by Caro King
Jik paused, listening to the Land. He could sense its disturbance, as if something bad was nearby. He knew that he was passing close to a small room on the thirteenth floor and so he stepped out of the walls to take a look.
The room was dimly lit, and in it, strapped into a large wooden chair with leather belts, was an old man. Beside the chair, on a tall rod of ornate silver, a yellow candle burned with a red flame. Tallow dripped like oil on to the floor to join a spreading pool. There was a second, unlit candle on the other side of the chair.
The figure stirred and Jik could see that it was human, but only just. The old man was little more than a skeleton covered in yellowed flesh with a few wisps of hair clinging to his withered skull. His eyes, set deeply in their sockets, were a pale, milky blue and huge as marbles. They focused on Jik.
The mudman stepped forward. ‘Mik Jik. Yik?’
There was a long silence while Jik waited patiently. The Quick had long outlived its natural span by some means or other and was finding it hard to operate the desiccated body it was trapped in. A ghastly smile stretched its lips.
‘Mafig,’ it said in a voice like dead leaves rustling. ‘Gan Mafig.’ It gave a short, bitter laugh. ‘Once, I was the owner of this House.’
Jik made a massive effort. ‘Likik fik Nikikik Rikstik. Shik wik Strik. Escik.’
Mafig began to laugh again. It shook his frail body like a leaf clinging to a branch in a high wind. Then he began to cough, which shook him even more.
‘Nothing escapes Strood,’ he whispered. ‘I should know. See those candles?’ He turned his milky eyes to the one at his side. ‘They keep me alive. One burns, the other grows. When the burnt one is done he lights the other, and while that burns the first remakes itself. Endless life so long as I am within their light.’ He cackled, like it was a huge joke, his head bobbing madly. ‘A present to Strood from Ava Vispilio.’
‘Jik pik ik ik?’
‘Only a sorcerer can put it out!’ Now he howled with crazy laughter. ‘And you don’t see many of those about nowadays!’ He stopped suddenly, alert and listening. His eyes rolled upwards and he shuddered. ‘The shadows,’ he hissed. ‘The SHADOWS! The shadows are coming. See them?’ His voice became urgent and foam flecked his mouth and chin.
Glancing around nervously, Jik backed away.
Mafig leaned forward again. ‘He made them especially for me, the shadows. Do you know what they are? DO YOU KNOW WHAT THEY DO?’
Jik backed away so much that he ended up in the walls. Hurriedly, he moved onwards and upwards, wondering as he went what it was that the man had done to offend Strood so badly. Or Vispilio for that matter.
As he rose steadily through the earth foundations of the House, the image of the old man, horribly tortured in some nameless way, stayed with him, making his eyes glow like scarlet bonfires with fear and rage. It had never occurred to him to doubt that Nin had survived so far. She was his creator and he would know when she died. But this was the Terrible House of Strood where a poor Quick’s life could be lost in a heartbeat and even if she was alive NOW, every hour, every minute, could bring her closer to a horrible end. If Jik was to save her, he had to move fast. There was no time to lose.
He tore on through the walls until at last he rose from the earth into a dark, cool cellar. Shaking himself to throw off any loose soil, he noticed that some of the mud clung to him like a thin topcoat. The new earth was darker than his old, reddish mud giving him a dappled look. He could do with a baking, but that would have to wait. At least his core was still nice and hard.
It took him no time at all to get out of the cellar, through the silent kitchen and into the hall. From here he could turn either left or right. He chose to head towards the back of the House, because he knew the front was full of guards.
Around him, the lamps went out, even in the hallways. Only a few dim night lights burned in the main corridor. Everything was still, with that waiting quality that places have at night.
Except that there was life in the corridors after all.
Jik hopped seamlessly into a doorway and flattened himself against the wall. He watched the odd thing as it went past, its eyes reflecting the night lights in their bulging, shiny surfaces.
When it had gone he waited for few seconds then moved on, head up, sensing the air. It wasn’t much further before he caught an echo of Nin’s presence somewhere up ahead. He was close, very close, so he got moving. He was concentrating so hard on getting to Nin that he didn’t hear something coming up behind him.
