Mystery of the Golden Card

by Garth Nix

  On the inside of the locket was written: To Lottie, With Love.

  ‘Found anything?’ asked Jaide from behind him.

  He jumped. ‘No, nothing important.’ He put the locket in his pocket for thinking about later. ‘What about you?’

  ‘Not a thing.’ She looked as frustrated as she felt. The yellow brick road had taken her over the rubbery hills, past fields of rubbery plants, and nowhere had she seen anything that looked like a gold card. And then, just as Jack and the tree had vanished from behind her, they had reappeared again in front of her. The road had looped back on itself, taking her to where she had started, with nothing to show for it.

  ‘This can’t be a dead end,’ she said. ‘The card has to be here somewhere.’

  Jack agreed, but he couldn’t see any way around it. They had searched everywhere and found nothing. There was just the tree, the table, the girl and the yellow brick road.

  Suddenly, he wanted to laugh. ‘Of course!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s like the painting itself, hidden right out in the open. What’s the one thing you didn’t look at?’

  ‘Just tell me, Jack. This isn’t a game.’

  ‘I know, but it’s really very clever . . .’ He stopped at the look on Jaide’s face. ‘Come on, I’ll show you.’

  He tugged her by the hand.

  ‘It’s the road itself, see?’

  And she did see, all of a sudden, as though a veil had been pulled from her sight. The yellow bricks were the exact size and shape as the golden cards. Any one of them could be the Card of Translocation. All they had to do was find it.

  They ran back and forth at random at first, and then more methodically, scanning back and forth across the road’s surface, looking for telltale gleams of gold. Jaide didn’t know how quickly time passed inside the painting, but it soon felt like hours. She tried not to think about how the fight with The Evil was proceeding. They could only go as fast as they could go.

  And then, off to her right, she saw a brick that gleamed differently from the others. It had a distinctly flatter surface, and as she ran up to it she saw her image reflected back at her.

  ‘Got it!’ she cried, and Jack came running to join her.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Positive.’ She slipped the tips of her fingers under the card and lifted. It came free with a click. The Card of Translocation was released from its long hiding place and into their hands.

  ‘Finally,’ Jack breathed. ‘Can I hold it?’

  For such a small thing, it was amazingly heavy. About the size of a book but much thinner, it was featureless on both sides and rounded at the edges. Jack turned it over in his hands, marvelling at the reflections sweeping across it. As he stared, a faint black X formed on one side, and he felt an odd sensation, as though the gold was becoming icy-cold under his fingertips.

  For the Divination of Potential Powers, the Compendium had said. He wondered if this particular card was divining something in him at that very moment.

  Jaide took the card from him and put it in her back pocket.

  ‘Now,’ she said, standing up and wiping her hands on her jeans, ‘let’s go find Dad so he can translocate The Evil.’

  They hurried back to where the end of the constructor stuck out of thin air and they put their hands on it at the same time, returning to the real world in a wild, breathtaking rush. Nothing had changed in their absence. The suits of armour remained immobile, and the mess of books lay under a pall of settling dust.

  ‘Pieces of eight,’ said Cornelia, dancing admiringly across the frame. ‘Pieces of eight!’

  ‘We’ve been watching through the picture frame,’ said Professor Olafsson. ‘Congratulations, troubletwisters. You have accomplished something wholly singular and remarkable!’

  ‘It’s not over yet,’ said Jaide, gathering her things together and telling herself not to get too excited too soon. ‘We’ve still got to get this to Dad so he can use it to fight The Evil.’

  Jack checked the phone. Three missed calls, but they were from earlier, when their father had been trying to call. No texts.

  ‘We’ll have to go out to him,’ he said. ‘You saw those clouds before. He’s got to be nearby.’

  ‘What about The Evil?’ Jaide asked.

  ‘We’ll be careful. Anyway, we’ve got the card. We can, uh . . . translocate it, right?’

  ‘You do know what translocate means, don’t you?’ asked Professor Olafsson.

  ‘Sure, we looked it up. It means to move something somewhere else. So the card must like getting rid of things.’

  ‘Getting rid of things?’ asked the professor. ‘But to where? And what kind of things are translocated exactly?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Jack.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Jaide. ‘We’ve got it, and we need to get it to Dad.’

