by Tim O'Rourke
Warden and William’s granddad guided the stagecoach deeper into this city and towards the Splinter itself. They passed a thriving market where traders sold mouth-watering looking fruit, plants, animals and medicines. There were street-side conjures, dancers and bands playing the sweetest of music.
Some of the people that milled around the market place were dressed in clothes of the like William had never seen before. They wore short-sleeved shirts with odd looking words across the front. Some of these read ‘Nike’, ‘I New York’ and others ‘Adidas’. Their legs were covered in a blue material similar to his own but different – somehow cheaper. On their feet they wore flimsy looking shoes that had rubber soles and motifs on the sides.
As William stared wide-eyed from his hiding place, he got the overwhelming feeling that this was a happy place – a place of peace and tranquillity.
Warden steered the stagecoach away from the main plaza and up a long winding strip to the rear of the Splinter. The vehicle came to a halt outside a large set of wooden doors. William listened from the dark as someone approached the stagecoach.
‘Has it been a year already since I last saw you?’ a voice asked.
Pressing one eye to a gap in the carriage window, William saw a short, squat man standing and looking up at Warden.
‘That it has Captain Bom,’ Warden replied and stuck out one giant hand.
Captain Bom stood on tiptoe and took what appeared to be a piece of parchment paper from Warden. Unrolling it, he squinted at the paper from beneath two fluffy white eyebrows that hung over his eyes like a set of curtains.
‘This seems to be all in order. Signed in her majesty’s own hand,’ Captain Bom said, handing back the signed letter of authority that gave Warden and his father access to the box.
Captain Bom’s chain mail armour clanked as he made his way to the double set of doors and forced them open. The stagecoach rolled forward on its giant wheels and entered the Splinter.
‘Do you not want to search the carriage?’ Granddad Weaver croaked.
Hearing this, William’s heart began to race and he buried himself beneath the rough woven sacks.
‘You Weavers have been coming here on the same day for more years than I can care to remember and you’ve never so much as caused me a problem. There is not a more trustworthy race than the Noxas in the whole of Endra. I don’t need to search your carriage.’
‘Thank you Captain Bom. We will be just a few hours,’ Warden said, steering the carriage inside the Splinter.
‘I’ll be just outside the door should you need anything,’ Captain Bom said, sliding the doors shut and settling down on the grass. He was looking forward to a few hours quiet meditation over a pipe full of Tep-leaves.
From his hiding place, William could hear his dad and granddad climb from the stagecoach. The Rafter horses that had pulled them all the way from the Howling Forests kicked at the cobbled floor of the workshop with their pointed hooves. Granddad Weaver stroked their long black manes and they neighed with contentment.
Warden went to the middle of the workshop and there, just like it had been left for them many times before, sat the box. It had been placed on a small wooden table which was littered with candles that glowed within tall glass vases. With reverence, Warden removed the plain linen cloth that had been placed over it. He looked down at the box and stroked his long brown beard.
‘It looks okay dad,’ Warden said. ‘The work we carried out last year seems to have held.’
Granddad Weaver shuffled towards the table, his greying hair hanging in wispy lengths from his head, face and hands. He eyed the box without touching it.
‘That it does,’ he said. ‘Best check it again, just to make sure.’
Warden disappeared into the shadows of the workshop and returned with a box of odd looking tools. Granddad Weaver picked up a key that had been left next to the box on the table and held it before him. William peered from the darkness of the carriage at the key that dangled from a chain in the shimmering candlelight.
To his disappointment the key looked very ordinary. William had been expecting something more intricate, more cunning in its design than the two teethed key his granddad now held.
Warden took a deep breath and looked at his father.
‘Remove the lock dad and I shall make a start on the box,’ he said.
Stooping over the table and with a trembling hand, Granddad Weaver placed the key into the lock. He twisted it several times up and down and from left to right. There was a gentle hissing sound as if the lock were releasing a jet of steam and then it snapped open. Granddad Weaver removed the lock and the unbreakable chain that encompassed the box.
Away from the table, in the opposite corner of the room to where the stagecoach was parked, stood a vat of what looked like boiling molten lava. William spied as his Granddad threw the lock and the key into the vat, destroying them both forever. Without saying a word Granddad Weaver looked at his son and nodded. He then shuffled to a nearby work bench and set about making a new lock and key for the box.
For what seemed like an eternity, Warden and his father worked in silence as they carried out their repairs. William watched, absorbing everything that they did. It was while he sat in the dark and spied on them that the box seemed to call to him. Not in words but in feelings. For every moment that he sat there, the box feet from him, the urge to leap from his hiding place and throw open the lid became unbearable. At first he was able to flit his eyes between his granddad and dad and then back to the box. But the longer he sat there, the more his eyes were drawn to the box, and the longer his eyes looked at the box, the harder it became to tear them away from it. Something else was happening to William. It wasn’t just that he was unable to take his gaze from the box, his feelings towards his dad and granddad had begun to change too.
‘Why should they be entrusted to touch the box?’ he seethed. ‘What makes them so special?’
