Blue Dome (The Blue Dome Series) (25 page)

“Arius, blessed be,” he
said.

There was a pregnant pause.
Then the snake started to tremble in small, frenetic movements, as if it was
caught in the middle of a tiny earthquake. Its head lolled to one side, then
the other, and its black eyes snapped open. Demarge smiled.

“Welcome back.”

He rolled up his sleeve,
knelt down and lowered his arm towards the snake. Arius nipped Demarge’s wrist
playfully, before wrapping his body around his master’s forearm.

“That’s better, my sweet malachite,”
he said softly, rising to his feet and allowing the darkness to swallow him.

Hester had fallen asleep
on Min’s shoulder, her beak nuzzled into her feathers, as they glided along
Beare
Bridge
. Thomas glanced at Min anxiously.

“Where should we start?”
he said.

“I don’t know. They could
be anywhere.” Min paused for a couple of seconds. “I doubt they’re in the
underground cavern though, it’s too obvious. I think Demarge has been a bit
cleverer this time.”

Thomas nodded. “Daden’s
right, if the search is harder, Demarge will have more time to find the
Slipworld.”

“We need to get back to
the Consus Room if we’re to sense their presence,” said Min.

Thomas looked at Min
apprehensively. The prospect of meeting Demarge again made him nervous, but he
knew Min was right – the Consus Room was by far the most conducive place in
Wiltsdown for identifying Shard light.

They were soon outside
the door that Min had barricaded Mick from entering on the day of Bede’s bread
theft. This time though, there was no need to either open or shut the door. The
Aeons simply leant against its wooden slats and allowed their bodies to
dissolve through the gaps. The light poured down the inside of the door, pooling
at the bottom into twin ovals of blue and yellow light. The puddles shifted restlessly
on the floor, blending to form a single beam of light, before a streak of
bluish-green could be seen snaking down the long, lamp-lit passage. Within
minutes Min and Thomas were standing in the octagonal chamber. The streetlights
from outside streamed in through the stained-glass windows, showering the room
in sparkles like phosphorescence in a dark sea. Min clasped Thomas’s hand and they
both closed their eyes, each taking a deep breath. After a few minutes Min
slowly opened her eyes again.

“I don’t understand,” she
said, frowning. “I can’t sense them at all.”

“Nor can I,” said Thomas.

“But they must be in
Wiltsdown somewhere,” said Min. “Unless…” She glanced at Thomas.

“…Demarge has hidden them
somewhere else,” he finished. “Somewhere that makes their light difficult to
detect.”

“We’ll have to use
another way of finding them,” said Min. She reached inside her sleeve and pulled
out a small crystal pendulum, the size and shape of a long teaspoon.

“Of course, the light
compass,” said Thomas.

Min held out the pendulum
in front of her and the light shrunk instantly from the sides of the room,
congealing inside the crystal. The colours from the stained glass windows
swirled like oil on puddles of rainwater. It was almost as if they were talking
to each other, discussing how to order themselves inside the glass. As Min
continued to hold the compass steady, a pattern of light began to emerge on the
marble cobbles beneath her. Large patches of crimson spread into a corner of
the room, connected by three lines of blue and a spattering of small green
dots. In the opposite corner, yellow squiggles stretched out across the floor,
each with a red dot at the end of it, while in the middle of the room, large
splotches of purple spread their tendrils towards the other colours. Min and
Thomas watched intently until the pattern had settled.

Thomas looked confused as
he pointed to the crimson pools. “How many Shards did Daden say were in danger?”
he asked.

“Two,” said Min,
frowning. “I see your point; there are
five
crimson pools. That must be
right though, the compass doesn’t lie.”

“So there are actually
three more Shards than we thought?” said Thomas. He leant forward, studying the
yellow squiggles more closely. “It looks like there’re two who are in
particular danger and, from these patterns, that they’re being held somewhere that’s
extremely elevated.”

