by B G Denvil
Without the slightest desire to join the dark shadow side, Ethelred simply hoped to learn something of unusual intrigue, to show off himself as no meagre half-grade after all, but as someone who knew much more than those in the seventies and even eighties. And there was something else. He wondered, although without much hope, whether a slight breath of the shadow might increase his power, although without the need to absorb the actual evil. He knew that envy and a thread of spite were his natural vices, and had no desire to increase the load. But a whiff, perhaps, of unusual knowledge, of smug understanding, and even a hint of danger to throw into the faces of those who despised him would be most welcome.
Not evil then. But power could be generous. And he craved the generosity of the red cup.
Crossing over Kettle Lane, Ethelred kept to the bank as he had heard, heading down towards the cobbles. The light had not yet died, and he saw ahead of him the sprig of soft pink roses sitting above their thorns and marking the spot where he could dig. He had brought a spade. And although his number was horribly low, he still had magic enough to dig a hole.
First on his knees, Ethelred opened the tiny entrance with his fingers, poking down into the hard-burned earth. He used magic, flowing from his hands, to break into the rock-hard surfaces. When his magic seeped low, he used the spade, and finally added what tired magic he could still summon to increase the power and speed.
It was quite dark when he realised that the spade was no longer digging, but instead was floating in space. And the space was exactly what he wanted. Ethelred sat on the edge of the ragged hole now open before him, and slipped inside. It was a long drop, and his final arrival was so deep into the earth, that all light seemed extinguished, and he stood, his knees shaking, in an unpleasant nothingness. Yet he saw, entirely clear as if a source of light itself, the red cup standing on the floor of the dug-out cave. It glowed entirely red. Ethelred crept forwards. His back bent, head down, for the roof was extremely low, he reached the place of the cup and knelt there, as if in reverence.
Nothing moved, not even himself, but he began to murmur, unsure whether he addressed the cup or himself.
“Do you have the patience, my lord, for one who wishes to remain his own master, who has no intention of turning evil, and who simply longs for more power? The power of good, and nothing either wicked or even unkind. Just stronger, able to show knowledge and wisdom. To give, but also to take a little. Will you help me?”
Not having expected an answer in words, Ethelred fell backwards when something spoke. The voice was soft and yet harsh. The words seemed to infiltrate his mind rather than his ears, and he could not open his eyes.
“I give,” oozed the words into his head. “I help. I will help you, if you touch me. I will empower you, if you kiss me. And I will love you, if you hold me to your heart.”
“That’s asking too much,” Ethelred whispered. “I dare not.”
“I cannot help the cowards of this world,” crooned the voice.
“I’ve never been a coward. Never.” Ethelred sat, facing the cup, drinking in the brilliance of its colour and the depth of its voice. “But if I kiss you, you’ll swallow me. I know it. I yearn for power and strength, not for evil. Give me one, but not the other.”
“What I give and what I take cannot be changed by the paltry wishes of any man, human or wiccan, good or bad.” A gentle slur had entered the words, a slithering of intense sweetness. Ethelred felt welcomed and understood. The red cup loved him and wished to help.
“And I can help you too,” Ethelred hurried to say. “I will carry you wherever you wish me to take you. I could wrap you in my cape, and no one would see you, unless you wish to be seen. Will you give me the power to do good, to shine as you do, and to impress others?”
“I have power to share,” slithered the voice.
“And you won’t tempt me into evil?” he asked.
“Your temptations,” the voice answered, sickly sweet, “will be your own.”
Ethelred waited. It was his own voice, and not the cup’s, that warned him and repeated his own careful advice. This thing can produce real evil. Why dabble? Its power is a thousand times greater than yours, and it cannot be trusted. You are risking more than you can manage.
His inner warnings were urgent, yet his inner desire was stronger. For a moment he drew back, fisting his hands, and there was silence. But then, with a careful but shivering finger, Ethelred stretched out and briefly touched the rim of the cup. He found it faintly warm and somehow pleasant.
