“Thanks,” Trundle said heavily. “Much obliged, I’m sure.”
“I imagine you have your hands full, my good sir,” said Percy. “What with all the mess and mayhem caused by the pirates.”
“Oh, there’s plenty to be done, for sure,” said the clerk. “But you know, in some ways, it was a blessing in disguise.”
“It must have been a very good disguise,” Trundle said in astonishment. “What can you possibly mean?”
“It gave us the chance to do some renovating,” replied the clerk. “Especially in the area of the docks. And the town did need a good spring cleaning.” He pointed up at the statue of the founder of Shiverstones. “Why, we’re even planning on giving old Furrowman here a good sprucing up. Tsk! Look at all the soot and grime on that spiky hat of his!”
“Hmm,” said Trundle.
“Well, I can’t stand here gossiping,” announced the clerk of works. “There’s a cabbagegrower caucus to chair, and I can’t be late.” So saying, he turned on his heel and toddled off into the gathering darkness.
“Ummm . . . Percy? Trundle?” murmured Esmeralda, staring up at the old stone statue of Furrowman Plowplodder.
“What?” Trundle sighed.
“Would the two of you care to take a look at the spiky hat that fellow was just talking about?”
Trundle and Percy looked up at the statue on its square plinth.
“Bless my soul!” gasped Percy. “I can’t believe it!”
“Lawks!” choked Trundle, scrambling to his feet, his eyes goggling in disbelief.
A wide, slow smile spread over Esmeralda’s face. “Spiky hat, my prickles!” she laughed. ‘That there hat is for sure and definite a crown!”
She was right. Trundle could see it straightaway, now it had been pointed out to him.
Furrowman Plowplodder’s spiky hat was undoubtedly the Crown of Stone.
“I simply can’t believe you sometimes, Trundle!” Esmeralda said in exasperation. “You’ve lived here all your life! Have you never looked at that statue? Did you never realize that Furrowman Plowplodder was wearing a crown?”
“Well, no,” replied Trundle. “I didn’t. I don’t think anyone ever really looked properly at it. It was just . . . sort of . . . there.”
Percy was sitting under the statue, slapping his knees and laughing heartily.
“My, my,” he said, wiping away a tear. “What an extraordinary end to the quest! To think the Crown of Stone has been right here under Trundle’s nose all the time! Extraordinary! Most amusing!” He started laughing again, and pretty soon Esmeralda and Trundle were laughing along with him.
It was, as the Herald Pursuivant said, the most ludicrous and hilarious end to the quest that Trundle could possibly have imagined.
“Someone had better climb up and fetch it, hadn’t they, Trundle?” said Esmeralda once they had all finished laughing.
“Yes,” Trundle said. “And I suppose by someone, you mean me! Well, don’t worry. This time I’ll be happy to oblige.”
It wasn’t an especially tall statue, and it didn’t take Trundle long to clamber up and lift the Crown of Stone from around Furrowman Plowplodder’s brow. Luckily it came away fairly easily . . .
The only slight problem came when he returned to the ground. The Shiverstones evening had darkened to a starry night, and not a single lamp in the Market Square was lit to shed any light by which they could examine the crown.
“I think there might be some words inscribed around the inside,” said Percy, peering with narrowed eyes.
“Hold on and I’ll conjure up a palm light for us,” said Esmeralda.
“Oh, I don’t think you’ll be needing that, my dears,” said a genial and horribly familiar voice. A moment later, Esmeralda’s aunt Millie Rose Thorne stepped out from behind the statue with a big, sneering raven perched on her shoulder. “I’ll be taking that crown, dearies,” Aunt Millie continued. “If you don’t object at all, that is!”
The three of them sprang back in shock and alarm, Trundle’s paw reaching for the hilt of his sword.
“I told you you’d get yours!” croaked the raven, giving Trundle a very dirty look. Trundle was quite certain that this was the same raven that had overheard them in the Herald Pursuivant’s office. So it wasn’t in the employ of the pirates at all—it was working for Esmeralda’s treacherous aunt!
“Millie Rose Thorne, you will not get your hands on this crown,” shouted Percy, clutching the Crown of Stone tightly to his chest. “Nor on any of the others!”
