Fireborn Read online

  “Let’s have a look at you,” said Flaxfield. He hauled them out of the water.

  Cabbage had no marks on him at all. Perry was not blistered or burned, and in no pain.

  “Here,” said Flaxfield.

  Below the knee, on his left leg, Perry had a scorch mark, black and red, in the shape of a snake.

  Flaxfield gave Cabbage a grim look.

  “No more magic, understand?”

  Cabbage didn’t need Flaxfield to tell him, the stars had already whispered it in his ear.

  “Why do they call you Cabbage?” asked Perry.

  The village was within sight now. Flaxfield walked ahead, the boys followed, keeping him in sight, out of hearing. Since the experiment with the fire the wizard had been glad to let the two of them chatter away while he tried to think about what was happening. He still joined in conversation when they paused for something to eat or when they stopped to sleep. The rest of the time he let his mind roam through the mazes of magic, trying to remember any of the old stories that might help. Nothing did. Cabbage and Perry could see the confusion and worry draw lines on his face as they drew close to their destination.

  And all the time, the disturbance around them became greater. Perry noticed it a little. Like the scent of something rotting close by but out of sight. Cabbage felt it more strongly. His skin tingled. His eyes were sore and he rubbed them red. For Flaxfield, the disruption in magic was like a pain. It ached all the time except for the moments when it became like a knife and it was all he could do not to cry out. He knew that whatever it was, they were moving ever closer to it.

  It was mid-morning when they saw the first line of people moving across the field of wheat. Red poppies dusted the yellow wheat, flames on blonde hair. Scythes cut through the stalks and the wheat fell away in elegant fans on the ground. Cabbage had never seen anything like it. The sun jumped from the bright blades. The yellow wheat submitted to the reapers. It looked so smooth, so easy, so graceful.

  “Are they using magic?” asked Perry.

  Flaxfield shook his head.

  “We’re late,” he said. “I should have been here before they started.”

  He hitched his cloak up on his left shoulder and led them down to the field. No one noticed them until they were almost there. One of the women lifted her head from her work. She called out. The men stopped swinging their scythes, straightened their backs and turned to see them approaching.

  Flaxfield waved. Some of them waved back. Others leaned on their scythes. Some took the opportunity to sit. A couple found a flask of water, drank, passed them round, wiped their wet mouths on their sleeves.

  Two men and the woman separated themselves from the others and walked towards them.

  “Dorwin,” Flaxfield greeted the woman first. She hugged him, which made Cabbage stretch his eyes. She was tall, and her straight hair glistened with sweat from the heat and work. Flaxfield shook hands with the men.

  “Leathort. Rotack,” he said. “It’s been a long time.”

  “Flaxfield,” said Rotack. “I’m sorry. We couldn’t wait.”

  He removed his hat and wiped his brow. He wasn’t old, but his hair had already grown tired of him. Cabbage saw that he had been slimmer once, when his clothes had been made.

  “Of course,” said Flaxfield. “I’m sorry. We were delayed. This is Cabbage, my apprentice. And this is Perry.”

  “A roffle,” said Leathort, shaking hands with the boys. “It’s a long time since I saw a roffle.”

  Cabbage had a sudden impulse to suggest that Leathort’s mother must have been a roffle because he was so short. He looked away to stop the thought puckering his face.

  “We waited three days,” said Dorwin. “Harvest’s early this year.” Instead of shaking hands with the boys, or hugging them, she stood between them and put her hands on their shoulders. “Perfect weather for harvest, but we waited. Then we had to start.”

  Her eyes were anxious on Flaxfield.

  “I understand,” he said. “Harvest won’t wait.”

  “We’ve never started without the Harvest Spell before,” said Rotack. Cabbage couldn’t decide whether it sounded like an apology or a complaint. Or perhaps a challenge.

  “If the fine weather held, the grain would have been scorched on the stalk,” said Dorwin.

  “And if the weather broke, the grain would have rotted,” said Leathort. “We had no choice.” He smiled.

