Arcadia (65 page)

“It's all right,” Marina says to Gav. “It was just a man, you see. Men do what we want them to. Get up.”

The man hauls himself weakly to his feet. It's the leader of the Pack, the same man Rory saw with the mask before, when the bad god turned him into the beast; the sharp-faced one with the foreign accent. He sways as he stands up. He looks ill.

“You,” he says, staring at Marina. His face fills with something that could be dread or could be guilt. He stumbles, turns, and runs towards the beach, dodging past Gav and Per.

Per roars and raises his staff. The aura wreathing around it surges brighter, like embers when you blow on them. He grasps it in both hands and swings it to point at Marina, a gesture of unmistakable malevolence. Rory looks at Gav in panic:
Do something!
Someone's got to do something. Should he do it himself? Rush forward and knock the staff out of Per's leprous fists?

Gav's smiling. Properly smiling. Rory's never seen him do anything like it before.

Per begins to growl a strange word.

“No,” Marina says. “Quiet.”

The word chokes in the dead man's throat.

“Let them go,” she says. “Actually, no. I'll do it.”

The staff drops with a startling clatter onto the causeway. Per stands there with his arms out. Suddenly he looks as if the fires have consumed him inside. He's wasted, hollow.

“He was a man too, you see,” Marina says. She comes forward to pick up the staff. “All of them were. Except poor Gwen, but she's not part of this anymore.”

Gav finds his voice at last. “Marina,” he says. “You've grown.”

The clamor among the Riders becomes whoops and yells. A group of them are pushing down the ramp onto the beach. They're hurrying. He can definitely see Soph now, taller than the rest, wearing her patchwork armor. She survived; she's alive. She's near the front but horses are slipping and squeezing past each other. The man running along the causeway sees his way blocked by the tide of mounted women and skids to a stop, but it's already too late for him. There's Ellie at the front now, alive too. She couldn't look more alive, in fact, lifting herself out of the saddle as she drives her horse into a gallop, outpacing the others. She's not bothering with the whooping and shouting, she's all business. Even Marina stops to watch for a moment as Ellie brings her horse up onto the causeway and rides the man down. He crumples under the charge. Rory can hear the air go out of him and the crunch of his bones. Ellie reins the horse in and turns it with amazing speed. It rears up, front hooves pawing, and drops on the man again, and then the mass of Riders catch up with her and they're all on him, screaming, stamping, stabbing.

Ignoring the carnage now, Marina picks up the staff. Per's arms drop. His whole body shivers and goes slack. He falls to his knees. The voice in his mouth emits a kind of strangled sigh.

“You,” Gav says, and he's grinning from ear to ear now, “are amazing.”

“Do you remember that time in the woods?” Marina says. “The day Daddy drowned? You made these spirits leave the mask. I understand what you did now. This ring makes everything open, doesn't it? Come out.” She addresses the last words to no one Rory can see. She might even be talking to the staff. “Come out and be seen.”

Light flares. Horses whinny. Rory has to shield his eyes. When he rubs them clear a moment later, Per's fallen face-first on the stone, dead as the rusting ships on the beach. A man-shaped ghost of flame is hovering in the air in front of Marina. It's twice her size. It shimmers and burns with silent glory, flickering, restless, consuming and re-forming itself. Its head is the image of an old tired man.

“We would not have our freedom,” it whispers. The Riders have fallen quiet, transfixed by the phantom's appearance, watching from the end of the causeway, so Rory can hear the whisper quite clearly, though it's as dry as the cackle of the blaze behind.

“You wanted to stay a man,” Marina says. She's completely unafraid. She's exactly as Rory's always known her, implacable and beautiful as the sea. “You still want that, don't you? Even now.”

“We know the secrets of heaven and the lightless places,” it says. It's the hiss of a broom across a slate floor. “We will serve you without question. Only let us have life still.”

“And because you're still trying to be a man,” Marina says, “I rule you.” She folds her naked arms as if suddenly uncomfortable.

“We would be ruled. We are obedient.”

