Fleeced (18 page)

“I could find my father,” said Rose. She looked up at Medea, her eyes blurry with tears. “But why would you help me?”

Medea's grey eyes glittered in the candlelight. For a split second the wine glass in her hand magnified her mouth, making her teeth as long and white as a jaguar's. “Because I like you, Rose, and I think we would work well together.”

“But how?” said Rose. “I'm nobody. What could I give you in return?”

“Well,” said Medea. “For starters, how about giving me a hand tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow?” said Rose, uncertainly.

“Oh, it's nothing too difficult for a bright girl like you,” said Medea. “The trouble is that my assistant, Mr Hex, has unexpectedly resigned, leaving me in rather a mess. I simply need someone to carry the bags, make lists, run a few errands and brew
tea. I'm booked to visit Hazel Praline, you see, to make the final adjustments to her dress before her premiere tomorrow afternoon.”

“Hazel Praline,” gasped Rose.

“Oh, you know her, then?” smiled Medea. “Well, that's lucky.”

Excitement lit up Rose's bewitched imagination like the illuminations on Blackpool Pier. The chance to meet Hazel Praline. The chance to learn magic. The chance to find her father again.

“So,” smiled Medea, watching Rose's face melt into an enormous grin, “shall I take that as a yes?”

XXII

U
PSCARES
D
OWNSCARES

Aries wasn’t grinning.

Nor was his mind electrified by hope, fake or otherwise. Because as Rose was saying goodnight to the sorceress before going upstairs to her marshmallow-soft bed, he lay sprawled on the stinking floor of the stall, tears wobbling down his muzzle into the soggy straw beneath his chin. He’d been like this for the past two hours, ever since Olaf had spoken to him. Because what the Icelandic had told him was the single most terrible thing he’d heard since Drako’s rumbling snores had echoed through the trees on the night Jason crept into the Forest of Kolkis.

Overhead, the machinery droned relentlessly on, combing and spinning wool, grinding against the fitful bleats of the sheep as they slept, huddled in their stalls. Looking over the tangle of wool and limbs, through the forest of horns, he made out Olaf’s thick golden-brown pair, rippled like cockleshells. Now he understood why the Icelandic had been so unfriendly. After all, had it not been for Aries and his fleece, everyone would still be blissfully grazing in the pastures and mountains that Medea
had snatched them from months ago. He stared at a tin bath lying upturned in the walkway, its sides pocked with hoof marks. Beyond it, a
vicious-looking
machine hung like a bad-tempered bat on the wall, crackling and spitting out flashes of green light. Aries tried to imagine the sheep’s miserable existence down here, day after day after day, as the sorceress tested her endless mixes of experiment and magic to make a new golden fleece. Then Aries saw Toby, nestled against his mother’s side, and hated Medea with all his heart.

Just wondering about what awful thing Medea had been doing with his fleece made him feel sick. He thought back over all those minutes and days and months that he’d yearned for it, longing for its softness on his back so that he could be magnificent again, only to discover that all that time she’d been twisting it through her small white hands and using it, for what?

How did you
use
a fleece?

He sighed, thinking back to how sure he’d been that morning in the kitchen at Rose’s house that Medea had sent a harpy to stop them from taking the fleece away from her. It seemed laughable now.

Whimpering into his forelegs, Aries realised just how stupid he’d been. Blinded by his own vanity
and pride, he’d walked straight into Medea’s trap. Worse, much worse, he’d dragged Alex and Rose with him. If only he’d listened to Alex in the first place. His heart tightened as he thought back to the boy, dappled by sunlight in the Skeleton Garden, reasoning with Aries, asking him to reconsider, to see sense, not to try to come back to Earth. And of how Alex had still come with him, knowing it was stupid and dangerous, how he’d felled the harpy, saving Rose from her, and of how hard he’d fought Pandemic to try and save them all. Wonderful, practical Alex who could always see so much more clearly than Aries could, driven by his own stupid obsession. Alex, the best friend he’d ever had in life or death and who, he now realised for the first time, had never even seen Aries when he’d worn his fleece.

A teardrop rolled off his muzzle and pooled with the others. Alex hadn’t been dazzled by a golden coat or stupefied with admiration because a ram could fly. He loved Aries, for who he was on the inside and for the bald, lumpy and ridiculous-looking ram he was on the outside, too.

