The Serpent in the Glass (The Tale of Thomas Farrell) by Andrews D.M

Author:Andrews, D.M. [Andrews, D.M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: D.M. Andrews
Published: 2012-01-04T16:00:00+00:00

— CHAPTER FOURTEEN —

The Anywhere Lift

The West Wing consisted of a labyrinth of mainly windowless corridors hung with red tapestries and decorated with countless portraits of Avallach’s more prominent former inhabitants. Most looked very odd, especially that of a gawking Marganus the Misplaced, an ancient king of some land called Glywysing, according to the words at the bottom of the painting at least. The king’s thin crown sat unevenly upon his ginger-haired head, bending one of his ears down and making his appearance look quite comical.

After promising Merideah and Jessica that they could read some of the books in the library at some other time, Trevelyan had led them to this part of the Academy by way of the corridor on the other side of Darkledun Hall, identical — complete with web glass — to the one leading to the East Wing.

Trevelyan let them peek into a few of the classrooms as they went along. The chairs were all tall-backed, wooden and moderately ornate. The tables were long and dark, and none of the rooms were very well lit. Indeed, there appeared to be no electricity at all, and lanterns — and occasionally torches — lit areas where the sun’s rays never came.

The West Tower looked like a mirror image of the East Tower. This time, however, they climbed six floors before they reached the top, but this final floor contained no library or anything else come to that, for it stood quite empty. There wasn’t even a hole in the roof.

Penders stated the obvious ‘There’s nothing here.’

‘Are you sure, Mr Penderghast?’ Trevelyan pulled a large ivory key from his robes. ‘Now, where is it today?’

Trevelyan thrust out the key and it seemed to pull his hand, first one way and then another until it had pulled him about ten yards across the empty level. ‘Ah, here!’ He inserted the key into something the children couldn’t see. Suddenly a door materialised, a plain wooden door with a silver knob.

‘Please, come in!’ the Headmaster invited as he opened the door. Inside, inexplicably, lay a room.

‘Most peculiar,’ Thomas heard Merideah mutter to herself, as she passed through the door behind him.

Once through the door, Thomas found himself standing in a room filled with books, papers, maps, framed pictures, and numerous objects he couldn’t put a name to. A bright red carpet adorned the floor and upon it sat a large desk and chair that looked to be several hundred years old.

Trevelyan moved over to the desk and sat in the large wooden chair. ‘Please pull up a seat, there are a few about if you can find them — or just sit on a pile of books!’

The children eventually all found seats of one kind or another. Thomas ended up sitting on a stack of books, the topmost of which was entitled An Insight into the Mind of the Clabbersnapper by Gylburne Tailz. He briefly wondered what a Clabbersnapper might be before his attention wandered to some of the other strange items in the room.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.