The Conspiracy of Magic

by Harriet Whitehorn

  In memory of my parents

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Acknowledgements

  About Harriet Whitehorn

  Copyright

  The dragon circled around the Square of Seas, its blue-green scales glittering in the brittle autumn sunlight. It soared up into the air and then swooped down, narrowly missing a stone fountain. Purple smoke gushed out of its nostrils, arranging itself into the words FREE MAGIC, which hung like a banner in the still air. It was ten o’clock in the morning, a time of day when the residents of the magical district of the Great City of Minaris would normally be fast asleep after a hard night’s work. But not today. Every window and doorway was crammed with gawping, gasping faces, spellbound by the dragon’s antics.

  What in the Longest World is going on? Cass thought as she skated into the square and saw everyone gathered around, ooh-ing and aah-ing. She had just sailed into the city’s port that morning from the Mid Isles, where she had been helping to catch the last of the pirates who had been terrorizing the Islands for the previous few years. It had been a terrible voyage. It was only late autumn but the weather seemed to think that it was the middle of winter and they had hit ice storm after ice storm. Cass was exhausted and she wanted nothing more than to say hello to everyone at home, crawl into bed and sleep for a week.

  She looked up at the sky and tried to see what everyone was gaping at, but it was no good – she could see nothing but blue sky. For Cass was a creature almost as rare in the Longest World as a dragon; she was an obtuse, a person immune to magic. Most people would say that it was both a blessing and a curse, but for Cass, growing up as she had at the very centre of the magical district, it had only been a source of shame.

  “Goatsmilk!” a familiar voice shrieked, and a young boy shot out from the doorstep of Cass’s home, the Mansion of Fortune, and hurled himself at her.

  “Lion!” Cass cried with delight as he wrapped his arms round her waist tightly. She had rescued him from the pirates the previous year and brought him back to live in Minaris with her guardian Mrs Potts.

  “You look awful,” he announced, taking in her pale drawn face and the dark shadows underneath her grey eyes. Even her hair, usually an explosion of blond curls, was lank and dirty-brown.

  “Thanks, I know. I’ve spent most of the last month thinking I might die of seasickness. You on the other hand look like you’ve been feasting on cream and cake,” she said, tickling him.

  Lion let out a spluttery laugh. “Stop, stop!” he cried.

  “Only if you tell me what everyone’s looking at,” Cass said, stopping and staring up at the sky.

  “Of course; you can’t see the dragon, can you?” Lion said with a slight smirk.

  “You know I can’t,” Cass replied. “Now, tell me what’s going on or I’ll tickle you to death.” And she held up her hands in a mock threat.

  “No! No!” he squealed. “It’s a magical arrest. One of the Free Magickers has been caught selling curses and he’s just showing off his conjuring skills.”

  Cass rolled her eyes. The Free Magickers were a lawless bunch of rebel magicians who were in constant battle with the Magical Enforcers and their rules and regulations.

  “Look, there’s Lin with Master Brackuz,” Lion continued. “They’ll stop the conjuror.”

  Cass looked over to where Lion was pointing. She saw the familiar neat features and short blond hair of her friend Lin. She was standing a little distance away with a portly middle-aged man dressed in the amber robes of the Magical Enforcers. Lin was one of the people she’d been most looking forward to seeing. “I’m going to go and say hello.”

  “Do you think you should bother her?” Lion asked doubtfully.

  “Oh, it’ll be fine,” Cass said breezily. Having spent the last few months fighting pirates, a rogue conjuror didn’t seem a very great threat. “Come with me,” she said, taking his hand.

  “OK,” Lion agreed, and they skated over to Lin and Master Brackuz. Unlike everyone else, they were ignoring the dragon and looking instead at a young man who was standing on the roof of one of the houses, moving his hands like the conductor of an orchestra.

