by Emily Rodda
… just a natural phenomenon … the earth welcoming the sky, you know.
Mimi hadn’t made a sound. She hadn’t sighed, or gasped, or breathed a word that might have alerted Bertha and Leo to what she was planning, or given them a chance of trying to stop her. She hadn’t waited to hear what else Woodley might say. She’d acted at once. She’d crept away as silently as a messenger mouse. She’d reached the path, and probably she’d run all the rest of the way to the picnic area.
Then she’d come to the table. Leo knew she had, because something was missing. Moult’s basket. In its place was a note, hastily scrawled in Mimi’s handwriting.
Leo – Have to try. Might still catch her. Don’t worry. Will use basket to carry safely. Back soon.
‘She’s gone into Tiger’s Glen,’ he said aloud, as Bertha came up behind him. His voice sounded strange. He was almost choking with anger. He was cursing the day he’d ever met Mimi Langlander.
Sneaky. Stubborn. Conceited. Stupid. Reckless …
Bertha nodded. Her small blue eyes were inexpressibly sad. Without a word she turned from the table and began limping rapidly towards Tiger’s Glen.
‘No, Bertha!’ Leo shouted, pelting after her, his head roaring with fury and fear. ‘Bertha, don’t go in there! You heard what Woodley said!’
‘I’ll be careful,’ Bertha called over her shoulder without slowing her pace at all.
‘No!’ Leo panted, catching up with her and darting ahead to make her stop. ‘I’ll go. I’ll find Mimi and bring her back.’
He didn’t want to do it. He didn’t want to try to rescue Mimi Langlander from the results of her idiotic, self-willed, pointless attempt to save a scrawny little hen she’d only just met. But he couldn’t let Bertha risk her life and forget everything that really mattered to her while he just stood by.
Mimi was his responsibility. Mimi was a burden he had to bear. No one else should be made to suffer for anything she did.
Langlanders stick together … The words chattered in his mind like an irritating advertising jingle.
‘You will not go in there, Leo!’ Bertha exclaimed in a high voice. ‘That’s my job. Your job is to stay here and wait for Conker and Freda. You have to tell them where Mimi and I have gone. Tell them that if we don’t come back, they’re not to follow us. And tell them about Sly, and ask them to do what they can to prevent the slaughter of the Flock of Macdonald – to do what I would have done, if I could.’
‘Bertha, it’s not too late,’ Leo said, seizing on the only weapon he could think of to make her change her mind. ‘You can still get to the farm in time if you leave now – I’m sure of it. You can still save your friends!’
Bertha faced him, her chest heaving, her eyes bright with unshed tears. ‘Mimi is my friend too,’ she said. ‘I had a choice to make, and I’ve made it. Move aside, Leo! We’re wasting time.’
She was determined. Leo could see it. He wasn’t going to be able to stop her. His mind switched automatically to thinking of ways to help keep her safe, and something occurred to him almost at once.
‘Wait!’ he begged. ‘Just wait – one minute!’
He turned and sprinted back to the picnic table. Frantically he delved into Conker’s pack, throwing the contents out haphazardly till he came to what he was looking for, right at the bottom. The coil of yellow cord.
Seizing it, he raced back to Bertha. She had moved forward. She was standing right beside the mouth of the little track that wound into the Glen. But she had waited for him.
Before she could say anything he had looped one end of the cord around her chest and tied it tightly, using a double reef knot – a knot he’d learned long ago from one of his Langlander aunts who was the leader of a Girl Guide troop. ‘There,’ he panted. ‘Now you can’t get lost or go too far by mistake. I’ll hold the other end …’
Bertha’s hard eyes softened a little. She nodded. Then, without another word, she stepped into the mist.
Leo wrapped his end of the line twice around his wrist and let the cord play out as Bertha moved further into the trees, her shape quickly fading to a ghostly shadow. ‘Mimi!’ he heard her calling, her voice muffled by the mist. ‘Mimi! Answer me!’
And then, suddenly, he couldn’t see her any more. Suddenly all he could see were dark tree trunks and the cord feeding steadily into the mist.
