The Familiars: Secrets of the Crown (12 page)

“Guys, I’m getting a puddle viewing!” exclaimed Gilbert, who was staring into a stagnant portion of the Ebs. “My uselessness on this journey has finally come to an end.”

The others hurried to his side. Indeed, there in the water was the rippling image of Aldwyn, clearly in some kind of peril, taking refuge within a large circle of stones. A voice bubbled up from the stream and spoke. “Aldwyn is in terrible danger. If you wish to save him and all of Vastia, you must seek the Crown of the Snow Leopard.”

“Great,” cried Gilbert to the waters. “Tell me something I don’t know!”

But the viewing had spoken its piece, and the image of Aldwyn slowly began to float downstream. Gilbert looked crushed with disappointment. “Even my puddle viewings aren’t helpful,” he said, then turned to the river and shouted, “Next time, why don’t you tell me that the sun rises in the morning and sets at night? Or that Skylar is a bird and I’m a worthless familiar?”

“Gilbert, don’t be so hard on yourself,” said Aldwyn. “If it wasn’t for you, Paksahara would have turned us to dust in the Sunken Palace.”

“I’m beginning to think that was just luck,” said Gilbert.

Suddenly, a bamboo spear flew down from the trees, narrowly missing Aldwyn’s feet. All three familiars ducked for cover.

“We’re being attacked!” said Aldwyn.

Gilbert, who seemed angry with himself and with the world, reached for his own spear off his back and flung it straight up into the trees, from where the assault had come. The weapon disappeared in the branches. The familiars waited for a long moment, expecting another attempt on their lives. But none came. Then Skylar glanced at the bamboo stick impaled in the ground beside them.

“Gilbert, isn’t that
your
spear?” she asked.

“What? That’s impossible. This is the one that was thrown at us. Mine never came down from the trees.”

Aldwyn looked more closely at the sharpened stick and noticed the engraving of a circle with a star inside it. There was no doubt about it, this was Gilbert’s symbol.

“OK, this is getting weird,” said Aldwyn.

“You better be careful,” a voice called out. “You could have hurt yourself.”

Aldwyn’s, Skylar’s and Gilbert’s heads shot up in unison, and there, a little further up the river, they saw a green iguana sitting atop a small waterfall.

“Welcome to the Time Stream,” he said. “Nice to see you again.”

“But we’ve never met,” said Skylar.

“That’s what you think. Bless you.”

The familiars looked at each other, utterly confused.

“Ha-choo!” sneezed the blue jay, to her surprise.

“You see, Skylar, the course of life is like a whirlpool here,” said the iguana. “Sometimes it moves forward, sometimes backwards.”

“How do you know my name?” she asked.

“You introduced yourself the first time we met.”

Aldwyn decided to cut through this interesting but confusing banter with questions they needed answers to.

“Did you see a black-and-white cat pass by this stream, about three years ago?” he asked. “His name was Baxley. He was carrying a steel ball in search of the Crown of the Snow Leopard.”

“I’m afraid I didn’t,” said the iguana. “But I look forward to meeting him.”

Aldwyn was most confounded by this jungle lizard, who only seemed to talk in riddles.

“I don’t understand,” said Gilbert, who was just as flummoxed as Aldwyn.

“Place a leaf in these waters and let it drift downstream, and it could wash up on the shores of Vastia ten years ago,” explained the iguana. “The waters of the Ebs begin their flow right here, and like the currents of time, they circle and spin before setting their path. Here and now is yesterday and tomorrow. Everything is connected. Past, present and future. Now you better get going. You’ll be arriving soon.”

And with that, the iguana scurried up a tree and disappeared into the foliage.

The familiars were more than eager to leave this perplexing place. Aldwyn led them along Baxley’s glowing trail as it curved round the base of the cliffs from which the waterfall descended. It then slightly backtracked to the south, running almost parallel to where they had walked previously. Over by the river, the familiars could hear the sound of voices.

“… but I thought that cube might contain spells that could aid us in defeating Paksahara.”

It was Skylar’s voice. Peering through the trees, Aldwyn saw himself, Skylar and Gilbert walking along the path towards the Time Stream. It was a puzzling paradox he could hardly wrap his mind round. His eyes spotted Baxley’s pouch round his own neck, and he knew full well that an invisible hand would be taking it from him any second. Unless he did first!

