Fireblood, p.7
Fireblood, page 7
‘How did you know the Flints had arrived, eh?’ laughed Patrick, picking Small George off Charlie’s shoulders, and pulling Morty away from Tula. ‘Did you see them in your bowl, Vida? You will all make excellent spies and investigators, but for now off you go back home, you miscreants.’
‘No lesson today,’ echoed the Chinese lady in softer tones, ushering the children back out through the front doors. ‘Tula looks very tired.’
‘But, Shen!’ protested Morty. ‘We can help!’
‘I know,’ said Shen, nudging him outside. ‘Thank you, Mortimer. We will call for you as soon as we’ve worked out next steps.’
Ignoring their protests, she shut the doors gently but firmly behind the last of them, and the heavy timber instantly muffled the outrage from the other side. She turned to stare at Finn and Tula, a smile growing across her face. ‘Welcome,’ she said with a bow. ‘We are so happy you have returned. You made good time across the sea – we weren’t expecting you so soon.’
Finn bowed awkwardly in return, conscious of his hunched back, not knowing what to say. Tula put her hand in his, and Finn’s brow furrowed. Her fingers were icy again, and her lips were turning blue. As Shen asked George something about the watchtower and the Telling Stone, he bent to stare into his sister’s eyes. They were wide and unfocused.
‘Tula? You okay?’ he whispered.
Her face crumpled in pain. They’re hurting Dad… she signed, her knees buckling. He’s— He needs us—
Finn clutched his sister to him as she sagged to the floor, her eyelids flickering as if she were seeing a million things at once. ‘Tula! Talk to me!’
Charlie swore, but no one reprimanded him as he leapt to help Finn hold her up.
‘George? Shen?’ exclaimed Patrick, springing to Charlie’s side. ‘What’s happening?’
Shen dropped to her knees, the back of her hand on Tula’s forehead. ‘Did she say something about your father?’
‘She said they’re hurting him—’
‘Quick! Up to the watchtower,’ commanded George. ‘It’s the closest space with a pool. Hurry.’
Finn cradled Tula to his chest, already heading for the wide stone steps.
‘Pool?’
‘Best scrying source on the island. We’ll be able to see what she’s seeing, so we can help her,’ replied Patrick.
They hurried after George and Shen, who had already disappeared from sight, and Angelina took up the rear. ‘She say who’s hurting your dad?’ she asked Finn as they took a sharp left off the landing on to a spiral staircase.
‘No,’ panted Finn, his heart beating too hard to speak easily. He scarcely noticed the stained-glass windows that seemed to shift and move with ancient tableaus, the dancing light across the walls, how they got larger and more elaborate the higher they climbed. His eyes were fixed on the stairs ahead, praying he could make it to the top. His arms were in agony.
‘You’re strong,’ said Patrick. ‘Come on, Finn.’
‘She’ll be fine,’ added Angelina. ‘Shen is the best healer, the best scryer, and your mother had the most powerful scrying pool in the city.’
Patrick threw a glance over his shoulder. ‘We just need to get into the tower…’ and with another burst of speed he disappeared round the next turn, his voice echoing behind him ‘…which we’ve not managed for eight years.’
Finn’s legs were burning and his mind racing when at last he emerged in a square room. Eight years? George, Shen and Patrick were waiting at a pair of carved wooden doors that stretched all the way up to the high painted ceiling.
George raised his staff and knocked gently, then turned the handle. The door did not open.
‘Come, Finn,’ he murmured. ‘Did you bring the opener?’
Finn hurried to the door, delivering Tula into Patrick’s arms. He tugged the rucksack off his shoulders and reached into the front pocket for the letter opener. He slid it into the keyhole, turned it and rotated the brass handle. The door did not budge. He groaned, and twisted the handle harder, shoving against the door in frustration.
‘Stop,’ whispered Shen. ‘Look.’ She gestured to the carving and Finn saw it was a picture of a fight of some kind. ‘There’s a clue in here for you.’
