The Fall (The Last Druid Trilogy Book 1) Page 2

  The letter to Angus would have to wait. He’d arranged to meet Professor Stuckley in his tutorial room at 5 p.m. to receive his results. He couldn’t be late.

  * * * * * *

  As he left his study bedroom and went out into the afternoon sun, apprehension flickered butterfly wings through his stomach. What would he tell his mother if he’d failed again? And he certainly didn’t want his life here to end. This was a special place, with every cobbled street leading to its own sanctuary. And there was nowhere quite like the Fellows’ Garden.

  Closing the circular oak door to the walled garden, he walked off down the narrow footpath that skirted Bat Willow Meadow and would lead him to Addison’s Walk and eventually the gates of Magdalen.

  Half an hour later he was passing through the imposing gates of the college and could see the cloisters just ahead. In them, he knew Professor Stuckley would be waiting.

  He quickly crossed the short walk and entered the building through its arched doorway. One or two visitors were still milling about, but the cloisters were quiet now compared to the busyness of term time. The tutorial rooms of both Magdalen and Cherwell College faced out onto a square lawn, surrounded by the most dazzling white hydrangeas to be found in the whole of Oxford.

  Sam stood at the bottom of a small stone staircase, his hands clammy and his stomach beginning to churn. This could be an embarrassing meeting.

  Taking a deep breath, he walked tentatively up the stairs to a wooden door. There he paused, a little out of breath, holding his clenched fist inches from the door and gathering the courage to knock.

  ‘Come in.’

  Sam stepped back, surprised. Before he had the chance to carry out the instruction, the door opened with a vigorous creak and he was face to face with an unmistakable figure.

  ‘Professor Stuckley,’ he stumbled, feeling his cheeks begin to go red with both excitement and trepidation.

  Before he could utter another word, the grey-bearded professor, dressed in an immaculate purple blazer and open sandals, took him by the arm and led him into the room.

  ‘Good to see you, Samuel.’

  The professor plonked himself down on a rickety chair whilst Sam sat in one of the many leather chairs, his heart thudding. All around him were bookcases stuffed full of hardbacks and paperbacks of all shapes and sizes. It was clear that at some point the professor had stopped trying to cram any more books on the creaking shelves and instead had built precarious-looking piles randomly across the floor.

  He was one of the more animated academics in the Department of Quantum Metaphysics, a person of quite unconventional thinking. He would often throw his book down in his cramped tutorial room, shoot across the stone floor on his rickety chair and march students outside into the fresh air. Whether it was raining or not, he would take them into the very heart of Holywell Ford on a journey of scientific and artistic discovery and would make connections where perhaps there should have been none.

  ‘What a glorious day,’ he began now, reaching into his top pocket for a rather fanciful handkerchief and dabbing his brow.

  Sam couldn’t help but smile. Despite his nerves, he was glad to see the professor. He knew that behind his sometimes eccentric manner lay a sharp intellect and a wealth of knowledge on a wide range of subjects. As well as lecture on quantum mechanics, the professor could write prose and poetry and without a moment’s hesitation lend his rich voice to Magdalen’s choir.

  There were rumours of other activities too. Sam had once overheard a group of academics from All Souls talking about the fact that the professor was working for one of the intelligence services and had even ended up in hospital after one of his many ‘adventures’ had gone wrong. Apparently all that had been verified from his past was that he had spent time at Durham University in the School of English, which seemed a far cry from physics and the nature of light.

  But it was physics that intrigued Sam the most. Through the professor’s teachings he had fallen in love with Einstein’s theories. The physics of quantum mechanics would take him on strange journeys through entanglement and probability, and he pondered long and hard on how these facets could be connected. Could they be unified? Would there ever be a theory of everything? Could the physics of the big be reconciled with that of the very small?

  He even noticed that the more he learned about how strange reality was, the more his own reality sprung its surprises. It wasn’t long before these surprises were coming thick and fast – subtle coincidences, such as friends he hadn’t seen for a while turning up the day after he’d thought about them. He wanted to figure it all out, to find out what—

  ‘Light, Sam.’

  Professor Stuckley brought him sharply back to the present, to the murmuring Cherwell, the warmth of early evening and the light from the window highlighting the long streams of dust that were settling on the professor’s desk.

  ‘Light cannot be easily tied down.’

  The professor looked across at Sam with a mischievous grin, then leaned forward in his chair and rested his elbows on the tea-stained table.

  ‘Er, no,’ said Sam, smiling back. ‘You told me that. Do you know, I think your lecture on light was one of the first I attended here? Angus said he felt as though you were sharpening your metaphysical sword.’

  The professor let out a chuckle, whilst simultaneously shaking his head. ‘Metaphysical sword? No, no, no! I was making the case that light should not exist! It is massless, it is not affected by time, and yet I’m not the least bit surprised it was there at the beginning, for there is a chance that it will be there at the end too.’

  Sam had grown used to the professor’s random outbursts and he had to smile. Part of him simply wanted to know whether he would be coming back next year or whether he should be packing for good, but he realised he would have to wait, for the professor was on a roll.

