Page 70 of The Neverfear

The librarian of the Palace of Glimt had, in general, a stern and beaky stare. This was unsurprising, given she was a harpy. But even her usually haughty face looked panicked as Anya piled their weapons in the middle of the library.

‘Is that all you have?’ said the harpy.

There were the kitchen knives of course, and the pokers from every fire, and Christopher’s obsidian sword strapped across his back, and Anya’s two rapiers. But there was very little else.

‘I did wonder about adding some of Nighthand’s more experimental cooking,’ said Anya, and she tried to laugh, but the joke fell flat.

‘That is certainly not all!’ Meri came scampering towards them. He carried in his forepaws a cache of miniature weapons. ‘Here!’ he cried. ‘A sharpened carrot. A deadly twig. Two sewing needles, and a chestnut shell helmet. We can do some damage with those, should you allow me to assist.’

‘Thank you,’ said Christopher, and he bowed to the mouse. ‘I know you’ll defend us valiantly. But they’re trained soldiers and we’re not. So we need a strategy, and fast. First: where do we hide Teren?’

‘In the Star Tower?’ said Anya.

‘No way out if they corner us.’

‘Bedroom?’ croaked Gallia.

‘The locks are weak. They’ll break.’

‘In here then,’ said Anya. ‘In the library. And I’ll weave snapdragon flowers around all the doorknobs and windows in the palace.’

‘I will do that,’ said Jacques. ‘Dragons are immune to their poison.’

There was a whinnying outside the library window. The unicorn and her golden foal stood on the lawn, looking towards the house.

‘But what are we going to do once Teren is hidden? There’s just us –’ Anya’s despairing gesture took in the tiny, fireless dragon, the ratatoska, the mouse – ‘and eleven of them! It won’t be enough!’

‘I know,’ said Christopher. And he looked again at the unicorn, and an idea – a reckless, wild, perhaps impossible idea – rose up in him like a rocket. ‘But it’s not just us.’

Christopher stood on the steps of the palace, looking out at the water. He called aloud. Nothing happened.

‘Hurry, Christopher!’ cried Anya. ‘They’re minutes away!’

He closed his eyes. He tried to summon up the Light. It had only ever come to him in the company of a creature: never yet had he tried to conjure it alone, to send it outwards. A summoning.

‘Agh!’ He had not expected it to hurt, and yet it burned like fire – a scorching that began in his chest and surged outwards to his fingertips. He caught his breath. Wordlessly Christopher stood under the shadow of the palace and called for help.

Nothing happened. He saw Anya’s face, staring out at the oncoming boat. It was very close now.

And then there was a noise above his head. The phoenix came soaring out of the wood, crying its high shrill call. It was joined by a rustling, a cawing, by neighing and barking and roaring – and in a stampede from the house, from the river and from the forest, the creatures came.

The unicorn came galloping head down over the lawn to stand at the foot of the steps next to the chimaera. The bonnacon and the longma ran to crouch beside the cluster of golden al-mirajes. The kankos came scampering over the lawn to stand in a row by the palace doors like a tiny army and the birds flocked screaming above him. Ratwin came darting around the corner, her ragged stump gleaming in the light, half a dozen ratatoskas behind her, calling, ‘Ready! Readies! Ready-up and ready-go!’

Christopher moved from creature to creature, looking into each pair of eyes. It struck him at the heart and ran through his body as each living thing sent out a golden thread. He held them in his mind: hundreds of threads, each alive and thrumming with intent.

Wild animals had followed Christopher since he was born. When he was a baby, foxes had licked his toes as he sat in his buggy. Swans had followed him into swimming pools. They had loved him. And he had felt their love and returned it. It had moved between them so deeply he had barely noticed it: it was his gravity. How long had he taken it as his normal life, his due? Long, very long, he had known their love.

It came to Christopher in a sudden blaze of understanding. When a living thing gives you its love it is a sacred trust. The creatures had claimed him, body and soul. They were his to protect. He put his hand to his sword.

The green-gold threads shone inside him: it was an incandescence. He knew the eagerness of the young roc, the slow understanding of the bonnacon, the shrill glee of the kankos. He felt the fierce purpose of the unicorns and the longma’s hunger.

And Christopher felt for one fleeting second that it didn’t matter now if he died in the fight that was to come, because he had for just one second understood. He had known the hearts and minds of a tumult of living beings. They – this living chorus – were the joyful duty of his life.

This battle was for Teren, who held the memory of the world in his hands. But it was for the creatures too.

‘This is their home,’ Christopher said. ‘We protect it for Teren, and for them.’

‘How? How can we?’ said Anya.