Daquan barely acknowledged Quesob, save for grumbling, ‘Took your time!’
With bloodshot eyes and darker than normal circles under them, Daquan glared at him. Hair grew on his head and face now, as did a semblance of eyebrows.
‘Five days out I checked the orb,’ Quesob said wearied and dusty. ‘It pointed back here, so I was already heading back.’
Daquan clenched his fists.
‘I must have those bracelets. It has something to do with those children at the Throughnight Mansion.’
Quesob’s confusion showed on his face.
Daquan explained events so far, adding, ‘I have decided to come out of reclusion.’
‘But...but...you...you are...’
‘Yes. A reviled man. But I need to get closer to those children without arousing suspicion.’
**
Iam surveyed the aftermath of the Inquisat’s charge, gazing on the writhing bodies strewn around the field. Moved, Iam knelt, feeling the earth, discovering that all lived though many held dimly to life. Yet amongst them a tiny ember of forbidden hope flared in their broken bodies. A hope, Iam thought, that meant many would die before it gave birth to something greater.
Chuffed, Iam started to slink off though turned, saddened. When the end came, would he go peacefully or fight?
***
Before they chastised him, Quixote’s sheepish grin crossed his face again.
‘Sorry guys. I just couldn’t stand it anymore.’
‘Where’s the girl?’ Lexington asked.
‘Follow me.’
Soon the four cousins knelt over the body of the battered girl, hidden in the safety of the bushes. Lying unconscious, dried blood encrusted her broken facial bones, and her breathing rattled.
Lexington took the young girl’s head, and cradling it, stroked her black, blood-matted hair. She had never seen anyone wounded so much, nor witnessed such cruelty. Nothing had prepared any of them for this, least of all, Lexington. Something deeply nurturing moved in Lexington, and she stared into the girl’s face, feeling herself enter her body, and just for a second glimpsed what she had endured. Anguish, sorrow, tears, panic, fear and dread rushed out of the girl, engulfing Lexington.
Greif stricken, Lexington wailed, uttering a wretched, desolate noise, and subsided into sobbing.
Ari tried to comfort her, while Melaleuca paced back and forth, moved by the tragedy yet concerned about what to do next.
‘It’ll be okay Lex,’ Ari said.
She gazed at him, tears pouring from her eyes, and her face covered in strands of hair.
‘Will it? How? Mel?’
‘Thinking. Need clarity,’ Melaleuca replied.
Images of the small onslaught played around in her mind, holding her decisions at bay, and her head felt filled with wool.
Quixote knelt down by the girl and chuckled to himself.
‘With a face that ugly, she could be a Marauder now.’
Lexington gave him a disgusting look, and even Ari scowled.
‘What? Well, she is not going to stay like that eh?’ Quixote replied.
Quixote could see they did not understand what he meant.
‘No problem,’ he said. ‘I’ll dash back and get a doctor’s costume.’ He bent down, took his boots off and pulled some green shaped shoes out of his pockets, and put them on his feet.
Ari knelt and felt them, fascinated by the small wings hanging off the back them.
‘What are they?’
‘Speed wings I think.’
With a flutter and hiss he vanished into thin air only to reappear seconds later holding a stethoscope, a white gown and an old fashion doctors head-light, plus a small leather bag. He handed them to Melaleuca, though she stared at him, none too impressed.
‘The unknown-age costumes?’
‘Yeah. Well, you see, I found them, before the lightening costume the other night, and well, was gonna say something, but you didn’t seem happy, and then Lex, well, you know, the little earthquake.’
He shrugged his shoulder and gave her one of his, I-can’t-be-blamed looks.
‘You really must tell Lexington all the costumes you have found and what they do. Those could have been really useful today.’
‘Oh they have been.’
Melaleuca ignored his comment, and along with Lexington concerned herself with the injured girl, though Ari picked up on what he meant.
‘You killed Lexington’s pigeon, didn’t you?’ he said.
Quixote nodded.
Kitted in the doctor’s outfit, Melaleuca bent over the girl examining her. She heard Quixote own up to the pigeon death, but had to ignore it.
She placed her hands on the girl’s body and straight away the costume took over. She poked and prodded her and then fished around in the medicine kit, removed the girl’s crusted blood and sowed her wounds together. She produced some surgical looking tools, and operated lightening quick on her shattered bones.
