Blackfoot

by W. R. Gingell

  “Touch them.”

  “I should hope not!”

  “Just because they didn’t like you–”

  “They’re snakes. They don’t like anybody.”

  “Maybe they just didn’t like you,” retorted Annabel. “They didn’t try to bite me– or Blackfoot.”

  “Oh, never mind!” muttered Peter, hurrying further into the room. There was a swishing—of paper, perhaps—and the tick ticking of the tickerbox further in.

  Not so bad, said Blackfoot cautiously. But I wouldn’t close the doors just yet if– Nan! Why did you close the doors?

  “Hey!” Peter protested, as the faint light from the tunnel vanished. “Why did you close the doors, Nan?”

  “Didn’t,” said Annabel guiltily. Strictly speaking, she hadn’t. She’d given them a bit of a push out of the way, and hadn’t expected a sharp draught to send them shuddering together again. She heard the sound of hissing from the other side, and the distinct sound of a lock clicking into place. “The breeze–”

  Peter sighed, and conjured another light. The darkness sank back as the light rose, and after a moment Peter sent another two lights high into the air, lighting the room right to its edges.

  “Oh,” he said, his voice flat with disappointment. “It’s not the treasury.”

  “No,” agreed Annabel. The room was far too small to be treasury, for a start. Worse, it was filled with shelf upon shelf of books, and several dilapidated desks around the room were piled high with papers made thick and clumsy with dust, and ancient quills that were now only spine instead of feather.

  “And tell your cat to stop looking at me with that expression! He might as well say I told you so!”

  “He can’t help it,” Annabel said. In fact, Blackfoot had just distinctly said: Didn’t I say so? “He has a naturally smug face.”

  Naturally– Nan, I’ll have you know that my face is naturally sarcastic. The smugness is a perfectly normal response to that boy’s superior attitude.

  Annabel only made a face at him. “Where’s your tickerbox, Peter?”

  Peter looked around with new interest. “Good point. Where did the little nuisance get to now?”

  It seems to be tunnelling into the books, said Blackfoot, with interest. I wonder why it’s doing that?

  “Blackfoot’s found it,” Annabel said, wandering over to one of the desks. She brushed the oily dust off a few of the papers and wiped her hands on her flannels. With her predilection for drawing and the scarcity of paper in her life, paper never failed to draw her attention. “What a waste: they’ve only used one side. Oh! These are old, Peter! Look, this one is in the old form writing– you know, the one that’s all joined and flowing. Wait, though. This– wait, this can’t be right! It says, Sorry about this, your highness. Try not to get hurt, won’t you? And don’t forget to duck.

  Peter emerged from one of the bookshelves, his hair ruffled and festooned with cobwebs. “You must be reading it wrong,” he said. “Someone using that form wouldn’t be using modern words. Sometimes the old form cursive is hard to read: our minds recognise patterns and translate them as familiar–”

  “I can read old form cursive!” said Annabel crossly, snatching up a handful of the half-used paper to save for later. “I used to read Grenna’s spell books to her all the time!”

  “You must be out of practise, then.”

  Annabel made a face at him and dusted off more of the documents. Blackfoot leapt onto the desk and padded over the shifting mass of papers, and something slithered in the depths of the piles of paper, prompting Annabel to hope that it was only the rolls of heavy dust that she’d removed slipping down between the papers. “Don’t be so superior,” she said. “It makes you look smug. Oh! Look at this one: it’s talking about something called Black Velvet and the re-establishment of the–”

  There was an explosion of paper and dust that sent leaves and dust-bunnies flying through the musty air, Blackfoot’s claws shredding empty space. Annabel shrieked and flailed in the whirl of paper, losing her handful of papers, and caught Blackfoot. She sat down rather more suddenly than she’d intended, and Blackfoot, his claws still rigidly gripping her flannel collar, flopped against her face. “Blackfoot! What are you doing?”

  There was an embarrassed kind of silence before Blackfoot’s claws retracted. Ah. Yes, he said, climbing away carefully to avoid scratching her. There were spiders. Big ones.

  “What?”

