by Lari Don
He sighed, flew back up to Sylvie and Lavender, and perched on the cliff edge.
“Catesby, you were on fire!” whispered Lavender. “I thought you were leaving us again!”
“I’m fine. I’m learning to control it. But I can’t barbecue all those nasty nipping lizards without burning myself up. So I can’t get the buckle either.”
“My turn then,” said Sylvie. “I’ll climb down and get it.”
Catesby shook his head. “Perhaps you could scramble down there as a girl, but I doubt you could hold on while they attacked you.”
Lavender said firmly, “It’s not safe for any of us while the lizards are surrounding the buckle, so I’ll have to move them to a different bit of the cliff.”
“How will you do that?” Sylvie asked.
“The buckle is invisible close up, so the lizards are guarding something they can’t see. If I can create the image of the buckle somewhere else and convince them we’re trying to steal the image, maybe they’ll move away from the real buckle, then Catesby can swoop in and grab it.”
“But I won’t be able to find the invisible buckle if the lizards move,” said Catesby. “The circle of lizards is our marker.”
“Then I’ll have to find my courage and hover out at sea, so I can direct Sylvie to the false buckle and you to the true buckle. We’ll have to use a code, so the lizards don’t realise what we’re doing. Sylvie, please fetch a stick, so you can fish for the false buckle without going too far down the cliff, and I’ll practise my spell.”
Catesby preened himself as Sylvie trotted off and Lavender drew on the ground with her toe.
She flicked her wand at the scratched sketch and Catesby watched a buckle appear at her feet. A chunky square of silvery metal and starry diamonds. The fairy held her wand steady for at least a minute, juddering with the strain, then the buckle shattered and faded away. She sat down, exhausted.
Sylvie trotted up with a branch in her mouth and, for the second time, they all looked down into the dark.
Chapter 15
Catesby hovered over the waves, watching both the lizards and Lavender, who was higher up and to the east of the leathery circle. The lizards didn’t pay any attention to the fairy above them, as she scratched the rock face with a small pebble. Once she’d finished sketching, she flew up to Sylvie with last-minute instructions. Catesby shook his head. Lavender did have good ideas, but she loved to give everyone orders.
Then Lavender flew out to join the phoenix. She opened her tiny mouth, but he interrupted, “I know the plan, fairy. I know what clever code you’re going to use. You’ve told me twice already. Now get on with it.”
She pointed her wand at the cliff. The flat surface she’d been scraping started to glitter, then the fairy squealed to Sylvie, “Oooh! The buckle has moved. We scared it and it moved, but I can see it! It’s beautiful!”
Catesby flew to the west side of the headland, hoping the lizards’ attention was on the fairy’s overacting.
“Oooh!” she squealed again, “We could grab it now! Before those nasty little leather lizards work out what’s going on! Can you reach it, Sylvie? It’s just below you! Climb down for it! Oooh, it’s so shiny!”
Catesby could see Sylvie scrambling down, using her human hands and feet to cling to the cliff face, holding the stick in her mouth.
The lizards were in turmoil. As Lavender called out exaggerated descriptions of the buckle’s beauty and Sylvie inched down the cliff, the lizards kept creeping away from the real invisible buckle then scuttling back.
Lavender yelled, “Hurry, Sylvie. If you get it now we can rip it out of the cliff and take it away from Cromarty forever.”
The lizards’ circle broke. They all dashed up the cliff towards the false buckle and the scrambling wolfgirl.
Catesby dived towards the cliff. He hoped he’d fixed the circle’s location in his mind, but when he scraped around with his claws, he found nothing but bare rock.
There was a cloud heading for the moon, so he backed away from the cliff, not wanting the lizards to notice his interest.
Lavender yelled, “The little leather rejects are nearly there. You’ll have to rush, Sylvie, if we want to take the buckle away and leave this cliff dull and dark forever…”
The cloud covered the moon and the night turned black.
Catesby hovered, waiting.
Lavender was suddenly quiet and he heard the scrape of claws on rock high above him.
