by Lari Don
Walking through the bright evening to the dark forest, Helen’s shoulders relaxed. She knew who she was with the fabled beasts. None of them needed to prove themselves with a solo; they all played completely different parts.
She strode along the path, whistling the last movement of Professor Greenhill’s composition.
As she concentrated on the tempo, and on mixing other people’s parts with her own, she didn’t see the lean bodies creeping along beside her just inside the forest edge, flashes of ash, steel and black fur showing through gaps in the trees.
She stepped into the clearing, whistling the last few bars. As she pulled the music up through its crescendo, she saw Lee staring at her, his eyes blazing, his right arm wrapped round the broad trunk of the beech tree as if he was trying to stop himself leaping off a cliff. His cloak was fluorescent and his boots were twitching on the ground.
Helen stopped whistling abruptly.
Lavender swooped down to her. “Don’t whistle that. Not here.”
“Why not?”
“You don’t want to draw the faeries’ attention with that music. Not any music.”
Helen looked around. Lee was now leaning calmly against the tree. Sylvie was lying, paws loose, on the ground. Lavender was bobbing in the air in front of her. “Where’s Sapphire?”
“A few minutes west of here,” the fairy said. “She can’t take off from the edge of the forest before darkness falls; it’s too close to your lodge. We’ll walk to her.”
Sylvie leapt enthusiastically to her paws, with no sign of a limp, though the bandage was still secure on her front leg. She smiled toothily at Helen.
Helen wanted to smile back, to build a stronger friendship with the wolf, but she couldn’t forget the eyes she’d seen last night.
“Sylvie, after I bandaged your leg, did you follow me home?”
Sylvie shook her pale grey head.
“Then why did I see wolf’s eyes behind me?”
Sylvie didn’t answer.
“Who was following me, Sylvie?”
Sylvie still didn’t answer; now she wasn’t meeting Helen’s eyes.
Lavender said sternly, “Sylvie, are your brothers stalking Helen?”
Sylvie snarled.
Lavender pointed her wand at the wolf’s snout. “You fools! That’s the fastest way to force a human into the arms of the faeries! With a wolf pack behind and a faery mound ahead, what do you think a human child will choose?
“Call your brothers off, Sylvie, or you’ll get no more help from me or Helen.”
Sylvie growled at her.
Lavender raised her tiny voice. “Of course we’re helping! And you can’t do this yourself! One pack of wolves, against all the faeries at the King’s command? You know you would lose. But Helen has a skill the faeries value; she has a power over them that none of us have. Work with her and you might just win.”
Sylvie barked and grunted, then stalked off to the edge of the clearing and started scratching her sides dismissively.
Lavender turned to Helen. “Sylvie is worried that we’re trying to save the child and the musicians, but not her forest. That we’ll fetch the faeries’ treasure for them, but not drive them away. She won’t call her brothers off, but she will keep them at a distance for as long as she thinks we have a chance of defeating the Queen.”
Helen shivered at the thought of walking through the forest with a pack of wolves watching her. “Do her brothers listen to her? Will they keep their distance if she tells them to?”
Lavender laughed. “Yes, they listen to Sylvie, if they don’t want chewed ears and bitten muzzles! The alpha wolf in a pack is not always the biggest male. It can be the cleverest, fastest female.” She spoke as loudly as she could, and Helen saw Sylvie’s hackles relax as she heard her friend’s description of her.
So Sylvie led the way towards Sapphire, with Lavender fluttering above her head.
Lee and Helen followed, along paths edged by bushes heavy with blaeberries and the long stems of buttercups. Lee walked slower than usual, so they fell behind, losing sight of the wolf’s high waving tail.
“Lee, what’s making you nervous?” asked Helen.
“I’m not nervous.”
“Yes, you are. Your waistcoat was decorated with peacocks when we left the clearing, now it’s covered in flocks of crows! Are you nervous about the castle?”
“No.”
“The dragon flight?”
“No!”
“What then?”
