The Secret Kingdom (17 page)

‘The web of the last moon spider,’ said Timoken. ‘But you shall never have it.’

‘You could have added, “while there is breath left in my body”,’ said the youth. ‘And I would have answered, “The breath in your body has not long to last.”’

‘The breath in my body will last forever,’ said Timoken. Now that he was face-to-face with his enemy, he felt quite calm. He was aware of the two viridees gliding around the other side of the bush, and, without turning his head, he said softly, ‘Be ready, my friends. Remember, your swords are invincible.’

‘We are ready,’ said Edern.

The sorcerer took a step towards Timoken. ‘I see you have your sister’s ring,’ he said. ‘A pity she was left without it.’

Timoken frowned. ‘What do you know of my sister?’

‘I know that she lies dead in her husband’s workshop.’

‘What?’ Timoken clutched his chest. He could not breathe.

‘Poor African. Did you not know that this is her house?’

Speechless with shock, Timoken shook his head.

‘At least it
was
.’ The sorcerer’s voice was filled with gleeful spite. ‘She would not be quiet, you see. She wanted to warn you, and whatever I did to her, she would still raise herself and shout and scream. So I had to –’

Timoken heard no more. His shriek of anguish drowned every other sound. His sword was in his hand
and he was flying at the youth. Again and again he slashed at the bobbing head, but found that he was cutting through empty air. The sorcerer had become a column of smoke, a spinning green cloud. But his sword was still a weapon, and it came at Timoken in a lightning flash. Timoken raised his shield, but the youth’s enchanted sword came snaking across his chest, and Timoken’s movements had to become faster than seemed humanly possible. He whirled around, so that the red cloak covered every part of him except his head.

A voice cried, ‘I see it now! I see the web! You are wearing it, you foolish king.’

But the sorcerer’s sword could not penetrate the red moon cloak, and so he sent a shower of fiery stones raining down on Timoken. Most bounced harmlessly off the spellbound wood of his shield, but one of the burning stones caught the back of his neck. He staggered and fell. In a glance, he took in the fighting all about him. One of the viridees had curled its fingers around Edern’s sword and pulled it out of his grasp. Before the creature could turn the sword on Edern, Beri sliced at its arm and the severed limb fell to the ground, leaving the creature
gurgling with rage.

Almost too late, Timoken saw the sorcerer’s blade coming at his chest. He parried the blow with his own sword, but now the whirling column came so close that Timoken could see the sorcerer’s form behind the vapour. He could see the green sinews, the long fluid limbs and the shifting, sponge-like skull beneath the handsome face.

‘What are you?’ Timoken breathed.

‘I am the only human son of Degal, lord of the viridees.’ The sorcerer’s voice rose in triumph. ‘The dark blood of the forest runs in my veins, and mine is the only human heart that cannot be touched by love or the sword.’

‘You are not human!’ cried Timoken, jumping up.

The cloud-wrapped form whirled around him, and the air hummed in its wake. Timoken turned with the cloud, bending, twisting and leaping, as the sorcerer’s sword sliced the air about him.

‘And are
you
human?’ screeched the sorcerer. ‘A boy who flies; a boy whose life depends on the web of the last moon spider?’

Timoken tried not to listen, tried to anticipate the next thrust of the sorcerer’s gleaming blade, but his head
was throbbing, and he wondered how long he could keep his eye on the spinning cloud.

All at once the shrouded sorcerer became very still. Timoken stared at the cloud, waiting. After such frenzied movement, its stillness was unnerving. When it came, the sword thrust was so fast, Timoken hardly saw it. How he avoided it, he would never know, but, twisting aside, he lunged at the cloud, sending his sword deep into its core, and he prayed that he had found, if not his enemy’s heart, then whatever force it was that kept him alive.

For a few seconds, the cloud continued to spin, but gradually it dwindled. As it sank to the ground, a deathly wail came out of it. The sound was so terrible that Timoken had to drop his sword and cover his ears.

The viridees were nowhere to be seen, but a trail of thick green slime ran over the cobblestones at his feet. Edern was sitting on the ground with his head between his hands. When he felt Timoken’s eyes on him, he looked up and grinned.

The others were all on their feet. Battered and bloody, they looked cheerfully triumphant.

‘We have won, my friends!’ Timoken raised his sword.

His eyes had left the cloud for only a moment, but in that time it had vanished.

