The Dark Portal (The Gryphon Chronicles, Book 3) (14 page)

When he had
sneaked into Valhalla to help his friend, Snorri the Norse Giant, Jake had glimpsed into Odin’s crystal pool, which showed the king god images of what was going on in all the Nine Worlds.

What Jake had seen in the pool’s reflection had unnerved him.
A vision of his parents—who had supposedly been murdered when he was baby. He was sure he recognized them from their portrait hanging over the fireplace mantel back at Griffon Castle.

The image in the pool had shown them
, not dead and buried, but sleeping, rather like the knight and his lady, inside two glass coffins side by side in some dark place.

Jake didn’t know what to make of it.

Thinking of that memory sent a chill down his spine. He could not be sure if Odin’s crystal pool showed true things or the things you only wished were true.

He was afraid to
hope there might still be some faint chance that his parents were alive somewhere, somehow.

After all, t
he only person who had ever claimed they were not quite as dead as everybody thought was the sea-witch, Fionnula Coralbroom.

But Uncle Waldrick’s treacherous ally
would have said anything to save herself. Only a fool would trust her.

“’Hoy,
Jakey, come and look at this one!” Dani beckoned him over to the monk’s tomb. “Archie says he’s from a later century than those two.”

He went over.

“Sir Reginald and Lady Agatha were from the twelfth century, but this one died in the early 1400s,” Archie told them.

Jake nodded.
“Am I related to him, too?”

“I don’t think so.
His name is Brother Colwyn, and er, the inscription says he was murdered right here on the premises of the church and its community of Cistercians. I believe they used to call them White Monks. Anyway, if he wasn’t a relative, I’d assume the murder was why they had him buried here.”

“
Brother Colwyn,” Jake murmured. “I’m betting that’s our ghost.”

Dani and Archie looked at him in surprise; he told them what he had seen.

“Did you speak to him about the black fog?” Isabelle asked, hands in her coat pockets.

“
Er, no. He was in no condition to answer me.” And when he told them why, all three reacted with gasps and low shrieks of horror—which, naturally, Jake rather enjoyed.

“That’
s awful!” Dani exclaimed. “Maybe we should try to find his head for him.”

“
It’s only been missing for, what, five hundred years?” Jake said skeptically.

“
How do you take off a ghost’s head, anyway?” Archie wondered aloud.

“
No idea.”

“
Sounds like there must have been dark magic involved,” Isabelle murmured, which immediately brought back the ominous pall of fear they had only just started to forget.

Jake frowned. At least her answer made sense.
Bad business, black magic. The white kind was dangerous enough. Great-Great Aunt Ramona always told them magic was only to be used as a last resort, and even then, you could never be entirely sure there would not be unintended consequences.

Jake shook
off the gloomy mood. There were unicorns waiting out there somewhere for them. “Right,” he said. “So, what did you want to show me before?”

“
Oh, you’ve got to come and see!” Dani gripped his arm and started dragging him out of the alcove. “You’re not going to believe what we found. Don’t tell him!” she chided the others. “I want to see if he has the same reaction we did.”

She
led him back out into the rock-strewn nave, where they picked through the rubble to stand before one of the two remaining walls.

Dani
pointed up at the last stained-glass window that was somehow still intact. “Look like anybody you know?”

Jake
gazed at it.

Only a little moonlight shone
through the window, just enough to reveal the figure it portrayed: a white-robed male angel with nearly white-blond yellow hair, gold-tipped wings, and a knotted cord around his waist. He had sandals on his feet and a silver sword in his hand. Jake took a step closer, staring in fascination. Why, if you put that fellow in a black suit, top hat, and opera cloak…

He turned to them, squinting in confusion.
“Dr. Celestus?”

“
It is! It’s got to be him. I’d know him anywhere!” Dani declared, and well she should, since this was the very angel who had saved her life.

“
But that was just back in May,” Jake said. “This window must have been made over five centuries ago.”

Isabelle shrugged.
“I guess he’s older than he looks.”

Puzzled by the thought that he might personally know an actual immortal being,
Jake stared up at the stained-glass window a moment longer.

The air of mystery around this n
ight had definitely thickened.

Still,
they didn’t want to risk being gone too long and get in trouble with Derek and Helena. So they left the old church ruins and continued on with their nighttime trek across the countryside.

It was time to find the unicorns.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The Unicorn Hunt

“
Let’s try over there,” Isabelle suggested, pointing across the moonlit meadow.

They
agreed to this and marched on in their search, crossing to the far side of the field, where the path led into the woods again.

