‘The bells have been coated – sabotaged, you could say – with one of Alexander Brewster’s concoctions,’ Valian told her. ‘It turns people to living stone.’
‘I know,’ she replied in an ominous tone. ‘I found another lab just like this one on the other side of the hall. From the labels, the staff must think that the mixture is ever-shine polish. And that’s not all they’ve done.’ She held up a wodge of papers. The top sheet was printed with a list of numbered addresses. ‘I came across this in one of the offices. Last week, Strassa shipped these identity bells to every undermart in the world. This means that anyone who has entered an undermart in the last seven days will have contaminated their gloves.’
The heavy clutches of dread fell around Ivy’s shoulders. ‘This has got to be part of New Dawn,’ she told Seb. ‘It would only take the sound of an uncommon music box to turn the chemical on everyone’s gloves into powder, and then they’d freeze, like we did. The Dirge would be able to immobilize the majority of uncommoners in the world …’
‘… meaning they could attack the common cities above without anyone trying to stop them,’ Seb said. ‘Ivy, we can’t let that happen!’
The hairs on the back of Ivy’s neck stood to attention as an unsettling voice crept into her ears. It hummed sombrely like a meditating monk, filling her with a deep feeling of emptiness. She knew immediately what it was.
‘Findings Ivy the Sands of Change!’ Scratch announced. ‘Is fast movings; hurry follow Scratch please.’
Communicating through Scratch, Ivy directed Valian and Judy away from the laboratory, through a staff canteen, across a large atrium, and out of the Strassa control centre altogether. They had worked their way back to the mottled-brown rocky tunnels they’d started in when Ivy brought them to a stop. The broken soul inside the Sands of Change had settled in one position.
Ivy tried to pinpoint its location.
Strange …
It sounded like the object was inside the rocky wall just to the left of them. Ivy wondered if there was a secret chamber on the other side. She explained it via Scratch.
‘I can try walking through it,’ Valian said. ‘But just to warn you: I’ve never used the boat shoes to pass through something that thick before, so I don’t know what may happen.’
He took a deep breath before stepping forward. The cool, slippery feeling over Ivy’s skin lasted longer than before, but they eventually emerged into a dimly lit lounge. She tingled with relief, examining the Tudor-style beams running across the ceiling and the tapestries adorning the mahogany-panelled walls. The room was decorated in the style of an old English stately home. Logs had been laid in the cold fireplace and the air smelled medicinal, like bitter herbs. Valian lifted Ivy and Seb down to the floor so that they could use the measuring tape to return to normal size.
‘This is the right place,’ Judy hissed, inspecting a brightly coloured mask and costume dumped on a sofa in the centre of the room. ‘This is the outfit the dancer was wearing.’
‘I wonder where the real Midas is,’ Seb said. ‘The Dirge must have got rid of him in order to assume his identity.’
Ivy fixed on the location of the Sands of Change as Valian handed her back her satchel and Scratch. She could tell that the necklace was close by. ‘This way,’ she told the others.
They padded across the room towards a door in the far wall. Beyond it was a workbench scattered with uncommon equipment: crystal prisms, conical flasks, a Bunsen burner and an alchemist’s crucible. It didn’t exactly fit with the rest of Midas’s decor.
‘This looks out of place; it has to belong to one of the Dirge,’ Valian said in a hushed voice. A lab coat identical to the coats Ivy had seen hanging in the Strassa control centre was draped over the back of a chair. ‘It’s all starting to make sense now,’ he muttered bitterly. ‘After Octavius Wrench read our minds, he must have instructed another of the Dirge to hunt for Rosie and the Sands of Change. Somehow, they discovered the truth about Mrs Bees before we did, and posed as Midas in order to lure her and Mr Rife away.’ He nodded to the lab coat. ‘Maybe the Dirge member knew who Midas was because they work in the control centre. That would explain how they were able to interfere with the bells.’
Ivy examined the items on the table. ‘Looks like they’ve already been trying to fix the clasp on the necklace,’ she said. ‘Come on, the Sands of Change is behind that door.’
Seb and Valian positioned themselves on either side of the door. Behind the melancholy, droning voice of the Sands of Change, Ivy caught a faint whisper and identified the tapestry hanging beside the door as uncommon. ‘Careful,’ she muttered as Seb brushed the fabric with his shoulder by mistake.
