Sky Horses: the Royal Foal

by Linda Chapman

  ‘Focus on what you want,’ Tor’s voice said softly in the background.

  Erin imagined an invisible shield all around her. She imagined rocks being thrown at her, but bouncing away, not being able to hurt her. She imagined Marianne casting spells at her, but the spells glancing off like the rocks. Suddenly the stone turned icy in her hands.

  ‘The stone!’ she said. ‘It’s gone cold!’

  ‘That means the magic is working,’ Tor told her. He reared up and struck at an overhanging branch with his front hooves. It cracked and fell away from the tree, cannoning through the air, straight towards Erin. She cried out in alarm and ducked, but just as the branch was about to hit her it seemed to bounce away, leaving her unharmed.

  ‘Good,’ Tor whinnied approvingly. ‘You have made the stone work very well.’

  Erin felt relieved and amazed at what she had just done. ‘Does that mean so long as I carry this stone I’ll be OK?’ she asked.

  ‘The protection will wear off,’ Tor said. ‘You must keep renewing it. How long it lasts depends upon the strength of your magic. And you must still be careful,’ he added, as if reading the thoughts that were running through her mind about how brilliant it would be to feel that no one and nothing could hurt her. ‘You will have a certain level of protection, but it will not be enough to protect you if Marianne turns the full force of her magic against you. One day, after a lot of practice, you will be able to protect yourself against a dark spirit like her, but at the moment, although a warding stone will help you, it will not protect you completely.’

  Erin’s excitement faded slightly.

  ‘Now, let’s use a seeing stone. Work with it in the same way. Let your magic sink into it and try seeing something or someone – although not Marianne, of course,’ Tor said, nudging the seeing stone with his nose.

  Erin picked the seeing stone up slowly. Tendrils of fear curled at the edges of her mind. What if she saw Marianne by mistake?

  Maybe she would try to see Chloe. Yes. She focused her thoughts on her friend. Think Chloe, she thought. But as she felt the buzzing in her fingers a persistent picture of Marianne filled her mind. Panic rose inside her and she lowered the stone.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Tor asked.

  ‘N-nothing,’ Erin said. ‘I’ll try again.’

  Come on, she told herself. You can do this.

  ‘Just let your magic flow,’ Tor said softly.

  But every time the magic started to tingle through her she thought of Marianne and pulled away from the stone.

  ‘I can’t do it!’ she exclaimed after half an hour. ‘I just can’t do it any more!’

  Tor looked troubled. ‘I know it is frightening, but you must overcome your fears, Erin. In order to break the trapping stone you will have to cast a vision using a seeing stone as well. It is vitally important you can do it, Erin.’

  ‘I will be able to,’ Erin promised. ‘I’m sure I will. Just not now. Can I try again tomorrow?’

  Tor nodded. ‘I will see you tomorrow evening then.’

  As Erin flew out of the woods, a mixture of feelings flowed through her – frustration, worry, an underlying relief that she hadn’t had to deal with looking into a vision.

  But you have to if you want to break the trapping stone and free Mistral, she told herself, remembering what Tor had just said.

  She swallowed. If she couldn’t do it, the foal would never be free.

  You have to do it, she thought. You just have to!

  CHAPTER

  Seven

  Chloe got back from Devon the next day and came to the stables at lunchtime. ‘I had a brilliant time last night,’ she whispered to Erin. ‘How about you?’

  ‘It wasn’t great,’ Erin admitted. ‘I made the warding stone work, but I couldn’t do anything with the seeing stone. What did you get up to?’

  ‘I can’t wait to tell you all about it. I learnt how to –’ Chloe broke off as Jackie came over. ‘I’ll show you tonight,’ she said quickly. ‘Meet me at the beach.’

  They didn’t get a chance to talk stardust stuff at all for the rest of the day. There were always too many people around and Jackie kept them busy cleaning tack and mucking out stables. There wasn’t even time to do any riding, but for once Erin didn’t mind because it meant that she didn’t have to think of an excuse for not riding Kestrel.

  Although she wasn’t looking forward to having another try at working with a seeing stone that night, she flew towards the beach feeling excited. What was Chloe going to show her?

