Beyond the Shroud (21 page)

Then Kenta's voice came urgently out of the darkness: ‘I have to go! It's the bell — the bell above the shop door! There's a customer, and Father's left me in charge!' There was a tug on the rope.

Irritation flared through me. Why couldn't they all shut up? The song was fading, growing fainter — the singer was moving away from me through the darkness, and once she was gone I'd never find her again. And then suddenly I knew who she was.

‘Mother!' I heard myself cry, my voice as anguished as a little child's in the darkness. ‘Mother —
come back!
' I took a step towards where I knew she was waiting for me in the darkness, feeling the tug of the rope, hearing the squish of water under my boot …

Then Kenta spoke, a raw edge of panic in her voice. ‘We're all going crazy! It's not real. The sounds … the voices … it's the swamp, trying to lure us off track. We have to do something!'

‘I'd give anything for a soft serve cone,' said Jamie wistfully. ‘Please, guys — it's just round the corner!'

‘You're wrong, Kenta — it
is
real!' The lullaby was fading, fading into the distance … ‘I'm going — I have to! If I don't, I'll never find her again!'

Suddenly my shin exploded with agony, as if I'd been kicked by a mule.
‘SCORED!'
yelled Rich triumphantly. ‘Right between the posts! Come on guys, back to our positions …'

But the pain had brought me back to my senses. ‘Kenta's right! That's why they blocked our ears on the way to Shakesh — not to stop us overhearing what they were saying, but to stop us being driven crazy by the voices in the swamp! We have to do something — but what?' Already the faint humming in my ears was growing in intensity, and I could make out snatches of the lullaby again, as if someone was trying to tune in a radio.

Hannah's voice spoke up beside me, sounding very chirpy: ‘Just a minute, Q — I'm coming!'

I groped for her hand, holding it tight. ‘What you're hearing, Hannah — it isn't real. Don't listen, OK?'

‘But it's Q.' For the first time, she sounded close to tears. ‘Please let me go to him, Adam — just for a quick cuddle?'

I had to do something — and fast. Already I was I battling to keep my thoughts on track, the background soundtrack of that haunting lullaby filling my mind,
drowning out reason and common sense …

Then I was groping in my bag, fumbling with desperate fingers till I found it. I put it to my lips, praying it would work. The pure, clear song of the penny whistle floated out into the darkness, unfurling and weaving around us in an invisible shield, as if we were cradled in a cocoon of silken sound. We walked on, and as we walked, I played.

At some point, the real darkness of night must have caught up with the darkness of the shroud … though for us, following the pale beacon of Tiger Lily as she picked her way delicately through the swamp, there was no way of telling when.

On and on we walked through the darkness, the notes of music falling round us like silvery starlight, until at last I realised that the starlight was real, and we had emerged from the shroud into the soft embrace of a clear and cloudless night.

Ahead of me I could make out the dark silhouette of the mountain range, the star-spangled sky above it. Suddenly I realised how tired I was — my fingers were stiff from playing, and my lips felt numb. But we were through the shroud — we'd made it! What's more, we must have been climbing gradually without realising it — when I stumbled round to face the others, I saw that the ground fell away behind us, the shroud like a bank of fog in the distance.

My face split into a weary grin. Behind me, Hannah was swaying on her feet, eyes half closed. One by one, the others plodded to a halt, Jamie sinking down onto the ground with a groan. But there was something niggling at the back of my dazed mind. Something was wrong — badly wrong. With a shock like a bucketful of ice water in my face, I knew what it was. Meirion was gone.

We dragged ourselves a little further in search of a sheltered place to rest, our hearts like lead. A short distance ahead the ground rose steeply into a rocky bluff; we found
a deep overhang at its foot, and huddled under it.

Hannah, Jamie and Gen were instantly asleep, not even bothering to unroll their sleeping bags. Kenta covered them gently, her hands trembling with exhaustion. Tiger Lily curled up in the crook of Hannah's legs, too tired even to purr. Weevil was in high spirits, chittering cheerfully as he unfastened the pack containing the food with nimble fingers — he'd hitched a ride in Richard's pack the whole way, and slept most of it, I suspected.

Kenta passed round some fruit, but only Weevil seemed hungry. ‘So,' said Rich, echoing our thoughts, ‘what do we do about Meirion?'

There was a silence. ‘We can't go back,' I muttered. ‘He could be anywhere by now. He must have wandered off into the swamp — we'd never find him.'

