by Emily Rodda
‘I will, Wizard Bing,’ Leo whispered. ‘I promise,
I will.’
Chapter
33
Night-lights
Leo walked on slowly, scanning the ground on both sides of the track, looking for night-lights. The strange, dry mist was becoming thicker and its metallic smell was growing stronger. He was getting close to the centre. He knew it was vital to stay alert – not to become so obsessed with his search that he failed to see danger ahead – but it was amazing how much better he felt now he had something practical to do.
Then, suddenly, Bertha’s tracks ended. Leo stood still, his scalp prickling. The leaves around the last of the trotter marks lay undisturbed. There was no sign of a struggle. It was as if Bertha had disappeared into thin air.
One by one they came, and one by one they were taken …
Leo bit his lip, trying to quell the sick feeling in his stomach. He glanced over his shoulder, wondering if he should retrace his steps and continue the search closer to the edge of the Glen, where it would be safer.
As he hesitated, he heard a twig snap somewhere to his right. He turned quickly, just in time to catch a glimpse of a vast, shadowy form slithering past a tree and then disappearing behind a curtain of white.
Leo caught his breath and instinctively gripped the cord around his waist, checking yet again that the knot was still firm. The shadow had been indistinct and wavering, but he had seen enough – more than enough – of that sinuous body, that lashing tail and those three flat heads, jaws gaping wide to reveal fangs whiter than the mist.
The Ancient One collects oddities – oddities, you know …
Leo forced himself to breathe out and wiped his sweating hands on his trousers. So three-headed dragons are oddities even in Rondo, he thought numbly.
His skin crawling, he glanced over his shoulder. There was nothing to see but billowing whiteness. The mist had closed in behind him, swallowing the path and all but a small section of yellow cord no longer than his arm.
Slowly, fighting down fear and panic, he faced the front again, automatically scanning the ground as he did so. And there, at the base of a tree only a step away, was a small white flower.
Now he had seen it, he couldn’t understand how he could have missed it. Standing upright on its pale, leafless stem, it seemed to glow against the dark tree roots.
… a single, perfect cup with a fragrant golden centre, borne on a stem of palest green no taller than a blade of grass …
Leo stepped off the track, moved cautiously to the tree and crouched beside the tiny bloom. It looked like a miniature tulip, except that it had no long stamens. Deep inside the snowy cup formed by its curving petals was a golden centre shaped like a candle flame. He couldn’t smell any perfume, but that wasn’t surprising. His nose was so filled with the odour of the mist that he couldn’t even smell the rotting leaves under his feet.
He reached down and hesitated. The flower was so exquisite that in other circumstances he would have thought it a great shame to pick it. Now his only fear was that it would wither and die, dashing all his hopes. Wizard Bing had said that night-lights only faded when picked by people of evil will, but what if Langlander hands had the same effect?
Stop wasting time, Leo told himself. He touched the knot at his waist like a talisman, and picked the flower.
He stood up, holding the night-light gently by the base of its stem. The fragile white cup remained upright, and the golden flame in its centre seemed, if anything, even brighter than before.
Sighing with relief, Leo moved a little past the tree and turned slowly in a circle, inspecting the ground. If one night-light grew in this spot, it was quite likely that others did too. And sure enough he saw one almost immediately, this time growing in open space, its slender stalk almost invisible against the leaf mould so that the pure white flower seemed to be floating just above the ground.
He looked around again before he approached it, the memory of the three-headed shadow he had seen from the path still very fresh in his mind. He crouched and picked the flower, taking care to break the stem as far down as he could. One for Mimi, one for Bertha, he thought as he stood up again with his prize in his hand. I only need two more, and then …
His mind sheered away from what he had to do then. Two more, he told himself. You don’t have to think about anything else yet.
He forced his eyes down and scanned the ground one more time, sweeping his arms in front of him to disturb the white fog that hemmed him in. The mist swirled, clearing in patches, and his heart leaped as he saw, not far away, a familiar shape.
