“Caliburn, do you think it could be your sister?” Xar whispered hopefully, his tummy giving the most gigantic rumble. Only Xar could mistake the ominous torches of what was clearly a hunting party for a welcoming greeting from Caliburn’s sister. But then, Xar was an optimistic sort of person, who hoped for the best at all times.
He had a deep cut over his right temple from where a wyvern had earlier tried to take his eye out and an old bit of shirt wrapped around his leg covering a wound from a boggart bite that was going septic, but he wasn’t going to let little things like these get him down. Xar was a happy-go-lucky sort of boy, with a wide-awake look in his eyes that suggested that he was determined to enjoy life despite unimportant details like infected boggart bites and wyvern injuries.
As Xar was also a boy of considerable charm and charisma, he had a lot of companions, and flying with the door were six of his sprites and three hairy fairies. These tiny little insecty creatures, so paper-thin you could see their hearts, were buzzing around in a state of such alarm that blue electric sparks were coming out of their ears.
“Beware…” they hissed. “Beware beware beware…”
“No, it’s definitely not my sister,” said Caliburn, shading a wing over one of his eyes and squinting so he could see better. “They’re banging war drums. My sister wouldn’t bang war drums, unless she’s changed a very good deal in the last twenty years.”
“Don’t worry, sprites,” said Xar soothingly, for although Xar often led his companions into difficulty, he did take his responsibilities as the leader of his band very seriously. “I’ll look after you…”
“Of coursse you will, Masster!” squeaked Squeezjoos, one of the smallest and most enthusiastic of the hairy fairies. “You iss the most brilliantastic leader in the whole world ever and you woulds never leads us into any trouble!”
“But I don’t understand it…” said Wish, bewildered. “Nobody knows which way we went—the sprites have dimmed their lights, we’re flying so close to the tops of the trees that nobody can see us from below, so how can they be following us?”
“Maybe they picked up the scent of Crusher and the snowcats,” Bodkin suggested.
Xar had other companions too and they were down on the ground. A giant called Crusher, three beautiful snowcats, some wolves, a bear, and a werewolf called Lonesome were following on foot, way below on the forest floor.
“Impossible!” Xar whispered back. “I’m unbeatable at running away and so are my companions! We’re completely untrackable…”
As well as being just a trifle conceited, Xar was indeed very good at running away. He was the most disobedient boy in the Wizard kingdom, always getting into trouble for doing things like:
Getting his sprites to charm his older brother Looter’s spelling staffs so that every time Looter tried to use them, they spanked him on the bottom… Painting spots on the Magic mirror in the main hall so everyone who looked in it thought they were coming down with something infectious… Pouring animation potion on the trousers of Ranter, his least favorite teacher, so whenever Ranter tried to put them on, the pants skipped out of reach.
As a result, Xar had spent his entire short life running away from the wrath of his father, his teachers, and the other Wizards, so he had become something of a running-away expert.
“Maybe someone’ssss betrayed us,” hissed Tiffinstorm, one of Xar’s larger sprites, eyes narrowing jealously. “Probably that werewolf. Never trust a werewolf who you met in a prison. That’s good advice, kids.”
“Don’t you dare accuse the werewolf just because he’s a werewolf!” said Xar fierily.
Wish agreed with Xar.
“Nobody’s betrayed us,” said Wish soothingly. “We’re on the same side now, Tiffinstorm. We’re all outlaws together, remember?
“But who is chasing us down there in the forest?” worried Wish.
Caliburn began to list their enemies. “Well, it could be the Droods… or Xar’s father… or Wish’s mother… And what about the Witchsmeller? He hates you… Or the Warrior emperor? He’ll want to get rid of Magic-that-works-on-iron at all costs…”
Squeezjoos bared his little teeth and squeaked, “I’sll gets them for you, Master! I’sll bites great chunks out of their iron bottoms! I’sll makes their noses drip for a week and ties knots in their sandwiches! I’sll makes holes in theys socks so theys keep puttings theys big toes throughs it in a REALLY ANNOYING way! I’sll put itching powder in theys underwear and I’sll leave little fluffballs in theys tummy buttons and theys will NEVERS KNOW where the fluff is coming from!”
