The Blackhope Enigma

by Teresa Flavin

  The four figures gathered at the arch under a fiery crimson sunset.

  Blaise shuddered at the carved two-faced head of Janus. “I can’t see Sunni and Dean coming here alone unless they had a good reason. It’s really creepy.”

  “Quite.” Hugo surveyed the surrounding woods. “They are not here. We must leave.”

  “Why so jumpy, Fox-Farratt?” asked Angus. “There’s nothing here. Or is there? Maybe something you don’t want us to find?” He began pushing Inko toward the arch.

  “Halt!” Hugo put up one hand. “That is unwise. This is no ordinary archway —”

  “Very interesting. Does this arch lead somewhere you would rather we didn’t go?” Angus held Inko tighter. “It wouldn’t happen to lead to Corvo’s lost paintings, would it?”

  Blaise’s jaw dropped.

  “Ah, I see,” Hugo said sharply, regarding Angus with hostility. “That, I cannot say.”

  Suddenly Inko made a hoarse noise and pointed away to the right at something red, caught on a bush halfway up the hillside. He was so agitated that Angus could barely restrain him.

  “Dean’s hat!” exclaimed Blaise. “How did it get up there?”

  Hugo scrutinized the servant boy. “That is close to his cave. Has he returned? Does he have the children, Inko?”

  Inko’s lip quivered and Angus tightened his grasp. “Who’s he?”

  “His name is Marin.”

  “Go on.”

  “He is the eldest of il Corvo’s apprentices. It is said that he and the other apprentices disappeared at the same time as il Corvo, along with all of his paintings.” Hugo paused. “Sir, could you not release Inko?”

  Angus relaxed his grip but did not let go. “So, this apprentice disappeared at the same time as the Raven?”

  “Yes. Then a few years after fleeing Venice, Marin came into Arcadia. How he got into Blackhope Tower and then the painting, I do not know, but he was here when I arrived, a lurking menace in the shadows. He accused me of spying and bounty-hunting, forcing me to defend myself by any means I could muster. Eventually our feud settled into a standoff and he disappeared. I hoped he was gone for good, but it seems we are not to be so lucky.” Hugo sighed. “He is clever at concealment. It was no mean feat to hide from Sir Innes, who would not have wanted him anywhere near Blackhope Tower.”

  “Why not?” asked Blaise.

  “It was suspected that Marin was secretly working for a rich client called Soranzo, who sought possession of il Corvo’s secrets.”

  “I read about Soranzo!” said Blaise. “Corvo did some paintings Soranzo wanted, but he wouldn’t sell them to him.”

  “Exactly. So il Corvo shut up his workshop and vanished. Soranzo promised a reward to anyone with information on his whereabouts. But il Corvo was never found.” Hugo looked uneasily around him. “The trees here have ears. I’ll say no more.”

  “Take us to this Marin’s place,” Angus said.

  “I do not know how to reach it.” Hugo folded his arms over his chest in defiance.

  Angus looked down at Inko. “Why do I think that you do? Maybe it’s because you squirm every time Marin is mentioned.”

  “Let the kid go, Angus!” Blaise protested. “He’s terrified.”

  Angus ignored him and said to Inko, “You are going to show us the way. But first —”

  He suddenly hurled himself at Hugo, hauling the servant boy with him. Angus grabbed Hugo with his free arm, shoving him toward the archway, and, with a mighty push, threw him under the arch. Hugo staggered and fell as he passed through. And then he was gone.

  “What’ve you done?” Blaise shouted.

  “Now we know what the danger is,” panted Angus. “He did say it was a special kind of arch.”

  Blaise was incredulous. “I can’t believe you did that!”

  “I didn’t like doing it. But we’re in an extreme situation here, pal. It calls for decisive action.”

  “Like throwing people through arches to who knows where?” Blaise spat back.

  “Listen, do you want to see your friends again? Do you want to go home? Well, making small talk with Hugo won’t do it. Someone had to go through the arch so we could see what would happen. Did you want to be the one?”

  “He could have helped us,” insisted Blaise. “The guy’s been in here for over a hundred and fifty years! Now he could be dead for all you care.” He turned his back on Angus in disgust.

