The Familiars: Secrets of the Crown

by Adam Jay Epstein

  “Well, did he?” asked Aldwyn.

  “We don’t know,” replied the woodpecker. “We’ve never even seen the Crown. Its location has been kept a secret from even us. All we know is that the Spheris was leading Baxley towards Necro’s Maze.”

  An image flashed in Aldwyn’s mind of his father frozen in glass, just like the squirrel he had stumbled up against in the mawpi’s lair. Was Necro’s Maze where Baxley’s path came to its end? Or was he still wandering the furthest corners of the Beyond in search of the Crown? Or maybe, just maybe, had he been following the familiars this whole time, protecting them from a distance?

  It was decided. Aldwyn and his companions would march north from there, resuming the glowing paw-print trail. Though they would not be sure where exactly it would lead them, Aldwyn could now hold his head up high, for he knew his dad loved him.

  The spirit trail had taken on new meaning since Aldwyn had learned the truth about Baxley. No longer was he reluctantly following in the footsteps of some stranger who he thought to be a selfish charlatan. Now he was proudly walking in the path of his father, someone he could hold in the highest esteem. He looked down at the way his paw fitted perfectly into Baxley’s print, and took pride in even their matching crooked little toes. Gone was the worry and self-doubt of a cat who had always felt abandoned. In its place was a confidence that so long as he was guided by Baxley’s trail, everything would turn out all right.

  Aldwyn and his fellow familiars had left the woodpeckers behind and were winding their way up a hill, following the path of purple prints. As they continued to climb, Aldwyn looked behind and saw far in the distance – beyond the caves of Stalagmos and past the jungles of the Beyond – to where the Peaks of Kailasa towered high into the sky. It was the first time he had glanced back and seen a recognisable landmark since they had crossed Liveod’s Canyon and departed Vastia. Above the mountain range, lightning jumped from cloud to cloud, an ominous reminder of the terrible danger the queendom was in.

  Gilbert was staring at the lightning too. Shady poked his nose out from the backpack to bark at the distant rumbling of thunder.

  “I bet Marianne is watching from her bedroom in Edna’s manor,” said the tree frog. “She can stare at a storm for hours. She’s always talking about becoming a weather wizard. I’m trying to push her in the direction of something that has its own unique brand of adventure – library wizard. Where the only danger we’ll be facing is eye strain.”

  “Well, it would be nice if she could change the direction of those clouds because I believe they’re heading right for us,” said Skylar.

  Although it was sunny where they travelled now, Aldwyn could see that the cover of darkness was indeed slowly but surely moving towards the Beyond. Once the clouds enveloped them, grey sheets of rain would turn these hills into mud slides.

  The three picked up their pace, and as they came up over the ridge, Aldwyn’s eyes were blinded by the brightest of lights. Its source, however, wasn’t the sun – something at the base of the hill was reflecting and intensifying the sunlight. As Aldwyn squinted for a clearer view, he could see that below them were miles and miles of twisting, covered corridors composed solely of opaque crystal, as if an overgrown hedge maze had long ago turned to glass. This sparkling labyrinth had to be Necro’s Maze – and Baxley’s paw prints led straight through its arched entryway.

  “His paw prints lead in, but not out again,” said Aldwyn.

  “Maybe he made it to the other side,” said Gilbert.

  “There’s only one way to find out,” replied Aldwyn.

  They quickly made their way down to the entrance. From afar, it looked to Aldwyn as if he could have shattered the entire structure by throwing a pawful of stones. But up close, he could see that the glass walls were as thick and impenetrable as a cave troll’s thigh. He remembered what Jack had once told him – that no one had ever made it to the centre of the maze – and wondered why anyone would dare.

  “This is the Beyonder’s grail,” said Skylar as the trio stood at the foot of the grand arch. “Explorers have travelled from all corners of the land to brave the perils of the maze. Many rumours have been told of the treasures that lie within, but the true pull is the challenge and glory of accomplishing what no other has.”

