‘Worth a go,’ replied Zorrin. He pulled one of the pebbles out of an inner pocket. ‘Hold on to my shirt.’
Each grabbed a handful of black silky cloth, Ikara grasping a fold in her mouth.
‘Disparticulate us to Ravenscraig,’ Zorrin told the rock.
The grassy plateau began to fade. Elfin music, like distant high-pitched pipes, filled the air. A turquoise mist engulfed them. The trees nearby grew shadowy, the ground less solid – until they were suspended weightless in space. Slowly the haze cleared as they appeared in the front hall of Ravenscraig. Their feet came to rest on cold stone. Alex started to pull away.
Zorrin grabbed his arm. ‘Don’t move yet. If you interrupt reparticulation you may remain always partly in shadow. Many ghosts are not the dead, but the result of such interruptions.’
The high-pitched music faded to a whisper, then vanished as they became totally solid. Zorrin replaced the rock inside his cloak, pulling up his sleeve to reveal his wrist crystal.
‘Show me Flick.’
The crystal revealed Flick sprinting along the corridor outside the dungeons, black and gold hair streaming out behind her.
‘Alive, by the stars. Show me the invaders.’
Several pictures emerged: Rectoria prowling in the underground labyrinth at the east end of the castle; Tevo creeping up the main stairs, heading for the study; Benix growling at Grut, who lay cowering under a chest on one of the second-floor landings; Smuddy Binks in a bedroom above the kitchen; the foxes Arnak and Ferox padding along a corridor, as Hebor aimed for the laboratories.
‘We need to split up. I’ll get Tevo,’ said Zorrin. ‘Ikara, can you take on the badger in the bedroom?’
‘Certainly,’ hissed Ikara. ‘A badger against a snake – no contest.’ She slipped from the room.
‘Keeko, go and help Flick. Tell her Rectoria’s location. Help her neutralise that vicious she-devil of a goblin.’
‘Excellent,’ said Keeko, jaw set. ‘She tried to kill Tariq at Gelforth. It’s payback time.’ She loped after Ikara.
‘Tariq, can you deal with the dog near the labs? If I’m right, it’s Hebor. He has no magic, unlike Rycant, but he’s a fierce fighter. Kill if you have to.’
‘Consider it done,’ said Tariq, rising to stand upright: solid, muscular, menacing. He sprinted out, claws bared.
‘That leaves you with the foxes. OK?’
Alex nodded, throat dry, palms sweaty, wondering how to deal barehanded with angry warrior foxes. He set off at a run, aiming towards the west corridor, a rhythmical thudding against his leg from the box in his pocket. Then it sank in. Cabivitrim: potential weapon. He stopped.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Getting armed.’ Alex pulled on the golden glove.
‘Nothing more vicious than a fighter with a hand warmer.’
‘It’s all we’ve got.’
‘We’ve also got my vivid imagination and currently I see the foxes ripping into your neck then blood gushing down your chest as your life flows out of you.’
‘Where will you be while I’m dying?’
‘Floating in a fox’s stomach acid on the way to Toomba.’
‘Bite the fox for me as you go down his throat. Might distract him.’
Glove in place Alex sprinted on, feeling it was best to get the fight over with whatever the result. Rounding a corner, he came upon Ferox standing in the centre of the hall, teeth bared, snarling. Alex stopped, focusing his mind.
The fox was much bigger than Alex had assumed, standing about the size of a husky. Cabivitrim now seemed inadequate for the job – and a double-edged sword. If he got stuck to one of the foxes he’d be ripped apart.
Keeping eye contact with the fox in the hope that showing no fear would delay an attack, Alex edged open the box, his palm sweating inside the golden glove. He took out one green ball. Warm, squishy and disgusting, it smelled like pond slime.
Ferox stood, head up, body taut – as if his muscles were on standby. Alex took aim and threw.
The fox ducked. The green squidge whistled past his shoulder to land on the carpet some feet beyond. Ferox didn’t turn his head to see where the missile had ended up, remaining fully focussed on Alex.
Grabbing another jelly ball, Alex recalculated where to aim. Lower down the body would make the glue less easy to dodge. With a quick snap of his elbow Alex hurled the next cabivitrim at Ferox.
‘Missed by less,’ said Skoodle, chin on the edge of his pocket.
‘Almost encouraging.’
