Blackfoot

by W. R. Gingell

  “Blackfoot is a cat,” Annabel said defensively. “I don’t know what you mean about back. And stop yelling at me! I don’t like it.”

  “Fibber, fibber, lily-liver,” Rorkin said again, this time more quietly. “He’s a man, that’s a staff, and you’re the Queen. It’s no use pretending it’s not true, and it’s no use trying to run away from it.”

  Annabel, who in all her running away had never found it useful, said: “I know that. That’s why I do it. It’s no use, but if it’s no use, and if I can never get away or get a choice, I’m going to make it as difficult for everyone as possible.”

  Rorkin blinked a little and sat back. “Ah. I see. Would it help if I told you that you have a choice?”

  “No,” said Annabel. “I can see your eyebrow twitching already. I’d know it was a lie.”

  “Knew I shouldn’t have told you that,” muttered Rorkin. “Well, what are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to sit here,” Annabel said. “And I’m not going to move.”

  “Well, that’s novel, anyway. What will that do, by the way?”

  “I’ll sit here,” said Annabel, “and I’ll just start erasing.”

  Rorkin blinked once, and then twice. “You probably shouldn’t do that,” he said. “If you start erasing things, I’ll vanish, too.”

  “Why would you vanish? I’d be erasing the castle! Shouldn’t everything go back to the way it was before?”

  “Maybe if I wasn’t so much connected to the castle,” said Rorkin sadly. “Seemed like a good idea at the time. Back then people were dying and Parras was being over-run, and we knew we’d eventually need to start again. I programmed the castle to recognise and test the heirs, but there wasn’t any way of powering it without programming myself into the castle. I’m afraid it’s a bit too late to be crying about it now.”

  “Oh,” said Annabel slowly. “So that’s what you meant when you said that you were here all along, but I drew you back.”

  “That’s what I like about you,” Rorkin said, in a friendly sort of a way. “You go away and think about things and then add up all the little bits you know into one big whole. You don’t always get it right, but it’s a sound system as far as it goes.”

  “Blackfoot doesn’t always get it right, either. Neither do you.”

  “Yes, there’s a lesson there, too.”

  “Of course there is,” muttered Annabel. She uncrossed her legs and put her feet back on the floor before she was aware of what she was doing. Once they were there, she gazed blankly at them for a few moments before she said: “I’m going now. I have to think about all this.”

  She went unerringly to the door she’d found earlier, an invisible commodity only for her, and heard Rorkin’s chair legs thump back down on the floor.

  “Hey!” he said. “You haven’t given me a door!”

  “No,” Annabel said seriously. “And I’m not going to give you one. Not yet, anyway. I don’t want you running about the castle when still I don’t know exactly what you’re up to.”

  “Don’t want to run around the castle anyway,” muttered Rorkin. “It’s a bit late for that sort of thing when Mordion has taken over nearly the whole castle.”

  “Then why are you whining?”

  “I like to have the option. Also, it’s very insulting of you not to trust me. What if I need to escape in a hurry?”

  “Then you should be more open,” Annabel said. “You’ve talked and talked and you haven’t really said very much.”

  “Said a lot more than I meant to,” Rorkin offered, “if that helps.”

  “It doesn’t,” Annabel said, but there was a slight warmth to the words, anyway. “I’ll come back and see you later, when I’ve sorted out a few things.”

  “Don’t forget to let me out. You don’t know what I’ll do to the furniture if I’m cooped up in here for too long.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Rorkin, his eyes bright and inquisitive, asked: “Are you going to tell the boy and the not-cat about me?”

  “I don’t know,” said Annabel, with her hand around the knob. The truth was that she did know: she wouldn’t tell them. There was too much she wasn’t sure of at the moment. She didn’t know how much Blackfoot had known when he chivvied her into the castle—or how much he’d known when he wriggled his way into her life, for that matter—and she didn’t know how Peter would react to a stimulus like Rorkin. For the first, she was quite sure she wanted answers before she told Blackfoot anything. For the second, Annabel was just as sure that she wanted to know a little more about Rorkin before she let Peter and his rather reckless love for anything twistily magical have access to Rorkin.

