Exploring Fa'Lacree

CHAPTER 7

Barney’s heart was beating hard. The way ahead was lit by the dim, yellow glow of a lantern that the Bellmaster had found and lit with the brand. Ahead of them, the pale light flickered across the smooth walls and floor of the tunnel.

Down, down they went, following a flight of stone steps for perhaps five minutes. At the bottom, the tunnel veered suddenly to the right and levelled off. After a while, their progress was abruptly halted by a heavy wooden door. The Bellmaster reached into a narrow, unseen space between two stones in the wall, and pulled out a large key. He unlocked the door and led Barney and Kirlmann through. Once through, he closed the door behind them and pocketed the key, but he failed to lock it. When Barney asked why, the Bellmaster responded with a knowing smile.

Beyond the door, lay another flight of steps that led upwards to the final stretch of tunnel. About a hundred metres further on, the end was marked by a patch of diffuse light. For a moment Barney thought he was about to fall through another Portal; but, to his immense relief, he discovered that light that he saw was daylight filtering through the undergrowth. The Bellmaster led his two companions through a deep tangle of undergrowth, and there they stood; half way up the bank of a steep, wooded valley.

‘Well, by the Ancient of Ancients!’ exclaimed the Beach­comber! ‘This has to be the Silver Gorge, unless I’m very much mistaken.’

‘You’re not mistaken at all,’ replied the Bellmaster. ‘In fact you’re more right than you can imagine.’

Kirlmann didn’t understand how he could possibly be more right than right, but he let the matter pass.

‘Why is it called the Silver Gorge?’ asked Barney. ‘Is there silver there?’

‘A long and precious band of it,’ laughed the Bellmaster and he pointed down below to where the sparkling waters of a river wound its way through the valley. ‘There,’ he said; ‘The Silver River: all the Silver that a wise man will ever need. And there,’ he added, pointing to the sun, ‘is all the gold he should ever need.’

Kirlmann Wader laughed. ‘Yes,’ he agreed; ‘but you find me a wise man’’

‘Present company excepted, I might do that one day, ‘ the Bellmaster replied, ‘but right now, just follow me.’ He led the other two into a thick cluster of rhododendron bushes. He put a finger to his lips for silence and peered through the foliage at the spot from which they had just emerged.

It wasn’t long before a rustling in the thicket around the tunnel’s exit told them they had been followed. Barney and Kirlmann watched with astonishment as Princess Angelina herself stumbled into the sunshine. But the Bellmaster didn’t seem in the slightest bit surprised. He led his companions out into the open to confront the Princess. ‘Come along, then, Your Highness;’ he said, ‘if you’re going to follow us, you’d better stay close or you’ll be getting yourself lost!’

Angelina was so astonished that all she could manage to say was, ‘Oh!’ and she fell obediently in with the others.

As she trotted up alongside Barney, she murmured, ‘I wouldn’t have, you know.’

‘Wouldn’t have what?’ asked Barney.

‘Get lost.’

‘Oh!’

‘I know this island like the back of my hand.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Barney, tolerantly, ‘I suppose you would.’

Kirlmann Wader turned and grinned at him.

The Bellmaster led the little group down the steep valley side. The dense woodland quickly swallowed them up as they moved onward. Onwards and downwards. Below them, the roar of the Silver River beckoned. The route, which they followed, wove and twisted its way among the trees, but it was not an easy path. Its steep incline drew their quickly feet beneath them and while the Bellmaster negotiated the path with the sure‑footedness of a mountain shepherd; the others were less nimble and only too glad of the support offered them by boughs and branches as they tumble‑stepped their way down the valley side.

They finally broke through the tree cover at the valley bottom and there before them, once more, was the Silver River. From above them, the hollow tone of the Bell rang out across the Island; three heavy chimes.

‘How did you manage that?’ Kirlmann asked the Bellmaster.

‘I’ve matters well in hand,’ the Bellmaster replied casually, without ever looking over his shoulder.

