Ink Black Magic

by Tansy Rayner Roberts

  The Grand Duchydor of the Silversigils (blue and silver speckled moustache) was of a similar opinion, only he thought it was the field goblins who were having the mass hallucination, and that they should be shot, not strangled.

  Both agreed fervently that while they no longer believed that sea slugs were responsible for the mass hallucination, they should probably also be killed to be on the safe side, possibly by scattering a lot of poisoned salt around the general area.

  The Sublime Goanna of the Lizardbloods (clean-shaven with various green-jewelled piercings in his left eyebrow, lip and chin) was the only one who had at least half-listened to Egg and Aragon’s explanations about what was happening, and fervently believed that they were being invaded by creatures from another world. Unfortunately, he was also under the impression that these creatures from another world would all be seven-foot temptresses with platinum hair and easily-removable space suits. If said creatures were looking for suitable mates, he for one was quite enthusiastic to volunteer.

  The Fat False Idol of the Bronzfetishes (plaid goatee, with sideburns) believed that the end of the world was nigh, and there was absolutely nothing any of them could do to stop it, or to do anything which wouldn’t make everything ten times worse, unless anyone else felt like blowing a few things up? He had a lot of explosive charms that had yet to be tested.

  The young apprentice warlocks, who obviously tried to ignore their masters most of the time, again proved useful when it came to tying knots and making camp and all manner of other useful things. They produced blankets and padded bedrolls, then organised a rotational watch to keep an eye on any movement of the dome of harmonylight, so they could warn the sleepers if it started expanding again.

  Aragon, despite his spoken confidence in Kassa’s ability to handle anything, got more restless as the evening went on, pacing back and forth around the edge of the white dome, and trying to peer into Cluft with Lord Sinistre’s spyglass.

  Egg, Clio and Sean accepted bedrolls and blankets from the apprentices and bedded down on the grassy bank, all three of them exhausted.

  Egg was kicked awake once by a passing apprentice, in the middle of the night. The dome of harmonylight had expanded again. Several of the less-vigilant apprentices had been swallowed up by it, but since they were all roped to each other’s legs, they had been hauled back quickly.

  “Wake up, Clio,” Egg muttered, shaking her. “We’re too close. Got to move over.”

  Clio made a face and buried herself further in the damp grass.

  Egg woke up Sean instead. The two of them rolled her, blankets and all, over and over until she was a reasonable distance from the new border. They settled down on either side of her, taking turns to stay awake and keep an eye on what was going on.

  Nothing else happened until morning.

  ***

  Kassa had never felt so completely happy in her life. She sat at a cafe table outside the Majestic dining hall, discussing the pleasant nature of peace, love and light with several of her students.

  Brittany Yarrowstalk, Imani Almondstone and Rosehip Moonweaver had all made the transition quite smoothly from Drak vamps to modest, almost nun-like Harmony citizens. They wore flowing white gowns and braided flowers. They were still quite silly, but manageably so. When a scruffy mercenary called Singespitter joined them at the table, not one of the girls giggled or flirted. They just smiled serenely and included him in the conversation.

  They were all drinking mint tea.

  Kassa stretched out her legs, breathing in the contentment. Everything looked so nice and clean and white. A placidly happy couple strolled by, arm in arm, and she recognised them as Errol Fitzdeath and Penelopa Profit-scoundrel, who had been at odds with each other since both started at the college the previous year. Vice-Chancellor Bertie, clad in snowy white robes, was snoozing on a nearby bench, his face even more peaceful than it usually looked on the first day of the summer holidays.

  She sipped her tea and thought of Aragon. Perhaps she should let him know that she was all right? But that was silly. How could she be otherwise, in this marvellous place? If she stayed here long enough, he might come and join her. That would be much better. Everyone needed to relax.

  Kassa wriggled her stockinged toes in the fine silver sand that covered the ground.

  ***

  “What the hell is going on?” snarled Ladybird.

  Quillsmith said nothing. Admitting that he didn’t know would be admitting failure, and he was so close to winning the leadership once and for all. See how you like Harmony’s prison after a few weeks within its walls, Ladybird.

