“So the Afflicted look and act like ordinary people, but in reality they’re being controlled by Scravens,” Ian was saying. “The only way we can identify them is by their blue-tinted glasses—and, oh yeah, they don’t make eye contact.”
Zoé kept thinking about the people in the café and their black whirling eyes. The Afflicted. Her stomach twisted into knots as she had a sudden, awful vision of Tenby, where everyone in town had been taken over by Scravens.
“Dr. Thistle has blue-tinted glasses,” she said. “He’s probably one.”
“Yeah, but ordinary people wear tinted glasses, too,” argued Pippin. “Blue lenses are popular, but not everybody wearing ’em is a Scraven.”
“Good point,” said Ian. “That’s why we need the puzzle pieces to identify the Afflicted, because we need to know our enemy. That means we have to stay undercover: strength lies in secrecy, as they say.”
“Because this is war,” said Pippin.
“We fight to the death.” Zoé raised her clenched fist.
Bron Gilwern was waiting for them, standing before a faded red door outside a derelict building at the end of Tor Lane, THE GASLIGHT COMPANY OF TENBY etched into the archway above her. Zoé thought Bron looked ageless and watchful, like a gatekeeper in a fairy story. Her hair looked even shorter and more brittle than yesterday; today it was flaming orange.
Ignoring their chorus of hellos, Bron turned the key in the lock, bumping her husky shoulder against the door and springing it open. Heart fluttering, Zoé stepped into a cavernous room littered with the remnants of desks and chairs, splintered glass, and machines piled in towering heaps. A thick layer of dust covered everything, and she began to sneeze.
“Smells like dried-up mouse guts,” whispered Ian, wrinkling his nose.
“Petrified frog brains,” said Pippin with a grin.
“Clotted monkey innards,” Zoé snorted.
Their giggling was cut short by a scathing glance from Bron.
The three stood in silence as she lit a black lattice oil lantern and studied the printout of a map, creased and torn and marked with fingerprints. In the half-light Zoé could see spidery lines that she guessed were tunnels, running in the same direction as the streets of old Tenby, and hand-drawn squares that were no doubt the secret entrances.
Bron strode through a door falling off its hinges into a room shrouded in cobwebs, its single window overlooking an alley. For the first time ever, Zoé was wary of going down into the tunnels. What if there were Scravens down there?
“Stay invisible,” said Bron, stuffing the map into her leather jacket. “Not a word out of you.” She unbolted a door so tiny that Zoé wondered if it had been made for goblins.
“I hope there aren’t rats,” said Ian as they stared down into the darkness.
“Eels,” came Bron’s curt reply. “Sea creatures. Wheezy, bumping, soft-shelled things. So watch your feet.”
Oh great, thought Zoé, those sound even worse than rats.
“If a guard turns up, the lantern goes dark. Total silence. Understood?”
The three nodded solemnly. Zoé, feeling a sudden thrill of fear, now understood Ian’s obsession with spydom and danger.
Ducking through the door, Bron ushered them down a staircase that groaned with every step. At the bottom the air felt cool and dank. Zoé was glad she’d worn Wellies (short for Wellington boots) and a wooly jumper (what the Brits called a sweater), as Bron had instructed. They made their way through the cellar, sidestepping picks and shovels, piles of rubble, bricks and dirt, through an archway into a dark, narrow tunnel.
Zoé had always suspected there were ghosts in the tunnels, generations of them, and she sensed their menacing shadows all around. Ghosts could scare the wits out of you, but ghosts could be beaten and their secrets found out, that was what Granddad had told her. And once you knew their secrets, you could take their power away.
But when it came to Scravens, she had no idea what to do. Miss Glyndower’s vial was in her pocket, but how long would the mist keep the Scravens away? After all, there was only a limited amount of it. She felt her skin crawl, picturing them huddled like bats inside the tunnels, wings neatly folded, ready to snatch their prey.
“There’s loads of ancient runes down here,” Pippin whispered, pointing to the dimly lit wall. “You just have to know where to look.”
