by Philip Reeve
“Where is Ninnis?” asked Breenge.
“And where is the Elvenhorn?” asked Zeewa.
“It’s here,” said Skarper, holding up the soggy baldric – and realized that it wasn’t. The baldric hung empty; de-horned. He looked at Grumpling, but Grumpling looked just as mystified as he did. Well, mystified at first, then very angry.
“Is you tellin me you lost my scratchbackler AGAIN?”
“There she is!” shouted Spurtle.
He was pointing upwards. There, on one of the stairways which spiralled around the flanks of Elvensea like the tendrils of some lovely climbing plant, a tiny shape was toiling upwards. It was Ninnis, her travelling cloak fluttering about her like black wings. When they called her name she looked down at them, but she did not stop climbing.
“Where is she going?” asked Prince Rhind. “It’s nearly lunchtime, too!”
“She has more important things on her mind than your lunch, Prince Rhind,” said Henwyn. “I believe you have nurtured a viper in your bosom.”
“I haven’t got a bosom,” said Rhind, who was sensitive about his figure.
“It’s just an expression,” Skarper explained. “It’s the sort of thing you say to people who bring a sorceress along on quests with them instead of a cook.”
“Ninnis isn’t a sorceress!” said Breenge. “Is she?”
“Think about it,” said Henwyn. “That storm and those serpents. The way Rhind knew that we were following you. Ever since we left Clovenstone I’ve had the feeling that some fell magic was being used against us. Only I told myself it couldn’t be, because the nearest thing Prince Rhind had to a sorcerer was that numbskull Prawl.”
“There there, Fuzzy-Nose,” said Breenge to her rabbit, which was wriggling furiously in her arms.
“But why would a sorceress pretend to be a cook?” asked Rhind.
“Maybe because she wanted to go where you were going,” said Skarper. “Maybe because she knew something about Elvensea and wanted to get its secrets for herself.”
“Oh, this is flapdoodle!” blustered Rhind. “Ninnis makes sauces, not sorceries! Stews, not spells! Meringues, not magic!”
“Then why is she climbing off up there alone with the Elvenhorn?” asked Zeewa. “She must be looking for… Oh, I don’t know. The citadel or the keep or the great hall or the throne room, or wherever the heart of this place used to be. And when she finds it she will sound the horn a third time…”
“And wake the sleeper,” said Henwyn.
“Who’s the sleeper?” asked Skarper.
“I don’t know. Something Ninnis said. ‘One blast to part the water, one to raise the drownéd land, one to wake the sleeper there.’”
“Some blimmin’ old elf, I expect,” said Spurtle. “Probably be even more trouble than blimmin’ dwarves.”
“But that is wonderful!” said Breenge. “I mean – isn’t it? The elves were kindly folk, and, if one still sleeps here, he will be grateful to us for rousing him.”
“It’s not us he’ll be grateful to,” said Henwyn. “It’s Ninnis.”
They thought about that while, from the turrets and buttresses which overhung the stranded ship, statues of the elves gazed down on them. They did not look kindly. There was a coldness in those stern and handsome faces of stone, as if the sculptor who carved them had captured something of his sitters’ hearts along with their features, and their hearts had not been kindly hearts at all.
“We must stop her,” said Skarper.
“Anchovies!” said Gutgust firmly, and although nobody knew what he meant, as usual, he seemed to speak for all of them. They took their swords and axes, Zeewa her spear and Breenge her bow, and swarmed to the ship’s sides, dropping down into the streets of Elvensea.
Giants are like foals at first. They wobble on their long new legs like trainee stiltwalkers, teetering and stumbling. That was one reason why Fraddon had decided to take Bryn home. There was so much that the new giant didn’t know. Safe within the Outer Wall, he would have a chance to practise things like walking, and there would be no danger of him sitting down on someone’s house, or trampling their fields. People hated it when giants did that, and Fraddon still remembered the villages he had accidentally flattened when he was new, and the angry mobs which had chased him with pitchforks and burning torches – quite harmless to a giant, but awfully embarrassing. He did not want young Bryn to make the same mistakes. And so he led him back across the hills to Clovenstone.