‘We have to cover her eyes!’ Ari said. ‘In case she recognises us.’
Quixote grabbed a bandage out of the medical kit and wrapped it around her eyes. As she came to, Lexington cheered up.
‘Where am I?’ asked the girl.
‘Safe,’ Lexington replied.
It did little to reassure her.
‘W..w...who is that?’
‘A friend.’
‘Friend? What’s that?’ she said, trying to pull the bandage off her eyes.
Ari took her hands away from it, though she recoiled.
‘Who are you?’ She felt her body and her face. ‘My head. My body. What happened?’
She jumped up, darting her head about like a frightened mouse.
‘This is the wasteland isn’t it?’
Ari came up behind her, grabbing her.
‘No one will hurt you? I will take your blind fold off and you can see for yourself.’
He motioned for the others to get out of the way, though Melaleuca stayed. With the bracelet on she would appear as a doctor. Ari pulled the blind up and the girl looked at Melaleuca.
‘See,’ Melaleuca said, ‘you are in the forest, not the wastelands. We healed you.’
The girl burst into tears sobbing that she wanted to go home.
‘We can take you home, but you must promise to tell no one about us,’ Melaleuca said.
‘I should have died. I wanted to die. I could not take it. I cannot take it. What will happen when I go back? How will I explain this? They will beat me again.’
She sobbed some more.
All at once it dawned on them, if they took her back there would be little to stop Task-Matron Bircher or someone else beating her again if she could not cope.
‘We have to hide her,’ Lexington said. ‘We can’t let her go back.’
‘I want to go home.’
Melaleuca, Ari and Quixote discussed the girl’s fate while Lexington tried to comfort her from behind.
‘What’s your name?’ Lexington asked.
Sobbing, she replied, ‘Bleph.’
‘What does it mean?’
‘It’s the noise a coward duck makes. That’s me a coward duck,’ she said with another burst of tears.
She tried comforting Bleph by placing her hand on her back.
‘Oh. Oh dear. Even I have to work at being brave.’
Melaleuca, Ari and Quixote fell silent, a decision having been made and turned to Lexington.
Bleph shook, cold and afraid, and as Lexington rubbed her back, her cousin’s quietness drew her attention. At once she saw in their faces they had decided to take her back and not hide her.
‘There must be something we can do.’
‘You are right,’ Melaleuca said.
Lexington relaxed hearing this.
‘You have been right all along. We need to wait until we know what we are dealing with. This girl ─ ’
‘Bleph. Her name is Bleph.’
‘....Bleph must go home. As you have said all along we do not know what we are dealing with.’
Lexington’s own logic caught her out and she felt torn between her gentle desire to save Bleph and the need to have all the facts before her.
‘But what will happen to her?’ Lexington asked.
‘That’s just it isn’t it. We don’t really know.’
‘It will be something horrid I bet.’
‘This decision is mine Lexington.’
‘If we take her back then... then...we should never have brought her here in the first place. This is cruel, fixing her up only to put her back in that brutal place.’
Melaleuca could now see sense in Task-Matron Bircher’s words about learning to watch others suffer, as this inability in Lexington now blinded her.
Trust, trust, trust. Trust beyond feelings and beyond emotion.
‘She must go back, Lex.’
‘Then I shall escort her back.’
‘Then we’ll all go with you.’
Wearing only their Vahn uniforms, they walked back down the forested hill toward New Wakefield, Ari and Lexington leading Bleph by her hand, blindfolded again.
As they entered the town, an eerie silence hung over it and the roads now lay damp. An unrecognisable, older teenager lay semi-conscious against a fence moaning, with his skin hanging off his face.
Ari stepped closer, peering at his disfigured flesh.
‘It’s a steam burn. Remember when Quixote tried to jump that geyser? It looks the same. And look! Steam vents.’
From tiny cracks all around the roads steam poured out in spent wisps.
Melaleuca and Lexington crouched in front of Bleph.
‘Bleph,’ Lexington said. ‘We are going to leave you here. Count to twenty then take your bandage off and go home.’
She bawled in reply.
Lexington stood and glared at Melaleuca; eyes accusing her. ‘You tell her to go. I won’t.’
