Seven Sorcerers (16 page)

The Dark Thing sniggered. ‘Nope. Not him.’

‘So, not Merlin, but anovver powerful … Ooo, was it one of the Seven Sorcerers?’

‘One of the last great seven who tried to cheat the plague? Yes, it was one of them.’

‘Crumbs!’

‘I’ll give you two guesses.’

Skerridge thought fast. It was all very well wasting time, but it wouldn’t do him any good if the Dark Thing rumbled him and got annoyed. And after all, the answer was obvious.

‘I don’t fink I’m gonna need two,’ he said proudly. ‘There’s only one of ’em what really did it. I mean, the ovvers might’ve ’ad some success wiv the endurin’ fing, but it wasn’t what yer’d call livin’ now, was it?’ He chuckled. ‘I’m gonna guess Simeon Dark!’

There was a long silence. At least it was probably only a second or so, but it seemed like ages to Skerridge. He began to think he might have annoyed the Dark Thing anyway.

‘Right,’ it said lazily.

‘Tha’s nice. Do I get a reward? Like, to go?’

It laughed. ‘It’s not that easy, Bogeyman.’

Skerridge gave a heavy sigh. ‘Fort not. Wodja wan’ me t’ do then? I can sing?’ He broke into a verse of ‘She Was Only The Alchemist’s Daughter’.

‘Please! I have sensitive hearing, you know.’

‘Dance?’ He capered across the clearing and fell over.

The Dark Thing laughed.

‘It’s too dark in ’ere even fer me. I carn’ ’ardly see where I’m goin’,’ grumbled Skerridge.

‘Don’t worry. I’ve no interest in watching a bundle of bones like you prance about like a jack-in-the-box.’

‘Fanks,’ muttered Skerridge. ‘I’ll ’ave ya know I’m very ryvmic.’

The Dark Thing snorted. Which can’t have been easy without a nose.

‘Tricks?’ Skerridge crisped a nearby bush, which fell instantly into ash. Then he spat out short bursts of fire, lighting flame-candles on all the branches of a small tree.

‘Hmmm, pretty, but limited.’

‘Change shape?’ Skerridge did Manic Clown, Hunched-backed One-eyed Monster and Hairy Thing With Big Teeth, one after the other.

‘Interesting, but, again, limited.’

‘Or I can move as fast as lightning,’ he said craftily.

‘Don’t even think about it,’ said the Dark Thing smoothly. ‘No matter how fast you move, I’ll be there before you.’

‘OK, OK, just a thought.’

‘Well, don’t think.’

‘Nope, no worries.’

‘I’m getting bored.’

‘Wait! Stories! What about a nice story. We bogeymen get around y’know. We know all sortsa stuff.’

‘Mmmhmm?’

‘Like, oh, oh, um …’

‘There’s one you could tell me,’ it said. ‘Last chance, Bogeyman. Tell me this one story and who knows, I might let you go.’

Skerridge gulped. ‘Um … right …’ He said nervously. ‘An’ what story would that be?’

‘You said that there was only one of the Seven Sorcerers that really beat the plague. You said that although the others survived in one form or another, there was only one of them who actually STAYED A SORCERER.’

‘Ahh. Simeon Dark.’

‘That’s what you said, Bogeyman. So tell me the story of Simeon Dark and you might survive. Might. If you tell it well and if I believe you. Make it up and you’re gone. Got that?’

Skerridge let out a long, slow breath. ‘It’s tricky,’ he said.

‘But you do KNOW it? You do KNOW how the Seventh Sorcerer managed to go on being a sorcerer when the plague sent all the others to the Raw?’

Skerridge scratched his head. ‘It’s a long story. Y’see to
appreciate it properly ya gotta know about the other six. Do ya know about the other six?’

‘Some,’ said the Dark Thing.

‘I ’ave t’ start at the beginnin’ then.’

