IV

Fern left work early on Friday and drove to Yorkshire. It was still daylight when she came over the moors: great cloud bastions were building up in the sky; giant shadows traveled ponderously across the landscape. At one point she pulled over, getting out of the car to catch an advancing band of sunlight. The moor stretched away on each hand, green with summer, heather tufted, humming with insect life. She took off her jacket, unbuttoned her shirt at the neck, and let the wind ruffle her sleek hair. To the casual observer—had there been one—she was a city girl shedding the trappings of an urban lifestyle in preparation for a country weekend. But Fern knew she was crossing a boundary, both familiar and imaginary, from the superficial realities of her routine existence to a world where reality was unstable and everything was dark and different. Yet now the very boundaries had changed: the dark otherworld had come even to London and lurked around corners, and under paving stones, and in the blackness beyond the streetlamps. So she stood in the sun and bared her throat to the wind as a gesture of acknowledgment and acceptance. I am Fernanda Morcadis, she told the clouds and the plateau and the indifferent bees. I am of the witchkind, Prospero’s Children. It is everything else which is unreal.

The dog came bounding over the grasses as she got back into the car. It might have been a German shepherd, except that the brindling of its fur included brown and gray rather than tan and its face was more pointed and wilder, and there was a speed in its movement and a light in its yellow eyes that no domestic animal could match. It came over to Fern and waited, panting slightly, tongue lolling between wicked teeth, while she caressed its rain-damp ruff. “Lougarry,” she said. “Tell your master to come to the house. I need his help.”

Go carefully, said the thought in her head. These are troubled times.

Then the creature turned and sped away. The sun disappeared, and in the gloom beneath a vast cloud the moor changed, becoming cold and unfriendly. Fern shut the door and teased the engine into life. As she drove off a sudden squall struck, almost blinding her: the wipers struggled ineffectually to clear the windshield. The rain passed, but the murk still lingered, turning the world to gray. Yarrowdale lay ahead, a narrow valley winding down from the North York Moors to the windswept beaches of the North Sea.

As she swung onto the road that led down to the village she had her lights on, but the oncoming car showed none. It appeared as if from nowhere, on her side of the road, heading straight toward her. She swerved onto the verge, her heart in her mouth, and it shot past without slowing. Fern braked to a stop and leaned forward, breathing deep and slow to calm herself. Her headlights had shone directly into the approaching vehicle, and she was sure that what she had seen was no freak of fancy. For one instant of panic she had faced the driver of the other car, and she had glimpsed not a human visage but a grinning death’s-head grasping the wheel with hands of bone.

She waited a few minutes before restarting the engine. Then she drove gently down the valley, turning off at Dale House. Lights in the windows indicated that Mrs. Wicklow, their local housekeeper and theoretically long past retirement, had come to welcome her. She parked the car and went indoors.

The big kitchen at the back was warm from the stove and smelled of cooking. Mrs. Wicklow had been widowed the previous year and with the departure of Will, who had been loosely affiliated with York University before he abandoned his M.A., she had suffered a dearth of recipients for her generous cuisine. Fern’s father, Robin, paid Mrs. Wicklow regardless of what she did, but she claimed she was too young to accept a pension and took whatever opportunities there were to justify her wages. To Fern, she was family. They embraced, and Mrs. Wicklow produced gin and tonics for both of them. Her Christian name was reputed to be Dorothy, but no one ever used it; for all their intimacy Fern still called her “Mrs. Wicklow” without thinking.

“There’s trouble,” the housekeeper said sapiently. “I can see it in your face.”

“I had a close shave in the car,” Fern said. “Some idiot driving like a maniac on the wrong side of the road.”

“That’ll be one of the vicar’s boys,” Mrs. Wicklow deduced. “Expelled from school halfway through term and he’s pinched his dad’s car twice that I know of. That poor Maggie’s out of her mind with t’ worry of it. Vicar’s children are always the worst: it’s like t’ devil goes after them special. But that wasn’t what I meant. I was thinking of t’ other kind of trouble. T’ kind we had before. The old man’s been around since New Year’s Eve: that’s always a sign. Him and t’ dog. Mr. Watchman or Skin’n’Bones or whatever he calls himself. You’d better have him around to a decent supper tomorrow. Don’t know how he keeps body and soul together.”

“Habit,” Fern murmured.

She went to her room early, after Mrs. Wicklow had gone home. She pulled out a box from under the bed—a box that had once belonged to Alison Redmond, who had come to stay one bright morning fourteen years ago and had died in a flood where no water should have been. And because of her, Fern thought, I am who I am. I might never have known I had the Gift, if it wasn’t for Alimond.

