Twice Magic

by Cressida Cowell

  “She is my daughter,” said Queen Sychorax, sweeping into the broken castle for all the world as if she were entering the emperor’s imperial crown room far away in the Warrior capital. “And your son has kidnapped her. In an act of war.”

  13. Two Angry Parents

  Oh, great!” moaned Bodkin, in an agony of agitation. “Now EVERYBODY’S here! We’re never going to get Wish away at this rate!”

  It appeared that Bodkin was right.

  Down in the chamber below, the dark frozen shape of the Kingwitch was twitching, rocking, twitching, rocking, as if it were going to unfreeze any second.

  But the humans up above were too concerned with their own problems to worry about him.

  The words were hardly out of Queen Sychorax’s mouth than one of the Magic-hunters threw a net woven entirely out of iron wires around Encanzo. Encanzo’s Magic blazed out uselessly as the net tightened around him, and the Witchsmeller stepped forward and placed iron manacles around his arms.

  As soon as the iron touched Encanzo, Xar was released from the spell that held him, and he dropped heavily to the ground.

  It all happened so quickly, no one had time to blink.

  “Do not move! We have captured your leader, and one move, one attempt at a spell, and we will kill him!” cried the Witchsmeller.

  “Ambushed!” swore the Drood Commander, cursing under his breath. “I knew that boy would lead us all into a trap! He should be locked underground forever, and we should throw away the key!”

  All around the circle the Magic things crouched low, growling, the sprites burned bright with alarm and fear, the Rogrebreaths and giants grumbled deep in their great chests, but they dared not attack when their leader was immobilized and at the Warriors’ mercy.

  Queen Sychorax’s Warriors trooped into the broken castle. The moonlight glistened off their iron helmets, their bristling weaponry, their Magic-catching equipment. Some were riding horses, others giant gray wolves.

  “Forest destroyers!” hissed the Wizards.

  “Wicked Magic-users! Followers of Witches!” shouted the Warriors.

  “Well-poisoners!”

  “Child-stealers!”

  Encanzo was incandescent with annoyance to find himself overpowered and in chains so easily, and his expression became even more furious when he clapped eyes on Queen Sychorax. She was looking more beautiful and splendid than ever, in the manner of a particularly spectacular polar ice cap.

  But her eyes were bleaker than midwinter frost.

  And great thunderclouds steamed off Encanzo’s head, dark with electric fury.

  So the atmosphere was… How can I describe it?

  Tense.

  Imagine the foreboding crackle in the air and the spine-jingling fizz in the ground below you if you just so happened to be standing on the edge of a volcano about to erupt, and then multiply that feeling by about twenty, and you will have an impression of what it might have been like on that ill-starred moonlit night when Queen Sychorax met King Encanzo on the heights of Castle Death.

  Not even Wish’s hopeful gaze could make out the slightest remains of past love in either of the two monarchs’ eyes. In fact, you could even say that they were glaring at each other in what could be described as most lively, and absolute, HATRED.

  Queen Sychorax had her own reasons for being particularly irritated at being dragged against her will to this godforsaken blast of a doomed castle. She had been here before, long ago when the castle had been in considerably better condition, and she did not like being forced to confront past deeds, and to be made to discover the ruin that the castle had become—possibly (who knows?) as a consequence of her own actions.

  So Queen Sychorax was not in a good mood as she stepped disdainfully across the broken rubble in her golden slippers.

  “Good evening, Queen Sychorax,” said Encanzo with bitter, icy politeness. “Ambushing a fellow royal in neutral territory rather than meeting them in open battle is treacherous and against your own Warrior rules, but I gather your excuse this time is that in some way unknown to ourselves we have declared war on you?”

  (This seems like an unwise way to address a Warrior queen who has you in handcuffs, but Encanzo was a little too angry to be wise in that moment.)

  Queen Sychorax might have been in a bad mood, but it took quite a lot to get her properly angry. (People were so terrified of her, anger was rarely necessary.)

  However, it turned out that this would do it.