He could still hear her, though. Bertha was still calling Mimi’s name, her voice even more muffled than before, and Leo could still hear the sounds of her movement – the soft rustling of dead leaves, the tiny snapping of sticks.
Or … were those moving sounds really being made by Bertha? Didn’t they seem – more to the left of the faint sound of her voice?
Phantoms …
Leo stood rigid, straining to listen, as the minutes crawled by. The cord continued to slide smoothly through his fingers. When he looked down he saw that the coil was three-quarters gone.
I didn’t tell Bertha about the Key, he thought, astounded that he had forgotten. I didn’t tell her that Mimi has the –
The sliding of the cord stopped. At the same moment he realised that the calls had stopped too. He jerked his head up, staring blindly into the crawling mist – at the yellow cord stretching into impenetrable whiteness. His stomach knotted. ‘Bertha!’ he shouted. ‘What’s happening? Have you found her?’
There was utter silence. Not a leaf rustled. Not a twig cracked.
‘Bertha!’ he bellowed. ‘Answer me! Answer, or I’ll pull you in!’ No sound.
Gritting his teeth, he tugged experimentally at the cord.
And it moved easily – far too easily. Sweating, panting, Leo dragged it in, hand over hand, till at last a large loop came sliding out of the mist to lie empty and tangled at his feet.
Chapter
32
And Then There Was One
Leo gaped at the twisted circle at the end of the cord. He couldn’t take it in. Only a few minutes ago that loop had fitted snugly around Bertha’s chest. It couldn’t have slipped off – it just couldn’t! He crouched and examined the knot. It was as secure as it had been when he first tied it. Yet …
Slowly he stood up again. Slowly he freed the cord – the useless cord – from his wrist. The chill breath of the mist played on his sweating skin. He noticed absent-mindedly that the afternoon was fading. Soon it would be dusk.
And then there was one.
‘Bertha!’ he yelled at the top of his voice. ‘Mimi!’
There was no answer. He hadn’t really expected there would be. But faintly, faintly, he heard the furtive rustle of leaves as if someone – something – concealed by the mist had heard him and was moving stealthily away.
‘Bing!’ he bellowed. ‘Wizard Bing!’
A tall, thin shadow stirred deep in the mist. Then it was gone. Blood pounded in Leo’s head. He clenched his fists. ‘Give them back, Strix!’ he bellowed. ‘Keep the others if you want to, but give Mimi and Bertha back! You don’t need them! They’re not for you!’
But they are, part of his mind registered coldly. They’re oddities, both of them. Worthy of collection. A Langlander and a wolf-fighting, questing pig.
You are a most unusual pig, Bertha …
Hal had said that once. The Strix agreed with him, no doubt. And Langlanders might be very common where Leo and Mimi came from, but here they were curiosities indeed – mythical beings, magical creatures from another world, the stuff of fairy tales …
And Mimi Langlander carried the Key to Rondo. The key to entering and leaving this world at will. The key to being and unbeing. The key to life and death.
The greatest prize of all.
The Ancient One was covered and hidden as our world grew beneath the Artist’s brush, but still it had life – of a kind.
Life – of a kind … Leo shuddered as Tye’s words whispered in his mind. Could it be that after all these ages, the Ancient One had at last found the way to release itself from half-life?
There’s nothing the Key c
an’t do …
Leo stood rigid, the cord clutched in his hands.
Your job is to stay here and wait for Conker and Freda. Tell them …
Leo dropped the cord and turned his back on Tiger’s Glen. Blue butterflies scattered as he walked stiffly across the flower-speckled grass, but he paid them no attention at all. Let them tell the Blue Queen everything. What did it matter now?
He reached the picnic table and methodically put everything back into the two packs. Then he sat down, took out his pen and tore a page from the notebook he had tucked so blithely into his pocket in what seemed another life.
Dear Conker and Freda, he wrote. We saw Wizard Bing in Tiger’s Glen. Moult, Mimi and Bertha have gone in too, and haven’t come back. I’m going in after them. Don’t follow us. Warn Farmer Macdonald that his fox Sly is a killer, and will attack the Macdonald flock as soon as he gets the chance. Macdonald should contact Bodelia Parker if he doesn’t believe you. This is urgent. Cheers, Leo.
