Firestar (12 page)

Seated on silver thrones in the halls of the Lords of the North, Prince Casimir talked anxiously to Lord Rothlan and his wife, Lady Ellan, who had just arrived from their castle at Jarishan. There had been a wonderful display of fireworks over the mountain to greet them and now that they had paid their respects to the old Lords, they were anxious to get up to date with what was
happening
. Amgarad, Rothlan’s great eagle, perched on his shoulder and listened attentively to what was being said for never before had there been such a crisis in the world of magic.

“And the stone giants?” queried Rothlan later, when they’d finished discussing Firestar. “What’s brought
them
to life?”

Casimir shook his head. “I just don’t know, Alasdair,” he said frankly. “This attack has upset everything. Nothing is as it was before — and now that the Cri’achan are awake and walking the mountains, it makes one wonder what else might have risen from the depths of the earth.”

Amgarad, perched on the arm of Rothlan’s chair, hunched his back and made an indescribable noise. Rothlan dropped his eyes. “Not a pleasant thought,” he murmured.

“Exactly,” Casimir agreed, “and as for the Cri’achan … well, they seem to have changed, and not for the better.”

“Changed?” Lady Ellan looked at him enquiringly.

Casimir nodded. “They used to be quite
peaceable
in the old days but since they’ve risen, they seem to have become aggressive and they’re
heading
eastwards, you know — quite definitely in this direction. Firestar’s power must be drawing them.”

“I’m surprised that Lord Alarid hasn’t done something about them,” Lady Ellan interrupted. “I mean, we can all communicate with Firestar. We know within ourselves that it is well but it must also know our concerns about the giants. Alarid only needs to
ask
to have the giants put back to sleep again, surely!”

Casimir pursed his lips. “Don’t think I haven’t been pushing for it,” he sighed. “Believe me, I’ve tried a dozen times at least but nothing will shift him — and quite frankly, he’s in charge. I can’t override his authority any more than you can. He won’t do a thing about the giants,” he said grimly, “and that’s that!”

Lord Rothlan frowned. “That’s not like Alarid,” he mused.

“The news isn’t good, Alasdair. The ghosts say that the Americans are waiting for their satellite to make another strike and he can think of
nothing
else.”

Lady Ellan clasped her husband’s hand
nervously
at this but her tone, when she spoke, was determined. “That doesn’t mean that we should do nothing about the giants. They’re causing complete havoc. Glens are impassable all over the Highlands.”

“Something, somewhere must have triggered
the giants off, Casimir,” Lord Rothlan pointed out. “They could never have risen on their own.”

“The only thing of any importance that has
happened
is the attack on Firestar, Alasdair. It seems to have upset the old way of things completely.”

“Hasn’t anything shown up on the machine?” queried Lady Ellan.

“The machine was affected,” Casimir said slowly. “Maybe we should go down and have a look at it. I had a chat with Rumbletop and he mentioned a strange icon on the monitor but as it doesn’t seem to affect the machine, he’s left it alone.”

“Left it alone?” Lady Ellan echoed sharply. “Shouldn’t he be doing something about it?”

“I think he’s afraid to mess around with it,” Casimir admitted. “Says he doesn’t want to trigger another attack.”

At this, Malfior, hidden in the depths of Firestar, smiled with ill-concealed glee and promptly
communicated
Casimir’s feelings to Lord Jezail. His master, he knew, was pleased with all the little tit-bits of conversation that he passed on and he preened himself at his cleverness. Lord Rothlan, too, would soon be under his control and obviously hadn’t the slightest suspicion that he was
controlling
the great Lords of the North. By focusing their fears on Firestar, he had quite successfully drawn their minds away from the threat of the giants. Indeed, if he was worried about anything at all it was that wretched icon. The last thing he wanted was the hobgoblins to access it on the machine and so far he’d succeeded in scaring the wits out them at the very thought. Apart from that, he reckoned,
he was safe and in complete control. Why, even Firestar, the not-so-great power, hadn’t a clue that he was there …

“I might go down and have a look at that icon later on,” Lord Rothlan frowned, settling back into his chair. “It must mean something, after all.”

Casimir nodded. “Good idea,” he said. “Oh, and talking of the hobgoblins reminds me — they told me some news that will interest you. It turns out that Neil and Clara are staying at Glenmorven House with Shona … and Lewis is there, too.”

