by Lari Don
“The best place for what?” said Nan. “What exactly are you planning, young man?”
“This ceremony simply ensures that the quest object is given to the right person. The Promise Keeper is the only baby in the room, so I’m sure she’ll be the right person for a toy. But you’ll have to stand away from her, Nan, so your presence doesn’t confuse the ceremony. Can you seat her on the throne?”
Nan frowned and took a step back.
Theo smiled reassuringly. “Or would she be comfier on that cushion?” He pointed to the golden silk cushion on the floor, just outside the silver line.
“The cushion, definitely.”
“Place her there and I’ll speak the words.”
Nan laid the baby on the cushion and stepped away.
Theo arranged everyone into a circle between the slab of rock and the throne: Theo standing near the slab, then, going clockwise, Molly, the baby, Nan near the foot of the throne, Atacama and Beth.
Theo put one hand into the dusty ashes and spoke.
Molly expected to hear ancient words: the words he’d spoken to the wyrm or the words he’d understood from the obsidian mirror. But Theo spoke in a language they all understood.
“We have quested. We have sought. We have discovered. Now, to end our quest, we must present our prize to the one who will most appreciate and best use its strength.
“By the power I draw from the fire that burns on this slab each night, I call on all here to reveal their true and fundamental nature. Show yourselves!”
Molly saw pale flames flicker above the ashes. Silver smoke billowed into the air and spread around the circle.
The smoke coiled round the six figures until each of them was obscured by a smoky form of themselves. But the smoky forms were not all exactly the same as the beings they were wrapped around.
Molly saw an elegant birch tree in Beth’s place.
Atacama was still a sphinx.
The Promise Keeper was a shining teenager in pale robes, standing up, stretching her arms, running her fingers through her long curls.
Theo was different too. He had thick shiny hair pulled back in a plait and thick dark eyeliner round his eyes. He wore a short linen kilt round his hips and a wide beaded collar round his shoulders, and he looked healthier than she’d ever seen him.
Molly looked at her own feet, wondering if she’d see a smoky hare crouched on the floor, wondering if that was her true form. But she just saw her trainers. Then she noticed her hands. Her right hand held a shadowy version of the rainbow-maker, her left hand held a ball of vivid white light. She flexed her fingers. The light glowed brighter.
Then Molly heard a laugh.
She looked round at Nan. The little old lady in the apron was hidden by a tall smoky warrior. A younger woman with a sword in her right hand, a belt of knives and a long dress made of small metal lozenges. A woman with ringlets of glistening dark hair and even more eyeliner than Theo. She was the woman from the obsidian mirror. And she was laughing.
“A revealing spell. Very tricky. So now you know I’m not just a babysitter. Perhaps you knew that already. But you didn’t know my full power, or you would never have come back.”
She screamed one word and the smoke vanished. There was no tree, no girl by the cushion, no jewelled collar on Theo, no warm light in Molly’s hand.
Then Nan changed. Not into a shadowy shape, but into a real solid armoured warrior, with real solid weapons.
“How dare you reveal me like that, boy? I am Ninshibur and I eat desert magicians for breakfast. I’ve defeated you before. I stole your power and your pretty plait. Didn’t you learn your lesson? Now that you see who I am, you see who should really hold the rainbow-maker. Give it to me, girl.”
“No,” said Molly. “It’s not for you.”
The warrior shrugged. “Then give it to the baby. I’ll just take it from her. She’ll never grow up enough to sit on the throne. I will stand beside it and rule everything, through my children.”
She laughed again. “I know I don’t look like a mother, but I have thousands of children. Not this weak baby, she’s just my job, but my darling curse-hatched children, hatched from the stone eggs my bird-form laid over centuries. My children feed on curses, on the spells of the evil and the foolish, those chased by dreams of revenge and anger. What better food for those who want to rule the world!