Before he knew it, Jik was seized and lifted from the ground. As he whirled through the air he caught a glimpse of a large Grimm, a push-along trolley and a metal bin. He was so shocked he hadn’t got around to objecting before the Grimm threw him into the bin, the lid thumped shut over his head, the latch clicked and he was trapped inside.
And then the trolley was on its way again, carting the day’s rubbish to the incinerator, down at the bottom of the Terrible House.
31
The Final Gathering
here were nine people in the scene before Skerridge, seven in a cluster and two just outside it. Shapes watched from the sidelines. A handful of bogeymen lurked in the deep recesses of an archway, keeping well out of the light. A goblin, its inky-blue skin almost part of the shadows, watched silently from the shelter of the nearby trees. There were other watchers too, many of them. Witnessing.
Of the central group, the clustered seven were Fabulous and the other two were Quick. One of the Quick hovered edgily, close to the Fabulous but not with them. The other stood apart, listening. The edgy one was clad in rich robes, embroidered with gold and scarlet thread. The other wore black.
Skerridge recognised both Quick and six of the seven Fabulous. The seventh looked unfamiliar, but Skerridge knew who it was anyway.
‘We are all resolved, then?’ asked a woman with a face that would not only launch a thousand ships but send them round the world as well. Her voice made Skerridge shiver because each note was so clear and sweet. She was robed in a cloth woven from moonlight.
‘I see no other way, Senta,’ answered a man with a long white beard. Nemus Sturdy spoke quietly and in spite of his age there was no sign of weariness or frailty in his body.
‘As you say, Nemus.’ The sorcerer who spoke this time had a mane of dark hair that flowed down his back and Skerridge recognised him as Morgan Crow. His tone was cheerful and he got a sharp look from Nemus Sturdy and a kind one from the second of the two women, the one who wasn’t Senta Melana.
‘This is no light task,’ Nemus Sturdy said quietly, ‘but an event that may change the face of the world. We must undertake it seriously and with caution.’
Morgan Crow went on smiling brightly as if he did not see that Nemus meant the comment for him.
‘We know that, old man,’ snapped the tallest of the Fabulous. Azork’s silver eyes glinted with impatience and he looked as if he were trying not to shake them all into action.
Senta Melana frowned at him. ‘This is hard enough as it is without you …’
‘Yes, yes! And that’s why we should get on with it. We’re all agreed, right?’
The Seven Sorcerers looked at each other.
‘We are,’ said one of the three who had not spoken yet. He was pale and fair and unlike the others he wore no jewellery save for an ancient ring on the middle finger of his left hand. Of the seven only this one, Ava Vispilio, looked calm.
Skerridge hunched his insubstantial shoulders.
A slight movement above the group and its watchers caught his eye and he turned to look. Someone was gazing down on the scene from a window in the house. It was a girl, wrapped in a cloak and holding an unlit lamp. Her face was pale and serious, her eyes dark and her hair a wreath of silky shadow. With his excellent bogeyman vision, Skerridge could see her clearly enough to know that she had the fragile beauty of a Quick, and that her face was touched with sadness and warmed by love. This was Seraphine. The apothecary’s daughter.
Vispilio smiled.
There was a ripple of anticipation in the circle of sorcerers, tension radiated out from them, alerting the watchers. The time for debate was past. Now was the time for action.
Skerridge felt that the focus of the whole world was here, on this stretch of lawn, in front of this elegant mansion. Because what was about to happen here was going to change everything.
He glanced up. The girl at the window had gone. Overhead, clouds were gathering like dark-winged eagles.
The seven stood in a ring with their faces to the centre. In the middle of them stood the more richly dressed of the two Quick.
‘Mafig,’ muttered Skerridge, his voice nothing on the empty air.
The apothecary had stopped being edgy now and his manner had changed from anxious hanger-on to commander. Even though he was concentrating on his work, part of him was conscious that he, a mere Quick, was orchestrating this group of Fabulous sorcerers. This was the proudest moment of his short Quick life, the pinnacle of his career, and it showed on his face and in the way he stood.
