by Vance Huxley
“I will allow the extra question.” Even as the dryad answered the shoot slithered into the jar and the amount of honey quickly shrank. “Stand up and walk away. When you break the edge, it will break the veil. The pot is empty. Thank you.” The last bit sounded downright jovial. “I must remember my manners next time.”
Abel picked up the pot and stood. On his second step he felt a slight chill and when he looked back the dryad had blended into the tree so he couldn’t see it. “Blimey, where did you spring from?” Abel stared at Kelis, trying to come up with a sensible answer, but she rattled on. “You shouldn’t jump out from behind trees when some unsuspecting innocent is walking past. What’s that?” Abel held out the jar and Kelis smiled. “Honey? You’ve been hiding behind a tree scoffing honey? You should have told me and I’d have hidden with you.”
“No, it was on the grass, empty, so I picked it up.” Abel glanced around, worried because he should have checked for spectators before breaking the veil. The few other people in sight didn’t seem to have noticed him pop into sight.
“When did we get litter louts in Brinsford? What’s that?” Abel looked back, hoping the dryad hadn’t followed him. “On your arm, idiot. What does your mum think to it?” Kelis leant closer, looking at the tattoo. “It’s a really good tattoo but I don’t think you thought it through. The girls aren’t going to cluster round admiring her, so unless you want a boyfriend?”
“Don’t you start.” Abel’s head ran round in circles and gave up, so he sort of went for the truth. “That’s Ferryl Shayde the cat-sorceress, and I got it done in a moment of weakness or madness.”
“That’s our sorceress? You’ll have to give her clothes for the adverts, or the whole game will be X-rated.” Bursting into laughter, Kelis managed to get out, “Unless she fights while running away.”
Abel could hear Ferryl giggling in his head, which didn’t help. “We could give her clothes for that. What do you think would suit her?”
“Were there medieval Acro dancers? Though that would depend on if she can fight in a leotard. Her claws solve one problem, she can scratch symbols on anything to make spells. Does Rob know?” Kelis grinned. “Has he got a tattoo of Butch, or maybe Saint Georgeous in lacy armour?”
“I’ve been keeping it a secret because it wasn’t really planned.” Abel looked past Kelis to where a pair of women had stopped walking to stare at him, and his arm. “I guess that won’t work now. Those two will tell Mum.”
“Your mum doesn’t know? That’ll be fun. You could tell her all game players have to wear their identity?” Kelis blushed slightly. “On second thoughts, no, or it’ll get round, and my mum will want to check in case I got one. How come you could afford a tattoo? You keep saying you’re skint.”
“I’ve been buying a lottery ticket every week and got a rush of blood when I won a couple of quid.” Abel’s mind ran on with that. “I’m going to blame you two. We had a bet, the first one to win anything on the lottery had to have a tattoo of their favourite character.”
“Ok, we were joking but you were stupid enough to actually do it. What are friends for, if not to lie to mothers? I’m going to run away and hide now, until the dust settles, but then I’ll lie like a trooper. I’ll warn Rob so the lies match.” Kelis ran off, still laughing while Abel looked ruefully at his rolled-up sleeve. He’d been wearing shirts with sleeves or a light jacket but now he’d blown it. The tattoo blurred and then wore a little skirt and top.
“Better?”
Abel turned so nobody could see his arm. “Stop moving about where people can see! Why didn’t you wear clothes before?”
“I didn’t know it mattered. I can’t keep these clothes all the time, they are just seeming, an illusion.” Ferryl sounded a breath away from laughing. “I will try to remember to put on clothes when your mother is looking. I could wear less in summer and more in winter, or if young women are admiring you? Though showing my tail didn’t stop that young woman from looking closer.”
“Just stop, all right? You know tattoos don’t alter. Let me think.” Abel did, all the way home and there wasn’t a solution. Ferryl would forget to put on the skirt or wear something different, probably on purpose, and then the questions would be a lot more awkward. He reluctantly conceded she should only wear fur, but had to keep exactly the same modest pose every time others could see her.
