“It varies,” said Merlin. Susan noticed his eyes kept flickering to either side, alert for something in that nothingness, beyond the narrow way.
“It won’t be long,” said Vivien, with confidence. She was only a few steps in front, but she didn’t pause or turn her head behind to talk. “Remember to keep walking along the road, no matter what.”
“Like the old straight track in Highgate Wood,” said Susan to Merlin. “Does that mean there’s something like the Shuck out there?”
“Not like the Shuck,” said Vivien, momentarily reassuring Susan before she continued. “But there are entities entirely unrooted from the world, who might seek to return by using us as vessels,” replied Vivien, her face set on the road ahead. “They cannot harm us if we keep to the way and do not respond to their beguilement.”
“Uh, okay,” said Susan. She sped up a bit, to keep closer to Vivien. The darkness beyond the road felt even more inimical now she knew there definitely were things in its dark reaches that might wish her harm.
“I need to tell you quite a lot,” said Vivien. “We might not be able to talk in Silvermere. I’m not sure what will happen there. Time moves strangely and it’s weird in other ways. When I’ve been before, some of the people I was with didn’t seem to be there at the same time, even though we went together. And some came back separately as well.”
“What do you mean?” asked Susan nervously. Her mind immediately leaped ahead to being left in this dark void alone. Would the sky be bright, and the road here, if it weren’t for Vivien and her shining right hand?
“The Grail-Keeper decides what occurs in Silvermere, who may come and go, and on what terms,” said Vivien. “Don’t worry, we’ll definitely get there and it is much easier leaving, the Grail-Keeper sorts that out. But we might not be able to all talk together and we might be separated coming back. So you need to know what I learned from Aunt Helen and Aunt Zoë; a great deal of information has finally come in, and even though I don’t know what it means yet, at least we’re finally getting to grips—”
“You got through, then?” interrupted Merlin. “Thurston and Merrihew didn’t commandeer the call?”
“Thurston cut in right at the end, in a total flap, ordering us to surrender to the nearest police station and wait for ‘older and wiser counsel,’” said Vivien. It was weird her speaking without looking back, thought Susan; it almost made her voice seem disembodied. “But I talked to Zoë and Helen first, and they have dropped everything to work on this. Susan, the library card was in the name of ‘Coniston comma Rex.’”
“Rex!” exclaimed Susan. “So my dad’s name is Rex?”
“Not exactly,” continued Vivien. “As soon as she saw that, Helen remembered where she’d seen the drawing on the cigarette case. It’s—look down!”
Susan obeyed. She had a split-second glimpse of a vast shadow blotting out the moon and stars, and two brilliant and strangely fascinating violet eyes before she refocused on the back of Vivien’s shoes. She kept looking at them. The shadow withdrew, but she could feel a presence nearby, and a sheen of violet light persisted in her vision.
“Don’t look and you’ll be fine,” said Merlin, close behind her. His words were somewhat belied by how swiftly he had drawn the old sword, which he held high in his left hand, and his right hand closed more tightly on Susan’s.
“Keep your eyes down. As Vivien said, it can’t touch us on the road, only lure us to leave it.”
“What is it?” asked Susan. She hoped she sounded calm and conversational. She could feel the thing’s presence, keeping pace with them, a vast shape of shadow that loomed as close as it dared to the road.
“Something ancient and forgotten, something banished long ago,” said Vivien. “Pay it no attention. As I was saying, Helen recognized the etching on your cigarette case as a stylized work after J. M. W. Turner’s A View in the Lake District.”
“And?” asked Susan. She was finding it hard not to look aside; it took considerable effort to keep her gaze focused on Vivien’s back. There was something about those violet eyes that she wanted to see again. . . .
“Head down!” snapped Merlin.
Susan almost wrenched her neck looking down again. She hadn’t realized she was starting to look up, which was deeply disturbing.
“So, Turner, A View in the Lake District,” she said, talking more loudly to distract herself from the lure of the creature who stalked beside them.
“It’s commonly believed to be a view of the Old Man of Coniston,” said Vivien.
“Which is a mountain,” said Susan.
“True,” said Vivien. “But the Old Man of Coniston is also one of the Ancient Sovereigns. And ‘Rex’ means ‘King’ in Latin.”
“My father is the Old Man of Coniston?” blurted out Susan. “That’s almost as bad as being a stone.”
But though she said that, there was something about the phrase “the Old Man of Coniston” that resonated inside her; she felt that fizzy, expectant sensation grow stronger, as if recognizing that its time drew ever nearer.
“He’s not actually the mountain,” said Merlin. “I mean, he kind of . . . um . . . inhabits it metaphysically; it’s the locus of his power. Did the aunts have anything else to add?”
“Yes,” replied Vivien. “I hadn’t got very far with the microfiche copies of the Harshton and Hoole records when I heard about the incursion at . . . at the safe house. But I asked Cousin Linda to keep going, and to tell Helen what she found. Which was almost nothing, which is suspicious in itself. A very selective fire, obviously—”
“What did she find?” asked Susan urgently. She was having trouble keeping her eyes on Vivien’s feet, and now she thought she could hear faint music coming from the darkness, lilting, soft music that made her want to turn her head to catch it better, to fix the melody in her mind.
“A carbon copy of a lockbox inventory at the main Birmingham workshop that included two silver-gilt cigarette cases, ‘for purposes of propitiation,’ and they were marked as delivered.”
“What does that mean?” asked Susan loudly. She shook her head to try to get the music out of it. It was like the worst earworm ever, made more intriguing because she couldn’t quite make all of it out. The urge to stop and listen and turn her head was intense, like an unbearable itch. Distraction was the only thing that kept her from pursuing that music, from looking at the eyes she knew were mere feet away, staring at her. . . .
“And two? Why two cigarette cases?” added Susan. “Two! Two!”
Behind her, Merlin started to sing Gilbert and Sullivan again, “A British Tar Is a Soaring Soul” from H.M.S. Pinafore in a gruff, very flat voice quite different from the tuneful baritone he’d employed back in the hotel. It was, Susan realized, more effective in blocking the siren call of the creature that accompanied them in the shadows by the road. The otherworldly music latched on to the true notes, but was repelled by flats and sharps.
“Nearly all mythic entities can be propitiated or distracted with gifts; it’s in their nature,” said Vivien. She had adopted a droning, boring lecture tone, again clearly a tactic to counter the siren call. “They love precious metals and jewelry, and fine weapons and so on, which Harshton and Hoole make to help us when we need to do deals.”