by SJB Gilmour
James nodded with appreciation. ‘That’s perfect!’ he crowed, rubbing his hands together. ‘We know you’re no dummy, but if Cromwell thinks you are, that gives us the advantage.’ He turned to Felix. ‘This is risky information to be caught with.’ He squinted at the boy, looking him up and down suspiciously. ‘Why’d you get trusted with such important data? No offence, young Grey, but if an ogre got his paws on a little fellow like you, that scroll could have been out in the open before you could say—’
‘Succotash,’ Felix stated, finishing James’ sentence. He tapped his head with an oddly unemotional expression. ‘Seer. I would have seen them coming and avoided the threat. My sight is better than my sense of smell, even in this form.’
James nodded approvingly. ‘You’re right, McConnell,’ he agreed. ‘Jasper’s a sly one. After quicklings, seers make the best couriers.’
‘Then why do the Pixies run the postal service?’ Jason asked.
James shrugged. ‘They’re natural larcenists, and they’re better organised. Who do you think taught the Italians how to run their Mafiosi?’
Felix nodded at Mannix. ‘Master Freeman,’ he said politely. ‘You needn’t worry about protection from above. Cexil, Siouxanne and Jimbeaux will decide to come here in a few days.’
Mannix grinned but said nothing.
Felix turned to Angela. ‘Master Harding,’ he said with a polite nod. ‘Last time we met, it was an awkward situation. I apologise for any offence I may have caused. I would not have enjoyed eating you.’
Angela smiled at him. ‘You had a job to do, young wolf. There’s no need to apologise at all.’ She glanced at the food on the table. ‘Now go and get something to eat.’
Felix did not need to be told twice. He made his way towards the food. Instead of immediately stuffing himself with bacon and eggs the way Sarah would have done, he meticulously sorted his food on his plate so that none of the different types of food touched. Even more bizarre, he painstakingly cut the yolks out of his fried eggs and set them next to the bacon. Finally satisfied that everything was in order, he began to eat.
‘What’s bigos?’ Sarah asked Angela.
‘It’s a kind of stew with cabbage and sausage,’ her teacher explained as she watched the teenager eat, and eat and eat. ‘I cooked it for you once in Russia, remember?’ She turned to Sarah with a look that told her she knew exactly how Sarah was feeling. Sarah flushed guiltily and hung her head. She poked her food about the plate with her fork grumpily.
She did not get to stay grumpy for long. A shimmering at the end of the hall announced the arrival of an enchanted elevator. The very over-crowded elevator appeared in the vacant parking space. Castor and Pollux shambled out first, quickly followed by Nathan and four panting Black Coat werewolves.
Maddy remained in the elevator. ‘Heirogryph!’ the pretty quickling ordered it to take her to Benjamin’s rebuilt offices. She popped a silver quill into its mouth and the elevator disappeared for a moment. Moments later, it reappeared and sullenly parked itself in its lot, muttering all the while about how bad humidity was for its gears.
Castor and Pollux stayed very close to Nathan as he wearily wriggled for the library.
‘Did you get it all, Nathan?’ Benjamin asked gently.
Nathan turned to regard Benjamin with a tired but happy smile. ‘Oh yes, Master McConnell. Mistress Maddy and I managed to recover the entire lot, as far as I can tell.’ He shook his head a little sadly. ‘I’m sure Master Rufus must have been a great sorcerer but his record-keeping skills were…’ He paused, groping for the right word.
‘Never mind Nathan,’ Benjamin reassured him. ‘Go get some rest. I’m sure you’ll be able to make sense of it all eventually.’
Nathan sighed. ‘I hope so,’ he murmured to himself as he wriggled off in the direction of the library. ‘I hope so.’
Castor and Pollux, James’ dutiful, though slow-witted hired thugs, followed him closely. When they were satisfied that their job was done and their charge was safe, they returned to the main hall. Sarah had never before seen ogres eat. The noise of the previous night’s feeding frenzy of the werewolves was nothing compared to two hungry ogres on the feed. Poor Felicia and her staff were hard-pressed to provide enough food for the two great monsters.
The four Black Coats dutifully made their report to their First. ‘Nothing much happened,’ one reported calmly.
‘A few raptors and a snake,’ another added as if the encounters were of no note. ‘One of the ogres caught a warthog. It didn’t last long. They could have shared it, though,’ he complained, eyeing the food on the table.