Lady Ellan sat up. “Neil and Clara? In the glen? And Lewis! How lovely!”

“Do they know about the mountain?” queried Lord Rothlan. “I don’t know that we ever
mentioned
it by name.”

Prince Casimir smiled. “They must have their suspicions by this time,” he said, “for they’ve already met a couple of our greedier hobgoblins. Apparently, they still scrounge cakes and biscuits from Hughie.”

“They must be wearing their firestones, then,” Lady Ellan observed.

The prince nodded in agreement. “Must be,” he said, “for according to Hughie, they’ve seen Red Rory and the MacTavish.”

Alasdair Rothlan raised his eyebrows and looked at him. “I thought you said the Americans had put the castle out of bounds?”

“Quite right,” Casimir agreed, “but the children have been exploring the old secret passage that runs between the castle and Glenmorven House. The Fergusons still use it from time to time —
mostly when the weather’s bad, I imagine. Shona shows it to all her friends.”

“We owe a great deal to Neil and Clara — and Lewis, too, of course,” added Lady Ellan hastily, meeting Casimir’s eyes. “We really must invite them to meet the Lords of the North.”

Lord Rothlan eyed his wife fondly. “I agree, Ellan,” he said, “but this is hardly the time to land the Lords of the North with guests. Maybe later, when we’ve got Firestar sorted out.”

“You’re right, Alasdair,” Prince Casimir said, fingering his firestone necklace thoughtfully. “I’m worried myself. I only hope that Tatler is having some success with the Americans. You know that he’s trying to have them change the satellite’s orbit.”

Rothlan frowned. “Tatler knows his way round government circles both here and in the States,” he said, “and I’m sure he’ll do his best for us. But NASA, you know, can’t be classed as ‘government circles.’ It’s an organization in its own right with its own agenda. They mightn’t listen to him.”

As it happened, Lord Rothlan was correct in his assessment of the situation. Despite complaints from the British at Powerprobe’s orbit, NASA
officials
had explained that, for technical reasons, it was quite impossible to comply with their wishes. And even as George Tatler lifted the telephone to call Sir James with the bad news, Powerprobe struck again.

As Powerprobe locked on to Firestar, the Lords of the North felt themselves weaken and, eyeing one another apprehensively, grasped their firestones with trembling fingers. Lord Rothlan held Lady Ellan close and put his other arm protectively round Amgarad while Prince Casimir, sitting alone on his silver throne, gripped his hands together tightly and thought of his son.

Deep inside Morven, the hobgoblins froze as they felt the first slight tremor run through the machine. It had done it before and they knew what it signified. Another attack! Such was their fear that their tendrils positively blasted their way out of their heads and swirled round them. Rumbletop and Rumblegudgeon looked at one another in
horror
and made a concerted rush for the machine.

It was then that Rumblegudgeon tripped over his writhing tendrils and, with a yell of alarm, skated wildly across the marble floor to cannon violently into the control panel.

When word got round NASA that Powerprobe was due to lock on to Morven for a second time, an interested group of spectators gathered round Patrick Venner to watch the fun. Talk of the
goat-faced
alien had, of course, got round and, indeed, had generated much amusement. Most of the
scientists
regarded it as freak interference from a TV channel and poor Venner had been teased
unmercifully
about it ever since. After a while, he more than half-believed them himself and, being a good natured chap, took their teasing with as much good humour as he could muster.

Nevertheless, as he adjusted his monitor to receive the expected stream of data, he felt a
sudden
nervousness and, calling himself every sort of a fool under the sun, steadied a trembling hand and steeled himself for whatever might happen when Powerprobe locked, once more, on to Morven.

His fears, as it happened, were justified for the first thing the Americans saw on the monitor was Rumblegudgeon streaking towards them, his face displaying a variety of emotions. Alarm, fear and horror all registered as the little hobgoblin shot, shrieking, across the marble with the grace and speed of a twenty ton elephant slipping on a banana skin and as he’d no control over his flight whatsoever, it was hardly his fault that he landed up smack against the machine.

Venner’s monitor picked the whole thing up. Hitherto sceptical NASA scientists grabbed at one another in panic as they saw Rumblegudgeon careering towards them, screaming fearsomely and as he grew ever larger, they ducked, as though expecting him to shoot straight through the screen and land in their midst. As it was, the final picture on the monitor gave them a pretty good view of his tonsils.