“Oh, but I think you’ll find I will!” Aunt Millie retorted, her eyes glittering greedily.
“Never!” shouted Trundle, whipping his sword out and leaping between the wicked Roamany queen and his companions. “Get back, you wretched excuse for an aunt!” he yelled, waving the sword in front of her. “So, you think you can just take it off us, do you? You and whose army?”
“Her and my army,” growled a new voice from out of the darkness.
“Oh, blimey!” exclaimed Esmeralda as Captain Grizzletusk stepped forward from deep shadows. “That’s all we needed!”
The dreaded pirate captain wasn’t alone.
Not by a long way, he wasn’t. Trundle and Esmeralda and Percy shrank together as dozens and dozens of fearsome pirates appeared out of the gloom, armed with muskets and pistols and blunderbusses. The three adventurers were surrounded!
“Wotcher, shipmates!” cackled an evil voice. “Come on in—yer time’s up!” It was Captain Slaughter, the one-eyed and peg-legged raven, perched as always on the shoulder of Razorback, the bloodthirsty bo’sun of the Iron Pig.
“I’m surprised you lot are prepared to show your ugly mugs around us, considering the beating you got the last time we met,” remarked Esmeralda, sounding as cool as a cucumber.
“It’ll be different this time, my lovelies,” growled Razorback, his eyes glinting with malice. “This time we’re going to chop you into so many portions that even your own mothers wouldn’t be able to put you back together again.”
Millie Rose Thorne smiled wickedly as she moved to stand alongside Captain Grizzletusk. “We can do this the easy way, or we can do it the hard way,” she said. “Personally, I quite like the idea of the hard way—but it’s up to the three of you.”
“Hand over the crowns, and we might let you live,” snarled Grizzletusk. “Or, to be more honest with ye, we might let you die quick!”
Oddly enough, the thought that he might come to a grim and grisly end didn’t frighten Trundle—it only made him angry and strangely determined. Perhaps he had finally accepted that the Fates were on their side. Or perhaps it was just that if he was going to be killed by pirates, he might as well go down fighting. Besides, a rather brilliant idea had occurred to him.
“You pox-ridden pirates,” he shouted, slicing the air with his sword. “I’ll give you to the count of three to surrender your weapons to us. If you don’t, you’ll regret it! Those of you who survive, that is!”
There was much chuckling and cackling from the pirates at this. A crooked, fang-toothed smile stretched across Grizzletusk’s face. “I like you,” he snorted, his red eyes burning. “I think I might keep you as a pet . . . in a little iron cage!”
“Don’t say you weren’t warned!” began Trundle. “Three!”
“Steady, Trundle, my boy,” murmured Percy.
“Two!”
“Go get ’em, boys!” snarled Grizzletusk.
“One!” Trundle yelled. And so saying, he dropped his sword, picked up the dwindling box, and unlatched it, tipping it upside down so that the lid fell open. Then he gave the box a good thwack on the bottom.
Five little crowns came tumbling out.
“It’s the other crowns!” screeched Esmeralda’s aunt. “Grab them before—”
No one ever found out what she was planning to say next, because as the crowns fell from the box, they began to swell and grow and expand. And as they hit the cobbles, they were back to their full size and giving off
sparks of blue lightning like the centerpiece of a fireworks display.
At the same moment, the Crown of Stone leaped from Percy’s hands to join the others. As hair-raising and alarming as the release of magic had been when five crowns were together, it was nothing to the utter chaos that erupted now! Bolts of blue lightning exploded in all directions, whizzing and banging and crackling and hissing as they careered back and forth across the market square.
“Fire, you swabs!” howled Captain Grizzletusk. “Snappily now!”
In response to their captain’s orders, nearly every one of the pirates pulled the trigger on his gun.
But they were so blinded by the flashing and flaring and blazing and bursting of the blue lightning, that their shots went wild, missing Trundle and his friends and causing their own shipmates to have to duck and jump aside as the whole of the square was suddenly engulfed in billowing clouds of white gun smoke.
Trundle grabbed up his sword and stumbled around, trying to find Esmeralda and Percy in the dense, swirling smoke.
