other places in England, but this is our local version. Supposedly there’s a cave somewhere under that hill where Arthur’s knights lie sleeping in their armor, waiting until Arthur comes again. When England’s in its greatest hour of
need
, they’ll wake and join in the battle of good versus evil.”

“Personally I think it’s Guinevere who’s coming back, not Arthur,” asserted Lotus.

“No, really?” Lewis looked fascinated, managing at the same time to conceal most of a chunk of lasagna in his paper serviette. “What an original idea.”

“I have reason to believe that the whole legend predates Arthur and Christianity and all the rest of them.” Jeffrey raised his voice a little. “And I’ll tell you something: Audrey Knollys knew that when she set the scene of the final battle out there. She knew it was a place of power. There are certain people who hold the opinion,” he leaned forward and dropped his voice like a garment, “that her death was
no accident.”

“She knew too much?” said Lewis, unobtrusively conveying the serviette into his coat pocket.

“No, that she didn’t really die at all! That, in fact, she was able to arrange her own advancement to a higher plane of existence to continue her work more effectively,” Jeffrey told him, perfectly serious.

“You don’t say,” said Lewis in a shocked tone.

Joseph had been looking steadily grayer as the conversation progressed, but here he asked,
Did this lady really die?

She was attempting to get a muffin out of a toaster with her fork and got electrocuted
, Lewis replied, sipping his merlot and listening to Jeffrey with a rapt expression. Gratified, Jeffrey expanded on his revelations of mystic power and theories of ancient gods.

Outside, the dining room window made a tiny square of light in the miles of darkness. The rain fell, the thunder rolled, and the high steep hill loomed behind the house as though it were watching.

After a while the yellow light winked out, to reappear shortly in another window higher up, and then there were three lights briefly; then darkness entire.

Joseph sat on his bed, eating Polo mints one after another and waiting until the mortals slept. He was still wearing the suit and overcoat in which he’d traveled all day.

Shortly after midnight he rose in silence and left his tiny cold
room, going down through the house to the private entrance. As he slid the bolt, he heard light quick steps descending the stairs behind him, and turned to look into Lewis’s narrowed eyes.

I knew you were going to do something like this
, Lewis said angrily.

This is so classified, you can’t even imagine. Please go back and forget you saw anything
.

I
haven’t
seen anything. What is it, for God’s sake? Something to do with your mysterious coordinates? What did you discover while we were up there?

Yes, it has to do with the coordinates. I wasn’t going to investigate further this time, because I have you with me and it’s just too dangerous. But then the electrical storm started and our datafeed to the Company went down again
.

Yes, I noticed that
.

I just can’t pass up the chance. Do you know how long I had to wait to get the timing right before I could get a private interview with Mendoza’s last case officer during a storm and still make it look like it happened totally by accident? Twenty-five years. And we come here, and another storm is just thrown in my lap! I have to go out there to see
.

Well, whatever it is you’re looking for, I’m going too
.

Joseph shook his head sadly. He opened the door, and they went out into the rain.

The back garden rose in terraces up the hill a short way, ending in a line of leaning snow fence that was easily stepped over. They found a little track through the heather up there, someone’s favorite ramble perhaps, and they followed it around the lower slopes and up the northern face a few hundred meters. The storm hadn’t stopped. They tramped on through mud and bursts of painful illumination backlighting the falling rain, bringing out garish and alien colors in the purple heather.

Suddenly Joseph stopped in his tracks and pointed. Lewis looked up uncertainly, wiping the rain from his eyes.

There, that rock face. Look close. What do you see?

A nasty place for climbing, a treacherous rotten stretch of overhung rock that any hiker would avoid. It looked crumbly and difficult to get to. Even the little animal trails went above or below it, but nowhere near. This is what a mortal would have seen, would have been intended to see. Joseph and Lewis, staring intently and using a visual filter mortals didn’t possess, saw more.

They beheld a smooth path leading up to a sealed door.

“God,” said Lewis faintly.

Joseph strode up the path. He crouched in the overhang, examining the door. There was a via pad there, tuned to Facilitator-grade clearance. He flattened his palm against it. After a moment the door opened smoothly, revealing utter darkness that breathed out a current of warm air, a promise of dryness, cleanliness. Half frozen in his soaked clothing, he found it pleasant.

He became aware that Lewis was standing beside him, staring with horror into the dark.

“This is what you were after,” Lewis said.

“I guess so,” Joseph said.

Lewis swallowed hard. “Is Mendoza down there?”

“I have no idea.” Joseph tilted his head and considered the black depth. “Probably not, though. How could she be? We both know where they sent her. No, I’m looking for somebody else.”

“But—even if Mendoza was sent back a million years, she’d get to the present eventually, just by living through the past a day at a time,” stammered Lewis. “Wouldn’t she? I mean, I never believed those rumors of Back Way Back for just that reason. If the Company wanted to get rid of its immortals, sending them into the past wouldn’t be a permanent solution.”

“You have a point there,” said Joseph, advancing cautiously through the doorway, scanning as he went.

“So—she might be here after all. Is that what you think is down there? Some kind of holding facility for immortals?” Lewis’s teeth were chattering in his head. He attempted to follow Joseph across the
threshold but drew back, gasping as though he’d been struck a physical blow.

Joseph turned swiftly. “You ought to be able to cross that threshold,” he said, puzzled. “I deactivated the repulsion system. What’s wrong with you?”

“Well, let’s see: violent electrical storm making my hair stand on end, crumbling cliffs in danger of dropping on us at any minute, and the only safety a yawning mouth of darkness. I suppose I’m terrified.”

“You ought to be able to come in even so, there’s no physical barrier. But stay here. I’ll try not to be long. Just stop talking.”

Lewis fell silent, and Joseph paced away into the darkness.

As tunnels into the absolute black unknown went, it wasn’t bad: smooth and gradual of descent, full of a faint fragrance that was unidentifiable but familiar. Joseph could, of course, see perfectly well in the dark, and every programmed instinct he had was telling him he was much safer here than out in the middle of an electrical storm.

He had descended perhaps a hundred meters, and the tunnel had begun to level out ahead of him and reveal a glow of blue light, when he heard a clatter of shoes behind him. Lewis was racing down the tunnel, eyes wide.

What? Is something after you?

No, I just—had a hallucination or something. I can’t be alone up there!

Joseph bared his teeth in exasperation and stalked on ahead.
I warned you
.

I know
. Gasping, unsteady, Lewis followed him.

A few meters farther on, though, he staggered and fell. Joseph swung about to find him huddled against the wall, pale and sweating.

What the hell is wrong now?

Lewis turned a sick face up to him.
I seem to be having some sort of suppressed memory retrieval
.

Of what?

I, uh, appear to be remembering my death
.

Joseph crouched beside him.
We’re immortal. We don’t die
.

I’m perfectly aware of that, thank you
.