by Lari Don
“Finding out where they are shouldn’t be hard,” said Lavender, from her perch on the silvery wolf’s shoulder. “The Three want us to get a token, so they weren’t setting riddles, they were giving directions. And we don’t need to hide this quest from our families, so we can ask the elders about the paired cliffs, the seven waterfalls and the rest.”
“Once we know where we’re going, we should split up,” suggested Lee, adjusting the swords on his belt so they glittered in the glow from his cloak. “We don’t need eight of us on one quest. We’d get in each other’s way. We have just over 24 hours to find a token, so we should choose a couple of the likeliest and split up.”
Sylvie nodded, and Tangaroa and Catesby murmured agreement.
“If we’re splitting up,” said Helen, “let’s split into pairs and do all four.”
Lavender flitted into the centre of the circle and shook her blonde bunches. “The last one is impossible, so we shouldn’t waste time on it.”
“Why?”
“Because there aren’t any kings in Scotland these days to make a footprint.”
“What about Lee’s king? He might be a faery, but he’s still a king.”
Lee laughed. “He is more powerful than any human king, but he’s not set foot in Scotland since your nasty little trick last summer, human bard.”
“Don’t any other fabled beasts and magical beings have kings?” Helen looked at Rona. “I know the selkies used to.”
“Not any more,” said Lavender. “Our political systems have changed, some even more than human ones. There are no kings here to leave footprints, and anyway,” the flower fairy pointed to the clear sky, “it’s not going to rain tonight, so even if we found a royal footprint, there wouldn’t be any water in it.”
Helen pointed to the fountain. “We could take our own water and pour it in.”
Lavender shook her head. “We can’t cheat the healing tokens. It has to be genuine rainwater for a genuine token. I don’t think even water from one of my rain spells would work.”
“What about the other three?” asked Helen. “Are any of them possible?”
“In a country with this many rivers and burns and mountains, I think we can find seven waterfalls,” said Lavender.
“I’ll go on that quest,” said Rona. Everyone looked at her in surprise; the selkie didn’t usually volunteer for anything risky. “If it’s water,” she said firmly, “then it’s my job. Yann has saved me so many times, I have to do this for him.”
Tangaroa nodded. “Waterfalls sound like my job too. I will go with our Storm Singer to wash a flower in seven waterfalls.”
Catesby flapped his wings, then swooped up and dived down, his claws outstretched. He landed in front of Helen and tipped his head to the side in an obvious question.
“Am I meant to guess?” She frowned. “Was that diving down a cliff? You think your wings are a qualification for the high-up quest?”
He nodded and Lavender agreed. “The two feathered ones will search for gems at the paired cliffs.”
Sylvie shimmered in the grey air, flickering in and out of sight. She was a crouching wolf, then a crouching girl, a wolf again, then a girl sitting calmly on the ground, dressed in grey top and trousers, with pale eyes, silvery blonde hair and sharp features. “You have the wings, but I can have hands, so I’ll come with you to carry the gems.” She smiled, showing long white teeth. “And to protect you from whatever may be guarding them.”
Helen looked round the circle. That meant she was going on a quest with Sapphire and Lee. She trusted the dragon with her life, but she wasn’t so sure about the faery. Like all forest faeries he was addicted to music, so his cleverness and tricks were a danger to Helen as well as to their enemies.
Lee grinned at her, which didn’t help. His faery glamour, which made his rich green cloak glow softly in the dark and made his perfectly ordinary boy’s features impossibly handsome, was just another danger.
He flicked his gold hair out of his blue eyes and held out his hand to her. “So Helen, healer and bard, shall we go questing together for King Arthur’s scabbard?”
Helen blurted out, “I’m not taking my violin! And I’m only going with you if Sapphire comes too!” Then she sighed. “No, that won’t work. We all need Sapphire. We can’t do three quests at once, all over Scotland, with only one dragon…”
Sapphire grunted softly and looked up into the evening sky.
Helen looked up too and saw winged shapes spiralling towards them.
