Maze Running and other Magical Missions (10 page)

The flower vanished over the first fall.

“Your flower,” said Tangaroa.

“Your decision,” said Rona.

They jumped down the sides of the burn, Tangaroa on the west, Rona on the east, following the flower.

It was already at the bottom of the first fall, bouncing up and down under the white water, battered by the weight landing on it.

“Can a flower survive seven of these?” Rona whispered.

A shift in the water flow let the purple foxglove break free. It floated to the second fall, a longer wilder fall, and leapt over that.

Rona and Tangaroa scrambled down the sides, struggling to keep their balance, to hold their weapons, to keep the purple petals in view as the flower fell through the churning water.

This time the flower’s momentum brought it safely out from under the fall. But the flower drifted into a pool to the west, which it circled twice, then the current pressed it against a rock.

Tangaroa and Rona stared at the flower, willing it to move. The blue loon glanced along the glen. The
sun was free in the sky now. This flower was their only chance. But the water was pinning it to the rock.

He looked up at Rona. She raised her eyebrows.

The flower was stuck at his side of the burn. It was his decision. Again.

“The sun is up now. It has to be this flower.” He bent down and eased the foxglove free with his finger. It leapt back into the current, circled the pool once, then escaped into the forward flowing burn.

They watched it bob gently along a calmer stretch to the third fall. Then they heard the dragon call, “Blue loon, selkie. Look to the west!”

As the flower tumbled over the third drop, Tangaroa and Rona saw the fence around the trees glitter in the morning light, then collapse slowly to the ground. And they saw a line of goats run forward.

Goat-legged men and goats on their hind legs. More than thirty goats, all with shields, many with swords, hammers or maces, all running towards them.

“The Master’s minions,” gasped Rona. “They must have set the net! They want to stop us collecting the token, to make sure Yann dies. We have to keep the flower safe!”

Tangaroa nodded. “You watch the flower, I’ll watch the goats. Maybe they won’t reach the burn until the flower has reached the last fall.”

Tangaroa stood steady, with the burn, the flower and the selkie behind him, and the fauns and uruisks running towards him. Nimbus flapped downstream, and settled in the heather between the blue loon and the goats.

“Thanks, friend,” said Tangaroa. “But I think there are too many even for you.”

Rona called, “The flower is past the fourth fall. I’m following it.”

Tangaroa leapt down to stand opposite her and turned to watch the goats. They were shouting as they ran, but he couldn’t hear what they were threatening.

He glanced back at the flower, moving through shallow water. Stopping, circling, starting again lazily. It wasn’t moving nearly as fast down the burn as the goats were moving across the mountain.

Then he looked at Rona, watching the flower, her hand relaxed around her spear.

“Rona, we’re being attacked! Why aren’t you as scared and nervous and basically useless as you were earlier?”

She shrugged. “I was really worried about you finding out I’d cheated. It was the worst thing I could imagine, but now that you know, nothing else quite as terrible can happen.”

“You were more scared of me than of those creatures running at us?”

“You’re my friend. I care what you think. I don’t care what they think.”

“You care what I think?”

She nodded. “But, right now, I think you should watch the goats rather than me.”

He checked on the goats again. The fauns and uruisks were getting closer, so their words were clearer:

“Don’t trust…”

“We’re here…”

“Guard…”

Rona said, “The flower is over the fifth fall,” and leapt down again.

Tangaroa followed her. The flower was already floating free of the chaos at the bottom of the fall. “I think this flower is going to make it.”

“Only if the goats don’t stop it, blue loon. So let’s see if your blades are as sharp as your tongue.” She lifted her spear. “Are you ready?”

“Are you planning to fight them, Rona?”

“Of course. Aren’t you?”

“But you usually let Yann and Helen fight for you, don’t you?”

“They’re not here. Ready?”

Tangaroa turned his spear round, so the three blades pointed down. “No. I don’t think we can hurt them.”

“What?”