She shakes her head, brief and awkward, almost pained. “That's just wanting to be master, but upside down. I know what men do.” She points at the phantom with her left hand, the one wearing the ring. “You're free,” she says. “Die.”

She puts the staff down and steps on it. Just lightly, not stamping or anything like that, but the staff cracks like glass and snaps in half. The phantom frays into a thousand tongues of flame, its old man's face surviving only long enough to close its old man's eyes before it's not any kind of shape at all, just windblown leaves of transparent fire, then sparks splintering from the leaves, then nothing at all. One piece of the broken staff rolls slowly across the causeway and drops off the edge, bouncing down to join the plastic and polystyrene and flotsam snagged on mats of kelp.

Marina looks different. She's not glowing as brightly. Rory looks over his shoulder and sees that the volcanic inferno on the Mount has faded to embers. A massive pall of smoke stretches away over the sea.

Gav and Marina are looking at each other. Neither's moved for a bit. Rory's suddenly embarrassed to be right there with them. He looks away shorewards. More Riders are milling around by the sea wall, some steering their horses carefully onto the beach. Soph sees him looking and waves. He's too shy to wave back.

“Is it all right for me to touch you?” Gav says.

Marina's arms are still tightly crossed over her chest. She doesn't answer, so Gav steps towards her, carefully, the way you'd approach a wild animal. He's a lot taller than her. He opens his arms and wraps her up in them, resting his chin on top of her head. He closes his eyes, as if he's thinking,
That's it. Finished.
A moment or two later and she closes her eyes as well.

Rory's mounting discomfort at having to witness this scene is relieved by an unexpected voice.

“Gavin?”

Among the horses now approaching along the causeway is an extremely incongruous pony, shaggy and stumpy and almost as wide as it is tall. On its oversized saddle is a person thickly swathed in coat and cape and scarf and a woolly hat. This is the person who's just called out, judging by the way she's urging the pony forward.

“Gawain,” Marina corrects under her breath, without opening her eyes. Her cheek is smushed against Gav's chest.

“You're not going to drown me, then?” Gav says, almost as quietly.

“No,” she says. “Never.”

“Gavin!”

Rory recognizes the Rider on the pony now, which is quite an achievement given the way she's bundled up. Something about her voice, perhaps. It's Hester, the Professor, transplanted from wheelchair to horseback. A few of the others are approaching with her. Rory's very pleased to see Ellie and Soph among them. “Gavin!”

Either Gav's unwilling to move his head from where it's resting, or he just can't. He hasn't answered.

“Gawain,” Marina corrects again, slightly irritably. “Things should have their right names.”

“I'll tell her,” he says. “But maybe not now.”

The Riders come clopping up. They rein in at a respectful distance. Hester pushes back the hood of her waterproof cape and pulls off her hat. Rory thinks he's never seen quite such a load of mingled astonishment and joy on any face, ever.

“Hey, kid,” Soph says, and winks at him.

“Hi,” he says. No one else is talking. It's getting rather awkward.

“Who are your friends?”

“Oh. Um.” Gav and Marina are still folded together, white flesh and wet clothes, as if the rest of the world has stopped happening. “This is . . .” It feels funny to call her by a girl's name, but things should have their right names now, apparently. “Marina. And—”

“Gawain,” Gawain says, without turning his head. “Hello, Hester Lightfoot. Good to see you again.”

Ellie cocks an eyebrow, looks at Hester, and says, “ ‘Again'?”

Gawain detaches himself from Marina at last. All the Riders are looking at her. “We've got something that belongs to you.”

“Marina,” Hester says. There's a kind of big handle at the front of her saddle. She holds it and pulls herself forward. “The Marina you once told me about? Marina Uren?”

“Yes.” Gawain picks up the blunt-snouted dog mask from where it's lying near Rory's feet.

“Pleased to meet you, Miss Uren,” Hester says, solemnly polite. “I'm not quite certain what we owe you, but our thanks will do for a start.”

Marina looks almost surprised. She faces the Riders. If she were an ordinary person she'd still be a child, not quite a woman yet, and she's naked and pale and surrounded by horseflesh and clothes and armor and sweat, but in a way Rory can't put his finger on she's bigger than all of them put together.

