Azrael's Twins

by V. J. Mortimer

  Grady and Niamh were hanging on every word of Gilly’s story. But Niamh’s brow furrowed for a moment. ‘I can see you have a question, Niamh. You have expressive eyebrows,’ said Gilly, chuckling again.

  ‘The story is all very interesting but it doesn’t really explain why we’ve been acting the way we have. What is it about the deeper magic and leaving it behind that we should know?’

  ‘You seem like a clever girl, Niamh. Why don’t you see if you can think it through?’ said Gilly, smiling.

  Niamh sat back and tried to take it all in. She turned and stared out over the vista of the library with the various creatures engaged in their studies around its terraces. If this was only the weaker magic that they could use in this world, then what must the deeper magic be like? She suddenly remembered how her mother had reacted when she had touched the source of the deep magic after Embarr had cast the invisible dome above them back in the forest many months ago. But no answers came to her mind. Grady suddenly broke the silence.

  ‘It’s because we were able to touch the deep magic at Avalon’s End, but now that we’re here it’s been cut off from us. Our bodies are trying to adjust and it’s making us act a bit odd, like getting a vaccination.’

  ‘Well I’ve never had a vaccination, young man,’ said Gilly seriously, ‘but I think I understand what you’re saying, and yes, you are right. Your bodies are reacting to being in a different place. Your minds know that things are different here and you may, for a while at least, act a bit irrational. Though from what I’ve heard of you, Grady, it might be hard to tell the difference. I’m not sure riding around on dragons when you’ve never done it before is a particularly rational idea, but then I’ve never really understood what people see in it myself. Give me a good book over dragon scales any day.’

  ‘Sooooo. It might also explain why we think our parents are making strange decisions too? Like letting me race in the school’s cup?’

  ‘Well I might have thought your parents had more sense than that, but who knows. They certainly didn’t appear to show any sense with you charging off on your broomstick to help your brother. And I’d be fascinated to know who knocked your friend off her broomstick, Niamh. I imagine she had quite a headache after that.’

  Niamh stiffened at Gilly’s mention of Bree’s accident. She looked at the old man intently but saw nothing other than his contented smile. His eyes gave away nothing. Standing up quickly she stepped away from her chair. ‘We need to go now. Thank you for all your stories. You’ve been very interesting.’

  ‘Hang on,’ said Grady. ‘I haven’t finished yet.’

  ‘Yes you have, Grady. We’ve kept Gilly from his work for long enough.’

  Grady rolled his eyes, but stood up alongside his sister. ‘Thanks Gilly. Can I come back and see you later if I think of some more things to ask?’

  ‘Of course. You can usually find me here. I’m sure you have many more questions about the old magic, Grady.’

  Niamh turned quickly and walked as fast as she could from Gilly’s panoramic study. Grady caught her up a moment later.

  ‘Why are you in such a rush? I was enjoying that story.’

  ‘Think for a moment, Grady. I know you struggle with it sometimes, but I also know you’re cleverer than you act. No one else knows about Bree being knocked out and left on the castle turret. Murdock and his people brought her down when no one else could see her. Bree and her parents have been in the castle for the last two days while she recovers. Nobody else knows about it, but somehow Gilly does!’

  ‘Oh come on, Niamh,’ said Grady. ‘Gilly must know lots of people round here who tell him what’s going on.’

  ‘Do you really think if Murdock wanted something kept quiet that it wouldn’t happen? He was very clear with me. No one was to know about what happened to Bree, yet an old man in the bowels of the castle surrounded by books knows what happened. How?’

  ‘You really need to be a bit less suspicious, Niamh. You’re starting to scare me now! Shame you’re probably right, though.’

  ‘We just need to be careful who we talk to when we want answers, Grady. I’m not feeling good about all this.’

  The festival of Samain and the excitement of race week quickly faded to distant memory. The decorations around town were quickly removed and the ghoulish creatures that had strolled down the main streets slunk back to the darkness of the night.

  Maddeningly for Niamh, everyone’s attention seemed mostly to be on Grady and his dragon racing exploits. Wizards Bullrush at lunchtime had taken on intensity more akin to a pack trying to hunt him down. Grady usually found himself getting picked last to take on the rush so that multiple wands were all trying to score a hit on the hero of the school cup race.

  ‘Dinnae worry, lad,’ said McHavering one day while Grady was helping to muck out the dragons and complaining loudly about being ganged up on as he did so. ‘I know ye cannae sit doon right now, but just take it as a compliment. The other lads in yer year will soon tire o’havin a go at ye. De ye ever use ye reboonding spells?’

  ‘Reboonding? Oh, rebounding. No I haven’t – what are they?’

  ‘Well, instead a blocking the shots from them ye turn ye block into a sort o rubbery spongy thing. The spells just rebound off and flick back the way they came – mostly. It’s a wee bit tricky as ye cannae be sure where it’ll end up, but if ye get a bit o skill at it ye can cause havoc. I was never able tae make it work well meself, but ye’ve more skill than me.’

