“What is it?” asked Skylark.
The minotaur grunted. “It is the secret—but what it is, I do not know.”
Gard took a step forward and raised his mallet to tap on it. Light from the minotaur’s torch glinted blood-red on the edge of the hammer.
“No!” said Col quickly, grabbing Gard’s arm. His fellow travelers turned to stare at him in surprise, Gard with the mallet still lifted in his right hand. The whispering emptiness was suddenly very familiar. “I know what it is! Don’t touch it!”
An orange light flickered briefly on the walls behind Col, before dying out in a hiss of steam.
“I’ve been here before. It’s his mark! It’s Kullervo’s companionship.”
Gard dropped the mallet with a clatter.
“I had it in me before Connie rescued me last year. Can’t you hear it?” Col stopped speaking, listening intently to the foul hiss of Kullervo’s breath in his ears. “This is the answer—I’m sure of it. He’s never broken off his link with Connie.”
The room quaked, and they were cast out of the labyrinth.
To Connie, witnessing her friends’ journey was like being a puppeteer looking down on her theater. She saw them stumble through the tunnels and knew she could change the scenery if she wished, place new obstacles in their path or surround them in a bewildering fog, but instead she concentrated all her might on resisting the temptation to interfere. This became particularly difficult when they came upon the wall of cave paintings. She was drawn to the dark blot at its center and wished that Gard would indeed touch it and rouse whatever was hiding there. She felt a flash of annoyance at Col for stopping him. To her alarm, she could see her anger racing down the tunnels like tongues of fire, about to leap out and punish him, but she quickly quelled the feeling, extinguishing the blaze with streams of water that came gushing out of the labyrinth walls at her call.
On hearing Col put Kullervo’s name to the mark, Connie felt a jolt of revulsion and abruptly broke her bond with her companions. Their shadow-selves were thrown out of her mind without a second to prepare themselves for ejection.
Col’s head was spinning: he felt as if he had just missed a stair in the dark and tumbled all the way to the bottom. He slid from the back of Skylark, who swayed unsteadily on his legs. Dr. Brock gave a small groan and sat up, his eyes now open. The minotaur rested his head in his hands.
“Sorry,” said Connie. “I didn’t mean to do that so quickly.”
They remained silent. Connie wished someone would speak—return the atmosphere to normal—so that the horror of what they had just discovered about her would be lessened.
Gard spoke first: “What we saw explains many things. It explains why an encounter with another creature rouses Connie from what she is doing—it takes her to another part of that wall and away from his mark.”
“Yes, Kullervo appears to be entering when her defenses are down—like when she is asleep,” said Dr. Brock.
Or when I’m feeling strong negative emotion, such as anger, added Connie to herself, remembering the storm she had summoned on the night of the wedding.
“But how can he be doing this when we know he’s on the other side of the earth?” asked Col. “He’s in Japan or somewhere, isn’t he?”
Gard tapped his mallet on the ground. “In some encounters, physical proximity is not necessary. I can reach Connie wherever she is as long as her feet touch the earth. Kullervo has claimed her as his own companion—their bond is strong.”
“And we don’t know that he is in the Far East for certain,” said Dr. Brock. “We only know that his supporters are.”
“So he could’ve sent them there as a diversion from what he is doing here?” asked Col.
“Possibly,” said Dr. Brock. “He has many plans, and we do not understand them all.”
Gard stamped over to the minotaur and grasped his hand. “Thank you, my friend. You have done us a great service. We must take our findings to the Trustees, and I have no doubt that they will want to see what we have discovered for themselves. Will you be ready to offer your skills again to us?”
“If the universal wishes it,” Sentinel replied. “I am her sentinel, not theirs.”
“I’ll let you know,” said Connie. At the moment, all she wanted to do was run away and sleep.
