Dragon Amber Read online

  When Jem finally hauled himself out of the castle well, it was properly dark, with only a few stars visible between the clouds. The wall of the Great Tower loomed above the well, illuminated by the faint glow of a brazier from the battlements. Up on the ramparts, the castle guards were stamping their feet and complaining about the cold, their armour jingling faintly.

  Dora was wrapped in her warmest cloak, sitting huddled and half asleep on a stone bench by the tower. Her eyes kept drifting shut, so it was a few minutes before she noticed Jem sitting on the well cover and waving his arms at her.

  “Jem!” she called softly, as she hurried over. “What took you? You were ages!”

  Jem grimaced. “Met a rat,” he said.

  “A rat!” said Dora. “Are you all right?”

  He waved his short sword at her.

  “Stuck it in the bum,” he said with satisfaction. “It ran away. But I got a bit turned around after the fight – ended up going down a side tunnel. Took me ages to find the way back!”

  There was a sudden noise from above them on the battlements, and then a burst of laughter. Dora hurriedly leant over to scoop Jem up.

  “Come on,” she said. “We’d better head back to my room before I turn you back, or someone will see us.”

  She slipped into the Great Tower and then down a series of long stone corridors before climbing to the turret room where she slept. Placing Jem on the floor, she raised her arms and said the words of the reversal spell.

  Jem seemed to glow slightly. The next moment he was standing in front of her, a sturdy red-haired fourteen-year-old, exactly the right size. Dora sat down on her bed in a flood of relief. She had done it! She had been worried it would go wrong again and leave Jem tiny. Her spells must be getting more reliable, she thought, pleased.

  Jem grinned appreciatively and flexed his arms.

  “Well done, Dora! I think you might even have managed to make me a little bit taller!” He pulled her upright and stood next to her, measuring where the top of her head came to – just about level with the end of his rather long and slightly crooked nose.

  “Yep!” he said cheerfully. “Definitely taller.”

  Dora rolled her eyes. “I doubt it very much,” she said. “I didn’t put any growing magic into the spell. Just a straight reversal. You look exactly the same size to me.”

  Jem shrugged. “Oh, well – maybe next time,” he said with a grin. “But right now we have to make plans. The Druid’s gone after one of the bits of amber – and I know where!”

  Dora sat back down on the edge of her small bed and hugged her cloak round her. “He’s gone?” she said. “On his own?”

  Jem pulled a stool over and sat on it, facing her. His eyes were shining. “Yes. Albert Jemmet told him where it was – some empire or other – and then he just went. Albert had brought this bit of tile from that world, so the Druid could use it to get there. But the Druid had this funny jug he wanted to use instead. So Albert left the tile behind. Which means we can go after him! We can use the tile!”

  Dora looked at Jem’s eager expression and bit her lip. They had both agreed that they were not going to be left out – that whatever it took, they were going to help find the other bits of amber and make sure Lord Ravenglass didn’t get there first. But Dora had imagined finding out what the Druid was up to and then confronting him – insisting he take them with him. She hadn’t thought they might have to go to a strange world by themselves, knowing nothing about what might be on the other side of the portal. Dora had a feeling that they had got off lightly on the last occasion they’d come up against Lord Ravenglass and his allies. She wasn’t desperately keen to be stuck in another world with Jem, not knowing exactly where the Druid might be, or who else might be hunting for the amber … But the amber had to be found, and the Druid was there on his own. The Druid was easily the strongest magic-user she had come across, but if the dark crow men, Smith and Jones, appeared, even he would find it hard to fight off both of them without help.

  She swallowed.

  “OK,” she said at last. “You’re right. We’ll have to go after him. But we ought to get a good night’s sleep first, and then see if we can find out anything about this world in the morning. The Druid’s got loads of old books – one of them might have some useful information.”

  Jem shook his head in exasperation. “We should go now, Dora – every minute counts!”

  “No,” said Dora firmly. “We need some sleep. And we can gather supplies in the morning. We have no idea what’s on the other side, Jem – and we’ll be coming through in a different place to the Druid. It could take a while to find him. We need to be at least a little bit prepared!”

