Cauldron Spells

by C. J. Busby

  Arthur looked down at him and squeezed his shoulder.

  “You know, Max – I think there was a purpose behind each of us coming. I think there is a challenge for each person and it’s the right one for them. When you meet yours, you’ll know what to do. I trust you.” His blue eyes were steady as he looked down at Max, and Max nodded, and swallowed hard.

  At that instant a great castle of glass appeared in front of them, and standing by the drawbridge was a tall figure, dressed in black armour, with a huge sword.

  “Now this one really is mine,” said Arthur with a grin, and he drew Excalibur. “Go on, Max. Don’t stop – I’ll be waiting for you. You and Olivia.”

  He started to walk slowly towards the sentinel of the glass castle, who waited silently, his sword raised.

  The sun was even lower now. Max didn’t dare waste time waiting to see what happened when Arthur and the silent knight met. He heard a clash of swords behind him as he hurried forward, but he didn’t look back.

  So it’s just me now, he thought, and he tried to run through the challenges Caradoc had outlined when they’d been preparing. The Nine Maidens, the Stream of Jet, the Fortress of Mead Drunkenness – they’d gone past all of those. Then the Hounds of Annwn – Adolphus’s friends. Arthur was facing the Silent Sentinel of the Castle of Glass. So that left… Max waggled his finger in his ear and tried to remember… The Flaming Door, he thought. The Flaming Door and…

  The Brindled Ox.

  It was the Brindled Ox. He could see it now, in front of him, head lowered, wide, wicked horns stretching out impossibly far from each side of its massive head. It regarded him with liquid brown eyes and, although it didn’t appear to make any noise, he heard a rumbling voice in his head:

  “You may not pass.”

  The ox was standing in the middle of a strip of swampy marshland, with the gleam of dark water visible between clumps of marsh grasses. Only one narrow causeway led over the swamp, and the ox stood four-square in the middle of it, its great bulk outlined against the reddening sky.

  Max gulped. He couldn’t do this. He was terrible with animals. He was scared of horses, and even more scared of cows. There was simply no way he could get past this enormous bull, but if he didn’t they’d never find Olivia, and none of them would get back alive.

  He wondered if he could go round it. But the swamp looked very… well… swampy. He moved cautiously towards it, a close eye on the ox, and pushed his toe over the edge. It sank deep into the sticky, oozy mire. A terrible smell of decay wafted up to Max’s nose and he nearly gagged. It was worse than the Great Grimpen Mire…

  Suddenly he stood stock-still. What had he said to Olivia? “When I’m sucked down to my death in the Great Grimpen Mire it will be all your fault…” That was the day he hadn’t wanted to miss lessons, the day they learned… how to make a swamp solid! Max nearly whooped in glee as he realised that he could get across the swamp after all. He could bypass the huge ox completely!

  He felt in his belt pouch for the small packet of powder he’d taken away from the lesson that day and took a deep breath. He sprinkled a few grains of purple powder over the swamp and muttered the words of the spell. And then he punched the air in triumph. Because, in front of him, the oozy mud was gradually turning dark and solid, and cracks were appearing as water was sucked away, until a clear path started to emerge right across the stretch of swamp.

  Max turned and bowed to the huge ox, which nodded its great head and watched impassively as Max ran across the swamp and threw himself up the slope on the other side yelling, “Olivia! Olivia! I’m coming!”

  As he reached the top of the slope and looked down, he stopped. He’d forgotten the final challenge. The Flaming Door. But there it was. Not so much a Flaming Door as a flaming everything. The door bit was the only part of the hillside that was not on fire.

  ***

  Olivia was fizzing with impatience. When Morgana’s spell had touched her, she had felt as if she’d been picked up by a whirlwind and then deposited gently on a grassy slope. Behind her was a gleaming wall of ice, in front of her a raging wall of flame. In the middle of the flame was a small dark opening through which she could see grass the other side – but it was very small, and about waist height. Olivia didn’t think she’d fit through it, even if she could bring herself to dive through head first. Beside her on the grass sat a white rabbit, its nose twitching.

  “Where am I?” she said to the rabbit.

