She saw something else too. ‘You know this book, don’t you, Marcel?’
When he looked up, wide-eyed and clearly bewildered, his reply surprised her. ‘Lord Alwyn,’ he muttered.
First ghosts, and now the name of a great wizard who was perhaps one too. Bea couldn’t fight off a sense of dread. ‘You don’t mean we’re up against the ghost of Lord Alwyn?’ she said.
Marcel seemed stumped by her question, for a few moments anyway. When she heard his answer, she wished he’d stayed silent.
‘Lord Alwyn’s ghost … yes, in a way we are.’
He saw the horrified faces around him. ‘It’s not like you think,’ he assured them. ‘This book … I think I know who Long Beard’s captor is. Yes, it makes sense now. The wards that protect Baden Dark were so weak.’
He wouldn’t explain any more. ‘Stay here,’ he ordered, already making his way back along the cave.
‘The light — won’t you take the torch?’ Kertigan called after him.
In his haste, Marcel seemed to have forgotten the need for light. He snatched up a stone that fitted neatly into his fist. ‘I’ll make my own. I doubt this man will be hard to find.’
Kertigan extinguished the torch to conserve its fuel and for a time difficult to measure they waited. Bea thought she heard the gentle snoring of her grandfather, but he denied he’d been asleep when Kertigan shook him awake.
Finally, noise from the cave’s entrance made them stir, then they saw faint light, becoming stronger. Marcel had worked his strange powers on the small rock he held in his hand and it gave out a soft yellow glow, like a candle that would never run short of wax. With his other hand, he was dragging something behind him. No, someone.
Fergus and Kertigan went forward to where the walls narrowed to help him squeeze his prisoner through into the cul-de-sac where Long Beard waited for the first view of his captor.
‘Here he is, the bat-catcher,’ said Marcel, mocking what they had once feared.
The man was portly and not very tall, with grey hair, some of it caught in a filthy rat’s tail behind his head, the rest as wild as the expression on his face.
Marcel pushed him forward into the circle now formed by the others and said, ‘Let me introduce my old tutor, Dominie Suskin.’
CHAPTER 16
A Puzzle Bound in Emerald Green
MARCEL HAD KNOWN AS soon as he saw the flash of green beneath the dust that Long Beard’s captor was Dominie Suskin. He wished he’d read more from the book himself instead of waving his hand to let the dominie read by magic what he couldn’t decipher for himself. When there was time, he’d take a closer look perhaps, but for now the captor had become the captive. When Kertigan’s torch filled the little cave with its fluttering light, Marcel saw more clearly what a sorry sight the dominie had become. Suskin stood with his shoulders hunched, his arms held stiffly in front of him like a grasshopper, as he turned from one face to another, agitated and … yes, on the verge of tears. He wasn’t finding much sympathy in the faces around him.
‘What have you been eating?’ Marcel asked him.
‘Only what I could catch. Bats mostly.’
Long Beard spat his disgust into the dust to one side. ‘Give him something then,’ he ordered Kertigan.
Like Long Beard before him, Suskin bolted down the hunk of bread and handful of pine nuts, barely bothering to chew.
Kertigan seemed to appoint himself the interrogator. ‘What were you going to do with Long Beard?’ he demanded.
Suskin had no idea what he was talking about at first, and only when they all looked towards the elderly elf did he guess. ‘Oh, him. I don’t know really.’
An odd answer but Marcel was beginning to see what a muddle the dominie’s mind had become along with his body. ‘Why did you capture him?’ he asked, using a gentler tone than Kertigan.
‘I didn’t want to. He turned up at the opening I’d made in the magical barrier, him and one other. I just wanted to drive them off. Instead, this one forced me back and, before I knew it, his companion had sealed the rock. The fool! If he’d left it open, I would have let this one go.’
‘You held a knife to Long Beard’s throat,’ said an angry Kertigan.
‘Yes, yes, I had to then, but I was never going to hurt him.’
The rest looked sceptical, all except Marcel who found himself speaking up in the man’s defence. ‘The dominie is no killer.’
‘Thank you, Marcel. You understand, don’t you? I just needed him out of the way, so I left him here while I kept exploring.’
