Indigo Magic (19 page)

T
HERE ARE ONLY TWO HEALERS IN
F
EYLAND: SONNIA FLOWERS AND TIME
. S
OMETIMES, NEITHER IS ENOUGH
.

Orville Gold, genie historian of Feyland

TUMBLE CURLED UP
beside me on the window seat and fell asleep with a half-eaten ginger snap in his sticky fingers. His snores were much louder than I would have expected from someone so small, but they were somehow soothing.

‘Lovely room,’ Laz commented, leaning against a wall. ‘Wonderful tile work.’ He reached inside his genie robe
with
the air of a hero and pulled out a foil packet that had obviously been made on Earth. ‘Something cherished by leprechauns. My best mocha, a blend of coffee and cocoa.’ He tossed it to Meteor. ‘I call it Le MoCo.’

Meteor caught the packet, but his eyebrows drew together. ‘Coffee and cocoa? You think
this
is an ingredient for aevia ray?’

‘Leprechauns will offer to scrub the floor with their beards for a chance at one sip of that brew. They cherish it.’

Meteor hurled the packet, and it struck the wall before smacking against the floor. ‘The recipe for aevia ray goes back four thousand years! It’s not going to list a combination of roasted beans
you
smuggled here from Earth last week.’

Laz scooped up the packet. ‘Would you rather
guess
what leprechauns might have fancied four thousand years ago? If you know anything about enchantments, you should know they adapt to the situation at hand.’

‘I’d rather not take your word for what leprechauns cherish,’ Meteor answered.

Laz gave a conceited shrug. ‘I have more experience with leprechauns than any genie alive.’

‘More experience cheating them, lying to them, and tricking them,’ I said, remembering Meechem handing over his cap.

‘No one forces them to join my games.’

Leona rose out of the nest and pointed at Laz. ‘I can
think
of something much more likely to be cherished by leprechauns than your coffee and cocoa. That cap on your head! Why don’t you offer us
that
?’

An infuriating grin spread over his face. ‘The leprechauns don’t even remember what makes it special, so how could they cherish it?’ He stroked the feather. ‘But I’m willing to strike a bargain, Zaria Tourmaline. If Le MoCo doesn’t work for the spell, I’ll throw in the cap.’

We all looked at him doubtfully. Leona sniffed.

Grabbing my hand, Laz slapped the foil packet into it. ‘LeMoCo, Zaria.’

I rubbed the smooth foil with my thumb. Could it possibly work? ‘What if you’re wrong? We can’t waste the other ingredients testing your mixture.’

‘It could taint the entire spell,’ Meteor said.

Laz smiled too broadly. ‘Make up a small batch. I’ll volunteer to test it.’

‘We can’t test it,’ I told him. ‘The King of the Trolls made me promise that if we make aevia ray, we’ll turn it over to King Oberon and Queen Velleron.’

His smile evaporated. ‘And you agreed?’

‘What?’ Leona cried. ‘We’re taking the aevia ray to the royals? But—’

‘The trolls said they’d hold her to her word,’ Meteor interrupted. ‘And troll magic is much worse than all our fears about it.’

‘Delightful,’ Laz muttered. ‘Better by the minute.’

‘They wouldn’t give her the Nectara without her promise!’ Meteor looked as if he’d like to change Laz into a crock of fermented putch.

‘So, if we succeed in making aevia ray, we’re taking it to Anshield Island,’ I said flatly.

‘Well, you can’t go through all the trouble of busting into the sapphire stronghold unless you know you have something valuable, can you?’ Laz put on a high, whiny voice. ‘Your Majesties, I’ve brought you a magnificent gift of aevia ray – except I don’t actually know it’s aevia ray. It might be some leftover biscuit crumbs mixed with dust, but I hope you’ll like it.’ He pretended to grovel in front of an imaginary king and queen.

He’d made his point. ‘All right,’ I said, fuming. ‘We’ll test it. But not on you, Laz. Andalonus was born a Red. We’ll test the aevia ray on him.’

Laz took on a crafty look. ‘Each of us should try a pinch. It’s not as if the troll king will ever find out. We could swear each other to secrecy.’

How tempting it was to accept his idea! If our ingredients turned into aevia ray, we’d have plenty. We could give Andalonus vast reserves, and also bring back all the magic my friends and I had used. We could set some aside for my family.

I let myself imagine, but then shook my head. ‘The trolls would know. Besides, I pledged my word.’

‘In a moment of weakness,’ Laz said. ‘Under duress.’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ Meteor replied. ‘Zaria’s word is good.’

