The Light Ages by Ian R. MacLeod Read Free Book Online Page B

called Einfell of which Goldenwhite had sung, all such creatures of artless magic had once dwelt.
    ‘The world’s full of surprises.’ My mother leaned her hip against my chair, she rested her elbows on the table, her fingers tracing the greyish scar on the heel of her right hand. ‘It’s just that some of them aren’t … Quite the surprise you expect them to be ..
    And the nights rolled on through the days of autumn when all the guildsmen of Bracebridge paraded with their drums and their fifes, their hats and their sashes, and the lesser guildhouses opened their doors so we children could marvel at the jewelled books and ornate reliquaries. And then the cold winds blew in over Coney Mound, and stripped the leaves off the birches, and plumed the clouds above Rainharrow. And I smiled to myself each night when my mother clambered, half-backwards, awkward as always, down the ladder through that trapdoor which led from my attic, her candle guttering and fading but the dreams, the hopes, the inexpressible words, still clinging to me. And I wriggled my toes deeper into the coat lining that her body had warmed, and pushed myself away from the stirrings and the murmurings of Coney Mound and the deeper pounding which always lay beneath it, counting off the months and shifterms and days until I was adrift with the moon and the stars, looking down over the smoking chimneys of all of Bracebridge and the night-time wyreglow of its settling pans.
    From there, and the edges of sleep, slight at first as grass stirred by the wind, then gathering and shrill, the night express came sweeping through the valley. And I was there on the footplate with the steamaster, guiding his great engine as it swept through the meagre little station of our meagre little town. Bracebridge—a blur of allotments, wasteheaps, fields, yards, factories, houses then on into the hills, the wild barren hills with their strange lights and howlings and cool scents of peat and heather, pouring along the tracks with an aethereal glow. The train would glide beneath the boughs of forests, rush through Oxford and Slough and all the smokestack cities of the south, then clack on over great rivers and unnamed estuaries on huge arches; it would haul the reflected amber beads of its carriage windows past sandbanks and sailboats and rush-pricked marshes. It would bear me far away from Bracebridge, yet always closer to the edge of some deeper truth about my life which I always felt myself to be teetering on.
    And I was sure that truth would be marvellous.

IV
    ‘G ET UP, ROBERT!’
    I shifted, stiff and cold, from the uncomfortable position in which I’d been lying. I regathered the old coats that had pooled about me, then shuffled on my elbows across to my triangular attic window.
    ‘Come on!’ The clotheshorse rumbled in the kitchen. ‘It’s late morning!’
    It was a day at the last edge of summer. For the first time that year, the lumpy glass of my window had frosted, was scrolled over with white patterns which pulsed and re-formed in my breath. I untangled my hands to touch, making circles across the pane. Swimming down below the birch trees, a distorted version of the town was clouded with gouts of smoke and steam.
    ‘We’re going out!’ My mother was at the foot of the stairs now. ‘You’ll miss breakfast!’
    Banging around to show activity, I pulled on my trews, shirt and jumper. It occurred to me that, late though the hour clearly was, my mother might still expect me to go to Board School. Today, though, was clearly uncharted territory. I could tell that just from the sound of her voice.
    I studied her warily across the kitchen table as I ate my breakfast. We had the house to ourselves, with Beth already doling out slates in her training as a teacher’s assistant at Harmanthorpe and Father at work at Mawdingly & Clawtson. She was wearing a dark blue skirt and a fresh white blouse beneath her apron. Her hair was pinned up differently, or perhaps just with