The Scent of Magic

by Cliff McNish

  Rachel thought of the gills. ‘I can handle them,’ she insisted. ‘Larpskendya warned me a party of Witches could detect my spells, even from space. That might lead the Witches to all children. I won’t break my promise!’

  ‘You already have,’ snorted Morpeth. He stood up. ‘You must take back control, Rachel. Give your spells something to do – room to breathe at least. And do it while you’re awake, and you can restrain them.’

  ‘Nothing terrible’s happened yet …’

  Morpeth met her gaze. ‘Are you going to wait until it does? I know you wouldn’t strike out deliberately, Rachel, but what about your nightmares? What if your mum tried to wake you at the wrong time? This morning, for instance. Anything could have occurred. I saw the claw.’ He stared earnestly at her. ‘That’s your worst nightmare, isn’t it? And mine too: in my darkest dreams I’m facing Dragwena again. I’m hunted by a Witch.’

  Rachel shivered. She tried never to think of Dragwena.

  Bringing the drink of Coke to her lips, she noticed a wasp. It buzzed around the lid of the can, crawled under the tab and finally fell into the drink. Rachel sighed, absently tipping the wasp onto the grass.

  ‘What spells just came into your head?’ Morpeth asked sharply.

  ‘Only the usual ones.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Four spells: one to kill the wasp; a second to rescue it; a third to disinfect the can.’ She watched the wasp, wings fizzing, stagger across the lawn, and smiled. ‘And a warming spell to dry the insect’s wings.’

  ‘Which spell came first to mind?’

  The killing spell, thought Rachel, and Morpeth read the answer in her face.

  ‘I wouldn’t have hurt the wasp,’ she told him.

  ‘I know,’ said Morpeth. ‘But it’s interesting that the most dangerous spells offer themselves first. They always dominate the others.’

  Rachel leaned over the pond and gazed at her reflection. Her eyes had turned a deep brown, like moistened sand. She looked for more vibrant colours, but her spells were unusually reticent – as if they did not want her spying on them. Why should that be?

  For the first time in months Rachel turned her attention inward. What are you up to? she demanded. Several spells became silent, tucking themselves slyly away, not wishing her to recognize the mischief they planned.

  They’re waiting, Rachel realized – waiting until I fall asleep.

  To Morpeth, she said, ‘You’d better keep a close eye on me tonight.’

  2

  Ool

  Heebra, mother of Dragwena, gazed out of the eye-shaped window of her tower.

  Beneath her, in all its vast glory, lay Ool, home of the Witches. It was a freezing world. Dark grey snow plunged from the sky, filling the air, squeezing out virtually all light. Heebra had ruled for over two thousand years, and in all that time the snow had never ceased to fall. Valleys overflowed with it; animals quaked and bred under it; the tallest mountains of Ool had long ago been swallowed under its dismal bitter flakes.

  Only the towers of the Witches rose above the snows.

  As Heebra gazed out of the window her younger daughter, Calen, emerged from the shadows of the chamber.

  ‘Will we watch the students fight?’ Calen asked eagerly.

  ‘So early? They were told to prepare for a night contest.’

  ‘Let’s surprise them, Mother. Make them fight now!’

  Heebra smiled indulgently and signalled for the contestants to be made ready.

  While she waited, Heebra surveyed the cold magnificence of Ool. The jutting towers of her Witches thronged the sky. Each tower was topped by an emerald eye-window, its height marking the status of the Witch who lived inside. There were millions of towers, but Heebra’s outreached them all. It rose thick and black from the everlasting snows, decorated by the countless faces of the Witches she had defeated in battle. In Heebra’s early rule many Witches had challenged her possession of the Great Tower. None dared any longer. A pity: it had been a long time since she had the pleasure of carving a new face into the stone.

  Calen joined her by the window. ‘Do you remember winning your first eye, Mother? A legendary battle!’

  Heebra shrugged. ‘It was nothing. A small tower. A lump of rock. Just a few hundred feet, and painfully thin.’

  ‘Who cares about the size! You defeated twelve other students to win it.’ Calen looked admiringly at her mother. ‘No one had ever done that before. You were incredible, even then.’

