Cauldron Spells (6 page)

The Treasure of Annwn

F
or the rest of that week Max and Olivia spent every minute they could spare from lessons as rats, sneaking around the castle walls. Meanwhile Ferocious spent every minute they were in lessons as himself, also sneaking around the castle walls. Between them they discovered any number of secrets. Secrets about who was in love with Lady Marianne the Fair (everyone between the ages of fifteen and fifty), 
secrets about how the castle cook got the mutton to taste so good (boiling it with dried toad skin), and secrets about how Sir Uriel always managed to win at card games (he had an enchanted cheating pack). But none of these secrets got them anywhere near finding out what Lady Morgana was up to.

By the end of the week they were falling asleep in lessons and thoroughly fed up with crawling through small cracks in the castle walls discovering nothing. Even worse, the frogspell bottle was looking distinctly empty. There was probably only enough for one or two more transformations before Max would have to try and steal enough ingredients from the castle spell store to make some more.

“I ache all over,” complained Olivia, stretching out on the grass by the moat. It was a thoroughly hot day, the sun reflecting off the castle walls and the air shimmering. The squires and apprentices had been given the afternoon off, and most of them were splashing around in the moat, but Max and Olivia were too tired even to swim. They were sprawled on the 
grass with Adolphus laid out next to them, basking in the sun like a lizard.

Max was chewing a piece of grass and looking thoughtful.

“There’s something wrong with what we’re doing,” he said. “We’ve spent ages sneaking around but we haven’t really found out anything.”

“I know,” groaned Olivia. “If I hear one more person professing undying love to Lady Marianne I’m going to be sick.”

“I don’t think the interesting stuff is happening in the castle at all at the moment – maybe they’re up to something somewhere else. Snotty is out every day – he leaves early in the morning and doesn’t get back till late at night. What’s he up to?”

“Well, perhaps if someone followed him, we might find out,” suggested Ferocious.

“But we’ll miss lessons,” objected Olivia. “And I really need to be there tomorrow. We’re practising disarming manoeuvres and I’ve beaten everyone so far except Eric. If I beat him tomorrow 
I’ll be Squire of the Week.”

Max looked at her and raised his eyebrows. “Oh, well then, of course you’d better stay. I’ll just have to miss learning how to make a swamp solid instead. And when I’m sucked down to a muddy death in the Great Grimpen Mire, I’m sure it’ll be a great comfort to me that you were once Squire of the Week.”

“Oh stop griping!” said Ferocious. “You can both go to your ever-so-important lessons. Adolphus and I will do it.”

“Oh, yes please!” said Adolphus, lifting his head eagerly. “I’ll sneak after Snotty! Very, very quietly. I know I can do it!”

Max looked doubtful – but he did really want to go to tomorrow’s lesson. It was the last one with Aleric. The following day they started a week with Lady Morgana herself, and that was not going to be half as much fun.

“Okay,” he said at last. “Ferocious, you’re in charge. And make sure he doesn’t see you.” 

Ferocious rolled his eyes. “Of course,” he said scornfully. “He won’t suspect a thing.”

Snotty Hogsbottom was in an extremely bad mood. He and Jerome had spent nearly a week searching the dragon’s hoard – pulling out bits of treasure, stacking piles of cauldrons, rearranging gold and silver and precious ornaments – and he still hadn’t found what he was looking for. Worse, today they had been ordered to take Caradoc the Bard along with them to help. Snotty was not happy about having anyone else there to share the glory if they found the Treasure of Annwn. Jerome didn’t count, but Caradoc had already wormed his way into Morgana’s good books with his knowledge of ancient lore and his silvery spells. Snotty would happily have turned him into a snail if he’d known how.

At the cavern entrance, Snotty grumpily indicated the ropes they had put in place to help with the climb down.

“After you,” he said, with exaggerated 
politeness, and Caradoc nodded and lowered himself carefully down. Snotty considered cutting the rope with his hunting knife, but then shrugged and headed down after him. Morgana would have words to say if he came back without the bard, and Morgana’s words generally had the effect of leaving you upside down in a pile of steaming horse manure.

When they reached the dragon’s cavern, Caradoc stopped, and whistled.

“No wonder it’s taken a week,” he said, surveying the vast pile of gold and a slightly smaller pile of other stuff that had been sorted and stacked. “How many cauldrons did she have?”

“We’re not sure,” said Jerome with an apologetic glance at Snotty, who had stalked off to start pulling things out of the remaining pile. “It’s rumoured as many as two thousand.”

