I started switching everything off; disconnecting, emptying and feeding. The morning was growing stronger in the space beyond the skylights, and I could hear a couple of early birds calling in the new fresh air. When the ritual standing-down of the Factory was completed I went back to the altar, looking round it at all its parts, the assortment of miniature plinths and small jars, the souvenirs of my life, the previous things I've found and kept. Photographs of all my dead relations, the ones I've killed and the ones that just died. Photographs of the living: Eric, my father, my mother. Photographs of things; a BSA 500 (not _the_ bike, unfortunately; I think my father destroyed all the photographs of it), the house when it was still bright with swirling paint, even a photograph of the altar itself.
I passed the matchbox containing the dead wasp over the altar, waved it around in front of it, before the jar of sand from the beach outside, the bottles of my precious fluids, a few shavings from my father's stick, another matchbox with a couple of Eric's first teeth set in cotton wool, a phial with some of my father's hair, another with some rust and paint scraped from the bridge to the mainland. I lit wasp candles, closed my eyes, held the matchbox coffin in front of my forehead so that I could feel the wasp in there from inside my head; an itching, tickling sensation just inside my skull. After that I blew the candles out, covered the altar, stood up, dusted down my cords, took up the photograph of Eric I'd placed on the glass of the Factory and wrapped the coffin in it, secured it with a rubber band and put the package in my jacket pocket.
I walked slowly along the beach towards the Bunker, my hands in my pockets, my head down, watching the sand and my feet but not really watching them. Everywhere I turned there was fire. The Factory had said it twice, I had turned to it instinctively when attacked by the rogue buck, and it was squeezed into every spare corner of my memory. Eric brought it closer all the time, too.
I brought my face up to the sharp air and the pastel blues and pink of the new sky, feeling the damp breeze, hearing the hiss of the distant, outgoing tide. Somewhere a sheep bleated.
I had to try Old Saul, I had to make the attempt to contact my mad, crazy brother before these many fires conjoined and swept Eric away, or swept my life on the island away. I tried to pretend to myself that it might not really be that serious, but I knew in my bones it was; the Factory does not lie, and for once it had been comparatively specific. I was worried.
In the Bunker, with the wasp's coffin resting in front of Old Saul's skull and the light coming out through the sockets of his long-dried eyes, I knelt in the pungent darkness before the altar, head bowed. I thought of Eric; I remembered him as he was before he had his unpleasant experience, when, although he had been away from the island, he was still really part of it. I remembered him as the clever, kind, excitable boy he had been, and I thought of what he was now: a force of fire and disruption approaching the sands of the island like a mad angel, head swarming with echoing screams of madness and delusion.
I leaned forward and put my right hand palm down on the top of the old dog's cranium, keeping my eyes closed. The candle was not long lit, and the bone was only warm. Some unpleasant, cynical part of my mind told me that I looked like Mr Spock in _Star Trek_, doing a mind-meld or whatever, but I ignored it; that didn't matter anyway. I breathed deeply, thought more deeply. Eric's face swam in front of me, freckles and sandy hair and anxious smile. A young face, thin and intelligent and young, the way I thought of him when I tried to remember him when he was happy, during our summers together on the island.
I concentrated, pressured my guts and held my breath, as though I was trying to force a turd out when constipated; the blood roared in my ears. With my other hand I used forefinger and thumb to press my closed eyes into my own skull while my other hand grew hot on Old Saul's. I saw lights, random patterns like spreading ripples or huge fingerprints, swirling.
I felt my stomach clench itself involuntarily and a wave of what felt like fiery excitement swept up from it. Only acids and glands, I knew, but I felt it transport me, from one skull through another to another. Eric! I was getting through! I could feel him; feel the aching feet, the blistered soles, the quivering legs, the sweat-stuck grimy hands, the itching, unwashed scalp; I could smell him as myself, see through those eyes that hardly closed and burned in his skull, raw and shot with blood, blinking drily. I could feel the remains of some awful meal lying dead in my stomach, taste burned meat and bone and fur on my tongue; I was there! I was-
A blast of fire crashed out at me. I was thrown back, slammed away from the altar like a piece of soft shrapnel and bounced off the earth-covered concrete floor to come to rest by the far wall, my head buzzing, my right hand aching. I fell over to one side and curled up around myself.
