Fireborn Page 26

  “That’s the one,” she said. “Never mind what Jackbones says, you’re going to borrow this book. You’re going to take it away from the library.”

  “I thought you were going to take me with you?” said Cabbage.

  She put her face to his.

  “I shall,” she said. “But not today?”

  “Oh.”

  “Are you disappointed?”

  Cabbage looked at Perry and Flaxfield, at Dorwin and Jackbones and Melwood.

  “Yes,” he said. “A little.”

  “I know,” she said. “Go and see your friend.”

  Cabbage trotted over to Perry who punched him on the arm with pleasure.

  Springmile stood tall and raised her arm. The whispering returned, more dense than before, more openly hostile.

  “You’ve kept these people long enough,” she said to Jackbones.

  “Shall I go with them?” he asked.

  “No. It was wrong to summon us, wrong to open the Finished World. We won’t have you now. You must stay here.”

  The whispers approved and vanished, like spring rain. Alone of the Finished People Springmile remained.

  “You,” she said to Dorwin. “Don’t let them forget who you are. You,” looking at Melwood, “look after this place, try to leave it stronger than it is. It is in great danger. You,” she smiled at Perry. “Remember how to come and go. Do you understand, roffle?” Perry nodded. “You,” she smiled at Cabbage, “I shall see again one day.” Cabbage gripped the book.

  Saving her last message for Flaxfield she turned now to him.

  “You,” she said. “You told the story of the beginning of magic, of the boy and the girl. You of all people should understand what has happened, and you’ve let your grief over the loss of your magic cloud your thoughts.”

  Flaxfield argued with her.

  “There’s a beauty and a power in clouds as well,” he said.

  “There is,” she agreed. “There is. But you have forgotten the girl. You have your boy and his friend. You’ve let Jackbones do all this. And all the time you’ve left Flaxfold and the girl as though they were nothing. They are everything. If you want to defeat Slowin, look to the girl. If you want your magic back, look to the girl. One will bring the other.”

  Cabbage watched her turn and mount the stair. The green and blue of her dress threw out a cascade of colour that splashed the walls and floor. He wanted her to stay. He wanted to go with her. He felt as though a part of himself had died when she disappeared from sight.

  The colours remained as the scent of flowers remains after they have been taken from a room.

  Jackbones broke the silence dragging a chair across the floor. His grey face was no longer insubstantial. Cabbage couldn’t see through him. As the blues and greens faded from sight Jackbones regained his substance, but no colour. He was white and grey and black, neither of Up Top nor the Finished World.

  “She’s right,” said Flaxfield. “We must get back. The answer to this is with Bee, whoever she is.”

  It was a solemn return to the village. And a silent one for the most part. The boys kept together, Dorwin and Flaxfield rode alone. Cabbage tried to explain what it had felt like to walk among the Finished People. Perry couldn’t understand what he was saying and in the end neither could Cabbage so they stopped talking about it.

  “We’ll meet again when I’ve spoken to Bee,” said Flaxfield, and left it at that. He didn’t even ask to see the book that Cabbage had taken from the library.

  “Why don’t you come with me?” said Dorwin when they reached the village. The boys were glad of the invitation and went with her to the forge house. Flaxfield rode alone the rest of the way to the inn. By the time he reached it the evening was drawing on, the light beginning to fade.

  “She’s at the river,” said Flaxfold. “She’s always there now.”

  It was evening. Cool, the sun nearly gone. Bee was sitting on the riverbank, watching the fishermen. They paddled to shore, picked up their little boats and put them over their heads, walking back home like mushrooms. She didn’t hear Flaxfield until he sat next to her. She had been crying. She drew the scarf tight to her face. He picked up a stone and threw it into the river.

  “I can throw further than you,” he said.

  She found a stone, smooth, flat, and skimmed it further than his. His next throw outdistanced hers.

  “See?” he said.