  “Cass!” Lin cried, her face lighting up when she saw her. She kissed Cass’s cheek and squeezed her arm affectionately. “Master Brackuz, this is my dear friend Cassandra and her friend Lion.”

  Master Brackuz bowed briefly to them but his mind was elsewhere. “We should bring him in, Lin – he’s had his moment of glory.”

  Lin nodded. “You’d better go back to the house in case he’s difficult,” she said to Cass.

  “I don’t think there’s much he can do to an obtuse,” Cass replied. She wanted to see her friend arrest him.

  “I suppose not,” Lin said. She looked at Lion.

  “Oh, please can I stay?” he asked. “I can see so much better here and you know I want to be a Magical Enforcer when I’m older,” he wheedled.

  “I’ll look after him,” Cass assured them.

  Lin looked doubtful but Master Brackuz cleared his throat, distracting her. “Bring him down now, Lin,” he said.

  “OK, stand over there,” she instructed, gesturing to a spot a little way away. Lin turned her attention to the dragon and with just a twitch of a raised finger vanished it, or so Cass gathered from the collective moan of disappointment from the crowds.

  “This you will be able to see, Cass,” Lin said. Gazing intently at the conjuror, she muttered a few words and moved her fingers, working the spell. With his arms pinned to his sides, he began to float down through the air towards them. He was chanting, “Free Magic! Free Magic!” all the way down.

  “That’s very skilled, Lin,” Cass said admiringly.

  “You’re so clever,” Lion agreed.

  “Perhaps you can persuade Lin to join the Magical Enforcers,” Master Brackuz said to Cass. “Her talents are wasted doing fortune telling and trancing.”

  Lin smiled but made no reply.

  The rogue conjuror landed on the ground in front of them. He was a young man with a shock of dark hair and angry black eyes. He barely seemed to notice Cass and Lion, focusing instead on Lin and Master Brackuz.

  “Petty bureaucrats!” he spat at them with furious disgust. “You are ruining the world, depriving it of the wonder and beauty of magic!”

  “We are actually protecting the world from vain, selfish magicians like you who use magic maliciously for their own ends,” Master Brackuz said. “Anyway, you’re not a magician, you’re merely a conjuror.”

  The conjuror narrowed his eyes in fury at him and said, “Careful who you call a conjuror, old man!” and he muttered an incantation that freed his hands in a second. He spun round to Lion and Cass, and made a gesture at Lion. In a second he had pulled the boy to him, as if he were a fish on a line. Cass was the first to react, lunging after Lion. But she froze as the magician pulled a knife out of his pocket and held it to Lion’s throat. Lion stood as compliant as a doll, his eyes glazed with enchantment.

  “Do not come any close
r!” the magician shouted, his voice hoarse with panicky aggression. Everyone around the square gasped and then fell silent, terrified of what would happen next.

  I’m SO stupid – this is all my fault! Cass cursed herself with silent fury. What was I thinking not sending Lion back to the house?

  She glanced over to the mansion and saw Mrs Potts and her friend Tig, their eyes wide with horror. I’m so stupid, she repeated to herself but she turned her focus to the magician. He was sweating, and looked like a cornered tiger. A dangerous combination, Cass knew from experience, and she stood as still as she could, anxious not to do anything that could alarm him.

  “Release the boy,” Lin said calmly, although Cass could hear the tremor in her voice. “He has nothing to do with this.”

  “Not without you letting me go,” the magician shouted, his eyes wild. “Otherwise I will kill him!”

  Lin and Master Brackuz exchanged glances.

  “Very well, give me the boy and you may go,” Master Brackuz replied calmly.

  The magician glanced from one to the other of them, licking his lips nervously. “Nobody move!” he roared at everyone, and a hundred pairs of eyes watched him drag Lion in the direction of Truelove’s Way, which led out of the square to the south. When he reached the entrance of the street, the magician paused and looked around hesitantly.