Abel managed to stop worrying for long enough to ask one question. “You said you were being polite. Does that mean you can veil us, hide us, at any time?” Abel had lots of uses for that, from wandering around school unseen to avoid bullies through to having a laugh with Kelis and Rob.
“No, but I am embarrassed, because I should.” Ferryl really did sound embarrassed. “I should have set the veil, but how to do so is in my wits. I lied so that dryad Chestnut does not realise I have forgotten so much. Dryads do not usually gossip, but if rumours spread about me it might be best if they do not include me being almost helpless.”
“You’re not helpless.” Abel hoped not. “What about disintegrating that guardian and zapping globhoblins and fae?” Ferryl regularly zapped creatures as Abel walked through the village.
“I memorised the one for destroying the guardian, really memorised it. The rest is just wind or fire, variations on two glyphs that I have used for… for a very long time. Seeing in the dark and the contacting cats are a part of me in a way. The barrier spell is the same set of glyphs the sorcerer had me use time and again to protect his property, often enough so I could get you through it.” Grass waved and litter fluttered as Ferryl sighed. “I try so hard to remember, but without my wits….”
“Well, I’m impressed. The village is safer with less globhoblins and similar nasties sucking magic from kids and pets. I’ve sure those in the rubbish can’t be hygienic, and stopping them means less litter. You’ve protected our house, and we’ll protect more from things like gremlins. After all, you’ve got an apprentice to help you remember now.” At least cheering Ferryl up took Abel’s mind off the next problem, telling Mum about the tattoo.
* * *
Mum wouldn’t be home until later so Abel peeled some spuds for chips and washed up the dirty pots. That might put her in a better mood. He couldn’t settle, and ended up having a bash at the game. At least he had something to work on, because the next time he met Rob and Kelis they’d want to know all about the newly invented character Ferryl Shayde. As a leftie with broken fingers strapped to the undamaged ones, Abel struggled with writing and drawing right-handed until Ferryl offered to help. With her in charge of his right hand it went better though he had to insist she redrew the character several times, to get something that could go on public display.
Ferryl seemed to be teasing him especially after Abel showed her some pictures of superheroines on the computer. When he explained the game should be medieval, sort of, so lycra was out, she dressed her tattoo in real medieval. They agreed that all-enveloping sacking didn’t work either. Eventually they had four drawings, all of which should appeal to games players without upsetting any censor. Abel shuffled them together as he heard the car pull onto the drive, stuffed them in a folder, pulled down his shirt sleeve and braced himself.
“You’ve washed up. What have you done this time?” His mum looked in the bowl on the draining board. “And spud peeling? I’m starting to get worried.” She sounded it, the jovial tone of the first comment had gone. “Let me hang my coat up, and then I don’t want to have to prise whatever it is out of you.”
Abel put his file on the table and waited. “I thought peeling vegetables should help.”
“Shush, and stay very, very still even if Mum touches you.”
“What if it tickles?” After a very short pause Ferryl giggled. “I promise.”
Abel sighed, and put the kettle on. That didn’t help either. “Brewing a cuppa? Out with it, now.”
“I came up with a new character for the game.” Abel pulled out the drawings.
“And?”
“I won a
few pounds on the lottery?”
“You aren’t supposed to buy tickets. You’re too young.” Mum stopped. “All this isn’t because you won money, or you’d have bought chocolates.”
Abel turned his left arm towards her, took a deep breath, and pulled up the sleeve. “I got a rush of blood and had this done.”
The next half hour didn’t go well, and Abel began to wonder if his mum would drag him round Stourton looking for the tattooist to chew him out. Later he had to concede, privately to Ferryl, that showing Mum a clothed drawing was a mistake. After that Abel couldn’t really justify the unclothed version even by pointing out the tattoo just looked like someone wearing a furry onesie. He did his best to be apologetic and truly repentant, while all the time hysterical laughter echoed in his head. At least the tattoo didn’t roll about with the laughter, not until he shut the bedroom door.