“Remember what Lavender said: if we get the water dirty, it might damage the token’s healing power. I think we have to keep the magic clean and pure. We can defend the flower, stop the goats grabbing it out of the water, but we can’t dirty the water with blood, or mess the magic up more than we already have.”

Rona frowned. “You want us to collect the token, while being attacked by the Master’s minions, without drawing blood? That’s not going to be easy.”

They walked on opposite banks, following the foxglove as it headed for the sixth fall. The slope wasn’t as steep here, so the falls were further apart, and the water wasn’t moving as fast.

As the fauns and uruisks got closer, Nimbus crouched low, his wings out and his neck stretched aggressively. Tangaroa could hear the tallest faun, with a black bull’s head painted on his shield, yelling clearly, “Don’t trust…”

But his voice was drowned out by flapping wings and roaring fire.

Four dragons landed in a line beside Nimbus. The huge black bulk of Crag, the shining flame colours of Bunsen, Nimbus’s grey brother Cumulus and the bright whiteness of Jewel.

The flapping hid the goats from view, and the roaring covered up their shouting and yelling.

Rona called, “The flower is over the sixth fall.”

“Don’t injure them!” Tangaroa yelled to the dragons, now sure that they could only heal Yann if they didn’t cause injury themselves. “Keep them back, but don’t draw blood!”

“Can I fry them instead?” boomed Crag.

“Please don’t, friend. We can’t risk it.”

The goats reached the dragons, who built a fence of wings, spikes and scales. Tangaroa could see hooves kicking under wings and blades crashing into scales, but the goats couldn’t damage the dragons or get past them.

“Where did the dragons come from?” he asked Rona.

“The rocks which Nimbus checked.” She raised her voice. “You said you didn’t see anything, you tricky dragon!”

“I said I didn’t see anything unexpected,” Nimbus called back, “but I did expect reinforcements. You
didn’t need to know about them, unless we were attacked.”

The flower was nearly at the seventh fall.

The orange dragon yelled, “This hairy animal is hitting me with a big axe! It’s not good for my complexion. Can I just singe him?”

Tangaroa shouted, “No, Bunsen, we must respect the magic of this place!”

Suddenly half a dozen uruisks broke through the line of dragons at the lower part of the slope, and three of them leapt the burn. The goats sprinted up both banks towards the seventh fall, as the flower floated gently downstream.

Tangaroa pointed the blunt end of his spear. “I’ll hold them off; you get the flower out after the fall.”

They both slid down the heather by the final waterfall, keeping pace with the flower as it spiralled down.

Uruisks ran towards them, waving hammers, maces and axes. Dragons flapped overhead, landing on both banks.

Tangaroa saw the flower bounce up from the fall. Clean and bright, purple and beautiful, just like when he had picked it last night. But now it was twirling in the middle of a wide pool, more than an arm’s length from either bank. Neither of them could reach it.

The earth was shaking, pounded by hooves and clawed feet. Tangaroa saw a pebble drop into the burn and screamed, “
Get the flower out
before the water gets dirty!”

Rona stepped off the east bank, balanced on a
small wet rock in the middle of the pool, leant down to scoop the flower out, then jumped to the west bank. Tangaroa grabbed her arm to steady her.

They were standing in the heart of a battle.

Goats were whacking at the dragons’ thick scales with blades and shields. Goats were running at Tangaroa and Rona, then being knocked back by wings and tails.

A faun with a huge sword ducked under Bunsen’s flailing yellow tail and sprinted towards them.

“We have the flower now,” shouted Rona, “so we don’t need to worry about blood in the water.” She jabbed her spear out in front of Tangaroa. The faun nearly ran onto the golden point, but before he reached them, Bunsen’s tail flipped him into the air and over the burn.

Tangaroa laughed. “You are a warrior, after all, Rona! But we can’t enjoy this fight; we have to get the token out of here. How do we get through that chaos to a dragon?”