  “You had no choice,” agreed Flaxfield.

  “But you can start now,” said Rotack. “Let’s get some magic on this harvest.”

  He folded his arms and waited.

  “That may be a problem,” said Flaxfield.

  Perry and Cabbage sat in the shade of the hedge and watched.

  The harvest had restarted. The men with long-handled scythes swung the blades and sliced the wheat. The women followed, gathering the stalks and stooking them, poppies and grain together. Flaxfield, Leathort, Dorwin and Rotack stood to one side, talking intently. The boys couldn’t hear what was said, but they could see how it was going. Flaxfield was explaining about the disturbance in the magic and how it had slowed them down. Leathort asked a question sometimes and nodded at the answers. Rotack argued. He shook his head. He pointed at the workers. He raised his arm and pointed in the direction of the village. Dorwin said nothing. She kept her eyes on Flaxfield and listened. She put her hand on Rotack’s raised arm once, to make him stop and listen. She put her hand on Flaxfield’s arm, to show him she was accepting what he said. Cabbage remembered how pleasant it had been to have her hand on his shoulder.

  “So,” said Perry, “why do they call you Cabbage?”

  “Every wizard has a special name,” said Cabbage. “It’s a secret. And the only way to find your name is to go to be an apprentice to a wizard.”

  They didn’t look at each other as they spoke. There were too many other things to catch their attention, and it was more comfortable that way, anyway.

  “Cabbage doesn’t sound very special,” said Perry.

  “It’s not my wizard name,” said Cabbage. “It’s a nickname.”

  “What’s your wizard name?”

  “When I was born, my parents called me Borton,” he said, “except everyone called me Bort.”

  “What were they like?”

  “I don’t remember. I was very small when I went to Flaxfield. They have to send you to a wizard when you’re little, or you could hurt yourself. Or someone else.”

  The reapers had finished a wide strip of wheat on the south side of the field nearest the boys. Now they turned and started to cut along the hedge on the next side, walking away from them.

  “I want a go with one of those scythes,” said Perry.

  “You’d cut your foot off.”

  “Or yours.”

  Cabbage punched him and they lay back, laughing.

  “Anyway,” said Perry. “Why are you called Cabbage? And how do you get your wizard name?”

  “Only a true wizard can discover a new wizard’s name,” said Cabbage. “And without your true name you can never be a proper wizard.”

  “What happens to people who are born with magic who never get their wizard name?”

  “Most of them, the magic goes away. Like being able to put your toe in your mouth. If it doesn’t go away you can sometimes just stop using it. And it sort of freezes. It’s still there, part of you, but you forget about it.”

  “I don’t see how that can happen,” said Perry.

  “Neither do I. It’s like being able to speak but not saying anything. I don’t think it happens much and not to people who are born with a lot of magic.”

  “Have you got a lot of magic?”

  The group broke up. Flaxfield walked away from the others. He crossed the field diagonally, his cloak trailing over the ripe wheat. Dorwin and Leathort went back to work. Rotack crossed his arms and watched the wizard walk away.

  “Your Apprentice Master learns what your name is while he’s preparing you
for the apprenticeship,” said Cabbage. “Then, on the day you sign to be an apprentice, he tells you what it is.”

  “What if you don’t like it?”

  “It’s your name,” said Cabbage. “It’s chosen you.”

  Rotack joined the others. Flaxfield, arrived at the other side of the field, leaned against a gate and watched the line of reapers turn the corner and begin the third side of the field.

  “He’s worried,” said Cabbage. “Look at the way he’s watching them.”

  “There’s something in the field,” said Perry.

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know?”

  The two boys looked at each other.

  “I’m a wizard,” said Cabbage. “How do you know?”

  “I can taste it.”

  “Can you?”

  “No. I don’t know. But I can’t see it. I can’t hear it. I can’t smell it. But I know it’s there. Like a taste in my mouth.” He paused. “Or,” he added, “do you know when you can feel that someone’s looking at you, and you turn your head, and someone is? Do you know that feeling?”

