Lost in his thoughts, Lief jumped as Jasmine jerked back with a hiss, reaching for her dagger.
‘What is it?’ Barda demanded urgently.
Jasmine pointed. Lief and Barda craned forward, and at last saw what her sharper eyes had seen before them.
A ragged shadow was surging towards them, just below the surface of the gleaming water.
Lief’s heart hammered in his chest as he threw down his paddle and drew his sword. The thing streaking towards them was large—large enough to upset the boat. It was closing in with amazing speed, changing shape as it came, great arms spreading …
A small, sleek head broke the surface. Then there was another, and another. The next moment, all the companions were laughing with relief.
The shadow they had so feared was not a single beast at all, but a group of small, plump creatures with tiny eyes and long whiskers. The little animals frolicked around the boat, playfully butting one another and making tiny chittering sounds.
They were covered with smooth, silvery-grey fur and had fin-like paddles instead of arms and legs. They seemed to breathe air, but were as at home in the water as any fish.
‘The island ahead might be their breeding ground,’ said Barda, picking up his paddle again. ‘Ah, I long to stretch my legs. I am cramped to death in this boat.’
He looked around. ‘Are my eyes playing tricks on me, or has the light dimmed a little?’ he asked.
Jasmine lifted her head from her delighted study of the animals. ‘I had not noticed, but you are right!’ she said, in tones of surprise. ‘It is as if a cloud has passed over the sun. But there are no clouds here.’
‘The Plumes did warn us that their magic could not light the caverns all the way to Auron,’ said Lief.
He felt a chill as the words left his lips. He had assumed that where the Plumes’ magic failed, the Aurons’ magic would take over.
But what if he had been wrong? What if the light failed altogether?
They moved forward once more. The little grey creatures accompanied them for a time, but as the boat neared land and finally crossed the broad band of pink and yellow weed, they dropped back. The next time Lief looked behind him, they had disappeared.
The island certainly did not look inviting. It was bare and bleak, its barren clay riddled with holes like a pock-marked face.
The gleaming mud of the narrow shore was rippled with ridges created by the tide. Beyond the shore, on slightly higher ground, were straggling groups of the lumpy, cone-shaped objects Jasmine had seen from afar. They seemed to be made of dried mud, but were surely not big enough to be dwellings.
There was no sign of life at all.
The movement I thought I saw must have been a trick of the light, Lief told himself.
And yet he felt danger. The silence, broken only by the soft lapping of water on mud, seemed heavy with menace.
Jasmine was also uneasy.
‘I do not like this place,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Filli and Kree do not like it either. I do not think we should land after all.’
‘I see nothing to fear,’ Barda said irritably. He moved his cramped legs restlessly and the toe of his boot overturned Flash’s cage. Flash woke, and at once began leaping and plunging, beating against the cage bars.
‘Now see what you have done, Barda!’ Jasmine scolded. ‘Now Fury will wake as well, and we will have no peace.’
‘Fury had better not wake, or it will be the worse for her,’ growled Barda. ‘I am a patient man, but my patience is being sorely tested at present.’
Lief did not want to set foot on the island. But he wanted a quarrel even less. ‘Let us land, just for a few minutes,’ he suggested. ‘We need not stray far from the water.’
Jasmine glowered at him. ‘My injured arm is paining me,’ Lief murmured, taking refuge in a small white lie. ‘I would be grateful if you could paddle in my place for a time, Jasmine. And it will be safer to change seats on dry land.’
‘Why did you not say so before, Lief?’ Jasmine demanded. ‘Of course we will land, then.’
How tactful I am becoming, Lief said grimly to himself, as he and Barda began paddling once more. I am learning the ways of the palace all too well.
This thought made his mind fly again to home. How he longed to know what was happening there! Had Marilen had word from her father? Was she safe and well?
I cannot know these things! he told himself impatiently. It is useless to fret, and probably needless. As long as no-one knows Marilen is in the palace, or who she is, she will be safe.
He looked up, frowning, and caught Jasmine’s eye. He made himself smile, but the grin must have looked forced, for she did not smile back.
Jasmine knows me too well, Lief thought. She senses that my mind is full of things she knows nothing about, and it annoys her. But this is one secret I cannot tell—to anyone.
Looking at Jasmine’s closed face, an immense feeling of loneliness swept over him. He wished with all his heart that the easy companionship they had once shared would return. But he knew that while he had to guard his tongue and his thoughts, this could not be.
In time, I hope, Jasmine and Barda will know all, and surely then they will forgive me for my silence, he thought. Surely they will understand that it was not that I did not trust them. I would trust them both with my life!
They reached the shore and together pulled the boat out of the water. Flash was still raging in his cage, and they decided to leave him where he was. Fury had not yet woken, and for this they were grateful.
Barda stretched his limbs with relief. ‘Ah, it is good to be on land again—even such miserable land as this!’ He looked around, then began to stride towards the cone-like shapes they had seen from the boat.
‘Do not go too far!’ Jasmine called after him.
‘Do not fear,’ Barda shouted back, his temper much improved by freedom from the boat. ‘I simply want to look at these cones. They interest me.’
He had only moved a few more paces, however, when he stopped dead. Silently, without turning around, he beckoned. Lief and Jasmine hurried to his side.
‘There,’ Barda breathed, pointing.
Movement could be seen inside the holes that scarred the bare earth around the cones. As the companions watched, heads began to poke cautiously from the holes—smooth, round heads with huge, blinking eyes and two short, slim tubes where nose and mouth should be.
‘What are they?’ whispered Lief, fascinated.
‘Some sort of worm, or grub, by the look of things,’ Barda answered, peering at the holes. ‘Ah, yes! They have decided we are safe. They are coming out of hiding.’
Sure enough, the creatures were all slowly easing their way out of their holes. As Barda had guessed, they looked like giant caterpillars, with long, pale bodies divided into plump segments, and six stubby legs that scrabbled in the mud as they crept along.
Filli chattered nervously and Kree squawked.
‘They do not look dangerous,’ said Jasmine. But she felt for her dagger all the same.
‘This may be where the legend of the Auron monsters came from,’ Barda murmured. ‘Perhaps the Aurons breed these things for food. They are fat enough. And standing upright they would be as tall as Nols, at least.’
As he said this, the creatures nearest to them did in fact raise their bodies from the ground and stand balanced on their back legs. Their front and middle legs waggled comically in the air, their huge eyes blinked short-sightedly.
‘We had better leave them to their island,’ said Lief. ‘We seem to be disturbing them.’
He glanced over his shoulder to see how far away the boat was, and received a shock. More of the giant grubs were rearing up behind him. Their bodies glistened with wet mud. Fresh, oozing holes in the rippled shore showed how they had approached without being seen.
‘Barda! Jasmine!’ Lief whispered, reaching for his sword.