by Vance Huxley
“Ooh, the Glyphmistress has struck again. Is he properly entranced?” Rob opened his eyes wide in shock. “Or did it bounce, and you are now putty in his hands?”
Abel finally got his chance, after all the digs from Kelis. “No, it’s the leotard. Remember, Kelis always said it had a strange effect, but we thought she meant on the boys.”
“Stop it! It’s not glyphs, not magic like, you know. Me and Abel.” Kelis had a faint smile as she turned to Abel. “It’s not the leotard you idiot. He’s nice to me, without being pushy, all right? And he takes the mickey out of himself instead of me.”
“Maybe he’ll phone, or drive over here to see you in the holidays?” Abel tried to say the next bit with a straight face. “He might even join the Tavern.”
“He has.” Kelis shut up but too late.
“Phoned you?”
“He’s coming here or he’s joining the Tavern?” Abel really wanted to laugh now, but Kelis looked really flustered. Rob laughed anyway.
“Both. All three maybe. Yes he’s phoned, several times. He’s already started going to Tavern games in town, any of them who’ll fit him in. I thought they’d said something?” She relaxed a bit as both Rob and Abel shook their heads. “I thought someone might have said things. About him and me. Because of the Tavern drawing.”
“When is he coming here?” Abel almost choked swallowing a snigger. “Have you mentioned him to your mum? From experience suddenly producing a secret boyfriend or girlfriend can cause severe earache.”
“No! He can’t come here.” Kelis hesitated. “Or not until the Claris thing is sorted out. One glimpse and he’ll recognise her. She’s the joint captain of the Acros, or was at least.” She kicked moodily at the gravel still filling the smaller holes where the Bound Shade had damaged the road. “By the time that’s done Laurence will have lost interest anyway so it’s not worth telling mum. It’s not like we’re going out or anything.”
“What you need is cheering up. Then you won’t care about some disowned fourth son.” Rob gestured to Castle House as they passed. “We can have plenty of glyph practice now there’s no school.”
A shy little smile flitted over Kelis’ face. “He’s not a disowned fourth son. He’s the second son of an Earl, though I had to prise that out of him.” She glanced at the gardens. “I enjoy practice, but I’ve not had much chance while we’ve been dealing with Claris. I should keep my hand in, just in case Laurence flutters a leaf.”
“You should learn to hide in case you change your mind about him.” Abel had just thought of something to cheer Kelis up. “I’ve been practicing the invisibility now and then and I’ve sort of got it, but we’ve never really compared notes. How about a final rehearsal before we spring it on Ferryl?”
As expected two big smiles greeted the idea, though he didn’t expect another reaction. “Can I practice as well? To show her how much I’ve improved my fire and the colour glyph?” Abel had let Zephyr practice colour changes because that one couldn’t hurt anything.
“Good idea Zephyr.” Abel barely finished before a flying fist of doom shot skywards, connecting to all three and doing her best to sing ‘Ring of Fire.’ That finally broke Kelis’ mood, and she agreed to meet up straight after tea and Claris-feeding.
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When she arrived in Castle House garden Kelis pointed out they couldn’t be sure how well the veil worked, because from inside it was invisible. That stopped them all. Veils were clear from inside, and as magic users they could all see through one from outside. The most they’d see was a shimmer like the one when a dryad cast it. Zephyr had a sort of solution. She could see the magic flows, and Abel’s veil looked different to dryad’s although the effect on the humans inside it was almost the same. If all three cast a veil Zephyr could tell if it was a human-dryad difference or a fault in casting. Because she could see the effect of the magic on whatever lay inside the veil, and they knew a dryad veil worked, Zephyr could also tell if it made people invisible. When they tried, all three humans produced slightly different flows with the ones cast by dryads very much the odd one out. None of them affected the human inside in quite the same way as the dryad’s veil did, so they might still be visible. After some serious experimentation all three humans cast veils with smooth magic flows that were virtually identical, and according to Zephyr they hid the person inside.
As a bonus, the sprite claimed she now knew how to cast one herself. Although invisible to ordinary eyes anyway, Zephyr thought that might be useful to hide objects if Abel wanted her to. She wouldn’t try yet, not until Abel and Ferryl gave her permission. Now all three could reach Zephyr’s high standards, Kelis in particular wanted to experiment. That led to answers but more questions.