The front door slammed, hard enough to rattle the windows upstairs. “She’ll be going to tell Rob’s mum. I bet he’ll have to prove he didn’t get one.” Abel sighed. “Grounded for a fortnight, and double that if I do the slightest thing wrong. I suppose I’ll get my school project done and compared to that the grounding is fair. Homework in the summer holidays is definitely not fair, especially since I’m getting a different teacher after the summer holidays. One teacher setting work for another is an evil conspiracy to stop kids enjoying themselves.”
“I can help you to write? What did the tutor ask for?”
“A comparison of village life in eleventh century England under Alfred and William the Conqueror because it will ground us for the rest of the course. It’ll be a total pain because I’ve already looked on the internet and at least half of what’s there is guesswork.” The giggle in his head startled him, and Abel glanced down at the tattoo. Halfway through the clothes show Abel realised, and started to smile. “When did you come to England, or have you always been here?”
“I came with what you call the Danes. There is a big difference before and after the Normans, in the north. Many villages died.” The tattoo flipped onto her back with a big sword stuck in her. “Others were spared to serve their local lords. I was not in this village, but Brinn’s Keep would have been built about that time to keep the local lands under control.” Ferryl’s tattoo now wore chain mail and a helmet, and waved a sword.
“What are we waiting for? I’ve never been that keen on history, but suddenly it seems a lot more fun.” Abel sighed. “Still, a whole fortnight? I wanted to practice magic.”
“Open the window a moment, please.” Abel did, and a leaf floated in followed by a handful of gravel from next door’s drive. “Practice. The house is warded, so I’ll be able to fly around the garden while you stare at these.”
“Super.”
* * *
The fortnight dragged by, as expected. The homework, interesting as it was with the running pictorial commentary on his arm, only kept Abel going for six days. It only took that long because he had to keep breaking off to rest his hand. Despite Ferryl guiding him, the fingers on Abel’s right hand were unused to writing and cramped after a while.
He practiced the dust dance and leaf floating for hours, unsuccessfully, jogged on the spot, did sit-ups and went through the notes and drawings for the game. Abel didn’t exchange emails with Rob and Kelis except one to say he’d been grounded, because part of being grounded included emails and texts. At least Mum should be impressed by the historical sites on his internet surfing history, though most of them either annoyed or amused Ferryl.
Ferryl didn’t always fly off around the garden, sometimes spending Abel’s exercise time explaining more about magic. Abel learned more about the larger magical creatures sometimes seen browsing among the crops, taking a little magic from each leaf or blade of grass. There were hunters out there according to Ferryl, but the only predators Abel saw were clouds of larger fae around any groups of grazers. During one of the sessions they ‘talked’ about finding safe young trees for dryads, or empty old ones. “How did the sorcerer keep the dryads away from the trees in the garden, or did he imprison or enslave them?”
“The boundary stops them coming back, or new ones arriving. I don’t know what he did with the ones already living there. From experience, he probably enslaved them until they died.” Ferryl’s tattoo winked. “Why do you think I am so happy stuck in this? I doubt any of his other captives survived.”
“What about the trees outside the wall at the back? They’re not inside the boundary, but there’s no creatures living there.”
“No magical creatures. Squirrels, birds, all the small, unthinking life, can come and go the same as in the gardens. That part, the wood before the wall and real boundary, has no dryads either. It is a wider, less intense version of the real barrier, to make it hard for reasoning or magical creatures to get close enough to break the real spell.” The tattoo sprouted branches and leaves, becoming a tree with a waving tail. “I believe young dryads would think too much, so it would repel them.”
“We could give them glyphs?”
“That would mean a lot of glyphs, and we must set them inside the tree so they are not stolen.” Ferryl sighed, and leaves blew off her tree and disappeared. “Something might destroy the tree before it grew strong enough to resist.” A tattoo goat ate several tattoo branches.
“We could plant young trees in Mum’s garden, just to get a couple started. Then maybe we, you, could drain a bit of magic from the empty ones in the wood to the ground nearby. We could use that to protect a couple more.” Abel groaned. “Then we’d have to wait until they were large enough to give up some magic. Though we could get part of the village protected?”