  He’s not quite sure what to do, Cass thought, hardly daring to take a breath. No one do anything to panic him, she prayed. And then she watched as he glanced around again and muttered another spell. A whirlwind of thick mustard-coloured smoke appeared out of nowhere, filling the square in a moment and blinding everyone. Everyone except Cass, who saw the magician shove Lion away from him as if he were a rag doll, turn and skate off at speed. She raced over to Lion, who looked totally bewildered.

  “What just happened?” he asked her. The enchantment was over, and to Cass’s immense relief he appeared entirely unharmed.

  “I’ll tell you later,” Cass said, speeding off towards Truelove’s Way. “Go back to the house when the smoke clears,” she shouted over her shoulder to him.

  Cass could see the magician ahead of her, flying along the narrow alley. I have to catch him, Cass thought, the image of him holding a knife to Lion’s throat filling her with fury as she careered after him. He came to the end of the alley and shot out into the Square of Disbelievers ahead of her.

  The square marked the end of the magical district and since the rest of the city kept normal working hours it was busy with Minarians going about their everyday business. Cass darted and weaved her way through the crowds, relentlessly following the magician’s black coat, but as fast as she went, she could never quite reach him.

  Abruptly, he swung out of the square down the busy Street of Signs, making Cass smash into a trolley piled high with trays of godran fish and island crabs.

  “Watch where ya going, ya clumsy oaf!” the fishmonger bawled at her.

  “Sorry!” Cass cried as she stumbled after the magician. He’s heading for the port, she realized as he led her out on to the chaos of the Quay of Disbelievers. Moments later she let out a groan as she lost him in the swarm of people.

  Cass skated up and down for a while, desperately looking for the magician but with no luck. She was just about to give up when she saw him, calmly standing on the dock, scanning the destination board for one of the Island ferries.

  She skated silently up behind him and then, in a movement so swift that the young conjuror didn’t know what had happened, she pinned his arms behind his back, whipped his knife out of his pocket and held it to his ribs.

  “I have you, I’m afraid,” Cass said in a low tone. “Now, let’s not have another scene.”

  The magician turned to look at her, his face shocked, his angry eyes glittering. “You’re an obtuse,” he spat.

  “I am indeed,” she replied. “So you might as well save the tricks – they won’t work with me.”

  “They used to burn obtuses as freaks of nature,” he said, curling his lip at her in a sneer.

  “Not any more,” Cass replied coolly. “Unfortunately for you. Now, I think you’d better come with me, don’t you?”

  Cass delivered the magician back to Lin and Master Brackuz in the Square of Seas. Both the clouds of smoke and the crowds had vanished, and to look at the peaceful square you would think nothing had happened there at all.

  “I can’t thank you enough, young lady,” Master Brackuz said, watching a gang of his enforcers take the magician away. “He made life miserable for scores of people with his curses and tricks. People only ever think of the fun of conjuring, they forget the harm that it can do if used maliciously. For instance, that young man sent a plague of giant spiders to persecute an elderly lady every night – she nearly lost her wits.”

  “It makes me glad to be an obtuse,” Cass replied.

  Master Brackuz laughed. “I also meant what I said,” he added. “Please do what you can to persuade Lin to join us.” Then he looked at Lin. “You are not your family, Lin, and there’s no reason why you should be held responsible for their mistakes.”

  “That’s very kind of you, Master Brackuz. But I’m not sure all enforcers would feel the same way. Besides, I’m happy as I am,” Lin replied.

  “Well, think about it,” he said, and after bidding them goodbye he walked briskly away.

  Cass and Lin had grown up together so Cass knew all about Lin’s family. They were once the most powerful court magicians in Minaris, only just below the royal family in wealth and importance. But after the horrors of the Magical Wars, all magicians had been stripped of their status and forbidden to practise anything but the most benign arts of fortune telling, hypnotism and trancing, which was a little like telepathy. Lin’s parents and grandparents were appalled by this change in their position and had started up a revolt soon after, which with some difficulty had been squashed.

