by Lari Don
“No,” said Helen.
“No?”
“No. I can’t promise to keep a secret I haven’t heard yet. You might have done something terrible. You might be planning to do something terrible. You might be bringing danger on yourselves and others. You have already brought trouble to my family; my mother’s surgery was broken into and wrecked last night. So I will not promise to keep a secret if you tell me something I should tell my parents or the police. The easiest way to keep promises is not to make ones you might break.”
Helen folded her arms and stared at Yann.
Yann folded his arms and stared back.
“Fine! Keep the teeth. Keep your dressings. We’ll leave you to your safety and contentment and boredom. Come, friends, time to go.”
“No,” said Rona. “I trust her. Tell her.”
“You trust her? She’s just said she won’t promise.”
“That’s why I trust her. If she had promised without thinking, just out of curiosity, she wouldn’t really mean it. But she didn’t promise, because she will think hard about the consequences of what we tell her. Yann, if we had thought that hard on Sunday, we wouldn’t be in trouble now. Tell her, and she might be able to help.”
Yann looked at Lavender.
“Do you agree? Do you trust her?”
Lavender flew onto his shoulder. “Oh, yes, let’s tell her our story. In the olden times, quests and adventures always fared better when we involved humans.”
“Is it a long story?” asked Helen.
“Not days long, no,” said Yann.
“Should we sit down?” She pointed at a saggy old couch against the back wall.
“You sit. I prefer to stand.”
Helen sat at one end of the brown and orange couch. Rona stretched out elegantly at the other, smoothing down her soft grey dress. Lavender fluttered over to the arm beside Helen, and perched on it, dangling her tiny legs.
And Yann began.
“Many years ago, the fabled beasts shared the earth with humans, but then the humans learnt to farm and your numbers grew, and you needed more and more land. Then you learnt to harness the energy in the earth and the lightning, and your numbers grew even more and your cities spread everywhere.
“And now there are so many humans, the fabled beasts that are left must hide in secret places in the folds and on the edges of maps. Our numbers have fallen, so that in some generations, in some places, our peoples may have only one or two young.
“Perhaps when there were many of us, centaurs kept to themselves on the grassy slopes, selkies stayed on the rocky coasts and fairies stayed close to their flowers.
“But it’s hard to grow up alone, and the children of the fabled beasts have to make friends with each other, or else we have no friends at all.
“So the three of us, and some other fabled beasts, meet when we can in quiet places, and we talk.”
Rona explained, “We talk about our parents and their rules, and our teachers and their rules, and we talk about how we can change the world.”
Lavender added, “And we share moans and groans, and we do each other’s hair and feathers and fur and scales, and plan parties and play silly jokes and it’s a lot more fun than watching your aunties do finding spells all day.”
Yann sighed. “But lately we have grown bored. And two days ago we did a foolish thing.”
“Not ‘we’ Yann,” Lavender said sharply, “We didn’t all think it was a good idea. It was your idea. You did a foolish thing.”
“We were all there when it was done,” said Rona calmly, “We must all bear some responsibility.”
Yann spoke in a voice so quiet it was almost a whisper. “A foolish thing was done, and we have all pledged to put it right.”
He raised his voice again, and looked at Helen, “We stole a precious object. We called it borrowing. We thought we had a right to it. But we have scared it and lost it, and we may have driven it into the arms of the one we fear the most.”
“What do you fear the most?” asked Helen.
“No. I will not start with the worst. I will start with the best.”
Chapter 4
Yann’s clear voice filled the dusty garage. “There is a Book. It is a Book that we centaurs and other fabled beasts have shared and guarded for many generations. It is a Book that contains all the questions, and all the answers, that anyone may ask in their life. And our peoples keep it safe, and ask it the questions that let us survive and thrive.
“But our elders have laid down rules. Our community only asks questions twice a year at the Winter and Summer Solstices. We are only allowed to ask three questions at a time, and the questions must be in the interests of many, not just the questioner.”
“Why can’t you ask the questions all at once, or just read the whole book?” asked Helen.
Rona answered, “Because no one must get too much unearned or unlearned knowledge. Wisdom is found not only in the answers but also in the journey to find them. To know all your life’s answers too soon would give you too much power and not enough curiosity.”
Yann sighed. “But we were impatient. We have so much to learn, about how to live in a world that is hardly ours any more. We wondered if our parents were making the right decisions for us, and we wondered if the Book could give us guidance.
“So we called on our skills and magic to draw the Book from its place of safety. Then we opened it. But before we could ask it anything important, it took fright and flew off.
“We don’t know if it was angered by our impertinent questions, or if it sensed the presence of darker creatures who wanted it too. But now the Book is gone, and we must find it.
“We must find it before our parents realize it is gone. Before my father says the words to release the Book from its place of safety for the Winter Solstice Gathering at the end of the week.”
Rona took a deep breath. “If we tell our parents, they would help …”
Yann interrupted, “We have discussed this. We must be responsible and sort it out ourselves.”
“We should be responsible enough to admit our mistake and ask for help.”
