The Poisons of Caux: The Hollow Bettle (Book I) (29 page)

et us return now for a moment to the wind—that rascal. How much trouble had it caused over the years it blew across the land? Although the season was almost behind the long-suffering citizens of Caux, the Winds had but one more mischievous act to accomplish.

The particular gust in question was nothing but a small upstart where it began, upon the mountain. But as it traveled down the valley to Templar, it gathered speed, and by the time it whipped across the Marcel—where Gudgeon had resumed his windowside vigil—it had become a rather muscular wind. It was enough of a force to knock down some of the sturdier street stalls and send a cascade of toadstools rolling about the Knox, little polka-dot tumble-weeds.

But it was not done.

The wind whipped through the narrow cobbled streets of the city and kicked dust and debris into small spiraling swirls in its wake. Bolstered and chaotic, it rose again into the sky, where it was soon to end its bullying in one final, dastardly strike.

But before this particular wind readied itself in the skies above the castle, Ivy and Flux below, in the kitchen of the king, were both being treated to their first view of the treasured land of Pimcaux. A golden light poured over them, making Ivy look very much like a priceless statue but somehow doing very little to enrich Flux.

Sorrel was reminded what a great pleasure it was to be departing Caux, to start anew. But first he must rise again to his two feet (he would hold the brat personally responsible if there was any permanent damage) and propel himself past that awful woman’s red skirts. He would sadly miss not having the bettle boar as dinner.

Clothilde was standing at the threshold—in the Doorway itself—holding out her arm to Ivy, imploring the girl to join her. Flux took particular pleasure in noting that Clothilde clutched her side, as if in some amount of pain, and that her normally ivory complexion had discolored to an ashen tone. Her skirts, too, were filthy and tattered. He had never before known her to show signs of such weakness, and her suffering was something Flux planned on savoring when he found the time.

“Red is definitely not your color,” Flux quipped.

“Don’t listen to him, Ivy!” Clothilde begged, ignoring Flux. “You must trust me. I promise, I’ll explain everything to you—just hurry! We must go!”

“So she hasn’t told you about your father after all.” Flux relished this bit of information. He always did enjoy being the bearer of bad news.

Ivy was immobile. Pimcaux was pulling on her. What she saw through the Doorway, although a mere scrap of a vision, was stealing her heart as it had done to so many others before. But Flux was distracting her. He was moving, too, she was vaguely aware, rising onto his knees and pressing the rest of his scrawny body up with his hands, slowly.

“Curious, the subject hasn’t come up.” He looked peppily from woman to girl, enjoying himself.

“Ivy, his words are poison—do not listen to him!”

“Well, I’ll have the pleasure of telling the child, then, if you will not.”

Sorrel Flux turned to his former charge (if indeed Ivy could be considered that, as he never really did much of anything at the mill house to help her) and opened his mouth, allowing his tongue to wet his dry lips. But suddenly Sorrel Flux’s face—and shoulders, and entire robe of marigolds—drooped. The flowers withered away in an instant, petals dropping, dried and crumbling, at his feet. For behind Ivy, Flux saw the one man who still held
power over him, the unmistakable silhouette of his former employer.

Ivy turned to see Vidal Verjouce standing at the entrance to the kitchen. And at the sight of Verjouce, Flux cowered—much like the hounds earlier. Gone was all the pleasure he was taking just minutes ago in Ivy’s misfortunes.

“Verjouce!”
he yelped.

Vidal Verjouce was indeed a sight to behold.

And with Verjouce came the upstart wind—very much as if he had conjured it up himself, for his dark purposes. It blew wickedly through his hair and threw his robes against his long body. He stood tall, and brandished his cane in the air.

But the wind did not stop at Verjouce’s hair.

It blew past Ivy and Poppy and, as if Verjouce himself had sent it directly, assaulted Sorrel Flux, lifting him off of the ground entirely and slamming him against the Doorway’s frame. For the second time in his measly life, he felt his breath leave him.

But his former employer, with the wind at his bidding, had inadvertently done him a great favor. He was now within the open Doorway and passage to Pimcaux, and this realization caused his trembling to subside somewhat.

“A pity to miss the family reunion,” he rasped, pushing roughly past Clothilde and stepping further into safety.

“Ivy! Ivy—” Clothilde called desperately from the Doorway. “You must come at once!”

And then Sorrel and Clothilde were gone, the wind causing its final damage—slamming the Doorway shut before Ivy could do anything to stop it.

