For a moment, I was too shocked to speak. This was a glimpse into Zareen’s daily life, and her past as well, that I’d never before been offered.
She (and George Mercer) had expended considerable power and effort to exorcise the spirits of the Greyers and John Wester from the Greyer cottage. After that, she’d gone quiet for twenty-four hours — I hadn’t seen her, or heard anything from her. At the time, I thought nothing of it. Zareen and I were friends, but not to the extent that we talked every day, or kept tabs on each other all the time. Now I wondered what had been going on with her during those hours of silence.
I looked at the shadows under her eyes with a new understanding.
‘I didn’t know,’ I said at last.
Zareen shrugged. ‘The School of Weird isn’t just a special school for people with our abilities. It’s also a kind of quarantine, a help centre, a support group and rehab all rolled into one. It needs to be.’
That also explained her enduring link with George Mercer. He understood her in ways Jay and I never could, and they must’ve shared so much… I resolved never to tease or poke her about that friendship ever again.
And I understood what she had not said, at least not in so many words. After her efforts at the Greyer cottage, she needed time to recover, to rebalance herself. She couldn’t afford to drown in the Stranger Arts again so soon.
I remembered the way the whites of her eyes had filled in with black, and shuddered inwardly.
‘Right then,’ I said briskly. ‘How else can we wake up Mr. Redclover?’
‘Throwing stones at the windows is out?’ Zareen gave a weak smile.
‘If he slept through the removal of the entire contents of the building, I’d say we need something a little more potent.’ I thought hard.
I came up with nothing.
‘Maybe we could—’ began Zareen, but the rest of her sentence was drowned out by a terrific roar that sounded from outside — somewhere close. The spire’s glorious starstones shook under the force of it.
Zareen and I ran to the window, just in time to see a gout of crackling fire lance across the sky.
‘That’s dragon-fire!’ shouted Zareen.
Another blast of fire followed seconds later, and this one hit the window. The window-frame caught and flames roared cheerfully to life, blocking the sunlight and casting dancing patterns across the floor of the tower. The reek of smoke filled my nostrils.
‘Mabyn was wrong,’ I said tightly. ‘The demolition isn’t just this week. It’s today.’
7
‘We have to get out,’ I said, turning from the spire’s burning window. I was halfway to the stairs before I realised Zareen was not following.
She stood in the centre of the room, and there was a set look to her face that I recognised. Her skin was turning bone-white, and her eyes filling with black…
‘Zar!’ I snapped, and ran back to her. ‘No! What did you just say to me?’
‘I said “times of great need”, and this would be one of them.’
‘Within reason. Zar, I’d love to save this building but not at your expense. Come on.’ I grabbed her arm and tried to pull her, but she shook off my hand.
‘All I’m doing is waking Melmidoc,’ she said, and her voice turned dark and whispery. ‘If he’s still home. Then we’ll go, I promise.’
I would have argued, but my attention was caught by the flames that licked at the window’s little panes of glass. For the most part it was your regular, common-or-garden variety of fire but there was a flicker to it that seemed odd.
‘Purple,’ I blurted.
Zareen didn’t blink.
‘Hold on, Zar! I don’t think this is the demolition crew after all.’ I ran to the window, pulling the sleeves of my lightweight cream cardigan over my hands. It did not do much to protect my hands, so I had to work fast as I unbolted the window and shoved it wide open. At great risk to life, limb and my primrose-coloured hair (Yes, Jay, I know I’m an idiot) I stuck my head out into the fresh morning air and took in a gulping breath.
A dark, draconic shape swooped past.
‘Archie!’ I bellowed.
The dragon slowed, but not, as it turned out, because he had heard me. He flew in a smooth arc and swooped down upon the hapless spire once more, fire streaming from his open maw.
‘Archibald!’ I bawled. ‘Just what the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?!’
He heard me that time. To my relief, the stream of fire flowing from his jaws slowed to a wisp or two of flame, then stopped altogether. ‘Who?’ I heard him say as he soared past, purple scales shining in the light of the fires he’d set.
