“Lucy? Lucy, are you OK?”
She opened her eyes wide, with a look of utter confusion. “He’s telling the truth. It’s hard to explain – the Fey’s minds are so … noisy. But all that noise, well, it’s not directed at us, not at all. Something seems to have them in a tight hold; whatever it is, I can’t read it.”
On the ground Gorrn billowed nervously, half in retreat and half drawn to the walls and vines around them. Meanwhile Mr Fox’s finger was still poised over the trigger of his gun.
“By noise you mean what they’re thinking about?” he asked.
“Yes, and it’s not us.”
Ned watched as the agent relaxed his hold on his gun and then holstered it. However new Mr Fox was to the workings of the Hidden, one thing was sure: he trusted Lucy and her gifts implicitly.
“Lead on, Lemnus.”
They moved through the network of root-encased tunnels, quietly and carefully. Their guide could not have seemed more relaxed, no doubt because he called this place home. As their path widened and lowered, Ned realised that everything here, from the walls to its doors and what he’d thought were carvings, was in fact not made by the Fey at all but formed by the roots of the glade itself. They passed by great halls, squares and balconies of vine and bark. It reminded him of their journey into Annapurna, how plants and stone had seemed to mingle. The Seelie Court, at least the warren that housed it, was alive and, Ned sensed, quite able to think. What came as much more of a mystery was that it was also, to his eyes, abandoned.
“Lemnus, where is everybody? Where are the Fey?”
“Far too busy to notice us, Engineer. They are at the ball.”
And the fairy’s face did two things – at first he smiled, lost in a long-loved memory, then he scowled at the thought of it.
“They’re at a ball? Is that some kind of dance? How can all of them be there?”
“You’ll understand when you see it.”
“But we’re not going to see it, right? We’re going to avoid the ball and the fairies in it, aren’t we?”
Lemnus stopped and pointed towards a series of windows.
“The Seelie Court works in reverse. These tunnels are what you might call a basement. The court itself is below us and the bedchambers of the courtiers lower down again. That throne room is where they are lost in the dance. The chamber that holds both your parents and the Heart Stone is in the adjoining room.”
Ned, Lucy and Mr Fox crouched down low and peeked over the edge of the windows. Below them was the most extraordinary sight, even by the Hidden’s standards. Hundreds upon hundreds of fairies were amassed in a single throne room. Along its edges were huge oak banqueting tables where fairies sat, row after row, feasting on great mountains of food. At its centre they danced, pirouetting endlessly to some silent music that neither Ned nor his companions could hear. Peering closer, he saw that once again nothing was made by hand. Even the vast chandeliers that hung over them all were leafy, and the lights at their tips were glow-worms instead of flames. Ned had expected the fairies amassed here to be different, but his limited knowledge of their kind couldn’t have prepared him. Some were no larger than thumbs and ran across the tables; others were ten feet tall with limbs as thick as his wrists. Some had feathers for hair, others the wings of beetles or birds; and no two sets of eyes or skin colours were completely alike. They shimmered and shone, a few of them changing hue in the same way as familiars, and others yet seemed more animal than anything, with beaks and the ears of foxes, or hooves for hands.
Two things bound them together. Like Lemnus, they all wore dated courtiers’ clothes from another era, but unlike Lemnus, they were all lost in a trance. They laughed and ate and drank, but it was as though they were acting, or playing a part that never changed – or couldn’t change, even if they’d wanted it to.
“What’s the matter with them?” breathed Mr Fox, his training again fully stretched by what the Hidden offered.
“The magic in these walls has a power to it. It is nature unbound, as pure as a newborn spring, as deadly as a dying winter. They are listening to its song. It feeds them with power till they become giddy and unable to free themselves.”
“No wonder there was so much noise,” said Lucy. “But that’s awful! How can they be set free?”
Lemnus seemed to sadden and anger at the same time. “They don’t want to be free. The music feeds them and so they come – it is the source of their magic. Were it not for my bag of pollen, I’d be down there with them now.”
As he spoke, Ned could see how much the creature meant it. His lips were trembling and his hands fidgeting wildly. For a moment, Ned saw Lemnus and his people in a different light. As powerful and wild as they were, they were also prisoners of a sort, drawn to the strange ritual like moths to a flame.
