Ink Black Magic

by Tansy Rayner Roberts

  Egg took a deep breath, and went inside. The first thing he saw was a pig in an armchair, being cuddled by a large, bespectacled white sheep. The temple smelled of honey, pig droppings, vomit and some kind of rotting meat. Various staff members were towelling themselves dry or wiping honey from their clothes and shoes.

  What did they need the honey for? Egg thought in something of a panic.

  Vice-Chancellor Bertie was busy dropping things into a large squat barrel. “And this lovely antique gold fob watch, generously donated by Lord Ambewine over there, has been Greatly Reversed into … ooh look, a broken piece of very modern clockwork!” He waited, as if expecting applause.

  “Does anyone mind if I take my bra off?” said Professor Profit-scoundrel. “I think I’ve got dried wheat in here.”

  Egg backed out of the staff room before anyone could ask him why he was there.

  Outside, Clio and Mistress Sharpe sat on a bench together, talking in low undertones. Mildly traumatised by what he had seen in the staff room, Egg approached the two women. “I was just telling Mistress Sharpe about this city of yours,” Clio said cheerfully. “It occurred to me that she might be a bit more useful than the Vice-Chancellor.”

  “Now you tell me,” said Egg.

  Mistress Sharpe shaded her eyes from the sun as she looked at him. “Come on, Friefriedsson. Let’s have a look at these humorous hieroglyphs of yours.”

  Reluctantly, Egg handed his armful over. “I really don’t know what happened,” he said. “I didn’t mean to create a city, and I can’t think how I could have done it. Maybe it’s just a coincidence.”

  Clio snorted.

  “Coincidence is usually the universe telling you that you’ve been screwed over by magic,” said Mistress Sharpe, leafing her way slowly through the pages. Her eye lingered for a long time over a portrait of Queenbeetle, the insect woman. “Do you have a magical background, Egg?”

  “On my mother’s side,” he admitted. “My grandmother was Buttercup the Witch.”

  Mistress Sharpe stared at him. “Don’t tell me you’re Melinor’s son? Holy nutmeg, we’re cousins!” She grinned broadly. “I don’t expect Aunt Mel taught you magic. I heard she gave up the profession to join some harem.”

  “She was the favourite Wench of the Jarl of Axgaard for nearly a whole year!” Egg said hotly.

  Mistress Sharpe seemed to think this was incredibly funny. “Wenching runs in the family, then. I might have known. What happened to her?”

  “After her first son was born, the Jarl lost interest in her, and that’s when she fell in love … with the Jarl’s eldest son,” Egg began embarrassedly.

  Mistress Sharpe clicked her fingers. “The exiled prince? I thought this story sounded familiar. He was your dad?”

  “Yes, miss.”

  “The weirdest things happen in our family. If we’re cousins, you might as well drop that ‘miss’ stuff and start calling me Kassa.” She produced a black card covered in squiggly silver writing. “The people of Cluft have been invited to a grand welcoming ball in this fictional city of yours, Egg. Tonight. I’m thinking that if I stand half a chance of figuring out what’s going on, you’d better come too.”

  Egg looked at Clio. It occurred to him that she hadn’t been included in Kassa’s invitation. “I don’t suppose—” he started to say.

  Kassa turned to Clio. “Do you have a frock you can wear? I’ll be relying on you to see that this boy wears a suit.”

  Clio’s eyes gleamed. “Dressing up is what I do best.”

  “Good.” Kassa stood up, handing the sheaf of parchments back to Egg. “I’ll want you, cousin dearest, to give me the nitty gritty on everyone in that city — and, if necessary, to write a different ending. Think you can manage it?”

  Obviously, his cousin was a crazy person. “No,” said Egg. “Not really.”

  “Excellent,” Kassa smiled. “Now I have some incredibly important preparations to make.”

  “Magical supplies for protection spells?” said Egg hopefully.

  Clio elbowed him. “Stupid. She has to decide what to wear.”

  “Forget that,” said Kassa Daggersharp. “I have to decide what my sheep is going to wear.”

  ***

  Egg did have a suit. He had fought tooth and nail with his mother about packing it, convinced it wouldn’t be necessary. Now he was quite pleased to be able to put on the formal shirt, waistcoat, trousers and sweeping cloak.

