‘Can I?’ gasped Grady.
‘Only if you don’t tell your father. Don’t worry. The dragon knows what to do.’
Garrett passed the reins over to Grady, showing him how to let them sit gently in his hands. ‘If you relax and don’t let him feel any tension you’ll be fine. And make sure it’s just gentle movements, or he’ll be all over the place.’
The moment Grady took the reins the dragon’s head snapped up and around to stare at him with red slitted eyes. Grady’s heart skipped a beat as he felt the raw reptilian emotions of the dragon as it flew and felt its bridled energy through the reins in his hands. He knew a twist to the left or a flick to the right would send the dragon flying off in any direction. It was all he could do to keep himself from taking control and really showing his uncle he could do it himself. The dragon turned its head and let out a loud roar as its wings sculled lazily through the air towards the castle on the hilltop.
‘Had enough?’ asked Garrett after a couple of minutes more.
‘No,’ said Grady, ‘but I suppose you had better take the reins to land.’
‘Yes, I think I had,’ said Garrett, smiling. ‘Even though your father loves me as his brother I don’t think he’d love me if I allowed you to crash-land!’ He took the reins gently off Grady so as not to upset the dragon. It didn’t seem to work, as immediately he did so the dragon’s head snapped back round again. A snort of flame shot back from the beast towards Garrett, luckily missing them and only singing his hair. ‘He obviously didn’t like me taking control, Grady. Looks like you may have a friend there.’
Grady smiled happily to himself at the thought the dragon preferred him to a wizard of this world.
The carriage swooped around the castle towards the same sloping landing strip they had used for take-off. The descent felt even steeper than it had when they had landed in town. This time, though, Grady knew how to handle it. He could almost hear the dragon’s thoughts and understood how it was using currents of air to control itself. Just metres above the ground the dragon adjusted its wings, dropping its legs and talons towards the ground. They touched down lightly as the dragon used the blast of fire from its nostrils to slow them. They cantered towards the stables but pulled up short when they realised there was an obstacle in their way. Belimawr was back!
Chapter 10
Testing Times
Ten minutes later the throne room of the king became the audience room for the phoenix. It was hard to tell who was the king and who was the guest as Conail sat on a low chair below Bel. Niamh thought to herself that it wouldn’t really matter whether you sat on a tall chair or a low one, Bel would still tower over you.
‘So what you’re saying,’ said the king, ‘is that no one can find any sign of Balthasar anywhere?’
‘Absolutely none,’ nodded the phoenix. ‘My friends and I have been scouring the land for signs or word. There’s been a squadron of phoenix in the air and herds of unicorns on the ground. There’s not been even a tremble in the magical ether. It’s as though he has disappeared completely. The only thing which looks out of place is a few more banshees around the forests and a couple of the ice giants have been seen lower down in the mountains. Other than that – nothing.’
‘What do you think it means?’ asked Murdock. The elf was standing aside from everyone else but still managed to look like he was lounging. It was a trick, the children had noticed, all the elves seemed to have. No matter how much Grady practised in the mirror he found he couldn’t seem to master it himself. It hadn’t helped that Niamh had caught him practising once and wouldn’t stop giggling at his posing even after being attacked with a particularly large down pillow.
Bel looked thoughtful and paused for a moment before replying. ‘It could mean one of two things. When you were attacked in your world he may have been trapped there himself – too weak to get back. Don’t forget that he used an awful lot of magic attacking you. There was Fire and Air and Earth in the magic thrown against you. And he wasn’t able to use the magic of your world either, so somehow he had a store of magic he brought with him to launch that attack. If so, then he may have used it all up and found he didn’t have enough to make it back home.’
‘How likely do you think that is?’ asked Grace from her position beside Merritt on one of the audience chairs which ringed the room.
‘It’s probably the least likely outcome,’ said Bel, shuffling his feathers causing a ripple of light to spread around the room. ‘What we think happened was he found himself very weak when he came back – so weak he has had to go to ground to try and recover. He still has his spies out there – the blackhawks have been very active in the sky and there have been reports of goblins and banshees roving the countryside. They haven’t been doing much damage mind you – just nuisance stuff – but they’ve been out and about more than we thought they would be.’
‘We saw some goblins in town this morning,’ said Grady with an anxious tone in his voice. ‘Are they dangerous?’
‘No. Not here in town,’ said the phoenix. ‘If you were alone out in the woods it might be a bit more of a worry but they are pretty tame in town. Bel turned back to the king. ‘We still have things to talk about but the children can go if they wish. They have had a big day and need to get some rest. They’ll need to get ready for school over the next few days and Murdock has things he’ll need to teach them. I think it’s enough for them to know they will be safe – for now. The danger out there is low. Balthasar really seems to have thrown all his resources into coming to the Old World. His time will come again, but not yet.’
The king nodded in agreement and the children were ushered out by Grace and Murdock. They headed back to their rooms, passing through the hall of statues. Bardolphus saw them coming and raised his hat in greeting. As he did so the books he held once again tumbled to the ground causing him to stumble down from his plinth and start apologising profusely – again. Niamh and Grady laughed as the clumsy statue tried to pick up the books. They bent down and helped him retrieve the pile, though it was a struggle with the books being made of heavy marble. ‘So kind of you,’ mumbled Bardolphus again, looking embarrassed and sheepish. His brother sniffed at him and shook his head in disbelief at his absent-minded sibling.
