The Lost Heir (The Gryphon Chronicles, Book 1) (18 page)

Although a boy of twelve usually found gross things fairly amusing, even Jake was a little disgusted by all the frogs. He would’ve thought the creatures preferred to live down on the river. He picked his way into the great hall, minding his footing, but still determined to have a look around.

At any rate, the frogs seemed to enjoy the puddles he left behind, for they followed him eagerly, croaking louder, as he squished across the room in his sodden shoes and wet clothes.

Cold from his dunking, he pulled one of the cloth covers off a nearby wingchair and used it for a towel, drying his face, and then wrapping it around himself to try to get warm.

Just then, the portrait hanging above the fireplace caught his eye. He stood stock-still, staring up at it.

The first golden ray of daylight beamed in through the high window on the other end of the great hall and lit the painting of a handsome blond man and a dark-haired lady with a baby on her lap.

Jake quietly drew in his breath, riveted.

The man seemed to stare back at him from the canvas with a lordly look of pride. The smiling lady wore a seashell on a ribbon around her neck.

As for the baby in the picture, Jake understood now why he had been brought here. The truth finally sank in. Everything Derek had said clicked into place inside his mind.

These had been his parents.

This once had been his home.

PART III

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Grounded

Bickering was not a very pleasant sound to wake up to, but that’s what Gladwin heard, coming from the top of the stairs early the next morning.

“Please, dear Waldrick, let me have another feather!”

“Oh, I think you’ve had quite enough! Malediction, woman, I told you not to stay out so late. The sun is already rising! Hurry, we’ve got to get you back into your tank!”

“Ow! Careful with my tentacles, you oaf!”

Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, Gladwin pushed up onto her knees from where she had been balled up on the floor of the jar that was her prison. She rested her hands on the glass wall and stared at the spectacle of the Earl of Griffon helping Fionnula Coralbroom down the stairs.

The sea-witch was already in the middle of changing back into her true, ugly form. Gladwin winced at the sea-hag’s hobbling gait over the dry ground.

The transformation from beautiful opera singer back to squidy hag looked awfully painful. Fionnula shrieked and gnashed her sharp teeth as her shapely human legs morphed back into a mass of thick, writhing tentacles. A dainty red shoe clattered down the steps. “Oh, please, Waldrick, quickly! I must have another feather!”

“You need to get back in your tank and do your blasted work. Did anyone see you like this?”

“No! Oh, I’m so ugly! I hate those mermaids! Look what they’ve done to me! I’ll fix them one day. I’ll curse them all, do you hear me?”

“Yes, yes, I hear you,” he muttered.

She leaned her hefty bulk against Waldrick as he helped her down the dark stone stairs toward her pool.

“Quickly, Waldrick! I’m drying out!”

Fionnula Coralbroom swore like the luckless sailors she had once devoured as the earl helped her squish her way back to her alcove, scolding her all the while.

“I told you not to dawdle. You do this every time.”

They reached the waist-high edge of her stone pool and he struggled to give her a boost.

“Where have you been?” he demanded, grunting with exertion as he helped her get her large girth over the stone edge of her pool.

Gladwin covered a laugh with her hand.

At last, Fionnula plunged into the water with a splash. She came up with a sigh. “Oh, Waldrick, you should’ve seen me! I went to Drury Lane Theatre and nearly caused a riot with one little tune!”

“Well, your fun is over,” he snapped, wiping drops of water off his face in disgust. “We’ve got work to do.”

“Too tired.” Fionnula floated on her back and closed her eyes.

He splashed her in annoyance. “Don’t you dare go to sleep! I want my questions answered! What happened at Newgate? Where are my men? They haven’t returned!”

“Haven’t they?” She opened her eyes and looked at him curiously.

“Look in your Seeing Bowl and tell me where they are!”

“You don’t have to be so pushy about it!”

“What happened at the jail?” he repeated.

“How should I know? I did what you told me. I sang my tune and put them in a trance. Your men went off around the building, and I left to go amuse myself. That’s the last I saw them.”

