Shadow Spell (30 page)

Light and heat came from a small sun, about the size of Nin's fist. It hung in the centre of the room near the high ceiling, burning like the real thing. On all sides were arched windows between stone pillars, and the earth floor was covered with rugs of petals and leaves. There were no cabinets or other furniture, no shelves and definitely no books.

But the windows amazed her most. Outside, where there should be rain and gloom, was a summer garden of flowers.

Bewildered, Nin turned her attention to the room's occupants. Besides Dark there were three other Fabulous sorcerers. The singing had stopped as they walked in and all heads had turned to look at her. One face she knew at once, for although he didn't look the same as she remembered him, his white beard and gnarled skin told her his name.

‘Nemus!' she said happily.

The sorcerer looked at her. ‘Who is this?'

‘
What
is it, more like?' said a languid voice and Nin turned her head to see Azork.

He was clad in magenta silk and stood leaning against one of the pillars, his golden eyes looking Nin over with distaste.

Simeon Dark smiled and drifted over to a space away from the others.

Azork laughed. ‘Come now, is this another of your jokes, Simeon?'

‘No joke. Morgan wanted to see her.'

‘I did indeed,' said Morgan Crow.

The fourth sorcerer in the room was sitting crosslegged in a chair that was really a large flower, and he was watching Nin. A mop of glossy black hair hung thick and loose down his back, and he was dressed in figured silver and holding an instrument like a mandolin. His face was not intelligent exactly, but interested, curious. He had long, slender fingers heavy with rings, a boyish smile and white eyes with no pupils.

He was, in fact, wonderful.

‘You're real,' said Nin, suddenly understanding. ‘They aren't, but you are!'

‘Quite right,' said Morgan Crow cheerfully. ‘This,' he waved a hand, ‘is my world, or at least my memory of it.' The mandolin vanished from his hands and he leaned back in the chair.

‘So you did survive!'

‘Of course. I thought that the best way to live on was
to make myself one with the Land.'

‘But your body was eaten by crowsmorte?'

‘All part of the plan. It absorbed me, so in a way I
am
crowsmorte. I exist here, living in my memory and kept alive by my physical being, which grows all over the Drift.'

Nin thought for a moment. ‘So you feed on the Quick by … eating their bodies?'

‘Oh yes, and Grimm. I can even break down Fabulous flesh, though it's not a lot of use.'

‘I suppose at least they're dead when you do it,' she said doubtfully.

‘Mostly,' said Crow cheerfully. ‘The odd live one, you know. But it's all part of the spell, see, eating flesh and blood whether it's alive or dead is what makes crowsmorte understand bodies so that it can heal them. It may not be as dramatic as Enid or Nemus, but you'd be amazed how people yell for me when it comes to healing their wounds!'

Nin glanced around at the other sorcerers. She could feel them taking her apart with their gaze like something on a dissection table. She understood that while they could see her skin, blood, hair and eyes, more clearly than any Quick, what they couldn't see was
her
. To them, she was just a different kind of animal.

‘Are they bothering you? They are only my memory of the originals. I can make them go away.'

‘Please,' said Nin. Azork in particular was glaring at her irritably. Dark was humming to himself thoughtfully
and inspecting his waistcoat, and Sturdy was watching with a faint smile.

There was an almost imperceptible shift in the air and they were gone.

‘Do you want to sit down?'

He pointed to the floor and a shoot appeared, growing and unfurling into another flower chair. Nin thanked him and sat in it. On the whole, it was pretty comfortable.

‘Simeon Dark said you wanted to see me?'

‘Ahh, yes.' Crow laughed. ‘I've heard a lot about you. Rumours spread through the Land, you know, as well as through the people that live on it. I wanted to meet you and this second brew of potion that you've taken has given me the chance. I might be able to help you stop Strood.' He sighed and shook his head. ‘We should really have done something about him, but we were all too intent on surviving the plague, so we just … didn't. And the world has been suffering Strood's evil ever since.'

Nin shivered.

‘Cold? Would you like me to turn the sun up?'

She shook her head. ‘No thank you, I'm fine. Was it really like this?' She waved a hand at the window opening on to the garden.