‘Did you see it?’ he asked the others. ‘Where did it go?’

They shrugged, and Mabon said, ‘A sorcerer can vanish, you know.’

Edern added quietly, ‘My uncle can do that – almost.’

Timoken picked up the sorcerer’s weapon. There were strange symbols carved into the blade: a sword made with magic, and yet the sorcerer could not take it with him.

As he studied the symbols, Timoken could see a small creature moving behind them. It was as though the bright steel were a mirror, reflecting objects that could not be seen by the human eye.

Timoken could make out the thing more clearly now. It was a serpent. The reflection of the shining creature darted up a wall; it dropped to the ground, slithered across a street and vanished into the shadows.

Dropping the sword, Timoken rushed to the courtyard door. He squinted into the shadows, crying, ‘Did you see it? Did you see it?’

Edern ran up behind him. ‘See what?’

‘The serpent. It was small, you could have missed it.’

‘There are many lizards,’ said Edern. ‘They are
basking on the wall. No doubt you mistook one for a serpent.’

‘No,’ Timoken said firmly. He closed the door. ‘It is gone now.’

The others crowded around him. ‘Was it the sorcerer?’ asked Mabon. ‘There’s no sign of him.’

‘How could he vanish like that?’ asked Peredur.

‘He is a sorcerer,’ said Timoken.

Gereint looked alarmed. ‘Not dead, then.’

Timoken shrugged. ‘It is likely that he has many lives. I have taken only one of them.’

‘Will he come back here?’ asked Peredur.

‘We will soon be gone,’ Timoken reassured him. ‘And then there will be nothing for him in Toledo.’ He noticed that Beri was sitting alone on the stone seat. She looked drained of life. Her face showed not a spark of her former bravado. She had killed a viridee, but she did not know if she had avenged her father. For where was the sorcerer now?

Timoken sat beside her. The others looked on. They wanted to celebrate, but they could not. Beri had lost her father, so how could they expect her to smile?

‘You are the bravest girl that I have ever met,’ said
Mabon. Beri was not to know that, coming from Mabon, this was an unheard-of compliment.

‘It is true,’ agreed Edern.

‘The bravest,’ said Gereint.

‘And the most beautiful,’ mumbled Peredur, his cheeks reddening.

Timoken agreed with them all, but he had nothing to add. He could only think of his sister, lying somewhere in the house. He could not believe that she was dead when he had only just discovered she had survived the loss of the ring. She had taken the Alixir for more than a hundred years, so, surely, even a sorcerer could not end her life.

The boys’ kind words failed to comfort Beri. Their sympathy tipped her over into tears again. This time she hardly made a sound. But her shoulders began to shake and a river of tears flowed down her cheeks and dripped on to her battle-stained tunic.

Timoken did not know what to do. The sight of those tears tore at his heart and he had to close his eyes. In the language of the secret kingdom, he quietly begged the sky to show Beri that, in spite of everything, the world was still beautiful.

There was a moment of silence before he felt a light touch on his shoulder.

‘Rain,’ said Edern. ‘And the sun is still shining.’

Timoken opened his eyes. Raindrops were falling all about them, sparkling in the sunlight. They sprinkled the creepers on the walls until every leaf held a tiny diamond. They fell on to Beri’s lap, and splashed on to her feet. Raindrops like pearls rolled over the toes peeping out of her sandals, and the roses behind her bloomed again. Fragrant petals, as soft as silk, fluttered on to her head. Beri breathed in their perfume – and smiled. ‘I know this place,’ she said.

‘You know it?’ said Timoken.

‘My father brought me here to buy a doll.’

‘Where was the toymaker’s workshop, Beri?’

She nodded towards an arch set into a corner of the wall.

Timoken ran to the corner. No one followed. He saw a flight of steps leading down to an arched doorway. When he looked back, he found his friends staring at him, their faces solemn and concerned.

The steps were steep and Timoken’s legs shook as he descended. He longed to see his sister again, but he was
afraid of what he might find when he reached the room at the bottom.

He took a deep breath and forced himself to hurry down the last few steps. He looked through the doorway and saw a room full of toys. Sunlight came slanting through the windows, intensifying the bright colours of wooden dolls and animals. Some, he noticed, had been smashed and broken.

A woman was lying on a bench at the end of the room. Stepping carefully over the broken toys, Timoken walked towards the bench.

