The carriage started moving as soon as Thomas shut the coach door. Five packages wrapped in brown paper lay on the seats, and each had been labelled with a name.
Jessica picked up the one bearing her name. ‘What did he mean by Undercarriage?’
‘That, I assume,’ Thomas said, pointing to the floor where lay a small hatch door about two by three feet. He hadn’t noticed it before, as it blended into the dcor of the coach quite well. A small wooden ring protruded from one end of it.
‘We’re not opening that!’ Merideah said, but too late. Penders had grabbed the ring and given it a tug.
The hatch popped up and the children stepped back, expecting to see the ground rushing past beneath them. Instead, however, they saw a flight of wooden steps leading down.
Penders eyed the steps as they shook from side to side. ‘Well, I’m not going down there.’
Merideah raised an eyebrow. ‘You opened it.’
Suddenly the carriage leapt violently, as if they’d just driven over a large bump in the road, and the children were thrown to the floor.
‘Sorry ‘bout that,’ came Stanwell’s voice from above. ‘The Guards don’t be movin’ fast enough sometimes.’
‘He ran over a Guard?’ Penders asked as he grabbed the seat and hauled himself back up.
Jessica stood and looked around. ‘Where’s Treice?’
They all looked down at the wobbling steps.
‘Oh dear,’ said Merideah. ‘Treice! Can you hear us? Are you OK?’
There was no reply.
Jessica started down the swaying steps. ‘Come on, he might be hurt.’
The rest followed warily. Thomas came last, glad when his feet reached the relatively firm floor at the bottom of the short flight of steps. He found himself in a chamber about twice the size of the coach above, illuminated by four lanterns swinging erratically from the ceiling. Beneath one of these lanterns stood a somewhat shaken, but otherwise uninjured, Treice, though whether his state was due to his fall or the attention Jessica and Merideah were now giving him, Thomas couldn’t tell.
Five doors were set in the wooden walls of the Undercarriage. Penders moved to the nearest one and opened it as Thomas came up behind him. Inside lay a room slightly smaller than the coach above. A tall mirror had been fixed to one of the walls, and a bench with a shelf underneath sat opposite a coat stand that moved a little every time the carriage hit a bump in the road. A single lantern hung from the ceiling.
‘How’s this possible?’ Merideah asked. All five of the children now stood staring into the changing room.
Penders chewed intently on his gum and then shook his head. ‘No idea, but there’s one each. I’ll grab the uniforms!’
Thomas and Penders were the first to appear out of their changing rooms in their new cadet uniforms, although the girls had been the first to disappear into their own.
Penders held up his arms and examined the clothes. ‘I like it!’
Thomas cast an eye over his own uniform. It fitted well and felt comfortable. It had obviously been made to measure. The fawn-coloured tunic hung low over the belt, covering most of the similarly-coloured trousers. Upon his wrists, the cuffs of the tunic were lost beneath bracers of black leather, the latter a complement to the ankle-high black leather boots. Lastly, a long, hooded cloak, also fawn-coloured, with short sleeves hung from his shoulders. Although comfortable, Thomas couldn’t help thinking he looked somewhat strange. He hated dressing up. It was one of the reasons he disliked the various school plays he’d been dragged into as an extra over the years. Standing in front of people was bad enough, but doing so in home-made costumes made it all the worse. Still, the Academy uniform was far from homespun. It had been made well and with good material. He looked at the badge emblazoned on the right breast of his tunic and cloak — the emblem of the ringed serpent; somehow it just seemed fated that the symbol would always be with him.
Treice stepped out of his room, his uniform covering well his tall, athletic frame. He looked around nervously. ‘Are the girls out yet?’ Thomas didn’t think Treice was going to like looking silly in front of Jessica and Merideah. If Thomas was honest with himself, he felt the same way.
As if by some unseen signal, Jessica and Merideah appeared together, but they remained silent about their new outfits, which only differed from the boys’ in that instead of trousers they wore long skirts that ended just above the ankle. After an exchange of glances, they all made their way out of the Undercarriage and back up into the coach. Thomas entered last and shut the hatch door firmly.
‘No “sunny roofs” tonight,’ they heard Stanwell shout incorrectly from above. ‘There be no sun anyway, but the lanterns’ll do.’