‘Oh yes. This is my exact memory. I like to have a garden through my windows, especially on dismal days. I love flowers, so soothing and yet so potent, don't you think?'

Nin wasn't sure how to reply, so she just smiled and nodded.

‘Would you like to see how it was?'

‘How what was? Oh, Celidon you mean.'

She shook her head, ‘I saw on the way here. It was
…'
She stopped. Finding a word for the grey mud and the death carts defeated her.

‘I know, I know. But that's only because I'm remembering this time right now. Come with me.'

He got to his feet and moved out of the door, into the hallway. Crow walked more slowly than Dark, so Nin didn't have to run to keep up. In fact, while he walked he talked, and he often paused or slowed right down. Nin found herself pulling up to keep beside him. She danced around him, wanting to get where they were going.

‘After the Final Gathering we all went our separate ways. You know what paths we chose to endure beyond the plague?'

Nin nodded. ‘Except for what happened to Simeon Dark. Or at least, I know that his spell disguised him and then took away his memory. But I don't know who he is, what he's disguised as. I found this in his Mansion.' Nin held up the shadow spell for Crow to see. It looked brighter than it had ever been.

‘It's his memories, I think. Or at least his
real
memories. Seth … Vispilio thinks Dark still has a distorted version, so as not to stand out, you see? This will just make them right again. So if I can find out who he is, then the spell will break and he'll remember everything properly.'

‘Interesting! And he could be anyone?'

‘Yes,' sighed Nin, ‘anyone. Good or bad.'

‘Are you sure about that? I mean, couldn't he have done away with the physical altogether? It's just a body after all, he could
…'

‘Grow another one? Like people said about you?'

‘I made a prediction once, you know, well lots of predictions actually. I'm famous for them. But this was something about “in the dying days of the Land a Fabulous shall rise from the earth and signify new life”.'

‘That could mean Jik,' said Nin thoughtfully, turning the idea over in her mind. She sighed. ‘There are just so many possibilities.'

‘Simeon was always a tricky one,' Crow said cheerfully. ‘You didn't know what was going on in his head half the time.' He chuckled. ‘In fact, Vispilio once said that even Dark didn't know what was going on in Dark's head! Of course, he didn't mean anything nice by it, but I thought it was kind of cool.'

Nin was frowning. ‘This corridor has got very long?' She looked back over her shoulder and the door seemed right where it should be, but they had been walking away from it for ages.

‘It's a long way to the past,' said Crow, ‘but we're nearly there now.'

Nin felt excitement bubbling inside her. She danced ahead of him, wishing he'd hurry up. And then, at last, they were there and she burst out of the door into another world.

The sun was shining on houses and buildings that could have been made of light they were so dazzling.
Where the spires had risen to clouds before, now they touched a sky of clear, intense blue. A breeze, bearing the scent of lilac, stirred Nin's hair and underfoot the pavements were white marble.

‘Can we go to the square?' begged Nin. ‘I want to see Galig's Hall, I want to see the people!'

Crow laughed indulgently and put a calming hand on the top of her head. ‘All right, the square it is.'

They walked back the way she had come with Dark, down the broad street and towards a river that glinted in the sunlight. Golden fish flickered in its depths and swans, both white and black, sailed its rippling surface. Gardens lined its banks.

‘Can we walk by the river?'

‘River or square, which first?'

Oh!' Torn by indecision Nin hopped back and forth, but she remembered Galig's Hall in the rain and wanted to see the square as it would have been. ‘The square!'

‘Come, then.'

They moved on over the wide bridge, Nin still dancing ahead of Crow. People were crossing the river in both directions and when they reached the square on the other side it was swarming. Beorht Eardgeard had been built by sorcerers, but that didn't mean they were the only ones to live there. The city was full of sorcerers, goblins, werewolves, sprites and elves. There were many things she didn't know, and some she didn't like the look of at all. And then, towering over the bright river, she saw Galig's Hall as it should be.

With the sun shining on its stone, it looked like some wonderful cathedral soaring into the blue sky, dwarfing every building around it.