Finn rattled the handle, impatient, and shoved against the door again. ‘A clue? What—’
George drew breath. ‘This carving has changed to show a tableau of the Last Battle. That is your father.’
Finn took a step back, his eyes widening at the familiar image of a man standing on a watchtower balcony reaching out to a woman flying in the sky, fighting a monstrous creature.
It’s the same picture as our back door!
Without thinking, his left-hand fingers slotting between the claws of the dragon-foot door handle, Finn pressed two fingers of his right hand to the Venomous attacking the woman: one on its head, one on its heart. He gasped when the wood beneath his touch moved and the carving changed, like a muscle moving beneath the skin, as the monster twisted and turned, falling to the bottom of the carved panel.
And then, with a distinct click, the door opened.
11
he room into which Finn stumbled was overgrown with plants of every kind. He pushed impatiently through creeping vines and whispering leaves towards dim light at the back of the room.
Pool! Where’s this pool?
Mosses and lichens carpeted the floor, ferns reached out from the darkest crevices and soft fronds touched his face and hands, as if inviting him in. More green things grew from the teacups on a table to his right, from the shelves of books to his left, from the seat of an overturned chair in his path. They wound round a huge stone dragon rearing from the wide stair banister, and thick-leaved vines crept across the walls and stained-glass windows, right up to the ceiling that soared into a glass dome overhead.
‘I can’t see it!’ he called back over his shoulder, hoarse with anxiety. ‘The pool in here to help Tula – where is it?’
‘You’ll have to invite us in,’ said George, tapping his staff on an invisible barrier in the doorway. ‘By name. Your father put a locking charm on—’
‘Please come in, George, Patrick, Angelina, Shen and Charlie,’ replied Finn so fast that the words blended into one.
Charlie was the first over the threshold and at Finn’s side in a moment. ‘It’s over there near the balcony windows, under the flying carpet.’ He hurried past and bent to tug at a woven silk rug at the far end of the room. It was almost completely covered in soft moss and took some effort for Finn and Charlie to pull it away. George helped Patrick lower Tula to the edge of the rectangular pool that had been hidden beneath it, and Shen dipped Tula’s hand into the black water, murmuring words that Finn could not hear.
The surface of the water flashed with whirling, blurring images. Finn saw himself, and Tula, and then a flashing sequence of fighting and resistance, close-ups of red eyes, yellow teeth, then darkness again. Some of it he recognised, a snapshot of his father’s hands, though they shook, his boots—
‘Everything Tula is thinking is there?’ he asked, kneeling beside his sister, her other hand clutched in his.
Shen sat beside him. ‘Not quite. See these shadows? Your sister has shielded herself. How can we get her to let us in?’
‘We’ll see inside her head?’
‘I know it feels like an intrusion,’ said Shen, ‘and I’m sorry about that, truly I am, but Tula’s link with your father is dangerous for her. We need to pull her out of it to keep her safe.’
‘But Augustus needs our help,’ said Patrick, ‘and he’s left nothing behind to lead the way to him. Just these kids, Shen, and we need to reach him—’
‘We can find him without hurting Tula!’ interrupted Finn, as Tula began to shake, her breath coming in short pants. ‘Help her, please!’
‘Steady,’ said George, his eyes on Shen. She nodded back to him, and he took a breath, choosing his words carefully. ‘If we can see exactly where Augustus is, right now, then we can retrieve him, yes?’ He looked intently at Finn, and Finn nodded back, swallowing hard, ‘and, most importantly, save your sister too.’
‘Agreed,’ said Angelina. ‘Get the intel and sever the link with Augustus before this child is finished.’ She gestured at Tula. ‘Look. The connection is draining her fast. You’ve got a few minutes, max.’
12
ula’s mind raced beneath the cloud of static air that she’d pulled around herself. She wished Finn would sing to her. That always helped her feel better. Tân was asleep inside her shirt, curved into her neck, but it wasn’t the same.
Feelings. So many feelings.
