Seven Sorcerers

by Caro King

  ‘The survival of Celidon depends on us,’ nodded Azork.

  Enid shook her head. ‘It’s not right to make them take risks we are too frightened of ourselves.’

  ‘Why don’t we just vote on it,’ put in Vispilio smoothly. ‘Even Enid can’t object to a vote. All those in favour of trying the Deathweave out on a Quick first, raise their hands.’

  Vispilio’s hand shot up, followed by Azork and Crow. Senta raised hers more slowly. Dark shrugged then put up his as well. And then, finally, so did Nemus. They all looked at Enid.

  ‘It’s wrong,’ she said.

  Vispilio rolled his eyes. Azork groaned.

  ‘Is that all? Look, what’s one Quick death?’

  ‘There’s another possibility for error,’ she said quietly. ‘One we are all thinking of, but no one has mentioned.’

  Vispilio ignored her. ‘Six for, one against. Right, who do we use?’

  Gan Mafig swallowed nervously.

  ‘Not Mafig, he’s useful. Hey you, come here.’

  In the watching silence, Gan Mafig’s servant stepped forward.

  ‘What is your name?’ asked Nemus kindly.

  ‘Arafin Strood,’ said Strood and smiled. It was a friendly smile, affable almost.

  ‘Well, Arafin Stood, would you like …’

  ‘Don’t ask him,’ sneered Azork, ‘just give him the stuff.’

  ‘Have you been listening?’ asked Dark.

  Gan Mafig’s servant nodded.

  ‘So what would you say to trying out the Deathweave?’ put in Vispilio with a warm smile. ‘We made it to extend life for a while. If you try the potion for us, it could do nothing at all, but it will probably give you another hundred years of life at least.’

  ‘Or it could do something else,’ added Dark quietly.

  ‘Look at it this way,’ said Vispilio, ‘we are the seven most powerful sorcerers in the world. We are good at what we do and we made this potion to save our own lives. So how likely are we to have made a mistake?’

  Arafin Strood looked at him thoughtfully. ‘And how is it supposed to do this?’

  The sorcerers looked blank.

  ‘How should we know?’ shrugged Crow. ‘It’s just magic. We do it. We don’t need to know how it works. Do you know how whatever it is that powers you works?’

  ‘Just do it, Strood,’ barked Gan Mafig suddenly. The potion in his hands was winding his nerves up to breaking point. It wasn’t only the weird sound, it was also the fact that he had been holding the beaker in his hands for ages and the thing was still ice cold. ‘Look on it as an experiment.’

  The servant’s eyes brightened almost imperceptibly.

  Vispilio smiled. Skerridge wondered if maybe Gan Mafig had earned a reprieve for his curtness earlier. But no, that wasn’t Vispilio’s style.

  ‘Just a sip, mind,’ said Crow, as Gan Mafig held out the potion eagerly. ‘That’s all you need and we don’t want to run out.’

  Arafin Strood took the beaker and lifted it to his lips. He sipped. The tension in the atmosphere was almost painful. Nothing happened except that the air around Strood darkened briefly.

  ‘How do you feel?’ asked Enid anxiously.

  Strood was looking at his free hand in a puzzled way. It was curled around something. ‘Fine, just fine,’ he said absently. He opened his hand. On his palm was something small and dark that moved, coiling in on itself like oily smoke. It reminded the watching Skerridge of ink dropped into water.

  Behind Strood, green light flickered for a second, then Ava Vispilio put his orb back into the folds of his robe. In answer to the call came a tide of ragged creatures, all grey fur, yellow eyes and teeth, spilling out from the trees beyond.

  ‘You can’t!’ cried Enid.

  Dark raised a hand wearily to his face and Nemus cast his eyes down. Azork looked unbothered by the whole thing and Crow’s smile was even more vague than usual.

  Senta paled and swallowed hard. ‘What are you doing, Ava?’

  Vispilio’s wolves came to a halt, milling a short distance away from the group, just behind Arafin Strood. On the horizon, the sun began its descent in the sky, slipping down into a sea of golden light. Skerridge shuddered. He had forgotten that Mr Strood had the Evebell rung every day at exactly this time for a reason. It was a reminder.

