Avis Blackthorn: Is Not an Evil Wizard! (25 page)

“By telling everyone your true name.”

“You can’t even say it!”

“Curse me the same as Tina, go on, then we’ll
see who can say it!”

“Curse you, pah… No, no, no, I am not that
stupid. I’ll kill
you instead
…”

I felt a horrible sinking feeling. “You
can’t. I’m a
Blackthorn
!”

“You’ve forfeited your name by attempting,
pathetically, to thwart ME!… Goodbye Avis Blackthorn.”

Then, it happened. His hands shot into the
air. I saw as if it was all slow motion, happening to someone else.
Crackles of blue light, like tiny stars, danced in his hands as a
high pitched whistle filled the air.

“No! Please!” I cried. In an explosive burst
of twinkling light the stars shot towards me. I screamed as light
erupted through the room. The pain was unbearable. Every pore in my
body on fire. I felt myself writhing on the ground, the room
spinning violently, all I could think of was the pain!

And then quiet.

Deadly, heavenly quiet.

I felt my last breath leave me.

***

I sat up.

Malakai was looking over the book, hunched
back rising up and down.

A crack split the wall to the right. White
fluorescent light, smattered with transparent mini rainbows, began
to fill the room. Malakai hadn’t noticed and now I knew why. I was
dead
.

I looked around. I was hovering just above
the floor. Below me was my body, lying in a sorry sprawling heap in
the dirt. The strange thing was, I wasn’t shocked. All my pain was
gone, in fact every pain I had ever had was gone. It was as if I
didn’t even realise some of the aches and pains I was carrying
around with me. All I felt now was a gentle, relaxed, peaceful
bliss. My thoughts felt the same.

The crack in the wall widened with a
splitting sound, spilling more starry light into the room. A
strange noise suddenly came across me as this time, golden light
reflected off the walls. A huge golden escalator appeared through
the crack. Without thinking I drifted towards it and stepped on. It
moved upwards slowly, through the crack and up into the clouds. The
hole in the wall sealed and that sorry room disappeared. All around
me was the most wonderful, lustrous twilight with a humungous
starry sky with soft clouds moving daintily. The midnight blue
spread into violet and indigo the higher we climbed, the texture
like that of running paint on parchment.

I turned to look back but the crack in the
wall was but a dot. In the clouds above, a girls sleeping face
suddenly appeared. It was Tina. Then I remembered… I was meant to
save her… the thought felt foreign. Attached to human emotions I no
longer had. Overriding guilt started somewhere where my stomach had
been, then spread to my heart area. I felt guilty for leaving her,
for she would never know the beauty of death.

The escalator began to jolt and stutter then
slow. My thoughts began returning, my form changing. The silky
translucent entity I currently was, began curdling. Turning gloopy
and wet… I was becoming a ghost! Now I remembered why. The closer
the escalator moved back to earth, the quicker my old thoughts
returned, hardening in my mind in the same speed that my form took
to turn into a ghost.

The book I had read about ghosts said that
you become a ghost if you have a strong emotional anchor on Earth.
Tina was my emotional anchor and… I had planned that, yes I did, I
remembered now. The plan returned in full form into my ghostly
mind. I felt kind of flimsy, half in this world, half in
another.

The crack in the wall reopened wide beneath
me. I stepped off and back into that room as the crack sealed with
a snap. Malakai, who was pouring salt in a circle around the Book
of Names, now looked round. My ghostly form emitted a blue glow in
this dim cave. Then, he laughed a loud piercing cackle. It struck
something inside me, hurting me as the blue glow dimmed a little. I
concentrated, fighting the urge to float away though the walls and
hide.

“You should have
cursed
me,” I said
and Malakai stopped laughing. “I don’t know if it struck you but I
wanted
you to kill me.”

“And why would that be?” he put the salt down
and faced me.

“Because, you forgot one thing. You put a
Jarring Spell on your true name, but that doesn’t apply to…
ghosts
.” I smiled watching his face drop, then I pulled the
channeller from my bodies’ limp wrist.

“NO!
NO
!” he cried. “How?
WHERE DID
YOU GET THAT!?
” I just smiled. “No impossible, impossible…” he
repeated.

