“Rubbish,” said Perry, pulling at his coat sleeves. “That was all rubbish.”
“Rubbish?” Thatcher barked. “How can you say it was rubbish? If the earl didn’t tell her about us, then she couldn’t possibly have gained those intimate details through any other means! Besides, I’m quite certain the earl knows nothing about Eliza—er … my personal acquaintances.”
“Let’s not stand here arguing the point, Thatcher,” his brother snapped. “After all, we’ve got an hour or two until our meeting with the professor, so let’s get the children something to eat, shall we?”
“But—” Thatcher protested, not letting the point drop.
“I said enough!” Perry nearly yelled. Then he immediately softened his voice when he noticed the children all staring at him in shock. “I’m simply saying that I need more evidence before I am convinced of this fortune-telling business.”
“Very well,” said Thatcher stiffly. “Come along, children. I know of a fine pub a few blocks from here which serves the best bangers and mash in London.”
They were soon comfortably seated at The Village Hog, a pub on the bottom floor of a large six-story building that reeked of stale beer and tobacco smoke.
Now that Theo wasn’t skipping along ahead, Ian took the opportunity to ask her again what the earl’s aunt had said. Theo furrowed her brow as she tried to explain it. “It was the oddest thing,” she said. “Lady Arbuthnot didn’t look into my teacup. She said there wasn’t any need. She already knew what she needed to know about me.”
“Which was?” asked Ian, and he was aware that everyone at the table was listening to their exchange.
“Well,” Theo said, appearing to be working out the words, “she said that I was an oracle, someone able to predict the future, and that I am quite gifted. She asked me if I’d seen anything that had frightened me, and I told her about the visions that I’d had out on the lawn during lessons.”
For all Perry’s doubts, Ian noticed that his schoolmaster’s posture suggested that he was very interested in Theo’s experiences with Lady Arbuthnot. “What did she think of them?” Perry asked, leaning across the table to hear her over the din of the pub.
“She said she’s had this most awful feeling for years that something terrible was going to overtake the land, but she hadn’t known what it was. She said that the things that I saw in my visions were very detailed given that I’ve had no training, and that to help me she would be willing to tutor me in the development of my abilities so that I might better tolerate what I’m seeing.”
“Did you mention the crystal?” asked Ian, wondering just how much Theo had told the lady.
“What crystal?” Thatcher asked.
Ian looked at Theo, who nodded. “The night Theo arrived at the keep, the man who delivered her had it. He tried to take it as payment for rescuing her, but Madam Scargill discovered his thievery and demanded the necklace be turned over to her. When the beast destroyed the inside of the keep, I found the necklace among the rubble, and I knew it belonged to Theo, especially after I saw her mother wearing it in that picture on the wall at your cottage,” he said, looking at Perry.
Perry nodded but Thatcher looked at his brother and said, “What photo?”
“Do you remember the little photograph on the wall next to the desk?” Perry asked.
“The one with the woman and the child?”
“Yes,” Perry answered. “That is apparently a photo of Theo and her mother.”
“Odd coincidence,” said Thatcher with a smug look and a wink at Ian, who understood that he was making fun of his brother.
“So what does this crystal necklace have to do with anything?” asked Carl.
“When I wore it, my visions became more …” Theo searched for the right words. “Clear. They were bigger and more intense.”
Ian frowned. He didn’t want to discuss the crystal and its effect on Theo, because he was still worried that she’d want to try it on again and would have another frightful episode.
“Do you think that this crystal is acting as some sort of amplification?” asked Thatcher.
Theo gave him a puzzled look. “What do you mean?”
“It’s possible that the necklace is enhancing your natural abilities,” he explained. “It may be acting as a type of antenna.”
Perry asked, “What type of crystal is it?”
“I’m not sure,” said Ian, searching his memory to see if he’d ever come across something similar. “It looks very much like quartz. It’s white and cloudy, except there’s this bit of pink in the center.”
“I should like to see this necklace,” said Thatcher. “Theo, are you wearing it now?”