The other Quick, Gan Mafig’s servant, was standing outside the circle, holding his master’s cloak and looking on. His name was loud in Skerridge’s mind and the bogeyman couldn’t stop himself bobbing his insubstantial head in deference.
Because the name of Gan Mafig’s servant was Arafin Strood.
All the Fabulous, except for Azork, who gave several loud sighs, waited patiently while Gan Mafig set up his distillation apparatus on a small table in the centre of the circle. It was a complicated arrangement of tubes running from a tulip-shaped funnel made of spider silk and archaic crystal into seven small flasks. Mafig used a crystal spindle to catch and channel the spells so that they gathered in liquid form in the flasks, ready for him to weave into one mighty spell. When the apothecary was ready he bowed his head to Nemus Sturdy and the casting of the Deathweave began.
The sorcerers had a strict pecking order when it came to casting and it was not the level of their power. Nemus Sturdy went first because he was the oldest. The fact that he was also the most powerful was just accident.
Each sorcerer had their own way of casting. Nemus used a staff carved of ancient oak that shone with a golden glow. He held it at arm’s length, with both hands grasped around its bole, and bowed his head. He said no words, but the ground trembled. In the centre of the circle Gan Mafig was working, frowning with concentration as he channelled the spell into its glass beaker where it pooled like liquid gold. He glanced up and bowed his head to Ava Vispilio.
Skerridge winced. The bow had been a little curt, Mafig would pay for that later. Vispilio wouldn’t let anything he saw as a lack of respect pass unpunished.
Vispilio cupped his hands around a crystal globe that he held out in front of him. As he began to speak, the globe crackled with green sparks that filled his hands and overflowed. His voice hissed too and the sound of the sparks blended with his words, filling the air with sibilance that stung the flesh of those who heard it. Gan Mafig went on working, even though he winced with discomfort, and Vispilio’s part of the spell soon glittered in livid green at the bottom of the second flask.
After Vispilio came the second of the two women, the one who had not spoken yet but who had looked so gently at Morgan Crow. She neither raised her hands nor used a staff or wand. She simply spoke. Enid Lockheart’s voice would have broken Skerridge’s tough old heart, if he had really been there. Apart from Vispilio, all those who listened had tears on their cheeks by the time she finished.
Next it was the turn of the dark-skinned, silver-eyed Azork. He held his staff high and his words filled the sky with forked fire. After him, the only one of the Seven Sorcerers that Skerridge had not immediately recognised, made ready to cast. Simeon Dark raised his slim and graceful hands. Gan Mafig sent him a nervous look.
The watching Skerridge chuckled. Simeon Dark had a reputation for being mysterious, secretive even. It meant that he was hard to pin down on practically anything, including his casting. He might not be the most powerful sorcerer there, but Gan Mafig would certainly find his spell the hardest to capture.
Like Enid Lockheart, Simeon did not use a wand, staff, orb or any other device. Nor did he speak. Instead he made three simple gestures with his hands. At least, three was all that anyone saw. After the second movement a mantle of shadows began to settle quickly around him. After the third, nothing could be seen of the sorcerer but a pool of darkness. Gan Mafig was white with effort. Sweat beaded his brow and his forehead was scored with a frown of concentration as he caught and channelled a spell the colour of midnight.
And then Simeon Dark was visible again and Senta Melana stepped forward, raising her wand of blackened silver, carved with ancient sigils. From it poured a white light that illuminated her, bathing her in a lake of brilliance. The watchers gasped, riveted by her beauty. Gan Mafig almost, but only almost, forgot to work.
Last came Morgan Crow. As with Nemus Sturdy, his position was determined by the fact that he was the youngest of all of them. Had they been acting in order of strength he would have been second. Smiling cheerfully, as usual, he fished a slender wand from his belt, raised it and began to chant. His wand flicked this way and that in time to his words and spilled out a soft light that lit up the grass and the circle of waiting Sorcerers. People nodded in time to the sound of his voice and the movement of his wand and Gan Mafig’s face relaxed as he worked. Overhead the clouds began to disperse.
