by Toby Forward
“Here you are,” said the man.
Tim dipped his head and gobbled it up.
It hadn’t been a long journey, avoiding roads, and he made good time, but it seemed too long since he had last eaten. He knew he could have killed something and eaten it, a rabbit, or maybe a bird. There was too much Tim left and too little dog for him to want to do that.
The meat all eaten he raised his head to look around. Smith slipped a chain around his neck, looped through a ring. Tim skittered backwards. He was too late. The chain had circled his neck. He pulled away. The chain slid through the loop and tightened. Smith fastened it to a leather leash. The more Tim pulled the tighter the chain gripped. When he stepped forward it slackened off.
He hurt his throat before he gave up and settled close to Smith. The man had not pulled Tim towards him at all, content to hold the leash and let Tim discover how to be comfortable.
Tim licked Smith’s hand. It tasted smoky, better than Smedge’s. He looked up into Smith’s eyes and wagged his tail.
“Where are you from?” asked Smith.
“He’s not a stray,” said Winny.
Tim looked from one to the other. He tugged at the leash. The chain bit into his neck. He relaxed and moved back to be close.
“No. Not a stray,” Smith agreed. “Are you, boy?”
Tim licked his hand again.
“And you’re looking for something. Yes?”
Tim wagged a confirming tail and tugged again, gently this time, to indicate that he wanted to move. Smith stood and allowed Tim to lead him. Tim picked up Tamrin’s scent again at the door and tugged hard. Smith followed as far as the edge of the path, just where the ring of kravvins had formed.
Tim shuddered and drew his nose from the ground when he reached the kravvins’ mark. He jumped over it and picked up Tamrin’s scent again. It was a funny business, being a dog, especially following scent. Tamrin’s scent was mingled here with Vengeabil’s. Only the storeman’s scent was even stronger. As though he were there.
Tim raised his head and looked around him, as though he expected to see Vengeabil.
“Tamrin, is it?” asked Smith, recalling Tim to his purpose.
Tim cocked his head to one side. This man knew her?
Smith rubbed the side of Tim’s neck. He pressed back against him, wanting more. His hand was heavy, reassuring. Not like Smedge’s hand at all. Tim had longed for approval from Smedge, yet he knew that it was mixed with the threat of another smack. He didn’t think Smith would hit him.
The memory of Smedge was fading. Tim pulled again, resenting the chain, the leash. Smith allowed him a little slack, but not much.
“Are you looking for her?” asked Smith.
Tim strained against the leash.
He did want to find her. And that was a problem. He started to wish he was a boy, not a dog, and could think like a boy. Then he reflected that he hadn’t been very good at that anyway. He wanted to find Tamrin for Smedge. But now that Smedge was far away he didn’t want to find her. But he wanted to find her for himself, to see her, to say sorry, to try to explain why he had lied about her. But he didn’t want to lead Smedge to her or go back to Smedge and betray her again.
Better not to look after all.
“Take us to Tamrin,” said Smith. “Take us there.”
Tim leaped up and tried to lick Smith’s face.
He bounded ahead, Smith playing out the leash, his head low, Tamrin’s scent in his nose.
“Fast as you can,” said Smith. “I think time’s running out.” ||
Bakkmann assembled fifty kravvins
and made them understand what they were to do.
They had no minds, no intelligence. They could speak, and understand speech, up to a point. They couldn’t think, beyond following instructions, and they often forgot what they were doing, unless they were just sent out to kill and collect.
Bakkmann did her best to instruct them. She felt that Ash was letting her impatience blur her judgement. These red killers were as likely to eat the tailor and everyone around him as they were to do any good.
“Don’t kill anyone,” she warned them again.
“Not kill.”
“Kill.”
“Not kill.”
Bakkmann clattered annoyance, and as her frustration grew so did a small idea of escape. She summoned another twenty kravvins. There were enough and to spare; a few more wouldn’t be missed. Bunching them together she put herself in the centre of them and marched them towards the gate.
