‘Who?’ asked Grady. ‘We can’t trust the adults, so who does that leave?’
‘Quinn,’ said Niamh.
‘Quinn? What can he do to help?’
‘He’s the only person in this castle who knows the lore of the Twins the way that Gilly … that Balthasar knew it. If there’s anyone who can tell us what’s happening it will be him. The only other person who might know is Brighid and we’ve already lied to her today, so I’m not about to head back and say “Oh by the way – we just lied to you and we’re hearing voices inside our heads. Can you help us or are we going mad?” How well do you think that would go down with her?’
‘Fair enough. But not tonight. We’ve been down there so long it’s dinner time, and after that we have to go and listen to more protocol lectures from Murdock. It’ll have to be tomorrow.’
Niamh was still staring at her hands. There was no way in the world, in this world at least, that a twelve-year-old girl should be able to cast a charm without using a wand. Oddly, she felt she wanted the voice to come back to her so she could ask what it thought it was doing messing around with her magical abilities like that.
‘Okay. Let’s tell him we need to talk to him, but don’t say what it’s about. Get him to meet us in the library tomorrow morning. We can talk to him about it then.’
Grady nodded and pulled out his iWand. Flicking it open he activated the slender white tip and called Quinn’s name. Niamh turned and stared out the window again while Grady set up a meeting.
‘What’s so urgent and private you need to hide in the library to ask me a question?’ Quinn stood with his arms folded, leaning against an ancient bookshelf in the castle library. They had taken a tortuous, twisted route through the passages of the library in an attempt to hide their trail and find a confidential corner. But the library seemed to thwart them at every turn. Just when they thought they had found a quiet space, a phantom-like figure would hauntingly materialise as the library distorted space and time around them. Eventually, after heading into a section of the library containing what appeared to be the oldest shelves and books they had ever seen, they found a silent and musty smelling alcove.
‘How much do you know about the Twins? About why they were created, and where they came from?’ Niamh was annoyed she hadn’t thought about how to ask the question and nearly stumbled over her words.
Quinn could see that the real question being asked was something other than the words Niamh had spoken. ‘You’ve had months to ask me that question. Or any question about the Twins. Why now?’
‘What’s wrong with being curious?’ asked Grady with as much bluster as he could manage.
‘Curiosity is fine,’ said Quinn, smirking. ‘But curiosity that forces you to try and hide in the library is plain deviousness. And believe me when I say I know a lot more about being devious than you two.’
Niamh gave Quinn a considered stare. She knew he had a great deal of talent and shared a secret with them that only the few who were in the Vault of the Treasures could share. But now was not the right time to share all their secrets.
‘You’re right. We do need to find out as much as we can about the Twins, but we can’t tell you why – yet. Are there secrets about the Twins that only a few would know, that someone like yourself who really has studied the Twins would know?’
‘Ahhhh,’ said Quinn, smiling. ‘You want to know the dark stuff about the Twins, don’t you?’
‘What dark stuff?’ said Grady. ‘You know why the Twins were created?’
‘They were the way to link our worlds together, weren’t they?’ asked Niamh.
‘That’s what some people believe. Others think they were an unfortunate experiment gone wrong. Some think there was a dark reason Azrael made them,’ said Quinn, still smiling.
‘What reason?’ said Grady. He didn’t like the smile that spread across Quinn’s face. It reminded him too much of the boy they had faced in the vault.
‘Let me show you,’ replied Quinn. He quietly clapped his hands and whispered a name; ‘Fingal.’
The creature that popped into existence was twice the size and completely unlike any other faerie they had seen. Instead of the emerald green coat worn by the castle servants, this one was dressed in black with unkempt hair hanging to the shoulders over a patched tunic. Dusty black pants were tucked into calf-high boots and a leather bag was slung over its shoulder. The creature turned a rugged face at the children. A patch over one eye added to the impression that this was no faerie from a bedtime story, but one more likely to step out of a pirate novel. The effect was ruined somewhat by the faerie wings beating behind the creature’s back, though these wings were leathery and ragged where the normal faeries’ were transparent and gossamer. It turned an angry eye on Quinn. ‘Where the hell have you been?’ it asked in a gruff voice.
