Ink Black Magic

by Tansy Rayner Roberts

  Vice-Chancellor Bertie stayed behind in the tents to work on his repairs of the Great Reversing Barrel with the help of Baron Svenhilda’s husband, the clockwork man called Doc.

  Kassa, Clio, Egg, Sean and Singespitter stood outside the Axgaard encampment, staring across the fields to Cluft and Drak. The sky was blue and calm. Scorch marks and melting shards of ice still scarred the land, but these would fade. The storm was over.

  “Is that it?” said Clio softly. “Do we just go back to real life now? Will there be lectures tomorrow and Fish Surprise for lunch and essays to be handed in?”

  “I don’t know,” said Kassa. Singespitter’s hand found hers, squeezing it softly. “I really hope so.”

  “They are going to give us extensions for those essays, aren’t they?” Sean said suddenly.

  Everyone looked at him.

  “What? I’m just saying what the rest of you are thinking.”

  “We’d better head across,” said Kassa. “See what the damage is, send letters home to the parents, that sort of thing.”

  They all started walking down the hill and across the field towards the Great Mocklore Highway.

  “That’s probably where Uncle Aragon went,” Clio said suddenly. “I mean, he is the Chamberlain of Drak. He would have been worried about the people over there.”

  “Yes,” said Kassa. “That’s probably where he went.”

  “I can’t believe the city’s still here,” said Sean. “Shouldn’t Drak have vanished in the storm? It’s fictional.”

  “Some fictions are stronger than others,” said Kassa. “You never know if magic is going to be permanent until it is. I think the draklight has gone, and hopefully the influence of Harmony as well, but it looks like the city itself is staying.”

  “I’m glad,” said Clio. “It wouldn’t feel right if Drak vanished. Not after everything that has happened.” Her breath caught in her throat as they neared the road. She had spotted the warlocks, or what was left of them.

  Many of the younger warlocks had tried to make rudimentary shelters, using blankets or bedrolls. The fire and ice and stone and wind of the elemental storm had sliced through such flimsy materials. Many of the warlocks had lost limbs, or were wounded or scarred.

  It made very little difference, since the end result was that not one of them had survived. Some were frozen, glassy statues in crumpled poses. Some had been scorched, others crushed. Several had been turned to stone. The High Poppinpoose of the Harvestmoons, the Grand Duchydor of the Silversigils, the Sublime Goanna of the Lizardbloods and the Fat False Idol of the Bronzfetishes were all fixed in identical positions of outrage, their hands outflung at the very idea that their careful magical containment of the Harmony sphere could have failed. Kassa knocked on one of them. It was not glass or stone. It was some other, lighter substance. The master warlocks were firmly glued to the highway, unmovable.

  “That’s going to affect traffic,” Kassa commented.

  Clio looked at her accusingly. “None of them deserved this!”

  “Didn’t they?” said Kassa. “I suppose not. It doesn’t really matter now.”

  Egg stared at the mass of apprentice warlocks, forcing himself to look for an apricot beard and to remember which of the twisted, frozen figures had once handed him a bowl of sausages and peas. “Is this my fault?” he asked in a strangled voice.

  Kassa turned and hugged him hard. “Sweetheart, don’t think that. We passed the point where this was your fault a long time ago. Everyone’s had a finger in this pie, from the Light Lords of Harmony to the Gods of Mocklore to Vice-Chancellor Bertie’s damn Great Reversing Barrel. Very little of it has anything to do with you.” She held him at arm’s length and stared into his eyes. “Do you believe me?”

  Uncomfortably, he nodded.

  “Good,” she said. “Now let’s go and see what a mess the storm made of Cluft.”

  She led the way along the road. Singespitter clapped Egg on the shoulder sympathetically and ran after Kassa. Sean tugged an unresisting Clio away from the horrible sight.

  Egg stayed behind, gazing at the bloated figure of the High Poppinpoose. “The question is,” he muttered. “Can I do something to fix it?”

