by Lari Don
The room often smelt of damp dog, so her Mum sometimes left the window open just a crack. Helen prodded the base of the window. There was a tiny gap. At last, thought Helen, a bit of luck tonight.
She placed Catesby gently on a nearby garden bench, pushed her fingers through the opening and forced the window up. Putting Catesby onto the inside window sill, she squeezed herself through.
She didn’t dare switch the light on, so to find the books she needed and to examine Catesby’s wing more carefully, she used the torch that her Mum shone down animals’ throats.
Now she needed a splint and some tape that wouldn’t damage his feathers, but most of her Mum’s supplies were in the large animal surgery. She didn’t want to move Catesby again, so she made him comfy on her Mum’s leather chair and whispered, “I’m leaving you here for a couple of minutes. I have to get a proper splint from the other surgery.”
Catesby nodded his head and pecked gently at her fingers.
Taking her Mum’s set of keys out of the coat on the back of the door, she climbed out of the window and crept round the house to the large animal surgery, wondering what her friends were doing. Once she had fixed Catesby, she didn’t want to go to bed. She wanted to help. But how could she track down a Minotaur? Perhaps if she waited until her Dad was in bed, she could go online and see if any weird and wonderful websites were reporting Minotaur sightings in southern Scotland.
The large animal surgery door was unlocked and slightly open. Her Mum probably hadn’t slammed it hard enough. She opened the door very quietly and turned to close it carefully. She jerked it until she heard it click, then reached out her hand to switch on the lights. Blinking in the brightness, she turned to face the large space. Which cupboard were the splints in?
But there, in the centre of the concrete floor, was the largest animal the room had ever held. The Master of the Maze was standing looking at her.
Helen stood totally still and stared back. She felt suddenly cold and very alone. She had no Yann looming behind her, no Rona nor Lavender at her side. She was alone … with this monster in front of her.
In the bright white room, the Minotaur looked twice the size and twice as dark as he had in the open evening air. His horns almost reached the ceiling. His massive shoulders spanned the room.
His head was dark, with long black curls between his ears, and the skin on his arms and chest, although pale like Helen’s, was covered in swirls of rough black hair. He wore black leather trousers and had bare feet with long curved nails.
From one of his huge hands dangled a bright pink teddy. Nicola’s teddy.
“Girl.” He spoke in a deep, distorted voice, that sounded painful in his throat.
It was a bull’s head speaking, she realized, not a human head like Yann or Rona, or even Frass, had. The Master had the head, throat and mouth of an animal. Yet he forced himself to speak.
“Girl. You must heal me.”
“No.” She found her own voice, though it was very faint.
“No? Is it right to choose whom to heal? Should you not use your gifts to help everyone who needs you? Do your healers not take a vow to help everyone? Or do you require payment?”
“I don’t require anything from you.”
“Would threats work better?”
He held Nicola’s teddy up to his huge mouth and put its ear delicately between his enormous teeth. Teeth that did not look like a grass-eater’s teeth. Teeth that could crush bones.
“Frass brought me this pretty, but he could bring me the baby too, if you refuse me.”
Nicola couldn’t go to sleep without her pink bear. If the Master had the bear, then one of his creatures had been in the nursery while Nicola was asleep.
Helen thought of Lavender and the words she had read from the clue. ‘Brothers and sisters.’ Did they have to sacrifice their brothers and sisters to get the Book back? There were millions of books in the world but she only had one sister.
“I’ll heal you, if I can,” Helen said quietly. Then added, in a more confident voice, “But only if you give me the clue.”
“Ha! You gave me the clue when you and your little friends couldn’t hold on to it.” His hand patted the back pocket of his trousers. “You do not make demands of me, girl. You will heal me now or I will send for your sister.”
Now Helen knew he had the clue with him, she needed to get closer. “What needs to be healed?”
“My ear.”
She looked more carefully at his head. His right ear, just below his huge horn, was ripped and hanging off. She bit on her lips to stop a smile.
“Yann did that!”
“Yes. And he will pay for it when I have the power of the Book. But first I want you to sew it back, as you sewed the colt’s leg.”
“It will hurt.”
“I can stand pain.”
More macho nonsense, thought Helen, but pulled a stool over to him.
“I need to look closely at it,” she said.
She climbed onto the stool and, as she did so, put out a hand to steady herself, brushing against his back pocket to see if the clue was in there.
The Master grabbed her arm and lifted her easily into the air. He whispered hoarsely, “I will check that I still have the riddle before I leave here.” He swung her in time to his slow words. “If you try to steal it, I will make your whole family suffer. Do you understand? Now, girl, sew up my ear.” He opened his fist on the last word, and dropped Helen onto the concrete floor.
Helen stifled her cry of pain and shock, not wanting to disturb her parents in the house next door. She took a deep breath and thought quickly about whether she should agree to heal him, even if she couldn’t get the clue in return.
If she did as this monster asked, would she be doing it for her own safety or for Nicola’s? If she did more than he asked, would she be doing it for her friends, or for the Book? Or to prevent some terrible war she didn’t really understand?