  Cabbage nodded.

  “It’s like that.”

  The stooks of wheat were around three sides of the field now, drying in the sun. The reapers turned to the fourth side. Cabbage could almost see it. Like a movement at the edge of his vision. Neither out of sight nor visible. It was the wild magic, sweeping over the wheat, kindling the poppies. Bubbling up from the ground. Crouched low in the stalks of grain. Running along the hedgerow. Everywhere.

  Flaxfield was watching it, too. |

  The reapers had finished the fourth side

  of the field when Dorwin broke off from the group and went over to sit with the boys.

  “Can you move up?” she asked.

  They shuffled apart and she sat between them. Her arms were hot against theirs. She kicked off her shoes and wriggled her toes.

  At first, when Cabbage came to live with Flaxfield, there had been a woman there as well, Flaxfold, and she had taken charge of most of his teaching. It was a few years since she had left, and he had not spent any time with a woman since then. And anyway, that had been different. Flaxfold was old. She had grey hair pinned up at the back of her head, and the skin round her neck was creased and loose. Cabbage couldn’t remember his mother, but Dorwin put him in mind of her. Except she seemed younger even than that. More like a much older sister. Anyway, he enjoyed having her close.

  “Why do they call you Cabbage?” she asked.

  Cabbage sighed.

  “Wizards have different names,” he said.

  “I know. But why Cabbage? It isn’t your real name, is it?”

  “He won’t tell me,” said Perry.

  “You don’t talk like a roffle,” said Dorwin.

  Perry shrugged.

  “It’s too much bother,” he said. “All that stuff about bottles and balloons and cats with bits of string.”

  “What are they doing?” asked Cabbage.

  “Reaping the grain.”

  “Yes. Why do they do it like that?”

  Dorwin settled down and explained.

  “Every field has the power to grow crops,” she said. “But growing the crops weakens the power. It goes into the grain, spreads out over the whole field. So, when we harvest, we start in one corner, go around every side of the field and cut, then move in and cut again, making a smaller and smaller square every time.”

  “What’s that for?”

  “So the power of the field can’t escape. Look.”

  She pointed her finger at the reapers and laughed. More than half of the field was cut now. The square of standing grain was small in the centre. The boys followed the line of Dorwin’s finger. Two rabbits bolted out of the stalks, white tails bobbing. They ran off in opposite directions. Almost as soon as they had reached the hedgerow, another one darted away from a different point.

  “Everything in the field is being driven to the centre by the reapers,” said Dorwin. “As they run out of places to hide, they make a dash for it. We let them go.”

  “Looks like you can’t stop them,” said Perry.

  “You’re right.”

  She frowned and fell silent. The swish of the scythes filled the emptiness. The bent-backed women gathered the wheat and made the stooks.

  “That’s why we need the Harvest Spell before we begin,” she said. “The power of the field is being driven to the centre. When we get to the last cut the power is in those few stalks, all clenched up into a small space. The Harvest Spell stops it from running out, like the rabbits.”

  The three of them looked at Flaxfield.

  “That’s what he’s looking for,” said Cabbage.

  “Yes.”

  “What happens if it escapes?”

  “Then the field is dead. Nothing will grow there.”

  “What happens if you capture the power of the field?” asked Perry.

  “We weave the stalks into a special shape, and keep it safe all winter. In the spring, the day before we sow the new grain, we bury it in the field, to release it.”

  “Can you see what’s happening?” asked Cabbage.

  Dorwin nodded.

  “Tell me,” he said.

  “Can’t you see it?”

  “Tell me what you see.”

  The reapers had stopped for a break. The remaining square of uncut wheat was the size of a room in a cottage. No more than that.

  Dorwin straightened her back.

  “The air above the grain is shimmering,” she said. “Like the air over a fire, but nothing’s burning under it. It looks as though there should be smoke, but there isn’t. It’s not like the hot air from a roof on a summer day. It’s twisting and swirling. I just don’t know how it does that with no fire beneath.”