  Clio, whose roommate Lemissa was useless with fashion advice (apparently the poor girl still spent all her time weeping about Sean McHagrty), brought a selection of dresses to Egg and Sean’s room. She occasionally emerged from the wash chamber to display a different gown or hairstyle, and then would whisk away before either of them could venture an opinion.

  “Is there a reason she packed twelve evening dresses for college?” Sean drawled.

  “I find it best not to ask these questions,” said Egg.

  A shadow passed over the window. Egg looked up in alarm. For the first time that day, he remembered his ghostly visitor. It was still afternoon, hardly a suitable time for a ghost to make her reappearance.

  It wasn’t the ghost, though. It was a bat. A large black bat at the window. It wasn’t an appropriate time for bats either, Egg couldn’t help thinking.

  The bat flew straight at the window, its head thwacking the glass. It fell back for a moment, then tried again.

  “Is that from the new city?” Sean McHagrty asked. “I heard a gargoyle came out of it earlier and ate the town dragon. Or was it the town hall? Anyway, it breathed three different colours of fire!”

  “This isn’t from Drak,” said Egg, staring at the bat as it lunged at the glass for a third time.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because it’s carrying a letter for me.”

  Sure enough, the bat held a large envelope in its claws. An envelope covered with magic sigils and sealed with green wax. Them again. Why won’t the bastards leave me alone?

  “So?” said Sean. “The city only just got here. We don’t know what they use as a postal system.”

  The bat’s head hit the glass for a fourth time. It was starting to look seriously pissed off. “Could you wait in the bathroom?” Egg asked. “Keep out of sight a few minutes?”

  “Sure,” said Sean, without asking any questions. He was good like that. “I’m brilliant at sneaking around. Been practising for years.” He sauntered into the bathroom.

  Clio screamed.

  Egg hoped the resulting argument would keep them both out of the way for long enough. He unfastened the window and pushed it open.

  The bat flew into the room, dropping the letter on the carpet. There was a short whooshing sound and several pink sparks. A shadow billowed out of the bat’s mouth, whirling and spinning until it formed a set of black warlock robes, decorated with sigils in green, orange and lemon-yellow embroidery. Inside the robes was a warlock.

  He was young, not one of the gruff elderly types they usually sent. This one had apricot coloured hair and a skimpy beard. “Egfried Friefriedsson,” he said, bending to pick up the fallen letter and holding it out to Egg. “Due to your distinguished birthlines and ancestry, you are honoured with this invitation to join the Harvestmoon Order of Warlocks. The privilege of education will begin immediately…”

  “No,” Egg said. It was best to interrupt with his objections as soon as possible. Waiting for a warlock to stop talking was an exercise in futility. “I don’t want to be a warlock. I’ve refused to be a warlock about twenty times since I was fourteen. I’ve heard from the Harvestmoons, the Silversigils, the Lizardbloods and the Bronzfetishes. I’m not interested in any of you.”

  The warlock looked at him, astonished. “But how can you refuse? Becoming a warlock is the greatest pinnacle one can possibly aspire to.”

  Egg sighed. “And my grandmother was Buttercup the Witch and my grandfather was the Silver Warlock, and how can I possibly betray the blood that runs in my veins? Heard it be
fore. You must be desperate for new recruits.”

  The warlock looked pale. “It is true that warlocklore is a less popular profession than it used to be, but really! Why would anyone not want to be a warlock?”

  Egg went to the window. “See that city over there?”

  “Oh, yes,” said the warlock. “The magical and mysterious Drak. We’ve been blamed for its arrival.” He snorted. “Humph! As if we would ever do anything so show-offy.”

  “It looks dangerous,” said Egg.

  “I expect it is,” said the warlock. “After all, it has brought an entirely new kind of magic into Mocklore, tainted with darkness. I fully expect, as do many of my order, that this city heralds the end of Mocklore as we know it, possibly the end of the entire world.”

  “So what are you going to do about it?” Egg demanded.

  “Me?” said the warlock.

  “You! Why not you? Warlocks have magic, plenty of it. The Harvestmoons, the Lizardbloods, the Grand High Order of Potatomunchers. That city is not supposed to be there and you know it is dangerous, so why don’t you do something? Send Drak back where it came from.”