  Jack picked up the death mask and tucked it into his backpack.

  ‘What do we do about Thomas?’ he said. ‘We can’t leave him here like this.’

  ‘Let’s put him in a ground-floor room,’ Jaide suggested. ‘There’s a bed in one of them, I’m sure. When he wakes up, maybe he’ll think he sneaked off for a nap and dreamt it all.’

  That seemed a remote possibility to Jack, but together he and his sister managed to hoist the unconscious man’s arms over their shoulders and drag him along the corridor, to the accompaniment of encouragement from the professor and comments about drunken sailors from Cornelia. At the door to the room Jaide had in mind, Jack took the skeleton key from Jaide’s pocket while she held Thomas unsteadily aloft with her Gift. Jack unlocked the door, and Thomas rushed inside on the back of a tiny tornado and crashed onto a sheet-draped bed. The wind howled once around the ceiling and escaped up a chimney, leaving the room considerably less dusty than it had been before. Somehow Thomas slept through it all.

  Jaide nodded in satisfaction. ‘Okay, that’s done. Let’s go.’

  Cornelia flew down onto Jack’s shoulder as they hurried through the silent castle, Jaide lighting her way with a torch, Jack seeing by his Gift alone. They felt buoyed by their success in finding the card, but nervous all the same of what was to come.

  There was no one outside, just Thomas Solomon’s abandoned golf buggy sitting slightly askew on the cobbled driveway. The air was thick with the threat of a storm. Jack could practically taste rain, and he braced himself for another soaking. They hadn’t thought to bring raincoats.

  Distantly, they heard a wolf howl, and Jaide shivered.

  ‘Which way, Jack?’

  Before he could answer, headlights flashed in the distance as a car pulled through the gates. A car engine growled low and deep, getting louder as it accelerated up the driveway. Even from far away, they recognised the light gleaming off the tips of long steer horns.

  ‘Jaide, that’s Rodeo Dave’s car,’ Jack said.

  ‘Quick,’ she cried, ‘into the buggy!’

  They leaped aboard, even though neither of them knew how to drive. Luckily, it was as simple as could be: there was a button that started the engine, and from there all Jack had to do was push down the accelerator and turn the wheel.

  The buggy accelerated down the hill, bouncing across the lawn and around the back of the castle. Jack left the headlights off so the person coming up the drive might not see them. He didn’t need the lights – he could see the ground ahead perfectly well. For Jaide it was a far more terrifying experience, clinging to the dashboard in front of her as the buggy hurtled off into the darkness, swerving around obstacles she couldn’t see. Cornelia jumped ship immediately and followed above, shouting such well-meaning but unhelpful advice as ‘Trim the mainsail’ and ‘Hard to starboard!’

  As they passed the menagerie, they heard the animals calling in alarm. Something had riled them up, Jaide thought. Perhaps they could sense The Evil gathering outside the wards.

  Two shadowy figures appeared from the nearest animal enclosure, waving their arms and running in front of
the buggy.

  Jaide gasped and ducked. Jack wrenched the wheel to one side, narrowly avoiding a collision.

  ‘Hey, that’s cheating!’ called a familiar voice.

  ‘Come back here and give us a ride!’ shouted another.

  Jaide twisted to look behind her. It was Tara and Kyle. They jumped up and down, hollering for the twins to come back.

  ‘I forgot all about them,’ she said. ‘I hope they’re going to stay out of it.’

  Jack just grunted. The field ahead was rough and bouncy, and he was having trouble maintaining a straight course. He could see the copse where his father had been hiding that week. Getting there was all he could concentrate on at that moment. A heavy rain had started to fall, making it hard to see, and if the ground became too boggy they might get stuck and have to run on foot.

  When a glowing blue figure appeared in front of them, the figure of a young man with outstretched arms, Jack gasped and slammed on the brakes.

  ++Stop, troubletwisters,++ the figure said. ++You don’t know what you’re doing!++

  ‘What is that?’ asked Jaide, who had only just managed to stop herself from falling out of her seat, such was the violence of their abrupt halting skid. ‘Who is that?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Jack said, spinning the wheel with the intention of going around the phantom.