Ahead of them, the broad, boulder‑strewn silver band of the river spread out as wide as a main road. The Bellmaster, stepping confidently from boulder to boulder, led the way across. The others followed. Barney, now completely lifted from his mood, leaped elatedly after the Bellmaster, watching the river churning by beneath his feet. Once across, they were led on up the other side of the valley, by way of another path that wound its way, likewise, up through the densely‑wooded slopes.

It was a long and strenuous climb and from time to time Angelina would support herself with a hand on Barney’s shoulder. He felt uncomfortable under the Princess’s touch but he made no objection. When they all staggered, panting, onto the topmost ridge, the Bellmaster stopped and pointed out the patch of undergrowth that hid the exit from the tunnel and traced the route they had taken. From where they were standing, they could now see little of their path; so much of it was hidden by the canopy of trees. Even the Silver River was now only the sound of a distant rush of water chasing over its rocky bed.

‘By all the storms!’ gasped the Beachcomber; ‘I can’t remember being so exhausted since the time I got cut off on Cape Bay Sands and had to climb the cliffs to escape the tide.’

For a while, Barney and the Princess sat panting, getting their breath back. The Bellmaster, however, seemed hardly ruffled by the long climb. He stood for a time, gazing back across the Valley to where the white walls of the City of Seth Haven rose breathtakingly from the cliff tops, with the Bellspire rising majestically from their midst. The Bell itself was clearly seen, silhouetted under its pillared dome. Kirlmann came puffing up beside him.

‘You seem miles away, Bellmaster,’ he panted.

The Bellmaster turned, his brow creased with concern. ‘It all looks so safe and secure; I’m trying to imagine where the danger might be coming from; what evil Zedd might be plotting for the Bell.’

‘I can’t imagine how the Bell could be in any danger all the way up there,’ Angelina said.

‘Then you have no idea of the power of Zedd the Mystic,’ the Bellmaster replied grimly.

‘He could use a helicopter,’ Barney suggested.

‘A what?’ Kirlmann looked puzzled.

Barney shrugged. ‘Sorry,’ he said; ‘You won’t have things like that here.’

The Bellmaster knew what he meant: ‘It’s a flying machine,’ he explained. ‘In Barney’s world there are all sorts of amazing machines. Some people fly through the air in winged carriages; others are transported along the ground at great speed, without the use of horses.’

‘Is that true?’ asked the Princess, astonished.

‘I suppose it is,’ Barney replied, matter of fact. He was pleased to have the opportunity to boast. ‘I’m surprised that you’ve nothing like that here,’ he added.

‘Well, if that don’t take me breath away!’ Kirlmann Wader exclaimed.

‘I should hang on to my breath if I were you,’ the Bell­master commented; ‘I reckon you’re going to need it to sort out Zedd the Mystic. Sorry, Barney; call me old fashioned, but I’ve always been a bit doubtful about things that speed up the pace of life.’ He stood up and stretched. ‘Now come on,’ he said, ‘We still have a lot of our primitive island to show our visitor.’ And he strode off across the rolling countryside, with the others scrambling to their feet and falling in behind.

Barney fell silent for a while. He plunged his hands in his jacket pockets and felt the reassuring weight of his Gameboy. ‘I’ll bet they don’t have these here, either,’ he thought smugly.

The Princess, scrambled alongside Barney, looking mystified. ‘I don’t understand how the Bellmaster could know you when you come from the Outer World,’ she confided.

‘To tell you the truth, neither do I,’ Barney agreed. He explained how he knew the Bellmaster as Mr Camponile, the clock-man; and how he had been directed to the Portal of red light, where he’d found his way to the beach on Fa’Lacree.

Intrigued by Barney’s story, Angelina, asked him more about his world, and Barney happily obliged.

The Princess listened, spellbound as he told her of his home, his friends and family and the world he knew. ‘It all sounds very exciting,’ she said.

‘If it’s excitement you want, Princess,’ the Bellmaster interrupted, glancing over his shoulder, ‘I’m sure you’re going to get as much as you’ll ever need before long.’ Angelina and Barney exchanged glances and followed silently behind, while Kirlmann and the Bellmaster strode on ahead, talking about this and that.

Eventually Barney grew bored with the silence and asked Angelina why she had followed them.

‘Why shouldn’t I?’ she answered. ‘After all, I am the Princess!’

