The Curse of Deadman's Forest

by Victoria Laurie

  “There is no need for a vote,” he said finally. “I shall visit the Witch of Versailles and find Lachestia on my own.”

  Caphiera smiled triumphantly. “Of course you will, dear brother,” she said. “Meanwhile, Atroposa and I shall retire to my fortress, as it is far too hot this time of year for me to be of any further service to you.” Turning to her sister, Caphiera said, “Come, dear, you look winded. Let’s get you to the mountain pass, where you can rest in cool comfort.” And with that the two sorceresses left Magus to smolder moodily and stare out to sea.

  SECRET PASSAGES

  I an rolled over onto his back and lay in the cool darkness for several long moments, his hand still gripping Theo’s arm tightly.

  “You all right?” she whispered.

  “Yes,” he said, sitting up and coughing from the dust still swirling around them. “That was a close one, though.”

  “Too close,” agreed Carl, and Ian noticed that his voice came from about five feet away.

  “Is Jaaved all right?” Ian asked.

  “Fine, thank you,” said Jaaved, and Ian was surprised to hear him just behind Theo.

  “It’s pitch-dark in here,” Theo said. “Shouldn’t we be able to see some daylight?”

  “I think the entrance to the tunnel caved in,” Carl moaned, and Ian heard him shuffling around in the dark. “Hang on,” he added, and then a light switched on and they could faintly make each other out.

  Ian smiled gratefully at his friend, glad at least Carl had had the good sense to hang on to his torch. “I lost mine in the cavern,” he admitted.

  “No worries, mate,” Carl said good-naturedly. “One’s all we need, really.” Carl then got to his feet and attempted to wipe some soot off his trousers.

  Ian glanced back at Theo, seeing for the first time that she’d lost her shoes. “What happened to your shoes?”

  Theo blushed. “They slipped off when I was climbing up the rock,” she explained, accepting Ian’s hand. They both got to their feet. “What tunnel is this, do you think?”

  Ian’s face brightened when he realized she knew nothing about what he’d discovered just before rushing to rescue her. “Oh, Theo, you won’t believe it! This tunnel leads right up to the tower room at the keep!”

  Theo blinked. “It what?”

  “We saw the cyclone from the window in the tower,” Carl explained. “And Ian pulled up the slats in the bench and a trapdoor opened to a ladder that led down to this tunnel.”

  Theo’s eyes widened. “Incredible!” she said.

  “It is, isn’t it?” Ian agreed. “I’d no idea there was a tunnel leading directly to the keep, but it makes sense, doesn’t it?” The land spreading out from Castle Dover and the keep was riddled with tunnels and hidden caverns. Some of these were natural, and some were man-made. Most of the latter were dug out by either the local population, who feared invasion from the sea, or the men in service to the many earls of Kent who’d held the land—providing each earl with an escape route should the keep or the castle ever be besieged.

  “That might make sense, Ian, but I still find it hard to believe there was a hidden stairway within the keep that we never knew about,” Theo said.

  “Well, then, perhaps it should remain a secret,” Ian suggested, staring meaningfully at his three companions. Ian was worried that if the adults learned of the escape route, they’d order it blocked up.

  “Might come in handy at some point to have a way out of the keep without anyone knowing about it,” Carl agreed.

  “But the exit is blocked,” Jaaved said, gesturing to the large pile of rubble behind them.

  “We can work on clearing that out later,” Carl said with confidence.

  “Yes,” Theo agreed, and Ian noticed that her hand had moved up to clutch the crystal pendant she wore around her neck. “That might be wise.”

  Ian studied her. “Theo?” he asked.

  “Yes?”

  “Did you get a feeling about the cyclone before you went to the shore?” Theo’s ability to predict the weather was uncanny, and Ian was privately wondering why she hadn’t mentioned any ill feelings she might have had earlier. The only thing she’d said was that the day might grow windy, but she’d hardly looked concerned when she’d said it.

  To his surprise, Theo appeared quite troubled. “I had no idea we’d be hit by a cyclone,” she whispered.

  “What’s that?” Carl asked, leaning in.

