"Wake up!"
"Wha-"
A smooth hand covered her mouth, smothering her words.
"Quiet!"
Saffron blinked to try and sharpen her vision and had to bite down on her tongue to stop herself from shouting. In the muted light coming in through a crack in the curtains she could just make out the form of a tall woman standing, silhouetted in front of her bed.
"Get up!" she hissed. When Saffron didn't move she made an impatient noise and added, "It's me, Arabella. Now get up. And don't make a sound!"
As Saffron untangled herself from her bed covers and got up, Arabella crossed the room quickly to check that Lily was still sleeping. Once satisfied she returned to Saffron and spoke to her in hushed tones.
"There's no time to explain now, but I need you to come with me. Get changed into something warm and then fetch your broom. We need to leave as soon as possible so be quick. And you have to-"
"-Be quiet," interrupted Saffron, "ok, ok."
As quietly as she could, Saffron rummaged around in her drawers to find warm clothes. It was a hot summer's night and so, while she dressed in trousers, she tied a jumper round her waist rather than put it on and pulled on a t-shirt instead.
While she did this, Arabella stood fingering her pendant that hung outside her clothes for once. She fidgeted restlessly, anxious to be off, casting frequent glances between Lily and the closed door.
"Where are we going?"
Her voice made Arabella jump, she ignored the question and asked one of her own, "Are you ready?"
Saffron nodded.
Arabella walked over to the window, picking up her own broom that had lain hidden in the shadows and beckoned to her. Then she pushed the window open as far as it would go and mounted her broom. Ducking low, so she was flat along the handle she flew out of the open window and out into the night.
Yawning despite herself, Saffron shook her head as she mounted her own broom. This was all madness, what on earth required her to fly off into the middle of the night? Well actually she had no idea what time of night it was, for all she knew it could be half an hour until dawn or half an hour since she'd gone to sleep. But all the same she kicked her broom into the air and soared out after Arabella.
Catching the other woman not far from the house, she suddenly remembered that she ought to leave some sort of note.
"How long are we going to be?" she asked, "I should leave my parents some sort of note."
"There's no time for that," Arabella replied briskly.
"What do you mean no time?" Saffron retorted, "If you'd told be when we were inside, it wouldn't have taken me two seconds to jot a quick note. Where are we going anyway?"
Arabella's frown was just visible in the faded moonlight, "I'll tell you as we go." She cast an anxious glance at the sky, "Come on." Catching Saffron's rather annoyed expression she added, "Look, I really am sorry about all this, but you have to trust me. We have to leave right now, my oath as an Amazon." She put a hand over the crescent moon at her chest.
Saffron sighed, "Fine, but we'd better be quick, I can only imagine the scene in the morning when they find me gone."
Arabella gave a swift nod and zoomed off towards the North Star. Rolling her eyes, Saffron followed, her superior broom skills meant she had no trouble keeping up with Arabella.
"So, where are we going?" She had to shout over the noise of the wind as it rushed past them.
"I don't exactly know."
"What??"
She turned her head to shrug apologetically, "I Saw where it was you have to go, and so I came to fetch you. It's just that I don't know geographically speaking where it is."
Saffron took a moment to digest all this, then, "Where I have to go?"
She nodded, "I promise I'll tell you everything when we land, but it'll be better if we concentrate on speed at the moment. I don't know how much longer we have until the pathway vanishes. Stay by me no matter what happens."
Saffron nodded, resigning herself to having to wait for an answer as to what was going on.
Arabella looked up at the stars and then back at the moon which was barely a sliver of white against the night's sky which was showing the first signs of departing and then closed her eyes for a moment, then she nodded to herself and urged her broom forwards and upwards, Saffron right behind her. They flew higher and higher the wind whipping up their clothes and hair, making Saffron wish she had put on her jumper. Soon the air became colder and thinner as they ploughed into a patch of cloud. The air was wet and water clung to their skin, obscuring their vision and Saffron could barely make out the shape in front of her. The wetness of the air was cloying at them, and it made it hard to breathe. Without warning they suddenly shot out above the clouds and into clear sky.
