Fireborn Page 32

  Perry hung his head and pushed food around his plate. Cabbage grimaced.

  “Dorwin will stay here,” said Flaxfold, looking after the forge. Perry, tomorrow you go home, with your father. Yes?”

  “Yes,” said Perry.

  “Eh? Speak up.”

  “Yes,” he repeated. “That’s right.”

  “That leaves us three,” said Flaxfield.

  Cabbage put down his knife and crust of bread.

  “What can you do now?” he asked.

  “See,” said Flaxfield.

  He held his hand outstretched over the table, dipped his finger in a beaker of water, traced a shape on the table top. A star. Holding his hand a little higher he closed his eyes. Small stars dribbled from his fingertips, drifting like snow, settling on the table.

  Beatrice caught a glimpse of a garden and a cottage, snowflakes becoming flames, her father returning from the fields. These stars were already alight. Flaxfield opened his eyes. When he saw the stars he laughed.

  “It works,” he said. “See?”

  “You can’t leave them there,” said Cabbage.

  “I can’t get rid of them,” said Flaxfield.

  Cabbage clicked his fingers. A tiny cat, the size of a mouse, scrambled over the rim of the table, ran across to the stars and licked them up. Beatrice wished she could scoop her up in her hands and put her to her face. The stars gone, the cat licked her paws, looked at the faces around the table, ran to her left, jumped off and vanished.

  Beatrice looked from Flaxfield to Cabbage and back again.

  “Is that it?” she asked.

  “More or less,” Flaxfield admitted. “It’s a start.”

  She looked at Cabbage.

  “It’s not enough,” she said.

  A fiddle struck up at the other side of the room. With a scrape and a clatter the villagers pushed the tables and chairs aside. Cartford came and took Dorwin by the hand and led her away to start the dancing.

  “I told you once that magic would kill the village if it was used to collect the harvest, and you asked me why,” said Flaxfield.

  “That’s right,” said Perry.

  “Do you know the answer?”

  “Because if they didn’t work for the harvest they wouldn’t have tonight,” said Perry.

  Flaxfield congratulated him.

  “And if they didn’t have tonight, there wouldn’t be a village,” said Flaxfield. “Just people in their own houses.”

  They sat and watched the villagers, red-faced from sun and work and food, broad-smiled from success and safety and music, their feet moving to the fiddle and drum.

  “It’s time we left,” said Flaxfield. “We don’t belong here.”

  Megawhim detached himself from a large mug of cider and came over to them.

  “We’ll be going, then,” he said.

  “Thank you,” said Flaxfield. “Without you and your roffles we’d all be dead.”

  Megawhim shook his hand.

  Perry and Cabbage shook hands. The roffles hauled their barrels onto their backs. Beatrice stepped back before anyone could try to say goodbye to her.

  “I’m going upstairs,” she said.

  She paused at the door to the corridor and watched the two roffles leave. She saw that Dorwin noticed them go, saw her sadness. She used just a little magic to eavesdrop. A forbidden skill, but one she felt she had a right to use just this once.

  “What do you want to do?” asked Flaxfield.

  “I’m your apprentice. I want to stay with you.”

  “The little magic I have is not enough for that. We would be like Slowin and Bee. I would steal magic from you, not teach you. I can never allow that.”

  “What else can we do?”

  “What do you want?”

  Cabbage looked at the dancers, the inn parlour, the bright glass and soft oak.

  “I want to ask the stars,” he said.

  Flaxfield opened the door. The last she saw of them was as silhouettes in the doorway framed against the starry night.

  She climbed the stairs to her room, with its cracked, uneven ceiling, and sat at the window looking out at the night. The seal from the yard was on the table. She picked it up and felt its weight. A knock at the door disturbed her.

  “Yes? Come in.”

  Flaxfold brought her a small cup with her potion against the pain.

  “Would you like this?”

  Beatrice smiled and nodded. She drank the draught gratefully.

  “It never goes away,” she said.

  “No.”

  Beatrice gestured to Flaxfold to sit.

  “They’ve all gone,” said the woman.

  “I watched them leave.”

  “What will you do?”

  “I’m sorry I spoke to you as I did,” she said. “May I stay?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “I don’t have a name. Not a real one. Mine was stolen.”

  “What would you like to be called?”

  Beatrice thought this through.

  “What sort of name would you like?”

  “Not Beatrice. I think she died when she left home. And not Bee. She died when the fire came. I won’t be Ember, that’s Slowin’s name. I can’t be Flame. He stole that.”

  “So you need an everyday name?”

  “Yes.”

  “Choose anything you like.”

  The girl thought again.

  “I want a name that will help stop the pain,” she said. “Flaxfield showed me how to use the stones to help it. I do that sometimes. And when I do, I think of the stones in the winter. I think they store up the cold the way they store heat in a fire. I think of a stone, lying under the snow, taking winter into itself. And it helps to cool the pain inside.”

  “A stone name, then?”

  “Not that.”

  Beatrice took Flaxfold’s hand.

  “Names are given, not chosen,” she said. “Please can you give me a name?”

  Flaxfold squeezed her hand gently.

