The Wizards of Once

  “That’s weird… It doesn’t say what they look like… but they’re green… I think…” said Xar.

  Someone else thought Witches could turn invisible and that they had acid blood. Another thought that they squirted blood through their eyes.

  “I’m sure we’ll recognize one when we see it,” said Xar, impatiently shutting the Spelling Book. “They’re supposed to be pretty horrible, aren’t they?”

  “Awesomely horrible,” said Caliburn gravely. “The most terrifying creatures that ever walked this earth…”

  “So even if you do catch this Witch, how will you persuade it to part with its Magic?” asked Looter. “I’m imagining that invisible, green-acid-blood-squirting Witches, the most terrifying creatures that ever walked this earth, will not give up their Magic if you ask them pretty please…”

  “Aha,” said Xar craftily. “I’ve thought of that.”

  With a grand flourish he put on some gloves, reached into his rucksack, and took out… a small saucepan.

  Silence again.

  “You do realize that’s a saucepan?” said Looter.

  “This is no ordinary saucepan,” said Xar cunningly.

  And then he took a deep breath before he made his shocking announcement.

  “This particular saucepan is made out of IRON…”

  Most of the Wizards took a horrified step backward. The sprites let out shrieks of alarm. Looter alone refused to be impressed.

  In fact, he laughed so hard Xar thought he might fall over. “This is too good… You’re going to fight a Witch with a saucepan!” sneered Looter. “You’re no ‘great leader,’ Xar. You’re a liar and a loser; our father is ashamed of you—and now I know why you’re so keen to steal Magic from a Witch. There’s a Spelling Competition at the Winter Celebration tonight and YOU can’t do Magic… XAR CAN’T DO MAGIC…” taunted Looter.

  Xar turned red with embarrassment, then white with anger.

  The fact that he couldn’t do Magic yet was one of those hidden sores that you didn’t want anyone else to see. Wizard children were not born Magic; their Magic came in when they were about twelve. Xar was thirteen, and his Magic still had not come in.

  Xar had tried doing Magic. For countless hours he had tried. Really simple things, like moving stuff with his mind. But it was as if it were a muscle he didn’t really have. “Relax,” everyone said. “Relax, and it will happen.” But it was like trying to move something with arms that weren’t there.

  And recently he had begun to worry… what if it NEVER happened? It was an unlikely calamity, but what a disgrace to the whole family it would be if a child born to the King Enchanter HAD NO MAGIC.

  The thought of it made him feel a little sick.

  “Poor little baby Xar…” crooned Looter cruelly. “Thinks he’s such a big boy but he can’t do any Magic whatsoever…”

  “My Magic WILL come in,” hissed Xar. “But in the meantime, I swear,” he spat, eyes so small with anger that he could barely see out of them, “I SWEAR I’m going to catch a Witch, and I will squeeze so much Magic out of that Witch, Looter, that I will BLAST you out of existence…”

  “Oh yeah?” grinned Looter. He reached into his rucksack and took out one of his staffs. A Wizard’s staff was about the size of a walking stick and Wizards concentrated Magic through them.

  “Your spelling won’t work on me when I am carrying IRON!” roared Xar, rushing forward to hit Looter with the saucepan.

  Which was perfectly true, but most unfortunately, in his charge forward, Xar tripped over a long tangle of bramble and his gloved hands lost their grip on the saucepan and it went sailing over Looter’s head and into the undergrowth.

  Looter pointed his staff at Xar and whispered the word of a spell under his breath. Looter’s body trembled as the Magic quivered through him and channeled out of his hand and into the staff, which concentrated it into one quick, fierce, hot bolt of Magic that blasted out of the end of the staff, hitting Xar on the legs.

  Xar stopped, mid charge, his feet stuck to the ground by Looter’s spell.

  “HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!” laughed Looter’s followers.

  “REMOVE THE SPELL!”shouted Xar, struggling to shift his feet, but it was as if they had turned to lead.

  “No, I don’t think I will…” smiled Looter.

  Xar lost his temper.

  He snapped his fingers.

