by Caro King
He glanced up at Dark’s Mansion towering over them, the wall of the garden so high that it blended into the distance. Then he grinned at Jonas. ‘She trusts me already. Shouldn’t be too hard to get her to put the ring on.’
Jonas staggered, dropping to his knees. He opened his mouth to yell back, to curse the once-sorcerer, but pain twisted his words into a scream. Flashes of lightning glimmered in his eyes, dazzling him.
‘Especially after I break the news of your death,’ went on Seth, ‘and she sobs on my shoulder. I might even cry with her, show my sensitive side.’
Overhead, the sun was sinking into a pool of light. Purple clouds like great sharks swam along the horizon, but above them the sky was clear and the first stars were beginning to show.
Seth took the faerie compass from his belt – a flat ring of gold with a single ruby bead on its surface. The ring was edged with an intricate design that made it look like a golden snowflake and it shed a soft light that poured over Seth’s hand.
‘Pretty, huh?’ said Seth to the choking Jonas. ‘Faerie things were always pretty. Usually nasty, of course. But certainly pretty.’
He held it up.
‘Find me Ninevah Redstone,’ he said and the red bead rolled along the rim of the compass. It stopped, pointing north-east.
‘There you go! And the boots work on a state of mind,’ he explained cheerfully to the writhing Jonas. ‘All you have to do is think far.’ He raised his right foot to step forward.
The air blurred, and then he was gone.
11
Knowledge
Back at the Terrible House, Mr Strood was settled in his chair, hands wrapped around a wellearned cup of coffee. He was in a very positive frame of mind. The House was full to overflowing and his servants had been kept busy finding spaces for his growing army of tiger-men to sleep in. Now, the sun was dipping low in the sky and soon his bogeymen would be up and about again. Strood thought fondly of his BMs. They were doing very well, though he hadn’t bothered to try persuading them to go out in the daylight. Skerridge might have thrown out the rule book, but that didn’t mean the others could do the same.
Strood smiled. Speaking of which.
‘Bogeyman Skerridge,’ he said, ‘you can come out now.’
There was a long silence, then the air shuffled over to make way for a familiar shape.
‘Ya spotted me, then? No foolin’ yew, Mr Strood, eh?’ Skerridge grinned cheerfully.
‘Not for a moment,’ said Strood smoothly. ‘And don’t worry, I won’t send for the guards. I don’t want them fried. Which reminds me. I take it that the little disturbance in the main hall this afternoon was you? The one where somebody tried to cook my tiger-men?’
Skerridge looked innocent.
‘And you wouldn’t happen to know anything about the desertion of ex-Guard Floyd, I hope?’
Skerridge beamed. Innocent didn’t come close.
‘I see.’ Strood smiled indulgently, looking almost affable, even allowing for the quartz eye. ‘Well, it won’t get you anywhere. Ninevah Redstone is going to die and everyone else with her. I believe people are gathering at Hilfian? Well, my army will start there. And once they’ve torn Hilfian apart, they can sort out the rest of the Drift.’
Skerridge opened his mouth, but Strood put up a hand to stop him.
‘Don’t talk to me about consequences. I’m well aware that killing the Seven will reduce the concentration of defined magic and so undermine the integrity of the Land, thus inducing it to collapse into its raw state at an accelerated rate.’
Skerridge glared, his red eyes burning like coals as the evening light began to fade.
‘And the weaker the Land gets, so the weaker the last remaining shreds of the Seven will become, and so the more Land will die. It’s a perpetuating situation, a circle of death, see? Or hadn’t you worked that bit out yet?’ Strood smiled. ‘And there’s more, of course. Even consequences have consequences and the death of the Drift will have its own, too. Look at it this way: if the Raw has been shaped into the Land by all the desires and dreads of the Quick, uncovered from their deepest hearts over millions of years, then what will happen when it is taken away?’
Skerridge looked blank. Deliberately. Inside he was struggling to imagine what would happen to a world where all the agonies of hope and love and hate and fear had nowhere to go. All that electric emotion hanging around with nothing to do except …’
It would be like a steam pipe with no vent. He shuddered.