Inside the box, there were a pair of dragonskin gloves, a videocassette that Fern had only played once, a handwritten book, the writing changing gradually from an antique script into a modern scrawl, and a number of miniature phials whose labels she had never deciphered. In a compartment she had missed previously she found a leather bag of dull bluish crystals and a small receptacle containing a silver-gray powder. Fern put on the gloves: they seemed to meld with her hands, and the mottled patterns shifted and changed without help from the light. “It is time,” she said to herself, and the realization made her shiver. The mad driver, whoever he might be, was just part of the picture, an emissary of Azmordis, a wild card, a manic phantom who had picked up her description from somewhere. In the otherworld, she was wanted. She knew that now. She removed the gloves again and went to bed, lying awake in the dark.

The house-goblin considered coming in to talk, but he knew Fern had a human concept of privacy, so he went downstairs to the kitchen and drank the whiskey she had remembered to leave out for him.

Ragginbone came to the house the following evening. He was old, old and tough, like an oak tree that has weathered many winters; his clothes were shabby, gray-brown and gray-green, blending with the moorland. The greatcoat that he had worn through all seasons had been abandoned in favor of a misshapen jacket of antiquated cut hanging almost to his knees. Atop his head he wore a wide-brimmed hat that would have been pointed at the crown if it had not been permanently dented. But the eyes beneath his hat brim were gold-green and bright as spring, and the rare smile that rearranged his wrinkles was as warm as ever. To the villagers he was Mr. Watchman, Ragginbone the tramp, but to Fern he was Caracandal Brokenwand, ex-wizard, Watcher of history, a man of many names and many travels, of short words and tall tales, her mentor, insofar as she had one, her friend since she was sixteen. And the wolf-dog with him was Lougarry, with the soul of a woman in the body of a beast, and a silent voice that could be heard only in the minds of a few.

They sat long over their dinner after Mrs. Wicklow had gone, while Lougarry lay in her accustomed place by the stove. Fern related everything that had happened and the conclusions she had drawn, and Ragginbone’s smile grew even rarer, and the lines deepened on his brow. “Mabb is a chancy ally,” he said at one point. “Goblins are by their very nature untrustworthy, and the female of the species is invariably more extreme than the male. More vicious, more capricious, shallower of heart, sharper of whim. Be wary.”

“Sexist,” said Fern.

“I was born in a sexist age. Experience has not taught me to think differently. To generalize: men are rash and cowardly, women are prudent and brave, men are strong in the arm, women are strong in the heart, men are stupid and cunning, women subtle and devious. Men are self-centered, soft-centered creatures, armored in loud words and harsh deeds. Women are gentle and fragile, selfless beyond sense, and steel to the core.”

“Is that how you see me?”

His face creased. “You are a woman of your time. Beside you, steel is pliable. Your spirit was cut from diamond.”

“Is that a compliment?”

“Neither compliment nor insult, merely an opinion.” He reached for the wine bottle, topped off both glasses. “Go on with your story.”

The light was failing now, and the shadow of the hill leaned over the house. Fern switched on a single lamp and lit the only candles she could find, fixing them in a serviceable iron candelabra that dated from an era before electricity. Night crept slowly into the room, filling up the cracks between cupboards and under the fridge and tallboy. The wine bottle was empty, and Fern poured whiskey into three tumblers. “There’s always whiskey in this house,” she remarked. “The vodka runs out, and the gin, but never the Scotch. I suspect Bradachin of doctoring Mrs. Wicklow’s regular shopping list.”

“There’s nae harm in it,” said a thickly accented voice. “Nae harm and muckle guid. Usquebaugh warms the belly and strengthens the heart, and we’ll hae need o’ strong hearts in the days to come, I’m thinking.”

The house-goblin appeared from nowhere in particular and climbed on a chair, accepting the glass that Fern pushed toward him. He was a reddish, hairy creature, tall for his kind, limping from a malformed limb or old wound but spider-swift in his movements. He had come from a castle in Scotland that had been converted into a luxury hotel, dealing with the trauma of his exile by bringing the spirit of the McCrackens with him. He played the bagpipes in the small hours, and filled the dour Yorkshire house with the echoes of great halls, and high towers, and dreams of the wind off the loch. Both Fern and Ragginbone knew him to be courageous beyond the custom of his folk, stubborn, resourceful, and loyal. He had spent all his history with a family of fierce fighters, passionate feuders, and hopeless plotters, and some of their skills and their prejudices had rubbed off on him, setting him apart from his own people. Mabb had banished him from her court, when she troubled to remember it, for excessive fealty to Man, but Bradachin was still attached to his queen.

“So ye’ve had speech with the maidy,” he commented. “For all her kittle follies, she’s nae fool. What o’ this witch, then? Can ye be siccar she’s the one ye met afore?”

“I’ll have to see her,” said Fern. “Morgus is—unmistakable.”