  “What about you?” Cabbage asked Perry.

  “The same,” said the young roffle. “Except I can see the fire as well.”

  “What’s it like?” asked Dorwin. “Can you?”

  “No smoke,” said Perry, “but flames, high and fast, coming straight out of the wheat, but not burning it up.”

  “What can you see?” asked Dorwin.

  “The same,” said Cabbage. “The hot air, the flames.”

  “Is that all?” asked Perry.

  Dorwin turned her face to him. Cabbage liked her attention, but it made him shy as well.

  “No,” he said. “That’s not all.”

  She leaned towards him and he could feel her breath on his face.

  “What else?”

  “Other things,” he said.

  The men picked up their scythes and moved towards the wheat. As the blades sliced through, the fire that only Cabbage and Perry could see sprang higher.

  “I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Dorwin. “The shimmering. The field looks alive.” She stood to see better. The boys sprang up with her.

  Three stooks, four, a fifth, and all that was left was a single clump of wheat. They stopped.

  Leathort took his scythe and stood ready to cut the last of the wheat with a single stroke. He looked across to Flaxfield. The wizard had moved from the gate and was standing in a clear space. Although the day was calm, with no breeze, his cloak swept back as though in a gale. He held his staff before him in both hands, steady on the earth.

  Leathort waited.

  Flaxfield nodded.

  “He’s going to make the final spell for the field,” said Dorwin.

  “He can’t,” said Cabbage. “He mustn’t.”

  Leathort drew back the scythe, let it sweep round in front of him and it clipped the last stalks. They fell, silently. Before they touched the earth Flaxfield pointed his staff at them. He said something, loud, but impossible to make out at that distance. A woman leaned forward to scoop up the last of the wheat.

  “That’s Homeput,” said Dorwin. “She’ll weave the Corn Catch.”

  Flaxfield lowered his staff. It had worked. The spell had caught the power of the field. />
  Flaxfield began to walk towards the reapers, smiling and raising his hand to wave at them.

  As he drew close, Homeput screamed. She shook her hands and pushed them away from her, the wheat tumbling down. As it fell, it flared up, bright against the hot sun. Flaxfield began to run towards her. One by one the stooks around the field began to catch fire. Each poppy burst into life. The red poppies were flames sparking the wheat. The wheat glowed, then flared, then blazed. The flames crawled out and spread over the stubble. The reapers ran for cover, leaping over flame and swerving to avoid the flaring stooks. Leathort put his arm round Homeput and helped her away. She was still flapping her hands in pain. Flaxfield stood in the centre of the field. He raised his arms and tried to control the fire. For a moment a space around him died back, but the rest of the field burned brighter and hotter. All the reapers were now at the safety of the hedgerows.

  “The harvest,” said Dorwin. “The whole crop. Destroyed.”

  The circle of clear ground around Flaxfield was growing smaller. His attempts to drive back the fire were failing. There was no path through to the safety of the edge. The entire field was a sea of flame.

  “He’ll die,” said Dorwin. “He’ll burn to death.”

  Black smoke swallowed him up and they couldn’t see him any more. |

  Dorwin drew her shawl over her face

  and stepped forward.

  “What are you doing?” said Cabbage.

  “I’m going to try,” she said. “Flaxfield.”

  “Don’t,” said Cabbage.

  She stepped into the flame, beating it down with her feet. As though it had been attacked, the fire punched back at her. It wrapped around her. She fell back and scrambled to the hedgerow. Her skirt was ablaze. Her shawl was singed and smoking. Perry smacked the fire out with his hands. Dorwin gasped for breath, black smoke pouring down from her nose and out of her mouth.

  “It’s not just fire,” said Perry.

  She tried to answer. Coughed again. Shook her head.

  Cabbage stared into the smoke, searching for something. He remembered the way the whistle spell had exploded over the memmont, remembered the hot breath of the beast as it leaped on him. Something was tugging at his mind. The beast had not actually bitten him, not touched him. It just stood, snarling. He had passed out, and when he came to it was dead.