“How long do you think this is going to take?” Dani asked.

“More importantly, what snack will Snowdrop have made for us when we return?” Archie jested.

The words had no sooner left his mouth, however, than the dark forest around them began to shake.
The thunder of hoof beats filled the air.

Dani gasped.
“The unicorns! They’re coming!”

“Where are they?
” Jake cried. “I don’t see them!”

“Me
neither,” Archie said, glancing around anxiously through the Vampire Monocle.

“Quick, you need to hide!” Isabelle ordered.

“Where?” Jake asked.

The sound seemed to be coming from all directions, making it impossible to guess which might be the safest way to run.

“Isabelle, which way?” her brother demanded with dread in his voice. “I don’t fancy getting impaled tonight!”

T
hat quickly, it was too late.

The unicorns burst into view at the top of the ridge just a few yards above them and came galloping out of the darkness straight at them through the trees, horns gleaming like a charge of cavalry sabers.

Jake gasped at their overwhelming beauty, frozen in dread mingled with awe.

“
Dani! Put the boys between us. Hurry!” Isabelle ordered. “Take my hands to put them in a circle.”

The girls
quickly turned their backs to Jake and Archie, their hands joined. Isabelle, as Keeper faced the approaching herd, shouting at the animals as the four of them braced for impact.

Jake
was too scared to scream. The boys had never meant to meet the unicorns on the ground. Archie and he had expected to climb a tree nearby and look down on them from a safe vantage point while the girls went to pet them.

Hi
s heart in his throat, Jake stayed close to Archie within the circle of the girls’ arms.

Isabelle was speaking words Jake
did not understand, holding her ground without showing fear as the whole mass of towering, horned horses came bearing down on her.

It was like stand
ing in the middle of a horseracing track. In the next second, the unicorns were practically on top of them.

But
somehow the herd split, swerving clear of them on either side with naught but a sure-footed change of lead. A few of the creatures snorted in annoyance, but they went streaming past the terrified cluster of kids as if they were no more than a large boulder in their path.

Jake’
s heart hammered as he saw the moonlight glimmer on those sleek, deadly horns, any one of which could have run him through like a sword.

Indeed, w
ith the four kids huddled in a ring, one unicorn taking a stab at them would have likely skewered at least a few of them at one go, like a shish kebab.

“
I can’t believe I’m seeing this,” Archie squeaked in terror, his voice barely audible over the thundering hoof beats and the agitated whinnies.

“
Don’t move,” Isabelle warned. “Dani, hold your ground.”

The ten-year-old
let out a frightened whimper, but she did not budge from protecting the boys. “Isabelle, get us out of here!”

“Just…
wait,” the Keeper answered. “Steady…”

Jake stared in wonder
as the unicorns barreled past, kicking up clods of dirt.

Even though he was petrified, h
e had never seen anything so beautiful in his life. They galloped by so close that he could feel the breeze of their passing.

Their manes
danced as they ran, their tails streaming out behind them. The mares had a hint of pastel colors in their mane and tails; otherwise, they were every shade of white and ivory and silver. There were some smaller unicorns, colts and fillies, which must have been born this past spring. They were growing fast, though their little horns looked relatively harmless.

As the herd
swept by, barely seconds passing, it seemed like they might just be all right—until the stallion arrived. He was pure white and larger than the rest, and he clearly did not appreciate this intrusion on his turf. Unlike the mares, he stopped to confront them.

Jake swallowed hard as the kingly beast
skidded to a halt in front of Isabelle, then reared up, tossing his head angrily, as if to say, “
Keeper, how dare you bring them here?”

The mighty
pearl-white stallion looked like he wanted to kill the boys to protect his mares and foals, but one look at the kingly creature and Jake almost didn’t care.

The unicorns’ nearness was having a profound effect on him, putting him in a kind of serene, soothing trance, even though he knew he was in danger.

Meanwhile, Isabelle spoke soothingly to the stallion, keeping her own body between the angry beast and the boys. “They mean you no harm,” she was saying. “They’re only children, they are not a threat…”

Jake was
barely listening. Unicorn magic was taking hold of him, quite the opposite of the gold fever he had experienced earlier in the Great Vault.

He could feel th
e breeze from the herd still rushing past them on both sides in all their overwhelming beauty.

The way the moonlight glistened on each pearly horn, the charm in each big, brown eye,
and the velvet texture of their hides as they ran past entranced him.

Even if one of them chose to ki
ll him, he couldn’t help but think it might not be a bad way to go.

