Return of the Emerald Skull
Page 9
As the blade whistled past my left ear, I feinted a movement to the right, before leaping high up into the air to avoid another swinging thrust. The prefect groaned as he too lost his balance. One moment he hovered at the edge of the platform, arms wheeling frantically; the next, with a loud cry of despair, he tumbled back and clattered down the side of the pyramid, to the groans of the schoolboys below.
I turned to face the other prefects. There were six of them remaining, the blood-red light streaming from the skull's ruby eyes throwing them into sinister silhouette. With howls of rage, they charged at me, cudgels, fives bats, mallets and spears swinging.
I stepped into the writhing, weaving spaces between the flurry of blows that rained down, with the slipperiness of a canal otter in a crowded lock. The prefects scattered and fell as their blows caught each other and left me unscathed. With a final nudge in the back, I sent the last of my feather-caped attackers hurtling from the top of the pyramid.
Ignoring the howls of the mob below, I knelt down and picked up a discarded fives bat. I turned and approached the high-backed leather chair. Behind me, I could hear the headmaster's whimpering voice.
‘My poor, poor children … All my fault … All my fault …’
In front of me, on its cushion, the emerald skull's eyes flared a brilliant, dazzling white.
‘It is not too late, my child,’ its voice, almost pleading, hissed in my head. ‘Not too late, my child. Look into my eyes …’
Face buried in the musty emerald-feathered softness of my cape, I reached forward and grasped the skull in one hand.
‘No! No! No!‘ it shrieked, as if sensing what was to come.
Bracing myself, legs wide apart and firmly planted on the platform, I tossed the emerald skull high into the air and brought my bat back behind my shoulders. The skull reached the highest point of its trajectory. Then, as it began to descend – the voice screaming and the heartbeat thumping more feverishly than ever – I focused on the water butt in the far corner of the quad and, with all my might …
The skull … shot off into the darkness.
Thwack!
The skull made hard contact with the centre of the fives bat and shot off into the darkness.
‘Sacrilege!‘ it screamed. ‘Sacril—’
From the far side of the quad there came a loud splash and a steamy hiss as the skull landed in the water butt.
The thud of the heartbeat stopped and, for a moment, nobody breathed in the now silent quad. At that instant the moon completed its passage across the face of the sun and dazzling shafts of light bore down from the sky above. As the eclipse passed, the grounds were once again bathed in warm sunlight. Birds sang. Dogs barked. And in the quad of Grassington Hall the large crowd of boys took in a huge gulp of breath and fell, coughing and spluttering, to their knees.
A moment later, the quad was buzzing with bewildered voices.
‘What happened?’
‘What's this?’
‘What are you wearing?’
From my vantage point at the top of the great pyramid, I looked around. One boy picked up the discarded stone knife and turned it over in his hand. Another pulled off a feathered head-dress and inspected it. A group of three or four helped a dazed prefect to his feet. Some others untied the line of shaken masters. Some wept and clung to one another, fatigue and relief overwhelming them in equal measure …
The Grassington Hall school rebellion was over.
I turned to the mahogany desk, where the headmaster still lay, bound hand and foot, with the grotesque red cross on his chest.
‘It was all my fault, Barnaby,’ he whispered tremulously, clutching my hands.
‘It wasn't their fault, poor children.’
‘It's over, Headmaster,’ I said gently, untying him and helping him to his feet. ‘The madness is over. No harm done …’
I stopped, a painful lump rising in my throat as I suddenly thought of poor Thompson lying in the entrance hall in a pool of his own blood. A watery film over my eyes made the bustling quad blur, and I swallowed hard. Archimedes Barnett must have mistaken my emotion for relief, for he grasped my hands.
‘Thanks to you, Barnaby Grimes,’ he murmured, squeezing my hands gratefully. ‘All thanks to you.’
‘One lump or two, Barnaby?’
‘Two, please, Headmaster,’ I replied.
