The Curse of Deadman's Forest (3 page)

“Have you noticed that she starts and ends both of her prophecies the same way?” Carl asked, referring to the first line and the last three lines of each of the two prophecies they’d discovered within the treasure boxes. Carl pointed to the text in Ian’s hands. “‘The first of you shall be the last,’ and then this bit, ‘Each will give one part of sum. Will you win or will you lose? It will lie in who you choose.’” Carl studied the scroll over Ian’s shoulder before he added, “I think in the beginning she must be talking about Theo. You know, how she’s the first Oracle? She’s the Seer, don’t you agree?”

Ian nodded. “Most definitely. But I’m not certain what Laodamia means when she says she’ll be the last too.”

Carl scratched his head. “Well, we know we’ll need to gather all six Oracles besides Theo before we’re strong enough to face Demogorgon’s crew. And we also know that along with Theo, we have Jaaved—our Seeker—so once we have this Healer person, we’ll only need four more before we’re ready.”

Ian looked up thoughtfully at Carl. “Exactly,” he agreed.

Carl squinted at the tight script of their schoolmaster, Thatcher Goodwyn. Their schoolmaster had helped translate the prophecy with their friend, the ancient Greek expert Professor Nutley. “I think the part we should be most
concerned about are those lines that say a serpent will enter the keep and attempt to kill two of us.”

For the past several months, especially since the weather had turned warm again, Ian, Carl, and the keep’s groundskeeper, Landis, had conducted regular inspections of the grounds, looking for any snakes that could present even a remote threat to the keep. But their searches had been futile, as they’d done little more than turn up a harmless garden snake or two. “I’d wager it’s an adder,” said Carl smartly, pointing to the line mentioning the serpent. “They’re quite poisonous, you know.”

But Ian wasn’t as certain. He knew about adders, but they were reputed to be shy of humans, and he’d never heard of one biting more than one person at a time. He also knew from the book he’d read on native reptiles of Britain that the adder’s venom was typically not poisonous enough to kill a person. The more common reaction was swelling and discomfort around the bite mark.

Ian had the distinct feeling that Laodamia meant something far more deadly would enter the keep during the height of the summer, but he felt he would not know what that was until they all encountered it.

That was why he was so intent on discovering how the sundial worked. He believed that if he could simply unlock its secret, he might be able to bypass all that nasty serpent business.

Still, it appeared that there were far greater dangers in store for him even after the serpent appeared. A terrible curse and an old crone awaited them through the portal.
Laodamia’s prophecy suggested that Ian had met this old crone before, but he could not remember ever meeting anyone who fit her description.

As Ian continued to gaze down at the prophecy, he realized that Carl was still reading over his shoulder, and when Ian caught his friend’s eye, Carl blushed slightly. “Sorry,” he said, stepping back with a sigh. “I’m afraid I can’t make sense of any of it. Serpents, fevers, curses, crones, and this bit: ‘Loam of ground no longer tamed.’ … What does that even
mean?”

Ian had a theory, but he’d not had the courage to voice it until Carl asked. “I think she’s talking about Lachestia,” he whispered.

Carl stared at him with wide unblinking eyes, and the quiet of the tower room seemed to settle about them eerily. “You think she’s talking about Magus’s sister?” he said in a hushed tone.

Ian nodded. “She’s the sorceress of earth, remember?”

“Oh, I remember, mate. I also remember the professor telling us she’s the most dangerous of that awful lot. But I thought he told us she’d been killed three thousand years ago.”

Professor Nutley had managed to uproot a few legends about the four sorcerers of the terrible underworld god, Demogorgon. Magus and Caphiera they’d already had the great displeasure of meeting, but the other two, Atroposa and Lachestia, remained a bit of a mystery. Atroposa was the sorceress of air, and she appeared to be the least terrible of the
four demigod siblings. But Lachestia was said to be the most deadly creature that had ever roamed the ancient world. Legend suggested her capable of causing destruction on a massive scale. But a story that had emerged from a forgotten reference text in the professor’s library suggested that after destroying a series of villages in eastern Europe, Lachestia had vanished into the heart of a cursed forest and was never seen again.