“I am a queen! Yet I have been condemned to stand forever at the side of the throne, to be a handmaiden, a cupbearer, a bodyguard, a nurse. Eventually I decided that if I couldn’t hold true power myself, I would hold it through my children. But my army didn’t grow fast enough, so we protected the curses. Now our numbers grow, and soon my children will be both birds and soldiers, in a curse-driven army.
“But you irritating brats have been interfering, lifting curses and trying to free the curse-casters. And you failed to die on that quest. So now you can give me the crystal fang I’ve always desired, then join my curse-casters at that endless feast. Give me the rainbow-maker and bow down to me!”
“Why would we bow to someone who isn’t even on a throne?” said Theo.
Nan screamed in frustration and raised her sword.
Theo smiled. “You’re not sneaking up behind me now. I’m ready for you.” He circled his hands. His cloak whirled and disintegrated and became a vortex of sand.
He flicked the spinning cone towards Nan.
She slashed her sword through the whirling sand and it dropped dustily to the floor.
She shook her head. “I’ve learnt a lot of magic in five thousand years, and I’ve concentrated on the ugly oozy dark magic. Your dry desert magic doesn’t impress me. And I can do circles too.” She drew a small circle with her index finger.
The sand whirled upwards again, not into the wide cone of a whirlwind, but into the tight cord of a rope.
The rope of sand whipped over to Theo, wrapped round his neck and hoisted him into the air. He dangled from the rope, coughing and choking.
“Too tight?” Nan smiled. “Let’s make your neck smaller.”
Theo turned from a boy into a piglet.
Then from the piglet into a skunk.
And from the skunk into a rat.
Each time, the noose got smaller so the rope stayed tight round his neck.
Theo turned from a rat into a familiar toad.
From the toad into a newt.
From the newt into a worm.
And from the worm into a cockroach.
“Not so handsome now, are you?” said Nan.
And Theo stayed a cockroach, suspended from a thin string of golden sand.
Molly wasn’t sure if she should run at Nan to attack her, or hide the rainbow-maker first so she didn’t take it nearer to Nan.
As Molly hesitated, Beth screamed, “That’s cruel. Leave him alone,” and ran toward the pile of firewood.
Atacama leapt towards Nan, who pulled five daggers from her belt and threw them at the sphinx in a tight formation, like a clawed hand. Atacama fell to the floor, with five long wounds in his side.
Beth flung the entire pile of fragrant firewood at Nan. A wall of wood crashed through the air towards the warrior.
Nan flicked her hand. The firewood swerved around her in a smooth arc, and flew back towards Beth. Beth raised her arms, but the wood hit her with a crunch, knocked her down and collapsed on top of her.
The baby made a small sleepy noise and waved her fists in the air.
Molly looked round.
Atacama was lying on the floor, bleeding. Beth was buried under a pile of wood. Theo was dangling from a noose in the air, six insect legs waving feebly.
Molly stood on her own, facing the warrior queen.
Nan smiled at her. “Let’s start again, Molly. You are a simple human girl, with no power of your own. Be sensible, give me that rainbow-maker, then bow down to me.”
Molly nodded.
She ducked under Theo’s choking form, walked past the firewood burying Beth, stepped over Atacama
’s bleeding body.
And she held the rainbow-maker up towards the warrior.
Chapter Twenty-two
Molly pointed the sharp end of the rainbow-maker at Nan.
She had no idea what the rainbow-maker could do. The ancient snake had warned them of its power, the nuckelavee had attacked them for it, this warrior queen had sent them on a quest for it. So the crystal fang probably did something. But what? How did it work? And would it be helpful or would it be dangerous?
With all her friends held prisoner, injured or slowly choking, Molly didn’t think that whatever the rainbowmaker did could make things worse.
She remembered the flash of light from the sharp end of the fang when she held it up to the sun on the beach. She angled the fang so the wide base pointed at the glowing fire, and a bright beam of striped light shot out of the tip and bounced beautifully around the throne room.
Nan laughed, the segments of her armoured dress shaking and rattling. “You have no idea how to use it! Give it to me.”
Over the clinking of the metal dress, Molly heard a soft wooden clunking from her right. The pile of wood over Beth was moving slightly.