There was much shouting and wailing from the pirates.
“Argh! I’ve shot me own toe off!”
“Ouch! It hit me in the eye!”
“Give it back!”
“I can’t see a thing!”
“Oi! Watch where you’re poking that musket!”
“Careful, you bilge rat! That’s me you’re treading on!”
And above all the other voices, Trundle could hear Grizzletusk roaring, “Don’t let ’em get away, you fools! Grab ’em! Nab ’em! Shoot ’em dead and stab ’em!”
“Esmeralda?” Trundle called, stumbling forward with his hands reaching out into the thick smoke. “Percy? Where are you?”
He bumped into something solid, something that spoke to him. “Is that you, Trundle, my boy?”
“Yes, Percy!” gasped Trundle. “Where’s Esmeralda?”
“Right here!” A moment later a lemon-colored palm light appeared in the smoke, and Esmeralda stepped forward. “That was a great idea, Trun,” she said, beaming from ear to ear. “But it won’t be long before Aunt Millie comes up with a spell to get rid of all this smoke. We need to be gone by then!”
“We must gather up the crowns and put them back in the box,” said Percy. “Quickly now, before the pirates have time to regroup!”
Esmeralda led them to the bright heart of all the magic. The six crowns had come together in a ring, buzzing and vibrating as shafts and beams and streaks of crackling lightning shot out in every direction.
Percy held back while Esmeralda and Trundle crawled cautiously forward, Trundle holding out the dwindling box with its lid open.
One by one, Esmeralda managed to grab the crowns and pop them back into the box. The lightning fizzed and guttered and died away.
“This way,” hissed Percy, snatching up his carpetbag and running ahead of them into the smoky fog.
“Hoi! Mind who you’re barging into!” growled a voice as Trundle crashed headlong into a pirate blundering about in the smoke. “’Ere! It’s you!”
There was a dull swish and a thunk, and the pirate toppled over with a small arrow in him. Percy loaded his crossbow again as they ran on. Voices rose up all around them.
“They’re getting away!”
“Stop ’em!”
Trundle followed Esmeralda’s palm light as they raced out of the market square and down a narrow side street. He risked a glance back. Beyond the houses, he could see the smoke swirling faster and faster, as though it had been caught in a whirlwind. Then all the smoke went shooting up into the sky and vanished in a flash.
“Uh-oh!” said Esmeralda, looking back with worried eyes. “That was Aunt Millie’s magic, that was!”
“Keep running!” puffed Percy, the loaded crossbow in one hand, the big carpetbag in the other. “We have to get to the Thief in the Night before they pull themselves together!”
“There they go!” croaked a raucous voice. Captain Slaughter was in the air like a black rag, his one eye gleaming with spite and vengefulness as he flapped towards them down the alley.
A thwick! sounded alongside Trundle’s ear as a crossbow bolt zipped through the air.
“Awk!” screeched the raven as the bolt thudded into its wooden leg. “Ark! Awrg! Yarook!” bawled the bird, as the added weight of the iron bolt sent it spiraling down to the cobbles in a feathery heap.
“Run!” hollered Percy.
“Get ’em!” roared the pirates.
“Urrrgh! Gruuurgh!” squawked the raven as several pairs of heavy pirates’ boots trampled over him.
The three friends ran on, pelting through the streets of Port Shiverstones until they finally came to the docks. There was the Iron Pig, huge and ugly and rusting away, alongside one of the jetties, its red pirate flag flapping, its red sails furled.
Trundle and his friends hurtled along the jetty. They could see their own trim little skyboat now! They were almost there.
A riot of voices erupted behind them as the first of the pirates came swarming out into the docks.
The adventurers flung themselves into the Thief in the Night. Esmeralda threw herself at the tiller. Percy unfurled the sails. Trundle struggled for a moment with the knots of the towrope. Losing patience, he brought his sword down on the knot, cutting the skyboat loose.
“All aboard who’s coming aboard!” yelled Esmeralda, yanking on the tiller. A moment later, the skyboat pulled free of the jetty and went sailing up into the sky. But even as they turned and drove into a fresh tail wind, Trundle could see the hideous red sails of the Iron Pig unrolling as the pirates raced back aboard.