  REEOOOWWW!

  Before anyone could blink or think, Kingcat launched himself at Looter, huge jaws agape, eight hundred forty pounds of silvery-gray killing machine. Screaming in terror, Looter was pinned up against a tree trunk, looking aghast at the great cat’s nightmare face, inches away from his own, and what felt like four kitchen knives sinking into his shoulder. They had already drawn blood.

  None of Looter’s own sprites or animals had time to move or protect him.

  “One more click of my fingers,” spat Xar, “and Kingcat will take off your head.”

  “Cheat!” panted Looter. “You cheated! You’re not supposed to use your animals to attack a fellow Wizard!”

  “REMOVE THE SPELL!”shouted Xar.

  Looter was now every bit as angry as Xar himself. But what could he do?

  He pointed his staff at Xar and removed the spell so that Xar’s feet could move, and then Xar made a signal to Kingcat to let Looter go. “You’re mad… a lunatic…” raged Looter as Kingcat dropped him, and Looter gazed in astonishment at the four neat, bleeding puncture wounds in his shoulder. “Your animal has BITTEN me… if you DARE to enter that Spelling Competition, I am going to ANNIHILATE you…”

  Looter turned to Xar’s followers.

  “Who wants to come with ME rather than staying here with this silly little madman and his stupid Witch-trap?” shouted Looter.

  One by one, Xar’s followers backed away from Xar and toward Looter, and climbed on board their wolves or snowcats, muttering things like, “Sorry, Xar… this is a bit too crazy, even for you,” and, “If Witches aren’t extinct, they are bad Magic, Xar… We shouldn’t be here…”

  “You see?” crowed Looter triumphantly. “A great leader has to have someone to lead, and no one wants to follow a Magic-less lunatic. Good luck with meeting your Witch, loser-boy.”

  And then Looter rode away on the back of his wolf, followed by most of the other Wizards.

  “Cowards!” roared Xar, nearly crying he was so angry. He ran into the undergrowth to retrieve the saucepan and then shook his fist at their departing backs.

  “WE’LL SHOW YOU! WE’LL CATCH A WITCH, WE’LL TAKE MAGIC FROM IT, AND THEN WE’LL BE SO MAGIC WE’LL FLY WITHOUT WINGS!”

  Xar turned with a sigh to the bedraggled remains of his followers.

  Why did Looter always have to spoil everything?

  Xar had hardly anyone left now, only three young Wizards whose Magic hadn’t come in either: a girl called Heliotrope and two boys, Rush and Darkish, a large lad with even larger ears who had reached the age of seventeen without showing any signs of Magic whatsoever and who was slightly on the dim side.

  “Bother, he’s left me with the losers,” tutted Xar.

  “Hear I say, Xar, that’s a bit unfair,” protested Rush.

  “Will we really fly without wings?” said Darkish, flapping his big arms up and down.

  “Of course we will,” promised Xar, rubbing his hands together excitedly, for Xar could never stay down for long. “Those cowards are going to be so sorry they left…

  “Darkish, you’re the biggest, so you need to do the most digging,” ordered Xar. “Rush, I’m afraid we’re going to have to wound you a little to tempt the Witch into the trap… And if anything goes wrong…”

  “I thought you said this mission was completely safe?” said Rush suspiciously.

  “Well, nothing is ENTIRELY safe…” Xar backtracked quickly. “Life is dangerous, isn’t it? After all, you could get killed just climbing a tree like I nearly was just now.”

  “This is not just climbing a tree!” spluttered Cal
iburn from above as the three young Wizards began to obey Xar’s orders. “This is intentionally trespassing on Warrior territory, trying to set a trap for the scariest life-form that has ever walked this planet!”

  Caliburn sighed.

  Nobody was going to listen to him.

  Caliburn perched rigid on the tree branch, with his head under his wing, as if—for as long as he buried his head under there, if he couldn’t see the future—the future would not happen.

  But, of course, the old bird knew that would not work.

  2. A Warrior Called Wish

  Meanwhile, a stout and terrified Warrior pony with two young Warriors sitting on his back had set out secretly from iron Warrior fort under cover of darkness.