The people of Oethford and Stag Headed Oak, who had spilled from their cottages to watch the giants go by, scattered in panic as Bryn veered towards them, throwing out his arms for balance, coming within a whisker of stomping their villages flat. But Fraddon guided him safely past, and by the time they reached Westerly Gate, Bryn was learning how to steer that towering body of his. Most of the soil and stones had fallen off him along the way, and the massive footprints he had made in the marshy meadows by the Oeth filled quickly with water, and became the best duck-hunting country in the Westlands.
Fraddon planted the mantrap tree in a shady place he knew among the ruins, and found some clothes for Bryn. They were old clothes of his own, much patched and rather mildewed, which he had set aside when he grew too small for them. Bryn was almost too big, but he squeezed into the patchwork breeches, and thought he looked splendid.
Then Fraddon set about teaching his new friend the ways of the world. Don’t pick people up to get a closer look at them, Bryn; they don’t like it. And that thing where you lift the roofs of their houses like lids? They really hate that! And do watch where you’re putting your feet…
There were a few disasters, which was only to be expected, with someone as new and tall as Bryn about the place. He meant well, but he was clumsy. Quite a few of the old ruins of Clovenstone were knocked down once and for all as he blundered enthusiastically about the place. The boglins who lived in the marshes were horrified when he reached down into the mere beside their king’s hall and pulled out the Meargh Dowr, the slimy dampdrake that they worshipped. It curled around Bryn’s forearm like a snake and breathed its wet breath in his face and made him sneeze, while the boglins did fierce war dances around his feet and pincushioned his toes with spears and blowpipe darts which he didn’t even notice.
Patiently, Fraddon persuaded him to put the Meargh Dowr back. He had forgotten what a handful young giants could be. But he was enjoying having Bryn there, all the same. It did him good to see that huge, inquisitive figure peering into the windows of Clovenstone’s towers, or lying down to get a proper look into the shadows under the trees. He had been like that himself once, full of wonder at the wonders of the world. But he had grown used to them; he had stopped thinking of them as wonders and started to take them for granted. Having Bryn beside him made him see them all afresh and wonderful again.
The goblins were uneasy, of course. It wasn’t that they didn’t like Bryn, just that – well – he was so big. They had based their idea of giants on Fraddon, who was not much taller than a really tall tree. Bryn was as tall as a small mountain, and they were worried he would step on them. Also, there had been an unfortunate incident a few days after he arrived, when he opened the cheesery like a lunch box and ate all of the latest batch of Clovenstone Blue.
As for Fentongoose and Dr Prong, it was a wonder that they could concentrate on their studies at all with all the giant-wrangling going on. It was unnerving to be sitting reading in a tall tower, on top of a high crag, and suddenly look up to find that a colossal eye was peering in at you. But somehow they managed to keep working, and whole gangs of goblins were kept busy in the bumwipe heaps, searching for any scroll or document which might shed light on the mysterious history of Elvensea.
“It is almost,” said Dr Prong, “as if someone has deliberately removed all papers which contained a reference to the drowned land.”
On the morning that the travellers r
eached the whirlpool and Elvensea rose from the deeps, Fentongoose was working alone. Dr Prong had stayed with him until long after midnight, then given up and gone off to bed, but Fentongoose had kept going. He had strained his old eyes by candlelight to read the broken-spider alphabet of the old chroniclers until the candle was replaced by something brighter and he looked up to find that the sun had risen.
“Well bless my beard,” he muttered. “Is that the time?”
He closed his weary eyes for a moment, then opened them again and looked at all the scraps of ancient parchment scattered on his table, and at the slate book which was acting as a paperweight – and that was when it hit him.
“Prong?” he said, forgetting that Dr Prong had gone to bed.
“Prong!”
He ran out of the library, up the winding stairways, out along the battlements of the Inner Wall. “Dr Prong?”
Dr Prong’s room was next to Henwyn’s, in one of the cabins of Princess Ned’s old ship, which was balanced on the top of Blackspike Tower. A porthole opened and Prong’s grumpy, nightcap-crowned head poked out. “Well, Fentongoose, what is it?”
“That word, Prong! The one we couldn’t translate? The one we thought meant ‘cushion’?”