‘Cheers’ didn’t seem the right way to end the note, but Leo couldn’t think of anything better, so he left it as it was. He’d decided not to mention the Key. If the Strix recognised it, and decided to use it, Conker and Freda would find out soon enough. The whole of Rondo would find out … soon enough.
Leo put the note in the middle of the table weighed down with a stone, then trudged back to Tiger’s Glen.
The cord was lying where he’d left it. His mind was quite blank as he picked up the loop, undid the knot that fastened it, and tied the cord afresh around his own waist. The cord hadn’t kept Bertha safe, but any experiment worth trying was worth trying twice, just to be sure, and besides there was nothing else he could think of to do.
He tied the free end of the cord to the nearest tree. He had to enter the mist to do it. The mist swept around him, clung to him, closed in behind him as he moved onto the leaf-strewn track and began to follow it.
It crossed his numbed mind that he was doing exactly what he’d always jeered at characters in horror movies for doing – blindly following one another into clear and obvious danger. Then he put the thought away. He was doing what he had to do.
On he walked, and on, the cord snaking behind him, rustling through the leaves. He didn’t call out. He didn’t even look from side to side, in case he saw something that he didn’t want to see. The mist was so cold that it made his skin tingle.
Just the earth welcoming the sky …
Leo didn’t think so. No mist he’d ever known had felt like this. With every step, he became more and more convinced that it was no natural, harmless thing. It curled and twisted sulkily, like something alive. It was cold but strangely dry. And it had an odour – a faint, metallic smell that mingled with the earthy scent of the wood.
A rough line showed where Bertha’s trotters had disturbed the fallen leaves and pressed into the soft earth of the track. Bertha had definitely passed this way. But Leo judged that he had almost reached the point where she had stopped shouting to Mimi. He had to stay alert. Not far ahead, Bertha had fallen into a trap of some kind. He had to avoid doing the same. He had to watch every step he took.
He stopped. He checked that the yellow cord was still knotted tightly. He wet his lips. ‘Mimi!’ he called softly. ‘Bertha!’ He waited a moment, then called again, a little more loudly. His cry sounded thin and feeble. The words seemed to leave his mouth only to hang in the heavy white air.
‘They cannot answer.’
Leo went rigid. His heart gave a great, painful thud, then started beating very fast. The low, rasping voice had come from somewhere very near him – somewhere to his left. He made himself turn.
He saw dark tree trunks and drifting mist. Nothing else. ‘Where are you?’ he croaked.
There was a sigh. Then the mist swirled as a shadow moved near the base of one of the trees not far from the track. Carefully, ready to jump back instantly at the first sign of danger, Leo took a step closer.
An old man was sitting with his back to the tree trunk. He wore a tall pointed hat and an old velvet cloak. His shoulders were slumped and his head was bowed. His thin white beard hung almost to the ground.
‘Wizard Bing,’ Leo heard himself say.
The man raised his head. His forehead was seamed with lines. He had a long bony nose and a wide, thin mouth. His eyes were almost black, and so heavily shadowed that they seemed to have sunk deep into their sockets.
‘Go back, boy,’ he said in a toneless voice.
‘Have you seen –’ Leo began.
The wizard sighed again. ‘I have seen them all,’ he said, as if every word was an effort. ‘The pig … the girl … and my gallant little Moult. One by one they came, and one by one they were taken. I could not help them any more than I can help myself – or you, for that matter.’
A shudder ran through the old man’s body. His hands twitched. ‘I cannot act against the Ancient One,’ he murmured. ‘I have been in the centre. I have been collected.’
‘But I haven’t,’ said Leo. Now that his shock had subsided, he felt strangely calm. It was as if now that the worst had happened much of his fear had drained away. It didn’t make sense, he thought dimly, but it was so.
‘I haven’t been collected,’ he said in a stronger voice. ‘I can still do whatever I want – whatever I need to do to make the Str – the Ancient One – give Mimi and Bertha up. There must be a way. There’s always a way.’
There are rules for baddies as well as for us …
The wizard’s thin lips curved into a sadly mocking smile. ‘Perhaps a way does exist,’ he said. ‘But I cannot tell you what it is.’