‘She’ll stop ya,’ he said, his voice heavy on the evening air.
‘She’s already too late,’ chuckled Strood. ‘Bogeyman Rainbow has made a fine job of frying Quick in the Widdern, and the Sanctuary must be hanging on by a thread. Bogeyman Rope is wiping out Senta Melana’s remains and should be finishing the task very shortly …’
Skerridge kept his face as deadpan as possible.
‘… and Bogeyman Pigwit has dealt with Nemus Sturdy – oh, by the way, I made him Chief Bogeyman you know, he did such a fine job. So all in all it’s looking good.’
‘Azork …’
‘Won’t last the night,’ said Strood airily.
‘Vispilio?’
‘Oh, I’m leaving him be for the moment, after all, he’s hardly a threat. But I have plans.’
‘Simeon Dark?’ Skerridge grinned. ‘Yer carn’ do a lot about Simeon Dark cos first off ’e’s a livin’ sorcerer …’
‘And how much use is a sorcerer if he doesn’t know what he is?’ Strood leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. ‘For Dark to survive the plague that killed every other sorcerer, he must be so well hidden it is as if he has ceased to exist altogether. And no hiding place is foolproof if someone knows about it, and that includes the one who’s doing the hiding! Because if he knows, then someone knows and if someone knows then so does the world. And that would break the spell at once. Clever.’ Strood sounded almost admiring.
‘… an’ second,’ went on Skerridge carefully, ‘ya don’ know where ’e is.’
Strood leaned forward, his quartz eye glittering.
‘Don’t I?’ he said softly.
Silence settled over the scene like a blanket. The shadows had deepened now and Skerridge’s eyes were red-hot holes in the twilight as he glowered at Strood. His heart sank because in that long moment he knew what Strood had done.
Strood smiled. ‘I think you will find that knowledge can be an uncomfortable thing. If I know anything about it, which I do, you are now worrying about what happens if I get to the sorcerer first! What’s more, you will have to warn your companions just in case it’s true, and so you will spread the fear to them.’
Skerridge glowered harder. It was true. Strood couldn’t know for sure where Dark was – if he did then according to his theory the spell would already be broken. But he might have suspicions and that was bad enough. For a start, it was more than Nin and her friends had. It gave Strood a head start in the hunt for Dark. And if Strood found the sorcerer before they did … A shiver of fear stirred deep in Skerridge’s insides. If Strood found Dark and killed him, the battle would be over before it had even begun. The thought made him feel quite bothered.
‘Doubt, fear, panic, despair. They are all linked.’ Strood smiled. His eyes glittered, fixed on Skerridge, noting every expression on the bogeyman’s face.
‘Gotta go,’ Skerridge said brightly, ‘fings t’ do, people t’ save.’
The air fizzed and the door banged open and then shut again, closing on the sound of Strood’s laughter.
In the Widdern, the Little Garden Shop had closed for the day. Jik watched as the young lad who helped out began to tidy up and move the statues indoors. When the boy reached the mudman, Jik fixed him with glowing eyes. The boy decided to forget about that one and leave it outside. With any luck, somebody would nick the thing.
The sound of bolts being drawn, shutters being pulled and keys being turned trickled down the street, shop after shop. People began to disappear of
f home. Silence fell and the long evening drew in.
The air fizzed.
‘’Ow’s tricks? Anyfin’ ’appenin’ yet?’
‘Nik.’
Silence fell. Neither of the Fabulous moved. Jik went back to watching the window of Hilary Jones’s flat with silent attention. Skerridge tried not to keep going over what Strood had said. It wasn’t easy. And he would have to warn the others, Strood had been right about that too. But not just yet. Right now he and the mudman had other things to do.
One by one, lights went out and stars appeared overhead. The moon crept up the darkening sky, casting its silver veil of light over the roofs and chimneys and turning the shadows that crouched in doorways and alleys into black ink. In the first-floor flat across the road the soft glow of the TV flickered. Time stretched on, waiting.