‘Nice to see you too, Fingal,’ said Quinn without missing a beat. He obviously knew the creature well.
‘And who are these two?’ said the creature, jabbing a thumb towards Niamh and Grady. ‘You know I said never to call us up where anyone else can see us.’
‘You should be a little more polite,’ said Quinn. ‘This is the Princess Niamh and Prince Grady.’
Fingal gave them a look up and down. ‘Not “The Goons”, surely? You friends with them now?’
Quinn blushed scarlet red. ‘I know them a lot better now, Fingal. I don’t call them that any more so neither should you. You should introduce yourself properly.’
The faerie fluttered over to Niamh, hanging an inch away from her face. He snorted and then flittered over to Grady, floating so close to his nose that it made Grady itch just to have him there. He swung his attention back to Niamh before grudgingly saying ‘Hi’ with a dismissive wave of his hand and flittering back to Quinn.
‘So. What do you want. It’s been a long time since you called for me. Need the book, do you?’
‘Do you still have it?’ asked Quinn.
‘Course I do. What else would I do with it. Hang on. I’ll be back.’ With another flash of light the creature departed.
‘What is he?’ said Niamh.
‘He’s related to the faeries but you won’t see many of his kind round here. He is a pixie.’
‘A pixie!’ exclaimed Grady. ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’
‘What did you think pixies were going to be like?’ snorted Quinn.
‘Don’t know,’ shrugged Grady. ‘Not bad-tempered and badly dressed, for a start.’
‘You can talk! You’re a walking fashion disaster,’ said Niamh, pulling at Grady’s jersey.
‘I’m not a fashion disaster,’ said Grady testily. ‘I just have an alternative approach to coordinating colours. It’s not my fault you don’t embrace new styles.’
‘I don’t have a problem with new styles, Grady. I do have a problem with no style.’
‘Would you cut it out?’ said Quinn, glaring. ‘Honestly. There’s no way anyone would pick you two as royal material the way you argue!’
Another flash of light broke up the conversation. The angry looking pixie had returned but this time was joined by three others of his kind carrying a large leather-bound book between them. The book looked battered and ancient. It was bound in dull red leather with pages bulging out from between covers held shut by brass clasps.
‘Here, take it. This thing weighs a ton.’
‘Thanks Fingal,’ said Quinn, lifting it away from the scowling creatures.
‘Fingal!’ Grady snorted. The pixie turned and flashed across the space between them. He stopped directly in front of the bridge of Grady’s nose again and stared angrily at him before flicking Grady’s forehead with his finger.
‘Ow!’ yelled Grady, lifting his hand to his head and rubbing at a rapidly rising red welt above his nose. ‘What was that for!’
‘Why did you laugh at my name?’ said the pixie, slowly and deliberately.
Grady leaned backwards from the menacing little creature. ‘It’s a funny name?’ he said, u
ncertainly.
The pixie stared at Grady and fluttered a little closer. He stared in one eye, then the other, before turning back to Quinn. ‘Royal, did you say they were? Rude is what they are – this one especially. Laughing at someone you haven’t met before is bad manners in my world or in yours.’
‘So is hitting someone you haven’t met before,’ said Niamh with as much haughtiness as she could manage.
The pixie darted across to Niamh and hung in front of her face in the same intimidating way he had confronted Grady.
‘And don’t think I won’t swat you if you try that flicking thing on me,’ warned Niamh, brandishing her wand.
The pixie blinked before giving an evil little smile and turning back to Quinn. ‘I like this one,’ he said with a conspiratorial wink. ‘She has some spirit!’
‘Introduce your friends,’ said Quinn. ‘I know you are good at making enemies, but these two are friends of mine so they should be friends of yours.’
‘Friends?’ said the pixie. ‘I thought you weren’t one for making friends.’
‘Times change, Fingal. And so do people.’
‘Well. You know your business best, I suppose.’ The pixie drifted back from Niamh’s face. ‘Fingal is the name, though you know that by now. This is Fengal, Fangol, and Nigel,’ he said, pointing to the other pixies who nodded in response.
