Rumblestar

by Abi Elphinstone

  Utterly gasped. ‘Will there be snow pies and mist tea?’

  Frostbite nodded. ‘It would not be a feast without them. Now, if you will excuse me, Utterly, I shall escort the criminal to the dungeons myself before returning to The Precipice to share the good news with the rest of the Lofty Husks.’

  Then, for a small moment, Utterly hesitated. ‘I hope you don’t think I’m being too bold, sir, but earlier you didn’t mention the criminal to the other Lofty Husks so I just—’

  Frostbite sniffed. ‘Run along now, Utterly, or I shall change my mind about that feast and the speech I am planning to make entirely in your honour in front of every Unmapper in the kingdom.’

  ‘He’s not going to—’ Casper started. But Frostbite clapped a hand over his mouth and then threw Utterly such a stern look that Arlo burst into tears and Utterly scurried back along the corridor with him.

  When she was out of sight, Frostbite withdrew his hand and glared at Casper. ‘How did you find the phoenix tear, boy? And how exactly did you activate it so that you could travel from the Faraway? I thought only dragons carrying weather scrolls could find and then cross the invisible links between our world and yours.’

  ‘So you do believe me?’ Casper asked in a small voice.

  Frostbite ignored him. ‘How did you do it?’ He pursed his lips. ‘Because this could change everything.’

  ‘I didn’t do anything,’ Casper replied. ‘I told you, I hid inside a grandfather clock and ended up here somehow. And now I really need to get home.’

  ‘Frostbite?’ a voice from within The Precipice called. ‘We have important work to do tonight.’

  ‘I shall be with you very shortly,’ Frostbite replied. ‘I must just complete one small errand. Do carry on without me.’

  Casper thought back to his to-do list. No dragons had been unleashed yet but even so, this seemed like a fairly appropriate moment to start begging and screaming. But just as Casper opened his mouth, Frostbite once again clamped a hand over it and with the other, he gripped Casper’s shoulder and marched him down the Red Carpet. Casper made to struggle free but the Lofty Husk was four times his size, and as Frostbite bounded down the stairs, one flight at a time, Casper tried to console himself with the measly knowledge that at least he had ticked one thing off his to-do list since arriving in Rumblestar: Use stairs on descent from castle.

  Frostbite glided across the courtyard then strode out over the cloud giant bridges. Night had now fallen and as they passed the moat it stirred with shadows. The Lofty Husk said nothing as they walked but Casper could sense his mind whirring as he leapt from the bridge they were on, still holding Casper tight with a hand that was so wrinkled it was almost scaled, and landed on the walkway encircling the dungeon tower. The gargoyles clutching their black-flamed torches leered out from the stonework.

  ‘Please,’ Casper whispered, edging away from the metal grate barring the entrance. ‘I accidentally found my way here. I don’t want to cause any problems. I just want to go home.’

  ‘It may well have been an accident,’ Frostbite muttered, ‘but somehow you must have activated a phoenix tear, and if you have found a way to cross the links from your world to ours, then perhaps you can also find a way to cross from Everdark to Rumblestar.’ He paused. ‘Which makes you rather valuable to someone I know – until she decides to sever the links between the Unmapped Kingdoms and the Faraway, that is.’

  ‘Sever the links?’ Casper cried. ‘But . . . that would mean I couldn’t ever return home!’

  ‘Silence!’ Frostbite said curtly. ‘We would not want to awaken the cloud giants now, would we?’

  The Lofty Husk yanked a lever jutting out from the tower wall, and as he did so, Casper noticed the ring on Frostbite’s finger again. Only the mirror embedded in it didn’t show a reflection, as it had done earlier; it showed something dark and feathered with a skull-like head. Frostbite tucked the ring beneath the cuff of his robes and then smiled as the grate cranked up to reveal a flight of steps leading into the gloom.

  Frostbite pushed Casper inside and the grate slammed down over the entrance. ‘After I have told the Lofty Husks about Utterly’s shocking admission that she was the one behind all the problems in the Mixing Tower – it is not like the child stays out of trouble for long, after all – I shall be back to question you, so you will not be alone all night.’ He paused. ‘You will have the gravestones, I suppose, but they are not the cheeriest of company – grave by name, grave by nature, I am afraid.’