The tree on his arm produced big colourful flowers and danced. “Hooray!” It hunched over and grew a big white beard. “One day.”
“You’ll have to stop that once I’m outside again.” While Abel had been grounded, Ferryl had turned the thing into a permanent animated cartoon of how she felt. Abel wore a jacket or long sleeves downstairs but could feel her moving underneath it.
“I will, but I’ve never actually had fun with a tattoo before. They are usually very dangerous to alter. Most are glyphs.” Ferryl sounded serious now and her tattoo had stopped messing about. “It is best not to play with the gift of the Gods.”
“Glyphs or tattoos?”
“Glyphs.”
“Are they really gifts from Gods, or is that like the legend of Prometheus stealing fire? For that matter, are they real gods? I know one is because the churches protect people, but you said something about all Gods being real.” Abel sniggered. “I became a bit distracted at the time because a dead woman wanted to climb into my body.”
“All creatures with true worshippers become what is called gods, using the magic given to them by the worship to make themselves immortal and all-powerful. Well, all-powerful except for other gods. Some deep thinkers wonder if they are all the same one, others don’t care because it doesn’t alter reality.” Ferryl paced around his arm, periodically disappearing from sight and appearing round the other side, her brow furrowed in thought. “The gods gather magic and create miracles by using glyphs. All their followers have marks which feed gods the magic to power the glyphs through prayer. When the follower dies, the god receives all the rest of the magic in them and the spirit disappears to an afterlife. If they are not sworn to a god, the spirit wanders until it fades away.”
“So my christening mark feeds magic to God?” Abel touched his forehead but couldn’t feel anything.
“No, that was a mark of intent to stop another god claiming you. You must swear fealty when you are old enough to understand, then the mark creates a real link. Yours is gone now, as soon as you allowed me to enter.”
“You’re another God? Hang on, you said you came here with the Danes. Are you immortal?” Abel stared, horrified. He’d let some immortal cat-goddess with a strange sense of humour invade him!
Definitely a strange sense of humour. The tattoo twirled round, dressed in a long wh
ite frock with a halo and big wings though the tail still waved at him through a slit. “I have managed to survive because I have never been human, but I am not a God or immortal. Just a free spirit, an old one who tries very hard to never ever annoy a god or even be noticed.” A mouse tattoo scuttled into a tattoo hole, and peeked nervously out.
“So that wavery shape in the air when you go out the window, that’s the real you? The truth, Pungh Hmmshtfun.” Abel hadn’t used her name for ages, but he had to know.
The mouse scowled. “My pure form, but I need flesh to hold much magic and to wield glyphs. I spent too long in the hole and almost faded back to a puff of wind. Now you have given me a chance to build myself up so that I can find flesh, a body, once again.” The original cat-woman sat and looked at him, arms crossed and wearing a definite pout. “No need to say that name out loud.”
“I had to be sure.” Abel felt relieved when she nodded and smiled. Never mind Ferryl keeping the tattoo still, he had to stop looking at it and talking. At least her appearance didn’t embarrass him now because he’d sort of persuaded himself that Ferryl really did wear a furry onesie. He thought back over what she’d said. “So were the glyphs stolen or is it a myth?”
“Perhaps a myth, but humans and one or two other creatures found out how to use glyphs somehow. Perhaps several found out, or one who didn’t understand what they did? Now nobody, except maybe a god or two, knows when it started.”
“Bloody hell. How many found out?”
“Do not curse. If you wield magic, curses can become reality and a bloody hell does not sound pleasant.”
“Er, crikey? Sugar? Flipping heck? I’ll be good.” Abel smiled for a moment. “Stan would be in trouble.”
“You’ll be good?” Ferryl shook her head in mock despair. “I can only hope. Nobody knows how many use glyphs, but very few become gods and those are shy about how they do so. Those who are gods are now very old and try to destroy anyone trying to join them. Do not ever be tempted.”
