The Wizard's Promise

by Cliff McNish

  After this there was only one sound – the wind pulsing from the thighs of the Gridda escort.

  Gultrathaca’s motion was assured, her speed dazzling. Not knowing what else to do, Rachel tucked in behind her, saving her strength for what was to come. They headed out over the Prag Sea, and somewhere in that unchanging region Rachel wished with all her heart to feel the touch of real sunshine. Ool’s dawn offered little. There was no true warmth, no comfort of colour, nothing to repel the murk of the sky.

  She tried not to look at the Griddas. They were a forbidding presence: arms sleekly out in front, brown fur flattened by the wind, their bodies supple and flexed – physiques of daunting strength.

  Finally Rachel saw the bulking promontories of the Detaclyver.

  And before it, like a bulwark across the world, rotated the mighty storm-whirls.

  The Griddas headed straight for them. There was no gap between the whirls. Then Gultrathaca bellowed an order and they moved aside.

  As Rachel approached she was merely a jangling speck. Deafening gusts blasted her hair, her clothes, her eyes. Instinctively, she turned her face towards her chest and lifted her hands to protect herself. As she did so, the uproar ceased. It became tranquil, peaceful, without wind, without cold. Rachel glanced around. The Griddas had all passed through the storm-whirls. Only she remained.

  The storm-whirls had gently closed together around her.

  Rachel gasped, hearing – oh, what was it? She put out her hands, dipped her fingers into the whirls. The sensation was not wind, not like wind at all. The storm-whirls enfolded her. And in that enfoldment Rachel felt their intelligence. She felt their anxiety about injuring her, and their fear of the Griddas whose spells enslaved them. But most of all Rachel felt their love: their magnificent, pounding, grave, reckless love for their ancient partner, the Detaclyver. For all the time they could remember the High Witches and Griddas had kept them apart. Whole families of storm-whirls were rooted to the Earth, forced to hold the Detaclyver back. The endless, painful creeping forward of the Detaclyver was nothing more than a desire to be closer to its companions.

  Rachel bathed her face in the storm-whirls, wanting to stay there forever. She turned to gaze upwards, as if human eyes might be gazing back at her.

  ‘Help me,’ she said. ‘Help me. I’m frightened.’

  A terrible sadness groaned through the storm-whirls, and their winds held her head, but they said, ‘We cannot. The spell-bonds are too numerous to break. We must pass you on. We cannot hold you.’

  Rachel clung to the winds, trying to stay inside – and how the storm-whirls wished for that as well – but the thrall of the spells was too powerful. With a final departing sigh the whirls sent her through. For a few moments Rachel lay beyond, trembling.

  Then she saw the Detaclyver.

  The Detaclyver had never been mastered by the spells of any creature. It understood exactly what the Griddas had done to its beloved storm-whirls, and as Gultrathaca and the escort approached, its summits elongated into stabbing barbs.

  The Griddas reacted at once. Trying to confuse the Detaclyver, they flew in several directions across the sky, giving it many targets. Gultrathaca dropped lower, searching for an entry point in the Detaclyver’s skin. Finding one, she dived straight down, bit her way through and squirmed inside.

  As soon as she disappeared great swarms rose into the sky: Essa.

  In long surges they pushed back the remaining Griddas, keeping them away from Rachel. Another group of Essa surrounded Rachel herself. They carried her towards the Detaclyver, their tiny wings beating in welcome. ‘Go in! Go in!’ they cried.

  ‘But Gultrathaca, she’s –’

  ‘No! No! Believe in us! Go in, up and away!’

  When they saw Rachel hesitate, the Essa tried to calm themselves down. Couldn’t she understand? Beautiful storm-friend, don’t you know Detaclyver will keep you safe? Aren’t we full of anxious hopes for you? Go in!

  Rachel felt the Essa trying to will her into believing them. She felt their concern for everything: for her, the Detaclyver, for Eric, for the prapsies. Tiny lives, driven by hope, Rachel realized. How could the Essa survive on such a harsh world? Then she explored their magic, and knew at once that no other creatures needed it more. The Essa were held together only by magic. They navigated using magic, found each other with it; in the absolute bleakness and frost of Ool’s night there was no other way for beings so frail.