‘I hope it’s warm in the Hall,’ said Jessica, as she pulled her duffle coat closer about her. She turned and stared at the lantern on her side of the coach as if it might offer some warmth.
Thomas wasn’t bothered too much. Girls were always cold. It was a little chilly, admittedly, but not as cold as it should’ve been at this time of year — in their world at least. He looked out the window. They’d passed the Inner Gate some time ago and were now on the paved road heading south. Not much could be seen at night-time, but Thomas’s eyes felt drawn to the dark mass of Muddlestump Wood looming in the blackness. It was as if the trees were gathering all the darkness of the world into their unmoving canopies. He shivered and pulled his eyes away from the window to idly examine the coach in the lanterns’ light. His eyes fixed upon a black box above his seat. He’d seen it before, but had never given it much thought; after all, he’d been more interested in what he could see outside of the carriage on his first visit than what lay inside it. Thomas absently flipped down what appeared to be the cover of the box. A panel opened revealing a large dial with various marked positions around it. It currently pointed in the ‘off’ position. A small slide lever, also with settings marked along its length, sat beneath the dial. Merideah, and then the rest, turned to look at Thomas’s discovery.
‘What d’you suppose it does?’ Penders said, reaching a hand out toward the box.
Merideah pushed his arm aside. ‘Don’t touch! Read first. Men never read the instructions!’
Penders scowled as the rest of them looked at the panel more closely. Above the dial were the words SEASONAL SETTING. The various positions around the dial read SPRING, SUMMER, AUTUMN, and WINTER.
‘Fascinating,’ said Merideah as she spun the dial carefully to WINTER. Immediately the coach grew colder and ice started to appear on the windows. Jessica looked as if she was going to freeze on the spot. Merideah frowned and switched the dial to SUMMER at which point a wave of heat swept through the coach. She looked around, confusion on her small face. ‘Where are the heaters?’
‘I don’t see any,’ said Thomas. ‘It’s just sort of warm all of a sudden.’
Penders, determined to have his go, switched the dial to AUTUMN and the heat diminished immediately. The windows were shut, so Thomas was surprised to see a few brown leaves come fluttering from out of nowhere and settle on the floor of the coach.
Jessica pulled at her hair. ‘I wonder how it works?’
‘And I wonder what this does?’ Penders said, as he slid the slider to a position that, too late, Thomas realized read REALLY WINDY. Immediately gusts of air blustered through the coach, scattering Treice’s golden locks about his face.
‘Push that back,’ said Merideah as she pulled Penders out the way and reached for the slider. As she did so however, Treice — who’d been leaning innocently next to the panel — got knocked by Penders and, holding out his hand to steady himself, accidentally spun the dial and pushed the slider all the way to the left.
When the children arrived in the Gardens of Arghadmon they stepped out of a coach filled with thick fog. Interestingly, it never followed them but hung at the door as if not daring to pass.
‘I see you found the ol’ climate control,’ Stanwell said, as he jumped down and disappeared into the coach.
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He appeared a few moments later. ‘Strange, most do be choosin’ “summer” on nights like this, not the pea-souper. Darn ’ard to see the controls when it be on that settin’.’
Merideah gave Penders a hard stare as the fog dissipated in the coach. Penders mouthed a ‘what?’, but she turned away.
‘Well, no time for chat. We do be late.’ Stanwell closed the coach door and motioned them all to follow him to the entrance of Darkledun Hall. The Club members were nowhere to be seen. They must have rushed inside while Thomas and the other children were trying to find the handle to the coach door.
‘There’s a leaf in your hair,’ Penders said to Merideah before he turned and followed Stanwell.
Inside the vestibule a single and rather small torch fixed to the wall gave out its dim light. Thomas walked into something lying on the floor, lost his footing, and landed hard upon it.
‘Oi! Get off! Get off!’ came a gruff voice from below him.
Realizing that he must have tripped over a small boy in the gloom, Thomas sprang to his feet. There on the floor sat not a child but a very short adult. He must have been an adult, for he’d the most tangled and wiry grey beard Thomas had ever seen.
‘I’m sorry,’ apologized Thomas. ‘I didn’t see you there.’
