Darkisle, p.10
DarkIsle, page 10
“Oh, Granma, Granma,” she cried. “Wake up, Granma, wake up! It’s okay, the dragon has let you go.”
As Shona, Bertie and Aldiss watched, first one then the other of the old woman’s eyes opened. She blinked and then frowned.
“You sniveling, stupid fool!” she bellowed at her granddaughter. “You’ve told them everything! How many times have I told you to hold your tongue?”
“But—” whimpered the girl. “The dragon was killing you.”
The old woman glared at Shona. “She wasn’t,” she spat. “I was pretending to be unconscious so she would think I was dead. And then you came along and ruined it.”
She rose unsteadily to her feet. “And now you’ve gone and told them everything!”
“I’m sorry, Granma!” wailed the bewildered girl.
“You’re going to be, you stupid girl! I suppose I’ll just have to finish this myself! As usual!”
As the friends watched, the elderly witch—for a witch she was—turned to face them. Eyes on her tormentors, she fished a bottle of something green and hissing from her apron pocket, raised it high in the air and began to chant some ancient and terrible magic words. Shona looked in alarm at Bertie and Aldiss. She recognized some of those words and knew they were not good.
“Run!” she warned. “Hide!”
The dodo and rat ran for cover. Being small, it was easy for them to find hiding places in the cupboards of the kitchen, but it wasn’t so easy for a dragon, even a pygmy dragon like Shona. She looked around frantically for somewhere to go, but it was all in vain.
The old woman cackled wickedly. Above her head, held tightly in her clawlike hands, the potion in the bottle began to swirl, and as she chanted, it bubbled and hissed even more.
Shona’s eyes widened.
As soon as the potion threatened to boil over the neck of the bottle, the old woman sneered and threw it across the room at the dragon. For a split second Shona didn’t know what to do; then her survival instincts kicked in. She saw something large and shiny—a large metal tray—close at hand. Quickly, she grabbed it and held it up it in front of her just as the bottle struck.
The explosion of sparks sent the dragon flying backward across the room, where she hit the wall and dropped to the floor. Before everything went black, she was sure she’d heard screaming.
“Shona! Shona! Wake up!” There was a note of urgency in Bertie’s voice.
“Please, wake up!” cried Aldiss. “We can’t stay here, it’s too dangerous!”
Shona’s yellow eyes flickered open and she saw the concerned face of the dodo peering over her. Bertie immediately looked relieved.
“Oh, thank goodness,” he said. “I thought you were done for. Come on, we must leave before anyone comes.” Mustering all their strength, he and Aldiss took her arm and tried to pull her up.
She sat up and groaned. Her entire body hurt. She felt like she ’d been knocked over and flattened by a steamroller. She rubbed her back and her head, but nothing helped.
“Ooooh, what happened?” she groaned. She got to her feet unsteadily and looked around to get her bearings. They were still in the kitchen of the restaurant. She looked to Bertie and Aldiss for an answer.
“Don’t you remember?” asked Bertie, helping right her as she swayed unsteadily from side to side.
“No—I—what happened here?” she stared in astonishment, for all around her was destruction and disarray. The tables and shelves were scorched and blistered, and the walls were blackened with soot. Dishes and cups that had been sitting next to the sink to be washed now littered the floor in hundreds of smashed pieces, and the choking acrid smell of smoke hung low in the air.
On the floor lay the old witch, dead—her lifeless body blackened by the blast. Her granddaughter was lying at her side, unconscious and unmoving. Shona then remembered the potion being thrown at her; she remembered deflecting it with the large metal tray and being pushed off her feet by the force of the explosion.
“Did I do that?” she asked her friends. They both nodded.
“I saw it all happen,” said Aldiss. “The bottle hit the tray and bounced back at the old witch. She tried to get away, but she was too slow. Her own evil potion hit her full force and killed her.”
“What about her granddaughter?” asked Shona. She felt terrible that she had killed someone, albeit someone who had drugged them all and sold their friend. Despite her earlier threats, Shona could never intentionally kill a living soul. “Is she dead too?”
