‘Instructions? Why would I read those?’ said Grady. ‘I’m a boy.’
Devin looked blankly at Grady. ‘And that means …?’ she asked.
‘That I don’t need instructions, obviously. We can work things out for ourselves. Right Hugh?’ said Grady, looking for support.
‘Never read em. Never will,’ said Hugh, licking the last of the jam off the plate and scouring the table for crumbs.
‘Couldn’t we just go into the library any time we wanted and look for this stuff?’ said Emily. ‘Won’t it look weird if your dad sees you copying and iMailing a whole load of information?’
‘If we’re right about being sent there for a good reason then none of the adults will care. In fact, I bet they’ll help us find the stuff we need. I bet the reason you’ve got detention, Grady, is so that Quinn can’t follow you round the library.’
‘Well if you guys want to give me the questions to ask, I’ll send you the pages,’ said Grady.
‘Great!’ said Niamh as she started looking through drawers for pen and paper. ‘Let’s start getting some ideas down.’ It suddenly seemed to Niamh as though she had completely missed everything that had been happening around her and a fog had been lifted from her vision. There was more going on here than she or Grady had been told. And one other thing was certain. She was going to find out just who Quinn really was. Clever though he may be, and helpful in his own way, the boy wasn’t telling Niamh something, and she meant to find out exactly what it was!
Chapter 21
The Festival of Samain
After three weeks of searching, the most they had found out about Quinn was that there wasn’t a lot to find out. Every time they thought they were onto something they ran into another dead end – a missing book, a missing set of records, a missing piece of the puzzle. It seemed to Niamh they had managed to build the outside of a jigsaw puzzle but the pieces in the middle were nowhere to be found.
Quinn seemed to have quickly forgotten his outburst at Niamh and Grady. The morning after his tirade he turned up for the trip to school as usual, but Niamh was conscious that Bree, Devin and Emily put themselves between her, Grady and Quinn. Even Hugh felt the tension and flew at the very back of the group so he could maintain a watch over Quinn. Nothing had been said but everyone flew with wands at the ready – for what, they didn’t know – but it seemed like a good idea to be wary. The only person in the group who didn’t show any nervousness was Quinn himself. Either he was completely oblivious to the rest of the group’s edginess or he was a very good actor. Niamh felt in herself that it was the actor coming out in him. She and Grady had talked to their parents about asking him to stop coming to school with them, but that elicited a visit from the king who accused the children of being mean to someone who didn’t have many friends. The king was adamant that if Quinn wanted to come to school with them then they should let him. But Grady was the first to notice the guard sent with them each morning had another two members added to it as if to let the children know they would have help if needed.
By the fourth week of searching the children had become bored with scanning the few pieces of information they thought would yield some clues. There was nothing they could think of which would shed light on whatever it was they needed to find. There were dead ends everywhere with Quinn, and there was nothing they could find about the Twins which they hadn’t already heard from Gilly. Finally towards the end of that week they found something which sparked their interest.
Merritt spent most of his time with Grady in the detention time studying plans and drawings. Grady hadn’t spent much time thinking about these until one day, as he was wandering past the old scrolls spread out on the huge table, he saw something odd. ‘What are these plans, Dad? You’ve been looking at them for weeks now.’ As Grady leaned closer he felt a shiver of magic run down his spine.
Merritt sat up from his hunched position over the table and let out a deep sigh. ‘I’ve been trying to see if I can make sense of the tunnels which lie under the palace, Grady. As you know they are old – much older than the palace. You’ve seen the Gryphon Caverns but you haven’t yet seen all the others. There are legends of tunnels we haven’t found yet, rumours of magical tunnels which only appear at certain times and for certain reasons.’
Grady’s attention was caught by this – magical disappearing tunnels!
