Sagaria (27 page)

“IT’S SEVEN O’CLOCK, YOU LOUSY SLUGABEDS! RISE AND SHINE! IT’S A BEAUTIFUL MORNING OUTSIDE. DON’T JUST LIE THERE WASTING THE DAY. HUP, ONE, TWO, THREE. HUP, ONE, TWO—”

“Quiet!” bellowed Samzing somewhere below them.

“YOU ASKED FOR THE SPECIAL TREATMENT.”

“I did not. I specifically
forbade
you to give me the Special Treatment.”

“OOPS.”

When the friends climbed downstairs they found Samzing standing in the middle of the floor dripping wet.

“That infernal clock,” he muttered to them fervently. “It’ll give me a heart attack one of these days, you mark my words.”

“SPOILSPORT.”

“It just about gave me a heart attack,” Sir Tombin assured him seriously.

“Well, you didn’t get the bucket-of-ice-cold-water awakening,” said the
wizard bitterly, wringing out his beard.

“WHEN I WAKE PEOPLE UP THEY
KNOW
THEY’VE BEEN WOKEN UP,” the clock announced.

“When I reduce clocks to a pile of springs and cogs they
know
they’ve been reduced to a pile of springs and cogs,” retorted Samzing.

“HMMF.”

Golma appeared at that moment with loaves of bread and plates of cheese, and soon they were all – except the clock – eating breakfast. Or dinner, as Golma and the wizard called it. This time it was Golma who tended to Snowmane, and Sagandran wondered how the horse was reacting to the strange metal woman.

He hadn’t finished wondering when Golma quietly returned. From her demeanor, he guessed that Snowmane had accepted her ministrations perfectly contentedly. He was annoyed to find he felt a tiny pang of jealousy.

Samzing suddenly sprang up from his chair.

“I’ve decided,” he said. He looked around expectantly at their inquiring faces.

“Decided what?” said Sir Tombin at last.

“That I’m coming with you.”

“But—”

“Don’t try to persuade me otherwise, dear fellow. I may be old, but I’m still perfectly capable of traveling. It’s about time I had a change of scene.”

“And you’ll be able to see Queen Mirabella,” said Sir Tombin softly.

The wizard blushed. “Yes, well, there is that as well. Pay my respects to the old gal, you know.”

Sir Tombin grinned but said nothing.

Golma said nothing but didn’t grin. She did look dangerous though.

Samzing, appearing not to notice this, announced breezily that he was off to pack.

Sir Tombin tried to reassure Golma, who was clearing away the plates from the table with a lot more force than was necessary.

“There’s absolutely nothing at all between old Samzing and the queen,” he said firmly, as if to Sagandran, “and never has been. The whole idea’s quite preposterous. Besides, it was all a very long time ago.”

His remarks didn’t seem to improve the bronze statue’s mood, and they were all rather relieved when Samzing reappeared with a stuffed bolster as luggage and told them brightly that he was ready to be on his way.

Not long afterward, the carriage was lumbering back toward the road. Its occupants rather guiltily eavesdropped on the ferocious argument Golma was having with the clock behind them.

Golma was winning.

CHAPTER 10

T
HE
N
ATURE OF
M
AGIC

fter they’d left Loristo Valley behind them, the road grew less bumpy and hilly than it had been before and they made good time, with Snowmane trotting along contentedly. Remembering how Samzing’s house had seemed like a decrepit, uninviting old cottage when he’d first seen it, Sagandran wondered if the wizard had engineered things so the way from Mattani to Loristo Valley was as arduous and unappealing as possible in order to deter possible visitors; but the subject didn’t come up and he didn’t like to ask the old man outright.

All trace of yesterday’s relentless rain had disappeared from the sky. Perima seemed a lot more relaxed again today, but used subtle means to make sure that there was always a certain distance between herself and Sagandran. She had insisted on sitting up beside Flip and Sir Tombin, who was once again doing the driving, and so Sagandran sat inside with the wizard.

They hadn’t been on the road very long when Samzing tugged a curious pipe from a pocket of his robe. Its bowl looked more like a chimney than a pipe-bowl, and the smoke coming out of it was appropriately acrid. Sagandran opened the carriage windows as wide as they would go. Luckily, Samzing’s mind-reading spell had worn off during the night, so the wizard couldn’t tell exactly what Sagandran thought of the pipe.