It was widely accepted that the sorceress had perished, but Ian felt strongly that the legend was wrong. He had a deep nagging suspicion that Lachestia was merely lying in wait for the perfect opportunity to rain down havoc again, and as the newspapers were widely reporting the increasing tensions of Europe these days, Ian was filled with dread that her reemergence would be quite soon indeed.

“Naw, mate,” Ian said to his friend. “I don’t think Lachestia’s dead. I think she’s just waiting for the right time to show herself.” To prove his point, he quoted the prophecy. “‘Loam of ground no longer tamed, unleashing wrath from ancient stone. Hear the earth below you moan.’ I believe Laodamia’s got to be telling us about Lachestia.”

“So who’s the crone? And what’s that bit about a curse she holds?” Carl wondered.

Ian shook his head. “I’ve no idea,” he admitted. “But we should be able to discover her by using this.” Ian lifted the sundial again, holding it up to the sunlight. “If I can figure out how to work this, we should have our answers.”

Carl sighed and turned to his pretend fortress again.
“Good luck,” he said. “I’ll be fiddling with this in the meantime.”

“Yeah, all right,” Ian muttered, squinting at the sundial and willing its shadow to appear.

After a bit Carl broke the silence. “Ian, have you seen that plank of wood I rescued from Landis’s woodpile? I thought it’d be a good piece to fit over this open section here.”

Ian glanced up distractedly. “Plank?” he repeated.

“Yeah,” said Carl. “You remember? I brought it up here last Saturday.”

Ian did remember Carl struggling with a large section of wood up the stone staircase, but he couldn’t recall where Carl had set it among all the other clutter. “Sorry,” he said with a shrug. “I’ve no idea, mate.”

Carl scrunched up his face and stared at the piles of wood and blankets, scratching his head again. “Where did I put it?” he mused to himself.

Ian looked down again to continue examining the sundial only to gasp when he realized that the face of the dial had changed dramatically from just a few moments before. The surface was no longer dull and tarnished but reflected brightly as if it’d just received a thorough polishing. And more astonishing, it appeared to be working; there was a distinct triangular shadow on it. “Carl!” he shouted. “Come have a look!”

His friend hurried over. “What?” he asked, and Ian pointed to the small relic in his hand. Carl gasped too. “Lookit that, it’s got a shadow!”

“It just happened,” Ian said, his hand trembling slightly with excitement.

“What’d you do to it?”

Ian tore his eyes away from the sundial and blinked up at his friend. “Nothing,” he admitted. “I mean, nothing I can think of.”

“Take it out of the sunlight and see what happens,” Carl suggested.

Ian hesitated; he didn’t want to risk doing anything that might cause the shadow to disappear, but quickly realized he couldn’t hold it in the sunlight forever. So, taking a leap of faith, he moved it into the shade, and to both boys’ surprise, the shadow remained on the surface of the sundial. “Gaw blimey!” Carl said, his voice filled with delight. “Would you look at that?”

“It’s working!” Ian replied excitedly while he moved the sundial even deeper into the shade with no effect on its surface. “I don’t know how, but it’s working!”

And for a while both boys stared at the dial’s face, waiting for the shadow to fade, but after several minutes it was clear that the thin strip of darkness was there to stay.

Soon the delight of their discovery waned and Carl said, “Well, I’m going back to the fort. Give us a shout if you figure out what it’s pointing to.” And he turned away.

But something Carl said was like a trigger in Ian’s mind and he thought back through what had happened right before the shadow had appeared. Carl had been asking about the plank of wood; Ian had told him he didn’t know where it was; then, when he’d looked back down, he’d seen the
thin strip of shadow, which seemed to be pointing like a compass’s arrow across the room. Ian’s head snapped up and he looked over at the pile of spare wood covered by one of the moth-eaten blankets the boys had pinched from the cellar. Ian realized suddenly that the finger of the shadow seemed to be pointing directly at that pile of wood!

“Carl!” Ian said, his voice edged with excitement. “Check under that blanket and see if your plank of wood is there, would you?”

Carl looked at him oddly but moved away from another pile he’d been fishing through and lifted the blanket. There, right on top, was the long plank of wood he’d been searching for.
“There
it is!” he said triumphantly, pulling it out.

But Ian was already staring in amazement back down at the sundial’s surface. The shadow had faded the moment Carl had lifted the blanket, and the surface of the relic returned to its dull, tarnished appearance. “Crikey!” he exclaimed. “I’ve got it! Carl, I’ve got how it works!”

