by Vance Huxley
“No, Mum thinks it’s some sort of Zen thing, meditation aid.” Kelis smiled at Abel. “Protect, soothe and ease the pain. That last part seems to mean inside and out, Abel. A lot of intent for a few lines, Glyphmaster.”
“More impressive, the intent passes to all the others. Perhaps because of belief. Strange. My memory says there is a reason, but not what.” Abel waited and sure enough Ferryl finished with, “I need my wits!”
He smiled at Petra. “Time for the first part of your induction. Ferryl Shayde is right here.” Abel rolled up his sleeve.
Petra giggled. “The infamous tattoo! No wonder your mum went barmy. Oh.”
The tattoo turned her head, winked, and in a blur wore the pair of leather shorts and top in the Tavern drawings. Ferryl turned around with a sweeping bow. “Hello Petra. I am Ferryl Shayde, rescued by Abel from a deep dark hole. I have promised to protect him as well as I can, and teach magic.”
Petra tore her eyes away and stared at Abel. “You let a genie out of a, a, a whatever? You idiot.” Her eyes went back to the tattoo. “Though I can see why a guy might.”
Abel cut off the laughter, though it continued in his head. “Time for the real story. She didn’t look like that. Remember when we came back after the holidays, the story about my broken hand, well….”
* * *
Petra spent the next two days in a daze, and usually exhausted. The exhausted came from continually using magic, because Ferryl wanted to keep her levels low to reduce the risk of blowing gravel through the ceiling. Rob spent a good while at Kelis’s, encouraging Petra because he still wasn’t that good so he didn’t seem as intimidating to her. Abel spent even more time round at the Tavern, talking or practicing with Kelis while Ferryl Shayde taught Petra.
Unfortunately due to training Petra, and the distraction of that and the bombshell about Kelis’s mum, Abel forgot he needed a New Year costume. When he remembered, midday on New Year’s Eve, Ferryl refused to magic him into a cat-sorcerer again because Petra had brought her cat suit. Petra still wouldn’t give a full description but confirmed she had clothes, unlike the original. The original still fascinated her, even after touching the tattoo briefly. Rob claimed he had improved his Halloween version of Roughly Hewn, but wanted a new name. Kelis Glyphmistress already had both name and costume.
Petra come up with the solution. “I’ll need a bodyguard.”
“Ferryl Shayde usually fights for herself.”
That didn’t deter Petra. “But she always has another with her. Her Shayde Warrior. The town Tavern have been on about that and Warren even has a costume, some sort of ninja with magic.” She slashed with the edge of her hand then wiggled the fingers on the other. “A combined magic and skills character, so it’s very hard to work up through the levels.”
“What does a beginner dress as?” Abel remembered the bit about Warren wearing judo gear. “I could tie the belt off my dressing gown round my head, or try and find that necktie?” Abel looked down. “Wear pyjamas?”
“The head thing is out, you’ll strangle yourself. Not pyjamas. Leather!” Kelis grinned, “Which Ferryl can provide if you wear shorts and a shirt.”
“How?” Petra stared as Abel appeared to change into leather trousers and back to jeans. “Brilliant, he can match mine, please, Ferryl?”
“But he’ll need weapons. Have we time to paint wooden ones?” Rob looked at Kelis. “Has your garage got silver paint for blades?”
“I have a strange and allegedly useless skill.” Abel waggled a finger. “Paint will not be needed.” A few hours in the garage carefully wielding the least damaging of the cutting equipment in there, and Shayde Warrior had a dozen knives and swords with improbably curved or wriggly blades. Petra spent most of the time trying to float sawdust and off-cuts of wood for practice, but really wanted to learn the colour change. Her mum insisted on buying Petra clothes in shades of yellow and orange, and Petra hated them.
* * *
As night fell on New Year’s Eve the four of them gathered in the Tavern. Abel’s mum had gone to a big party in town because she didn’t have to keep an eye on him, and Rob had been given an overnight pass to sleep in one of the four guest rooms at Kelis’s. The four all robed up after a late tea, dinner as Mrs. Ventner called it, and started the real party.
