Starborn

by Toby Forward

  Tim led them through the town, back to the gate. He slipped through first and sat waiting for them to follow. Tadpole, now that he knew what he was doing, wrapped himself in his cloak. Jackbones stayed solid and just gave the guards a curt nod. They weren’t so bothered about people leaving.

  The sky was grey and low. A fine drizzle settled on them, jewel-dusting the shoulders of Tadpole’s cloak. Jackbones led them on, his staff bruising the path.

  When they were clear, Tim sat down, lifted his hind leg and scratched his ear. He looked up at them, expectantly.

  “Where now?” asked Tadpole.

  Tim turned his head to one side.

  “Come on, boy,” said Tadpole. “Take us to Cabbage.”

  “You’ll have to do that, lad,” said Jackbones.

  “I don’t know where he is.”

  “No. But neither does Tim. Do you, boy?”

  Tim gave a doggy grin.

  “He just wanted to be out and away.”

  Tim ran in circles round them.

  “See? Away from Smedge and college.”

  “Does it rain a lot Up Top?”

  “What do you think?”

  “No.”

  “No it is, then.”

  “What shall we do?”

  “Walk with me,” said Jackbones. “Follow the road. See where the way leads.”

  “Really?”

  “Why not?”

  Tadpole found himself shouting at Jackbones. “This isn’t right. It isn’t right, at all. I came Up Top just to see the stars. Just to — hey, where are you going?”

  Jackbones had set off. Tim sat waiting.

  “I’m talking to you,” shouted Tadpole.

  Jackbones carried on walking. Tadpole ran to catch him up.

  “We can’t just go anywhere. Listen, I came to see the stars.”

  “You said that.”

  “I came to see the stars, and to see some magic. And I wanted to know what it was like Up Top. Just for a day. Just until the kravvins were all gone and it was safe to come up properly. I couldn’t wait. That’s all. I came because Up Top is beautiful and strange and different. But it’s horrible. It’s killing. And rain. And clouds. And I mean I like the rain. It’s lovely. And the clouds are, well, I love the clouds because we don’t have clouds in the Deep World. And I love the bigness of everything and the way the sky never ends. But it’s all wrong.”

  He stopped and Jackbones carried on.

  Tadpole shouted at the top of his voice. “It’s all wrong. It’s not what I want. I want to see the stars.”

  Jackbones stopped and looked over his shoulder.

  “I want magic,” Tadpole shouted. “For me. I want to do magic.”

  He covered his face with his cloak, slipped his roffle pack off his shoulder, sat on it and started to cry.

  Tim pushed his face under the cloak and licked the back of Tadpole’s hand. Jackbones came back along the road and laid his hand on the roffle’s shoulder.

  “Go away,” said Tadpole. His voice was muffled by the cloak.

  Jackbones walked away.

  “No. I didn’t mean it. Come back, please.”

  Tadpole lifted the edge of the cloak and looked. Jackbones waited.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean go away.”

  Jackbones held his staff in both hands and leaned on it as he replied, “Say what you mean, Tadpole. Always say what you mean. Frastfil lies. Smedge lies. Ash lies. Don’t slip into that. Even by saying what you feel, rather than what you mean.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Take Frastfil. He never meant to tell lies. But under his leadership the college got worse and worse. He could see it, but he didn’t like it. So he pretended to himself that everything was all right. He pretended to other people that it was all right. He convinced himself that Ash is good, so that she would help him. In the end, he couldn’t tell the truth from a lie. So just say what you mean.”

  Tim licked Tadpole’s face, and he was glad to have the tears disappear without having to wipe them away himself. It was as though he hadn’t been crying at all.

  “Shall we walk on?” asked Jackbones.

  “Where to?”

  “We’ll see.”

  Tadpole nodded.

  Tim ran ahead, darting back to lick Tadpole’s hand again before running on.

  “I’m sorry I shouted.”

