by Garth Nix
Mr Carver glanced at Kyle.
‘No more monsters, please. I think we’ve had enough of them for two lifetimes.’
‘What is it?’ whispered Jack to Jaide as the noise levels of the classroom returned to their usual high pitch. ‘What have you found?’
Jaide glanced at Tara. She was getting up to talk to Mr Carver and the troubletwisters were free to converse in private.
‘This paper,’ she whispered, tapping the sheet she had stolen from the Compendium, ‘is all about what happens when wards are suddenly restored. “Decerebration” means to cut off something’s head, and that’s what happens to The Evil – or some of it at least. Most of it’s pushed back out of the world, back wherever it came from, but some of it is cut off – like the tip of a finger caught in a door.’
‘Or bitten by the Oracular Crocodile,’ Jack muttered.
‘Exactly. But a bit of The Evil isn’t like a bit of us. The Evil is evil all the way through, and it can still control things. So if a bit of it was cut off when we fixed the East Ward –’
‘It could still be here!’ said Jack, gripping the edge of the table. ‘It could be in Tara’s dad, or it could be the monster . . .’
‘Professor Chiruta says that these leftover bits of The Evil – he calls them excisions – are usually very small and weak, so it’s probably in something tiny and unnoticed.’
‘It could be a rat, which would explain why it’s targeting the cats. They’re natural enemies.’
‘That’s true. But what do we do about it?’
‘You mean you haven’t worked that out yet?’
Despite this friendly sneer, Jack was mightily impressed with Jaide for deciphering the article. He doubted even Grandma X had ever heard of these excision things. When she found out, maybe then she would believe them. ‘Straight after school, we’ll –’
‘You two are whispering again,’ said Tara, plonking herself down between them. ‘It’s very irritating. Anyone would think you didn’t want me around.’
Jaide sympathised. She and Jack had also been picked on by the locals in their first few days, and would dearly have loved a friend. It wasn’t Tara’s fault her timing was terrible, or that her father was probably in league with The Evil.
The excision in Portland didn’t have to be controlling Martin McAndrew to get its work done. All it had to do was offer him something he wanted badly enough, for which he might betray Grandma X – something like her house, for example . . .
Tara put a thick envelope down on the table between them.
‘Are they the pictures of Rennie?’ Jaide asked, knowing she had to make the effort.
‘Mr Carver said I could have them.’
‘What are you going to do with them?’
‘I don’t know, but we can’t just throw them out. Someone will want them.’
‘If her parents died in Portland,’ Jack said, ‘they might be in the graveyard.’
‘Good thinking, Jack. I’ll look into that.’ Tara stuffed the pictures into her bag and then turned brightly back to the table. ‘So, what are we going to draw now? Miralda and Kyle as a two-headed ogre?’
‘With a bad attitude,’ added Jack with a grin.
‘How do I draw that?’
‘Like sad,’ said Jaide, ‘but meaner.’
CHAPTER TEN
Heart of Darkness
Once again, Jack and Jaide were out of the door the second the farewell tune finished, but this time they paused just long enough to say goodbye to Tara.
‘See you on Monday!’ she called after them as they rode away, and that startled both of them. The troubletwisters had been so wrapped up in their research that they had forgotten it was Friday.
They waved back, then put their heads down and pedalled as hard as they could.
At the house, they found the blinds up again, the front door unlocked and no creepy sensations of being watched from the house next door.
‘Grandma? Grandma?’
There was no answer.
‘She’s done it again,’ said Jaide, putting her hands on her hips and glaring at Jack as though it was entirely his fault.
Jack was shocked by how much Jaide looked like their mother when she was mad. ‘Maybe she left a note.’
‘Not a note exactly,’ said a voice from the stairs.
It was Ari, padding lightly down from the first floor to join them in the hallway.
‘Where is she?’ asked Jaide.
‘Busy. She asked Kleo and me to look after you.’
‘Kleo’s here?’ Jack craned to look up the stairwell.