“She may look different,” Ragginbone said thoughtfully. “She was severely burnt: her flesh melted. You always said you thought much of her bloating was stored power rather than fat. She may have been working on a regeneration spell during all her sojourn beneath the Tree, burying it in her own body, waiting for the appropriate trigger. The fire might have killed, but the river healed and the spell was set in motion. The excess power would be used up, the rest absorbed into her new body. I would expect her to resemble the woman she was in her former life, not the grotesque hag you knew. Anyway, witches are vain. She would never return to the world without doing something to restore her looks.”

“You’re saying she may be young again,” said Fern. “Young and beautiful—and invincible. I killed her once . . . must I do it again? And how do you kill someone who cannot be hurt?”

“There’ll be a way,” said Ragginbone. “There is always a way. Trust in stories. The Achilles’ heel, the Cyclops’s eye, the brazen stopper that releases the giant’s blood . . . But Bradachin is right: we must be sure. It is time to be a witch indeed, Fernanda. You must draw the circle.”

“I know,” Fern acknowledged. “That’s why I came here.” She looked down at her hands, which were child-sized, the nails tinted like bits of shell. Inadequate hands for all that she needed to grasp. “I found crystals and fire powder in the box. Alimond used the front room, Will’s old studio—”

“No. There are bad memories there. Magic wakes magic. Let them sleep. I think . . . I shall come with you to London. There is one I know who will help. He won’t like it, but he will help.”

“Mayhap I maun be coming, too,” said Bradachin with an air of reluctance that deceived no one.

It was left to Fern to dissuade him. “You are a house-goblin,” she said. “Your duty is here, with the house. Anyway, there has to be someone to keep an eye on the place. As Ragginbone said, too much has happened here in the past, and . . . trouble wakens trouble. As I turned into Yarrowdale, a car nearly hit me. It was coming straight at me—I had to swerve onto the verge to avoid it—and whatever was driving it wasn’t human. Morgus is not our only problem: the Old Spirit has more reason than ever to hate us. He’s always preferred to seek me out here, away from civilization. If there are any developments, I can get a message to you.” Wisely, she gave him no time to argue. “You can use the telephone?”

“Ay, but—”

“Good. When magic fails, there is always technology.” She turned to include the former wizard, pushing the discussion past the danger point. “What do you make of this business with the tree?”

“It is . . . disturbing,” Ragginbone admitted. “I am wondering if she has brought a cutting from the Eternal Tree out of its native dimension into the real world. I do not know what would happen if one did. It might wither instantly, unable to bear the pressure of Time and life. Or—”

“The Eternal Tree exists in stasis,” Fern said. “It has enormous power—a kind of treeish hunger—I felt that—but it couldn’t grow any more, it couldn’t reach out any farther. It was trapped in timelessness, in a cycle that went nowhere. When I bore the—the fruit here I was told it would rot far more quickly: that is the nature of fruit. And it was seedless. But maybe if you brought something living into this world—something with the potential for growth . . .”

“It would grow,” Ragginbone said somberly. “As a theory, it is all too viable. Bring here a twig, a leaf, a toadstool, a blade of grass. The pulse of the Tree is in it, and the restraints of its usual environment are removed. On reflection, perhaps that is what caused the great birds who roost there—the owls, the raptors, the eagle, and the roc—to far outgrow their everyday cousins. They fly between worlds, and the Tree’s hunger is in their blood. It is not a comfortable thought. But Morgus must plant her sapling: it will need earth and water, sunlight and shade. It cannot take root in the air or flourish in a silken shroud.”

“And have ye asked yoursel,” Bradachin interjected, “if sic a tree grew in this world, what kind o’ apples wid it be bearing?”

“That,” said Ragginbone dryly, “was the question I was trying to avoid.”

That night Fern slept little, troubled by a confusion of dreams. She saw the Dark Tower where Azmordis ruled in the city, and the same tower on a barren plain—it was stone now, and ruinous, but she knew it was the same—and eager tendrils came groping through the fractured walls, twining themselves around and around it until the tower was a great tree, and a million leaves unfurled, choking the sky. And there was a single fruit, swelling, ripening, till it became a living head, with features that at first she did not recognize. (The heads of the dead grow like apples on the Eternal Tree, until they are plucked, or fall and rot, and the wild hog devours them. All who have done evil must hang a season there . . . ) And then the eyelids split, and the lips parted, and she knew herself.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded.

“Penance,” said the head. “For all that I did, and all that I did not do. For the friend I failed, and the love I forgot, and the blood on my burned hand, and the blood on the hand that was whole.”

“The blood I shed with my burned hand has risen up against me,” Fern said. “My other hand is clean.”

“Not for long,” said the head.

“What friend have I failed? Tell me!”

“Search your heart.”

“I did not forget my love!”

“Search your head.”

