The Doomspell

by Cliff McNish

  ‘Oh dear, I’m no good, am I?’ she said.

  Morpeth looked exhausted, almost falling from his chair.

  ‘Are you all right?’ asked Rachel, anxiously.

  ‘I’m fine, I’m fine,’ he muttered. ‘I’m just a little tired, child-hope.’ He stared at Rachel, his expression a mixture of surprise and – fear?

  ‘What does that mean?’ Rachel asked. ‘Child-hope.’

  ‘Nothing,’ Morpeth said quickly. ‘Nothing at all.’

  Rachel gazed disconsolately at the Breakfast Room, seeing all the faults of her magic. Nothing was as she originally imagined it any longer. Even the fish were starting to look jaded and insubstantial now that she was not concentrating entirely on them.

  ‘I’m rubbish at this,’ she said.

  Morpeth watched a fish swim around his knees. ‘No. This room is . . . amazing. It’s not perfect, but with practice you’ll improve. You are incredibly gifted.’

  Rachel blushed. ‘Really?’

  ‘Oh yes. Now, it’s time to finish off your breakfast. I want to show you the gardens of the Palace, and later we’ll pay Dragwena a visit.’

  ‘The snake-woman I met yesterday?’

  ‘Mm, but that’s not a name she likes.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Rachel smiled hopefully. ‘Can we play some more games first?’

  ‘Later,’ said Morpeth. ‘First, I want to take my old bones for a walk. Let’s see how quickly you can finish your breakfast.’ A plate of toast with several kinds of marmalade appeared next to Rachel. ‘You do like marmalade, I hope.’

  ‘Oh, I’m too excited to eat. I know – I’ll imagine I’m full!’

  Toast and marmalade filled her belly.

  They both glanced at the empty plate and burst out laughing.

  6

  Journey

  in the Sky

  Morpeth led Rachel down a flight of stone steps leading from the Breakfast Room. He stopped at a huge round door made from burnished steel. It possessed no markings whatsoever, not even a handle or a lock.

  ‘Is that the door to the garden?’ Rachel asked.

  ‘Yes.’ Morpeth held his palm towards the metal surface and it silently opened.

  Rachel watched him closely. ‘You used magic, didn’t you?’

  Morpeth nodded.

  ‘Why do you need a big door with a magic lock to go into the garden?’

  ‘Dangers lurk outside,’ said Morpeth. ‘Remember the black claws? There are massive wolves too, yellow-eyed with teeth bigger than your face.’ He grinned. ‘You wouldn’t want them to get in and bite you in half while you slept, would you?’

  Rachel stepped back, suddenly frightened. ‘I don’t want to go out.’

  ‘There’s no need to be scared,’ he reassured her. ‘The wolves only come into the garden at night.’

  Rachel peered cautiously out of the door. A shining blanket of light grey snow buried the grass. In the distance, surrounded by triangular-leaved trees, a frozen lake sparkled. She saw no yellow-eyed wolves. Could they be hiding behind the trees? What, she suddenly wondered, if just by thinking about it she could bring a wolf to life?

  ‘I’ll show you it’s safe,’ said Morpeth. He ran outside, cartwheeled in a big circle and shouted at the top of his gruff voice, ‘Wolves, wolves, wherever you be, I’ve a big fat belly if you want to eat me!’

  Rachel timidly took a step into the garden and then dashed to Morpeth, gripping him tightly.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I’ll race you to the lake!’

  Rachel ran fast, but Morpeth’s short thick legs were a blur of speed.

  ‘You’ll never catch me!’ he bawled. ‘I’m faster than the wind, I’m quicker than a cat, I’m so fast you’d never know I’m fat!’

  He zigzagged across the garden, arms spread wide.

  Rachel couldn’t catch Morpeth, but she knew she could beat him. Remembering her journey between the worlds, she simply imagined herself landing near the lake. After a momentary whoosh of air she alighted comfortably by the shore. Morpeth staggered and almost fell over her.

  ‘H-how did you do that?’ he gasped, collapsing by a mushroom-shaped tree stump.

  ‘It was easy. I just thought about it, like you showed me.’

  Morpeth shook his head vigorously. ‘No! I haven’t shown you how to do that. I never taught you how to move from one place to another. Even I cannot . . . only Dragwena can do it!’

