The Battle of the Sun

  ‘Where’s Wedge?’ whispered Jack.

  ‘He’s trying to hatch the coconut you gave him. He’s got a hen the size of a pig,’ said Crispis.

  Jack smiled and nodded. Now they had a chance.

  Light and silent, the two boys went straight into the cellar.

  THE BATH OF SULPHUR

  There was the Sunken King, now so faint a presence that he could hardly be seen dissolving in the water.

  ‘It’s time!’ said Jack. ‘You must come with us now.’

  The Sunken King turned his face, and Jack could hardly hear him as he spoke.

  ‘Pull the plug, Adam Kadmon, but know that I shall die very soon if what you say is untrue. Once outside of this place I have but a short time.’

  The plug . . . Jack searched frantically around until he found what looked like a plug in the side of the tank. With all his strength he turned it and pulled it but it was stuck fast.

  He heard a familiar voice, like fire rolling down a mountain.

  ‘How so, Jack Snap, how so? Are you not here yet? I am ready. I am here.’

  Jack walked round to the back of the tank. The whole wall of the cellar had been demolished, and in place of the wall, like a wall, but not a wall, was the Dragon himself.

  ‘Bring him to me, Jack. The Bath is prepared.’

  ‘I can’t pull the plug!’ said Jack desperately. ‘Will you help me?’

  ‘That was not part of our bargain,’ said the Dragon. ‘You must come or not come.’

  Jack nearly yelled at the Dragon, but he stopped himself and his anger. The Magus . . . anger . . . if Jack felt anger or fear he would betray himself to the Magus like everyone who had come before him, like everyone in the Dark House.

  Jack looked around the damp bare cellar. Then, without a question or a hesitation, he ripped the flare from its bracket on the wall and swung it with every ounce of his strength at the glass tank.

  CRASH!

  He swung again, and again, using both arms, his arms and shoulders taut.

  CRASH!

  The tank shattered into pieces and the water flowed out in a deluge. Jack thought he would be drowned, but the moment the water escaped the tank, it was not water at all, but something silver and shining and it seemed to disappear. Whatever it was, it wasn’t wet.

  Jack ran forward into the shattered tank and bent to pick up the Sunken King, who was light as a bone, and white as a bleached bone.

  Jack had the King across his shoulders, and he carried him, weightless like a bird, and he stepped forward, out through the cellar and to the moat.

  Where the Dragon was waiting.

  ‘How now, Jack Snap. Into the moat with him, for that is your Bath.’

  The smell was overpowering – like rotten meat and horse dung and dead rats.

  Jack looked into the moat. He was horrified. This was no bath, this was a boiling, bubbling, seething mass of black mud and filth. The King would be killed.

  ‘It’s a trick!’ shouted Jack. ‘You have tricked me!’

  And suddenly Jack saw himself standing alone, bearing a burden that, light as it was, he could not carry, charged with a task it was impossible to complete, confused by other people, without help. A boy, he was just a boy, twelve years old, and in front of him was a dragon who had hatched inside time as though time itself were an egg, and here was the Dragon, ancient and wily . . .

  Jack lost heart.

  And in the moment that he lost heart, the Magus in the laboratory sprang to his feet, and with a rush and a roar, it was as a phoenix that he flew, flew, flew, from the upper skylight, now circling over the moat, fierce and dark and massive.

  ‘Throw the King, Jack Snap!’ the Dragon spoke.

  ‘Adam Kadmon, obey!’ It was the feeble voice of the King speaking, and hardly knowing what he did, Jack threw the King, who seemed to be made of white feathers and hollow bones, into the moat.

  The Phoenix made a dive, and Jack ducked just in time to avoid its beak, but its cruel golden feet caught his arm as he folded his arms over his head for protection. Jack felt as though he had been burned.

  As the Phoenix made its fearful arc in the sky, Jack looked into the moat and saw the Sunken King desperately flailing his arms and crying for help. By now, he was covered in black filth, and hardly visible.

  He’s drowning, thought Jack, and then he didn’t think at all, took the biggest breath of air he could, and flung himself into the stinking stench.