The scene changed, and she was back in Atlantis, the golden city in the Forbidden Past—Atlantis before the Fall. When she was sixteen she had been there, and loved and lost, and won and failed, and drowned in the great storm and crawled up on a beach of stars somewhere beyond the end of space. And she had known ever since that nothing would fill her like Atlantis: no sight, no scent, no place, no love. But it was long, long ago, many thousand lifetimes to all but her, and when the dream showed her her love—her Raf—climbing out of the fountain, shaking the water drops from his hair, his face was a blur, and all she remembered was the sudden brightness of his smile, and the tooth missing in his lower jaw. She cried out: “My heart does not forget!” but he did not hear her, and when she turned there was the head again, smiling her own smile, and it rotted and shriveled before her eyes, and the wild pig came raging through the undergrowth . . .

She woke to absolute stillness, so that even her pulse seemed to have stopped. She got up and went to the window, but there was nothing outside save the night. Not an owl hooted. She stood there for some while, feeling herself menaced, knowing her enemy was neither near nor far, and watchful, and wore many faces.

The Tree grows faster now, in the soil of Logrèz. Once, I could encircle the trunk with my fingers, but it thickens daily, quivering at the contact of my clasping hand. I have watched the leaves reaching for the evening sunlight, and seen how the sap glows like bright blood when the dimming light reaches back. Whoever built the original conservatory was a fool, situating it so that it faces north, occluded by the nearby wood; but it suits my purposes. I did not dare plant the Tree outdoors: it could gorge itself on too much light and air, and grow beyond containment. After so long outside Time, in a dimension where the light was spun from its own thought and the air was its stale breath, I know the risks of exposing it to the stimulus of reality. It will not flower, or if it does, flower and leaf are too much alike for the observer to differentiate, but it will fruit, it must fruit. I have given it all my love, and it must give me issue—whatever that issue may be.

I sent the nightmares to the prisoner three nights ago. Nehemet sat watching while I heated the cauldron, adding two drops of the precious sap to a recipe as old as evil. She was so still she might have been a ceramic statue, clumsily painted so the clay tone showed through the thin coating of black and white. Her skin looked smooth and matte, wrinkling around the joints, like human skin. Her ugliness fascinates me. Perhaps because it is hairless her face has a kind of bony intensity that you normally see only in the primates: something close to expression, which is rare in any beast. But I am not yet sure what Nehemet’s expression may mean.

I poured my thoughts into the cauldron, and saw the mixture heave and sink, taking their shape, dissolving, re-forming, until at last they streamed upward in a column of black fume, passing through ceiling and floor, through brick barrier and spell barrier, seeking their victim. He did not cry out, not then. He is strong in a crude, primitive way, even as the Stone men were strong—strong to withstand weather and disease, hardy hunters, brutal lovers. And he is intelligent; if he were not, there would be no satisfaction in tormenting him. When I went to him tonight I could hear him moaning from the stairwell, but as soon as he saw me he was silent. The nightmares clung to him, crawling over him, close as a miasma, insubstantial as smoke. They probed with shadow fingers through flesh and bone, twisting the eyeballs in his sockets, the visions in his head. Red tears ran down his face, streaking the moonscape of pitted skin and jagged skull. I drew nearer, watching, riveted, as he writhed and wept. And then he jackknifed, for an instant—a second—shaking off his incubi, lunging for me with one huge fist. His strength was such that the spell barrier throbbed and sang at the blow, but it held, throwing him backward, and even as he fell the nightmares were on him again.

“Shall I call them off?” I asked him when I had studied him awhile. “Would you plead with me—would you beg me—to call them off?”

He made no answer, save for the stifled grunts of suffering.

“There is a small task you can do for me,” I said. “Agree, and I will give you a respite—for a little time. For the duration of your task, at least.” He knew I would not let him go. But he must have hope, or he will not endure. I will give him neither the labor of life nor the freedom of death, but I will offer both, and let him grasp at them in vain, and see his bitterness when he is left always empty.

I have many uses for him, and he shall serve my purposes, even while I feed off his pain.

“Will you accept my task?” I murmured, in a voice softer than the rasp of his breathing. “For an atom of quiet, a moment of deliverance? You have no other chance. She will not remember you. You were a pawn in her plans, a mere dupe, to be discarded when you had done your part. I alone have never abandoned you—and I never will. My child . . . my blood . . . Do not gnaw yourself in anger: I will have vengeance for us both. Her soft small face will not look so fair when I am done with it. Do not fear . . .”

In the end, he agreed. But it was a gradual end, long and slow in the coming, and I tasted every drop of his anguish, sweet as wine on the tongue. At last I ordered the nightmares to withdraw, sending them back to the empty cauldron that waited in the basement below. Later, I would melt them down, remake them in some other form. He was slumped against the wall, dumb now, mine to command. The sweat lay on him like slime and his own dirt befouled the floor.