Melaleuca nudged Bleph away from her.
‘Go now Bleph.’
Bleph cried and shuffled away. Melaleuca stood, refusing to catch Lexington’s eyes.
Ari leant closer to the burnt teenager.
‘It’s Gregand. We can help him!’
‘Leave him,’ Melaleuca said. ‘For all we know, the steam vent may be turned on again.’
Melaleuca urged the others to follow her back out of town, though Quixote pulled the winged shoes on again. He jogged past them, yelling out he was going to watch what happened to Bleph. Before any of them could yell back, he disappeared.
***
After learning that a town meeting had been called, Aunty Gertrude rushed to the Vahn, storming her way past the sentry on the western side, ignoring him, and marching into the large meeting hall brimming with people inside.
On a stage sat three doddery-looking Overlords with two empty chairs either side. White, wispy hair cascaded down from their pink scabby heads, past their ancient looking faces.
‘...without a doubt the scourge of the Marauders is back,’ said High Overlord Sector, with a sombre voice.
Overlord Thgact, dosed off to sleep, and beside him with beady eyes sat Overlord Collectabulus.
Seeing them, Aunty Gertrude’s anger abated, and with demure steps she walked down a small set of stairs leading into the hall.
Overlord Collectabulus squinted at Aunty Gertrude.
‘Eh? Who is that? Who’s there? Approach.’
‘Forgive my lateness, Overlords, I was not aware that such as your greatness would be in attendance.’
‘You are recognised, join the others.’
She sat in the second of row of seats behind Sah Task-Master Carrion, Captain HeGood, Harshon, Task-Matron Bircher, and Sah Task-Master Keen. Behind her a multitude of people sat gathered from the town and the surrounding countryside.
‘What are we to do about these Marauders, then, eh?’ High Overlord Sector continued.
Captain HeGood stood, decked out in his finest regalia.
‘I will turn New Wakefield upside down until I root them out.’
‘Why not just do what you did last time,’ someone shouted from behind him.
Captain HeGood whirled around.
‘Different times need different methods. I believe these Marauders have infiltrated us. Perhaps some of you here are now hiding them.’
Murmuring rippled through the audience.
A large man stood.
‘It’s those outsider kids. I hear the stories of how they are behaving. These Marauders are the spirits of our deceased Discipliners coming back to warn us to stop being soft, like last time.’
Yelling and shouting started, though none could be heard.
‘The superstitions of the past have no consideration in this matter,’ Captain HeGood yelled. ‘Force and might will out in the end.’
Aunty Gertrude thrust herself to her feet.
‘Those children merely suffer from a lack of discipline. They have no power to conjure up demons of the past.’
High Overlord Sector banged hard on his table with a wooden hammer, waking up the sleeping Overlord Thgact.
‘Enough.’
He directed his gaze on Aunty Gertrude.
‘Can you explain the very nature of these children?’
‘Oh...heh...Ahem....Exactly what would your Overlords like to know?’
He opened his red-rimmed eyelids wide, staring at her with his pale blue eyes.
‘It is said they are not responding to discipline.’
‘My Lord, these children, they have many years of silliness to remove.’
‘A damn good week’s worth of flogging will do it,’ someone else yelled out, to which the High Overlord Sector banged his hammer again.
Aunty Gertrude shrugged her shoulders.
‘They must be taken care of before the High Thistle ceremony,’ another person yelled out.
‘And the Marauders.’
More talking started again, earning another banging from the High Overlord Sector’s hammer.
‘Captain HeGood. You have the confidence of the Overlords to weed out the Marauders. Do we have your assurance?’
Captain HeGood snapped to attention.
‘As ever.’
The large wooden doors to the meeting room opened and Daquan and Quesob strode in. A quiet voice protested they were not allowed in.
‘The children are to be tribulated a week from now,’ High Overlord Sector said. ‘If they fail, they will be sent to the Southern Wastelands.’
Both Harshon and Aunty Gertrude leapt to their feet, almost saying the same thing. ‘My Lord our ways state that in a failure at this place they are to be sent to the borstal.’
They stared at each other, surprised both wanted the same outcome.
Overlord Collectabulus thumped the table.
