The Murdstone Trilogy (10 page)

Considering the importance of ritual in the book that had made him his fortune, Philip paid scant respect to it in his private life. So he surprised himself by having a somewhat ceremonial Monday morning. He’d again forgotten to turn the heating off, so when he awoke he flung aside the duvet to let himself cool, adopting the position of an effigy on a medieval tomb. When he dressed himself it was entirely in white and black: white Calvin Klein trunks and socks, black Lycra-mix elastic-waisted trousers, black trainers and the white chenille sweater from Harrods. He waited in reverential calm for the kettle to boil and made himself tea with a tea bag. He sniffed the milk like an augurer and rejected it. He added white sugar to the cup, stirred it widdershins twelve times then carried it in both hands across the lane and drank it in regular sips while contemplating the dank landscape that withheld any promise of spring.

Despite appearances, he was not composed. He was cautious. It seemed to him that he was carrying – no, that
he
was
– a fragile blown-glass bubble filled with volatile liquids. After some considerable time he shuddered slightly, perhaps in response to a chill gust off the moor. Then he took himself carefully indoors, looped the chain of the Amulet over his head, tucked it inside his sweater and set about earning his million quid.

It was different this time.

First of all there was the seating problem. Pocket Wellfair’s text scrolled up the screen only when the Amulet was wholly in contact with Philip’s breast. However, he leaned forward when he typed, and so the Amulet swung forward very slightly and then the transmission broke up. He tried to type leaning back in his chair, but after a short spell of working in this unnatural position he became uncomfortable and the tendons in his hands hurt. Eventually he hit upon the idea of tying the belt from his dressing gown around his chest, thus keeping the Amulet pressed to his bosom; and this seemed to work.

Then there was the matter of the text itself. When he had written – perhaps ‘received’ was a better word –
Dark Entropy
, Pocket’s words had flooded the monitor in such a swiftly rising tide that while Philip was transcribing the top lines the lower ones were still forming themselves out of pell-mell wriggling inkage. This time the upscroll contained pauses, deletions, instantaneous rewrites. There were moments when he was terrified that he would catch up. Use it all up before the next bit was ready. Even have to
invent
. Although, mercifully, it never quite came to that.

The visuals were not the same. They were there all right, a sideways glance, a click away, as before. And unimaginable and terrible and astonishing beyond the range of ordinary human description. But slightly dimmer than the first time. As though the film projector was operating at a lower wattage.

Nor was Pocket’s voice quite the same. There was something slightly forced in the Greme’s humour. Now and again it was like the patter of a comedian whose jokes were fed by pain. Which made a sort of sense because he was writing, transcribing, a darker tale. Five hours in, he could not imagine whence the light might come.

In
Dark Entropy
there had been an almost symmetrical pattern of brightness and shade. In chapter eleven, Morl had hoisted the hideous stillborn prototype Swelt out of the genetic cauldron in the bowels of the College of Thaumaturgy. In chapter twelve, Cadrel had settled kite-sized moths on his arms and carried them into his foster-mother’s cottage so that she could see her embroidery by the moonlight stored in their wings. Philip could not yet see the possibility of any such captive moonlight, nor any other kind of illumination, in Part Two.

And it was odd that Pocket urged the story onward into deeper darkness without any hint of misgiving or regret. With a sort of eagerness, actually. Christ, this was a fast book. One damned thing after another. Event. Event. Event. Most of them desperate and murderous. Was it, tactically, a mistake that Pocket depicted the inner workings of the Thule? Was it a defiance of narrative logic that
he appeared to know what he could not know?

Even odder was that he, Philip, could think this way. That even while his hands flew over the keys he could consider the unfolding of the story so dispassionately. It had not been this way the first time. Then, he had been dumb, numb, a mere receptor impervious to the demands of his belly, his bladder, his brain. Not so this time. Could it be that he had some kind of
control
? Dear God, let it not be so …

Oddest of all was the interruption. The very long interruption.

A hundred and one pages in, he became aware of sounds in his own world. A sequence of noises like someone practising on a muted trombone. He strove to ignore them – he was right in the middle of Strummer Augarde’s discovery of the Vibrating Rune – but could not. He untied the knot in the belt of his dressing gown, freeing the Amulet.

It was like tearing a part of himself away from his body. The screen froze and the visuals went dead. In his right ear there was a sound like money getting lost. Then his brain went
What?What?What?
because there was someone in his bathroom. He got up and crossed the landing and yanked open the bathroom door and saw Pocket Wellfair fumbling with his breeches. The room was full of acrid reek.