I glanced out of the window of the headmaster's study. It was difficult to believe that, only four short weeks earlier, a massive wooden pyramid had dominated the whole quad. Now it was gone – the broken cabinets and tables used to stoke up the school boilers – and brand-new desks, dining tables, cabinets and doors had been brought in to replace them. They were the very finest the city workshops could provide. And I should know; I had just placed the final invoices and work-orders on the headmaster's new mahogany desk.
My new friend, Will Farmer, had helped me with the mass of paperwork that refitting the school had entailed. He was a quick learner and not without talent. The lad would go far.
The headmaster passed me a cup of tea, which I stirred slowly. He ran a finger over the polished surface of his new desk.
‘Bit of an extravagance, I know. But I couldn't face the thought of the old one, not after …’ Archimedes Barnett shuddered.
I nodded and took a sip of the warm sweet tea. I knew how he felt. The sight of poor Thompson will always haunt me. But could I have handled things differently?
‘It was all my fault,’ said the headmaster. ‘If it hadn't been for me and my stupid bird collecting—’
‘You mustn't blame yourself, Headmaster,’ I said, putting down my cup. ‘You might as well blame the archaeologist who dug up the skull in the first place. Or me, for delivering it—’
‘You have nothing to reproach yourself for, Barnaby,’ said the headmaster hotly. ‘Why, if you hadn't been here, I shudder to think what might have happened.’
We were silent for a moment, both lost in thought.
I had a pretty good idea what might have happened. After all, I'd had four weeks to look into it – during late nights spent poring over dusty volumes from the shelves of Underhill's Library for Scholars of the Arcane.
Catincatapetl – Emerald Messenger of Darkness, Master of the Underworld and Lord of Chaos – was at once one of the most feared and one of the most revered gods of an ancient jungle civilization.
Mysterious and mystical, this civilization's ruined cities, with their great stepped pyramids, had drawn archaeologists and treasure hunters over the years, like anteaters to a termite mound. Most came away with little more than a few shards of pottery and a bad case of jungle fever.
The real jewels of the jungle weren't mythical treasures buried beneath ancient ruins at all, but the exotically coloured birds of the forest, with their magnificent plumage. Collectors like Archimedes Barnett couldn't get enough of such specimens as ‘the blue-crested bird of heaven’, ‘the vermilion hummingbird’ or ‘the emerald messenger’, and were prepared to pay handsomely for them. Supplying exotic birds proved a neat sideline for any enterprising archaeologist.
Professor Rodrigo de Vargas was, from what I gathered in my research, one of the most enterprising. He was an expert on the savage cult of the god Catincatapetl. According to legend, Catincatapetl's followers offered up human sacrifices of such number and with such barbarity that the neighbouring tribes finally rose up in revulsion and destroyed their civilization.
Catincatapetl disappeared into the mists of time, remembered only as a name given to a rare and beautiful bird of the jungle, ‘catincatapetl, emerald messenger of darkness’. Until, that is, Professor Rodrigo de Vargas made the discovery of his career, digging in the ruins of a forgotten jungle pyramid.
The fabulous jewel-encrusted skull that he uncovered from beneath a heavy stone slab gazed up at him with glowing eyes of ancient malevolence. De Vargas was the first of a chain of mortals to fall under the skull's evil influence. A year ago, according to newspaper cuttings, Professor de Vargas's
treasure hunting came to an abrupt end when his body was found in the gutter in the port of Valdario.
Of course, a jewel-encrusted skull from an ancient civilization would have created a sensation on the international art market, but Catincatapetl had other plans …
Not long after, a Captain Luis Fernandez of the SS Ipanema offered up for sale a rare specimen of ‘the emerald messenger of darkness’ to interested bird collectors on the open market. Strangely, although many lucrative offers from bird collectors from that part of the world were not slow in coming, the captain would accept only one – from the headmaster of a private school in a far-off country, for which he set sail. It was a country that, the almanacs revealed, would soon experience a total eclipse of the sun. The hapless captain and his crew were never seen again …
The rest, as they say, is history.
