Darkwells

by R. A Humphry

  “I’m not stupid Henry.”

  “Good, otherwise this will take forever. As I was saying; Magic has been with us since the beginning but formal magic was, we think, brought into being in ancient Egypt first. Oh, there have been shamanic orders amongst aborigine tribes and so forth but not on the scale that we see in Egypt.”

  “Hence Moses’ battle with the Pharaoh.”

  “Yes. Wait, you read the bible? I’d never have guessed.”

  “Don’t be so patronising. Mum had a Catholic relapse when I was seven or eight and decided I should attend Sunday school to atone for her Commandment breaking.”

  “A gypsy and a catholic, the Family will never approve of you.”

  “We burn your sort at the stake, so they have every reason to be afraid.”

  “Point taken. Anyway, from Egypt the art migrates to Persia and from there to the far east and through Europe to us.”

  “What about the Grenville family? What is so special about you?”

  “Oh, not so much. Just the usual with our sort - we are very old. We have had some famous magicians in our time. When practitioners talk of the Grenvilles they are invariably thinking of the three Richards.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Richard Grenville, Richard Grenville and Richard de Grenville.”

  “Oh, start with Richard Grenville, please.”

  “Well, there was skellum Grenville, who tried to create an independent nation of Cornwall while fighting Cromwell. He had a series of infamous magical duels against Fairfax, which he sadly lost.”

  “Sounds a winner. Promising start, Henry.”

  “Then there is Richard Grenville the Captain of the Revenge.”

  “That’s a bit better.”

  “Who was a Privateer.”

  “A loser and a Pirate? My my Henry, your family is so glamorous.”

  “He was a cousin to both Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh, so at least he knew the important pirates. He died in the battle of Flores fighting off the Spanish.”

  “You say that like it should mean something to me.”

  “It’s quite famous. Richard got caught by the Spanish and rather than retreat with the Admiral my ancestor decided that it would be a good idea to face fifty three enemy ships alone in The Revenge.”

  “Now we are talking Henry.”

  “They held off the Spanish for twelve hours and damaged over a dozen ships. Eventually they were forced to surrender, even though Richard refused. ‘Sink me the ship, Master Gunner—sink her, split her in twain! Fall into the hands of God, not into the hands of Spain!’”

  “Did he really say that?”

  “That was Tennyson; I’d imagine Richard swore more. Anyway, the delay allowed the other half of Richard’s Aegis to finish his weather ritual and the Spanish got caught up in a cyclone.”

  “I’m actually a little impressed,” Heather conceded. “Who is the last Richard?”

  “Ah, the most important of our ancestors. We were a bit of a miserable failure before him. The Family had tried to invade England from our Nordic home and been repulsed by Alfred and his powerful Druid coterie. In the true Grenville spirit we kept trying. The next time we came with William to try and unseat Harold. Now, it is easy to forget it these days but Harold was an almost unmatched military commander. He fought two battles in twenty days against two of the most powerful armies in Europe and only lost because my ancestor Richard magically guided an arrow into his eye.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “That’s the tale. We pop up every now and then, but that is the most significant act done by a Grenville.”

  “Well. Not too shabby. My family’s highpoint is in all probability right now.”

  #

  “Henry,” Heather asked at one point on the Sunday afternoon, “what should I do, magically speaking, if…” she hesitated, “if someone attacked me?”

  Henry was flicking through a Grimoire with vigour, trying to find a particular control spell and so missed the hurt and anxiety on her face. “Hmm? Self defence? Oh you are not at that level yet. With your power I’d avoid it, frankly, you’ll destroy half the county,” he said absentmindedly. When he looked up, he could tell she wasn’t convinced. He sighed, “A woman convinced against her will is of the same opinion still.” He got to his feet, ignoring her stuck out tongue. “Come on, follow me. There is at least one spell you should know in an emergency, I suppose.”

