by Kate Forsyth
Quinn and her friends could do nothing but try to outrun them.
The four friends raced through dark vast caverns and narrow twisting passageways, climbing over mounds of fallen stone and crawling under needles of white dripping stone.
The bog-men were so close behind, Quinn could smell their foul breath. The wolfhound did his best to guard the children, dragging down one bony, leathery creature after another. Wulfric nipped at the bog-men’s ankles or tripped them over, and snapped at the rats whose shrill cries echoed around the caverns, guiding the blind bog-men forward.
‘Look! There’s a crevice ahead. It looks like it could lead somewhere,’ Sebastian called. ‘Quinn, see if you can wriggle through. I’ll keep off the rats.’
She squeezed herself into the narrow crack in the wall. ‘It does lead somewhere!’ she called back. ‘I can feel air on my cheek.’
She scrambled through, dragging the sea-serpent scale behind her. Elanor followed easily, being the smallest, but Tom had more trouble. At last he scraped through, pulling the reluctant wolf cub behind him by the scruff of his neck. The lean wolfhound bounded after them, leaving Sebastian alone, facing an advancing circle of bog-men, spears raised high. They closed in, their tall spindly shadows creeping over the walls towards him. Rats thronged at their feet, eyes glowing red in the light of the lantern, whiskers twitching, tails whipping.
Sebastian had broken off two sharp stalactites and was keeping the creatures at bay with them. Now he flung them with all his strength at the rats. As they raced away, they tripped over the bog-men behind them, giving Sebastian a few seconds to get through the crevice. He scraped his shoulders painfully on the walls.
As he crept out the far side, he kicked hard at the stalactites hanging from the roof of the passageway. He rolled free just in time as they crashed down. A great cloud of white dust rose. When it cleared, they saw the narrow tunnel was blocked with rocks.
‘Are you all right?’ Elanor cried.
Sebastian jumped up, brushing off the dust. ‘Of course! That’s stopped them for a little while at least. Let’s go.’
They stumbled on, guarding the frail light of their lantern. Once, as they stepped over a shallow puddle that filled the passageway, Quinn saw a glint of red light from within it. She told herself it was just the reflection from the lanterns, but it took a while for her heartbeat to slow again.
They could not find any sign of the sleeping heroes of the prophecy. The vast underground caverns and tunnels were empty.
‘I don’t think I can stand this much longer,’ Sebastian said after a very long while.
‘The lantern is guttering,’ Tom said. ‘Soon we’ll be in complete darkness. Then what shall we do?’
‘We’ll have the Traveller’s Stone,’ said Elanor, though she was so weary that its light would only be frail. Then an idea struck her. ‘Why don’t I try asking it to guide us to the sleeping heroes?’
The others crowded around her in excitement as she breathed on her ring then asked, ‘Where do the sleeping heroes lie?’
A dim ray of blue light rose from the ring, pointing upwards to a ceiling hung with sharp needles of stone. Some reached down to touch tall pillars that rose from the cavern floor, others created lacy falls and fans of stone, like intricate candelabras.
Tom climbed the side of a thick pillar and peered into the darkness. ‘There’s no hole or cave up here,’ he said. The others searched too, climbing all over the cave. There was no way up.
‘Which way do we go?’ Elanor asked the ring again. ‘Show us the way.’
But the light only shone up. ‘Up? But there is no way up!’ Elanor slumped in disappointment.
‘Perhaps we need to find another way,’ Quinn said.
On they walked, exploring every fissure and crevice. The lantern guttered out. They had to stumble on with no other light than the faint gleam of Elanor’s moonstone ring, which sank lower and lower. Soon they were stumbling along in virtual darkness and the ring did not brighten, no matter how much Elanor breathed on it.
‘We’ve searched every passageway in this place,’ Sebastian said. ‘The sleeping heroes are not here.’
Tears sprung into Quinn’s eyes. She had been thinking the same thought for the last two hours but could not bear to say it out loud.
Elanor gazed out into the close-pressing darkness. ‘We’re running out of time. We are meant to wake the sleeping heroes by dawn.’
‘I feel like we’ve been stuck down here for days,’ Tom said.
