The Unknown Spy (18 page)

“We are surrounded by snakes on every side,” one voice said.

“Then we have no hope—what is to become of us?” A woman’s voice, full of despair. Danny waited until the voices moved back inside, then resumed his downward progress.

When he reached the ground, he could see footprints in the snow leading along the front of the building. He looked around. The windows of the castle were dark and empty. Pulling the collar of his coat tight around his neck, he set off. The snow was crisp and firm and the tracks were easy to follow, moving purposefully. The two Ring students were a day ahead of Danny and Dixie and could
well have found the Treaty Stone by now. Perhaps the Cherb’s mission was now to shatter it.

Danny felt alive out here, all his senses honed. To be out alone in the dark, on the trail of an opponent who did not know he was there, touched the devious part of his being. Knowing that he should have wakened Dixie added an extra forbidden pleasure—that of deceiving a friend in a small way.

The footprints turned away from the building and toward a small stand of snow-covered pine trees in the shadow of a crag. Danny slowed. It was dangerous to follow an opponent into a wooded area, where an ambush was possible. A gust of wind sent ice crystals scudding across the surface of the snow. He looked up. Dark clouds had started to gather around the mountain peaks, moving with alarming speed. He hesitated. He should either go back or seek the shelter and danger of the pines. He brushed a snowflake from his lapel and moved cautiously in under the trees.

Danny crept forward, glancing up from the footprints to the dark canopy. A night creature stirred and he jumped. It was a small stand of trees, but the darkness was almost total. The wind stirred the branches. Danny came to the far end of the wood. The footprints emerged from the trees and doubled back toward Morne. A flurry of snow blew into his face, and as he stepped from the trees a blast of frozen air hit him. Much of Morne was already hidden in the fallen snow. The Cherb had led, and Danny had followed like a fool. He staggered as the wind struck
him. He’d been tricked, and now he was alone in a snowstorm.

Danny put his head down and began to follow the tracks. As far as he could tell they were pointed back toward the walls of the kingdom, but he couldn’t be sure. The prints were filling with snow, and before he had gone a hundred yards, they had faded completely. Danny trudged on against the driving snow. He hadn’t been that far from the walls of Morne. If he found them, he could work his way back to his room. And yet no matter how far he walked, he did not reach the walls. It was getting harder and harder to see. The sound of the wind had increased to a shriek and the snow blew horizontally. Ice formed on his eyelashes and in his hair. He stepped into a hole hidden by the snow and sprawled on his front. The excitement of the chase was gone. His limbs felt tired and heavy, and he had to force himself to get to his feet and go on.

Snow clung to his shoes and made it hard for him to lift his feet. His coat kept the snow out, but it didn’t protect his face or his frozen feet, and he found himself thinking about stories of frostbitten explorers losing ears and fingers. He cursed himself for falling for the Cherb’s trap and for not waking Dixie. He stumbled on a rock and fell. The snow cushioned his fall. He felt a great weariness steal over him and he closed his eyes. A memory of being at home in bed crept into his mind. It was time for school, and his mother was calling, but the bed was warm and deep and he only wanted to snatch another few minutes.…

“Danny! Danny! Wake up!” Someone was shaking his shoulder.

“Just another minute,” he murmured. As if in a dream, he felt two small hands grip his. He was pulled into a sitting position, then forced to stand.

“Help me, Danny!” The voice came from far away. His arm was draped over slender shoulders. He took one step forward, then another. All he wanted to do was to lie down, but the voice urged and cajoled him until the howling of the wind died away, the snow ceased and he fell to the ground.

D
anny opened his eyes to see flickering shapes dancing on a stone roof. He turned his head. A fire blazed in a small grate and a familiar figure moved in the shadows around it.

“Dixie,” he said.

“Wait a moment. I have a hot drink for you.” A girl’s voice, but it wasn’t Dixie. “I don’t think I could have carried you much farther.”

It was Lily, the girl chosen by the Ring to destroy the Treaty Stone.

FAMILY

D
anny stared at Lily, then at the proffered cup.

