Baxley’s paw-print trail intersected with the dirt road, giving the familiars a chance to examine the tracks more closely. Hooves and wheels had rumbled past recently. Where were they coming from? And where were they going?
“There were gundabeasts here as well,” said Skylar, pointing her wing to massive indentations cratered into the mud. “Big ones.”
At that moment, a man’s voice called out, “Help!” It seemed to be coming from round a bend in the road.
The trio followed the cry, and as they rounded a cluster of jungle palms, they found themselves face to face with the scene of a massacre. The bodies of a dozen armoured soldiers and cloaked wizards lay strewn about on the ground, some wincing in pain, others unconscious and in desperate need of a raven’s healing abilities. Aldwyn realised that these weren’t just any warriors, but the very ones that Queen Loranella had sent off from her palace. There was no sign of their horses anywhere.
“Familiars,” beckoned the same man who had called for help. “It is you, the Prophesised Three.” Aldwyn recognised him as Urbaugh, the bearded wizard from the emergency council meeting. He lay propped up against a tree, his leg bent in three places it shouldn’t have been. “For the last two days, we were tracking a caravan heading north. We thought we had gone undetected, never using torches and staying miles behind. But we must not have been as stealthy as we thought because hours ago we were ambushed. Out from the trees came two gundabeasts with chains wrapped round their waists. They were commanded by one of the tongueless cave shamans of Stalagmos. Our swords, halberds and maces were no match for the two beasts’ giant fists and horns.”
“And this caravan?” asked Skylar. “What did it carry?”
“Forgive me, for my animal tongue is a bit rusty,” replied Urbaugh. “My own familiar passed into the Tomorrowlife many seasons ago.”
“The caravan?” repeated Skylar more slowly. “What did it carry?”
“This we still don’t know, but it was something very valuable to Paksahara. Of that I am sure.”
“How do you know?” asked Skylar.
“The wagons bore her symbol,” said Urbaugh. “A double hex, with her wicked, gleaming eyes peering out from the centre.”
“I saw the same symbol on the foot of Lothar, the wolverine from the Aviary,” said Aldwyn.
“Go on with whatever journey you’ve begun,” said Urbaugh. “My brother’s familiar ran off to find the nearest healing ravens. There’s nothing you can do for us now.”
Aldwyn felt guilty to leave such brave warriors spilling their blood on the ground. But Urbaugh was right. Their calling was the Crown of the Snow Leopard. Without it, nothing they did would matter.
“Here, take my maggots,” said Gilbert, reaching into his flower-bud backpack. “Besides being delicious, they’re actually quite nourishing.”
The tree frog left them in Urbaugh’s hand.
“Gilbert, I think he’d rather go hungry,” said Skylar.
This brought a smile to the bearded wizard’s face. Then his eyes closed.
“No, don’t leave us,” croaked Gilbert. “It’s not fair!” Gilbert leaped atop Urbaugh’s chest and raised a webbed fist to the sky. “Curse you, Paksahara!”
Urbaugh’s left eye opened slightly.
“I’m not dead,” he said. “Just resting. Now get off me. I have many cracked ribs.”
“Right,” said Gilbert, sheepishly stepping down. “Sorry.”
The familiars left the wounded warriors behind and resumed the glowing path. The dirt road quickly disappeared into the trees behind them, and they again seemed to be all alone in the Beyond.
The journey so far had been exhausting for Aldwyn, even with his two companions close by his side. It was hard to imagine that his father had come all this way on his own. Aldwyn didn’t have a full appreciation for the distance they had covered until he glanced at the map Scribius had been busy composing along every step of their quest. Through the dusty plains of the Northern Plateaux, crossing Liveod’s Canyon, reconnecting with the Ebs in the jungles of the Beyond, twisting towards the Time Stream and then back down to where they walked now, entering a narrow ravine.
“I really hope when we meet this snow leopard, he doesn’t put up a fight over his crown,” said Gilbert. “Because after all we’ve been through, you’d think he would be pretty understanding.”
“I’ll pull it off her spotted head myself if I have to,” said Skylar. “I can get very bad-tempered after barely sleeping for a week.”
Aldwyn noticed that the walls of the ravine were getting higher and that the chasm itself was leading to a giant, splintered stone wall – a dead end where Baxley’s paw prints came to a sudden stop.