  ‘It wasn’t hard. I did it before.’

  ‘But that was between the worlds! Dragwena places a special magic there to help all children brought to Ithrea. You did this yourself!’ He stared at Rachel with a look of wonder on his face. ‘You are the child-hope.’

  ‘I am the what? You said that before, Morpeth. What do you mean? What is this child-hope?’

  ‘I mean—’ He checked himself, recovering his composure. ‘I mean . . . you are the sneakiest little girl I’ve ever met! Fancy pulling that trick on me! Come on, let’s go for a skate on Lake Ker.’

  He leapt onto the ice, gliding on a pair of bright red skates. ‘Whoopee!’ Morpeth sang, turning perfect circles on one leg. ‘Come and join me, Rachel. This is fantastic!’

  She quickly imagined sparkling pink skates under her feet and they danced a joyful duet across the surface, as if they had been practising together for years.

  Eventually they returned to the bank of Lake Ker for a rest. The Palace towered above them. Inside its high wall hundreds of thin black columns and battlements, with tiny, odd-shaped windows, pushed against the sky. Every contour was harsh, angular and threatening – the stone absorbing the daylight as if it hated it. One enormous slender tower in the middle of the Palace stood higher than all the others, like a giant needle piercing the sky. At its top was a large window, green in colour, and formed – Rachel tried to make out the shape. It looked like an eye. Where had she seen that shape before?

  ‘Who built the Palace?’ she asked. ‘It looks old and it’s so dark.’

  Morpeth shuddered. ‘It was built many years ago. That’s all I know.’

  But he knew far, far more than this. He knew Dragwena had built it thousands of years before, when she first arrived on Ithrea. He did not know why the Witch had come. She trusted no one with that secret. But he knew that Dragwena hated this world, and also hated all the children she had drawn from the Earth and enslaved – though she drew them always, seeking something she would never explain.

  One night, many years before, Dragwena had brought Morpeth to the eye-tower of the Palace. She had taken great delight in explaining how each rock, each layer of the wall, had been dragged from the mountains by hand – by the small blistered hands of generations of children. It took centuries of labour. Most of the children died from hunger or cold as they carried its stones through the snow – or fell from the towers. It was a story that lasted many days and nights. With her perfect and ageless memory Dragwena recalled everything, the exact form of death for each child. She forced Morpeth to suffer also, understanding what she had done, and yet compelled to carry out her merciless commands nonetheless.

  Morpeth sighed, and considered Eric. He was with the Witch now, being probed and tested. There was an unusual quality about the boy. A strength, a skill, though different from that of Rachel. Dragwena had instantly sensed it. If Eric’s abilities were not interesting enough, Morpeth knew, Dragwena would soon find out and kill him. The boy might already be dead. What should he do about Rachel? How could he conceal her remarkable gifts from the Witch? Even now, from the eye-tower, he realized Dragwena was probably observing every movement he and Rachel made.

  Rachel had been looking over the snow-covered Palace gardens and beyond. The only other buildings were a few simple huts around the Palace walls. Small, hunched figures like Morpeth moved slowly in and out. In the far distance huge jagged peaks jutted out of the ground.

  ‘Are those mountains far away?’ she asked excitedly.

  ‘Ah, the Ragged Mountains!’ said Morpeth, rousing himself. ‘Why d
on’t we find out? Let’s fly there and take a look.’

  Rachel giggled. ‘Can we? We haven’t got wings.’

  ‘Oh, haven’t we? Then we’ll have to imagine them!’

  Rachel expected wings to sprout from his arms. Instead, Morpeth simply peered into the distance.

  ‘Today,’ he said, ‘I think I’ll fly on the back of a giant sea eagle. Look – here she comes!’

  Rachel followed Morpeth’s gaze into the creamy winter sky. From far away, low across the horizon, a tiny point sped towards them. As she watched it grew larger, until first she saw its wings, then a pointed white head, and finally curved talons, each dwarfing Morpeth himself, sunk into the snow nearby.

  Morpeth jumped nimbly on its back. ‘Come on Rachel, let’s go!’

  His great bird leapt into the pallid sky.

  ‘Don’t leave me!’ Rachel cried.

  ‘You know what to do! Hurry, or I will beat you to the mountains!’

