by V M Jones
‘Destiny,’ offered Jamie helpfully. ‘But you don’t need to get all starry-eyed, Adam. We understand how you feel. When you think about it, we have destinies too. Smaller ones maybe, but destinies just the same. Remember the poem? Five in one and one in five…’
I glanced up at him. He met my gaze, bug-eyed with sincerity.
‘Jamie’s right,’ said Gen. ‘Don’t forget you also made a promise to Q — and you don’t seem to have a problem breaking it.’
I opened my mouth, realised I had no idea what to say, and shut it again.
‘Q would never want us to leave you on your own,’ said Kenta.
‘Of course he wouldn’t,’ agreed Rich. ‘And anyhow, the whole point of promises is to be broken — or at least bent.’
‘But it will be dangerous! I don’t have the least idea what I’m supposed to do. I just know I have to try. I can’t let you put yourselves in danger for me —’
‘Zip it right now, Adam Equinox!’ Jamie was on his feet, his face bright pink and his hands clenched. ‘We’re not doing it for you! We’re doing it for … for the Future of Mankind, and if helps you as well, then great. We’re coming with you, and nothing you can say is going to stop us!’
There was a startled silence.
‘So you have an army after all, Adam,’ grinned Rich. ‘An army of four — whether you want it or not.’
‘Five,’ corrected Kenta, ‘counting Blue-bum.’
Blue-bum. I hadn’t given him a thought, and by the looks on the others’ faces they hadn’t either. Jamie glanced guiltily at the marshmallow packet, lying empty beside the fire. The rest of us peered round the circle of firelight, looking for the little chatterbot’s familiar, hunched form.
Then Kenta was on her feet, moving quickly into the darkness of the rocky overhang where we’d dumped our bags. ‘There you are! Had you fallen asleep? Come and join us. We’ve discovered the most amazing thing …’
But one look at Blue-bum’s face as she carried him into the firelight told me he already knew. His eyes were bright, burning like coals in his wrinkled little face. They were fixed on me with a peculiar intensity, and there was an odd, unsettling stillness about him. Slowly he wriggled out of Kenta’s arms and clambered onto the ground; hitched himself towards me with his awkward, crab-like shuffle. Stopped just out of reach, watching me.
I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise. Forced myself to remember him the way he used to be — after he changed from Weevil to Blue-bum the chatterbot; before whatever had been done to him in the depths of Shakesh. ‘What is it, Blue-bum?’ I asked gently. ‘What d’you want?’
His gaze moved from my face to my chest. He hitched himself closer, and pulled his scraggy little body onto my knee. He lifted one leathery paw — the paws that had been smooth and nimble, and were now so cruelly bent and twisted. At first I thought he was going to touch my face, and steeled myself not to flinch. But he wasn’t.
His fingers scrabbled at my chest, patting at the outline of my ring. He gripped it under the fabric of my shirt, looked up into my face, and chittered.
I felt myself flush. The ring — along with my penny whistle — was the only thing I had from what I’d always thought of as ‘before’… and now knew was Karazan. The penny whistle was no secret; Weevil himself had stolen it from my bedside drawer when we’d both lived in the orphanage, and the others had often heard me play it.
Now I knew it wasn’t a penny whistle: it was a larigot. And the ring … I knew what that was too. Jamie was right: it was one of the many things I’d kept private. Long years of orphanage life had taught me that secret meant safe. But if the others were going to help me there was no place for secrets.
Feeling their eyes on me, I slowly drew the ring out from beneath my shirt, slipped the bootlace over my head, and held it up.
‘I was left on the porch of Highgate when I was a new-born baby, in the early morning of 22 September thirteen years ago,’ I said, keeping my voice level and expressionless. ‘The day of the equinox, when day and night are equal lengths … the day that’s called Sunbalance in Karazan.’
‘The one day in the year the magic portal opens …’ murmured Gen.
‘Thirteen years?’ repeated Rich, looking confused. ‘Then how …’
But Jamie was on to it. ‘Time’s different in Karazan, remember? Say one of our years equals four Karazan ones: that’d fit with the fifty years of the prophecy: After two score years and ten and ten times five, he comes again. Go on, Adam.’