She stood stunned, the golden image of Pimcaux burning itself into her memory and, as it turned out, into her eyes.

vy ran to the Doorway, but it was too late—the ancient magic used to make it had sealed it tight. To her horror, the writing upon the bearing stone beneath her feet was fading before her eyes.

She turned slowly to face the wicked Director. In the absence of the Wind, the room had taken on an unnatural stillness.

“It is time for me to do what I should have done eleven years ago—had your mother not interfered.” Verjouce smiled sinisterly. His hand gripped the enormous bettle at the head of his cane, and he slowly raised it, pointing the sharp tip at her. With the softest click, a hidden barb emerged from the cane’s end—the reason behind Sorrel Flux’s panic. In a flash, the Director advanced across the remainder of the room, and Ivy had but a moment to feel the comfort of her own bettle as it beat its steady rhythm in her fist. His face betrayed his
satisfaction—his eyes were nothing but hollow pits, and up close now, Ivy felt a wave of revulsion overtake her.

“How strange—so much suffering brought upon me by someone so small.” He reared on her with a deadly grimace. Before him stood not a child, but the source of his disfigurement and pain. “You—the source of my suffering! The Noble Child!” He spat. “Because of you I was blinded—betrayed by that wretched Prophecy. Betrayed by you. Behold my face, child, these scars. It is as if your very hands plucked out my eyes! But I can see—yes, I can see. I see the Prophecy has failed, and you along with it. I see your doom.” His stale breath reached her, and she gulped for air. Ivy thought of her uncle. She hadn’t finished what she came here to do.

But something quite unbelievable was happening in the palm of Ivy’s hand, and although Verjouce was beginning to detail in sinister fashion the particulars of Ivy’s demise, she barely paid him any mind.

Her bettle. She had practically snatched it from Flux’s grasp at her uncle’s tavern. It had been recovered from the icy depths of the mountains, returning to her in the mouth of a bettle boar. It had lit the way at times of darkness. Ivy’s bettle, flawed and hollow, was jumping and glowing in her hand with a magic of its own. In a fit of brightness—Ivy needed to shield her eyes with her other hand—the red bettle jerked and pulsed. And jerked and pulsed. Along the line of the central flaw, a sparkling light charged from one end to the other, and back again.

And then, with one giant lunge, it broke.

Or more aptly,
broke open
.

From inside the jewel emerged the most unusual and beautiful of creatures she had ever before seen. It stood for a moment on her palm, pausing. And then, to Ivy’s complete and astonished delight, it unfolded its red transparent wings, glowing like little stained-glass windows. The creature filled her entire hand and fanned its wings tentatively. A spark of light shimmered still from the bettle, brighter now, coming from the creature’s very center.

Ivy’s bettle, it seemed, had become something not unlike an exquisite and astounding butterfly.

Although hers was the first, it was far and wide not the only such hatchling.

Vidal Verjouce was stopped in his tracks as the grip of his cane wobbled and cracked and flew away from his grasp. With the handle shattered, the cane clattered uselessly to the kitchen floor, leaving the blind man without aid. The caged bettle around his neck escaped its filigree binds and bobbed in the air above his head, flickering, joining Ivy’s. Batting the air beside his head and feeling about for his bewitched cane, the Director suddenly and for once looked like the blind man he was. A howl escaped his snarling lips.

Ivy ran around him as quickly as she could and out into the Gray Gardens.

But what Gardens they were! No longer contained by the dark magic that deprived them of color, they shone with the brightest palette of the many shades of bettles that had gathered there, like a tangle of stringed lights. They flickered and beat their wings, and still more came.

They congregated on the fountain and infused color back into the silver olive tree. The gray rosebushes popped to life more vivid than any rose before, with an unearthly scent to match. Upon the queen’s favorite tree, the poisoned apples withered and died, dropping to the ground like hollow husks.

Inside the castle, as Queen Nightshade still slept beneath a cushion of oakmoss, the crystal bettles in her crown jumped and sputtered to life, flying their maiden voyage around the forested room. In the final panel of the magic tapestries, hundreds of colored specks began their own hatching process, and soon the dining room was alive with dancing light.

In fact, all of Caux was experiencing this unusual phenomenon.

The vast stores of bettles at the Tasters’ Guild were all
evaporating, to the great dismay of the subrectors in charge of their safekeeping.

The king’s hoards all hatched.

And in the mines—high above all the land, the miners, too, were confounded by their jewels’ transformation.

The night sky was filled with their luminosity as they streamed out of the mountaintops and down the Craggy Burls, like a giant rainbowed river. All eyes of Templar were on the mountains and the dark sky, and everyone below was struck motionless by the glorious light—more magical and thrilling than any fireworks display.

