The Passage to Mythrin 2-Book Bundle (37 page)

“— but they don't want to hurt Mara any more than I do.”

“Strange friends.” Ty looked from face to face. “Can I really trust you?”

Simon looked back at him. “Can
we
trust
you
?”

“It was Pier, I'm totally certain.” Ike had been the one to spot the tiny figure with the mop of bright-red hair pacing up King Street. Even from the top of the Hammer Block, there was no mistaking that single-minded walk. You'd think she was being reeled in on a cable.

When they reached the street, at first Simon thought they'd lost her again. Then Amelia flung out a pointing finger. “There!” Past Dunning Street and halfway along
the next block, on the south side of King, a small redtopped kid stepped inside the doorway of a narrow shop. “I think it's the …”

“Tattoo parlour,” Simon finished. He watched the roofline of the shops on the south side as they ran, which caused him to stumble and nearly fall, twice. Nothing moved up there, so far as he could see. But with dragons, you never knew.

Inside the shop, they jostled to a halt and stood in an uneasy cluster, shushing each other. The door swung closed behind them. The lamp at the small table was off. Beyond the first few yards, everything was dark. The air was dead and smelled of stale pizza and chemicals.

Ty sniffed. “Somebody is here.”

“Where's the tattoo guy?” Ike picked up a cardboard sign from behind the door. “Look!” He held it up to the window. Somebody had printed on it in large letters, with a thick red marker: GONE CAMPING. CLOSED JUNE 27 to JULY 3.

“June 27? But that was yesterday.” Amelia stared at the sign. “So who was that this morning, doing the tattooing?”

“Guess,” Ty growled.

“But you were right in the shop! And you didn't know?”

“He is good. I said so. Old and strong and skilled.”

Simon took a step into the darkness and kicked something that rolled. He pushed it aside, then bent to pick it up. It looked like a small barrel, only it was made of dark, polished wood covered with little silver plaques, most of them engraved with names. It was the base of the Hec Manning Trophy. The cup was gone, leaving behind a round, silver collar that the bottom of the cup must have fitted into. The collar was bent.

Ty sniffed again and walked towards the back of the shop, threading his way with ease. Amelia followed close at his heels. Simon carried the trophy base and fumbled and bumped through the dark after Ike.

Near the back, Ty pushed open a door at the side and they crowded in after him. It was the kitchen. A window in the south wall let in a dim, pinkish light. Pier stared back at them from the middle of the small square of greasy floor. When she saw Ty she backed against the stove, ducked her head, and looked at him out of the corners of her eyes.

“It is not here, see?” She showed her empty hands. “I thought it was here, but it's not.”

“We found this.” Simon held up the base.

“Yes. That is all there is.” She watched them sideways, but didn't move.

Ty moved his head back and forth and sniffed like a dog. “There is someone else.”

They all looked around. The kitchen was a small room over-filled with a huge steel oven and refrigerator and dishwasher, and a big table for rolling out pizza dough. Packages of flour and paper towels and coffee and other supplies stuffed the space under the table and piled up on almost every other surface.

“There's nobody else here. There's no room for them.” Amelia wrinkled her nose. “Stinks!”

Ike sniffed. “That could just be us.”

“No.” Ty kept turning, looking. Pier watched him from under her white lashes.

“The place is full,” Simon began. But then he noticed something: the one place where nothing was stored was the top of the big steel fridge. That was strange. At home, there was always something on top of the fridge. Cereal boxes, tea, cookbooks. “Except there.” He pointed.

Ty walked over to the fridge. He stopped a long stride away from it. Pier clenched her hands. “Nothing,” he said.

“Then where …,” Amelia began.

“Nothing. To hide something.”

“Huh?”

“Riddles,” Pier said. “Lies and riddles.”

“No, little ardin. Not this time.” He glared at the wall. “I can,” he muttered. “I will!”

With a sudden lunge, he reached up and in above the fridge, and his hands disappeared into what looked like empty air, and then his arms disappeared. He made a snarling noise deep in his throat.

“Ty?” Amelia jumped to his side. “Are you okay?”

