The Battle of the Sun Read online

  ‘My kind and I were plentiful. We roamed and ranged the full stretch of the Earth, and if we had continued, your kind could not have come to be.’

  ‘The good Lord made the Earth,’ said Jack, ‘and everything in it within seven days.’

  ‘Mayhap so,’ said the Dragon. ‘But not everything at the same time. Not everything at once. How long were seven days in those days, Jack? You cannot answer me, for you do not know.’

  And Jack did not know how to answer and he was silent.

  ‘When my kind became extinct, do you think it was so simple for us to disappear? No, not so. We disappeared from the face of the Earth only to return in the deepest lairs of men.’

  ‘When a thing is gone it is gone,’ said Jack stubbornly. ‘When a house is knocked down and another built in its place, why, the first house is gone for ever.’

  ‘Even that is not so simple as you would believe,’ said the Dragon, ‘for whatever has stood in the world leaves behind an imprint, an echo, a scent, a spirit. What is destroyed is also reclaimed. What has been lost waits to be found.’

  Jack was out of his depth, like a swimmer who can hardly see the land. Dragons talk in riddles, yes, in riddles . . .

  ‘Time passes,’ said the Dragon, ‘the clock chimes, men are born, grow old, and die, the world changes. All that is true, Jack, but that is not the sum of truth. You are young, but your deepest mind is as old as the mind of the first man who ever was, and what he saw, you can see, and what he knew, you can know, and what he feared, you fear too. You are many Jacks, many minds, many lives, but you live this one now, and that is what you see, like a man in a great house who confines himself to a single room and a single view.

  ‘And I, I am older even than mankind, and I have seen much.’

  Jack thought of the Thames, and how his mother had told him that the Romans had rowed up the river and how in those days, so far away, the banks were thickly wooded and mammoths roamed the land. And how there were rich houses along the banks of the Thames, and the mammoths were all gone, but the river still ran its course. It was the same river. Perhaps his mind was like that river.

  ‘Yes so, Jack Snap,’ said the Dragon. ‘You are like that river.’

  Jack said, ‘The Magus can read my mind too.’

  The Dragon said, ‘The Magus is able to read your mind only when you are troubled in mind. When you are asking yourself a question, or when you are afraid, or when you are in doubt, then he can read you. When you are certain, and if your mind is bold, he cannot. There, I have told you a useful secret.’

  ‘There’s an old man locked in the cellar,’ said Jack, blurting things out as usual. ‘He’s a King, and he said I had to find you and bid you to prepare him a Bath.’

  ‘And if I do that,’ said the Dragon, ‘why, what will you do for me, Jack Snap?’

  Jack stood a long time. He said nothing.

  ‘And your mother is here . . .’ said the Dragon softly, ‘is she not, and your dog?’

  ‘Does the Magus know that?’ said Jack, suddenly anxious in his mind.

  ‘He does now,’ said the Dragon, ‘for your foolishness has told him so.’

  Jack went red. ‘You are the same as him!’

  ‘Not so, Jack Snap, but something of so.’

  Jack turned and tried to stumble away. He felt stupid and angry and scared. Was the Dragon really the Magus and the Magus really the Dragon? Why did the Dragon talk in riddles all the time?

  The Dragon called him back. ‘Jack Snap! I am the only one who can help you.’

  ‘I can’t trust you,’ said Jack, ‘if you are him or of him!’

  ‘I did not ask you to trust me,’ replied the Dragon, ‘and if you knew anything about dragons, you would not trust me. Your trust is not interesting. You want something from me and I want something from you. That is interesting.’

  ‘What do you want from me?’ asked Jack.

  ‘I want the Cinnabar Egg that he keeps in his bedchamber.’

  ‘I don’t even know where he sleeps!’ said Jack.

  ‘He does not sleep,’ said the Dragon, ‘but you will find the Egg and bring it to me. It looks rather like that coconut you have in your pocket.’

  Jack started guiltily. The Dragon knew everything. The Dragon suddenly plucked a coconut from a great palm that grew beside him, split the nut, and gave it to Jack to drink.

  ‘Drink to our bargain,’ said the Dragon, ‘for that is how the race of men seals a bargain.’