Lee sighed. “I’m about to step out of my world into yours, to take a human’s side in a faery bargain. The Queen will not be forgiving if she finds out. But my King said I must help you, so that’s what I’ll do.” He made an effort to smile. “However it affects my waistcoats!”
“Your King said you had to help me! Me specifically? He had heard of me?”
“Yes, he has heard of the healer’s child and bard, and he doesn’t want you to fall into the Queen’s hands.”
“Does he like music?” Helen asked lightly, wondering if it was safer to play for the King than the Queen.
“He loves music.” Lee looked at her seriously. “He loves it, though he can usually control his greed for it. But it wouldn’t be wise to tempt him. Or me.” He walked off, his steps fast and determined again.
Helen remembered the look on Lee’s face when she had been whistling and kept quiet for the rest of the walk.
They came out of the trees on the northern side of a small hill, where Sapphire’s take-off would be hidden from the summer school. Sylvie and Lavender were already on the dragon … and they were all laughing.
The fairy’s giggles, the wolf’s howls and the dragon’s snorts were getting hysterical, as they tried to stop the wolf’s hairy legs and clicking claws slipping down the dragon. Sapphire kept extending her wings to catch Sylvie as she slithered off.
Helen laughed too as she climbed up. She sat behind the wolf, wrapping her arms round the hairy ribcage to hold Sylvie steady. Then she used one hand to hold onto a silver spike and her legs to grip the dragon’s scaly sides. Lavender settled on her shoulder. Lee climbed up behind her.
“Anyone want me to sing ‘Over the Sea to Skye?’” Helen called as Sapphire took off, then laughed as everyone, including the faery behind her, yelled back, “No!”
Chapter 11
Dunvegan Castle loomed over Helen as she got ready to break the law.
Not a magical law.
Not a school rule, nor a family rule.
But the law. The law that says you don’t break into other people’s homes and steal from them.
Why was she doing this? To save a small boy she hardly knew? To save herself from playing music she loved, to an audience that would really appreciate it?
“Second thoughts, healer’s child?” asked Yann. He’d been waiting for the dragon and her passengers on the beach under the towered and turreted castle.
For all its fancy bits, Dunvegan didn’t look like a fairytale palace, nor a rich man’s mansion. Dunvegan was a fortress, built to fend off other clans and interfering Scottish kings, as well as faeries.
“Second thoughts?” Yann repeated.
“No. Let’s go.”
The first and strongest defence was the high sheer rock on which the castle was built, with a stone wall all round. If you didn’t want to approach the solid front door over its narrow bridge, you had to scale the cliff at the back. And if you didn’t have the key to the small gate in the outer wall, you were left clinging to the hard rock, above a stony, seaweed-slippy beach.
The rock had defeated the MacLeods’ rivals, the MacDonalds, for centuries. But the MacDonalds had never arrived by dragon.
Sapphire took only four beats of her huge wings to lift Yann up and over the wall. Then she came back down for Helen, Lavender, Sylvie and Lee.
They landed on a grassy space overlooked on three sides by the tall walls of the castle, its long narrow windows and its high square towers. Behind them was the defen
sive wall, cut low in places to hold the cannon that still pointed outwards, guarding against attacking ships.
But the three sides of the castle didn’t box them in; the walls weren’t built at right angles. They opened at the wide angle of a stage set or a soaring bird’s wings. The glow from Sapphire’s throat gave the smooth brown walls a golden sheen.
There was only one door from this gun-court into the back of the castle, an ordinary black back door, leading into a modern extension built against the castle wall to their left. The extension was just one storey high. A narrow staircase with railings led up from the gun-court to its flat roof.
“That way,” Helen pointed. “If we go up that staircase, across the roof and through that middle window into the drawing room, we’ll be right beside the flag.”
Lavender looked astonished. “Do you have a finding spell, human girl?”
“No!” Helen laughed softly. “I have the guidebook! There’s a big box of Skye tourist information in the lodge.” She pulled a glossy booklet from her pocket.
