Fireborn

by Toby Forward

  “They’re just boys,” she murmured. “And they need to let off steam.”

  Jackbones grumbled. Flaxfield was too annoyed about being invisible to bother too much about a badly-behaved apprentice and a roffle. He ate in silence.

  It was the way he ate that made Cabbage and Perry laugh the most. The food floated up from the plate, hovered a moment and just vanished.

  “Why don’t we see it when he swallows?” Perry whispered. “We can see through him.”

  “I don’t know,” said Cabbage. “That’s just the way it is.”

  Flaxfield took a drink of wine and the boys collapsed in another heap of giggles as the red liquid hung perilously suspended in the air before disappearing.

  “He’s got some on his chin,” gasped Perry.

  The wine moved up and down in time with Flaxfield’s chewing as it clung to his chin.

  Melwood gave them both a warning look and dabbed her linen napkin on the patch of wine. She thought it was time they settled to some work.

  “Let’s make a start, shall we?” she said.

  “I can’t,” said Cabbage. “Not for a couple of minutes. I need to concentrate on the food.”

  “You need to concentrate,” she said, giving him one of those looks.

  He blushed and elbowed Perry.

  “Can we hear the end of the story?” asked the roffle.

  “What story is that?” she asked.

  Perry explained about the story of the way magic came into the world.

  “You never finished it,” he said to the empty chair where Flaxfield was sitting.

  “No, I didn’t. Well, I’ve finished eating, so I may as well tell you the rest now while you carry on.”

  Cabbage knew that Flaxfield was giving him one of his special teasing glares. He was glad the wizard was invisible and for a moment considered not ever remembering how to turn him back.

  “Where did we get to?” asked Flaxfield.

  “Smokesmith made the reflecting panel for the king,” said Perry.

  “That’s right,” said Flaxfield. “I remember now.”

  “Not the Smokesmith story?” said Jackbones.

  “Why not?” asked Flaxfield.

  “There are better stories than that about where magic came from.”

  “There are other stories,” said Flaxfield. “This is the best one, and it’s the one I’m telling.”

  mokesmith

  When the mirror was ready Smokesmith polished it in the dark so there was nothing for it to reflect. He wrapped it in leather and had it carried up to the king’s chamber, high in a turret in the palace.

  It was wide and round and spacious and the light fell in from all directions. It was perfect for reflections.

  The mirror was put in place.

  The queen was expecting a baby, her first. She was in her ninth month, and all the preparations had been made. The midwife was in place. The room was made ready, with clean linen, a crib, attendants, sheets and towels and a fire burning night and day with water always kept hot, ready. By strict reckoning she had a week to go before the baby was due, but babies, and especially first babies aren’t very good at telling the time and can turn up early or late as the whim takes them.

  The king decided to wait until after the baby was born. The queen wanted to see it now. She kissed her husband and said it would be good to do it while the light was strong. It might be cloudy later, summer was going. She teased him and flattered him. He was so handsome, she said, that she wanted to see two of him. When that didn’t change his mind she just told him to get the smith and said they were going to look. The king did what all wise husbands do. He did as he was told.

  The king and the queen and Smokesmith assembled in the turret room. The door was locked and no one else was allowed in.

  “Will you stand together?” asked Smokesmith.

  “Yes,” said the king.

  “I want to be the first,” she said. “On my own. I want to be the very first.”

  Smokesmith kept his mouth shut.

  The king took her arm.

  “We should stand together,” he said. “I’m the king.”

  “I’m having a baby. I’m doing it first.”

  So the king stood with Smokesmith and together they unwrapped the mirror and let the leather fall to the floor.

  The queen stared at herself. The surface was flawless. No bends or curves distorted the image. No smears or smudges obscured it. It was a perfect, full reflection. The first ever.

  The king waited and watched.

  The queen smiled, turned first this way, then that. She crooked her finger to bring her husband to her side. As he moved to join her she put hands to her belly, screamed and fell.

  The baby was on the way.

  He unlocked the door, called for help.

  Servants rushed in and knelt by the queen. Attendants seized Smokesmith and put swords to his throat.

  “No,” said the king. “Leave him. It’s just the baby on the way.”

  Everyone who rushed in paused and gaped at the sight of themselves entering. The royal privilege of perfect reflection was now anyone’s property. The unique gift was ruined.

  They carried the queen to the room prepared and the delivery began. The king paid Smokesmith and sent him away. He stayed a long time in the room, looking into the mirror. He was not pleased with what he saw. He understood for the first time that many of his companions were better looking than he was. Even some of the servants cut a better figure. His wife was beautiful. She could have married someone more suited to her looks and she had chosen him. He began to suspect that it was because he was rich and powerful and a king.

  The more he looked at the mirror, the more he hated it.

  He covered it with the leather wrapping and locked the room behind him.

  When he had opened the door with his wife he had been a happy man. Now he was bitter and resentful and torn with doubts.

  That night the baby was born. The midwife came to tell him the news.

  “It’s a boy,” she said. “A handsome lad, like his father.”

  He looked at her as though she were mocking him.