‘Hang on,’ he said, frowning. ‘There’s something behind this.’ He heaved aside the wall hanging to reveal a grey stone door engraved with a crooked sixpence. Ivy tensed. It wasn’t the tapestry she’d sensed after all.
‘It must lead to the Hexroom,’ Seb decided. ‘But whose door is it?’
From her coat pocket Ivy fetched the crooked sixpence she’d picked up at the building site and flipped it over between her fingers. With every turn, a new face appeared. She recognized Monkshood’s scaly mask and the two pointed tusks of Blackclaw’s. After a few more turns she found the mask that matched the one carved on the stone door. ‘Judging by the design, I’d say it was … Hemlock.’
Valian’s nostrils flared. ‘I should have known it would be Hemlock behind this! They probably want to finish what they started when they killed my parents.’
Just then, light flickered under the other doorway and they heard a clatter of metallic objects. Ivy reached for her yo-yo. She wasn’t sure what to prepare for if they really were about to fight a member of the Dirge. They’d only survived their encounter with Monkshood at the summit of Breath Falls because he’d chosen to leave.
Valian nodded at everyone, then flung the door open.
Ivy stared as she beheld the space beyond. She had never seen so many gold objects in all her life. Gleaming, ornate swords and pistols decorated the walls; sparkling jewellery, coins and clocks were displayed in cabinets; military flags embroidered with gold thread hung from the ceiling; and a headless suit of gilded armour stood in one corner.
Mrs Bees sat in a chair in the centre of the room, her wrists fastened to the armrests with thin metallic wire. Light glowed around her, blinking on and off like an emergency beacon. With every flash of light, some aspect of Mrs Bees was reverting to Rosie. Her dark hair tumbled down and went blonde. Her skin darkened and the wrinkles disappeared from her forehead and round her mouth. Her scowl smoothed into a wide-eyed look of fright, and her clothes sagged like a collapsed tent around her bony shoulders. She became so scrawny that she was soon able to try wriggling free of her paperclip shackles.
As she did so, a raven-haired person wearing a lab coat stepped forward, grabbed her and tightened her bonds. For a split-second the aggressor’s surgical gloves were peeled back in the struggle. Ivy caught sight of shrivelled, blistered hands – a deformity she had seen before, and it meant only one thing:
It was a member of the Dirge.
Just then, Valian barged through the doorway and charged in. ‘Get away from my sister!’
Valian knocked Hemlock over and they both slammed into a case of jewellery. The glass front shattered, sending precious gems rolling across the floor.
Hemlock twitched. Ivy saw her face – a hawkish nose, pale blotchy skin and hooded brows. Her dark hair was scraped back into a taut bun. She bounced to her feet and pulled out the electric flex she’d used to attack Mr Rife. Valian leaped back as she lashed it towards him. The metal claws in the plug tore splintering holes in the wooden boards.
Her voice, however, was soft and sweet. ‘Stay where you are,’ she warned, moving towards Rosie, who was still strapped to the chair. She held the plug threateningly close to Rosie’s trembling chest. The claws splayed with the sound of a knife being sharpened.
Rosie’s cheeks were wet with
tears, her eyes so wide it looked to Ivy as though she was seeing the world for the first time. ‘Valian?’ she squeaked.
‘Rosie, it’s me,’ he said, his eyes shining. ‘Don’t worry.’
Ivy hoped Valian had a plan. Judy used her camouflage to disappear; Seb was frozen, a drumstick in either hand, waiting to see what happened.
‘Come any closer and I’ll kill her,’ Hemlock assured them calmly.
Ivy couldn’t sense any broken soul within her, so Hemlock must be alive.
‘I have no use for the girl, now that I have this,’ she explained. Dangling from Hemlock’s free hand was the Sands of Change. The pendant was just as Ivy had seen it in Rosie’s photo – a black crystal set in a silver mount. The rope chain was unfastened, the clasp undone.
‘Leave her alone,’ Valian growled, his face contorting with anger.
Hemlock leered. ‘Or you’ll do what? You are no match for me, especially in this room.’ She signalled with her surgical gloves to the hoard of golden objects on display.
Ivy broadened her senses. Almost every item present was uncommon – from the jewelled crowns and awards statues, to the gold bars and Olympic medals. She had a bad feeling that they would all have unfriendly powers.
