Page 24 of The Neverfear

They were lucky with the wind. The Neverfear sailed sweet and swift under Ratwin’s careful eye through the night. But despite the gentle rocking of the boat, neither Anya nor Christopher could sleep. Christopher could hear her tossing under the blanket.

‘Are you awake?’ she said.

‘Of course.’

She sat up in the dark; he saw her shape in the moonlight. ‘I can’t stop thinking about Irian. And Nighthand. I hate that we had to lie to him.’

‘So do I. Do you think he’ll believe Gallia?’

‘At first, yes. But I don’t know how long it’ll last.’ She bit down on her hair, and tried hard to smile into the dark. ‘I miss my father.’

‘I know,’ said Christopher. He longed, in that moment, for his bed with his own duvet cover, and his father clattering in the kitchen making dinner. He was going to speak when Anya gave a sudden scream.

‘What was that?’

Christopher scrambled up, reaching for his sword. ‘What?’

‘I saw something moving!’

He swung out of bed. ‘Where? Show me.’

She peered through the dark. ‘Sorry! No. It’s just the moonlight in the mirror – see? It looked like a face.’ She gave a short, sharp laugh. ‘Being an idiot. Let’s try to sleep.’

Great Caruta came in sight in the middle of the following day, a great hulk of green in the endless sweep of blue. They dropped the anchor of the Neverfear among a cluster of rocks.

Christopher had been worried they might not be able to find the castle, but it had proved – to put it mildly – not to be a problem. To have missed it would have been a spectacular achievement.

‘I like the deadly spikes on the turrets,’ said Jacques. ‘Jazzy.’

It was, at first glance, more like a mountain than something made by chisel and axe. It looked elemental, set on the edge of a forest, and built to withstand any imaginable version of the world’s oncoming future.

‘Move sleekitly,’ said Ratwin. ‘Keep lows. Theys will certainly kills you if they sees you.’

‘Would they eat us?’ said Christopher.

‘They mights. But they will not means you to take it personally.’

It was more than an hour’s walk to the castle, across wooded country. At first, where they came ashore, the trees were oaks and sycamores, but as they grew closer to the castle, Anya paused.

‘Have my eyes started malfunctioning,’ she said, ‘or are the trees taller?’

Christopher looked up. The trees were gargantuan, five times the size of those at home. They looked, Christopher thought, like some great avenging army. ‘Meri said that they’ve been breeding plants to be larger, over the last three thousand years.’

‘Well, it certainly worked,’ said Anya.

They walked on, staying a little closer to each other.

It was a surreal feeling: the landscape grew as they moved through it. The grass rose to head height and they had to shove their way past it, the sharp edges slicing at their skin. They pushed through a patch of daisies, each flower as large as a hubcap.

‘What’s that noise?’ said Anya. There was a terrible buzzing. Christopher looked round just as a bee the size of a Jack Russell swept down at them.

‘Manticore’s testicles!’ said Ratwin. Christopher drew his sword. He didn’t take his eyes off the bee. Its sting was the size of a darning needle; his own body suddenly felt small and vulnerable in a way it had not before.

Jacques flew up to the bee and blew smoke in its face. ‘Be gone! Run, young ones!’

They ran, through the grass, over acres of green moss into which they sank knee-deep. Finally they scrambled over the top of a rise in the forest. They halted, pressed against a tree, too stunned to move.

The castle rose up in front of them, an immensity of stone. Vast rough-cut steps led up to it, each as tall as Christopher. But his attention passed over the castle’s harsh magnificence. His eyes were on the two figures in the huge square doorway.