“My word,” said Caradoc in admiration. “What an obsession! Makes our job difficult, eh?”

By mid-afternoon, Snotty was feeling more well-disposed towards Caradoc. He was a willing 
worker and had pulled out, sorted and discarded at least fifty cauldrons. Best of all, none of them had been the Treasure of Annwn. Not that Snotty had found it either, but at least Caradoc hadn’t beaten him to it.

It was while they were resting, backs against the huge pile of as-yet unsorted gold, chewing bread and cold meat, that Snotty thought he heard something. He held his hand up for silence and they all listened. There was definitely a flapping sound high in the roof of the cavern. And a squeaking. They had hardly had time to exchange glances when the squeaking rose to a crescendo and hundreds of bats suddenly dived from the roof and started swirling around the cavern like a writhing mass of black smoke. In their midst, looking rather disoriented, was a small blue-green dragon, flapping its wings to try to drive the bats away and looking like it might crash into the cavern wall at any minute. Which, after a few more bats had flown into its ears, was exactly what it did. It hit the rocky wall with a thump and slid down to the sandy floor, dazed and confused. 

Snotty was on his feet in an instant and had the dragon by the throat.

“Right! Got you, you stupid dozy interfering beast,” he snarled. “Did Max send you spying, eh? Didn’t he know better than to send such a brainless waste of space? Well, now you’ve had it, dragon. Now you’re dead meat.”

The sun was setting to the west of Castle Gore and shadows were stretching out across the courtyard. Max and Olivia were taking it in turns to peer anxiously out of the narrow arched window of their room hoping to catch a flash of blue-green flying over the castle walls, but so far they’d seen nothing.

“Do you think they’re all right?” asked Olivia, again. She was frantic with worry about Adolphus and would have given her newly acquired Squire of the Week certificate ten times over just for news that he was safe.

Max was trying not to show it, but he was equally worried. Adolphus and Ferocious should have 
been back ages ago. Most of the castle had retired to their chambers, and they had seen Snotty return hours before. As he took his turn at the window, Max fingered the swift, still in his belt pouch, and wondered if he should have sent it off when they first heard of Morgana’s plans. He had wanted to have more to tell, to have learnt the whole plot, to have earned Merlin’s admiration and gratitude. And now Adolphus and Ferocious were in trouble, and it was all his fault. He nearly groaned – and then he suddenly sat up straight, widened his eyes and shouted in glee.

“They’re back! Olivia – they’re back! There they are!”

Adolphus came swooping in over the battlements straight towards the window, and Max only just got out of the way before he hurtled in through it and came to a skittering halt in the middle of the floor, panting.

“Is it gone? Is it gone? Did we get away?”

Ferocious dropped off his neck and said soothingly, “It’s okay, Adolphus, you managed to leave 
the nasty scary owl behind ages ago! We’re safe.”

Adolphus breathed a mighty sigh of relief and flopped down sideways with his eyes rolled up into his head and his tongue stuck out. Olivia threw herself at him and hauled him onto her lap, stroking his scaly back and tickling him under his chin.

“Adolphus, I’m so glad you’re back. We were really worried!”

Ferocious had leapt up onto Max’s shoulder and was nibbling his ear affectionately.

“Well, yes, you should have been. He was very nearly put in a pie. If it hadn’t been for Caradoc, he would have been.”

“Caradoc?” said Olivia with distaste. “That traitor?”

“Yes. He might be working for Morgana, but he’s still a friend of dragons,” said Ferocious. “We followed Snotty and Caradoc to Great-Aunt Wilhelmina’s cavern, but then we got caught. Snotty was all for chopping Adolphus into little bite-sized morsels but Caradoc wouldn’t hear of it. Bad luck to 
eat dragons, he said. So they just left us in the cave and rolled a stone across the entrance.”

“Then how did you get out?” asked Max.

“Well, that’s the thing,” said Ferocious, puzzled. “About an hour ago, someone came and rolled the stone away again. We heard them shift it, but when we got up there, we couldn’t see a thing. So we just headed back to the castle. And here we are. And we’ve discovered something.”

Ferocious paused for effect as Olivia and Max both looked at him, expectantly.

“It’s a cauldron,” he said, at last, meaningfully.

“What?”

“The Treasure of Annwn,” said the rat, looking round at them all. “It’s part of Great-Aunt Wilhelmina’s hoard. It’s a cauldron.”

There was silence as they all digested this. Then Olivia looked up at Max, open-mouthed.

