The Hunting of the Princes

  ‘It was your birthday,’ Jemima said sadly. ‘I forgot.’

  ‘I never told you,’ he said. ‘I don’t wish you to see me like this.’

  ‘Why, Felix? Why?’

  He gave her a mournful look. ‘Because you will pity me for the rest of the year. I thought it best you think of me only as what I appear the rest of the time.’

  ‘I wouldn’t pity you. I won’t pity you,’ Jemima said solemnly.

  ‘Thank you.’

  They shared a tentative smile.

  Taggie turned away, slightly embarrassed as Felix started to examine his arms with a childlike curiosity. He was right: once they were back outside she’d never stop thinking of him as he was now. She held up the mobile, shining it round in an attempt to take her mind off the cruelty of the curse.

  ‘So what happened to Colgath?’ Lantic said.

  ‘He escaped somehow,’ Taggie said. ‘We need to find out how.’

  ‘Then why are those men in the shack below, and Rannalal guarding the bridge?’ Sophie asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Taggie replied. ‘We need to find something, some clue that tells us where he’s gone.’ She spotted an oil lantern beside the remnants of the desk. There were some matches next to it, the box covered in dust. But they still worked, and she soon had the lantern lit. It cast a pale yellow light across the tower room.

  ‘What in all the Heavens is that thing?’ Jemima said, looking at the bizarre wooden mechanism.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Taggie said. ‘But it has to be connected with his escape, somehow. Lantic, can you see what it does?’

  ‘Not really.’ He walked over to the stone basin, and touched a small wheel next to it. ‘This looks like a miniature waterwheel, but it should be under the water. I think it can hinge round. Perhaps if I . . .’

  He stopped as a faint metallic growl sounded. They all looked at the other end of the mechanism as the noise became louder. Set into the wall was a small metal cylinder identical to the one at the bottom of the tower. Wooden struts, carved from the desk, extended right up to the curving metal. Something like a piano hammer rested against it.

  As they watched, the cylinder turned. A hole in the metal slid into view. The little hammer fell into it. Strings and pulleys attached to the bottom of the hammer moved, tugging at parts of the mechanism. Cogwheels clicked round. The small waterwheel swung under the water running out of the spout, and began to turn. Then every pulley and belt was rotating.

  A hand-like scoop reached into the open cylinder with a whirring sound and tugged out a plate woven from dried reeds. It held a pile of raw meat. The plate dropped on to the conveyor belt and trundled across the room to the stone toilet. The belt tipped the plate and meat into the hole. There was a brief clattering as they fell down into oblivion.

  The metal cylinder turned shut, pushing the hammer back out. Strings jerked the waterwheel back. The whole mechanism became still.

  Lantic stared at it, open-mouthed. ‘Oh, by the sweet Heavens! That . . . that is the most utterly brilliant thing I’ve ever seen. I love it!’

  ‘The lift comes down empty every time,’ Taggie said, and even she felt a burst of admiration for the Karrak Lord’s ingenuity. ‘The guards think he’s still up here eating the meals. They don’t know he’s escaped.’

  ‘How long since he left?’ Felix asked.

  ‘Years, probably,’ Lantic said in excitement. ‘And this is a sturdy mechanism. It’ll probably last for several more years. When they do finally realize he’s gone, the trail will be colder than the Grand Lord’s heart.’

  ‘Right then,’ Taggie said, scanning round the bookshelves. ‘Something in here should tell us where he’s gone.’

  ‘No it won’t,’ Sophie contradicted sharply. ‘Come on, Taggie. They sealed him up in an anti-magic cell eighty metres up in the air. And he’s smart enough to break out of it. He’s not going to leave clues where he went!’

  ‘Not deliberately, but . . .’ Taggie broke off as a fierce animal screech sounded outside the tower.

  ‘Rathwai!’ Sophie exclaimed in fright. ‘Heavens protects us, rathwai have come.’ She ran over to one of the windows and grabbed at the grille, pulling herself up until her face was against the iron. ‘I see them. A whole flock of the monsters being ridden by Karrak Lords. They’re circling the tower.’

  Lantic had gone to the window Taggie had broken. ‘Oh no,’ he groaned in dismay.

