“You see!” said Xar, glowing with happy pride. “I can do it!”
But hardly had the confident words left his mouth, before the frozen Looter’s nose melted and swelled, grew to twice its original size, and dripped violet-colored snot on the floor. Then Looter’s entire body shrunk into something small and furry that is hard to describe except to say no one had ever seen anything like it before.
“Oh!” said Xar in surprise. “I’m not sure what happened there…”
“What have you done? Is this your idea of being good?” raged Encanzo.
“It was an accident,” said Xar, panting and shaking the staff, as if it were a bottle of potion that wasn’t working and as if it were all the staff’s fault, and not his.
Shaking the Staff-That-Commands-the-Castle wasn’t a very good idea. Magic ricocheted madly around the room with such curving, bending ferocity that the Drood Commander’s desk burst into flames.
The castle responded instantly to the flaming desk, for the building was equipped with the very latest in magical defenses. Rain poured out of the magical ceiling above with such intensity that, not only did it put out the fire, but the Wizards were drenched within seconds, stumbling about trying to see through the downpour and the clouds of smoke.
“Oh dear!” said Xar.
“Escape!” roared the werewolf, picking up Xar. (Actually he said, “Gruntsnar-ugh-rowarr,” but that is what he meant.) The werewolf leaped up and out the window, followed by Xar’s sprites and Caliburn, dropping feathers like dark rain.
“I’ll be good, Father, I promise!” shouted Xar from the windowsill.
And then, “Shut!” cried Xar, waving the Staff-That-Commands-the-Castle.
And the window turned into wall behind them like the closing of an eye.
The Enchanter and the Drood Commander were too late with their next bolts of Magic. They rebounded harmlessly off the window-that-was-now-wall.
The two Wizards staggered toward the mirrors. The Drood Commander winked, and the mirrors flicked through views of the outside of the castle, until they could see in one of them Xar and the werewolf, hanging by a couple of homemade ropes from the exterior.
“They can’t get away… Watch!” said the Drood Commander.
As Xar and the werewolf edged toward the outskirts of the castle, the skulls began to open their eyes. And as the tip of the Staff-That-Commands-the-Castle got nearer to the barrier Xar had been so careful to avoid touching earlier, the skulls opened their mouths, and an unbearable screaming noise—like five hundred foxes cornered by dogs—came out of the toothy skinless grins. It was a noise so loud that they could see the sprites shaking in the air, their lights going on and off with the sound waves.
“There!” said the Drood Commander, pointing with satisfaction at the mirrors. “The Drood Guards are out.”
Sure enough, you could see the winged forms of cockatrices flying up from the guardhouses situated within the castle walls. On the back of every cockatrice was a Drood Guard, each armed with an array of ominous-looking spelling staffs.
“We have a reaction time of under two minutes,” said the Drood Commander with smug satisfaction.
“Do you?” said the Enchanter thoughtfully.
The little party of would-be escapees was panicking like mad as they peered over the battlements to where, far down below, Xar’s loyal companions were waiting for him, his giant, Crusher, and his snowcats, wolves, and bear. These had clung to Crusher’s back as he swam across, braving the terrors of the Sea of Skulls in order to help Xar escape, for Xar may have had his faults, but he inspired great loyalty in his companions.
A sprite called the Once-sprite was sitting on a peregrine falcon, peering up at Xar, with his hand shielding his eyes. Behind him, one of the Witch feathers Xar had collected on his previous adventure was glowing with a weird, ominous light.
“Why’sss aren’t they jumping?” asked the Once-sprite nervously, for he could smell a horribly familiar scent in the air, carried to his sensitive sprite nostrils on the wind and the mists of the seas they were standing in.
A deadly nightshade reek of rotten rat and choked-up corpse with a little bright stinging note of viper venom, as strong and as poisonous as the arsenic of an apothecary…
The smell of Witches…
Witches must be watching, and they were somewhere out there in that mist.
“Mmmfff?” replied Crusher absentmindedly in answer to the Once-sprite’s question. Giants are big, and they tend to have BIG thoughts. Xar’s giant was a Longstepper High-Walker giant, and they are the biggest thinkers of all.
