The Palace Library (13 page)

He
looked round.  “We must warn the crew of this magic.  It’ll frighten
them otherwise.  In the meantime, we use your compass and sail back east.”

Eloise
slipped back into the room.  She looked anxious.  Eleanor asked where
she had been but she just shook her head, pointed out of the door and shrugged
her shoulders in a meaningless way.

Night
fell just after five o’clock.  The waves were calm and their prayers
seemed to be answered.  The sky was crystal clear and the stars
twinkled.  The moon was bright too, so the chart, the books and the watch
could be laid out again on the makeshift compass box and seen clearly. 
Then Grace opened the star book.  Suddenly it was like looking at the sky
with double vision.  Grace and the Captain smiled at each other.  The
Captain shouted orders for a new course.   The great tiller swung
over.  Almost imperceptibly, the real stars and the projected stars
started to move together.  As the stars and the watch moved on, they held
their course on the same compass setting, getting closer and closer to Hell’s
Bay.

It
was just after 9 pm when the lookout at the top of the mast shouted. 
“Daybreak.  The Sun rises!”

“Relieve
that man,” shouted the Captain.  “It cannot be daybreak.”  Then he
turned to the gathering on the poop deck.  “He’s been confused by your
magic,” he said to the children. And he laughed with a worried look on his
face.

But
Harry stopped him.  “No. He isn’t confused. Remember my book said:
Look
for a false dawn at night.
  This must be it.  He must be seeing
the glow from the volcano.  That’s what it meant.  We’re nearly
there.”

“Then
we’ll rest here tonight and recover ourselves,” said the Captain.  “I for
one wish to approach the edge of Hell after the real daybreak, when we can see
the rocks and face the dangers in the light.”

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

The
children all woke to the sound of drums.  The deck was absolutely level
and the children leapt up to go and see what was happening.  The children
wrapped their coats and cloaks around them quickly, and went out onto the
deck.  The beautiful crisp clear evening had led to heavy frosts.  On
the forward mast, the sail hung loosely, but was stiff with frost.  The
sea around about was flat with barely a ripple.  Although it was freezing,
without wind on their faces, no one felt that cold.

 The
crew was short of men after losing so many to the storm.  But in spite of
that, the Captain had enough men to row with 15 oars on each side.

“Look,”
said Harry, pointing to the front.  There, a single plume of smoke rose
high into the sky, untouched by wind until it was as tall as a
skyscraper.  Even then the smoke just drifted gently to the west. 
“There’s our dragons’ lair.  Well done Grace for getting us here.” 

Behind
them, Edwin had manned the drums.  He was too short to row, although
plenty strong enough.  Instead, he had been put in charge of the rhythm of
the boat.  But when the children spotted him, all they could see was his
hair peeking over the top of the huge drums, even though he stood on a
platform.  The girls giggled uncontrollably at the sight, but Harry just
about contained himself and said:  “What do you think of your furnace,
Edwin?”

There
was a slight change in the rhythm of the drums, but all Edwin managed to say
was “Humph!” before the beat became normal again.

The
Captain came towards them.  “It will take almost all of the morning to
reach the island, and then I’ll need your help.  You’ll need to sit on the
bowsprit and look into the water for rocks.  There will be a man with a
line and a lead - a long rope we use to measure the depth - but you must shout
out if you see rocks.  The water will be clear enough, I hope.”

“What’s
the bowsprit,” asked Grace, sensibly enough, since none of them knew. 

“It’s
where our own dragon is fitted, the figurehead at the bow you sat on before the
storm.  Now, go and have your breakfast so you’re ready.”

The
change in the weather was good for everyone and the children had slept all
night.  Now they were refreshed for the next stage of the adventure. 
They gathered in the chart room for breakfast, where Harry and Grace noticed,
slightly guiltily, that the Captain’s clothes had been cleared away. 
Eloise indicated she would get their food for them and went off to the stores,
while the children chatted and talked more about the Prophecy.