‘No one ever sees old Dugan!’ the small man protested as he pushed himself up. He barely came past Thomas’s waist in height. ‘Tries to help and just gets big people fall on top of him. What sort of thanks is that?’
‘Well I —’
‘The lad said ’e were sorry, Dugan,’ Stanwell interrupted Thomas in a loud voice. ‘So don’t be gettin’ your beard in a bother over it!’
Dugan scowled. Thomas could see him more clearly now his eyes had adjusted a little to the dimly lit vestibule. A large bulbous nose stuck out from Dugan’s wizened face. Shabby, well-worn clothes of brown leather covered the rest of his scrawny frame.
‘What are you?’ Penders asked. ‘I mean —’ he began to say, not wishing to sound rude, but was cut off before he could finish.
‘’E do be a dwarf,’ Stanwell said. ‘And you need to speak up, as ’e do be as deaf as an ol’ ’itchin’ post!’
‘I’m not a dwarf, and I’m not deaf!’ Dugan blurted out, even more annoyed than before. ‘I am a Dwerugh. How dare you call me a dwarf!’
‘It do be the same thing,’ Stanwell said.
‘It do be not!’ Dugan blustered, mocking the other. Thomas thought the Dwarf — or Dwerugh, or whatever he was — might explode, so red was his face.
‘Dugan Buglebeard ’ere,’ Stanwell said, turning to the children, ‘be the Sleeper in the ‘all.’
‘Keeper of the Hall!’ Dugan corrected indignantly.
Stanwell eyed the little man suspiciously. ‘You were kippin’.’
‘I was having a little rest, is all. Poor old Dugan is worked so hard!’
Stanwell rolled his eyes. ‘Yes, yes. Anyways, these young’ns ’ere do be first-timers, so they’ll need a bit of guidin’.’
Dugan shook his head at Stanwell, and then turned to look at Thomas and the others. ‘I can see that. Come on then, we’d best get you inside. Everyone’s waiting, you know.’
‘Waiting?’ Thomas heard Jessica ask, echoing his own thoughts.
Dugan led them over to the inner door, pulled up a small wooden box from near the wall, stood on it, and opened the door just wide enough for a person to slip through. Inside it looked pitch black.
‘Right, everyone be quiet and link hands so you don’t get lost,’ Dugan instructed.
The children did as Dugan said. Penders had the pleasure of holding Dugan’s dirty, stubby, wrinkled (and very hairy) hand — something he didn’t seem to relish by the look on his face as they left the dim vestibule behind and disappeared into the unlit Hall. Dugan led them through the darkness and someone, presumably Stanwell, closed the door behind them. Thomas heard Penders grunt as he hit something hard.
‘Pay attention,’ Dugan whispered in a voice that carried through the whole room.
Penders muttered something under his breath about dwarfs as they continued, and Thomas hoped Dugan really was a little deaf. He didn’t want to be led into a wall. Thomas could see the dim light of the night sky in the windows now, and although the rest of the Hall lay still and dark, he’d the distinct feeling that they weren’t alone.
‘Here you are. Release hands,’ Dugan eventually said. Thomas heard a chair scrape on the floor and then four more. He then felt a small coarse hand upon his own that guided his hand to the back of the chair beside him. ‘OK,’ Dugan said a few seconds later, his voice low. ‘Everyone sit down.’
Thomas heard the others sit down and then silence fell. After several moments he thought he might risk whispering to Penders, but before he could do so he heard a heavy chair scrape on the floor from somewhere on the other side of the room.
‘Welcome, cadets of Darkledun Grange Academy!’ came a cheery voice that Thomas immediately recognized as belonging to the Headmaster. ‘Welcome to the Feast of Fires!’
As soon as he finished these words, four roaring fires sprung up in the Hall’s large fireplaces, torches ensconced in walls suddenly flared alight, and large orange and white candles upon the table tops flickered into life until the whole room was fair lit by the light of many flames. An enormous cheer went up and Thomas swallowed hard. They were surrounded by about two hundred students — or cadets as Trevelyan called them — seated around three long wooden tables. Most of the cadets were a little older than Thomas, some a lot older. They all wore the same fawn-coloured uniforms, the uniform he now wore. But it wasn’t these that caught his attention. It was the cadets themselves.
