The Wings of Ruksh (19 page)

Had the courier not been late that morning with the promised dispatches from Paris, Louis de Charillon would have arrived earlier at the grey, stone town house in Moray Place and the drama that was to follow might have turned out very
differently
indeed. On such small turns of fortune do great events sometimes hang.

As it was, the count hastily signed the courier’s receipt and rang Ned Stuart to say that he was on his way with the
documents
. He looked at his watch briefly as he jumped into his car and headed for Moray Place. Almost a quarter to three. He hoped he wouldn’t make Ned too late for his meeting.

“Louis, you brought them!” There was no mistaking Stuart’s relief and gratitude as he took him into the study, slit open the package and ran his eyes over the papers. “These will make all the difference,” he said, leafing through them delightedly. “I must admit, I was getting rather nervous about the time — I should have left a good five minutes ago. I hope they’ll forgive me for being a bit late!”

“I won’t keep you, Ned,” de Charillon smiled, loosening his coat and perching on the arm of a chair. He laid his gloves on a side table as Stuart passed him one of the documents.

“This one … this is the most important one,” Stuart said, bending over him “you see, this proves the relationship …”

The sudden shriek of sound that filled the room stopped him in mid-sentence. It was a dreadful, horrible noise. If the souls of the dead had cried from their graves the sound could not have been more fearful.

“What on earth was that noise?” gasped de Charillon, looking instinctively towards the window.

Stuart stood beside him, frozen to the ground, his face a stony mask.

“I … I’m sorry, Louis,” he said, jerking suddenly back to the present, “something’s … er, just cropped up … I’m sorry, but really you’ll have to leave,” and, grasping him firmly by the elbow, Stuart almost frog-marched the startled count from the house.

Standing outside the front door and gazing around in a
mixture
of puzzlement and rising anger, for he was not used to such treatment, the count could see no reason for the dreadful noise. Indeed, Moray Place was reassuringly normal. Shivering in the cold, he fastened his coat and then realized to his annoyance that he had left his gloves inside the house.

Pursing his lips and cursing silently at being put in such a position, he hesitated to knock at the door after what had just happened and then noticed that in his haste to get him out of the house, Stuart had not shut it properly. Taking a deep breath, he pushed it open and seeing no one in the hall, ventured inside. They were, after all, an expensive pair of gloves and it would only take a few seconds to retrieve them. Feeling decidedly uncomfortable and a bit like a burglar, he tiptoed towards the study and, through its open door, was just in time to see Ned Stuart walk clean through one of the huge wall-mirrors that were fixed on either side of the window.

As he stepped into the room on the other side of the mirror, Prince Kalman stopped dead, his face a mask of disbelief as he saw the little group clustered round the crown. Rothlan froze at the sight of him and the others turned; absolutely
thunder-struck
at his sudden appearance!

Slim, elegant and handsome in a dark, beautifully-cut suit, his fair hair caught in a velvet bow at the nape of his neck and a square emerald glinting on his finger; he stood before them; the epitome of regal majesty.

It was obvious from his expression that he had not expected
them to be in the tower. His amazement, however, showed only for an instant and quickly regaining his composure he favoured Lord Rothlan and Lady Ellan with a low bow before striding towards the crown.

“My dear Alasdair,” he purred, his hands running in relief over the priceless rubies that were stuck all over the crown like plums in a pudding, “how very nice to see you again, after all this time.”

Rothlan’s eyes narrowed speculatively as he bowed in return. “The pleasure, Kalman, is all yours,” he returned coldly.

The prince’s face lost its affability, his expression changing swiftly to one of undisguised dislike. “As you know, Rothlan,” he drawled insolently, “you’ve never been one of my favourite people.” He paused, eying them all in turn. “And honesty
compels
me to point out that I didn’t invite you here — neither you nor your friends! In fact,” he said dryly, “it was just as well that you hexed the forest for it warned me of your arrival and at least gave me the opportunity of welcoming you to my humble abode.”

Rothlan shrugged. “We didn’t come here to enjoy your hospitality, Kalman, as you well know. We came to return the Sultan’s Crown to its rightful owner.”