I lay breathing deeply for a while, hugging my sides and rocking very slightly, my head scraping on the floor of the Bunker. My right hand felt as though it was the size and colour of a boxing-glove. With every slowing beat of my heart it sent a pulse of pain up my arm. I crooned to myself and slowly sat up, rubbing my eyes and still rocking very slightly, my knees and head coming a little closer, drawing slightly back. I tried to nurse my battered ego back to health.
Across the Bunker, as the dim view swam back to focus, I could see the skull still glowing, the flame still burning. I glared at it and brought my right hand up, started licking it. I looked to see if my flight across the floor had damaged anything but as far as I could see everything was in its place; only I had been affected. I gave a shivery sigh and relaxed, letting my head rest on the cool concrete of the wall behind me.
I leaned forward after a while and placed the palm of my hand, still throbbing, on the floor of the Bunker, letting it cool. I kept it there for a while, then brought it up and wiped some of the soil off it, squinting to see if there was any visible damage, but the light was too poor. I got slowly to my feet and went to the altar. I lit the side candles with shaking hands, put the wasp with the rest in the plastic rack to the left of the altar and burned its temporary coffin on the metal plate in front of Old Saul. Eric's photograph took flame, the boyish face disappearing in fire. I blew through one of Old Saul's eyes and put the candle out.
I stood for a moment, collecting my thoughts, then went to the metal door of the Bunker and opened it. The silky light of a cloud-bright morning flooded in and made me grimace. I turned back, put out the other candles and took another look at my hand. The palm was red and inflamed. I licked it again.
Almost I had succeeded. I was sure I had had Eric in my grasp, had his mind there under my hand and been part of him, seen the world through his eyes, heard his blood pump in his head, felt the ground beneath his feet, smelled his body and tasted his last meal. But he had been too much for me. The conflagration in his head was just too strong for anybody sane to cope with. It had a lunatic strength of total commitment about it which only the profoundly mad are continually capable of, and the most ferocious soldiers and most aggressive sportsmen able to emulate for a while. Every particle of Eric's brain was concentrated on his mission of returning and setting fire, and no normal brain - not even mine, which was far from normal and more powerful than most- could match that marshalling of forces. Eric was committed to Total War, a Jihad; he was riding the Divine Wind to at least his own destruction, and there was nothing I could do about it this way.
I locked up the Bunker and went back along the beach to the house, my head down again and even more thoughtful and troubled than I had been on the outward journey.
I spent the rest of the day in the house, reading books and magazines, watching television, and thinking all the time. I could not do anything about Eric from the inside, so I had to change the direction of my attack. My personal mythology, with the Factory behind it, was flexible enough to accept the failure it had just suffered and use such a defeat as a pointer to the real solution. My advance troops had had their fingers burned, but I still had all my other resources. I would prevail, but not through the direct application of my powers. At least, not through the direct application of any other power but imaginative intelligence, and that, ultimately, was the bedrock for everything else. If it could not meet the challenge that Eric represented, then I deserved to be destroyed.
My father was still painting, hauling his way up ladders to windows with the paint-tin and brush clenched between his teeth. I offered to help, but he insisted on doing it himself. I had used the ladders myself several times in the past when I was trying to find a way into my father's study, but he had special locks on the windows, and even kept the blinds down and curtains drawn. I was glad to see the difficulty he had making his way up the ladder. He'd never make it up into the loft. It crossed my mind that it was just as well the house was the height it was, or he might just have been able to climb a ladder to the roof and be able to see through the skylights into the loft. But we were both safe, our mutual citadels secure for the foreseeable future.
For once my father let me make the dinner, and I made a vegetable curry we would both find acceptable while watching an Open University programme on geology on the portable television, which I had taken through to the kitchen for the purpose. Once the business with Eric was over, I decided, I really must restart my campaign to persuade my father to get a VCR. It was too easy to miss good programmes on fine days.
