The Pearl Quest (4 page)

‘You don't need to worry about them,' a soldier said. ‘Their houses are stone built – they've not taken much damage. It's our island that got hit the worst.'

‘Here.' Thora thrust a flask and packet of food into Tia's hand. She grabbed the same for herself. ‘The Lady Ondine wants you to work with her.'

‘Why?'

‘I don't know. You can ask her yourself,' Thora snapped as they set off out of the palace.

Tia didn't reply. She was sure Thora was bad-tempered because she was worried about the damage the storm had done to the island.

T
ia had guessed right. Thora sped through the shattered houses outside the palace and stopped at the most devastated one of all. A man and a woman were sitting on a heap of wood that had once been the walls of their house. They clutched each other tightly. Thora scrambled towards them over broken furniture and crockery. There was even a carved wooden horse, its legs missing and one ear hanging by a splinter.

‘Mama! Papa!' Thora cried and threw her arms round her parents.

The three of them clung together.

‘It'll be all right,' Thora cried, wiping the tears from her mother's face. ‘The Lady Ondine will help
us.' She hugged her parents. ‘I'll be back as soon as I can.'

‘I'm sorry,' Tia said to Thora and wished more than ever that she could have used the topaz to stop the storm.

Thora ignored her. They hurried on past broken houses and silent, shocked people to a place where the houses seemed untouched by the storm.

‘How did these houses escape?' Tia asked.

‘They didn't.' Thora pointed. ‘Look.'

The High Witch stood next to a house with a gaping hole in its roof. Grimmar was by her side together with a group of servants and guards,

Ondine had her eyes closed and her hands raised towards the house. The pearl glowed on her brow. Tia watched in wonder as the broken beams grew whole again, sprang from the ground and settled into place. The reed thatch rose in a cloud over the house and rewove itself, plaiting a braid neatly along the ridgepole. When it was done, Ondine lowered her arms, opened her eyes and the pearl dimmed.

Thora approached her, bobbed a quick curtsy and gabbled, ‘Lady, please, please help my parents, their house is destroyed.'

‘I will come to your parents by and by,' Ondine said.

Thora pleaded, ‘But Lady…'

‘Enough.' Ondine beckoned to Tia. ‘Patia, attend me.'

Tia groaned inside. It was bad enough that she had become the High Witch's favourite but now she had to follow her while Thora could do nothing but wait for help. The look on the maid's face and her bunched fists told Tia that Thora resented that deeply.

She wasn't the only angry person. Though Ondine whisked from place to place restoring houses and
farms, some of those who waited glowered behind her back, muttering as she helped their neighbours first. Tia glared at a family who sat by their wrecked farmhouse mumbling that the witch should hurry up and help them.

They're not hurt
, she thought,
why don't they start helping themselves?
At least Thora had begun rescuing her parents' belongings, while her mother sat silently hugging the wooden horse and her father hauled debris into separate piles.

Ondine reached Thora's house last. It took her some time to put the house and its contents back together. When she had done, Thora's mother silently held out the wooden horse. Ondine mended it. The woman snatched it back, clutched it to her chest and rocked back and forth.

Ondine put a gentle hand on the woman's head. As the pearl glowed the woman stopped rocking and her glazed eyes cleared. Her broken mind mended, she jumped up. ‘Oh my!' she said, taking in the restored house. ‘Thank you, Lady.' She curtseyed deeply.

Thora bobbed her thank-you and her father bowed.

‘Are you returning to the palace now, Lady Ondine?' Thora asked.

‘No, we still have work to do.' She gestured to Tia and set off towards the edge of the lake.

Orn and his staff had been hard at work helping to rebuild the swans' nests. The birds were busy too, moving material with their bills, gathering it under their tails and building new nests on the site of their old ones.

Ondine helped speed the nest-building but even she couldn't heal the smashed eggs.

Orn's expression was glum. Tentatively Tia said, ‘The Lady Ondine has worked hard to mend what she can.'

‘What she mends, she can un-mend. What she heals, she can un-heal,' Orn muttered.

‘Is that true?' Tia asked.

Orn shrugged. ‘So they say.'

Tia remembered how the people of Askarlend had reacted when they saw her use the ruby to defeat High Witch Skadi. They had been afraid of her. They'd thought she might turn on them and use the ruby against them.

I would never have done that
, Tia thought.
But a High Witch would
.

H
er work done, Ondine returned to the palace. She told Grimmar to summon Thora.

‘You,' she said Tia. ‘Come with me.'

