by Vance Huxley
They talked about it and couldn’t come up with anything that worked quickly. Abel was tempted by gambling, but although Ferryl swore she could control dice she also claimed a gambling house would have protective glyphs. Abel settled for more glyph practice until Rob and Kelis arrived to work on their game. Tonight he’d tried the leaf, but although it moved he couldn’t stop it fluttering off across the room.
He quickly shelved thoughts of glyphs when Kelis spotted the diamond, sat on the desk next to the computer. “Wow, what’s that?”
Abel pointed at Kelis’s arm as she reached for the stone, because her sleeve rode up and he saw three distinct round bruises. “Was that Henry?” He thought the Copples might have picked an easier target.
“No.” Kelis blushed and pulled her sleeve down. “You know Dad doesn’t always realise how strong he is, not when he’s had a couple. Forget it, please?”
Rob and Abel looked at each other. This wasn’t the first time Dad had misjudged, but Kelis never wanted to talk about it. “All right but if it gets bad, come and visit. Any time. I mean it.” Abel smiled, making a joke of it. “You’ll have to sleep on the settee, or leave the door ajar.”
“Hah, a feeble attempt to steal my girlfriend. Hard luck, her heart is already spoken for.” Rob blew on his nails and polished them on his chest.
“You pair of losers? Please! I’d rather run off with Roughly Hewn.” Kelis had renamed the barbarian, again.
“I thought you preferred Saint Georgeous.” The three of them set into their usual round of mutual insults, and then worked on the game.
After a while Kelis returned to the stone. “Do you want this?”
“It’s just an enchanted stone and will turn to dust in daylight.” Abel laughed. “You’d be better off with a bit of glass or cheap crystal.”
Both Rob and Kelis laughed, but she didn’t give up. “Can I keep it then? Please? Unless it’s sentimental or something?”
“It will not fade if I put a glyph and more magic inside. You must hold it for a long time because the work is slow and difficult.” Abel jumped a bit because Ferryl usually kept quiet.
“Blurglyph?” Abel tried to sub-vocalise but both the others looked.
“What? Was that a yes, because it sounded a lot more like a frog choking?” Kelis grinned and held the stone against an ear. “What do you think?”
“You’d get a crick in your neck wearing that as an earring.” Rob snatched the diamond and they wrestled briefly before he gave it back.
Abel took his chance to murmur. “Blurred so glyph can’t be read.”
“I can blur the centre, which would be useless as a ruse but will not matter now. Are you trying to attract this woman? Never mind. You can tell me later. May I have control of one hand while I work? Please?”
Abel held out his hand for the stone. “Yes.”
“Why should I hand it over if the answer is yes?” Kelis narrowed her eyes. “Will you give me it back?”
“Yes, but I have to hold it for a while to strengthen the spell.” Abel grinned. “Otherwise, come morning?” He threw one hand up, because the other wasn’t obeying any more. “Puff, gone, lump of useless rock.”
“Go on then, idiot, if you insist. We could add that in, a way to make false diamonds and gold. Then we can have a way to detect them. Players would have to earn or discover the spell to avoid being cheated.” Kelis handed the stone over and began writing, more interested in the idea than why Abel really wanted the stone back. She remembered before leaving but by then Abel had the use of his hand back, and Ferryl had reported it finished.
He spent an amusing few minutes after Rob and Kelis left explaining why he wasn’t wooing Kelis. Ferryl couldn’t see why friend and something more personal had to be separate, but gave up after a while. There were plenty of other puzzles and problems to keep her occupied.
3 - Learning Curve
When the library van visited again Abel volunteered to exchange his mum’s two books. He asked the librarian to renew the loan of the destroyed one so he didn’t have to produce it. Hopefully he could keep doing that, and explaining to his mum he couldn’t find a third suitable book, until he could find the money. At the moment returning to school came a lot higher up Abel’s list of worries. He wanted good marks in History, IT and Graphic Art so he could choose them as his main options next year. Abel still had no idea of what he’d do for a living, except that concentrated Maths or English just didn’t appeal.
