by Emily Rodda
A tiny crease had appeared between her perfect eyebrows. She put her hand to her forehead and closed her eyes. For a second her beautiful image seemed to waver. The smoke behind her began drifting upwards.
She’s exhausted, Leo thought slowly. Creating the palace, holding it together for such a long time, pushing the magic to the edges of the Glen … it’s all weakened her. She’s spread herself too thin. That’s why she let the smoke rush back to the cloud palace the moment I’d found the night-lights. It’s why the palace is losing shape and getting smaller. The magic is breaking down.
The queen still had her eyes closed. A nerve at the corner of her mouth twitched. The furrow on her brow deepened. Leo looked around rapidly. The walls of the palace were growing more insubstantial by the moment. Already he could see through them to the little clearing and the dark shapes of the trees beyond. The walls were paling, thinning, becoming translucent exactly as the door had done on his third knock, but he was certain that this time the thinning wasn’t intentional. And …
His heart leaped. Was it his imagination, or were the bars that surrounded him becoming less distinct as well?
He slid silently to the back of the cage. The bars seemed to ripple beneath his fingers as he took hold of them. With all his strength he strained to pull them apart. They bent very slightly, but not nearly enough to make a gap big enough for him to climb through. He took a breath and tried again, willing strength into his arms, willing the bars to weaken.
‘You cannot escape!’ The queen’s voice cut through his concentration like an icy blade, making him jump. Stiffly he turned, striving to keep his face expressionless, to mask his bitter disappointment.
‘You cannot escape,’ the queen repeated. ‘You are mine now.’
Leo swallowed, fighting despair, clinging to hope. The queen was tiring. If her withdrawal to her castle in the north could be delayed, there was still a chance. He made himself walk to the front of the cage again. He grasped the bars and looked out at the queen. She smiled cruelly.
‘You came to Hobnob because you found out we were on our way here,’ he said, as if trying to take it in. ‘The blue butterflies at the camping shop …’
‘Quite so,’ the queen said languidly, stroking her pale gold hair as if it were a treasured pet. ‘You have tried to hide from me, but I knew that at last you would have to show yourselves. The moment you did, my spies alerted me. They told me that the dingy town of Hobnob was your destination – some ridiculous quest to find that pathetic dabbler Bing, who calls himself a wizard. So to Hobnob I came. I formed the palace over the Gap from Flitter Wood. It should have been a simple capture. You should have slipped straight out of the Gap into my hands, but you chose to travel by another, far longer way. Why, I cannot imagine.’
To spare Bertha’s feelings, Leo thought. Something you would never understand, Blue Queen.
‘So then it was a matter of luring you into my power,’ the queen continued. ‘That task presented some difficulties, I must admit. I have been forced to remain here far longer than I intended. But with the help of my spies, some strokes of good fortune, and your gullibility, success is mine at last. I have you all.’
I have you all.
Leo’s stomach turned over. For some reason he had taken it for granted that Mimi and Bertha were not in the palace but were wandering lost in the mist – led astray, perhaps, by the queen’s phantoms. He had assumed he was the queen’s only prisoner.
Why did I assume that? he thought in confusion. His head felt as if it were full of cotton wool. Fear and shock seemed to have dulled his senses. Even now, he realised, he couldn’t quite come to grips with what the queen had said. Some part of his mind was sure she was lying. He stared helplessly at the woman’s gloating face. She didn’t look like someone who was lying. She was shimmering with triumph.
‘When that foolish hen braved the mists of Tiger’s Glen I knew that Mimi Langlander would follow,’ the queen said, clearly relishing her story. ‘I heard that she had formed a bond with the scrawny little creature. She has a weakness for eccentric outsiders, being one herself. The pig who boasts she defeated me, and thinks herself so brave, would come next. And you … well …’ Her lip curled. ‘You are the image of your old uncle, Hal, are you not? You have inherited Hal’s tedious sense of duty, and his childish taste for heroics. I knew you would not leave your friends to be carried away in the cloud palace of the Ancient One.’
She smiled mockingly. ‘The cloud palace of the Ancient One,’ she repeated. ‘The perfect camouflage. I will be able to use it again and again before the fools realise that oddities are not the only ones disappearing. I have many other scores to settle.’
