The first paper was covered in writing he knew well.
Lief shook his head ruefully. He realised that Barda and Jasmine were looking at him and passed them the note.
‘Not in code?’ Barda said in surprise, glancing at the letter.
‘There was no time to work in code, I imagine,’ said Lief. ‘Doom expected us to stay in Tora only for a few hours, and wanted to be sure his message reached us. But the note is in code of a sort.’
Jasmine had been reading her father’s note carefully.
‘So it is!’ she exclaimed. ‘His real meaning lies under the plain words. He rejoices that the Sister of the North has been destroyed. He recognises the piece of Boolong cone, so knows we sent our message from Dread Mountain. He warns us that the Shadow Lord will now be even more intent on stopping us—’
‘As if we are not all too aware of that!’ snorted Barda.
‘And he tells us not to write again too soon,’ said Lief. ‘Plainly his fear that any message will fall into the wrong hands is even greater than it was before. Only the sentences about poor Josef, added at the end, are what they seem.’
He turned to Josef’s letter—two pages hastily torn from a little notebook.
He smiled. How Josef must have hated being forced to send such a rough message! It would have offended all his ideas of what was proper.
Quickly he scanned the first page of the note.
Lief frowned. He turned to the second page, which proved to be even more confused than the first.
‘What does the old windbag say?’ Barda yawned.
‘He says that Doom is moody, and that we are in danger,’ Lief said dryly.
Jasmine laughed. ‘Well, that is news indeed!’ she said. ‘Does he say nothing else?’
Lief sighed again. ‘He thinks that by studying Doran’s maps and writings he has worked out where we are going. He wants me to tell him if he is right.’
Barda looked up. ‘You will not do so, I presume?’
‘Of course not.’ Lief lay back, frowning, and closed his eyes. He did not like to think of Josef waiting vainly for an answer to his urgent request.
And there was something else. Lief’s frown deepened. He had ignored the fussy old librarian before—and regretted it. Josef’s mind was sharp, and he knew the Deltora Annals like no-one else.
… something about my results worries me…
‘Lief!’
Lief’s eyes flew open. Manus was standing in front of him, his small face screwed into an apologetic smile.
‘I am sorry to disturb you, Lief,’ Manus said softly. ‘But I have a promise to keep.’
He held out a small package wrapped in white paper and tied with string.
‘On my way to Tora from Raladin, I stopped at Tom’s shop to buy a packet of No Bakes for the journey,’ he said. ‘Tom gave me this. He said it was for you.’
13 – Strange Tidings
Lief stared at Manus in astonishment and growing dismay. How had Tom, the strange shopkeeper of the Plains, guessed where he was? They had told no-one but Doom that they planned to visit Tora. Even the Kin had not known where they were going until they were in the air.
Yet the wind came to Bone Point, Lief reminded himself. The wind from the Shadowlands, that swept us out to sea and nearly killed us all. The Shadow Lord knew where to find us. And now, it seems, Tom the shopkeeper…
‘Did you tell Tom you would see me in Tora, Manus?’ he asked sharply.
Manus’s eyes widened. ‘Of course not. How could I?’ he squeaked. ‘I did not know it myself! I thought you were still travelling in the north-east, and so I told Tom. In fact, I told him he should keep the package, for you would very likely visit his shop yourself, before too long.’
‘And what did Tom say to that?’ Barda demanded.
Manus wrinkled his nose. ‘He just smiled, in that knowing way he has, and said I might see you when I least expected it. He said I was to give you the package with his compliments, but no-one else was to know of it.’
He saw the companions glance at one another and his face grew troubled.
‘It seems you are not pleased,’ he murmured. ‘I hope I have not done wrong.’
‘No, no, Manus!’ Lief said quickly. ‘We are only surprised, that is all.’
He took the package and turned it over in his hands. There was nothing written upon it at all.
‘Open it, Lief!’ Jasmine urged.
Lief pulled off the string. The wrapping paper fell away to reveal a jar of fire-making beads and a bag of large, round, pink-striped sweets that smelled strongly of peppermint.
‘There!’ exclaimed Manus, leaning forward. ‘He has sent you a gift!’
‘A gift from Tom?’ snorted Barda. ‘I do not believe it. That man cares only for business. He has never given away anything in his life without being forced into it!’
‘There is no note?’ Jasmine asked curiously.
Lief shook his head. He smoothed out the thick, white wrapping paper and peered at it in the fading light. Both sides were smooth and unmarked.
Manus glanced over his shoulder at the fire. ‘The Torans think I am fetching my flute,’ he murmured. ‘They would like some music, they say.’
‘And so would we,’ said Barda heartily. ‘Be off, then!’
Manus grinned and scurried away.
The three companions looked at one another, and then at the bag of pink-striped sweets sitting before them on the sand.
‘They look and smell very good,’ Lief said longingly. ‘But I daresay we would be foolish to eat them.’
‘Indeed!’ Barda said. ‘It would be best to bury them, or throw them in the fire.’
‘What reason would Tom have to poison us?’ Jasmine exclaimed. ‘He is a rascal, perhaps, but surely not a villain. He guessed where we were in Deltora, but this does not make him our enemy. After all, Josef claims to have discovered our whereabouts, too, and we do not suspect Josef of evil intentions.’
‘Josef says Doom does not trust him.’ Lief was frowning. It had been a great shock to discover that their movements were known to so many, despite all their care.
Jasmine snorted. ‘Doom does not trust anyone but himself,’ she said.
The sweet sound of Manus’s flute drifted to their ears on the cool wind.
Jasmine picked up the jar of fire beads and rattled it thoughtfully. ‘We know what these are, at least,’ she said. ‘They could be very useful to us in the time to come. I will try one now, as a test.’
She scraped a shallow hole in the sand before her, then broke the seal on the jar and took one bead. She placed the bead in the hole.
‘Move back,’ she said. ‘Just in case…’
Lief and Barda edged further under the canopy.
Sitting well back on her heels, Jasmine reached forward and hit the bead sharply with the hilt of her dagger.
The bead burst into flames. Nothing else happened. After a few moments, Jasmine added another bead and soon they were all enjoying the warmth and light of a small but cheery fire.
Barda held his hands out to the blaze and shook his head. ‘So it was just a simple gift,’ he muttered. ‘A welcome one, too. But it is very strange.’
Lief bent to move the bag of sweets and the discarded wrapping paper away from the fire. As he did, he saw something that made his jaw drop.
Words were appearing in the centre of the paper. Dark brown words, that had not been there before.
He snatched the paper up. It was stiff and warm.
‘Tom sent a message after all!’ he gasped. ‘A message written in ink that is invisible until it is warmed.’
Barda stared at the paper, fascinated. ‘That was why he sent the fire beads, no doubt—to make sure we lit a fire at once!’