‘Close. I’ve been tracking you for some time. You will have trouble seeing me, though. Look down to your left.’
Grady scanned the skies behind the coach. A shadow low against the rocks caught his eye. It hugged the mountain side and swept between crags as if trying to stay hidden.
‘Why are you down there? Come fly with us.’
‘There are some dragons who might be happy to see me and others who … well let’s say I may be more of a threat than I appear. They would be less than happy to see me. But home is not far away for me.’
‘Roland said you came from these mountains,’ thought Grady.
‘No. Not these. But close. On the slopes above Morrigan’s Lake. There are others of my type here but further up. They would be angry finding another dragon in their territory. We vipers don’t play happy families, though, we do work together, occasionally. Did Roland ever tell you why he took me in?’
‘No,’ thought Grady. ‘Only that he found you on the mountain side one day.’
‘Ask him. It’s a tale in itself and might explain some other things for you.’
‘Like what?’
‘Ask him. I have to stay low and take another way around these next few peaks. I will see you at the lake.’
‘Iris!’ yelled Grady. But the dragon was gone. She had made a rapid turn through a cleft between the rocks, and disappeared from view.
‘Grady, look!’ said Niamh, gripping his arm.
Ahead of the coaches the glory had turned sharply and headed towards the flying convoy. The protective castle guard seemed to sense what was coming and closed formation alongside. With a roar and belch of flame the leading dragon, a hulking great brute with evil-looking spines along his forehead, dived directly for the first coach. The rest of the glory followed close behind him. It seemed as though a collision was unavoidable.
‘Why don’t they try and get out of his way!’ yelled Grady.
The glory gained speed before dipping sharply and whizzing underneath the convoy. The lead dragon spread its wings wide and rolled round the rest of the coaches with the remaining dragons fanning out to create a tunnel through which the convoy flew. For a few moments, dragons swirled and roared past the windows of the children’s coach. But in a matter of seconds they were gone and peace was restored. Niamh sat panting on the floor where she had fallen. Grady looked sheepish while Hugh laughed at him for jumping on the seat in terror.
The disc on the wall came to life and Grace’s head appeared above it. ‘What did you think of that!’ she said, laughing.
‘I … I’m …’ stuttered Grady.
‘Lost for words?’ said Merritt’s head, appearing beside Grace. Niamh thought the two floating heads were a little on the spooky side.
‘A little,’ said Niamh. ‘Was that normal?’
‘It’s not something you see every day I will admit,’ said Grace. ‘But they never attack the coaches. We’re a little indigestible for them, but they do like to have fun.’
‘Do you understand why they call it a glory now, Grady?’ asked his father.
‘Oh yeah!’ said Grady breathlessly. ‘Sure do!’
Niamh looked out the back window of the coach. The glory danced up through the air again, briefly blinded her with another collective flash of light, and vanished from view behind a mountain peak.
Chapter 6
Morrigan’s Lake
The glory of dragons was not seen again. The remainder of the mountains through which the children passed were more conspicuous for the absence of life than for any more displays of extraordinary creatures. The occasional trolls could be seen but they paid no attention to the aerial caravan.
Grady occasionally called up his parents on his iWand. ‘Are we there yet?’ he intoned pathetically.
The answer was the same each time; ‘We’ll be there when we are there,’ said his father, which, after the first two or three times of being told, caused Grady to snap his iWand shut without so much as a polite goodbye.
Eventually – after what seemed like an eternity to Grady – his mother’s face popped into view above the viewing disc. ‘Take a look Grady. Up ahead and to the right – you might like what you see.’
The children stuck their heads out of the window. In the near distance a sparkling deep blue lake was sliding into view around the edge of a craggy slate peak. The lake stretched out in a broad sweep between mountains whose slopes washed right down to the water’s edge. A glacier-fed river marked with stormy sections of rapids ran from the edge of the lake and passed below them. A town at the nearest shore of the lake climbed up onto gently sloping hills. As the coaches drew closer to the town they could see another smaller lake appear to the right.