“Aldwyn, I hate to doubt your clarity of vision,” said Skylar, “but unless Baxley had wings, I don’t see a way out of here.”
Aldwyn was just as confused. He doubled back to make sure he hadn’t missed something.
“Kind of reminds me of Daku,” said Gilbert, staring at the cracked wall.
“Gilbert, you grew up in a swamp,” said Skylar.
“No, I’m talking about the spider web soufflé my mum used to make us,” said Gilbert. “It used to look just like that wall.”
Aldwyn looked up, and sure enough, the fissures on the stone barrier made concentric circles with lines stretching out from the centre just like a spider web.
Through brown mist stone arrows point, To where the ladybirds rest. A supper to be placed, In the great spider’s nest. The Song of the First Phylum’s third verse played in Aldwyn’s head.
“Are you guys thinking what I’m thinking?” asked Aldwyn.
“That a spider web soufflé would taste amazing right now?” said Gilbert.
“The nursery rhyme,” said Skylar, nodding her beak. “This must be the great spider’s nest.”
Aldwyn pointed to a circular hole in the wall, just outside the centre of the fissure.
“A supper to be placed,” he said. “Right in that hole, like a key.”
“Wait, that’s the second half of the stanza,” said Skylar. “What about the stone arrows and the ladybirds?”
“We must have skipped an entire clue!” exclaimed Aldwyn. “We’ll have to go back.”
They all looked deflated.
“We don’t have time for that,” said Skylar.
“Besides, I’ve never seen a ladybird that would fill that hole,” said Gilbert. “It would have to be as big as that red and black rock over there.”
Aldwyn and Skylar looked down to see lying in a pile of grey stones a perfect sphere of red dotted with black.
“That is the ladybird,” said Aldwyn.
“It is?” asked Gilbert.
“Yes,” said Skylar. “The missing gemstone from the Sanctuary. Aldwyn, your father wasn’t a grave robber. He was following the clues too.”
Aldwyn’s mind flashed back to the paw prints leading in and out of the crypt. “The arrows. They must have been obscured by the sandstorm!”
“Through brown mist,” said Skylar. “Of course.”
Suddenly, everything Aldwyn thought he knew about Baxley was coming into question. If he hadn’t stolen the druid’s gemstone for selfish purposes, maybe the same was true of his search for the Crown. Had Malvern misjudged his own brother?
Skylar soared down and picked up the red and black stone with her talons. But just as she did, from above, four sharp-billed woodpeckers descended and alighted on the trees lining the tops of the canyon walls.
“Your journey ends here,” one of them called out in a voice more booming and ominous than the woodpecker’s small size would seem to allow. His yellow tail feather bristled. “You will never find the Crown of the Snow Leopard!”
With an unspoken command from their leader, the other birds began hammering away at the trees.
“How did they know?” asked Gilbert.
“It was only a matter of time before Paksahara’s scouts discovered our quest,” said Skylar.
The fa
miliars glanced up to see that the woodpeckers had embedded their beaks within the bark of the trees – and that the trees themselves had begun to move!
“Skylar, quickly, fly the ladybird into the spider’s nest!” shouted Aldwyn.
The trunks of the large oaks bent down, and their twisted branches reached out like arms, scooping up piles of rocks. Then the trees began flinging them at the three animals at the base of the ravine. Aldwyn nearly got crushed as a chunk of sandstone shattered beside him. Skylar and Gilbert only just dodged the first barrage of stone debris as well.
“There’s nowhere to go!” cried Gilbert. “Skylar, quickly.”
The blue jay flapped her wings towards the hole in the wall. The woodpeckers’ beaks remained stuck in the bark, controlling the trees like puppets. The branches gathered a second round of jagged stones and launched them at the familiars. Aldwyn focused, trying to use his telekinesis to push back the assault, but the force of the rocks was too great. While their momentum was slowed, the woodpeckers’ attack still rained down on them, and it was only a matter of time until they would be crushed by one of them.
Skylar had to fly out of the narrow crevice in which Aldwyn and Gilbert were still trapped in order to reach her destination, but that didn’t stop the oaks from trying to knock her out of the air. One of the rocks hit the gemstone and whacked it right out of her talons, sending it falling to the ground.
“Aldwyn, the stone!” cried Skylar.