Harry
quoted from the Prophecy: 

“Hell’s
Bay will sound with clashing tones.”

“I
think that
bit’s
easy now,” said Eleanor. 
“Edwin is going to forge a new Sword and have you seen all his hammers and
tools?  I bet he makes a lot of noise.  Or maybe it’s the drums.”

“What
worries me is how we’re going to get the diamond the Queen talked about that
the dragons are hoarding.  The Prophecy doesn’t even mention a diamond but
just talks about an oily stone.  It’s a bit different,” added Harry, “and
it seems we can’t kill the dragons.  Do they sleep at all?  Can we
tip-toe into their cave?”

None
of them had answers to that yet.

“Read
the bit about Dragons’ Bane,” said Eleanor.  “I’ve been thinking about how
we might use it.  If we can find it.”

“By
Dragons’ Bane, the children three

Will
dull and lull the putrid lair,

To
pluck from him the oily stone

By
breathing out the vapoured air.”

They
were silent.  Then Grace said, “Ask your book, Harry.”

So
Harry opened up an empty page and asked the question, “How do we get into the
dragons’ lair?”

The
tiny gothic script wrote in the centre of the page:

“Think
like a beekeeper.”
 
That certainly made them all stop and think.

“I
had a bee sting last year,” said Eleanor. “Do you remember?  We stumbled
across their nest in the garden and it swelled up on my arm.  It really
hurt and then itched for days.”

“Well,
I think dragons might sting just a little bit more,” answered Harry,
shuddering.

“Well
yes,” said Eleanor.  “But don’t you remember?  Mummy and Daddy had
the nest moved.  The man came in his silly clothes.  That big white
hat with the net.”

Grace
always felt a bit forlorn when Harry and Eleanor talked about their parents,
but she tried not to show it.  “Where are you going with this?”

 Eleanor
was excited.  “I think I understand it.  He had a machine that
produced smoke and all the bees got sleepy so he could go near them.  But
he didn’t have to kill the bees.  He smoked them out.  It’s what we
have to do with the dragons:  we must
dull and lull the putrid lair…
by breathing out the vapoured air
.  We have to burn Dragons’ Bane to
make smoke, don’t you see?”

“I
think so,” said Harry, concerned enough at the thought of even going near
sleepy bees, let alone dragons.  “But won’t it send us to sleep too?”

“I
don’t think it will.  We’ve already smelt Dragons’ Bane in the
carriage.  We hated the smell, but it didn’t make us sleep, did it? 
In fact, it woke us up.”

“You’re
right,” said Harry.  “Now we need to work out how to make it all
work.  Where’s Eloise anyway?  I’m hungry.  She can’t have spent
this long just getting breakfast.”

Eleanor
got up to look, but suddenly Eloise came bustling in and they devoured all the
food quickly, ready for the day ahead.

On
the deck, the islands were much closer.  The children were sent ahead to
sit on the figurehead and slowly the ship edged closer and closer to their
destination.  Once or twice, the children shouted for rocks and they
suddenly swerved as the tiller was moved across.  The man with the line
swung it over his head so that it splashed into the water far ahead of
them.  The lead weight made it sink down to the bottom.  As the boat
moved over it, he could measure the depth before doing the whole thing
again.  In doing this, the poor sailor became thoroughly soaked and must
have been freezing, but he never complained.  The seabed came closer and
closer to the bottom of the boat.  Edwin slowed the drums and they
anchored, waiting briefly whilst the gig, a shallow rowing boat, was put into
the water to explore further.  Harry wished that he had his binoculars,
but it was too bad.  He could picture them hanging on the hook on the back
of his door in his bedroom at Great Uncle Jasper’s house.

Then
Edwin was calling.  They gathered together to go down into the boat to
explore.

“Is
it safe?” asked Grace.  Edwin looked at her sharply.  “Of course it
isn’t safe.  There be dragons here, but dragons sleep during the
day.  Unless you go into their lair and stir them up like bees, they won’t
know we’re here until it’s dark.  By then, we’ll hide aboard the boat and
stay silent until dawn so they don’t notice us.”

