The Emerald Quest (5 page)

Tia followed him down steps leading from the balcony to the courtyard. She rubbed her arm and wondered how such a huge, strong man could be so very scared.

Tryg showed Tia how to feed and clean out the animals. They snarled and growled when she approached them.
Maybe
, she thought,
they'll trust me once they're used to me.

She worked hard all afternoon and when she'd finished Tryg gave her two bronze coins. ‘I'll give you a silver mark at the end of the week if you carry on working well,' he said.

Tia was just about to thank him when the animals began to howl and roar. The wolves and leopards circled frantically in their cages and the bears pressed themselves against the walls as far away from the bars as possible.

‘SHE's coming!' Tryg said. ‘Stand to one side, keep your eyes down and whatever happens, don't say a word. Understand?'

Tia nodded. It must be Malindra. At long last Tia was going to see a High Witch. A High Witch… and her aunt!

M
alindra was very beautiful. She was tall and blonde-haired and held her proud head high. She wore a white dress covered by a thick green cloak edged with black-tipped ermine. A wolf pelt wound over her shoulders as a collar and the head hung down over her right shoulder.

Perched on her other shoulder was a jackdaw. He had a thin gold chain fastened to one leg. Malindra held the other end.

‘How are my animals?' Malindra asked Tryg.

The Beast Master bowed and said, ‘Well, Lady.'

The High Witch lifted her hand and Tia saw a flash of green. It was the jewel of power that enabled anyone who touched it to speak to animals.
Malindra had combined this power with her magic so that she could command creatures to do as she wished. She wore the emerald in a ring which she had twisted round and the stone lay in her palm.

She pointed at a snarling snow leopard wearing a heavy collar. ‘Be quiet!'

The leopard stopped growling and fell into a crouch.

‘Bring him to me, Tryg,' Malindra ordered and the Beast Master unlocked the cage, attached a chain to the collar and led the crawling animal to the High Witch.

‘Now bow down to me,' she said.

The leopard lowered his front legs until he was crouching with his head between his paws.

It was so undignified and sad that Tia couldn't help letting out a gasp of protest. Malindra whipped round. ‘Who are you?' she demanded.

‘I'm Nadya, Lady,' Tia said in a very small voice.

Malindra looked Tia up and down. ‘You have Trader clothes and a Trader name but you look more like a Tulayan. How is that?'

‘The Traders found me after a storm, Lady.' Tia furiously worked out her story as she went along. It might've been fun if she hadn't been so frightened. ‘My parents were killed and the Traders took me in.'

‘Where were you found?' Malindra asked, suddenly using the language of the Traders.

‘Harvin village, near to the town of Kulafoss,' Tia replied in Trader speech. She was very glad that her friends had taught her their language and told her tales of the towns and villages of Tulay.

Malindra tugged on the chain and the jackdaw looked down at Tia.

‘Shall we believe her, Loki?' she asked the bird. The jackdaw cawed. ‘Very well.' The witch turned her back on Tia and went to inspect the rest of the animals.

The Beast Master gave Tia a little push and said quietly, ‘Go now. The town gates will be locked soon and you don't want to get caught in here at night. I'll expect you first thing tomorrow.'

Tia slipped out of the castle and sprinted down the winding streets, thinking about Malindra as she ran. She touched the place where her locket lay under her shirt. Malindra didn't look like the picture of her mother. Just for a moment Tia was sure she could remember her mother's arms around her, making her feel safe and happy. It couldn't be – she was sister to Malindra who tormented animals for amusement and killed them for fur to decorate her clothes!

Tia ran faster. No wonder the dragons – and everyone else in Tulay – hated the High Witches. It made Tia ashamed to be related to them. By the time she reached the inn she was more determined than ever to take back the jewels, starting with her aunt Malindra's emerald.

She was very tired that night but after she'd eaten she took out her rune book and silver point pen and sketched some maps of the castle. It was so huge and the corridors were so complicated that Tia wondered if she would ever learn how to find her way around it.
But I must if I'm going to steal that emerald
, she thought as she settled down at last to go to sleep.

Tia worked hard at the menagerie, cleaning out the cages and feeding the animals. After a while they came to trust her and be soothed when she talked to them.

‘You're good with the animals but don't get too fond of them,' Tryg warned. ‘It'll only make it harder when SHE has them taken away.'

Tia didn't want to think about that. She thought instead about how to get the emerald back. She listened to what Tryg and the other servants said about Malindra. The witch had rooms on the third floor of the castle, one of them a laboratory where she worked her magic when the moon was full. When she made magic she took off the ring so that
it wouldn't be affected by the potions and poisons she used.

I could steal the emerald when Malindra's busy with magic
, Tia thought, until she learned that while Malindra worked at her magic, the great jewel was watched over by a guard who never slept. Now Tia couldn't work out how to steal the ring.

