The Shadowlands (4 page)

Within hours, two long boats rowed by silent, craggy-faced leech-gatherers were setting out from the north side of the island. Lief, Jasmine, Barda and Emlis sat in the stern of one boat. In the other were the frozen-faced Tirral and two of her closest advisors.

Green water stretched ahead, gradually darkening to grey. The horizon was shrouded in darkness.

Kree clucked uneasily.

‘The Grey Zone,’ Jasmine said, staring at the ominous horizon.

Emlis nodded. Fear mingled with excitement on his thin face, which was almost covered by the hood of the thick, dull green leech-gatherer’s cloak he wore.

‘It is not too late to change your mind, Emlis,’ muttered Barda, who was sitting beside him. ‘This is not one of Doran’s tales. It is real, and deadly.’

‘I cannot change my mind now,’ said Emlis. ‘You need me. They will not let you take the Pipe without me.’

‘Your skin is not fit for the world above, Emlis,’ whispered Jasmine, leaning forward. ‘The sun will burn you. The light will blind you.’

Emlis shook his head stubbornly. ‘The cloak will protect me from the sun. And I am not the first Pirran to leave the caverns. Doran told of seven who did so, in the time of Alyss and Rosnan.’

‘They all died, Emlis,’ said Barda brutally. ‘They died, and never saw their homes again.’

‘They were killed by above-worlders, not by the sun,’ Emlis said, his voice trembling. ‘And in any case, they were Plumes, and the Plumes are as foolhardy and stupid as the Aurons are wicked.’

‘Plumes and Aurons are not stupid and wicked!’ cried Jasmine. ‘They are your own people! Your kinsfolk!
Far more closely related to you than we are.’

The leech-gatherers who were paddling their boat turned and frowned ferociously. One made a low sound in his throat. The other bared his teeth unpleasantly. Jasmine pressed her lips together and returned their stares without flinching until at last they turned to face the front and began paddling once more.

Emlis hunched his bony shoulders. ‘I beg you, do not argue with me any more,’ he mumbled. ‘This is my one chance to fulfil the dearest wish of my life. To see a world that is not my own. If I die in the attempt, that is surely my choice.’

Barda ran his hands through his tousled hair in despair. ‘Three of them,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘Three young hot-heads. By the heavens, were not two bad enough?’

Gradually the emerald light failed and within an hour the fleet was paddling through a grim realm of grey. They were far beyond the scope of Doran’s map now. Beyond Deltora’s border.

When they looked up, all they saw was swirling darkness. They knew that far above them towered the treacherous peaks that clustered behind Dread Mountain—iron-hard rock filled with dank, secret caves where hideous beasts like the giant toad Gellick thrived.

The boat was moving more slowly, and the rugged faces of the leech-gatherers had become strained and watchful.

Ahead loomed an ink-black shadow. The cavern beneath the Shadowlands.

‘When are they going to leave us?’ Jasmine murmured.

‘We must go to the edge of the Shadow,’ one of the leech-gatherers said unexpectedly, without turning around. ‘So the Piper says. And there we stop, praise be to Keras, and send you up, to the evil place above.’

‘Send us up?’ Lief blinked, confused. He had imagined that the Kerons were going to show them a secret way to the surface. But this sounded like…

‘The magic of seven may not be needed for the task,’ said the leech-gatherer, ‘but we thought it best to be on the safe side. Who knows how deep the rock is, up above. For all your strange ideas, we would not want you caught mid-ways, would we now?’

His companion chuckled grimly.

Lief felt Jasmine shudder, and knew that she had been gripped, as he had, by a nightmarish vision of being trapped in the midst of solid rock.

‘Do not fear,’ said Emlis. ‘Our ancestors sent Doran to the surface without harm many times.’

‘That was long ago,’ muttered Barda, who was looking rather sick. ‘And I presume Doran was not sent into the Shadowlands.’

‘Oh, no!’ Emlis agreed. ‘Doran always left the caverns in a place to the west of Keras. He said that in the land above, just at that spot, there was a great waterway, and boats to help him make the journey home.’