  ‘“In the beginning was the Word”,’ he declaimed. ‘What they should have been saying was “In the beginning was the light, and when time slows and comes to a shuddering stop, at the very last moment, at the very last second, at the very end of the universe, only light can be left.” To be more exact, Sam, what they should have said was “In the beginning was the light and at the end there will be light. And when both the beginning and the end are the same, there will be light.” You see, Sam, there is something very elegant about light. If it were not for light, there would be no beginning, only the end, and that is my point. Light is the great entangler – it exists everywhere and nowhere at the same time.’

  Sam found himself nodding, appreciating the professor’s tantalising display of intellect whilst simultaneously wondering whether this was a roundabout way of telling him he’d failed.

  ‘Professor Whitehart sings your praises from the rooftops,’ Professor Stuckley remarked. ‘Tells me you believe that knowledge has an inevitable evolutionary flow. You may want to tell me what that means one day, but at first draft it sounds good to me.’

  His saggy face was broken by a half smile.

  ‘The greatest minds,’ he continued, oblivious to Sam’s surprised look, ‘across the disciplines, believe that it’s not just light that’s entangled, but the very language used to describe it. They believe that all knowledge is entwined. You know that physicists believe the universe at the quantum level is entangled through vibrating strings?’

  The professor’s unkempt grey hair nodded vigorously as if trying to persuade Sam to nod along in agreement.

  ‘Then there are biologists who believe that knowledge is caught up in some blind evolutionary play.’

  The professor’s smile broadened a little further.

  ‘Then there are philosophers – ha, yes, those who dare suggest that we should bridge the hidden chasm between art and science, between the physical and the metaphysical, and between that which can be seen and that which cannot!’

  He sat back in his chair, as
if satisfied, and reached for his silver pipe.

  ‘By now, Sam, you should have realised that Cherwell College is much more than meets the eye. It is trying to teach the unteachable, to get students to think the unthinkable. You should come away from your time at Cherwell with the understanding that you can never quite trust reality, that you should certainly not trust your senses and that you should not believe everything that people tell you.’

  The professor gave a half-chuckle and stuck the pipe between his lips.

  ‘You will see the truth soon enough.’

  Sam was beginning to feel a little frustrated. What truth did the professor mean?

  ‘Do you know who taught in this very room?’

  The question caught him off-guard. ‘Erm…’ He racked his brains, feeling embarrassed by his ignorance.

  ‘C.S. Lewis.’ The professor answered his own question. ‘This is a room that has been witness to many a theological battle. It has heard the tortured conversations of many restless souls who have passed this way.’

  He smiled again, fixing his eyes on Sam.

  ‘You, Angus and the others have been very privileged to have studied here.’

  ‘This is it,’ thought Sam, his mouth feeling a little drier.

  But the professor was back in the past. ‘The foundations of Cherwell were laid more than forty years ago by a group calling themselves the Inklings. They wanted to protect their heritage, protect the notion that their work spoke of a truth. What do you know about the Inklings, Sam?’

  ‘The Inklings were a literary group who met to discuss their work,’ said Sam eagerly. ‘They would meet in the Eagle and Child, or the Bird and Baby, as it became known. C.S. Lewis would read snippets from The Chronicles of Narnia and Tolkien would read excerpts from The Hobbit.’

  The professor was gently shaking his head.

  ‘That’s true, but there’s a lot more to it than that. I had an old colleague who knew Tolkien. I remember him telling me that he thought there was something about his works that went far deeper than a flair for words and a knowledge of Norse mythology. He had learned much more than forgotten languages and their histories.’

  Sam was becoming slightly perplexed. All he really wanted was his results. Was he staying or going?

  ‘When the moment takes you, study them keenly.’

  The professor’s words hung in the air.

  ‘Er, yes, of course,’ Sam muttered.

  Professor Stuckley lowered his voice and leaned forward. Sam watched as the professor’s fingers began strumming some forgotten tune on the table’s now peeling antiquity. ‘Whatever curious words have been said about them fall short.’

  Then he stood, walked a short distance to the open window and looked out. He appeared to be lighting his pipe, but it was almost, thought Sam, as if he was making sure the coast was clear.

  Seemingly satisfied, the professor turned and walked back to stand in front of him.

  ‘Truth speaks deeply in those works. Revisit them with vigour. Understand that truth and how it speaks to you.’

  Sam nodded, trying to look as though he really did understand how important it was.

  ‘Now close your eyes,’ the professor continued, ‘and tell me what you see and feel.’

  Sam sighed. The professor was really turning his results day into some kind of dramatic performance. Dutifully, he closed his eyes.

  ‘Don’t be fooled by your senses,’ the professor warned. ‘Keep your eyes closed and go beyond the earthly smells that conspire against you, go past the warmth and the comfort. What do you see?’

  With his eyes closed, Sam was more aware of the earthy scents of the old books. From the window there came a hint of lavender on the breeze, mingled with the danker scent of the Cherwell. And then far off, the sweet sound of voices as the Magdalen choir sprang into life, their soothing harmonies seeming to mingle with the light from the window dancing on the inside of his eyelids. Out in the middle of the light, a slender figure dressed in white was dancing and swirling, perhaps to the music of the choir. And then a single black slither opened up behind the dancing figure and he was standing, shouting out a warning, but no words were coming from his mouth.

