by Cliff McNish
‘Yes, he did. He never normally interferes in the natural way magic wants to develop, but Earth is different. Larpskendya told me it’s a special case, because of Dragwena. She was here for centuries before the Wizards discovered us, breeding her own kind of magic in children. Due to her, Larpskendya says, there’s a streak of Witch in us all.’
‘Ugh!’ said Eric.
Rachel nodded. ‘Larpskendya wanted to keep watch over us, not releasing our magic until he was sure it was safe.’ She glanced at Morpeth. ‘Larpskendya’s not close,’ she said, with certainty. ‘He can’t be; otherwise he would have warned us about something this important.’
‘I agree,’ said Morpeth. ‘Try sending him a message.’
Rachel transmitted a distress call in all directions in the way Larpskendya had shown her.
‘No answer,’ she said, after a few minutes.
‘What does that mean?’ Eric asked. ‘Larpskendya’s not … hurt is he?’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ Rachel snapped, the idea unbearable. ‘It just means … he’s not close, that’s all.’ She lodged the calling spell in her mind, ensuring that it would be sent accurately and far into deepest space whether she was awake or asleep. ‘Larpskendya said he couldn’t always be here,’ she reminded Eric. ‘We’re not the only world he has to look out for.’ But what, she wondered, could have been so urgent that Larpskendya didn’t have time to warn us he was leaving?
‘Well,’ said Morpeth, ‘for the time being we have to decide what to do ourselves. Tell me, Rachel, are any of the children your spells detected actively using their magic yet?’
‘I don’t think so,’ she replied. ‘But in the most gifted it’s almost bursting to get out.’
‘How far did you search?’
‘Halfway across the world. It’s the same pattern everywhere. And there was something really odd, Morpeth. A trace over Africa. So far away, but I’ve never felt anything that sharp.’
‘What now, then?’ Eric asked.
‘We prepare ourselves as best we can,’ said Morpeth, matter-of-factly. ‘If levels of magic are so high, anything could be about to happen.’ He turned to Rachel. ‘This recent flowering of magic might explain why your spells have become so headstrong lately. I saw something similar occasionally on Ithrea: the magic of certain extremely gifted children reaching out, wanting to be together. Maybe that’s why your spells have been so busy recently. They sense friends out there, almost ready to welcome. Spells enjoy companionship, too.’ He held her gaze. ‘We should start with a vigorous daily practice routine for your magic. That should satisfy those lively spells of yours. It might even put an end to their night-time adventures.’
Rachel nodded fervently – and the moment she did so, the moment she accepted that she must open herself fully to the entire richness of her magic – a wealth of fresh colours burst into her eyes. The colours came from dozens of spells new to her. These were small spells, minor spells, useful for particular occasions. They had quiet, almost shy, voices that rarely challenged the dominance of the major spells like the flyers and shifters. Now that she had at last noticed them, Rachel invited the spells forward. Respectfully, she asked each to identify itself for the first time, and they – in their mild, reserved way – tiptoed into her mind.
‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing, Rachel?’ Mum asked anxiously, seeing the new soft pastel shades.
‘No,’ Rachel answered. ‘I’m not sure about anything. But Morpeth’s right: I’ve let some of my spells do what they want for too long.’ She smiled. ‘Safety first. We don’t want any prying eyes, do we?’
She placed a blanketing spell around the house to prevent any magic seeping out.
Then she stared into the garden. She looked at the pond whose dank water she had swallowed over so many nights. She looked at the garden fence, shredded in places where her cheeks had rubbed against the surface. And she thought about Nigeria, in Africa, and the abundance of magic her information spells had sensed there.
‘It’s time to get my body back,’ she said to Mum. ‘No more dips in the pond. And from now on, if I fly someplace it’s because I choose to go there. We’ll start practising right now.’
4
The Camberwell
Beauty
Dawn, and sleepy African birds were waking, as Fola trudged along the path from Fiditi to the river.