  Spiders.

  “You– you’re afraid of spiders?”

  They were big ones. Stop stirring up the papers: they’re hiding underneath them.

  “Ugh,” said Annabel, scrambling to her feet. She’d thought there was something moving amongst the papers. “Ugh, let’s get out of here, then.”

  She crouched beside Peter instead, trying to shake off the phantom feeling of spider legs against her neck, and saw the frantic scrabbling of the tickerbox’s spindly legs between books.

  “Is it trying to get out?”

  “Don’t know,” said Peter. “This one’s completely off-program. I didn’t tell it to do this sort of thing.”

  “Maybe it knows something we don’t know.”

  Peter shrugged. “Maybe. There’s an awfully strong draught around here for a room that’s below ground and doesn’t have a second door.”

  “There are draughts everywhere,” Annabel said. “There’s only part of the castle left.”

  Peter, doubtfully, said: “We’re pretty far beneath the courtyard level, Ann.”

  I don’t think the box has scented fresh air, Blackfoot remarked coolly, nosing the tickerbox aside. I think it’s scented magic.

  “I thought the whole ruins was stuffed with magic,” objected Annabel. “Why has it gone for this particular bit?”

  “The whole ruins is stuffed with magic,” Peter said, scrambling onto his stomach. “Wait, there’s something here, all right! Help me clear away the books, Ann!”

  Annabel lazily pawed books away from the lowest shelf while Peter did the same with terrier-like speed on his side. When the last of the books were cleared away, he laughed in delight.

  “What?” she said gloomily. She was occasionally disheartened by the way Peter and Blackfoot saw things that she couldn’t: and, just as occasionally, that feeling made her wonder if Peter was merely annoyed that he couldn’t hear Blackfoot, and not actually sceptical. He did so hate not to be the best, the quickest– the most perceptive.

  “It’s a door! Well, a sort-of door: it’s only one way. We can get out, after all.”

  Clever little thing, observed Blackfoot. Nan, wriggle over, will you? I want to have another look at this thing.

  Annabel wriggled over and Blackfoot brushed past, tickling her ear with his whiskers. “What’s clever about it?”

  “Clever? Well–”

  Annabel kicked him. “Not you.”

  It’s…well, let’s just say it’s ahead of its time. Or perhaps it’s me that’s ahead of my time.

  “I don’t know what that means,” Annabel said, even more gloomily.

  It means that someone established value long before we got here, and that they knew how to do…something I thought no one else knew how to do.

  “It’s actually a fascinating spell,” said Peter.

  “Yes, yes,” Annabel said hastily, because the lecturing tone was back in his voice. “That’s what Blackfoot says. He says it’s from someone es– doing what? Oh, establishing value.”

  “It’s a door that’s not a door, only it’s more like a tunnel. It’s activated by touch, I think.”

  “How?” asked Annabel, peering at the back of the shelf. In the dim light, she could just see Peter’s fingers pinching around a tiny knob: pushing, pulling, and finally attempting to turn.

  “Bother!” he muttered. “It’s really tight!”

  “Let me try,” Annabel said impatiently, elbowing him. “This knob has to turn?”

  “You won’t be able to get it. It’s too stiff.”


  Annabel felt the tiny knob at the back of the book shelf, smooth porcelain. She gave it a small, testing twitch with her forefinger and thumb, and it turned at once. “There,” she said, with a slight trace of smugness. She sat up in a slither of dust and cobwebs, and watched as the bookshelf spiralled in on itself. “Done.”

  Peter sat up hastily to avoid being sucked into the vortex, his mouth open incredulously. “What? How did you do that, Ann? It was– I couldn’t even get it to budge!”

  “It just turned,” said Annabel, gazing into the inky blackness of the tunnel that had formed. “Maybe your fingers are too big.”

  “My fingers aren’t too big!”

  I’m beginning to get a headache.

  “What do you suppose it was used for?” Annabel asked. She climbed to her feet stiffly, and beside her Peter did the same with a great deal more ease. “There’s the front door, after all, even if there are snakes.”

