by Shannah Jay
Ronan smiled. It made things seem better, somehow, to have Kerril grumbling by his side. ‘Well, Shayla? How do you know which way to go?’
She shrugged. ‘I just do. I’ve always known which way Azaray lay, only I never told anyone about that before. Don’t you believe me?’
‘Of course I do.’ He pressed her hand and turned in the direction she had indicated. ‘Lead on, then.
Let’s see if we can find our way to the city. But we’d better stay close. It’d only take a few steps for one of us to get completely lost.’
They began to walk forward carefully across the dim landscape. Rocks loomed up sometimes to bar their way, great outcrops of dark jagged stone they had to find their way round, but Shayla always moved on again confidently.
There were dark silent pools of water sometimes, so still and lifeless you wouldn’t want to drink from them. In fact, the whole landscape had no plants, animals or insects. Only the mist seemed alive, twisting and weaving around them.
Ronan kept his right hand on his sword hilt in case anyone tried to creep up on them without being seen, but there wasn’t the slightest sign that anyone had ever passed this way before.
After a time there seemed to be more drifting pieces of mist gathering around them than before, making visibility even worse, and the soft strands seemed to be lingering for longer.
‘The mist is getting thicker,’ Kerril said.
‘It doesn’t seem to be doing us any harm.’
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‘It’s not doing us any good, either.’ Kerril shivered. ‘I don’t like the damp, clinging feel of it.’
Suddenly the strands of mist began moving more rapidly, gathering in greater numbers around them, so that it grew impossible to see more than an arm’s length in front of you.
Shayla stopped walking. ‘I can’t even see my feet now, so I think we should perhaps stop for a while.
Maybe the mist will clear again. Look, there’s a rock here. Let’s sit on it.’
Soon afterwards they heard voices ahead of them and looked at one another in surprise. Who else was in the Shadows?
More mist drifted towards them, then more still, till they couldn’t see one another, only hold hands for safety. It was as if the grey strands were trying to hide them. Did the mist have life? Who knew in these magic lands?
Gradually the voices grew louder and they heard footsteps shuffling along nearby.
‘Keep a tight hold of that there rope!’ a man’s voice called. ‘Else we’ll never find our way out again.’
‘I’m not stupid. No need to tell me that. I just hope you tied it to the tree properly. If it comes adrift, we’re in real trouble.’
‘We’re in trouble anyway if anyone sees us coming out of this place, so keep your big mouth shut.
Didn’t I tell you to whisper? It’s forbidden to go into the Shadows.’
‘I want the reward for finding those three children that disappeared three years ago. Wonder who they were?’
‘Who knows?’ He muttered a curse. ‘I hate this dangy mist! It’s worse here. Can’t even see my own feet.’
‘Don’t need to see ’em. You can feel they’re still there, can’t you?’
‘You’re mad.’
‘Ah, but you’re helping me search, aren’t you? So what does that make you?’
‘I’m mad, too.’ The speaker cackled with rusty laughter.
The two men gradually moved away, still grumbling and arguing. As the sounds faded into the distance, the three young people stood motionless, staring at one another in shock.
‘Three years!’ Kerril said at last. ‘We’ve been gone for three whole years!’
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Shayla blew out her breath in a puff of surprise. ‘Do you think it’s true, Ronan?’
He thought about it then nodded. ‘Yes. I knew time was passing in the True Vale, but not how much.
But how else could we all have grown so much taller? We should have realized that would take more than a few months.’ He hesitated, then added, ‘And if three years have passed, we must be seventeen now.’
‘And you’re well grown even for that,’ she replied. ‘You look older than seventeen—older than us two.’ And perhaps he was? Time might have moved differently for him in the True Vale.
‘Maybe I grow faster. Who knows?’ He looked down at his sword arm. ‘Just pray that I’m strong enough now to defeat them.’ As his hand rested on the hilt, he felt the usual warmth curling from the sword into his flesh. Such a comfort to him, that warmth. The sword seemed like a living creature, a close friend.
But however close he felt to his brother and sister, however much he needed their skills, the main responsibility for this quest was his—and if they succeeded in defeating his uncle and the wizard, he would be the one who had to rule Azaray. Alone. Three couldn’t rule a country, not even ‘Three in One’.
It was a terrifying thought. How did you become wise enough to sit alone on a throne and look after so many people?
He shook his head and forced himself to concentrate on the here and now. As the sword had said, he would have counsellors to help him, as well as his brother and sister. ‘Let’s try to approach Azaray from another direction to the direct road through the Shadows. Can you help us do that, Shayla? Guide us there by a roundabout way—going to the north, perhaps?’
‘Yes, of course I can.’ She took the lead again and as they walked, the extra mist left them, drifting away until there were just wisps of it floating around as there had been at the beginning of this strange walk.
It was clear now that the mist had deliberately hidden them from the two men. There could have been no other explanation. So it did have a life and intelligence of its own. But they didn’t want to discuss that openly while they were still surrounded by clinging grey strands, in case they said something that upset it.
