Peter and the Shadow Thieves (50 page)

Meanwhile, unnoticed by the wolves, Mol y and George were running up the road toward the Heel Stone, il uminated now by the gentle light of a mil ion stars, as the moon now was a mere ghostly circle.

“What do we do when we get there?” huffed George.

“We look for Father,” said Mol y, looking up at the moon. “If we’re not too—”

She stopped and gasped.

“What?” said George. Then his eyes fol owed her gaze, and he said, “Oh, my.”

Looming in the road fifteen feet ahead, standing eight feet tal if he stood an inch, was Karl the bear. He dropped to al fours and began moving toward them, growling.

“You, there!” said George, in a voice that would have sounded more impressive if it had not broken in the middle of “there” and shot up two ful octaves. “Stop, I say! Stop!” Karl did not stop. He came steadily forward, growling louder now.

A warning chime sounded in Mol y’s ear. Mol y had heard Tink make that sound before. And, in a flash, she remembered what it meant.

“George!” she said. “Close your eyes!”

“What?” he said, staring at Karl. “Why on earth should
…OW!
”

He yelped as Mol y slapped her hand over his eyes, at the same time closing hers tightly. Karl’s eyes, on the other hand, were very close and very wide open when Tink flashed a bril iant burst.

With a roar, Karl, temporarily blinded and befuddled, reared up and swiped his huge paws through the air, hitting nothing.

Mol y opened her eyes and pul ed her hand from George’s face.

“Come on!” she said. Then, remembering something, she stopped, turned, and knelt to pick up the fal en form of Tink lying on the road, glowing faintly. Gently, Mol y put Tink into her coat pocket and began running up the road toward the Heel Stone, with George close behind. Behind them, Karl continued to bel ow and swipe at the empty air.

Aster had seen the bright flash of light in the distance; he had heard the deep roar, unquestionably Karl. He didn’t know what was happening, and he didn’t have time to find out.

Whatever it was, Magil and the animals would have to deal with it. The eclipse was total now. The moon was visible only as a shadowy circle in the sky.

Aster knelt next to the trunk. He unfastened the two golden latches. He took a deep breath, then exhaled.

It was time.

A raven glided out from the looming starlit shapes of the trilithons. It fluttered to a landing at the base of the blue-stone, in the pool of darkness that was Ombra. Moments later it took flight again, disappearing into the darkening sky.

Ombra rose and spoke to the two riflemen, his voice low but urgent.

“Aster is behind that stone,” he said, pointing to one of the standing trilithons. “Fol ow me.
Quickly.
” He glided forward, bent low, and came up to the trilithon, the riflemen crouching just behind him. The trilithon’s two massive vertical stones were separated by only a few inches, forming between them a vertical crack several feet deep. Ombra moved forward, oozing into this space, disappearing entirely between the uprights. Through the opening on the other side he saw the gold-clad man—Aster, he was certain—kneeling next to a wooden trunk. Aster’s gold-gloved hands reached out and unfastened the two latches.

He was about to open the trunk.

Ombra shot back out of the space.

“Now,” he whispered urgently, waving the riflemen forward. “Shoot him
now.
”

The riflemen moved around the stone quickly. Too quickly. One of them caught his foot on the corner of a stone embedded in the ground. He fel forward, his rifle clattering on the hard-packed dirt. Aster’s head turned toward the sound; he saw one rifleman sprawled on the ground, the other raising his weapon, taking aim.

Without an instant’s hesitation, Aster flung the trunk lid open.

The ravens screamed and scattered into the sky.

And out came the sun.

Or so it seemed: the center of Stonehenge erupted in a bril iant bal of light. The gold-clad figure of Aster appeared to be on fire as he stumbled away from the glare. The rifleman on the ground screamed and crawled away, dragging his weapon. The other rifleman, a more disciplined warrior, turned his eyes from the light for a moment, then slowly forced himself to look again, training his rifle sight on Aster.

“
No!
”

The voice was Ombra’s, but it sounded weak.

“Do not shoot him!”

Ombra was on the ground a dozen yards behind the riflemen. He had been forced back by the light burst, like smoke blown by the wind. His shape was distorted, flattened.

“Do not shoot!” he repeated, slithering away from the light. The rifleman lowered his rifle, turned, and stumbled after the retreating form.

Nerezza ran forward, meeting Ombra at the bluestone circle.

“What happened?” he said. Shielding his eyes, he looked toward the bril iant sphere of light and the figure of Aster now moving toward cover behind a huge fal en stone. “Why didn’t they shoot him?”

“I cal ed them off,” said Ombra. “We cannot kil Aster while the trunk is open. It must be closed. And only Aster can get near enough to close it.” Ombra looked at the sky.

Nerezza fol owed his gaze and saw something he’d never seen before: in the middle of the ghostly reddish circle that was the moon, a pinpoint of greenish light had appeared. As Nerezza watched, the pinpoint became a tendril of light, reaching outward from the moon, farther and farther, like a tentacle feeling its way downward toward Earth.

“We have little time,” said Ombra. “We must force Aster to close the trunk.”