  “No need to be. Shouting clears the head. And at least I know what you want, now. I’m sorry that Up Top is such a disappointment.”

  “It’s not.”

  Jackbones smiled at him. “No?”

  “No. Yes. I mean…”

  “Say what you mean.”

  “If I’d seen the things I wanted to see first, then I would like the other things better.”

  “Everything?”

  “Not Smedge. Or the stink in the college. Or Frastfil. Not them.”

  “Or the kravvins?”

  “That’s it,” said Tadpole. “That’s just it. The bad’s mixed in with the good. That’s what I don’t like.”

  They walked together in silence for a while. The drizzle was turning to hard rain. Tadpole wanted to ask where they were going.

  “Jackbones?”

  “Yes.”

  “The woman in the library?”

  “Springmile?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “What about her?”

  “She said that you did something wrong.”

  “Yes.”

  “What was it?”

  They walked in silence again.

  “I wish I’d met Flaxfield,” said Tadpole.

  “Ah, he was a great man. A great wizard. Do you know, things were getting bad before he died, but since then, it’s worse, much worse.”

  “What was he like?”

  “He was like a town. Like a country. There was so much to him, so many aspects. You think you know a place and then, you turn a corner and there’s a street you’ve never seen before, a house you’ve never visited, a row of shops selling goods you never imagined. That’s what Flaxfield was like.”

  Tadpole didn’t really understand this.

  “Was he kind?”

  “Kind? No.”

  “No? Why not?”

  The road was getting more difficult. Puddles and mud slowed them down. Tadpole’s feet grew heavy and clumsy.

  “He was gentle. He was fair. He was honest. That’s better than kind.”

  Tadpole stopped.

  “What’s the point?” he said.

  “The point?”

  “What’s the point of just walking? We don’t know where we’re going. Have you any idea where Cabbage is?”

  “None at all.”

  “So let’s stop. I’m tired.”

  Jackbones waited.

  “Well?” asked Tadpole.

  “What do you want?”

  Tadpole shook his head.

  “Remember you said, back there, that you want to be able to do magic?”

  “I was just shouting.”

  “Tadpole. Say what you mean. Remember?”

  “Yes.”

  “You just have to learn that roffles don’t have magic. Never have. I can help with magic, if that’s what you want. Is it?”

  “Yes.” Tadpole spoke with such fierceness that he surprised himself. “Yes. Use your magic. Take us out of here. Get us warm and dry. I’m fed up.”

  “All right. Where shall we go?”

  “To Waterburn.”

  “I don’t know where that is. Think again.”

  Tadpole closed his eyes and pictured Flaxfold’s kitchen. He made sure that Smedge wasn’t there. Axestone and Eloise were dead. Waterburn was struggling. Tadpole clenched his teeth. His hand went to the knife in his belt. He closed his fist around it. Starback swooped in. December was crushing kravvins. December? Tadpole opened his eyes.

  “What about December?” he asked.

  “What about her?”

  “I think she might have got aw
ay. Not been killed. Remember?”

  “Yes.”

  “We can go to her. Where does she live?”

  Jackbones rubbed his hands with pleasure. “There you are,” he said. “I told you.”

  “Told me what?”

  “Told you that if we just followed the road, we’d know where it led. It leads to December.”

  “Can you get us there?”

  “It’s many days away.”

  “With magic?”

  “With magic, no time at all.”

  Tim jumped up and down and barked, wagging his tail. Tadpole would have wagged his if he had one. He just had to make do with jumping.

  “Where does she live?”

  “At the mines,” said Jackbones. “Let’s go.”

  The pleasure drained from Tadpole. He stood still.

  “The mines?”

  “Yes. Are you ready?”

  THE MINES

  Do not go to the mines.

  The barrier that prevents magic from coming into the Deep World is very thin in the mines, and it gets muddled.

  The miners are special men. They’re hard-bodied, strong and determined.

