by K T Durham
“Yes,” she replied sheepishly. “I guess the Order knows about Graille’s amulet by now?”
Aron nodded and grinned. “Well, that would surely come in handy!” he said cheerfully. “If I ever run out of manna, you’ll just use the amulet to teleport us back to Alendria, right?”
She nodded. “Yes. But I can only use this amulet to teleport up to twice in a day, and the teleportation will still use up my energy reserves.”
Aron nodded. “Well, we can use it to teleport back to Gaya after we restore Cephrin.”
She crossed her arms. “I wonder what Guardian Cephrin is like,” she murmured, thinking about the strange Riddler she met at Lily’s school fair last year, and the tiny old woman with the ferret she encountered at the Berry Grove Park. Could one of them be Guardian Cephrin?
“I guess we’ll find out soon enough.” He grinned. “Are you up to exploring Europe?”
She blinked. “Where in Europe? It’s a huge continent. We’re actually in Europe right now, you know.” Then there was a distant rumbling of thunder, and she jumped. “The sky looked really clear just a short while ago. I had no idea another storm is coming!”
“Well, you know what they say – the calm before the storm is always the quietest.” He chuckled, and Elly recalled Grandpapa’s words.
Then Aron frowned in concentration. “Well, the Guardian’s signal wasn’t very clear, and it seemed to fluctuate in the northern region known as Scandinavia, between three different places: Norway, Sweden, and Finland.”
Elly nibbled on her lip. The last time she read anything about that region in Northern Europe was in one of Horace’s football magazines, so listless she had been that she was flipping through ridiculous reading material. Then she gasped, startling Aron. She had totally forgotten! “The Archensoar Cup!” she cried. “Who won?”
Aron hooted with laughter. “Well, believe it or not, it was … ta-da … a tie!”
Her jaw dropped. “What!” A tie was practically unheard of!
Aron nodded. “Yes. Seaul and Cephrin had to share the cup. Kaelan certainly didn’t seem too happy about it.” He made a face.
Elly frowned. She couldn’t imagine Kaelan being remotely unpleasant. Aron had a tendency to exaggerate. “You have to fill me in on every single detail. Did one of you score the granduin?” she demanded. She had been looking forward to seeing Kaelan again after having been gone for six months. But after all that had happened, she didn’t know when they would cross paths next. What did that kiss mean? She was about to ask Aron if Kaelan had asked for her when there was a loud knocking on the door, and both of them jumped.
“Umm, are you expecting someone?” Aron asked, looking towards the dark foyer.
Elly scowled. It was two o’clock. “It’s the middle of the night. Who could it be?”
There was another knock, more insistent this time. Elly leapt up and walked towards the foyer. Aron followed, placing a hand protectively on her shoulder.
Then the knocking turned to pounding.
“Coming! Stop the racket!” Horace was running down the hallway in his pyjamas and slippers, brandishing his umbrella as he switched on the light. He stopped short when he saw Elly standing in the foyer with a tall boy he had never seen before.
“What in the world—” he sputtered.
“What’s going on!” cried Miriam, rushing towards them, hair askew. Then her mouth dropped open when she saw Aron. “Who are you?” she demanded, her eyes darting to Elly anxiously.
Aron gave a deep bow. “Good evening, Mr and Mrs Cobble. My name is Aron, and I’m Elly’s best friend from Alendria. I’ve heard a lot of wonderful things about you. How do you do?” he said amiably, as though it was perfectly normal for him, a stranger, to appear in their house in the middle of the night.
Both Horace and Miriam gaped at him. Then Horace scowled as the pounding grew urgent. “First thing’s first. Somebody’s at the door. Elly, you better have a good explanation,” he said, glaring at Aron, who looked amused.
Horace looked through the peephole and grew quite still. “Oh, my …” he muttered. He glanced back at Elly with apprehension.
“Who is it?” she asked, alarmed. Why was Horace looking so nervous?
Then Horace slowly opened the door. The rain was pelting down, pattering noisily on the roof and the pavement. The rumbling of thunder sounded as a blast of cold air rushed in, making Elly cringe. Then she looked up.
