by SJB Gilmour
Mannix shook his head. ‘I don’t know about the rest of you, but I make a point of avoiding beastmasters. They must have sent this one to try and tame The Golden Mane.’
‘Who was it?’ one of the Browns asked.
‘One of Marzdane’s cronies,’ Mannix supplied with another shrug. ‘Looks like it failed.’
‘Where is its head?’ one of the Black Coats asked.
Angus sniffed the floor and followed it to the point where Sarah had disappeared through her portal.
‘The trail of the Golden One, and that of the beastmaster’s head stops here.’
The werewolves then argued for several moments. Robert was so angry that he made little sense. Benjamin wanted to go in search for Melanie while the rest of the packs, most notably Mannix and Fergus, argued that they should find the werewolf first.
Finally, Roberta had had enough. She sat back on her haunches and howled at the top of her lungs for the raucous, snarling pack to quieten down. When they had all shut up, except for Robert who was still snarling angrily, she stood in the middle of the floor.
‘We’re not going to get anywhere like this,’ she told them all. ‘We can’t work as a loose group. This is not the way of wolves. We must be one Pack.’
Fergus snarled at Mannix. ‘No offence, Black Coat. You may be a First, but you’re new to that title. You’re not the boss of me.’
‘I didn’t get where I am by being spineless, old wolf,’ Mannix snarled. ‘What makes you think I want to take orders from you? You Browns don’t have the equipment to lead such a pack as this.’
Then one of the Black Coat females from Mannix’s Pack barked at them impatiently.
‘Perhaps The Golden One’s Second should lead us?’ she suggested in a very thick Scottish brogue. She looked from Aunt Roberta to Benjamin and then to Robert. ‘Which one of ye is it?’
‘I am,’ Benjamin growled. ‘What is your name?
The Black Coat she-wolf wagged her tail. ‘Sheila Freeman.’ She nodded at Mannix. ‘That feller’s mate.’
Robert had finally managed to calm down. ‘I thought you were dead,’ he whined.
Sheila grinned. ‘I’ve come close a few times,’ she admitted, ‘but no-one’s succeeded in killin’ the old girl yet.’ She nudged Mannix. ‘Well?’ she urged her First. ‘Will ye follow a Silver Shroud, matey?’
Mannix growled but said nothing.
‘I will if he will,’ Fergus offered.
Finally, Mannix nodded and wagged his tail. ‘Then I will follow your lead, cursed one,’ he vowed. ‘But, only so long as this new Pack is without the Golden Mane.’ He turned to face the rest of the gathered werewolves in the bloody mess on the floor. ‘After that, you can all do what you like.’
‘If we survive,’ one of the Browns added sourly.
As one, the rest of the gathered werewolves faced Benjamin.
Benjamin bared his teeth and paced back and forth for a moment then he stood and stared back at the gathered pack with hackles raised.
‘The Golden Mane is a werewolf,’ he admitted, ‘but she is invulnerable. The little witch is obviously wounded. We should find her first.’
This brought several unhappy snarls and growls from the wolves. Finally, Fergus padded to stand next to the Silver Shroud. ‘Well,’ he demanded. ‘Time’s a ticking.’
Mannix joined them to stand on the other side of Benjamin and the rest of the pack yipped and barked their agreement.
‘Now where do we go?’ he snarled.
Aunt Roberta had been sniffing at the pool of Melanie’s blood. Then she found the discarded field dressing pack that Jax’s soldiers had used. She pawed at it and whined.
‘What is this thing?’ she asked the group.
Sheila Freeman sniffed at it. ‘I recognise it,’ she told them. ‘I’m a healer. This is from a first aid pack.’
‘Okay, so someone is trying to take care of her,’ Benjamin remarked acidly. ‘That doesn’t help us much if we don’t know who.’
Sheila smiled. ‘Oh, we know who,’ she told him. ‘This kind of pack is only used by the goblins on Jilde.’
Benjamin growled. ‘It was goblins who attacked her. How do you know it wasn’t one of theirs?’
Sheila nudged the discarded packaging. ‘Look at the emblem,’ she told him. The pack turned over to reveal the Imperial Crest of the Mingus Consortium. ‘Guntex’s Guardslins were after her. If one of these has been used, then whoever used it and killed all these goblins are probably one and the same. I’ll wager the Imperial Guardslins came along and did this. If that’s right, then to find yer missing lass, ye’ll need to go to Jilde.’