  He led her deep into the estate’s deer grounds, near to a moss covered ranger cottage whose roof had fallen in by the gentle persuasion of the seasons. The winter sun and stillness of the tranquil lake made Henry feel as if they had stepped into one of the long landscapes his father had so admired and which still hung in the drawing room. “This,” Henry began as he planted his walking stick into the mud and launched into the intricate rotation of finger and thumb, “when used with the first part of Elymas third movement, which I hope you remember, creates Elymas’ Repel,” he said, releasing his hand towards a nearby pine which cracked and quivered under the invisible force. Heather gave him an ironic little golf clap and he responded with a circus-master’s bow. “And now you can defeat the host of Mordor like a true heroine. Have you got it?” he asked, shuffling out of the way.

  She nodded and glanced at the forest around her. “Do I have to do try this spell in a dank, gloomy forest, or can I do try in more dramatic environs, which are better suited to my heroine status? Your warm study perhaps? The Alchemy tower at sun-set? Or maybe the top of the Tor on a stormy night.”

  “Good god, don’t try this near the Tor,” he replied as she tried to work the gesture.

  She looked up. “What’s wrong with the Tor?”

  “That strange hill? Plenty. Let’s just say that with your natural power and… developing control, performing spells like this near it would be like…” Henry struggled for a comparison then changed track. “Think of doing magic as juggling lit firecrackers,” he began.

  “Charming, I wish you had told me this earlier.”

  “…which can be perfectly safe,” Henry continued, talking over her, “so long as you time when they are going to go off.”

  “I’m not sure there is any way you can call juggling firecrackers safe, Henry.”

  He bulled on regardless. “But when you are near the Tor, you are juggling next a pile of Nitroglycerine. Heather made a face of surprise.

  “Nitroglycerine, really? I think you’ve been watching too many American movies. What is so special about it?”

  “Oh, plenty. It’s at the heart of several Ley lines. Lots of mystical mumbo-jumbo. They try to say that Arthur is buried there and that Joseph of Aramathea visited the place - you live in the town, you’ve heard it all.”

  “Tourist trap stuff.”

  “Exactly. Well, probably. My old Order used to believe that there is a chance Merlin may have imprisoned Gwyn ap Nudd in the Tor with his faerie horde.”

  “Ah yes, the colourful Darkwells’ parade. I thought there was something familiar about you and magic.”

  “Are you going to wound me with your hurtful barbs all afternoon or are you going to cast this spell?”

  Heather winked at him and with a dramatic flourish let the spell go as if she were Spiderman casting a web. She tore up a half dozen pines which were flung out into the lake in an eruption of dirt and rock. Heather stood open-mouthed.

  “And that’s why we came to the forest,” Henry said as he limped up to her. “Bit like a hand-grenade in the hands of an infant, isn’t it?”

  She nodded sadly. “I suppose you’re right,” she conceded, “It’s just that… sometimes I feel less than safe.”

  #

  As they walked back to the house an idea struck him. He led her into the long drawing room and he scrambled about in a set of drawers. After a while he came back with a beautiful and engraved jade bracelet, flawless and smooth. “This belonged to my mother. I want you to have it. It is a single destination portal. Brings you straight here - we
ll, into the Grimoire library to be precise - but it should be useful if you are in an emergency. I can think of no safer place. Just touch the ends together and think of the lake.”

  He slid the bracelet onto her arm and he felt chills at how right it looked there against her pale skin. “Thank you Henry,” she breathed her eyes welling up.

  “Oh, it’s nothing.”

  Chapter Fourteen: Guardian

  Teaching Heather coincided with Henry developing the magical equivalent of paranoia. He had pushed it too much in the last few months, he realised, and was now convinced that Killynghall, the Order, or even his dead mother’s ghost was bound to appear to lambast him about the sheer number of basic rules he had flouted. He skulked around Darkwells in constant fear of seeing the icy eyes of Killynghall peering at him from around a corner or from behind a veiled enchantment.

  He avoided people and stayed in his room, so much so that even Fawad started asking him where he had been hiding himself. Alex told him that a rumour had spread that he was addicted to opium and allergic to sunlight.

  “Are they suggesting that the opium makes me allergic to sunlight or that the allergy to sunlight has turned me to the opium?” he asked when Alex managed to catch him in the canteen.

