by Perry Aylen
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘You must be Aulf, the mailman. My name’s Kaya Potts. I’m the mayor of Orking Do.’
Chapter 16
‘May I come on board?’
Mayor Potts was a sturdy, upright figure with a square face, firm mouth, and straight brows which lifted as she addressed Aulf with a directness that was both formal and friendly at the same time.
‘Of course.’ Aulf put out his hand to help her over the rail onto the deck and she accepted without fuss. The sheriff followed her.
‘So,’ began Mayor Potts casting her eyes around the deck of the Aurora and staring particularly at the lodestone, ‘this is what all the fuss was about.’
Aulf didn’t reply. The mayor turned to regard him, sizing him up with bright, round eyes that reminded Aulf of a robin.
‘This is the magic stone I’ve been hearing about?’
Ingar glanced at Aulf, but he didn’t shift his own eyes from the mayor’s. ‘It’s a lodestone,’ he told her.
‘Lodestone.’ She seemed to be sampling the word, much like rolling a mouthful of wine around her mouth to test it. ‘Tell me how it works.’
Briefly Aulf explained how the arrow on the stone always pointed to the sun’s midday position, and how this would help a sailor with nothing but the open ice to guide him.
‘Interesting,’ mused Mayor Potts when he had finished his explanation. ‘But how does it know where to point?’
Aulf hesitated, then shook his head and answered honestly. ‘I can’t tell you that, but I’m sure Jacob could.’
‘Jacob?’ Mayor Potts eyes flickered sharply. ‘One of the young wizards I’ve heard about on Quayven.’
Aulf hesitated again. ‘I don’t know if they’re really wizards or not. They do some very clever things, and they know about things I’ve never heard of. Like this lodestone. And I definitely saw them start a fire using only ice.’
‘Really?’ The mayor looked hard at Aulf as if to decide whether or not he was telling the truth. Then she looked at Ingar. ‘Did you see this too?’
Ingar nodded.
The mayor appeared to contemplate their replies for several moments, then she said, ‘I’m not a great believer in sorcery, as a general rule. However, these things do sound very much like magic, don’t you think?’
Reluctantly, Aulf had to agree, although he couldn’t help worrying that by conceding he was somehow landing Jacob and Elya in trouble. He could sense Ingar’s body stiffen as he acquiesced and knew she felt the same.
‘As you know,’ went on the mayor, ‘the sheriff here sent a few of his men across to Quayven to ascertain the facts behind this strange contraption, and they have returned with some fascinating stories.’ She looked round the deck of the Aurora and nodded at the cabin door. ‘Perhaps we could go inside where it’s warm and talk about this.’
Inside the cabin, the mayor and the sheriff perched on one bunk. Aulf sat on the other, and Ingar opened up the stove.
‘It seems,’ continued the mayor, picking up the conversation where she had left off on deck, ‘that there’s been some high drama on Quayven in the last few days, thanks to those two young wizards you found out on the ice.’
Ingar turned from the stove and eyed the mayor warily. Aulf asked cautiously, ‘Are Jacob and Elya all right?’
‘The mayor didn’t answer directly. Instead she said, ‘There appears to be a lot of fuss at the moment over the building of some kind of magical tower, on Quayven and on Pelago. Do you know anything about that?’
Again, Aulf looked awkward, all too aware of the delicate nature of the relationships between the islands, and of how easily misunderstandings occurred.
‘They’re towers for sending messages between the islands, using light signals. It was Jacob’s idea to improve communications on Hexult.’
Mayor Potts cocked her head to one side. ‘Really?’ she said, intrigued. ‘That does sound interesting, I must say. I’d like to know more about that.’
‘I’m sure Jacob would love to tell you all about it,’ Aulf assured her.
She tilted her head in the other direction while she considered his answer, as though it held previously unconsidered possibilities. After a few moments, she asked, ‘What about the prophecy, though?’
Aulf stared at her in silence. The mayor had him fixed in her bright, intelligent gaze. The sheriff was staring at him too. Aulf’s mind had gone momentarily blank. He could not think how to respond to the unexpected question.