  ‘What?’ Taggie squeezed into the little stone nook beside him to look down. The bridge was alive with vivid orange light. What looked like an entire army was marching along it, with every soldier holding a blazing torch aloft. Enough soldiers to stretch three-quarters of the way back to shore. The shore: where even more columns of troops were drawn up, waiting to cross.

  She let go and slid numbly back into the room. Her hand went to the bag hanging round her neck, feeling the shape of the gate ring inside. ‘It won’t work,’ she whispered, aghast. ‘There’s no magic in here. We can’t get out. We’re trapped.’

  Her mobile started to ring.

  A PRISONER’S ONE PHONE CALL

  They all stared in disbelief at the phone in Taggie’s hand. She slowly brought it up to her face. Signal strength showed one bar. The screen display read ‘UNKNOWN CALLER’.

  Taggie pressed the ‘accept call’ icon. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Queen of Dreams.’ A deep voice reverberated out of the mobile. ‘So sorry to have missed you.’

  ‘Who is this?’

  The bass voice chuckled. ‘Lord Colgath.’

  Taggie sank to her knees in frustration. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Thankfully, a long, long way away from Red Loch Castle. I found its hospitality somewhat disagreeable. I’m sure you appreciate that.’

  ‘How did you escape?’ Taggie cried.

  ‘Ah. Now you see, this is where I face an unfortunate dilemma. My dear brother believes I’m still a prisoner in that tower with you. And that is the Grand Lord’s own personal army you can see marching over the bridge, with him at the head no less. I believe he brought them through his private gate to deal with you, whom he has named “Abomination”. He will be extremely unhappy to discover I am gone.’

  Taggie turned to the window. ‘You can see the army? You must be close.’

  ‘Alas, I am observing through a seeing crystal, which is also how I can send a mobile signal all the way back to the tower. Because, you see, I’m actually sitting a long way away here in my rather comfy new home, with my feet up, eating some delectable strips of jellied volpas as I watch your escapade unfold in the crystal. It is most enjoyable entertainment. A “guilty pleasure”, I believe it’s called.’

  ‘The tower is impregnable. Amenamon will never know you and I have escaped. Please tell me!’

  ‘Nothing is forever, Queen of Dreams. Even you and I will turn to dust. You sooner than I, of course.’

  ‘I came here to stop a war,’ she shouted. ‘You can help me. Doesn’t that mean anything?’

  ‘Stop a war? The war that Amenamon has spent decades plotting and preparing? You seem intent on setting me against him. However, his wrath is not something I wish to face again. I’m sorry, Queen of Dreams. Your intention is noble, but doomed.’

  ‘Why have you called, then? Is it just to mock me?’

  ‘Certainly not. I was curious whether you actually live up to your reputation. I am glad to see you do. It’s a shame you are about to die. The likes of you and I, who deplore the stupidity of violence, are few and far between in these sad days. Soon there will be none of us left. But I will remember you for as long as I can. Goodbye, Queen of Dreams.’

  ‘No!’ Taggie howled at the mobile. But the call had ended. There were no signal-strength bars left. Lord Colgath must have closed up the seeing crystal. She couldn’t call anyone else for help.

  Taggie started crying. She slumped on the floor of the tower room, letting the tears run down her cheeks, no longer caring who saw. It wasn’t just that she was about to d
ie, but that her death would mean no one else would stop the war. Thousands would die because she had failed.

  Her friends gathered round, hugging her, murmuring such words of comfort they could manage. Eventually she dried her tears and smiled a weak thanks at them. ‘I’m sorry I brought you here,’ she told them in a small voice.

  ‘If Colgath got out, we can get out,’ Lantic announced defiantly. ‘Perhaps he weakened one of the window grilles?’

  ‘How would that help?’ Felix asked. ‘We’ve already got an open window and we’re completely trapped.’

  ‘He must have had old friends, or supporters,’ Lantic said thoughtfully. ‘Once he broke the grille, they could have brought a rathwai for him to fly away on.’

  ‘Still not helping us,’ Felix said.

  ‘If we could just climb out, we could use the dark gate.’

  ‘If you stick your head out there, the rathwai will eat it,’ Sophie said scathingly.

  ‘Your crossbow will work if you hold it outside the grille,’ Lantic told her.