Zoé noticed for the first time the strange, archaic symbols etched into the stone, barely detectable unless you knew they were there. Although she’d been on guided tours of the tunnels, she’d never heard of any ancient writings, maybe because it had always been dark or, more likely, the runes existed in special tunnels where tourists weren’t allowed. Yet she quickly understood that a hidden world existed inside this labyrinth of tunnels, vaults, passages, niches and staircases, all hollowed out from the earth below Tenby’s old medieval town.
“See here. The language of the Enchanters,” said Bron, shining her lantern across the wall.
The writings were incomprehensible, yet beautiful all the same. Zoé watched Pippin trace her chewed-up fingernails over the symbols, a contemplative look on her face. Pippin, she suspected, longed to be a seeress and interpreter of runes, like Bron.
“This stone you’re after in the Tombs,” said Bron, “what exactly is it?”
“I imagine it to be like the Caldey Stone,” said Ian. “Though quite a bit smaller, according to Miss Glyndower. Our friend Dr. Marriott said he remembers it being twelve fingers’ breadth—that’s nine inches wide.”
Zoé smiled, thinking how animated her cousin always became whenever history topics came up in conversation. After seeing the Caldey Stone last summer, Ian had talked about it nonstop for days afterward.
“No end of Ogham stones in Ireland and Wales, going back to the fifth century,” said Bron. “Right, let’s get a move on. This tunnel runs the length of St. Julian’s; then we take another tunnel up Castle Hill. The Tombs lie beneath Tenby Museum.”
Face set in a stony expression, Bron marched ahead, sloshing through puddles, map rattling in her hand. She boldly navigated the twists and turns, keeping the lantern low so as not to draw attention, long legs moving so swiftly that Zoé had to run to keep up with her.
Soon Zoé’s bones began to feel loose and springy, but her teeth chattered from the deathly cold. They were deep underground, and she thought of Granddad’s tales about townspeople hiding in the tunnels to escape the ravages of the plague. “Poor, tortured souls,” he’d said. “Ach, there was no escaping it. In the end the Black Death was upon them.”
At last Bron stopped before an elaborate wrought-iron gate with a rusted padlock hanging off it, its hinges embedded in stone. Above the gate hung a wooden sign with black lettering: ENTRY FORBIDDEN, PER ORDER OF THE MAYOR OF TENBY. PROPERTY OF THE TENBY MUSEUM AND ART GALLERY, CASTLE HILL, TENBY, EST. 1878.
This is it! Zoé thought excitedly. The Tombs!
“Wake up,” said Pippin in a loud whisper, jabbing her elbow into Zoé’s ribs. “The key, remember?”
Zoé fumbled for Stokes’s key, fitting it into the ancient lock, turning it one way, then the other. Nothing happened. She twisted it again, but the padlock stayed firmly shut, while around her tension filled the air. What if Stokes had tricked them and this was the wrong key?
Bron gave an exasperated snort. “Give it over.”
There was a scraping sound, then the click of tumblers as the key turned in the lock. Suddenly the padlock fell open and they trooped silently through the gate, into a cold shadowy space that reminded Zoé of crypts she’d seen in Ian’s horror comic books.
“The orphaned treasures of Tenby Museum,” murmured Bron, holding up the lantern, illuminating a passage lined with rough-cut stone shelves partitioned into sections, filled with an assortment of objects.
“I wonder how long all this stuff’s been here,” said Zoé. “And why isn’t it in the museum?”
Ian spoke up. “Like Dr. Thistle said, museums often rotate their exhibits, and
some aren’t big enough to display everything at once. So museums like Tenby Museum and like my mom’s keep an overflow room where relics are stored and documented—”
“Be quick and find your stone,” Bron cut in. “I’ll stand guard.”
The search for the runestone was on. Going by Dr. Marriott’s description, Zoé imagined it to be small and elegant as she peered into dozens of shelves, rummaging through the contents. There were globes and charts and atlases, pocket watches and hand-painted Indian silk, gold-plated cutlery, little coffers of spice, inlaid combs, silver fasteners, trinket boxes, blown-glass figurines, turn-of-the-century postcards with foreign stamps, and portraits of Victorian authors in elaborate frames. But nowhere did she discover a stone of any kind, with or without runes.
“I’ve looked high and low,” said Pippin at last. “It’s not here.”
“We’ve scoured every corner,” said Ian. “You know what? I think Stokes sent us on a wild-goose chase.”