  Jack drank, expecting to fall down dead, but the coconut milk was delicious.

  ‘And if I find the Egg . . . and if I bring it to you?’

  ‘Only in the sulphur waters can the Sunken King be set free.’

  SOME MORE USEFUL INFORMATION

  As Jack turned to go, the Dragon shot out a long scaly foot, and nearly frightened Jack to death.

  ‘Why so nervous, Jack? Take these, for they will be of some use to thee. Guard them well, with dragon-care.’

  And the Dragon gave Jack seven sunflower seeds. Jack dropped them into his pocket with the coconut. Then he left the way he had come, climbing the strange tree with its mossy branches that led from the Dragon’s lair back up to the house.

  The hallway was as dark as ever. The door to the library was open. Jack crept across the floor and saw the Magus sitting at the stone table poring over a book. He was as still as stone himself, more like a statue than a human being.

  Realising that he had a chance, Jack ran back to the cellar to tell the Sunken King what had happened with the Dragon.

  As he entered the cellar he was talking already. ‘I have met with the Dragon! I must find the Cinnabar Egg, and then he will prepare the Bath.’

  But the Sunken King gave no acknowledgement of Jack’s presence. He remained in his glass tank, but he was fearfully changed. It was as though the waters had begun to claim him, and the outlines of his body wavered and vanished, vanished and wavered.

  Jack went right up to the thick glass and pressed his hands against it to attract the King’s attention. Curiously, for the room was cold, the glass was warm.

  The King raised his head, slowly, slowly, as though he were raising himself through many lifetimes, and coming to the surface of this life, now.

  ‘It is too late,’ he said in a whisper.

  ‘Not too late,’ said Jack, ‘I’ll be quick as a thief, but help me, please – where does he sleep, the Magus?’

  ‘He does not sleep,’ said the Sunken King faintly, echoing the Dragon, ‘yet his chamber is near your own, and there you will find the Cinnabar Egg.’

  As the King said these last words his voice faded away like a ghost pulled back through time.

  Jack hesitated, nodded, then ran back up the stairs. His mind was racing – if the Magus was still in the library, if Jack could discover the chamber, if he could take the Egg . . .

  He was already at the foot of the first flight from the hall to the upper floors, when the library door was flung wide open and there was the figure of the Magus standing in the doorway.

  ‘Jack . . .’

  Jack turned, afraid.

  ‘Don’t be afraid, Jack, I am not going to punish you. Come back – you ran away too fast.’

  Jack entered the room. There was his mother, standing quite still on the far side of the table, by the fireplace.

  ‘Did you think I would not know? Did you think I would not divine it?’ said the Magus.

  ‘Know what? Divine what?’ replied Jack defiantly.

  ‘Oh, Jack, you are cleverer than that, and I am far cleverer than you. This is your mother, Anne. She came to find you.

  But fear not, I shall not send her away. Indeed, I have made quite certain that she will stay with us. Come here, Jack.’

  Reluctantly Jack went round to where the Magus was standing with his mother. When he saw what he saw he cried out.

  His mother had been turned to stone.

  ‘Jack, have no fear,’ said his mother bravely.

  Jack looke
d down. His mother’s feet, her shins, her knees, the tops of the legs to her waist had been turned to stone. Her arms were free and her upper body was flesh.

  ‘It is well, is it not,’ said the Magus, ‘that your mother should watch over you?’

  Then, like a lion, the Magus seized Jack in both his hands and held him in a grip so tight that Jack thought he would burst his blood vessels. ‘Jack,’ said the Magus, ‘you will not disobey me, you will not betray me, for the next time you do, then I will turn your mother to stone up to her neck, do you hear, and after that, if there is a third time, she will be as stone as a statue.’

  ‘Let her go!’ said Jack.

  ‘When you become my true assistant, when you serve me as I require. When the mighty work of the Opus is complete, then on that day, I tell you, Jack, on that day and on no other, your mother will be freed to life. Do you understand, Jack? The choice is yours. Your mother’s life is for you to keep or to lose!’

  The Magus let go of Jack and walked towards the window, where the light was just beginning to open the black night sky.