With focus born of desperation Alex recognised a pattern to the animal’s movements. As the first ball had spun at him the fox had flattened to the floor slightly then sprung back. For the second missile he had twitched to one side. Each time he’d used minimal movement to avoid the problem then instantly recoiled to his original position.
Alex reached into the box for a third cabivitrim, sweat trickling down the back of his neck. He had already missed twice. Ferox’s snarling became louder, tail waving, presumably waiting until Alex faltered.
Mind in cold battle calculation mode, Alex took aim. His arm rocketed forward as if to throw, but he held on to the glue. The fox ducked. As Ferox sprang back to his attacking position Alex hurled the cabivitrim. It hit a front leg.
Ferox glanced down at the shimmering green ball. Growling, he scraped his front paw on the floor. As soon as the green slime touched the carpet, it stuck. Ferox yanked his foot, screaming as he tore skin and fur. The cabivitrim held.
‘Devil-cub,’ Ferox yelled at Alex. ‘What evil magic is in this? Arnak, come.’
Another fox appeared at the far end of the corridor, much larger than the first. After a fleeting glance at Ferox, Arnak sprinted forward, his eyes fixed on Alex’s throat.
‘Crisis,’ yelled Skoodle. ‘Run.’
‘He’s faster. We fight.’
As Skoodle dropped to the bottom of his pocket, Alex reached into the box for the last cabivitrim. Two misses at a standing fox. One ball left for a sprinting animal.
Alex’s tiny target had to be the border of one of the front paws, the only body part that definitely would touch the carpet. Absorbing the rhythm of the fox’s gait, Alex threw. The green slime hit the front paw, but too high to stick to the floor.
The fox sprang, jaws wide. In desperation, Alex hurled the box at the fox’s head. Too late to dodge, Arnak took the blow full in the face. Stunned, he lurched sideways. The cabivitrim hit the carpet and stuck. The fox clawed at his fixed paw, sticking down both.
‘Snot-ball,’ Ferox shrieked. ‘Cowardly yellow-livered dungworm. I’ll claw you to shreds for this.’
‘I’ll rip your throat out, you stinking pool of putrid pus,’ yelled Arnak.
Skoodle appeared at the pocket edge. ‘Yeah, maybe.’
Peeling the hot glove off his hand, Alex threw it to the floor. He’d won. Relief flooded through him. Buzzing with adrenaline, he surveyed the field of battle: his trapped enemies, bloodstained, surrounded by ripped-off skin and fur.
‘We were brilliant,’ said Skoodle.
‘Too right. Now we need to find the others.’
‘It’s probably half-time by now. Will they have oranges?’
‘No. Be serious. This is a battle.’
‘I am serious.’
CHAPTER 24
As Alex sprinted for the narrow gap between the foxes and the wall, the tip of one of Ferox’s claws found his flesh. Alex felt ripping pain, then blood running down his leg. Alex ignored it, not bothered at all. Blood on both sides, but he had won.
He rounded the next bend and stopped. A vast black dog was pounding towards him down the corridor. The dog’s muscles rippled under black wiry fur: a killing machine double Alex’s size.
‘Reverse,’ yelled Skoodle.
Alex wheeled round and bolted back past the foxes.
‘Kill him, Rycant,’ shouted Ferox. ‘Rip that evil human spawn apart.’
‘Willingly,’ growled the huge dog, sprinting past.
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Alex ran flat out, yet the pounding canine feet got closer with every pace. With the snarling only yards behind him, Alex ran into a room, swinging round to slam the heavy door shut.
It was too late. Rycant’s salivating muzzle thrust through the gap. Alex flung his whole weight against the door. Wood splintered on to skull with a loud crash. Howling, Rycant smashed the door open, flinging Alex across the room, blasting him into a table. The enormous dog stood facing Alex, growling, taking his time now that his victim was trapped.
Trapped, weaponless, Alex wondered whether he’d have time to throw himself through the closed window. Death by falling several floors in a shower of splintered glass might be better than having his throat torn out. As Rycant sprang, Alex grabbed a large object from the table and cracked it on to the dog’s head. Head bleeding, the Rottweiler staggered sideways.
‘It’s Clawds,’ yelled Skoodle.
