The Black Amulet

by J. R. Wallis

  Frustrated, Ruby kicked the top off a molehill with as much force as she could, sending up a spray of earth. It made her feel a little better, so she kicked at more. She found herself walking out of the stone ruins of the abbey towards the small museum that had been set up for visitors. It was a sleek-looking building made of glass and steel. Peering inside, she could see various relics in cases and large stone pieces displayed behind red ropes.

  When she heard a noise, she ducked down instinctively and listened, unsure what it was. She heard it again. And now it was the unmistakable sound of an engine in the distance. Two headlights appeared, sweeping over the brow of the hill and fanning light across the road leading up to the abbey. Ruby watched the vehicle coming closer, lighting up the tarmac on its way towards the empty car park.

  And then she ran as fast as she could back to the boys.

  *

  Randall Givens shut the driver’s door and breathed in the cold air, stamping his feet to get the blood moving.

  ‘It’s cold, Wilfried.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Well, let’s get started then.’ Givens produced a Moon Globe and started walking towards the ruined abbey, lighting a dim path. ‘What we’re looking for is a hidden door and this Moon Globe will help us find it if it’s here.’

  ‘What’s behind the door, sir?’

  ‘I believe it’s an object of great value that the High Council of the Order wants found. They’ve been looking for it for many years. The Badlander who owned the object hid it very carefully because it was so valuable.’

  ‘Who was the Badlander, sir?’

  ‘Augustus Drewman. You’ve heard of him, of course. What can you tell me about him?’

  ‘Augustus Drewman was born over four hundred years ago and Commenced in an unusual way. He was given the gift of magic by drinking from a Badlander’s dirty bath water.’

  ‘Yes, a most unusual form of Commencement so the history books tell us. And what of him as a man?’

  ‘He was the best Badlander there’s ever been.’

  ‘One of the best,’ Givens corrected him.

  ‘You can find his mearcunga everywhere, marking his kills. More than five thousand have been counted, but it’s said there are others that have never been found.’

  ‘And what happened to him?’

  ‘He loved magic too much. It turned him rotten.’

  Givens shone the Moon Globe at Wilfried and the boy put his hands up to shield his eyes. ‘That is the most important thing to remember.’ Givens covered the Moon Globe and the dark returned. ‘Remember, Wilfried, magic can pull you into the dark, and turn you into the person you never thought you could be. What’s the Anglo-Saxon for rotten?’

  ‘Fúl, sir.’

  ‘Remember that word, Wilfried, whenever you dream about magic.’ Givens turned and started walking again, the light from the Moon Globe illuminating his way.

  He didn’t notice three pairs of eyes watching him as he led Wilfried towards the abbey remains.

  ‘He won’t find anything,’ whispered Thomas Gabriel as Givens and Wilfried disappeared into the dark. ‘We’ve looked everywhere.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ asked Ruby.

  ‘Yes.’

  Ruby watched Givens flashing the Moon Globe up and down the stone walls. ‘What about in there?’ she asked, pointing towards the museum.

  Thomas Gabriel tutted. ‘Ruby, that wasn’t built when Drewman was alive.’

  ‘It’s a museum. There might be things in there.’

  ‘Like what?’ asked Jones.

  ‘Old things,’ muttered Ruby. ‘You know? Bits of wall. Doors. Books.’

  The two boys looked at her as if they’d never met her before.

  ‘Have either of you got a better idea?’

  No one said anything.

  Jones scanned the ground between them and the museum, and pointed at a large molehill, much bigger than the ones Ruby had been kicking at.

  ‘I know,’ she whispered. ‘Must be a very big mole. There’s loads of molehills everywhere.’

  ‘That’s not a molehill, Ruby.’ She peered closer at the mound and it dawned on her that Jones was right.

  ‘That’s been made by a Burrowing Troll,’ continued the boy. ‘Fresh, by the look of it.’

  Ruby pulled back as if expecting something to pop up out of the turf. ‘So we should probably leave then?’ she asked.

  ‘No. You’re right – we should investigate the museum. We just have to go quietly. We’ll be all right if we don’t make too much noise. Nothing’s happened yet, has it? The Burrowing Troll might have gone.’

  The three of them scurried across the ground. Ruby tried stepping as daintily as she could, wary of alerting what might be hiding beneath her.