Conversation between them was desultory. There were thousands of things Sagandran wanted to ask the old man, who was the very first magic-user he’d ever met (with the possible exception of Grandpa Melwin, he reminded himself) but he couldn’t think of any as the trip went on. He wondered if the wizard was playing tricks with his mind. It felt as if some of the pipe smoke had crept into it, so that Sagandran had difficulty finding anything there. At last, his thoughts cleared.

“Where did you learn magic?” he asked, leaning forward.

The old man chuckled, then looked at him with a penetrating stare.

“Where, indeed?” he said. He took a deep draw on his pipe and breathed out a cloud of blackness. “Well, I studied under other older magicians. I started as an apprentice and worked my way up, then went to the sorcerous university in Qarnapheeran, but that was only the smallest part of it. Magic isn’t so much something you learn as something you discover inside yourself.”

He continued to stare at Sagandran, who knew he was looking perplexed.

“Let’s take an example.” Reaching into a different pocket of his robe, Samzing pulled out a short stick and passed it across to Sagandran. “Hold it between your hands, like this. There. Now, can you make this piece of wood catch fire simply by willing it to do so?”

Sagandran shook his head firmly. “No.”

“Why not?”

“It’s impossible. Without magic it’s impossible, that is.”

The wizard sat back in his seat, but his gaze never shifted from Sagandran’s face. “Who told you that?”

“Well,” Sagandran shrugged. “Well, no one, but everybody knows that kind of stuff’s impossible.”

That’s the problem, you see.” Samzing patted him on the knee. “You know it’s impossible so you can’t do it, but what if someone convinced you it was perfectly possible? What if you knew it was possible? Would you be able to do it then?”

“Sagandran moved uneasily in his seat. “Well, I guess so, but—”

“You have to reprogram your mind, you see, until you know something you once thought impossible can, in fact, be done. There can’t be even the tiniest scintilla of doubt left behind – you have to believe in the possibility with your whole being. Then you can do absolutely anything. You can do the impossible any time you want to. That, dear boybrat, is what magic is.”

Memories suddenly began to flow into Sagandran’s mind, as if they were being poured in from outside. He recalled the time when he’d been quite little and his Lakeland terrier, Fozzie, had been hit by one of those deadly illnesses that can kill within hours. Sagandran had been staying with his aunt and uncle on holiday when it had happened. Dad had driven for two solid days to fetch him, and two days more to bring him home. When they finally arrived, they found that Fozzie was still alive, to the vet’s astonishment. Sagandran had held the terrier’s head in his arms and, as the two had gazed earnestly into each other’s eyes, he’d had the feeling that Fozzie had been clinging to life in order to say goodbye to the boy he loved.

Sagandran had dreamed that night of walking with Fozzie in a garden. They’d talked, though afterward, Sagandran could never remember what they’d
talked about. When he woke he felt a surge of joy and relief. Wherever Fozzie now was, he was happy. Although he didn’t know why he was doing so, he told Samzing about this now, and the wizard nodded understandingly.

“That was magic, Sagandran – the magic of love. It’s the most powerful magic there is.”

Sagandran continued to gaze at the stick, turning it over between the fingers of his two hands. It still seemed to just be a stick. Whatever Samzing told him, he couldn’t feel any magic suddenly coursing through his veins.

“My pipe’s gone out,” said Samzing. “Here, give that to me.”

He took the stick from Sagandran and held it up vertically in front of him. There was a little
pfft
noise, and the tip of the stick burst into cheery flame.

“Useful thing,” Samzing said, lowering it to his pipe and preparing to suck, “this magic.”

Up aloft, Sir Tombin was saying, “How about a song to pass the time?”

The question was directed toward Perima, and was an attempt to draw the girl out of her shell. Ever since her altercation yesterday with young Sagandran, Sir Tombin mused, she’d been moody and distant with all of them, but it was Flip who answered.

“I know one,” he cried. “It’s a song we sing in Mishmash, and it’s well known by everybody there as the finest traveling song in all the world.”

“Oh, good,” said Perima coldly.

Without waiting for any prompting from his two companions, Flip began to sing in his high but surprisingly rich, clear voice:

There was a moment of numbed silence after he’d finished, and then he scrabbled up Perima’s sleeve and whispered loudly in her ear, “So wear your smiling face.”