  Jack sank. The slurry in the moat was thick and sucking, like quicksand. It was all his nightmares, all his fears, and it was black without end.

  Jack swept his arms about blindly, and found the King. He pulled the King to him so that they were one body, arms and legs wrapped around each other, and with all his strength, Jack kicked up, trying to bring them into the air.

  And then a very strange thing happened.

  As Jack’s head split the gluey surface of the moat, the Sunken King smiled at him. And Jack saw the face of a young man, a strong man, with clean red hair, like a sun.

  The thin body Jack held against his grew stronger and fatter; he could feel real legs and real arms, and he had the sensation that these real legs and real arms were his own legs and arms. He held the King, only their heads above the moat.

  ‘Adam Kadmon,’ said the King. ‘That is our name. Take my ring.’ And he pulled a ring from his finger and placed it on Jack’s finger.

  The moat began to change. First its texture thinned from thick to running. Then its colour changed from black to clear, and Jack looked down, and it was as though he was in a running river with nothing to hide. Fish swam.

  ‘The Phoenix and the Fishes,’ said the King, ‘the Tree and the Wind that blows in the Tree.’

  Jack didn’t understand, but these were the last words of the Sunken King, for he began to dissolve, not as he had in the tank, in formless despair, but because he was becoming something else. And the something else he was becoming was Jack.

  Jack was alone in the clear shining water. He swam to the edge and hauled himself out. The water ran from him in silver showers, and in the puddles it made were balls of silver.

  The King’s ring on his own finger flashed and caught the sun.

  ‘How now, Jack Snap,’ said the Dragon.

  ‘What has happened?’ asked Jack.

  ‘You have absorbed the powers of the old King,’ said the Dragon, ‘because you are the Radiant Boy, the one who is to come.’

  ‘To come where?’ said Jack. ‘I don’t understand.’

  The Dragon flicked its purple tongue. ‘Understanding will follow. But first you must become what you are.’

  There was a rush of flaming wings. The Phoenix landed right in front of Jack, its eyes like rubies, its wing-feathers flames.

  The Phoenix spoke. ‘You found the Cinnabar Egg and you freed the Sunken King. I underestimated you, Jack Snap.

  Now you cannot be my assistant, for you have become my rival.’

  ‘I want nothing to do with you,’ said Jack. ‘I want to leave this place for ever.’

  ‘It is too late for that,’ replied the Phoenix. ‘You have chosen.’

  ‘That is so, Jack Snap,’ said the Dragon. ‘You have chosen.’

  ‘Now one of us shall defeat the other,’ said the Phoenix, ‘and the one who is defeated shall never live again. Do you accept this challenge?’

  ‘No!’ said Jack.

  The sky was dark and thundery. The Dragon was purple and green. The Phoenix was red and gold. Jack was as silver as the silver water in the moat.

  He heard a voice he knew, yet didn’t know, saying his name.

  He turned round. It was the girl from the tower. The Golden Maiden. The Captive. She was wearing strange clothes that he had never seen before, but her face was not strange, it was strangely familiar.

  ‘Jack! You have to accept the task that is given to you.’

  And Jack remembered again the story of Arthur and the sword in the stone, and he remembered the ston
e boys, and his mother, already half-stone, and this stone house, heavy, imprisoned. Something had to be set free, some better power than the one that ruled this house now.

  Jack looked at the girl under the thundery sky. She was smiling, but her eyes were serious, as serious as stars.

  He turned to the Phoenix. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I will, and yes.’

  THE NIGREDO

  There was a shudder and a shimmer, and all at once the Phoenix had vanished, and in its place stood the Magus in his long black cloak. He was holding a big iron key.

  ‘Jack, the doors to the Dark House are open now. I can no longer prevent your coming and going. You are your own master now. But follow me, if you please – this one last time . . .’

  Jack was confused. The Magus was his enemy. Why was his enemy talking like a friend?

  Jack followed the Magus into the house and into the laboratory. There was a vessel on the floor sealed and wrapped in sacking. Some of the smaller tongs and bellows and stirrers and jars were packed in cases. Wedge was there, frantically wrapping and stacking.

