The left-handed bookseller saw Susan slow, and whipped up her arm, firing four quick shots even as she continued jumping up multiple steps at a time. The first three shots missed, ricochets screaming off the rocks above and below Susan.
The fourth bullet caught her as she started to run again, scraping across the outside of her left thigh, an inch above the knee. She felt it first like a cube of ice dragged across her skin, a distinct but not intense pain, but then as she ran on, the pain blossomed. Susan screamed, once, but it was more a scream of rage than fear. She glanced at the wound, saw it had scored the outside of her leg rather than going through, that it was not fatal or perhaps even serious. She pressed on, as fast as she could.
She was close to the summit now, she felt it, and she knew her father was somehow there. Above all else, she had to get to him. But there was also that warning twinge, that sense of something not right. The Grail-Keeper had spoken of enemies, plural. One was behind her, that was for certain. She felt another enemy lay ahead. But she had no choice except to go on. Merrihew wanted to kill her and she did not know what her other enemy wanted.
It was only another twenty or thirty feet to the summit. If she made it before Merrihew got close enough to see her despite the fog, if she could reach her father, draw in more of the magic of the mountain, then perhaps she could do something to save herself. And she had the knife and the salt. She didn’t want to bind anyone to her service, but if the alternative was death . . .
Susan took out the knife as she struggled over the loose rocks, and wiped it against her wounded leg, smearing it with her blood before sliding it back in the ruler pocket, out of sight. She pulled out one of the small packets of salt, but she didn’t dare stop to try to open it, so she clutched it in her hand and continued to clamber up and over the broken ground.
Merlin and Vivien came out of Low Water to the sound of gunfire.
“Beretta .25,” said Merlin. He paused for an instant to snatch up something from the ground and ran onto the path up the mountainside. He couldn’t see who was shooting or at what; the fog was too thick, majestically rolling down towards them. “Has to be Merrihew’s. Shooting at Susan, I suppose. But the fog . . . she’d be very hard to hit.”
He spoke to reassure himself, but it didn’t work for either him or Vivien, and they both increased their pace, only to slow after a few yards as their flat leather-soled dress shoes slipped on the stones and grass. Merlin suddenly stopped, sat down and tore away the laces, and ripped his shoes off, Vivien sitting to do likewise.
“Damn Silvermere!” cursed Merlin, and ran on again. A totally incongruous pair, in evening wear with bare feet, each with one hand shining silver, as they had not stopped to pick up their white gloves nor their top hats when they sprinted from the dining room.
Susan came to the top of the Old Man of Coniston warily, staying low. The fog was so thick she couldn’t see more than a few yards past her face, but she knew there was a cairn on a platform ahead, as well as she knew the layout of her own home. Though she had never been here, this mountain and all the land about was etched clearly in her mind’s eye. She inched forward, the fog parting around her, came to the cairn, and stopped.
Chief Superintendent Holly was sitting on the stone platform, his back against the cairn. He was dressed as a hiker now, his solid bulk crammed into a red anorak and ex-army winter camo trousers, with expensive Gore-Tex boots completing the ensemble. Two other men . . . or women . . . stood at each end of the platform. They were clad only in Arsenal F.C. hooded shell suits, rough woolen gloves, and Adidas knockoff running shoes. The hoods of the shell suits were done up unnaturally tight and close on their faces, almost hiding the blotched, blue-black skin beneath.
Susan caught the smell of amaranth and laurel from them, and the deep stench of rotting flesh.
Not people at all. Not anymore. They were Cauldron-Born.
“About time you got here,” said Holly. “Was that Merrihew who winged you?”
Susan nodded slowly. Her father was within the cairn. Or the mortal expression of him was, she could sense it. And she could also feel that the opposition to her taking in the power of the mountain came from Holly. He had diverted it to himself somehow, and he was trying not to give it back.
“The old crow knew I need you alive,” said Holly. He didn’t speak or gesture, but the two Cauldron-Born moved suddenly. They leaped away, into the fog, like rocks launched from catapults. “So I can’t have her shooting you again, can I?”
He got up himself from the platform, dislodging a couple of stones, and stretched, offering a yawn up to the cloud-shrouded sky. Susan saw the silver watchband, and here, coming into her power, recognized it immediately for what it was. Not a charm of protection, but one of disguise.
This was not a mortal policeman who stood before her, but an Ancient Sovereign clad in human flesh.
“I should have saved myself the bother of trying to fetch you here, shouldn’t I, since you were bound to come anyway,” said Holly conversationally. “I thought those old booksellers would
