The Spirit Well (Bright Empires), Page 4

  Concentrate! he told himself. What did you see?

  Pressing cold hands to his head, he squeezed his eyes shut, and into his mind came the image of his own feet on that otherworldly path . . . walking swiftly, almost running—away from the pool of light, retracing his steps . . . and then he felt himself falling, his foot catching something in the path—a vine maybe, or the root of a tree . . . falling hard, hitting his head . . .

  Kit reached a hand to the back of his skull and felt a tender goose egg there. Yes! He had fallen and struck his head. Of course! That proved it was no dream. He had been there; he had witnessed a miracle. That was it! He had witnessed a miracle of rebirth, or resurrection.

  Instantly, memory snapped sharp and focused once more; his mind filled with clear, precise images. He saw again the wondrous pool; a movement at its edge had warned him to take cover amongst the foliage. He withdrew into the shadows, and Arthur Flinders-Petrie had appeared at the edge of the pool carrying the body of a woman. The woman, clearly dead, had been restored to life by the vivifying waters of that extraordinary pool. Cradled in the arms of Arthur Flinders-Petrie, her corpse had been carried into the water, emerging a moment later fully alive. Kit had seen it with his own eyes, the same eyes that now misted at the thought that the beautiful world he had found was now lost again.

  The memory of that wonder so fleetingly glimpsed and experienced filled him with a longing of such intensity he could hardly breathe. Kit slumped back, holding his throbbing head and feeling immensely sorry for himself until it occurred to him that what had been discovered once could be discovered again. Why not? The first time had been by accident; he had not even been searching. The Well of Souls had found him, so to speak. This time, he would find that miraculous pool and plunge himself into its living, healing water.

  With that in mind, Kit fished the ley lamp from its place in the interior pouch he had sewn into his deerskin shirt. Wilhelmina’s curious brass gizmo was dark now; the little row of holes that glowed bright blue in the presence of telluric activity were black and empty. From this Kit knew the ley portal that had opened to allow him to pass to the other world was no longer active. Just to be sure, he waved the device around the interior of the Bone House. The lamp remained a dark, cold, unlit lump of cast metal. The sense of loss sharpened at the realisation that he would not be able to return to the Spirit Well—at least not yet, not until the ley or portal opened once more. He stuffed the instrument back into the pouch; he would try again later. Resigning himself to waiting, Kit settled back and, listening to the slow, easy rhythm of the sleeping En-Ul, was soon dozing.

  In his dreamy state Kit let his mind roam where it would, and it soon wandered to Wilhelmina. He wondered what she was doing. Was she still searching for him? Did she fear for his safety? As for himself, he had no such fears. He had found a place among the River City dwellers and, aside from the lack of a few obvious creature comforts, Kit was not only surviving but thriving. In fact, in ways he could not have predicted, he was content. He still wanted to go home, eventually, but for now it seemed right to stay. If this was meant to be, he could accept that.

  Thinking of Wilhelmina tirelessly searching for him stirred in Kit a desire to somehow reassure her that he was safe and was content to wait, however long it might take. “I’m okay, Mina,” he murmured as he nodded off. “Don’t worry. Take your time. I’ll be waiting for you.”

  Kit dozed on and off for a while. When he stirred again, it was darker inside the Bone House than before. He yawned and stretched and looked around, then saw that he was being watched.

  “You are awake, En-Ul,” he said aloud, holding in his mind the image of a man waking up.

  The Ancient One gave the customary satisfied grunt that Kit associated with assent, and in his mind’s eye Kit saw the clan sitting by a fire eating meat . . . followed by the image of an empty mouth opening wide.

  “You are hungry?” asked Kit, rubbing his stomach in a pantomime gesture for hunger. “Shall we go back to the camp?” He mimed walking with his fingers against his palm and then pointed in the vague direction of the gorge.

  Again came the grunt of affirmation, and the old chieftain made to rise. Kit helped him sit up. “We can take it slow,” he advised, forming a mental picture of this thought. “There is no hurry.”