  Heebra studied Calen. It made her ache to see how much like her fabulous lost daughter Dragwena she had become. At less than four hundred years of age, Calen was a High Witch in her prime. Her skin was still blood-red, having lost none of its freshness. Her vision was also perfect, the tattooed eyes glowing under their bone-ridged brows. Even her sense of smell remained intact; sensitive nostrils, shaped like slashed tulip petals, could sniff out live meat hiding under the deepest snow. But perhaps Calen’s best features were her jaws. All four were in spectacular condition. Despite numerous battles not one of the curved triangular black teeth had been lost or scratched. They glistened in her well-oiled silver gums, cleaned by armoured spiders that were supremely healthy, jumping alertly between the jaws in search of food scraps.

  Heebra turned her attention to Nylo, Calen’s soul-snake. He was restless, this one, like his mistress, a supple yellow body always on the move about her throat.

  For all young Witches, Heebra knew their soul-snake was precious: as advisor, friend, shield and weapon – and a second set of watchful eyes. Most Witches needed their soul-snakes to be active throughout their lives. Heebra had long ago dispensed with Mak, her own snake. He was now golden and solid, hanging nearly lifeless against her breast. This, more than anything else, signified the magnitude of Heebra’s power.

  She drew her thoughts back to the eye-window.

  ‘Well?’ she asked. ‘Do I know any of those in today’s contest?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ said Calen. ‘It’s only a few students from the Advanced levels.’

  Heebra smiled. ‘Why do you always insist on observing such juvenile battles? Their spells are so uninteresting.’

  ‘It’s their passion I enjoy,’ Calen answered. ‘Don’t you remember how thrilling it felt to win a blood-contest, mother?’

  Heebra let her mind wander back. Once she had been like today’s students – aching for a chance to fight for her first eye. How she had relished that victory! Crushing her opponent, throwing out the dead Witch’s servants, and living in her tower, still warm from her presence, with so many future contests and more elegant towers beckoning …

  The three Advanced students were ready. Raising long bare arms, they flew to appointed starting positions in the sky, their sapphire battle dresses fluttering in the winds.

  ‘Who do you think will win?’ Calen asked, waiting for the contest to begin.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Heebra said. ‘None are talented enough to get to the next level of magic.’

  ‘How can you tell?’

  As soon as Calen said this Heebra ripped Nylo from her neck. She stretched his jaw until it almost snapped. Calen waited fearfully, knowing that she had no spell powerful enough to threaten her mother.

  With disdain, Heebra said, ‘How can I tell? I expect finer judgement than that from one who is to rule after me. You should be able to tell immediately! The mediocre quality of the students’ flight alone shows that none will make a High Witch.’

  Calen lowered her gaze. ‘Of course. I should have recognized that.’

  Heebra flung Nylo contemptuously across the chamber. Calen picked him up, though she didn’t dare comfort him in front of her mother.

  Together, in charged silence, they turned towards the battle.

  Evening had settled in, so both switched to night-vision. Slowly their tattooed eyes stretched across their cheekbones, meeting at the back of bald pitted skulls. Heebra and Calen could now follow the contest with ease. The students began, hiding in the dens
e storm-whirls of the upper atmosphere, launching their spells, breathlessly attacking and defending.

  Heebra did not care. Annoyed with Calen, her mind turned as it so often did to her elder daughter, Dragwena. Where was she? Dragwena had ventured alone into the realms of remote space to conquer new worlds. For centuries Heebra had waited expectantly for her return. Later she sent out search parties, but they never found her. Standing here, watching the young students above struggling to survive in the charcoal grainy sky, Heebra’s chest suddenly tightened. Was her superb, wild Dragwena still alive somewhere? Or did she lie dead on some hateful world, with no snow to anoint her grave?

  ‘Do you want me to pause the contest?’ Calen asked, sensing her mother’s mood.

  ‘No,’ sighed Heebra. ‘Let them finish.’

  ‘It won’t be long. All three students are starting to make mistakes.’