They might have escaped for the moment—but their enemies would soon be hard on their heels.
“Any sign of pursuit, Trundle, my lad?” asked Percy.
“I thought I saw them a little while ago,” Trundle replied, peering through the long brass telescope. “But I’m not so sure now.” There was a lot of dark cloud in their wake; the Iron Pig could be closing in on them, hidden in the rolling and threatening clouds.
Esmeralda had created a palm light, by which Percy was examining the Crown of Stone.
“There’s some writing inside the rim, just like I thought,” said Percy. “It’s in badger runes, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Can you read them?” Trundle asked.
“Yes, indeed. I learned the old runes when I was a nipper.”
“Really?” Esmeralda said in surprise. “I thought badger runes hadn’t been used for thousands of years.”
“Well, you obviously thought wrong, my little friend,” Percy replied. He peered into the crown and began to recite in a slow, portentous voice.
Would you know where Sunsett lies?
Then seek you where day never dies.
Six crowns have you at journey’s end
Place them on the stone altar, my good friend,
Then stand you ready—wonders for to see,
When the ancient powers at last be free!
“Well, well,” said Percy, resting the crown on his knees. “Then Sunsett does still exist!”
“Hah!” Esmeralda chuckled. “So much for all your science, Perce! It was there all along, and you lot at the guild never knew it!”
“Indeed we did not,” the herald admitted. “But we still need to make sense of the rhyme. Sunsett is to be found where day never dies. Hmmmm.”
“That’s just silly,” said Trundle. “The day ends everywhere. I mean to say, you’d have to be on the wrong side of Nightreef to . . . be . . . where . . . the . . . day . . . never . . .” He became aware of Percy and Esmeralda staring at him. “Dies.”
“The other side of Nightreef?” gasped Esmeralda. “But no one lives there!”
“Don’t they?” asked Percy, his eyes shining.
“Do they?” breathed Esmeralda.
“I have no idea,” said Percy. “But I think we should find out.”
“We’re going to sail sunward beyond Nightreef?” whispered Trundle. “Oh, my! Won??
?t we get burned to cinders?”
“Maybe we will and maybe we won’t!” said Esmeralda with a toothy grin. “Let’s do it! Trun, drop the telescope and dig out the sky charts! We’ve got a new course to navigate!”
“I don’t understand why Aunt Millie wants the Six Crowns so bad that she’s prepared to work with a bunch of putrid pirates,” said Esmeralda, as they sped through the starry darkness toward the huge black mass of Nightreef. “What’s it all about, Percy?”
“Well, there is an old, old story,” said Percy, “concerning the Sect of the Sinister Spell.”
“Who are they?” asked Trundle. “I’ve never heard of them.”
“Few people have,” said Percy, leaning forward as though sharing deep secrets. “Did you know that the Badger Lords were served mostly by hedgehogs?” he asked.
“We kind of guessed that from the wind galleon that we found on Spyre,” said Esmeralda. “Most of the crew were hedgehogs. They’d been turned to stone.”
“Well, the old tale says that there was a particularly intelligent and ambitious hedgehog called Grinder Prickleback,” said Percy. “He saw no reason why the badgers should have all the power. But they weren’t interested in sharing their secrets, so Grinder brewed up a huge mind-control spell, hoping to use it to make the Badger Lords obey him. Unfortunately, something went horribly wrong with his spell—and the whole of the world was blown up!”
“Lawks!” gasped Trundle. “So the explosion that created the Sundered Lands was caused by a hedgehog?”
“So it would seem,” said Percy. “But there’s more. I’ve been reading some extremely old texts since you left the crowns with me, and I’ve found some extraordinary things.” He gave them a somber look. “The badgers got wind of what Grinder was up to, and just before the spell went wrong and everything was destroyed, they sent their Six Crowns out from Sunsett, scattering them far and wide.”
“But why didn’t the badgers save themselves?” asked Trundle.
“Most of their power resided in the crowns,” Percy explained. “They stayed behind to try and defuse the spell. They failed, of course, but they died in the hope that, one day, loyal hedgehogs might band together to gather the crowns and reunite the shattered fragments of the world.”