Seaward

  “The rope,” she said.

  “You’re right.” He pulled it from his pack, and they roped themselves together once more. Westerly shouldered the coil and raised a hand, peering past her. “Now—I found you from this way, so the inside of the path is over there. Go slowly.”

  Hands out, groping through the whirling snow, they moved forward until they found the rock. The cold bit through their clothes; Cally thought with longing of the warm jacket in her pack. Westerly tugged at the line round her waist. “This way.”

  He was moving cautiously downhill. She held back, hissing at him. “West, no! That face—”

  Westerly said, low and determined, “Lugan said to her, you can’t keep them if they wish to leave. Remember? Whatever awful things she dreams up, she can’t attack us. Come on—just stay close to the rock.”

  Blindly they shuffled down the slope, pressing against the rocky wall, shaking off the snow as it spread itself on them. Cally looked fearfully sideways for a glimpse of the stone pillar, but there was nothing. At last Westerly paused.

  “There’s a corner here—the first turn in the path. We can’t go on like this —we’ll go over the edge. Let’s get the tent out.”

  Fighting the heavy snow that came blanketing down into every fold and crevice, they had the thin, tough covering stretched over the frame just as the wind hit them. In a moment the snow was whipping at them as if driven by a blizzard; as if it were alive and had realised, just too late, that they should be stopped. The light tent-frame lifted and tipped; Westerly clutched at it. “Quick! Get inside!”

  They dived into the tiny space, trying to shake off the snow as they went. The wind howled over the tent as if in frustration, and in moments the heavy snow was piling in drifts outside, covering the curving roof.

  Cally was scooping out blown snow before it could melt. “The wind helped us once—now it’s the opposite.”

  “The same with everything. The sun, the river.”

  “They belong to her.”

  “But to Lugan too,” Westerly said. He pulled out his blanket, and Ryan’s jacket and shawl for Cally, and they wrapped themselves like cocoons.

  “Lugan’s folk,” Cally said. “We keep hearing that we’re Lugan’s folk. But Lugan’s dead.”

  “I don’t think so. I don’t think she can kill him. That wave—it was as if they were playing some terrible game.” He stopped abruptly, hearing his own words, remembering the game of chess.

  The wind hurled an icy spatter of snow against the roof of the tent. They sat hunched in the dim, cold light that filtered through from the whirling grey-white world outside. There was a layer of darkness at the base of the tent, where the snowdrifts were rising.

  Cally felt suddenly dreadfully tired, as if the life were draining out of her. She said miserably, “We’ll never get away. Every time we start to get somewhere, she stops us.”

  “We know where the sea is,” Westerly said. “We saw it.”

  “That was just to make it worse. To show us what we couldn’t have. And then she sent the snow, and it’s getting worse and worse and we’re never going to get out. . . .” Her voice tailed away.

  Westerly said firmly, “We’re just going to wait it out. It can’t go on for ever. You’d feel better if you weren’t so tired—lie down, come on. Get some rest.” He folded the flap of his pack over its knobbly contents and pushed it under Cally’s head for a pillow as she lay curled up on the tent floor. “Are you warm enough?”

  “I’m all right.” Cally’s voice was muffled, her back turned toward him. “Oh West. You should have gone on your own, that time you wanted to.”

  “You crazy? Who’d have pulled me up when I fell over the rock?”

  “You wouldn’t have fallen over, if you’d been on your own.”

  “I wouldn’t have trusted Peth either. So now where would I be?”

  Cally made a small snuffling sound that might have been crying; he reached out a hand to her back, then hesitated and withdrew it again.

  She said, “You’ve done much more for me than I have for you. And there’s all the others who’ve done things, just to get us to the sea, and what’s happened to them? That dragon was killed—and Lugan—and Peth—”

  Westerly said positively, “Lugan’s not dead.”

  “We don’t know that.” Cally’s voice was thick with misery. “There’s no point in it all. My mother and father are dead and there’s no point in anything.”