The following morning, it was generally agreed that the glittering bettles provided the most beautiful sunrise ever before witnessed. And heralded by this sunrise, a new day arrived upon Caux and, with it, loud whisperings that the ancient Prophecy—the near-forgotten one, that spoke of a Noble Child—had finally begun.

n the days that followed, Peps and Gudgeon spread the word that the dark reign of the Nightshades was finally over, and a great sigh of relief spread first across the ancient capital city and then quickly throughout the land. As if emerging from a long and fitful sleep, the people of Caux turned again to kindness.

The celebration Queen Nightshade had been planning took place after all, with one big difference. There was to be no execution of Cecil Manx, Master Apotheopath—or anyone, for that matter. Ever again. The holiday once celebrated by the Good King Verdigris, and tainted by the Nightshades, had regained its earlier charms.

On the evening of the Festival, the softest of breezes blew through the old city. The streets of Templar were laid with fragrant boughs that released a deep and refreshing scent. Candles glittered in goblets on every available ledge, and the
waters of the Marcel flowed with twinkling lanterns. Citizens of Templar came to make merry and celebrate the end of the Nightshades’ regime.

“Ivy—what happened to your hair?”

Upon first seeing Ivy, Rowan—in fact, everyone—exclaimed at the sight of her. Her blond hair had taken on an usual hue of pure spun gold, which extended to her eyes, where metallic flecks caught the light like gold dust.

“I think it happened when I looked through the Doorway,” Ivy confided in Rowan.

“What did you see?” Rowan whispered in awe. “What was Pimcaux like?”

Ivy shrugged.

“Nothing but fields of yellow flowers as far as the eye could see.” She would remember the stolen glimpse for the rest of her life.

“That’s all?” Rowan couldn’t hide the disappointment in his voice. He wasn’t sure exactly what he’d been expecting, but surely something more spectacular than that.

“Rowan,” Ivy continued. “They were cinquefoils.”

Rowan was quiet with the realization of how much magic that meant.

The view of the Templar festivities from Peps’s window was spectacular, and not to be outdone, Peps was host to a fine
celebration of his own. Ivy was joyfully gathered with Axle, Cecil, and Peps while Rowan caught her up on the goings-on when she had followed Flux to the Doorway.

Axle was using his pocket-sized pincers, Rowan explained, to begin to free Cecil from his binds, but the ridiculous knot held fast. The Outrider shook off his confusion and proceeded to do his master’s bidding and very soon was upon Ivy’s uncle. Just then the last—and nearly forgotten—member of the party made his appearance.

With a parting of the air Shoo arrived, to the elation of his troubled friends. He flew at the Outrider and, as if the old bird had been waiting for this moment since their last meeting, threw himself at the task of blinding the Guild’s servant. The old crow caused the Outrider to retreat in a panic, and stumbling, he fell into a patch of stinging nettles, howling in agony. From there he lurched into the newly formed bog, where he met his end by way of a giant pitcher plant—the kind that prefers meat—that had since made a home for itself there.

Ivy’s eyes widened at the thought of being slowly digested alive in the belly of the man-eating plant, but Rowan continued with his story.

Familiar with Ivy’s sleeping potion, Cecil and Axle revived their friends at the table with the antidote they found growing in a convenient clump of weeds.

“Simple parsley,” confided Axle, smiling. “A common
antidote for many poisons. That’s why you’ll often find a sprig of it on your dinner plate!”

Rowan, upon waking, was quite unsurprised to realize he had failed to detect the nightman’s skullcap.

“I am sorry I had to slip you that sleeping potion.” Ivy sighed.

“No problem.” He grinned at Ivy, continuing.

Peps at first had been somewhat alarmed and disoriented to see his brother Axle beside him but, after dusting off the lichen growing from his chin, quickly recovered his sense of hospitality.

With the help of Trindle and several of his regulars—the restaurateur had been notified by Gudgeon of the Outrider’s arrival and brazenly followed him to the palace—the group secured the remainder of the party. The royal family, along with the Diarist, were stowed temporarily in the basement amid the heaps of Verdigris relics.

Everyone was quite happy to return to the trestleman’s quarters under the bridge and reassure Gudgeon that indeed all was well. After the initial surprise of meeting Peps’s reclusive brother had faded, Gudgeon happily brought everyone a restorative cup of tea and a hearty breakfast to follow.

Rowan smiled, having finished his story.

“But where is Shoo?” Ivy looked around, eager to see her old friend.

The group fell silent.

“When the tapestry withdrew, he went with it,” Cecil explained.

“What? Went where?”