  Frostbite moved the lever in various directions and a crunching sound, like that of a very large key turning in a lock, sounded. Then the Lofty Husk stalked back across the bridges to the castle.

  Casper huddled against the bars and thought of his parents. His mum and dad were always encouraging him to step outside his comfort zone and to have another go at making friends, but he reckoned even they would have drawn a line at this . . . He prayed again with everything inside him that his mum was safely back from the village and that a hurricane didn’t come in the night and reduce their little turret to a pile of rubble. His dad could fix most things, but these storms were another matter entirely. What Casper would do to have his dad’s strong arms wrapped around him right now. Hugging wasn’t even an activity Casper usually factored into his timetables, but tonight he felt an overwhelming need to be held.

  He looked out at the sky. It was stitched with stars and a crescent moon hung over the castle. Many of the windows were lit up and there were all sorts of cranking, popping and fizzing noises coming from an enormous tower connected to the castle by a humpback bridge. Three vast chimneys poked up from the roof of this tower, and hammered to the large door down by the moat was a sign just visible in the moonlight: THE MIXING TOWER (CONTAINS CHAOTIC ACTIVITY – ENTER AT OWN RISK). But Casper supposed even those running the machines in the tower would go to bed eventually. And then the lights and sounds would dim and it would just be him and the cloud giants – until Frostbite came back.

  Casper felt a lump lodge in his throat. He had allowed himself a flicker of hope when Frostbite had believed his story, but now it seemed that even though the Lofty Husk knew he wasn’t from here, Frostbite wasn’t going to help Casper get back to Little Wallops – quite the reverse, in fact – it sounded like the Lofty Husk wanted to cut off the way home completely! Casper swivelled round, the impossibility of things weighing heavy inside him, and eyed the steps. They sank into darkness and he thought of the gravestones Frostbite had mentioned. Were prisoners left so long inside the dungeons that they died here?

  ‘What am I going to do?’ Casper sobbed, and then his jaw slackened because words were appearing, in golden ink, on the dungeon walls.

  Casper brushed his tears away, stood up, then read the words aloud in a half whisper:

  ‘The maps you know hold well-known lines

  Shapes scored and inked in olden times.

  Continents drawn and oceans named,

  Peaks climbed and countries claimed.

  But maps hold secrets yet untold

  Of places you should ink in gold,

  Up north, down south, far west and east

  Kingdoms full of magical beasts.

  It’s hard to trust in words like these

  But trust you must if you’re to leave.’

  Casper stared at the words. It was as if they had been written specifically for him because this was an answer, of sorts, to the question he had just asked.

  ‘Are . . . are the stones alive?’ Casper’s voice was so quiet it was almost just a breath, but as he spoke, the words on the wall faded from sight and then new ones appeared, glinting through the dark.

  Alive – why yes – though we’ve words not bones

  For we are the legendary Grave Stones

  We speak the truth and only the truth

  So ask us things, you shoeless youth.

  Casper watched as the words vanished, then he took a step closer and ran his hand across the stones. ‘Can you help me?’<
br />
  Help, perhaps, though it depends

  We’re hardly here to be your friends.

  Our words are famed for doom and gloom

  So if you’re scared, please leave the room.

  Casper threw his hands in the air. ‘We’re in a locked dungeon! I can’t leave!’

  New words appeared.

  The words you speak are very true

  But you try rhyming right on cue.

  Sometimes the words we want to share

  Need rhymes that are a real nightmare.

  So, if that happens we just show

  Words of deepest, darkest woe.

  Casper tried to think clearly. ‘So, you’re saying that all this is real – the secret kingdoms and the magical beasts – and if I want to get home I have to believe in it all.’ He looked out at the sleeping cloud giants. ‘Well, if you speak the truth and only the truth, I want to know how these hidden kingdoms came about.’

  More words glittered on the stones.

  The egg came first, bright and gold

  Then the phoenix, so we’re told.

  Alone it wept, seven large tears

  And the Faraway formed over the years.

  Africa, Europe, Asia and more,

  All different shapes with different shores.

  But these lands were dull and awfully dark

  So the phoenix left another mark.