On the front steps stood a boy and a girl, huddled. The boy was tall, with a mop of brown hair obscuring bright blue eyes. He was grimacing in pain as he leaned against the petite girl beside him, who was at least a head shorter and thirty pounds lighter, but she was strong, as she seemed to be keeping him from toppling over with both slender arms around his waist. She had a small pale face with large green eyes and a mass of short, curly black hair that barely covered her leaf-shaped ears. Both looked worn, their clothes sodden and muddied, as though they hadn’t washed and changed in many days.
Miriam gasped. “Oh, my! Sebastian, you’re hurt!” she cried. It was only then that Elly saw the blood dripping from his sleeve, and she gasped and looked at the girl next to him. Elly first noticed the gleaming silver ball hanging from the girl’s belt.
The two froze as they stared at each other, recognition dawning like a slow sunrise.
Ellanor.
Marigold.
EPILOGUE
The rumbling of thunder was followed by a deafening crash of silver lightning, and Truman Mayer jumped and cowered. He whimpered like a wounded animal as he cradled his muddied right hand; blood was snaking from a gaping wound.
“No, please, don’t,” he begged as he kneeled in front of the one-eyed gargoyle, shivering and soaked to his skin. The rain was pelting down mercilessly.
Scabtree let out a rattling laugh. “What did I say to you, Truman?”
More whimpering. “Please, please don’t. I beg you. I tried my best, I really did!”
Scabtree looked disdainfully at the short, balding man with its gleaming red eye. “What did I say to you, Truman?” the gargoyle repeated coldly.
Truman started wringing his hands. The rain dripped into his eyes, and he hastily wiped them away with his arm. “I caught the girl, didn’t I? I-I didn’t know that Sebastian boy would be such a nuisance. Even Veronika couldn’t withstand that girl … Goldie … and I c-couldn’t stop Veronika from falling down that cliff—”
“Spare me your pathetic excuses,” Scabtree rasped. “I arranged for Veronika to team up with you as I knew you were weak. It is my misfortune that I ended up tempting a coward like you.” At that, Truman whimpered. “Veronika was a good servant, and she died because of your incompetence.” A pause. “What of the silver orb that Goldie was carrying?”
Truman was trembling from head to toe. “Sh-she had that silver ball with her, attached to her belt. I-I went to grab it, but she was amazingly strong, sh-she shoved me away—”
“Enough of your drivel. All I need to know is that you have failed,” Scabtree rasped, its red eye flashing angrily. “I gave you until midsummer to fulfil your task.”
Truman coughed and shook his head vigorously, trying to process what had happened. If only Scabtree would just hear him out. After he and Veronika captured Goldie and Sebastian, they were driving on a lonely road just past Edinburgh when Goldie managed to escape from the moving van with that boy, though Truman had made sure they were unconscious from the chloroform, gagged, and bound at the back. He and Veronika pursued Goldie and Sebastian into the woods, which turned out to be the creepiest forest Truman had ever encountered. After what felt like hours, he and Veronika found their way out of those stony trees, only to find that it was already July. Midsummer. How was it possible that they had lost six months? It was too mind-boggling, too terrifying.
And though Truman had hated Veronika, he didn’t want her to die. He had
desperately needed her help to complete his mission so that he could have Alicia and his boys back …
“Please don’t hurt my family,” Truman pleaded, sobbing. “They haven’t done anything wrong. It’s all my fault. Punish me.” Thunder rumbled, and lightning forked down.
Scabtree laughed cruelly. “Your soul is already mine, Truman. Do you know what happens when a human makes a pact with me and fails to fulfil the end of his bargain?”
“Please don’t hurt my family,” Truman repeated shrilly, and he could not stop shivering. “I will do anything, anything for you, just please spare them.” Truman, a broken man, sounded like a broken record as he sobbed and begged.
Scabtree narrowed its red eye at him. “Anything?”
