Spellfall (25 page)

They hurried along passages that trembled under their feet, through flying twigs and spiralling leaves. Merlin couldn’t help thinking of his last journey to the Heart, when he’d been separated from Natalie, terrified and alone. But tonight, things couldn’t have been more different. The Spell Lords and their magehounds followed at a respectful distance, an escort to a prince rather than a prisoner, and crowded inside to watch him being connected. The tremors that shook the rest of the tree weren’t so noticeable in the Heart but the glittering air crackled with tension. The twelve magehounds watched him intently – a disconcerting ring of amber eyes.

Ignore ’em,
Redeye advised.

Ignore twelve magehounds who were regarding him as if he were their next meal? Merlin didn’t think it possible. But as soon as he felt the squirts of warm, sticky sap at the contact points on his temples he relaxed.

Lord Pveriyan crouched in front of him, checking the connections. “Don’t get above yourself, Caster,” the Spell Lord whispered, softly so the others couldn’t hear. “I have influence on this Council. I’ve already had the human boy cleansed. He passed out with the pain. You harm a single one of Oq’s twigs, and I swear I’ll do the same to you, only I won’t stop at memories of Earthaven. I’ll cleanse every thought in your head until you’re an empty husk.”

“Stop fussing, Pveriyan!” Lady Thaypari called. “I’m sure Oq won’t have made a mistake with the installation.”

“You can be sure of nothing!” Pveriyan snapped, giving one of the tendrils attached to Merlin’s temples a hard jerk. “The Raven might strike here first, precisely to stop us trying this.”

Stars whirled behind Merlin’s eyes. Redeye fled into his boot. The watching Spell Lords shuffled their feet and gave uneasy coughs.

“If the Raven’s attacked the Heart already, then we’re all in trouble,” Thaypari said firmly. “Come on out of there, Pveriyan. Give the boy some peace to do whatever he has to do.”

With a final glare at Merlin, Lord Pveriyan swept his robes around him and strode out of the Heart with his magehound trotting at his heels. One by one, the other Spell Lords followed, some of them whispering, “Good luck” as they went. Soon, only Thaypari remained, her hound peering anxiously at Merlin from behind her skirts.

“Are you all right in there?” she asked. “Do you need anything?”

Merlin gripped the stool. “Food,” he whispered. Then he took a deep breath, closed his eyes and forgot about his stomach as Oq whirled him away.

It was even better than before. A great rushing river of images from every corner of Earthaven and beyond. Now the Boundary was open, Oq’s roots connected with the roots of other trees, stretching across two worlds. Carried at incredible speed by the awesome power of the soultree, Merlin whirled past silver Eights of unicorns, lumbering brown bears and leaping stags, their riders grimly clutching weapons. He sensed the vivid spellflares as relays of Treemages transported the slower units of the army from cache to cache. He poured himself into the maze of roots and branches, detoured along creepers and vines, searching, searching, until in one of the outer roots—

Pain.

*

Out of the soultree’s reach, Tim came to in complete darkness with a headache and a strange sense of déjà vu. He groaned and touched his skull. His hand came away sticky.

Carefully, he eased himself into a sitting position. He was lying on stone – damp, cold and very hard. Every millimetre of him was stiff. He had bruises in places he didn’t remember belonged to him.

What had happened?

For a few seconds there was a frightening blank, as black as his surroundings. Then glimpses came, like flashes of light in the darkness. A man with yellow eyes and feathers in his hair... A large hawk diving at him, screeching... A tall girl trying to raise a signal on a mobile phone...

“Jo!” he called. His voice echoed but there was no reply.

He fumbled in his pockets, remembering more every second. He and Jo had come up to Unicorn Wood looking for something important. They had brought equipment for emergencies such as this. Torch, torch... yes, here it was. He clicked the switch half afraid it wouldn’t work. A dim orange glow flickered across brick archways, revealing whitewash streaked with slime. He shook the torch until the bulb brightened, then swung the beam around. A silent generator, smelling of diesel. Benches. Empty, soiled cages, a fish tank containing water but no fish, an overturned stool... Was that a rabbit’s foot beneath it? Tim recoiled. His torch picked out a flight of stone steps leading up to a door. He crawled up. He was shivering so hard his teeth chattered. Reaction from being hit, he supposed.

