by Emily Rodda
‘Leo! Mimi!’ Bertha hissed. ‘Look!’
She and Moult were at the back of the cage, staring out at the moonlit clearing.
The clearing was bright as day. Some children were standing there, staring in awe at the column of smoke. Leo could see Skip among them. She was wearing a red dressing gown over black-and-white spotted pyjamas, and she had slippers shaped like white rabbits on her feet. The twins were standing on either side of her, whispering excitedly. Behind them stood the girl with the long plait, looking rather frightened, and some boys Leo had never seen before. The boys had their hands in their pockets and were trying to look casual and unconcerned, as if they investigated strange phenomena every night of the week.
‘Why have they come?’ Moult cried. ‘It’s so dangerous!’
‘It’s all that Skip child’s doing or I’m a mushroom,’ Bertha said grimly. ‘She probably noticed the palace shape changing and persuaded the others to sneak out of the Snug to have a closer look. Their parents must be busy cooking dinner or something.’
‘It might be a good thing,’ Leo muttered. ‘They’ve seen us. They’ll be able to tell people what really happened – tell everyone that it wasn’t the Strix who took us at all.’
‘They won’t tell anybody anything,’ said Mimi flatly. ‘They’re not supposed to be here, are they? I bet when we’re gone they’ll creep back to the Snug thinking they’ve seen something really cool and swearing to each other not to tell a soul.’
‘I’m afraid you’re right,’ said Bertha. ‘Oh, if only –’
‘Something’s happening,’ quavered Moult.
And something was. The queen’s chanting had grown louder, drowning out Spoiler’s moans. The smoke was swirling upwards as if it was rising from an underground chimney.
The cage began rocking slightly. Leo’s throat closed as he realised what this meant. The queen’s magic was coiling beneath it, preparing to lift it from the ground.
He staggered away from the bars with some idea of trying to distract the queen from her chanting. As he did so, he heard screams from the clearing.
‘Oh, my beak!’ Moult screeched. ‘Oh, I must …’
There was the sound of clumsily fluttering wings. Dusty feathers drifted past Leo’s nose and he sneezed.
‘Moult got out, Leo!’ he heard Mimi shout. ‘She flew up and squeezed through a little gap in the bars! She hurt her wing, but she’s … she’s out of the smoke! She’s safe! But what is she – Oh! Oh!’
Leo kept his eyes fixed on the queen. He told himself he was glad that Moult at least had benefited from his struggle with the bars. He hadn’t been able to push them very far apart. Even for a skinny little hen it must have been a tight squeeze. He only wished …
‘Lawks-a-daisy!’ Bertha shrieked. ‘Conker! Freda!
Tye! … Hat!’
Chapter
36
Child’s play
The Blue Queen’s eyes snapped open. She glared into the clearing and made a rapid circling gesture. The column of smoke was suddenly enclosed in a shimmering transparent shield.
Leo spun round. The children had scattered. Only Skip had stood her ground. She was glaring at Tye, who was running into the centre of the clearing with Conker, Freda and Hal while Moult fluttered lopsidedly to meet them.
Hal’s here, Leo thought dazedly. He must have worked out what the queen was doing and rushed to Hobnob. And Tye’s here. She, Conker and Freda must have seen the cloud palace change shape and come back … Moult saw them arrive. That’s what made her fly for the first time in her life, and force her way out of the cage.
Skip called out something. She was pointing at the coil of skipping rope looped over Tye’s shoulder.
‘She’s asking for her rope back!’ Bertha hissed. ‘Lawks-a-daisy, how can she be so callous? Doesn’t she realise what’s happening here?’
‘She doesn’t understand it,’ said Mimi slowly. ‘To her, it’s just weird and exciting – like a movie she’s watching.’
Tye, Freda, Conker and Hal took no notice of Moult or Skip. They ran straight at the column of smoke, and the Blue Queen laughed mirthlessly as they dashed themselves against the shield she had raised around herself and her prisoners. She lifted her arms and resumed her droning chant. The smoke began to whirl faster than ever, compressed by the shutting spell, spiralling upward like steam in a giant test tube.