  “There is no question of excuses!” said Queen Sychorax, in a voice spitting like a nestful of infuriated hornets. “YOUR repellently out-of-control and rude little son has declared war on our nation by kidnapping my daughter, presumably on your orders!”

  “I am NOT repellently out of control and rude!” snorted Xar, furious to see his father and his people overcome so humiliatingly easily by this dreadful queen. “And if we’re trading insults, you have the largest nose on a queen that I have ever seen!”

  Queen Sychorax flinched.

  The entire courtyard took in a breath.

  For Queen Sychorax did have, as it happened, a rather large nose. It was a splendidly, royally, beautifully large nose, but a trifle on the enormous side of medium nonetheless and she was a little sensitive about that.

  Queen Sychorax’s eyes sharpened to splinters.

  “What did you say?”

  “BIG NOSE!” shouted Xar. “Cowardly, flat-footed, no-hearted, EVIL destroyer of forests! Skulking behind your Wall while we Wizards get destroyed by the Witches! You have a nose the size of a METEORITE! You have a nose the size of a TOWER! You’re the wickedest woman in the whole forest, but you also have a nose the size of a PLANET!”

  “Be polite, Xar!” said Caliburn, in an agonized fashion. “You’re talking to the person who has the power to kill your father!”

  “It is entirely unsurprising that the boy should be so rude!” raged Queen Sychorax. “Like father, like son!”

  “But in this case I disagree with Xar entirely,” said Encanzo. “You, Queen Sychorax, have always had the most beautiful nose in the wildwoods. It is your heart that is the problem. The owner of the most beautiful nose in the wildwoods is also a queen who has no conscience.”

  The most beautiful nose in the wildwoods flared in and out with temper.

  “The cheek of it! You and your entire Magic people have only been allowed to exist because of MY mercy!” said Queen Sychorax. “And I HAVEN’T left you to be destroyed by the Witches! I have personally hired this man here to get rid of them for me!”

  She pointed to the Witchsmeller.

  Encanzo sniffed. “One look at this man tells me he is not the right person for the job.”

  Sychorax’s temper was not improved by the fact that she secretly agreed with Encanzo on that point.

  “Enough of all this!” she snapped. “I have been patient with you for way too long. Encanzo, you must give me your solemn word as a king that you will stop using your Magic, right here, right now, and order your followers to do the same.”

  The gathered Magic people gave furious murmurs.

  “No, Mother, no!” cried Wish. “For goodness’ sake, everyone, please listen to me! This isn’t the time for doing this! We’re going to need all the Magic we can get because there’s this Kingwitch about to attack, just in the chamber below us…”

  But Sychorax was too concerned with her fight with Encanzo to listen to Wish.

  “You must stop using your Magic, Encanzo,” said Sychorax, “or I will give the word for my Warriors to attack.”

  Caliburn flew between them both. “Sychorax, you know you do not mean that! The Wizards and the Droods do not have a hope of fighting your soldiers, for you are armed with iron!”

  “Oh, but I do mean it,” said Queen Sychorax, with a glittering smile.

  “How strange,” mused Encanzo, “for you to ask me to stop using Magic, when I have heard rumors that you are not above dabbling in Magic yourself…”

  Queen Sychorax bl
ushed. “Sometimes a queen can break the rules, in pursuit of a higher good. The ends justify the means… a fine outcome excuses a bad method…”

  “Oh, is that what you believe?” said Encanzo, raising an eyebrow. “How extremely convenient.”

  “Fight them, Father!” shouted Xar.

  “Your father is not the invincible person that you think he is, boy,” said Queen Sychorax contemptuously, quivering with temper. “You see him as a terrible, powerful Magician. But a little touch of my iron, and see how weak he is!”

  “My father is not weak!” said Xar fiercely. “He is the strongest person in the world!”

  “No, Xar, the queen is right. Here, with my hands in iron manacles,” said the Enchanter with a smile, “my Magic is useless. But however clever Sychorax may be, she still has much to learn. She can kill me, but I will still be here. And Magic cannot be destroyed; it can only be hidden.”

