The Spell and the Scythe (Merrydian's Gate, #2)

by A. E. Wright

  Chapter One - The Disappeared

  I GENTLY BLEW away the dust that had settled on the dark oak photo frame over the past months. Inside it was a picture of my parents. They were both smiling pleasantly with dark circles under their eyes. In my mother's arms was a new-born me. It was my favourite picture, adorning the tiny shelf in my room, well, my old room now. My familiar scarlet bed covers were still made the same way I had left them last summer. My cove of bookshelves, tucked away in the corner, still held my dust-covered book collection. The few I had not even gotten around to reading sat on the shelf despondently, waiting to be picked up. I wanted to take some of my dusty books back with me. Maybe if I could stuff them far enough into my small leather side-sack, Merl wouldn't even notice that I had them. I gave my copy of William Blake's 'Songs of Innocence and Experience' one last look of longing. Resisting temptation, I left it in place on the grimy shelf.

  It had become so boring hiding out in the relative safety of Blossomdown over the winter. The general feeling of fear hanging over everyone didn't make people feel particularly sociable these days. Most Bobbins hid out in their homes. Some accompanied by the Worlen refugees that were outcast from Forge Gate. They were the lucky ones.

  I tugged back my floral curtains and the spring morning sun filled my irises with a light that I had become unaccustomed to over the previous few months of harsh winter in Falinn Galdur. I inhaled a deep breath, trying to remember the scents of this place that I had known so well. I hoped for even the slightest reminder of how they smelt, my mother's designer perfume or my father who, for some odd reason, always smelt like buttered toast. There was nothing there anymore in my cosy little house on Wickersley Lane, just the ghosts of my memories and a stack of unopened envelopes that blocked the narrow doorway. Three particularly colourful ones were last year's birthday cards. I'd been so wrapped-up in my new world where calendar dates were not as important as my old one, I'd completely missed my own birthday. August the fifth, it had always been such an important date to me before. Now I had far more important things to worry about than the passing of another year.

  I took one final, sweeping look around my old room before heading back downstairs toward the living room where I had left Merl waiting. As I got to the middle of the narrow staircase, I heard a small creak from a familiar loose floorboard that I knew was the third floorboard in the downstairs hallway. I straightened with alarm. Merl could clearly be heard snoring in the pink armchair that sat in the living room. I had left him there half an hour previously. There shouldn't be anyone else in the house with us. I tugged my bow around to my front and held it aloft as I gently crept the rest of the way down the staircase. Caution was a necessity in my life now I was being hunted. I didn't feel fear as I round the bottom of the stairway, only hope. Hope that I wouldn't experience the soul destroying cold I had felt all those months ago in the chamber. Hope that my body wouldn't be left bruised and swollen again. What I hoped for more than anything else was that she wouldn't find them, well traces of them, before me.

  I rounded the bottom of the staircase quickly and quietly, aiming my bow at the direction of the noise. A wisp of light solidified into a deadly arrow as I pulled back the string. I surveyed the dim hallway carefully but there was no intruder there, only my old school photos swinging in their frames on the brown hallway wall. For a brief moment I thought I could see the twinkling of two recognisable lights disappear into the dark living room. I smelt the familiar earthy aroma that I had become so accustomed to over the last summer. I missed that smell. My heart began pounding in my chest, threatening to beat its way through my ribcage. I followed what I thought was a clandestine intruder with a new kind of hope in my heart. This hope was tinged with the bitter longing that came with his absence. My stomach lurched as I entered the dark living room, expecting to see his face or at least some evidence of his presence here but there was nothing, just Merl, my very ancient and very powerful ancestor, grumpily rousing from his slumber.

  "Do you have what we need?" He asked groggily.

  "I think so." I replied

  "Well then off we go."

  Travelling back towards Spider Wood I felt a sense of nostalgia for how simple my life used to be. There were many times Dahlia and I had walked this route on one of our usual trips to meet with friends at Spider Hollow. We never knew then that the gateway to an island that was steeped in ancient history and magic was so close by. I certainly never realised that I would be the one to open it. That I, Violet Aurora Knight, was an heir to the most gifted wizard who ever lived. That my going to the island would lead to the awakening of a powerful yet psychotic witch who wanted to murder me.

  I chuckled silently to myself at the absurdity of it all but there was no escaping that this was my reality now.