“See for yourself,” I said, chucking it to
him. He caught it and began waving his hands over it. The soft glow
of his true name glowed on the surface of the metal and he gasped a
long, rattling breath. “Now…” I said, floating forwards. “If you
dare do anything other than what
I
say, I will use your
true name
.” I said gravely. “More so, I will broadcast it to
all other ghosts.”

I remembered what I had read in one of the
books: ghosts have a telepathic link to each other and somehow, I
could tell all the other ghosts in the school Malakai’s true name.
They would share it with the living and Malakai would be reduced to
nothing. Suddenly, a bell rang high and true around the school.

Bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong,
bong, bong, bong, bong, bong… Twelve bongs. It was midnight! The
Book of Names would be disappearing in twelve minutes! Golden light
began accelerating around it.

“I want you to remove the curse from Tina!” I
said urgently.

Malakai chuckled. “I
see
, valiant and
loyal to the very, very end,” he said. “Well tough. I could kill
her in a second.”

“Kill her and I will end you,” my voice rose.
“Remove the curse you set on her and I won’t use your true name.” I
bobbed up and down slowly, sensing his scrambled thoughts. I began
to speak softly. “Believe me Malakai, I’ve seen what happens to a
Wizard when their true name is used against them. I doubt you
haven’t seen the same?” I nodded towards the Book of Names. “Not
very nice is it? I could sacrifice a girl, if it meant saving the
Seven Kingdom’s. I wonder what would happen to all those that
despise you when they realise you were defeated by a
boy
?”
His glowing blue eyes never strayed from me. “I would love to watch
you shrivel up, leave you to wander the Magical Kingdoms, a small
shadow of a man you used to be. Wouldn’t last very long, would you?
This way you at least have the choice to do the right thing.”

“So many chances to kill you,” he muttered.
“And against my better judgement. I knew you were different from
them. Dangerous to me, you think differently. You cannot be
controlled like them. I failed myself. I should have killed
you.”

“You did,” I smirked.

“Your parents convinced me to leave you be,”
he sighed deeply and carried on. “Perhaps they are traitors, very
clever traitors…” He kept talking slowly, breathlessly. “Seventh
sons are rare, very rare. I can control everyone, using this book,
except seventh sons. Your
true names
are unknown…” Then his
whole tone changed, suddenly he let out a cry: “
PERCEIVUS
!”
He cried. Streaks of red and black smoke shot across the room at
me.

“STEVE MALCOLM!” I called. The red and black
smoke Spell squirmed to the floor like a writhing snake.

Malakai stood arms aloft, frozen to the
spot.

“I warned you,” I said as he backed away
against the wall.

“I’LL KILL Tina. And your parents! Your
entire family!”

“Go ahead, like I care… Death is not to be
feared.”

He was panicking as the book began shining
brighter and brighter. Golden strands leaping into the air. There
was so little time left. I had to act fast.

“
Steve Malcolm
,” I said again and
Malakai screamed. Out of nowhere invisible fists began barraging
every square inch of him. His tall form bent double with the shock.
“Steve Malcolm…
Steve Malcolm
!” I repeated over and over,
burning fury exploding out of me. All the injustice, all the
loneliness, all the unhappiness… all because of this man.

“STOP! NO!
AHHHHHHHHHHH!
” his cries
echoed monstrously. Malakai’s tall black form began to shrink. His
skull mask fading translucent. His black robes ripping and falling
away as the invisible hands stopped. He was bent forwards,
breathing heavily.

“Had enough? Have I…
convinced
you
yet? Or do you want
MORE
?!”

“Please…” he managed. “Fine… you win… please…
I will remove… the curse, if you let me… go…”

I folded my arms and smiled as his glowing
blue eyes looked up. “I think you are mistaken,” I said. “I hold
the power here.”

His head dropped deeper as he sobbed. His
Magic and disguise that he used to cloak himself as
‘
Malakai’
were fading. I could see a partly-bald head and a
mousy, frightened face. He was just a man, his eyes small and
black, blinking tears. His skeletal hands reverting to small,
chubby, flesh ones. His tall torso shrinking to that almost less
than mine. The golden strands from the book started leaping into
the air. “Remove the curse NOW!” I called.