‘Today saw lawlessness destabilise us nearly to the level of thirty years ago. The decision stands.’
Daquan stepped forward, shouting, ‘The children stay!’
He walked down the steps, looking with disdain over the eyes following him.
High Overlord Sector struggled to his feet.
‘You are not welcome here!’
‘It matters not, for I am claiming my birth right under the old lore.’
‘We will not allow it!’
The crowd gabbled, and opinions and stories were exchanged about the legendary Daquan, the only man in living history to come back from the Southern Wasteland after years in exile.
He walked up the steps and stood on the Overlord’s stage shocking them.
High Overlord Sector shook his fist at him.
‘You are tainted.’
‘Maybe. But I doubt for all our ways, there are any here that aren’t.’
High Overlord Sector banged his fists together.
‘You shall not pass.’
Daquan pushed him back in to his seat and placed his foot on his chest. He pointed at the napping Overlord Thgact.
‘The occupant of the Chair of Phroshakt, sleeping.’
He pointed at Overlord Collectabulus.
‘The Chair of Pollovish, deaf and stupid.’
He pointed at High Overlord Sector, shoving him with his foot.
‘And the occupier of the Chair of Bhramzeu. At death’s door......Now...I demand my birthright.’
High Overlord Sector tried to push his foot off him, but his strength had left him years ago.
‘WE APPOINT THE OVERLORDS!’
Daquan knelt before him, and spoke so that only the Overlords could hear him.
‘I know what hides in the hills of the Southern Wasteland. I command the Ori. With one word, I will ransack Agorrah.’
Daquan stood to his feet, flinging his arms out in a wide gesture.
‘I claim this empty chair, the Chair of Ramathor in the name of my father, Past High Overlord Gamalang, who once occupied it and bequeathed it to me.’
Stunned inward breath-held silence greeted him, and then a slow foment of murmuring followed. High Overlord Sector stood and whispered to the other Overlords for several minutes, while the murmuring simmered into shouting, boos and threats against Daquan. Daquan ignored the insults, snarling back and pulling faces at them, and pretending to yawn and gesturing for the Overlords to hurry up.
The Overlords fell silent, and despite the evident hatred on their face toward Daquan, an air of being bested clung to them.
Finally High Overlord Sector wobbled upright, announcing with resignation that the council of Overlords accepted his appointment to which the audience erupted into shouting and yelling.
‘What is your first command?’ High Overlord Sector asked, amidst the din.
‘The children stay,’ he said ignoring the boos and hisses.
‘ENOUGH!’ High Overlord Sector shouted, coughing with the strain. ‘They will still be tribulated, but stay regardless of the outcome.’
‘No tribulation either!’
Once again protests and yelling erupted, though the High Overlords stood, and silence fell. They shuffled out, saying no more.
After the meeting cleared, Sah Task-Master Carrion, Master Saurian and Captain HeGood hung back discussing what had just happened.
Master Saurian cracked his fingers.
‘I don’t like what Daquan is up to.’
‘Highly irregular,’ Captain HeGood said.
‘Not to worry. All things work together for the greater good. We have dealt with worse than these kids,’ Sah Task-Master Carrion said.
‘You have an idea?’ Master Saurian asked.
‘We shall give the Overlords what they requested, and especially our latest Overlord.’ He cackled. ‘We shall embrace them and simply put them out the front of other students and ask them to lead. They will crumble of their own accord.’
Both Captain HeGood and Master Saurian urged Sah Task-Master Carrion to tell them how that would happen.
He bent close to them and whispered it.
***
Argus stood before the Harbinger, seething with fury. ‘You knew about the gold!’
‘It’s a good thing you weren’t seen waltzing in here,’ the Harbinger said, gazing out the window. ‘Stay here. No one comes to the Northwest wing anymore.’
‘The gold! There’s no way out. You sent me there to see the gold.’
The Harbinger shook his head.
‘You wanted to go. Anyway, only one thing that would speak to you. Gold. Disappointing but true.’
‘So I go to the Ori, you protect the kids and I get the gold.’
‘It’s now not that simple......Perhaps if you had been here, they would have stayed hidden.
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning that instead of being here playing and learning to use the costumes and preserving their fresh innocence, they are out there.’
The Harbinger pointed to the door.