  She took another stone. It was heavy, rough, no good at all for skimming. Underneath, the soil clung to it, and where it had been lying tiny creatures scuttled for safety, exposed to the light. She threw it, without really trying, but used magic to keep it above the water. It went far beyond his, splashed clumsily into the river, almost half-way across.

  “Very good,” he said.

  “I win,” said Bee.

  “Ah no. I win. I challenged you to a throwing match. I won that.”

  “I won the magic match,” said Bee.

  “There was no match. I have no magic. You have so much. What are you going to do with it?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You need to be an apprentice,” he said.

  “Being an apprentice made me look like this.” She drew the shawl aside and stared at him. “Being an apprentice made me hurt all the time.”

  “I know.”

  “I don’t want to be an apprentice. Not unless it can make me better. Can it?”

  Flaxfield took another stone. A smooth, grey stone, slender stripes of deeper grey running through it, not quite oval, but almost. “How badly does it hurt now?” he asked.

  “Very much.”

  He gave Bee the stone. “Show me,” he said, “if you can just do tricks, or if you can be a wizard.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Hold it. Stop thinking about anything. Just let the stone be itself.”

  Bee thought he was mad, but he was interesting. So she did it. She looked down into the stone. She stopped thinking about herself, the way she looked, the pain, the terrible things that had made her like this. And as she held the stone, it seemed to melt into her hands, and her hands seemed to melt into the stone. Then she stopped being herself at all and, for a moment, she was the stone. And stones feel no pain.

  “How did you know?” she asked.

  “Let’s go to the inn,” said Flaxfield. “There’s work we need to do.”

  He helped her to her feet. She walked alongside him, a new purpose in her bearing. A new resolve.

  Flaxfold smiled to see them approach. She set food before them and watched them eat in silence.

  “Do we need the boys for this?” she asked when they were done.

  “It’s up to Bee,” said Flaxfield. “What do you think?” |

  Cartford didn’t interfere

  while Dorwin fussed over the boys, fed them and offered to make up beds for them if they’d rather stay there than go to the inn later on.

  “We’d better go back,” said Cabbage. “Thanks anyway.”

  “What’s the book?” asked Cartford when they were done.

  “I don’t think I should talk about it,” said Cabbage.

  “That’s all right. You don’t have to talk. Just show it to me.”

  “That’s what I meant,” said Cabbage. He blushed. “Sorry. It’s private.”

  Cartford took the book from him. He was big and quick and used to getting his own way.

  Cabbage, caught off-guard, flashed a spell across the table. A wasp the size of an apple buzzed past Cartford’s head, buzzing in anger, hanging by his face. Cabbage expected the blacksmith to jerk his head back and drop the book. He ignored it. He opened the book, turned to the title page.

  “Caves and Potholes and Mines,” he read aloud.

  The wasp darted at him. Cartford ignored it.

  “Is this supposed to be important?” he asked.

  Cabbage was frustrated at the failure of the wasp. He flicked his fingers. The wasp settled on Cartford’s head, still buzzing, wings whirri
ng, the sting poised to strike.

  “If that thing stings me, I’ll die,” said Cartford. “You know that, don’t you.”

  Cabbage grimaced. The wasp lifted off and drifted out of the window.

  “Don’t make a threat unless you mean it,” said Cartford.

  “Give me back the book,” said Cabbage.

  “Caves and Potholes and Mines,” Cartford read again. “What’s this for?”

  “We’d better go back,” said Cabbage, standing up. “Thank you for dinner.” He held out his hand for the book.

  “Give it back to him, Father,” said Dorwin.

  Cartford sat back, the book still firmly in his hand.

  “Remember what I said about magic?” he asked Cabbage.

  “What?”

  “Don’t be sulky. You used to like coming here.”

  “You’ve got my book.”

  “What did I say about magic and the forge? Think hard, now. It may be important.”

  Cabbage cast his mind back.

  “You said that magic didn’t belong in a blacksmith’s, but you wouldn’t tell me why.”

  “Come on. I’ll tell you now.”