  “He already told us everything he was going to. And it wasn’t enough. He lost your friends when they were right under his nose.”

  “And he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, tell you where Corvo’s lost paintings are, so he was expendable. That’s the real reason, isn’t it?”

  Angus flashed him a pitying glance. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear you say that. I don’t have to justify myself to you or anyone else. Just be grateful I’m here to help you.”

  Blaise jutted his chin and said nothing, though there was plenty on his mind. Was Angus just pretending to be their rescuer? How much time did he have before Angus got rid of him, too?

  “I want to know what this apprentice has to say.” Angus turned the distressed Inko to face him. “Now, take us to Marin’s place. Understand?”

  Inko gazed miserably at the empty archway, as if hoping his master would reappear. Then he pointed farther down the valley and started to walk.

  Blaise walked behind them, his eyes riveted on his companion’s back. He didn’t trust Angus as far as he could throw him. But for now he might still be his best hope of finding Sunni and Dean.

  Angus, Blaise, and Inko strained to see Marin’s cave in the waning light.

  “It’s up there?” Angus asked Inko. “How do we get through all the brambles?”

  Inko shrugged.

  “You know a way, Inko,” Angus said. “I know you do.” The servant boy shook his head vehemently. “Let’s take a look then, shall we?”

  Angus pulled Inko along the bank of brambles. Darkness was falling fast, but it didn’t take long before they found a narrow trail almost overgrown with thornbushes.

  Inko shrank at the sight of the path.

  “Did you think I wouldn’t find the way?” said Angus. “Just for that, you go first.” He pushed the boy forward.

  Blaise struggled to keep his temper. “It’s not a good idea to do this when we can’t see where we’re going.”

  “What, do it in the daylight when Marin can see us coming? Use your head, Blaise,” Angus said. “Move, Inko! Blaise, you go next.”

  Avoiding the thorns as best he could, Inko tiptoed a few paces along the path. Blaise pulled his fingerless gloves out of his pocket and put them on. Angus snorted at this, but Blaise ignored him and followed Inko.

  Suddenly, the brambles came alive. Branches twisted and vines sprang up, waving in the air, seeking to trap the two boys climbing the path.

  Inko gasped and struggled against the thorny arms that caught him. Blaise could just make out dark coils crisscrossing the servant’s white shirt and red sash, pulling him deeper into the thicket. The path was closing up around Inko and Blaise knew he would be trapped, too, if he didn’t do something.

  A thick vine began winding itself around Blaise’s ankle.

  As he stamped on the creeping thing at his feet and thrust the encroaching branches away, he heard Inko make a hoarse, screamlike sound. But it was too late to help him. Blaise hacked at the vine with his heel until he felt it break.

  Angus was shouting at him, but he couldn’t hear him. Blaise broke into a run, crashing through the undergrowth back to the relative safety of the clearing, desperate to be free of the snakelike vines. He came to the clearing and ran around the arch, looking for the path back to the palace. But it was too dark, and he could not remember how Hugo had led them there.

  Angus puffed into the clearing behind him, speaking gently as though Blaise were a skittish colt. “You’re fine, pal. It didn’t get you. You are absolutely fine.”

  “You made that kid go i
n there, and now he’s probably dead!”

  “Calm down. It’s over and you’re OK,” Angus soothed.

  “Shut up. Just shut up. Who are you, anyway?”

  “I’m your friend.” Angus held his hands up as he got closer. “Come on, relax.”

  “Stay away from me!”

  Angus went to tackle Blaise, who lurched away, but not fast enough to stop Angus from grabbing the strap of his bag.

  “Slow down,” Angus grunted.

  “Get off!” Blaise gritted his teeth and found his footing.

  Then Angus pulled his bag strap, and Blaise fell back again. They pulled each other around the arch in a clumsy tug-of-war.

  Somewhere in the background, Blaise could hear voices shouting but he didn’t dare to look. Angus was wearing him down, and he did not have much struggle left in him.