Aldwyn concentrated on lifting it to the webbed wall telekinetically, but before he was able to guide it to the hole, a boulder six times his size – thrown by two of the trees together – hurtled down at him and Gilbert. There was no time to react. And even if there was, with his talents not yet strong enough to stop the flurry of smaller rocks, there was certainly no hope of holding back this one. He braced himself. This was it. This was the end. Gilbert threw his hands above his head.
And then the boulder stopped, frozen in midair.
Gilbert peeked out from between his webbed fingers.
“Aldwyn, you did it!” he croaked happily.
“It wasn’t me,” replied Aldwyn.
This was hardly the time to ponder what had just happened. Aldwyn refocused on the gemstone and sent it soaring straight into the hole in the wall. At once, the cracks lit up round it, and within the barrier’s base a door revealed itself, opening into the darkness of a cave beyond.
The woodpeckers were still commanding the trees to attack, but now every rock they threw was mysteriously stopped in midair. Skylar swooped down to rejoin her companions, and the familiars hurried through the opening into the mountain.
Before they were swallowed up by the darkness, Aldwyn glanced back one last time. Standing at the top of the cliffs, he could make out a figure in the shadows. It was a cat.
Unlike Skylar and Gilbert, Aldwyn had been convinced that their escape from the echo beast had been a lucky break, another creature from the Borderlands arriving at just the right moment to settle some unrelated territorial dispute. But now, after getting saved a second time, Aldwyn was certain he and his companions were being watched over, protected by someone from afar. Someone who could lift objects telekinetically with his mind. A cat from Maidenmere.
“Aldwyn, come on,” Skylar interrupted his musings.
It was difficult for Aldwyn to pull himself away. What if the cat stepped out into the moonlight and revealed his identity? But there simply wasn’t time to wait, and so Aldwyn raced into the darkness, following the glowing paw prints of his father.
Quickly, whatever light had been coming in from the outside disappeared. Now the familiars had to find their way through the black using only the pale green luminescence emanating from a mould that hung to the cave walls; Aldwyn could use Baxley’s paw prints for further illumination, but they weren’t any help to his companions. Droplets of water dripped from the ceiling, and every time one hit the floor, a tiny sound bounced through the hollow subterranean halls. Every hundred steps there was a new branching passageway, and after having passed half a dozen of them, Aldwyn was confident that even if the woodpeckers followed them into the cave, they would almost certainly get lost in this maze of stalactites and stalagmites.
“Did you see who helped us back there?” asked Gilbert.
“No,” replied Aldwyn – but at the same time his heart was full of hope that their protector was the same person whose path they were following – Baxley, his father. He was just glad that it was too dark in this place for his friends to see the wistful yearning on his face, his want for something so improbable.
“Now comes a black crescent sword, Cutting through the emerald night. At last the waking moth, Flies to the rising light,” said Skylar. “Let’s be sure not to overlook any more clues. We’re getting closer to the end of the song. Which means the Crown of the Snow Leopard shouldn’t be far.”
“I think my eyes have finally adjusted,” said Gilbert. “If there’s a curved sword to be seen, I will find it.” A moment later, he hopped straight into a small column of limestone.
“I found two stones in Baxley’s pouch,” said Aldwyn. “We can light a torch to guide us through.”
“I’ve got a better idea,” said Gilbert. “I’ll conjure a flame fairy.”
“Maybe you should let Skylar do that, Gil,” said Aldwyn. “She’s got a bit more experience in that area.”
“Save your components,” said Gilbert to Skylar. “I’ve got this one.”
The look on Skylar’s face was more than sceptical, but Gilbert had already pulled Marianne’s pocket scroll from his backpack and stretched his wiry green arms in preparation. The tree frog removed the necessary nightshade, juniper berries and sage leaves from the pack as well. He tossed them into the air and chanted, “Send a flame from whence you came!”
In a blink, a flame fairy formed, her tiny frame aburst in orange. A smile crept across Gilbert’s face; this was a confidence-booster that he sorely needed.
“I did it!” exclaimed Gilbert. “The spell actually work—”
The flame fairy began to shake, and then turned into an out-of-control fireball. It rocketed off, leaving a puff of smoke in Gilbert’s face. The spell bounced around the walls of the cave, nearly taking off Skylar’s head as it flew by before shooting straight through Aldwyn’s legs. They both dived for cover as the errant bolt finally crash-landed in a puddle on the ground and extinguished with an almighty hiss.