“But Max…”

“Yes,” said Ferocious. “I think it’s definitely possible.” 

Max shook his head. “
My
cauldron? The one she gave me? But she wouldn’t have given me a really precious one! Anyway, it doesn’t look like anything special. It’s really old and dull.”

“But it’s very magical,” observed Ferocious. “Or were you just thinking it was you, Max? Getting so much better at this spell business?”

Max frowned. It was true his spells had been spectacularly better since he’d got the new cauldron – but then the old one had been so totally ruined by Adolphus that it could just have been having a decent, working cauldron that had done it. He shook his head.

“No, I’m sure it’s just ordinary. Maybe a bit better than your average apprentice’s cauldron – but I’m sure it can’t be the one they’re looking for.”

“But Max,” said Olivia, “you’ve got lessons with Morgana tomorrow. Don’t you think you’d better take your old one, in case? Until we find out more?”

Max looked stubborn. He really didn’t want to make an idiot of himself in front of Morgana le Fay. He couldn’t face another disaster like the ones in his 
first week. Besides, Great-Aunt Wilhelmina had had thousands of cauldrons and she’d known exactly where each one had come from. She’d never have given him such an important one.

“No,” he said firmly. “I’m taking that one. It’s just an old cauldron from some wizard or other she met on her travels. It’ll be fine.”

Spells and Cauldrons

T
he next morning, Olivia left Max snoring and crept out clutching the bottle of frogspell, with Ferocious on her shoulder. Max, having had one scare already, had expressly forbidden any further spying till he had contacted Merlin – but Olivia couldn’t resist. Morgana le Fay would be teaching at the Spell School all morning – so she wouldn’t be in her chambers. What better time to search them and see if there were
any clues about what she was up to? Ferocious had already promised to keep Max company for his lessons, so it was up to her. She rapidly turned herself into a frog, and Ferocious, wrinkling up his nose, gave her a whiskery rat kiss before scampering back to Max with the potion bottle.

Now, after crawling her way slowly through to Morgana’s part of the castle, Olivia was beginning to wish she’d listened to Max and just gone off to squire lessons as usual. The walls of Morgana’s chambers had an odd, spicy smell that Olivia remembered from the last time she had been there. It made her rat nose tickle and her eyes water. She tried to find the gap they’d peeped through last time, but the walls were a maze of little crooked spaces between stones and it was hard to work out where she was. She seemed to have reached a dead end and, as she tried to turn round, whacked her head painfully on a protruding bit of stone. Trolls’ toenails! Maybe this had not been such a good idea after all.

Suddenly there was a crash. Olivia stiffened. 
There was a long silence, and then the sound of someone moving around furtively in the room beyond. Olivia crept forward, using the sounds to guide her, until she was peering between two stones directly into Morgana’s chamber. The morning light streamed in through the tall arched windows and dust motes whirled in the sunbeams. Dust motes that were being scattered and disturbed by a tall figure striding through the room, upturning objects and pulling back velvet draperies, quietly and methodically searching every corner. It was Caradoc.

Olivia drew in a breath. What was he doing here? Had Morgana sent him to get something? But then why was he searching so thoroughly – surely she’d have told him where to look? Was he here in secret? He started to look carefully at a large cupboard on the other side of the room. Her rat nose twitched as she poked it out of the gap in the stones. She couldn’t see what he was doing, but if she jumped down, she could hide behind a tapestry and watch him more closely. 

Olivia took a deep breath and jumped. As she emerged from the wall, there was a loud pop! and she landed sprawled on the floor, arms and legs flailing, completely human.

Caradoc turned round instantly and had his hand over her mouth before she even had time to yell. She struggled, trying to tell him he was a lousy, rotten slimeball, but his grip was firm. He leant his face close to hers and whispered urgently, “Not a sound, Olivia, if you value your life!”

She stopped struggling and looked at him, wide-eyed. How did he know her name? Or that she was really a girl? What was going on?

Caradoc released his grip slightly and then, when she made no sound, nodded.

“Good. Now perhaps you’d better tell me what you’re doing here.”

Olivia looked at him angrily. “I’m not telling you anything. You’re working for that evil witch. And when Merlin gets here I hope he turns you into a dung beetle!” 

Caradoc laughed and clapped Olivia on the back. “Well said! But I’m not working for Morgana, I’m working for Merlin.”

“Merlin!” said Olivia in surprise. “But – we saw you, you were here, in her chambers, plotting!”