“You are a mere beast,” I said, “but a beast with brain—or brain enough for my needs. There is something I want—from the Eternal Tree.”

I saw the flicker in his eyes as he glimpsed a chance of escape. But it died swiftly: he knew I would not be that careless.

“You will be released,” I told him, smiling, mocking. “You will go freely from here, and freely return. If not . . . well, I shall put a spell on you, so the nightmares will find you, wherever you hide, and then they will never let you go. No hole will be small enough to conceal you, no shadow dark enough. Do you understand?”

He did not nod or speak, but his silence was assent.

“Then go to the Tree. You know the way. You explored all the paths of the ancient Underworld long ago, creeping like a thief through the caverns of legend. You have no soul to lose; you may sneak where others would not venture. On the Tree the heads are ripening. The one I want should be there now. She may not look as you remember—in the early season the heads are mostly still young, though they age fast—but you will know her, she will tell you her name. Bring me my coven sister Sysselore, who was Syrcé the enchantress . . . We were together so long, I would not be without her. Even in death I want her to see my triumph, and envy me.”

“She will rot in days,” he said harshly. “Maybe in hours.”

“Fool! Do you doubt me still? I can brew a potion that will keep an apple as crisp as the instant it was picked—for months, even years. I will pickle the head in hell-broth, and it will stay sweet and firm for as long as I require. But carry her back quickly: those who die old are swiftest to degenerate.”

“And then?” he asked, unable to exclude the faintest note of desperation—half hope, half fear—from his voice.

I smiled at him—for is he not my son?—savoring his illusions, toying with his trapped mind, his pliant emotions. “Then we shall see.”

Later, when I opened the barrier, I marked him with the sigil Agares, the symbol of Finding. The acid burned deep into his skin, but though he hissed and sweated, he could not move until the brand was fixed. To remove it, he would have to flay his own brow to the bone.

“Return promptly,” I whispered, “lest I become impatient.” Then I let him go.

Tomorrow, there will be other matters. I must begin the search for her. When the moon is at the full, I will prepare the circle.

“We should wait for the full moon,” said Ragginbone. “The circle is more powerful at that time.”

“We can’t wait,” Fern said tensely. “Morgus won’t be content with collecting souls. Her Gift is formidable, and the strength of the Eternal Tree is in her. I must know what she’s doing.”

“Remember, she won’t yet have realized that you know she’s alive. You are young and inexperienced: by using the circle, you may betray yourself. I don’t want to damage your confidence—”

“I haven’t any,” Fern interrupted, unsmiling. She was driving as they talked, and she did not take her eyes off the road.

“All I’m saying is that everyone makes mistakes. The more powerful the individual, the greater their capacity for error. Morgus has already shown her hand by what she did to this girl: her ego gives her away. So we have a slight advantage, a sliver of time. Full moon is in a few days. Don’t slip up through impatience.”

“I want to get on with it,” Fern said baldly, “because I am afraid.”

“Fear is healthy, but you should not let it guide you. In the conflict to come, the main responsibility may rest with you—though we cannot be sure of that—but you have friends and allies, known and unknown, and you must have faith in them. Even in Atlantis, among strangers, you found help. There is always help, if your intentions are good. Or so I like to believe. Don’t try to take the whole burden on yourself.”

“Last time, Will and Gaynor were in danger,” Fern reminded him. “I couldn’t bear it if they were hurt, or—or killed.”

“The choice is not yours,” Ragginbone retorted seriously.

There was a pause while the banks of the motorway rolled past, a bridge arced over them, a lorry roared by in the middle lane, going too fast.

“When I killed Morgus,” Fern said suddenly, “I mean, when I thought I did—it was unreal. I was pure spirit, detached from my body, trapped in the otherworld. A world where myths come true. I cut a head from the Tree and brought it back here. It was only when I saw the head in the context of reality that I felt horror. Under the Tree—in the caverns of Hel—everything was like a dream. My feelings were vivid, often intense, but not quite . . . normal. Since then, there have been moments when I have told myself: I killed. I killed a fellow human being—even if she was a psychotic witch queen with her mind stuck in the Dark Ages and her ambition fixed on an improbable future. It was only bearable because of the unreality factor: I never actually had to come to terms with it. I don’t know if I can do it again. Here. In the real world. I don’t know if I can kill her.”

“You may not have to,” said Ragginbone, and there was gentleness in his gaze, though she did not see it. “Don’t waste time agonizing. Right now, you should worry more about whether she will kill you.”

“That makes me feel better,” said Fern.

More motorway streamed beneath them; huge blue or green signs warned of approaching exits, distance from London, the next gas station or eatery. From time to time long rows of cones sprang up with apparently no other function than to congest the traffic flow. Reality, Ragginbone reflected, was every bit as strange as the surreal dimensions that clung around the edge.

