She would be the Old Man of Coniston. If she survived the next thirty seconds.
The head rose still higher. She felt it in the sky above, for that was also her domain, two leagues north and south and west and east, and all the air above and stone below. The magic filled her; she could feel it working through blood and bone, almost at the point of unraveling her, making her undone. . . .
She felt the head, still climbing, above the cloud now, under bright blue sky. But the magic inside her was still not enough to resist all that Southaw could bring to bear. She could not contain it. She was not enough and couldn’t be, not in the time allowed.
Susan also saw something else, and with it came the realization that a part of what Southaw had said about her father was untrue. It was not all over for him.
She lunged for the fallen butter knife with its one sharpened edge and scuttled to the grave, almost falling in headfirst. She sawed at the rope on her father’s right wrist, and it gave way as if the knife did slice butter. His eyelids quivered. She cut away the second rope and his mouth opened to draw in a rasping breath.
There was a terrible scream overhead and the head began its downward plunge.
“Guard me!” shrieked Susan to Merlin, as she swung about to cut the rope on her father’s ankle. As the hair strands there parted, he sat up. Susan lurched across him, bringing the knife down on the last binding—
Merlin’s sword flashed overhead; there was a flare of brilliant light and a deafening boom. Susan felt something hit her back, smashing her down. She rolled onto her side to look up, and there was Holly’s head only a few inches from her face, teeth bared in hatred.
It was pierced through jaw and temple by the ancient sword. Both Merlin and Vivien strained to hold it up and away from Susan as it bit at the air, their silver hands bright as sunshine.
Gray, greasy smoke billowed from nostrils and empty eye sockets, tendrils questing towards Susan. This was the essence of Southaw, leaving the last remnant of its temporary mortal convenience, the raw mythic entity still far greater than anything Susan had become. She still lacked the power to fight it, and the smoke reached out towards her eyes, looking for a way in—
A hand gripped Susan’s and she screamed in total panic, but she knew it in that same instant.
Her father’s hand, which she had never felt before.
The scream became a sigh as Susan let all the power she had gathered go, opening the floodgates of her inner self, releasing the magic she had gathered, the magic stolen by Southaw, the magic still within the mountain, all rushing into one, as a long-dammed mighty river rediscovers its proper bed.
Coniston Rex took it all in, and used it.
“Go, Southaw,” said a voice, hoarse from long disuse. “Get thee gone.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The day withdraws at fall of night
The night presses on, seeks a kiss of light
The two can never meet but fleetingly
At dusk and dawn, so prettily
THE INTENSELY THICK GRAY SMOKE, SO CLOSE TO SUSAN’S EYES, recoiled from Coniston’s words. It coalesced into a massive, fuzzy-edged, pale raven that loomed above Merlin and Vivien, where they stood on the edge of the grave. It opened its beak to caw once in brief defiance, before rising up and winging south.
Susan looked at her father, close to her in the stony grave. He returned her gaze, before looking down at himself and his hands. He gestured. His nails fell away, and the beard and hair receded to medium sixties hippie rather than feral ancient, and his Nehru jacket, purple flares, and boots were mended.
“Thank you, daughter,” he croaked. But he made no movement to hug her, or show affection, and Susan felt no inclination to do so herself. She could see some of him in how she looked herself, physically, but it was an academic observation. He might be her father, but he was still a stranger. Something about the way he looked at her suggested he felt much the same. Finding a father was one thing. Establishing any kind of relationship with him would clearly be more difficult. Made even more so by the nature of what he was.
Coniston looked up at Merlin and Vivien.
“Young St. Jacques,” he said, in a not-too-friendly tone. “I trust you are not with that Merrihew who lured me to Southaw’s trap. Who now lies dead upon my upper slope. What is your business here?”
“Helping Susan,” said Merlin. “And you, sir.”
Coniston nodded slowly, accepting that. He climbed out of the grave, paused, and held his hand out to Susan. She took it, moving stiffly and wincing as she stepped up. She’d momentarily forgotten about the glancing wound to her leg, but now the pain was coming back with a vengeance, and the cuts on her hands stung.
Coniston frowned and she suddenly felt pins and needles in her hand, and the familiar magic came back, flowing from mountain to man to her. It was like being given pethidine the time she’d broken her wrist falling off Christie, her neighbor’s usually placid mare. She felt relief flowing through her veins, and the pain went away from bullet wound and cuts. But it was not only that. Her father was giving her some small part of the magic he’d taken back. A very minor part. She could sense how vast a pool of power lay within the mountain