Leo watched helplessly as Hal, Tye and Conker staggered to their feet, looking devastated. He saw Moult squawking at them urgently. He couldn’t hear what she was saying, but what did it matter? The cage was beginning to rock again. Soon it would be lost in the spiral of smoke, swept up into the sky. Soon it would be locked in a smoke cloud floating towards the Blue Queen’s castle.
And that would be the end. Conker, Freda, Tye and Hal had followed Leo, Mimi and Bertha into the castle once, but they wouldn’t be able to do it again. This time the queen would be prepared for attack. Her sorcery would shield the castle just as it was shielding the column of smoke.
Tye and Conker seemed to be arguing about something – what to try next, perhaps. Hal was taking no part in the conversation. He was staring into the smoke, his lean face bleak. Hal knows, Leo thought. He knows that this time we’re lost.
He pressed his forehead against the cold bars of the cage and shut his eyes. What would Hal think if he knew that the Key to Rondo was lost as well?
Hal saved Rondo and I’m about to destroy it, Leo thought. Hal took the Key from the Blue Queen, and I carried it back to her.
‘Skip!’ Tye’s voice was loud and commanding enough to penetrate both the shutting spell and Leo’s despair. Leo opened his eyes and blinked out at the clearing. In slow surprise, he saw that Tye was holding out the coil of rope and beckoning to Skip. The girl hesitated, then approached Tye cautiously, her eyes fixed on the rope, while the other children peeped fearfully from behind the trees that edged the clearing.
‘Yes!’ Mimi whispered, clasping her hands as Tye spoke urgently to Skip, and Moult nodded frantically beside them. ‘It’s worth a try! Fight fire with fire!’
Leo met Bertha’s eyes and raised his eyebrows. Bertha shook her head. She had no idea what Mimi meant either.
‘Mimi,’ Leo muttered. ‘What –’
‘Wait!’ Mimi whispered, her face pressed to the bars.
‘Watch!’
Skip took the rope, looking very surprised and excited. She turned and beckoned imperiously to her friends. The twins edged out of hiding and walked uneasily towards her, glancing under their eyelashes at Tye, Hal, Conker and Freda. The two boys quickly followed. The girl with the plait hung back.
Astonished, Leo saw Skip uncoil the rope, give one end to the taller of the twins and take the other end herself. The two girls stretched the rope between them and began to turn it.
The rope hit the ground once, twice. And as it rose for the third time, Tye, dark and slender, her tiger-striped face set, ran into the centre and began to jump.
The children were chanting. Leo’s stomach turned over as he heard the familiar words.
Dare to call the Strix!
Show the Strix your tricks!
One, two, buckle your shoe,
Who will meet the Strix?
At the third line, Tye bent and touched the toe of her boot, straightening again in time for the next turn of the rope.
The cage rocked. Leo glanced over his shoulder. The Blue Queen’s eyes were open. She was staring venomously out into the clearing. But her arms were still raised, her lips were still moving, and the smoke was whirling around her, faster and faster. If Tye’s plan had been to distract her, it wasn’t working. Leo looked back at the clearing. The children were still chanting.
Dare to call the Strix!
Show the Strix your tricks!
Three, four, knock on the floor,
Who will meet the Strix?
At the third line, Tye crouched and knocked on the ground so fast that she was upright again before Leo could blink.
The cage rocked. The chanting went on. It was loud now – very loud. Dazed, Leo saw that Conker, Hal, Freda and Moult were chanting too. The girl with the plait had crept out of hiding and joined her friends. And behind them, deep in Tiger’s Glen, lights bobbed and swayed. People in the Snug had heard the noise, had discovered the children missing. They were hurrying, following the sound of the voices.
Dare to call the Strix!
Show the Strix your tricks,
Five, six, pick up sticks …
Tye touched the ground on either side of her feet and effortlessly rose again in time for the next fall of the rope. The chant rose to a shout.
Who will meet the Strix?
Leo stood frozen, staring through the bars and the smoke. The sight was dreamlike. Lights bobbing in the darkness of the Glen. The rope turning in the moonlit clearing. Children chanting and clapping, wild with excitement. Hal, Conker, Freda and a scrawny little hen chanting, their faces very grim. And, strangest of all, the slender, alien figure of Tye the Terlamaine jumping the rope, her tiger-striped face intent, playing a children’s game as if it were the most important thing in the world.