  In they walked. Before them stretched a long tunnel, with glass to the left, glass to the right and glass above. Even the ground had been turned to glass. The suction pads on Gilbert’s feet made especially loud blurping sounds with every hop. Each corridor split off into countless others. But unlike those who had entered the maze and got lost within, the familiars had a guide.

  “Baxley’s path goes in and out of nearly every passage,” said Aldwyn.

  “That must mean he hit a dead end and came back,” replied Skylar. “We should only be looking for the trails with one set of prints.”

  Aldwyn did just that, and he was able to avoid the wrong turns that Baxley had already explored for him. He followed the path round a corkscrew turn, and he and his companions found themselves face to knee with their first crystal statue. A handsome young wizard, no older than twenty, stood with wand outstretched in one hand and shield in the other, with a look of sheer determination on his face.

  “Necro is larger than I imagined,” said Skylar. “Clearly, he was looking up at it.”

  Aldwyn turned and spotted a six-legged weasel with a medallion hanging round its neck, frozen in glass as well.

  “Look,” he said. “The wizard’s shield and the weasel’s medallion both have the face of Brannfalk on them. They must have been wizard and familiar.”

  “Probably sent on a mission by King Brannfalk of yore himself,” added Skylar.

  It was difficult to believe that this Beyonder and his animal companion had been standing here for two hundred years. Frozen in glass, they hadn’t aged a day.

  Aldwyn continued to follow the trail round another corner and down a different passageway. The air grew stale and windless. As they got deeper, more crystal statues began to appear. Some were human, wizards and warriors preserved in varying states of terror; others were animal – everything from a noble horse carrying leather bags over its mane to mice that looked like lost scavengers rather than brave explorers. It seemed the deeper one ventured into the maze, the more likely one was to run into the crystallising touch of Necro’s tongue.

  As Aldwyn kept his eyes on Baxley’s trail, he saw scratch marks that looked like something had been dragged across the glass surface. There were also shards of shattered crystal statues that had been knocked to the ground, perhaps in the heat of battle. Once or twice, Aldwyn glanced over his shoulder, thinking he was being followed; but all he saw behind him was his own reflection staring back at him in the smooth, opaque walls.

  “Not that I’m complaining, but how have we made it so far without running into Necro?” asked Gilbert.

  “For one thing, we’re moving much faster than anyone has walked this maze before,” said Skylar. “Thanks to Baxley’s paw prints. He’s already made many mistakes for us.”

  Through the frosted glass ceiling, Aldwyn could make out the faint colours of the sky changing at dusk, and he knew that only one day remained until the full moon would allow Paksahara to begin her uprising.

  The paw prints led into a wider passageway of the maze and then stopped.

  Aldwyn had to look twice because his eyes couldn’t believe it – Baxley’s path had come to an end. Suddenly and without warning.

  “What is it?” asked Skylar.

  “The path,” replied Aldwyn. “It ends right here.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Gilbert.

  “I mean, there are no more paw prints.”

  “Baxley couldn’t have just disappeared,” said Skylar.

  They all looked around, but there was no sign of the cat or a crystal statue of him anywhere. A deep uneasiness filled Aldwyn.

  “Look, over there, in the corner,” said Skylar.

  The others turned to see a stee
l ball the size of a grapefruit pressed up against one of the glass walls. Gilbert hopped up to it and moved it slightly. When he pulled his webbed hands away, the ball rolled back to the wall, like it was being tugged by some unseen force.

  “The Spheris,” said Gilbert.

  “But why would Baxley leave it behind?” asked Aldwyn, refusing to accept the obvious answer to his question.

  Skylar and Gilbert both glanced away, as if they didn’t want to say what was really on their minds.

  Aldwyn walked up to the final glowing paw print that marked the end of Baxley’s path. He looked down and saw faint but discernible scratch marks on the floor, similar to the ones he saw in other corridors of the maze. Four lines across the glass. Could these have been left by Baxley’s clawed feet, turned to crystal and dragged somewhere else in the maze? If so, then Aldwyn had a new path to follow, the one made by the trail scuffed into the glass floor.

  Aldwyn was about to tell the others of his discovery, when from behind a nearby opaque wall he saw a figure approaching.

