Hexwood

  Mordion working magic again, she thought, and broke into a run in order not to miss it. Across the river she went, leaping from stone to stone below the familiar waterfall. She seemed to have done this a hundred times – probably she had. And the cunning Bannus had caused her to miss noticing just where its field started yet again. Oh well. The blue light continued to flicker enticingly on the cliff above. Ann went charging up the path and round the house – which looked weatherbeaten and sagging these days – to skid to a gasping halt in the empty space beside the firepit. Only Yam was there, sitting very upright and disapproving on a stone.

  “Mordion is at his hocus-pocus again,” Yam said. “He is the most obstinate human alive. He does not attend to my arguments at all. He is making his third attempt to wrap a part of the theta-field round Hume.”

  “Not again!” Ann panted.

  “Yes. Again,” Yam intoned. “He has given up his herbs, which are harmless, though he calls them inadequate, and his chanting, which the Bannus tends to answer in the wrong fashion, and he is now working with mind-power alone.” As Yam spoke, the blue flashing was gaining in intensity, dazzling off Yam’s silver skin, and giving them both sudden black shadows that leapt across the earthy space, leapt and vanished. The pine tree above the house stood out like a tree in a thunderstorm, alternately a dark mass and then visible in every dark green needle. “He has studied for five years,” Yam said. “I believe he is now working at full strength.”

  An exceptionally vivid flash made Ann quite sure Yam was right. She dithered in a mixture of curiosity and alarm. “This could hurt Hume,” she said. It was partly an excuse to see what was happening. “I’d better go and make sure he’s all right.”

  She set off for the rocks above the house at a run.

  Yam’s silver hand closed on her wrist. Ann could not believe a robot could be so strong. She swung round in a circle with her own impetus and ended up facing Yam, in another flash so dazzling that it dimmed Yam’s rosy eyes. “Stay here with me,” Yam said. “It is getting—”

  There was an enormous dull explosion.

  “—dangerous,” Yam said. He let go of Ann and left at racing speed. Even Mordion, running up the path to kill that rabbit, had not moved so fast Yam went as a silver blur. Ann stared after him, feeling the explosion jarring her every bone, and sure that her eardrums were ruptured. All she could hear was silence. Even the sound of the river had stopped.

  But she had barely realised there was silence when there was a monstrous clapping and crashing. Breaking rock. Fragments landed around her. The sound of the river started again, deafening and tumultuous. Ann raced after Yam, horrified, round the house, past the pine tree. As she scrambled up the rocks beyond, everything seemed unearthly, open and light. The river was roaring and this roar was mixed with the squealing and rubbly grinding and multiple crashings of more rock breaking. Ann bolted upwards, using her hands to help, terrified of what she might find at the top.

  It was bright sunlight up there. Mordion was a tumbled brown heap with blood streaming from a gash in his wrist. His blood-covered hand was still obstinately clenched round that wizard’s staff of his. Hume and Yam were bending over him anxiously and, to Ann’s huge relief, Hume at least had not a scratch on him. Hume was all legs again, taller than she was.

  “He’s breathing. He’s not killed himself,” Hume said.

  Ann stood, panting and relieved, staring down at the river. The waterfall had gone. There was now a flat white slope of water, roaring and frothing down a chasm that was getting bigger as she looked. A slice of rock as big as a house slanted off the bank opposite and slammed down into the river, sending up high spouts of water that drenched all four of them. The river’s sound was almost like a snarl as it tore its way round this new obstacle.

  “That wetting brought him round,” Yam said.

  “What on earth went on here?” Ann demanded. She was now watching the new rockfall sink and spread, break into boulders, and then crumble to flat stones under the white water. Like geology speeded up! she thought. It was as if a giant hand was pressing that rockfall. Beyond, more rock broke and fell, snapping several oak trees like twigs. “What did Mordion do?”

  “I got it wrong again,” Mordion said from behind her. He sounded weak and depressed.

  “You didn’t, you know,” Hume answered. “It was working splendidly. I could feel myself getting wrapped right round in an extra field. Then it sort of rebounded off me and hit the river instead.”

