The Stones of Ravenglass (18 page)

The others crowded on to the roof behind her. They pranced over the stones, happy to see the blue sky again, amazed to find three rainbows. Elfrieda and the wizard stayed below.

‘It’s a sign, isn’t it?’ said Karli. ‘It means we’re going to be safe now, and perhaps Thorkil will get better.’

Timoken wasn’t sure, but he felt that a few moments of hope couldn’t do any harm.

‘They’ll be back,’ muttered Eri, when Timoken returned. ‘The soldiers. Curiosity is a powerful force. Their overlord will want to know all about this place. He’ll send a message to the king, and there’ll be an army out here . . .’

‘But, Eri . . .’ Timoken began.

‘Hush!’ the wizard said irritably. ‘They won’t see anything, of course, because by then I will have finished the wall.’

‘We’ll help,’ said Timoken, noticing the wizard’s sagging shoulders.

‘Naturally.’ Eri looked at the motionless form beneath the red cloak. ‘He’s very still. I wish I could have done more.’

‘Your herbs stemmed the bleeding, and kept him alive,’ said Timoken.

‘For how long?’ Eri poked the ashes in the cooking pot.

‘We can’t tell yet. But have hope, Eri. There are three rainbows outside.’

‘Hmm. You did that, Timoken. Don’t tell me that you didn’t.’

Timoken couldn’t deny it. He wished Elfrieda could have seen the rainbows, but she had fallen asleep beside her brother. ‘The forest is safe now,’ he said. ‘I’m going to gather food.’

Eri nodded, but he didn’t move. ‘I’ll stay with these two,’ he said.

The others were eager to explore and followed Timoken down the stony mound and into the trees. They hadn’t gone far when Enid came flying after them. Landing beside Timoken, she squawked, ‘Your camel is cross. He turned his back on me.’

Timoken felt a rush of guilt. He had almost forgotten Gabar. Leaving the others, he flew down the cliff face and over the river. Gabar was sulking. He turned away from Timoken and refused to be lifted up the cliff.

‘Please don’t be difficult,’ said Timoken. ‘I’ve been very busy this morning.’

‘Difficult?’ snorted the camel. ‘I have never been difficult. You have a large family now, and a camel counts for nothing.’

‘You and my sister have been my family for longer than any other beings on earth,’ Timoken said sternly. ‘Never forget it.’

A low rumble came from the camel, and then he grunted, ‘I won’t forget it, Family.’

‘Then, shall we go?’

‘I hope you don’t have to bring on storms like that too often,’ said Gabar, and he allowed himself to be lifted over the river, up the cliff-face and into a sunlit glade in the trees. Enid came rushing to his side, and Timoken left them, smiling at each other.

The rainbows faded but the sun remained. While the others ate outside in the warm air, Timoken took some food to Eri. Karli followed with a pot of water. Elfrieda was awake but Thorkil hadn’t stirred.

‘He’s breathing,’ said Eri, ‘but only just.’

Elfrieda stared hard at Timoken. ‘We used to fight,’ she said. ‘But he’s my brother, and I can’t imagine life without him. Tell me he won’t die.’

Timoken took a chance. ‘Thorkil won’t die,’ he said.

Elfrieda’s smile told him that he’d better be right.

Before the sun went down, everyone was inside the ruin. They fell asleep while the sky was still light.

Timoken awoke to the sound of an owl. He remembered the night birds that used to sing in the secret kingdom. Before he knew it, he was chanting in his ancient language. The words and his gentle hum became a call to his ancestors. Beneath the sound of his voice, he heard a distant drumbeat. He stopped chanting and lay still. The sound of drumbeats intensified, but none of the others woke up.

A moonbeam lit the ramp of tumbled stones that led out into the night. As Timoken stared at the moonbeam, a group of white-robed figures suddenly appeared in the opening. When they stepped down into the room, their golden bracelets glinted in the moonlight, but their sandalled feet made no sound on the red stones.

Timoken held his breath as the spirit ancestors moved about the room. Silently they whirled their spears above their heads, and the coloured images that he remembered so well began to appear on the crumbling walls around him: birds and trees; pale, flat-roofed houses; monkeys and flowers; lions and fish and proud golden camels.

