by Linda McNabb
“Maybe if I can fix the crown, it will fix the storm at the same time,” Zaine mused; looking from the crown Maata was holding and then back to the storm.
“Some of the runes are missing,” Maata pointed out as she examined the runes more closely.
“I think I can work out what they should be,” Zaine replied, as he took the crown from her and studied them closely. Maata watched silently until he looked up with a grin. “I’m sure I can do it.”
“Shouldn’t we check with Davyn first?” Maata suggested.
Zaine placed the crown on the dais and rubbed his hands on his cloak to remove a sudden film of sweat, then picked the crown up again.
“I know he will just tell me to forget about it for now. The others aren’t as concerned about the storm, but I think it needs fixing now,” Zaine said. Rain started to lash the window, as if confirming his concerns. “And I think this will fix it.”
Maata nodded slowly. Although she didn’t object, her expression said she wasn’t sure it was the right thing to do. Zaine took a deep breath and stood up, holding the crown out in front of him. He faced the raging storm and began to trace the runes on the inside of the crown with the tip of his smallest finger, speaking them loudly as he did so. A nagging voice inside his head told him that what he was doing was foolish, but he was determined to show everyone that he could mend things as well as destroy them.
The storm began to rage louder and closer as he spoke the runes, and he had to force himself to concentrate. Voices behind him made him falter slightly, but he carried on.
“Zaine!” Davyn’s voice showed he was shocked.
“What is he doing?” Trianna’s sharp voice demanded loudly. “Stop him!”
Zaine ignored his parents’ outburst and he closed his mind to everything but the runes before him.
CHAPTER THREE - STORM DRAGONS
As Zaine felt the power of the runes building as he spoke them, a ripple of doubt ran through him. It was far stronger than anything he had done before. He had just about completed the circle when he felt the crown ripped from his hands. He turned, expecting to see his mother, but the sight of Aldren, the old runeweaver he had freed only hours before, made him frown deeply in confusion.
“You cannot call on the storm dragons!” Aldren cried in terror. His face had been pale before, but now it was almost grey with concern.
“I was just trying to fix the crown,” Zaine defended himself a little desperately. He knew in his heart that it had been a foolish thing to try without knowing what it would really do.
“We have to get away from here,” Aldren said, glancing fearfully out the window at the storm, which was bigger and louder and much closer. “We only have a minute or two at most before they reach us.”
“Who?” Davyn asked, looking as confused as Zaine felt.
“The storm dragons.” Aldren’s voice was a monotone. “Only Guyan can call them, and so, unless you plan on spending a few hundred years as a runebook, I suggest we get out of here.”
Nobody had to be told twice. Zaine and Maata supported the old man as they hurried down the corridor.
“Where should we go?” Zaine asked.
“Out of the castle and as far away as we can get.” Aldren’s grave tone convinced Zaine that he had indeed made matters worse by casting the runes.
Davyn was shouting warnings as they went, but nobody seemed to be taking him seriously. The other weavers were huddled in different parts of the castle, trying to find a way to create a crown. Tercel looked up as Zaine threw open the doors to the room they were in, and frowned at the sight of the old man holding the damaged crown.
“Tercel, get everyone out!” Zaine urged the youth, from the doorway. “The storm is on the move. It will strike us all down.”
Tercel simply stared after them as they ran on, then turned to Calard and whispered something to him. Calard’s reaction was immediate and he hurried after them. He obviously did not intend to return to his former state as a runebook.
Behind them, the noise of the storm was almost deafening. The storm was inside the castle now, and Zaine could feel the wind being sucked down the corridor as they ran for their lives.
The storm caught up with them long before they reached the main doors at the front of Willow Castle. The storm’s howling made conversation impossible – it sounded like a cross between a whistling wind and the screech of an angry creature. They were tossed across the main hall and Zaine lost his grip on the old runeweaver. Maata screamed as she was slammed against the wall. Zaine squinted into the howling wind, trying to see if she was alright, but had to dodge a flying chair.
“Get out of here!” He heard a faint shout, but couldn’t tell who it was from. He wanted to hunt for the others and leave with them, but a sudden lightning strike just an inch away from him changed his mind. The storm had brought in the rain, and right now Zaine found it hard to believe he was inside a castle with walls and a roof. It was just like being back in the Circle of Dreams and he knew it was every person for themselves from now on.
A scream cut off suddenly by a lightning strike made Zaine shiver. Someone had fallen victim to the storm – a storm that he had brought into the castle. He tried to stand and run for the door that he knew was not far ahead, but the wind buffeted him back. Rain lashed at him with an intensity that hurt every inch of his body.
Slowly he dragged himself along the floor, dreading the lightning that he knew was building up to strike again. By the time he reached the door, it was wide open and he could see silhouettes of people running away down the hill in front of the castle. The storm did not appear to be following them, and Zaine stood up and staggered the last few steps to safety. He paused at the doorway to look back for Maata and the others, but a flash of lightning temporarily blinded him, and he stumbled backwards down the steps and fell heavily on the pebbled driveway.