I can feel Finn being scared, she thought, and Dad is lost … somewhere … but everything is slippery. Normally, I can grab on to things with my mind as if … as if they’re pieces of rope – like their voice, or their smell, or the look of their hands from their own eyes – something like that, some little thing. I can usually hang on tightly, and that way get inside their head. I can track them down, see through their eyes. Or else just talk to them from where I am, but now the pieces of rope have turned into slippery spaghetti and I cannot hang on to anything.
I feel as if I’m close to Dad, though, and getting closer, but I’m so scared that I won’t be able to find the thread that leads me back to Finn. It’s getting darker and darker. I’m out here all alone, and I’m too busy looking for Dad to be afraid, but deep down I am.
I really am.
13
hen placed her hands either side of Tula’s head and began to murmur the same words over and over in a language Finn did not know, but the shaking did not subside.
Tân suddenly emerged from the folds of clothing at Tula’s neck, running down her arm to touch Finn’s hand with one of his tiny feet. Finn gasped as Tân leapt to Charlie’s hand, tapping it three times.
‘Wow,’ breathed Angelina. ‘She’s already got a creature of her own.’
‘Watch,’ said Shen.
Tân lifted his leg and tapped Charlie’s hand again, lifting his foot slowly up, then down. When Charlie didn’t move, he repeated the action.
‘Oh,’ said Finn, reaching for Tula’s hand and holding it tightly.
‘Oh, okay,’ said Charlie, slowly moving his hand, with Tân on it, to Tula’s shoulder. His angry frown softened into an expression that Finn couldn’t read as he placed his hand on her other shoulder.
Shen bent her head to Tula again, and whispered something different, low and quiet, almost a chant, and Finn suddenly noticed that the pool was no longer so dark.
Is that a light over there on the right? Is it a lamp?
Tula’s thoughts in the water became less shadowy, more defined. The light on the surface of the pool sharpened into an image of a window about thirty centimetres tall and fifteen wide with two thick iron bars running from top to bottom.
In the dim glow below it sat a man with his back against the wall, his legs drawn up to his shoulders, his arms loosely laced above his knees and his head hanging down. He was entirely motionless, and it would have been impossible for anyone else to tell who this person was, but Finn’s heart thumped with recognition.
A shout coming from the pool made his heart pound even harder, and the man slowly raised his head to see who was calling to him. There was a rattling sound of a bunch of keys, and then one of them turning in the lock. The man under the window tried to stand, but fell in a jumble of arms and legs, too weak to remain upright. He pushed himself up into sitting as quickly as he could, running a hand through his hair, as if wanting to present the strongest, most composed force possible.
‘Dad,’ whispered Finn, horrified. Immediately the scene in front of them zoomed wider, wider, and the images lightened still further.
Finn heard the cell door bang open. Then, as the image enlarged, he could actually see the door, and he could especially see the huge creatures marching through it towards his father, though once they’d passed he could only make out the back of their heads.
The first of the Venomous was the biggest – a huge monster – completely bald with his head patterned in geometric tattoos. He barked a word at Augustus – ‘Tala!’
Finn’s father shook his head and said, ‘Þú munt ekki ná árangri,’ and without a pause the Venomous drew back his massive leg and kicked Augustus hard.
‘Dad!’ screamed Finn, clenching his sister’s shoulder. ‘DAD!’
The Venomous shouted something else, but Augustus was coughing so loudly his voice could not be heard.
They watched as the scene before them began to shake and the Venomous howled as dust rained down around them. A few seconds later the water of the pool rippled the image away as another tremor shook the island, fading away as quickly as it had begun.
Tears were pouring down Finn’s face, but his horrified gaze never left the pool, until he felt Tula’s fingers begin to freeze beneath his hands. Shen was mumbling something soft, low and calming, the words getting faster and faster, and Tula’s eyes had flown wide open.
It was as if someone were pulling her skin back from behind her head, freezing her from the inside out. Her mouth was slowly opening now too, lips going purple, her skin losing colour fast.
Before he knew what he was doing, Finn leaned into her face, stared into her eyes, and whispered, ‘Come back, Tula.’
