by ‘You cannot simply bond with a Familiar at your own convenience,’ said Luan severely. ‘A living, magickal beast is not an artefact to pick up and drop at will, or a toy to play with whenever the mood takes you.’
‘I know that,’ I said, as patiently as I could. Honestly, he sounded like Miranda.
‘It takes months, and in some cases years, to forge a trusting relationship with a suitable animal,’ continued Luan.
‘No problem there,’ I said. ‘Addie and I have been going strong for a decade.’
That gave him pause, and a little of the disapproval smoothed out of his features. ‘Then, if the creature is willing, you may create a soul-bond via a magickal binding. It is common to employ a catalyst to complete this process.’
‘A binding?’ I said. ‘That sounds uncomfortably like the griffins and unicorns up at Vale.’
‘No. There are great differences. For one, it is not possible to force such a bond upon any creature. They may reject it at any time, and many do. For another, it is a link that goes both ways. You are not binding a unicorn into your personal service, as though it were some manner of slave. You will be at your Familiar’s service, too.’
‘And it is permanent, you said?’ asked Jay.
‘Naturally. Such a bond may only be severed by the death of one or both parties.’
I began to understand why Familiar-bonding was bordering upon banned in our Britain. Serious business.
Addie was no low-level magickal beastie. Unicorns were among the most powerful of creatures, surpassed only by the likes of dragons and griffins. I thought back to what Miranda had said. People try to take on creatures of far greater magickal potency than they can handle. The beast suffers, and the owner probably ends up as mincemeat.
Could I handle a unicorn? Or would I hurt Addie, and wind up as mincemeat?
Course, the link worked both ways, and I was presently a magickal powerhouse. Could Addie handle me?
‘And this is why we needed Miranda,’ I said to Jay, with a rueful smile. I’d resented Milady’s insistence on that particular point, but she’d been right. Again.
‘Right. We find Miranda and we make this happen,’ said Jay.
‘First, though, we retrieve Pup.’
We found my disgraceful Goodie Two-Shoes (hah) lying upside-down atop the Hyndorin Silver stash, belly turned up, paws limp, and a sublime grin upon her tiny houndy face. ‘Drunk on treasure,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘That’s our Pup.’
‘She looks like a felled dandelion,’ said Jay.
‘A dandelion of unusual size.’
The Silver storeroom was situated not far from Torvaston’s chambers, which I thought was likely not a coincidence. Jay had seen a flash of yellow fur as Pup whisked past, and followed her there.
I’d expected a stout room with a stout door and lots of security, but the Silver Stash had none of those things. The place was more of a spacious alcove, decorated with mosaic tiles and gilding and all that jazz, and the Silver occupied a depression in the floor. It shone softly, moon-pale, and seemed piled there more as a decoration in its own right.
‘Won’t somebody steal it, if you leave it out in the open like this?’ I said to Luan.
He looked oddly at me. ‘Somebody who?’
I was forgetting the layer upon layer of magick and illusion which protected their hideout from outside intruders. Nobody had penetrated all that guff in many a long year, so fair enough. And apparently they didn’t have a problem with their own citizens making off with the loot, for it was all still here.
I nudged one of Pup’s splayed-out paws with my toe, and she woke with a start.
‘Come on,’ I told her, looking meaningfully at the door. ‘Fun’s over.’
Pup whined, and flattened her ears.
‘I know, life is unspeakably hard. But you still can’t waltz off with all of Hyndorin’s worldly goods.’
She slunk down off her personal Treasure Mountain, and trailed over to me, tail drooping.
I felt like the worst person alive.
‘I’ll get you something shiny when we get home,’ I promised her, and patted her ears.
No response.
‘Parenting,’ said Jay. ‘It’ll break your heart.’
I stuck my tongue out at him. ‘We’re going,’ I informed them both, and checked to make sure I still had Torvaston’s scroll of exciting plans, plus Mauf. ‘My lord Evemer. We thank you most heartily for your time and assistance, for ourselves and also on behalf of Their Majesties at Mandridore.’
Luan bowed. ‘It is a pleasure to be of service to Their Majesties,’ he said, without conviction. Still harbouring doubts, was he? I couldn’t blame him, but that was too bad. No one’s life work ever did anyone any good gathering dust in a vault.
I pictured how delighted the Majesties in question were going to be, when we came back with the plans. And how pleased and interested Alban would be, when we showed them to him. How incredible Farringale would become, once released from the curse of the ortherex. The entire troll nation would be reunited with this vital piece of their magickal heritage. The entirety of our Britain could look forward to a stronger, more magickal future.
I’ve never done anything so important, or so satisfying, in my life.
When we left the tower and stepped out into what was left of the afternoon’s summery sunshine, I was walking on air.
I didn’t come down, even when we encountered Wyr on the doorstep and he was still a tree. If anything, he was settling in to his new, leafier life, for his rather formless shape of before had acquired some refinements. ‘He’s a chestnut,’ I informed Jay, inspecting the Wyr-leaves. ‘I think.’