  We reached the narrow passage of trees that I had darted down to escape the murderous Gnarl that fateful summer's day. They didn't look so threatening with the spring-time sun illuminating the vibrant greens and earthy yellows of their leaves. They seemed small compared to the mammoth mystical trees of Thistlewick Forest or the hardy giants that made up Galdur Wood. It was almost like you could just reach up and touch the tops of the trees here.

  When we reached the clearing Merl gave a quick glance in the direction of the spider- shaped grassy mound, he nodded respectfully, thinking I hadn't noticed. It was a sorrowful moment to witness, knowing now that the giant spider, or Spinner as they are known in Falinn Galdur, was lying buried underneath the mound. When Merl journeyed to the mainland to inspect the security around the gateway sometime last summer, he'd found that Sancred the Spinner had been poisoned, probably by Gnarls, around fifty years ago.

  Sancred was a good friend of Merl's and had a particular taste for Gnarls, the reason why he made such a good guardian for the gate. He was also the last of the virtuous Spinners. Most of them, as Bettery the Bobbin who I deeply loved as a mother figure had described, were a horrible bunch of creatures who liked nothing more than devouring any unsuspecting Bobbin that was brave or na?ve enough to venture to the beach in Cragsley.

  As we climbed the tenuous belfry tower, tiny pieces of the ancient stone crumbled away hitting the soft grass below. I looked to Merl who seemed utterly unconcerned with the terrible state of the architecture as he continued to the small and dusty room above.

  Once we were back in Falinn Galdur - I knew I would never get used to the suffocating sensations that came with passing through the gateway-we set about our business. I pulled the photo frame out of my leather sack and forlornly passed it to Merl.

  "This is your decision Violet." He stated, "Remember that once this deed has been done, it cannot be undone."

  "I know," I stated solemnly "They've built a new life now and I can't exactly go back home anytime soon anyway."

  "Violet my girl," Merl said in an uncharacteristically soothing manner "I will ask you once more, are you certain?" The way Merl spoke, so sympathetically, made me break my resolution that I wouldn't cry. Crying made no difference to the reality of my situation but tears filled my eyes regardless.

  "Yes." I said through muffled sobs. I didn't want to let go of my parents, to make them forget that I'd ever existed. Of course I didn't. They were my whole world before I came here, my best friends and guardians and I never had the chance to say goodbye to them. The consequences of the decision I had just made weighed heavily on me. I knew that letting go of them also meant letting go of my old life, giving up everything I was and could have been. I was fooling myself, a decision implies choice and I didn't have a choice anymore. Maybe I had the option of continuing my former existence one day, before I had gone into the chamber and awoken Agrona but not now. With Agrona now building an army in Forge Gate, I might not exist much longer anyway. I didn't want to put them through the pain of having a dead daughter. I'd witnessed enough of how that experience had destroyed Merl. It was better this way, safer for everyone.

  I left the room. I didn't want to see Merl actually perform the spell
that broke the sacred bonds between me and my parents. I wanted privacy. I wanted to grieve in peace. I didn't want anybody to see me so utterly broken.

  No matter how much I wanted to avoid the situation, I knew when the spell had been completed because I felt it. A great surge of power that filled my being before dissipating as quickly as it had arrived, leaving only the scarling now forming on my heart. I wondered if my parents felt the same surge at the same time? And then I realised, even if they had, they would have forgotten by now. I was gone to them. No that's wrong. To them I was never there at all.

  Searching my memories for some kind of comfort, my mind involuntarily offered me a brief conversation I'd had with Elba just before she'd left for Forge Gate. Still unaware that her real birth parents were in-fact her 'adoptive' father Balthus and the late Worlen queen Deltrina. Elba had described a certain sense of loss she felt at not knowing where she really came from. She'd described the feeling as a tiny black hole on the surface of a barren field. The hole, she said, was small on the surface but as it descended into the earth, it grew until it was large enough to fit a thousand moons. I understood that now more than ever.

  I stayed up in my observatory room that day. Although the springtime blossoms adorning the wall were creating beautiful, fresh scents around me and the birds were singing blissfully from their treetop haunts, I could only feel melancholy. Like always, I would internalise my grief for my parents. It took the form of a small black box with a white heart-shaped lock. I hid it deep inside my mind. It was a damaging defence tactic that I would pay for one day on a Pandora-like scale, but for the moment, it was the best way I had to deal with my pain.