  Four of its feathers tumbled down

  And the Unmapped Kingdoms came around.

  Casper felt his knees wobble. He’d been half hoping the Grave Stones would mention the Big Bang and evolution but they had spoken of a phoenix and magical tears instead. He tried to wrap his head around it all. So, had Utterly been telling the truth? There really were four secret kingdoms beavering away to share sunlight, rain and snow with his world? It sounded impossible and unlikely and horribly full of risk, but then even the cleverest meteorologists hadn’t been able to understand the strange weather of late. Could it be that it wasn’t just climate change causing problems, but there were also damaged marvels tainting these . . . weather scrolls the Unmappers created? And was Utterly right when she’d said it wasn’t simply faulty pipes behind the chaos but someone meddling with the marvels instead? But Casper wasn’t the criminal, and Utterly didn’t seem to be either, so who was?

  Casper thought of Sophie’s cake sale to raise money for those who had lost their homes in London. Then he thought of the bus full of people in Ireland that had been blown from a cliff into the sea, never to surface again. And of the little village in Scotland which had been wiped clean off the map. The horror stories were endless. Was there something he could do up here to stop all the bad weather back home? Casper banished the thought almost as quickly as it had come. He wasn’t cut out for saving kingdoms and righting worlds. Absolutely not. But, whether he liked it not, he couldn’t avoid the worrying truth of things before him now.

  He collected his thoughts and arranged them, in his head, in a brief but purposeful new to-do list:

  1. Trust the Grave Stones (because your life depends on it)

  2. Only get involved in highly risky world-saving business if absolutely necessary and there are grown-ups in charge

  3. Get home ASAP

  Then he straightened the collar on his blazer and looked at the Grave Stones. ‘I . . . I’ve decided to believe you,’ he said. ‘Partly because what you’ve said sort of makes sense but mostly because I want to go home – RIGHT NOW.’ He took a deep breath. ‘So, what do I do?’

  The stones remained blank for a few minutes, then the following words glistened.

  I’m afraid, young boy, you might as well cry

  Coz tomorrow, for sure, you’ll be dragon pie.

  Casper narrowed his eyes at the stones. ‘Are you saying that because it’s going to happen or because you can’t find any good rhymes?’

  But this time, no new words surfaced. Perhaps even stones go to sleep eventually, Casper thought. He sat down before the grate again and, shivering with cold and fear, he drew out his crumpled timetable. He had felt lonely back at Little Wallops at times but that was nothing compared to being locked in the dungeons of a kingdom so far from home.

  A tear trickled down his cheek, then a sinking dread crept through him. Both Frostbite and the Grave Stones had talked about phoenix tears, and it did seem likely that the gemstone inside the clock key had been one – how else would he have come to be here? – but only now did Casper realise that this gemstone, the only thing that linked him to home, was still in Frostbite’s possession.

  Utterly lay in her bed on the sixty-third floor of the castle. She listened to her mother mumbling in her sleep, but no matter how many times she tossed and turned, Utterly couldn’t drift off. Was it the excitement of the feast the next day? she wondered. But somehow she didn’t think so. Because where there should have been excitement, there was a tugging sort of feeling deep inside her belly that made her push back her quilt and sit up.

  Utterly’s whole family shared a bed, and had they lived in the Faraway this might have been considered unfortunate. But in Rumblestar, it was quite the reverse. Because this bed was, in fact, a three-storey bunk bed and instead of ordinary bunks there were three enormous four-poster beds carved from silver birch trees and built one on top of the other.

  Utterly slept in the top bed, which was boxed in by billowing curtains spun from cloudwisp, and her parents slept in the bottom one, which was surrounded by velvet drapes. The middle bunk lay empty and had done so for three years, but, even so, every night Utterly paused on the ladder as she came to it and a longing inside her throbbed.

  Each of the four trunks on Utterly’s bed had a gold button with words carved into the wood below: CALM, MOSTLY CALM (WITH THE ODD BIT OF GIGGLING), NOT VERY CALM (EXPECT SUSTAINED PERIODS OF BREATHLESSNESS), AND HECTIC (INVOLVES BUMPS AND JUMPS – NOT FOR THE FAINT-HEARTED).