The vanguard went through without a problem. It was only as Bakkmann approached that the magic lashed out at her to prevent her exit.
Kravvins to her left and right shrieked and exploded. She hunched herself as small and tight as she could against the perfection of the pain. She pushed forward. It was the kravvins’ nature to keep together and as the first ones died others swarmed to take their place, keeping Bakkmann surrounded. They absorbed the attack and, to her astonished joy, she was through the gate and in the open. Ash was locked in still. The seal was meant for her and was stronger for her.
Bakkmann’s thoughts went to Smedge, and following him, and finding him.
Sam was the second one into the upper room. Flaxfold, then Sam, then Tamrin, then Solder. Shoddle’s voice followed them up.
“You’ll be sorry. Go on. Have a look at it, old woman. See what it makes of you.”
Solder shut the door on the shouting. It persisted as an inarticulate rumble of spite.
The mirror was clothed with the length of cloth.
“Stay away from it,” said Flaxfold.
Solder stood right in front of it. The others kept to the side so that even if the cloth fell they would not be reflected.
“Come away from there,” said Flaxfold.
Solder ignored her. He shrugged off his barrel and sat on it, kicking his heels against the hard leather sides.
“I looked in a mirror in the Deep World,” he said. “And do you know, if you look very closely you can see your own eyes reflecting yourself over and over again. You should try it.”
“Don’t move,” said Flaxfold.
“You told me to move away.”
She clicked her tongue.
“I mean don’t move any nearer. Move away.”
“Make your mind up.”
Sam thought about a spell to make Solder shift himself. He could make the top of the barrel too hot to sit on.
“Don’t do that, Sam,” said Flaxfold.
“How did you know?”
She smiled.
“I’ve known you all your life, as good as,” she said. “I can see what you do before you do it.”
“Always?”
“Mostly.”
Tamrin took Solder’s arm and he hopped off the barrel. She led him to the window.
“Can you keep a lookout here?” she said. “In case anyone comes.”
Flaxfold made sure Tamrin saw her smile of thanks. Tamrin ignored it.
“There’s to be no magic in here,” said Flaxfold. “Not in front of the mirror.”
“Is it the one?” asked Sam.
Flaxfold nodded.
“I always thought it was just a story,” he said. “Not true.”
“How did you think the magic started, then?” she asked.
“Does it matter, as long as there’s magic?”
“Most of the time, no,” admitted the old woman. “What matters is what you do with the magic, not where it comes from.”
She spoke quietly. The tailor had stopped shouting. The house was silent around them.
“But I think it matters now,” she added. “Come. Tamrin. Take my hand, girl. Please.”
Tamrin hesitated. Sam joined his mind to hers. She brushed him aside and held out her hand. Flaxfold’s hand was warm, dry, stronger than Tamrin had expected.
“We must be friends,” said Flaxfold.
Sam felt the warmth of the woman’s touch.
Solder leaned towards the window,
looking down. This was about them, not him.
“There have been three moments when magic was born or changed,” said Flaxfold.
She put out her other hand and took Sam’s.
“There was the first moment, when this mirror created magic. When reflection and reality collided and magic sprang out.”
“Are you sure it was this one?”
“What other could it be? It made you two what you are, didn’t it?”
“Yes.” They spoke with one voice.
“It was hidden away,” she said. “It should never have been found. The tailor meddled.”
Tamrin tried to take her hand away. Flaxfold held her tight.
“One of us would never have been,” said the girl, “if the mirror had been hidden properly.”
“That’s true. And you two are the second big moment in magic. You are the second making. And no one knows what you will bring.”
“That’s two,” said Sam. “What’s the third?”
