Effie sighed. ‘We’ll be fine. But yes, there’s only four of us.’
‘Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ said Orwell. ‘It’s vast, dusty, dark and full of things you shouldn’t be reading. If anyone asks, I didn’t give you this.’ He gave Effie the key. ‘Now go.’
‘Thanks, Dad.’
Wolf was very hot by the time he reached the spot he’d marked on the map and cross-referenced with the coordinates on his yellow device. He was in the middle of a massive field with pale, dry grass. There were no houses or other structures. In fact, Wolf couldn’t see any evidence of human life anywhere. Just miles and miles of grass. What had he done wrong? There was nothing here. Had he just walked through the wilderness for nothing? He checked his coordinates again. And again.
Midday was approaching fast. It was now 11.40. Wolf felt like crying – although he hardly ever cried – or kicking something – although there was nothing to kick. This was his best chance of finding Natasha, and it looked like he’d blown it. Had he simply got the coordinates wrong? Very occasionally Wolf got something wrong in one of his Sudoku puzzles. Instead of doing what he wanted – which was binning it and starting a new one – he always forced himself to go back, find the mistake and put it right. Sometimes this involved rubbing out scores of numbers.
He realised that this was what he was going to have to do now. Retrace his steps until he found his mistake. Realistically he didn’t know how he would even begin to do this. He could see in every possible direction, and there was nothing out here. Perhaps he’d gone wrong as far back as where the bus had dropped him off.
The sun was peaking in the sky. Wolf had to face the very real possibility of having failed his mission. And what then? Would he have to spend the night out here? If he was going to do that, he’d need to find water. And build a shelter. Wolf could see a tree in the distance, and noticed that the land sloped downwards. Water was probably in that direction. He had his purification tablets, of course. Although for now he still had what was left in the old army canteen that hung from his rucksack. So he didn’t need to panic, or start gathering supplies just yet. He needed to think.
The only thing in this whole bare landscape, apart from the tree in the distance, was a single rock about fifty metres away. He’d sit on the rock, have some water and an energy ball, and then make a decision about what to do next. Generals can’t think on an empty stomach, after all. Hadn’t Sun Tzu written that in The Art of War? He wasn’t sure. Still, he pondered some more of the book’s wisdom now: The Wise Warrior,/When he moves,/Is never confused;/When he acts,/Is never at a loss.
He needed a definite plan.
Wolf eased his rucksack off his shoulders and put his backpack down by the rock. There was something a little odd about it, but Wolf wasn’t quite sure what it was. There were lines scratched into it that looked a bit like letters or something. MMXIV. Wolf ran his hands over the numbers. It was a good thing he hadn’t just sat down. As soon as his hand made contact with the rock, it make a low, sinister creaking sound and then started to move.
Wolf sprang back and watched as the rock rose into the air to form a tall grey pillar. Another one steadily rose out of the ground just opposite, and then another one, and another. The pillars now formed the corners of a large rectangle. There was a sort of metallic heaving noise as the last part of this happened, as if a hundred school radiators were coming on at the same time.
‘What the . . .?!’ said Wolf, jumping backwards again.
More pillars appeared from the ground. And then a whole building began rising up in the area that they had marked out. It was also grey, but while the rocks seemed ancient, the building was metallic and military-looking. Wolf checked his map again. The building was coming out of the ground in exactly the place at which he had been told to arrive before midday. He gulped. It was 11.45. Perhaps, after all, he had arrived on time. He’d surely found where he was supposed to go. Which meant that he hadn’t failed in his mission. Not just yet. Was Natasha in there somewhere?
Once the building had finished emerging from the ground everything became still and quiet again. It was as if nothing had ever happened. Except now there was this vast grey structure standing there in the middle of nowhere. It must be top secret. But why? And what connected Natasha with people who would have a top secret underground facility in the remote Borders? Wolf gulped again, took a last sip of his water and slipped his rucksack back on. He made sure he could reach his sword if he needed it: even though it only worked on magical people, it still looked very impressive. And anyway, who knew what was in that building?