  At the precise moment that Angus was about to overpower him, Blaise went limp. He ducked his head and shoulders through the strap of his bag and let it go as Angus gave a tremendous tug. The big man reeled, clutching the bag, and tripped — backward through the arch.

  Sunni and Dean, surrounded by Marin and his dryads, hobbled as fast as they could into the clearing. They arrived just in time to see Angus evaporate before their eyes as his body crossed the stone threshold.

  Marin’s blue lantern cast a strange, almost underwater glow on the ruined archway and the figure of Blaise, sitting slumped against the stone, gulping huge mouthfuls of air, his chest heaving.

  “Get up! Get away from there, Blaise! Don’t go under the arch!” yelled Sunni.

  “Sunni? Is that you?” Blaise looked toward the light, dazed but smiling, and tried to get up. But his hand strayed a few inches beyond the line of the arch and his body was suddenly jerked backward by an unseen force.

  “No!” Sunni screamed.

  Marin leaped forward, one hand outstretched to pull him free, but Blaise’s arm and head had already gone. Within seconds, the invisible force dragged him under until only his other hand was left, clinging to the arch.

  Sunni shrieked Blaise’s name, but he could no longer hear anything. All Sunni could do was watch, helplessly, as his hand was sucked away and nothing of Blaise remained.

  A fragrance of crushed leaves floated all around as the dryads circled Marin’s two prisoners. Sunni looked at the spot where Blaise had clung to the arch, eerie in the blue light. She hadn’t even been able to talk to him, to tell him how glad she was he’d come looking for them. Her shoulders drooped. Dean huddled close to her, and she was grateful for his warmth.

  “We are too late. Too slow!” Marin wrung his hands. “And you know those trespassers. Do not try to deny it!”

  “We know the boy. That was Blaise,” said Sunni. “But we don’t know the man with him.”

  “That is a great pity. He is somehow familiar,” Marin muttered but then stopped abruptly, as if he had said too much.

  “What’s happened to them?” Sunni asked, pulling Dean closer. “Are they — are they still alive?”

  “For now, yes, but later, who can say?”

  Sunni bowed her head.

  “This upsets you,” Marin said.

  “Yes, it upsets me. They might die!” And it’s my fault for getting Blaise caught up in this, Sunni thought miserably.

  “They would not be the first. Nor the last.”

  “Meaning us, right? And you wouldn’t care about us dying, either,” she said.

  “The monsters took them, didn’t they?” asked Dean, his lip trembling.

  “What do you know of monsters, boy?”

  “Hugo said —”

  “Ah, yes, your friend Fox-Farratt.” Marin hung the lantern on a branch and drew back the deep violet cloak he had put on in the cavern, to reveal the dagger at his belt. “Listen well. Do you still refuse to tell me the name of the dog you spy for?”

  “We. Are. Not. Spies.” Sunni began quivering with outrage.

  Marin let his cloak fall back. “Then I will learn it from your two cohorts while they are still alive. And you will come with me.”

  “Through the arch?” Dean could hardly say it.

  “Yes. You obey me and you stay alive. Disobey me and you die or become lost forever.” He touched the leather satchel slung across his chest. “If I see trickery from either of you, I will finish the first portrait. And you will be next, girl.”

  Sunni wanted to shake him by the shoulders and shout in his face that he was making a huge mistake. But a voice inside said, You’re alone. They’ve all gone — Blaise, Hugo, and the stranger. Your only chance is to find them, if they’re still alive. And you can only do that if you’re with Marin.

  She nodded once at their captor. “All right. Whatever you say.”

  Marin pointed at the bonds around their wrists and ankles. “Just as those shackles loosen and stretch, they also tighten if you try to run away.” The vines contracted slightly as he spoke, as if to make his point.

  “We get it,” said Sunni.

  He swept his arm toward the sky, and the dryads shuffled away, melting into the black woods.

  “We go through together, as one, and stay together on the other side.” Marin linked arms with them, marching them toward the arch. Dean’s legs almost crumpled beneath him, but Marin hauled him up and dragged him along.

  As they disappeared under the arch, a great breeze swirled, stirring the leaves into rustling whirlwinds.

  Blaise had been yanked from darkness into light. He lay flat on his back, staring up into a blue canopy of sky. The air was perfectly still. What new world had the arch led to?