‘Your parents defied me,’ Hemlock continued. ‘You don’t want to make the same mistake.’
‘You murdered them …’ Valian’s voice fractured. Ivy noticed him squeezing something behind his back.
‘Yes,’ Hemlock declared, lifting her pointed chin. ‘Even after a dose of tongueweed they couldn’t tell me where the Sands of Change was. It wasn’t till they were dead that I finally believed their assertion that they’d lost it through carelessness.’
Valian was shaking. ‘They were my mum and dad!’
Ivy curled her hands into fists, liquid welling in her eyes. Valian’s pain was written across his entire body.
‘They were in my way,’ Hemlock replied simply. ‘I would have poisoned you and your sister also, but your parents wrestled the hemlock away from me and drank the last of it. So, you see, there was nothing left to leave as a trap for you.’
Tears streamed down Valian’s cheeks. Ivy wanted nothing more than to throw her arms around him, but she didn’t dare move. At least Valian knew now that his parents’ death hadn’t been for nothing: they had died to save him and Rosie.
‘Now, let’s see if this device is correctly mended, shall we?’ Hemlock fastened the clasp of the necklace and then swivelled the pendant once clockwise. A beam of shifting sand about the width of a broomstick shot out of it, glowing with golden light. Within the swirling dust, Ivy recognized the shapes of Chinese characters. Hemlock angled the pendant so that the beam moved across the floor towards Seb. Where it touched the boards, it left behind a bizarre trail of changes. In some places the wood appeared rotten or burned; in others it became metal or glass.
Without warning, Judy materialized over Hemlock’s shoulder and snatched the Sands of Change from her grasp. Hemlock jerked with surprise and lashed her electric flex, but Judy dodged the flailing plug before vanishing again.
It took the others a moment to react.
Then Seb smashed his drumsticks and Hemlock was thrown into the headless suit of armour in the corner of the room. Valian ran to Rosie, wrapped his arms around her, and then hurriedly began removing both their shoes. Ivy had seconds to formulate a plan. She couldn’t risk using her yo-yo: a room full of flying golden weapons would be as dangerous for them as it would be for Hemlock.
Cackling with amusement, Hemlock pushed herself upright. There was a fresh cut across her cheek. ‘OK, little lambs. If you really want to fight …’
At her feet, the disassembled pieces of the ancient suit of armour convulsed and reshaped themselves into the body of a huge golden beast. Four strong legs, a barbed tail and two clawed wings formed in quick succession. The individual leaves of gilded metal became scales, covering the belly of a headless medieval dragon.
Ivy edged back as the dragon stretched its wings. Cold sweat trickled down the back of her neck. She saw Rosie move her hands free of her restraints as if they were made of nothing more than wet tissue paper. Valian’s boat shoes were fastened to her feet. Ingenious! He’d used them to enable Rosie to pass through the unbreakable wire in the same way as they allowed him to pass through walls.
With a flick of her wrist, Hemlock turned on them, striking the ground with her electric-cable whip. Valian jumped aside and lobbed a bath plug into the air. Ivy had seen him wield one before; when activated, it behaved like a tiny black hole, sucking in all matter for a short amount of time.
Where the plug landed, a crack of darkness opened and began dragging everything towards it. Ivy dodged aside as a rapier sprang free of its fastenings and sliced through the air on its way towards the maelstrom. She tried to grab the edge of a table to stop herself sliding forward – ‘Humph …’ – and received a blow to the ribs from the dragon’s tail, which sent her spinning.
Her satchel fell open, and Scratch bowled onto the floorboards. ‘Watch out Ivys!’ he cried.
Before she could roll aside, a fan of daggers came loose from the wall above and careered towards her, point first. She shielded her head with her arms as they stabbed the floor all around, sounding like a battering ram. Shaking with fear, she waited for one to strike, but, miraculously, she didn’t feel a thing.
When she looked again, she saw Judy’s bright face hanging over her, wincing. Two daggers had stuck in her ribs and shoulder, but she wasn’t bleeding. There was no time to say thank you as, just then, Valian cried out in pain. Ivy got to her feet as Judy hurried over to help, the Sands of Change swinging in her grasp.
The bath-plug black hole had vanished. The room filled with the repeated crash of metal as Seb battled the headless dragon in one corner and Valian defended Rosie from Hemlock in the other. But, as Judy ran, the tip of the dragon’s wing caught her on the arm with enough force to knock the Sands of Change out of her hand. Ivy watched the necklace fly across the room almost in slow motion. The pendant spun clockwise, and the flowing stream of sand burst from inside.
