Chronicles of the Red King #3: Leopards' Gold

  “Even compared with those special Red Castle dishes?” asked Sila.

  “Definitely,” Tolly insisted.

  Petrello agreed. For the fish dish was thickened with the most delicious beans, and flavored with the sweetest herbs he had ever tasted.

  “Herbs from the forest,” said Tumi, “and beans from the market where we sell our fish, just as my parents used to do.”

  “Before the conquerors came,” Karli murmured.

  “We go by boat,” said Sila, noticing Petrello’s puzzled frown. “A river runs all the way from the lake to the town.”

  “Isn’t it dangerous?” asked Tolly. “Do the demons and their Damzel ever try to stop you?”

  “We are not worth bothering about,” said Tumi. “We have nothing they need.”

  “Until now,” Ketil said quietly.

  Everyone turned to look at Tumi’s oldest son. He was a lean boy with a thin, serious face, and his voice was already deep. “If we help the king, the Damzel won’t forgive us,” he said. “We won’t be able to live here anymore.”

  There was a brief hush. The other children stared at Ketil with scared and troubled faces, while the adults scraped their bowls with hunks of bread and wondered what to say.

  All at once, the smallest girl cried, “Unless we kill her.”

  Tumi looked up and smiled at his youngest child. “Then that’s what we’ll have to do, Adela.”

  No one suggested how this could be done. Rescuing the king was uppermost in all their minds.

  As night clouds brought a dark shroud across the sky, Sila began to light the rushes. They were held in iron brackets fixed to the walls, and when they flickered into life, their light was reflected in the polished crystals and silvery shells, so that the whole place seemed to sparkle. Petrello thought it one of the most beautiful rooms he had ever seen, and he couldn’t bear to imagine Tumi and his friends and family having to leave it forever.

  It was almost time for Tolly’s departure. Petrello could sense his brother’s nervousness. He kept looking through the window with a half smile on his face, and his dark eyes were unnaturally bright.

  “Are you sure you want to go alone?” Petrello asked. “I’ll come with you, happily.”

  “No.” Tolly shook his head. “I must do this alone, Trello. I have to carry the cloak.”

  The other children were aware that their new friend must soon fly out into the night. They crept closer to Tolly, and some of them stroked the glossy wings that lay above his feathered cloak.

  Tumi crossed the room and opened the door. Framed in the doorway was a brilliant full moon, but below it, the pale fungus that covered the treetops seemed to swallow the light, rather than reflect it.

  “Are you ready, Tolomeo?” asked Tumi.

  Tolly stood up. “I am.”

  Petrello had been holding the frail strips of his father’s cloak. He got up and put them into Tolly’s hands carefully. There were five pieces in all.

  “You have great faith in those leopards,” Karli remarked. “Can they really do what you say?”

  “We believe they can,” said Petrello.

  “They have to,” said Tolly.

  Tumi led the way down the ladder. Petrello and Tolly followed, Petrello carrying both pairs of their boots. The lake was icy cold and held an eerie green light.

  “We’re coming, too,” said Ketil, who was already climbing down the ladder.

  He was quickly followed by the rest of the children, and then Karli and the two women came splashing onto the beach. They spoke in whispers now; the presence of the great cloud lying heavy on their spirits.

  Petrello helped Tolly into his boots. Then he clasped his brother’s hands and felt the life in the king’s cloak warm under his fingers. “Are you sure you can find the castle without me?” he asked, still anxious for his brother.

  Tolly nodded vigorously.

  “Good luck, then.” Petrello hugged his smaller brother as though it might be for the last time.

  “Where’s Enid?” Tolly asked.

  Petrello looked back at the house on stilts. Enid hadn’t even come to the door. “She’s asleep,” he said, trying to hide his concern. “I think she needs to get her strength back.”

  “Oh.” Tolly grinned. “Here goes, then.”

  Petrello stepped back as Tolly’s great wings lifted, and there was a gasp of wonder from the children.

  “Good luck! Good luck!” came the hushed calls.

  The black wings dipped, then lifted, and Tolly rose into the air.

  They watched him fly higher and higher, his wings sweeping the cool night air and sending a soft breeze across their faces, and then he swung away and darkness swallowed him.