  The next morning, after an interrupted sleep, I headed out to Blossomdown bakery to meet up with Bettery and see if there was any news. Anything was better than nothing at this point. I pulled my long black cloak on and put up the hood. I looked somewhat reaperish, especially as the sun was out and the day was actually the best we'd experienced in a while, still I didn't want to be noticed. I wasn't that popular around here to begin with and since Agrona's arising even the friendly-natured Bobbins' had taken to scowling at me. I'd had a piece of honey bread thrown at my head the last time I'd been brave enough to venture out undisguised but I was glad that that's all it was. Had I been in Thistlewick or Forge Gate the chosen weapon of assault may have been much more sinister. I wasn't particularly popular anywhere.

  I was the heir. I was the girl who had woken Agrona. I was the reason for the current misery of the people of Falinn Galdur. Nobody could hate me more than I hated myself for that. My guilt was amplified by the fact that, whilst the people up and down the island were suffering, I was in the relative safety of Blossomdown. Protected by the collective cloak of magic that the Bobbins' had placed upon it the first night we arrived home, I felt both grateful and unworthy.

  That first night home, I discovered that Bobbin magic was something of a spectacle. It could only work if many Bobbins used it together as a collective. It was all the more powerful because of this. When we reached Blossomdown, Merl explained the dire situation we were all now in and the Bobbins set about forming a perfect circle around the main part of the village. Holding hands, and in perfect unison, they collectively chanted an ancient Bobbin spell.

  Time is now, that darkness brings,

  Deadly foe, so we all sing,

  By the might of the many, Earth answer our call,

  Under safe heaven, Blossomdown fall.

  With the word 'fall' an almighty wind swept a protective barrier of cloud over Blossomdown. It seemed to rush in from across the sea, knocking many of the tiny Bobbins off of their feet, and settled around the perimeter of the village. The barrier was a sight to behold, like gazing into a shimmering cloud. If you passed through it, although it was slightly stifling, you could only feel warmth and love all around you. It was the direct antithesis of the feelings that came from the depths of Agrona's soul. I could understand why benevolent magic such as this spell was used to keep the darkness out. Sometimes I would go and sit at the edge of the barrier just to feel the warmth. It was a truly beautiful piece of magic.

  This day I was not going as far as the edge of the barrier, I was going to the village centre. A risky place for me but if I heard anything new, it was worth the risk. As I approached the statue of Merl that stood proudly in the middle of the square, I noticed Bettery at the bakery with her two Worlen refugee children. I gave a three fingered wave to signal to Bettery that it was me, not my idea, but it was more effective than revealing myself and risk being attacked. We both headed to one of the narrow shop doorways in the small alleyway that ran off the main square. We spoke in hushed voices.

  "How are Crone and Delpha?" I asked, genuinely concerned about the children Bettery had taken in.

  "They're ok they are deary, a bit out of sorts but ok." Bettery stated a little saddened. Crone and Delpha's mother and father were still in Forge Gate and very much at the mercy of Agrona. No one knew what was happening inside of those walls now. The huge gates were sealed with an army of Gnarls guarding them around the clock. It didn't take much imagination to guess that, whatever Agrona was putting them through, it probably wasn't very pleasant. I suppressed the usual gut-wrenching feeling of guilt at this fact. I was getting better at doing so. Desperately, I continued.

  "Is there any word Bettery, anything?" I asked anxiously.

  "No deary, I'm sorry but nobody heard anything they haven't." She answered apologetically. "They haven't been seen since, well you know when deary."

  "Ok, thanks." I muttered. I made my excuses, mumbling something about an archery practice with Merl and headed back toward home, I was utterly disheartened.

  A group of Worlens had headed back to Forge Gate not long after Agrona had risen with Jestin as their leader. Only two returned to Blossomdown. One was a very old male Worlen who'd told everybody in The Dragon's Scales how he only escaped because Elba had bravely dived between him and a nasty suffocating spell. Luckily, for him, Gnarls' were not as good at magic as Agrona and apparently, the spell wore off before it proved fatal. Elba was captured and the older Worlen male escaped. I hoped she was ok. I knew she was both fearless and resourceful, there was a good chance she could have escaped but nobody knew for sure. The other escapee, a younger Worlen female, had a more fearsome story to tell.