“I am excellent!” he hissed. His shoulders tightened, and he stepped back, pulling. A blond head flopped into view, then a leather-covered arm, then a leg covered in ripped denim with a boot on the end of it.

Erwin nestled in Ty's arms like a baby. He was singing to himself, but Simon didn't hear a tune. Erwin held the silver cup by the handles close to his chest.

Ty's knees buckled. He let his burden slide to the floor, but he didn't back away. “Take it!” he hissed at Amelia. His eyes were squeezed shut, his head turned away.

Pier fell to her knees and grabbed, but not fast enough. Amelia was already there, prying Erwin's fingers off the silver handles. She stood up, holding the cup. “Got it!” she whooped.

Pier went moon-white under her neon-red mop. She gave Simon one piercing look. He felt terrible.

Ike knelt down and peered into Erwin's face. “What's the matter with him?”

“We have to do something,” Simon said. “Take him somewhere.”

“Hospital,” Amelia said from behind him.

“But the cup!” Pier reached for it.

“No!” Amelia swatted her hand away.

Ike reached, too. “Give it to Simon and me. We're like the UN. We're neutral.”

Amelia backed to the doorway. “Nobody takes this off me!”

Pier hovered at her elbow. “What will you do with it?”

“If I knew, I sure wouldn't tell you!”

Ty stood up, easily this time, with Erwin in his arms. “To hospital, then.” He started for the kitchen door, then stopped. “What is hospital?”

“It's that building where sick people go to get healed,” Amelia said. “We saw it today, remember? On Gwyn Street, south of the river. The big H on top?”

“Good. To the place of healing with you, my friend.”

Simon blundered after them through the dark shop, with the bottom half of the Hec Manning Trophy under his arm. They filed out the back door into the light of a bright pink-and-orange sunset. This time they saw there was a door in the fence, so they didn't have to climb it.

They followed the lane behind the shops eastward until it came out on Dunning. Ike leaned out, then leaped back into the alley. “Cops!” he hissed. An OPP cruiser rolled past northward.

“Ike, for heavens sake, stop!” Amelia said. “The police aren't after us now.”

“Oh, no?”

“He's right,” Simon said. “Look at us.” They looked at each other. The tall punk carrying another punk, the one who had stolen the Hec Manning Trophy. Amelia and Simon carrying the trophy itself in two halves. And, hanging back at the rear, a homeless kid with neon-red hair.

“We'd be the catch of the day,” Ike said.

“I will take Erwin to hospital by myself,” Ty said. “These police don't want me.”

“And I'll find somewhere to hide this thing.” Amelia tried a different hold on the cup. “It's heavy, just like I thought.”

“Of course it is heavy.” Pier stared at the cup. “Heavy with power.” Amelia kept turning away from her, and Pier kept sidling to keep the cup in sight.

“Best you went home, little ardin,” Ty said to Pier. “Your time is almost up.” He turned towards the street, but Ike caught him by the arm.

“Time? Up? What d'you mean?”

“Time till the humans must be gone from Mythrin. She will want to be with her people.” He narrowed his eyes at Simon. “See, I mean her no harm. I am being fair. Like the chief.”

“Yes, but they have till tomorrow around noon, right?”

“Right,” Amelia put in. “A turn of the moon is twenty days, you said. That's —”

Ty was shaking his head. “The chief said until the rise of the full moon.”

“Yes, but the last moon ….” Amelia chewed her lip.

“The last moon you saw there was six days past full. So the next full moon rises …,” Ty's amber gaze deepened to orange as he worked it out, “… today. Tonight. I think.”

Ike slapped his pockets and fished out a small notebook and pen.

“But not to fear.” Ty stepped out into the street and looked back at them. “The chief does not love death. She will not make war unless there is no other way out.” He hoisted his burden and headed down the street towards the bridge.

“But suppose there
is
no other way out?” Simon called, but Ty was out of earshot.

“Tonight when?” Ike scribbled busily. “Say the full moon rises at sunset there like it does here … fourteen days … times ….” He checked his watch, scribbled some more. Then looked up brightly. “If it's today, it happens about two hours from now, Earth time. That's if our ten-to-one time difference is right. It may not be exactly ten to one — that bit needs some serious computing power. Wish I had some!”