  The second the Magus turned away, Jack’s mother motioned to her son, and as he came forward she slipped him the iron tool. As the Magus turned back, all he saw was the two of them embracing.

  ‘Most touching sight,’ he said, ‘a mother and son.’

  ‘Did you never have a mother yourself, sir?’ said Anne, ‘a mother who would do for you what I have done for Jack? ’Tis only what any mother would do.’

  ‘My mother died in childbirth,’ said the Magus. ‘I never knew her. My father sold me for a gold coin.’

  The Magus took a worn gold coin from his pocket and spun it into the air, where by some magic it hung for a moment like a small sun in the cold room. As it fell, the Magus caught it. ‘That was my price . . .’

  There was a silence in the room, such a silence as Jack had never heard. It was the silence of loss.

  ‘And so,’ said the Magus, ‘I take pity on boys who like me have no father and mother, and I give them work and shelter. They shall all be rewarded in good time.’

  ‘Jack is not a boy without mother or father,’ said Anne.

  ‘You cannot keep him.’

  ‘He is the Radiant Boy,’ said the Magus, ‘and that is he for whom I have searched all these years, like my master before me. He will allow me to complete the Work.’

  ‘I don’t know how to,’ said Jack.

  ‘You will know,’ said the Magus. ‘Now go to the kitchen and get food and drink from Mistress Split, and bid her attend to your mother when she is done.’

  Jack kissed his mother and left for the kitchen. When he pushed open the heavy oak door that led to the vast stone kitchen, he saw the fire burning in the deep hearth, and lying in front of it, black nose in velvet paws, was his dog Max.

  Jack ran forward and scooped Max up in his arms, crying into his warm fur. Jack didn’t cry much, he was a brave boy, but sometimes things are so awful that tears are all you can do. If he hadn’t cried then, not for himself but for his mother, what kind of a boy would he have been? A boy without a heart.

  But Jack had a heart; a big brave beating heart, and it was his heart that wept. His dog Max licked his tears away and tried to show Jack that he wasn’t alone and sad.

  Sunflower seeds, Cinnabar Egg, Sunken King, Dragon, Magus, gold, gold, gold . . . all the names and images were whirling around in his head that felt too hot from the fire and from his misery. He sat down on the stone floor, a picture of dejection, feeling suddenly helpless and hopeless. What could he do? He was only a boy.

  The kitchen door crashed open and in hopped Mistress Split. She was in a state of high glee, and singing to herself:

  ‘All mine, all mine, all the time, all the time.’

  She pulled her sword from her skirt and swung it over her head to the hanging metal rack where the pots and pans hung. She used the sword like a stick, and beat the pots and pans like cymbals, hopping up and down, crash bang slam, crash bang slam. ‘All mine, all mine, all the time, all the time!’

  Suddenly she noticed Jack sitting on the floor with his knees drawn up, and Max sitting beside him. Her half-face was a picture of contradictions. When she looked at the dog, her face was soft as milk. When she looked at Jack, her mouth was stretched like a fox that finds its prey.

  ‘Now SHE is done for, the dog is MINE! Never had a whole mine all my Bottle days. Never had more than a half of this or a half of that or a half of the other. Now I have a dog entire – four paws, two eyes, two kidneys, all a nose, and all MINE.’

  She hopped over to the fireplace in a giant leap and cuffed Jack out of the way, scooping up the unfortunate Max, who knew enough to pretend enough to save the boy he loved.

  ‘Boojie Boojie Boojie!’ said Mistress Split.

  Jack got up and placed himself out of reach.

  ‘Who told you to come meddling in my kitchen?’ demanded Mistress Split, her half-nose in Max’s full furry neck.

  ‘The Magus,’ said Jack evenly, refusing to show fear. ‘His orders were to feed me and then to attend to Mistress Anne.’

  ‘Your mother, eh?’ said Mistress Split. ‘No more mother now! And no more dog!’

  ‘That is my mother’s dog, not my dog,’ said Jack.

  Mistress Split came forward and thrust her half-face in his face. ‘MY DOG,’ she said.