‘I was wrapped in a shawl. Tucked in beside me were my penny whistle …’
‘Larigot …’ breathed Jamie.
‘… and this.’
‘Is it magical?’ asked Gen. ‘What happens if you put it on?’
‘Nothing. I don’t think it’s magical — or not in the way you mean. Though there was a keyhole in the Summer Palace, hidden in the panelling … I never got round to telling you, but I used the ring to open it …’
Jamie gave the others an I told you so glance: more secret stuff from Adam. But the more I thought, the more fell into place. ‘At the time, I thought it was coincidence,’ I said slowly; ‘but now …’
‘Now it makes perfect sense!’ squawked Jamie. ‘It’s obvious! What would be more logical than for that ring to be the key to the hidden door in the royal chamber? Because —’
‘Because what?’ grumbled Rich. ‘What’s so obvious?’
‘Because that’s what Adam’s ring is! Not a key; not just some random ring. It’s King Zane’s ring: the Sign of Sovereignty.’
Rich’s eyes grew very round. ‘Honest? Can I see it?’ he croaked, holding out his hand.
‘D’you mind, Adam?’ Kenta gave me a doubtful glance.
‘No, of course not …’ But I did. Deep in my heart lay the knowledge that my ring was the Ring of Kings, not some trinket to be passed from hand to hand. I hesitated.
I’d been half-conscious of Blue-bum crouched on my knee, still and silent. Unlike Kenta, I didn’t feel comfortable about having him close; now I realised I was holding my left hand against his chest in a not-very-subtle attempt to ward him off. Under my palm I could feel his heart racing, fast and excited.
In the same instant he reached up and snatched the ring out of my hand, poking a twisted finger through it and holding it up to his face to peer at it, jibbering.
‘Uh … Blue-bum … I really don’t think you should do that,’ said Jamie. ‘It’s not just any old ring. It’s the Sign of Sovereignty, and only the true King of Karazan —’
He was cut short by a rapid warning chatter like the sound of a rattlesnake. I shoved Blue-bum to the ground and was on my feet. There was a strange heat in my face, a hot swelling in my chest. My heart was beating in a slow, heavy roll, as if in slow motion … and in the same slow motion, the ring dropped from Blue-bum’s finger, rolled in a crooked crescent, and lay gleaming in the firelight.
The others stared up at me for a long moment.
Richard scrambled across and picked up the ring, holding it carefully in the palm of his hand. There was an odd expression on his face — one I’d never seen before and didn’t recognise.
‘I’m sorry, Adam,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Here it is. Jamie’s right: I shouldn’t have asked.’
Somehow that small incident seemed to put a damper on the evening. As we snuggled down in our sleeping bags the thought of what lay ahead weighed on my spirits, heavy and suffocating. I lay staring up at the stars, two words repeating endlessly. Overthrow Zeel … overthrow Zeel …
Before, I’d had a vague image of armoured men on horseback storming the ramparts of a castle; of clashing steel and distant thunder; a bright clarion-call of trumpets; then victory, glorious and abstract — all happening while we were snug in front of the fire in Quested Court.
It wasn’t going to be like that. There were no horses in Karazan. No army. Only the five of us. Overthrow Zeel … I forced myself to focus on the thought, hardening my mind to what it had to mean
.
There would be only one way to overthrow the man who had murdered my father and stolen the kingdom. I was going to have to kill him. Get close to him, and somehow kill him … just like he’d killed my father; just like he’d tried to kill me, a helpless baby.
Deep inside something trembled and quaked. I closed my eyes, pushing it down, into the darkness. Justice, that’s what it would be.
Revenge.
An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, just like Matron said when she punished us for doing something wrong.
A life for a life.
The puzzle of the ring
In the morning, after a rather subdued breakfast, Kenta came up to me with Blue-bum perched on her shoulder.
‘Adam,’ she said, ‘there’s something Blue-bum wants to say.’
By now, like the others, I was used to Kenta’s self-appointed role of chatterbot interpreter. ‘Yeah?’ I grunted, not altogether enthusiastically. ‘What?’
