The Book of Lies

by James Moloney

  A sudden surge of noise in his ears told Marcel the magic was ended. He opened his eyes and found Bea and Nicola staring at him in wonder. He looked quickly for Lord Alwyn and saw him slumped in a chair beside the large desk, with the King kneeling at his side.

  “What happened? What did you do?” Nicola asked him urgently.

  “I saw…” he said tentatively, still trying to understand what had happened. Then he was speaking, telling his sister all that he had witnessed through Lord Alwyn’s eyes. This time, she heard every word.

  Pelham heard it too. “Alwyn’s spell has been broken,” he exclaimed in astonishment. He rose from where he had been tending to his sorcerer, who looked close to collapse, one of his arms spread limply across an open map of the Kingdom.

  “Such powers, my son…”

  But Marcel could not think about that now. The shocking vision of what had happened here in this hall was still too vivid in his mind. What a terrible thing. They had been accused of betraying their father, and not by a human witness. They had been accused by the Book of Lies itself.

  “I don’t understand it,” he cried in frustration. “The Book of Lies must always show the truth. But what it showed about us was a lie!”

  Lord Alwyn recovered enough of his strength to sit upright in the chair. “No, not a lie!” he spat. “The Book will always seek the truth. My magic demands it.”

  “What good is that?” Nicola snapped. “Eleanor used the truth to trick us! She told us that Pelham had poisoned his own Queen. Her words were true but it was still a despicable lie, and the Book must have known it.”

  “Yes,” Marcel asserted. “It looks into a person’s mind and knows what he is thinking. It looks into our hearts too and knows what we barely know ourselves. It must have known she was lying.”

  Not just Eleanor, either, he saw now. He appealed to the King, knowing that he was the one who must understand. “I’ve even done it myself, Father. I tricked Starkey. I could feel the Book reach inside me. It knew I was lying and it helped me do it.

  “Evil…” he murmured, remembering what he had sensed when his fingers were pressed against the Book. “I’ve felt it with my own hand, a sly and patient kind of evil, just like Eleanor’s lies. The Book has learned how to deceive, even as people are telling the truth.”

  “That’s right!” Nicola shouted, coming to realisations of her own. “That’s what happened here in this hall, to make you think we would betray you. We would never have let Damon and Eleanor out of the chamber if Lord Alwyn’s magic hadn’t been worked on us. Don’t you see, Father? The Book made it happen. It has found a way to create evil out of the truth!”

  “Nonsense!” roared Lord Alwyn, with what little force he could muster. “My magic would never allow it!”

  Marcel saw the indecision in his father’s face and knew he must convince him somehow. There was worse to fear from the Book’s predictions. Far worse.

  He moved close enough to touch the Book of Lies, which had lain all this time on the map table. “But what about the verses that have appeared in the Book?” he insisted. “You must tell my father about the dragon, Lord Alwyn. There is real danger, and you can’t ignore it any longer.”

  “Verses? A dragon? What is my son talking about, Alwyn?”

  Before the wizard could answer, Marcel opened the Book at the back cover, where the words were still emblazoned for all to see. The steely glare he fixed on Lord Alwyn demanded an answer.

  “These verses are nothing to worry about, Sire,” Alwyn said hastily. “Some lines have appeared in the Book of Lies. Here, see for yourself.” He tapped the leather where the words were now exposed. “Starkey believes they describe a dragon. He has convinced himself it is the great dragon of legend.” All eyes followed as Alwyn swept his arm towards the tapestry, to the scene where Mortregis was tamed by the first Master of the Books.

  The wizard’s face broke into a knowing smile. “Starkey’s a fool. He has even tried to conjure Mortregis from the words of this strange verse. But you know as well as I do, Pelham, that Mortregis is not a dragon at all.”

  The King nodded. “I know what Mortregis is,” he conceded.

  “Do you see now why there is no need to be afraid of this verse?” Lord Alwyn continued. “The key lies in the last two lines:

  Till one who understands this verse

  Controls the Beast and breaks its curse.”