  Theo cleared her throat and spoke more clearly this time. “I didn’t know. I felt no warning at all. In fact, it was Jaaved who first noticed something wrong.”

  Ian looked at Jaaved, who nodded. “Her crystal was pulsing red,” he explained.

  Ian remembered that it was Jaaved’s grandfather who had told them about the magic of Theo’s crystal and explained how it would be able to alert her to evil by flashing red in times of grave danger.

  “Until Jaaved mentioned that something was amiss, I’d no idea, Ian.”

  “We saw the cyclone right after the pendant gave us warning,” Jaaved explained. “And by then, it was halfway across the channel and making its way directly to us.”

  Theo nodded. “We knew we’d never get up the road in time, so Jaaved suggested we find shelter in one of the caves along the shore, and at first we took refuge in one of the lower caves, but the wind whipped the pebbles from the shore at us and we knew we couldn’t stay so close to the ground. That’s when we decided to attempt a climb up to a higher cave, but the cyclone reached us much sooner than we thought it would. It was almost as if it had a will of its own—like it aimed itself directly at us.”

  A dark and terrible thought entered Ian’s mind. What if the cyclone hadn’t been just a freakish weather occurrence—but a product of more sinister forces at work?

  He nearly voiced his opinion out loud, but one look at Theo’s troubled face and he decided she’d had enough to worry about for the day. “Well, you’re safe now,” he told her, forcing a smile. But Theo hardly looked reassured.

  “Ian,” she said softly. “Do you think that cyclone could have been the work of Atroposa?”

  “Atroposa?” Carl asked. “You mean the daughter of Demogorgon?”

  Theo nodded. “She’s the sorceress of air, you know. A cyclone would have been well within her powers to create.”

  Jaaved also appeared troubled. “It did follow us up the shore when we made for higher ground, Ian,” he said. “And I don’t really know how to explain it, but it felt sinister, as if it were a thing of dark magic.”

  Carl ran a hand through his hair. “Crikey,” he said. “If one of them can create something like that—what chance does Theo stand against them?”

  “That’s it,” Ian said firmly, fearing for her safety. “You’re never leaving the keep again.”

  But Theo glared at him with firm determination. “Don’t be daft,” she told him. “Of course I’m leaving the keep. Remember Laodamia’s prophecy? We’re scheduled to go through the portal soon enough.”

  “I don’t know how you’ll accomplish that, Theo,” Carl said. “The earl’s locked it up tight. No one can get past that iron gate without his permission and he’s certainly not going to let you go through the portal again.”

  Shortly after they’d returned from their journey to Morocco, the earl had thrown an enormous padlock around the bars of the gate at the entrance of the tunnel leading to the portal. The earl had also gone as far as to expressly forbid the children to go near it, for their own safety.

  But Theo crossed her arms and looked stubbornly up at Ian, as if daring him to agree with Carl. Ian decided not to argue the point with her and attempted to change the subject. “Come along,” he said, waving for his friends to follow. “We’d best get back to the keep before anyone realizes we’re missing.”

  But when they made their way to within ten meters of the ladder leading to the tower, they came to another barrier. A huge stone slab that had been set into the wall had fallen across the tunnel, dropping a go
od portion of the roof on top of it. Ian approached the slab and inspected it. “Blast it!” he groaned, surveying the huge pile of rubble heaped on the slab all the way to the ceiling, which effectively cut them off from the secret entrance to the keep.

  “Would you look at that?” said Carl, and for a moment, Ian thought he was talking about the cave-in, but then he realized that Carl was actually referring to the slab.

  “Look at what?” Ian asked.

  “This stone,” Carl said. “Does it look familiar?”

  At first Ian had no idea what Carl was talking about, but when he looked closer, he saw something on its surface that he recognized. Small angular letters ran down the flat side of the slab. “It’s a standing stone!” he gasped, utterly surprised to find one of the huge stones down there in the tunnel.

  Ian and the others were very familiar with the stones; they’d been educated by Professor Nutley, who was something of an expert. Used for various religious purposes in Druid times, the stones were typically massive and used to mark an area of sacred ground.

