Galloglass

by Scarlett Thomas

  Effie was escorted to a small, dark cell and locked inside. There was nothing in the bare room apart from a thin mattress and a bucket with the word ‘Islander’ written on it in white paint. There was one thin candle dancing on an otherwise bare shelf. It hardly provided any light at all. Now was the time to think of some way to rescue herself, but Effie’s mind had gone completely blank. This was why Wolf always said it was a good idea to practise strategy. It was like in sport. The more you practised something, the more likely you’d be to do it under pressure. Effie could hit a good forehand in tennis, no matter how nervous she was feeling. But escaping? Her mind was totally empty. She’d just never practised for this situation. What were you supposed to do when people labelled you a dangerous galloglass and locked you up in a small Otherworld cell? Effie doubted there was a book on that.

  Were they going to torture her? Effie felt sick. She tried and tried to remember what Wolf had said about not cracking under interrogation, but all that would come into her mind was the old trick of concealing a cyanide pill in a false tooth so that if things got too bad you could swallow it and take all your precious information with you. Effie shuddered. It would never come to that. She’d never give in. She just had to work out what on earth to do.

  Terrence Deer-Hart felt rather conspicuous in his yellow jumpsuit and red cape. Did the jumpsuit really have to be quite this tight? Did the cape actually have to be this small? Still, at least there was nobody around in the university at this time of night to see him.

  Little did Terrence know that every creature from the Cosmic Web (not currently in hibernation) that was anywhere near the university had turned up to have a good look. Owls clustered around windows, rats peered from vents. Even a family of rabbits that should have been asleep had put off their fatigue for one more night just to see this.

  The Cosmic Web did not understand many things about humans. It did not understand, for example, why we do not use our own telepathic network, given how powerful it is. It did not understand why we suppress our magic, shave our fur and use showers rather than simply licking ourselves all over to get clean (if indeed we have to be so clean at all). One thing the Cosmic Web did understand, however, was the need for members of all species to make themselves attractive. One particular plant does this by mimicking the smell of rotting meat in order to attract the flies it wants to consume. But usually in nature this process is a lot simpler and mainly involves donning bright colours in pleasing combinations in order to look, well, nice.

  And Terrence Deer-Hart had failed at this.

  He had failed spectacularly.

  In fact, he looked more ridiculous than anything the Cosmic Web had seen for many years. He looked more ridiculous than anything in nature could ever manage to look. Nature simply did not give out tight yellow jumpsuits and red capes. It certainly did not make it possible to pair them. The Cosmic Web wouldn’t forget this in a hurry. The Cosmic Web was enjoying this. It settled in for a good late evening’s entertainment.

  Terrence Deer-Hart entered the meeting room to find it in darkness, which worked for him (and also for the Cosmic Web, which sees better in the dark). He could smell a familiar perfume – dead things mixed with violets – and hear the vague, soft sound of people breathing. So they were already here.

  ‘Kneel,’ said a voice.

  Terrence knelt. He heard footsteps approaching him. Someone put a blindfold on him. There was the fizz of a match being struck, and then the gentle flickery sound of candles being lit.

  And then laughter. Quiet and suppressed at first, but becoming louder and a bit choked as people tried to stop. Eventually they did. Terrence wondered if this was usually part of the initiation ceremony.

  ‘What on earth . . .?’ said a clipped Northern European voice.

  ‘Who was in charge of giving him his robes?’ whispered someone else.

  ‘I give them to a porter to take to him,’ drawled a deep female voice with a Russian accent.

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘All right,’ said the Northern European voice. ‘Never mind. We will ignore this mix-up. The seeker will wear the correct robes in future. Does the seeker understand?’

  Did they mean Terrence? After a pause, he said, ‘Yes.’ It came out as a sort of squeak.

  The Cosmic Web didn’t understand human languages. It didn’t need to, because humans rarely said what they meant with words. Instead, all their truth came from things the Cosmic Web understood very well: body language, ritual displays, hormones, the big picture.

