The Serpent in the Glass (The Tale of Thomas Farrell) (26 page)

Jessica smiled back, her braces momentarily catching Fabula’s attention. Perhaps he had never seen braces before. Thomas wondered if they even had such things in Avallach.

‘Now,’ Master Fabula began, as he cast his gaze across the cadets, ‘last time we spoke of the coming of Arghadmon, Captain of the Free Peoples. This week we shall tell the story of Arghadmon’s first victory against the dread lord Cernunnos himself. I speak of the heroic tale of the Battle of Hammerhoe!’

Thomas heard the cadets mutter in excitement, even though some of them must have been four years his senior. Weren’t they a bit old to sit at someone’s feet and listen to stories? To be honest, he felt a bit too old himself, but he thought it’d be interesting to know more about Arghadmon. Perhaps he might learn why so much in the Academy had been named after him.

Suddenly Master Fabula breathed in and looked around at the walls. His eyes glittered like metal in a coal-black sky. The room fell strangely quiet, as if the students were waiting for something spectacular. All of a sudden the torches and fire dimmed, and the shadows of those in the room played eerily upon the walls.

‘Before any of your mothers brought you into the world, a great army led by the dread Cernunnos came to the northern borders of the land of the Humbalgogs, intent on murder and ruin. An army composed, it is said, of over ten thousand Hobhoulards strengthened by a thousand Fomorfelk warriors.’

Master Fabula paused and tapped his pipe on the arm of his chair. Thomas wondered what a Hobhoulard was.

‘Now Arghadmon dwelt in Alfheim among the Alfar, when news reached him that Cernunnos was on the move, marching his dark army toward the northern borders of the lands of the Humbalgogs. Arghadmon, much respected among the Alfar, was granted as many warriors as could be spared by the King of Alfheim, but they were few. But horses the Alfar had many, and so Arghadmon persuaded their king to lend him the use of as many sure mounts as could be found. And so it was that Arghadmon rode north with two thousand steeds but no army save a band of but a few score Alfar warriors.’

After saying this Master Fabula raised a hand as if he were conducting an orchestra, and suddenly from all around it seemed there came a great noise of horses’ hooves, of neighing and of whinnying. Many of the younger cadets gasped in excitement. Thomas couldn’t see where the sound was coming from. It sounded a bit like Mr Westhrop’s surround-sound music system that he’d bought to listen to uninteresting radio plays and various tracks of music that all predated 1960. Yet the noises Thomas now heard sounded more crisp, more real — and he could see no speakers.

‘And in every village and town he passed through, Arghadmon raised the Serpent Banner. Thousands of Humbalgogs flocked to the defence of their homeland under that emblem.’

That must be why the Grange had the symbol of the serpent everywhere, thought Thomas. It must have represented the Free Peoples or something. But how was the Glass connected with it? And how did his father come to have it?

Master Fabula went on to tell — punctuated with various sound effects and musical accompaniment from the walls — how Cernunnos and his army were eventually routed by the army of Arghadmon at a place just north of a small town called Hammerhoe. The tale enthralled Thomas, as it did them all, and Fabula’s account, blended with the incidental audio, conjured images in his mind. Perhaps because Fabula had mentioned a Serpent Banner, or perhaps for some other reason, Thomas reached down into the bag attached to his belt. His fingers touched the Glass and he felt himself suddenly in the midst of battle.

A squat, green-skinned warrior dressed in black leather armour jumped down from a rock, narrowly missing Thomas’s head. But the strange warrior didn’t seem to see him, and ran toward the mass of the battle, a curved sword swinging in its short arms.

Thomas looked around. The grassy field, punctuated with large boulders and rocks, played host to a ferocious battle. Many of the green-skinned warriors dotted the field in groups of several hundred each, screaming and slashing at enemies with their scimitars. Every now and again Thomas saw large grey-skinned men with larger swords or maces who appeared to be on the same side as the green-skinned fighters. Their opponents seemed to be men, brown-haired men who wore little in the way of armour. These latter were falling back before the onslaught. Then there was a disturbance among the men and then a cheer. Others, taller than them, were pushing to the front line and, at their head, a man with long hair that shone the colour of the moon, and eyes like emeralds.

