you try to tell me it’s too dangerous, too risky, something like that?’
‘I should say not. I wouldn’t think an expedition with you would be complete without an extremely hazardous situation.’ Caroline peeped over the lip of their shell hole. ‘I can see the best way. Follow me.’
55
The double shell hole proved to be just as Aubrey had hoped. Large, and close enough to the middle of no- man’s-land to serve his purposes.
He began preparing the spell. Caroline divided her attention between him and the surroundings, keeping low but alert, pistol in hand.
Firstly, Aubrey had to organise a relatively flat area. To this end, he’d brought the wonderfully named entrenching tool, the neat folding spade favoured by raiding and expeditionary forces. He used it to level the bottom of the crater, working steadily, and eventually used his hands as much as the metal tool, sweeping the dry earth away until he had rough oval area formed from the intersection of the two shell impacts and, once again, he was grateful that the weather was clear. Rain would no doubt have filled the bottom of the crater and the earth was fine enough to make the sort of glutinous mud that would be a misery.
He crawled around the perimeter of the desired area with the flour, marking his restraining and focusing diagram with a substantial line. Making the required symbols was trickier, but they were necessary adjuncts in bringing the results of the spell to the correct location and to no other. The symbol was a combination Aubrey had invented after some consideration, bringing together the spiral of the Babylonian sigil for ‘sun’ and the Chaldean symbol for ‘moon,’ both powerful symbols in their day for renewal and return, handy in this context.
He knew that these symbols were relics, survivors from an earlier age of magic when it was less scientific, but at this stage he was willing to call on whatever help he could.
Aubrey rubbed his nose, which was suddenly itchy, then he sat back on his heels and looked at the sky. For an instant it shimmered, but not with any colour the normal eye could see.
‘What is it?’ Caroline whispered.
‘Magic. Lots of it.’
‘Where?’
‘The Holmland lines. And it’s getting nearer.’
‘A good reason to move ahead with your spell?’
‘With all haste.’
Originally, Aubrey had imagined himself standing, arms spread in dramatic magical mode, perfect for greeting the surprised Holmlanders. Discretion, however, told him that standing up in the middle of no-man’s-land would be an unfortunate idea, akin to volunteering for target practice in the role of target rather than marksman. He opted for the rather less imposing position of sitting cross-legged, ensuring his head was well below the level of the lip of the crater.
Following Aubrey’s instructions, Caroline took up a position at one end of the crater, outside the diagram. He shook the photographs from his satchel and spread them in front of him, anchoring them with earth – and he came to his first hiccup.
He couldn’t see them well enough in the dark. He needed to see the faces, and see them well, in order to use the Law of Familiarity to draw the owners of the likenesses to this location.
Helplessly, he patted his chest in a forlorn longing for the marvellous appurtenances vest of George’s invention. If he had it, it might have included the handy cat’s eyes, neat devices that fitted over the eye to provide useful night sight.
While I’m at it, he thought, I might as well wish for a cease-fire and a magic carpet to take us all home.
He wasn’t about to give up because of a minor problem like this. He could summon a glowing light but was reluctant to do so in an arena where a cigarette lit for too long could attract a sniper.
He gnawed his lip, aware of Caroline’s calm scrutiny, knowing that she’d soon realise that he’d hit a snag, but appreciating her silence. Of course, it meant he had to live up to that confidence, but that was a role he was willing to adopt.
Attempting another spell wasn’t his preference. With the complex transference spell already packed into his memory, trying to wedge in another was fraught with danger – but he had a theory that casting a second spell in a language diametrically different from those used in the transference spell could prevent confusion.
He had a spell in mind. He’d read about some recent experiments in using the Law of Amplification on parts of the eye in an effort to remedy sight problems. The footnote that had lodged in Aubrey’s memory mentioned one outcome where the function of the rods in the eye, the light receptors, was intensified, resulting in the experimental subjects being dazzled in ordinary light.
Naturally, after reading this Aubrey had turned the experiment around in his mind and considered that such an outcome could actually mean useful seeing in condition of low light.
Aubrey had a very healthy regard for his eyes. His imagination left him in no doubt that losing sight would be a dreadful blow – not being able to read, ever again? An awful fate. In normal circumstances, he would be quite happy for experiments on sight to be done by careful researchers in good laboratories. Since squatting in the middle of shell hole halfway between two armies dedicated to wiping each other out was about as far from normal circumstances as it was possible to be, he accepted the necessity to undertake such a spell on himself.
He understood it, but it didn’t mean that he was entirely happy about it.
Keeping a brave face, and knowing that Caroline would see through that facade immediately, he constructed the spell in his mind using Vedic, the ancient language of the Indus people, a whole continent and a sea or two away from the languages he’d used for the transference spell.
The effect was immediate and profound, to the extent that he actually had to squint a little and shade his eyes, so bright were his surrounds. He could clearly make out every detail of the photographs, from the Chancellor’s bald head to the extraordinary array of whiskers, sideburns and beards on the faces of the other Holmlanders. Each of the men was posing proudly for the camera, chest outthrust and doing his best to present himself as the epitome of a wartime leader.
Aubrey took the spell from his satchel and riffled through the pages. It was undoubtedly the most complex, the most convoluted and the longest spell he had ever attempted, but as he cast his eye over each element he was confident that he held it deeply in his mind ready for casting.
That he could cast it, he was confident, but he was apprehensive about the consequences. A thin, cold voice asked if he was really sure of the state of his reunified body and soul. Would it stand the sort of backlash that such a spell could produce? He touched his chest, briefly, and shuddered at the prospect of returning to the appalling half-dead state, balanced on the edge of slipping away forever. Even with his plan to deflect much of the recoil onto the world around him, he was sure he would suffer.
He looked up to see Caroline’s gaze on him. Her eyes were bright and fierce in his enhanced sight, unblinking in their resolve, and she broke her silence: ‘I believe you can do it.’
It was enough. In his hour of need, it was enough. He nodded, closed his eyes for a moment to compose himself, and began.
In a remarkably apt simile, somewhere in the middle of the lost time of spell casting, it came to him that it was like marching through an unknown city, late at night, with a thousand wrong turns available at any minute, the consequences of which were grim.
The strain was most apparent in his mind and his mouth as they worked together to produce the language that was doing the work of wrestling the magical field, raw and inchoate, into the methodical, patterned arrangement that was a spell. As was typical for a dense spell, it began to take on a quasi-life of its own, the syllables and elements actively resisting being shaped, making the job harder and harder as it went on.
Aubrey lost all sense of his surroundings, swept away as he was in the ordeal of spell casting that was unlike any other he’d endured. His focus was on each syllable, each word, each element of the spell as it came to be pronounced. They lined up unwillingly, testing his resolve as they waited, shifting uneasily, losing their shape and intent. It was the force of his will alone that kept them in line and maintained them in the way that he needed. Each one presented itself, was spoken clear and correct, then it was replaced by another, and another and another.