At least his Graphic Art marks would improve with Ferryl helping, though Abel had already started practicing drawing on his own. Oddly enough the more sketching Ferryl did the more his hand seemed used to the idea, and he could draw nearly as well with either hand now. Both were rubbish, but he had time to work on it.
Glyph practice became a refuge from everything; money, school or the possibility that Henry might bushwhack him. Even with Ferryl on board Abel worried that either Henry would be too quick, or she would do something that brought police and TV cameras, then possibly jail. Abel could empty his mind and sit in peace in Castle House garden just looking at his hand or drawing precise shapes. Not full glyphs as that would be dangerous, just portions, trying to get them as crisp and neat as Ferryl’s example. Ferryl had advanced his training now. Sometimes he trotted around while levitating a leaf or a few tiny pieces of stone because, as she pointed out, he couldn’t sit down in every emergency. Abel didn’t mind the running, because he still preferred to run away from trouble if possible.
Despite promising himself to tell Kelis and Rob about magic, Abel just couldn’t find the right time. He had a good excuse, Ferryl kept saying learning about magic might be dangerous. His friends still didn’t know about it when the holidays ended and the three of them walked past Castle House, down to the main road to catch the school bus for the first day of term. Rob, Kelis and Abel looked around the bus, claimed three seats together, and talked quietly to each other for the rest of the journey. At least none of the snooty types came on the school bus. Any that had parents with a spare car, and time to drive them, arrived by car. Many of the other pupils came from town or on other buses.
Abel kept his eyes towards the window most of the time because Ferryl wanted to see how everything had changed. The bus seemed to be the equivalent of a roller-coaster to her, because horses didn’t run this fast let alone coaches. Abel more or less managed to separate the excited babble in his head from the conversation he tried to have with the other two. The occasional lapse when he reacted to Ferryl or missed what was said Abel put down to worrying about classes. From her comments, Ferryl had suddenly realised that what she’d read from Abel’s mum’s head didn’t completely prepare her for the wider world.
Abel had a few wobbles when he saw large herds of creatures in some fields, more than he’d seen near Brinsford. Despite Ferryl’s claiming that Brinsford had so many because of having no witch or warlock, magic creatures seemed to be widespread in the fields and hedgerows all the way to town. To Abel’s relief they all looked like the grazer types, sucking magic from greenery, though Ferryl’s indignant “they are killing the crops” meant this wasn’t usual. He wasn’t sure how the grazers killed crops, but some patches definitely looked brown.
Abel hoped the town had better protection, and specifically the comprehensive, but as the bus drove through the streets his hopes plummeted. Some sections had few or no magical creatures, which according to Ferryl’s meant they were protected, while others were overrun. Abel soon realised that he could tell the unprotected areas without seeing the creatures. They had the most litter and graffiti. Ferryl broke off from exclaiming over the buildings, vehicles and pedestrians to complain, and ask what the local sorcerers were doing. From her comments the witches and sorcerers should be protecting the whole town. With a sinking feeling Abel remembered Ferryl had expected Brinsford to be protected as well.
She switched to excitement at the school, and Abel had to reassess his opinion of the somewhat tired old concrete and glass struct
ure. Ferryl thought the place was wonderful, especially for a college giving free education. The scuffed floors and slightly chipped and stained furniture meant wealth and luxury, and the sheer cleanliness probably impressed her most. Personally, Abel felt happier about the lack of creatures. The school seemed to have protective hexes even if Ferryl couldn’t detect them.
The three of them and Abel’s hitchhiker found the rest of the geeks, the squeakies as Henry called them, and claimed an empty table in the canteen until school started. The elite claimed their usual couple of tables by the door, ejecting a few new kids who didn’t know the rules, and set into insulting the rest as they came in. Business as usual, as Kelis put it.
Ferryl didn’t care. She’d switched to drooling over the amount and variety of food on offer. Mentally drooling, luckily, or Abel’s ears would have been oozing. He tuned her out and caught up with the people he knew. Unsurprisingly almost all of them were in the IT class, and some in either History or Graphic Art.