Blue-bum peered up and chittered softly, then cringed and looked down, hang-dog. ‘You see? He’s sorry. He knows snatching your ring was wrong. So now he’s come to apologise.’
Blue-bum slid a sly little glance at my face … but then I couldn’t help noticing his gaze slip downwards to the bump of the ring under my shirt. I stretched my mouth into a stiff, phoney smile. ‘That’s OK, Blue-bum. Let’s forget it, huh?’
I was turning away when Kenta spoke again. ‘I think there’s something worrying him about the ring. That’s why he wanted a closer look at it last night.’
I turned back slowly.
Kenta shrugged apologetically. ‘Something bothered him about it.’ She glanced at the hunched figure on her shoulder for confirmation. Blue-bum chittered softly, nodding; then, very cautiously, pointed one crooked finger at the bump under my shirt, snatching it away again quickly as if it might be slapped.
He wanted another look. Why? He sat silently on Kenta’s shoulder, head sunk, eyes lowered. I saw the others had gathered round expectantly. With an inward sigh, I drew the ring out into the slanting sunlight, but this time I kept the bootlace round my neck, holding the ring out for them to see.
The circle of faces gazed at it respectfully. All except Blue-bum. He was off again, pointing, pulling at Kenta’s hair and jabbering in her ear, making chopping motions with his hand and scratching at his head in an elaborate pantomime of puzzlement. Perplexed, I found my own gaze drawn to the ring — the silver circlet whose contours I knew as well as the features of my own face. ‘I think he’s trying to say that it looks … incomplete. Almost as if there’s part of it missing …’ said Kenta. But how could it be? It was the same as it had always been.
I stared at it, turning it in my fingers, seeing it for the first time through the eyes of other people. It was a man’s ring, heavy and solid, cast from what I’d always imagined was pure silver. Plain, with no stones or decoration of any kind, no inscription, nothing. In cross-section, the back was similar to the curved D-shape of a man’s wedding ring, but with two flat planes instead of one: the shape of a quarter circle, instead of half. At the front the silver thickened into an odd, angular design: a smooth, curved surface bisected by a deeply grooved angular channel.
‘I know what it reminds me of,’ said Jamie. ‘A puzzle ring. I got one once in a Christmas cracker — sorry, Adam, I didn’t mean it like that.’
‘You’re right, Jamie,’ said Gen. ‘They’re made in two separate parts, but when you fit them together a certain way they interlock to form a single ring.’
Interlock … where had I heard that word before? Spoken in Gen’s soft voice, in bright moonlight on the fringes of Chattering Wood. She’d been reading from Queen Zaronel’s diary … on a velvet cushion tasselled with gold rested the twisted Crown of Karazan — plain gold and silver interlocking bands, unadorned with gems of any kind — and the Sign of Sovereignty.
Zaronel hadn’t described the Sign of Sovereignty, and at the time I’d wondered why. Now I knew. She hadn’t needed to — the description of the crown applied to them both. The Sign of Sovereignty was the Crown of Karazan in miniature: plain gold and silver interlocking bands, unadorned with gems of any kind.
I stared down at my ring. Blue-bum was right. Part of it was missing. How hadn’t I see it before? I had the silver half … so where was the golden one?
The Stronghold of Arraz
Matron.
I could imagine the scene as clearly as if it was an actual memory — and for all I knew it might be, seen through the misty eyes of the tiny baby I would have been when it happened, and locked away in my subconscious mind.
Matron’s sharp eyes catching the gleam of the larigot in the folds of the shawl; her cold, bony fingers groping for it. The furtive light in her eyes as her hand encounters something else, even more unexpected … draws it out, turning away to shield her find from Cook. Prises the two halves apart, the golden one disappearing into the starched pocket of her apron, the other — the worthless half, in her eyes — poked back into the shawl, just in case the abandoned baby is ever claimed …
There could be no hope of getting it back. It wasn’t the only thing Matron had stolen while she’d been at Highgate; her years of criminal activity had finally caught up with her, and now she was in prison. As for Cookie, even if she had known — which I doubted — she’d left Highgate and gone to work at a girls’ reformatory school. I had no idea where and knew I’d never see her again. Even Highgate probably no longer existed … not that any of it mattered. The ring would have been sold off years ago.
