Sacrament

CHAPTER VIII

The last Frannie saw of Will he was attempting to scale the rocky outcrop at the head of the gully. Then her attention had been claimed by Rosa, who'd started to moan piteously, tearing at her bandages. When Frannie looked back in Will's direction, he'd gone. She assumed at first he'd scaled the rocks and was now through the passage and onto the slope beyond, but though she watched for him, she saw no sign. Slowly, a grim possibility took shape: that in the minute or so that she'd been trying to stop Rosa re-opening her wound, Will had lost his balance and toppled back into the gully. The longer she stared and failed to see him the more probable this came to seem. She hadn't heard him cry out, but with the birds so loud was that any great surprise? Fearing what she would see, she ventured from Rosa's side, and followed Will's route along the edge of the gully, yelling to him as she went.

'Where are you? For God's sake answer me! Will?'

There was no reply. Nor was there any sign of his having fallen. No blood on the rocks; no place where the grass had been uprooted. But these absences were little comforts. She knew perfectly well he could have slipped down into the gully without leaving a trace: a straight fall between the rocks, down into the impenetrable darkness.

She had almost reached the head of the gully by now, the spot where she'd last seen Will. Should she climb up and see if he was simply squatting on the far side of the rocks? Of course she should. But something drew her eyes back to the gully, and she stared into its abyss, afraid now to call his name; afraid he'd answer out of the darkness.

And then she saw him - or thought she did - lying in the depths of the gully maybe twenty feet down. Her heart beating feverishly, she got down on her knees and went to the very edge of the gully to verify what she was seeing. There was no doubt. There was a man lying on the rocks at the bottom of the gully. It could only be Will. She tried yelling to him, but he didn't move a muscle. Perhaps he was already dead; perhaps he was merely stunned. Certainly she couldn't waste time going for help: half an hour back to the car, another ten, twenty minutes to find a phone, how much longer before rescuers appeared? She had to do something herself; find a way down into the gully and help him. It was a grim prospect. She'd never been agile, even as a girl, and though the relative

slightness of her build would make it physically feasible for her to clamber down into the darkness, if she herself slipped she'd end up broken-bodied beside Will and that would effectively be the end of both of them. Two more fatalities to add to the headland's grim reputation.

But she had no other choice. She plainly couldn't leave Will to die. She simply had to put her fears aside and get to work. Her first task was to find the safest route of descent. She walked back along the gully in the seaward direction until she found a spot where the walls of the crevice were relatively close together, so that she might descend using both sides for hand- and footholds. It wasn't perfect - perfect was a ladder with a large cushion at its base - but it was the best she was going to get. She sat down on the tuffet of grass beside the spot and dangled her feet over the edge. Then, without giving herself time to doubt the wisdom of what she was doing, she slipped her bottom off the grass, and after a few heart-quickening moments with her feet in mid-air, and her body sliding off the tuffet, her toes found a ledge on the opposite wall, against which she now braced herself. There followed a minute of clumsy manoeuvring while she turned herself around so that she was facing the grass off which she'd slid. There were probably ten easier ways to do what she was doing, she thought, but right now her brain wasn't quick enough to think them through.

She glanced down before she made her next move, which was an error. Her muscles seized up for several seconds, and she could feel the sweat oozing out of her palms and armpits, its smell sour with fear.

'Take hold of yourself, Frannie,' she chided herself. 'You can do this.'

Then, taking a deep breath, she renewed her descent, hold by hesitant hold, except that this time she didn't make the mistake of looking down - at least not all the way down - but limited her gaze to the rock, studying it for nicks and cracks where she might find purchase.

Only once, when she thought she heard somebody calling to her, did she look up, hesitating for a moment to listen for the cry again. It came, but it was not a human voice; it was just one of the birds whose call had an almost human timbre. She returned to the labour of descent determined not to look up at the sky again, whether she heard cries or no. It was upsetting, seeing the light bounded by two walls of rock; getting narrower as she descended. From now on she would look no further than her hands and feet, until she was down beside Will and planning their ascent.

Rosa had long ago ceased to care what Frannie thought or did, but she was intrigued, albeit remotely, to see the woman disappearing from sight into the crevice. Had she got too close to the Domus Mundi, and her wits burned up? If so, it surely hadn't been much of a fire. Well, never mind.

She was gone now, and wouldn't be coming back, which left Rosa alone. She let her head drop back against the shit-splattered rock and stared up at the sky. The clouds had covered the sun completely now, at least to human eyes. But she could see it still, or imagined she could: a bright ball flaming in the glorious nowhere of space.

Was that where she belonged, she found herself wondering. When she was no longer Rosa, which would be soon, very soon; when her wounded body gave up the last of its life, would she ascend like smoke, and be gone towards the sun? Or into the dark between the stars, perhaps. Yes, that would be better. To be lost in the dark utterly and forever, a nameless thing that had endured too many lifetimes, and lost its appetite for life and light.

But before she went, perhaps she still had it in her to reach Rukenau's step; to knock and ask him: What was it for? Why did I live?

If she was going to do so then she was going to have to do it soon: what little strength she had left was quickly departing her body. She had thought it would give her one last burst of vitality if she opened her wound, like a whip applied to her own back. But she'd simply traumatized her body further, and there was precious little power left in her.

She took her eyes from the sun, and pushed herself into a sitting position. As she did so her instincts provided some information she'd been expecting to receive: Steep had set foot on the island. She didn't doubt the report. She and Steep had traced each other over vast distances in their time; she knew what his proximity felt like. He was on his way. When he arrived he would do murderous harm, and she had little or no defence against it. All she could do was to press her body to her purpose, and hope to reach the door before he did. Perhaps Rukenau would play judge and jury; perhaps he would find fault with Steep, and stop him in his tracks. Or perhaps the House was empty, and they would come into its chambers like thieves into a looted palace, expecting glory and finding nothing. The notion gave her a thrill of perverse pleasure: that after this desperate pursuit they would both end up emptyhanded. And she could die, and go to the darkness between the stars. And he would live, and live, because the man he'd become was afraid of death, and that would be his punishment for being death's agent, that he could never be delivered from existence, but would go on and on.