  “Where are we?” asked Lord Dreamer. It was a valid question. This looked like Harmony, bright and white and dazzlingly peaceful. They were in a huge ballroom which resembled a room they had at home. It was not theirs, however. Not quite familiar…

  “This is Drak,” said Lord Kloakor in sudden recognition.

  “But it’s not dark,” said Invisiblus, always the last to catch on.

  “This is how Drak would look if Drak was Harmony,” said Dreamer softly.

  Quillsmith levitated himself to the high windows of the ballroom and stared out. Those were the shambling, thatched buildings of Cluft, recognisable even as they glowed gloriously white and bright. Beyond them were verdant fields of Mocklore that he had seen every night in his dreams. “We are in the outsider world,” he said, trying to sound as if this came as no surprise to him. Kassa, what have you done? They will eat your world whole and I will not be able to stop them. “The magic of Harmony has been brought to Drak, and we came with it. Look outside, Light Lords. Our invasion has begun.”

  The others, all except the sulking Ladybird, floated up to join him. They gazed out at the white brightness of Cluft, and the pale skybridge which arced between it and themselves. Beyond that, there was colour and a different kind of light. It was nearly morning.

  “Our new home,” breathed Dreamer.

  “Did you do this?” Lord Kloakor asked Quillsmith, who smiled modestly and said nothing.

  “What is happening to my feet?” demanded Ladybird.

  The four of them turned in mid-air and stared down at her. Her feet were, indeed, missing. The floor was now black and shiny, a stark contrast to the bright whiteness of the walls. Soon the hem of Ladybird’s candy-striped skirts had vanished, and a dark stripe ran around the lowest part of the ballroom’s six large walls.

  “It’s unstable,” Dreamer said in alarm.

  “Not that,” said Quillsmith, looking outside. The dome of harmonylight was rising slowly in the air, leaving behind the remnants of Drak and Cluft. “Someone is doing this, extracting the harmonylight by magic.”

  “Then we are doomed,” said Lord Kloakor.

  “You’re doomed?” shrieked Ladybird, who now only existed from the waist up. “But what about me?”

  ***

  Amongst the pleasant haze, something made Kassa glance at her feet. Her pearly white stockings now ended at the ankle, replaced from there down with thick, green and white striped socks. “How strange,” she murmured.

  The socks were winning. Slowly, the green and white stripes rose up her legs, until they vanished under the brilliant white lace hem of her full, flouncy skirts. Then the hem changed, darkening and becoming rougher. Blue denim?

  Singespitter was changing, his floppy white trews and tunic becoming rough, falling-apart garments. His ankle-length sheepskin coat was the only thing not to change. The girls were transforming too, their white gowns changing into their original clothes, the mock-Drak garments they had been wearing before everything had happened.

  Kassa saw green grass sticking through the uneven cobbles of Cluft, and it made her unreasonably happy. She shivered wildly as the last of the harmonylight was dragged from her, and she became entirely herself again. “Gods,” she gasped.

  “Gods are behind this?” said Singespitter, alert.

  “No,” Kassa said, gazing up at the huge dome of Harmonylight which continued
to rise steadily into the air, leaving the original buildings of Cluft behind. “It’s worse than that. It’s warlocks.”

  Chapter 15 — Bright Rain

  Egg woke up as daylight struck him in the face, a brilliant burst of sunshine. It was early, not quite dawn, and it was not sunshine that was shining so brightly in his face. It was Harmony.

  The dome of harmonylight had been peeled from both Cluft and Drak, leaving the buildings, grounds (and, apparently, the people) intact. The harmonylight now hovered in the sky above them all, shaped into a massive, blindingly bright sphere. The master warlocks, having done this, were now squabbling about what they should do with the sphere, while the apprentices supported the brunt of the magic necessary to keep the giant sphere in place.

  Egg stared in a numb kind of horror. With one hand, he shook Clio awake. She sat up so quickly that Sean, on the other side of her, awoke too. “What’s going on?” Sean mumbled.

  Clio gazed at the sphere. “You wanted them to do something,” she said to Egg.