The ancestors glided past Timoken and out into the night. He couldn’t stop his eyes from closing, but as he lay half awake and half dreaming, he felt the carpet and the marble floor move gently beneath him. He felt the room swinging, very slightly, and heard a muffled rumble just above him. The sound went on and on and on, a rumble that was almost musical, and he drifted into sleep.

‘Wake up, Timoken! Wake up! Wake up!’

The voice was loud and insistent. Timoken didn’t want to wake up. He wanted to stay with his dreams; his mother’s face had been so clear, the palace in the secret kingdom so warm and splendid.

‘Look! Look!’ cried Sila.

Timoken rubbed his eyes. Sunlight was streaming into the room. Everything was bright. The walls shone with colour. Was he still dreaming?

‘You have your castle, Timoken.’ Eri stood looking down at him. ‘Or should I say, your palace?’

Timoken sat up. Thorkil was crouching beside him, drinking from a tankard. He grinned at Timoken and held out the red cloak. ‘This belongs to you,’ he said. He was still wearing his blood-stained tunic but he appeared to be completely recovered.

Timoken got to his feet. He gazed round the room. At the far end, a row of pillars led into a sunlit courtyard. Long windows were set into the coloured walls on one side, and at the other end, opposite to the pillars, five passages could be seen beyond the five great archways. Each passage had a floor of bright mosaics.

‘Is it all . . . ?’ Timoken whirled round and stared at the ceiling.

‘Complete?’ said Eri. ‘Only you would know. This building seems more African than British.’

‘But we’ve explored,’ said Karli, his face pink with excitement, ‘and there are many rooms smaller than this, but with beds and tables and chairs and couches.’

‘And a grand entrance with doors as tall as five of us standing on each others’ heads,’ said Sila. ‘And the doors are all carved with pictures of birds and beasts and flowers and fish.’

‘And four towers,’ said Wyngate, ‘with pointed roofs.’

‘And no hole,’ added Esga, pointing to a corner where the tumble of stones had been replaced by a smooth, gold-patterned ceiling and, below it, another splendid couch, covered in cloth of gold.

Timoken moved through the room in a daze. The palace was a replica of his home in the secret kingdom. He went out into the courtyard and climbed the steps to the roof. He stood on the very spot where he had seen his father ride out to his death, and where he had found that he could fly, on his last day in the secret kingdom. He ran down the steps and through the courtyard. He wandered down every passage and into every room, and then he went out through the splendid doors of the entrance, while Eri and the others followed at a discreet distance.

‘It is complete!’ said Timoken, staring up at the massive doors; the carved creatures were just as he remembered them.

‘Your palace, Timoken,’ said Sila.

‘Our palace,’ Timoken corrected her. ‘Our home.’

They grinned at him and some repeated, ‘Our home.’

‘And now we’d better hide it,’ said Eri.

Chapter Eighteen

Everyone followed Eri out into the forest. It wasn’t an easy task to find the flowers and herbs he wanted. The special plants were often hidden in brambles and thick undergrowth.

Sila led Timoken to the end of the line where he laid his stalks of willow herb. The wall was only ankle deep, but he could already feel its potency; when he placed his feathery flowers on top of Sila’s rowanberries, a soft warmth brushed his fingertips and, for a fraction of a second, his fingers felt weightless, as though they were not attached to his hand at all.

‘You felt that, didn’t you?’ Sila beamed at him. ‘Imagine what it will be like when we’re inside our castle!’

Timoken couldn’t imagine. ‘What happened when you were in the vanished shelter?’

Sila wrinkled her brow. ‘It was like floating in a glass bubble.’

Timoken looked back at the castle. How would it feel to stand in such a large vanished building, he wondered. He thought he could hear the distant crack of a falling tree, but dismissed it as one of the many sounds a forest makes.

Esga and Ilga arrived with bundles of ivy and dried meadowsweet. The boundary of plants grew and grew. They had to go further and further into the forest to search for the plants that Eri demanded. Wyngate found another cliff face, where gorse clung to the rocks and flowering herbs grew in the fissures.

The wall was almost finished when Enid came flying out of nowhere. ‘Men!’ she screeched. ‘Many. Horses. Many, many, many.’ Now the sound of falling trees made sense to Timoken. They were cutting a way through the forest big enough for an army.

He had just carried an armful of herbs round to the edge of the cliff behind the castle. Even though a steep cliff and a river should have kept them safe, Eri wasn’t taking any chances.

