John had got nowhere looking for
Macrocephalos, but he had found some useful information. He discovered, after
several interviews with academics, current and retired, that the scholar had
left the University several decades ago – ‘just the other day’ according to the
elven lecturers. He didn’t seem to have
many friends and no-one knew where he had gone. However, he had found an old
student who had kept his lecture notes, and he had borrowed them. He was
greatly looking forward to reading them, but he was finding it hard to find the
time, particularly as Laurence was away again.
There were, for example, a lot of
boring meetings with Consul Ridgeway, the local representative of the Ethian
government, who was constantly fishing for information about the Crimson Flame
Knights’ progress. Form demand that he had to pretend to know something, when
in reality he knew almost nothing beyond the snippets that Marthian sent him.
These visits were only enlivened by the
presence of the rather beautiful Captain Eistedd, who was fun to flirt with,
but who had turned out to be just on the wrong side of rather dim. Still, decorative but dull was fine in small
doses.
He also still had Owen as a guest.
This had been fine when first Laurence and then Celia had been at the house.
But after Celia had left to look after Kathleen, he had had to cater for him
and entertain him. It wasn’t that Owen was unsociable or taciturn, in fact he
was warm and witty, but he was very different from John. For a start, he was a
westerner and wasn’t tremendously impressed by the more outré night life in Kinspit.
This meant visiting only the most staid restaurants, and lots of early nights.
The conversation didn’t exactly flow either – they either talked shop or about
Celia. Talking shop was fine, but it got a bit wearisome to have to concentrate
on it for too long. As for Celia, John thought she was a lovely person, and an
amazing witch, but knew that they would only ever skirt around the really
interesting question – would Owen ever be able to admit to himself (and to her,
of course) that he was in love with her. Owen and John really didn’t have the
kind of friendship where they shared confidences of that kind, so it was mostly
talking round in circles.
The reason why Owen was still with
him was because the patched up space-time tear at the back of John’s kitchen had
begun to bulge. It looked like a big blue blister as it bowed out the wall in
the hidden room that had once contained the secret vault. As long as Owen
attended to it for several hours a day then it got no bigger, but he couldn’t
do that forever, and both he and John knew that they need to find out what was
causing the renewed disturbance in the Outer Void.
John also thought that Owen was now
beginning to worry about Celia, as she had been gone for several days. John knew
that Owen would really like to send a mail to her, but what excuse did have to
do so?
All they had heard from the Twins was that
Celia had contacted them about Boo and that they were worried about Laurence.
For several days John had anxiously looked for a new trace from Hardacre, but there
had been nothing at all since the twins had talked to him in the hyper bag.
Before that there was a perhaps ten day old strong pulse, now fading to red,
and after that a series of fairly small pulses. He wasn’t very good at judging
the complicated product of trace size and age, which were all the clues one got
concerning a witch’s remote activities. However he had got Owen, who was
probably the best of all of them at this task, to check Hardacre’s traces,
independently, and he had broadly agreed with John. At that point, John had begun to really
worry, and he had vowed to himself to teleport instantly to the next trace that
Hardacre made, if any ever came again, wherever he was. He’d also decided to
use some of small reservoir of magical energy that was stored in the fabric of
the house, so that when he arrived he would not be excessively fatigued.
When it did come, in the early evening as he
was putting on a jacket in his dressing room, it was both a relief and a shock.
Mixed with Hardacre’s trace was another very familiar one – Celia’s. It might
be coincidence, of course, it could be that they were casting very similar
strength spell in completely different places, but he very much doubted it. It
was almost certain that they were in some dangerous place together.
John’s instinct was to teleport
immediately, but he resisted it long enough to go down to talk to Owen. He ran
down the stairs, but made sure he checked his progress into the kitchen, so
that Owen would have no inkling about what was happening.
Owen was making himself a cup of tea.
He looked very tired.
‘Just taking a quick break’ he said,
‘and then few more cords to tie up before supper’
‘How is it?’ asked John, as calmly as
he could manage. His heart began to race, as he began to imagine the perils
that his two friends might be facing.
Owen frowned.
‘Still not great, I’m afraid, but
it’s holding’
John steadied himself against the
kitchen table. He had to tread carefully.
‘That’s not good at all’ he mumbled,
‘and such a shame…’
Owen looked at him quizzically
‘A shame? What do you mean?’
‘I was going to suggest that we go
and see how Celia and Kathleen are getting on in Fanemouth – we’d only need to
be gone for the evening…’
Owen shook his head.
‘That’s a very tempting idea, John –
but I think I can only risk leaving the anomaly for an hour or so. Any longer
than that might be pushing it rather’
John breathed in deeply. This was the
problem with being the leader; you had to make all the tough decisions. He knew
what he had to do but he knew that, if anything happened to Celia, Owen might
never be able to forgive him. But he was
also all too aware that if he told Owen the truth then he would want to help
Celia at any cost, and that was a risk that he wasn’t willing to take. If it
all went wrong then they could all die and then the Outer Void would erupt into
the real world again. Who would stop it then? He needed Owen here and he was
willing to lie to ensure that he stayed.
‘That’s a shame’ said John, forcing
himself to smile, ‘well, I’ll try to persuade Celia to come back with me – I’m
sure that Kathleen must be well by now…’
Owen smiled a twitchy smile back at
John. His hands fumbled with the kettle.
‘…only if she’s not needed there, of
course…’ he said, half-heartedly.
John had already turned to hurry out
of the door.
‘I’ll make sure of that’ he said
‘Have a good evening…’ shouted Owen
to John’s back.
As soon as John had left the kitchen
he sprinted for his study, scooped up some mail papers and teleported directly
to the trace.
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