Fane walked up behind them. “Ready to go?”
Oxton nodded and gazed at the sky. “It’s a good time to travel. The river will be less treacherous this time of the morning.”
They hiked down a short hillside and across the mossy terrain. In less than a mile they came to a river shielded by a heavy mist. A stiff wind cleared the patchy fog and Angus spotted a number of uprooted trees with exposed roots like bleached bones sticking up along the river’s sandy bank. Hundreds of stubby toads with big jewel-like eyes and warty skin balanced on the branches. Their baritone croaking echoed across the cloudy waters and disappeared into the haze.
16
“Once, this was a beautiful river filled with enchantment,” Fane said, shaking his head sadly. “Then it became tarnished with all things wicked and grotesque. The river elves and the De Danaan abandoned it, and its beauty vanished with them.”
A fat toad leapt from a branch near Angus’ feet. Oxton stepped protectively in front of him. “Stay back. When threatened, they shoot poison from glands behind their eyes. Keep close and shout if you get sprayed. You’ll need treatment right away.”
Vanora chewed her bottom lip. “Are they deadly?”
Oxton shook his head. “No, but the poison causes an eruption of chin warts.” He rubbed his throat. “And it can do mysterious things to your vocal cords.”
Angus groaned. “I really don’t want to know the answer to this, but all right, I’ll bite. What does it do to your vocal cords?”
Fane raised an eyebrow. “I’m surprised you don’t already know. Anyhow, it causes a vibration in your windpipe that attracts flies. Really bothersome, especially at picnics. Makes you a most annoying guest.”
Vanora planted a hand on her hip and pointed at the toads with the other. “No way am I getting near those gross things.”
“Not to worry.” Oxton held out his spear in front of him. “I’ll scatter them.”
The giant strode ahead swinging his spear. In a croaking frenzy the amphibians sprang from their roost and into the dank waters. When the toads cleared, the travelers hiked to a ragged dock jutting into the fog-shrouded river. They carefully crept to the end while it swayed dangerously under their weight. The morning sun rose with a glaring red eye burning through the haze.
Out of the cobwebby mist, a large unmanned raft with tall wooden rails glided to the dock, bumped into the side of the rotten pier, and came to a halt. A bucket hung from the mossy railing. Painted across its rusty lid were the words, Pay The Fare Here. Oxton fumbled with a bag at his side, produced a coin, and slipped it into a slot at the center of the lid. The coin clanked to the bottom and the handrail swung open to allow the passengers to board.
As each person boarded the small craft, the wooden logs lashed together with thick vines sank slightly below the surface, allowing water to slosh over the deck.
Fane lowered his voice to a whisper. “Listen to me. Don’t scream if something touches you or you feel something near. The waters are haunted by the souls of great warriors who lost their lives on this river. It is also haunted by wicked spirits filled with hate for those who dare to trespass.” He peered through the misty fog. “We don’t want to alert them to our whereabouts. Understood?”
Angus nodded in agreement. The raft jerked beneath him. Powered by an unknown force, the small craft sailed through the waves. The aroma of decay filled the air. Hissing and whispering voices swirled around them. A chill snaked around Angus’ feet. Over the water’s surface the outline of two dancing figures floated past.
Vanora leaned carefully over the moldy railing watching the spectral figures waltz across the water and into the mist. “Who were they?” she asked.
Fane whispered. “The doomed lovers. You’ll see them from time to time. They’re harmless unless you come between them and then—”
Vanora interrupted. “How romantic, dancing through time for all eternity.”
“Romantic?” Angus said. “Are you nuts? What’s romantic about a place like this?”
Fane tugged the hood of his cloak over his head. “Cover up. Anytime you see the doomed lovers it means rain.” He cast his eyes upward as the sky started to weep. “The heavens shedding tears over broken hearts.”
Vanora slipped on her hood, while Angus welcomed the cooling drizzle. Droplets splashed into the gloomy waters and things large and deep flipped below the surface.
Fane took a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his damp brow. “First we pass through the floating market.”
Vanora peeled back her hood. “Cool, I love shopping. Do they take British currency?”
