The Serpent in the Glass (The Tale of Thomas Farrell) (19 page)

Stanwell’s thin face appeared around the door. ‘Sorry I do be late.’ He placed a rod with a large, green net at one end against the wall. ‘A kind soul threw some leftover crisps in my ol’ pond for my little fishes, but forgot to take ’em out the bags.’

A few minutes later they stood in 2B watching the concealed door slide away to reveal the inside of the tower. As they stepped through the entrance, Thomas briefly wondered if Tregeagle might be looking on, eager to see some more students disappear.

Stanwell stopped at the stones and spoke the same strange word Trevelyan had used the night before last. ‘Dinnsenchas!’

The stones replied by humming slightly as they’d done before. They didn’t glimmer though, or perhaps they did. It was hard to tell now that sunlight, and not moonlight, filtered down through the tower’s high windows.

‘Right, come along. You do be following Stanwell!’ The Caretaker walked through and the children followed. Thomas passed through the Way Gate last. The golden light flashed around him, and he found himself back in the strangely lit cavern. A sense of familiarity hit him again, but he shrugged it off to keep up with the others.

The small grassy hill of Cnocmorandolmen, surrounded by its forest of thin silver-barked trees, sat like a precious stone amidst a ring of silver and jade. The place looked quite different in the light of day, yet still enchanting. A little frost touched the grass, but already it had begun to melt under the steady gaze of the yellow-white sun, making everything sparkle as if it were newly cleaned. Thomas’s senses felt the same way — new, clean and sparkling. The smell of the wet grass and trees seeped into his nostrils, the glistening hues of melted frost struck his eyes, and the soft, yielding sounds of the ground underfoot caressed his ears.

The wall loomed up before them, even more imposing in the light of day than moon and torchlight. It thrust up higher than anything Thomas had ever seen, its top lost in cloud and brilliant sunshine. The stone wall stretched out as far as Thomas could see, its ends impossible to find as it curved away in both directions. High up the face of the gargantuan structure, the huge stone serpents kept watch over the valley. The similarity of the carvings to the serpent in the Glass was uncanny. They were even encircled by rings, as if to represent the Glass itself, though it was no doubt just a coincidental design.

Stanwell, however, led them toward the other side of the valley, careful to avoid the other Way Gates. The opposing ‘mountain’ they’d seen on their night-time visit appeared to be a vast wall of earth. Thomas judged the distance between the two walls to be about two hundred yards, with Cnocmorandolmen set halfway between them.

Not long after they’d entered the sparse wood, it ended abruptly about twenty yards short of the earthen wall. Various roots and branches sprouted from the wall’s surface, as if they’d been torn from the ground. It seemed, like the stone wall, to have no end to its height or, for that matter, to its length. Trees pressed into and grew out from the base, but most remarkable of all was the giant wooden door set within it. Its height was that of ten men, and its width that of a house. Branches and vines grew over it with more vigour than did the wisteria over the side wall of the Westhrop’s home. The door looked as if it hadn’t been opened in a very long time.

Penders stopped and gawped. ‘Whoa! It’d take a hundred men to open that!’

‘One I think, but not a thousand men could force it if it didn’t want to be opened. Still, that isn’t our path, and guests have no need to force doors.’

The children turned toward the sound of the voice. There, in front of a long wooden hall partially hidden by the trees, stood Mr Trevelyan. He wore a plain short-sleeved grey robe, tied about the waist with what looked like a thin rope. It was quite a contrast to his usual attire, though his silver-chained monocle still hung about his neck. He looked very strange, but everyone was far too polite to say anything, though Treice’s eyebrows were just about as high up his forehead as they could go without disappearing under his curly fringe.

The children greeted the Headmaster as Mr Clear disappeared into the wooden hall. A few moments later a horse whinnied and a carriage emerged from the building. It reminded Thomas of the sort he’d seen on old Christmas cards, but then another coach, attached by what looked liked black wooden poles, followed the first coach —

and then another, and another, and another and another, until a six-coach carriage stopped before them, drawn by a team of six jet-black horses.

In the driver’s seat sat Stanwell Clear, who grinned at them from under a three-cornered hat. ‘This do be the Darkledun carriage, and she’s at your services!’

‘Well, we can’t be standing here all day,’ Trevelyan said, as he moved toward the first coach and opened the door. ‘Now, everyone hop in.’