‘I am.’
The voice came from the kitchen, where Kleo was sitting on the table, looking regal.
The twins rushed to her. The cat narrowed her eyes and looked away.
‘Kleo, we’re sorry. We didn’t mean to interfere.’
‘If there’s anything we can do to make it up to you . . .’
Kleo sniffed, rejecting all forms of apology. ‘Your grandmother asked me to remind you to do your exercises. She promised me that she would be back as soon as she can.’
Jaide’s hopes fell. There was no mistaking the cat’s frosty tone.
‘All right, but please . . . can you help us with something?’ Jaide asked. ‘We think there’s a piece of The Evil left in Portland, an excision, and it’s behind the poisonings –’
‘Or the monster,’ added Jack.
‘Or both!’
Kleo deigned to look at them.
‘Exercises first, talk later.’
‘But Kleo!’
‘Exercises first,’ said Kleo, very coolly. ‘Talk later. If at all.’
‘Yes, but what’s Grandma X doing and why won’t she tell us exactly what’s going on?’
‘That’s her business, and her business it will remain.’
Jaide bit her tongue and tried her best to swallow the urge to argue. Kleo was wrong, but it was clear she wasn’t going to change her mind. They would have to wait until Grandma X came home, and hope it wouldn’t be too late to convince her then.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘We’ll do our exercises. In the Blue Room as usual?’
‘That is correct.’
Kleo hopped down from the table and loped out of the kitchen. The twins followed her, and Ari followed them. They made a tense, silent progression up the stairs to the house’s second floor, passing through the secret door to the basement and closing the elephant tapestry behind them.
The Blue Room looked much the same as it had the previous night, apart from a pile of herbs and multicoloured powders in the centre of the desk. Jack eyed them curiously, wondering if they would be part of their training, but Kleo didn’t mention them once.
‘Your grandmother wants you to practise the skills you have already been using,’ Kleo said, taking up position on the back of a princely leather chair that looked as though it had been made from the skin of a dinosaur. ‘Jaide, you will concentrate on keeping this candle burning while Jack does his best to put it out.’
In the centre of the room was a small circular table on which stood an elaborate, wax-covered candelabra, containing one single yellow candle. Beside it was a box of matches.
‘That’s all?’ asked Jaide.
‘That’s all,’ Kleo said, meeting her gaze with feline immovability.
‘I think,’ said Ari, curling up on a gold-threaded cushion and closing one eye, ‘doing only that is the point, troubletwisters.’
‘All right,’ said Jack, resigning himself to doing nothing new or interesting that afternoon. He lit the candle with a match. It burned with a clear, yellow light. Above him, the chandeliers went out, and strange shadows stretched across the crowded, antique-filled room. Kleo’s eyes shone back at him like glass coins.
‘Begin,’ she said.
Jack pursed his lips and blew the candle out.
‘Not like that,’ Kleo said in a weary tone. ‘Using your Gift.’
‘But why use my Gift when doing it the ordi
nary way is easier?’
‘Because this is an exercise for your Gift.’
A match flared. Jaide had found the box by touch in the darkness. ‘Let’s not mess around. Let’s just get on with it.’
‘But I wasn’t messing around! It really does seem that Wardens do things the hard way for no good reason. I mean, why did Dad send us that postcard when he could have just called us? Why fight The Evil with magic when a machine gun might work better?’
‘What if The Evil took over the machine gun and turned it against you?’ Kleo said. ‘What if your father’s voice on the telephone line woke your Gifts unexpectedly? Do not be so glib when it comes to the wisdom of your grandmother. She nearly always knows better than anyone.’
‘Just nearly?’ asked Jaide.
Kleo’s cold, blue eyes said it as clearly as words: She invited you here, didn’t she?
‘Try again,’ the cat instructed, ‘using only your Gifts.’
Jack sighed and did his best to draw the shadows in around the bright flame, making it gutter and fade.
Then Jaide blew it with a gentle but recuperating breeze, bringing it back to its former strength.
