Avis Blackthorn: Is Not an Evil Wizard! (17 page)

“Oh Tina, there you are…
guess what
?!”
I said jumping through the hatch. “I’ve just…” Then I stopped as
another face appeared.

Robin stood looking sheepish. “Hiya
mate…”

I stood dumb for a moment. Something in my
head really annoyed with Tina for showing Robin
my
secret
place. And another part of me confused, what was he doing here?
Last time we spoke he all but cried with shock when he saw me.

“I hope you don’t mind,” said Tina. “He came
to find me, asked me where you were…”

Robin stared at his feet for a moment and
looked up, beady eyes beating fast behind their glassy frames. “I
er… I’m sorry… like,
really
sorry.”

“It’s fine,” I mumbled.

“No it’s not
fine
,” Robin said. “I
know now. You’ve been living up here, alone and… you couldn't have
done that stuff… I honestly thought it was you at the time. It all
kind of made sense, in the moment, you talking about demons and
then one attacks Hunter after he messed the plan up,” he shuffled
on the spot not knowing where to look. “I’ve missed ya’ in lessons
and stuff…” He looked awkward, and swayed his long arms around,
then he walked towards me and put his arms out for a hug.

I didn’t do hugs, so just of stood there and
patted his back. Don’t get me wrong, I was glad Robin was here,
really glad. But, a little part of me… preferred it to just be me
and Tina. It was selfish I know, but we had a routine, and I liked
my current comfortable routine.

“Anyway,” said Robin, relinquishing me. “It’s
really hard to raise a demon and you’re crap at Magic, so it
couldn’t have been you.”

“Oi!” I said laughing.

“What did you want to tell us?” said Tina
smiling wide and sitting down on my bed.

“Well…” And I explained with great gusto the
recent meeting with the Lily, the picture of young Malakai and the
fact that we had the same amulet channeller.

“No way!” said Tina when I finished. She
stood and paced, dust rising in to the air behind her. “But… but…
do you think he knows?”

“The Lily said that Malakai had been through
his past and deleted stuff…” I said.

Robin hummed. “Yeah, that would make sense…
didn’t want people finding clues out about him…” Tina who was
chewing her lip aggressively, nodded.

“We need to do
revealing
Magic on it,”
she announced. “Yeah, we need to find out what memories this
channeller holds from when Malakai had it.”

“But, it might not even be the same one…” I
said. “I mean, it looked identical but I’m not sure.”

Tina shot me a dark state. “Do you want to
defeat Malakai or not?”

“Well, yeah…” I said.

“Right then, we need to get to the Library at
nightfall and search for a revealing Spell.”

Me and Robin didn’t argue, we daren't not.
Tina seemed spurred on by this, most recent of clues. “It could be
the only one he left,” she said.

It took just over a week of searching, every
night after lights out we would meet by the third floor bathrooms,
opposite the Library. On the third night, we were caught by a
sleepy older year who asked us what we were all doing outside the
toilets.

“Just… about to go…” I said.

“We walk back together…” said Robin.

“I’m scared of the dark…” said Tina.

But after this narrow escape and tearing down
countless books searching for a revealing Spell, Robin finally
found it.

“Aha!” he called through the darkness. “Got
it!” After a check over from Tina, we all agreed from the
description that this was the right Spell. Making our way back to
the clock tower we all sat around in the circle, with my channeller
on the floor.

“It won’t break will it?” I said.

“Noo,” said Tina unconvincingly and, raising
her hands at it said: “
Kerkalculevreo
…” red, popping stars
fizzed in the air around the amulet with a sound like maracas. Then
it hit us like a flying train. It made my head keel backwards and
hit the floor, for a vision began flashing before our eyes…

A small, snotty faced kid with blonde hair
and overlarge robes walked the corridor alone. He was so small and
his robes so long, that he made the corridor, which was big anyway,
look gigantic. He wasn’t confident either, he had a permanently
perplexed expression, and he walked as close to the left wall as he
could get, as if he felt he may be partially invisible by doing
so.

“Ello
Malakai
, arn’t you cute?” said a
large seventh year boy, lurching out from a nearby doorway and
pinching Malakai’s cheeks. “Ain’t he cute lads?”