They sat together in groups based, as far as Thomas could see, on their appearance. One group of red-haired cadets, all with short hair that stuck up as if it’d been gelled that way, occupied a good part of the table in front of Thomas. Quite a few of the younger ones among them had freckles dotting their face, a bit like his own except theirs were ginger. Blue-eyed, blond-haired cadets sat together on the same table, all with sharp features and pointed ears. Behind Thomas, on the back table, a dozen or so cadets sat to attention, their ears and faces very much like the blond-haired group, except that their hair was jet black as also were their eyes. However, by far the largest group of cadets looked quite normal, except for the fact that they all rather coincidentally (or perhaps not) had brown hair. This group occupied a part of the back table, but mainly the middle table where Thomas, his friends, and the rest of the students from the Manor sat.
As the cheers died down Thomas’s attention shifted to the Headmaster. He stood between Gallowglas — now dressed in a beige tunic and a black cloak — and a slender young woman in a brown dress. It took a few moments for Thomas to realize this woman was Miss Havelock. With her hair and her glasses gone, she looked much younger, if no less stern. About a dozen other adults sat at head table near the wall. Some of them Thomas recognized from the Manor, but others he hadn’t seen before. One fellow, sitting next to a lean man with red hair, reminded Thomas of Gallowglas. Large-boned, he was a little bigger than Gallowglas, but his balding hair marked him as a little older. He had a weathered look to his hard face, as if he’d spent his whole life outdoors doing very rough things.
To the large man’s left, and listening intently to Trevelyan, sat Master Fabula, dressed in the same colourful mismatched robes and large black boots Thomas had seen him wearing on his first visit to the Grange. There were no cadets or adults like him, either in skin colour or choice of clothing.
Trevelyan cast his eyes toward Thomas. ‘Now, I have a special announcement. Tonight we have with us five new cadets, youngest of any to have entered the halls of the Academy from the Otherside. Perhaps I could ask them to stand?’
Jessica and Merideah stood, followed by Thomas and the other two boys. Thomas looked around warily. For some reason he felt a little less nervous here than at the Manor, even though a multitude of strange faces
now looked at him.
The High Cap of Darkledun Grange smiled. ‘May I introduce Jessica Westhrop, Merideah Constance Darwood, Treice Montague, Marvin Penderghast — or Penders as he prefers to be known — and Thomas Farrell as honorary cadets of Darkledun Grange? They’ll be joining our younger cadets for one lesson every week. I ask you all to make them especially welcome.’ Trevelyan’s face turned serious. ‘Now, may I remind all cadets, both old and new, to remain within the confines of the grounds, especially now the nights are drawing in; and also to refrain from throwing stones at the Darkledun Guards. They may not feel it, but Master Bellows has to mend the dents. Any cadet caught in the act will receive extra duties at the forge! Now, to happier matters: Let us eat!’
He clapped his hands and immediately a line of green-liveried servants walked in from a small door Thomas hadn’t noticed before and began filling the tables with all manner of wonderful food. A broad smile spread across Penders’ face.
The meal itself, much to Thomas’s pleasure, tasted very nice and wasn’t at all strange. The main course seemed to be some sort of potato and cabbage stew, complemented by barmbrack, a sort of bread. Dessert consisted of a bowl of ice cream, a large toffee apple, roasted pumpkin seeds and bonfire toffee. At about the time that the slower eaters were finishing their dessert, and Penders was finishing his third helping, the High Cap stood and raised his arms for silence.
‘As those who have attended the Feast of Fires before will know, we like to recount the Tale of Avallach at this point every year, so that we do not forget what should not be forgotten.’
Trevelyan paused as if some sorrow was suddenly upon him, but it was soon gone and his normal cheerful smile back upon his rotund face. ‘It is my privilege, therefore, to introduce our teller of tales for this evening’s recounting — Master Fabula!’
And with those last words Master Fabula stood and gave an ostentatious bow to a cacophony of clapping and cheering cadets that continued until he reached the nearest fireplace and stepped up to the small stone dais that fronted it. The final claps fell silent as Master Fabula raised his wide-sleeved arms and all the candles and torches went out, leaving the room lit only by the light of the four fires.
The Serpent in the Glass (The Tale of Thomas Farrell) Page 18