Only in the crystal clarity that spending a night in a sorceress’s stinking cellar with a hundred other sheep brings did Aries understand: there were some things that were more important than his fleece.
(And yes, I know. I never thought I would ever see myself type those words, either.) The thought that he had been so blind to what was truly priceless right there in front of his muzzle all these years brought him out in shivery goosebumps.

If they ever returned home, he now promised himself, he’d do all of Alex’s most horrible jobs for him. He’d muck out the Minotaur, he’d drain the smelly water from Hydra’s tank, he’d even chip the rock-hard splatter off the floor of the Stymphalian birds’ aviary. And he’d never complain about sore hooves or how the smell made his nose ache again.

If they ever returned home.

The words sounded hollow and hopeless in his mind. Lying on the filthy floor he began to feel a deep ache in his belly. Swollen and sour, it hurt like the time he’d been poisoned by eating clover, when Alex had poured warm water and castor oil down his throat to save his life. Except that tonight’s pain was sharper and all the water and castor oil in the world would never cure it.

Carpet.

It’s a much worthier use of a fleece than an ingredient for Medea’s magic. Not that Alex and Hex had time to appreciate the sumptuous Turkish weave on the staircase as they sprinted and slithered
towards Rose’s room on the top floor.

That’s right, Alex and Hex, because Alex’s idea, the one he’d whispered to Hex in the crypt, was for the mamba to betray Medea and help them instead. In return, Alex promised to take Hex back to the Underworld (after all, King Hades had always allowed just a few of the living to stay down there – just ask Persephone) to nest amongst Greek orchids on a diet of ghost locusts and bogey-bugs. Hex hadn’t taken much persuading and quickly made the same choice we all would, given the alternative of moving into the boa constrictor tank at London Zoo.

Alex dived onto the landing behind Hex, skidded around the corner and into the hallway that led to Rose’s room. And froze.

Mannequins lined the walls.

Stationed like some creepy guard of honour, they stood in two rows, facing each across the hall, positioned between the doorways. Alex felt his skin prickle as he walked past them, shuddering at their hard pink-white faces, their blank glass eyes. Each one was dressed in a unique outfit: a fluttery white dress, a cream gown with a neckline of velvet roses, a Roman soldier’s uniform draped by a purple cloak, a dark blue uniform piped with gold with one sleeve tucked into its jacket.

Hex stopped at the far end of the hall and looked back at Alex.

“They’re copiesss of the clothesss the mistressss herssself made for her ssspecial clientsss,” he hissed. “Marilyn Monroe, Marie Antoinette, Juliusss Caesssar and Nelssson. There are ssseveral more downssstairs, in the mistress’sss locked roomsss.”

Even though the names didn’t mean anything to Alex, the mannequins’ eerie stares made him feel horribly uncomfortable. He took a step closer to the last one for a better look. Dressed in a long blue naval coat with a gold starburst medal on its chest, gold epaulettes and buttons, and wearing a white pigtailed wig, the figure looked faintly displeased by the boy’s interest and for a fleeting moment Alex experienced the weird sensation that it was staring back. Scolding himself for being so foolish, he reached out and gingerly touched the cloth of the old coat. Dusty with age, it smelled of must and seawater.

“That’sss a copy of the Admiral’sss coat,” said Hex, sliding up the glossy white door of Rose’s room. “Wore it to lead the Britisssh Navy in the Battle of Trafalgar, two hundred yearsss ago.”

“And the original?” said Alex.

“On disssplay at the naval mussseum in Greenwich with a bullet hole through itsss chessst.”

Shocked, Alex snatched back his hand and hurried after Hex’s tail as it vanished into Rose’s room.

Rose was sound asleep. In the buttery glow of night lights dotted around her room, she lay as serene as a princess in a fairy tale, her face creamy, her hair fanned out in waves across the pillow. How lovely, you might think, for our two heroes to discover her safe and enjoy a moment of calm before waking her and leading her to safety. However, don’t. Remember that this is a book of gloom and ghastly happenings. It doesn’t do five minutes peace and a nice sit down, muffins or cups of tea, for that matter.

Hex quickly arranged himself like a draught excluder, quivering his tongue under the door to pick up any scent of danger, while Alex tried to wake Rose. And I mean
tried
. He whispered, cajoled and pinched. He pulled the duvet up, down, off, on. He thumped the bedsprings and the headboard and pummelled the pillows. Finally, seizing a nearby bunch of roses from their vase he was just about to upend its cold water on her when Hex shot through his legs and vanished out onto the balcony. Straining to listen, Alex heard muffled footsteps approaching. He dropped down and tried to roll under the bed, but it was too low. The wardrobe was too full and
the dresser was pushed flat up against the wall, which left only one choice. He threw himself over the balcony rail and hung down over the garden just as the bedroom door clicked open.