Benjamin spun and began to create a portal.
‘Wait,’ Roberta urged him. ‘We’re too split up. We should re-unite and go together. We should go and get Angela and James.’
Benjamin paused mid-spell. ‘Very well, he growled. ‘We go to The Congo. Then we go to Jilde. Agreed?’
The various yips and barks all echoed his decision. Several other werewolves assumed their human forms. They rummaged through the counter until they found a pack of portal stones.
‘Save your strength, Second of Pack Kopernik,’ Mannix growled at Benjamin. ‘We use these… For now, that is.’
Benjamin let his half-spoken spell dissipate and went human. He nodded at Mannix.
‘For now,’ he agreed.
Moments later, a very large group of werewolves appeared in the steamy jungle to find James, Oliver and Angela all quite drunk.
Chapter Sixteen
In Cexil’s dungeon, Kate O’Brien and Devlin faced Moira Cromwell apprehensively. The three sorcerers, none of whom was in the least bit friendly towards one another already, were bracing themselves for a fight. Moira was still shaken from her defeat in the jungle and had worked herself into quite a temper.
Beastmaster Kate O’Brien stood poised, watching the others with an expression more like that of a seasoned warrior than sorceress. Devlin was more relaxed, and sneered at Moira Cromwell.
‘What are you doing back here, Cromwell? Going to try and blow us up too?’ he challenged. ‘You couldn’t even kill a puppy! How does it feel to know a child let you live?’
Moira hissed in fury at the insult.
O’Brien smiled coldly. Though she was beautiful, there was little prettiness in that smile.
‘At least she tried, Devlin,’ she said sarcastically. ‘Why don’t you give it a go and see how well you fare against a cub and a schoolgirl!’
Devlin snarled at O’Brien. ‘N’butu will fix her,’ he assured the witch. ‘He’s the strongest beastmaster you’ve ever seen. He’s even stronger than you! Now all we need to do is wait.’
‘I think not,’ O’Brien said, nodding at the portal that N’butu had left behind. Devlin and Moira Cromwell glanced at the open portal.
‘If he’s left it still open,’ O’Brien continued, ‘perhaps he’s not as strong as you thought.’
Moira focused on the shimmering portal and was about to close it when a very angry, and quite bloody, Golden Mane leaped through it.
The three stunned sorcerers gaped at Sarah as she landed on the floor.
Sarah shook N’butu’s head a few times, sending a spray of blood all over the room. Then she discarded the bloody head and advanced. She did not recognise Devlin or O’Brien, but she did remember Moira very well. She growled furiously and foam dripped from her fangs.
Kate O’Brien looked at Sarah curiously for a moment. Far from seeming threatened, she almost seemed glad to see her. Then she calmly stepped through a portal of her own and disappeared. Devlin was much more concerned. He fled through his portal in a state of panic. Moira went to follow suit but Sarah wasn’t about to let that happen.
As soon as Moira created her portal, Sarah barked, ‘Annullarikus!’
Her timing wasn’t quite good enough however. The cross-eyed witch was halfway into the portal when Sarah barked her command. Then the portal to wherever Moira was going exploded in a blast o
f pure energy and Moira was cut in half from the head, down through her neck and body to her waist. Her split corpse fell to the icy floor of Conundrum with a sickening squelch. The bulk of her innards spilled out onto the floor in a steaming pile of gore.
A noise from behind her startled Sarah and she whirled around with an angry growl.
‘Don’t hurt me!’ cried a piteous old voice. Sarah recognised that voice even though she had only heard it once before. There, huddled in the corner was the old slateback dragon Cexil.
Sarah growled at him. ‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded.
‘I was caretaker here, friend of Amixo!’ Cexil wailed. ‘I’ve been kept here as a prisoner! Please, I mean you no harm!’
‘Why don’t you leave?’ Sarah asked him, starting to relax a little.
Cexil nodded up at the ceiling. ‘I cannot,’ he replied, abashed. ‘Mautallius placed an enchantment over this place. I cannot leave!’ He peered at her, blinking.
Sarah probed the ceiling. There she found exactly the same sort of barrier that Mautallius had used to entomb Siouxanne.
