Attack
Teren slept in Christopher’s bed that night.
Christopher slept on the floor next to him.
Teren breathed softly in his sleep. Sometimes in the darkness he murmured sudden bursts of words, in three dozen languages.
Once, he gave a cry of fear, and his small hand reached down, seeking protection.
Christopher reached his hand up, and they fell asleep like that, like brothers, infinity and mortality hand in hand.
In the morning Ratwin toasted bread over the kitchen fire and they had a makeshift breakfast. Anya poured milk for Teren, and Jacques perched on his chubby toddler shoulder.
Irian would be home soon, Christopher told himself as he cut the toast into strips for Teren. Nighthand had taken charge. He would bring Irian back and life would return to happy normality. It was over now. But his heart didn’t unknot.
The leshoki flew into the room in the shape of Jacques. It knocked the jam on to the floor and laughed as it smashed.
They were stacking the plates and wiping Teren’s face clean of jam when there was a sudden bird-high scream. Gallia flew in as if she had been shot from a gun. She was crying out as she came.
‘Bandits! Bandits! Anya! Christopher! Bandits!’
Christopher was on his feet, his hand reaching out for Teren. ‘What?’
‘There’s a boat on the horizon. It’s sailing due east towards us. I flew out past the fendthorn and I saw them. Bandits! Eleven masked men and women! They wear the bracelets of the snake upon their wrists! They are coming!’
Christopher’s stomach dropped away. ‘But they can’t get in,’ he said. ‘They can’t get past the fendthorn.’
‘Come!’ Gallia’s usually guttural voice was high with horror. ‘Come and see!’
Christopher lifted Teren in both arms and sprinted up the stairs, Anya darting ahead, to the telescope that had been installed on top of the Star Tower.
She set her eye to the lens. ‘I see them! They’re coming straight at us!’ she said.
Christopher looked. He could see the wind in the sails. The boat was moving fast.
‘But we’re safe!’ said Anya. She looked wildly at him. ‘They can’t get through the Hercules thorn! So even if they try—’
‘The what?’ Christopher’s head came round with a snap. ‘What did you call it?’
‘The fendthorn! That’s its other name, the Hercules thorn.’
Christopher felt a terrible thought rising in him, but he beat it back. ‘Why is it called that?’
Anya stared at him. ‘It’s not important! They’re coming now, Christopher!’
‘Tell me why it’s called the Hercules thorn. Because it’s as strong as Hercules?’
‘I don’t know! Something about Hercules making the thorn as his thirteenth Labour! Does it matter?’
Christopher kept his eyes on the boat. His breath began to come fast. ‘Anya. Can you list the tasks of Hercules?’
‘Of course,’ said Anya. ‘Even toddlers can!’
‘Do it. Please.’
‘He had to slay a Nemean lion and a hydra. He had to capture an Erymanthian boar, a Cretan bull and the Diomedian mares. He had to clean the Augean stables, defeat the stymphalian birds, steal the cattle of the giant Geryon, catch the Ceryneian hind –’ her voice slowed – ‘win the Belt of Hippolyta –’ she was very white now – ‘steal the golden apples from the Garden of the Hesperides …’
‘And bring back Cerberus from the underworld,’ said Christopher. He stared at her.
‘The Sailsman said Cretan bulls had been slaughtered,’ said Anya. ‘The pirates in Freondell – they said the Augean stables had been ransacked.’ Her eyes widened. ‘And at the race … those men were talking about a herd of stolen Geryonian cattle!’
‘Did your father say … how Hercules bred the thorn?’
There was a small cough; a very small cough.
‘The Spina herculis,’ said a voice from near his ankles, ‘also known as the Hercules thorn or fendthorn, is said by scholars to be practically unbreakable. I looked it up in the Ferox Library.’
‘Meri!’ The mouse crouched at their feet on the stones of the tower.
‘I hope you don’t mind, dear sir, and highness, that I followed you here – just in case I might be permitted to assist.’
‘Meri,’ said Christopher urgently. ‘Tell us everything you know. What do you mean, practically unbreakable?’
