“Do you indeed?” Aunt Millie chuckled. “Who’s a clever girl, then?”
“You’ll never get away with this!” added Trundle.
“Who’s going to stop me?” asked Aunt Millie. “You three? I think not!”
Trundle noticed a movement in the tunnel behind the Roamany queen. Something large was looming up toward her, moving slowly and stealthily.
“Look behind you, Millie!” said Percy, peering at the same big shadowy thing that had taken Trundle’s attention. “I think we have a visitor.”
“You’re not going to fool me with that old trick, Grinder!” Millie cackled. “Just how silly do you think I am?”
At that moment, a clank and a whirr sounded from the tunnel.
“Pretty silly, actually,” said Esmeralda.
Millie was about to say something when a huge, rusted iron stinger came darting out of the darkness of the tunnel. It struck her in the neck and she went as stiff as a board, the two pistols falling from her fingers.
“Drat the thing!” she hissed between gritted teeth. “Esmeralda, this is all your fault! I’ll get you for this, you see if—” The tail of the mechanical scorpion wrapped around Aunt Millie’s waist, and she was whipped away into the tunnel before she could say another word.
Esmeralda stared after her with a shocked look on her face.
“Do you think that’s the last we’ll see of her?” she murmured.
“I think so,” said Percy.
But Trundle had other concerns on his mind right then. He turned to Percy, a puzzled look on his brow. “You two know each other,” he said.
“What do you mean, Trundle, my boy?” asked Percy.
“You just called her Millie, and she called you . . . well . . . she called you Grinder,” said Trundle. “As in Grinder Prickleback—the hedgehog who blew the world up thousands of years ago.”
“That she did!” gasped Esmeralda, glaring at the Herald Pursuivant. “What’s going on, Percy—if that’s your real name at all! How come my aunt called you Grinder? And how do you two know each other?”
“Well, aren’t you the pair of clever clogs!” said Percy with a wide smile. “You’re quite right, of course.We do know each other. But we’re members of quite different branches of the Sect of the Sinister Spell.”
“Are you some kind of descendant of the original Grinder Prickleback?” demanded Esmeralda. “Is that why you have the same name?”
Percy chuckled, waggling a finger at them. “No,” he said. “I’m not a descendant of Grinder Prickleback.” He slipped his crossbow from his shoulder and quickly armed it with one of the deadly metal darts. “I am Grinder Prickleback.”
“No way!” breathed Esmeralda.
Percy laughed. “I am rather well preserved for my age,” he said. “I spoke the Vile Rune of Neverending Life.” His eyebrows lowered threateningly. “And then I waited for someone to come along who would be able to find the crowns and bring me here. My, how I waited! Years became decades, decades became centuries, centuries became millennia. And still I waited . . . and finally, after two thousand years, the pair of you turned up, and I knew my time had come at last!”
“Talk about patient,” gasped Trundle. “But what was the plan? Why did you want to come back here?”
“Why, to brew my great spell again!” said Percy. “But this time it won’t go wrong—and this time I shall use it to bring the whole of the Sundered Lands under my control.”
“You treacherous traitor!” gasped Trundle. “And to think we trusted you!”
“Hmm, that was probably a mistake, Trundle, my lad,” said Percy, edging around the chamber and stooping to pick up Millie’s pistols. One he tucked into his belt; the other he pointed toward them. “Come along now, chop chop! Those crowns won’t put themselves on the altar, now will they?” He smiled a friendly smile. “And don’t try any of your feeble magic on me, Esmeralda—or someone is going to get hurt.”
“Wretch!” growled Esmeralda. “Cowardly stinker!”
“The crowns, if you please!” snapped Percy, waving the crossbow and the pistol at them.
“But if you’re Grinder Prickleback, how is it you didn’t know about all the traps and tricks down here?” asked Trundle. “You’ve been behaving as if you’ve never seen this place before.”
Percy’s eyes narrowed nastily. “Us hedgehogs were never allowed into the badgers’ inner sanctum,” he growled. “We weren’t good enough for that! Those uppity Badger Lords never really trusted us with their big secrets.”
“Can you blame them?” asked Trundle. “I mean to say!”
“No more chatting!” said Percy. “Get busy!”
Deeply miserable and totally deflated, Trundle tipped the dwindling box so that the rest of the crowns came rolling out.
To think that Percy, of all people, was a villain! And a two-thousand-year-old villain at that! Trundle gave an inner groan. How could they have been so completely fooled?
Soon all six of the crowns were in their places on the white stone altar. Trundle and Esmeralda stepped back, wondering what would happen next. Despite the six crowns being so close to one another, there was no vibrating or buzzing, no blue lightning, no sign of magic at all!
“Excellent!” said Percy. “Now for the final act!” He clambered on to the top of the altar. He stood there for a few moments, as though catching his breath. Then he lifted his snout to the roof and spoke in a loud, commanding voice.
“Crowns of the Badger Lords, awaken!”
There was a long, silent pause.
Percy cleared his throat and called out again, “Crowns of the Badger Lords! Awaken!”
Nothing happened.
