A Vanishing of Griffins
Page 26
Long before darkness fell, everyone had moved from the meadow into the promised safety of the sycamores, and the glades within. Cramber and Wintel still slept, nursed by the Curative Sleep. Patch and Tobias shared the duties on that.
Fires were lit, but the night was mild.
Patch sat by one of the fires, alone; Barver was spending time talking with his father in his cave. Alia came and sat with him.
“Will you be able to remove the collar from Barver’s father?” he asked.
“Underath managed it for Alkeran, somehow,” she said. “So it must be possible.”
“And will you be able to free us?”
She said nothing for a few seconds. “It took the pure obsidiac of the Black Knight’s armour to break through the magic that guards this place, Patch. The Leap Device used it all up to bring us here.”
“That sounds like the kind of challenge Wren would have relished,” he said, and that, at least, won a smile.
“Here,” said Alia. “I forgot I had this. It was how I found you in Skamos.”
She placed the cross-eyed owl in Patch’s hand. For a while, he simply held it, unable to speak.
He sat in the warmth from the fire, thinking of Barver and his father, and of his own grandparents. He thought of Erner and Rundel, who would surely be nearing Tiviscan by now.
Most of all, he held tightly to the cross-eyed owl and thought of Wren.
On returning from his father’s cave, Barver sat with him. Seeing what Patch was holding, he put his hands on Patch’s, then began to sing.
It was an old song, famous throughout the world. A song that was at once sad, and proud; mournful, yet a celebration. It was sung to remember those close to you, who had gone.
It was called “The Lament for Fallen Friends”.
Patch’s tears flowed freely as he joined in. Soon, the entire camp was singing for Wren.
As they sang, two horses rode on the Collosson Highway, fifty miles from Tiviscan Castle. On their backs sat Virtus Rundel Stone and his apprentice Erner Whitlock, heading to Tiviscan in the hope that the Pipers’ Council would help their friends in the Ortings, oblivious to the disaster that had already befallen them.
They were just as oblivious to the dangers that waited for them both in Tiviscan.
And in a forest deep within the Ortings sat a girl.
She was kept in the open, near the middle of the camp, her manacles fastened by a short chain to a stake hammered deep into the ground.
Four guards sat nearby, the corners of a square. The guards didn’t pay her much attention. All she ever did, it seemed, was sit. She took the scraps of food she was given, and ate them in silence; she took the water she was given, and drank it without fuss. And if the guards grew bored and shouted things at her to relieve the tedium, the girl would look forlorn, and allow the tears to come; the guards, finding some shame buried deep inside them, would stop.
And so, Wren could practise. The manacles robbed her of sorcery, that was true, but they didn’t seem to strip her of all magic.
The exercises she’d memorized were silent, so all she did was close her eyes and concentrate. For days, it seemed futile. Nothing happened, and she despaired, thinking that nothing would ever happen.
But then, one night, she gave herself a tail. It was just like the tail she’d had in Skamos, sitting at the table in the home of Barver’s aunt and uncle.
It was uncomfortable, of course, bunched up under her clothes, but it was there. She had taken her first real step. The tail disappeared a few minutes later.
Underath had warned her that perfecting this new skill would take time. A long time, perhaps.
Then again, she had nothing better to do.
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Huge thanks to my editors Anne Finnis and Sarah Stewart. When my son asked me what editors do, I told him to imagine making a meal, but you’ve not added any salt to your soup, or sugar to your cake, and you entirely forgot to put the oven on. Dinner would be hot murky water, raw chicken, and strange fluffy bread. Yet think how different it would be, if there was someone to point these things out to you! The meal wouldn’t just be improved, it’d be transformed. Editors are like that, but with words.
Thanks also to Rebecca Hill and the rest of the Usborne team – their unwavering support has got me through more than one difficult patch, and I’m indebted to you all.
My thanks too to George Ermos, for yet another wonderful cover. And to my agent Luigi Bonomi, who nudged me down the path of writing for children in the first place – I wasn’t sure I could do it, but now that I’m here, I never felt more at home.
Finally, my thanks go to my wife Laura, and to my kids. They occasionally get to see me when I emerge from my dark hideaway, as I mutter about mysterious things that they won’t get to read for months and months. I thank you for your patience, which has been sorely tested. I promise to be quicker in future!
First published in the UK in 2021 by Usborne Publishing Ltd., Usborne House, 83-85 Saffron Hill, London EC1N 8RT, England, usborne.com
Copyright © S.A. Patrick, 2021
Cover and inside illustrations by George Ermos
Title typography by Leo Nickolls
Illustrations and title typography copyright © Usborne Publishing Ltd., 2021
The right of S.A. Patrick to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988. The name Usborne and the Balloon logo are Trade Marks of Usborne Publishing Ltd.
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This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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