“The third came second. It was when an old, tired, dying wizard called Slowin stole the name of a young girl and stole her magic. The firestorm that it caused nearly killed him, but he survived. He survived and became Ash. Your enemy. The one who comes to you through the Finished World. She’s hungry and she’s eager. She wants to be free. This time we have to hide the mirror for ever. If Ash were to stand in front of it I can’t think what horrors she would release. If she ever owned it then nothing could stop her.”
She squeezed their hands.
“I’ll always be glad that it made the two of you,” she said. “But it must never be seen again. If she ever found out where it was she would never rest till it was hers.”
“She never shall,” said Sam.
“I think she will,” said another voice.
The door had opened silently. A slim, soft figure filled the doorway. The bloodied face of the tailor watched over his shoulder.
“Now you’ll see some magic,” he cackled.
The kravvins surged on with the speed of stupid rage. It was their nature to hate.
All of the hard-shelled creatures that served Ash had descended from drops of her own blood, shed when she had been a different person. Before the fierce magic she had summoned had transformed her from a man to a woman, from a wizard to a wraith, from a person to a shape.
The takkabakks and the kravvins, the tiny black beetles that burrowed in the earth, the dozens of other kinds that swarmed through Boolat, all of them found their origins in the droplets of blood that had spilled from that one who became Ash hundreds of years ago.
Only Bakkmann was different. Bakkmann had been the servant who stood alongside Slowin when the storm of wild magic hit. Bakkmann had been transformed, too, into this creature of shell, of shock and scream.
And now Bakkmann led the kravvins. Now they had a mind and a purpose and an aim.
Their sharp legs consumed the distance. They didn’t crawl, they scurried.
To Shoddle. To Smedge. To slaughter. ||
The slim figure stepped into the room
leaving the tailor to limp after him, head wobbling, mouth gaping, blood spattered all over his face.
“Who are you?” demanded Tamrin.
“And how did you get in?” added Sam.
“He came through the door,” said Solder. “While you were talking.”
“Why didn’t you warn us?”
Solder shrugged.
“You told me to watch,” he said. “You didn’t tell me to say anything.”
“You don’t know me?” said the figure.
He breathed in, very deeply. His black jerkin, leggings and heavy boots shifted shape and became a college uniform. He lost height and breadth. He had entered the room soldier-like, taller than the others. Now he faced them as Smedge.
“And we were such friends, Tam,” he smiled. “How could you not know me?”
Shoddle lurched towards them. Smedge had done something to the tailor’s neck to help him keep his head upright and move it from side to side, but it was a botched job, like a crooked shelf. It jerked and twitched.
Before Sam could stop her Tamrin hurled an attack at Smedge. Floorboards buckled, split, shot up and flew towards him. By the time they reached him they had become arrows, slender, fletched, and with cruel, barbed heads.
Sam raised his hand to counter the spell. It was too sudden, too sharp to stop. The arrows found their target.
The first to strike drove itself into his right shoulder, sending him staggering back with the force of its blow. Five, eight, more followed, piercing his chest, his legs, his stomach, and, rocking him almost to his knees, one thrust into his throat and stuck out the back of his neck.
Shoddle screamed.
Tamrin laughed.
Sam felt a driving pain in his chest. He looked at Smedge and he hated him with a spinning hatred that he had never felt before. Tamrin’s fear and loathing of the boy took over his mind and he felt the shame of being falsely accused, the rage of being a victim, the fear of further attacks, the triumph of winning a fight. He loved the sight of the wounded Smedge and he felt the sick terror that he might just have killed him.
Smedge sank to the floor.
Sam grabbed his thoughts back from Tamrin. His mind had brushed alongside hers and now he drew back to be himself alone.
Tamrin glanced at him, a shy, embarrassed look, as though he had caught her undressed.
“That was a mistake,” said Flaxfold.
Shoddle pointed a trembling finger at Tamrin.
“You’ll pay for that. That’s murder. Magic or not. It’s all the same.”
He put his hands to the sides of his head to control its spasms.