It was tiring enough sustaining multiple bonds, without having to bear the shame of your innermost secrets being revealed to other eyes. If she could, she would have stepped outside herself, leaving everything behind—including that foul mark—like a snake shedding a skin. But she couldn’t escape it—it was too deep. Kullervo would always be with her. The thought tormented her.
“And you, Companion to Pegasi, you must be our authority on this,” said Gard, turning to Col, “as your experience comes closest to what is happening to the universal.”
“If that’s so,” said Col, “then I can tell you that Kullervo uses what you have inside you, what you normally keep bottled up. In my case, it turned out to be cruelty and violence.”
“So in my case, it’s the desire to create chaos and harm others?” asked Connie, appalled.
“I don’t think so,” said Dr. Brock gently. “I don’t think your intention was to harm us with that thunderbolt. I think we appeared to you in that state as no more than ants in the way of your boot, or flies to swat.”
“So what was I doing then?” asked Connie, not sure that this explanation was in any way reassuring.
“Connie, you have great powers, but you normally resist the temptation to abuse them. You were allowing these powers out to play. Perhaps we should only be surprised that you don’t exercise them more often.”
“But what can we do for Connie?” asked Col. “We can’t leave her with the fear that Kullervo might break through again.”
“No,” said Gard, “but I think we must go on as we have begun: make sure Connie is surrounded by friends. You have Argand with you in your bedroom when you sleep, do you not?”
“Yes,” said Connie. The little dragon curled up at the end of her bed each night, providing Connie with both the comfort of her presence and the warmth for her cold feet.
“That is good. Her bond must now be quite strong as she is your special companion—hopefully your connection with her is strong enough to counter that of Kullervo.”
Connie nodded, though she felt instinctively that no bond could defeat the one she had with the shape-shifter, even that of Argand, with whom she spent the most time. Kullervo, as she had reluctantly learned last year, was her counterpart in the mythical world—in some strange way, they needed each other.
“We must make sure that you never sleep alone and that we place creatures to guard you at your most vulnerable times,” Gard continued. “If you slept outdoors, I could be with you, but I doubt you’d want to exchange your mattress to lie under the winter sky.”
“Er…no, but thanks for the offer,” said Connie. “Argand will be fine for now—until she gets too big to get in and out of the window.”
An owl hooted in the trees of the plantation.
“It’s getting very late,” said Dr. Brock, “we must take our young people home.”
“There’s just one thing I don’t understand,” said Col.
“Just one?” Connie asked wryly.
“Maybe not,” Col conceded. “But what I wanted to ask you, Connie, is why, if you freed me from Kullervo’s bond last year, you can’t do the same for yourself?”
“How do you know you don’t have the same mark deep inside you, young man?” growled the minotaur. “Have you ever stopped to look?”
Col shuddered. He hadn’t thought of that.
“I don’t think he has,” said Connie wearily. “Kullervo’s occupation of Col was not a true bond. I saw no sign of it when I visited his mind; I sensed Kullervo’s presence only as a kind of atmosphere—like a storm battering the normal stuff in Col’s head. I think I was able to blow it away when I used the helm—that’s one of the universal’s tools—on Col.
It protected his mind from Kullervo’s attack.”
“So, Connie, can’t you put the helm on again—for yourself this time?” Col asked.
“I don’t know. It might work—but only when I’m awake and know what I’m doing.”
“Even the most hardy warrior must lay aside his armor to sleep,” growled Argot.
“Yes,” said Dr. Brock, understanding his companion’s thought, “you must not be afraid to sleep, Connie. No one can survive like that.”
“But what really worries me,” admitted Connie, “is that the mark you saw is within my defenses. I doubt now that either my shield or helm could reach it. I’d be shutting it in, not blocking it out.”
“That remains to be seen. All we can do now is ensure that you are not again in a position where you need to find that out,” said Gard.
11
Letters
Rat was eager to hear from Connie and Col what had happened with the minotaur. When Col told him the details at school on Monday, he was duly impressed by the description of the journey in the mind’s labyrinth. It was lunchtime and Connie was sitting silently on the other side, not eating very much, allowing Col to do the talking.
