During the night the waves grew rougher and higher. They broke over the prow and flooded the boat, forcing Lyla and Celeste to tie Chad and Swift to the mast and tie themselves and Lem to the benches. The next day was no better, nor was the second night or the third day and night. Each hour's sailing depended on a capricious wind that either blew so hard they feared it would capsize them, or didn't blow at all, leaving them to rise to the frothing peaks and drop into the troughs of the enormous oncoming waves.
Their food and water lasted two days then Swift was given the task of fishing. Cooking was impossible. All of them, including Splash, ate the fish raw washed down with dew collected each freezing night in their leather capes. The further west they sailed the more leaden became the sky, the wilder the sea, and the colder their noses, ears and hands. So it was with great joy on the fifth day that they saw, silhouetted against the evening sky, a huge pyramid of blue ice surrounded by swirling ice floes.
Suddenly, the wind that had fought them since they'd left Mussel Cove changed its mind. Filling their sail it shoved them into the floes that surrounded the boat and eventually halted it. Lyla swung the anchor wide, embedding it in the nearest floe, while the others pulled down the sail so that they could shelter beneath it.
Lem squeezed in between Chad and Lyla. `What's the plan?'
Lyla wrapped her cape around the three of them. `Edith said it was you that should go, so tomorrow two of us will go with you and two will stay with the boat to keep it moving so it doesn't freeze to the ice.'
`Which two? demanded Swift, who'd been complaining for days that he never got to do anything other than fish.
Lyla took the box of sulphur-tipped sticks out of the jewelled casket and broke one stick in half. Holding the two halves and two more sticks in her fist she held them out. `Short sticks go. Long sticks stay.'
Swift chose first. `I'm going.'
Celeste chose next. `I'm not.'
`I'm not either,' said Lyla.
`I am!' shouted Chad, his voice echoing hollowly back from somewhere high on the mountain.
`Ssshhh!' warned Lem. `This is not a game. Climbing up an ice mountain is going to be dangerous.'
`And we don't know how big the dragon is, or whether it has wings, or if it breathes fire,' said Swift, his dark brown eyes glittering with excitement.
`Or whether it is one of our parents,' said Chad nudging him. He clapped his hand over his mouth and glanced at Lyla with guilty eyes. `Sorry. It just slipped out.'
`What slipped out?' demanded Celeste. `What do you know, Lyla?'
Lyla glared at Chad before answering. `Sebastian said that the merwoman was royal. So maybe the dragon is too. Maybe one or both of them are our parents. But it's only a maybe.'
The idea that the ice dragon might be their mother or father silenced them all, until Lyla handed the box of sulphur-tipped sticks to Lem. `Take these and don't forget Edith's package, string and mirror. Chad and Swift, you take your packets too.'
Their sixth night on the boat passed slowly. The boys shivered as they slept and the girls, who were on guard, couldn't keep their teeth from chattering. Around them the floes bumped and ground together, while across their surfaces purple shadows danced like ghosts balancing on brittle icicle toe-shoes.
`Do you think anyone lives on the island, Cel?'
Celeste wriggled further under the sail for warmth. `No. Too cold.'
Then, as if to challenge her words, there came a series of eerie booming sounds followed by an unearthly howl of pain.
Celeste wriggled closer to Lyla.
`It's just the ice,' said Lyla, although she didn't believe that.
Neither did Celeste, who was thinking that the howl sounded like something in pain. She worried it might have come from the mocked ice dragon, who might be her enchanted mother, father, uncle or aunt.
`Lyla?'
`Yes.'
`Do you think about your mother and father very often?'
`Every day and every night.'
`Me too.'
In the morning they saw that the floes had rearranged themselves into a huge intricate jigsaw. It looked easy enough to cross, as long as no one tripped on the brown seaweed that had floated up during the night or fell into icy slush-filled gashes between the floes.
`When are we going?' demanded Swift, jigging up and down in front of Lem.
`Soon,' grunted a tired Lem. He scraped a handful of snow off the nearest floe and washed his face with it, shivering at the cold when he'd finished.
`Last night I dreamed about the dragon,' said Lyla uncurling herself stiffly from the sail. `It's somewhere inside Tartik Mountain. I saw it through the ice when I was dream-flying.'
Lem stared up at the pyramid-shaped mountain. `Did you see any way to get inside the mountain?'
