Chronicles of the Red King #3: Leopards' Gold (19 page)

“Why did they make it?” begged Tolly. “Our father has a cloak that has protected him all his life, so why not this time?”

“So many questions,” sighed Tumi, and he told them about the Damzel of Decay, the dark spirit of the forest who had for so long hungered for Timoken’s marvelous cloak of healing and protection.

“She is sometimes beautiful,” said Sila, “but her beauty is a mask. It hides a hideous nature. She is very strong and she has demon servants to help her in her dreadful sorcery.”

“We believe she struck a bargain with Sir Osbern D’Ark of Melyntha Castle,” went on Tumi. “He would get someone in the Red Castle to steal the Seeing Crystal, knowing the king would come looking for it. And the Damzel would seize the cloak before the king had time to act.”

“Without his cloak, he is much weakened,” said Sila.

Petrello thought of Borlath. He was ashamed to mention his brother’s part in the terrible events.

“How did they get our father and his knights across the water?” asked Tolly, looking through a small window between the strands of twinkling crystals.

“Carried them over to an island beneath the cloud, in nets of stinking weeds,” said Tumi. “They are afraid of water.” He walked over to the cauldron and dropped several fish into the bubbling water. “We saw from our little window and shuddered, not knowing what to do.”

“So they can fly?” said Petrello.

“Servants like that can do anything.” Sila stirred her cauldron fiercely. “Sir Osbern hopes they will remain there, prisoners of the cloud forever, while he keeps the Seeing Crystal and takes over the Red Castle, a place he has always pined for.”

“A magic castle,” said one of the girls, her eyes shining.

“A castle he would share with Chancellor Thorkil,” Tumi said darkly. “We heard all this from one of Sir Osbern’s grooms. The boy still lives in the forest with his mother, and sometimes she comes to us, for our fish. We always suspected that one day Thorkil would move against the king.”

Petrello and Tolly brought their cushions closer to the fire. Their thoughts had made them cold. They stared at the flames beneath the cauldron, wondering what to do next.

“So the Damzel has the cloak,” Petrello said unhappily.

“No,” said Tumi. “It wouldn’t stay with her. It tore itself out of her grasp. We saw her on the beach, snatching and tearing at it, until it fell apart and floated away.”

“We found it.” Ketil went to a chest and lifted out some thin pieces of fabric. They were torn and ragged, and yet they had a faint golden sparkle.

Petrello leaped over to Ketil and took the flimsy bits of stuff out of his hands. As he held a piece up to the light, he could follow the thin gold lines that ran across it. It was part of a spider’s web. A ripple of anger ran through him, and all the shells and crystals, all the polished stones and colored beads jangled and clinked and sang; even the cauldron of fish went swinging.

“My father’s cloak!” cried Petrello. “But how are we to mend it?”

Firelight, shining through the web, made a golden pattern on Tolly’s grave face. “Leopards’ gold,” he said. “The leopards will mend it.”

N
ot long after the brothers had arrived at the house on stilts, a small, slight man with gentle eyes appeared at the top of the ladder. He was followed by a woman with a merry face and thick, dark hair. They had left the castle with Tumi and Sila, and were parents to half the children in the small fishing group.

Karli and Esga were overjoyed to meet two of Timoken’s sons, but when Karli heard about the chancellor’s treachery, he shuddered. Esga looked at him and gripped his hand. She explained to the brothers that, even as a boy, Thorkil had been a bully. He had made Karli’s life a misery, until Timoken came into their lives.

“For a while, Thorkil became easier to live with,” said Karli. “It seemed as though he had cast off his arrogant ways. And then his sister, Elfrieda, married a man called Chimery, a stranger with a secret past.”

Tumi slowly shook his head. “Once Thorkil and Chimery got together, we could see that the friendships your father was so eager to foster would one day fracture, and the good and special life we loved would fall apart.”

“Timoken couldn’t see it,” said Sila. “I don’t like to say this, but sometimes your father expects too much of people. A goodness they can’t live up to.” She smiled at the king’s sons. “But then, why shouldn’t he?”

There was a moment’s silence, and then Esga, glancing hastily through the small window, announced, “My brother, Ilgar, is in that cloud.”

“He is a Knight Protector?” asked Petrello.

Esga nodded. “One of the bravest and the best.”

It was Tumi’s suggestion that Tolly should wait until nightfall before he flew back to the Red Castle. Darkness would hide him from anyone on watch.

Tolly was determined to go alone this time. His wings were part of him now, he said. They did whatever he wanted. And it would be easier to carry the web if he didn’t have to cling to Petrello.

Petrello suspected this wasn’t the only reason. The light in Tolly’s eyes told him that his brother relished the thought of an adventure on his own.

There was something else Petrello had to ask about. A part of the king’s capture that wasn’t clear. “The horses,” he said, “and the camel. What became of them?”