Caradoc frowned. “So you heard that, did you? Well, yes, I was here, apparently plotting. I have been doing my best to win my Lady Morgana’s trust. But I am still in the outer circle. I am still a long way from knowing the whole plot. Which is why I am here, just now, while she is away.”

“Me too,” said Olivia. “But how come I got changed back into a girl? I was a rat, in the walls…”

“Ah, well, the chamber is enchanted,” said Caradoc. “It strips away all magic spells from those who enter. It did the same to me.” He smiled ruefully. “I’d used some potion Merlin gave me to become a sparrow. You probably heard the noise as I was changed back and fell off the window ledge.”

Olivia grinned. “So that was what that crash was. Well, I suppose at least it’s easier to search her 
room with hands rather than wings. Have you found anything?”

Caradoc shook his head. “No. But I think if there is anything, it will be in this cupboard here. It has a peculiar lockspell on it, I was trying to disentangle it when you arrived.” He moved towards the cupboard, which was tall and narrow, with dark, carved oak doors.

“Are you a wizard, then, as well as a bard?” asked Olivia.

Caradoc laughed. “Oh, a little bit of a wizard, and a little bit of a bard. And – a little bit of a knight,” he said, and touched his finger to the side of his long crooked nose. “But mostly whatever Merlin wants me to be, whatever is most useful. My true name is not Caradoc. But – perhaps that had better stay my name for now. Caradoc the Bard, as always, at your service, my lady,” and he swept her an elaborate bow.

Olivia made a face. “I’m not a lady. I’m a squire. And I’m going to be a knight, too.”

“So you are,” said Caradoc, gravely. “I had forgotten.” 

He turned back to the cupboard, and passed his hands across the front with a strange flourish. “There. It’s undone. Now, let’s have a look, shall we?”

He carefully opened both tall narrow doors and they peered inside. There were several shelves, all crammed with pots and potion bottles and flasks in every colour of glass so that it looked like a cupboard full of jewels. In the middle were three small drawers, and Caradoc, after a glance at the potion bottles, pulled the drawers out one after the other. They were filled with rolls of creamy parchment, tied with ribbons and attached to small packets of brightly coloured powders. One was loose, placed carelessly on the top of the pile as if it had been discarded there only recently. Olivia and Caradoc exchanged glances, and he pulled open the parchment and started to read.

“Well, well – a replica spell… A cunning thing indeed. So that is how they will do it,” he muttered. “This might come in useful.” He pulled a piece of parchment and a quill out of what seemed like thin air 
and started to copy down the spell. He also took a few grains of the powder and carefully placed them in a twist of paper. Then he rolled up the original, put it back in the cupboard and again passed his hands across the front, remaking the lockspell. He stood for a few seconds, thinking, and then shook his head and turned to Olivia.

“We need to go. The Spell School will finish soon, and it wouldn’t do to be found anywhere near these rooms. But I think we need to talk, you and Max and I. We definitely need to talk.”

Caradoc was right – the Spell School was just about to finish. By the time they got down to Max and Olivia’s room, there was only time for Olivia to dig out some oatcakes and a bottle of spiced apple juice and put them on a small table before Max burst into the room looking cross.

“What’s
he
doing here?” he asked, when he saw Caradoc sitting happily munching an oatcake. “Who invited
him
?” 

“I did,” said Olivia firmly – and pulled up another chair for Max. “Sit down. We need to have a meeting. Caradoc’s on our side – he’s working for Merlin.”

“Merlin?” said Max, falling into the chair and looking extremely surprised. “What? But how?”

Ferocious poked his nose out of Max’s tunic and looked at Caradoc. “Ah well, last to know anything, as usual. Glad it’s Max as well and not just me this time. I suppose it must have been you who rolled the stone away from the cave last night, then?”

“Er, yes, it was,” admitted Caradoc sheepishly. “Sorry you had to wait such a long time. I had to go back there after I’d returned to the castle with Adrian Hogsbottom.”

“Snotty,” said Max, automatically.

“Sorry?” said Caradoc.

“No – Snotty,” said Olivia. “It’s his name. Adrian’s name. It’s really Snotty.”

“I see,” said Caradoc, and nodded. “Yes, I can see that it would be. Excellent. I won’t make that 
mistake again.” He grinned. “Right then – how much do you both know?”

“First,” said Olivia. “We need to ask you – what does this Cauldron of Annwn look like? Because Great-Aunt Wilhelmina – that’s the big dragon – she gave one to Max.”