Then the moon lit the night again.
Lavender yelled, “Up a bit, Sylvie!”
So Catesby flew down, touching the cliff with one claw as he descended.
“Over to the east.”
So Catesby went west.
“Down an inch!”
So he went up an inch.
“You’re there!”
And he was. He could feel a cold metal corner.
He tugged. It didn’t move.
Lavender shouted, “Sylvie, can you reach it? Now is exactly the right time to reach it!” She was trying to keep the lizards’ attention on the false buckle and the wolf-girl.
Sylvie joined in the loud conversation. “I’ll use my stick! Look! I’m using my stick!”
Catesby tugged harder.
Lavender yelled, “They’re turning back, Catesby! They’re scuttling at you!”
Sylvie yelled, “Stay away from him!” and he heard her lashing out with the stick above him. He also heard the claws getting closer.
He thought of the lizards’ teeth and their weight on his wings. But he stayed by the cliff, tugging and pulling.
Suddenly the buckle jerked loose and he fell back into the air with the cold metal grasped between his talons. He flapped away from the cliff, much further than any lizard could jump, then looked down.
Away from the rock, the buckle glittered and gleamed. But Catesby didn’t have time to examine it, because Sylvie was still on the cliff and the lizards were swarming back towards her.
He flew up to Lavender, who was shouting even louder, but this time it wasn’t over-acting. “Catesby has the token, so get out of there now, Sylvie!”
Sylvie had dropped the stick and was scrambling up the cliff with leather lizards hanging off her trouser hems.
The fairy and the phoenix flew nearer the cliff, Lavender yelling, “What can we do to help, Sylvie?”
Sylvie climbed onto an outcrop, crouched down and flickered into a wolf. The lizards clinging to her human clothes fell off. She snapped her jaws at the nearest lizards, then howled, “Go back to the dragon with that buckle. Don’t risk the token to help me. I’ll follow when I can!”
They both flew up to the clifftop, where Catesby hesitated. “I know she has strong jaws and long fangs, but she can’t take on hundreds of lizards while perching on a little bit of rock. We can’t leave her there.”
Lavender fluttered above him. “We have to! If we lose the buckle in a fight, we could lose Yann. The token is our priority.”
He shook his head. “We can’t leave Sylvie to be eaten by lizards, or fall off a cliff, in order to save Yann. We can’t abandon one friend to save another.”
The phoenix flew back off the cliff, buckle tight in one talon. The buckle felt strange in his foot, not as solid as before, but he ignored that as he dived towards Sylvie.
And Lavender dived with him.
Sylvie was balancing on the rock, snapping at lizards, biting them off her shoulders and paws, knocking them into the sea.
“I’m fine,” she panted. “They aren’t getting through my thick fur! Really, I’m fine…”
One of them bit her nose. “Ow! Really, I’ll be fine. Get that buckle away from here!”
“No!” they both said.
Then Catesby yelled, “Here’s the buckle!” The lizards turned, all their leather heads pointing at him like arrows.
He flew closer. “If you want it, come and get it.” He held it out, stretching his talons towards them. The diamonds on the buckle flashed like stars in the m
oonlight.
The phoenix flew even closer.
Every single lizard, on the cliff face and on the wolf’s fur, stared at the buckle.
Catesby swung his foot, so the buckle moved from side to side.
They all swung their heads.
He moved one wingbeat closer.
And they all jumped.
Every single lizard leapt off the cliff, off the wolf, all leaping for the phoenix.
But this time he was ready, and the moment the lizards were in the air Catesby flicked his wings and flew backwards, so the lizards all missed him and fell in a tangle towards the sea.
All except one big black lizard, which jumped furthest and grasped Catesby’s leg, nipping the thin skin over his bone.
Lavender flew right up to the black lizard and jabbed it with her wand, muttering under her breath.
Catesby felt a terrible weight as the lizard suddenly got much heavier. He struggled to keep his position in the air, then the lizard let go and fell into the sea with a splash.
