‘Stop it!’ yelled Grady. ‘We’ll help you. Don’t hurt them. Please!’
Quinn flicked his wand back round and the ropes eased off again, relaxing their grip. ‘That’s more like it.’
‘You still haven’t answered the question, though,’ said Niamh.
‘What question?’ said Quinn.
‘Why do you need us to get the Twins if you’re so powerful?’
‘The lore and legends around the Twins say that they can only be removed from their plinth by their human mirrors – by the children who are paired with the Twins by the deep and old magic. Turns out, surprisingly, that means you two.’
Grady and Niamh looked at each other in total confusion. ‘We can’t be ... I mean ... our magic is pretty strong, but ... what you’re saying is ridiculous. It makes it sound like we don’t have a choice in it,’ said Niamh.
‘You don’t, Princess,’ said Quinn, leaning against a marble statue of an ancient knight. ‘Your parents really set you up, didn’t they?’
‘Don’t talk about our parents like that,’ said Grady. ‘They wouldn’t do anything to hurt us. Don’t get angry at them just because you lost your parents!’ Grady yelled.
‘Wouldn’t hurt you?’ sneered Quinn. ‘For parents who wouldn’t hurt you, it seems they’ve let you do a hell of a lot of things that were more than likely to hurt you. I don’t know too many caring and thoughtful parents who would let their children ride dragons without any idea how to do it, or let their daughter cast firebolts around the place when she barely knows how to hold a wand.’
Niamh looked less certain of herself for a moment. This sounded eerily like the same comments made by Hugh not that long ago.
‘What do you want the Twins for, anyway?’ asked Grady.
‘I suppose you deserve an answer,’ he said, turning towards the plinth holding the two statues. ‘I’m going to make sure no one ever gets brought back from our world to this one. I’m going to make sure the doorway to this world is shut forever.’
‘Why?’ asked Niamh incredulously. ‘Why stop others from coming here?’
Quinn shot a dark snarl back at Niamh. ‘So no one else EVER gets dragged into this world. So no one else EVER has to lose their parents like I DID!’ Quinn roared. As he did so he slashed out with his wand, a bolt of fire whipping out through the vault and smashing into the suit of armour which disintegrated in a ball of flaming debris. He stood for a moment, looking as the debris settled, his chest and shoulders heaving – with anger or the effort of holding back tears, Niamh could not tell.
‘But what about ...’ Grady started to say. He was cut short as Quinn rounded on him.
‘Shut up!’ shouted Quinn. ‘Enough talking. You two need to get the Twins for me now or your friends are in even more trouble.’
Niamh turned to look at Grady who shrugged and headed towards the plinth. Niamh followed closely behind. Their footsteps seemed to ring out on the rough floor as they stepped towards the statues. The swirls and patterns in the lightly glowing dome above the plinth seemed to move faster as the children approached. Niamh and Grady stepped up to the top step and stood silently peering into the swirling dome. The patterns on the surface began to glow more brightly and their movements became more frenzied as they raced around the surface, but suddenly they slowed and settled – almost as if they recognised the children.
‘You can take them any time you like,’ said Quinn from just behind the children. ‘But don’t think of trying any funny business. Your friends are only one wand swipe away from a choking death, and it will be at your hands if that happens.’
Niamh turned round to look at Quinn. ‘Would you really kill them? Really?’
Quinn hesitated for a moment before answering. ‘Of course. Why wouldn’t I? You are the only ones who can get me what I need.’ Niamh knew with a sudden clarity that Quinn was not telling the truth about hurting her friends. The hesitation was enough to show his words might not be backed up with actions. ‘Get on with it,’ Quinn said testily. ‘We don’t have all night.’
Niamh turned back and looked at Grady. ‘On three, then.’ Grady nodded. She counted quietly − ‘One ... two ... three.’
Both children reached forward at the same time. Their fingers brushed into the surface of the dome, but instead of passing through it the dome bent and twisted around their hands like a thick viscous liquid. Niamh pushed harder and tried to twist her hands through the barrier, but without success. Grady grunted as he did the same, but the barrier was unyielding. The children pulled their hands back and stood staring, not knowing what to do next. They had fully expected to reach through, but the dome was completely unyielding.
