The Key to Rondo

by Emily Rodda

  It was so like her. Yet it was strange, too, because she must have remembered what destroying the Key might mean. And she loved this world. She felt more at home in it than she felt in her own. Leo had been sure she’d do anything to protect it.

  As the thought crossed his mind the room shook again – even more violently.

  Spoiler, face down on the ground, screamed and drummed his feet on the rug like a child having a tantrum. Conker yelled as a cabinet beside him tipped, burying him under an avalanche of books.

  Mimi staggered and fell to her knees. Hal was beside her, but though he glanced down at her he made no attempt to help her to get up. He just turned away from her, leaving her kneeling on the quaking floor, Mutt hugged tightly to her chest, her eyes fixed and staring.

  Watching, horrified, Leo saw Tye gliding sure-footed through the wreckage. Tye’s head was held high. She had put away her dagger. She reached Hal’s side and took his arm.

  ‘So, Hal, this is the end,’ she said, raising her voice over the sound of breaking glass, crashing furniture and the shrieks of the queen. ‘The Key is destroyed. Rondo will be undone.’

  ‘Well you don’t have to be so calm about it!’ roared Conker, emerging from a mountain of books and rubbing his head. ‘Where’s Freda? Freda? Freda!’

  ‘Here,’ said the duck, edging out from behind the overturned cabinet. She looked disdainfully at the mess on the trembling floor, and finally half-flew to settle on the moaning Spoiler’s head.

  ‘It’s too soon to panic,’ Hal shouted. ‘We don’t know what the destruction of the Key will do. We only know what has been said. For all we know, the world might only adjust, and things might change. They might change utterly. We can only hope –’

  At that moment, the floor rug turned red as blood. The silken wall hangings began oozing droplets of green slime. The white fur bed cover was suddenly alive with movement, as every silky strand became a writhing worm. The cover rose from the bed in a seething mass, swaying horribly, like some monstrous beast.

  The Blue Queen shrieked again and again, her beautiful face distorted with mingled rage and terror. She crawled on the blood-red rug – crawled to the wall where the magic mirror hung. Clinging to the mirror’s golden frame, she raised herself up, as if, with her world collapsing around her, she had to assure herself of her supreme beauty one last time.

  Her image appeared in the glass. Then it changed – changed utterly.

  Conker clapped his hand to his mouth. Freda quacked, and flapped her wings. The Blue Queen screamed – an ear-splitting scream of anguish, outrage and horror.

  And what she had seen in the mirror screamed with her, its tiny eyes wide with shock, its ears flapping, its mouth gaping open beneath its pink snuffling snout.

  Spoiler squirmed, and looked up. He gazed at the mirror and burst into hysterical, choking laughter. ‘Pig!’ he screeched. ‘Pig face!’

  All the blood drained from the queen’s cheeks. Her eyes rolled back in her head. She crumpled, senseless, to the floor.

  And Leo, suddenly released from the spell that bound him to the ledge, tipped slowly backwards, and fell.

  Chapter 33

  Wonders

  Afterwards, remembering how he’d felt when his feet slipped from the balcony ledge, remembering the scream of absolute terror that had burst from his throat, Leo didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  The long, deadly plunge he’d been fearfully imagining for so long just never happened. No sooner had the fall begun, than it was over. His back hit something smooth and soft, something that rippled beneath him like a waterbed he’d once tried at a friend’s house.

  I’m dead, he thought foolishly. Dead or dreaming. But the soft, cool breeze was blowing on his face, and he could hear voices very near, calling his name.

  Cautiously he opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was the bottom of the balcony. It was so close that if he’d lifted his hand, he could have touched it. The second thing he saw was a row of faces staring down at him over the balcony ledge, not far above.

  Leo blinked, but when he opened his eyes again the balcony and the faces were still there. Mimi. Hal. Conker. Tye. Bertha. Freda. They were calling to him, and their voices were all he could hear. Dazedly he realised that the tumultuous quaking in the queen’s bedroom had stopped.

  He grinned weakly up at the row of shouting faces. Conker was waving and laughing. Mimi, pale and exhausted-looking, with Mutt in her arms, was half-crying with happiness. Hal was grinning like a boy. Bertha, still befuddled with sleep, was looking happily astounded. Even Tye was smiling. Freda, sitting serenely on the balcony ledge, was the only one to preserve a dignified silence.