Molly kept the base of the rainbow-maker pointed at the flames and aimed the tip directly at the firewood. The logs lit up, shimmering violet indigo blue green yellow orange red. The logs rolled and split, then slid off Beth, who stood up, brushing splinters from her hair.
The rainbow-lit wood chips shivered and fell apart into a heap of sawdust, which rippled into a stack of creamy sheets of paper.
Molly turned and aimed the rainbow at Theo. She hoped to shake the rope of sand apart, but the rope held. However, the cockroach shook and jerked, and turned into a worm, then a newt, then a toad, then a rat, then a skunk, then a piglet…
Finally, red-faced and coughing, Theo the boy was hanging from the end of the expanded noose again. And his toes were just touching the ground, so he could support himself and take the pressure off his throat.
Molly moved the rainbow-maker towards Nan.
Nan shook her head. “The rainbow-maker is an instrument of creation. But it must destroy before it creates. Just as a prism rips a beam of light apart to create a rainbow, that fang tears objects apart to create something new and beautiful. It’s risky to use it on your friends, and you lack the courage to use it on me.”
Molly started to lift the rainbow-maker.
And the door to the throne room opened with a crash.
Innes rushed in. “Are you alright? When I heard Beth scream, I couldn’t pretend to be happy at that feast any longer.”
A flock of crows screeched through the door after him.
Beth walked round the pile of paper. “Thanks for bringing us more enemies to fight.”
Molly looked at Theo, the impossible noose tightening round his neck. She sliced through the golden rope with the sharp point of the crystal and the sand fell in grains to the floor.
Theo collapsed.
The sand glimmered and melted into a scattering of diamond-shaped panes of glass.
Molly turned back to Nan, who was standing in front of the throne with a pillar of crows whirling above her.
“I do have the courage to use this rainbow-maker,” said Molly, “if it’s the only way to save my friends. Do you have the courage to face it? It destroyed wood and created paper. It destroyed sand and created glass. If it destroyed you and your crows, what would it create? Feather dusters?”
She started to aim the rainbow-maker again.
Nan yelled, “Crows! Bring me that fang and bring those children to their knees.”
The crows swooped down, pecking and scratching and battering Molly. She hunched her shoulders and lifted her left hand to protect her eyes. She was suddenly aware that Innes was beside her, trying to shelter her, in his horse form.
Molly knew they were fortunate that the rainbow-maker had only destroyed each animal shape of Theo and recreated his previous shape. If she pointed it at a living being again, what would it destroy and what would it create? Did she want to find out?
She stepped nearer the fire and called to Nan, “I will use this, unless you and your crows leave the Keeper’s Hall right now.”
She held the rainbow-maker up. As soon as she raised it, the crows mobbing her veered away.
The baby lying on the cushion giggled and waved at the crows flocking above her.
Molly aimed the base of the fang at the flames and the tip into the air. The whole room lit up, with ribbons of light curving up and swirling down. As the rainbows danced, the throne room started to shake. The pillars, the rafters, the stone floor.
The building trembled.
Molly put her hand over the base. The light stopped flowing and the Hall steadied.
She pointed the tip at Nan again, keeping the base covered. “Leave, now. Leave the Promise Keeper alone and let her grow up.”
“I will not leave. I’ve put centuries of work into this plan.” Nan raised her sword, aiming it at Molly.
Molly gritted her teeth and took her hand away, letting light flow into the rainbow-maker and out towards Nan.
Nan lit up like a Christmas tree. The warrior queen began to shiver. Her dress quivered and rattled. Lozenges of metal, lit up like coloured sequins, were shaken free and fell to the ground. As they landed, they melted into shiny coins with an ancient queen’s head.
Nan jerked and became the old woman in the apron again. She shuddered and her blue dress started to become blue feathers. “NO!” she screamed. “I will not be destroyed. I have been cursed with forever!”
