“I have BURNED with anger!” roared the giant. “The boiling impossible heat of my fury has kept me here…
“SO ANGRY!” thundered the giant, and the sound of the giant’s anger, even though he was dying, rumbled out of his great giant chest like a thousand bears a-roaring, echoing its way around the room, sending the table shaking.
“I am not afraid to die, but I have had unfinished business…” said the giant. “And with my last breath I urge you…”
There was a great pause.
For the last breath of giants is a terrible thing.
“Revenge!” whispered Xar, highly excited. “He wants REVENGE! Don’t worry, giant, I’m pretty angry with those Droods myself… You can pass that quest right on to me. Xar’s your man!”
Xar was delighted because the last breath of a giant was one thing. But the dying VENGEANCE wish of a giant… that was a very powerful ingredient indeed. THAT would be extremely helpful if you wanted to get rid of the Witches.
“Get ready, everyone!” shouted Xar. “The giant’s about to go!”
“Oh, poor giant!” said Wish. “Have a little respect, Xar! These are his dying moments!”
“He’s been dying for YEARS!” said Xar. “We’re doing him a favor! You’re ANGRY aren’t you, giant? So angry you haven’t been able to die… Give us your fury! We need all of it!”
“With my last breath I urge you…” said the giant. He clutched his throat… He was about to go, fighting for breath.
“I urge you…
“I urge you…
“FORGIVE THEM.”
11. The Story Takes a Surprising Turn, as Is the Way of Stories
Whaaaaaat?????” said Xar, so absolutely flabbergasted, he momentarily forgot the quest.
“GET THE BREATH!!!!!!!!” yelled Bodkin.
It was a beautifully synchronized operation.
You’d have thought they’d done it a thousand times before.
The giant fell backward, with a CRASSSHHHHHHHHHH that shook the hall to its remaining foundations, and the last breath was up and out of his mouth in a great cloud. Tiffinstorm zapped an appearance spell to make it visible, and there it was, in a great shaggy cloud, for one tantalizing moment before—reoow! Hinkypunk’s shrinking spell failed to shrink it more than an inch or so—but that was where Eleanor Rose came in. She flew right over it, holding her little arms apart, and the breath shrunk to pea-size and, with a glorious flurry of wings, the peregrine falcon swooped, and the Once-sprite caught the now-tiny little ball of breath in his collecting bottle, putting in the stopper as the falcon dived down and then up, up again, out of the way of the rising dust.
And then he dropped the little bottle into the waiting hands of Squeezjoos, the official sprite assistant to the spell-raiding team.
Wish ran over to the prone body of the giant. Eleanor Rose held up both her arms again, and in front of their eyes the great body of the giant simply melted away, into the ground beneath them.
“Where has he gone?” whispered Wish with round eyes.
“Where he should have gone a long, long time ago,” said Eleanor Rose. “Do not be sad; he is free at last, the poor giant.”
“Oh, but we are sad!” said Wish, and all of them were, for the giant had been so noble and had been treated so badly.
“As am I,” Eleanor Rose said briskly. “Not sad, of course, but free. And what a last breath it was… after all these years of anger, he forgives them!” she said in amazement. “How wonderful!”
“Mission accomplished!” the Once-sprite said proudly as the peregrine falcon came to rest on Xar’s shoulder.
Squeezjoos held up the bottle. There, right in the middle, was a small, odd-looking round thing, curled up in on itself like a flower.
The sprites let out a great hissing cheer, and the wolves and the snowcats howled their appreciation. “We issss spell-raidersssssssss!”
The wolves capered up and down; the snowcats chased each other around the dinner plates; Lonesome sat down and howled.
The only one who wasn’t dancing gloatingly around the giant dinner table in glee was Xar.
Which was unlike Xar, who was normally Gloater-in-Chief.
It was as if having to sit quietly for five minutes without fidgeting had been such an effort that he had to burst out now with his real feelings.