‘That's what's worrying me most,' whispered Kenta. ‘The thought that he's out there somewhere, alone, afraid, and starving …'

‘Cheer up, Kenta,' said Rich bracingly. ‘He's a mage, remember — according to Jamie, that's a kind of magician. He's probably tougher than you think. Maybe he went off for a reason.'

Kenta shook her head wordlessly. But I remembered that brief touch, the flicker of energy that had passed between us — almost as if he was saying goodbye, or trying to tell me something — and suddenly my spirits lifted. ‘Rich's right,' I told her. ‘Meirion
is
a mage — and this is his world. He's an adult, and we're kids. I'm certain he'd never expect us to go back and look for him. Our job is to finish what we came here to do — take Hannah home safe to Quested Court and Q. And if we're going to stand any chance at all of doing that, we must have some food and get some rest.'

I woke hours later, stiff from the long walk and sleeping on the hard ground. Around me the others were grumbling reluctantly awake, stretching and yawning. Rich had obviously been up for a while and prowling round outside; now he ducked in under the overhang, reaching for a roll and looking cheerful. ‘I've found a path,' he told us through a mouthful of bread. ‘It's a narrow track — could have been made by sheep or something, I guess — if there are sheep in Karazan. But it heads in what I reckon is the right direction: uphill —' Kenta made a face — ‘and south. I think Jamie was right: Karazeel will concentrate on the main route through the shroud. He thinks it's the only way we know — maybe he thinks it's the only way. Same applies to the ford — what's left of it.'

‘Yeah — let's take the high road, and leave the low road to Karazeel's heavies,' I agreed. ‘And as far as getting over the river is concerned — well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.'

‘If there is one,' muttered Jamie.

I looked over at Hannah, sitting silently with Tiger Lily on her lap. She was very pale, and I was suddenly reminded of how sick she'd been such a short time ago. I smiled at her. ‘Up you get, Hannah — we're on our way. Put your furry friend in my backpack, and the pack on your back.' Her eyes widened in surprise, and the others gawked at me. I grinned. ‘Then hop up on my shoulders — it's piggyback time.'

The path climbed steadily up the steep, rocky mountainside. ‘At least we're getting the uphill part over with,' Jamie panted, and he was right — by what I guessed was mid-afternoon the ground had levelled out, and the going was easier. We were on a kind of contour path —
the mountains rose steeply to our right, stretching away rank on rank to touch the clouds, and on the other side the land fell away to distant vistas of purplish plains and darker smudges of forest, with the occasional far-off flash of what I imagined must be the sea.

After a while the vegetation changed from scrubby grassland to the occasional tree and then to dense forest, and the view vanished. I was secretly relieved — I'd felt far too exposed out in the open. But the air in the forest was muggy and humid, and soon we were all sweating. The ground underfoot changed too — to a thick, dark loam that squished when we walked. Ferns covered the forest floor, and thick creepers like ropes dangled from the branches high above. Far down to the left I caught the occasional gleam of a stream running between the trees, and every now and then we came to a shallow trickle of water across the track, and had to pick our way carefully across.

Then Richard, striding along ahead of me with Hannah perched on his back, suddenly stopped. ‘What's that? That … roaring sound?'

The moment he said the words, I realised I could hear it too — had been hearing it for a while. It was more a distant thunder than a roar — could it be thunder? Was there going to be a storm? Whatever it was, it seemed to be coming from up ahead. I shook my head, shrugging; one thing was for sure: walking towards it at the rate we were, we'd soon find out.

The roaring grew steadily louder, and soon there was no doubt what was making it. Water — huge volumes of it, falling fast and far. We trudged on; the ground was wetter by the minute, and there was a regular drip-drip-dripping of moisture from the leaves. The path was zigzagging back and forth now, up and down — one minute we'd be pulling ourselves up a steep rise, hanging
onto handfuls of ferns; the next we were slithering down again, our feet slipping and sliding in squishy black mud.

Rich rounded a bend and stopped as abruptly as if he'd walked into a wall … and at the same time I felt a sudden breeze on my face and a mist of fine droplets on my skin. ‘What is it? What's —' And then I saw what he had seen, and my jaw dropped.

The ground fell away in front of us, the path we were on vanishing into nothingness. On the far side I could see a steep, forested slope — fifty metres away, at least — and just make out the path again, winding away into the trees. But between us and the path was a void — a roaring chasm filled with a floating mist of spray. And to our right, frothing, foaming, plunging down in a rampant cataract: a waterfall. It was as wide as the gorge itself: a thundering wall of water falling hundreds of metres to crash into an invisible pool far below.

