The Merks’ prisoner could have been anyone!’ Bertha snapped. ‘They tried to keep Mimi and me prisoner when we went into their disgusting tavern by mistake and –’
‘Peg knows Spoiler’s scent,’ Freda cut in. ‘Her sense of smell’s very good at night.’
When she turns into a bear, Leo thought queasily, remembering the huge, shambling owner of the camping shop.
‘Peg tracked him as far as she could before the sun rose,’ Conker went on, slamming a blackened kettle onto the fire. ‘He was heading north along Woffles Way, towards the Crystal Palace. So if we –’
‘Why do you want to find Spoiler, Hal?’ Mimi broke in. ‘The Blue Queen’s the one you should be worrying about!’
Leo nodded. He was feeling quite deflated. He’d thought that Hal was going to ask them to do something exciting. The idea of trying to catch sleazy, slippery George Langlander was a real anticlimax.
‘I am worrying about the Blue Queen,’ Hal replied calmly. ‘And that’s why I want Spoiler found. He’s out of the queen’s favour now, but he was her henchman for years. He can surely give us some clue about what she’s doing.’
‘But we know what she’s doing, Hal!’ Bertha cried in frustration. ‘She’s sulking in her castle, trying to think of a way to get around the defence committees!’
Hal shook his head. ‘She’s gone quiet because she’s working on something new. We have to find out what it is. We must not be taken by surprise again.’
‘Something new?’ quavered Wizard Wurzle.
Mimi moved restlessly. She took a breath as if she was about to speak, then seemed to change her mind.
Leo frowned. ‘But the queen’s only just perfected the spell that lets her move her power out of the castle,’ he argued. ‘Why would she start on something new so quickly?’
‘That’s what’s bothering me,’ Hal muttered, staring into the fire. ‘The only way it makes sense is if it’s something so important that she couldn’t resist starting on it straight away. I’m sure she spread her power over her domain last night partly so she can work on this thing, whatever it is, in secret, and partly…’
‘To capture some servants to help her,’ Tye finished for him grimly.
‘Servants?’ Bertha said scathingly. ‘But the far north’s deserted, except for –’
‘Oh, my lungs and liver, Hal, that reminds me!’ Conker exploded, making everyone jump. ‘I meant to tell you first thing! Old Winkle’s junk shop was broken into early this morning, and guess who the robbers were? Squirrels! A gang of crazy squirrels!’
Mimi and Leo burst out laughing.
‘Squirrels?’ squeaked Wizard Wurzle.
‘It’s as true as I’m standing here,’ Conker said. ‘We met Winkle on the street and he told us the whole thing. Right, Freda?’
Freda nodded shortly. She had begun to look rather sick.
‘Winkle woke up, heard noises in the shop downstairs, and went to investigate,’ Conker went on. ‘He found the place crawling with squirrels going through his stuff. When he tried to stop them, they came at him in a bunch, knocked him down and tied him up with his own dressing-gown cord. Then they made their escape with some trinket boxes he’d brought back from his last country buying trip.’
‘Conker, are you implying that these were enchanted squirrels, on a mission from the Blue Queen?’ Bertha demanded haughtily. ‘If so, I would be most grateful if you’d tell me what the queen wants with a lot of old trinket boxes!’
‘Oh, my liver and kidneys, how should I know?’ blustered Conker. ‘All I know is, Winkle was robbed by a gang of squirrels.’
‘Squirrels with funny eyes,’ Freda said uneasily.
Leo and Mimi stopped laughing. Bertha’s jaw dropped.
‘The dragon that attacked the farm had weird eyes,’ Mimi said, her voice trembling a little. ‘They were swirling with different colours.’
‘Enchanted!’ quavered Wurzle. ‘An enchanted dragon – oh, spare me! It must have flown straight into the smoke. Out hunting at dawn, I suppose, and thought the smoke was just cloud, or fog…’
‘Oh, lawks-a-daisy,’ Bertha whispered. ‘If the dragon who attacked us was working for the queen, then poor Barbara…’
‘Is in the queen’s hands now,’ said Hal.
Leo looked at him. Hal’s face was creased with lines of strain, but his grey eyes were steady and his mouth was firm.
This hasn’t taken him by surprise, Leo thought. He suspected it. He just didn’t want to tell Bertha – or any of us – until he was sure.
‘Oh, Hal, you were right all along,’ Bertha groaned. ‘The queen was working on something new. She was trying to catch a dragon, and now she has!’
Hal shook his head. ‘The dragon is just a small part of it. The dragon is a servant, nothing more. There’s something else –’
‘Something else?’ wailed Wizard Wurzle. ‘Oh, spare me! A dragon stealing Rondo citizens one by one to become Blue Queen slaves! Isn’t that enough?’