She nodded, more to herself than to the Minotaur, then clambered to her feet and moved over to the shelves to collect needles and sutures. She had made no vows, nor taken any ethics courses, so it was an easy decision not to clean his wound first. Let him take his chances, she thought. She walked up to him again, her back straight and her chin up. She would not show him what she was feeling, and she must not show him what she was thinking.
“Good girl,” he sneered.
The Minotaur didn’t stink like the fauns did, but there was a heat in the air around him, and a pulsing thumping sound, almost as if you could hear his heart. Or perhaps Helen was hearing her own heart as she got nearer the monster.
His eyes were fixed on her, and were set wide apart on the sides of his massive skull. They weren’t calm and round like cows’ eyes, but had a more oval human shape, with the yellowy white eyeball showing all round the golden orange iris. The rim of the eyelids glowed a hot red, as if these human eyes were burning to get out of this animal’s head. She wondered if he felt trapped in there.
She didn’t want to look at his eyes, because they made her pity him rather than fear him. So she said, “Turn away so I can see your ear.” She looked at the long tear and the small piece of skin still holding the ear on. She had to think of it as a problem to solve.
The dangling ear was only inches from his huge curved horns. The horns had looked silver at Carterhaugh, but now Helen saw that they were pale grey and streaky like old horn spoons, darkening at the tips, which had been sharpened to vicious points.
She threaded her needle.
“This will hurt. You must stay still or it will heal unevenly.”
“Don’t tell me what to do, girl.” But he stood still as she sewed.
Piercing holes in his tough skin, Helen tugged the curved needle through and knotted the thread. She briefly considered making it ragged and squint, but didn’t think having an ear at an odd angle would dent his plans for world domination. So she simply carried on, intent on doing as good a job as she could.
Halfway al
ong the wound, sweating from the heat of his skin and the effort of raising her arms above her head to reach the top of his ear, she said, “I’m hot, excuse me,” and got down to take off her jumper and remove her watch from her wrist. Then she climbed back up and finished the operation.
He didn’t flinch once or make a sound as she sewed.
But when she announced, “Finished,” the Minotaur growled, “If anyone else had hurt me that much, I would have torn them to pieces. Bring me a mirror!”
Sighing with relief that she hadn’t botched the repair, Helen found a small mirror in the odds and ends drawer and handed it to the Master.
In his huge hand the mirror looked like a piece of broken glass, as he angled it to see the ear.
“Good. Either you lacked the courage to make a mess of it, or you had the good sense to see that being on my side is to your advantage.”
“I’m not on your side. Now give me the teddy and please leave.”
He laughed, deep and low in his throat. Helen felt the air round her rattle.
“You will never be rid of me. Once I am in power, all those who have thwarted me will bow down to me.”
“I won’t bow to anyone.”
“You will, girl. You will be the first human to pay me homage. But now I have a Book to find. Thank you for your nimble fingers. Have the pretty back … for now.”
He threw the bear at Helen and moved in long strides to the door. Shoving it open, showing none of the care that Helen had, he was gone.
Helen ran to the doorway, to see which direction he took. Over the fence, like they all seemed to, then north across the fields. A mass of fauns emerged from behind the fence and followed him.
Helen realized that she was kneeling on the floor, her whole body shaking, cuddling the pink teddy and letting the light rain cool her down and wash her clean. But she had no time to deal with her terror. She had to splint Catesby. Then she had to track the Master.
She grabbed the supplies she needed, took thirty seconds to tidy up, then left the surgery as quietly as she could. She made sure she locked the door behind her, then ran round the house to the open window and scrambled in.
Fixing a wing was a complex procedure, but she did it almost without thinking as she told Catesby what had happened in the large animal surgery. And when she had reached the end of her story, the splint looked exactly like the one in the book.
After an initial horrified squawk, the phoenix had remained silent as she talked, then gave her a sympathetic rub with his shining head as she described the Minotaur striding out.
Helen smiled at him and said, “If you were a normal bird, I would strap that wing to your body, but if you do heal fast perhaps you want to keep it moving. What do you think, Catesby?”
He tested the wing, flapping round the surgery once, and nodded his satisfaction.
“Now we must tell the others,” whispered Helen, “But how?”
They were scattered all over the country looking for possible lairs, and Catesby couldn’t fly strongly enough yet to find them all. Helen knew the Minotaur had gone north … and even better … she knew how to follow him!
If only she could get the rest of the fabled beasts back together before the Master read the riddle.
Chapter 17
Helen listened at the door of the surgery for a moment. There was no sound in the hall, so she crept out. On the top of the nearest bookshelves was a brass bowl with old matchboxes in it. She reached up and grabbed one, then, on a whim, picked up an old violin case from the bottom shelf.
Then she tiptoed back into her Mum’s surgery, and clambered out through the window holding Catesby under her arm.
She climbed quickly up the hill, past the wood where the friends usually met, right to the summit, picking up branches as she went. It wasn’t the highest hill in the area but it was the nearest, and speed was the most important thing.
Together Helen and Catesby built a small pile of sticks and lit it with the matches. It was a struggle to get the first flames burning as the drizzle was still drifting down, but Catesby used his stronger wing to fan the flames, while Helen ran to the clump of trees to fetch drier fuel.