Leaning back again, he sat silent, trying to speak the wisdom that he had asked for. Wisdom could surely never encourage playing with evil. But the shadow side was a ladder of experiments. There were layers, as there were with the great goodness of the natural world. Everything had its extremes, and Ethelred wanted none of those. “Power,” he repeated. “If you’d share just one tiny speck of your power with me, perhaps. My number is thirty-four. When I’m tired or miserable, it sinks. I know I can fall to twenty-nine, and that’s dismal. Can you bring me up to – if you’d be so kind – maybe a sweet seventy?”
The voice was so deep, it seemed to speak from deeper underground, but the gravel-leaking depth remained sweet. The sweetness lurked like a sword of sugar. “I am a cup of power,” it told him. “My great charity and kindness are famed across the world. I commit great deeds of wonder and lavish my glistening embraces to all who ask, and are prepared to love me in return.”
Again, Ethelred reached out, still timid and careful, and slid one finger around the cup’s lip. It somehow slipped immediately into his grasp, and finding it in his arms, he held it with pride, feeling its power against his palms and watching as the glowing red spun its beams into a climax of rich crimson, sweeping that light across his face.
Adoring the rich warm, Ethelred continued to hold and enjoy, wallowing in the sense of power that leapt from the cup into his mind, and the delight of grandeur which slipped through his skin.
So, loving it, he bent and kissed the cup as had been asked. His palms, pulsing with the feel of it, grasped the width of it, his fingers creeping inside as he clutched, and knew the immediate growth of his power as his lips pressed against the cinnabar.
Although unaware while knowing only the power of its seeping generosity, Ethelred fell back, unconscious. Joy swept him. The other sensations that crept from deep within the joy and trickled down his throat, through his eyes, into his mind, into his heart and into his character, remained unnamed, and as his power swelled like burning lava within, he reached a pounding sixty-eight, doubling his previous grade.
Lying without comprehension, Ethelred was content. He did not know the games the cup played within him as he slept.
It was sometime later that he woke, stumbled up, wrapped the cup within his cape and climbed from the hole back across the lane to his home within The Rookery. He was aware that climbing out had seemed so much easier than he would have expected, knowing its depth. But power was, after all, what he had asked for.
Seventeen
Peg burst back in a snowstorm. Her hair was stiff with icicles, and one larger icicle hung from the end of her nose. Her clothes were smothered in snow, her hands were blue, she had lost her cup, and her feet were sloshing deep in her ice-filled shoes. She could not speak, shivering and trembling and shedding both snow and ice across the table and the rug beneath.
Several of the residents, first Rosie and Edna, ran to hug her and rub her warm and dry. Rosie sent a quick blast of warm breeze which blew all the napkins off the table and sent icicles like little knives into the walls where they hung for a few moments and then melted into small puddles.
With Edna’s arms around her, and Rosie clutching both her hands, Pixie rubbing her hair with a rescued napkin and Uta cuddling her neck, Peg gradually began to dry off, although a few specks of snow remained on her skirts.
“Don’t ask.” She shook her head, and the final icicle fell out and dripped down the back of her neck.
“So
mewhere a little chilly?” Harry Flash grinned.
“It seems to have been some Pole or other,” Peg admitted. “Although I couldn’t see any poles. All I could see was ice and snow and a pale sky behind all the snow, and huge lumps of ice like mountains floating about in the sea.” She looked pleadingly up at Rosie. “Don’t ever let me go there again. They have big white furry animals too, like enormous white cats, but nothing like you, my dear. A hundred times bigger, and a hundred times fiercer.”
“Then whatever spell you said upside down last time,” advised Edna, “don’t say it again.”
“Poor darling,” murmured Rosie, which made Maggs smile.