The prince’s chin lifted as his fingers tightened round the crown. “Ah, but it’s mine now,” he said with a smile, “and with its power, Scotland will soon become one of the greatest nations in the world and …”

“And your friends the French?” interrupted Rothlan
contemptuously
. “Where do they come into the scheme of things?”

“Ah, the French!” Kalman gestured elegantly. “You are wrong to despise them, Rothlan,” he said, mocking him gently. “They are, after all, a people of culture, elegance and grace.”

“So are the Scots,” countered Rothlan, “or have you forgotten that you are one of the Lords of the North? Why don’t you give the crown back to the Turkish Sultan and bring back the old days of trust and friendship between us.”

“Are you, by any chance, suggesting that I live a quiet life, Alasdair?” Kalman’s lips sneered and his eyes hooded as he shook his head in mock amusement. “Don’t be so naïve! I’ve spent years planning all this and I’m not going to give it up now!” He cradled the crown lovingly. “And for what?” he sneered. “My father and I decided long ago that the only thing worth having in this world is power and once I’m King of Scotland, I’ll be able to do anything! Anything I please!” He smiled at the prospect. “And Scotland, I assure you, will only be the beginning! Such a pity, isn’t it, that you and your friends will not be around to see my rise to power in the world — for I have great plans for the future, I assure you!”

When he saw Ned Stuart walk clean through the huge wall-
mirror
in his study, Louis de Charillon’s eyes had very nearly popped out of his head. He stopped dead in his tracks, totally confused, as his brain told him what he had seen but his reason utterly rejected such an impossible occurrence.

Indeed, so intrigued was he that, after a quick glance round to check that no one was about, he walked up to the mirror and rather hesitantly touched the glass with his hands. It felt solid enough and, scanning the surrounds, he decided that it certainly didn’t seem to be a door. As he stood looking at it in puzzled wonder, quite sure that he had not been mistaken in what he had just seen, he ran his hands over the ornate frame and felt one of the carved flowers slip gently under his fingers. He turned it curiously, thinking it was, perhaps, some sort of handle but as nothing happened he shrugged and, rather belatedly remembering that he was, after all, in someone else’s house, he picked up his gloves and hastily left the study.

A shiver of cold air reminded him that he’d left the front door open and as he drew on his gloves, he saw Sir James Erskine in the hall with a pretty girl beside him. There was nothing remarkable about this except that his senses told him that not two seconds previously they had both been pigeons!

He broke into a cold sweat as he realized that his brain was not functioning quite as it should. People walking through mirrors and pigeons turning into people rang enough warning bells in his ordered mind to turn him white with shock. He felt his legs buckle under him and as he staggered suddenly, they rushed to catch him.

“Careful, Louis!” said Sir James, grasping his arm and steadying him. “Clara … help me get him into the study.”

“I … I’m all right, James,” de Charillon muttered weakly as they helped him to a chair. “It’s just that … I … just for a moment, I thought you were … pigeons!”

Clara smiled at him reassuringly. “There were some in the hall when we came in but maybe the sun was in your eyes,” she said, blithely ignoring the fact that it was a dull, sunless, winter’s day.

The count smiled thinly, not at all convinced, but rose and shook hands with them cordially enough as Sir James
introduced
Clara. “Have … have you come to see Stuart?” he asked, turning to Sir James.

“After a fashion,” nodded Sir James. “We were worried that he might be late for his meeting. He hasn’t gone yet, has he? His car is still outside.”

De Charillon took a deep breath. “You’ll never believe this,” he said, walking over to the mirror, “but the last I saw of him, he was walking through this mirror!”

Sir James and Clara both straightened in horror as he
casually
clicked one of the carvings round a couple of times. “I thought that the mirror might be some sort of door,” he said, “and that this might be a handle, but it doesn’t seem to do anything.”

Sir James spoke through lips that had gone suddenly stiff. “No, it doesn’t, does it.”

“I don’t think it can be a door anyway,” Clara said
consideringly
, her eyes still round with shock, “it’s … it’s on an outside wall.”