  Rachel stopped resisting them. She allowed the Essa to carry her body towards the opening in the Detaclyver.

  ‘Take care! Take care!’ the Essa called.

  ‘Aren’t you … aren’t you coming with me?’

  ‘No! No!’ The Essa placed their bodies across the entrance, blocking the way in to the other Griddas. ‘Detaclyver will look after you now. Go! Go to him! Go in!’

  Rachel flew cautiously inside. There was no sign of Gultrathaca. Half-expecting to be pushing through skin and gristle, Rachel instead found herself in a kind of tunnel. Fresh air whooshed over her face, almost knocking her down. Then warm, staler air washed into her back.

  Not a tunnel, her information spells explained. A capillary: a tube carrying breath around the Detaclyver’s body.

  Rachel put a foot forward – one step. As she did so, soft light on the capillary floor lit the way ahead. Another step. More light. Another. She walked up the capillary, reaching a fork. Left or right? The light glowed left.

  I’m being shown where to go, she realized. The Detaclyver knows I’m here. Can it feel me? What if I run? I’ll run!

  Rachel picked up her feet and ran. Putting all her trust in the Detaclyver, she would have become completely lost except that the light guided her. Gradually the capillaries widened, until Rachel found herself rushing down broad lanes, all lit brightly. Then, as she turned a corner, a figure blocked her way.

  Gultrathaca.

  But at first Rachel could not tell. A light shone on Gultrathaca so brightly that even Rachel could hardly stand it. Gultrathaca’s eye-shields were half shut. Several of her watchers floundered blindly about the floor. ‘The Detaclyver has done its best to stop me,’ Gultrathaca rasped. ‘But I see you. I still see you!’

  Rachel looked for a way past. She could not go forward – Gultrathaca filled the exit. But there were smaller paths. They led off the main capillary, though none were lit. When Gultrathaca ran at her, Rachel picked the first.

  Immediately, beneath her feet, the floor sprouted with spikes.

  A trap.

  Rachel fell to the ground. When she attempted to stand up her legs only twitched. She looked at her ankles. The spikes were already withdrawing. They left tiny holes. What was happening? Rachel felt no pain. She felt nothing – a lack of sensation.

  Her information spells tried to explore her ankles, but for some reason they could not find the way. They felt ill, fatigued, vague. Lacking all clarity, they took an age to tell her:

  Poison.

  Healing spells drained into Rachel’s veins at once, but her mind was hazy and so, therefore, were her spells. They went to the wrong places. With enormous effort Rachel managed to sit up.

  Gultrathaca stood above her. ‘Goodbye, Rachel,’ she said. ‘Enjoy the bliss. I left that for you.’ She loped away.

  For a while Rachel could hear Gultrathaca’s heavy tread. Then she forgot about Gultrathaca entirely. A strange sensation suffused her body. It was one of profound contentment. Had she ever felt this happy? Her spells understood something was wrong, but they could not remember what. Rachel knew that she must be feeling the effects of the poison, but she had no desire to fight it, not any longer.

  The poison entered her heart, and she did not mind.

  Finally, she stopped caring altogether. And when that happened her spells also gave in. The finest of them, the spells that all Rachel’s life had cared so much for her, even in the time she did not know they existed, stopped caring as well. All their beautiful light left her eyes.

  Rachel lay do
wn on her side. She placed her hands under her head. Her eyes wanted to close. She let them. She could no longer move. She didn’t question why, not any more. It didn’t matter. Her lips parted, falling slack as her jaw muscles relaxed under the final killing influence of the toxins.

  She was dying.

  Gultrathaca was forgotten. Yemi was forgotten. Mum, Dad, Eric. Everything.

  17

  The Prison World

  Eric sat cross-legged on the floor of his cell. The prapsies hadn’t spoken for a long time.

  ‘How are you, boys?’ he murmured. ‘You’re very quiet.’

  ‘We are well, Eric,’ they said together. ‘We are perfect.’

  ‘You should have woken me earlier. I told you to.’

  ‘We weren’t tired. We aren’t tired. Look.’

  The prapsies spread their wings to show him how fit they still were. Not once had they complained while they were in the cell. Eric stroked their nape feathers the way they preferred it, thinking about the Essa. Little flakes. Snow-like beings. He would have thought the prapsies’ minds had flipped, if he hadn’t seen the Essa himself on the journey to Thûn.