A group of boys appeared behind him in the
doorway, all in green robes, nodding malevolently.

Then in a column of smoke, the scene
changed.

Malakai looked slightly older, standing a
foot taller and wore bright yellow, but still too large, robes. He
was standing in a dimly lit underground dungeon, with an old man
who was sitting at a small writing desk.

“So, I want to know Sir, if it’s possible at
all, to get a new channeller?” Malakai’s voice had broken and he
croaked the sentence nervously.

“What?! A new one?” Snapped the old man.
“What do think this is? A charity?” he barked, putting his pen
down. “What’s wrong with
your
one?” He took Malakai’s hand
without asking and inspected it. “Nothing wrong with it by the
looks of it!”

“Well Sir, you see it doesn’t work.” Malakai
lied.

The old man frowned, expecting more of an
explanation, but then he sighed and relented. “Pick another one
then, but this won’t happen again,” he pointed a long, bony, dirty
finger at Malakai’s face. “Buy your own next time.”

“Sir. Shall I destroy this one?”

“What? No! Put it back in the box.”

“But sir, it doesn’t work. I should put it on
a shelf far into the room where no one should happen to use
it.”

The old man’s yellow eyes squinted
conspiratorially, and he spoke slowly. “Put it back in the
box.”

Then he made sure to watch the young boy do
as he was told.

The vision faded like a dream and I sat up,
blinking away the last of it. Tina rubbed her eyes and dusted her
head where she now had a large dust patch. “He wanted to get rid of
it?” she said. “But why?” her sparkling eyes tracked along the
floor to the amulet. It was hot, and lit orange from the Spell.

Robin sat up, blinked and put his glasses on
straight again. “He was a snotty thing, wasn’t he? I tell you what
you lot need… the Police,” said Robin.

Me and Tina looked at each other, I’d never
heard of it. “What’s that?” said Tina.

“It’s a… collection of people who work for
everyone on the Outside, they arrest someone who does something
wrong and lock them up.”

“Sounds a bit weird to me, the Outside sounds
very dangerous,” I said and Tina nodded in agreement.

“Anyway, back to the point here,” said Tina.
“I am not sure what this vision tells us. How long was it, like a
minute? The amulet must have seen more than that? I am sure it’s
meant to be longer… why did we only get a snapshot?”

“The book in the Library did say that it’s a
high level Spell?” said Robin.

“Let’s try it again,” said Tina holding her
hands out. And again we watched the same vision. Afterwards we sat
up again, nothing new had come to me.

Tina sniffed. “We’re not
powerful
enough,” she said pointing at our ties.

Robin grew to love the dusty clock tower in
the few short hours he was up there. We did our homework together
and larked around. Then, sat on my bed and watched the sun set. He
said it reminded him of his home in the
Yorkshire Dales
. He
looked quite teary eyed for a minute. When darkness set in, they
both left. I lay huddled in my blankets keeping warm and replaying
the events of the day, as I always did before sleep. I had so many
revelations to think about. The key in the box was still a strange
one and my least explored. When I told Robin about it, he said we
should go around and try every door in the school.

Sleep rolled over me, I had a long day of
lessons tomorrow, there was talk of Straker letting me back into
his class, but I wasn’t counting on it. Robin had mentioned, rather
squeamishly, that another Riptide match was fast approaching.
Apparently, they wait and schedule most of the matches in the new
year, so there would be a gluttony of exciting things happening
soon. As long as
we
didn’t have to play again I was fine
with it.

Zzzzz
…

I remember rolling over in the pitch darkness
and wondering what the small glowing light was. My channeller was
still lying where we had left it, at the time too hot to pick up.
But now, there was a feint glow coming from the inside of it. I
only noticed because it was so dark. I blinked and sat up, reaching
across the floor for it, rubbing my eyes of sleep and pulling it
close.

