Zeb Bolt and the Ember Scroll

by Abi Elphinstone

  He glanced behind him. Only the mouth of a cave remained of Hollowbone, a yawning darkness behind them in a sea of infinite blue. But from it, there came a cry. And it was much, much louder than the shrieks of the seagulls earlier. Wilder, too. Then a clanking rang from the cave, and Zeb thought of the heap of bones he’d seen left behind.

  The clanking gave way to a steady, beating whrum. Zeb swallowed. Whatever it was that was coming had wings.

  And then one last Midnight bound to Morg’s will burst out of Hollowbone: a dragon built of bones.

  Zeb ducked as it raced past the ship, breathing blasts of red-hot fire, before climbing up into the sky. Its tail slithered like a snake’s, but the bones lent every movement a hollow clatter. The dragon’s wings were more like giant fingers, its skull was horned, and its cry sent shudders through Darktongue’s sails.

  But when Zeb saw Morg look from the dragon to him, then back again to the dragon, he knew that this Midnight had been called for a purpose.

  This was his ride to the sun.

  Chapter 6

  Darktongue moved through the sea like a knife. Quick, smooth, quiet. Morg leaned over the prow of the ship, whispering instructions to the ogre eels and fire krakens under her command.

  Zeb maneuvered himself and the Stargold Wings to the opposite end of Darktongue, a safe distance from the sea monsters, and looked out over the stern. The kingdom of Crackledawn on the far shore seemed to be buzzing with life and magic—a magic wholly different from Morg’s. This was playful and full of color and so crammed with wonder, it made Zeb’s jaw drop. He glimpsed a pod of multicolored dolphins leaping through the waves and, a little distance away, a diamond-shelled turtle turning somersaults beneath the surface. Pockets of land were dotted here and there—one little island with thousands of gold shells glittering on the sand, and another with feather-tailed monkeys leaping between palm trees.

  Zeb shifted uncomfortably as he remembered that he was part of a plan to wipe all this out. Morg’s Midnights, it seemed, had already started. A patch of sea went suddenly black for no reason, and on the surface a shoal of fluorescent fish floated, lifeless. An island they passed that might once have been covered in palm trees was home to burned timber. And a cluster of caverns signposted THE SIGHING CAVES were making the situation very clear as their cave mouths sighed their way through all sorts of depressing puns: “Might as well cave in and die with so little Unmapped magic left in Crackledawn!” and “We’re on rocky ground these days!”

  Zeb was beginning to think it strange that he hadn’t seen any of the people from the kingdom yet—Morg had called them “Unmappers.” But then Darktongue rounded the Sighing Caves, and a little farther out to sea, rocking on the waves, was a magnificent dhow boat. Its polished deck shone in the sunlight, its golden sail billowed in the wind, and from the stern a cluster of people were hauling in nets. Zeb hadn’t been sure what to expect from the Unmappers, but they looked more or less like ordinary people. Barefoot men and women dressed in knee-length tunics gathered at the waist with a sash of leaves. Within seconds of seeing Darktongue, they all started shouting.

  “Leave the nets!”

  “Dark magic ahoy!”

  Zeb watched as the Unmappers raced across their deck, yanking at the rigging and readying the sail. But Morg’s eyes were set on this boat now, and Darktongue was charging toward it at lightning speed.

  The Unmappers’ shouting grew more frenzied, and Zeb could almost taste their fear; he knew the horror of being ambushed by dark magic. “It’s—it’s Morg!” they screamed. “She’s returned! With a dragon! SOUND THE ALARM!”

  An Unmapper scrambled to the bow and yanked the large silver bell there. A clang rang out, louder than any bell toll Zeb had ever heard, and all of a sudden, he found himself desperately wanting the Unmappers to escape. But it was too late for alarm bells and escape plans now. Darktongue was closing in on the dhow, and as it swung close, Morg raised her terrible wings and her Midnights leapt aboard.

  Zeb watched, horrified, as the skeletons screeched and hurled their spears. The Unmappers didn’t stand a chance, Zeb could see that. He buried his face behind the skull he held as the Midnights swarmed the boat, turning each terrified Unmapper into a pile of dust with every jab of their spears. Then, minutes later, all was silent. Zeb peeped out from behind the Stargold Wings to see the Midnights clattering back aboard Darktongue and Morg raising her gaze to the bone dragon. It hurtled down from the sky and, with one blast of fire, set the Unmappers’ boat alight.