“No, she ’s just unconscious,” said Aldiss. “We ’ve checked.”
“Which is why we must leave now!” said Bertie urgently. “Before she comes round and calls for help. We must go.”
Bertie picked up his satchel from the floor and he and Aldiss took Shona by the claw.
At first she was too shocked to move, but when Bertie gave her a tug, she pulled herself together and followed them out of the kitchen.
They hurried through the restaurant, startling diners in their wake, then out the doors and into the weak sunshine of the autumn morning. Bertie ruffled his feathers as the crisp cold air hit them, but he kept running with Aldiss scampering at his side and Shona bounding ahead.
“Whatever can we do now?” Aldiss gasped.
They both knew it was only a matter of time before someone called the Patrollers—Marnoch Mor’s police force—and reported them. The three friends had to put as much distance between themselves and the lawpersons as possible . . . while there was still time.
Morag thought she was still dreaming when she woke up and felt her bed tip. It rocked gently from side to side and would have been soothing had she not been aware that she hadn’t lain in a cradle the night before.
She opened her eyes and looked around her. And this definitely wasn’t the room she had fallen asleep in last night either. She sat up and winced. Ow! Her head hurt! She closed her eyes for a moment to let the pain pass and then opened them again. She was in a tiny whitewashed room with four little round portholes on the walls, beyond which were clouds. Then it struck her. She wasn’t in a bedroom at all. She was in a cabin on a boat.
“So we’re awake now!” said Henry sarcastically. “Finally, we’re awake!”
“Morning,” said Morag groggily.
“Morning! MORNING! Is that all you can say?” the medallion demanded. “After last night?”
“What happened last night?” She frowned. “And how did we get here?”
“I did everything I could to try and wake you,” replied Henry, “but you slept right through the whole thing.”
Morag was confused. She didn’t remember a thing.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said. “All I know is that I fell asleep in my bed in the room above the restaurant and now I appear to be in some sort of boat. What happened?”
The medallion sighed. “Shortly after you fell asleep, I was nodding off myself when I heard the bedroom door open. I couldn’t see who it was until he came over and looked down at you. It was that ruffian from the restaurant.”
“Hold on just a minute,” interrupted Morag. “What ruffian?”
“The man who kept looking over at us in the restaurant, remember?” Henry said.
Morag did remember. “The hooded man?” she said. She hadn’t liked him, and now look what had happened.
“Yes, he stole into your room in the dead of night. I tried to wake you by turning icy cold, but you were sound asleep. The hooded man crept over, pulled back the covers and lifted you out of bed. He grabbed your boots—they’re under your bunk, by the way—and carried us out into the corridor.”
“What did you do then?” Morag asked as she felt to see that the book her parents left her was still in her pocket. She was relieved to find it was.
“Nothing. What could I do? I couldn’t fight him,” said the medallion.
“But why didn’t you use your magic?” asked Morag.
“There’s a ban on using spells at Eleanor’s due to the many and terrible fights that used to take place. Old Eleanor—she was in on your abduction, by the way—put a Cloaking Spell on the entire building.
“I could do nothing,” he continued, a little regretfully. “All I could do was keep quiet in the hope that he hadn’t heard me earlier. I figured that if he didn’t know I was there, I could stay with you and hopefully help you later on.
“The hooded man quietly carried us downstairs, put us on the backseat of a car and drove off. We didn’t go far. Then he stopped the car, took us outside and carried us down to a small jetty, where we were met by that giant woman he was talking to in the restaurant. This seems to be her boat. He paid her to take us somewhere, I couldn’t catch what they were saying.”
“And I slept the entire time?” said Morag.
“Like a log!”
“That’s not right,” she said, a little scared and confused. “I don’t usually sleep like that. There must have been something in the food or something.”
“I understand Eleanor drugged you,” said the medallion.