‘What if it was just a story after all?’ Sebastian’s voice was bitter with disappointment.
‘No!’ Quinn clasped her hands together. ‘Arwen always speaks true. The sleeping heroes are here somewhere. They must be!’
‘They aren’t, Quinn. You’re just going to have to admit it. Your precious Arwen was spinning us a bag of moonshine.’ Sebastian sat down and bent his head into his hands. Tom dropped beside him, putting one hand on his friend’s shoulder.
Quinn said nothing. Her feet hurt, her legs hurt, her heart hurt.
Do not lose faith, little maid, Sylvan said in her mind. Remember the words of the story, remember the words of the spell.
Quinn tried. She was too tired.
In the heart of every acorn is a forest, in the heart of every apple seed is an orchard. What is in thy heart, little maid? Darkness and despair? Or courage and cleverness? Dig deep, little maid, be brave and think. The Oak King’s voice was gentle but firm. Elanor looked up.
‘He’s right,’ she said.
Quinn put her head in her hands. She was so cold in her damp clothes, she could not stop shivering and her stomach was hollow. She thought about what Sylvan had said. Be brave and think …
Quinn took a deep breath and raised her head.
‘I’ll read the tell-stones. Perhaps they can tell us where to search.’ Quinn crouched down, drawing out a stone from the pouch and laying it on the ground before her. Elanor knelt down beside her, blowing on the ring. The light flickered and rose just enough for them all to see the rune painted on the pebble.
‘The rune of the Ring. That means we have come to the end of something and the beginning of another.’
‘Perhaps it means we have reached the end of the caves and need to search elsewhere,’ Elanor said.
‘But where?’ Sebastian asked.
Quinn drew out another stone and laid it down. She felt a sickening lurch in the pit of her stomach.
‘It’s the Apple,’ Elanor said. She screwed up her face as she tried to remember. ‘Fruition? Success?’
‘It’s upside down,’ Quinn said faintly. ‘That means rot and failure.’
There was a long silence.
Quinn laid down another stone. ‘Dark Moon. Darkness and black magic.’
The light in the ring flickered.
Quinn drew out the last stone and laid it down, so that the four stones were set in a circle, one at each point of the compass. It was the sign of the Skull.
It meant Death.
Nobody spoke. Quinn gathered up the stones and dropped them back into her bag.
‘What are we to do?’ Elanor whispered.
‘There’s nothing we can do,’ Quinn said bleakly. ‘Unless you want to search the caverns again?’
‘There’s no point.’ Tom’s head was bent, his hands hanging limply between his knees. Wulfric whined and laid his head on his lap.
‘We’ve crawled through every crevice in every cave,’ Sebastian said. ‘It’s useless.’
‘We need to rest,’ Elanor said. ‘We’ve been running and fighting for hours.’ She slid down so she was sitting on the ground. She rubbed her arms. ‘I’m so cold. So very cold.’
Sebastian drew closer to her, putting his arm about her shoulders. Elanor leant her head against his chest, trying to hide her tears.
Quinn let her head fall back. She stared up at the roof of the cavern, stalactites gleaming like daggers aimed for her heart. ‘We’ve failed.’
No-on
e spoke. Tom hid his face in his hands. Slowly the light ebbed out of the moonstone ring. Darkness choked them, as cold tendrils of mist wrapped about them.
There are no sleeping heroes.
It was only a story after all.
Sebastian dreamed that he was in an iron cage.
It was so small that the bars pressed into his flesh and forced his head down between his knees. Ravens flapped all around the cage, pecking at him with their sharp beaks. He struggled to get away, but the cage was too small. The iron bars squeezed tighter and tighter. Sebastian exerted all his strength, trying to burst the cage open. It was too strong. He gripped the bars in both hands and shook them. He could not break free.
A tall figure loomed over him, dressed in black metal with boar tusks curving from his helmet. A cruel voice boomed out. ‘Look! If it’s not Lord Byrne’s halfwit son. Caught in my trap like the fool he is. What would your father think if he saw you now, boy? He’d be so disappointed … no wonder he sent you away! He knew you’d be a failure as a knight.’
The words hurt Sebastian more than the stabbing beaks of the ravens. ‘That’s not true!’