  In fact, the entrance to the magical portal a stone’s throw away from Castle Dover was hidden under three standing stones, and Ian strongly suspected that those monoliths held a bit of magic in them as well.

  Carl nodded. “The question is, why is this stone down here of all places?”

  “To protect the keep,” Theo said, reaching out to touch the slab.

  Ian’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean, to protect the keep?”

  Theo smiled patiently at him. “Don’t you think it’s curious that none of Demogorgon’s brood have ever raided the keep, Ian? I mean, we’ve seen Magus’s hellhounds and that awful couple the Van Schufts, but neither Magus nor Caphiera has ever set foot on the keep’s grounds.

  “Lady Arbuthnot and I have long suspected that the keep itself must be protected by some form of magic, something that keeps the likes of Magus and Caphiera out. And if this tunnel leads directly up to the heart of the keep, then there must be some magic associated with the standing stone.” Stepping closer to the slab, Theo ran her hand along the lettering tattooed into the hard rock. “I believe that these markings invoke some sort of protection which radiates upward and protects the keep.”

  “But the entrance to the portal has those same standing stones and markings, and Caphiera had no trouble coming down there, now, did she?” Carl argued.

  Theo sighed. “Yes, that is a valid point, Carl. And I said the same to Lady Arbuthnot, but then she pointed out that when we returned through the portal last year, only a few hours had passed on this side of the portal, and both Caphiera and her icy deathtrap had completely vanished, as if all that ice had never even existed. Lady Arbuthnot thinks, and I agree, that the sorceress was unable to remain in the portal tunnel because of the magic of those stones. And that is why, since then, neither she nor any of her siblings has returned to destroy it.”

  Ian thought about Theo’s logic, and it did make a great deal of sense to him. “She’s right, you know,” he said to Carl, who still looked a bit doubtful. “If I were Magus or Caphiera, the first thing I’d do is destroy that portal if I could. It’s at the heart of all of Laodamia’s prophecies so far and it seems to be the gateway to finding the rest of the Oracles. Magus has to know that, so the fact that he hasn’t attempted to reduce it to rubble says that it must be protected somehow.”

  “Along with the keep,” Theo said, and Ian watched her lean forward and place a gentle hand on Carl’s wrist, moving the torch along the walls and revealing half a dozen more standing stones set at even spaces into both sides of the tunnel wall, beginning about ten meters back. All the stones were arched and marked with the same angular lettering, indicating they were set there on purpose. Ian marveled at the engineering required to set such large and heavy stones deep into an underground tunnel. He was surprised that none of them had noticed the stones until they’d come across the one blocking their exit.

  “Yeah, well, a lot of good that protection is doing us now,” Carl grumbled as Theo let go of his arm and he turned back to the cave-in. He then ducked low and shone his torch under the belly of the stone slab, pulling out a few smaller rocks so that he could get a better look. “It’s blocked all the way to the other side,” he announced.

  Ian squatted down next to Carl and peered into the shadows. Under the slant of the slab he could see nothing but small rocks and debris. “We’ll have to clear it out,” he said. He didn’t know how far back the cave-in went, but the exit behind them at the cavern looked far more challenging to clear.

  “What about that fork we passed?” Jaaved suggested while Ian and Carl looked glumly at the mess in front of them.

  The boys turned to Jaaved. “Yeah,” Carl said, his face brightening. “We could try heading back that way and see if it leads to a way out!”

  “Whichever way we decide, we’ll need to be sure of it,” cautioned Theo. “I don’t expect your torch to last more than an hour or so, Carl.”

  Ian looked nervously at Carl’s torch, and the light did seem a bit dimmer. Then he had an idea and he pulled the sundial from his trouser pocket, grateful that it hadn’t been lost in the powerful storm. Placing it in his palm with the twelve o’clock marker pointing toward his fingers, he lowered it into the torch beam and asked, “Sundial, which way is the quickest out of here?”

  Immediately, a shadow formed across the dial’s surface, pointing to the six o’clock position. “Good heavens!” Theo exclaimed when she realized what had just happened. “Ian! You’ve discovered how to work it!”

