‘Skrraaaak. Err, boss? Boss. Axey thing, heading our way, fast. Might be best to-’
Razor hid his eyes under his wings and held his breath, then shuddered when he heard a hard thud, rather than the dull whumpf of axe hitting flesh. He peeked.
The axe had taken a last-second detour. It was embedded in the wall, having split the portrait of Subracken, right along the line of his stern, disapproving mouth.
Skoros sighed in satisfaction. ‘Now, to the workshop. I need more orbs if I’m to subdue Sagar.’
‘Skraaak. Err, really? Thought you were all fired up. Y’know, destiny and all that? Might be wise to find the book, maybe? In case, y’know, someone else has a destiny too?’
Skoros considered, then gave a tiny head-shake. ‘The book is waiting. Waiting for me. You heard what the old fool said—it has hidden itself from mages for thousands of years. It knows I am coming for it. No, first I need more orbs. Then we silence Sagar. And then tonight...’ He gave the kind of smile usually smiled by people whose idea of fun is to put frogs on a griddle and watch them pop. ‘Tonight, we deal with that meddling witch.’
__________
‘Easy, child,’ Alditha said as Celeste sobbed and held her tight.
‘’m’notachil’,’ sobbed the alien girl who looked like a child.
‘Nono,’ said Alditha, ‘course you’re not.’ She didn’t take her eyes off the image of Stone Hedge. Something about what she’d seen bothered her. Something beyond the death of the Gardener, but she couldn’t work out what it was. It was like having a raspberry seed stuck in your gums. It would come when it was ready, not before.
She held Celeste, soothed her, then, as Celeste’s sobs softened to snot and sniffing, she reached out to what she’d always thought of as her Tarot Wheel, flicked her wrist, and found the tiny seedling that generated the images. It vibrated, buzzing softly between her fingers.
‘Wheel of all that’s seen and known,
Teller of what seeds are sown,
Blessed are we by what you’ve shown.
Rest now while new life is grown.’
Slowly, quietly, the world disappeared around them, until just the network of white roots and green shoots remained. Then, returning and condensing, they, too, became just a single fading point of golden light in the twig spinning top.
‘I knew someone had probably died—it’s just that knowing it and feeling it are different things,’ said Celeste in a small voice, clearing her throat. ‘Though I guess I should be relieved it wasn’t all of them.’
Alditha nodded, and Celeste finally let her go. She straightened her uniform and watched as the last dim light faded from Alditha’s magic spinning top. Suddenly, it stopped turning and glided to the floor.
‘At least I know the Sleepers are actually just sleeping. They made it in time. Now all I need to do is find where they are.’
‘Oh, I know that,’ muttered Alditha, picking up the crudely-built circle of twigs.
‘Really? Is it far? Could you take me there?’
‘Could. Will. But not yet. You and I need to have a conversation. Preferably one I can understand.’
‘But, I need to-’
‘Stone Hedge has been there a long time. It’ll still be there in the morning. Come back to the cottage. I need to know what I’m dealing with here.’
‘Yes, but-’
‘There’ll be more bread and jam.’
Celeste closed her mouth. She shrugged. ‘All right. What is it you need to know?’
__________
Skoros smiled.
He hadn’t thought it could be this easy, but when you have several broken orbs, and one that works, it turned out you could get the working one to repair the first broken one, then the two working ones could repair two more, and so on.
If only I could get a blueprint, he thought, I could fill the world with orbs.
As it was, six would have to do. It would be enough.
‘Let’s go dragon-hunting,’ he commanded, and the orbs filed out in mid-air, followed by their master and his reluctant bird.
__________
Celeste was eating again. Alditha had set her kitchen into a repeating pattern of bread buttering and jam-spreading, and for the moment, was happy to feed the girl until she didn’t want any more. Her hair was flowing with colour and sticking up again.
‘So, you Astarians were looking for a new planet, 6.8 thousand years ago?’ asked the witch.
Celeste nodded, licking a little jam off the corner of her lip.
‘Still looking for one now, are you?’
Celeste frowned, and Alditha was struck again by her eyes. Their violet colour was arresting enough, but they were also mature, wise eyes, set in a young and childlike face.