With one hand she reached over her head, expertly rebalancing the heavy weight of the washing basket. With the other she adjusted her oja. It made little difference: Yemi, her baby brother, was an awkward lump on her back no matter how she carried him – he would not stop moving and kicking!
‘Be quiet! Stay still!’ she said irritably. The tiniest things excited him: a bird doing nothing in a tree, a dog moping on the path, even the small plumes of dust thrown up by her feet.
Only a baby could enjoy such a tedious walk, Fola thought.
Absently she gazed ahead. In front, clear and boisterous, the Odooba river sliced through the forest. Fola knew from school how it cut a path between villages in southern Nigeria on its way down to the sea, but such details didn’t interest her. She had seen its waters so often that she hardly noticed them. Reaching the bank she gratefully unloaded Yemi and the washing and stretched her aching neck muscles.
It was early, and still cool, but she was already tired. She had woken before dawn to prepare the yams and black-eye beans for the evening meal. There was still work to finish when she got back, and Yemi to mind all day. Fola did not complain. With Baba hunting in the rainforest, she was happy to help out. It was easier than Mama’s day in the fields – long hours of hard work.
A few other girls from the village had already arrived at the river. Fola greeted them warmly as she wet the soda soap and doused the clothes.
While she worked Yemi sat in a sort of comfortable heap by her feet. He sifted dust. He blinked at midges circling his close-cropped hair. He saw a brown-black Asa hawk. It waved its big wings and he waved back.
Fola made sure that he was not too close to the river’s edge, and engaged in the usual gossip with the other girls. A short while later she heard a sharp intake of breath. She turned to find Yemi sitting abnormally still.
‘What is it?’ she said. ‘What incredible wonder have you discovered this time?’
It was a fly, and it had landed on Yemi’s bare forearm.
He stared in awe, mouth wide, as the fly crawled towards his elbow.
Then, without even a friendly wave, the fly flew off.
Yemi started to cry. He covered his face and tears streamed out.
‘Oh, don’t be silly,’ said Fola. She put down the skirt she was wringing out and picked him up. ‘It’s only a fly. You can’t make them stay, you know!’
When Yemi continued to snuffle she rummaged for his special book. It was a pop-up book filled with pictures of butterflies. Yemi forgot the fly at once, stopped crying and reached out eagerly. Fola sat with him for a few minutes, helping him turn the pages. He stopped her, as always, at the page containing his favourite butterfly.
It was a Mourning Cloak, otherwise called a Camberwell Beauty. According to the book they came in many colours. The illustration showed a lovely bright yellow variety, with small patches of light brown dusting its wings.
‘Want,’ Yemi told her.
‘Do you?’ Fola said, amused.
He kissed the image of the Camberwell Beauty ardently.
‘We don’t have that kind in Africa,’ she informed him. ‘It comes from far away. We will never see one here.’
Yemi’s face crumpled with sadness. He looked so unhappy that Fola spent longer than she should have done reading with him. When she returned to the washing Yemi flipped the pages back to his Camberwell Beauty. He studied it and frowned.
Fola took over an hour to complete the washing, beating the sheets and laying them out in the rising sun. When the last of the linen was nearly dry, she searched around for Yemi. He sat close by, still reading his book.
It was perched on Yemi’s forearm precisely where the fly had been.
Fola blinked. There was no doubt it was a Camberwell Beauty.
Yemi grinned from ear to ear. He blew on his arm and the butterfly started fanning him. He wriggled his nose and it hopped on the tip. Then, slowly, like a ballerina, it rotated on spindly black legs until it faced Fola – and bowed.
She dropped the washing.
Sitting heavily down she noticed other flapping movements all around. Many more Camberwell Beauties were alighting from the northern sky onto the grass and soil surrounding Yemi. As Fola watched they all fluttered onto his right shoulder. Clambering on top of one another, they formed a neat pyramid. Yemi leafed through his picture book. Streaking light from the early sun reflected from the pages, making them difficult to read. Yemi squinted, then laughed. He glanced at his butterflies.