`No. But there are caves three-quarters of the way up. I saw something else as well.' Lyla waited until they were all listening. `I saw white shadows circling the dragon.'
`There are no such things as white shadows. Shadows are black,' argued Lem.
`That's what I saw.'
They ate raw fish and packed what was left for the boys to take then, while Lyla held Nutty and Celeste held the tiller, the boys climbed onto the bobbing floes. They were travelling light with their swords and bows and arrows strapped to their backs, their daggers in their belts, food in Chad and Swift's tunic pockets and Edith's packet, mirror and red string in Lem's. So, although the floes swayed and dipped, they didn't sink.
They jumped from floe to floe until Lem reached a stretch of ice with a pile of brown seaweed. He was stepping around it when there came a loud bellow and the seaweed was thrown aside to reveal a large sea lion with long yellow tusks, huge flippers and a bad-tempered scowl. Without checking to see if the next floe would hold him, a surprised Lem jumped. The floe sank beneath the surface and icy water filled his boots so he jumped again.
Diving into the ice mush the angry sea lion propelled itself up behind Lem forcing him to leap over a huge expanse of water. Slipping and sliding, Lem headed for the ice pebble beach at the bottom of the glacier.
Behind him swam the sea lion. Behind it ran Chad and Swift trying to avoid all ice floes containing brown seaweed. But it was no use. Great lumps of seaweed were tossed aside as more and more sea lions took to the water and swam alongside the boys, bashing against the floes, trying to unbalance them.
On the boat Nutty barked and Celeste, who was halfway up the mast, shouted down to Lyla that they should go and help.
`We can't,' Lyla yelled back. `See how the sea is dragging at the anchor. We have to stay on board and throw it out again and again. Otherwise the boat could float away and leave us all stranded.'
Meanwhile it was only after the three boys had raced up the beach that Lem realised they were in a triangular-shaped trap made up of an ice pebble shore, jammed ice floes, and the two very high walls of ice.
`There is something strange going on,' he said. `The sea lions could have caught us but they didn't. I think they herded us here and now they're floating out there to stop us from getting back to the boat.'
Chad stared back at the sea lions with their long lethal tusks and their spiky black whiskers. There had to be at least ninety of them. When had they become so many? `Can you talk to them, Lem?'
Lem, who was examining the walls for an escape route, shook his head. `I tried when the big one was chasing me, but all it said was, "Catch the intruders, catch the intruders". Swift, if you stood on my shoulders, could you shimmy up between the two walls to get to the top?'
Swift eyed the apex where the walls joined and noticed there was a rough patch on either side half way up. If he could reach it he might be able to dig foot holes. `Yes.'
`Good. When you're at the top drop down your rope.'
`What will I tie it to?'
`Yourself, our daggers and our swords dug into the ice.'
Swift glanced back at the sea lions. `That will leave you unarmed.'
`Then you'd better climb fast. Quick, climb onto my shoulders.'
Swift had often used his dagger to climb the branchless iron trees of the Forest or the sheer cliffs around the waterfalls, but stabbing into ice was difficult. Sometimes it crumbled before it froze around the blades leaving him dangling from Lem's long sword without a foothold. Sometimes the blades cut his fingers and sliding up the ice made his ribs ache with the cold. But once he reached the rough patch it was easier and he was soon lowering down his rope. As the rope hit the ice pebbles there came a distant triumphant shout from Lyla and Celeste.
Chad scrambled up the rope, swinging and slipping as he followed Swift's footholds. Lem didn't wait for him to get to the top because the sea lions had begun lumbering out of the water after them. By the time he scrambled over the cliff's edge, the ice pebble beach was covered in huge and shiny brown bodies.
The glacier sloped steeply upwards but they hadn't walked ten steps before they discovered it wasn't solid. There were holes everywhere and more appeared as they slid and slipped on the ice. Through its surface they could see turquoise-coloured tunnels, bottomless chasms and plunging ravines. Sometimes - although they realised it was a trick of sunlight - they thought they saw rows of frozen people.
They climbed all day and would have continued into the night with the help of the three moons' light, if it weren't for the blizzard that blew up and blinded them with stinging sleet. They dug a hole in the snow and huddled together in their ice cave. Next morning they saw that a four-footed animal had circled their hole during the night.
`Wolf?' queried Chad with his hand on his sword.
Lem poked at the pugmarks with his boot. `No. Some sort of very large cat.'