Several miles later Fern resumed: “Where do you think I should do it?”

“Do what?” asked Ragginbone, emerging from temporary abstraction.

“The circle.”

“Ah . . .”

“I thought of my flat, but there’s a fitted carpet and anyway, even if you pushed back all the furniture there wouldn’t be a lot of space. How big does the circle have to be?”

“Big enough,” said Ragginbone unhelpfully. “If it’s too small you will constrict the magic and it could burst the boundary or even explode. Besides, you need to maintain a safe distance between you and whomever—or whatever—you summon. The perimeter of the circle is your security. Too small, and the spell is overconcentrated. Too large, and it becomes stretched, so you cannot sustain it. That may have been why the circle Alimond made in your old barn all those years ago broke so easily. It was too big for her power.”

“We should have done it at Dale House,” said Fern. “I can’t think of anywhere else large enough. We may have to rent a studio or something.”

“Possibly,” said Ragginbone. “However . . . there’s a place I know that would be suitable. If I can persuade the owner.”

Fern considered this. “Who is the owner?” she inquired suspiciously.

“He is Gifted—after a fashion. A street wizard, a potion peddler . . . There were many like him once. They drew horoscopes, and sold love philters, and checked the auguries for one side or both before history’s forgotten skirmishes. Those with real power lived until they grew weary and then passed the Gate. Some had their throats cut in dark alleyways by whoever lost the latest skirmish, or choked on their own potions, or were tortured for secrets they did not possess. Religious organizations accounted for a good few. But this one . . . well, I think you could say he got stuck. Stuck in the past, more than four hundred years ago, but existing in the present. Out of sight, out of date, out of touch. He shut himself away from the world in his hermit’s cave, and he never leaves. Or so he claims. Food is delivered and therefore presumably paid for, though heaven knows how. The building was reconstructed above him about a century ago, but he has spells enough to hide himself from the hapless and the curious. He says he has no contact with either witchkind or werefolk, but I’m not sure if I believe that. It may be wishful thinking on his part.”

“He sees you,” Fern pointed out. “Evidently.”

“Reluctantly,” Ragginbone amended. “He can be useful. He did me a favor when you were last in trouble. And I would not like him to be used by the wrong people.”

“You mean,” Fern translated, “you used him, but you don’t want him doing any favors for anyone else.”

Ragginbone smiled his appreciation, but did not answer.

“So where is this hermitage of his?” Fern demanded. “A desolate moor—a Welsh mountainside—a gloomy forest—if there is any gloomy forest left in this country, which I doubt.”

“It’s in the jungle,” said Ragginbone.

“The jungle?”

“The urban jungle. Lost in the crowd—the easiest place to lose yourself in the modern world. He has one basement in an underground warren, one door among a million doors. In the country, people peer and question; in the city, who cares? Who notices?”

Fern said: “You mean he’s in London?”

“Soho,” said Ragginbone.

In Soho, anything can happen. There are strange secret bars that only open at three in the morning, clubs that switch their decor and their names every couple of months, people who change their identities, their faces, their sex. Buildings interconnect, with rooftop escape routes and hidden passageways. Subterranean kitchens steam and bubble. Sex shops and strip shows are available alongside the smartest restaurants, the coolest dives. In what was currently the most fashionable nightclub in town, Luc Walgrim was dancing. Most Englishmen dance badly: they are too inhibited, too protective of their machismo; they think dancing is for women and gays. But Luc was an exception. His style was deliberately restrained, his slow, snaky movements met the rhythm of the music at every other beat, his expression was that of someone whose mind was far away. His partner, intrigued, writhed closer, and then, when that expression did not alter, writhed away again. Luc did not notice. He felt alienated, out of place, not merely because it was Saturday night and he was sober—he had been drinking steadily but without apparent effect, and had achieved that state of black, illusory sobriety in which too many people think they are capable of driving a car. The wall on one side was all mirror, and for a moment, catching the reflection of the gyrating crowd, he thought he saw a carnival of dancers with animal heads, not masks but real animals, with red tongues and whiteless eyes . . . He looked for his own face, and it was gray and vulpine, fang toothed and point eared. He turned away and moved back toward the bar, trying to talk to friends, mouth to ear, against the clamor of the music, but all he could hear of their answers was braying, cackling, screeching. He ordered a cocktail from a barman who looked suddenly like a donkey, thinking rather too late that he had been unwise to stick with the absinthe.

