Maze Running and other Magical Missions (5 page)

The faery climbed elegantly up the dragon’s shoulder. “Helen, if I wanted to impress my king and my people with your amazing music, I would just steal you as you are and find you a violin later.” He reached down to pull her up.

Helen looked at his pale hand, then his shining smile, and she wondered how much she was prepared to risk to save Yann.

Helen hesitated, then remembered Yann’s silent heart. She didn’t take the faery’s helping hand, but she did clamber onto the dragon where she sat in front of Lee, behind Sapphire’s long neck.

As Sapphire sprang into the air, Lee yelled in Helen’s ear, “You’ve got a map. Do you have a plan too?”

“Get into the hollow hill, sneak about not waking anyone up, find the scabbard, then get out.”

“That’s it? How do we get in? And once we’re in, what if they wake up?”

Helen shrugged. She hadn’t thought that far yet.

Lee laughed. “If we get caught, you could pretend to be a damsel in distress. Apparently Arthur was a soft touch for that sort of thing.”

As Sapphire flew over moors and fields, Helen thought about the violent knights in her gran’s book and about the trail of dead men, women and fabled beasts they’d left behind them. “I don’t think a damsel in distress would be safe from their swords, especially if she was trying to steal from them.”

“You’re probably right. So let’s not wake them up. And Sapphire should stay well away from the hill.
A dragon would be in even more danger from those knights than thieves like us.”

Helen had been thinking the same thing, but she was suspicious when Lee suggested it.

“Let’s see when we get there,” she muttered.

When they flew over the Eildons, it was obvious in the clear moonlight that there was nowhere for Sapphire to hide near the Lucken Howe. There was no tree cover, just fields of cows, sheep and ploughed earth on the lower slopes, and open moorland higher up.

Helen frowned. “There’s a band of trees round that reservoir at the bottom of the hill. You’ll have to hide there, Sapphire. You can’t come any closer, where they could see you if they wake up, because they really didn’t like dragons and they were very efficient at killing them.”

Sapphire landed on the widest strip of grass between the reservoir and the trees. Helen leapt down and Lee jumped beside her, his green cloak glowing around him.

Helen walked round to Sapphire’s head. “It will take less than an hour for us to climb up there, so if we aren’t back in two hours, please come and look for us.”

“We need a signal,” said Lee. “To say we’re safe and she can come up for us, or we’re in danger and need a quick getaway. Or in case you suddenly get cold feet about heading underground with me, even without your violin.”

Sapphire growled at him, but he said smoothly, “I’m not joking about it, dragon. I’m not joking about
anything. Yann needs us to work together, and Helen is nervous. I’m trying to reassure her.”

Helen sighed. “I’m not reassured, Lee. The more you talk about my violin, the more suspicious I get.”

He held up his hands. “Sorry. If you can’t trust me, stay here with Sapphire. My only goal tonight is to find the token for Yann. I can search for the scabbard by myself, if you’d be more comfortable with that.”

Helen wasn’t convinced. She knew Lee could easily twist words to hide his intentions. But she also knew he was Yann’s friend.

So she shook her head. “You’re an expert with faery weapons, Lee, but Arthur’s sword is iron. You won’t be able to touch it. Only a human can take the sword from the scabbard. We need to go together.”

She turned to Sapphire, “I’ll flash my torch three times from the summit if we need you. Otherwise, just hide here.”

Sapphire rumbled and Lee laughed. “If she gets bored, she’ll snack on the sheep in the nearest field.”

“No, don’t eat the sheep!” said Helen. “It’s lambing season soon, so sheep are off the menu at the moment.”

Sapphire blew a sulky smoke ring, then lay down on the grass. Helen patted her scaly foreleg and set off towards the hills.

As she walked along the side of the reservoir, on a root-ridged path between tall pine trees, she asked Lee, “Why
are
you doing this?”

“Yann saved my life. I must repay that debt.”

“But did your life really need saving? The old
legends call faeries immortal. Can you actually die?”

Lee put his hand on the hilt of his polished bronze sword. “Of course I can die. A sword in the heart will stop me breathing as fast as it will stop you. We’re called immortal because of how long we can live, not because we can’t die.”

Helen glanced at his face. He didn’t look much older than her, but perhaps he wasn’t a boy at all. “How old are you?”

“I’m thirteen, the same age as Yann. We age the same way as humans for the first twenty or
twenty-five
years. Then when we reach our full adult height, weight and strength, we stop ageing, or we age so slowly it’s hardly noticeable.”