“But if we can’t shoot him,” said Nerezza, “and we can’t get near him…what can we do?”

Ombra’s dark hood swiveled slowly away from the moon, toward Nerezza.

“Get Slank,” Ombra said. “Tel him to bring me Lady Aster.”

Gasping for breath, Mol y, with George just behind, reached the Heel Stone. A moment earlier the sky over Stonehenge had erupted with a bril iant flash of light; the center now bathed in a brightness that was difficult to look at directly.

“What is that?” said George. “Is that the Return?”

“I’m sure it’s the starstuff,” said Mol y. “But it’s stil there, on the ground. The Return hasn’t taken place yet. Father must be inside there. I need to—”

“Would you look at that,” interrupted George, pointing up.

Mol y looked up and saw the strange tendril of green light coming out of the moon, stretching toward Earth, its lower end moving back and forth, causing the rest of it to form gentle, undulating curves. To Mol y, it looked like a giant snake seeking prey.

George stared in wonder as the light came closer to Earth. “That thing is thousands of miles long,” he said. “Tens of thousands. It must be traveling at a
fantastic
speed!” Tearing her eyes away from the light snake, Mol y looked back toward the glowing center of Stonehenge.

“I need to get in there,” she said. “To warn Father.”

“Why?” said George. “Obviously the Return is about to start. And once the starstuff’s gone—”

“But it’s
not
gone yet,” interrupted Mol y. “And if Ombra’s anywhere nearby, he’l see that thing”—she pointed at the green light, drawing ever closer to Stonehenge—“and he’l try to stop the Return. I need to get in there and warn Father.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” said a deep voice.

Mol y and George turned as the tal , wide figure of Magil stepped out from behind the Heel Stone.

“You’re supposed to be back at the house,” he said. “You’ve got no business here.”

“Please,” said Mol y. “Listen. I need to warn my father. There’s a—”

“You can’t go in there,” said Magil . “Your father left orders.
Nobody
goes in there. Too dangerous.”

“
Please,
” Mol y said desperately, starting toward the light. “He doesn’t know that—”

“
No,
” said Magil , moving to block Mol y’s path. “You can’t…
OOW!
”

George had played a bit of rugby at Harrow, and his tackling technique wasn’t half bad. He’d taken a three-step running start, then launched himself, his goal being to hit Magil from the side, waist high, driving him away from Mol y. Unfortunately, Magil was considerably tal er than George’s usual targets; George had connected, noggin-first, with Magil ’s right knee.

The col ision proved extremely painful for both parties. Magil yelped as he skipped sideways on his left foot, both hands holding his knee. George thudded to the ground, moaning, clutching at his throbbing skul .

Mol y, her obstacle removed, took off running toward the light.

Leonard Aster crouched behind a fal en trilithon stone, a few feet from the open starstuff trunk. Warily he poked his head out; squinting in the bril iant light, he looked toward the place where, only moments ago, he’d seen two men with rifles. When he’d stumbled blindly away, looking for cover, he had expected at any moment to be shot, or at least hear shots fired. But there had been nothing. And now the men were gone.

Aster concluded that they’d been driven off by the fierce light radiating from the starstuff. The air around him hummed with energy; even with the gold mesh protecting him, he could barely see through the glare.

Cautiously, he stood and looked up, his eyes scanning the sky.
There it was.
Relief flooded through him as he saw the green tentacle of light writhing toward the glowing center of Stonehenge. It was only a few hundred feet above the top of the trilithons now—close enough that Aster could see it was actual y a column of light several feet in diameter. Its end was now aiming directly at the open trunk, and descending.

Only a few seconds now…

The column was coming lower, perhaps one hundred feet now. The hum in the air was louder. Aster’s eyes again swept the area and stopped suddenly. Aster took a step backward, as if he’d been struck.

It couldn’t be.

But it was. Walking toward him from the bluestone circle, arms outstretched, was his wife.

“Louise!” he shouted, waving his arms. “Stay away!”

She kept coming. Her face, starkly il uminated by the bril iant light, was pale and drawn, her eyes wide open, staring unblinking into the glare. She was already perilously close.

If she got much closer, Aster knew, she would die.

He looked up: the green light column was directly above the starstuff. The hum was almost deafening. He looked at Louise: she was stil coming. To stop her, he would have to leave the trunk—something he was trained never to do. But he could not stand there and watch her die.

Aster began to run toward Louise. After three steps he stopped, frozen by something he heard behind him—a familiar voice, barely audible over the hum. He turned.

No.

Mol y was coming toward the light.

“GO BACK, MOLLY!” he shouted. But she didn’t hear him. She wasn’t even looking at him.

She had seen her mother.

Now Mol y was running forward, tears streaming down her face, oblivious to the danger. In that instant Aster understood that both his wife and his daughter were about to perish in a cataclysm that he had unleashed. He might—
might
—be able to save one of them; he could not save both.

In that instant Leonard Aster made a decision that went against a lifetime of Starcatchers training, and centuries of Starcatchers tradition. In that instant, in the hum and the glare, he became a husband and a father.