First, it passed over the headless dragon, which clattered to the floor in a pile of lifeless armour.
Next, Judy leaped to catch the necklace, but the shaft of glowing dust touched her and the pendant rotated yet again. She rolled away, apparently unscathed.
Finally, the sandy beam fell onto Scratch and the pendant rotated twice more. Ivy threw herself towards him, but when she got there the bell had gone and a scrawny little boy with grey eyes and freckles had taken its place. A large white scar ran from his left temple up into his light brown hair. ‘Ivy?’ he asked in Scratch’s high-pitched voice. ‘What be happenings?’
Ivy wobbled. ‘Scratch?’
Overhead, there came a loud whooshing like the blades of a fan, and they saw that the necklace had become tangled in the ribbon of a medal hanging from the ceiling. The dangerous beam of sand spun round the room, creating havoc. It missed Ivy by a few centimetres as it glided over Scratch once more. With a little shriek, he vanished and a bicycle bell reappeared in his place.
Ripping the necklace down, Valian turned the pendant anticlockwise, shutting off the beam of sand. But in doing so he’d left Rosie unguarded …
‘Give the necklace to me or I’ll kill your sister!’ Hemlock was holding Rosie tightly around her shoulders, the jagged claws of the three-pronged plug lifted to the girl’s throat.
Ivy gripped Seb’s hand. She could feel him shaking, but both of them stayed silent.
‘Don’t do it, Valian!’ Rosie squealed. Her voice was determined, but her face shone with fear.
Valian’s body was like stone, his expression unreadable. Ivy had no idea what he was going to do. He’d be protecting thousands of lives if he kept the necklace – including those of her own parents – but he’d also lose the sister he’d spent almost half his life looking for. An impossible choice. Ivy felt her heart might tear in two, whatever he decided.
‘I … I’m sorry,’ he muttered, glancing at Ivy, Seb and Judy. He carefully unfastened the clasp of the Sands of Change before throwing it to Hemlock; it landed by her feet. With Rosie still locked in one arm, Hemlock bent down and scooped up the necklace with her free hand.
‘Now let Rosie go,’ Valian demanded.
Hemlock snickered and held the plug claws closer to Rosie. ‘Foolish children, just like your parents.’
‘PUT THE CHILD DOWN!’ bellowed a voice from over Ivy’s shoulder.
Everyone turned to see Mr Rife standing in the doorway. With his head down, he bull-charged Hemlock, grimacing at the pain in his leg.
There was a creak and a slam. When Ivy looked back again, Rosie had collapsed in a heap on the floor, sobbing.
But Hemlock and the Sands of Change were gone.
Valian threw his arms around Rosie, both of them sobbing so hard they were shaking. Deciding to give them some privacy, the others rushed over to check on Mr Rife.
‘Are you all right?’ Ivy asked as Seb and Judy helped him sit up against a wall. The dark patch of blood on his trousers had grown bigger.
‘I’ll be fine,’ he replied. His gaze flicked to Rosie. ‘She’s OK?’
‘Yes, thanks to you,’ Seb told him. ‘I don’t think Hemlock would have released her if you hadn’t charged in. How did you know where to find us?’
‘I discovered a cufflink in my pram,’ Mr Rife croaked. ‘I assumed that one of you was carrying the other, so I was able to locate you.’ He took a few deep breaths, still staring at Rosie. ‘I … hadn’t really considered what it would mean to have Rosie back and Mrs Bees gone. I’d grown quite fond of the old woman really. If it wasn’t for her, the reputation of my business would still be in tatters.’
Ivy remembered what Valian had uncovered during his research on Forward & Rife’s auction house. It must have been thanks to Mrs Bees that they’d stopped making false claims about the items they were selling.
At the sound of sniffling, Ivy turned to see Valian and Rosie approaching, holding hands. Rosie looked just like her picture, except older – as scrawny as her brother, but shorter, with sloping cheekbones and deep-set dark eyes. Using the belt from Valian’s jeans, she’d fashioned Mrs Bees’ oversized shirt into a dress. Her shiny ice-blonde hair appeared gold as it reflected all the objects in the room.
The Frozen Telescope Page 15