“My
tools are packed in the boat.  We must go and find the volcanic flow for
my furnace.  Then I’ll forge anew the Sword of State with the shattered
parts of Ascalon!”  Edwin glowed with the pride thinking of the work he
was going to have to do.  “Come on!”

As
they edged into the bay, Harry talked to Edwin about what they had worked out
and he nodded, listening carefully.  “I can forge the Sword,” said Edwin,
“but you must find me that diamond for the handle.”

Harry
asked, “But we don’t understand.  The Queen and you are both talking about
diamonds, but the Prophecy talks about an oily stone.  Surely they are
different?”

“Diamonds
are rare things, Harry,” replied Edwin.  “Diamonds were made when the
earth was formed and the heat was greater than even the volcano’s lava we’ll
find today.  I’ve only seen a handful of these small stones in my
life.  They are precious, but once I went to the King’s jeweller to fetch
a diamond for the dagger your sister wears and I picked up a pretty
pebble.  It was much larger than the shiny diamonds in the workshop, but
still only the size of my thumb.  It never glittered like a diamond, but
it had a gleam, an oily glimmer that caught my eye.  I asked the jeweller
what it was and he replied, ‘That, Master Edwin, is the largest diamond I’ve
ever had in this workshop and I must cut it.  Put it down now, for it’s
worth more than both our lives.’  That is your oily stone.  I watched
that master of his craft cut that diamond into what you and I understand, but
before his magic was worked upon it, it just looked like an oily stone.  A
pretty pebble, mind you, but an oily stone.  That’s what you’ll be looking
for.  And if the king of the dragons is hoarding it, it will be neither
small nor easy to get hold of.”

Everyone
looked with wonder at the island they were approaching.  There was a long
beach.  It was not golden sand, but a beach of grey ash, interrupted by
lengthy almost imperceptibly slow streams of orange lava, which changed in
colour and turned into dark brown rock where they hit the sea.  At these
points, the sea steamed like a kettle that had just boiled.  There was no
greenery at all at the water’s edge, but Eleanor shouted, “Look up!  Look
up at the hill!”

The
hill was like an extraordinary stripy baggy jumper; the sort of jumper that
might have been sent to one of the children by a great aunt and which they
would have refused to wear except by force.  Orange stripes of lava ran
downwards. Each of these was edged with grey ash and brown rock where nothing
grew.  Then in between were great wide stripes of purple flowers, growing
in a place where nothing should grow at all. 

“It’s
Dragons’ Bane,” said Eleanor.  “We’ve found it.  We’re on the right
track, at last!”

A
sailor jumped over the bow as they neared the beach. He turned and
grinned.  “It’s warm,” he said, “beautifully warm.”  Harry noticed it
was the sailor who had been so wet with the measuring line and was glad to
think that he at least might be warmed up.

Then
activity broke out everywhere.  The Captain directed a team to go with
Eleanor and Grace to gather up the flowers, as many as possible.  Sophie
followed gently with them, gingerly picking her way across the land making sure
her sensitive paws did not become burned by the hot ash.  Eloise followed
carrying a large basket, which she placed on her head.

Another
team helped Edwin unpack his tools and lug them towards the stream of lava so that
he could begin to forge the Sword.  The lava would be his furnace to melt
and forge the pig iron that would be turned into a blade and handle for the new
Sword of State.  There was no need to gather firewood, which was good, for
nothing grew on that island except the purple flowers.  He nursed the
plain metal box that held the splinters from Ascalon.  When he opened it,
here at the foot of the dragon’s volcano, he saw each them glowed more fiercely
than he had ever seen before.

Once
orders were given by the Captain, he and Harry boarded the gig again with the
remaining sailors left to row it. 

Their
mission was the most dangerous.  They must find the dragons’ lair.