"Look, Chris, I told you at the time why I'm not going to-"

"I'm not talking about that! You and that stupid boy-are you trying to get all of us killed? Of all the d.a.m.n stupid-"

"Chris! Slow down. What are you so mad about?"

There was a hissing sigh from the other end of the line.

"You went on the sea road and got mixed up with one of the morkani."

"Yeah. Hey, that was good! I bet he's still wondering why me and Fletch ain't frazzled. Who told you? Tarac, I suppose.

Chris, it was the one that tried to get you, the one we met, Fiorin-Fletcher told me that he recognised him-"

"Holly!"

"What?"

"He won't still be wondering. That's the point. An idiot could work it out now, knowing what he knows. The morkaniwanted to know why there were humans in the Hills, didn't they? Now they've found out we're immune to this so-called magic. You've c.o.c.ked it up good an' proper this time. Come midwinter they'll be ready and waiting, and they'll know just who to go for first-me!"15 Home Visit Half-term pa.s.sed in a late October of frost, mists and thick drifts of brown leaves. Chris was remote and secretive; she and Holly had no contact outside the lessons they attended together. It bothered Holly, keeping the elukoi constantly in her mind. It was no use talking to Fletcher-he refused to discuss it at all. It was as if he were determined not only to be human, but never to have been anything else.

Holly took up with Dodo Ogden. The bookish girl was amiable; willing to discuss anything from atomic power to Davy Starren, criticise the older girl's style of football, and chatter of her own interest in the horses her father shod. However, being two years younger than Holly, she was not on hand in cla.s.s to help when Helen Gabriel caused trouble. Gabriel had got over her fright, Holly discovered; if anything she was more vicious.

The evenings darkened and the days grew dim. It sleeted at the end of November. Holly, sitting on the school radiators, cursed Hut Five blasphemously and at length. In the first week of December she came down with such a cold that, when she heard the doctor prescribe a fortnight at home, she was too miserable even to enjoy the absence from school.

She was alone in the house. The cold had dwindled to a sniffle, and she had decided to go back to school the next day.

It was the last day of term then, and she had no intention of missing the cla.s.s parties or the Christmas play.

The afternoon was dark, though it was only two o'clock. Thick yellow clouds threatened snow, but there was a keen east wind that would keep it from falling yet. Holly turned from the cold gla.s.s and its view of wet dark earth and trees; all in twilight.

In front of the fire was a pile of Christmas decorations. She had strung crepe ribbons and holly round the walls, and made a start on the tree; now she wondered whether it was worth starting paper-chains. She pulled her dressing-gown more tightly over her pyjamas. It was a luxury not to dress...

A knock at the front door.

She was half inclined to ignore it; the cold had left her apathetic. Whoever it was would go away eventually...

Again; this time louder.

Oh h.e.l.l. She yawned wearily, and wandered out into the hall. The lino was cold; she hoped she wouldn't be kept standing a long time. She opened the door a few inches on the guard-chain.

It was the clothes she recognised; dark coat and dark hat with the brim pulled low-for a second she thought Elathan!

and almost slammed the door.

Then he faced her, tipped the hat back, and smiled.

"Mathurin?" She pushed the door to and slipped the chain, then opened it fully. "Come on in. What's happened?"

"Nothing bad. Just harper's curiosity." He went into the sitting-room, slung his hat on the table, and stretched out leisurely in the chair. Holly cleared a pile of tinsel out of the way and sat beside him.

"What're you curious about, then?"

"How you fare, you and the boy. Is there trouble?"

"No... we wondered why not. I mean, the sea-people know what you and Chris plan to do. I wonder they're not after her; and us too."

He sat back, shadow sliding across the narrow planes of his face. Beast-eared, red-haired, golden-eyed... he was more wild and real than she remembered. And here he was in her own house.

"They have tried. But then, magic fails them there. And we be strong enough to beat their creatures off Themselves, they cannot come ash.o.r.e for more than moments yet; though that may change soon."

"Why bother defending me and Fletch?"

"You did not ask to be concerned in this. It was chance we found him. Chance it was that put you near the Hawk-coin.

Truly, it's no concern of yours."

"No..." Holly was unsure. "You said the sea-people may change?"

A grave golden stare. "Three days from now, it is mid-winter. Had you forgot?"

"I'd tried." She got up, nervous, changing the subject. "Would you like a cup of coffee?"

"What's coffee?"

I still keep forgetting. After all this time, I keep expecting them to be like us... "It's a drink made out of roast beans. You might like it. I'll put the kettle on."

He followed her out to the kitchen, looking up the stairs as he went. It was obvious that 17 Stonegate Street was as strange to him as Brancaer had been to her.

"If the sea-people win, what then?" Automatically her hands dealt with the percolator while her thoughts were elsewhere.

"I know not. An they take the Hills, it may be they'll settle content-it may be not. I'd warn the boy to move away. An you've a place in another town, I'd go there." He shrugged. "And they may lose."

"I should let that coffee get cooler before you try it." She thought, Is he trying to persuade me-us-to go back? If so-nothing doing.

They returned to the fire.

"How's the boy doing?"

"OK. He's got a job in the same garage as Ross Ogden -that's the brother of a friend of mine. Don't know how he swung that one; but he can sure look after himself.""And still lives in that hut?"

