“When he was fourteen and Tina would have been three… Malakai decided that Marcela was far too powerful, she was in the opposition Government, and in opposition to his cause. So he got rid of her. The Government marked the death as an ‘accident’. It was a travesty! And now my daughter is under a curse for which I, nor anyone, has any idea how to break!” His face dropped and his shoulders sank. I wanted to shake him, make him see that he had powers greater than me… he could stop it, he could break the curse. But he looked so small and shrivelled up, that I feared he might never stand up again.
“Can’t the Lily help, Sir?”
“Pah!” cried Partington, his back rising. “Chance would be a fine thing, he’s has no power against Malakai, not anymore!”
“Why not?”
Partington shrugged. “Malakai has got some hold over him, I don’t know.” I was beginning to think I did know. More, in fact, than the adults in this school.
I left feeling awful. Even though it was my Birthday, I didn’t care. I had to find a way of breaking the curse over Tina. I was annoyed, if I had the courage and initially agreed with her, then she would never have stormed off and got herself in trouble. I also thought that Malakai must have cursed her for a reason - maybe she knew something and this stopped her from telling anyone. And why didn’t he just kill her?
I had just under two weeks to find a plan and a solution before the Book of Names went back into Malakai’s possession for another twelve years. And Tina… if I didn’t find a way of removing the curse then she would remain under it indefinitely.
When I got back to the clock tower, a glowing figure awaited me. Ernie’s face was glowering at me.
“Why did you tell him about ME! YOU HAD NO RIGHT!” he zoomed around the clock tower at lightning pace.
“I didn’t tell him about you, I told him you left Tina the quest…”
“YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE!” he said zapping into the bell. DONG! DONG!
“STOP!” I said, fearful my secret place would be found out. “He wanted to know why…” I called.
“I know! I heard you!” he stopped zooming around and bobbed up and down in the corner. “I heard, I was there… he’s right, there is nothing we can do about the curse. The only person who can remove the curse is Malakai… no one and nothing can remove it. She will be like that for twelve more years!” He zoomed across to the clock face, sobbing.
“What? Why twelve years?” I said, following him.
“He knows what he is doing - nasty, clever man - the Book of Names will vanish at twelve minutes past twelve. If he is near it, he has Magic to know where it goes and can follow it to it’s next residence, which could be anywhere! Therefore, he will be virtually unobtainable after this point…”
“I don’t get it…” I said truthfully.
Ernie huffed. “Oh LOOK! The Book of Names is in the school now! That’s one of the places it goes. So Malakai, for the last few years, has been forced to come here to do his work with it. You can’t move it, or take it somewhere else. The opportunity to end him is here and now while he is in the school! God knows where he will be next! It could be anywhere… No one will be able to find him… and then we can’t make him take the curse off Tina! And she will be like that until her death…” he sobbed hard into his fluorescent hands.
I feared that the only reason Ernie was so animated was because he felt guilty. Guilty because he knew that this was all his fault. He shouldn’t have sent Tina his papers. I checked the notes on my bed while Ernie sobbed. One page of Ernie’s notes detailed twelve possible locations where the Book of Names might go. Hailing Hall was on there along with places it had been previously, along with seven locations with a question mark by them. Before, when I read this, I had no idea what it meant.
My mind flittered about between facts and plans. There was a definite plan in my head, I just couldn’t extract all of it. If I could find a way to remove the Jarred Spell and say Malakai’s true name, then I would be able to… make him remove the curse and surrender the Book of Names.
“Ernie,” I said.
“WHAT?”
“Do the same rules that apply to us, er, living… apply to ghosts?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know… like can you do Spells?”
“No, not really. Most Spells tend to pass straight through me.”
“Hmm…” things were kicking off in my mind, so many ideas. “If I want to get hold of you, how can I?”
“I don’t know, I don’t work in appointments, or summonses.”
“But if I really need you?”
He cocked his head and narrowed his eyes at me. “Just do a Summons… Vocataste-Ernest,” he said bitterly, jumping into a dive.
“One more thing… How did you become a ghost?”
He sniffed. “Because I felt guilty for leaving Tina the QUEST OF COURSE!” He dived through the floor and was gone, leaving his voice to echo around the clock tower.
CHAPTER NINE
The Final Plan
Ross was concentrating very hard on his upcoming end of year exams, where he will most likely, qualify as a P.W.W - Professional Working Wizard. He was taking them quite seriously, getting himself ready to join Malakai’s team, no doubt. I noticed a lot of people around the school concentrating very hard. The last years were doing everything they could to get some peace. Whereas it suddenly became a game for the years below to do everything in their power to make noise and mayhem wherever the seventh years were studying. It got to the point where Magisteers were patrolling the seventh years’ dorms to make sure people didn’t pass. And they made them these Magical protective spheres wherever they went, so they could work without being disturbed by anything. They looked like big glassy bubbles. Francis Buttery, from two years above, said that it blocked out all noise and people, and played soothing classical music. The P.W.W exam is notoriously hard, and if you don’t pass you’re buggered.