Barney tutted loudly and raised his eyes. ‘You sound just like my sisters.’

The Princess ignored the insult. ‘Have you got sisters?’ she asked.

‘Yes; two.’

‘What are they like?’

‘I’ve told you,’ Barney retorted; ‘Pushy, like you.’

Angelina flashed him a look. ‘You haven’t got a very good memory, have you’ she reminded him.

‘Memory? For what?’

‘Who was it who spoke up for you and the Beachcomber, back in the Palace?’

Barney blushed. ‘Well? What of it?’

‘I’m not expecting any thanks, but do you really have to be so unpleasant?’

‘I’m not being unpleasant?’

Angelina looked at Barney. ‘You know very well, you are,’ she said.

‘I’m sorry then; I didn’t realise,’ Barney mumbled. ‘You still haven’t told me though,’ he continued, after an embarrassed pause.

‘Told you what?’

‘Why you followed us.’

‘Oh!’ Angelina laughed, then lowered her voice. ‘I often follow the Bellmaster; it’s such a relief to get out of the Palace. I’m not allowed out much, except with an escort. The Bellmaster’s my tutor so I often go to his apartments for my lessons. One day, about a year ago, I arrived when I wasn’t expected. I spied him leaving by the secret passage so I followed. I’ve been following him ever since, whenever I get the chance.’

‘Does he always spot you?’ Barney asked, grinning. Angelina smiled back at him.

‘Probably,’ she replied, ‘but today’s the first time that he’s let me know.’

‘Where does he usually go to?’ Barney asked.

‘Oh, that depends: sometimes to taverns or customs houses down by the quayside; sometimes to the source of the Silver River and sometimes to the summit of the High Place. I think we’re going there now.’

And if the towering hill that stood at the centre of the Island was the High Place, then that was exactly where the Bellmaster was leading them; it was a high place. One side arched gracefully up from the lower slopes while the other dropped back down again in sheer and jagged steps.

‘It looks a bit like a volcano,’ Barney said. From a distance it did, but as they came closer, Barney could see that the distinctive contours of the great hill had been caused by weathering and subsidence, and the ever‑steepening grassy slopes gave way, on the rugged side of the hill, to sheer, rocky drops, below which were strewn numerous boulders, some as huge as a house.

The Bellmaster had slowed down to let Barney and the Princess catch up. ‘In lost times,’ he said, pointing out the rock-strewn lower slopes, ‘the High Place was mined for its iron­stone. But when the mines were worked out they were abandoned.

‘We’re not going to climb the thing!’ Kirlmann Wader exclaimed.

The Bellmaster looked to the top of the High Place and then back at the Beachcomber. ‘Of course!’ he declared.

‘But what on earth for?’

‘To enjoy the view, Beachcomber, and to broaden your horizons. All your horizons!’ There was something in the Bellmaster’s voice that made argument seem futile. So, without another word, the little party continued on its way.

The trek up the slopes of the High Place took longer than Barney could have guessed and by the time the Beachcomber finally led his companions onto the summit, the Bell had rung out twice more. The four sank down on weary legs, glad of the rest. Even the Bellmaster sighed audibly.

Kirlmann Wader threw himself back on the grass with his arms outstretched. ‘Thirst’‘ he cried in mock despair; ‘I’m dying of thirst!’

‘Me too!’ Barney and the Princess chorused.

The Bellmaster reached deep under the folds of his cloak and pulled out a flask. He undid the stopper and offered the flask first to Angelina and then, in turn, to Barney and Kirlmann. Their eyes lit up as they took long draughts of the refreshing liquid.

‘Bellherb ale’’ exclaimed the Beachcomber as he lowered the flask from his lips. ‘By the Ancient of Ancients!’

The Bellmaster took a draught from the bottle himself. ‘Right and right again,’ he beamed. ‘What else slakes the thirst and restores the spirit?’

‘I’ve never tasted anything as good as this,’ Barney said, smacking his lips.

‘Come on, Barney,’ the Bellmaster announced, ‘You’d better come with me and get a better view of Fa’Lacree. I’ve always believed that geography was better taught from the tops of high hills than from the bottom of deep books.’