“No, my dear, there isn’t anything you should want. It’s where the dark and enchanted stock up on supplies. Not a place for the faint of heart, nor the innocent.”
Oxton pointed upriver. “It’s just around the bend.”
Up ahead, several dilapidated boats were fixed to the rocky shoreline on both sides of the river. Warton’s Apothecary Shop was painted on the side of the first boat. A bald hunchback, with a somber gray blanket swaddled around his shoulders, manned the vessel. Big wooden kegs stood on the deck and Vanora read aloud some of the names written on the sides, “Tasmanian tubeworm teeth, flesh-eating flies, belfry bat bladders, anteater appendix, and weasel wax.” Vanora slapped her hand over her mouth. “Gross!”
“Think that’s bad, look at those.” Angus pointed to a wooden plank holding dingy glass jars. “Elfin ears, lizard lungs, dung beetle brownies, and last but not least, frog fries.”
He squinted to read the last jar filled with small black globs. Fane cleared his throat. “Those are black hag hearts. They’re quite small and it’s hard to find donors since most hags don’t have any heart at all.”
Vanora shivered. “This place gives me the creeps. I can’t wait to get out of here.”
Angus couldn’t help but agree.
The raft floated past the apothecary shop to another boat, Rotten To The Core. A small sloop stocked with a variety of apples, teeming with flies. An old woman with a face like a shrew and a ratty shawl over her head stuck her wrinkled hand out. She balanced a bruised apple in her palm. “Razor-ridden Romes, half off today.”
A long pole stuck out of each barrel, advertising a different variety. Poisonous, Wormy, Maggot-ridden, Gut-wrenching and Teacher Slayer. The woman gave him a toothless grin. “Comes with free fruit flies,” she offered. “Don’t you like flies? Nice ripe, fluttery flies?” She ran a thick tongue around the toothless hole and slurped.
Angus shuddered as they drifted past and the woman scrunched up her face. “Cheapos!” she screeched.
Vanora’s face turned red. “How rude!”
The old bag threw an apple at them. It landed at Oxton’s feet and split apart. A fat worm with two spiky fangs wriggled out. It inched its way to the giant’s foot leaving a slimy slug trail behind and sank its teeth into the toe of his leather boot. Oxton raised his foot to smash it when it wriggled away and slithered into the water.
The hag cackled and Vanora cast her a withering glare. “The nerve of that nasty old bag.”
“Don’t make a scene,” Angus warned. “You’ll start a riot.”
Vanora stuck her nose in the air. “I suppose you’re right. But, I just hate bad service.”
The raft drifted between a rusty barge advertising cauldron sales and repair, and a single-masted cog selling spell books and toxic tokens. Wedged into the muddy bank a Spanish galleon lay shipwrecked. Weeds and cattails strangled the helm. A rotten wooden plank led to a decaying deck. An open sign swung back and forth in the breeze, dangling from a corroded hook.
Angus scrunched up his nose. “What do they sell in there? Influenza?”
“No, but something just as dreadful,” Fane said. “An assortment of second-hand weapons.”
A man dashed out onto the deck clad in a filthy waistcoat and top hat. He leaned over the side gripping onto the railing with fingerless grimy gloves. “We’ve got the finest collection of executioner hoods—s
tain proof!”
“No, thank you,” Fane answered politely.
Angus thought for a moment and tugged on Fane’s arm. “Maybe he has something we can use to battle Dragomir?”
Fane chuckled. “I’m afraid not, and you don’t want to go aboard. They give free demonstrations, quite gory—if you know what I mean.”
“Look.” Vanora pointed to the last ship. “A pen and quill shop. How interesting.”
The last vessel, a Victorian steamboat equipped with a paddle-wheel, drew near. Words shimmered in lavish letters across its leaded glass windows. The Ink Blotter. All Your Stationery Needs Sold Here.
“It would certainly be a nice shop,” Fane said. “If it weren’t for the lethal letter openers. And to be honest, I’ve never liked their parchment, lumpy and full of veins.”
“Yuk!” Vanora said, wrinkling her nose.
