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Toby hurried to catch up once the shock of seeing Sanelle had passed.
“But you came to get even with Blaise and free your mother,” Toby reminded her. He couldn’t force himself to give Blaise his official title anymore.
“And I will,” Sanelle assured him as they reached the outskirts of the small town that supported the castle. Most of the food was grown down here and many of the workers lived here too. “Tomorrow we’ll go back and get the gems for Klel, and then we’ll find a way to get the talisman.”
“We will?” Toby was astounded at the self-confidence Sanelle showed. He had intended to go back but not so soon after being banished.
“As long as we keep away from Blaise I can keep us safe.” Sanelle stopped at the edge of a small market place and bought several apples. She threw one to Toby and took a bite of her own.
“We still don’t know who’s got them though,” Toby pointed out.
“Didn’t you feel them?” Sanelle stopped chewing and stared at him. “Princess Kaylene was wearing them,” Sanelle told him and Toby realised what she was talking about.
“My fingers, they tingled when I was near her!” Toby exclaimed. At last, a real sign that he was a sorcerer.
They reached the centre of the market place and Toby saw a crowd was gathering around a covered wagon that had just pulled up. It was drawn by the skinniest horse Toby had ever seen, and the poor animal had been left hitched up to the wagon while its master set up a platform.
There were letters on the side of the wagon’s cover that once would have been bright red but now they were faded to a dull orange. This traveller had obviously been around a long time. Toby studied the letters and formed the words slowly in his mind.
“Chilton’s Cures.” He smiled at his success then frowned. Most of the townspeople could obviously not read or they wouldn’t waste their time there.
Sanelle had wandered off to buy some more food but Toby stayed at the back of the crowd to see what sort of response the traveller got once the people knew what he was selling.
“Ladies and Gentlemen.” The man stood up on his platform and Toby frowned to see that he still hadn’t taken care of the poor animal that brought him here. “People of...” He paused and looked around for someone to supply the town’s name.
“Castletown!” a young boy called out and the man nodded in appreciation.
“People of Castletown. I am Healer Chilton and I have here something that will change your lives.” He reached under a covered table that he had placed on the platform and pulled out a bottle of green liquid. “No more aching backs, no more illness, no more baldness...”
People had started to wander off already. It was hardly surprising, as travelling healers couldn’t really expect to compete with a dragon’s scale, although this was the first one he had heard that promised a cure for baldness.
“What’s he selling?” Sanelle asked as she came back with a bag full of delicious smelling food. She looked at the wagon and laughed. “He’s hopeful.”
“Good people!” Healer Chilton called as he realised his customers were leaving. “Where else could you get something that will cure everything?”
“The dragon up at the castle,” was the reply from the boy who had told him the town’s name. He was the last one standing in front of the platform and obviously had nowhere better to be right now.
“A dragon?” The healer looked astonished and sank cross-legged onto the platform so that he was at eye-level with the boy. “Tell me more.”
Toby didn’t take much notice of the travelling healer and the boy as he and Sanelle sat under a tree to eat. It wasn’t until the boy started taking some men to the healer that he thought there was something going on. The men the boy fetched for the travelling healer weren’t the kind that Toby would trust if his life depended on it, he wouldn’t even trust them with his lunch.
“I wonder what they’re up to,” Toby said and pointed at the small cluster of men gathered around the back of the wagon.
“Looks like a very suspicious group,” Sanelle agreed and after a thoughtful look she made a pattern in the air and this time Toby caught the word ‘Sapphire’ as she muttered it. She rested her hand lightly on Toby’s shoulder and he felt one eyebrow lower in a small frown, he much preferred holding her hand.
“Are we invisible?” Toby saw a young girl walking nearby and as she neared the tree she suddenly changed direction and hurried off, looking nervous and scared. “I don’t think it worked.”
“I do know a few other runes, you know.” Sanelle got up and pulled Toby up without letting go of his shoulder. “To them we look like the most despicable, untrustworthy pair of robbers they’ve ever seen.”
“Oh.” Toby realised that holding hands would not look right considering their disguise. He was about to ask why they looked like that when the boy who had been talking to the travelling healer came up to them.
“Wanna earn some coin?” he whispered, not getting too close. By the way his nose wrinkled Sanelle must have added a very bad smell to their disguise. Toby was glad he was immune to it.
“What’ve we gotta do?” Sanelle’s voice slurred in a perfect imitation of a drunken low-life.
“Catch a dragon,” the boy replied in a whisper
“Dragons are pretty dangerous.” Sanelle appeared to be thinking it over and rubbed her chin with her free hand. “How much coin?”
“Go see the healer.” The boy backed away and then ran off, peering into alleyways and tavern windows.
Toby and Sanelle wandered slowly over, people clearing a path for them as they passed through the market, and stopped at the side of the small, but ugly, group of men.
“How much you payin’?” Sanelle called just loud enough to draw attention to them. Disguise or not, she had guts and Toby was impressed.
“Two brass each if you get the dragon, nothing if you don’t,” Healer Chilton offered, looking them up and down and Sanelle nodded in agreement.
“Will it fit in the wagon?” Someone asked and Healer Chilton frowned as he sized up the inside of his wagon.
“I hear it’s twice that size,” one man offered.
“Nah, it’s no bigger than a dog,” another argued.
Finally, after much arguing, they decided that the wagon was probably big enough and Healer Chilton broke up the meeting.