They looked around to see if some sort of very large cat might be stalking them at that moment, when they saw ant-sized Lyla and Celeste waving from an ant-size boat. Lem took off his cape and using his sword to hoist it, waved back.
The rest of the morning was spent getting to the caves, which they discovered were full of squawking gulls and their smelly feather, seaweed and driftwood nests. The first five caves came to abrupt dead ends. But the sixth turned into a winding tunnel that was too dark for them to see how far it went. The nests in this cave were oval-shaped, made from matted fur and animal bones and were twenty times the size of the gulls' nests.
Swift climbed inside one of them. `Do you think they belong to the very large cat?'
Lem shook his head. `Cats don't make nests. But it's not here so let's go back to a gull cave, eat some eggs and make some torches so we can see where this tunnel goes to before whatever it is comes back.'
After frightening off the seagulls Swift lit a fire and baked some eggs while Chad and Lem made torches out of seaweed and driftwood. After they'd eaten they tied the torches to their backs and returned to the big nest cave.
Swift handed Lem his bow and arrows. `A long sword isn't much good in a narrow tunnel and if you are going on alone I won't need them.'
`But until then we are coming with you,' added Chad.
Lem slung the bow and quiver over his shoulder, gave Swift a brief brotherly hug and Chad a cousinly punch. Then, after tying the end of Edith's red string to a large bone, he held his torch high and stepped into the tunnel. Chad and Swift followed. Three turns later they'd lost him. They called his name and searched for the red string but couldn't find it, so in the end they backtracked to the glacier.
By the time Lem realised that Swift and Chad were not with him and that the string had come undone and was trailing behind him, he'd turned too many bends and taken too many side tunnels to go back.
Anyway, he told himself, as he double knotted the string to a stalagmite, hadn't Edith said that only he could find the ice dragon? He would find the boys later when he returned with the dragon and the talisman.
If you return, a small niggling voice said in his head. He stifled it. Now was not the time to be afraid. Now was the time to be the hero he always imagined he was. Hope you are, added the niggling voice. `Oh be quiet!' he said aloud.
The tunnel changed shape at each bend. Sometimes it shrank so he had to crawl. Sometimes it divided into two or widened into caverns full of stalactites resembling giant's teeth. Often there was a blue light flickering through the ice and he had no need of his torch. Other times it was so dark ahead that he was afraid he would step into a void.
On and on he went, relighting new torches from the old and unwinding the string until, squeezing through a narrow gap, he entered a large cavern full of ice columns. The stillness was so unearthly that he did what he always did when he was scared, he started singing. He was half way across the cavern and on his fifth rendition of The Three Moons' Song when he heard a full-throated wolf howl.
His first sighting of the wolf came after the string ran out and he'd tied its end to a column.
It stepped out from behind a column of rock, its teeth bared, its blue eyes narrowed and its white neck-fur standing on end. It growled, and then the words `Go no further,' popped into Lem's head.
`Why not?' he thought back.
`Because it is dangerous,' answered the wolf, advancing stiff-legged and wary. `How is it that you can understand me?'
Determined not to show fear at the closeness of such a dangerous animal, Lem told the wolf that he was Prince Lem and that two M'dgassy queens had given him the magical gift of understanding animals.'
`I too am royal,' replied the wolf. `I am Lord Shamash of the Royal Pack of Ice Wolves.'
Lem bowed. `Pleased to meet you, Lord Shamash.'
The wolf's neck ruffle softened at Lem's respectful words. `And I you, Prince Lem. Tell me about this song you sing.'
`The three moons sang it to me during their last eclipse. It tells of five journeys to find a mocked dragon, a caged merwoman, a poisoned tree, a chained eagle and a cage that swings. This is the first journey. My task is to find an ice dragon, who may or may not be my mother or father.'
`The ice dragon is a male dragon,' said the wolf. He touched his cold nose to Lem's hand.
`Which means he could be my father, uncle or just a dragon,' answered Lem, unconsciously scratching the wolf's ears the way he scratched Nutty's. `Whichever or whatever, I must find it and save it if I can.'
`The High Enchanter will not allow it,' said another wolf's voice in Lem's head.
`And the Enkidu will break him in half,' said a third voice.
Spinning round Lem came face to face with three younger wolves.
`Even so,' he told them, hoping they were as friendly as Lord Shamash, `you wouldn't leave one of your pack to be enchanted forever, would you? What if it was your father?'