But all this special treatment just caused more people to do everything they could to penetrate the thin, glassy, protective bubbles. One fourth year boy, Ramid Khan, actually managed to slip inside Evan Roberts glassy sphere, but then started to panic when he couldn’t get out! Evan, with three other seventh years in his vicinity, stood together and sent whizzing sparks at his bottom. He wouldn’t be that bravado again for a long time and needless to say, sitting down would be a slight problem for a week or two.
I didn’t see the Lily out at all any more. Usually, at meal times, he would be at the Magisteers table, talking to anyone who approached, but recently he was keeping to his office. I wondered why. I toyed with the idea that I should tell the Lily everything, perhaps he could help? But then Tina’s voice echoed “No…” inside my head.
I had seen very little of Robin since he returned. He had been roped into helping Caretaker Ingralo, a big and gruff man who didn’t expel much more than grunts and orders. People are chosen randomly to help Caretaker Ingralo, like a kind of jury duty, five people are chosen a week. And this week, of all weeks, Robin pulled the short straw. Obviously, last years are exempt, and everyone moans like hell when it’s their turn to help. Apparently, by all accounts, Ingralo is a bit of a slave driver.
Robin came to the Clock tower the second night, after cleaning and mopping the hallways for ten hours straight. Poor guy looked exhausted and was swaying on the spot.
“I got… blisters on me hands, and feet… and he don’t let ya’ have a break!” he said, clutching onto a wooden beam.
“Sounds awful,” I said leafing through notes.
“Listen, I tried to get out of it, best I could, so I could come help you, but there’s no way out… not with this guy.”
“It’s fine…” I said. It was a blow, I needed Robin. “But you’ll be finished by the end of the week? I’ll need your help then, you might just be crucial to this plan working.”
There were so many social occasions popping up that I was struggling for excuses. Hunter was celebrating his Birthday and having a
party in the Condor’s form room. “It’s amazing I made it to thirteen!” he said winking at me.
We also received a Riptide schedule and were expected to go to every game! Unless we had a good reason, like cleaning the school or doing end of year exams - which I didn’t. Thankfully there were no games that we had to play in, I speak for all of us when I say there was a collective sigh of relief.
After a whole weekend in the Library, I came across a couple of things that I found immensely intriguing. The first was a simple but quite brilliant Spell. I nearly yelped with surprise when I found it hidden in a book all about water creatures…
“… to approach these creatures who sense humans by their thought frequencies given off by the brain, a Spell is required which hides this: Avertere, forces whatever looks at you to not register your form. But more, it hides your thought frequencies, which the brain rather haphazardly gives off at all times. The Spell is not full proof, one can be spotted out of the creature’s peripheral, this may alert them, but when looked at directly you will not be spotted, thus they think they are seeing things. Immensely useful in approaching marine wildlife, some Wizards have experienced it working well on other Wizards…”
This was a revelation. It meant that now I could walk around, especially to the Library, without being disturbed. But also, I had read that Wizards, mostly the highly trained ones, could sense what you were thinking, and your next move, by reading the thought frequencies that your brain leaks out. What I never knew was, thoughts are emitted as vibrational waves, just like a Spell, or a radio wave, which can be interpreted just like a radio antenna interprets a radio wave and turns it into sound! I had no doubt that Malakai could read thoughts, even people like Partington had a good grasp of it, and the Lily was a master, I was sure. This Spell, would be very useful - especially if I combined it with something else.
I found another really interesting book, down one of the darker corners of the Library, about the ‘Evolution of the Wizard’ - something I had already learnt at First School, plus a little with Partington, but this went into extra detail, for example I never knew that as a Wizard I was a “Homo Noeticus” — not a “Homo Sapiens” like most of you. Wizards are the next step in Human evolution! Or so this book reckoned so.
It reminded me of an assembly we had a few weeks ago, led by Magisteer Dodaline talking about Outsiders. She said that more schools like Hailing needed to be built to keep up with the demand of Outsiders waking up as Wizards. She didn’t say why though.
Later, I came across a chapter in this book about True Names. It must have been a rare book because I’d never seen another book about them. It said how all Outsiders now had to pass through this Veil a few weeks before they started school, which made them and their family and indeed anyone who knows them, forget their old name completely. Also, I thought that if you knew someone’s name, you had power over them… but what did that mean? Malakai is all powerful anyway, he could kill anyone he wanted to. Why did he need to know all True Names?
This book had several illuminating passages: True names, discovered in 1243, are commonly misunderstood today. Initially, it was thought, if one found out the true name of a Wizard then you had an all encompassing power over them. In actual fact, this is largely mythical. Knowing one’s true name does not give one infinite power. In fact, if you know and say a true name of an enemy, and they know not yours, then whatever Spell you direct at them will trump theirs. You have a huge level of control over them, some say you take over as the master of their destiny, but this is an exaggeration. Merely, where the power lies, is in the sharing of the true name - for if one shared a Wizards name out, the power of the Wizard will wane both physically and actually - great power had lay in knowing a Wizards true name and threatening to share it, this in itself can guarantee their compliance in all you require.
