Modern Magick 5

by Charlotte E. English

  ‘But how?’ said Jay. ‘How does a magick-drunk king flood an entire city?’

  ‘Right. Top question. We need to find the source of magick for Farringale Dell and get a good look at it. I’m thinking it might be possible to draw on it, in some way, or to goose it — I don’t know. Magick is too weak in modern Britain to pose any such problems. I doubt anyone’s been magick-drunk in decades, if not centuries.’

  ‘If they have,’ said Jay, ‘it’s been as adroitly covered up as Torvaston’s fall.’

  A sobering thought. The Hidden Ministry was, after all, dedicated to keeping magickal secrets — besides being rather a secret itself. Had something like this happened more recently? I should call Mabyn, at the Forbidden Magick department. If it had, maybe she would know.

  But, priorities. ‘Mauf,’ I said. ‘Lady Tregawny’s memoirs. This is why I brought them. Does she speak of anything that sounds like it might be the magickal heart of Farringale Dell?’

  ‘Not as such,’ said Mauf, but he spoke hesitantly. ‘She was writing a little before Torvaston’s day, of course, but she writes of a festival at midsummer. It was held only once every five or so years. We processed out of the City and into the Dell, my fellowes and I, garbed in festive raiment and all of a tumult, with our Gaiety and our Song. Their Majesties went ahead of us, as is Their Wont, and equally Their Right; and we of the Lesser Court did not reach the summit for some hours. When at last our moment came, so spongy was I that forward I went, hugger-mugger, and swounded quite away. ‘Gramercy,’ said I when once more I was myself, for despite my unseemly weakness they had allotted me a fair draught…’

  ‘Spongy?’ I said, befuddled.

  ‘Drunk,’ Mauf supplied.

  ‘Perhaps she meant inebriated in the ordinary sense,’ said Jay. ‘But if she did, what is the “fair draught”? It hardly makes sense for it to be some kind of beverage, or why did they go out into the Dell for it?’

  ‘And the summit?’ put in Rob. ‘Of what, and why were they going there?’

  ‘She does not say, in any greater detail than I have already shared,’ said Mauf.

  ‘Why would she?’ I said. ‘She was describing a familiar ritual. One headed up by Their Majesties and their Court…’ Something about the word summit nagged at me.

  ‘There is a mountain,’ offered Indira in her quiet way. ‘I saw it.’ Rather than add any more words to her sentence, she pointed upwards. She’d seen it when she was flying.

  And that reminded me. ‘There is a mountain somewhere out there,’ I said excitedly. ‘Alban mentioned it when we first came here. He said that, according to legend, it was so tall that its peak touched the clouds. It’s where the griffins are supposed to have nested. Maybe that’s the source! The festival! You said five years or so, Mauf. It wasn’t every five years precisely?’

  ‘Lady Tregawny implies that the dates were variable,’ said Mauf. ‘In the year she speaks of, the festival came upon them apparently by surprise.’

  ‘So it was early!’ I was growing excited, for everything was falling into place in my mind. ‘Don’t you see? These magickal surges had been happening for a while, but only rarely — approximately once every five years. But even by Lady Tregawny’s time, some years before Torvaston, they were becoming more frequent. When they were rare, they could be celebrated and enjoyed. But when they became more common, they’d soon become disruptive and alarming. If the Court was in the habit of drawing heavily upon these surges when they came, like binge drinkers on a Saturday night, couldn’t that easily get out of control? Couldn’t some people end up taking far too much?’

  ‘If that’s the case,’ said Rob, ‘maybe it was not Torvaston who flooded Farringale.’

  ‘He and his courtiers might have hurried the process along,’ I argued. ‘Something changed a welcomed and celebrated event into a catastrophe. We need to find that mountain.’

  Rob raised a hand. ‘Slow down, Ves. Think. If the mountain was as tall as all that, how were so many people reaching the summit?’

  ‘I’ve just spent three and a half minutes as a pancake.’

  ‘I take your point. Indira, where is this mountain?’