The cold gleam in her pale eyes turned Leo’s bones to ice. His numbed mind drifted to Conker and Freda, to Hal and Tye, to Jim, Polly, and Suki, the Blue Queen’s hated stepdaughter. He even thought of Spoiler, though this time with little sympathy.
‘But you impertinent Langlanders had to come first,’ said the queen, gazing at the rings on her smooth fingers with satisfaction. ‘And if I have caught the boasting pig in my trap as well, so much the better. She can take the place of Mimi Langlander’s loathsome little dog. I had hoped the dog would be with you, but it is still in hiding, no doubt. Well, I will seek it out later. In the meantime, we will see how long the pig’s pride lasts when she is starving in my dungeons. How I will enjoy watching her beg for crumbs and husks! How I will delight in refusing her!’
Anger rose in Leo like a flame. The paralysing numbness that had gripped his mind melted away, and he could think again. In a flash he remembered everything he’d ever heard about the Blue Queen’s power. He knew why he was certain she lied. Desperate – hopeless – as his own situation was, relief flooded through him.
He stared defiantly at the woman preening in front of him.
‘You’re lying, Blue Queen,’ he said. ‘You’re trying to trick me. But I won’t be tricked. I know too much about you. You can’t have Bertha in your power – and I doubt you’ve got Mimi either. Moult might have come in here willingly, like I did. But I don’t think Mimi would have knocked at the door, however much she might have wanted Moult back. And I’m certain Bertha wouldn’t.’
‘Perhaps not,’ the queen purred. ‘But there is another way for a great sorceress to claim slaves, my dear Leo. They can be brought to her by another.’
Blood surged in Leo’s veins like liquid fire. Energy thrilled through him, driving out despair, dissolving fear and doubt, and leaving something pure, hard and bright in their place. He gripped the golden bars and laughed in the woman’s face.
‘Is that the plan?’ he jeered. ‘That I’ll bring Mimi and Bertha to you? You’re a fool! You don’t understand anything! I’ll never bring them to you – I don’t care what you do to me. I’ll never –’
He broke off. The queen had begun to smile again, and this time her smile was so full of gleeful spite that his throat had closed.
‘You do not understand, Leo,’ she said softly. ‘Your companions are here with us now. You delivered them right into my hands, just as I planned. Now they are mine, and you are, too. Is it not amusing?’
And she looked down at the basket – at the four night-lights gleaming on the dusty straw.
Chapter
35
In peril
Ah yes,’ said the queen, watching Leo’s appalled face, greedily drinking in his horror. ‘The magic in the outer Glen was thin – strained to its limit. But it was enough to enable me to transform intruders into any form I wished. Something small, I thought. Something easily carried to me by the dupe I had chosen for the task. Night-lights were perfect. They are flowers I have always disliked.’
‘Did you change Simon into a mushroom too?’ Leo asked dully.
She laughed. ‘The wizard’s apprentice? What do I care for him or his bumbling master? Whatever happened to them is nothing to do with me. Now – we have talked long enough. You have amused me with your feeble attempts to delay our d
eparture, but there will be plenty of time for further amusement when we are safely behind stone walls.’
She was gazing over Leo’s shoulder. He glanced behind him and saw that while they had been talking, while he had been concentrating on her alone, the whole front wall of the palace had melted away. A full moon had risen above the trees, and the small clearing was flooded with light. Slowly, as he turned back to face his enemy, he realised that the light was shining in from all sides and from above. The smoke had thinned and contracted till all that remained was a misty column stretching up into the sky with the queen and the golden cage at its base.
‘It is enough,’ the queen drawled, smiling cruelly at the renewed hope that Leo could not help showing in his face. ‘It is what I came with to this place, and it is all I need to leave it. But just to be sure, I will rid myself of one burden at least …’
She plucked the four night-lights from the basket and threw them negligently into the cage, muttering a few words under her breath.
The tiny flowers twisted in the air, transforming as they fell. In seconds they had disappeared and four figures were rolling, dazed, on the ground – Moult, Mimi, Bertha, and … a cloaked man with a broad-brimmed hat, long black hair, a pointed black beard and gold-rimmed, blue-tinted glasses.