‘Nigel?’ said Grady.
‘It’s not his real name, but there’s always one who has to be different, isn’t there? If we use his real name he gobs on your boots, so watch out. He’s got a temper problem,’ said Fingal, giving Grady a slap on the shoulder.
Grady touched Niamh on the arm and sent out his thought. ‘If that one thinks Nigel has an anger problem, then I’m staying out of his way!’
The other pixies drifted over to Quinn. ‘Are we done?’ said the one who had been pointed out as Fengal. The voice was softer than Fingal’s but still had a hard note. There was no mistaking, though, that the lines of its face were distinctly feminine.
‘Yes thanks,’ said Grady. ‘We’ll call if we need you.’
Fengal did not reply but gave a curt nod of the head. Three of the pixies vanished in another flash of light leaving Fingal behind. He stared squint-eyed at Niamh and Grady, as if trying to work out what they were, before he too vanished.
‘Well they were nice. Not!’ said Grady.
‘Try not to judge them too hard,’ said Quinn. ‘Remember, what you see on the surface isn’t always what you find with a little digging.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Niamh.
‘They don’t really have a home anymore. They used to live on the other side, where we came from. But they were forced out. Progress, people called it. Their homes were crushed under new housing estates, forests and farmland bulldozed. And by the time they all made the move to here they had fallen out with the other faeries. They never had a home here. Not even now,’ said Quinn sadly.
‘But where do they live then?’ said Grady, rubbing at the welt on his head.
‘No one is completely sure. We think it’s the space between our worlds, but the only thing we do know for certain is it’s not in Avalon or on the other side. There’s absolutely no sign of them here. But wherever they live we do know it’s hard. They sneak in here to forage for food – that’s how I found them. They are as much a faerie story in the Nearworld as they are on the other side. Fingal was a little careless one day in the kitchens and I managed to snare him. He’s an angry little man but proud and, once you get to know him, very faithful.’
‘So what’s in this book?’ Niamh said, reaching for the ancient looking tome.
‘You wanted to know about the Twins? Well this book I can guarantee will provide all the answers you need.’
‘How do you know?’ said Grady.
‘It was written by the one person who knows the Twins better than anyone else alive.’
‘Who?’ said Niamh and Grady in unison.
‘Read the name on the spine,’ said Quinn, smiling.
Niamh turned the book with difficulty – it really was quite heavy – and ran her finger along a gold embossed set of letters. Her eyes widened in shock at the name she saw; ‘Azrael of Avalon. This is written by the wizard who made the Twins?’
‘Yep. Thought you might like that,’ said Quinn, beaming now at Niamh and Grady’s surprise.
‘But how?’ said Grady. ‘We’ve asked for every book we could find in the libraries about the Twins and nothing like this has ever come up. The faeries told us to stop asking as they’d given us everything they could find.’
‘Strictly speaking this book doesn’t exist,’ said Quinn. ‘Azrael created it and then hid it away. The only way I managed to find it was because of Fingal.’
‘You mean Azrael hid it where the pixies live now?’ said Niamh.
‘You are sharp, Niamh, aren’t you?’ said Quinn. ‘Yes. Azrael hid it in the one place he thought no one could find it. I managed to trap Fingal here and wouldn’t release him until he was able to hand over something of value to me.’
‘You kidnapped him!’ cried Niamh.
Quinn stared at the floor and scraped at a piece of non-existent fluff on the carpet. ‘Well, it wasn’t my finest hour I admit, but … things were different back then. Anyway, if I hadn’t then I wouldn’t have a clue about the book, you two wouldn’t have it in your hands now, and Gilly may have got his hands on it. Who knows where that might have led.’
‘Balthasar, you mean,’ said Niamh flatly.
‘Yes,’ said Quinn, holding her stare. ‘Balthasar. I’m sorry I still use the familiar name. We spent a great deal of time together so old habits are hard to break.’
‘Won’t the librarian faeries sense it, though? Now that it’s here?’ said Grady, running his hands over the dusty leather.
