Galloglass

by Scarlett Thomas

  ‘But who exactly are they?’ asked Effie.

  ‘The Masters are a group of pre-wizards,’ said Dora Wright. ‘Effie, your grandfather Griffin was one of them. We wondered if you already knew that. Masters have achieved the highest level of magic it is possible to attain in the Realworld. Wizards have to live in the Otherworld, as you probably know. Masters are one step away from becoming wizards and leaving this world for ever. But most of them want to leave it a better place.’

  Effie remembered that her grandfather had applied to the Guild to become a wizard and had been turned down. He’d received the letter just before he had been attacked.

  ‘The background to all this is rather complicated,’ said Mrs Beathag Hide. ‘Especially for children. Particularly ones who are not strong historians.’ She raised a dark, angled eyebrow.

  It was, sadly, true. History was no one’s strong point. Lexy was good at sciences. Effie was best at languages. Raven was good at creative writing and anything to do with nature. Only Maximilian had any ability in history. But all he’d learned at school were the rudiments of an official timeline that didn’t include anything to do with the Great Split, the existence of magic or the Otherworld. At school all they learned about was the Third World War and the second great fire of London. And a bit of Henry VIII and the Nazis too, of course.

  ‘Very briefly,’ said Pelham Longfellow. ‘Since the worldquake, more people have been able to visit the Otherworld. More people have epiphanised. Some say it is because this world has become 10 percent more magical, but no one knows if this is actually true, or even accurate. What is clear is that the two worlds, having originally split however many hundreds, or even thousands, of years ago, have recently moved closer together. Some mainlanders welcome this. But most of them are highly suspicious of islanders.’

  Effie sighed quietly. She’d had first-hand experience of this, of course.

  Pelham went on. ‘The Guild of Craftspeople has recently had a change of leader. Masterman Finch is a splittist, just like the Mainland Liberation Collective.’

  Mainland Liberation Collective. Effie had heard this name somewhere recently. Oh yes, she remembered now. Wasn’t that the group that Millicent Wiseacre was in? Effie shivered briefly at the memory.

  ‘A splittist?’ said Maximilian.

  Pelham continued speaking. ‘A splittist is someone who approves of the Great Split and disapproves of the worldquake, which brought the worlds closer together again. Anyway, both the MLC and the Guild want the Otherworld and the Realworld to have no further connection with each other. They want the portals closed, and magic to be much more tightly controlled in the Realworld. It’s complicated to explain, but the Diberi are also separatists, although in a much more extreme way. They actually want to destroy the Otherworld. They believe that the Realworld has so little magic because the Otherworld controls it all. They want more magic and power for themselves.’

  Pelham paused. Professor Calico Quinn started speaking.

  ‘Some say it would also make the Guild’s life a lot easier if there was no Otherworld, so they and the Diberi potentially have some aims in common. Although of course the Diberi want more magic, and the Guild wants less.’

  Pelham Longfellow sipped from a glass of water in front of him, and then began speaking again.

  ‘The other group that is connected to all this, but doesn’t really get involved, is the Council of Wizards and Elders. They are based in Dragon’s Green, far away from anything. They run the Otherworld and aren’t that interested in what happens here in the Realworld unless it affects the Otherworld in some way. They occasionally do deals with the Guild to take back monsters or entities that have gone astray here. And the Guild has agreed to take back all galloglasses in return.’

  Lexy yawned. It was already beginning to get dark outside, and this room was gloomy despite all the candles that had been lit. She could see snow falling faintly outside. Surely it should be exciting hearing about spy networks and secret groups? But Lexy just wanted to get home and work on her remedies. She didn’t much care who was against whom and why. She’d hardly got any sleep last night after that horrible business with JP. And she wanted to put some arnica balm on her bruises from this morning.

  ‘Anyway, it turns out that for now the only people really interested in fighting the Diberi are, well, us,’ said Festus. ‘The Guild no longer seems to care. There is even a rumour going around that Masterman Finch is thinking about making a pact with the Diberi. If they did any sort of deal, we’d all be in real trouble. At the moment, the Guild still has an agreement with us. But we don’t know how long that’s going to last now.’

