Casimir quite liked the idea and cheered up considerably at the thought of some action. He’d never, of course, have said anything to Lewis but quite frankly found living inside him a dead bore. “There are a couple of climbers stuck in the Cuillins, if you’re interested,” he said casually. “The rescue services can’t get near them. It’s blowing a blizzard over there and their helicopters are grounded. They’ll both be dead before morning.”
“Over where, exactly?” asked Lewis, whose geography wasn’t very good.
“The Cuillins are mountains on the Isle of Skye, off the west coast,” Casimir said. “Really, Lewis! If you spent as much time on your schoolwork as you do reading those comics, you’d be a lot better informed!”
“I’m really tired, Casimir,” Lewis said, looking longingly at his bed.
“You don’t have to go,” Casimir said. “Pretend I didn’t tell you.”
“But you did and if I don’t go, they’ll die! Can you see them, Casimir?”
Casimir flashed a picture into Lewis’s mind. Two climbers huddled together on a narrow ledge in the middle of a snowstorm.
“Let’s go, Casimir,” Lewis said quietly. “There’s no way I can leave them. They look as though they’re going to fall at any minute.”
“We’ll travel fast, Master,” Casimir promised.
He was as good as his word. Lewis swung out of his window and as he soared over George Street, seemed to go into overdrive. The sudden burst of speed shot him like a rocket over the castle and the rest of the city at a terrific rate that at first took his breath away. He soon became accustomed to it, however, and watched as the landscape rolled under him like a moving carpet; as though it was he who was stationary and the country that moved beneath him. It was only when they hit the fringes of the blizzard that Casimir slowed the pace.
Lewis had never been to the west coast of Scotland and although they were only vague, shadowy shapes seen through the driving snow, the mountains towered around him; strange, threatening and overwhelming in their presence. He felt like an alien as Casimir navigated him towards the ledge on which the climbers huddled, already half-frozen by the biting cold.
Their eyes rounded in terror as he approached them, black and evil-looking, out of the blizzard. There was no place to turn; all they could do was press themselves back against the solid bulk of the mountain and hope that their end would be swift. The masked face, the black cloak and the fact that he was flying in the air over a drop of thousands of feet convinced them that if he wasn’t the devil himself, he was certainly the next best thing.
“Calm them down, Casimir,” Lewis whispered under his breath. “I’ll never get anywhere near them otherwise!”
Magic rayed down on them from the cloaked figure and Lewis watched as their fear faded, and it was only when hope stirred in their eyes that he landed on the ledge beside them.
“Hi!” he said casually.
It was probably the best thing he could have said. James and Charles, both students at Edinburgh University, were bright lads and, as they instinctively doubted that devils in any shape or form opened conversations with “Hi,” they looked at one another in relief and waited for more.
Lewis was actually feeling more than a bit embarrassed. What on earth was he going to say? I’m the Shadow? I’ve come to rescue you? Both sounded totally over the top.
“Who on earth are you?” James asked, his lips barely able to move for the snow crusting his face.
“Never mind who I am,” Lewis said hurriedly. “Let’s get you out of here. Don’t worry, I can carry you both,” he added as they looked at him in amazement.
“How do you propose to do that?” James queried. Charles, who was drifting in and out of consciousness, didn’t say anything and James, after a quick glance, held on to him tighter.
“Let’s warm them up!” Lewis said quietly.
Casimir took the hint and again a ray of magic enveloped the two climbers who relaxed as a delicious feeling of warmth stole over them, Charles stirred and James’s eyes mirrored his relief. Who or what this strange creature was, he didn’t know but as the grim prospect of certain death started to fade from his mind, he found himself hoping wildly that perhaps, just perhaps, they might come out of this in one piece.
“Take Charles first,” he said hoarsely. “He’s in a bad way. There ought to be a Mountain Rescue team in the area. They’d have called it out when we didn’t get back to the hotel!”
Lewis hovered in the air and settled himself beside Charles, pulling his arms over his shoulders and hoisting him on his back. After the Forth Bridge affair there wasn’t much he didn’t know about lifting and carrying.