He stumbled forward and fell to his knees beside a small basket half-filled with straw. It lay abandoned at the base of a huge tree, in a mossy hollow between two of the tree’s vast roots.
Don’t worry. Will use basket to carry safely. Back soon.
‘Oh, Mimi!’ Leo groaned aloud. He picked up the basket and laid the two precious night-light flowers on the straw. He was just turning away when out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed a gleam of white.
A third night-light was nestled on the far side of one of the roots. Wincing at the thought of how nearly he had missed seeing it, Leo picked it and put it beside the others.
Doggedly he moved on, his feet sinking deep into the dead leaves. The light was fading. If he didn’t find the fourth night-light soon, it would be too dark for him to see.
This night the cloud palace will leave …
His stomach knotting, Leo gripped the handle of the basket. I could just take three flowers to the Strix, he thought. One for Mimi, one for Bertha, one for Wizard Bing. That would mean leaving Moult behind, but …
… my gallant little Moult.
A picture of Moult seriously reciting the hatching-day rhyme flashed into Leo’s mind. He screwed his eyes shut and shook his head, as if that would make the picture disappear, but it didn’t.
This was getting him nowhere. He opened his eyes and took a deep breath. Get back to the track, he told himself. Move on towards the centre. If you find a fourth night-light, you can ransom Moult as well as the others. If you don’t …
Grimly he stepped forward, waving his free arm in front of him to try to clear the mist. One step … two … three …
A bulky shadow loomed up in front of him. His heart leaped into his throat. His ears rang with his own strangled shout of fright.
But the shadow didn’t move, and almost at once he saw that it was just a tree branch bowed low by the weight of a thick, tangling vine that covered it like a lumpy curtain and trailed all the way to the ground.
His heart still thudding, Leo began to skirt the leafy mound. The basket snagged on one of the vine strands as he passed. Stopping to free it, he discovered that the mound was hollow inside. The vine that had sprawled over the tree branch had formed a sort of tent. On impulse, Leo bent, parted the vine a little more, and glanced in.
The hollow was almost dark, but he could see enough to realise that it was a perfect hiding place – exactly the sort of secret place he would have loved when he was younger. Then he blinked. There was a tiny white spot on the ground at the back of the hollow.
Leo fell to his knees. Pushing the basket in front of him, he crawled through the vine curtain and into the hidden space.
The night-light was growing beside the trunk of the tree that formed the back wall of the little enclosure. Leo picked it carefully. He could barely see the basket as he put the flower inside it with the others. He could barely see his own hand. But the four night-lights glowed in the darkness, gleaming, perfect … everlasting.
Clutching the basket, Leo began to turn round. It was hard to do in the cramped space, but there was no way he was going to crawl backwards through the vine curtain, unable to see what might be waiting for him beyond it.
He had almost managed the turn when his elbow struck something hard. At first he thought it was a tree root, but as his hand brushed it in the darkness he realised that it was too smooth for that.
>
Gingerly he felt the object with his fingers. It was long and thin. Its sides were rounded and it felt cool, as if it was made of metal or glass. A shallow groove not much wider than his thumb ran down its whole length, and at one end of the groove there was something that felt like a small lever. Well, it’s not just a piece of pipe, Leo thought.
Someone’s made this. But what’s it doing just lying here? Maybe it’s some sort of weapon or …
The thought struck him like a thunderbolt. Heat rushed into his face. He took the rod in his free hand and wriggled rapidly out of the darkness of the vine cave.
He scrambled to his feet, panting, and looked at the thing in his hand. It was a long metal tube. Its top quarter was painted white. Below that was a band of brown, then a band of green. The bottom quarter was yellow.
He was in a very good mood … he was wearing his best robe, and his tall hat, and he was carrying a fine new wand, striped in four different colours …
‘Wizard Bing’s wand,’ Leo murmured. The tube didn’t look anything like he’d imagined, but he knew he was right.