Hopelessly tangled in his cloak, the man thrashed from one side to the other, struggling to get up. His hat fell off – and his long, glossy hair fell off with it.
Leo stared. ‘Spoiler!’ he gasped.
And George Langlander it was. Without the wig there was no mistaking the man who now staggered to his feet with a smear of dirt on one cheek, torn frills on his fancy shirt, and a web of cracks disfiguring one lens of his glasses. There was no mistaking, either, the look of cringing terror that he shot at the Blue Queen before backing as far away from her as he could. He ran his fingers through his greasy hair, and a stale, flowery scent drifted to Leo’s nose.
That was the smell in Wizard Bing’s house, Leo thought. Spoiler’s hair oil. That smell was what made Mimi sure that Spoiler had been there, though she didn’t know why. I wouldn’t listen to her. I thought she was being illogical and crazy. But she was right all along.
And before that, I was right, his thoughts ran on. Spoiler was here, in Hobnob. He came here from Innes-Trule, and for sure he stole those clothes and things from Winkle’s cart. He was the so-called count who cheated Bun the baker. He was probably the one responsible for the rash of thefts in the town as well. And he was the one who stole Wizard Bing’s wand.
Leo remembered the night-light he had found in the tent of vines. The wand had been there too. In a flash he saw what must have happened. After stealing the wand, Spoiler had stayed in Bing’s Wood – unable to slip away easily because of all the villagers coming to investigate the explosion. In the morning he had crept to Tiger’s Glen, planning to escape through the Gap, but he’d found the Glen crawling with children on a nature tour, so he’d hidden in the vine cave. Then, having been up all night, he’d probably fallen asleep. So he’d still been in the cave when the palace landed in Tiger’s Glen at sunset. How delighted the queen must have been to discover him and make him her first victim!
‘What happened?’ mumbled Bertha, sitting up and shaking her head till her ears flapped. ‘I feel very strange. One minute I was walking through the wood following Mimi’s tracks and the next minute … oh!’
She had seen Spoiler glowering down at her. She had seen Leo, Mimi and Moult. She had seen the golden bars of the cage.
She blinked, turned her head, and saw the Blue Queen. ‘Eek!’ she squealed.
The Blue Queen’s lips curved in a very nasty smile. ‘Is that a pleasant way to greet your new mistress, pig?’ she purred. ‘Your manners must be improved. And they will be, I assure you.’
Bertha’s eyes narrowed.
‘Where are we?’ Moult quavered, her head nodding on her scrawny neck as she peered from side to side. ‘I’ll be fried if this is the palace of the Ancient One! Where is Wizard Bing?’
‘We’ve been tricked,’ Leo said loudly, his eyes on Mimi as she stood up unsteadily. ‘Wizard Bing isn’t here. The Strix’s palace isn’t here either. It’s all been a hoax. It was a trap set by the Blue Queen to capture Mimi and me. And there’s nothing we can do to help ourselves. We have no magic to fight her.’
Mimi turned and looked at him. He held her gaze and casually touched his hand to the base of his neck, as if he was simply scratching an itchy spot. Her eyes darkened, and slowly she shook her head.
Leo felt his face grow hot. Was Mimi telling him she wouldn’t use the Key even now? Even when it was certain that eventually the queen would discover the Key hidden under Mimi’s clothes and take it for herself? What sort of time was this for Mimi suddenly to decide to obey Hal’s orders? Was she crazy?
No, a small calm voice whispered in his mind. You know she’s not. You’re making the same mistake again. Trust her, for once.
Leo’s anger died as quickly as it had flared. He pushed past Spoiler to get to Mimi’s side. As he passed, Spoiler saw the wand in his belt, gave a yell, and grabbed it.
‘Hey!’ Leo shouted instinctively. But Spoiler was already rushing to the front of the cage, waving the wand at the Blue Queen.
‘See here, your glorious highness!’ he cried. ‘This is a miracle! It can make us rich! Look at this!’ He fumbled in his bulging pocket with his free hand and pulled out a gleaming golden egg.
‘My egg!’ squawked Moult.