“Amazing!” said Rat, turning to stare at Connie. “You mean, she’s got this great black hole in her? You wouldn’t think it to look at her.”
“Thanks, Rat,” said Connie. “I’m flattered.”
“But all that power! I can’t get over it.”
“Get over it,” said Col in a terse voice. “Connie doesn’t need you treating her like a freak show.”
As usual, the rebuff washed over Rat. “Can I come next time?”
“Come?” asked Connie, perplexed.
“Visit your cave paintings, or whatever they are.”
“No you can’t,” she said firmly. “I’m not having Icefen loping around inside my head.”
“You’re probably right. I couldn’t guarantee he wouldn’t give you permanent amnesia or something, if he breathed in the wrong place.”
Col gave Rat a nudge to shut him up as Jane and Anneena approached with their trays.
“Hi, guys,” said Anneena, wiggling in between Col and Connie.
Jane perched on the end of the bench. “Have you heard? They’ve started building the wind farm.”
“Oh, yeah, we saw,” said Col grumpily.
“You saw and didn’t tell me!” exclaimed Anneena, scandalized by his failure to keep her up-to-date on the local gossip.
“Sorry, we had other things on our minds,” said Connie.
Rat laughed, but Col still looked grim-faced. He toyed with his meal, remembering the pegasi’s failed protest; some of the winged creatures were even threatening to leave the Society. Dr. Brock and the others had said they had to go with the majority view—and most creatures had been in favor, thanks to Rat and Icefen’s vigorous campaign among the members, culminating in the universal’s decision to back it. Connie’s vote had swayed many creatures who had been unable to make up their minds.
“Why so angry, Col?” asked Jane, offering around her chips. “Isn’t it good that the wind farm is being built?”
“Good for who?” he countered. “For us humans? Yeah, I s’pose. But why do we always have to come first?”
Jane looked puzzled. “I don’t understand. Who else cares about it other than humans?”
Col realized he had given away too much. “I dunno. It’s just that we seem to be taking more and more for ourselves—now we’ve even started stealing the skies.”
“We started that long ago,” said Rat.
“Still, I think it’s not going to be too bad once it’s finished,” commented Anneena, waving her fork in a circle in the air. “Might even look beautiful in its own way. I wouldn’t mind going to see it.”
“Yeah, why don’t you come ’round after school?” suggested Rat. “But don’t say anything to my ma about liking wind farms. She thinks the masts are the spawn of the devil and spends most of her day shouting at the builders. Mr. Masterson seems to be steering clear of our cottage or else she’d have a go at him, too, I expect.”
Anneena laughed. “I consider myself warned. Do you want to come, Connie?”
“I’d better not.” Connie had no wish to run into Mr. Masterson again.
“Why not?” Anneena asked in surprise. “I thought you’d like to call on your uncle.”
“Connie and I are busy,” said Col, covering for her. “Promised to do something for Gran.”
“I’d like to come,” said Jane. “I’ll bring my camera.”
“Great. If you come, I can show you both around a bit.” Rat’s eyes were glinting with his most wolfish expression. He looked as if he was plotting something.
“You won’t introduce them to any of your friends, will you, Rat?” asked Connie anxiously. “You know, Anneena doesn’t feel comfortable with Wolf.”
“Not like Wolf!” he exclaimed. “Then I’ll have to show her that he’s just a harmless puppy compared to—”
Col jumped up. “Time to go. Must get to math early to get a good seat.” He dragged Rat away, his lunch only half-eaten.
Jane shook her head. “Is Col feeling all right? I’ve never known him rush to Mrs. Stephens’s class.”
“Well, there’s always a first time for everything,” said Anneena.