I informed him who I was, at volume, and with some asperity.
He returned to hover gracelessly near the window, and peered at me. ‘I remember you,’ he said.
‘I should hope so! What will the next Mayor of Dapplehaven say when he hears you’ve been attacking the spire?’
Archibald brightened at that. ‘He’s here?’
‘No, not just now, but he will be joining us later.’ I hoped that last part wouldn’t turn out to be a lie. ‘He would be most disappointed, Archie. Why would you attack Melmidoc and Drystan’s home?’
‘I thought you were here to destroy it,’ he said in an injured tone. ‘Some people are coming to take it down. A Redclover told me. She said I should come here and burn anybody who gets near the spire.’
That must be what Mabyn had meant when she’d said she had “set something in motion”. To be fair to her, she hadn’t known at the time that Zareen and I would be here. ‘She was right,’ I told Archie. ‘There are some people coming to ruin Melmidoc’s home, but it isn’t us. We’re here to stop them.’
‘Oh.’
‘So no more fires, all right?’
Archibald tasted the air with his long, slithery tongue. Since no more gouts of fire were forthcoming, I took this gesture for assent.
The smoke was beginning to choke me and those licking flames were just a touch unnerving, so I devoted the next couple of minutes to summoning a nice smatter of rain. When I had water pouring suitably out of the cloudless sky, and the flames were winking out with dampened, hissing noises, I turned back to Zareen.
To my relief, she had stopped whatever it was she had been preparing to do. Her eyes were normal again, and her face was regaining some colour. I did not quite like the look of her satisfied smile, though.
‘Zar, you didn’t…?’
‘I was about to stop!’ she said. ‘Promise! Only I’d already found Melmidoc by then.’
Slumbering in great comfort beneath an old favourite stone, said a voice, in deep, earthy tones that rumbled up from the starstones themselves. And she hath had the temerity to disturb me.
‘But it was necessary,’ said Zareen. ‘Did you not say so, a moment ago?’
If my spire is aflame then perhaps it was, admitted Melmidoc.
‘The fire’s under control now,’ I put in, but at the same time as I spoke there came a gasp from Archibald and he bellowed, ‘Mel!’
Silence, for a moment, and then the stones rumbled: Is that Archibaldo? He pronounced it ark-i-bal-doe.
‘MEL!’ screamed Archibaldo. There followed a great, crashing thud, and the graceful, delicate spire rocked upon its foundations. The dragon had thrown himself at the wall in his enthusiasm, and bounced off. More or less.
Hold, Archibaldo! shouted the stones of the spire. Contain this unseemly jubilation! We are aged, and cannot withstand such an onslaught.
‘Sorry!’ panted Archibaldo. ‘But Mel! MEL!’
That is my name, or some little piece of it. It is good to see that you live, old friend.
‘I do!’ said Archie, and then remembered his purpose. ‘Mel, some people are coming to destroy your house! We have to go!’
What? snapped Melmidoc. Archie proceeded to give a somewhat garbled account of the imminent danger to the spire, elucidated by my interpolations. I expected anger from Melmidoc and some kind of urgen
cy, but he gave only a long, weary sigh. I see.
‘We go!’ crowed Archie. ‘Back to the isle! It’s been so long, I wonder if Drys is still there? And the others? Can we go now?’
We do not go to the isle, said Melmidoc, cutting off Archie’s warbles of delight.
‘But why not?’ said Archie, crestfallen.
We do not go anywhere, Archibaldo. It is high time I departed this world.
I mentally reviewed the obstacles presently facing our stated mission. A Ministry rabid for the destruction of ancient and irreplaceable buildings; our Waymaster missing and incommunicado; Dappledok pups popping up left, right and centre; historic buildings wandering about through space and time, piloted by homicidal maniacs; and now a suicidal ghost.
It's never dull at the Society, I can tell you.
‘Please reconsider,’ I begged Melmidoc. ‘Your home is valuable beyond measure, and we came here to save it.’
Not everything can be saved, nor should it be.
