by D D Everest
‘What is it I have to do?’ asked Archie.
‘When the time comes, you must rewrite The Opus Magus, Archie. It is the only way!’
‘But where is it?’ cried Archie desperately.
At that moment there was a blinding flash of lightning. When his vision returned, Grey had gone. He was alone. He saw the cold eyes of Arthur Ripley.
29
The Death Duel
‘Where is Grey?’ demanded Ripley. ‘I saw him whispering to you. He told you where The Opus Magus is, didn’t he?’
A knowing look had come over his distorted features. ‘Or are you The Opus Magus? That’s it!’ he cried. ‘Archie Greene is The Opus Magus – the primary spell is inside you. That’s why Hawke was so protective of you.’
Ripley’s mind was unravelling. It must be the Flame’s malevolent power. He was so desperate now that he was clutching at straws. Archie could see a glint of madness in his eyes.
Ripley saw the look of confusion on Archie’s face. ‘Oh, but you did not know,’ he cackled. ‘That’s because The Opus Magus is not in your head, it is in your heart! How touching! So if you are corrupted then magic will be corrupted, too. This is even better. Take him!’ Ripley ordered. The Pale Writers flew at Archie.
The first of the three approached him. Its black eyes flared and its fiery voice hissed and crackled in Archie’s head.
‘You are full of doubts,’ it said. ‘I can feel them gnawing away at your mind like rats chewing on a corpse.’ It swirled around Archie. ‘What is it you doubt most?’ it whispered. ‘Is it the love of your family? Or is it your belief in yourself? But no, I sense it is something darker. You doubt yourself, Archie Greene. You do not believe you are worthy to be Fabian Grey’s heir! That’s it! That is your greatest doubt. And you are right! You will fail him. He has put his faith in you and you will surely let him down. You will let everyone down!’
Doubt moved towards him. Archie felt powerless to resist it. The vile creature was right. He doubted his worthiness to serve magic. For a brief second he was almost glad it was all over. Glad that he wouldn’t have to keep up the pretence any more.
But in that same moment he heard another voice in his head. It was Hawke – or Grey, as he now knew him. ‘I trust the boy completely,’ he had said at the asylum. ‘I have never doubted him and he has no reason to doubt himself.’
Archie felt his conviction come flooding back. He pushed the lingering doubts from his mind, driving them from his thoughts like a cat chasing rats.
Doubt recoiled. With a hissing sound like water being poured on a flame, it shrank back into the book.
‘So you have overcome your doubt, Archie Greene, but that will not save you,’ cried Ripley.
At his signal, the second Pale Writer, Dread, flew at Archie. Its touch was like ice on his skin and he felt the cold run up his spine.
‘What is it that you fear most, Archie Greene?’ whispered Dread, and the stench of its foul breath hung in the air.
Archie drew back. He tried to hide his fears but Dread was inside his head. He could feel its clammy cold fingers prying into the darkest recesses of his mind to find his most terrifying memories.
‘Ah!’ it cried, and its voice was a long frosty breath. ‘What have we here?’
Archie felt the blood in his veins turn to ice. What had it found?
Dread opened out its withered hand and to Archie’s horror he saw the Flare Wolf, the dark creature he and Bramble had encountered in the museum. Half dragon and half wolf, the beast fixed its staring red eyes on him. Then throwing back its head it gave a blood-curdling howl and began to stalk him. Archie felt his terror return. He tried to calm himself but his heart was skittering in his chest and his legs had turned to jelly.
His mind was spinning, but then he remembered something Hawke had said to him. ‘The Pale Writers can only use real memories – not magical memories from a spell.’
As terrifying as it was, the Flare Wolf was a popper spell and Wolfus Bone had slain it. The creature was dead – and never real. As the realisation reached Archie’s mind the Flare Wolf evaporated, vanishing with a loud pop.
Dread turned hateful eyes on him. Then it reached into his mind once more and plucked something else from his darkest memories. It opened its other hand. This time the sight that met Archie’s eyes was so terrifying that he thought he might faint.