Caradoc’s eyes widened; he sat up very straight.

“She gave Max a cauldron?
Gave
it to him?”

“Yes,” said Max. “In exchange for us turning her small so she could get out of the cave.”

Caradoc looked very excited. “Then – it might be – I can’t believe it! Max, is it small, and black, with a row of pearls round the edge?”

Max and Olivia looked at each other, and Olivia groaned.

“It is! It is the one! But Max took it to the Spell School today. Morgana must have seen it – and she’s bound to have recognised it!”

“Is this true?” said Caradoc urgently. “Did she see it?”

Max paused, as they both looked at him 
anxiously, and then grinned.

“No. She didn’t see it. Because I didn’t take it. Adolphus was asleep with his head inside it and I didn’t have the heart to wake him up. So I took the old one and instead of turning water into ink I turned it into jam. So I got a D. Which is why I was cross. But the cauldron is over there – by the fireplace.”

They turned to look – and there it was, battered, dull and entirely ordinary-looking, lying on its side with Adolphus’s long blue-green body spilling out of it and the sound of dragon snores coming from inside. As they looked, there was a snuffle, and then a cough and then a sleepy-eyed Adolphus poked his head out and said:

“Hello! Is it morning?”

They heaved Adolphus out of the way, and Caradoc knelt down and examined the cauldron, turning it this way and that and squinting at the faded pearls.

“Yes,” he said at last. “It’s definitely the right one. What an amazing piece of luck. Or maybe – 
I don’t know. They’re wily creatures, old dragons. Maybe she had an inkling…” He looked hard at Max and then smiled. “Whatever the reason, here it is. And now – we can get to work.”

He took out the spell he’d copied from Morgana and waved it in front of them.

“A replica spell. It can make an exact copy of any object you have in front of you. That’s why they need the cauldron. Not to give it to Arthur, but to make a copy – so Arthur will go to Annwn on his chivalrous quest,
thinking
he has the treasure and that he’ll be able to use it as payment to return.”

“But how are they planning to make him go to Annwn in the first place?” said Max.

“I don’t know,” said Caradoc. “Some scheme or other. Now we know, it shouldn’t be too hard for him to find a way out of it. But if we can make them think they are safe, if we can make them think their plans are going perfectly – then maybe they will overstretch themselves. Maybe Lady Morgana will finally show Arthur her true face. Maybe we can catch 
them red-handed… And for that, we need them to think they have the real cauldron.”

He unfolded the twist of paper he had taken from Morgana’s room and scattered some grains of powder over the cauldron as he started to mutter the words of the spell. Then he took hold of the sides of the cauldron and started to pull his hands away, chanting as he did so. Before long, Max and Olivia could see a second cauldron, identical to the first, slowly forming in his hands; it was as if he were pulling a second copy out of the original, more and more of it emerging, until with a faint pop! the two separated – and there they were: two dusty black
worn-looking
cauldrons, each with a faint rim of pearls at the edge.

“Er – which one is the real one?” said Max, looking from one to the other.

“Hard to tell,” said Caradoc, with a gleam in his eye. “Which do you think?”

Max looked from one to the other, and then grasped hold of them both. They looked identical, and 
they almost felt exactly the same, too – but when you held them at the same time, there was just the faintest hint of coldness from one, the slightest buzz of hidden magics from the other.

“This one,” said Max, tapping it.

“Is indeed the Cauldron of Annwn,” said Caradoc approvingly. “You have quite a gift for magic, Max – many full wizards could not tell the difference, even with the cauldrons right next to each other.”

Max went slightly pink and tried not to look too pleased, while Olivia rolled her eyes.

“Yes, well, Max, we all know you’re a genius. Try not to let your head swell too much or you won’t be able to fit through the castle gatehouse.”

Caradoc laughed. He picked up the false cauldron, wrapped it in his cloak, and started to head out of the door.

“How are you going to get it to Morgana?” asked Max.

“Oh, I think we’ll let… ah… Snotty
discover
it at the dragon’s hoard, shall we?” he said. 

Max sat by the fire that evening, the creamy parchment of Merlin’s swift spread out in front of him, a quill in his hand. They’d agreed he would let Merlin know all they had found out so far: that there was a plot to get Arthur to go on a quest to Annwn with a false cauldron so he would be unable to return; that he, Max, had the real cauldron and that Caradoc would be making sure Morgana got the copy. He wished he had more detail to give Merlin, but it would have to do; he said the words of the spell, released the swift, and it soared out of the window and into the night.