  He placed his hand firmly on the warlock’s chest, allowing his magic to do the thinking for him. Orange light flared briefly under his palm. He could feel it working…

  The High Poppinpoose of the Harvestmoon Order of Warlocks melted in one big rush, splattering the road with a puddle of hot, sticky goo. Egg jumped back wildly, only just managing to avoid being splashed. He looked around wildly to check that no one had seen him, then ran after the others.

  Obviously, he needed more practice.

  ***

  Drak was a mess. Several of the taller towers had been shattered by the storm. Many people in the outer city lay dead in the streets. Those who had survived now lined the streets around the palace, desperate for some sign that all was not lost; desperate for some sign that the draklight was not gone forever.

  Inside the palace, Lord Sinistre ran from room to room. “It must be here. It can’t all be gone.”

  His Chamberlain, who had kept up with him every step of the way, said nothing. The warring personalities within Aragon’s brain had reached a strange accord, allowing them both to control their own private thoughts. As Aragon considered how strange Drak was without the ever-present influence of the magical draklight, the Chamberlain was able to think about how to organise the relief effort for those who had lost houses, how he was going to feed a city full of people without the magically-produced food they were used to relying on, how they could turn all this into some kind of positive propaganda, and finally how he was going to tell Lord Sinistre that the Underground Zoo had been damaged in the disaster, allowing many demonic gargoyles, bats and other dangerous creatures to escape into the tunnels under the city.

  “We’ll look upstairs,” Lord Sinistre decided.

  “My lord,” the Chamberlain interjected. “Are there not more important things we should be doing? Without the draklight, your people will be confused, hungry. We must help them.”

  “The best thing we can do is bring the draklight back,” Lord Sinistre growled. “Do not play the Chamberlain with me, Silversword. Do not pretend you would even be here if I had not compelled you to follow me.”

  Aragon took over from the anxious Chamberlain. “That is a matter I would like to discuss,” he said, fingering at the metal Compelling Collar that bit into his throat. “This is not particularly comfortable, and is quite unnecessary. I know where my duties lie.” Well, one of me does. “I am not going to abandon my responsibilities if you give me my freedom.”

  “Duties?” Lord Sinistre laughed. “Would you have returned to deal with your duties without my intervention? Of course not. You would be with that red-haired witch of yours, worrying about her city, not mine.”

  He has a point, said the Chamberlain.

  No he doesn’t, snapped Aragon. As if I could have stayed away with your nagging voice constantly in my head. Besides, whatever you and your precious Lordship think, I do take responsibilities seriously.

  “I was the Champion of the whole Mocklore Empire once,” he said aloud. Well, twice actually, but let’s not get unnecessarily complicated. “I never once flinched in service to the Empire, even when there was a conflict between Imperial duty and my own family. I executed my own brother as my duty to the Empire. When the Emperor himself became a threat to the Empire, I arranged his death as well.”

  Lord Sinistre’s dark eyes flashed as he stared at the other man. “Is that a threat, Chamberlain?”

  “I was merely attempting to illustrate my commitment to duty. I am your man. I belong to Drak. This—” and he flicked the tinny Compelling Collar with a fingernail, “—is an irrelevance.”

  Well said, thought the Chamberlain, impressed.

  Don’t you start. I’m going to get rid of you as soon as humanly possible.

  Perhaps I’ll be the one who get
s rid of you.

  Either way suits me.

  “The Collar stays,” said Lord Sinistre. “I do not trust you, Chamberlain.”

  “I suppose that’s fair enough,” said Aragon. “I don’t trust you either.”

  The two men stared each other down. “Good,” said Sinistre finally. “You should not trust me. No one should trust me. I’ll teach them to forget that I am the villain!”

  “What exactly are you going to do?” Aragon asked.

  Lord Sinistre laughed maniacally, his cackle echoing up and down the staircase. “I am going to lure the draklight back!”

  Aragon’s inner Chamberlain sighed plaintively. Now we’ll never get anything useful done.

  ***

  Cluft was a mess. Apart from the Third Lecture Theatre and a section of the square of student residence which had been destroyed (including the hour clock tower but not the minute or second), the thatched roof of the administration cottage had been obliterated, the flower beds were beyond retrieval, an entire wall was missing from the library tower and several marble tiles from the staff room temple had been smashed. Egg and Sean’s room was undamaged; Clio’s was not.