‘I’ll let you out,’ she growled. ‘You better take cover!’
Cexil’s eyes went wide but he did as she told him and buried his head beneath his wings.
Sarah looked up at the enchantment. Now perhaps because she was so angry or so much stronger than she’d been the year before, but when she barked the annullarikus spell, she didn’t just break the enchantment, she blew the entire ceiling into atoms. The explosion was enormous. The walls and ceiling disappeared completely. Screams and cries of terrified sorcerers filled the air as a huge hole was blasted through six entire floors of The Nonagon. A great section of the roof collapsed, allowing sunshine to stream in through the dust and rubble.
‘What are you going to do now?’ Cexil asked her once the worst of the rubble had settled.
Sarah looked up. The rage within her continued to grow.
‘I’m going up that tower and I’m gonna destroy that thing once and for all,’ she growled, blood and foam flecking from her chops. ‘If I were you, I’d get out of here.’
With that, Sarah began running around the spiral pathway up the hundred storeys of the tower to Conundrum Gate. The sorcerers who saw her coming cried out in fright and made themselves very scarce. The goblin guardslins, weren’t so wise. Sarah had no idea how many she dismembered on her climb up, but by the time reached the top, there was not a single goblin left to try to stop her.
The door at the top was carved with all manner of intricate and complex runes. Sarah realised that it represented only one of the nine branches of sorcery, this one being fauna.
‘Password?’ the door asked the furious werewolf in a bored-sounding voice.
Sarah snarled at the door with absolute fury and swore at it.
There was a loud click. ‘Access denied,’ the door replied coldly.
Sarah didn’t bother to create a spell. She simply barked another obscenity at the door and fired a burst of rage-fuelled lightning at it. There was no doubt the door had withstood all manner of assaults before, but nothing of this magnitude. The explosion was horrendous. Most of the wood disintegrated into ashes and the brass studs and belts melted away. In a flash, all that remained of the door was its hinges, and they would never fold again.
Far down below, Cexil heard the explosion and looked up. The old dragon could not see much at with his bad eyesight, but he knew trouble when he heard it.
‘Oh my,’ he breathed. He cast one last look at what was left of his hoard and then took flight upwards.
Sarah leaped in a long arc out to land onto the centre of the ancient Conundrum Gate.
‘Right,’ she growled at The Gate. ‘You and I are going to have this out once and for all, key or no key!’
‘Do not do this Golden Mane!’ The voices of Wolfenvald cried to her. ‘Now is not the time!’
‘No!’ Sarah cried back. ‘My parents are dead because of this place! How many people have to die because of this thing? I’m gonna wreck it right now!’
‘Now is NOT the time!’ The voices of the ancient forest roared. ‘If you destroy the gate now, your friends will be lost forever!’
‘Annullarikus!’ Sarah barked, trying even harder.
Wolfenvald responded with a spell of its own, quashing her efforts.
Infuriated, Sarah repeated the spell. Again, Wolfenvald intervened, dissipating her spell. Lighting had been flickering from and around Sarah. The angrier she got, the more violent it became. By now, a massive storm had erupted around her within the round hall. Finally, Sarah threw everything she had at The Gate.
‘Annullarikus!’ she barked with every ounce of her strength. Once more and just as implacably, Wolfenvald dissipated her spell as she released it. The force she used combined with the force used by Wolfenvald to stop her, blew the roof of Conundrum Gate out into the atmosphere. The eight remaining doors and the walls they were connected to were also destroyed. Sarah herself was blasted backwards and over the edge of what was now little more than a platform, unconscious.
Cexil may have been old and his eyesight could certainly have been better, but he knew a falling werewolf when he saw one. He swept up out of the ruined dungeons. Up he flew, beating his withered wings as hard as he could. Had he not been locked down in a dungeon for months and unable to exercise, he’d have been faster. As it was, he just managed to snag Sarah by the scruff of her neck before she fell too close to the rocks and rubble for him to reach her. With a painful surge of his wings, he lurched away from the damaged tower. As he flew higher and higher, the spells Oliver Cromwell had used to disguise Conundrum continued to unravel.
