The Serpent in the Glass (The Tale of Thomas Farrell)

by D. M. Andrews

  ‘Thank you,’ Jessica said to the Fomorfelk. ‘At least there’s one gentleman here!’

  Treice blushed and sat back down.

  Merideah seated herself in front of the tome and breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Well, the library’s big, the aisles are big and some of the books are big too!’

  Thomas read the title of the book: An A-Z of Major Events, Characters, Places and Artefacts in the History of Avallach. It was some kind of encyclopaedia.

  Jessica took a seat next to Merideah, but the book was so large that almost an entire page extended onto Thomas’s part of the table.

  ‘Ah, here’s B,’ Merideah said as she flicked through the heavy pages. ‘Ballads — Ballybogs — Bellibones — Yes, here it is: Blood Parchment!’ She scanned the entry and then tapped her chin in thought. Treice, Penders and Thayer stared at her from across the table.

  ‘Ah, right, yes,’ she began as she prepared to read. ‘The origins of the Blood Parchment are lost in history, but some say it was created by the Humbalgog enchanters before the Bounding was created in order to provide a means to distinguish between the Humbalgogs and Humans who then both inhabited Avallach. The Parchment would reveal a Humbalgog lineage when it came into contact with the blood of the same, but remain blank when the blood of a Human was exposed to it. It is also said to have been able to determine the bloodline of other races then extant in Avallach. The Blood Parchment fell out of use after the Bounding came into existence, and was subsequently lost to history.’

  ‘Well, I guess we’re one hundred percent human, Thomas,’ Jessica said, nudging him. Thomas smiled, but confusion swept through his mind. He felt familiar with the world of Avallach and its people, and a foreigner in his own world of Holten Layme. He couldn’t be fully human.

  ‘What’s this Bounding?’ Jessica asked Thayer.

  ‘It is the border between your world and ours,’ Thayer explained.

  Merideah’s nose twitched excitedly. ‘The “veil of mist” Master Fabula mentioned at the Feast of Fires?’

  Thayer nodded.

  Merideah turned the large pages until she was about half way through the leather-bound tome. ‘Lios was the forefather of the Alfar.’ She continued to the letter S. ‘And Svart was the ancestral father of the Drough.’

  Penders smiled. ‘Well, now that’ll confuse Slayne Dretch. He won’t know whether to like you or hate you!’

  Jessica raised her eyebrows. ‘I don’t think it matters. Slayne dislikes all Halfkin’ — she looked at Thayer — ‘and Fomorfelk. Though I suppose that doesn’t include Thomas and me.’

  ‘He probably hates humans too,’ Penders added as he watched Merideah turn through the pages.

  Jessica shrugged. ‘Probably.’

  ‘Thomas!’ Merideah stared excitedly at the page now open before her. Thomas pulled himself out of his thoughts and looked at the book. They all stared at the page but none with more surprise than Thomas. There before him lay a drawing of his father’s Glass. He reached down to his marble bag and felt the large round shape of the Glass within.

  ‘That looks a lot like it, Thomas,’ Penders eventually said.

  ‘Yes,’ Thomas said, still somewhat dumbfounded. ‘But what’s it doing in here?’

  ‘Perhaps there’s more than one of them?’ Penders suggested.

  ‘Read it, Thomas,’ Jessica said, as she pointed to the small paragraph below the drawing.

  Thomas’s eyes found the short entry on the page beneath the illustration. Gloine Nathair, was the title of the entry, and, in brackets immediately following, it read The Serpent Glass or Serpent in the Glass.

  Thomas looked at Jessica who’d clearly already read it. How could he have known what it was called?

  ‘Out loud,’ said Treice, who could only see the writing upside down from where he sat. Thomas glanced at Miss Parley who was now immersed in a book at her desk some distance away. Treice followed his line of sight. ‘Well, quietly out loud.’

  Thomas placed a finger on the text and began to read. ‘The Gloine Nathair is a unique object’ — so much for Penders’ idea — ‘of which little is known. It is mentioned in the Chronicles of Avallach (Volume I, page 127) as being used by King Avallach’s enchanters in reference to the creation of the Bounding. According to Professor Maltheus Nynth (1701-1788) the “small glowing orb” used by Rufus Marmanstane, last of the great enchanters, and mentioned in a later volume of the Chronicles, is this very same art fact — ’

  ‘Artefact,’ Merideah corrected.