‘What’s wrong?’ said Quinn nervously. ‘Get the Twins for me now! Your friends are depending on you.’
‘It’s not working,’ said Niamh pleadingly. ‘Maybe you’ve got the wrong children?’
‘No chance. It’s definitely you two. All the signs are there and ... those in the know are certain you are the key,’ said Quinn cryptically.
‘Niamh,’ whispered Grady. ‘I know what to do!’
‘What?’
‘Take my hand. It’ll work!’
Niamh hesitated for a moment, but then realised her brother was probably, unfortunately, and absolutely right. Everything she had learned on this strange day had shown that together she and her brother were stronger than they could hope to be working by themselves. She reached out and took his hand.
A tingle of power ran between their fingertips as they reached out to each other and then, hand in hand, they reached towards the dome. This time the surface shimmered and danced, but their hands passed straight through without a hint of resistance. Their fingers stretched out and together they each grasped a figure – Niamh the diaphanous girl and Grady the fire-headed boy. As they picked them up the children could hear the sound of rushing wind, dancing flames, thundering rivers, and the crack of mountain-shaking earthquakes. The sounds drowned out everything around them and the cavern seemed to disappear as ancient visions of creatures they could not recognise and places they had never seen swam before and around them. For a moment they felt as if they were wrapped in a movie at which they were the centre. Two faces suddenly grew out of the chaos and surged towards them – the faces of the Twins. Before Niamh or Grady could react, the faces hurtled into them with a spine-chilling coldness which cut right to their heart. Two voices rang out from the chaos and spoke to the children – ‘We have been waiting for you ...come, take what is yours to hold ...’ Before the children could make meaning of this, a power, the likes of which they had never imagined, picked them up and threw them off the dais and through the air across the chamber. They landed roughly on the floor of the vault and lay still. Quinn stood shocked and staring at the two children lying crumpled on the floor. Each of them still held one of the Twins, but their chests no longer showed a breath of movement. They lay beside each other – still as death.
Quinn froze. This wasn’t part of the plan! He stood motionless for a few moments trying to think. Through ragged breaths he focused on the two corpses (he could not imagine two such lifeless bodies could be anything but corpses) and shot glances back to Bree and Hugh still pinned to the wall – soundless screams showing in their faces. Quinn turned sharply towards them with his wand weaving shakily in their direction. Gathering his composure he steadied his hand and with a flick of the tip made the bonds, holding the children to the wall, fall away. Bree and Hugh shrieked as they fell towards the floor but were stopped inches away from a rough landing by a cushioning spell from Quinn. For a moment they hung there before dropping the last couple of inches to the ground.
Bree jumped up first with a steely menacing look in her eyes. ‘You’ve killed them! You ... you ... monster!’ she screamed as she ran towards the still bodies. She ran her hands over them looking for signs of life but there was nothing, not a flicker of an eyelid, not the merest breath on their lips. Hugh lay where he fell, too stunned to move.
‘I ... I ... I ...’ Quinn stammered as he stared at the fallen children.
‘Stop muttering like some Spanish dancer!’ yelled Bree. ‘I I I – you’ve killed them!’
‘I never meant this,’ Quinn finally spluttered out. ‘I just needed the Twins!’ He stood with his wand still outstretched but shifted uneasily from foot to foot as his mind raced for a way to reverse the damage. Powerful as he knew he was, there was no way to undo this mistake.
Hugh continued to stare at the two bodies as he slowly stood up and walked towards his fallen friends. He knelt down beside Bree, staring at the children’s hands. They were still firmly clasped around the Twins. Something did not look right to him. If the children were dead then why did their fingers still show the strain of holding onto the small statues? Telltale patches of red and white showed at their fingertips, betraying the strength of their grip on the Twins. Slowly he bent down and laid his ear on Grady’s chest. There was no sound or sign of life ... until very, very faintly he heard the distant and single bu-bump of a heartbeat. It seemed to come from a long way away and from a long time ago – not the beat of a human heart, but something bigger and deeper, as if a tunnel echoed the sound to him from a distant chamber. A whispered voice followed it; ‘We are one now. Trust yourself. And be strong!’ Hugh was not sure if the voice was talking to him or Grady. He sat back on his haunches and frowned. As he did so, a breeze seemed to stir the hair of Niamh and Grady and at the same time the constantly moving locks of the statues stilled their fluttering. Beside him Bree had silent tears running down a face of pure anger. And it was clear she had not seen what Hugh had just witnessed.