“It should be a Revenge Breath!” said Xar angrily. “What use is a Forgiveness Breath, even a giant one, if you’re fighting Witches, the greatest peril the world has ever known?”
It was only Xar who had failed to understand the true meaning of the story.
For most of the others in the room, the story had thrown all the pieces of what they knew up in the air, and when they came down again, everything had changed.
Stories can change lives…
And this was one of those stories.
Secrets had been told that had been kept buried and hidden away in human hearts for a very, very long time.
“Don’t you understand, Xar?” said Wish. “The princess in the story was my mother! And the young Wizard was your father Encanzo…”
“What?????” Xar’s jaw fell open. “Nonsense! The young Wizard was called Tor!”
“Maybe that was your father’s name before he became an Enchanter,” suggested Caliburn, which was possible—Wizards did tend to take a new name when they rose to that status.
“But it’s impossible,” said Xar. “My father would never be so sappy as to fall in love with the human iceberg that is Queen Sychorax…”
“Is this why I am Magic, Eleanor Rose?” said Wish through white lips.
“Yes. A Warrior queen could have a daughter who was Magic, if she once loved a Wizard,” said Eleanor Rose. “The kiss of a Wizard, if it was a true love’s kiss… that could stay in the blood. The Magic could still be in there, even after the love had died.”
So there was the truth of it.
Once, long ago, Sychorax and Encanzo had been in love.
And Sychorax had taken the terrible Spell of Love Denied…
And the love had died.
She had married a Warrior, like she was supposed to…
But somewhere, somewhere behind Sychorax’s iron breastplate… the lingering true love’s kiss of a Wizard had made her daughter Magic, even though she was the daughter of two Warriors.
“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,” moaned Caliburn. “They broke the rules! And rules are there for a reason! Wizards and Warriors aren’t supposed to fall in love… And now we see why! A child has been born—Wish—who has Magic-mixed-with-iron… and that has changed the course of history. For Magic-mixed-with-iron is what the Witches have been waiting for, for so many, many years…”
Xar was still finding this hard to absorb. “My father is always lecturing ME about not breaking rules, and you’re telling me HE broke the biggest rule ever?”
“Maybe this is what our quest has been all about!” said Wish excitedly. “My father died years ago in a battle against the Grimogres. What about your mother, Xar?”
“She died when I was a baby,” said Xar.**
“So your father and my mother are free to fall in love all over again!” said Wish excitedly. “We can help them by undoing the Spell of Love Denied!”
Both Xar and Bodkin looked at her as if she were crazy.
“If my father made the mistake of falling in love with that dreadful polar ice cap that is your mother once, he’s never going to do it TWICE,” said Xar in disgust.
“And oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,” said Caliburn, in great agitation. “Undoing the Spell of Love Denied would be IMPOSSIBLE! What was Pentaglion thinking to cast such a spell?”
Eleanor Rose sniffed disapprovingly. “Yes, sometimes it is the ones who think they are wisest who are in fact the most foolish. You’re never too old to learn… Now, good-bye, little humans and other funny creatures,” she said.
“Oh, don’t go!” cried Wish. “We really, really need your help! And you never told me where the spoon was! Do
you know?”
“I do know where he is,” agreed Eleanor Rose.
“OH!” cried Wish in delight. “Please tell me where he is!”
“I can release him for you, but after that you should leave here as quick as you can,” warned Eleanor Rose. “Us Frost-sprites are not really supposed to interfere with the affairs of the humans, you see, which is one of the reasons I can’t kill THAT,” she said, gesturing upward. “For that really would be interfering. And besides, I made THAT a promise…”
“What is THAT?” said Bodkin, looking up at the ceiling, where he thought he could see something, he wasn’t sure what, but something lurking up there. They hadn’t noticed before, but whatever it was was dripping, one small drop every minute or so, like a stalactite in a cave. Drip . . ! Drip . . ! Drip . . !
