by Linda McNabb
‘You turn the key in a circle,’ Kaylene replied. Her eyes shot to the back wall of the gatehouse. It was covered in swords hanging up and rows of keys. A single golden key stood out as being out of place. Kaylene ran inside, grabbed the key and held it up for the others to see. ‘What’s the bet this opens the chest?’
CHAPTER EIGHT
DRAGON SICKNESS
Nobody bothered to answer. Instead they all ran back around the castle grounds towards the fountain. By the time they were racing across the lawn it was all Toby could do to stop himself yelling their victory to everyone they passed.
Off in the distance they could see Jern and his brother. The brothers paused and, seeing the delighted looks on the faces of Kaylene’s team, they abandoned their current search and headed slowly back towards the ballroom. A dozen people were still milling around the room, including those contenders who had not taken part in the final quest.
King Rhobet stood patiently by the small chest and watched the four victors hurry towards him. Kaylene avoided directly facing her father as she held out the small golden key.
‘Try it’ was all the king said.
Kaylene knelt down and fitted the key in the lock. With one deft twist the lock clicked open and she lifted the lid. A sharp intake of breath almost gave away her true identity, but she managed to stifle a small scream of delight. Toby shook his head at her, silently warning her that she was giving her secret away.
She reached into the chest and withdrew a simple gold circlet. As she lifted it out, Jern and his brother arrived back at the ballroom and stood watching. Jern looked a little disappointed but cheered with the rest of those watching as Kaylene turned to show them all. The third contender, hearing the noise, also came in through the internal ballroom door.
‘What has this quest shown you?’ King Rhobet asked as he took the crown from Kaylene’s hands.
‘To succeed as a leader you must surround yourselves with those who can help you the most,’ Kaylene replied in a low voice.
King Rhobet nodded in silent approval of her answer. He stepped forward and addressed the small crowd. ‘We have found our new heir. There will be a formal crowning in the spring, but for now this small token will mark my heir. Do you accept?’
The king turned and beckoned Kaylene closer. Toby looked sideways at the princess. She grinned back at him as she reached up and pulled off the brown woollen hat that hid her true appearance.
Golden-blonde curls bounced out from under the hat as she shook her head to untangle her hair and then looked up at her father.
‘I accept,’ she replied as her father’s mouth fell open in surprise. The rest of the crowd sucked in a collective gasp and then remained totally silent as they waited for the king’s response.
‘Kaylene!’ was all he said, but his face showed the many emotions he was struggling with as the crowd looked on. At first he appeared confused, and then he shook his head as if he didn’t believe what he was seeing. A brief lowering of his eyebrows suggested he was angry. He raised his right hand, index finger extended, ready to point and shout at his only daughter, but he lowered it and shook his head slowly.
‘A girl cannot ascend the throne—’ he began.
‘But I won—’ Kaylene argued instantly, cutting her father off.
King Rhobet put his hand up to stop her. ‘Let me finish. A girl cannot ascend the throne, but those rules are set by the king. As king, I am changing the rule. You have shown determination, inventiveness, courage and the ability to take wise council. All are qualities needed in a ruler.’
Kaylene’s face broke into a grin and she beamed at her father, but took care to remain standing still and poised like a good little princess.
The king turned to the surrounding crowd. ‘I present the heir to the North Kingdom.’ He stepped forward and placed the circlet of gold on Kaylene’s blonde curls and kissed her on the cheek.
The room erupted into cheers and Kaylene rushed over to hug Toby and Sanelle.
‘Your father is looking at us,’ Sanelle said, drawing away from the princess’s embrace slightly.
The king did indeed seem to be watching them with great interest. As his eyes fell on Toby, his forehead creased into a frown. Toby averted his face as he had no doubt that the king would recognise him. King Rhobet was the reason Toby was kicked out of the castle he had grown up in.
‘Boy!’ the king bellowed. All celebration ceased instantly at the king’s serious tone. Everyone stared. Toby kept his head turned away for a few seconds until he realised that everyone was looking at him. He faced the king and so did Sanelle. The king’s face lowered into a deeper scowl.