Maggs had not entirely enjoyed the evening, in spite of the food, which she thought was heaven manifested. But the people were somewhat more eccentric than she would have liked, did very upsetting things like telling their helpings of meat from the platters to warm themselves up, whereas the previously unknown thing called chocolate made her feel positively strange. Happy – but strange. Mandrake had chatted cheerfully with many of the crowd, but she had not known what to say, and the alarming disappearance and even more alarming reappearance of Peg had seemed positively ghastly.
Maggs relished her clothes, watched her arms swing in their blue silk as she reached for food and adored the incredible perfumes that wafted from platter to platter. She knew she had drunk just a little too much wine, but that was the only thing which had kept her going.
Even Mandrake had done little to reassure her. He had passed her the food, cut her meat, refilled her cup and occasionally leant over to kiss her cheek or pat her hand, but she needed more. She felt like a beautifully gowned but vulnerable bird with blue plumage, in a forest of hungry cats and disdainful stags. Personal introductions had not occurred.
But she waved at Peg once the woman was entirely thawed and seemingly back to normal. The man sitting next to her had actually introduced himself as Dandy Duckett, but then continued to eat non-stop. The woman on the other side of Peg smiled, called hello, but no more. Even Rosie had seemed more engrossed with Edna than with making Maggs feel at home. Then, with Peg’s return, it seemed that everyone was absorbed with her, either laughing at her or laughing with her.
She finished her venison and turned to Mandrake. “I think I ought to go home,” she said.
Immediately concerned, Mandrake asked, “Why, my love? Don’t you like my friends? But you do seem to like the food.”
“The food is magnificent. The wine is magnificent. The whole table setting is magnificent and so are my wonderful clothes. But everyone studiously ignores me.”
“Oh dear, my adorable Maggs.” Mandrake grinned back at her. “That’s only because I told everyone to act normally, in case they frightened the life out of you or embarrassed you or something. I don’t want to make you shy.” Abruptly, he looked up. “Everyone,” he shouted over the general clank and buzz. “My lovely fiancée wishes to make herself known instead of ignored. So come on you dullards, say hello. This is Margaret Bank, and she’s human, but that’s not her fault. Meet and greet, and make my beloved feel welcome.”
Everything changed at once.
Several of the women hopped up and came around the table to hug her, squeeze her hand or even to kiss her on both cheeks.
“My dear, welcome to our Rookery – crows, all of us. My name is Uta, ask me anything you like.”
“No, not quite like that. We all have different specialities, although it partially depends on our magical strengths. Those with a grade less than sixty can rarely fly, but they still have other skills.”
“My name is Percy, and I’m delighted to meet you, Mistress Margaret. The only humans I ever meet are drunken fellows at the tavern. So this is an honour and a pleasure.”
“Will you stay in the tree house, Maggs? I’ve never been in there, but it sounds delightful.”
“Now, do tell us all about yourself, my dear. You’ve had a difficult life before meeting Mandrake, I’ve heard. But you’ll be well-protected now. There’s no better protection than a strongly graded wizard.”
“And dear Mandrake says nothing about anything these days, except about the love of his life, Lady Margaret. Adoration, you know. Absolute adoration He’s become an obsessive bore.”
With grateful smiles, trying hard to remember names, and the first signs of this new delight, Maggs was clearly enjoying herself at last. It was now dark with the stars poking their noses through the windows, so at last Peg, Edna and Rosie felt free to disappear and hurry over Kettle Lane to the opposite bank and search for the red cup.
Each brought a cloak, and both Rosie and Edna brought spades, their scoops quickly covered in a thick layer of grit and mud.
Scuttling across the lane with no one to see them except a sliver of moon and the first abundance of star sprigs, hugging their cloaks around them, they bounced up onto the opposite bank and stared through the darkness for the sign ahead, indicating the beginning of the tunnel.
“Roses for Rosie,” smiled Edna.
