Chronicles of the Red King #3: Leopards' Gold

by Jenny Nimmo

  They sailed over the wall and the air held them. Petrello told himself he wouldn’t look down, but he did. He could hardly believe what he was seeing: his own feet with nothing solid beneath them and, far below, the castle gardens, fast disappearing now. The wind grabbed his legs and they flew out behind him. Now they were over the forest, and he could see deer in a glade, staring up at them.

  Something hot touched his foot. He gasped. Were Tolly’s wings on fire? Before he could shout at his brother, a great whoosh of air knocked them sideways. Tolly shouted, but the wind filled Petrello’s ears and he couldn’t hear the words.

  A huge shape swept through the air above them, flames shooting from its snout. It was Enid, her great wings and tail creating a wild gusty draft.

  Once the dragon was ahead of them, she stopped cavorting in the air and began to glide. Petrello was immensely glad to see her. With a dragon on their side, nothing seemed impossible.

  They watched the trees pass beneath them for mile after mile. They saw glades and rivers, rocky hills, banks of flowers; they saw hares running, birds’ nests and heronries, but never a lake as smooth as glass. Tolly’s wings became as much a part of him as his legs and arms. He began to control them with ease. But although Petrello believed in those great black wings, he never lost the feeling that the strong current of air beneath them was somehow connected to him.

  “Let’s make some circles,” Petrello shouted to Tolly. “We’ve been flying south for a long time, but the lake could be in the east or the west.”

  “Agreed!” Tolly took off at a frightening speed. He circled above the trees, he zigzagged, bobbed, and tilted. And Enid never left their side. She seemed to be enjoying the exercise; her flames began to shoot alarmingly close and Petrello had to shout, “No, no, no, Enid!” She seemed to understand and moved off a little.

  At least she’s keeping us warm, thought Petrello. Otherwise we’d be freezing cold up here.

  Ravens, hawks, larks, and swallows swung away from the unlikely creatures that frolicked in the air. Even the eagles kept their distance.

  Gradually, Enid’s warmth stopped reaching them. She was still close by, twirling and whirling along, but Petrello’s feet were getting colder and colder. The forest below had lost some of its greenness. In fact, the more he stared at it, the less like a forest it looked. Was that snow lying on the topmost branches? It couldn’t be. It hadn’t snowed for weeks.

  Enid’s flames began to flicker, like candles in a breeze, and then they died altogether. The dragon made a choking sound. She blinked, coughed twice, and then, all at once, she began to drop toward the forest. She flapped her wings, but it seemed to be an effort. The dragon turned her head and looked up at the boys, her expression anxious and questioning.

  “Trello, I can’t feel my wings,” called Tolly. “We’re going down.”

  Petrello sensed something dragging his legs. He kicked out at empty air. And then, below them, he saw a pale cloud, lying in the center of a lake as smooth as polished glass.

  There was nothing they could do to stop their rapid tumble through the sky. Petrello watched the lake come closer and closer; they were about to fall into the icy-looking water when, with one last desperate beat of his wings, Tolly veered to one side. They landed heavily on a stony beach. Petrello let go of his brother’s legs and they rolled apart.

  For a moment, they were both too stunned to speak. Petrello could see Enid crouching on the stones a short distance away. Her crested head drooped and a low gloomy grumble came from her throat.

  “Enid, what happened?” Petrello asked, not really expecting her to hear.

  But she lifted her head and ambled over to him.

  “It was like a cold power, dragging us down,” said Tolly, pulling himself upright.

  Petrello sat up and patted the rough scales on the dragon’s neck. She grunted with pleasure and a tiny flame appeared at the end of her snout. Petrello was glad to see it. “I thought you’d lost your fire,” he told her.

  Tolly was staring hard at the cloud. Following his gaze, Petrello saw that it wasn’t an ordinary sort of cloud. It was more like a giant white nest. Thin, wormlike strands snaked into the air above it, and long, feathery stuff extended from all sides. Petrello recognized the poisonous fungus that Llyr kept for rare and powerful spells.

  “Can anyone be alive in there?” Tolly murmured.