  This simple question puzzled clever Indira more than it ought. She took her time in answering. ‘A long way off,’ she said. ‘And at the same time, very close. I cannot say… I think my perceptions were disordered.’

  ‘We were all a little disordered,’ said Rob kindly.

  ‘Then again, maybe not,’ I said. ‘Indira just pulled a great fairy routine, and Ms. Goodfellow was both airborne and upside down.’

  Rob, Indira and Jay looked at me blankly. ‘What point are you making?’ said Jay.

  ‘Nothing else made sense for that period of time. Why should a mere immoveable landmark prove unaffected? Perhaps it was both near and far away. I suspect that reaching it might not be so simple as walking to it.’

  ‘So, then,’ said Jay, folding his arms. ‘We find the unfindable mountain, climb its unclimbably tall peak, and see if we can get ourselves magick-drunk enough to fall off again?’

  ‘Well.’ I blinked. ‘Except for maybe that last part, yes.’

  ‘Is anything ever going to be simple around you?’

  ‘Around me, no. But if you ask Milady nicely, she might assign you a quieter duty. You’d excel at rare books. That’s usually about trawling the non-magicker libraries for misplaced spell tomes and the like. Rarely gets exciting. Or you could maybe—’

  ‘Not serious, Ves.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Rob, damn him, was hiding a grin with very little success. Even Indira looked amused, somewhere behind her mask of composure.

  ‘Let’s get a move on,’ I said hastily. ‘Mauf, we need a clue. Does Lady Tregawny give any hints as to where the procession started off from, or what route they took?’

  ‘I am afraid not, Miss Vesper.’

  ‘There might be something else, somewhere in here,’ said Indira, turning in a circle to take in the full extent of the enormous library.

  ‘Maybe,’ I agreed. ‘The first problem is finding it. The second… well, I don’t know that we’d find an A-to-Z Manual of Magickal Surge Festivities or anything like that. Nobody writes dreary tomes about birthday parties or stag dos for the same reason. We all know our own traditions too well to need instruction on the basics. We learn it growing up.’

  ‘Mr. Maufry,’ said Indira. ‘There is nothing about the mountain, I suppose?’

  ‘If I had a week to search…’ said Mauf.

  We could have stayed for a week, if we had needed to. That possibility was why I had brought things like the porridge-pot along. But who wanted to spend a whole week sitting around in the biggest, best and most beautiful library on the planet, reading book after book after book after… all right, I did. I do. But not right then, and not if I had to do it on a steady diet of porridge. Those joys could wait until after we’d restored Farringale to habitability.

  Ha, ha. Said I confidently, as though there weren’t about a thousand obstacles to get past in the process.

  Ves. Focus!

  For some reason, I’m starting to hear those words in Jay’s voice. I do not know what this means.

  ‘For once,’ I said, breaking in upon a debate between Indira and her brother as to the likelihood of a useful book’s being unearthed inside of a week. ‘I mean, I never thought I would say this, but: I don’t think books are the answer here.’

  ‘Not?’ Jay was incredulous.

  ‘Not.’

  ‘Are you the real Ves?’

  ‘I’m the Ves who recently spent three splendid minutes as a pancake. You decide.’

  ‘I withdraw the question.’

  ‘Thank you. I think Mauf and Rob were right: we shouldn’t spend too long here while these surges are going on.’

  ‘Did I say that?’ objected Rob.

  ‘I could see you thinking it, several times. And it’s true. We don’t know how often these surges are going to happen, and they could be dan
gerous. Last time, the Patels almost broke three or four limbs apiece and I seriously considered spending the rest of my life as a perfectly-cooked breakfast dish. A few more doses of that, and who knows what could happen? We should finish up our immediate business and get out.’

  ‘I concur,’ said cautious Jay, not at all to my surprise.

  ‘Fine. So we do not have time to spend a week searching the library. Which means! It’s time to play Trial and Error.’

  ‘Oh god.’ Jay actually backed away from me.

  ‘It’ll be fine.’

  ‘Are we still pretending the griffins don’t exist?’