  Rachel concentrated. What was the most superb bird? Another eagle? A dove? In her mind she formed the image of a great white snowy owl, yellow-billed, growing out of the snow. Even before the owl had fully taken shape she vaulted onto its back, gripping the neck feathers. Within seconds Rachel had soared hundreds of feet above the Palace, the cold wind scudding through her hair.

  ‘I’ll catch you! I’ll catch you!’

  The snowy owl, following her command, swiftly caught Morpeth’s eagle. Perched side by side on their giant magical birds of prey they grinned at each other, stretching their necks to see what lay ahead.

  ‘Let’s fly over the Palace,’ Rachel said.

  ‘No! Straight to the mountains! A race!’ Morpeth’s eagle blazed high and away.

  ‘You can’t fly faster than me!’ Rachel called out.

  ‘Try to catch me! Use your magic!’

  Within minutes they swooped amongst the mountain peaks, diving into the valleys and shooting over the high tops.

  Rachel wanted to lead. She told her owl it was faster than any eagle, the swiftest creature that had ever taken flight – uncatchable – and streaked into the vast sky. Morpeth caught her effortlessly. Time and again Rachel strove to get away, but he always matched her speed.

  ‘Why can’t I stay ahead?’ she complained over the wind.

  ‘Because I can always imagine catching you up!’

  ‘Then I’ll imagine you can never catch me up!’ Rachel whispered softly in the owl’s ear and it sped into the distance.

  ‘I just imagined,’ Morpeth laughed, catching up again, ‘that no matter how fast you flew I would always be able to catch up.’ He drew alongside her. ‘Can you imagine something I could never imagine? Can you, Rachel?’

  She pondered this until Morpeth held out his arm to indicate the arc of the land glistening below.

  ‘Look at that!’ he marvelled. ‘Look at the world of Ithrea!’

  Rachel felt her heart race and drank in her surroundings. To the west and north of the Ragged Mountains piled even more peaks, halted by cliffs overlooking an endless sea.

  ‘The Endellion Ocean!’ Morpeth cried. ‘An ocean of ice!’

  Eastwards everything was unending grey snow, a monotony only broken by the towers of the Palace itself. In the south, a few black smudges that might have been forests huddled under the snow. Where were the children Morpeth said lived everywhere, Rachel wondered? Could there be towns hiding under the snow filled with them? Could she fly to where they lived? Could she – suddenly Rachel gasped and forgot altogether about children.

  She had seen the storm-whirls.

  There were eight of them, immense hurricanes, twisting in pairs in the corners of the world. Rachel flew higher, into the thinnest air, to peer inside. Nothing she had seen before could prepare her for the sheer size of these twisting towers of grinding wind. Black clouds belched from their tops, spreading horizontally out over the whole world of Ithrea, pumping snow like wrathful breaths in all directions. And inside each storm-whirl there was lightning too, not one flash, but endless streaks of lightning, setting the sky above ablaze like a gigantic camera flashlight.

  Rachel breathed deeply, trying to take everything in. What kind of world was Ithrea? She suddenly longed for colour – any colour. There was none. The sky was dull white, the snow grey. Even the sun glowed feebly; it gave off virtually no heat and Rachel could look directly at its disc without hurting her eyes. A monochrome world, Rachel thought. A winter world. Like a black-and-white photograph. She looked at Morpeth and his blue eyes blazed in the whiteness of the sky.

  ‘Does it always snow here?’ she called across to him, suddenly shivering.

  ‘Of course,’ he replied. It is the will of Dragwena, he thought bitterly, though Rachel was not ready to hear the reason yet. ‘Time to return to Lake Ker,’ he said. ‘We can’t fly around all day.’

  ‘Another race?’

  ‘Why not? You haven’t beaten me yet!’

  He tickled the nape of the sea eagle and it plummeted towards Lake Ker. Rachel did not try to fly faster. She simply pictured herself already landing by the lake.

  Instead, she found herself hovering beside the green eye-window of the highest tower of the Palace.

  Looking out of the window, a few feet away, was Dragwena.

  The Witch gazed at Rachel, stroking her snake-necklace. Rachel stared back uncertainly, sensing something was wrong.