  She pulled the gun out of her waistband as she went. ‘Burrowing Troll,’ she whispered to it.

  ‘Or Trolls, you mean,’ it whispered back. ‘They move in packs unless it’s a rogue. And they’re usually the really nasty ones. Burrowing Trolls react to movement. They leap through the earth and drag down their prey.’

  ‘Right. Anything else I should know?’ asked Ruby, trying to skim as lightly as possible over the grass.

  ‘They’ve got poison breath. Really noxious stuff. Roar it right in your face if they can.’

  Suddenly, Ruby felt a tremor near her in the soil. The sensation was slight, like a stick tapping the soles of her shoes. She stopped immediately. When something slithered through the earth underneath her, she held her breath until it had passed.

  The three of them stopped close to the museum and ducked down behind a large, black, industrial-sized bin on wheels, the lid open because it was so full of black bin bags and rubbish. Looking back over the expanse of grass, they could see the light from Givens’s Moon Globe skirting the ruins of the abbey.

  ‘We’ll be safer inside,’ said Jones. ‘But we still need to keep as quiet as we can.’

  They were all about to move when Ruby stopped and pulled the boys back down. She pointed to the grass ahead of them.

  Two pointed ears, shaped like trowels and tufty with grey hair, had emerged just above ground. They were so well camouflaged with mud and grass that, if she hadn’t been watching, Ruby would never have noticed them in the dark. They flicked like a cow’s ears being teased by flies, and rotated in a semicircle, stopping and then returning to their starting point.

  Distant voices rang out. Givens was berating Wilfried about something. A bristly head popped up out of the grass. The Troll had a large, ugly face with a snout and a crop of jagged teeth that showed as it sniffed the air.

  ‘Keep very still,’ whispered Jones. ‘Their eyesight’s poor.’

  The Troll peered through the dark and then it started swaying from side to side as it tried to catch the scent of something. It seemed to like the smell of whatever it was and raised the tip of its nose and inhaled deeply. Out came the arms through the soil and it levered its body out of the ground, as slippery as an eel. As it stood up, earth fell from its body. It was about eight feet tall.

  Givens’s voice rang out again, but the Troll didn’t seem interested at all. It started lumbering towards the bin and Ruby raised the gun very slowly.

  ‘Easy,’ said the gun. ‘Wait for me to say when.’

  Ruby watched the creature coming towards her, sniffing the air as it went. She caught a whiff of it, peppery and rotten, like the smell of a dead fish, and tried not to gag.

  ‘Okay, take aim,’ whispered the gun.

  Ruby’s finger flickered on the trigger. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the light from the Moon Globe bouncing round the ruins. They’ll hear a shot, she thought, and they’ll come running.

  ‘I told you your catapult would be useful, Jones,’ she whispered.

  Jones smiled. ‘Don’t worry, it’s not after us.’

  Ruby frowned. Jones pointed to the bin. ‘Just stay very still. Trust me.’

  Ruby’s trigger finger hovered as the Troll clambered up
into the bin and started rustling through the rubbish, digging down into the bags. Jones motioned for them to move and they all walked quickly and quietly to the door of the museum and lay against the wall. A Door Wurm was already wriggling between Thomas Gabriel’s fingers as he looked for the lock.

  FOURTEEN

  The museum was quiet, the glass glazed thick enough to keep out the sound of the Troll. It meant Ruby and the others couldn’t be heard by it either.

  They inspected every artefact on display, scanning the Moon Globe over pieces of old stone, wooden doors and even old books, turning the pages and making them crackle. But they found no secret door. Eventually, they had explored everything they could see.

  Jones pointed out of the far window. ‘Givens ain’t found nothing yet either.’ The Moon Globe’s light was still dancing round the ruined walls of the abbey.

  ‘How about in there?’ Ruby pointed to a door marked PRIVATE. Jones nodded and crept to the door, and opened it.

  Inside the room were more pieces of stone and other objects that were clearly being prepared for display. Jones flashed the Moon Globe this way and that and then his arm jolted and stopped as if someone had grabbed him by the wrist. His arm pointed at something shrouded in plastic sheeting. Jones could feel the Moon Globe straining in his hand, wanting to break free.

