Emily Rodda - Cavern Of Fear

Sharn took Josef and Ranesh into the kitchen where a meal had been prepared for them. She returned to her duties with a far lighter heart than she had begun them that morning. How overjoyed Lief would be to hear of the unexpected return of the Annals !

It was also wonderful to see Jasmine happy. The girl seemed relieved, for a time at least, of her misery over the fate of the prisoners in the Shadowlands.

And that means, Sharn thought gratefully, that I can be relieved, for a time at least, of the fear that she will do something foolish.

As soon as the palace guard had put down the chest and left the library, Jasmine searched rapidly through the Annals until she found the one marked ‘5’.

As she picked it up, it fell open at a page with no ruled lines, and covered in untidy printing. Jasmine guessed it had been opened at this place many times before. The page was signed ‘Doran’.

Doran the Dragonlover might have been a man of many talents, Jasmine thought, but he had plainly not valued neatness. He had scribbled down his report, and a verse, then corrected them both at a later date, using a different pen and darker ink.

Tears were burning in Jasmine’s eyes as she read the last words of the verse and thought of her mother, dead in the Shadowlands. Yet… it seemed to her that something about the rhyme did not quite ring true.

Frowning, she read the whole page again. The more she looked at Doran’s hasty corrections and added lines, the more she became convinced that they were intended to conceal something. Curiosity buzzed in her mind like an annoying insect.

Quickly she sorted through the books she had unloaded on the library table, searching for Volume 1.

An hour later, Josef came hobbling into the library, leaning on Ranesh’s arm and exclaiming with delight on seeing his old place of work once more.

He was delighted to see Jasmine sitting at a table on which several volumes of the Deltora Annals lay scattered. One volume was open in front of her, and she had plainly been taking notes from it.

‘Can I help you, my dear?’ he asked, hurrying forward.

‘Thank you, but it is not necessary,’ said Jasmine, hastily closing the book and stuffing the paper on which she had been writing into her pocket.

She pushed her chair back, and stood up. ‘I must leave you,’ she said. ‘There are things I must do.’

‘Why, of course!’ exclaimed Josef, patting her arm. ‘You run along. Ranesh and I have much to do also. We have been asked to stay in the palace, to care for the Annals and the other books! Is it not wonderful?’

‘Indeed it is,’ said Jasmine warmly. She was very glad that the old man’s devotion had been rewarded. Besides, she owed him much. She could hardly contain her excitement as she thought of the paper she had in her jacket pocket.

She hurried to the door, then turned back. She was almost certain that she was right in what she had worked out, but it was best to be quite sure.

‘Josef,’ she said, as casually as she could. ‘If Annals writers changed their minds about what they had written, were they permitted to tear out the page?’

Josef looked shocked. ‘Oh, certainly not!’ he said. ‘Small corrections could be made, under supervision. But that was all. Why do you ask?’

‘Oh, no particular reason,’ Jasmine answered carelessly, but her heart was racing as she left the library. Nodding brightly to the guards who had replaced the ones she had crept by that morning, she ran down the stairs to her bed chamber.

It was a matter of moments to pack her belongings. The vine growing on the wall outside her window was sturdy. It supported her easily as she swung herself out and began to climb down.

She had almost reached the ground when Kree squawked a warning. Jasmine looked down and groaned. Glock was standing below, glaring up at her.

‘What do you think you are doing, Miss?’ he growled.

8 - Discoveries

It was deepest night when Lief and Doom returned to Del with Marilen. Like thieves, the three slipped into the silent palace by the kitchen door.

Sharn was sitting at the table, waiting for them. She jumped up, her face wreathed in relieved smiles.

‘You are really here!’ she cried. ‘When your message came that you would be back so soon, I could hardly believe it.’

She hastened to settle Marilen by the stove with a mug of hot soup. Then she drew Lief aside. ‘I have much to tell you!’ she whispered. ‘There is wonderful news, but bad news as well.’

Doom’s voice interrupted them. ‘I am going to wake Glock,’ he called from the door. ‘We should talk to him at once.’

‘Why Glock ?’ Sharn demanded. ‘What has he to do with—’

‘I will tell you later, Mother,’ Lief said in a low voice, as Doom left the room. ‘Give me your news. The bad news first, while we cannot be overheard.’

He nodded towards Marilen, who was leaning towards the stove, warming her chilled hands. The girl looked delicate, defenceless and very tired. If she was frightened on her first night at the palace, she might beg to return to Tora. Such a request could not be denied, so it was vital that it was never made.

‘Guards reporting for duty on the third floor this afternoon found that the two men they were to replace were asleep, and would not wake,’ Sharn whispered. ‘We believe they were given a powerful sleeping potion in some ale.’

Lief felt the chill that always came over him when he thought of the third floor. ‘The sealed room!’ he whispered. ‘Had the wall been—?’

Sharn nodded reluctantly, seeing lines of worry deepen on her son’s face. ‘The mortar between the bricks had crumbled away, and some of the bricks had fallen. But the hole was small, and the door beyond was shut fast. Perhaps the intruder was disturbed before he could enter.’

‘We must just hope that is so,’ Lief muttered. ‘Has the damage been repaired?’

‘Of course,’ his mother answered.

She glanced at the drooping figure of the girl in the armchair. ‘Poor child. What a place she has come to! And she is so young…’

Lief smiled ruefully. ‘No younger than me,’ he reminded her. Or Jasmine.’

‘Oh!’ Sharn exclaimed. ‘That reminds me! The good news! The Deltora Annals has been returned to us. And it was Jasmine who brought it about.’

She had expected her son to be pleased. But even she was startled at the sudden, disbelieving joy that lit his face. Before she could ask him to explain it, however, Doom strode back into the kitchen, his face like thunder.

‘Glock is not in his bed!’ he muttered. ‘No doubt he is snoring under a table in some tavern in the city.’

‘Let him snore!’ Lief grinned. ‘We do not need him any longer!’

Soon afterwards, Lief and Doom were being excitedly welcomed by Josef. His white hair ruffled, the folds of his borrowed night robe flapping about his thin legs, he seized one of the books lying on the table.

‘I had no idea your majesty would be back so soon!’ he cried, flipping pages rapidly. ‘There is something I must show you! Something of great importance.’

‘I would like to see everything in its turn, Josef,’ Lief said hastily. ‘But just now I have some research of my own that—’