“You go. You’re faster and stronger. Take the flower, climb onto the nearest dragon and go.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll cover your back, then follow on another dragon, but I want the token safe first. You’ll get it onto dragonback faster than I will.” She held the foxglove out to him. He reached for it, and they both held the stem of the flower.

But two massive black scaly forelegs shoved them apart. As they fell to either side, they both let go of the flower.

Tangaroa saw a white uruisk loom over them,
hammer raised high, shield covering his chest. Then a jet of flame shot between the selkie and the blue loon. The fire hit the uruisk’s shield, knocking him backwards. The hammer fell harmlessly to the ground.

The flower fell too. The flower was caught in the bright white light of the black dragon’s flame. The foxglove blazed crimson, then pink, then burnt to ashes before it hit the ground.

The tallest faun sighed and the goats ran off.

The grey dragons chased after them, but Crag yelled, “No. Let them run like rats. The token is gone. There’s no need to chase them.”

The dragons circled round the selkie and the blue loon.

“I’m sorry I burnt the token,” said Crag. “But that hammer was aimed at the selkie’s skull. I am sorry.”

Tangaroa stood up. “No one blames you. Thank you all for trying.”

He helped Rona up. He could see new tears running down the old stains on her cheeks. “You’re fine, Rona. We’re all fine.”

“We’re fine, but Yann isn’t. We failed him. We tried everything, we helped the magic, we didn’t injure those goats, we maybe even cheated, but we failed anyway.”

Helen was woken by a thumping noise outside and she sat up, wondering if the shaved giant from the Eildons had followed her home. She looked out of the window and saw her dad chopping firewood.

She still felt wretched about failing Yann last night, but she was sure the other teams would have collected one or even two tokens. The sun was up, so Rona and Tangaroa must be on their way back. If she hurried, she might get to the moor before them, then she could find out who had succeeded, and sit with Yann until the Three returned this evening to heal him.

She heard her mum clattering downstairs and Nicola singing upstairs. How could she avoid getting sucked into a family weekend?

She hunted for her mobile, then remembered it had been crushed by a centaur. She crept into her parents’ room, lifted the phone by the bed and dialled Kirsty’s mobile.

“Are you awake?”

“No. Go away.”

“Come on, Kirsty, rise and shine.”

“Go away! I don’t have a match this morning. I want a lie in.” Kirsty yawned.

“I need your help. I have to escape from the house again, and I’ve already used ponies and birds’ nests, so I need to use a human being this time.”

“And I’m the human being you want to use?”

“Could you phone back and ask Mum if I can go round to yours today, then intercept any calls and cover for me? Please!”

“Why?” Kirsty demanded.

“Because you’re my best friend?”

“No. Why do you want to escape?”

“Oh, you know.”

“No, I don’t know, Helen. I hardly ever know these days. Is it violin practice?”

“No, it’s not music. It’s something else.”

“What else?” Kirsty asked.

“I can’t say.”

“You want me to lie to your mum and you won’t tell me why.”

“Yes,” said Helen. “Because I don’t want to lie to you.”

“I suppose that’s honest.”

“So will you, please?”

“OK, I’ll call your mum and ask if you can come out to play. Just this once.” Kirsty cut her off.

Helen crept back to her room. As she was pulling on her jeans, she heard the phone ring. Her mum answered it downstairs.

Helen shoved her feet into her boots. It was getting harder for her two lives to grow side by side, without crashing into each other. Helen knew that eventually she’d have to choose who she really was.

But right now, it was simple. She had to concentrate on Yann. She picked up her first aid kit, but left her fiddle case on the floor. She’d be much safer if she left that at home.

Helen looked round at her friends, slumped in a ragged circle on the grass by the white fountain. Everyone looked terrible.

No one had managed a full night’s sleep, or washed all the night’s dirt off. Sapphire was gazing unhappily at her tail, which no longer wrapped round the whole circle, as if she’d expected it to grow back already. Helen and Lee hadn’t mentioned their difficult conversations, but Rona had just told everyone what Tangaroa had discovered, so it wasn’t surprising that the circle was less cosy this morning.