Abel arrived first, in a pair of beach shorts and a shirt as instructed, which looked really stupid with his socks and boots and all the wooden weapons tied on with bits of string. He felt better when Ferryl made the string look like leather, and the shorts denim, but the final transformation awaited Petra.
Rob had tried really hard. An old pair of jeans torn off at the knees and an old tee-shirt torn off short looked more Hulk than barbarian, but the big papier-mâché club got the message across, as did the papier-mâché helm built onto a bicycle helmet. Abel loaned him a wooden sword and dagger for his belt. They’d both expected Kelis to be here at the same time since she only had the robe to put on, but she kept them waiting. Rob had started wondering if Kelis and Petra were having trouble with the cat-suit when Abel heard both of them coming.
Kelis came in first, to complete silence for a moment. “Don’t you like it?”
“Yes. It’s just, crikey Kelis. Makeup?” Rob spluttered a bit, which gave Abel a chance to gather his wits.
“It’s great, Kelis. It’s just that the makeup makes you look older. Sort of haughty, wise, all-knowing.” He bit off the beautiful bit because this was Kelis. “A real Glyphmistress.” Her eyes were made up to look wider, not quite slanted but upturned and her makeup gave Kelis really high cheek bones. With her hair caught back off her face but flowing down her back, the robes and makeup suited her tall slim figure.
“Behold the Glyphmistress. Red and black would look even better.”
Kelis lifted her chin and poised her hand to cast. “Tremble, mortals.”
Rob cowered convincingly. “Oh definitely. How will your mum feel about you raiding her makeup?”
“Petra did this. Is it all right, not too much, tarty or anything?” While Rob and Abel reassured her Petra knocked on the door.
“Have you pair recovered? Can I make my entrance now?”
“Mind what you say. She’s a bit worried about it.” Kelis hissed that quietly before raising her voice. “Come in Petra, they are both suitably prepared.”
Petra looked apprehensive, standing just inside the door and looking from face to face. “I’m pleased I didn’t go with shorts, not after seeing Ferryl in a pair, but now I’m worried about the skirt. Is it too short?”
“Not really. After all you’re dressed in head to toe fur anyway.” Otherwise, Abel thought, the answer is yes. Too short and with a tail coming out of a split at the back.
“If fur is enough, why do you make me get dressed?” As everyone looked towards Abel’s arm Ferryl continued, “though the clothes suit Petra Cat-sorceress.”
“Nice costume. Does the tail wag?” Rob looked fascinated.
“A dog’s tail wags. The only way to move this is…” Petra wiggled her hips and the tail swayed. “I wanted the electric one, but this suit cleaned me out. Look, matching shoes and gloves with claws.”
“Good makeup as well, are the whiskers stuck on?” Rob moved his head. “No, just painted.”
“Now you know what the delay was, makeup for both of us.” Kelis opened the bookshelf and fridge. “Drinks?”
“Definitely. Nice match Abel.” Petra giggled. “They would be, what are you really wearing?” Abel looked down at leather knee-length pants and a leather vest under his weapons, with shin-high moccasins on his feet. The leather matched Petra’s perfectly.
“I might try a skirt like that, but not tonight.” Ferryl’s tattoo threw off a big black hooded cloak to show her leather shorts and top. “Are we playing the game first, or music, or TV? I haven’t been to a real party for two hundred years.” After a brief pause for staring the four of them picked drinks and snacks, and the five of them played music, the Tavern game, and even Monopoly though both
Ferryl and Abel cheated. Their plastic houses kept changing colour to the more expensive ones. Everyone assumed Ferryl fixed her dice throws as well, but couldn’t prove it.
An hour before midnight Kelis turned the TV on, and they laughed at or joined in with the songs and acts at the televised party. The four humans tried to dance like those on the TV, which turned out hilarious, while Ferryl Shayde twisted and contorted in ways no human could. Rob ended up dancing mostly with Petra, because they’d started playing catch the tail after she’d lashed him with it by mistake. When the New Year chimes started Petra stopped dancing. “New beginnings. You should kiss me, for luck.”
“My first proper New Year kiss? You know, from a real girl?”
“Really?” Petra put her arms round him. “Pucker up.” When they parted she started laughing. “Blimey. The girls will have to watch out once you get a bit older.” A little half-smile hovered on Petra’s lips. “Especially the way you stroke a girl’s fur.”
