The Last Apprentice: Complete Collection

by Joseph Delaney

  The encounter mirrored the first one at the inn almost exactly. After the rhythmic raps, a column of light appeared, and the spirit began its deadly work. However, it had hardly begun to jibber and jabber at us before Alice countered it with a spell. She did better than me, shutting it up quickly; for my part, I needed three attempts afterward to send the spirit of the watchmaker to the light. It was no easy task: He’d had a difficult life, always counting his money and worrying about losing it. He didn’t have many happy memories that I could draw upon. But at last I managed it, and the spirit was free.

  But then something happened that filled me with dismay. Beside the workbench I saw a shimmer, and a column of gray light appeared. It seemed that another spirit had joined us. And there, close to the top of the column, was a pair of eyes glaring at me with extreme malice. One was green and the other blue; they looked very like the ones that I had seen in the storm cloud, and I stepped back in alarm.

  Then the column of light shimmered, and a woman stood before us. She wasn’t present in the flesh—she was translucent, the candle on the workbench behind visible through her dark gown. It was her image, projected from somewhere else. Suddenly I recognized her face. It was the witch that Bill Arkwright had killed.

  Or was it? I had seen that witch close up, and I was sure that both her eyes had been the same color. I looked again, and with a stab of fright realized that this was the witch from my recurring dream.

  “I hope you enjoyed my storm!” she cried, a gloating expression in her strange eyes. “I could have drowned you then, but I’m saving you for later. I have something else in mind! I’ve been waiting for you, boy! With jibbers to be dealt with, I knew you’d show up. How do you like them? It’s the best spell I’ve cast for many a long year.”

  I didn’t reply, and the witch’s eyes swiveled toward Alice. “And this is Alice. I’ve been watching the pair of you. I’ve seen what good friends you are. Soon you’ll both be in my clutches.”

  Angrily I stepped forward, placing myself between the witch and Alice.

  She gave an ugly leer. “Ah! I see that you care for her. Thanks for that, boy. You’ve confirmed what I suspected. Now I know another way to hurt you. And hurt you I will. I’ll certainly pay you back many times over for what you’ve done!”

  The image rapidly faded, and Alice came to my side. “Who was she, Tom?” she asked. “She seemed to know you.”

  “Remember those eyes I saw in the cloud? It was her. Her face was that of the Celtic witch slain by Bill Arkwright.”

  “I think we’re both in danger. She has powerful magic—I can sense it,” Alice said, her eyes wide. “Responsible for the jibbers, she is. She must be really powerful to do that.”

  Back at the inn, we told the Spook of our encounter with the image of the witch.

  “It’s dangerous, being a spook,” he said. “You could stop dealing with jibbers, but that would mean that many people would be harmed—innocent people who could be saved if you did your job bravely. It’s up to you. The witch is an unknown quantity—someone to be treated with great caution. I wouldn’t blame you for walking away. So what will you do?”

  “We’ll carry on—both of us,” I said, nodding toward Alice.

  “Good lad. I thought that would be your answer…. It still saddens me to think that the only way we can get rid of jibbers is by using dark magic,” my master added. “Maybe things are changing, though. Maybe in the future that will be a new way for a spook to fight the dark, using the dark against itself. I don’t hold with it myself, but I’m from a different generation. I belong to the past, but you’re the future, lad. You’ll face new and different threats, and deal with them in a different way.”

  So Alice and I continued with our work, and in the space of six days, together we freed two inns, another shop, and five private houses from jibbers. Each time, Alice countered the spell, and I then talked the freed spirit out of limbo and into the light. Each time we felt apprehensive, but the witch didn’t appear again. Was she bluffing and just trying to scare me away? But I had my job to do.

  In contrast to the County, it seemed that the custom in Ireland was to pay someone immediately after a job was completed, so we had plenty of money in our pockets. Then we had a visitor—someone who arrived on the seventh day, sending us off on a different course.