‘That’s why we trust her,’ Leona said.

I looked at my friends. How lucky I was.
They
weren’t controlled by greed. They cared about me. And about Feyland.

I floated up enough to look down on Laz. ‘You’re right, the mix should be tested. But one genie will be enough. Andalonus has a better right to it than you.’

‘Then I withdraw my offer of Le MoCo.’

Leona laughed. ‘Blackmail?’

Laz spoke directly to me. ‘Aren’t you the good fairy who wants to help your precious Feyland?’ he said, as if Feyland had nothing to do with him; as if he didn’t live there too. ‘You’re running out of time, Zaria Tourmaline. Durable spells failing, Galena teeming with malicious gremlins, Lily Morganite flaunting her powers in the open—’

‘Stop,’ Meteor interrupted. ‘You’ve said enough.’

‘I’m doing you a favour,’ Laz said solemnly. ‘Any test will be risky. Not everyone would volunteer.’

What a trog.

‘But if it turns out to be aevia ray,’ Leona said, ‘you don’t deserve to have it.’

I didn’t like it either. ‘What do you think, Meteor?’

Scowling, he said, ‘Make a very small batch. Test it on Laz – and be done with him.’

Laz bowed. ‘I pledge to make myself scarce afterwards.’

I floated towards Leona and touched wing tips. ‘All right?’

Her eyes were the colour of lead, but she agreed.

‘Then,’ I said, looking from one to the next, ‘let’s do this.’

S
MUGGLERS HAVE BEEN STUDIED TO SOME EXTENT BY SEVERAL HISTORIANS, BUT THEIR CODE OF BEHAVIOUR FOLLOWS NO DISCERNIBLE PATTERN
. T
HEY ARE GREEDIER THAN GREMLINS, PERSUASIVE AS PIXIES, AND MORE UNPREDICTABLE THAN TROLLS
.

Orville Gold, genie historian of Feyland

I WAS FULL
of misgivings. If we succeeded in making aevia ray, would a greedy smuggler like Laz be satisfied with ‘a pinch’? Wouldn’t he try to get control of all he could – one way or another?

I wished he would leave while we mixed the ingredients, but one look at his stubbly jaw told me I’d never persuade him to get out. Curse him and his leprechaun cap!

Leona didn’t know him as well as I did. She told him to ‘get lost’ and then yelled in his face when he wouldn’t listen. Laz hovered, lazily grinning, ignoring what she said. Meteor didn’t try any more than I did; instead he woke Andalonus and told him what had happened.

Tumble slept through it all.

It was an uneasy gathering when we all came together.
Meteor
, the one who knew the actual spell for aevia ray from beginning to end, took charge. He began by telling me to fetch a crystal cup and a silver spoon. ‘Anything that holds the aevia ray must be made of pure crystal, like our watches.’

I went downstairs and brought out my mother’s crystal teacup, a cup that had lived in the back of the cupboard since the day she disappeared. How long ago it seemed now. Even the meeting with my friends in the sonnia field seemed far back in time, as if ten eras had come and gone since then.

I reached for the cup, remembering the way my mother had held it – firmly, yet with gentleness. Her way of drinking tea was one of the few things I could clearly recall about her. I bowed my head for a moment, overcome with missing her.

Rummaging a little more, I found a small crystal flask and used magic to clean it. Then I took up a silver spoon and returned to the others.

Meteor took the items, nodding approval. He directed everyone except the napping gremlin to sit in a circle. The spiral pattern of the tiles on the floor would help us cast the complicated spell, he said.

I lowered myself to a spot on the gleaming tiles. Laz ended up on my left and Meteor on my right. Andalonus was next to Laz on the other side, and Leona between Meteor and Andalonus.

Meteor placed the teacup in the centre of our circle. ‘There are five of us,’ he said, ‘so we’ll each look after one of the ingredients.’ He brought out the biscuit Tumble had bestowed on me.

I pulled the trolls’ present from my pocket and gave it to Leona. ‘Nectara.’

Opening the sack, she withdrew a slender jar with a screw-top lid. It appeared to be plain glass made on Earth. The liquid inside was perfectly clear. ‘Looks like water,’ she said. ‘Did the trolls trick you?’

Did they?

I turned to Laz. ‘Is it supposed to be clear?’

‘Don’t know. It appears you’ll have to trust the trolls.’

How dare he blather on to me about trust?

‘I don’t know of any tests for Nectara, so all we can do is try it,’ Meteor said. ‘The elixir goes in first,’ he told Leona. ‘Just a drop.’