‘The twelve tasks of Hercules were not random. They were designed to give him the ingredients he needed to grow the fendthorn. He bred it from soil enriched by the products of the Twelve Labours, and in doing so he ensured that its power could be broken only by that same concoction of the twelve tasks. A snippet of hair from the Ceryneian hind, a pinch of manure from the Augean stables, and so on. Hercules believed that nobody could rival him and that defeating the thorn was essentially impossible, and so it has proved over thousands of years. Hence the term “practically unbreakable”.’
‘But it could be done?’
‘Yes, technically, but only if you had something from each of the Labours of Hercules. That is unthinkable! The golden apple alone, dear sir, would be death to those who sought it!’
Christopher’s whole body was flooded with understanding. It was like waking from a dream into sudden icy clarity.
‘Anya. What if … all this … everything we did … What if it didn’t have anything to do with Irian? And what if it had nothing to do with how valuable the apple is, or the belt or the whiskers?’
Anya was becoming angry. ‘They’re the most valuable things in Glimouria! People kill for them! What’s more valuable than that?’
Her eyes followed his. Teren was sitting in a corner of the tower, tracing strange patterns in the stone with one finger. He looked very young, a smear of dust on his cheek. The certainty darted through Christopher like a bolt of steel.
‘The Immortal.’
It had all been for the Immortal. All of it, right from the beginning. The pieces fell into place in front of him; it was like wiping dust from a picture and seeing it clearly and whole.
‘It was all one piece. It looked like a dozen different things, but it was one.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Astor Morax never cared about Irian. She’s just a decoy. To get Nighthand away from here.’
It had all been a front, a pretence, a game. It had been no more real than the leshoki-Ratwin. It had been a trap, and they had run so eagerly, so keenly into it.
‘Why did Senan bring Teren here?’ he said. ‘Because her father was killed and her mother wounded. Who did that? The Astorian bandits.’
Understanding was dawning on Anya. ‘Oh!’ She looked stricken.
‘Teren and his mother were in hiding with the sphinxes. Morax didn’t know where Teren was, but he knew who he was. So his bandits could find his family, and kill his grandfather. He knew Senan would come out of hiding, to go to her mother.’
‘And he knew that she would leave Teren with Nighthand on Glimt!’ said Anya. ‘She had no other choice. Morax was smoking them out!’ And her mouth become an O of fury. ‘And my father went with her! He made it even easier!’
‘And Morax knew, if his men kidnapped Irian, we would do whatever they told us. So he made us bring him what he needed …’
‘To break through the fendthorn!’ she spat. ‘The fendthorn my father grew and cared for!’
‘And somehow he must have known that if he took Irian, Nighthand would go. She’s the only person in the world he would leave Teren for.’
‘No!’ Anya shook her head, her mouth rigid. ‘No, no, no!’
‘It was nothing to do with us,’ said Christopher. ‘It was nothing to do with ransoms, or apples. All of it was a trap. It was a way to lure every adult off Glimt, and break through the barrier. All of it – everything they’ve done – was for Teren.’
‘And now …’
‘And now they’re coming.’
Anya went to Teren. She crouched next to the Immortal, eye to eye with him. Christopher had no doubt at all that he had understood.
‘I’m sorry, Teren,’ said Anya. ‘We’ve put you in terrible danger.’
Christopher set his eye back to the lens of the telescope. At the prow of the boat was a man. He could see the flash of red hair.
‘That man – Darius. He’s the one who took Irian.’ He thought of the man’s brutality. It shook him into action. Every second the bandits and their vicious weapons and their skill at killing sailed closer.
‘We need the Gardai!’ he said. ‘We have to send a message to Lithia asking for help. Gallia, will you go?’
‘They won’t get here in time,’ said Gallia. ‘They need to mobilise a ship, and the wind is against them.’
‘Go anyway. We’ll hold them off for as long as we can.’ Christopher lifted Teren into his arms and took a deep breath. ‘Anya, can you get Ratwin and Jacques and do a sweep across the palace for weapons? Run. I’ll take Teren and do the same. We meet in the library in ten minutes.’