Ingar broke the silence. ‘The prophecy doesn’t mean anything.’
The mayor’s gaze swivelled to fix on Ingar. ‘A heretic,’ she said mildly, and lifted an eyebrow.
Ingar’s face flushed. ‘I mean, it could mean lots of things,’ she corrected herself. ‘There’s no reason it should be referring to Jacob and Elya.’
The mayor glanced at the sheriff who took his cue.
‘We’ve done some investigating,’ he informed Aulf and Ingar. ‘These two claim that they travelled for twenty days across the great Ice Plain.’
‘Using lodestones like the one out there,’ put in Aulf swiftly.
The sheriff acknowledged the point with a nod. ‘Nonetheless, they arrived together, from afar, as the prophecy says. My men were very clear about the descriptions of these two young people. The boy has hair as pale as the ice itself, and his sister as dark as the night.’
He looked to Aulf and Ingar for confirmation. Neither of them said anything, but their faces spoke for them. The sheriff nodded. ‘So I thought. Night follows day. And they are twins, aren’t they? Born of the same? How much more precise do we need the description to be?’
‘It doesn’t mean it’s them,’ Aulf insisted. ‘That could all be coincidence.’
The mayor shrugged. ‘You’re right, Aulf, it could be coincidence. To be honest, I don’t have a lot of time myself for all this talk of magic and prophecies and other superstitious gobbledygook, but we can’t deny that it certainly has caused a lot of trouble on Quayven.’
Aulf looked worried. ‘What trouble? What’s happened? Everything was fine when we left six days ago. Jacob and Elya were working with Gabriel to build the light towers, and Mayor Sleetfoot was very happy with the whole idea. Has something gone wrong?’
The sheriff shrugged. ‘I don’t know. All I can tell you is how things were when my men got there. The people of Quayven were up in arms about the prophecy. They all want to get rid of the dark sorceress before she brings doom on the island. When my men arrived, the townsfolk were laying siege to the town hall to find out where she was so they could get hold of her and deal with her.’
Aulf and Ingar had both paled. Ingar sat down on the edge of the bunk, next to Aulf.
‘Where was Elya? Was she all right?’
‘That I can’t tell you,’ said the sheriff. ‘My men were there to find out specifically about that contraption on your deck, and your dealings with these two strangers. When they left, the town was still in a state of high dudgeon.’
Aulf looked distracted. He turned to the mayor. ‘So now you know what the lodestone does, can we leave and get back to Quayven? If Jacob and Elya are in trouble, we need to help them.’
The mayor looked at him with a faint trace of puzzled amusement. ‘It sounds to me that they are trouble and you would be better steering well clear of them.’
‘They’re friends. They don’t know anyone else on these islands, and they may need our help.’
The mayor regarded him thoughtfully.
‘I’d be interested to meet these twins,’ she decided, and the sheriff raised his eyebrows.
Aulf looked wary. ‘I thought you just said they were trouble and we’d be better steering well clear of them.’
‘Maybe,’ said the mayor, with a wry smile. ‘But from what I hear, they seem to have done a grand job of upsetting that pompous old fraud, Gabriel, and anyone who can achieve that must be worth an acquaintance.’
Aulf was almost certain he caught a hint of mischief in the mayor�
��s button eyes. It softened the square lines of her face and, for a brief moment, she looked almost friendly.
‘You’re free to sail back to Quayven,’ she told Aulf. ‘And when you find those two young wizards, bring them over here to meet me.’
The sheriff looked aghast. ‘Is that wise, Mayor? After all the trouble they’ve caused on Quayven?’
‘Possibly not,’ returned the Mayor, ‘but I should still like to meet them, even it has to be here, in this harbour, in this cabin.’
* * *
‘I think that mayor was probably all right, after all,’ said Ingar, as she and Aulf watched Orking Do shrink away into the distance, the Aurora at last sliding effortlessly across the frozen wasteland towards Quayven. The sun was high in the sky, and they still had two days’ sailing before they could find out what had happened to Elya and Jacob, but the relief of being on the move again temporarily lifted their spirits.