Gilbert wiped soot from his eyes.
“Here,” said Gilbert, handing Aldwyn Marianne’s spell scrolls. “Take these. We’ll all be safer that way.” Then the tree frog pulled his spear from his back. “You better take this too.” He set the bamboo stick on the ground. “Even my flower-bud backpack could be dangerous.”
“How could your backpack be dangerous?” asked Aldwyn.
“I don’t know, but I’m not taking any chances,” replied Gilbert, pulling his grass-strapped knapsack off his back. “Of course, there’s no reason to waste perfectly good larvae. Or grubs.” He reached into the pack and removed two bundles of squirming bugs, along with the silver chain of beads from the mawpi’s lair.
“I’ve got no place here,” said Gilbert. “I just wish I could go back to the palace and see Marianne.”
Suddenly, one of the two remaining shimmering blue beads on the chain began to swirl with light. Gilbert squinted from the bright glare and then a large wooden door with a brass knocker at its centre appeared before them.
“Gilbert, what did you do?” asked Skylar.
“I don’t know, I don’t know,” he replied.
Skylar hurried over to look at what he held in his hand.
“Did you take those from the mawpi’s lair?” she asked.
“Yes. Was that wrong?”
“Those are journey beads,” explained the blue jay. “They’ll take you to any destination, so long as you’ve set foot there before.”
Just then, the knocker banged three times on the door and it swung open to reveal M
arianne and Dalton sparring with swords in the fencing hall of the New Palace of Bronzhaven. Sorceress Edna and Jack stood on the sidelines watching.
“If you can’t fight with your wand, you’ll need to be quick with a sabre,” the familiars heard Edna call out.
“Marianne, over here!” shouted Gilbert. But his loyal didn’t hear him.
“It’s like one of your puddle viewings,” said Skylar. “We can see them, but they can’t see us. Unless you walk through that door.”
Gilbert was about to do just that when Skylar stopped him.
“But once you do, the door will close behind you,” continued Skylar. “And each bead can only be used once.”
Gilbert seemed quite conflicted. Aldwyn, too, could see how inviting the palace looked – far more so than the dark cave they were standing in now.
“We’re the Prophesised Three, Gilbert,” said Aldwyn. “Not the Prophesised Two.”
“You might be excellent at telekinesis,” said the tree frog as the wood door began to close, “but you’re even better with guilt trips.”
Aldwyn peered through the shrinking gap at Jack and could see that he was OK. Of course, he didn’t know for how much longer.
Then the magic portal slammed shut, and once it did, it dematerialised in an instant. Aldwyn watched as the bead that had formed the door faded from blue to a dull, colourless grey. Now there was only one shimmering journey bead left on the chain.
Aldwyn gave his web-footed friend a pat on the back. He knew how he was feeling.
Clank-clank-clank.
“Did you hear that?” asked Aldwyn.
Clank-clank-clank.
“Sounds like human tools,” said Skylar.
Aldwyn led his companions further along the spirit trail, which, they quickly realised, took them straight towards the hammering. Soon they arrived at a hole in the tunnel wall, which looked out into a large cavern. It appeared to be some kind of mine, and Aldwyn could make out dozens of pale white albino dwarves with pickaxes who were chipping away at the stone walls of the cave. Others were sorting the ore, removing jet-black fragments from the limestone and placing them in wheelbarrows. When they were filled, the wheelbarrows were brought by a third group of dwarves to an enormous cart and dumped inside. Instead of being pulled by horses, this wagon had a gundabeast harnessed to the front with leather straps and metal chains. Aldwyn remembered his hair-raising encounter with a baby gundabeast near Stone Runlet only too well – the ten-foot-tall, three-eyed, horned creature from the Beyond had been a fearsome sight and almost turned him into a cat pancake. But nothing could have prepared him for the sheer magnitude of a fully grown specimen, more than double the size of the baby and the armour plating on its back appearing tough enough to deflect even the sharpest sword. Then Aldwyn noticed that the entire mining operation seemed to be supervised by a number of mysterious robed figures. Some stirred vats of boiling liquid, while others walked the floor with shadow hounds at their side. Every so often, they would shout orders at the dwarves. Disconcertingly, the robed figures seemed to use not their mouths, but gaping holes in their necks to do their commanding.
The Familiars: Secrets of the Crown Page 13