But then something happened that made her realise she had to do it soon.

Tia was sweeping out the courtyard when two men came in carrying a cage. In it were two frost-foxes. ‘Oi, Tryg,' one of the men yelled. ‘We got some new customers for you.'

It was the fur trappers that Tia had fought in the forest! She hid behind a stone column and watched as the men handed the cage to Tryg. The Beast Master took it and told them to collect their pay from Malindra's steward.

When the trappers had gone Tia rushed up to the frost-foxes. They were the little cubs Tia had helped escape. ‘Oh, you silly things,' she said. ‘Why didn't you run far away from those horrible men?'

‘You'd better put them in one of the cages next to the lynx,' Tryg told her.

Tia made the foxes as comfortable as she could. ‘I'll have to give you names,' Tia said. ‘You're Lalli,'
she told one, ‘and you're Torfi,' she said to the other.

‘I told you not to get fond of the animals,' Tryg said. ‘SHE wants these for their fur. SHE's going to be down here any minute, inspecting them for their pelts.'

At that moment the other animals began to roar and howl and pace up and down. Malindra was coming!

This time Tia knew what to do, and she stood respectfully to one side when the witch appeared, demanding to see the cubs. Tryg bowed and took her to the cage. Malindra's eyes lit up greedily.

‘Very nice. I'll add them to the fox furs I've already got and they'll make a beautiful border for my new cloak.' Her free hand stroked the grey wolf fur round her neck and the emerald glittered on her ring.

Tia had to bite her lip to stop herself from shouting out. Malindra didn't notice but Loki the jackdaw did. He peered at Tia from his perch on the witch's shoulder. Tia made herself calm and looked down at her feet. That jackdaw was dangerous – he might report her to Malindra if she wasn't very careful.

‘Keep the cubs for a week, Tryg. Get the fur in tip-top condition ready for my cloak,' the witch said.

Tryg nodded and Malindra left after one last greedy look at the little white cubs.

‘Tryg we can't let her do that!' Tia clutched at the Beast Master's arm.

‘We've got no choice.' Tryg pushed a broom into her hand. ‘Get back to the sweeping,' he said angrily.

Tia knew he was angry because he felt helpless against Malindra. Tia was angry too and brushed furiously to help get rid of her temper. She wasn't helpless – she was going to take that emerald so Malindra couldn't use it to control the animals!

Tia brushed and brushed until she felt calmer, and then she began to plan. By the time the day was over she knew what she had to do.

Back in her room at the inn, Tia got out her book and went over all the diagrams and maps she'd drawn. Tryg often sent her on errands and she'd been careful to remember everything she saw. She'd even delivered messages to Malindra's rooms.

There was only one way she could think of to get into the castle at night – she'd have to hide in the castle at the end of the day and then, when everything closed down for the night, she could creep to the third floor. Malindra made her magic under the light of the full moon. That was tomorrow night.

If Tia was going to save the fox cubs she had to go to Malindra's rooms tomorrow and find the emerald.

T
he castle was dark and full of shadows as Tia crept up the winding stone stairs to the third floor. She was using the servants' stairway and it was narrow and cold. The only light came from the moon shining through window slits in the walls.

Tia climbed steadily up till she reached a door that opened onto the third floor corridor. Flames in globes burned dimly, giving her just enough light to see her way. She stopped outside Malindra's living chambers, carefully opened the door, and slipped in.

The grand room she found herself in had a door set in each wall. To the right was Malindra's sleeping room, to the left was her dining room. And straight ahead was her magic laboratory. Sitting in front of
it was a lynx. Its tufted ears were pricked up in Tia's direction and its yellow eyes glinted.

Tia reached inside her jacket and drew out a packet. She crouched down, put the packet on the carpet and opened it. The lynx crept warily to the parcel and sniffed.

‘It's all right,' Tia whispered. ‘It's meat I saved from my dinner in case I met an animal like you.'

The lynx began to gobble the meat down. Tia stood up slowly. The lynx took no notice and carried on eating as though it was famished.

Tia darted to the closed door, opened it a crack and shivered as a gust of freezing air billowed through.

She was looking into a large room with a domed glass ceiling letting in a flood of moonlight. In the centre of the room stood a table covered in bottles and jars filled with liquids and powders in strange, murky colours.

In the middle of the table a large crystal bowl bubbled with an icy blue liquid. In front of it, with her back to Tia, was Malindra. Both her hands were plunged in the liquid.

On Tia's right was an alcove lit by a strange green glow.
Is that from the emerald?
she wondered.

She looked all round for the guard who kept watch on the jewel but there was no sign of him. Tia thought
of Lalli and Torfi.
I have to do this for them
, she told herself firmly and, keeping her eyes on Malindra, she slipped through the door and slid round the wall to the alcove.