  “It’s Necro!” exclaimed Gilbert.

  The three familiars turned to flee, when the figure revealed itself to be not the dreaded master of the maze, but a bearded explorer, with wrinkled map in hand and backpack slung over his shoulder.

  “Run!” cried the terrified man. “The vitrecore is coming!”

  Vitrecore? Aldwyn could barely process all that was happening. The end of his father’s path. The Spheris. Now a stranger charging towards them, speaking in sheer horror of a beast he had never heard of.

  “What are you waiting—” the explorer started to say, but he never got to finish. A milky white tongue lashed out from round the bend, striking the man on the back of his neck and instantly turning him to glass.

  He looked just like the others they had passed, for ever frozen in a state of desperate terror. It seemed an unfortunate final pose for one who had surely been a brave, fearless adventurer.

  The beast came out into the passageway, and Aldwyn, Skylar and Gilbert got their first look at Necro, the creature the man had called a vitrecore. It was a pearly white lion with what looked like the horns of a ram jutting from its forehead and the wings of a giant bat stretching from its back. It let out a vicious roar that echoed off the glass.

  “Retrace Baxley’s paw prints to where we came in,” said Skylar. “We have to get out of here.”

  “Sounds good to me,” said Gilbert, as he scooped up the Spheris in his lanky arms.

  Aldwyn looked at the scratch marks heading deeper into the maze, and then to the purple path that would lead them back to the entrance. He didn’t want to leave without finding his father.

  But they didn’t have time to hesitate, not with Necro stalking towards them. The horned lion shot out his tongue, sending it snapping straight for Gilbert. The tree frog spun round, using the Spheris as a shield. The vitrecore’s fleshy white appendage made contact not with Gilbert, but the ball. In the blink of an eye, the spheris – their best hope of finding the Crown of the Snow Leopard – was turned to crystal.

  Having been denied its intended target only seemed to make the creature more determined to add Gilbert as its latest trophy. The tongue swiped back and forth, but Gilbert, who clearly knew a thing or two about the movements of a long tongue, managed to anticipate the beast’s attacks again and again, valiantly defending himself with the Spheris.

  Aldwyn turned his attention to the explorer and used his telekinesis to pull free the crystallised map held loosely in the man’s hand. He lifted it into the air and flung it at the vitrecore’s head. The glass parchment shattered on contact, but did little to stall the creature’s fury.

  The lion changed its tactic, retracting its tongue and instead lowering its horns into attack position. It thrust its head forward, and the sharpened tip of one of the horns pierced the crystallised Spheris, fracturing it from the inside out and sending tiny pieces of glass to the ground. Gilbert was left exposed. Aldwyn and Skylar hurried to his side – if they were going to be turned into glass statues, they would stay together to the end.

  The vitrecore sized up the cornered trio. Aldwyn knew that it would take just three lashes of its tongue and he and his companions would be spending an eternity trapped here in the maze.

  Gilbert took a deep breath and smiled, an unusually large grin, especially given the dire circumstances.

  “What are you doing?” asked Skylar.

  “Well, if I’m going to be frozen for the rest of time, it might as well be in a flattering pose.”

  Necro’s tongue began to show itself through the beast’s closed lips. The familiars braced themselves. The lion opened its mouth. Aldwyn wondered if getting turned into a glass statue would feel anything like one of Stolix’s muscle stasis spells, or if the sensation would be far, far worse.

  Aldwyn, Skylar and Gilbert huddled together… the beast’s tongue cracked in the air like a whip… their journey would end here…

  Then, from down the glass corridor, a black-and-white shape was moving like a blur. It leaped upon the back of the vitrecore, and caught by surprise, the creature retracted its tongue. As the beast tried to shake off its attacker, Aldwyn only saw glimpses of paw and tail. Could this be… Baxley?

  Necro stood on its hind legs, throwing its attacker to the glass floor. When the cat looked up, Aldwyn could see who their saviour from afar had been.

  Malvern!

