“She has a friend she misses,” said Foss.
“Send for the friend if you wish,” said Kyreth, impatient with the conversation. “Now leave me be. I must think.”
Foss bowed and went out. Kyreth turned back to his Scrolls, searching for the right question.
~
A few days later, Eliza sat with her legs straddling a sturdy upper branch and her back against the trunk, high in the old oak tree by the lake. Her crushed arm was in a splint, but she could climb one-armed. She had not asked if it would heal, if it would ever be useable again, a proper arm.
A little ways below her, Charlie Ash lay on his back across two branches, the shadows of the leaves leaving dark patterns on his face as the light faded. She had not spoken of the incident at all since it happened. Foss was more subdued than usual in their morning sessions, Kyreth brooding and distracted in the afternoons, and she felt the shadow of it hanging over them all, but they said nothing and nor did she. She did not want to talk about it. She did not want to think about it. There were no words to express what had happened; her mind stuttered and stalled when she remembered that thing coming at her across the water, or its heart steaming in her hand. And so how could she tell Charlie? What could she possibly say? Her face flushed and she avoided his eyes when she told him that she had fallen down the stairs. He raised his eyebrows and said nothing.
Yesterday she and Charlie had begun building a fort in the tree, raiding the woodpiles by the stables for planks that served their purpose. Charlie had found a hammer and nails somewhere and they had hammered a few boards in place to create a platform halfway up the tree, hidden among the thick leaves. There they had set about drawing plans for the rest of the tree fort, which was to be a multi-leveled intricate palace all of their own, invisible from outside, at least until the leaves fell. In spite of her arm, Eliza worked on the tree-fort with a ferocious zeal. Now, tired and listless from their efforts, they rested, not speaking. They could hear the chanting of the Mancers rising up from the Inner Sanctum.
Charlie was tearing leaves off the branches and letting them flutter down to the grass below.
“I know you nay fell down the stairs,” he said at last.
Eliza’s jaw tightened involuntarily. She looked up at the wisps of white cloud drifting slowly across the still-blue sky. Such a quiet day, such an ordinary sky, and yet to her now the entire world felt like a thin façade over something dark and horrible and deadly.
“It’s something about Magic, aye,” he continued. “You dinnay want to tell me because you think I’d nay understand. You were trying to do something difficult but you did it wrong and hurt yourself, I spec.”
“Think whatever you want,” said Eliza, with a sudden hot rush of anger. “I dinnay care.”
“You were more fun before,” he shot back at her. “I had to show you everything when you first came here, aye, but now you think you’re really a Sorceress and that makes you better than me or some mess.”
“That’s nay true!” cried Eliza. “And will you stop tearing leaves off the tree? It’s a living thing, aye!”
“What do you care?”
“Maybe I am better than you,” she continued, her anger carrying her along like a powerful current. “Least, I dinnay go around chucking stuff at birds and tearing plants apart! I mean, what is the matter with you? Why do you always need to be destroying something?”
Charlie swung down from the tree and took off towards the south wing.
“Charlie!” Eliza called after him. But she found her eyes pulled away from the boy running and drawn instead to the dark wood in the northwest corner. A bolt of pain tore through her arm.
~
Kyreth sat in the Main Cell of the Inner Sanctum, bathed in light. The chanting of the Mancers brought power to him the way rivers fed the ocean. He had learned all he could from the Scrolls. The intruder was not a being of great power, and yet somehow it walked among them and they did not recognize it for what it was even when they looked at it. Obviously a spell was in place to hide the truth from them, but they had determined that it was neither a spell of invisibility nor of disguise. It remained that the spell must have been upon the Mancers, clouding their understanding or sight in some way. Such a complex spell, particularly one that resisted all their efforts to uncover it, required great power. He did not doubt that it was the work of that fiend in her icy northern prison. For several days the Mancers had been building a spell of Deep Knowing, which was culminating now.
