Doorways (A Book of Vampires, Werewolves & Black Magic) (The Doorways Trilogy - Book One) (15 page)

Chapter 26

The blistering sun sat at its highest point above the
Onyx Sea and its rays sparkled on the waves like glitter. William rolled Neanna to the furthest corner of the rocky overhang and tightened the cloak about her. Content that she was well covered from the light of the sun, William slumped against the rocky wall and looked at Zach through his thick lenses. Although William was tall, muscular and not only looked older but seemed wiser than Zach, like an older brother, he now looked smaller, lost – fragile somehow.

‘My
dad was an ironsmith by trade. The best in the whole of Endra. His father was one before him and it was hoped that one day I would follow them both in the family business.

‘On the same day every year the Queen would summon my
dad and granddad to the Splinter. Knowing how skilled a craftsman they were, she entrusted them to repair the seals on the box that contained the heart of Endra.’

‘Why did the seals need to be repaired?’ Zach asked, spinning the chamber of one of his
crossbows with his thumb.

‘They call whatever is in the box the heart of Endra. But one thing’s for sure, it’s powerful and after
a time it erodes the box. The Queen was fearful that its power may escape from it. Therefore once a year, if it needed repairing or not, my dad and granddad would be entrusted to check its seals and carry out any repairs. My granddad was also a gifted locksmith, and it would be his task to cut a new key and lock for the box. There was only ever to be the one key, the Queen forbid a second to be made.’

Holstering his crossbow
, Zach lent forward and said, ‘so where do you fit into all of this?’

‘I shouldn’t have been a part of this at all. Just my
dad and granddad were trusted to enter the Splinter and work on the box. But every year I pleaded with my dad to take me with him and every year, keeping his promise to the Queen, he refused. So one year, I snuck aboard my dad’s stagecoach, and without him knowing, I went to the Splinter.’

William toyed with the hair that sprouted from his chin. He remembered how hungry he had become whilst hiding under the pile of rough sacks in the rear of the carriage for the three days and nights it had taken to cross the wastelands to the Splinter.

He had hidden there as the smell of roasted Bloat meat had wafted from the campfire his dad had made. On the second night, William’s stomach had growled so loud with hunger, he feared that his father and his granddad would discover him.

William lay beneath the sacks and wiped the saliva from his mouth with the back of his hands. Closing his eyes he imagined what could be inside the box that his family had been entrusted to repair for so many years. He remembered how on his
dad’s return from previous trips he had hung around his giant legs and begged to know what was inside.

‘Please
dad, tell me. What did you see inside the box?’

Ruffling up his hair with his huge hands, Warden would look down at him with his big brown eyes and smile
d. ‘The Heart of Endra....or so they say.’

‘But was does it
look
like?’ William would howl.

‘Your grand
dad and me don’t get to open the box, the queen forbids it. I mend any of the boxes seals and your grandfather fits a new lock and key. Then we come home and forget all about it.’

‘But don’t you want to know what’s inside the box?’ William pestered.

Warden hunkered down so he was at William’s height and looked into his pale green eyes.

‘Sometimes in life you don’t always get to find out what’s inside the box. Just like you don’t always get answers to all your questions’

Then, saying not another word about it, Warden would get up and unpacked the stagecoach.

William lay in the dark at the back of the carriage and dreamt of what could be inside the box.

On the third day the Stagecoach began to slow
, and poking his head from beneath the sacks, William peered through the coaches windows as it passed through the enormous gates of the Splinter. The gates towered so far into the sky that he lost sight of them amongst the clouds. The Splinter was surrounded by a complex maze of white cobbled streets, which were lined with a thousand different kinds of shops, selling everything from the most delicious looking candy to succulent loins of meat. William was amazed to discover that there appeared to be a secret city built behind the gates of the Splinter.

Warden and
William’s granddad guided the stagecoach deeper into this city and towards the Splinter itself. They passed a thriving market where traders sold mouth-watering looking fruit, plants, animals and medicines. There were street-side conjures, dancers and bands playing the sweetest of music.

Some of the people that milled around the market place were dressed in clothes of the like William had never seen before. They wore short-sleeved shirts with odd looking words across the front. Some of these read
‘Nike’
,
‘
I

New York’
and others
‘Adidas’
. Their legs were covered in a blue material similar to his own but different – somehow cheaper. On their feet they wore flimsy looking shoes that had rubber soles and motifs on the sides.

As William stared wide-eyed from his hiding place
, he got the overwhelming feeling that this was a happy place – a place of peace and tranquillity.

Warden steered the stagecoach away from the main plaza and up a long winding strip to the rear of the Splinter. The vehicle came to a halt outside a large set of wooden doors. William listened from the dark as someone approached the stagecoach.

‘Has it been a year already since I last saw you?’ a voice asked.

Pressing one eye to a gap in the carriage window, William saw a short, squat man standing and looking up at Warden.

‘That it has Captain Bom,’ Warden replied and stuck out one giant hand.

Captain Bom stood on tiptoe and took what appeared to be a piece of parchment paper from Warden. Unrolling it, he squinted at the paper from beneath two fluffy white eyebrows that hung over his eyes like a set of curtains.

‘This seems to be all in order. Signed in her majesty’s own hand,’ Captain Bom said, handing back the signed letter of authority that gave Warden and his father access to the box.

Captain Bom’s chain mail armour clanked as he made his way to the double set of doors and forced them open. The stagecoach rolled forward on its giant wheels and entered the Splinter.