Zobayda lay with her hands clasped on her chest. Timoken knew that his sister was old now, but she did not look old. Her hair was black and her cheeks unlined. Her eyes were closed, but she did not look dead. He laid his ear over her heart. A faint sound reached him, the lightest whisper. But Zobayda’s eyes remained closed, her hands as still as death.

‘You are not dead, Zobayda,’ cried Timoken. ‘I know it. I can hear your heartbeat. Every night, for more than one hundred years, you lay under the web of the last moon spider. A sorcerer’s spell could not undo that.’

Pulling off the moon cloak, Timoken threw it over
his sister. ‘Open your eyes, Zobayda,’ he demanded. ‘You are alive!’

Zobayda’s lips parted and she gave a long sigh. Her eyelids fluttered and then flew open. ‘Timoken!’ she said, and almost laughing, she sat up.

When brother and sister came up into the courtyard they were greeted with a huge cheer. The boys gathered around them and, one by one, were introduced to Zobayda, whose smile grew wider every second. And then she saw Beri, sitting alone on the stone seat.

‘And who is this?’ asked Zobayda, looking at Beri.

‘A brave girl who lives in Toledo,’ said Timoken.

‘I’ve seen you before,’ said Zobayda.

‘Yes.’ Beri got to her feet. ‘My father brought me here … to choose a doll.’

‘Your father.’ Zobayda frowned. She knew the girl now. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Yes. Esteban Díaz.’ Beri twisted her hands together. ‘I am happy for your … recovery,’ she told Zobayda, ‘but I cannot celebrate.’ Her eyes roamed over the group of
boys and then came to rest on Timoken. ‘Goodbye,’ she said. ‘I wish you luck.’ Before anyone could move or speak, she stepped lightly through the door, and was gone.

Only a moment after Beri’s swift departure, two finely dressed gentlemen appeared in the doorway.

‘The orphans told us that the menace has been defeated,’ said the younger man.

‘Orphans?’ said Timoken.

‘Sadly there are many of them in the city,’ said the older man. ‘You were unaware of them, no doubt, but they saw what happened here.’

‘We have come to congratulate you and to thank you.’ In spite of his fine clothes, the younger man had the face of an adventurer. His hair was black and curly and he wore an earring in his left ear. ‘I believe that one of you is – how can I put it – a magician?’

‘My brother, Timoken.’ Zobayda proudly lifted her brother’s arm.

Surprising Timoken, the two men bowed. They introduced themselves as Francisco Padilla, who was the older of the two, and Juan Pizarro. They were wealthy merchants, they explained, and would be honoured to
supply a feast for the magician and his friends. It would have to be a subdued affair, however, as the city was in mourning for the great and inestimably brave soldier, Esteban Díaz. Therefore, unhappily, they could not attend the feast themselves, nor could any city dignitaries. ‘But all of you,’ said Francisco, inclining his head towards the group, ‘all will be provided with the best food we have, attendants to wait upon you and, for each of you, a bed in my own house.’

Timoken thanked Francisco. He looked forward to the feast, he said, but he would rather sleep in his sister’s house, though he could not answer for his friends, the Britons.

‘Britons?’ said Juan Pizarro, with a puzzled frown. ‘They are far from home.’

‘They were kidnapped,’ said Timoken. ‘But they mean to return to their own country as soon as they can, and I …’ He looked at Zobayda. ‘I had intended to go with them, but now …’

‘I am not yet weary of adventure,’ Zobayda said curtly. ‘Nothing shall part us now.’

By this time the four Britons were looking quite bemused. Timoken quickly translated. He could not
help laughing when he spoke about the feast; his four friends’ eyes widened with delight, and Mabon even rubbed his stomach.

While Timoken was translating, Juan Pizarro had been thoughtfully stroking his beard. Now he said, ‘I own a ship. It sails north in seven days. It carries silk and carpets to Britain. It could also carry you. But you would have to leave the city at first light tomorrow.’

When Timoken told the others, they gave a loud cheer and hugged one another heartily.

‘Fresh horses will be provided for you all,’ said Juan. ‘You can leave them on the dock and my man, Pedro, will bring them back.’

‘Thank you.’ Timoken hesitated before saying, ‘I have a camel. I cannot leave him behind.’

‘A camel. Ah, yes, he is being cared for in my stables.’ Juan frowned and stroked his beard again. ‘I am afraid that the captain will not allow him on the ship.’