  They live in darkness most of the year. Without them, there would be no kettles or pans, no iron stoves or ploughs. They provide the metal for swords and shields, knives and spearheads. Theirs is the life that gives comfort and strength to others. They work in darkness so that the rest can prosper in the light.

  And they guard the boundary between Up Top and the Deep World.

  Long ago, roffles helped in the mines.

  They didn’t dig for the ore.

  They watched over the work. They cleared away debris from roof falls. They could squeeze into places too small for men, and rescue buried miners.

  And when the miners died, their Finishings were deep below ground. Roffles carried them on their last journeys. Special roffles. Roffles who had given up the everlasting light of the Deep World for the everlasting darkness of the mines.

  These roffles spoke little. They forgot their riddles and their roffle talk.

  When the wild magic broke through into Up Top, the roffles left the mines. It became too dangerous, even for them.

  The wild magic seeped into the mines and made trouble.

  Explosions ripped through the tunnels. Fire raced through, consuming everyone. The flames became burning wolves, chasing men and consuming them.

  Roof props snapped and turned into poisonous snakes. Miners raced deeper underground to escape them and died, hewing agony out of the rock.

  For years the mines were not worked.

  As the wild magic died down and was locked in Boolat, the miners returned, but the roffles didn’t.

  The magic is still muddled in the mines. And now it is malicious. It lurks, weakened, but ready to strike.

  The miners live with it. Sometimes, they die from it. Always, they are aware of the dangers. But the mines are their life. And the mines are the life of everyone Up Top.

  The first magic came from a mirror.

  The mirror came from metal.

  The metal came from ore.

  The ore came from the mines.

  Where magic began, magic runs wild.

  Where magic began, magic destroys.

  Where magic began, who knows what can happen?

  Stay away from the mines.

  Tadpole shrugged at the straps of his roffle pack. It helped him to think.

  “Do you think she’s there?” he asked. “She might have died.”

  “They all might be dead,” said Jackbones. “We don’t know. If she’s alive, that’s most likely where she’ll be.”

  “Does she live in a mine?”

  “What do you think?”

  “How would I know? It’s Up Top. Anything could happen.”

  Jackbones smiled, more to himself than to Tadpole. “Sorry. Of course it is. I keep forgetting how new this is to you. No, she doesn’t live in a mine. She lives in a village where the people are miners. That’s all.”

  “Why?”

  “Because people need a wizard. To help them. Someone for when babies are born. For when people die. Someone to bind broken limbs. To make soothing potions and salves. December does this for the people in the mines.”

  Tadpole sniffed. “It doesn’t sound like wizard work.”

  “Much of it isn’t. But there’s magic needed as well. And she does that for them.”

  Tadpole looked around him. The evening was shuffling in, taking possession of the fields and the lane. The rain was steady, indifferent. He looked up at the darkling sky.

  “There’ll be no stars tonight,” said Jackbones.

  “You can get us there quickly? By magic?”

  “With your help, I can.”

  “Why do you need my help?”

  Jackbones took his staff and held it out to Tadpole. “Take it.”

  Tadpole grasped the staff, and the two of them were joined at either end of it.

  “Side by side,” said Jackbones.

  They stood, grasping the staff in both hands, like beasts harnessed for the plough. Jackbones started to chant, his voice low, soft, almost beneath hearing. As Tadpole looked, a gatepost began to glow. A gap in the hedge joined it, their lights reflecting back. A tree stump. A boulder at the field edge. All glowed.

  “Stop it,” said Tadpole. “Stop it. You can’t.”

  He tore his hands away from the staff and jumped clear of Jackbones.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded. “That’s not allowed.”

  “You want to go somewhere warm and dry, where there’s food and a bed?”

  “Not that way.”

  “I found the way in. Now you have to take me.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You said you’d help.”

  Jackbones lifted the staff and the glowing returned, each one a roffle hole, an opening to the Deep World.

  “I can find them by magic,” said Jackbones. “And, if I want to, I can go in. But I can’t find my way around. Very few Up Top people can do that.”

