Mirrorscape Read Online Free PDF Page B

gather.
    Behind them, Dirk Tot followed them from the fane. ‘Put Mel inside and make your goodbye quick,’ he said to Mabin.
    â€˜ Goodbye? But your outriders, surely they’ll protect us.’
    â€˜I don’t have any outriders,’ confessed Dirk Tot. ‘There’s just me and my coachman.’
    â€˜But you can’t snatch Mel away from us like this,’ said Mabin.
    â€˜There’s no choice. Mel must come with me to Vlam. It’s the only way he can survive now. Say goodbye. As quickly as you can.’ He turned away and said something quietly to his coachman, before disappearing back into the fane.
    â€˜Oh, Mel,’ said Mabin as she helped Mel into the carriage. She cradled her son’s face between her hands and then pressed her handkerchief to historn scalp. ‘It shouldn’t have been like this.’
    â€˜I’ll be all right, Mum,’ Mel said, sounding braver than he felt. He gazed at his mother standing there and noticed a grey hair among her blonde tresses. Why haven’t I ever noticed that before? He looked beyond her at the fane and the group of villagers, people he had known all his life. Now that I’m leaving everything looks different . ‘Mum, you know that – ’
    â€˜No time. We must be gone,’ interrupted Dirk Tot as he joined Mel in the carriage, which dipped and groaned on its springs under his great weight. ‘You will probably want these,’ he said as he tossed the drawings from Mel’s exhibition on to the opposite seat. He then sat alongside Mel, with the damaged side of his face towards him.
    Mel’s artistic eye no longer seemed to be working and he only saw the monster he had first encountered.
    â€˜Mabin, you and the villagers make yourselves scarce until those men leave. I’ll send word as soon as we’re safe in Vlam.’
    â€˜But Mel has no food, no clothes, no money. How will he survive?’
    â€˜Fear not. What he needs will be provided. Yan, drive on!’
    Mabin held on to Mel’s hand, running alongside the carriage until it was moving so fast that she had to let go. Leaning out of the window, Mel watched his father join her. He attempted to see the expression on his face, but they were already too far away. He wished he could have spoken with him. He saw his parents clutch each other, and his mother waved until they were lost. Soon, even the village of Kop vanished behind the trees.

The Mysteries
    Mel had never experienced such a complicated flood of emotions. There he was hastening off in the finest transport he had ever seen with a rich and important man to begin a new life. But now that my dream’s come true, why do I feel so wretched?
    â€˜Here, Mel, let me look at you,’ said Dirk Tot. ‘Are you hurt? I can see bruises and a nasty wound on your scalp. Any broken bones? You belong to the master now. He won’t want damaged goods.’
    Mel shook his head. He suddenly realised the danger he had been in and then, with a shock, the danger his parents and the whole village were still in. ‘Those men … what are they going to do? Mum and Dad, will they be all right?’
    â€˜I don’t think that your parents – or anyone else – are in any immediate danger. If I know Adolfus Spute, as soon as he has vented his rage on his men he will be hot on our trail.’
    Mel looked alarmed.
    â€˜But he won’t catch us. Not without these.’ He opened his good hand to reveal two greasy linchpins. ‘I had Yan remove them from the rear wheels of his carriage. I reckon he might get as far as ten miles before they finally fall off. The closest spares would be in Arpen and it would take a fast rider a day to make it there and back.’
    â€˜I don’t understand any of this. Those men, what did they want?’
    Dirk Tot turned his good eye to look at Mel. ‘What do you know about the Mysteries?’
    â€˜Everyone knows