Mannix nodded and wagged his tail. ‘Well done,’ he told them. ‘Now go feed then find your dens. Make it snappy. We’ve a base to establish and I want it done by ten hundred.’
Since it was now about nine thirty in the morning, Sarah realised that leaving Mannix in charge was probably going to mean that her beloved uncle’s property was about to be better organised than it had been in a long time. After what seemed like hours, the strangely-assorted group were finally ready to leave, except for Nathan who remained behind in Benjamin’s library where he promptly fell asleep in a filing cabinet. In a pile for him to sort through and catalogue once he had rested, were all the various tomes the girls had collected over the past several months. Included was the bizarre copy of The Serpentine James had given Mel, as well as the strange, goblin-made tome in which Rufus had been trapped. He had also somehow ended up with the prophetic scroll the three succubi princesses had revealed the week before at Oliver’s island.
‘Before we go,’ Angela told them all, ‘I should warn you that minotaurs are skittish. They’re distrustful of machinery of any kind. It’d be best if we don’t use an elevator to get there.’
‘Portal stones?’ Sarah complained.
‘Portal stones,’ Angela replied firmly. ‘Once we’re there, if they allow us to, then we can use our grumpy machines, but until then, let’s not disturb them too much.’
Angela handed out the foul-tasting portal stones to the group and they all joined hands around the nine-pointed star in the floor in Benjamin’s hall. Within moments, Sarah, Benjamin, Angela and young Felix were all transported into a huge, dark cavern. It took several moments for their eyes to adjust to the dark. When Sarah could see, she got quite a surprise.
They had arrived in the middle of some strange sort of ceremony. There were fires and torches and hundreds of voices were raised in song. These voices all stopped in stunned silence as the group appeared. It was not the fires, nor the strange smells of burning incense and food that surprised Sarah. It was the celebrants themselves. Several thousand minotaurs were packed into the enormous cavern.
The strange beasts had the upper legs and torsos of humans. They wore thick leather trousers down to their knees. Below the knees, they were not human. Their legs were covered in fur and had hooves like cows. On their chests, they wore tight fitting sleeveless leather vests. But, it was their heads that made Sarah catch her breath. Instead of human necks and heads, these creatures had long-horned heads of cows and bulls. They were also all about two and a half metres tall and incredibly muscular. Many were armed with long spears. Several minotaurs marched forwards, brandishing their spears, and they did not look at all friendly.
‘Uh, oh,’ Sarah muttered as the minotaurs approached. ‘Ronny should be here for this. He’s always good at making friends.’
‘Never mind,’ Angela said calmly. She stepped forward to greet the menacing beasts. ‘Good afternoon,’ she said with a polite nod. ‘Angelina Troy,’ she introduced herself using her maiden name. ‘We’ve just dropped by to see how my sister Susan is going.’
The effect on the angry-looking minotaurs was startling. They relaxed instantly and set their spears aside. The hubbub of the gathering resumed as the majority of the celebrating minotaurs returned to their festivities.
One of the minotaurs stepped forward and extended his hand to Angela. ‘And I am Tor,’ he said.
‘Herdmaster.’
His statement of rank produced some blank looks.
‘Basically, I’m the chief of police here, if there is such a thing,’ he explained. ‘I’m also the one that gets to take charge of any kind of military exercise.’
Benjamin introduced himself, Sarah and Felix. Tor shook their hands warmly. When he came to Angela, he seemed puzzled.
‘I thought the Hazelwood human’s sister was now called Harding?’ he queried.
Angela shook Tor’s hand and flashed him a dimply smile. ‘Oh I am,’ she replied. ‘Troy was my maiden name. I didn’t know if you’d recognise Harding.’
Several minotaurs crowded around them and introductions were made. Tor led them through the vast throng of huge beasts towards a large corridor.
‘Welcome to The Labyrinth of Minos!’ he called to them as they made their way through the noisy crowd. ‘You’ve arrived during our annual Blood Festival!’
‘Blood Festival?’ Sarah asked nervously.