“Too right,” Soph says, and eases herself off her horse. One of her feet is wrapped in thick padding instead of a boot, but she dismounts, though awkwardly and with a wince of pain. It's a gesture of respect. One by one all the other Riders follow suit, except Hester, who can't. Gawain hands her the mask.

“I left this in your house before,” he says. “But I guess you never got it.”

“Gav,” she says, and takes him instead of the mask, pulling him by the arm and almost falling off the pony as she topples into a clumsy hug.

“No one wants that.” This is Sal, wearing her red headscarf. She's stepped forward to help keep Hester upright. “I vote we take it to the Mount right now and burn it.”

“No,” Marina says. Everyone's instantly listening. It's that sound in her voice, water humming. “There's nothing wrong with it. He was the bad one, not the mask. It's only ever people who do evil.”

“Can't argue with that,” says Ellie. Her face is lined everywhere with fading scars.

“How many of our men have you killed, then?” says a woman farther back. It's Jody. Rory wouldn't have recognized her until she spoke. She's picked up a bad wound across her cheek and eye. Some of the women around her glare at her. Hester lets go of Gawain.

“There's suffering,” Marina says. “And injustice. I know about them. They're different from evil.”

“We've just killed a man ourselves,” Hester says, meaning the words for Jody though she doesn't face her. She takes the mask from Gawain. “Thank you. It's so very good see you again.”

“Perhaps,” Marina says, looking at the ring on her finger, “it'll get easier to understand the difference. Now that the truth's out.” She exchanges a quick look with Gawain. “Part of getting the names right.”

“We're not letting it go again, then?” Gawain asks her. He means the ring. “We're not going back to the way things were?”

“No,” she says. She curls her left hand into a fist. “No more forgetting.” She holds her other hand out towards Gawain, palm up, like she's inviting him to dance. “I was happy when I was little but I didn't know who I was. And I've been happy in the sea, but I couldn't forget who I used to be. We're not going back to that.”

Gawain hesitates, as if he's trying to make up his mind about something. Everyone's watching very quietly now. He puts his hand in hers.

“So you're not going back to the sea either?” he says.

“No,” she says. “I want to go with you.”

“Good,” he says.

“Always.”

“All right.”

“This is supposed to be your gift,” she says, reaching out her other hand, the one wearing the ring. He takes hold of that one too, so now it looks like he's about to swing her around like she's a delighted child. “But it'll be better if I keep it. We're the same anyway. Born across a divide.”

“OK,” he says. “Thank you.”

There's a long silence. He doesn't swing her around. They don't start dancing. They just look at each other, like a pair of mirrors, reflecting each other over and over and over.

“I feel like someone ought to kiss someone,” Soph says.

Ellie's closest to her. She aims a kick. “They're children!”

Soph shrugs. “I'd had my first kiss by the time I was that age. Hey, Rory. C'mere.”

He blushes with happy embarrassment. “C'mere,” she says again, waving him to her. “Lifesaver.” A moment later he's wrapped in a rank hug, his face squashed against the scales of her tunic. She smells of sweat, fish, and horse, but he's in no hurry at all to pull away. A moment later and Ellie's hugging him too, and then it's like a spell's been broken and all the Riders are talking, laughing, pushing past each other and their stamping mounts to come and pat him or each other on the back.

Hester clears her throat. “Miss Uren?”

Gawain and Marina still haven't moved.

“And Gavin?” Hester adds. The happy commotion around Rory settles again to listen. “Perhaps you'd honor us with your company at Dolphin House?”

At least a couple of the Riders stiffen.

“I, for one,” Hester says, in that measured way of hers, as though she's working out a problem in her head, “have already spent more than enough of my life being frightened of what I didn't understand. I suspect we'd all do better if we welcomed it instead. Will you join us, Marina? At least for a day?”

Gawain leans close to Marina and whispers something Rory can't hear. Whatever it is, it makes her smile.

“All right,” she says, and then, for all the world like a nicely brought-up girl remembering her manners, “Thank you.”