  “It’s still hitting it,” Ann said, watching the oak trees disappear in the welter and then bob up again, crushed into hundreds of pieces of yellow splintered wood that went roaring downriver out of sight. “Mordion, I don’t think you know your own strength. Or did the Bannus object?”

  “Ann!” Mordion yelled.

  Ann spun round, wondering what the new trouble was. Mordion was sitting up, holding himself steady with both hands on his staff, staring at her as if she was a ghost.

  “When did you cross the river?” he said.

  “Just now,” said Ann. “I—”

  “Oh, Great Balance!” The staff clattered to the rocks as Mordion put both hands over his face. “You could have been caught in the explosion!”

  “Yes. But I wasn’t.” Ann went to kneel beside him, and jerked her head at Yam and Hume to go away – particularly at Yam, who was no good at this kind of time. Hume nodded and took Yam away, almost tiptoeing with tact. “You’re bleeding,” Ann said.

  Mordion glanced at his cut wrist with his eyebrow drawn to a winged point, irritably. There was no blood any more. Not even a cut. Ann looked at it wryly. More confusion. Perhaps, she thought, I haven’t been so clever, using that cut of his to time things.

  “See?” Mordion said, holding his wrist towards her. “I can do this. Why can’t I make Hume real?”

  “He is real, in his own way,” Ann pointed out. “After all, what’s real? How do you know I’m real, or if you are?” Since Mordion looked as if, for once, he was trying to think about this, she went on persuasively, “Why is it so important to you to make Hume real anyway?”

  “Because, as you’re always telling me, I’m fond of him,” Mordion said sombrely. “Because I set out to use Hume like a puppet – and saw almost straight away that this was wrong. I want him to be free.”

  “Yes, you’ve said that before,” Ann agreed, “and it’s all true. But why is it really? Why do you always think of Hume and never of yourself?”

  Mordion slowly picked up his staff, joined his hands round it, and leant his forehead against his hands. He made a sound that was like a groan. He did not answer Ann for so long that she gave up expecting him to. She knelt and listened to the sounds from the river. Things seemed to have stopped falling and grinding away. It was just rushing water now. She was about to get up and look, when Mordion said, “Because I want to be free too.” He added, nearly in a whisper, “Ann, I don’t want to think about this.”

  “Why not?” Ann asked inexorably.

  There was an even longer pause. This time, before Mordion answered, Hume began yelling from somewhere down by the water. Yam was booming from there too.

  “Curses!” Ann said. “Another crisis!”

  “I tried not to damage his boat,” Mordion said guiltily, trying to get up.

  Since the yells sounded urgent, Ann helped Mordion up and they made their way down to the house and then, very cautiously, down the cracked and spiky rocks to the river. Yam and Hume were on the shingle at the edge of the new white foaming water, beside Hume’s boat, still miraculously there. A true miracle, personally organised by Mordion, Ann thought. But the miracle had been precious close. A big jagged rock had fetched up on the shingle, right next to the boat, barely a foot away.

  Hume was leaning on this jagged rock beckoning, pointing to a big metal staple sticking out from the top of it.

  No, it was not a staple, Ann saw as she climbed closer. The bright sunlight was striking red rays off the top of the metal. There
seemed to be crimson glass embedded in it.

  “What is it, Hume?” Mordion called from above Ann.

  “A handle of some kind!” Hume’s face was almost wild with mischief and excitement. “Ann, come and pull it. See what happens.”

  Ann jumped the last way down to the shingle and leaned over the wet brown rock. It was indeed a handle, the metal thing, with a red jewel set into its end. She put both hands to it and pulled. Nothing moved. She tried to pull it towards her, then to push it away. “It’s quite solid,” she said. “Sorry, Hume.”

  “Let me,” said Yam. He came up beside Ann and wrapped both silver hands round the handle. He pulled. Ann saw his inner works strain against his shiny skin with the effort. “It is fixed,” he said, and let go.

  Hume pushed them both aside, grinning with joy. “Now let me.” He jumped up on the boulder, took the handle in one hand and, without any effort at all, drew a long grey steel sword out of the middle of the stone. Standing there on the rock, he laid the sword across both hands and just stared at it. It was beautiful. The raised rib down the centre, instead of being straight, was cunningly worked in a wavy, snake-like, leaf-like pattern. “This is mine,” Hume said. “The Bannus has sent me my sword. At last!”