  “Yes,” Petrello said fervently. “The king. He has his cloak.”

  “How do we reach him?”

  “We must fly above the cloud….”

  “And drop into it?” asked Tolly. “We’d be choked to death.”

  “Let’s think.”

  They turned and walked toward a copse of birch trees growing beside the lake. Enid followed, thumping over the shingle like a heavy bag. They had almost reached the bank when they noticed a man standing very still beside a silvery birch.

  Even as they looked, more figures appeared. They were much smaller than the first. They massed behind the man as though they were afraid.

  Tolly and Petrello stopped. “Shall we fly?” Tolly whispered.

  “I’m not sure,” said Petrello.

  And then the man called, “Enid, welcome! Welcome, Princes!”

  Tolly and Petrello exchanged glances. It seemed that the strange man was a friend. They followed Enid’s example and continued toward the bank. As they drew closer, they could see that the man’s dark hair clung to his scalp like a cap of silk. He wore a rough hempen shirt and breeches made of some shiny animal hair. His feet were bare and the skin of his handsome face was pale and sleek. The crowd of children was dressed like the man; some of them looked related to him.

  When they reached the stranger, he said, “You don’t know me, of course. I left the Red Castle ten years ago, when you were but a few weeks old; I think you must be Petrello.”

  “I am. And this is Tolomeo.”

  The man took first Petrello’s hand, and then Tolly’s. “I’m Tumi,” he said, “and some of these rascals are my children.”

  All the children grinned at the princes and dipped their heads, as they called out their names. They spoke so fast, Tolly and Petrello remembered none of them.

  Tumi studied the boys’ faces for a moment. “I saw your wings,” he said to Tolly, “and knew that you must be Timoken’s sons. You are both like him, if a little paler. But then your mother is very pale skinned. I trust she’s well.”

  Petrello hesitated, and Tolly said, “We don’t know.”

  Petrello added, “We’ve come to find our father. We believe he is in that smothering cloud. Our mother and our brother Amadis are also somewhere in the forest.”

  “But we don’t know where,” Tolly burst out. “And we don’t know how to rescue our father.”

  “We’re in a bit of a fix,” said Petrello.

  Tumi’s face became very grave. He looked at the cloud and said, “Yes, certainly a fix. You’d better come home with me, and we’ll try and sort this problem out together.” He turned to the children. “Get your baskets and bring them along, as fast as you can. Don’t linger by the water. Ketil, you’re in charge.”

  The tallest boy in the group said, “Yes, Father,” and the children all ran down to the water’s edge. There they proceeded to haul in dome-shaped fish baskets, tied with twine to large pebbles on the beach.

  Tumi led Tolly and Petrello around the edge of the lake. Enid came lolloping behind. She never took her eyes off the cloud until they came within sight of a very strange house. It sat above the water on tall wooden stilts, and a plume of gray smoke curled from its round clay chimney. Petrello wondered how they could possibly reach it without getting very wet. But as soon as they were opposite the house, Tumi called, “Sila, Timoken’s sons are here.”

  A door opened and a long ladder was thrust out. The end splashed into the water a short distance from the bank.

  “Take off those fine boots, young men,” said Tumi. “We have to paddle now.”

  The boys sat do
wn and pulled off their boots, while Enid watched, a slight suspicion creeping into her yellow eyes.

  “Can Enid come in with us?” Tolly asked.

  Tumi glanced at the trees leaning close to the beach. Petrello could see now that the topmost branches were hung with the deadly fungus that filled the cloud. “The dragon shouldn’t stay out here,” Tumi said. “Go and meet my wife. I’ll deal with Enid.”

  Petrello climbed the ladder first. He didn’t know what to expect when he reached the top, and was astonished to see such a beautiful room inside the odd-looking house. Colored carpets covered the floor and the walls were hung with polished shells, beads, crystals, and shining stones. In one corner, a log simmered in a small iron grate, and around the walls there were mounds of bright blankets and cushions.

  Tolly stepped into the room. He stood gazing at the walls while a woman, standing by the door, clasped both the boys’ hands. “Welcome,” she said warmly. Her round and gentle face was framed by hazel-colored curls and soft lines ringed her large brown eyes. “I’m Sila,” she said, and then, turning to Petrello, “And you are Petrello.”