‘And we would have speech with you,’ I continued, and paused. Apparently Melmidoc’s slightly antiquated articulation was rubbing off on me. ‘There’s so much you know, so much you’ve done! All those wonderful creatures, this spire, the — oh, and what is the isle? Please don’t leave us just yet, not when we’re just getting to know you.’
Flattery softens the hardest of hearts, it’s sometimes said, and I’ve broadly found it to be true. Melmidoc wavered. I judged this from the long pause that followed, and a creaking among the stones of the spire that sounded, in some odd way, thoughtful.
My achievements, said Melmidoc at last. Spurned and reviled by those that named themselves authorities! We retreated to the isle, but they could not let us have even that.
‘The isle?’ I prompted again.
But Melmidoc did not answer. He lapsed into a brooding silence, leaving Zareen and I to exchange an uncertain glance. What more could we, or should we, do?
‘I bet Drys is still there,’ came Archibaldo’s voice from the window. ‘I miss him. Can we go and see him?’
I wonder if he is, said Melmidoc, in so low a whisper I almost failed to catch it.
Then the spire began to move. Not smoothly, like a car drifting into motion, but with a swaying, lumbering sensation — as though it had literally grown legs and walked away. I fell against the window and clutched it, white-knuckled, aghast at how close I had come to falling out.
A glance through the shattered panes — when had that happened? — revealed that we were not in Nautilus Cove anymore. A forest lay spread before us, predominantly composed of coniferous trees, with the glitter of still water somewhere ahead.
Another great, wrenching lurch of movement and the forest was replaced by the rugged slopes of a mountainside. Melmidoc was moving the spire after all, but not the way Jay did, from starting point to destination in one smooth(ish) hop. He bounced from place to place, darting about like a hyperactive bird, settling only briefly in each spot before dashing off to the next.
Interesting.
‘Steady!’ I yelled, as with another gigantic step of Melmidoc’s I was almost turfed out of the window again.
This proved to be a mistake, for he stopped so abruptly that I was thrown the other way, and sent sprawling onto the stone-tiled floor. Ah, said Melmidoc. Yes.
And with those two laconic syllables, a violent wind blew up in the space of an indrawn breath, and sent me whirling out of the window into chilly fresh air. Something caught me halfway down; I felt a sensation like invisible fingers closing around my middle, and my precipitate fall slowed dramatically. I landed in mossy grass, quite gently, and Zareen joined me a moment later.
We both watched in crestfallen silence as the glorious spire gathered itself and jumped away, leaving us behind.
‘Well,’ I said after a while. ‘We saved it.’
Zareen just grunted.
I scrutinised her. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yes.’
I peered. The shadows had deepened under her eyes; she looked like she hadn’t slept for a week.
Her eyes narrowed. ‘Ves. I love you, but I did not confide in you so you could start your mother hen routine on me.’
I opened my mouth to object, but she forestalled me. ‘Don’t deny it! You cluck and fuss and it’s sweet that you care, but I don’t need it.’
Unsure what to say, I maintained an abashed silence.
This, perhaps, made Zareen just a touch guilty, for she relented and said: ‘I’ll be fine, I promise.’
I gave her a Miranda-style mini-salute, and turned my attention to the problem of where we had ended up.
We were no longer in Nautilus Cove, that was for certain. The pearly sea was gone, as was the frondy slopes that had led down to it. We had been plonked down in the middle of a wide expanse of clover-studded grass — indeed, in the grass versus clover wars the latter was winning by a mile. Nothing much beckoned upon the horizon, until I turned, and discovered the outlines of a town not too far distant. Dainty white clover blossoms carpeted the ground, but I detected a break in the otherwise ceaseless vegetation nearby, which proved to be a road. A handsome, well-kept one, too, very wide, and paved in clean white stones.
Zareen and I stepped onto it and began a brisk walk in the direction of the town. ‘I think…’ I mused as we walked. ‘I mean, I wouldn’t like to say that I’m sure, but I think I know where we are.’
‘Really.’ Zareen’s voice dripped with scepticism.