Instantly all their delicate wings opened, casting the pages in yellow shadow.
5
Fish Without
Armour
Heebra’s Witches were famished when they reached Earth. The journey had taken far longer than she had expected. Exhausted, their hungry soul-snakes shrivelled against their breasts, the scouting party only endured the final stretch because she drove them.
Yet here, at last, was the great prize: Rachel’s home planet.
Despite their craving for food, Heebra held the Witches back – she needed to be certain there were no Wizards. Cautiously she circled the planet with two scouts. Larpskendya’s unmistakable stink was everywhere – but his scent was old, and there were no other Wizards present.
Excellent. It meant the Gridda warriors were distracting well in far-flung places.
Shrieking with anticipation the Witches plunged towards the sunlit half of the world. A few defence satellites swivelled, registering their presence. Heebra easily damped the primitive electronic messages and, undetected, the Witches swept into the thermosphere. For a moment its hot layer held them up; then they adjusted their body shapes so that the searing heat merely sloughed off the useless dead layers of space-skin. Joyfully they emerged into the upper atmosphere, shuddering with rapture as coldness splashed across their new raw flesh.
‘Feast! Feast!’ Heebra ordered her starving Witches.
They dived through the swirling blue and white cloud. Into the deeps of the Pacific Ocean they sank, feeding on skipjack tuna and the great white sharks that hunt them.
However, this ocean was too warm for the Witches’ liking, so they moved north. Swimming amongst the ice-floes of the Arctic they gorged on vast schools of herring.
‘No weapons,’ Calen marvelled, studying the fish. ‘Unlike those on Ool, they simply gather in dumb shoals, apparently waiting to be eaten. Where is their armour and poison? I hope we find something more interesting to test us soon.’
But the largest creatures they could find were killer whales. These fled when the Witches tried to stimulate a fight. Heebra hastily drew the Witches towards land before they became too bored. She made base close to the North Pole. Here polar bear and oily seal flesh was rich and plentiful and concealment required only the simplest of spells. The temperature was too mild, but the occasional blizzards blew fresh and clear: a reminder of home. Within hours the Witches were already clawing at the frozen rock below the snows, energetically building the bases of new eye-towers.
Once they were settled, Heebra dispatched her five scouts. Across the globe the Witches probed, disguised in many forms, mastering the simple structure of the languages – and studying children everywhere. All the scout reports fascinated Heebra.
Calen was the last to return. Several hours after the others arrived Heebra saw her black dress rippling in the distance. Calen flew in typically flamboyant manner, bald head cutting through the wind, scudding low across the snow. She pressed her arms sleekly to the sides of her body, using only the tips of her claws to change direction.
‘Well?’ Heebra asked impatiently, as she alighted.
Calen transformed her face into a young boy she had recently met, indicating the tiny milk teeth.
‘These children have nothing to scare us!’
‘Obviously,’ said Heebra. ‘The other Witches are full of contempt. How do you judge them?’
‘Where do I start? They’re so weak. Frail liquid eyes, with no night vision or x-ray. They bleed at the slightest cut.’ Calen laughed. ‘Their skin tears – can you believe that! And soft internal organs, unshielded. That makes them vulnerable. They are also prone to endless disease and infections. And slow, Mother. Slow to react, think, move or sense danger. Nothing recommends them.’ She tapped her skull. ‘Above their brains is a fibrous hair-scalp growth. It ignites at the least touch – a ridiculous evolution!’
‘Did you expect something more impressive?’ Heebra asked.
‘Didn’t you?’
Heebra raked Mak’s scales. ‘Open your eyes. Their bodies may be flimsy, but this species are natural killers. Wars between them are happening everywhere on this planet. We have rarely known such a promising race. I see signs of Dragwena’s healthy influence everywhere.’
‘It’s such a pity we can’t use the adults,’ sighed Calen. ‘The magic they have as children decays early.’
‘What do you think of their technology?’
‘It’s no danger to us,’ scoffed Calen. ‘A poor substitute for magic. They can’t even detect our presence.’
