Ben met her hypnotic gaze but was surprised to find that he felt nothing. It was merely like staring at an unpleasant old hag.
He smiled at the recollections Ned was sending him.
Maguda Razan blinked then, and her hands dropped slightly. “What is this foolishness? I see thee dancing about in some far forest, smiting thyself and leaping like a mad child. No, wait! I see the fair at Veron now … a stupid woman on a prancing horse, chased by a dog! Art thou making mock of me, boy? Dost thou think Maguda Razan is to be made fun of?”
Ben had difficulty keeping a straight face, but he intoned dully, as if hypnotised, “Look deeper and you shall see.”
He concentrated his thoughts upon the Flying Dutchman. In the teeth of a roaring hurricane off the coast of Tierra del Fuego, amid icy waves and tattered rigging, the face of Captain Vanderdecken appeared. Lank, salt-crusted hair framed the Dutchman’s accursed visage, bloodless lips bared from stained tombstone-like teeth, his eyes glittered insanely. Laughing madly, he paced the deck of the doomed vessel, hurling oaths and threats at all about him.
Ben saw Maguda’s attitude change at the sightshe was enjoying it, extracting pleasure from the dreadful scene. Her tongue, snakelike, licked withered lips as she cackled, “He is truly the spawn of hellfire!”
Ben hated calling up the visions, but if it would gain freedom for him and his friends, there was no alternative. Pain pounded his temples, lancing like a blade into his mind. He gave no rein to his thoughts, pouring the whole horrific experience out into Maguda’s ruthless, staring orbs. Mutiny, murder, quarrels, fights, all that had taken place on the high seas aboard the Flying Dutchman on that unspeakable voyage!
Maguda Razan shuddered with delightshe was like a wayward child, giggling, simpering, her wrinkled tattooed face twitching as she received new sights. Wickedness, evil, strife and suffering were her very life’s bloodshe revelled in unspeakable vileness. Now Ben had lost control of his thoughts, his brain felt as if it were at the bursting point. The cave seemed to sway and rock around him as the wild kaleidoscope of that long-ago, ill-fated voyage spewed forth unchecked.
Maguda’s laughter echoed and re-echoed, building in its intensity.
Then …
Thunder and lightning crashed through the maelstrom of sound, silencing everything! Through the green light of St. Elmo’s fire, exactly as it had happened all those years before, the angel of heaven descended! Maguda Razan went rigid. She gave out one unearthly shriek and fell stone-dead upon the litter. The sight of a being who radiated so much purity and beauty had stopped the heart of one who represented darkness and evil!
Ben’s head slumped forward to rest upon his drawn-up knees. He felt drained but cleansed by the peacefulness and calm that surrounded him. Footsteps came pounding up the corridor outside, and the door burst open. Ligran and Rawth, with a crowd of henchmen, rushed in, followed by Gizal, the blind crone.
Unable to restrain himself, Ligran strode to the litter and prodded at the stiff form stretched upon it. He recoiled instantly, his voice shrill with disbelief. “She’s dead … Maguda’s dead?”
Rawth grabbed his sword and turned upon Ben, shouting, “You killed her!”
He swung the blade at the boy, but Gizal’s staff struck his wrist, deflecting the swing. “Fools! Stay still until I find out what happened here!”
The henchmen stepped aside as Gizal tap-tapped her way to the litter. She ran her hands over the body of Maguda, placing her fingers over the nose and mouth to check for breath. Taking a long pin from her hair, Gizal touched it to the pupil of Maguda’s eyethere was no feeling of movement. Gizal nodded. “She is dead!”
The men in the cave gave a simultaneous gasp of shock. The blind woman pushed her way through to Ben, laying about at the dumbfounded men with her stick. “Make way, move!” Ben sat quite still and closed his eyes, trying to hide the revulsion he felt at being pawed over by the witchlike hag. Forcing wide his jaws, she sniffed at his open mouth. He winced as she tugged his hair, searching through it, her fingernails scratching as she probed around his ears. Then Gizal leaned upon his shoulder, bending him forward. Ben tried to hold his breath when her rancid-smelling garments enveloped his face whilst she inspected the cords that bound his hands behind his back.