Malakai raised his hands into the air and
recited something breathlessly. Gloopy black stuff began shooting
into the room through the walls and into his outstretched hands.
Malakai swayed on the spot as the curse left Tina completely. I
knew because, well, I saw her. Through the walls of the school,
which turned as see through and ghostly as me, my vision zoomed in
on her in the Healer’s room, waking with a cough and splutter.

Malakai looked up at my smiling face and
coughed up a lump of black mucus. “Who is the real winner?” he
said. “You will still be dead and I will remain.”

Then… voices.

“Avis!? AVIS!? WHERE ARE YOU!?” Running
footsteps echoed up the passage way. Malakai whimpered, looked back
at the Book of Names, and prepared himself to flee.

“Goodbye
Steve Malcolm
…” I said.

Malakai began swirling. But not before
invisible fists started battered him through the black column of
smoke before, with a
whoosh
, he disappeared. The last thing
I saw was a small, bald, crying face realising he’d lost.

My job was done. All of a sudden, my ghostly
form began shedding it’s gloopy, ghostly wetness. I had done what I
had come to do - Tina was ok.

The crack in the wall opened large and wide
flooding in glorious white light. I moved weightlessly towards the
golden escalator which welcomed me back like an old friend.

“AVIS! There you are!” cried Robin, who came
skidding into the room followed by Partington and Ernie. Their eyes
darting from me, to my body on the floor.

“Quickly Robin!” cried Partington. Robin
checked his watch, yelped, then ran over to the Book of Names
pulling out my letter containing the instructions.

Ernie darted across to me. “Avis wait! Resist
the lull of death… please!” But then Ernie gasped. His form began
changing too.

“She’s alright now,” I said. “She was our
emotional anchor. And now she’s better.”

Ernie was panicking. “She might not be, we
don’t know… I haven’t seen her,” he lied.

Partington ran across to help Robin. The
letters I had left them gave precise instructions on how to use the
Book of Names to bring back the dead. I felt myself going weaker
and weaker as my ghostly form shed, yet the golden escalator shined
bright golden and inviting.

“AVIS! WAIT! YOU MUST!” called Ernie, but his
voice sounded far away.

Robin began saying Spell after Spell,
throwing this arms around. Partington lit candles and poured salt
and drew chalk symbols on the floor, all at the same time. “Thirty
seconds!” called Robin, who began to read furiously.

I hoped they failed. I wanted to go. I put
one foot on the escalator.

“TEN SECONDS!” The Book of Names began to
float in mid air. Robin and Partington stepping back as the pages
began flapping violently.

“Avis…” said a new voice, one I hadn’t heard
in a long time. I turned and saw…

“Tina?” She was looking at me, eyes swimming
with tears. “Stay…”

It was too late.

Golden fire erupted across the room as wind
and light blew my head back. Then, everything went dark.

***

I woke with a face full of dirt, coughing and
spluttering. I didn’t move for ages. Slowly, I felt all the aches
and pains return like annoying old friends. I sat up really slowly
and looked around. For a minute my vision was foggy. The lectern
was rocking, the Book of Names gone. Plumes of dust was falling
slowly back to ground.

I didn’t understand… I was supposed to be
dead. It should have been impossible for Robin to bring me back,
because my name isn’t in the Book of Names. That Spell to bring
back the dead using the Book was meant for someone else. So how was
I sitting here, back in my body?

Partington was slumped against the wall
watching me. “There’s cutting it fine, and then there’s that…” then
he stopped. He saw something else out of the corner of his eyes,
his head turned slowly and looked at something, or
someone,
in the passageway entrance.

If I hadn’t seen him with my own two eyes, I
wouldn’t have believed it. Ernie was sat blinking and inspecting
his hands. His own flesh hands.

Partington looked like he was going to have a
panic attack. Tina looked from Ernie to me, unsure of what she was
seeing as Robin sat rubbing the dirt out of his eyes. The crack in
the wall was gone and a huge part of me wished I’d stepped onto
that escalator earlier.

Ernie looked up. “Avis,” he said. “You did
it! I can’t believe you did it!”