  “I know,” he said. “But if they can’t agree on what caused the problem, can we trust them to find a solution?”

  They went over to where Aragon stood a little way from the warlocks, watching the magical activity. Lord Sinistre, unusually silent, stood beside him.

  “You untied him?” Clio asked.

  “Drak is his city,” said Aragon. “He might as well watch what these idiots are going to do to it.”

  “It doesn’t look so bad,” said Sean hopefully. “Maybe they know what they’re doing.”

  Aragon closed his eyes briefly, as if trying to block out what Sean had just said. “Fifteen minutes,” he said. “I went to sleep for fifteen minutes and they did this.”

  “Kassa’s going to kill us,” Egg added.

  Aragon almost smiled. “With that in the sky,” he said, jabbing a finger at the menacing sphere, “we have so many different ways to die today.”

  ***

  The Light Lords swam within a bright, marshmallowy gooeyness. It felt right. It felt like home. It felt entirely unfamiliar.

  “Where are we now?” whisper/screamed Dreamer.

  “Harmony, of course,” said Invisiblus. “Can’t you taste it?”

  “The magic of Harmony,” scream/whispered Quillsmith. “Not the city itself. We exist only in the magic. What is happening to our people at home without the magic to sustain them?” Is this your fault, Kassa, or is it mine?

  “What does that matter?” said Ladybird. “We’re in this world now. What does it matter what happened to the old one?”

  “Ladybird is right,” agreed Kloakor. “We must look to our own survival.”

  “I want to see,” said Quillsmith. “You have a skill for looking into other worlds, Ladybird. It was you who first saw beyond Harmony and discovered the outsider world. Please, look back into our world and show me that something is still alive there.”

  “You care too much,” said Kloakor.

  “Is that bad?” said Dreamer. “I wish I cared more.”

  “Very well,” said Ladybird. Within the swirling goo of bright magic, they felt her begin to concentrate.

  Suddenly the vision flew from Ladybird’s mind into theirs, a terrible image of frozen figures and a world without magic. There was no silver sand, no movement, no life.

  The vision of their carelessly destroyed world shocked the Light Lords, wounded them deeply, even those who had claimed to be indifferent.

  It broke Quillsmith.

  ***

  Egg could feel the power of the harmonylight sphere, and the power of the warlocks who held it in place. It was so strong. They were stronger. Every warlock in that mob was confident in their ability to keep the sphere aloft, and safe. Each of them only had to contribute a little to the whole. Egg could feel how easy it was for them to control the sphere and, eventually, dispose of it safely.

  It was the most vulnerable thing he had ever seen in his life.

  Aragon raised the spyglass. “How are you three at running?”

  “You think we can outrun that thing?” said Clio, gesturing at the huge Harmony sphere.

  “I’m not talking about that,” said Aragon, handing the spyglass back to Lord Sinistre. “I’m talking about her.”

  Kassa came barreling out of Cluft, her dark red curls streaming behind her. Aragon moved, not away as Egg had half-expected, but running straight at Kassa. As she reached the warlocks, she opened her mouth in shock, and no sound came out. For once in her life, Kassa Daggersharp had absolutely nothing to say.

  Aragon reached her side and hooked one arm around her waist. He pulled her slowly past the warlocks and towards Egg and the others, speaking quietly to her the whole time.

  Egg heard a little of it as they neared. “…know you want to shriek every abusive word under the sun at them, but all you would do at this point is distract the nice men who are trying to keep that damn thing under control and if, by some fluke, something doesn’t actually go horribly wrong here today, or even if it does, you screeching loudly at them will only make things worse and you know that, Daggersharp…”

  “Numbskulls,” Kassa gasped, hardly managing to walk.

  “I know,” said Aragon, still guiding her along. “They can’t help it. Move on. We can’t do anything right now except get out of the danger zone.”

  “Danger zone?” she demanded, gesturing at the massive sphere which hung ominously over their heads. “Do you know a quick and convenient method of leaving the island?”

  Egg tried to think what to say as Kassa reached him. He hadn’t agreed with her ‘no magic’ policy, but he was now pretty sure that he saw her point. “Sorry,” he managed. “They wouldn’t listen to anything we said.” And I wanted them to do something, he thought guiltily.