“But there’s a clear
barrier to them being able to escape,” said Min, pointing to the red dots. “It doesn’t
look like it’s going to be easy for us to get to them either,” she said,
pointing to the purple light which became much fainter the closer it got to the
yellow.

A look of shock began to
seep across Thomas’s face. “Min, I think I know where he’s put them,” he said
softly. “The abandoned tungsten mine.”

Min’s face crumpled. “Of
course,” she whispered. “I can’t believe we didn’t think of that before. Tungsten
is one of the heaviest metals in the world, it explains why we couldn’t sense
the Shards’ light through it. The mine has to be about forty kilometres from
here. We need to move.”

She slid the compass into
her sleeve and the light sprang back instantly, filling the edges of the room
again. Thomas reached for Min’s arm, drawing her close, as Hester hovered above
them. The Aeons’ bodies began to melt, dissolving into blue and yellow ghosts,
before slowly melding into one single bluish-green mass. Then, before there was
time to draw another breath, the light shot down the tunnel and out through the
slats of the wooden door, leaving nothing but the trace of a whistle.

Min, Thomas and Hester
had soon reached the outskirts of the New Town, where the houses started to
thin out, making the hills look like balding heads. In the distance they could
see the snow-capped mountains rising out of the earth like craggy teeth and as
they hurtled through the low lying clouds the cold mist captured the residue of
their light, imprinting the cold air with thin, fuzzy streaks.

“
I can feel we’re
getting closer
,” thought Min.

“
So can I
,” Thomas
responded.

He glanced down at the
ground beneath them. There were no trees, or even a few scraggly bushes, just a
vast expanse of dirt and rock as far as the eye could see. The land had been
smoothed and moulded into large platters of metallic blue earth that suddenly
plunged into savagely steep valleys. It was as if a huge animal had been
stripped of its skin and had chunks of its flesh removed.

“
It’s a wasteland down
there
,” thought Thomas.

“
We should stay
airborne for as long as we can. I can already feel the effect of the tungsten,
bearing down on us
,” Min replied. “
Are those buildings I can see
?”

Thomas glanced down. In
the distance, a row of tiny wooden huts were perched on top of a
teardrop-shaped plateau.

“
Could Demarge have
hidden the Shards in one of them perhaps
?” he thought.

“
Maybe, but we’d be
able to sense them from here if that was the case. Besides, it would be too
easy for us to find them in one of those buildings. I think it’s more likely
that he’s hidden them in one of those huge rocky valleys below
.”

“
Maybe,” thought
Thomas, “but even from this distance I think we’d be able to sense them. I
don’t know about you, but I can’t.
”

“
Nor can I
” thought
Min.

“
Maybe the most
logical place to hide them is in one of the old abandoned underground mineshafts?”
thought Thomas.
“There’s such a labyrinth of them down there, it could take
a long time to work out exactly where a Shard was, even for an Aeon.
”

“
Perhaps
,” thought
Min tentatively. “
But there’s still something that doesn’t feel quite right.
It’s hard to explain, but it’s almost as if it’s too obvious. Besides, wouldn’t
we sense them from here if they were directly below us
?”

“
Not necessarily
,”
thought Thomas. “
If they were in a shaft that was particularly dense with
tungsten, it could be very difficult
.”

Min paused before
responding. “
I just wish I could pinpoint exactly what it is that’s
bothering me about this.
”

“
Maybe it will come to
you when we’re closer to the ground? I think we should land and start looking.
Those old miners’ huts seem as good a place as any
,” thought Thomas.

The ball of bluish-green
light began to descend slowly. As it drew closer to the ground it began to
shudder, the vibrations becoming so violent that the orb finally split apart.
There were now two separate balls of light, one blue and one yellow, each
gradually expanding and stretching, pushing out the corners to resemble starfish
suspended in mid-air. Slowly, the limbs started to solidify, moulding
themselves into arms and legs, as the crown of a head began to bulge out of the
top of each of them. Buds of light became noses, ears and mouths. Finally, two
pairs of eyes quivered open. Min and Thomas were now back to their human form
and standing on a large plateau of flat, greyish-blue rock, next to a row of
rundown, wooden shacks. On the other side, at the edge of the plateau, a tall,
sheer rock face loomed out of the darkness, casting shadows that lapped at
their feet.