But that wasn’t why they looked terrible.

They’d all hoped someone else had succeeded. Now they all knew no one had collected a healing token.

They’d endured the centaurs’ sympathy, questions and contempt. Petros had refused to speak to them. Mallow had offered food, drink and comfort. Epona had offered to take over, claiming that she could do better than any of them. Finally the centaurs had left them in peace. Helen could see Yann’s parents pacing up and down behind the columns on the terrace.

She sighed. “I can’t believe we made such a mess of it.”

“I can’t believe we had such bad luck,” said Lavender.

“There’s no such thing as luck,” snapped Sylvie. “We just all did something really stupid. Or several stupid things.” She glared round at everyone.

Helen was trying to make sense of their failure. “So we lost one token because it wasn’t there, we lost another because Catesby, Lavender and Sylvie had a very nervous dragon, and we lost the final one because Rona and Tangaroa were ambushed by the Master’s minions.”

She thought for a moment. “The scabbard must be somewhere else, but we can’t search the hollow hill for clues while that giant, the boar and those dragons are there.” Helen frowned and kept thinking out loud. “The buckle did exist, but a dragon dropped it. The flower was washed by the waterfalls, but another dragon burnt it.”

She lowered her voice. “Do you see a theme here? I know Arthur’s enemies attacked the Eildon team, the lizards attacked the Cromarty team, and the goats attacked the Allt Ban team, but the ones who actually destroyed the tokens…” her voice was almost a whisper, “…were the dragons!”

Sapphire growled.

“Not you, my blue friend,” Helen said. “You’ve lost more than any of us trying to save Yann. But where did those dragons above the Eildons come from? And why has your classmates’ help cost us two chances to save Yann? Who sent them here?”

Sapphire rumbled angrily and Lavender translated.
“The Great Dragon sent them. When Sapphire explained why she would be missing dragonlore classes, the Great Dragon sent her pupils to help.” Then Lavender spoke for herself. “Helen, those dragons helped us gather information and decide the best locations. They’ve been very helpful.”

“
Very
helpful,” repeated Helen. “Right up until they dissolved or burnt the tokens.”

“Helen! We couldn’t have managed without them!”

“The point I’m making, Lavender, is that we didn’t manage
with
them. Have the dragons been helping us or hindering us?”

Sapphire rose to her clawed feet and roared. The centaurs on the terrace turned to look. Catesby sprang into the air, screaming and shrieking at the dragon. Tangaroa turned to Helen. “He’s angry that

Sapphire’s classmates seem to have betrayed his best friend, in case you’re not catching the subtleties of their argument.”

As Sapphire’s answering roars got louder, Helen said, “Neither of them are being that subtle! But you have human ears like me, Tangaroa. How did you learn to understand them?”

The blue loon shrugged his tattooed shoulders. “I don’t know. I’ve always been able to. All the blue men of the Minch can understand fabled beasts. You just have to listen.”

“That’s what Lavender says and I do listen, but I don’t understand.”

“All you’re missing right now are some rude words and insults they’ll both regret later…”

But the insults were broken off, as Catesby flew straight at the dragon’s face. Sapphire lashed round with her tail, and if it hadn’t been shorter than she expected, she would have knocked the phoenix out of the air. He swooped up and dived at her head. She stood on her hind legs grabbing at him with her front claws, her huge feet ripping the centaurs’ neat lawn.

Helen didn’t need words to understand this. She jumped up and raced over. Rona, Sylvie, Lee and Tangaroa joined her, and they all started shouting:

“Stop it!”

“Don’t hurt each other!”

“Calm down!”

But the shouts didn’t help anyone calm down.

Lavender hovered above their heads, and waved her wand in a circle.

And there was silence.

Helen felt her mouth moving and her throat straining as she yelled, “Calm down!” but no sound came out. The dragon’s mouth was open but she was silent too. All of them were shouting, but no one was making any noise.