‘The River Tor!’ Lief exclaimed. ‘So that was how Doran did it so secretly. He would reappear in the brush below Dread Mountain. Then he would walk down to the river and wait for a boat. There would not have been so many pirates then.’

‘Or Ols,’ said Jasmine. Kree squawked nervously on her shoulder, but she did not turn to him. Her eyes were fixed on the mass of darkness looming before them.

The Shadowlands. Soon, very soon, she would be able to begin the search for Faith, her lost sister. And Lief and Barda would be beside her.

Jasmine had not forgiven Lief for trying to keep knowledge of Faith hidden from her. But after all they had been through together since entering the caverns, her anger had lost its bitter edge. Now she felt sure that Lief had kept Faith a secret only out of a desperate wish to keep her, Jasmine, from harm.

He was wrong to deceive me, Jasmine thought. But he did it for reasons he thought were good.

Her eyes stared, unfocused, at the growing Shadow ahead. Waiting for Lief in Del was his bride-to-be—that well-read, noble Toran girl who would make a fitting queen, and one day bear a child to wear the Belt of Deltora after Lief. But Jasmine was here with Lief now. And she was his friend—his true friend.

And that is enough, Jasmine told herself. That is how it must be. For what do I know of palaces and politeness and fine clothes? Nothing at all, and nor do I want to. Lief knows that.

Filli whimpered softly beneath her collar, and she raised a hand to comfort him, unconsciously drawing her own comfort from his warmth.

‘The first time Doran came to the caverns, he did not reach Keras,’ Emlis was chattering meanwhile to Barda. ‘Some Plumes found him drowning in the topaz sea. They saved him, but sent him straight back to the surface! That is how stupid Plumes are!’

He broke off and glanced guiltily at Jasmine, but she was still staring fixedly ahead.

‘The Plumes thought Doran would forget what had happened,’ Emlis said. ‘But a song they sang as they paddled their boat stayed in his head and made him remember. So he returned. And
this
time he—’

His eager voice broke off in a squeak.

Darkness had fallen like a curtain. The water surrounding them was black as night. They could see nothing. They could only hear the sound of the water lapping and the small craft that surrounded their long boat bumping together gently.

‘It is time.’ Tirral’s trembling voice floated in the darkness. ‘Now is the last chance for you to change your minds. Will you return with us to Keras, and safety? Lief… Barda… Jasmine…
Emlis
?’

There was a long pause.

‘Very well.’ Tirral’s voice was rigidly controlled now. ‘I have one piece of advice for you, and I urge you to attend to it, for I feel its worth in every bone of my body. Shadows have sunk deep into the soil of Pirra now.
Whatever the Plumes and Aurons may think, Pirra is lost forever. It can never be reclaimed.’

‘We know this,’ Lief said. ‘And neither the Plumes nor the Aurons expect—’

‘I have not finished,’ Tirral snapped, speaking over him. ‘Listen! The Shadow Lord’s power is far greater now than when the Pipe kept him from Pirran soil. Played well or ill, the Pipe will stay his hand only for a time, and only if he is taken by surprise. Keep its magic for when it is most needed.’

‘We will,’ Lief, Barda and Jasmine murmured together.

‘There is nothing to do, then, but to wish you well,’ said Tirral from the darkness. ‘Put your arms about one another. Close your eyes. Think of nothing.’

Feeling as though he was in a dream, Lief moved into the centre of the boat. He knelt down on the hard, wet boards, spread his arms wide and gripped his companions tightly. He bent his head, forced his mind to go blank.

‘Good fortune, cousins.’ The rough voice of one of the leech-gatherers rumbled low in the silence. Then…

Cold, freezing cold. Rushing darkness. Sick dizziness, unbearable…

There was a sudden, terrifying stillness. A bleak, bitter smell. A rapid, thumping sound, very close, mingled with the moaning wail of wind. And Lief opened his stinging eyes, took his first, gasping breath, in the Shadowlands.

L
ief lay very still, slowly realising that the thumping sound he was hearing was the pounding of his own heart. He was sprawled face down on hard earth. Wind was sweeping over him, a draught that seemed neither hot nor cold, carrying with it the bitter smell he had noticed before.