“And what about the others? Where are they?” Morag wanted to know. “Do you think they’re all right?”
“They’re probably still sleeping in their beds,” replied the medallion. “They would’ve been drugged as well, but they’ll be fine.”
But Morag wasn’t so sure. Still, there was nothing she could do about it.
She had a proper look around her. She was in the belly of some sort of metal boat that smelled strongly of engine oil and fish. The engine chugged loudly somewhere behind her and the boat rocked gently from side to side as it cut its way through the waves.
There was nothing extraordinary about this cabin. The metal walls had been painted white some time ago, going by the look of it, as there was paint peeling in patches across the wall. Dots of rust rimmed the metal portholes with red, and a painted metal door in the wall was tight shut. There were two wooden bunks in the cabin, one that Morag had woken up in and the other against the opposite wall. Both were neatly made up with gray woolly blankets and crisp white sheets and pillowcases. The other was empty.
“Where are we?” Morag asked, bewildered. She peered out of the closest porthole, but her only view was that of the gray sea swelling against the side of the boat. She shivered at the sight of the freezing cold sea.
“It’s hard to say, but the boat seems to be heading west,” replied the medallion. “They didn’t say when they left us here and I didn’t ask. Didn’t want them to know I could talk.”
“Of course not,” said Morag. She swung her legs off the bed and placed her feet on the floor. She still felt a little giddy and lightheaded, so she took her time to stand up. Her legs felt like jelly, and it took a couple of attempts to stand before she was finally on her feet.
She walked unsteadily to the door and tried the handle. It was locked. “Of course it is,” she said, more to herself than to Henry. She walked back to the bunk and sat down. There was nothing else for it: she would have to stay put until whoever had kidnapped her decided it was time to come and get her. She pulled her knees up to her chin and closed her eyes. She was feeling very scared and very, very alone.
“Hoi!” said the medallion. “You’re squashing me, you big lump!”
Morag looked down at the gold disc. He gave her a little smile and a wink and she smiled back weakly.
“Don’t worry about a thing, dear girl,” he said kindly. “I’ll take care of you. Everything will be all right, you’ll see.”
“I hope so,” replied Morag, tears pricking the back of her eyes as the boat rocked steadily onward.
10
It was seven o’clock in the morning and the sun was just peeping up at the horizon. The sky was in that hazy inbetween stage, neither night nor day, not quite dark enough to be night and not quite light enough to be dawn.
The weather, too, hadn’t quite decided what it was doing that morning. It was to be another cold day, there was no doubt about that, but the dark gray clouds still hadn’t worked out when to offload their heavy cargo of rain. The wind, however, had made a decision that cold autumn morning; it was going to blow as hard as it could, and it was into this blustery day that Bertie, Aldiss and Shona ran.
After they left the restaurant, the three friends raced down to the harbor to seek out someone called Kyle the Fisherman, a trusted human they had been told, whose family had a long history of ferrying magical folk. His fishing boat, called Sea Kelpie, was the only means to get them to the island of Murst.
The air smelled fresh and salty as they hurried down to the great stone walls that overlooked the harbor. There were about fifteen small fishing boats docked that morning, and there was not a single soul in sight.
Bertie looked in dismay at the boats bobbing gently in the dark gray sea. They all looked the same. They were all white with a blue trim. How were they going to find Sea Kelpie quickly? There was nothing else for it; they would have to read the names of every boat until they found the right one.
This made Bertie nervous because it was starting to get light and he didn’t want to hang around and be seen by humans. That would be disastrous. He had heard of fellow Marnoch Mor residents leaving the safety of that magical place to venture into the world of men. They had never been heard of again, except one, a dwarf who had ended up as a clown in a circus. Bertie shivered at the thought, remembering how humans had treated dodos when they still lived together. There were very few of his kind left in Marnoch Mor, and none left in the human world. Mankind had seen to that. Dodos had been hunted to extinction. If he was seen, he’d be put in a cage and poked and prodded by scientists. Then he thought about Shona. If she was caught, there would be no telling what they would do to her. She would be put in a zoo or made to do tricks, or something equally horrible.