But before Thomas could see any more, he was somewhere else. On the edge of the battlefield perhaps. The baying of dogs sounded in his ears, and then the beasts burst out from a wooded area up ahead. They were too far away to tell their actual size, but Thomas could see they were much bigger than normal dogs. Then, behind them, emerged a chariot driven by a figure wearing great antlers upon his head.

The dogs stopped not a hundred yards from where Thomas stood clinging to a large boulder, as if it could defend him against such foes. The huge hounds bayed, but now their attention seemed fixed on something else, something behind Thomas. He turned and swallowed hard. The giant serpent stood, extended to its greatest height, not a stone’s throw away. It seemed larger now than Thomas ever remembered.

The chariot paused momentarily before charging forward, flanked by the dogs. The serpent shrieked and thrust itself forward at tremendous speed, its wings flapping like great sails. Thomas could feel the rush of air they generated, he could smell the stale sweat of the massive dogs as they plunged toward him. He was trapped. Still gripping its broken form, he pressed himself against the boulder and awaited his doom.

‘And this is the end of the tale,’ Master Fabula finished as Thomas opened his eyes and found himself clinging not to a boulder, but to the large beanbag he sat upon. Everyone clapped as the torches and fire flared up again and chased away the shadows. Fabula stood, bowed, and sat down again. ‘Now, are there any questions?’

Thomas pulled his hand from his marble bag and silently rebuked himself for being so foolish as to let his hand wander. He looked around. No one appeared to have noticed his daydream — if it was a daydream.

One of the younger girls, a Humbalgog judging by her brown hair, put her hand up and asked what the horses looked like. Master Fabula answered and told her they were snowy white with mottled manes. Several other questions followed, most of them about how things looked. Then Thayer put his hand up.

‘Yes, Master Gaul?’ Master Fabula crossed his legs.

Thayer put his hand down, but was slow to ask his question. ‘Were the Fomorfelk all killed?’

Master Fabula frowned and paused before he answered. ‘I’m very much afraid they were if my memory serves me well, and it normally does.’

Thayer nodded and seemed to accept the answer, but Thomas thought he saw a little sorrow in the boy’s normally expressionless face.

‘They were too dumb to run like the Hobs!’ Slayne Dretch’s voice cut through the room. Several of the cadets around him sniggered.

Fabula’s black eyes settled upon Slayne. ‘Or too proud perhaps, Master Dretch?’ The laughing stopped.

No one else raised their hand and Master Fabula, after exhaling one final large puff of smoke, dismissed the class, at which point the carved door swung open apparently of its own free will.

Everyone headed for the door except Thomas. Master Fabula had turned toward the fire and seemed unaware that one of his students hadn’t yet left.

Thomas coughed. ‘Master Fabula?’

‘Yes?’ The teacher turned around, smiling and blinking his eyes —

eyes whose whiteness contrasted so completely with his coal-black skin and dark pupils that, even after knowing him for some time, Thomas still felt a slight aversion to the storyteller’s appearance. Was this how Mrs Westhrop felt when she saw Thomas without his contact lenses?

Thomas brushed away his apprehension. ‘Why did Arghadmon have a serpent on his banner?’

Master Fabula placed a black hand on the mantelpiece. ‘It was the symbol of his lineage. Why do you ask?’

‘Oh,’ Thomas said feeling stupid, ‘it’s just that there’s a lot of images of serpents about.’ He didn’t feel the need to tell Fabula about the Glass.

‘That is because this Academy, or the buildings we now call the Academy, once belonged to Arghadmon and were indeed built by him, young Master Farrell,’ Fabula explained. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must prepare my recounting of the Siege of Nieberheim for my next class.’ And with that he turned back to the fire and became lost in thought and billows of pipe smoke.

‘What were you talking about?’ Jessica asked as Thomas left the Hall of Tales, the door closing behind him of its own accord.

‘Nothing much,’ he said. He’d still told no one about his dreams of the serpent. ‘He was just telling me about the founding of the Academy. It was built by Arghadmon.’

‘I wonder how he died?’ Merideah asked as they made their way back toward Darkledun Hall.

‘In a battle I expect,’ said Penders. ‘It must be horrible to die like that. No guns or explosions I guess, just swords and axes. Imagine being hacked down and chopped into —’

‘Yes, Penders,’ Jessica interrupted. ‘I won’t imagine if you don’t mind.’

‘He was slain by Cernunnos,’ Thayer said.

