‘But Shastin Nightsky wasn’t alive before you… killed him?’
‘I don’t understand it myself. He was alive, but he couldn’t have been. There was no spirit in his body, so he couldn’t be alive, but he was. He wasn’t undead either. I’d have sensed that. He was alive, but without–’
‘His spirit,’ Cadenza interjected. She picked up her goblet and sipped some of the rather nice red wine she had poured earlier. ‘I think I’ve heard of something like that before. I’m sure it hasn’t been done for centuries. A way of locking the spirit away in an object.’
‘Shouldn’t that kill you?’ Charlotte asked. ‘I mean, you’d be a corpse which was maybe animated by magic, so you’d be undead. Wouldn’t you?’
‘Apparently not. The pattern for the spell has been lost, but perhaps Shastin Nightsky has uncovered it. I think you’re right, Krystal. I think he’ll be back as soon as he can get another body. We haven’t seen the last of him.’ Cadenza paused, peering into her goblet as though she expected something to appear in it. ‘Perhaps you could help me put some food together. We can work out what we’re going to do about this in the morning.’
‘Sure,’ Krystal replied, ‘but there’s something I need to do first.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yeah, I’m going to incinerate that corpse outside. I’ve no idea whether he can reanimate it somehow, but I’d prefer not to find out.’
‘I can take care of that,’ Ramona said. ‘Knowing fire magic is useful for more than just fireballs.’
Krystal nodded. ‘Okay, Trudy and I will start cooking. Everyone else, go with Ramona. Better safe than sorry, right?’
‘With that guy… yeah.’
11th Day of Highsummer.
Krystal sat at the trestle table in Cadenza’s lounge-cum-laboratory, reading Nadira Armonia’s treatise and fending off paws as they seemed determined to get in her way. Dinner was, once more, cooking and Trudy was watching the pot. Cadenza was watching Krystal and Nightshade, and Opal seemed to be doing the same.
‘That young man seems to have a considerable interest in you,’ Cadenza said after a while.
Krystal looked up. ‘Huh?’
‘Nightshade. He likes you.’
‘I thought he just liked pestering me. Though he also seems to like cuddling up to me when I sleep.’
‘Who could blame him?’ Trudy asked.
Krystal blushed and Cadenza said, ‘Opal has had a word with him, and he’d quite like to return to Concord City with you.’
‘That would be… great, but the school doesn’t allow animals in–’
‘They allow familiars,’ Xanthe said. ‘I’ve thought about it, but I’m not sure which of my animals I’d want to be a familiar, and I’m not really sure any of them would go for it. I mean, you can force it, but you end up with a mean familiar.’
Frowning, Krystal looked at the tanglecat lying on the table beside her book. ‘Are you offering to be my familiar?’
Nightshade looked at her, then he raised his nose and yowled. There was an answering yowl from Opal, and then Nightshade got to his feet and stretched up to rub his nose against Krystal’s.
‘In case you hadn’t guessed,’ Cadenza said, ‘that’s a yes.’
‘I have no idea how to make something into a familiar.’
‘Oh, it’s–’ Xanthe cut herself off. ‘Actually, no. It’s not easy, but I bet you can do it if you take your time. I’ll write the pattern down for you.’ She glanced at Cadenza. ‘A-and then, maybe you could check it over for me? I looked it up last year and I think I remember it all right, but…’
Cadenza smiled. ‘Of course I will. And well done for taking the opportunity to make a learning experience of the situation.’
Xanthe was searching for a piece of paper and a pen on Cadenza’s desk, but she turned and frowned. ‘I am? Ancestors damn it! I’m supposed to be on holiday.’
~~~
It was a fairly complex shaping. There were multiple transformations performed on both the prospective familiar and the magus, and Krystal took her time over it. Nightshade seemed to think it was all great fun, however, and sat there quietly while Krystal stroked his feathers and set the shape of the spell in her mind for almost fifteen minutes. And then…
‘Well, that wasn’t too bad.’ The voice in Krystal’s head was clearly masculine, with a soft purr in it which was rather pleasing.
‘That may take some getting used to,’ Krystal said.