  “How did you know that?” he asked.

  “I knew by the little breeze you brought in with you,” she said. “We left the Red Castle just after you were born, and I remember your mother saying that you brought a little storm into the world with you. All the pretty covers, the cloths and shawls and baby blankets went flying about the room.”

  “Really?” Petrello hadn’t known this.

  “There, you’ve done it again,” she said, and Petrello noticed that the crystals, the beads, shells, and stones were all jingling in a tiny breeze.

  Sila laughed. “They named you Petrello after the bird that thrives on stormy seas.”

  “I didn’t know that,” said Petrello. “I think I must have lost my storminess for a while.”

  “They named me Tolomeo,” said Tolly, “because my mother came from a place called Toledo.”

  Enid’s snout appeared in the doorway. She seemed to be smiling, though it was hard to tell. It might have been a grimace for, behind her, Tumi’s groans were getting louder and louder. Suddenly, Enid’s whole body burst through the door, with Tumi tumbling after her, his hands still on her thick tail. “Dragons aren’t meant for ladders,” he puffed.

  Enid shuffled into a corner, looking a little bemused.

  A moment later, the children appeared with their baskets of fish. As soon as they saw Enid, they dropped their baskets by the door and ran to make a fuss of her. They knew she was a dragon because of the many stories their father had told them.

  Tumi sat in the open doorway and gutted the fish, while Sila hung a cauldron of water above the fire. And as Tumi worked, he told the boys how he and Sila had left the Red Castle to live on the lake, because Tumi missed being near water. Their friends Karli and Esga had come with them, and Timoken himself had helped to build their house, “with that wonderful way he has of multiplying a plank,” Sila put in.

  “All our children can swim like fish,” said Tumi. “And I mean fish, for they can stay under water for a long, long time.” He put down his knife. “And that is how we plan to rescue your father.”

  “How?” asked Petrello. “Why is he there? And what is that cloud? Who made it?”

  “Why did they make it?” begged Tolly. “Our father has a cloak that has protected him all his life, so why not this time?”

  “So many questions,” sighed Tumi, and he told them about the Damzel of Decay, the dark spirit of the forest who had for so long hungered for Timoken’s marvelous cloak of healing and protection.

  “She is sometimes beautiful,” said Sila, “but her beauty is a mask. It hides a hideous nature. She is very strong and she has demon servants to help her in her dreadful sorcery.”

  “We believe she struck a bargain with Sir Osbern D’Ark of Melyntha Castle,” went on Tumi. “He would get someone in the Red Castle to steal the Seeing Crystal, knowing the king would come looking for it. And the Damzel would seize the cloak before the king had time to act.”

  “Without his cloak, he is much weakened,” said Sila.

  Petrello thought of Borlath. He was ashamed to mention his brother’s part in the terrible events.

  “How did they get our father and his knights across the water?” asked Tolly, looking through a small window between the strands of twinkling crystals.

  “Carried them over to an island beneath the cloud, in nets of stinking weeds,” said Tumi. “They are afraid of water.” He walked over to the cauldron and dropped several fish into the bubbling water. “We saw from our little window and shuddered, not knowing what to do.”

  “So they can fly?” said Petrello.

  “Servants like that can do anything.” Sila stirred her cauldron fiercely. “Sir Osbern hopes they will remain there, prisoners of the cloud forever, while he keeps the Seeing Crystal and takes over the Red Castle, a place he has always pined for.”

  “A magic castle,” said one of the girls, her eyes shining.

  “A castle he would share with Chancellor Thorkil,” Tumi said darkly. “We heard all this from one of Sir Osbern’s grooms. The boy still lives in the forest with his mother, and sometimes she comes to us, for our fish. We always suspected that one day Thorkil would move against the king.”

  Petrello and Tolly brought their cushions closer to the fire. Their thoughts had made them cold. They stared at the flames beneath the cauldron, wondering what to do next.

  “So the Damzel has the cloak,” Petrello said unhappily.