Glancing down, Alex saw that he was holding the statue of the cat. The dark sculptured wood glowed intensely, as if from an inner light. It rapidly got warmer; within a couple of seconds it was too hot to hold. With a grimace of pain, Alex dropped it.
It landed upright, the cat perched on his hind paws as he had been when lignified. Some extraordinary force seemed to be surging through Clawds, like a thousand-volt electric charge. Wood began to melt into fur, the lifeless paws returning to flesh. The statue expanded rapidly as it turned back into a living cat. Within seconds an eleven-foot monster stood near Alex, howling. Growling, Rycant hauled himself to his feet, hair bristling.
The great cat’s jaws opened, so wide that it seemed his head would rip apart. A hand appeared out of Clawds’s mouth, followed by a second.
The two hands yanked at the giant cat’s back teeth as the being tried to haul itself out of the immense feline. Yowling, Clawds wrestled to close his jaws against the clawing fingers, his still-lignified forepaws hanging uselessly by his sides.
After a grotesque minute a man’s head appeared, a ragged slash down his cheek. Bulging eyes stared out of their sockets. His neck veins were engorged like fat purple ropes as he strained. Then, for a moment, the facial muscles relaxed as the figure inhaled a lungful of air.
‘Karlan,’ gasped Alex.
Spurred into movement, Alex took two steps towards Clawds. The dog leapt forward, snarling, teeth bared, paws braced. Alex moved back a few inches. The growling subsided. The dog clearly wasn’t frightened of the face appearing. Karlan must be one of his allies.
Karlan started struggling again, overbalancing the cat. Clawds’s head hit the corner of an oak chest. He lay still, eyes closed, motionless.
Leaning on the blunter teeth at the back of the mouth, Karlan forced the cat down his body inch by inch. Black-clad shoulders and chest appeared, covered in lumpy slimy stomach contents. In a few seconds the wizard stepped out, kicking Clawds to one side as if he were an empty sleeping bag
Stiffly, the wizard raised himself to his feet. ‘You and your stupid friends released Zorrin,’ he said to Alex, sounding furious. ‘You’re directly responsible for this outrage.’ He touched the ragged wound on his face and indicated his stinking shirt. ‘You’ll die for this.’
His tone was cold, clinical – as if he’d passed a death sentence so often that it was neither interesting nor negotiable; just fact. Skoodle scrambled round to the back of Alex’s shirt as Karlan started to brush some of the foul matter from his clothes.
Alex could feel Skoodle climbing down his back, scratching his skin through his thin shirt, then scurrying down his leg.
Karlan looked up again. ‘You’ll not escape this time,’ he said, spitting his words out like bullets. ‘I’ll teach you a lesson. Luckily for you, you’ll not remember it, as corpses have no memory.’ He turned to the dog. ‘Rycant, is Tevo also here?’
‘Yes.’
‘Bring him to me.’
Karlan watched the dog lope out of the door. Out of the corner of his eye Alex saw Skoodle scurry across the floor to the cat, then bury himself in his tabby fur.
So he has not run for help, thought Alex. He’s abandoned me, getting clear of the death bolt. It doesn’t matter. In a minute or so nothing will matter to me ever again.
Playing for time in case Zorrin might track him, Alex blurted out, ‘Your escape was astonishing.’ He forced admiration into his voice. ‘How did you get out?’
‘It’s interesting to see that somebody as young and feeble as yourself appreciates powerful magic when they see it.’
‘I’m fascinated,’ Alex raced on, brain trying to keep up with his words. ‘You were totally trapped, weren’t you? You should have been helpless.’
‘Yet, as you have seen, I wasn’t. Never underestimate the power of the evil forces. Not that you’ll have much time left to make further judgements on anything.’
‘Even so, how did you do it?’ asked Alex, pushing on, throat as dry as the Sahara. The hammering of his heart was so loud inside his head that he almost expected blood to start spurting out of his ears. ‘Did you send a beam of magic to the dog?’
‘No,’ replied Karlan, sounding irritated. ‘I couldn’t transmit any messages anywhere. Zorrin’s spell had dealt with that. Rycant is a magical creature. When my trapped power met him with such force, the fusion of two enchantment zones shattered the spell binding me. Unfortunately, it also strengthened that blasted cat, so he did not die as he should have done. In fact,’ Karlan added with a thin smile, ‘I suppose I ought to be thanking you for this rescue. Think, as you die, of how you have cost your friends their lives.’