“It wasn’t just a mistake, Rona, it was a crime and we would be punished for it. If we can find the Book before the ceremony, they may never know it was gone.”
Lavender’s little voice broke into the argument. “We might even be banned from seeing each other if they find out. I couldn’t bear that, could you?” She flew to Rona and hugged her.
Yann trotted in a tight circle round the garage, then returned to his place in front of the couch. “But our parents’ anger is not the worst of it. We must retrieve the Book and take it back to a place of safety before the Master of the Maze finds it, or it could mean the end of our world.”
Helen asked, as she was clearly meant to, “The Master of the Maze?”
“The Master of the Maze was cast out from the community of fabled beasts many years ago because he wanted to read the whole Book, and use its power to make our numbers grow as fast as those of humans. Our elders say he would use the Book to overturn the balance between questions and answers, wonder and truth, wisdom and facts.
“He has waited for generations to get his hands on the Book, and now we may have given it to him. And he will use its answers to gain power for himself.”
“What is he? What kind of creature?” Helen asked.
“He is the Master of the Maze. The creature at the heart of the puzzle. The Minotaur.”
“A Minotaur? Like you? Half man, half animal?”
Yann reared up. His front legs churned in the air, and his head reached up to the rafters. Helen forced herself back into the couch’s saggy cushions, away from the slashing hooves.
Yann crashed back down, shouting, “I am not like him! I am not an animal! I am a noble centaur. We have been leading the fabled beasts safely and honourably for more years than there are stories.”
Rona put her hand on Helen’s arm. It felt a little damp. “Helen, it’s not the animal p
art that’s the problem. The Master is mostly man. More than the rest of us. A man’s body, with a man’s heart and a man’s greed, but the head of a black bull. He is very strong, and he is the leader of those who crave chaos and bloodshed.”
“Well, they certainly left chaos in my Mum’s surgery.”
“We are sorry that we have led danger to your door.” Rona stroked Helen’s arm, then took her hand away.
Yann humphed. “So, that is the story. That is all I owe you. It is our secret and our problem, and need be no more concern of yours.”
Helen thought for a moment, then said slowly, “But if the Master wants answers so he can increase your population to challenge human numbers, then it is my problem and my family’s problem.”
Yann shrugged. “But you humans are not taking very good care of the earth, are you? Would it be any worse if fabled beasts were in charge? If he were to ask the Book how to increase our numbers and reduce yours, then we could get back to equilibrium. More centaurs and selkies and fewer humans might make a greener land and a bluer sea.”
“Yann!” Rona said indignantly, “The Master doesn’t want more centaurs and selkies and fairies and phoenixes, he wants more of his own kind. He wants more minotaurs and basilisks and manticores. And he doesn’t want equilibrium, he wants empire. Worst of all, he wants to know all the answers at once, and that is simply not allowed.”
Helen looked back at Yann, who was glowering at the ground.
“So how will you find the Book?” she asked.
He didn’t look at Helen but he did answer her question.
“The Book left us a clue. We hope it wants to be found, but to find it we must answer its questions, as it has so often answered ours. We hope the Master doesn’t answer the questions first, or his minions will be ahead of us on the trail, not behind.”
“And was it one of the Master’s creatures that bit you?”
“I think so, yes. As I leapt over the wall of the garden, something bit me and when I kicked my leg free, my skin ripped. But I didn’t see what kind of animal it was. If I could see the teeth, I might be able to work it out.”
“I’ll go and get the teeth for you.” Helen wanted a moment to think by herself.
She opened the door, and was hit in the face by a flurry of feathers and claws. She slammed the door shut, but a heavy bird was already tangled in her hair.
As she tried frantically to haul the bird off, she could feel its clawed feet scraping her scalp and hard feathers poking towards her eyes. Her fingers, reaching high above her, couldn’t get a grip on the flapping wings. She had her teeth gritted against the scream of panic that was growing in her chest.
Rona was suddenly beside her, saying calmly, “He’s a friend, Helen, he’s a friend, stay still.”
Helen lowered her hands, and stood still, her legs shaking and her shoulders crawling up to her ears. Rona and Lavender untangled the bird, and while Rona smoothed the bird’s feathers, Lavender sat on Helen’s shoulder and tidied her hair. Though Helen hadn’t made a noise, her eyes were watering.
Yann walked quietly up and gave her a cloth from the workbench behind the car. “Wipe the sweat off your forehead,” he said, without looking at her face. She took the slightly dusty cloth, and muttered, “Thanks.” She wiped her face. Now she could look at the bird.
He was much bigger than Lavender. The size of a large cockerel, or even a goose. His slightly ruffled feathers were copper, orange and gold, and as he took off from Rona’s hands, his long tail feathers flickered like flames. He could have been an exotic bird of paradise, or a very elegant cousin of the pheasants in the fields out the back.
Yann wasn’t playing bad-tempered games now. He introduced the bird immediately. “This is Catesby. He’s a phoenix. Catesby, this is the healer’s child. Do you have news?”
