The Book of Lies (16 page)

“What is this verse doing in the Book of Lies?” Starkey demanded. Then he answered for himself. “Perhaps it’s not part of Alwyn’s magic at all.”

“I thought every word in the Book was a lie,” said Nicola. “Isn’t that what you told me back at the orphanage, Marcel?”

Yes, that was what he had told her.

“But see how the words glow? It’s the same gold the Book uses to identify the truth,” said Starkey thoughtfully.

Could words be both truth and lies at the same time?

Starkey’s fear of the Book seemed to be slipping away rapidly. He picked it up, opened the back cover and read the golden verse to himself silently.

“Are you going to eat or read from that book all night?” barked Hector, eyeing the untouched food.

The three children turned quickly to claim their meagre rations.

Marcel wolfed down his share then turned back to Starkey, whose portion lay forgotten beside him on the log where he sat with the Book of Lies across his lap.

“What do you think it means?” Marcel asked.

“A Beast with wings… mighty flames… and this line here,” he said, pointing reverently as he repeated it.
“Destroying
rogues and making Kings.
What else can it be but a great dragon ready to drive usurpers from the throne?”

He raised his voice so that the others could hear. “It seems I have misjudged the Book. You were right to stop me when I wanted to destroy it, Marcel. It may well hold the key to this kingdom’s future.”

“But a dragon – are there such things?” Fergus called from nearby, where he sat listening to every word.

“Not for many centuries, but the old legends speak of them, one in particular. Its name was Mortregis. It ravaged this land for many years, slaughtering all who dared to stand against it, even the bravest knights.”

“Who killed it, then?” Marcel asked, fighting a growing sense of dread.

“No one. Dragons don’t die like other beings.”

“Then why isn’t it still roaming the Kingdom today?” asked Nicola.

“It was driven away, or so the ancient legends claim. Driven away by the Master of the Books.”

“Lord Alwyn!” Marcel couldn’t believe that a man so frail could ever have defeated a dragon, even if he had once been as powerful as Old Belch had claimed.

“No, not Alwyn.”

“But there are dragons sewn on to his robe.”

“Yes, to recall the first great Master, the one who banished Mortregis. He brought peace to the land by uniting it under
one king. Every Master since has worn the dragon’s image to remind us of the old stories.”

“So where did this dragon go?”

Starkey fingered his bristly chin, a faraway look in his eyes. “Nobody knows,” he answered softly.

“Then how could it be called back again?”

“I don’t know that either. Not yet,” he said ominously, looking down at the Book.

A harsh wind began to sweep down from the mountain up ahead, until their breath frosted in the firelight. The three children wrapped themselves in their blankets and scrambled for the best position by the fire.

“If you lie tightly together, you will preserve more of your body heat,” Hector suggested.

The idea would have brought a laugh only yesterday. But they were cold, and it was going to be a long and bitter night.

“I’ll lie in the middle, then,” Nicola volunteered without hesitation.

The boys quickly saw why. “You’ll be warm on
both
sides,” Marcel complained.

“You could have thought of it first,” she taunted, then relented a little. “Your turn tomorrow night.”

Marcel didn’t remember drifting off to sleep that night, but he did remember the commotion when Nicola rolled over in her sleep and whacked Fergus across the nose. After some angry words, the pair quickly settled again, and before Marcel slipped back into sleep he saw that Starkey was still crouched by the dwindling fire. The last of the flames flickered feverishly on his face as he leaned over the Book of Lies, still open on his lap. He was mumbling quietly to himself as he read those three mysterious verses over and over again.

M
ARCEL WOKE THE NEXT
morning within a forest shrouded in the silver robes of a fine mist. Others might have said it was beautiful the way the wisps of fog clung to the trees. Their eyes might have picked out the moss and lichen that spotted the beech trees so delicately and the thick mats of ferns, their fronds perfectly still and dripping with dew. But the beauty of the forest left Marcel and his companions unmoved. All they could think of was the gruelling day ahead.

