‘Certainly I will, Josef, but only if you and Ranesh leave us,’ said Lief, trying with all his might to keep his voice casual and unhurried. ‘I will not be able to concentrate if I know I am keeping you awake.’
Josef hesitated, his eyes flicking from the open book to Lief’s face and back again.
‘We will speak again soon,’ Lief added, forcing a smile.
At last Josef nodded. Plucking at Ranesh’s sleeve to make sure his assistant followed his lead, he bowed and shuffled away.
Soon Lief and Doom heard the sound of their mumured goodnights, and doors closing at the back of the library.
‘At last!’ Lief breathed. ‘Now—to find this tale.’
He swung round to the table. The book lay open at the place the old librarian had been so anxious for him to see.
Lief glanced impatiently at the yellowed pages, the small, exquisitely neat printing. A name caught his eye. He gasped and stared.
‘Doom!’ he whispered. ‘Look!’
9 - Grains of Truth
Doom drew back from the table. ‘So—the Shadow Lord played the same trick on Pirra as he did on Deltora. He divided the people, made the land’s protection useless, then invaded.’
“The Pirrans allowed him to do it,’ Lief muttered, rubbing his hand over his eyes. ‘As we in Deltora did in our turn. He used their anger, their stubbornness, their ambition, their weakness…’
‘Your majesty!’
A white figure was hobbling slowly towards them from the back of the library. Josef.
‘Forgive me, your majesty,’ the old man mumbled, as he drew closer. ‘But I forgot—’
Lief scrambled to his feet and held out his hand. ‘Forgive me, Josef,’ he said. ‘You were trying to tell me of the Pirran Pipe, and I would not listen.’
Josef’s face lit with an eager smile as he took the offered hand. ‘You have read the Tale, then?’ he whispered. ‘You believe it contains a grain of truth?’
At Lief’s nod, he hurried on. ‘I am sure that each of the Pirran tribes would have treasured its own part of the Pipe, and kept it safe. So if the Pirrans still exist, the three parts of the Pirran Pipe exist also.’
‘I am as sure of it as you are,’ said Lief. ‘And I know the Pipe can help us, for I have heard its voice.’
Josef stared at him, awe-struck. ‘You must understand, your majesty,’ he ventured at last, ‘that the Enemy has the Shadowlands too firmly in his grasp now for even the Pirran Pipe to drive him out of it. All the Pipe could do, I believe, is weaken him.’
‘I understand,’ Lief said firmly. ‘Do not fear, Josef. All we hope for is time—time to get our prisoners out! But first we must find the Pirran Islands.’
‘Yes!’ Josef cried. ‘That is what I had forgotten to tell you!’ Swiftly he seized volume 5 of the Annals and expertly riffled through the back pages. In a very short time he had found what he was seeking: a series of maps.
He pointed to a small sketch above another, much larger, map of the western sea.
‘There is no signature, but I strongly suspect this sketch was made by Doran, our greatest explorer,’ Josef said. ‘He certainly drew the larger map below. I recognise his hand.’
‘Thank you, Josef.’ Lief’s heart was too full to say more. The map was so simple as to be almost useless. But to him it proved one thing at least. The Pirran Islands were not just a legend. They existed. And that meant they could be found.
Josef beamed. ‘It is my pleasure to be of service,’ he said. He bowed, turned, and tottered back to his room.
Lief reached for the paper and pencil. ‘I will trace this map,’ he said. ‘Perhaps we can find others with which to compare it.’
He looked down at the sheaf of paper in front of him. Now that it was in better light, he could see that the top page bore indented marks caused by Jasmine writing heavily on a sheet of paper above it.
He rubbed the side of the pencil tip lightly over the white surface. As he had hoped, the grooves in its surface began to show as white lines.
‘What does this mean, I wonder?’ he murmured.
‘You can ask Jasmine,’ said Doom, barely glancing at the page. ‘I am going to wake her, and Barda too. If they are to accompany me on this voyage…’
Lief looked up quickly. ‘Accompany us, you mean,’ he said. ‘I am going with you. Do you really think the Pirrans will give up their greatest treasure to anyone other than the king of Deltora?’
Doom frowned. ‘You are right,’ he said at last. ‘The king must be the one to ask the favour. But you must agree to this, Lief—Jasmine, Barda and I will be the ones to take the risks, if risks there be.’
Lief nodded reluctantly. Doom lightly touched his shoulder, and left him.
Alone, Lief stared again at Jasmine’s strange words. They made him uneasy. ‘O-M hills’ must mean the dangerous Os-Mine Hills, to the north of Del. But what the rest meant he could not imagine.
Ranesh had said that Jasmine was reading Volume 1 of the Annals—the very book open before him now. Lief began turning pages, finding more Tenna Birdsong Tales. The Tale of the Three Knights. The Seven Goblins. The Dragon’s Egg…
Then he found something else. Caught between two pages was a small black feather.
Kree! Lief imagined the great black bird sitting on the book as Jasmine read. He imagined Kree fluttering back as Jasmine closed the book hurriedly, on Josef’s approach. And a feather falling, to be trapped between the pages.
He read the story on the open double page with a growing sense of dread.
Lief sat for a moment, deep in thought. Then he heard a sound from the door. Doom and Barda were striding towards him, grim-faced. He knew what they had come to tell him before they spoke.
‘Jasmine has gone, hasn’t she?’ he asked dully.
They looked surprised, but did not ask how he knew.
‘Her bed has not been slept in.’ Barda rubbed his forehead angrily. ‘She slipped away yesterday, no doubt, while I was asleep. I should have expected this! By now she will be in the Forests. And alone!’
Lief shook his head. ‘Not alone,’ he replied. ‘If I am right, Glock is with her. And they have not gone to the Forests, but to the Os-Mine Hills. I believe—I am sure—that Jasmine thinks she has found a secret way to the Shadowlands. Underground.’
10 - Pursuit
Marilen shivered and wrapped her cloak more closely around her. It was not yet dawn, but Lief knew that she was shuddering not with cold, but with anxiety she was trying desperately to disguise.
‘Do not fear, Marilen,’ he said gently. ‘You need do nothing but wait. Doom is staying here, to prepare for a journey. He will watch over you. And Barda and I will soon return.’
He hoped that she would not ask him where he was going. Even in Tora, she might have heard the evil stories of the Os-Mine Hills. He smothered a sigh of relief as she nodded silently.
‘I had not planned to leave you so soon,’ Lief went on carefully. ‘But I do not think that Jasmine will return for anyone but me, for I am the one who offended her.’
‘I do understand, Lief,’ Marilen said in a low voice. ‘And you must not think I am a coward, who will always panic as soon as you leave her sight.’
Torn between fury at Jasmine’s stubbornness, and a terrible fear for her safety, Lief was impatient to be gone. But there was one thing left to ask.
‘Very few people know that we returned with Doom last night, Marilen,’ he said. ‘Most think we are still in Tora. It is safest if they continue in this belief for now. Will you remain out of sight while I am gone? Mother will see to your meals.’