“I didn’t mean to kill him,” said Tamrin. “I just lashed out.”
“He’s not dead,” said Flaxfold. “Nor dying.”
Smedge lay still. Blood pooled on the floor around him.
“Look,” said Solder. “It’s green.”
The arrows sagged and dropped away from his body. Smedge was melting, losing definition.
As they watched Smedge disappeared and became a squat, wet shape, rounded and shining in the candlelight.
“Ugh,” said Sam.
“It stinks,” said Solder.
The tailor drew in breath and smiled.
“Like fresh bread,” he said.
“Worse than slurry,” said Solder.
“What is it?” asked Tamrin.
“It’s Smedge,” said Flaxfold. “Without art or disguise.”
“You mean he’s not a person?” said Sam.
Flaxfold crossed her arms.
“Not at all,” she said. “I recognize him now I see him like this.”
The green slime twitched, heaved and re-formed into slug-like form. It slid towards Shoddle, slurping against the floor. The tailor reached out a hand and stroked it.
Sam shuddered at the strings of sticky slime that attached Shoddle’s hand to the huge slug.
The tailor sniggered.
Slug to toad, and then to monstrous things with teeth and claws and spit and spew, the creature was changing shape, searching.
“What’s it doing?” whispered Tamrin.
“Finding itself again,” said Flaxfold. “Your magic was too strong for him. You took him off guard.” She gave Tamrin a severe look. “Magic’s not for killing,” she said.
“Not for killing that?”
“Not even that.”
The thing that was Smedge had found the shape of the boy again, more or less, with gaps in the face and the wrong teeth and still a thin coating of slime. Grabbing Shoddle’s hand he hauled himself upright and fixed them with a steady stare. One eye didn’t seem to work and was not fixed entirely in the socket. When he spoke, green slime dribbled down the side of his mouth.
“Thank you,” he said, to Tamrin.
Sam prepared himself to fight.
“What?” she asked.
“Thank you.” He swallowed, disgustingly, and coughed. “Now
I don’t care what I do. Now we know each other, don’t we?”
He moved towards them, hands outstretched. Sam flinched away. Tamrin stepped back. Solder scooted over to the window and tucked his feet underneath him on his barrel. Only Flaxfold stood firm.
He stopped, tilted his head to one side.
“You don’t want to shake hands?”
Sam moved towards Tamrin. Their shoulders touched and he lost himself again for the moment in the strangeness of her thoughts. They looked at each other and he knew that she had brushed her mind against his.
Smedge started moving again. He was almost within reach of the mirror.
“Stop there,” said Flaxfold.
Smedge dipped his head and carried on. His fingers found the fabric veiling it.
“That’s it,” screeched Shoddle. “That’s it.”
Flaxfold stepped aside. Sam thought she was fearful of Smedge, then he wondered if it was the same disgust that moved her. She stepped back, behind the mirror, leaving the way clear for Smedge to take control of it. She was afraid. So afraid of her own reflection that she gave way to Smedge.
His fingers clutched the cloth.
“Shall I?” he asked.
“Go on,” shouted Shoddle. “Let’s see the mirror.”
Sam didn’t know what to do. If he grabbed Smedge the cloth would come with him.
“Let’s see the mirror,” Shoddle shrieked.
Sam felt Tamrin’s disgust at the gibbering tailor. He felt his own dread of what would happen if the mirror should be unveiled.
Smedge fondled the cloth.
“Oh,” he breathed. “Oh, yes.” He lifted the cloth a little and put his head between it and the reflecting surface. “Come on,” he said. “What can you make of me?”
“Stop him,” said Sam.
Flaxfold moved further into the shadow.
Smedge, his head beneath the cloth, his face against the mirror, shimmered and stood back. He shifted shape. Sam’s eyes were confused by mist and movement. When they cleared he saw, sharp-set for the first time, the slim woman in the grey dress who had hunted him.
“Ash,” he said.
She smiled.