  “Let me see.”

  The queen was asleep. The baby was in a crib by the bed. The midwife led the king there and they leaned over to look.

  Two babies, side by side, identical, backs to each other, lay in the crib.

  “Is this a joke?” he demanded.

  “I don’t understand,” she said.

  The noise woke the queen.

  “Which is my baby?” she shouted.

  They uncovered the children. One was a boy, one a girl.

  The queen grabbed for her son.

  She held him close while the king showered questions on her and on her attendant women and on the midwife. They were frightened at his rage and tried to tell him what he wanted to know, rather than the truth.

  One woman said the queen had given birth to a girl when she saw the girl baby. Another said it was twins. Another said that the midwife had smuggled in the extra baby in case the real baby died.

  “I had one baby,” said the queen. “I had a son. See. This is my child.”

  She held the baby out for them to examine.

  It was a girl.

  The baby in the cot was a boy.

  While the others flew about in a panic and the queen thrust the girl child from her the king called in two guards. He took the child from the queen and handed it over.”

  “Get rid of them both,” he said.

  They took the other child from the crib and walked out.

  Flaxfield stopped talking and raised his goblet to his lips. No one laughed when the wine disappeared.

  Silence smothered the table.

  “What happened then,” asked Perry.

  “Then?” said Flaxfield. “The queen never had more children. The king hardly spoke to her again. They lived in separate parts of the palace. One strange thing was that anyone who had looked into the mirror found that t
hings kept doubling. A servant would carry a joint of beef from the kitchen and by the time he arrived at the hall there were two. A maid would pick up a candlestick to polish it and when she put it down there would be two. People say that all the children who are born with some sort of magic gift are the descendants of the ones who looked into the mirror that day. The king kept the mirror wrapped in the leather. He sent it away to another of his houses, where it was locked in an attic, never to be unwrapped again.”

  “Is it true?” asked Perry.

  “There are other stories,” said Jackbones. “Most of them don’t take as long to tell as this one.”

  “What happened to the babies?” asked Cabbage.

  “The soldiers were told to take them into the forest and kill them,” said Flaxfield.

  “Did they?”

  “The story says that’s what they were told to do. Soldiers usually obey orders, especially when they come directly from the king.”

  “Is it true?” asked Perry. “Is that how magic first came?”

  “I think all the stories about the start of magic are true,” said Melwood.

  “But they can’t all be?” said Perry. “Aren’t they all different?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then they can’t all be true. Only one can be true.”

  “Where was the palace?” asked Cabbage.

  No one answered.

  Cabbage had an idea, a very bad idea. He looked at Melwood.

  “Where was it?” he asked again.

  “You say it,” she encouraged him.

  “Boolat,” he whispered.

  “Yes.”

  Perry tried to tell them about the beetles and Boolat, but they had already pushed their chairs back, stood up and started to leave.

  “Just a roffle,” he mumbled. |

  Part Five

  FIRE NAME

  The river drew Bee to itself

  day after day. She was getting better at skimming stones.

  The river stretched out wider than a highway. Swallows and swifts soared above it and dipped and dived, almost brushing the surface as they swooped for the insects that hovered over it.

  There were no swallows or swifts once the warm summer days disappeared. Bee had read that they slept in the mud at the edge of rivers and ponds all through the winter. She watched them intently, trying to see if she could discover where they landed and hid in the mud. None of them ever did. They just haunted the water for food.

  Every morning and last thing at night Flaxfold gave Bee an infusion of herbs that was supposed to stop the pain. It didn’t. She carried the pain to the river as a milkmaid carries a yoke. It lay on her shoulders. It hung by her sides.

  Once, she had thrown the infusion into her washing bowl because she thought it was useless and didn’t stop the pain. Before the sun was halfway up the sky Bee had thrown herself on the floor in pain and couldn’t stop kicking her legs and groaning. Flaxfold brought her another draught, stronger than usual. Bee slept through until the next morning, woke feeling dizzy and drank her usual infusion without argument.

  “Will I have to drink this every day?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. It depends on what Flaxfield finds out. And it depends on how well you heal.”

  “I’ve healed,” said Bee. “Haven’t I?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the pain’s still there, so it’s always going to be there, isn’t it?”

  This was as much as they spoke. Flaxfold tried to spend time with Bee. The girl walked away. If Flaxfold came to the river to find her Bee went inside.

  “Perhaps it would be better if you tried some magic,” suggested the woman.

  Bee stared at her.

  “What do you think made me like this?” she said.

  For some reason the pain was less when she was at the river. Bee was frightened to do anything magical at first in case it made the pain worse. She liked to take her shoes off and put her feet into the water. The ground this near to the river was soft and damp and she didn’t like getting her skirt wet so after the first time she didn’t do it again.

  The day after she had thrown away her infusion her head was still groggy and she wanted to put her feet into the water. It helped her. So she made a small spell to keep the patch of ground dry. She tested it with the palm of her hand, pressed down. The grass was dry, the earth unyielding as a field path at noon.