"For the moment. He's reckoning to look for a flat in the New Year. I wish I'd got the independence he has."

"Has he?"

"Yes." Holly was determined. "He doesn't owe the Hills anything."

"You and he have still the same opinion, there's no chance you'll return to us?"

"Not a snowflake's chance in h.e.l.l-is that what you came for?"

"Partly." He sipped the coffee and made a face. After a second's consideration he downed the rest of it and smiled. "Got any more of that?"

"Sure. Hang about." There was still boiling water in the kettle. She thought, Suppose they lose because of me? Oh but I couldn't make that much difference, not one person. And they've got Chris. And they don't have to fight...

Back by the fire again, with winter darkening around them: "Does Chris go to the Hills often?"

She saw he looked concerned.

"Do you not know?"

"I know she goes there. But she don't talk about it."

"I see. Yes. She comes often."

Her coffee was stone cold. "Is she going to be enough?"

"If that were known for certain, all would be happier. No, that is a lie-for myself. I would she were of your mind. If that were so, and midwinter surely lost, then mayhap Elathan would be less willing to begin a slaughter. But he holds the honour of the Hills to be one with his own honour."

Holly grunted, and shook her head. "I don't know."

"Nor I."

She had questions, most of them irrelevant, but she felt this might be her last contact with the elukoi.

"That Hawk-coin... it's just the pattern that bothered me. I've been thinking, and it was a bit different from the others round the well." Seeing his puzzlement, she stood up. "I made a sketch of it; I'll show you."

He studied it for some minutes in silence. She fidgeted.

"It wouldn't make any difference now, I suppose? Did we ought to tell Elathan?"

Mathurin leaned back. "That is no coin of the Well."

"No-well, what is it?"

"I have seen few of these, but they are the Great Seals, the sigils of each House of Faerie. This, from the form, was a sigil of the House of the Hawk; see, here is Tanaquil..." his claw-nailed finger tapped the paper.

"But if it didn't come from the Well?"

"Then from where?" He frowned. "The morkani do not come on land; besides, this was afore midsummer. Therefore it was given to an elukoi-that elukoi who is traitor to us all. And if it were lost..."

"It'd be a dead give-away," Holly concluded. "So I guess this person wanted to cover it up. And they put the blame on a Well-coin, so that no one would connect it with the morkani. Is that right?"

"It may be."

"But what would he or she be doing in the Old Town?"

Mathurin picked up the drawing again, studying it intently. "An a.s.signation with the morkani?"

"Oh d.a.m.n." Holly hit the table with the flat of her hand. "When I think how close I was to finding out who it was..."

"It helps us not. Who's to say who owned the sigil? There is no way to prove it now."

Holly thought, The Old Town? "Well... who leaves the Hills?"

"Fletcher. On rare occasions, myself or the Master Sorcerer. But a traitor would not advertise; we look for someone who leaves secretly..."

"That's true."

They sat in companionable silence for a while, and after that talked inconsequentially while the afternoon darkened further. At last he stood.

"I'll bid farewell, Holly. I am called fool for going out of the Hills, but I'm not sorry I do."

"I'm glad you do." Holly pulled her slippers on and saw him to the door. "Hey-hang on a sec."

She dashed into the kitchen and reappeared with a jar of ground coffee. "Here, you have it. I can get some more. You just put boiling water on it-or milk, if you like it that way. I hope you get back OK."

He took the jar, put it in one of the coat's voluminous pockets, and clapped the battered hat on his head. "Thank you, Holly. Well, goodbye. I am glad, I think, that I'll not see you on the sands below Gallows Hill. That midnight will be no place for any human, no, nor elukoi either. Fare you well- and give my love to Fletcher."16 Breaking Up Mr Jones's fifth form were making the most of the last day of term. The time between the mid-morning break and the dinner hour was technically reserved for tidying cla.s.s-rooms; by custom it was the time of the cla.s.s party.

"There 'e goes," observed Annette, another of Holly's friends. "Dear old Jonesy off to the staff-room for a cuppa. Won't see him again before dinner."

"Hooray!"

"That's not what you say!"

"Oh yes it is." Holly chuckled. "Er-did you get..."

"In a minute, in a minute. I gotta help Jenny with the stereo. 'Ang on."

Holly was sitting in Hut Five with Dodo Ogden. The cla.s.ses circulated a lot at Christmas so it was not unusual to see a third former in a fifth form cla.s.sroom.

The bare room had been decorated-if not smothered-in tinsel and crepe paper and hanging decorations. Within minutes it had acquired a party air; the chairs and desks were pushed back to the walls, a stereo record-player was set up, and Annette brought out two twelve-can packs of pale ale.

"Hand that round!"

"Who's got the b.l.o.o.d.y mugs?"

"Here's mine-hey, go easy!"

"What about me? Ta."

"What're we gonna have on?'

Holly retrieved her plastic beaker. She didn't ordinarily care for canned beer, but having some where it was forbidden was another matter. "What've you got?"

"Starren's Bethlehem Star-"

"Put Bethlehem Star on, we can dance to that," Jenny suggested.

"Why not?" Annette looked over their heads to the door. "Hey, somebody keep an eye open, just in case. I can have these cans outta sight in seconds."