“Well, find them!”

Fionnula huffed but obliged him, peering once again into the magic waters in her divining bowl, made from the shell of a sea-turtle. “Oh, dear.”

“What?”

“You’re not going to like it.”

“Tell me!”

Fionnula frowned. “Your men have run away. They’re afraid to come back for fear of what you might do to them.”

Waldrick’s cold gray eyes glinted. “As well they should be, if they failed. Derek Stone?”

“Alive.”

“What of the boy?”

She waved her hand over the water’s surface with a murmured chant, then said, “I see him escaping with the Guardian to Beacon House.”

Waldrick slammed his fist down on the table, but Gladwin received this news with joy. The boy was still safe! A roar came from the beast below, but Waldrick bellowed “Silence!” like he might explode.

Gladwin grinned at her fellow prisoners, but they were cowering, as usual. The creature in the dark cell below the workshop grew quiet. The earl leaned his hands against the table and stared into the candle flame, collecting his thoughts. Its flickering dance seemed to soothe him.

“I’ll never reach him there,” he said at last. “Beacon House is nearly impregnable, guarded by many spells and fearsome animal spirits.”

“They’ve already left Beacon House,” Fionnula reported hesitantly, as though afraid to anger him again. She waved her warty hands over her divining bowl once more. “They’ve moved on. The boy is now at—”

“Don’t even say it.”

The witch looked over at him.

Waldrick’s eyes shot sparks as he glanced over at her. “Griffon Castle.”

“Yes, my lord! But the boy is there alone! You should go at once and finish him off tonight!”

“I cannot do that, Fionnula. Surely you have not forgotten my charming brother’s parting words? How he cursed me right before he died, so that never again would I be able to set foot on the grounds of our home? Griffon Castle is the one place in this world where I cannot reach the brat. He’s even safer there than at Beacon House.”

Gladwin absorbed this while Waldrick paced.

“Unless—” he suddenly turned to Fionnula, “you have some notion of how I could lure him away from the castle? Make him come to me…? Then I could finish him off for once and for all.”

“Hmm.” Fionnula looked impressed at the suggestion and opened her thick, leather-bound grimoire. She began thumbing through the ancient, yellowed pages, considering different spells. “Well, this might work…the Oboedire spell. Very old, very powerful. If we use this spell, the boy will be forced to ‘obey’ your every command.”

“Really? Some sort of mind control! How perfectly delightful!” He let out a low, diabolical chuckle and straightened up from leaning on the table. He turned to her, his fists propped on his waist.

“But there are drawbacks, as with every spell.”

“Like what?”

“This spell creates a sort of link between two people’s minds, the controller and the slave. Just as you’ll be able to see inside of his mind, he’ll be able to see…inside yours.”

Waldrick frowned. “I’m not sure I like that. But then, it only has to work long enough to lure him away from the castle. Then I’ll kill him.”

“There is another drawback.”

“What’s that?”

“An essential ingredient in this potion is a hair from the boy’s head,” she said, scanning over the recipe. “Seems a bit of a problem. If we could get close to him to pluck one of his hairs, we’d be close enough to kill him. How are we going to steal one?”

“You and I can’t, perhaps, but I know someone who can.” Waldrick sent her a cunning smile and strolled over to the cage that rested on the table. He opened it, and the dreadful spider crawled out onto his hand. “Malwort can do it easily.”

Gladwin ducked instinctively when she saw the spider.

“He is extremely stealthy, aren’t you, boy?” Waldrick smiled as the spider crawled up his arm. “Malwort can get close to the brat without anyone even noticing. You are willing to help, aren’t you, my friend? There’s an excellent juicy horsefly in it for you. Or a few!”

“Oh, yesssss, Master, yesssss! Tasty morsels! Malwort will help.”

“Capital spider! You shall come along with us on our little holiday out in the countryside.” He put the arachno-sapiens gently back into its cage and closed the door.