  Professor Gootch was dead. The calmness of the dome of harmonylight had apparently forced him to relax for the first time since taking on the position of Professor with a Special Interest in Assassination, and the shock of having his stress removed had finished him off before the elemental storm even got started. Doctor Wampweed had been carved in half by a burning icebolt while getting students to safety, but both halves of him had recovered quite well, growing all the extra bits necessary to make two identical versions of him. This was convenient, as it meant there was someone to take over Professor Gootch’s subjects when lessons resumed.

  Doctor Mindette Masters had led her Heroics I and Heroics II classes into battle against the storm, which meant that they were all rather bruised, battered and burnt. There were a few quite serious injuries currently being treated, the rest being minor scrapes, cuts and burns.

  Three students were killed when the square of student residence was hit. One of them was Clio’s roommate, Lemissa. Clio and Sean were both dealing with this by sitting together, not touching or talking, each trying to figure out how they felt.

  Egg felt oddly guilty, for feeling sad despite not knowing any of the dead students, for his own part — however small Kassa insisted it was — in the creation of the elemental storm, and for the jealous twinges at Sean and Clio’s new closeness, which had started long before the news about Lemissa.

  He dealt with this guilt by waiting until Kassa was busy elsewhere, then finding Professor Incendia Noir who had put a call out for students with magical ability to help with the relief effort.

  “Magically able?” she asked briskly, tapping Egg’s forehead. “Oh, yes. You’ve a lot of power in there. Untrained, I suppose.”

  “I only recently found out about it,” he admitted.

  “Can you spot magic when you see it, or if it’s nearby?”

  Egg concentrated. He could feel the earthy magic in the ground, the dark and sharp power contained within Professor Noir’s rail-thin body, the aftertaste of the elemental storm in the air between his teeth. He knew without looking that Kassa was on the far side of Cluft, her colourful and lyrical magical abilities held as tightly under control as her firmly-laced bodice. “Yes,” he said.

  “Fine,” said Professor Noir. “We’re checking the area for remnants of the storm, to see whether the threat is completely past. Work with Singespitter. Check every rock, ice shard or hailstone you see. If you sense any active magic in the storm debris, call me over.”

  The group of students dispersed, each clutching a map of Cluft with an area coloured in for them to survey. Egg joined Singespitter. “Does Kassa know you’re doing this?”

  “Of course not,” said Singespitter with a grin. “Nor you, or we’d have heard the screams already.”

  When Egg looked at the lanky older man in the sheepskin coat he saw an afterflash of Singespitter the sheep, reflected on the back of his retinas. There was no other hint of magic. “You don’t have any witchcraft or warlockitude in you, do you?”

  “None at all,” said Singespitter. “I’m what you call a talented layperson. Know it when I see it, can spot magic a mile off. Can’t help being interested in it. Like a shipwreck victim who gets obsessed by boats.”

  They moved away from Cluft, peering around for storm remnants. There was a large ice-shard wedged in the guttering of the Stick and Swazzle Cocktail Tavern, on the far side of the administration cottage. Singespitter found a long stick and prodded the ice while Egg gazed at it from the inside out. Apart from a residual memory of being flung from the sky, there was no magic here. He shook his head, and they moved on.

  “Still,” said Singespitter. “Nice to put this ability of mine into practice. The only other use I’ve found for it is when I was supervising exams last year. Amazing what those third-year Magic Studies kids try to get away with. You tell them that any magic detected in the exam room will be considered evidence of cheating and there they are, waltzing in with half a dozen Memory Retrieval charms attached to their quill, pentagrams painted on the soles of their shoes and a pencil case full of newts.” He grinned. “Hey, that job’s going to be so much easier this year now I’m a two-leg again. Won’t have to stand on a chair to keep an eye on them all.”

  “You’re very calm about it all,” said Egg. “I mean, you were a sheep for years and years because of some big magical mistake. Aren’t you angry?”

  “Wasn’t so bad, being a sheep,” said Singespitter. He pointed at a scatter pattern of charred pebbles along the path, and they went to investigate. “I never got cold with all that fleece around me — and I hate getting cold. Having wings was really cool. I’ll miss being able to fly. Then there’s the added bonus, where I got to hang out with Kassa.”