“Weight spell,” explained Lavender. “Don’t worry, it’ll wash off. He’ll float to the surface in seconds.”
“I wasn’t worrying about the lizard! But thanks.”
They watched Sylvie climb to the top of the cliff as a girl. Then she flickered back to a wolf, and sprinted away.
By the time Catesby and Lavender arrived at the top of the slope, Sylvie was speaking with careful politeness to the dragon, suggesting that they take two minutes to get their breath back, then leave.
Jewel stretched her wings. Sylvie ducked, then trotted over to Catesby and Lavender.
“Thanks for coming back!” she said, flickering into a girl and hugging them both.
“Just as well those leather lizards don’t have very big brains,” said Lavender, “or they wouldn’t have fallen for that false buckle.”
“Or for your terrible over-acting! Ooooh!” Catesby laughed. “But well done, honeybunch, that was an excellent plan.” He waved the buckle in the air. “We have the gems! We’ve saved Yann!”
“Don’t speak too soon,” warned Sylvie. “We still have to get it back to the Borders.”
“No problem,” he cawed. “We have a dragon taxi service.”
Then he looked down at the buckle. It wasn’t glittering and gleaming as brightly now. He looked closer. It was going dark around the edges, almost black at the corners. “The metal is changing! It’s corroding! We’d better get it home as fast as we can.”
Lavender peered at the buckle. “It’s corroding so fast you can see the tarnish move across the metal! We may not have time to get it home. Give me a minute to think.” She flew off in a distracted zigzag.
Sylvie put out her pale hand and Catesby gave her the buckle. They both looked at it.
It was silvery metal, with a line of bright white diamonds all around the square. But the edges were black and, if he looked carefully at one corner, Catesby could see the darkness blooming and creeping across the buckle. At that speed the whole buckle might turn black and disintegrate before they even got back to Cauldhame Moor, let alone before the Three arrived at sunset tomorrow.
Had they found the token which could save Yann, only to watch it die even faster than their friend?
Lavender fluttered back. “It’s our heat! We’re corroding it by holding it and breathing on it. The buckle has been held cold and still in solid rock for thousands of years. Now that it’s in our hands or claws, it’s warming up and time is catching up with it.”
Sylvie placed the buckle on a stone and the moving black stopped. But it didn’t retreat.
“So how do we get it home?” demanded Catesby.
Suddenly the dragon spoke above their heads. “I could carry it,” said Jewel. “I am a reptile and my claws are as cold as the stone that bauble is used to, so I won’t corrode it as fast as you warm-blooded mammals and birds.”
Lavender bobbed in the air. “Thank you, noble dragon. If you carry the token to Cauldhame Moor, the elders may have the skills to preserve it. Thank you so much.”
The dragon picked the buckle up delicately between two pearly claws, then the friends climbed her white scales and settled on her back. Catesby was aware of little bites and scratches all over, and he could see a nasty bite on the end of Sylvie’s nose. But he crowed, “We got it! We got it, we got it, we got it…”
“We’re not home yet,” said Lavender. “Don’t count your dragons before they hatch.”
“This dragon is proving pretty useful,” whispered Sylvie, as Jewel took off. “And not as daft as she seemed.”
Once Jewel was flying south at cruising speed, they murmured to each other about the cliff, the lizards, the great age of the buckle and how wonderful it would be to see Yann up on his hooves again.
Then they heard the unnatural mechanical buzz of a human engine. The dragon below them jerked in shock.
“An aeroplane!” screamed Jewel. “A plane! At night! I’m not very good with…”
The plane’s roar got louder and the dragon dropped out of the sky.
Sylvie screamed, Lavender shrieked and Catesby just concentrated on holding on as the dragon fell towards the mountains and lochs below.
The plane passed far above them and Catesby yelled, “It’s gone, Jewel, calm down!”
If the dragon didn’t regain control, Catesby and Lavender could let go and stay in the air, but Sylvie couldn’t survive a fall to earth.
“Use your wingtips, Jewel! Angle upwards!” Catesby screamed. “Slow your descent! Get a grip on the air!”