Anyway, magic went its own way. Even wizards couldn’t completely control it. You just had to be thankful when it working more or less as you hoped.
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***
Just when it seemed as if they’d been walking for ever, the mist began to grow sparser and within a few minutes they’d walked right out of the Shadows. Farm land lay before them: fields and grazing animals with a house in the distance. When they turned round, they could see the Shadows behind them, but ahead of them the sun was shining, brightening the world. It felt wonderfully warm on their faces.
‘Thank goodness!’ Kerril stopped to beam round. ‘I felt stifled in there!’
‘Where are we?’ Ronan scanned the landscape, not recognizing any landmarks.
‘We’re quite a long way from Azaray,’ Shayla said quietly, pointing. ‘It’s in that direction.’
This was uplands, with mountains in the distance. It appeared to be sparsely settled, with only occasional farms to be seen from this hilltop and no sign of a town.
‘Do you think the people in that house would sell us some food?’ Kerril wondered. He fumbled in his belt pouch, then his face fell. ‘I thought I had a few coins left. But they must have fallen out in the True Vale.’ He couldn’t even remember when he’d last seen the money or thought about it.
‘I’ve never had any money of my own,’ Shayla said. ‘But perhaps the farmer will allow us to work in return for a meal.’
‘We can only ask. We’d better hide our hair, though. Its colour might give us away.’ Ronan pulled up the hood of his jerkin and watched as Kerril and Shayla did the same. Although she was dressed as a lad, she was more rounded now than she had been when they started this adventure and didn’t really look like one if you studied her closely.
When they’d all concealed their hair, he led the way round the edges of a ploughed field whose crop was just sprouting, then across a meadow where recently shorn sheep were grazing peacefully.
In the distance he thought he saw someone moving, but if so, the person quickly disappeared into the
house. He decided he must have been mistaken about that.
At the farmhouse they found the door closed. Ronan knocked on it several times, but there was no answer, and in the end he called out, ‘We know someone’s there and we’re not going away till you answer.’
A window opened above their heads and a man’s voice spoke gruffly, ‘What do you want?’
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‘We’re hungry travellers who have no money. We were hoping we might be able to work for you in return for some food.’
The man leaned out to stare at them, but didn’t say anything. The window closed with a thump and there was the sound of people arguing, then they heard a door bang and footsteps coming towards them.
The outer door was opened by the same man. Now he was openly carrying a dagger, while behind him stood a woman holding a raised cudgel.
‘There are no roads to take travellers past this house.’ The man stared at them as if he could see into their souls. ‘Who are you? What are you really doing here?’
For a moment Ronan didn’t know what to say, then he caught sight of a metal breastplate on the wall inside the house, one with the old arms of Azaray painted on it, the device his father’s men had carried.
Tevis had shown the arms to him secretly.
Here the breastplate was openly displayed, something that must be dangerous for the owners. It must therefore be important to them.
He pointed to it, taking a guess, but feeling fairly sure it was a correct one. ‘You’re an old guard from the palace in Azaray.’
‘What if I am? I’m not doing any harm here.’
Ronan saw the man take a firmer grasp on his dagger, so spread out his hands to show he meant no harm. ‘You’re still young enough to serve the king. Why did you leave?’
‘I didn’t like city life so I returned to the country where I grew up.’
Kerril joined in suddenly. ‘No one grew up in this country. It’s only been out of the Shadows for a few years. Anyone can tell that.’ Especially a person who had grown up on the very edge of the Shadows, as he had.
The man stared at them, his eyes hard. ‘Move away a little! And push your hoods back so that I can see your faces.’
Ronan felt Shayla move uneasily. He tried to sense what was the right thing to do, studying the man’s face. It seemed an honest face, though not a happy one. He decided to deal honestly with the man. ‘Do as he asks, you two!’
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‘Are you sure?’ Shayla worried.
‘No. I’m not sure of anything. But what else can we do? We need help and where better to start than with an old guard of our father’s?’ Slowly he raised one hand and pushed back the hood, keeping the other on his sword hilt. Slowly Shayla and Kerril followed suit.
***
In Azaray, Pavros stared gloomily out of his window. He felt uneasy today, for some reason. The sky was as grey as polished steel. The houses of the city were grey too, built in unyielding stone, with their windows turned inwards to courtyards in these troubled times. The places in their walls where outside windows had once been were blocked up with stones or strong wooden shutters.
Only the palace showed the gleam of sunlight on outer windows, but it stood far behind the protection of its massive walls. He wondered what Sevris was doing that day and wished he had found a better man to put on the throne than such a weakling. Maybe he should have used one of the children instead and ruled Azaray himself as Regent.
He muttered a curse at the thought of the triplets, for they had disappeared completely after they’d regained the sword and since then he hadn’t sensed their presence anywhere in Azaray. Sevris hadn’t stopped complaining and fretting, though, worrying that they might reappear.
‘Stupid fool!’ Pavros muttered.
‘Did you want something, master?’
