The Forever Man (W.A.R.P. 3)

Stake?

Pyre?

No one even uses those words any more.

But it was not any more, she realized. It was way back when. And, in the way-back-when, things were a little different from how they would be in what Chevie thought of as my day.

Here guns fired one bullet at a time if the barrel didn’t explode in the shooter’s hand.

People locked prisoners in stocks and used words like ‘thee’ with a straight face.

And perhaps more seriously and relevant to her present situation: they burned witches at the stake without a whole lot of evidence that those being burned were witches in the first place.

Though, in her case, she had fallen from the sky and she did have cat’s eyes, which was about a million times more evidence than Garrick usually needed. By all accounts the Witchfinder generally threw a bit of a wobbler, pointed at some unfortunate female, pronounced her a witch and that was the end of it as far as the good people of Mandrake were concerned. All a female had to do was look a bit different or have her own opinion.

Why am I surprised? she wondered. It wasn’t as if things were any different in her day. Persecution still flourished all over the world and on a much grander scale.

Half the world’s people are starving and the other half are trying to ethnic-cleanse each other.

But Garrick was taking it to a new level. He was done fooling around with witches and warlocks. If the whispers of his plans were correct, he was leapfrogging right over ethnic cleansing to global cleansing.

One of the guards had swaggered back and forth on the dais in front of her, saying how her witchcraft would be of little use against a cannonball of pure silver that would destroy hell itself.

Hell itself being Smart’s inter-dimension.

So Garrick was planning to destroy the wormhole.

And as Riley might say: That particular trick only works the once.

Garrick was taking no chances with Chevie’s security. The stake was ringed with militiamen with pikes and rifles, ready for any assault on the prisoner; silver rings and bracelets had been threaded along her restraints in case the wormhole got grabby; and the great Witchfinder himself restlessly patrolled the outer wall, possessed of a fidgety excitement that made him irritable one minute and gregarious the next, so that men stepped from his path, uncertain how he would react to their presence.

There are no women or girls outdoors, Chevie noticed. And it didn’t take a genius to figure out why. Garrick could name any woman a witch at any moment and there were enough zealots in this town to make sure the accused were quickly under lock and key.

Overhead the rift was clearly visible in the sky, though it could easily be mistaken for a sunset-tinged wisp of cloud, unless a person watched it for a minute and realized that, though it undulated and yawned, it resisted the easterly wind and remained fixed over Mandrake.

The U-bend, thought Chevie. The end of the world.

It was difficult to take that notion seriously.

It’s been done to death. I saw a dozen movies last year about the end of the world.

The rift was hazy scarlet around the edges but grew darker inside, with a slash of deep blue night at its centre, and on occasion it seemed as though something flashed across that dark patch. When that happened Chevie felt a yearning to be there, inside the wormhole and at one with the creatures, but she knew that this was just the quantum foam in her system acting like some kind of magnet.

Kind of the opposite of the silver cannonball Garrick intends to blast in there.

She squinted into the evening sky, thinking, Which would be one helluva shot. That’s gotta be a thousand feet, there’s a brisk wind picking up, and the cannons around here aren’t actually precision instruments.

Chevie was afraid, of course. Terrified really, and, though she tried hard not to be consumed by terror, sometimes it broke through her armour of bravado and manifested itself as violent spasms, which rattled her silver chains and shook the stake in its mount. Chevie did not want to give her tormentors the satisfaction of seeing her reduced to a shivering mess, but she was still an adolescent, after all, and the traumas had been building up inside her over the past series of adventures.

Strangely, though, the shakes did not consume her entirely and Chevie found that she was able to hold it together reasonably well most of the time, even though she was cold, hungry, dying of thirst and lashed to a stake for imminent burning.

I’ve been desensitized to life-or-death situations, she realized. And I still believe that Riley will come to rescue me.

After all, he had done it before against extremely steep odds.

‘How now, miss. Does it hurt thee?’ said a voice from below, and Chevie looked down to see the man Woulfe standing at the base of the pyre studying her.

‘Does what hurt me?’

