Behind the Sorcerer's Cloak (27 page)

Round and round they climbed, losing track of time, unable to see ahead because of the curves, fumbling with feet and hands, taking breaks when Mr. Cubbon's panting became too loud.

“Daylight!” yelled Holly.

One by one, they emerged from the shadows into the large circular room halfway up the tower. Sunlight slanting through slits in the walls illuminated the wooden door. The rope ladder lay at its base.

“Ready to face the gulls, Holly?”

Holly tightened her helmet and nodded.

“Then give us a minute.”

Owen squatted by the door and opened his sack.

He took out plastic bags full of smooth pebbles and two slingshots and laid them ready.

“You're going to kill the gulls? Kill the Shades?” Holly was shocked.

Owen shook his head, “I don't think that's possible. They're magical. So I'm using Earth Magic to stun them. Then Myrddin and the others can figure out what to do with them.”

Mr. Cubbon produced a bag full of green plants. “Tuck Bollan Bane in one pocket and rowan in the other,” he said. Next he handed out garlic cloves. “Rub these on the bottom of them shoes.” He rummaged again in the sack and found a plastic spray bottle full of water. “Charmed this, I did.” He sprayed both the children and the pebbles. “Fetched the water meself from Spooyt Vane, the magic white spout. Now if that lot doesn't keep the nasties from melding I dunno what will.” He grinned. “And I got more charms for backup.”

“Thank you, Mr. Cubbon,” said Holly. She patted his arm and took a deep breath. “Now or never.”

Together they lifted the thick wooden bar and eased the door open.

They peered through.

The castle was closed and deserted. The evening sun cast long shadows from the ruined walls over the grass. Nothing stirred other than the circling gulls.

Holly eyed them nervously.

Owen pulled the door wide open.

Mr. Cubbon tossed down the rope ladder and helped Holly over the edge.

Owen sat in the doorway, slingshot poised. “Gull number one approaching,” he warned.

Holly tensed. Keeping her face to the wall, she concentrated on descending, rung by unsteady rung.

She felt the displacement of air as the gull swooped toward her.

THWACK
. It fell to the ground stunned. The first of Owen's stones had found its mark.

“Well done, boy.”

They watched carefully. The Shade possessing the gull didn't seem to emerge.

“I knew charmed water would do the trick,” said Mr. Cubbon.

“Two gulls at two o'clock,” called Owen.

THWACK. THWACK.
Subdued cheers.

“There's a group coming in together,” warned Mr. Cubbon.

He was right. Three gulls slammed Holly with wings and beaks. Another fell to the ground, courtesy of the sharpshooters.

Holly doggedly felt for another rung on the swaying ladder.

“You're nearly down,” Owen called to her.

Holly touched the grass as another group of gulls attacked, each from a different direction. She huddled against the wall. The attack was bad, but the helmet saved her.

“They're getting smart,” said Owen.

Mr. Cubbon snorted and picked one off as it flew away.

“Five down. That's a start.” Owen stuffed his pockets full of charmed pebbles and half swung, half slid down the ladder. “I'll cover Holly, if you hold the fort, Mr. Cubbon.”

“That I will, I will.” Mr. Cubbon sat in the middle of the doorway, visor shining, legs dangling, slingshot armed. “I've not had this much fun in years.” He tossed down one of the sacks. “Don't forget this.”

Owen thrust the sack at Holly. “Go on, leg it.”

They ran the gauntlet of the gulls, down the grassy slope, around a battlement, through an archway to the archaeologists' hut. One gull fell to Mr. Cubbon, but the rest were too far away for his shots to reach.

“It's locked. I should have known.” Holly thumped on the door in frustration.

Owen pulled out his Swiss pocketknife and opened the spike as the gulls mounted another attack. He passed it to Holly. “You do it. I'll shoot.”

She picked frantically at the lock. It wouldn't give.

Gulls bombarded the children in swift formation.

Owen, ducking as well as shooting, missed them all.

He changed his tactics. He stared without flinching until the first gull was almost upon them. Then he let fly.

“Bull's-eye,” he crowed and ducked.

He couldn't reload fast enough. He and Holly suffered the next few assaults cowering in the doorway.

“I'll try that again. Yeah. Eight down!”

Holly rattled the padlock in frustration.

“Cool it, Sis.”

Taking deep breaths and clearing her mind of the fear and distractions, Holly held the lock in both hands, willing it to open. She envisaged the catch inside and mentally asked it to move.

The hasp sprang open.

Unlatching the door she leapt inside. Owen grabbed the sack and followed, slamming the door behind him.

“Only three psycho gulls left,” he said.

Holly was riveted by the beads.

Owen pulled two small prickly branches from Mr. Cubbon's sack. He laid one on the window ledge, opened the door and slid one across the threshold.

“What are they?” said Holly without looking up.

