Amethyst Page 8

  I never trusted him. Amy clenched her fists. I was right.

  She wiped away the marks before Copper could see them. Shane must have the wolf cub, then, she thought. And Questrid went after him. I might have known it.

  ‘Do you think they’ve gone in?’ asked Copper. She was leaning into the tunnel. ‘It’s so cold and dark in there. It gives me the creeps! The air’s all musty and dank, like an old black blanket,’ she said. ‘It’s horrid. I’ve got goose bumps. My neck’s gone all prickly. Amy, I’m scared! I’m sure we shouldn’t go in.’

  Amy didn’t fancy going through the tunnel either. She tried to remember exactly what Granite had told her about it. Something about Wood People not being able to use it? What exactly did one-way mean?

  While they were wondering what to do, Amy heard a noise on the mountain below them. Someone was coming.

  ‘We’ll be fine together,’ said Amy, grabbing Copper’s arm. ‘Come on. In we go.’

  A loud noise stopped them. A big white bird was circling above them. ‘Kwaar! Kwaar!’ it called. It flew down and landed on a rock beside the tunnel mouth.

  ‘Casimir!’ said Copper. ‘Maybe he’s got a message.’

  She knelt beside the bird and opened the message tube tied to its leg. She pulled a tiny roll of paper out, but it was blank. ‘Nothing …’

  Casimir made a cross screeching sound. He bobbed his head up and down and bounced fretfully on his orange legs. ‘Kwaar!’ His big feet left triangular prints in the snow as he marched around. ‘Kwaar!’

  ‘I think he doesn’t want us to go in,’ said Copper. ‘If he says no then—’

  ‘He’s just an old bird,’ said Amy, thinking quickly. ‘He probably came so you could send a message home, that’s all.’

  ‘Do you think so? OK. I’ll leave a message then.’ Copper took a pencil from her backpack and wrote a note.

  Don’t worry. We’re going after Q and R through the tunnel. Back soon.

  C xxx

  Copper fitted the roll of paper back in the holder on the bird’s stick-like leg.

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Amy. She made a face at Casimir. Hah, nearly stopped us, she told it silently. Only I’m too clever! Good try, birdie!

  Casimir rose into the air. He glided off through the fir trees, crying miserably.

  Amy was sure she heard a scrabbling noise further down the hill. Someone else was following them. She urged Copper into the tunnel.

  The atmosphere inside the rock was entirely different from the outside. The air was thick, damp and very cold. To move even one step forward, Amy saw that Copper had to lean against the air, pushing with all her weight. After a few steps she coughed and gasped for breath.

  ‘I think this is wrong. We shouldn’t—’

  ‘I don’t expect it’s far,’ said Amy. She sucked the icy air in. She pushed against the invisible force. ‘Come on, it’s not that bad. Think about Ralick.’

  She dragged Copper on.

  There was a dim blue light in the tunnel. It came from the glowing, blue ice wall. It reminded Amy of the light in the butcher’s shop back home. The air felt too empty and scentless for anything to survive in it.

  As they went further, the tunnel walls closed in on them. The roof grew lower. It got harder and harder to walk.

  ‘I can’t do it,’ Copper whispered. She clutched at Amy. ‘Amy, I’ll have to go back. I’m not as strong as you. I know I’m half-Rock, but … This is your element, it’s OK for you, it’s agony for me.’ She stumbled. ‘Please, Amy, please.’

  ‘No. You can’t go back,’ said Amy. Someone was coming through the tunnel behind them, she was sure. ‘Think of Ralick. Think of your Rock soul. Rock blood. We have to—’

  They had made their way round a small bend in the tunnel. Acircle of brighter white light appeared ahead.

  ‘Look, look! The end’s in sight!’ She had to force herself not to add, Quickly! Quickly! Come on you feeble, bendy wooden thing!

  Again Amy heard a sound. Footsteps were padding over the icy path towards them. Not heavy. Not very fast, but purposeful. She glanced behind. A figure was approaching. Running towards them, arms waving.

  Copper was too preoccupied with just breathing to notice.

  But Amy thought she recognised the figure … ‘Run!’ she yelled. ‘Quick!’

  Copper didn’t even look back. She lunged forward, half-dragged by Amy. She skidded and slipped.

  Just ten strides brought them to the end of the corridor. They burst out into the open.

  ‘Who was it?’ whispered Copper. She was trembling all over. Her cheeks were pale. Amy was scared she might collapse.

