“So the booksellers were trying to organize something between my father and . . . who?” asked Susan. She was almost shouting, but neither Merlin nor Vivien objected. It helped block the lure.
“I don’t know,” said Vivien, with great frustration. “But someone does. I mean, one of us.”
“Thurston, I reckon,” said Merlin. He took a breath and sang on, “‘And his fist be ever ready, for a knock-down blow!’”
“Maybe,” replied Vivien. “It might not even be one of the Greats.”
“So my father is the Old Man of Coniston,” shouted Susan. “The Old Man of Conisto-on-on-on-on!”
“It seems that is precisely so,” droned Vivien. “Let me cast my mind back to the Index of Ancient Sovereigns and Principalities of England. I cannot entirely recall the entry on your father, because he is not listed as malevolent, and we only made a particular study of the malevolents, of which there are approximately six hundred and nineteen. As of 1926, when the last edition of the Index was published. A new one is somewhat overdue.”
“‘He never should bow down to a domineering frown!’” roared Merlin.
“How interesting!” shouted Susan. “Do go on!”
The alluring melody was growing stronger, too, attempting to break through the cacophony of Merlin’s singing, Vivien’s droning lecture, and Susan’s shouting. It was beautiful, but incomplete, and every part of Susan ached to hear it properly, to give in and listen to the most beautiful song she had ever partially heard. But she resisted it, and the violet eyes, opening her mouth to make a soft coughing sound in time to Merlin’s singing, and lidding her eyes so that all she saw were the backs of Vivien’s heels.
“The Old Man of Coniston rules two leagues north and west of his eponymous mountain, and two leagues south and east of the lake.”
“How far is a league?”
“A little under three and a half miles,” said Vivien.
“‘His nose should pant and his lip should curl,’” roared Merlin. “‘His cheeks should flame and his brow should furl!’”
“Would that include Lake Windermere?”
“The western shore at least, in my considered opinion,” replied Vivien, very dry and matter-of-fact. “Ah . . . the Fenris of Onundar Myrr. The Sacred Wolves of England do not come under any particular rule, but they could be bound for a time at least by a sufficiently powerful Old One.”
“The Fenris that kidnapped me was most definitely compelled to do so,” shouted Susan. “Merlin did think Father might have sent her! I don’t agree.”
“The extremely distinguished and knowledgeable even-handed Helen thought it most likely your father is no longer extant,” replied Vivien, still talking in her stilted, pedantic fashion. Susan had to struggle to hear her over Merlin’s raucous singing and the melodious siren. “Or you would not have inherited whatever power has begun to stir within you.”
“I think he’s alive!” shouted Susan. “And I don’t think I have any power. I sense something sort of waiting inside me, but nothing more than that. Except I feel very strongly I need to go to my father, which suggests he’s still around. Maybe he did send the Fenris to fetch me. . . .”
“Your old man isn’t an inimical one, and he has no power in old Luan-Dun,” sang Merlin, continuing the tune of “A British Tar” but changing the words. “Wouldn’t have killed the men, or born monsters from an old caul-dren.”
“My colleague has a dismal rhyme but he makes an important point,” droned Vivien. “Whether the Fenris was sent by your father or not, I believe that after we take counsel from the Grail-Keeper it may prove our most efficacious course is to go to the Old Man of Coniston and—”
Mid-sentence, Vivien vanished from the road ahead. A moment later, Susan felt the ground beneath her feet disappear. The alluring music stopped abruptly and the darkness and the violet-eyed shadow were replaced in that same moment by warm, golden sunshine, reflecting from the waters of a clear but reedy-edged lake.
Susan stood on the very edge, in two inches of crystal-clear water, with sand and pebbles underfoot and tiny silver fish circumnavigating her Docs. Ahead of her, there was a narrow strip of beach before the ground rose to a wooded island, or perhaps a peninsula, since she could not see whether it joined some mainland on the other side. The island was at least a mile long, the lake bending around it at either end. Whether that was south and north or east and west or something else Susan had no clue, because despite the pleasantly warm sunshine, she could not see the sun, no matter where she looked.
Behind her, the lake extended into a hazy distance, any terrain beyond invisible. Certainly she couldn’t see any mountains or hills, and the lake was far too wide for it to be the Lake District of England. Besides, she instinctively knew this was somewhere else.
She saw a cormorant dive and come back up with a wriggling fish. The wind moved across the lake, but there were only small and gentle waves. In fact, it was impossible to imagine this place ever had any wilder weather, the lake becoming storm-tossed and dangerous.
Presumably this was Silvermere. Something about the perfection of the golden light and the warmth of the air, with the faintest touch of pleasant coolness from the breeze, suggested this was a fabled place. It fairly oozed with peace and calm and a deep sense of rest. In other circumstances, Susan would have happily taken off her shoes and waded in the shallows, basked in the sunshine, watched the natural world go by.
There was no sign of Vivien and Merlin. Or anyone else.
But there was a path ahead, a well-trodden way between the alders that leaned over the narrow sand and pebble-strewn beach. The path then went on between two protruding gray stones into the forest of oak and beech, sweet chestnut and rowan, and there were bluebells peeking up amidst the grass between the trees. A wood warbler flashed by, a fleeting glimpse of white and green.
Susan stepped up out of the water, and onto the path.
Chapter Twenty
I ’ave a bright new sixpence
I found upon a sty
And with this wealth I will go hence
You know the reason why
THE PATH ROSE STEEPLY FOR ABOUT TWENTY YARDS, WHERE THE ground leveled out and the wood thinned a little, still with gray upthrust rocks sticking out here and there. A little way ahead, a larger rock protruded, and a young girl sat on top of it. A brown-skinned, dark-haired, black-eyed girl of perhaps nine or ten, wearing a homespun smock of natural wool, her feet bare. In sharp contrast to her simple clothing, she had heavy gold bracelets on each wrist, beautifully made ornaments of many twisted gold wires wound together.
A small silver-gray hawk sat on her shoulder, talons piercing the smock but surprisingly not the skin beneath, for there was no blood. It looked at Susan with a fierce black-pupiled yellow eye, and launched itself into the sky.
The girl raised a hand in greeting. Susan stopped a good distance away and eyed her cautiously.
“Hello,” she said. “I’m Susan. Who are you?”
The girl stood up on top of the rock. Her knees were skinned and her feet were dirty.
“I am the Grail-Keeper,” she intoned, making Susan jump backwards, because her voice was not that of a young girl, but a much older and deeper-voiced man.