“Good boy,” called out Register Oakbend. “Dr. Mo knew you’d do.”
Magister Hickory walked over to Thornmallow and put an arm around his shoulder. “Now, child, none of this must get beyond this door. We haven’t told the other students because we don’t want to cause a panic. Do you understand? Can’t have even one of the one hundred and thirteen leaving Wizard’s Hall in fright. Clearly we need all of you. It’s in the rules of the spell.”
“What rules?” Thornmallow asked. “What spell?” It was an incredibly brave thing to do, asking that question with Magister Hickory’s arm on his shoulder. He was to wonder ever after how he managed it.
“All magic—even dark magic like the Master’s—has to follow rules and be fair. The spell the Master gave us goes this way.” He closed his eyes and sang—on the dominant, Thornmallow was sure:
Ever on the quilting goes,
Spinning out the lives between,
Winding up the souls of those
Students up to one-thirteen.
“That’s all we know, and it should be enough. But you can understand why we have to guard against even one student leaving now,” said Magister Hickory. “One hundred and thirteen students. That’s what the spell says we have to have. Don’t you see?”
He didn’t, really. But because Magister Hickory’s arm was around him, and because he had been spoken to as if he were truly one of them, he found that after a while he did see. Truly.
10
TELLING TALES
Thornmallow hadn’t meant to tell anyone. Really he hadn’t. And he only told Will because Will was waiting for him in his bedroom.
“Are you all right, Thorny?” Will asked, sitting with his legs tucked under him on the bed. “You look like my sister Mairsie does whenever she fibs. Or my sister Maisie does when she has fallen out of love.” He looked carefully at Thornmallow. “And that happens to them both all the time.”
Thornmallow nodded unhappily.
“The Seven Sis—” the star map began, stopping abruptly when Will shot his right pinky up in the air.
“How did you do that?” Thornmallow asked. “And why? I like the map and the way it says the star names.”
“I did it so we can talk, Thorny,” Will said. “Without interruption from on high, so to speak.” When he saw Thornmallow’s face, he added, “That’s a joke.” Then he held up his left hand. “If you want to start it again, you jab your left pinky up like this.” The map began again.
“—ters,” it said. “The Bear.”
Thornmallow put his right pinky in the air. Nothing happened. The map kept speaking, running through two names and starting on a third. “The Big Dip—”
“Here!” said Will, grabbing Thornmallow’s hand and jabbing it upward. “Give it a little oomph!”
The map stopped in midname with a peculiar popping, almost like a hiccup.
“Now, what’s this all really about, Thorny?” Will asked, shaking his head and looking so sympathetic that Thornmallow spilled out the whole story before he could stop himself.
“Whush!” Will said, lying back on the bed and staring up at the star map. He wrinkled his nose as if he himself were smelling the Beast. Above him the lights of the silent map glowed steadily. “And they really said that tomorrow was the day?”
“Tomorrow night, actually.” Thornmallow sat down heavily at the foot of the bed, and his hands wrangled together.
For a long moment Will was silent. Needing the reassurance of words, Thornmallow stuck his left pinky in the air with as much oomph as he could muster. But the map, too, was silent.
At last Will sat up. “Only the magisters and you know about this?”
Thornmallow nodded glumly. “They didn’t want a panic,” he said. “So only the magisters and I—and you—know. I sort of promised not to tell,” he added miserably.
“Then I sort of promise not to tell anyone else,” Will said. “Or panic.” He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood. “The Quilted Beast. And his Master. Whush. I’ll have to think about that! Good night.” He rose.
“Will …,” Thornmallow began.
“What?”
“Could you start the stars again? I like to go to sleep while they’re still talking.”
“Just put your hand up,” Will said. “Your left hand. Left pinky.”
Thornmallow did. When nothing happened, Will grabbed his hand and jerked it upward.
“—per!” said the stars, rather more loudly than before.
“Easy, see?” said Will. “Any first-year can do it. Oh, and can I have my handkerchief back now? Your nose is clean.”
