The Wizard in the Woods

by Louie Stowell

  “One thing that’s been bothering me, though,” said Alita, “is why the Dragon Masters didn’t appear right away, when the evil wizards did their spell over the egg.”

  “Oh, I know this,” said Josh. “I read about some spells that don’t happen straight after you finish saying them. Some really big spells take time to brew. Like tea.”

  “Evil tea,” said Kit. “And not even the chocolate kind.”

  “I’ve written up what we know so far, so we know where to start,” said Josh. He got out his notebook and showed them.

  What we know: evil wizards have brought back the Dragon Masters using a spell and energy from the hatching of the dragon’s egg. Greg saw them in the cemetery, and they did something to scramble his brains, then when Faith tried to help unscramble them, she got sucked into Greg’s vision and she’s now in a mystical coma, which is like a normal coma but with magic and no beeping machines.

  What we don’t know: if there’s any link between what’s happening now and what happened when the cursed bone nearly brought back the Dragon Masters over the summer.

  What we need to find out: how to get Faith and Greg out of their mystical comas and stop the Dragon Masters and their evil wizard friends before the Wizards’ Council punishes Ben and he has to live life as an exile all alone and sad, which he doesn’t deserve because he is cool and nice.

  “Anyway,” said Josh. “I’ve got an idea. I’ve been reading this detective book where, when they want to find out what happened, they go back to the scene of the crime. So perhaps if we go back to where Greg’s mind got messed with, and where the Dragon Masters were, we might find something that’ll help.”

  “What if the Dragon Masters are still there?” said Alita.

  “Then we run away,” said Josh. “Really, really fast. And think of a new plan.”

  When they reached the cemetery, it was deserted. Not a rat or an evil wizard in sight. It was a grey day, and a little chilly under the trees. Kit was glad she had a stomach full of chocolate tea and snacks to warm her up. Alita had a woolly jumper on over her dress, and Josh was wearing his long rain mac, “Just in case,” he said. “Also, it makes me look like a detective.”

  They walked all round the chapel, where they’d seen the Dragon Masters and the evil wizards in Greg’s vision. At first, they found nothing. But when they walked round again, looking more carefully at the ground, Josh found a clue.

  It was a shred of cloak, hanging off the stone door to a tomb. The door to the tomb was ajar.

  “That’s the same colour cloak as that blond wizard was wearing,” said Josh. “A clue!”

  Kit came closer and peered at it. She was starting to get a nasty feeling about all this.

  “There!” said Alita. “Look at those marks in the mud. It’s like someone’s opened that door recently.”

  “You don’t think it’s vampires, do you?” asked Josh, looking around nervously.

  “It’s daylight,” said Kit. “And vampires don’t exist.”

  “In which case,” said Josh, “I don’t want to jump to conclusions. But I have a serious worry that the entrance to the evil wizards’ lair is in that tomb.”

  “I think you’re right,” said Kit.

  “So we have to go in to investigate, don’t we?” said Josh, not moving. “If my grandma ever finds out I climbed inside a tomb, I am so dead,” he added. “We’re practically grave-robbing. She’ll KILL me.”

  “I’ll cry a lot at your funeral,” said Alita. “And wear a very nice black hat. Now, let’s go down and see what we can find.” She smiled bravely at Kit.

  Kit looked at her friends. They were willing to go down into an evil wizards’ lair for her. She loved them for that.

  An image flashed through her mind, of Alita crumpling to the ground as the fireball hit her. She pictured what might be down there, inside the crypt. A dungeon? The Dragon Masters?

  “I don’t think even Alita could squeeze through there,” Josh was saying. “We need to push it further open.”

  It took all their strength, and an extra spell from Kit, to move the stone door. After a lot of puffing and panting they got it open.

  “Wait,” said Kit. Cold waves of air came out of the dark. It felt like the tomb went a long, long way down. She could see stairs descending until they faded into the darkness. She had a horrible thought: what if she was leading her friends down to die in the dark?