  The wizard addressed Marcel in the patronising tone that adults reserve for ignorant children. “Look closely at the tapestry, Marcel, and you might come to understand as well.”

  Marcel backed away towards the tapestry, desperate to solve this strange puzzle, while behind him the King stooped again and pored over the verses, conferring with his sorcerer in quiet murmurs.

  Marcel could see his father still trusted the old wizard, who knew so much that he was yet to learn. He must earn his father’s respect by discovering what Mortregis was for himself. For a moment he considered trying another spell, but something held him back: the words from the rhyme that began his own book of sorcery. Not magic but wisdom…

  He found the embroidered figure of the dragon and began to examine it again. Nicola and Bea were soon at his side.

  “Help me,” he begged them both in a whisper. “I have to understand what Mortregis really is. My father won’t listen to me until I know.”

  “It was a dragon. Can’t they see that?” said Nicola hotly, tracing her fingers over the creature’s teeth.

  “Shaped like swords,” muttered Marcel, remembering the verse. He noticed the vicious claws ending in triangular tips like arrows – again, just how the poem described them.

  Bea was gone from beside him and he saw that she had moved to inspect the scenes before Mortregis first appeared. When he joined her, he found soldiers fighting one another with real swords, long pikes raised against galloping horsemen and the sky above them filled with an arc of deadly arrows. The death and misery of battle were stitched into each of the dreadful images, the fine needlework capturing every wound, every drop of blood. At the margins, widowed mothers and their children waited anxiously for men who would never come home.

  “The horror of battle,” he said softly. He began to walk slowly beside the tapestry, checking every picture sewn into the fabric.

  “What are you looking for?” asked Nicola as she followed him, perplexed.

  “Soldiers. Fighting. More scenes like the ones back there, at the start of the tapestry.”

  Slowly an idea was growing inside him, and by the time they reached the most recent part of the Kingdom’s history, he knew.

  “War!” he breathed. At last he understood.

  He strode back to Lord Alwyn and the King, who straightened to his full height to hear what his son had to say.

  “The Master’s magic is meant to protect your people, isn’t it, Father, and the greatest evil is Mortregis. I saw it in the tapestry. Mortregis is war, and it has risen up again, after all these years, as though it truly were a dragon, to tear your kingdom apart. If the prophecy is right, Starkey and Damon and Eleanor must have convinced the elves and the men of Lenoth Crag to join them after all. Their armies are marching towards Elstenwyck right now!”

  The King’s face lost every trace of colour. “Alwyn, could this be true? You are Master of the Books, the Kingdom’s sorcerer. It is your job to keep Mortregis at bay, just as each of the Masters has done before you.”

  “Don’t listen to him, Your Majesty, he’s just a boy!” cried Lord Alwyn as he fought his way awkwardly out of the chair. “My magic, the magic of the Book of Lies, has protected this kingdom from the scourge of war since before you were born.”

  Marcel couldn’t bear the anguish in the old wizard’s face, but he went on. He must make his father see the truth. “The Book of Lies has broken free of your magic, Lord Alwyn,” he announced boldly. “It is so full of lies that they have begun to overwhelm the sorcery that brought it to life.”

  Marcel could see his father was
torn between the old man he had trusted all his life and the son he loved, in spite of all. But as King, he must make a choice. “Could your book be corrupt, Alwyn?”

  “The Book of Lies contains my greatest magic. You may trust it as you trust me. It would never deceive you.”

  No sooner had he spoken than his own words began to appear opposite the verses, on the final page of the Book. Marcel saw them first, then the King, father and son staring down in disbelief as each letter looped and curled on to the brittle paper. Only then did Lord Alwyn follow their gaze, and his own eyes widened in terror as he realised what was happening.

  “Your own Book denies it, Alwyn. What does this mean?” the King demanded.

  For once, Lord Alwyn had no ready answer. He was too stunned by his precious creation’s astonishing response.