“No,” she said, and her eyes met Ian’s. “I took it off after that awful experience on the lawn and gave it to Ian for safe-keeping.”
Everyone looked expectantly at Ian, who squirmed under the sudden focus. “It’s back at the keep,” he admitted, and he would have elaborated but at that moment the barmaid arrived with a huge tray of food and began passing out everyone’s lunch.
Conversation was limited while the hungry group dove in to their sausage and mashed potatoes. While they were eating, Carl asked Thatcher, “Schoolmaster, did I hear you say that we’re not returning to the keep after lunch?”
Thatcher finished the mouthful of sausage he’d just taken before answering. “That’s correct, Carl. I’ve made an appointment with an old professor of mine from Cambridge. We’ll be visiting with him after our meal here.” Turning to Ian, he asked again, “You’ve still got your box?”
Ian reached into his coat and pulled out the small square silver treasure and laid it on the table. “I’ve been trying to open it for the past fortnight, but I still can’t figure out how to get the lid up without prying it open.”
Perry wiped his hands on his napkin and said, “You know, I didn’t have a very good look when it got passed round the table at the castle. May I see it again?”
Ian handed the box over, hoping that maybe the schoolmaster could figure it out. Perry lifted the box to eye level and turned it about several times before pulling at the lid, which didn’t budge. “I’ve tried that,” Ian said, and Carl hid a smirk.
Perry gave him a weary look and turned the box about again, searching for a possible weak point. Finally, after a few more shakes and pulls on the lid, he handed it back to Ian. “I can’t see how to get it open,” he said. “But there is definitely something inside.”
Ian nodded. “Yes, I’ve heard it too,” he answered, “but I haven’t a clue about what it could be.”
“We’ll leave it to the professor to have a look,” said Thatcher. “He’ll likely be able to decipher the lettering on the sides of your box, which might point to how to open it. He might also be able to give us some clues about the writing on the walls of the caverns.”
“Perhaps he can also tell us why Ian’s name appeared in the first cavern,” Perry added, and Ian felt his cheeks flush when Theo and Carl each gave him a shocked look.
“Oh, yeah,” he said to them sheepishly, remembering that he hadn’t shared that particular fact with his friends. “I forgot to tell you two, Schoolmaster Goodwyn was able to translate a section that had a message for me.”
“What did it say?” asked Theo with large round eyes.
“Nothing to be alarmed about,” he assured her, adding a laugh to show he found it all very amusing. “It just said for me to go that way—toward the box at the end of the tunnel.”
Carl gulped. “That, or it was leading you toward the beast,” he said.
All eyes pivoted to Carl, and Ian’s good humor from just a moment before vanished instantly. “Oh, my,” murmured Thatcher into the heavy silence that followed. “I never thought of that.”
Theo’s eyes shifted to Ian and she looked intensely worried. “It’s more likely the writing was referring to the box,” he said firmly, making up his mind that it must be that, because who could possibly want to cause him harm?
&n
bsp; But Theo’s concern seemed only to deepen. “When is the professor expecting us?” she asked Thatcher.
The schoolmaster glanced at his watch. “Shortly,” he said. “Is everyone finished?” Four heads nodded, and after setting a few coins on the table, the group was off again.
THE SORCERESS OF ICE
Caphiera the Cold’s fortress was nearly impossible to find. It was hidden in a mountain pass at one of the highest points of the Pyrenees Mountains. Few mortals had ever stumbled into it. None had ever managed to stumble back out.
But Magus the Black had been there before, so he remembered the way. He also knew that his sister would likely be aware of his presence within the pass long before he knew of hers. He worried a bit about how she might react to his visit. If it was anything like the last time they’d met, it was sure to leave a mark.