  The warlock looked horrified. He tugged nervously on his apricot beard. “You don’t know what you’re asking. To perform such a feat of magic would be demeaning to our elite order. We have far more appropriate things to do with our time and energy.”

  “And that, right there,” said Egg. “Pretty much sums up why I don’t want to be a warlock. Magic should be used for helping people. It shouldn’t be conserved in little jars. Don’t let the window concuss you on the way out.”

  The warlock threw the letter at Egg and transformed so hurriedly into a bat that his apricot beard was still visible as he flapped out of the window.

  “You can come back now,” Egg called to the wash chamber.

  Clio stormed through the door, carrying the heavy skirt of her latest ballgown. It was less fluffy than the others, built out of pale blue velvet and trimmed with dark blue lace. “Next time you want to get rid of McHagrty, just throw him out the window, will you?”

  Sean McHagrty emerged from the bathroom, sucking a bleeding finger. “I was only trying to zip you up!”

  “This dress doesn’t zip,” growled Clio.

  “That’s it,” said Egg, his eyes on the bat as it flew over the rooftops of Cluft.

  “What’s what?” said Clio crossly.

  “That’s the frock you should wear to the ball. It’s very pretty.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  ***

  “I don’t care how groundbreaking and innovative that book is,” said Kassa, lacing herself into a brilliant green silk gown with three dozen fine petticoat layers. “You’re coming to the ball with me. We never go out and have fun any more. You’re a grumpy old man with no sense of party.”

  Singespitter sniffed.

  Kassa hauled the sheep off the bed in one powerful movement, plonking him in the middle of the carpet. “Wings out,” she commanded. “You’ll look dressier that way.”

  Singespitter made a growling sound and tried to slink back to the bed.

  “Don’t even think about it,” said Kassa, gazing in the mirror. She had temporarily tamed her hair with a few strings of pearls that wove in and out of the mad red curls. “Needs something,” she muttered to herself. “Singespitter, wings out! I’m not going to tell you again.”

  No one could ignore Kassa when she was using her professor voice. Singespitter closed his eyes and concentrated. Two large purple wings unfolded from within his fleece. He shook the feathers into place and flapped the wings experimentally.

  “Much better,” said Kassa, still staring critically at herself in the mirror. “Aha! Glitter.”

  Singespitter’s eyes flew open in alarm, just in time to see Kassa dump half a container of sparkly green glitter into her hair. He sighed in relief, then coughed wildly as she threw the rest of the glitter over his fleece. “Ptoooey!”

  “Don’t look at me like that,” said Kassa. “We look fabulous and more importantly, we co-ordinate. Shall we go?”

  Singespitter gave her a dirty look, trotted to the balcony and threw himself off it.

  Kassa could have flown down too — her broomstick was at the ready — but she didn’t fancy descending amid the rest of the faculty with an emerald silk gown flapping up around her waist. She took the stairs.

  ***

  Several members of the faculty assembled at the foot of the golden skybridge.

  Professor Penelopa Profit-scoundrel (who against the laws of reason had obtained a tweed ballgown) was attempting to not stand next to D’Arcy Fitzdeath, a thin-moustached flirt who lectured in the less respectable subjects of the Department of Profit: Highway Robbery, Pickpocketing and the like.

  Prince Quenby of the Middens and Lord Ambewine of Teatime, representing the Department of Aristocracy, had each attempted to outdo the other. Lord Ambewine wore a silk suit with a high collar to conceal the green blotches on his neck, an after-effect of taking too many antidotes to popular poisons. He wore black gloves, high boots, a glowing diamond medallion and a snooty expression on his foxy face. Prince Quenby, who was more solidly built, demonstrated his own nobility with an eccentric costume of pink, gold, green and purple velvets, satins and gabardines. His hat was a virulent orange, dotted with topaz buttons. He wore at least three waistcoats, and his overall appearance was something not unlike the multi-coloured Skullcap mountains.

  Doctor Mindette Masters of the Department of Certain Death (lecturing in Heroics, Espionage and Piracy) was extremely corseted, her tiny waist exploding out into big scarlet skirts and an over-filled bodice. Her grey hair was pinned up with several brooches made from human bone. Her earrings were small bat skulls. Her boots were so high-heeled that she was in danger of puncturing the pavement. Kassa hoped to look just like her in forty years time.