  Her shoulders were shaking. In swift overwhelming concern Westerly slid down and put an arm round her from behind, holding her close to him. “Don’t, love. Come on, Cal.”

  Choking, she shook her head violently. “There’s no point, there’s no point. I just want to go to sleep and not wake up any more.”

  Westerly felt desperate to comfort her, and at the same time his body stirred at the closeness of her, at the curve of her breast against his hand, and the smell of her hair. He made himself bring his arm back from holding her, and he stroked her hair and kissed the back of her neck. “We’re going to the sea, Cal, we’re going to get there. Remember what Peth said? Whatever happens, he said, believe that the journey is worth taking, and then you will reach its end.”

  Snow thudded heavy against the roof of the tent, falling in a wave from the rock above, and the curve of the roof swelled down ominously towards them. Cally did not move. She said in a small dull voice, “It’s never going to stop.”

  He cupped his hand over her shoulder, his face against her hair. “Oh Cally, Cally—” Lying close, he rocked her gently as if she were a small child; but he was fiercely aware that she was not a child, and he would have turned her round to his own wanting body if his own words had not still been echoing in his head. Remember Peth said . . . remember what Peth said. . . .

  What had Peth said? He knew the small insistent voice must have some purpose, but he could not understand. What had Peth said that could help stop the snow?

  Now listen well, and always remember. There is a calling you may do. . . .

  “Cally!” Westerly shouted.

  He swung upright, and scrambled to his feet, lurching against the tent wall. It swung, heavy with snow. Cally sat up, her eyes wide and frightened. The look on her face caught at him, but he was too excited to stop.

  “I’ve got it, I’ve got it!”

  He bent beside her to his pack, and scrabbled inside. Pulling out the three white bones, he knelt down and ripped open the fastening of the tent-flap. Snow came whipping in on the wind, and Cally made a small sound of distress —but then stopped herself, watching, hunched under her shawl.

  Carefully Westerly planted the three bones in the heavy snow outside, standing them upright in a triangle, pointing at the sky. Then he clambered out of the tent, stepping over them. The wind blew his hair into his eyes; in a moment snow was clinging to his shoulders, driving cold down his neck. He stood there happy and oblivious in the whirling white world, and he said, loudly and clearly, like a calling:

  “Water and fire and air, by these we live,

  By rain and sun and wind.

  Oh sky, I am in need.

  Send me the sun.”

  The wind dropped. With the end of its howling, echoing shriek, silence fell on the snow like a blanket. Holding her breath, Cally crawled forward to the door of the tent, and saw Westerly standing rigid, legs apart, arms spread, gazing up at the sky as the snowflakes fell into his eyes.

  But the snowflakes were growing less, and somewhere in the whiteness a brighter glow was beginning, somewhere out beyond the path where the tent stood. Then out there, as they watched, there was a blaze of sunlight and a flash of blue, and they looked up, and saw the huge bank of grey cloud that had covered their world boiling like steam, curling in on itself, rushing away across the sky as if driven by a great wind. Yet they felt no wind. They felt only the warmth of the sun, embracing them, hanging fiery in a clear sky, glittering on the still snow that lay all around them on rock and path and tree.

>   Westerly looked at Cally, and spread his hands.

  “Peth,” he said. “He showed me how.”

  “It’s gone,” Cally said in wonder. “It’s all gone.” She stood up, slowly. “Oh West. I’m sorry. I was . . . in a pit.”

  “Hey,” he said. “Taranis put you there.” He swung round to the tent. “Come on, let’s get this off.” He began cheerfully sweeping armfuls of snow down to the ground.

  Cally helped him. When the roof was clear they paused, looking over the mounded edge of the path. Between the green hills on the horizon there was the glimmer of the sea still, and below it the distant land was hazed with green and purple and brown as it had been before. But over all the mountain the snow lay thick and glittering, mounded white on every branch of every tree, masking the crevices of the steep dropping hillside with smooth rounded drifts.

  “It’s so beautiful,” Cally said. “And a few moments ago it could have killed us.”