  Alex shrugged. “Which do you prefer?”

  “The former; if it’s good enough for Coleridge it’s good enough for me.”

  #

  It was during a rare moment, when Fawad was talkative about his past, where he realised the wrongness in the air that he had been feeling for weeks had grown worse. Fawad was telling him about his sister, who was very much in love with an English boy, to the dismay of his father.

  “Stupid, innit? That it should tear up a family in this day and age.”

  “Something’s don’t change.”

  “Feels like something out of Shakespeare man. I dunno. I keep telling the old man, we are Brits now. We don’t need to think like them back home.”

  “He’ll come around,” Henry said, distracted. Something foul was close by. Something malevolent and strong. He was sure of it in his bones. It didn’t allow him to concentrate. He kept imagining that he had felt the little pin-pricks of spells around basic wards he had set up around the perimeters of the school.

  A couple of nights later, annoyed and tired of it all, he decided to investigate, Killynghall or no. One of his wards had been tripped by the Cricket Pavilion and it was time to check on it. Henry crept out of Princes with a simple muffle spell and set out across the soft grass under star light. The horses were restless and noisy in the stables and the sound of them made him feel edgy and he wondered if what he was doing was unwise. What do I have to be afraid of? I am a magician for god-sake, he told himself ignoring his leg, ignoring his mother. The dark silhouette of the pavilion appeared ahead of him and Henry stopped to listen. There was nothing but the normal sounds of the empty night. He waited for a few minutes for an intruder, ready to blast at them with his dazzling offensive spells but nothing revealed itself and he began to feel as foolish as he was cold. On a whim he decided to cast Trithemius’ disenchantment and he fell to the floor on his backside.

  In front of him, no more than twenty strides away, was Killynghall duelling with a tall magician wearing a bright white porcelain mask. They were trading spells in a rapid fire exchange too fast for Henry to follow. It was more like a gun fight than any magical encounter Henry had ever imagined.

  He crawled back trying to get clear. Killynghall cast Blackwood’s Tree Prison and coiled Oak roots burst from the ground and enveloped the masked magician, pulling him down and into the earth. He was not held for long but responded by casting Borrichius’ Flame skin and burst out of the writhing roots like a comet.

  “You’ll never get to the tomb Feyling, begone from here,” Killynghall commanded.

  “Your time passes, Keeper,” the faceless mask responded in a sonorous, deep voice, “She will have her way.” The two magicians circled each other.

  Henry, being Henry, decided to do something rather rash. As soon as the masked man had his back to him he cast Southeil’s Birdflight. A whirlwind of starlings exploded out of Henry’s outstretched hand and flooded around the masked magician in a pecking, swooping mass.

  The masked man was startled and struck out at Henry in retaliation with terrible speed. Killynghall dispelled the strike moments before it sunk home and Henry rolled clumsily into the wet grass.

  The masked magician roared and a tornado of shattered glass enveloped him, shredding Henry’s starlets in a second. The whirlwind also seemed to consume the magician as when Killynghall blasted it there was nothing left inside but sharp daggers of glass. He looked unsurprised. He walked over to Henry and helped up him back to his feet. “Lord Grenville,” he said in his usual, unwavering voice, “please exercise more discretion in the future. You were very nearly killed and the Feyling has escaped.”

  “Mr Killynghall… who was he? What did he want?”

  “Return to your house, Lord Grenville, while I remain well disposed towards you. Oh, and no more enchantments on Princes please. They are so loud and clumsy they give me migraines.”

  #

  In the days that passed the incident at the cricket pitches occupied much of Henry’s mind. Even Heather found herself frustrated at his distraction and eventually stalked off to let him resolve whatever it was that was bothering him. He wandered around Darkwells for hours on end, puzzling over the incident and cursing his stupidity for missing out on the Order’s commune. Was this a war? A magical war? Who was the woman the masked man talked about? What had they been casting at each other? More shocking than the thwarted attack itself was the brutal revelation of Henry’s vast ignorance. Most of what the combatants had used was beyond him or unknown to him. How could he pretend to be a teacher when he knew so little? The thought spurred him into a fit of magical research and his primary study was Darkwells itself. He was convinced that there was power here. Power and knowledge.