  “I see,” said Rorkin, and Annabel had the feeling that he did see. “Don’t waste too much time, will you? I don’t think there’s too much of it left now.”

  13

  “There you are!”

  Annabel jumped guiltily. Peter was leaning against the middle one of three archways just ahead of her: if he’d been just a little further on, in the one she had just passed through, he would have seen her exit Rorkin’s quarters. That left her feeling more than slightly startled, and she said hastily: “What are you doing wandering around the castle by yourself!”

  One of Peter’s brows rose. “Really?”

  “I’m not the one who disappeared without a trace,” said Annabel. “I’m not the one who had to be rescued.”

  “I can tell which archways are dangerous and which ones aren’t,” Peter said. “Come along. You’d better stay with me.”

  Annabel gave him a hard look. “You first.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Come through the archway.”

  Impatiently, Peter said: “Why should I? I’ll only have to walk back through it again.”

  “That sounded a bit more like Peter,” Annabel told him. “But you’re doing the wrong things with your face, and Peter would have been much ruder. He’s fond of me, but he doesn’t like to say so aloud.”

  “Is that so? I don’t suppose you’d care to mention what it was about my face that gave it away?”

  “No,” said Annabel, who had seen that eyebrow lift several times on Mordion. Peter could wriggle his ears, but he couldn’t lift one brow without the other. “Why should I help you?”

  “Very well,” said Mordion, the Peter-façade fading away into his own lean, beautiful figure. “Your friend may yet be sorry you were so perspicacious.”

  “Peter? Why should Peter be sorry? What do you mean?”

  “Why should I help you?” Mordion flashed her a dazzling smile and turned elegantly, disappearing from sight long before it was logically possible. Annabel was left staring through an archway to the empty hall beyond, hesitant to travel on any further now that a previously safe hall was now Mordion’s.

  She might have taken her pencil out of the satchel and tried to draw herself a new door if she hadn’t heard Peter’s voice the next moment, coming from another of the halls.

  “I don’t see why I should be chivvied out into the castle,” it said crossly. “I’m busy trying to make sure that my mother is all right without me, and I have things to prepare. Ow! If you bite me just one more time, I’m going to kick you through the window, Ann or no Ann!”

  “Peter!” called Annabel joyfully.

  There was a brief silence before Peter’s voice said: “Ann?”

  “I’m over here! I can’t go through the archways because I don’t know which ones are safe now, and Mordion was already wearing your face.”

  A streak of black darted through the archway to the right and sprang to Annabel’s shoulder.

  Nan, you dreadful child! Why must you be wandering the castle when Mordion is looking for you?

  “Why not?” Annabel said coolly. “You were. Besides, there are so many tunnels around the castle that I could have escaped into one of them if I ran into trouble.”

  There aren’t as many as that around, said Blackfoot in annoyance.


  At the same time, Peter said: “He was wearing my face? What does that mean?”

  “It means he looked just like you. What are you doing out here?”

  “Your cat wouldn’t leave me alone until we came and found you. Oh well, I wanted to see some of the tunnels anyway. You’ll have to tell me more about them, though, Ann: I haven’t seen a single one around the castle. I had a look around while we were searching for you, and the only thing in the castle that isn’t actual castle is the shifted temporal remnant that you’ve shut in behind the walls.”

  “Funny,” Annabel said. “There’s always one around when it’s convenient.”

  “Maybe your pencil is doing that, too.”

  “It’s not. Blackfoot, you’re scratching me.”

  “Oh, and that reminds me!” Peter said, his voice injured. “Tell your cat not to bite me! I could catch anything from his teeth!”

  Tell your irritating little friend that if he leaves you to wander the castle by yourself again, I’ll do worse than bite him.

  “Blackfoot thinks you’re lacking in chivalry.”

  “Well, I like that!” Peter said indignantly. “I rescued you, didn’t I?”