  Grady tried it the next day at school but only succeeded in rebounding a spell into Ms Maladicta as she strode across the courtyard and earned himself another detention. ‘At the rate you are going Mr O’Connell, you’ll set a new one year record for detentions,’ said Ms Maladicta as she marched Grady off to the detention room. Surprisingly, the rebounding block only enhanced Grady’s reputation as the story circulated that Ms Maladicta was forced to use a surgical cushion to help her sit down for the next two days as a result of where she had been hit by the random spell.

  The year eventually settled down into some sort of normality for the children. School became the same sort of monotonous routine they were used to, though interspersed with the odd bout of extraordinary magical activities such as Magical Art – where Grady found he could cast a spell of colours at a canvas from ten metres away and get it all (mostly) onto the canvas – the bits that didn’t stick earned him another detention, but everyone thought it was worth it for the paint-spattered look on the face of Mrs Looney the art teacher.

  Practice for the spell casting team became a regular feature of Niamh’s week, though she still couldn’t join the team yet. She thought this was entirely unfair as Grady had been allowed to join the dragon racing team.

  But the most unfair part of school, as far as the children were concerned, was there were no magical classes at all – they had been sure they would have been concocting potions over bubbling cauldrons (after all, that’s what happened in the books, didn’t it?) but the normality of the classes just made them feel like they had been cheated. If you were going to live in a magical world then the least they could do was teach you how to do the practical stuff! According to Ms Maladicta, the main object of her school was to turn out witches and wizards who could think for themselves, use their wits, and know how to spell “Belladonna” without getting it wrong. ‘How do you expect to turn out a decent potion if you can’t even spell the ingredients correctly? It’s only a short step between producing a passable draught to give you a good night’s sleep and putting a whole castle to sleep with the wrong ingredients. Next thing you know there’s a crazed prince who thinks he can come and wake everyone up by finding a princess and giving her a kiss. And as you’re the only princess in this school at the moment, Miss O’Connell, he may decide to think twice about it, so we’ll all end up spending the next hundred years on our mattress. Mine is a bit lumpy so I’d rather not face that fate! Stick to learning what you need to for now. Once you’ve graduated from here you can do the ad
vanced witching and wizarding courses, but not before!’

  The seasons turned and the shorter days and cold winds off the mountains brought welcome snows and midwinter feasts. Niamh and Grady always thought that even though winter came in the middle of the year and Christmas wasn’t till the end, the midwinter feast was almost as good, even if there weren’t presents. The castle was lit up again and fireworks were in plentiful supply, but this time there were no unwelcome visits from anything remotely spectral – the only exception being a delegation of zombies who turn up once a year at these sorts of events. They were never any trouble, but the castle had a habit of providing a pick-up and restitching service for the bits of the bodies which fell off as they stumbled around. Arms generally weren’t an issue, but the children thought it was funny when one of them lost a leg as they would end up hopping around in circles trying to figure out what had happened. Once the fireworks and midwinter celebrations were complete they would lurch off back to the forests and generally wouldn’t be seen again till the next celebration.

  ‘No one knows why some people end up as zombies, Grady,’ his father had tried to explain to him. ‘Some people say it’s the magic leaching into the ground where they’ve been buried and the next thing you know they’re banging on the coffin lids and literally pushing up the daisies as they come back out again.’

  ‘That must be a bit of a shock for the families!’ said Grady when he was told.

  ‘Not as much as the shock the zombies have when they suddenly find themselves up and about again! One minute you’re looking at eternity in a comfortable coffin and the next thing it’s a lifetime of lurching.’

  The dragon pens became a more tolerable place to be as the snows descended. The simmering heat from the dragons created a warm and relatively pleasant fug (once you got past the smell!). The stables and pens looked as though they were constantly on fire as the permanently warm air rising out from them met the cold winter air outside and formed thick drifting clouds. It was easy to see where the stables were from a distance, as the haze over the area, and expanding aroma, was practically a permanent feature.

  The other permanent feature was the total absence of any banshees, and appearances by, or even a sniff of Balthasar. It seemed that as the winter closed in, the shorter days and longer nights paradoxically drove the dangers of the dark wizard further underground. His presence and threat retreated as the snows became more frequent. Under the thick blanket of midwinter the fears and dangers – perceived and real – became memories and rumour.

  The children did not visit Gilly again. Quinn was known to be spending more time with the lore master, though. His pale skin seemed to become even more translucent as the lack of winter sun coupled with more time in the cavern and library was turning him into a wicked-looking creature. Whatever studies he was turning his mind to in the library did not seem to be having any effect on his magical ability. He was still the butt of jokes and magical taunts, but none of them seemed to upset him. When being dunked in the river or having his hair turned pink by one or more of the “in crowd” gangs, he never showed a scowl or drew his wand in anger. He merely gazed back with a serene stare which made Emily think of a lion appraising its next victim. He still made the trip from the castle to school more or less in the company of the children (though he tended to lag behind) and always appeared to be keeping a fine boundary between himself and everyone else – just far enough that he didn’t appear to be flying with them but close enough to hear the conversations. Trust became a scarce commodity which they shared in small packages with all but their family and their close inner circle of friends – Bree, Devin, Emily and Hugh.