  We were sitting at our usual table having breakfast. The inn still had no other customers, but the landlord was confident that the situation would soon change and had hinted that our departure would hasten the arrival of his first paying guest. Our presence here was now widely known, and although the inn was no longer haunted, few people would really wish to take a room where a spook was staying. The superstitious believed that malevolent creatures from the dark followed in the wake of a spook. My master understood that, and we’d already decided to move our quarters later that day, probably heading south of the River Liffey, which divided the city.

  I was just swallowing my last piece of bacon and mopping up my egg yolk with a wedge of buttered bread when a stranger entered the room from the street. He was a tall, upright man with white hair and a contrasting black beard and mustache. That alone was enough to earn him a second glance on any of the teeming Dublin thoroughfares, but add to that his clothes—a formal knee-length coat, neatly pressed black trousers, and expensive boots, which marked him out as a gentleman of the first rank—and all eyes would have noted his passing. He also carried an ebony walking stick with an ivory handle in the shape of an eagle’s head.

  The landlord rushed across to greet him, bowing low before welcoming him into the inn and offering him the best room. But the stranger was barely listening to his host; he was staring at our table. Wasting no time, he came across and addressed the Spook.

  “Have I the pleasure of speaking to John Gregory?” he asked. “And you must be Tom Ward,” he added, looking at me. He gave a curt nod in Alice’s direction.

  The Spook nodded and got to his feet. “Aye, that’s me,” he said. “And that’s my apprentice. Are you here to ask for our help?”

  The man shook his head. “On the contrary, I am here to offer you assistance. Your success in ridding the city of many of its troublesome apparitions has brought you to the attention of a powerful and dangerous group. I speak of the goat mages of Staigue. We have our own spies, and they tell me that the mages have already dispatched assassins to this city. Being servants of the dark, they cannot tolerate your presence in our land. That is why the few remaining Irish spooks avoid the main towns and never settle in one place for more than a couple of days.”

  The Spook nodded thoughtfully. “We’d heard that they were a dying breed. What you say makes sense, but why should you wish to help us? By doing so, won’t you be putting yourself at risk?”

  “My life is permanently at risk,” said the man. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Farrell Shey, the leader of the Land Alliance, a league of landowners who have been at war with the mages for many years.”

  In addition to what I’d once read in the Spook’s Bestiary, while working with Bill Arkwright I’d met a landowner who’d fled Ireland to escape the mages. It had done him no good. They’d sent one of the Celtic witches to slay him in his County refuge, and she’d been successful, despite our best efforts to save him.

  “Well, in that case, we would certainly welcome your assistance,” said the Spook.

  “And in return,” Shey said, “you may be able to use your expertise to help us. A dangerous few months lie ahead—ones which some of us will be hard pressed to survive. The goat mages are preparing for their ritual in Killorglin—so we must delay no further. Gather your things together, and I’ll get you out of the city immediately.”

  We did as he instructed, and within a few minutes we’d taken our leave of the grateful landlord and were following Shey through a number of narrow alleyways, emerging onto a side street where a large carriage was waiting. Drawn by a team of six horses, it seemed to be made for speed, and its appearance was not d
eceptive. The coach driver was smartly dressed in green livery, and in attendance was a large black-bearded man with a sword at his belt, who bowed to Shey and opened the carriage doors for us before taking his place beside the driver.

  Seated in comfort and hidden from the gaze of the curious by lace curtains, we had soon crossed the river and were heading west out of the city; the clip-clop now became a rhythmical thunder of pounding horses’ hooves.

  Alice turned toward me, and as our eyes met, I guessed that she was thinking the same thing as I was: It had all happened too fast. This Farrell Shey was used to being in command, and it had taken little persuasion to make us follow him. Just what were we getting ourselves into?

  “Where are we bound?” asked the Spook.

  “We’re making for Kerry, in the southwest,” Shey replied.