‘There will be no more exploring of Baden Dark,’ Long Beard announced. With his captor now his prisoner and his belly pleasantly full, he’d become their leader again, as his impressive beard entitled him to be. ‘Get what you brought with you, all of you. Leave nothing behind. We’re going back into the Mortal Kingdoms, this minute.’
No one seemed more eager to be on his way than the dominie. Marcel had only needed to call his name when searching and Suskin had come out from behind a rock where he had been cowering, terrified by the light Marcel had created using a single stone. He’d offered no resistance at all. In fact, he seemed delighted to be their prisoner.
Once they emerged into the enormous cavern, they were again vulnerable to attack. If Marcel needed any reminding of this, he only had to glance at Suskin. His head was ducked between his shoulders and jerking about like a pigeon’s as he tried to watch every direction at once.
‘Ghosts,’ he muttered.
Oh yes, Marcel said to himself, the dominie’s had enough of Baden Dark.
Toward off the ghosts, Marcel conjured light from the face of the rocks once more, increasing the intensity as much as he could without wearing himself down. There was some way to go yet, and it would be up to him to open a breach in the solid rock to release them from this silent, lifeless world.
‘Marvellous, marvellous,’ Suskin breathed, as the light turned midnight darkness into something close to noon. ‘You were always so much better than me, Marcel. It’s been the best I could do to see five paces around me and even that took all the energy I had.’
‘This exploring you did,’ Marcel asked. ‘What did you find? What were you expecting to find?’
‘What did I expect? Riches, Marcel, the riches the green book spoke about, of course. And what did I find?’ He sniffed bitterly, then gripped Marcel’s sleeve. ‘There’s a dragon. Terrible, terrible, the sound was enough to stop my heart and the light cast onto the wall by its fiery breath. I could feel the heat even though I was well short of it. Huge, big enough to fill this cavern and still it needed more space to stretch its wings. Like a giant bat’s they were, with grasping talons at the tip of a tail twice as long as its body.’
Not Mortregis then, Marcel thought as the dominie warmed to his story. His voice rose in excitement, bringing his words to other ears.
‘That’s enough,’ cried Long Beard. ‘Whatever you’ve seen best stays inside your head. Not another word about it, do you understand?’
He didn’t need to brandish a sword or take aim with a deadly elvish arrow for Suskin to snap his mouth shut. Fear — Suskin reeked of it. Even with Marcel’s magic creating a shielding light, he went back to looking out for ghosts, or the shadow of a dragon perhaps. He’s been driven to the edge of madness by them, Marcel thought, yet despite such horrors, his body was unharmed, just as theirs had been after doing battle with the army of ghosts.
‘Didn’t the book warn of the dragon or tell you how to conjure wards against the ghosts?’ he asked.
‘No, not a word. It was full of promises about riches beyond anything the human mind could imagine. It told how Alwyn had found this world beneath the mountain and the sorcerer’s tricks he’d used to avoid the elves who guard it. I read all of that by your window in Noam. Later, it talked of diamonds and whole chambers full of gold. Lies, that’s all they were. A trick to draw a fool like me into this foul place.’ Suskin shuddered and pulled his shoulders in even tighter. �
�The old wizard was a cruel man to play such a trick. What if you had fallen for his game instead of me?’
But I didn’t, was Marcel’s first thought. I’m not greedy like you, not for riches like those you were after. Aware of how unkind this would all sound if he voiced it aloud, he simply said, ‘You think Lord Alwyn planned this fate for you?’
‘Deliberately. The story he told was so wonderful. You read part of it to me, Marcel, you must remember how he spoke of the greatest gift he had ever received.’ Suskin stopped and, holding up his arms, turned a full circle to take in as much of Baden Dark as they could see. ‘What gift could anyone find here? I wish I’d never borrowed that book from the library, never looked inside it, never let you decipher it for me. It was you, wasn’t it? Some magic I didn’t even notice that let me read page after page.’
‘Yes, but the spell worked only while you were in my room. Once you left Noam, you would have read only the story that others saw, not the truth that lay beneath.’