He saw several people tumble out of the doorway as he lay trying to catch to catch his breath – but they all looked like shadows as his eyes battled the effects of the lightning. The storm raged on, and he lay there, tormented by more strangled screams.
Now all that could be heard was the storm, and no more survivors were coming out. Zaine slowly sat up and got to his feet. The huge double doors that led into the castle slammed shut in a gust of wind, and he stumbled away down the pebbled driveway, totally shocked by what had just happened.
Zaine tried desperately to tell himself that it wasn’t his fault. He wanted to find another reason for it that he could believe, but he knew in his heart that there wasn’t one.
He looked at the wet, shocked and dispirited group of weavers who were trudging down the pebbled drive, away from the castle. Only a handful had escaped the fury of the storm.
The frightened cries of those in the castle still rung in his head as he wiped wet hair from his face and walked slowly towards the people he could see up ahead. Now there would be dozens more runebooks scattered around the castle, and a few white pebbles that would be all that was left of those who had once been contenders for the crown.
Those who had survived the storm had stopped down by the novice hall. Zaine had stayed there for a night when he had first arrived at Willow Castle. It was where novice weavers were trained by the older masters. Nobody appeared pleased to see Zaine as he came closer. Even Davyn was shaking his head in disbelief at what Zaine had done. Among the rest he saw his mother, Calard and Tercel, and many of the castle servants – but there was no sign of Maata or the old runeweaver. He felt cold and began to shiver at the thought of what he had done to everyone at the castle. He followed the rest of the survivors inside the old building and joined them in the small foyer. The angry glances he received told him exactly how they all felt.
“I thought you would know better than to do something like that,” his father said with a deep sigh as he passed Zaine a towel.
“He was not content with destroying one world, now he wants to destroy this one as well,” Trianna snapped angrily.
“I was trying to help,” Zaine muttered, his head hanging in shame at what he had done. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t blame you for trying,” a soft voice said from just behind him.
Zaine turned to see Maata, bedraggled and limping, and carrying what was left of the dragon crown.
“I tried to look for you!” Zaine said, desperate to assure her that he hadn’t left the castle without trying to help her.
“I couldn’t reach the door, so I leapt from a window. A rose bush broke my fall.” Maata smiled wryly, and touched her scratched and bleeding cheek delicately. “Please, someone go help Aldren. He’s back there a short way. I managed to drag him out the window as well, but I think he may have hit his head on the way out.”
“We need to find out everything he knows about the storm,” Davyn said, looking back out the open door and up in the direction of the castle. Even though they couldn’t see it, they could hear the storm howling around the corridors. “Let’s hope he can tell us how to get rid of it.”
Several of the servants hurried off to find the old runeweaver. Zaine sank down against the cold stone wall and buried his head in his hands. He wished he could wind back time and not weave the runes on the crown.
Nobody spoke as they waited; everyone was exhausted. Zaine kept his gaze on the stone floor. He knew there was no point in saying how sorry he was again – nobody wanted to hear it.
Aldren was carried into novice hall and taken through to the sleeping quarters. The servants placed him gently on the first of the beds that lined both sides of the room and stepped back. Everyone crowded around the bed, leaving only a small gap for Zaine to see through. The old runeweaver had a cut on his head and he appeared to be having trouble staying conscious.
“What do you know about the storm?” Trianna demanded with her usual blunt approach.
“The storm dragons …” Aldren muttered and seemed to drift off to sleep for a few seconds. When he opened his eyes again, they were full of fear. “Who freed them from the circle?”
“I think I did,” Zaine said quietly. From the look on the old weaver’s face, it was clearly something else he should not have done.
“How can we stop the storm?” Davyn asked gently.
“You can’t,” Aldren said with a shake of his head. “Only Guyan can control the storm dragons, or maybe a timeweaver.”
“Where is this Guyan?” Trianna was annoyed that she wasn’t getting the answers she wanted. “I have never heard of anyone by that name. And what is a timeweaver?”
“Guyan lives out beyond Land’s End …” Aldren’s eyes glazed over as he remembered something from long ago.
“How long ago was that?” Davyn asked. “Will this Guyan still be there?”
“Guyan will never leave Land’s End,” Aldren assured them with a fading whisper. “The storm dragons will seek you all out. Now that they are free, they will never stop. They do not like weavers.”
“Can you tell us how to make a new crown?” Calard asked. “We must make one soon before our runes fail.”
“Why would your runes fail?” Aldren asked, looking confused.
“We cannot crown our new queen without a crown,” Trianna said shortly as if he should already know, but he just stared at her blankly. “I read it in a book in the castle library.”
“It says that if the successor isn’t crowned immediately, then the runes will not work,” Davyn explained.
Aldren looked at Davyn for a few seconds, and then the old man held his hand up to cover his face. It sounded as if he were coughing. Then they realised he was laughing. His blue eyes twinkled with humour.
“What’s so funny, old man?” There was an edge to Calard’s voice.
“The crown has nothing to do with your rune magic,” Aldren replied, wiping a tear from his eye. “It’s just a story made up by an old king to keep the crown in the royal family.”