We were all pawns in the evil scheming of Catincatapetl as he sought to regain power after untold centuries buried beneath a jungle ruin. But thanks to Mei Ling, and the art of yinchido that she'd so expertly taught me, I had managed to break free from its evil stranglehold for an instant. It was all I'd needed …
Finishing my tea, I followed the headmaster as he walked me across the quad towards the playing fields.
‘I don't suppose,’ said Archimedes Barnett, frowning as we approached a discoloured stain in the corner of the quad, ‘that you have had any luck tracing our missing water butt?’
I shook my head. In the turmoil and confusion following the solar eclipse, nobody had noticed the two workmen arriving to help with the clear-up. Along with the wrecked desks and cupboards, the water butt had ended up in the back of a cart.
‘Disappeared on its travels,’ I said grimly. ‘Searching for another eclipse …’
Archimedes smiled. ‘Which, according to my almanac, Barnaby, won't be for another seventy-one years. By which time,’ he added with a nod towards the playing fields, ‘we should be well and truly prepared for it.’
I looked across the field. There on the pitch was a raised mound, on which eleven boys – fives mallets held high – were attempting to tackle a twelfth, who dodged and dived past them. Reaching the far end of the mound, he grasped a ball the size of a head from a set of wooden stumps, and hurled it with all his might towards a net on the other side of the pitch, while members of his own team cheered from the sideline.
‘Green skull!’ they cried out as the ball landed in the net.
‘What are they playing?’ I asked, turning to the headmaster.
‘Our new school game,’ he replied, beaming back at me. ‘We call it “Grimes”.’
LEGION of the DEAD
Turn the page for an exclusive peek at the
first chapter of the new Barnaby Grimes
book, in stores Winter 2010.
Excerpt from Legion of the Dead by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell
Copyright © 2008 by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell
Published in the United States by David Fickling Books,
an imprint of Random House Children's Books,
a division of Random House, Inc., New York
have heard people exclaim that they'd be better off dead — weary washerwomen on a midnight shift in the steam cellars, ragged beggars down by the Temple Bar, fine young ladies snubbed at a Hightown ball … But if they had seen what I saw on that cold and foggy night, they would have realized the foolishness of their words.
It was a sight that will haunt me till my dying day — after which, I fervently hope and pray, I shall remain undisturbed.
This was not something that could be said for the ghastly apparitions that stumbled through the swirling mists towards me, their arms outstretched before them, as though their bony fingertips rather than their sunken eyes were guiding their lurching bodies through the curdled fog.
A wizened hag, there was, with a hooked nose and rat's nest hair. A portly matron, the ague that had seen her off still glistening on her furrowed brow … A sly-eyed ragger and a bare-knuckled wrestler, his left eyeball out of its socket and dangling on a glistening thread. A corpulent costermonger; a stooped scrivener, their clothes – one satin and frill, the other threadbare serge – smeared alike with black mud and sewer slime. A maid, a chimney-sweep, a couple of stable-lads; one with the side of his skull stoved in by a single blow from a horse's hoof, the other grey and glittery-eyed from the blood-flecked cough that had ended his life. And a burly river-tough – his fine waistcoat in tatters and his chin-tattoo obscured by filth. Glistening at his neck was the deep wound that had taken him from this world to the next.
I shrank back in horror and pressed hard against the cool white marble of the de Vere family vault at my back. Beside me – his body quivering like a slab of jellied ham – the Colonel was breathing in stuttering, wheezy gasps. From three sides of the marble tomb in that fog-filled graveyard, the serried ranks of the undead were forming up in a grotesque parody of a parade-ground drill.
‘They've found me,’ the Colonel croaked, in a voice not much more than a whisper.
I followed his terrified gaze and found myself staring at four ragged figures in military uniform, who were standing on a flat-topped tomb above the massed ranks. Each of them bore the evidence of fatal injuries.