  “Annwn,” said the rabbit, and twitched its nose again.

  “What should I do?” she asked.

  “Nothing. Wait to be rescued,” said the rabbit. It began to nibble at the grass, and then looked up. “Shouldn’t be too long. They’re at the river already.”

  “I’m not waiting to be rescued,” said Olivia crossly. “I’ll do my own rescuing, thank you!”

  “I wouldn’t recommend it,” said the rabbit. “Anyway, they’re on their way. Your father’s just got to the drinking bit. Should be amusing…”

  Olivia frowned. The rabbit twitched its nose and nibbled some more grass.

  “Oh do sit down,” it said, after a while. “The Nine Maidens have failed – really, can’t stand up to one rat between them. Pathetic. Let’s hope the Hell Hounds do better.”

  Olivia sat down thoughtfully. It sounded like Ferocious was in the rescue party. She wondered if that meant Max was coming as well. She looked at the hole in the flaming wall and narrowed her eyes.

  It hardly seemed five minutes before the rabbit looked up, twitched its nose again, said, “Ah well, here he comes,” and disappeared. The next second she could hear Max’s voice, and then there he was, the other side of the wall of fire, his anxious face peering through the hole.

  “Olivia! Are you there?”

  She stood up. “Max! Well done! You got here! Now we just have to get me through the wall!”

  “Um, yes,” said Max. “But I’ve got no idea how.”

  “Luckily, I have,” said Olivia, who’d been thinking hard while she sat waiting. “The frogspell, Max – have you got the bottle?”

  Max felt in his belt pouch. Yes, it was there. But there was hardly any left.

  “I don’t know if there’s enough for both of us,” he said doubtfully.

  “Doesn’t need to be,” called Olivia. “Just chuck it through to me.”

  Max looked at the hole and measured his throw carefully, then hurled the bottle through. Olivia breathed a sigh of relief as it came through cleanly without touching the sides. Max didn’t have the best aim in the world. Rapidly she uncorked the bottle and looked at the small drop of potion left in the bottom. Was there enough? She upturned the bottle over her head and shook it and – yes! – the world around her started to shiver, and get bigger… and there she was, a bright purple frog, just as she’d hoped.

  Olivia looked carefully at the small hole surrounded by flames, flexed her back legs and leapt. She flew through the gap and landed on the grass right next to Max, who scooped her up and kissed her froggy head.

  WHOOSH!!!

  She was a girl again, her short dark hair sticking out, her green eyes dancing merrily, grinning hugely at Max. She punched him on the arm and he grinned back, and held up the cauldron he’d carried all the way.

  “Come on then! We need to hurry. Time is a bit strange in this place, and we’ve got to collect everyone and get back with this before Annwn’s sun sets.”

  First up was King Arthur, and as they approached the glass castle they could hear the great clash of swords and the panting of the two men, still fighting hard. They rounded the corner and saw Arthur, battle weary, his movements slow and painful, parrying the sentinel’s blows again and again as the black knight pressed him back towards the edge of the drawbridge. He saw Max and Olivia approaching and rallied, swinging Excalibur high and bringing it crashing down on the knight’s shield. But the knight barely flinched, and now Arthur was down, and the knight had raised his sword…

  But Olivia had not spen
t four weeks practising ‘Knock Down the Dummy With a Well-Aimed Saddlebag’ for nothing. She grabbed the cauldron from Max and hurled it. It whacked the black knight squarely on the helmet and sent him staggering sideways. It was all the chance Arthur needed, and within seconds the sentinel was on the ground, Excalibur at his throat, and he had yielded.

  “Thank you, Olivia,” said Arthur, taking off his helmet and wiping the sweat out of his eyes. “An unorthodox method of winning a fight, but I think you just saved my life.”

  Olivia went pink, and tried to look nonchalant, while Max ran over to pick up the cauldron.

  “Come on!” he said urgently. “I think we might have to run!”

  They ran. In the forest, Adolphus joined them, bouncing joyfully. The Hell Hounds were all lying on the ground, their tongues lolling out, looking completely exhausted. They were covered with bruises and cuts from hurling themselves against the trees, and they barely managed to open one eye between the lot of them as Max and the others hurried past. As they reached the Nine Maidens, still stuck on their boulder with their skirts pulled up round their knees, Ferocious leapt onto Max’s shoulder.