The mason seemed embarrassed to ask. ‘The witch eyes. It would seem that they rightly belong in another skull. That of a mouser, say.’

‘A mouser? Oh, cat. You mean cat?’

Woulfe nodded. ‘Aye. Cat. Those are cat’s eyes lodged in your sockets, miss, and I was idly wondering whether or not the mismatching of eyes with sockets was a cause for mortal agony?’

Listen to this guy, thought Chevie. His patter is worse than Riley’s.

‘No,’ she said. ‘The mismatching of sockets and eyes is not a cause for mortal agony. If you really want to know, I can actually see a lot better in the dark. Not that I need cat’s eyes to see that water jug you’re holding.’

Woulfe looked at the jug as if he’d just realized it was in his hand. ‘Ah yes, I come bearing water, for even witches deserve mercy is the truth of it.’

‘That we do,’ said Chevie.

Woulfe took a step backwards. ‘You would admit it? I thought perhaps you were simply an unfortunate abomination.’

‘Take your pick,’ said Chevie wearily. ‘But leave the water.’

Woulfe came closer warily. ‘So, witch or no. Which is it?’

Chevie met his eyes. ‘It is whatever Garrick says. Ain’t that so, Master Woulfe? I can’t believe you people. This guy strolls in here and you hand him the keys to the city.’

‘He battled the man-lizard!’ objected Woulfe. ‘And others besides. Monsters all. Master Garrick delivered us from evil and he aims to seal the gates of hell forever.’

Chevie chuckled bitterly. ‘Yeah, because that’s how you seal things: shoot silver cannonballs at them.’

Woulfe climbed the makeshift steps up the pyre until he was level with Chevie. There was no anger in his eyes, just pity and maybe a shadow of fear. Chevie got the feeling that he was not afraid of her.

‘I am not a witch,’ she told him. ‘I just came here through the same tunnel as Garrick. He lost his complexion temporarily; I lost my eyes and got these ones. This time a few days ago I was as normal as … your daughter. She is your daughter, right? That cutie with the blonde hair? I saw her when they dragged me in here. Before Garrick scared all the women off the street.’

Woulfe lifted the spout of the jug to Chevie’s lips and poured a glug. ‘Yes. Elizabeth. Lizzie, as she is commonly known. There was some suspicion on her last year but it was unfounded, praise God.’

Chevie felt the cool water slide down her gullet. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I’m glad Lizzie isn’t tied up here beside me. I bet she’s a good kid.’

Woulfe smiled. ‘A kid? Yes, a giddy goat betimes. Indeed, she has a mischievous spirit.’

‘That’s what my dad said about me. Well, what he actually said was that I was a pain in the butt, but he meant mischievous spirit.’

It flashed across Woulfe’s features, the image of his daughter up here – which was of course Chevie’s plan.

Hostage Psychology 101. Plant the seed of doubt. Make the true believer believe the real truth.

Maybe I can rescue myself, she thought, which was premature, for at that moment their budding conversation was cut short.

‘See, master,’ said a voice. ‘He br

ings refreshment to the witch.’

It was Godfrey Cryer, the walking wounded, loath to miss the adventures. And there beside him was, of course, Albert Garrick.

‘Have I not said it?’ said Cryer, bobbing with excitement. ‘Lizzie Woulfe is a witch, and now she enchants her father to give comfort to her fellow witch. They both must pay.’

Garrick, cleaned up and decked in a sombre buckled hat and finery, was in high spirits and actually patted Cryer’s head. ‘Now then, Constable. The only thing that good Master Woulfe is guilty of is human kindness.’ He coughed into his fist, a sign that a quotable line was on the way. ‘ The quality of mercy is not strained …’

Unfortunately for Garrick, he chose just about the only William Shakespeare line that Chevie had picked up in high school and so she could not help but complete it.

‘ It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven, isn’t that right, Master Witchfinder?’

Even Chevie’s impudence could not dampen Garrick’s spirit, as he was having himself a royal old time back here in the seventeenth century.

He wagged a finger at Chevie. ‘Silver-tongued, you see, Constable? It is common among devils, witches and many travelling players.’