  They stared back at the person now standing at the bend in the narrow tunnel.

  Amy sank down in the snow as if she were exhausted. ‘I don’t know.’

  Copper let out a little cry of anguish. ‘Oh, Amy, I think it’s …’

  16

  On the Other Side of the Mountain

  ‘It’s Cedar!’ cried Copper.

  ‘Is it?’ Amy pretended to be surprised.

  ‘Yes. See! Thank goodness …Why’s he stopped?’

  Cedar was waving his arms. He hammered his fist in front of his face, as if banging a solid wall. He was shouting – but they couldn’t hear a sound.

  ‘I’m coming!’ Copper ran back into the tunnel. Two paces in, she smacked against an invisible wall and was flung back into the snow.

  The tunnel was blocked.

  Now Amy understood what Granite had meant. There was no going back.

  ‘Cedar! Dad!’ sobbed Copper. ‘I want him. All I want is my dad!’

  ‘Of course,’ said Amy, coldly. ‘You’ve got a dad. I’ve no one. No one ever wants me.’ Now you know what it’s like, she added silently.

  ‘Amy! I never thought.’ Copper spun round. ‘I am sorry. I’m so selfish!’

  Oh, blast you! I can’t even be horrid to you! Amy was speechless. Are you coated with glass or something? she thought. No matter how many horrid remarks I make, no matter how mean I am, it all bounces off without a scratch.

  ‘I felt it right at the start,’ said Copper. ‘There was something wrong with that tunnel. I could tell it was spooky and weird, but I pretended it wasn’t. I’m so stupid. I was so keen to find Ralick …now we’ve no choice. We’ll have to go on.’

  Cedar and Copper stared at each other down the blue of the tunnel.

  ‘I’m going to find Ralick!’ Copper called. She pointed away from the tunnel, trying to tell him she was going on. ‘SORRY!’ she shouted. ‘SORRY!’

  She turned away. ‘This is so awful.’ She turned to Amy. ‘What shall we do?’

  ‘Cedar won’t go till you do, Copper,’ Amy said.

  Copper nodded. ‘You’re right.’

  She turned and walked away.

  It was like coming to a new world. Snow-covered peaks, which hadn’t been visible on the other side, spiked the air, like giant teeth. Green-tinged clouds circled their summits. Miles and miles below, a wide river meandered through a deep snowless gorge where vast forests of tall, broad-leaved trees edged the river. Small snow-covered hills dipped and rose around them for as far as the eye could see.

  ‘I smell smoke,’ said Amy.

  The smoke streamed from the chimneys of a cluster of small, pale-coloured houses. The buildings were sheltering against a rocky outcrop not far away. A path cut into the deep snow led towards the houses.

  ‘Let’s go down there. They might have seen Questrid and Ralick,’ said Amy.

  The light was beginning to fade. They tramped silently down the hill.

  ‘Those houses are odd,’ said Amy. ‘We’re getting nearer, but have you noticed, they aren’t getting any bigger?’

  The houses were miniature houses. They were made entirely out of ice, but they were not igloo-shaped, they were house-shaped. They had ice chimneys and ice-tiled roofs. Some had towers and pinnacles, even gables over the little diamond-shaped windows. Around each house, a low ice wall surrounded an
ice garden full of ice sculptures. There were ice rose bushes, trees, birds and animals. There were also peculiar constructions which Amy thought must be wind chimes because as they got nearer, she heard them tinkling tunefully in the wind.

  They were about to go through the ice gate of the first house, when the front door opened and a tiny person rushed out. He wasn’t much taller than a four-year-old human child. He was dressed in a jerkin, blue tights and pointed boots. He had white skin, a pointed nose and pointed ears. He had a bit of white beard on the tip of his chin.

  ‘Hello,’ Copper said. ‘We’re looking for—’

  ‘Go away! We don’t want your sort here! Go on! Leg it!’

  Copper and Amy looked at each other in amazement, then back down at the little person whose pale grey eyes were scrunched up with anger. His yellow-white hair flew out around his head like a dandelion clock.

  ‘Excuse me?’ Copper said.

  ‘You heard me! Get out of here. Aliens!’ He waved his tiny fist at them and curled up his pale mouth in a snarl. ‘Go back to the other side, go on! Dragon Destroyers!’