Aldwyn focused his telekinesis and pulled the bag from his other self, lifting it from his neck and tugging it through the air right to him. That’s when he realised who had taken the pouch in the first place – himself. His head was spinning.

“Hey, did you guys see that?” asked the past Aldwyn, looking for the culprit.

“What?” asked the past Gilbert.

“The pouch! Somebody took it,” said the past Aldwyn, just as the present Aldwyn had a few minutes before.

“Quick, hide,” said Aldwyn to his companions, who had now spotted the past versions of themselves as well.

Gilbert hopped for a tree, but tripped, smacking his face into the ground. Skylar was quicker. With a flash of her blue wing, she conjured an illusion of hanging vines to block them from view.

“Maybe the invisible howler monkeys roam these jungles,” said the past Skylar. In the present, the three familiars stood silently and watched as their past selves continued towards the waterfall. Aldwyn had the pouch round his neck once more. And this time he wouldn’t miss the chance to open it. Whatever lay inside that cloth bag was a piece of his father, and therefore a piece of himself. Like the iguana had said, the past and present were interconnected, and Aldwyn knew that he could never truly move forward without first looking back.

Dried worms. Shrivelled garlic. Blades of grass. A necklace with three shells on it. Two smooth stones. These were the contents of Baxley’s pouch. Looking at them, Aldwyn felt silly for having been so hesitant to open the cloth bag in the first place.

Sitting in a quiet spot on some tangled roots away from Gilbert and Skylar, Aldwyn stared at the mundane items before him and realised they didn’t tell much of a story at all. Worms to catch fish, stones to make fire. He had expected incriminating evidence of the selfish and villainous character Malvern had described. Perhaps a journal that exposed how little Baxley cared for his son and wife and how his only love was seeking treasure. But alas, Aldwyn was left with blades of grass, which told him nothing; neither confirming his fears nor serving to counter them.

Skylar and Gilbert gave Aldwyn some time before coming over beside him.

“Any clues that might help us?” asked Skylar.

“None that I see,” replied Aldwyn.

“Anything tell you more about your father?” asked Gilbert.

Aldwyn shook his head.

Skylar lowered her beak towards the string of shells lying on the roots.

“I think these are whisper shells,” she said. “Have you listened to them?”

Aldwyn’s heart began to beat a little faster. In his haste, he had thought the necklace was just that, a necklace. But now he remembered what Jack had shown him at the Historical Archives – that whisper shells contained voices, pieces of the past recorded in time. Unlike the larger conch and snail shells gathered on the counters of the Archives, these were no bigger than one of Aldwyn’s toes.

He put his ear up to the first and heard the soft purr of a female voice. It was the same voice he had heard many times in his dreams, gentle and reassuring.

“Baxley,” the voice said, “make sure you come back to us.”

There was no question in Aldwyn’s mind. This was his mother, Corliss. But she hardly sounded crazy.

“Who is speaking?” asked Skylar.

“My mother, I think,” replied Aldwyn. “She said, ‘Baxley, make sure you come back to us.’”

“That’s not a very long message,” said Gilbert.

“Well, it’s not a very big shell,” said Skylar.

Aldwyn moved on to the second shell and leaned his ear to it. This time, he heard the sound of a kitten mewing.

“It sounds like kittens,” said Aldwyn. “Or maybe just one. I can’t tell.”

“Perhaps it’s you,” said Skylar. “Malvern said Baxley left Maidenmere just after you were born. What if he brought along the shell to remember you?”

Aldwyn allowed himself for a moment to picture his father walking along this very path, listening to the sound of his voice.
Had his father been keeping him close this entire journey?

No.
He wouldn’t let his mind start spinning fantasies that were most likely untrue.

“What does the last one say?” asked Skylar.

Aldwyn moved his ear beside it, but all he heard was silence.

“It’s not saying anything,” he told Skylar and Gilbert.

“A voice memory yet to be recorded,” said the blue jay.

Aldwyn couldn’t hide his disappointment. He secretly wished to hear the voice of his father. Good or bad, he was curious to know what Baxley sounded like, and if hearing him speak would bring back any memories from his earliest days.

Skylar looked through the gap in the trees above and saw that the moon was three nights away from being full.

“We should keep moving,” she said.

Aldwyn used his telekinesis to gather up all of the contents of Baxley’s pouch and add them to his own. Then the familiars marched on.