  “Speciality of the country,” Westerly said. “The murderous beauty, the beautiful murderer. Just like the owner of the property.” He looked down the precipitous hillside, all its angles smoothed now by snow. “And we can’t even get away yet. The path’s buried.”

  But by the time they had dismantled the tent, discovered that they were hungry and eaten the last of Ryan’s food, the path was clear. Looking down, they could see it written in a dark zig-zag pattern through the white snow, as if the beaten earth had itself grown warm enough to melt its way through to the sun. Rivulets of water ran down the path from the dripping, dwindling snowdrifts.

  Bare-armed in the hot sun, they set off down the hillside to the green land waiting below.

  CHAPTER 17

  Halfway down the hill, they heard the sound of water moving much faster than the tiny trickle about their feet; a spring ran out of the rock, cascading down in a long miniature waterfall. Twice their criss-crossing path led across its course, so that they ran laughing through the spray. At the foot of the hill the fall splashed into a deep green pool, irresistible in the hot sun. Cally and Westerly swam, yelping at the coldness of the water; washed the dirtiest of their clothes with the soap from Westerly’s pack, and spread them on the bushes to dry.

  Cally sat listening to a bird calling unseen from the trees overhead: chink-chink , chink-chink , clear and bright, as if it were trying to rival the splash of the waterfall. She said, “It’s ages since we heard birds sing.”

  Westerly was lying on his back in the sun with his eyes closed. He opened them a slit. “Want to know something weird?”

  “Everything’s weird.”

  “Well. Yes. But I swear the sun’s hardly moved since we were on top of that ridge.”

  Cally looked up; then all around, at the long lush grass and full-leaved trees. Tall red spikes of flowers grew at the water’s edge, and from a tangle of bushes nearby the heavy scent of honeysuckle drifted through the air.

  “It’s summer. A long summer day that just goes on and on.”

  Westerly closed his eyes again. “I’d like to lie here for ever.”

  Cally said slowly, “I suppose we could, too. That’s just what she wanted.”

  He sat up, frowning. “You think we’re still in her country?”

  “Where else could we be?”

  “I don’t know. I just felt we’d . . . left it behind. Up there.”

  “I think it reaches all the way to the sea,” Cally said. “This is the same as the other part, really. It’s like her two faces.”

  Westerly looked at her. She sat hugging her knees, wearing the fine-woven white blouse and brown woollen skirt that had been in Ryan’s pack. Her newly-washed hair was loose over her shoulders, glinting in the sun. He wanted to touch it.

  Cally sensed his gaze; she felt a prickling down her spine, as she had earlier when she had watched him lying face down on the grass, brown-skinned, wearing nothing but a frayed pair of jeans. She scrambled up and went to feel the clothes spread on the bushes. “They’re dry.”

  Westerly got reluctantly to his feet and stuffed his clothes into his pack as she handed them over. He said, “At least we can follow water to the sea again.”

  From the green pool a stream ran quietly away through grasses and small trees, and the path that had led them down the mountain curved round and went on unbroken at the stream’s side. They walked together through the sunshine, leaving the music of the waterfall behind, hearing only the lazy hum of insects and the bright chirruping of birds who seemed to follow as they went, darting overhead from tree to tree.

  Westerly said abruptly, “You don’t really know your parents are dead.”

  They walked on in silence for a while. Then Cally said quietly, “Yes I do. I do now. It’s not so terrible as you seeing your mother die, but it’s the same.”

  “But Taranis coming for them doesn’t mean they. . . . Taranis isn’t real. Nothing from this world is real.”

  “You came into it through a real door,” Cally said. “I came into it through a real mirror.”

  “Hum,” Westerly said. He pulled at a stem of grass as he walked, and chewed on it.

  Cally said, “That’s what you always say when you know something’s right even though you wish it wasn’t.”

  “What?”

  “ ‘Hum.’ ”

  Westerly smiled, but he said soberly, “I do wish it wasn’t right.” He fell a few paces behind her as they passed a low-hanging tree, its branches stroking the stream. “Cally—if you know you won’t find them, why are you still going to the sea?”