“Meet me at the fork in the road just out of town after dark. We’ll be done by moonrise.” He went into the back of his wagon and dropped the flap, whistling tunelessly to himself.
Toby and Sanelle wandered back to the tree and Sanelle drew a quick sign in the air.
“It cancels the spell,” she told him when he raised an eyebrow in question. “So what do we do about that lot?”
“They won’t get past the guards. They’re no threat to Klel,” Toby assured her, but it worried him that people would actually try to steal Klel.
“Still, I think we should go along with them tonight just to make sure,” Sanelle decided.
* * *
IT WAS DARK WHEN THEY arrived by the fork in the road. The moon wouldn’t be up for an hour or so yet and they saw the small group of men already gathered just off the road in a small gully. Healer Chilton wasn’t there yet and Toby and Sanelle joined the misfits.
They were all muttering amongst themselves while they waited. Some were saying it was foolish to try and steal a dragon, but were obviously desperate for coin or they wouldn’t be there. It was a clear night and it didn’t look likely to snow for some time but it was also cold. Toby cringed as he stood in a deep drift of snow and sank up to his knees.
They only had to wait a few minutes before the sound of a wagon drew them all out of the gully. The healer lifted the flap and pushed them all in. Toby had to keep close enough to Sanelle for her hand to rest on his shoulder or back. If she let go now he would be in real trouble, stuck in the middle of a wagon full of thieves and cut-throats.
Healer Chilton drove the wagon up the west side of the castle on a little used track that led past the castle and on up to the ruins of an old castle on a small hill. The healer had obviously bought some information about the castle because the west wall was the least guarded as it backed onto the rubbish heap. The smell could be awful if the wind was in the wrong direction so the guards tended to miss that part of the courtyard wall as they did their rounds. Who had told the healer to come here?
“Over this way.” Healer Chilton pointed to some trees and Toby wondered if they were going to climb the trees and jump over the wall. The healer didn’t appear to have any rope to scale the wall, and once inside how was he intending to carry Klel out?
“Sanelle, look!” Toby whispered, shocked and horrified to see that an old metal gate, sealed off years ago, stood partly open and allowed them access directly into the large courtyard where Klel’s shelter was.
There were no guards in sight and Toby knew then that stealing Klel was a real possibility. Everyone froze as the lantern of a patrolling guard came into sight but to Toby’s horror the guard missed out the west wall completely.
“We’ve got to do something,” Toby hissed at Sanelle.
“What, like this?” Sanelle asked and suddenly the sky was full of exploding coloured lights.
“What is it?” Toby asked over the booming noise of the explosions.
“Mother calls it a light-show, it’s her special trick. It won’t hurt anyone but it will get their attention.” Sanelle leaned close to his ear so that he could hear.
All around the courtyard heads appeared at the windows. People started coming out of every door and the courtyard was filling fast.
“We’ll come back tomorrow,” Healer Chilton said with a scowl and headed back towards the gate.
Toby allowed himself to be pushed out the gate and then he and Sanelle moved off into the shadows. Everyone else piled into the back of the wagon but Healer Chilton kicked them out.
“There’ll be people out on the roads with this in the sky. I’ll not be caught with the likes of you lot sitting in the back of my wagon,” he told them. “I’ll leave the wagon here. Meet here the same time tomorrow night.”
The thugs and thieves melted into the darkness, shown up every few seconds against the white snow by the lights that still exploded so prettily in the sky. Toby and Sanelle slumped down by the wall of the castle and watched them retreat.
“They could have done it you know,” Toby commented as she let go of his shoulder and he saw her make the sign she had made earlier to undo her spell.
“I know.” Sanelle looked as worried as he was. “We have to get him out of there.”
“We’re going to steal Klel?” Toby asked in an amazed voice and then they both jumped as the solid metal gate banged shut just a few feet from where they sat. Healer Chilton obviously had inside help.
“No, we’re going to set him free,” Sanelle corrected him.
“Do you have to turn that off?” Toby pointed to the lights in the sky.
“No, it lasts for about half an hour and then just fades away,” Sanelle replied and then pointed up the hill, away from the castle. “What’s that?”
In the flashes of light Toby saw she was pointing up towards the old castle, abandoned nearly thirty years ago.
“The old castle. The king thought it was too small so he had a new one built,” Toby replied and then yawned. It had been a long day.
“We’ll spend the night up there and come back to set Klel free in the morning,” Sanelle told him. She was obviously used to making decisions and Toby didn’t have the energy to argue.
“Look.” Toby pointed over at the wagon. “He didn’t even unhitch the poor horse.”
They released the horse and Sanelle fed it an apple from the bag of food in her pack.
“Is there a well up at the old castle?” Sanelle asked and Toby nodded. “We’ll take him up there for a drink, he looks like he could do with one. That healer ought to be ashamed at treating an animal this badly.
They walked the horse slowly up the hill and stopped in the front courtyard of the ruins to look back down on the castle. The light-show was still exploding high above the castle and there appeared to be no standing room in the courtyard. On top of Klel’s shelter, Toby could see the pale golden outline of his friend, snout raised to the sky and obviously enjoying the show. The moon was just rising and Toby stared at it, seeing that it was over half full; time was running out for Sanelle’s mother.
“Hold on Klel. We’ll come and get you in the morning,” Toby whispered, a cloud of mist rising from his breath, then led the horse over to the well.