  ‘Right,’ said Vispilio. ‘As Enid so kindly pointed out, there is another possibility. Something that I think would make us all hesitate. Our aim is to control Death, put it off for a while, not banish it. No one wants to live forever. So, time for part two of the experiment.’

  Gan Mafig backed away. Skerridge wished he could wake up.

  Vispilio raised a hand, pointed at Strood with his forefinger and let loose a short bolt of power. Enough to knock the apothecary’s servant off his feet and send him flying backwards, right into the middle of the wolf pack.

  ‘After all,’ said Vispilio, ‘we need to know the full story before we drink it, don’t you think?’

  Skerridge covered his ears to block the screams and the horrible wet sounds. Gan Mafig ran to hide. Of the sorcerers, even Azork had to look away.

  Only Vispilio watched to the end.

  Skerridge opened one eye and unplugged his ears. Sadly he had not woken up yet, but the scene had moved on because day, like the wolves, had gone. Now the scene was lit by a ring of bright sun-globes cast into the night sky by Vispilio. The end of the Final Gathering was in sight.

  Enid was sobbing bitterly in Senta’s arms. Nemus was pale and strained, age suddenly showing in the lines of his face. Crow looked sick and wandered about nervously, while Dark stood still and silent, apart from the rest. Azork was trying not to show his fear and Vispilio was scowling.

  Skerridge, like the other watchers, had his view blocked by the bodies of the seven, but he didn’t need to see to know what they were looking at.

  In the centre of the circle was Arafin Strood, naked and scarred like a road map from top to toe.

  He smiled.

  He flexed his fingers.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘who’s next for the potion?’

  The sorcerers backed away.

  ‘Enough,’ Vispilio turned his back. ‘It seems we made a mistake, after all. He’s immortal.’

  Azork nodded. He swallowed, avoiding Strood’s eye and then followed Vispilio as he left.

  Crow coughed. ‘Perhaps we’d better rethink this.’ He smiled apologetically at Strood. ‘Thank you for your time.’

  Dark gave Crow a cold glance, then turned and left without a word. Nemus, his head bowed, walked away with Senta at his side. Enid was the last to go.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said to Strood. ‘Forgive us.’

  ‘Never,’ said Strood. He grinned. ‘Not so long as I live.’

  33

  Another Day Begins

  onas was howling with grief and with rage. Grief at all that he thought he had lost when Nin had rescued him from the Hounds and rage because he should not have lost them at all. He should have stayed with the Hounds, because being rescued from them was impossible.

  But slipping in under the memory of all those things that he thought he had lost came other memories, memories of things that he had lost. Really lost.

  Lost, perhaps, forever.

  The howling stopped and Jonas sank to the ground, his head buried in his bloodied hands. He could barely keep up with the images flooding into his head.

  There was a house. It seemed huge, with great, bright rooms full of light and colour. There were trees in the garden. There were summer holidays and Christmas and birthdays. There were lessons and school friends and a white terrier with bright black eyes that he called Snowy after the one in Tintin.

  There was a woman with warm eyes and short, honey-coloured hair who was sometimes stern, but usually smiling. A grey-eyed man with slender hands and a mobile, intelligent face. And a baby sister who handed him half-sucked sweets and got in his way all the time; who seemed to grow while he watched, turning from a toddler int
o a kid in school uniform with a satchel on her shoulder and her eyes all scrunched up because she was trying to understand something.

  All this he had had and it was so much better than anything the Hounds had to offer that the pain of having lost it knocked the pain of losing the Hounds into a cocked hat.

  Wearily, his face by now stained with tears as well as blood, Jonas raised his head to see a huge, horrible shape heading down the corridor towards him, hurrying anxiously past the blood-smeared walls. As he watched, the lamps began to pop back on and another day began. Dawn was breaking outside and the House was waking up.

  ‘Galig’s Sword, boy! Been fightin’ the ’Ounds, I take it?’

  Jonas nodded weakly, as relief surged through him.

  ‘Did yer win? Yeah, yeah. Daft question. If not, you’d ’ave been at my throat by now, right?’ Taggit dumped a bulging pack on the ground next to Jonas.