Without conscious effort he found himself picturing Fern Capel appearing on the far side of the room, walking toward him. It was impossible to imagine her with the head of a beast; even on such short acquaintance, he sensed that she was always only herself. Yet he had very little idea who that self really was. He visualized her moving among the frenetic dancers with still, quiet purpose; the strobe lighting did not touch her; her face was isolated in its own pallor. Her lips parted and he knew she spoke, though he could not hear what she said. Then the image dissolved into the melee of the nightclub, and there were the animals again, making their animal noises, jerking their human limbs in a clumsy fandango. He called out, or thought he did—Help me—and there was a whisper in his head, louder than the surrounding cacophony: “Come with me.” It took all the self-discipline he could muster not to run from the club.

Outside, he went where his feet took him. Past the statue of Eros, along Piccadilly, across Hyde Park Corner and on to Knightsbridge. The traffic was scarcer now, the beggars were asleep. Cabs curb-crawled suggestively at his heels, but he waved them away. In a doorway, he saw someone huddled in a blanket, moaning, but when he bent over hesitantly, she stared at him with glazed eyes and said she was fine. She may be dead by morning, he thought, and I can do nothing. Or she may be alive, and looking for another fix of whatever she is fixed on, and I can still do nothing. My sister’s body lies in a hospital ward, and I have done nothing. He had found her teddy bear that day and laid it beside her, telling the nurses not to remove it. They indulged him. His father had not been to see Dana for nearly three weeks. Anger, frustration, guilt, despair had all gone cold inside him, and now the absinthe filled his mind with phantoms.

He was approaching his father’s Knightsbridge home. It loomed over him in all its pale elegance, teetering above porch and pillar, slices of yellow light showing between half-drawn curtains. He was dimly aware that it was very late, surely too late for Kaspar, who rarely kept such hours. The front door opened inward and Luc retreated, moving from shadow to shadow, sheltering behind a gatepost. A woman came out wrapped in a full-length velvet evening cloak, black or some very dark color; his father followed. At least, he assumed it was his father, but he could not be sure, because the man had the head of a dog—a lean hound’s head with dumb, obedient eyes. The woman’s face was invisible, hidden in the lee of her hood. A car that must have been parked farther along the road drew up beside them, silent as smoke; the man opened the car door. The woman turned to say goodnight, and Luc saw under the hood.

He had been expecting some kind of cat, domestic or wild, a chocolate-tipped Siamese or a mottled ocelot. But the face beneath the hood belonged to neither animal nor human. The eyes were enormous, staring, deep as midnight; the skin shriveled against the skull. There was no nose, only two holes like pits set just above the mouth. The shrunken lips drew back from a ragged array of teeth. Even in his bemused condition Luc reeled, knocking his temple against the post, stifling an oath before it could escape. The woman got into the car. His father closed the door and stood watching while it drove away; then he went back inside the house. Luc slid to the ground and rested his brow on his hands, fighting in vain for some kind of clarity.

Fern telephoned his flat as soon as she returned to London. “Hello,” said the machine. “This is Luc. Leave a message, and I may get back to you.” It did not sound promising. She considered trying his mobile, but guessed he was at the hospital and it would be better not to disturb him. Instead, while Ragginbone went off on affairs of his own, she decided to marshal her troops. One particular meeting was long overdue.

“Oh,” Gaynor said rather lamely. “I didn’t expect to see you.”

“Nor I you,” said Will.

“I knew, if I told you, you’d create difficulties.” Fern addressed the two of them impartially. “I’ve had enough of this idiocy. Sit down. I got you to come here because I need you—both of you. Ragginbone says I should accept help, and you—“ she looked at Gaynor “—said you were already a part of this, and you—“ she turned to Will “—well, you always have been. According to Gaynor, you’re my team, so behave like one. You have to work together. Talking to each other would be a start.”

“I never stopped talking to Gaynor,” Will said, with only a trace element of frigidity. “I simply haven’t had the opportunity to do so—for quite some time.”

“I’m in the book,” Gaynor said before she could stop herself.

“I didn’t know I was supposed to telephone you,” Will responded evenly. “Somehow, that wasn’t quite the message that came across.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“You ran off in such a hurry, you forgot to leave me your number.”

“You could have gotten it from Fern! No—I mean, that wasn’t what I . . . Look, if you’d wanted to talk to me, you would have called. You always do what you want; I know that. So when you didn’t call, or—or anything, I assumed you didn’t . . . want to.”

“You seem to have worked out my motives very easily,” Will said, masking uncertainty with sarcasm.

Gaynor fidgeted with her hair, a lifelong nervous habit, but did not attempt to reply.

“Time’s up,” Fern said, glancing pointedly at her watch. “If that was apology and reconciliation, I didn’t think much of it, but it will have to do. We have serious matters to discuss. All the evidence indicates Morgus is back—”

“Back?” Will repeated. “But she’s dead. Are we talking some kind of ghost, or a tannasgeal—or has someone been fruit picking on the Eternal Tree?”

“You’re behind,” said Fern. “Take your mind off your personal problems, and I’ll fill you in.”