  “December,” she said. “It’s a winter name, with all the joy of winter as well as the cold. It’s not dead like a stone. It’s the end of the year and its beginning.”

  “December,” said the girl. “I love it. Thank you.”

  After her quick smile her face grew sad.

  “What is it?”

  “I had the other name,” said December. “The name that would have made me a wizard. Slowin stole that for ever. I’ll never be a wizard now.”

  “You told me that you didn’t want magic in your life any more.”

  “I’m sorry. I was unhappy. Of course I wanted it. I still do.”

  Flaxfold smiled and let go of her hand. She opened the little cupboard near to the bed and took out a pen and ink and a sheet of paper. It was identical to the one Slowin had shown her.

  “Read this,” she said. “Carefully.”

  “I don’t want to be Flaxfield’s apprentice,” said December. “And even if I did, his magic has gone.”

  “Ah, it’s gone for now. But it’s coming back. But, no, not his apprentice. Do you agree to the contract, though, if the person was the right person?”

  “Yes.”

  Flaxfold took the paper, uncorked the ink, dipped the pen and signed it, with two names, as Slowin had done. She pushed it across the table to December.

  “If you like,” she said. “You can sign this here and here. You put December on this line, and underneath you write, Fireborn.”

  December looked at the indenture and looked at Flaxfold. The dumpy, grey-haired woman, with crinkled lips and eyes looked steadily back at her.

  “It’s real, isn’t it?” said December.

  “Oh, it’s real,” said Flaxfold.

  December took the pen and signed. |

  Cabbage and Flaxfield walked alone

  through the corridors of the college.

  “The porter,” said Cabbage.

  “Spendrill?”

  “Yes. Did he really cut the h
ands off a giant and put them on to his own?”

  “No,” said Flaxfield. “It’s just the way he was made.”

  “Why does he say it, then?”

  “That’s something you can ask later. Here we are now.”

  The library door was closed, as usual. Cabbage wondered whether they should knock or go straight in. Flaxfield put his hand to it and thought again.

  “You try it,” he said. “It’s a game Jackbones plays. If he doesn’t want you to come in there’ll be a spell, and he’ll keep you waiting. See what happens.”

  Cabbage took the door handle, twisted it and the door moved open. Flaxfield nodded. They went through.

  Once again, there was something about the quality of the silence that Cabbage felt was welcoming him. It made him want to be silent in return. It was everywhere in the college but no more so than here, amongst these rows of books. He looked for Jackbones.

  Ever since the day they had conjured up the hidden readers in the library with the Finishing, Jackbones found himself looking ever more and more up to the galleries. It was as though he was expecting to see someone there. Whenever he lifted his eyes from his work he let them keep moving up, scrutinizing the rows of iron. They were always empty.

  So it took Cabbage by surprise when the librarian looked up at him and smiled. Not the predatory grin he usually gave, but a proper smile, as of pleasure.

  “How did you get on?” he asked, pushing a chair towards him.

  “We can’t talk about it,” said Flaxfield.

  “You old crow,” said Jackbones. “Leave him here with me for the afternoon, I’ll soon get it out of him.”

  “In your library?” said Flaxfield. “Wouldn’t that be a nuisance?”

  Cabbage looked at these two men. He saw something similar in them. Something gentle covered in a harsh shell. Jackbones had more of a shell than Flaxfield, seemed less disposed to pleasure. Flaxfield, though, was not the person Cabbage had always known. The wild magic had made him angry somehow, more concerned with his own troubles than he had been. And Jackbones. Since the Finishing Jackbones had lost some of his sharpness, his bite. They were, Cabbage thought, two edges of the same sword.

  “I could put up with him for a while,” said Jackbones.

  This was the moment the stars had told him about. This was the conversation Cabbage wanted and dreaded. This was when his life would be plotted.

  “How long?” asked Flaxfield.

  The door opened and closed quietly and Melwood was with them.

  “We’ve been expecting you,” she said.

  Before he could stop himself or reflect on what he was doing, Cabbage moved away from Flaxfield to take her hand, offered in welcome. The old wizard lowered his head.

  “He needs a master,” said Flaxfield. “I’m like a house that’s burned out. The walls are still sound, and the roof hasn’t fallen in, but there’s nothing inside.”

  “Can you rebuild it?” she asked.

  “Who knows?”

  “In the meantime,” she said. “There’s Cabbage.”

  “Will you take him?”

  Jackbones leaned his chair back beyond the tipping point, letting it hover. He looked up at the gallery, keeping his eyes away from Flaxfield.

  “Do you want to be with us?” she asked Cabbage.

  “I want to be a wizard,” he said. “I want to stay as Flaxfield’s apprentice. I don’t want to get in his way. He has to find his magic again, and I’d stop him. The first time I walked into the college I felt as though I was coming to a place that I knew, that I wanted to be in. I want to be with Flaxfield. I want to be here. I can’t do both.”

  Melwood walked along the bookcase, brushing her fingers on the spines. Jackbones frowned to see anyone touch his books.

  “You can’t be a pupil here,” she said. “You would never fit in. We can enrol you, but you won’t go to classes. You would have to be taught on your own.”