12
The Nature of Spells
Speeding through the Drift sky in the grip of the Darkness, Nin was struggling to take in Seth’s sudden death.
‘You killed him!’ she said again, her voice full of shock and disbelief.
‘He was a mistake. I only wanted you. And I didn’t kill him. I just didn’t interrupt his dying.’ The Darkness thickened, settling more securely around her. Nin fought, trying to push it away, but it was pointless.
Tears stung Nin’s eyes. Seth had been a human being, full of breath and life. By now he would be nothing more than broken flesh. She shook her head, telling herself that he would have survived somehow.
‘You are a strange thing,’ chuckled the Darkness, ‘grieving for someone you barely knew!’
Nin ignored the comment. ‘So,’ she went on after a pause to choke back her tears, ‘what do you want with me? And what are you?’
‘There is something you should know and I want to be the one to show it to you. As to what I am, I’ll leave you to work that out. Just know that I left my natural habitat especially to find you. And let me tell you, I’m not naturally inclined to the light, even this late in the day it makes my presence ache. I’ll show you where we’re going though, if you wish to see.’
It thinned again, shifting back into something like transparent silk. Nin gasped at the scene spread out below her.
They were flying over the Land, just higher than the trees, and in this stretch there was no Raw. A river, a silver-blue ribbon glittering in the evening light, unrolled beneath them. A herd of deer scattered and bounced over wide heath land. Broad oaks and tall beeches, golden and coppery in the late sun, clustered in woods or stood alone in meadows thick with clover and buttercups. It was beautiful.
Nin stretched out, spreading her arms like wings. Around her arm the spell stirred, its colours shifting to darker blues, then a purple that was almost black. It tightened and Nin remembered that it was made by a sorcerer and wondered if it was afraid, if a sorcerer’s spell could have in it a sorcerer’s fear of flying.
Below, wild horses raised their heads to the sky and shook their manes, then broke into a gallop, racing across a plain of emerald grass that deepened to black in the dying light. As they gathered pace, their hooves burst into fiery life, carrying them over the ground at a breathtaking speed and lighting the dark with red flames.
‘Fiery steeds,’ said the Darkness. ‘Once there would have been unicorns too, but they died, like so many magical beasts. Like the Land itself is dying. And faster now, so very, very fast.’
‘I know,’ Nin sighed, ‘first the Fabulous, now the Land. Soon there’ll be nothing left but Mr Strood.’
‘Ahh. Strood,’ said the Darkness and there was an edge to its voice.
‘Um, what has he done to you?’
‘Not just him. There are others to blame as well.’
And suddenly, it let go.
Nin would have screamed, but her breath was snatched away as she fell. The air rushed past her, burning her face with its speed. Her heart lurched, its beat broken by the sudden plunge. There was no time to think, just the wheeling Land as it rushed to meet her. Even before she hit the ground she could feel her bones cracking, her skull smashing open like an egg. See the blood.
And then she was surrounded by the Darkness again. Through its silky veils, grass brushed her face. She sobbed once, choking for breath, her hand stinging where it had hit the ground a split second before her body would have joined it. The Darkness had caught her barely an inch from the Land. She could smell the earth. A beetle squirmed against her cheek.
Gasping, Nin struggled briefly as the Darkness lifted her up. She felt pain in her arm and knew it was the spell, cutting into her skin as it clung tight. Like the spell, Nin didn’t want to go. More than anything right now she wanted solid ground under her feet. But there was nothing she could do.
Up they went. Up and up. When it was high enough, the Darkness began to fly onwards again. Slowly, Nin’s heart stopped thudding and her breathing began to steady. She sensed the Darkness watching her, feeling her panic with amusement. Anger swirled out of the fright.
‘What did you do that for?’ she demanded.
The Darkness chuckled. ‘To show you how easily I could have my revenge.’
‘On me? But …’ Nin frowned. ‘Have I done something to you? Is that what you meant by there being others to blame? But how can whatever happened to you be my fault? I never met you before!’
For answer it dumped her on the ground in the middle of a land so ravaged it was unrecognisable. Then it drew back and hovered, a thick shroud of darkness behind her, waiting for her to work it out.