  The last thing he remembered was Sunni, right there with Dean. He had to get back. Maybe she was still there, waiting for him.

  Head spinning slightly, he sat up. He was on what looked like a long, narrow lawn surrounded by tall hedges. And he was not alone.

  “Didn’t want to leave you behind in that state. You’re lucky I managed to pull you through.” Angus sat cross-legged nearby, with Blaise’s bag on the ground next to him. “Have you calmed down? I thought I was going to have to slap some sense into you back there.”

  Blaise was so astonished, he could barely speak. “They . . . they were there, in the clearing, Sunni — and Dean, I think. They’d found us. And now . . . now they’ve gone. What did you do?”

  Angus grinned. “No hard feelings, eh? I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”

  Tell that to Mr. Fox-Farratt and Inko, Blaise wanted to yell. But he had to be cautious. A few minutes before, Angus had been wrestling him and now he was all smiles, acting like he had just been horsing around. The guy switched moods like a light going on and off.

  Blaise tried to look casual as he glanced over his shoulder. “Where’s the arch?”

  There was only a hedge behind him with no sign of the stone ruin.

  “There’s no arch here. We’ve passed into another underpainting. Corvo must have painted this place first and then painted the arch and woods on top of it. After I pulled you in, that bush behind you just grew across and the path was cut off.”

  “It just grew in front of your eyes?” Blaise didn’t think his spirits could sink any lower. How could he get back to Sunni now?

  “Another example of the Raven’s skills.”

  Blaise stood up abruptly and took a running leap at the hedge, scrambling onto its flat top. For the few moments, he clung there. He could see an endless network of hedges — they were in a vast garden maze in the middle of nowhere. There was nothing else in the distance, no trees, no sign of the palace or the hillside. No sign of Fox-Farratt, either. Blaise dropped down.

  “We’re in a giant maze. There’s nothing else but this.”

  “Drat,” said Angus. “Those Renaissance people and their fashionable amusements. Guess a labyrinth in the floor wasn’t enough for il Corvo — he had to put a maze somewhere, too.”

  This could be the way out of the painting, Blaise thought.

  A large leaf fluttered to the ground by his foot. He picke
d it up and saw that it was etched with brown lines and squiggles.

  “I found one of those too,” said Angus, pulling a similar leaf from his pocket. “It didn’t come from any of these bushes. And it looks like bugs have been at it.”

  Blaise studied the markings. No bug had made them — they were too organized and regular. He ran his finger over them and came to an upside-down U shape. These lines look like the shape of a maze, he thought, tracing his finger along them. This could be the arch. And this may be the pathway I’m standing in.

  “What do you reckon it is?” asked Angus.

  “Just another example of the Raven’s skills,” said Blaise sarcastically. He snatched up his bag and walked away briskly, turning right into a new path. The leaf told him that the path would soon turn left. It did, but as soon as Blaise rounded the corner, the hedge grew up behind him, cutting off his way back.

  “Hey!” Angus shouted from the other side of the thick, leafy barrier. “It cut me off.”

  “Follow your own leaf,” called Blaise. With any luck, he was through with Angus for good. He was going forward alone, whatever happened.

  He heard the painter swearing as he stomped in another direction. “Don’t think we won’t meet again, my friend!” he yelled.

  Blaise was almost lighthearted as he followed his leaf map. Then a distant rumbling began, as if a far-off thunderstorm were coming. He looked up at the cloudless sky, but there was no sign of rain. The noise grew more insistent, like a drumbeat, moving closer. He stepped in close to the hedge.

  Suddenly a huge golden stag with a crown of antlers sailed over him, then vanished into the maze beyond. Behind it came eight hunters on horseback, their crossbows trained on the stag. The riders, clad in crimson and black, stopped to scan the maze from their lofty vantage point. Blaise shrank into the hedge, but one keen-eyed hunter spied him. He raised his crossbow, took careful aim, and fired.

  Now that they were through the arch, Sunni had to squint hard against the bright daylight. There was no sign of Blaise or the other man in this odd garden of tall hedges.