Ferryl Shayde - Book 3 - A Very Different Game

by Vance Huxley

  “I will be lodging with Kelis and coming to Stourton Comprehensive after Christmas.” Fay held out a hand. “I am Fay Shayde, from Germany. Pleased to meet you, Una. Kelis and her friends told me about you, and your sword.”

  The attempted diversion didn’t work, for once. Una stayed much too interested in the new mystery girl from Germany with a familiar name to be sidetracked into talking about her sword or boots. The polite interrogation helped in a way because it allowed Ferryl, Abel, Kelis, and Rob, then Jenny when they picked her up, to practice the story. At least Ferryl had a good excuse for going to the solicitor, a sheaf of papers she brandished when the subject came up. Una had heard of Shannon’s visit to Woods and Green and had no intention of sitting in there for hours. She drove off to visit Frederick’s house to catch up with gossip.

  Just as well, because this time the group weren’t split up. After checking that everyone knew exactly who Woods and Green were, Terese Green dealt with them. “Does your name mean you are a partner?” Kelis looked a little embarrassed. “Sorry, but Abel told us Woods is incredibly ancient and you aren’t.”

  “You shouldn’t ask a lady her age.” Terese’s little smile took any sting out of the words. “Or try to work out her age from her appearance, especially if she needs a history book to calculate the answer. I am the junior partner, and consider myself very lucky to be. My predecessor only lasted four hundred years, but times were more turbulent back then.” She watched with a little smile as the four humans decided against asking when that might have been, though they all really wanted to know.

  Ferryl took pity on them, putting the papers on the desk. “I would definitely prefer an abacus to work out my age. I would feel more comfortable if you had a Greek one, left to right. The right to left versions confused me.”

  “I only ever used one type so I never had that problem, though Woods might have come across others.” Terese picked up the papers and glanced through them. “Your signature is precise considering how extravagant it is.”

  “My first signatures, ever. I enjoyed signing papers.” Ferryl leant forward a little. “Are they in order? I have already arranged to lodge with Mrs. Ventner in Brinsford.”

  “I will need one other signature. Mr Conroy?” The solicitor pushed a paper forward. “This authorises us to free the funds to create Mz. Shayde’s legacy. While not extravagant, it will affect your income for the next three years and eventually add up to a substantial sum.”

  “But I can do this without anyone else knowing?” Terese nodded so Abel signed, smiling quietly at the little tut from Kelis. He probably wouldn’t have understood the wording if he’d read it. Either Abel trusted the solicitor, or he was stuffed. “We have been looking at ways to free up a lump sum in cash.” Abel pulled his pack onto his knee and started to remove the items. Rob and Kelis followed suit. “These were in the house, so according to you and the toad we can sell them. Unfortunately, we can’t just produce them out of thin air.”

  “Ah, right. I thought of something. Boot sales and markets. I found a bit on the internet where people bought things for a few quid and made thousands, even without a receipt.” Jenny looked a bit embarrassed. “I couldn’t tell you with Una there, and by the time we could talk freely I’d forgotten. We’d still have to wait while things were valued.”

  “Then we can give the money to our parents if we want. That’s if Abel still wants to go for splitting the loot. It’s all yours you know, not ours.” Kelis’s quiet smile at Abel turned into a smirk as she turned to Rob. “Though as ex-girlfriends, me and Jenny have a better chance of any loot than Rob.”

  “I keep telling you we are all in this together, the five Taverners. Otherwise I’ll get all snooty and big-headed.” Abel almost reached out to take Kelis’s hand, then remembered he shouldn’t. That stupid link might connect again. Instead he turned back to Terese Green. “Once I’m eighteen we’ll talk about making that legal. Jenny, for one, needs her own clump of trees so she can giggle in private.”

  “If you still feel the same way, we will advise you. Woods mentioned you have a refreshingly different outlook. May I offer my personal thanks. That coin was a knife in his heart.” Terese straightened, becoming more business-like. “I cannot advise on the best way to present these openly, except to offer receipts for them. Those will show you bought them recently, legitimately, at a value similar to their current one. The main problem with that is you can’t explain how you paid for them.”

