by Lyn Gardner
Then Mother Collops opened up the map and showed the sisters where to find the secret entrance to Piper’s Peak. She entrusted Storm with the gold key, but her face was grave as she had told them of the journey ahead. ‘You have to go over the mountains, which are treacherous. Then you are in DeWilde country. Trust nobody. Keep watch for spies. They will be on the lookout for you, particularly if the doctor knows that you have the pipe, Storm. It makes your journey doubly perilous.’
‘Why is he so desperate to have the pipe anyway? What use is it to him?’ asked Aurora.
‘All the use in the world, chick. He had it once, and he gave it away before he truly understood its power,’ said Mother Collops.‘It may not look it, Storm, but that little instrument is very powerful indeed.’ Storm’s hand went unconsciously to where the pipe hung around her neck. It glowed.
‘You both know the story of the Pied Piper, of course?’ Mother Collops asked. ‘How, long ago, he rid the town of a plague of rats by bewitching them with the music from his pipe. The rats hurled themselves into the river and were drowned. But the elders of the town refused to pay him the agreed fee. So he took his revenge. He played his pipe again and all the children of the town followed him into the mountains. One of those children was your great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather. Only he couldn’t hear the piper’s air because he was deaf and therefore immune to its tune. He ran after the others because one of the little girls who followed the piper was his sweetheart. But he had a terrible limp, and he couldn’t keep up. When the children reached Piper’s Peak, he was far behind. He was just in time to see the last child disappear into the mountain before the rock swung closed and the mountain was sealed. By the entrance he found the piper’s pipe. It has been passed down in the family ever since.’
Storm fingered the flute. ‘So how did Dr DeWilde get it?’
Mother Collops looked guilty.‘I gave it to him,’ she admitted. ‘It was a terrible misjudgement. But he was just a boy, an unhappy slip of a thing, and I didn’t know his true nature. I loved him for his vulnerability and I thought it might help him. But I think that like everything with him, it was only a ruse to manipulate me. He likes to find a person’s weakness and exploit it.’
‘So what does the pipe do?’ Storm demanded.
‘It beguiles people. Makes them dance to its tune.’
Storm blew, and a haunting air floated across the room. ‘Are you beguiled, Aurora?’
‘No, not in the least bewitched.’
‘Oh, it doesn’t work on family,’ said Mother Collops. ‘We’re all descended from the little deaf boy who first found the pipe. Like him, we’re all immune to the negative effects of its witchery. Some others are unaffected too, I don’t know why. Maybe you have to want to be seduced by it for it to totally work. But, one thing’s for sure – it is absolutely not a plaything.’
‘But if it doesn’t have any effect on anyone in the family, how do we know it really is magic?’ Aurora protested. ‘How do we know it’s not just a silly old legend?’
Mother Collops looked uncomfortable. ‘I don’t think I’d have got a husband without it. I wasn’t a picture, and my temper was legendary.’ She shivered. ‘But once was quite enough. It is easy to be corrupted, particularly by something that offers our heart’s desire. That’s why it mustn’t fall into Dr DeWilde’s hands. He’s powerful enough already. I fear that on the other side of the mountains his rule is unchallenged, and in Piper’s Peak he has created his own kingdom based on slavery and immense wealth. His aim, I am sure, is to enslave us all. And with that pipe he could be invincible!’
The Icy Ice-Field of Certain Death
It was mid-afternoon when the girls left Hell Heights. Mother Collops begged them to stay for the night, but the children knew they wouldn’t be able to sleep knowing that Any was a prisoner under some dark, distant mountain. So after Mother Collops had given them some clothes more suitable for climbing mountains, thrust a large bag of jelly babies and a packet of sprouted alfalfa sandwiches into each of their pockets, armed them with rucksacks, heavy with ropes, sleeping bags and ice axes, and made them promise to stop by on the return journey for a grand tiddlywinks contest, they set off once more into the unknown.