The faster they imagined the glyph spinning anti-clockwise, the more the veil hid. The first, slower spin hid living beings and any item held by or attached to the caster. A faster spin hid plants as well as manmade solids such as glass and metal but not rocks, while even faster hid dead organics such as wood or leather. Eventually, at the fastest they could manage, everything including Zephyr disappeared from even magical sight. No shimmer, no flicker, just a bare patch of earth, but none of them could get that fast for more than a second or two.
The fastest spin used huge amounts of magic, too much to be practical unless the caster drew magic directly from a tree. According to Zephyr she could still see the magic flows, but nothing inside except earth or rock. Increasing the spin using an identical but clockwise glyph extended the veil outward in a globe.
Cast at the ground the glyph produced a static veil, one that could be broken by walking out of it. None of them wanted to cast it at a person, so they settled for a stick. Carrying the stick moved the veil, so a solid object could be hidden and left. Eventually all three took a break to absorb it all and rest. Even if the veil had no weight or substance, casting still tired them. The last experiment would be trying to alter the size while hiding, two glyphs moving opposite directions at different speeds, but not until they’d rested.
Zephyr gleefully threw herself into fire-practice. Abel had let her use fire glyphs to singe fae while walking the boundaries, but felt sure she’d been sneaking extra practice at night when she contacted the village cats. After running through her repertoire Zephyr switched to colour, soon turning a nearby bush into a kaleidoscope of brightly coloured leaves. After more coaching on shades, because Zephyr tended to bright and garish, the three judges insisted she made the leaves natural green again. Once the sprite managed that, they all agreed she could showcase her own skills during the big veil reveal. Tomorrow they decided, if Jenny could get over to Brinsford. It would give them all a bit of a boost before trying to de-Leech Claris. That could still go very wrong.
Nobody even thought about Leeches the following day when all four apprentices flaunted their glyphs for Ferryl/Jenny. Although pleased to get the glyph, being the least adept really annoyed the sorceress until she saw the funny side. She was the real sorceress, actually teaching glyphs, and now she had to play catch-up. The following celebration included more very silly Glyphmistress dancing including a sprite variation. The pop and crisp party, with snatches of songs about magic, fire and any lyric vaguely concerning invisibility, should have amused anyone hearing them. Instead, if enough sound had escaped the magical barrier, it would have scared passersby senseless as the magic used it to dissuade anyone from investigating.
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The next four days before Jenny’s awakening were tense. If she ran off to her dad or the church, screaming about possession, all hell would break loose. Ferryl couldn’t be certain, because Jenny could be pretending agreement just to get her out. Two days before J-Day, or C-Day, a special meeting of Bonny’s Tavern took place in the church. This time Ferryl let go completely, withdrew deep inside to give Jenny complete control.
Jenny looked around her, stood up and walked up and down the church, swinging her arms. “We usually do this at night. I’ve been dying to be really free when I
’m not in bed, to walk about all by myself.” She held Kelis’, Rob’s and Abel’s eye in turn. “But I’m not free yet, and that still freaks me out a bit. I’m not even sure if Ferryl Shayde isn’t the only reason I’m not shrieking and beating on the walls.”
Abel held her gaze. “You are in complete control right now. Ferryl promised.”
“She might be lying.”
“Ferryl doesn’t lie to me.”
“She can’t lie to Abel.”
“Not to him.”
Jenny concentrated on Abel. “Why not? Do you control her like you do the thing in your arm?”
“Ferryl is free. I did her a big favour once so she will never hurt me even with a lie. Zephyr is also free if she asks to be. She wants to stay, to be safe and to learn.” Abel threw his hands up in frustration. “Now you’ll say I might be lying?”
“I was going to say that, but I remember Rob teasing you about being honest. That thing, sorry, Zephyr, could have given you every single answer in the exams, but didn’t.” Jenny walked up the church and back, thinking hard. “Anyone might be lying but I’ve got to believe someone, and every memory says you are probably the best bet.” The little laugh had some bitterness in it. “Though I know my memories aren’t totally true. I’m not to be trusted with some things. Is it true, what you said about how hard magic is to control and how dangerous it is? Because what you actually showed wasn’t scary when I had a chance to think about it, you just said it could be.”