Tor noticed her nervous reaction and laughed. ‘Don’t be alarmed, Mistress Coppernick!’ he bellowed over the noise. ‘We’re a lot more civilised than our ancestors.’ He waved at the huge piles of food on the tables. ‘There’s no meat in any of that,’ he told her. ‘It’s a vegetarian festival.’ He shrugged his massive shoulders. ‘We still eat meat of course, but never humans. This day is as much a reminder of the shame of our past and the pride we take in our existence now.’ He bowed his head and murmured a quick prayer to Poseidon. Then he smiled and led them out of the main hall. Once inside the corridor and away from the singing crowd, Tor did not have to shout. ‘I’ll have to show you the way to the hospital wing. Visitors usually get lost on their own. Follow me.’ He turned and marched confidently down the corridor.
The hall was long and wide. It also had no straight lines whatsoever. It was constantly curving left then right, up and down. Hundreds of other corridors branched off from it and they all looked exactly the same. Before they had gone even a hundred metres, Sarah felt hopelessly lost.
Tor looked back at her with gentle understanding in his huge bovine eyes. ‘You might find it easier if you can rely on your werewolf senses,’ he suggested.
‘You don’t mind then?’ Benjamin asked him. ‘We thought appearing as wolves might startle your people.’
Tor laughed. ‘Oh, ordinarily it would, just not today. You see Master McConnell, we’ve been expecting you.’
‘You have?’ Sarah asked as she changed form. Now that she could rely on her sense of smell, she no longer felt lost.
Tor laughed again. ‘Of course, Mistress Coppernick,’ he told her as they approached a large cavern that smelled like every other hospital Sarah had ever been in. ‘Our prophet has predicted your arrival.’ He paused and held one human finger up to his bull’s mouth. ‘Shh,’ he advised in a much quieter voice. ‘The nurses will have my horns if we make too much noise.’
‘Your prophet?’ Benjamin asked him in a whisper.
Tor nodded. ‘After Clytemnestra stabbed her and left her for dead, we took Cassandra in and healed her.’ He shook his head. ‘You have no idea how much trouble that caused. A scribe called Homer wanted the world to know we kept her alive. It wasn’t until Apollo Himself intervened that he wrote she’d died. She stayed with us for centuries after that. Now she comes and goes of course, but she’s always thought of this place as home.’
Benjamin glanced at Angela. ‘You didn’t tell me Cassandra lived here,’ he murmured.
‘There’s a lot I haven’t told you about that woman,’ Angela replied, her eyes flat.
Tor led them through the wards to a small curtained-off section. He drew the curtain aside to reveal a small room decorated with flowers and blue balloons. In the middle of the room was a minotaur-sized hospital bed. Seated next to it was David Hazelwood, who was fast asleep with his head against the side of the bed. Angela’s sister Susan Hazelwood lay in the bed. Her belly was not as huge as it had obviously once been. She lay there cradling her tiny newborn baby who was fast asleep with his little pink fists balled up and resting beside his face. Next to them was a woman Sarah had only seen before in tomes.
There, holding a baby’s bonnet she was knitting was Angela’s mother and Melanie’s grandmother, the legendary Cassandra Troy. Although she was knitting away like any other grandmother, there was very little about Cassandra that was very grandmotherly at all. She wore the flimsiest of gowns that left very little to the imagination. She was even more strikingly beautiful than the images of her that Sarah had seen in tomes. Her eyes were dark and wide set. Her long, lustrous hair shone in the gentle lamplight in the cavern. Her lips were very full and red and there was a lush, almost over-ripe sensuality to her that would have made Sarah blush just looking at her had she been human. At that moment, Sarah felt particularly grateful that she was a wolf. She was also strangely glad Felix was also in his wolf form.
Cassandra calmly set her knitting aside and stood up. ‘About time you got here,’ she said to her daughter coolly. ‘I was beginning to think you’d gotten lost.’
‘Mother,’ Angela replied equally as coldly. ‘If I’d known you were waiting—’
‘You should have,’ Cassandra snapped. ‘I trained you better than that.’
Before the two could begin arguing in earnest, Sarah changed back to her human form and rushed forward to Susan and the baby. The little boy was pink, with a few strands of black hair. He was absolutely gorgeous, Sarah thought. He was so small! She couldn’t help but reach out and gently touch one of his balled up little fists.
‘We’ve called him Alexander,’ Susan said quietly.
Tor drew back, smiling. ‘I’ll leave you alone for now,’ he told them and politely withdrew, pulling the curtain closed behind him.