  The beach where they usually met was near the spit of land where the three rocks of World’s End stood. As Erin flew over the cliff top towards it, she saw Chloe sitting on a rock below her. Chloe’s eyes were fixed on the shingle in front of her where there was a small fire burning brightly. Erin watched as Chloe lifted her right hand and moved it in a circle in the air. The flames from the fire also began to curl into a circle.

  ‘Oh wow!’ Erin gasped as the flames formed a ball.

  Chloe jumped. The flames immediately sank back down again.

  ‘That was brilliant!’ said Erin. ‘How did you do it?’

  Chloe looked pleased. ‘Just with my magic. I’m not very good at it yet. Allegra and her friends can make loads of different shapes. They showed me yesterday. Allegra made the wind make a tornado shape, and Lucy and Robyn, Allegra’s friends, made balls of fire turn into columns and pyramids. I can only make a ball shape at the moment, but I’m going to practise and practise until I can make all sorts of different shapes too.’

  ‘What do you have to do?’ Erin said.

  ‘You just imagine the fire or whatever becoming a different shape and move your hand in that shape. Any stardust spirit can do it.’

  Erin was keen to try. She pointed at the sky. ‘Rain be with me!’ Almost immediately a small raincloud formed and raindrops started falling. Chloe squealed as some landed on her bare skin. Erin hastily steered the cloud away from them. She tried to imagine the water flowing in a circle instead of falling down and she moved her hand as she had seen Chloe doing.

  It worked! The rain twisted up before it reached the ground, and swirled in a circle, making a ball of water in the sky.

  ‘Cool!’ Chloe exclaimed.

  Magic seemed to glance off the water, sending glowing multicoloured drops sparkling through the air. Erin grinned in delight. ‘This is fun!’

  She made the ball bigger. As it grew, it got thinner and more see-through in the centre. It could almost be a hagstone, she thought. Maybe I could make it into a hagstone shape… Concentrating hard, she imagined the ball of water in the air having a hole through its centre. Gradually the water moved and shifted until it was forming the shape of a hagstone.

  ‘Hey, that looks good!’ Chloe said.

  Erin felt her fingertips start to buzz just as they did if she was holding a real hagstone. She could feel the hole starting to draw her towards it.

  ‘It feels like it’s magic,’ she said.

  ‘Of course it’s magic!’ Chloe grinned.

  ‘No, not normal magic,’ Erin said, trying to explain. ‘Weather-weaving magic.’

  As she stopped concentrating, the water hagstone dissolved and started to fall as rain again.

  ‘Rain be gone!’ said Erin, and the rain stopped.

  ‘I’m going to try again,’ said Chloe.

  They practised for half an hour until they were both quicker at forming shapes and then they set off to see Tor. On the way Chloe told Erin about the other things she had done the night before. ‘There are loads of stardust spirits who meet in the woods there,’ she said. ‘It’s brilliant. The best bit was meeting all Allegra’s friends who are stardust spirits too. They’re great. You’ll have to come with me one day!’

  ‘I’d love to!’ said Erin. She thought it sounded amazing. She sighed. ‘You had much more fun than me.’ She shook her head. ‘Whenever I try to use a seeing stone to cast a vision, I just see Marianne in my mind and have to stop, but Tor sa
id that if I’m going to break the trapping stone I’m going to have to cast a vision.’ She sighed. ‘But we’ve also got to find the trapping stone. We’re no closer to working out where Marianne is keeping it.’

  Chloe gave her a sympathetic look. ‘We’ll find it. I know we will. And don’t worry about the visions. I’m sure you’ll be able to cast one soon – you’ve done it before.’

  But that was different. Now it feels like Marianne is waiting for me, Erin thought. She sighed and together they headed to the woods.

  Tor was waiting for them. He listened carefully as they told him what they had been doing with their stardust magic on the beach.

  ‘Let me see,’ he said.

  Erin didn’t need any encouraging. It might not help them find Mistral, but it felt good – easy – doing this type of magic. Not scary at all. She conjured up a raincloud and as the rain started to fall she did what she had done on the beach and imagined the rain forming a hagstone shape in the sky.