“How long does it last?”
“Time has little meaning to us. Sometimes a night, or days, sometimes a month, or a string of years. Wherever we are, there is always the music. It has made us cruel and selfish, because we care for nothing else.”
Ned thought back to his meeting at St Albertsburg and how little Prince Aurelin had seemed to care for the Hidden’s plight. Rather than make him angry, he’d felt sorry for them, all of them. Gorging on the glade’s magic had ruined them – every one, except perhaps for Lemnus.
“You want it stopped, don’t you?”
Lemnus’s face sagged, his great red eyebrows crumpling round his eyes. “More than anything.”
“When this is over, when we defeat Barbarossa and his Demon, we could come back here and help you somehow.”
“Yes, Lemnus, there must be a way,” said Lucy, who looked as close to tears as the fairy in front of them. “I’ll talk to the other Farseers – they must know of something we can do.”
“No need, little firecracker. And thank you, mind-maker. The tales I have heard of you are as true as your hearts, but I already know what must be done, and done it will be, here and now. In taking the Heart Stone you will break the curse. It is my job of jobs to keep it safe. But I’m simply going to give it to you.”
Lemnus pointed to a stairwell and gave them a broad smile.
“Follow me, Fox, boy and girl. Whatever you do, eat nothing, drink nothing – or here you will remain till the song is sung.”
Breaking and Entering
emnus led them down a spiral staircase and into the Fey’s courtroom. Ned’s heart was pounding so hard he thought it might actually burst. They walked now as thieves, carefully dodging and ducking, as the spectacle continued around them. The fairies in the court were in a trance, but Lemnus made it clear that bumping into them or treading on their toes would rouse them just as surely as it would a dreamer from any dream.
“Gorrn?” whispered Ned.
“Arr?”
“Do not leave my side.”
There was little chance – Ned’s familiar clung so close to his shadow that he was almost completely invisible. As they walked, Ned looked at the food and drink on the tables. He’d never seen anything more appetising or so perfectly cooked. The apples looked juicier and the grapes brighter; goblets of drink seemed to call out to him till his throat ran dry with thirst. A cat-eared fairy walked by with a tray of drinks and before he knew what he was doing, his hand reached out to take one, or at least it would have done if his occasionally useful familiar hadn’t bitten his calf.
“Unt!” he warned quietly.
“Oww! Err, thank you,” mouthed Ned.
Gorrn went back to shivering in his shadow and Mr Fox was so overcome by his surroundings that he had gone completely silent. It was like being in a music video or a film without any sound, only there was sound – the fairies laughed and their feet shuffled, but all to music that Ned couldn’t hear. Finally they passed by an empty throne and into the adjoining room. Wherever King Oberon was, he was not at the ball.
They found themselves standing in the hollow of a giant oak tree. Light spilling down from hundreds of feet above them shed a greenish glow over everythi
ng. And there, sitting on three chairs made of vines, were Ned’s parents and Benissimo, eyes open but apparently asleep. The fairy had been true to his word – they were, at least to Ned’s eyes, completely unharmed.
Ned ran up to wake them when Lemnus grabbed his shoulder.
“Steady, child – slow and steady, if you will. To wake them suddenly is to hurt them.”
“Then how?”
“Take the stone and they will wake slowly, peacefully.”
In the centre of the room was a small wooden plinth, and at its top sat a black stone just larger than a man’s hand. It was perfectly smooth and shone gently with a light of its own. At the plinth’s foot was a more worrying sight, though it was, like Ned’s parents and the Ringmaster, sound asleep. It had deep red fur with bright turquoise stripes and looked to be some mix of both tiger and lion. Mr Fox’s hand hovered over his gun.
“Lemnus, what exactly is that?”
“That, sir, is a ligron. Part tiger, part lion, but mostly magic. The only one in existence and utterly fearless. It is also mine.”
“Handy,” said Mr Fox and left his gun in its holster. “Well, Ned, I’d rather like to get out of here, wouldn’t you?”
Ned approached the Heart Stone. The more he looked at it, the more it seemed to shine.