Merritt continued: ‘These maps show all the tunnels we know of but they also show fragments of tunnels we can’t find. Like this one here.’ Merritt pointed to a portion of the map which showed the faint outline of a tunnel. Amazingly though the map looked like it was in 3D with the tunnels seeming to move around the page. Grady realised his father had his wand out and was idly twirling it to create the 3D effect. Suddenly the tunnel he was looking at disappeared completely from the map! Grady gasped in surprise. ‘Yes, that’s one of the problems we have, Grady. That particular tunnel shows up often, and always in roughly the same place – almost directly on the spur of the mountain which leads down to the harbour heads. But no one has ever been able to find the entrance and the map always says it leads to the vault of Azrael’s Twins.’
‘Has anyone ever tried to find the other entrance into the vault?’ asked Grady.
‘Why, certainly. There have been many attempts to find it but as far as all of the best wizards and witches in Avalon over the centuries are concerned, that tunnel doesn’t exist. It’s solid rock all the way round the vault. If there’s a tunnel there then it’s not one we can find. They’ve delved the rocks with all sorts of shriving spells and anti-concealment charms, but there’s nothing there.’
‘Could the map be wrong?’ said Grady. ‘Maybe the map makers made a mistake.’
‘Well this map is leprechaun-made, Grady, and their magic is different to ours. It’s possible the map is wrong but the best leprechaun map makers have looked at it and as far as they know it’s absolutely perfect. They swear that the only reason we can’t find it is we’re not smart enough to, but then that’s their answer to a lot of the stuff we get wrong, so it’s hard to know whether they are just taking the mickey out of us. The problem is we just don’t know how some of the magic works in this land. We think it’s tied up with the same magic that changes where doors and corridors lead.
‘Who knows about this map, Dad?’ asked Grady – an idea forming in his head.
‘Not many people. Mostly it’s kept under lock and key and only available to the king and a few others in the castle who are responsible for security. It wouldn’t do to have too many people knowing that there is a map showing secret tunnels around the castle, now would it! Obviously Murdock knows about it as head of security, and the king and queen, the king’s armourer as head of the magical defence team for the castle ….’
‘You mean Quinn’s dad?’
‘Well yes, but there’s no way Quinn could have seen this – his father would never have let on about the map. The map has a concealment spell over it. Those who have seen it are unable to talk about it except with someone else who knows about the map. If they try to mention it to anyone else they end up talking gobbledygook – the spell won’t let them.’
‘So what about me, then?’ said Grady. ‘Will I not be able to talk about it to anyone?’
‘Absolutely not!’ said Merritt. ‘In case you hadn’t heard what I’d just been saying, the map is too important for us to be able to share the information. Did you feel something when you looked at the map?’
Grady nodded.
‘Well that was the magic of the map sealing you to its confounding spell. Not that anyone would notice, but you’ll end up talking complete nonsense if you try to tell anyone about the map who hasn’t already seen the map.’
Grady frowned and sighed. He wasn’t sure but he thought he had an important piece of the puzzle they were trying to solve. If Quinn knew there was another way into the vaults then he was sure to try and find it. The worst part was he couldn’t tell anyone!
The end of detention allowed G
rady to get back to his time with Roland and McHavering but there was little chance to relax. The castle and city was readying itself for the festival of Samain – the time when days became shorter than nights and the slow slide towards darkness and winter began for Avalon. The occasion was always marked by fireworks, bonfires and competitions between the schools.
Grady and Niamh had heard their mother talk about Samain before but it was usually when they were trick or treating for Halloween. ‘November is the wrong time for us in the Southern lands to be doing this, kids,’ she would say. ‘We should be celebrating this at the other end of the year – in March, not November. This should be the festival of Samain – and though it sounds like Soueen when you pronounce it, you spell it Samain. There’s nothing like the Irish to make spelling difficult as you well know, Niamh.’
The entire day was given over to sporting events between the major schools in the city and culminated in the top dragon racing teams from each school competing over an extended course on the castle grounds.