A claw-like hand reached out from The Book of Night. It had long black fingernails. In the middle of its palm was the Golden Circle firemark and beside it the Black Dragon. A tall figure emerged from the book’s pages. He was almost seven feet tall, dressed in a long purple cloak with a red pendant round his neck. A hollow-cheeked face appeared, with a hooked nose like a bird of prey, and Archie found himself staring into the dull black eyes of Barzak.
Archie froze. This was his worst nightmare. He had no idea how he had managed to defeat the darchemist the first time.
Barzak’s eyes bored into him. ‘I bring darkness and death,’ he thundered. ‘This time there is no escape, book whisperer.’
Archie stood transfixed. But again Hawke’s words came back to him.
‘You used original magic to defeat Barzak and save Gloom. Those spells are your own. They are inside you.’
Archie closed his eyes and focused. The spell he’d used before came back to him.
Barzak raised his clawed hands and started to utter a dark spell. But before he could finish it, Archie cried out.
‘I cast you back into the darkness
I command you return to where you came from!’
And as he spoke, the words appeared in green fiery letters that hung in the air above his head. He smelled the scent of a star-filled night, the pure smell of amora, natural magic.
Barzak uttered a counter curse and black letters formed above him. For a moment the black letters mingled with the green threatening to overcome them.
‘We will see whose magic is the stronger,’ roared Barzak. But the black letters began to fade.
‘I cast you back into The Book of Night!’ cried Archie.
Barzak’s face twisted in anger as he fought to resist the spell. His mouth moved as he tried to utter a counter curse, but no words came out. And then with a terrible scream, the dark warlock was sucked back into The Book of Night, his clawed hands clutching at the air as he was swept away by the spell.
‘So you have overcome your fears,’ sneered Ripley. ‘But the final Pale Writer is the most deadly of all.’
Archie felt the presence of the leader of the Pale Writers before he saw it. A dull, numbing sadness had entered him. He saw the phantom rise into the air, its spider-web strands loosely coiled to form the shape of a human. Its dead eyes gazed from its dismal white features. This was Despair.
Archie felt his hackles rise and a sense of impending doom. All the oxygen seemed to have been sucked out of the air. Far worse than either of the other two Pale Writers, this was a feeling of utter desolation and hopelessness.
When Despair reached out to him, he felt it drawing all the life from him. He felt a sense of bleakness and depression overwhelm him.
The phantom did not speak but he could feel its hunger like a vampire sucking his life force. He tried to resist it but his own thoughts turned on him viciously, twisting into a downward spiral of misery.
He thought about Bramble and Thistle and Loretta and Woodbine and Gran, and realised that he had failed them. He thought about his parents and that he would never see them again. He thought about the museum and how the Dark Flame would corrupt the magical books, and Fabian Grey had failed to save magic. The phantom’s dull eyes mocked him. He felt utterly bereft and without hope. He had never experienced such misery or helplessness. There was no point going on.
For the first time in his life Archie felt the pointlessness of his own existence. His life was worthless. He was worthless. His hope had melted like snow in the rain. He felt himself sinking into a pit of wretchedness from which there was no escape.
Ar
chie had never experienced anything so paralysing before. The white figure moved towards him like mist drifting in from the sea.
As it drew closer, Despair unsheathed a thin white blade like a shard of ice and pointed it at Archie’s heart. For an unbearably long moment its mournful eyes looked into his. He felt as if his soul was turned to frost.
The Pale Writer held the ice shard over Archie’s heart ready to stab him. He felt nothing. Just emptiness that seemed like it must go on forever. Inside, he felt himself falling, tumbling down into a bottomless pit.
He heard Bramble screaming and the beating of wings from the ravens outside the window. Rupert and Thistle tried to reach him but were restrained by Morgred and his henchmen. Arabella was screaming, too.
Despair moved closer to seal his fate. Archie could feel it leeching the life from him. The other two Pale Writers hovered beside it. As the last of Archie’s hope ebbed away, the spaces were filled with Doubt and Dread. He felt them about to overcome him.
And then in his most desolate moment he remembered the raven’s words.