Aulf looked amused. ‘I never thought I’d see the day when Ingar the Orphan approved of a mayor. You’ll be telling me next that you and the sheriff are having tea together.’
Ingar pulled a face at him, but secretly she was relieved to hear him teasing her again.
Chapter 17
Gabriel stared impatiently at the sheet of parchment in his hand and, for the umpteenth time that day, cursed Jacob silently. The cold breeze off the ice flapped unpleasantly at the hood of his heavy black cloak, trying to tug the parchment from his hand, and his long grey beard was as ruffled as his temper.
Standing, exposed to the dazzling sun and the freezing wind, on the top of Mount Quayven, Gabriel’s sour expression reflected his mood. Nearby, the builders eyed him apprehensively, the foreman particularly, as it was his task to confer with the ill-humoured wizard on the details of the tower they had been hired to build. All around them were stacked the materials they were going to need: huge piles of quarried stone, neatly sawn lengths of wood, sacks of lime and sand. Everything was ready to begin; all they needed were the final calculations from Gabriel.
It wasn’t the boy who had caused the trouble, thought Gabriel, crossly. It was that girl, silent in the background, but all the time listening and scheming. If he’d had only the boy to deal with, the foundations of the first tower would have been dug by now and he, Gabriel, would have been sitting snugly in his warm apartment. That was how it should have been!
Elya had undermined his plans from the outset, with her quiet doubts and suspicions. Initially, Gabriel had been confident that Jacob’s enthusiasm and excitement would override his sister’s annoying misgivings. The boy had shown such promise and initiative, embracing his new found role of wizard, and demonstrating a natural flair for exploiting its potential. For a fleeting moment, Gabriel had glimpsed himself at the same age, and had sensed instinctively what a formidable team he and Jacob might make.
And then the wretched girl had interfered, calling his motives into question. Even then, Gabriel had felt sure he could hold onto Jacob, such was the strength of the boy’s passion for this project. When brother and sister fell out over their differences of opinion, Gabriel had seized the opportunity to prompt the people of Quayven about the prophecy, with every intention of discrediting Elya and leaving Jacob free to fulfil his dream, without the millstone of his sulky sister around his neck.
But the plan had gone horribly wrong. Firstly, he had not reckoned with the strength of loyalty between brother and sister, and secondly, he had not anticipated the unprecedented level of hysteria that would result from an ancient prophecy. Panic rippled through the town like a grumble from the Vajra. Wide-eyed people gathered on street corners to mumble fearfully together, and then the little gatherings joined forces and became frightened crowds, and the frightened crowds spilled over into the main street and became a protesting mob. And the protesting mob marched on the town hall. In fact, thought Gabriel to himself, shuddering inwardly at the memory, if it hadn’t been for his exemplary diplomatic skills, a full-scale riot would undoubtedly have ensued.
And now, here he was, left alone to pick up the pieces. Jacob and Elya had mysteriously disappeared, and, worst of all, Jacob had taken the one and only finished set of plans with him. With the materials purchased and the builders already on site, Gabriel was faced with an embarrassing choice: call off the project, or come up with a new set of plans from memory. Gabriel was acutely aware that his credibility was wearing thin. His reputation as a great wizard had been built upon predicting the movements of the Vajra, but with the crevasse frustratingly silent for so many years, he could not risk losing face over the wizard towers as well. The wizard towers simply had to succeed, and Gabriel was determined that the success would be his, and that the people of Hexult would once again speak his name with awe.
But he was not an engineer, and while the builders were quick enough to point out the flaws in Gabriel’s designs, they were less than eager to come up with solutions, and none of them had ever built a tower this high, on top of a small mountain, without all the added complications of angled mirrors and special shutters.
It was no use. He could not concentrate out here on this freezing hilltop, with his feet slowly losing feeling and the wind biting at his face. With an exasperated grunt, he rolled up the plans and gestured to the foreman.
‘We’re not going to start building today,’ he announced shortly. ‘Be back here first thing tomorrow and I’ll have the changes made by then.’
He turned his back on the man and was about to stump off down the mountain to his warm apartment, when the foreman intercepted him.