“Where is the Book, Starkey?” Marcel asked.

“Don’t worry. I have it safe. It’s heavy, and you’ve brought it a long way. I’ll carry it today.”

Marcel frowned at this, but he saw the look on Starkey’s face and knew that it was not an offer but a command.

They began the new day’s trek by crossing the stream, its surface like a mirror until Starkey broke its gentle perfection with his first step. “If you march hard today,” he told them, “this will be our last in the high country.” Then it was on into the foothills of the mountain, walking and climbing, for hour after long hour.

The group made slow progress, and when they stopped in a rare patch of open ground to eat a late breakfast of apples stolen from the orphanage orchard and more leathery venison, Nicola groaned and asked, “Can’t we stay here until tomorrow?”

It was just what Marcel would have asked if he’d dared, and Fergus looked as if he agreed too.

Perhaps Starkey noticed this in their faces, because he was more sympathetic than usual in his reply. “I know you are weary, all of you. But we cannot stop. Lord Alwyn will probably be in Elstenwyck by now, and Pelham will know you are missing. My face is well-known to his soldiers and so are yours. When they don’t find us on the high roads, they will scour the forest for the smallest sign. We must stay well ahead of them at all costs.”

“But why are we going this way, Starkey?” Hector asked, equally frustrated. “Avoiding the roads is one thing, but we’ve gone past two trails down to the valley already, by my count.
If we keep going in this direction, we’ll –” He stopped, aware that his complaints were starting to sound like fear. There was no doubting what held his eye, though. It was the mountain that loomed directly ahead.

Starkey had heard the hint of dread and took a moment to consider his reply. “The route we need is the one Pelham’s men won’t think to guard. There’s a way down into the valley a small distance short of that mountain. Very few know about it and even fewer dare to use it.”

He glanced back in the direction they had come from, and Marcel knew it wasn’t just Pelham’s soldiers who worried him. Termagant might still be after them too.

At that moment, a danger greater even than Termagant swept down on them. The dappled gloom of the forest had been growing darker as they rested, even though it was still mid-morning. They were all aware of the ebbing sunlight. Suddenly, the darkness could not be ignored. Black and broiling, it was slipping stealthily over the ridge away to their left, blocking the sun and plunging the forest more deeply into shadow as each second passed.

Exposed in the clearing, the travellers soon found themselves peppered by monstrous raindrops. A scything wind drove the drops almost parallel to the ground, their impact stinging like bees. Marcel put his hand up to shield his face and found to his alarm that he had caught one, cold and solid, in his palm.

“Hail!” Starkey shouted. “Use the trees! Quickly, all of you, pin yourselves against the widest trunk you can find!”

Marcel obeyed without question, pressing himself into the rough bark of a stout pine tree. He saw that only a few steps away Fergus had done the same. Nicola was on his other side, hiding her head beneath her arms but thankfully safe as well. They were just in time, for out in the open spaces where the wind raged freely, hailstones now whistled by like arrows.

Then, as quickly as it had begun, the hail stopped and the cloud scudded away furiously in the direction they had come from. After a few watchful minutes they stepped tentatively from the trees, and were astonished to discover that none of them had suffered more damage than a handful of dampened spots on their clothing.

“What was it?” Nicola breathed, still recovering from shock and fear.

“Magic, most likely,” said Hector.

“No, not magic,” returned Starkey. “Not Alwyn’s, at least. He would have to know where we are to send such a tempest against us. That cloud seemed much too random for his work.”

“Like those wolves yesterday,” agreed Hector. “Wolves don’t attack humans, not a party of us together like this.”

“Yes, these are strange times, right enough,” said Starkey. Reminded of the wolves, he lifted the bandage a little from his
hand and winced at what he saw. “I’ve heard tell recently of sea monsters fighting fishermen and frogs raining from the sky.”