When the fire was as high and as bright as they could make it, Helen picked up the violin case, took out her old three-quarter size violin and started to play as loudly as she could, drowning out the hissing of the rain hitting the flames.
First, she stood still and played the ballad of Tam Linn, which she had glanced at in the library just a few hours before. Then, as her muscles were stiffening after her bruising evening, she strode round the fire, playing the tune she shared with Rona. This time it was longer, with a battle and pain and threats and fear, but there was still no end.
Helen glanced guiltily at the drops of water bouncing off the varnish on the violin. She hoped it would still play strongly and glow healthily when her sister was big enough to play it. But right now she needed the violin’s voice, even if it was raining. And she began to bow even faster.
There was a flapping of wings, and Sapphire arrived with Rona on her back. Helen kept playing, with Rona humming beside her, until Yann galloped up too.
“Why have you summoned us, healer’s child?”
As the flames died down, she wiped the fiddle dry, laid it carefully in its case, then started to tell them her story.
“The Master was waiting for me in my mother’s surgery. He wanted me to sew up a wound in his ear.”
“And did you?” Yann interrupted.
“Yes.”
“I damaged him and you fixed him?” Yann said incredulously.
“I had to.”
“You had to? Why? Did he ask nicely? Did he offer you treasure and power? Did he offer you answers?”
“No! He was holding my sister’s toy. He was …”
“He threatened you with a toy? I thought you were stronger than that, human child.”
“Shut up, Yann. Shut up and listen to me.”
“Why should I listen to you? You traitor! You collaborator!”
Catesby was squawking at Yann and Rona was grabbing his arm.
But he ignored them and came closer to Helen than he had been since they had held the clue together at Carterhaugh. He shouted in her face, “I should never have trusted a human. We will fight the Master and find the Book on our own from now on.” And he turned to leave.
“I can find him for you!”
Yann stopped.
Helen spoke softly, almost inaudible through the rain that was getting heavier and heavier. “I have listened to all your stories, Yann. If you will let me finish my story, I can find him for you.”
Yann turned back but didn’t look at her. He lifted his face to let the rain land on his cheeks and eyelids.
“He threatened my baby sister’s life, so I sewed up his ear. But he let me know he still had the clue, and that he hadn’t found the Book yet. So, when I was sewing up his ear, I …”
There was a blur of purple and Lavender appeared beside the hissing fire.
“What have I missed?”
“Your human friend has been using her heroic healing powers on our sworn enemy, and now she’s trying to justify herself.”
“I just sewed up his ear, Yann. I didn’t save his life!”
“Would you have saved his life?” Yann demanded.
“I don’t know. Would you stop me saving a life if I could?”
Yann didn’t answer.
“Helen! Did he hurt you? Are you alright?” asked Lavender into the awkward quiet.
“Lavender. That feather you gave me … can you find it again?”
“Of course, it is still part of me.”
“Good, because it is now part of the Master’s ear too. I sewed it in as I repaired the wound. I watched him as he left the surgery and he went north. If we go north, and if Lavender can find her feather, then we can find the Master.”
No one spoke. Everyone looked at Yann.
Yann stared at the mud his hooves had churned up.
Then he swallowed and looked at Helen. He said, in a quiet voice, “I have regretted my weakness in bringing my wound to you, I have doubted the wisdom of sharing our problems with a human and I have resented seeing my friends admire you. But perhaps some shrewd fate forced me to your door, because without your cleverness and courage we would have failed a thousand times already.” He swallowed hard again. “Well done, healer’s child. We will do as you suggest and follow him north.”
Helen nodded solemnly at Yann, then laughed as Rona and Lavender crashed into her from both sides, giving her delighted hugs and telling her how wonderful she was.
Yann asked, “Where is he, Lavender?”
The fairy floated up from Helen’s shoulder, and rotated slowly in the air above their heads, with her eyes closed and her arms limp by her sides. Then she jerked to a sudden stop and pointed. “North. He kept going north.”
“How far?”
“Four or five leagues, no more.”
“Then I will ride like a two-legged creature, if Sapphire can cope with my hooves.”
So Yann clambered awkwardly onto Sapphire’s back. Rona and Helen fitted round him with Catesby in Helen’s arms. Lavender perched on one of Sapphire’s silver horns to whisper directions in her ear.
The heavily laden dragon lumbered into the waterlogged sky, heading north to find the Master in his maze.
Helen found it even less comfortable than usual on Sapphire’s back, with Catesby’s claws in her arm and Yann sliding around on the slippy wet scales between the dragon’s beating wings, knocking into Rona and Helen when Sapphire swerved to follow Lavender’s instructions.
Nor was Helen very comfortable with the thought that she was trying very hard to find a creature she never wanted to meet again.
The night started to glow as they flew north. Helen recognised the rocky lump of Arthur’s Seat against the bright line of streetlight orange on the horizon.
“That’s Edinburgh!” she called over the noise of the flight.
Before they reached the city, Sapphire landed in a field, bumping briefly into a tree on the way down. Yann immediately tumbled off.