  Cabbage and Perry had no choice. They either had to follow him or lose the book. They followed. Dorwin kept close to them.

  He strapped on his leather apron, pushing the book into his pocket. The forge was glowing and it only took a few pumps of the bellow and some extra charcoal to bring it back to heat.

  This achieved, Cartford thrust a length of iron into it.

  “Magic was made in the blacksmith’s shop,” he said. “Remember?”

  “That’s just a story,” said Perry. “There are other stories.”

  “There are indeed, roffle. Many other stories. But this is the real one.”

  He took another iron bar and hit it against the anvil. The sound rang out.

  “Bend that,” he said, handing it to the boys.

  They didn’t bother trying.

  “No,” he agreed. “A waste of time.”

  He drew the iron from the forge. It glowed white. He placed it on the anvil, struck it with his hammer. The iron curled round. He straightened it again. With pincers and a vice he twisted it round and round till it looked like barley sugar sticks.

  He plunged it into a bucket of water. The steam hissed up, the water bubbled.

  “See how the fire alters it,” he said. “See how the iron moves and bends. See how the water turns to steam.”

  His face was bright in the forge light. His brow wet with sweat.

  “Magic does that,” he said. “It heats and bends the world. It disturbs the water. It affects all that is round it. It makes changes. That’s why it was born in a blacksmith’s shop. That’s why you don’t bring magic in here. For a start, there’s no need. For another thing, the forge doesn’t like magic and magic doesn’t like the forge.”

  “We should go,” said Cabbage. “They’ll be wondering where we are.”

  Cartford put the iron back into the forge.

  “You don’t see the connection, do you?” he said.

  Perry raised his hand to draw attention.

  “I do,” he said.

  “Go on then.”

  “The first magic was made with fire. Slowin made the new magic with fire.”

  “Fire out of control,” said Cartford. “Wild magic from wild fire. That’s right.”

  Cabbage grabbed Perry’s arm.

  “And we could make something here, in the forge, to control the new magic,” he said.

  “Let’s go back and look at that book,” said Cartford.

  “I’ll send a message to the inn,” said Dorwin. “They can sleep here tonight.”

  Mattie kept close to Ash. The clacking and ticking of the beetles made him jumpy. He knew they were talking to each other and he hated it. For all that Ash frightened him she had a human voice. He would have liked to speak to her. As it was, if he wanted to hear her voice he had to endure the half-human clatter of the Bakkmann creature, or the slopping speech of the Smedge thing.

  In this way Mattie learned all about how they had come to be there, who they had once been, and what their plans were.

  Slowin. This woman was Slowin. Bee hadn’t said Slowin was a woman. In fact Mattie thought she had said Slowin was man. But he had been ill, in pain, he might have misunderstood. Then the woman was Ash, not Slowin. Sometimes he thought they talked about Bee. He couldn’t be sure at first.

  “She’s dead,” said Bakkmann. “Has to be dead.”

  “You would think so,” said Ash. “I find it hard to believe that she survived as long as she did. If it wasn’t for our little slippery friend,” Ash motioned to Smedge, whose lips slapped a wet smile back, “I wouldn’t believe anything was left of her.”

  “She escaped,” Smedge slopped. “They took her.” He lowered a sad head. “I want to go back. Want to eat her up from inside.”

  “Perhaps you will,” said Ash. “Perhaps you will.”

  They didn’t call her Bee, though. Sometimes he thought they called her Ember. Sometimes he thought they called her Flame. It was very confusing, and the noise of the beetles rang round in his head even when they weren’t there. It made it hard to concentrate.

  Ash was substantial now, a proper woman, not a ghost. He couldn’t see through her at all. And Smedge had more or less stopped shifting from one shape to another. He was a boy most of the time, without the bits of weasel and dog. He could walk and talk properly, except for the slimy trail round his mouth and the slurping sounds. Even these were getting less.

  Bakkmann didn’t change at all. Bakkmann was mainly beetle, partly human, entirely terrible.