Thornmallow pulled it from his pocket, crumpled and smudgy, and Will smoothed it out, shook it, and the smudges fell off on the floor. Then he slid the handkerchief back into his pocket, and left the room.
The next morning Thornmallow got up at the bell. His scholar’s robe was freshly pressed and hanging in the closet. He put on his clothes and, with the hem of the robe flapping about his ankles, was in the hallway by second bell.
“Today’s the day,” shouted Tansy at the first turning.
“Tonight’s the night,” added Gorse mysteriously.
“For what?” A cold chill started down Thornmallow’s spine.
“You know,” they answered together, their voices purposefully eerie.
When he caught up with Will, Thornmallow grabbed him by the sleeve. “You promised!” he whispered furiously.
“Promised what?”
“Not to tell.”
“Tell what?”
“About the Beast. And its Master.”
“I only told Tansy,” Will said.
“And I only told Gorse,” Tansy added, catching up to them.
“And I never promised anything,” said Gorse, panting a little as she came up behind. “Though I just heard, so I haven’t had time to tell anyone else.”
“Well, you mustn’t. This isn’t a game. It isn’t fun or funny. It is serious and dangerous.” Thornmallow was shaking with a combination of anger and dread.
“Listen, Thornmallow,” Gorse began, “all magic is serious and dangerous. Which is not to say you can’t have fun with it as well.”
“You didn’t smell the Beast. You didn’t hear the magisters. I did. But I wasn’t supposed to tell, and now I have got to find Magister Hickory and confess that I did.”
“Bad idea,” warned Gorse. “Confess to a wizard, and you’ll get swat for sure. Trust me. My da is a—”
“Bush wizard. Yes, we know all about him, Gorse,” said Will. “But we’ve all let Thorny down. Especially me. Going with him to see Magister Hickory is the least we can do. And if it means a punishment, then we’ve got it coming.”
He dragged Thornmallow off to the left, and Tansy dragged Gorse to the right. They met around the next corner and walked four-abreast down the hall. At the corridor’s end was a big door with Magister Hickory’s name carved in gold on the crosspiece, jets of lightning streaking down each side.
“That’s a different door from yesterday,” Thornmallow said suspiciously.
“Of course,” said Gorse. “This is a different day.”
“You can’t expect it to stay the same,” Tansy added. “Not at Wizard’s Hall.”
It was then they heard the voice, dark and infinitely cold, behind the door.
“That’s …,” Thornmallow began. Then the iciness of the voice sealed his lips, and he couldn’t say anything more.
11
THE MASTER SPEAKS
From under the big door and around its edges, a dark cold voice seeped out, enveloping them. At first the words were lost in the dark and the cold. But after a moment they could make out what was being said.
“TONIGHT!” the voice said.
Next to that awful voice, Magister Hickory’s answer was tiny, tinny, and weak. “We have the number to defeat you. We have the requisite one hundred and thirteen.”
The voice laughed.
“It sounds like cobw
ebs in corners,” whispered Will.
“It sounds like shouts down a rain barrel,” whispered Tansy.
“It sounds like distant thunder up close,” whispered Gorse.
Thornmallow was silent. What it sounded like to him was doom, but he didn’t say that. He was remembering what Magister Briar Rose had told him—that things said aloud in Wizard’s Hall could become real. He had already broken one promise to Magister Hickory—the one about telling. He would not break the other. He would try.
Working hard at smiling, Thornmallow winked at his friends. It was the longest, the most difficult wink he ever managed. “Cows,” he said. “Cows sound like that—MOOOOOO. MOOOOOO. And we milk them.” He wondered if saying that aloud would have any effect.
Gorse snapped, “You don’t understand, Thornmallow. This is serious. Whoever that is has The Voice. Only the greatest of Magisters has The Voice.”
“And I say that voice sounds like cows,” Thornmallow said again.
“Bet you know a lot about cows,” said Gorse.
“I know more about cows than magic,” Thornmallow answered.
Tansy put a hand on both their shoulders. “Why are you two arguing?” she asked.
“MOOOOOO!” Thornmallow said, determined to get the last word in. All of a sudden they all laughed. Somehow his clowning had relaxed them.
