was at that moment in midair between boulders. “Jarrah, make sure your mom gets you the latest Vargran.”
“Done,” Jarrah said. She landed like a cat, stood up, pulled out her iPhone, and pointed to it with her free hand. “Nothing new: Mother is on holiday with Dad.” Then she was knocked over by Stefan, who had come to kind of like jumping over invisible boulders. From his point of view he was climbing in midair.
Vargran was the magical language, long forgotten, and only really useful to those very few who were born with the enlightened puissance. Jarrah’s mother was an archaeologist in Australia, where she had discovered some bits and pieces of Vargran carved into a cave wall inside the massive rock known as Uluru.
So far they had learned that Vargran had sounds that included a throat-clearing sound (ch), a click, and a sniff, as well as more normal consonants and vowels. And they had learned that Vargran had four basic verb forms: infinitive, past, future, and or else.
Generally magical spells involved the “or else” tense, which added a ma on the end.
To date they had used Vargran to make a small sun, to cause blue-cheese-filled Lepercons to grow, and to go shopping at Harrods department store, although they hadn’t really intended that last one.
The whole experience had not been very satisfying. Which was why they needed the Key. With MacGuffin’s key matched to the earlier piece of the key—the part they’d obtained from the goddess Nott—they would be able to learn a whole lot more Vargran. The language was, after all, their only weapon, and they didn’t have a lot of time left to assemble the rest of the twelve, somehow convince the traitorous Magnifica Valin to switch sides, and stop the Pale Queen. They needed Vargran. And no: there was no app for that.
About halfway up the mountain they had a lucky break: a stairway, carved into the cliff face. It had once gone all the way down, but when the mountain collapsed, so had the bottom half of the staircase—a fact that made Mack a bit nervous as he climbed his weary way up the narrow, overly tall steps.
It was a good thing they found the stairs because the sun was setting and casting very long, deep shadows all around them, turning every jagged rock into a monster’s head. (Not literally, that was a simile. Or possibly a metaphor. One of those.)
The staircase ended in a stone guardhouse. To their immense relief there was a fountain spouting what they fervently hoped was water. It wasn’t warm in Scotland, but it was humid, and they were all sweating and huffing and puffing, so they plopped down on stone benches, cupped water with their hands and drank, and gazed out across the landscape below: the road, Urquhart Castle, and the loch beyond.
Mack caught Stefan’s eye, and the two of them went to take a look up at MacGuffin’s castle. Darkness was falling fast. It was autumn in Scotland, when days are short and nights are long.
The castle was in perfect repair, not a ruin like Urquhart, which looked as ancient as it was. This castle looked as if it had just been built last week. The stone was clean and lichen-free. The mortar was all fresh. Even the grass below the walls looked green and new-mown.
Also, the row of skulls used to outline the massive timber door was impeccable. They stood out white against dark stone.
“Any way we can sneak in?” Mack wondered aloud.
“I can’t see anything,” Stefan pointed out. “It’s like I’m standing in the air looking at a cloud.”
“Ah. Right. Well, it’s got high walls, a couple of giant towers, and a massive wooden gate.”
“Human pyramid?” Stefan said, and for a moment Mack wasn’t entirely sure it was stupid.
“The walls are too high,” Mack said regretfully. “We need him to open the door. We need a diversion. We need him to come out after some of us while the rest sneak in and find the Key.”
Then, suddenly, without warning, came a sound so terrible Mack felt as if his blood had frozen solid in his veins.
Bleeeeeaaaat-skurrrreeeeeeeeee-waaahhhhhh!
“Oh my God, what is that?” Xiao cried. She had come running. “It sounds as if a goat is being tortured!”
“It sounds like all the pain in existence since the dawn of time!” Jarrah said.
“It sounds like the cry of a newborn demon ready to destroy all peace and love!” Dietmar said. “But I believe it is merely a bagpipe.”
“Oh, yeah,” Mack said. “A bagpipe. I was going to guess that.”
“So, who is going to be the diversion?” Jarrah asked after Mack described his plan, which wasn’t really much of a plan.
“You know . . . ,” Mack said, stroking his chin thoughtfully. “Something just occurred to me: maybe the door isn’t locked. I mean, it’s not like he gets many visitors up here. Why would he lock a door no one has come to in a thousand years?”
So they crept forward in single file with Mack in the lead. The bagpipe did not play again. There was a deep silence everywhere and the stars were beginning to blink on in the dark blue sky overhead.
The door was about ten feet tall, maybe eight feet wide, and made of wood that looked like it could be two feet thick. It was the kind of door Mack wished he had on his room. Maybe without the skulls grinning down. That was a little too much.
There wasn’t a handle, really, or a knocker or a bell. So Mack simply pushed on the wood where a handle might have been.
Instantly the bagpipe screeched, and this time that horrifying sound was joined by a chorus of shrill, high-pitched voices. It sounded like a church choir of toddlers cranked up on soda and Smarties trying to sing along with a howling devil.
“Interesting doorbell, eh?” Jarrah said. She was acting tough, but the noise had scared them all. All except Stefan, who yelled, “Hey, shut up!”
The chorus was instantly silenced. The door moved on its own, slowly widening the gap.
Mack was pretty sure duty required him to be the first one through, but fortunately Stefan pushed ahead. Stefan wasn’t good at fear. He just didn’t seem to get it. Even when he couldn’t see anything but the night sky.
Mack was right behind him, shoulder to shoulder with Jarrah, with Dietmar and Xiao following closely. They formed a little knot of scared kids.
The door slammed behind them.
They found themselves in a dark courtyard. Only the faint starlight revealed tall, crenellated walls and arches, with hard-on-the-feet cobblestones underfoot.
“Hey! I can see it now,” Stefan said. The spell of invisibility only worked on the exterior of the castle, like a coat of camouflage.
“Um . . . ,” Mack said.
Before he could finish his thought (and we’ll never know what it was), a torch burst into wild orange flame. It was about eye level on the wall to their right.
Then a second torch. Another. Another.
A line of torches moved from right to left, turned the corner to cross the facing wall, then came around to trace the left wall.
The torches whipped frantically as though they were in a strong wind, but it was perfectly still in the courtyard.
In the flickering orange glow they could see quite clearly. Yes, there were tall walls all around. And gloomy arches outlined in gleaming white skulls. Mack noticed—because Mack noticed things—that not all of the skulls were human. There were some that were too small to be human. There were others too large, far too large, and with teeth where teeth had no business being.
Against the facing wall, flanked on both sides by shadowed arches, a rough-hewn throne sat atop a platform. And on that throne sat a man. He was wearing a skirt. And every one of the Magnifica and Stefan had the identical thought: I hope that dude keeps his legs crossed.
The man was built as wide as he was tall, but he was