by J. R. Wallis
The gun was fast asleep in its wooden box and Ruby took it out gently so as not to startle it.
‘Is it our turn to keep watch?’
‘Almost,’ replied Ruby.
‘So what—’
Ruby shushed it and put it in the pocket of the dressing gown that Jones had lent her, which was grey and woollen and smelt vaguely of boy.
She padded quietly across the floor, careful not to wake the sleeping Jones, and let herself out onto the landing.
After placing the gun on the floor beside her, Ruby knelt down in front of the small chest and opened it. Maitland had stuffed it full of gifts. There was a black dimpled sphere the size of a grapefruit. Next to it was a pink silk bag, full of white cubes the size of sugar lumps with strange-looking red runes inscribed on every face. All sorts of different-sized jars were stacked inside as well, full of either seeds or berries or mushrooms pickled in vibrant red liquids. There was a gnarled stick too, the length of her forearm, which didn’t look like anything magical at all.
But Ruby was only interested in one item. When Jones had shown her the scrying mirror, she’d thought it the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen, and had been desperate to wrench it from his grasp. Staring at it again now, she had exactly the same feeling of wanting to hold it.
The black ivory surround felt smooth and comfortable in her hands. But although she’d been desperate to hold the mirror she had no idea what it was supposed to do. All she could see in the glass was her curious face staring back.
‘Any idea how to use a scrying mirror?’ she asked the gun as she turned the mirror round to inspect the back.
‘Not a clue. Maitland tried using one a few times, but gave up because he never got anywhere. A scrying mirror is very difficult to use. It requires great skill and patience.’
‘Right,’ said Ruby, not believing the gun for a moment.
‘It’s true. All Maitland did was curse whenever he looked in the mirror and nothing happened.’
‘Next you’ll be telling me girls can’t use them anyway because the Ordnung says so.’
‘Rules are rul—’
‘What if I can do something with it? Just because there aren’t any Badlander girls doesn’t mean I can’t. It feels good to hold it. That must mean something, right?’
The gun muttered something back as Ruby noticed a thin pamphlet tucked inside the chest with the title:
The Beginner’s Guide to Scrying
Welcome to this beginner’s guide. Scrying as I am sure you know is the art of spying on people and places known to the scryer however far away they might be. In the presence of any scrying object, whether a mirror, a glass ball or even a well-polished tabletop, those with a natural calling will feel a great compulsion to want to hold or touch the item. If you have such a feeling now in the presence of your scrying object then you are ready to begin!
Ruby read on with a great deal of excitement. But the pamphlet gave her very little further encouragement, explaining that successful scrying required many hours of practice to achieve even the basics. Undeterred, she continued reading and learnt three important things:
. . . a scryer may only spy on someone they have already met or a place they have already visited . . .
. . . to see someone or somewhere, the scryer must picture very carefully in their mind’s eye exactly what they want to see . . .
. . . the application of a polish (we recommend Heaton’s Old Familiar Scrying Polish) will usually improve results, important for a sense of achievement for the beginner. Of course, polish is used by the most adept scryers to turn mirrors into communication devices and, sometimes, large ones can even become portals to visit any location being observed, but this demands years of dedication: see Scrying, Just Spying? by Thomas Merricoates for the most authoritative work on such advanced practice.
Eager to try her hand at scrying, Ruby pictured very carefully in her imagination exactly who she wanted to see. As soon as she picked up the mirror, she felt a tingling in her fingertips, as if what she was thinking about was rushing out of her into the mirror, like water disappearing down a plughole or a file being downloaded from an email.
A white dot sparked in the centre of the glass and grew until the mirror was filled with noisy, boiling static.
‘Give it up now, girl,’ said the gun. ‘You’re wasting your time.’ But Ruby redoubled her efforts instead, holding the two people she was thinking about as clearly as she could in her head until suddenly she blinked and the static disappeared from the glass. The image that replaced it was dark and a little wobbly. But Ruby could see that she was looking down into a dark bedroom, as if she was staring through the ceiling. Below her was a double bed with two adult-sized lumps under the covers. But it was difficult to make out much detail.