  Jack did not flinch. ‘Please do as the Magus says. Those are his orders – to feed me, to attend to my mother, and . . .’ Jack had had a brainwave. Suddenly he knew how he could locate the secret bedchamber of the Magus. ‘. . . and you are to service his chamber.’

  Mistress Split snorted. ‘Does he think I have more than half a pair of hands? Get your own bread and cheese, go on, and put the same on a tray for your mother, if I am to take it to her. As to the chamber . . .’

  Wedge came slamming into the kitchen, the look on his face like half a thunderstorm. ‘KEYS!’ he yelled.

  ‘If you PLEASE,’ yelled back Mistress Split.

  ‘Boys must rise and be earnest,’ said Wedge.

  ‘The Magus wants his chamber serviced,’ said Mistress Split.

  Wedge scowled. ‘What time have I to do that today?’

  Mistress Split shrugged. ‘Orders is orders, that’s his way.’

  She flung the keys across the table and balanced the tray deftly on one hand. She left the room, Max trotting beside her.

  ‘I’ll have that dog in two!’ said Wedge. ‘All halves, as well She knows, all halves, no wholes, as well She knows.’

  Then he stopped talking to himself and fixed Jack with a dark stare. ‘You! Come with me. The boys must be woken and I’ll not leave you to yourself, mischief Jackster.’

  Jack followed Wedge upstairs to the boys’ chamber.

  What was puzzling Jack was where the door to the Magus’s chamber could be, for there were no doors but one on the top landing where the boys slept, and yet the Sunken King had said that this was the place.

  Wedge unlocked the door and lined the boys up in order of age. Crispis, rubbing his eyes and still sleepy, came last.

  As Wedge was hurling oaths and threats of punishment at the boys, who were hastily making their beds or pulling on their socks, Jack told Crispis to watch where Wedge went as the boys filed downstairs. Usually this only took place with Wedge at the rear and Mistress Split at the head, but today was different . . .

  Sure enough, Wedge ordered the boys to go straight to the laboratory and begin making the fires. There was always two hours’ hard work chopping wood and heating water before breakfast.

  The boys set off meekly. Crispis trailed at the rear, and at the last second looked round to see Wedge doing something very strange indeed . . .

  HOW TO KEEP A PROMISE

  In the laboratory Jack told Robert and Peter what had happened the night before; how he had met the Dragon, and been instructed to steal the Cinnabar Egg. William was listening. ‘You’ll never find it if it’s in his chamber. Nobody knows where his cham
ber is.’

  ‘Yesterday Robert thought I could never find the Dragon, but I did so,’ said Jack. William frowned. The Eyebat flew past with a whoosh.

  ‘I hate that thing,’ said Robert.

  ‘If the Magus ever finds out that you are planning to escape . . .’ said William.

  ‘Who is going to tell him?’ said Jack defiantly. ‘I am going to find the Egg, free the Sunken King, and then the Magus will be defeated.’

  ‘But he has turned your mother to stone!’ said Robert.

  ‘The King will return her, I know he will,’ said Jack. ‘He will do that if I save him and restore his power.’

  Crispis came forward. ‘Your mother promised me a sunflower this morning,’ he said sadly.

  ‘How did she do that?’ said William suspiciously, and just as Jack was about to say that he had unlocked the door to his mother, he saw the look on William’s face, and he knew he must not trust him.

  Robert simply shrugged his shoulders; he was used to Crispis saying strange things. ‘We had better get to work,’ he said, ‘before Wedge comes back. William – fire the furnace, Jack, bring mercury for the alembic, Crispis, tell the others to chop the wood.’

  William turned away to his tasks. Crispis came up to Jack.

  ‘It’s in the ceiling,’ he whispered. ‘I saw it.’

  And he told Jack what had happened . . .

  Wedge had stood in front of the door to the boys’ chamber, and using his stick, he had rapped three times on the ceiling above the door. As Crispis had lingered, hiding behind the newel post on the stairs, he had heard a click and seen a small trapdoor open in the ceiling. More than that he had not seen, because Wedge, suspicious, had suddenly looked round, but he could not see tiny Crispis, thin as an adder, slithering flat on his bottom down the stairs.