The Serpent in the Glass (The Tale of Thomas Farrell) (29 page)

As Thomas and the other children stepped into the corridor leading to Darkledun Hall they saw Dugan Buglebeard balanced precariously on a chair about halfway down the hallway. Slayne Dretch and his two sidekicks disappeared around the corner still laughing. Thomas looked back at Dugan. He held a small bucket in one hand and in the other a hard-bristled brush with which he furiously scrubbed the wall. Soapy water dripped down his arms to the floor beneath, where it formed a small pool of bubbles and water. On the wall Thomas thought he could make out some words through the foam:
Stubby — scrub this off if you can reach!

‘Hello, sir!’ said Thayer to the Dwerugh. ‘What are you doing up there?’

Thayer had obviously not seen the writing. ‘Up there’ wasn’t that high. Even on the stool, Dugan was little taller than Treice. Dugan paused and looked at Thayer as if he’d just noticed he was there.

‘Well,’ he huffed, ‘it’s good to see that some students still respect their elders!’

Thomas had an idea. ‘Mr Buglebeard?’

Dugan looked him up and down and then recognition lit up his withered face. ‘Ah, Thomas Farrell if I’m not mistaken. I’m afraid I’m too high today to be tripped over so —’

‘Er, I don’t want to trip over you. I wanted to ask you a question,’ Thomas interrupted before the Dwerugh had a chance to take the conversation somewhere entirely different.

‘You do?’ Dugan asked suspiciously.

Thomas nodded eagerly.

Dugan swayed slightly on the stool. ‘Spit it out then, I haven’t got all day!’

Thomas went on. ‘Have you been at the Academy long?’

Dugan narrowed his eyes, but then seemed to relax. ‘Ever since it was opened, though that isn’t long. About nine years if I remember correctly.’

Thomas nodded. ‘I was wondering if you knew anything about the Way Gate that seems, well, sort of dead?’

The Dwerugh frowned and his deeply furrowed brow became even more creased. ‘Maybe I do and maybe I don’t.’

Merideah folded her arms and gave Dugan a look every bit as stubborn as his own. ‘Well, if you do then can you tell us because we have homework to do?’

Thomas wasn’t as eager to do his homework as Merideah, but he was glad to have her support.

Dugan shot a look of displeasure in the short girl’s direction before he turned back to Thomas. ‘And why would you want to know?’

Merideah sighed. ‘Oh, come on,’ she said to Thomas. ‘It’s not important. Jessica and me want to get our homework done so we can read a book we found last week on the fauna and flora of Avallach. The Headmaster said we could —’

‘NOT IMPORTANT?’ Dugan — who’d been going ever more crimson in the face since Merideah had mentioned those two words — blustered out loud. For a moment Thomas thought he might launch himself off the chair in a frenzied attack on Merideah, but then he seemed at the last moment to control himself. ‘Why it leads to the Dwerughnook, one of the most beautiful lands in Avallach!’ A distant look came into his eyes as a large drop of water dripped from his elbow into the sud-filled pool below. ‘You won’t find crags as splendid anywhere else! Ah, and the rocky earth and great boulders! Flora and fauna indeed! The Dwerughnook has some of the finest lichens, and brooks teeming with the finest fish — and you should see the size of the hares, oh and the pot-belly boars. You have not lived until you have tasted the meat of one of those beauties!’ A glint hung in Dugan’s eyes now, as if remembering something good from long ago.

‘The Dwerughnook?’ Thomas asked.

Thayer turned his expressionless face toward Thomas. ‘It is where the Dwerugh come from.’

Dugan didn’t seem to be listening. ‘That was before it faded. Poor old Dugan was shut out! He wanted to go home, but couldn’t. He had to stay in the Grange with no mountains, no boulders, no crags — and disrespectful cadets!’

He sat down on the stool. His feet didn’t reach the floor but dangled there several inches above the soapy pool beneath.

‘It was nine winters ago,’ Dugan continued in what for him was a very gentle voice. ‘Reports came in of the Horned One leading an army against Nieberheim, the chief city of the Dwerugh. All the Dwerugh from the Grange left to defend their ancestral home, but I got delayed and couldn’t leave until a few days later. When Trevelyan took me to Cnocmorandolmen we found the Way Gate had faded. It had done it before, of course, but had always opened again. This time it didn’t. I got cut off. Stuck here in this hollow hill that doesn’t even look like a hill, or a mountain —’

‘There were other Dwerugh here once?’ Thomas asked.