In the end, she brought them both up to date, concluding with a brief account of her discussions with Ragginbone. In asking questions and debating possibilities, Will and Gaynor forgot their mutual embarrassment and inevitably began to talk to each other as well as Fern.

“What I don’t understand,” Will said finally, “is where Azmordis—sorry, the Old Spirit—fits into all this. And don’t say he’s out of it this time, because I won’t believe you. He’s never out of the game for long. He’s like God or the devil: where Man goes, he goes.”

“He’s played both god and devil down the ages,” Fern said. “And we were credulous: we fell for it. We worshiped him and feared him. He’s grown strong on that. All the same . . .”

“He wants you on his side,” Will persisted, “and you’ve turned him down twice. Could he be sending you this recurring dream to try to mesmerize you somehow? Third time—”

“Third time lucky?” Fern finished for him. “Perhaps. But I’m not a child now; he would find it very hard to get inside my head. My Gift is more developed: it guards me. Besides, if the dream is meant to mesmerize, it isn’t working. It just fills me with horror. Worse each time . . . Let’s leave it for the moment. Right now, Morgus is the problem.”

“She can’t be as dangerous as the Old Spirit,” said Gaynor. “Can she?”

“In some ways she’s more dangerous. He’s been in the real world since the beginning; he knows how it works. He’s become a part of what Ragginbone calls the greater pattern, an evil part maybe, but still only a part. His goals of corruption and despair are woven into the fate of the world, an underlying theme to our goals of happiness and decency and universal sharing. Morgus is different. She’s lived too long outside. Her attitudes are those of the Dark Age. If she’s heard of nuclear weapons, you can bet she thinks radioactive fallout is a kind of diabolical magic, something you could stop with a spell of Command. I suspect—I fear—that to her modern society is a toy shop full of entertaining new gadgets. Heaven knows what she may do with them.”

“What you are saying,” Will summarized, “is that the Old Spirit knows how to play cricket, but cheats, whereas Morgus thinks it’s croquet.”

“And plays by witches’ rules,” Gaynor added.

“Witches’ rules,” Fern echoed. “One of these days I must find out what they are.”

She spoke to Luc the next day. He sounded distracted and told her at least three times he had found the teddy.

“Good,” said Fern, giving up. “Hang on to it.”

“Did you find out anything in York?”

“Not York, Yorkshire. I didn’t go there to find out anything. I went to consult someone, and I consulted. Finding out comes next. Excuse me, but . . . are you quite all right?”

“Not really,” he admitted. “A two-day hangover. The headache doesn’t want to go.”

“What were you drinking?”

“Absinthe.”

“Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder,” Fern quipped. “Sorry, that must be as old as the hills. It’s poisonous, isn’t it? I should have warned you, be very careful with alcohol at the moment. It lays your mind wide open. Anything could get in.”

“I know,” said Luc. “I think it did. I kept seeing people with animal heads. I looked in the mirror and even I had one. You were the only person who was normal.”

“I wasn’t there,” Fern said, disconcerted.

“No, but . . . I imagined you.”

“What sort of head did you have?”

“Something gray and foxy,” he said. “Look, I’m not sure if it’s important, what happened next, but maybe I ought to tell you. It wasn’t a dream, but it felt like one, and you said I should focus on my dreams. Afterward, I went around to my father’s house. I was walking home from this club and it’s more or less on the way to my place. There was a voice in my head, and I walked and walked, and then I was there. He came out with a woman. He didn’t see me; I just watched. He had the head of a dog, maybe a wolfhound, all lean and silvery, but his eyes were stupid. The woman had a cloak and hood. She got in a car and was driven away.”

“What kind of animal was she?” Fern asked.

“Not an animal. I saw her for only a second. She looked—hideous. A skull face with staring eyes, and no nose, and jagged teeth . . . This sounds insane, doesn’t it? I was probably hallucinating.”

“Probably,” said Fern. “Could you ask your father who she was?”

“I rang him this morning. Said I was passing in a taxi the other night, and I’d seen him with someone. She’s a Mrs. Mordaunt, Melissa Mordaunt. Apparently she’s renting Wrokeby from him. His voice was strange when he spoke of her. He said something about gratitude . . .”

“He’s lending her the house out of gratitude?” Fern hazarded. “But for what?”

“He never feels gratitude,” Luc said flatly.

“I think,” said Fern, “you’d better tell me more about your father.”

Ragginbone called around that evening. “My friend in Soho has agreed,” he said. “We can use his basement.”

“When?” asked Fern.

“Friday,” said Ragginbone. “The night of the full moon.”

It is full moon tomorrow. I will make the circle, and call up the spirits, even the oldest and strongest, and put them to the question. I will summon Azmordis himself, if need be, but I will find her. I will find her in the end.