‘Look for me when all hope has gone.’
The words rang hollow. The Opus Magus, the only chance of defeating the Dark Flame, did not exist. The last hope had been that the primary spell was somehow in Fabian Grey’s memory. But Grey had vanished – abandoned him. All hope had truly gone. It was over.
Archie heard a roaring sound and the Dark Flame freed itself from The Book of Night. It engulfed Ripley whose laughing features could be seen inside the flame. It had claimed his soul for dark magic.
‘Behold,’ Ripley cried, clenching his fists so that the flame burned even more darkly. ‘It is not Fabian Grey’s destiny to save magic, it is mine! Let the reign of darkness begin. Let all of magic answer to its new master. I am reborn as the darchemist and ruler of the magical realm. Dark magic shall be restored to its rightful place. All shall kneel to me and do my bidding. And the first spirit I will enslave will be Archie Greene’s – followed by his pathetic Alchemists’ Club.’
The Dark Flame flared and Ripley reached out his hand. Archie could barely lift his head to watch.
‘Where are you, Fabian Grey?’ Ripley cried, and his voice was full of scorn. ‘Or do you prefer Gideon Hawke? It makes no difference to me.’
Suddenly Archie heard Ripley laugh. ‘A bird! You conjure a bird!’ he mocked. ‘Is that the best you can do? It would be laughable if it weren’t so pathetic. The greatest alchemist the world has ever seen and this is your final flourish!’
Then Archie lifted his head and saw the raven. It stared defiantly back at Ripley. Ripley laughed again. But the raven took no notice. It flew into the air and landed on Archie’s shoulder.
‘The memoir, Archie,’ it said. ‘Pick up the memoir.’
With the last of his energy Archie dived for it. The Pale Writers tried to beat him to it but he got there first, snatching the book and holding it open.
‘What foolishness is this!’ cried Ripley. ‘The book is worthless. It has no power.’
But Archie wasn’t listening. He was staring at an empty page.
‘I left it blank for you,’ the raven whispered in his ear. ‘I only remember The Opus Magus when I am in raven form, but as a raven I cannot write it down. You must do that for me.’
‘So now you will never be able to change back into a man!’ cried Archie, horrified.
‘It was my choice,’ the raven said. ‘It was the sacrifice I had to make. We had forked fates, you and I. Our destinies were always linked. This is my destiny. And yours is to do what I cannot and write down the spell. Now listen well.’
Archie plucked Fabian Grey’s ring from his finger and held it in the palm of his hand. The ring changed into Grey’s golden quill.
The raven began to recite from memory The Opus Magus, the spell that had first created magic.
Using all his concentration and straining every magical sinew in his body, Archie gripped the golden quill. He dipped it in the phial of azoth on the plinth and wrote down the raven’s words on the empty page in the memoir. As he did, green flaming letters appeared in the air above his head.
The Pale Writers reached out their grasping hands to corrupt him, but the power of The Opus Magus pushed them back.
The Dark Flame twisted and writhed as Ripley screamed at the three Pale Writers. ‘The quill! The quill! Take it from the boy! Kill him before he writes the spell!’
The Dark Flame began to swirl around Ripley like a cyclone, its dark plumes of fire spinning faster and faster. As it span it made a whistling, crackling sound. The three Pale Writers were pulled into its fiery maelstrom.
Thick, dark smog was oozing from The Book of Night. The air around Archie was filling up with the poisonous darkness and he covered his mouth and nose with his hand to stop it seeping into his lungs. Still he carried on writing the primary spell of magic.
As he wrote each word of The Opus Magus, it blazed with a golden fire, but some vanished in black fire.
He heard the voices of the three darchemists whose spirits were trapped in the black flame. They were chanting their own dark spells, trying to break the primary spell. By now the darkness was all around him so he could no longer see the raven, only hear its voice in his ear. The stench of dark magic filled his nostrils. It smelled of putrefying flesh and something acrid like burning rubber.