‘Yes, yes of course! We were the largest group here after the Humbalgogs, “the Hammer of the Free Peoples” they called us when we marched in their ranks.’ Dugan’s face glowed with pride.

Penders shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘Couldn’t Trevelyan do something about the Gate? I mean, being a powerful enchanter and all.’

Dugan gave a short gravelly laugh. ‘No, Mr Penderghast, it’s beyond even his power. Once a Way Gate has faded it has gone forever.’

Thomas frowned. ‘But there must be another way to get to your land?’

Dugan looked at him. ‘Yes, there’s another way, but it’d mean leaving the Grange through the Outer Gate.’

‘Would that be a long journey?’ Jessica asked.

‘Long? Yes, or very short. The Horned One controls the lands about the sidhe. Has done for many years. It’s infested with Hobhoulards and other fouler things.’ Dugan smiled, revealing a mouth of large, broken and missing teeth. ‘Poor old Dugan wouldn’t stand a chance. He’s not the young warrior he used to be a couple of centuries ago.’

‘A couple of CENTURIES ago?’ Merideah looked shocked. ‘How old are you?’

Dugan stood up on the stool again. ‘Four hundred and eighty-seven! Ah, poor old Dugan would love to see his homeland again, that he would. And talk and drink with his old fellow warriors in the mead halls! Yes, that he would…’

The Dwerugh continued to talk to himself as he started scrubbing the wall again. He seemed to have forgotten the children were there. Thomas and the others decided to leave him to his thoughts.

Thomas lay in his bed that night staring at the Glass resting on top of his marble bag on the bedside cabinet, his mind filled with images of the Way Gates as he thought about Cnocmorandolmen, the De Danann, and even poor old Dugan. But it was the image of the northern Way Gate that prevailed in his consciousness. Something felt wrong. Incomplete. Dugan had said it had ‘faded’, and nothing could be done about it.

Thomas looked up at the blue sky. A tall figure carried him away from a large stone building, from comfort, from home. The scene changed to one of sunlight and trees followed by a blinding light that left him and the man standing before what looked like a giant fireplace filled with glowing coals, except it wasn’t a fireplace — it was the wall of a cavern. It pulsed like a living heart, and he could feel that beat echo from three other caverns linked in some way he couldn’t comprehend. Then Thomas felt fear in the one who bore him — no, not fear, concern; a concern for Thomas’s safety. There came another blinding light, and a flash of stone pillars with words written upon them high above. Thomas felt a chill breeze as images of a dark forest passed before his eyes. Then came darkness and silence.

Thomas sat bolt upright. He now knew what he had to do.

— CHAPTER TWENTY —

Cnocmorandolmen

The winter passed away with only a few days of snow in early February, which made Master Fabula’s fire-warmed Hall of Tales all the more inviting. March and April grew steadily warmer and wetter, and the Easter holiday came and went at the Westhrops’ without so much as a chocolate egg (although Aunt Dorothy would no doubt send one to the family in May after taking advantage of the buy-three-for-the-price-of-one offers). The Westhrops’ lodger had gone, the only trace of his stay being a rusty bicycle chain left dangling from the hook on Jessica’s door. Mr Westhrop had spent most of the holidays complaining about the thirty pounds the local newspaper (
The Holten Layme Weekly Herald
) had charged to place a new ad for lodgers. But holidays far from the Manor, and even Master Fabula’s warm tale-filled firesides, hadn’t dislodged Thomas’s thoughts about the Northern Way Gate. Yet he still hadn’t told anyone what he’d decided to do.

‘How are you going to get to Cnocmorandolmen without anyone noticing?’ Jessica suddenly asked one April morning as the two of them left registration.

Thomas stared at her. ‘What are you talking about, Jess?’

‘Come on, Thomas, I know the way you think. You’re going to’ — she looked around to make sure no one was listening or within earshot — ‘try and heal the Northern Way Gate with the Glass, aren’t you?’

Thomas frowned. It was useless trying to keep anything from Jessica. ‘What makes you say that?’

‘You were very quiet over the holiday, and you’ve been in a daze ever since — not to mention that you keep staring at the Way Gates a lot. So I thought back to what happened last term, and then I thought about what it said in that book — about the Glass being able to heal Way Gates. You want to prove that your Glass is the one in the book!’

Thomas sighed. ‘Do you remember that dream I keep having?’

Jessica stopped. ‘The one where someone’s carrying you?’