Catesby clearly did have news, but as he squawked and swooped round the garage, Helen didn’t have the faintest idea what it was. Yann and Rona were shocked into silence though and Lavender burst into tears.
Then Catesby was quiet and Yann announced, “We must leave now. One of our friends is hurt and has been followed home by the Master’s creatures. We must go to her.”
Helen asked, “Can I help?”
“What?”
“If one of your friends is hurt, can I help?”
“How? You told me last night you have none of your mother’s healing skills and no interest in learning them.”
Lavender flew into Yann’s face. “How’s your leg, Yann?”
Yann swatted her away.
Helen grinned. “All I need to help your friend tonight — like I helped you last night — is a first aid kit.”
“What’s a first aid kit?”
“The equipment most likely to be used out in the field. Swabs, dressings, basic medicines, needles and sutures. It can keep someone alive until the real healers get there. I can get a kit in a moment. What kind of … friend is hurt?”
Yann just laughed. “You will not be able to stitch this one up. Your sharp little needles will be no good on Sapphire if she is cut.”
“Why not?”
“Because even young dragons have scales as tough as slate. And how would you get to her? Can you gallop, human? Can you fly?”
Rona said, “She can ride on your back, Yann, just like I do. Aren’t you strong enough for two?”
“I will not be ridden by a human. I will not be saddled and bridled and tamed!”
“I can go pretty fast on my bike,” said Helen confidently.
“Over fields? And rivers? We have no more time to debate. We leave now.”
“Wait! I’ll get you the teeth, I’ll just be a minute.”
Helen rushed out of the garage, back into the house, and grabbed the swab packet from the welly. Then she went into her Mum’s small animal surgery, and pulled out an exotic animals textbook that she and Nicola often borrowed for its pictures of zoo animals. She turned to the hooks on the back of the door, and grabbed the spare first aid kit, a green waterproof rucksack with a full set of supplies in it.
As she left the surgery she heard her Mum’s voice from the living room. “Helen? Is that you? It’s nearly teatime.”
“Hi, Mum. I’m not hungry and I’ve got lots to do, so I’ll see you at supper.” She stomped noisily up to her room, then tiptoed back down again, hoping that her parents would think she was staying in her room all evening.
She pushed open the back door and slipped out into the garden. Yann and Rona were having a whispered argument just outside the garage door.
“Humans have enslaved my cousins for thousands of years. I will not become a farm animal just to take this human child out for a jaunt.”
“You let me ride you.”
“You are not human. You are a fellow fabled beast. You are a friend.”
“She could be a friend too if you weren’t so rude to her all the time,” Rona said reasonably.
“She is human. They are not our friends. They are our problem.”
“This human has offered to help. You cannot refuse help for Sapphire tonight that you sought for yourself last night.”
Helen walked noisily up to them, hoping they would stop talking about her. She would like to help them, and be part of their adventure, but not if Yann disliked her this much.
She handed the kit and the book to Rona.
“Here. See if you can help your friend with this. I don’t want to slow you down, and I really don’t want to ride on him.”
All the fabled beasts stared at the book.
Helen said, “It doesn’t have a chapter on dragons, obviously, but there are some case studies on lizards and snakes that might be useful.”
Then she handed the packet with teeth in it to Yann. “The teeth of the creature that bit you. I promised you could have them when you answered my question. If you get hurt again, any of you, I will help if I can. Good luck.”
She stepped away. Yann snorted through his nose, and hacked at the grass with a front ho
of. Then he stood right in front of Helen and demanded, “Do you ride? Do you have a pampered pony somewhere? Do you take her to pony club gymkhanas and jump her over little striped poles?”
“No. I prefer my bike. You don’t have to groom it, feed it or muck out. And you don’t have to be polite to it either.”
“But can you ride? Would you fall off?”
Helen said carefully, “I won’t fall off, if you don’t throw me off.”
“I will only throw you off, human girl, if you try to tell me where to go.”
“I don’t know where your dragon is, so I can’t tell you where to go.”
“Climb up, then. Put your arms round my waist, and use your legs and back to keep your balance. Don’t dig your feet into my sides, and don’t tell me what to do.”
So Helen hauled herself up on Yann’s back, and Rona climbed on more elegantly behind her. Lavender sat on Helen’s shoulder, grasping her hair, and Rona put the green rucksack on her own back. With Catesby soaring above them, Yann leapt the back fence and was out of the garden and into the fields beyond.
Helen took a deep breath and held on tight.
Chapter 5
Yann galloped across the fields at a speed Helen could never have matched on her bike, even on a flat road. He leapt over walls, hedges and streams as if they were hardly there. But despite his speed and the freezing air tangling her hair and slapping her face, she felt safe pressed between his back and Rona’s front. As Yann stopped in deep shadow at the side of a road to let some cars go by, Rona whispered in her ear, “Nearly there. You’re doing fine.”
Across the road, the country became wilder. They weren’t riding over fields, but over moorland and heather, going up steep hillsides and rocky slopes.
When they reached the summit of one small hill, Yann slowed his pace, and headed more cautiously for the next, higher, hill.