  “It’s the only way he knows,” said Flaxfield.

  “Hush. This is not your concern,” she said.

  He glared at her, then relaxed, accepting her judgement.

  “Will you come here?” she asked Cabbage. “There is work for you here, as well as learning.”

  Cabbage looked at the three faces. His gaze lingered longest on Flaxfield.

  “I will,” he said. “If Jackbones asks me to.”

  The chair swung back to upright.

  “It’s not for me to ask,” he said. “I don’t ask pupils to come here.”

  “Jackbones,” said Melwood. “Remember our talk.”

  He grimaced.

  “I need someone to take over the library,” he said. “One day. I could teach you, if you want.”

  “Jackbones,” she repeated.

  He sighed.

  “I’d like you here,” he said. “Melwood can look after your training and I’ll show you the library.”

  Cabbage shook his head.

  “No. If I stay here, you’ll take over from Flaxfield. It’s the only way.”

  Flaxfield’s voice was uncertain as he asked, “What do you say, Jackbones? Will you be his master?” He took Cabbage’s indenture from his cloak and spread it on the table. “We can tear this up. I’ll release him from his contract. You sign a new one.” He cleared his throat and could not meet Cabbage’s eyes. Cabbage felt his own eyes grow damp.

  Jackbones pushed Flaxfield’s hand away. He examined the paper.

  “This is clumsily done,” he said. “Look at all this space here, beneath the names. Do you always draw up an indenture like this?”

  “It’s elegant,” said Flaxfield. “Not your cramped, librarian card.”

  “Are you sure you want this?” Jackbones asked Cabbage.

  “Yes.”

  “Speak up.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then we’ll do it like this,” he said. Taking a pen, he signed his name beneath Flaxfield’s. “We won’t tear it up. And we won’t cross anything out. I’m doing it, but I’m not doing it alone.” He brandished the paper and shook it under Flaxfield’s nose. “See, you old crow. Your name’s still on here. You’re still responsible. Understand.”

  Flaxfield nodded.

  “And you’d better come back here often to take your share. Is that clear?”

  Flaxfield put out his hand to Jackbones. The librarian refused it and Flaxfield had to take his arm.

  “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you. Cabbage, come here.”

  Cabbage came and put his own hand on Jackbones’ arm so that his hand and Flaxfield’s were joined in grasping the librarian.

  “Thank you,” said Cabbage.

  “Oh, just get on, will you. Flaxfield, you’d better clear off and find out how to get some magic back. Cabbage, you’d better start sorting out some books. I’ve got a lot to do if I’m going to have to take you on.”

  Melwood prodded his shoulder.

  “Stop showing off,” she said. “You’re pleased as poppy seed. Now, haven’t you got something in your private room you can offer us to drink?”

  “Pleased?” said Jackbones. “I’d be more pleased if I could just sort out this library and stop having all these interruptions. As you mention it, though, there is something in my room I could give you if you’d all like that.”

  “Another time,” said Flaxfield. “You were right. It’s time I was off.”

  Cabbage felt his hands start to shake. His throat was hurting.

  “Flaxfield,” he said.

  The wizard held up his hand for silence.

  “Jackbones is right. The sooner I leave, the sooner I’ll come back to see how you are.”

  Cabbage bit his lip.

  “Perhaps I should go with you,” he said. “The magic might come back quickly now.”

  “There’s one other thing,” said Melwood. “Cabbage is not a dignified name. We’ll have to call you something else. What’s your real name?”

  “As we are all his masters now,” said Flaxfield, “there’s no
hurt in knowing. Jackbones knows already, from the indenture. His name in magic is Waterburn. His public name is Vengeabil.”

  “Vengeabil it is, then,” she said.

  “Come on, Vengeabil,” said Jackbones, “help me to find something to drink.”

  Vengeabil started to go into the librarian’s room to help him, stopped and turned to say a proper goodbye to Flaxfield. The library door closed, and he was gone.

  Melwood slipped her hand into his.

  “I’m glad you’re back,” she said. “The trouble I told you about, the ripples of the wild magic, we’ll need you to deal with them.”

  “How will I do that?” he asked.

  “It will be a long job.”

  “Here you are,” said Jackbones. “Drink up. Good health.”

  Vengeabil raised his glass, looked at the closed door, and drank. |

  envoy

  “Where did magic come from?” she asked.

  “Oh,” said the man. “There are lots of stories about that.”

  “Tell me the best one.”

  “There’s Smokesmith.”

  “What’s that about?”

  “A blacksmith.”

  She pulled a face.

  “Is there another one?”

  “There’s one about a little girl.”

  “Tell me that one.”

  A man was growing old. He lost his teeth, his hair, his mind. He thought he could escape death. He thought he could grow young and strong again.

  He lived all alone in a dirty yard, with only a half-mad helper to look after him.

  One day, his last tooth fell out and he couldn’t eat anything but bread soaked in milk. He was at the point of turning his face to the wall and surrendering to death when a beetle crawled over his hand. He seized it, squeezed it, licked the pus from inside its body. He liked the taste, he liked the wet stickiness, so he looked for another. And another. He got his servant to catch them in the yard and bring them to him.