“Come on,” Bertie said to the others. “Quickly. We can’t get caught out in the open like this. Shona, you try over there. Aldiss, you look in the middle and I’ll look here.”
Without another word, Bertie began scanning the names of the boats. Fancy Nancy, The Whistling Parrot, Orca’s Dream, Annabelle and The Seven Seas. No sign of Sea Kelpie. He went to help Aldiss, who was having trouble reading the names that had been rubbed out in places by the battering of the waves and the high winds. None of them were Sea Kelpie.
“Over here!” called Shona. “I’ve found it!”
Bertie and Aldiss ran over to her. The dragon was pointing excitedly to the bow of a little fishing boat tied to the end of a row of five others.
“There she is!” cried Shona. “The Sea Kelpie.”
The dodo and rat looked and, sure enough, it was Kyle ’s boat. The question now was how were they going to get to it?
In an instant Shona took the lead. With a brave grin, she stepped gingerly onto the nearest boat and it rocked wildly. She kept her footing and moved on to the next one and the next and the next. All the little boats lurched under her weight, but she managed to jump onto the deck of Kyle ’s boat without falling overboard.
She waved for them to follow. First Bertie and then Aldiss leapt from boat to boat. The fishing vessels did not pitch as they had under Shona’s weight; instead they just rocked gently, and within minutes the three friends were reunited on the deck of Sea Kelpie.
They found Kyle the Fisherman, fully dressed and curled up under a blanket on the top bunk of his cabin on board the fishing boat. He was unshaven and rough-looking, and was very obviously in a deep sleep. Bertie, who did not like the look of him, was not keen on waking him. He told his friends that he thought this was not a good idea, the man was obviously exhausted, and waking him would only cause problems. They would have to find someone else to take them. Then Aldiss argued that Kyle the Fisherman was the only human in these parts who knew about magical folk and was the only one who could take them to Murst, so they had to wake him. Shona agreed with Aldiss. Kyle snorted in his sleep and muttered something about singing a song. It was enough of a diversion to bring them all to their senses.
“Okay, we’ll wake him,” said Bertie uncertainly. He knew that time was precious and that there was little choice.
The fisherman slept heavily and it took them many attempts to shake him fully awake. He was a youngish creature and smelled of engine oil and tar. He was grumpy when they woke him and didn’t appreciate being shaken awake by a large green dragon, a dodo and a rat. He sat up, yawned, rubbed his eyes and blinked hard.
There is a dragon on my boat, he thought. He sat up and looked at Shona fearfully. Although he had provided a service for magical folk for many years, he still wasn’t completely used to dealing with them. He had never had to deal with a dragon before, and he most certainly was not keen on allowing one on board his fishing boat. That was just too much.
“Don’t be alarmed,” said Bertie. “We’re friends and we need your help. We understand you know about Murst?”
“The DarkIsle?” he replied. Bertie looked at Shona. “That’s what my father used to call it, anyway. He rarely mentioned it by name.”
“Can you get us there?” piped up Aldiss.
“And if you can, how long would it take?” asked Bertie. “It’s essential we leave immediately.”
He shook his head sullenly. “Definitely not,” he said. “Besides, no one knows where the DarkIsle is.”
“Shona knows the way. We’re on urgent Marnoch Mor business!” Bertie exclaimed with a pleading note in his voice.
If Kyle agreed to help them, Bertie went on, they would pay him handsomely. The fisherman started at the mention of money. He thought for a moment, then spoke.
“I’ll take you and you,” he said gruffly, pointing at Bertie and Aldiss. Then, looking at Shona, he added, “But I’m not taking that. I’m not having a dragon on board.”
“What if we pay you double?” offered Bertie. He stuck a wing into his bag and began to rustle about for his wallet.
“No. Don’t like dragons, and I won’t have one on my boat,” he said, shaking his head. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like it to leave.”
