Ned fought, he forced himself deeper into his own thoughts. Somewhere in his mind’s eye he saw a light, different from the others, form and enlarge until it filled his vision completely.
“Just a little longer, dearie, and … THERE!” yelled a triumphant Kitty.
Ned was seeing what the old witch was feeling, and together they were peering into the mind of Lucy Beaumont. He had the extraordinary sensation of looking through somebody else’s eyes. Looking out of a window at a beautiful valley. He felt a longing for adventure, a longing for escape. He felt … he felt like a girl.
“Eeuuw, this is horrible!”
His eyes blinked, he had such pretty eyelashes … wait, why did he just think that? He felt a tug of war happening between himself and … himself.
“Kitty? What’s happening?”
“By my useless old eyes … she can see you! You’re like mirrors. I’ve never seen a connection this strong … never.”
Kitty sounded genuinely surprised, and people who saw the future were never genuinely surprised.
“Keep your eyes closed, whatever you do. If she sees back into this room it will probably frighten the life out of her.”
A second voice spoke to him, from somewhere far away and from just inside his head. It was Lucy Beaumont.
“Hello? Is it you? What are you doing? Look, this is really weird, you shouldn’t be in here, not like this!”
His, or rather her head, started to shake violently.
“Quickly, Ned, find something, find a clue, anything!” squawked Kitty. “We’re going to lose her!”
Ned looked round quickly, there was something on her windowsill that seemed to matter. A moment later he was back on the bus with Kitty and the others.
“Go on boy, spit it out!” ordered Benissimo. “Where is she?”
“I’m not sure, but I saw a … flower …” said Ned, suddenly feeling sheepish. “Does that, err, help?”
There was a long disappointed silence. Whiskers, who’d barely left Ned’s pocket since Sar-adin’s attack, gave him a comforting nip and George patted him on the back, nearly knocking him over.
“You tried, Ned – that’s what counts,” he rumbled.
The Ringmaster nodded curtly. “Like I said, pup, who and what you are – or are not – is not your fault. You didn’t ask for any of this.”
For once, the Ringmaster was not trying to be unkind. His words simply spilled out of him. Ned’s disappointment, on the other hand, was all-consuming.
We have a lifetime of love to catch up on, but only the slimmest chance to live it.
Was his mother right? Would he ever get to meet her? Would he ever see his dad again, glued to his screwdriver and his TV …? And that was when it hit Ned. His dream, on his birthday, and again last night, when he’d walked into the house … There’d been a game show on the telly, the answer had been the same both times. It was the name of a flower. And then there was the girl; she’d been carrying something …
“Wait! The flower. It does matter. I saw it last night in a dream. And Lucy had it in her hands when we bonded, and on her windowsill … I think it might be called an … Edelweiss? It means something, it has to …”
George grunted thoughtfully. Somewhere in the great mountain of his skull, a light had been lit.
“Stay right where you are.” Suddenly the ape dropped to all fours and pounded away. The caravan had barely stopped shaking from his abrupt departure when he reappeared with two burnt tomes and his favourite spectacles. He slammed the books down on the table in a great cloud of ash and started flipping through their ruined pages.
“Luckily for you lot, I’m something of an expert in several fields, but none more so than the rare and ‘unfound’. The Botanicus Maximus,” he said, thumbing the index. “A fascinating read, what’s left of it. Let’s hope the page we need has survived …”
The others closed in around him.
“Page three hundred and ninety-seven. The Leontopodium Alpinum, or as Ned so rightly put it, the Edelweiss. There she is …”
And there, in pen and ink, was Ned’s, or rather Lucy’s, flower.
Sensing Benissimo’s impatience from the writhing coils of his whip, George quickly read on.
“Now let me see here, blah, blah, blah, prefers rocky, blah, blah, ah yes. The Edelweiss is a protected species … in Switzerland. Switzerland! Of course! Well, that explains it …”
“Explains what?” asked Ned, confused.
“Why Kitty could never locate even Ned’s mother …”
“Oh, George, you are so very clever for a monkey,” teased Kitty.