“But you’re the king’s champion, his senior warrior. How have you managed that so fast?”

“We have to use our first few years well,” said Lee, “because once faeries stop changing physically, we find it hard to change our minds and our skills too. I need to reach the highest possible position while I’m still young, because whoever I am when I stop growing might be who I’ll stay forever.”

“You’re already champion. What else can you possibly want to be?”

“My ambition is not as low as being the Queen’s party planner, so your musical skills are not my priority.” He smiled at her. “All faeries are addicted to music, so I’m tempted when I hear you play, but providing fiddlers for the faeries’ feasts is not my career plan.”

“What is?” asked Helen.

“Questing. Fighting. Not stealing fiddlers.”

Helen looked at his open, handsome, sincere face, and laughed. “I have no idea if I believe you, but we have to go into that hollow hill together to save Yann, so I suppose I’d better trust you.”

As they walked on, the path curved away from the water and towards a fence on their right. Lee stepped to the left, putting Helen between his body and the wire.

Helen shook her head. “You’re not really cut out for quests in Scotland, Lee, there’s far too much iron and steel here.”

“I can manage. I’ll just keep my distance.” But the glow from his cloak was fading, so she switched her torch on.

They reached a small bridge made from wooden planks laid over a boggy burn. As Helen crossed it, she saw a layer of chicken wire stretched over the planks to prevent feet slipping on wet wood.

She looked back at Lee. He had stopped.

“It’s very thin wire. Just run over it.”

But he shook his head, his face getting paler, then took a few steps to his left and squelched through the mud and moss instead.

Helen walked off through the trees. Once Lee had caught up with her, she said, “I’ve been thinking. If Arthur wakes up, the damsel in distress thing won’t work, so perhaps we should appeal to his honour.”

“How?”

“We could ask him politely for the scabbard. As a favour or a lordly gift. Explain that this brave centaur
was injured in an evil minotaur’s trap while saving a baby unicorn. Would that appeal to Arthur’s noble instincts?”

Lee shook his head. “Arthur and his knights only cared about humans. They hunted and killed fabled beasts. He wouldn’t think that a centaur saving a unicorn from a minotaur was his concern.”

Helen frowned. “So plan A: don’t wake them up. Plan B: if they do wake up, describe Yann as a brave warrior who saved a baby, and don’t mention all the hooves involved.”

Lee laughed. “That sounds perfect!”

The path was curving further from the water, towards a stone wall and wooden stile, then up to the fields and hills. Lee stopped again. “The fence is still there, behind the wall. And that stile doesn’t even go right over the wire.”

The stile was built of two wooden steps with a high pole as a handhold, and it cleared the wall, but not the wire. There were three strands of barbed wire strung across the top step.

“That’s not very safe,” said Helen. “Little kids like Nicola would hurt themselves crossing that.”

“So will I,” whispered Lee. “I’ll have to go back to Sapphire and find another way up.”

“Lee, these hills are surrounded by fields. We have to cross a fence at some point.” Helen climbed onto the stile and, with her thick hiking-boot sole, stomped down on the three strands of wire, pinning them to the wooden step. “Can you jump over that?”

“I can’t. Getting close to iron is like running
headfirst into a wall. I lose all strength. I can handle the pain, but not the weakness. I just can’t do it.”

“Yann could die if we don’t find that scabbard, Lee. You don’t have to touch the wire, you just have to jump over it. Show a bit of backbone, faery boy. Or I’ll tackle Arthur on my own.”

Lee bared his teeth and hissed in a breath. Helen couldn’t tell if he was terrified, or angry, or both. “Don’t try to shame me into this, human girl. I will do it for Yann, not to prove anything to you. Stand against the post to give me room and don’t let go of that wire.”

He took two steps back, then ran at the stile.

He landed with one foot on the bottom step, then leapt elegantly over the whole top step, clearing the wire by half a metre or more. But he stumbled when he landed, fell awkwardly and rolled onto the muddy ground.

Helen jumped down to join him, letting the wire spring back up. She saw his clothes fade from glowing velvet and embroidered silk to dull cotton and wool.

“Are you alright? Lee?” He was curled up and groaning. Helen put her hand on his back. His clothes started to shimmer and glow again. Helen sighed with relief. She didn’t want any more friends unconscious and magically injured.

Lee sat up and ran muddy fingers through his blond hair, which looked as shiny as ever once he’d taken his hands away. He coughed. “Don’t tell Yann about that.”