‘It’s the clover,’ I explained. I bent and plucked a leaf to show Zareen. ‘They all have four leaves, or five.’
Her brows snapped down at that. ‘Don’t tell me we’re in Ireland.’
‘Oh, no! I know shamrocks and leprechauns are often grouped together but that’s a circumstantial tie, there is no actual link. And anyway, the shamrock has three leaves, not four. We’re actually in Wales. If I’m right, we’re in the Glannyd Ceiriog Troll Enclave, and that town is Glannyd Pendry.’
‘Lovely,’ said Zareen. ‘And where in all of Wales is that?’
I had to think about that for a moment. ‘Um, the Ceiriog Valley, as I recall, is in northern Wales.’
‘How far from home?’
I didn’t have to think about that at all. ‘Far.’
‘Excellent.’
‘Don’t worry. I have a plan.’
I really did, and it wasn’t even one of my crazy plans (as Jay would put it). It goes back to that sort of-date I had with the Baron the other week — the one where he’d whisked me off to Rhaditton for a pancake breakfast? I’d had little to do with the Troll Roads before, because they’re not open to anyone who isn’t, well, a troll. Or escorted by one with serious privileges. But now that I knew they were a) there, b) genuinely amazing, and c) not absolutely one-hundred-percent off-limits to non-trolls, I’d do my level best to make use of them more often.
Only in an emergency, though, which this rather was.
The town of Glannyd Pendry is one of those that drips money. I don’t quite know how, for the Ceiriog Valley isn’t exactly central and there is little real footfall up there. It’s one of those that had a greater prominence in some past age and, unlike many others, managed to hold onto its prosperity. Anyway, we approached a town bristling with large, handsome, troll-sized buildings, most of them made out of the same clear white stones as the road we’d come in on. They were dazzling in terms of their architecture, all pediments and columns and huge, glittering windows. The air smelled of clover nectar, on the outskirts, but as we travelled deeper into the town that faded away in favour of one of my favourite aromas: that of good things to eat. I could have cheerfully stayed for a week.
Pity that we did not have that kind of time.
We attracted a little attention as we sauntered, with our best attempt at nonchalance, through the wide, well-kept streets, for there were many citizens abroad, but besides ourselves there were few humans. Always on the short
side, I felt positively dwarfed in comparison to the good trolls of Glannyd Pendry, for not a one of them stands an inch less than six and a half feet, and plenty of them are rather taller. I felt like a child again: short, and lost in a confusing sea of perambulatory trees.
I had hoped to be able to find my way back to the coach-stop unaided, but being me this proved impossible. In my defence, it must’ve been at least five years since my last visit to the town. I stopped a couple of the more friendly-looking passers-by, and with their (slightly begrudging) help Zar and I arrived at a positively enormous coaching inn within half an hour of entering the town.
Whereupon I called the good Baron.
‘Alban,’ I said as his voice came upon the line. ‘I have a deal of interesting information to share, and quite the story to tell, but in exchange I’m in need of a little help.’
8
‘You know you don’t have to bargain, Ves,’ said Baron Alban in his lovely congenial way. ‘I am, as ever, happy to help.’
I beamed into the phone. ‘Well then, I’ll give you all the details over a pancake or something, but here’s the situation…’
Even the abbreviated version took me a couple of minutes to tell, time which Zareen spent roaming around inspecting the gathered coaches with some interest. They really were coaches, not the species of bus which is these days awarded that name: tall, bulky vehicles with huge wheels and big windows. The difference between these and the horse-drawn varieties of old was simply the lack of horse. There wasn’t a beast of burden in sight, and none of the coaches had traces to attach a horse to. They didn’t work that way.
Zareen was clearly intrigued.
‘Do you have any idea where the spire went?’ said the Baron as I finished my tale. He sounded rather urgent about it, too.
‘No, except that Melmidoc mentioned an “isle” a couple of times so I wonder if that’s where he was going. Before you ask, no, I don’t know anything more about it. He said nothing else of use.’
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