Molly saw Nan clench her jaws and fight the shaking. Then Nan dragged herself back, by pure will and vast ambition, into the form of the warrior queen. She screeched at her crows to defend her and not to retreat this time.
Molly heard Corbie’s distant voice, also yelling orders, as he ran into the throne room.
And the crows attacked again.
Crows landed on Molly’s arm and pecked at her fingers. Molly couldn’t hold the rainbow-maker steady between the fire and Nan. She wrapped both hands round the crystal to keep it safe from attacking beaks.
Dozens of birds surrounded her, grabbing her hair and clothes. Innes reared and kicked beside her, but he was wearing a moving coat of crows. Atacama and Theo lay on the ground, with triumphant birds perched on them. Molly glimpsed Beth cowering behind the throne.
The weight of the crows forced Molly to her knees.
Nan yelled. “Hold her still, so I can claim the rainbow-maker for myself.”
Molly, held immobile by a hundred birds, watched this ruthless warrior stretch out to seize an object with the power of destruction and creation. She couldn’t let Nan have it.
Molly shouted, “Innes!” She opened her fingers and dropped the rainbow-maker onto the stone floor, under the horse.
Who lifted a hoof and stamped on the crystal fang.
The rainbow-maker flew into a thousand pieces, as if it had been waiting for its own destruction all these years.
Nan screamed, “No!”
Corbie said, “Mother, it’s fine. We don’t need it. We’re building an army. The rainbow-maker was a bonus, when you had willing children to quest for it, but we don’t need it.”
“But I wanted the power! I never get to hold the power!”
“We will have more power, stronger power, power we build ourselves.”
Molly sighed. She’d stopped Nan getting the rainbow-maker, but now she had nothing to defend herself or her friends against the crows forcing her to the floor and the anger of this furious warrior.
Then Molly saw Beth stand up. Beth hadn’t been cowering behind the throne: she’d been making a weapon. She’d sharpened a stray bit of firewood into a short spear, which she threw straight at Nan.
An arrow of crows flew across the throne room and crashed into the spear, knocking it off course, so it bounced against Nan’s arm rather than striking her in the heart.
Nan looked at the graze on her wrist. “Ou
ch.”
Then she walked round the edge of the silver circle towards Beth, who was standing behind the throne. “You won’t get the chance to bow to me, dryad, unless you can bow without a head!” Nan raised her sword.
Molly yelled, “No!”
She slid out of the claws of the crows, sprinted towards Nan, and leapt at her.
She hit Nan’s ankles.
The warrior queen tripped and fell forward.
She fell across the silver circle marked on the floor.
She fell towards the throne.
Molly looked up as Nan fell down, and Molly realised she was seeing the world in widescreen, from ground level. She was a hare.
She couldn’t remember growling. But this had been the only way to escape the crows, the only way to catch up with Nan, the only way to save Beth.
Molly crouched at the edge of the circle and saw Nan twist and fall onto the wide velvet seat of the throne.
Nan sat on the throne.
Nan smiled.
Then she crumbled. She shrank and dried and faded until she wasn’t there at all.
As Nan faded away, Molly heard a whisper. “At last, I can stop wanting it. At last…”
Chapter Twenty-three
Molly heard shock and anger in the wails of the curse-hatched, as they watched their mother vanish.
She knew her hare form would be useless in a fight, and she’d noticed a hare-sized hiding place under the throne, so she leapt over the silver line.
As she landed she felt her bones fizz and buckle, and she collapsed onto the floor. She closed her eyes, not wanting to watch herself melt. She felt her body struggle to change and for several uncomfortable breaths she was stuck between hare and girl.
Then she felt the weight of trainers on her feet and jeans tight round her legs. She opened her eyes. She was a girl again.
The crows were still screaming, their high rough calls echoing round the rafters. Krah-ah-ah-ah!
Innes stood in his boy form beside Molly and hauled her to her feet. He held Molly’s hand up in the air, like she’d won a boxing match. “Here’s the one who disintegrated and defeated Nan. Here she is!”
“Thanks,” muttered Molly, “make me the target.”