  Petrello walked back toward the ladder. He didn’t want to spend another moment in a place where he could see the cloud.

  “Now we wait,” said Tumi, putting an arm around Petrello’s shoulders. “Your brother is a brave boy.”

  “His father’s son,” said Karli, who was following them.

  “Yes,” Petrello agreed, and this time the little twinge of loneliness seemed to matter less.

  Once inside the house on stilts, the children began to fall asleep on their beds of straw-filled cushions. Tumi put a log on the fire and sat beside it, while Karli and the women rested against the walls.

  “Sleep, Petrello,” said Sila. “We’ll wait for Tolomeo. Tomorrow you must be strong.”

  “Strong, yes,” said Petrello. His eyes were already closing. He crawled over and laid his head on a cushion beside Ketil. He thought of the cloud, and the king and his knights within it. Were they asleep or were they, even now, struggling against their choking, toxic bonds?

  * * *

  High above the forest, Tolly spread his wings and allowed himself to be carried on the damp south wind. His mind raced. Where should he land? On the battlements? In the first courtyard, where the leopards were last seen? He held the pieces of his father’s cloak tight against his chest. They gave him courage.

  Tolly thought himself quite safe, so high in the dark sky. He had forgotten that someone wanted the bundle of magic that he carried; someone who had seen a winged boy fly into the air with the thing she wanted most in the whole world. The Damzel of Decay would have given her crooked toes, her curling green fingers, perhaps even her cold, colorless eyes, for the web of the last moon spider, woven into a king’s cloak.

  A freezing current of air suddenly bit into Tolly’s arms. The shock almost made him drop his precious bundle. He flapped his wings and tried to rise higher, but something caught his foot. Looking down, he saw a hideous green creature clinging to his boot. It was a hairless, bloated thing, with long pointed ears and a thin whisker of a tail. Its eyes bulged, its nose hung, and its warty hands were bigger than its long, domed head. Tolly kicked out, but it clung tighter and pulled his foot into its cavernous mouth.

  Tolly felt himself sinking. Helplessly, he beat his wings. Then, turning in the air, he saw behind him an army of the grisly green demons. Two carried between them a blanket of fungus that floated in the air like a great misty net.

  For me, thought Tolly, and his terrible fear turned to anger. They mean to wrap me in their poisonous net and steal the cloak again. Well, they won’t, because it’s ours.

  Belief in himself and in the magic of the cloak he carried gave him the strength to climb again into the air, and as he climbed he saw a dark mass of wings moving across the moon.

  “Eagles!” cried Tolly, loud enough for the demons to hear.

  The great birds swept over him and into the crowd of demons behind. He had never heard such screams, as beaks and talons tore into warty green flesh. The sky was full of beating wings, of thrashing tails, twisting crooked feet and fingers, and drifting shreds of fungus. And then the owls came, and crows and hawks and ravens, and the angry screams ringing into the night became howls of anguish and terror.

  A white screech owl tore the demon off Tolly’s foot and he was free.

  Fly
on, the birds seemed to call. Fly on and let us sweep this menace from the sky.

  So Tolly flew on, with a smile on his face. For he knew that Amadis was there, below him in the trees. Who else would have called the birds? And if Amadis was there, perhaps the queen was with him. And Tolly’s smile grew wider, until at last he saw the sixteen towers of the Red Castle rising above the trees.

  As soon as he saw his home, Tolly knew where to land: in Zobayda’s garden, where he might see his aunt and sister, safe in the Royal Tower.

  He reached the high red walls, flew over them, and dropped down beside Zobayda’s fountain. A light burned in the high window of the royal bedchamber, and Tolly wondered if his sister might come and look out. He ran toward the door of the Royal Tower, but something rushed at him from behind a tub of roses. It stood in front of Tolly, grunting, lowering its head with its vicious tusks, ready to charge.

  “Vyborn?” Tolly whispered. “Vyborn, is that you?”

  The boar moved closer. It lifted its head and glared at him with tiny, spiteful eyes. Tolly could see nothing but hatred in that angry gaze.

  “Why are you doing this?” Tolly asked in a reasonable tone. “I’m your brother.”