“Ah,” said Tumi. “They behaved rather unnaturally. When the king and his knights were set upon, the horses were screaming. But as the demons carried those poor weed-wrapped men across the water, the animals fell silent. And then, without a sound, they turned, all at once, and left — all in the same direction.”

Petrello and Tolly looked at each other, and Tolly said, “Amadis called them.”

“Amadis, of course,” said Tumi. “The boy with white-gold hair, who was often seen with wolves.”

“Who conversed with dogs and cats and horses,” said Karli.

“And eagles and even rats,” added his wife.

“He’s alive, then!” Petrello jumped up, ready to search for his brother at once. But looking around the sea of anxious faces, he realized that it would not be easy to find Amadis in a forest that stretched farther then he could imagine. He would need help, and the light was fading fast.

“Tomorrow,” said Tumi. “After the king has been released.” He didn’t mention how this would happen, and Petrello thought it better not to ask, in case Tumi wasn’t really sure of his plan.

Sila began to ladle her fish dish into bowls, and the two smallest children handed them out. Petrello judged them to be about five and six years old, and he thought of Vyborn, who might not have carried a full bowl so carefully.

“This isn’t just soup,” Tolly declared, lapping it up. “It’s the most delicious food I have ever tasted.”

“Even compared with those special Red Castle dishes?” asked Sila.

“Definitely,” Tolly insisted.

Petrello agreed. For the fish dish was thickened with the most delicious beans, and flavored with the sweetest herbs he had ever tasted.

“Herbs from the forest,” said Tumi, “and beans from the market where we sell our fish, just as my parents used to do.”

“Before the conquerors came,” Karli murmured.

“We go by boat,” said Sila, noticing Petrello’s puzzled frown. “A river runs all the way from the lake to the town.”

“Isn’t it dangerous?” asked Tolly. “Do the demons and their Damzel ever try to stop you?”

“We are not worth bothering about,” said Tumi. “We have nothing they need.”

“Until now,” Ketil said quietly.

Everyone turned to look at Tumi’s oldest son. He was a lean boy with a thin, serious face, and his voice was already deep. “If we help the king, the Damzel won’t forgive us,” he said. “We won’t be able to live here anymore.”

There was a brief hush. The other children stared at Ketil with scared and troubled faces, while the adults scraped their bowls with hunks of bread and wondered what to say.

All at once, the smallest girl cried, “Unless we kill her.”

Tumi looked up and smiled at his youngest child. “Then that’s what we’ll have to do, Adela.”

No one suggested how this could be done. Rescuing the king was uppermost in all their minds.

As night clouds brought a dark shroud across the sky, Sila began to light the rushes. They were held in iron brackets fixed to the walls, and when they flickered into life, their light was reflected in the polished crystals and silvery shells, so that the whole place seemed to sparkle. Petrello thought it one of the most beautiful rooms he had ever seen, and he couldn’t bear to imagine Tumi and his friends and family having to leave it forever.

It was almost time for Tolly’s departure. Petrello could sense his brother’s nervousness. He kept looking through the window with a half smile on his face, and his dark eyes were unnaturally bright.

“Are you sure you want to go alone?” Petrello asked. “I’ll come with you, happily.”

“No.” Tolly shook his head. “I must do this alone, Trello. I have to carry the cloak.”

The other children were aware that their new friend must soon fly out into the night. They crept closer to Tolly, and some of them stroked the glossy wings that lay above his feathered cloak.

Tumi crossed the room and opened the door. Framed in the doorway was a brilliant full moon, but below it, the pale fungus that covered the treetops seemed to swallow the light, rather than reflect it.

“Are you ready, Tolomeo?” asked Tumi.

Tolly stood up. “I am.”

Petrello had been holding the frail strips of his father’s cloak. He got up and put them into Tolly’s hands carefully. There were five pieces in all.

“You have great faith in those leopards,” Karli remarked. “Can they really do what you say?”

“We believe they can,” said Petrello.

“They have to,” said Tolly.

Tumi led the way down the ladder. Petrello and Tolly followed, Petrello carrying both pairs of their boots. The lake was icy cold and held an eerie green light.

“We’re coming, too,” said Ketil, who was already climbing down the ladder.

He was quickly followed by the rest of the children, and then Karli and the two women came splashing onto the beach. They spoke in whispers now; the presence of the great cloud lying heavy on their spirits.

Petrello helped Tolly into his boots. Then he clasped his brother’s hands and felt the life in the king’s cloak warm under his fingers. “Are you sure you can find the castle without me?” he asked, still anxious for his brother.

Tolly nodded vigorously.

“Good luck, then.” Petrello hugged his smaller brother as though it might be for the last time.

“Where’s Enid?” Tolly asked.

Petrello looked back at the house on stilts. Enid hadn’t even come to the door. “She’s asleep,” he said, trying to hide his concern. “I think she needs to get her strength back.”

“Oh.” Tolly grinned. “Here goes, then.”

Petrello stepped back as Tolly’s great wings lifted, and there was a gasp of wonder from the children.