  Ian smiled proudly. “Carl and I came across the answer right before we spotted the cyclone. That’s how we knew about the secret passage leading down here, in fact. The dial works very much like a compass. You just need to ask it where something is, and a shadow will form, pointing in the direction of whatever you’re trying to find.”

  “Well, let’s not spend our time talking about it here,” Jaaved warned. “We should wait to do that when we’re aboveground and use what torchlight we have left now.”

  Ian nodded and waved his friends back down the tunnel. “Very well. We’ll go where it’s telling us.”

  It turned out that Jaaved’s suggestion to take the fork was right after all. The sundial’s shadow changed once they reached it, indicating that they should follow the new direction, and to their immense relief, they soon discovered they were in an alternate tunnel, which led to another—much shorter—iron ladder. Ian stood at the base of it and stared up at what looked like a trapdoor. “I wonder where we are?” he mused just as Carl’s torch blinked noticeably.

  “Let’s not wait to find out, Ian. My torch is nearly out.”

  Ian backed away from the ladder and motioned for Theo to go first. “After you,” he said politely.

  Theo eyed him in alarm. “I’ll go last,” she said, and even in the dim light, Ian thought he could see her blushing. He then realized that poor Theo was wearing a skirt, and that she might be worried about maintaining a sense of modesty.

  “Of course,” he said quickly, hoping no one else noticed. “Carl, Jaaved, why don’t you two go and see if you can get that trapdoor open? Theo and I will be up in a bit.”

  “All right, then,” Carl said agreeably, handing Ian the small torch, which Ian shined up the ladder so that they could see where they were going, and before long the two boys were at the top, shoving on the trapdoor. “We’ve done it!” Carl called when they’d pushed their way through.

  Ian looked at Theo and smiled in reassurance. “I’ll go up slowly. If you think you might slip, grab hold of my trousers, all right?”

  Theo nodded and they went up the ladder together. Soon enough they too were through the door and had climbed into a small wooden shack filled with all sorts of gardening tools. “Where are we?” Theo wondered.

  Carl grinned knowingly. “We’ve come up in the gardener’s shack at the edge of the earl’s hedge maze. Jaaved’s already had a look around.” Carl motioned over his should
er at Jaaved, who was nodding enthusiastically.

  “It’s true,” the young Moroccan said. “We’re within Castle Dover’s walls, right next to the maze.”

  Ian was surprised they’d found their way underground to the earl’s backyard. “I never would have imagined we’d end up all the way over here.” The earl’s castle was a full kilometer away from the keep.

  Theo distracted him from puzzling out the route when she tugged on his sleeve and said, “We should get back to the keep.”

  Immediately, she had his full attention, especially in light of what had happened to them that afternoon. “What is it? Is it another cyclone? Can you sense it this time?”

  Theo smiled at him, as if she was amused by his alarm. “No, it’s nothing like that. But I do believe it’s nearly time for tea, and if we’re not back home by four o’clock, the headmistresses will be worried.”

  “Oh,” he said, relieved. “All right, let’s hurry, then, but remember, this tunnel and where it leads shall remain our little secret.” Carl, Jaaved, and Theo all nodded and Ian led the way out of the shack and back toward the keep, using a shortcut through the garden gate that he knew well.

  When Ian and the others finally walked up Delphi Keep’s long drive a bit later, they saw a large group of children; both headmistresses; Landis, the groundskeeper; and several other men, including their two schoolmasters, on the steps of the keep. To Ian’s surprise everyone appeared terribly upset. Madam Dimbleby, in fact, looked just short of hysterical. “Oh, my children!” they heard her wail. “They’re lost! Lost forever!”

  Ian, Carl, Theo, and Jaaved all stopped in their tracks to look at each other in alarm before dashing toward the group. “Perhaps they found shelter in time, Maggie,” Ian heard Madam Scargill say as she patted her cousin on the back.

  But Madam Dimbleby was inconsolable. “Gone!” she wailed. “Gone!”

  Carl was the first of them to reach the large crowd, and Ian overheard him asking a girl named Angela, “Who’s gone?”