  “Is that what you are?” A man stepped out of the shadows behind the boar. “So, you have wings, do you, boy? And what’s that stuff you’re carrying?”

  Tolly hugged the cloak tighter. He recognized Chimery, the chancellor’s man.

  “Give it to me!” Chimery demanded, drawing his sword.

  “No,” said Tolly. “I won’t.”

  “Oh, I think you will!” Chimery raised his sword. “Or you’ll lose your head.”

  Better to lose my feet than my head, Tolly thought as he spread his wings. But before he could lift into the sky, something bright sliced through the air. Chimery clutched his shoulder. Blood seeped through his fingers as he pulled out a knife.

  Seizing his chance, Tolly drew his sword and lunged at Chimery. The man gave a roar of fury and swung his sword at the boy’s head. But Tolly was too quick for him. Ducking down, he thrust the tip of his sword deep into the man’s stomach. Chimery gave a choking groan and dropped to the ground.

  The wild boar rushed away, squealing.

  “Well, young Tolomeo, I’m very glad to see you,” said Llyr, emerging from Zobayda’s doorway.

  “Llyr!” breathed Tolly. “Your knife …” He peered down at Chimery. “Is he dead?”

  “Without doubt,” said Llyr. “You had no choice. Your mother taught you well.” He picked up the knife, wiped it on his tunic, and slipped it into his belt beside the others. “Now, tell me, what do you have there, clutched so tightly?”

  “My father’s cloak,” said Tolly.

  Llyr touched a thin piece trailing over Tolly’s arm. “This is not the king’s cloak. What’s happened, Tolomeo?”

  “The Damzel took it. The Damzel of Decay, they called her.”

  “Ah, Timoken’s old enemy.” Llyr gave a grim smile. “My grandfather has met her.”

  “I thought the leopards could make this whole again.” Tolly held up the scraps of cloak. “You know, the way their gold helped Gunfrid to live.”

  Llyr nodded. “We’ll go and find them, but tell me, where’s the king? If this is his cloak, what’s happened to him?”

  “I’ll tell you, but first —” He looked up at the candlelit window in the Royal Tower. “How’s my sister, and my aunt?”

  “Fast asleep, I should think. They’re well. My knives and the leopards keep them safe. Now, we must be quick about this leopard spell, Tolomeo. I don’t want to use too many knives just yet.”

  As they slipped quietly through the second courtyard, Tolly gave the wizard every detail of every scrap of news that he could remember. And while he talked and whispered, he was aware that Eri had joined them. The old man grunted and grumbled as he listened to Tolly’s story. He shook his head and clicked his tongue, and when Tolly reached the part where the birds came to save him, in a deep, soft voice the wizard exclaimed, “So Amadis is alive. I knew the wolves wouldn’t let him down.”

  Then, from Eri, Tolly learned about the monsters his sister Guanhamara had conjured from her high window, and the shapes that Vyborn had assumed to attack her phantom creatures. The way that Borlath strutted and demanded, while Cafal ran in his shadow, doing everything he asked. And then Tolly and the wizards were in the first courtyard, where the leopards kept watch.

  As soon as they saw Tolly, the leopards rushed at him. Flame Chin stood and, putting his paws on Tolly’s shoulders, sniffed the flimsy pieces of the cloak. He pulled the bundle out of Tolly’s arms and dropped it on the ground. Star and Sun Cat pushed their noses into it. Grumbling and growling, they gathered the pieces in their mouths, raised their heads, and roared into the night. It was no use trying to hush them. The chancellor’s men were already awake.

  Tolly could only watch and hope. The leopards moved the precious bits together. They dragged and pushed and stretched them. The shape of a cloak emerged, and the pattern of the web within it became so bright, Tolly could barely look at it. The leopards began to circle it. Around and around, faster; they lost their leopard forms and became a single whirling flame. Tolly could feel the heat on his face.

  Shouting could be heard. The chancellor’s men had emerged from their tower. Tolly felt the breeze of a knife pass over his head. He heard a distant groan of pain, and then another. He saw Eri’s staff twist into a gleaming serpent and strike a sword hand. He thought he saw Friar Gereint wielding a sword, and through the flames he glimpsed the chancellor’s cold, gray eyes.