“I’ve heard stories like that as well,” Hector murmured, eyeing the mountain, which came closer with every step they took. He shifted the longbow on his shoulder.

Fergus spoke up. “Starkey, back at the orphanage a whole sky full of bats appeared out of nowhere. Lord Alwyn turned them back using his magic.”

Yes, Marcel thought. It was the old wizard who had confronted the bats and the magic he had conjured to do it had taken all of his strength. Starkey was right, he decided. Lord Alwyn had not created that rogue cloud and sent it spitting an icy breath over the land. But if not Lord Alwyn, then where had it come from?

They travelled on until it was all they could do to place one blistered foot in front of the other. They barely stopped at midday to stuff more of their meagre rations into their mouths. The climbing began in earnest now, as the ground on the mountain’s lower slopes became steep and rocky.

As their weary walking continued, Marcel felt a new uneasiness. He couldn’t quite throw off the sense that they were being watched.

“Do you feel it?” he asked Fergus, who was walking just ahead of him. “It’s like the forest itself has decided it doesn’t want us here any more.”

An anxious glance from Nicola told him she had felt it too.
Surely they had lost Termagant by now. Could it be Pelham’s soldiers? Maybe they had tracked them down after all.

Finally Marcel noticed Hector staring into the surrounding trees.

“Have you seen something?” Fergus asked uneasily.

“No, but my bones tell me we have company among these trees,” came Hector’s foreboding reply. He put an arrow to his bow and looked about warily for a target. Nothing moved, nothing gave out a sound, but it seemed his nerves were screwed tight, for he suddenly wrenched back the string and shot the arrow towards a shadow beneath the trees.

It had barely flown half its course when it was struck down. A second arrow, shorter but much faster, had intercepted it in midair!

Instinctively they all crouched low.

“Who’s out there? Is it Pelham’s men?” Fergus whispered in dread.

“No ordinary soldier can shoot an arrow like that,” muttered Hector. He was looking back the way they had come, as if he intended fleeing.

“Hold fast, man, or I’ll fix your cowardice with this!” his master threatened, brandishing his sword.

Hector stopped his thoughts of retreat but he could not stop his own fear. “Starkey, you know the stories about that mountain ahead. No human ever goes near.”

“That arrow was fired by one of Pelham’s men, I tell you,”
Starkey hissed fiercely. “But he’s given himself away now. He’s followed us on his own and now he’s afraid to take all of us by himself. If he were going to kill us he’d have done it by now. Move, all of you, as quickly as you can. Stay close behind me,” he warned, and then he set off swiftly.

Every footstep was an agony of terror now. If one of Pelham’s soldiers had been close enough to shoot at them, there might be others nearby.

An icy wind blew down from the mountain and snow began to fall, obscuring the path Starkey was trying to follow. Their teeth chattered with the cold and they had to wrap their blankets around themselves as they walked.

Late in the afternoon, Starkey announced what they had been longing to hear. “It’s there, just beyond those trees, the pass down from this mountain country. Come on, there’s just enough light left if we hurry.”

Soon they had reached the rim of the escarpment, and the huge valley lay stretched out before them, shimmering in the fading light of day. Marcel remembered when he had last seen this view, from the top of the waterfall near Mrs Timmins’, and later on Gadfly’s back. At last he was about to descend into the valley itself.

“You can’t see it yet, but just over the horizon is where our journey ends, in Elstenwyck,” Starkey informed them.

The children soon realised why this path was little used. Starkey and Hector were forced to hack a way through the
undergrowth with their swords, but at least the stout bushes offered something to hang on to. In places the edge of the path dropped away into a heart-stopping abyss. When Fergus slipped on the treacherous rocks, he had to dig his fingers into the dirt and grab frantically on to the roots of a gnarled shrub to stop himself from sliding over the precipice. From time to time a loose stone would catapult into their path from above before plunging down the face of the cliff. To avoid another fall, the three children linked hands, forming a human chain. It seemed second nature to them now.