  Then Jack saw his mother. She had been carried into the laboratory.

  ‘I was about to put her with the other statues,’ said the Magus, ‘but as she is your mother, you may decide for yourself.’

  ‘She is not stone,’ said Jack, a cold fear creeping through him.

  ‘Is she not?’ replied the Magus mildly, and then he grabbed Jack’s arm, and pulled him to the brazier that leapt with green flames. Jack realised that his own physical strength had greatly increased, and that he could throw off the Magus if he chose to, but because he was afraid, he did not do so.

  ‘Jack,’ said the Magus, ‘how different it might have been if you had served me. Together we could have ruled the City of Gold and, piece by piece, land by land, the whole world. You as my rightful heir.’

  ‘You have a son,’ said Jack. ‘His name is William.’

  The face of the Magus darkened like a lake at night. ‘I have no son. He failed me. He could not complete the Work. There he is – with the rest.’

  Jack shook the Magus off him, and walked into the antechamber beyond the laboratory. He shuddered. All the boys were there now: Anselm, Robert, William, Peter, Roderick . . .

  ‘Crispis . . .’ he said under his breath, but the child was so small he could not see if he was there or not.

  ‘Why have you done this?’ said Jack, angry.

  ‘They are of no further use,’ replied the Magus.

  Jack walked sadly towards the statues and put his hand on Robert’s shoulder. His heart was burning with sadness and anger, but he knew he must show nothing to the Magus. He was not ready yet to test his power.

  The Magus was timing the progress of the moon. He smiled his dark smile. ‘And now,’ he said, ‘I will give you a free choice, Jack, for you are not my servant but my enemy, yet because you have taken the power of the Sunken King, and because you are the Radiant Boy, I must bargain with you. Here is my bargain. Put your hand in the fire with mine, as the new moon aligns with Mars, and your mother goes free. If you do not . . .’

  ‘My hand in the fire?’ asked Jack, who was afraid, not of the pain, but of the true motives of the Magus.

  ‘I must join with you to use your power,’ said the Magus. ‘Only the golden power of the Radiant Boy can complete the Work.’

  ‘No!’ said Jack. ‘I will not do it.’

  The Magus glanced out of the window. There was the moon.

  ‘Then . . .’ said the Magus.

  Jack returned to the laboratory and looked at his mother. As he looked, a hard grey cold began to steal over those warm parts of her that yet remained. He saw her lips half open in surprise, his own half-name just issuing from them like a whisper. Then the air in her nose seemed to freeze. Her eyes implored him. Jack grabbed the Magus by the arm, and with easy power – and he saw the surprise in the Magus’s face – Jack plunged their twined arms into the flames.

  The flames leapt up, like snakes, like coils of dark life, for the fire was no ordinary fire, and its brightness was dark, and in truth its heat was dread cold.

  All the time that their arms burned, Jack kept his eyes fixed on the Magus, and he saw in those eyes many lives, many secrets, and he thought he saw one single fear. If he could find that fear . . .

  The fire burned down and went out. The brazier was void and cool. Jack stood back, shaking his arm, which seemed just as it had been. The Magus nodded his head.

  ‘Thank you, Jack. You served me after all.’

  Then, with a rush of wind, the Magus was gone.

  Jack went to his mother. He stroked her hair, but it was stone. He touched her cheek, but it was hard. He kissed her lips, but they were cold. She was motionless and still.

  He betrayed me, thought Jack bitterly. I gave him my power, and he betrayed me.

  Jack looked around the laboratory. The furnaces were out and the alembics no longer bubbled and popped.

  He walked through into the library. The books had gone. The stone shelves were empty. He walked through into the hall – and the place was hung with silence.

  A great weight at his heart, and darkness all around him, Jack sat down on the floor. He did not know what to do.

  In all his life he had never felt so desolate or so desperate. He loved his mother, and now he had lost her. The Magus was free and powerful. He, Jack, had ruined it all.

  ‘Please come back,’ he said to himself in a whisper. ‘Mother, please come back.’