  Peter, who was frowning to himself, said in sudden excitement: “Burn room! It’s a burn room, Ann!”

  Annabel touched a cautious finger to the rough edges of the tunnel where it had carved out a space for itself from the bookcase and surrounding wall. It felt like wood, then brick, then cold and dust. “What’s a burn room?”

  “It depends. It can be for secrets, or for people, or for– well, for anything, really. One way in, and one way out, and you make sure you can turn it inside out from the outside if you need to collapse it on anything. I bet there are little magical charges all around the room that can be set off remotely.”

  “Someone could collapse this on us?”

  If there were anyone around to do so, yes, said Blackfoot. It’s a rather savage form of secret keeping.

  “Then I’m getting out of here,” Annabel said.

  Wait! Blackfoot said sharply. The tunnel could also collapse on you if it’s not done correctly.

  “We should explore down here a bit more, first,” protested Peter. “We might not be able to get back down here once we’re out. I want to see if there are magic charges, and I want to know what secrets they were hiding.”

  I’ll go first, sighed Blackfoot.

  “But– but what if it collapses on you?”

  Oh, I shouldn’t think it will, said Blackfoot coolly. Wait for a moment before you follow me, Nan.

  “Where’s the cat going– where are you going, Ann?”

  “Up and out,” said Annabel, watching anxiously as Blackfoot’s inky form disappeared into the darkness of the tunnel. The tunnel didn’t seem to be in any danger of imminent collapse, so she stepped after him tentatively. Over her shoulder, she said to Peter: “You can stay if you want.”

  “But Ann–”

  “You can stay if you want,” Annabel said again. Blackfoot was already outpacing her, and she thought she could hear his voice murmuring: Yes, yes, just as expected. Powerful: but then, power isn’t what matters with this one. One could pride oneself–

  She caught up with him as the thoughts slowed and stopped. “What are you priding yourself on?”

  Oh, you could hear that, could you? I was just remarking–

  “Yes, but who were you remarking to, if you didn’t know I could hear?”

  I would like you to know, Nan, that– Good heavens, what a bad influence the both of you are on me! I refuse to squabble with you. Is the boy following?

  “I think so,” said Annabel, with a cursory look back. A light was bobbing along behind them, and Peter was no doubt behind that.

  Very good, Blackfoot. I didn’t like to mention it, but if we go out before he catches up with us, the tunnel could collapse on him, too. It’s not a very good one.

  Annabel looked apprehensively behind them again. “I thought you said it was very strong!”

  It is. But strong magic isn’t necessarily better than crafty magic, and in this case, crafty would have been a great deal better than strong.

  “Oh,” Annabel said. It was mildly pleasing to find that she understood that. “You mean someone like Peter was using a spell they didn’t really know much about.”

  Exactly that, said Blackfoot. He also sounded mildly pleased with himself, though Annabel didn’t know why.

  “What do you mean, someone like me?” Peter’s voice said indignantly. “Are you discussing me with the cat again, Ann?”

  “Not really,” Annabel said. “We were just talking about the person who made this tunnel spell: Blackfoot thinks it was made by someone quite strong who wasn’t familiar with the spell.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” said Peter, stiffly. “Someone ducked down the tunnel before I could study the other room. Someone was already out of sight before I could study the spell from the other side, too. And someone–”

  Something loomed, and Annabel ducked instinctively. Peter, who was still talking, walked into the wooden board that was fastened just a little too low to miss. “Ow! What–?”

  “Oh, look!” said Annabel, surging ahead until she was out in the open. She blinked back at the other two, her eyes watering with unexpected light. “We’re at the end. We’ve come out at the stables.”

  Peter staggered out after her, Blackfoot weaving between his feet. “What a stupid idea!”

  On the contrary, a very clever one, said Blackfoot. Especially if one happens to be evading pursuit.

  “Blackfoot says it’s for knocking out people who are chasing you,” Annabel said cheerfully. “That must have been what the note was about. They must have had to sneak the King or Queen out through this when everything went wrong back then.”

  Peter said thoughtfully: “Maybe I can fiddle with the spell a bit: keep it open so we can go back.”