Suskin groaned in misery now that he understood. There was no trick and only himself to blame.
Kertigan tracked their footprints back to the place where they had come through the solid rock. Seeing it sealed, Suskin let out a desperate wail. ‘You mean the door is closed!’
‘We couldn’t afford to let anything escape like you did,’ said Kertigan sharply.
‘Then it’s all for nothing. You’re trapped here the same as me. I’ve tried every day to break the wards, but they are stronger on this side, too strong. It’s hopeless.’
Why would the magic be any different, Marcel wondered. Although he felt the others’ eyes on him, he didn’t need reminding that this was his task. He stepped up to the wall of rock marked out by the seams of quartz on either side and pressed his hands against it. On the other side, this was practically all he’d had to do before the rock cracked open. He felt with his magic again and met the resistance of the wards. With his eyes closed, he could see them as solid and impenetrable, much too strong for the simple magic he was conjuring.
‘Suskin’s right. The wards aren’t the same.’
This brought deep frowns of dismay to the faces staring at him.
‘Oh, that doesn’t mean they can’t be broken.’
The faces relaxed and Marcel began to concentrate in earnest. He knew only too well about spells that locked prisoners into their gaols with more than stone and iron. Lord Alwyn had conjured an especially powerful one to keep Damon and Eleanor in the chamber among Lady Ashlere’s roses. Of course, Marcel wasn’t trying to create his own, but to break the work of another. There was usually a key. Damon and Eleanor had needed a rightful heir to Elster’s throne to turn the doorknob of their prison, which was why Marcel, Nicola and Fergus had been drawn into Starkey’s ruthless deception. Exploring the sorcery that inhabited the rock, Marcel sensed there was no key at all to this one.
He stopped to think, and to catch his breath for even this unsuccessful magic was tiring. No wonder Dominie Suskin had been so easily defeated by it.
‘Well, Marcel, will we be eating bats for the rest of our miserable lives?’ asked Fergus, whose comment suggested he hadn’t given up hope just yet.
Marcel was still intrigued by why the enchantments were so uneven. Whatever Baden Dark was, it had formidable protections — a horde of ghosts, a dragon that sounded as frightening as Mortregis — so why would the magic that kept strangers from entering be so weak and the barriers to escape so strong? What lived here that must never be allowed to escape into the Mortal Kingdoms.
He turned to the rock again and this time he didn’t mutter spells under his breath or search for keys. Instead, he began to exert his will, magnified by the magic that had been born within him for purposes he didn’t understand. Pressing his will relentlessly against the rock, he demanded that it yield.
This time he didn’t hear the crack himself, but from the cheers of his companions he knew it had appeared.
‘Free, free!’ cried Suskin and, before the breach was fully open, he dropped onto hands and knees and scrambled through.
‘A dog with his tail between his legs,’ said Kertigan savagely.
The others followed with considerably more dignity, Long Beard making a point of being the last, then standing beside Marcel as he closed the breach. The elf took the lead again and made them hurry behind him as they set off along the narrow fissures. ‘It’s best we get out into the open air as soon as possible.’
‘I never thought I’d hear an elf say that,’ Bea commented.
Marcel was surprised to hear her voice; he’d been so busy listening to Suskin, he’d forgotten all about her.
When the gently sloping passages ceased and the climbing began, Suskin quickly dropped behind. ‘When can we stop for a rest,’ he wailed.
‘It’s the poor diet of bat meat catching up with him,’ said Kertigan.
Long Beard merely grunted and heaved himself higher, but when he slipped soon afterwards and was saved from a frightening fall only by Kertigan’s quick hand, the younger elf insisted they all rest.
‘You’re not yourself either, Long Beard,’ he said. ‘We’ll stop on the next ledge and eat what’s left of our food. Then sleep. We all need to be fresh or these jagged rocks will get the better of us.’
A wide outcrop not far above them proved level enough to lie on without rolling over the edge. ‘This will do,’ said Kertigan as he loosened the pack from his back.
Long Beard surveyed the desolate scene in the midst of so much darkness, then turned towards his human companions muttering, ‘It will do for something else as well.’