‘Where exactly?’
‘They have been sent to the Vahn. All of New Wakefield knows they are here.’
‘And that is...’
The Harbinger threw his arms up in frustration.
‘A hideous school of brutality.’
‘And those costumes and bracelets?’
‘Still hidden, though...though they used them already. Attacked some of the people here.’
Argus smiled at this idea.
‘Good. That’s the idea isn’t it? This is after all a revenge plot.’
‘What?’
‘In my line of work there are only two reasons to hire me, revenge or power. Myself, I have scores to settle back in the real world. Revenge you see.’
The Harbinger shook his head again not believing what he heard.
‘I’m suddenly not sure I want your help anymore.’
‘Why? Because I’m straight up about wanting the gold?’
‘No. Because you don’t get it! Each time force is used innocence is lost. That’s the key, defeating your enemy without force.’
‘You are right. I don’t get it.’
‘Pity. We seem to be out of time. As it is, the children need help and guidance. And we are the only two who can provide it. It must be done carefully though, they must still work it out for themselves. Come, I must now reveal myself to them.’
***
Quixote arrived back in the attic and found the others writing on Lexington’s paper sheets.
‘Well?’ Melaleuca asked.
‘She walked home. That’s all.’
‘Was she okay?’ Lexington asked.
‘I guess. She was blubbing most of the way.’
‘But you saw her go into her house?’
‘Sure.’
Melaleuca stood in front of him.
‘Starting now, you are going to tell Lexington all you have discovered. And if you object, I will make you write them up instead.’
‘Come on then Lex.’
Lexington motioned for Melaleuca to move and then stood in front of Quixote.
‘Qui. I am upset with you. You killed that bird.’
Quixote started to speak, but Lexington’s hand shot out and covered his mouth.
‘But I am also grateful….That is twice now you have saved me.’
With a spontaneous wooden motion, she leant forward to peck him, bumping his cheek hard with her lip.
‘Ewwww,’ Quixote said.
Realising what she had done, she went as red as Quixote was now turning.
‘I mean…just…you know…um…thank you….that’s all. N…n…now I realise you discover things. It would be good to do as Melaleuca says,’ she rushed out trying to cover up her clumsy kiss of appreciation.
Before she could wonder what came over her or face a surprised Melaleuca and a grinning Ari, the panel to the secret passageway clicked open and they all froze, staring amongst themselves. Someone shuffled inside it, and then Argus’s head appeared.
‘Argus!’ Melaleuca said, annoyed. ‘Where’ve you been?’
He wriggled out, stood and dusted his body.
‘Well?’ Lexington asked. ‘We thought you had abandoned us.’
Quixote held his bracelet wrist up.
‘You should see what we found! I’ll kick your tough butt.’
Ari lowered Quixote’s arm.
‘Shh Qui.......Can we trust you Argus?’
Argus shifted about on the spot, not making eye contact.
‘I needed to check some things, that’s all.’
Melaleuca took a step closer.
‘What’s wrong? I can hear it in your voice.’
‘I am to, ahh, make sure, everything is okay.’
Lexington tucked her hair behind her ears.
‘Well, it’s not. Do you know anything about what’s going on?’
‘Play. You are to play.’ He flicked his hand toward Quixote. ‘The little one’s right.’
Suspicious, Melaleuca walked up to him, and locked onto his eyes.
‘What exactly do you know?’
‘Play?’ Lexington said, and then trying her gentleness, asked, ‘Go on, tell us Argus. We need to know.’
Argus averted Melaleuca’s eyes, dropping his unsure act, and chuckled.
‘None the worse for wear, are you? In fact...’ Argus eyed Lexington. ‘Were you trying your powers of seduction on me? Sorry, Hon, you’re too young.’
‘No!’
‘Perhaps we do not need you,’ Melaleuca said.
Another voice spoke from out of the secret passage.
‘It may already be too late for that!’
The voice sounded familiar, though changed. Jeeves’s head appeared at the secret passage. As he entered the room, another figure shambled behind him. Pembrooke clambered out feet first. They stood there together looking at the cousins.
‘Too late for what?’ Lexington asked.
‘Too late to stay hidden for a start,’ said the voice from the secret passage.