It was a gloriously crisp clear day. The distant mountains were etched sharply against the horizon, their snow caps sparkling like jaunty little diamanté hats. In their centre rose a slash of dark rock, its jagged summit rising like a deadly serrated knife cutting the air. This was Piper’s Peak – their destination. On the snaking road they passed through several desolate villages that had suffered the same grim fate as Netta’s.
As night closed in, an enveloping dampness made them shiver with cold and fatigue so that when Storm spied an abandoned pig-sty even the fastidious Aurora agreed they should stay the night there without too much protest.
The stars winked in the sky as Storm shut the sty gate and she saw something glinting in the moonlight on the road up ahead. From a distance it looked as if a star had fallen from sky to earth, but on closer investigation Storm saw that the star was edged with tiny midnightblue threads. She gave a little hiccup of excitement: it was one of the silver stars from Any’s blanket. A few metres further on she spied another star in the hedgerow. She claimed it and discovered another before she heard Aurora anxiously calling her name.
Back in the sty, where Aurora had been doing a little knitting to help her forget the hardships of the journey, Storm held out the stars to her sister in the upturned palm of her hand. Aurora whispered a single word: ‘Any.’
‘Yes,’ breathed Storm. ‘She must have been tearing them off her blanket and leaving a trail behind her to let us know we’re on the right track.
‘Such a clever little thing,’ sighed Aurora.
‘She is,’ agreed Storm like an especially fond mother. She looked into the depths of a star. ‘I feel as if I can see her little face reflected in it.’
Aurora leaned over. ‘I can see the way her chin dimples when she smiles.’
‘And how her eyes dance when she’s happy …’
‘And are as dark as millponds when she’s scared.’
‘I can see the way she hides her face in her hands and thinks that no one can see her.’
‘How she curls her fists into tight balls when she’s asleep …’
‘And stretches out her arms to be lifted up and hugged when she wakes up …’
The litany of love and memory went on until the girls drifted into sleep. They slept soundly, both dreaming of their little sister, while outside all was darkness but for the occasional gleam of ice-blue and silvergrey eyes stalking each other through the night.
By the following afternoon the lush pastures of the lower mountain had given way to more difficult terrain. The sisters picked their way slowly across slopes of loose gravel and mud dotted with huge boulders. Their hands and knees were badly grazed, and they were weighed down by the heavy rucksacks filled with the equipment that Mother Collops had insisted could make the difference between life and death in the mountains.
They toiled on, occasionally breaking into laughter when they spied one of Any’s little stars. It was like a treasure hunt and it kept them going despite their exhaustion. Great banks of boiling cloud swept across the face of the mountains above them, and every now and again it would part to reveal the glowering summit of Piper’s Peak. They reached a gully that rose steeply upwards to a forbidding wall of rock at least two hundred metres high. They scrambled up to its base, removed their rucksacks and crouched at the bottom, looking up at the vertical barrier in front of them. The surface was as smooth as glass. It would have defeated even the most experienced mountaineer. Storm’s sturdy heart sank into her sturdy boots. The map must be wrong. There was no way up. They would have to retrace their steps and try to find another way. She pushed her rucksack angrily and it rolled down the gully, hit a boulder and bounced off to one side, scattering the contents as it went.
Aurora stood up wearily. She felt
slightly guilty. If she was to tell the truth – which, being Aurora, she always made it a habit to do – she was rather relieved that she would not have to climb the daunting wall of rock. She did not think that mountaineering was her sort of thing at all. She looked over at Storm, whose head was buried in her hands, then hoisted her rucksack onto her shoulders and started slowly to traverse the gully in pursuit of her sister’s strewn things. Slipping and sliding, she picked her way down and across, collecting up Storm’s belongings, until she reached the far edge of the gully where the rucksack had rolled to a halt. She bent down to pick it up. A cascade of small stones on the rock face made her look up and, as she did so, her eye was attracted by something glinting in the shadows in the far corner of the gully, where it met the edge of the vertical drop. She peered more closely, wondering whether what she thought she was seeing was merely a trick of the light. It was not. It was one of Any’s stars.
‘Storm! Storm!’ she called, her voice high with excitement. ‘Over here. There’s a way up.’