‘Agreed. We must concentrate on the children. Assess their magic.’
‘Larpskendya is clearly interfering, holding them back,’ said Calen. ‘His influence has led to some peculiar features, such as child schooling. Instead of being free to practise their spells, the young ones sit behind desks, obeying the adults. How wasteful!’
‘Larpskendya never usually influences the development path of magic on any world,’ mused Heebra. ‘Tell me why this planet is different.’ She glared threateningly at Nylo who, remembering the last time Heebra had held him, hid his blunt head inside Calen’s dress.
‘These children have little discipline,’ Calen replied warily. ‘The youngest behave instinctively, seizing what they can – remarkably like our own kind. Larpskendya must fear that if he unleashes their magic the children could start along a destructive path.’
‘Starting with the removal of the inferior adults,’ agreed Heebra. ‘Followed by a battle amongst the children themselves as the best learn to dominate.’
Calen smiled. ‘How Larpskendya would hate that! It would be good to watch.’
‘Can the children be used against the Wizards themselves?’
‘Yes, they will fight for us,’ Calen answered confidently. ‘Their magic is brimming, and the simplest of spells is required to free it. We can train them as we would our own student-witches.’ She laughed. ‘We’ll soon have them despising the adults. Larpskendya has the children so mixed up. Can you believe that when they injure an opponent they often feel guilt?’
‘No matter how well we train them, no child could ever defeat a Wizard,’ said Heebra.
‘True, but these children like to be together, Mother. We could form them into large packs, give them a purpose. They would enjoy that. A hundred, perhaps, could distract a Wizard for long enough for us to finish him off. And there are so many of the little things. We could waste millions and not run out!’
‘I wonder,’ Heebra said thoughtfully. ‘I have studied these children myself. They are contrary, often stubborn, and less predictable than you think. A few will resist us strongly; others will be difficult to master. The Rachel child is evidence enough. Dragwena obviously tried to train her, but somehow the girl held out. Remarkable: to resist a High Witch. No creature except a Wizard has ever done that.’
Calen shrugged. ‘Rachel is probably unique. A single, extraordinary child.’
‘Possibly,’ said Heebra. ‘I doubt it. On such a large world there may be many extraordinary children. And magic on this
world is raw. Who knows how it will evolve?’
Calen said defiantly, ‘In all our history of conquering, this is the first time we have discovered a species like these. What have we left to fight the Wizards? Larpskendya drives us back in humiliation closer to Ool every year. Is that what you want, Mother? An undignified death defending your own eye-tower from Larpskendya? Is his name to be whispered in awe amongst us forever?’
‘I will decide what should be done,’ growled Heebra.
Raising her muscular bare arms she glided into a bank of high clouds. For a while Heebra simply drifted amidst the polar winds, finding their touch pleasantly cool. A nest of spiders crept to the front of her jaws to feel the frost, and look out at the recently completed eye-towers of the Witches. The familiar sight elated the spiders, and Heebra licked them indulgently.
‘Here are my instructions,’ she said, flying back to Calen. ‘Focus your training on the youngest. They are the most easily persuaded. Ignore all except the most gifted children or the most ruthless. Where you can set children against adults – parents, teachers, any others who regulate behaviour – do so. The most important thing is to work fast. Discover leaders, Calen. We can’t train all the children ourselves. Find me those who will push and punish their own kind.’
Calen’s tattoos sparkled with excitement. She started to leave, then turned back. ‘You mention nothing of Rachel, or Eric. Surely you want revenge?’
‘I haven’t forgotten them,’ said Heebra. ‘Briefly I sought Rachel out myself. She was not difficult to find. Despite her efforts to hide her gifts, the quality of her magic blazes like a beacon on this small world.’
‘What do you make of her?’ Calen asked with interest.
‘A startling member of her species. I can see why Larpskendya is so interested in her. And she has an unusual gift we can use.’
‘A gift?’
‘She has a direct connection with Larpskendya himself.’