“I’m no monkey!” retorted George merrily. “You see, in Switzerland lies one of the few known places across the globe, five in all, I believe, that lie on neither one side of the Veil nor the other, but, as it were, right down the middle. The place in Switzerland I’m thinking of is a long-forgotten convent in the Val Lumnezia, or ‘Valley of Light’, which, according to this entry,” said George, excitedly tapping the page, “was famed for its abundance of Edelweiss! Centuries ago a sect of nuns known as the Order used St Clotilde’s to smuggle the weak and weary across the Veil, one way or the other. At one time, they were powerful, with strong connections to both sides. It was thought they’d been disbanded, under orders from Rome. It would appear that the Order had different ideas. It was a safe house then, and I’ve no doubt it’s a safe house now. I’ll wager a bet – the Order have her. They’ve been hiding her since the beginning. Well done, Ned – you’ve found your Medic!”
***
The circus’s battered campsite was whipped into action as its only two remaining airships untouched by Sar-adin’s attack were readied.
“We’ll need somewhere to resupply after St Clotilde’s. Somewhere nearby and off the radar, anyone’s radar. Miz?” Benissimo twirled the end of his moustache thoughtfully as he spoke.
“Well, there is one place I can think of, but you won’t like it … Theron’s Keep.”
Benissimo’s face darkened.
“Not the Theron. Theron Wormroot? A fairy’s motives are rarely understood, Miz, even by themselves, and if I remember it rightly, Theron’s in the situation he’s in because he’s greedy and can’t be trusted.”
“It’s his greed I’m banking on. Nothing is more compliant than a well-paid crook.”
“Risky but true. And you’re sure there’s nowhere else?”
“Not nearby, old friend, and not if we want to stay hidden.”
Despite his protests, Mystero was ordered to stay with the rest of the troupe and lead them to Theron’s Keep. It would be up to him to whip the Circus of Marvels back into shape, besides which he was the only man, or Mystral, that Benissimo trusted to watch for spies.
The Ringmaster’s final instructions were for the Tinker. Firstly, he was to send a message via his air-modulator to Madame Oublier. The message was simple – Send Jenny. She would know what it meant, he said. This was followed by some other, quietly mumbled instructions that Ned was not party to, about which the two disagreed for some time, the minutian grumbling that it “couldn’t be done” before agreeing to have a go. Whiskers was also left with the Tinker, on some kind of surveillance operation. Neither Ned nor rodent were happy about this, but the Ringmaster was adamant.
After a hurried goodbye to Kitty they assembled outside. Their sortie consisted of the troupe’s finest – Benissimo, George, Monsieur Couteau and the Tortellini boys. Even Rocky emerged from his vigil over Abigail to join them. If there was to be any opportunity for payback, the Russian troll wanted in on the action.
Ned turned down Couteau’s offer of another sword. Engineers before him had always imagined their own weapons with the help of their rings and, ready or not, Ned had decided he would do the same. Besides, he was useless with a blade and he knew it. As the airship took to the skies, Ned sat alone on deck a while, trying to study his Manual, but he couldn’t concentrate. He knew he had barely scraped the surface of what he and his ring could d
o, and he still had no idea how they were going to locate the all-important Source. Kitty had told him to leave that problem to her for now. But he just couldn’t study any more. The dizzyingly complex notes and diagrams in front of him had lost their form. They’d become curves and dashes of meaningless ink, compared to the reality of being about to see his mother. Would she remember him? Would she care? He rubbed at his face, trying to get rid of the night’s ash, and attempted to straighten his hair.
“I wouldn’t worry about all that, old chap. She’s been waiting to see you since before you can remember …” said George, swinging down from the rigging above.
“You … you think she’ll be happy to see me?”
“Happy? Good lord, Ned, you’re about to get the hug of a lifetime.
St Clotilde’s
The convent of St Clotilde had had the good fortune of remaining hidden for most of its many years. The few children who had come across it, from either side of the Veil, shared one thing in common – a need of protection. It was immaculately clean, full of laughter, and a safe cocoon from the outside world.