The door was locked. He hammered his fists on the unyielding wood. “Oy!” he yelled. “Let me out of here!” But he was too weak to keep it up for long. He sank on the top step, dropped his head into his hands and closed his eyes. Think, Tim, think.

He must be in the Lodge he decided. It was the only building in the area likely to have a cellar – the only building in the area, period. Also, he vaguely remembered the hawk-man saying he didn’t have much time. Time before what? He made his way back down the steps and began a half-hearted search for the key, shining his torch into dark corners. He’d hardly started looking when something moaned in the shadows.

Tim froze, the back of his neck prickling.
Ghost
.

“Don’t be silly,” he muttered. “Ghosts and witches are just stories to frighten kids.” But a niggly itch inside his head said,
Are you sure?

The moaning started up again. He crept towards the sound, the torch held before him like a weapon, his breath coming faster. A tunnel had been dug into the back wall of the cellar. The moaning was coming from down there. Tim crouched at the entrance and cautiously aimed his torch beam inside.

A monster heaved towards him, making strange muffled cries. Its shadow writhed around the tunnel walls as Tim scrambled backwards, heart thumping. The moaning started up again, more frantic now. Whatever was in there couldn’t get out.

Encouraged, he peered into the tunnel again. This time, he saw the “monster” was a man. Tape tightly bound his arms and legs and covered his mouth. Tim’s stomach lurched as he recognized the prisoner. “Mr Marlins!” he whispered. “What are
you
doing here?”

Relief flooded through him, mingled with a hot tight fury he couldn’t understand. He shook the anger away. This was no time for stupid feuds. It took him less than a minute to slice through the tape with his penknife and free his stepfather. Mr Marlins was soon sitting against one of the arches, rubbing his wrists and the stubble about his mouth. Tim winced at the sight of coarse black hairs stuck to the gag.

Mr Marlins gave him a long measuring look, then staggered to his feet. “Come on, we have to get out of here.”

“Door’s locked,” Tim muttered. Of all the people to be locked in a cellar with, he thought.

His stepfather swayed and caught himself against the wall. His eyes burned from dark hollows. His lips were cracked. He seemed to be looking for something. After a moment, he staggered across to the fish tank, cupped his hands and actually drank the foul green water. Tim’s stomach churned. “How long have you been down here?” he whispered.

Mr Marlins splashed a second handful of the filthy water on to his face and sighed. “Ever since I delivered you to the Thrallstone. Came up here to rescue Nat and got myself caught, didn’t I? My own stupid fault.”

“The Thrallstone,” Tim repeated, the itch starting up again. “Nat—” As if a curtain across his head had been ripped in half, memories blazed.
“Earthaven!”
he breathed, the fury returning. He took a step away from Mr Marlins. “You left me there! You knew what that Spell Lord would do to me and you just drove away!”

His stepfather coughed. “Uh... Tim… I’m really sorry. Honestly. I was out of my mind with worry over Nat but that’s no excuse. I should never have done that to you. I might have known they wouldn’t take you as a Thrall against your will. Apparently the memory cleansing isn’t pleasant if you fight it and I assume from the marks on your head that you did.” He frowned. “But you can still remember, can’t you? I wonder what went wrong.”

“You tell me,” Tim said. He was still furious but Mr Marlins looked so pale and defeated, he couldn’t keep it up. Besides, they had more important things to think about right now. Like getting out of this cellar before the hawk-man came back.

“Look,” he said, rummaging through his pockets until he found a rather squashed chocolate bar. “Are you hungry? Jo and I brought supplies in case Nat was starving when we found her. I know it ain’t beer but it’s better than nothing.” He held out the chocolate.

Mr Marlins shook his head. “You keep it,” he said quietly. “We might be down here a while.”

Tim set his jaw and forced the chocolate bar into his stepfather’s hand. “Take it! I’m not being soft. I just won’t know what to do if you faint on me, and... I don’t want to go through this alone.” Until he’d said it, he didn’t realize how true it was. He smiled wryly, thinking of his mother’s words.
Sometimes it takes a crisis like this to bring families together
. He hadn’t thought there was a crisis big enough in the world to bring him and Mr Marlins together.