It sighed. ‘Get on with it! Or I’ll eat you where you sit.’

‘But then yer’ll never know,’ said Skerridge quietly. ‘Will ya?’

ike ev’ryone knows,’ Skerridge began in his storytelling voice, ‘Celidon was doin’ jus’ fine until the plague came along an’ wiped out all the Fabulous, ’ceptin’ for some o’ the Dread ones. There was remains ev’rywhere and the sun rose in flames the colour of old blood.’

‘I know,’ said the Dark Thing gravely. ‘Terrible times.’

‘They were indeed,’ sighed Skerridge. ‘Anyway, the seven greatest sorcerers still livin’, which didn’ include Merlin who’d already gone t’ the Raw on account of ’im bein’ incredibly old, were determined not to let it get ’em. First of all they worked on a spell to put off deff. Ya know about that I ’spect? About ’ow it worked, but was so terrible that they didn’ wanna use it?’

‘Uh-huh. The Deathweave. I know all that.’

‘Right, I won’ go frew it again then. So, they ’ad to give up on that and fink of somefin’ else. Each one of ’em came up wiv their own solution.’

‘But none of them came up with a solution that meant they could actually stay being a sorcerer …’

‘… ’cept Simeon Dark. Right!’

‘He really was amazing,’ said the Dark Thing thoughtfully.

‘Remember what ’e looked like, do ya?’

‘Tall. Silver eyes, like many of his kind, but strangely flecked with gold. Thin. Fair hair.’

‘Crumbs! Still I s’pose ya would remember the only one ’oo ever got past ya.’

‘Get on with the story.’

‘OK, OK! Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah. So, the first sorcerer, the most powerful, was Nemus Sturdy.’

‘Do you know the real difference between you and a Fabulous? Apart from just the magical one.’

Nin shook her head.

‘In each Quick is a soul, the essence of their being, and when that Quick dies their soul goes on. When a Fabulous dies, the magic they were made of becomes one with the Raw again. In turn, that raw magic will be used to make something else. A rock, maybe. Or a bird or an animal. But their essence,
all they were
, is gone. In one sense you could say they never die, like a drop of rain does not die when it falls into the ocean. But that drop of rain will never come again, its singleness, its individuality, is … nothing.’

Nin shivered. ‘And the Seven Sorcerers just didn’t want to end?’

‘That’s right. But the only way we could go on living
was to stop being what we were and become something else.’

Nin stared at him. She took in the green eyes, the oak leaves twined in his beard and hair and the lined skin. ‘You
are
the oak tree, right?’

‘I am. What you see before you is just a dream image. Now all I am is the oak tree.’

‘So the first Sorcerer is just a tree,’ said Skerridge. ‘That tree.’

‘The one that protects the Quick?’

‘Uh-huh. The key is that every Quick what comes this way ’opes in their deepest ’eart that the stories they’ve ’eard about ’im really are true, cos ovverwise they face a nasty deff in the forest. An’ even if they’ve met ’im before an’ know ’e exists, they’re petrified in case ’e won’ be there
this
time.’

‘Ahh. Dread and Desire,’ mused the Dark Thing thoughtfully. ‘Clever, but a bit tame, don’t you think?’

Skerridge shrugged. ‘Point is, so long as the Quick remember ’im, which they’re gonna do, the essence of Nemus Sturdy lives on, see? Anyway, after Sturdy comes Enid Lockheart, the only one of the Seven ’oo had any time for the Quick. Rumour ’ad it she actually liked ’em.’

‘Ahh, so she must be the healer?’

‘Tha’s it. Could mend almost anyfin’, could Enid Lockheart. So she took a leaf outa Sturdy’s book …’ he
sniggered.

‘What?’ snapped the Dark Thing.

‘Leaf … geddit? Him bein’ an oak … Oh, never mind. Anyway, she set up an ’ospital for sick an’ dying Quick an’ poured all of ’er magic into the walls. What was left of ’er physically went to the Raw, but ’er essence is still there, livin’ in the ’earts and minds of the patients.’