  ‘I think that if I had lost, even if you had been Nin I would have tried to kill you,’ croaked Jonas. ‘But I won.’

  ‘Per’aps we’d better do somethin’ about the state you’re in. We can start with a drink of water and then a look at those bloody stumps you’re usin’ for fingers.’

  Taggit pulled a flask out of the pack, whipped the cap off and helped Jonas take a few mouthfuls. It was just water, but it was cold and clean and wonderful for a raw throat.

  Next the goblin pulled out a battered tin containing a pot of Honey Healing Balm, a wad of gauze and some bandages. Jonas watched as Taggit began to bathe his torn fingers. He was tired and dazed, but his head felt oddly clear. Clean, almost. Taggit smeared ointment on the wounds. It felt to Jonas’s fingers like the water had to his throat.

  ‘I’m glad you came,’ said Jonas.

  Taggit peered down at him, his look unfathomable. Then he smiled. ‘Thought I needed a change o’ scene,’ he said. ‘Good thing too, eh. Looks like you could do with some rest and somethin’ to eat. But don’t be too long about it, eh? If yer wanna find that friend of yours, we’d better get on. Dunno about you, but I’ve got a nasty feelin’ that time is runnin’ out.’

  Skerridge woke up just as the lamps flicked back on, feeling a whole lot better. The TPF had gone, leaving him firmly in the present and very hungry.

  His first task was to steal some thread and a needle to sort out the torn shoulder-seam of his waistcoat, and his second was to raid the servants’ larder and take the booty back to the dusters box. He quickly polished off three chicken sandwiches, two cake-sized slices of jam sponge and a flask of lemonade, then wiped his mouth and fingers on the dusters, burped hugely and settled back to think. It was a mistake, because thinking took him straight back to the scenes he had just relived.

  The fact that such a terrible act had been committed by the Fabulous was enough to make him go cold all over. The guilt belonged, not just to Ava Vispilio who had thrown Strood to the wolves, or to the Seven who had cast the Deathweave, let him drink it and then failed to stop Vispilio, but to the whole of the Fabulous for the carelessness with which they treated the Quick. The carelessness that had made the whole thing possible.

  He closed his eyes and winced. Because didn’t that include him too? All the kids over all the years, just to carry on the fear so that bogeymen could go on living, could become so steeped in dread that they would be among the last of the Fabulous to die.

  In the darkness of the cupboard, scrunched up in the duster box, Skerridge experienced something that felt horribly like remorse.

  He was drowning in the knowledge that Ninevah Redstone had every reason to hate and despise him. The entire Quick species had every reason to hate and despise him too, but somehow the fact that Nin did was the bit that hurt the most. After a while he reached for something to blow his nose on. His groping hand came back with the knobbly thing that had been sticking into his shoulder all night. He stared blankly at the pink ruck-sack, then wiped his nose on it anyway.

  While Skerridge sat huddled up amid the dusters, clutching Ninevah Redstone’s backpack and feeling sorry for himself, Skerridge’s brain got on with the process of thinking. He was pretty sure that any time soon Ninevah Redstone would be making a break for it. The only escape route that wouldn’t get her caught or killed was Seraphine’s Secret Way, which he was also pretty sure meant the tunnel in the down-house graveyard. But something wasn’t right.

  Most likely, the Secret Way was an old escape route, built into the house right at the start for its owner to use if there was ever any trouble. And that meant there had to be a door of some kind, because what escape route wouldn’t have a way to cut off pursuers?

  And that meant there had to be a key. Only thing was, what had happened to it?

  Skerridge blinked as an idea thundered into his brain. He brightened up, blew his nose again and hurried out of the dusters box, heading through the servants’ dining room to the next door along, the one marked ‘Here be Tygers’.

  He had better move fast. Somehow he couldn’t get rid of the feeling that time was running out.

  In Mr Strood’s study the lamps popped on, filling the room with morning. Curled up by the bookcases, Nin awoke with a start. Remembering the night before, a wave of panic swept over her that she hadn’t been able to reach Jonas and help him. She felt tears spring into her eyes and rubbed them away firmly. He would have survived the night somehow, she was sure of it.