‘I’m sure you’ll adapt,’ Nightshade said.
‘What will?’ Trudy said almost over the top of the cat.
‘Nightshade is talking to me,’ Krystal told Trudy. ‘In my head. Like telepathy.’
‘Oh. I’ve never really met a familiar before him or Opal. All I’m saying is that I like cuddling up to you in bed, so he’s going to have to sleep on the floor.’
‘No chance,’ Nightshade stated flatly.
Krystal looked between the two of them. ‘This is going to be trouble.’
‘He can understand what I’m saying, can’t he?’ Trudy asked.
‘Apparently.’
‘The spell expands the familiar’s mind as well as fixing the connection between mistress and familiar,’ Cadenza said. ‘Part of that is allowing the familiar to understand the magus’s language.’
Trudy frowned. ‘At least when I tell him off, he’ll understand me.’ She narrowed her eyes at Nightshade. ‘She’s mine and I’m bigger than you. You can have a basket.’
Nightshade got up and stretched. ‘She may be bigger, but I have claws. She’ll adapt. I understand dragons are good at adapting. And if you got a big enough basket, she could sleep in it.’
Krystal dropped her face into her hands. ‘What have I done?’
‘One other thing you should remember,’ Xanthe said, ‘while you’re dealing with your sleeping arrangements.’ Krystal growled and Xanthe decided to go on quickly. ‘The two of you have a sympathetic link now. If Nightshade gets hurt, you’ll feel it. So, it’s a good idea to keep him safe.’
‘But there are a few advantages,’ Cadenza said. ‘You can draw from Nightshade to help with your spells, but you’ll likely find your reflexes improve when he’s nearby. Given that you seem to like making enemies of powerful magi, I’d imagine that would be useful.’
‘Oh, ha ha!’ Krystal said, lifting her head. ‘Have you decided what you’re going to do?’
‘Yes. I’ll transport us all over to Appleyard tomorrow. Clarise Arbour can pay a short visit to town and then she’s going to go on a journey. I’ll stay clear of this area for a few months. I know it’s not ideal, but we should avoid seeing each other too often. I’ll… I’ll try to call in at the school when I’m coming back.’
Krystal nodded, but she was not especially happy about it. ‘I don’t really know you, and now I’m going to lose you again, but… I suppose it has to be.’ She turned and looked at Nightshade. ‘And you’d better say goodbye to your mother. You’re not going to see her for a while.’
The tanglecat looked across to where Opal was curled up in Cadenza’s lap. ‘I know. It’s not the same for us, but we’ll say goodbye before we part.’
‘He’s about of an age where they’d be parting ways anyway,’ Cadenza said.
‘Oh yeah,’ Xanthe added. ‘After about nine months or a year, the kittens always leave home. Otherwise things have a tendency to get… testy.’
There were two yowls, and both Krystal and Cadenza burst into giggles.
‘Opal says she has never been “testy” in her life,’ Cadenza said. ‘She’s a lady, don’t you know?’
‘According to Nightshade,’ Krystal said, ‘no gentlemanly cat would ever strike a lady.’
‘Oh, uh, right,’ Xanthe said.
‘But he’s willing to make an exception for you.’
12th Day of Highsummer.
Krystal looked out over the forest from the tower of the castle her family had once ruled from. The sky was clear again and the summer sun was blazi
ng down on the misfits as they waited for Cadenza to come up from below.
‘I’m starting to think we should all live underground in summer,’ Trudy said. ‘It’s far cooler.’
‘You’re not getting me down there full-time,’ Charlotte said. ‘I haven’t been able to do any real flying for days.’
‘Oh, you poor thing,’ Felicia cooed. ‘I’m sure your legs must be getting terribly tired. Having to support your weight for so long must be a terrible burden.’
‘Don’t think I won’t push you off this tower.’
‘Now, now, girls,’ Krystal said. ‘We’re all friends and misfits.’
‘Yeah,’ Xanthe said. ‘Once again, the misfits have beaten the bad guy, together.’
Jesse giggled. ‘We are the misfits, and we kick evil’s butt.’
