‘They will never be able to lift it onto the forge,’ Lief thought suddenly.
Pain pierced his head, doubling him over, tearing him from Jasmine’s grip.
Dimly he heard Doom and Barda shouting, Jasmine calling his name, but their voices were distant. The only voice that was strong and real hissed viciously in his mind, in the still centre of a whirlwind of pain.
I am too strong for you. You cannot win …
Blindly, instinctively, Lief felt for the Belt of Deltora. His fingers found the topaz. The gem seemed to quiver at his touch. It seemed to melt into his fingertips, golden and warm. It seemed to become part of him.
Topaz, symbol of faith, he thought hazily. And into his clouded mind sprang an image of words on a printed page. Words he had suddenly remembered that morning in the library. Words from The Belt of Deltora, the small, blue book that once he had carried like a talisman:
The pain in Lief’s brain began to ease. And as he slowly straightened and stood upright once more, it seemed to him that many others were crowding about him. Faces, clear and hazy, serious and serene. Shapes from the present, and the past. Dozens of voices, hundreds, drowning out that other voice, speaking separately and together …
Have courage, my son. We are with you.
We will help you, boy. Have faith …
King Lief … we are thinking of you, as you asked.
We would give you our lives …
Lief bent and seized the shrouded thing that stood before the forge, and it was as if hundreds of invisible hands were beside his own. He looked up, caught a glimpse of the panting, exhausted guards, Barda’s baffled face and Jasmine’s green eyes dark with fear.
‘Stand back!’ he shouted. And with one movement, he swung the evil thing up, up and slammed it upside down on the fiery forge.
Doom shouted in savage triumph. The guards groaned in amazement and terror.
The thick cloth covering burst into flames and disappeared in a cloud of ash. The wooden frame of the table, its stubby legs sticking upward, began to burn.
‘Get it off!’ shouted Doom. ‘The wood will choke the coals.’
Jasmine sprang forward and pulled the table frame up and away from the sorcerer’s glass it had supported for so long. She threw it aside, into the shadows, and it lay there, smouldering sulkily.
And then the crystal lay on the forge alone, revealed to all. It lay on the fiery coals, twisting like a live thing. Grey spirals edged with scarlet swirled on its rippling surface, and in its centre was a hollow, whispering darkness.
Barda turned to his guards. ‘Get out!’ he bawled. ‘Run! I order you!’
The guards scrambled up, and did as they were bid. They were strong, brave men, every one, but afterwards none was ashamed to admit that he had taken to his heels and run for his life, the night the crystal burned on the forge in Del.
Only Lief, Barda, Doom and Jasmine witnessed what happened next.
The crystal writhed, its centre darkened. Then, with a hideous, grinding sound it cracked from corner to corner. Red sparks flew upward from the crystal’s core, and a terrible howling filled the air.
Barda, Jasmine and Lief were thrown back, their hair flying about their faces as if blown by a fierce, hot wind. The bellows dropped from Doom’s hands and he clapped his hands over his ears, his face a mask of agony.
But the fire of Adin’s forge, where the Belt of Deltora had begun its life, burned on, relentless. The great topaz which had summoned both the living and the dead to Lief’s aid, gleamed golden as the full moon. And slowly, slowly, the howling died to a moaning hum, and the crystal began to cloud and soften.
Lief, Barda and Jasmine crawled to their feet. They saw that Doom had picked up the bellows and was moving back to his place by the forge. Doom’s face was drawn, but, gritting his teeth, he lifted the bellows and began raising the heat of the fire once more.
There was a sharp cracking noise. The humming abruptly changed to a low buzz that rose and fell as if hundreds of flies were trapped within the glass. Then, horribly, a thick, dull grey liquid began bubbling from the crack in the crystal, oozing across the glass surface.
Filled with disgust, Lief stumbled to where the huge hammer lay beside the forge. He picked it up, feeling its mighty weight. He took a sure grip on the familiar handle that had been polished to silken smoothness by so many hardworking hands. He turned …
‘Come closer, Slave!’
The Shadow Lord’s voice hissed from the crystal. Lief jumped, almost losing his footing as the weight of the hammer dragged him off-balance. He felt a split second of shock mingled with crushing disappointment. Then he heard the second voice.
‘Yes, Master.’
It was a thin, cold voice, faint, but clear. And it, too, had come from the crystal.
Lief heard Jasmine and Barda exclaiming behind him. He saw Doom’s eyes widen in disgusted horror. The oozing liquid on the surface of the crystal was forming into the shape of a thin, cruel face. The shape’s writhing lips moved.
‘I am here, Master. What is your will?’
‘Is the idiot boy Endon proclaimed king, Slave?’
‘Yes, Master.’
‘And the Belt?’
One side of the grey face sliding on the glass bulged hideously, then shrank back into place. The thin lips curved into a smile. ‘The Belt has been returned to the tower. It awaits your pleasure.’
‘Ah …’ The hissing voice sighed with evil satisfaction.
5 - The Four Sisters
A wave of fury swept over Lief, burning like the coals of the fire. He swung the hammer high and smashed it down with all his strength. The hammer head sank deep in the softened glass of the crystal, bending rather than breaking it. Grey ooze ran into the hot coals, sizzling, burning.
Lief wrenched the hammer free and prepared to strike again.
‘No more, Lief,’ Doom said quietly. ‘Let the fire finish its work.’
The buzzing was patchy now, coming in short, harsh bursts. Somewhere deep inside the glass, a feeble red light flickered.
‘What was that other voice?’ Jasmine shivered. ‘Why did it speak of Endon—of your father, Lief?’
Lief wet his lips. ‘It was a memory,’ he said. ‘It was my father’s chief advisor, the spy Prandine, talking to the Shadow Lord just after Father became king.’
‘The crystal must somehow keep a record of everything that has passed through it,’ said Jasmine in wonder. ‘But now it is broken and dying, and it is spitting out snatches of talk meant to be locked up forever. Those buzzing sounds … I think they are voices.’
‘The sounds of centuries of plotting, betrayal and wickedness, no doubt,’ said Barda grimly. ‘I have no wish to hear them.’
He leaned over the slowly melting glass and spat on it, his face heavy with hatred. Then he moved to Doom’s side.
‘Your arms are tired,’ he said abruptly. ‘Give me the bellows. We need more heat.’
Doom nodded, and Barda took his place beside the forge and began working the bellows steadily.
The glowing coals flared. The crystal began to lose its form and colour. There was a faint clicking sound from deep within the clouded glass. Then the red light flickered dimly, and the voice of the Shadow Lord came again.
‘The Four Sisters are in place, Slave. The Sisters of the north, south, east and west. Have you done your part?’
‘Oh, yes, Master. Everything you ordered.’ This voice was different from Prandine’s. It was higher and more whining.