When Connie arrived home that afternoon, she found that the cliff at the back of the beach beyond Shaker Row had been wreathed in red and white striped tape. It fluttered in the breeze as if marking out a crime scene. Two men with yellow helmets could be seen on the top, probing the earth with an instrument that looked like a metal detector. Dumping her bag in the kitchen, Connie discovered Evelyn sitting alone at the table, her head bent over her laptop. A brown envelope addressed to Mack sat unopened propped up against the fruit bowl.
“Where’s Mack?” asked Connie, putting on the kettle.
“The Kraken’s down near Plymouth. He’s gone for a swim.”
“Ah,” said Connie with sudden comprehension. Thinking about it, she could feel a faint echo of the presence of the Kraken in her mind. “So, what’s going on outside?”
“The town council have decided the cliffs are unsafe,” Evelyn said, her lips compressed in a thin line.
“Are they unsafe?” asked Connie reasonably, helping herself to a cookie from the battered tin on the dresser.
“I don’t know. I haven’t noticed any changes to them. Have you?”
“No, but I’m not sure I’d know if anything was wrong.”
Evelyn pushed the computer away. “I’m writing to the council now to say so—not that it’ll do much good. They’re going to look at the cliffs behind our cottages next. We’ll probably come home tomorrow to find our house roped off.”
“What for?”
The kettle clicked off, and Evelyn got up to make the tea. “The man who came by said that they’d become worried because the storms in November and December had been more severe than usual and caused damage all along the coast. Previously sound cliffs had to be declared unsafe. They didn’t want anyone to be killed should it happen again.”
“But that was me! It won’t happen again, I promise!”
Evelyn smiled. “I could hardly say to the man from the council, ‘Oh, excuse me but my niece is a storm-raiser and has given me her word not to use her great powers again,’ now could I?”
“I s’pose not. So what are we going to do?”
“Do? I don’t know if there’s anything we can do. Wait for the council’s verdict, I suppose.”
Connie leaned against the dresser despondently. Her eyes traveled over their collection of bric-a-brac and lighted on a piece of jet stone once given to her by Gard.
“There is something we can do,” she said. “It’s obvious—we have a rock dwarf as a houseguest, we’ll put him on it.”
Col’s house was empty when he returned from school. His grandmother was at her Women’s Institute meeting, pretending to be a normal senior citizen like most of her
non-Society friends. At least it meant that she had done some baking and left her grandson a supply of scones. Col wolfed one down, not bothering with the china plate she had optimistically put out for him. He noticed that she had also left out a brown envelope propped up against the jam. It had the initials SPMC stamped across the top and his name on the front. He tore the letter open:
Dear Mr. Clamworthy, Companion to Pegasi:
It has been brought to our attention that you have broken the ban on farther communication with the former Society member, Connie Lionheart. You were seen in her company on the 11th of January in the presence of a rock dwarf. I wish to remind you that the conditions of her expulsion clearly state that she is no longer to have any contact with mythical creatures, and your presence on thisoccasion indicates that you condoned her violation of this decision. Similar letters have been sent to all others present at the scene.
I am writing therefore to issue an official warning. I have also informed your mentor of your serious misconduct, and I have requested that he take the necessary disciplinary steps. Any farther incident of this kind will result in your suspension for an indefinite period from the Society.
Yours sincerely,
Ivor Coddrington
Trustee
Go take a running jump, Ivor Coddrington—was Col’s first thought. He threw the letter angrily onto the table. Slumping into a chair, he found that he had lost his appetite for the scones. Picking the letter up again, he read it through more carefully. This time, the phrase that struck him most was that his mentor had been asked to take disciplinary measures. Col knew that Captain Graves was a stickler for the rules; he would not look kindly on the activities of the pro-Connie faction. What kind of punishment would he think necessary? Whatever it was, Col knew he was not going to like it.
Mack’s reaction to his own letter of reprimand was to threaten to hang it up in the downstairs bathroom and invite anyone to use it when they ran out of paper. Connie was relieved to find that he did not blame her in the least for his official warning.