Uncle Bear-Nard pushed himself out and without stooping, stood to his full height. Instead of a vacant expression, his face now had strength and defiance in it.
I am the Harbinger, but they shall not know that yet.
‘Perhaps you are used to seeing me like this,’ Uncle Bear-Nard said, dropping his shoulders. ‘P..p..p..perhaps...more l...l...l..like this!’
‘Why is it too late Uncle?’ Melaleuca asked.
‘Yes, yes, yes. Please, everyone sit. I will answer some of your questions. I apologise for staying hidden for so long. It was necessary.’
‘Why?’ Lexington asked.
‘Wait,’ Uncle Bear-Nard said, and then spoke to Pembrooke. ‘Quickly, outside, stay on the lookout,’ and then to Jeeves, ‘Distract Gerty for me would you.’
Uncle Bear-Nard sat on the bed, and caressed Melaleuca’s cheeks. ‘You have your mother’s face and her fire.’
Melaleuca blushed.
Lexington had her notebook at the ready.
‘Where are they?’
‘Did giants live here once?’ Quixote asked.
‘Shh!’ Uncle Bear-Nard said. ‘Please. Listen.’ He stood, paced back and forth, and then faced them as if he had made a decision.
‘It is very, very, very important, that you work out what is going on for yourselves.’
The cousins protested immediately.
‘Please listen,’ he said, holding his hands up to calm them down. Sadness washed over him, and years of waiting for this moment and all the experiences that went with it, tumbled around in his mind.
‘You want the truth, not just any truth, not just a truth, but the real truth. This, however, you can only discover for yourself. Never listen to anything other than yourself and your heart. Make the discoveries for yourself. If other people reveal things to you, they can only do so from their own untruths.’
He pondered his words and then added, ‘This is why even I don’t trust what I say. This is proof of my truthfulness.’
He motioned to Melaleuca to come closer.
‘Come, look into my eyes.’
Melaleuca fixed her eyes on his, locking into his mind. On a boat, moored at the same beach the cousins had fled from, she saw Uncle Bear-Nard help their parents disembark and flee, and then she saw Uncle Bear-Nard hide the bracelets and brick up the costume room.
‘That will do,’ Uncle Bear-Nard said, breaking eye contact. ‘Now tell the others.’
‘We trust him,’ Melaleuca said. ‘He helped our parents escape. All of them, our fathers, and our mothers.’
‘Mothers?’ Lexington said. ‘All four of them?’
Melaleuca nodded.
‘We only found evidence that Melaleuca’s mother lived here and only she went to the Vahn. Why is that?’
With tenderness, Uncle Bear-Nard said, ‘Work it out. Your mother has told me how smart you are.’
A frustrated Lexington glared at her Uncle.
‘However, to help you start, if you get something right, I will tell you. No one can teach you. I am a guide. Teach yourselves.’
‘Telepathy,’ Lexington said. ‘Our parents spoke to you with telepathy didn’t they. It makes sense. Quixote’s mother was talking into thin air like our parents were there, the night we fled. Well?’
‘Yes.’
‘Our parents were the Marauders,’ Quixote said.
‘Yes.’
‘And they wrecked havoc on New Wakefield about thirty years ago,’ Lexington said.
Uncle Bear-Nard remained silent.
‘But that hardly makes sense. We were told how the Marauders went berserk.’
Uncle Bear-Nard still stayed silent.
‘It was someone else dressed as the Marauders,’ Melaleuca said, testing him.
Still silent.
Ari said, ‘We are to save the children at the Vahn.’
Their Uncle did not reply.
‘We’re not!!!’ Ari looked at Melaleuca. ‘But I felt for sure.’
‘Then what are we to do?’ Quixote asked.
Again Uncle Bear-Nard did not reply.
‘Play?’ Melaleuca asked.
Their Uncle nodded.
Aunty Gertrude’s fast paced footsteps could be heard banging along the corridor.
Pembrooke dashed into the room.
‘Leg it, Jeeves must’ve mucked up.’
Both Argus and Uncle Bear-Nard dived into the secret passageway, followed by a fleet footed Pembrooke. Within seconds Aunty Gertrude barged into the room, and stood there, hands on her hips, her livid face contorting into something more caring.
‘I came as soon as I could....After today’s melee, are you...are...are you...okay?’