Not really knowing why, he concentrated on releasing all his white heat through his fingers into his sister’s frozen frame. With his breath warming her face, and his hands powering up the fire within her, he felt his toes go tingly, then numb. Soon his legs felt like lead, and so did his arms. At last his own breathing became shallow and short, and his heartbeat slowed. Finn felt his eyes fluttering closed, and he thought he heard, ‘That’s enough, son, that’s enough…’
His eyes flew open to find the pool reflection had smoothed out again, showed his father standing – no, not just standing, but confronting a dark fig—
No! he thought. Focus!
He got a picture in his head of his sister in the dark, a long way away, and imagined that he was holding a rope down to her and she was reaching for it.
Stretching…
Higher…
Higher…
In his mind, he saw her frightened face focused on grabbing hold of the sturdy rope he was lowering to her, and then her fingers tightened round it and suddenly – in the blink of an eye – his rope became a twisted cord of two ropes, double the thickness and strength, full of knots and twists and tangles.
Easy to hold.
Easy to climb. Just like Dad had taught them.
He grinned to her and said, ‘Come on, Tula. Get up here.’
And she smiled back and clambered towards him, her movements slow but sure.
14
inn’s eyes opened to find Tula looking up at him, her face back to normal. He wrenched her up into a rough hug and held her tightly.
‘No more of that, Tula,’ he said.
‘No more,’ agreed Shen. ‘We don’t need to – we have those Russian words to translate. Þú munt ekki ná árangri. They’ll tell us something.’
‘We can ask the Stone,’ said Finn, letting go of Tula slowly. ‘Milady…’ he began, but the Stone interrupted him immediately.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘No can do. Everybody needs to stay here and find the hydrant. Those words are too confusing for you all.’
No, signed Tula. No, no, no, no!
‘That Stone—’ started Patrick, but he swallowed his next words under Shen’s stern gaze.
George sighed. ‘The Stone is overprotective,’ he said to Finn and Tula.
‘Patrick said she was,’ said Finn, ‘but she’s right, isn’t she? We need the hydrant before we go get Dad!’ He sprang to his feet. ‘What does it look like?’
‘A small blue bottle of glass, wrapped in flames of gold with a gold stopper.’ George frowned. ‘But I don’t sense it in this tower, Finn. I would know if it was here – it has your father’s blood in it, and that has a magnetic pull.’
Finn’s face flared with hope. ‘You could find Dad yourself?’
‘No, my boy. He is too far away, even for such powers as mine, and the scryers have had no success either.’ George patted Finn on the shoulder and got to his feet. ‘But we have a clue from the words Augustus spoke, and your sister shares a link with him.’
I can’t always feel him, signed Tula, swallowing back her tears. Mostly, I think he’s blocking me out. And we don’t know what those words mean.
‘We can check with Drishti,’ suggested George. ‘She can do an online translation once the systems are back up.’
‘The systems are down?’ asked Angelina. ‘Again?’
‘Drishti blames the earth tremor,’ explained George, ‘but she usually sorts it out fast, doesn’t she? Then we go to Augustus, and I’m certain the link with your father will strengthen the closer we get.’
‘The hydrant must be here, George,’ said Patrick. ‘Maybe he shielded it. He did that a lot when they all lived here, but I know all his hiding places.’ He whirled away and began searching, teasing away plants, pressing wooden panels, leaping from table, to stairs, to shelves and back to the table again, his movements quick and sure, but a little frantic.
How will we come with you if we cannot fly? signed Tula.
‘What did she say?’ asked Angelina.
‘They can’t fly,’ said Charlie.
Patrick paused briefly in his search to note, ‘So they cannot come on this quest.’
There was a stunned pause and George was just about to say something when Angelina cried, ‘They’re Augustus’s children! Of course they c—’
‘He has no wings!’ interrupted Patrick, sweeping aside a jumble of scientific instruments from the table and pulling open the lid of a wooden box. ‘They won’t grow from…’ He gestured at Finn’s hunched back and trailed off.