Both shivering from the water on their clothes and bodies, they looked down at the stream of lights that were becoming visible before them. The first rays of sunlight were streaming over the tops of the clouds behind and below them catching on what looked like tiny prisms of glass floating in the air. As they watched the sunlight filled them reflecting the dawning light, pink, orange and gold. Sparkling brightly like dewdrops they showed a meandering pathway across the skies, wandering away into the distance farther than the eye could see.
"Oh," Saffron let out a sigh of amazement, her dark eyes sparkling with wonder, "That's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen!"
She turned to see Arabella staring at them too, a far off look in her eyes and a misty smile on her face, "Come," she murmured, "we have to follow before the dawn is over."
Spurring their brooms on again the two of them speed along over and between the iridescent guides, on towards the horizon. They flew as fast as their brooms would let them, everything becoming a blur of bright lights and soft colours in all the hues of the dawning light. The sun's rays were warm on their backs' and the wind cold in their faces'. And still they climbed higher, following the shinning lights, and the air became thinner and their breaths more and more laboured. And suddenly they found that they were going faster, nothing had changed and yet they were imperceptibly being caught up in some sort of slipstream and were forced on.
Gripping her broom convulsively with white knuckles, Saffron struggled to breathe, white spots beginning to appear in her vision as she became more and more light-headed. Things began to get brighter and darker at the same time and she was hurtling along at such a terrific rate that tears steamed from her eyes making the wind sting her face even more. Then just as she was beginning to feel that her senses were totally overloaded and she didn't know the difference between up and down or whether her eyes were opened or closed there was a sound like a distant clap of thunder and things were suddenly still.
They hung in their air high above a huge frozen glacier. The sun was bright and white in the sky, the reflection off the snow and ice almost painful to the eyes. For as far as they eye could see it was white, unbroken and undisturbed. A tall spire of ice rose up a few hundred yards ahead of them, from where they were, if they were level, the very top would have brushed their feet. The sun sparked and danced on the crystalline surface, sliding over long flat panes and glinting fiercely off multifaceted outcrops. Taller than the tallest cathedral it was a true monument to nature.
Saffron blinked in utter disbelief, so completely bewildered by the whole thing that she didn't notice her shivering, of the streams of tears that had turned to ice on her cheeks. Her head pounded and her eyes hurt from the glare off the snow. After a moment she tried to pull herself together and pried her fingers from their death-like grip on her broom. Flexing them stiffly she shivered again and shifted so she could untie her jumper and pull it over her head.
"What now?" she asked, turning to Arabella, when she had finally managed to recover her voice, and it still came out shakily.
She looked just as shaken, her eyes wide and fizzy hair sticking out wildly around her head. Saffron grinned at this and couldn't help but laugh, her voice echoed loudly around them, bouncing off the ice as it came back to them.
Arabella managed a smile and said, "We land."
Together they flew downwards, Arabella at the front, towards the base of the tower-like icicle. Landing with crisp, crunching noises as their feet hit the snow, they dismounted unsteadily, still shaken from their unnatural journey.
"Did you know it was going to be like that?" Saffron asked.
She shook her head, "Not exactly. When I See things they're more like fragments of a picture rather than a whole. I Saw the guide lights as you saw them, so I knew we had to be there before dawn. And then I Saw this tower," she gestured to the sculpture behind them, "and I Saw you." She shifted the cloak around her shoulders to try and make herself warmer, her expression when she spoke again was serious.
"Saffron, this is the first thing you've really had to do as one of the Moonlit Ones-"
"-What?" she interrupted, "I thought that Lily- I mean the Huntress- was the only Moonlit One."
She shook her head with a small smile, "The Amazons and the Huntress's make up a kind of people that over the years have come to be called that."
"Oh."
"Listen to me carefully, Saffron, this is really important," she began again, "I don't know why it had to be you that is to do this, but I definitely saw you in my vision. You have to climb up, inside the Tower of Eiglos and bring back the bridle that lies somewhere inside. Then keep it somewhere safe until it's time. It will not be long before the Huntress will need it."