The Mancers drew upon the power of water and the power of fire, the power of the ore in the earth, the power of the trees of the earth, the power of the earth itself. All this they drew into themselves, transforming it into Magic and channeling it into the Supreme Mancer. He rose up out of himself, looking down at the Mancers in the Main Cell. There he was, in the centre. He drew back the physical scene and looked into his inner self. Down below, he opened his mind to the Kyreth that sought to enter. The spell he sought was like a cloud. Suffused with the power of the Mancers, he blew on it gently, carefully. It cleared for a moment and then thickened again. It was just an instant, a glimmer of understanding that was gone as soon as it came, but it was enough to be certain. The spell had been worked upon his memory, all of their memories. Something or someone had been added.
~
The next day, when Eliza went out to look for Charlie, he was nowhere to be found. It saddened her that they had quarreled. She spent the late afternoon hours alone by the lake, keeping her eyes resolutely turned away from the northwest corner of the grounds. Involuntarily her mind sometimes threw up an image of the hound’s bright teeth, or the silver beach, and a wave of nausea swept over her. It didn’t help that the medicine she had to drink for her arm every day made her a bit queasy. She sat by the lake feeling sick and lonely and miserable, and the hours passed without her noticing. As the sky darkened, Missus Ash came out looking for her to tell her that her supper was getting cold. Unlike Charlie, she hadn’t asked Eliza any questions about her arm. Perhaps she already knew what had happened. It was hard to say what Missus Ash knew.
“What are ye doing sulking out here past suppertime?” asked Missus Ash. “And where’s Charlie got to?”
“We had an argument yesterday,” said Eliza.
“Utterly trivial, I’ll wager,” said Missus Ash. “No doubt he’s sorry but too proud to say so, aye. Now, come on inside. You’ve a visitor waiting, Miss Eliza Tok!”
“My da!” cried Eliza, brightening immediately.
“Lah, ‘tis nay he,” said Missus Ash. “Forgotten her name now. Very pretty little girl, aye, your age I reckon. A friend from school, praps?”
Eliza hardly dared believe it. She ran back towards the south wing with Missus Ash puffing behind her and burst into the kitchen. There was Nell, sitting by the hearth and swinging her legs, looking about her with wide, sparkling eyes. The two girls stared at each other for a beat, and then Nell leaped to her feet and Eliza rushed to embrace her.
“Your arm!” exclaimed Nell, hugging her. “What happened to you?”
Eliza looked at her friend, her bright curious eyes, lips curved in an anxious smile, and didn’t know where to begin. Was she even the same girl she had been a few weeks ago? But Nell was still Nell, and this was reassuring. Perhaps things had not changed so very much after all.
“I’ll tell you about it later, aye,” she said, and Nell nodded her head eagerly. “But Nell, what are you doing here?”
“A Mancer came,” said Nell, nearly bursting with excitement. “For me. To my house! The mayor came with her and they told my parents I was coming to stay with you for the rest of the summer to keep you company. Just told them, aye, nary asked, and my parents nay dared to say a thing. They just sat there staring like this!” Here Nell did an impression of slack-jawed amazement that made Eliza snort with laughter. “The whole summer, Eliza! They made me breathe in some funny powder, aye, and next thing, I woke in your room with Missus Ash. I cannay believe this! I cannay
believe it!” She looked around the kitchen and then glanced at Eliza’s arm again. “Lah, are you...is everything okay? Are you really learning Magic?”
“Kind of,” said Eliza uncertainly.
“Come sit over here, chickens,” chimed Missus Ash. “It’s late, and I reckon you’re both half-starved, aye. Come now, eat up. It’s split-pea soup.”
Nell did most of the talking over supper, filling Eliza in on all the island gossip and news about her oldest brother’s latest girlfriend, Marti. Listening to Nell chatter away easily, Eliza felt a deep surge of gratitude and love. Of course Nell knew better than to press her for anything right away. She would wait until Eliza was ready to tell her.
