Seven Sorcerers (18 page)

Nin looked at her half of the net doubtfully, but pulled it around her anyway, like a clumsy shawl. Jonas glanced at her and smiled reassuringly.

‘Don’t worry about what the killing rope did to Boneman. This is different, it won’t hurt you and it smells of Fabulous, so it will cover our Quick scent and hide us from the tombfolk.’

‘And that’s because there’s a little of Morgan Crow in it,’ said Nin, remembering the story.

They got moving, heading across the field longways and keeping the towering Raw to their right. The last light trickled from the sky and the stars came out, brilliant in the dark blue night. The air was cool and silky, and the Raw looked almost luminous in the moonlight.
They travelled alongside it for miles, looking for the Quickmare that would take them into the Widdern.

‘Ik.’ Jik had stopped and was staring at a wedge of extra heavy darkness, streaming in from the east to swallow the stars.

‘Hounds,’ said Jonas tersely. ‘I’d almost forgotten them!’

He stopped to dig out the waxed cloth and give it to Jik, who huddled under it, glowing eyes fixed nervously on the sky.

‘They won’t smell us under the nets though, will they? If it works for the tombfolk …’

‘Yep, that’s the idea. But the sooner we get to the Quickmare the happier I’ll be. Bad news is, we’ll have to walk towards the storm.’

They travelled on, sticking close together under their nets. Jik rustled along behind them, casting nervous glances at the lowering sky, where the purple clouds were lit with ominous flashes. Already the breeze was up and the temperature falling. The storm was moving towards them as they moved towards it.

Cold drops pattered on Nin’s face and lightning glimmered eerily, throwing a swathe of brilliance over the heath then snatching it away. She felt dizzy with tension and the flickering light. On their left the Raw towered into the dark sky, bleak and solid in the lightning. Thunder rumbled, low key, almost felt rather than heard, but the Hounds didn’t see the Quick.

Nin gave a startled gasp as the next flash illuminated
an angel, its spread wings stark against the backdrop of clouds, its pale face blank. Beyond it hulked a broken tombstone, and then another. They were in a graveyard.

‘At last!’ said Jonas. ‘Right, now this Quickmare has a very limited existence. You see those trees over there, the evergreens, well the gateway opens up right behind them. Story goes that there’s a grave behind those trees and no matter how many times they fill it in,
it’s always open the next day
.’

‘Ugh! Like … like something GOT OUT!’

‘Yep, and it’s supposed to happen at midnight. So we wait and watch and the moment …’

‘But what if the … the …
IT
is in there?’

Another bolt of lightning slashed through the air.

Nin screamed.

A figure was standing on one of the tombstones, looming over her. In that brief flash his image was seared on to her eyeballs. A figure made of darkness with eyes that shone like burnished silver.

And others. Everywhere. Tombfolk.

‘How good of you,’ said Daemon softly, ‘to come to us.’

‘We’ve been trying to catch you.’ It was the female who spoke, her hair shining white against the purple sky. ‘But we couldn’t find your scent. So we stopped to rest awhile and … here you are.’ She laughed.

Overhead, the storm began to move away, the clouds thinning and breaking, but Nin didn’t notice. She was staring in horror at the tombfolk.

They’re on the ground, she thought, they’re solid. She felt her blood chill in her veins and she was sure her heart stopped beating for a moment.

Jonas pulled her close, getting a firm grip on her wrist. He was eyeing the evergreens behind the tombfolk and she wondered what he was planning to do.

The boy just doesn’t know when to give up, she thought. He shook her slightly, as if he had read her thoughts. Jik nudged her legs, dropping his waxed sheet and pushing round to stand in front.

Daemon leaped to the ground, coming to land an arm’s length away from the Quick. The others clustered around them. Except on the left where the angel was in the way.

Nin looked up at the tombfolk King. He was wearing something close-fitting of dark, velvety purple. It was strewn with tiny gems that glinted in the rays of moonlight shining through the clouds and it was only because of the gems that she could tell where the garment ended and his skin began. It was spooky. Like looking at someone made entirely from night. Without their spiral of stars, his eyes would be a lightless black.

Nin shivered and found herself wondering if she was looking at another of the once-sorcerers. Azork.

Daemon raised a hand and brushed a fingertip against Nin’s face, high on the cheekbone. It felt like ice-cold knives sinking into her and drawing something out, some kind of inner strength, though it didn’t break the skin or shed any blood. Darkness clouded her eye. Nin
gasped and clapped a hand to the cold place where his hand had touched.

‘You won’t die just yet,’ said Daemon, ‘it’s amazing how much life force a Quick body can hold. It will take us nights to kill you.’

‘Don’t,’ said Jonas, his voice low, ‘please don’t. Just let us go. Let
her
go.’ His grip on Nin grew hard enough to hurt.

For answer, Daemon took a step closer. The hive followed, hands outstretched, reaching for any skin they could find. Nin realised that, even after the thing in the Raw, she hadn’t known what real fear was until now.

The next bit happened in a blur.

Jik, fists balled in fury, opened his mouth and a sound came out like rocks grinding together. Shocked, the hive drew back a little. At the same time, behind them, the corner overhung with evergreen grew bigger and darker. The Quickmare was opening.

Jonas took off. He leapt over the grave to their left, grazing the stone angel and dragging the startled Nin with him. Daemon howled.

They hurtled over the ground, lichen-spotted tombstones springing at them from the dark as they headed for the gateway. The darkness clouding her eye was still there and Nin ran half-blind tripping and stumbling after Jonas, bruising herself on rough stone. A cold wind rose behind them as the tombfolk took to the skies in pursuit, mouths gaping and eyes wild with fury.