Lavender clapped her tiny hands. “Well done, Sapphire. If your classmates are happy to help us, this will be so much easier. If we all find a token tonight, we can save Yann three times over!”
Sylvie snorted. “Quests are never that easy, little flower. Transport is useful, but finding the tokens will be more of a test than just getting there and back again.”
The jet of water from the fountain stuttered as five dragons landed on the centaurs’ lawn.
Chapter 8
The friends stood up to greet the dragons. Sapphire introduced them, with Rona translating for Helen. “The orange and yellow dragon is Bunsen,” the selkie whispered. “The grey ones are Nimbus and Cumulus. The little white one is Jewel and the black one is Crag.”
“Are they all Sapphire’s classmates?” Helen whispered back. “They can’t be the same age! Crag is four times the size of Jewel.”
Rona nodded. “They all hatched in the same season and they’re all studying dragonlore with the Great Dragon this year. They’re classmates rather than friends, so it’s amazing they’ve agreed to help out.”
Lavender spoke formally, in language which reminded Helen of Yann at his most pompous. “Esteemed fire-breathers, we are honoured by your offer to transport us on our quests to save the centaur’s heir. Before that, we would also be grateful if you could carry some of us to consult our elders.”
Epona trotted up to greet the dragons too, then turned her back on Helen and spoke to Lavender. “Petros may trust you to collect these tokens, but I think there should be a centaur presence on the quest. Let me come with you.”
“No thank you, Epona,” said Lavender. “We have the right numbers for the three tokens we’re seeking, and I’m sure Petros and Mallow want their herd with them just now.”
“But I can’t help Yann here.” Epona sighed. “You’re letting that horrible human girl help, why won’t you let me help?”
Lavender said soothingly, “If collecting any of these tokens requires speed or hooves, I promise we’ll call on you. Otherwise, let us get on with what Petros asked us to do, as Yann’s friends.”
“But I’m his friend too!” snapped the dappled centaur. Then she flicked her tail and galloped off.
Helen leant against Sapphire and whispered, “Will you still fly me to find the scabbard?” Her blue friend nodded. “Could you fly me home first?” Sapphire nodded again.
Helen said more loudly, “The rest of you don’t have to hide these quests from your families, but I’d better go back to Clovenshaws to make excuses for being out tonight.” She looked at Lee. “I’ll meet you in the trees behind my house once it’s dark. And I think I know where we can find the scabbard.”
As Helen pulled herself up the edges of Sapphire’s scales, the faery walked over. He leant casually against the dragon’s shoulder and arranged his cloak to show off its embroidered hem, before looking at Helen. “You already know where to find Arthur’s scabbard?”
Helen settled herself between Sapphire’s silver spikes. “I think so. Where would you expect to find it?”
“Despite his round tables and holy grails, Arthur was a warrior first. So he’ll always have his sword by his hand. If we find him, we’ve found the sword and the scabbard. But then we’ll have to steal it from his side.”
“I agree,” said Helen. “I don’t want to steal from anyone, but saving Yann is more important than respecting other people’s property. And it shouldn’t be that hard, because I think Arthur is asleep. See w
hat you can find out and I’ll check out my idea at home. Meet you in the woods in two hours?”
Lee nodded. Then Sapphire flew off the centaurs’ moor, grabbing Helen’s bike in her claws as she swooped over Bleakcairn Law.
Five minutes later, Helen slid down Sapphire’s shoulder in the clearing behind her house, patted her friend’s blue snout and started to wheel the bike through the trees. It was nearly six thirty and she wanted to be home before her mum.
Sapphire grunted, so Helen turned back. Sapphire snuffed a cloud of smoke out of her nostrils and grunted again.
Catesby was better at miming than Sapphire, so Helen usually managed to work out what he was saying, but she had no idea what the dragon was telling her.
“Are you worried about Yann?” she asked.
Sapphire nodded, then shook her head.
“You are worried about Yann, but that’s not what you want to tell me?”
Sapphire nodded, then waited.