  Bree had become more subdued since Samain. Less lively to play and more sombre in thought, the night of the dragon race had changed her. The one thing which had not become diminished in her demeanour was her willingness to stand by Niamh – and Grady too, it became apparent. Whenever threats – real or perceived – reared their heads around the children, Bree was the first to come to their aid. Grady had never sought out Reg and his gang but they seemed to constantly want to seek out Grady. Niamh instinctively knew when there was danger in the air and managed to add safety through numbers to nullify any of Reg’s clumsy attempts to catch Grady in the corridors or grounds. And right beside her – if not in front of her – was Bree with wand at the ready.

  ‘You shouldn’t put yourself in harm’s way so much, Bree,’ said Niamh one day. ‘We are much better at looking after ourselves now.’

  ‘I know,’ said Bree coldly. ‘But someone wanted me out of the way the night of the dragon race. And they took me out easily. If they can do that to me when I’ve been using magic all my life, then they can do the same to you. Even more easily.’

  ‘We have to watch over ourselves as well though, Bree,’ said Grady. ‘You can’t be everywhere.’

  ‘I know. But someone round here is prepared to hurt others just to get to you. I won’t let that happen. It’s mean and it’s wrong. And if they are prepared to do that then you must be very, very important. And that means you need all the protection you can get.’

  ‘But we have other guards always out of sight but close enough to help if we get in any real trouble.’

  ‘Yes. But they aren’t your friends. And real friends stand by each other, so I will stand by you.’ Bree smiled as she finished speaking but there was a harsh coldness in the way she spoke about defending them. Niamh and Grady were in no doubt Bree meant every word. And they also knew there was one person they could absolutely rely upon.

  But as the winter dragged on and slowly turned back to spring, the melting of the snows was not matched by a change in the frostiness of Quinn. Niamh and Grady had made it their solemn aim to track the boy in the castle and at school to figure out what might be his plans. Every attempt though ended in frustration and mystery. Any efforts to track him in the main library were a compete waste of time. Quinn knew more about the labyrinth that housed the collection of books than anyone they had ever met. He had an ability to disappear behind tall shelves of musty books in a way that was more than uncanny and bordering on spooky.

  The same problems dogged the children in the castle. Quinn could step into a room only moments before the children but upon their entrance they would find it empty. They searched for hidden panels and secret latches but there were no signs of how the boy could disappear so suddenly and so completely. Niamh was convinced he had learned the secret of dematerialising, though her parents and Murdock were adamant there was not a child in the kingdom that could manage that trick, the magic being far too advanced for anyone so young.

  Grady was distracted more and more from his attempts to catch Quinn at some devious act. Dragon racing became intensely demanding and his reputation, gained from the extraordinary events on the night of Samain, made life much much harder for him. Despite his age (he was five years younger than anyone else in the team) and his small stature he became the one target all the spell casters on the team wanted to hit more than anyone else. Practices became a constant battle of avoiding the multiple blasts aimed in his direction. And it wasn’t just those that were expected which caused problems. An overly enthusiastic team member one day decided to unleash several sneaky shots when McHavering had called a halt to a practice run. The bolts missed Iris but clipped an unwary Grady in the shoulder, causing him to tumble off his perch. A hand flung out in desperation found a handy tail fin on Iris and, though she flicked him forward onto her back again, there was a dangerous moment of dangling from the dragon by one hand as treetops whipped at his ankles. The moment of fear was quickly replaced by anger as Grady and Iris swooped round to the errant team member and a short blast of highly focused dragon flame left a single smouldering hole on his pants that no seamstress could fix. McHavering only laughed when he saw the damage and knew his young charge was learning fast how to look after himself in a wizarding world.

  The dragon team had four more races before year end, and with Grady and Iris on board they we
re simply unbeatable. No lead by any of the opposition seemed too big to overcome, no amount of concerted blasting enough to deter Grady from his focus on the prized circlets. By the time of the final race the result of the college championship was a forgone conclusion with the only question being whether Flamville College or Titania would take second place. Flamville tried every legal loophole they could to get Grady and Iris banned from the team, but sometimes even a good lawyer can’t beat the system and eventually they realised their efforts to beat Rookwood off the course would meet the same end as their efforts on the racetrack.

  Niamh’s frustrations at watching her brother grab all the glory on the racetrack were only tempered by the success she was having in the spell casting team – albeit only on the training fields. Once she had mastered the subtle arts of the flick and release of the spell from her wand tip there was no longer any need to imagine any of her school foes’ heads in the middle of the targets. Practice became almost pointless for her as her abilities grew. Even girls on the top team began to wonder why she was not brought into the squad as a fully fledged team member. It was clear at every practice she was out-pointing everyone. Her reputation became a talking point for everyone in the school and groups of children, both older and younger, began to gather to watch the team training.