by I tore through the unnatural mountain valley on the trail of Wyr, my Pup, and the long-sealed door to Torvaston’s settlement. Whether the gods had answered my hasty prayers and granted me a burst of speed, or whether my magickally supercharged state put wings to my feet, I began to gain on Wyr despite his head start. He charged headlong through the verdant grasses like a fox with a pack of hounds on his tail; that, I supposed, made me the hounds. I could be sorely tempted to tear him apart with my teeth, too, once I caught him — if Pup didn’t beat me to it. I didn’t think she had too many violent tendencies, but one never knew. Wyr could rouse the bloodthirsty instincts of a block of stone.
It occurred to me, as I pelted along, to wonder where Wyr thought he was going. His flight seemed aimless; around us and ahead of us stretched the same, unbroken grassy landscape, dotted with the same patches of purple heather, the same wizened old trees. No apparent destination rose upon the horizon, nowhere for a fleeing thief to take refuge. Nowhere for a legendary door to lie hidden, either.
I was forgetting the unusual behaviour of mountains, in Enclaves associated with that ancient troll court. Between one step and the next, the mists cleared from the skies; looming with shocking suddenness out of the ether rose a peak the equal of its majestic twin at old Farringale.
Complete with its own complement of griffin residents. Enormous nests were dotted here and there up the rocky face of the mountain — apparently unscaleable, considering its absolutely sheer sides — and in the far distance, I glimpsed a few familiar, dark, winged shapes wheeling upon the winds.
I felt a moment’s strong satisfaction. Hadn’t we said there would be griffins here? The pleasure of having a theory confirmed never gets old, however many times one is proved deliciously, perfectly correct.
But that was to grow distracted from the point, because I was still hurtling towards a sheer rock face at improbable speed, and so were Wyr and my absurd, furiously yapping pup. Something about the shape and structure of that peak struck me as odd; too structured, too symmetrical, too sheer. Not altogether natural.
I didn’t have time to study it any more closely. Ahead of me, Wyr skidded to a stop at the base of the peak, and stared — hopelessly? — up at the unclimbable expanse of rock before him.
‘Wyr!’ I yelled. ‘Giddy gods, where is the damned door.’
He did not look back. I forced air into my burning lungs and energy into my flagging legs, and put on a final burst of speed in a bid to catch up. Not that he had anywhere to go—
—I stopped dead as Wyr shot skywards, borne by a slab of levitating rock which had, to my eye, come out of nowhere. He’d stepped onto it deliberately, of course, though by what mechanism he’d caused the thing to bear him up the peak I couldn’t tell. Perhaps he hadn’t. Perhaps it did that by itself.
Stranger things were happening out here.
Unfortunately, that was the very same moment that Pup caught up with him. Fastening her sharp little teeth into his leg with a yip of victory, she, too, was borne haplessly upwards, attached to his trouser-leg.
‘Pup!’ I wailed.
Wyr’s involuntary cry of pain was my only consolation.
I paused a moment in frozen dismay. Wyr had out-jockeyed us again, and this time we’d lost poor Pup to his wiles as well.
I shook myself. Get a grip, Ves. If there was one unusually buoyant slab of stone attached to this peculiar peak, there could well be more.
Alban, Jay and the others found me there some minutes later, urgently questing for a second magickal elevator and coming up with nothing.
‘Was that a scrap of yellow fur I saw hurtling up the peak a minute ago?’ panted Jay, coming to a stop near me.
‘A scrap of bitey, yappy yellow fur, which has yet to come down,’ I replied. ‘Help me.’
‘With?’
‘Wyr, the Pup and presumably the door are somewhere up there, and we are not.’ I’d walked back and forth and around and back and forth and around and found nothing useful, and was rapidly growing desperate. We were so close.
‘He’s not that far up, Ves,’ said Miranda, and I belatedly remembered the lirrabird she’d sent up to keep an eye on Wyr. She pointed upwards. ‘Maybe fifty, sixty feet?’
I stared up in the direction of her pointing finger, without much effect. Thick, swirling mist obscured my view.
Right.
There comes a time in every adventure when you have to check in with yourself and find out how crazy you’re feeling.
Is it important enough?
Yes.
Are you brave enough?
Hell, yes.
‘Forget it,’ I said, calling off the pointless search. ‘Just find me a slab of stone. Couple of feet wide, not too heavy.’
Alban and Jay gave me identical, doubting looks. ‘You’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking?’ Jay said.
‘Ves, I know you’re fond of Goodie but let’s not be completely insane,’ said Alban.
I shot both of them a look that said, Have we met before? ‘The stone?’ I said.
It was Emellana who found it: a neatish disk of stone, a few inches thick and just wide enough for me to fit both feet onto it. ‘You rock,’ I informed her, taking it. ‘Again. Thank you.’
She gave me her faint, amused smile. ‘Be careful up there.’
I dropped the stone and stepped onto it, spared a futile wish that it hadn’t been necessary to sacrifice my Sunstone Wand, and delivered a bolt of pure magick to the hapless stone beneath my feet.
‘Ves, sixty feet up is pretty damned far,’ I heard Jay yell as I shot into the skies.
See, levitating isn’t usually my strong point. I’m lucky if I can manage more than a few feet.
But I’d be damned if I wasn’t going to get some use out of my inconveniently magick-drenched state. A feeling of dreamy serenity had been growing upon me ever since I had set foot in Torvaston’s enclave, that itchy, wrong feeling draining away entirely. I hoped that meant that my surroundings and I were nicely balanced, or something nearer to it. I hoped that meant that me and my overflowing magicks could do mad, wonderful things together.
I shoved everything I had at that slip of stone, and catapulted myself upwards at what felt like fifty miles an hour.