  Jem looked mutinous, but then he nodded. Dora was probably right. They could make better preparations in the morning.

  But in the end, they didn’t get a chance to make any preparations at all. Because at dawn the castle was attacked by Lord Ravenglass’s army.

  Dora woke to the sound of shouting and the clash of swords. It was still dark, but when she looked up at the small window in her turret room she could see that the sky outside was pale grey. There was an odd, flickering orange glow reflecting off the stones at the edge of the window. Dora frowned at it, still half asleep. What was going on? And then she heard the shout from below: “Fire!”

  Fire? Suddenly Dora felt very wide awake. She threw herself out of bed and pulled on her grey dress. As she knelt to fasten her boots, she heard feet pounding up the turret stairs and Jem burst into the room.

  “Dora!” he gasped, bending over against the door to catch his breath. “It’s Ravenglass’s men. They marched up to the castle an hour ago, demanding entry. Sir Mortimer let them in, but then they started disarming the guards and insisting they were in charge now. Sir Roderick refused to give them his sword, and then it turned into an all-out fight. They’ve set the stables on fire!”

  Dora ran to the window and craned her head out to see what was going on below. Jem was right, the stables were on fire, and she could hear the whinnying of terrified horses and people shouting as they tried to lead them away or douse the flames. In the orange glow she could see figures fighting hand to hand in the courtyard, but there was smoke everywhere and it was hard to make out who was who.

  She turned to Jem. “How many men?” she asked urgently. She was doing a rapid head count of the castle knights. Many of them were old and not particularly quick on their feet. Of the younger, fitter knights there were probably only a handful, plus twenty-odd squires and the serving men, who might be good in a scrap but didn’t have much to protect themselves against well-armed soldiers. If Lord Ravenglass’s troops were more than about thirty men, the castle was as good as lost.

  Jem’s face was grim. “I didn’t see them arrive – but Violet and Annabel raised the alarm. They were out collecting early morning dew or some nonsense like that. They said there were at least a hundred soldiers and about twenty knights.”

  Dora felt as if all the air had been sucked out of her. A hundred men? What was Lord Ravenglass thinking? She looked at Jem, and the answer came to them both in the same instant.

  “The amber!”

  “We’ve got to warn the Druid!” said Jem at once. “He mustn’t come back here with it – or it will go straight to Ravenglass!”

  Dora nodded and grabbed her cloak from the end of the bed. She looked round the room rapidly to see if there was anything else she ought to bring, but her brain wouldn’t work. She had a nasty feeling there was something very, very important that she ought to be remembering to take, but all she could think of was the Druid stepping back through a portal to the cellar of Roland Castle and finding himself surrounded by Lord Ravenglass’s men.

  “Come on!” said Jem. “Quickly! If we head for the North Tower we can get straight down to the cellars without crossing the courtyard.”

  Dora hesitated, then followed him out of the door, wrapping her cloak around her as she went.

  The smell of acrid smoke gre
w stronger as Dora started down the turret stairs. By the time they were feeling their way through the dark passageways above the courtyard, her eyes were stinging and the sound of shouts and the ringing of swords on armour was much louder. As they turned into a smaller corridor that went past the knights’ chambers, one of the doors banged open and Sir Bedwyr stumbled out, looking wild-eyed. He was dressed in his undergarments, his large feet bare and his black hair sticking out in all directions, but his sword was in his hand.

  “Dora!” he hissed. “Jem! What in the kingdom is going on?”

  “S– Sir Bedwyr!” stuttered Dora, trying not to look at the handsome knight’s state of undress. “We’re under attack! Lord Ravenglass … But how did you not wake up before now?”

  Sir Bedwyr looked embarrassed. “I – er – I may have overindulged last night … A few too many flagons of – well, never mind. But Lord Ravenglass? Why–?”

  Jem grabbed the knight urgently by the arm. “He wants the amber. The Druid’s gone to get another piece of deep amber and somehow Lord Ravenglass has found out. We’re going to try to warn him not to come back. But –” he glanced at Dora – “someone ought to warn the forest. Maybe …?”