“We can’t give up yet,” argued Zoé, though secretly she was beginning to despair of ever finding the runestone.
“Hear that?” whispered Bron, and the lantern went out. Everyone froze. Zoé could hear footsteps echoing down the tunnel.
“Run!” gasped Bron, slamming the gate behind them.
As she sprinted off, Zoé heard an angry voice shouting, “Stop! Thieves!”
Stokes! He’s followed us down to the Tombs, the sneak!
A few yards ahead, two figures advanced through the shadows: security guards in caps and uniforms, waving batons. Zoé felt the blood rush to her head.
“Stop right there,” ordered one. “Don’t move another step.”
“We’re here on urgent business,” said Bron, in a voice that Zoé had never heard her use before: soft but with a persuasive undertone. “We’ve permission to be in the tunnels.”
“No one’s allowed down here under any circumstances,” growled the guard. “Now clear off.”
“Rules is rules,” said the other. “The tunnels are strictly off-limits.” He glowered at them. “Leave now or we’ll bring charges.”
Zoé saw Bron stiffen, arching her back the slightest bit. Turning to face the guards, she shot them each a piercing look. Their faces seemed to go doughy and their eyes went blank; Zoé heard the batons clatter to the floor as the men stumbled back, arms flapping, mouths forming perfect Os.
“Go!” Bron rasped.
Zoé took off, racing through the darkness, hearing a furious wail from a distant tunnel and Stokes shouting, “You won’t get away with this, enchantress—you nor your young thieves! I see through your trickery!”
Racing through the mud and darkness, Zoé continued to hear Stokes yelling at the top of his lungs: “Yer rascally cutthroats!” and a string of other swear words, old-fashioned ones like “yer scurvy scallywags” and “mangy bilge rats,” the kind she imagined pirates using.
At last Bron stopped running and leaned against the tunnel wall. The others collapsed around her, gasping for breath.
“Maybe we set off an alarm,” said Zoé.
“Yeah, I bet that’s exactly what happened, and Stokes came down hoping to catch us red-handed,” huffed Ian, “except the stone wasn’t there.”
“Maybe someone stole it,” suggested Pippin.
“Tell me more about this stone,” said Bron, sounding exasperated. “You’ve been right frugal with details.”
“Well, it belongs to the museum,” said Zoé. “Stokes, the assistant curator, told us it was in the Tombs.”
“Stokes hinted that someone paid Dr. Thistle to hide it,” added Ian.
“Truth be told, I’m acquainted with Stokes, and I wouldn’t put much faith in anything he tells you,” said Bron with a sniff.
“And, oh yeah, it’s called the Runestone of Arianrhod,” said Pippin.
“Oh, that runestone,” said Bron, the suggestion of a smile crossing her lips. “Why didn’t you say? The Runestone of Arianrhod is back in its proper place, in Dragon’s Mouth.”
“Dragon’s Mouth?” echoed Zoé. What was a valuable runestone doing in a cave? “How do you know that?”
“I ought to. I put it there.”
“Huh?” said Ian. “You stole the Runestone of Arianrhod from the Tenby Museum?”
Bron yawned. “Wasn’t difficult.”
“But … why?” spluttered Ian.
“A fortnight ago I was tracing runic letters near the Tombs when I saw Dr. Thistle rush down a tunnel. He was carrying a mallet and an object wrapped in burlap: I knew straightaway he intended to smash it.” Bron relit the lantern. “So I threw a spell over him, simple as that. Knocked the breath from me when I saw it was the runestone he meant to destroy.”
“I knew it,” said Ian. “Dr. Thistle’s colluding with the Scravens!”
Once again they set off, taking a roundabout route to elude the guards. Ordinarily, Zoé would be wild with joy to be going to Dragon’s Mouth—she’d often dreamed of exploring the legendary cavern above the sea—but the thought of possibly encountering Scravens made her stomach ache with dread.
The light from Bron’s lantern sent shadows running up the rocky walls and across the roof of the tunnel. Black and dripping, the passageway echoed with a low, moaning wind. Smaller tunnels branched off; Bron said they led to dead ends, with other passages turning back on themselves, like a maze. For Zoé the moments seemed to stretch into an eternity, and her nerves were fraying fast. She felt that at any minute she could snap.