Bodkin moved forward, peering upward, trying to see what it was…
And just as Bodkin was staring upward…
Something rather LARGER than a drop of water melted from the dark thing it was attached to and landed on the floor with a bright clear ringing noise like a bell.
CLING!!! Cling! Cling! Cling! Cling!
Something that bounced around brightly on the floor before lying quite still.
Something about the size of… an Enchanted Spoon.
Wish rushed forward, with a cry of joy. “My spoon! My spoon!” and she caught the spoon up in her arms.
“He’s fine!” she exclaimed, in jubilant relief. The spoon was cold as ice, but she could feel him warming and beginning to move, and the fork and the key and the pins curled around him gleefully, the key making purring noises, and even the sprites and the hairy fairies were pleased for Wish at this reunion. Xar and Bodkin patted her on the back, and the snowcats and wolves capered around in happy circles.
Wish turned to thank Eleanor Rose.
But Eleanor Rose had already left.
Off she flew, up and away, rocketing like a tiny shooting star, pausing a moment at the rim of the battlements, and then sending down some sprite-writing as an afterthought, before continuing on in the direction of the north.
The sprite-writing hovered in front of them, for a few beautiful flickering moments before disappearing too, like smoke into the sea.
“Remember…” said the sprite-writing.
“The universe often depends on
one…
unlikely…
chance.”
“Oh, I LIKED her!” said Wish, sighing and hugging the spoon very tight. “She cared far more than she thought she did! And I felt somehow better when she was here to protect us…”
For as the spoon grew warm and wriggly in her arms, she could tell by his body language that he wasn’t as joyful about this reunion as he ought to have been. He seemed agitated. He was jumping, sluggishly but anxiously, on her hand. He seemed to be trying to point to something… something up above their heads…
“What is the spoon trying to say?” asked Xar as they looked around themselves, and realized that they were suddenly very alone in the castle, with the giant and Eleanor Rose gone. Some haunting spell had left it, and it felt… peaceful, and no longer sad, but also no longer alive.
But nonetheless… the silence was a little…
Ominous.
“Why do you think Eleanor Rose said we should get out of here as fast as we can?” asked Tiffinstorm uneasily.
Bodkin was slowly backing away as he looked upward, at where the Frost-sprite had pointed a few minutes earlier, at the exact spot the spoon had dropped from.
There was something else hanging from the ceiling, like a gigantic vampire bat. A still thing, folded in on itself, quiet and malevolent and patiently waiting. It had witnessed the story. It had hung there for weeks. It had been there all along, and they had not noticed it.
A plotter.
A planner.
A thing with wings.
“What issss that?” hissed Tiffinstorm, drawing her wand, as sharp as any thorn.
Wish and Xar and the sprites and the snowcats and the wolves turned their own heads upward to follow Tiffinstorm’s pointing finger. The werewolf stiffened, sniffed the air as he smelled something wicked, and raised his shaggy head reluctantly.
“Hissssssssss…” hissed the sprites, bright as fire. How could they not have smelled that smell before? That stink, that reek, that corpselike stench…
Because whatever-it-was had been frozen until that very moment.
Bodkin had been staring up at the thing for a while now, and he was so scared he could barely get the words out.
“That,” said Bodkin, “is the Kingwitch. We need to get out of here NOW.”
12. A Bad Moment for Your Escape to Get Held Up
As they all looked upward in horror, mouths open, at the great dark nightmare hanging above them like a sword about to drop, some more sprite-writing appeared, shooting down from above. It was a little wobblier and harder to read, for Eleanor Rose was now very far away, on the way back to the pole where she belonged.
“The giant and I promised the Kingwitch we wouldn’t kill him, if he brought you all to this place together,” said Eleanor Rose’s sprite-writing. “I’ve frozen him for the moment, but the farther I get away from the castle, the harder it is for me to keep him that way, so, I repeat, you will have a bit of a head start but you need to get out of there as soon as you can…”
“Oh brother, oh brother, oh brother,” moaned Xar, drawing the Enchanted Sword.