The high Wizard Tyreko, who came to high power in 1655 was sent mad by a past misdeed and killed many Witches. Santi Venart, a training Witch who once knew Tyreko seduced him using love Magic and found out his true name. She shared the name “Egbert Richardsward” far and wide. Overnight, Tyreko reduced in size, shrinking to four feet. He aged fifty years and resembled a swamp creature. He died shortly after, being set upon by roaming vagabonds.
Over the years, many myths and legends have not aided the truth when it comes to true names - some still believe that one who knows ones true name, has the power to send another to a place worse than Hell - a kind of purgatory, or collection centre, that one can store all those whom one knows the true names of. While this might be possible to someone of prestigious talent, it’s not likely, or a given whatsoever. True names were brought forth by Magical Nature, to ensure that no one got too powerful… if they did, like Tyreko, there was a means to control them back to safety. This may seem contradictory explanation, True Names are a complicated Magic, and are not to be messed with. Thus the phrase “He needs to be Tyreko-ed” comes.
My head was spinning after reading. I scanned the rest of the book but nothing was as concise as that, but it did go into information about how true names are found…
How Santi Vernart found Tyreko’s true name is not known, some say she made him confess to his new love, which would be plausible owing to her extensive practice in love Magic, others think she had help from the infamous Council of Indigo - who have helped end many sent wayward by the effects of black Magic - but some think there is a book, hidden by ancient Magic, that records all true names. It’s been referred to under several different names; Gillet’s Book of Truth, Hallert and Jivaldo’s Newly Born Names, Wizard Namero and simply; The Book of Names, plus many others. Although only myth, many profess that this book is real, many more have seen it - a book by Selibrius Xanderious details that the book travels between twelve unknown locations, every twelve years at the end of a quarter. Many agree with Selibrius, others state that such an item as a Book of True names is dangerous, especially in the wrong hands and should be destroyed.
My eyes were drooping. I had done so much reading, I felt exhausted. It wasn’t just the reading but the fact that my brain was working overtime thinking of a plan, or a way to use all this information. On the way back from the Library at some silly time in the morning, I spotted Robin and a few others crawling along the corridor floors with toothbrushes. The large caretaker, with his belly hanging out, was smoking and reading the newspaper and occasionally barking orders. Robin didn’t spot me, so I slipped away down an opposite corridor fearing I may be roped into help.
Sunday night I slept like a baby, moonlight streamed in through the clock face. It was getting warmer now that Spring was arriving and I didn’t have to sleep with so many blankets. I dreamt long, winding dreams - Tina’s mum was in them, facing Malakai, next to Ernie and Tina, Partington watching on as they were all pushed off the tower. Then, the passages of the book began reading back to me… where the power lies, is in the sharing of the true name… the power of the Wizard will wane… send another to a place worse than Hell - a kind of purgatory… I saw Tina banging against cage bars, stuck in a tiny prison cell, screaming, but no sound came out. … Great power had lay in knowing a Wizard’s true name and threatening to share it, this in itself can guarantee their compliance in all you require… whatever Spell you direct at them will trump theirs…
I woke in a cold sweat, a straight line of sunshine hit my face. I think, finally I knew exactly what I had to do…
In class that morning I sat in silence with a fully formed plan in my head. There was no going back from this one. From dawn, to the start of lessons, I wrote the whole plan down in one go, skipping breakfast and putting the final touches to it as I turned the corner to class. I put one particular page of my notes in a envelope and wrote Robin’s name on the front. On another, I addressed it to Partington and put in all the remaining notes from Ernie and Tina.
If I told anyone what my plan was, I knew instantly what they would say. That’s why I didn’t tell a soul. I remained calm, knowing that, if I did th
is correctly, I would free Tina from her curse. But I was tired, my head felt heavier than a Hubris’s backside and my eyes felt like they were being bathed in stinging nettles. What I wanted most of all was to curl up in my dorm bed - that luxuriously soft, cloud-like mattress. Not the blanketed wooden floor I was currently on, which was about as soft as a brick pillow and comforting as a curse laden teddy bear. Robin also looked tired, he was fast asleep and dribbling on the desk.
Three days remained and I started panicking. I was pacing the clock tower, kicking up dust and pouring over the plan. The more I went over it, the more I saw the gaping holes in it. For instance, the key - I needed to know what door it unlocked. There must be thousands of doors in Hailing Hall and it would take me all year to try it in each lock. I tried to recall what the door looked like in the vision we’d seen of Ernie, but it could have been any number of hundreds. They all looked the same.
I knew who would know where the door was… Ernie of course. I knew this already, but I had been trying to find the right words to make him help me, but they wouldn’t come. For some reason, I had a feeling that he would be unwilling, especially after what he said last time.
“Vocataste-Ernest!” there was a loud whooshing noise then a small pop as Ernie appeared in front of me in a misty white flash.
“Brrr…” he said, shaking himself. “I still hate that.”
“Ernie,” I said. “I have three days left to save her, you have to help me.”
His watery eyes didn’t move. “Depends what you are planning.”
“I need you, on the last day of April at midnight, to deliver these letters to Robin Wilson and… Magisteer Partington.”
Avis Blackthorn: Is Not an Evil Wizard! Page 16