  The second thing Leo saw was that he was lying on a large rug. It looked the same – exactly the same – as the rug in his bedroom at home. But it was moving very slightly, and its white fringe was riffling gently in the breeze.

  At that moment, many things suddenly became clear to Leo. He felt so weak with relief that he couldn’t move. His arms and legs felt as if they’d turned to water. All he could do was breathe a long, long sigh.

  Freda spread her wings and skimmed down from the ledge, landing flat-footed beside him. The rug tipped slightly, and in the split second before it righted itself Leo caught a glimpse of seven shapes far below, bright white against the darkness of the moat.

  ‘Down, please,’ Freda said to the rug.

  The rug moved away from the castle wall, and glided down to land smoothly beside the moat. And so stunned was Leo that he wasn’t even surprised to see seven confused-looking people climbing, drenched, out of the dark water where seven white swans had floated just moments before.

  There was just enough room on the rug for everyone to ride back to Hal’s house by the river. Even the hidey-hole found a place by the fringe.

  ‘Turned out to be a pretty good night, all in all,’ it said to Leo, who was sitting beside it. ‘Mind you, I did get a few nasty bruises. Didn’t mind the pig’s trotters – that’s all part of the job. But the other thing …’ It quivered a little. ‘Sixth rule of successful hiding: Never jump out of a hidey-hole without warning it first.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Leo said.

  ‘Just remember next time,’ the hidey-hole grunted, and Leo promised, hoping fervently that there would never be a next time.

  His mind was buzzing with questions, but he had no chance to ask any of them on the short, crowded ride that followed. All conversation was directed at helping the seven strangers who had climbed out of the moat to understand what had happened to them.

  Polly’s family, Jim’s parents and the princess Suki (who was, of course, extremely beautiful) only dimly remembered their lives as swans. Their last clear recollection was of the Blue Queen sweeping into their tiny village, laughing horribly and raising her hand.

  But they did know that their presence at the bridge, at the house by the river and then on the castle moat, had not been the Blue Queen’s doing, but their own.

  ‘We just felt we needed to be there,’ Jim’s father said simply, his arm tightening around his wife’s shoulders.

  They must have sensed the presence of the Key, Leo thought, meeting Mimi’s eyes across the rug. The Blue Queen used the magic of the Key to transform them in the Dark Time, so they were attracted to it. That’s why they tried to distract the troll on the bridge by taking flight. Some instinct told them to try to protect us, because by doing that they’d protect the Key too.

  ‘I still don’t see how the spell over us was broken,’ said Polly’s mother, Rose.

  ‘Oh, that’s easy,’ said Bertha airily. ‘The queen fainted when she saw me in the mirror. Her hold over you must have snapped right then, just like her hold over Leo did.’

  ‘But Leo was only bewitched,’ Suki objected. ‘And we were swans! If my stepmother had died we might have changed back. But why would her just fainting have done it?’

  ‘Well, it seems it did, Suki, and that’s all that matters,’ her husband laughed.
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br />   ‘Indeed,’ Polly’s father agreed heartily. ‘Bertha, how can we ever thank you?’

  Bertha smiled and fluttered her eyelashes. ‘Oh, it was nothing,’ she said modestly. ‘I didn’t really do anything. I’d dropped off for a moment, actually, and the noise woke me up, so I moved to the front of the mirror to see what was happening. I must admit I was a tiny bit startled to find the Blue Queen so close. But she screamed and fainted just at the sight of me!’

  She sighed with satisfaction. ‘I suppose she’d heard of my reputation as a fighter,’ she added. ‘I can’t think of any other reason for her to collapse like that.’

  She was so pleased and proud that no one felt like telling her the truth. Freda tried, but Conker held her beak closed and muttered to her till she agreed to keep quiet.

  No one disagreed with Bertha’s explanation of how the swans had been returned to their true forms either, but Leo knew it wasn’t right. With his own eyes he’d seen that the swans were still swimming on the moat long after the Blue Queen had fainted.

  He caught Mimi’s eye. She smiled, then hid her face by ducking her head and rubbing her cheek against Mutt’s ears.