The children spent what was left of the day reading in the library and asking Murdock questions. Niamh asked if she could play with Bree again but this time it was Murdock who said, ‘Not tonight, Niamh. You and Grady will need a good rest. Tomorrow you start wand and broomstick training and you’ll need your strength for that.’
The children could barely restrain themselves. ‘Wands!’ yelled Niamh. ‘Broomsticks!!’ squealed Grady as they both leapt off the sofa.
‘Well you didn’t think we’d let you go to school without some training, did you? Or give you the best that Fitzhollow and Hooligan could make without you knowing how to at least cast a simple spell, did you?’ said Grace. ‘The other children you will be going to school with have been riding broomsticks since they were barely able to walk. You’ve got an awful lot of catching up to do, you know. And as for spell casting – most children learn by their parents’ side from the time they can hold a wand in their hand. You don’t need to be a wiz at wand work for your lessons, but playtime and sports means you’re going to need to learn some skills pretty quickly.’
‘But Mum,’ said Grady. ‘We won’t have our wands or brooms until Friday. How will we practise without those?’
‘There are plenty of wands and brooms you can practise on, Grady,’ said Murdock. ‘They won’t be a patch on the wands Fitzhollow and Hooligan will make for you but they will help you learn the basics. It won’t be as strong as the magic you’ll be able to do with your own wands and broomsticks and to be honest I’m not even sure what magic you’ll be able to do – if any. We are only assuming you’ll be able to use the magic here as you were able to come through the doorway back from your old home to here. It may be that you aren’t able to use the magic properly at all. Which mea
ns we have other problems to deal with.’
Grady looked crestfallen at this – how could they not do great magic? They were the son and daughter of a sorcerer, for goodness sake!
‘Let’s just wait till tomorrow, guys. Who knows what the morning will bring.’
The children could hardly sleep that night but eventually darkness and slumber claimed them. It had never been this dark at home as the lights from the city always gave just a little illumination to the skyline. But here there was not a hint of the night time glow.
The children slept late but shot out of bed once they opened their eyes. It was too exciting to stay in bed on the morning when they were first to learn how to be a real witch and wizard!
The morning was another crystal clear day at the castle but the children found they were now well above a line of deep cotton white clouds which cut them off from the city below. For all they knew the castle could have been a ship in the clouds, but as the morning wore on the cloud slowly burnt away and the land below was revealed again under a sparkling clear sky.
Murdock joined them as they were finishing off breakfast. ‘Ready for some fun, you two?’ he asked.
‘You bet!’ shouted an enthusiastic Grady, leaping off his chair.
‘Then let’s get to it,’ said Murdock. ‘No point mucking about, is there?’ he said, with smiling eyes. They trooped down through the castle and out to a courtyard they had not seen before. At one end was a set of archery-like targets. The children had seen some similar in the fields near the park in their old home. These ones were smaller though and looked much sturdier. At the other end was a rack of broomsticks of various sizes and beside them sat a small ornately-carved table with several wands of different colours and lengths. Off to the side of the courtyard of the space were two other tables – both set up identically. First was a bowl of water, then a pile of what looked suspiciously like dirt, then a flask with some sulphurous-smelling oil in it, and finally a slender wirework sculpture with feathers suspended by fine elf thread dangling from its arms. Niamh recognised this as a dream catcher – her mother had bought her one for her room when she was just a baby. As far as she knew it still sat in her room at Avalon’s End. Around the outside of the courtyard ran a colonnaded walkway which opened beyond onto what looked like the castle gardens.
‘We’ll try some basic wand tricks first,’ said Murdock, walking up to the table with the wands. ‘Come and choose one. These won’t be anything like as powerful as yours will be once you get them, but they will be enough for today.’
Niamh and Grady practically ran to the table jostling each other out of the way in their haste to choose a wand. Just as they were about to make a grab Murdock said, ‘Hold on!’
The children’s hands hovered in mid air above the wands. ‘Which wand do you think you should choose?’ asked the elf, with a wry smile on his face.
‘How should I know?’ said Grady defiantly.
Murdock bent down to Grady with a steely glint in his eyes. ‘Well maybe if you listened to your heart rather than your head, you would know,’ he said quietly. He stood up but never let his gaze leave Grady. ‘Before you choose, try and feel what each of the wands will do for you. They each have different properties. I know what they are and I know your parents will too, but why don’t you see if you can work it out for yourselves.’
‘How do we do that?’ asked Niamh. ‘I’ve never been taught how to pick wands before.’
‘Neither were we, Niamh,’ said Grace, stepping out of the cloisters with Merritt. ‘Don’t use your eyes or your brain to choose. They’ll trick you. What you think you see isn’t what is always there. Magic is much more than our eyes can show us. It’s a part of absolutely all of us – even a part of those back in the Old World that don’t have the gift. So let the magic work through you to see what’s really there. Let the wands tell you what they can do.’