As Squeezjoos was not a great deal bigger than a dormouse, and the threat of fluff-in-the-tummy-button was not exactly life-threatening, none of this was likely to be terribly worrying to a Drood or a heavily armed iron Warrior, but Xar thanked him solemnly and said, “Yes of course you can, Squeezjoos, just as soon as I give the order.”
The one enemy that Caliburn did not mention was Witches. Which, given that there were two very large Witches hovering right above their heads at that very moment, was a tiny bit ironic. There was even rather a large clue that Witches were closer than they might realize. Around Xar’s waist, attached to his belt, hung two Witch feathers, and when Witches were close, these Witch feathers burned green with a strange, unnatural light. They were burning green now—my goodness they were, greener than emerald, brighter than starlight—but Xar and Wish and Bodkin had not noticed, so intent were they on staring down at what was going on in the forest below them.
The only person who HAD noticed the glowing of the Witch feathers was the baby. The baby was the smallest hairy fairy of all, and he was going wild with agitation.
But the baby was still in his egg, and he could only say one word: “Goo!”
And nobody listens to babies, even when they have something very important to say.
So although the baby rolled around urgently in his egg, bumping into people and shouting “Goo! Goo! Goo!” at the top of his baby voice, none of the other sprites would listen and Xar just batted him away, saying, “Not now, Baby, we can’t play now.”
The Witches, sharpening their talons and hovering not more than ten feet above the door, grinned at each other—nasty grins, for Witches have nasty senses of humor. How amusing! These children were so busy worrying about the danger from below, they were completely ignoring the much more serious danger threatening them from above.
And they were running away from their parents! That would explain why they were out at night, so far away from their tribes and their kinsmen… It wasn’t a trap at all…
The Witches prepared to swoop.
But then the Witches stiffened as something poked out of the back of Wish’s waistcoat, swiveling, as if sniffing the air, and then hopping up onto the top of Wish’s head to peer over the edge of the door with the others.
The something was a spoon, and it happened to be alive.
The Enchanted Spoon was followed by a key and a fork and a number of little Enchanted Pins.
None of this was odd to the Witches. Enchanted objects were perfectly normal back in those days.
But these enchanted objects weren’t normal at all. They were very odd indeed…
These enchanted objects…
…were made of iron.
The Witches’ eyes blazed red and visible for one horrified moment.
“It’sssss herrrr…” hissed the Witches.
“It’ssss HERRRRRR…” The Witches growled like dogs. “The girl with the Magic eye who has Magic-that-works-on-iron…”
In an unusual coincidence, Wish, peering downward, also whispered under her breath at the very same time as the Witches: “It’s HER…”
“It’s her… it’s her… it’s HER…!”
“It’s my mother!” cried Wish. “That’s who’s following us! Okay, nobody panic… Stay calm… Key! Could you hop into the keyhole for me?”
When Wish wanted to fly the door as quickly as possible she needed the key to be in the keyhole
so that she could steer the door at top speed.
“Of course,” boasted the key in a creaky little voice. “You see, spoon? The fork is a mere food carrier, a pathetic little potato piercer… but I have a very important role.”
The key and the fork were both in love with the Enchanted Spoon, so the key never lost an opportunity to show off.
The fork waggled its prongs furiously at the key, and the key stuck out its little iron chest and hopped self-importantly into the keyhole.
“We’ll just very quietly sneak away…” said Wish. “Softly, everyone… make as little noise as you can…”
But before Wish could move the key and send the door skimming silently away across the treetops, she noticed something very odd was up with Squeezjoos.