  After a thoughtful moment, she said, “We should make sure we’re not disturbed. Josh, do you know a spell to keep people out of a place?”

  “Yes,” said Josh. “But it needs a closed gate. We can’t do it on this tomb unless we shut ourselves in.”

  “Hm,” said Kit. “Let’s do it on the gate to the cemetery. It’ll stop any evil wizards coming in after us.”

  “Good idea,” said Josh. “I wish I’d had it.”

  They hurried over to the tall gate of the cemetery and stood outside it, first checking that the street was empty. Josh told Kit the spellwords. “And you have to touch the people who are allowed through the gate as you say the final word.”

  Kit nodded.

  “No permisso durch canhcong

  Inside to you”

  As she said “you”, she touched her own shoulder and stepped through the gate. It clanged shut and began to glow. Josh and Alita were on the outside, and Kit was inside.

  “You forgot to touch us!” said Josh. “You’ll have to do it again.”

  “No, I didn’t forget,” said Kit. “This is too dangerous. I need to do this on my own.”

  “What?” Alita looked horrified.

  “I’m sorry. It’s for your own good,” said Kit, and she broke into a run back towards the tomb. Her heart was hammering. I’m doing this to keep them out of danger, she said to herself. I can’t let those wizards hurt them again. I’m a wizard. They’re not. This is for me to do alone.

  She reached the open tomb, looked around her, and started to climb down the long stone staircase. “Ina,” she said, and a ball of light appeared ahead of her.

  She went down and down into the dark. As she got closer to the bottom, she whispered the words Ben had taught her to extinguish a spell.

  Then she waited in the darkness. All was silent and cold. After a few minutes, she started to feel a little silly. There were clearly no evil wizards down here. What if it was just an ordinary tomb?

  “Ina,” she said again.

  She was in a stone chamber, lined with wooden bookshelves. There were spell books and various magical objects around the walls and littering a large stone table. There was also a packet of biscuits on a shelf.

  “I didn’t think evil wizards would eat biscuits,” said Kit to herself. “Makes them seem less scary somehow.”

  “Dunno,” said a voice. “I think anyone with an underground lair in a tomb who summons Dragon Masters from beyond the grave is scary, whatever they eat.”

  Kit shot round in terror … to see Alita and Josh standing there.

  “How … are you here? Did the spell fail?” asked Kit.

  “No,” said Alita. “We climbed over the fence.” She was glaring at Kit.

  Josh pointed to his once white trainers, which were covered in moss and grime. “Look at what you made me do!” he said. “Look at my SHOES!”

  “Wait, you didn’t tell me the spell wouldn’t stop people climbing over the fence!” said Kit.

  “Well, who would want to CLIMB if they didn’t have to!” said Josh.

  Alita was glaring at Kit. “Why did you cast that spell on us?” asked Alita. “You’re supposed to be our friend.”

  “That’s why I did it!” said Kit. “I didn’t want you to be in danger.”

  “That’s not for you to decide,” said Alita.

  “But—”

  “Let’s talk about it later,” said Alita. “They could come back any time. We need to look for clues.”

  Kit looked around. She realised, embarrassed, that she had no idea what to look for.


  “Maybe there’s a sign of where they’re keeping the Dragon Masters?” suggested Josh. He went over to a bookshelf and started pulling books off the shelves and scanning them. Alita searched a cupboard, while Kit checked out the magical objects on the stone table. She was just wondering if any of them were cursed and would turn her into a toad if she touched them when she heard footsteps.

  “Hide!” she hissed.

  They scurried round looking for a good hiding spot. There wasn’t much in the room, but they found a grate leading to another tunnel – perhaps to let air into the lair – and crawled inside, pulling the grate back into place just in time.

  Three pairs of feet walked in. Kit wedged her face against the grate to see more of them. Three men.

  One was the blond wizard.

  “The masters are safe,” said one of the others. “They grow stronger with every passing moment. Soon they’ll be ready.”