“Yes, what of it?”
“It doesn’t mean cushion!”
“Well, we both know that, but—”
“It was carved quite unusually, that word, by whoever scratched the tale of Elvensea’s fall on that old slate. The downstrokes were too shallow, and the accents were in the wrong place.”
“So… ?”
“So we thought those two runes were ‘soft’ and ‘chair’, adding up to ‘cushion’. But we were wrong! The rune that we thought meant ‘soft’ actually means ‘fire’. And the one that we thought meant ‘seating accessory’ actually means ‘lizard’.”
“Fire lizard?” asked Dr Prong. “Well, what on earth is ‘fire lizard’ supposed to mean? I have never heard of a ‘fire lizard’. Unless it means…”
“Exactly!”
“Oh no!”
“Precisely!”
“Oh, oh, oh… Bless my beard!” said Dr Prong. (And Dr Prong did not even have a beard, which gives you some idea of how worked up he was.) “Oh, Fentongoose! You really mean it? Dragons?”
“Dragons!” shouted Grumpling, before they had gone more than a few paces from the tower where the Sea Cucumber had come to rest. He snatched his axe down from his shoulder, and the others scattered in panic. But when the panic faded they could see no dragons, just an ornate sculpture on a pedestal: two dragons with their wings spread wide, carved from the same pale stone as the buildings around them.
“Grumpling,” said Henwyn, “that’s a statue.”
“What’s a statchoo then?” asked Grumpling, creeping towards the pedestal with axe raised, never taking his eyes off the stone reptiles. “Is it a sort of dragon?”
Henwyn shook his head. How could you explain the difference between statues and real things to someone who was still a bit vague about the difference between drawings and real things?
“They aren’t real,” said Zeewa helpfully. “They’re made from stone.”
“Like trolls?”
“No, like ornaments. Decorations.”
“That one’s watching me.”
“No, it’s just carved to look as if it’s watching you.”
“Well, I’ll wipe the smirk off its face!” shouted Grumpling. Agile as a monkey he somersaulted up on to the pedestal and smashed both dragons to pieces with a few blows from the iron-shod haft of his axe.
“There!” he said. “They won’t be breathing fire on us an’ stuff.”
“Right,” said Prince Rhind. “Now that your pet gorilla has made that statue safe, we should press on. Ninnis must be right at the top of the island by now.”
Henwyn nodded. “But someone should stay here to guard the ship. Just because Grumpling’s dragons were stone doesn’t mean there won’t be dangers here.” He turned to Captain Kestle and Woon Gumpus. “Captains, will you wait here for us?”
“Oh, gladly!” said Woon Gumpus, who did not like these haunted, weed-strewn streets at all.
“A good plan,” agreed Kestle. “We’ll stay near the ship, and pick you up should this strange old place decide to slide back down beneath the waves. And while we wait, perhaps we’ll think of a way to get the old ship down again if the waters don’t rise, eh, Gumpus?”
“Oh, oh, ah, yes!” said Woon Gumpus, rather startled to find that Captain Kestle thought he was the sort of person who could solve problems like that. “Perhaps we could find ropes and blocks and tackles and things like that in these old buildings.”
“A splendid idea, Cap’n Gumpus!”
“Oh, was it? Good!”
So the two sea captains turned back, and the rest of the company moved on, up the streets which curled around the flanks of the tall island. The only sounds were the trickling water and the crisp noises of the seaweed as it dried in the sun. Also, Grumpling’s cries of “Dragon!” and the crashings and clatterings as he hammered another statue to pieces. But soon even he had to accept that these stone dragons were no threat to him. Even if they had been, he could not have smashed them all.
For they were everywhere. Carved above doorways and flying along the pediments of the lovely old buildings were dragons. Twining up the carved stone banisters of the elegant stairways, dragons. Crouching on pedestals, spreading their bat wings to shade the squares beneath them, stone dragons.
“These old elves really had a thing for dragons,” Skarper said nervously.
“Maybe it was a sort of collection that got out of hand,” said Henwyn. “My auntie Gratna mentioned once that she liked badgers, so her husband gave her a carving of a badger next time her birthday came around, and then other people started giving her badgers too, wooden badgers, stone badgers, knitted badgers, sewn badgers, every birthday and every midwinter. She’s got nearly two hundred now. They’re a proper chore to dust, and she never really liked badgers that much to start with.”