Wolf approached it. Was there a door somewhere? There had to be. He went around the vast structure once. It took five minutes. Nope. No door. But that was impossible. Wolf had trained his mind to think fast, so in a couple of seconds, hundreds of thoughts had run through his brain like rugby backs passing the ball back and forth and back and forth and . . .
Wolf went to the place where the rock had been, where there was now a tall pillar. Scratched into the ancient rock were the letters MMXIV. Wolf memorised them but then, as back-up, took out the small pen he wore around his neck and wrote them on his hand. There was nothing else on the pillar. MMXIV. What could that mean?
Was Wolf supposed to enter this building or not? They – whoever they were – were not making it very easy. Wolf understood that this was a test. He had already embarked on the ‘programme’, whatever it would turn out to be. There was no going back. He just had to find a way in.
10
Neptune’s life had become extremely boring, and he wasn’t sure why. Once upon a time he would lord it over all the stray and domestic cats that had the misfortune to wander into the Tusitala School grounds. As official school cat, he was entitled to claw and scratch the living daylights out of any other creature that came within his territory. Being school cat also meant Neptune was fed the scraps from school dinners, which included real meat and fish, while most of the local domestic cats were fed those hard, dry pellets that were made of, among other things, old pencil shavings and sofa fluff. The strays had to make do with voles.
But now there were no strays to gloat over.
What was going on? Even the domestic cats didn’t bother to come to the school grounds any more. Much of the Cosmic Web avoided Neptune (mainly for fear of being eaten by him) and so his world had been reduced to the occasional scrap of news from an incredibly sulky owl.
One of the domestic cats used to postpone being attacked by offering Neptune regular snippets from the pet noir novels that her owner liked to read aloud. Neptune had found he rather liked the idea of being a cat-detective and solving a crime. He desperately wanted to know how the latest story ended. But Mirabelle had stopped visiting. Neptune realised that he had not seen another cat for weeks.
A long Saturday afternoon stretched before Neptune. If it had been a school day he could have spent some time terrorising the younger children. There was one child – a girl – whom he’d seen once in the distance and had felt an inexplicable urge to talk to – as if it was even possible to speak to humans. But, anyway, it was not a school day. Neptune realised that he had a choice to make. Was he going to turn around, go back into the school and get one of the melancholy resident staff to give him a tummy rub, or was he going to accept this call to adventure and set off to find out what had happened to all the missing cats? A third option, of course, was to go and eat another guinea pig. But none of the cat-detectives in the stories seemed to eat guinea pigs; they were too busy solving crimes. Perhaps, mused Neptune, he really ought to try again to give up guinea pigs.
He turned towards the school. Maybe just one tummy rub, maybe just half a guinea—
A bolt of lightning suddenly struck the ground in front of him, melting what was left of the snow and ripping a large hole in the rugby field. It was almost as if the universe was telling him to . . . to . . .? What was that story about the cat who went to London with that queer-looking boy with a handkerchief
on a stick? Turn again, Neptune . . . Turn again . . . Accept your adventure. This voice was not outside Neptune; but it wasn’t really inside him, either. It gave him the heebie-jeebies. But he knew it was right.
No more guinea pigs. No more tummy rubs. Neptune understood that now was the sacred moment when he was going to leave all this behind and set off. He was going on an adventure, as everyone must do at some point in their lives. He was going to find the missing cats and then . . . He didn’t know what. Perhaps that was the point of adventures. Perhaps you couldn’t know how they were going to end, or what you were going to find. You just had to take that first step into the unknown.
‘He was right, it is dark,’ said Raven.
‘And dusty,’ said Maximilian, coughing.
No one noticed the faint traces of glitter in the air, although they were there.
The four friends had gone down three flights of stairs so far. The official Library Reception was apparently on the first normal floor. But since the children weren’t really supposed to be in the library, they’d been told not to go to reception. Or not that reception anyway.
