Dagbert let his gaze drift down to his feet. He wasn't afraid of Manfred, but he knew the talents master could probably hypnotize him, if he wanted to. "I couldn't stop myself. I suppose I was trying to prove I was as strong as my father."
"Ah, the family curse." Manfred lifted an eyebrow. "Do you believe it, then?"
Dagbert shuffled his feet. "I have to. It's written in the annals of the North, and they have never lied.280When the Lord Grimwald's first son is in his thirteenth year, he attains full power, and either he or his father dies. In eight hundred years the prophecy has never failed. My mother gave me the sea-gold charms to help me overcome my father."
Dagbert lifted his head and his eyes flashed defiantly. "But Tancred Torsson got under my skin, he taunted me, he stole a sea-gold creature ... he ... he ... had to be stopped."
The talents master listened to Dagbert and a thin smile softened his gaunt features. "You shouldn't have done it, though. You'll have to make amends to Fairy Tilpin."
Dagbert shrugged. "I'll clean out a room for her or carry her stuff upstairs, if you like."
"Good idea. I daresay we can find somewhere in the attics. She seems to like the dark."
Manfred smiled again, this time to himself. "You can go now." He waved his hand. *
"Thank you, sir." Dagbert walked over to the door
and, turning to Manfred, added, "I always try to do what you want. Always."281"I know you do," said the talents master. "And very soon you'll be called upon to perform the hardest task of your life. Until that time comes, you must keep an eye on Charlie Bone."
"A picture traveler?" Dagbert snorted. "What can he do?"
"Don't underestimate him." A look of hatred crossed Manfred's face. "The blood of a Welsh wizard runs in Charlie Bone's veins. And something tells me that he has reclaimed his wand."
Charlie had been confined to the house for almost a week. He longed to talk to his friends and worried about the schoolwork he was missing. How would he catch up when he returned to Bloor's? He'd have to work all day and all night, if he didn't want to get detention.
On Friday morning Grandma Bone carried a pile of books up to Charlie's room. Attached to the books were several lengthy notes from his teachers.282"You're to do all this work before Monday," she said, plunking the books on Charlie's table.
Charlie looked at the notes and sighed. They were from Mr. Carp, English; Mr. Pope, history; Madame Tessier, French; and Mrs. Fortescue, biology. "All of it? It's much more than I usually have in a whole week. I can't do it."
"You can and will," said Grandma Bone, and strode out.
Charlie sat at his table and began with history. There were so many dates to memorize.
He would need help.
"Claerwen!" Charlie called softly.
The white moth flew down from the curtain and settled on Charlie's wrist.
"Helpu ji," said Charlie, using the language his Welsh moth preferred. "Help me."
Claerwen crawled quickly up Charlie's arm and came to rest on his shoulder, just beneath his right ear. Charlie read the dates aloud; once, twice, three times, then he closed his eyes and let Claerwen's283gentle presence seep into his mind. Opening his eyes, he covered half a page with his hand, so that only the questions were visible. He found that he could remember every single date.
"Thank you, Claerwen." Charlie closed his book with a smile. Not for the first time, he wondered about his Welsh ancestor, the magician who had made a wand of ash wood, a wand so cunning it could transform and survive all attempts to destroy it.
The front door slammed and Charlie looked out of the window. Grandma Bone was walking briskly up Filbert Street. She wore her gray shopping hat and carried a large black basket.
"I think it's time for you and me to go and find Billy," Charlie said to the white moth.
Maisie was in the kitchen with the volume turned up high on the television. It would be difficult to convince her that he must try, just once more, to rescue Billy. Charlie would have to distract her, somehow, so that he could get the cellar key. And then his heart sank as he remembered that Grandma Bone284had taken the key away. He was about to open the kitchen door when Claerwen suddenly left his arm and flew down the passage toward the cellar.
"What is it?" Charlie followed the moth.
The cellar door appeared to be open, just a fraction. An invitation, perhaps, for Charlie to enter the painting again and be trapped forever. Or did Grandma Bone know that the shadow would block any attempt to reach Billy, and therefore locking the cellar was an unnecessary precaution?
Charlie stood at the top of the cellar steps, pondering. He descended one, two, three steps and peered down into the dimness of the dank-smelling room. It had changed in some way. He went down another three steps until he could see the whole cellar.
The painting was gone.
"No!" Charlie rushed up the steps and along the passage, crying, "Maisie, Maisie, it's gone. Where did it go?"285He burst into the kitchen where Maisie was sitting in her favorite armchair, enthralled by a sappy movie.
"What's wrong?" she muttered, wiping a tear from her eye.
"The painting!" Charlie shouted. "The one in the cellar? Where is it, Maisie?"
"How should I know?" she said, still held by the drama on the screen.
"But I can't get into Badlock," cried Charlie.
"If you ask me," said Maisie with a sigh, "it's all for the best."286CHAPTER 15
THE SHADOW'S PALACE
Billy's journey into Badlock had been swift. One minute he had been putting out his hand to touch the painted Runner Bean, and the next something had seized his arm and dragged him forward, past the howling dog and into a mist that fell around him like the softest rain. On and on, through a forest of silver trees and shining lakes. Sometimes he flew and sometimes he gently walked a path that whispered like silk beneath his bare feet.
And now here he was, standing before a door as tall as a lamppost - an iron door with small sharp spikes protruding from it; they ran down each side, across the top, and all along the bottom. There was no handle and no lock, which suggested that the door must be opened either by some heat-sensitive device - or by magic.
As soon as Billy realized that he wasn't dead, or even hurt, that he could breathe just as easily as he287had before the painting had kidnapped him, he forgot to be frightened, and curiosity took over. He stepped back to get a better look at the building that spread into the mist on either side of the iron door. It was like a fortress, but the walls appeared to be made of marble: smooth, glossy black marble whose surface had an oily gleam in the
moist air. Halfway up the walls, iron brackets had been set into the marble. There must have been at least twenty of them, and in every one a smoky, tarry fire blazed.
Badlock was not how Charlie had described it. There was a wind that Billy could hear moaning and howling in the distance, but it did not touch him in any way. His smooth white hair remained unruffled, his face and hands merely warmed by the flames above him.
Billy turned around and found that, if he had taken just one step more, he would have fallen to his death, for he was standing at the very edge of a steep cliff. Below him a vast plain stretched to the horizon where strange narrow towers pointed at288the sky. On either side of the plain, barren gray mountains rose endlessly into the purple clouds that rushed in every direction above the bleak and seemingly deserted land.
A voice, slippery as satin, said, "Well now, Billy Raven!"
Billy swung around with a gasp. The iron door had opened soundlessly, and there stood a man Billy had seen only once before, but whose image had burned in his memory ever since.
Count Harken, the shadow, was of average height, but he gave the impression of being much, much taller. His shining, gold-flecked hair rose high from his forehead; his eyes were brown one moment, the next a deep olive green. He had prominent cheekbones and a high-bridged, imperious nose. He was dressed entirely in emerald-green velvet.