The Wizards of Once Page 7

  And all the other sprites were making nuisances of themselves in an equally naughty manner…

  “What are you doing here, Xar?” sneered Looter. “Your Magic hasn’t come in yet.”

  “I’m here to challenge you,” said Xar grandly.

  “What with?” grinned Looter. “Don’t tell me you caught your WITCH, did you, baby brother?” he said lightly. He turned to his laughing friends and jerked a thumb at Xar. “This loser thought he was going to catch himself a Witch and steal some of its Magic…”

  “HA HA HA HA HA!” laughed the young Wizards.

  Xar shrugged carelessly. “Maybe I did catch that Witch, Looter,” he said. “Why don’t you try some of your spelling on me, and we’ll see what happens? Or are you AFRAID?”

  “Watch out, Looter!” warned Darkish. “He did catch something… I don’t know what it was…”

  “Of course you didn’t catch a Witch,” jeered Looter. “And you can’t do Magic, little baby boy. I warned you, if you dared to enter this Competition I would ANNIHILATE you, and I will…”

  Xar walked into the chalk circle, and as he stepped in, there was a short, sharp humming noise, and a force field of Magic leaped over both himself and Looter in a thin, see-through dome, hissing with power.

  Everyone was quiet with that quiet where you know something is going to happen. Timeloss drew one of his wands, as did Bumbleboozle. But they couldn’t help Xar now that he had stepped inside the circle.

  Xar was on his own.

  Xar held out his hands toward Looter.

  “Oh, you’re going to do Magic without a staff, are you, Xar?” scoffed Looter, and his friends all laughed loudly at this. Magic without a staff was advanced Wizard work, and only Great Enchanters like Xar’s father could do that.

  “Be afraid, Looter, be very afraid,” warned Xar. “For I have not only the Magic of the Witch, but my Magic has the power to work on iron…”

  “HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!” jeered all the young Wizards.

  “Oh really?” smiled Looter.

  He was going to enjoy this sooooo much.

  “That’s right,” said Xar. “I am the boy that destiny has chosen.”

  Confidently, Xar held his hand with the Witch-stain on it out in front of him.

  Feel the power… thought Xar. Feel the power…

  “Imagine in your head… Feel the power in your fingers…” That was what the teachers always said.

  But Xar got redder and redder in the face, and more and more angry, and it was just like every other time he had tried to do Magic and failed…

  Nothing, nothing happened.

  Looter had been creeping warily around the edge of the circle, in case that lunatic brother of his really HAD caught himself some extinct life-form. Impossible though that was, you never knew with Xar. He had a way of making impossible things happen.

  But now Looter’s eyes lit up.

  “Ohhh dear,” crooned Looter, holding his staff lovingly in his hands, “ohh dear… so, boy of destiny, chosen one… where is your scary Witch Magic now, then?”

  “The boy of destiny!” laughed the young Wizards outside the circle.

  “I don’t understand,” said Xar, bewildered and furious. “I AM the boy of destiny. I CAN do it… I know I can do Magic…”

  Botheration! thought Xar. He had been so sure, what with the Witch-killing motto on the sword and everything, that this must all be a sign from fate. But maybe he had been wrong… and if this wasn’t Witchblood, then what was it?

  Please, please, let me not turn into a werewolf in front of everybody, thought Xar. That would be embarrassing.

  Not for the first time, Xar wished he had taken Caliburn’s advice. He could feel his skin prickling all over as if hairs were about to sprout out of it at any moment.

  “You can’t do Magic,” said Looter. “But I can. Let me show you how I do it. I wonder, what I shall do first? Maybe I’ll do… this!” He pointed his staff at Xar—there was a flash of sheet lightning and the white-hot heat of Magic light shot out of it, hitting Xar full in the chest so hard that he was thrown up into the edge of the invisible circle of the Magic force field.

  Oh bother, thought Xar dully, picking himself up. This isn’t going to plan…

  “I’m going to turn you green,” grinned Looter, shooting blasts of Magic at Xar, who turned brilliantly green as he was shot to the other side of the ring, trying not to scream as the blasts hit him like punches in the stomach. “And red… and yellow… and pink…”

  As Xar was blasted across the spelling ring, turning violently different colors, he felt more and more nauseated, and he struggled not to be sick in front of everyone.