‘Yes,’ said Celeste. ‘And no. ’s’difficult to explain in terms you’d understand.’
‘Try,’ Alditha insisted.
‘Well, we don’t have a home, as such. Not anymore. The fleet pretty much is home. So yes, there are people who want to find a planet again—the oldies, you know? But I’m not sure most of us would know what to do with a planet if we had one. Feels a bit...small?’
‘Small?’
Celeste swallowed a lump of chewed jammy bread. ‘Well, imagine all you’d ever known was this cottage. Imagine you were born here, raised here, that you spent every day here, and didn’t know there was anything outside. You’d be content with that, because it would be all you knew. But then imagine one day, someone came and opened your front door, and encouraged you to go out and see the rest of the Garden. You’d be wary at first, but then you’d go and you’d see everything, wouldn’t you?’
Alditha considered it, sniffed. ‘Maybe,’ she allowed, not entirely sure the girl wasn’t insulting her cottage.
‘Then imagine whoever it was that had opened the door came back and pushed you back inside, and told you, you could never go outside again. You were happy indoors before, but now all you’d want would be to go outside, because you’d know it was there.’
‘Mmm,’ said the witch.
‘Cottage, planet,’ said Celeste, ‘same thing. As I say, I think the oldies still want to feel a planet beneath their feet though.’
‘The oldies? How old are your oldies?’
‘Old,’ said Celeste.
‘Well, how old are you?’
‘Not old,’ said Celeste.
Alditha knitted her eyebrows together in frustration, and Celeste giggled.
‘It’s a meaningless question. If you don’t mind my saying so, it’s the sort of question only someone with a planet’s interested in. How “old” you are depends on how many times your planet goes round your sun. If you don’t have a planet and you don’t have a sun, you stop counting pretty quickly.’
‘Humph,’ said Alditha. ‘So if you’re not still looking for a planet, what are you doing here?’
‘Told you, looking for the Sleepers. Or are you in the habit of putting your ancestors in the ground and just leaving them there for thousands of years.’
‘Well, yes,’ said Alditha. ‘Sort of. Usually, we make sure they’re dead first though.’
Celeste blinked. ‘And if they’re not?’
‘Then we dig ’em up and say sorry. A lot.’
‘Quite. I’m part of the dig ’em up and say sorry a lot expedition. Sort of. Actually, I’m part of the dig ’em up and take ’em home to the fleet expedition, so that someone else can do the sorry-saying.’
‘Hmm,’ said Alditha again. ‘So what about your orbs?’
‘Very odd behavior. They were supposed to do scans beneath the surface of the planet. Easier and faster to get the orbs to do that, because they have a lot of capabilities, and they get about quite fast.’
‘Yes,’ said Alditha. ‘I noticed that.’
‘Well, they found something, but not what I was hoping for. They found more orbs.’
‘Original orbs, I’m guessing, from the Sleepers’ expedition?’
‘Must be,’ agreed
Celeste, taking a bite of a new slice of bread and jam that had slid onto the table in front of her. ‘What I don’t understand,’ she said, chewing, her hair dancing, ‘is why they then disobeyed the recall signal.’ She swallowed. ‘Rather unnerving, really.’
Alditha sighed, disgruntled. She’d loved the potential of the orb she’d seen, but she hated the thought of several of them flying about the Garden, disobeying orders. Or obeying someone else’s orders. She shivered as uncomfortable thoughts dribbled down her spine. ‘Do they have weapons, these orbs of yours? No wait, never mind, I know they can break enchantments, that’s more of a weapon than most people round these parts will have seen in their lives.’
‘Living in a sigma field like this, you’re probably right,’ muttered Celeste.
‘Here we go again.’ Alditha laughed, shaking her head.
‘Sigma,’ said Celeste. ‘Sigma energy—what you call “magic,”’ she explained, with a faint smile on her lips.
‘I call it magic because it is magic,’ Alditha chuckled. ‘If you call it something else, that’s your affair, right?’
‘All right,’ agreed Celeste, clearly barely suppressing a giggle.
Alditha fumed quietly. Infuriating girl. Coming here with her orbs and her dimension drives and her damned Sleepers, turning everything on its head. Maybe Harper’s been right, and they should have chased the teacup off the minute it had arrived.