He had been getting thoroughly overexcited, doing somersaults in the air, squeaking dire threats about making holes in people’s socks, and protecting Xar, and accidentally biting his own tail, and at the sighting of Wish’s mother he seemed to completely lose it. His little bumbly body shot fizzily with sparks, his spotty eyes lit up a luminous bright green, and he shrieked at the top of his voice:
“SOOJZEEKS TO THE RESCUE!!! CHAAAAARGE!!!!”
And the little sprite threw himself in a mad zooming dive downward in a lunatic one-hairy-fairy attack on Queen Sychorax’s entire advancing army.
“What… is… he… doing???????” gasped Xar.
And just as the goggle-eyed children on the back of the door were taking in this first incomprehensible disaster, a second one sprang up, bright, fierce, flaming, in front of their very eyes.
“My mother!” cried Wish. “She’s setting the forest alight!”
2. The Trees Are Screaming
Meanwhile, down on the ground, Crusher the giant; Xar’s snowcats, Kingcat, Nighteye, and Forestheart; his werewolf, Lonesome; his bear; and his wolves were making their way swiftly and quietly through the wildwoods. Wolves and giants are quite common, but I wish you could have seen the snowcats. Beautiful creatures they were, larger than lions, fur as deep as powder snow, padding through the ancient forest, whiskers twitching. Like the children on the flying door, they were looking skinnier and hungrier and a lot more bedraggled than they had been two weeks earlier. The snowcats had deep wounds from the talons of wyverns on their faces, the bear had torn his ear, and Lonesome was limping.
None would have known that they had passed that way, for as Xar said, they were untrackable, untraceable. Even giants know how to tread lightly on the world, so although Crusher was nearly as tall as the tallest of the trees around him, he did not make a footprint on the undergrowth below as he walked through the holloways, planting his great walking staff gently in the ground and humming happily to himself. Crusher was a Longstepper High-Walker giant, and these giants are BIG, so they tend to have BIG thoughts. Wandering gets their giant brains working, so as Crusher walked, his head was smoking with inspiration, and he was thinking in time to each giant gentle step:
“I wonder if you could say that trees have brains? They certainly learn… and just because they learn in their roots, is that enough to say that they do not have brains like humans and giants do?”
And then he stopped suddenly. He put his ear to the nearest tree.
His face, with wandering lines like an ancient map, normally gently interested in the world about him, assumed a very concerned and grim expression indeed.
Slowly he bent down to his animal companions.
“Now, I do not want you to panic, creatures of the forest,” said Crusher. “But the trees are screaming.”
There are people who think that just because trees do not have mouths, they cannot talk. Those people are wrong, and they are often the kind of people who think that other people have to be exactly like themselves to count as people at all. Trees speak to each other just as you and I do, but you have to have the right ears for listening. They send out messages on sound waves that giant ears can hear, scent chemicals that giant noses can smell, and just because our tiny little human ears and noses are too small to hear or smell or detect them, this does not mean that those messages are not there.
As Crusher said, the trees were screaming.
And the message they were screaming, with the crackling of their roots and every electrical and chemical signal they could muster, was “FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!”
It was very generous of the trees to scream that message, really. For it was not a message that their fellow trees could respond to. Trees live life in the slow lane. So although they can move their leaves in the direction of sunlight, and they can grow their roots in the direction of water, this all happens very slowly, and what they cannot do, in the face of the immediate, instant, quick destruction that is FIRE, is wrench up their mud-clogged roots from the ground they are growing in and run as fast as they can for their lives.
But the animals can. And maybe the trees are more intelligent than we are and know that their species’ lives are eventually dependent on the other species around them.
So the snowcats’ ears pricked up, the werewolf’s nose was set a-sniffing, sniff, sniff, sniff: They caught the smell, the sound of the messages the trees were screaming, before even the first whiff of burning wood, the first howl of a distant terrified fox.
And they panicked.