But no sooner had they sighed their little bit of relief than the cold, dark voice began again.
“One hundred and thirteen, Hickorystick? Mere numbers do not impress me. But I will im-press you. We will meet again in the Great Hall at midnight, and then you will see how little I care for your puny magicks and your useless spells. You thought once I was not good enough to run your miserable Hall. But now I will run my Beast through it and enjoy the sight.”
This time the laugh that accompanied The Voice shook splinters from the door, and the gold lightning jets fell out, clattering at their feet. A clap of thunder shook the walls. Will and Gorse fell to the ground, hands over their ears. Tansy grabbed Thornmallow’s fingers and squeezed them until he felt sure the bones cried out.
Then the door flew open. The four of them melted back against the wall, trying to act like paint.
Out stumbled Magister Hickory, his great mane of hair lying limp on his shoulders. His handsome face seemed like ancient parchment stretched over gaunt bones. Stooping, he felt for the wall with one palsied hand.
“Magister Hickory!” cried Thornmallow, rushing to him. “What can we do to help?”
“What can you do?” Magister Hickory looked old and confused. There was a tremor building in his lower lip.
“We can run,” said Gorse, quite definitely.
“We can hide,” said Will.
“We can do what Thornmallow said,” Tansy whispered.
Magister Hickory turned toward her uncertainly, his lusterless eyes afraid. “What is that, child?”
“We can try,” Tansy whispered.
Thornmallow reached for her hand. It felt warm and safe in his. “Yes,” he said, “we can try.” Saying it aloud like that made it real.
They surrounded Magister Hickory, touching his hands and arms. “Yes, we can,” they cried out together. “We can try.”
Slowly Magister Hickory straightened up. He ran a hand tentatively through his mane of hair. His eyes began to clear, and he looked at his students one at a time, as if drawing strength from their eager faces. At last he said, “Did you hear The Voice?”
Thornmallow spoke for them all. “We heard, sir.”
“And what it said?”
Gorse added, “We did.”
“And still you will try?”
Together they said, “We will.”
Magister Hickory touched each of their faces in turn, as if assuring himself they were really there, not some bit of magic forced upon him by his enemy. The last face he touched was Thornmallow’s. He smiled, which made his lower lip stop trembling.
“Then so will I, my children,” he said, his voice getting stronger with each word. “So will I.”
12
THE STORY OF THE BEAST
I guess I’d better tell you the story of the Master and the Beast, then,” Magister Hickory said. “Come into my room and sit down. The story is long and not at all pleasant.”
“Will … he … be back?” Tansy asked.
“The Master? No, not until tonight. He did what he came to do—to trade threats with me,” said Magister Hickory. “As you well know, so much of magic is in the head. And this visit has drained him.”
“He didn’t sound drained to me,” said Gorse.
Magister Hickory managed another, smaller smile. It didn’t reassure any of them. “Remember your first lessons in appearances, child.”
The others nodded uneasily, but Thornmallow did not. Magister Hickory’s hair was still hanging limp on his shoulders and his fingers kept trembling at his sides. For all the wizard’s talk, he was the one who looked drained. As a farm boy, Thornmallow knew to check such things as hair and limbs. Didn’t his dear ma always say, A cow’s tail tells you more than her mouth. If that was the appearance of what the Master could do …
The magister’s room was not what Thornmallow was expecting. It was not the office of the evening before but a bedroom, warm and homey. There was a small slant-top desk against a window overlooking a rolling hillside. A pair of red plush slippers sat heel-to-toe under the four-poster bed. Magister Hickory had obviously been reading in bed, for there were three open books lying on the quilt. Thornmallow could see that one was a book of spells, one a book of numbers, and one was about herbalry, for the picture on the page was of a bunch of dill plants crowned with lavender flowers.
On the wall next to the bed were a dozen portraits. Thornmallow recognized a few of them as magisters. One picture especially drew his eye. It was of the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, her dark hair cascading down either side of a heart-shaped face, framing it. He turned to ask about the picture and saw that the others were already sitting down, Gorse on a footstool, Tansy on a hassock, and Will on the floor. Magister Hickory had settled into a large overstuffed chair. Hastily Thornmallow folded himself cross-legged next to Will.