  ‘Let it go, Jones,’ said Thomas Gabriel. ‘It’s found something.’

  Jones allowed the Moon Globe to float out of his hand and it bobbed in front of the sheeting.

  Thomas Gabriel and Jones ripped off the plastic to reveal a small piece of stone held between two clamps with an inscription written in Latin. The stone was obviously in the process of being cleaned. One half was bright and fresh-looking, but the rest was still grubby. The Moon Globe floated closer to it, casting its light over the carving of a small door, roughly hewn into the stone above the inscription. There was a rasping sound and the tiny door broke free of the stone and floated clear.

  It grew in size until the door was standing, full-size, on the floor. It was made of wood and stood rather like a stage prop as Ruby walked all the way round it. The Moon Globe floated down and settled on the door like a bee on a flower and then it lost its glow and became just a round door handle.

  Thomas Gabriel grabbed hold of the handle and turned it. There was a click. But, as he pulled, nothing happened. The door seemed to be stuck.

  ‘I don’t think it’s been opened in a very long time,’ said Thomas Gabriel as the door juddered. Then, with a squealing sound and a blast of hot, dusty air, he pulled it open. Inside was a shelf, at about chest-height.

  Jones and Thomas Gabriel peered in at a small metal box, both of them wondering whether to touch it.

  ‘It might be charmed,’ whispered Jones.

  ‘Drewman didn’t say it was.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean it’s not.’

  Thomas Gabriel reached out an arm and wiggled his fingers and then withdrew them. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ he muttered.

  A loud CRASH! outside surprised them all and Ruby and the boys ran to the window and peered out to see what had caused the noise.

  The big black bin was lying on its side and the Troll was rearing up and growling. Advancing towards the creature were Givens and his apprentice, who was whirling a golden rope round his head. The burly Troll picked up the bin and hurled it at them, sending them scurrying for cover. The Troll then bounded towards the boy, who was momentarily distracted, and caught him with a fist as big as a brick in the ribs, sending him spinning to the ground.

  The Troll roared as it reared up over the boy who cried out and put up his arms in a feeble defence.

  A white bolt came streaking out of the dark and hit the creature full in the chest. The force was enough to hurl the Troll backwards through one of the glass windows of the museum with a huge crash.

  Givens crouched beside the boy. As far as Ruby and the others could tell, he was in great pain and Givens was doing his best to try and reassure him. Suddenly, Givens looked round as if he’d heard something and shot a bolt of light from a fist into the sky, illuminating the grass and the ruins.

  The ground was moving. Juddering. The grass bristled before jets of earth started spraying like geysers, metres into the sky. Stones fell to the ground. Some of them crashed against the windows of the museum.

  Burrowing Trolls were popping up out of the ground everywhere.

  A whole pack of them.

  The upper halves of their bodies swayed as they breathed in great gulps of air and then began pushing themselves out of the ground.

  ‘We have to go!’ cried Jones.

  Before anyone had time to say anything else, the door leading to the room they were in flew off its hinges, revealing the Troll that Givens had hit with the magical bolt. A large red mark on its chest was still smoking and it was clearly very angry.

  ‘Keep still!’ hissed Jones.

  The Troll sniffed the air and then roared, letting out a cloud of yellow, noxious breath as it did so.

  ‘Take a shot, girl!’ the gun shouted at Ruby. She did as she was told, but the Troll’s pongy breath seemed to have got into her thinking, clouding her mind. The room started to spin and Ruby stumbled backwards. She saw another yellow cloud come gushing from the Troll’s mouth, little holes in its jaw opening and closing like vents.

  ‘Poison!’ shouted the gun.

  Ruby tried to say something, but couldn’t find the words. She saw Jones sinking to the floor, waving his hands about as if he was drowning. When Ruby felt the wall slide up her spine, she knew she was falling and plonked bottom-first onto the floor so hard, her teeth clicked.

  The gun’s voice was melting in her ears and she raised the weapon again and pulled the trigger. But only then did she realize she wasn’t holding the gun at all: it had dropped from her grasp as she fell.

  Thomas Gabriel had seen the door go flying off its hinges and had known instantly what was coming. He’d ducked down behind a desk and watched the Troll roar, its poisonous breath seeping out from the tiny gills in its jaw. The cloudy yellow gas clogged the room, licking itself into the corners. Ruby and Jones had had no chance given they were so close to the door and Thomas Gabriel knew it was up to him if they were all going to survive.