  Could he expect help from them?

  No, he thought. Don’t do that. Stop clinging onto the hope that something or someone else is going to rescue you. He couldn’t even depend on Rachel this time. He knew that because he could sense her, a distant magical scent barely clinging to life. What was happening to her? He could also pick out another scent, a life even more precariously in balance than Rachel’s. It belonged to Serpantha.

  Well? Eric asked himself. What are you going to do about it? What are you going to do?

  All morning he had been absorbed, thinking about Larpskendya. What had the Wizard meant when he said everything might depend on him now? What am I, after all? Eric thought. Just an ordinary boy, without any magic. I can’t even climb out of this pathetically shallow little cell. Any kid nowadays can manage a basic heating spell, but not me. So the prapsies have to put up with being cold …

  Could he do anything to affect the Griddas? The scraps of a plan were forming in Eric’s mind, but it was too far-fetched for him to take seriously.

  At least the experiments had stopped for a while. There had been peace all morning until a severely bruised Gultrathaca returned. Whatever had happened to her, she resumed the experiments again at once. This time, Eric noticed, she used Griddas, though they didn’t come close to him. In fact, the opposite; for some reason the Griddas fired their spells at him from ridiculous distances, way beyond Ool.

  There were grim shadows under the prapsies’ eyes. Despite Eric’s protests they had not slept at all, their eyes never leaving the doorway or open roof. ‘I’ll bet you want to fly, don’t you?’ he said, trying to cheer them. ‘You must be bored, stuck here, not able to fly. Go on! Have a fly round!’

  Briefly they flashed around the cell, though clearly only because Eric wanted them to. They quickly returned to him. One watched the cell doorway while the other bent its round head towards Eric.

  ‘You must be hungry,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ lied the prapsy. ‘Are you?’

  ‘Nah, I’m all right.’ They both looked away from each other.

  ‘Are you coldish, Eric?’

  ‘No. Not a bit.’

  ‘I could squash next to you if you want.’

  ‘OK, but not because I’m cold, mind.’

  The prapsy nuzzled up against Eric’s cheek. It kept one eye on him; the other watched the empty ceiling. ‘She’s coming again,’ the prapsy whispered, seeing movement there. ‘Gultrathaca.’

  ‘I know,’ Eric answered. ‘Don’t worry. I’m ready for her.’

  Gultrathaca approached Eric’s cell. No sudden movements. No startling him. She knew how quickly his anti-magic could demolish a body filled with magic.

  While she walked healer spiders continued to perform repairs on her. The fury of the Detaclyver! She had been lucky to escape from its body at all, and the Essa had hounded her halfway across the Prag Sea.

  She reached the opening above the cell and stood there, leaning down.

  Eric! She almost liked the boy. The way he challenged her! Unlike Yemi, Eric did not smile or want to play. He mocked her gloriously. As she gazed at him now, a marvellous anger and bitterness enlivened his features.

  ‘Are you coming down then, you hag!’ he bellowed.

  ‘In a moment,’ Gultrathaca replied, composing herself.

  She thought about Eric’s special gift. She had seen it maturing in front of her eyes. Not his ability to destroy magic. That was remarkable enough, but more remarkable still was how far away he could detect magic. No Witch or Wizard could come close to matching it. To fully test him she had unleashed magic from immense range, stretching her Griddas’ spell-making in ways she had never asked of them before.

  No matter how far-flung the distances, Eric knew each spell was coming.

  Gultrathaca’s ambitions grew larger with every new test, but how would she obtain his co-operation? Well, perhaps she could. Eric was not like Yemi. Yemi was impossible to manipulate, but Eric could be frightened. Hadn’t she already placed him in a world of fear? It was time to free him unexpectedly from that fear. If I offer him hope for his sister, Gultrathaca thought, he’ll want to believe it. If I promise him safety, especially for the prapsies, he’ll be grateful to accept it.

  Even so, at the edge of the cell, Gultrathaca hesitated. It would be so easy to misjudge this situation. It required of her a gentleness that did not come readily.

  There would be lies amongst the things she would tell him. Amongst all the other lies would be one important one. Would Eric realize?