  All trace of the dhow and its crew sunk from sight. Zeb knew the harpy was powerful—in just one day he’d seen her crush stone, raise skeletons to life, and break into a magical kingdom. None of that could hold a candle to what he’d just seen. Morg’s magic had destroyed a ship full of Unmappers in front of his very eyes. And if this was how sick he felt now, then what would he feel like after wiping out four kingdoms worth of Unmappers and an entire civilization back home?

  He sneaked a look at the harpy. She was laughing wildly and her Midnights were cheering. All Zeb wanted to do was run away. But he was trapped aboard Darktongue now, and if he backed out of the bargain he’d made with Morg, he knew he’d be killed in seconds. Perhaps there was chance he could get Morg to create a new world but somehow avoid exterminating quite so many people? Surely there were loopholes with magic?

  Darktongue pushed on through the ocean, then Morg stalked across the ship toward Zeb. She ruffled her wings and a hunk of bread, a piece of shriveled fruit, and a flask of water appeared at Zeb’s feet.

  “Breakfast,” she muttered. “You’ll need it before your journey.”

  Zeb watched the sea where the Unmappers and their dhow had been just moments before. “You—you destroyed them,” he said quietly. “Every last one.”

  Morg nodded.

  “But—but they didn’t seem to be doing any harm.”

  The harpy took a step closer. “I did tell you, boy. To build a new world, I will destroy everything.” Her wings twitched. “Eat. Now. You’ll be leaving shortly.”

  Zeb squinted at the sun and gulped. He was feeling too sick to eat or drink, but he did anyway, even though the bread was stale and the fruit was partly rotten, because he knew if he backed out now, he’d be going the same way as the Unmappers he’d just seen.

  “My dragon will carry you to the sun,” Morg said. “And the Stargold Wings will form a shield of safety around you both. Then, when you are close enough, the Ember Scroll will sense its missing magic and come to you.”

  Zeb slid a glance up at the dragon. It was gliding above Darktongue’s sails, its boned wings cutting the sun into slithers.

  Trying his best to be brave, Zeb cleared his throat. “Then I bring you the Ember Scroll, you write your ending”—he figured this wasn’t the time to discuss possible loopholes in magic—“and we get to build a new world before going our separate ways?”

  “That is the deal,” Morg replied.

  She bent down and took the skull containing the Stargold Wings from beside Zeb. Then she squeezed and the bone fell away, like powder, until all that was left in her hands were the little gold wings. She held them tight as they flapped inside her palms, then pushed them down into the empty pouch around her neck before passing that to Zeb.

  “Keep ahold of these wings, Zebedee. Our future depends on them.”

  Zeb slipped the cord around his neck, and as the pouch lay flat against his T-shirt, he felt the Stargold Wings move—little flutters like a frightened heartbeat.

  Morg unfurled her own wings and the dragon, sensing her wishes, swooped down toward the ship.

  “This time things will go my way,” Morg sneered. “This time the Faraway child is on my side.”

  The dragon landed with a crunch on the prow of the ship, and it bent its head to listen as Morg hurried toward it. At first all that Zeb could hear from the other end of the ship were a few growls and whispers. But then their conversation became clearer, louder, as if someone had turned the v
olume right up. There wasn’t much phoenix magic left in Crackledawn, but what remained knew that children from the Faraway could, when push came to shove, save the world, if they had the right information. And so, unbeknown to Zeb, the phoenix magic stirred now so that he could hear the harpy’s real plan.

  “He’s a nobody,” Morg was saying. “All I need you to do is carry him to the sun and ensure he brings me back the Ember Scroll. Don’t even stop to sink the ships you pass. I’ll take care of them—and all the Unmappers living on Wildhorn. Go straight to the sun with the boy.”

  The dragon grunted.

  “Then once he’s handed me the Ember Scroll, get rid of him,” Morg snapped. “Burn him to a crisp. Because there won’t be any room for Faraway boys in my world of dark magic.”