  “I hate Magic!” cried the queen passionately. “Magic is disorder! Magic is shortcuts! Magic is chaos and anarchy!

  “Choose,” she said.

  “I choose that you should attack us,” said the Enchanter.

  The queen looked at him in astonishment.

  She stamped her foot. “Choose wisely!” she cried.

  “I have chosen wisely,” said the Enchanter. He laughed, and that infuriated Sychorax even more. “Was it not the choice that you wanted?”

  “I am trying to find a civilized way out of this mess!” said the queen in exasperation. “I do not want violence, any more than you do. Giving up your Magic will still leave your people with a contented, happy way of life. Look at us Warriors…”

  “It is very hard to be a leader, is it not?” said Encanzo sympathetically. “Sometimes hard decisions have to be made. You gave me a choice, and I took it. Now you have to let your Warriors attack.”

  The queen looked at him in baffled fury.

  Queen Sychorax was a very, very tricky person.

  But…

  It is possible that the queen had been out-tricked.

  “No!” she said sharply.

  “Too late,” whispered the Witchsmeller, moving forward, purring. “He chose death.”

  The Witchsmeller stepped forward, sword drawn.

  Encanzo braced himself for the final blow.

  And Queen Sychorax leaned forward and knocked the sword out of the Witchsmeller’s hand.

  “What are you doing?” said the Witchsmeller in astonishment.

  “Oh for goodness’ sake, you stupid so-called Witchsmeller!” snapped the queen. “Don’t you know anything? I can’t possibly murder an unarmed enemy king in cold blood, however much he may thoroughly deserve it…”

  Encanzo’s expression was unreadable.

  Surprise, satisfaction, relief, anger, despair warred for supremacy in his face.

  But eventually despair won out.

  “You may stop short of allowing your Warrior here to slay me, Sychorax,” said Encanzo, “but you do not seem to understand that in taking away our Magic and destroying our habitats, you are killing us nonetheless… You leave me no choice. Xar, you are about to have your way. You wanted war, and you shall have it…”

  “At last!” said Xar, his eyes brightening. In his Xar-like way, his excitement at finally being allowed to fight the Warriors in open battle made him momentarily forget the impending doom of the Kingwitch.

  At last they were going to stand up to these stupid Warriors and show them that Wizards could really fight!

  “War it shall be,” said Encanzo sadly, “and maybe, Xar, you will now see why I have gone to such trouble to avoid it.

  “Magic people… ATTACK!!”

  14. They Really Shouldn’t Be Fighting Each Other

  No! No! No!” cried Wish in distress. “Why won’t you listen? Both of you, this is all a waste of time! We shouldn’t be fighting each OTHER! I keep telling you, there’s this Kingwitch, just below us, and he’s about to unfreeze, and he’s the commander of a whole horde of Witches, so this really isn’t the moment to do this…”

  “WARRRIORS, ATTACK!” replied Sychorax, completely ignoring her. “Be merciful, if you can be! If the Wizards surrender, take them prisoner!”

  Wizard faced Warrior and they began to fight.

  The Magic people were at a great disadvantage, for as you know Magic does not work on iron. But snowcats have teeth and talons, as do bears and wolves. Even sprites have fangs that sting like bees if they bite you. And Wizards and Droods carry bronze weapons with them as well as their Magic staffs if they are venturing into difficult or unknown territories.

  So the sound of bronze sword on iron breastplate rang out with a bright terrible ring, and such was the volume of the roars of the wolves and the hissing of the sprites, the cursing of the Droods, and the bellows of the giants that you could barely hear yourself think in the cacophony of the battle.

  Wish looked on in horror.

  “Why do they do this, Caliburn?” she asked despairingly. “They’re so stupid. I told them about the Kingwitch, but they’re just not listening… I thought maybe, after the story, that we could make my mother and Xar’s father see sense, but look at them now!”

  Sychorax had made her guards remove Encanzo’s manacles.

  Both monarchs drew their swords, bowed to each other with exaggerated royal courtesy, and then lunged simultaneously, their sword points meeting in dreadful song, as they began their battle.