‘You two. I remember you. You stole a dragon from King Herat. Then you pretended to give it to me and let it go again,’ King Rhobet said loudly. The rest of their crowd stared at them with interest. ‘And I suppose it is you who brought the same dragon to my castle again today?’
‘We did,’ Sanelle answered boldly.
‘Is it a gift for me?’ the king asked, with a hint of a demand in his voice.
‘Klel belongs to nobody,’ Toby replied.
The king pouted and did not reply. One of the large internal doors opened and a servant stood waiting for the king to acknowledge him. He did so with a nod and the servant bowed.
‘The banquet is ready, Your Majesty.’
The king looked back at Toby and Sanelle, then dismissed his anger with a wave of his hand. ‘You have aided my daughter several times now. She trusts your counsel and I will concede to her choice of friends. Come, we shall celebrate our heir at banquet.’
The king turned without waiting for agreement, and led the way out of the ballroom.
**
Getting up early was something Toby had been used to since he was old enough to help his foster mother in the kitchens back at the West Castle. His eyes opened automatically just before the sun broached the horizon, and within moments he had swung his feet out of the narrow cot.
He and Sanelle had refused the princess’s kind offer of a suite of rooms, opting instead for several unused servant’s quarters. Having people wait on him seemed unnatural and made him feel uneasy.
The cold from the stone floor seeped slowly into the soles of his feet and hurried him into moving. He opened the small satchel that he’d hung over the foot of the bed. He didn’t have much warm clothing because it’d been so warm in Dragon Valley.
The only thing he had that was warm enough was the clothing Blaise had given him when he was in service as a pageboy. He held up the red cape and gold-trimmed blue-and-red tunic and hose. He didn’t really want to wear them, as Blaise would spot him instantly and the last thing they wanted was to let Blaise know they were here.
He shoved them back into the satchel and instead put on an extra brown tunic and the only pair of leather boots he owned. He shook the straw-filled mattress to fluff it out and turned to leave the room, slinging the satchel over his shoulder. He had no idea where they’d be by nightfall and he didn’t want to risk losing the only possessions he had.
He walked softly to the room where Sanelle had spent the night and knocked once on the wooden door.
‘Be there in a minute.’ Sanelle’s bright voice showed she, too, was an early riser.
Just as Sanelle came out of her room, another set of footsteps could be heard coming down the corridor. They were made by hard-soled boots, definitely not the soft-soled servants’ boots that enabled them to move around the castle unnoticed.
They both turned to see Kaylene appear in the corridor, holding a lantern to see her way in the dimly lit lower corridors of the castle. Toby was surprised to see her up and about, as she was not known for being an early riser. She was dressed in Toby’s old clothing again, but her delicate, swinging walk made it difficult to mistake her for a boy.
‘I thought you’d be back to wearing your pretty dresses,’ Toby remarked as she stopped next to them. ‘You’ve already been named as heir.’
‘I don’t want Bl
aise to see us, and my dresses would stand out in the crowd. I was coming to wake you,’ Kaylene said, looking wide awake. ‘There’s something not quite right this morning.’
‘What sort of thing?’ Toby asked. He didn’t feel anything different.
‘I’m not sure, but things seem different today.’ Kaylene looked confused as she tried to find a way to explain.
‘We’ll work that out later. We should get going,’ Sanelle said, grabbing the lantern and hurrying along the corridor.
‘I’ve had breakfast brought to my quarters,’ Kaylene informed them.
‘There’s no time for that now,’ Toby replied, pushing the princess ahead of him. ‘We’ll eat after we’ve checked on what Blaise is doing.’
Toby led them up through the warren of servants’ corridors and into the courtyard.
Klel was over in the old stables, still tucked up in the straw he’d laid out the previous night. As they approached, the golden dragon roused himself and lifted his snout to the sky, sniffing deeply.
Not right, Klel muttered. He stood up and walked out into the courtyard, and looked up again at the quickly lightening sky.