“Good luck! Good luck!” came the hushed calls.

The black wings dipped, then lifted, and Tolly rose into the air.

They watched him fly higher and higher, his wings sweeping the cool night air and sending a soft breeze across their faces, and then he swung away and darkness swallowed him.

Petrello walked back toward the ladder. He didn’t want to spend another moment in a place where he could see the cloud.

“Now we wait,” said Tumi, putting an arm around Petrello’s shoulders. “Your brother is a brave boy.”

“His father’s son,” said Karli, who was following them.

“Yes,” Petrello agreed, and this time the little twinge of loneliness seemed to matter less.

Once inside the house on stilts, the children began to fall asleep on their beds of straw-filled cushions. Tumi put a log on the fire and sat beside it, while Karli and the women rested against the walls.

“Sleep, Petrello,” said Sila. “We’ll wait for Tolomeo. Tomorrow you must be strong.”

“Strong, yes,” said Petrello. His eyes were already closing. He crawled over and laid his head on a cushion beside Ketil. He thought of the cloud, and the king and his knights within it. Were they asleep or were they, even now, struggling against their choking, toxic bonds?

*  *  *

High above the forest, Tolly spread his wings and allowed himself to be carried on the damp south wind. His mind raced. Where should he land? On the battlements? In the first courtyard, where the leopards were last seen? He held the pieces of his father’s cloak tight against his chest. They gave him courage.

Tolly thought himself quite safe, so high in the dark sky. He had forgotten that someone wanted the bundle of magic that he carried; someone who had seen a winged boy fly into the air with the thing she wanted most in the whole world. The Damzel of Decay would have given her crooked toes, her curling green fingers, perhaps even her cold, colorless eyes, for the web of the last moon spider, woven into a king’s cloak.

A freezing current of air suddenly bit into Tolly’s arms. The shock almost made him drop his precious bundle. He flapped his wings and tried to rise higher, but something caught his foot. Looking down, he saw a hideous green creature clinging to his boot. It was a hairless, bloated thing, with long pointed ears and a thin whisker of a tail. Its eyes bulged, its nose hung, and its warty hands were bigger than its long, domed head. Tolly kicked out, but it clung tighter and pulled his foot into its cavernous mouth.

Tolly felt himself sinking. Helplessly, he beat his wings. Then, turning in the air, he saw behind him an army of the grisly green demons. Two carried between them a blanket of fungus that floated in the air like a great misty net.

For me
, thought Tolly, and his terrible fear turned to anger.
They mean to wrap me in their poisonous net and steal the cloak again. Well, they won’t, because it’s ours.

Belief in himself and in the magic of the cloak he carried gave him the strength to climb again into the air, and as he climbed he saw a dark mass of wings moving across the moon.

“Eagles!” cried Tolly, loud enough for the demons to hear.

The great birds swept over him and into the crowd of demons behind. He had never heard such screams, as beaks and talons tore into warty green flesh. The sky was full of beating wings, of thrashing tails, twisting crooked feet and fingers, and drifting shreds of fungus. And then the owls came, and crows and hawks and ravens, and the angry screams ringing into the night became howls of anguish and terror.

A white screech owl tore the demon off Tolly’s foot and he was free.

Fly on
, the birds seemed to call.
Fly on and let us sweep this menace from the sky.

So Tolly flew on, with a smile on his face. For he knew that Amadis was there, below him in the trees. Who else would have called the birds? And if Amadis was there, perhaps the queen was with him. And Tolly’s smile grew wider, until at last he saw the sixteen towers of the Red Castle rising above the trees.

As soon as he saw his home, Tolly knew where to land: in Zobayda’s garden, where he might see his aunt and sister, safe in the Royal Tower.

He reached the high red walls, flew over them, and dropped down beside Zobayda’s fountain. A light burned in the high window of the royal bedchamber, and Tolly wondered if his sister might come and look out. He ran toward the door of the Royal Tower, but something rushed at him from behind a tub of roses. It stood in front of Tolly, grunting, lowering its head with its vicious tusks, ready to charge.

“Vyborn?” Tolly whispered. “Vyborn, is that you?”

The boar moved closer. It lifted its head and glared at him with tiny, spiteful eyes. Tolly could see nothing but hatred in that angry gaze.

“Why are you doing this?” Tolly asked in a reasonable tone. “I’m your brother.”

“Is that what you are?” A man stepped out of the shadows behind the boar. “So, you have wings, do you, boy? And what’s that stuff you’re carrying?”

Tolly hugged the cloak tighter. He recognized Chimery, the chancellor’s man.

“Give it to me!” Chimery demanded, drawing his sword.

“No,” said Tolly. “I won’t.”

“Oh, I think you will!” Chimery raised his sword. “Or you’ll lose your head.”

Better to lose my feet than my head
, Tolly thought as he spread his wings. But before he could lift into the sky, something bright sliced through the air. Chimery clutched his shoulder. Blood seeped through his fingers as he pulled out a knife.