At that moment, David woke up. He rubbed his eyes and yawned. ‘Oh, g’day,’ he said wearily. ‘Been here long?’
‘Just got here,’ Benjamin said cheerfully. He pumped David’s hand enthusiastically and patted him warmly on the back. ‘Congratulations! Susan was just telling us you’ve named him Alexander.’
David chuckled wryly. ‘I’ve given up trying to stop Suz from naming our sons after ex-boyfriends.’
‘Oh shush,’ Susan said with a dismissive wave. ‘Alex was just a friend. Besides,’ she said with exaggerated regret, ‘he was much more interested in Hephaistion anyway. Surely now after twenty-two children, even someone as jealous as you would have to admit that I’m not going anywhere!’
David’s eyes went wide with protest. ‘I’m jealous?’ he countered. ‘You’re the one who bludgeoned Michael into re-sculpting his statue!’
‘Quiet now,’ Susan admonished him. ‘You’ll wake the baby.’
Cassandra discarded her argument with her daughter for the moment and was staring at Sarah. ‘So,’ she drawled, ‘this is the great Golden Mane.’ She looked Sarah up and down critically. Her severe expression instantly made Sarah forget all about how scantily the woman was dressed. Then Cassandra smiled in a much gentler, even motherly way. ‘Patience, young wolf,’ she advised. ‘It’s not time for you to face Mautallius again.’ Her expression became saddened, ‘Or see your friend Melanie.’
‘What?’ Susan demanded in a whisper, struggling to sit up. ‘Mother! Why didn’t you tell me this before? What’s going to happen to Mel?’
‘Wait,’ Cassandra said, closing her eyes for a long moment. She held her hand up to ward off more questions. ‘The vision has just come to me,’ she declared. ‘Now is The Time of Learning! Know that The Time of Learning shall last from the day The First and The Last are separated until the day they are reunited.’ She paled. ‘And then begins The Time of War,’ she said in a hushed voice.
Sarah gave a start at her words. ‘When?’ she demanded.
‘That, Golden Mane,’ Cassandra said with a frown, still concentrating on her vision, ‘depends entirely upon how quickly you and my granddaughter learn that which you both need to know.’
‘But�
�’ Sarah was about to argue.
‘Hush now,’ Angela told her. She nodded at her mother who was still in the throes of vision.
Cassandra was silent for a moment. The colour drained from her face and she gasped as if the vision had caused her some terrible pain. She opened her eyes and sank back in her chair, shaking.
‘Well?’ Angela asked her mother sarcastically. ‘What else can you reveal other than what we already know?’
Cassandra drew in a long, shuddering breath and glared at her daughter’s chest. ‘So it’s true,’ she observed. ‘You are the one who will take Apollo from us all.’ Then she turned her face away from Angela and glared at Felix. Angela was about to retort when Felix pushed past her to stand before Cassandra. Cassandra stared at the boy coldly. ‘I expect my apprentices to be punctual,’ she told the Grey mane werewolf.
Instead of looking embarrassed or ashamed at his apparent tardiness, Felix cocked his head to one side. ‘If you’re as good a seer as you’re supposed to be then you’d know exactly why I’m here now instead of ten minutes ago. If you can’t see that, I need to look for another master.’
Cassandra smiled but there was no happiness in that cold expression. ‘Yet, there is no sign of you ever seeking another master, werewolf, is there? So you either die now or agree that it is I who will be your master.’
Felix thought about this for a moment, ignoring the veiled threat. ‘We both know when I am to die,’ he replied calmly. ‘It is true, though. I shall have no other master.’ Then he did something Sarah did not expect a Grey Mane ever to do. He changed into his scrawny human form, knelt before Cassandra and bowed his head.
‘Get up,’ Cassandra ordered briskly. ‘We’ll start your training tomorrow. Leave us alone for now.’ She was about to resume her argument with Angela when she gasped and clutched her hands to her temples, squinting in pain.
‘What now?’ Angela demanded.
‘Nine,’ Cassandra breathed in a hoarse whisper. ‘There will be nine armies of Hope! Thousands will die in The Time of War! Thousands!’ She slumped over, shaking for several moments. When she had recovered enough to stand, though still very pale, she looked at her daughter and grandchild for a long moment, her expression unreadable. Without saying another word, she swept from the room. As she left, Sarah could clearly hear the strange woman begin to cry.