“Do I have to guess?”
The dragon nodded again.
“You’re worried about the quest?”
Another nod.
Helen grinned. “You’re not scared, are you?”
Sapphire spat sparks at Helen’s feet. Helen jumped back.
“So what is worrying you?”
Sapphire pointed a claw at Helen.
“Me? You’re worried about me? You think I’m not up to it? But I’ll try as hard as the rest of you to save Yann!”
Sapphire growled in frustration, then tossed her head back.
“Nope, not getting that.”
Sapphire preened her face scales with a delicate claw, then tossed her head again.
“Oh! Is that Lee? Lee and his hair and that cloak! Are you worried about Lee?”
Sapphire nodded, then growled louder.
“Shh! You don’t trust him?”
The dragon nodded.
“That’s ok. I don’t really trust him either. So we can both keep an eye on him, alright?”
Sapphire nodded, then flew off.
Helen scrambled down the hill, struggled to get the bike over the fence, and rushed in the back door just as her mum and little sister came through the front door.
She stood in the kitchen, listening to Nicola chattering about her friend Abby’s new tree-house, and wondering why, out of all the friends she could go on a quest with, she’d ended up with the one friend she knew she shouldn’t trust…
“Helen! Are you listening to me?” Her mum was staring at her and shaking her head.
“Em, yes?”
“Please take Nicola upstairs, wash that mud off her face, get those twigs out of her hair, then keep her out from under my feet while I make tea.”
Helen picked her little sister up – the fastest way to get her anywhere near a sink – and carried her to the bathroom. Once she’d cleaned Nicola, she said, “Shall we read a book?”
They raced each other to the living room, where Nicola said, “The bottom book again!”
Helen laughed. “Not today! There’s another book I want to find and it might have nice pictures too.” Helen looked on the shelves behind the couch for the books they’d taken from her gran’s old house when she moved into a bungalow. Helen ran her finger along the spines. “Ivanhoe, Old Curiosity Shop, Border Ballads, Odyssey… Aha!” She pulled out a faded red copy of King Arthur and Other Knights of the Round Table.
“Nicola, do you want to look at this with me?” Her little sister clambered onto the couch and Helen opened the book. “Swords in stones, damsels in distress, Merlin the magician. Where’s the scabbard?”
There wasn’t an index and the chapter headings were all names of knights, like “Sir Lancelot’s First Quest” and “Sir Gareth the Kitchen Knight”, so Helen started at the beginning.
She sighed as she turned the pages. “This really isn’t suitable for you, Nicola.” Her sister looked at the pictures more closely. “What a lot of pointless violence. Men are described as good knights just because they could knock people off their horses, then slice off their heads. Nothing to do with honour or chivalry. I don’t think I’d want to meet them.”
She glanced out of the window at the darkening sky, then kept reading. “Here we are. The Lady of the Lake, the sword Excalibur. And a scabbard, woven with magic and worth ten times more than the sword, says Merlin, because while Arthur wears it he will not lose any blood. That must be why it’s a powerful healing token. Here’s a picture of a fancy leather scabbard with jewels round the top. I wonder if the artist just made that up?”
She kept flicking. “Round table, giants, dragons … oh dear, Sapphire wouldn’t like what they do to dragons. And listen to this. Arthur’s evil sister Morgana La Fey stole the scabbard from him and threw it into a different lake. What if he doesn’t have it any more? That would make it even harder to find!”
Nicola prodded Helen. “Are you going on a treasure hunt?”
Helen smiled and nodded.
“Can I come?”
“Not this time, wee one. Let’s see what happens in the end.” Helen flicked to the last chapter.
“Arthur’s sleeping in a hollow hill, waiting for the call to fight again. He’s surrounded by his knights and their horses. And this picture,” she turned to the second last page of the book, “shows him on a stone bed, with the sword in the scabbard. So he did get it back before the end of the story. Great. Now I just have to steal it again.”
“What are you going to steal?” asked Nicola.
