The Jade Boy (26 page)

“No! Tolly, don’t.” Ann tried to run to him, but Jem held her tight.

Tolly shielded Cleo’s body, leaned closer and whispered something.

Cazalon’s eyes grew wide with astonishment and confusion. And then he let out a huge roar as the creeping veins began to cover his eyes.

Jem felt a sudden searing pain on his bare right shoulder. He yelped and felt for the spot. A patch of skin the size of a penny stung beneath his fingers.

He looked up. Rain seemed to be falling from the ceiling above, but the droplets were made of flame – hot, red flame. Ann cried out as a fiery ball no bigger than a marble spattered and sizzled on her hand. Jem leaned over to shield her.

“We have to get out of here. Now!” he yelled. “Come on, Tolly.”

Tolly hugged Cleo closer to his chest as he hurried back to them. He scanned the four exits to the cavern and frowned.

“Not this one. It’s that way,” he said, pointing to the dark mouth of one of the other passages.

Jem squeezed Ann’s hand. “Do you think you can run?”

She nodded.

The children and the monkey pelted across the
chamber, dodging the fire-rain that was falling more heavily around them now.

They were just a few feet from the passage when a great booming noise rumbled overhead and the cavern juddered. A cloud of dust fell from the ceiling, coating their hair and skin in a layer of fine white powder.

Tolly began to cough. “What was that?” he spluttered, trying to shield Cleo with his body.

The noise grew louder and deeper and a crack began to fracture across the dome, dividing the head of the carved centaur from its galloping body. Ann looked up. “The cavern is splitting in two,” she shouted.

Huge balls of fire now fell through the gaping fissure overhead and spurts of molten white-hot liquid began to cascade through the crack, splashing and fizzing on the stones around them.

Jem shouted. “St Paul’s is on fire above us – and it’s collapsing! We have to get out of here, now!”

The little group ran into the entrance of the passage. Jem grabbed a candle from a niche in the wall to light their way. As they disappeared into the darkness there was an odd wheezing crackling sound. Then a rasping voice rang out around the cavern.

“Remember, I have already been to the land of the dead. I have crossed the blood bridge many times and returned. I know how to cheat death! You cannot defeat me.”

A deafening groan grated and echoed around the vast chamber and then the children were enveloped in dust and stones as a thunder of falling rocks sealed them into the tunnel.

Jem coughed in the dust-thickened darkness. His candle had been extinguished by the rock fall. He felt for the stone wall, carefully pulling himself to his feet.

“Tolly? Ann? Can you hear me?” he choked.

“Jem!” Tolly’s voice came from a little way off.

There was a rustling noise, a sharp cry of “Ouch!” and then Jem felt a small hand on his arm.

“Jem, is that you? Are you all right?”

He grabbed Ann’s hand in reply. Her voice came again. “Have you still got the candle?”

Jem handed her the stub and seconds later he jumped as her pointed little face glowed eerily into life beside him.

“Even an inferior sorceress like me has her uses… sometimes.”

She grinned wearily, shielding the tiny flame with her hand.

Moments later, Tolly, still cradling Cleo, scrabbled across the rock-strewn floor to join them.

“We have to keep moving. This place isn’t safe,” said Tolly. He shuddered as Ann raised the candle and revealed the ink-black passage ahead of them.

“But how will we find the way out?” said Jem. “This place is a maze. We could get lost down here for ever.”

“I think I can find the way,” said Tolly. His eyes were huge and fearful in the gloom and he had to take a deep breath before continuing.

“In the cathedral, I picked up Ann’s fear and it led me down to the crypts. But I– I froze down there, in the dark. I couldn’t move. I don’t know how long I stayed there, but then Cleo found me. She’d followed me into St Paul’s and then, down in the crypts, she found an ancient vault with a cracked wall. The gap led through into the old catacombs beneath the cathedral, where I knew you were.”

Ann gasped. “Tolly, you must have been terrified. The darkness, the cramped space. I can’t believe you found us.” She cupped his cheek in her hand. “You were very brave.”

Tolly smiled tightly. “Thank Cleo. She wouldn’t let me give up.”

He snuggled the monkey closer.

“So that’s how you found us?” asked Jem.

Tolly shook his head. “Do you remember that
time on the ice, Jem, when we saw the poor drowned pedlar girl? I’ll never forget that day. It was when I discovered that, along with animals, the dead can talk to me.”

He laughed grimly. “So when I came into the catacombs to find you, I– I simply asked the way.”

Jem shivered. “You mean you… you talked to the skulls?”

Tolly nodded. “The worst thing is that most of them don’t understand. They don’t know they are dead. They all want to talk. Like that girl in the ice – she asked me when she could go home.”

The children were silent for a moment then Jem spoke decisively.

“We have to get out of here before this becomes our tomb too. Tolly, can you lead us back?”

Tolly nodded and squared his shoulders. “Give me the candle Ann. I will get us out.”

When the children and the monkey finally emerged from the tunnels beneath St Paul’s on to the banks of the Thames, the London they had known was gone.

Jem cleared his throat – the air was hot and dusty. “How long were we down there?”

“I don’t know, but at least the fire has passed,” said Ann softly, trying to make some sense of the landscape around them.