  The wall of flames leaped higher. Now there was gold in the air, falling like snow and covering the king’s torn cloak.

  Tolly’s head began to spin. He closed his eyes against the blinding glare of fire and gold. How long he stood there, hardly conscious, he never knew. But gradually, he became aware of a hand on his shoulder.

  “It is ready,” said Llyr.

  Tolly opened his eyes. The cloak lay before him, covered in gold. Behind it, the leopards sat in a row, licking their paws.

  There was no sign of the chancellor’s men.

  Llyr lifted the cloak. Gold dust fell from it and floated out into the dark. The red cloak was whole again. Llyr folded it tight and put it into Tolly’s arms.

  “Go quickly!” said Eri. “And bring the king back with you.”

  “I will!” Tolly spread his wings and they lifted him away.

  Petrello was asleep when his brother returned. He was unaware of Tolly’s head sinking onto the cushion beside him. And yet he did feel something when Tolly pulled the red cloak over them both. It was a comforting warmth that seeped into all his bones.

  In the early morning, when he was only just awake, Petrello thought another Vanishing had begun. And then he realized that the house on stilts was rocking like a boat.

  A low murmur of voices came from beyond a thick, rush door at the end of the room. Tumi’s voice suddenly became loud and impatient. “I must. We’re doomed already. Only the king can save us now.”

  For a moment Petrello lay still, his hand clasping the soft edge of the cloak. Yawning, he let go of the cloak and stood up. The other children had gathered around the window and he tried to peer over their heads.

  “The water’s rising.” Ketil stood aside to give Petrello a better view.

  Petrello couldn’t believe his eyes. The lake now covered the beach, it had even seeped into the forest. Some of the smaller trees were already half submerged. The water had a poisonous green glimmer.

  “The house!” said Petrello. “Is the water … ?”

  “Almost at our door,” Ketil said grimly.

  “I didn’t hear rain,” said Petrello.

  “The Damzel doesn’t need rain,” muttered Ketil.

  Tumi came through the rush door. Sila, behind him, looked as white as the moon.

  “I’m sorry this trouble has come to you,” Petrello said desperately.

  “It’s not
your fault.” Tumi was staring at Tolly, still fast asleep beneath the red cloak. “I don’t like to wake your brother, but I must take the cloak now, before our house is swept away.”

  Karli and Esga emerged from another door. Karli’s whole body was covered in the same shiny animal skin that Tumi’s breeches were made of. He grinned at Petrello, saying, “Your father made this from sealskin.” He stroked the fur of his sleeve. “So it holds a certain magic.”

  Tumi disappeared into his room and Sila said, “Tumi found a dead seal when he was just a boy and skinned it.”

  “And from that single skin, your father made many,” added Esga. Even in this grave situation she still had a merry face, and Petrello noticed that she was looking at the children. She didn’t want them to be afraid.

  Tumi reappeared, wearing his sealskin bodysuit. It had a hood that he pulled tight over his head. Karli did the same.

  Petrello knelt beside Tolly and shook his shoulder. “Tolly, wake up,” he said gently.

  Tolly opened his eyes.

  “Well done, brother.” Petrello grasped an edge of the cloak. “I don’t know how you did it, but they need this now.”

  “No! No!” Tolly clutched the top of the cloak and wouldn’t let go.

  “He’s hardly awake,” said Sila. “And we don’t know what happened to him last night. He appeared at the door half asleep and crawled across the floor, your father’s cloak held tight.”

  “Tolly, let go!” begged Petrello. “They’re going to take it to the king.” He gave the cloak another tug.

  Tolly sat up, his eyes wild, breaking out of sleep. “They did it, Trello. The leopards with their gold.”

  Esga bent over him. “Can we take it, Tolly? Your father needs it.”

  Tolly slowly released his grip. Esga lifted the cloak away and handed it to Tumi. “You’ll have to stay underwater all the way,” she said. “If the Damzel sees you …”

  “It’s what we planned to do,” Tumi replied, looking at Karli.

  They walked to the door, and when Tumi opened it, Petrello could see the luminous green water rising and falling only inches below. He could hear it sucking around the wooden stilts and burbling under the floorboards. Soon, it would be in the house.