  ‘Artefact,’ Thomas said. ‘If so, the Gloine Nathair also held the power to not only pass, but also to heal Way Gates. Later Alfar enchanters were unable to use the Gloine Nathair and its power was considered spent. It was subsequently stored away in the vault of the Alfar Kings and, as far as anyone knows, remains there to this day.’

  There the text ended. Thomas sat back and pondered what he’d just read. ‘But how’d my father get it?’ He hadn’t realized he’d spoken his thought until Merideah replied.

  ‘It explains why we were able to come through the Way Gate that first night, and why Stanwell and the others have to use that password’

  Merideah was right, but Thomas couldn’t believe his father was a thief. But how did his father come to possess the Glass if it had been in the keeping of the Alfar? Did it belong to someone else? Was someone else looking for it? Was he in danger? He thought about Gallowglas checking his room every night. Did he know about the Glass, or suspect it might be in Thomas’s possession? And why did the book say the Glass had lost its power, that the Alfar enchanters couldn’t use it? He’d used it to enter the Way Gate. He’d seen it glow and felt the life in it. It was far from spent. More than that, Thomas realized, the Glass felt as if it knew it had returned to the place from which it had come. No, the Glass was very much alive.

  — CHAPTER NINETEEN —

  The De Danann

  The Christmas holiday passed all too slowly for Thomas. Even Jessica, after a day or two, seemed more interested in returning to Darkledun Manor than staying in Birch Tree Close. Christmas wasn’t, after all, much to look forward to in the Westhrop household. A single piece of tinsel hung from Mrs Westhrop’s giant Yucca plant near the front door; a solitary token of the Yule season to any door-step visitors. Not that there were many of those. Though there was the new lodger.

  Mr Westhrop had wasted no time in putting Jessica’s room to good use by renting it out. Jessica only had her room back until the end of the holiday, when the lodger returned from visiting his parents in Wales. Jessica found bicycle parts in her bedroom, and several of her stuffed toys had been shoved under her bed along with some of her adventure novels.

  Nothing else had really changed at the Westhrop home. There were no Christmas presents on Christmas day, except one from Aunt Dorothy of course. This year she’d bought Thomas a gigantic blow-up beach ball with the buy-one-get-one-free label still attached. Thomas wondered what Aunt Dorothy had done with the other one. It hadn’t gone to Jessica. She’d received a purple pair of swimming goggles.

  Other than putting up the single strand of tinsel, Mrs Westhrop seemed to have entirely forgotten it was Christmas. Mr Westhrop knew full well it was Christmas and was doing his best to ignore it, despite a large firework display on Christmas Eve launched from the garden of a house not too many doors away. ‘Don’t they know how much they cost!’ Mr Westhrop had complained after the first dozen fireworks scattered their green sparks over his garden. ‘Perhaps one or two on Bonfire Night. Yes, that’s quite enough for any normal person!’ Mr Westhrop had one year calculated the cost of each second of ‘pleasure’ of a firework’s life once lit. Thomas knew because Mr Westhrop had sat him down and told him. He seemed to remember that sparklers were the most cost-effective.

  Jessica hadn’t been able to save any pocket money because the Westhrops had stopped it when school began. Thomas, of course, had never received any to start with. So they’d both been broke over the holidays. Even so, they’d made
each other home-made Christmas cards so that they had something to open Christmas morning (besides Aunt Dorothy’s presents). Despite all this, Thomas enjoyed Christmas. The world appeared a little more magical at that time of year. But Thomas couldn’t help such thoughts drawing his mind back to the Grange. That was magical too, though in a different way.

  The Saturday lessons at Darkledun Grange Academy had been going well. Even the History of Avallach with Miss Havelock had become bearable. Thomas had started helping Thayer with his studies. The Fomorfelk found it hard to pick things up — academic things at least — and this, Thomas had discovered, was one of the reasons Slayne Dretch bullied him. Like Thayer, Thomas especially enjoyed Master Fabula’s lessons. In the last week of term there’d been a story involving a waterfall, and the Hall of Tales had produced the most impressive sound of water falling over rocks. The stories and sounds of Master Fabula’s lessons had sparked memories in him, images that went with the sounds. He’d been careful not to touch the Glass during the stories, so he knew the images he saw were entirely his own. But where they came from, he didn’t know — an overactive imagination, perhaps?

