Free The Shadow of Malabron by Thomas Wharton Page B

stranger receded into it, until his red robe became a faint blur and then vanished completely. Will found himself alone again in a nowhere of whirling whiteness, not even sure any more which way was up or down. The cold was seeping into him now, dulling his thoughts and making his limbs sluggish. He staggered backwards and fell, tumbling over and over. The snow was in his eyes, his ears, his mouth. He curled up into a ball.
    It’s just a dream
, he whispered feverishly.
I have to wake up
.
    Rowen did not fall sleep for a long time. When she finally did, she dreamed of Will. She saw him riding the machine he called a motorcycle, and in her dream it was a bulky contraption of clanking metal parts and giant wooden wheels, with tall pipes rising from it that sent up hissing jets of steam. And then she was seated on the machine behind him, hanging on desperately as they sped through the streets of Fable.
    “Where are we going?” she asked him over the roar and hiss of the machine.
    “I have no idea,” he shouted back, a wild grin on his face.
    The streets of the city had become steep, twisting canyons. They plunged down them at a terrible speed, shuddering over the cobblestones. The shrieking wind stung Rowen’s eyes to tears. Her hair whipped in her face. The motorcycle’s pipes screamed and bits and pieces of it began to fly off.
    Below them, the street ended in a blank wall of stone.
    Will turned to her.
    “We’re going to crash now,” he said calmly.
    “Can’t you do anything?” she shouted. “Can’t you stop it?”
    “Not me,” he said with a shrug. “I don’t have any control over it at all.”
    Rowen put her hands over her face and peered out between her fingers. Just before they smashed headlong into the wall, she woke up.
    Sunlight was streaming through her window. She thought of Will. What was going to happen to him? And what was going to happen to Fable? Why were so many storyfolk coming here these days?
    Slipping on a dressing gown, she went to the chest at the end of her bed and opened it. Underneath a stack of blankets lay a pile of old books. This was the one place Edweth never looked. As long as Rowen kept everything neatly tucked away in the chest, there was no reason for the housekeeper to go rooting around in it. And that meant this was the one place in her room she could hide something.
    She shoved the books aside and laid bare a bed-sheet wrapped round something long and bulky. Lifting it from the chest she set the sheet down on her bed and unwrapped it. Inside lay a sword. Its silver hilt was inscribed with the seal of the Errantry, a five-petalled white flower within a circle.
    Rowen took the sword in both hands and held it in front of her. The blade gleamed in the morning light.
    She had found it in the uppermost attic of the house, in a locked trunk, the key to which had cost her many days of searching. The sword was her mother’s, there was no doubt of that. Her grandfather had hidden it away from her, but Rowen had found it. She was meant to find it. And with it she would do great things.
    A cry came from down the corridor, in the direction of Will’s room. Hurriedly Rowen tucked away the sword, and went out onto the landing. At Will’s door she stopped and listened.
    A bird was singing somewhere. There was warm sunlight on his eyelids. But he was still cold and shivering. What had happened to his blankets? He groped for the covers, eyes still closed, wondering what Dad was making for breakfast. Jess would probably be up soon and tugging on his pyjama sleeve, wanting him to watch cartoons with her.
    Then he remembered.
    Will opened his eyes. He was lying, curled up, at the end of his bed. Groggily he raised his head. The blankets were in a heap on the floor.
    He was in his room in the toymaker’s house. He had been dreaming about the clearing with the cloven tree, and the strange white-haired man, but
this
was no dream. He was really here, in the Perilous Realm. The mirrors in the