The terrible gash down the face of one that had left his cheekbone exposed and a flap of leathery skin dangling. The bloodstained chest and jagged stump – all that remained of his left arm – of the second, splinters of yellow bone protruding through the wreaths of grimy bandages. The rusting axe, cleaving the battered bell-top shako, which was embedded in the skull of the third. And the bulging bloodshot eyes of the fourth, the frayed length of rough rope that had strangulated his last breath still hanging round his bruised and red-raw neck – and a flagpole clutched in his gnarled hands.
As I watched, he raised the splintered flagpole high. Gripping my swordstick, I stared at the fluttering curtain of bloodstained cloth, tasselled brocade hanging in filthy matted strands along the four sides. At its centre was the embroidered regimental emblem – a snake and a bear – framed in a golden oval, and set off beneath with the rd words 33 Regiment of Foot written in an angular italic script. The ghastly standard-bearer's tight lips parted to reveal a row of blackened teeth.
‘Fighting Thirty-Third!’ he cried out, his voice a rasping whisper.
The corpses swayed where they stood, their bony arms outstretched before them and tattered sleeves hanging limply in the foggy air. I smelled the sourness of the sewers about them; that, and the sweet whiff of death. Their sunken eyes bored into mine.
We were surrounded. There was nothing Colonel de Vere or I could do. The standard-bearer's voice echoed hoarsely round the graveyard.
‘Advance!‘
Watch out for
LEGION OF THE DEAD
in Winter 2010.
THE EDGE CHRONICLES
THE QUINT TRILOGY
Follow the adventures of Quint
in the first age of flight!
CURSE OF THE GLOAMGLOZER
Quint and Maris, daughter of the most High
Academe, are plunged into a terrifying adventure
which takes them deep into the rock upon which
Sanctaphrax is built. Here they unwittingly invoke
an ancient curse …
THE WINTER KNIGHTS
Quint is a new student at the Knights Academy,
struggling to survive the icy cold of a never-ending
winter, and the ancient feuds that threaten
Sanctaphrax.
CLASH OF THE SKY GALLEONS
Quint finds himself caught up in his father's fight
for revenge against the man who killed his family.
They are drawn into a deadly pursuit, a pursuit that
will ultimately lead to the clash of the great
sky galleons.
‘The most amazing books ever’
Ellen, 10
THE EDGE CHRONICLES
THE TWIG TRILOGY
in the first age of flight!
BEYOND THE DEEPWOODS
Abandoned at birth in the perilous Deepwoods,
Twig does what he has always been warned not to
do, and strays from the path …
STORMCHASER
Twig, a young crew-member on the Stormchaser
sky ship, risks all to collect valuable stormphrax
from the heart of a Great Storm.
MIDNIGHT OVER SANCTAPHRAX
Far out in Open Sky, a ferocious storm is brewing.
In its path is the city of Sanctaphrax …
‘Absolutely brilliant’
Lin-May, 13
‘Everything about the Edge
Chronicles is amazing’
Cameron, 13
THE EDGE CHRONICLES
THE ROOK TRILOGY
Follow the adventures of Rook
in the second age of flight!
LAST OF THE SKY PIRATES
Rook dreams of becoming a librarian knight,
and sets out on a dangerous journey into the
Deepwoods and beyond. When he meets the last sky
pirate, he is thrust into a bold adventure …
VOX
Rook becomes involved in the evil scheming of
Vox Verlix – can he stop the Edgeworld falling into
total chaos?
FREEGLADER
Undertown is destroyed, and Rook and his
friends travel, with waifs and cloddertrogs, to a new
home in the Free Glades.
‘They're the best!!’ Zaffie, 15
‘Brilliant illustrations and magical storylines’
Tom, 14
Barnaby Grimes is a tick-tock lad – he'll deliver any message anywhere any time. As fast as possible. Tick-tock – time is money! But strange things are afoot. One moonlit night, as Barnaby highstacks above the city, leaping from roof to roof, gutter to gable, pillar to pediment, a huge beast attacks. He barely escapes with his life. And now his friend Old Benjamin has disappeared …