  ‘Come away!’ Rachel ordered her owl, tugging its neck. The bird refused to obey. Instead it moved even closer to the window, a few inches from the glass. The Witch smiled, pressed her lips against the window and blew Rachel – a kiss.

  Immediately, a blast of wind struck the owl.

  Rachel gripped the neck feathers, trying to steady herself.

  ‘Take me away!’ she ordered it. The owl slowly turned its massive head and opened its beak. ‘No, don’t!’ Rachel screamed, seeing what it was about to do. The owl bent closer. It bit her hands – and nudged her off its back.

  Rachel shrieked, clutching hopelessly for its tail feathers.

  And fell.

  An icy wind tore through her hair. Glancing down, she saw another large tower yawning below, its needle point ready to impale her.

  Rachel shut her eyes tightly, remembering how she had slowed her fall between the worlds. But the darkness between the worlds was an endless fall; this time she had only a few seconds to decide what to do. She had almost given in to panic when an idea abruptly struck her. It was an image – the image of a feather, a small white feather, drifting gently downwards. Rachel furiously held it in her mind, picturing how small she would be, how light, how calmly she would fall, rocking slowly back and forth in the wind.

  At last she dared to look around. Huge snowflakes surrounded her, tossed by the wind, and she was being tossed with them. The whole sky blossomed with their greyness, crystal edges pressing hard, pouring dark freezing water over her body.

  Suddenly, Rachel realized why the snowflakes were so large – it was because she was so small: she had become a tiny feather. She could feel her new body drifting amongst the snowflakes, a prisoner of the winds. A moment later she landed comfortably on a ledge. A breeze picked her up and she wandered on the wind, strange sensations tingling across her new near-weightless body. She continued to drift to and fro, descending gradually with the huge snowflakes.

  Then, through the blur of snow, she saw a figure racing towards her.

  ‘Morpeth! Morpeth!’ she cried.

  He plucked the feather from the air, his giant fingers gripping her inside a dark world. Rachel waited in the quiet warmth of his hand, feeling safe. Moments later Morpeth placed her in the snow by Lake Ker and she watched him say three words from a great height.

  Slowly at first, she felt her hands reappear. Arms grew from her shoulders, her lips flew past them – and a frozen Rachel staggered and shivered in the snow.

  ‘Oh Morpeth,’ she cried. ‘What happened? The snake-woman stood there. She blew that kiss and—’

  ‘I
know. I know.’ He wiped wet hair from her cheeks. ‘You are safe now. I promise.’

  Morpeth led her back to the Palace through the large steel door. Once again he opened it using magic. Rachel felt too distracted to notice. How could any of this be happening to her? The strange woman, Morpeth, the Breakfast Room, the owl, changing into a feather. How could any of it be real?

  ‘Am I in a dream?’ she asked. ‘Am I going to wake up in a minute and have to go to school?’

  ‘I wish you were,’ he said. ‘Or that this was my dream.’

  ‘Morpeth, I want to find Eric and leave this place. I want to go home!’

  Morpeth did not reply. Instead, he escorted her back to the Breakfast Room, where dry clothes waited. As Rachel dressed she noticed that the room appeared exactly the same as when she first entered it. The slender fish with earrings had vanished.

  Morpeth sat her down. ‘Rachel,’ he said, his voice shaking slightly, ‘I know you are frightened, but I need you to be brave.’

  She nodded, not understanding, but trusting him.

  ‘What you did,’ he said, ‘is change your form. You became something different.’

  ‘A feather.’

  ‘Yes, but it should not be possible. On this world only one has that power.’

  ‘Dragwena,’ said Rachel. ‘I bet she can do it.’

  ‘Yes.’ He leaned forward and gripped Rachel’s hands. ‘In a moment I must bring you to the eye-tower. Dragwena will force you to undergo a severe test. I cannot warn you what it is, for that would betray me. It will not seem to be a test. It will come as a surprise and I will not be able to assist you. Do your best. I will try to protect you if I can.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Rachel said. ‘You saved me. I know you’ll help.’

  Tears splashed over Morpeth’s sunken cheeks. He knew he had already told Rachel too much about what would happen in the eye-tower. He must seem ruthless when he brought the child to the Witch – Dragwena would be watching him closely when he arrived, and others would be observing his every move on the way.