Hanging on by his fingers, Alex saw Pandemic’s shiny black shoes walk around Rose’s bed and stop. There was a goaty grunt and he lifted the foot of the bed off the floor and dropped it again.

Rose didn’t wake up.

“Sound asleep, Mistress,” said Pandemic.

Small feet in grey boots appeared around the bed and clicked over to the balcony doors at which Hex shot over the edge and dropped inside Alex’s T-shirt in terror. Biting his lip, Alex willed himself not to cry out, which, as anyone who’s had a ticklish snake squirm down his or her shirt will know, is really rather hard. He watched Medea’s feet, willing her not to see his fingers, white in the moonlight, clutching the sill. Luckily for Hex and him she didn’t. Unluckily she closed the balcony doors and bolted them.

“Now what?” whispered Hex, sticking his head out of the boy’s collar.

Beneath them Fred crashed through the shrubbery, a butterfly net slung over one shoulder, a wicker basket in his other hand, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like, “Snakey snakey!”

Hex tucked his head back in.

“I won’t let him get you,” Alex whispered down his now trembling T-shirt.

He watched as Fred stubbed his toe on a statue of a rather mean-looking dolphin, used lots of rude Cyclops words that won’t be repeated here and finally disappeared around the corner of the villa. Then, gingerly, turning his attention to the drainpipe that ran down the side of the building, Alex began stretching his arm out towards it.

And, I know. After all this horridness you probably wanted this chapter to end on a note of triumph. Well, I’m sorry about that.

XXIII

P
IRANHA
  S
OUP

A couple of hours later Rose finally woke up.

Sunshine streamed through the balcony doors, bathing her room in brightness. Blinking, she sat up in bed and groaned, feeling as though two miniature sumo wrestlers had picked a fight inside her skull and were now taking turns to furiously thump and throw each other to the floor. Since she didn't understand why her head throbbed so much it's lucky that I'm here to explain that the numbing effect of the blackcurrant fizz had worn off during the night, and now half of her brain was thinking clearly enough to squeak that she was in danger whilst the other half, enchanted by Medea's magical hope spell, attacked it.

Medea could not be trusted, the clear-thinking side piped up.

How ridiculous, trumpeted the other side, insisting it was wrong to judge someone before you knew them properly.

Rose must not help Medea today, whispered the clear-thinking side.

Of course she should, boomed the hope-addled side, otherwise how would she ever learn the magic she needed to find her father?

Rose rubbed her forehead and threw back the luxurious bed covers. Gazing around the beautiful room, she noticed a smart black trouser suit and striped red T-shirt hanging on the wardrobe door. An outfit chosen by Medea for her to wear today.

How thoughtful
, trilled the hope-bewitched side of her mind.

Don't wear it!
snapped the logical side.

Feeling sick with confusion, Rose stepped out of bed and pulled the picture of her father from the pink jeans she had worn last night. She propped it against the ornate dressing-table mirror and tried to think clearly. Unfortunately, this is largely impossible when a sorceress has branded your mind with molten hope, but she did her best.

Whatever Medea was really like, she tried to reason, surely she couldn't just let the chance to learn magic, magic that might help her find out where her father was, slip through her fingers?

Of course she could, needled the logical half of her mind. After all, she was talking about a sorceress, wasn't she? And besides, there was still the Scroll and its last question, wasn't there?

The Scroll!

Rose threw open her rucksack and thrust her hands inside, reaching down to the bottom of the
bag to make sure that the parchment was still safe. Her fingers touched its soft paper and she pulled it out. It lay scrunched up in a tight roll, its ends over like flaps in her palm. And yet, staring at its creamy glow, she felt her heart sink like a rock in a deep lake. Even with her muddied thinking, she knew that the way things were going, they'd have to use its last question to find the fleece.

Now, don't be mistaken: Rose wanted to find her father more than anything in the world. But whilst Medea had been right in spotting a fledging apprentice and had started, ever so gently, to warp Rose's mind into believing that learning magic would make her life so much easier, a bright and good part of Rose remained untouched by the sorceress. Like a drop of oil immune to water, Rose's true nature remained kind, unspoilt and thoroughly loyal to her friends and now, feeling tears of frustration prickling her eyes, she tucked the Scroll safely back in her bag, knowing its last question must belong to Aries.