  The water swirled round; it seemed to flash with colour, blue then green then purple. Erin felt her hands start to tingle; the darkness in the hole grew. She heard Tor whinny behind her.

  ‘A seeing stone made of water! Oh, Erin, this is just what we need!’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Erin heard Chloe say.

  Tor stamped a front hoof. ‘This is how we can watch Marianne without danger!’

  Erin was so surprised that she swung round. The water hagstone dissolved instantly. ‘What?’ she asked, moving back as raindrops splashed from the ground over her legs.

  ‘You’ve done it! You have discovered a way to find Mistral!’ exclaimed the stallion.

  Erin looked at him in astonishment. ‘But how?’

  Tor nuzzled her hair. ‘You can use your weather-weaving powers to watch safely through a seeing stone made of water. The dark spirit will not be able to sense you or harm you because you will be watching her using water, not stone. And, because you are using a different element, her warding hagstone will not warn her. Oh, cleverest weather weaver! I should have thought of this.’

  Chloe frowned. ‘But I don’t get it. Don’t weather weavers use the magic that’s in the hagstones themselves? This isn’t a stone; it’s just water.’

  ‘And so it is the purest, most powerful magic. Water is the most magical element of all,’ said Tor. ‘It creates hagstones. All hagstones start as normal stones, but as water flows around them the holes in them are formed. It is the water that gives them their magic in the first place.’

  ‘So all I need to do is make a water hagstone and use it like a seeing stone,’ Erin said. ‘And then I might be able to see Marianne without her seeing me.’

  Tor nodded. ‘You will be safe.’

  ‘Then I’ll do it now.’ Erin’s heart leapt. She looked at the raincloud and imagined the rain turning into a hagstone again.

  ‘Focus your magic,’ Tor reminded her quickly. ‘Think very carefully about what you want to see.’

  Erin stared at the hole in the water hagstone.

  The trapping stone with Mistral…

  The world seemed to swim slightly in front of her. Magic sparkled through her whole body as the dark hole at the centre of the water hagstone seemed to grow. For a moment she remembered Marianne trapping her before, but Tor had said that wouldn’t happen this time. I believe him, she thought. I want to do this. And she let the darkness swell out and claim her.

  The trapping stone, the trapping stone, she thought over and over again.

  All she could see was the inky blackness, but gradually it began to move apart like dark curtains and she could see a picture behind it. It was a cave like she’d seen before. She let herself move towards it and suddenly she was there. Inside the cave. But it wasn’t like before when she had felt as if she really was there. This time it felt as if she was just floating without a body. Her bones felt cold, as though she was soaking in freezing water. She could see the damp on the walls. On the floor there was a circle made out of stones and chalk. There were rocky ledges around the cave and on them there were white candles, but all of them were unlit. She could hear the waves below the cave dragging on shingle.

  It must be a cave by the beach, she realized.

  She floated towards the entrance. It wasn’t a cave at ground level. She was high up a cliff. But from here she could see the top of three shadowy rocks on a spit of land – two tall, one round with a hole in its centre. Waves were breaking around them, spray flying up into the air and glittering in the starlight.

  World’s End! The thought came to Erin. It’s a cave near World’s End!

  She looked around the cave again. It was cold and silent inside. She shivered, the hair prickling at the back of her neck. Where was the trapping stone? It must be here if the vision had showed her this place. Her eyes caught sight of a natural rocky alcove at the very back of the cave. It was like an open-fronted cupboard. There were some objects in it. She went over.

  A bowl of water, a candle, a jar of earth and a bottle with nothing in it.

  And something else. A piece of paper with writing on. Erin tried to pick it up, but her fingers passed straight through it. She couldn’t touch or move anything. All she could do was look. She read the first line on the paper:

  When the dark one returns, the door shall be reopened…

  It was the prophecy again! The same one that was in her mum’s box and the same one that Marianne had spoken when she had trapped Mistral. But there seemed to be more of it on this piece of paper. Another two verses! Erin was about to read on when a noise behind her suddenly made her swing round. She caught her breath in horror – Marianne was standing in the cave entrance!