When Olivia Armstrong had arrived, she’d been carrying a small bundle in her rain-soaked arms. The bundle was Lucy Beaumont, recently orphaned for the sought-after gift that she shared with both her mother and grandfather before her. Olivia would not leave the child unguarded and was granted permission to stay. An unprecedented decision, in view of her background as an operative of the Twelve.
It was here that Lucy Beaumont had spent her life. Only Sister Clementine was ever allowed out, and she had been ‘reassigned’ without warning. Lucy missed Sister Clementine’s stories of the world beyond her window and longed to see it with her own two eyes; a longing that the Mother Superior had promised would one day be answered.
“I’ve told you what you are. The world will come knocking, Lucy, you might not be so pleased to see it when it does.”
***
From the air, the Val Lumnezia looked to be a picture of tranquillity. Two of the Tortellinis had kept a constant vigil for any sign of a tail and they were quite certain that no one had followed them. The troupe were relieved as the airship descended into a lush meadow, surrounded by flower-peppered hills. Bees buzzed around them noisily and overweight goats grazed happily on the grass.
Ned watched with amusement as a shiny red apple flew off the ground and floated up to the branches of a gnarled apple tree. As Ned had come to learn, things were rarely as they seemed when sitting on the Veil’s borders.
The grey stone walls of St Clotilde’s were much smaller than Ned had imagined, sitting undisturbed as they did on the hillside, looking down on the rest of the valley.
Walking up the hill towards the convent, they soon realised that the building they’d assumed was St. Clothilde’s was in fact only its gatehouse. The rest of its structure lay behind it, which they couldn’t see from their approach.
As they passed through the gatehouse and crossed into the Veil, Ned’s ears started to hum, with muffled, stretched-out sounds too distorted by the Veil’s magic to make out.
“Quiet,” hissed Benissimo. Monsieur Couteau drew his sword.
As they came closer, the sounds grew louder and painfully clear. Low, lumbering groans soon rose till their pitch rested on a high, painful scream. It was a woman’s, and one of many. The world had indeed come knocking for Lucy, using fists and swords and muskets.
Ned tried to register the horror before him.
In the central courtyard a battle raged between the Sisters of St. Clotilde’s and a large group of Gor-balins. Their young wards were running from the fight, with a wall of the Sisters’ rapiers to cover their exit. Pools of blood framed several of the children’s valiant protectors who had already fallen to the assailants’ onslaught.
But it was not the attacking creatures’ violence that made Ned’s stomach turn so much as the expressions of joy on their pointed, sallow faces.
“Mud-gobs,” muttered one of the Tortellinis.
These variants of Gor-balin were thick-necked and heavy, bred as blunt instruments for the breaking of bones – with skin like tree bark and hair a mess of tattered roots. They did not know what the Medic looked like and Ned could only assume from the multitude of fleeing children that they had been ordered to kill … all of them.
“Mum …” he breathed. His eyes fixed on the fresh corpses strewn across the courtyard’s floor.
“Guns ’n daggers,” spat Benissimo, his whip already in hand.
There were rules amongst the fighting kind. No matter how bitter the battle, children should never be harmed, and the church, whatever its creed, was sacred ground.
“That fire in your belly, boy, does it still burn?” roared the Ringmaster.
“Yes!” Ned exclaimed.
“Then I suggest you use it! Strike swift ’n’ hard boys!”
And with a furious bellow, Benissimo and his men charged. Somewhere, amongst the smoke and the screams, was Ned’s mother. His head, hands and heart filled with a rush of furious fire and for the briefest moment, he forgot that he was just a boy.
They hit the unsuspecting marauders hard. Rocky’s Abigail was still in a coma and the great mountain became a running juggernaut of stony vengeance. Benissimo turned his whip to a coil of flames, before hurling three stone runes at a cluster of assailants. When the runes’ magic was spent, the cluster had turned to a pile of salt. Meanwhile the half-satyr Tortellinis had vaulted over the gor-balins’ heads and landed by the nuns’ sides, weapons already raised. Monsieur Couteau turned one of the Darkling captains into a walking pin-cushion. From its wounds poured a gurgling mess of tree sap and dirt. George stayed loyally by Ned’s side, cracking heads together as he lumbered past.