  Stiffly, she clambered to her feet and crept quietly to the door. Outside she could hear feet pattering up and down as the servants took Mr Strood his breakfast and got things ready for the day ahead. She would have to wait a little longer.

  The book she had been reading when the lamps went out was still lying open on Mr Strood’s desk. Reluctantly Nin moved towards it, not wanting to know any more but still drawn to the end of the story. The words caught her eyes and she found herself reading anyway, horrified but unable to stop.

  The ballad, flipping between poetry and prose, went on to describe the Final Gathering. Towards the end, Strood’s writing became so frenzied it was barely legible and Nin struggled to make sense of it. When she finally understood that she was reading a description of what it felt like to be torn apart for hours before the Seven finally gave up trying to see if he could be killed, she stopped and covered her face with her hands.

  Which was when an Eyes trotted round the desk, took a long look at her and then trundled off, unnoticed.

  Having finished his early breakfast, Mr Strood was eager to get on. Following the capture of the spider yesterday afternoon, he had put a batch of Mafig’s Fusion on to brew and now it was ready and waiting to be used.

  Mafig’s Fusion was the most important part of the mortal distillation process. Until Mafig, nobody had been able to distil a living being without several weeks, even months, of hard work. To distil a living being you had to crush its spirit completely and then drain out its essence. Even the darkest of sorcerers found it heavy going. But Gan Mafig worked out a way to distil a living being in a matter of hours by injecting it with a Fusion designed to plunge the victim deep into the heart of its worst nightmares, many times concentrated, until its spirit collapsed from the sheer weight of terror. This Fusion was the discovery that made him famous. Gan Mafig wanted to be thought brilliant, he hadn’t meant to be evil and having invented the mortal distillation process he used it only once, just to make sure it worked.

  The process itself was simple. Take a living being. Seal it into a confined space so that the essence didn’t evaporate. Drip Fusion into one arm. Watch the victim scream a lot. Collect the essence with a collection funnel and drain it into a suitable container. Throw away the leftovers.

  Mr Strood’s laboratory was large and clinical with its walls, shelves, cabinets and work surfaces all painted white. The floor was covered with small tiles of white porcelain that could be washed if they got covered in, say, blood or anything nasty. The room was not completely lacking in colour, though. The shelves were lined with jars and bottles, each filled with liquid, powder or
objects in a variety of hues. Some of them were vivid greens, blues, reds and yellows. Some were darker purples and crimsons.

  There were a lot of glass beakers and test-tubes on the work surface, all sparkling clean, and a strange contraption like a glass cage along one wall. Right now Secretary Scribbins was herding the spider into the contraption, which happened to be Mr Strood’s Mortal Distillation Machine.

  Scribbins yelped. The spider didn’t want to go and he was having trouble keeping it from running up the walls in an attempt to escape. Fortunately the net was holding fast and the stunning wand was useful to numb it and stop it scuttling off. Even so, it managed to scratch him with one hook-ended leg.

  Once it was in the machine and the glass door was closed, Strood took over and began to hook it up to the system of tubes going in and out of the glass walls. One lot to feed the Fusion into the spider’s helpless body, the other lot running from the collection funnel to a suitable container. This time, rather than simply collecting the essence of the spider in a bottle, he wanted it to drain straight into the boy that would soon become Eyes. So he ordered Scribbins to push the kid’s cage closer to the machine and added an extra run to the collection tubing so that he could stick the collection needle straight into the boy’s arm.

  The kid whimpered, but that was all and in no time everything was all set to go.

  Strood stood poised, ready to open the valve that would start the Fusion on its deadly path into the core of the creature at his mercy.

  Which was when the Eyes sent him a mental image of something that made him turn pale with rage.

  34

  The Kid in the Cage

  fter a while Nin put her hands down from her face and looked back at the page. There was something she wanted to find out, one last thing she didn’t get. She read on quickly. Once they had sent the wolves away and Strood’s body had been allowed to heal fully, the Sorcerers left. Gan Mafig was, according to Strood, cowering in his study. Those who had witnessed the Final Gathering and its terrible consequences had slunk away. Only Strood was left. Strood and something else. Something small and dark, like a marble of inky cloud.