The groove that ran down the tube’s length was black. Four white marks were dotted evenly from top to bottom, each mark in line with one of the coloured bands. Leo squinted at the marks. He thought they might be letters or numbers. If only he could see them more clearly. If only it wasn’t so very dim …
So very dim …
His chest tightened. He’d only been inside the vine cave for a couple of minutes, but now he saw that it was much darker than it had been when he went in, and the swirling mist was faintly tinged with pink. Above the mist, in the world outside the shrouded Glen, the sun was setting.
And when night came, the Strix’s palace would disappear, taking Mimi and Bertha with it. There was no time to waste. He had to find the track. It was to his left, he was sure. To his left …
Leo began to walk quickly through the darkening mist, bearing to the left, the basket in one hand and the wand in the other. He doubted he could use the wand to make magic, but at least he could use it as a club if necessary. It was quite heavy enough to stun an attacker.
He stumbled with a gasp as something jerked him backwards. It took him several seconds to realise that it was the cord – the lifeline linking him to the edge of the Glen. It had stretched as far as it would go.
He put down the basket and the wand and tore at the knot that fastened the cord around his waist. His hands were shaking, his fingers clumsy, but at last the loop was undone and the cord fell to the ground. Only then did Leo look up and see that the mist around him was moving – not languidly as it had drifted before, but purposefully, and fast. It was tumbling silently past him, towards the centre of the Glen. It looked like cloud blown before the wind, but there was no wind. The Glen was utterly still.
Leo snatched up the wand and the basket. He knew without doubt that he didn’t need the track any more. All he had to do was follow the mist. The four night-lights glowed in the dimness as he plunged on blindly, swept along by rolling waves of fog. Once he looked over his shoulder, and what he saw chilled him to the bone.
The mist behind him was thinning. Already he could see more tree trunks, bushes, even spreading branches in the distance. The mist was withdrawing from the edges of the Glen, streaming back towards the centre. And that could mean only one thing. The Strix was reclaiming it. The Strix was preparing to depart.
Thrilling with panic, his breath coming in painful, choking gasps, Leo blundered on. Surely he must be nearly at the palace now. Surely …
He stumbled into what seemed to be a clearing – at least there were no trees he could see or feel – and suddenly the palace was looming in front of him like a great, billowing wall.
He stopped and stared. Clouds of mist from the Glen were flowing towards the palace, lapping against it, sinking into its fluffy surface like water soaking into a sponge. Oddly, however, the palace looked smaller and more shapeless – more cloud-like – than it had before. Leo could still see ragged towers rising into the red-stained sky. But they looked fainter, and the outline of the whole palace was wavering, as if the magic that had created it was gradually being withdrawn.
Vague outlines of windows and balconies still floated in the cloud wall, however. And straight ahead, there was a huge white door.
Leo ran forward. There was no time to be afraid. No time to think of anything except finding the Strix and making the bargain that would save Mimi, Bertha and the Key before it was too late. He stuck the wand into his belt, raised his hand, and knocked on the door.
Chapter
34
Clouds
Leo’s knuckles went straight through the cloud. They shouldn’t have made a sound, and yet they did. A hollow knock echoed eerily in the silence.
Beyond shock, beyond fear, Leo knocked a second time, and a third. And as the echo of the last knock faded away, the door shimmered and thinned till all that remained was a fine, translucent veil of mist. Behind the veil, grey cloud swirled, and in the depths of the cloud something moved.
‘Do you wish to enter?’ a voice whispered.
‘Yes,’ Leo said, and watched as the veil of mist melted away. Gripping the basket tightly, he stepped in.
The room – for he didn’t know what else to call the formless space he’d entered – was very cold – cold as a cavern of ice. He had been prepared for horrors, but saw only rolling waves of mist, dry, metallic-smelling and faintly luminous.
The trapped curiosities of the Collection were kept somewhere else in the palace, then. The three-headed dragon, the ancient Terlamaines, Mimi and Bertha, Moult and Wizard Bing … drifting in misty gloom while the Ancient One gloated and dreamed.
Leo felt rather than saw the cloud door form again behind him. It was like the brushing of icy wings on his back. In front of him, mist writhed. The thing in the cloud was silent, waiting.