Keeping hold of the mirror in one hand, Ruby took the tin of Heaton’s Polish out of the chest and prised off the top. She scooped out a pea-sized ball of white polish onto her finger and rubbed it into the glass. The image became instantly clearer, and Ruby could see a man sleeping on the right of the bed and a woman on the left. She discovered she could zoom in and out on what she could see in the mirror just by thinking it, and went in closer on each of the adults in turn, and saw they were both sleeping peacefully.
Proudly, she showed her efforts to the gun. ‘See, I must be doing something right,’ she announced. ‘I must have a chance of being a Badlander if I can do something Maitland couldn’t. Look!’
‘Well, I’ll be,’ said the gun. ‘It’s at times like these I wish I had hands to give a round of applause. Well done, girl! Who on earth are they?’
‘My foster parents. The people who look after me,’ she added, remembering that Jones hadn’t known what the term meant.
‘So they’re the ones who should be worrying about where you are?’
‘Supposedly,’ said Ruby.
‘And what about your real parents?’
‘Oh, I don’t think they’d be too bothered where I am.’
‘Why ever not?’
As soon as Ruby started thinking about her real parents, the picture in the mirror changed and she was looking at a messy sitting room in a different house. Empty wine bottles were strewn over a large coffee table. Ashtrays were full to the brim. Fast-food containers and cartons lay scattered over the floor. A man wearing a dirty white T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms was curled up on the sofa, snoring.
‘Don’t tell me that’s your father?’ asked the gun. Ruby just nodded.
A woman shuffled into the living room, wearing pink frilly slippers and a nasty green tracksuit. Ruby sighed. ‘And that’s my mum.’ The woman kicked viciously at her husband’s feet, almost falling over because she was drunk.
‘Gary, wake up! I want you to take me out like a lady. I wanna be treated right.’
The man wafted an arm in the general direction of his wife, as if trying to swat a fly, and then started snoring again.
As Ruby put the mirror down and the image started to fade, the last thing she saw was her mother’s angry face popping like a bubble in the glass, and then she was staring at her own reflection.
‘Now I see,’ said the gun.
‘See what?’
‘Why you want to be a Badlander.’
And Ruby thought about that. At least, she did for a couple of seconds, until she sensed something behind her and looked back to see a blurry circle appearing at the far end of the room near the door. Before she could stand up, Victor Brynn came hurtling out of the hazy circle and hit the wall beside the door and slid down it, gasping. Ruby froze, too afraid to run past Victor Brynn to get out of the room.
The No-Thing blinked and growled when it saw her. Victor Brynn raised his hands and conjured a wreath of black sparks around his fingers. But before he had time to cast any magic another blurry hole opened to the left of him and the axe came hurtling out of it, spinning end over end towards him, the metal blade winking. The wooden handle caught Victor Brynn on the chin and knocked him out co
ld, and the axe crashed into a wall and tumbled to the floor.
Ruby was up as fast as she could. ‘Jones!’ she shouted.
Before she had time to reach the door, the unconscious Victor Brynn was dragged along the floor and sucked back through the blurry hole he’d come through, vanishing into thin air.
Ruby cursed under her breath. ‘Jones,’ she shouted as loudly as she could. ‘Jones! The axe! It’s come back!’
The gun fired off a shot at the wall. ‘That’ll wake him!’ it cried.
‘Jones!’ shouted Ruby. ‘We’re downstairs!’
When Ruby spotted the axe starting to move across the floor, back towards the blurry circle it had come through, she instinctively grabbed hold of it.
‘No way!’ she shouted. ‘You’re staying here.’ As she felt the axe begin to judder, she strengthened her grip round the wooden handle. But the axe seemed to have other ideas and started to rise as it pulled towards the hole, the metal head pointing in the direction it wanted to go. It dragged Ruby forward with it. Every muscle in her arms was straining. But she refused to let go as the axe pulled her towards the hole at the far end of the room. She started to wonder what was beyond it and what might happen if she didn’t let go.