After our meal my father went into town. This was unusual, but I didn't ask why he was going. He looked tired after his day spent climbing and reaching, but he went up to his room, changed into his town clothes, and came limping back into the lounge to bid me farewell.
'I'll be off, then,' he said. He looked round the lounge as though searching for some evidence I had started some heinous mischief already, before he had even left. I watched the TV and nodded without looking at him.
'Right you are,' I said.
'I won't be late. You don't have to lock up.'
'OK.'
'You'll be all right, then?'
'Oh, yes.' I looked at him, crossed my arms and settled deeper into the old easy chair. He stepped back, so that both feet were in the hall and his body was canted into the lounge, only his hand on the door-knob stopping him from falling in. He nodded again, the cap on his head dipping once.
'Right. I'll see you later. See you behave yourself.'
I smiled and looked back to the screen. 'Yes, Dad. See you.'
'Hnnh,' he said, and with one last look round the lounge, as if still checking for vanished silver, he closed the door and I heard him clicking down the hall and out the front door. I watched him go up the path, sat for a while, then went up and tested the door to the study, which, as usual, as always, was so firm it might as well have been part of the wall.
I had fallen asleep. The light outside was waning, some awful American crime series was on the television, and my head was sore. I blinked through gummed eyes, yawned to unstick my lips and get some air into my stale-tasting mouth. I yawned and stretched, then froze; I could hear the telephone.
I leaped out of the seat, stumbled, almost fell, then got to the door, the hall, the stairs and finally the phone as quickly as I could. I lifted the receiver with my right hand, which hurt. I pressed the phone to my ear.
'Hello?' I said.
'Hi, Frankie lad, how's it goin'?' said Jamie. I felt a mixture of relief and disappointment. I sighed.
'Ah, Jamie. OK. How are you?'
'Off work. Dropped a plank on my foot this morning and it's all swollen.'
'Nothing too serious, though?'
'Naw. I'll get the rest of the week off if I'm lucky. I'm goin' to see the doctor tomorrow for a sick line. Just thought I'd let you know I'll be at home during the day. You can bring me grapes sometime if you want.'
'OK. I'll come round maybe tomorrow. I'll give you a call first to let you know.'
'Great. Any more word from you-know-who?'
'Nup. I thought that might have been him when you called.'
'Aye, I thought you might think that. Don't worry about it. I haven't heard of anything strange happening in the town, so he probably isn't here yet.'
'Yeah, but I want to see him again. I just don't want him to start doing all the daft things he did before. I know he'll have to go back, even if he doesn't, but I'd like to see him. I want both things, know what I mean?'
'Yeah, yeah. It'll be OK. I think it'll all be all right in the end. Don't worry about it.'
'I'm not.'
'Good. Well, I'm off to buy a few pints of anaesthetic down the Arms. Fancy comin' along?'
'No, thanks. I'm pretty tired. I was up early this morning. I might see you tomorrow.'
'Great. Well, take care an' that. See you, Frank.'
'Right, Jamie, 'bye.'
'Bye,' said Jamie. I hung up and went downstairs to turn the television over to something more sensible, but got no farther than the bottom step when the phone went again. I went back up. Just as I did so, a tingle went through me that it might be Eric, but no pips sounded. I grinned and said: 'Yeah? What did you forget?'
'_Forget_? I didn't forget _anything_! I remember everything! _Everything_!' screamed a familiar voice at the other end of the line.
I froze, then gulped, said: 'Er-'
'Why are you accusing me of forgetting things? _What_ are you accusing me of forgetting? What? I _haven't_ forgotten _anything_!' Eric gasped and spluttered.
'Eric, I'm sorry! I thought you were somebody else!'
'I'm _me_!' he yelled. 'I'm not anybody else! I'm me! _Me_!'
'I thought you were Jamie!' I wailed, closing my eyes.
'_That_ dwarf? You bastard!'
'I'm sorry, I-' Then I broke off and thought. 'What do you mean, "that dwarf", in that tone? He's my friend. It isn't his fault he's small,' I told him.
'Oh, yeah?' came the reply. 'How do _you_ know?'