I might as well face it: it was gone. I knew it was crazy to feel such a sense of loss for something I’d never even known about till a few moments ago.
But crazy or not, I did.
With breakfast over and the issue of my ring resolved as far as it was ever going to be, Richard turned to me, hands stuck deep in his pockets, and said bluntly, ‘So, Zephyr: what’s the plan?’
He put a deliberate emphasis on the name. I shot him a sidelong glance, but his face didn’t tell me whether he meant it as an acknowledgement, a joke … or a challenge. Feeling my cheeks burn, I opted to ignore it. ‘We need to find the Stronghold of Arraz. And once we’ve found it, we need to sneak in and get close to Zeel …’
‘And then what?’ Jamie was looking dubious — and who could blame him?
Yes … then what? It was a good question, and one I didn’t feel ready to answer. ‘Then we see what happens,’ I told him, trying to sound confident.
The first part of the plan was unexpectedly simple. Out came the map, and there it was: the Stronghold of Arraz, complete with a picture of a castle with strange, twisted turrets and even what looked like some kind of drawbridge. It looked closer than any of us had dared hope: we just needed to make our way over the low ridge that formed the side of the dragon’s head, then southwards round the edge of the valley.
We’d be there by nightfall. My stomach turned at the thought, but I gave the others a cheery grin. ‘Simple, huh? What are we waiting for?’
They hoisted their packs, Blue-bum scrambling into Kenta’s for his usual free ride. ‘Want to lead, Rich?’ Rich swaggered to the front of the line, the others taking up their positions behind him: Jamie, Gen, Kenta, then me, tagging along at the rear, thinking my own uncomfortable thoughts … and keeping a watchful eye on Blue-bum.
By mid-morning we were working our way along a narrow sheep track on the western side of the main Draken range. Striding along behind Kenta, I could see Blue-bum’s wizened monkey-face peering out of the top of her pack, gazing left and right at the unfolding view. Not that there was much to see: the eastern side of the mountain range was called Morningside, I remembered; this was Dark Face, and it was well named. To our left the bare slopes of the mountains reared above us into a thick pall of cloud, the only sign of life occasional glimpses of the shaggy-coated mountain goats who’d made the track; on our right the ground fell away in a tumble of loose scree and jagged rock, losing itself in a haze of dark
ness and distance far below.
The others struggled and stumbled on, occasionally almost losing their footing on the narrow path. Every now and then Kenta’s face would turn towards the abyss, then quickly away; and when it did, I could read the pale, tense expression on it more clearly than words. It was full of dread.
She wasn’t the only one who was afraid of what we’d find at the end of our journey. And yet … I thought back to Blue-bum’s behaviour when we’d found him close to death at the edge of Chattering Wood, when any mention of Karazeel or Evor had sent him into a jibbering frenzy of terror. But now, with every step taking us closer to Karazeel’s stronghold, he seemed as relaxed as a tourist on a bus trip.
And I wondered why.
As the day wore on the air thickened and darkened and our progress slowed. It had been a long time since I’d seen the last pale smudge of life on the mountainside; the track had long since disappeared. We’d been picking our way behind Richard along a contour line for what seemed an eternity, and now, with visibility at a few metres, had finally come to a stop.
I edged my way past the others to join Rich. His face grim, he pointed out over the well of blackness at our feet. I followed his gaze, space tipping beneath me in a wave of vertigo, groping behind me for the steadying solidity of rock.
At first I thought it was the storm he was showing me. It had been building for hours, and now the bank of cloud hung so close I could almost reach out and touch it — a low black ceiling illuminated by irregular flashes of white light and jagged javelins of purple. Then one bolt more violent than the rest lit the cauldron of the valley in a blue flare and I saw it far below us, swimming in a soup of swirling mist.
The Stronghold of Arraz: a crippled insect rearing skyward.
