Page 27

Treasure

“ Run !” rasped a bewildered looking Dryden. “The queen is coming! His lordship is dead—and the witch has lost all power— it is over !” And he fled the cavern, as did the horde of guards trampling away in a chaotic exodus.

“Beran! Oh, Beran— no !” I lay across his body, just as I had as a child. But now he was slumped and unresponsive, and I felt his life seeping out of him even as I implored him not to leave me.

Sir Oswain bent over the dwarf lord’s body. He straightened and said, with grim finality, “He’s dead. They are both dead.”

“Poor Miss Lily,” mourned Jack.

The moment Sir Oswain pronounced Beran dead, something strange began to happen. The fur of his body began to ripple and shiver beneath my hands.

“What’s happening?” Jack asked, wide-eyed.

I could not answer, for I did not know. Something was lifting from him. I watched in bewilderment as the shimmer of an enchantment passed over Beran’s massy body like blue fire flickering across black coals .

“His fur’s falling off!” Jack cried. “Like a great fur coat! ’Tis a man! I’ll be jiggered—’tis a man ‘neath that fur!”

Sir Oswain rushed to my side. “Upon my word!” he exclaimed. “Upon my honour—it’s the crown prince! He lives!”

But he did not live. My dream had come to pass.

I cradled the head of the dying man in my arms, my hot tears dropping fast upon him.

“Oh, do something !” I sobbed, my voice raw, my throat sore from Amara’s grip.

“What can we do to save him?” I knew, even as I said it, that there was nothing we could do.

Sir Oswain tugged the white rose from inside his coat, crushed the petals, and put them to Beran’s lips. The fragrance filled our nostrils, the sweetness mingling unnaturally with the smells of blood, fear, and the smoke from the braziers. But Beran did not stir.

“Don’t die, don’t die .” I was almost beside myself. “I have waited all my life to find you—please, my friend, don’t leave me!”

“Perhaps the queen will grant us a wish to bring him back,” suggested Jack sadly.

“I fear it will be too late,” said Sir Oswain.

“A wish,” I said wildly. “Jack! Jack!—when you first lit my lamp, did you tap it?”

Jack stared blankly at me.

“Get my lamp!” I urged. “ Hurry !”

My bag had fallen to the ground. Jack scrambled to retrieve it, loosing the lamp from the strap. He looked confused as he held it out, and I snatched it from him. There was no time to explain. I gripped the lamp.

“I wish Beran to live,” I said, squeezing the lamp hard between my desperate hands .

Nothing happened. I watched the man keenly, his dark head cradled on my knees. I willed him to breathe or stir.

“We used all the wishes, Miss Lily,” Jack said sadly.

“No,” I murmured. “No. No. We didn’t. I’m sure you tapped the lamp the first time.

Tapped it three times. You did. You did.

” I began tapping it. Three times for the light to come on.

Three times for the light to go out. I was growing frantic.

This was too terrible. I could not accept it. I cast the lamp aside in despair.

“His name is not Beran,” said Sir Oswain, squatting down beside me.

I threw him an angry look. “It is,” I said. “It is Beran. He’s my Beran.”

“His name is Eadric. Prince Eadric.” He picked up the lamp and held it to me. “You said the fae are particular about names.”

Suddenly I understood. I snatched it up again. “I wish Prince Eadric to live!”

A long moment passed.

“Does he breathe?” Jack asked, bending closer.

Agony passed through me as I watched the prostrate form in my arms. Perhaps he did not choose to live. He would only come back to me if he wished to. Perhaps he did not feel the connection to me that I felt to him. Perhaps there was no calling him back.

There was a sudden sneeze. Jack jerked back, wiping his cheek, his eyes wide.

It took a moment for me to understand what had happened—it was not Jack who had sneezed.

A pair of dark eyes opened, unfocused at first, but slowly settling on my face.

“ Lil-y ?” croaked the man in my arms in a rough, gritty voice .

“ Yes. Oh, Beran, you’re alive .”

He shivered, for his bearskin had split open and fallen from his body. Sir Oswain hastened to unclasp his cloak.

“Forgive me, Your Highness,” said Sir Oswain as he draped the heavy fabric over him. “If you are able to rise, my lord, I respectfully suggest that we make haste and depart from here.”

When I protested that Beran needed time to recover, Sir Oswain said quietly but urgently, “His Highness would make an excellent hostage to leverage against the queen’s advance. As would you.”

Jack sprang into action, gathering up our bags.