Predictably, chaos reigned supreme as everyone in the control room totally lost the plot.

Then Powerprobe’s monitor went blank.

That shut everybody up.

As the babble of alarmed voices quietened abruptly, the horrified silence deepened, all eyes focusing on Pat Venner as he bent over his
keyboard
and tapped at it frantically. Apart from a single, dancing point of light, the monitor remained blank. He tried again and again to raise some kind of response from Powerprobe — any kind of response — but to no avail. He sat back in his chair with a sigh and, in a voice shaking with nerves, told everyone what they had already gathered.

“Sorry, guys,” he said as a frisson of alarm rippled through the crowd, “but I reckon that Powerprobe’s been zapped!”

Powerprobe had, indeed, been zapped.

Ever since the first attack, Firestar had been ripe for retaliation. As it had been in existence since more or less the beginning of time, it had a pretty fair working knowledge of the universe and although the original attack had taken it by
surprise
, causing it to miss the arrival of Malfior, the constituents of the lasers had by no means escaped its understanding.

So, as it happened, Firestar hadn’t been at all disappointed when it felt the first tentative
probing
of the lasers. Indeed, it embraced them in much the same way as a spider welcomes a fly to its web; gladly and with a certain mouth-watering sense of anticipation. Once caught in its clutches, poor Powerprobe had as much chance of survival as a snowflake in hell.

With painstaking care, Firestar gathered together
every ounce of power it possessed and with a
massive
surge of blistering energy, shot a beam of light back through the lasers to Powerprobe and quite successfully zapped all of its computers.

The force of Firestar’s assault not only shook Morven but rocked the entire glen. For an instant, the mountain became as clear as crystal with a bluish-white, vibrant core that shot in a stream of blazing light from the top of the mountain, through the sky and into the furthest reaches of the heavens. And, as the beam hung, suspended in the air, the wind picked it up in its arms so that its magic drifted over the land, houses and farms of Glenmorven and into the screes and corries of the surrounding glens.

Deep in the heart of the mountain, Firestar relaxed and breathed in its power once more. Scores had been settled and its charges, the Lords of the North and the peoples of the world of magic, could now live their lives in peace and safety to the days at the end of the world.

However, while Firestar swelled comfortably in satisfaction at a job well done, Malfior, curled in its depths, smiled nastily. It knew Firestar’s mind and, indeed, it suited it that the connection to Powerprobe had been cut. Hidden and
unsuspected
, it could now grow unseen and unchecked.

“There she is,” Neil pointed in relief to a little scrap of a kitten that was scrambling frantically across the rough ground towards them.

“Ugly Mug!” Shona called. “Ugly Mug, We’re coming!”

They all ran towards the kitten and Shona beamed happily as she scooped it up and cuddled it. “Are you hungry, then?” she crooned.

“She must be starving,” Clara said, looking
concerned
, for Jennifer and her parents hadn’t left Glenmorven until after lunch and it was now quite late in the afternoon.

The kitten miaowed plaintively. “We’ve brought you some food,” Shona soothed, looking at Neil who’d pulled the lid off the can of cat food.

“She’ll have to eat it out of the can,” Neil said, bending down to let the kitten eat.

Ugly Mug wasn’t fussy. She gobbled down the cat food until she could manage no more and then sat back to lick her paws and wash her face.

“Enough,” Shona grinned, bending down to pick her up. Ugly Mug, however, seemed to think she was playing a game and by the time they caught her, it was later than Shona would have liked.

“We’ll have to get a move on,” she said, looking round. “It’ll be dark soon.”

Lewis zipped up his anorak and pulled the hood over his head as the wind gusted round them.

Then he stopped suddenly. “
What
was that?” he said, looking startled.

A strange noise, almost like an explosion, echoed round the glen and the ground shook under them. They looked at one another in alarm, thinking it was an earthquake until Shona looked up and pointed to the sky over the ridge. “Wow! Look at that! Morven’s all lit up!”