  “But if we bought some for pennies along with some really worthless rubbish?” Kelis unwrapped the two books. “If I bought these from a market stall, then discovered they were two hundred years old, we’d pocket about four grand.”

  “Then I could discover these vases at a jumble sale, Rob could buy a couple of those ornaments or the coins from a boot sale, and Jenny can discover that jewellery among some tat.” Abel held up a vase. “That should work?”

  “My apologies. I didn’t ask how much you wanted. The vase you are holding would make national news, as would several of these items. A similar vase brought over three hundred thousand pounds in a recent auction. Those coins would bring a lot of attention, because they are probably the only complete set in the world that aren’t badly worn or damaged.” Terese smiled at the shock on the faces in front of her, even Ferryl’s. “In common with many senior sorcerers, Celtchar collected exceptional treasures, items that weren’t made magically. Others like the coins are valuable because sorcerers keep items for hundreds of years. The books are rare now but not then, so he probably bought them for their content rather than value. The jewellery is relatively low-valued, a few thousand pounds for each piece.”

  “That came from a dummy wearing the full outfit, hat, dress, boots, all of it.” Jenny eyed the necklace in Terese’s hands and sighed. “I’d love to find an excuse to wear it, all of it.”

  “That ensemble was Celtchar’s, and explains why this jewellery isn’t more valuable. He would travel around dressed like a moderately affluent merchant’s widow, with a bound servant girl.” Now the solicitor looked as if she’d sucked something really nasty. “Since he didn’t use a seeming he could get close to the wives and daughters of the rich and famous or politically powerful without magical hexes detecting him. Once they were alone, he could use magic to gain influence or blackmail material. Such women would never have been left alone with a strange man.”

  “A cross-dressing sorcerer? Yeuk. Though I still like the dress.” Jenny concentrated on the necklace. “So, Abel could sell those without causing a big fuss?”

  “Just don’t repeat it too often or it becomes a business and you’ll be taxed. If you stray over your allowances, there will be Capital Gains Tax. We have an accountancy section to minimise your liability of course, though if the items are sold through the magical community the liability will be much less.” She smiled quietly at the looks from the teenagers. “Yes, there is the magical equivalent of HM tax collectors, but they are nothing like as greedy.” After some more discussion on the best items to sell, and warnings about overdoing it, the meeting broke up. Before they left, Terese repeated her offer to supply receipts for more expensive items at some time in the future.

  As the rest left the office Abel turned back, waving them on to keep going. Terese promised to look into the extra matters for him, without ever mentioning it to the rest. As she pointed out, she was his solicitor, not theirs.

  The rest of the visit to Stourton turned out to be a lot of fun. The five of them wandered through the Christmas market and the attached boot sale, buying silly bits of this and that. Jenny collected some truly tacky rings, brooches and necklaces from four different stalls, ideal for her Bonny the Barmaid costume. Rob couldn’t find suitable ornaments or coins, but he discovered a big plastic sword with plastic gems on the hilt. It would be perfect for his barbarian costume. He also bought a box of battered lead soldiers, for the lead rather than the figures. Abel splashed out on a real leather jerkin, a cheap second-hand sleeveless one tha
t the bloke on the stall swore would be perfect for a building site. From the look it had already been on a couple, just the thing for a hardworking sprite hunter. He picked out a couple of cheap vases and two framed prints, from a stall full of assorted rubbish the man reckoned came from his grandma’s house. Ferryl collected a selection of crystals, because they would be easier to turn into magical diamonds than pebbles. Kelis kept searching for wands or small staffs, but couldn’t find the right look. She settled on three reels of thin steel wire, for Ferryl to use with her crystals, and two old books from a stall full of them. She also bought a pair of black driving gloves, the ones that left the palms uncovered, so she could still cast glyphs while keeping her hands warm.

  When Una finally picked them up she had news. Claris wanted to come to the New Year’s bash at Laurence’s, to apologise to everyone and thank them. She would be going home to her mum in the New Year, before school started again, so she wouldn’t catch everyone together again. Claris had asked Laurence when he came by, but he wanted Abel or Kelis to okay it. That wasn’t a problem for either of them. Claris had been warded against magic, so it didn’t matter if she saw the Tavern hunting the fursomnium.