  ‘I will go if that is what we have to do,’ the skymaid said, struggling against her fear. ‘But I cannot hold off an entire flock of rathwai while the rest of you climb out behind me.’

  ‘No,’ Taggie said. ‘It’s a silly idea. There must be another way.’

  ‘The room is sealed, apart from the lift mechanism,’ Lantic said pedantically. ‘And the lift isn’t big enough – not even for Felix if he became a squirrel again.’

  ‘There’s the toilet,’Jemima suggested. ‘That has to lead down through the tower somehow.’

  They all turned to stare at the raised circle of stone with a hole in the top.

  ‘We don’t know how wide the sewer pipe is,’ Felix said.

  ‘Do you have a better idea?’ Sophie asked.

  Felix gave her an apologetic grin. ‘No.’

  ‘We have to get the top off,’ Lantic said.

  ‘How?’ Jemima asked reasonably.

  ‘That’s why Colgath didn’t use the sewer to escape,’ Felix said. ‘There’s no way to shift the stone.’

  They all fell silent as they heard a new sound from outside: a drawn-out howl of an angry beast snarling as if in pain. Something in the howl told them it was a big animal making it. Very big. Another howl began. As one, they rushed over to the windows.

  On the shore to one side of the bridge, seven barges were drawing up beside a small wharf. Long lines of torch-bearing soldiers were assembling to greet them. Each barge had a very large cage resting on top. The light from the loch’s water wasn’t bright enough to reveal what was inside the cages.

  More of the beasts were howling and snorting now. The cries were loud in the tower room, and Taggie couldn’t imagine what it was like down there on the wharf.

  ‘What’s in the cages?’Jemima asked in a scared voice.

  ‘My grandmother told stories of the Zanatuth,’ Felix said. ‘Great beasts that came through Mirlyn’s Gate with all the other wretched creatures from the Dark Universe. There were not many of them, for even the Karraks are supposed to be afraid of them. Bigger than elephants, more savage than rathwai. They cannot be tamed or controlled, only goaded. In battle, even the mightiest of the Fourth Realm’s knights fell before them.’

  One by one, they backed away from the windows in subdued silence.

  ‘We really need to see what kind of sewer pipe is under that toilet,’ Sophie said.

  Lantic knelt down beside it and held the oil lamp over the hole, peering down. ‘It does seem to get a lot wider below the floor,’ he said, and rapped on the stone with a knuckle. ‘This stone is solid, though, and set into the floor. Do we have anything we can use to crack it? Maybe even chip at it?’

  Sophie immediately produced her dagger, and tried scratching at the stone with its point. ‘Granite, or harder,’ she proclaimed in frustration. ‘I think the knife would wear down before I could make a mark.’

  ‘Is there any way we can overcome the dark enchantments?’ Felix asked. ‘We need but one of your destruction spells, Majesty. You’re easily strong enough to blast this chunk of stone apart.’

  Taggie and Lantic looked at each other. He shook his head slowly. ‘This is a prison that explicitly prevents magic,’ he said. ‘The enchantments in the stone can only be countered from outside where magic still works.’

  Taggie gave the stone toilet a thoughtful look; something Felix had said was nagging at her.

  ‘So the Grand Lord and his army will cancel the enchantments,’Jemima said hopefully. ‘Maybe Taggie can hit it with her destruction spell as soon as they do. Before the Zanatuth charge. We’ve only got to smash the top bit.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Taggie said abruptly, and smiled. ‘Yes! An explosion, that’s what we need.’

  Felix gave her a very curious look. ‘An explosion?’

  Taggie grinned round at them, her hope returning fast. ‘Yes. A non-magical explosion. Sophie, give me the bullets.’

  Oh, brilliant, Taggie!’ Jemima said. ‘Of course! The gunpowder.’

  They tipped the lamp’s oil out, and poured the gunpowder from the bullets carefully into the little metal canister. Taggie used every bullet except one, and tapped down the gunpowder, screwing the canister’s cap back on tight. There were more than enough leather straps in Colgath’s mechanism to lower the canister down the toilet until it was just below floor level. Then Taggie said, ‘Get down.’ She lit the fuse: a length of string they’d soaked in oil.