McHavering was frantic in the week leading up to the race. He worked his team harder than ever and the boys on the squad were in no doubt they were expected to win the race or would face the wrath of McHavering.
Niamh was just about worn out from helping the spell casting team with their practices and the list of uncompleted homework began to grow. The team practised harder and harder, though their drills had changed. Rather than just aiming at bullseyes the team was now having to take on moving targets which zipped out from behind them as they stood ready to cast. Niamh was responsible for releasing the targets on which the team honed their shooting skills. Her job was to press the tip of her iWand to the target casting mechanism – a flattish square box with a short tube coming out of the front of it. ‘You just need to imagine yourself firing the bolt, Niamh,’ said Ms Pussywillow. ‘The machine does the rest by creating the spell which fires the bolts for the girls to shoot at.’
‘It’s a machine that creates the spell?’ said Niamh, surprised that a machine would be used for spell casting.
‘We have to do it like this, Niamh, or the targets would be different every time. This way the machine takes the magic and makes all the targets exactly the same,’ explained Ms Pussywillow. If you hit the target it turns green and explodes like a firework. If you only wing it then it turns orange, sprouts some wings and flies away; and if you miss, the target turns red, sticks its tongue out and makes a raspberry at you.’
As with the normal targets Niamh was given instruction by Ms Pussywillow on the finer arts of this type of spell casting. ‘The trick, Niamh, is not to see where the target is but where it’s going to be. There’s no point aiming at where it is now because it will be gone by the time you cast your spell. When something is moving you need to use your mind’s eye to reach inside and just let it happen. You can’t do this by thinking about it. Really good target casters can’t tell you how they manage to hit the targets. Most of them couldn’t do it the same way twice. It’s about being really calm and letting the inner mind take over.’
Niamh just nodded but didn’t really get what her teacher was talking about. It sounded a bit like her mum’s meditation stuff, the sort of thing her mum spent time talking earnestly to her coven about. Niamh thought covens were meant to dance on hilltops around cauldrons casting malevolent spells, but it turned out these days it was much more likely to be a bunch of mums sitting around having a glass of mulled wine and sometimes making a voodoo doll of their husbands to give them a sore bum for forgetting their anniversary again.
Regardless of whether it was strange or not, Niamh did her best to try and relax when the targets started whizzing out. Just as it had been when learning how to cast at the stationary targets – a skill Niamh had picked up quickly and clearly had some talent for – her first shots were wildly off target. This time though, she didn’t give in to frustration or have to imagine Reg’s head flying out of the tube (though she did think about it!). The skills she’d learned from her practice made focusing her spell less of a worry. As she tried to clear her mind the trajectory of the targets became easier to spot. Her spells came closer and closer until finally the pink target exploded in a burst of magenta fireworks.
‘Well done, Niamh!’ exclaimed Ms Pussywillow. ‘Great shot! The first one is always the hardest. You watch. It’ll get easier now.’
Every day that week Niamh spent time practising until she was scoring almost as well as the top team. She couldn’t wait until she was old enough to join the team herself, but until then she was going to enjoy the practice! Though the rules said you had to be twelve to be considered for the team, no one younger than fifteen had ever made it into the squad. Niamh secretly hoped that the training from Ms Pussywillow would give her a head start on the rest of the girls in her year. If only the girls back in her old class at Avalon’s End could see this!
There was only one problem with the attention she was getting and much as she hated to admit it, Quinn was right. Why were she and Grady having the most unusual (and lame) detentions? Why were they the only ones being given the special attention they seemed to receive? Niamh hadn’t heard of anyone else Grady’s age getting even a sniff of working with the dragons (though to be truthful not many seemed to want to – dragon tending seemed to be one of those jobs most self-respecting wizards seemed to avoid). Was it just that they were a prince and princess? Niamh didn’t think so. There must be some other reason the adults weren’t telling them.