  “You might as well give up now,” spat Queen Sychorax, as she fenced superbly, “for it is inevitable that you will lose. Your bronze sword is no match for my iron.”

  “I cannot lose more than I have lost already,” said Encanzo.

  Caliburn, on Wish’s shoulder, sighed and shook his head. “I don’t know…” he said sadly. “So many lifetimes I have lived and this is the way it always ends.”

  “And look at Xar!” said Wish. “Is he going to grow up to be as bad as the others?”

  But even Xar found that real war was not the same as the idea of it.

  What was he supposed to do now?

  Fight Bodkin, who was running toward him? But he liked Bodkin.

  The red mist of excitement faded from Xar’s head and he paused, uncertain.

  “Xar!” shouted Bodkin. “We need to help Wish get out of here! In the confusion, we can get away…”

  “Oh yes!” said Xar, with a start. “Of course we can…”

  Too late.

  As the Wizards and Warriors fought each other, some of the combatants lost their balance when the ground beneath them began to shake.

  For in the chamber below, the sinister shape of the Kingwitch had finally unfrozen.

  And with a noise louder than a thousand thunderclaps it burst up through the broken flagstones of the courtyard, creating such an outstanding noise that the people halted their fighting in their astonishment.

  Up, up, it soared…

  And then it dropped.

  As it fell, it picked up speed, making a horrific explosive noise as the green sparks flew off it.

  Someone pointed upward in alarm, at what now seemed transformed into a huge boulder plummeting down toward them, and the small party running across the hall scattered as…

  BOOOOOOMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!

  What-looked-like-a-boulder landed with an almighty explosion right bang-splat in the center of the courtyard, shattering into a mass of tiny black shards and dust, and at the moment of impact, it burst into bright green flames.

  “Look!” said Bodkin, pointing at the sky above them.

  Above the castle, there was the sound of wings. Many, many wings. The crowd looked up. There they were, slowly turning visible in front of their eyes… the sky was thick with Witches.

  “There are such a lot of them,” gasped Sychorax. “How could there be so many Witches in the world and we not know about them for so long? Where have they all been?”

  Five of the Witches swooped down on the gigantic, leaping fire, and flew around and around it, turning the
flames as they flew counterclockwise, as if they were winding some invisible clock, making a horrible keening sound.

  With trembling fingers, Xar got a good hold of the Enchanted Sword.

  The Witches whirled faster, faster, shrieking in delight, as the fire burned and screamed and crackled.

  And then great wings opened in the heart of the fire, wings that spread wide, slowly, unbearably.

  Wings on fire…

  Eyes like melting holes of hate…

  A beak that screeched its loathing of the world and all the sweet good things that are in it…

  The Kingwitch.

  15. The Kingwitch

  The queen shook the boulder dust off her white skirt, sniffing.

  “We seem to have a slight problem,” said the Enchanter, betraying his agitation by a slightly raised eyebrow. If Queen Sychorax could play it cool, then, by mistletoe, so could the Enchanter.

  The crowd stared in horror at the large crater in the center of the courtyard, which now looked as if it had been blasted by the landing of a stray asteroid.

  Power reeked from that feathered thing, as slowly, slowly it unfurled its wet black wings to their full extent. They dripped on the floor, black smoking drips, as it lifted its beak and looked around at the crowd until it could pick out Xar and Wish.

  Sychorax was pale, very pale.

  For she knew that this was all partly her fault. She had tried to be too clever. This was the horror that had been hiding in her Stone-That-Takes-Away-Magic all along. Wish had told her… but there is nothing like being confronted with the actual reality to make you realize the extent to which you might have miscalculated.

  White as ice, she turned to Encanzo. “Algorquprqin,” said Queen Sychorax uncertainly. “I think… I may have made a mistake.”

  Miracle of miracles! Stiff Queen Sychorax, proud Queen Sychorax, unbending Queen Sychorax who always thought she was right about absolutely everything, admitting that even she might not be perfect!

  “We all make mistakes,” said Encanzo grimly. “Even you and I, Queen Sychorax.”