‘Would not have happened if that poor girl was not beaten so,’ Melaleuca said.
‘That girl got what she deserved!.....besides…..’
Aunty Gertrude stopped and tried to put on a more gentle voice. ‘…..Perhaps it might take some time to grow accustomed to our ways.’
‘What hurting people for pleasure?’ Ari said.
‘You don’t understand. It is necessary!’
‘We don’t want to understand,’ Lexington said.
‘But you have to! You must be strong to survive.’
‘Nothing here can hurt us.’ Quixote said.
‘But you must listen!.......You must listen.’
Boosted in confidence by Uncle Bear-Nard’s words Aunty Gertrude seemed a mere trifling now, and Melaleuca saw she felt it. Fed up with her Aunt’s behaviour, she bore her eyes into her.
‘The time for listening to you is fast coming to an end,’ Melaleuca said.
Aunty Gertrude felt the chill of her words, and thought of her honour, and how, if the cousins failed horribly, her name would be tarnished.
‘Fine, tuck in for the night and we shall see.’
She left.
The cousins ran to the secret passage entrance, pushed on the horse’s tail and clambered in, only to find it empty.
Lexington faced the others.
‘I swear I will turn over every fact, every theory until I get nothing but yeses out of Uncle Bear-Nard.’
‘Make sure you use the costumes and do it through play,’ Melaleuca said, but then corrected herself. ‘Through pretend.’
‘I can tell,’ Lexington said. ‘Perhaps I am starting to get feelings like you. But we were not meant to be attacked. We were not meant to be sent to the Vahn. I am even not sure we are meant to be here.’
Melaleuca gritted her teeth.
‘Forbid that one day we might be called on to use the costumes and we get caught in endless debates. What or wherever we were meant for, this is where we are now. Move forward.’
***
Argus slurped the warm soup. He sat in an empty room waiting for Uncle Bear-Nard. Apart from, “protect the kids,” little else had been explained.
The door opened and Uncle Bear-Nard entered and slumped on Argus’s bed, resigned.
Argus dipped his bread into the soup
‘You don’t know what to do next do you?’
‘Six years. Six years too early.’
‘Nothing in battle ever goes according to plan. You must have a plan within a plan within a plan. Overcome, adapt, and improvise.’ He leant back in his chair. ‘What was supposed to happen?’
‘Their parents used the bracelets, but became corrupted. They started fighting to save all the children.’
‘Just like these kids want to.’
‘Yes, just like. The bracelets can work forever if the wearer can just stay pure and innocent. The children were to stay sheltered in their valley until they were beyond puberty, then come here and use the bracelets.’
‘They’re using them now.’
‘Not to attack. They were to use them to play that’s all.’
‘Who left them the notes?’
‘I can’t be sure.’
‘Gotta be an inside job. Someone here who knows that the kids would use the bracelets in a way that would lead them to the same fate as their parents.’
Uncle Bear-Nard screwed his face up.
‘How could you know that?’
‘It’s the way the world works.’
‘Not this time. We must take steps to preserve their innocence.’
‘But you said they have already attacked people.’
‘Only a few. It’s not too late….It can’t be too late.’
Argus rubbed his head, burped and loosened his trousers. ‘So what do you want me to do now?’
Uncle Bear-Nard stood, angered by Argus’s relaxed attitude.
‘First of all, get this into your skull. If those children become corrupted, then, when this age closes, the next age will be one of darkness. These are the last. They are Omega Children. There will be no more after them.’
‘Oh for Pete’s sake. Asking me to wet-nurse kids is one thing. Hell, for gold I’d just about do anything. But don’t ask me to believe in that rubbish. You know, I have more respect for those kids than I do for you.’
‘Good. It’s a start. Now listen up. If the kids want the children at the Vahn protected or rescued, so be it. You are going to rescue them.’
‘Me!’
‘I will tell them to not worry about the children; you are going to take care of it.’
‘Great. Rescue snot nosed kids.’ He shook his head and thought of the gold, though one thing bothered him. ‘With those bracelets and costumes then, what were the cousins supposed to do, given the power they wield? Play until they are old people?’
‘Given your lack of faith, don’t worry about it. Just stick to the tasks I give you.’