‘Our parents never tell us everything, Niamh,’ laughed Devin when Niamh tried to talk to her about it on the way home from school the next day. ‘I wouldn’t worry about it either,’ said Bree. ‘I’m sure if there was something you needed to know they’d tell you. I imagine they are trying to give you a crash course in magical skills to catch up for the years you spent at Avalon’s End.’
But Niamh did worry and think and mull all sorts of possibilities over in her mind. She was going to have to talk to someone about it, but for now she didn’t know who – or even why she would need to discuss it. Bree was probably right. Worrying about it wasn’t to go to solve the problem, but Niamh hated not knowing what people were planning. Sometimes being nosey could be a good thing and Niamh thought this was one of those times.
As Samain approached, the city was decked out in banners and lights to mark the occasion. Around the shops were decorations both familiar and new to Niamh and Grady – pumpkins with leering faces (but unlike those at home these faces moved and cackled as the lights burned within), ghouls and ghosts large and small flew around shop windows and the turrets of the taller buildings, and trancelike zombies stomped along in groups staring at shoppers with dead black eyes. But there were also decorations nastier than those she was used to seeing at home – strange evil-looking demons with glowing red eyes and ugly stubby wings stretching from horny spiked backs, headless deformed creatures with mouths in the middle of their chests spun around in evil-looking dances, and wailing spirits seemed to pop out of the air from nowhere frightening anyone unfortunate enough to be walking past.
‘It’s important to remember, Niamh, that the boundaries between the worlds are much thinner in Avalon than they are in Avalon’s End,’ said Grace when Niamh asked her about the strange-looking figures. ‘Samain is about remembering that where there is light there is also shadow and darkness and we need to stay on our guard against the dark forces.’
‘Can they really hurt us here though, Mum?’ asked Niamh.
‘Not really, sweetie. The guardians do a pretty good job of keeping them out and the only really dangerous ones we need to look out for in Avalon are the banshees.’
‘Like those we saw around Balthasar?’
‘Yes – exactly like those. But they are almost never seen down here in the city. They are mountain creatures mainly, living up in the high places where it’s colder and darker. They love the shadows and dark places. But sometimes we hear their cries down in the city. The legends say if you hear the banshee cry
then someone is about to die.’
But thoughts of banshees and other evil creatures were banished by the time Samain arrived. There was only one topic of discussion at school – who would captain the dragon racing team in their big race on Friday evening! Michael Mallory, the previous captain, had disappeared in a training race against Pomposity College – a team from the Northern Kingdom – when he got caught between two illegal spells. He was found a week later but while he was completely unharmed he had completely forgotten how to ride dragons and preferred to scooter around in a sedate but erratic fashion. The team needed a new captain as a result.
All of the smart money was on Hartley Herringbone who had been the most consistent racer and longest serving member of the team. Hartley was dark-haired, short and solidly built. Despite not having the typical physical build of the other dragon racers he was the youngest ever person in the school to be a member of the top team at just thirteen. Now in his last year at the school his skills were legendary around the dragon racing fraternity. So it was no surprise when his name was announced by Ms Maladicta at the school assembly the morning of the race as the lead off racer and team captain. Cheers, whistles, claps and back slapping greeted each name. Hartley first, then Connor McMurtry (a thin red-haired senior whom everyone liked), then Hugh Fotheringham (Grady recognised him as the boy who had brought the injured dragon back to his stable and who it seemed not many people liked, judging from the muted response), and finally Henry Claypool (who looked bemused and received the biggest cheer – obviously his debut on the top team). The shooters were named next and like the riders each was greeted with a cheer, but it was clear the dragon riders were the stars of the show.
The race wasn’t due to start until dusk was falling. It was a tradition of Samain that the race would start at the setting of the sun and end when the darkness had fallen. Unlike normal races the course would be lit by torches so that all the action could be seen on screens around the town and down in the party central section of the city – slap bang in the huge open square beside the old cathedral.
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