In fact, there were lots of questions hurtling through Ruby’s mind, a big one being Where on earth is Jones?
THIRTEEN
Jones’s mother was speaking into a communication device. He knew it was called a ‘mobile’, a portable alternative to what ordinary people called a telephone that usually sat on a desk or a bureau or could even be stuck to the wall. He had observed different sorts of phones when he’d crept into houses with Maitland and had heard the same mysterious crackle at the other end whenever he’d picked up the receiver.
His mum had plucked the mobile from her handbag as soon as it had rung, before Jones had taken a step instinctively towards her to say something. With the moment lost, he’d stood on the pavement, feeling so awkward and ill-prepared for what was happening he’d turned around and walked on.
‘Oh, Mrs Easton, that really is too much,’ shrieked his mother, her laugh echoing round the houses as Jones took one slow step after another, the sensible part of his brain reminding him he was only here to observe, not to introduce himself.
As he glanced back towards the house, his mother laughed again. She was standing on the little path that led out through the front garden onto the street.
‘Ye-eess, we’re leaving now, so say about . . . twenty minutes. Sorry again. We didn’t notice the time. Okay. Bye. Bye.’ She clicked the phone off as a middle-aged man in a suit and red tie followed her out onto the path. Jones recognized him immediately as his father. He looked older, with more weight in his face and around his throat, and he had less of his blond hair too. But it was him.
‘Hurry up,’ hissed his wife.
Jones’s father grabbed hold of the brass knocker and banged the front door shut. ‘We wouldn’t be running late if you hadn’t taken so long getting ready,’ he said, following his wife down the short path towards the open gate at the end, aiming for the street beyond.
‘You were the one who insisted on finishing off whatever you were doing.’
‘Accounts,’ replied the man briskly. ‘And I was ready ten minutes ago. I told you.’ He slammed the gate hard behind him to make his point.
As Jones kept walking away down the street, he fumbled in the inside pocket of his overcoat for a tiny mirror Maitland had given him for spying purposes. But, instead of using it to watch for a creature creeping up behind him as he would usually, now Jones angled the mirror to see his mother and father walking across the road towards a silver estate car. Its lights blinked. The door locks popped. An engine revved. For a brief moment, he imagined himself in that car too. Sitting in the back seat and telling a joke, making his parents laugh to stop them worrying about being late for Mrs Easton, the woman his mother had spoken to on the mobile.
The car did a smart U-turn and Jones watched the vehicle pause at the junction at the far end of the street, before turning right and vanishing. Jones dumped the mirror in his pocket and walked on a few paces more, his heart beating fast, then stopped. He hadn’t expected things to turn out like this. Now, he was regretting not running up to his parents and telling them precisely who he was. Looking down, he noticed a green weed growing through a crack in the pavement and started kicking at it, cursing Maitland.
Jones was so preoccupied with thinking about his parents, imagining being with them wherever they were going, he didn’t notice someone emerging swiftly out of the row of run-down houses on the other side of the street. When a hand landed on his shoulder, he flinched and looked up into the blue eyes of a boy about the same age as him but taller, with his brown hair combed up into an elaborate quiff. With his large protruding nose, he reminded Jones slightly of a crow. The boy was elegantly dressed in a three-quarter-length herringbone coat with a crisp blue shirt and a silk paisley scarf tied loosely, and rather foppishly, round his neck. When Jones tried to step away, a small fairy-like creature with a single big eye in the centre of its forehead flew up out of the other boy’s coat pocket and bared a set of sharp teeth. Jones knew what it was immediately. A One Eye. And they were known for being vicious. Something pinged inside his heart as he wondered what to say to this boy. Another Badlander. He knew how the Ordnung worked in London.
‘You shouldn’t be here,’ said the other boy. ‘Hampstead’s my Master’s æhteland. We’re the only ones allowed to hunt on it. Don’t you know how the Ordnung works in London?’