  Annabel squinted at the rough edges of the tunnel that made a hole in the stable wall. In older days there would have been tack hanging from the pegs that spanned the top of the tunnel. Those were probably used to slow down any pursuers, too.

  There was a ghostly laugh. I doubt it, but by all means go ahead and try, said Blackfoot. When talking to Peter, his voice was usually amused and somewhat curious. This time it was casual and quite certain, and Annabel wasn’t surprised when, for all Peter’s hasty efforts, the tunnel swirled once again and closed itself.

  She patted a cautious hand against the brickwork and tugged at the pegs that lined the panel she had only just avoided. “Oh well,” she said. “We’ll just have to climb back down the hole I made if we want to get back down there.”

  Peter made an unsatisfied noise, and put his tickerbox in his pocket. “I suppose.”

  Nan, said Blackfoot’s voice suddenly. Ask the boy if he senses anything about the castle.

  “I want to eat,” Annabel said instead. “Can’t I ask him later? Peter, I’m hungry. Let’s go back to the throne room and pick berries.”

  “Wait,” said Peter, glancing around with a frown. “There’s something wrong. Something’s changed.”

  Annabel looked around too. “What? What’s different?”

  “Don’t know,” Peter said uncomfortably. “There’s something…I don’t know, smaller about the castle.”

  Check the sealing around the castle, said Blackfoot sharply. Quickly!

  “Blackfoot says to check the sealing around the castle,” Annabel said hastily. “I think you’d better, Peter.”

  “Already doing it. That’s– oh, that’s funny. I don’t think that should be happening.”

  Blackfoot’s voice sounded pained. Don’t tell me– the workings have moved further into the castle courtyard, haven’t they? And our safety net is now just a little bit smaller?

  “The safe bit is smaller,” said Peter, at the same time. “That Mordion: he’s– I think he’s sort of pushed it inward.”

  “Can he do that?” squeaked Annabel. “I thought he couldn’t get in!”

  I told you it would only be a matter of time before he managed to get himself more magic, said Blackfoot. If there’s one thing Mordion is good at, it’s siphoning off magic from unsuspecting civilians. I did think we’d have a
little more time, however. Can either of you see him? He must be around here somewhere.

  “The whole protective wall is about a foot smaller,” observed Peter. “If it keeps going at that rate, he’ll have us in a few weeks– if the hunger doesn’t get us first.”

  “Yes,” gloomily said Annabel, who was tired of berries. “Can you see Mordion, Peter? Blackfoot wants to know where he is.”

  “Forget the cat! I want to know where he is!” Peter stomped away across the courtyard, ignoring Annabel’s calling, and vanished from sight around the piles of rubble.

  “Don’t expect me to be able to see Mordion,” said Annabel to Blackfoot, and sat down on a flagstone that rocked amusingly back and forth.

  I wouldn’t dream of it, said Blackfoot. Imagine having to put yourself to any effort! The thought curdles the mind!

  “Well, what can I do?” demanded Annabel, stung.

  That’s what I constantly find myself wondering, said Blackfoot. I find myself wondering what you could do if you’d only put yourself to the effort of trying something. You always sit just where you are and refuse to move, or try, or do anything. But every time I think you’re a hopeless cause, I remember you’re the girl who convinced Grenna for years that she was one step removed from being the village mumbler, not to mention saving your young idiot from certain pain and death. When I remember that, I can’t help thinking maybe you won’t turn out so badly after all. Perhaps I’ll even live to see the day when you won’t need to be nudged to do things.

  “But I don’t have magic!”

  Since you’ve arms and legs and scarcely seem to use those, I can only imagine you’d do the same if you had magic.

  “That’s–” Annabel stopped, biting her lip, and said: “That’s mean.”

  Yes, said Blackfoot. But it’s true. What are you going to do about it?

  Annabel mumbled: “I’m going to climb up on the wall there and see if I can see anything.”

  That’s not exactly what I meant, said Blackfoot, but he briefly buffed his head against her shin. Good girl. Don’t fall, will you?