“It’s hard to say, exactly. Into the tapestry itself. It was woven with some potent Verdigris magic, you know. You can see tomorrow—I’ll take you there. He is perched upon the shoulder of the young lady in the last of the panels. He looks, I might add, quite pleased with himself.”

“As he should be,” Axle agreed.

“Shoo. I’d hardly be here, or anywhere, without him,” Ivy realized. She felt a sudden sadness, and her mind drifted to Pimcaux. The thought plagued her that Sorrel Flux, that awful yellow man, was somewhere there, spreading disaster in his wake. He was there, and she was not. Verjouce was right, she had failed the Prophecy.

The party was getting louder, and Peps was beaming and enjoying himself immensely. He would tell the tale of the castle and the Nightshades’ downfall a hundredfold that night—not bothered at all that he had slept through most of it.

Axle, Cecil, and the two children moved to the relative quiet beside the window.

“You are meant to go to Pimcaux, Ivy. And you will get there somehow,” came Cecil’s thoughtful voice.

“But how? The Doorway is sealed again. I saw the bearing stone fade away.”

They watched the candles float by beneath them on the Marcel’s surface. Then, before her, where she stood at Peps’s mullioned window, Ivy heard a faint tapping. Against the old thickened glass, fluttering in the night, was the small red form of a butterfly.

“Ivy, I’m sure—isn’t that your bettle?” Rowan exclaimed as it flew in the open casement.

Ivy smiled and watched as it elegantly stretched its magnificent wings.

“Your mother gave you that bettle,” Cecil said softly. “She was conflicted, but in the end, it was you she cared most about.”

Ivy thought of Clothilde then, the last glimpse she had of her.

Axle cleared his throat. “When your mother was born, Ivy, there was great hope that it was she who would save Caux. I think she wished too hard for this legacy, your legacy, and lost herself in it.”

“Flux was going to tell me about my father,” Ivy said quietly.

“Flux? His words are spiteful and made only to injure,” Axle growled.

The red bettle flew in a lullaby of flight, its soft glow bobbing and weaving. Mesmerized, Ivy followed its curious path to the darkened rear wing of Peps’s vast apartments. They were beside the west pier, where the Knox was anchored to the bedrock. There, beside an old cornerstone more pale and ancient than the rock surrounding it, the bettle settled down, beaming brighter as it fanned its wings.

They all peered in, the empty stone somehow familiar.

“What’s that?” Rowan asked. “Is that a bearing stone?”

“There’s nothing,” Ivy said, running her hand over it.

“Look!” Rowan would not be discouraged.

And sure enough, as the four stared at the blank face, a faint script—a mere scratching on the stone’s surface—began detailing itself as if written by an invisible hand. Axle became quite serious.

“In the writings of King Verdigris there exists talk of another Door.” He hesitated, catching Cecil’s eye. “But it is vague, dismissed as a rumor. The pages are missing, sadly. Torn from the binding long ago, and most likely lost or destroyed.”

“Another door to Pimcaux!” Ivy’s heart began beating furiously.

Rowan was silent, remembering his vivid experience with Verdigris’s writings—not entirely pleasant.

“So it is written.”

They watched breathlessly as the invisible engraver completed the last flourish on the bearing stone.

“‘From darksome abbey where betrayal breeds, a second chance perhaps succeeds,’” Axle recited in a hushed tone.

“Does this mean what I think?” Ivy asked excitedly.

“Yes,” Cecil said darkly. “There is a back door.”

“But where? Do you know? Shouldn’t we go at once?” The renewed hope Ivy was feeling was tinged with trepidation at her uncle’s tone.

Cecil and Axle looked at each other, and a grim expression overtook their features.

“It is very dangerous, I am afraid.”

“It doesn’t matter—” Ivy was just thankful that she was being given a second chance.

“And there is the small matter of the resumption of your studies—”

“Uncle Cecil!”

“Ivy, there are great and potent forces determined to see the Prophecy fail. Your path as a healer is your salvation. You need this knowledge to combat what lies ahead of you.”

“Er, do you know where this back door is?” Rowan asked. “It just says 373 knarls.” He had a sudden bad feeling in his stomach.

“It’s no place for Ivy,” Cecil muttered.

“I shall be her guide,” Axle said resolutely. “The thirteenth and final edition of my book is done. I wonder … There’s probably great need for a
Field Guide to Pimcaux
!”

Ivy thought for a moment.

“And Rowan can come, too?”

“But of course—we shall need him the most.”

“Why?” Rowan was pleased at this news but confused, too, since his expertise in most things was questionable.

“Because the back door is in Rocamadour.”