Storm traversed the gully to take a look. Someone had cut rough steps all the way up the side of the rock face. From the front of the rock they were impossible to detect. On either side of the hewn footholds were two fixed ropes. With mounting excitement, Storm pulled hard on the rope. It was quite secure. She scrambled onto the first ledge of the rough staircase, hung hard on the ropes to haul herself up, and found the next foothold with no difficulty. This was going to be easy.
‘Come on, Aurora,’ called Storm. ‘You won’t find it hard.’
‘With two rucksacks I’ll probably find it wellnigh impossible,’ Aurora said tartly.
Guiltily Storm leaped from the staircase as nimbly as a goat and slid down the scree to where Aurora stood with her rucksack.
‘Thanks,’ she said, hoisting it onto her shoulders. Aurora knew it was for more than rescuing the rucksack.
Storm climbed the rock quickly, renewed hope giving her a burst of energy. She hauled herself over the top, stood up and surveyed the scene. It was a dazzling blur of blue glaciers, magnificent and terrible in its icy beauty. To the left was a wide path that ended at a large rock outcrop which appeared to drop away to nothing. To the right was a narrow path leading to a spur of rock. Beyond it Storm could see a high, narrow ridge that eventually tapered away into the sea of ice and snow below. That must surely be their way forward. Storm narrowed her eyes, trying to stare into the shimmering brightness to locate a pathway through. Yes, that must be it. She was so certain, she didn’t think of checking on the map. She heard Aurora breathlessly struggling up the final steps and gave her a helping hand. Still panting, Aurora looked at the view in silence.
‘It quite takes your breath away, doesn’t it,’ said Storm.
‘It would if I had any left to be taken,’ said Aurora lightly.‘Actually, sweetie, it’s a bit daunting, the idea of us against all that.’
‘We’ll just have to think of it as an adventure.’
Aurora sighed. ‘You should know by now that I’m not the adventurous type. My idea of excitement is a large roaring fire, homemade bread cooking in the oven, and a pair of socks with a satisfyingly large hole to darn.’
Storm smiled at Aurora sending herself up as she got the rope out of her rucksack. She looped and tied one end around her sister’s waist, then, after letting a length trail loose between them, tied another loop around herself. She hoped that if one of them slipped on the cold, slippery ground ahead, the other would be strong enough to haul her to safety.
‘Which way?’ asked Aurora. Both paths looked equally treacherous to her, although she could see the imprint of what looked liked the tracks of a hare leading off to the left.
Storm pointed down the icy spine to the right.
‘Are you quite sure? Have you checked on the map?’
‘Look, I’m absolutely certain,’ said Storm testily.
Aurora gazed at the narrow ridge again.
‘How invigorating,’ she said with a little laugh. She took a deep breath. ‘Let’s get going.’
The ridge was as treacherous as Storm had feared. Initially the path across the top was wide, but it quickly narrowed until it seemed no more than a fragile thread suspended in a great gulping sea of blue nothingness. Storm looked around anxiously. Night was falling and the wind was getting up. One big gust and both of them would topple over the edge, smashing like rag dolls on the rocks below.
At the next rocky outcrop Aurora slipped and started a heart-stopping slide towards thin air, and it was only because Storm was already braced for such an eventuality that they were not both swept off the ridge into oblivion. Aurora scrabbled wildly on the end of the taut rope, then managed to haul herself back up to Storm’s side, where she perched on the ridge taking in big, scared gulps of air.
It began to snow again in great squally blasts.
Storm threw back her head, and railed at the sky, ‘Why me? What have you got against me?’ Her words echoed around the void.
‘Now you’ve woken the whole world do you feel better?’ enquired Aurora irritably.
‘Much,’ said Storm gruffly.
To stay where they were was certain death. There was no way but onwards, although Storm’s arms felt like lead and Aurora’s legs felt like jelly. Long into the night they edged their way across the ridge, two tiny, lonely specks battling their own fear and the immensity of nature, and so intent on their survival that they did not notice they were being watched.