The dragon frantically flapped her wings, sculling against the air rushing past them.
They were falling towards a long thin loch between two lines of jagged mountains. In the moonlight they could see their reflections getting larger as the dragon twisted and fell.
Finally, she got control, and swooped back up again.
But something kept falling. Something fell out of her claws and kept falling towards the loch.
Catesby launched off Sylvie’s shoulder and dived down, trying to catch the buckle before it landed in the loch.
But he heard it splash. He watched as the buckle fizzed and fell apart. And he saw the diamonds sparkle as they sank into the loch.
Jewel was flat out on the ground when Catesby flew to the loch shore. She was moaning, “I’m sorry! I don’t like planes and I panicked! I’m so sorry!”
Lavender called to Catesby, “Did you mark the place where it fell?”
“No point,” said Catesby. “It’s gone.”
Sylvie said, “No it isn’t. Someone will be able to search underwater. Rona, Tangaroa … If their quest doesn’t succeed, they can dive for it.”
“No. It’s gone. When it hit the water, the buckle disintegrated and those tiny diamonds sank into the water. They aren’t much bigger than grains of sand. It would be impossible to find them all, and there’s no buckle left to set them in. It’s gone.
“We’ve failed. We’ve failed Yann.”
Chapter 16
Tangaroa and Rona stood together as they listened to Lavender’s final hurried instructions. “The healing power will be transferred to the flower by the washing action of seven waterfalls in new clean sunlight, so be careful not to get the water dirty as the flower goes down.”
Rona’s cheeks were pale as she nodded, but Tangaroa wasn’t worried about the selkie’s apparent nervousness. She often looked nervous, but it must be her way of dealing with tension, because he knew she was a fearsome fighter and powerful athlete, as well as a fast thinker.
Tangaroa knew Rona’s abilities far too well, because she’d beaten him in the Sea Herald contest last year: overtaking him in a race, then answering a riddle, fighting a giant eel and escaping a killer whale much faster than he had answered his riddle and fought his monsters.
As they walked towards Nimbus, the dragon who would take them to the waterfalls, Rona was knotting her smooth dark hair round her fingers. Tangaroa grinned. He wasn’t fooled. If he trie
d to match her skills and courage on this quest, she would probably embarrass him all over again.
He gestured for her to climb the dragon first. Then he followed her, and sat right behind her, wrapping his tattooed arms round the waistband of her sea-coloured dress. She murmured, “If you sit further back, you can grab the next set of dragon spikes. You don’t have to use me to hold you on.”
He sighed and slid round another set of spikes. “I just thought it would be useful to be closer together, so we could discuss our strategy.”
“We’ll have hours on the ground before the sun rises,” she called back as the dragon leapt into the air. “We don’t have to talk on the way.”
Tangaroa shrugged and sat silent during the journey. He’d never been on a dragon before and he was fascinated by the landscape below: towns glowing underneath them, roads traced by cars’ lights, rivers lit up by the moon.
Tangaroa was an expert navigator by sea, but the potential for finding his way around the land using flight and light fascinated him. He could tell by the stars that they were flying northwest. But he wasn’t absolutely sure where they were headed.
Lavender had consulted many elders and they’d all suggested different waterfalls. There was so much rain in Scotland, so many burns falling down so many mountainsides, that there were hundreds of possible locations.
Tangaroa, as a coast-based blue loon who knew every island and cave round the Hebrides but knew very little about mountains and glens, had almost nodded off during the long argument about which seven waterfalls to choose.
All he knew was that they were heading for Glen something, to a burn called Allt something else. Lavender and the dragon Crag had chosen these particular seven waterfalls because the foliage in the glen meant there should already be flowers growing upstream from the falls, and the angle of the glen meant the team would have a good view of the sunrise.
Remembering the long discussion made him yawn. But he couldn’t fall asleep or he might fall off the dragon. So he gazed at the dark land passing below to keep himself awake.
Finally Nimbus descended into a long glen, calling over his shoulder, “Where do you want me to land?”