“The story starts, my children, back before you were born. Back at the beginning of Wizard’s Hall,” Magister Hickory said. The words rolled out of his mouth like a chant. As he spoke, the life seemed to return to his eyes, and his hair began to lift ever so slowly, strand by strand, from his shoulders.
Thornmallow remembered what Register Oakbend had said. Words mean something. And clearly, as Magister Hickory spoke, the very act of speaking the words, telling the story, re-creating another time, gave him life. Just as the words spoken by the awful Master had brought him a kind of death.
“Wizard’s Hall was begun by fourteen of us, magic-makers from all over the Dales. I had just graduated in spell-making from the Castle of the Divine. Magister Briar Rose had been a simple herbwife of some fame in Shepardston. Register Oakbend had been a necromancer of no small knowledge in Seddingham-over-the-Hill. And then there was Magister Morning Glory.” He turned his head toward the pictures on the wall, and the portrait of the beautiful woman seemed to smile ever so slightly.
“Morning Glory was a Doctor of Divining,” Magister Hickory said, his voice soft with remembering. “And she was the most accomplished of us all. In fact it was she who had the idea for Wizard’s Hall and she who sent out the original Call, a Call so strong and so pure that we thirteen—a wizard’s dozen—who answered it all agreed it could not be denied.” He sat up straight in the chair, then leaned forward toward them.
Thornmallow glanced over at the portrait of Magister Morning Glory. The smile was gone.
“What was begun in harmony ended in tragedy,” Magister Hickory said and then slowly sank back against the chair.
“What happened?” asked Will into the silence.
“What indeed.” Magister Hickory’s voice was now so quiet, the four children had to lean toward him
to hear. He took an enormous pocket handkerchief from the air, flourished it once, and blew his nose loudly, a sound unaccountably like a trumpet. At a second blow, the handkerchief disappeared. “What indeed.”
“What indeed …,” prompted Gorse.
Magister Hickory drew in a deep breath and sat up straight once again. This time his hair stood out around his head like a lion’s mane, and his eyes were fierce.
“One of our original members was a wizard named Nettle from Overton-Across-the-Waters. Though he was an accomplished magician, he was well named. He was prickly, both outside and in. At first he was quiet, well-mannered even. But soon enough, we learned his real character. His words stung, and he loved to use them in anger. Still, we were thirteen, and he was one. But when we voted him out of the Hall, he began to study the black arts long into the night. In his nightwork he conjured up a Beast from the black side of our souls. Bit by bit, he quilted that Beast together, until it had swallowed up—”
“Excuse me,” said Thornmallow, his voice soft with fear, “but I don’t understand.”
Magister Hickory nodded. “Of course you don’t, young Thornswallow. You have only been here a few days.”
“I mean—wouldn’t it be a good idea to lose the black side? That way, your souls could shine all pure as gold? And it’s Thornmallow. Sir.”
Magister Hickory smiled indulgently. “By ‘black,’ my prickly friend, I do not mean evil. Or wicked. I mean dark and deep, as in the black water of the deepest lakes. All those strongest of emotions that—if used improperly—tempt us to wicked, evil deeds. For example, ambition, which can become greed. Or desire, which can become gluttony. Or admiration, which can become envy. We are all made up of such deep and dark emotions, and as we grow more mature, we learn to control them.”
Thornmallow nodded, remembering how often his dear ma said, Good folk think bad thoughts; bad folk act on ’em.
Magister Hickory nodded back. “Even love can have a black side. Even love.”
“So what happened?” Gorse asked.
“Those of us with smaller black sides, smaller emotions, we lost little and could still function, if somewhat less sharply than before,” said Magister Hickory. “Why, once you could hear me from one side of the Hall to the other. And Magister Briar Rose—her laughter could lift a tree. But now …” He shook his head. “Still, we had little to lose compared to our dear Morning Glory. And she—well, she disappeared.”