“I wonder,” said Crusher slowly, “if the fate of human beings is predetermined by the stars, or do they forge their own destiny? Is there really such a thing as ‘luck’? And what exactly do we mean by the concept of ‘free will’?”
Which were all interesting questions, but perhaps not entirely helpful right at that particular moment.
“They hassss to get a move on…” whispered the Once-sprite, peering nervously upward, then out into the mist, where he thought he might have seen wings or talons or the beak of a Witch. “We need to get out of here RIGHT NOW!”
“What are we going to dooooo?” moaned Caliburn, up on the battlements.
“Wings!” whispered Squeezjoos. “Why’s doesn’t humans beings have wings?”
“It’s a design fault,” admitted Xar, “and a nice idea, but I haven’t really got time to evolve them, Squeezjoos. Don’t worry… I have a plan!”
“I really, really hope it’s a good one…” muttered Caliburn.
Xar shook the Staff-That-Commands-the-Castle, shouting the words of a spell.
And then he threw the spelling staff as hard as he could, so that it fell down, down in a great arc into the sea below, before jumping down after it. The werewolf followed, and the sprites, and Caliburn the talking bird.
And Xar fell, down, down, like a falling star, toward the sea, where his faithful companions were waiting.
“What did he say before he jumped?” said the Drood Commander, watching Xar in the mirror.
“He said: ‘Everything Open,’” said Encanzo.
The smug smile was instantly wiped off the Drood Commander’s face, as C-R-E-E-EAAAKKKKKK! The door of the Commander’s Room unlocked itself and swung wide open. S-L-AAMMMMM! The windows shot open, letting in the moonlight, and the Wizards winced as the cold outside wind hit them.
Through every mirror they could hear the commotion of doors opening, portcullises rising, bars melting, invisible magical barriers dropping with electric hisses.
And then there was the sound of many, many pairs of running feet and opening wings.
“Oh by the steaming droppings of the Big-bottomed Bogburper!” swore the Drood Commander, his eyes popping with disbelief. “He’s used the Staff-That-Commands-the-Castle to open all the doors so EVERYBODY can escape!!!!!!”
“Your guards are going to have their hands full now, Commander,” said Encanzo drily. “We’ll get to see how they deal with those Grim Annises, Rogrebreaths, and all those other terrible things you mentioned now. I suspect they might be so busy fighting with those particular villains that they may not have time to catch my son.”
The Drood Commander shot him a filthy look. With a swirl of wet cloak he swooped out of the open door, shouting: “Jailbreak! CODE RED! WE HAVE MULTIPLE ESCAPE ATTEMPTS! SOMEONE FETCH ME MY COCKATRICE AND GET ME IT NOW!!!”
And Encanzo stood, watching in the mirror, as his son disappeared from view.
Then he sat down at the Drood Commander’s desk.
“Mff!” said a small, insistent voice at Encanzo’s elbow. Sitting on the desk was the rather odd unknown creature that Xar had turned Looter into, a very unattractive little thing, slightly smaller than a rabbit, with a long dribbly nose and a high-pitched squeak.
“Yes, I’m sorry, Looter,” said Encanzo. “I can’t turn you back into human form until I find out exactly what Xar has turned you into… I’ll look you up i
n my Spelling Book. In the meantime, you’ll have to be patient I’m afraid. There are more important things at stake here. Xar is in real trouble…”
The Creature-That-Once-Was-Looter was not used to being anything other than the most important thing in his father’s life. He looked panic-stricken, letting out a rather revolting jet-black liquid from his nostrils and then sitting down dejectedly in his own puddle.
“Maybe it serves us both right,” said Encanzo with a sigh, desperately flicking his way through his Spelling Book, searching, searching, searching for a spell that could cure a Witch-stain. “Could you be a Winklefutt? No, too many ears… We were rather hard on the boy. We jeered at him, offended his dignity…”
There was a curious mixture of expressions on Encanzo’s face. Now that his anger was retreating, he felt a reluctant pride in the sheer breathtaking cheek and ingenuity of his younger son. There are not many people who would have the brazen nerve to turn up in the Drood Commander’s Room and steal his staff from him.