  She was chosen, as part of Jestin's pack, to try to breach the castle walls. She recounted how they very nearly got into Forge Gate unseen but just as they were about to creep through a not widely known gap within the gate, the largest and most terrifying Gnarl she had ever seen advanced on them. He was soon followed by a small, but armed, group of smaller Gnarls. She said the few Worlen in the pack fought hard but they were no match for the huge Gnarl. Some had died. Jestin had been dragged away from the battle by the female just before the huge Gnarl could strike a fatal blow to his throat. Hearing that part of the story broke my heart, he'd nearly died and here I was hiding like a coward in Blossomdown.

  The Worlen female told that he was barely alive, bleeding badly and she thought his ribs might have been broken. She'd dragged him to the edge of Galdur wood and exhausted she stumbled, hitting her head. When she woke he was gone and she made her way to Blossomdown alone. No-one has seen or heard of him since. I just couldn't think of him that way, it hurt me not just emotionally but also physically to think of him in so much pain. I know the situation didn't look good, and in all likelihood both Jestin and Elba were gone, but I couldn't feel it. I don't know how or why, perhaps it was the binding spell. But if Jestin was truly dead I was certain I would feel it.

  After my usual five-minute argument with Fizzlesnap- the annoying Gargoyle doorknocker-, I found Merl sitting in deep contemplation in his sitting room.

  "Can't we get rid of Fizzlesnap?" I asked disgruntled.

  "Why would I do such a silly thing," Merl questioned. "He is exemplary at keeping away visitors."

  "He's started calling me ginger biscuit. He won't let me in the
door unless I answer to ginger biscuit at least once." I was irritated. Merl simply chuckled. "I'm glad you find it so funny." I said.

  "Fizzlesnap must like you," he laughed. "He doesn't usually give people such polite nicknames, you should hear Bettery's."

  I stalked over to my purple cushioned bench and plonked myself down very ungracefully. Merl raised his eyebrows disapprovingly, he instinctively knew the subject I was about to broach, it was all I had talked about recently and he didn't like it.

  "I want to go to Galdur wood and search." I stated.

  "As you have said many times," He replied dismissively. "The answer is, once again, no."

  "You can't stop me." As soon as I said it, I knew how much I sounded like a petulant teenager.

  "Violet, I'm afraid that there are many thousands of ways by which I could stop you." Merl was very matter-of-fact in this. "I hope you will not compel me to use any of them."

  "I can't stay here much longer Merl, I'm imagining him everywhere, and I even thought I'd seen him at my home yesterday. I need to know if he's alive, or at least if there is any hope of him being alive." I pleaded. "And what about Balthus? He lost Deltrina and now Elba. She may still be alive, she might need our help. Please Merl." I begged.

  "We are helping neither Jestin nor Elba if we simply rush towards Forge Gate blindly and unprepared. We may as well just hand your heart directly to Agrona and let her be done with this island and then the rest of the world." Merl kept his temper even.

  "Then what do we do Merl, just sit here and wait for her to come to us? I'm sure Agrona has worked out that I'm in Blossomdown, she's probably already thought of a way through the barrier." I was red with exasperation.

  "Even the powerful witch Agrona cannot break magic as potent as a Bobbin barrier. She never broke it the first time and she will not break it again." Merl was defensive.

  "I know, I'm sorry." I knew I shouldn't get so angry at Merl. Not only was he all the family I had left but he was only trying to keep everybody safe especially me.

  "You do really care for the boy don't you?" He stated, softening.

  "Yes, I do." I answered. "I also care about this island, and I don't think that sitting here and biding our time is doing any good for anybody." I answered honestly.

  "You have already sacrificed much for the people you love, that much is true. You will never see your mother and father again, that was a very unselfish decision on your part. One that shows you may have the constitution for the task ahead." Merl stroked his beard. "Just how far are you willing to go in order to save this island and its inhabitants?" Merl questioned bluntly. I felt the pull of guilt in the pit of my stomach. I knew I had to take a big share of the blame for the current crisis on Falinn Galdur, and for Elba and Jestin.

  "I will do anything." I answered without a hint of uncertainty.

  "In that case, pack your things. I will call Bettery and Balthus. We must pay a visit to Mother Madge."