Zak Turner - A Twist In Time (33 page)

“I didn’t expect you to get this far today, and we’ll pick this up next week, but you’ve run into the first major obstacle with replication which eventually causes most people to give up on it.  Molecular structure.  It looks like a cup and feels like a cup, and when you tap it, it sounds like a cup, but it’s porous, it’s not watertight. 

Even though you can’t
see
any difference, the water is seeping through it because the replication didn’t complete properly.  That’s why replication spells are classed as advanced magic, boys.  We’ll analyse it next week though, not today.”

“Right, fifteen minutes break for you two, and then Numerology.  Steven and Bjarne, you’re welcome to sit in if you want, although neither of you need to, and I won’t involve you in the lesson even if you do.  Your choice.  I want you back for Spells and Charms though at quarter to eleven.”

* * *

When the boys finished potions at three thirty, they tumbled outside into the courtyard where a weak sun was struggling to make mid-October bearably warm.  It was never too cold for flying though, and Tallion was still feeling guilty for snapping at his brother the previous weekend. 

A few minutes later, the Pelotts were flying, along with the players, and Bjarne was finally getting in some more practise at ‘sweeping the sky’.  The better they all got at the game, the harder they played, and the more tiring it became.  By five o’clock they were all beginning to wilt, and Zak wasn’t the only one who was relieved when Bella Middleham called them in for a snack before they all went their separate ways for the rest of the weekend.

* * *

As the three wizards and Sam pushed into their form room on Monday morning, they were all chattering about the football at the weekend.  The Netherdale under-thirteens had once again been successful, this time defeating the City of Ripon under-thirteens away at Ripon Grammar school.  Tallion had ported to the match with his father, who’d worked out where to unobtrusively arrive the previous evening.  The whole place was surrounded by shadow-wizards long before anyone arrived, and impairment charms and temporary wards were cast over the playing field as soon as Tallion and Sir Philip got there.

There was no way that anyone was going to give Antares Malchus chance to disrupt another junior league football match!

After the register Miss Hamilton stopped at Zak and Tallion’s table as she walked past on her way to the door.

“Remember boys, outside at lunchtime today please, and don’t try hiding in the library either, Mrs Rigg is on the lookout!”

“Yes miss,” said the two wizards going red.  “Sorry miss.”

Tallion, at what other school would you get into trouble for actually
doing
your homework?  This is crazy!

Tallion grinned. 

It is a bit mad isn’t it!  Here’s us wanting to work, and they won’t let us!  Never mind, we’ll find a way to fit it all in.  Maybe I’ll get Father to send the headmaster a note asking him to allow us to work during lunch?

No.  Don’t do that.  Somehow it would get out, and then we’d get no end of stick about it in the playground!  We’ll just have to do it in the evenings and try to do our magical homework when we’re finished.

That’s easy enough for us, but what about Steven?  He’s not trying to fit his homework around magic, he’s trying to fit it around the farm!  If he doesn’t do his farm stuff in the evenings, then his dad won’t let him come up to the castle for magic lessons.

Ha!  You think Father would let Steven’s dad stop him from learning magic?  No chance!

You’ve got a point there…  Steven doesn’t seem to feel that way just yet though, look at him!

Steven had of course overheard his form teacher’s comments, and was now trying to get his head round the conflicting demands on his time!  His expression gave away the workings of his mind so clearly that his two wizard friends didn’t need to hear the mild panic that was running through his thoughts to know what he was thinking.

“Hey!” said Zak.  “We’ll work something out, we always do, don’t worry.”

“Aye right!  We just need a few extra hours in each day, that’s all.  No problem really…!”

“Extra hours…” muttered Tallion to himself, his mind starting to race off into the distance, “extra hours…”

Just then the bell rang for the start of their first lesson which dragged Tallion out of his reverie, but Zak could hear part of his mind still working away at the problem, and knew that a solution would come out sooner or later.

* * *

Monday turned out to be a particularly bad day for homework at Netherdale Academy.  Maths didn’t go very well in the morning because there was a fire alarm.  As a result they ended up getting all their missed classwork as homework in addition to the homework that Mr Cole, their very brainy maths teacher, had planned to give them.

English then saw them land their first substantial homework essay of the year.  A minimum of four pages of creative writing based on one of the topics they’d discussed during class, and an illustration!

Their RE teacher wanted them to do their own research into the different religions in Nepal (why Nepal?) and produce two pages of sensible notes about it all.

Fortunately Monday afternoon’s ICT and Music lessons didn’t produce any homework, but they had enough without it!  When the boys all got back to The Copse, having caught the bus up the dale for once because John had texted Zak to say he’d be late, they found three letters waiting for them from Mhonarr Castle.  Their plans for homework and farm work were immediately put on hold until they’d all read them. 

Steven started to read out some small bits of his letter from Sartrina, but there was no way he was going to let Zak and Tallion read it for themselves, no matter how close their friendship was!  He forgot, as always, that they could hear his thoughts until it was too late, and Zak reached out and folded the letter closed in his hands with a smile on his face.

“Read it tonight mate, okay?  Otherwise Tallion’s going to get all grumpy again listening to how much she misses you and… well, let’s not mention the other things she wrote about, okay?”

“Sorry!  I forgot…  I always forget!” said their farmer friend going red.

“We don’t normally notice your thoughts mate.  At school it’s like a hundred people all talking at once, and everything just blurs into background noise because there are so many thoughts flooding into our minds.  It’s why we often don’t notice when someone
really
talks to us, we sort of switch off, if you see what I mean!”