‘This wand will make anyone who owns it all-powerful, my most exquisite majesty!’ gabbled Spoiler, shaking the wand at the Blue Queen. ‘I took it from the wizard who made it. And I have brought the wand to you, your extreme wonderfulness! I stole it for you!’
‘Oh yes?’ said the queen, raising her eyebrows. ‘Then you had better give it to me, hadn’t you?’
Timorously Spoiler poked the wand through the bars of the cage. The queen took it without comment and turned away.
Spoiler wiped his mouth with the back of a trembling hand. ‘W-well?’ he stammered, with false jauntiness, pushing the golden egg back into his pocket. ‘Aren’t you going to let me out? I mean, we’re partners again now, aren’t we?’
‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ said the queen, turning back to him and smiling slightly. ‘In fact, the more I see you behind bars, George, the better I like it.’
‘But the wand –’ Spoiler whined.
‘As we both know, you stole the wand for yourself, George,’ the Blue Queen cut in coldly. ‘Whatever you say now, you stole it to enrich yourself, to help you live in comfort while you hid from me. Well, that is no longer necessary, is it? Because the hiding is over. I have found you. And what I will do with you … or to you … in the future, is my concern alone.’
She smiled. Spoiler cringed and shuddered. Clutching the golden bars, he sank to his knees. The queen raised her arms, closed her eyes and began a low, muttering chant. Slowly the column of smoke began to swirl as if stirred with a spoon.
‘Mimi,’ Leo whispered, ‘What’s wrong? Why don’t you want to use –’
‘I don’t have it, Leo,’ Mimi said.
He gaped at her, thunderstruck.
‘I took it off when I went after Moult,’ Mimi said, her lips barely moving. ‘Just in case anything … happened to me. I told you! Didn’t you read my note?’
For a wild moment Leo thought she really had gone mad. Her note? There was nothing about the Key in …
Don’t worry. Will use basket to carry safely …
He wet his dry lips. ‘You put it in the basket,’ he said huskily. ‘Under the straw.’
‘Of course,’ Mimi muttered. ‘I had no choice. I couldn’t wear it, in case I was captured. There aren’t any Safe Places in the Snug, and I couldn’t find any in the picnic area either. And I couldn’t just leave it in the open where someone might steal it. So I carried it in the basket. I told you. Well, I couldn’t write “Key” because of Bertha, but I put “Don’t worry” as a clu
e. Didn’t you get it?’
Leo shook his head. It crossed his mind that only Mimi Langlander could think that any normal person would understand something so vague. Then he thought again, and a wave of sadness rolled over him as he saw the truth. Mimi had assumed that “Don’t worry” would make him think instantly of the Key to Rondo because she had felt sure that his first concern would be for the Key’s safety, not hers.
‘I must have dropped the basket when the queen got me,’ Mimi murmured, rubbing her forehead. ‘That plan worked, anyway. But how did she get me? How did she get any of us? How could she be here? She’s not supposed to be able to –’
‘The new spell,’ Leo managed to say. ‘It frees her power from the castle centre – lets her move with it, in smoke …’
Mimi nodded. Her eyes looked enormous in her pale face. ‘It’s my fault you’re here, Leo,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I didn’t think you’d come after me, after all you said, but I should have known you would. You and Bertha are heroes – everything heroes should be. There’s no point in saying I’m sorry. This is too bad for “sorry”.’
Leo’s face was burning. He felt as if something was twisting inside his chest. ‘It wasn’t just your fault,’ he said. ‘It was mine as well. I –’ The thought of telling her what he’d done, how he’d been tricked into delivering them all into the queen’s hands, made his throat tighten and dry. He swallowed. ‘At least –’ he began, and stopped.
He’d been going to say ‘at least we’re together’, but had decided at the last moment that it was a stupid thing to say.
‘Yes,’ Mimi agreed soberly, misunderstanding him completely. ‘At least she hasn’t got the Key. That’s something I did right, anyway.’
And as she spoke, she looked down and saw the basket on the ground at the Blue Queen’s feet. Her lips parted, but she uttered no sound. She pressed her back against the bars of the cage, shaking her head, her eyes appalled and disbelieving.