She sighed. Even as the thought occurred to her, calmer thoughts washed over it. The girl was here to do a job, to pick up her great, great, great, great uncles and aunts and suchlike and take them home. That was all. The chaos she brought into the tidy, understandable, magical world of the Garden wasn’t her fault, it was just like her shadow, following her everywhere she went.
That thought made Alditha frown again. Those things on the Sleepers’ ship—what were they called? Bio-mechs? Had they made it to the sleeping pods or whatever they were called?
‘Those bio-mechs—are they dangerous?’
Celeste giggled. ‘Would you like to meet one?’
‘That depends—are they dangerous?’
‘Mine’s going to try and scold me to death, if that’s what you mean.’ Celeste pressed the side of her headband and it lit up, glowing briefly and making a low musical noise. A second passed, then it chimed and jangled incessantly. ‘He’s been trying to get hold of me,’ she explained. ‘Really quite a lot,’ she added, frowning. ‘Alpha, come in.’
‘Danger. Danger. Danger,’ said Alpha. ‘Significant orb activity since comms link was deactivated. Orbs have acted with aggressive intent against indigenous life-forms.’
‘What? Alpha, set the scout ship in stealth mode then join me at this location.’
‘Acknowledged.’
The uncomfortable thoughts shivered down Alditha’s spine again. ‘Aggressive intent?’
‘They’ve attacked people.’ Celeste squealed. ‘They’re not supposed to attack people.’
‘I have a nasty feeling I know why they might have.’
‘Why?’
‘Could be wrong,’ said Alditha, standing up and reaching out for her broomstick, ‘but I reckon that Skoros is behind this. I bet he’s manipulated the orbs somehow.’
‘Skoros?’ Celeste frowned. ‘Skoros, Skoros, Sko- Oh. Rude man, shouts a lot, has a metal horse with not enough plating?’
‘Sounds like him, yes.’ Alditha walked around her kitchen with a purposeful stride, collecting a woven cloth bag and picking up bits and pieces to put into it.
‘But why would he do that?’
‘About those weapons the orbs carry...’ Alditha picked up a shiny red apple and dropped it into the bag.
‘They’re not even really weapons. Just tools to let the-’
‘They can be used as weapons though, yes?’
‘Well, I suppose so, but really, why?’
Alditha growled to herself as she examined a small blue globe of stars. ‘Do you not have power-hungry leaders where you come from?’
‘A few,’ snapped Celeste. ‘How many planets have you visited recently?’
‘Power is what Skoros wants. Always has been. He’s a bully. Now imagine a bully with orbs.’
‘That’s not a good thought.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Alpha will be here soon.’
‘That good, is it?’ Alditha grabbed a bunch of dull green herbs off a hook by the door.
‘Oh yes. He’ll be able to stop the orbs.’
‘You reckon?’ The witch sighed, opened a cupboard and picked up a bottle of the black goo she had distilled the day Harper had left her. She weighed it in her hand, then pushed it firmly into the bag and tied up the straps.
‘Absolutely. He’s linked into the main systems of the scout ship. He can act as a main control node.’
‘A what?’
‘A big off-switch.’
‘Right,’ said Alditha. ‘Then I think we’ve got just three things to worry about.’ She took off her hat quickly, slung the bag over her shoulder and replaced the hat firmly, as if daring Celeste to mention that it had ever been off her head.
‘What three things?’
Alditha huffed. ‘Firstly, Skoros is a clever bully. Secondly, Alpha’s coming here, and he’s linked into the systems of your ship, which I’m guessing is just full to the brim of oojamaflips and whatchamacallits, the likes of which a clever bully might quite like to get his greedy little hands on. And thirdly...’
‘Yes?’
‘Well,’ said Alditha, licking her bottom lip, ‘thirdly, you think he can act as an off-switch for orbs that didn’t obey your recall signal.’
Celeste’s almond-shaped eyed widened. ‘Oh.’
‘You don’t have to-,’ called Alditha, too late, as her front door disappeared again, the tall, spindly-legged, bulbous-headed figure of Alpha taking up the space. ‘Really,’ she said, ‘knocking’s not a big thing with you Astarians, is it? You do have doors, yes?’