“I didn’t!” Rob blushed. “All right, but only on your back. It felt really soft, you know, under my hand and here.” He half-pointed at his bare stomach. “Sorry.” His eyes narrowed. “It’s not me that should be answering questions. Those two have only just finished, unless they’re going for seconds?”
Abel barely heard Rob, and really did wonder about seconds. From Kelis’s eyes she felt as surprised as him, and he wondered if she’d felt the lovely soft glow that came out of his flower. It certainly turned a peck into his first kiss, and scrambled his brain. “Kelis?”
“Mmm? Maybe.” Kelis sort of shook herself a little. “Must be magic.”
“Felt like it.”
“You two?” Rob rolled his eyes. “I knew I should have found leather pants. She’s obviously a sucker for the bad boy look.”
Kelis held Abel’s eyes for long moments before turning to answer. “He’s not wearing leather, idiot. It’s just magic.”
“So is that why you two are still holding hands?” Petra giggled. “Magic?”
“Oh.” Abel looked down, looked up into Kelis’s startled eyes, and they both blushed and let go. He tried for a laugh. “Of course it is. I’m completely entranced by the Glyphmistress. Putty in her hands.”
“Putty? Yeuk. Cold, clammy. I think not. Now if I can just remember how to reverse the glyph, otherwise you are doomed, Shayde Warrior.” Kelis laughed and went to her seat, picking up a drink. “I’m surprised I managed to get an enchantment past your guardian.”
“So am I.” Nobody else reacted, so the mist connections were selective if Ferryl wanted them to be. “I warned you about this connection.” She must have felt Abel tense because she laughed. “No you fool, it isn’t a spell, or it’s an old one that doesn’t need glyphs. You two are connected, right down to your bone. That is why sorcerers sometimes bind a young woman in a certain way, or a sorceress traps a man.”
“I’ll have to ask Ferryl to try and break it.” Which came as near as Abel could to admitting to a problem out loud.
“I am trying to find a way. I believe it can be done, but both of you will have to be willing.” From the way everyone turned to look at the tattoo, Ferryl switched back to public broadcast for the next part. “That depends on what the Glyphmistress decides to do with him. A bit of humility might do my apprentice some good.” The moment passed as Rob and Petra joined Kelis in thinking up humiliations for her new slave.
The four of them went through to the lounge to wish Kelis’s mum and aunty Happy New Year. Mrs. Ventner announced she felt ready for bed and the rest took the hint. In the corridor Rob smirked and nudged Petra. “Hey, Kelis, do you want your bodyguard to walk you home? You could check on his enchantment?”
Petra giggled and Abel blushed, because that meant to her room, but Kelis grinned. “I might, then Abel can bring you back a teddy bear. Something furry for you to cuddle tonight.” The four of them parted amid spluttering denials from a bright red Rob and Petra waving her tail towards him as a goodnight fur-fix.
* * *
Petra stayed an extra day, or until New Year’s Day afternoon, so that she could go and meet the willows. On the way Rob, Kelis, Abel and Ferryl recounted the great Halloween creature hunt, the willow trying to charm sweets and magic from Rob, and then the attack by the Shades. The sombre mood after that evaporated immediately when Petra, for-warned, offered all three trees a chocolate.
“You really did!” She stared at the faces on all three trees, and then the creatures emerging. “You really asked the dryads the answers to those questions!” Petra looked at the wrinkled creatures. “There’s still some betas complaining your game doesn’t have the dryads of legend. How did one of these try to charm Rob?”
Abel offered a sweet. “Please show Petra how to charm a human, that one.” He pointed to Rob.
“I must be touching my tree.” The dryad moved back a little and the head and shoulders turned into a young woman with long hair, the roots on her upper limbs becoming fingers. “We were told this is attractive, that a human would touch and we could steal some magic.”
“I’m devastated. I thought it was my fur, but bark does it as well?” Petra laughed at a very embarrassed Rob. “I promise not to tell anyone else, or not yet.” She offered more sweets and inspected the Tavern hexes on the trees, while one dryad showed her a male head and shoulders. “I can see how the legends started. May I?” She touched the hair, tentatively. “Close, maybe not quite right but on a moonlit night. Crikey.”