  Dora nodded, and turned to Sir Bedwyr. “There are a hundred of Ravenglass’s soldiers, and twenty knights. The castle won’t hold out much longer. But we know Albert Jemmet left for the forest only last night – he’ll have taken the Bridbury road. If you could get away – find a horse – you could catch up with him. Warn him!”

  Sir Bedwyr ran his hands through his hair, making it stick up even more, and looked as if he was thinking hard. Then he nodded. “Warn Albert,” he said. “Right. But I’m not exactly dressed for—” He gestured down at his bare feet, and rubbed his chin. As he did so, there was a resounding crash at the other end of the corridor and suddenly the sound of fighting was much, much nearer. The knight quickly pushed Jem and Dora behind him and drew himself up to his full height.

  “Go!” he commanded. “I’ll do what I can, and then I’ll try to get off after Jemmet.”

  He advanced down the corridor, still in his undergarments.

  “Sir Bedwyr!” he shouted as he gathered pace, holding his sword with a firm two-handed grip. “Sir Bedwyr for Roland Castle!”

  He disappeared round the corner and the sound of swords clashing on armour suddenly increased tenfold.

  Dora winced at the thought of Sir Bedwyr’s lack of chain mail, but Jem was pulling her further down the corridor.

  “Come on!” he urged. “He’ll be all right! He’s the best fighter in the castle. But we need to get to the cellars while the way’s still clear!”

  The Druid’s cellar was exactly as he had left it. The noise of fighting was barely audible this far underground, and so far none of the smoke had seeped down from the courtyard. Jem and Dora had had a couple of anxious moments reaching the doorway that led to the cellar stairs, but they had made it. Jem’s leggings were singed, his face just a little bit sooty, but he was holding up the other-world tile in triumph.

  “Here! This is it! A tile from the palace of the … something Empire. Akkandan or something like that.”

  Dora took the tile cautiously. It felt heavy, as if there was metal in it. When she looked closely, she could see the gleam of gold in the ornate, geometric pattern. Gold, and what looked like copper, as well as a brilliant deep-blue stone which shone at the centre of an eight-pointed star. She tried to sense something of the world it had come from, but it just felt cold, hard. There was magic there, she thought, but very controlled – kept in sharp, straight lines like the patterns of the tile itself.

  She started to say the words of the portal spell, reaching out to find a connection between the cold hardness of the tile and the warm, magic feel of her own world. There! She felt the magic take hold – and a swirling white mist formed in front of her. She looked at Jem and he nodded. Warily, he loosened his short sword in its scabbard, and together the two of them stepped into the portal and disappeared.

  PART TWO

  Chapter Three

  The first time Simon managed to magic a portal to the kingdom it was a complete disaster. He tried the spell at least fourteen times before he could conjure even a wisp of white mist, and by the time he’d firmed it up into a portal it was nearly time for Mum to arrive home from work. Even so, Simon was determined to at least stick his head through and see what was on the other side. But as he cautiously approached the white mist, something small and furry came hurtling out of it in the other direction and flew straight into Simon’s face. He yelled, and flapped, and then overbalanced backwards, while the strange furry object started whizzing all round the room, knocking things flying and chirruping frantically. Finally, it dived down to where Simon was sprawling, and started to burrow its way into a pile of discarded clothes on the floor.

  Simon twisted round, grabbed his red hoodie and threw it swiftly over the creature. He could feel it struggling underneath the layer of cloth.

  “Got you!” he said triumphantly. “I think you need to go back where you came from!”

  But as he turned back to the portal there was a rattling, throaty sound, and out of the mist stalked something else. Something about the size of a large goose, but altogether more vicious. Simon barely had time to register its thin, scaly legs, sharp claws, pointed beak, and fiercely intelligent yellow eyes, before the creature was jabbing its beak into Simon’s hands and face and tearing with its razor-sharp claws into the red hoodie he was holding.

  “Help! Help! Cat!” yelled Simon, trying to elbow the creature away from his face and at the same time bundle the wriggling hoodie up under his body, out of the way of the vicious beak and claws. “Catrin!”