  Una dropped Jenny off at home, clutching her purchases. She kissed Rob and Abel on the cheek, for Christmas, and more or less skipped up her path. Rob, Kelis and Abel had agreed that if she could come up with a viable game character to wear late Victorian dress, Jenny could use the one in Castle House. The three of them weren’t sure it would fit her, but were certain Jenny would get around it somehow.

  ∼∼

  Christmas morning Abel smiled quietly as his mum oohed and aahed over the pair of earrings with small gold leaves dangling from a central diamond. Later all four teenagers exchanged glances as Rob’s mum and Kelis’s showed off their necklace and brooch. None of them suspected the gifts were anything but paste or maybe crystal. They could compare because all three families spent most of Christmas at Kelis’s house.

  Mrs. Ventner didn’t throw a party this year, because she didn’t have the money. Instead the other two families took food around and helped to cook it and set out the table, so they all ate together anyway. Abel’s mum supplied the cake, of course. The Tavern game, and the three mums being directors, had drawn the three families even tighter together over the last year. This time Melanie insisted on coming into Bonny’s Tavern to play the game with them, so Ferryl couldn’t cheat and Zephyr couldn’t play. At least that gave the others a chance. Despite her still not being a playable character, Melanie insisted that today she could be Cackle the Crone. After all she had the hat, and a toy fox as her familiar.

  The only slight hiccup came as Abel’s and Rob’s family left. A hare with white stripes sat in the middle of the lawn watching them. With a sudden pang of guilt, Abel realised that with Ferryl living in Kelis’s house she must have forgotten to give the leech its daily magic. The sudden shocked look from Ferryl confirmed it, though she recovered. “Ooh, a pet hare. Who does it belong to?” Nobody knew so Ferryl, as Fay, insisted on petting it. The hare let her close, of course, so she could provide a good dose of magic while stroking its ears. By then Melanie had gone to stroke the hare, then Rob’s older sister Samantha, until even the parents joined in. It added a really different, genuinely magical end to Christmas.

  ∼∼

  Over the next couple of days Abel found himself tempted again and again. He wanted to see his mum’s face when she found out her earrings would buy her a replacement for her ailing car. Not new, but a good, reliable second-hand one. Abel would have loved to take her to a showroom and offer her anything she liked, but that could take a year or two. Kelis, Rob and Jenny were all tempted going by their occasional comments, but the big reveal had to wait until they’d been to town. That took some of the fun out of it, because they’d be meeting Creepio.

  In the interim, the teenagers had a new skill to practice. They’d already practiced the theory to turn earth into almost-rock, but reaching deep inside their own skin would be a new application. Ferryl had wanted everyone to put a glyph under the skin for drawing extra magic from storage belts, so they didn’t run out during a fight. They’d all perfected drawing the magic by putting a thumb on the belts, which didn’t involve possible pain and scarring so the urgency had gone out of the skin glyphs. Now the trees in Dead Wood, and chunks of dead branch carried inside to avoid the weather, suffered magical assault. Again, and again the etching appeared on the surface, or the surface twisted and splintered, but gradually the visible damage grew less. At least the trainees could work on the test pieces in Castle House. Kelis’s mum might have worried about them dragging branches into her house.

  Practice had to stop for the meeting Creepio had arranged. Jenny’s dad must have been pleased with her work on Bonny’s Tavern, because he offered to run them all into town. He solved the usual problem of getting a driver to Brinsford, and at least this time having him along wouldn’t cause any problems. This meeting, with a vicar, would allegedly address any problems the church had with Bonny’s Tavern being linked to a leased church.

  Abel phoned Creepio to tell him about Mr Forester, so the vicar could insist on talking to the actual designers of the game. After all these alleged meetings about it, Abel hoped the church finally let them have the place, especially now he could finance the lease through the allegedly charitable donations.