And then, as Gan Mafig distilled the final drop of Morgan Crow’s spell, the Sorcerers stepped back to let him work alone. He turned each flask on its head. Drop by drop the distilled spells ran into a large beaker until at last, woven together by Mafig’s crystal spindle, they united to form a thick, purple-black fluid.
The Deathweave was complete.
32
Gan Mafig’s Servant
y now it was late afternoon and some of the watchers had disappeared. Skerridge, or at least the dreaming part of Skerridge, cowered in the shadows offered by a clump of bushes.
The Sorcerers were arguing about who was to try the Deathweave first. Gan Mafig stood looking at them with an air of suppressed irritation. He was holding the beaker of purple-black fluid. It didn’t bubble or steam, but a sighing sound came from it that was making the apothecary nervous. He wished they would just get on with it and take the wretched potion away from him.
‘Just give it to me,’ snapped Vispilio.
‘What? And let you pour the rest away before we can get to it?’ sneered Azork, ‘I think not!’
‘Now why,’ said Vispilio softly, ‘would I ever want to do that?’
Nemus Sturdy raised a hand. ‘Let’s not quarrel over it. There is enough in the beaker for all of us. As the oldest I should go first, this is the way of things.’
‘Hang on,’ grumbled Morgan Crow. ‘It’s not fair! I’m the second strongest, but I always get to be last. This time, I object. You say there’s enough, but there might not be. There might be none left by the time I get there. This time we should go in order of strength.’
‘Never!’ hissed Vispilio. His eyes flashed angrily.
Simeon Dark smiled at him. If they went in order of strength, then either Vispilio or Dark would be last. As it was difficult to be exact about how much power Dark had, no one was sure which of the two it was. Vispilio always insisted that he was sixth and Dark seventh. His anger betrayed the fact that he feared he might be wrong.
‘We could draw lots for it,’ said Enid Lockheart. ‘That way it would be down to chance.’
There were nods from the others.
‘That’s settled then, is it?’ asked Senta. She was looking nervous.
There was silence for a few moments. When it came down to it, the Sorcerers began to realise that they weren’t as worried as they thought they were about there being enough potion for everyone. What they were really worri
ed about was something more serious.
‘Thing is,’ said Azork cautiously, ‘this has never been done before and it could be dangerous.’
‘Someone just make a decision!’ snapped Senta. Her tension was beginning to show.
‘I think,’ began Vispilio slowly …
Many pairs of eyes fixed on him. The watching Skerridge hunched his shoulders nervously.
‘Go on,’ said Azork eagerly.
‘I think we should try it out on a Quick first. I know it means wasting a sip, but I am sure there is more than enough here.’
Nemus frowned. Enid closed her eyes.
‘Excellent!’ said Azork hurriedly. ‘Who shall we use?’
Nemus raised a hand again, but before he could speak Azork carried on.
‘It’s perfect. Either it works or it doesn’t, and if it works it will give some short-lived Quick the kind of lifespan they only dream of!’
Senta was looking thoughtful. ‘We would be offering a great opportunity, I suppose.’
Dark smiled. ‘Thing is,’ he said, ‘if it’s as simple as Azork says then why are we afraid to take it?’
Silence fell. Vispilio sent Dark an evil look.
After a while, Senta spoke. ‘Just supposing it were to backfire. If, instead of removing death, the potion summoned it. Then it would not only fail to work, but would kill the drinker.’
‘So what,’ snapped Vispilio. ‘We’d hasten a Quick’s death by … Oh … All of few years. Big deal.’
‘Die at the drop of a hat, Quick,’ said Morgan Crow cheerfully.
Nemus frowned. ‘That’s no reason to …’
‘Oh for Galig’s sake,’ grumbled Azork, ‘must you object to everything, Nemus? Where’s the harm in it. As Ava says, even if it does go wrong they don’t live long anyway.’
‘And there are hundreds more Quick out there. We are a dying breed remember?’ This was Vispilio’s trump card and he knew it. ‘This isn’t just about saving ourselves, this is about saving Magic.’