Jones tried to look blank and shook his head. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. What’s an Ord . . . an Ordnunnn? And what is that?’ he said, nodding at the One Eye as it fluttered in front of him. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked, trying to sound scared like an ordinary boy might.
The other boy laughed and shook his head as if seeing straight through Jones’s act. ‘Move another muscle and my One Eye will bite your nose clean off.’ Jones kept quite still, watching the One Eye nervously, as the other boy searched his overcoat pockets. When he found the bottle of black Slap Dust and saw the label, he whistled. ‘Deschamps & Sons. Top quality stuff.’ He put the bottle in his pocket and crossed his arms. ‘We were looking for a Gást in the houses on the other side of the road when we saw you arrive. So, instead of lying, why don’t you tell me why you’re really here?’
‘I ain’t hunting on your Master’s territory.’
The boy gave a little snort that made his elaborate quiff wobble. ‘Then why were you so interested in that couple who left in the car?’ He smoothed a hand through his hair as if he had all the time in the world to wait for an answer. His well-polished black shoes seemed to be grinning too as the street lights caught them.
Jones felt a little knot pulling tighter and tighter inside him. He’d already been away from Ruby for longer than he’d intended. He didn’t want to think about what she’d say if she woke up and discovered he’d left the house.
He cleared his throat as he settled on the best lie his brain could come up with, preparing to tell it as well as he could. He knew that if anyone found out that Maitland had died, he’d be punished for not reporting the death immediately. But the situation with Ruby would be far worse. Jones thought there probably wasn’t even a punishment for Commencing with a girl because it was so unthinkable. He hung his head in shame. ‘I was trying out that Slap Dust. I stole it off my Master and used way too much and ended up here by accident. I only meant to travel a short way. I’m sorry I came onto your Master’s æhteland. Honest. I’m just a country Badlander and we ain’t as good as you townie lot with things like Slap Dust. As for that couple, I was just hoping they didn’t notice me like you did, that’s all.’
The boy smiled like a fox. ‘Do you think I was born yesterday? You’re an apprentice like me. Well, not quite like me of course,’ and he laughed, smoothing a hand through his hair again. ‘You didn’t come here by accident. You’re out hunting to
prove to your Master you’re good enough to Commence. My Master’s desperate to know if I’m ready too. There was something about that couple. I saw the way you were watching them. So, here’s the deal. Tell me what you know about them, why you’re really here, and we’ll hunt them together. That way we can prove ourselves to our Masters and both get to Commence.’
Jones shook his head. ‘I ain’t got no interest in that couple. Give me my Slap Dust back and I’ll get out your hair.’ But the One Eye flew right up into his face and perched on his nose and growled.
‘Thomas Gabriel’s right,’ it said in a deeper voice than Jones had expected. ‘If you don’t tell us the truth, I’ll bite your nose clean off if that’s what he wants.’
Thomas Gabriel coughed gently. ‘It’s very obedient.’ As if to make his point, he beckoned the One Eye back to him and it perched on his shoulder, from where it continued to glare at Jones. ‘Tell you what, let me help you on your hunt, and you can help me find the Gást I was looking for over the road. My Master, Simeon, is a sly old dog. He’s kept the Gást bound in the middle house of that row for years as a test for all ten apprentices he had over the years. I know because I sneaked a look in his private journals. Now, catching a Gást would be a rum thing, wouldn’t it? That would impress both our Masters. Add that to whatever you’re hunting too and we’re bound to Commence.’
‘You can keep your Gást,’ said Jones, who was desperate to leave. ‘I ain’t interested. I just want to get home before my Master finds out I stole his Slap Dust.’
Thomas Gabriel’s smile melted away. ‘This is your last chance, you little bumpkin. Fill me in on that couple, tell me what you’re hunting, or else I’ll report you to my Master for coming onto his æhteland and breaking the Ordnung. And believe me you don’t want that. He’s a real stickler for doing everything by the book.’
As the other boy stared at him, Jones knew he was serious. So far his lie wasn’t working.