Archie heard the raven whisper the concluding words of The Opus Magus. And still he did not flinch in his task. He gripped the golden quill in his hand and with the last of his remaining strength he formed the final letters of the spell. But the Dark Flame was nearly upon them. With a rising panic, Archie realised the fire was about to consume him. At the last moment, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the raven. In its claws it clutched the phial of dragon’s blood.
‘Farewell, Archie Greene. Do not forget me. When you speak of poor Fabian Grey, speak kindly and tell the world that he sacrificed himself to save magic.’
With that its dark shape arrowed past him and into the heart of the Dark Flame, and as it did, Archie heard Hawke’s voice cry out.
‘Blood of Dracus
Newly slain
Beast of darkness
Quench the Flame.’
The Dark Flame blazed brighter and then began to swirl in reverse. Faster and faster it span, shrinking back into itself until it collapsed into a single point. The dark fog burned off like mist in the morning sun, and The Book of Night burned with a golden flame. There was a flash of lightning and a crack of thunder, and all that remained of Ripley was a pile of ashes on the page of the open book.
A gust of wind riffled Archie’s hair and blew the ashes away. Finally he understood. It was his and Grey’s destiny to save magic together. Either one of them could have turned from the path but neither had. In the end Fabian Grey, or was it Gideon Hawke, had made the ultimate sacrifice. He had given up his human form to defeat the Dark Flame.
Archie was aware of a stabbing pain in his eyes. The hall was illuminated as if a light switch had been turned on. Dawn had broken and the sunlight streamed in through the tall leaded window. The flock of ravens had dispersed, letting the light in. The birds were perched on nearby buildings and in the garden.
Inside the hall, the hooded followers of the Dark Flame shielded their eyes from the bright glare of a new day.
‘You are completely surrounded. Surrender or face the consequences,’ declared a loud, clear voice.
Feodora Graves had appeared in the middle of the stage. Old Zeb stood beside her. They were flanked on either side by the bookend beasts, their golden griffin feathers resplendent in the sunshine streaming through the windows.
One of the beasts sniffed the air. ‘I smell the thief who came to steal from our lair,’ it thundered.
It turned its head towards Motley Brown. ‘It was you!’ it roared accusingly.
‘No,’ cried Brown, ‘it wasn’t me, it was the boy!’
He gave Quiggley a shove towards the giant griffin and tried to run.
But the bookend beast would not be denied. It opened its beak and released a jet of icy breath that hit Brown squarely between the shoulder blades. The griffin’s breath froze his blood so that he turned to ice and fell dead, shattering into a myriad of shards as he hit the ground.
There were terrified screams and the Greaders were thrown into confusion, colliding with each other as they tried to escape.
The doors at the back of the hall were thrown open and Woodbine and Loretta appeared in the doorway with Faustus Gaunt. Seeing their exit blocked, some of the Greaders tried to climb up into the minstrels’ gallery, but Wolfus Bone and Gardenia Greene appeared above them, cutting off that escape route, too.
More of the Flame Keepers were arriving now, lining the hall so that the Greaders had nowhere to go. The Trevallens, the Drews and the Merryweathers were all there along with other members of the magical realm.
Archie spotted the Siren Sisters, Hemlock and Delphinium, and Geoffrey Screech. They stood shoulder to shoulder, lining the inside of Ripley Mansion.
Archie was aware of people moving around him. Bramble, Thistle, Arabella and Rupert were beside him. Rupert helped him to his feet.
‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine,’ said Archie. ‘Thanks to Fabian Grey. He fulfilled his destiny.’
At that moment there was a shout as one of the cloaked Greaders tried to flee across the stage towards the leaded window.
‘Stop him!’ cried Graves.
Pink stepped forward. ‘My pleasure,’ she said, sticking out a booted foot. The man went sprawling. Pink pulled back his cloak to reveal an angry face with bulging eyes.
‘Amos Roach,’ said Graves. ‘I might have guessed.
Roach’s lip curled into a snarl. ‘You may have destroyed the Dark Flame,’ he growled. ‘But the Flame of Pharos is no more. Magic is dead!’
‘No,’ cried Arabella. ‘Archie has the Torchstone. The Flame of Pharos can be rekindled.’