Seven Sorcerers (31 page)

Once they were gone, Skerridge allowed himself a huge grin. Then a chuckle. And then a roar of laughter that he choked off instantly, more to stop himself from accidentally crisping the trees than anything else.

At last he clambered nimbly down the trunk to the ground, vaporised the couple of leaves he had brought with him, and headed for the way out.

onas was sitting at Taggit’s cramped table, poring over a map. The lightning in his eyes had faded to a white shine and he looked tired and edgy.

‘So there are nineteen floors including the up-house ones, right? Four above ground, counting the attic, and fourteen below. Plus the ground floor.’ He rifled through the clipped-together pages.

‘Back in the old days there’d’ve been a map on one sheet of paper that just showed exactly what you asked for.’ Taggit sighed. ‘Some of the sorcerers could do fantastic stuff !’

‘Did you meet them?’ Jonas looked up from the map and stared at Taggit.

‘Meetin’ a sorcerer ain’t exactly clever,’ said Taggit reasonably. ‘There were a few of ’em about back then, it weren’t ’ard to run into one occasionally. They were a snooty lot though, didn’t mix well with others.’

‘They weren’t nice to the Quick, I know that. Though Nemus was all right.’

‘Oh yeah,’ snorted Taggit. ‘I expect ’is attitude’s
improved a lot now ’e’s worked out ’e needs the Quick to keep goin’!’ He got up and went to the stove. ‘Top up?’

Jonas looked at his mug. Taggit’s tea was like watery tar, but it tasted fantastic after the first few mouthfuls. Horrible, but fantastic.

‘No, thanks. I’d love to hear about them, but I’m not going to be around that long.’

‘Wouldn’t bet on it,’ said Taggit comfortably. ‘When you’ve either found the kid alive or worked out that she’s copped it, you’ll ’ave to think about what to do next. Gettin’ out of the ’Ouse, now the Secret Way’s caved in, ain’t gonna be a picnic. So, you can come back t’ me if you like. Good to ’ave a bit of company. Well, some that’s alive anyway.’

Jonas laughed, then folded up the map, tucked it into the pack that Taggit had given him and gulped down the last mouthful of tea. ‘Better get on. Got a busy morning, what with finding Nin, finding her memory pearl and escaping from the House. Thanks for everything, Taggit.’

The goblin grinned, showing yellowed fangs that a shark would be proud of. ‘Good luck, kid. Yer gonna need it.’

Jonas thought that if Nin had escaped Strood then she might take cover in the main storerooms. According to Taggit, you could live there, undiscovered, for months.
He checked the map one more time, put it back into his coat pocket, then shouldered the bag Taggit had given him, packed with food and a bottle of water, and moved on up the narrow, shadowy stairway.

On the next floor he found the vegetable garden. He didn’t know what he had expected, but not this. For a start a gentle, warm rain was falling. Jonas peered up. Copper pipes ran across the rocky ceiling and strung along them at regular intervals were metal clumps that looked like a cross between a dandelion head and a watering-can sprinkler.

Like the graveyard there were windows to the outside world, but here they were round holes plugged with crystal. Sunlight streamed through the crystal, its heat magnified and its light scattered about the cavern. The ground was rich and loamy and neat rows of cabbages, carrots, parsnips and potatoes ran from wall to wall. Further over, poles were twined with leafy peas and runner beans. There didn’t seem to be anyone about.

Jonas followed a central path through the gardens to a long corridor, which opened out into a dome-like space filled with a shimmering gloom. Although there were still windows in the wall of the dome, they were small and high up and let in only thin beams of light that glanced off the walls and reflected on the ripples in the water below.

For the floor of the dome was water. It was so deep it looked like black glass beneath the surface glints of light. The room was cool too, and the faint lap of the water
had a hollow, echoing sound.

On the other side, opposite where he was standing, he could see an archway like the one he had just come through. A broad strip of the wall was covered in pictures carved into the stone. The last picture looked unfinished.

He stepped out of the corridor and down on to a ledge that ran around the pond towards the second arch. Beside him, the dappled water flicked and flashed with the silver backs of fish as they surfaced and then dived again.

When he got to where the carvings began he paused to take a look. It was clear that each picture had been done with infinite care and patience. As far as he could see, every image told a story. At first Jonas did not recognise any of them, but then he realised that the first was obvious.

It showed a group of Fabulous gathered around a shape on the ground. Another figure, this time Quick, hovered outside the group anxiously, his face a mask of terror. In the background a complex pattern of wolf-like shapes milled and snarled, showing cruel teeth and narrow eyes. The figure in the centre was hardly visible between the slender forms of the Fabulous so he switched his gaze to their faces. All of the figures, except one that had its back to the viewer, wore expressions of misery, horror or shock.

These were the Seven Sorcerers and this must show the Final Gathering. He took a step back to see it as a
whole and as he did so his eye worked out the figure in the middle. The reason it looked so strange was because it was in pieces – nothing more than a heap of scraps.

He couldn’t restrain a soft ‘eugh’ of horror. He turned away to look at the next picture. This one he didn’t know. A beautiful, young woman stood at the head of a flight of steps, looking down. In one hand she held a torch high, the other clasped a locket shaped like a thin diamond, the chain it hung from twined around her fingers.