“You’re right, of course,” smiled the count somewhat shakily. “I think I must have imagined it all. Really, if you don’t mind, I’m feeling a bit confused. I … I ought to be getting along now.”

Two perfectly ordinary pigeons were fluttering aimlessly round the hall as they made their way towards the door.

“Oh, look! They can’t get out, poor things,” Clara said, flapping her hands at them. De Charillon, nevertheless, threw them a glance of deep suspicion as she opened the door wide and shooed them into the street.

The count bowed formally as he said goodbye but his mind was racing. He was not a fool and knew perfectly well that something quite out of the ordinary was going on, but for the life of him he couldn’t quite work out what — and as magic didn’t for a second enter into his calculations, he put his car into gear and headed for home, none the wiser.

From the moment the prince had stepped through the mirror into the tower, Rothlan had kept the prince talking in the hope that Neil would remember the magic words that would free the crown from Kalman’s power. Neil, however, remained silent and as the prince eyed them all speculatively, Rothlan was forced to turn and look at the white-faced boy who stood, pale and staring vacantly, by his side.

Prince Kalman followed his glance and gave an ugly laugh as his astute brain told him what had happened.

“So the Sultan didn’t trust you, Alasdair!” he gloated. “He trusted a couple of children instead! How very galling for you, my dear! And the boy has the sickness of the forest on him.”

Rothlan’s heart sank. He glanced hopelessly at Ellan who, still clutching her broomstick, had turned her head to look at the top of the staircase. Jaikie, too, seemed distracted by a light, rustling noise but at the prince’s words, both looked at Neil and the Ranger and shook their heads slightly. It was obvious that they were totally oblivious to what was going on around them. They had lost their memories and the sickness of the trees was raging within them.

The Prince lifted the crown from its stand and, holding it triumphantly in the curve of his arm, seemed to grow in stature. “You chose a rather inopportune moment to try to steal my crown,” he said casually, “but as you doubtless know, I have quite an important meeting to attend this afternoon. I’m late already and as I’ve no intention of missing it you will forgive me if I hex you out of this world, won’t you?”

Rothlan vaguely heard the rustling noise become louder but, totally absorbed by Kalman’s words, he ignored it. His lips
tightened to a thin line in the knowledge that his magic was powerless against that of the crown and as bleak despair shaded his eyes, Kalman lifted his arm to hex them. Meeting the
courage
in Rothlan’s eyes, however, he hesitated, realizing with a stab of anguish that over the years he had allowed his jealousy of Rothlan to cloud his judgement. They had been friends as boys. It shouldn’t end like this, he thought suddenly and as their eyes held, he hesitated to speak the words of the hex.

It was his undoing, for it was then that the goblins arrived. Forced into the light from their deep dens in the roots of the forest, they had headed in a maddened rush for the darkness of the tower. Half-blind and driven almost insane by the sunlight, they rose in a rustling, rippling tide up its narrow, spiral
staircase
and streamed into the topmost room in a flood of dry,
disgusting
, stinking bodies. Kalman, totally unprepared for such an invasion, turned in surprise as, totally disorientated, they rushed in, roaring and slobbering horribly, their razor-sharp fingernails like daggers.

“Hit the ceiling,” shouted Rothlan as he kicked out at the goblins that were tearing at his cloak. No one needed a second telling, even Neil and the Ranger, sick as they were, flew up out of the goblins’ reach. Two of them, however, managed to grasp Jaikie’s broomstick as he lifted off the ground and despite his efforts to shake them off, they clung on determinedly. Kicking out at them in a frantic attempt to break their grasp, Jaikie was so busy trying to fend them off that he totally forgot to look where he was going and, in the excitement of the moment, accidentally flew clean through one of the mirrors — goblins and all!

Emerging in Kalman’s study in Moray Place, Jaikie swerved instinctively to avoid hitting someone standing in his way and, to his amazement, found that it was Sir James that he’d almost knocked to the ground.

As the surprised goblins released their hold and he swept round the unfamiliar room, he realized what must have
happened
and saw, to his joy, that it not only contained Sir James, but Clara as well!