Helen held out a hand to pull him up. “If we save
Yann’s life, I don’t think admitting to a wee fall in the mud is going to worry you.”

They trudged up the field towards the hills outlined against the smooth grey sky. Once Lee’s breathing and colour had returned to normal, Helen asked, “Can’t your people find a cure for that iron allergy?”

“You’d better hope not, Helen, because this weakness is the only thing stopping my people from using our magic and glamour to overrun your world.”

As they squelched through ankle-deep mud, which shone almost as red as the faery’s boots in Helen’s torchlight, Lee said, “How are we going to open this door?”

“You’re the magical being, so that’s your job. I’ll do fences, you do doors.”

“But this isn’t a faery door. It was closed by human magic, not faery glamour.”

“Humans don’t use magic.”

“Some of you do,” Lee insisted. “Merlin, Ceridwen, Taliesin, Morgana, Michael Scott, they all mastered magic. Arthur’s human wizards closed this door, so perhaps human magic can open it.”

“But how?”

“You should have brought your fiddle, my human bard. That’s your strongest magic.”

Helen shook her head. “Canonbie Dick got in, and he didn’t play music.”

They reached the top of the field. Helen opened a wooden gate in a stone wall, and strode onto the open hillside above.

The glow of Lee’s cloak and her torchlight helped 
them find their footing on the slope, but Helen could only see the hill ahead because of the high yellow moon.

She hadn’t needed the map, because the Lucken Howe was so obvious. On the smooth curved side of the Eildons, it was a jutting knoll with a rocky summit.

“Never mind how we open the door,” muttered Helen. “How do we work out which bit it is? The Lucken Howe is bigger than I thought. We could search all night for a door. We could be searching for longer than Yann’s weak heart has left.”

Helen stared up at the dark hill. “So where’s the door?”

“I’ve no idea,” said Lee. “But it has to be somewhere horses can get to and get through.”

“Good thinking. Can I look without your glamour glow in my eyes?”

Helen switched her torch off, stepped ahead of Lee and let her eyes adjust to the moonlight. “There.” She pointed to a slab of rock under the summit. “That outcrop is almost a small cliff. It’s high enough and wide enough. It even looks like a door.”

“It would be impossible to get horses up there. It’s too steep.”

“I think it’s the most likely place.” Helen started to scramble up the hill.

“You’re having to use your hands to pull yourself up,” Lee shouted as he followed her. “Horses can’t do that. Canonbie Dick did
not
lead his horses up here.”

“They could have come up in zigzags; that’s what Yann would do.” Helen put her hand on something rounded and slightly squishy. “Yuck! Watch out, Lee. Horses might not climb up here, but sheep use it as a toilet!” She wiped the heel of her hand on the heather and kept climbing.

She stopped just before the summit. There was a high jagged rock to her left, a jumble of fallen rocks in the middle and a wide wall of rock to her right.

Helen ran her hand over the wall. The rock seemed grey in the moonlight, but when she looked closely in torchlight it was deep red underneath papery grey lichen. There were no handles, no hinges, no buttons or levers. No way in.

Helen muttered, “Open sesame!” Nothing happened. “Do you know any magic words, Lee?”

“Lots. But none for opening human wizards’ doors.”

“Do you think there’s a password?”

“Do we know enough about Arthur to guess?”

“I’ll have a go.” Helen spoke to the rock, in a slow serious voice: “Merlin. Excalibur. Pendragon. Guinevere. Lancelot? Possibly not … Camelot. Avalon.” But the rock stayed solid and rocky, and she’d run out of Arthur-lore already.

Helen sat at the base of the door-shaped rock and started whistling a bored sort of waiting tune. After a few bars, she leant back and prodded the rock.

Lee laughed. “What are you doing?”

“This is what happens in films. You give up and lean against something, then it opens and you get a big surprise. Lean against that bit there, like you’ve given up.”

Lee smiled and leant against the rock, looking far more convincingly relaxed than Helen did.

The rocks didn’t move.

“Maybe you’re right,” said Helen. “Maybe this 
isn’t the door. Let’s look at the rest of the hill.”

She climbed round the jutting rock to the summit of the Lucken Howe, then stood on the highest boulder, just above the flat rock she’d failed to open. It wasn’t easy to see the lower slopes in the moonlight, so she jumped off the summit and walked a few steps down a ridge which led towards the larger Eildons. Lee followed her.