  They sat in silence for a time, and then En-Ul moved to crawl out of the hut. Kit followed and emerged in the early twilight. A snowsoftened hush lay upon the forest. He could hear the soft plop of clumps falling from the branches of the trees around them. The air was crisp and tasted of pine. Kit drew a deep breath into his lungs and exhaled, feeling the icy tang on the back of his tongue. En-Ul stood for a moment, gazing around, listening, then turned and began the trek back to the gorge and the safety of the rock ledge where the clan waited.

  Night came upon them long before they reached the valley floor; Kit saw torchlight winking through the trees on the trail leading to the limestone escarpment, and they were soon greeted by members of River City Clan who had come out to welcome them. Once again Kit experienced the uncanny sixth sense of these primitive people; he thought of it as a sort of mental radio that allowed them to communicate with one another instantaneously and over considerable distance. They might have had the vocal acuity of bright toddlers, but telepathically they were wizards.

  Their looks, too, were highly deceptive. A casual observer might reasonably surmise that the typical River City Clan member was a shaggy, lumbering specimen, slow of foot and apprehension, a hulking, ham-fisted brute utterly lacking all human refinements. In actual fact, they were agile and lithe, possessing a peculiar grace all their own. They could move through their forested world in complete silence and near invisibility; they knew how to avail themselves of every source of food on foot, wing, or root; they possessed the gentleness, patience, and long-suffering tolerance worthy of saints. They would never be mistaken for elegant; their stocky, muscular build, thick limbs, and broad bodies were not designed for dance, but for endurance. Shaggy they were, true, but in the months Kit had been with them he was no less hairy; in many ways life was simpler without scissors.

  The clansmen were glad to see them; with much patting and pawing and grunts of satisfaction, the two sojourners were gathered back into the fold. To Kit it felt like a genuine homecoming; he had a place among these people, yes, but in light of his experience at the Well of Souls, he could not help thinking it was something more—that he had some more definite purpose here. What that purpose might be eluded him at the moment, but the feeling was real and inescapable.

  The words of Sir Henry came back to him: No such thing as coincidence.

  Despite all that had happened to him, or maybe because of it, Kit could accept that at face value, thinking, I am meant to be here. Now all he had to do was figure out why.

  The welcome concluded, the greeting party led them back to the winter quarters. The soft flutter of the burning brands and the soft squeak of snow beneath feet swaddled in bearskin were the only sounds to mark their passing. They moved along the river’s edge, now iced over, the snow-covered humps of stones creating a lumpy field; they trooped up the narrow passage along the wall of the gorge to the generous rock ledge that was the clan’s winter home. By the time they tumbled into camp once more, Kit was chilled all the way through. A wide, flat space on the lip of the ledge had been given over to a sizeable campfire, which was kept burning day and night. Sleeping mats made of bundles of dried grass overspread with pelts and furs lay scattered around the perimeter of the fire, and at the back of the ledge two hollows—one for food and one for water—allowed the clansmen to keep ready supplies close at hand.

  Kit threaded his way among the well-wishers and stood as close to the campfire as he dared until the flames warmed him once more. Strips of venison from the haunch of a deer were sizzling on wooden skewers, filling the air with the aroma of roasting meat; the skewers were passed hand to hand. After all had eaten their fill, River City settled in for the night.
Kit sat up for a long time, watching the fire and thinking about what he had experienced in the Bone House and what it meant. Then, tired at last, he squeezed a place in amongst the scattered bodies and slept to the slow tick of smouldering embers.

  It snowed throughout the night and was still snowing the next morning when En-Ul rose and stood before the clan as they huddled around the fire. Kit, like the others, noticed at once—it was not a common action—and all looked in hushed expectation of what the Ancient One would do. Standing before his people, En-Ul looked around and then gave a grunt. Into Kit’s mind came the image of a dimly flickering light and a hand. The hand was red and dripping with blood. Then he saw animals—whole herds of deer and antelope and great ruddy-haired, slow-moving mastodons—all in motion on a great plain of tall grass.