  Also from the Department of Certain Death was Professor Gootch of Assassination and Edged Weapons, who was bleakly certain that as soon as they all crossed the skybridge, they would be met by a hail of arrows. Paranoia went with his position — he had won his professorship by assassinating his predecessor — but he was worse than usual since the appearance of Drak. He wore a protective vest and a large metal diver’s helmet, just in case.

  Standing with Professor Gootch was a third member representing the Department of Certain Death, Doctor S. Wampweed. He was a large, vegetable-shaped person who smelled of swamp muck, burbled instead of talking and enjoyed cooking with ingredients that most people wouldn’t even use to fertilise their gardens. It was suspected that he was not entirely human, but everyone had been far too polite to mention this once he received his Doctorate in Poisons.

  Lastly came the team from the Department of Highly Improbable Arts. Apart from Kassa there was Banjo Harper, a lecturer in Tavern Skills who firmly believed his job at any party was to provide the music. To this end, he was carrying at least sixteen separate musical instruments, many of which he could play just by clashing his knees together.

  Then there was Professor Incendia Noir, matchstick-thin and perfectly groomed. No matter how much work Kassa put into her appearance, this woman made her feel like a crazy big-hipped scarecrow. Professor Noir wore black as she always did, a long swirling gown that clung to her narrow body with the kind of elegance that costs an absolute fortune. She wore evening slippers that made her delicately tiny feet look even more petite. Her hair was swept up in a style which on anyone else would last two minutes before flopping ungracefully around their neck. On Professor Noir, it would last all night.

  Kassa forced a smile as she approached the group. “You look lovely, Incendia.”

  “I know,” said Professor Noir politely. “What an interesting thing you’ve done with your hair, Kassa. Quite original.”

  “Right then,” said Vice-Chancellor Bertie who had turned up in his usual old tweed suit, both arms wrapped firmly around the Great Reversing Barrel. “Ready for the off?”

  Mavis stood besid
e him, wearing a ghastly pink ballgown that was several sizes too big for her and about fifty years out of fashion. She gestured to the skybridge and several golden steps appeared out of thin air so the faculty could scramble up with a minimum of fuss.

  “We who are about to die salute you,” grumbled Professor Gootch.

  “I hope there’s a nice supper,” said Prince Quenby.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you didn’t have proper evening shoes,” said Professor Noir, gazing at Kassa’s big black boots poking out from under the hem of her ballgown. “I would have lent you some. Although — silly me, your feet would be far too large for my shoes, wouldn’t they?”

  Several postgraduate students hovered at the back of the group, dressed in their best finery and trying to conceal various bottles of alcoholic beverage about their person. One girl had an entire beer keg under her skirt. Clio and Egg stood with them, trying to blend in.

  “Off we go, quicksticks, don’t want to be late!” bellowed Bertie. The Cluft delegation began to cross the golden skybridge.

  It was only when they were halfway across that everything went horribly wrong.

  Chapter 4 — Poached Albatross and the Demon Dance

  Singespitter flew on ahead of the delegation from Cluft. As he crossed the halfway point of the glittering skybridge, he transformed from a respectable white sheep with purple wings into a dark, snarling beastie. His wings were suddenly bat-like, and his face dripped with fangs.

  Kassa stared in horror as her newly monstrous sheep took off towards Drak. “Nobody move!” she called behind her.

  “Sorry, what’s happening?” asked Vice-Chancellor Bertie, who couldn’t see past the Great Reversing Barrel he was carrying. He bumped into Kassa’s back

  Kassa fell forward, thrusting out her arms as she hit the bridge. She picked herself up and turned to face the others. “What are you all staring at?”

  “You, darling,” said Master Fitzdeath with what he probably imagined was a seductive smile.

  Kassa stared down at her own body. Her red hair was several shades darker than usual, as was her green silk dress. The heels of her boots were several inches higher, the neckline of her dress was several inches lower and something disturbing had happened to her underwear. She touched her hands to her waist. Her sudden breathing troubles were explained by the fact that she was now tightly corseted, her ribs constrained by the embroidered bones of a large sea mammal.