‘Good,’ said Kleo. ‘Try harder.’
Jaide got in first, this time. A rush of oxygen sent the flame shooting towards the ceiling in a thin, wavering line.
Jack gathered his concentration and wrapped the flame in ribbons of darkness, drawing it back down. He could feel his sister fighting him, and he only managed to outdo her with a mighty effort.
‘Better. Try harder still.’
Jack gritted his teeth and poured an avalanche of shadow on to the feeble flame. If he could blow it out with a single breath, he told himself, why couldn’t he do the same with his Gift?
The flame shrank down to a single glowing point, as faint as a distant star, and it looked for a second that he might have put it out.
Jaide refused to let her brother beat her. Calling on all the energy inside her, all the energy of the sun that fuelled her Gift, she held the spark on the brink of going out, then both swelled it and brightened it. This new flame didn’t burn as it had before. It was circular and white, and shrank and grew in time with the beating of her heart.
‘This is a duel – a competition,’ Kleo informed them. ‘The winner will save the other from The Evil one day.’
Jack didn’t really hear what she was saying. He just heard the word competition and found a reserve of strength he hadn’t known was there.
Flame and darkness warred in a vivid column, spiralling ribbons rippling up and down its side, like a barber’s pole but in black and white. Shadows danced wildly as light flashed and darkness crashed back in. The twins each glared at the candelabra and willed with all their might.
Ari uncurled and crouched on all fours on the cushion, with his head down low and ears twitching.
I’m going to win, Jack thought as he pressed the flame back down to a tiny flicker. Jaide felt her brother’s confidence and renewed her determination to keep the flame alive at all costs. The flame roared up to fill the room, driving every last shadow into retreat.
Jaide whooped in triumph, her face glowing in the brilliance.
‘Enough,’ said Kleo. ‘Jaide is the victor. Well done.’
‘She only beat me because I was distracted,’ said Jack disappointedly as the candle flame returned to normal.
‘Regardless, she won. There will be many distractions next time you come face to face with The Evil. It will show you no forgiveness.’ The tips of her sharp teeth showed. ‘Again.’
Ari look sharply at her. ‘Kleo, perhaps this is a little too fast. Grandma X did say –’
Kleo looked at him, and Ari fell silent.
‘Again,’ she repeated. ‘This time with two candles.’
Jaide found a box under the table and lit a new candle with the flame of the first. She stuck it firmly in the candelabra and stepped back.
‘Winner goes first?’ she said to Jack.
‘Not likely.’
While she had been busy with the second candle, he had been working out a different strategy. Instead of trying to smother the flames with darkness, his new plan was to snuff them out from the inside. Unnoticed by Jaide, he had moved slightly to his right so that the tip of his toe overlapped the flickering shadow of the table cast by the candles. The moment the contest began, he sent himself down into the shadow and from there moved up the table legs, under the candelabra and to the base of the first candle. From there it was much harder because the shadows cast by both flames were so unreliable, particularly with Jaide whipping them up into a frenzy, but with one wild leap he made it to where he wanted to be.
At the heart of every flame was a patch of darkness. Jack had often stared into gas flames and birthday candles and seen it for himself. It looked as though the brightness of the flame was floating in thin air, created out of nothing. He knew there was some kind of scientific explanation for why that should be the case, but it looked magical to him regardless.
And now he was inside that dark heart, and he could speak to it as he spoke to ordinary shadows. He found it was much easier to smother a flame from within than to overwhelm it from without.
Jaide gasped as one of her twin towers of light suddenly went out. It felt as though he had reached inside her and ripped something out. The shock of it almost physically hurt her, even though it was the flame Jack had attacked, not her. She didn’t know exactly what he had done, but she turned her Gift to strengthening the second flame before he could do it again.
Jack felt her fighting back. It was hard getting into the second flame’s heart because she was swirling it around like a corkscrew, keeping the shadows moving. Short of setting the actual candle wax on fire, however, there was no way she could stop him forever. He saw an opening and took it, and once there, he reached out to do exactly what he had done before.