“Come, Hester,” said Min.
The bird flew to her shoulder, as Thomas pointed out a black door set in the
rock face. It was heavily boarded up with the words ‘Danger, Keep Out’ daubed
in red paint across it.

“It looks like that must
be the entrance to the mine,” he said.

Min paused, a deep worry
line burrowing a track into her forehead.

“That feeling, Thomas,
it’s still there. I really don’t like it. It feels wrong.”

“I understand, but what
else can we do? We have to find the Shards, and quickly. We should at least try
the mine first, then consider our options.”

Min sighed. “Ten minutes,
Thomas. If we haven’t found them in ten minutes we leave and start looking
somewhere else.”

Thomas nodded. “Stay here
Hester,” he said. “We should be back soon, but if we’re not, find Daden.”

The sparrow tilted her
head, her eye settling on Thomas’s in wordless agreement. Within seconds she
had flown to the miner’s huts, her small brown body like a full stop
punctuating the end of the eaves. She had barely settled before Min threw
Thomas a startled look.

“Did you hear that?”

“What?”

“I’m not sure,” said Min
slowly. “A voice maybe? It sounded human. I think it came from somewhere near
the door.”

She paused, waiting
anxiously for the sound to repeat itself. But apart from the wind licking the
sides of the old miner’s houses, everything was silent. Then, suddenly, there
was another small sound. It was hard to tell if it was an actual voice or the
just the wind playing tricks, but either way it was definitely audible.

“I heard it that time,”
said Thomas. “Are you sure it was human?”

“It’s hard to tell, it
was too faint,” said Min.

She had barely finished
speaking when the noise repeated itself again, although much more clearly this
time. It was a sharp cry, full of pain and despair, and it was coming from
directly behind the black door.

“Help! Is there anybody
there?”

“That’s got to be them,”
said Thomas, moving quickly towards the rock face. Min was more hesitant.

“I agree, it does sound
human, but I still can’t sense them at all.”

Thomas was already at the
door.

“It’s probably the
tungsten,” he said. “It’ll be different once we’re inside.”

Min’s doubts rolled
across the back of her mind like large, heavy barrels, but she had to admit,
Thomas’s argument was more rational than relying simply on her gut instinct.

 “At least it’s a
starting point,” she conceded reluctantly.

The door to the mine had
been boarded up so well that there were virtually no cracks or gaps in the
wood. Thomas pressed his body against the door, his arms, torso and head
seeping into every crack and fissure, as his legs and feet melted into a pool
at the bottom of the door and slid underneath. Min followed. Once on the other
side they quickly resumed their human forms. Min glanced at Thomas, the whites
of her eyes gleaming in the darkness.

“It’s freezing in here,”
she said. “And the heaviness, do you feel it? We won’t be able to stay very
long.”

“We’ll need to work
fast,” said Thomas.

They glided quickly down
the rocky passages, wending their way into the heart of the earth, with only
the glow of their own bodies for light. In the distance the panicked voices were
getting louder and louder.

“Help! Is anybody there?”

Min shuddered. “They
sound like they’re in pain, Thomas,” she whispered.

The narrow passageways
continued to twist and turn, making it difficult for them to work out which way
was up or down, left or right. They finally rounded a bend which widened out
into a small, round room.

“Help, we’re in here!” a
voice cried.

“Where?” said Min,
scanning the empty room.

“Up there,” said Thomas,
moving towards a further small passage that had been carved into the left wall
of the rocks.

“Wait…” said Min, but it
was too late. Thomas had already disappeared. She followed him into the narrow,
rocky chasm, catching up just as he was coming face to face with a dead end.

“That’s strange, I was
sure they were down here,” said Thomas, frowning. He peered around the walls,
searching for something he might have missed.