All of his own badness from this day seemed washed away from him. Al
l the hurt about disappointing Red and Derek and himself with his display of selfishness, it all felt forgiven, washed away by their presence.

Even t
he fear he had experienced today—his phobia about being underground and the even more unsettling news about the animal attack on the miners, then finding the dead goblins…all that darkness dissolved like a night fog burned away by the morning sun.

He had never felt such peace, never mind the fact
that the unicorn stallion half wanted to kill him. Jake wanted to stay with them forever.

F
inally, Isabelle’s words placated the stallion, who left with a last, angry kick of his hind legs into the air. With the boys present, the unicorns did not linger as they normally would to visit with the girls.

Instead, the herd moved on.

Jake stared after them with an inexplicable lump of emotion in his throat. How could men ever have killed these creatures?

But perhap
s there was no bottom to the depths that human beings could sink to, once they decided to turn bad.

In any case, t
heir encounter with the unicorns ended nearly as quickly as it had begun.

The herd left
the woods and cantered out into the meadow the kids had just crossed.

At last, t
he girls released each other’s hands, lowered their arms to their sides, and stepped away from the boys. All of them were shaking.

Without a word, t
hey watched in wonder and relief as the unicorns cantered off to the far end of the meadow and stopped to graze, though they still seemed restless.

The big white stallion pranced
along the outer edge of his family herd, making sure all his mares and babies were accounted for. He nudged a wayward colt back to the group from where the little one had stopped to stare at the kids.

It skipped back to its mother in the herd.

Dani looked at Isabelle. “You think we’re safe now?”

She nodded
in relief. “You did well.”

“They
are beautiful. Still, they could’ve killed us!” Archie exclaimed, finally recovering his voice.

Isabelle just looked at her brother.

“What did you think, Jake?” Dani asked.

Jake
just shook his head, tongue-tied. “Quite an experience,” was all he could manage.

“
We’d better be getting back,” Isabelle said.

“My legs feel like rubber,” Dani mumbled.

Archie took a deep breath and let it out again, composing himself once more. “I don’t think we’d better mention this to Miss Helena or Guardian Stone.”

They all agreed. Then they walked back down the path through the woods to the edge of the meadow. It was the only way back to the cottage.

“Keep to the edge of the woods as we go around them, everyone. I don’t want to scare them any more than we already did.” Isabelle scanned the herd out in the pasture.

Jake noticed
that she looked worried. “What is it?”

“
I don’t know. Something, more than just us has got them spooked tonight.”

“
Like what?” Dani asked.

She shook her head. “
I don’t know. I’ll have to come back later by myself and try to find out what’s got them so skittish.”

Following
Isabelle, they gave the herd a wide berth as they passed, hugging the edge of where the meadow met the woods.

Soon, they had put a safe distance between themselves and the amazing animals, leaving the unicorns behind.

Jake remained silent, all of his emotions churning after the two extremes of this day. His own ugliness in the Great Vault, and the beauty of those innocent creatures. It made his heart ache for reasons that he could not explain.

All of a sudden
, he was filled with inspiration, and words came out of his mouth that not even he quite expected. “We should do something for those orphans,” he blurted out. “The coalminers’ kids. The men who got buried at that funeral, I mean. I’ll bet their kids go to that school that we passed across from the cemetery.”

Everyone stopped and looked at him in varying degrees of astonishment.

You would have thought Teddy the dog had just uttered a sentence in perfect English.

“
What?” he mumbled, a trifle defensively. “We should! I mean, blimey, their dads got eaten by a bear or whatever. They’ve got to feel just terrible. Maybe there’s something we can do to cheer them up or something.”

Isabelle smiled as though she knew perfectly well that this un-Jake-like suggestion could only be the result of his encounter with the unicorns.
“What did you have in mind, coz?”

Dani’s Irish
eyes beamed at him in approval, while Archie grinned. “Capital notion! We could go into town tomorrow and buy some toys and such to cheer them up. And you can pay, old boy!” he added, giving Jake a jovial slap on the back.

“
I think that’s a beautiful idea, Jake,” Isabelle declared. “Perhaps when we drop the gifts off at the school, you could say a few words to comfort those children, since you’ve already been through it, losing your parents. You know how it feels. I’ll bet they’d really appreciate that.”

H
e nodded uncertainly, then they all walked on toward the cottage.

Jake
still felt strange after his encounter with the unicorns, but deep in his heart, he felt oddly better about this place, the world, and everything.