  ++Jack, Jaide, turn back!++ ‘Is that The Evil?’ asked Jaide, plugging her ears, but the voice in her mind was impossible to keep out.

  Jack didn’t know. When Wardens talked to them through their minds, they sounded just as echoey and strange. Besides, he was busy trying to get around the phantom. Everywhere he went, it stayed steadfastly in front of them. Stranger still, he could almost believe that he had seen the phantom’s imploring face somewhere before.

  ++Listen to me, troubletwisters – you’re making a terrible mistake!++

  Another voice struggled to make itself heard over the whine of the buggy’s motor. It was coming from Jack’s backpack.

  ‘That’s him!’ Professor Olafsson was shouting. ‘That’s the voice I’ve been trying to remember!’

  Jaide pulled the death mask out and pointed him forward.

  ‘Him?’

  ‘Yes! I knew I recognised him from somewhere. He was in the castle, a long time ago. He – eeeeargh!’

  Jack braked again as a long red car roared to a halt in front of them, driving right through the phantom and dissolving it into mist. Professor Olafsson flew out of Jaide’s hands and went spinning through the window, striking the side of the car with a resounding crack and splitting in two, right down the length of his face.

  ‘Professor Olafsson!’ Jaide stood up in her seat but couldn’t see if either piece was still moving. ‘Jack – he’s hurt.’

  Jack was too busy trying to reverse, but the wheels were spinning in the wet grass.

  In the rear-vision mirror, Zebediah’s driver-side door opened with a creak and a grim-looking Rodeo Dave stepped out.

  ‘Jack, get us out of here!’ cried Jaide.

  ‘I’m trying!’

  The buggy’s engine whined uselessly.

  ‘Don’t run, troubletwisters,’ called Rodeo Dave over Zebediah’s long front bonnet. ‘I know what you’ve done, but it’s not your fault. You’ve been tricked!’

  ‘Hurry up, Jack!’

  ‘Don’t listen to him!’

  Rodeo Dave was coming around the front of the car now. Zebediah’s blinding headlights cast his face into deep shadow. The buggy was going nowhere. They would have to get out and run for it and hope youth would win out over his longer stride, or—

  ‘The card, Jaide,’ Jack gasped. ‘Use it – quickly!’

  ‘What?’ Jaide fumbled at her back pocket. ‘Use it to do what?’

  ‘Translocate him!’

  ‘Translocate Rodeo Dave? But we don’t know where he’ll go—’

  ‘We have to! He’ll stop us from getting to Dad if you don’t!’

  Jaide pulled the card out into the light. It gleamed wildly in the reflected headlights. A wave of cold made her fingertips numb as she held it up in front of her. A series of black symbols swept across its face, settling on a bold, black X.

  She called up her Gift and felt it swirl around her in the night air. Lacking any idea at all how the card was supposed to work, she simply raised it in front of her and said the first thing that came to mind.

  ‘Go, card – do your stuff!’

  ‘Jaide, no!’ said Rodeo Dave, holding up his hands in alarm. ‘Don’t do that!’

  But it was too late. The Card of Translocation had been activated.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Remembering Rodeo Dave

  JAIDE’S GIFT VANISHED LIKE the air leaving a burst balloon. She felt it going, bleeding out of her in a few seconds, leaving a terrible emptiness in its wake.

  ‘What?’ She shook the gold card as though it was a malfunctioning gadget. ‘My Gift’s gone! That wasn’t supposed to happen.’

  ‘Give it here,’ said Jack. ‘You probably didn’t concentrate hard enough!’

  He took the card and tried exactly what she’d done.

  ‘No, Jack, wait!’ cried Rodeo Dave, stepping out of the light and coming closer.

  ‘Translocate!’ said Jack.

  Suddenly he could no longer see in the dark. His Gift was sliced away, leaving him blind apart from the dazzling headlights.

  ‘It’s not too late, troubletwisters,’ said Rodeo Dave urgently. ‘I can make everything right. Just don’t run. I’m nearly there.’

  Jack almost gave in. The card was useless in his hands. They had no Gifts and no means of defending themselves. Perhaps if they gave him the card, they would live to fight another day, as poor Professor Olafsson had put it. Perhaps he would let them go.