  Mattie’s food was filth. His nights were fear. His days were spent searching for a way out, hiding from the beetles, eavesdropping on Ash, hugging his misery close.

  Sometimes the beetles dragged people into the castle, travellers who came unknowing, or people who lived in the isolated houses in the neighbourhood. They brought them to Bakkmann and Smedge, as a cat will bring a bird to the cottage door. Bakkmann and Smedge played with them, as the cat would play, until they grew tired and threw them to the beetles for food.

  Mattie could hear the screams in his sleep.

  When he first saw Frastfil on the horizon he wanted to shout to him to keep away, run, save himself. He couldn’t, of course. That would have led to his own capture. So he watched the wizard blink and grin his way up to the door of the castle. The beetles heard him approach. They cleared the courtyard so he wouldn’t see them. They crouched at the side of the portcullis and waited for him to cross inside.

  Mattie heard the coins jingle in Frastfil’s pocket. The man stopped just outside.

  “Hello,” he called. “Anyone there?”

  His face took on a puzzled look. Mattie could guess what was going through his mind. There should be people, and horses, soldiers, servants, hens and dogs. There should be noise and movement. It was silent. Still. Too quiet. Too empty. Perhaps he would turn and walk away. Well, it was too late now, the beetles would dart out and run after him.

  Frastfil stepped forward, into the courtyard. The beetles pounced. Frastfil jerked back. He shouted a single word and stamped his foot. The beetles bounced back. Frastfil smiled at them. Mattie wondered if he was half-witted, smiling like that. They pounced again. This time Frastfil was knocked off his feet by the force of the attack but they still bounced off. He pulled himself to his feet and turned to run. From nowhere it seemed Bakkmann stepped in front of him and blocked his escape.

  “Look here,” she clacked. “A wizard, is it?”

  “Yes,” said Frastfil. His face still had the same silly grin on it even facing the appearance of this monstrous black form. “Let me past.”

  “Don’t you like it here?”

  The beetles crouched, ready to spring again.

  “I can’t keep this spell going,” Frastfil said. “Let me past.”

  Mattie watched Bakkmann lead Frastfil inside. He tho
ught that the creature would play with him then feed him to the beetles and he didn’t want to watch. He slid into his tunnels and crept away. He climbed the turret to watch Ash, needing the sight of something that wasn’t a beetle and wasn’t going to torture a person. So he was surprised when, just after he arrived, Bakkmann pushed open the door, threw Frastfil into the room and clattered, “Look what I found. A wizard.” |

  When Flaxfield arrived the next morning,

  Cabbage saw his old master looking more like himself. For a moment he thought that the wizard must have found his magic again. Cabbage wanted to run over to him and give him a hug, and that was odd because he didn’t think he’d ever hugged him. It would just be such a relief to have him back as before and for everything to be all right again.

  It didn’t last long. It soon became clear that the night had not brought back his magic. It was something else that had changed.

  They were a strange crew, assembled in the parlour of Cartford’s house.

  The blacksmith dominated, physically. It wasn’t just that he was the biggest, Flaxfield stood almost as tall, but that he had a strength to him from hours at the forge. Flaxfield almost dominated in another way. He had the calm authority of old magic, even though it had fled from him. Dorwin had the advantage of being the one who controlled the house, and that gave her an air of being in charge. The strange one was Flaxfold. This dumpy woman with her grey hair tied back in a neat bun and her lined face looked as though she could take on any of them and win, and not even be out of breath.

  Cabbage thought back over the last few weeks. What a beaten, bedraggled bunch they had been, cowering from the wild magic, afraid to cast the smallest spell, distrustful of anyone strange.

  What had happened overnight?

  And what of the three of them? Perry and Bee and himself? Three children caught in a grown-up war?

  He relaxed and waited for one of the adults to call them to order, take charge and sort things out, forget about Slowin, get Flaxfield’s magic back and go home. It was time it got back to normal and he could be an apprentice again, with time to himself. With any luck, Perry would be able to stay for a while.