`Lord Shamash is our father,' said the largest of the three young wolves. `And you are right. We would not leave him or any of our pack to freeze forever.'
Lord Shamash nodded at his three, powerful sons then examined the yellow-haired boy standing before him. With his long arms and legs, he didn't look strong. Yet he had reached Tartik Island, had passed the High Enchanter's guardian sea lions, and had climbed the glacier. Perhaps, as well as understanding wolves, he had other magical talents.
`But the Enkidu will eat him alive,' said the youngest wolf.
`I will fight them,' said Lem, wondering whether Enkidu was the wolf word for Goch. `I have magic to protect me.'
`How strong is this magic?' asked Lord Shamash. He leant against Lem again so the boy could ruffle his neck fur as well as his ears.
Lem had no idea how strong Edith's snapdragon buds were. They might not even be magical. They might just be dried flower buds.
Seeing his hesitation, Lord Shamash nodded wisely. `Once we too had strong magic. Once we were invincible. We did the High Enchanter's bidding. We protected his lands and we followed him everywhere. One day he ordered us to live on this ice mountain to guard a giant dragon that he'd buried here. This we did willingly while he found others to do his capturing and killing.
`One night, during a three moons' eclipse, the ice around the dragon's head melted enough for its left eye to open and for tears to fall from it. The tears made a stream and when we drank from it the High Enchanter's spell over us was broken.
`When the High Enchanter discovered we were no longer his slaves, he caused the ice mountain to break away from Ifraa and to float as far west as possible without falling off the edge of the known world. He also becamed the bald-headed Enkidu to mock the dragon and to punish us. Now the dragon bleeds daily and, from a pack of one hundred wolves, we are now only ten. That is how powerful the High Enchanter's magic is. Is your magic that powerful?'
Lem's eyes filled with doubt. `Probably not.'
`I thought as much. Wait here while the pack meets and decides if we will help you.'
Left alone, Lem lit another torch and practised his sword thrusts. He wondered what he would do if the wolves didn't return. What if his torches ran out and he couldn't find the red string? What if the ice dragon was his father and he couldn't find him? Couldn't save him? Couldn't find the talisman? Or what if he was lost inside the mountain forever?
He was lighting his last torch when the pack of ten returned, each one jostling the other to get a closer look at the boy who was challenging the High Enchanter.
`We will help you,' said Lord Shamash. `But there are more than fifty Enkidu and we are only ten, so we will have to entice each Enkidu into the labyrinth. To do this we need bait. Will you be the bait?'
Feeling positive that he did not want to be the bait Lem asked what the bait had to do.
`Make the Enkidu chase you so we can lead them to the labyrinth's pits.'
`Who runs the fastest? The Enkidu or you?'
`We run the fastest. But some of the older more magical Enkidu can throw up ice walls to stop us. That is when you will use your magic.'
The tunnel that Lord Shamash led him into wound around the mountain as if circling its core. Side tunnels fanned outwards towards the glacier or inwards towards a pitch-black void. Light filtered in through the glacier's cracks and from somewhere up ahead there came a loud booming and the crashing of bodies hitting ice.
Lord Shamash stopped abruptly at the edge of a deep ravine. Opposite them, balanced on a narrow ledge, were two huge skull-headed, long white-haired creatures - fighting each other.
Further along the ledge, at its thinnest point, crouched a large snarling white-furred cat.
`One Enkidu has cornered the snow leopard and the other Enkidu wants it,' explained Lord Shamash.
With a roar the larger Enkidu reared up, swung a sharp-clawed paw at its opponent, and tore open its hairy shoulder. With an equally loud boom the wounded Enkidu embedded the claws of its two front paws in its attacker's neck, while raking its long exposed belly with one of its razor-sharp back-paw claws. Bellowing and booming the two wrestled back and forth with blood spraying in all directions while the snow leopard snarled and spat whenever they came too close.
Suddenly, it seemed, the scent of the wolves and the Lem's unusual smell could not be ignored as with a last bloody-clawed swipe the larger Enkidu swung round, sniffing, and glared across the ravine. It let out an ear-splitting boom.
`Now it will leap!' warned Lord Shamash. He swung around and dashed back the way they'd come, dragging Lem with him. Behind them the Enkidu jumped over the enormous gap.
