Catherine Fisher - Corbenic

The train rattled over points, swung through a long curve. Trees flashed past the windows.

Cal couldn’t speak. He was shaking too much, and the guard crouched down in front of him and said, “Drink this, son. You look done in.” It was a white plastic cup, and when he sipped from it the hot tea hit him like a blow, and his ears seemed to pop, so he heard the words from the women behind, the words shock and suicide .

“Better?”

He said, “I wasn’t . . . I forgot we were moving.” It sounded crazy.

The guard said, “Whatever you say, son. How far are you going? Is anyone meeting you?”

“Corbenic,” he said. Then, confused, “Chepstow.”

The guard nodded. Suddenly Cal was alarmed. Would he radio ahead, would Trevor hear about this? With a terrible effort he stood up and said normally, “I’m sorry. I really thought the train had stopped. Half asleep, I suppose.” He tried to smile. Maybe it looked all right because the guard got up too, his knees creaking.

“It’s two hours to Newport. You change there. Maybe you should have some more sleep.”

When they’d left him alone, and the two women had gone back to their seats, Cal sat by the window and stared out at his own reflection over the flashing fields.

The cup. He looked down at it, an empty plastic cup, and would have crushed it in his hand, only that it would make loud cracking noises and people would look at him again. If he had opened that door and fallen out . . .

He closed his eyes. He had to be careful. Follow the rules. Not panic. But the rules were shattered and useless and he knew that his shirt was dirty and his trousers scruffy and he hadn’t even thought about anything like that for days.

The cup. That’s what he would do; he would find the cup. That shining Grail, that feeling it had given him. He had failed her, but he wouldn’t fail at this. And for a moment he almost thought that if he could find the Grail it would bring her back somehow, it might help, might cure the hurt, not just for Bron but for him. There was nothing to go back to Chepstow for; Shadow would have been found by now, she’d despise him, and the Company . . . he had lied to them. He hated his job; only now could he see clearly that it wasn’t for him, that he only endured it for the money. Why had he ever thought he could do that for the rest of his life?

The guard was passing. “okay now?” Keeping an eye, Cal thought.

“Fine. What’s the next station?”

“Ludlow. Ten minutes.”

It was here. Somewhere. Out there in that green wasteland of woods and rivers and hidden valleys, of castles and factories and hills. Corbenic was out there, and he would find it. It would be his quest. And Ludlow would be as good a place as anywhere to start.

He made no move till the train hissed in and stopped; then when the doors had whished open he grabbed his rucksack and stepped out. Cold air enveloped him.

“Hey!” At the front end of the train the guard was waving. “Son! Not your stop!”

Cal ignored him. He waved, turned, and walked up the steps quickly, over the little bridge, down the other side. There was a street leading past a big new supermarket; he went down it, and into the town. Shops. Old black-and-white inns. A few market stalls.

He went into a café and bought a coffee, and asked the girl who brought it if she knew a place nearby called Corbenic.

“No, sorry.” She looked at him shyly. “But you could try the library. They’ve got maps.”

He nodded, stirring the sugar in.

It was not on any map. After a good hour of searching he sat with both hands on the wooden desk, feeling lost and worn out. There was no such place as Corbenic. Or as Merlin had said, it wasn’t to be found on the map.

He picked the rucksack up and wandered outside, and found it was dark. The shops had closed, and a faint icy rain was falling, spotting the pavements, soaking his hair quickly. He walked on. He was in a strange town, alone, at twilight, with no idea where he was going or what he was doing, but he wouldn’t give up. Because this was the quest; this was where it began. The descent, the marvels, the terrors. His penance.

He found a hotel on the main street; there was a phone box in the lobby and he rang Otter’s Brook and Trevor answered.

“Hi,” Cal said quietly.

“Where are you?”

“Still in Bangor.” Still lying . “Look, I’ve got a few friends to see, and then . . . well, I thought I’d take a bit of a break, if you don’t mind.”

He could feel Trevor’s sigh. “Well, I suppose a few days would be only . . .”

“Not a few days. A week, maybe.”

“What! Doing what?”

“Traveling. I just feel . . .” He lowered his voice. “I just feel I need to sort myself out. Find out what I really want.”

“I can’t keep the job open indefinitely.”

“I know.” He didn’t say, “I don’t want the job.” He didn’t need to.

Trevor made a short, exasperated noise. “Look, Cal, it’s a hard time for you. You should be with people you know, family, not wandering the countryside with that New Age crowd. I presume it’s them you’re with?”

Cal said nothing.

“I don’t see . . . I thought you wanted a good wage, a good life.”

“I did,” Cal said bleakly. “But that’s what took me away from her.”

“You couldn’t have stayed there forever!” Trevor’s voice went soft, irritated. “You mustn’t think it was your fault.”

“I’ll ring again,” Cal said. “Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.” He put the phone down and looked at it a long time.

In the bedroom, he washed his face and turned the TV on, just to hear voices. Then he opened the rucksack and took out his crumpled clothes, his money, and the wrapped package at the bottom.

He laid the two pieces of the broken sword on the bed. They lay on the flowered cover, jagged edges facing each other. He picked them up, and tried to fit them together. They wouldn’t meet. With all his strength, he couldn’t force them. It was like pushing two like poles of a magnet together; he’d done it in science lessons. An invisible, unbreakable repulsion, and after a second of straining at it the pieces shot to one side, tetchily, refusing. He cut his hand on the sharp blade, and flung it down on the floor in despair.

Chapter Eighteen

Not one of the retinue knew him.

Peredur

He searched. For a week he tramped the countryside around Ludlow. He bought a pair of cheap hiking boots and photocopied the maps in the library. Every day he went out after breakfast and walked, down valleys with small cold streams rushing over rocks, up in the hills, through miles of frozen fields where curious cows collected around him and followed him in a cloud of breath from stile to stile. After only a day he knew he would never find Corbenic like this, but he couldn’t stop; the relief of having something to find, the insistence of the quest calmed him, and the walking, the mindlessness of it, soothed his soul. Out in the fields he could forget about Sutton Street, the funeral, the guilt, he could walk and walk and his mind would be empty, numbed; only when he trudged back into town at dusk, weary, wet, footsore, did the memories close around him like the old timbered buildings, full of shadows.

His money was running short. He moved to a cheaper bed-and-breakfast, kept by a grumpy couple who seemed to think he was some petty thief; everything was locked up and the room was drab and cold.

Oddly enough, it didn’t bother him. The luxuries of Otter’s Brook seemed like part of another life that had gone; lying in the damp bed he thought of them and smiled, as he would have at a child with some silly toy. His clothes were getting scruffy. He forgot to wash them. He wasn’t eating much. But then he didn’t seem to have much appetite.