He turned to scowl at his apprentice. This one had lasted longer than most and was very nimble-fingered, but always radiated terror. Well, that was a good thing. A frightened apprentice worked more swiftly than an over-confident one. It would be better, though, not to destroy this one as he had the others, because it was always troublesome finding and training another.
No family ever asked to have their child brought up in the craft of sorcery these days and besides, everyone knew that several of his apprentices had vanished, though no one had dared ask what had happened to them.
Pavros grinned briefly at that thought. Very wise of folk to avoid magic. He wanted no other wizards living in Azaray. Sevris said there was strength in numbers and grumbled about only having him, but THE MAGIC SWORD Shannah Jay 117
there was also the possibility of betrayal if there were several wizards working together against him. He found it tiring, though, keeping the magic powers balanced across a whole kingdom, very tiring indeed.
You couldn’t really watch everything, however much you pretended you could.
He crooked one finger and the apprentice crept forward. ‘I have a job for you.’
‘Yes, master.’
‘You’ve done better than most apprentices, so I’ve decided you can move on to the next stage of the craft. Go out and get whatever materials we need from the markets today, then call at the palace and see whether the king wants anything.’
‘On my own, master? Choose the herbs and—and buy things on my own?’
Pavros stared at the white, terrified face. ‘Did I not just say so? Must I repeat myself?’
The apprentice shivered. ‘No, master. As you say, master.’
He listened to the door bang behind the creature, then turned back to his books. He still had much to learn, because no one could know everything, but since the day he had first disabled the sword, it had grown harder and harder for him to learn anything new. He had over-used his powers that time. He knew that now, understood how it had happened, too, hadn’t found out how to remedy it completely.
But no one else knew that.
Once he’d started on the dark path, though, he’d had no choice except to continue, because if he’d lowered his guard, the sword would have killed him.
One day he’d find the spell of youth, then he’d be able to renew his powers. He’d searched the deserted houses of the other magicians who had fled Azaray when King Sevris took over, and had gathered together all the books of magic spells ever known. He hadn’t read even half of them yet, because books of spells were tiring and you could only take in so many pages a day, but he wouldn’t trust that task to his apprentice, however long it took. He didn’t want anyone gaining strong new powers in Azaray except himself.
He stared out of the window across the rooftops towards the palace. ‘Hold your royal gatherings, Sevris,’ he mocked. ‘Invite the nobility to attend—those who are still alive. You’ve killed off rather a lot THE MAGIC SWORD Shannah Jay 118
of them, though. Very wasteful, that. Makes it harder to collect the taxes. But we all know that in the end I’m the one who rules this land from behind the throne, however much you may pretend otherwise.’
One day, those cursed children would turn up again. They weren’t dead yet. He could sense that. And when they came to the city to try to reclaim their inheritance, as come they must, he, Pavros, would destroy them forever.
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20 KING IN WAITING
The farmer stared at the three young people, while behind him his wife covered her mouth with one hand and lowered the cudgel, letting it hang loosely as if she’d forgotten about it.
Ronan waited, standing proud and upright. He wasn’t ashamed of his inheritance, nor was he ashamed of who he was. And if he read things aright, this man wouldn’t betray him.
Very slowly, the farmer bent his knee and lowered his head. ‘Your Majesty! Welcome back.’
Kerril sighed audibly in relief.
‘You recognise me, then?’ Ronan asked.
‘Aye, Your Majesty. I served your father and now that you’ve lowered your hoods, you loo
k very like him. All three of you have the same colour of hair as his—royal russet, we used to call it.’ He drew his wife forward. ‘I’m Harrith and my wife is Gwenna.’
The woman bobbed a curtsey. ‘Come inside!’ She glanced round even as she spoke, as if afraid of them being seen, though who could see them here, so far away from everything, Ronan couldn’t think.
They entered the farm and were immediately offered the best seats and refreshments.
‘Thank you,’ said Ronan gravely, trying not to show how strange it felt to him to be the object of so much fuss.
When they’d eaten and drunk their fill, he asked the question nearest his heart, ‘How are things in Azaray? Is there any chance of raising some resistance against Sevris?’
Anger rumbled in Harrith’s throat. ‘There’s been no rebellion for years. I grew sick of bowing to the usurper so I moved away, but still Sevris’s tax gatherers follow us around, checking on us, taking more than is fair. If it weren’t for my wife wanting to be near her family, I’d have left this land entirely and gone across the mountains to the Kingdom of Yannen. I know a few fellows who’ve taken service as guards there. They have their own troubles in Yannen, though not as bad as ours.’
‘So there are no folk left who would rally to my banner?’ Ronan asked, feeling disappointment run like a chill down his spine.
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A crafty look crossed Harrith’s face. ‘I didn’t say that. It’s just—they haven’t done anything about it lately, not for years. But there are definitely still folk who would die for you without hesitation, if they were really sure it was you. As would I.’
‘I don’t want anyone to die!’ Ronan said quickly. ‘I want them to live.’
‘Some will die,’ Harrith’s voice was quiet, but steady. ‘They always do when there’s fighting. But they’d count it a price well paid if it would rid Azaray of Sevris the Cruel.’