Thomas and the other children made their way into the first coach of the black carriage while Trevelyan climbed up beside Stanwell. Inside, the coach boasted leather seats and fine mahogany panelling.

The carriage lurched forward just as Thomas closed the door behind him. They began to move out along a dirt path barely wide enough for the carriage. Suddenly a part of the roof of their coach slid open and Trevelyan’s delighted face appeared. ‘You can get a better view if you stand up!’

‘Great, a sunroof!’ Penders stood on his seat and stuck his head through the hole.

Treice preferred to remain seated and look out the window, which was just as well as it was a squeeze for the other four to all fit their heads through the hole. Thomas felt a gentle breeze ruffle his blond hair as he looked through the trees to his left and saw the sun’s rays on the earthen wall high above. Everything appeared crisp and new. He could hear every bird’s song and every rustle of a leaf against another.

‘What’s on the other side of the wall?’ Jessica asked, as she stared at the great stones, clearly visible through the thin trees.

Trevelyan leant back. ‘The rest of Darkledun Grange lies beyond the Inner Wall, young lady. That’s where we’re going!’

‘And what’s behind the other wall?’ Thomas asked.

Trevelyan looked at him. ‘A whole world, Thomas. The world of Avallach.’

‘Right, ’ang on!’ Thomas heard Stanwell shout. The carriage lurched again and the speed increased threefold. Jessica and Merideah yelped, though Merideah less audibly. The trees lining both sides of the narrow path seemed to bend inward the further they went on, creating a leafy tunnel. But the canopies were thin enough for Thomas to see the serpent carvings as they moved slowly past, high above. They were all identical. He couldn’t say anything to Mr Trevelyan of course, not without revealing that he had the Glass. Thomas saw a bronze-armoured Darkledun Guard every now and again, standing motionless in small man-high alcoves set in the Inner Wall. He had the impression there were more than he could see, tucked away behind the thicker parts of the tunnel of trees. The Guards, who didn’t look quite so menacing in daylight, paid the carriage no heed as it hurtled by. Thomas wondered how they saw anything if they had no eyes.

‘Look!’ Jessica announced. She was gazing directly ahead, filled with the same sort of look she had when she spotted something nice in a shop window.

‘What is it?’ Penders asked, as he tried to see around Jessica, who had worked her way in front of him so that her head was now in his way.

Merideah pushed her glasses up her nose. ‘It’s another giant door.’

‘That’s the Inner Gate,’ Trevelyan shouted back.

An enormous door, every bit as large as the one near Cnocmorandolmen, now rose before them. A few Darkledun Guards lined the base of the wall either side of the Gate, their flat helms above their faceless visors displaying the Roman numeral V. The Darkledun carriage slowed as they drew close to the Gate.

‘Goibhniu!’ Trevelyan shouted. In response the Gate began to open inwards. Thomas could see no one manning it, and assumed someone named Goibhniu must’ve been opening it from the other side. On the wall above the door were yet more of the serpent shapes. They were easier to see here because they were lower down. However, the top of the wall still eluded Thomas, and trying to find it only made it harder. He tried counting the number of layers of stones, but he quickly lost count. It was as if the blocks kept on moving in an effort to stop him.

‘Master Clear, keep at a canter,’ said Trevelyan. ‘We don’t want to miss anything.’

‘Yes, Master Trevelyan, sir!’ Stanwell pulled on the reins and the six black horses slowed as they came through the Inner Gate.

Thomas caught his breath. Before them a pale red-road of stone led through a landscape of verdant grass and tall, majestic oaks, ashes and thorn trees, as beautiful as they were green; early autumn seemed to be lingering here longer than outside the Gate.

‘Look, the wall’s gone!’ Thomas heard Penders shout from behind.

Thomas looked back. Penders was right. The stone road led to a now free-standing Gate flanked by a few trees, fields, and a blue-white sky. There was no sign of the wall. Then the Gate itself winked out, replaced by a seemingly unending landscape.

‘Maybe it’s done with mirrors,’ Merideah said, but Thomas doubted that was true.

To his left Thomas saw a grassy plain that ended in a lake that sparkled cold in the sun’s rays. To his right a thick, tall forest grew, and it seemed to Thomas as if a shadow hung over it. The pale-red road soon crossed a small stone bridge that forded a narrow river, a silver ribbon in the green of the fields. Now, up ahead, Thomas could see large shapes looming. Buildings. Two huge towers, each much bigger than the one at the Manor, sandwiched three old, stone buildings that reminded Thomas of castles. They seemed familiar to his eyes, though, of course, they couldn’t be.