Cexil circled once to see the real Conundrum for the first time. The Gate was still there, as was most of the huge tower. The Nonagon at the base of the tower shimmered and the surrounding gardens disappeared to reveal the enormous maze Cromwell had mentioned. Also, high above The Gate itself, another large construction appeared that, had Sarah been conscious, she would have recognised as Cromwell’s observatory.
‘We need you sober, damn it,’ Roberta told the inebriated pair. She stared at James and Oliver disapprovingly.Then she sighed and looked at Angela, who was seated on the moist ground, leaning on a fallen tree trunk. Her eyelids were flickering up and down as she began to drift off to sleep.
Sheila stepped forward. ‘I can fix this,’ she said with a dry smirk. She waved her hand at the three drunken sorcerers.
‘Alconullic!’ she commanded, and blew at them. Her breath turned to a blue mist and drifted directly into their nostrils and mouths.
James sat up with a start. He blinked several times and he moaned painfully. Oliver did the same. The two disoriented sorcerers shook their heads and blinked owlishly as the alcohol in their systems suddenly disappeared.
‘Ooh,’ Angela moaned as she came to. She lurched to her feet and rushed behind the fallen tree where she was suddenly and very noisily ill. A bedraggled jungle tree sprite appeared beside the suffering sorceress and helpfully held her hair back behind her head.
Sheila grinned at Roberta. ‘Best cure for drinking there is,’ she remarked. ‘And,’ she held one finger in the air ‘I’ll bet none of them get plastered again in a hurry.’
Mannix whined and shook his head. ‘There are times I wish I’d never taught her that spell,’ he muttered to Fergus.
‘When this is over,’ the big Brown replied, ‘come to my place and we’ll have a boys’ night.’
When the hung-over trio had got themselves together and brushed their teeth, Benjamin filled them in on what they had found.
When James heard that Melanie had been hurt, he became very, very serious.
‘Anything identifiable about those goblins?’
Sheila showed him the empty packaging of the goblins’ field dressing pack.
‘Jildere Guardslins,’ James grated. ‘If they let anything happen to Mel, then—’
‘That’s why we’re going to Jilde,’ Benjamin t
old him. ‘All of us.’
Oliver laughed and clapped his hands together. The others looked at him with surprise and a few growls. The eccentric blonde necromancer danced a jig on the forest floor.
‘Don‘t you see?’ he crowed. ‘It’s another Primary Affect! There are too many coincidences in all this.’
‘What the hell are you talking about man?’ Mannix demanded, suddenly not so well spoken.
Oliver laughed. ‘Tell me,’ he pressed. ‘Did any of you start behaving irrationally?’
‘You mean more than normal?’ Aunt Roberta asked with a wry grin as she glanced at Uncle Robert.
Robert grinned sheepishly. ‘Well, I kind of got a bit bad tempered for a while,’ he hedged.
‘A bit?’ Benjamin asked, relishing the chance to do a bit of teasing. ‘I thought you were going to explode.’
‘The Ottispuschenshuffen’s shop did explode,’ Roberta added.
Oliver clapped again and pointed excitedly at Robert.
‘See?’ he demanded. ‘A few hours ago, Angela and I suddenly remembered that I’d lent my copy of The Babylonian Heresies to a goblin and now here you all are, about to go off to Jilde!’ he continued to dance.
James squinted at the capering sorcerer. ‘It’s neat alright,’ he conceded. ‘Too neat. I think we’re walking into a trap. There’s got to be a catch.’
‘Like last time?’ Angela agreed. ‘We went marching into Troll Mountain expecting everything to be easy. That was just a couple of thousand trolls. There are billions of goblins on Jilde, and they have machines!’
Several of the werewolves gave disappointed whines and yips.
Oliver continued to laugh. ‘I love this,’ he chortled. ‘I absolutely love it.’
Benjamin growled at him. ‘Why? We’re being lead around by the nose. I don’t like being on a lead!’
‘Neither do I,’ Oliver agreed happily, ‘but you have to admire the subtlety and the dedication. Someone really wants us to go to Jilde.’ He became very serious. ‘Think!’ he urged the Pack of werewolves. ‘Can any of you think of any reason at all why you shouldn’t go to Jilde? Are any of you wanted by the law? Do you owe any goblins money?’ He paused. ‘Oh please, tell me you don’t owe them any money. Settling a debt with a goblin is impossible.’