The Robe of Skulls (4 page)

As Gracie hurried along the path behind the flitting bat, she began to wonder if she was being very foolish. After all, what did she know about the bat and his plans for her? On the other hand, there was nothing about her life with Mange and Foyce that made her want to stay with them. It was only the house she was fond of. She’d been born there and had lived there happily enough until her father had died of Bluefoot Fever when she was two. Her mother had fallen ill a week or so later but had insisted on going to the market as usual. She had left Gracie with a neighbor and driven off with a cartload of onions. She had come back with Mange and Foyce and died shortly afterward. Mange had immediately claimed the house as his own, and there was nobody who dared to challenge him. He had told the neighbor that he had promised Gracie’s mother he would care for Gracie, and as the neighbor had eleven children of her own, she was grateful not to have to add another to the collection. Gracie herself might have preferred to be one of a dozen underfed but happy children, but nobody asked her, and it wasn’t long before Mange made himself so unpleasant that the neighbor moved away. Since then there had been no other neighbors, and Gracie had grown up believing that Mange was her stepfather. As she got older, she found it harder and harder to believe that her mother would have chosen to marry such a man, but after a lot of thought she had decided that her mother’s fever must have affected her judgment.

Gracie sighed and shifted her knotted shawl to her other shoulder. When she thought of Mange, she knew that anything unknown
had
to be better than the known. All the same, it wouldn’t hurt to ask some questions.

“Excuse me,” she said as she and the bat passed the pile of boulders that marked the entrance to the village of Fracture and the path narrowed to a steep zigzag. “Excuse me, but do you have a name? Of course, if you don’t want to tell me, that’s quite OK, but —” Gracie stopped. The bat was behaving very oddly. He kept zooming high into the air and then dropping like a stone.

“Are you all right?” Gracie asked anxiously. “Is something wrong?”

The bat flew close to her ear. “Sure is, kiddo,” he hissed. “We’re being trailed. Got to think of a way to lose her.”

“Her?”
Gracie’s heart began to race. “Oh, NO! It’s not Foyce, is it? She’ll kill me if she catches me. Is she close? She can run
much
faster than I can —”

“Not while she’s stew-doped, she can’t.” The bat flew up, checked, and came back again. “Got ten minutes before she catches up, I’d say. Hey! Can you climb?”

“I can try,” Gracie said.

“Right! Keep walking . . . and stamp in that sandy spot there. Yup. Footprint, see? Now, onto the grass . . . and double back here. Over the edge and down you go — fast as you can, but
no
noise,
right?”

Gracie followed the bat’s instructions to the letter. The footprint was sharp and clear, and as she got ready to swing herself off the path and onto the rocks below, she had another idea. She pulled off a shoe and threw it as hard as she could. It landed way down the path, far beyond the footprint.

The bat grinned. “Good thinking! Now, quick — before the dame gets around the corner and sees you. Straight down, and if I say
freeze,
then do it. Get it?”

“Got it.” Gracie tucked the other shoe into her shawl and began scrambling down the precipitous rocks while the bat flew beside her, making encouraging squeaks. It was hard work, and more than once she slipped and skinned her elbows or knees, but she was getting down the steep mountainside far faster than if she had kept to the path. “When do we get to rest?” She panted as she stopped for a moment to catch her breath and push her hair out of her eyes.

“Soon enough, kiddo,” the bat said. “See that crack in the rock there?”

Gracie looked. The crack was narrow and covered with bracken. If the bat hadn’t pointed it out, she would have missed it altogether.

“Slip inside,” the bat said. “If Uncle Alvin fusses, say Marlon sent you. I’ll be along in five. Time to check out the dame.
Ciao!
” And before Gracie had time to argue, he was gone, flying up and away into the evening shadows. Gracie gripped her shawl more tightly and pushed her way into the darkness of the cave.

At first she could see nothing, but gradually her eyes grew accustomed to the gloom. The space was far larger than had seemed possible from the narrow opening, and Gracie found herself wondering if it was more of a tunnel than a cave. She didn’t want to explore, however. It reminded her much too clearly of the cellar where she had spent so many evenings, and she settled herself near the entrance to wait for the bat. Her back was against the rocky wall, and although it was anything but smooth, she felt her eyelids closing. . . .

“OI!”

The voice was sharp as a needle and right beside Gracie’s ear. She woke up with a start and rubbed her eyes.

“Oi! What
exactly
do you think you’re doing in
my
cave?”

“I’m so sorry,” Gracie said, and then remembered the bat’s instructions. “Erm . . . might you be Uncle Alvin?”

“I might,” the voice said, and it did not sound any friendlier. “Or I might not. Who are you?”

“I’m Gracie Gillypot,” Gracie said. “And I was to say that Marlon sent me and that he’ll be along in five.”

“Well,
that’s
a load of rats’ tails for a start,” snapped the voice. “You’ve been here at least an hour. Unless that ridiculous nephew of mine meant five
hours
?”

“An
hour
?” Gracie felt a wave of panic surge through her. “I’ve been here a whole
hour
?”

“Well, I haven’t been counting every minute,” Uncle Alvin said. “I’m afraid I’ve had
far
more important things to do. But I’d say an hour at least. Maybe two.”

Gracie clutched her bag to her chest. “But that’s
awful,
” she said, her voice wobbling. “What if he never comes back? What shall I do? I don’t know where I’m going or
anything
. . . .”