  It was on one of these rambles thorough the inner grounds that he ended up in an unfamiliar section of the Old Hall. He was tracing what seemed to be Aramaic symbols that were watermarked into the ancient wood when he stumbled into a wide hall that he had a vague recollection of from his induction as the old assembly hall, which had now been converted into an all purpose fencing and judo dojo. He only realised that he was not alone when the doors closed behind him. He turned to see Max Bolton sauntering up to him with a smile on his face.

  “Well, well, if it isn’t my favourite Earl.”

  “Max,” Henry said, furiously suppressing the urge to launch spells at him. Killynghall would destroy him, he was certain, if he attacked another pupil, whatever the circumstances.

  “Are you interested in Judo, Grenville?” Max asked as he approached. “Want to learn how to throw,” he said as he closed the distance in a sprint and launched Henry through the air across the room to land in a heap. “Whoo! Not bad! Let’s see if you can do better next time. Or… Or maybe you want to take up boxing?” Max asked as he shadow boxed his way to Henry who was just picking himself up off the ground.

  “Max, please,” Henry pleaded as Max feinted with a jab and then struck him in the guts. Pain blossomed in Henry’s mind and he crumpled over. He only stayed on his feet because Max held him up.

  “Now for the face, Lordy G. Remember, you lost your stick and fell, right?” Max drew back his huge meaty fist and Henry cringed back in anticipation of pain. The blow never came. Henry opened his eyes and saw that his Warden had hold of Max’s arm and was twisting it around.

  “Stop,” the strange boy commanded.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Max asked shaking his hand free.

  “I’m Manu.”

  Max struck at him then with a flurry of punches. Manu just glided to one side, seized one of Max’s wrists while he was unbalanced and flung him across the room where Max tripped over his feet and fell over. The boy called Manu walked after him. Max sprung up in a fury and launched himsel
f at Manu in a rugby tackle which Manu sidestepped again, resulting in Max sprawling face first into the mat. Manu launched into action then, leaping on the prone bully and wrapping one of his muscled arms around his throat and pinning Max’s elbow into the small of his back. “This is not a way to behave,” Manu hissed to Max’s struggling form, “this is not how the English should be.” The Warden took a tired breath and said to Henry, “you better go. My father told me that bullies lack courage. This one will soon find his friends and then feel braver.”

  Max, pinned as he was, still raged. “You’re in Dukes, aren’t you? I know you. You live in my house boy! You will regret this. I’ll destroy you.”

  Henry limped over to where Manu kneeled on the bigger boy’s back and put out his hand. “I’m Henry Grenville and I’ve been looking for you for a long time,” he said.

  The Warden looked up at him and smiled, which seemed to transform his face. It was a face for smiling, Henry realised. “You look like a boy I dreamed of once,” Manu said extending his hand. “I am Manu Wardgrave.”

  Chapter Fifteen: Mistakes

  Darkwells disappointed him. It was a concept that Manu had struggled to arrive to, after a long bout of introspection and self doubt. For a long time, he had been sure that it was he who was disappointing to Darkwells. How else could it have been? He was a half-savage nobody from the edge of civilisation and he had been transported to the very cradle of culture and knowledge. It was these very walls that nurtured some of the towering intellects and bravest souls who forged light out of darkness, who beat back at the emptiness of continents and savagery and so set the foundation stones of history and the world as it was. So Manu had believed in those first few weeks.

  It had all been so new and confusing. He had felt stupid and unmannered. He had felt a pauper in his just good enough clothes and was forever either freezing when he was outside or sweating when he was inside. His Housemaster, Mr Killynghall, was cold and aloof and gave him an extra hour of prep for breaking a rule he was not even aware of on his first day. Manu tried not to believe it at first, but he felt, more and more, that Killynghall had singled him out in some way that wasn’t entirely fair.