She would only have seconds with the cauldron, even if she got there first.
Merlin, dragging himself in agony across the field, saw Susan running, saw the monstrous spirit tree looming close behind her. He felt a faint spark of hope leap inside as he saw Southaw was finally distracted. The New World was swimming into view, coming into focus, distant sound and wavering ghost shapes more concrete by the moment. But it was not fast enough, not fast enough by far; and Merlin cried out and tried to crawl faster as he caught the flash of light from the cauldron and saw Southaw so close, and Susan so near, and he realized what she would have to do, that he had told her himself.
If a living person is entirely immersed in the cauldron, it will shatter, its power gone forever. Oh, and the person dies.
Chapter Twenty-Six
To stand on a pivot; balanced, true
Awaiting the drop of the other shoe
A shining moment, before you fall
All things must end, but is this all?
SUSAN REACHED THE YEW WITH SOUTHAW’S QUESTING BRANCHES so close, so close behind. There was no time to consider, no time for second thoughts, no time to slow down. She felt the slash of a sharp-edged branch across her back and threw herself forward, slamming into the raw earth, sliding across and down into the cavern beneath the roots of the yew, falling in a cascade of dirt straight down—
Into the waiting mouth of the Copper Cauldron.
It was like diving into light, wondrous golden light, which enveloped Susan and took her in, Southaw too slow to catch her at the last.
A hundred yards away, Merlin saw Susan’s dive. He saw the Old One lunge forward, massive branches of smoke and shadow thrashing at the earth, only to rear back with a shriek like a locomotive’s locked wheels sliding into disaster, a scream of total rage.
The New World in the shape of the charming village of Totteridge rushed in to replace the Old, an unstoppable tide of color and sound and movement. Sunshine burst through the clouds, swaths of light sweeping down. The A5109 solidified in place, with flashing blue lights to north and south indicating the police roadblocks that had cut off all traffic.
On the west side of the road, huge, expensive houses rose, bordered with tall hedges to shield themselves from the passing poor. To the east a church appeared, a seventeenth- or eighteenth-century construction of dull yellow-brown brick topped by an incongruous white tower. A surprisingly low paling fence rose up around the churchyard, entered at a 1930s lych-gate, with its low peaked roof. Gravestones peppered the churchyard, amidst lesser trees.
In the middle of the churchyard, there was the Totteridge Yew.
A circle of thirty right-handed and six even-handed booksellers closed in on the physical yew tree and the raging tree monster that was Southaw, who loomed high above it. The booksellers all wore blue boiler suits, and the ugly bulbous-toed steel-capped boots that in other times would have made Merlin wince. Their silver hands were ungloved and bright, and like the goblins of May Fair, they formed a handfast ring.
Without any audible command, the booksellers suddenly stepped forward, boots crashing down as one, like the guards at Buckingham Palace. The ring drew tighter, closer to the tree.
Southaw lashed at them, long branches whipping down. But his threshing blows had no force; his smoky essence lost solidity wherever it struck, dissipating into puffs of gray dust like seeds blown from polluted dandelions.
With every blow the monstrous spirit tree became smaller and weaker, shrinking back down towards the physical yew. Again, without a word, the booksellers stepped forward, the ring tightening once more. The essence of Southaw retreated fully inside the actual tree, but it could still be seen, tree and spirit like a badly registered printing, the lines of trunk and tree and leaves smudged with gray fuzziness.
Some of the booksellers in the ring began to sing. Their voices were soft and musical, but barely more than a whisper. The words of banishment, which Merlin had learned at school but never heard in earnest. More booksellers joined in, two lines behind. Then the last group joined, also two lines behind, the song sung as a round by the three groups, each composed of a dozen booksellers, ten right-handed and two even-handed.
Dream not, thou shade
O’er an eternal night
Wake not, but sleep
In slow time’s creep
Fight not, lie down
Abjure all and thy crown
Rise not, save at our behest
Sleep deep, go to thy rest
Sleep sound, Old One
Thy reign is done
Rest now, sleep fast
Thy time is past
As the booksellers in the ring sang Southaw away, forty left-handed booksellers, also wearing boiler suits and boots, worked in quartets to chop up remnant Cauldron-Born with various bladed weapons. One even had something that resembled the classic grim reaper’s scythe. They were collecting the pieces in draw-stringed cotton library bags that shared a common “Wooten Library” embroidered patch along with many individual designs exhibiting the wildly variant levels of sewing expertise from several generations of St. Jacques children.
Southaw had deployed more than a dozen of the Cauldron-Born to defend the perimeter of his village lair, but had lost control when he took the demesne out of time. They had turned on whoever was closest, including each other, and some were still locked together, gnawing and tearing at decayed flesh, until the booksellers’ blades chopped them into little bits.
“Where’s Susan?”
Merlin was lying facedown on the grass. He rolled over and looked up, grimacing as the movement sent stabs of pain shooting through his broken legs. The sun was behind Vivien, and he squinted at her. Her chin was covered in blood from her lip, but she was smiling.
“She went in the cauldron,” said Merlin dully. “That’s what finished Southaw.”
“That