  “HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!” roared the cronies of Looter and the Wizard children who Xar had played tricks on and bossed about in the past.

  “You need to be taught a lesson.” Looter smiled. “And I am going to teach you a lesson you will never, ever forget.”

  He advanced closer to Xar, who was now doubled over in pain, groaning.

  “You’re small now,” said Looter. “But I shall make you smaller…”

  He pointed his staff at Xar and muttered a spell under his breath. “S-H-R-I-N-K…” was the spell. “Shrink…”

  Oh dear… not a shrinking spell, thought Xar. That’s really painful. And I’m already kind of on the small side. I’d better bring out the sword.

  But he didn’t have time before the Magic screamed out the end of Looter’s staff and hit the doubled-over Xar and lit him up at the edges as if he were a Xar made out of stars.

  Xar stifled a howl of pain as those stars set into a viselike grip, and a pinch that began in his forehead spread across his entire body as the Magic tightened and pinched and compressed and crushed him, as though he were wearing a suit of armor that was slowly squeezing shut like the closing of a fist.

  “Say I’ve won!” shouted Looter, backing off to give Xar a moment to give up the fight. “Surrender!”

  Xar’s mouth was squashed out of shape by the shrinking process, but he managed to shout, “No! I won’t!”

  It came out weirdly, squeakily through the shrinking, squirming O of his lips.

  “All right, then,” said Looter. “You’ll have to go smaller still…”

  This time Xar did let out a yell as the spell hit him in a trembling shriek of pinches and pressure, shrinking his bones down a size smaller than they were. Bother. This wasn’t giving him time to draw the beastly sword.

  “Do you give up?” said Looter.

  “Of course not!!!” yelled Xar. “Now you have really annoyed me, Looter!”

  Luckily this made Looter stop doing Magic for a second, because he was laughing so hard he nearly dropped his staff. “Oh, I’ve REALLY annoyed you, have I? I’m so scared, I’m so scared…”

  So, while Looter was busy laughing, Xar was able to draw the sword. In the nick of time. For if his hands had gone any smaller, he wouldn’t have been able to hold it.

  But he could just about get his palm around the handle and get enough grip to pull it out of his belt.

  And it was a moment of triumph.

  Xar drew the Enchanted Sword, with that satisfying swishing sound that swords make, and as they heard it, the gaze of the onlookers turned from scorn into surprise and horror as they realized what that sword was made of. Iron…

  Looter took a step backward.

  “You can’t bring an IRON SWORD in here…” spluttered Looter. “Where did you get that from, you lunatic?”

  “I broke into Warrior fort,” lied Xar boastfully, “and stole it from right under the Warriors’ snooty little noses… And I can bring it in, because it’s a Magic Witch-killing sword. And, as you will see, my Magic, which HAS come in, can control it and enchant it…”

  Looter shot an anxious bolt of Magic at the approaching Xar, and with one satisfying slice of the sword, Xar cut it in half before it reached him.

  “Was that another shrinking spell, Looter?” jeered Xar. “Better try ano
ther one, for I am coming closer…”

  Then the fight began in earnest, with Looter shooting hot, quick Magic bolts from his staff, and Xar intercepting them and breaking them in half so they fell uselessly to the ground as fast as Looter could direct them toward Xar.

  The sword felt as if it were coming alive like a freshly caught salmon in Xar’s hand, and it was anticipating Looter’s next move before he made it.

  Xar wasn’t as light as Wish, so it wasn’t quite as clear that it was the sword doing the fighting rather than Xar himself. He just looked like he had suddenly and miraculously turned into the Best Swordfighter in the World.

  The crowd was now pointing in an admiring rather than mocking way as Xar ran around the spelling ring carving up Looter’s spellbolts and slicing his staff, shouting, “What have you to say about my Magic NOW, Looter?” and generally showing off.

  It’s working! thought Xar joyfully.

  And it was every bit as exciting as he had dreamed it would be.

  He could hear Heliotrope saying to Leafsong, “Wow, fighting with a sword is kind of cooler than with a staff, isn’t it?”