  All this time it had been his uncle, not his father! It was Malvern who had jumped on the back of the echo beast to give them time to escape; he had used his telekinesis to hold off the boulders thrown by the plant-controlling woodpeckers; and here he was again, risking life and limb battling the vitrecore. Aldwyn’s uncle was looking out for them, watching their backs, making sure nothing happened along their journey to the Crown.

  “Uncle?” asked Aldwyn, still reeling.

  Malvern did a somersault and roll, dodging out of the way of the beast’s tongue and teeth as they came chomping towards him. He wielded a clawed paw and struck at the lion’s underbelly, tearing out a clump of fur. When the vitrecore lashed out its tongue at him, all it managed to hit was its own shredded hairs, immediately turning them to crystal.

  “I won’t be able to defeat it alone,” Malvern called out to the familiars.

  Aldwyn had so many questions he wanted to ask, but with death’s hot breath exhaling upon him, all he could think was how grateful he was to have Malvern at their side.

  “Lend me your claws, Aldwyn,” shouted Malvern as he swiped at the lion’s paw, barely slowing it down.

  Aldwyn dived into the fray, putting some of his old scrappy alley-fighting skills into action.

  “What are you going to do, scratch it to death?” asked Gilbert.

  “Aldwyn, Malvern, stay clear of the tail,” directed Skylar, who was eyeing the crystallised tuft of hair on the floor.

  The two cats backed away and Skylar raised her wings. Suddenly, the beast’s furry tail looked as though it had transformed into a python, – long, scaly and hissing. Necro glanced back at the illusion and flew into a rage. It let out a growl and then directed a lightning-quick tongue strike at the python or, more accurately, its own tail. At once, the entire creature turned to glass, frozen the same way it had frozen countless others over the centuries.

  Gilbert, with his back still against the crystal wall of the hedge maze, slid down on to his bottom, breathing a big sigh of relief. Skylar lowered her wings and observed her handiwork. Once again, the familiars had escaped certain death by the narrowest of margins. Aldwyn was just as relieved as the others, but also in need of answers. “What are you doing here?” he asked his uncle.

  “After you left Maidenmere, I decided to follow you,” said Malvern. “I couldn’t let my only nephew wander into the Beyond without someone watching over him.”

  “But why did you keep your distance, stay hidden in the shadows?” asked Aldwyn. “You could have come along.”

  “And risk all of us meeting ou
r end at once? In any feline hunting party, there’s a core pack and the watchers who look out for them. It was safer for all of us to not let you know I was there. Had you been questioned or caught, I could have saved you that way.”

  Gilbert hopped over and wrapped his stringy arms round Malvern’s body, hugging him a little too tightly. Malvern tried gingerly to push the tree frog away from him, but Gilbert wouldn’t let go. Making it even more uncomfortable for Malvern, Shady stuck his head out of the backpack and began licking his face.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Gilbert kept repeating.

  Skylar eventually had to pull him off by force.

  “Finding the Crown of the Snow Leopard is as important to the cats of Maidenmere as to the rest of Vastia,” continued Malvern. “I wanted to ensure that the prophecy was fulfilled.”

  “How did you follow us?” asked Aldwyn. “You couldn’t see the path.”

  Malvern revealed an Olfax tracking snout inside his pouch. The disembodied nostrils, taken from the nose of a wolf, were an effective tool – Aldwyn knew this from his previous experiences with Grimslade.

  “It picked up your scent when I guided you through your first sand sign,” said Malvern. “I was never far behind. Sometimes I was certain you saw me.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Aldwyn could see that the explorer’s crystal form was changing. Colour was returning to his face, the peach-ish hue of his flesh and the auburn red of his beard. What Skylar had told them and wizards had speculated before was true – upon defeating Necro, all who had been frozen by the beast would return to life.

  Aldwyn looked towards the broken Spheris, but the shards of glass were not piecing back together or turning back to steel. Unfortunately, it appeared that once a glass statue had been broken, it would stay that way.

  “If my father was frozen inside this maze, and his crystal statue was dragged somewhere, perhaps he is changing back to himself too,” said Aldwyn.