  “No,” Annabel retorted. “You didn’t, actually. I rescued myself, and I sent Mordion packing just before you got here, too. He didn’t get your face quite right. Oh, and he threatened to do something to you.”

  “Really? What?”

  Annabel shrugged. “Don’t know. He was smiling, though, so be careful.”

  “I’m always careful,” said Peter, with greater confidence than accuracy. “I’d like to see someone like Mordion get the better of me! Anyway, I’m going to be busy today, so I won’t be wandering the castle at all.”

  Nan, please tell this young idiot that he shouldn’t be trying to piggyback his spells on the castle again while Mordion has so much control.

  “Are you going to run a Look-See spell again?”

  Peter tried to look airily unconcerned and failed. “Don’t be so serious, Ann! I know what I’m doing. I just want to make sure mum’s safe, and let her know we’re safe. I’ve spent the whole morning setting it up while you and your cat were off in the castle, and I think I’ve got it pretty much right.”

  “You shouldn’t do that. What if Mordion sees it and goes back to get her?”

  “Do we know if he can still get out? He seems pretty connected to the castle.”

  Annabel looked at Blackfoot, and Blackfoot looked at Annabel. She was quite sure, after talking with Rorkin, that Mordion couldn’t get back out of the castle: but that wasn’t something Blackfoot would expect her to know. While she could blame Blackfoot for extra knowledge to Peter, she couldn’t do the same about Peter to Blackfoot.

  I’ve no idea, said Blackfoot. I was convinced it wasn’t possible for him to be in the castle at all, so I shouldn’t speculate.

  “Yes, yes,” interrupted Annabel, “but I know you want to speculate anyway, so what do you think?”

  However, Blackfoot continued, however, considering the amount of control Mordion now has over the castle, it seems likely he has bound himself to it. He always was a particularly sticky leech, so I can only assume he’s managed to convince it that he’s its master; and that he’s now availing himself of its not inconsiderable power.

  “Blackfoot thinks Mordion has sort of wired himself into the castle,” said Annabel to Peter, who had been waiting impatiently through the exchange. She found herself wondering again just how much Blackfoot knew and how much he was genuinely guessing. “He think Mordion has tricked it into thinking he’s its master.”

  Peter nodded thoughtfully. “That makes sense. If he’s bound himself to the castle, he probably can’t get out. Good! I don’t want to give Mordion any ideas, but it’s nice to know he couldn’t act on ’em even if he did get them.”

  It’s not just that it’s a bad idea, Blackfoot said, kneading Annabel’s shoulder with his claws. It’s that it’s a ridiculously bad idea based on the hopelessly conceited notion that he’s Mordion’s equal. I shouldn’t be surprised if he thinks he’s Mordion’s better, if it comes to that.

  “Don’t run spells through the castle, Peter,” Annabel said wearily. “You always think you’re so clever– well, you are, but you’re not as clever as you think you are.”

  “I want to see my mother,” objected Peter. “Why shouldn’t I? I just want to know she’s safe.”

  “Blackfoot doesn’t think it’s a good idea.”

  “Ann, if you don’t think it’s a good idea, tell me so instead of blaming it on the cat! You’re too old to be still blaming things on your imaginary friend!”

  “Blackfoot isn’t imaginary!” Annabel said, in exasperation. “And if it comes to that, I just told you I don’t think it’s a good idea! Mordion has more control of the castle than he had yesterday, and he’s powerful enough to look exactly like you, so I suppose he can do a lot more than he could before, too. And he’s got more of the doorways now.”

  “Yes, but I won’t be using the doorways!” Peter complained. “I’ll be using the windows! And if it comes to that, I’m quite sneaky enough to be sliding targeted spells in underneath his notice!”

  “But–”

  “Besides, it’s already ready, so it’d be a waste not to use it,” finished Peter triumphantly. “Don’t go through that hallway, Ann: it’s one of his.”

  Annabel stopped short. Blackfoot had said something like that earlier. “How do you know?”