  “But isn’t that where the goat mages are based?” I asked, starting to feel more than a little uneasy.

  “It is indeed,” he answered. “But we live there, too. It is a beautiful but dangerous part of this fair island. And sometimes, in order to counter a threat, you have to go out boldly and face it. Would you rather have died in the city, waiting for the assassins to come for you? Or would you come and place your strength alongside ours in an attempt to end the power of the mages forever?”

  “We will add our strength to yours,” answered the Spook. “Don’t doubt that.”

  Alice and I exchanged another look. The Spook had clearly made his decision.

  “I’ve fought the dark all my life,” he told Shey, “and will do so until my dying day.”

  All that day the carriage took us west, stopping only twice to change horses. The dogs traveled with us, occasionally running alongside to stretch their legs. Then the roads became narrower and the pace slowed considerably. By now we could just make out snow-capped mountains in the far distance.

  “Those are the mountains of Kerry; my home lies on the peninsula of Uibh Rathach,” said Shey. “But we won’t be able to reach it tonight. There’s an inn ahead that we can make secure.”

  “So we are in danger already?” asked the Spook.

  “There is always danger. We’ll have been followed from the city, and our enemies will be lying both ahead and behind us. But don’t worry—we are well prepared.”

  The place where we were to say was situated on the edge of a wood and reached by a single narrow track. In fact, it had no sign hanging outside, and although Shey had called it an inn, it looked more like a private house commandeered to provide a refuge in a dangerous location.

  That night, after walking the dogs, we dined well on generous portions of a potato and onion stew, rich with pieces of succulent mutton. As we ate, my master started to question Shey about the goat mages. He already knew the general answers to some of his questions, but that was the Spook’s way; what Shey told him could also contain important new information that might make the difference between victory and defeat. Our survival might depend on what we were able to learn here.

  “You mentioned that the goat mages are preparing for their ritual in Killorglin?” he asked.

  “That’s correct,” Shey replied, stroking his black mustache. “That always brings a crisis.”

  “But it’s still winter, and I’d heard that the ceremony takes place in August….”

  “They now assemble twice a year,” Shey answered. “It was once an annual late summer event, held at what is known as the Puck Fair. They tether a mountain goat on a high platform and leave it there; their dark rituals end in human sacrifices. The object is to persuade the god Pan to enter the body of the living goat. If he does so, their magic is made more powerful and they can hunt down and kill their enemies; but if the magic fails, it is our turn to pursue them.

  “In their efforts to defeat us, they now try to invoke the god twice a year—in both March and August. Last year they failed on both occasions, but in all their long history of dealing with the dark they have never done so three times in a row.

  “Additionally, they have a new leader—a dangerous fanatic called Magister Doolan, who’ll stop at nothing to achieve his aims. He’s a bloodthirsty wretch who delights in the name of the Butcher of Bantry. He was born on the shores of Bantry Bay, to the south, and was actually an apprentice butcher before he discovered his talent for the dark arts. But he hasn’t lost his skill with knives. He kills people for the love of it, cutting off their fingers and toes one by one, killing them with a hundred cuts, to prolong their deaths before he finally chops off their heads.

  “So this is a time of great danger for us. We must assume that next month, unless we can stop them, they will summon Pan and acquire even more deadly power.”

  “I’ve pledged my help—but how would you normally try and stop them?” asked the Spook.

  “We’ve waged this war against the mages for centuries. Our usual method is to use force of arms—though we’ve had limited success. They have an invulnerable refuge in the ring fort at Staigue, but the majority must venture out for the ceremony in Killorglin. So we often harry them on the way or attack them in the town itself. In the past, such attempts have only delayed the mages, but when their magic fails, we’ve managed to kill a good many of them before they can return to the fort.”

  “Do you know why they go to Killorglin?” my master wondered. “Why there? Why don’t they just perform the ceremony in the safety of their fort?”

