being canine, he merely panted.
Hazel picked her way downhill in Login’s wake, moving slowly now she had left the path, having to concentrate on every step. Perhaps because the dwarf had chosen his route well they made little noise: dead leaves swished about her feet, and every so often she slithered on a hidden patch of mud, but although she had to duck under low branches and step over knobbled roots there was no twig-crackle at her passage, no tearing of cloth on briar. Frequently, she paused to look back, checking the way she would have to run, making sure the ascent was straightforward: she must not get lost before she found the path again, and a stumble could be fatal. She told herself she was being brave – brave and not foolhardy – but her heart shook within her, and her stomach, always the main part of the body to react to fear, seemed to have become one large collywobble. The recollection of DCI Pobjoy staggering into Thornyhill Manor, his pale face paler than ever and his eyes haunted, gave her courage or at least encouragement. He was only a stupid policeman who didn’t believe in ghosts; she knew better.
And then Nambrok stopped her with an outstretched hand, raised a finger to his lips. Hazel nodded and followed his example as he dropped into a crouch, peering down through a fork in the tree-roots. She had been here before, she knew, but that had been in a summer storm, a freak of the weather or the backlash of old spells long gone rotten. The place looked different now, still but not peaceful, as if the very silence of the wood was tense with waiting. She could see the hole, ragged-rimmed with torn earth and hanging growths, and the dark beyond that suggested a hollow space, but nothing more. There was no spooklight to aid her vision, no eldritch glow in the blackness, and she lacked the weresight of the dwarf. This is it, she told herself, this is the chapel; yet all she could see was the dark.
But she could hear. The sound was so faint at first she was barely aware of it, distant as the rumour of traffic on a road more than a mile away, insidious as the mutter of someone else’s personal stereo. It was a sound with no shape, no definition; she knew it must come from the dark below but it seemed to be all round her, in the air, in the wood, inside her head. Whispering. There were no words, or none that she could hear, though Bartlemy had told her once that the gnomons whispered in the spelltongue of all the worlds, echoing the enchantments that bound them. But now the magic was fraying and their bonds had loosened, and their whispers had degenerated to a thread of noise, a menace without mind or purpose. Hazel listened, and felt her little store of courage draining away. The collywobble in her stomach crept down her legs. She knew she had to do something before terror immobilised her, and she straightened up, stepping backwards from the hole, checking out her escape route one last time.
‘What about you?’ she mouthed to the dwarf.
‘I rub the herb on me,’ he said. ‘The herb from the goodman’s garden. They’ll leave me be.’ His own odour was so strong, Hazel hadn’t even noticed the smell of the silphium.
I wish I’d done that, she thought, but Bartlemy had said they might not come after her, if she used any deterrent.
She called out: ‘Hoy!’ in the direction of the hole, feeling stupid and terrified all at once. It wasn’t the most dramatic summons, but it was all she could think of. ‘Hoy!’
Then she ran.
‘Don’t look back!’ Bartlemy had warned her. Looking back slows you down; you could miss your footing, miss your way. She didn’t look back. The whispering grew, becoming a stream of Fear that poured out of the hole behind her and came skimming over the ground, flowing uphill like a river in reverse. She leaped the tree-roots, snapped through branches. She needed no incentive to run, the Fear was on her heels. An invisible pursuit that tore through the wood like a swarm. Leaves she hadn’t disturbed whirled far in her wake.
She was gasping when she issued from the valley but she had tried harder at sport that year, taking up karate (a Year Eleven option), and so far neither her legs nor her lungs had let her down. And now she was on the path, following the track she had worked out with Bartlemy, and the ground was level, and running easier. But the hunt was catching up. She could feel their nearness, hear the dreadful whispering that, if she faltered or fell, would be on her in seconds, pouring into her thought, blanking her mind forever. Somewhere close by Hoover howled, a skin-crawling, hackle-raising sound, unfamiliar as a wolf on your hearthrug.
Hazel careered left, into a thicket of winter briars. Her knees buckled – she pitched forward and fell –
The iron grille dropped down behind her.
The gnomons recoiled, spinning the dead leaves into a maelstrom. A net of twisted wires came out of the sky, encasing them in a fragile cage; but its strength did not matter – it was iron, and it held them. There were wires even beneath the leaf-mould, embedded in the ground. The smell of silphium, coating the metal, impacted on their hypersenses, stinging them into a frenzy. Bartlemy came out of the bushes to see the very air boiling as if with a miniature sandstorm: earth-crumbs, leaf-fragments, twig-fragments whirled into a living knot of fury. The whispering had ceased; in this world, their pain was voiceless. He stood for a moment, his bland face more expressionless than usual, then he went to help Hazel to her feet. She was trembling with reaction and the aftermath of effort. Hoover came loping through the briars to his master’s side; some sort of wordless communication passed between dog and man.
Bartlemy said: ‘I see.’
Hazel gazed in horror at the tumult within the mesh. ‘Will they stay there?’ she demanded.
‘They must. Iron emanates a magnetic field that contains them; there is insufficient space for them to pass between the wires. And the smell of silphium torments them. I made the cage too small: they will be in agony as long as I keep them there.’
Hazel said: ‘Are you sorry for them?’
‘They cannot help what they are,’ Bartlemy responded. ‘Nature – or werenature – made them, who knows for what purpose. Like the wasp who lays its eggs inside a living grub, or the mantis who eats its mate’s head during intercourse. They have no intelligence to be held responsible for the suffering they inflict. Responsibility is for us. We know what we do.’
‘Will they die?’ Hazel asked in a lower voice.
‘I don’t know,’ Bartlemy said. ‘I’ve never captured such creatures before.’
The sandstorm showed no sign of abating.
‘Let’s go home,’ Bartlemy went on. ‘You need food.’
‘Yes, please.’
‘And then you can tell me why you disobeyed my orders, and went into the Darkwood.’
The following morning Bartlemy went to check on the cage. He had used his influence to steer dogwalkers – and their dogs – away from the place, and he saw immediately that it had not been disturbed. But the occupants were gone. He walked long and far that day, watching and listening, but there was no feel of them anywhere in the wood.
At last he came to the chapel on the slopes of the valley, though he had never found it before. The dwarf was there waiting.
‘They’re gone,’ he said. ‘Would ye be wanting to look inside? I’m thinking you’re a mickle too broad to be crawling into ratholes.’
‘And I’m thinking,’ Bartlemy said, ‘you’re a mickle too bold, leading a young girl into danger. I’d permitted her to take a little risk; I hadn’t intended it to be a big one. Or was that your idea of help?’
‘I didna