Bree noticed Niamh staring at the second lake. ‘That’s called Morrigan’s Daughter,’ she said. ‘It’s smaller than Morrigan’s Lake. They say the shores there are haunted!’
‘The castle is over there,’ said Devin, pointing in a vague manner towards the far side of the lake.
‘I can’t see anything,’ said Grady, squinting.
‘Of course you can!’ said Devin in her maddeningly chirpy tone. Niamh wondered how she was capable of remaining so upbeat after five hours in close captivity with Grady. ‘Look! There, on the finger of land in the lake!’
The children looked hard at a long peninsula of land that stuck out into the lake. It was heavily wooded but at the end a cliff dropped into the water. Carved into the face was a castle that couldn’t be more unlike their home at the Dragon’s Lair. The walls were vertiginous, forbidding, and, it seemed, built without any joy. Niamh felt a chill looking at their destination.
Ahead of them the other coaches in the convoy had begun descending.
‘Where are we going to land?’ said Grady. ‘There’s nothing flat anywhere around the castle.’
Quinn smiled. ‘Your parents didn’t tell you about the landing here, did they?’
‘No. What about it?’ said Niamh nervously. ‘Should we be worried?’
‘Probably not,’ said Quinn, sliding his book into the pocket on the side of his seat and settling himself back in his chair. He quite deliberately grabbed his seat belt and cinched it tightly across his waist. The other children all took their seats and did the same. Niamh and Grady exchanged worried glances before diving for their seats and fumbling for their seat belts. It was not a moment too soon.
‘Hold on tight!’ yelled McHavering through the hatch.
The coach lurched downwards in a steep and scary dive. The lake seemed to rush up towards them as the carriage swung violently to the left and rapidly pulled up again. The outside world was obscured as a thick forest flashed past the windows just metres from the carriage. In moments, however, it was all over.
‘You can let go now Grady,’ said Quinn as the carriage rolled to a stop.
Grady looked at his hands. His fingernails had dug deeply into the leather of the armrests. He removed them sheepishly but felt a little better when he saw Niamh too looked like she would need someone to prise her fingers from the seat.
‘What was that all about?’ Niamh said eventually. ‘You could have given us some warning!’
‘I did,’ said Quinn, unbuckling his seat belt.
‘Ten seconds does not count as a warning,’ muttered Grady.
‘Sorry,’ he chuckled. ‘The landing strip is down a short chute that swings under the trees. It’s the scariest landing you’ll ever make.’
‘Were they insane when they made that?’ said Grady.
‘No. But the castle was used to defend this area during the wars against the mountain trolls. Look out there,’ he said, pointing.
Niamh and Grady peered out to see high stone walls visible over the tops of the trees.
‘Those walls made this area easy to protect from troll attacks so even if the castle was surrounded they could get stuff in and out through this gap. The other end of it comes out halfway along the peninsula so you come in one end and out the other.’
‘Come in half sane and end up loony out the other, you mean,’ said Grady, standing up on wobbly legs.
The carriage came to a halt and black-clad guards moved swiftly down the line of cabins opening doors. ‘Everyone okay in there?’ said a voice from beneath a black visor.
‘Yes thanks,’ said Tulliah, bounding out of her seat. ‘Guys. Come see this!’ She leapt out of the open door and ran off in the direction of the entrance into which they had flown.
Niamh and Grady were a little slower but soon found their feet and trotted after Tulliah and the others. Quinn made no effort to follow. Niamh stopped and turned back to him.
‘Not coming?’
‘Seen it before,’ he said. ‘You go.’
Niamh nodded, turned, and headed after the others. As she ran up the steep slope the most extraordinary view unfolded before her. Below the lip of the landing tunnel sat the roof of the castle. Directly in front of them flew a green pennant with the royal crest dancing lazily in the breeze. Beyond it stretched the lake and the town. Seemingly close enough to touch, a huge lump of granite rose imposingly out of the lake. On the far side of the lake the barren rocky slopes of mountains reached away towards the horizon with the higher peaks reflecting icy glints from their snowy caps.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said under her breath.