Leo’s whole body tingled as at last he understood what was happening. He understood what Moult’s idea had been, what Tye was trying to do, what Mimi had meant by ‘Fight fire with fire’, what a terrible risk was being taken …
Dare to call the Strix!
Show the Strix your tricks!
Seven, eight, lock the gate,
Who will meet the Strix?
When Tye spun lithely on the third line, landing as gracefully as a ballet dancer, all the children cheered. The girl with the plait was squealing with excitement. Hal looked very tense. Conker was scowling ferociously. Freda was watching the sky.
His heart in his mouth, Leo heard the last verse of the rhyme begin.
Dare to call the Strix!
Show the Strix your tricks!
Nine, ten, tumble and then …
Tye turned a perfect somersault, so fast that her body was a blur. She regained her feet just as the rope thudded down again, and cleared it effortlessly.
YOU WILL MEET THE STRIX! the children screamed, and suddenly the rope was turning at twice its previous speed, whipping the ground relentlessly, and Tye was jumping very fast, and the crowd was bellowing and clapping in time.
STRIX … STRIX … STRIX … STRIX …
Leo found himself shouting the word with everyone else. Mimi and Bertha were shouting too. Behind them, Spoiler groaned in terror. The queen’s voice rose to a shriek, but she couldn’t drown out the chanting.
… STRIX … STRIX … STRIX … STRIX … STRIX … STRIX!
And as the last shout died away, the stars went out. A thick, swirling, glittering mist had tumbled from the sky, had fallen to earth, overwhelming the smoke, overwhelming the cage, the shutting spell, the queen. The mist was damp, bountiful, whirling with colour, and in its centre something was alive.
Life of a kind …
What have we done? Leo thought numbly. He felt his teeth beginning to chatter. He heard Bertha moan.
The children were shrieking piercingly. Spoiler was rattling the cage bars, howling to be let out. The queen was silent.
Leo, Mimi and Bertha huddled together, lost in a sparkling haze. Before their eyes, glittering particles in every colour of the rainbow, borne in a soft white mist, formed and reformed into the dreamlike shapes of living things – huge, exotic flowers, mermaids with sea-green hair, dancing zebras, twisting sea-serpents, unicorns, giants, dragons …
Then they heard a voice slowly rumbling above their heads like distant thunder, infinitely peaceful and as old as time.
‘Who called my name?’ the voice said. ‘Who disturbed my dreams?’
Leo heard Mimi catch her breath. He looked up, straight up, but could see only a faint smudge in the heart of the glittering cloud. The Ancient One. He felt an ache of longing in his chest and quickly looked down again, his eyes dazzled and his heart thudding with fear. Through the mist, through the endlessly changing dream-shapes, past Spoiler clinging to the cage bars, he saw the Blue Queen staggering back, one arm pressed over her eyes.
‘Ahh,’ sighed the old, old voice. ‘Here is powerful magic. Ah, it warms me. It reminds me of the olden times, when the Artist strolled with the Terlamaines in the glades of Old Forest. And of later ages too, when Langlanders trod the world, and played their tricks, and made their magic. And of … a darker, more recent time that … I would prefer to forget.’
It feels the Key, Leo thought in terror, glancing at Mimi. But Mimi seemed unaware of him. She was gazing, awestruck, at the visions drifting around her. Her eyes were filled with tears. He looked quickly back at the queen.
The queen had uncovered her face. She was looking at the wand still clutched in her shaking hand.
She doesn’t know about the Key, Leo reminded himself. She thinks the Strix is sensing the magic in Wizard Bing’s wand.
‘The wand is mine, Ancient One,’ said the Blue Queen in a low voice that trembled only slightly. ‘It is but a trivial, commonplace thing, made by a trivial, commonplace man. It would not interest you for long, and nor would I. But see what I have here! Something far better!’
She pointed into the cage.
Shrinking back, Leo felt a strange, cool sensation sweep over him like a soft, steady breeze. He knew without doubt that he was being examined curiously from somewhere high above him, somewhere in the centre of the dancing visions, the dazzling mist. He began to shake. He wanted to hide himself, but he couldn’t move.