‘Do you not want to search the carriage?’ Granddad Weaver croaked.

Hearing this, William’s heart began to race and he buried himself beneath the rough woven sacks.

‘You Weavers have been coming here on the same day for more years than I can care to remember and you’ve never so much as caused me a problem. There is not a more trustworthy race than the Noxas in the whole of Endra. I don’t need to search your carriage.’

‘Thank you Captain Bom. We will be just a few hours,’ Warden said, steering the carriage inside the Splinter.

‘I’ll be just outside the door should you need anything,’ Captain Bom said, sliding the doors shut and settling down on the grass. He was looking forward to a few hours quiet meditation over a pipe full of Tep-leaves.

From his hiding place, William could hear his dad and granddad climb from the stagecoach. The Rafter horses that had pulled them all the way from the Howling Forests kicked at the cobbled floor of the workshop with their pointed hooves. Granddad Weaver stroked their long black manes and they neighed with contentment.

Warden went to the middle of the workshop and there, just like it had been left for them many times before, sat the box. It had been placed on a small wooden table which was littered with candles that glowed within tall glass vases. With reverence, Warden removed the plain linen cloth that had been placed over it. He looked down at the box and stroked his long brown beard.

‘It looks okay dad,’ Warden said. ‘The work we carried out last year seems to have held.’

Grand
dad Weaver shuffled towards the table, his greying hair hanging in wispy lengths from his head, face and hands. He eyed the box without touching it.

‘That it does,’ he said. ‘Best check it again, just to make sure.’ 

Warden disappeared into the shadows of the workshop and returned with a box of odd looking tools. Granddad Weaver picked up a key that had been left next to the box on the table and held it before him.
William peered from the darkness of the carriage at the key that dangled from a chain in the shimmering candlelight.

To his disappointment the key looked very ordinary. William had been expecting something more intricate, more cunning in its design than the two teethed key his grand
dad now held.

Warden took a deep breath and looked at his father.

‘Remove the lock dad and I shall make a start on the box,’ he said.

Stooping over the table and with a trembling hand, Grand
dad Weaver placed the key into the lock. He twisted it several times up and down and from left to right. There was a gentle hissing sound as if the lock were releasing a jet of steam and then it snapped open. Granddad Weaver removed the lock and the unbreakable chain that encompassed the box.

Away from the table, in the opposite corner of the room to where the stagecoach was parked, stood a vat of what looked like boiling molten lava. William spied as his Grand
dad threw the lock and the key into the vat, destroying them both forever. Without saying a word Granddad Weaver looked at his son and nodded. He then shuffled to a nearby work bench and set about making a new lock and key for the box.

For what seemed like an eternity, Warden and his father worked in silence as they carried out their repairs. William watched, absorbing everything that they did. It was while he sat in the dark and spied on them that the box seemed to call to him. Not in words but in
feelings
. For every moment that he sat there, the box feet from him, the urge to leap from his hiding place and throw open the lid became unbearable. At first he was able to flit his eyes between his granddad and dad and then back to the box. But the longer he sat there, the more his eyes were drawn to the box, and the longer his eyes looked at the box, the harder it became to tear them away from it. Something else was happening to William. It wasn’t just that he was unable to take his gaze from the box, his feelings towards his dad and granddad had begun to change too.

‘Why should they be entrusted to touch the box?’ he seethed. ‘What makes them so special?’

He watched his dad turn the box in his giant hands and William became consumed with jealousy.

‘Look at him holding it! If he can touch it, then why shouldn’t I?’ William hissed under his breath.

Granddad went to the box and held the new lock that he had made against it to make sure that it was a perfect fit.

‘Look at that stupid old fool,’ William spat. ‘That box isn’t meant to be locked. It should be open for all to see inside.’

From his hiding place, he waited for his granddad and dad to move away from the box, as when they did, he decided he was going to open it. With his heart racing in his chest like the hooves of the Rafter horses, William pulled down on the handle of the carriage door and waited to pounce. With his eyes fixed on his prize, his dad and granddad moved away as they returned to their work benches.

William flung open the carriage door and lunged across the workshop to the box. Grinning like a murderer in a mug-shot, he snatched up the box with his long fingers and cradled it to his chest. Then, without any hesitation, William wrenched open the lid. 

He looked into the box and whatever it was that he saw inside delighted and enthralled him. His face became a mask of pleasure as he looked upon what was inside.

‘It’s beautiful!’ he howled.
‘It’s sooo beautiful!’

Hearing his son’s voice, Warden wheeled round to see him standing in the middle of the workshop with the box open in his hands. Light shone from within the box and William’s face looked as if it had been sprayed with moonlight.

‘No you fool!’
Warden roared, bounding towards his son.

William continued to stare transfixed at the beautiful vision inside the box. Then something changed. Something within the box scared him and he began to shake with fear.

‘No!’ William screamed, his throat tearing raw.
‘No!’

The light from the box that bathed his face was no longer cool like moonlight, but intense and scorching like the rays from a hot sun.

William felt his eyes begin to grow warm in their sockets then start to boil as if on fire. His pupils began to smoulder as flames licked from his tear ducts. Then the spell had been broken, the box had been snatched from him and he fell to the rough floor of the workshop. Warden held the box which he had taken from his son. The light poured from it like a fountain that was flowing uphill. The light splashed his face, and just like his son moments before, he became mesmerised by it.