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “If I wanted to bump you off, all I had to do was leave you out in the snow. I wouldn’t have to poison you.” He took the drink. It was hot soup.

“Where are we?”

“Must be a shepherd’s hut,” she said. “Someone left a few tins of soup and stuff in it.”

Danny sat up and sipped the scalding liquid, feeling life flow back into his frozen limbs. His brain was starting to unfreeze as well. Why would one of his enemies lead him into a trap and the other rescue him from it?

Lily had turned to the fire.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said, “and I would probably think the same. Why did she help me, after I’d been led into danger?”

“Why did you?” Danny asked, his voice sounding harsher than he’d intended.

“I know you have no reason to trust me,” Lily said, her voice very low, “but until you do, I can’t tell you.”

The room went silent, save for the crackle of the fire and the roar of the wind outside.

“I don’t have to trust you,” Danny said carefully, “but I do need to thank you.”

Lily turned and gave him a sad smile.

“That’s a start,” she said. “We’ll wait here until the storm’s over, and then we’ll make our way back to Morne.”

“What are you studying?” Danny said, trying to make his voice sound casual.

“Upper and Lower World relations,” she said. “What about you?”

“Early Lower World history. What do you think of Morne?”

“It’s a strange place. I think the vizier rules it by setting people against each other. They’re so busy squabbling that they don’t have time to challenge him.”

“You’re probably right.”

They were talking cautiously, as though playing a chess game, Danny thought, trying not to give too much away. They were on opposing missions. This was what Danny the Spy enjoyed: playing mind games with a cunning opponent.

“How long are you staying?” Danny asked.

“Oh, as long as it takes,” Lily said airily, “but I don’t agree with the vizier.”

“No?”

“I think people pulling together is the only way to achieve anything.”

What was she playing at? Was she was saying they should work together—the Ring of Five and Wilsons on the same side? It didn’t seem possible. She has to be up to something, Danny thought. But what if she’s not? Should she be trusted?

His head starting to hurt, Danny drank the last of the soup.

“I think we should both try to get some sleep—” He was interrupted by a noise that sounded like some ancient being groaning with sadness and regret, with a terrible longing that echoed through the ages.

Almost against their wills, Danny and Lily got to their feet, went to the rough wooden door and opened it. The snow had stopped, and the moon stared down again at drifts piled in weird shapes. The storm was retreating, huge clouds streaming back through the high mountain passes, and as they did, by some trick caused by the speed of the storm or the shape of the rocks, a great voice seemed to speak from the peaks. Danny held his breath, awestruck, as the voice rumbled over the crags.

“AAAA-LONE,” the voice keened, and Danny felt his blood turn to ice. “AAAA-LONE!” The sorrow of millennia echoed down the valley. Again and again the voice boomed out; then, as the last shard of cloud raced through the last pass, there was silence. Danny realized he had been holding his breath. He looked down. Lost in the terrible grief of the mountain, Lily had taken his hand
and was holding it tightly. When the sound faded, she became aware of what she had done and quickly released Danny’s hand, moving off through the snow.

“We’d better get back,” she said over her shoulder.

“Wait,” Danny said, running after her. “What did you mean earlier when you said you can’t tell me why you helped me until I trust you?”

“I meant exactly what I said.”

“You realize,” Danny said, “that we both know what the mountain said?”

“Yes.”

“And that if we don’t both answer the question at the same time then the other team ends up serving the dead?”

“I realize that too.”

“Well,” Danny said slowly, “that means that either one of us goes straight to the vizier and condemns the others, or we trust each other and deliver the answer together.”

“And?”

“I’ll trust you, Lily,” he said. “I won’t go to the vizier if you won’t.” He stopped in the snow and held out his right hand. After a long moment of hesitation, Lily shook it.

“Right,” she said. “Follow me.”

She took them along the wall of Morne to a small gate. There was a heavy iron padlock on it, but she took a clip from her hair and with impressive speed and dexterity picked the lock.