Carl hurried over to him again and looked at the dull face of the dial. “Uh-oh,” he said. “Your shadow’s gone, mate. Sorry.”

“No, you don’t understand,” Ian said, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Ask me where something is and I’ll show you how it works.”

“Like what?” Carl asked, obviously confused.

Ian turned in a circle, looking for anything he could suggest, when his eyes lit on something across the room. “The treasure boxes,” he whispered.

“All right,” Carl agreed. “Ian, where did you put your treasure boxes?”

Immediately, the dial’s shiny surface returned and a shadow appeared across the face, pointing directly at a long stone bench by the stairs on the far side of the tower. Carl gasped, his head pivoting from the shadow to the bench. “Ian! It’s pointing right at your hiding spot!” Carl was the only other person besides Theo who knew Ian’s secret hiding place.

Both boys hurried to the other side of the room, and Ian held the dial out so that they could see what happened the moment Ian lifted the loose plank that hid his treasure boxes. The instant his hand touched the silver top of the first box, the shadow disappeared.

“Remarkable,” Ian whispered, in complete awe of the magical instrument in his hands.

“Bloomin’
brilliant!”
Carl said enthusiastically. “Let’s make it a bit more challenging, though, shall we?”

Ian nodded, delighted that he’d finally managed to work out the secret of the sundial. “Where’s Theo?” he asked, and immediately the sundial’s shadow pointed right behind him. Ian turned and he and Carl looked out the far window, which gave a lovely view of the English Channel. The boys both knew that the shore where Jaaved and Theo had gone was in that very direction.

Carl laughed and slapped his knee. “Smashing!” he gushed.

Ian smiled happily while he looked from the dial to the
window, and was about to agree with Carl when something on the distant horizon caught his eye. From the window Ian could see all the way across the channel to France, and something large appeared to materialize just offshore.

Ian squinted and moved toward the window. “Ask it something else!” Carl urged, still bubbling with excitement.

“Hang on,” Ian said, distracted by the shape, which he could see was zigzagging over the water. “Carl?” he said as a chill crept over him.

“Yeah, mate?”

“Do you still have those field glasses handy?” On a recent trip to London, Carl had purchased a set of binoculars, and he usually had them on hand for spying on the other orphans outside in the yard.

“Of course,” he said. “Why don’t you ask the dial where they are?”

Ian glanced down, and sure enough, the dial was pointing behind him, toward the fort. But Ian was more concerned with something else at the moment and he had the eeriest, most unsettling feeling. Something large and conelike was zigzagging back and forth across the horizon. It appeared to be just off the shore of Calais, and he couldn’t be sure, but it also appeared to be getting bigger. “Can you hand them to me, please?”

Carl paused, then came to stand next to him and pointed out the window. “Ian,” he gasped. “What’s
that?”

“I can’t tell,” Ian murmured. “That’s why I need the field glasses.”

Carl hurried to the fort and rooted around under the
blankets and planks of wood. Ian knew the moment Carl found the field glasses, because the shadow on the dial disappeared. “Here you are,” Carl said, giving them to Ian in exchange for the dial.

Ian focused the field glasses, searching the water for the dark shape. A moment later he had it within his sight and sucked in a breath, nearly dropping the field glasses in shock. “It’s a cyclone!”

“Let me see!” Carl said, and Ian gave him the binoculars. “I don’t believe it!” Carl said as he caught sight of the funnel cloud moving at an alarming rate across the sea. “I’ve heard of waterspouts before but I’ve never actually seen one!”

Ian wasn’t really listening to his friend, because at that moment he realized that the funnel cloud was quickly traversing the English Channel, and its course—although slightly sporadic—put Dover right in its path.

“Carl,” Ian said, a sudden panic making his hands shake, “give me the sundial again, would you?”

Carl lowered the lenses and handed over the dial.

“Here,” he said.

Ian wasn’t sure if the question he had in mind would work, but he had to try. “Where will the cyclone strike?”

A thick shadow appeared across the face of the dial, pointing directly in front of them and marking the place that the relic had earlier identified as Theo’s location.
“Theo!”
Ian shouted, and whirled around in panic, then dashed toward the stairs.