  ‘But—’

  Then the ice house door was snatched open again, and a second, younger-looking, tiny pale person bolted out. He caught hold of the first little person by his arm and hissed at him.

  ‘Hush, hush, Grampy. They’re not aliens. Come along in now.’ He grinned sheepishly at Copper and Amy. ‘Sorry.’ He led the angry little character back inside. He shut the door on him, then rushed back to the gate. ‘So sorry,’ he said, breathlessly. ‘Delightedly-thrilled to meet you. I’m Squitcher.’

  Amy shook his hand – it was like shaking the fragile, tiny paw of a mouse.

  ‘That was my Grampy,’ he said. ‘Grumpy we call him. Did you come through the tunnel? Are you from the Other Side?’

  They nodded.

  ‘Jolly, jolly,’ said Squitcher. ‘Grampy’s upset. It’s Boldly Seer, our dragon, you know. Grampy’s sure we’ve had a Dragon Destroyer. What are you then, strange pair?’ He jumped onto the wall and peered into their faces. ‘Well, well!’ He gathered a handful of Copper’s red-gold hair and slithered it through his fingers. ‘Not Rock! Not Wood! Not Air! Not Ice! Not even Water!’

  ‘I’m Wood and Stone,’ said Copper. ‘And Amy is—’

  ‘Let me guess. Let me guess!’ Squitcher screeched with delight. He pulled a long dark strand of hair out from under Amy’s woolly hat and sniffed it. ‘Rock. Through and through. Hard as hard.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Amy. She tried to smile. ‘What are you, anyway?’

  ‘We’re pixicles!’

  ‘Pixicles?’

  ‘We’re icy cold pixies!’ said Squitcher. ‘We’re jolly, jolly chilly-cold all the time but we don’t mind. What are you doing here?’

  ‘Looking for someone,’ said Copper.

  ‘A boy and a wolf cub,’ said Amy. ‘The boy stole the wolf cub and we’re trying to get it back.’

  ‘Amy, we don’t know that for sure,’ said Copper.

  ‘Whatever,’ said Amy. She stared up at the sky.

  ‘Ah ha,’ said Squitcher, mysteriously. ‘We found something today, it’s some sort of a boy. Come and see. Things are weird today. Grampy says a Dragon Destroyer passed by … Getting dark,’ observed Squitcher. He jumped down from the wall. ‘Follow me.’

  It was twilight. The sky had darkened to the deepest lavender blue and stars twinkled. Copper looked wistful. Amy guessed she was thinking of Spindle House and of sitting by the fire with Ralick. Amy thought of her own chamber in Malachite Mountain, of ordering a rock-goyle to straighten out her bed sheets and bring her a large glass of mint tea …Where would they spend the night tonight?

  As darkness fell, the lights in the ice houses were turned on. They glowed and shone through the ice walls. Amy could see more pixicles inside the houses. It was a bit like looking inside compartments in a freezer.

  Squitcher led them past lots of houses. There were tiny white faces watching them at many of the windows. Behind the houses there was a vast cave. It had a fringe of long icicles hanging down over it like a spiky curtain.

  ‘It’s in there, the human-boy thing,’ said Squitcher. ‘With Boldly Seer. We didn’t know where else to put him to be safe …’

  ‘Safe with a dragon?’ squeaked Amy.

  ‘Oh, yes. And she’ll keep him warm too. She’s named after one of your humans.’

  ‘Is she? I don’t think I’ve ever heard—’

  ‘Not heard of Boldly Seer? She was a wild, fierce woman who rode in a chariot. She was a Queen. Our dragon’s strong and brave like that.’

  ‘Golly,’ said Amy. She whispered to Copper, ‘I think he means Boadicea, don’t you?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Copper nodded. ‘But I like Boldly Seer much better.’

  From the cave they heard a dreadful wailing.

  ‘Woo woo aagh. Woo woo aagh.’

  ‘It’s Boldly Seer,’ said Squitcher. ‘She’s not at all jolly – we don’t know why.’

  Boldly Seer was the size of a large African elephant. She lay stretched out on the floor of the cave on her tummy. She had a long delicate snout. Her flaring, pink-spotted nostrils, like something from inside a sea creature, were trembling. Her wings were folded neatly to her sides. They reminded Amy of rather tatty, frilled net curtains. The dragon’s spiked ears, which probably normally stood up, were laid back against her head.

  She was crying.

  ‘Woo woo aagh. Woo woo aagh.’