Alex blundered on, words spilling out at random. He waved his hand around airily. ‘So, do you think this room will do for a meeting place with Tevo? Has it enough magical vibrations to help your mental energy flow?’
Idiot, he thought. How could I say something so stupid? Karlan is bound to realise that this is aimless rambling.
It seemed, however, not to be so stupid. Karlan’s gaze swept around the room taking in the pale stone fireplace, the scarlet silk curtains, the portraits of elderly wizards, the sparse oak furniture. He inhaled deeply, filling his lungs with the mixed aroma of wax polish, old wood and the electric scent that invariably follows a storm.
‘I suppose so.’
Alex backed away a step. Only a couple of yards separated him from the open door, but at this moment even two paces was a terminal distance. ‘Why do you hate Zorrin?’ he asked, as the wizard looked back at him.
‘History. If you knew his life story, you’d hate him too. Enough of this. I have given you longer than you deserve.’ His bony arm rose from under the long, stinking shirt. The executioner’s finger pointed straight at Alex’s heart.
CHAPTER 25
Inching instinctively back towards the door, Alex felt no longer frightened, merely angry. He had played the game and lost. So close, so finely judged, yet he was to die anyway.
His eyes fixed on the window behind Karlan. ‘Zorrin,’ he yelled. ‘Thank the stars.’
Karlan swung round. The panes were empty. Only his own furious expression was visible. Beyond hung impenetrable black night. Though he had no chance at all of making it through the door, sheer survival instinct drove Alex to bolt for it.
A scream ripped through the air, a terrible inhuman sound of mortal agony. Glancing over his shoulder, Alex saw Karlan arching backwards, howling, knees buckling beneath him. Behind the wizard Clawds reared up: eleven feet of fighting feline, blood glistening on the tips of his outstretched claws. Face contorted with pain, Karlan swung round, his deadly finger aiming directly at Clawds: his slashed, bleeding back towards Alex, his ripped shirt in tatters.
Clawds’s paw hit the wizard’s arm like the crack of a baseball bat. In agony Karlan stared down at the broken limb. White-faced he lurched forward, landing in a senseless heap on the floor, arm sticking out at an unnatural angle.
Shaking from his adrenaline surge, Alex looked up at the immense cat. ‘Clawds, that was amazing.’
‘Thanks.’
Clawds wiped his bloodstained claws on the wizard’s shirt. ‘Who saved me?’
Skoodle stuck his head out from behind a chair leg. ‘Me,’ he squeaked.
Vast yellow eyes swung towards the hamster. ‘You, tiny one? How?’
‘The flower from Makusha. Stupid to trust a lump of granite. But I thought… maybe… there was a chance… ’ His voice tailed off under the piercing gaze of the immense cat.
For a moment Clawds stood looking down, head to one side, frowning. Finally he spoke. ‘Pax. Never again will I eat any hamster, or indeed any rodent, if that’s what you desire.’
Whiskers quivering, Skoodle made an attempt to look dignified. ‘You can stuff yourself with rats, but if you would be so kind as to avoid hamsters and mice – other than the ones who are disguised wizards – that would be very nice, please. Or is it thank you?’
‘Done.’ Reaching down, Clawds held out his paw, which was the size of a table tennis bat. Skoodle reached up with his own minuscule one. The two solemnly shook hands.
Running footsteps approached. Alex and Clawds turned to face the door, ready to fight. Skoodle ran behind Alex.
Myth at his heels, Zorrin sprinted into the room, finger drawn at the ready, face set. For a moment he stood surveying the scene before him: the gigantic cat, the unconscious wizard lying twisted on the floor, right behind Alex. Alex bloodied but still standing, Skoodle behind his left foot.
‘Do you like the new size or should I go back to the portable version?’ asked Clawds.
‘Big is great,’ replied Zorrin, grinning. ‘At least until this battle is over.’
Clawds nodded. ‘No problem.’ He pointed at Karlan. ‘What are you going to do with this pseudo-mouse? He’s likely to wake in a minute.’
‘Trap him.’
Zorrin held his hand out flat. A bubble appeared on his palm. Enlarging rapidly, it floated over to the broken figure on the floor – and landed with a small pop, enveloping Karlan totally.
The Serpent of Eridor Page 16