At long last she heard the muffled sound of waves pounding against the cliffs as the tunnel widened, opening into a vast round chamber with an enormous archway looking out to the sky and sea. From a domed ceiling hung dozens of stalactites. The sloping walls of black stone were veined with white rock that sparkled in the light.
“Absolutely cracking,” breathed Pippin.
“Holy cow,” said Ian, pulling out his camera.
“Put the camera away. Now.” Bron’s voice was sharp. “You’re in a sacred space.”
Zoé watched Ian sheepishly drop his camera back inside the messenger bag. Just as well she’d left her journal at the cottage.
Light, pale and misty, filtered through the great archway that was Dragon’s Mouth.
“It really does look like a dragon’s mouth,” whispered Zoé.
The enormous gap was exactly as she’d imagined, with sharp stones jutting out like giant teeth. She pictured a dragon crawling out of the tunnels, its spiked tail lashing back and forth as it roared across the rooftops of Tenby, shaking the beams in everyone’s houses.
Zoé raced to the archway, coming to a screeching halt when she realized there was no rail or barrier to stop her from falling hundreds of feet down. The edge of Dragon’s Mouth seemed to spill into nothingness. Trembling, she backed away, the rushing waves below echoing in her ears.
“What if the security guards show up?” Ian asked Bron. “Is there an escape route?”
“Not to worry—Dragon’s Mouth is well hidden. This is no ordinary cavern, this is sacred ground going back centuries. There are ancient powers at work here, spirits and spells, all connected to the Runestone of Arianrhod. The lost enchantments were written in this cavern.” Bron lifted her lantern higher. “I’ve been doing research, see, and I found out the Society of Astercôte held their secret meetings and ceremonies here.”
It was the longest speech Zoé had ever heard Bron make. I knew it, she thought, gazing around the vast space, suddenly aware of the old symbols and signs, the mazes etched deep into the walls, some receding into the stone. I knew this place was magic the minute I got here. Coming into sharp relief were fantastical shapes that seemed to float, dreamlike, across the ceiling and down the sides of the archway.
Zoé slowly walked around, running her hands over the inscriptions. “The Astercôtes held their meetings here?” she whispered.
“Aye,” said Bron. “Seems this cavern illuminated and strengthened their ancient practices, especially their powers of alchemy and
time-and-space travel. I discovered, too, that the glass puzzle was hidden here, protected by spells. What I know for sure is that the runes written on these walls were never intended to go outside this cavern.” She pointed to a far wall. “The runestone comes from Wythernsea, and the incantation upon it was written by Arianrhod herself.”
Bron set down the oil lamp, sending shadows leaping up the high, sloping walls, illuminating the far side of the cavern. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, Zoé could see wide, shallow steps leading to a natural stone platform. A mixture of drawings—images of birds and fish—and ancient script covered the wall behind it.
Then the images and writing seemed to fade into the stone, replaced by long, sweeping lines glimmering in gold, creating the outline of a woman with flowing hair. Zoé’s breath caught: Arianrhod! Large and imposing, carved deep into the stone, the goddess held a shield in one hand and an oval-shaped stone tablet in the other.
“The runestone!” shouted Pippin, and the three children rushed forward.
“Nay,” said Bron, striding over to the image. “Not so fast.” She stood before the stone, waving her hands in front of it, and Zoé wondered if she was working some kind of spell. “Right, then. Each of you repeat the gesture.”
Zoé was the last to go, and as her hands glided past the runestone, she felt a pure white energy leap into her fingertips. A cool light passed through her limbs, like a current in her blood, and she felt as if she were a high priestess or a queen—or maybe a goddess.
“The stone is yours, Zoé, to watch over and protect,” said Bron. “For the moment, that is. When the time is right, you must return it.”
Eyeing the runestone with wonder and curiosity, Zoé gently tugged it, surprised at how easily it lifted out of the niche. The stone lay cold in her hands, covered in dust and dirt, thin as slate, just as Dr. Marriott had described. Yet beneath the dirt she could see a dull bluish sheen. There were letters and carvings grooved into the surface—waves and fish and primitive symbols, all with their hidden meanings, if only she could decipher them.
The Glass Puzzle Page 13