Jay shook his head. ‘He’s nothing I recognise. He’s his own, unique kind of tree. A Wyr-tree.’
‘Are we leaving him like this?’
‘Do you have any idea how to change him back?’
I did not.
I did try, honest. As it turns out, you can give a Ves as much power as you like, but if she has no idea what to do with it, then nothing can help her.
‘He likes being a tree,’ I decided at last. ‘That’s the only possible explanation.’
‘Nothing to do with ignorance or ineptitude on the part of the enchanter,’ said Jay.
‘Nothing whatsoever.’
‘If you’re finished failing at reverse transmogrification, shall we go find the others?’ He stepped onto the lift-stone and I followed, pretending not to notice as Pup performed a second set of, er, ablutions around Wyr’s roots.
Hey, he was in no condition to mind.
‘Right, where did we leave the others?’ I said, as we arrived back at the base of the rocky promontory. A glance up revealed that it was a mountain again, or so it appeared; Torvaston’s spectacular tower was gone from my sight.
I experienced a brief stab of regret. I may have had no interest in remaining in the Hyndorin Enclave forever, but in all probability I would never see that tower again.
Anyway. ‘Thataway,’ I said, waving an arm in what I imagined to be Alban’s general direction.
‘No, I don’t think that was one of them,’ said Jay, glancing about in that keen-eyed way he had when he was getting his bearings. He set off after a moment, and Pup and I trailed after him.
Ten minutes later, though, we’d walked and walked without coming across anybody at all. ‘Who are we looking for just now?’ I called to Jay.
‘Em was out here,’ he said with a frown.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Positive.’ Was that a trace of irritation I detected? Fair enough, if it was. Who was I to question Jay’s sense of direction?
But after another five minutes, I could see that Jay, too, was beginning to doubt. ‘Let’s try for Alban,’ he said, and changed direction.
I smothered my unease. I could have sworn we had passed right through the glade in which we had previously left Emellana; I’d seen a pair of withered orchard trees that looked familiar. But what did I know? I never could remember very well what I had or hadn’t seen. I was probably wrong.
But for Jay and I both to be so vague was not at all common, and when we failed to find Alban either, I began to feel worried.
‘This is odd,’ said Jay, stopping. ‘This is where Alban was standing. I could swear to it.’
‘Something’s going on,’ I said. I wouldn’t doubt Jay twice. He had proved the superiority of his navigational skills time and time again.
‘It might be nothing,’ Jay said. ‘After all, once we were inside the tower they didn’t need to stay put. They probably got bored of standing in the same spot, and went off somewhere.’
‘Likely true, but where? Surely they’d gather somewhere near where we were likely to come out.’
‘That would make sense,’ said Jay.
‘Where else would they go? There isn’t anything else here.’ Except natural beauty, but unless the three of them had developed a sudden passion for any particular tree or hillock, I couldn’t see why they would have wandered off.
My sense of foreboding deepened.
‘Right,’ said Jay. ‘They obviously aren’t where we left them, and just as obviously did not choose to wait near the tower. So. Where else could they be?’
‘Somewhere we have yet to explore,’ I said. ‘It isn’t an especially large valley. Where haven’t we been?’
Jay took off without comment, and I hurried to catch up. He walked much faster this time, driven by the same alarm I felt. It’s probably nothing, I told myself again, but we would both of us be much more comfortable when the mystery was solved and we were reunited with our friends. They were probably sunbathing on a nice rock somewhere, feasting upon orchard fruits that looked like apples but smelled like cherries.
I kept my eyes peeled (what a disgusting saying) and my ears open (bizarre: who closes their ears?), but nothing met my searching gaze but more verdure, and I heard only stray birdsong, and the rustling of tall grass in the breeze.
I ached to hear Alban’s voice. Just one little word would do.
‘We’ve lost them,’ I moaned after a while. ‘The Court lent us one of their most powerful practitioners and the heir to the throne, and we’ve lost them.’
‘Not forgetting Miranda,’ said Jay. I’d still love to forget Miranda more often if I could, but not like this.
It was then that Pup’s hunting instincts kicked in. Throughout our fruitless search, she had ambled along at my heels, apparently uninterested in anything going on around her. Still sulking about the Silver Stash, I’d thought. But she got a whiff of something electrifying, and abruptly took off at a full gallop.
I exchanged a look with Jay, and we broke into a run, pounding through the grass after her.
‘It’s nothing,’ I panted after a while, as we ran and ran and encountered only more grassy meadow. ‘Pup’s just having one of her mad moments—’
I stopped dead and shut my stupid mouth, for the view changed. An instant before, I’d seen only an expanse of tall grass dotted with wildflowers, stretching as far as the horizon.
Then, between one step and the next, a building loomed out of the empty air. A familiar building.
‘Jay,’ I whispered. ‘What the giddy gods is Ashdown Castle doing here?’