“Not really steal. Just borrow, maybe. Anyway, King Arthur doesn’t need it as much as my friend does. Arthur’s only asleep. My friend is … very ill, and I’ll break any rules to help him get better.”
“What about a get well card?” Nicola suggested.
“That might help. But this,” Helen pointed to the scabbard in the book, “this might help more.” Nicola pulled the book closer and as Helen gently tugged it away, the back page fell out. “Oh no! We’ve ripped Gran’s book!”
Then Helen realised it wasn’t a page, it was a little booklet entitled Legends of the Eildons. She opened the brittle paper. There were four stories printed in tiny writing, and a beautifully drawn map. “This is the story I remember Gran telling me. There are three big hills in the Eildons, and one little hill which is meant to be magic. Listen Nicola, this story happened only a few miles from here.”
Nicola bounced up and down. “Tell me a story!”
“A long time ago, a horse-trader called Canonbie Dick was crossing Bowden Moor, and he met an old man with a long white beard.” Helen ran her hand down Nicola’s chin and her little sister giggled. “The old man offered to buy the trader’s two black horses. So Canonbie Dick sold the horses for a bag of gold. The next week, and the next, the same thing happened. The old man kept meeting the horse-trader to buy any black horses he had.
“Finally the horse-trader asked where he was taking the horses, and the old man said he was Thomas Rhymer or True Thomas, and he couldn’t tell a lie. So he took Canonbie Dick and the horses across the moor to the wee hill on the side of the middle Eildon. It’s called Lucken Howe – look, there it is on the map – and the hill opened up…”
Nicola’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open.
“The two horses and two men went into the hill. It was hollow inside, and there were lots of men asleep in a huge cave, with horses in stalls and a horn lying on a block of stone. True Thomas said they were King Arthur and his knights, then for some reason Canonbie Dick picked up the horn and blew it. The noise woke the knights up and annoyed Arthur, so the horse-trader was thrown right out of the hill and woke up on the moor. With no horses and no gold.
“Arthur is sleeping inside the Eildons. And the door is the Lucken Howe.”
“Are you going there to look for treasure?” Nicola asked, snuggling onto her knee.
“Yes,” said Helen, “but you mustn’t tell anyone.”
“I won’t.”
Helen smiled. It was nice to have someon
e she didn’t have to lie to, because if her little sister did tell anyone that Helen was going to steal from a king, no one would believe her. Helen gave Nicola a hug, put the book in the bookcase, put the booklet in her back pocket, then went for tea.
Tea took less time to eat than it had to make, and ten minutes later, Helen was in her room. She wasn’t meeting Lee and Sapphire for another hour, so she used the time to practise her violin.
She played the three tunes she was learning for school, then the more complex pieces and scales she was working on with her violin teacher for her next exam. She was about to play something for herself, something as sad and scared as she felt about Yann, when her mum yelled from the bottom of the stairs, “Don’t you have any proper homework to do, Helen?”
Helen sighed and lowered her bow. Her parents didn’t realise her violin practice was more important than maths or English. Music was what she wanted to do with her whole life, so she had to pass as many exams as she could before she applied to music college. But her mum never let her practise as much as she wanted.
And she’d better not take the fiddle with her tonight on the quest. She often practised with Rona, but playing near Lee would be dangerous. If he heard her play, he might forget about the scabbard and instead try to force Helen to perform at one of the faeries’ lifelong parties.
Helen put her fiddle back in its case, found her maths homework, and rattled through it as fast as she could.
Then she unzipped her rucksack to check the first aid kit was intact, and added a small torch. She put on her fleece and hiking boots, and went down to the kitchen. “Could you check my maths please, Mum?”
Once her mum was looking at her jotter, Helen said, “While you check that, I’ll nip out to see if the birds I’m doing a project on have laid eggs yet. I’ll probably be back before bedtime. Is that ok?”
Her mum was nodding at the answers on the page, so Helen took that as a “yes” and walked out the back door.
She clambered over the fence and up the hill, to where Lee was leaning against Sapphire’s high side.