He watched his dad turn the box in his giant hands and William became consumed with jealousy.
‘Look at him holding it! If he can touch it, then why shouldn’t I?’ William hissed under his breath.
Granddad went to the box and held the new lock that he had made against it to make sure that it was a perfect fit.
‘Look at that stupid old fool,’ William spat. ‘That box isn’t meant to be locked. It should be open for all to see inside.’
From his hiding place, he waited for his granddad and dad to move away from the box, as when they did, he decided he was going to open it. With his heart racing in his chest like the hooves of the Rafter horses, William pulled down on the handle of the carriage door and waited to pounce. With his eyes fixed on his prize, his dad and granddad moved away as they returned to their work benches.
William flung open the carriage door and lunged across the workshop to the box. Grinning like a murderer in a mug-shot, he snatched up the box with his long fingers and cradled it to his chest. Then, without any hesitation, William wrenched open the lid.
He looked into the box and whatever it was that he saw inside delighted and enthralled him. His face became a mask of pleasure as he looked upon what was inside.
‘It’s beautiful!’ he howled. ‘It’s sooo beautiful!’
Hearing his son’s voice, Warden wheeled round to see him standing in the middle of the workshop with the box open in his hands. Light shone from within the box and William’s face looked as if it had been sprayed with moonlight.
‘No you fool!’ Warden roared, bounding towards his son.
William continued to stare transfixed at the beautiful vision inside the box. Then something changed. Something within the box scared him and he began to shake with fear.
‘No!’ William screamed, his throat tearing raw. ‘No!’
The light from the box that bathed his face was no longer cool like moonlight, but intense and scorching like the rays from a hot sun.
William felt his eyes begin to grow warm in their sockets then start to boil as if
on fire. His pupils began to smoulder as flames licked from his tear ducts. Then the spell had been broken, the box had been snatched from him and he fell to the rough floor of the workshop. Warden held the box which he had taken from his son. The light poured from it like a fountain that was flowing uphill. The light splashed his face, and just like his son moments before, he became mesmerised by it.
Warden stared into the box and screamed and screamed and screamed. He shook as if he were reliving every single nightmare he had ever dreamt.
‘Take it from me,’ he cried, his voice sounding shrill as if his throat had been cut. ‘I can’t bear it anymore!’
Then, as he stood and stared into the box his eyes exploded in their sockets. Flames licked like the tongues of angry serpents from his skull and he roared in pain.
Granddad Weaver rushed forward with a long poker, and thrusting it like a sword, knocked the box from his son’s hands. It clattered to the floor where it landed on its side. Turning his head away and peeking from the corner of his eye, he forced the lid of the box closed with the poker. He then smothered it as if he were wrestling an untamed animal. He wrapped the chain around the box, passed this through the new lock he had made and locked it with the key.
‘What have you done?’ Granddad Weaver snarled at William, placing the box on the table and covering it with the cloth.
William rolled onto his back, his hands covering his eyes which still smouldered and leaked wispy tendrils of light.
‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry,’ was all he could murmur.
There was banging on the door from outside and the raised voice of Captain Bom.
‘What’s going on in there? Is everything alright?’
Helping William to his feet, Granddad Weaver steered him towards the stagecoach and piled him into the carriage.
‘Stay in there and be quiet!’ he barked.
Snatching some of the sacks from the stagecoach, he ripped them into thin lengths and rushed towards his son who lay howling on the floor. He wrapped the lengths of cloth like a makeshift bandage over Warden’s eyes.
‘What’s going on in there?’ Captain Bom demanded from outside.
Placing the new key into his trouser pocket, Granddad Weaver shouted,
‘Wardens had an accident!’
‘What sort of an accident?’ Captain Bom shouted. ‘I’m coming in.’
Gathering Warden in his arms, Granddad Weaver carried him to the stagecoach. He eased him into the carriage, laid him next to William and closed the door. He bounded on top of the stagecoach and pulled on the Rafter horses manes.
‘Gee-up!’ he roared as Captain Bom threw open the doors.
The Rafter horses darted forward and sped out into the city.
‘What’s going on?’ Captain Bom shouted after the stagecoach.
‘The box is repaired for another year!’ Granddad Weaver shouted back over his shoulder. ‘Can’t stop. Warden has burnt himself on one of the tools. Got to get him home!’
‘My Granddad ran those Rafter horses for three days and nights without rest until we reached the Howling Forests,’ William told Zach. ‘Three of them dropped dead of exhaustion the moment they stopped running.’
It had grown dark outside, and the sound of the waves from the Onyx Sea could be heard as they broke along the shoreline. Neanna stirred as she continued to rest beneath her cloak.
‘So now you know everything,’ William said with a hint of shame in his voice.
‘Wow,’ Zach sighed. ‘So that’s why your dad is blind and why you wear those weird glasses.’
William touched the thick lenses of his spectacles with the tips of his fingers.
‘When my Granddad had calmed down, he made these for me. I wouldn’t be able to see otherwise.’
Zach thought for a moment and then added, ‘you said I know everything.’
‘That’s right,’ William replied.