As the morning sun crested the great mountain range, Magus reached the pass and stood before it for a moment to catch his breath. His pets were not at his side. The she-beast, Medea, was too weak from her bullet wounds to travel beyond the small cave he’d found for her and her two pups—the third had taken a wrong turn into the jaws of his older brother—in the foothills of the Pyrenees. Her mate, Kerberos, remained at Medea’s side while their master was away, and the young, still unnamed beast was ordered to hunt for food, to distract him from killing any more of his siblings.
Magus felt his pets’ absence, but he knew that to have traveled through the pass with them would have meant certain death for the hellhounds. Caphiera would delight in that cruelty, so he hadn’t risked it.
Now, as he stood alone at the mouth of the passage, he remembered that this harmless-looking entrance fed into a narrow corridor of rock, ice, and snow that twisted and turned back upon itself so often that those travelers unfortunate enough to attempt to navigate it became dizzy before they’d gone half a kilometer. Magus eyed the rocky alley sullenly, noting that the temperature within it dipped below this elevation’s usual frigid degree.
He detested the cold and growled low in his throat as he prepared himself to enter the pass. Pulling the folds of his cloak more securely around himself, he pushed forward. He’d gone only a short way when he heard the faintest whistle from overhead. The sorcerer immediately spun to the right, ducking low underneath a rocky overhang just in time to hear three dull thuds behind him that shook the snow-covered ground. He glanced over his shoulder and eyed the place where he’d been standing just a moment before. Imbedded in the snowy surface were three enormous icicles.
Magus snarled and waved his hand at the deadly daggers. They immediately melted into small nubs barely big enough to poke out of the snow. “Caphiera!” he bellowed into the stillness of the pass. “Enough of this! I have come to talk about a truce.”
All was quiet save for the echo of his voice. For long seconds nothing answered his call; then suddenly the stillness was broken by a sound like the springtime cracking of ice over a frozen lake. The noise ran up and down the walls of the pass, reverberating until it rattled the ground. Magus braced himself under the overhang, gripping the icy ridge and grimacing against the unsettling noise as it bounced back and forth all along the corridor. Gradually, the rumbling grew louder and louder, until it was a roar that made the ground shake and small bits of rock from the high walls of the passage come loose, dropping to the ground like small grenades. Magus growled again before darting from under his outcropping and running as fast as he could.
Behind him a great wall of snow came tumbling down the mountainside and funneled its way into the pass. Churning white powder as powerful as any tidal wave chased him deeper and deeper into the narrow passage. Magus allowed himself one glance over his shoulder, and that was enough to encourage him to increase his speed.
Finally, running out of patience, he rounded a particularly sharp corner, twisted on his feet with unnatural agility, and held up both hands. The massive wall of snow followed, barely losing speed, and swelled up above him to a monstrous height, blocking out the sun as it prepared to devour him whole. But suddenly the snow was met with a heat so intense that it instantly turned the frozen wave to steam, which rose above Magus harmlessly before condensing into white clouds that covered the sky.
More waves followed the first, yet Magus used his powers against the crushing force again and again until finally the walls of snow stopped churning forward and settled into one great pile of white. Slowly the sorcerer lowered his hands. Though he was now safe from being crushed, he was firmly barricaded into the deepest section of the pass by a wall ten meters high of deeply packed snow.
He turned and surveyed the pass ahead, which angled down and away from where he now stood. The path was clear, if a bit icy, and Magus brushed off his white-dusted cloak, satisfied that he could move forward again.
For a good stretch he heard nothing, yet he kept careful watch lest his sister try to send another avalanche or shower of icicles after him. Finally, after he’d wound his way through a few more sections of the pass, he heard an eerie cackle that sounded much like two icebergs grating against each other. The sorcerer moved toward the noise and soon came to a stop in front of a bridge made of solid ice that spanned a great pit hemmed in by the mountain walls.
On the other side of the pit, perched almost demurely on a rocky ridge, was a glistening fortress made completely out of gleaming blocks of ice. Magus knew that inside the formidable structure his less-than-devoted sister lay in wait. The sorcerer understood she would not come out to greet him unless he found a way across the bridge.