  Zeb felt his stomach churn. He had only trusted the harpy to help him because he had seen her power, which, compared to the lukewarm promises of the grown-ups he’d known, made him think she could be worth siding with. All along, the harpy had never been planning to keep her side of their bargain. And having seen how she dealt with those standing in her way, Zeb realized that despite his desperation, he had been wrong to trust her.

  But the truth stung all the same. He had been let down—again. And for a moment he thought he could feel an Outburst brewing, but it was something else: the faint flutter of the Stargold Wings against his chest. He had an object the harpy needed, so there was still a chance in all of this to come away with something. Because if Zeb found the Ember Scroll and kept it for himself, then who was to say he couldn’t write an ending of his own onto the parchment, one that didn’t involve quite so much extermination? Who was to say he couldn’t use the Unmapped magic to destroy Morg and build his own world, exactly as he wanted it. A fabulous continent all to himself, then another (significantly less interesting) one to house all the people he couldn’t face wiping out but couldn’t face living alongside either.

  The dragon thumped down onto the deck, then made its way through the skeletons toward Zeb. He was frightened still—after all, he’d seen this dragon drown a ship—but now his fists were curled into angry balls. Because he had a new plan and it did not involve trusting anyone else ever again. He wasn’t sure how he’d get away from the dragon after grabbing the Ember Scroll, but his new continent would be a place without others or their broken promises.

  The dragon snarled as it approached Zeb, and it took every single scrap of courage Zeb had left to climb up its rib cage and onto its back. He sat astride it, trembling as he held on to the spiked bones that forked down the length of its neck. Then he forced himself to imagine he was the Tank, facing down a lion, before turning his gaze toward the sun.

  The dragon lowered itself into a crouch, nodded to Morg, then launched off the ship into the dazzling sky. Zeb clung on, his eyes watering in the wind, his heart pounding. The dragon beat its mighty wings as it soared out over the sea toward the newly-risen sun, leaving Morg’s sea monsters and skeletons to hunt down the Unmappers. And Zeb tried his best not to think about the fact that he was riding a beast that planned to burn him to a crisp.

  Chapter 7

  Back in the Faraway, Fox Petty-Squabble stood on the stage in the empty theater, cursing herself for having left. The boy was gone. And she might have believed he had run away, were it not for the smashed chandelier and ruptured piano. These were signs of a struggle, and from the look of the hooked scratches etched into the wood inside the piano and the black feathers scattered about the strings, she had a horrible feeling she knew who was responsible.

  Fox clutched the side of the piano. If Morg had somehow escaped the never-ending well she and her brother, Fibber, had trapped her in so long ago, then her suspicions about the climate had been right. It was spiraling out of control because the harpy was on the loose once more. She must have gathered enough power to come to the Faraway with the aim of stealing the one thing here that could open a portal for her back into the Unmapped Kingdoms: a phoenix tear.

  Fox wondered then about two things: Was it a coincidence she had been living so close to a legendary phoenix tear and she had been the one, out of everyone else, who had come across Zeb tonight? Or did magic have a plan in all of this? For her and for Zeb…

  Fox looked around. There were no feathers or talon marks anywhere but the piano. She must have come for the phoenix tear—and somehow poor, vulnerable Zeb had got tangled up in her quest—then left.

  Fox sat down on the stool. She should never have walked away from the theater. In trying to do the right thing, she’d messed up completely. Now it was her fault the boy was caught in the harpy’s plans. And if she knew Morg, these plans would be nothing short of world domination. She hung her head as she imagined Zeb a prisoner of Morg’s, remembering all too well how terrifying the harpy could be. Fox had encountered her for the first time in a forest called the Bonelands, and if a golden panther called Deepglint hadn’t stepped in to rescue her, she wouldn’t be here today.

  Fox thought again of the phoenix tear Morg had come for and of the stories she had been told about these tears out in Jungledrop. And then something occurred to her. The very first phoenix had wept seven tears to conjure the Faraway’s continents. Casper Tock had found one, then he’d given another to her and Fibber, which they’d shared to get to Jungledrop. Which meant there were still five phoenix tears unaccounted for. So, could there be a sliver of a chance that there had been multiple phoenix tears in this theater Morg had been drawn to and one or more might still be here now? Fox stood up. She couldn’t help feeling that she and Zeb had been drawn together tonight by magic for a purpose. Perhaps both of them had a role to play in saving the Unmapped Kingdoms and the Faraway from Morg.