Cautiously he raised his head, blinking in the sullen light. Jasmine was crouching beside him, Kree on her shoulder. Barda was crawling to his feet not far away. Emlis, swathed in his cloak, was still on the ground, curled in a small ball.

With a chill Lief realised that they were in the open, on a windswept plain pocked with gaping craters. Barren white clay, as parched and cracked as a dry river bed, stretched in front of them as far as the eye could see. Thick grey clouds boiled low overhead, hiding the sun.

The land was dead. Dead as bleached, white bones.

Lief’s eyes burned as words from
The Tale of the
Pirran Pipe
sprang unbidden into his mind.

Long, long ago, beyond the Mountains, there was a green Land called Pirra, where the breezes breathed magic…

Pirra, once a land of beauty, sunshine and flowers. The ancient home of the Kerons, the Plumes and the Aurons. Now… this wasteland.

And this is what Deltora might have been. Still might be. If you were wrong, Lief. If you were wrong…

Lief shook his head, trying to shut out the voice in his mind, the tormenting voice of his own conscience. But it would not stop.

You should have let Jasmine go. You should have remained in Del. That was your duty. Your duty…

Jasmine was pulling at his arm. ‘Lief! We must take cover, quickly,’ she hissed. ‘There are—things here. Coming closer.’

Lief tore his gaze from the barren horizon and looked at her. Her eyes were startled, wide, almost black.

‘People? Beasts? Ols?’ he asked quickly.

‘I—do not know,’ Jasmine whispered. ‘Things.’ She shuddered. Filli whimpered in his hiding place under her jacket.

Barda had scooped Emlis from the ground and was hurrying towards them.

‘Do not just stand there!’ he said roughly. ‘If an Ak-Baba should sight us, we are finished!’ He grabbed Lief by the arm and swung him around.

Only then did Lief realise that they were not marooned in the middle of the vast plain, as in his confusion he had thought. Behind them, rising like a great, jagged fence, were the mountains, their cruel peaks piercing the cloud, their foothills edging the plain. The great bulk of Dread Mountain hulked in the background, spreading away to the west.

Of course! Lief thought, sprinting towards the bare, forbidding foothills with the others pounding close behind him. The Kerons spirited us to the surface just inside the Shadowlands border. Of
course
the mountains are here! What was I thinking of?

He heard Emlis waking, protesting, demanding to be put down. Well, that was one good thing. Barda would have his hands free to climb, at least. Lief swerved around the first of the grey boulders that lay at the edge of the plain and began to scramble rapidly upward, aiming for the shelter of the larger rocks he could see further ahead.

Then, suddenly, a white flash of pain exploded behind his eyes as something slammed against his brow with shocking force. He staggered backwards, arms spinning wildly, fighting to keep his balance. Through the ringing in his ears he heard muffled cries of alarm, then, with relief, he felt a firm hand on his back. Barda was supporting him, pushing him back on his feet.

Trembling, he sank to his knees. Barda, Jasmine and Emlis crouched beside him, pressing closely together so that the great boulder hid them from the plain.

‘Lief, what happened?’ he heard Jasmine whisper.

‘Did you not see?’ he mumbled, pressing his hands to his aching head. ‘Something hit me.’

‘No!’ she whispered back. ‘There was nothing there. You just jerked backwards, suddenly, for no reason. One minute you were running, the next—’

Barda drew breath sharply. He picked up some pebbles and threw them at the empty air in front of them. Astounded, Lief saw the pebbles stop short in mid air, bounce slightly back, then fall to the ground.

‘An invisible wall!’ Jasmine breathed.

‘Yes,’ Barda said grimly. ‘I thought it strange that the mountains were unprotected. The Shadow Lord has sealed the border in his own way, it seems.’

As he spoke, they saw movement near where one of the pebbles had fallen. A small, brown striped lizard with bright eyes had scuttled into view.

‘But it came from uphill!’ whispered Jasmine excitedly. ‘From behind the magic wall. I saw it! Is it only humans who are stopped by the shutting spell?’