‘Now with added harmony,’ Trudy said, giggling in turn.
Nightshade chose that moment to jump off a slightly taller section of wall onto Krystal’s shoulder. She was already carrying the extra weight of Nadira Armonia’s treatise, wrapped in a blanket, along with her pack, but Nightshade seemed to take her sudden lack of balance, caused by his arrival, in his stride. ‘Mother and your mother are coming up the stairs,’ he said.
‘Are we ready, ladies?’ Cadenza asked, appearing on the staircase. Her hair was now a dark, mossy-green colour and, when she looked up at them, her eyes were also green.
‘Ready as we’ll ever be,’ Krystal said.
‘Good. I did give you the pattern to change your scales, didn’t I?’
‘I have it.’
‘Perfect.’ Cadenza held out a cloth-wrapped bundle to Trudy. ‘Now, I’ll give this to Trudy, but it’s for you. You’ve got enough to cope with carrying Nightshade and that book.’
‘What is it?’ Trudy asked.
‘It’s a dress. And a few other things. It was supposed to be my wedding dress, actually, but it’ll make a perfect coming-out dress for Krystal. As you say, we’re pretty much identical in build.’
‘Well, except in the bust. You definitely didn’t give all of yours to her.’
Cadenza smirked. ‘The way this hangs, that won’t be an issue. Now, let’s get going, shall we?’ She reached down for Opal, who bounced up into her arms and then took up a position on Cadenza’s shoulder, much as Nightshade was doing with Krystal. ‘Make sure you’re all carrying whatever you want to take with you.’
‘We’re ready,’ Krystal said, glancing around at her friends.
‘Good. If you’ve never been teleported before… Well, this will be a new experience, won’t it?’ There was a sensation rather like being twisted in three different directions at once, and then the castle’s tower was gone, replaced by a grassy slope beside a small pond surrounded by trees. ‘Everyone take a second to take their bearings. That can be very disorienting.’
‘I feel fine,’ Trudy said.
‘Lucky you,’ Krystal grumbled.
‘Me too,’ Ramona said.
‘Ancestors!’ Charlotte exclaimed. ‘I’m used to twists and turns, but that felt like my insides were being sucked out my ears.’
‘Where are we?’ Trudy asked, looking around as the others shook off their stupor.
‘Uh… This looks like Glass Lake,’ Jesse said. ‘About a mile north of town.’
‘That’s right,’ Cadenza said. ‘It shouldn’t take us too long to walk in from here. I’ll come with you. There’s nothing strange about travellers meeting on the road.’
‘No,’ Krystal agreed, ‘and it’ll be good to have you along. What time is it anyway?’
‘Around midday.’
Trudy grinned. ‘Which means, by the time we get into town, it’ll be…’
‘Muffin time!’ the girls chorused and then started giggling as they set off for the road.
Cadenza frowned. ‘Am I missing something?’
Epilogue
Concord City, Concordance, 2nd Day of Autumngate, 1000.
‘Nervous?’ Trudy asked.
‘Yes,’ Krystal replied.
‘You… don’t look nervous.’
‘Good at acting, remember?’ Krystal reached down and smoothed the front of her dress, not that it needed smoothing, or could be called a dress, in her opinion. ‘Cadenza was going to get married in this?’
‘It’s an elegant dress,’ Felicia said, ‘very suited to a high-class wedding. With the added accessories, it makes you look absolutely stunning.’
Krystal smiled, with an edge of mischief. ‘Yeah, I figured that when I had to get a mop to clean up Trudy’s drool.’
‘I didn’t–’ Trudy began and then cut herself off into a mumble. ‘You’re mean to me. That dress makes your behind look fat.’
Krystal paused in front of the door of the school’s Grand Hall and ran her hands over the bit of the dress which covered her buttocks. ‘No, it doesn’t.’
