and wide-set, their grey veined with celadon, and even in that instant of her mind’s opening he glimpsed depths that were incalculable, an intelligence that would always be wary. He had made her trust him, an elementary manoeuvre, but she would not hesitate to return to doubt if—and when—he let her down.
‘You looked like a rock,’ she said accusingly.
‘It’s useful,’ he replied. ‘Nobody wonders what you’re up to, if you’re a rock. No questions, no trouble. There’s nothing as unremarkable as a rock.’
‘It isn’t possible,’ said Fern, but the conviction was gone from her voice. ‘I saw the rock.’
‘Appearances can deceive,’ the Watcher said. ‘You see many things which are not there. A mirage, a reflection, a star that died thousands of years ago. You should trust your instinct, not your eyes. You knew me long before today.’
Fern did not attempt to answer that. ‘You’ve been spying on us.’
‘Observing,’ he corrected gently. ‘Fortunately, I am still an observant man, whatever else I may have lost. I seem to have spent centuries just watching.’
She was not entirely sure he was exaggerating. ‘That’s how I thought of you,’ she said. ‘The Watcher.’
‘It’s appropriate,’ he said. ‘I have grown very tired of it, over the years. There are too many things that need watching, and far too few of us to keep watch. Have you found it yet?’
‘Found what?’
‘What you are looking for.’
‘I don’t know what I’m looking for,’ Fern pointed out.
‘A profound philosophical statement. Not many people do, and if they did, it would be far worse. To find what you seek would be an anticlimax, to fail, a tragedy. But I am talking concepts, which is beside the point. Here, there is clearly something specific to be found. There has been a certain amount of attention focused on this house for some time: callers who were not what they seemed, prowlers by night, some human, some less so. Which reminds me, next time you hear noises in the dark, curb your curiosity. It would be safer.’
‘You saw it,’ Fern said. ‘That creature last night. What was it?’
‘Something which should not have been there. Whoever sent it made a thoroughly unsuitable choice of instrument. Don’t worry too much: even if it finds an opening, it can’t come in, not without being invited. The ancient law still stands. Ignore it and it will go away.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘No. It would be rash to be too sure. But this thing was ill-chosen for our hunt: the sender may well have selected it simply to show that he—or she—has the power to summon such beings.’ He rubbed his finger along the crooked bridge of his nose in a gesture of reflection. ‘His next move should be more practical. I hope.’
‘Whose next move?’ Fern demanded.
‘I don’t know. I know very little right now. There are so many possibilities. It could be someone working alone, seeking self-aggrandisement, personal power—alas, we all want those. It could be an agent or emissary. It depends what we’re looking for. There are certain indications.’ His eyes seemed to dim and then brighten again, their light fluctuating with the vagaries of memory. ‘Something was lost, long, long ago, before the beginnings of history: few remain who would recognise it, fewer still who would know the secret of its use. When it was recovered the recipient thought it an object of no value, the symbol of a cheat; his family kept it as they would keep a grudge, passing it on with legend and moral attached, until a young bride traded it to a tinker for a knot of ribbons. He stole a kiss as well, which was not part of the bargain; they said she looked coldly on her husband ever after. The tinker took his purchase to a collector of such things, sensing its mystery if not its power, a backstreet alchemist one eighth sorcerer, seven-eighths charlatan. They studied it, he and his apprentice, scanning the smoke for visions and peering into crystal balls, learning the sort of things that you learn from staring at smoke and Venetian glassware. The alchemist also dealt in love potions and poisons—not very successfully: his potions were over-optimistic and his poisons half-hearted. Unfortunately, a dissatisfied client among the warring nobility decided to take his revenge: the alchemist was beaten senseless, his lodgings ransacked, his possessions commandeered. The object was lost again, and never found.’ He paused, sighed, as indifferent to rain and wind as the rock he had chosen to imitate. Fern was reminded of a venerable hippy, beyond the reach of marijuana or hallucinogen, looking back with cold eyes on the psychedelic phantoms he once pursued. She was damp and chilled; but she did not move. ‘We searched for it,’ he went on, ‘long after, when we learnt its importance, but it was too late. The feuding families of that time had hidden their treasures so efficiently that even their descendants could not find them. They left clues, and ciphers, but the clues were mislaid and the ciphers indecipherable. The trail had vanished. And then, about twenty years ago, a famous chalice was sold at auction—one that had gone missing during the relevant period. Apparently it had been retrieved in the last great war when a bomb demolished the wall concealing a secret vault. I could not trace the minor items which might have been found with it, but I imagine a traveller collecting flotsam could well have bought one of them for a few pounds from a market stall. It seems a likely theory.’
‘Great-Cousin Ned,’ Fern said. ‘And then? How did you find him?’
‘He was found: I don’t know how. A chance meeting; a spell—it doesn’t matter. The interest of others drew me. This thing could be here—may be here—if it is, you must get to it first.’
‘I must?’
He ignored the interruption. ‘In the wrong hands, it could be put to the wrong use. What would happen I’m not sure—and I don’t want to find out. I’ve been watching the investigations very carefully: they—whoever they are—know hardly more than we do. So far. You have to stay ahead of them. You have to find it.’
‘What is it?’
The answer came slowly, softly, as if the Watcher feared to be overheard, there on the empty hillside without even a bird in sight. ‘A key,’ he said. ‘Didn’t you guess? It’s a key.’
‘Of course,’ said Fern. ‘We’ve been looking for the keys to open the writing desk and the chest in the attic, when all the time…it was the keys themselves which mattered.’
‘Just one key. It’ll be smaller than the others, made of stone or something that looks like stone. You’ll know it when you see it. Hide it from everyone.’
‘And then…I give it to you.’ The doubt crept back, darkening her mind. ‘And then what? What will you do with it?’
For the first time he smiled, an unexpectedly impish smile which dug punctuation marks in his cheeks and buckled the lines round his eyes. ‘That’s the question, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘I’ve been at this search for decades—centuries—and when I find it, if I find it, I won’t even know what to do. It could prove the ultimate jest—if we get the chance to laugh.’
‘Who are you?’ she asked, suddenly aware that she was very wet, and cold, and Mrs Wicklow was calling her in to lunch, and she was standing on a barren slope talking to a rock.
‘Who am I?’ The mischief faded; what was left of his smile grew ghostly. ‘That is a short question with a long answer,