Sir Tombin laughed, and after a moment the girl gave a wan smile.

“Actually, there’s more,” said Flip, encouraged. “Lots and lots more, in fact. The song has more verses than—”

“I think we’d all like to spend a little time thinking about the verse you’ve already sung,” Sir Tombin remarked firmly. “It has profound philosophical implications that deserve some, um, mulling. Plenty of mulling. It may be some while before I feel I’ve mulled it sufficiently.”

Flip stared at him, mouth wide open in disappointment.

“You didn’t like my song?”

“We liked it very much indeed, dear Flip,” soothed Perima, reaching out a hand to him, “and it was very kind of you to sing it. But its message is so, well,
concentrated
that we need to—”

Sir Tombin held up his arm to call for silence.

“Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” said Flip.

“Something. I don’t know quite what. I don’t even know if I heard it myself, but I sensed it. See, Snowmane sensed it as well.”

Sure enough, the horse was becoming a little skittish even though he still trotted along between the shafts. Sir Tombin twitched the reins to bring him to a halt, and stood up to look back over the carriage roof in the direction they’d come. The road was empty as far as the eye could see, and its surrounds were flat and only sparsely vegetated.

“No sign of any pursuers,” he muttered, sitting down again. “And yet …”

Flip had adopted a curious facial contortion that Sir Tombin slowly realized was a pout.

“Nobody is saying, Flip, that your singing voice scares the hors—”

Snowmane, staring ahead, let out a loud, frightened whinny then started to shake, making the harness jangle.

“There is something out there,” said Sir Tombin. He found that he was whispering and wondered why.

“I can feel it too, now,” breathed Perima. “Something’s coming this way.”

“Something foul, I think,” said Sir Tombin with a false lightness of tone. “Be careful what you say and do.” He thumped his fist on the wooden panel behind him and hissed the same warning to Samzing and Sagandran within. “Remember, evil comes in many guises, and most of them are deceptive.”

Now he could see that there was someone on the road ahead of them. A rider on horseback was approaching. Snowmane’s trembling grew more violent until Sir Tombin spoke a couple of reassuring words to him.

The rider drew nearer. As he did so, Sir Tombin could make out more details.
The horse was a deep silvery gray that should have been beautiful but was, instead, somehow chilling. The man sitting astride it, appearing almost to be a part of his steed, was clad in brightly shining armor. He was helmetless and had a broad, cheerfully smiling face and a mop of unruly fair hair. He wore a sword at his side; its long pommel was covered in jewels that flashed and gleamed with every color of the rainbow. On his arm he bore a shield that displayed a starkly painted emblem: a crow or raven with a screaming baby in its long, vicious beak.

When he saw that insignia Sir Tombin’s heart flinched. He knew what it meant.

“A minion of the darkness, a Shadow Knight,” he said barely audibly to Perima and Flip. “Be even more careful than I told you to be. Let me do the talking. Flip, if you can still poke your head through the hatch on the roof, do so now and tell the other two.”

However quietly he spoke, he had the horrible feeling the still-distant rider could hear every word. Things must be far worse than Sagandran’s Grandpa Melwin could ever have realized if the Shadow Knights felt confident enough to travel about in full daylight, with their emblem on view for all to see. Now more than ever Sir Tombin felt the urgent need to get to Spectram and offer their aid to Queen Mirabella.

The Shadow Knight was in no hurry. He was allowing his horse to amble along, and only occasionally did he glance at the carriage. Sir Tombin released the catch on the scabbard of his sword, ready to draw the weapon at a moment’s notice; the tiny
click
of the catch seemed to him loud enough to make the very skies echo.

Flip returned from his mission, half-falling back onto the bench between Perima and Sir Tombin.

“What—” he began.

“Hush,” said the Frogly Knight. “Not a word.”

It was as if the world were holding itself still in fear. The little breeze that had been tossing the grass and flowers by the roadside died. The birds had fled. The ceaseless hum of insects going about their business was silenced. A dark cloud, the only one in the piercing blue of the sky, shrouded the sun. The only sounds were Snowmane’s agitated breathing, the jingle of the newcomer’s elaborately decorated armor, and the
thunk click thunk th–thunk
of his horse’s hooves on the packed mud and stones of the road.