Uncle Alvin sighed a small bat-size sigh. “Typical,” he said. “Nothing but trouble, that boy. Always has been, and always will be. I mean, just
look
at the people he associates with! Witches, wizards, wizened old crones . . . and I’ve heard he even spends time with some waster in Gorebreath Palace! Huh!”

“Crones . . .” Gracie caught eagerly at the word. “I remember now! The bat — Marlon? Is that his name? — said he was taking me to the Ancient Crones.” She shivered. “Although I don’t know why.”

Uncle Alvin didn’t answer at once. When he did, his voice sounded odd. “Ah. To the Ancient Crones. That might well be.” He coughed as if he were embarrassed. “In that case, I apologize if I was a little — shall we say — cranky? when I woke you up.” He coughed again. “And perhaps you’d be kind enough not to hold it against me, young lady, if we should ever have the good fortune to meet in the future.”

“It’s quite all right,” Gracie said, wondering why he sounded so different all of a sudden. “It must be very inconvenient having humans blundering into your home. But I’ll never get anywhere if Marlon doesn’t come back to show me the —”

“La-di-da and la-di-deee — hello there, kiddo!” A tiny dark shape hung in the opening of the cave, and Marlon flipped inside. “See you met ol’ misery guts!”

“He was being very kind,” Gracie said reproachfully. “You were gone for
ages
!”

“Sorry ’bout that.” Marlon didn’t sound sorry at all. “Unavoidably delayed. Good news is, the dame’s off track. Totally taken in by the shoe, if you ask my opinion. Heading toward Gorebreath, muttering and cursing all the way.”

Gracie didn’t ask what Foyce was muttering or whom she was cursing. She knew.

“So we’ll be off as well,” Marlon told her. “It’ll be a bit of a trot, but you won’t mind that, will you?”

Gracie shook her head. The very mention of Foyce had made her absolutely certain that she wanted to be anywhere Foyce wasn’t. “Let’s go,” she said.

Uncle Alvin rustled his wings. “Off to the Ancient Crones, I hear,” he said.

“Yup. Safest place when there’s a dame on the rampage like the one out there.” Gracie had a suspicion that Marlon was grinning. “Never heard swearing like it!”

“You be careful, my lad,” Uncle Alvin said. “One of these days you’re going to get yourself into such trouble, you won’t find a way out, fast-talker though you may be. And don’t forget that the Ancients hold the Power . . . far more than you could ever dream of.”

“Yabber yabber yabber,” Marlon said happily. “See you, Unc. Now, kiddo — off we go!” And he led Gracie out of the cave and into a bright moonlit night.

Gubble stared at the donkeys. He wasn’t sure if he liked donkeys. He wasn’t sure if donkeys liked him. He patted the biggest, and it bit him. Gubble was about to bite it back when Lady Lamorna came sweeping down the steps from the castle front door, a cloak wrapped closely around her. For a moment, Gubble didn’t recognize his mistress. Her cloak was tattered and torn and covered in mud, and her long white hair was hidden under an ancient bonnet that appeared to be made of old cabbage leaves. Her face was covered in lines and wrinkles, and an evil-looking wart had appeared on the end of her nose. A tuft of white whiskers sprouted from her chin.

“Arf,” Gubble said admiringly. “
Lovely,
Your Evilness. Gubble is most impressified.”

“Good,” said Lady Lamorna. She would have preferred something more attractive, but Aged Peasant was easy and used very little of her ever-decreasing stock of spell powder. “Now, where are our travel bags?”

Gubble blinked. “Bags?” he said. “No bags, Evilness. But Gubble has donkeys. Look!”

There was an unpleasant pause while Lady Lamorna looked at the donkeys. “Gubble,” she said at last, her voice as cold as ice, “
why
have you acquired fifteen donkeys?”

Gubble shuffled his feet. Explaining that if two were good, then more must be better was quite beyond him. “Gold,” he offered. “Lots of gold.”

Lady Lamorna grew marginally less chilly. “Indeed, Gubble, it would be good to believe we will earn gold enough for fifteen donkeys. I suspect, however, that so many will slow us down. Besides, they will need feeding. Choose the two strongest while I return to the castle and pack my bag.”

Gubble, mightily relieved at being let off so lightly, chose the strongest donkeys by the simple method of heaving himself onto their backs. Eight collapsed immediately, and Gubble tidied them away by dropping them over the castle battlements. They fell into the bushes beneath and galloped back to their homes, complaining bitterly. Of the seven that remained standing, five ran off as soon as Gubble had dismounted.

Gubble looked at the two remaining animals and saw that one was the donkey that had bitten him. “No more bitings,” Gubble growled. “No biting or I bites your tail off. In fact, maybe I bite it now to teach you —”

“Gubble? My bag is ready!” Lady Lamorna was standing at the door. The donkey, saved for the second time that day, immediately developed a passionate attachment to Gubble’s mistress. It trotted forward and brayed loudly before kneeling at her feet.

“Obviously an animal with sense,” she remarked. “Gubble! Make sure this beast is treated well! I shall call it Figs, and I shall ride it myself.”

The donkey gave Gubble a triumphant look. Gubble muttered darkly and strapped Lady Lamorna’s bag onto the back of the second donkey before hauling himself into the saddle.

“Let us go!” Lady Lamorna waved her arm, and the party set off on the winding path that led down to the village of Fracture, and from there onward to Gorebreath.