As they raced towards the gateway, a black space
between overhanging branches that stank of earth and mould, Nin could feel the tombfolk drawing close. A chill breath touched her neck and she heard the eager hissing of their voices.

Darkness opened in front of her. Tumbling into it, Nin lost her grip on Jonas. Her feet sank into loose earth and she fell on to her hands and knees. Before she could rise again, freezing air blew around her and she screamed, knowing that the tombfolk were at her back. Instinct made her turn to face the danger, twisting so that she was on her behind, scrabbling backwards on her elbows, staring up into the silver eyes of Daemon as he streamed towards her.

‘Move!’ yelled Jonas, ‘if it closes before we’re through we’ll be trapped …’

‘They’ve got me!’ she screamed. ‘Jonas!’

A smile stretched Daemon’s face as he curled downwards, his feet reaching to touch the Land. He was almost there when two things happened at once.

Something reared out of the darkness, heaving itself from the earth right where Daemon was about to land.

Jonas grabbed Nin by the backpack and began to pull.

Dragged along at a cracking pace, Nin gulped back a scream. She saw a look of disgust cross Daemon’s face as the ectofright clambered right through his shadowy form. He recoiled, swirling up into the air. She felt a moment of relief. Now, by the time he landed, Jonas would have dragged her into the Widdern. She prayed he wouldn’t follow them there.

For a fleeting moment, Daemon’s whirlpool eyes fixed on hers, full of something dark and unfathomable. Then he turned back to the Drift and was gone.

Nin switched her attention to the thing in the grave.

A skull, one eye still in its socket, swivelled to fix on her and the ectofright began to move, crawling fast over the ground towards her, catching her up, its skeletal hands reaching. Bony fingers gripped her ankle.

Nin kicked and fought, but the skeleton hung on, rattling along behind her as she bumped over the ground. Its one full socket glared at her with demented fury and it began hauling itself up her jeans leg, clacking its pointed teeth as it drew closer to her unprotected throat. Screaming like crazy she battered at it with her bare hands, feeling the cold bone against her fists, a few thin strands of hair still clinging to its skull.

When she slithered out of the grave behind Jonas, its bare-bone face was barely an inch from hers. It let go suddenly, unable to travel outside the gateway. A hot gust of wind streamed over her and Nin saw the ectofright flatten itself to the ground, its horrible grimace turning somehow to a look of surprise as its bones bounced apart and scattered. It was almost comical.

And then it was all gone and they were in a perfectly ordinary graveyard with a small church in front of them, outlined against a clear night sky.

As a furious Skerridge hurtled through the gateway at superspeed, the ectofright that had been doing a good job of terrifying the socks off Right Madam, tried to get out of his way. Skerridge gave it a whack as he shot past. The look of horrified surprise as it fell apart improved his temper for at least a nanosecond.

He was angry because he had lost track of his target, which was a dreadful thing to own up to. But he had been tired after a hard night fending off the Dark Thing and so had dropped off under a tree while they dawdled along in their slow Quick way. By the time he had woken up things had got seriously out of hand.

Fortunately, Unknown Quantity had distracted Daemon for just long enough so that Obstacle and Right Madam could make a break for it.

Unfortunately, the blow Daemon had aimed at Unknown Quantity before giving chase to his rapidly escaping dinner had only knocked the mudman several yards through the air into a puddle of mud. Shame. It would have been one less witness to worry about.

The wretched thing had landed near Skerridge, rolling about in the mud as it struggled to its feet looking like a small, mud-made sumo wrestler. So he had crisped it by way of letting it know he was annoyed and had racked up the superspeed, tearing through the tombfolk so fast that even they couldn’t see him.

Racing past the Quick, Skerridge whipped around the
side of the church, found a handy bush and swapped into Dark Shadow (With Eyes). It had been a close thing. Two seconds later and he would have missed the gateway completely.

‘What I don’t understand,’ said Nin, ‘is why the tomb-folk turned back.’

‘I think the King was once a sorcerer,’ explained Jonas as he rolled up his crowsmorte net. Nin had lost hers somewhere in the flight through the graveyard.

‘Azork?’

Jonas nodded. ‘He had an ebony wristlet with a symbol on it like an A made of lightning. That’s Azork’s mark.’ He led them over to the church porch and settled down to wait for morning.

‘But why does that mean they can’t come through?’ said Nin, curling up next to him. She was feeling a lot better already. The cold patch on her cheek had gone and the darkness clouding her eye was disappearing fast.

‘Sorcerers can’t leave the Land, which means they can’t enter the Widdern. And although Azork isn’t a sorcerer any more, I’ll bet he doesn’t fancy the idea of being trapped here for a whole day until the gateway opens again. We were nearly in the Widdern and he’d have had to follow us through, so he turned back.’

Nin thought for a moment. ‘Senta Melana went into the Widdern. But then I guess she wasn’t a sorcerer any more, she’d already earthed all her magic, become
mortal.’

‘It would still have been terrifying for her. But then, according to the story, she was a brave woman, braver than any of the others, I think.’

‘Talking of brave, I hope Jik’s all right on his own.’

Jonas was silent for a moment. ‘Look, Nin, you know it would be dangerous for him to go through the Heart. He’s going to have to walk around it …’

‘But the Heart is HUGE!’ wailed Nin. ‘It’s gonna take him forever. I won’t see him again and I never got to say goodbye!’