  Humans never saw the big picture in quite the same way as the Cosmic Web. Indeed, news came quite soon to the Cosmic Web that a young male human was currently performing at the Winter Fair opening ceremony as part of a tribute band (the Cosmic Web had a limited understanding of what this was) while wearing the sacred cloak of the Fifteenth Order of the Diberi (the Cosmic Web simply referred to this as ‘large black ritual fur’).

  The Cosmic Web didn’t pretend to understand everything about the human world, but it could tell from all the unusual hormones, strange aromas and laughter that things this night were beginning to unravel. But that was to be expected as Midwinter approached.

  Wolf usually played rugby on a Saturday. There were away fixtures, which involved long, precarious trips in the school bus, and home fixtures, where Wolf had to help make orange squash and lay out the afternoon tea, which was the bit he hated most about being captain of the Under 13s. But tomorrow there were no sports fixtures because of the Winter Fair. There was nothing on Sunday either. Wolf had a completely free weekend in front of him.

  Was that why he couldn’t sleep? Usually on a Friday night his mind was full of rugby. Coach Bruce had just started his Master’s course in sports psychology at the Old Town University and was always experimenting on Wolf and Effie and other members of his sports teams. Wolf had been taught to visualise, and so that was what he was usually doing at this time on a Friday night. He would imagine himself taking a high kick and then building an attack and coming down the wing to score a try on the blind side. Then he would repeat the whole thing with the attack going wide.

  But tonight something else was on Wolf’s mind.

  After tossing and turning for a couple of hours, he realised what it was.

  It was that stupid book. The one that Monsieur Valentin had left on the table earlier.

  Wolf had known for a while that there was something odd about this book. Every time he’d gone to the military strategy shelves in Leonard Levar’s bookshop it had seemed to sort of glow at him. This was why, embarrassing though it was to admit, he was a little frightened of it. It had some strange magic about it, and Wolf didn’t like it. Wolf didn’t do magic himself – well, not exactly – and he was a bit afraid of it. Which was stupid, of course, because he wasn’t afraid of anything. Not the book, and not magic either.

  Wolf had never opened the book. Which now got him thinking. If he was to prove that he was not afraid of anything, then he should get up right now – out of his camp-bed – and go over to the desk and open it. Just to prove he wasn’t scared. And then he would go back to sleep.

  He would count to five, and then he would do it.

  Ten.

  Twenty.

  He got up.

  There was no need to light a candle or use a torch. The moon was still bright enough that Wolf could see his way around the bookshop. There it still was on the desk. The Answer.

  The book had a glossy black cover and embossed silver foil lettering. Its front and back covers were cluttered with rapturous quotations from famous people from over a hundred years ago. They all said things like ‘Spellbinding’ and ‘Life-changing’ and ‘Indescribably brilliant and strange’. But one of the quotations in particular had really intrigued Wolf. It said, ‘Whatever you are searching for, this book will lead you to it.’

  Could that possibly be true? How?

  The book was old, but it didn’t look like old books were supposed to. It was a cheap, thick paperback that
had obviously been a massive bestseller in its time. It looked like the kind of book that would make you go on a stupid diet, or tell you that you were the reincarnation of Henry VIII, or how to make a million pounds in a week. Wolf knew about those books too, because Leonard Levar had a section especially for them. But this book had not been shelved there. This one had been shelved with books on military strategy and old Dungeons & Dragons magazines. Why?

  As he picked up the thick paperback, Wolf wondered if it was possible that a book really could lead you to something you were searching for. Surely all readers of a book would be searching for different things? But he couldn’t help wondering . . . What if the book could lead him to Natasha?

  But of course that would be impossible. It was stupid even to contemplate. Wolf felt full of trepidation as he held the dark volume in his hands. Fear. Well, Wolf knew what you did with fear – especially irrational fear like this. You had to face it, to conquer it. He turned to the first page of The Answer.