‘You thought you could prevail against me?’ Lord Mortlake sneered. ‘I shall carve you up into little pieces and send you back to your father. I shall send your father one of your ears and tell him he must face me in combat if he wishes to have the rest of you back. Then I shall hack him to pieces. Your castle, your lands, everything shall be mine!’
‘No!’ Sebastian struggled with all of his strength, but could not break free of the iron bars.
‘You’re a disappointment,’ Lord Mortlake jeered as he bent and seized Sebastian’s ear between his metal-encased fingers. ‘And you’ll be the cause of your father’s death and your mother’s despair.’
Sebastian screamed as his ear was twisted from his head.
Quinn was caught in the midst of a thorny thicket, brambles snagging in her clothes, her hair, her skin. All around, thistles and stinging nettles entwined with deadly nightshade and wolfsbane. Ivy and bindweed wrapped around her wrists and throat.
An old hunchbacked woman stood before her, rats swarming about the tattered hem of her filthy skirts. Around her neck hung strings of wooden beads, seed pods, feathers and shells. A raven sat upon one shoulder, its beady eyes fixed on Quinn.
The old woman leaned on a twisted witch’s staff. ‘You thought to be a witch?’ Wilda taunted. ‘You thought to learn the mysteries of magic and gain yourself power? You’re not even strong enough to stop us watching you. You thought you tricked us with that pathetic ruse? Children made from willow sticks? Ha! We knew it was a hoax. We wanted you to think you were safe so you would come back here, where we wanted you. There was never a moment when I did not have my eye upon you.’
Quinn struggled to free herself, but the more she struggled, the tighter her bonds grew. She cried out in pain as the thorns dug into her flesh. Wilda stepped closer, grinning so widely Quinn could see how few teeth she had left in her rotting gums.
‘And having failed at being a witch, you thought you’d make yourself queen? You’d believe any story if it made you feel that you’re worth something. It’s all lies, lies, lies!’ Wilda hissed. ‘Your father was not a king and your mother certainly no queen. They abandoned you because they did not want you.’
Quinn cried out, ‘No, that’s not true! None of it’s true! I’ve won my witch’s staff … I’ve worked spells of power … and my father was the king!’
Wilda rocked with laughter. ‘You poor, deluded fool. Useless. Worthless. Unwanted. You’re nothing.’ She raised her witch’s staff and brought it down hard on Quinn’s head, again and again. Quinn was knocked smaller with each blow. ‘You’re nothing,’ the old witch said over and over as the blows fell.
The blows kept raining down on her head. With each blow, Quinn shrank till she was no bigger than a pin head. One more blow and she would be a mere particle of dust. Another, and she’d be gone.
The witch’s staff rose and fell, and rose once more.
Tom stood at a kitchen sink, scrubbing a pot. Dirty dishes towered high on either side of him, all caked with filth. As hard as he scrubbed, Tom could not clean away the food encrusted on the bottom. The water in the sink was thick as soup with bits of old food. His hands were red and swollen.
‘You’re nothing but a pot-boy,’ a voice whispered in his ear. He looked around, wiping sweat from his brow with one raggedy sleeve.
A black-haired woman reclined behind him on a high throne built of soup-pots and dirty wooden spoons. She was wearing a gown of red silk embroidered with roses and lilies, and her skin was as fair and soft as the inside of a petal. Tom was embarrassed by his filthy rags, his sweat-damp hair.
‘You dream of making your fortune,’ Lady Mortlake whispered. ‘You think you’ll play a flute of gold and strum a harp inlaid with jewels. You imagine being the greatest minstrel the world has ever known. It’s an impossible dream. A pot-boy you were born and a pot-boy you’ll remain.’
Tom’s shoulders slumped. He looked down at the filthy sink water.
‘All you’re good at is scrubbing pots and peeling potatoes,’ Lady Mortlake told him. ‘All your friends will go on to the royal court. She’ll be queen, and they’ll be her knight and her maid-in-honour. And you’ll be left here, cooking and cleaning, scrubbing and scouring—’
‘Stop it!’ Tom cried. ‘Please.’
But her voice whispered on. ‘Washing and wiping, sweeping and swiping …’
Tom wiped his dripping hands over his face.