“Holly boughs,” replied Owen. “Mr. Cubbon said to put them around the Lady's grave. He knows a lot of Earth Magic. He says they're Manx charms.”

Holly turned her head, eyes wide. “That's tree magic: ‘Holly boughs strewn at entrances keep dark magic at bay.' The Mother Tree told me that in the second adventure. I'd forgotten. Thanks.”

“Do you need to be on your own now?”

“Yes, please,” said Holly softly.

“Holler if you need me.” Owen slipped outside with the sack.

He sat in the doorway, picking off the psycho gulls, one by one. As the last one hit the dust, he left the doorway and ran until he could see Mr. Cubbon. He waved.

Mr. Cubbon returned the wave.

“We got the lot,” Owen bellowed.

“I'll be headin' back then.”

Owen watched as the old fisherman pushed the door of the round tower almost shut, wedging a rowan twig in the crack so it didn't latch.

The castle was silent and full of beauty. The tips of the ruined walls were touched with gold sunlight; the shadows lay in interesting patterns.

Owen worked silently, laying the holly boughs, rowan twigs and Bollan Bane around Breesha's grave.

Manannan's gulls soared peacefully on the air currents, occasionally diving into the sparking water of the bay.

A splashing of oars and laughter reached him from the river estuary.

The sun sank lower and the quality of light gradually changed.

There was a heaviness, a darkness, a feeling of fear in the air.

The laughter from the boats on the estuary took on a cruel edge and dissolved into yells and insults.

Owen looked up. It was way before sunset. Darkness shouldn't be here yet.

The sun was a dull orange globe with the hint of a bite out of one side.

Owen held his hands up to his eyes to cut out the brightness. He squinted through the tiny gaps between his fingers.

The bite grew as he watched.

Doona's words rang in his ears. “Even you, the Wise Ones, will not be able to stop tonight's dark shadow. No one can.”

Doona was causing an eclipse of the sun.

The terror had begun.

Holly switched on the lamp and stared at the tray full of beads. They were utterly beautiful.

A curl of fright fluttered. The black bead wasn't there. Then she spotted it, off to one side in a container.

She pulled the horse hair from her pocket. She knew how the necklace started. Picking up the large amber disk, she threaded it, and with a sigh of relief slid the jet black bead next to it. Dark and Light were together again.

It was like picking up fries fresh from the oven. The beads had a magical heat, an electricity all their own, that prickled on her fingers and palms.

She stopped and pulled out a stool. She needed to sit and concentrate.

Holly laid her hands above the hair and beads already strung as though she were blessing them. She closed her eyes and tried to recall her dream, to freeze the image when Breesha's necklace had spilled out of Mona's ripped tunic. That was the moment the glowing beads had seared into her memory.

Her heart pounded, her hands shook.

She could feel the magic. The beads were so powerful that she wasn't sure she should touch them.

She pulled her trembling hands away.

If not you, then who?

The voice was as soft as a breath of wind.

“Is that you, Lady?”

Silence.

Holly worked to center herself.

From her pockets she pulled a tea light and a match folder, a rock from the beach, a phial of water and a feather. She placed them around the tray.

Singing softly she lit the candle.

“Earth support me,
Air surround me,
Fire enlighten me,
Water cleanse me.”

She sang it over and over, rocking slightly back and forth. At last she closed her eyes, held her hands over the beads and waited.

The vision came.

Her fingers moved of their own accord, deftly toward a silver bead, eagerly toward the malachite. Red glass slipped against turquoise, a gold disk against a pale blue crystal. Her fingers worked first on one side of the amber disk, then on the other. The necklace grew.

The vision in her head changed.

Holly saw the moment when Sigurd held the necklace up before placing it around Breesha's neck.

Her fingers flew faster. She must finish the back of the necklace before the vision vanished.

White glass, brown clay, rose quartz, topaz, rough lapis lazuli, silky tiger's eye, green glass, cobalt and a pure gold nugget.

She knotted the ends.

Breathless, she opened her eyes and looked at the fabulous links that lay across her palms.

“The Lady holds the entire universe around her neck.” Was that what Myrddin had said?

Now she, Holly, held it in her hands.

The scent of roses filled the air, but darkness thickened in the corner of the hut. A growl rumbled.

Myrddin and Adam leaned over the bridge rail, staring down at the River Nebb. Both were distracted.

Myrddin was mindspeaking to Equus and Ava.

Adam, his hand in his pocket, was trying to ignore his throbbing finger.

He was in a black depression.

He thought he'd done his best. He thought he'd outwitted the Dark Being. Instead she had outwitted him.

Once again he'd done everything wrong.

Holly and Owen couldn't be with him because of the Shade, and now the ring was trying to force him to take the beads.

His finger ached.

He tried to distract himself by staring at a group of men boarding the Viking longboats to practice rowing. They needed practice. The enormous oars were hard to handle and there was much splashing and good-natured hurling of insults as the ships floated downstream.