“Maybe we should have brought that grumpy dappled friend of Yann’s to test the best routes for hooves,” Helen said. “But I think they could have led the horses round the foot of the hill, then up the gentler slope of this ridge, and round to the
door-shaped
rock face.”

Lee nodded reluctantly. “But they could have got to anywhere on the hill from this ridge. Let’s see if there are any other options.”

Helen turned to her left, but Lee called, “Don’t go widdershins; it can attract ill fortune. Walk sunwise.” So they circled clockwise, following a sheep path which cut round the hill halfway up.

They didn’t find any other big rocks or vertical faces. Just the sloping hillside, covered with grass, heather and moss, sheep and rabbit droppings, and a few small boulders.

“Nothing else looks like a door,” Helen said when they’d walked all the way round.

“You’re right,” said Lee. “This is the best option.”

So they stood either side of the wall of rock. Helen sighed. “Your faery magic is no use and I don’t have any magic at all.”

“Not when you’re too much of a wimp to get your fiddle out in front of me.”

“My music is not magic,” she said firmly. “If we can’t use magic, we’ll have to use…”

“Force?” Lee rattled his weapons.

“Bronze against stone? No, let’s use our brains. Let’s think about the story. Canonbie Dick got in.”

“You think we should come back with two black horses and a bearded man?”

“Take this seriously, Lee.”

“I am taking it seriously. You’re the one who’s refusing to use your one true power…”

Helen interrupted. “But it wasn’t Canonbie Dick who opened it. It was the man who brought him here: Thomas Rhymer. So it might be faery magic after all.”

“Thomas wasn’t a faery. He was just the Faery Queen’s consort.”

“Yes, and when she was finished with him, she gave him a really dodgy gift. He could only tell the truth. That was his true power. A faery power. I wonder if that will open this door. Some truth … from a faery.”

“Truth?” said Lee. “Truth like … em … I was really scared when I jumped over that wire?”

They looked at the rock wall. It didn’t do anything.

Helen said, “Maybe that’s not hard enough truth.”

“I don’t find it easy to admit being scared.”

“But you’re not telling me anything I don’t know. I know you’re scared of iron. Let’s try more painful, dangerous truth.”

Neither of them spoke for a long moment.

Then Helen said, “Lee, tell me this truth. Do you
plan to take me from my home and my family to play music for you in the faeries’ lands?”

Lee looked away. He looked at his clean boots. At Helen’s muddy boots. At the rock, at his swords, then back at Helen.

He put his hand on the rock. “For Yann, I will speak the truth. Yes. Yes, I do plan to take you from your home to play music for my people. Your music is the most powerful that I’ve ever heard, that our King or Queen have ever heard. The faery who brings your talent to our lands will gain far more influence than a swift sword can ever bring. So yes, I do plan to steal you, take you to our lands and keep you there for hundreds of years, knowing that if you ever come back to your own world, you will crumble into dust.”

The rock creaked.

Lee put his other hand on the rock and spoke clearly. “And I haven’t taken you yet, Helen Strang, not because I think it would be wrong; not because I know you’d miss your parents, your sister and your friends. It’s simply because if I stole you, then I could never come back to this Scotland, because I’d be afraid of the revenge your friends would take.”

The rock rumbled.

“I want to steal you, because I’m selfish and ambitious; I haven’t stolen you, because I’m a coward. That’s the truth, and I’m not proud of it.”

The rock slid open.

Helen stared at Lee. He didn’t look at her; he stared into the black hole in the hillside.

Helen whispered, “I need to ask one more question.
Does this door really lead to a hollow hill in this world? Or does it lead to your lands?”

“This is not a faery door, Helen. You will be safe in here.” Then he smiled. A thin, tight smile. “Well, you’ll be safe from me. Neither of us will be safe from your human knights.”

He took a step in.

Helen hesitated. “Was that the truth?”

“You won’t know unless you step inside.” Lee walked into the hill.

Helen followed him.

Once she was inside, the rock door crashed shut. The slam echoed into the deep cold darkness. Lee and Helen looked at each other in the small pool of light they’d brought in with them. They didn’t speak. Then Helen stepped in front of Lee, so her torch lit the way ahead and his cloak lit the tunnel behind them. And she walked forward.

Helen knew she should be pleased they’d found the key to open the door, to lead them to the healing token that could save Yann’s life. But she was too shocked by Lee’s answer, too upset because she knew she could never trust him again.

She had hoped he would answer “no” and the door would open, proving that he was telling the truth. But the truth he had told wasn’t what she wanted to hear. Or was it?