  Then a voice called out of the darkness to their right.

  ‘Jack and Jaide! Over here!’

  Hope returned. It was Hector Shield, and he sounded close.

  ‘We’re coming, Dad!’ cried Jack, grabbing his sister’s hand and tumbling out of the buggy.

  Rodeo Dave lunged for them, yelling, ‘No, wait!’

  They dodged him, and then they were running across the muddy grounds of the estate, following their father’s voice.

  ‘That’s it! A little further!’

  Jaide had her torch on. Hector Shield was just feet away. He waved them closer. He looked dishevelled and his glasses were askew, but his face was eager, excited, and relieved all at once.

  ‘The card has taken our Gifts,’ Jaide called to him. ‘Translocated them somewhere!’

  ‘That’s what it’s supposed to do,’ he called back. ‘But don’t worry – it translocates them into the card itself, with all the other Gifts he stole.’

  ‘I didn’t steal them,’ puffed Rodeo Dave from behind them, ‘and you know it!’

  ‘Shut up, old man. In a moment the card will be mine, and then I’ll deal with you once and for all.’ Hector Shield hurried the twins onwards, into his waiting arms. ‘That’s it, children. Almost there. Almost mine . . .’

  Jaide hesitated. There was something so gloating and horrible about the way her father was speaking that she hardly recognised him. She had never heard him sound that way before, and she remembered Professor Olafsson asking, What kind of father . . . ? Her father would never talk like this. Her father would never threaten anyone.

  ‘Wait, Jack,’ she said, slowing him by tugging on his backpack. ‘Something’s not right.’

  ‘Don’t listen to her, Jack,’ said Hector Shield, reaching towards him. His feet stayed just outside the invisible line marking the boundary of the wards. ‘Just come . . . a little bit . . . closer. Oh, curse you – I’ll come in there and get you myself!’

  With that, he lunged over the line, caught the card in one hand, and pulled it from Jack with a cry of triumph.

  ‘No!’ shouted Rodeo Dave. He grabbed the twins and pulled them further back inside the boundary of the wards, away from their father
. ‘This is the worst possible thing! Behind me, both of you.’

  ‘Nothing you can do will save them now.’ Hector Shield capered on the spot, holding the Card of Translocation over his head. Black symbols danced over its surface like numbers on a digital clock that was running too fast. ‘You were foolish to allow them near the card. Now I have their Gifts, and soon The Evil will have them, too.’

  ‘The Evil?’ Jaide asked. ‘What are you talking about, Dad?’

  ‘Just get back,’ said Rodeo Dave, putting himself in front of them.

  ‘Dad . . . but you can’t be Evil. You can’t be,’ Jack said.

  ‘Can’t I, Jackaran Shield?’ Hector Shield stared at him. ‘Just you watch.’

  He tapped the gold card with his right index finger and the symbols stopped moving. It showed a square with a straight line through it. What happened next, Jack and Jaide didn’t understand at first, but the air changed around them. The ground beneath their feet changed, too, and the rain hitting their faces, and the clouds high above. Hector Shield changed, too. He stood straighter. His face grew longer, more haggard. He didn’t look like their father now. He looked like a different man hiding behind the same face.

  ‘Dad . . .’ said Jaide, but the word sounded uncertain in her mouth.

  ++Will you tell them or will we, David Smeaton?++ Hector Shield said in the voice of The Evil.

  Not very far away, in Portland, Renita Daniels jumped at a searing pain between her ribs. It felt as though a dagger had stabbed deep inside her, so keenly and smoothly that she hadn’t even felt it until it reached her heart.

  ‘No,’ she gasped, pressing her wooden hand to her side. ‘Not again.’

  And not very far from her, a much older woman, who no longer had a name at all, opened her eyes and took in the dim gloom of the hospital room around her. Her mind felt fogbound and sluggish, the exact opposite of how she prided herself on being, and for a long second she struggled to remember how she had come to be that way. There was a car . . . the river coming up to meet her . . . a series of doctors and nurses in white coats . . . a dark figure creeping in at night, fiddling with her drip . . .