Behind them Quinn started to compose himself. He wiped his eyes as if trying to clear away the mess in front of him. There was still a job to be done. Gathering resolve he lifted his wand again and waved it menacingly at Bree and Hugh. ‘What’s done is done. I need those statues. Take them and bring them to me.’
Bree stared back with hatred in her eyes. ‘And what will you do once we have? Will you kill us just like you’ve killed these two?’
Quinn did not respond, but a bolt of red shot from the tip of his wand past Bree’s hair and smashed into the rock behind her. Bree didn’t move, though the hex had come so close the tips of her hair smouldered from the heat of the spell. ‘Don’t think I won’t get a little closer next time. I’ve already killed once. What’s another couple of deaths now ...’
Hugh stared at Quinn for a moment before touching Bree’s arm. ‘It’s okay. Let him have them.’
‘Are you mad?’ Bree hissed back at him. ‘If he has those Twins then there’s no telling what he can do with them.’
‘Trust me,’ Hugh said, squeezing Bree’s arm a little harder, flicking his eyes down towards the children and placing his hand on Niamh’s. Bree looked down and saw the stilled hair of the statues and the children’s grip on them. As she watched, the figurines’ hair billowed again but the movement was different, less lifelike, less animated. She stared for a moment longer before realisation bloomed inside her. Hugh nodded and together they prised the statues from Niamh and Grady’s grip. The still children reluctantly gave up their grip on the Twins, but as they slipped from their grasp their chests rose very slowly as breath returned to them. Bree and Hugh stood with the Twins in their hands and held them out to Quinn.
‘Put them over there,’ said Quinn, gesturing to a stone platform a few feet away. Bree and Hugh stepped over and gently placed the Twins before backing away and kneeling down by Niamh and Grady.
Quinn smiled and quickly scooped up the figurines. A greedy look bloomed in his eyes as he finally held the prize in his hands. He laughed for a moment and smiled at Hugh and Bree. ‘Time to close some doorways, I think.’ He backed away from the children towards the centre of the treasure room and the dais.
‘You don’t really think you can close off our worlds, do you?’ said Bree. ‘That’s magic beyond even the best sorcerers that have ever been.’
‘There’s never been a sorcerer like me though, has there?’ grinned Quinn. ‘I am sorry though. Really,’ he said, looking at Niamh and Grady who lay without moving. ‘I never meant for that to happen but ... sometimes great magic demands a great sacrifice.’ Bree wasn’t sure if he was a better actor than she thought, or he was genuine in his remorse.
‘But now, I need to go,’ said Quinn. With a flick of his wrist Bree and Hugh’s wands sailed across the chamber. The children reached up, snatched them out of the air, and immediately held them out defensively in front of them. Quinn laughed. ‘Oh, don’t worry. I have everything I need now. And you were no match for me before I had the Twins. So do you really think you could defeat me now?’ Bree and Hugh moved a little closer to each other. They knew Quinn was right. He smiled back at them. ‘So, I will take my leave.’
Quinn stood up straight and tall. He crossed his arms in front of his chest with one of the Twins in each hand. A golden nimbus of light surrounded him, casting shadows around the chamber. In the middle of the light Quinn started to waver and flicker, his outline becoming indistinct.
Bree and Hugh stared in wonder at the glowing shape while behind them Niamh and Grady began to stir, their chests rising and falling more strongly now as new breath filled their lungs. They groaned and, as Bree and Hugh helped, tried to sit up.
Inside the golden glow Quinn’s face suddenly registered surprise and then shock. But the shock was clearly not at Niamh and Grady’s recovery. The glow suddenly began to fade and lift. The children stared in shock. Quinn’s face showed the agony of failure as he roared out, ‘Nooooooooo!’ The glow winked out completely as Quinn fell to his knees with the Twins clutched to his chest.