“You’ve been stuck in that runebook too long,” Trianna said scathingly. She turned away from Aldren and faced the few weavers left. “We need to make a crown. Has anyone had any ideas yet?”
There was an uncomfortable silence as Trianna waited for a reply, but none came.
“Then we had better get thinking,” Trianna said in a commanding tone, but a slight wobble in her voice showed that she was getting worried.
The old runeweaver’s head sank back onto the pillow and his eyes flickered shut. They waited a few minutes, but the weaver’s breathing had slowed and it was obvious he was asleep.
“I think we should all get some sleep,” Davyn suggested. When Trianna glared at him, he shrugged. “What else can we do right now? We won’t be able to think of ideas to create a crown when we’re all exhausted.”
“The old man said the storm will follow us,” Trianna argued.
“Go and see if the storm has left the castle,” Davyn ordered one of the servants. The young man looked horrified, but bowed and hurried out the door. He was back a few minutes later, looking relieved.
“It is still inside Willow Castle,” he reported. “It still sounds pretty ferocious, but there’s no sign of it moving out.”
“We should set a watch to keep an eye on the storm, just in case, and the rest of us can get some sleep,” Davyn said and pointed at the rows of beds. “Night’s falling and we will need our strength tomorrow.”
“Zaine, you will take the first watch,” Trianna ordered, and it was clear nobody was going to argue with her. He knew that unleashing the storm had been his fault, and he turned and left the room without comment. Perhaps his mother had been right all along and he was a danger to everyone? His life reading hadn’t meant he would destroy the Circle of Dreams. It was his own world.
He walked slowly up the pebbled driveway, until he crested the small hill which blocked the view of Willow Castle. He could hear the raging storm well before he saw the castle, and he sank down onto the grass to stare at the castle on the hill. Time dragged heavily as he listened to the howling storm dragons.
“Boy!”
A hiss behind him startled him, and he sat up in the darkness, trying to figure out where it had come from. He realised he must have fallen asleep, as a quick glance at the stars confirmed that a good part of the night had passed. He shivered from the cold night breeze, and rubbed his arms to warm them as he stood up. His robe was still damp, but he would freeze without it.
The noise from the storm had died down to a gentle wind that whistled around the castle halls and was only just audible from this distance. He saw a man standing a short way down the hill, and it took only a few seconds to realise that it was Aldren. The runeweaver’s face was lit by the small candle that he held, and the flame flickered in the night breeze.
“Boy, help me up!” Aldren hissed in an urgent voice.
Zaine made his way the short distance down the hill to help the old weaver.
“The storm has gone quiet,” Zaine told the weaver as he got closer.
“No, no.” The old weaver shook his head violently. “They are just resting – and gathering their strength to strike again.”
“What can we do to stop them?” Zaine asked, as the old man struggled up the hill and stopped to stare at the castle.
“Fetch Guyan,” Aldren whispered. “There is not much time. Only Guyan has a hope of finding a way to stop them.”
“What’s going on?” Maata was making her way up the hill, wrapping her white cloak tightly around her to ward off the cold wind. “I was coming to relieve your watch.”
“Aldren wants us all to go and get his friend,” Zaine told her quietly.
“Not all of you,” Aldren corrected Zaine. “Just you.”
“Me?” Zaine questioned. “Why me?”
“You tried to call the storm dragons, and it was you who broke the circle,” the old weaver explained patiently.
“I know, I shouldn’t have done either,” Zaine apologised.
“That’s not what I meant,” Aldren replied. “You are very young to be so powerful.
”
Zaine just shrugged; he had no idea how to answer that.
“You also found a way to free the weavers from the books,” Aldren continued, as if they should understand what he meant.
“Zaine learns the runes very easily,” Maata said.
“That is why it is you who must go. Hopefully you will know enough to keep ahead of the storm long enough to reach Guyan,” the old man said thoughtfully.
“How can Guyan help us?” Zaine asked.
“Just return the crown and ask for help to control the storm dragons,” Aldren said simply.
“Return the crown?” Maata repeated.
“The crown belongs to Guyan,” Aldren explained. “Many years ago the king of that time came upon Guyan and took the crown. If you take the crown back, Guyan will listen.”
But the crown looked nothing like a crown any more. It was just a lump of melted gold – the true owner of it was bound to be upset at its fate.
“I will talk to Davyn tomorrow,” Zaine assured the old man.
“No, there is no time to wait for morning,” Aldren said quickly, and his expression grew anxious. “The storm dragons will have reached here by then. They will move quickly when they regain their strength, and you must be gone long before then.”
“I don’t know where Land’s End is.” Zaine did not mean to seem unhelpful, but he wouldn’t be any help if he ended up wandering around lost. He wasn’t keen on going off alone to find this person either.
“It’s East of here,” Maata told him. “I went there with my father to the Summer Castle a long time ago.”
“You are a royal?” the old weaver asked, looking at her dirty white cloak.
“My father was king,” Maata replied. “But we do not have a king or queen at present.”
“Then the two of you will go.” The old runeweaver spoke as if he had the authority to decide the matter. “Take horses and ride fast or the storm dragons will catch you. They will follow the crown – and Zaine.”