  ‘That’s why Grampy thinks a Dragon Destroyer walked by,’ said Squitcher. ‘It’s the sort of thing they do. Terrible-bad.’ He wiped a tear from his own eye.

  The dragon gazed up at Copper and Amy hopefully. Her tail twitched. She didn’t lift her head from the ground.

  Amy slipped behind Copper. ‘She’s huge! And warm. Can you feel the heat coming off her?’

  ‘She is warmly-hot,’ said Squitcher. ‘That’s why we have to keep her out here away from the houses. She’s a good dragon. No need to be scared. She wouldn’t hurt a snowflake.’ He sniffed and wiped a crystal dewdrop from the end of his nose. ‘Do you think you could help and aid her …?’

  Copper kneeled down at Boldly Seer’s head. ‘My aunt has a dragon called Glinty. I’m not scared.’ Very gently she stroked the creature’s soft, warm leathery skin. It was mottled in a multitude of pinks, purples and silver. ‘She’s like a gigantic rainbow trout, isn’t she?’

  ‘I can hear something,’ said Amy. ‘Something’s snorting.’

  ‘Oh, I am so forgetting-brainless!’ cried Squitcher. He hit his forehead with his hand. ‘Come and see it. Is your missing boy lanky? Tall as a two-year-old furzz tree? Does it have a brown fur on its head? And a long scarf round its neck-piece?’

  Copper grinned at Amy. ‘Yes! Where is he?’

  17

  How Questrid came to be on the Other Side

  Questrid set out full of angry energy. He kept stopping and listening, alert to any strange sounds in the still, deadly calm of the white landscape.

  Early on he had bashed his knee against a rock hidden in the snow and it throbbed now. His toes were numb because he hadn’t had time to put on an extra pair of socks.

  He looked up the hill towards the blue of the mountain tops and down into the valley over the pine forests and boulders below. There wasn’t anything to see or hear and yet still he felt uneasy.

  He knelt down and sniffed. Ralick’s wolfy scent hung around, along with the strangely empty smell of Shane Annigan. How can someone smell so strongly of nothing? wondered Questrid. The scent of cold water. Thin air.

  He examined the marks in the snow. He was on the right path. Shane barely touched the ground as he moved, but when he did, his long feet skidded through the top layer, leaving long soft marks. His cloak left a wide velvety trail.

  Questrid picked up a handful of the snow and held it to his nose. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply again. He concentrated every cell of his body on the odour.

  Questrid had
arrived at Spindle House when he was about six years old. It was Cedar who had noticed how Questrid stuck his nose into the air and sniffed, like a dog. The little boy searched out scents and studied animal marks left in the snow. They were clues to him.

  ‘What bird made those prints?’ Cedar asked the boy one day.

  ‘Mistletoe Thrush,’ said Questrid straight away.

  ‘And those marks?’

  ‘Black Squirrel.’

  The boy did not speak for weeks after his arrival. He gave no clue to his name or whereabouts. Eventually the Beech family named him Questrid, the hunter. They found out later that his real name was Linden, but nobody ever called him that now – except sometimes his mother.

  Questrid stood up and looked around slowly. Someone was watching him. Someone had just slipped out of sight the moment he’d turned round. He was certain of it.

  He set off again, talking aloud to cheer himself along.

  ‘I hope you’re all right, Ralick. I know you’re all right. Shane wouldn’t hurt you, would he? He kept saying you were an interesting wolf cub, intelligent, special … Well, you are, Ralick. Copper loves you. I’m going to find you and bring you back.’

  His hair felt hot and itchy under his hat, his scarf prickled his chin.

  ‘Don’t worry, Copper. I’m coming, Copper. You can trust me.’

  Questrid came to the tunnel. He knew exactly what it was, a short cut to the valley on the other side. He knew it was tricky. He knew he might get through if he had the stamina and he might not get back. But that didn’t matter if it meant he saved Ralick.

  The scent of Ralick grew stronger.

  Questrid came closer to the tunnel. He saw something lying in the snow beside the entrance. A rock? A sack? Or was it … His heart beat quickened. He ran.

  Questrid scrambled up the last bit of the hill and flung himself onto the snow beside the cub.

  ‘Ralick!’

  Ralick was completely encased in a ball of gossamer thread – the same stuff Questrid had found clogging his door handle. The fine strands were wound round the cub’s muzzle, his ears, his legs. The only things free to move were his eyes.