  “Because Ryan gave me a message to take, and I promised,” Cally said. Then she added, very low, so that behind her back he could only just hear, “And because you’re going.”

  He caught up with her again and took her hand, and they went on along the path, beside the murmuring water, walking with their own thoughts, until ahead of them the sound of the water seemed to change, and grow. The sky was clear blue overhead, the sun still high; rounded green hills rose in the distance on either side of them as if they were travelling through a broad valley. Then they came out of the trees that fringed the path and saw that before them their small stream poured itself into a wide slow-moving brown river, and that the path too merged into a wide stone-paved road. Road and river stretched ahead, winding gently, masked by trees so that they could not see what lay on the horizon. But they could see that the road was filled with people, walking.

  Cally and Westerly paused, wondering. There was no sound but the song of the birds and the slow-speaking river; not one of the figures walking down the road spoke to any other, and their feet seemed to make no noise. But the broad highway was crammed with them, hundreds of them, thousands, walking, a long crowd flowing as if it too were a river. There were children, old men and women, people of every age and size and race. At the nearest edge, passing them, they saw in succession an old man wrinkled as a prune, wearing a turban and white robes, a woman with fair skin and yellow hair, a long-haired boy their own age in a nail-studded leather jacket, a tall black man in a business suit, a small Japanese girl jumping rope—all walking, together and yet separate, gazing ahead.

  Westerly said tentatively to the man in the suit, “Sir—” But he walked by as if he had not heard; no one in all the endless moving throng gave a glance to the two of them, standing there amazed and watching. They walked by, silent and slow, and on all the faces there was the same expression: a dazed look of wondering discovery, happy and bemused.

  The river murmured, the birds sang, and high overhead a small hawk hung in the air, motionless, hovering.

  Westerly and Cally stood astonished, watching the broad river slowly flowing, the river of people moving silently along at its side. They could not see where the highway came from, or where it ended; it reached on into the distance and all its length was filled with the endless polyglot crowd. The same instinct took both of them at the same moment, and they stepped forward onto the surface of the road and joined the walkers, keeping pace with the
m, hand in hand.

  They never knew the time of the walking. Once they had joined the crowd, it seemed to them as if the road were itself moving forward, flowing as the river flowed, and they were caught up in a kind of quiet exhilaration, and saw on one another’s faces the same look that was on all the faces all around. On through the green country they walked, among their silent companions, and gradually they began to feel a freshness in the lazy summer air, and to hear the sound of sea gulls crying, distant in the sky.

  They saw that the river beside which they walked was growing broader, filling the valley, edged now with flat banks of sand on which small long-legged seabirds stalked, dipping their straight-beaked heads down to the shallows as Peth had bent his head to the flowers. The sand lay golden in the sun, the river now was blue as the sky. The voices of the gulls were louder, a plaintive curving calling, and they could see the white wings flocking, wheeling, further ahead.

  Then they rounded a bend in the river, and looking down its course they saw open before them the flat blue horizon of the sea.

  The road climbed; the bobbing heads of the crowd were rising, ahead. Forced to the edge of the valley by the broadening river, the highway was carved here into a ledge of the hillside, and as the crowd flowed along it, Cally and Westerly could see the sea and the great blue-gold estuary of the river set out below them like a promise.

  On the road itself, grey roofs were rising now at either side: small stone houses lined the wide street. There was no sign of any occupants, but bright flowers were massed everywhere round their doors, blue and gold and red and white, fuchsias and hydrangeas and black-eyed Susans, roses and wallflowers, sweet-scented, golden-brown.

  The gulls cried strong and loud; they heard the creak of boats at their moorings, the clash of metal, and voices calling; and ahead of them was the harbour.

  It was huge. Hundreds of boats lay at anchor, or tied up at the long jetties. There were long sleek streamlined cruise-boats, there were tall-masted square-riggers; there were junks, dhows, dinghies, like a chart of all boats from all ages and all seas. But between the boats and the thronging crowd, an immense stone gateway stood.