‘No doubt the books you want are in the more esoteric wing, in Special Collections,’ Orwell had said. ‘Fourth basement floor and turn left, according to rumour. And then down the spiral staircase. But I am not taking responsibility for anything that happens to you, including death. On your own heads be it.’
Effie was finding it difficult to get frightened in the University Library. After experiencing the Great Library – which, due to existing in another dimension, is always on the verge of ripping its browsers out of the familiar fabric of space and time – no other library was ever going to scare Effie. But this one was, objectively, to a normal person, quite chilling.
There were no electric lights of any sort down here. Instead, each child carried a candle-lamp. The flames danced on the stone walls like apparitions at a ghostly disco. There were cobwebs everywhere. Some of these were so old and so large that they hung from the ceiling in great mushroomy folds, like old velvet curtains.
‘Are you sure this is the right way?’ said Lexy, pulling a large piece of cobweb out of her hair.
‘Nope,’ said Raven.
‘One more floor,’ said Maximilian. ‘And then we turn left.’
‘And why are we here exactly?’ said Lexy.
‘To read forbidden books,’ said Maximilian, happily.
‘Why do we want to read forbidden books?’ said Lexy, unenthusiastically.
‘Have you not been paying attention?’ said Maximilian. ‘Um, maybe because we’re magical and we need more knowledge? Or because we want to hone our skills so we can defeat evil? Or . . .’ Some unseen glitter went up his nose at that point and he sneezed.
‘Are you all right?’ Raven asked Lexy. ‘You seem a bit grumpy.’
‘I’m just tired,’ said Lexy.
Effie could tell it was more than just that.
‘Are you sure?’ she asked.
‘Yes!’ snapped Lexy. ‘I wish everyone would just leave me alone.’
‘All right,’ said Effie. ‘Keep your hair on.’
More than anything, Lexy wished she could tell her friends what had happened with JP. But she didn’t know how she would start. And anyway, it was just like with her parents: it would either be impossible to explain (‘What, he just wanted to arm-wrestle you? What’s the harm in that?’) or she’d describe the creepiness of it so well that they’d insist that something should be done about it. And then Hazel wouldn’t win her prize and the whole of the Midwinter holiday would be ruined. Lexy had decided to just put up with whatever happened in the next week for her mum’s sake. After all, how bad could it get? But for some reason this decision was making her moody and grumpy. She just had to try to remember not to take it out on her friends.
‘I expect there’ll be some good healing books down here that you can’t get anywhere else,’ said Raven to Lexy. ‘I’m looking for a healing spell myself. One of the tarantulas is a bit off-colour. I’ve tried everything else I can think of.’
‘I’ll help you find it,’ said Lexy, smiling gratefully at her friend.
‘What are you looking for in the library?’ Raven asked Effie.
‘Books on the Otherworld,’ said Effie. ‘Otherworld customs, histories . . . I won’t know exactly until I find it.’
‘I thought you already knew everything about the Otherworld,’ said Maximilian.
‘Apparently not,’ said Effie.
‘Is that why you suddenly need more deepwater so quickly?’
‘Sort of.’
‘Has something happened?’ asked Maximilian.
Effie sighed. Where would she begin? She couldn’t tell the whole story of what had happened in Froghole. She didn’t want her friends to think that there was even a possibility that she might be a galloglass. They might start speculating about her like Rollo had done, and she couldn’t risk that. Perhaps Maximilian would understand, but she couldn’t tell him with the others here.
‘It’s all right,’ said Effie. ‘It’s boring. I’ll tell you some other time.’
The children made their way down the last twisting flight of stairs and suddenly there it was. SPECIAL COLLECTIONS. This was presumably what it had once said. Now it simply said SP I L COL ONS. The sign was – or had once been – a handsome wooden rectangle with gold lettering, hanging from a brass chain above an ancient-looking oak roll-top desk. But the chain was now tarnished and the sign was draped with cobwebs. The desk, however, was tidy. It was the only thing in the whole library that seemed free of dust. On the desk was yesterday’s edition of the Old Town Gazette, open at the cryptic crossword.