Niamh looked back down at the wands and sighed. I have no idea what Mum is on about she thought, but let’s see what happens if I do this. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. Whenever she was a bit stressed or needed to calm down, the breathing trick her mother had taught her always seemed to work. She held her left hand out over the wands. Moving it along the row of magical instruments she tried to reach out to each wand without using her fingers. On the first pass she could feel nothing, but as she breathed more deeply she began to hear voices in her head – ‘I can calm the seas’ said one voice in a light breathy tone: ‘I can raise the mountains and dig the valleys’ said another in a deep rumbling tone. A third said ‘I can burn brighter than the sun.’ That voice made Niamh imagine a flame crackling in a fireplace. There was no fourth voice though. Niamh stood with her eyes closed and waited for a few more moments. When nothing came she opened her eyes and found her hand hovering over an amber coloured wand with a delicate circlet of silver and gold running around the base and up the sides. Taking the wand in her hand Niamh suddenly heard the fourth voice in her head: ‘I can be what you need me to be.’ The voice was delicate and fresh. It felt old and young, far away and near, but Niamh was in no doubt this was the wand she was meant to pick. She was surprised at how little the wand weighed. It felt like there was no substance to it but at the same time she could have sworn it trembled under her fingers as she bent to pick it up.
‘A good match, I think,’ said Murdock, looking to Merritt and Grace. ‘A wind wand – in keeping with everything else we know,’ he said, smiling. Looking back to Grady he said, ‘And now it’s your turn, young master. Which will it be for you?’
Grady looked down at the table and screwed up his face looking for the right wand. In his mind he knew what he wanted – something he could blast away with, but none of the wands looked like blasting wands. Closing his eyes he put out his hand and murmured under his breath, ‘Let the right wand come to me.’ For a moment nothing happened. Then the three wands left on the table trembled ever so slightly before one leapt up into his hand. Opening his eyes with a shock, Grady looked at the ivory wand in his hand. It felt warm and snug – as if it was an extension of his arm. He gave it a few experimental flicks before Murdock said, ‘NO! Not yet. Do you want to set your sister’s hair on fire?’ Grady realised he had been flicking the wand in the general direction of Niamh, who had ducked down under the table.
‘Lightning Oak – a very unusual choice, Grady,’ said Murdock. ‘That particular wand came from an oak tree that was blasted by lightning. A fiery nature for a wand if ever there was one.’ Turning away from the children he walked towards the two tables off to the side. ‘Over here now. What we are going to do is four basic tasks with these four elements. First, I’m going to ask you to create a small water spout. Then you’ll have to roll this pile of dirt into a ball, then light the oil in the flask, and then set all the feathers twirling on the dreamcatcher.’
‘You’re kidding, aren’t you?’ said Grady incredulously. ‘We haven’t a clue how to do any of that.’
‘Well, as of a few minutes ago you didn’t have a clue how to choose a wand, yet I seem to recall you just made one jump off a table into your hands.’ Grady started to reply but then realised from the look in Murdock’s eyes that it was probably better to just stay quiet.
‘What I want you to do,’ said the elf, ‘is to see in your mind the water in the bowl rising up in a column from the middle. You should be able to get it up to about head height this first time round, but let’s see what you can do, shall we? Come and stand in front of your tables with your wands out in front, pointing at the bowls.’
Grady and Niamh did as asked and stood nervously in front of the tables with their wands out. As they took their places they exchanged nervous glances before holding out their wands above the bowls.
‘On three,’ said Murdock. ‘One ... two ... three!’
Niamh formed a picture in her mind just like Murdock had said. She was able to clearly see how the water should be and felt a tingle in her arm as magic started to flow through her into the wand. The water
in the bowl stirred and rippled and started to slowly rise up from the centre. Niamh felt a thrill as the water rose higher and higher but suddenly and without warning the column collapsed, slopping water over the sides of the bowl. ‘Noooo!’ said Niamh in annoyance as the feeling of magic flowing through her disappeared.
Grady had fared even worse than Niamh. His attempt had resulted in little more than a bulge of water in the bowl and a few ripples, but there was nothing resembling a column. No matter how hard he tried he could not get more than a couple of inches of water to rise up from the centre. He felt more and more power flowing through his arm and into the wand but, despite the wand starting to feel very warm, there was no impact on the liquid. It stubbornly refused to do as he bid. Harrumphing he lowered his wand and the bulge in the water disappeared.
‘Well. That wasn’t what I expected,’ said Murdock with surprise. ‘Especially given the amount of power you two seemed to be drawing.’ Turning to Merritt and Niamh he said, ‘Did you feel that? There was no small amount of magic being used.’
Merritt and Grace both nodded with confused looks on their faces. They recalled when they had been tested and the results – big spirals of water looping up into the air and drenching Murdock. That had earned them detentions for a week afterwards.
‘Perhaps it’s something to do with the wands, do you think?’ said Grace. ‘Could it be muting their strength?’
‘Well it’s possible, but very unlikely,’ said Murdock. ‘We’ll try some of the other tests and see what happens.’
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