The raft floated onward, leaving the nasty market place behind. A heavy choking mist swirled in around them like a widow’s shawl.
Oxton raised his spear. His voice cracked. “It’s the white death!”
The fog swallowed up every sound in the river. The eerie unnatural silence, and the struggle for every breath he took, made Angus’ heartbeat turn into emergency pounding. His ears prickled with heat. Icy fingers tickled the back of his neck, then disappeared. Had Vanora touched him? She was swatting something on her head. The gold combs in her hair moved up and down. Angus opened his mouth to warn her when Oxton clamped a giant hand over his mouth.
“Hush boy,” the giant whispered into his ear. “They won’t harm you. It’s just lost and curious souls returning home from a night with the Seer.”
“Who?” Angus mumbled.
Before the giant answered, something broke through the smog. Dim yellow lantern light illuminated a weathered riverboat with a mossy sign dangling from the stern. Madam Varga’s Fortune Telling.
Oxton helped them onto a plank over the murky water to the riverboat’s deck. He glanced at Fane. “You go on. I’ll stay here and keep watch.”
Fane nodded in agreement. “Come along children, remain as silent as possible. Madam will surely know how we can journey downstream unharmed.”
Fane led them up the wobbly plank. Angus stared into the dark river below. Large bubbles gurgled and popped. He held tighter to the rotten ropes covered in slimy vegetation, and held his breath until he was safely aboard.
Uncoiling from the branches of a willow tree overhanging the ship, a black snake dropped onto the deck. Vanora clamped a hand over her mouth to keep from screaming. It made wide undulating sweeps across the ship and paused at the girl’s toes. “Excusssse me,” it hissed.
Vanora bit her lower lip and danced around the snake, almost stepping on it before leaping clear of it. The snake shook its triangular head. “Ssssilly human. How Carelesssss!”
It slithered into the water and disappeared in the shallows.
“That snake spoke to me. Did you hear it?”
Angus nodded. Somehow nothing surprised him anymore.
Fane shrugged. “Of course he spoke, wouldn’t be very polite of him if he didn’t, now would it? You’re lucky he was as polite as he was considering you almost squished him.”
Vanora stared, dumfounded.
Fane knocked on the boathouse door with the knobby head of his blackthorn stick. It creaked open and he ducked inside with Angus and Vanora at his heels. An old woman sat in a rocking chair dressed in a high-necked black dress, with a severe gray bun pinned at the nape of her neck and tinted black spectacles. Her hands moved back and forth, knitting. She ignored them as they drew closer.
Vanora latched onto Angus’ arm. Her voice quivered. “She’s knitting spider webs!”
Angus’ chest tightened. In the dusky light, tarantulas and hobo spiders weaved in and out of the delicate and intricate pattern. The web swallowed up the old woman’s feet and extended into the main body of the house. She rested the dreadful craft in her lap and pointed to a circular end-table in the center of the room.
“Don’t destroy the webs,” Fane whispered. “It’s bad luck.”
One hairy tarantula captured a smaller spider and ate it. Angus cringed. “Nice place, remind me to get the name of her decorator.”
They stepped around the old crone to the table. A tattered laced doily covered the dusty surface with a crystal ball balanced in the center. In front of the ball lay three old photographs, black and silvery and covered in dust.
As they approached the crystal ball began to glow, and then the image of a woman’s face came into focus. A violet scarf wrapped around her head and tied in a knot at the front, framed her square jaw. Her hypnotic eyes glittered into phosphorescent beams that melted into two luminous rings. “What is it that you seek of Madam Varga? Fame or Fortune?”
Fane stepped closer to the table. “Neither, Madam. It is information we seek.”
“Ask what you may, but be aware I do not shield the truth.”
A spider dropped from the ceiling and dangled in front of them. Fane waved it away with his stick. “We need protection to travel downriver, past areas cursed with dark spirits.”
“That I can provide,” she said, then set her gaze on Angus. Her eyes blazed. “Is this the son of the ancient king?”
Fane reached back and pulled Angus forward. “Yes, this is Angus MacBain.”