‘But you never told me what you saw inside the box?’
William toyed with his beard and then in a chilling whisper he said, ‘I saw Throat.’
‘What else?’ Zach pushed, desperate to know every detail.
William stared at him with his magnified eyes and they shone crimson behind their thick lenses.
‘I saw you in that box, Zach Black. I saw you!’
Chapter 27
Fandel lay like a crab, pressed flat on his stomach on the ledge just above the rocky overhang. As William finished telling Zach about how he had snuck into the Splinter and what had happened there, Fandel rolled onto his back and grinned up into the moonlight.
So there’s a key to the box! He thought to himself and rammed one bony fist into his mouth to smother the sound of his impending laughter.
He remembered how Throat had worked all of his magic on that lock, but had been unable to work it open. In his desperation he had suspended it over the Rusty Volcano, hoping that the searing heat would erode the box and release the power within. Now Fandel had learnt that it could be opened with a key, but more important than that – he knew where to find it!
The Noxas’ Granddad has it and he’s rotting in the Prison of Eternal Despair. Getting to his feet, Fandel crept away from the ledge as tears of joy slipped over his gaunt face. When he was far enough away, so as not to be heard by the others, he threw his arms into the air and began to dance in joyous circles.
‘I know where to find the key!’ he cried, punching the air with his fists.
He skipped along the cliff-edge until he stood high above the black rolling waves of the Onyx Sea.
‘I must tell Throat,’ he whispered to himself. ‘How pleased will he be with his reflection when I tell him this news? This will make-up for letting that nephew of mine escape and return to Endra.’
Rubbing his hands together, Fandel knelt on the ground at the edge of the cliff-face. Tilting his head back, he gazed into the star shot sky and flung his arms out. He thought back to his time spent with the Delf, and at once, his heart began to race. Her face swept to the front of his mind, and he pushed it away as he began to rummage through his brain for the spells she had taught him. He hit upon the one that he wanted and then began to chant:
Beat thy wings from the depths of torment
From the darkness above make thy decent
Raven black and as cold as snow
I give you flight Mortality Crow!
His waxen lips opened and closed as he whispered the words over and over again until the air all around him filled with the sound of beating. Lowering his gaze, he looked out across the Onyx Sea, and then stepped off the edge of the cliff.
He fell down the cliff-face and landed with a thump on something huge and black. The wings of the mortality crow he had summoned beat up and down on either side of him as it screeched into the night. Fandel wrapped his arms around its sleek black neck and dug his legs into its sides.
‘The Splinter,’ Fandel cried. ‘Take me to the Splinter!’
The gigantic crow banked to the right as it headed west above the Onyx Sea and towards the Splinter. The night air rushed all around Fandel and rippled the bird’s glossy black feathers.
‘Faster!’ Fandel roared and pressed his heels deeper into the creature’s sides.
The mortality crow opened its pointed beak and screamed as it thrust its mighty wings up and down like two giant sails.
While William woke Neanna from her rest, Zach repacked their supplies and gathered them by the entrance to the overhang. His mind was still trying to make sense of what his friend had told him and he was concerned at how William had seen him inside that box.
Zach glanced over at his friends and could see that Neanna was taking small sips of water from the animal skins that Warden had filled for them. In the pale milky light of the moon, Zach could see that she looked better than she had earlier, although her skin looked red and blotchy in places where the blisters had been. Even so, Zach had come to notice that unlike most people Neanna looked her best, her most radiant during nightfall rather tha
n during the day.
‘How you feeling?’ Zack asked her, handing over some of the Luna bear meat.
Taking the meat from him and tearing it into small chunks, she said, ‘my skin will only heal so many times before it cracks and blisters permanently – or worse. That’s the second time I’ve saved your hide Zach Black. I hope you get to return the favour someday. Then again, perhaps not huh?’
Zach looked at her beautiful face and said, ‘I’ve got your back.’
Neanna popped the last of the meat into her mouth and chewed it as she stared at him. Zach looked away.
‘What now?’ he asked William.
‘We find my Granddad and get the key to that box,’ William said, slinging the supplies over his shoulder.
‘Neanna said that the prison was a labyrinth of underground tunnels. Do you have any idea where he is in that maze?’ Zack asked him.
‘Nope,’ he said, thrusting his catapult into his back pocket.
‘Do you even know how to get into this prison?’
‘Nope,’ he said again, throwing his sleeve full of inferno berries across his back.
‘Well this rescue or whatever you want to call it, could take forever!’ Zach said.
‘That’s why we should get going,’ William said, stepping from beneath the overhang and out onto the shore.
Zach looked back at Neanna who was now standing in the centre of the cave and straightening her hair and ruffled cloak. Again, Zach couldn’t help notice how beautiful she looked and his heart raced.
‘What’s got into William?’ Neanna asked him, as she prepared herself for whatever might lay ahead.
Zach shrugged and said, ‘I’m not sure, but he was telling me how his dad lost his sight and…’
‘Oh,’ she said as if she now understood William’s sombre mood. ‘What else did he tell you?’