  Warriors were not supposed to leave the fort after nightfall, for the Warriors were petrified of the Magic that was out in the forest.

  Iron Warrior fort was the largest hill-fort you could possibly imagine, with thirteen watchtowers and encircled by seven great ditches cut into the hill. How scared these Warriors must be of everything that is Magic to have built such a mighty fort, white as bone, with little slit windows like the blink of a malevolent cat!

  But nonetheless, this particular Warrior pony had managed to sneak out without being spotted by the nervous sentries who clanked their way along the fort walls. And perhaps, just perhaps, those sentries were right to be anxiously straining their eyes into the endless green wilderness that surrounded and engulfed them, watching, peering, struggling to see what might be out there.

  For something BAD was watching the pony from high up in the treetops.

  It is too early to tell what that something was.

  Many bad things live in the Badwoods. It could have been a cat-monster. It could have been a werewolf. It could have been a rogre. (Rogres are a bit like ogres, but a lot more scary.)

  Time will tell what it was.

  But it wasn’t surprising that the pony had caught the something’s attention.

  For the pony was cantering far too noisily through the undergrowth, and bumping along on his back were a skinny little Warrior princess and her Assistant Bodyguard, Bodkin. They were wearing red cloaks over their armor, which made them shine out like stars in the dark green forest.

  Short of wearing a big archery target on the top of their heads or a sign saying EAT ME, O HUNGRY MONSTERS OF THE BADWOODS, nothing could really have made them stand out more.

  The princess had a very long and regal name, but everybody called her Wish.

  Warrior princesses, of course, ought to be impressively tall and absolutely terrifying, like Wish’s mother, Queen Sychorax.

  But Wish was neither scary nor large.

  She had a curious little face that was rather too interested in the world around her and hair that stuck out too wispily, as if she’d accidentally hit some unnoticed bit of static electricity.

  A black patch covered her left eye. She seemed to be searching for something with the other.

  “We’re not supposed to come out here on our own in the day, let alone in the nighttime!” said Bodkin the Assistant Bodyguard, looking nervously over his shoulder. Bodkin wasn’t the regular bodyguard of this weird little princess. Her proper bodyguard had fallen ill with a nasty autumn cold.

  Bodkin had landed the highly sought-after role as understudy for a royal bodyguard, even though he was only thirteen years old, because he was very studious, and he had come out top of his class in the Advanced Arts of Bodyguarding exams.

  However, this was the first time he had done the actual job, and he was finding it a good deal harder than he had thought it would be.

  The princess wouldn’t do what she was told, for starters.

  And although he studied very hard, to be honest, Bodkin didn’t really like fighting very much, and the thought that he might actually be in a real situation where there was a possibility of violence was making him feel a little sick.

  “There could be werewolves or cat-monsters or giants out here,” said Bodkin, “and then there’s the bears and the jaguars and the Wizards and the Rogrebreaths… and even dwarves can get nasty when they’re hunting in packs.”

  “Oh, don’t be so gloomy, Bodkin!” replied the princess. “We’ll go back as soon as we find my pet. This is all your fault anyway. You frightened him when you said you’d report him to my mother, and so he completely panicked and ran away.”

  “I was only trying to stop you from getting into any more trouble!” said Bodkin. “You’re not allowed pets! They’re against the Warrior rules!”

  Bodkin was a boy who really believed in the rules. He was hoping to work his way up from being an Assistant Bodyguard to a Household Defender, and you didn’t do THAT by breaking any rules.

  “And you’re most particularly not allowed this kind of pet…”

  “He must be terrified,” worried Wish. “We couldn’t possibly leave him running away all on his own in the terrors of the Badwoods—all alone and scared, and raving fangmouths might be chasing him or something…

  “AHA!” she said with triumphant relief. “THERE HE IS!”