  The image faded and, to Kit’s surprise, the hunters of the clan all rose as one and began swaying back and forth, grunting their approval. Kit watched, hoping for some other sign, but nothing more was forthcoming. Dardok—the one Kit thought of as Big Hunter, the clan leader—rose and took up his spear; he lofted it and gave a low, rumbling call, like that of a bull elk or buffalo. The other hunters acclaimed this by lofting their own spears and repeating the bull roar. Then they left the rock shelter, descending down the narrow passage leading to the valley floor. Dardok was the last to leave, and as he turned to go, En-Ul made a clicking sound in his throat. Dardok paused, something passed between Old Chieftain and Big Hunter, and Kit found himself the object of scrutiny. Dardok gave a grunt of assent, and En-Ul reached out and rested a hand on Kit’s head.

  At the touch, Kit felt a sudden surge of warmth spread through him, and in his mind’s eye he saw himself walking with the hunters. Dardok regarded him expectantly. By this Kit knew he was meant to accompany them on their expedition. Dardok stooped and gathered some embers from the fire, placing them in a vessel made from a hollowed-out bit of wood. He covered the embers with ash to preserve them, then picked up his spear and left the rock ledge.

  Kit followed Big Hunter down the path to the frozen river and into a day bleached white as bone.

  CHAPTER 4

  In Which Confession Is Good for the Soul

  Wilhelmina came to the conclusion that Kit had made good his escape from Burleigh’s murderous clutches, but that something had gone haywire in the leap. Consequently, he had not ended up at the agreed-upon destination. In short, Kit was now lost somewhere in space and time. Fortunately she had thought to retrieve the Skin Map from him before he fled; otherwise that would be lost too. The scrap of human parchment, almost translucent with age, had been recovered by Kit and Thomas Young from the tomb of Anen, High Priest of the Temple of Amun, during the Eighteenth Dynasty. After examining it—she could make nothing of the obscure squiggly symbols scattered across its surface—Mina had wrapped it in a bit of clean linen and hidden it in the iron strongbox bolted to the inside of the clothes chest at the foot of her bed.

  Probably, I should have locked Kit in the strongbox as well, she thought sulkily. His disappearance had caused Wilhelmina no end of concern, and now it was causing her sleepless nights as well. What had happened to Kit? She had given him explicit instructions—where to go, what to do—and the River Ley, as she called it, was tried and true. She knew this because she had personally explored it numerous times and found it wholly reliable, boring even. Never had she experienced the slightest difficulty when traversing it. Added to that, the River Ley led to a very stable part of the world—a place she called simply Mill Valley—for the old grain mill in its deep limestone gorge. It was a peaceable, rustic place that, from all that Mina could tell, was inhabited by gentle souls who tended their flocks of geese and sheep and were scrupulous about minding their own business. What could possibly have gone wrong?

  Of course, knowing Kit, almost anything was possible. She could not begin to guess what he might have done. True, he had fled Prague on the run, chased by Burleigh and his gang. No doubt that had complicated matters somewhat, but she had covered for him on her end and taken care to arrange a fail-safe hiding place. Trust Kit Livingstone to bollix things up big time.

  Even given the fraught situation surrounding his disappearance, she should still have been able to locate him when the heat died down. The fact that after repeated attempts in numerous time periods she had not been able to locate him—and she did keep trying, faithfully, whenever she had a spare moment—was deeply worrying. If Kit had been wounded or worse, killed, she would doubtless have found his body on the trail when she searched the ley on the other side. Dead or injured, his body might have been dragged off somewhere by a wild animal; but there would have been signs of that, and in numerous searches she had turned up nothing to indicate a mauling or a struggle of any kind. Added to this, she had Giles’ eyewitness testimony that Kit got clean away, which she had no reason to doubt—all the more because her sources indicated that Burleigh, for all his trying, had not been able to find Kit alive or dead either. The current report that Kit, in a frantic attempt to escape capture, had leapt into the river and tried to swim to freedom was merely a ruse concocted to hide the fact that he had escaped via Mina’s ley line. And just supposing Kit had panicked and done something so harebrained as jumping into the river and getting himself drowned, his soggy corpse would have fetched up downstream. Just to be sure, she had made discreet inquiries with the local officials in the towns and villages all along the Moldau. No one had found so much as a washed-up shoe.