‘No!’ Jaide cried, sensing victory about to be snatched from her. The remaining candle flame feathered and branched into thousands of numerous flames, fuelled by dozens of tiny twisters, each with a life of its own.
Jack became confused by all the dark hearts forming around him. He couldn’t kill them all at once – and to make matters worse, it was getting hard to tell light from dark in the first place. He could feel the flame wrapping him up and drawing him out of the shadow, into itself. He fought that feeling, not knowing what would happen if he gave in to it.
‘Jack?’ said Jaide, feeling that she too was losing control of the duel. Long, thin shadows were reaching out from the candle’s wick. It looked as though a flame made of darkness was eating into the ordinary fire and threatening to devour it.
She tried to tell her Gift to stop, but it was as caught up in the duel as she had been and didn’t want to let go.
The shadow-flame grew higher and wider until it licked at the ceiling of the Blue Room.
‘Stop,’ commanded Kleo.
Both Jaide and Jack were too embroiled in the duel to hear.
‘Stop, I said – I am trying to listen to something !’
The oddness of her comment – why wasn’t she worried about them burning down the house? – was what caught the twins’ attention. Jack snapped instantly back into his body, staggering a little. Jaide pressed a hand to her aching forehead as the allure of the dark flame ebbed. It was a relief to let it go, even though that meant neither of them won.
Blinking, they turned to look at Kleo.
She was poised oddly, with three legs on the back of the chair and the fourth crooked as though about to knock on an invisible door. Her head was cocked.
‘I hear them,’ she said. ‘I must go to them.’
‘But your oath!’ Ari protested, hopping from perch to perch until he stood next to her, looking worried. ‘She’ll be angry.’
‘I am a Warden Companion,’ she snapped at him, ‘not a babysitter. You stay with them.’
Kleo broke her pose and ran for the exit from the Blue Room. Ari followed her, w
ith the twins doing their best to keep up.
Jack reached the front door first, but by then Kleo was long gone. There was just Ari pacing back and forth, peering out into the town with his tail whipping like a snake. It was surprisingly dark; more time had passed in the Blue Room than Jack had guessed.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked the cat.
‘Can’t you hear it?’ Ari said. ‘Her people are fighting.’
Jack couldn’t hear anything over Jaide’s belated arrival.
‘If that’s the case, then of course Kleo should go and help them,’ Jaide said. ‘And we should help her!’
‘It doesn’t work like that,’ said Ari, with heartfelt weariness.
‘Then what should we do?’ asked Jack.
‘Return to your exercises. That’s what she and your grandmother would want.’
It was Jaide’s turn to pace. ‘This is ridiculous. What’s the point of having a Gift if we can’t use it?’
‘Using it wisely,’ said Ari, ‘that’s the trick of it . . .’
‘So people keep saying, but who’s going to teach us to be wise? You?’
Ari’s tail drooped disconsolately, and that took some of the wind out of Jaide’s sails.
‘Sorry, Ari,’ she said, crouching down to give him a tight hug. ‘Please don’t hate me too. I’m just frustrated.’
‘We’re all frustrated,’ said Ari, muffled by her shoulder, ‘and caught in the middle, and suffocating –’
‘Oh, sorry.’ Jaide let him go, and he shook himself all over to unflatten his fur.
‘Why don’t we ask the Oracular Crocodile what to do?’ Jack suggested.
Jaide’s bitten fingertip gave an involuntary twitch. ‘I don’t think so. Not after last time.’
‘We won’t need to give it any more blood. Let’s try.’
Before she could argue, he was off, trailing Ari like a shadow. When Jaide caught up with them, they had the animated crocodile skull in front of them, and were deep in argument with it.
‘But you owe us,’ Jack was saying.
‘Num-num-num.’
‘You took more than your fair share last time, and you won’t get anything ever again until you come good on it. Tell us how to find the excision!’