Emily Rodda - Shadowgate

And what of the parents who lost two daughters because of your son, Bess? Lief thought, as her voice trailed away. Have you no word for them?

The silence lengthened. Then, at last, Bess seemed to rouse herself. She straightened her shoulders.

‘I have work to do,’ she said abruptly, pushing the little row of metal rods towards Lief. ‘I expect you to know all your notes by tomorrow morning.’

Lief stood up, pushed the chimes and the paper into his pocket, and left the wagon. He was determined that by morning he, Barda and Jasmine would be long gone.

Outside, the sun was setting and shadows were gathering behind the line of wagons. Lief breathed in the fresh, cool air with relief.

It was quiet where he was standing, but the centre of the field was full of movement. All around the unlit wood heap, Masked Ones were practising their skills.

The frog-woman was juggling flaming torches. Three clowns were tumbling about blowing coloured bubbles from enormous pipes. The eagle-man, Quill, was standing with Barda, who was lifting a set of enormous weights. A man with the head of a lizard was doing magic tricks, assisted by the polypan-boy, Zerry.

To one side, a group of blue-clad acrobats with dog faces were standing on one another’s shoulders to form a tall pyramid. Balanced at the top of the pyramid was a small, grey-masked figure, standing on its hands.

It was Jasmine. She had put aside her clumsy coat, and her feet were bare.

Lief caught his breath as she turned a backwards somersault and landed upright on the shoulders of the man at the pyramid’s tip.

‘Your brother is a talented acrobat, it seems,’ a low voice said in Lief’s ear.

Lief jumped, turned, and saw the fox-woman standing very close to him. He had not heard her approach. Perhaps she had been standing there in the shadows all along.

‘Oh—yes,’ Lief stammered.

‘It is hard to believe he has never been trained,’ the fox-woman went on smoothly. Her eyes were narrow with suspicion.

‘Jay is self-taught,’ Lief answered, with perfect truth. His eyes flicked around the field. And it was then that he noticed the fluttering white patches that dotted the fences on all sides.

He turned and looked behind him. Yes, the fence there was covered with white splashes too. Poison-spitting moths clung to the rough wood, silently opening and closing their wings.

Lief remembered the red boxes he had seen being unloaded by the fence. The moths had been in those boxes, no doubt. Now they were in place. There would be no escape from the camp tonight.

He clenched his fists. The disappointment was bitter. He heard a distant screech, as if Kree was echoing his feelings.

‘Is something wrong?’ Rust asked coldly.

‘No,’ Lief managed to say. ‘No, I—’

His voice was drowned out by a high, wavering shriek of pure terror.

7 – Phantom

Every thing seemed to stop. The figures around the wood pile froze where they stood. The music faltered and died.

The terrified scream came again, dissolving into a ghastly, rasping gurgle.

His heart pounding, Lief began to run between the wagons and the fence, following the sound.

With Rust close behind him he pounded past wagon after wagon, dodging stamping, terrified horses, leaping over boxes and piles of belongings.

Otto’s wagon was ahead. The door was hanging open, swinging crazily on its hinges as if blown by a gale.

And rising against the shadow of the door, rising up, up, so that at last it was outlined against the orange sky, was a deeper shadow—something black and billowing, with long white fingers that glimmered in the dark. Where its face should have been there was a flat gleam of green.

On the ground by the wagon’s back wheels, sprawled over a half-empty pack and a tangle of clothes, lay a twisted shape.

Lief’s throat closed. Behind him, the fox-woman cried out. And in that moment, the black thing writhed, thinned, and was gone.

The wagon door slammed shut with a crash. Lief ran forward and bent over the sprawled figure.

It was the woman in the cat mask—the woman he and Jasmine had spoken to on the road to Happy Vale.

One side of her mask was scorched. Smoke drifted from the blackened patch, and there was the ghastly smell of burned hair and flesh. The staring eyes seemed filled with horror, and the teeth were bared in a snarl of fear.

‘It is the seamstress, Fern!’ whispered Rust. She sounded horrified, but the horror was also plainly mixed with relief.

She is grateful that it was not a member of the inner circle, but only a ‘bareface hanger-on’ who was attacked, Lief thought grimly. Gently he slipped his fingers beneath the neck of the cat mask, feeling for a pulse.

His stomach turned over as the staring eyes focused on him, and the lips moved. The burned woman was still alive! She was trying to speak. Lief leaned closer.

Words came to him, faint as breath. ‘I… am… sorry. I… was… so… afraid.’

‘What is she saying?’ cried Rust. ‘Is she—?’

Angrily Lief waved his free hand to quiet her. ‘Be at peace now,’ he whispered to the dying woman.

The pulse beneath his fingers was light and fluttering. The agonised eyes held his, filled with urgent appeal. The lips moved again. ‘Beware… the Masked One…’ the woman breathed. ‘Beware…’

The voice died away. The eyes grew fixed. The fluttering pulse stopped.

Lief waited for a moment, then drew back.

‘She is gone,’ he said quietly. He began to pull the cat mask from the dead woman’s face.

‘Don’t!’ Rust gasped behind him.

Lief took no notice. He uncovered a scorched neck, and then a pale face. One cheek was deeply burned. The brand of the Shadow Lord shone blood red in the centre of the blackened skin. Lief could feel the heat still rising from it.

It is as if the burning came from within, he thought. His skin crawled.

‘Cover her face, for pity’s sake!’ hissed Rust. ‘The others are coming.’

Lief became aware of shouting and the pounding of approaching feet. He looked around, saw a blanket lying nearby amid a jumble of clothes, and threw it over the body.

The crowd was nearly upon them. Rust ran to the front of Otto’s wagon, and held up her arms.

‘Go back to work!’ she shouted. ‘There is nothing to see. There has been an accident, that is all.’

She folded her arms and stood immoveable till at last the crowd did her bidding and began moving back to the centre of the field.

Barda and Jasmine stayed. Rust seemed to know that there was no point in trying to make them go.

Bess’s reaction to Fern’s death shocked them all.

‘The woman was stealing from your wagon, Lewin,’ she said, shrugging. ‘She paid the price.’

‘What do you mean?’ Lief exclaimed, horrified.

‘Something watches over you, Lewin,’ said Bess dreamily, moving her hands over the glass ball. ‘Anyone who tries to injure you is in danger.’

The fox-woman stirred uneasily. ‘Bess, I do not think—’ she began.

‘Rust, see that Fern is buried without delay,’ Bess said, without looking at her. ‘And decently, with her mask in place, as is proper. Keep to your story of an accident. The people may turn against Lewin if they know the truth.’

Lief opened his mouth to protest, but Barda gripped his arm warningly, and he remained silent.

Barda is right, he thought. Better to say nothing. If Bess really believes that I am protected by some sort of spirit, it may help us later. If she does not—if the thing that killed Fern is some hideous secret she and the rest of the inner circle share—defying her will only put us in even greater danger.