  The pebbles felt neutral to Egg. They moved on, finding more ice and more pebbles. The ice was melting fast now, but there was enough of it for Egg to sense the lack of magic. It was just ice. Singespitter nodded to confirm that he felt the same.

  “You love her, don’t you?” Egg asked as they headed for one of the many neat little rivers around Cluft.

  “What’s love?” said Singespitter lightly. “I belong to her, that’s all.”

  Egg gave him a sideways look. “Belong?”

  “Yeah. She’s like one of those old-fashioned queens. People line up and volunteer to join her service. You’re one.”

  “I am?”

  “Sure. If the Vice-Chancellor said he would expel you if you left school grounds, but Kassa said it was a matter of life or death that you went to Dreadnought with her, what would you do?”

  Egg thought about it. “I’d follow Kassa.”

  “You see? The hardest thing about being an adoring subject is that it’s nearly impossible to distinguish yourself from the others. To be special. Aragon got Kassa’s attention by being an evil treacherous bastard. He followed that up with the double surprise move of being absolutely loyal to her and making her fall for him.” Singespitter shook his head. “Talk about a trick that’s hard to top.”

  Several small rowing boats were lined up by the side of the little river. Two had been punctured by large, spiky white boulders and one still crackled with an icy coating. Egg probed them magically and felt nothing.

  “Whereas being a sheep — a pet, I suppose — gave me an edge of my own,” Singespitter went on, nodding his agreement that there were no magical traces here. “When Kassa had a temper tantrum and didn’t want people near her, she didn’t mean me. Even after she forced her crew to split up and get lives of their own, I got to tag along with her.”

  “But you’re not a sheep any more,” said Egg. “How’s that going to work?”

  “I can still be a best friend or a brother-type,” Singespitter shrugged. “Anything but true love, I suppose. That job is well and truly taken.”

  Egg wasn’t convinced.
“If Aragon Silversword is so right for Kassa, why isn’t he here with her? Where did he run off to?”

  “Off doing something important, I expect,” said Singespitter. “Never be a hero, Egg. The hours are lousy.”

  ***

  As the ice melted, a puddle formed beneath the guttering of the Stick and Swazzle Cocktail Tavern. A short while after Egg and Singespitter moved on, four small nubs appeared in the puddle, narrow little bumps forming within the chilly surface of the water. Slowly, the nubs became longer, finger-like. A hand, glowing softly white, emerged from within the puddle, its substance formed by the puddle itself. There was only enough puddle to make a single hand, firmly cut off a few inches up the wrist. The hand, still glowing white, scampered across the path until it reached the charred pebbles. With a soft popping sound, the pebbles became one with the hand, forming long, perfectly-manicured fingernails.

  “That’s better,” said the disembodied voice of Ladybird.

  The hand scampered onward, looking for further material.

  ***

  Clio and Sean still sat on the bench in the square of student residence, lost in mutual silence, thinking about Lemissa.

  “Didn’t like her much,” Clio admitted finally.

  “Me either,” said Sean.

  She stared at him. “You slept with her!”

  “Don’t have to like someone to do that.”

  “I thought you did.”

  “Shows what you know.” He sighed. “Strange, though. To think of her being dead.”

  “She was our age,” Clio agreed.

  “Feel kind of guilty, not being more sad.”

  “Me too.”

  They shared a brief, understanding look.

  “Where’s Egg?” Clio asked finally.

  “Don’t know. Go look for him?”

  “Okay.”

  ***

  This was the sorcerer’s tower, the tallest and pointiest part of the palace of Drak. The uppermost room was filled with a Dark Lord’s most important accessories: torture devices, portraits of ancestors, various doomed weapons, jars of disturbing ingredients for magical concoctions, skeletons of long-dead mythical creatures, scrolls of apocalyptic prophecies and — most importantly — six semi-clad demon priestesses who could pluck, skin and sacrifice a dozen chickens in under a minute, and would perform any spell or ritual their master required, the bloodier the better.