With steady hands, she unscrewed the lid and allowed a drip to fall into the cup.

‘Next the biscuit.’ Meteor pinched off a crumb.

‘Something cherished by leprechauns.’

Laz sprinkled a dash of Le MoCo.

‘Now, the comet dust,’ Meteor told me. ‘One grain.’

I brought out the vial. Opening it, I caught a whiff of fragrance, the same that I’d sniffed while standing on Earth. Light and darkness collided in my heart, rippling, rushing, turning. I felt as if I were flying at great speeds, seeing stars
winking
in and out, days and nights merging, fire flashing while ice formed.

I shook a speck into the crystal cup.

Meteor pointed to Andalonus. ‘You sing while I stir.’

Andalonus began the song of the pixies, and his singing voice sounded wonderful, as if the pixies had done something to sweeten it.

‘
The soft edge of time
,’ he sang.

‘
is the beginning of the end
,

and the end of the beginning

brings the infinite dawn
.’

Using the silver spoon, Meteor mixed the ingredients into a beige paste that barely coated the very bottom of the cup. He stirred till Andalonus sang the final words.

‘The last step is to speak the spell.’ Meteor pulled a scroll from his genie robe. ‘It’s quite long, and it will have to be Leona or Zaria because it takes Level One Hundred.’

‘Let me. I can spare five hundred thousand radia.’ Leona drew her wand.

Meteor held the scroll so Leona and I could both see it. His penmanship was good, but it didn’t matter. There were far too many words – arcane words only an ancient scholar would understand. Things like
omtept
,
deromi
and
lrgyslon
.

‘I don’t recognize anything you’ve written! Do you
know
how to pronounce this gibberish?’ Leona asked Meteor after studying the spell.

‘Some of it, but not all.’

‘Then I can’t do it,’ Leona said. ‘I’d get it wrong.’

She looked at me, and so did everyone else.

‘You think I could do a Feynere spell for aevia ray?’ I asked.

Silence.

Meteor was the first to speak. ‘You’ve opened portals,’ he said. ‘You’ve put up a granite wall. You’ve created protections even gnomes cannot pass.’

Laz raised his eyebrows at that before adding his own comment. ‘You’ve thrown gremlins around like a pack of cards.’

And I created aevum derk
.

Laz gave a raspy chuckle. ‘My bet’s on you, Zaria Tourmaline.’

I waited till I could feel a spark of strength. The others waited too. Not even Laz tried to hurry me. Finally I drew my amethyst wand and infused to Level 100, then tapped the edge of the crystal cup. ‘Become aevia ray.’

At first, the paste lay inert in the cup, looking like a smear someone had forgotten to clean. But as we watched, it began to transform. The colour turned from beige to ruby red. Red changed to citrine orange, then rapidly yellow, then green. Blue was there for an instant. Indigo. Violet.

Then the paste became a tiny heap of transparent powder.

‘It looks just as the spell described,’ Meteor whispered.

I expected Laz to snatch the cup as soon as he believed it held aevia ray, but he surprised me. He bowed from where he sat – bowed as if he meant it, the feather of his cap grazing the floor.

‘What shall I do with it?’ he asked Meteor respectfully.

‘Place it on your tongue.’

‘Shouldn’t you remove your cap?’ Leona sniped. ‘Won’t it interfere with the enchantment of the aevia ray?’

He grinned at her. ‘In a word, no. The cap protects me from spells that oppose me, spells I need protection from. Not aevia ray.’ He flipped open his watch. ‘In honour of this moment, I will allow you to view my level and colour.’ He showed us Level 45, full Yellow.

He picked up the teacup. After shaking the contents onto his blue tongue, he closed his eyes and waited.

I was next to him, so I saw the radia hand on his watch begin to move. It crept from Yellow into the first degree of Green.

I gasped, and the others craned to see. It was happening! We’d done it; we’d created aevia ray, a legendary substance from the ancient past.

Next, the radia hand on Laz’s watch jumped from Green to Blue and then Blue to Violet. At the halfway mark of Violet it stopped advancing, quivered, and stood still.

Laz’s eyes batted open. When he saw his watch he let out a whoop that woke Tumble.

‘Quick,’ I urged, pointing to the gremlin who was sitting up and rubbing his eyes. ‘Put everything away so he doesn’t spill anything.’

We scrambled to stow the ingredients as Tumble climbed down from his window seat and shuffled towards me. He crawled into my lap.