Magus walked to the pit’s edge and looked down. Dotting a rocky floor were thousands of menacingly arranged daggerlike icicles. Magus sighed and waved his hand over the pit and immediately the icicles melted. The sorcerer’s lips peeled back in a satisfied smirk, but within seconds the icicles began to grow back, until Magus could swear they were twice as tall as before.
Again he waved his hand above the ravine, putting a bit more effort into it than before, and the icicles melted into nothingness, only to grow back even faster, until they were now three times as tall as they had originally been. Their tips came to just below the icy bridge.
“Clever,” muttered Magus as he backed away from the edge. Another cracking of ice sounded from deep inside the fortress. Caphiera was having herself a good laugh. Magus scowled and walked over to inspect the bridge.
Planks of clear ice were suspended over the pit by frozen ropelike tresses. Tentatively, he placed one foot on the first plank. It held for a few seconds, then began to melt. In no time it cracked in half and fell away from the supports, striking one of the long icicle spikes and shattering into a thousand tiny shards.
Magus stepped back to the safety of the ledge and bent low while he studied the rest of the planks. He could tell from this angle that though they started out rather thick, the closer they got to the middle of the bridge, the thinner they became.
Anyone lured onto the bridge would soon find the planks melting away beneath his feet, and in the middle would reach wafer-thin sheets of ice that would easily break under the weight of even the smallest rodent.
Crossing the ravine by the bridge was out of the question. Frustrated, Magus looked about for anything handy he might use to get across the expanse. Nothing but ice, snow, and solid rock stared back at him. Adding to his irritation, yet another cackle sounded from inside the fortress. Magus spat into the snow, and when his spittle hit the white surface, it hissed, suddenly giving the master of fire an idea.
He turned his back on the bridge and the fortress and retraced his steps through the pass until he came to the wall of snow that barricaded him in. Here he found a narrow crevice within the rock wall and wedged himself into it while bracing for what was to come. Closing his eyes and concentrating all his power, he raised both hands and unleashed the heat he commanded in slow steady waves.
The temperature rose within that section of the passageway and the snow began to melt, first in small drips but very soon in earnest, until it w
as a stream of water trickling past his feet. Magus continued emanating the waves of heat until the stream became a river of cold water washing past him, carrying large blocks of snow with it. The sorcerer paused only to move his way up the crevice when the water became too deep, but that was the only break he allowed himself.
Finally, exhausted and soaking wet, he managed to climb along the face of the rock out of the now raging river and in one final command he called back all the heat he had expelled into the wall of snow. This warmed and dried him immediately while instantly turning the water into solid ice.
Magus stepped onto the slippery surface and walked calmly toward Caphiera’s fortress. Just as he’d hoped, the river he’d created had gushed over the side of the ravine, filling much of the expanse, and was now frozen fast. The sorcerer had only to drop a short way and wind his way through the spikey forest before climbing up onto the other side.
When at last he pulled himself out of the pit and stood solidly on snowy ground, he came face to face with Caphiera the Cold, great Druid sorceress and master of the dark art of ice. She stood imposing and tall, resembling Magus only in stature and the shape of her sharply pointed tiny teeth. In all other ways she was like no one else on earth.
The sorceress was dressed in a long ivory fur-lined coat that trailed to the ground, pooling around sterling silver pointed-toe boots. Small clear crystals sewn into the hem of her coat glinted in the light and clinked and jangled together when she moved. Around her neck she wore an alabaster cashmere scarf fringed with white ermine tails tipped in black. But while Caphiera’s garments were indeed refined and beautiful, they did nothing to enhance the appearance of their owner.
The sorceress’s skin was a cool blue that shimmered with a dusting of sparkly white snowflakes. Her hands, which were a deeper hue than her face, were adorned with rings of topaz, aquamarine, and sapphire, and around her wrists were bracelets of blue diamonds set in polished platinum. And just like her clothing, as lovely as these baubles were, they could not detract from the sorceress’s frightful bony fingers, which curled out like claws and ended in sharp daggerlike fingernails of ice.