  He wrapped his red silk scarf about his nose and mouth to buy himself some time. It was a temporary fix, because he knew what he really needed was a special mask. But, as he spoke the spell, he could only produce pale white sparks that sputtered and faded as the magic failed him.

  He glanced through the door, opened by the Moon Globe, at the little metal box on the shelf. The yellow breath of the Troll was making him giddy now. So he ran to the box and opened it. Inside was the amulet, a black bracelet in the shape of a ‘C’. There was no time to study it in detail, but Thomas Gabriel sensed how cool and smooth it was as he picked it up.

  He clipped the amulet round his wrist and felt something click inside him, like a button had been pressed. Despite feeling dizzier and dizzier, he tried the spell again. The sparks that came from his fingers were white and pure this time and Thomas Gabriel felt the magic surge out of him. The sheer force and power took him by surprise and he tried not to gasp and take another deep breath of poisonous yellow air.

  The sparks wove themselves together, creating a white, oval-shaped mask in his hand. Thomas Gabriel tore off the scarf and clamped the mask over his mouth and nose. When he felt it tighten to his face he let go and breathed more deeply, enjoying the clean air coming into his lungs, the dizziness quickly beginning to clear.

  Thomas Gabriel spotted the Troll standing over Ruby, who was slumped against the wall, her head resting on her shoulder. As it opened its mouth to take a bite, Thomas Gabriel fired a white bolt from his fist that tapered to a sharp point, and skewered the Troll’s chest, piercing the rough grey skin. The creature collapsed dead to the floor and no more foul-smelling gas came leaking out of its mouth.

  Thomas Gabriel crouched beside Ruby and conjured a mask f
or her and then did the same for Jones who was lying on the floor. The fumes were receding now that the Troll was dead, but there was still a lot of toxic gas in the room.

  Above his own breathing, Thomas Gabriel could hear shouts and roars outside. Peering out of the window, he saw Givens surrounded by a ring of Trolls. He was wearing a white mask too, the air around him thick with yellow poison drifting like fog. On the ground in front of him was Wilfried, masked, and crouched with one arm cradled tight to his body, clearly hurt.

  A cough made him look round. Jones was waking up as he breathed clean air. He rubbed his face, his hand feeling the mask, and then he gave a thumbs up to Thomas Gabriel.

  ‘You need to leave,’ Thomas Gabriel told Jones. His voice was raspy through the mask.

  ‘What about you?’

  Thomas Gabriel pointed a finger outside. ‘I’m going to help Givens.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll make something up.’

  Jones was staring at the black bracelet on his friend’s wrist. ‘The amulet works, Jones, just like Drewman said. The magic inside me feels stronger than it ever has before.’ As he stood up, Jones grabbed hold of his arm.

  ‘You can’t let Givens see the amulet. He’ll take it away.’

  ‘Go,’ said Thomas Gabriel, pulling his arm free. ‘Take Ruby with you.’ He marched away and felt a surge in his blood as he thought about the power he wielded now.

  FIFTEEN

  When Thomas Gabriel raised an arm, and fired a bolt of magic at the Troll nearest to Givens, the creature screamed as a sharp blade pierced its chest, and felled it where it stood.

  Thomas Gabriel was aware that Givens was looking at him. And not just looking, but staring. His heart swelled in his chest and he stood a little taller. Before striding out into the open air, he’d made sure the amulet was tucked under his shirtsleeve in order to conceal it from Givens. He raised his hand and gave a friendly wave.

  Givens frowned. But there was no time for any explanations because the large group of Trolls demanded their full concentration. The two Badlanders worked on the creatures, cutting them down, firing magic at will. Thomas Gabriel was smiling beneath his mask. He had never felt such power in him. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Givens glancing at him, wary of a young Badlander outshining him in front of his apprentice who was cowering on the ground as the cries of dying Trolls rang around them. Thomas Gabriel was careful to make some mistakes, though, wary of appearing too good and making Givens wonder why. So he made sure he hit the ground with some of his magical bolts and sent others fizzing uncontrollably up into the night sky.