  “Tail and whiskers!” he said thankfully. “I’m glad you made it. I was getting very tired of all their shrieking…”

  Only a few minutes later they were at the entrance to the Fortress of Mead Drunkenness. There, swaying gently but still standing tall, was Sir Bertram, jug in one hand, pheasant leg in the other.

  “Ah, there you are!” he greeted them. “Jolly good! Just in time… Feeling a bit woozy…”

  Arthur grabbed one arm, and Max the other, and they marched Sir Bertram off down the path, keeping one anxious eye on the gleaming red sun, dipping low by the horizon.

  “Come on! Come on!” called Adolphus, frantically running ahead and then back and then ahead again. “Just down here! Nearly there!”

  And there they were. They could see the tall figure of Merlin standing by the bridge. He was silhouetted against the red sunset, and the black rushing waters of the river ran churning between them under the wooden arch of the bridge.

  They started onto the bridge, but there was something stopping them from getting across – it was like a shimmering wall of glass. Arthur pushed angrily at it, but he could not get through. Merlin was gesturing at them, but no sound came across the rushing river. The sun had sunk still further now and was only a semi-circle visible against the dark horizon, wreathed in streaks of red and orange and gold. Sir Bertram threw himself at the wall, but it would not yield.

  Suddenly Max realised that he was still holding the cauldron.

  “The payment!” he shouted. “The Treasure of Annwn. We can’t get across until we pay!”

  Without hesitation he hurled the cauldron into the icy black waters of the river. It floated for a second, then slowly turned over and filled with water, before sinking down, tumbling in the rush of water and disappearing downstream. The shimmering wall melted away and they hurled themselves over the bridge. Together they ran through Caradoc’s silvery doorway just as the last gleam of the setting sun became the first gleam of dawn in their own world, on the side of a hill in the misty lakeland of Gore.

  Songs and Celebrations

  Of course, Morgana was furious when she discovered that Olivia had been rescued and everyone had returned safely. She threw a vase at Sir Richard Hogsbottom’s head, and blasted a fiery stream of white-hot magic at Snotty’s back as he hurriedly retreated from her chambers. By deftly sidestepping, he just avoided being transported upside down to the castle dung heap.

  However, she was all smiles when she came down to the Great Hall to greet the returning adventurers, and she congratulated Arthur on his successful quest with every appearance of sincerity.

  “So marvellous to see the dear girl back – how funny that she was here all the time disguised as a boy and I never realised. Mordred tells me she’s really quite good at squire training, for a girl.” And she gave Olivia a little pat on the head, looking rather as if she were patting a slug.

  Olivia went red, and Arthur said quickly, “Well, Morgana, I expect she’s pretty good at squire training for a boy, as well. I think she probably saved my life with a well-aimed cauldron last night.”

  “Did she indeed?” said Morgana. “Well done!” She smiled at them as if she were chewing on lemons and then ushered them all towards the tables for a ‘welcome home’ breakfast.

  Sir Bertram, unusually for him, declined further food and went straight to bed with a sore head. But the others tucked in with a will, and spent the rest of the morning exchanging stories and explaining all their adventures to anyone who would listen. In the end Caradoc turned the whole story into a song and sang it to everyone, to great applause.

  The rest of the week passed swiftly. Morgana left Aleric to run the Spell School, retiring to her chambers with a headache that lasted the entire week. The king used the time to visit some of the more far-flung corners of his kingdom and inspect the border forts. Unfortunately, while he was there, Sir Richard Hogsbottom made such a desperate plea to be sent back down south, away from the swamps and mud and mosquitoes, that Arthur gave in and recalled him to Camelot, much to Merlin’s disquiet.

  “That means Snotty will be in Camelot when we’re there for the Squires’ Challenge,” said Max gloomily to Olivia. “We can’t seem to get rid of him!”

  “Never mind,” she said with a grin. “Look on the bright side. All the more opportunities for turning him into a frog. Or Max – you’re going to be learning some new spells. Maybe you can find out how to turn him into a dung beetle!”

  “Oh yes,” said Ferocious. “A very appropriate insect. And much less likely to get kissed by anyone except another dung beetle.”

  It was the final Feast Day at the end of the Spell School and Max and Olivia were seated at a long table in the Great Hall, tucking into a magnificent spread. Max had passed his Spell School exams, even with his old cauldron playing up slightly towards the end of the week. Luckily he’d managed to persuade Aleric that he’d misheard his instructions, and really did think he was supposed to turn the snail into a rhubarb pie, rather than make it fly. And Aleric had kindly overlooked the fact that Max’s invisibility potion appeared to have the strange side effect of giving the invisible person hiccups. So Max now had his Certificate of Spell Mastery and he was all set to start wizard training. Sir Bertram, who had been in a spectacularly good mood ever since they’d returned from Annwn, had promised he’d take Max and Olivia to Camelot when they got back. It would soon be September, and that was the time for the Annual Festival of Chivalry, always a good opportunity for a bit of drunken revelling and tales of daring around the fire. More importantly, it included the Squires’ Challenge, which he was secretly beginning to think Olivia might just win. And besides, Merlin had suggested that it would be a good opportunity to look for a tutor for Max.

  “Says in the meantime he’ll teach you a bit himself,” said Sir Bertram, clapping Max on the shoulder. “Bit of an honour, eh, Max? Most powerful wizard in the kingdom and all that. Seems quite impressed with you, I must say.”

  Max took a huge bite of venison pie and thought happily of lessons with Merlin. Maybe he would teach him how to turn people into dung beetles. How useful would that be! He grinned at Olivia and waved his flagon of apple juice in the air.

  “Here’s to Camelot and wizard lessons, and to you winning the Squires’ Challenge!” he said.

  She waved her flagon joyfully back.

  “I don’t even have to pretend to be a boy!” she said. “Arthur told Dad he’d accept me as a contestant because I’d proved my worth in Annwn. Isn’t he brilliant?” She looked across the hall at where Arthur was laughing with some of his knights. She was glad to see that the king was not showing the slightest bit of interest in Lady Marianne the Fair, pouting nearby. He looked up, caught Olivia’s eye and winked. Olivia thought she would happily die for him.

  There was a stir and a bustle as Caradoc made his way into the ha
ll with his harp, and to general acclaim started to sing the Lay of Annwn, the song he’d made up about King Arthur’s adventures in the Otherworld.

  “Good, isn’t he?” came a voice from behind them, and Max turned to see Merlin standing in the shadows, watching Caradoc with an odd smile.

  “He sings really well,” said Max. “But he’s not really a bard, is he?”

  Merlin looked down at Max and Olivia and seemed to hesitate for a second. Then he sat down beside them and shook his head.

  “Well, not exactly,” he said, in a low voice. “He and I have been working together for a while. Trying to stop Morgana’s plots, trying to catch her out. It’s been very hard to get proof, and Arthur insists on absolute, unquestionable proof before he will move against her. But we have been getting much nearer since you two came along. I think you’ve brought us luck, and a little magic of your own.”

  Max looked up at Merlin’s hawk-like face and saw that he was smiling warmly. But Max felt slightly guilty.

  “I’m not sure I helped, really. If I hadn’t been so stupid Morgana wouldn’t have been able to send Olivia to Annwn and then Arthur wouldn’t have had to go there at all.”

  Merlin shook his head. “Morgana would have found a way to send someone there, don’t worry, and Arthur would have been obliged to go once she’d let everyone know she had the Cauldron of Annwn. He can never resist a challenge, and wouldn’t allow anyone to think he was a coward. She knew that when she made her plans. But you foiled the most important bit of the plot. We’d never have got back from that place without the real cauldron – the cauldron the dragon chose to give to you. Besides – there was your swamp spell! And not forgetting that Olivia only got through the Flaming Door with the help of your marvellous frogspell potion!” He laughed, and clapped Max on the back. “No, Max – I knew it was a good idea to ask you to keep an eye on Morgana while you were here. And I’m looking forward to having you around in Camelot for some serious magic lessons!”