  It was full of numbers.

  What on earth . . .?

  He flicked to the second page. More numbers. Was this some sort of joke? Or maybe a printing error? Perhaps it was a secret code. But who wanted to read a whole book in secret code? Wolf carried on flicking. Yes, the whole book, covered as it was with promises and quotations, and costing, back in 2014, when it was published, £8.99, was unintelligible. Or was it? Maybe there was a key or something in the back? But no. Wolf didn’t understand why a book that looked like a cheap thriller would want to make it so difficult for you to read it. It was a complete mystery.

  Wolf decided it must be a little joke of Monsieur Valentin’s.

  He sighed and put the book back.

  There were no answers except the ones you made yourself. He already knew that. He went to bed and fell straight to sleep.

  Terrence Deer-Hart’s knees were beginning to hurt. Surely someone would think of giving him a little cushion to put under them? But no. They’d been chanting in some ancient language – possibly Latin – for quite a long time now.

  Eventually the chanting stopped.

  Someone spoke, meaningfully it seemed. To Terrence Deer-Hart’s ears it sounded like ‘Blah blah blah blah blah.’

  Then there was silence. A slight wafting through the air of the scent of Earl Grey tea mixed with lavender and lemons.

  ‘I will repeat the question in English,’ said the clipped Northern European voice, which Terrence thought probably belonged to Gotthard Forestfloor, the Scandinavian novelist. ‘Do you understand Rosian?’

  ‘Me?’ said Terrence.

  ‘Yes, you,’ said the voice, a little wearily. ‘You are the one being initiated, after all.’

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ said Terrence.

  ‘I’m fairly sure,’ said the voice, ‘that it is you.’

  ‘I mean I don’t understand Rosian,’ said Terrence. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Latin?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You will need to learn at least one magical language as part of your apprenticeship. For now, we will conduct the rest of the ceremony in English.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Terrence felt something wet, cold and a little slimy touch his forehead. He tried not to think about what this might be.

  ‘Do you choose to take the Diberi as your new family, forsaking all others, and loving only us?’

  It sounded a bit creepy put like that. But Terrence felt that in this position he probably couldn’t say no.

  ‘Yes,’ said Terrence. ‘I do.’

  ‘And do you give your soul over to magic, and the legacy of the four great magi?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Terrence. ‘I mean, yes.’

  ‘And do you vow not to rest until the world of the galloglass is free from the yoke of the Otherworld?’

  Terrence had literally no idea what this meant.

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘Do you renounce selfless service?’

  Was that some kind of canteen where you helped yourself? Terrence didn’t know.

  ‘Yes,’ he promised anyway.

  ‘And agree to champion the rights of the individual?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And to abhor the Flow?’

  The what? Terrence frowned. How was he going to remember all the things he had to abhor and renounce? What if he championed one of them by accident?

  ‘Yes,’ he replied anyway. ‘If you say so.’

  ‘And to obey me in everything?’

  ‘Um . . .’

  ‘TO OBEY ME IN EVERYTHING?’

  ‘I can’t actually see who you are,’ admitted Terrence.

  ‘Does it matter who I am?’

  Terrence thought about this. He was currently blindfolded and taking part in an initiation ceremony to join an evil secret organisation that planned to take over the universe. He had already agreed to all sorts of things he didn’t understand. Why not also agree to obey someone he couldn’t see? Well, because even to Terrence this didn’t actually make sense. And Terrence could occasionally – usually in the worst circumstances – become quite rational, and then very stubborn.

  ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘Actually, yes. It does matter.’

  ‘Well, you’ll find out who I am in a moment,’ said the voice. ‘Although surely you recognise my voice?’

  ‘Well . . .’

  ‘Do you vow to obey me in everything?’ the voice said again, irritably.

  ‘What happens if I don’t?’ asked Terrence.

  ‘Then we will probably kill you.’

  ‘All right, well, in that case, yes, I suppose so,’ said Terrence.