Lem, his eyes wide with fear and his heart thumping, ran as fast as he could. He shouted at Lord Shamash, `If they can leap that far, won't they be able to leap out of the labyrinth's pits?'
Behind them two younger wolves stopped to confront the Enkidu with loud snarls and bared teeth.
`The pits drop below the base of the mountain,' Lord Shamash said. `Even an Enkidu cannot leap that far. They will have to find ice tunnels to bring them back up and that will take time.'
`What about the snow leopard?'
`He was marooned when the mountain became an island. He is old and tired and one day an Enkidu will eat him.'
The younger wolves rejoined them just as Lord Shamash was leading Lem into the labyrinth of pits where the ice bridges were so fragile that they cracked as they crossed them. Lumps of ice fell into the nothingness below.
Finally they reached a bridge that Lord Shamash warned could only be crossed one at a time. He volunteered to go first, in case it didn't hold. But hold it did, so Lem followed, tiptoeing as softly as he could. Next came the pack, one at a time, stepping high-pawed on the fragile ice. The last wolf was halfway across when four Enkidu lumbered out of the darkness.
`Challenge them,' Lord Shamash said to Lem.
Lem stepped forward and yelled, `Heh! Over here.'
The first Enkidu made swiping actions but did not follow the wolf onto the bridge. Impatient to catch Lem, the following three Enkidu, including the one with the torn shoulder, pushed past the first and galloped onto the bridge. They had only gone half way before its thin span broke, hurtling them into the abyss.
By the time the first Enkidu leapt the void, the pack and Lem were deep inside the labyrinth and doubling back to find more Enkidu.
Four more times Lem and the wolves successfully led groups of hairy, skull-headed creatures across bridges that collapsed beneath their weight.
During their fifth run, an older Enkidu threw up an ice wall that blocked Lem and the wolves' escape.
`Use your magic!' growled Lord Shamash.
Lem opened a packet of Edith's snapdragon buds and threw a bud at the wall. Nothing happened so he threw a handful. As the buds hit the ice it shattered, and he and the wolves leapt through - closely followed by the Enkidu.
`Turn right and follow the stream!' yelled Lord Shamash, rounding on the older Enkidu, who were so close that Lem could feel their hot breath on the back of his neck. `We will hold them.'
Lem dived into a tunnel that was so low he had to wriggle through on his stomach. Behind him came the high-pitched yelp of a wounded wolf. He hoped it wasn't Lord Shamash.
Lem crawled faster until he reached a chasm lit by the watery rays of the afternoon sun. He raced along it until he found a stream flowing from deep inside the mountain. With his back aching and his hands and feet so cold he couldn't feel them any more, he followed the stream until he stumbled into a cavern twice the size of M'dgassy's Royal Palace.
Below its icicle-filled ceiling stretched an enormous dragon. Its huge arrow-shaped head, long blue-scaled body, bent hind legs, spiked tail and gigantic crumpled wings were frozen solid to the cavern walls.
Lem ran past its wings and climbed up the blue scales of one front paw. He stepped over the deep wounds and frozen blood that covered them, and moved towards the dragon's head.
`Dragon! Dragon! I am Prince Lem of the Royal House of M'dgassy. I have come to rescue you.'
As his brave words reverberated around the cavern Lem realised how foolish they sounded. How could a boy, no bigger than the dragon's eyeball, rescue it from so much ice? And if he did, how would he get it out of Tartik Mountain and off Tartik Island with its broken wings and wounded paws?
He stared sadly up at the dragon's horned head waiting for an answer to form in his mind, the way Lord Shamashs' words had. Then he remembered Edith's mirror. He retrieved it from his pocket, held it up to the dragon's eye and recited the words Edith had taught him: `Ecco narcisso dragonucus attractivae!'
The dragon sighed and the air from its one ice-free nostril almost blew Lem off its paw as a rumbling voice filled his head. `You've come at last, nephew.'
Joy mixed with disappointment flooded over Lem. The ice dragon wasn't his father; he was the father of Celeste and Chad. Lem had climbed the glacier, been chased by Enkidu, crossed ice bridges that had scared him silly, and his own father was somewhere else.
But then the dragon's words filled his head and he was glad he had found him. `How are my children? How is my Queen? How is the country of M'dgassy?'
Lem held the mirror higher. `Celeste and Chad are fine and healthy. I don't know where your Queen is, and the High Enchanter has conquered M'dgassy and all of Ifraa. Which is why I need your talisman so we can rescue you.'