CHAPTER 17
Guardians of the Pledge
MARCEL WASN’T SURE WHETHER they were supposed to have heard Long Beard’s ominous comment or not. Fergus was unsettled enough to whisper, ‘What did that mean?’ Marcel could only shrug as he accepted his portion of the remaining food.
Most of the food went to Long Beard and Suskin, to build their strength for the climbing, and no one was surprised when immediately afterwards Suskin curled up to sleep in a niche where the ledge met the massive wall of the mountain.
‘We should all do the same,’ said Kertigan.
‘Soon, soon,’ Long Beard responded in a measured tone. ‘I need you all here first. Marcel, bring that magic rock of yours to give us some light.’
Before long, the pale yellow of Marcel’s magic illuminated five weary faces sitting in a loose circle like revellers gathered around a camp fire. In the middle of such endless black above, and below and behind them too, only part of each face was visible. Hair shone gold no matter what its colour, especially Bea’s long tresses and their eyes seemed to recede into dark pools touched by a single pinpoint of reflected light.
When Long Beard spoke, his words reverberated in deep and solemn tones and Marcel found himself tense with anticipation.
‘I’m grateful to be free of that place and, without doubt, I owe you my life,’ he began, looking directly at Marcel and Fergus who sat side by side. ‘But it would have been better if you had not come for me.’
‘You sound like Ebert, Grandfather,’ said Bea. ‘He was against the idea right to the end.’
‘And I would have been too, if he’d been the one trapped. Baden Dark is a place no one should enter. It’s not part of the Mortal Kingdoms, it’s a different world, and the opening between the two must be kept firmly closed and hidden from any who might dare to open it, especially humans. In fact, the elves were brought to this mountain to do just that.’
Kertigan shifted in surprise. ‘Brought to this mountain! What do you mean, Long Beard?’
The elder held up his hand, asking for patience. He still hadn’t taken his eyes from Marcel and Fergus. ‘Despite the debt I owe you both, I should have you killed.’
‘Grandfather! What are you saying?’
Kertigan was just as shocked as Bea, but with Long Beard’s hand still held up to forestall him, he said nothing. Fergus wasn’t about to stay still, however.
He twisted violently where he sat, searching for the sword he’d laid down where he intended to sleep, but when he began to rise, obviously intent on retrieving it, Marcel pulled him down again.
‘You’re taking this news rather calmly,’ said Long Beard when he saw Marcel’s restraining hand.
‘I’ve been listening to your voice, not just your words,’ Marcel replied. ‘You’re not going to harm us. Besides, if you were going to do it, you wouldn’t have warned us this way.’
Long Beard nodded, offering a slim smile. ‘Your lives are safe. You are precious to my beloved granddaughter, of course, but that’s not the main reason. I know you both, I know you are not like other humans, and so I trust you to become part of the guardianship that I am about to pass on to these two,’ he said, sweeping his arm gently towards Kertigan and Bea.
‘What about Suskin?’ Marcel asked.
Long Beard followed his gaze to the sleeping figure. What they saw was a wretched man curled up in fear and shivering in his dreams.
‘He’ll never dare return to Baden Dark,’ Long Beard said. ‘And if he tells others about it, they’ll think it part of the madness that’s overtaken him.’
When he turned back from Suskin, his eyes fell on the two elves rather than their human companions. ‘I’ve told you all this so you will understand the deep trust you must now take on, whether you like it or not. The trust is an ancient one. I don’t know how many have held it before you, grandfather before grandfather. Humans measure time in centuries and many of those have passed since a great wizard first discovered what lies under this mountain.’
‘A great wizard. Who was he?’ Marcel asked, since this seemed to be his territory. ‘How did he find Baden Dark?’
‘Through the curiosity that all sorcerers tend to have,’ Long Beard replied. ‘His name was lost long ago. Where he came from, what powers he wielded, I have no idea, but whoever he was, he quickly saw that a barrier must separate the Mortal Kingdoms from what he’d found. The wards that protect Baden Dark are his, to stop the inquisitive or, more likely, the foolish — like this teacher of Marcel’s — from blundering inside.’
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