  CHAPTER

  Eight

  For a moment, Erin felt herself freeze, but then she realized that Marianne was looking around the cave and couldn’t see her!

  Marianne pulled a shining ball from the pocket of her black cloak and held it out in front of her. The candles immediately lit up. Shadows flickered over the cave walls.

  With a swish of her silvery-blue dress, Marianne strode towards the back of the cave. Erin quickly slipped round to the right. ‘Three days out of six,’ the dark spirit muttered. ‘Just three more and then the fourth stone will appear!’ She reached into the alcove and from the very back drew out a hagstone.

  Erin stared at it. It was the trapping stone! It was light brown and had a chip of rock in the middle of it. She watched as Marianne placed it in the centre of the circle and then put the other four objects that had been in the alcove around it. She lit the candle and then took two stones out of her pocket and placed one on either side of her. A warding stone and a seeing stone, Erin noticed. Marianne knelt down and clapped her hands. ‘Appear!’

  Cloud flowed out of the stone and formed into the shape of a miniature grey foal, no bigger than one of the toy plastic horses Erin had at home. His legs were streaked with dried blood, his mane and tail were tangled, his head hung low.

  Mistral! Erin desperately wanted to scoop him up. He looked utterly bewildered and frightened.

  ‘It is time to begin again, Prince,’ Marianne hissed. ‘Another day of clear skies.’

  She clapped her hands again and the horse moved to the edge of the circle. He walked around it almost as if guarding a boundary. For one moment, Erin thought she saw the misty shape of another horse begin to appear at the edge of the circle. The colt rushed at it, ears pinned back and the shape melted away. Erin was utterly mystified. What was going on?

  When every horse who appeared at the edge of the circle had been sent away, Marianne clapped her hands. The colt turned back to mist and was sucked back into the stone.

  ‘Day four begins…’ the dark weather weaver whispered to herself.

  Erin decided it was time to go. Her head was spinning with everything she had seen. None of it seemed to make any sense. She shut her eyes and imagined herself back in the woods with Chloe and Tor. She felt herself falling and then suddenly felt ground beneath her. Her f
ingers clutched at it. Feeling grass and twigs, she blinked her eyes open. She was back in the woods! Chloe was crouching anxiously beside her. Tor was watching intently.

  ‘Erin!’ Chloe said as Erin opened her eyes. ‘Are you OK?’

  Erin nodded. For a moment she couldn’t speak. It was too weird to have been in one place, to see it so clearly, and then to wake up and find herself somewhere else. ‘I’m all right,’ she said slowly. She realized she was lying on the ground and she sat up. The water hagstone had turned to rain. ‘Rain be gone!’ she whispered. The cloud disappeared instantly.

  ‘That was horrible. One minute you were standing up looking at the water hagstone and the next you just collapsed on the ground,’ Chloe said. ‘Tor said you were OK, that you were in a vision, but you were just lying there. The water hagstone stayed until you opened your eyes and then it just turned to rain again before you got rid of the cloud. Are you really all right?’

  Erin nodded.

  ‘The trapping stone,’ Tor said, stepping forward, his voice urgent. ‘Did you see where it was hidden, Erin?’

  ‘Yes.’ Erin took a deep breath. ‘It’s in a cave near World’s End. I saw it and I saw Marianne using it.’

  ‘You saw the dark one?’ Tor breathed. ‘And Mistral?’

  ‘Yes, I saw him. I watched Marianne summon him.’ Erin shook her head, trying to push away the horrible vision of the exhausted, confused colt in the chalk circle. ‘We have to rescue him, Tor!’

  ‘Now we know where the cave is, we can go there,’ Chloe said. ‘Then you can use your magic to break the trapping stone and free Mistral.’

  Erin swallowed. She knew that was what she had to do, but she felt so exhausted just by what she had done that night. She remembered the eerie feeling in the cave and the power that seemed to spark off Marianne.

  Tor breathed gently on her face and neck. As his warm breath brushed over her skin, she felt better. She touched his solid neck, her fingers curling in his soft mane.

  ‘You did well,’ he told her softly. ‘Did the dark one say anything? Did you see what she was trying to do?’