  And Leafsong replying, “Do you think Xar really is the boy of destiny?”

  I’m a star! thought Xar exultantly. I knew I was a star all along! And now everybody else will know it too.

  And then everything went wrong.

  Suddenly, mysteriously, the Enchanted Sword began to drag Xar rather too violently to the left and to the right.

  What’s going on? thought Xar.

  One moment it was as if he and the sword were one and the same, and he was in triumphant control of it, the next it felt worryingly as if the sword were trying to escape from him.

  Xar was having to hang on to the sword with both hands, until, with a great plunging leap that pulled him three feet up in the air, the sword dragged itself out of his grasp and rocketed up through the dome circle of the Magic surrounding them, which caused the entire circle to explode.

  BOOOOOOOOOOMMMM!!

  The force of the explosion sent Magic ricocheting around the main hall in huge, violent blasts, ripping holes in the ceiling, and fireballs the size of pumpkins flew across the room.

  The Enchanted Sword, after exploding out of the Magic circle, sailed up into the rafters of the ceiling of the main hall and disappeared in the direction of Xar’s room…

  When the smoke cleared, Xar and Looter had been thrown onto their backs and were lying on the floor, choking and coughing.

  A great crack had opened up beneath Xar’s feet and had split right across the floor of the room.

  “WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?”

  The King Enchanter’s voice was cold as ice.

  9. Encanzo the King Enchanter

  The King Enchanter was a tall man, and Magic had made him taller still. It was curiously difficult to look at him, for he always seemed to be very slightly changing shape, blurring in and out at the edges. But underneath the constantly changing outline of his face, where Magic came and went like waves on a coastline, he was stern and unbending as a cliff.

  He was such a very powerful Wizard that there was something very scary about him, even when he was just standing there quietly. He had one black fingernail on his right hand, and there was a story of how the fingernail had turned that color, but no one dared ask the Enchanter what the story was.

  Two very large, very old snowcats settled themselves on either side of the Enchanter as if they were statues framing a door.

  Xar and Looter staggered to their feet like a couple of carbon scarecrows.

  “Xar!” snapped the Enchanter. “What has happened here? And what are you doing competing in the Spelling Competition?”

  The cold anger dropped from the Enchanter’s voice for a second as he asked, “Has your Magic come in at last?”

  The Enchanter’s voice was eager. Too eager, for it told his son how much the Enchanter wanted that Magic to come in.

  “It has,” said Xar.

  “It has not!” said Looter.

  “Well, Xar?” said the Enchanter sternly, and this time you could hear his disappointment. “Has it come in, or has it not?”

  “Maybe not,” admitted Xar sulkily.

  “Then why are you competing in this spell—” began the Enchanter, but Looter was so angry he rudely interrupted his father.

  “He cheated! He’s completely out of control!” roared Looter. “He went into the Badwoods this evening with some mad plan that he was going to catch a Witch and use its Magic for himself—and then he tried to attack me with this ir—”

  Looter was going to tell the Enchanter about the sword, but unfortunately the Enchanter punished him for his rudeness by sewing Looter’s lips tight with Magic before he got to the end of this sentence. One flick of the Enchanter’s little finger, and Looter’s mouth shot together like he had lockjaw.

  Ranter, Xar’s tutor of Wizardry and Advanced Spellwork, now rushed forward. Ranter was a huge pomposity of a man, with a nose like a dignified lobster and various quivering outraged chins. His air of dignity and calm was disrupted by the fact that he was being closely followed not only by some very grand and ancient sprites, but also six small piglets, oinking lovingly up at him.