‘Try casting a spell against the book. Anything you like. Maybe that revealing spell you cast on me in the common room at Rookwood.’
Grady pulled out his wand while Niamh, with difficulty, held up the book. A faint shimmer drifted from the end of Grady’s wand and struck the book. The children’s eyes widened in shock as the spell drifted straight through the cover and out the other side leaving a faint sparkle in the floor of the library as it grounded itself.
‘Very clever, isn’t it?’ said Quinn. ‘I’ve tried and tried to work it out but I have no idea how he did it. The book is solid here but completely impervious to any magical spell you can think of. It’s practically indestructible.’
‘You could use a spell like that, Grady, the way you treat your books,’ said Niamh.
‘Not fair!’ squealed Grady.
‘But why would he have hidden it like this?’ said Niamh.
Quinn slouched against a bookshelf and smiled. ‘There is a key in this book. A key to unlocking some secret about the Twins. But nobody has been able to use it.’
‘What key?’ asked Niamh, intrigued.
‘Let me show you,’ said Quinn, taking the book. He placed it on the floor and opened it at a marker near the end.
‘The words are alive!’ said Niamh breathlessly.
‘That’s creepy!’ said Grady as he stared at the brightly illuminated page.
On every line letters crawled back and forth like oil drifting on water. Sometimes they moved between lines, sometimes they jumped places with another word. But they never stayed in the same place for more than a few seconds and, to Niamh at least, it looked like absolute gibberish.
‘What is this?’ asked Grady. ‘I’ve never seen anything like this in any book.’
‘It’s only this part of the book. The rest of it is perfectly legible. I’ve never been able to work out these chapters,’ said Quinn, sitting back on his haunches. ‘I can’t use magic to still the words and even if I did I couldn’t be sure what would happen. Words like these have power. There’s no telling what they might do to an unwary wizard.’
‘And you’re going to hand this over to us? What’s in it for you?’ said Grad
y, with a suspicious look.
Quinn let out a deep sigh. ‘You must have worked out by now that I’m over the secrecy and hiding. If there’s something in that book which might give you whatever edge you are after, then it’s yours. I don’t want anything. And I certainly don’t want that book anymore.’
‘If we can work it out, we’ll tell you,’ said Niamh gently.
‘I know you will. That’s why I’m giving it to you,’ replied Quinn.
Grady’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. ‘Why didn’t you give it to us before?’.
‘Firstly, you never asked anything more about the Twins,’ said Quinn, folding his arms across his chest. ‘And secondly, if you hadn’t asked it meant you weren’t ready for what the book might tell you.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Grady after a significant pause. ‘How do we hide it again?’
‘Call for Fingal when you finish with it. I wouldn’t leave this lying around. There’s stuff in here any number of dark wizards or witches would love to get their hands on.’
‘Like you used to be, you mean,’ said Niamh.
‘Yes. Like I used to be,’ said Quinn, holding her stare. ‘Give me a call if you need help with any of the big words.’
‘Gee, thanks!’ said Niamh, playfully hitting him on the shoulder.
‘Need some help finding your way back?’ offered Quinn as they walked out to one of the wide corridors between shelves.
Figures faded in and out of view ahead of and behind them, but the main hall of the library still only looked a few short steps away. The magical skills of the library’s builders never ceased to amaze Niamh. ‘No thanks,’ she said. ‘I think we can find our way from here.’
‘Don’t let them see you taking that book out,’ said Quinn nervously.
‘I think I have one trick they haven’t seen yet,’ said Niamh, smiling. ‘Watch this,’ she said, nodding to Grady, who immediately placed a hand on her shoulder. Niamh held the book close to her chest and pulled out her wand. Waving it over the book she closed her eyes; a light rainbow shimmer slowly drifted from the tip and worked its way around the book which slowly melted from view.
‘How did you do that!’ gasped Quinn. ‘That’s seriously advanced magic. You never told me you could create invisibility spells!’
Azrael's Twins and the Circle of Stone: Book Two of the Nearworld Tales Page 4