Storm awoke in the snow-hole that they had managed to dig at the spot where the ridge descended into the ice-field. She pushed herself free of the fresh snow, troubled by a thought so terrible that she knew she would never have the courage to confide it to Aurora.
She had been dreaming about the story of the Pied Piper leading the dancing children over the mountain, and the shard of dream had been sharp enough to wake her. Something about the story nagged at her. Suddenly she realized what it was: how could the Piper have led hundreds of children, some of them only tiny, over the treacherous ridge that she and Aurora had traversed during the previous night? It was impossible. Most of them would have slipped to their deaths. Her heart began to beat very fast. She and Aurora must have come the wrong way! There must be another and easier way to get to Piper’s Peak, a way that Dr DeWilde was also using to transport the children. She thought back to the towering rock face that they had climbed. Somebody had fixed the rope and cut the steps in the seemingly impenetrable rock to make it passable with care. Surely that same person would have also made certain that the rest of the journey was possible. She pictured the summit of the rock face and the outcrop that had seemed to end abruptly in a sheer drop. What if it hadn’t? What if there had been another hidden way down that avoided having to traverse the ridge and the ice-field? She hadn’t bothered to check it out. She had just assumed that the path across the ridge must be the right one because it was the obvious one, stretching away in the direction they needed to go.
Storm looked at Aurora sleeping gently in her sleeping bag. It was too late now. The idea of telling her that they had come the wrong way and that they would either have to retrace their steps across the ridge or take their chance on the ice-field was not pleasant. She reckoned that Aurora would only be slightly less angry than if she told her that knitting had been permanently outlawed. Particularly as Aurora had questioned whether she had checked the map. Her sister had trusted her and she had let her down. Aurora stirred, opened her eyes and smiled at Storm. Storm looked down at her and guiltily decided that what Aurora didn’t know probably wouldn’t hurt her.
‘Come on, sleepy-head, let’s get moving,’ she said with a forced little smile.
The way across the ice-field was as nerveracking as their crossing of the ridge. The wind blew a constant spray of snow into their faces, the glare from the glacier was intense, and the ground was not solid, as Storm had assumed it was from a distance, but a honeycomb of ice-bridges across crevasses that were overlaid with a deep coating of snow. Befor
e every single step forward she had to prod the snow with an ice axe until she was sure it met firm ice underneath. One ill-considered step could send them plunging into one of the gaping crevasses below. It was like trying to walk across a lacy paper doily.
Aurora stared deep into the bottomless blue depths of one of the crevasses and shivered. There was something about the sharp teeth-like ice formations that reminded her of a shark’s mouth, ever-open and ready to receive its prey.
‘How deep do you think it is?’ she asked uneasily.
Storm shrugged. ‘As tall as a cathedral, maybe taller. Fall down there, and you’d have no chance. You would be entombed for ever. You would become part of the mountain itself …’ She trailed off, realizing that she was frightening her sister. ‘But you’re not going to fall down, Aurora,’ she added hastily. ‘I’m going ahead to make quite certain that the ice is solid and safe. All you have to do is follow me, making sure you step exactly into my footprints. Even if you slip you’ll be fine – I can pull you up with the rope like before.’ Storm hoped she sounded more confident than she felt.
Aurora still looked uncertain.‘But are you quite sure this is the right way?’ she asked.
‘Of course I’m sure,’ said Storm shortly, and began pressing down with her axe on the ground ahead.
Progress was painfully slow and the physical effort was soon taking its toll on Aurora. She lagged further and further behind her sister, forcing Storm to let out more and more rope until it trailed like a long, limp snake between the two girls.
Eventually, after a lengthy period of standing still, shivering and watching her sister’s painfully slow progress, Storm lost patience. She turned and ploughed on ahead, not noticing that the rope had caught on a particularly sharp rock sticking out of the ice and had been severed neatly in two.
The snow turned to a dancing blizzard.
After several minutes Aurora reached the spot where the rope had parted. She looked up in alarm, expecting to see Storm just a little way off. But ahead of her was just a wall of snow. She could see nothing. She shouted her sister’s name over and over, but her words were blown away on the wind.