  “When is soon?” asked the blond wizard. “That wizard won’t be trapped in dreamland for long. She might raise the alarm. She might bring the council down on us.”

  “The spell says we have twenty-four hours before they reach their full strength,” said the third. “Then they will give us our reward.”

  The blond wizard narrowed his eyes. “I say we kill her. Kill them all.”

  Kit’s stomach dropped. He means Faith … and us. And we’re in his lair. Ready to be killed.

  We have to get out of here, thought Kit. We have to contact Ben and tell him to hurry up and get the council to help us. She looked behind her to the tunnel. Maybe there was another way out? That tunnel had to lead somewhere. And if it was for allowing air into the lair, surely it led to the surface?

  New footsteps made her turn back to the grate. Kit could just see another pair of feet. The other wizards seemed to stand up a little straighter.

  “Well, well, well,” said a familiar voice. “What have we here? Evil wizards in their evil lair?”

  Kit gasped. Ben! He was back! He was back from the council and they were going to be OK.

  “Yes, Master,” chuckled the wizards. “Evil-ing all over the place.”

  Master? thought Kit.

  “Quit calling me that,” said Ben. “That’s kind of the point of all of this. I’m not the council. We’re all equal. I’m not your boss, I’m just the one who’ll bring down the status quo. The old falls. The new rises.”

  “The old falls, the new rises!” chimed in the other wizards.

  What is happening? thought Kit.

  “But even though I’m not your master, I am coordinating our mission. So if I had to give you some feedback, colleague to colleague … you’re really falling down on security,” said Ben.

  “What do you mean?” asked the blond wizard.

  Ben sighed. “Have none of you noticed our three little intruders?”

  Ben whispered a word, and the grate vanished. And with another word, Kit felt herself being dragged out from the tunnel.

  “No!” she yelled.

  Alita and Josh let out little yelps, as they were pulled by the same force. With scrapes and bruises forming, they were all soon out of the tunnel and held in mid-air, in the middle of the room, in an invisible bubble of magic. Kit’s body thrummed with someone else’s magic. She couldn’t get free. This was Not Good.

  Ben and the other wizards were looking up at them.

  “So,” said Ben. “I suppose this is the part where you realise who’s really behind all this.”

  Kit looked down at Ben, trying to make sense of what was happening.

  “But – you’re our friend,” was all she could think of to say.

  Ben smiled up at her. The same friendly grin he always had. He even reached up and tousled his hair. How was this possible?

  “I am your friend,” he said. “I like you a lot, Kit. I’m serious. You’re wild and free and impatient. I see a lot of myself in you. But I didn’t think you were ready to know the truth. Now – well, I owe it to you. You’ve shown you’re ready, by disobeying me when I told you to wait. I’m really glad you did that – I’ve hated keeping this from you. So let me tell you what’s happening here.”

  “You’re evil, is what’s happening here,” said Kit.

  Ben frowned. “That was just a joke, with me and my colleagues. This isn’t about evil. What I’m doing here is much bigger than that.”

  “If it’s not about evil then you wouldn’t be hanging around with evil wizards and keeping us magical prisoners,” said Josh. “Good people don’t hang their friends in mid-air.”

  “Good people also don’t bring back the Dragon Masters,” said Alita.

  “They’ve really done a number on you, that Wizards’ Council,” sighed Ben.

  “No they haven’t!” said Kit. “This isn’t about them.”

  “This is entirely about them,” spat Ben. “About how they held me back. Didn’t let me use magic to help people. Didn’t let me think for myself. But I didn’t see the real picture at first. It wasn’t until I worked on my powers on that island that I read more, about the history of the Wizards’ Council. I read online about the communities of wizards who wanted to be free. I found like-minded people. We began to plan. Then the Dragon Masters came to me and I saw a way to make the plan a reality.”

  “So you spent five years alone on a beautiful island, surrounded by incredible wildlife … talking to ghost rats on the Internet?” said Alita. “Wow. What a waste.”