Not all of the marauders had been taken unawares. At the centre of the courtyard stood the Darklings’ ‘heavy weapon’ – a thick-skulled swamp ogre. Green, vast and angry, it was covered in slimy, lizard-like skin, with eyes to match, and it had set its sharp-toothed sights on Ned. It was grinning wildly, while stroking the edge of a large scimitar.
Ned thought fast – he was determined to tackle this like a true Engineer. What would take out the beast’s weapon most effectively? One of the descriptions in his Manual came to mind. It was a design for one of many listed weapons, but less complicated than the others. Two weighty iron disks on top of one another, with serrated edges, and a single bolt to join them – a ‘spindisk’. Perfect for breaking the ogre’s blade. The hard part would be Telling them to move, counter-clockwise to one another, before launching them at the ogre. As rudimentary a weapon as the manual said it was, it would still be stretching Ned’s new skill-set considerably.
The ogre roared and George paced forwards, beating his chest in an attempt to draw attention from Ned.
Ned stilled his mind – blocking out the sounds of both ape and ogre – and focused on the cobblestone paving at his feet. Stone to metal, their density would work, they were a good fit; he just had to will the atoms to move on his command. He saw the surface of the stone in his mind as if it were his own skin. He probed its very substance, willing it to reconfigure, and immediately felt it begin to harden and shimmer with the reflectiveness of metal. His ring fired, its energy shooting through his body, and two cobblestones came loose from the ground, changing before him. He Saw their edges sharpen, and it happened. For the bolt, he chose a shard of brick from one of the convent’s shattered walls and altered it in the same way. When he tried to meld the pieces, for a second the vision faltered as he struggled with the details. But his mind knew what to do, after all those years of building sets with his dad, it pushed and pulled the pieces together until finally there was an angry spark of energy, and the spindisk hung in the air before him. His calculations were off, it was smaller than he’d intended, but it would have to do.
Ned had only dabbled with Feeling, but knew that the more emotion you put into the Amplification, the more violent the reaction. As he thought of his mother, the spindisk glowed a fier
y red. He channelled his worry and rage into the weapon’s moving parts and the spindisk flew angrily at its target.
“Argh!”
Ned was shocked, as much by the ferocity of his projectile as that the creature was still standing. The ogre had lost three teeth and its lips were bleeding badly, but it still managed to grin as it barrelled towards him, scimitar untouched and ready to hurt. His Feeling had been too raw, and the disk had flown wider than Ned intended. But the ogre soon stopped when the black mound of furred muscle that was George came smashing into it. A second later and George the Mighty had it pinned to the ground, with one of his great feet at the creature’s throat. As it struggled beneath him, the ape became a frightening blur of strength, suddenly yanking the ogre aloft, swinging it about his head, before launching it into the air. The flailing beast flew over the convent wall and out of sight. Ned had never seen anything like it.
“I know you’re on my side, George, but sometimes you really scare me.”
But before the ape could answer, there was a sudden shriek of loud gunfire from a corridor that opened to their right, followed by screaming. And a pair of unwelcome newcomers.
The absurdly tall American, Slim, walked into view like a spider looking for a fly, and to his side, the stocky ball of muscle that was Cannonball, his teeth chattering with excitement.
“Well ain’t it our lucky day?” grinned Cannonball.
Ned braced himself. If Cannonball was half as quick as he’d been in Shalazaar he’d have little time to use his ring.
“Now we get to kill the girl and take the boy. The boss is gonna be reeeal happy,” agreed Slim.
But the ever-vigilant Ringmaster had spotted the threat.
“George, get him to his mother, and Lucy, quickly now!” ordered Benissimo.
Monsieur Couteau and Rocky stepped in to aid their escape, cutting off the American and his dwarven sidekick.
“Ready fer a lil dance, Frenchie?” asked Slim.
“En garde, theen man.”
The long-elf’s arms blurred with gunfire as Cannonball made ready to charge. But bullets were just like any number of projectiles the Master at Arms had sparred with in his shows, and he blocked each and every one, with the angry roar of metal on metal.
Circus of Marvels Page 18