  ‘We shouldn’t bore the children too much with all the politics,’ said Frankincense. ‘They must want to know why they are here.’

  Effie nodded. ‘We’ll help you in any way we can,’ she said. ‘What do you need us to do?’

  Pelham frowned. ‘This is one good reason for not having children involved,’ he said. ‘They are too willing to put themselves in danger.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Laurel Wilde. ‘I joined the Gothmen to protect my daughter, not to be her recruiter. I brought her here because you asked me to, but I’m not happy about it.’

  ‘I’ll be all right, Mum,’ said Raven. ‘I want to do my bit. I don’t want to let the Diberi get away with anything else. They’re against everything I believe in. Equality for all beings, light, love . . .’

  ‘It’s true. And of course the Diberi also want to destroy the Underworld,’ said Professor Quinn, ‘which they see as a place of great darkness, because they don’t understand it. They are extremely serious about what they are doing. I have my son here too, but I think we need all the help we can get. And the more people under eighteen we have, the better, as Beathag said.’

  ‘Leander’s seventeen,’ said Laurel Wilde. ‘He’s virtually an adult. Raven’s only twelve, and most of her friends are still eleven. We really should not be putting them in danger. And if you’re that keen on eleven-year-olds taking part in this, then where’s Tabitha?’

  Professor Quinn looked down at the table and sighed quietly. Everyone knew that Tabitha had helped the Diberi with their last scheme. She said she’d been under a spell at the time, but most people knew that this was a lie.

  ‘These children have epiphanised. They have begun magical training,’ said Mrs Beathag Hide. ‘They have been fighting the Diberi themselves – vanquishing two of the biggest threats ever to have visited the Old Town. But it isn’t fair for us to just let them carry on with their campaigns by themselves, with no support, and no idea of the wider context.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Festus. ‘I’m always getting this one out of scrapes in the Edgelands.’ He nodded towards Effie. ‘And it’s because she doesn’t know enough about what’s actually happening in the worlds.’

  Effie blushed. It was true. But why did he have to tell everyone?

  ‘What do you actually want us to do?’ asked Maximilian.

  ‘You may or may not have noticed that the Creative Writing Department in the university has suddenly grown rather a lot,’ said Claude Twelvetrees. ‘And changed. I’m a PhD student here. My supervisor suddenly got “replaced” with Professor Gotthard Forestfloor just a few weeks ago. Forestfloor is one of the more senior European Diberi. He’s gathering together a group of them here at the university, but we don’t know why.’

  ‘I think we do,’ said Effie. ‘It’s because of the library. And—’

  Before she could say anything else, she felt Maximilian enter her mind with his own. The feeling was like that little jolt you get when you suddenly remember something you thought you’d forgotten.

  ‘Shhh,’ he said quietly, inside Effie’s mind. ‘Don’t say anything else just yet. If they know the Diberi are planning to kidnap you, they’ll definitely ban us from helping and we’ll be out of the loop again.’

  ‘That’s true,’ said Effie back. ‘Good thinking. You’d better tell the others too.’

  �
��And what?’ said Festus Grimm to Effie.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Effie. ‘I just think they’re here because of the library. We saw them in there before.’

  ‘Did you hear them planning anything?’

  Effie wondered what she should say and quickly decided on nothing. She could always try talking to Pelham Longfellow afterwards if she changed her mind.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘We heard that—’ began Raven. But then she abruptly stopped as well, as Maximilian’s voice entered her mind and gently suggested that she keep what she knew to herself.

  Maximilian quickly did the rounds of his friends’ minds, telling them the same thing he’d agreed with Effie. He also got an update from Raven and Lexy and relayed what had happened in the library back to Effie. The friends telepathically decided not to say anything else until they knew more. They definitely didn’t want to be left out of whatever was happening.