‘Here! Drop it here, Timoken!’ The wizard pointed with his staff. A gap of only one stride was left to fill. Sila and Karli ran up with bunches of herbs. Thorkil arrived with a branch of rowan berries. The wall was complete.

‘Into the castle!’ barked Eri. ‘Now. At once. All of you.’

They did as he asked. It was extraordinary to walk through the grand entrance of their new home, rather than scramble up into the trees, or climb a mound of rubble. Timoken went to fetch Gabar.

‘I’m invited inside, am I?’ said Gabar.

‘Of course. It’s your home,’ Timoken told him.

‘Very nice,’ the camel remarked as he was led past the tall, carved doors, and he kept repeating this as he walked through the room of coloured walls, stopping briefly to give the golden camels a critical glance. ‘Very nice indeed,’ he said as strode into the sunlit courtyard.

The wizard had not appeared and Timoken ran to see what had become of him. The sound of a vast approaching army couldn’t be ignored.

‘Go back!’ Eri told Timoken. ‘My task is not yet finished.’

‘But Eri . . .’

‘Go!’

The wizard’s tone was so compelling, Timoken dared not disobey him. He left Eri standing between the castle entrance and the wall of leaves and flowers.

Inside the castle, everyone gathered in the golden room and listened to Eri’s chanting. His powerful voice carried through the thick walls and resounded round the castle. It took on the sounds of the forest; a song that might have been made by wind in the leaves, a waterfall, the beat of wings, the humming of bees or the stealthy footfalls of a deer.

And then came the other sounds, drowning the wizard’s voice. The thrum of hooves and the shouting of men.

‘What will they do to Eri?’ cried Karli.

‘They won’t catch him,’ said Timoken.

‘What if he doesn’t finish the spell?’ Elfrieda muttered.

‘He will,’ said Timoken firmly, though he didn’t feel as confident as he sounded.

There was a bang at the end of one of the passages, the sound of running feet, and then Eri bowled into the room, his silver-streaked hair standing on end as if stiffened by frost, his beard full of twigs and his grey eyes flashing like a thunder cloud. ‘Done!’ he declared, and collapsed on the couch.

What followed was stranger than anything Timoken could have imagined, and that included his first ride on a flying camel. As the roar of the army outside intensified, the walls of the castle began to thin. Horses and men could be seen through a veil of fine rain, a mist that glinted with droplets of silver. The mist dissolved until nothing remained between those inside the castle and the army outside; nothing but a sheet clearer than glass.

Timoken held his breath. How was it possible that the army couldn’t see him or the castle? Their commander rode back and forth in front of his troops. He called out three names and three soldiers rode forward. The commander drew his sword from its scabbard and pointed it at the castle; the tip of his sword seemed to be aimed directly at Timoken. The soldiers frowned. They were the men who had first discovered the ruin. Others, behind them, had been caught in the storm. With eyes wide and incredulous, they stared at the empty space that had once been filled with a mountain of red stones.

‘How can so many stones disappear?’ shouted the commander.

‘We don’t know,’ came the mumbled answer.

‘Are you sure this is the place?’

‘Yes, my lord,’ answered one of the soldiers.

‘Maybe not,’ said another.

‘Perhaps it was somewhere else,’ said the third.

The first man shook his head. ‘It was here.’ He rode forward, blinking beneath his deep helmet. Others moved up behind him. They came closer; now they were in the courtyard. The camel grunted as horses walked past him, but his grumbling voice was lost in the clatter of hooves and the creak of armour.

The mounted soldiers moved through the castle towards the cliff edge and a wave of panic caused Timoken to sink to his knees. He put his head down and kept his eyes on the marble floor.
We are invisible
, he told himself. But as the castle filled with soldiers, a curious thing happened to the unseen inhabitants. They found themselves swimming, round the soldiers and up to the painted ceiling as though they were carried on water. And they saw the bright carpets and golden furniture floating slowly in a wide circle; it seemed that the whole building was turning like a great glass wheel.

The horsemen reached the edge of the cliff; they looked down at the wide, rushing river and turned their horses away. They moved back, never touching the circling furniture and the swimming children and then, suddenly, one of the soldiers stopped.

‘What’s that?’ The man poked his finger through the clear glass wall. He touched a carpet; the carpet trembled and sank to the ground. Furniture tumbled on top of it, and all the children felt the stab of a gloved finger in their ribs. But none of them made a sound.