  Ann laughed. “What’s its name? Excalibur?”

  Mordion stood some way up the cliff, leaning on his staff, and looked down sadly at Hume, standing there with the legs of his tracksuit wet dark indigo to the knees, and most sadly of all at the joy on Hume’s face. “It’s a wormblade,” he said. “A very fine one. How many times did you pull it out before we came?”

  “Only twice,” Hume said defensively. “Yam couldn’t budge it. I had to have Ann try, though, before I was sure.”

  “I think,” Mordion said, mostly to Ann, “that the Bannus is challenging us. Either I try to change its scenario, or it will play it out as I said I would in the beginning.”

  “There’s writing on the sword!” Hume said. “In Hamitic script. I thought it was just marks at first. It says—” he held the blade out to get shadows across the marks “—it says, ‘I am made for one’.” He turned the sword gently, awed by it and afraid of dropping it. “And on this side it says, Who is Worm’s Bane’.”

  “I was afraid it might say something like that,” Mordion said.

  So that’s where the sword came from, Ann thought. She was generally thoughtful while she came out through the wood. When she was well past the yellow crisp packet and starting up the passage between the houses, she asked her imaginary people, Am I really coming out of the wood this time?

  I can hear you ask, said the King, for what that’s worth.

  Good, said Ann. Then I want to tell you everything that’s happened so far. Something’s wrong. Something doesn’t check out, but I can’t see what it is.

  Tell away, the King said.

  Ann began at the beginning, when she had been ill and watching in her mirror. This was while she was coming up the passage. As she came out and began squeezing among the cars – Wood Street was all parked up, worse than usual on a Saturday – the King interrupted her. This may he where things do not tally, he said. You went into the field of this machine many times while you were ill too.

  WHAT? said Ann.

  Here a bus moved away from the bus stop opposite, and Martin, who had been standing in the bus shelter talking to Jim Price, saw Ann and rushed across the road, weaving hair-raisingly among the traffic. Ann heard the King saying that he had thought she knew, or he would have told her, and then falling politely silent, realising Ann’s attention was all on Martin.

  “Something else happened while you were out,” Martin told her breathlessly. “A lot of cars came. This one you’re standing by was one. The others are all up the street.”

  Ann looked at the car beside her. It was just a car, a more ordinary one than the grey car still down in the bay, and its road-fund licence had almost run out. “And?” she said.

  “A whole crowd of men got out,” Martin told her, “looking like police or something. And they waited until they were all out in the road, then they walked off down to the farm, sort of leaning forward – you know, as if they were really going to do something. And they got to the gate and the one in front banged on it, and it opened, and they all marched in. I saw one fetching out a gun, from under his arm. Like this.” Martin mimed it, and his eyes were big at the memory. “Then the gate shut. But we didn’t hear any shooting. They’re all still in there, though.”

  “Saying, this house is surrounded – come out with your hands up! You think? Did you try to see?” Ann asked.

  Martin nodded. “Who wouldn’t? Jim and I tried the gate when no one was looking, but it was locked again, so we went round in the wood and tried to get over the wall there. But we couldn’t.”

  “Couldn’t how?” Ann asked, seeing Martin looking truly perturbed.

  “It was—” Martin kicked the tyre of the ordinary car. “You won’t believe this. It was slippery – as if it was covered in plastic – and you know how old that wall looks. And we couldn’t get up it, not even boosting one another. We just kept slipping off. Then we climbed a tree in the wood, but you can never see in from the trees, not properly. But there was no sign of any of those men. Ann, I think there’s something really weird going on.”

  “I know there is,” said Ann.

  “Should we tell Dad?” Martin asked.

  Touching faith! Ann thought. And what’s Dad supposed to do? “I’ll think about it,” she said, because she simply could not see what else to do. Perhaps Dad or Mum could come up with some idea. “I’ll go in and see what sort of mood they’re in – and see.”

  Martin’s face cleared and his shoulders straightened. All responsibility was now shifted to Ann, which was how Martin preferred things. “Thanks,” he said. “I didn’t fancy trying to tell him, not after the way he was at lunch. But I’ll back you up. If you want me, I’ll be down in the wood with Jim.”