The witch's chambers were modest and simply furnished. She led Tia through the entrance hall and the living rooms and into a side corridor ending in a locked door. She turned the key and went in.

On the other side of the door was a magic laboratory lined with books. They ran from floor to ceiling except where a high, wide window overlooked the lake. Beneath the window was a long table covered with familiar-looking phials, dishes, glass tubes and bottles of magic ingredients. They resembled the ones Tia had seen in Drangur where the High Witch Malindra had practiced her evil magic.

Ondine's no different from her
, Tia thought. It was only then she realised she'd begun to think Ondine might not be as bad as her sisters after all.

A huge book lay open on a stand in the middle of the table. In front of it was a white marble dish lined with swans' down. Ondine unfastened the diadem from her hair and laid it wearily in the dish. The creamy pearl glimmered in light from the window. Ondine stroked it with a reverent fingertip and smiled at it like a parent might smile at a child.

She really loves that pearl
, Tia realised with a shock. She took a step nearer. Ondine spun round. ‘Do not approach my pearl!' she commanded.

Tia stumbled back. ‘I didn't mean any harm, Lady,' she said wondering why the witch had brought her here if she was so protective of the pearl.

Ondine encircled Tia's shoulder. ‘Give me your hands,' she said.

Tia held them out and Ondine gripped them in her free hand.

With Tia pinioned, the witch took her a few steps closer to the table until she could see the pearl clearly. It cast a white sheen like glowing moonlight touched with the blue-grey shadows of a cloudy night. Tia longed to pick it up.

Ondine's hands gripped tighter. ‘Can you read?'

Tia shook her head, although she could read perfectly well.

Ondine shook her head, mockingly. ‘Oh dear. If you were able to, you would see what is written in my Book of Shadows here. Never mind, it doesn't matter.'

The witch seemed to lose interest. She pulled Tia away and closed the book.

They left the magic laboratory, Ondine carefully locking the door behind her, and went back to the living chambers. Ondine dropped the key onto a chest by her bed.

‘I'm tired. Sit with me until Thora arrives.' Ondine lay on her bed and Tia perched on the end. ‘Amuse me, tell me one of your Trader tales.'

Relief washed over Tia. She could easily do that; she'd had plenty of practice telling stories to the High Witch Yordis. She told the tale of Prince Kaspar and the Skrimsli bear. Ondine was laughing delightedly at Tia's funny voices and extravagant gestures when there was a knock on the door.

‘Come in,' she called, still laughing.

Thora entered with her usual bob. Ondine waved her to a footstool. ‘Finish the story then you may go,' she told Tia.

Tia wound up the tale as quickly as she could then slid off the bed and left the room.

Outside Ondine's chambers she sagged against the wall. Did the High Witch know she was the thief? If not, why else would Ondine have tempted her with a close sight of the pearl and watched her reaction so carefully? And Tia had read the runes written across the open page of the Book of Shadows. They said: To Catch a Thief.

Tia lay awake early the next morning, thoughts racing through her mind: should she try and steal the pearl now, or wait for a better opportunity? She hadn't planned to take it yet but the chance might not come again, not if Ondine suspected that Tia was the thief.

A faint flush of yellow light seeping through the window told Tia that sunrise was coming. If she was going to steal the pearl it had better be now. She dressed quickly, opened the door, and crept past Thora who was snoring loudly in the outer room.

Tia climbed to the top of the dizzying spiral staircase and sped through dim corridors to Ondine's chambers.

There weren't any guards at the witch's door.
She must feel very safe if she hasn't got guards
, Tia thought.

She opened the door a crack. Dawn light filtered into the room through closed shutters. It glinted on the laboratory key still lying where Ondine had dropped it on the chest beside her bed. She had her back to Tia.

Holding her breath, Tia crept forward. She picked up the key. Ondine stirred, turned over. Tia froze, expecting the witch's eyes to open and widen with
anger at the sight of the thief. With a soft sigh Ondine settled again.

Tia relaxed. She made her way silently to the magic laboratory, turned the key in the lock and went inside.

The pearl shone pure and clear in its feathery nest. Tia leaned forward to see it better. Its soft radiance seeped into her. She felt as though she were glowing too. She reached for the pearl and found herself unable to move for rapture.

Tia wondered vaguely if she was dreaming – or perhaps floating underwater. She couldn't think clearly, her sight was blurred, her hearing muffled. And she didn't seem able to move. A figure she vaguely recognised wavered indistinctly in front of her. It spoke, the words seeming to come from very far away: