The Voyage to Magical North

by Claire Fayers

  Brine sighed. Tom blushed and took off his glasses to clean them. “I mean … you never know what might happen, that’s all. I bet Marfak West could live inside a whale for a year if he wanted. What with him being the world’s most powerful magician.”

  “Just as well he’s so powerful, then, isn’t it?” agreed Brine. She didn’t want to be cheered up. She left Tom and wandered away to the back of the ship, where she leaned on the deck rail and watched the sea foam behind them. The sky was back to normal, and the wind was in their favor. Even the storms were staying away. Once or twice Brine heard a rumble of thunder in the distance, but that was all. She felt that she should be glad, but instead a weight the size of a whale settled on her shoulders. She couldn’t get the image of Peter, crying, out of her head. Peter never cried. Even when Tallis Magus used to hit him, he’d pretend that it hadn’t happened or that he didn’t really care. To have witnessed him crying made Brine feel that the world was broken.

  She didn’t even smile when Zen pounced at her feet and missed, and when she spotted Cassie O’Pia making her way over, she groaned inwardly. Now Cassie was going to try to cheer her as well.

  Brine stood up. “Don’t try and tell me everything’s going to be all right. You can’t know that.”

  To her surprise, Cassie didn’t argue. “True,” she said. “Pirates have many abilities, but seeing the future is not one of them. I have no idea how this is going to turn out. But that’s half the fun, isn’t it? Would you really want to start a story knowing how everything will end?”

  Brine shrugged. Cassie watched her for a while, twisting and untwisting the emerald around her neck.

  “Don’t you care?” Brine burst out. “We found Magical North, and Marfak West has stolen the world’s biggest piece of starshell. Some of your crew are dead! Peter is kidnapped, and you lost the Onion, but you’re all carrying on as if none of it matters.”

  Cassie dropped her gaze to the deck. Her fingers slipped from the emerald. “Things change,” she said slowly. “That’s the only thing you can rely on. The souls that have gone, let them rest in peace. As for the Onion, a ship is only a piece of floating wood. Anyone who goes seeking revenge because a large piece of floating wood gets sunk turns into … well, turns into Marfak West.”

  Brine bit her lip and said nothing. She hated that Cassie was right.

  Cassie turned away from her to watch the flag that flew almost straight out from the mainmast. “We have to carry on. It’s either that or give up, and the Onion never gives up. Otherwise everything and everyone we’ve lost will be for nothing.” She laid a hand on Brine’s shoulder. “We’ll get Peter back. Don’t worry.”

  “Who says I want him back?” grumbled Brine. Peter was a pain in the backside, and half the time she was with him, she felt like strangling him. And yet she’d grown so used to him being around that, without him, she almost felt she’d lost part of herself. In other words, Peter was the closest thing to a brother she was ever likely to have.

  “Thanks,” she said, and she found that she meant it.

  Cassie flashed her a smile. “I was going to give you these,” she said, taking out the box that held Marfak West’s starshell. “But given your allergy, it’s probably best if I hold on to them until we rescue Peter.”

  Brine nodded, although, strangely, her nose wasn’t itching. At Magical North, she’d felt that her head was going to explode, but since then there’d been nothing, not a single sniffle. Something had changed inside her. She wasn’t the child who’d once huddled in a rowing boat, terrified and sneezing. She straightened up and drew in a deep breath. “So what are we going to do?” she asked. “Charge in without a plan?”

  “Certainly not,” said Cassie. “We have a chief planner now, remember? This time we’re going to charge in with a plan.”

  * * *

  First came the feeling that he was flying, and then Peter felt a gentle warmth enfold him, as if the sun had somehow broken through a mile of sea to shine on him in his last second of life. And now a figure loomed over him, silhouetted in the light. The spirit of a long-departed ancestor, most probably. Whoever it was, Peter wished it would stop trying to talk to him. He was tired.

  “If you’re going to lie there all day,” said Marfak West irritably, “you can at least move over a bit so you’re not quite as in the way.”

  Peter opened his eyes with a start. He was lying on rough boards with the sky above him. Wind—real, fresh, nonfishy wind—ruffled his hair. Marfak West stood a few feet away, holding the giant starshell in both hands and grinning like a wide-mouthed shark.

  It took Peter a full minute to sit up. After another minute, he managed to look around without feeling as if his head were about to fall off.

  “Why didn’t you let me drown?” he asked.

  “You’re my apprentice. Why should I let you drown? I knew I had enough air left to get you back to the surface—I just didn’t want you wasting any of it. Say hello to your new home.”

  The thing Peter was sitting on was moving through the water, so it had to be a ship, but it was unlike any ship he’d ever seen before. The deck was a wide oval, roughly the color of old blood. Around it, eight legs spread out, crablike, into the sea. Little flecks of pure magic floated everywhere. Peter’s eyes burned with staring. He staggered to his feet. “This is the Antares?”

  “With one or two modifications.” The tips of the magician’s fingers were pure white from holding the starshell. “I’ll have to rebuild her properly later, when there’s time. For now, the magic is holding her together.” He turned away from Peter and stamped on the deck. A hatch slid open, and a slender gold column rose out of it. Marfak West set the starshell on top. “I think you should start calling me Master West now.”

  Peter thought he should start calling him Stinkhead, but he didn’t dare say so. He glared at the magician, tight-lipped. The world felt unreal, probably because they were plowing through the waves on a ship that looked like a giant spider. He watched as the glowing column sank back through the deck, taking the starshell with it.

  “A ship like this needs a power source,” Marfak West said, seeing Peter’s curious gaze. He started peeling pieces of loose skin from his fingers.

  “But you’re not touching it. How are you still controlling it?”

  “With magic,” said Marfak West irritably. Peter noticed the way his chest puffed up. He liked to be asked things. He liked to show he was cleverer than everyone else.

  “I thought I was supposed to be your apprentice,” said Peter. “I need you to teach me.”

  “You need a good slap round the head,” grumbled Marfak West, but Peter could see he was trying not to smile. “There are many ways of using magic. Most people know only one—hold on to some starshell, pull the magic out, make the right spellshape, and let the magic go. It’s the way they were taught, and they never imagined there could be anything else. But you can, for example, learn to draw magic from a piece of starshell without needing to touch it. Or even straight from the air if there’s enough magic around. Or you can write spellshapes straight onto a piece of starshell so that it will continue casting those spells, over and over, until the starshell runs out of magic. For example, my starshell is currently holding the Antares together and moving it through the water, and I’ll be adding a lot more to that by the time I’m finished.”

  Peter only half listened. Drawing magic from the air. In the cavern at Magical North, he’d used magic, without thinking about it, without any starshell. Had he really done that?

  “Can you become allergic to magic?” he asked, thinking of Brine. He had to swallow the lump that rose into his throat. Brine was as irritating as sunburn; she’d gotten him into trouble more times than he could remember, and yet he missed her.

  Fortunately, Marfak West didn’t seem to notice. “An allergy is possible, I suppose. Overexposure might do it. Why do you want to know?”

  “No reason,” said Peter quickly. He made a show of looking around. The ship was
traveling far faster than should be possible, its giant legs moving back and forth like oars. “Where exactly are we going?”

  Marfak West’s grin broadened. “You mean you haven’t guessed?”

  CHAPTER 30

  Nine out of ten emergencies are caused by failing to follow procedures correctly. But a true emergency may arise, such as:

  1. Fire

  2. Flood

  3. Attack by pirates

  In the rare case of a true emergency, every Book Sister should follow the orders of the Mother Keeper.

  (From THE RULES AND REGULATIONS OF BARNARD’S REACH, VOLUME 16: IN CASE OF EMERGENCY)

  “This is it?” asked Brine.

  The Onion sat in a patch of ocean that was several shades darker than the waters around it. Cassie drew up a bucketful, and when Brine put her hand in, it felt warmer than it should. Warm with magic, maybe. Brine wished she would start sneezing to confirm it, but her allergy appeared to have deserted her just when it might have been useful.

  Cassie emptied the bucket back over the side. “This is the exact spot. Right where we sank the Antares.”

  Beside her, Rob Grosse hung over the side of the ship, staring into the water as if he expected to see the Antares rising from the depths at any moment. “Maybe he hasn’t gotten here yet.”

  Brine shook her head. Her insides were as empty as the ocean. They’d arrived too late; she knew it. Marfak West had already left.

  “What now, Chief Planner?” Ewan asked her, breaking into her thoughts. Brine shot him an irritated glance. Ever since Cassie had made her the official planner, people seemed to think they weren’t allowed to do anything without asking her first. The truth was, she’d been trying her hardest, but the place in her mind that should have been filling up with plans was still blank. Marfak West was the one with all the plans; the Onion had just been following behind, and far too slowly, it seemed. The magician could be anywhere by now.

  No, that wasn’t true. Marfak West could take all the starshell in the world, but he’d still be Marfak West. He could only be himself. What did he want most? Brine screwed her face into a frown, trying to remember every detail of the conversation she’d seen and heard from Magical North. First the Antares, then what? “He said he was going to erase Cassie’s story,” she said slowly. “He said he wouldn’t have won until her story was gone and everything she’d done was undone.” She fell silent. Her gaze shifted slowly to Tom, and a dreadful, empty feeling settled inside her. “Where do all stories live?”

  One by one, everybody on board turned to look at Tom. The color fell from his face, his eyes widening first in realization and then fear.

  Ewan Hughes said it first, although everybody was thinking it. “Barnard’s Reach,” he said. “He’s going to destroy Barnard’s Reach.”

  * * *

  Barnard’s Reach. Peter should have known. The island where all the stories in the world were written down. It was here, in the stories, that Cassie had become a hero and Marfak West a villain. The one place in eight oceans where Marfak West was not allowed to go—a group of librarians daring to tell the world’s most powerful magician what he could and couldn’t do.

  Peter gazed out at the multiple images of the Antares reflected in the Mirrormist, and he shivered. Occasionally, in the reflections, he saw a close-up of his own face. The first time it happened, he gasped, wondering who the skeletal figure was. All he needed to do was grow tall and lose his hair, and he’d look like Marfak West.

  “This is it,” said Marfak West. “We are going to change the world together, Peter. With all their stories gone, people will have a blank page, a chance to start again, unhampered by any twisted notions of heroism or villainy. No longer tied to the past, we will truly be able to look to the future.”

  Peter shivered. “But even if you destroy Barnard’s Reach, people will still know the stories. They’ll still tell them.”

  “We’ll deal with that later,” said the magician. His face was set like stone. “Stories are an infection, and the only way to deal with an infection is to cut it off at the source. Barnard’s Reach is the source.”

  The Antares slowed in the water, then stopped. Peter wondered why, then he saw that the Mirrormist had thickened right in front of it, acting like a shield to keep the ship out.

  “We can’t get through,” he said, trying to keep the sudden surge of hope out of his voice.

  Marfak West cuffed him around the head. “Don’t tell me what I can’t do. The Mirrormist won’t let me through because it recognizes me as a threat. But you’re so pathetic you couldn’t threaten a sand snail. It’s time you started earning your keep. Go and tell those boring book readers that they have one hour to surrender to me before I tear their island apart. Hold out your hand.”

  Peter obeyed and screamed as his flesh suddenly turned into a furnace. The black spot in the middle of his palm flared with bright amber magic. The pain quickly subsided, changing to a dull throb that pulsed all the way past his elbow.

  “I’ve linked the Antares’s magic to the starshell in your hand,” said Marfak West. “I’ll be able to work magic through you, and I’ll be keeping an eye on you, so watch what you say. Now, stand still.”

  A glowing circle appeared on the deck around Peter’s feet. “What are you doing?” he asked, or rather he started to, because the ship abruptly vanished and he was standing on top of a cliff, surrounded by seagulls, with the same circle of magic turning the grass brown. He yelled in fright and fell over.

  When he made it back to his feet, people were watching him. Six women stood in a line. They were all dressed in brown robes identical to Tom’s, and five of the women carried swords.

  “I can see you, remember,” Marfak West’s voice said in Peter’s ear.

  The women watched Peter curiously. His heart thrummed. He wanted to run away, but he could barely stand up, his legs were shaking so much.

  The unarmed woman pushed back the hood of her robe. She was the Mother Keeper, Peter guessed. She fit Brine’s description of her—pale face, yellow hair, and a mouth that was set in an angry straight line. “A boy?” she said. “Is that the best he can do? You’re breaking the rules, boy. Men are not permitted here—not even undergrown ones.”

  Peter’s legs stopped shaking, and he backed up a step. Couldn’t she see he didn’t want to be there? He was only a messenger, and a most unwilling one at that.

  His palm tingled warningly, reminding him that Marfak West could see and hear everything. “Marfak West is back,” he said. “He’s alive, and he’s right on the other side of the Mirrormist. If you don’t surrender, he’ll destroy Barnard’s Reach.”

  “This is exactly why men should not be allowed to read,” said the Mother Keeper icily. “It gives them ideas, and men with ideas are always trouble.” She clasped her hands in front of her. Her fingers were stained blue with ink. “Go back to your master and tell him Barnard’s Reach will not surrender so much as a single book to him.”

  Marfak West was not his master, but there was no point trying to tell the Mother Keeper that. “I don’t need to tell him,” said Peter. “He can hear you.”

  The Mother Keeper’s eyebrows rose. A thin, bright pain cut through Peter’s head, making him gasp. “Never doubt my power,” he heard himself say, but his voice was the voice of Marfak West. “I am giving you one chance to live. Surrender.”

  The Mother Keeper laughed. It was the worst thing she could have done.

  Peter’s palm flared with heat. He knew with a sick certainty what was about to happen. He closed his fingers over his palm and tried to keep the magic in, but Marfak West was controlling it and Marfak West was a lot stronger than he was. Peter could only watch as a thin snake of magic crawled out of his hand and twisted itself into a shape that seemed to writhe and crawl in the air. Peter tried to drag it into a harmless arrow or circle, but he might as well have been trying to pull down a mountain with his bare hands.

  The librarians raised their swords threateningly,
but the spell blazed to life quicker than any of them could attack. A ball of magic struck the Mother Keeper between the eyes. For a second, she stood, swaying, her mouth open in shock, and then she began to shrink. Her features disappeared, her arms shriveled away. Her robe tumbled onto the grass and lay still, a discarded puddle of cloth. A fat, pink worm crawled out of one sleeve.

  Peter’s stomach heaved. He would have collapsed if Marfak West hadn’t held him upright. “You have one hour,” he said in Marfak West’s voice. “Surrender or you’ll all die.” Then the island blurred and Peter felt a wrenching sensation, as if his insides were being pulled out. He looked down and saw a circle forming around him; he shut his eyes. When he opened them again, he was back on the Antares.

  Marfak West grinned at him. “Well done, apprentice.”

  “I’m not your apprentice!” Peter yelled, shoving him away. He stumbled to the edge of the deck and threw up over the side. “They won’t surrender,” he said. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “It doesn’t matter how much time you give them.”

  “I know. I need the hour to get through the Mirrormist, but let them think I’m being generous. Now, would you like to see what I’ve been doing while you were away?”

  Peter shook his head. Whatever Marfak West had been doing, it couldn’t be good. His ears filled with a dull pounding. He thought he was imagining it, but then he started to feel the vibration through the floor: a rhythmic thumping like the tramp of hundreds of feet.

  A door opened across the deck and Cassie O’Pia came out and waved at him.

  Peter’s legs nearly gave way. Cassie, here?

  Then the rest of the crew came marching out. Ewan Hughes took up his usual position at Cassie’s shoulder. Rob Grosse and Bill Lightning stood together, Trudi and Tim Burre fell in behind them. Everyone was there except Brine and Tom. This wasn’t happening. Cassie was Marfak West’s sworn enemy. She wouldn’t have joined forces with him, not willingly. The magician must be controlling them.

  “Let them go,” said Peter.

  Marfak West laughed.