They had been underground for so long that the fire was indeed over, but it had scorched the city they knew from the face of the earth. Ash fell like rain from the sky as they clambered up the riverbank. They were met by the sight of hundreds of grey-faced people, picking through the cinders and climbing over the smouldering ruins.

“Do you feel that?” whispered Tolly as they stared in horror at the devastation. He prodded the ground with his bare foot. “The earth itself is still hot.”

The children turned about slowly trying to get their bearings. It was as if they could see from one end of the city to the other across jumbled piles of smoking rubble. St Paul’s Cathedral towered above the wreckage, but it was blackened, roofless and utterly ravaged.

Jem looked down to the water. He was surprised to see hundreds of small boats moving purposefully up and down. He could even hear water traders calling out their wares.

A scruffy man carrying a large leather pouch popped up from behind a ragged wall beside them.

“Read it here, young sirs and little lady. The true story of the Great Fire of London. A pamphlet for a penny – and that’s money well spent.”

“The true story of the fire, you say?” asked Ann.

The man nodded eagerly.

“Well, if I had a penny I would most certainly buy it,” she grinned.

Tolly and Jem laughed as the man scowled and stumbled away.

Jem looked west to the palace at Whitehall. It was intact. He whispered a brief prayer for his mother – and his father – and then he kicked angrily at the hot earth.

“So much for your ancient prophecy, Ann! We failed miserably. London is a smoking ruin.”

“Perhaps that isn’t true,” said Tolly, scrambling onto a pile of blackened bricks. “Look at the river down there. It’s business as usual. Even the pamphlet writers are hard at work. Life will go on, Jem.”

He smiled down at his friends.

Ann placed Cazalon’s staff on the ground and took Jem’s hand. She led him up to Tolly’s vantage point where she caught hold of Tolly’s hand too.

The three of them stood side by side, looking out over the busy river.

“In one very important respect the prophecy did come true,” she said solemnly.

“The boy of jade, the black traveller and the moon child did bind the dark god. And that was probably the most important thing of all.”

She shuddered. “Just imagine what Cazalon would have done if he had become a man-god.”

They were silent for a moment as they looked down on the busy river.

“Is he really dead?” asked Jem.

Tolly nodded uncertainly. “He must be. No one could survive that. For all his three thousand years, Cazalon was just a man.”

“What did you say to him, at the end there, Tolly?” Ann’s green eyes were alight with curiosity.

Tolly shrugged. “Nothing important.”

Cleo wriggled and chirruped softly in the crook of Tolly’s arm. He grinned and lowered her gently to the ground. The little monkey looked up, twitched her tail, wrinkled her nose and chattered indignantly.

“And it wasn’t just us who defeated him, was it?” laughed Jem. “Cleo appeared in the prophecy too, remember. She was the ink blot with a tail.”

On a dusty road just beyond the gates to the smoking city ruins an elegant carriage drawn by four grey horses juddered to a halt.

A graceful hand, encased in an elaborately embroidered lavender glove extended from the window. Seconds later a huge white bird circled from the sky and landed on the outstretched arm. It pecked at the expensive leather of the glove.

The woman wearing the glove leaned from the interior of the coach. One eye was covered by a jewelled eyepatch. Her other eye was golden and glinted in the light as she caught something that dropped from the bird’s dribbling beak.

A silver crescent moon studded with sparkling gem stones.

There are so many people I’d like to thank for their encouragement and support throughout the writing of
The Jade Boy
that I could easily fill another three chapters… I won’t – I’ll try to keep this brief, although that will be hard for me!

Firstly, I’d like to thank my family – my
long-suffering
husband Stephen and my dad, John Cain. I’d especially like to mention my late mum, Sheila, whose passion for history – and particularly the gory details – ignited my own fascination from a very early age. There’s a Cain family story about the time I had my tonsils removed at the age of four and ‘entertained’ the inmates on my hospital ward with a spirited reenactment of the beheading of Mary Queen of Scots, complete with her little
dog (a stand-in teddy bear) hidden under her skirts. When my parents came in to see me the next day, the matron took them to one side and told them crossly that I’d given several small patients nightmares. Thanks, Mum!

Secondly, I’d like to thank my friends, who have been almost as amazed and excited as me at the prospect of
The Jade Boy
’s publication. I’d particularly like to thank the Wells family and my ‘nodson’ Henry Wells, who was the first person to be frightened by Count Cazalon. Henry read the initial version of
The Jade Boy
and made some very clever comments.

Thirdly, I am enormously grateful (and slightly in awe of) the team at Templar Towers, who have been so fantastic to work with. I must mention lovely commissioning editor Helen Boyle, who fished me out of the slush pile, my brilliant editor Emma Goldhawk, whose forensic eye for detail made Jem really shine, and designer Will Steele for knowing exactly what I saw.

Will also commissioned the amazing cover by award-winning artist Levi Pinfold. When I first saw his stunning artwork, I couldn’t believe how beautifully sinister and right it was!

My mum’s favourite period in history was the Tudor age. I love that era too, but as a teenager, I decided that I would make the seventeenth century – and especially the colourful, roisterous, fancily dressed reign of King Charles II – my particular enthusiasm.

I hope this book might inspire you to ‘adopt’ an era yourself.