  The rug settled to land in front of the willow trees that masked Hal’s house. Leo, Mimi, Mutt, Bertha, Freda, Conker, Tye and Hal climbed off. Jim and Polly’s families remained on board. They were longing to see their loved ones and didn’t want to waste a minute.

  The hidey-hole stayed on the rug too. It said it would enjoy a change of scene, and the chance to meet a few forest-dwelling holes it hadn’t seen for a while, and who were old friends. By the shifty way it spoke, Leo guessed that one of these friends was the burglary specialist. No doubt the hidey-hole was looking forward to boasting about its recent exploits to one who would really appreciate them.

  The sun was rising as the rug skimmed over the river, then rose to soar over the forest canopy. The quest team watched till it was out of sight, then turned towards the house.

  ‘I’d like to see Grandma’s face when she hears that I saved her family,’ Bertha said with great satisfaction. ‘She’ll get a shock, and it serves her right. “A pig has no business going on a quest”, indeed!’

  ‘Jim and Polly will be surprised to hear there was a quest at all,’ said Hal. ‘I sent a mouse to them last night, telling them not to worry because I’d make sure you three didn’t go on to the castle, whatever happened.’

  ‘I heard you sending that message!’ Leo exclaimed. ‘We thought you were writing to the Blue Queen. The mouse was so scared.’

  Hal laughed. ‘It was scared of the new troll,’ he said. ‘The bridge isn’t as safe for messenger mice as it was.’

  ‘What’s the world coming to, when a mouse thinks it can’t outrun a troll!’ exploded Conker. ‘Ah, the mice these days are a lily-livered lot.’

  They reached the house and trooped inside. While Mimi put down a bowl of water for Mutt, Conker set about building up the fire and put the kettle on to heat.

  ‘Is that why you ran?’ Tye asked Leo, unsmiling. ‘Because of one cowardly mouse? Did you not trust us?’

  ‘No,’ Mimi said bluntly, before Leo could think of a more tactful way of putting it. ‘You tried to lock us in, and –’

  ‘Hal’s plan was to get your dog back while you slept,’ Tye snapped. ‘You should have stayed where you were safe.’

  ‘We didn’t think we were safe,’ said Leo. He repeated what he and Mimi had heard after they crept out of their room.

  When he’d finished, Conker laughed uproariously. ‘Breakfast!’ he said cheerfully, and disappeared into the kitchen.

  But Tye frowned, and Hal shook his head ruefully.

  ‘Tye and I were talking about my failure to tell you the ring was worthless,’ he said. ‘I should have told you straight away, but I just couldn’t face it. I thought if we got Mutt back first, it would be easier to break the news to you that you were stranded in this world forever.’

  He glanced at Mimi and Leo, his eyes dark with pity, then quickly looked away.

  ‘Oh, come now, Hal!’ Bertha giggled. ‘The coast might be a long way away, but it’s hardly another world! Mimi and Leo can just walk back – the same way they came!’

  ‘It’s not quite as simple as that, Bertha,’ Leo said. He looked steadily at Hal. Bertha had risked her life for them. Leo didn’t see why she should be kept in the dark about where they’d really come from, when everyone else knew the truth.

  Hal hesitated, then nodded slightly.

  So as Conker cooked pancakes by the fire, and Mutt fell into an exhausted sleep on the hearthrug, Leo and Mimi swore Bertha to secrecy then told her their story. Bertha listened avidly, and wasn’t nearly as annoyed about being deceived as Leo had feared.

  She was actually quite delighted to find that the Langlander tales she’d been told as a piglet were true after all. She also said that she had always thought that there was something about Leo and Mimi that seemed otherworldly, though she hadn’t quite been able to put her trotter on it.

  She wasn’t at all afraid of the idea that Rondo was simply a small box in some people’s eyes. As she said, all worlds were probably small in comparison to what existed outside them. The important thing was whether the world you lived in was interesting, which she thought her own was. Very.

  ‘You are a most unusual pig, Bertha,’ said Hal, regarding her with respect.

  ‘I know,’ said Bertha, casting down her eyes modestly. ‘Macdonald always says the same. My brother says it, too. But, of course, he doesn’t mean it as a compliment.’