The head wobbled toward Angus. He wanted to, but didn’t, shy away. A grin broke onto the face.
“Very well,” she said. “I am pleased to see the end of Dragomir is possibly at hand. Only the boy can deliver the anti-venom that will heal the troubled waters. And you must make haste for the life of the boy’s mother is at stake. He must cast the rune stones.”
Angus gripped the sides of the dusty table. “My mother? Where is she?”
An image flashed within the ball: a woman with raven hair that hung in long ringlets framing her alabaster face and cinder colored eyes. She held out her arms in a loving gesture to Angus, then she disappeared into vapors. He longed to press him face against the ball, to see his mother again. It had happened so fast, but even so, the fleeting glance left him with a mixture of excitement and bitter sorrow.
Madam Varga’s face appeared again. “First he must cast the rune stones as I’ve asked.”
Vanora pointed to a box on the right side of the table. Angus grabbed it, and flipped open the lid to expose a circle of flat red rocks etched with long skinny symbols.
“Choose only four and toss them onto the table.”
Angus selected four, held them between sweaty palms and spilled them onto the table like dice. Madam Varga closed her eyes and then snapped them open. Her voice boomed louder and deeper than before. “You must meet with the Guardian of the Dead in the ancient burial grounds. He has the sword that matches your shield. They’ve been kept apart for a reason, as together they form Dragomir’s doom.”
Vanora frowned. “How so?”
“I can only tell you that he who bears the shield and sword wields great power. But great power demands great courage. Take the photographs spread before you—but take care not to use them until you are past the evils of this river, for they may not serve you as planned. On your way out, ask the web-weaver for the tincture.” The oracle narrowed her eyes. “The boy must add two drops of his own blood to the mixture as a sacrifice to the souls. Now hurry, for the hour of fate with Dragomir draws near.” Madam Varga’s face faded from the ball.
Angus swallowed hard, gathered up the photographs, and stuffed them into his pocket. They rushed to the woman in the rocker. Without a word, the old web-weaver reached out a crusty hand and dropped a bottle into Angus’ palm. He shuddered as her yellowed nails scraped across his flesh.
Oxton stood waiting in the raft, his eyes half-closed while he leaned against his massive spear. “Did she give you a tincture for protection?”
Angus nodded and held up the potion. The hard lines in Oxton’s face relaxed. The giant helped them into the raft. Soon they were on the way. Th
e raft steered on its own into the fog. Around the next twist in the river, the wind picked up speed, howling across the channel. A stabbing painful shriek caused Angus to drop the bottle so he could cover his throbbing ears.
Oxton snatched the vial before it hit the floor of the raft and tossed it back to Angus. The giant set hard eyes on Fane. “The dark spirits know we’re here and it angers them that we trespass. They’re bound to murder us for the crime.”
Fane unhooked a lantern from the railing and thrust it before him into the fog. Hundreds of angry skeletal faces glared back. Fane whirled and stared at Angus. “Do it now!”
Angus handed Vanora the bottle, reached into his backpack and pulled out the dagger given to him by Captain Lee.
Vanora grimaced. “Oh Angus, how can you stand to cut yourself?”
“I have to,” Angus snapped. “Now hold the bottle still.”
Vanora opened the vial, gritted her teeth and clamped her eyes shut while he drew the blade across the tip of his index finger. Angus held the wounded appendage over the bottle. Two thick droplets of blood dripped into the mixture. Vanora handed him the tincture. He leaned over the putrid water and poured the elixir in. The bloody liquid made a round, oily spot on the surface, remained there a moment, and then swirled into a whirlpool. The mist lifted from the water and everything turned still as death.
Oxton examined the dark waters. “It should be safe.”
Angus heaved a sigh of relief, but then noticed the frown creasing Fane’s brow.
“What’s the matter?” Angus asked.
Fane shook his head. “We’ll never make it to the mountains by nightfall.” He stared at Angus, his face troubled, then slowly his eyes lit up. He snapped his fingers. “How could I have forgotten? Quick Angus, give me the photos.”
“Photos?” Angus asked.
Angus MacBain and the Island of Sleeping Kings Page 14