After the woman came a picture of chaotic industry. Figures dug and hauled and built in all directions. There were carts and horses pulling away rubble or bringing materials. Ropes and pulleys and shovels and even some of the workmen’s lunches were there too, recorded in tiny, exact detail. And over it all towered something familiar.

‘They’re building the House!’ he said out loud.

‘Yeth.’

Jonas started so violently that his foot slipped under him and he thought he was going in the water, but he regained his balance and straightened up.

‘Thorry. I didn’t mean to thtartle you.’

‘I – um – didn’t see you there.’

‘People don’t. It’th becauthe I’m thilver like the water.’

The creature was right. It was silver because it was covered in fine scales. Sitting on the ledge in the wavering light, it looked like part of the water.

‘My nameth Gorgle, what’th yourth?’

‘Jonas. Are you, sort of, part fish?’

‘That’th me. Part fith, part man. I’m one of Thtrood’th ecthperiments.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Tho am I,’ said Gorgle. ‘But thomeone hath to be.’

Jonas walked past the arch to where Gorgle was sitting. As he got closer he could see that Gorgle had webbed fingers and feet like fish tails. He had no hair, but fine tendrils ran down his skull to the back of his neck and along his spine. He was wearing nothing but a pair of cut-off trousers in something thin and grey.

Jonas crouched down next to Gorgle, who watched him from eyes like silver discs.

The fish man pointed towards the picture on the wall. ‘What they’re building ith the down-houthe. The Houthe wath already there. It uthed to belong to Gan Mafig, the apothecary that helped the Theven make the Deathweave.’

Jonas nodded. ‘I know that bit. It was their magic that went into the weave, but without Gan Mafig to distil the seven spells and mix them together it would never have happened.’

‘He wath the betht apothecary ever. He even thought up the mortal dithtillathion proceth.’

‘The what? Oh, mortal distillation process. What’s that? Is it different to distilling spells?’

Gorgle nodded. ‘It’th about how to dithtil a living thing. Mr Thtrood utheth it a lot in hith ecthperimentth.
Like me. I wath a fith and Mr Thtrood infected me with dithtillathion of man.’

‘I wondered how he did the things he does.’ Jonas looked back at the picture thoughtfully. ‘I never knew this was Mafig’s house!’

‘Hith and hith daughterth. That’th her in the thecond picture. Her name wath Theraphine and the ran away during the Final Gathering. Not becauthe the wath thcared, but becauthe the wanted to be with her lover. He wath jutht a woodthman and her father thought the daughter of thomeone ath important ath he wath thould marry a thortherer.’

‘How do you know all this stuff ?’

Gorgle shrugged. ‘People tell me thtorieth and I put them in pictureth, that’th all.’

‘You did this?’ Jonas stared at him in amazement.

‘Yeth. The one I’m doing now ith about the girl who made a Fabulouth.’

‘She’s the one I’m looking for.’

‘Ninevah Redthtone ith your friend?’ asked Gorgle, his voice filled with awe. He tugged Jonas’s arm. ‘Come and thee.’

Gorgle led Jonas to the carving furthest along, the one that was unfinished. It showed a girl standing on a hillside, with another figure beside and just behind her.

‘She’ll love that!’ laughed Jonas. He looked closer. ‘But I have to tell you, Jik isn’t that big.’

Gorgle shrugged. ‘He’th a Fabulouth. He mutht be.’

The image of Jik was striking. Gorgle had made him
a lot taller and somehow more powerful-looking. It also looked as if he were rising straight out of the earth, joined to it somehow.

‘You will want to go on and look for her now, I think,’ sighed Gorgle. ‘And it’th about time I filled the pool too.’ Seeing Jonas’s puzzled glance, he went on, ‘the water thinkth into the ground at the bottom of the pond and leakth away. Tho, every day I have to top it up with thea water.’

‘How do you do that?’ asked Jonas. ‘Is there a way out of here?’

Gorgle shook his head. ‘I go down on the winch in a pail, you thee.’ He pointed to the ropes next to the slit in the wall. ‘I take the bucket and lower mythelf down to the water, I fill the bucket with thea and then I pull mythelf up again. But there ith no way out. The thea ith violent here.’

Clambering up to the gash in the wall, Jonas leaned into it and peered out. The wind hit him, dashing a faint trace of spray into his face even this high up. Below, the waves crashed against rocks like jagged teeth. There was nothing but angry sea and empty sky.

‘OK,’ said Jonas with a sigh. ‘You’re right.’ He went to sit back down again. ‘What a shame. The tunnel I came in through is collapsed, the Secret Way, Taggit called it. So when I find Nin we’ll need another exit.’

‘There mutht be one,’ said Gorgle. He nodded at the second carving. ‘No one knew how Theraphine uthed to get out of the Houthe without her father knowing.
Everyone thayth her Thecret Way ith the tunnel you uthed to get in, but I don’t think tho. Remember, the down-houthe didn’t exthitht in her day. I think Theraphine’s Thecret Way wath here before the down-houthe wath built. I think it thtarted in the up-houthe thomewhere.’

‘But when they were digging to build the down-house, wouldn’t they have found it?’