  Simon’s bedroom door crashed open and his older sister appeared in the doorway. Her eyes widened as she took in the scene of chaos in front of her.

  “Simon! What the –? What is that …? Oh my God – what have you done?”

  “Ow! Cat! Get it off me, can’t you?” yelled Simon, curling himself up into a ball while the creature continued to jab and claw at him, trying to get at the bundle underneath his body.

  Cat hesitated, and then ran for the bathroom. She came back with a wooden toilet brush, which she held out in front of her as she inched towards the creature. It stopped jabbing Simon and looked up, cocking its head to one side and regarding her with one evil yellow eye. Just as it tensed to spring at her, Cat whacked it round the head with the toilet brush. The creature looked momentarily dazed, but then it screeched angrily and started to peck at her, while Cat retreated, getting in the odd jab with the toilet brush but being steadily beaten backwards.

  “Simon – do something!” she shouted, as the creature lunged forward. Simon grabbed a heavy encyclopaedia from his floor and brought it down on the creature’s head. The creature rolled over, out cold.

  “Back through the portal!” gasped Simon “Before it wakes up!”

  The creature’s eyelids were already flickering. The two of them rapidly shoved its dead weight towards the misty doorway. The creature’s claws were starting to flex now, but it was halfway into the mist, and after one last heave it disappeared. The portal closed behind it with a faint pop.

  There was a moment of relieved silence as Cat and Simon looked at each other, breathing hard. Cat was thirteen, two years older than her brother, and she was supposed to be in charge on days like this, when Mum was away at a conference or museum workshop. She was supposed to be responsible, and Simon was supposed to do as he was told. Simon pushed his straight dark hair out of his brown eyes and looked at her with his best apologetic expression, but it was not enough to pacify her.

  “Simon – you idiot! What were you doing? You opened a portal? Without me?!”

  Simon dabbed at his forehead, where the creature had managed to land a jab with its sharp beak, and winced. He looked at the smear of blood on his fingers.

  “Ouch …” he said. “Umm, yeah. Well, I know, I’m sorry. I should have told you. It�
�s just – well – I wanted to see if I could do it. I wanted to practise first, before we did it together. In case I couldn’t.”

  He bit his lip, lowered his gaze, and tried to look as if he was truly very, very sorry. Usually that was enough to bring out Cat’s motherly side, and when Simon glanced over, he was expecting to see her look a little less stern. Cat, however, was still grim-faced, running her fingers through her short blonde hair and frowning. Simon touched his forehead again and showed her his fingers.

  “Look! Blood …” he said in a wheedling voice. “Blood, Cat. You can’t be mean to me. I’m bleeding!”

  She tried to keep a straight face, but then the corner of her mouth twitched. She shook her head at him in mock exasperation.

  “It would serve you right if you bled to death,” she said. “I can’t believe you did something so dangerous without me! And Mum’s due back any minute! Your room’s a total mess –”

  “Well that’s normal,” put in Simon swiftly.

  “But what if the creature had got free? What would we have done if it had gone running off down the road? ‘Oh, sorry, everyone, we let a dinosaur-thing from another world loose in Wemworthy!’”

  Simon looked abashed. It was true, he shouldn’t have done the portal magic without Cat. He’d just so wanted to impress her with his ability to get it right – to do magic, to conjure a portal first time.

  It was only a week since Simon and his sister had first come into contact with magic, and learned that there were other worlds. Their dad, who had died in a car crash when Simon was three, had come from one of them – the kingdom. It was a world of castles and magic, knights and dragons. A world that had suddenly, mysteriously, become entwined with their own for a few short days.

  A lot had happened in those days – they’d made new friends, new enemies; they’d learned about the power of deep amber to open rifts between worlds and close them again; and they’d prevented a piece of that amber being stolen by Lord Ravenglass, the regent of the kingdom. The amber itself was now safely round Cat’s neck – because it was Cat who had picked it up in the heat of the battle, and so it was Cat who was now the rightful owner. Both of them, it turned out, were heirs of the kingdom, both had magic, and either of them could have taken the amber – but it was Cat who had been closest.