Advent (54 page)

 
‘
Yourself, Johannes? You will strike the blow yourself
?
’

 
To this, whatever it was, Miss Clifton could answer nothing. The angel spoke again.

 
‘
I do not remember what made me wait for you those thousand winters, but I waited. Remember that, as you strike the blow.
’

 
Miss Clifton winced and shuddered. When she spoke again, there was a dreadful bitterness in her voice.

 
‘
I loved you. I do not deny it. But look.
’ She spread her hands at her sides. ‘
Now I have a woman’s flesh. I cannot tell how this woman unbound my wards. No woman could be so great a thaumaturge. Perhaps time did the work for her. Yet the woman has given me an unthought-of gift with her womanhood.
’ The voice chilled Horace to his bones.
‘
She has taken away a man’s love. And a man’s restraint. And a man’s reason.
’

 
‘
Your fury is all yours, Johannes. None of it is hers.
’ The angel’s voice had changed too: colder, sharper. Though she was a head shorter than Miss Clifton, she suddenly seemed twice the other’s size. ‘
Your pride is all yours too. Yet whatever you say, you must return my gift. It is mine to bear still, and mine to bequeath. You knew that, once. Why else did you try to conceal it
?
’

 
Miss Clifton drew herself up stiffly. ‘
You have never understood what you bore. Not in all that legion of years.
’

 
The angel woman spoke quietly. ‘
No. No, I have not.
’

 
‘
I am wiser. I know this ring’s worth.
’ Miss Clifton folded a hand over the pendant. ‘
Do you know what I will do with the ring
?
’

 
‘
I do, Johannes.
’

 
‘
I will restore to this world everything it has lost. I will throw open the doors and welcome the life of creation back to this withered corpse. I . . .
’ Miss Clifton coughed, heaved in a breath, straightened herself. ‘
I am the resurrection and the life. That is your gift to me.
’

 
‘
I spurned the god and this is how he cursed me. You cannot heal the world with a curse, Johannes.
’

 
‘
Those gods fell long ago. They are nothing but empty words now. And you, Cassandra, should have died with them. Why do you go on
?
’

 
‘
I never chose my burden.
’

 
‘
Then rejoice that I bear it instead.
’

 
‘
You cannot.
’

 
The hand covering the plain brown pendant shook. Whatever crazy language they were talking in, it was obvious they were arguing about it.

 
‘
I have and I hold.
’

 
‘
No. You do not. You never had the strength to bear it.
’

 
Miss Clifton gestured angrily with the stick. ‘
Shall we have a trial of my strength, witch
?
’

 
‘
You must give it back to me.
’

 
Horace gripped the trunk tighter as the angel unfolded an arm and held out an open hand, palm raised. His breath dried up. He saw what she wanted: the thing that was strung on the silver chain round Miss Clifton’s neck. It was like the film had reached its climax. He knew some terrible significance hung on what would happen next. The taller woman still clutched the ring with her free hand, covering it. The angel kept her palm out, unflinching, perfectly still.

 
There was a very long silence.

 
Miss Clifton said something slowly. ‘
You put it in my hands. Yourself, long ago.
’

 
‘
Because you loved me, Johannes.
’

 
Maybe it was a trick of the weird impossible watery light, but for a moment it looked to Horace like Miss Clifton was crying.

 
The angel spoke again. Her tone became intensely commanding and Horace found himself urgently taking her side. Horrible things would happen if the wrong person won.

 
‘
The door is open again and the world will suffer for it, but that burden is still mine to carry. Give me my burden, Johannes.
’

 
Miss Clifton spasmed visibly at these last words, then sagged.

 
‘
You must know what I have decided.
’ It was a broken whisper.

 
‘
Will you do it yourself
?
’ said the angel. Her outstretched hand had still not wavered. ‘
Will you end me by your own hand
?
’

 
Miss Clifton heaved the stick up over her head to strike. Horace almost cried out, saved only by the terrorised astonishment locking his tongue. But the stick wavered in the air. It was too big and heavy for her to swing. Her arm wobbled clumsily. She lowered it back to her side, leaning on it, gasping. Horace felt an almost unbearable relief as he watched her other hand lift the chain off her neck. It’s going to be OK now, he told himself. It’s going to be OK! The angel won! He felt like cheering as he saw Miss Clifton hold out the ring on the chain.

