“Good plan,” Elodie agreed. She paused, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear shyly. “I hope your foot isn’t still hurting.”
Gabriel stiffened, as if she’d insulted him somehow. “It’s fine,” he murmured, and walked off without further conversation. Thistime, Elodie did sigh. Then she hurried after him, because what else could she do?
After a minute she recollected the other two men’s existence, primarily because Algernon pleaded for both her and Gabriel to slow down. But Gabriel was intent on his thaumometer, and Elodie felt so energized by the prospect of a new, unmapped trove of thaumaturgic materials that she did not glance even once at the incandescent glory of leaves rustling quietly overhead, nor imagine what fairy revelries the shadows below might be hiding.
Upon emerging from the woods at the crest of the hill, they met an expansive view of countryside billowing west to the sea and east toward Britain, villages and farmhouses tucked among its honey-colored copses and along the river, smoke rising from their chimneys like unfurled dreams. But Elodie and Gabriel saw none of this. They stopped, a shock of silence passing between them.
Some thirty yards ahead was a monolith. Six feet tall, extensively etched with symbols, it evoked a sense of antiquity, sacredness, and danger, the latter mostly due to the angle at which it leaned—and the human figure leaning in opposition, trying to keep it from toppling altogether.
Elodie and Gabriel exhaled with identical tones of weary frustration.
“Oh look,” Algernon said as he came up behind them. “We found Dr. Jackson.”
“How is he holding up that rock?” Mumbers asked in amazement. “It’s almost like—”
“Magic,” everyone said.
At that moment, the old professor noticed their arrival. Squinting through large round spectacles at them, hegrimaced, his face purple with the effort of propping up the monolith.
“Hello there!” Mumbers called out, waving.
Dr. Jackson waved back…
“Aaahhh!” he screamed.
THUD.
“Damn!” Gabriel and Elodie swore in unison, and even as blue smoke arose from the fallen stone, they began to run.
Chapter Ten
A thaumaturgically dynamic landscape is a nonlinear system.
In other words, it’s prone to goingboomin all directions.
Blazing Trails, W.H. Jackson
“Oh hello there,you’re the Tappets, aren’t you?” Professor Jackson peered at them with curiosity as they helped him up out of the sodden grass where he’d thrown himself as the rock fell. “The ones with the weird marriage?”
“That sounds about right,” Elodie muttered under her breath. The fact gossip about her relationship with Gabriel had reached the literal edge of Britain did not surprise her, considering the nature of academia. But she kept her response brisk, professional. “Tarrant, sir. Emergency response team. Are you all right?”
“I think I’ve squashed the sandwich in my pocket,” the old professor said, patting his tweed jacket (and thus squashing the sandwich in its aforementioned pocket, which had in fact survived the fall). “Bother, it was chicken too.”
Dismayed, he shook his head, sending his white cloud of hair fluttering and making him stumble. “Iama tad woozy. But I’ve not had a cup of tea in two days, so that’s only to beexpected.” He rubbed one eye as if this might improve his sense of balance—applying his finger to the task directly through the frame of his spectacles, which proved to be without lenses. Then, with sudden, belated awareness of the diaphanous cyanic smoke drifting around them, he grimaced. “Oh dear, that can’t be good.”
“What happened?” Gabriel demanded, arms crossed as he frowned severely at the man.
“It wasn’t my fault,” Jackson replied with all the speed and fervency of a naughty boy caught in some trouble that was plainly and incontrovertibly his fault. “I just looked at the rock.”
“Just looked,” Gabriel repeated, dubious.
The professor shrugged. “Maybe a modicum of poking was involved. But the etchings on its surface are so fascinating. And how was I to know it was a thaumaturgic object? It doesn’t smell like it.” He pulled the flattened sandwich from his pocket, grimaced at the lint speckled on it, then took a large bite.
Elodie set down her ER kit and crouched to inspect the tor more closely. “These etchings really are fascinating,” she said, tilting her head as she visually traced them.
“Runes?” Gabriel asked without ceasing to stare at Jackson.
“No, circles and spirals, remarkably alike those on the Newgrange tomb.”