‘Yes, you can!’ Leo gasped, hope flaring. ‘Talking isn’t acting. Just tell me what I have to do!’
Bing shook his head. ‘Impossible,’ he almost whispered.
‘Please!’ Leo insisted, hurrying forward and crouching beside him. ‘Tell me! If I know, I might be able to help you too – you, and Moult as well.’
Bing’s eyes were suddenly lit by a fierce glow, and for a glorious moment Leo thought he was going to give in.
Then the glow faded, and the eyes were dull once more.
‘Go away, boy,’ Bing said hoarsely. ‘You speak of things you do not understand. This night the cloud palace will leave. The Ancient One has claimed the prizes it sought. Leave me in peace to bear my misery as best I can. My tongue is tied. I can tell you nothing.’
Leo stared at him, fighting down the savage urge to shout at him, to grab him by the shoulders and shake him. The wizard bowed his head again. He clasped his hands in an attempt to stop their trembling. And suddenly Leo’s feelings underwent a complete reversal, and he was overwhelmed with pity.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said awkwardly. ‘But I’m not going to give up. I can’t.’
‘Do what you will,’ the old man mumbled. ‘Just get out of my sight.’
Leo stood up reluctantly. He took a step backwards and almost tripped over the cord still trailing behind him. Quickly he checked the knot at his waist. It was still firm. A few steps on he found the track. Only then did he look back.
He could no longer see the figure at the base of the tree. The mist had closed over it again and hidden it from view.
What will I do? he thought miserably. For despite what he’d said to Wizard Bing, he knew that to follow the track deeper into the Glen would be reckless and even pointless. He knew now, for sure, that Mimi and Bertha were in the cloud palace. He knew he couldn’t save them.
Meeting the wretched Bing had taught him that. Yet … how could he turn and leave them?
And the Key … the Key to Rondo … his only way home – and in this world the key to life and death.
Leo wrapped his arms around himself, rocking in despair.
‘Good,’ he heard Bing say. ‘He has gone. Now he can no longer torment me with his foolish promises. Poor lad, he does not understand.’
It was eerie and terribly sad to hear the old man talking to himself, alone in the mist. Leo felt a lump ri
se in his throat.
‘Ah,’ the rasping voice went on, a little more loudly, ‘but how I longed for my tongue to loosen. How I longed to tell him of the night-lights.’
Leo froze. He listened intently, hardly daring to breathe.
‘How could I tell him, when his presence locked the secret within me?’ said the voice floating through the mist. ‘But if I had been free to speak I would have told him. I would have told him of the small white flowers called night-lights, each a single, perfect cup with a fragrant golden centre, borne on a stem of palest green no taller than a blade of grass.’
He knows I’m listening, Leo thought, his skin prickling. He’s telling me what I need to know. The enchantment stops him from saying this to me face to face, but if he talks to himself, and I happen to overhear …
‘The Ancient One is great, but it thirsts for these tiny blooms,’ Bing’s voice continued, dry and rough as sandpaper. ‘Their magic comforts its bitter loneliness as nothing else can. The Ancient One is drawn to places where they grow, but it cannot pluck them. If plucked by those of evil will, the night-light withers and dies. If plucked by those of good heart, it is everlasting.’
Breathless, Leo waited. He pressed his hands to his chest, trying to still his heart. It was beating so loudly that it seemed to be thudding in his ears. He was terrified that he wouldn’t be able to hear the rest of what the old wizard had to say.
‘If only I could have spoken to that boy,’ the voice went on, slowly and distinctly, penetrating the mist with ease, ‘I would have told him that night-lights grow beneath the trees of Tiger’s Glen. I would have told him to pluck one bloom for each of his lost companions. I would have told him to go fearlessly to the cloud palace, knock three times on any door, and ask for entry. And I would have told him to offer the flowers in exchange for his friends. The Ancient One would not have been able to refuse him.’
Tingling all over, Leo turned to face the centre again.
‘And before he left me,’ said the voice from the mist, rising even louder, ‘I would have asked that boy to remember who told him the secret. And I would have asked him to pluck two extra night-lights … to ransom little Moult and … me.’