  Kassa managed to smile faintly. “Not your fault, kiddo. Warlocks never listen to anyone. They spend nine-tenths of their time wallowing in inaction and when they finally decide to do something it’s almost always catastrophically bad.” She glanced back at the master warlocks, who continued to argue about what they were doing with the sphere. “You can let go of me now,” she said to Aragon. “I accept that I can’t do anything.” She sighed. “I can’t even shout at them. I would feel so much better after a good yell.”

  “Afterwards,” said Aragon, not moving his arm from around her waist. “When all this is over, if any of them are left alive, I’ll round them all up and you can yell at them to your heart’s content.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise, Kassa.”

  Singespitter arrived, wheezing hard as he reached Kassa’s side. On his woefully unpracticed human legs, it was amazing he had caught up at all. Aragon gave him a strange, sideways look and then extended the arm which was not holding Kassa. “Singespitter. Good to see you again.”

  Singespitter grasped the arm briefly, then grinned at the surprised Egg, Clio and Sean. “Didn’t recognise me without the fleece?”

  “You’ve still got the fleece,” said Clio, tugging a sleeve of the sheepskin coat.

  Singespitter had hoped the damned thing would change when Harmony was extracted from Cluft, but no such luck. He would have thrown it on a handy rubbish heap by now, but it was a cool morning and he was, after all, used to having a layer of fleece to keep him warm.

  “Skullcaps or Middens?” Kassa said thoughtfully.

  “Middens are closer,” said Aragon. “Not much protection, though.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Mud, trees, ditches. I could lie in a ditch right now.”

  It began to rain, a few speckles at first, then a steady patter. One of the many young warlocks who were holding the sphere steady sneezed, then wiped his nose to counteract further sniffles.

  “Middens,” Aragon agreed.

  The bright white sphere shimmered in the sky, becoming a little unsteady.

  “Run!” Kassa urged the others. She wriggled away from Aragon and grabbed Singespitter’s hand, and Clio’s. She started running for the grassy
bank.

  Egg and Sean scrambled after them, their hands and feet made slippery by the rain as they negotiated the steep bit of bank. Aragon caught up easily, glancing behind to see if Lord Sinistre was following. The Lordling of Drak hurried along, the heels of his shiny black boots sinking deeply into the soft, grassy ground.

  Several more warlocks sneezed. The rain grew heavier. The master warlocks stopped arguing. They stared up at the large sphere in an uneasy silence, then threw their own extra layers of magic to keep the harmonylight contained.

  The bright white sphere exploded with a painful scream, staining the sky with a spearing mass of whiteness that flung itself from horizon to horizon. The noise was so piercing that Kassa and her fleeing band all fell to the grass, momentarily stunned. The gathering rain clouds filled with expanding, mad magic from edge to edge.

  With a deafening rumble, a darker and deeper sound than ever before, the storm began. The white magic filled the sky with a crackle and a screech. The rain came thicker and faster now, bringing with it a shower of jagged whiteness.

  “Up, up, up!” screamed Kassa, trying to drag everyone to their feet at once. Frozen fire, silver wind, white dust and burning water rained around them.

  Aragon caught hold of Kassa’s arm. “We should head for Drak,” he yelled, trying to be heard over the screaming storm.

  Kassa nodded in agreement and half-turned towards Drak, just in time to see the highest dark tower incinerated by a bolt of bright whiteness which might have been lightning. Black dust rained over Drak. “Any shelter is better than none…”

  “Tents,” said Egg, staring through the bright rain towards the north.

  “Tents?” Kassa demanded. “Tents are going to protect us?”

  Aragon saw them too. Across the field, several large, shambling brown tents had been stretched over huge poles of wood. The bright rain and all the other nasty, stabbing things that were falling from the sky did not touch the tents at all. Some strange force was protecting them from harm.

  “Isn’t that interesting?” Aragon said aloud.

  “Good plan,” Kassa agreed, motioning them all in that direction. Their ragged little group staggered through the powerful wind and burning, icy rain.