‘We’ll have to strengthen our defences,’ Conker said, splashing boiling water into the teapot. ‘Add dragon-watch to cloud-watch, tell the crow patrol, contact all the defence committee leaders –’ ‘No!’ Mimi exclaimed.
Everyone looked at her in astonishment. She flushed, but went on determinedly.
‘I mean, yes, of course everyone should be warned about the dragon,’ she said. ‘But you – we – have to stop just thinking about defence.’
‘Lawks-a-daisy, Mimi, what do you mean?’ Bertha demanded. ‘What else can we think about?’
‘How to stop this,’ Mimi said fiercely. ‘We’re always going to be afraid of what the queen’s going to do next unless we do something about her, once and for all. And I’ve been thinking –’
‘We can’t fight the Blue Queen, Mimi,’ Conker broke in, with an anxious glance at Hal.
‘No way!’ snapped Freda.
They think Mimi’s talking about attacking the Blue Queen with the Key, Leo thought. They think she’s ignoring all the warnings about how dangerous for Rondo a battle like that would be.
Once he would have jumped to the same conclusion. But now, watching Mimi’s shoulders hunch defensively, he reminded himself that Mimi might be reckless, but she wasn’t stupid. For a start, she wouldn’t risk revealing the secret of the Key by hinting about it in front of Wizard Wurzle.
‘What’s your idea, Mimi?’ he asked quickly.
‘Yes,’ said Tye, leaning forward. ‘Speak your mind, Mimi Langlander.’
The tension in Mimi’s face drained away. She shot Leo and Tye a glance of startled gratitude. But when she spoke she looked at Hal, Bertha and, surprisingly, Wizard Wurzle.
‘It might be a silly idea,’ she began. ‘It might not be possible. But… but these committees you’ve set up – they’re all organised around witches and wizards who can create large defence shields to protect their areas, aren’t they?’
‘Of course,’ said Bertha, frowning in puzzlement. ‘They wouldn’t be much use otherwise.’
Mimi bit her lip. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I was thinking… if the seven witches and wizards can make shields to keep the queen out, why can’t they get together and make a larger shield to keep her in?’
‘In?’ Bertha gasped, her eyes very round. ‘You mean –’
‘Create a shield wall to stand between the queen and the rest of Rondo,’ Mimi said simply. ‘Let her have the far north – she’s got it anyway. But seal it off, so she can never threaten you again.’
Her colour brightened as Wizard Wurzle squeaked in amazement and everyone else stared at her, dumbfounded.
‘Brilliant, Mimi!’ Conker shouted at last.
But can it be done? Leo thought, meeting Hal’s eyes.
‘Can it be done?’ Freda demanded, and everyone turned to look at Wurzle, who had sprung to his feet and begun pacing up and down in agitation.
‘It is – a fascinating idea!’ Wurzle muttered. ‘It would not be possible to screen off the whole of the queen’s domain, of course. But a smaller area – the area immediately around the castle, for example, to which the queen will surely withdraw at times, probably at night, to renew her energies… That should be possible – it should.’ He paused, his face screwed up in thought, then shook his head. ‘But I doubt… yes, I doubt we could achieve it. Not as things stand, no…’
Mumbling to himself, he wandered off into the trees.
Mimi shrugged. ‘So,’ she said with a crooked little smile. ‘That’s that.’
‘Oh, how disappointing!’ wailed Bertha. ‘It was such a wonderful idea, too! It would have been the answer to –’
There was the sudden clatter of wings. A large black crow swooped down through the treetops and landed with a thud beside the fireplace.
‘Marjorie!’ quacked Freda.
‘Tea!’ the crow gasped, and fell on her side.
Conker half-filled a tin cup with tea and pushed it under the crow’s beak. She took a gulp and swallowed convulsively.
‘Terrible news!’ she croaked. ‘I flew like the wind to tell you. The town has been attacked! Attacked by a dragon!’
As everyone exclaimed in horror, she nodded weakly and took another sip of tea. ‘I saw it all,’ she rasped. ‘The dragon swept right into Main Street, roaring fire. Its scales were green. Its eyes looked mad.’
‘Was anyone hurt?’ Hal asked sharply.
The crow sat up and made an effort to pull herself together. ‘The bank and some shops are on fire, but I think everyone got out safely. Pop the balloon-seller’s eyebrows were singed. Officer Begood was knocked flat on his face by the dragon’s wing and burned on the nose by the hot spinach pie he was eating at the time. And – and Crumble the pie-seller was snatched away!’
‘Crumble?’ Conker roared. ‘Why would the Blue Queen want Crumble?’
‘Why would she want Barbara, for that matter?’ Freda drawled.