‘Langlanders,’ said the rumbling voice softly, almost dotingly. ‘Young ones … the youngest I have seen … and an old one with them – a bad apple, rotten almost to the core … and a pig with fine intelligence and a great heart. How interesting! How very curious and interesting!’
Leo felt the coolness intensify. He gripped Mimi’s hand.
‘Then take them, Ancient One,’ the Blue Queen gabbled, her lips stretching into a ghastly smile. ‘Take them all! I give them to you!’
‘Give?’ said the Strix, sounding puzzled. ‘How can you give? What I want, I take.’
Leo shivered, shivered all over. He heard Bertha take a sobbing breath.
Her mouth twitching uncontrollably, the queen edged aside. She trod on the basket, stumbled awkwardly and staggered a little, reaching for the cage to stop herself from falling.
In a split second Spoiler’s arm had shot between the bars and his meaty hand had fastened on her arm. She screamed with rage and fought to tear her arm away.
‘Sell me, would you?’ Spoiler shouted hysterically, tightening his grip. ‘Trade me for your own miserable life and steal my wand as well, would you? Think again, witch! Wherever I go, you go!’
Wild with fury, the queen swung round and smashed the wand down on his hand.
Spoiler gave a strangled squeak, dropped her arm, and froze. Then, bizarrely, he began to swell. His head ballooned. His eyes vanished from view as his cheeks and forehead rose in doughy mounds. His arms and legs puffed out. His skin browned, thickened and crusted. And suddenly the cage was filled with the strong, unmistakable scent of newly baked bread.
Mimi and Bertha screamed. Leo yelled in horror. They shrank back as Spoiler, hideously changed, blundered blindly around the cage, his swollen arms and legs stiff as jointed bread-sticks, his bulging, crusty head crashing against the bars, spraying the floor with crumbs.
The queen shrieked with surprised laughter – a shrill cackle of pure, wicked delight. There was a low, ominous rumble from above, and abruptly she stopped laughing. Her mouth was still half-open, the laughter lines still creased her face, but her eyes were suddenly wide with terror. She began to tremble. The wand dropped from her hand.
Leo, Mimi and Bertha fell to the cage floor, paralysed by the icy breath of the terrible anger gathering above. But the anger was not for them. It was for the woman cowering on the other side of the golden bars – the queen who
to them was a towering monster of evil, but who was a child compared to the ancient being in the mist.
‘You have learned nothing since first the Artist painted you in your pride, Blue Queen,’ growled the Strix. ‘You have not grown. You have merely grown old. You are not interesting. Leave us, and return to your own place.’
The queen threw up her arms. Smoke swirled about her, cocooning her, lifting her off her feet. As she struggled, howling with baffled rage, her eyes fell on Leo lying in the cage, gaping at her. She bared her teeth and hissed at him like a snake.
‘Begone!’ thundered the Strix.
The queen shrieked. The whirling cocoon spiralled upwards into the night, carrying her with it. And in an instant she had vanished, leaving behind only the echo of her screams.
Chapter
37
Amazing Scenes
The cage bars had vanished with the queen. Spoiler had blundered away. But Leo, Mimi and Bertha didn’t move. They were lost in the dreams of the
Strix.
Phantoms formed and reformed around them. Laughing dwarves and scowling goblins. Treasure chests and trees with faces. Bears and witches, growling griffins, sweet-faced girls with golden hair. Cats and rats and spotted dogs. Children playing, knights on horses, farmers, dragons, fisher-kings …
A scraggy brown hen, her feathers fluffed up in fright, her eyes filled with terrified determination.
Leo blinked. The hen was real. It was Moult. He stirred from his waking dream. Suddenly, as if plugs had been taken from his ears, he heard the sound of many murmuring voices. Suddenly his dazzled eyes were able to see beyond the visions.
Moult was standing in the moonlit clearing, peering into the glittering haze. Behind her were Conker, Freda, Hal and Tye. Behind them, keeping well back, was a goggling, muttering crowd of people. Leo could see Bodelia, Master Sadd, the tailor Stitch, and Scribble, gaping, his notebook hanging limply in his hand …
‘Please let my friends go free, Ancient One,’ croaked Moult, her head bobbing, her ragged comb flopping. ‘Take me, instead. I am the one who laid the golden egg. And – and my flock can well do without me.’