In the soft echo of their footsteps, she heard her mum’s voice: “Don’t you have any proper homework to do?” and she wondered what answer she’d really been hoping Lee would give.

The stone tunnel was wide, with a cobbled floor, smooth walls and a high arched roof. The floor sloped downwards, deep into the ground, then it curved left, flattened out and headed for the larger Eildons.

When the noise of their footsteps changed to a broader echo, Lee drew his sword and moved in front of Helen.

They walked forward into a stable, stalls cut into the hill on either side. Each stall had a trough for water, hooks for hay and grooves in the floor worn by heavy hooves.

Helen stepped into the nearest stall. The trough was dry. Wisps of straw made dirty yellow lines on the floor. She picked one up and it crumbled in her fingers. Crumbled into dust, like a human returning from the faeries’ parties.

She swallowed her sudden panic and continued down the long tunnel, checking every stall. But they were all cold, dusty and empty.

At the end of the stalls, the tunnel opened out into a dark chamber. Helen put her fingers over the torch beam so it didn’t shine so brightly, and walked forward.

There was a smell, a warmth, a feeling of life, and Helen wondered if the horses from the stable were now in here.

She heard Lee whisper in her ear, “Pull back, now.”

They both took a few paces back, and he stepped with her into the last stall. “Helen. We have to work together. We have to trust each other. Can you still do that?”

She nodded. “Yes. For Yann.”

“Good. Turn off your light. We’ll use my more subtle glow to find Arthur.”

Helen switched off her torch and tried to think about the scabbard. “Let’s walk straight towards the middle of the hollow hill. Arthur will be in the centre, won’t he?”

“I’m not sure. He had a round table so none of his knights sat above or below anyone else. Perhaps they’re all sleeping round the sides in a circle. Anyway, how will we know which one is Arthur?”

Helen shrugged. “He’ll have the fanciest armour and fanciest clothing. You’re the expert on overdressing, so I’m sure you’ll recognise him.”

Lee frowned and opened his mouth to respond, but Helen continued, “The simplest plan is to walk straight across, and if we don’t find him, then when we get to the other side, we split up and come back here round opposite walls, searching as we go.”

“No,” said Lee firmly. “We do not split up. We stay together.”

“Why? Are you planning to kidnap me on the way home?”

“No.” He tried to smile. “No, I just need you to stamp down barbed wire on our way back. So we stay together. We can go straight across, and if we don’t find him, we’ll walk round the perimeter together. When we find him, you take the sword out, and I’ll untie or cut the scabbard free.”

Helen nodded. “Are you ready?”

“Always.”

They moved out of the stable into the hollow hill.

It was impossible to tell how big the chamber was. The blackness was so absolute, outside the gentle glow of Lee’s faery light, that the walls could be as close as an arm’s length or as far as a stone’s throw.

They walked slowly side by side. The light shone far enough ahead that they wouldn’t bump into anything and nothing could approach them without being seen. But anyone awake would see them outlined in the darkness.

They kept moving forward.

The floor was paved with massive flagstones, worn smooth and clear of dust.

They moved deeper into the hill.

A dark shape appeared ahead of them.

Helen and Lee moved closer together. Lee swirled his cloak outwards, bouncing a curve of light off the shape.

It was a large block of stone, with a crumpled heap of fabric on top.

“Arthur’s bed,” Helen whispered.

She leant even closer to Lee. “Take one more step so I can see clearly, then stay out of the way while I remove the sword.”

Lee squeezed her arm and whispered back, “Be careful, Helen. He’s not a courtly king, he’s a violent warrior.”

They took one more step together, then Lee stopped and Helen went on alone.

The bed was cut from a chunk of red stone and covered by a cloak: not smooth golden silk like Arthur
wore in pictures, but knobbly brown wool.

Helen stepped even nearer.

If Arthur was under there, he was huge. She couldn’t tell which end was the head and which the feet. But the cloak was moving softly and regularly, as someone underneath breathed in and out. Arthur was asleep.

Helen grasped the edge of the cloak, lifted it a few centimetres, then peered underneath to see if the sword was there.

But the cloak kept moving upwards.

The figure on the bed was sitting up.

Helen scrambled backwards.

Suddenly there was a blaze of light behind the bed, the cloak flew into the air and a tall figure leapt off the bed.

Helen crashed into Lee.

The figure in front of her shouted, “You are not Arthur!”

Helen replied, as calmly as she could, “You’re not Arthur either!”