Clearheart (19 page)

‘It is time for us to go and arrest my husband,' said the Queen.

Ella, Charlie and Dixon felt the walls of the Dome crumble. The Troggles were almost upon them. Holding her hand out to Charlie, Ella shrugged her shoulders and tweaked her ear. Her wings unfolded over the top of her anorak, making her shiver in the cold. The trio flew up to a huge leaf that only Ella and Dixon could see. Settling upon it, Ella bade Charlie step into an invisible dewdrop glistening there. Trusting Ella, however weird it felt to step into something he couldn't see or feel, Charlie obeyed. Ella could hear a gentle wind whistling through the tree's branches. She set Dixon upon the dewdrop too and, closing her eyes, thought of Hedgeberry.

It was time for Samantha and Humphrey to give up. How long could they keep popping out to the poppy field to search for something they couldn't see or smell or hear?

‘I hope you're okay, Ella and Charlie,' said Samantha into the
air. ‘I hope you're safe. I wish you'd come home.'

Humphrey put his hand on Samantha's shoulder and ruffled her curly hair reassuringly. ‘Let's go,' he said. And then he stopped. He looked up into the sky.

‘Did you just see the moon?' he said.

‘No, I didn't,' said Samantha matter-of-factly. ‘I'm a Sprite Flitterwig, remember? I have nothing to do with the moon.'

‘But I do,' said Humphrey, ‘and the moon just appeared in the middle of the day.'

‘I'm sure it did, Humph, but what has that got to do with anything?'

‘My mum always told me that a visit from the moon during the day is a sign of great Magic in the air,' he said, looking about expectantly. Samantha turned, startled. She could hear a whisper and a rustling in the open field. A sharp wind whipped up. The children shivered. And then there was a sound of gurgling water. The air filled with the smell of cinnamon and rain. Something watery began to appear above them. It was like a big bubble. It quivered and swelled.

And then it popped.

‘Hello,' said Charlie, appearing from within it, dripping wet. He grinned with delight to find himself back at Hedgeberry with his friends.

‘Look, we found Dixon,' he said, turning to Ella and Dixon. But Ella was not there. Only Dixon, lying face-first in the grass, kissing it!

‘I'm back! I'm back! Rhymes with crack!' he rasped weakly. Samantha squealed with delight, flinging herself to the ground and squishing the pixie up to her chest.

‘What
are
you wearing?' said Humphrey, flicking his fringe out of his eyes and looking at Charlie's anorak with baffled amusement.

‘Where in Magic's name is Ella?' said Charlie again, his white hair standing right up on end and his freckled face blanching.

Ella flew back across the glacial plains of Antarctica alone, leaving the Troggles running in circles around the Spirit Tree. They could feel it but they couldn't see it, being Trogglified and all. The thought of flying directly back to the Duke made her insides turn. The weird sensation of flight did much the same. But her mind was made up. Bruised and tired as she was, the child flew with a determination that belied the ordeal she had just undergone.

The Clearheart shook her head angrily as she flew. For she had almost forgotten, in her quest to find Dixon, the promise she had made. She had promised Thomas that she would help prove the Giants' innocence in return for their leading her to Dixon, or be beholden to them until she could. A promise she would keep! But she would not endanger Dixon or Charlie anymore. So she had thought them back to the safety of Hedgeberry, with the help of the Spirit Trees. The Spirit Trees. What was it that
they kept whispering to her?
‘Asquemi, Asquemi.'
What did it mean?

As she flew closer to the Duke's hideaway, she could see the forms of two giants deep in animated discussion, their limbs shifting and bending like moving hillocks. Their great feet sent sprays of snow up into the air as they stamped passionately. The Giants were wondrous in their very size and bulk. The closer she came, the clearer their shapes grew against the Antarctic sky. It became evident that the red-haired Giant was by far the crosser of the two. It also became clear that they weren't feeling very well. For both of them held their stomachs as though they were about to vomit.

At a fair distance from them both, the Duke's spiky palace lay in ruins, its spires strewn, cracked and broken, on the ice. Crushed planes, tanks and guns, and a bright red Rolls Royce with a huge footprint through its middle, were scattered about eerily. The occasional movement of what Ella assumed were injured Troggles was the only indication of life. Ella swallowed hard and set off toward the Giants.