‘I know what you mean,’ Kaylene agreed. ‘Something doesn’t seem right today, but I can’t work out what it is.’
Warm, Klel said simply. Too warm.
‘That’s it!’ Kaylene said, grinning as she looked up at the sky. Toby followed her gaze and saw a pale blue sky without a single cloud in sight.
‘Isn’t it supposed to be winter?’ Toby asked. He felt uncomfortably warm in his double layers of tunic and recalled the bitter temperature the day before. ‘Has spring come?’
Kaylene shook her head, and a small line creased her forehead as she thought. ‘It’s the middle of winter. We have some fine days, but nothing like this.’
‘So it’s warm. Can’t we discuss the weather later?’ Sanelle was impatient to find Blaise.
‘Sorry,’ Toby said, then turned back to Klel. ‘Did you find any sign of Farren?’
Klel shook his great head slowly. Felt great many gems. Lot near markets. None big enough to be dragon stone. Farren not here.
‘Hopefully one of the other dragons has found him,’ Kaylene said comfortingly as Toby looked disappointed that his disaster would not be fixed just yet.
‘Let’s head down to the markets and see what Blaise is doing,’ Sanelle said, almost dragging Toby and Kaylene after her.
Klel go see why so warm. The dragon lifted into the sky with a single beat of his wings. The down-draught sent straw swirling around the courtyard and all three children coughed and turned away.
‘Do you think Blaise will still be down at the inn?’ Kaylene asked as they slipped out the gates.
While the ground beneath their feet was still frozen, only patches of icy snow remained where it had been covered with snow yesterday. Their feet crunched the ice in the silence of the early morning as they walked through the deserted streets.
‘I hope so,’ Sanelle said, hurrying her step a little as they headed through the town. ‘One of us should have stayed at the inn last night to watch them.’
‘I think he plans to stay around for a while,’ Toby said as he kept pace with her. ‘Otherwise why would he have made such a performance at the market yesterday?’
Sanelle just nodded, and they continued down to the inn in silence for a few minutes.
‘There’s nobody about.’ Kaylene slowed a little and looked down a few side streets. ‘Usually there’s at least a few traders heading for the market by now.’
Just then, a small boy ran out of a side street and straight into Kaylene, sending them both into a small drift of snow that was heaped in a sheltered corner of the street.
‘I’m sorry,’ the boy said as Toby helped him up, but turned pale when he realised who he had knocked over. He dipped in a bow and then began to back away. ‘I have to go find the healer.’
‘Who’s sick?’ Sanelle asked.
‘Just about everyone in the lower cottages,’ the boy replied. He glanced at the sky nervously before continuing. ‘It’s dragon sickness.’
The boy ran off, leaving them staring after him in surprise and shock.
‘Do you think he means the blue sky is the sickness?’ Toby asked. He looked up at the sky. Now that the sun had fully risen, the sky was a familiar deep blue that he couldn’t quite place.
‘That’s silly,’ Kaylene said. ‘How can a nice day be blamed for making people sick?’
Sanelle shrugged, impatient that discussion about the weather was again slowing them down. They continued on until the marketplace came into sight — while the day before it had been bustling with people and traders, it was now almost deserted.
Only one trader was set up, right in the middle of the marketplace. It was the wagon belonging to Blaise and Lark and both men stood next to it. Lark’s small dog was running around their legs and barking furiously. Blaise moved one leg and pushed the dog away irritably with his foot. The little dog didn’t seem to care and barked even more.
As the children came closer, it was clear that the pair was doing a roaring trade. Ten people hurried up, clamouring to be served, then dashed off, each cradling a small bottle of green liquid as if it were gold. It was the sham potion from the previous day, but now everyone seemed to want it.
CHAPTER NINE
TROUBLE IN THE VALLEY
The people who hurried past the children kept a good distance, as if they were reluctant to go near others now they had their potion. Their eyes were glazed and their faces flushed.