  Lexy was still feeling unhappy, however, and didn’t really care a great deal either way. When Maximilian went into her mind he found something he’d never encountered before – a sort of deep purple, fuzzy haze over most of her recent memories. Something had happened that she didn’t want anyone to know. This was usual in most people’s minds – but it didn’t usually look so, well, horrible. Maximilian could also tell how tired Lexy felt, and sensed her lack of energy and enthusiasm for fighting the Diberi at the same time as Lexy herself realised she didn’t even want to go home to make remedies. She just wanted to go to sleep for a really long time.

  ‘Did you hear something in the library?’ Dora Wright asked Raven. ‘We were trying, but I think we came too late.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘I think we were too late as well,’ lied Lexy. ‘We didn’t really hear anything. Just something about them looking for books, but we didn’t hear which ones.’

  Raven was grateful for her friend stepping in. Healers find it a lot easier to lie than witches do. Every time a witch lies, a tiny bit of their M-currency drains away. But healers have to lie as part of their service to others. Without the placebo effect most healers would be completely lost.

  Lexy soon started to yawn and didn’t say anything else.

  ‘We need to let these poor children go,’ said Frankincense. ‘They’re getting tired.’

  ‘We’re not that tired,’ said Effie, glaring at Lexy.

  ‘What do you need us to do?’ said Raven. ‘We really do want to help.’

  ‘We arranged for you to be in the university this week for a reason,’ said Mrs Beathag Hide. ‘We need you to listen and learn. The Diberi know about most of us, and we don’t think it’s a coincidence that members of the Gothmen are being systematically bound by the Guild.’

  ‘Bound?’ said Maximilian. ‘As in a binding spell?’

  Maximilian had been reading about the spells available to higher-level scholars just recently. Although the Spectacles of Knowledge had left him with no doubt that if he wanted to become a higher-level scholar himself he’d have to stop all this dangerous mage business and focus properly on learning and research.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Frankincense. ‘People who are bound can no longer use magic. It often weakens the constitution as well, and people have to go to bed for months and are never quite the same afterwards. There are some very powerful binding spells out there at the moment. We don’t know quite where they’ve come from. We can reverse some, but not all of them.’

  ‘The Guild can’t use magic on anyone under eighteen,’ said Claude, looking at Leander intently, and then at Effie and her friends. ‘So if you’re young you can’t be bound. We need as many of you as possible trained and ready in case we are prevented from fighting the Diberi. We don’t know how the Guild are getting all their power, but with Midwinter approaching, and so many of us out of action—’

  Suddenly, the fire alarm started ringing. It was metallic and hollow and extremely loud.

  ‘This isn’t a coincidence either,’ shouted Festus over the clanging noise. ‘You can be sure they know we’re here. They’re trying to flush us out. Get us together in a group in the open so they can—’

  ‘Everybody!’ said Frankincense. ‘You know what to do.’

  Calico Quinn, Claude Twelvetrees, Leander and Frankincense quickly joined hands.

  ‘Have you got something, Mum?’ Leander asked Professor Quinn.

  ‘I think so,’ she said, breaking the loop for a moment and digging into her handbag. ‘Yes. Here’s one we haven’t used before.’ She laid a piece of white paper on the table. It had a column of text written in blue fountain pen.

  ‘Come with us,’ said Frankincense to Maximilian.

  Maximilian understood that they were all mages, like him. He took Frankincense’s hand and felt Professor Quinn link with him on the other side. She started reading from the piece of paper in her slow, deep voice – it was a poem. Maximilian knew what he had to do. He closed his eyes, listened carefully, let himself sort of recline onto the words as if they were a large couch and then . . .

  ‘Where did they go?’ said Raven.

  ‘The Underworld,’ said Pelham. ‘It’s easy for them to disappear whenever they want. Well, sort of. We can fly away out the window, if you have a broomstick with you? Or else you can probably share Beathag’s. The rest of you had better disperse as best you can.’

  ‘Come on,’ said Festus to Effie, Dora, Lexy and Laurel Wilde. ‘I know a few of the old underground passages. We’ll leave that way. Everyone grab a candle.’