Nin gasped. In that moment she forgot all about Simeon Dark. She was eleven years old and seeing things that no living Quick had ever seen, or would see again. The real world was very far away.

‘Of course, it's all dying,' sighed Crow. ‘Well, dead really.'

Nin shook her head. ‘It's alive here,' she said.

Crow looked pleased. ‘I do my best!'

‘Can we go into the Hall?'

‘We could, but I don't think you have time. You're fading.'

‘What?' Nin looked up at him. His thin, bright face was growing hazy. She felt fear lurch in her stomach as the real world stirred around her. ‘But I need more time! I wanted to ask …!' Around her the people slipped away into nothing.

‘About Dark? Of course you do. I think you should look for someone who is like he is. His character won't have changed, not really, not deep down. But most important, though I don't know where he is now, I might have a prediction about where he
will be
. The Dancing Circle.'

‘I can't
hear
you!' cried Nin, and now, only the Hall of Galig loomed in her mind like a tower of mist.

‘Tomorrow,' Crow's voice was fading fast. ‘Before the sky turns black.
If
, I'm right
…'
‘Hold on to me,' cried Nin, reaching out. ‘I don't want to go …'

And she woke up.

‘So now, if you'll just give me those boots.' Strood smiled at Vispilio, rose from his chair and took a step forwards.

Suddenly, the once-sorcerer felt very Quick and very fragile.

‘They're mine!' Vispilio backed away, eyes flashing angrily. They were Doctor Mel's eyes and flashing suited them. ‘I came here to offer my help. Together we can
…'
‘No, you didn't,' snapped Strood. ‘You came because you are a once-sorcerer – an old used-up has been – and I am the immortal who owns the Drift.' His voice dropped to a snarl. ‘Do you think I can't see right through you? You think I am Simeon Dark and you've come here because you want to make me put on that stupid ring, to take me over. You're wrong, of course. I know I am not Dark, because I know who Dark is. The signposts are a mile high for anyone who's looking.'

‘You can't know,' muttered Vispilio resentfully, ‘because if you did, his spell would be undone.'

‘You got that from the girl,' snapped Strood. ‘Who got
it from Skerridge, who got it from me. But I didn't tell the bogeyman everything. It's not just about one person knowing, it's about
dark
knowing. And the only way he will ever know is if someone tells him.'

Vispilio glared. His confidence in his own plan was already draining away, though he hadn't given it up quite yet.

The door to the Sunatorium opened and one of the servants struggled through, panting and almost blue with cold. He was holding a chain and on the end of the chain was the Maug. It bounded into the room, nearly knocking the servant over. Around it, crowsmorte began to die, the vivid flowers falling before Jibbit's eyes, leaving a circle of dead, faded-crimson petals and twisted brown stems. The temperature in the Sunatorium dropped sharply.

Jibbit eyed the Maug nervously. It fed on Quick and he was well aware that his stone body was suffused with essence of Quick. Images flicked through his mind of the Maug sucking out his Quick bits and leaving the rest in a gravelly mess on the floor. He decided to be as quiet and as still as possible.

‘Aha,' said Strood cheerfully. ‘Well done …?'

‘M-Milo, sir,' stuttered the servant.

‘Good, good. Still alive, I see. Excellent. Keep it up!'

The servant wrestled with the Maug's chain, finally getting it looped around the bole of a tree. That done, he scampered out of the room.

‘Now,' said Strood, beaming at Vispilio. ‘Let me introduce you to my Death. I call it the Maug – not for any
reason, it just seemed polite to give it a name. The Maug was separated from me years ago by the last Seven Sorcerers in a cruel, selfish and, may I say, badly bungled experiment to see if they could postpone death.' He chuckled. ‘Oh, but I forgot. You were there.'

Vispilio glared irritably at Strood. ‘We did you a favour,' he said in icy tones, ‘You should have died years ago, you should be so much dust by now.'

‘True, true, but living a long time isn't the same as being immortal. Immortality has its drawbacks. I have an analytical mind, you know, I can work out what the future holds for someone who will live forever. Do you understand forever? It means time without end.'