  Heebra nodded, losing interest. What was the point of sharpening and practising their magic, she thought in sudden frustration, without any Wizards to fight? Her Witches had been slowly losing the endless war against the Wizards for millennia. In Heebra’s own lifetime the Sisterhood had lost seven worlds they had previously conquered. Seven! Each time the Wizards retreated before her fleetest warriors could catch them. If only her Witches could find Orin Fen, the Wizard home world! But the location was unknown. Larpskendya, the Wizard leader, had moved the Wizards from their original planet, and obscured the way to their new one. Gradually, almost bloodlessly, he was winning the war – pushing her best Witches back, back, closer to Ool. The grip of the Witches had never been weaker.

  ‘A defeat,’ laughed Calen. ‘At last!’

  One of the students, her face flushed with excitement, drifted towards Heebra’s tower. In her claws she carried the lifeless soul-snakes of the other students like trophies. But her moment of triumph was spoiled.

  High in the sky a tiny green ball of light wandered through the clouds. Glowing intermittently, it staggered through the air as if in distress.

  Heebra and Calen immediately forgot about the victorious student and flew from the eye-tower to meet the ball.

  Calen gasped. ‘It can’t be!’

  ‘It is!’ marvelled Heebra.

  All the Witches who had been following the student contest fell silent. None had ever seen this before: a dead Witch, her life-force returning. Only twice in the ancient history of Ool had such a long journey been made from space. What living Witch could have the strength to have travelled so far?

  ‘Dragwena!’ Heebra cried.

  Her heart spasming with joy, she placed the green light lovingly on one of her tongues. Still breathing, Heebra realized. Still alive.

  The injured life-force trembled inside, too frail to speak.

  ‘Be well, my daughter,’ Heebra comforted. ‘You are home now.’

  Inside the Great Tower Heebra unrolled her tongue carefully onto the hard floor.

  At once the green ball started to stretch and grow at a fantastic rate. Dragwena’s thighs bulged, forced their way out, the muscles soft, trying to harden.

  ‘How she fights!’ Calen marvelled. ‘Look how she wants to live!’

  Finally the transformation was finished – but Dragwena was incomplete.

  ‘She has come too far to survive,’ realized Heebra. ‘She’s too weak!’

  The upper half of Dragwena’s body was only half-formed. She had a single arm. The useless claw at the end of it flapped feebly in the air. Her eyes were covered in skin that would never open. Useless lungs lay collapsed inside her body. But her brain – the thing that had driven her all this way – was already fully developed. Dragwena could think. Somehow she heaved herself to a sitting position. She raised her malformed head, trying to draw breath. When Dragwena realized she could not do so she began to jerk pitifully.

  Heebra ran across the chamber and supported Dragwena’s head, while Calen fired renewal spells. But Dragwena was so weak that the spells merely injured her more.

  She lay in her mother’s arms, waiting to die.

  ‘How could she be in this condition?’ wailed Calen. ‘She must have travelled further than any Witch before. Oh, sister!’

  ‘Yes. There must be an extraordinary reason for her to have laboured so long.’ Heebra gripped Dragwena’s head and made a mind-connection. ‘What happened?’ she demanded. ‘Who did this to you?’

  Dragwena fought through her panic. She formed several images: Rachel, Eric, Larpskendya and the patterns of their magic. She formed a picture of the world of Ithrea and showed her mother the bitterness of her final moments there. The images shattered as Dragwena’s oxygen-starved brain started to die.

  ‘Not yet!’ screamed Heebra. ‘Not yet! Where is this world? Show us!’

  Dragwena clutched her mother’s soul-snake, her body shaking. A dim representation formed in Heebra’s mind, marking the path between alien constellations – from Ool to Ithrea, and from Ithrea on to a larger blue planet with swirling clouds and filled with children – Earth.

  Then Dragwena’s four jaws flopped open. Heebra held her close, nearly crushing her daughter’s body with love and anger. Dragwena’s mind became dark, but she managed to flash a final image. It was a picture of the Dragwena of old, at the height of her powers, standing confidently next to her mother as they gazed down together over the vast skyline of the eye-towers. The wind swept through their shimmering black dresses, and their diamond and golden soul-snakes were playfully intertwined. They were invincible.

  The image faded and Dragwena died.

  Heebra sat entirely motionless for several minutes. She simply held her daughter. She said nothing. She barely breathed. When she did stand up Calen, almost blind with grief herself, stood well back in the chamber, knowing the power of the frenzy coming.