I wasn’t dreaming. I felt the cold sting my
body as I wriggled free of the covers. The glow was perhaps the
greatest revelation of all… it was the answer to the last question
—
why on earth did Malakai want to get rid of his
channeller?
For, written inside, in barely legible glowing ink
were the words:
Property of Steve Malcolm

That’s why he wanted rid of it. It all added
up in my sleepy head. He was an Outsider, he didn’t know anything
about Magic. But he, like me, had to get all his robes and
channellers from lost property. Without knowing anything about true
names, he wrote his on this amulet! Then trying to get rid of it,
ended up swapping the amulet in lost property, hoping that his
mistake would stay hidden, within that mass grave of old junk.

Outsiders these days are warned about their
names well advance, a Wizard visits them in their home and explains
everything. Now they have to pass through
The Veil
. It makes
them forget their old names and anyone that knows them in their
world forgets it as well, leaving them free to choose a new name. I
only know this because Robin told me near the start of the year.
Robin was probably called something else before, like Geoff or
Peter, that’s what you Outsiders are called isn’t it? I laughed as
I realised that Hunter must have chosen that name himself. I
thought about my parents. Why did they have me, knowing that I
would be a seventh son? I, of course, did not have a true name.
Perhaps that’s why they hated me, because I was a threat to their
beloved Malakai? But as I thought about it, it all just turned a
big pile of mash in my head, so I returned to sleep.

***

The poor floor in the clock tower was nearly
worn out the next day. I was waiting all evening for Tina to
arrive. I wish I had someway of sending her a message to make her
come straight away. Eventually she did, after much looking at
clocks and pacing and such. She looked annoyed, still deep in
thought about the previous day, but that changed when she saw my
face.

“What?” she said. I chucked the amulet to her
and she looked at it.

“Inside, round the middle, can you see
it?”

She looked, twisting it round in her hands.
“No, what am I looking for?”

“His name, his
true name
written on
the inside!”

“What?!” she said, sitting down on my bed and
twisting it round and round. “I can’t see anything!?”

“Last night, in the pitch darkness, it glowed
only barely…”

“Glowed?” she said, putting it down. “Must
have been hidden ink, after the revealing Spell… what’s… what’s his
name?” her eyes were popping out of her skull, and I licked my
lips, ready to reveal the true name of Malakai…

“S-S … Ssss!” my tongue got stuck in my
mouth. “St! St! Steeeee!
Ouwwwww
!” I cried as what felt like
a knife just slit my tongue!

“Oh my god Avis!” Tina cried as blood dripped
out my mouth. It wasn’t much, but it really hurt! “Don’t try saying
it again!”

We looked at each other for a moment, both
realising that the name was
Jarred
- a term for a cursed
name, an unsayable name.

“Ipsts jarbbbed,” I said. “I’ll write it…”
But when I got the paper and ink, pen poised above, my hand seized
up. The pen plopped out my hand and shooting pains, like needles,
shot up my arm.

“Oh god!” said Tina. “Don’t do anything else
for god sake Avis.”

We sat and stared at the channeller, thinking
of a way I could say the name.

“Boes this mean, I wob’nt be able to use his
name against ‘im.” I said as best I could.

Tina was frowning at the amulet. “What? Not
sure…” she mumbled. “He was obviously really stupid, in the days
where they didn’t pass Outsiders through the Veil.”

“Why did he use hidden ink?” I said.

“Because he was stupid, people use hidden ink
to write on metal and wood and stuff because it sticks, normal ink
will just run off. But why did he think using hidden ink would stop
people reading it? Of course, he was an Outsider, he didn’t know
much about Magic then did he?” she said hardly stopping for breath.
“The only way I’ll be able to find out the name is if we Spell it
again, and wait until it goes really dark so you can see it. Bit of
homework to do anyway while we wait.”

Robin came by just as the sun set and sat
with us as we filled him on the latest. Then, soon enough, the time
came, in the deepest darkest part of the night, Tina raised her
hands and Spelled the channeller. The fizzing red stars popped
again and the amulet glowed. Expecting to see the visions again we
sat waiting, but nothing happened. We sat dumb looking around at
each other. Tina spelled it again and again…

“Why isn’t it working?!” she cried.

Robin coughed and said, rather nervously -
“Ah, we learnt about this with Straker. Is there any chance that
this is a
Learner
?”