‘So, sick and dying Quick hear a whisper about this place that makes it all right again and they want so badly for it to be true, even though most of them will never find it, that it’s enough to keep her essence alive? Hmm. Rather twee if you want my opinion.’

‘Dunno about that, but she ’ad the nerve to put it right under Mr Strood’s nose!’ Skerridge sniggered again.

‘Really? You would have thought he’d notice.’

‘Well, ’e ’as blocked up all the winders so ’e carn’ see out.’

‘Doesn’t he ever leave the House?’

‘Why would ’e wanna do that? ’e’s got servants to run around after ’im, guards to guard ’im. Doesn’ need t’ go out. Everyfin’ ’e wants is brought right to ’is door.’

‘Hmmm. What about … FUN. Doesn’t he like fun?’

Skerridge sent a look into the darkness. ‘The life or deff of every livin’ – or dyin’ – fing in the ’Ouse belongs to ’im to play wiv. That’s fun enuff fer anyone, take it from me. They don’ call it the Terrible ’Ouse fer nuffin’.’

‘I wouldn’t disagree.’

‘If ya like I’ll tell ya about some of ’is experiments wiv livin’ bein’s?’

The Dark Thing thought about it for a moment. ‘Maybe later … What about the third Sorcerer?’

‘Morgan Crow. The only one of the seven ’oo didn’ succeed. He ’ad this darft idea, see, about growin’ anovver of ‘I’m and transferrin’ ’is bein’ into it. But then jus’ cos ’e was powerful doesn’ make ’im bright.’

The Dark Thing cleared its non-existent throat. Skerridge suspected that the Dark Thing, like Crow, thought it sounded like a neat plan and didn’t want to let on in case it meant that it was as daft as Crow. While the Dark Thing was feeling mildly embarrassed about things, Skerridge rambled off on a long story about Morgan Crow and a fortune-telling potion that proved exactly how dim the Sorcerer was. By the time the Dark Thing realised that he was rambling, it was already curious.

‘He said that! To a fortune teller?’

‘Yep.’

‘And then drank the potion?’

‘Yep. Well, you can imagine the nightmares. ’e was never the same again. Got into ’is blood, it did. ’e was so embarrassed about it ’e never told anybody ever. Not that yer can keep a secret from a bogeyman, o’ course. Yer’d be surprised at the stuff we BMs know.’

‘Really …? Like what?’

‘Like … like …’ Skerridge remembered the mudman, buried somewhere nearby, ‘… the girl what
made a Fabulous
.’

‘Ridiculous! No single Quick can make a Fabulous.’
The Dark Thing wobbled for a moment, torn. ‘NO! Get on with Morgan Crow.’

‘Ahem. The reason it was a darft idea, as ya prob’ly worked out, is that ’e weren’t lockin’ ’imself into anyfin’ that was likely t’ survive. I mean, where’s the Dread or Desire in that!’

‘Ahh, yes of c – … exactly what I thought,’ said the Dark Thing swiftly.

‘The idiot planted a simple poppy, fed it on ’is own blood an’ said growin’ spells over it. Its petals went darker an’ darker till they were purple ’an’ its stalk an’ leaves got thicker an’ more twisted ev’ry day, and ev’ry day there were more an’ more of ’em. Then ’e lay down in the middle o’ the patch an’ said the spell that was meant to pour the last of ’is magic into the flowers an’ make ’em grow a strong, new body around ’im.’ Skerridge paused dramatically.

‘Go on! And?’

‘They ate ’im.’

‘Ate him!’ The Dark Thing sounded horrified.

‘Tore ’im apart and ate ’im. ’e’d given it a taste for blood, see?’

‘Crumbs,’ said the Dark Thing.

Skerridge grinned inside. ‘An’ that’s how we got crowsmorte.’