Within moments they saw the spray of briar roses and crossed to the exact spot, and there they stood, staring in alarm and deep disappointment. The wide hole which had been dug there was large enough for a man of any size, and it continued deep enough to reach whatever lay below. Someone had beaten them to it.
“The only one who heard any of our discussion, was Mandrake,” Edna said through gritted teeth.
“No,” Rosie said at once. “This was done by someone who didn’t come to the feast. Mandrake was there all the time, and before the supper started, this place was untouched. I looked.”
“So who didn’t attend our supper?”
“Bertie,” Peg said. “And he’s strong enough to achieve whatever he wants, and work out the place to look and everything else too, if he’s been listening.”
“If he’s even been remotely interested. He certainly never showed a single sign of interest in red cups, dark shadows or anything else beyond his own studies.”
“That’s the best way to stay unnoticed,” added Peg. “The casually disinterested wizard is always the last to be suspected.”
“But there were others too,” Rosie frowned.
“Gorgeous didn’t come. She hardly ever does. But it can’t possibly be her.”
“Toby didn’t come and nor did Ethelred.”
“Right,” Rosie said, peering down into the gaping hole. “It’s between those two, and we need to question both. I’m surprised, and I wouldn’t have suspected either of them. Either that, or it’s someone completely outside The Rookery. There’s Dickon, though he’s too silly. There’s Joan and Alid; they’re clearly affected already. And in the village, there could be others.”
“There’s Alice.”
“But there isn’t Alice,” Peg said. “We know she made the original tunnel. But how can a bug that size make a hole this size in just a few hours?”
“We’re wasting time,” Rosie said. “If I’d come as soon as Whistle told us, this couldn’t have happened. I thought we were safe, but I shouldn’t ever think that. We’re never safe with the shadows around.”
“We’ve survived for centuries without the red cup poking its nose into our lives,” Edna objected.
“Probably because it was off threatening other witches in other countries. Now we have the pleasure of its presence in England, and it’s up to us to do something about it.”
“We’re still wasting time,” Rosie said, one foot hovering over the black openness. “I’m going in, but I’m risking flight into the ogre’s jaws. I’m going in slowly and carefully, and I’ll call back when I think it’s safe.”
Peg began to remonstrate, but then snapped her mouth shut. Arguing with the new ninety-eight grade Rosie was pointless.
Abruptly, Rosie began to change. She shrank, and her face paled. She kept her arms tight to her sides, bending a little from the neck. Within three blinks, the fluff thick little cat was scampering to the hole, and in one more blink, it had disappeared. They
heard its claws scraping down the sides of the earth, and after quite some time, they heard the faint resonance of a bump as she landed.
It was not the kitten now, but Rosie’s own voice which echoed up to the others.
“It’s entirely empty down here, except for the smell. Do you want to fly down?”
Flying took only a moment, and then the three women were standing in the low-roofed cave, staring at the precise lack of anything to see. Edna and Rosie had to bend their backs, but Peg was the right height. She walked over the hard earth to the centre beneath the opening. “Look,” she said, pointing down at her toes. “This is where it was. There’s a rough stain, as if the cup was so vile, the earth felt sick. And the whole place stinks.”
“Footprints?” asked Rosie, unable to see any herself.
The other two shook their heads. “Not a thing.”
“Then we start with Ethelred and Toby,” she said. “And if we decide it’s not them, I’ll visit out delightful sheriff. Hopefully Whistle will come back and help.”
One at a time they flew from the underground cave and reappeared on the bank, crossed back over Kettle Lane and re-entered The Rookery. They each looked distinctly disappointed and were relieved to see the dining table empty, food scraps thrown to the animals and birds outside, and everything else washed, dried and stacked with a click of Uta’s fingers.
“Now – or tomorrow morning?” asked Peg.
“Now,” Rosie answered quickly. “I should never have waited before. And we’ll go together in case one of us catches a clue that the others miss. First – who?”
“Together?”
“No, one at a time in their own rooms.”
“But probably asleep considering the time.”