Truman nodded vigorously and clasped his hands to his chest. “Y-yes. Do anything with me as you will. Please just don’t h-hurt my family,” he stammered, his teeth chattering, wiping away the rain and the tears. He was so cold that his lips were turning blue.
Scabtree smiled, long fangs bared. “Ahh, so with your free will you grant me permission. Then so be it.”
Then the one-eyed gargoyle opened its mouth wide, and its long tongue darted out and pierced Truman deep in the heart.
Truman’s eyes widened in terror, and he tried to scream, but no sound came out; instead, a line of wispy smoke snaked out from his gaping mouth, and very slowly the light in his eyes died, to be replaced by a deadened blackness. Then he dropped to the ground and twitched like a dying insect, and then he was still.
So Truman Mayer’s soul was taken that cold and stormy night, and his body came to be possessed by the Beta, the fragmented soul that was left behind by the Beast when it was banished from Gaya many ages ago.
If a human had been there to bear witness, they would have seen a small, crazed-looking man kneeling before a crumbling gargoyle, wailing like a baby and then suddenly dropping dead. Probably from a heart attack, they would surmise. But then they wouldn’t have been able to explain what happened next.
The man who was known as Truman Mayer opened his eyes and slowly got up from the wet, muddy ground. His expression was blank as he looked back at the one-eyed gargoyle with a peculiar mixture of satisfaction and despise.
“It has taken far too long,” he said to nobody in particular, and his voice had taken on a cold raspiness that Truman’s family would not have recognized.
A frayed blue handkerchief was sticking out of his pocket, but he did not notice. He looked down at himself. “This will have to do,” he said flatly, grimacing as he put a hand to his shiny, balding head. Trapped in a human body, he was much limited in his powers. He could not teleport anywhere he pleased, and he could not easily maim or kill without the use of a physical weapon. No, he was far too weak, and that was why he needed help.
Help. The thought angered and sickened him as he flexed his fingers, testing them out. This body was not in prime form. This human had been a sedentary smoker and feasted on decadence. “This will have to do,” he repeated. It was time to go and deal with those twin sisters, Ellanor and Marigold, and to retrieve what had been stolen from him so long ago.
Revenge will have never tasted sweeter.
There was a rustling behind him. He turned and did not look surprised when a grey-skinned creature with a bony, stooped back loped towards him, its long sinewy arms hanging down to the ground. Saliva dripped from the creature’s sharp-fanged mouth, and its lidless, blood-red eyes fixed on the man, cold and unblinking. It was wearing some sort of crude armour over a ragged, blackened tunic.
The goblin named Gutz bowed to the human who was possessed by the Beta of the Beast that was lying beneath the Tree of Alendria. The master of all goblins in the underworld.
“Gutz, my loyal servant. You have finally arrived.” A pause. “That human, Veronika Waldorf, is dead. Despite her loyalty, she failed me, too. But I trust you know what to do.”
“I am at your service, Master,” the goblin rasped, its thin blue tongue darting out.
The man named Truman looked up at the grey sky. “We must get to the remaining Guardians before they do.” He allowed himself a small smile at the thought that Guardian Graille, the wretched fox, had perished. One down, three to go.
Gutz hissed and nodded. “Yes, Master.”
“You will not fail me as those humans did?” Master asked coldly, referring to the dead Veronika and Truman.
The goblin bowed its head. “I promise to do everything to succeed, Master.”
The man nodded, then looked back towards the crumbling, one-eyed gargoyle and narrowed his eyes. “That thief, Thorne Celendis, stole something very precious from me. He was worse than his father, Idril. Because of that thief, it has taken me much longer to regenerate in Alendria.” He turned to the goblin. “Now do as I asked you,” he commanded.
Gutz bowed again, and it kneeled down and wrapped its long, loping arms around its sinewy torso. Then what happened next was so unspeakable, so horrific, that any human would not have been able to stomach it.
The goblin’s skin began to melt, and it writhed and hissed with pain as its body contorted every which way, bones cracking and realigning. Black fluid oozed out as bits of scaly skin slid to the ground, which evaporated in a mist of white, putrid smoke. The goblin continued writhing and hissing as this grotesque metamorphosis lasted several agonizing minutes. Shape-shifting is not something that comes easily.