“When you take the stone, your parents and the Ringmaster will wake from their slumber. Slowly at first, Mr Fox. I would suggest that you help urge them from their seats, then move at a pace. The court will also wake, you see, and you will have little time to escape.”
“What?!” Ned’s eyes bulged out of his head. “Lemnus, how are we supposed to get them through that blinking room if every fairy in Dublin wakes to find us running off with their magic pebble?”
“On the back of my ligron.”
Ned stared at the creature. Even asleep it oozed power, but it was still no larger than a normal tiger or lion.
“No offence – I mean, he’s a wonderful creature and everything – but we can’t all get on him.”
“He grows.”
“Very handy,” said Mr Fox.
Lemnus pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and passed it to Ned.
“Elven silk. It will protect you from the Heart Stone’s power until you are ready to use it.”
Ned took the handkerchief and wrapped it round the stone.
“Mr Fox, Lucy, get ready to help them,” Lemnus said, indicating towards the three sleepers.
Ned approached the stone and slowly put his hand to it. It was warm to the touch but otherwise surprisingly “stony”. It was far heavier than it looked, but he was able to lift it from the plinth with little effort.
“Try not to drop it,” grinned Lemnus.
There was a stirring from the foot of the plinth and in the chairs to their side. Ned’s mum and dad, Benissimo and the ligron opened their eyes slowly.
At the sight of her son, Olivia Armstrong smiled giddily before getting up and falling flat on her face.
“Jeffrey?” she winced. “My darling boy, is that you?”
“Ned, Mum. It’s Ned.”
“Course it is, Cuthbert, I’d know your face anywhere. Peter, look, darling – it’s our darling.”
Ned’s dad blinked over and over till he finally settled to take Ned and his companions in.
“Oh, yes, Daphne, you’re right! How ever did he wind up here? Jack, my boy, we have so missed you.”
Ned shot a look to Lucy and Mr Fox, before turning on Lemnus. “What has happened to them?!”
“Don’t worry, child. I think you have an expression, no? ‘Away with the fairies.’ I’m afraid they’re still a bit ‘away’, but fear not, they’ll be back to their old selves in a moment or two.”
Lucy was trying to help Olivia off the ground and Mr Fox was doing his best to rouse Benissimo, who was still drifting in and out of sleep.
Suddenly the room began to rumble and the ligron rose.
“Hello, old friend,” said Lemnus. “I have a job for you. You’re going to carry my friends on your back and get them to safety. Can you manage that?”
The ligron bowed its head solemnly and stared at Ned and his party. His eyes weren’t the usual orange-yellow of a big cat, but the same bright turquoise as his striped fur. He was beautiful, almost regal in the way he held himself, and utterly terrifying. Gorrn gave a low “Unt” to his gaze and promptly slid into the shadow of Ned’s pocket, where he would no doubt stay.
“Coward,” whispered Ned.
“Quickly now, I hear them stirring next door.”
Ned and the others manhandled the sleepers on to the back of the ligron; as they did so, it started to grow, inch by stripy inch, till it was the height of a large stallion and the width of two bulls. Within moments a staggered Ned found himself looking down from its mane and only Lemnus remained on the ground. The fairy clearly had no intention of going with them.
“But, Lemnus, when they find out what you’ve done you’ll be—”
“Dealing with a small rebellion, and not my first, young lady! Oberon, our king, has seen many such troubles, though this I’m sure will be the worst.”
“Come with us!” urged Ned. “Oberon is going to kill you for this, Lemnus.”
“Unlikely – it’s on his orders that I have helped you. It is time to save our people. Though they won’t thank us for it, and they will try to kill you to get the stone back until we can calm them down – if we can calm them down. Quickly now, back through the courtroom – my ligron will take you to the surface.”
The extraordinary creature that was Lemnus Gemfeather put his hand up to the ligron’s mane and led them towards the courtroom.
“Lemnus,” asked Ned, turning back one last time, “the Heart Stone – how am I supposed to use it?”
“With courage and conviction, dear boy, and with the help of your friend!” He then turned to Mr Fox all mischief removed. “And, Mr Fox?”