In truth, there was not much of the dress covering anything. It had somehow been manufactured as a single loop of white cloth with silver embroidery decorating it. It looped around the back of Krystal’s neck, down over her breasts, though it left a lot of skin on display as it did so, crossed over her lower stomach and then around over her behind, hanging in such a manner that it hid all the important areas while giving the distinct impression that it could shift and reveal everything at a moment’s notice. On her feet, Krystal was wearing only jewellery: beaded threads were looped around her ankles and second toes. The other jewellery she was wearing had come with a note saying that it had belonged to her grandmother, and it was silver and had a dragon theme. There was a bracelet and ear cuffs in the form of winged dragons, and a necklace which had a draconic feel to it, but it was basically a carved, silver collar with a blue-and-purple enamel eye set over Krystal’s throat.
Using Cadenza’s disguise spell, Krystal had changed her scales and hair to purple, and her eyes now shone with a vibrant, purple light. Felicia had come in and put Krystal’s hair up into an elegant bun and painted Krystal’s lips a deep, dark red. And Krystal had looked at herself in the mirror and known that, while her stomach was turning over at the thought of walking into a room full of people dressed like this, she could pull it off. The fact that Trudy had been wiping at the corners of her mouth when Krystal looked around had helped.
‘Yes,’ Krystal said, ‘let’s go make them all think I’m an indigo.’
‘Darling,’ Felicia said, ‘once they see you like this, you’ll never be treated the same way again.’
‘This is going to be fun,’ Charlotte said from behind them. ‘Go on, Krys, open the doors.’
Stepping forward, Krystal pushed open the doors to the hall and the misfits walked through. A wave of silence preceded them, punctuated by whispers, and Krystal found herself the object of a lot of stares. To the new first years, she was an indigo and that was that, but to the older girls, she was the one they had looked down upon, suddenly risen in rank to equal the highest-status dragons in the room.
Except for one. Celestina Nightsky appeared from somewhere out of the crowd, smiling. ‘Krystal, you look stunning.’ Of course, she had known beforehand what was coming: Krystal had informed the school’s administration of her assumed colour when the girls had returned from Appleyard. Still, Celestina seemed to be taking a rather inordinate amount of pleasure in the looks on some of the faces of the other girls.
Krystal bowed her head – anything more risked a wardrobe malfunction – and smiled at the school’s founder. ‘Thank you, Celestina Nightsky.’ Krystal spotted Charity among her friends and all of them were looking daggers at the newcomers. ‘Actually, I feel quite good as well. I’m looking forward to the new term. It should be… interesting.’
###
About the Author
I was born in the vicinity of Hadrian's Wall so perhaps a bit of history rubbed off. Ancient history obviously, and border history, right on the edge of the Empire. I always preferred the Dark Ages anyway; there’s so much more room for imagination when people aren’t writing down
every last detail. So my idea of a good fantasy novel involved dirt and leather, not shining plate armour and Hollywood-medieval manners. The same applies to my sci-fi, really; I prefer gritty over shiny.
Oddly, then, one of the first fantasy novels I remember reading was The Dark Is Rising, by Susan Cooper (later made into a terrible juvenile movie). These days we would call Cooper’s series Young Adult Contemporary Fantasy and looking back on it, it influenced me a lot. It has that mix of modern day life, hidden history, and magic which failed to hit popular culture until the early days of Buffy and Anne Rice. Of course, Cooper’s characters spend their time around places I could actually visit in Cornwall, and South East England, and mid-Wales. In fact, when I went to university in Aberystwyth, it was partially because some of Cooper’s books were set a few miles to the north around Tywyn.
I got into writing through roleplaying, however, so my early work was related to the kind of roleplaying game I was interested in. I wrote science fiction when I was playing Traveller. I wrote “high fantasy” when I was playing Dungeons & Dragons. I wrote a lot of superhero fiction when I was playing City of Heroes. I still love the idea of a modern world with magic in it and I’ve been trying to write a novel based on this for a long time. As with any form of expression, practice is the key and I can look back on all the aborted attempts at books, and the more successful short stories, as steps along the path to the Thaumatology Series.
Recently I took the big step of quitting my day job and taking up full-time writing. My favourite authors are Terry Pratchett, Susan Cooper, J.D. Robb, and Kim Harrison. Kim’s Hollows books were what finally spurred me to publish something, even if the trail to here came by way of Susan, back in school, several decades ago.
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