Relief flooded through him. Help was at hand.

Clara gulped as Jaikie and two huge, ugly green creatures that stank to the heavens, blasted their way through the mirror, causing Sir James to duck hastily. She didn’t know that they were goblins; it was enough that they were horrible, monstrous things with red eyes and long teeth that curved from slavering mouths. Their skin, gnarled and knobbly like the bark of very old trees, hung off them in folds and rustled dryly as they hopped around trying to catch Jaikie, who by this time was hovering near the ceiling, dodging round the crystals of an ornate chandelier in an effort to escape their claw-like fingers.

Scrambling to his feet, Sir James shoved Clara towards the door before grabbing a shovel from the fireplace and entering the fray.

“Be careful you don’t go through the other mirror,” Clara yelled at Jaikie as he whizzed round the room with the goblins dancing with rage below him, “the setting’s been altered!”

“Chase the goblins through it if you can then,” Jaikie said, circling the room.

Sir James solved the problem by stepping forward, hitting both the surprised goblins over the head with the shovel and chucking them both through the mirror. Before they could come back, Jaikie flew down and, with a sigh of relief, twisted the rose-shaped carving.

“Thank goodness!” he said, as he locked the mirror firmly. “Now they can’t get back in!”

Sir James, tie askew and panting with exertion, dropped the shovel. “What the devil is going on, Jaikie?” he demanded.

“It’s a disaster!” whispered Jaikie, running his hand through his hair. “A complete and utter disaster! Neil’s lost his memory, Kalman has the crown and we’re being attacked by those
goblins
from the magic forest!”

“Neil’s lost his memory?” Clara gasped.

“Yes,” Jaikie nodded. “Clara, I know it’s dangerous but only you know the magic words. You’ve got to come with me through the mirror!”

“We’ll both come,” Sir James said grimly, taking Clara’s hand. “You go first, Jaikie, and we’ll follow.”

Magnified endlessly by the circle of mirrors, the scene that met their eyes seemed one of total carnage. While Rothlan, Lady Ellan and the others hovered high above them, Kalman was hexing the goblins frantically but even though their bodies littered the room, a seemingly unending tide of newcomers welled up from the staircase, clambering unheedingly over the bodies of their comrades, to join in the fight.

Rothlan gasped with relief as he saw Clara and Sir James step through one of the mirrors and realizing that the situation had changed for the better, promptly threw a few hexes of his own to quell the goblins.

Prince Kalman looked at him in surprise and then swung round as he saw the newcomers.

Clara’s arrival stopped him in his tracks. He froze as she stepped towards him and although she met his cold, blue eyes bravely, she quailed at the power that radiated from him. He was every inch a king despite his scratched face and torn clothes; and he still held the crown.

“Ah!” he said, an odd expression on his face, “so you
survived
, did you? That was my mistake! I should have finished you off with Kitor!”

Clara flinched at his words and, before he could hex her, spoke the Sultan’s magic words: “
Kutaya Soloi
.”

They came clearly and easily to her lips and such were the ringing tones of the spell that even the goblins stopped in their tracks and looked at her in amazement.

Her words were accompanied by a sudden, tremendous bang and a flash of light that stunned them all. Understanding dawned as, before their astonished eyes, the Turkish Sultan
materialized in all his finery with his entourage behind him.

The goblins took one look at the sharp, curved scimitars of the Sultan’s guards and decided wisely that, at this stage of the proceedings, discretion was undoubtedly the better part of
valour
. They exchanged speaking glances and then, very quietly, eased themselves out of the room, fled down the staircase and were never seen or heard of again.

Such was the charged atmosphere in the room of mirrors, however, that no one noticed them go. The prince stood rigid, paralysed with fear, as the Sultan approached him and, with a stern face, took the crown from his nerveless fingers. “My crown, I think!” he said in a voice of iron.