“Very well,” Fionnula said uneasily, lifting a tentacle and wriggling it at him. “But I cannot go with you in this form.”

“Oh, yes. Don’t worry about that—”

“Don’t worry?” she retorted. “If those horrid water nymphs catch me near one of their inland rivers or streams, they’ll tear me limb from limb! Barbarians.”

Waldrick smiled broadly. “My sweet Fionnula, nobody’s going to tear you limb from limb. I’ll bring plenty of extra feathers, so don’t fret. You can maintain your lovely disguise for as long as it takes. Now, then, make sure you assemble all the other ingredients you’ll need in order to brew this potion while we’re there. We shall leave later this morning. When we get there, we’ll take lodgings in the village of Gryphondale, near Griffon Castle. Any questions?”

Fionnula shook her head.

“Then if you’ll pardon me, I must go and pack my things for our little holiday.”

“Yes. And I need my beauty sleep.”

“That you do,” he mumbled.

“What did you say?!”

“Oh, nothing. Good-bye for now, my dear.” He hurried out of the dark underground lair, and before long, the horrid Fionnula Coralbroom was reclining in her stone pool, snoring.

Gladwin was brimming with excitement over the information she had overheard. If only she could get out of here, she could warn Guardian Stone to keep Jacob at the castle, where he’d be safe until the Order had dealt with Waldrick and Fionnula. Gladwin was perfectly willing to testify against the odious man for kidnapping her and the other magical creatures, and for harboring the sea-witch—a dangerous wanted criminal and fugitive from justice.

These crimes alone were enough to get Waldrick locked up for a very long time, never mind his attempts to kill his innocent young nephew.

Gladwin’s immediate problem, though, was how to escape. She had bruised her arms and worn out her muscles yesterday trying to pry the lid off the jar, holding onto its air holes. She tried again now, but the thing wouldn’t budge. “Crocodile!” She banged her head against the glass in frustration so hard that the jar rocked. “Ow.”

As she rubbed her head, the answer came to her all of a sudden.

Ohhhh, Gladwin, you dolt! Why didn’t you think of that before?
The solution was suddenly obvious!

It might be a little dangerous, but…

Backing up, she ran the two or three steps across the jar, ramming the opposite side with her shoulder.

Again, she did it. Again and again.

The jar skipped closer toward the edge of the shelf. She kept running back and forth, rocking the jar with all her tiny weight, until suddenly it tipped off the shelf and fell, plunging toward the floor.

She lifted her wings, poised to fly, and brought up her arms to shield her face from broken glass.

Smash!

The jar hit the floor and shattered into pieces, but Gladwin’s feet didn’t even touch the ground; she flew up from the broken jar, clearing the jagged edges of glass by a hair’s breadth. She zoomed toward the ceiling.

Free!

Unfortunately, the crash of the jar hitting the floor had awakened Fionnula. The witch sat up with a walrus snuffle, then cursed when she saw the trail of golden sparkles revealing Gladwin’s path.

As Gladwin flew wildly toward the exit, the witch grabbed her petrified starfish wand and began hurling bolts of magic at her, shouting some spell meant to stop her in her tracks.

Gladwin dodged this way and that, ducking the jaggedy currents of blue energy that flew out of the wand like little bolts of lightning. She bumped her head on the ceiling and nearly bruised one of her wings.

Meanwhile, the other captive creatures had awakened and were yelling at her, “Higher! Lower! Watch out! Behind you! Let us out, too!”

But it was too late.

All of a sudden, a current of energy engulfed Gladwin; she found herself suspended, unable to move, floating inside a blue bubble.

“WALDRICK!” the sea witch bellowed at the top of her lungs. “Come down here, you useless human bumbler!”

He came running. “What’s all the commotion?” he shouted, charging down the steps.

“Do something with that thing! Your stupid fairy woke me up!”

He gasped when he saw Gladwin hanging motionless in midair. Gladwin gulped as he narrowed his eyes at her. She couldn’t move her arms or legs, couldn’t flap her wings.