  ‘Er.’ To be truthful, I had forgotten them a bit. Their habit of lurking (at least by report) right at the top of the very peak we were aiming for was a tad bit inconvenient.

  However.

  ‘We’ve survived them before. Let’s go.’ I scooped up Mauf, the happy jade-green book and Ms. Goodfellow, stuffing all three into my satchel (well, the books anyway. I placed my pup into her sleep-nest with tender care). Then I marched out of the great, marble hall in the direction of the exit.

  Behind me, I heard a great, weary sigh from Jay. ‘Ves. It’s this way.’

  ‘Right.’

  In the end, we made Indira lead, which did not at all make her happy. But she was the only one of us who had yet set eyes upon this mountain.

  Not that it helped much. She headed off confidently enough when we regained the street, but soon faltered and became confused. ‘The problem is,’ she said, ‘I received no clear impression of its direction from my former vantage-point. And it is deceptive.’

  ‘Vantage-point,’ I mused. ‘Right. Rob, Jay, would you fetch us some of those chatty chairs?’

  ‘On it.’ Rob dived back into the library with Jay at his heels.

  ‘Except not the rude one,’ I called after them. ‘The one that insulted my padding?’

  They returned with two chairs apiece, and set them all before me. It was my very great pleasure to witch them up in a trice, and I say that because it was shockingly easy. Apparently I was still fizzing with magick.

  No wonder people got addicted to it.

  ‘Hup,’ I said, hurling myself into the arms of the nearest chair. I’d chosen one with a wide seat and a thick cushion: space enough for my all-important satchel.

  Up we went. There was a movement recently to mandate the use of seat-belts in all airborne apparatus, chairs included, which was thankfully shouted down, but I began to see their point when a gust of air almost upended my chair and me with it.

  ‘Be advised,’ I called down, my heart all a-pound. ‘Playful currents up here.’

  ‘To say the least,’ said Jay, rising unsteadily to my approximate level.

  I turned my chair in a slow circle, and received a dazzling view of the city laid out before me like a bejewelled chess board. Its layout was not dissimilar, vaguely grid-like, with the dappled lights and darks of sturdy buildings, though the roads curved and wound their way sinuously in between.

  Beyond the confines of the city spread the rest of Farringale Dell: lusciously forested, and interspersed here and there with clear, sparkling lakes. Perhaps some part of it had once been tamed and inhabited; if so, those days were long gone. The forest had reclaimed the Dell, and begun to encroach upon the streets of the city, too.

  I saw no mountain.

  Then, suddenly, I did. It shimmered into view, cresting the sea of broad-leaved trees like some kind of desert mirage. ‘There!’ I shouted, pointing excitedly. Clouds swirled around the peak, as advertised, lightning shooting in crackling golden coils. Griffins, presumably, lurked somewhere within.

  I became aware that my announcement had not caused quite the sensation I’d expected. As I was trying to bounce out of my chair with excitement, Jay was doing the same not far away — only he was waving his arm in a different direction altogether.

  So was Rob.

  So was Indira.

  ‘Wait, wait,’ I said, and brought my chair to a hovering halt. ‘There cannot be four such mountains.’

  Even as I said the words, a voice at the back of my mind said: Whyever not?

  ‘No!’ I said, smothering it. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Only one can be real.’

  ‘Or none,’ said Jay.

  ‘Right. Where then is the real one?’

  18

  Indira had flown higher, much higher. I stared up at the distant underside of her elegant chair with some concern. Given her propensity for shattering bones, I didn’t want to end up taking her home in several pieces. ‘Indira?’ I called.

  ‘Give her a moment,’ said Jay.

  Well, if Jay didn’t feel like being older-brother-protective, far be it from me to play Mother Hen. I waited, my thoughts busy.

  If Jay was right and all four mountains were illusory: why? And what was causing it? We each saw only one mountain, which meant we were each being fed a separate vision. By… something. Well, by the mountain. If it was indeed the source of magick for Farringale Dell, what might it not be capable of?

  But why did it wish to hide itself?