‘Always wanted to use one of these,’ Pocket said. ‘Arsewipe scroll is a good idea an’ all. Soft paper is a sort of miracle.’ He peered into the pan. ‘How do you make
it go away? Is it with this here?’ He pressed the flush lever experimentally and jumped back going ‘Whoa!’ when the water gushed. ‘Off they swim,’ he said. ‘Fancy. Brown fish is a land animal where I come from. How are you, Marlstone?’

Even to Philip’s banjaxed ear the casual jollity in the voice sounded forced. And the Greme looked tired. Grubby too. The hem of his coat looked scorched.

‘No need to ask, no need to ask. Right as rain and rich as badger’s milk, you are. Ho, yes. How are
you
, Pocket, I hear you ask. Glad to see you again, I hear you say. Or do I? No, I don’t. Bugger, have I turned deaf?’

‘I,’ Philip said. ‘What. How did you …?’

‘Ah, yes. I’d quite forgot you were the man for the questions. Be “Who?” in a minute, I wouldn’t wonder. Got me mixed up with one of your other Greme visitors, dare say.’

‘No, no. I just didn’t expect …’

Wellfair turned instantly into a miniature embodiment of pure rage. ‘Didn’t flukin expect? Didn’t flukin
expect
? We made a
deal
, Marlstone. Swore the fluker on our eyes and eggs! Three nights on the bogging trot I’ve been up at that Devil’s Pisspot or whatever it is you call that miserable collection of prickrocks. Waiting. Waiting for you, you slimepaddick. You goathole. Took me another half-night to find the gap into here.’ He stepped, staggered, a pace towards Philip and held up a thumb and forefinger, white and blue-nailed, a millimetre apart. ‘I was this far,
this
far, from calling the Oath in, leaving you blind and
bleddy withercrotched.’ Then he groaned and leaned heavily against the bathroom wall.

‘Um,’ Philip said. ‘Are you all right?’

Wellfair was silent for a moment. His eyes were closed, their lids like crumpled kidskin gloves. ‘In a pig’s arse am I all right. No. I reckon I got blaggered on the way through. I’m dry as Great-granny’s tit. Can I drink out of that?’ Nodding at the toilet bowl.

‘No, wait,’ Philip said. ‘I’ll get you some water from the tap.’

When he came back upstairs with the glass he found Wellfair sitting on the single bed in the study gazing at the screensaver, a photograph of Minerva protruding her tongue, curled in at the edges, nestling a cherry.

‘You britch-fumbling sod,’ Pocket said. He took the glass and drank eagerly. Wiped his chin on his sleeve. ‘Right. Give us the Amulet. Come on, give it here. It’s under your poncey jerkin. I can feel it from here. Come on. There’s things happening I’ve got to put a stop to.’

It was a simple reflex action, Philip’s protective hand going to his chest. Pressing the Amulet against his flesh. But he had to let go almost immediately. It was too weird. Strummer’s raptured face at the vision-edge. Nibscratch. Pocket’s voice uttering untranslated speech while Pocket himself sat hostile in the room. Awful complication.

‘No,’ Philip said, not meaning to say it.

‘
What
?’

‘No, not no. I mean … I don’t understand. Why now? We’re only, I don’t know, halfway through the book. Less.
We’ve, I’ve got to finish it. Got to. And you’re coming through the Amulet. You were talking to me just now. So why do you want to take it away? Christ, Pocket, you can’t. We’re a million quid in the shit. Come on. What’s happened?’

The Greme cocked his head like a chicken. His old eyes closed and reopened. ‘Was that language just came out of your facehole, Marlstone? Cos either your brain’s fluked or mine is. What are you on about? Book? What book? We’ve done the bleddy book. Deal’s done, my end. Don’t you try and frolic with me, you bugger. I’m stronger than I look.’

Philip was fairly sure that this was true, so he began to plead. ‘Please. Let’s just finish this one. It’s all I’ll ever ask, I promise. What’ll it take? Another ten hours? Twelve? Just let me keep it till it’s done. Don’t pull the plug on me
now
, for God’s sake.’

The Greme’s eyes were full of owlish calculation. Eventually he said, ‘It’s like worms in the head, listening to you. Just you sit gobshut while I try and sort it.’

He seemed to sleep for about six seconds.