  Cowering together beside the wall, they waited as the blue flame sped across the floor and into the hole. Outside, the incensed cries of the Zanatuth rose as if they sensed they would soon be let loose on their prey.

  The gunpowder exploded with a blast even louder than the ferocious beasts outside. A sun-bright flame stabbed up from the toilet hole, licking the stone ceiling above. The floor shook.

  When Taggie got back up to examine the toilet stone by the light of her mobile’s screen she saw a giant crack running up the side and along the top. Lantic wrenched a long pole of wood from the mechanism, and jabbed it into the hole. All of them tugged – hard. Taggie grinned at the unusual sight of Felix straining away beside them, his long white hair waving about. She was afraid they’d snap the wood, but then came the fabulous sound of stone grating against stone, and the pole shifted. They shoved it back in, and pulled again.

  A couple of minutes later, they’d levered the two halves of the stone apart, and were looking into the circular opening below. The screen’s light revealed a stone tube covered in slimy green algae. The basin obviously drained into the sewer as well. Water trickled along the bottom of the tube, which curved away at a steep angle, but at least it wasn’t a vertical drop. On the ground below, the Zanatuth were bellowing as they were let out of their cages.

  ‘Who goes first?’ Sophie said.

  ‘We really don’t have time to debate this,’ Felix said. ‘I have a sword and know how to use it.’ He swung his legs over the edge of the exposed tube, and gave them a mischievous wink. Then he pushed off, and was gone. They could hear him sliding for several seconds.

  From outside came the dull thud of something massive hitting the side of the tower. Taggie half expected to feel it tremble.

  ‘Me next,’ Jemima said keenly. She dropped down the opening.

  Sophie followed, then Lantic. Taggie waited as long as she dared so he could get clear, then let herself fall into the blackness, just as the second Zanatuth hurled itself against the tower.

  WHAT LIES BELOW THE FLOOR

  The sewer tube spiralled down the tower. Its wet, algae-slimed walls made it horribly slippy. Taggie pushed her elbows out against the rough walls to try and reduce her speed but it was painful, so she had to do it sparingly.

  There was the tiniest warning the tube was coming to an end. She thought she heard a splash echoing up through the darkness. Then that was definitely Jemima squealing – but not in terror. A small red glow appeared beyond her feet.

  All at once
, she shot out into open air, and fell. She was in a small cave with red water filling the bottom. Her friends were splashing about in it. There was just enough time for her to take a breath and close her mouth as she hit the water. It was deathly cold, stabbing into her body like a thousand small blades of ice. She floundered about for a frightening couple of seconds, completely disorientated.

  Her head came back up into the air, but the thick layers of clothes she was wearing immediately threatened to drag her back down again: they were so heavy from all the water saturating them. She kicked hard to stay afloat.

  ‘Where . . . ?’ Salty water flooded into her mouth, and she coughed.

  ‘Taggie!’Jemima shouted.

  ‘Here,’ she called out. ‘Lantic?’

  ‘I’m OK.’

  ‘Sophie?’

  ‘Up here.’

  ‘What?’ She tipped her head back to see the skymaid hovering above the glowing water. ‘Oh. Felix?’

  ‘I hate water. Squirrels can’t swim, you know.’

  Taggie was slightly disappointed he’d transformed back into a squirrel. She’d liked having him as a human boy rather than the bundle of soggy fur that was now thrashing about.

  He wasn’t the only one struggling. The cold was actually making her ache. She had to get out fast.

  ‘Taggie!’ Jemima yelled in panic as she kicked up a big spray of glittering red droplets. ‘I can’t keep afloat. The armour’s too heavy.’

  ‘Hang on,’ Sophie said. She skimmed across the water and grabbed Jemima by her collar, towing her to the edge of the cavern. Then she came back for Felix.

  Jemima was still coughing water up on the rock when a sea serpent thicker than her leg, with glistening dark-green skin, reared up out of the water and snapped its jaws shut around Jemima’s ankle.

  Everyone screamed at once. The serpent writhed and its jaws sprang open quickly. Broken fangs fell out.

  The athrodene armour, Taggie realized. Nothing could get through it. Jemima squirmed up the rock, screaming and trying to get away from the luminous water.