But it was eager. Leo could feel it. His skin crawling, he held out the basket.
‘I have brought these night-lights to you,’ he said, his voice a husky croak. ‘I offer them in exchange for my friends – for Mimi, Bertha, Moult and Wizard Bing.’
‘Come closer,’ the voice hissed avidly. ‘Let me see.’
Leo took a step forward. The cloud rushed into his nose and mouth, dry and sour, making him cough. It isn’t cloud at all, he thought suddenly. It isn’t mist. It’s smoke. Cold smoke.
There was a long sigh of pleasure. A wrinkled, mottled hand stretched out of the smoke and took the basket.
‘You have done well,’ the voice said softly. ‘Now it is time for us to meet face to face.’
A tall, thin figure moved out of the smoke.
It was Wizard Bing.
Leo gaped, unbelieving. ‘Where is the Strix?’ he asked wildly.
The wizard smiled. Negligently he swung the basket in his hand.
A wave of smoke rolled over Leo, blinding him. When it cleared, golden bars surrounded him. He was in a cage.
‘What – what are you doing?’ Leo stammered, pressing against the bars, tugging at them helplessly. ‘Wizard Bing, don’t do this! Let me out! I’ve brought enough night-lights to save you as well as the others. You can be free.’
‘Oh, I am free already,’ said the wizard, his smile broadening to a ghastly grin. ‘I am freer than I have been for a long, long time.’
‘No!’ Leo shouted. ‘Wizard Bing, please! You have to let me out. I have to find Mimi and Bertha. I have to –’
The wizard began to laugh. And as he laughed his face began to melt. The white beard vanished. The pointed hat bent and collapsed. The mottled hands shrank and paled. The tall, thin body rippled like water, changing and reforming. The laughter rose, became shrill. There was the rustle of silken skirts. And there, before Leo’s horrified eyes, stood the Blue Queen, her face flushed with triumph.
The queen looked older than Leo remembered. There were shadows under her eyes, and her skin looked as if it was stretched too tightly over her bones. But she w
as still as beautiful as ever, and to Leo she seemed even more terrifying. Gems glittered at her throat, on her ears, arms and fingers, and on her magnificent gown of midnight blue. Her braids of white-gold hair coiled around her jewelled crown like snakes. Her eyes sparkled with malice.
Leo’s first thought was that he was dreaming. This wasn’t possible. This must be a nightmare – the sort of nightmare in which the very thing you have been dreading comes to pass no matter what you do to prevent it.
The queen is only powerful inside her castle …
‘This isn’t true,’ Leo whispered aloud. ‘You can’t be here.’
‘Ah, but I am,’ purred the Blue Queen. ‘And so is my castle – or the essence of it, the centre that is the source of my power. It has travelled here as smoke, innocent as a cloud, and I have travelled with it. Rumours of the Ancient One made it easy … all so easy! And when you disappear this night, no one will seek you. You will be considered lost for good, in the palace of the Strix.’
She smiled at the expression on Leo’s face. ‘Surely you did not think that I would be content forever to stay silent and powerless on my hill when once I controlled the whole of Rondo?’ she jeered. ‘Long before you and Mimi Langlander blundered into this world, I had been experimenting with a spell that would release me from my bondage. Your treachery in destroying the Key made me all the more determined to succeed, and in succeeding to make you pay for defying me.’
‘It – it was you in the Glen,’ Leo stammered, fumbling for understanding. ‘Not Wizard Bing … you! And … and you created that three-headed dragon, to convince me that the cloud palace belonged to the Strix.’
‘You already believed that, fool,’ sneered the queen. ‘The dragon phantom was simply to draw your attention to the first of the night-lights I wished you to find. I saw you hesitating on the path and could not risk your turning back. Ah … extending my power to the limits of this vile little wood was tiring, but it was worth it. Here in the centre I am supreme, but even there, thin as the magic had been stretched, it was strong enough for me to do … what had to be done.’