Snorting, howling, wild with fear, the animals and the Magic creatures ran as fast as they could, uncaring of the brambles that ripped, the branches that spiked, joining a deluge of other fleeing animals—hedgehogs, wolves, bears, deer, birds, insects, hobs, goblins, all careering madly through the forest to get away from the age-old enemy: fire.
The sprites and the birds and all things with wings were the lucky ones.
Crusher had to follow more slowly, for giants, like trees, do not move quickly, and tears were trickling down his wrinkled face as he moved through the forest, touching each precious ancient tree in sympathy as he walked.
The fire caught from tree to tree, faster than fairies, faster than Witches. Trees that had been growing for hundreds, sometimes thousands of years, burned bright and were destroyed in an instant. The roar of the flames as the wind carried the bright, destructive inferno faster, swifter, higher, bigger, brighter, bolder, quick as thought, and more terrible than could be imagined.
Up above, the children on the door responded instantly.
Wish grabbed the Enchanted Key and pointed DOWN.
“We have to save Squeezjoos and Crusher and the animals!” shouted Xar, and with a great screech, the door shot downward toward the burning forest, the sprites bravely following behind it, in a wild screeching trail of humming sprite dust, even though every sprite instinct was telling them to fly away.
It was unbelievably fortunate that the door and the sprites and the raven chose that blink of a second to plunge downward.
For at precisely the moment that they swooped, the Witches attacked.
SSSSSCCCCRRIIIIIIITCH!!!!!!!!!
There was a tearing noise, as if the air itself was being ripped apart.
Just in case YOU have never been dive-bombed by a Witch, I will explain what happens. When Witches are invisible, they can do no harm. Their hands just pass right through you, like the hands of ghosts. So as Breakneck and Ripgrizzle screeched downward, they were turning themselves visible as they plunged. First two screaming heads appeared, liquefying at the edges into spitting sparks and foul vapor, and then the two Witches blasted down on Wish and Xar and Bodkin on their Enchanted Door like a couple of infinitely evil peregrine falcons.
When Witches attack, they assault all your senses at the same time. Their stink is unbearable, the most nauseating bad-egg-and-rotten-corpse smell you can possibly imagine, and they release it in a cloud of poison. Their scream is like the death agony of five hundred foxes, and it buries itself in your brain and reverberates around your head till you feel like you might go crazy.
Ripgrizzle had two fishlike eyes buried so deep on either side of his axe-sharp nose you could not see into the pitiless
depths of them—not that you would want to. The mouth, dripping that revolting black saliva from the fangs. A body like a human mixed with a panther, talons long as swords, and black feathery wings.
Breakneck was no prettier.
The Witches swooped, but they were a blink or two too late, for the children on their door had that very second gone into a dive downward to help their friends, so the Witches’ talons closed only on empty air, and they let out screeches of infuriated disappointment.
The sprites and the children and Caliburn the raven FINALLY looked over their shoulders and realized they were being attacked.
Pandemonium ensued, as the rescuing-Squeezjoos-and-Crusher-and-the-animals mission turned abruptly into a desperate flight-from-the-attacking-Witches mission.
“AIEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!” screamed the Witches.
“Goo!” cried the baby, which in baby-language means: “I’ve been trying to tell you this for ages, but nobody listens to babies, oh no…”
“FLYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!” yelled Xar, shooting arrows at the Witches as Wish desperately hauled the key back and forth in wild swiveling motions so that the door slalomed this way and that in crazy swirls to evade the mind-boggling horror of the pursuing Witches, while still following the little tiny spark of the charging Squeezjoos, who was continuing to shriek, “SOOJZEEKS TO THE RESCUE! CHAAAAAAARGE!!!!” at the top of his voice.
“Don’t worry, Princess!” said Bodkin, trying to draw Wish’s Enchanted Sword,* but unable to get it out of the scabbard, he had to pull out his bow and arrows instead. “I’ll save you!”
But Bodkin had a bit of a disadvantage as a bodyguard. He had a medical condition that caused him to fall asleep in conditions of extreme danger.
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