  Looking up at the King, he pleaded, “I have never lied to you, Pelham.”

  At this, the Book of Lies heaved all of its pages over until the front cover appeared, and once it had closed its golden sheen glowed in competition with the very sunlight that streamed in through the high windows.

  Marcel could see his father’s heart reach out to the man, wanting to believe him. But in his own heart he knew the real truth, and though his words would strike Lord Alwyn like the cruellest stones, he kept up his attack.

  “No, you’ve never lied to my father. You lied to yourself instead,” he said harshly. “Your book can tell when any of the King’s subjects is lying, even to themselves, but you’ve never turned it on yourself – not until now. You are the greatest liar of all, Lord Alwyn. I listened to the story you told us of your apprentices, but I don’t believe what you said. You wanted them to fail the tests you set for them. You deceived yourself when you decided that the only one worthy of sorcery’s power was you.”

  But still Lord Alwyn was not daunted. Summoning every last ounce of his strength, he insisted doggedly, “All lies. My magic is still strong. I will drive back Mortregis. There is nothing to fear.”

  Now the Book of Lies went wild, fanning furiously from first page to last and back again. It jumped and shuddered so vigorously on the table that it upset the pot of ink that sat on the open map. It toppled over, spilling its contents across the Kingdom, starting in the mountains of the high country and spreading rapidly across the forest to the wide valley, gathering in slow rivulets that made their way steadily towards Elstenwyck.

  The spreading stain seemed like an indictment of Lord Alwyn himself. In a panic, he tried to stop the ink with his bare hands, which were soon blackened indelibly with the colour of death. But even this could not turn back the tide.

  The Book had stopped its frenzy and lay open again at the final page, where the wizard’s last words were beginning to appear.

  My magic is still strong. I will drive back Mortregis…

  Marcel looked down at the ruined map, where the ink formed rivers that washed relentlessly towards Elstenwyck. “You have no one to follow you,” he said to the wizard, “and now your magic is dying. The Book has just confirmed it. You have let evil seep into the Kingdom – constant drought that has left the people starving, animals behaving strangely. Do you remember the bats, Your Lordship, how they came screeching and flapping down from the mountains, a great horde like the ink across that map?”

  “I turned them back as I have always done.”

  “But you cannot turn back Mortregis. Not this time. You have left the Kingdom without a magic strong enough to protect it.”

  Lord Alwyn rose up as tall as his frail body would let him, and with his eyes locked on Pelham’s, he gasped, “I would never betray this kingdom.”

  It was the solemn oath of a man desperate to believe his own words. But his own creation would not spare him. The Book of Lies bucked with a kind of glee, flipping its pages in a final taunt, and when it had settled again at the last page, it wrote his words at the very end.

  I would never betray this kingdom.

  The King and his children stared down in horror at the damning words. Lord Alwyn could deny the truth no longer. Finally, the wizard turned his eyes to the page and found his own words among the last that would ever be written in his great Book of Lies.

  “But I have lived my life for this kingdom! For you, Pelham, for Queen Madeleine who adopted you and for her father before that. I must go on,” he panted.

  He stooped over the map of the Kingdom, so much of it already claimed by the invading ink. “Back, back into your bottle!” he commanded, as he swept his left hand over the stain.

  The ink remained.

  He tried again with his right hand but the result was the same. He turned his palms towards himself and saw only the same black that had enveloped the landscape from the mountains almost to the gates of Elstenwyck.

  “Gone,” he whispered. “My magic is dead.”

  His eyes widened in agony and he took a sudden breath. He released it moments later in a stifled sigh that echoed softly through the hall. That faint sound was quickly followed by another: the dull thud of flesh falling against hard marble.

  “Alwyn!” the King cried out as he rushed to where his Master of the Books lay in a crumpled heap amid his black and green robes. Pelham called to him again, and when those deep-set eyes remained closed he took the man’s wizened hand in his own.

  But already it was growing cold.