‘Maybe she doesn’t care who the dragon takes,’ Hal said, running his fingers despairingly through his hair. ‘Maybe she just wants to cause panic. Distract us…’
‘Well, she won’t succeed,’ Bertha cried, baring her teeth. ‘We’ll do what you say, Hal! We’ll catch Spoiler, and we’ll make him talk. We’ll find out what the queen is up to if it’s the last thing we – eek!’
Wizard Wurzle had come up behind her and tapped her on the shoulder.
‘Of course, the timing will be everything,’ Wurzle said, as Bertha jumped aside and he hobbled past her to the fireplace with an absent-minded nod of thanks. ‘The barrier must be raised at exactly the same moment all along its length. That will be the key to success.’
He poured himself a cup of tea and drank thirstily. The quest team exchanged bewildered glances.
‘Wizard Wurzle,’ Mimi burst out. ‘Are you talking about my idea? I thought you said it wouldn’t work!’
‘Did I?’ the wizard exclaimed. ‘Oh, well, yes, I suppose I did. Because it wouldn’t work, would it, without something to link the shields?’
He looked around the circle of confused faces. ‘If many defence shields were simply put up side by side, a perfect seal would be impossible,’ he explained earnestly. ‘There would be little chinks at the joins – that couldn’t be avoided. And, as I’m sure you know, defence shields cannot overlap without dire consequences.’
He held up a bony finger. ‘But if,’ he said, ‘the shield magic was attached, as it were, to a physical barrier – a fabric which itself had magical properties, so its weave would absorb and spread the spells – then there would be no problem!’
There was a long silence.
‘Let’s get this straight, Wurzle!’ Conker growled after a moment. ‘You’re saying that if we want to seal the queen off, we have to get hold of a magic cloth big enough to cover her entire castle?’
‘And the hill on which the castle stands, I fancy,’ Wizard Wurzle agreed placidly. He was so engrossed in the plan that his usual timidity had vanished. He smiled to himself as his audience exchanged dubious glances.
‘Now, I know you are going to say that the ideal thing would be a canopy woven of thistles – by a beautiful maiden, preferably,’ he went on. ‘And you would be right, of course. But I fear that a thistle canopy would take too long to complete, and would be too difficult to handle.’
‘I think so,’ said Wurzle. ‘Fortunately, the next best thing – perfectly adequate in my opinion – is a gossamer web. This would be very easy to handle, and the Flitters could spin it in a day or two.’
Everyone stared at him, open-mouthed. He fidgeted, and for the first time since returning to the clearing, looked a little nervous. ‘Well, so they say,’ he added.
‘You’ve spoken to the Flitters about this, Wurzle?’ Hal asked slowly.
‘Of course!’ cried the little man, showing a trace of spirit. ‘Not two minutes ago, I consulted a large off-duty group I found resting by the stream. Did you think I was wandering around the wood talking to myself?’
Conker trod on Freda’s foot before she could say anything.
‘Naturally,’ Wurzle continued fussily, ‘I will have to consult my colleagues. But I am confident they will agree with me. Defence shields are, after all –’ he cast his eyes down modestly’ – my specialty.’
His heart racing, Leo looked quickly around the circle. Mimi’s face was glowing. The tips of Bertha’s ears were scarlet with excitement. Conker was tugging frenziedly at his beard. Freda’s neck feathers were standing on end. Tye’s golden eyes were fiercely bright. Hal was rubbing his chin, looking very serious.
‘This is – wonderful!’ cried Bertha. ‘Just imagine if we could really get rid of the queen once and for all!’
‘Indeed,’ said Wurzle, clasping his hands. ‘And Plum, Pandora and the others will be willing to try it, I believe, if the attack is organised and led by Hal, hero of the Dark Time and a man they have learned to trust.’
‘It’s tempting, Wurzle, but it would be extremely dangerous,’ Hal said soberly. ‘Consider the queen’s fury when she realises what we’re trying to do! We’d be taking a terrible risk.’
‘I would risk anything to see her caged,’ hissed Tye, and Hal glanced at her, his brow furrowed.
‘Hal, if we do this properly, the queen won’t even know what’s happening till it’s too late!’ Mimi cried passionately. ‘If we keep the plan a deadly secret, and put the web in place at night, when the blue butterflies aren’t around to spy –’
‘For all we know, the queen is working on a new spy system right now,’ Hal said doggedly. ‘That’s the point, Mimi! Any plan we make will be affected by what she’s planning. We can do nothing until we know. I’d never forgive myself if –’
‘Well, personally, I’d never forgive myself if more people got snatched by that dragon because we were scared to take a risk!’ Bertha said in a trembling voice.
Hal’s eyes darkened, but still he shook his head.
‘Oh, my lungs, liver and kidneys, Hal!’ roared Conker. ‘We’ve got to try it! We’ve got to! Right, Freda?’
‘Right,’ Freda said firmly.
Hal looked at Leo. ‘Well, Leo?’ he asked quietly. ‘What do you think?’