  “You’re not getting it,” snapped Ben. “The council wanted to keep me away from the truth. They refused to show me the magical texts I asked to see, just because they thought they were too dangerous! Who are they to tell me that?”

  “So … you went evil because you weren’t allowed to read a book?” asked Kit. “In which case, maybe I should keep an eye on Josh if anyone ever cancels his library card.”

  Alita snorted.

  “Stop laughing at me when we’re in danger!” said Josh.

  “Stop talking!” spat Ben. “Just let me speak. I can’t think. Just let me tell you what I’ve wanted to tell you for so long.” He put a hand to his throat, then gestured to them, and said a spell:

  “Shaanti hush!”

  Kit’s mind was shouting. But her mouth was zipped shut, like her jaw had locked in place. She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t make a sound. She just had to hang there and listen.

  “I don’t want to bring back the Dragon Masters so they can rule the world. I want them to free it. Free magic. All these centuries, the Wizards’ Council have stopped wizards from sharing the magic that could help everyone. Hoarding it. They stand for everything old that holds us back. We’re a new generation. We deserve our own lives. Our own choices. We only want to share it with the world. Like … if someone had no food, we could create it for them. Or … if someone’s about to harm someone else, you could do a spell to make them change their mind! What’s evil about that?”

  He was pacing now. The other evil wizards stood to a kind of attention. Then Ben stopped, looking up at Kit pleadingly. “You have to understand. I didn’t want to lie to you. I just didn’t know if I could trust you right away.” He looked at her. “Do you understand?”

  He gestured and spoke a word: “Shum!”

  Kit and the others gasped, freed.

  “I understand. I understand that you’re selfish!” said Josh. “I think you just want to do what YOU want, and pretend it’s what’s good for everyone else!”

  “You just want to control people,” said Alita. “You’re saying you even want to control people’s thoughts! That’s disgusting!”

  “Now, that’s a bit harsh,” said Ben. He looked genuinely hurt. “I’m not the only one who wants to protect others using magic. Kit here … didn’t she just put a spell on you both to stop you getting into danger? We’re not all that different, you and I.”

  “How did you know…?” Kit began.

  Ben laughed. “I used a very special kind of magic. Called following you.”

  “That
’s rude!” said Josh.

  “He’s evil,” said Alita. “Evil people are often rude.”

  “I’m nothing like you,” said Kit. But she felt a little flutter in her chest. Doubt.

  “If you say so,” said Ben, with a half-smile.

  “Anyway,” said Kit, “how does unleashing ancient evil rats from the dawn of time help with you being free from the Wizards’ Council and being able to make magic food for hungry people or whatever?”

  Ben laughed. “I do like you, Kit. You ask such brilliant questions. Here’s how it will happen. The Dragon Masters will bring down the council. Then we can form our own new world order. The old falls! The new rises!”

  “And they’ve told you this?” asked Kit. “The rats?”

  “They’re pretty ancient,” said Josh. “Why are they so into new stuff?”

  “They’re not part of my plan,” said Ben. “It’s just a deal between us. In exchange for bringing them back, they’ll leave all wizards but the Wizards’ Council alone. They just want to be free too.”

  “How do you know what they want?” asked Alita.

  “They came to me in a dream,” said Ben. “They asked me to help them, by throwing a bone into a lake. They didn’t say why at first … but I found out. It was to start a chain reaction … ending with you using your magic to bring them back,” said Ben.

  Kit’s eyes went wide. “YOU did that?”

  Ben shrugged. “Obviously, it didn’t work. So, in my dreams, we hatched a more direct plan. And here we are … and they’re back.”

  “And you trust them?” asked Kit incredulously. “You trust them to give you what you want?”

  “I trust that everyone wants to be free. Deserves to be free,” said Ben. “Them too. I just want everyone to be free – free from pain, free from hardship.”

  “You want everyone to be free except us, given that we’re currently trapped in a magical prison,” said Josh.