We'd reached the River Ravven — and a dead end.

Rich met my eyes through the swirling spray, his face grim. We both knew what this meant: back-tracking two hours at least the way we'd come, and then a wet, slippery scramble down the mountain through dense rainforest, with no trace of a path. And then what?

Suddenly Gen spoke up beside me, sounding so like her old self that I almost toppled over into the chasm. ‘Look, Adam — over there.'

Leaning over at a crazy angle, half-hidden by fern fronds and moss, was a signboard like the one there'd been at the ford down river. I squinted at it through the swirling spray — and grinned.
Rainbow Bridge.

‘Well, we've come the right way.' Rich was battling to sound cheerful.

‘And Gen's more like herself again.' Kenta was right: Gen's cheeks were pink and her eyes bright, but her gown was drenched and weighted down at the hem with mud, and
she was shivering. ‘The sun's come out,' she said, hugging herself and trying to smile, ‘look at the rainbow!'

Sure enough, a rainbow had sprung out just above where we were standing, so close I felt I could almost reach out and touch it. The intensity of the afternoon sunlight slanting through the gully far above picked out the colours with picture-book brightness: a solid arc of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet spanning the gorge from one side to the other. The girls gazed at it in wonder, but Rich gave it a single dismissive glance and moved on to more practical things. ‘So there's the rainbow — but where's the bridge?'

He was right — there was no trace of a bridge anywhere. Cautiously, I leaned as far out as I dared and peered over the drop. Nothing. Scanned the banks: still no sign.

‘I guess with all this water around, it must have rotted away,' said Jamie gloomily.

‘Unless …' The dreamy look was back in Gen's eyes, and Rich watched her warily. ‘Unless the rainbow …'

‘Unless the rainbow what?'

She gave him an embarrassed smile. ‘Nothing — sorry. I'm just being stupid.'

‘Well,' piped up Hannah, ‘do you want to know what
I
think?
I
think
that's
the bridge.'

‘What? Where?' We all stared wildly round, hoping a swing-bridge had magically materialised out of nowhere.

‘There.' Hannah pointed — and I realised with a lurch of horror what she meant … and that she was right. She was pointing at the rainbow.

‘It can't be,' whispered Kenta. But we knew it was.

I felt as if my stomach was in vertical free-fall along with the water. ‘If it is,' I croaked, ‘if Hannah's right — we need to move fast. Look at the angle of the sun. It's not going to be around for long, and once it's gone …' I gulped.

Jamie was looking green. ‘And then there are the clouds …'

Weevil made a soft chittering sound — or it could just have been his teeth chattering.

‘Well,' I said, ‘either Hannah's right, or she's not. And there's only one way to find out.' Cautiously I picked my way up the slippery bank towards the end of the rainbow. As I'd expected, it faded as I drew nearer, and by the time I'd scrambled up to where I remembered it being, it had vanished altogether. ‘There's a platform here,' I called down to the others. ‘A wooden platform, big enough for us all to stand on. It must be here for a reason.'

They clambered up to join me. Rich stood, arms folded, scowling across the chasm. ‘So where's the rainbow now?' There was a definite note of relief in his voice.

‘The sun's gone behind a cloud,' Jamie pointed out. And as he spoke, the sun beamed out again … and the bridge materialised in front of us.

From this angle it was colourless, like a bridge of translucent glass, or cloud. It started just in front of the platform, and arched up and away until it vanished in the spray. It was about a metre wide.

Suddenly my mouth felt very dry. ‘Well, here goes.' I stretched out my left foot, and lowered it tentatively onto the bridge. It went right through as if it wasn't there. I lost my balance, teetering on the edge of the platform, my arms flailing like a windmill, the dizzying drop spinning sickeningly beneath me … and then a strong hand grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and hauled me back to safety.

‘So much for that,' said Rich gruffly. ‘Looks like you were wrong, Hannah.'

Hannah was gazing out over the gorge, her eyes very round and solemn. She didn't reply. Tiger Lily was snuggled in her arms … and then she wasn't. With a wriggle and a
squirm she leapt down onto the platform, gave Richard a single haughty glance, stalked to the edge of the chasm … and over it.

Hannah let out a little shriek — and then we were all silent, gaping.

Tiger Lily was strolling up and over the rainbow bridge as if it was made of solid concrete. For a moment she was silhouetted at the highest point of the arch; then she had disappeared over the other side, leaving us all staring after her with our mouths open.