"Ok," Saffron nodded, feeling nervous, and wishing she'd had the sense to bring her wand.
"But there's something you have to remember. Don't, under any circumstances use any magic once you're in there! None!"
"Well, I don't have my wand anyway, so-"
"-No," Arabella shook her head, "that doesn't make a difference. Every witch or wizard at some point in their lives can do wandless magic. But you have to make sure that you don't."
"Why not?" She was feeling more and more nervous by the minute.
Arabella sighed, "The Tower will absorb it, and not only that it will use it to leech onto your life force and drain you dry."
Saffron paled and clenched her fists tightly, wishing she could have brought someone else along.
Arabella rubbed her temples and sighed again, "I'm sorry Saffron, I've been really grouchy with you. It's just that I get like this after I get a vision. It makes me short tempered and…well, mean."
"That's alright, you've a better excuse than most," Saffron replied with a small smile.
She smiled back and laid a hand on Saffron's arm, "If you're careful, I don't think it'll be that dangerous. Take your broom with you in case you don't come out the way you came in." She looked around, "Hmm, I guess I'll have to apparate home."
"Why couldn't we- well, you anyway- apparate here?"
"I told you, I really have no idea where we are. It's possible that this place is unplottable, I've never even heard of anyone other than a Moonlit One finding this place."
"So people have come out alive?" Saffron looked sceptically at the Tower looming above her.
Arabella laughed, "You aren't going to die in there-" she stopped suddenly and her face became blank.
Saffron frowned apprehensively and waved a hand in front of her face, "Arabella?"
After a moment she blinked and looked at Saffron with surprise and then sadness.
"What?" she asked, bemused.
"Never mind my strangeness," she replied with a gentle smile, "I know you'll be back at your home in the not to distant future, I've Seen you elsewhere in the time to come."
Saffron wrinkled her nose, "No offence or anything, but I'm not exactly a big believer in divination."
"Not many people are," she replied and grinned, "and not without good reason, most seers are fakes. The real ones don't tend to publicise themselves."
She gave her a quick hug and stepped back, "You'll find your way, trust yourself a bit more, hey? I'll be seeing you."
There was a 'pop' as she disapperated.
"Man!" Saffron exclaimed, "She always just disappears without checking whether I'm ready for her to go. And I'm so not ready for her to go. I don't want to go looking for the stupid bridle, why does it have to be me?"
She folded her arms and turned to glare at the Tower. Then she realised she was being childish and sighed, shaking her head as she picked up her broomstick and began to trudge the short distance to where the Tower met the snow covered ground.
Reaching the Tower she wandered around looking for an entrance. Once having completed a full circle three times she paused and frowned. How on earth was she supposed to get in? She tapped her broom against the ice. It sounded hollow enough. She stretched out a hand to touch the ice and shut her eyes against a sudden flash of pain throughout her body.
Opening her eyes, she found herself at the bottom of a cavernous space in what she assumed was the Tower. It looked wider across that she had thought possible from the outside and stretched up and up so her neck hurt from craning upwards. There was hardly any light inside, only a bluish glow that seemed to come from the walls.
She walked around, staring above her, fascinated by the glinting lights. Her muffled footsteps echoed around her as she searched for the way forwards. Finally she spotted a small- well it looked small from where she was stood, but really she had no idea how large the entrance was, only that it was high above her head.
Automatically she mounted her broom, kicking off in a cloud of diamond dust. But she was no more than three broom lengths off the ground before a fierce wind began to blow. Gently at first, but then stronger and stronger as she climbed higher, Saffron struggled to keep her eyes open and broom steady as she headed towards the dark patch above her that was what she presumed was the exit.