The Fomorfelk must have rejoined them once he’d realized they’d lagged behind after class. No doubt he felt it part of his duty to stay with them, even though they all knew where to go to meet Stanwell.

‘What are guns?’ Thayer asked.

Merideah put her hand to her chin. ‘You know what a crossbow is?’

Thayer nodded. ‘Yes, I have used one before. A good weapon!’

‘Well,’ Merideah continued, ‘it’s a bit like a small crossbow that can fire lots of bolts very fast.’

Thayer nodded again, a spark of wonder briefly crossing his deadpan face. It wasn’t the most accurate of descriptions, but probably the best any one of them could have given in a world that apparently hadn’t yet discovered gunpowder. Or perhaps, thought Thomas, such things wouldn’t work here, or weren’t wanted. Maybe this Old Power was greater than the science of his world?

Thomas watched Thayer’s unmoving form disappear into the distance as the carriage sped north toward the Inner Gate. He liked the Fomorfelk. Slayne Dretch was right: they were going to get on well together.

— CHAPTER EIGHTEEN —

The Blood Parchment

During the following week the weather grew colder, and by Saturday a frost covered the ground. It still lay unmelted by the time Thomas and the others arrived in the Gardens of Arghadmon. The squat, grey-eyed Thayer Gaul stood waiting by the fountain. He didn’t seem the least bit concerned about the frost and chill air. Their uniforms had been complemented by thick fur cloaks, but Thayer wore none.

‘I hope you’ve not been here since we left?’ Penders joked with a smile on his face as he jumped from the carriage.

‘Oh, no.’ Thayer looked at Penders quite seriously.

Penders stopped smiling and looked at Thomas and the others as they stepped out of the carriage and gathered around.

‘Thayer, I meant to ask you something that’s been bothering me,’ Jessica began, staring at Thayer’s stone-grey eyes. ‘You said you were a Fomorfelk, but Master Fabula described them as grey-skinned.’

‘He said ashen-skinned, to be precise,’ Merideah corrected.

Thomas had no recollection of Fabula saying any such thing. Maybe he’d been dreaming during that part? The images, sounds and smells in that dream still loomed as vivid in his mind as any waking memory. He remembered the grey-skinned warriors cutting their way through the Humbalgog warriors. Perhaps Fabula’s tale had fed his imagination and triggered the dream; maybe Thayer’s description of Cernunnos upon a chariot, and his giant dogs, had added to it? How else could what he saw have been accurate, even down to the grey skin?

Jessica nodded. ‘Yes, that was it.’ She turned back to Thayer. ‘Well, your skin looks quite normal to me.’

‘When I am older my skin will turn grey,’ Thayer explained.

‘And mine’ll turn blue a lot sooner if I stand in this garden much longer!’ complained Penders as he pulled his cloak tighter about him. ‘Besides, breakfast’s waiting!’

Merideah shook her head as they all moved off toward Darkledun Hall. ‘So, Thayer. Where are we today?’

Thayer looked at the small girl, apparently intrigued by her spectacles. ‘It is a free Saturday. After breakfast you can do anything you want before the carriage returns, as long as you do not wander outside the Academy. The High Cap strongly suggested the library.’

‘The library?’ Penders said in disgust, as they walked through the wooden portals.

Thayer seemed most intrigued by the silver bells, and the food and drink they summoned to the table. Clearly this sort of thing wasn’t common even among the natives of Avallach. Thomas had so much he wanted to ask Thayer, but right now something else needed his attention before Dugan came for the tray and the Hall became busy.

Thomas whipped out the Glass. ‘I think we can trust Thayer, don’t you?’

The others nodded as Thayer looked from face to face and then at the Glass. A slight look of concern crossed his broad features.

Jessica put a hand on the large boy’s shoulder. ‘We’re not leaving the Academy.’

Thayer nodded slowly. He looked back at the Glass as Thomas stepped up to the far wall between the drapes, and the concern in his face turned to wonder as the orb began to glow. ‘What is that?’

‘Thomas’s dad gave it to him. It has some interesting abilities.’ Jessica urged Thayer toward the back of the Hall where the others had gathered. Thomas touched the orb against the wooden panels and, as before, the outline of a door appeared, winking out after a few moments to reveal the hidden chamber.

The children piled in, followed by a more cautious Thayer Gaul. The stone podium stood alone in the room. At its top sat the old parchment.