After they had eaten supper, Missus Ash took them up to Eliza’s room and they took turns washing at the sink. Lying in the huge bed with the light off and Smoky purring at their feet, Eliza started to tell Nell about the things that had happened to her since the Mancers had snatched her from Holburg. As soon as she began, she found it all pouring out of her in an unstoppable torrent. She told Nell about what she had seen in Kyreth’s study while he read to her, about her mother’s portrait and the truth about her mother’s death, the Xia Sorceress, the intruder, the siren, the barrier star, the strange new routine of her days, her failed lessons with Foss, her father’s visit, and at last, heart hammering in her chest and eyes squeezed shut, she told her friend about that awful day and the hound of the Crossing.
When she had finished, there was a long silence. Eliza felt as if her heart had stopped. She could not open her eyes.
“Oh, Eliza!” Nell breathed at last. “It’s just...the whole thing is just...prize!”
Relief flooded over Eliza, and she burst out laughing. It was so typical of Nell, of course, to see these horrors as a great adventure, and somehow it made her feel a thousand times better.
“What’s so funny?” asked Nell, poking her. “Stop laughing. Eliza, this is amazing. The Xia Sorceress is after you!” Nell said this as if it were the greatest privilege anyone could enjoy, which just made Eliza laugh harder.
When she was at last able to speak again, she said, “Kyreth doesnay like people to call her that.”
“But everyone calls her that, aye,” said Nell.
“I know,” said Eliza. She yawned, suddenly terribly tired.
Nell cried imploringly, “You cannay be tired yet! Tell me more! What did it feel like? When you, lah, you killed that monster!”
“It felt like a dream, aye,” said Eliza. “Like it was nay really me doing it. My arm just...did it on its own, or something.”
“Prize,” breathed Nell, and Eliza giggled again.
It was long after midnight when they drifted off to sleep in the middle of a whispered conversation, and Eliza slept better than she had in weeks.
~
The next day Eliza was excused from her lessons, much to her surprise. Directly after breakfast she and Nell headed straight out onto the grounds with Smoky trotting along behind them.
“I wonder why they brought you here,” wondered Eliza out loud. She had been so happy to see Nell the night before, it hadn’t occurred to her to question it.
“I spec they dinnay want you to be lonely,” said Nell, gaping around her in amazement. “So they cannay be all bad. Where is this Charlie you were telling me about? Is he handsome?”
Eliza shrugged, feeling suddenly shy. “I spec,” she mumbled. “We’re on the outs, aye. Because I wouldnay tell him what happened to my arm.”
“Jealous,” said Nell dismissively.
“Am nay,” said Charlie, behind them. Both girls shrieked and spun around. Charlie chortled, pleased with himself.
“You scared off the cat, aye,” said Eliza, looking around for Smoky.
“I didnay scare him,” said Charlie. “He just smelled something more interesting. You must be the famous Nell, aye. Am I ever tired of hearing about you!”
“Then Eliza’s nay telling the right stories,” said Nell, with a self-conscious little hair toss. “And I think you are jealous that she can do Magic. The Ancients know I am.”
Charlie laughed at that, and Eliza thought a little sadly, he’s going to be smitten with her just like everybody is. Well, it wasn’t Nell’s fault that she was so pretty and charming. Besides, why should she care what Charlie thought of Nell?
“Come on,” she said, to shake these confused thoughts away. “Let’s race to the oak tree.”
“Where’s the oak tree?” asked Nell, but Eliza and Charlie had already taken off in the direction of the lake. Nell chased after them. Eliza was slowed by her arm, which twinged when she ran, and Charlie reached the tree first.
“You may be the formidable Shang Sorceress who can rip the heart out of a poor defenseless pup of the Crossing,” said Charlie, “but I’m still faster than you are, aye!”
“How did you find out?” demanded Eliza, too taken aback to point out that she had won more of their races than he had.
Charlie shrugged and smirked.
Nell came panting up to the tree and looked up at the beginnings of the fort.
“Did you two build that?” she asked.
“Aye. You can help us with it if you want. We could use an extra pair of hands,” said Charlie cheerfully, with a sidelong glance at Eliza.
Eliza was disturbed but decided not to press it. So he knew. It didn’t really matter. The whole thing seemed less terrible, anyway, now that she had told Nell. He had probably just gotten it from his mother, who always seemed to know everything that was happening. At least he was speaking to her again.