  Down in the wood, well out of trouble! Ann thought sourly, as Martin whistled Jim over the road just as if Jim was his dog, and the two of them went charging away down the path between the houses. You could trust Martin to keep well clear for the next few hours. Unless of course he got into the Bannus field too.

  Ann halted and looked back over her shoulder, suddenly worried. But Martin seemed to belong to the real world, somehow, like Mum and Dad. They all three struck Ann as being immune to the Bannus. She went across the road and into the shop.

  Tired but cheerful seemed to be the mood in the shop. When Ann came in, her parents were in one of those lulls, just the two of them leaning by the till, drinking a quick cup of tea before the next customer came in.

  “Hallo, love,” said Mum. “You look a bit tired.”

  “You have a funny kind of look,” said Dad. “What’s up? You haven’t made yourself ill again, have you? I told you—”

  His voice was drowned out, almost from the moment he started to speak, by the furious clattering of horses’ hooves, that grew louder and louder. Dad swung round irritably. The sound seemed to be right on top of them, mixed with clashing, jingling and shouting.

  “What’s this then?” he said, shouting against the noise. “Light Brigade? Local hunt?” He and Ann and Mum all bent down to see under the hanging plants in the window. The window was suddenly darkened by great brown horses, rearing and tossing and scraping iron hooves on the road as they were reined in.

  I don’t believe this! Ann thought, as she saw men in chain mail and helmets with noseguards dismounting from the horses with a set of deafening crashes.

  Dad started towards the door of the shop, half grinning, half annoyed. “Looks like one of those clubs where people dress up and act wars,” he said. “Load of idiots!” But before he reached the door, a man taller and wider even than he was came swiftly clanking in, forcing Dad to back away. A green surcoat swirled over this man’s mail. His face under its metal helmet was handsome, lordly and smiling a smile without feeling or friendliness
.

  “Keep quite still,” he said, as if it was obvious that people would do as he said. “Nobody need get hurt. We’re only coming to collect what you wretched people owe us.”

  “What do you mean? We don’t owe anybody anything!” Mum protested.

  The tall man gave her a brief look that left Mum red as a brick. The look, quite definitely, undressed her and decided she might do if he was desperate. His look went on, round the bags of potatoes, displays of cauliflowers and courgettes, and pyramids of fruit. “I think about two-thirds of this will do for the moment,” he said.

  “Two-thirds!” Dad said, advancing on the man with his chin out and his fists bent “What do you think you’re playing—?”

  The tall man let Dad come within reach and calmly lashed out with a steel-cased hand. Dad went staggering and arm-waving backwards with a rush that ended in a slanted bin of apples, where he landed with a solid squelsh. But he was so angry that he was trying to struggle to his feet almost as he landed. Ann, in a terrified, distracted way, noticed that when someone was that angry their eyes really did glitter. Dad’s eyes shone wet and dark with fury.

  The tall man gave him no chance to move. He raised a heavy metal foot and stamped it in Dads midriff, knocking him back into the apples again. Keeping his foot there, he drew the great sword that hung in a green scabbard at his waist and pushed the wicked grey point at Dads throat. “All right, men!” he called. “You can come in now.” His eyes flicked to Ann and Mum and decided they were not worth bothering about.

  This was enough to make Ann and Mum reach for the heaviest potatoes they could find. As the men-at-arms rattled in through the door, Mum raised her potato.

  “Don’t do it,” said the tall man. “Any violence from either of you, and I cut your man’s throat.”

  Mum clutched Ann’s arm. They both had to stand there miserably and watch the steel-armed men chasing in and out, taking everything that was in the shop. They humped out sacks of potatoes, trugs of mushrooms, flat boxes of tomatoes, bundles of leeks, brown bags of swedes, bunches of carrots, strings of garlic, onions, cabbages, lettuces, sprouts and courgettes, all tumbled together in baskets. Then they helped themselves to more baskets and chucked fruit into them: lemons, oranges, pears, grapefruit, apples, bananas and avocados – which they seemed to think of as fruit. From time to time, Ann looked dismally out of the window at one of them roping the latest bag or box to a horse’s back. can’t anyone outside see what’s happening? she wondered. Can’t someone stop them? But nobody did.