As she did so, something bright caught her eye.

It was coming from beyond the Duke's demolished hideaway, far away in the distance. She turned to the light and froze, hovering open-mouthed in the frosty dusk.

For there on the horizon, coming ever closer, glowing whiter than white, illuminating the encroaching darkness with their pure glow, flew a wall of what looked like an uncountable number of incandescent lights. Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. They were heading straight for the ruins of the Duke's hideaway.

Ella looked over her shoulder at the Giants. They were all but gone, back underground! Only their heads, two great, quiet boulders, still showed above the snow, one covered in red hair, the other by a ragged beanie. They were so still they had to be sleeping. She turned back to the wall of light. She felt drawn to it. Transfixed by it. Her body seemed to move through the air by itself, her wings propelling her silently and slowly of their own accord.

All at once, the wall stopped. Ella was close enough, though high above it, to see that the wall was made up of luminescent figures. White elves! The wall curled in to form a great shining ball. A sphere so magnificent, so huge, that the gargantuan heads snoozing half a mile away seemed small in comparison. Where had this army of white elves come from?

Before Ella had a chance to guess, a brilliant shower of arrows flew from the quivers of the soldiers at the front of the sphere. The silvery arrows were aimed sharply at a spot on the snow beneath the sphere. Ella smelt the familiar aroma of cinnamon
and rain erupting in the air.

As the arrows hit the ground, they turned the ice into a thick, silvery substance. Another shower of arrows followed, sparkling and shimmering with the shooting iridescence of elf dust. Ella lowered herself a few metres. She was spellbound. Fascinated. Calm. The arrows were turning the watery world beneath her solid as steel before her very eyes. She looked harder.

There was the Duke, his wings beating wildly, shielding his eyes from the dust with one hand. His wings raised him off the ground, but his legs dangled beneath him, bent and broken from when he had been trapped beneath the Giant. He was surrounded by Troggles, hissing and spitting up into the air, running about in ever-decreasing circles. But they served as little more than a distraction. He looked about wildly. ‘Ragwald, Ulnus,' he screamed with fury. ‘We are under attack! Melt a Waterway for our escape at once! They are making the ice impenetrable!'

Showers of elf dust encircled the Duke, trapping him in a wispy mesh of interconnected sparkles. With his free hand he sprayed his own dust about him, like a twisting laser of white light, brighter and denser than the white elves' spray. It dispelled the attacking dust at once. By his side, a half-Trogglified goblin worked hard to reach the ice before it became impenetrable.
By
his
side, the man with the enormous Adam's apple, who was clearly a Flitterwig, reached out with the branches that protruded from his arms. The branches burst into flame as he rested them upon the Antarctic floor, transforming the solid silvery surface back to snow and ice almost as quickly as it was Transmogrified.

‘Faster, Ulnus, Ragwald, faster,' Ella heard the Duke scream at the strange, branching Flitterwig and the tiny Magical. Could that be? It wasn't possible. Gloria's father?

‘I can't melt a Waterway fast enough, Your Highness,' Ragwald cried. ‘They are Transmogrifying the ice too quickly.' Ella looked at the ground.

‘He's right,' cried the Flitterwig. It was true, the arrows were coming so fast that the goblin and the Flitterwig had barely a chance.

The Duke flew higher, his legs dangling beneath him at odd angles. With a roar, he shot dust from his finger with such force that the wall of elves halted, stunned and electrified. The Duke shot another laser of dust at the ground beneath him, Transmogrifying it back to ice at once. Ragwald pounced upon it, holding his ear with one hand, his mouth working at nineteen to the dozen. The Flitterwig fought the power of the white elves' slicing shots with the flames of his branching limbs. The barrier
began to melt. But they couldn't work fast enough. The army of elves had regrouped. Their arrows sliced the ice, turning it steely and impenetrable once more.

‘
REEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGHHHHHHHHHH!
' screeched the Duke, shooting a laser of dust at the shining sphere of light, and another at the ground. Ragwald and Ulnus moved in again.