“Yes, Mr Gemfeather?”
“Listen to yourself – your role is more important than you know.”
Ned had no idea what the fairy had meant, and at first glance it seemed like Mr Fox hadn’t either. As they entered the throne room, something in front of them stirred. The fairy put his cheek to the ligron’s fur.
“Move swiftly, my pet, or your charges will be torn to shreds.”
The first of the court to break from their curse was a thumb-sized hummingbird. It was thrumming its way towards them, a gentle flurry of green and yellow. Its minuscule rider looked to Lemnus and bowed with a smile. Then it took in the ligron’s passengers. As its eyes honed in on Ned and the silken bundle on his lap, its tiny face turned to confusion then outright rage and the hummingbird’s rider screamed. It was a piercing scream, a loud and desperate scream, and it was heard in every corner of the fairy king’s realm.
Magic Wakes
horrified Ned could only watch as the vast throne room woke from its trance. Beneath him the ligron growled, its claws digging into the ground for purchase. Lemnus’s pet was preparing to charge. In its way: every noble and knight of the Seelie Court. Plates of food were dropped and pirouettes abandoned in stumbled falls as the room followed the scream to its source.
“Fox, get them to hold on!”
“Easier said than done!” shouted back Mr Fox, who was doing everything to rouse the Armstrongs and Benissimo short of slapping their faces, until he finally did just that.
“Odin’s beard, man, what are you doing?” spat Benissimo. Then his eyes focused on the room. “Oh …”
ROAR!
With a great lurch the ligron charged, smashing through an oak table and its gathered Fey like a bowling ball through a set of pins. The fairies there screamed and scattered, and the ligron continued its assault. Ned clung on to its fur with every ounce of his strength.
“Barking dogs, Lucy! Hold on!”
“WHAT DO YOU THINK I’M DOING?!”
Faster and faster the beast ran, piling through rows of panicked and angry Fey. Tables, chairs,
dishes and jugs were cracked and smashed to pieces till one scream became a hundred and the room turned. At the far end, where the Fey had had more time to wake from their slumber, weapons were drawn and a hastily made barrier of tables raised. The ligron roared again, charging like a furred bull at the throng of waiting fairies. Ned ducked as a flurry of needle-thin arrows launched from the backs of hummingbirds narrowly missed him. Above them, the taller fairies threw spears of thorn-tipped vine.
“Argh!” yelped Lucy, as something tore into her, her arm now bleeding badly.
“BRACE!” screamed Ned.
CRASH.
The ligron lunged at the barrier of tables before them, nearly knocking Ned’s dazed dad from its back. Mr Fox’s arm shot out and pulled him upright again with a mighty heave. The ligron at last managed to claw its way up and over the barrier, Ned’s heart leaping into his mouth as a dozen blades screamed by their legs and feet. They landed on the other side, crushing three larger fairies with a painful crack, and the beast sped on.
Up the spiral staircase and through the Fey’s courtyards and squares it ran, behind them a tidal wave of winged and angry assailants.
“Ooh, so pretty,” sang Ned’s mum as another spear flew by their heads.
“Mum, wake up!” shouted Ned, face now turned to their pursuers.
Closing the gap was a buzzing, chattering throng of armed fairies. Some flew, some galloped, others sped along the walls and ceilings like angered ants protecting their nest. For a moment, Ned felt sorry for them. Their prized possession and the source of their magic had been stolen just as they had stolen it from Tiamat. Etched on each and every face was a hatred he’d rarely seen and never by so many aimed at so few.
A hummingbird dived from above, planting its razor-sharp beak in his cheek.
“Argh!”
His sorrow promptly left him in a spray of blood as he swatted at the bird and its rider.
“Ned! Watch out!” yelled Lucy.
Ned turned just in time to see a wall of vines thickening in front of them.
“STOP!” he yelled, pulling at the ligron’s mane in a violent attempt to avoid their collision, but the ligron leapt forward, howling as the closing greenery stabbed at its sides. There was a burst of light and their mount stumbled, its paw tangled in some knotted snare, and they were all thrown violently over its head, landing in a painful heap at the centre of the glade.
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