A huge tear dropped past him. `Rescue is impossible unless you have all five talismans. If you don't, then it is hopeless.'
Lem waved the mirror in front of the huge eye. `No. It's not hopeless! We will find all five talismans I promise. Only we don't know what to do with them when we do find them. Do you know?'
His uncle, the dragon, took so long to answer that Lem was about to prod its scaly head to see if it had gone to sleep when a torrent of words filled his head.
`Place the five talismans on the moon dial in the Royal Palace's rose garden during the next three moon eclipse. One eclipse more and I will die of cold. One talisman less and we all die. My talisman is a blood red scale growing at the base of my throat. Hurry I hear the Enkidu coming.'
Lem pocketed the mirror, slid down the dragon's paw and ducked under its head. The red scale glowed like a hand-sized drop of blood. He reached high, sliced it off with his long sword and put it in his pocket.
A moment later two Enkidu slunk sniffing and snuffling into the cavern. They did not see him but by the way they were testing the air, Lem knew they soon would. He unslung Swift's bow, slotted an arrow into its bowstring and waited.
A triumphant boom from the lead Enkidu signaled to the other that he had the scent and they both turned towards him.
Lem let loose the arrow which sped across the cavern embedding its sharp head in the Enkidu's hairless throat.
The creature's bellowing and thrashing covered Lem's dash along the dragon's frozen body to hide beneath its broken wing. His next arrow hit the other Enkidu in the neck but its thick fur saved it. Another three skull-headed creatures entered the cavern.
Outnumbered, Lem made a run for the stream and the chasm, reaching it just as its entrance was blocked by a wall of ice. He felt for the snapdragon buds in his pocket, and threw a handful at the wall which shattered.
He leapt through just as a snarling Lord Shamash bounded past him. The blue-eyed wolf attacked the lead Enkidu, giving Lem time to fit another arrow into his bow. This one pierced the Enkidu's eye causing it to stagger backwards into a second Enkidu which tripped up a third.
`Run!' Lord Shamash ordered. `Take any tunnel to the left. The Enkidu will not follow you onto the glacier. Daylight hurts their eyes. Find your friends. And keep them out of the seagull caves; they do not all have dead ends.'
`Thank you,' Lem said, and then sprinted along a narrow tunnel. Somewhere behind him he could hear the Enkidu galloping along the same tunnel. Their hollow booming and angry grunts made his heart beat so fast he thought it would burst from his heaving chest.
Then he saw the ice pyramid which had formed from the tiny specks of ice falling through a crack so high up it looked like a pin prick in the glacier above.
He skidded to a halt and began digging into the side of the pyramid. His hands were soon numb but he kept burrowing. He then rolled into the hole and scraped ice across the opening, leaving enough space to breathe through. He clutched Chad's bow and arrows, and his bag with the precious dragon's scale inside. He hoped the Enkidu wouldn't smell him, or see him through the ice, and wouldn't hear his heartbeat.
Seconds later three male Enkidu lumbered past without giving the snow pyramid a second glance. Lem stayed hidden as long as his freezing body could stand it, then he burrowed out again.
He crept along a tunnel that he was sure was too small for an Enkidu, and suddenly found himself in the column-filled cavern where he had tied the end of the red string. He untied it, and followed it back until he reached the tunnel where he'd lost Chad and Swift.
Expecting to find them waiting for him in the cave, he came full pelt around the bend - and then to a skidding stop. Bent over and sniffing at the nest that Swift had stood in earlier, was a young female Enkidu. She reared up in surprise as Lem dodged beneath her outspread arms and slid out into the afternoon sun.
Further down the glacier he saw Swift outside a gull's cave.
`Swift, get away from the cave!'
Swift turned to see his brother leaping down the glacier. `Lem, you're back! We're getting more eggs.'
`Is that Lem?' asked Chad, appearing in the cave's entrance, his cape full of eggs and his ears full of indignant gull cries. He hadn't see the two Enkidu creeping out of the darkness behind him.
The Enkidu with the arrow in his eye slapped Chad so hard that he and the eggs flew across the cave and smashed into the far wall. The pain from the blow made him see double. Double monsters coming towards him with double the number of claws outstretched to rake the skin from his face. He slid unconscious onto the cave floor.