‘It is,’ said Grady, standing quietly beside her. ‘But doesn’t it feel a little odd?’
‘What do you mean?’ said Niamh.
‘It’s exactly like Lake Wanaka back home. In the old world. I don’t know how many times we’ve seen these mountains when we’ve been through Wanaka before. Just not from this angle.’
‘You’re right,’ said Niamh. She pointed to her left. ‘The ski field must be down there somewhere and the campground is round the back over there.’
‘We never knew,’ said Grady, staring at the peaks on the far side of the lake. ‘All the time this world was waiting here and we never knew.’
‘Mum and Dad did,’ said Niamh coldly. ‘They knew the whole time.’
‘Can you imagine how they must have felt, though? They knew they couldn’t touch it even though there was magic and power just beyond their touch.’
Niamh didn’t respond but stared defiantly at her brother.
‘They did what they thought they had to because they were trying to keep this place safe. And why wouldn’t they?’ said Grady, gesturing expansively. ‘It’s beautiful here!’
Niamh didn’t get a chance to respond as Bree called to them.
‘Down here!’ she said, waving them towards a path that could be glimpsed between a break in the trees. A broad set of white stone steps wound down the cliff face towards the castle. Murdock and several of the guards were already making their way towards an ancient looking, well-worn stone bridge that spanned the gap between the castle and the foot of the stairs. The steps down were broad but the children found themselves hugging the cliff side of the stairs as the drop on the other side looked lethal.
‘Shouldn’t be a problem for someone like you, should it?’ came a voice from behind Grady. He turned to see his uncle leaping down the stairs towards him. Garrett jumped the last few steps in one reckless bound and landed lightly on the edge of the path.
Grady cringed at how close his uncle was to the drop. ‘Why didn’t they build this with a banister, for crying out loud?’
‘Much easier to knock a troll off here if there’s no banister. And more than a few did end up at the bottom of the cliff. The castle has never been taken in a battle. They used to roll boulders off the slopes above. There’s not much space for a big troll to get out of the way here. You can still see where the impacts from the boulders have been patched.’
Grady glanced at the steps. Now that he knew what to look for he could see where the grain of the white stone was subtly different in odd places.
‘That’s a little barbaric, isn’t it?’ said Niamh.
‘Things weren’t always as calm as they are today, Niamh,’ said Garrett in an unusually sombre tone. ‘Peace is often won by force and held by strength, even if that strength is wielded through satin gloves.’
Grady and Niamh exchanged quizzical glances. It was most unlike their uncle to be so serious.
‘What do you mean?’ said Niamh.
Garrett placed an arm around the shoulder of each of the children and steered them down the path. ‘I mean you should read some more history when you have a moment. The kingdom of Avalon wasn’t always sweetness and light. Dark shadows are still cast by the brightest sun. But for now I think you should worry less about the ramblings of your uncle. Better move or you’ll be run over by porters soon.’
The children looked up the stairway and saw that the line of others from the carriages was catching up with them. They hadn’t realised how many had been making the trip. It really did seem as though the court of the kingdom had decamped to Morrigan’s Lake. Behind them all came a clattering of pans as the grogoch made his way slowly down the stairway. Over his head floated trunk after trunk lifted by the impossibly strong castle faeries.
‘NIAMH!’ came a voice from further down the path. ‘HURRY UP!’
‘Bree sounds like she’s impatient. You better hurry up,’ said Garrett, giving the children a pat on the back.
The children didn’t need another invitation. They ran, carefully, down the stairs to find everyone gathered at the bridge over the gap to the castle. No one had made any move to cross the rugged flagstones that lead under a forbidding portcullis and into the castle beyond. Grady decided he wasn’t about to miss a chance to be first across the bridge and made a mad dash past his friends.