  For once Jenny stayed relatively quiet and subdued on the way into town. So did the rest, there wasn’t too much they wanted to discuss in front of an adult. Sure enough Mr. Forester insisted on having a quick word with the man wearing a vicar’s dog collar before coming back to the car. “I’m still not totally sure why he doesn’t want me present. He claims it’s because he wants to talk openly about the moral background, and a parent might inhibit you. Don’t sign anything and I’ll sit here and wait. Jenny, hit send if anything odd happens.”

  “He’s a vicar, dad!”

  “Who has had some very odd press sometimes. I’m not really worried, it’s just a bit of dad paranoia.” Everyone got out of the car sharpish before they got a lecture as well.

  “It’s good to see a protective parent.” Creepio gestured to the door, but kept his eyes on Ferryl. “After you, ladies, gentlemen.” He smiled, just briefly, as both Abel and Ferryl stopped to inspect the chapel.

  “Faint signs of church magic, almost faded.” Zephyr sounded eager, ready to do something, anything. Abel attempting to reach into wood bored her, because she could do it easily by partially blending into it. Ferryl looked at Abel and nodded so he went in. Definitely an abandoned chapel, there were cobwebs and an air of neglect but the seating seemed intact.

  “The bishop can’t go any further with the lease until he sees the result of this discussion.” No small talk this time, Creepio leapt straight in as soon as everyone had found a seat. “There are two schools of thought in the church.” He paused, a smile flickering briefly. “There are two thousand opinions, but in your case, they come down to two.” He fixed Abel with a look. “The first believes that you are extremely dangerous and should be killed immediately, then the full weight of the Church Militant should descend on Castle House. Your friends would become collateral.”

  If he’d wanted them speechless, Creepio had succeeded. Kelis recovered first. “Which church? What do the other churches say?”

  “In this case every church, or all the important ones in England. We may squabble in public over exactly how to spread our message but the Church Militant, the magical arm, is united. Not truly one, but we never fight among ourselves and will combine against threats to the one God.” His eyes came back to Abel. “You have gone into Castle House and emerged unscathed. The argument is over eradicating you before you gain complete control of whatever is inside.”

  As he finished speaking Zephyr shot out of the tattoo, hurtling up and through some miniscule crack she found in the roof. Her connections zapped out to everyone but Creepio. “The fearless Ffod stands guard over the Tavern. I will
tell you if an enemy approaches.”

  Creepio looked up to where the spooky-connections disappeared. “A watchdog? A good precaution after what I said.” He turned to Ferryl. “Are you going to take precautions, Fay?”

  Ferryl looked him straight in the eye. “I will take whatever action I need to if danger approaches.”

  “You don’t think I am dangerous?” The vicar moved a finger towards his cross but without touching.

  “You won’t attack Abel on your own, not with us all here.” Ferryl pointed to Abel, Kelis, and Rob. “Fire, Water, Earth, and I have a particular affinity for Air. That is a truly difficult combination to tackle. Jenny likes to switch about, and all the rest are adaptable if necessary. They all carry extra magic.”

  “And you are an unknown sorceress, who produced two very powerful and complicated glyphs from memory. I could dismiss the others, perhaps with some difficulty, except for you being here. Why is a real sorceress joining this happy band? Everyone else is an amateur, dangerous but not yet skilled. You looked like another amateur teenager when we first met, until you thought the ogre was attacking.” Suspicion crept into his voice, and he kept glancing at the others to see how they reacted. “Have you made friends with Abel to gain access to Castle House?”

  Creepio looked shocked when everyone laughed at him. “Fay has free access to the house whether I’m there or not, as do the other three. I trust them all, for various reasons.” Abel narrowed his eyes, his face sober again. “I don’t trust you.”

  “I know you don’t. Creepio Mysterio, church investigator and possibly assassin. Sneaky, dangerous, magically powerful.” His own eyes narrowed. “May betray you for a higher cause. That part of the character description is entirely true. Luckily I do not pay attention to those who find your game characters funny.” Creepio’s eyes swept across the group, resting on Ferryl again. “Personally, I find it useful for everyone to know who they are dealing with. What character do you play, Fay?”