The Power of Five Oblivion

sloping sides gave me a little cover. The villagers were still blasting at the police and more of them were falling, but then the Traveller twisted round with his gun and began firing himself. I saw the man called Withers-Green (“who does all the building for us”) crumple in on himself, clutching his stomach, and thought, he won’t be doing any building any more. Major Higham had finally reappeared as well. He started to shout something but suddenly the bottom of his face disappeared, turning into a smudge of red. More lights blinked out. Some of the police were returning fire. Three more villagers died.
    Bullets in front of us. Bullets behind. It was like being in the middle of a war. All I could do was lie there, hugging the ground. I still had my gun in my hand but I was too scared to use it. I wouldn’t have known who to aim at anyway.
    The police weren’t firing at us because they were afraid they’d hit Jamie, and the ginger-haired woman had told them that he had to be taken alive. The villagers were ignoring us because they had to defend themselves against the police. Caught between the two of them, I managed to crawl over to Jamie and shook his arm, trying to wake him up. This couldn’t go on much longer. If we were going to have any chance of reaching the Lady Jane , we were going to need his help.
    The Traveller squeezed off a couple more shots then jerked sideways and I saw the shock and the pain in his face. He had been wounded – how badly I couldn’t tell. It was impossible to say how many of the villagers and how many of the police had been killed – or even who was winning. Only one headlight remained and as I grabbed Jamie, there was a tinkle of glass and that went out too. I just had time to see Jamie’s eyes open.
    “You’ve got to stop them!” I shouted.
    “What…?” He was still dazed.
    “They’re killing each other and if we don’t stop them, they’re going to kill us too!”
    “Where’s the Traveller?”
    “I’m here!” He was still alive but he wasn’t shooting any more. Either he was in too much pain or he’d run out of bullets.
    Jamie sat up.
    It was the worst thing he could have done. He had been protected, at least partly, by the fold in the ground but now he was deliberately making himself a target. Bullets were still flying in all directions, although there were fewer of them now as there had been so many casualties. And it was pitch-dark. The policewoman wanted Jamie alive but he could easily have been shot by accident.
    “We’re not here!” he shouted. “We were never here.”
    I realized that once again he was using his power – and in a way that was more extraordinary than anything I’d yet witnessed. Jamie could control one person. He had sent Cosmo stumbling off to the latrine. But now he was pushing his thoughts out to the whole bunch of them, interrupting a bloody battle to plant the lie in their heads. I wondered if it could possibly work. There must have been twelve or more people still alive … from both sides. Could he really fool the whole lot of them at once?
    It was time to find out.
    “Let’s get to the boat,” Jamie said.
    We crawled across the ground in the direction of the canal, moving diagonally, away from the line of fire. The Traveller came with us. I still didn’t know how badly he had been hit. It was very, very dark. The Lady Jane was little more than one shade of black against another and the only lights were the blazes of red coming from the guns as the shoot-out continued. We reached the boat. Jamie passed me the key and I unlocked the door. The people of Little Moulsford hadn’t tried to force their way in yet. Presumably they had been leaving that for the break of day. The three of us piled on board. The ignition key was hidden on a shelf inside. I found it and handed it to the Traveller.
    He turned to Jamie. “Can we start the engine? Will they hear it?”
    Jamie looked back. The shooting had become very sporadic. Someone – a woman – was shouting in pain. I think it was the major’s wife. “They’ll hear it but they won’t care. They’ve forgotten about us. But you have to hurry. It won’t last for long.”
    The Traveller started the engine. Our own lamp broke through the darkness, illuminating the water ahead. I wanted to go into the cabin, find my bed and hide in it – but I forced myself back onto the towpath, untying the ropes, casting off. The Traveller pressed down on the throttle and as the Lady