When he woke up he said, ‘It’s maybe I’ve been warped. Morl might’ve been screening me. It’s not beyond him.’ He hummed quietly to himself, then said, ‘Marlstone, put your hands on the top of your head. Come on, do it. Right. Now then, stay like that while I go back to your shitter, understand me? Close your eyes, an’ all. Right. When I come back in I’ll clap my hands and then you open them. Got that?’

Philip nodded.

‘Shut them, then.’

He did, and almost as soon as he had done so there was a massive bang. Wellfair was back in the room and sitting on the bed, cross-legged this time.

The Greme shuddered. ‘Does me over, doing that,’ he said. ‘Shouldn’t bleddy have to, if all was square. Still, my angles hadn’t been boggled, cos here we still bleddy are. So then, what’s all this drabble about a book? Have you been getting another one?’

‘What do you mean? You know I have. You’ve been telling it. Dictating it. For God’s sake, Pocket, you were doing it, sending it, no more than ten minutes ago.’

‘Through the Amulet.’

‘Yes.
Yes
. That’s why you can’t—’

The Greme shot out a hand, the forefinger and the shortest finger extended, aimed at Philip’s throat. Philip’s larynx contracted. His voice became a squeak then died because he was being garrotted by the muscles of his own neck.

‘That’s second time you’ve used the word
can’t
to me, and if you’re partial to breathing there better not be a third. Elsewise I’ll leave you thrapple-clamped and bugger off homewards. Point took? Nod?’

Pop-eyed, Philip nodded. Wellfair withdrew his hand and waited patiently for him to recommence breathing. The Greme got to his feet and stood staring at Minerva.

‘Why’s she doing that, anyways?’

‘Ar-harrgh. Well. She, um. She’d just sucked the stone
out of the cherry without squashing it or anything. She’s showing me that it’s still … intact. It’s a sort of trick she does.’

‘I wager it is. Must have taken years of practice, wouldn’t you say?’

Philip said nothing.

‘Righty, then,’ Wellfair said. ‘This book. Remind me where you’d, we’d, got to.’

‘The bit where Strummer discovers, well, accidentally discovers, the Vibrating Rune …’

‘Strummer?’

Strummer Augarde, yes. Of course, I don’t—’

‘Did I happen to mention his age?’

‘Yes, er, eighteen, I think. Hang on, I’ll check.’ Philip reached over and dabbed the space-bar. Minerva vanished to be replaced by half a page of text. ‘No, seventeen. It all goes out of my memory quite quickly, actually. You go so fast.’

He turned to see Pocket standing next to him, staring at the screen with something like horror in his ancient eyes.

‘Looks like rows of drydead insects raked up on a bedsheet. Is that
your
inkage, or do all of you do the same?’

‘Well, there are different fonts, of course. I tend to use Times New Roman, or Microsoft’s version of it, anyway. Arial is quite popular, though.’

‘Don’t it move? There’s no shiftage in it, as I see it. Is it dead?’

Philip gaped for a moment and then understood. ‘Ah.
Right. No, it’s not like what you do. When I write, the words are finished. They don’t do that wriggly chasing thing that yours do.’

‘Write some.’

‘What, carry on with the story, you mean? Can we do that?’

‘No,’ Wellfair said sharply. ‘Just write the first thing that comes into the foulpot you call your head. No, wait. Write this: “Pocket Wellfair is standing next to me.”’

Philip pecked at the keys as the Greme watched intently. The words hobbled onto the screen.

‘Shrivel my life,’ Wellfair muttered. ‘It’s like tapping on tombstones. I’d never’ve thought …’ He hung his head for a moment. Then he inhaled lengthily through his nose and sat down on the bed again. ‘What’s it say now?’

‘What?’

‘Does it still bleddy say “Pocket Wellfair is standing next to me”?’

‘Well, yes. Of course.’

Wellfair nodded, slowly, several times. Then he rested his forearms on his knees and lowered his head. He muttered something that Philip couldn’t catch. After a minute he looked up. His eyes had changed, somehow. Philip had no word for what had happened to them. And when the Greme spoke, the voice was different too. It contained a note of nervous caution.

‘Right. Now then. Let’s sniff back along our tracks a way. What came just before we got to Strummer Augarde?’

Philip frowned, perplexed. ‘Don’t you …? Right. OK. Sorry. Well, you led the Greme expedition into the Wandering Crags to find the Fourth Device. Into Morl’s False Winter. It was brilliant. Well, terrible. The passage where Rinse Pitcher freezes to death was incredibly strong, I thought.’