Stephen Lawhead - The Paradise War

Yes, and the will to live as well. «S'good,» I gasped. I felt my tongue swelling rapidly to roughly the size of a summer sausage. «Wha-what is it?»

The professor dismissed the question with a flick of his hand. «Oh, roots, bark, berries-sort of a homemade concoction. I collect the ingredients myself. If you like it, I can give you the recipe.»

I was speechless.

He turned away and led me across the room to a set of red leather chairs on either side of the only window. The sky was dark, the window panes appeared opaque. A small table that looked as if it had been assembled of driftwood stood between the chairs. The professor sat down in one of the chairs and placed his beaker on the table. He indicated the other chair for me. I sat facing him and peered into my drink. Were those raisins bobbing around in there?

«So!» he announced suddenly. «Good to see you!» He enunciated this meticulously, as if I were an aborigine who might not speak his language. «I have been waiting for this.»

His confession brought me up short. I could only stare and gulp, «You have?»

«Yes.» He raised a hand quickly. «Oh, please do not misunderstand-I mean you no harm. I intend to help you, as I said. And, if you don't mind my saying so, you look rather in need of help at the moment.»

«Urh, Professor Nettleton-ah, you seem to have me at a bit of a disadvantage here, I think.»

«Nettles,» he replied.

«Sir?»

«Why not call me Nettles? Everyone does.»

«All right,» I agreed. «But, as I was saying, I thin-«

«Not to put too fine a point on it, you've rather let yourself go, Mr. Gillies. You are distressed.»

«Well, I-«

«No apologies, Mr. Gillies. I understand. Now then,» he folded his hands over his chest and leaned so far back into his chair that I could no longer see his face in the shadows, «how can I be of service to you?»

Nothing came to mind. I searched the shadows for a moment, and then suggested that he had already helped me a great deal, and that it was getting late and I was sure he had other things to do and that I shouldn't trouble him further, and that– «Pish-tosh!» he replied calmly. «There's nothing to be embarrassed about. Come now, please be assured, your secret is safe with me.»

My secret? Which secret? How did he know my secret? «I'm not sure I know what you mean,» I told him.

Nettles leaned further forward. His eyes danced. «You are a believer,» he whispered. «I can always tell.»

«A believer,» I repeated dully.

He smirked. «Oh, never worry. I'm a believer, too.»

I must have appeared as thick as a plank because he explained: «The Faлry Faith, yes? Everyone thinks me mad, of course. What of it?» He became conspiratorial. «I have seen them.»

«Fairies?»

He nodded enthusiastically. «Oh, yes! But I prefer to call them Fair Folk. I understand, the word 'fairies' has taken on some rather unfortunate connotations in recent years. And even if that weren't so, 'fairies' always makes them sound twee and diminutive. Let me tell you,» he added solemnly, «they are anything but twee or diminutive.»

I judged the conversation to have taken a peculiar turn, and attempted to steer it back. «Urh, I saw a wolf in Turl Street. Maybe you read about it in the newspapers.»

Nettles winked at me. «Blaidd an Mba, eh?»

«Excuse me?»

«Wolves in Albion,» he replied. «Don't mind me. You were saying?»

«Just that. Nothing else, really,» I lied.

«Is that all?»

«Well, yes,» I confessed, slightly piqued at his insinuation that there might be more. «What else could there be?»

The professor chuckled dryly. «Why, appearances, disappearances, strange happenings-any number of things! People getting trapped in Celtic circles, for instance.»

«You don't mean. . .» Was he talking about me?

«But that is precisely what I do mean.»

I gaped stupidly. Mad? The man was dotty as a dodo. «But that is impossible,» I mumbled.

«Is it?» The smile never left his face, but his eyes became hard and intensely serious. «Come now, sir! I asked you a question. I am waiting for an answer.»

«Well,» I allowed carefully, «I suppose it's not altogether impossible.»

«Ha! You know that it is not altogether impossible. Come, Mr. Gillies, let us be precise.» The ferocity with which this last was delivered melted away as soon as the words were uttered. Instantly, he was his merry self once more. «I told you, it's no good trying to get round me. I can smell a believer a mile away.»

He leaned forward, reaching towards his drink, and froze in mid-motion. «Ah, but that's the difficulty, isn't it?»

«Pardon?»

«I've misjudged you.» He remained motionless, his hand reaching out. «So sorry, Mr. Gillies. My mistake.»

«I'm not sure I follow.»

«Perhaps you are not a believer, after all.» He collapsed back into his chair. «But then what are you, Mr. Lewis Gillies? Hmm? I become so accustomed to dealing with unbelievers that I often forget there is a third category.»

In order to mask my growing discomfort with this line of enquiry, I took up my drink and forced some of it down. This time, I actually enjoyed the taste.

«Believers and unbelievers,» the professor said. «Most people fall into one or the other of those classifications. Yet there is a third: those who desperately want to believe, but reason won't allow it.»

He took up his drink and swigged it back. I followed suit, and ended up gulping down more than I intended. «It does grow on one, does it not?» he said with a loud smack of his lips. «Mulled heather ale.»

Heather ale? I stared into my cup. Folklore bad it that the recipe for this ancient drink disappeared in 1411 when the English killed the last Celtic chieftain for refusing to divulge the secret of this legendary elixir. The beleaguered Celt leaped off a sea cliff rather than allow the hated foreigners to taste the Brew of Kings. How then did the professor tumble onto the recipe-if indeed he had?

My unlikely host rose and took himself to a nearby sideboard. He returned with a pottery crock and poured our beakers full of steaming liquid once more. «As I was saying-« He replaced the crock on the hotplate and returned to his seat. «You rather belong in the third category: one who wishes to believe, yet lacks conviction. Sympathetic, shall we say, yet skeptical.» He nodded benevolently. «You have been out wandering in the Celtic miasma and you have caught the bug. Am I right?»

Bingo! «I think I could go along with that,» I allowed

cautiously.

«Now, then, what has brought you to this impasse? This crisis of faith and reason? What has reduced you to stumbling around the city unkempt and unshaven, seeing things, and so easily ensnared by chalk drawings on the pavement?»

My lips began to frame an evasive answer, but the question was not for me. The barmy old gentleman continued: «What indeed? If I may hazard a guess, I would say that you have witnessed something for which you have no explanation, and for which you are struggling to discover a rational solution. One of these appearances you are speaking about? Or perhaps it was a disappearance? Yes! I thought so.» He beamed with innocent pleasure. «I warned you-I can always tell.»

«But how did you know?»

He ignored my question and asked one of his own. «Who is it? Someone you know? Of course, it is. How foolish of me. Now you must tell me all about it. If I am to help you, I must know everything.» He raised a bony finger in the air. «Everything-do you understand?»

I slumped in the chair, feeling the soft leather envelop me. I cradled the warm beaker to my chest and muttered, «I understand.» How did I ever get myself into this? I wanted simply to sink so deep into the chair that no one would ever find me. Instead, I took a long pull of the mulled ale, closed my eyes and began my dreary recitation.