‘This will fix the dragon sickness,’ Blaise’s voice carried easily across the empty marketplace. ‘Your fever will be gone in a few days.’
‘What’s he talking about?’ Sanelle asked nobody in particular. ‘There’s no such thing as “dragon sickness”.’
‘They seem to think there is,’ Toby said, pointing at the scared townsfolk who were scurrying away down alleyways.
Sanelle pulled the others back behind an abandoned cart as Blaise stood on the back platform of the wagon and looked across the marketplace. He looked slowly around, with a frown as if he knew he was being watched. The children remained hiding until they heard him calling out for more customers to buy his fake potion.
‘We have to get rid of the dragon,’ a man said with a hint of desperation in his voice as he hurried to buy some potion. He and his companion looked flushed with fever and they glanced back up at the castle with fear and hatred. ‘Before it kills us all.’
Toby, Sanelle and Kaylene drew back into an alleyway, and for a full minute they all seemed lost for words. Finally, Kaylene picked up a stone and threw it angrily against the stone wall.
‘We have to tell them that Blaise is wrong. We need to find out whatever is causing the sickness and prove to them that it isn’t Klel,’ Kaylene said in a loud voice. ‘If it is Klel, then why aren’t we sick? Nobody in the castle is sick.’
‘Keep it down a bit,’ Sanelle suggested. ‘We don’t want Blaise to hear us.’
‘I’m going to get closer,’ Toby said, not really listening to the girls. ‘I know Blaise and he won’t be doing something like this just for the money. He has to have another reason and I want to know what it is.’
Toby walked quickly out of the alley and joined the back of a small group of townsfolk heading for the wagon. He bent his head low and tried to walk as if he were as sick as the rest appeared to be.
Just as they came close to the wagon, he veered off behind an empty stall, crouched low and worked his way closer and then behind the wagon. He stood by the wagon, waiting for the current group of townsfolk to buy their ‘cure’ and leave.
‘I never expected the poison to work this well,’ Lark said with a smothered laugh. ‘Maybe I put too much of it in the water? It might take weeks to flush the well clean.’
‘Who cares?’ Blaise replied coldly. ‘It will make them fear dragons more and that is good. Will it kill any of them?’
Toby knew that
Blaise was cold-hearted and evil, but he stifled a gasp at the hopeful sound in Blaise’ voice.
‘No, it’ll just make them sick for a day,’ Lark replied. ‘But if they keep drinking it, they’ll keep getting sick.’
‘Here come some more customers. I’ll get extra potion from the wagon, then I’m going to get some breakfast,’ Blaise said with a chuckle. Then he cursed and Toby heard the little dog yelp. ‘Keep your mutt out of my way.’
The scruffy dog ran under the wagon, stopped when he saw Toby, and began to bark and wag his short tail.
‘Oska! Come here, boy!’ Lark called, then reached under the wagon and grabbed hold of the dog.
Toby had to throw himself behind another stall to stop Lark seeing him. He dropped back further from the wagon and worked his way around the marketplace until he reached the alleyway where Sanelle and Kaylene were waiting impatiently for him.
‘He’s poisoned the well,’ Toby informed them. ‘They’ll only be sick for a day if they stop drinking water from the well.’
‘That explains why we’re not sick, too,’ Kaylene said, nodding in understanding. ‘The castle has its own well which isn’t connected to the one that the rest of the town draws their water from.’
‘And he wants everyone to hate the dragons,’ Toby added.
‘Why?’ Sanelle asked with a small frown.
Toby shrugged. ‘I don’t know. The dog saw me, and his friend almost did, so I had to leave.’
Blaise walked away from the wagon and went back to the inn where he’d stayed the night. Lark remained by the wagon with a fresh case of potion.
A sudden noise made all three children jump and look up at the sky. A loud crack seemed to race across the sky as lightning forked out from the mountains in the distance.
Toby’s heart sank as the lightning faded and a rumbling echoed around for a few more seconds. He knew that sound and it wasn’t good news — there was more trouble in Dragon Valley.