It was all true. He was nothing but a pot-boy.
Elanor ran through the vast, shadowy castle. Her breath sobbed. A stitch stabbed her side. She could not stop, though. Someone was hunting her.
A red spotlight flashed on her. It shocked her with pain. ‘You can’t hide from me,’ a woman’s voice said, cold with hatred.
Elanor ran on, cold stone bruising her feet. She ran through empty halls and galleries, through rooms that lay abandoned under dustcovers. Behind her, the red light probed through the darkness. Every time it touched her heel or glanced across her cheek, it burned like a thousand wasp-stings. Elanor could not help crying aloud in pain and terror.
‘Father!’ she called. ‘Help me! Where are you?’
Mocking laughter replied. ‘You think that pathetic old man can help you? He’s hardly noticed you for years. He cared only for your mother. Once she died, he wanted to be dead too. He didn’t care enough to want to live for your sake. I have watched it all. Well, he has had his wish. He’s dead now, too. You’re an orphan. And there’s no-one left to care what happens to you.’
Elanor stumbled and fell. The red light skimmed across her back and she jerked away from the jolt of it. Like a fiery lance, the red light pinned her down.
‘Did you really think you could hide from me?’ Mistress Mauldred stood over Elanor. Her eyes were black holes. ‘I see you. I know you. And I shall kill you as you helped kill my mother.’
She raised a fistful of red energy. Elanor screamed and scrambled to her feet to run again, through vast castle halls hung with cobwebs.
No matter how hard she ran, Mistress Mauldred was always striding close behind her, the red light from her ring stabbing at her. ‘Stop!’ she commanded.
Elanor fell to her knees
‘How dare you disobey me? Ladies must always obey their elders!’ Mistress Mauldred began to strike her. Elanor struggled to rise, but her limbs were weighted with lead. As the witch’s hand rose and fell, it made red streaks in the air as if it was made of flame.
Elanor flung up her hands to protect her face from the blows. ‘No!’ she cried.
Suddenly blue light shone out from her moonstone ring. It radiated outwards, like a shield of shimmering blue energy. The red light glanced off it. Mistress Mauldred cried out as if in pain.
The blue light grew stronger. It spun Elanor in a cocoon of electricity.
‘Where are you? Show yourself to me!’ Mis
tress Mauldred demanded.
Elanor peered through the blue haze of light. She could not see her governess any longer. The blue light wavered and thinned. She saw Mistress Mauldred’s face bending towards her, her lips thin and cruel.
‘Ladies must always do as they are told!’
‘No,’ Elanor said.
The shield of blue light came up again, stronger than ever. Mistress Mauldred was knocked away. Shrieking, she disappeared. Elanor woke up, shivering and afraid, to find the moonstone ring was shining faintly in the darkness.
Somewhere above their heads, a cock crowed.
‘Wake up!’
Sebastian was jerked out of his nightmare by the sound of Elanor’s voice. He groaned, cold and stiff from sleeping on the damp rocks of the underground cavern. The others all woke too, their faces white and strained.
Quinn’s eyes were wild. ‘It’s all lies! I’m a fool, to believe in such a bag of moonshine. I’m not a queen, and there are no heroes.’ She began to weep. ‘Wilda … she told me it was all a pack of lies.’
Tom lay still on the damp stone, listening, his arm flung about the wolfhound’s neck. His blue eyes were dulled by pain. ‘I … I had a nightmare too.’
‘Me too!’ said Sebastian. ‘I dreamt I was in an iron cage, being pecked at by ravens.’
‘Like Jack!’ Tom said. During the long hours they had wandered through the dark caves, he had told the others how he had rescued the imprisoned girl.
‘The witches were trying to get to us in our sleep,’ Elanor said. ‘They want us to give up. In my dream, Mistress Mauldred caught me and told me I must be punished, that ladies must always do as they are told … but I managed to push her away with my ring.’
Quinn scrubbed her wet face. ‘What are we to do now? It must be dawn by now, and we’ve found no trace of the mythical sleeping heroes. And they’ll still be hunting us.’
‘Well, we have to go on, don’t we?’ Elanor said. ‘I mean, we’ve come so far … we can’t give up now.’