Something powerful is drawing Ward back to Devil's Island. Something he thought he had forgotten. He must evade vicious lighthouse keeper George Jaggles in order to rescue it, but Jaggles will soon be the least of his worries. Because an assassin is...
The first words expressed by Mrs Slooper indicated her desire to stop for breakfast. Mr Slooper agreed with customary good humour and steered Pickle off the road into one of the ruins. The drass was given water, which she grudgingly drank, and was set loose to graze upon the hillside. The elder Sloopers laid out a picnic blanket and set a hamper upon it. A couple of miser birds perched on a nearby wall to watch.
Mr Slooper pushed his glasses up his nose with one hand and reached into the hamper with the other. "Cold bean curd pie," he announced, laying this delicacy upon the rug. "Meat-free bacon," came next. Egg-free eggs, a loaf of grain-free bread, a hunk of dairy-free cheese, and a thermos of coffee-free coffee followed. These exotic viands laid out on the rug, the four travellers set upon them; Mr and Mrs Slooper with exaggerated lip-smacking and moans and groans of pleasure that made their son's face redden. Fidelma and Leif were given a piece of bread to gnaw on, along with some greens Ward had mistaken for dandelions.
After assuring the Sloopers that he was full, Ward went off into the ruins to relieve himself. He kept Fidelma in his pocket. He wasn't game to let her run free out here. He had seen an eyr gliding silently above the road earlier, followed by some smaller birds; the burra too were carnivorous and would attack a rodent if given a chance.
He went behind a wall and urinated. When he was done he remained where he was for a while, struck by the silence of this place. No wind blew, no bird sang. It reminded him of the Old City. It was as if the stones themselves stared balefully out at him. He knew that if he had the dice they would work well here – he would dive down into the meanings behind the symbols as if into water. It had been a powerful feeling, and he longed for it.
"Queer spot eh?" said a voice behind him.
Ward was startled from his thoughts. He turned to find Mr Slooper standing there.
"Sorry to alarm you," Mr Slooper said.
Perhaps it was the way the thick lenses of his glasses magnified his eyes, but they always seemed to have a glazed, distant look; this and the frizzy hair sticking out from each side of his head gave him a look of almost intentional eccentricity, though Ward knew nothing about Mr Slooper was contrived. There was a fearsome intellect behind those eyes: you could almost feel it burning there like a furnace. But it was haphazard. Like Slops, Mr Slooper had the uncanny ability to cut right to the heart of a matter, but it always seemed accidental, like a first-time gambler winning every hand with infuriating innocence. He did this now.
"It's cognisant," he said, happening upon just the right word.
Ward nodded. "It knows we're here." He would never have been able to voice something so strange to anyone else – not to Nick, who had a rational explanation for everything, nor to Mildew, who would have told him to get his head out of his arse. Slops would have gone along with it, but Slops went along with everything. Carmen would have taken it as an affront: she didn't like things she couldn't rationalise, and this drove her to instinctively deny their existence. Jaggles... he didn't want to imagine Jaggles's reaction.
"Did you know that in olden times people spoke with spirits that dwelled in places like this?" Mr Slooper said, gazing across the desolate place. "Only a handful of people know the language of spirits these days, and then only scraps of it."
"Like the Old Wise Woman?"
"Ahuh"
"Who is she?"
"I don't know. She was there when I was a boy. She was old even then. I grew up in Croakumshire you know."
"Is that why you go there?"
"Partly," he said, and changed the subject. "Rupert didn't tell us why you wanted to talk to the old wise one. He didn't tell us much about you at all, actually."
Mr Slooper was clearly, in his benign good-natured way, fishing around for information. Ward didn't see any reason not to tell him about himself, but he had no idea what to say. Who was he, anyway?
"I'm – a Scowerer," he said.
"One of Nick's eh? Interesting. No doubt he's sent you to ask something of the old one. Wouldn't be the first time either. But that's his business."
Ward was relieved Mr Slooper wasn't going to press him further. He didn't want to have to tell any more lies. He didn't like lying to people he admired, like Mr Slooper.
"Well we'd better get back on the road my boy. Got a long way to go yet, and the road gets rough from here on." He put a fatherly arm around Ward's shoulders as they walked back down to the roadside together. It was a strange but not unpleasant feeling. The only physical contact he had ever received from an adult male was the savage beatings of Jaggles. He felt a pang of jealousy for Slops, but pushed it shamefully away, and Mr Slooper's natural, easy affection, and the genuine smile on Slops's face when he saw his father and friend coming down the slope, banished it altogether.
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*Empties all the coffee-free coffee down the sink.*