Pier looked at her empty hands, then up at Simon. “I cannot do much at all, can I? For I have failed. But at
least, see, I can help with this.” She eased the trophy's base from under his arm.

“But you don't have to —”

She got a good grip on the bottom rim, took two steps, whirled, and whammed the heavy wooden cylinder across the back of Amelia's head. Ammy fell to her knees and dropped the cup. It bounced. Pier scooped it up and darted into the street.

“Ammy!” Simon yelled.

She sat up and pushed away their anxious hands. “I'm — ow — I'm all right! Get after her!” She swayed as she sat there. “Don't let her use that thing on Mara!”

“You stay,” Simon told Ike, and he jumped up and raced after Pier. North on Dunning Street, across King — she hadn't waited for the light, and the car horns were blaring. Someone yelled, and Simon glanced right, towards the Hammer Block, and there was Oscar Vogelsang stepping out of the
Independent
office. Oscar beckoned and shouted, and Simon waved back and pounded onward.

She's too fast. I've lost her.
But no, there she was, half a block ahead. The setting sun lit her up like a flying red bird as she crossed Queen Street and started across the public-school grounds. Then the tree shadows swallowed her.

Simon thought he could guess where she was headed, though not why.
If I'm right, there's a chance.
A chain­
link fence bordered the public-school grounds westward along McNairn, as far as Duke Street. She'd have to climb it, or go all the way around the west end. That might slow her down. He veered to the right around the east side of the school where there was no fence, raced across McNairn, and headed north on Cameron, then west on Hill Street.

It was all uphill now. He blinked sweat from his eyes.
If I'm wrong, this'll be all for nothing!

No sign of Pier on Hill Street, but — Simon grabbed a look as he crossed Ferrin — that could be her down there, the small figure dashing up the street from the south end.

The hill grew steeper as he panted up Elgin Crescent. When he reached Mr. Manning's house the big old station wagon was in the driveway. Not good.
But with any luck he'll never know we were here.

Simon thumped along the side of the house, stopped halfway, and collapsed in the shade of a lilac bush. He thought he might be sitting on some kind of plant with thorns. But he was too wiped to move.

He just had time to catch his breath and blot his dripping face with the hem of his T-shirt, and to think:
She almost bashed Ammy's head in to get this thing. What does she think it will do, really? What does she want it to be?

Light feet drummed on pavement, then on grass. He stood up and caught Pier in mid-flight. The collision knocked them into a tangle of arms and legs in the bushes. The cup whacked Simon across the mouth. He tasted blood.

He got a grip on one of its handles with one hand and on Pier's right arm with the other hand. She was struggling to get up and pull the cup away from him.

“Pier, stop! Stop and think!”

“Think?” She sank down again. “Think of what? Of how the dragons killed my family? How they burned my mother and father to death? And my baby brother? Of how they killed Seeker Kwan? How they
ate
him?”

“Ate? But dragons don't —”

“Who told you they don't? A dragon? You
trust
dragons?” She yanked at the cup. He held on.

“Look — what are you going to do with this? Ammy says ….” He stopped and stared into Pier's face. She wasn't smiling. Her eyes were like silver lamps.

“I am going to save my people,” she said quietly.

“Yes, but …”

“A sword in the heart. In all their hearts. That is what Wayland Smith made it for.”

“But ….” He heard running feet in the street again and glanced that way, and that was all Pier needed. She punched him in the nose hard enough to make him
loosen his hold on the cup. While he was clutching at his nose, she leaped up and away.

Simon surged up into the pathway beside the house just as Ike ran past. They crashed and fell into another heap. The base of the trophy, which Ike had been carrying, slammed into Simon's stomach and drove all the air from his lungs. He lay there wheezing for ten precious seconds. Then he staggered to his feet and burst out of the path and into the backyard with Ike so close at his heels they were tripping each other.

Pier stood at the edge of the stone patio, a few long strides in front of them, with the cup clutched to her chest. She was looking into Mr. Manning's huge, green-shadowed backyard.