“Uh, Perce?” said Esmeralda. “I don’t think the crowns can hear you.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Trundle as his sword began to vibrate wildly in his belt. “I’m being shooken to bits!” The sword thrashed frantically to and fro, as though desperate to get free. “Wha-wha-what’s gug-gug-going on?”
Percy stared at him. “The sword!” he shouted. He stared down between his feet at the narrow slot cut into the top of the altar. “It fits in here! I should have guessed. The sword is the final piece needed to activate the crowns! Give it to me, Trundle! Give it to me now!”
“Shan’t!” declared Trundle, grabbing the hilt of his shaking sword in both paws. “Shoot me if you like! I refuse to give it to you!”
Percy aimed both the pistol and the crossbow at Trundle.
Esmeralda jumped between them, her paws in the air. “Don’t shoot!” she shouted. “Trundle, give the sword to him—he’ll regret it, I promise you!”
Trundle looked at her. “Really?”
“Really,” she replied. “Trust me.”
Reluctantly Trundle stepped up to the altar. He drew the struggling sword from his belt and handed it to Percy.
A wide grin stretched over Percy’s snout. “A wise choice, my boy,” he said.
“Speaking of wise choices,” said Esmeralda. “Listen to me, Percy . . . or Grinder, or whatever your name is. I’m a Roamany, I am. I may not be big on nasty spells like my aunt, but I have the sixth sense. And I’m telling you, pal, if you put that sword into that slot, you’ll regret it!”
Percy raised an eyebrow. “Yes, well, as much as I admire your fortune-telling powers, Esmeralda, my dear child, I think I will just go ahead and do it anyway, if it’s all the same to you.”
Esmeralda shook her head. “Don’t say you weren’t warned!”
“Pah!” snorted Percy. “Roamany magic! Fortune-telling! It’s all nothing but silly tricks!”
Trundle turned to Esmeralda. “What do you think is going to happen?” he whispered.
“I don’t know,” Esmeralda whispered back.
“It’s just a feeling.
But I think we should stand well back.”
The two friends moved away from the altar. Percy stood over the slot. He aimed the trembling sword point down and thrust it deep into the stone.
Things started happening almost immediately.
Blue lightning flickered along the blade of the sword. Crackling and spitting, it traveled quickly up Percy’s arms and spread out over his body till he was surrounded in a halo of hissing blue lightning.
“That’s more like it!” Percy said, lifting his snout to the roof. “Crowns of the Badger Lords, awake!” he called.
The blue lightning sent crackling tendrils out to the six crowns. “Ooh! It tickles!” said Percy. But then he tried to let go of the sword. His expression changed as he heaved and strained, trying desperately to get his hands free. The sword wouldn’t release him. His hands were stuck fast to the hilt.
“Uh-oh! Here goes!” said Esmeralda. “You might not want to look, Trundle!”
But what happened next happened so quickly that Trundle didn’t even have time to look away.
Dread swept over Percy’s face. He let out a croaking gasp as the blue lightning played all over his body. And then, as Trundle watched in growing horror, the Herald Pursuivant began to age rapidly, as though all those hundreds and hundreds of years of life he had stolen with the Vile Rune were catching up with him in a few seconds.
His prickles went white and his face grew sunken and wrinkled. Trundle could see his body shrinking under his robes, until he seemed no more than skin and bones. And then, almost before Trundle could catch his breath, Percy’s robes crumpled, empty, to the white stone, and nothing was left of Grinder Prickleback but fine gray dust.
“Well, that certainly served him right!” Esmeralda said heartlessly. “He can’t say I didn’t warn him.”
“I suppose not.” Trundle gulped, feeling a little queasy. Seeing Percy turn to powder had been really rather unpleasant. “What do we do now?”
“I think we should get out of here!” said Esmeralda. “I’ve got a feeling something big is about to happen!”
But before they were able to take even a single step toward the doorway, something big did happen.
The whole chamber shook and trembled. The ground vibrated under Trundle and Esmeralda’s feet. Cracks ran up the walls. Dust and shards of stone rained down. And then, with a splintering and splitting and booming sound, the domed roof broke open, peeling back like the skin of an orange to reveal the bright sunlit sky.
And while Trundle and Esmeralda were still blinking in the dazzling light, creepers and tendrils and roots came snaking out of the cracks in the walls of the chamber, sprouting leaves and buds, creeping across the floor so that they had to dance about not to get tangled up in them.
“The crowns are waking, up all right!” shouted Esmeralda. “Keep your head down, Trundle! Things are getting interesting!”
She had hardly finished speaking when thick black clouds came rolling in over the blue sky, throwing down deep, dark shadows. And from the belly of the clouds, a sudden storm of hail came rattling down through the open dome of the chamber, bouncing up cold and hard off the stone altar.
Trundle gazed up in alarm as a blazing flurry of shooting stars went hurtling across the darkened sky, their fiery tails streaming out behind.
And as the light from the stars illuminated the cave, the blue lightning began to spark between the crowns. Arcs of blue fire crackled from one to the other, moving faster and faster until the crowns could hardly be seen.
And as the tornado of blue energy swirled, so things began to be sucked in; small things at first, pebbles and stones from the floor and walls, whipping through the air and crashing into the whirl in a shower of sparks.