  When he opened his eyes, he was struggling for breath, as if he’d been through an ordeal. He was still in the chair, gripping its arms, his knuckles white. He unclenched his hands, feeling rather foolish and wondering what had just happened.

  Professor Stuckley was watching him, his pipe hanging precariously from his mouth and his eyes wide with alarm.

  ‘What shadow?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  Sam leaned back in his chair, feeling his breathing returning to normal.

  ‘Come now – you said you saw a shadow.’

  Sam felt himself blushing under the professor’s gaze. ‘Did I? I was daydreaming perhaps, but … well, now you mention shadows, I did see one a while ago.’

  The professor leaned forward again.

  ‘When?’

  ‘December.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Birling Wood. That’s just above Warkworth, in Northumberland.’

  The professor turned away. Almost under his breath, he muttered, ‘Then it is moving.’

  ‘Moving?’

  Ignoring the question, the professor learned forward again, balancing on the edge of his chair.

  ‘Describe it to me.’

  Sam sat back for a moment. That was the last thing he wanted. But, as a breeze blew through the open window, lifting the exam papers on the professor’s desk, he was suddenly unable to lock his thoughts away a moment longer.

  ‘I woke one night with a terrible foreboding. At first I thought it must have been in my head, a voice or something similar calling to me. I was staying with some friends in Warkworth. I don’t know why I didn’t wake them. Instead I felt compelled to go outside. I just stood there in the darkness, looking out across the river Coquet to the edge of Birling Wood. And I can’t really say what happened next, but it scares me even now. I’ve only told two other people, and neither of them believed me.’

  Sam looked up anxiously and met the professor’s steady gaze. Suddenly he was glad of his company.

  ‘I was rooted to the spot, unable to move. At first I couldn’t see anything. It was dark and cold. And icy. I know it was winter, but I’d never seen ice on the river before. But the weirdest thing was that I knew that I was being watched. Out across the water, at the edge of the wood, something was waiting for me. All I could see was a shadow. Then it moved.’

  Even in the comfort of the professor’s room, Sam felt cold.

  ‘It began to cross the river – silently, without breaking the surface of the water. I was terrified. I don’t think I’ve ever been so frightened. I knew it meant to do me great harm. But I couldn’t run away.’

  He stopped. To his embarrassment, tears were welling up.

  ‘Then I come to you with not a moment to lose,’ the professor said quickly. ‘But first tell me, how did you stop it from reaching you?’

  ‘How can you be certain that I did?’

  The professor held him with a serious look.

  ‘It can’t have reached you, for you wouldn’t be sitting here if it had. And for that, I am most grateful.’

  ‘What? What do you mean? What would have happened?’

  The professor shook his head. ‘Just be glad you are here, Sam.’

  Sam sat there for a second, wondering whether he was in a tutorial room or some kind of dream.

  ‘Well, anyway, it wasn’t me who stopped it, but the river.’

  Emily and Angus hadn’t believed him and, as he said it out loud, he could hardly believe it either.

  ‘The river?’ repeated the professor, his face remaining impassive.

  ‘One minute the waters were high and fast-flowing, the
next they dropped, and then a second later a giant wave came down. It took the Shadow away with it and almost everything else. It practically swept my friend’s rowing boat out to sea.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  The professor sat back in his chair and looked out through the window, idly tapping the table with his left hand whilst drawing on his pipe.

  ‘It know it all sounds crazy,’ Sam muttered, blushing and looking down.

  ‘I believe you.’

  Sam jerked his head back up. ‘What? I mean—’

  The professor interrupted quickly, ‘There is much to tell you, but not now. I’m not certain what this Shadow is, or why it came to you in Warkworth, but there are those whose counsel I respect and I shall pay them a visit.’

  He stood up and leaned forward to close the window. When he turned back to Sam, purpose blazed from his grey eyes.

  ‘I must go. Meet me tomorrow evening at the Eagle and Child and we will have a bite to eat. There are a number of people I would like you to meet.’

  Picking up his long walking stick, he ushered Sam out of the small room, down the steps and into the corridor.

  As he stood there watching the professor stride off through the cloisters, Sam suddenly realised he still didn’t know whether he had passed his exams.

  THE FELLOWS’ GARDEN

  Sam left the cloisters wondering what had just happened. Having prepared himself all day for the moment of truth, here he was, no further forward.

  He went out through Magdalen gates, crossed the arched bridge linking the college with Addison’s Walk and the meadows beyond and settled himself on his favourite bench beneath a giant oak. It stood at a small crossroads. One road led to the Grove, Magdalen’s deer park, and the other wound its way through the grasslands surrounding the college. In this place, with the early evening sun falling on him and the gentle hum of the river in his ears, he tried to piece together what was happening to him.

  It had all started with the night in Warkworth. Then in the new year he’d begun to feel that everywhere he went in Oxford he was being followed. He’d tried to convince himself he was just being paranoid, but it had gone on for a while and had even continued when he’d been admitted to Cherwell College and had moved to the Fellows’ House.