‘Er...Gabriel, sir, the men will still be paid, won’t they?’
Gabriel gave him a dark look, but the man stood firm.
‘Yes,’ snapped the exasperated wizard, pushing him out of the way. ‘You will still get paid.’
Chapter 18
‘I’ll stay here and mind the boat. You go and see what you can find out,’ suggested Ingar, as Aulf tied up the Aurora in her usual berth in Quayven harbour. Aulf, wasting no time, set off along the quayside towards the town. As he neared the harbour marshal’s office, a familiar bearded figure came out through the door and onto the quay. Aulf stopped in his tracks realising who the man was, and made to turn back the way he had come, but he was too late. Proctor had spotted him.
‘So you’re back,’ called out the sheriff.
Resigned now to a conversation with one of the people he liked least on Quayven, Aulf gave a brief nod in the sheriff’s direction.
‘Had some people asking questions about you,’ Proctor told him. ‘Have you been in some sort of trouble on Orking Do?’
Aulf pursed his lips. ‘No.’
Proctor eyed him up and down, his distaste evident in his eyes. ‘That’s more than can be said for your two young wizard friends.’
‘I presume you mean Elya and Jacob,’ returned Aulf, keeping his voice expressionless. ‘Where are they now?’
‘I was just about to ask you that,’ said the sheriff.
Aulf’s eyes narrowed. ‘I’ve been away for the last eight days. How would I know? When we left for Orking Do, they were all set to start building towers with Gabriel. Doesn’t he know where they are?’
‘We’ve searched their house. All their belongings are gone. The two young villains double-crossed Gabriel and vanished.’
Aulf raised his eyebrows. ‘Really? And what exactly have they done wrong?’
Proctor’s lip lifted in a sneer. ‘That girl’s a threat to the safety of this island. Not to mention the mayhem she’s caused in the town.’ With a malevolent glint in his eye, he added, ‘And you’re sure you know nothing about this?’
‘I told you, how could I? I’ve only just this moment arrived back on Quayven.’
Proctor, scowling, fixed Aulf with a hard stare. ‘Well, should you hear anything - now you’re back - make sure I’m the first person you tell. Understand?’
Aulf met his gaze without flinching. ‘I wouldn’t dream of anything else.’
As Procto
r marched away towards the town, Aulf found Ingar standing at his shoulder. She had sprinted along the quayside to find out what Proctor had to say.
‘What was that about? Does he know where they are?’
Aulf gave a little sigh. ‘Well, there’s one good thing,’ he told her, ‘Elya and Jacob aren’t in his cells. By all accounts, they’ve vanished. Maybe they’re hiding somewhere. Go on back to the boat and I’ll make some discreet enquiries around the town.’
As afternoon turned into evening, Aulf found himself facing a dead end. There were plenty of people happy to recount the drama outside the town hall five days before, and everyone he met had an opinion about the two young wizards from beyond the ice plain, even those who had never seen them in the flesh.
‘Shame about the fair one,’ said the balding landlord of the Drover’s Rest, echoing a sentiment Aulf had heard expressed many times already that afternoon. ‘He would have been good for this island. He was going to build magic towers here, you know, and he knew spells that would have made Quayven richer than Orking Do! A proper wizard, he was. But that sister of his, the dark shadow, we won’t miss her.’ He shook his head and shuddered. ‘She would have brought us all down.’ He brightened up again. ‘Still, the old wizard, Gabriel, he’s going to build the magic towers instead.’
‘You don’t reckon it’s Gabriel who’s done away with them, do you?’ suggested a young, blond man at the bar who had been listening into the conversation. ‘Out of jealousy or something. He’s always been a dark horse, that one. I wouldn’t put it past him.’
‘No,’ put in an old bearded fellow on the other side of Aulf. ‘There’s good magic and there’s bad magic, and Gabriel’s always been good. When I was a child, he saved us countless times when the Vajra threatened to swallow this island. It’s more likely that the dark wizard has done away with the fair one. After all, the prophecy says that death follows her around. And if that’s happened, well then, we’re all lost, aren’t we?’