“You have to learn to control glyphs slowly but then you can do really serious damage.” Kelis smiled slightly. “I remember the first time I saw Abel practicing, just floating a leaf.” She searched in her pockets and brought out a permanent marker. “Now I can do this, but it took many, many hours.” The pen hovered over Kelis’ hand then flew up, twirling in the air before suddenly driving down to embed itself deep into the wooden floor. Jenny’s chair rose, twirled and set back down. “That is the simplest glyph, air.” Another glyph produced a small cloud of mist that rained for a few moments. “That is harder.”
“Then there’s this.” Abel cast reverse fire to freeze the cloud, leaving ice dust drifting slowly downwards. He cast a tight, hot fire glyph across the church to leave a circular black mark, still smoking a little, on the stone wall. “I can freeze more, a person, or the flame can be much, much bigger, and hot enough to light the church ablaze. Kelis could do her trick with a tree branch, I’ve seen it. How big do we have to go to persuade you?” Jenny looked at Rob with the question in her eyes.
“Instead of a few leaves on a house plant I can take you outside and make a clump of grass grow two or three metres in seconds? You saw growth, but a mistake and the plant turns brown and dead just as quick. So do people if you get it wrong with that cloud glyph.” Rob tapped his rounders bat, in his belt as usual. “This thing has a glyph that makes it an iron hammer to magical creatures, but I’d need a creature to demonstrate. We can disappear so only the magically aware can see us. Just think of how dangerous that can be, to the user as well if you step into the road and the driver can’t see you. All it takes is practice.”
Jenny sat back down. “So anyone can do it, because you three are like chalk and cheese. You’re very different to each other but you all learned. That’s what Ferryl Shayde said.” She took a deep breath. “Right.” She pointed at the black mark on the wall, the melting ice and the pen, still embedded in the floor. “Those alone are truly dangerous so I’ll accept the rest are, and that me chucking them about without practice could kill someone.” Her rueful smile accepted she had to believe some of it. “After all, I’m alive and that had to be very strong magic. Is the memory about Seraph being humiliated true? She really never came back to school?” They all nodded and she smiled happily. “Then I owe you all for that one.”
“So you’ll keep quiet about all this? The magic? Though you’ll have to burn a ward, a tattoo, unless that one Ferryl did works.” Kelis looked sceptical. “It’s supposed to be burned using your own will.”
Jenny glanced down at her clothes. “She tells me she used my will to survive when she woke me briefly, just after the accident, so the tattoo is mine. My memory of that is confused, genuinely not Ferryl’s doing.” Two spots of red grew on her cheeks. “Have you seen it?”
Jenny looked straight at Abel, so he answered. “Nobody has.” He wasn’t sure if his own cheeks were pink. “We weren’t really boyfriend and girlfriend you know.”
“No I didn’t, not for certain, not until now.” Jenny looked down with a little smile. “It’s really pretty, but I hope it stays a secret for a long while yet.”
“Well if you’ve got a ward you are protected, so you can ignore the whole magic thing if you like. That tattoo will protect against quite serious magic, compulsion like Seraph’s, or any attempt to magically leash or possess you. Even Ferryl can’t get back inside you once she’s left so there’s no need to learn any glyphs.” Kelis glanced at Abel. “He didn’t have much choice, and I certainly wasn’t going to let him do that stuff without learning how, but not every beta knows about magic.”
“I know. Ferryl has been explaining it all. I just needed to be sure it was true.” Jenny chuckled, her face finally relaxing. “Not learn any glyphs? Hah! Diane will be throwing glyphs around all over the place by the time she’s my age. You really think I want my little sister pulling magical pranks when I can’t fight back?” She took a deep breath before looking around the empty church. “So how do we manage it? Does Ferryl just float out? She said it’s to save Claris but I’d have to do some of it at the last minute. To be honest my memories of Claris are more about her being a bitch than this problem, but I’ll do it to get my life back.”