Then finally, the metamorphosis was complete, and the transformed creature slowly stood up, now a head taller than its master.
A human would have seen a tall, slender, beautiful woman with long blonde hair and ice-blue eyes standing before a short, balding man. The man mouthed some words in a low guttural voice, and the woman was suddenly clothed in a long white dress and flat white shoes.
She bowed. “Thank you, Master,” she said in a husky voice, flexing her fingers and toes to test out this strange new body, for she had never shape-shifted into human form before.
“Do you know your human name?” the man asked.
“Veronika Waldorf,” the woman replied monotonously, unblinking.
“What is your report on Cephrin?” the man asked, his lips barely moving.
The woman smiled, but it looked more like a leer. She would need to practice at smiling beautifully. “That Guardian has been incapacitated by the black poison, Master. He has made contact with the elves, against his better judgement.”
The man nodded. “Very well. Let’s go and finish him off together.” A pause, and his eyes gleamed. “We shall finish off those twin sisters while we are at it, and I shall take back what rightly belongs to me.” He had a particular hatred for twin sisters, but oddly he could not quite remember why.
Then the short balding man who looked like Truman Mayer and the tall blonde woman who looked like Veronika Waldorf walked away from the dilapidated church with its crumbling, one-eyed gargoyle, now nothing more than just a broken lump of stone.
In silence, both masquerading as humans, they headed towards the train station several kilometres away, where they would both get one-way tickets to Helsinki, Finland, to which Ellanor Celendis would soon be making her way.
And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.
– Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
APPENDIX
Archensoar
The ancient game of archensoar was originally created as a training regime to prepare soldiers of the Alendrian Army for combat against the goblins that dwell in the underworld, thousands of miles underneath the Tree of Life, which the elves inhabit.
In the days before the monarchy was overthrown and Alendria became a republic, elves were significantly more warlike, and it was compulsory for every elf to participate in archensoar as part of a strict training regime by the time they came of age
at twelve years. But the rules had relaxed over the centuries, and after a civilian vote, the High Council ruled it was important that young elflings be encouraged to develop their intellect and skills in the arts. So it was no longer compulsory for elflings to take up archensoar, except for aspiring guards and protectors, which formed the bulk of the Alendrian Army. Now, archensoar is considered more as a recreational sport for regular elves.
Each team has six players: two shieldans, two arsenals, one decoy, and one hawk-eye.
The hawk-eye is responsible for taking down the golden apple of Eris, which appears randomly throughout the match. It would appear in the sky, hover above the Cluster for any given time before it drops, where it is zealously guarded by the morgons. As any missed shots at the morgons would cost the team one hundred points, the hawk-eye must take a calculated risk. The hawk-eye is vulnerable to attack by the arsenals on the opposing team, especially when the golden apple is spotted. If a hawk-eye is shot by an arsenal, the team loses one hundred points. If shot a second time, the match is concluded.
In addition to taking down the hawk-eye, the two arsenals are tasked with taking down individual morgons. Each downed morgon earns the team twenty points. It is not easy to take down the morgons, for they are cunning and swift and dodge arrows as they writhe about. The morgons cloak and conceal the golden apple like leprechauns greedily guarding their hoarded treasure. Outside the arena, the morgons are strange, shadow-like creatures that emerge in the night and literally feed on the darkness. They are extremely long-lived, more so than most creatures, including griffins and unicorns, and they can only be killed by fire.
The two shieldans protect the hawk-eye by deflecting arrows, even risking being shot at. A shieldan can take three direct shots (the arrows are enchanted not to pierce the armour, thereby not causing real bodily harm) before they are disqualified from the match.
The lone decoy from the opposing team constantly guards the hawk-eye to distract them from scoring the granduin. The decoy must stay at least five feet away from the hawk-eye, and physical contact is forbidden. If skilled enough, the decoy might even be able to deflect arrows shot by the hawk-eye.