Without warning a sharp gust of wind came slamming into her on the left with the force of a huge wave. Saffron lost control of her broomstick and hurtled towards the wall, disorientated and confused she crashed into it with a strangely quiet thud. Buffeted by the wind she slid no farther down the wall and felt pinned to it like one of those dead butterflies she'd seen in glass frames. The noise of the wind roared in her ears and her hair was tossed like a cloud around her face so she could barely see, tiny flakes of snow, now interspersed with the wind caught themselves on her clothing, hair and eyelashes. The sensation as little like the tiny flakes that gently kiss your cheek as could be, instead it felt like an entire blanket of cold, seeping through her clothes and skin, freezing her from the inside out.
Her broom slipped from her grasp, caught up the next second by an anticipating wind. Saffron flung her arms out in panic, aided by the winds and her numb fingers began scrabbling for purchase on the icy wall behind her. Closing her eyes, she forced herself to try and breathe calmly, reciting the properties of motherwort in her head to fight off rising panic, her heart pounding so hard that she thought that any second it might burst from her chest. Suddenly she felt a bright spark of magic blossom inside her, but she quashed it with panic the second she realised what was happening. Arabella's words sounding clear in her head amidst her increasing sense of desperation.
Her fingers were so numb that she didn't even notice as her littlest finger snagged on a razor sharp outcropping section and blood began to trickle down the crystal surface. There was a muffled sounding chiming sound and as quickly as it had begun the wind stopped. Heart lurching in her chest Saffron felt her stomach plummet, anticipating a long fall. However she fell only a few inches onto a glass platform that had appeared from nowhere. As she watched in bemusement a crystal stairway began to form, winding round the edge of the cavern towards the open hole above her.
"Oookay…" Saffron breathed, trying to sort out in her mind what had just happened. For some reason this seemed to be a hard thing to do. Then, just as she felt she almost had it, it was gone.
She blinked twice and started to walk up the stairs, wondering to herself how long the stairs had taken to build. The unquestioning belief in her mind that she had seen the stairs the minute she had walked through the door accepted without a second thought.
At the top of the stairs she peered dubiously down the darkened corridor that greeted her. For some reason she couldn't understand this place made her feel unaccountably nervous although she could only remember straightforward pathways from the moment she had entered.
A bright, glowing strip of ice lay a short way in front of her and she eyed it thoughtfully. It was too broad for her to jump it and she remembered leaving her broom outside. It didn't seem entirely safe but she began to walk towards it, telling herself sternly that she was doing this for Lily.
The minute her feet touched the surface a tingly sensation raced from the soles of her feet to her knees and her shoes and bottom half of her trousers vanished. Saffron yelped and jumped back a few steps in shock.
"What the-?"
Her shout echoed off the walls returning to her as clearly as it had left.
"Weird," she muttered, continuing her walk forwards once she had reassured herself that nothing was wrong.
Not long after she had turned a corner and the entrance had disappeared from view something made her turn and she gasped. Where she had walked, silver footprints stained the ground. She paused and lifted up her feet. Sure enough, silver footprints lay on the ice. Squatting down she began to notice that hers weren't the only tracks. Scattered all over the ice were fainter prints, as if they were layers below her, feet of all different sizes and shapes, gleaming dimly below her. Somehow heartened by this she continued on down the corridor, her arms wrapped round her, hands rubbing them to try and get some warmth into them. Her breath floated like a cloud in the air and she could feel the frozen snowflakes on her eyelashes, clumping them together.
Eventually the tunnel came to a sudden halt as she turned the corner. It opened out into a wide oval shape. The walls gleamed a different hue in here, somehow warmer, and the air seemed tinged with sadness. Several long pillars lined the wall, glowing softly like pillars of light. Looking around her as she crossed to the other side she gave a startled gasp as she realised that the pillars weren't just made of ice.
A/N: Yes, that's right, I'm back! Thanks for being so patient, guys! So, the plot thickens as they say…actually I have no idea why I said that. Where was I…oh yeah, I am back now, no more holidays for me for a few weeks at least ;) So I can reassure you all that you won't be left hanging for another month! But the postage is close on the heels of the writage so you'll all have to send me muse-full thoughts in the hope that I can progress quickly with the story.
I can see I'm not making very much sense so I think I'll shut up now and let you get on with reviewing hint, hint ;)