“Sorry about that,” finished the sprite-writing, getting fainter every second. “But the ends justify the means… a fine outcome excuses a bad method… all in pursuit of a higher good, you know… You’ll understand when you’re older.”
Uh-oh.
Uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh…
They scrambled to get off the giant’s table and out of that hidden hall before the Thing moved. The sprites launched themselves into the air; the humans leaped on the backs of the snowcats, who ran down the table legs, scrambling to get across the hall and escape from the castle before that THING woke up.
Up, out of the hall, and into the courtyard, the sprites zooming overhead.
However, as the sprites and the animals emerged shrieking and running as fast as their paws could take them into the daylight, an unwelcome sight met their eyes.
While they had been listening to the story, their pursuers had finally caught up with them.
Tiffinstorm gave a cry of distress, pointing her wand to the south, where climbing up the southern ramparts were Rogrebreaths, giants, Wizards, and the drifting ghostly shapes of Droods.
A golden eagle and a gyrfalcon flew in through two of the broken windows, and then swooped low over the heads of Wish and Xar and Bodkin, as they rode the snowcats through the ruined castle.
“Oh brother!” cried Xar, turning his head to look up. “This is really going to hold us up!”
“What is it?” said Wish, riding Nighteye right beside him.
“My father,” said Xar. “That’s my father…”
“How can that be your father? It’s a bird,” said Bodkin, but even as he said it, he knew it was a stupid statement.
The golden eagle and the gyrfalcon wheeled slowly around and hovered in front of the children. The long wings of the golden eagle turned into arms, and the body into the human form of Encanzo, and he landed lightly and coolly on the ground. The gyrfalcon’s wings transformed into the long trailing sleeves of the Drood Commander, and he gave a grunt of satisfaction as he landed on the broken floor of the castle.
“SPLIT UP! DODGE!” yelled Xar, and the snowcats swerved—but it was already too late. They were surrounded.
The spelling staffs flew out of their pouch on Xar’s back and into the hands of Encanzo and the Drood Commander.
Birds flew in from all corners of the broken castle, peregrines and crows and seagulls, and transformed into hovering hooded Droods, landing with their long ominous sleeves trailing behind them. Wolves and bears and snowcats and mountain lions appeared, each
with a Wizard on its back, armed for battle, and they took out their staffs, and the castle rang with Magic spells of overcoming, so that Wish and Xar and Bodkin could barely move, and Bodkin struggled for breath.
“Going somewhere, Xar?” said Encanzo coldly.
Xar cursed his father loud and long as the spells from Encanzo’s staff carried him up into the air, legs dangling furiously.
“LET ME GO!” shouted Xar. “We need to get out of here right now! There’s a Kingwitch about to unfreeze in the chamber below us!!!!”
“You will excuse me if I do not believe you, Xar,” said his father in a voice of steel. “For you have lied to me so many times in the past. We are here to take you back to Gormincrag. You were put in Gormincrag to try to HELP you but it seems you are determined to prove you are beyond help!”
“Why do you never listen to what I say?” raged Xar. “That Drood there thinks I’m incurable! He just wants to keep me there forever! I am NEVER going back to Gormincrag, Father! Anyway, this is all beside the point because as I just told you, there’s this Kingwitch, about to attack!”
Wish stepped forward. “Your son is right, sir… He’s telling the truth… There really is this Kingwitch down there…”
Encanzo gave a start as he took in Wish and Bodkin for the first time.
“Who are you? And why are you with my son?”
There was no good answer to this question. “Oh!” said Wish. “I’m nobody… I’m nothing at all! I’m a friend of Xar’s but nobody important… I’m just a… I’m a…”
What on earth could she be?
While Wish was desperately trying to think of a satisfactory answer to this question an ice-cold voice came floating out on the air from the right-hand side of the circle where all the Wizards, Droods, and giants were gathered. A voice as cold as a frost drop and as sweetly pure as the point of a freshly sharpened knife.
Twice Magic Page 12