Trevelyan cast a glance back at the children. ‘You now see before you’ — he swept his hand out toward the buildings — ‘Darkledun Grange Academy!’

‘Seems a bit of a waste to use it as a school,’ Penders said, shaking his head.

Trevelyan smiled. ‘Not a school, Mr Penderghast — an Academy!’

It wasn’t possible to see the lower part of the buildings, as a large garden obscured Thomas’s line of sight. As they drew close, Thomas saw that the garden was filled with delicate trees, large lush hedges, wide well-pruned bushes, and colourful flowers all of which were in full leaf and bloom despite being entirely the wrong time of year. Thomas could smell the flowers’ heavy scents, and their colours appeared more vivid than Mrs Westhrop’s garden gnomes.

The paved road became a tidy dirt path as it reached the gardens, running straight through them toward the buildings. The carriage stopped near a statue of a warrior through whose head water bubbled to fill the fountain in which it stood. Next to the fountain a large, yellow square had been outlined on the ground in which the words
LANDING ZONE — KEEP CLEAR AT ALL TIMES!
had been written in yellow paint.

Trevelyan had already climbed down from the carriage by the time Thomas and the others had all piled out of their coach. ‘You now stand in the Gardens of Arghadmon. A delightful spot for a wander and a ponder, but perhaps another day, eh? Well, follow me!’

Trevelyan led them from the fountain, toward the Academy. Stanwell didn’t follow. He’d jumped down to see to the horses. They’d not gone many paces before Thomas saw a large hedge with a single narrow archway set in its midst. Through the archway ran a corridor of hedge. Penders and Merideah, who were closest to it, moved nearer the archway to see what lay inside.

‘Do not enter the Restless Maze,’ warned Trevelyan without looking back. ‘It cannot be trusted.’

Penders and Merideah looked at each other, shrugged, and then continued following the others.

‘I wonder why it’s called the Restless Maze?’ Penders asked the others, running a hand along the hedge as he passed. Suddenly the hedge shuddered, groaned and then rustled all along its edge as if a stiff breeze had hit it. The children moved away from it as quickly as they could. They were soon right behind the Headmaster again.

The path ended in a yard fronting a huge building that Thomas thought — now that he stood closer — looked more like a cathedral than a castle, except there were no stained-glass windows. Large wooden doors stood between two smooth, dull-grey pillars. A couple of Darkledun Guards flanked the door, each with the Roman numeral I upon the front of their flat helms.

Trevelyan turned to the Guards. ‘Would you be so kind?’

The suits of armour came to life at the Headmaster’s words, each turning around and then pushing their side of the great portal inward. When the doors lay open, the Guards froze to attention again.

Trevelyan bent slightly and lowered his voice. ‘At my age, I find the doors a trifle heavy — though strictly speaking it’s not part of their duty. I trust you won’t tell them?’ He straightened again. ‘Right, follow me.’

Trevelyan led them into a small vestibule. Another set of doors, about half the size of the ones they’d just come through, greeted them. On the floor another yellow square had been painted, bearing the same words as the one in the gardens. Before Thomas could ask what it was, Trevelyan pushed open the doors to reveal perhaps the biggest room Thomas had ever seen. Three long tables, each surrounded by chairs made of the same dark wood, sat upon the reddish-coloured, polished stone floor. Four large fireplaces, two on either side of the room, rested dormant in the pillared walls beneath wooden-panelled walls from which hung several large paintings depicting scenes from various battles. On the far wall a giant crown wreathed in fire had been embossed into the wood, and to each side of it hung a green drape bearing a golden serpent after the likeness of those carved upon the Inner Wall — both of which bore a striking resemblance to the serpent in Thomas’s orb. His hand went to the bag tied to his belt and his fingers wrapped around the Glass within. He told himself it was mere coincidence of course, serpents and dragons existed on many flags and emblems.

Penders looked around, wide-eyed. ‘It’s big!’

Trevelyan didn’t take his eyes from the chamber as he replied. ‘Indeed it is. This is the Hall of Arghadmon, or Darkledun Hall as it’s more commonly called. This is where the Academy meets for the great feast days.’