  As punishment they were sent to Prison Island for life. Only Lin and her older sister Nym, who were very young at the time, had been allowed to remain living in their mansion in the Square of Seas, under the close watch of the enforcers. Lin had missed her parents terribly but despite that she’d had a happy childhood, going to school at Mrs Papworth’s Academy and playing with Cass and the other children from the square.

  But Nym was different. Cass had always found Nym terrifying – she would fly off the handle at the slightest thing and bully and tease Lin cruelly. Both girls were brilliant magicians but Nym’s ability seemed to come from a place of anger. So perhaps it wasn’t a great surprise when, about five years before, Nym had become involved with the Free Magic movement and started tinkering with more powerful illegal magic. She was clever and got away with it for a while but as she grew more skilled, she became bolder and increasingly arrogant. Lin pleaded with her to stop but she just laughed at her. Eventually the enforcers realized what was going on, and to Lin’s shame came and arrested her. But Nym managed to escape and fled Minaris.

  “Do you ever hear from Nym? Do you know where she is?” Cass asked as they walked over to the Mansion of Fortune. She asked the questions tentatively as she didn’t want to upset Lin by mentioning her sister.

  Lin paused before replying. “Sometimes I feel her watching me,” she replied. “She has grown very powerful. But no, I don’t know where she is – the Farthest Lands, perhaps. It wouldn’t surprise me if she was somehow involved in the Magical Uprising there.”

  Cass nodded. Her friend Elsba, who she had just been with in the Islands, had set sail for the Farthest Lands to go and help quell the troubles there. Elsba was part of the Company of Eight, which was a secret band of eight skilled female sword fighters whom Cass had met the year before. It was Cass’s dream that one day she might become a member.

  “But what about you, Cass?” Lin said. “You must be so excited to be joining Queen Arden’s household! And guarding her as the queen’s sword. That’s so impressive.”

  “Thank you, but you must keep the queen’s sword bit qu
iet. As far as Mrs Potts, Tig and the rest of the world know, I’m a lady-in-waiting. And it’s only for the queen’s trip to Bunderland,” Cass explained.

  “Still – that’s amazing. How did it come about? I know you had planned to sail on to the Far Isles. What made you change your mind?”

  It was her friend Idaliz, another Company member, who had persuaded Cass over a glass of flower beer at an inn in the Mid Isles.

  “Well, Idaliz is usually the queen’s sword on these foreign trips,” Cass explained. “But then King Lycus decided he needed her for—” Cass hesitated before saying, “He needed her for something else and then Idaliz suggested I take her place. I sailed back here with her. She’s gone straight to the palace as she has to leave right away.”

  “And was Rip disappointed that you weren’t going with him to the Far Isles? I know how close you are.”

  “A bit,” Cass admitted but then laughed. “He’s such an Islander, he couldn’t believe anyone would voluntarily go anywhere cold and snowy.”

  When they had said goodbye, his parting words were, “When you’re stuck in a snowdrift in the shivering cold, Cass, think of me in the Far Isles. I’ll be basking like a lizard in the sunshine.”

  He would nearly be there by now, Cass thought.

  Lin’s voice brought her back to the present, as she asked, “And will you sail out to meet him when you’re back?”

  “That’s the plan. Right after the Mid-Winter Feast. It should only take about six weeks if I take a fast boat,” Cass said as they arrived at her house and banged on the door.

  It flew open seconds later. “Cass!! Thank goodness you’re safe! What a drama!” Tig cried.

  “I know,” Cass said, hugging her friend tightly. “Is Lion all right?”

  “Judging by the amount of breakfast he ate he’s absolutely fine,” Tig replied. “He’s gone off to school now. Come down to the kitchen and I’ll fetch you something to eat – you must be starving,” she said as they walked down the steep stairs to the kitchen. “We were expecting you days ago,” Tig went on. “Did you have an awful journey?”