  And how it came! Heebra burst out of the eye-tower window, carrying her rage. Streaking across Ool’s black skies she headed everywhere and nowhere, out of control, lamenting through the blizzards. No other Witches dared fly that whole night, and for the first time in over a thousand years Mak stirred himself and held her in his scaly embrace.

  Calen spent the night burying her dead sister’s heart.

  As tradition required she cupped it in one of her mouths, and used only her claws to dig down to the deepest ice under the snow. Here even the largest burrowing animals could never reach Dragwena’s body. Then Calen flew back to the Great Tower, cultivating her anguish and hatred, and wondering what mood to expect from her mother.

  Shortly after daybreak Heebra returned. Her face was now entirely calm, almost expressionless. She told Calen about everything Dragwena had shown her.

  ‘Then we can find this Rachel and Eric and revenge her death!’ exulted Calen. ‘Let me go. The girl-child will be easy enough to find. Her reek was all over Dragwena’s body.’

  Heebra raked her claws thoughtfully against Mak. ‘We will enjoy that pleasure soon enough. Dragwena travelled a remarkable distance to reach us. I doubt the desire for revenge alone carried her so far. I believe she wanted to tell us about this place called Earth. Only a Wizard has ever challenged a High Witch in personal combat, yet this Rachel child-creature found a way through Dragwena’s defences. Think of that! We must find out more about these intriguing children.’

  ‘If they are talented Larpskendya will protect them well.’

  ‘No doubt.’ Heebra laughed. ‘Larpskendya will protect them anyway, even if they are useless. Feeble creatures always attract his sympathy.’

  ‘Do you think Dragwena left Ithrea unnoticed?’

  ‘She must have done. Larpskendya would never endanger its children by permitting Dragwena to escape.’

  ‘In that case,’ said Calen, ‘the Wizards will not be expecting us.’

  ‘They will,’ mused Heebra. ‘Larpskendya plans for everything.’ She rolled a spider meditatively on her tongue. ‘However, Ithrea is the closer world. Larpskendya would expect us to arrive there first. To surprise him we will bypass Ithrea, leave it in peace for now
.’

  ‘Even so, he is bound to leave some defences on Earth itself,’ Calen said.

  ‘True. How can we draw him away from there?’ Heebra’s eyes shone. ‘What would terrify Larpskendya most?’

  Calen stared blankly.

  ‘The Griddas,’ said Heebra.

  At the mention of this name Nylo contracted, becoming a tight shivering curl around Calen’s neck. Gridda Witches were considered almost demonic, even by the fiercest of Ool’s other Witches. They were the largest and most savage of all the Sisterhood, their orange faces and hulking brown bodies unmistakable. Bred in small numbers, they were locked underground, only ever intended to be used as a last line of defence if Ool itself was besieged – or to lead the attack on Orin Fen, if the High Witches ever discovered the Wizard home world.

  Calen stroked Nylo soothingly. ‘We can’t release the Griddas,’ she protested. ‘They’re unpredictable. Even a few … will create havoc.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Heebra. ‘That is the point. We will spread them wide, let them bring fear to as many worlds as they can quickly reach.’

  ‘Mother, once their rage begins, the Griddas will be impossible to control. They may kill thousands.’

  ‘I don’t care how many they kill,’ said Heebra. ‘None of the other worlds have creatures like this Rachel. The point is that Larpskendya will care. He will be forced to use most of the Wizards to stop the Griddas. That will leave Earth vulnerable.’ She stared at Nylo, then faced her daughter. ‘What route should we take to Rachel’s world? If you ruled, what would you advise?’

  Calen looked uncertain. ‘We should take our time,’ she suggested. ‘Move stealthily, avoiding our usual meeting places and rest sanctuaries in space. A scouting group would be best – just five or six Witches, difficult to detect. And when we arrive on this Earth world I would advise that we not kill Rachel and Eric immediately. They are too obviously targets for our revenge. Larpskendya may be watching them closely. We should start by observing the other children. Let’s see what they have to offer. We can deal with Rachel and Eric, and the third, Morpeth, when we are ready.’