Celeste didn’t answer her—she was lost in thought.
‘Well come in, bio-mech Alpha, and replace the bloomin’ door while you’re about it.’
‘How are you aware of my designation?’ demanded Alpha. ‘You are an indigenous primitive.’
‘And you’re not good at making friends, are you?’ snapped Alditha. ‘I can see why you sent Blondie in first. I’d advise you to keep a civil tongue in your big eggy head, because for your information, I know where your precious Sleepers are.’
‘You will share all information regarding the location of the Sleepers,’ said Alpha, moving forward smoothly, towering over the witch.
‘You will watch your step unless you want a clip round the ear, Mr. Alpha. Always assuming you have ears, that is.’
Alpha reached out and grabbed Alditha by the arms, lifting her up with no evidence of effort, so his big dark eyes could stare into her face. ‘I will initiate brain scan,’ he said.
‘Alpha, no,’ Celeste commanded.
‘You keep out of this, Missy,’ Alditha rasped, making eyes at the bio-mech. ‘Manners have to be learned, they can’t be enforced.’ Her voice had gone terribly, horribly quiet. ‘You do your worst, Mr. Alpha.’
Small red points of light flared in the wide dark eyes of the bio-mechanoid, sending thin red beams into Alditha’s eyes.
But Alditha didn’t put up barriers to her mind; Alpha knew how to break down or break through mental barriers to get at the truth. Instead, her mind welcomed him in, and then he found himself reading the recipe for plum pudding, for cough mixture, for the cure for Athlete’s Foot, found himself discovering the story of young Evangeline Beswick down in Fern Bottom, who was no better than she should be, and Old Mother Fenugreek and her ‘arrangement’ with the Cremini family, and a whole host of other things that were anything but what he was looking for. And just at the point where his sensors were filling up with data that was useless to him, Alditha sharpened her eyes, and Alpha found his mind, his processors, investigated. Alditha discovered
his capabilities, his mission, his recharge cycle, and though she didn’t ask for this information, the precise balance of biological and mechanical technologies that made up all his systems. Alpha was unable to stop the information flowing out of his data core, the barriers he threw up were too weak and too late, and their protocols failed even as he tried to establish them. That was the difference between wizards and witches—wizards learned things. Witches learned people.
‘Put me down now, please, Mr. Alpha,’ said Alditha calmly.
Alpha did as he was told.
‘Do we understand one another, you and I?’ she asked, flicking her eyes up to his again, half as a peace offering, half as a threat.
‘Aff-aff-aff-affirmative,’ he said.
‘I should think so too,’ she muttered.
‘Orbs approaching,’ said Alpha, still sounding slightly scrambled.
‘Skoros.’ Alditha straightened her hat, grabbed her broom again, and marched them to the front door. ‘Will one of you do your twiddly zapping thing, or shall we be old-fashioned about it?’ Neither of the aliens moved, so she turned the handle on the door, opened it and went outside, leading her new alien friends to meet the wizard.
As it happened, they didn’t have to go far. He was marching towards them, three orbs flying alongside him, Razor, as ever, perched on his shoulder like a pirate’s parrot.
‘Skoros, how do you do,’ Alditha said, nodding about as far as a mouse would stumble over a crumb of bread.
‘Alditha, my dear witch,’ Skoros acknowledged. ‘I’ve come to make friends,’ he added, smiling a sickly smile.
‘’s’that right?’ Alditha couldn’t stop the beginnings of a smirk from creeping over her lips. ‘Think you know Miss Celeste, here. Wouldn’t suggest you get on the wrong side of her again, you might find yourself walking backwards to the castle. And this here’s Mr. Alpha, who I don’t think you’ve met. I’m betting you have no idea what he can do, do you?’
‘Impress me,’ said Skoros.
Alpha attuned his brain to the orbs, absorbing the altered rhythms of their programming. ‘Shut down motive power and initiate standby mode,’ he commanded, in that strange combination of a robotic and a human voice. He raised both his arms and sent the shutdown signal. All three orbs went suddenly dark with a disappointing electronic blip, and fell to the ground.
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