Lewis, Neil and Clara eyed one another in astonishment. What was going on? This definitely looked like magic, and serious magic at that! They watched in awe as the great pillar of blue-white light that shot straight as an arrow into the sky, started to fade as the wind caught it and blew it in sweeping gusts towards them. As they made their way towards the ridge, they watched the sparkles of blue, glint in the wind and gradually fall to the ground until they were scattered here and there over the hillside, resting in the slopes around them. Soon there was nothing left to show that anything untoward had happened; the strange light faded and Morven reared in the distance, looking much the same as usual.

It was then that they heard a roaring from the glen behind them and, swinging round at the
sudden
sound of crashing rocks, saw that the slopes of the mountains were heaving with movement as giant shapes rose from the slopes and stretched stone limbs.

“The Cri’achan,” Clara said, appalled. “They’re rising from the mountains!”

“What are we going to do?” Shona gasped. “There … there are so
many
of them!”

Jennifer’s father had talked of there being three giants in the glen the night before but Neil
reckoned
at a quick glance that this time there must be ten or twelve at least. And they were huge. The newspapers had talked of giants the size of houses! These were more like blocks of flats!

“Run,” Lewis gulped, “come on, run for the ridge!”

They didn’t need to be told twice but when they turned to head for home, they saw, ahead of them, the rearing shapes of more giants.

“Do you think they are the same giants the Sinclairs saw yesterday?” Shona gasped, still clutching Ugly Mug.

Lewis looked round and turned pale as he
realized
that they were now cut off from Glenmorven. “We’ll have to climb as high as we can,” he gasped, “and maybe find a cave or something to shelter in until the giants pass. We can’t stay here! We’re right in their way!”

They started to run and, as they scrambled up the slopes, found to their amazement that they were covering the ground in huge leaps. Higher and higher they climbed until the top of the
mountain
was in sight. It was like being one of the men on the moon, Neil thought as he leapt effortlessly over a huge boulder and then struggled to keep his balance as he hit a steep slope on the other side. A corrie! Thank goodness! His eyes swept the
cup-like
hollow that nestled hidden on the side of the mountain.

“I’ve found a corrie,” he shouted urgently,
clambering
up to the rim and waving his arms. “Quick!
Over here! It’ll hide us from the giants!”

Still taking huge leaps, they headed towards him and piled into the hollow, collapsing in a heap against the rough grass and stones that formed its steep sides.

Neil, crouching behind its edge, peered down anxiously at the enormous giants that strode the valley floor. They were almost half as tall as the mountains themselves and as they marched along, their flailing arms knocked rocks and boulders from the sides of the mountains. They might not mean to harm anyone intentionally, he thought, but they could still do an enormous amount of damage to anyone standing in their way. He looked worriedly at Lewis who had climbed up beside him to scout out the lie of the land.

“We’re still not safe,” Neil muttered. “I don’t know about you, but I’d give anything to be able to call a magic carpet.”

Lewis smiled ruefully. They both knew that they were far too far away for their magic carpets to be of any use to them. “There’s Casimir’s ring,” he whispered, so that Shona wouldn’t hear him. “I could use it, couldn’t I?” He held out his hand and they looked at the magic ring that Casimir had given him. “I’ve never used it before,” he said doubtfully, “and I don’t really know what would happen if I did. But this is an emergency, isn’t it? I mean, we’re completely surrounded.”

Neil nodded and flinched as some of the giants moved closer to their part of the mountain.

Lewis ducked down below the rim of the corrie. “Casimir told me to rub it and call him if I needed
help,” he said, “and we certainly need it now.”

“It means that we’ll have to give the game away, though,” Neil pointed out. “Shona doesn’t know anything about our magic.”

Lewis looked down at the two girls. “I know,” he said, “but it’s too dangerous to stay here. We can’t go any further without the giants spotting us. We’re trapped, Neil!”

Clara and Shona looked up at them anxiously as the giants’ voices carried on the breeze. Only Neil, Clara and Lewis understood what they were saying, however, and Clara gripped her firestone tightly as the gravelly voices thundered and roared.

“Death to the Lords of Morven!” chanted the giants. “Death! Death!”

“That’s it,” Neil muttered, “go on, Lewis. You’ve no choice! You’ve got to tell the Lords of the North what’s going on. Rub the ring! It’s our only chance!”

Lewis held his right hand out, fingers spread, and looked at the strangely-formed ring with its design of interlocking snakes. “
Yasran
,” he said, experimentally, rubbing the metal gently and hoping fervently that he’d said the magic word properly. “
Yasran
,” he said again.