  Chapter 21

  Sparks in the Darkness

  ON THE DAY AFTER Lord Alwyn’s death, the royal court gathered to farewell their Master of the Books. The Great Hall, so solitary and deserted when Marcel, Nicola and Bea had first peeked inside it, was crowded with every nobleman and dignitary of the Kingdom: grand lords and generals, knights with swords at their belts and beside them ladies of the court, their dark gowns brushing the marble floor. The King, seated on his throne, was dressed in deepest black and so were his children, welcome at last to stand at his side.

  “Lord Alwyn was the most brilliant sorcerer of his age and a faithful servant of us all,” the King told them, his trembling voice barely able to mask his grief. “For countless years, his magic has protected this kingdom and kept it at peace.”

  Out of the deepest respect, Pelham did not tell them that Lord Alwyn had died leaving no one to take his place.

  The Book of Lies was there, set to one side. The King could not bring himself to destroy the greatest creation of his dead sorcerer, but he was wary of its deceit. He had ordered it sealed inside a glass case where it could not hear a single word.

  Marcel listened sadly, with Nicola and Bea at his side.

  When the King finished his speech, Lord Alwyn’s body was carried solemnly out through the tall oak doors and the courtiers shuffled mournfully into line behind it.

  Only Pelham and the children remained in the hall when the bearded Chancellor reappeared suddenly in that same doorway, red-faced and anxious.

  “Your Majesty, a farmer has just arrived all the way from his village near the border with Grenvey. You must hear his news.”

  “Bring him in,” Pelham ordered, and within moments a shabbily dressed man coated in fine dust was helped into the Great Hall by two soldiers.

  “Forgive me… Your Majesty,” he spluttered, fighting for breath and almost falling to the floor as he tried to bow. “I have been riding for hours… as fast as my horse would carry me.”

  A chair was brought for him by one of the soldiers.

  “What is your news?” Pelham asked anxiously. “Tell me what has happened.”

  “This morning… soon after dawn…” the exhausted messenger began, though he could manage only a few words at a time between rasping breaths. “A band of tribesmen… forty of them… down from the high country north of Grenvey. They looted our village and… and set it on fire. Then they set up camp nearby to wait for the rest.”

  “The rest!” cried Pelham, aghast. “How many?”

  “I saw at least six hundred, and still they were coming. A thousand or more. Brutal savages, every one of them. They… the
y slaughtered all the men of my village,” he cried in anguish, close to collapse. “All but me.”

  “How did you escape?”

  “I didn’t. They gave me a horse… and set me free, with a note for you, Your Majesty.”

  He opened his jerkin and withdrew a scroll of paper.

  Pelham took it and read:

  We have your son. Surrender the throne to Eleanor

  and Damon and he will go free.

  If you send your army against us, the boy’s throat will be cut.

  As the soldiers helped the stricken farmer from the Great Hall, Marcel pictured Starkey’s ruby-handled dagger in his mind. “Fergus! Father, you must save him!”

  “Save him? How, boy?” demanded the Chancellor, who deliberately refused to address Marcel by his royal title.

  “I don’t know,” he replied helplessly.

  “Father, you must do something!” cried Nicola, aghast.

  Pelham slumped wretchedly back into his throne without answering her. The Chancellor came closer and began to give his own advice. “Your Majesty, this must seem like a great shock to you, but in fact it is not a true threat at all.”

  “What do you mean?” the King asked warily.

  “You know the Book’s prophecy as well as I do, Sire. It has already been proved right. Your own children betrayed you when they released your enemies from their prison.” His frosty gaze fell on Nicola and Marcel as he spoke these words. “Prince Edwin is still with them, perhaps planning even more treachery. Starkey’s note might simply be another of his tricks. Remember what the Book foretold. The boy is determined to kill his own father. Need I explain what that means?”

  Marcel watched his father’s careworn face and saw the tiny movement of muscles in his cheeks and jaw. “What are you suggesting, then?”