The paw prints sloped downwards from here, making the journey a bit easier. Skylar seemed to enjoy gliding most of the way. The jungle became less dense, and once they had reached the base of the hill, they found a dirt road that was carving its way through the trees, and on it Aldwyn could see the marks left by horse carts. This was the first sign of any civilisation at all in the Beyond.

Baxley’s paw-print trail intersected with the dirt road, giving the familiars a chance to examine the tracks more closely. Hooves and wheels had rumbled past recently. Where were they coming from? And where were they going?

“There were gundabeasts here as well,” said Skylar, pointing her wing to massive indentations cratered into the mud. “Big ones.”

At that moment, a man’s voice called out, “Help!” It seemed to be coming from round a bend in the road.

The trio followed the cry, and as they rounded a cluster of jungle palms, they found themselves face to face with the scene of a massacre. The bodies of a dozen armoured soldiers and cloaked wizards lay strewn about on the ground, some wincing in pain, others unconscious and in desperate need of a raven’s healing abilities. Aldwyn realised that these weren’t just any warriors, but the very ones that Queen Loranella had sent off from her palace. There was no sign of their horses anywhere.

“Familiars,” beckoned the same man who had called for help. “It is you, the Prophesised Three.” Aldwyn recognised him as Urbaugh, the bearded wizard from the emergency council meeting. He lay propped up against a tree, his leg bent in three places it shouldn’t have been. “For the last two days, we were tracking a caravan heading north. We thought we had gone undetected, never using torches and staying miles behind. But we must not have been as stealthy as we thought because hours ago we were ambushed. Out from the trees came two gundabeasts with chains wrapped round their waists. They were commanded by one of the tongueless cave shamans of Stalagmos. Our swords, halberds and maces were no match for the two beasts’ giant fists and horns.”

“And this caravan?” asked Skylar. “What did it carry?”

“Forgive me, for my animal tongue is a bit rusty,” replied Urbaugh. “My own familiar passed into the Tomorrowlife many seasons ago.”

“The caravan?” repeated Skylar more slowly. “What did it carry?”

“This we still don’t know, but it was something very valuable to Paksahara. Of that I am sure.”

“How do you know?” asked Skylar.

“The wagons bore her symbol,” said Urbaugh. “A double hex, with her wicked, gleaming eyes peering out from the centre.”

“I saw the same symbol on the foot of Lothar, the wolverine from the Aviary,” said Aldwyn.

“Go on with whatever journey you’ve begun,” said Urbaugh. “My brother’s familiar ran off to find the nearest healing ravens. There’s nothing you can do for us now.”

Aldwyn felt guilty to leave such brave warriors spilling their blood on the ground. But Urbaugh was right. Their calling was the Crown of the Snow Leopard. Without it, nothing they did would matter.

“Here, take my maggots,” said Gilbert, reaching into his flower-bud backpack. “Besides being delicious, they’re actually quite nourishing.”

The tree frog left them in Urbaugh’s hand.

“Gilbert, I think he’d rather go hungry,” said Skylar.

This brought a smile to the bearded wizard’s face. Then his eyes closed.

“No, don’t leave us,” croaked Gilbert. “It’s not fair!” Gilbert leaped atop Urbaugh’s chest and raised a webbed fist to the sky. “Curse you, Paksahara!”

Urbaugh’s left eye opened slightly.

“I’m not dead,” he said. “Just resting. Now get off me. I have many cracked ribs.”

“Right,” said Gilbert, sheepishly stepping down. “Sorry.”

The familiars left the wounded warriors behind and resumed the glowing path. The dirt road quickly disappeared into the trees behind them, and they again seemed to be all alone in the Beyond.

The journey so far had been exhausting for Aldwyn, even with his two companions close by his side. It was hard to imagine that his father had come all this way on his own. Aldwyn didn’t have a full appreciation for the distance they had covered until he glanced at the map Scribius had been busy composing along every step of their quest. Through the dusty plains of the Northern Plateaux, crossing Liveod’s Canyon, reconnecting with the Ebs in the jungles of the Beyond, twisting towards the Time Stream and then back down to where they walked now, entering a narrow ravine.

“I really hope when we meet this snow leopard, he doesn’t put up a fight over his crown,” said Gilbert. “Because after all we’ve been through, you’d think he would be pretty understanding.”

“I’ll pull it off her spotted head myself if I have to,” said Skylar. “I can get very bad-tempered after barely sleeping for a week.”