The prince’s lips closed in a thin, hard line and his eyes were bleak as his dreams of power and grandeur collapsed around him. Rothlan and Lady Ellan looked at one another apprehensively, knowing that the Sultan’s punishment would be both fitting and fairly dreadful. Kalman knew it, too, and as the power of the crown drained from him and reverted to the Sultan, he was left increasingly bereft and defenceless. He did not lack courage, however, and even as his features
weakened
and his personality diminished, he tried desperately to hide his fear and keep the remains of his dignity.

It was Amgarad, however, who forced him into his final, fatal move; for, hearing the noise of battle emanating from the tower, he had flown down to defend his master. Swooping like an avenging angel through the window, Amgarad, instead, came face to face with the prince; the prince who, until recently, had condemned him to live for years in the filthy body of a monstrous bird.

Recognition was instant and such was his hatred of Kalman that he launched himself on him with a scream of fury. The prince staggered back under the onslaught, trying to protect his eyes from Amgarad’s raking talons. It was the knowledge that he couldn’t shake him off, as well as the realization that not one of those present would do anything to help him, that made him
turn towards the mirrors.

“Damn you! Damn you all!” he screamed, and, turning
suddenly
, he threw himself into the mirror behind him.

Jaikie, always quick off the mark, rushed forward and, with a quick twist, turned the carving that locked the mirror. Sweat dripped from him as he laid his face against the glass and slid down to his knees, shaking at what he had achieved and hardly able to believe that he had been in time.

Sir James finally broke the silence. “I … I don’t think Prince Kalman will trouble us any more,” he said quietly. “Jaikie’s just trapped him between mirrors!”

“Has he, by God,” Rothlan said, his eyes sharp. “Then we must leave here at once before Ardray disintegrates! Quickly, everyone, through the other mirror! Ellan,” he turned to her, “quickly, gather up all the broomsticks, we can’t leave them here!”

As Rothlan urged Clara and Sir James back through the mirror, the Sultan walked over to Jaikie who was bent over the Ranger and Neil.

“Neil and the Ranger have both lost their memories, your majesty,” he said worriedly. “They lost their cloaks in the magic forest.”

The Sultan rested the crown on the Ranger’s head, then on Neil’s and spoke the words of a spell. Even as they watched, his magic words wrought a miracle. Colour flowed back into their white faces and their eyes brightened as the sickness of the trees left them. They barely had time to look around when the tower shivered and seemed to slip slightly. It was enough! Jaikie
hastily
grabbed them and hurried them through the mirror.

The Sultan, holding the crown before him like a talisman, turned to Lord Rothlan. “We have little time for discussion,” he said quickly, “for this accursed place will soon be gone. I will make my own way home from here and will be in touch with you later through the crystal.”

Rothlan nodded. “Your horses are safe, your majesty. They
served us well and you have our thanks.”

“And you have my thanks, Alasdair,” he said, “my very
grateful
thanks. Rest assured that I and the power of my crown will always be at your service.”

Another slight tremor shook the Black Tower of Ardray and knowing that the prince’s entire estate was about to disappear, Lord Rothlan bowed swiftly to the Sultan and, with Amgarad on his shoulder, stepped through the magic mirror into Ned Stuart’s study in Moray Place.

The Sultan, holding fast to the crown, muttered a few magic words and, seconds later, he and his entourage materialized beside a startled Hamish who, hearing the initial rumble of sound from Ardray and knowing what it portended, had jumped to his feet in alarm.

“They are all quite safe,” the Sultan told him quickly,
seeing
the fear in his eyes, “and, as you see, the crown has been returned to me.”

Hamish bowed low.

“And the prince, your majesty? Prince Kalman?”

“He is caught between mirrors and will not trouble us again.”

Hamish gave a sigh of relief.

The Sultan smiled. “I am taking my horses back to their stables at Ruksh,” he said. “The storm carriers will carry them there on the wings of the wind. And one of them will carry you back to your hill in Edinburgh. You will convey my regards to the MacArthur and inform him that I will be in touch with him soon. I have much to be grateful for!”

Hamish bowed again and watched as the storm carriers darkened the sky in hues of brown and purple and in a swirl of wind, gathered the horses in their great arms and bore them off.