 
Her eyes were closed as she dropped it in the angel’s hand.

 
When they opened again, the fury had reappeared in them. She stepped back as the angel’s fingers closed over the ring.

 
She spoke with dreadful menace. ‘
Not by my own hand. Nor will I stay to see it done. But what I have decided is decided. Call it prophecy, Cassandra. Call it fate.
’

 
The angel only lowered her arm and looked away.

 
Miss Clifton twisted round and shouted something into the air, some kind of wild command or curse, or maybe just a scream of defeat. But it doesn’t matter, Horace thought; she lost; it’s over. And sure enough, she walked away – not her proper walk, but a weird gait, as if she was going on artificial legs, using the stick to balance. She shambled right out of the bubble of clear air, passing through its invisible wall without a pause, disappearing into the snow.

 
Horace sunk to his knees. Without realising it, he’d been holding himself rigid while he’d spied on the exchange. It was OK now, he could breathe. The angel – he really had to stop thinking of her like that, it wasn’t right for her at all: she was more like a cross between a homeless person and a Zen monk – was cradling the ring in both hands, her head bowed. She looked at peace. It was OK. It was finished.

 
For some reason he remembered now what she’d said:
Of all the men and women and their children, you are the very last . . .

 
The prophetess was looking towards the tree. She’d seen him, surely. It was the first time he’d seen her face properly. The look in it was so old, so old. Old as the hills.

 
A dark shape appeared in the snow at the far edge of the bubble.

 
A dog walked into the clearing. A massive black dog. Horace froze.

 
The woman knelt down in the snow and bent her head.

 
The dog stared at her and bared hideous jaws. Its mouth burned like the gate of hell. It leaned back a little, muscles bunching, legs bending to spring.

 
Horace’s hands flew over his face. He curled himself into a tight and quivering ball at the base of the tree.

 
There was an awful, brittle snap.

Twenty-five

At the moment
his unsought inheritance came to him, Gawain was creeping through the wreckage of what had once been his aunt’s living room. He’d just about persuaded himself that the tree-woman was definitely either burned or gone when a wild wordless cry came from outside.

 
He threw himself into the dining room, rolled across the floor, grabbed another length of wood and jammed it into the fire. But there was no second cry. No one came in. Breathing hard, he got to his feet, holding the burning brand beside him, and looked out of the house.

 
Snow already lay thick enough to cover everything, and when he stepped over the splintered remains of the door to peer out, the flakes lashed at him as if the wind was using them for a weapon. He shielded his eyes from the assault and looked for something to see, but the whole world had vanished. He couldn’t even see the roof of the house.

 
Then the blizzard hesitated for a moment, as if drawing breath, and in that small respite he glimpsed a looming shadow further out from the door.

 
It didn’t move.

 
He took three steps towards it. His bare feet sank into the powder without pain, without feeling anything except crushed geometries of ice. The shadow was forked and branched. He stopped, heart pounding, and realised there was nowhere to flee to. Ten steps in any direction and he’d be lost.

 
But the cry had sounded like a death.

 
Had he slain the monster? Was that who he was? Gawain, conqueror of beasts? He edged towards the bulky silhouette. Already its windward side was coated with a long stripe of snow. Now he saw the spots of red, the only colour in a monochrome world. Its mouth was open in a frozen scream.

 
It didn’t look burned, but it wasn’t moving at all. Gawain edged closer, fascinated despite himself. The snow covered enough of it that you could almost believe it was only a tree after all, one of those weird lopped and rotting stumps that looks like a person from the wrong angle.

 
He got too close, and then the head moved.

 
‘Your day has a bad beginning, little lord,’ it said.

 
The shock made him drop the smoking branch. It hissed as it flumped down into the snow. He didn’t even think of bending to pick it up again. There was no escape. He was in reach of the lashing arms.

 
The head watched him, tilting. A tumble of snow shook loose from its crown of flowers and was whisked away into the blizzard.

 
‘No need for dread.’ Its voice carried above the surge and moan of the wind. ‘Right boy, wrong boy. No longer the boy I’m sent to fetch. You have a more fearful enemy now, White Hawk.’