  “No,” said Tumi. “It wouldn’t stay with her. It tore itself out of her grasp. We saw her on the beach, snatching and tearing at it, until it fell apart and floated away.”

  “We found it.” Ketil went to a chest and lifted out some thin pieces of fabric. They were torn and ragged, and yet they had a faint golden sparkle.

  Petrello leaped over to Ketil and took the flimsy bits of stuff out of his hands. As he held a piece up to the light, he could follow the thin gold lines that ran across it. It was part of a spider’s web. A ripple of anger ran through him, and all the shells and crystals, all the polished stones and colored beads jangled and clinked and sang; even the cauldron of fish went swinging.

  “My father’s cloak!” cried Petrello. “But how are we to mend it?”

  Firelight, shining through the web, made a golden pattern on Tolly’s grave face. “Leopards’ gold,” he said. “The leopards will mend it.”

  Not long after the brothers had arrived at the house on stilts, a small, slight man with gentle eyes appeared at the top of the ladder. He was followed by a woman with a merry face and thick, dark hair. They had left the castle with Tumi and Sila, and were parents to half the children in the small fishing group.

  Karli and Esga were overjoyed to meet two of Timoken’s sons, but when Karli heard about the chancellor’s treachery, he shuddered. Esga looked at him and gripped his hand. She explained to the brothers that, even as a boy, Thorkil had been a bully. He had made Karli’s life a misery, until Timoken came into their lives.

  “For a while, Thorkil became easier to live with,” said Karli. “It seemed as though he had cast off his arrogant ways. And then his sister, Elfrieda, married a man called Chimery, a stranger with a secret past.”

  Tumi slowly shook his head. “Once Thorkil and Chimery got together, we could see that the friendships your father was so eager to foster would one day fracture, and the good and special life we loved would fall apart.”

  “Timoken couldn’t see it,” said Sila. “I don’t like to say this, but sometimes your father expects too much of people. A goodness they can’t live up to.” She smiled at the king’s sons. “But then, why shouldn’t he?”

  There was a moment’s silence, and then Esga, glancing hastily through the small window, announced, “My brother, Ilgar, is in that cloud.”

  “He is a Knight Protector?” asked Petrello.

  Esga nodded. “One of the bravest and the best.”


  It was Tumi’s suggestion that Tolly should wait until nightfall before he flew back to the Red Castle. Darkness would hide him from anyone on watch.

  Tolly was determined to go alone this time. His wings were part of him now, he said. They did whatever he wanted. And it would be easier to carry the web if he didn’t have to cling to Petrello.

  Petrello suspected this wasn’t the only reason. The light in Tolly’s eyes told him that his brother relished the thought of an adventure on his own.

  There was something else Petrello had to ask about. A part of the king’s capture that wasn’t clear. “The horses,” he said, “and the camel. What became of them?”

  “Ah,” said Tumi. “They behaved rather unnaturally. When the king and his knights were set upon, the horses were screaming. But as the demons carried those poor weed-wrapped men across the water, the animals fell silent. And then, without a sound, they turned, all at once, and left — all in the same direction.”

  Petrello and Tolly looked at each other, and Tolly said, “Amadis called them.”

  “Amadis, of course,” said Tumi. “The boy with white-gold hair, who was often seen with wolves.”

  “Who conversed with dogs and cats and horses,” said Karli.

  “And eagles and even rats,” added his wife.

  “He’s alive, then!” Petrello jumped up, ready to search for his brother at once. But looking around the sea of anxious faces, he realized that it would not be easy to find Amadis in a forest that stretched farther then he could imagine. He would need help, and the light was fading fast.

  “Tomorrow,” said Tumi. “After the king has been released.” He didn’t mention how this would happen, and Petrello thought it better not to ask, in case Tumi wasn’t really sure of his plan.

  Sila began to ladle her fish dish into bowls, and the two smallest children handed them out. Petrello judged them to be about five and six years old, and he thought of Vyborn, who might not have carried a full bowl so carefully.

  “This isn’t just soup,” Tolly declared, lapping it up. “It’s the most delicious food I have ever tasted.”