Aldwyn noticed that the walls of the ravine were getting higher and that the chasm itself was leading to a giant, splintered stone wall – a dead end where Baxley’s paw prints came to a sudden stop.

“Aldwyn, I hate to doubt your clarity of vision,” said Skylar, “but unless Baxley had wings, I don’t see a way out of here.”

Aldwyn was just as confused. He doubled back to make sure he hadn’t missed something.

“Kind of reminds me of Daku,” said Gilbert, staring at the cracked wall.

“Gilbert, you grew up in a
swamp
,” said Skylar.

“No, I’m talking about the spider web soufflé my mum used to make us,” said Gilbert. “It used to look just like that wall.”

Aldwyn looked up, and sure enough, the fissures on the stone barrier made concentric circles with lines stretching out from the centre just like a spider web.

Through brown mist stone arrows point, To where the ladybirds rest. A supper to be placed, In the great spider’s nest.
The Song of the First Phylum’s third verse played in Aldwyn’s head.

“Are you guys thinking what I’m thinking?” asked Aldwyn.

“That a spider web soufflé would taste amazing right now?” said Gilbert.

“The nursery rhyme,” said Skylar, nodding her beak. “This must be the great spider’s nest.”

Aldwyn pointed to a circular hole in the wall, just outside the centre of the fissure.

“
A supper to be placed,
” he said. “Right in that hole, like a key.”

“Wait, that’s the second half of the stanza,” said Skylar. “What about the stone arrows and the ladybirds?”

“We must have skipped an entire clue!” exclaimed Aldwyn. “We’ll have to go back.”

They all looked deflated.

“We don’t have time for that,” said Skylar.

“Besides, I’ve never seen a ladybird that would fill that hole,” said Gilbert. “It would have to be as big as that red and black rock over there.”

Aldwyn and Skylar looked down to see lying in a pile of grey stones a perfect sphere of red dotted with black.

“That
is
the ladybird,” said Aldwyn.

“It is?” asked Gilbert.

“Yes,” said Skylar. “The missing gemstone from the Sanctuary. Aldwyn, your father wasn’t a grave robber. He was following the clues too.”

Aldwyn’s mind flashed back to the paw prints leading in and out of the crypt. “The arrows. They must have been obscured by the sandstorm!”

“
Through brown mist,
” said Skylar. “Of course.”

Suddenly, everything Aldwyn thought he knew about Baxley was coming into question. If he hadn’t stolen the druid’s gemstone for selfish purposes, maybe the same was true of his search for the Crown. Had Malvern misjudged his own brother?

Skylar soared down and picked up the red and black stone with her talons. But just as she did, from above, four sharp-billed woodpeckers descended and alighted on the trees lining the tops of the canyon walls.

“Your journey ends here,” one of them called out in a voice more booming and ominous than the woodpecker’s small size would seem to allow. His yellow tail feather bristled. “You will never find the Crown of the Snow Leopard!”

With an unspoken command from their leader, the other birds began hammering away at the trees.

“How did they know?” asked Gilbert.

“It was only a matter of time before Paksahara’s scouts discovered our quest,” said Skylar.

The familiars glanced up to see that the woodpeckers had embedded their beaks within the bark of the trees – and that the trees themselves had begun to move!

“Skylar, quickly, fly the ladybird into the spider’s nest!” shouted Aldwyn.

The trunks of the large oaks bent down, and their twisted branches reached out like arms, scooping up piles of rocks. Then the trees began flinging them at the three animals at the base of the ravine. Aldwyn nearly got crushed as a chunk of sandstone shattered beside him. Skylar and Gilbert only just dodged the first barrage of stone debris as well.

“There’s nowhere to go!” cried Gilbert. “Skylar, quickly.”

The blue jay flapped her wings towards the hole in the wall. The woodpeckers’ beaks remained stuck in the bark, controlling the trees like puppets. The branches gathered a second round of jagged stones and launched them at the familiars. Aldwyn focused, trying to use his telekinesis to push back the assault, but the force of the rocks was too great. While their momentum was slowed, the woodpeckers’ attack still rained down on them, and it was only a matter of time until they would be crushed by one of them.

Skylar had to fly out of the narrow crevice in which Aldwyn and Gilbert were still trapped in order to reach her destination, but that didn’t stop the oaks from trying to knock her out of the air. One of the rocks hit the gemstone and whacked it right out of her talons, sending it falling to the ground.