Ella watched, agape, frozen in the air, her wings not feeling in the least bit tired. It became clear to her as the battle continued that the goblin-Troggle-thing was trying to melt a Waterway through which to escape. The burning Flitterwig was obviously trying to help him. And the white elves were doing all they could to stop him. But where had the white elves come from?

The sphere of elves shuddered, stunned once more by another potent shot of dust from the Duke's finger. But this time they did not regroup quickly enough. There seemed to be a struggle within the sphere. The white elves grouped together at the point of the struggle, creating an apex of white light so blinding that Ella couldn't look at it without shielding her eyes. But in spite of their efforts, the wall split open. On the ground below, Ragwald and Ulnus worked to re-melt the impenetrable metallic floor.

‘I have a Waterway, Your Highness, quick!' Ragwald cried, disappearing into a small puddle of water until only his head and one arm were visible. The Duke flew towards the Waterway, turning his back on the encroaching ball of light. He flew headfirst towards his transitory means of escape. The elves shot shining arrows of whatever-it-was after him, turning the Waterway silver and solid, encasing Ragwald's head and arm within it. But as fast as their arrows came, the Dryad Flitterwig turned the ground back to water. Ablaze, trapped in a mercurial embrace, the loyal goblin drew on the waters below and re-melted the surface from beneath as fast as the elves could Transmogrify it from above. Ulnus worked hard on the surface to support him.

Flaaaashhhhhhhhh
!

A laser of dust as bright and dense as the Duke's flew from the apex of the sphere. It encircled the dastardly fallen elf like a net of electricity, pulling him to the ground. Ella looked up at the sphere, so close now that she could see the innumerable arrows on the white elves' backs, could see their perfect forms flying back into formation. But they were too late. For Ella could also see what they had been protecting inside their sphere. What—or rather,
who
—had fired that powerful dust through the luminous wall. It was a creature so lovely, so radiant, so fine,
that Ella breathed in sharply. The creature's delicate frame was enfolded in a simple yet elegant chemise. She lingered in the sky, miniature, weightless, graceful. Her hair flew out behind her, a mane of gold. Her gilded wings flickered incandescently as they swayed in the air. Sparks flew from the tips of her exquisitely pointed ears and the night filled with a bouquet of cloves and spices.

It was the Queen herself. Ella recognised her as if it had been yesterday that they had last met. Wrinkles, carried in the arms of two white elves, flew after the Queen, begging her to stay back. The dust that had struck the Duke came from her own Royal self. Ella could see it, still whirling from the Queen's pointing finger. The white elves spun about the Queen at once, but she cast them away. They were confused, uncertain whether to protect their Queen or continue the fight to stop the Duke's escape.

The Queen fluttered up and launched herself in a shimmering swallow dive towards the Duke. The Duke stared up at her and let out a cackling scream. Shaking away the net of dust that encircled him, his reptilian form heaved up, stretched and disfigured, drawn into the air by black wings. He pointed a claw at his wife and flung his head back.

‘You will never learn to use your dust as a weapon, will you
Tirabella?' he cried, laughing a dark laugh that cracked through the illuminated sky like a whip.

The white elves were undecided no longer. Twenty of them flew in front of the Queen as the laser of dust left the Duke's pointed claw. The dust that spilt from his finger this time was black as night, and it smelt of burnt cinnamon, of stagnant water. The effort of casting it emptied the Duke of power. He fell back onto the ever-changing ground and skimmed across it like a pebble on water, screaming in pain, coming to rest by Ragwald's head. The elves protecting the Queen exploded like firecrackers and evaporated on the spot.

The Queen moved forward, but not before another wall of white elves flew in to create another shield before her.

Ragwald's hand grabbed at the Duke's hair and pulled him closer, taking advantage of the white elves' loss of focus. The Dryad Flitterwig flung himself towards Ragwald too. The area around the goblin turned from molten silver to water to molten silver to water. The Flitterwig disappeared into the Waterway as soon as he spotted an opportunity. The Duke sent another laser of black dust hurtling towards the sphere and then collapsed, unconscious, as the goblin dragged him closer with all his might.