Satisfied, the blind woman stood up. “There be no marks or blood upon Maguda, yet she lies dead. This boy could not have slain her by mortal meanshe is bound tight and could not have undone or retied the cord.”
Ligran struck his fist against a powder keg. “But how?”
Gizal silenced him by holding up a hand. “Hearken to me. Only in two ways could yon lad have taken Maguda’s life: with his mouth or with his eyes. Either he could have spat poison at her or uttered some powerful spell, though I think not. Rawth, do ye recall when this one and his friends were first brought in front of thy sister? She had thee knock him down, saying she did not want him looking at her, eh?”
Rawth stroked his beard. “Aye, that was as you say!”
Gizal placed a hand upon Rawth’s arm. “Bind his eyes. Ye can gag him, too, for safety’s sake. Have him taken back to the cells.”
Before Ben could protest, his mouth and eyes were bound with filthy strips of rag; then the henchmen picked him up and carried him off, leaving Gizal alone with the two Razan brothers.
Ligran, the more hot tempered of the pair, paced the cave, shaking his head angrily. “That lad’s a danger to us all, Gizal. You should’ve let Rawth slay him. Here, I’ll go and do the job myself!”
The blind woman’s staff blocked Ligran’s way as she lowered her voice, warning him, “Don’t let anger rule thy thinking, Ligran. If the lad did kill Maguda with his eyes, he must be even more powerful than she was. Thy sister ruled through fear. Without one as strong as she, our people would soon leave here and go their own ways, am I not right, Rawth?”
The elder Razan nodded. “True, old one, but if the lad is as powerful as you think, how can we bend him to our service?”
Ligran began warming to the idea. He smiled wickedly. “Through his two young friendsthey are as close as brothers and sister. The boy would not wish them hurt, would he?”
Gizal’s staff touched Ligran’s shoulder. “Now thou art showing good sense. Leave me to think now. First we will have a great ceremony to impress our people. Maguda must be installed in a suitable tomb before our new leader is made known to the Razan. That will be after the spirit of Maguda appears to us three and names the boy as her successor.”
Rawth was puzzled for a moment. “Will she?”
Ligran grinned. “She already has. Brother, did you hear her?”
Rawth caught on then and laughed. “Oh, aye, I heard her. Pity all the Razan couldn’t, eh?”
Gizal squeezed Rawth’s arm reassuringly. “Fear not, they will! At the right time. There be plenty of hidden places, and the great cavern carries lots of echoes. Leave it to old Gizal!”
Having hatched their plan, the three departed from the armoury cave, leaving behind them the rigid corpse of the once all-powerful Maguda Razan. What Gizal, Ligran and Rawth had missed was the lesson their former leader had learned at the cost of her life: a surety that Good will triumph over Evil, always!
26
IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON OF THE FOLLOWING day. Arnela and Ned crouched behind a jumble of ice-sheened rocks. The ground in front of them was solidified soil, shale and patches of snow in a small escarpment, backed by the pristine white mountain peak.
Arnela pointed, whispering to the dog, “See there, Ned, that’s the one and only entrance to the Razan caves. Just inside the rift, straight ahead.” The black Labrador focussed his gaze on the shadowed hole in the solid rock face, listening to the big goatherd woman. “Those red marks by the entrance, they look like old bloodstains from this distance. But they’re ancient pictures of cave dwellers hunting wild boar. I saw them once, some years ago, when I tracked some Razan villains here. Our friends will be imprisoned somewhere inside. Where, I’m not sure. I’ll wager there are many caves and passages inside. We’ll worry about that when we come to it. Our first job is to get inside. I’m sure there must be guards at the entrance. Let’s hide here and watch until we get a chance. Right?”