  ‘If you were an age-old magickal mountain with a penchant for griffin headgear, where and why might you hide?’ I said.

  Rob, having positioned himself directly below Indira, did not answer. Catching our youngest team member if she happened to plummet to her inevitable death seemed like a great priority to me, so I didn’t interrupt him.

  ‘For some reason, I’m having trouble fitting myself into the headspace of a rock-based landmark.’ Jay kept a close eye on Indira, too, which might not have been helping his focus.

  Focus, focus. Hm.

  How about if I stopped thinking of it as a mountain? Perhaps more importantly, it was (if we were right) a magickal… font, I suppose. Terms vary for such things, and we don’t truly understand them very well. To call the heart of a magickal Dell a “font” likens it to some kind of fountain, merrily pumping out magick all the livelong day, and that’s in no way an accurate idea. You can’t switch it on or off, like a tap. But Dells — capital D, because they really are markedly different from your common-or-garden dingle — grow up around such a source. It’s what makes them magickal, and sets them apart. It’s rare, but once in a while a Dell falters and dies, because its source fails. We still have no idea why. I’d been inclined to think it a consequence of the decline of magick, but we’d since learned that it happened on the fifth Britain, too, so that idea was out.

  In this instance, we had the opposite problem going on. That this occurred on the fifth Britain was no surprise whatsoever; the place was bursting with magick. But for it to happen here? Different situation entirely. The Heart of Farringale Dell was in no danger of drying up; on the contrary it was prone to giving rather too freely of itself. And its former citizens had been disposed to celebrate the fact.

  First point, then: did I believe that the entire Court of Farringale would go tramping many miles through forest and dale to reach this magickal mountain, on the occasion of their festival? No. They could have flown, of course, as we were doing, but that would take a lot of chairs, and anyway, nothing about Lady Tregawny’s memoirs had implied she might have been airborne for any part of it. Had they all flown, like Indira? Probably not, but maybe. Even if they had, how far could a swarm of people safely fly, even pumped up on magick?

  So that suggested the mountain was situated not too far from the city, or (more sensibly) vice versa.

  Right, then.

  ‘Indira!’ I yelled. ‘You’re my spotter.’

  ‘What?’ The word floated faintly back to me on the wind.

  ‘You see anything move, scream.’

  ‘Ves,’ yelled Jay. ‘What are you doing?’

  This I ignored. Not because I was indifferent to my partner’s concern but because I was a bit busy.

  Step one: I summoned up the strongest wards I had, and cloaked all four of us in them. I added a splash of camouflage into them this time. Whether it would help much in the
circumstances I did not know, but it couldn’t hurt.

  Step two: I wafted a little higher, and began a wide circle of the city. In one hand I had my Sunstone Wand; in the other, my syrinx pipes.

  I took the precaution of laying a gentle sleep-spell on the pup before I began. I didn’t want her leaping out of the chair.

  The melody I chose was a mixture of two distinct things: the first being the pacifying charm I had employed on our last visit to Farringale, and the second pure siren call. I’ve put a lot of time and practice into the art of pipe-playing and music-based magick over the past decade or so. You do, when you’re unexpectedly put in possession of a great Treasure and even permitted to keep it. My music soared over Farringale, haunting and alluring and calming all at the same time.

  ‘You’re a madwoman, Ves!’ shouted Jay, but I felt him join his magick to mine even as he spoke. The music gained in both intensity and volume, enough to spread to every corner of Farringale Dell.

  ‘You got a better idea?’ I yelled back.

  I thought I heard a distant chuckle from Rob, but it may have been a trick of the wind.

  Indira spotted something. Perhaps it wasn’t movement, for there was a distinct lack of screaming. Instead she raised one slim arm in the air, Wand in hand, and sent a burst of scintillating light flying high into the sky, like a flare. The light split and spread and poured down again, swirling chaotically around an apparently featureless stretch of dappled green-and-golden trees.

  ‘Gotcha,’ I muttered, and veered that way. My chair shot through the skies at dangerous speed by then; wind whipped into my face, stinging my skin, and the cold threatened to numb my lips.