  13

  The underground passages were cold, dark and wet. Effie sighed as she followed Festus Grimm, holding a candle in one hand and steadying her book-filled bag with the other. It seemed just typical of her life lately that she would have to escape on foot with all the healers rather than going to the Underworld with the cool mages or flying off on a broomstick with the glamorous witches.

  Wasn’t she supposed to be special? And a leader? She hadn’t even managed to talk to Pelham, to apologise for running away from Truelove House. Not that he’d seemed that keen to catch up with her. Maybe he agreed with Rollo and Dr Wiseacre that she was a galloglass and not to be trusted.

  And now the Diberi were planning to kidnap her. Although once they found out she was virtually one of them maybe they’d change their minds. They wanted information about the Great Library, just like everyone else. But what did Effie actually know? Next to nothing. And she’d probably never be able to go there again anyway.

  So let them kidnap her. At least then she might be able to take some of them out with her sword – the one that the Trueloves had given her and then said she wasn’t actually allowed to use.

  Effie sighed once more. Louder than she intended. Then she realised that she was on her own in the passageway. When she was cross or upset, she walked very fast, and it seemed she had overtaken Festus some time ago.

  ‘Slow down,’ said Festus to Effie, as he caught her up. ‘The others are way behind. What’s wrong with you?’

  Effie shrugged. ‘Life’s not always fair, is it?’

  ‘Ha!’ said Festus. ‘If you’d seen what I’ve seen . . .’ He saw Effie’s face and then sighed as well. ‘No, it’s not always fair. But you’re the great hero traveller, able to go between worlds, even able to visit Dragon’s Green, I hear. I can’t imagine what would be wrong with you.’

  ‘Oh, Festus. I think those days are over,’ said Effie.

  ‘Over?’

  ‘Look, can I ask you something?’

  ‘Yes, as long as you walk a tiny bit slower while you’re doing it.’

  Effie tried her best to slow down, but it felt wrong, as if all the bits of her life she was running away from were going to catch her, and envelop her and . . .

  ‘Are galloglasses always bad?’ she asked Festus.

  ‘What a question!’ he said.

  ‘I’ll take that as a yes, then.’

  ‘No, don’t. And don’t be in such a hurry to judge,’ said Festus. ‘I’m g
lad you asked. No one ever does, you see. I assume you don’t know that I give counselling to young galloglasses before they’re ejected from the Otherworld.’

  Effie shook her head. ‘I didn’t know that. I mean, I knew that you were involved with troubled young people, but then I found out that you were undercover and—’

  ‘Do you know what happens to galloglasses who are expelled from the Otherworld?’ Festus said.

  Effie shook her head.

  ‘Most of them die. They can’t breathe the air here. They can’t get energy from our food. They’re allergic to almost everything. So because of a stupid test they are condemned to death. Yet the Otherworld thinks it’s so superior and so kind. It thinks our world is the one that is horrible. But we don’t have the death penalty anywhere here any more.’

  Effie had learned in history class about the dark times, when people could be electrocuted for committing murder, even if they hadn’t really done it, and people were flogged to death for nothing more than drinking a glass of wine or kissing the wrong person.

  ‘I thought you liked the Otherworld,’ said Effie.

  ‘I do. But it’s not as wonderful as it thinks it is. Mind you, this business of expelling galloglasses only really became serious when the Mainland Liberation Collective got so powerful. They think they’re protecting the Otherworld, but in fact they’re corrupting it. Turning it into the thing they’re supposed to hate.’

  ‘Are they really all galloglasses?’ asked Effie.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The people who get ejected. The ones you talk to. The young people . . .’

  ‘No,’ said Festus. ‘I don’t think so. Sometimes, perhaps, but anyway, people can change their shade. Although that fact is often conveniently forgotten. Occasionally I do intercede and try to get one of them returned, but by then their parents will have been told that it’s actually best for the child to be sent to the island. They are promised letters and future contact, but in over 70 percent of cases the poor kids just evaporate as soon they walk through the door of a portal.’