  “No one can. Only roffles. Stop it. Stop them glowing. People mustn’t see them.”

  “Which one shall we use?”

  “None of them. We can’t.”

  Jackbones moved to the tree stump. He put a foot inside the roffle hole. Once he had made sure he was in and couldn’t lose it again, he rapped the staff on the ground. The glowing entrances faded and were gone. No sign of any way into the Deep World.

  “Come back,” shouted Tadpole.

  Jackbones turned his back and disappeared. Tadpole ran after him.

  Jackbones was waiting just inside. There was a tunnel, with branches leading off. Along one of the paths there was a door. The others led away. It was gloomy, damp, unwelcoming.

  Tadpole stood very close. He put himself between Jackbones and the door.

  “You’ve made a mistake,” he said. “I don’t know how to do this. You have to be taught. If I went through the door I could find my way home, probably. At any rate, someone would help me. But I can’t just find my way to the mines. I’ve never done this before. You know that.”

  “I do. And I know something else. I know you’ve got a guide.”

  “You can’t see that.” Tadpole sat down on his roffle pack and crossed his arms.

  Jackbones walked away, along one of the tunnels. He came back and walked towards the door. Putting his hand to it he pushed. The door moved open a crack. Light tumbled in. He held the door ajar, not looking through it.

  “I could take you a different way,” he said. “Up Top. Fast. The trouble is, magic leaves a trail. There’s a lot of magic about at the moment. Bursts of it. Too many to notice. But if I used the magic I need to get us to the mines, it would be noticed. It would lead Ash to us. It would send Smedge to us. And kravvins. And takkabakks. I can’t risk it.”

  Now that Jackbones was a distance from him, Tadpole stood up and opened the roffle pack. He took out the guide book.

 
; “There are maps,” he said. “And diagrams. I think I can understand them.”

  “Do you know,” said Jackbones, “at every big moment in Up Top history, for as long as anyone can remember, there’s been a roffle, helping out?”

  “Has there?”

  “You’re that roffle, now.”

  Tadpole looked at the map, not trusting himself to look at Jackbones.

  “I’m just an accident,” he said. “I shouldn’t have come Up Top.”

  Jackbones kept his back to the door. His face was dark, his head framed by the light. “No accidents,” he said. “Can you see a way to the mines?”

  “I wanted to find one through the tunnels, but I can’t. They’re all near the surface and the same as the roads above them. The only fast way is into the Deep World itself and out through another door.”

  “Lead on.”

  “I’m not allowed to. It’s forbidden.”

  Tadpole closed the book and put it away. He shrugged. “There’s nothing I can do. I can go to the mines alone. But I have to leave you here.”

  “What good would that do?” asked Jackbones. “You heard Springmile. We have to go together.”

  “Up Top people aren’t allowed down there any more. It’s not like the old days. I’m not allowed to take you in.”

  “Then we may as well forget it,” said Jackbones. “You go home. I’ll go back Up Top and see what I can do.” He came to Tadpole and held out his hand to shake. “Goodbye, Tadpole. It was good knowing you. I’m sorry I was wrong.”

  “Wrong? What do you mean, wrong?”

  “I thought you were the roffle. The one who’s always around when we need one. I thought you had a job and a reason to come to us Up Top. I thought you were someone, not just an accident.”

  Tadpole glared at him. He wanted to hit him. He wanted to make a magic spell and turn him into a centipede. He slung his roffle pack on to his shoulders, barged past Jackbones, knocking him to one side, and almost ran to the door to the Deep World.

  “Come on,” he called. “Don’t dawdle.”

  Tadpole threw the door open and walked out of sight. Jackbones smiled and followed.

  “Close the door behind you,” said Tadpole.

  Jackbones closed it and looked around at the Deep World.

  After the never-ending light of the Deep World Tadpole felt a strange pleasure in stepping out into the damp night of the village by the mines.

  He breathed deeply and looked up at the cloudy sky.