Yann took charge. “Sapphire will stay here on guard. The rest of us will make our way to the window Helen has identified. If it’s locked, Lavender will open it using her gentle magic. If that doesn’t work, I’ll kick it in. We go in, grab the flag and get out as fast as possible. Sapphire will fly all of you to Dorry Shee and I’ll come back overnight.”
Yann strode towards the staircase, elegant, powerful and completely in command of this quest. He looked a little less commanding when the width of his horse chest got stuck in the slim gap between the iron railings before his hooves had climbed up the first step.
He backed away, not meeting anyone’s eye, letting Helen climb up instead. Sylvie trotted on her silent paws at Helen’s heels. Lavender flew straight to the window.
Yann took a few steps back. Helen wondered if there was space for him to get up enough speed to jump onto the roof. Then she noticed Lee standing miserably on the grass, halfway between the dragon and the staircase. “Lee,” she whispered loudly, “aren’t you coming up?”
He pointed at the black metal railings. “I can’t fit myself between those iron spears any more than the horse can.”
Yann muttered something under his breath, then trotted over to Lee. Yann bent his head down, Lee tipped his face up and there was a short conversation. Neither boy looked happy about it, but they must have reached an agreement, because Lee pulled himself up onto Yann’s back and put his arms round Yann’s waist, while Yann stood tensely still, like Helen’s little sister trying not to squeal when a bee buzzed round her. They really don’t like each other, Helen thought.
Yann backed right up to the cannon in the wall and burst into a sudden gallop, thundering straight for the back door. Halfway there, he pushed off the ground and launched into the air in a smooth curve. The roof creaked as his weight hit.
Lee slid off Yann’s back almost before all four hooves were on the roof. He bowed low, wafting his cloak in a curve as smooth as the centaur’s leap. “Thank you, noble steed.”
Yann grunted. They moved as far from each other as the narrow space allowed.
Lavender was flying slowly round the window. Sylvie was on her hind legs, sniffing around the frame.
Lavender said, “The window has faded magical protections which I could sneeze away and an ordinary human latch that I can open with a bit of effort.”
Sylvie yipped. Yann turned to Helen. “There are scents of many humans in the room, but Sylvie doesn’t think there are any hot smells. She thinks we’re safe, but she can’t guarantee it.”
Helen nodded. “There must have been busloads of summer tourists through that room today. I’m sure it’ll be empty now, so let’s get going.”
Lavender hovered in front of the window, drawing the shape of each pane with her wand. Her hand was moving fast when she started at the top, then got slower and heavier, as she worked her way down. Finally she sat, exhausted, on the sill. The window was still shut.
Lee snorted from the edge of the roof. “Can’t you open it? So much for your wiser ways!”
Lavender smiled. “I’m far too wise to do the heavy lifting. That’s what I have centaurs and humans for. I’ve unlocked it. Someone else can open it.”
Helen dashed forward, worried Yann would be tempted to use his hooves. She shifted the tired Lavender to the next window sill, then grasped the bottom of the window. She jerked it upwards, sliding the lower half of the window smoothly behind the top half. Sylvie leapt in, grey fur brushing against Helen, and immediately started sniffing around.
Helen climbed over the sill and Yann handed Lavender to her. He shook his head when Helen invited him in. “The gap is too small,” he pointed out, “but I will be just out here. If you need me inside, I can kick the top panes away.”
“No,” she whispered. “We need to be quiet.” She looked past him at Lee. The faery put his hands on the stone sill, leaning forward to put his head through the gap.
The nearer his face got to the space inside the window frame, the slower he moved. By the time his face was almost in the room, Helen could see the skin pressing against his skull, like he was pushing his flesh against glass rather than air.
He tried three times, then took a wobbly step back, shaking his head, his eyes watering, his skin grey.
“Iron,” he gasped. “Nails in the frame. I can feel them. Dozens of them. It was built to keep me out. I just can’t get in.”
Yann looked at him with contempt. “Does it hurt, Lily? Is that what’s stopping you?”
Lee laughed. “Yes, it hurts. But even if I was prepared to walk through fire, with splinters up my fingernails and skewers in my chest, I couldn’t get past it.”