Ferryl calmed down a little when classes finally started, and after half an hour declared that the pace of learning bored her. Abel managed to tune out the feel of her tattoo moving under his shirt and jacket as she kept herself amused, until her voice burst back into his head. “The defensive glyphs aren’t working! I still can’t feel any and now there is a Globhoblin at the window! There are sprites and thornies. Who do we warn?”
Abel scribbled on a piece of paper so she could read it. “I don’t know. Nobody can see them.”
“The Lord of the Manor will have a sorcerer. Curses, you don’t have one, do you, a Lord? Who took over?”
“Wait until break.” Abel crumpled up the paper as the tutor scowled suspiciously at him, and concentrated on history.
“How long? This is ridiculous! I will send a seeker to find the resident magic user, there must be one. Please let me use a hand, for a moment.” His hand moved a little and Ferryl quietened. Abel managed to ignore the occasional flyer since they were the smaller, harmless types. He concentrated on schoolwork until break despite Ferryl’s growing concern. Her seeker had failed to find a single hex, and had disappeared on the third trip. She became more and more baffled by the complete lack of any reaction to an increasing number of small creeping and slithering things.
* * *
One look at the rain outside and Abel abandoned his first plan, to wander off alone so he could talk to Ferryl. The crowded canteen wouldn’t work so Abel gave up on a drink and snack and went to the library, skirting a group of the little spikey creatures called thornies. Sure enough the place looked almost deserted. “No food or drink in the library.”
“I know.” Abel glanced down at his lunch box. “Sorry. I’ll put it away.” He sat down well away from the librarian and put the box into his backpack, pulling out his notes from the History lesson. “Hi Ferryl. I’m worried as well so talk slowly and we’ll work it out.” Since his sub-vocalisation attempts weren’t really quiet yet, Abel sat behind a few bookshelves with his back to anyone else.
“All these manuscripts, books. More than in the library van. Is this where the van collects them from?”
“Calm down. No, there is a bigger library. These are for students. Can we talk about protection?”
“There is none, anywhere. Why not?”
Abel had been worried, but Ferryl’s concern made it much worse. “Isn’t there any sign of a witch at least?”
“No, none and I saw little sign of one anywhere on the way here. Even in the clear areas there were no visible hexes, protective glyphs. I dare not send another seeker in case it is noticed and followed.”
“What is a seeker?”
“May I catch one? Please?” Moments later a house fly landed on Abel’s hand. “It is now bound as a seeker. It cannot tell me much, just if it finds places where a glyph stops it from flying. There are no such places in the college, except one or two hints in here.”
Following the fly, not something Abel ever expected to do, led to several books it wouldn’t go near. Investigating the books proved that pictures of some heraldic devices, Celtic crosses, and illuminated manuscripts contained protective glyphs. “Let it go, please.” Abel didn’t like the idea of binding things, even flies. “These are old books, so people knew about glyphs way back then.”
“There are glyphs in the pyramids.”
“But why have people stopped using them?” Abel sighed, packed up his books and headed towards his Graphic Art class. He stopped in the library doorway as two students walked past with what Ferryl had claimed were harmless fae on their heads. “Bloo… blimey.”
“They are hunting lice.”
Abel stared at the pair, chattering away without a care in the world, and decided that on balance maybe those fae were a good thing. The Globhoblin through the big glass doors at the end of the corridor wasn’t, and several of the others didn’t look terribly beneficial. “We should stop those coming in.” The buzzer rang. “After this lesson.” He headed for the computer room.
“ABC, Abel Bernard Conroy. Why do you bother? You’ll always be a waste of space so you may as well go home now and save the taxpayers some money.” Abel glanced at the speaker, Seraph Bellamy-Courts, and for once she made perfect sense. He turned towards the door.
“Stop!”
Abel shrugged, not even bothering to lower his voice. “She’s right. I can struggle for three years and get a crap job, or go home now and get a crap job.”