Trundle felt himself being tugged towards the heart of the tornado. Things were zipping past his ears. He clutched hold of Esmeralda to save himself from being pulled in. She was clinging grimly to a thick root, her clothes cracking and flapping in the cyclone of rushing air.
“Hang on!” Trundle yelled to Esmeralda above the noise. “We mustn’t get sucked in!”
“I know!” hollered Esmeralda. “Oh, heck—I’m slipping . . . Tru-un!” With a frantic yelp, Esmeralda lost grip on the root, and she and Trundle went sailing off through the air like a couple of leaves in an autumn gale.
Trundle winced, expecting to be blasted to little pieces as he hit the blue whirlwind. But even as the two of them went flying through the air, the whirl of spitting lightning slowed and turned all to gold.
And it was warm! Trundle felt himself buoyed up on updrafts of warm golden air. He clung to Esmeralda’s hand as the two of them went floating up and up and up, through the broken roof of the cavern, flying in the air like thistledown, surrounded by soft billowing clouds of golden light.
“What’s going on?” Trundle gasped, staring down between his feet as the barren, rocky landscape of Sunsett fell away beneath them.
“Beats me, Trun.” Esmeralda laughed. “But it’s fun, isn’t it?”
Trundle began to laugh, too, as though there was something in the clouds of golden light that took all his cares and worries away.
And as they rose into the sky, so the dark clouds dissolved and everything was once more bathed in the brilliant light of the sleepless sun.
“Whee-ooo!” squealed Esmeralda, turning somersaults in the air. “I like it!”
“Me too!” yelled Trundle, rolling over and over and laughing out loud.
At last they stopped rising into the air, and they found the golden clouds under their feet were solid enough for them to stand up. And as they stood there, hand in hand, they saw a marvelous sight.
Nightreef was coming apart in front of their eyes, the whole barrier of rocks and rubble breaking into fragments that drifted off like great dark windgalleons. And beyond the shards of Nightreef, they saw all the vast scattered islands of the Sundered Lands being bathed in sudden sunlight.
“Gosh!” breathed Esmeralda. “Isn’t that spectacular!”
But more was to come. As Trundle gazed in wide-eyed amazement, he saw the islands of the Sundered Lands begin to move together.
“The legends were right!” he gasped. “The Sundered Lands are being reunited!”
“It’s going to be the world again!” said Esmeralda. She squeezed Trundle’s hand. “And we did it!”
As they hung there in the golden air, the thousands of islands came gently together, bumping and nudging up against one another, melting into one, merging and joining, forming a gigantic ball under their floating feet. And Trundle was quite certain he heard the sound of voices laughing and cheering from the newly reunited sphere.
And then the golden light began to swirl and to change and to form shapes in the sky. Shapes that were as huge as mountains—huger than the hugest mountains Trundle could ever imagine. And the shapes were the shapes of six Badger Lords, old and wise and venerable, like golden clouds smiling down upon the new-made globe of the world.
Trundle heard a voice in his ear. “Well done, Lamplighter! Well done, Princess in Darkness! Well done, indeed!”
And with that, a breeze caught the six golden Badger Lords, and they lost their shapes and dissolved away like mist.
Trundle and Esmeralda felt themselves floating like feathers down to the ground. But it wasn’t the island of Sunsett that their feet landed on. It wasn’t an island at all. It was just one small part of the huge ball that was the world.
“Well,” breathed Esmeralda, “we did it, Trun!” She slapped him heartily on the back. “You became a hero, whether you liked it or not!”
“I do believe I did,” said Trundle, looking around. The chamber of the stone altar was nowhere to be seen. Neither was the cliff with the temple carved into its face. And neither was the Thief in the Night. They were in a sandy valley—but not too far off, at the end of the valley, they could see palm trees waving.
“Where’s our skyboat?” Trundle wondered.
“Who needs it?” laughed Esmeralda. “We can walk to wherever we like!”
“Then let’s get going,” said Trundle, gazing towards the distant trees. “Where should we go first?”
“That’s up to you, Trundle, my lad!”
said Esmeralda, slipping her arm into his. “Where would you like to go?”
Trundle grinned at her. “Anywhere but Shiverstones!” he said.
“That’s fine with me!”
And so saying, the two friends went marching off down the valley. In his heart of hearts, all that Trundle Boldoak wanted was for their adventures to go on forever!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND ILLUSTRATOR
ALLAN JONES is the author of numerous fantasy books for both children and teens. He lives in London, England. www.allanfrewinjones.com
GARY CHALK is an illustrator and model maker. He lives in France.
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CREDITS
Cover art © 2013 by John Avon
Cover design by Sylvie Le Floc’h
COPYRIGHT
This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used to advance the fictional narrative. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
The Six Crowns: Full Circle
Text and illustrations copyright © 2011 by Allan Frewin Jones and Gary Chalk
First published in 2011 in Great Britain by Hodder Children’s Books, an division of Hachette Children’s Books. First published in 2013 in the United States by Greenwillow Books.
The right of Allan Frewin Jones and Gary Chalk to be identified as the authors of this work been asserted by them.
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