The chocolate bar disappeared in two sticky bites. Mr Marlins licked the wrapper and sighed. “Seems I misjudged you, Tim,” he said gruffly. “Thank you, that was much better than beer.”

Tim shrugged, embarrassed. “There’s plenty of bottles back at the house, no one else has drunk ’em.”

A hard glint came to his stepfather’s eyes. “I mean it. I’ve had my last hangover. Being tied up in the dark gives a man time to think. When Atanaqui died, I convinced myself that finding a replacement mother for Nat would be enough. After you and Julie came to live with us, I thought I could retreat into my own misery and leave you all to get on with your lives. I see now how wrong that was. I’ve failed Nat and I’ve failed you, to say nothing of your poor mother. She didn’t just move here for Nat’s sake, did she? She needed me as much as I needed her, only I was too selfish to see it. She must be desperate by now with both of us missing.”

“She was pretty worried when I saw her last.” Tim fiddled with his jacket zips. “And if I don’t find Jo and get back before dawn she’ll go spare and so will Mrs Carter. They think we’ve gone to the Hallowe’en Disco.”

Mr Marlins sucked in his breath. “Hallowe’en? Already? I should have guessed. No wonder the Casters were in such a rush when they tossed me down here! What time is it?”

“Dunno. My watch stopped at midnight.”

“The Opening.” Mr Marlins closed his eyes, then looked thoughtfully at the tunnel. “There’s something I think we should investigate. Bring your torch.”

Reluctantly, Tim followed his stepfather into the tunnel. It twisted around several turns until it reached a metal door that looked as if it would withstand a tank attack. The door had a combination lock.

“Looks like someone doesn’t trust their own spells,” Mr Marlins said, peeling a bronze glimmer off one of the hinges.

Tim shone the torch at his hand, curious. “Is that a spell?”

“Yes.” Mr Marlins knocked the torch away. “Keep the light on the door.” He fiddled with the combination, then slammed a hand against the metal in frustration.

“What do you think is in there?” Tim asked.

“Live spells, probably. Casters value them above everything else. But there was a lot of coming and going down here before they left, and Lord Pveriyan said the Council were expecting trouble this year. I don’t know if even a Caster would go to all the trouble of constructing an underground vault just to store spells.”

“We saw them take a lot of stuff out of the Lodge.” Tim searched his memory. “Bows and arrows, rucksacks, spades, stuff like that.”

“Bows and arrows? Yes, that figures. Technology poisons their powers, and there’s an anti-technology spell on the Boundary so anything more hi-tech won’t work inside Earthaven. But they’ve got an archery range out in the wood, so the arrows are no secret. It’s my guess they were building something else down here, something they took in with them. Come to think of it, we’re probably in the safest place right now. Maybe we shouldn’t try too hard to get out.”

Tim stared at his stepfather. Had he just made a joke? Then Mr Marlins closed a hand over the torch beam. “Shh! I think I heard something.”

All Tim could hear was the sound of their own breathing, loud in the enclosed space. Then it came again – a faint scraping. Keeping the torch covered, they crept to the end of the tunnel and cautiously peered out. The scraping was coming from the other side of the cellar door.

Mr Marlins put a finger to his lips. Quietly, he lifted one of the empty animal cages and began to creep up the steps. Tim’s opinion of his stepfather, which had changed considerably in the past half hour or so, soared. Not to be outdone, he crept after him, gripping the torch in a sweaty hand. It was probably heavy enough to knock someone out if he hit them in the right place. Give them a nasty bruise, at least.

From outside came muffled voices, a cut-off laugh, then the rattle of a key in the lock. The door swung open to reveal five faceless figures, black against the moonlight that poured down the passage. Mr Marlins leapt at them, the cage glinting above his head. Tim swung the torch beam into the startled eyes glittering through holes in their masks, and laughed in relief as he recognized their skull earrings. “No!” he yelled, catching his stepfather’s arm just in time. “They’re friends!”

The Death Heads recognized Tim just in time to save face and halt their screaming flight back along the passage.

His Hallowe’en mask glowing luminous orange in the torchlight, Gaz pushed to the front of the group and grinned cheekily at Mr Marlins.

“Trick or treat?” he said.

Chapter 17

THE RAVEN

Midnight to dawn, Sunday, November 1