‘This should have worked,’ he whimpered, trying to regain his feet. Whatever had happened had drained him of strength. Each time he tried to stand his legs crumpled beneath him.
Behind him a shadow detached itself from the wall. Where moments before there had been nothing to see but the rock face, there now grew a swirling inky blackness which surged forward. The darkness drifted outward with looping and swirling claw-like tendrils. Shadows began to move inside the roiling mass and a sudden screech rang out through the chamber and echoed off the walls. Hugh and Bree held their hands to their ears and dropped to the floor. Only Grady and Niamh did not fall back before the cry. They had heard it before in the forest on the night of the dragon race and they had seen this darkness before in the corridor at Rookwood Hall. From the centre of the blackness a figure began to resolve itself, just as the children had seen it do before. But this time there was no cloak or hood to hide the features of the figure that strode towards them. Niamh and Grady heard gasps behind them but felt no fear as they stood to face the new arrival.
‘Gilly,’ said Niamh quietly. ‘How long have you been watching?’
‘Long enough,’ chuckled the lore master. He sat down facing the children as the stormy clouds behind swirled and boiled. Occasionally the face of a banshee would peak out of the cloud turning from a gentle elf-like creature to a sharp-toothed feral beast and then back again before being consumed by the mist. ‘Excuse me sitting down. I am an old man and the knees aren’t what they used to be.’ He took off his spectacles and started cleaning them with his robe. ‘Well, young Quinn here has done an excellent job for me today. I doubt there was anyone else who could have lured you to the chamber in the way that he has. Well done, my boy,’ said the old man, with an appreciative nod and a quiet clap of the hands.
‘Why are you here?’ said Quinn incredulously. ‘And why are those things behind you?’
‘Oh, snap out of it, Quinn,’ said Bree. ‘Your friend here is Balthasar! Can’t you see that?’
Quinn stared at the old man with questions and betrayal in his eyes. ‘But ... you can’t be. How? You’re just ...’
‘Just Gilly?’ said the lore master. ‘Yes, poor old harmless Gilly. The old lore master that everyone trusts and loves,’ he said – the words almost spat out in disgust. ‘Yes, the poor old
chap. The harmless old bookish man that spends all his time buried in contemplation of ancient scrolls. Well, let me tell you, those books and scrolls tell a lot more than any of your useless lot would ever realise or care about,’ he said, staring at Niamh and Grady.
‘What is that supposed to mean?’ said Grady, gripping his wand a little more tightly.
‘He wants the Twins,’ said Niamh quietly. ‘He plans to use them for himself.’
‘Very good, Princess,’ said Gilly, smiling and nodding at Niamh. ‘So, Quinn, while I am sure you had wonderful plans for the Twins my young friend, I will need you to hand them over.’
‘Why?’ said Quinn defiantly. ‘You know what I need them for. We talked about it. You know what I want to do. What I need to do.’
‘Yes I do, my boy and that is exactly why I am here. You see I too have plans for the Twins and while you might seek to end the connection between the Old World and Avalon, I intend to fully make use of the two worlds. I intend to link the magic of both worlds together. With the power of the Twins I will be more powerful than any of you can imagine, and I will make this world great again, the way it should have always been.’
‘You’re completely barking mad, aren’t you?’ said Hugh. ‘You should know better than anyone what happened the last time the magic of the two worlds were linked. It was a bloody disaster.’
‘Only a disaster in the minds of the small-minded and fearful little folk like you, my friend. And your royal confidants here,’ said Gilly, gesturing at Niamh and Grady disdainfully. ‘The link was only broken because scared wizards and witches were unable to see the great works that could be done by us magical folk, by using the power of the two worlds. My line could see that. Theirs had no vision of greatness, of the wonders we could create as magic folk.’ The venom of his words almost seemed to hit Niamh and Grady with a physical force. Behind him the clouds and creatures seemed to grow to frenzy as visions came and went in darkness, visions of magical folk ruling two worlds with all others serving them. Faeries in chains toiled beside shackled trolls. Goblins cracked whips of knotted thorns to drive them on, while witches and wizards built cities of glass and crystal.
Azrael's Twins Page 47