  They were dream choices, and although Utterly had broken with her tradition and selected MOSTLY CALM (WITH THE ODD BIT OF GIGGLING) to get a good night’s sleep ahead of the feast, she had felt distinctly uncalm since leaving Casper a few hours ago. She opened the shutters behind her bed to reveal a small circular window. Arlo, who slept inside an old knitted sock on Utterly’s pillow and had done every night since he’d shown up at her window three years ago, opened one eye, and as Utterly peered out over the moat the little dragon crawled up her hair and settled himself on the windowsill.

  The stars were flickering over the kingdom and the moonlight wrapped the clouds in silver. Utterly thought of her dad in his hot air balloon. A few days ago he had headed out for the mountains to the east of the kingdom, where the magical winds that funnelled down the Mixing Tower chimneys and nudged the marvels down all the pipes, stirred. No marvels grew in the Dusky Peaks, but by eavesdropping on her parents talking, Utterly had learnt that her father had been sent there because this was a different sort of mission from ordinary Ballooner work. Utterly’s dad was among the most skilled Ballooners in the kingdom and he had received a secret order from the Lofty Husks to investigate whether there was anything untoward going on with the magical winds that might taint the marvels when they poured into the Mixing Tower chimneys. And that was when Utterly had first suspected that perhaps the Lofty Husks were keeping things from the rest of the Unmappers.

  It was no secret that the Lofty Husks were worried. Everyone in the Unmapped Kingdoms was frightened. Because even though Smudge and Bartholomew had stolen Morg’s wings, a new phoenix hadn’t risen from Everdark. Which could only mean one thing: Morg was still alive. And how long would it be before she found her wings and rose up out of Everdark?

  No one had seen Smudge or Bartholomew since they stole Morg’s wings but everyone knew harpies were greedy – notoriously so – and if Morg had stalled the rising of the next phoenix, it was because she wanted to steal every last scrap of Unmapped magic for herself. All the Lofty Husks and Unmappers lay in fear of this day – how could they not when with every year that passed a lit
tle more of the Unmapped magic dried up? Crackledawn’s water pixies were now extinct, Jungledrop’s talking trees had stopped speaking, Silvercrag’s glow-in-the-dark igloos hadn’t glowed for decades and here in Rumblestar the west wing of the castle had ceased its enchantments altogether – the coats of arms no longer told inappropriately scary ghost stories, the wallpaper no longer changed to suit your mood and the tapestries hanging from the walls no longer led into hidden passageways.

  Only a phoenix could fully restore all the lost magic, but the Unmappers had taken measures to try and protect the kingdoms from further harm and put an end to Morg. It was impossible to cross from one kingdom to another – only dragons carrying marvels could make such a journey – but the Lofty Husks in Rumblestar, Crackledawn, Jungledrop and Silvercrag used their magical mirror rings to communicate with one another and each kingdom had sent their best explorers to try and find Everdark, the enchanted forest in a strange half-land between the Unmapped Kingdoms and the Faraway where every phoenix was rumoured to be born. But every time, the boats and balloons returned from their voyages without success. Then there were the protection charms the Lofty Husks had conjured across the kingdoms to ward off evil, as well as the curfews and updated locks. And, earlier this evening, Blustersnap had made an announcement: there was to be a ban on Ballooners roaming the skies in Rumblestar with immediate effect, and anyone currently out flying had been sent a message calling them back instantly. Even her dad, apparently. Which struck Utterly as odd because they’d only just sent him away, and if she really had captured the criminal who had been meddling with the marvels, then why were the Lofty Husks ramping up the precautions? Wasn’t it time for a celebration? She had caught one of Morg’s spies, after all.

  Her mum hadn’t seemed very convinced about the criminal when she told her. But then again, her mum hadn’t seemed very enthusiastic about anything Utterly had to say since the . . . incident. She was all closed off and quiet now – nothing like she used to be. It felt to Utterly like her mum had given up on her, and even her dad seemed to look at her with sad, remembering eyes. So, she had taken it upon herself to cause as much mayhem as possible until either she achieved something incredible that won her back the love and respect of her parents, or she achieved something outrageous that made someone, somewhere finally realise that deep, deep inside, she was falling apart.