  “I have tried to speak to you about this on many, MANY occasions, Enchanter!” cried Ranter. “And you have chosen not to listen! This is only the latest in a long line of disobediences! In the past week your son has: ridden his snowcat up the fort flagpole… removed the flag of the Wizard tribe and replaced it with a pair of Your Excellency’s underpants… he has burned down the west part of the camp—”

  “That was an accident!” objected Xar, interrupting. “I was just teasing the chimney sprites and they couldn’t take a joke… Besides,” he added hurriedly, “it wasn’t me and I wasn’t there…”

  And with the last complaint, Ranter’s voice dropped to a thrilling, furious quiver that made his chins shiver from side to side, banging against one another. “And worst of all, he has poured a ‘Love-Never-Lies’ potion into the pigs’ feeding trough, so the pigs are behaving in a most OUTRAGEOUS fashion…”

  Despite his intense annoyance with his younger son, the Enchanter’s lips twitched with amusement. He looked down at the pigs, gazing up at Ranter adoringly. “Ah yes, I did wonder why you had taken to having pigs as followers, Ranter… Not very dignified for a senior Wizard of your standing, I thought…”

  “The pigs,” spat Ranter, “are not my idea! Your son has inflicted them on me! And you should not find this amusing, Enchanter. Your son’s disobedience and lack of Magic brings dishonor on our whole tribe.”

  “What do you have to say for yourself, Xar?” said the Enchanter.

  “You have no evidence!” shouted Xar, furiously punching the air. “I am Xar the Magnificent and I demand a fair trial!”

  “Of course,” said Encanzo the Magnificent. “Could you show me what you have there, Xar?”

  He pointed to a package that was poking out of one of the pockets hanging around Xar’s waist.

  Ve-ry reluctantly, Xar took the package out of his pocket, and Encanzo insisted he unwrap it.

  The package turned out to be a burned flag of the Wizard tribe tied around a half-full bottle of “Love-Never-Lies” potion.

  Encanzo shook out the flag. “Ye-e-e-es… I would call this evidence, wouldn’t you? And I pronounce you… GUILTY.”

  “I’ve never seen that flag before in my life!” proclaimed Xar.

  Unfortunately, Xar was still holding on to the bottle of “Love-Never-Lies” potion.

  And a “Love-Never-Lies” potion has two properties. One is that if you eat it or smell it, you fall in love with the next person or animal you see. The other is that it turns from red to blue when the person who is holding it tells a lie.

  Encanzo watched the “Love-Never-Lies” potion as slowly the liquid turned from maroon to a sort of smoky indigo.

  “Someone must have put that flag and that ‘Love-Never-Lies’ potion into my pocke
t because they certainly don’t belong to ME!” said Xar, carrying on lying in a hopeful sort of way.

  The indigo of the “Love-Never-Lies” potion darkened to black at the magnitude of this untruth. The bottle filled with smoke and shook in Xar’s hand, the cork shot off, and Xar hurriedly recorked it. But not before a fine mist of “Love-Never-Lies” potion had drenched the little piglets sitting in a quiet but loving circle at Ranter’s feet, and this fresh sprinkling made them jump to their feet again, oinking madly and making ruder and ever ruder noises as they tried to get Ranter’s attention.

  “AAAARGHH!” roared Ranter, batting at the piglets. “GET OFF ME! SHOO! YOU BEASTLY CREATURES, SHOO!”

  Only Xar dared laugh at this entertaining sight, because the Enchanter had stopped being amused. He was staring down at his younger son, with thunderous eyebrows descending over his fierce hawk eyes.

  “You are not only guilty of everything Ranter and Looter have accused you of, Xar, you are also a liar and a thief,” said the Enchanter grimly.

  Curse his beastly father! Why did he always have to make Xar feel so small?

  “And now you must give up these silly little tricks of yours and GROW UP,” said the Enchanter. “While all these other things are just stupid and babyish, trying to obtain a source of bad Magic is a serious crime that Wizards have been expelled for in the past—”

  “And he SHOULD be expelled!” said Ranter, breaking in with excitement. “The last son of Encanzo the Magnificent, King of Wizards, not to have Magic! It’s shaming! It’s terrible! WHAT IF THE MAGIC NEVER COMES IN? We would be the laughingstock of the woods.”

  Xar’s stomach did an uncomfortable flip.

  “You are only saved from expulsion by the sheer stupidity of your idea, Xar,” said the Enchanter with withering coldness. “Even a thirteen-year-old should know that Witches are extinct. And if there really was such a thing as a Witch out there, only a madman would try to get within a hundred yards of it.”

  Encanzo pointed his finger at Xar. Encanzo did not need a staff to concentrate his Magic. It blasted out with such pure intensity it was not even visible.