  Fox thought of the phoenix tear she had been given by Casper Tock. It had been small, no bigger than a plum stone, and it had glowed a mysterious blue. Fox scoured the stage for anything that might resemble it, raking through shattered glass, overturning trunks and armchairs in the wings, and shaking out every dusty robe. There was no sign of a phoenix tear, but Fox didn’t stop looking. She would keep on searching, even if it took her all night, because she had made a promise to Zeb.

  The night ticked on, and still Fox searched. But when she nudged the stage curtain while rooting through a box of props, her heart quickened. There was a glow coming from beneath the curtain. She yanked the folds of tattered velvet aside, and there, on the ground, was a phoenix tear glowing in all its glory—the one that Morg had left behind.

  Fox picked it up, breathless with hope. “This,” she said, clasping the tear tight, “this changes everything.”

  She didn’t know which Unmapped Kingdom Zeb and the harpy had gone to, but with phoenix magic on her side, she knew she’d find them. She thought of how the phoenix tear had worked for her last time. She had opened a train door and been catapulted off to the kingdom of Jungledrop. And with Casper Tock, it had been the door of a grandfather clock that had led him to Rumblestar. Fox glanced across the stage to the nearest door to her. A trapdoor in the stage itself, used by actors for surprise entrances.

  Fox bent down over the trapdoor and wished her brother, Fibber, was with her. They had loathed each other before their quest in Jungledrop, but their adventure in the Unmapped Kingdoms had made them the best of friends. They often spoke on the phone long into the night about their travels through Jungledrop’s glow-in-the-dark rainforest. But there was no time for phone calls now.

  Holding the phoenix tear to her heart, where her hopes were mounting, Fox laid an ear to the trapdoor and smiled. Because she could hear something impossible: waves crashing. So, with the promise of magic ringing in her ears, she pulled open the trapdoor and climbed inside.

  * * *

  Zeb, meanwhile, was clinging on to the bone dragon for dear life. Darktongue was miles behind them now, a mere speck on the sprawling ocean. They raced on toward a cluster of boats full of terrified Unmappers sailing away as fast as they could. Zeb supposed they’d heard the alarm bell tolling and were doing
their best to hurry out of harm’s way. But what hope did they have with Morg and her Midnights in pursuit? They’d be found, in the end, and then the harpy’s magic would finish them off.

  The dragon kept going. It didn’t even slow when they raced over a large, jungled island signposted WILDHORN that looked, to Zeb, like a pocket of magic still flickering in an otherwise dark and brooding ocean. There were tangled trees filled with exotic fruits, feather-tailed monkeys, and large silver bells that rang out as if the kingdom itself was now sounding the alarm too. From the dragon’s back, Zeb glimpsed waterfalls flowing in figure-of-eights while down by the shore there were caves lined with gold and a beach hut called the Cheeky Urchin. Wooden walkways linked this island to a cluster of smaller islands surrounding it, and Zeb could just make out hammocks strung between trees there and armchairs laid out on the sand. But there were no Unmappers to be seen. Not even aboard the huge ship called the Jolly Codger that was moored in the bay. Its sails had been converted into trampolines and its rigging into swings, making it look more like an abandoned playground than a boat. But there were no children playing on it. If Unmappers lived here on Wildhorn, they must have heeded the alarm bells and hidden. Zeb chewed his lip as he remembered Morg’s words to the dragon. She was heading for this very island. And how long would it take for her army of Midnights to storm ashore and find all the Unmappers?

  The dragon raced away from Wildhorn, on and on over the blackened sea. Then gradually the water began to turn blue again, and the dragon surged upward into the sky as it began its journey to the sun. Zeb glanced down and let out a moan. They were far, far above the sea now, and the sun’s warmth prickled his skin. He tried to fix his eyes on the sun itself, but its blinding light made him turn away. He still had no idea how he was going to get away from the dragon after finding the Ember Scroll. But the Tank was always reacting to things as they happened—it was just part of being hard-core—so Zeb very much hoped a plan would come to him at the right moment.