Around them, columns of smoke rose, spiralling upwards to join the pall that blotted out the sky. It made Nin’s eyes smart and the bitter smell caught at the back of her throat. Under her feet, the ground was blackened, crumbling into ash as she moved. And everywhere were the ruined, smouldering stumps of trees.
‘A burned forest,’ she said through her coughing, ‘you want me to know about a burned forest?’
As she spoke her eye was caught by a charred stump in front of her, its blackened remains jutting towards the sky.
She stared at it, fear forming in her heart, making her move forward to take a closer look. There were the last traces of words carved into the wood. She could just make out a couple of letters. They were:
MUS ST DY
‘Nemus!’ she cried. When she and Jonas had travelled this way before, the shelter offered by Sturdy’s oak had kept them safe them from the Savage Forest and all its nightmares. And now, Nemus Sturdy, oldest and most powerful of the once-sorcerers, was gone.
‘Got it now, have we?’ sneered the Darkness. ‘Worked out where we are at last?’
‘This is the Savage Forest! But how .. ?’ She stared around, bewildered.
‘Strood’s bogeymen burned it down. Every tree and flower. Every blade of grass. All gone, just to kill the once-sorcerer who turned himself into an oak. I saw it, the bears and the wolves running for their beast lives, eyes full of panic. And the birds, their great black wings flapping so hard they raised a wind, a whole army of them rising into the night sky. And then there was the oak. When it burned, a golden light came off it like steam. This is what I want you to know.’
Hot tears began to flood Nin’s cheeks. A sob shook her.
‘Poor thing,’ it snarled. ‘Poor little living legend.’
‘Why are you being so cruel! What did I do? You said it was the bogeymen.’
‘But they did it because of YOU. Precious little Ninevah Redstone. She Who Cannot Fail. Lucky Ninevah who skips through danger like it was a picnic while those around her bleed and burn.’
‘You’re the Dark Thing, aren’t you?’ cried Nin, suddenly understanding. ‘The Dark Thing That Lives In The Wood?’
‘Lived!’ it spat. ‘I think you’ll find it’s lived in the wood.’
‘I’m sorry!’
‘No use being sorry now, is it?’ The Dark Thing surged forward, thickening around her, its voice was right in her ear, right in her head.
‘I left you alive for a reason. Because even
if you started this, I think you earned your legend. And because you are who you are, you may be the only one who can save the Drift.’
‘What can I do!’
‘Don’t ask me! Aren’t you supposed to be finding Simeon Dark? If he isn’t dead of the plague and no one has noticed yet.’
The Dark Thing hissed at her making her flinch and cry out. ‘Now there is no more wood, I am free to travel the Drift. So know this, if you don’t succeed then I’ll come looking for you wherever you are. And next time I’ll drop you from so high it’ll take you a day to hit the ground. And I really, really won’t catch you.’
And then it was gone and Nin was alone in the ruined forest.
Nin had never felt so alone, so lost or so scared. She wished desperately for Jonas, but Dark had built his Mansion far south-west of the Savage Forest and Jonas had a long journey before he could be with her again. Even if he worked out where she was.
And what of her other friends? Jik had always been able to find her in the past, but she hadn’t seen him since he had been lying on the beach after their escape from the Terrible House, almost melted away, his red fire eyes dimmer than they had ever been. She had no idea where Taggit was and as to Skerridge, well, he was a bogeyman and although he had helped her once, BMs weren’t known for their kindly natures. And Enid Lockheart was dying. And Nemus Sturdy was dead.
Sobs shook her. She didn’t want to think about the part where it was all her fault – where all this had happened because of her – it hurt too much.
A feathery touch brushed her foot and she raised her head. Something was creeping over her ankles, treading softly on paws of grey ash. Eyes glowed at her like something smouldering in the depths of a banked-down fire. She drew her feet back, fear making her skin prickle. The creature looked like a small stoat made from the ashy remains of the forest and she could feel the heat of the thing even through her boots. It hissed at her, a spark kindling in the depths of its ember eyes, as though it might ignite at any moment.