  Controlling her anxiety, Gultrathaca bent over the lip of the cell and looked down.

  Eric looked defiantly back. ‘What now?’ he sneered. ‘Who are you sacrificing this time? Coward! Why don’t you try attacking me? Do you think you’re safe up there, out of my range?’

  ‘I know you can reach me,’ Gultrathaca said in the softest voice she could manage. ‘But please … don’t. There will be no more things sent to hurt you. I promise. Whether you agree to help me or not, there will be no more attacks of any kind.’

  ‘You promise, eh! Guess what? I don’t believe you!’

  ‘I am coming down.’

  ‘I’ll kill you if you do! I mean it.’

  ‘When you hear my offer you will not want to kill me. I intend to release you, Eric.’ Seeing that she had his attention, Gultrathaca floated into a corner of the cell, keeping her watchers in their pits to avoid alarming him.

  Eric folded his arms. ‘Well?’

  ‘I will set you free,’ Gultrathaca said. ‘And I will deliver Rachel back to you.’

  ‘Delivered dead, you mean.’

  ‘No. Alive, Eric, and unharmed. I guarantee it.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll bet you do!’

  Eric’s voice was filled with sarcasm, but inside, inside, hope burst wildly through. He fought against it. He knew Gultrathaca was just playing some new game. How dare she! he thought. How dare she! As he gazed at her, he suddenly hated Gultrathaca with more intensity than he had hated anything in his life. Let her throw more Witches against him! That way he could at least stay mad, insulting, half-crazy. But this sudden new kindly version of Gultrathaca – if he listened to it, if he allowed himself even for one second to believe that there might truly be a way out of this, a happy ending – he would not have the nerve to follow through with his own half-plan.

  That plan had been the only thing keeping him from falling to pieces already.

  ‘I won’t hurt you any longer,’ Gultrathaca said. ‘I will let you go, Eric. And I will free Yemi and Fola, too. I will free everyone. You can return to Earth. The Griddas will not bother you again. We – I – it is my fault – have made a terrible mistake in the treatment of your entire race. Forgive me.’

  Eric nodded as if listening, but actually he was picturing how satisfying it would be see Gultrathaca’s body d
eflate like a bag. He was picturing her as a smear on the floor. And this was no idle image. Eric could do it. Gridda magic was similar to the High Witches’. Gultrathaca had tried to shield her spells from him, but he saw through her.

  She had no idea what torment Eric could place her in.

  Uncertain how to proceed, Gultrathaca tried complimenting him. ‘You never used your full gifts before, Eric, did you? See how deadly you’ve become! No more primitive finger-jabbing. You don’t need to point your fingers any longer to destroy spells.’

  Eric realized Gultrathaca was right – and he also realized how much he missed the finger-pointing part of him. It belonged to an older version of himself he wanted back.

  ‘In return for freeing you,’ Gultrathaca said, ‘I’m not asking you to betray the Wizards or your own species. I’m asking for a simple thing, almost nothing. I want you to help me find the prison world of the Griddas.’

  ‘What?’

  Gultrathaca spread her claws over the rock floor. ‘I placed you here for a reason. This cell is in one of the original tunnels. The early generations of Griddas lived here. They were just the same as High Witches then, with the same yearning for flight. They were crammed in here, in the dark, to make their eyes grow or wither, while the Highs experimented with them – us – in many ways.’

  Eric knew Gultrathaca was telling a version of the truth at least. He could feel the imprint of the ancient Gridda spells. They were graven into the rocks from which they had tried to escape.

  ‘Most Griddas have always lived on the prison world,’ Gultrathaca went on. ‘The Highs did not want too many of us spoiling Ool itself.’ She lowered her voice, looked away from him in the way she had seen humans do when expressing deep feeling. ‘The prison world is a terrible place,’ she said. ‘Griddas are chained up. A few High Witches used to guard and feed them, but now we have taken over Ool I doubt that is taking place. Our Griddas will be dying there.’

  Eric, observing Gultrathaca closely, said nothing.

  ‘I know you can scent magic at considerable distances, Eric. All I ask is that you help us find this prison world. There are spells concealing it. The Highs did that to hide it from the Wizards, but they also kept the planet’s location a secret from us. Do you know where it is?’