He was also feeling guilty, for Encanzo had not been able to prevent all this from happening.
But his dominant emotion was fear. For, despite everything, Encanzo loved his son, and he knew that Xar would now be in the most terrible danger.
Two ancient sprites settled gravely on Encanzo’s shoulders.
He drummed his fingers with furious fright on the table in front of him. “That Witch-stain is not getting better… It is only a matter of time before we lose Xar entirely to the dark side. We HAVE to find a cure…” He sighed. “But firstly we have to find Xar himself, before his time runs out.
“Could I have prevented this?” said Encanzo to himself. “Caliburn was right… I should have listened to Xar. I should have reasoned with the boy, not hurt his pride.”
But then Encanzo’s face hardened. “But just because I am sorry for him does not mean that he isn’t extremely dangerous. I fear the boy’s faults are greater than his strengths, and we will all suffer for his mistakes.”
Ah, being a parent is so much harder than it looks.
And just because you are old, does not mean that you do not make mistakes.
So that is the story of the Great Jailbreak of Gormincrag. For the first time in a thousand years, not only was there a successful escape attempt, but, indeed, the ENTIRE PRISON POPULATION broke out in one single night.
The sprites would tell that story for many, many centuries afterward. It was too good a tale not to tell. All of the escapees were recaptured, of course. Apart from two.
A werewolf.
And Xar, son of Encanzo.
The first human being EVER to escape from the rehabilitation center of Gormincrag did it by merely traveling across the Sea of Skulls through the Drowned Forest on the back of his snowcat, his animals and the werewolf swimming by his side.
“I am the boy of destiny!” said Xar as he struggled out of the sea on the far shore. “And fate is on my side!” And he vanished, glorious, wild, and jubilant, into the freedom of the wildwoods.
But was Xar REALLY the master of his own destiny, and did he really just escape through his cleverness and his luck?
I have to tell you that the Bloody Barbeards, the Daggerfins, and the Blunderbouths that would have dragged Xar and his companions to the bottom of the ocean were eliminated by a talon between the ribs, an acid breath to the lungs, a whiff of dark Magic in their ears, before they could attack.
The Witches got rid of them.
BUT WHY WOULD THE WITCHES WANT XAR TO ESCAPE?
I told you that stories take you in unexpected directions.
I cannot apologize more, but we are only at the end of Chapter TWO, and I have to take you back to the Kingwitch. He is still suspended there, in that chamber that I told you about, miles away, in the Witch Mountains.
Deep below those mountains, there were secret caverns where the Witches had been hanging in great dark cocoons, sleeping out the centuries. The cocoons had been cracking for some time. A limb poked out here, a feather there. A beak, a nose. And the Witches spread their dreadful wings, flew up and out of the caverns in numbers so huge they were impossible to count, and across the landscape to work their destruction.
The Kingwitch alone was frozen and unmoving. He sent out his troops to wage his War, but he had not moved, for he was waiting, and I fear he may have been conserving his energy for a greater battle that was to come. His great head, with those jaws that could unhinge to swallow a deer in one gulp, was drooping on his breast. He was hanging so high that, despite his immense size, if you walked into that chamber once built for giants you would not even know he was up there.
I would not be doing my duty as a storyteller if I did not warn you that the Kingwitch was up there, poised like a sword about to drop, hiding in the shadows.
But he was still a long, long way away from our heroes, dear Reader. And although Xar may have escaped from the prison of Gormincrag, our other hero Wish was still hidden behind her mother’s Great Wall, way, way to the east in the Warrior territories. And as long as she stayed there, she was absolutely safe…
3. Inside the Punishment Cupboard
Two weeks after Xar made his spectacular escape from Gormincrag, a young Warrior princess called Wish was sitting inside a locked cupboard in the Tower of Education in Queen Sychorax’s iron Warrior fort, when she made an important, and perhaps unfortunate, discovery.