Eventually Petra had to tear herself away and go home, chauffeured by Aunty Celia again. Not for much longer, another week and Kelis’s aunty would be going home though there would be staff coming to the house every day for a while yet. Petra took ten small Tavern hexes, carved into wood, so she could protect anywhere she wanted. At least her house would be safe because of the church, but she worried the gym club and swimming baths might be infested. Quite rightly, as phone calls over the next couple of days confirmed.
At least Petra’s personal Tavern mark repelled creatures, which even Ferryl hadn’t been sure of without Abel or Kelis activating it. Once again Ferryl claimed she knew the reason, if she could just find her wits. Petra would design her own personal ward but Ferryl warned her to wait until Abel could be there before applying the mark, in case of problems. Petra agreed to wait, but insisted that any of the betas who could distinctly feel the magic sensation down their arms should be let into the secret, now. She wanted them warned, because finding out about magic on her own had badly frightened her.
Rob and Kelis still claimed they didn’t want another ward, because both theirs were unique when applied. Privately, Ferryl told Abel she wasn’t sure another mark would take on Kelis.
* * *
Two days before going back to school Storm Jeremy blew in off the Atlantic, lashing Brinsford with rain all day before rattling windows and setting off car alarms all night. While Abel debated going out to inspect the magicked bushes for damage, or waiting until another blustery shower passed, his phone rang. Rob sounded really worried. “One of the trees the other side of the field has blown down, one I’ve been visiting. I can see the dryad in plain view, and I can see Tyson too. He can’t see the dryad, but what happens if Tyson cuts up the tree and carts it away?”
“If the tree dies, or is destroyed, the dryad either finds another or dies. An old dryad will need a large tree.”
Abel passed that on, adding “I’ll call Kelis. We’re on the way.”
When Abel and Kelis arrived, both puffed from a run across the fields, Rob pointed at the fallen Sycamore tree. “I came over when Tyson left but the dryad won’t talk to me. It keeps going round and hiding behind the tree.”
“Let me try.” Ferryl’s wind form seemed to have no trouble with the blustery weather, soon disappearing behind the fallen tree. A little later the dryad peered suspiciously over the top of the trunk. Ferryl soared, then swooped back into her tattoo. “It is vulnerable and fears death or enslavement, or both. At the moment the magic in the tree
still protects it, but the tree is already dying and you know what Dryad Chestnut said. Magic drains quickly from wood.”
Abel raised his voice. “Hello dryad. You heard what my friend Rob offered before in return for some magic. A safe home for your young to grow. But now we will not ask a price, we will take any young and find them trees.”
“Too late sorcerer, even if that is truth. I have no young, and it is too early in the season to ripen any. I will die too soon, when my tree does.”
Kelis chipped in. “We know of empty trees, mature ones.”
“Liar. Any adult tree has a dryad.” The dryad pointed a twig at Rob. “He told the same lie.”
Abel smiled. “What about the trees behind the barrier at the back of Castle House?”
“Behind the barrier? You mean the Dead Wood? No dryads can live there.” The dryad rustled its twigs, agitated.
“You can with this.” Kelis held up the white pebble. “I no longer need it.”
Even as Abel stared, wondering, Ferryl cut in with “I told the barrier to let her cross, and Rob as well. Carrying a glyph is inconvenient when you have said they can pass at any time.” Another surprise, Abel hadn’t known he had to give permission before people had free access to the garden.
The dryad came right out into view. “Let me see the stone.”
“Even Chestnut has better manners.” Kelis threw the pebble anyway, and the dryad’s twigs shot out to neatly snatch it from the air. “Good job that isn’t a snare.”
The dryad shot her a startled look, then inspected the glyph on the pebble.
“That is a bad idea. It can draw the glyph now, and enter anyway. We will have dozens of dryads.”
“If this one cheats, change the spell a little bit so the glyph doesn’t work.” Abel murmured very quietly but the dryad looked straight at him.
“Cheat? Alter the spell? So it works. Now I wish I had young. I cannot go that far.” It looked across the expanse of ploughed field and the adjoining one, and the tops of the trees on the far side. “Dryads have very little magic of their own. I would need a large tree filled with magic to sustain me, too big to carry.”