“But there is one thing I must do,” said Sir Oswain. He bent over the body of the dwarf lord, folding the lord’s hands across his chest in a gesture of respect for the dead before removing the crown from his head. “This does not belong to you,” he said gravely.

“Look!” Jack called, pointing at the margool. It was perched on a large wooden chest before the throne, for the dwarf lord had used the chest as a footstool. The margool’s scales were glowing golden.

“I wonder…” murmured Sir Oswain. “Jack—bring the sacks!”

Sir Oswain took up the dwarf lord’s sword, grimacing at the blood smears on the thick blade as he used it to force open the chest. It took effort, but at last, the lock yielded.

“This is what you came for, Jack, son of Jago, is it not?” Sir Oswain said, panting a little, and looking gratified.

Jack gave a half shout, half laugh, and jumped up and down—“ I’ll be jiggered—’tis the treasure !”

Gold chinked as he stuffed his pockets with gleaming coins and glinting jewellery. When his pockets were full, he filled his boots, then our sacks, until they bulged.

Beran was wrapped in his loosened bearskin and Sir Oswain’s cloak, his makeshift clothing secured with Sir Oswain’s leather belt.

Now we were ready to make our way out of the stronghold, moving slowly, for Beran was weak, and Jack was almost bent double under the weight of the treasure. The margool flew ahead, leading us through the maze of stone corridors.

“Must drink,” gasped Jack, emerging into the valley. He sank down, his sacks of treasure chinking as they hit the ground.

We all needed to drink. We had borne heavy burdens through the passageways of the caves. Even Sir Oswain was breathing hard as we let Beran sink to the ground.

Beran said nothing, only making a low groan now and then.

“Are you in pain?” I asked him. A gap in the bearskin draped over his upper body revealed a dark red line where the dwarf’s sword had delivered the lethal blow. Yet it looked like a wound that had long since knit together.

He shook his head and tried to say something, but his speech was difficult to understand, sounding more like growls than words.

“Don’t think he’s quite used to being back in his body,” said Jack.

“Seventeen years is a long time to live as a bear,” agreed Sir Oswain .

I watched Beran fumble with the flagon of water. He drank clumsily, drops spilling down his bearded chin.

A look of concern passed over Sir Oswain’s face, and I knew what he was thinking—he was wondering if the crown prince of the Westshires would ever truly be a man again after so many years under enchantment.

A rush of anger burned through me at the dwarf lord and Amara. What a wicked thing they had done to him. They had stolen his childhood. Perhaps his whole life was forever blighted.

I watched him cram a piece of bread into his mouth like a ravenous animal. He certainly had the manners of a bear. His dark hair fell in long, tangled locks, obscuring his eyes, so that he had to shake his head back to see.

He caught me watching him, and I smiled, reaching up to lift a strand of hair from his forehead. “You need a haircut when we get home.”

He attempted to smile back, but it was a wry twisting of the mouth that looked more like a grimace, as though smiling was something else he had forgotten how to do.

“We must find our mounts,” said Sir Oswain, rising. “It is not safe here. The battle might spill out to this side.”

I too was anxious to leave. All I wanted was to be home.

The future was uncertain, and I could not think about it right now.

Home was all that mattered. Now the terrible anxiety for Beran’s life had lifted, I remembered how little time was left before the border closed.

If we did not hurry, we might not get home at all.

“Hope the horses haven’t left us,” groaned Jack as he struggled under the weight of the treasure.

“Don’t think I can walk home with all this.

Can hardly wait to see Jory’s face. He’ll never call me a numskull again when he sees me bringing back the loot!

” He laughed, despite his burden. “We shall live like kings! Roast beef every day! A fine horse—a whole stable of fine horses! No more holes in our boots. No more sleeping under hedges. I shall keep cows. Don’t care what Jory says—he can have his hunters and his dogs and hawks, but I’ve always had a liking for cows.

Meadows full of ‘em! The best-fed cows in the kingdom. They’ll make butter and cream fit for the king! ”

And he rambled on about all the sheep and pigs and chickens he would have when he was a very rich man, while we retraced our steps, searching for the fae horses.

“I see one,” cried Sir Oswain. “Down there, by those white boulders behind that line of trees.”

We picked our way cautiously down a stony slope.

I felt bad for Beran, walking barefoot, and tried to lead him along the least rocky path.

He moved clumsily, still adjusting to two feet instead of four paws.

I paused to peer at the boulders below. There was a telltale shimmer over what at first glance appeared to be large, white rocks.

“I don’t think those are boulders,” I said.

“Then what are they?” asked Jack, pausing to catch his breath and wipe the sweat from his brow that trickled into his eyes.