If a thin, idiotic shriek was heard to reverberate around that peak at that moment, I confess it was me.
Up sixty feet I went, and more. And more. Frantic, I tried to turn off that insane flow of magick. Like it has a tap or something, I thought disgustedly, succeeding only in slowing my pace. Nice one, Ves. At this rate I’d hit the top of the peak in no time, making of myself a tasty griffin-snack.
Or I’d just fall off the damned stone, and plummet to a grisly death below. Not in front of Alban, I thought absurdly, and a hysterical giggle tore itself from my throat. Holding myself steady on the stone was taking too much effort; the higher I went, the more powerful the winds that sought to knock me clean off my perch.
Right. Stop dithering. Gritting my teeth, I held grimly to position atop the stone, tried not to notice the way I’d begun to spin like a sodding top, and reversed the flow of magick. Instead of boosting me up, I wanted it pushing me down.
My headlong pace slowed, and slowed further. Heart hammering, I kept my eyes turned resolutely away from everything that rose above and — oh no, not below, don’t look down, you utter fool, could you be any more stupid—
The one good thing about being two hundred feet up (or more)? There’s no one up there to hear you scream.
Dignity intact.
Sort of.
But at last, to my weak-kneed relief, I ceased shooting up higher, and began to sink.
Carefully, I admonished myself. How about we don’t do this at a potentially fatal pace?
Down, down we went, and human magickal battery or no, it was the hardest thing I have ever done, no contest. Later, I’d look back on that scintillating three minutes of my life and wonder what in the giddy gods was wrong with me.
‘Batshit crazy, Ves,’ I said out loud as I swooped back down the peak. ‘You might want to work on that.’
There: a tuft of bright yellow, not far below. I squinted, and as I sank several more feet through the drifting white mists I detected a plateau upon the mountainside, atop which stood Wyr, and Pup. As I drew closer — flying my stone contraption like a pro by then, if I do say so myself — I saw something else, something that made my overcharged heart beat faster with excitement rather than terror.
An enormous stone door was set into the rock. Made from a single, huge, carved slab, it had the weathered look of great age. It was smooth and unmarked, which I thought was unfair. If this was the Lord of the Rings, there’d be a convenient runic inscription offering us the password.
‘Hi,’ I said as my stone plinth came to rest atop the plateau.
Wyr did a proper double-take, and stared at me in utter disbelief. Was there even a tinge of awe? ‘You cannot be serious,’ he said. ‘How?’
‘I’m temporarily possessed of godlike magickal powers,’ I said, with all the nonchalance I could muster. Never mind that my knees were shaking, my legs felt like jelly, and I had a strong desire to collapse all over the blessedly solid rock beneath my feet and cover it with kisses.
Instead, I scooped up my pup. She had abandoned her assault on Wyr’s leg by then, and sat cheerfully watching his total lack of progress with the door, a scrap of his trouser-leg still stuck in her teeth.
Wyr’s leg was bleeding, to my satisfaction. Petty, Ves, I chided myself, but it didn’t help.
‘Any luck?’ I said, rewarding lovely, bloodthirsty Goodie with a thorough cuddle.
He had my Sunstone Wand and my ring in one hand, and the scroll-case in the other. What he’d been trying to do with them that might have the power to open the door, I couldn’t say.
‘Not yet,’ he said, eyeing me warily.
Did he think I was going to try to retrieve them? I was tempted, but they were keeping him busy and that was more important just then.
Pup watched the Wand’s progress with greedy avarice.
I knew how she felt.
‘Be right back,’ I said, and stepped onto the slab of stone by which Wyr had travelled up to the door. As I’d hoped, the moment I rested my weight upon it, it began to move, and sailed smoothly back down.
I left Wyr gazing after me, nonplussed.
At ground level, I was greeted by four wide-eyed, possibly angry people. Or three such people, and Emellana.
‘Impressive,’ said she, unruffled as ever.
‘Thanks.’ I held out my fist for a bump, which she bestowed. ‘There’s a door up there with an oddly-shaped keyhole.’
Nobody answered me.
‘Alban?’ I prompted. ‘The fork? There are twin holes spaced about an inch apart, very small. The fork-thing should fit, I hope? I don’t know if that’s going to be enough by itself, or whether we’ll need the watch or something as well—’
‘I just had about eight heart attacks in quick succession,’ said Jay.
‘Me too,’ said Alban.
‘That makes three of us,’ I said, attempting a smile.
I received only a flat stare in response, from Jay at least. Alban, though undoubtedly appalled, also regarded me with something like… admiration.
‘Are you always this reckless?’ he said, doing something quizzical with his eyebrows.
‘Yes,’ said Miranda. ‘She’s famous for it.’
I gave her the look of utter betrayal, which she waved away. ‘Any other person would be thoroughly dead by now. Somehow, when it’s Ves, she… pulls it off.’
‘To say the least,’ said Alban, with a flash of that grin I loved.
Not the time to get distracted, Ves.
‘Can we talk about this later?’ I said. ‘We’ve a door to open and a thief to dispose of.’
Jay gave me a shocked look.
‘Er, not fatally,’ I clarified.
‘Right.’
‘Probably.’
Alban produced the not-fork, the possible-watch and the probably-snuff box from a pocket, and put them into my hands. I read a little reserve in his demeanour, and suffered a moment’s remorse. He’d truly thought I was about to die. So had Jay.
To be fair, I might have.
I hardened my heart. Needs must. Hasn’t that always been the way?
‘Thank you,’ I murmured.
He briefly squeezed my hand, and released it.
My heart eased a little.
‘Right,’ I said, stepping back onto the lift. ‘Pile on. We’re going up.’
Alban joined me, and Jay, and Em. There was just room enough for Miranda to join us, and the stone began to rise.