  The only thing she seemed sad about was that her chances of becoming a film star were now fairly slim.

  ‘Do pigs ever star in moovlies in Langland?’ she asked wistfully.

  ‘It has happened,’ Leo told her.

  ‘Not often, I bet,’ Freda jeered. And Leo had to agree that it didn’t happen very often. Pigs usually played minor roles.

  ‘Oh, well,’ Bertha said, adjusting her hat, ‘I couldn’t accept less than a starring part, so I’d better give up the idea. There’s always my career as a model to fall back on. And questing, of course. I’ve developed quite a taste for that.’

  ‘There’s nothing like a good quest,’ Conker agreed, setting a huge plate of pancakes on the table. ‘Have you thought about how many of us there were on this one?’ He counted on his fingers. ‘Leo, Mimi, Bertha, Conker, Freda, Tye and Hal. Seven! The perfect questing number.’

  ‘The hidey-hole made eight,’ Leo pointed out, but Conker just snorted and flapped his hands, as if hidey-holes didn’t count.

  Everyone gathered around the table and began eating pancakes with butter and maple syrup and drinking cup after cup of tea. For a time there was no talk at all. All of them were ravenous, especially Bertha, who explained, accepting a seventh helping, that she usually didn’t eat much breakfast, but fighting evil queens always made her hungry.

  Mimi ate her share, but kept glancing at the sleeping Mutt as if she couldn’t believe that he was really there, and safe. Her face was radiant, but she didn’t speak. It was as if her heart was too full for words.

  ‘This quest could have ended in disaster, though, when you come to think about it,’ Conker said at last, wiping maple syrup from his beard. ‘The Key was taken right into the hands of the Blue Queen.’

  ‘We didn’t know!’ Mimi and Leo exclaimed in chorus.

  ‘If you’d told them the ring was worthless, Hal –’ Tye began.

  ‘I know, I know!’ Hal sighed. ‘Then they’d have told me that I must be wrong, because they’d come here not with the queen, but alone. And then I would have realised that they must have the real Key somewhere about them after all.’

  ‘Conker’s fault,’ mumbled Freda with her beak full. ‘If he’d questioned them properly when they first arrived, instead of just assuming –’

  ‘My fault!’ exploded Conker, enraged. ‘What about you?’

  ‘I was busy eating dots,’ said the duck with dignity.

 
‘What happened was the Blue Queen’s fault, and Spoiler’s fault, and no one else’s,’ Leo said flatly.

  There was a short silence. Then …

  ‘Leo’s right!’ Conker shouted, banging his fist on the table. ‘The whole problem was caused by the queen and Spoiler wanting the Key. But now that the Key is destroyed …’

  ‘It isn’t, actually,’ Mimi said apologetically. She pulled an ugly silver pendant from her pocket, and put it on the table in front of her.

  Chapter 34

  Explanations

  Hal gasped. Tye hissed. Conker goggled. Freda snapped her beak in shock. But Leo smiled. And Bertha laughed aloud.

  ‘You fooled the queen!’ she chortled. ‘You fooled everyone! Except me, of course.’

  ‘Only because you were asleep,’ Freda muttered.

  ‘But I saw the Key burn!’ Tye gasped. ‘I saw it!’

  ‘That wasn’t the real Key,’ Mimi said, looking very pleased with herself. ‘It was a lemon drop that Conker had given me. I made it look exactly like the pendant by – by just thinking about it, and imagining it changed.’

  She shrugged at Conker’s astounded expression. ‘That’s how the Key works,’ she said. ‘You focus your mind on something and imagine –’

  ‘I know how it works!’ growled Conker. ‘That’s what makes it so dangerous in the hands of bad eggs like the Blue Queen. But how did you work out how to use it, may I ask?’

  ‘Well, I was desperate to escape from the Blue Queen and Spoiler,’ said Mimi, calmly mopping up the last of her maple syrup with a fragment of pancake. ‘I ran at the door, wishing, wishing it wasn’t there, imagining it wasn’t there. And suddenly – it wasn’t. Then I remembered the ladder up the Flitters’ tree, and being able to fly, and all the bears in Deep Wood –’

  ‘What have bears got to do with it?’ Freda demanded.