  He felt something small and warm against his legs. It was Max come to find him. Max licked him and leaned against him, making small noises of encouragement. Jack stroked the dog, but he was too numb to do anything more. He felt as though he had been turned to stone himself.

  SOME LIGHT

  Jack?’

  Jack looked up from his long silence. He did not know ‘ how much time had passed. The night seemed to be the day now, but what day?

  The girl from the tower was squatting near him.

  ‘You are the Golden Maiden,’ said Jack. ‘You escaped from the tower . . .’

  ‘Well. I realised that no one was going to rescue me,’ said the girl. ‘I mean, that only happens in fairy stories, doesn’t it? So I rescued myself. Well, that isn’t strictly true. The sunflower grew out of your window and across into my window, and I climbed across it, and then all the way down, like you did, into the kitchen. Then the dog came and fetched me, just like he did now.’

  Max came up, wagging his tail and wanting to be stroked.

  ‘The dog’s called Max,’ said Jack.

  ‘And you are Jack . . .’ said the girl.

  ‘And what’s your name?’

  ‘Silver,’ said Silver.

  ‘That’s strange, when you are the Golden Maiden . . .’

  ‘Who says I’m the Golden Maiden?’ asked Silver.

  ‘The Book of the Phoenix,’ said Jack simply. ‘I saw your picture, and then I thought I was knocking at the door of a house, and that you answered.’

  ‘You were,’ said Silver. ‘I did. That’s how I got here, because you were calling me, and I came through the fire.’

  ‘What fire?’ asked Jack.

  And Silver explained how she had walked through the fire in the library at home, and reappeared in the library of the Magus.

  ‘Do you know the Magus?’

  ‘No, but I know he’s an alchemist, and the last alchemist I met wanted to control time – all of it. It was to do with a clock . . .’

  ‘The Magus is an alchemist, yes,’ said Jack, ‘and he wants to turn all the city of London into gold – every bit of it.’

  ‘They always want every bit – all of the gold, all of the time,’ said Silver. ‘Mine had to be defeated, and yours will have to be defeated too. I suppose I’ve got to help.’

  ‘Where do you come from?’ asked Jack. ‘Why do you wear those strange clothes? What are they made from?’

  Silver looked at her jeans and fleece and trainers. ‘I come
from Cheshire, in England. It’s in the north of England. And this is London in England, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jack, ‘and Elizabeth is Queen.’

  ‘What year is it?’ asked Silver.

  ‘1601,’ said Jack, looking doubtfully at Silver. ‘You should know that.’

  ‘I’m not from your time, Jack,’ said Silver. ‘That’s why I wear these clothes. I come from the twenty-first century.’

  Jack didn’t speak. He just gazed at Silver, his brow furrowed. He felt tired and muddled. Nothing made sense . . .

  the Sunken King, the Dragon, the Moat, the Magus, his mother, his mother, his mother. That was the dull ache in his body, his mother . . .

  He got up. ‘The Dragon might know . . .’ he said, not knowing what he meant. Silver followed him.

  They walked through the empty house. All the doors always so carefully closed and locked were open. It was as though a great wind had blown through the house. The library was empty of books, the door to the laboratory stood ajar on its heavy hinges. The door to the downward tree and the Dragon’s lair was gone altogether, and of the tree and the deep forest, there was no sign. The Dragon had gone, and taken his forest with him.

  Jack went upstairs; Wedge’s half-room was half empty, half packed half not packed, like someone running away in a hurry.

  The boys’ bedchamber was as usual, with the seven stone beds in their stony line, but it felt like years since anyone had been there. The whole house felt like it had been empty for years, echoing sounds and damp smells and a chilly neglect. Jack pointed up through the ceiling, to where he had found the nest of the Phoenix and the Cinnabar Egg.

  Jack suddenly slipped and fell, and Silver could see that the boy was dizzy with exhaustion. She led him into the boys’ bedchamber and plumped up a bed for him as best she could, using all the blankets and pillows. While she was doing this, Jack was staring at the King’s ring on his finger. He tried to take it off but he couldn’t shift it.

  ‘I have to go to sleep,’ he said wearily, ‘and when I wake up, Golden Maiden, tell me all this has never been.’