‘What do you want?’ said the man sitting behind the desk. He was small and wrinkled and had an awful lot of facial hair, all of it red.
‘Who are you?’ said Maximilian.
‘I am the Special Collections librarian,’ said the man. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m Euphemia Truelove,’ said Effie, stepping forward. Her name sometimes had a helpful effect on elderly magical people who remembered her grandfather. But not this time.
‘And?’ said the man, unimpressed. ‘We don’t usually have children down here. In fact, we don’t usually have anyone down here. Been quite a rush on today, though. Very curious indeed. Very curious.’
Lexy sighed. ‘Come on. We might as well go. He’s not going to let us in.’
‘I said we don’t usually have children down here,’ said the librarian sternly. ‘I didn’t say you couldn’t come in. All epiphanised people are welcome down here. We only have three rules. No chewing gum. No talking. And if you die, it’s your own fault. Furthermore, there’s no catalogue, so don’t come here asking me where a particular book is. If you don’t already know where the books you want are, then I can’t help you. All right? Good. Now I just need your names.’
Wolf knew he had to hurry. He had to enter this building by midday. But how did you enter a building with no door?
He walked around the perimeter again. This time he looked more carefully for anything that could be a door. Of course it wasn’t until he got to the third side of the rectangle that he found it. Just a faint outline in the wall. Only visible in exactly the right sort of light. Wolf touched it and an old-fashioned digital keypad came up on a touchscreen. It had numbers from one to nine laid out like on old phones. Each number had a blue circle around it. Clearly Wolf was going to have to put in an entry code to get the door to open.
But the only code Wolf had was in letters: MMXIV. Had he missed something? Should he go back? Then something flashed into his mind. Something from a book on Napoleon. A date. It had been written with an M at the beginning like this, but it was longer. The M actually meant one thousand and then there were lots of other letters that spelled eighteen hundred and something.
Of course. The letters were not letters at all but numerals. Roman numerals. He’d skimmed through a book on the subject in his early days in Leonard Levar’s shop. O
ne M was a thousand. Two Ms were two thousand. X was ten, and . . . Wolf worked out that together these letters stood for the number 2014. That had to be the entry code.
Wolf tapped it into the keypad.
Nothing happened.
He looked at the keypad again. There were only two other buttons on it. One had a big C and the other had a big hashtag. Wolf tried pressing the C. His numbers disappeared from the display. So C obviously stood for ‘clear’. What was the hashtag for? Wolf tapped in the numbers 2014 again and then tried pressing the hashtag.
The metallic door slowly opened. It slid sideways, like doors used to do on TV programmes featuring spaceships. But Wolf was sure this wasn’t a spaceship. Though he had no idea what it was. He knew that going through a door like this was probably a mistake. No great military leader would ever do it. Napoleon wouldn’t. Sun Tzu wouldn’t. But presumably neither of them had ever lost their ten-year-old sister.
Wolf took a deep breath and walked in.
Neptune padded lightly through the field of alpacas – who all bleated crossly at him – and then across the empty sports field until he came to the Tusitala School back entrance. This was it. He was going to leave the school grounds for the first time ever. What was beyond these wrought-iron gates? He had no idea. Surely nothing he hadn’t seen already inside the school grounds. Neptune, like all creatures bound to one universe, one planet or one locality, simply could not visualise the unknown. The unknown is, of course, by definition, not known.
So he was surprised first of all by the metal boxes on wheels that whizzed past him. Sure, he’d seen these things from the gates. But up close they were smelly and dangerous-looking. They had humans in them, some of them clinging to a round thing. Neptune cut down an alleyway as soon as he could to get away from them.
Galloglass Page 11
