The Fatal Strand. Robin Jarvis
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screech boiled out from the blackening lips.
The long dark hair, which had been Miss Veronica’s pride, crinkled, burning away in the devouring heat whilst the wrinkled skin began to roast and smoke.
Yet still the eyes glared out at Ursula and Edie and, though the flames raged about its face, it could see them well enough.
As a writhing pillar of fire, the fiend tottered a wavering zigzag towards the woman and child, fiercely flailing its wasted, fiery arms.
‘Quickly!’ Miss Ursula told the girl. ‘Back this way.’
To the wellhead they stumbled, with the burning body chasing after, like a pursuing demon cloaked in flame. From this roaring terror they fled and, shining brighter than ever in that scorching grasp, the spear slashed a crimson web of hellish light.
Columns of twisting, fuliginous smoke poured from the lumbering lantern that had once been Veronica, coiling high into the upper darkness, giving it a turgid, churning density and substance. Within the inferno of that blistering furnace only a charred outline could now be glimpsed. The old woman’s bones were tinder dry and the rapacious fires eagerly consumed them.
Glancing backwards, Edie suddenly stopped running.
The fiend’s steps were beginning to falter. Torrefied sinews withered and the marrow fluxed from cracked bones, spitting and sizzling in the flames.
‘Edith!’ Miss Ursula called anxiously.
But the child grinned impishly at her. ‘It’s finished!’ she cried. ‘Frazzled – all crispy like!’
The flaring glare in the cavern began to diminish. Like dying candles the bright, licking tongues sputtered as they were quenched. Yet the power which steered that cindered skeleton was not quite beaten.
Swaying from side to side, as though the very effort of binding those blackened bones together was a tremendous strain, the smoking remains reached out a sizzling arm towards the young girl and flung itself forward.
Edie squealed and leaped upon the stone dais to escape the unexpected onslaught. Over the tangled weeds she ran, and the nightmare bolted after her, screeching for her death. Through the woody growth the horror lunged and staggered, but the guttering flames which still sparked about those misshapen limbs leaped into the moss, and immediately the well ignited.
Her clothes singed and smouldering, Edie Dorkins jumped clear as this new blaze roared into existence, sending a sheet of searing, tumultuous fire high into the curling smoke above.
Every dry stem burst into livid life, forming a dazzling pinnacle of flame. High into the age-old darkness the flaring light blasted, banishing the ancient shadows. For the first time in many years the entire, straddling shape of Nirinel could be glimpsed above the towering beacon.
Shielding her face from that blistering funnel of fire, Edie saw, within its seething heart, the animated cadaver stumble and lurch as the mind which drove those charred bones finally wrenched itself free.
Caught in the cremating maelstrom, the blackened form teetered for a moment about the wellhead, then toppled down into the gaping shaft at its centre.
Into the chasm fell the clattering bones, down into the empty deeps.
Suddenly, a violent quaking shook the chamber and, from the echoing regions of that immeasurable gulf, a gigantic ball of boiling flame exploded. Up to the arching height of the World Tree’s last surviving root the rumbling cloud rushed, erupting with an ear-splitting discharge of scorching heat and fire-dripping vapour as it stormed against that massive bulk.
Then, abruptly, it was over.
The exiled shadows quickly engulfed their old realm and a hot, squalling wind gusted about the cavern, dispersing the curdling clouds. The air became a blizzard of ash.
Only two of the torches remained alight and a thick layer of soot obscured the wide stone ring of the well.
Moistening her parched lips, Edie darted forward.
A few cherry-glowing embers still hissed and snapped, but the child clambered back on to the dais and ploughed through the choking mantle of fine powder. The heated stone scalded her knees as she crawled over to the broad, round hole where she stared down into the empty darkness.
‘It’s gone,’ her morose voice resounded from the void’s brim.
Behind her, Miss Ursula steepled her forefingers and tried to quell the anguish and panic which had overthrown her usual cold, collected bearing.
‘How dare He!’ she spat with passion. ‘How dare He invade this hallowed place and make a puppet of my sister!’
Edie wrinkled her nose. ‘Smells ’orrid in ’ere now,’ she stated, swivelling around to disclose a soot-smeared face. ‘Like burned bangers – only worser!’
‘Ursula!’ a timid voice called as Miss Celandine padded back into the cavern, looking warily about her. ‘I can’t go up the stairs in the dark, not all on my own. Is Veronica gone? Why was she being so beastly?’
It was Edie who answered. ‘It were that Woden,’ she guessed.
Surveying the wreckage, Miss Ursula nodded tersely. ‘Indeed,’ she uttered in a voice quivering with barely checked anger. ‘The age-old enemy of the Fates was the force behind the peril we have just faced. Did He not manipulate her enough when she was living? At least the shell of her being is out of reach now. Poor Veronica – how we all used her.’
‘He’ll try again though, won’t He?’ Edie murmured.
The woman gave an affirming nod. ‘Of that there can be no doubt. This was merely His calling card, to let me know His endeavours are only beginning. None, save He and I, know just how long this contest has endured. He will balk at nothing to destroy us. That is His only wish.’
Edie gazed back down the ponderous well mouth. ‘In Glassenbury, Veronica an’ me found a undine. I thought he might’ve come here to be with us – I asked ’im to, so as the water’d fill up again. Do you think he’ll ever show?’
‘An undine!’ Miss Ursula snorted in disbelief. ‘I doubt that, Edith. Their like have long since departed this world.’
‘I did find him!’ the child asserted. But Miss Ursula was looking beyond her, to a mound of ash and cinders a little distance away.
‘Even if you had,’ she conceded, ‘it would not avail us. The well is dry, Edith, and will always remain so. The time of the sacred waters has passed into memory only. We must find other sources of protection to defend us from our enemy.’
Striding around the wellhead, she lifted a familiar object from the soot, only to drop it almost immediately. Edie stared at the thing and shivered. The spear blade had not fallen into the abyss with Veronica’s bones and the girl drew her breath sharply.
‘Should I throw it in?’ she suggested.
Miss Ursula shook her head. ‘It would do no good. Woden will still try to find a way of using it against us. I would feel more secure if this perfidious object were under my scrutiny in The Separate Collection.’
The old woman wrung her hands. ‘I have been careless,’ she said. ‘I had thought the defences of my museum could withstand all assaults. Yet His base arts were able to creep through my barriers and seize control of Veronica. How vain and stupid I have been. Better to have left Celandine in charge. What use all those exhibits in The Separate Collection? Powerful and dangerous I have always thought them but look at this – see what He has done. My fortress is weaker than I ever …’
Her despairing voice fell silent as her gaze fell upon Miss Celandine who was still standing by the gateway and yawning widely. Suddenly, Miss Ursula’s face lost all trace of her discouraged melancholy and she pulled herself up sharply.
‘Of course!’ she said with renewed hope. ‘After all these years locked away in the museum, the exhibits have become sluggish and inert. Their