“I want to explore this place,” said Nell. “Nay build a tree fort!”
“We could go to the aviary,” suggested Eliza. “Or the Portrait Gallery! That’s the best place, aye!”
“How about the dungeons?” said Charlie casually. Immediately he had Nell’s undivided attention.
“Dungeons!” she cried. “Eliza, you didnay tell me there were dungeons!”
Eliza felt a bit like she’d lost some kind of unspoken contest but pushed the feeling away. If Charlie wanted to show off for Nell that was fine. She was curious to see the dungeons too.
~
If Charlie had hoped that Eliza’s pretty friend would be frightened by the dungeons, he was disappointed. The only thing that frightened Nell was the prospect of an uneventful life spent in Holburg. A visit to the dungeons of the Mancers, by contrast, was a positive treat. He took them to the north wing and directly down a spiraling stone staircase that tunneled deep underground.
“I wonder why it’s so easy to get in,” mused Eliza. “We dinnay even have to conjure a door.”
“They’re nay trying to keep anyone out,” said Charlie. “The point is to keep prisoners in, aye. And they use barriers for that. The thing is, this place is empty most of the time.”
“How do you know?” asked Nell, always skeptical of a know-it-all.
“I hear things,” said Charlie coolly.
At last they came to the bottom of the stairs. It was so dark they couldn’t see anything at all. Undeterred, they stumbled in single file through the maze of long, narrow, pitch-black corridors and cold stone rooms without doors or locks. In the smothered silence of the dungeons their breath and footsteps seemed unusually loud.
“Here!” said Charlie suddenly in a clear, cheerful voice which made them jump. His voice echoed around them and they realized they had entered a large cavern.
“What is this place?” asked Nell. The question bounced back at them from the ceiling and walls: is this place, is this place, is this place.
“Over here, come on,” said Charlie. They followed his voice to the wall. He grabbed Eliza by her injured arm and she yelped with pain.
“Oh! Sorry! Sorry! Give me your other hand, aye. I want to show you something.”
Eliza gave Charlie her good hand, still wincing as her right arm throbbed. He lifted her hand and touched it to something made of cold iron. It was, she realized as she ran her hand over it, a
n enormous chain, each link half the size of her body.
“For naughty dragons,” said Charlie, very pleased with himself.
“Where do they keep their dragons?” asked Nell.
“Underground,” said Charlie. “There are caverns under the Inner Sanctum, aye.”
“How do you know?” asked Nell again. It struck Eliza that she had never questioned anything Charlie had told her.
“I’ve been spending my holidays here since I was a tiny thing,” said Charlie defensively. “I see things, aye.”
“Okay, you see things, you hear things,” said Nell a bit sarcastically. She grabbed Eliza’s good hand. “Let’s see how big this room is. We’ll go right round the walls.”
Charlie was silent. Round and round the cold wall they went. They came to a gap in the wall, perhaps the entrance, though they couldn’t be sure.
“Is this the way we came in?” asked Nell.
“I’ve nary a clue,” said Eliza. She called out, “Charlie?”
There was no answer.
“Charlie!” Eliza yelled, his name leaping off the walls in a startled echo.
“He’s gone off!” said Nell, appalled.
“You should’ve been nicer to him, aye,” said Eliza, beginning to be afraid. How would they find their way out without him? If Missus Ash couldn’t find them for dinner would she notify the Mancers? Even if they were easy to enter, the dungeons were surely forbidden. They shouldn’t be here.
“We’ll find our own way back,” said Nell airily. “This must be the way we came in, aye. What kind of dragon cell would have two doors? Come on.”
Nell tugged at Eliza’s hand, confidently making off down the corridor.
“Wait, wait, Nell!” said Eliza. “This is nay the same way!” Her voice was still echoing. “The corridors we were in before were so narrow we had to go single file. This is like another cavern, aye.”
“You’re right,” said Nell. She sounded thrilled. “This must be how the dragons get in. They wouldnay be able to fit in that other corridor. Come on!”
“Nell, how are we going to get out?”
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