Even more reason then, the hope-spiked side of
her mind piped up, to trust the sorceress. After all, with Medea's magical teaching, Rose would have a much better chance of finding out what happened to her father herself, wouldn't she?

Dressing quickly, Rose imagined flying to the Amazon and using magic to find her father. And yet, as she dragged a brush through her tangled hair, she knew that she could only give in to such wonderful daydreams if she was sure that Alex and Aries were safe.

Safe?
chirped the enchanted side of her brain.
Of course they are safe.
What did she think a fabulous sorceress needed from a boy and a ram?

So, where are they?
countered the withering voice of Rose's true mind.

By now thoroughly tired of her fractious brain and knowing there was only one way to find out, Rose hitched her rucksack onto her back. She walked over to the door and placed her ear against the wood to listen. Beyond it, Medea's house lay silent, still slumbering, and, taking a deep breath, Rose stepped out to investigate.

“Ready so quickly, Miss?” said a polished voice.

Jumping, Rose looked around the door frame to see Medea's butler standing a metre away, half-bowing, a syrupy smile on his face.

“Madam will be so pleased,” he added with a wide sweep of his arm. “If you would come this way? She asked for me to escort you directly to the car.”

Wondering about his dad, being escorted to a limousine or having the teeniest spark of hope brighten his desolate mood would all have been improvements on Aries' morning, because at that moment Fred was dragging him by a chain through the criss-cross of corridors that tunnelled beneath the villa. Fred's meaty arms bulged with the strain as he pulled Aries around yet another corner into a long passageway that ended in a pair of shining metal swing doors marked by skull and crossbones
27
.

Aries' hooves shrieked against the stone floor. Twisting and bellowing, he threw his head from side to side, desperately trying to butt Fred with his horns. In his mind he imagined himself breaking free of the Cyclops's ironlike grasp and galloping down the corridor to smash through every wall of the villa until he found Alex and Rose. He saw himself rescuing the children and carrying them to safety. But unfortunately for Aries, Cyclopes are tough and wily creatures, canny enough to avoid jabbing horns and strong enough to deal with ram rage. Backing through the doors, Fred hauled Aries into a room
flooded with light and padlocked the chain to a metal post bolted into the floor.

“Ram, ram!” muttered the Cyclops and poked Aries on the nose for good measure.

Then he lumbered off through another door into what appeared, in the glimpse that Aries caught, to be a storeroom.

Blinking, Aries caught his breath and looked around. Stark white walls rose on every side, enclosing a room with a white tiled floor and lit by star-bright dots in the ceiling, dominated by a rectangular tank. Slightly larger than bath-size, but with higher sides made of metal, it seemed to be filled with something slimy and green. Something that churned and frothed and dribbled over the tank's rim in thick
sprout-coloured
fingers of goo that slid down and splattered on the floor before gurgling away through a metal grille. Clusters of greasy bubbles rose on the liquid's surface, growing under their slick skins, stretching until they popped in loud explosions of green drops.

A big metal hook hung from a rope wound over a pulley fixed in the ceiling. On the other side it ran tautly down to wrap around the spindle of a winch, bolted to the floor. Feeling a cold dread rising up
his hooves and legs, Aries looked away at the steel benches that ran around the walls of the room, scattered with chunks of stripy grey and white rock that seemed to twinkle under the lights.

He was just puzzling what a sorceress would want with the strange assortment of things in the room when a wet spume of goo flew up out of the tank and landed near his hooves.

“Good morning!” said a cold, familiar voice.

Startled, Aries swung his head back towards the doors to see Medea walk in, her high-heeled red shoes
click-clacking
against the tiles. (And, since I'm mentioning the shoes, I might as well add that Medea was looking especially glamorous this morning, in a black trouser suit, red stripy T-shirt and silk scarf, with her hair fixed in a messy bun pinned up with red chopsticks. Not that Aries had any time for fashion right now.)

“Where's Alex?” snorted Aries.

“Oh, still around,” said Medea, patting her hair. “He's not going anywhere.”

Aries breathed a sigh of relief. “You haven't hurt him?”

Medea shook her head. “Not yet. I haven't had the time.”

She gazed lovingly into the tank and pulled on
a dark waterproof coat.