Thomas nodded. He’d told Jessica about the recurring dream years ago. ‘The glowing fireplace I saw, it wasn’t a fireplace. It was the inside of a Way Gate. I had the dream again and this time I felt the Way Gates — all four of them — beating together like a heart. They’re meant to work together, Jess. It must be why the other Gates are becoming less reliable. I think it’s why my father gave me the Glass, so it could return to this world and heal the Way Gates.’

Jessica thought for a moment. ‘But you could give it to Trevelyan. If he can’t do it, no one can.’

Thomas bit his lip. He didn’t know how to put this, but he tried. ‘The Glass wants to remain hidden, Jess. It’s hard to explain, but it doesn’t feel right to let anyone else know about it. Not yet. I think someone’s looking for it, I think it’s what I felt in my dream — someone pursuing my father so they could get the Glass.’

Jessica nodded slowly. ‘OK, I understand. So, do you know how to heal it?’

Thomas shook his head. It was one of the things that had stopped him from acting, that and the fact that he just didn’t know how to get to the Northern Way Gate alone. Stanwell was with them all the time, and McGritch now kept both bunch of keys with her at all times.

Jessica looked at Thomas for a few seconds as if trying to make a decision in her own mind. ‘So, how
are
you going to get to Cnocmorandolmen without anyone noticing?’

Thomas shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘I don’t know.’

‘I thought you wouldn’t,’ said Jessica with a wry smile. ‘That’s why I’ve thought up a plan ...’

The jacket looked out of place on Thayer as the children made their way from Darkledun Hall the following Saturday after visiting the Library. Finding clothing large enough to cover the big-boned boy hadn’t been easy. In the end they’d ‘borrowed’ a bomber jacket from the Manor’s cloakroom because it was the only one both wide enough and short enough for the Fomorfelk. Thomas hoped it wouldn’t be missed by the owner. They’d have it back by Saturday evening latest, if all went to plan. Jessica’s plan.

‘Remember, keep to the bushes and follow us to the carriage,’ Jessica said as they reached the portals of the Hall and stepped out into the small courtyard that sat between the Academy and the Gardens of Arghadmon.

Thayer nodded seriously. Thomas knew the reason why he’d agreed to the plan. Thayer knew what it was like to be different, to be separated from his own people. He wanted to help Dugan. He’d shared these thoughts with Thomas when Thomas first told him about the plan. But, more than that, the Fomorfelk wanted to help because he felt part of their little group now. A friend. Thomas helped Thayer with reading and writing on their free Saturdays, whilst Thayer would answer Thomas’s questions about Avallach and the Grange.

Jessica bent and whispered in Thayer’s ear. ‘Slip into the end coach when I give the signal.’

‘Yes,’ Thayer said as he pulled the bomber jacket closer about him and looked about furtively. Thomas hoped this all went OK. If he got anyone into trouble, especially Thayer, he wouldn’t forgive himself. Of course, Jessica had roped everyone into the scheme.

Thayer hung back behind a short hedge while Thomas and the others approached the Darkledun carriage.

‘There you be!’ Stanwell wore a large grin beneath his three-cornered hat. ‘Well, jump in and we’ll be off.’

Thomas moved to the front of the carriage. ‘Er, Stanwell?’

‘Yes, Thomas?’ replied Stanwell.

‘Could you show me how to drive the carriage?’ Thomas said.

‘Well, I’m not sure Trevelyan would want you drivin’ around,’ he said, frowning. Thomas gave him the most disappointed look he could muster. ‘But I ’spose ol’ Stanwell could show you the basics and you can learn if you watch carefully. Watch mind, nothin’ more unless I do be sayin’ so.’

‘Great!’ Thomas said, as he climbed up next to Stanwell and the rest of them stepped into the end coach.

‘So how do you hold the reins then?’ Thomas asked.

‘Ah, well it do be a subtle skill, but you need to be firm too…’

Thomas stole a quick glance behind while Stanwell instructed him on the use of the reins. He saw Jessica make the signal and then a khaki bomber jacket with two legs sticking out of the bottom made a mad dash to the carriage, tripped over the wooden step beneath the door and went flying into the coach. There was a small scream followed by a bump.

Stanwell looked around just as the coach door closed.

‘In the end coach today, eh?’ he asked.

‘Yes, Jessica likes the view out the rear window,’ Thomas replied, a forced smile on his face.

Stanwell nodded. ‘Yes I do be ’earin’. Sounds like she’s excited about it already!’

As the carriage pulled out of the gardens, Thomas gave a sigh of relief. The Caretaker had launched into an explanation of how to handle a team of horses. Thomas only half listened though. He was thinking about the next stage of the plan. It was going to be far more tricky than the first.