  She sat and trailed her feet in the water. Her legs stayed dry. She watched fishermen on the far bank hauling their small craft out of the water and carrying them away upturned on their heads. Their legs dragged ribbons of river water as they waded ashore.

  Bee considered the dry ground she sat on. It felt wrong now. The magic had upset the order of the river and its bank. Riverbanks are damp. They should be damp. If you sit on one you get your legs damp.

  Thinking this, Bee began to feel sick. She pulled her feet out of the water and walked away. The spell had spoiled the river for her. Where it should have made her forget some of the pain now she had doubled it. Magic was more pain.

  When Flaxfold came to her room that night to give her the infusion she said, “Have you thought about trying to use some magic? There’s still time to make you an apprentice.”

  “I’ve finished with magic,” said Bee. “I’m never going to do it again. I’m never going to be an apprentice.”

  Perry leaned towards Cabbage and whispered. “Who are the other people in here?”

  “Never mind who’s here,” said Jackbones, “let’s just get on.” He laughed when the boys stared at him.

  “Librarians hear every whisper,” he said. “You should remember that.”

  This reminded Cabbage of something. Perry looked up at the high galleries and shook his head.

  “How did you know what I had been dreaming?” he asked. “You did, didn’t you?”

  Jackbones cleared the table and arranged paper and pens for everyone to make notes. Flaxfield and Melwood, who had been dawdling and talking on the way back, came in. At least, Melwood came in talking to someone and Flaxfield’s voice answered her. Dorwin came next and closed the door.

  “Please,” said Cabbage. “How did you know?”

  Jackbones smiled. “Don’t mind me,” he said. “I like to tease. The books told me.”

  “What are you three gossiping about?” asked Flaxfield. “Undo this spell, please.”

  “I’m thinking about it,” said Cabbage.

  “Never tell lies in a library,” said Jackbones. “This is a place for the truth.”

  “I will think about it,” promised Cabbage.

  They sat round the table. Cabbage quietly drew out his notebook. He was sure he had written a special page about invisibility.

  Flaxfield’s voice erupted from the empty chair opposite.

  “Don’t tell me it’s in that book?” he said. “I’ve never had such an apprentice for keeping a sloppy notebook.”

  Melwood came to his rescue.

  “It’s not how neat a book is,” she said. “It’s how good the work is. I’ve known pupils with the neatest books and the dimmest minds. Sometimes mediocrity needs order; genius can’t be regulated.”

  “All I’m saying is that if we have to wait for Cabbage to find something in his notebook you’ll never see me again.”

  Cabbage ducked his head and turned the pages. Things weren’t all in what other people would recognize as a proper order, but he knew where to find them. Most of the time. He flicked the pages.

  “We’re ready for your information,” Flaxfield said to Dorwin.

  Perry couldn’t understand why she hadn’t been asked to give it as soon as she arrived so he asked.

  Flaxfield said, “Whatever brought Dorwin here is important. We need some help. We need to hear. She had a long and hard journey, rattling along on a horse and rescuing roffles. That’s no way to pass on knowledge. What she tells us now will be different from what she would have said the moment she walked in. Cheese and wine and wisdom need
time to mature. She’ll tell it better now.”

  “It isn’t enough,” said Dorwin. “Sorry.”

  “Let us decide that,” said Melwood.

  Perry moved his chair closer to Dorwin. She smelled good and he liked being close.

  Dorwin told Bee’s story as it had been related to her. Melwood listened with a look of deep sorrow. At times she held her breath. At the moment when Dorwin described how Slowin had stolen Bee’s spells and sold them she couldn’t stop herself saying, “That’s worse than theft, worse than beating someone. She was lonely and small and didn’t know how wrong it was. Your magic is your life. It’s the deepest, most secret part of you and he stole it.”

  No one replied. Dorwin continued.

  Jackbones made no response at all. Cabbage had stopped sorting through the notebook to listen. After Melwood’s comment he looked at Jackbones to see how he was responding. The librarian’s face was like a carved stone shield. His eyes didn’t meet Cabbage’s. He stared straight ahead.

  “She signed an indenture,” said Dorwin, as the story reached its end. “And she knows that he cheated her there, too. He gave her his name and he took hers.”

  Flaxfield’s voice interrupted.

  “He can’t have done that. He can’t.”

  The table shook under the impact of an invisible fist.

  “What’s the matter, Flaxfield?” asked Melwood.

  “Slowin was the weakest, stupidest wizard there has ever been,” said Flaxfield. “I’d watched him over the years. He was a fool and a bungler but he couldn’t do much harm. He wasn’t a powerful wizard. He was greedy and vain and he wanted to be better than anyone else. I once had to correct him.”

  “What do you mean, correct him?”

  “I mean he was trying to take advantage of people with his magic. I corrected him.”

  “Like you correct me?” asked Cabbage.

  Flaxfield’s voice was soft and Cabbage could sense the smile.

  “No, lad. I’ve never corrected you. Not in that way. I mean I had to show him what happens if you use magic for the wrong reasons. I’m afraid it may have hurt him. His pride, too.”