  The revelation that neither of his parents — nor any of his ancestors — had any of the blood of the races of Avallach in them perplexed him. He’d thought long into the night about what that could mean. Maybe his father had been a friend to someone in Avallach. Maybe that’s how he came to possess the Glass. There was no way of knowing. Trevelyan knew something more, Thomas was sure, but this mysterious representative of his father’s estate had forbidden the Headmaster from telling him more. Thomas wondered how he could find out who the representative was, but no answer had yet come into his thoughts.

  Jessica, despite her initial disappointment, had grown to quite cherish being the only full-blooded human at the Grange, save Thomas. But this brought up other questions: if the purpose of the Manor was to look for Halfkin, then why had he been invited? What possible reason did the school have for accepting his father’s wishes in the first place? And why did his father want him here anyway? These questions had occupied Thomas’s mind both throughout the holiday and as he’d travelled back to the Manor for the start of the new term.

  As Thomas walked through the Way Gate and onto Cnocmorandolmen he felt the crisp winter air surround him. Yet it wasn’t as cold as the world he’d just left behind. It was always warmer here, and more untouched in some way. And then there were the enhanced sensations, slight perhaps, but noticeable — the heightened sense of smell, of hearing, of vision. Thomas knew the others who now crowded onto the hill behind him from the Way Gate didn’t feel the same. He’d mentioned the sensation at the end of last term, only to be met with blank stares from his friends. But Thomas couldn’t believe it was just his imagination. He could feel it.

  Miles Merlock and Tara Reeves stepped into the edge of his vision, followed by Jessica, Merideah, Penders, Treice and the remainder of the Family History Club. The members of the club had been waiting outside 2B alongside Jessica and Merideah when Thomas, Penders and Treice arrived that morning. He’d no idea why. Perhaps Stanwell had been too busy to take them through last night, or maybe they had a new schedule for the new term.

  While he waited for Stanwell to emerge, Thomas wandered from the chatting children over to the Northern Way Gate. It looked the same of course. They were all identical, each bearing the same unknown yet familiar symbols upon their upper reaches. Sometimes their meaning seemed only a sliver away, but then it would slip beyond his reach again. It was as if the symbols were trying to arrange themselves into English letters in his head, but when they were just about to fall into position they would get all muddled and revert to undecipherable glyphs again.

  Thomas reached out and touched the grey stone. Unlike the stone of the Way Gate he’d just come through, this one felt cold and still, as if dead — if stones could be dead. Thomas put a hand on the other two Way Gates. They both felt warm and tingled his palm.

  ‘Thomas!’ Jessica warned.

  Thomas looked back and found that Stanwell had just come through the Way Gate with the last of the Club members. He quickly ducked around one of the stones and made his way back to the rear of the group without Stanwell seeing. Stanwell didn’t like cadets going near the other Way Gates. He never said why.

  When they reached the carriage, Jessica had Tara and Miles join them in the first coach. ‘How come you’re with us today, anyway?’

  ‘The Way Gate wasn’t working last night,’ Tara said.

  ‘Wasn’t working?’ Penders turned toward her. ‘You mean they don’t work all the time?’

  ‘Obviously,’ Merideah remarked. ‘If it wasn’t working last night.’

  Penders shot Merideah an unpleasant look.

  ‘It happens every now and again, though this is the first time — as far as I know — that it’s taken so many hours to recover,’ Miles explained.

  Merideah put a finger to her chin. ‘Interesting.’

  Thomas decided to take advantage of the momentary silence. ‘What about the other Way Gates?’

  ‘Worse from what I hear,’ Miles said. Tara nodded in agreement.

  ‘Do you know where they lead?’ Thomas asked as the carriage hit a bump in the road. Stanwell cried out something about tree roots.

  Miles’s eyes narrowed. ‘If I remember correctly, the East Way Gate leads to the land of the Humbalgogs, Humbalhame, and the West Gate to Alfheim, the land of the Alfar.’

  Thomas leant forward on his seat. ‘What about the northern one? Where does that go?’

  Miles shook his head and looked at Tara, but she just shrugged.

  ‘It’s cold,’ Thomas said.