  It was going to be more complicated than he’d thought, being a Diberi.

  6

  Effie paced her small, dark cell, thinking. She wasn’t a galloglass; she was sure of that. Although . . . what if Dr Wiseacre had been right? Effie had been going over everything in her mind, and she could sort of see why someone might think she was selfish enough to be called a galloglass, if they looked at things in a certain way. What does she make? What do you do? Bo’s words kept coming back to her. And also what that girl had said about islanders: They never do anything for anyone else. They just take. Everyone else in the Otherworld did things for others, and Effie, so far, had contributed nothing. She realised that now.

  Well, that could easily change.

  Whatever she’d done – or neglected to do – wasn’t bad enough for this, though, surely? She didn’t deserve to be imprisoned. And while admittedly she hadn’t knitted many socks, Effie was the one who’d saved the Otherworld from Diberi invasion – twice now. She’d killed the man who had attacked her grandfather and stolen his library of powerful last editions. Effie and her friends were now protecting those last editions from the Diberi. Most recently, Effie had buried alive the woman who wanted to use the last edition of The Chosen Ones by Laurel Wilde to get to the Great Library in Truelove House and, presumably, steal its most powerful books.

  Well, to be more factual about it, Effie had actually tricked this woman into burying herself alive. And the man she’d killed had been 350 years old and was only keeping himself going with stolen magical energy, which she’d taken away. Effie would never hurt anyone – and certainly not bury someone alive – if she could help it.

  Effie was always fighting to keep the Otherworld safe from the Diberi – and she wasn’t even a real Otherworlder herself. Every time she came here she started running out of M-currency and had to go home to build it up again. And all because she wanted to help!

  Effie felt cross, suddenly. No one, ever, had been remotely grateful for her help. Well, apart from the other Trueloves, of course. Although Rollo was so moody, and Cosmo so distant. Clothilde was grateful. But no one else here cared that she’d saved their stupid world. They just kept going on and on about how much they hated Effie’s world.

  And what was so wrong with the Realworld anyway? People didn’t have as much magic, but that wasn’t their fault. Some people tried rea
lly hard to do magic, even though it was so difficult for them, like Effie’s friend Raven. She was so loving and kind, but if she came here people would no doubt just write her off as a ‘filthy’ islander too. No one Effie had ever met in the Realworld had been as mean to her as the girls in Froghole. And the Otherworld thought it was so superior . . . And they supposedly had so much magic – but where was it? Everyone did their own washing up. Why did Clothilde bother to knit socks when surely she could just whip up a pair with a spell?

  For the first time ever, Effie wanted to go home. Home to the Realworld. Home to her father Orwell, her step-mother Cait and her baby sister Luna. Home to people who might call her all sorts of things, but would never say she was a galloglass.

  By the time the guard came to unlock Effie’s cell, she was very angry. And it didn’t help to see that he now wore her vial of deepwater around his neck as if it belonged to him.

  ‘I want you to let me go,’ Effie said to him firmly. ‘I would like to meet my cousin and go home. And you can give me my necklace back too.’

  ‘Hahaha!’ said the guard. ‘You want me to release you, just like that?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ said Effie.

  ‘And if I don’t, what will you do? Cry?’

  ‘No, I’ll use my other necklace. The one your colleague was too stupid to notice.’

  The guard looked at her with contempt. ‘Stop talking, filthy galloglass,’ he said. ‘I’ve come to take you for interrogation. You’d better cooperate.’

  There was nothing else for it. Effie touched the golden Sword of Light hanging on the chain around her neck and whispered the word that made it real: Truelove. It sparkled into life, forming itself from all the purest and oldest particles of light in the room, many of which had been flying around the universe since the very beginning of time, gathering energy from the Big Bang, the greatest diamonds and the hottest suns. The small candle flickered and glimmered like a child in the presence of a great wizard. In less than a moment, Effie was holding a large, dazzlingly golden sword in front of her.