“Coward! You should always fight past pain.”
“Could you jump to the top of that tower,” Lee pointed five or six storeys above them, “just by ignoring the pain in your legs from the speed it would need?”
Yann shook his head reluctantly.
“Then believe me, it’s not fear of pain that’s stopping me. I just can’t get through it. It is a wall built to keep me out; dogs and flowers and children can skip through it, but I can’t.”
He looked at Helen. “Be careful in there, girl, the defences may not end at the window.” Then he staggered to the corner of the roof, far from the window frame and the iron railings, and sat down, head in his hands, shoulders slumped.
Helen turned and walked into the room. Sylvie was nosing round the skirting boards, and Lavender was casting balls of light up to the ceiling.
It was surprisingly pink. A drawing room, the guidebook said. With a fancy rug, deep pink armchairs, and little varnished tables. Helen had expected swords on walls, shields over doors and possibly roast ox in the fireplace. Instead the fireplace was filled with dried flowers. Surely there couldn’t be any danger in such a girly room.
A sudden groaning roar erupted from the doorway to her left. Helen jumped back, but when Sylvie rushed forward, Helen followed at her tail.
She didn’t know what she expected to see. Clan warriors yelling a war cry as they defended their ancestral banner? A mythical monster patrolling the castle? If it was either of those things, why was she running towards it?
Sylvie streaked ahead. Lavender followed, throwing white light balls so fast they trailed glitter in the air. They found themselves in a small corridor. Empty. Silent. It filled again with a horrendous eerie groan.
Sylvie was growling, ears flat to her head, raised fur sharp on her high haunches. Lavender was spiralling in the air, trying to find an enemy.
Helen stood still and looked around carefully. She saw a sign by an opening in the wall:
DUNGEON. THIS DUNGEON WAS DUG OUT OF THE LIVING ROCK WHEN THE CASTLE WAS BUILT. THE CLAN CHIEFS THREW ENEMIES AND THIEVES INTO THE PIT AND LEFT THEM HERE TO STARVE. WE CAN ONLY IMAGINE THEIR GROANS OF DESPAIR AS FOOD SMELLS FROM THE KITCHEN REACHED THEIR NOSTRILS THROUGH THE TINY WINDOW CUT INTO THEIR DARK CELL.
She glanced in through th
e dungeon doorway. A metal grille covered a hole in the stone floor. A crumpled pile of clothes at the bottom of the stone pit must represent a prisoner in despair. A loudspeaker just above her head let out another groan.
She laughed. “It’s just sound effects for tourists. Not a warrior or a monster.”
They headed back towards the drawing room, Sylvie’s tail curving between her legs.
Helen glanced quickly round the room. She wondered if it had been this pink when real prisoners were starving just yards from its fireplace. She wondered what the thieves had been imprisoned for stealing. She shivered, then checked the room’s layout against the diagrams in the guidebook.
There were two main doors, one leading to the dungeon and one in the opposite corner leading to the castle’s grand staircase.
There was also a narrow doorway, in the corner beyond the pink chairs. It might lead to the kitchen, she thought, if food smells tantalized the prisoners. Another low door was hidden behind a grand piano in the fourth corner. Perhaps it was a cupboard.
They were alone, in a well-lit room, with a safe exit out of the window and only the groans from the dungeon to disturb them.
It was safe to steal the Fairy Flag.
But at first Helen couldn’t find it.
She knew it was hanging on the wall beside the open window. It was marked with an X on the map in the guidebook. She’d expected to find a banner, hanging from a lance, fringes wafting gently in the breeze from the sea.
Instead, beside the window, the glare from Lavender’s defensively bright light was bouncing off the glass of a large framed picture. Helen walked past it, assuming it was a portrait of an elderly clan chief. When she realized there was no fabric hanging anywhere else in the room, she went back to the picture, shooed Lavender’s light balls away and glimpsed a creamy shape behind the glass.
A ragged sketch of a banner. A thin yellowy piece of material, dotted with red stitches and uneven holes, crushed under glass to stop the breath of tourists wearing it away.