The gate opened onto a large room filled with a jumble of old furniture and faded oil paintings, sleighs with
one runner and broken beach umbrellas. Moonlight streamed in through a high barred window.

“It’s just a storeroom,” Lily said, “but you can get back into our rooms from it.” She hesitated.

“What is it?”

“You trusted me. It’s time for me to trust you.”

“Trust me with what?”

“With this.” She turned away from him and bent over. He couldn’t see what she was doing, but her hands were at her eyes. She turned around.

“Let me move into the light.” She stepped into the shaft of moonlight and turned her face to it. At first all Danny saw was the paleness of her skin, the raven hair streaming back. Then he saw her eyes. He blinked and looked again. One was blue, the other brown.

“Yes, Danny. Just like you.”

“How …?” he said. “I thought I was the only one.…”

“That’s what everyone thinks, Danny,” she said, “but you’re not. You were never alone. They tried to hide it from you, but you have a sister.”

“You?”

“Yes, Danny,” she said, turning toward him and pushing her head back so that he could see the shape of her face, and the strange brown and blue eyes. “I’m your sister.”

T
he next hour passed in a blur. Danny had gotten used to being alone and had worked at building up a hard skin to protect himself. Now he felt more vulnerable than ever.
He couldn’t think of the right questions to ask. It seemed that Lily knew little more about their parentage than he did but, like Danny, had been brought up by adoptive Cherb parents who had made their home in the shadows of the fortress of Grist.

“I was always hidden from the Ring of Five,” Lily said. ”I was never allowed out without contact lenses, so they never knew about my eyes. But I was smart, like you, Danny. I studied hard, spent nights in the library reading about the Fifth. The Ring had gone through all the books and torn out the pages about the Fifth, but they didn’t check the baptismal records. Twelve years ago, a pair of twins was registered, the color of their eyes noted as one brown and one blue. Our first names were there—Danny and Lily—but the second names had been crossed out, as had the names of the parents. I found out about this a year ago and I’ve been looking for you ever since.

“I got into spy school in Grist. I lied, cheated and betrayed my way to the top. When it looked as if someone else would get this mission, I made sure she fell down the stairs and broke her ankle. I knew Wilsons would send you, if you were still alive. I knew it!”

Danny looked at her, dumbfounded. He had a sister and a family!

“Do you know who … who our parents are … 
where
they are?”

“No,” Lily said. “I didn’t get that far. But I have a few leads in Grist. The answers are there, I’m sure of it.”

“And do you know why they think that I … or we … are so special?”

“I know that to be complete, the Ring must have someone of mixed Cherb and human blood, and I know they want you—there was great excitement when you joined them the last time. But there is something more going on that I don’t understand. We need more time.”

“We?”

“You must come back with me, Danny. In disguise, as you are now. Together we can find our parents.” She lowered her voice. “I know you have a mission here—to find the Treaty Stone, the same mission I have.”

“We both have missions,” Danny agreed, “but they are not the same. Mine is to save the Stone. Yours is to—”

“Destroy it,” Lily said eagerly. “I thought about that. I must not fail, or else …”

“Or else what?”

Lily made a contemptuous noise. “Rufus Ness said he’d kill both of us—me and the Cherb—if we fail, but that’s not what matters.”

“Of course it matters.”

“Shhh … someone’s coming …,” Lily warned.

They ducked behind a pile of packing cases. The door opened and a servant came in, a big man with a thatch of blond hair. He was carrying a box of broken crockery. He set it down heavily just inside the door and straightened; then something caught his eye. He saw the fresh snow on the floor, and wet footprints leading from the door. Scratching his head, he moved forward slowly as he looked from the now-locked door to the footprints. He didn’t seem very bright, and Danny thought it would be best to stay hidden in the hope that he would go away.
Instead, Lily sprang out from behind the cases with a heavy brass candlestick in her hand. She struck the man behind the ear and he fell with a sickening thud. Suddenly there was a knife in her hand. She grabbed the man’s hair and pulled his head back so that his throat was exposed. Her knife hand swept back, but Danny grabbed her wrist.