  So now, weeks later, frustrated and perturbed, Wilhelmina was at the end of her expertise. She had one last recourse. If that did not succeed, there was no hope. In the meantime she applied herself to learning the subtleties of the new and improved ley lamp—the upgraded version of the one she had slipped to Kit to aid his escape. The new model, like the first, had been supplied by her friend and co-conspirator Gustavus Rosenkreuz, a young alchemist in the emperor’s court. Rudolf II maintained a cabal of palace alchemists charged with the duty of lifting the veil on various mysteries of the universe, chief among them immortality and how to achieve it. This august and imposing work was led by Herr Doctor Bazalgette, one of the emperor’s favourites, and Gustavus was his much put-upon personal assistant.

  Naturally, such blindingly arcane labour necessitated regular refreshment, which the alchemists took at the Grand Imperial; the weirdly cloaked-and-hatted coterie maintained a ready presence in the Kaffeehaus, and Wilhelmina made certain they always had a good table and the best of Etzel’s sweet pastries. Through Gustavus she supplied the alchemists with the “bitter earth”—spent coffee grounds—that they valued so highly for their obscure experiments. By way of reciprocation, if not revenge for his neglect at the hands of his superiors, young Rosenkreuz supplied her with useful information and, happily, another illicit copy of Burleigh’s latest ley-finding instrument. If his lordship ever found out that Mina had a spy inside the palace—the same person, in fact, seconded to fashion the earl’s special devices for him—the full extent of Wilhelmina’s deception would be revealed and her life would be forfeit. She shuddered to think what the Earl of Sutherland would do if he ever found out she possessed copies of his gizmos. Whatever form it took, she had no doubt his revenge would be complete, and deeply unpleasant.

  One bright day in early winter, a month or so after Kit’s disappearance, Wilhelmina pulled on her coat and shawl and took the mule and wagon out into the countryside to experiment with the new and improved ley lamp. Despite repeated efforts, she had yet to discover the extent of its alleged enhancements. She did not doubt improvements had been made; according to Rosenkreuz, Lord Burleigh’s investment in the new device had been considerable. Everything from the rare elements that powered the lamp—including gold, platinum, and other precious metals, and more exotic earths like radium, lithium, phosphorus, and some even the alchemists had never seen—had been obtained by the earl at great expense. Presumably, the increased benefit was thought to be worth the high price paid to realise it. The improvements were
there, waiting to be discovered. Mina just did not know what they were.

  Upon reaching the River Ley, she turned the mule onto the narrow path that ran between a double row of beech trees, arrow straight—its end, if there was one, lost in the shadowed distance. She tethered the mule and fitted the sturdy animal with a nosebag so it could eat while she was gone. Then, tying her shawl more tightly around her shoulders, she pulled the new ley lamp from her skirt pocket. The basic size and shape was much the same as the original—the one she had sent away with Kit: made of brass, burnished with a swirling filigree of swooping lines connecting tiny holes. It was bluntly rounded, like a water-smoothed river stone, and big enough to fit comfortably in the palm of the hand but, unlike a stone, heavier for its size. The new version had more holes and a series of small nubby protrusions—for grip? Controls of some sort? Wilhelmina could not say.

  She began walking at a slow, steady pace, holding the lamp comfortably before her. She had taken but a few steps when, as expected, the little row of holes along the curved side began to glow with the distinctive indigo light. This, Mina knew, indicated the presence of a ley. She felt the small hairs on the nape of her neck prickle to the energy around her. Not wishing to make a jump just yet, she stopped in the path.

  While she waited for the energy to dissipate, she found herself thinking about Etzel back at the Kaffeehaus and what a patient, understanding man he was—a random thought, for no apparent reason. The new ley lamp flickered to life. A heretofore unrecognised row of tiny holes lit up with a pale yellowish glow. On closer examination, Mina saw that the series of holes in the brass carapace ran completely around the perimeter of the instrument. The light was weak, and would have been almost imperceptible in stronger sunlight, but in amongst the trees she could make it out well enough.