  She hauled on the pony’s reins to bring him to a halt, and picked up something that was scurrying through the undergrowth. “Thank goodness!” She stroked whatever-it-was gently and made soothing noises as if to say: “Don’t worry, it’s fine, you’re safe now, you’re with me”—the sort of noises that might calm a petrified dog or cat or rabbit that had been running scared and all alone through the Badwoods after the setting of the autumn sun.

  The pet was not a dog or a cat or even a rabbit.

  “That pet of yours is a SPOON!” objected Bodkin.

  The Assistant Bodyguard was right.

  The pet was, indeed, a large iron dinner spoon.

  “So he is,” said Wish, as if she’d only just noticed, getting back up on the pony and drying off the spoon with the end of her sleeve.

  “And that spoon is ALIVE, Princess, he’s alive!” said Bodkin, giving a little shiver of horror as he looked at the spoon. “Which means that he is an entirely banned Magic enchanted object. Haven’t you seen the signs all over Warrior fort? Absolutely no Magic! No enchanted objects! No animals indoors! All Magic must be reported to a higher authority so that reports can be made and the Magic gotten rid of!”

  “I’m not sure he’s Magic, exactly…” said Wish hopefully. “He’s just a little bendy…”

  “Of course he’s Magic!” snapped Bodkin. “Ordinary spoons do not jump up and down to get you to stroke them; ordinary spoons just lie quietly and feed you your dinner! Look at this one! He’s bowing to me!”

  “So he is,” said Wish proudly. “Isn’t that clever?”

  Bodkin breathed very heavily indeed. “This is not clever. This is breaking so many rules it is difficult to know where to begin. Where did you find this spoon?”

  “He just turned up in my room one day, like a wild mouse or something, so I fed him some milk, and he’s been hanging out with me ever since… which was nice because before he came, I was a bit lonely. Haven’t you ever been lonely, Bodkin?”

  “Well, I have, actually,” admitted Bodkin. “Ever since I did so well on the exams and got appointed your personal Assistant Bodyguard, all the other Assistant Bodyguards said I had gotten above myself and now they’re not talking to me and—Hang on a second! That’s not the point!

  “The point is,” said Bodkin, “if an enchanted object turns up unexpectedly in Warrior fort, you really ought to tell your mother, Queen Sychorax, immediately, so she can remove its Magic, NOT adopt it as your pet.”

  At the mention of Queen Sychorax’s name, the spoon swayed from side to side as if terror-stricken and then hopped into Wish’s waistcoat, hiding behind her body armor, so that only the bowl that was his face was staring out, lit up with a strange, glowing Magic light.

  “Look, you’ve scared him again!” Wish replied. “The thing is, I don’t think he wants his Magic removed.”

  “It’s a completely painless process,”
said Bodkin.

  “But he doesn’t want to do it,” said Wish.

  “All right, then,” said Bodkin, folding his arms determinedly. “In which case you have to let the spoon go, back into the wild. He belongs out here in this scary jungle with all the other monsters and Magic things. These are his people. I am putting my foot down, Princess. You absolutely cannot take him back to the iron fort with you. You cannot keep this spoon as your pet. It’s against the rules, and you will get in the most terrible trouble if anyone finds out.”

  Wish looked very sad indeed. “But I kind of identify with the spoon because he’s like me and he doesn’t fit in with all the other spoons—”

  “He doesn’t fit in with the other spoons because he’s alive, Princess, he’s alive!” interrupted Bodkin.

  “And all the other Warriors ignore me,” Wish carried on. “You and this spoon are my only two friends. If I lose the spoon, that just leaves you.”

  “Well, technically speaking, I can’t be your friend either, because you are a princess and I am a servant, and those are the rules,” explained Bodkin.

  “In which case, if I let the spoon go, I will be losing my only friend!” said Wish.

  “Okay, Wish.” (Bodkin was so upset that he forgot to call her “Princess.”)

  It was time for some stern words.

  “I like you, I know you mean well, but let’s face it. The reason you haven’t got any friends is you’re a bit weird, and weird doesn’t go down well in Warrior fort. You need to try to be more normal. And the first step to being normal is to get rid of the Enchanted Spoon.”

  Wish tried one last, desperate argument.