Read Jack Shian and the King's Chalice for Free Online Page A

creature.
    “Wind-flock Keldy,” intoned Uncle Doonya.
    A loud low whisper reverberated, and Jack began to feel his whole body spinning. His head whirled faster and faster, and instinctively he closed his eyes to stop himself feeling sick. The low whisper increased to a drone, with moaning and wailing mixed in. An eerie sound, it reminded Jack of times when someone had died at Rangie and the local Shian gathered to mourn. He felt dizzy. When he opened his mouth, he found he couldn’t speak.
    The drone had become a whine, and suddenly Jack felt as if he was flying. The gloom of the garden had gone. Cautiously he opened his eyes, and through the flapping of his uncle’s cloak, was aware of light slipping past at great speed.
    It seemed like hours before things slowed down, but gradually the whine dropped in pitch. With a jolt he recognised Lizzie’s voice.
    “Are we nearly there? I feel sick.”
    What had been blurs came into proper focus, and the spinning and whining slowed right down.
    “Everyone all right? We’ve arrived.” Uncle Doonya lowered his cloak.
    Jack looked around him and saw that Lizzie still had her eyes firmly closed.
    “Come on, Lizzie.” Petros was grinning. “We’re here.”
    Lizzie warily opened her eyes, but her pale face revealed her continuing nausea.
    “That was horrible,” she gasped. “I want to lie down.”
    “You’ll be fine,” said her father. “It’s a strange feeling, but it’ll soon pass. We’ve travelled seventy miles in under ten minutes. How are you, Rana? And you, Jack?”
    “I feel all right,” said Rana. “That was weird, though, wasn’t it? Like being a spinning top.”
    Jack didn’t feel quite as brave as Rana sounded, but wasn’t about to admit this.
    “Come on,” said Petros, “the house isn’t far.” He pointed to a track that led away from the gate. “There’s Ossian now. Hey! We’re here!” He waved at a distant figure, which began running towards them.
    Jack hadn’t seen his older cousin Ossian since a visit to Rangie several months earlier. Ossian came running along, an agile, healthy-looking lad of fifteen.
    “How’re you doin’?” he called, while still ten or twenty yards away. “Enjoy the trip?”
    “Lizzie feels sick,” said Rana heartlessly. “I thought it was fun. D’you like going on the low road?”
    “I do it all the time,” he answered casually. “You meet up with all sorts. How’re you doin’, Rabbit?”
    Jack groaned inwardly at Ossian’s joke. A couple of years earlier, Ossian had heard Aunt Katie repeatedly saying ‘Jack dear’; since then, he’d decided that ‘Jack Rabbit’ was a better name than ‘Jack deer ’. Jack looked up to his big cousin, but the joke had worn off.
    “Hurry up! We’ll get up to the house,” said Doonya. “Lizzie may have to rest for a while.”
    Jack gloried in the scent of the cornfields, the feeling of truly fresh air on his face. The buzzing of insects was a soothing contrast to the harsh city sounds he’d lately grown used to.
    “Come away in, you lot.” Aunt Dorcas stood by the door. “Petros, show Jack where the bedrooms are. Just dump your bags; lunch is ready.”
    Aunt Dorcas , thought Jack happily, does not stand on ceremony . And her cooking, based on what she had brought on various trips to Rangie, was a whole lot better than Aunt Katie’s.
    Jack’s eyes opened wide as he wandered through the large house.
    “There’s just the three of you here?” he asked incredulously. The dining room alone looked as big as the whole ground floor of the houses in Edinburgh.
    “I hate bein’ cramped,” replied Ossian. “I couldn’t live under that castle, I need room.”
    “But Edinburgh’s great, Ossian,” said Petros. “There’s wicked things to do there. There’s the people, and all the shops. The humans have some cool stuff.”
    Lunch was eaten amid happy chatter. Jack cleared his plate quickly. Aunt Dorcas’s cooking was superb – even Lizzie was eating