“Be quiet! She has enchanted you, influenced, a type of binding but without true intent. Break it, Abel Bernard Conroy.” The urgency in Ferryl’s voice got through and Abel began to think properly again.
“The bitch! Is she a witch, or a sorceress?” Abel glared at the young woman’s retreating back. Seraph Angelique Bellamy-Courts, at seventeen the elite of the elite. A combination of wealth, looks, charisma, intelligence and her implacable will meant she dominated the select group sometimes referred to as the seraphims.
“I think not. She did not attempt to bind or control you, so perhaps she does not realise her ability. I will think on this. Now you know, fight any suggestions from her.”
“Not hard, because she rarely speaks to the likes of me. I’m more worried about finding a way of warding the school and Brinsford.” Abel couldn’t see how one untrained boy, even with a Ferryl Shayde to help, could do it. He accepted a ticking off for being late and settled down to the IT lesson, determined to do his best. The four gremlins Ferryl sent scurrying off, trailing smoke, underlined the school’s problem.
* * *
Abel didn’t have a way to protect the whole school by the time he climbed on the bus to go home, but at least a couple of classrooms were safer. He’d nicked a wax crayon from the art supplies and, coached by Ferryl, drawn glyphs on any entrance he could get near. With luck the cleaners would miss them, though they’d probably scrub the ones off the walls and windows in the toilets. Abel had been horrified by the number of creatures clustered in there.
Kelis nudged him. “Are you all right, Abel? You went missing at break and lunch-time, and you look dead miserable when you should be pleased we’re going home.”
Abel managed a smile for her. “Bad belly, and I’m worried about money.”
“We all worry about money. You could cast a spell and make some?” Kelis made several extravagant gestures. “Make more diamonds. Pow, riches beyond your wildest dreams.”
“A bad belly explains why someone reckoned you were lurking in the toilets.” Rob tried to look sympathetic but a smile broke through. “You’ll get talked about doing that.”
“I’m better now.” Abel had spent most of lunch-time there, putting glyphs on the door and windows and killing the creatures already inside whenever he could without being seen. He’d been careful to only kill anything when nobody could see the bubbling mess as they evaporated. Abel insisted on killing every one so they couldn’t carry germs from the toilets to the canteen. “I must have picked up a bug from someplace.”
“With luc
k Seraph, Henry and that crowd will get it, because they all eat canteen food.” Kelis grinned. “Us poor folk wot only have dry crusts and water will be safe.” She might be right after what Abel saw crawling over and in the food on display. Abel would never complain at taking packed lunches - not now.
“Will you have time to come round tonight?” The disgusted look on Rob’s face spoke volumes. “After homework, anyway. They could have left it a couple of days, just to let us get settled back in.”
“Yes, I’ll be fine once I get a proper meal at home.” Better yet, working on the game might stop Abel worrying.
* * *
Though after tea, before she let him go anywhere, Ferryl had a really serious problem to discuss. “Abel Bernard Conroy is your true-name, given by a God, yes?”
“At my christening? I suppose so, though I’d not thought about it. True-name? Is that why Seraph got me to believe her? Surely everyone isn’t commanded by their Christian and surname?” Abel thought about that. “That would be like using the name I have for you, which can’t be right or nobody would disobey teachers for starters. They always use full names when they’re telling someone off.”
“Magical creatures with enough sentience to know their names can be bound by it. Humans cannot be bound by names, not normally, but I think that must have changed when you began to use magic. Not truly bound, but it seems that if another person with some magic talent speaks your name you are influenced. If they speak with true intent, you might be unable to resist. Human witches and sorcerers are usually warded, but none of them explained why it was necessary. Now I know why they were so shy.” Ferryl chuckled. “There are times I wish I’d known an un-warded human awakened to magic could be commanded by their name.”
“I’m convinced. Ward me please, Ferryl, whatever that means.”
“I cannot. Firstly I am part of you, bound in a way, and more importantly you must ward yourself. Your ward must be a protective magical sign you create, without help.” She hesitated. “Then you must draw it on your skin.”