‘Last one there’s a rotten gnoll!’ he said, laughing as he shot past the group.
‘Grady NO!’ shouted Murdock. ‘Stop!’
It was too late. Grady sprinted onto the bridge. But instead of finding solid stone, he plunged straight through the perfect illusion of rock. He screamed as he tumbled end over end towards the jagged spires of stone below before astoundingly, miraculously, he found himself hanging in mid-air only metres from certain death. He spun slowly in the pink bubble that enveloped him. It floated gently down and touched the sharp tip of one evil looking tooth of dark stone. The bubble bent inwards but did not break. Slowly he started to rise again though he was completely immobilised by the spell around him. As he turned to face the top of the ravine he saw, quite clearly among the faces peering over the rim of the cliff, his sister with her wand outstretched.
‘Her reactions were unusually fast.’
‘What?’ said Grady with a start at the voice in his head.
‘Your sister. She had her wand out faster than the elf. She knew what was about to happen before even he did. And he is very good indeed.’
‘How … I mean, who …’
‘You know who I am,’ said the voice.
‘But you’ve never spoken to me like this!’ said Grady.
‘My sister and I have been gone for a long time. It’s tiring to talk even now, but something like this gives you more energy. I must go. Can you remember my name?’
‘Hephaestus,’ said Grady quietly.
‘Yes. But call me Hep. I’ll be back …’ The voice trailed off to a whispering breeze as Grady found himself floating over the edge of the bridge.
Niamh held her wand out stiffly. Her face was white with fear and concentration as she brought the bubble back to the cliff top. It winked out as she lowered it to the ground and Grady fell to the grass beside the path.
‘You IDIOT!’ yelled Niamh, picking her brother up and jabbing him with her wand. ‘Don’t you ever learn! Nothing here is what it seems, remember? Stop and THINK for once. You … you … MORON!’
Grady had been backing away from the onslaught, much to the amusement of everyone else. He found the verbal ear bashing as bad as the fall he had just endured, but was even more surprised when his sister then threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly.
‘Don’t ever do that again. I t
hought I’d lost you.’ The thoughts arose clearly in Grady’s mind directly from his sister.
‘He spoke to me.’
Niamh stepped back but held her brother by the shoulders still. ‘Hephaestus?’ came her thought.
Grady nodded.
‘Persephone spoke to me too.’
‘They are getting stronger.’
‘I’m scared,’ said Niamh. Grady saw the truth of those words in his sister’s eyes. It was one thing to hear voices in your head. It was another thing to start having conversations with them.
‘We should be.’
Niamh nodded and dropped her hands from Grady’s shoulders. The connection was lost.
‘Thanks,’ said Grady. ‘I guess I owe you one.’
‘Another one, you mean,’ she said, smiling.
‘There will come a time when your sister won’t be around to cast that spell,’ said Murdock, striding towards them with a stern look on his face. ‘Are you hurt?’
‘No. I’m fine thanks,’ said Grady, with an attempt at meekness. ‘What was that?’ he said, pointing at the illusory stone bridge.
‘Another safeguard for the castle,’ said Murdock. ‘Come look,’ he said, turning back to the brim of the chasm. ‘It’s similar to the moat charm at the Dragon’s Lair but this one is, as you have discovered, quite deadly.’
‘How do we cross it?’ asked Niamh.
‘You need to know the counter-spell,’ said Murdock, dropping to one knee at the edge of the path. ‘Watch closely.’
The elf pulled out his wand and placed the tip in the edge of the path. The bridge shimmered and a ripple ran through it from edge to edge.
‘Try it now,’ said Murdock, smiling.
Grady stretched a foot towards the place where he had only moments before plunged through. The flagstones were now as solid as they looked. Grady still appeared unconvinced. ‘Got that spell ready again?’ he said to Niamh, who nodded in return. With a big breath Grady turned and jumped out onto the bridge, landing with a thump on a solid and unyielding walkway.
‘Satisfied?’ asked Murdock.
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