“
Penibilium auriculus
,” she said, in the tone of voice most people would use to soothe a kitten. “Such a big old scientific name for gold bugs.”

“Gold bugs?” said Aries, feeling a sour dread wash into his stomach.

“A rather gorgeous little bacteria
28
,” explained Medea. “Not that I fancied myself as much of a scientist before, but it's amazing what you can turn your hand to when the need arises. Watch this!”

She snatched a rock from the nearest bench and held it up to Aries, rather like a magician showing an empty top hat to the audience before pulling a rabbit from it.

“Gold ore,” she said and tossed it over her shoulder into the tank.

There was a splash, a slurp and a rude gobbling noise followed by a long disgusting belch as something shot straight back out of the mixture and clattered across the floor.

Giggling, Medea picked it up and showed Aries.

He peered down at the dull piece of rock in her hand. “Where's the gold gone?”

She nodded at the gurgling tank. “It's still in there, ready for me to collect and use on the sheep.”

Aries blinked, staring at the writhing green
mixture. “The bugs suck gold out of rocks?”

“Sweetheart.” Medea pushed her face towards him, a dark gleam in her eyes. “These little darlings will suck the gold out of
anything
!” She picked up a long wooden paddle that leaned against the wall and began stirring the mixture. “Mining companies have used them for centuries. Think of them as microbes with big teeth, just like piranhas. Not that you'd have heard of those either, I suppose. Well, Aries, piranhas are meat-eating fish.” Her eyes grew dreamy and she rested her face against the handle of the paddle. “They'll strip a ram down to its bones in about six minutes. These little beauties are much the same.”

Aries gasped, straining backwards against the chain. But before he could speak, the door to the side room crashed open and Fred bustled out carrying a cage. A ram-of-legend-sized cage. And, straining to see over the Cyclops's wide shoulders, he spotted stirrups, one bolted into each corner of the cage floor. A padded leather halter, like the ones horses wear to pull carts, hung down from its roof.

“No!” Aries jammed his hooves hard against the polished tiles, but it was no good. They slid like skates over a rink. “You're not going to—”

“Oh, but I am,” said Medea coldly, snapping her fingers. “Finally, I see why my work has been failing.
As if ordinary gold could ever be good enough to use on the sheep. Silly me. But the gold from your bloodstream, Aries? The gold of the fabulous ram himself?”

The Cyclops hurried over, unfastened the padlock on Aries' chain and threw his bulk against the ram's rump, pushing him, the way a motorist pushes a broken-down car, into the cage. A moment later Fred had forced the ram's neck into the halter and his hooves into the stirrups and slammed the door shut.

“At last, I'm going to have a new fleece!” said Medea. She stepped towards the cage and peered at Aries through the bars. “Because yours is all gone!” she added spitefully.

Aries glared back. “I know!”

“You do?” Disappointed by his response, Medea pursed her lips like a sulky child. She straightened up. “Those sheep tongues been wagging, have they? Who'd have thought it? Aries Khrysamallos, always too important to speak to the sheep of Greece, chatting away with that motley herd? Don't tell me that you've finally learned some manners?”

“I've learned a lot of things lately.”

“Like what?” she sniggered. “Coming all this way to find out that your fleece is no more?” She shrugged. “Well almost. There is one teensy tuft left.”

Between them Fred attached the hook to the top of the cage.

“One tuft left?” said Aries. “Are you saying you pulled my fleece to pieces? Why?”

“To make it easier to sew into my clothes, of course.”

Aries stared at her blankly, bracing himself as the cage lifted off the ground and began to rise jerkily.

The sorceress's face looked as hard as marble. “Didn't you ever stop to think of what your fleece did to me?”

Aries, who'd not thought about Medea for a second more than he'd absolutely had to over the years, shook his head.

“My father was so besotted by it he forgot all about me. Left me to play with a giant snake in a forest. I was six years old, Aries!” Medea stalked across the room and sat on a counter, watching as the cage rose. “Then, years of loneliness later, Jason sailed into Kolkis.” Aries saw her cheeks blush pink and heard her voice soften. “I really thought he loved me. I left my home for him, my people, my life as a princess. All for a so-called hero who dumped me for someone else as soon as the fleece made him king of his own island!” Her voice hardened, becoming as cold and brittle as ice. “Your fleece
cursed my life, Aries! So I've used it get my own back. I've cursed the lives of hundreds of others!”