  Penders stopped chewing his gum. ‘I can turn the climate control up if you like?’

  ‘No, Miles better do that,’ Merideah said. ‘He’s nearer, and we don’t want to be plunged into a cloud of fog again.’

  ‘That wasn’t my fault,’ Penders defended himself. ‘If you hadn’t —’

  ‘I meant the Northern Way Gate,’ Thomas interrupted before the exchange became a heated one (that wasn’t the sort of warming up they needed). ‘It seems ‘dead’.’

  Tara shook her head. ‘Maybe it’s not used anymore. I’ve never heard anyone speak about it.’

  ‘We could ask Miss Havelock,’ Treice suggested. He sat opposite Jessica, doing his best to avoid her eyes by staring out the window. But Thomas saw the look in his eyes: it was that of a caged animal. Being with two girls was bad enough, but now Treice had to endure three.

  Thomas leant back into his seat again. ‘Well, we could, but I think I’ll try Thayer first — he’s more…’

  ‘Approachable?’ Penders grinned.

  Thayer waited as always at the fountain. His dull eyes momentarily lit up when he saw all the Halfkin were with Thomas. He seemed to enjoy the company of the Club members more than the cadets from his own world. Perhaps they treated him better, or perhaps he related to them, there being no other Fomorfelk in the Grange. That must have been hard for him. Thomas knew it was hard enough having no friends at school, let alone feeling and looking so different from everyone else.

  ‘Did you enjoy the holidays?’ Thomas asked Thayer after they’d greeted one another.

  ‘Holidays? No holidays in Avallach,’ Thayer said in his usual morose tone.

  Thomas immediately felt bad for asking the question. War, of course, had no holidays. ‘Do you know anything about the Northern Way Gate on Cnocmorandolmen?’

  ‘I have only been to the Hill of Stones once, when I first arrived. I was very young.’ Thayer stared blankly at Thomas. ‘The only cadets, besides the Halfkin, that go to that Hill now are those going to serve in the army. Gallowglas escorts them in and out. Maybe you could ask him? ‘

  ‘Hmph!’ Penders rolled his eyes. ‘Not much chance he’d tell us.’

  They found the rest of the students already seated as they walked into the class. Mistress Havelock had a deep frown on her face as she stared at them. Dun
can Avebury briefly explained about the problem with the Way Gate, but she didn’t stop frowning until they’d all taken their places.

  Havelock picked up her stick of chalk from the table. ‘Now, who can tell me which came first: the Way Gates or the Great Rift?’

  ‘What’s the Great Rift?’ Thomas whispered to Thayer.

  ‘The event that made the Bounding,’ Thayer whispered in a voice that wasn’t quiet enough to escape Mistress Havelock’s keen ears.

  ‘Was that an answer, Mr Gaul?’ she asked.

  Thayer stared back blankly.

  ‘Think, Thayer!’ Miss Havelock pressed. ‘It’s not hard to work out.’

  Thayer shot a pained look at Thomas but Thomas couldn’t help him. ‘Ermm — the Bounding?’

  Thomas heard a couple of sniggers in the front row.

  Mistress Havelock sighed and flashed a severe glance at the front row before fixing her eyes on Thayer again. ‘You must pay more attention and try to remember. In the summer we learned about King Avallach and his enchanters using the power of the Way Gates to help bring the Bounding into existence.’

  Thayer looked deflated. Perhaps out of sympathy, or maybe just plain curiosity, Merideah put her hand up.

  Havelock’s gaze shifted to the piercing amber eyes gazing out at her from behind the round spectacles. ‘Yes, Miss Darwood?’

  ‘What are the stones made of? My father taught me a little geology, but I’ve not seen anything like the Way Gates before. They aren’t cold and seem to vibrate, and then there’s the glowing cavern inside.’

  Miss Havelock didn’t know the answer to Merideah’s question, or to the several questions that followed. Neither did she know the answer to Jessica’s questions, not even the one about a Way Gate providing a possible shortcut to some shops. Thomas didn’t like to ask questions in class because everyone stared. Of course, if someone asked lots of questions, then the class would stop looking. This was presently the case as Mistress Havelock dealt with two of the most inquisitive cadets she’d ever encountered within the halls of the Academy. The other cadets stared blankly ahead or down at their desks, no doubt wondering when the lesson would be over.