  Shey shrugged. “We think that the site of the market in Killorglin is important: It’s a place where natural dark power emerges from the earth. As far as we know, they have never attempted the ritual elsewhere….”

  That made sense. There were indeed special places on earth where the practice of dark magic was made easier; the whole County was a haven for boggarts. Within its boundaries there were sites of great potency, especially around Pendle Hill. Despite the flowing streams, which they could not easily cross, Pendle had attracted several large clans of witches.

  “Can’t the mages be driven from their refuge once and for all?” asked my master.

  “That’s impossible,” Shey replied. “The Staigue fort is a formidable place, built by an ancient people who inhabited this island two thousand years ago or more. To attempt to storm it would cost us too dearly. In practical terms, it’s invulnerable.”

  “What about the Celtic witches?” I asked. “Do you have any problems with them, Mr. Shey?”

  I was thinking of the eyes in the cloud and the witch who had threatened us after we’d dealt with the jibber. Celtic witches were supposed to be allies of the mages.

  “They sometimes act as spies for the mages but do not form clans. We’re dealing only with the odd isolated witch—they’re an occasional nuisance rather than the serious threat posed by the mages,” explained Shey.

  “Tom might just be in special danger from the witches,” Alice told him. “Helped to kill a Celtic witch back home, he did. Before she died, the witch threatened that the Morrigan would kill him if he ever dared to set foot on this island.”

  “Probably just an empty threat,” said Shey. “Most of the time the Morrigan sleeps—she only awakens and enters our world when summoned by a witch. This happens rarely, for she is a difficult goddess to deal with and often vents her wrath on her own servants. So don’t concern yourself unduly about it, boy. It’s the mages who pose the greatest threat to us. And tomorrow, as we press on into Kerry, that threat will increase.”

  Shey brought a map across to the table, unfolded it, and spread it out. “That’s where we’re bound for,” he said, jabbing his finger at the heart of the map. “That’s my home. I call it God’s country!”

  It was a good name for a place you liked—but it was full of evil mages who practiced dark magic and, no doubt, more than one Celtic witch. I studied the map and committed as much of it to memory as I could. In the work of a spook, you never know when knowledge of the terrain might come in useful.

  CHAPTER IV

  THE MIRROR

  THAT night I had another
lucid dream, reliving a scary incident from my past—the final encounter with the Celtic witch that Bill Arkwright and I had faced back home in the County.

  I could see the witch just ahead of me now, running through the trees in the dappled moonlight. I was chasing her, closing fast, readying my silver chain, feeling confident that I could bind her. But I was about to cast it when she swerved away so that a tree stood between me and my target. Suddenly the burly figure of Bill Arkwright rose up to confront her, and they collided. He fell, but she only staggered for a second, then continued faster than ever.

  We were now in the open, beyond the trees, sprinting toward a grassy burial mound. But just as I was about to throw my silver chain, a brilliant light blazed straight into my face, temporarily blinding me. Briefly, the witch’s silhouette stood out against a round yellow doorway. Then, suddenly, there was darkness and silence.

  I came to a sudden halt, gasping for breath, taking stock of my surroundings. The air was warmer now, and absolutely still. Inside, beyond the doorway, lights flared on the rocky walls—black witch candles. I could also see a small table and two wooden chairs.

  To my dismay, I realized that I was now inside the burial mound! I’d followed the witch through the magical door she’d opened—and there she was, standing before me, an expression of wrath on her face. I took a few deep breaths to calm myself and slow my pounding heart.

  “What a fool you be to follow me!” she cried.

  “Do you always talk in rhyme?” I asked, trying to throw her off her guard.

  It worked, and the witch didn’t get a chance to reply, because as I spoke I cast my silver chain. It brought her to her knees, the links stretched tight across her mouth to silence her. It was a perfect shot. I’d bound the witch, but now I had a real problem. I could no longer see a door. How was I going to get out of the mound?