Iron Warrior fort was the largest hill-fort you could possibly imagine, protected by seven great ditches cut into the hill, and the Great Wall Sychorax had recently rebuilt. It was constantly patrolled by Warriors looking out for Witches, who would shoot anything Magic that they saw on sight.
Like Xar, Wish was having imprisonment problems.
That’s right.
I did say she was sitting inside a locked cupboard.
Queen Sychorax, Wish’s terrifying mother, was expecting visitors, and whenever Queen Sychorax had visitors she got Madam Dreadlock, Wish’s tutor, to lock Wish and her bodyguard in the Punishment Cupboard of the schoolroom until after the visitors had left.
So Wish and her bodyguard had already been sitting in this locked, cramped cupboard for hours and hours and hours, and Wish had been whiling away the time by reading and writing stories.
Wish didn’t really like small spaces, so she was keeping her spirits up by singing softly to herself as she read and wrote.
“NO FEAR! That’s the Warrior’s marching song! NO FEAR! We sing it as we march along! NO FEAR! ’Cause the Warriors’ hearts are strong! Is a Warrior heart a-wailing, is a Warrior heart a-failing, is a Warrior heart a-railing? NO FEAR!”
Now, Wish wasn’t entirely what you might expect from a Warrior princess. Warrior princesses were supposed to be like Wish’s six older stepsisters, tall and tough and good at things like archery and shooting ogres with their arrows from a distance of thirty paces.
But Wish was small and sweet-natured and determined, with an eyepatch over one eye, and hair so disobediently flyaway that it looked as if it were being blown about by some personal independent wind.
But worse than that, she was MAGIC.
Wish had always been a little clumsy and forgetful, but when she turned thirteen her Magic had come in, and the problem had gotten worse. Objects she touched slipped through her hands like water or tingled with electricity when she put her fingers on them, clothes ripping, shoes coming loose, keys missing, needles wriggling to life in her hands, rugs inexplicably moving beneath her feet or curled up at the edges when she stepped on them…
Goodness knows HOW she was Magic, as she was a Warrior, but the fact remained that her eyepatch was hiding a Magic eye, and it wasn’t any ordinary kind of Magic, it was Magic-that-works-on-iron.
And up until now, iron had been the only thing that Magic could not work on.
There was a spoon standing upright on one of Wish’s shoulders.
It was a perfectly ordinary iron dinner spoon…
Except that he was alive.
Alive,
and bending this way and that, and dancing to the sound of Wish’s singing, along with about thirty or so little iron pins, which were also swaying and jumping and regrouping to the rhythm. The spoon had a gentle glow coming from the bowl of his head that lit up the cupboard and the iron pins, and the book Wish was reading.
This was a Wizard’s Spelling Book, and it was yet another enchanted object that Wish really, really should not have owned. It had once belonged to Xar, but Caliburn had given it to Wish in case Witches came after her in the future.
The Spelling Book is a complete guide to the entire magical world, so it is filled with recipes, potions, fairy stories, everything you might need to cope in a world of Magic.
It was in this book that Wish made her important, and perhaps unfortunate, discovery.
“Bodkin!” Wish exclaimed excitedly. “Look! I’ve found a SPELL TO GET RID OF WITCHES!”
Bodkin was an anxious, skinny boy about the same age as Wish. He was finding being the Assistant Bodyguard to the princess really rather testing, because he didn’t like fighting very much, he had an unfortunate tendency to fall asleep in situations of physical danger, and trying to control the uncontrollable little princess was an impossible task, because she seemed to have absolutely no idea what rules were at all.
He too was reading—a book called The Rules of Warrior Bodyguarding: THE NEXT LEVEL—but he put the book aside, excited but a little wary, to look over Wish’s shoulder.
And there it was, in a section of the book entitled “Write Your Own Story.”
On the left-hand side of the page, Wish had written down her New Year’s Resolutions: “Noo Year’s Ressolushuns: 1. I wull work hard at my reeding and riteing and arithmatick so I can be topp of the klass. 2. I wull mak a gud impresshun on the teecher. 3. I wull impress my muther so she dus not think I am a Dissapointment.”
Twice Magic Page 3