“Who does?” panted Spurtle, climbing after him up Elvensea’s steep streets. “Horrible black-and-white bandits. They’s the ones that nick all your shiny stuff and fly away with it to line their nests.”
“That’s magpies, not badgers,” said Flegg.
“Magpies, badgers, they’re all in league together,” said Spurtle darkly.
“Anchovies,” said Gutgust, wisely.
“Well,” said Zeewa, “at least there aren’t any elves around.”
Far below them, the lower levels of Elvensea reeked and crackled with drying weed. There was weed here on the heights as well, festooning the outer walls and stairways. But as they climbed higher, they reached streets and buildings which must have been protected by powerful magic when the island sank. There were no barnacles on these walls, only wonderful tapestries, which did not even seem wet, and painted scenes of wide landscapes through which elves strode or rode. There was beautiful furniture in the wide rooms, fine carpets upon the floors, and tables laid as if for elven banquets. But there were no actual elves. Skarper had half expected to find them sprawled about asleep on the fine tiled floors or plump, claw-footed furniture, but of course they had gone, slain by the Lych Lord, or fled away upon their ships into the west.
“Grumpling?” shouted Henwyn. “Oh, where’s he gone?”
They looked for the big goblin, but could not find him, although when they shouted his name his voice could be heard, replying tetchily, “I’m over ’ere!” Elvensea was a maze, far more complicated than Clovenstone. Henwyn felt sure there was some pattern to the way the curving streets and ramps and stairways interwove, and he felt that if he could spend about six weeks mapping and exploring there was a chance he might work out what it was. But they didn’t have six weeks, or even six minutes; they had to find Ninnis.
Soon after that, they found that they had lost Flegg too. But nobody really minded getting separated from Flegg, while Grumpling, with his shining axe, seemed like just the sort of person you needed to have with you when you were exploring mysterious magical islands.
It was no use, though. “Grumpling, if you can hear me, work your way back to the ship!” shouted Skarper. “We’ll meet you there!” Then they hurried on: him and Henwyn, Rhind and Breenge, Zeewa and Spurtle and Gutgust, higher and higher.
They passed signs of war and destruction – charred buildings, and places where walls had collapsed across the streets. And everywhere were those carven dragons, every scale and prong of their fierce bodies perfectly shaped by the elven stonemasons.
“Were there really such creatures once?” asked Breenge, as they started up a stairway walled by the long, curving tail of a particularly huge dragon. Unlike the pale dragons below, this one was black, carved from some dark and shining stone.
“Oh yes,” said Henwyn. “The Lych Lord kept a few at Clovenstone. They could fly over a battlefield and breathe down fire upon his enemies.”
“They all died as he lost his power, though,” said Skarper. “Good riddance, too. Nasty, dangerous things.”
The black tail broadened, and met a black body shaded by the dragon’s folded wings. They were approaching the top of Elvensea. Above them a wide doorway let into a building with a shining golden dome. The black dragon’s long neck bordered the stairway; its vast face, carved in a crocodilian smirk, rested on the pavement outside the building.
As the companions hurried up the stairs, they could hear voices above them. One voice in particular.
“Give me back my scratchbackler!” it said.
“It’s Grumpling!” said Henwyn. “He’s beaten us to the top! He must have found a quicker way up.”
“Well, I wish he’d told us about it,” panted Skarper.
They ran up the final few steps and pushed open the huge golden doors of the domed building. It was dark inside, a darkness woven with sunbeams which slanted through small high windows far above. They stood blinking in the doorway, and as their eyes adjusted they saw before them a forest of slender pillars. In the centre of the hall a circular pool had been sunk into the floor. There was something in the pool that was not water, shining with pale light beneath a layer of mist. But the most noticeable feature of the place was Grumpling. He looked bigger and grimier and spikier than ever, there among the delicate pillars. He had his axe in his paws, and he was brandishing it at Ninnis, who stood with her back to one of the pillars, the Elvenhorn clasped in her hands.