Lavender whispered, “That’s better. Now, move away from each other. Catesby, perch on Rona’s shoulder. Sapphire, sit on your big blue bottom. Now!”

The dragon and the phoenix did as they were told. Everyone else stopped trying to shout.

“I’m cancelling the silence spell and I don’t want anyone shouting another word. We are friends and we
will stay friends, because Yann needs us together. Do you agree to keep quiet?”

Everyone nodded.

Lavender flicked her wand. Helen murmured “oh” and heard her own voice, very quietly. She smiled and sat down beside the quivering dragon.

Lavender said, “Let’s think about this calmly.”

After thinking calmly for a moment and failing to come up with a better plan, Helen said, “If this Great Dragon, her pupils or any other dragons are sabotaging our quests, we need to speak to her.”

Sapphire’s roar was such a clear NO that Helen flinched.

“We have to! We can search for healing tokens in every hill and waterfall, every cliff and footprint in Scotland, but if we’re going to be undermined by dragons every time we succeed, we have no chance of saving Yann. Either the Great Dragon is on our side, or she isn’t, and I want to know which before I try again. So I’m going to speak to her. Who’s coming with me?”

Helen wondered if everyone else was still held in the silence spell, because no one answered.

“Now I really miss Yann,” she said. “He wouldn’t be scared.”

“Yes, he would,” whispered Rona.

“If he
was
scared, he wouldn’t let it stop him. Who’s coming with me?”

Lee nodded. “Of course I’ll go with you. But only if you understand what you’re doing.”

“So someone explain, please.”

Lavender said, “The Great Dragon is older than Scotland. She was here before stone brochs or iron tools. She is the oldest fabled beast on the island.”

“Why is she called the Great Dragon?” Helen asked. “What’s so great about her?”

Rona said, “She’s great like you have a Great-Aunt Elsie. She is the ancestor dragon. Every dragon in Scotland is her direct descendant, and so are most dragons in the British Isles, and a large number of dragons in Scandinavia and Russia. She is their
great-great
… for many greats … grandmother. So they call her the Great Dragon. She’s old and sleeps for many months of the year, but she always teaches young dragons their dragonlore in the spring.”

“Whose side is she on?” Helen asked.

Rona frowned. “What do you mean, whose side?”

“Humans, or baddies, or goodies, or what?”

Everyone around her laughed.

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t think
you
know what you mean,” said Sylvie. “There are no sides in the fabled beast world. There is ambitious evil like the Master and gentle goodness like the unicorns. There are those who prey on humans and those who stay out of their way. But there isn’t a line with goodies on one side and baddies on the other. To be honest, Helen, if there was an uncrossable line, we’d be on one side and you’d be on the other.

“But the Great Dragon hovers above it all. She takes the long view. Though she’s never approved of humans, so she’s unlikely to talk to you.”

“Who will she talk to?” Helen looked at Sapphire. “Will you speak to her?”

Sapphire moaned and twitched her injured tail.

“Are you afraid of her?”

Sapphire slumped on the ground.

“Who will she talk to?” demanded Helen.

“She only speaks to those who earn a place in her presence,” Lavender said reluctantly.

“How do you earn that?”

“By answering riddles.”

Helen shook her head. “Riddles. Again.”

“If you get an answer right, you get to ask her a question. If you get an answer wrong, you get…” Lavender paused.

“I can guess. If you get the answer wrong, you get eaten.”

“We don’t have to see her,” said Rona. “We can just keep looking for tokens.”

Helen shook her head. “We can look for tokens, find them, fight off their guardians and hold them in our hands. Then we can see them destroyed by dragons. That’s a waste of time and Yann doesn’t have time. We need a token by sunset tonight. So I’m going to ask the Great Dragon why she’s trying to kill Yann. Who’s coming with me?”

They all stood up.

Even Sapphire, who had turned almost grey with fear.

And they flew to meet the Great Dragon.