Swift barely had time to draw his sword before the second Enkidu lunged at him. Just as its paw swiped so close to his nose that he felt its white fur brush his eyelashes, a beam of bright sunlight lit up its bare skull. It slid to a stop. It blinked its small red eyes and shuffled backwards.
`They hate light,' yelled Lem, reaching Swift as Swift fell back onto the ice. `Be ready to drag Chad out the minute I distract them.'
Yelling as loudly as he could and swinging his sword, he charged the Enkidu that was bending over his cousin. Possibly recognising Lem as the cause of the pain in its eye, the creature stretched to its full height and, with an angry boom, swung at him.
Gambling that Edith's snapdragon buds would protect him, Lem threw the remaining buds at it and the second Enkidu which was shambling up on his left. For a moment it looked as if the buds would not work on the fierce becamed creatures but then, as if mortally wounded, their booming died in their throats and they crashed to the ice.
Lem dragged Chad out onto the glacier, heaved him onto his back then, bent double from the weight, and with Swift carrying all their weapons, the two boys staggered down the glacier. `Did you get the talisman?' panted Swift.
Lem sidestepped an ice hole while readjusting Chad's weight. `Yes. The dragon is Celeste and Chad's father and those creatures are the Enkidu becamed by the High Enchanter, the same as the Goch. They mock and attack the dragon every day and make it bleed.'
Swift was horrified. `Can't he breathe fire on them?'
`He's frozen and hurt.'
Swift was thinking about the dragon being his uncle and not his father, and Lem was thinking about how heavy Chad was, when an ominous rumble rocked the entire glacier from the edge of the sea to the top of Tartik Mountain. Rising and falling like a gigantic ice wave it knocked the boys over. The next rumble was so violent that before they could stand up again, they were sliding down the ice along with an avalanche of boulders dislodged from the mountain's peak.
`What's happening?' yelled Swift, clinging to a spike of ice to stop himself from sliding into an abyss that had appeared in front of him.
Lem dug his heels into the ice beside the spike and hung on to Chad, whose feet were hanging over nothing.
`The High Enchanter knows I have the talisman.'
Lem heard Lord Shamash's howl and passed on the wolf's words to Swift. `To get away, the wolf says we must slide into that hole.'
Swift's eyes widened as he stared into the black hole. `What wolf?'
`There's no time to explain. Just do it. I'll go first.'
Swift watched as Lem, hanging onto Chad, slid towards the abyss and with a yell disappeared over its edge. Swift took a big breath, let go of the ice spike and slid after him.
Somewhere under the glacier the walls of the abyss turned into a steep slope that finally, after what felt like forever, levelled out. They slid down it so fast they couldn't catch their breaths, but eventually came to an abrupt halt with their boots buried deep in an ice-drift. Waiting for them were four blue-eyed wolves.
`Follow us,' said Lord Shamash. `The High Enchanter would rather sink Tartik Island than let you escape.'
`Follow the wolves,' shouted Lem while trying to heave Chad out of the soft ice.
`What wolves?' groaned Chad, coming to and struggling to free himself from Lem's grip.
Lem let him go. `The ones that are saving us. Can you walk?'
Chad staggered to his feet to show that he could, then with Lem holding one arm and Swift the other, they followed the wolves.
The pack led them along one tunnel after another. Each sloped deeper into the ice and became darker as they spiralled down, until the only way the boys could tell which way to go was to follow the wolves' panting.
Suddenly, as if a huge knife had sliced the island in half, the mountain cracked open and in flooded the last of the day's sunlight. When their eyes became accustomed to the light, the boys saw behind them in the tunnel's ice walls, hundreds of frozen, open-mouthed, frightened-eyed men, women and children; all with their hands held up against the ice, either begging for help or trying to push the ice back.
`Are they dead?' gasped Lem.
Lord Shamash shook his white head. `These are the Walls of the Disobedient. They are simply imprisoned for disobeying the High Enchanter.'
`Can we help them?'
`He would destroy you first.'
As if the High Enchanter had heard the wolf's words, the ice beneath them began to ripple and the walls around them to crumble.
`Hurry,' urged Lord Shamash. `He has sent an avalanche. The beach is around that bend.'
`What about you?' cried Lem as they began to run.
The wolf's answer was swallowed up in a wave of powdered ice that lifted the boys and pushed them down the cliff face, across the ice pebble beach and out onto the bobbing floes.