  “Don’t know: it’s sort of obvious,” said Peter, marching away to a corridor of his own choice. Over his shoulder, he called airily: “It’s hard to explain to someone who doesn’t have magic.”

  What he means, Nan, is that he obviously knows better than you, and that he’ll do his spell regardless of either you or me. It’s not so complicated as that: the doors Mordion has control of smell like him.

  “They smell like him?”

  Look like him. Feel like him. It’s the same way I can look at a drawing and tell if it was drawn by yourself or Peter.

  Annabel sniffed. “That’s easy.”

  Exactly. We should catch up with this young idiot before he comes to grief.

  By the time they caught up with Peter, he was already in the side courtyard by the laundry, polishing the glass of a free-standing mirror. Before Annabel could remonstrate with him again, he said: “Of course, it won’t have the depth of a window, but I only want a quick peek, so it shouldn’t matter if the image is a bit flat.”

  Annabel glared at him. “That wasn’t what I was going to say.”

  “I don’t see why you’re getting so precious about it. You’re always doing things your cat doesn’t want you to do.”

  “You don’t even think he–”

  “Anyway, it’s too late,” said Peter, with a rather guilty grin. “I started it when I got down here, so it’s looking for her at the moment.”

  “Peter!”

  “I am sorry, Ann. But I didn’t get to make sure she was safe that night, and I don’t know how long it’ll be before I see her again. She must be half-mad with worry by now.”

  I doubt she’ll return the favour by being glad to see him, Blackfoot said rather sourly. She was probably glad to be rid of him.

  “No, she’s very patient,” Annabel said, just as the mirror began to come into focus.

  “Mother!” said Peter in surprise. Annabel recognised the plump figure framed by sparkling glass: it was the right figure, but it was on the wrong background. There was a castle wall behind her instead of the gently floral walls of Peter’s house. “This– did I do it wrong? I’m sure I didn’t. Ann, did your cat do something?”

  I have no part in this, said Blackfoot. Don’t blame me if the castle has been taking liberties with your spells.

  “Peter,” said Annabel, her voice very small, because she had noticed something else that wasn’t quite right: “why is your mother tied up?”

  “Tied– what are you talking about?” Peter took a step
closer to the window, and Annabel was sure he saw the same stiffness to his mother that she had seen. He said uncertainly: “She’s just– she’s just sitting down.”

  “Then why is she sitting down in the castle!”

  Nan, tell him to stop the spell, said Blackfoot sharply. Now!

  “Oh, I’m afraid not,” said a pleasant voice, and Mordion strolled into the frame of the mirror. “She’s not tied up,” he said, still in that pleasant voice. “Not exactly. Allow me to adjust your spell slightly. I’m certain you can’t see very well. There! You should be able to see much better now: I wouldn’t want you to miss a moment.”

  The view twitched and scoped inward, closer to Peter’s mother. Her eyes were wide and afraid, and she sat very still. Beside her was Peter’s stepfather, Brannen, who sat just as still as she did. Neither of them spoke a word, and Annabel wondered fleetingly if they could even see Peter and herself.

  “I would like you both,” Mordion said, smiling, “to be aware of the seriousness of this situation. I would also like for you both to be quite certain that I mean what I say.”

  Annabel, who had already seen what Mordion was capable of, and who had a rather horrible idea of what he meant, swallowed hard. She couldn’t help asking: “What do you mean?”

  “This,” said Mordion, and carelessly shoved the centre of Brannen’s forehead with two fingers. Brannen’s head snapped back, the whites of his eyes showing, then dropped and didn’t move again.

  Peter’s mother, her eyes steadfastly forward, began to cry without a sound. Annabel gripped her pencil so tightly that it would have snapped if it had been a normal pencil, but there was a swirling kind of roar in her mind. It was one thing to draw Peter back and draw Rorkin into a room: what was she supposed to do here? What could she do? It was already too late for Peter’s stepfather.

  “Leave my mother alone,” said Peter. His voice still held all its usual command, but Annabel heard the raw edge beneath it, and as much as she worried for Peter did she worry about what his tone would egg Mordion on to do.