“We need you to get well clear once Ferryl moves over, though you’ll feel weak at first. Just before then you will sleep for a few hours, in Castle House gardens. You’ll be safe, but you don’t want to remember the painful bit, right?” Kelis glanced at the males. “I’ll be right there with you, but not these two.”
“We’ll be nearby but out of sight, standing guard.” Rob gestured at Abel. “Though nobody else should be able to get in that garden anyway. After that there’ll be some messy stuff, a really nasty looking thing that we have to cram into a new home. Don’t try to interfere, even if it looks as if Claris or Rob is in real trouble. Just remember, Ferryl fixed you so she can fix them.”
The serious faces made their own point. Jenny nodded but then glanced at one of the internal doors. “Can I see Claris? While I’m like this I mean. So I know. Can you make the Leech let me talk to her without Ferryl there?” She looked unsure. “Ferryl hasn’t let me remember much about what’s in Claris, while my earlier memories tell me she might deserve all she gets.”
“She doesn’t deserve this. Nobody does. You’ll need someone in there to keep the Leech in order, but not one of us three. Try to ignore the hovering fist of doom. Zephyr won’t tell me what you say to each other, but she scares the crap out of the Leech.” Abel grinned. “You’ve seen Zephyr with Ferryl’s eyes, now here’s what we see.” He hardly needed to switch mental gears these days. “Zephyr, just a bit of gentle flying please.”
The shimmer barely moved at first, trailing her connection very slowly out about a metre before performing a couple of slow loops. Jenny watched entranced. “Like heat haze on a line of smoke. She’s another secret. Ferryl won’t let me remember how Zephyr got into your arm.”
“We don’t know either. As far as I can gather, you and Abel had a magical love-child. Oh, er…” Rob looked frantically from one to the other. “Bl.. Curses, er, not really, honest. It’s just they made her, Ferryl and Abel. Out in the garden behind the bushes. Out of sight. Well no, not like that. Ferryl just blanked the cameras.”
“Shut up Rob.” Kelis had trouble speaking through her giggles. Abel knew his face was on fire and he’d turned away from the horrified look on Jenny’s face. “He means they used Abel’s magic and Ferryl’s knowledge and skill to bring a puff of wind
to life. Zephyr, get it? Nothing else, except they probably held hands.”
“Only so the dryads didn’t hear.” Abel still daren’t look up. “Would you like to see Claris now?” He hoped so, if only until Kelis stopped giggling and he stopped blushing.
“It might be a good idea.” Jenny’s voice sounded strange. “Providing our love-child will keep watch.” As Abel glanced up she burst out laughing. “Your face is a picture. I’ll miss seeing you blush at the slightest excuse.” Her face sobered. “Ah, right. After we split up I’d rather we didn’t see much of each other, not for a while. I don’t dislike you but it feels a bit weird, you know? After the holding hands and kissing. We’ll meet, but I’d rather someone else taught me magic, another Taverner?”
“Okay, no problem. Anything less than you being totally creeped out is a plus.” Abel stood up. “I’ll just nip through there and terrify a Leech.”
“Not likely. The flying fist of doom will do that.” Kelis suddenly looked thoughtful. “I could design you a FFOD logo to put on a shirt.”
“Come on fuffod, your tattoo carrier needs you.”
“This is not much fun. I am not allowed to hurt the Leech, because it would hurt Claris.”
“Just hover menacingly, and if it argues pretend I’m holding you back.”
“You are.” Abel wondered if answering back and the developing sense of humour were his, Ferryl’s, or all Zephyr.
However it worked, the Leech didn’t argue about Claris getting extra free time. It had met the new host and approved, so the sooner it transferred and could leave the church the better. Jenny spent some time in there, but Abel didn’t ask Zephyr what was said. They soon knew the gist. A sober-faced Jenny pointed out that after talking to Claris, a few months or even twenty years with Ferryl in charge wasn’t that bad a deal. She’d told Claris how it felt, to make her feel better. Rob took Jenny outside and made a few weeds and a clump of grass explode in growth to take her mind off it a bit. As a bonus, Jenny met goblins for real and wanted one for her front garden.