“But when there’s only three of us, your thoughts are loud and clear,” added Tallion with a grin.  “Anyway, I’ve got over it and I’m pleased that you and Sartrina are such good friends.  It sounds like it’s working out even though you never see each other!”

Steven was relieved that they weren’t going to make fun of him, and also that Tallion seemed to have forgiven him for stealing his girl. 

“She fabulous yer know, but I can’t understand what she sees in me!  I’m only a farmer and she’s like this super clever witch!  She put a few more details in my letter about that Shaul Malchus lad, he sounds like a right git ter me!  I ‘eard yer father talking about a Malchus t’ other weekend after t’ football match.  He mentioned the name ter that nurse who came ter fix you up.  Are they a bad family then?”

Homework plans were forgotten as Tallion, with occasional comments from Zak, explained who the Malchus family were and what they seemed to be doing in the wizarding world.  He finished by explaining that it was Antares Malchus who was trying to kill them, using his spies and henchmen.  Understanding dawned, and Steven’s expression change to deep concern!

“Father told us that they’re called the Black Coven,” continued Tallion, “similar to something that used to exist once before in Ireland.  They’ve taken witchcraft much further than most wizards ever do, even going as far as talking with demons and ancient gods!  It’s desperately evil stuff that they get up to, and the Wizard Council’s dead worried about it, because there’s no-one around these days who can stand against it!  Lots of the knowledge about the ancient demons and gods has been lost over the centuries, and hardly any light witches or wizards dare study it.  Dark magic is very addictive.  Once you start dabbling with it, you can’t stop, and you just end up getting sucked further and further in to it.”

Steven was looking very unhappy, and his two friends were trying to make sense of his jumbled thoughts.  Zak soon realised that his best friend was having the same problem that
he’d
had over the good and evil thing to do with magic.  He didn’t interrupt though, Steven had to sort out his own head first, and
then
Zak could help him.

“Erm, I always thought that all magic were dark an’ evil sort of…  It’s one of t’ reasons why I don’t really want ter get involved too much.  I want ter steer clear of it really, and I certainly don’t want ter get sucked inter any kind o’ dark magic…”

Zak and Tallion exchange glances, and Tallion nodded for Zak to talk.  Their thought conversation about it had been lightning quick, and Tallion accepted that he didn’t really understand how non-magical folk felt about magic, whereas Zak knew only too well.

“From a non-magical point of view yer right mate.  Most non-magical people think that magic and witchcraft all fall on the other side of the line, especially when you compare them to religion and Christianity.  I had the same problem when I suddenly found myself on the other side of that line, and we ended up getting in a right fix because we didn’t understand it to start with.”

Don’t tell him Zak, we really mustn’t,
cautioned Tallion.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to!  I’ll never tell anyone about that, I promise!

“However, from a magical point of view, within magic there is both light and dark.  Just because you’re a wizard doesn’t automatically mean you’re dark, or evil.”

Tallion seamlessly picked up the explanation.

“Most witches and wizards would never dream of doing anything bad Steven, they just use their magical abilities to help them through life, often doing as much good around them as they can.”

“Columbetha Proudfoot’s a good example,” continued Zak.  “She’s a brilliant person, always helping others and never thinking of herself.”

“Don’t let it worry you mate,” smiled Tallion putting his hand on Steven’s arm.  “There are good and evil people in both worlds, and we just need to make sure
we
stay on the right side.”

“Just think how many criminals and murderers there are in the country who
aren’t
magical!” said Zak.  “Evil isn’t restricted to the magical world, both worlds have to put up with it…”

“…and both worlds have to deal with it,” finished Tallion, his mind totally at one with his soul mate.

Steven still looked faintly worried, but it was tempered by the smile playing round his mouth.

“I love it when you two do that.  It’s amazing listenin’ ter yer talking as though yer one person, and thanks fer explainin’ it too.  I feel a bit easier about it, although I still want ter keep me distance from anything other than t’ kind o’ magic Eridan were usin’ on t’ farm!”

Zak grinned.

“That makes three of us mate!  We’d best get on wi’ this homework though, or we’ll never get it done!”

* * *

Monday was only the start of their avalanche of academy homework.  Despite their best efforts, they didn’t finish anything on Monday evening, and Tuesday lunchtime wasn’t very successful either.  For some reason the door to their form room was locked, so they went to the library instead.  However, they couldn’t get a table together, and nearly got kicked out by an irate Mrs Rigg who always got a bit tetchy when her library was crowded with students.

Tuesday afternoon only got worse, and eventually became the first time they used magic to get themselves out of trouble!  Well, to get
Steven
out of trouble to be precise.  Mrs Diggle, the French teacher, had set them an exercise to copy out a group of verbs the first letters of which made up a mnemonic.  She then had them repeating the mnemonic by rote to get it in their heads, which worked very well.  She then went round the room asking each one of them to read out a couple of the sentences they’d written for their homework using the verbs she’d asked them to learn the previous week.

Steven had forgotten to do it!

Zak rescued him during the reading out phase by letting him read out a couple of his sentences, giving the impression that it was his own work.  Mrs Diggle had been a teacher for a long time however, and her suspicions had been aroused about a number of students whom she suspected were sharing.  She said nothing though, knowing that the truth would come out at the end of the lesson.  After reviewing some new words to add to their vocabulary lists, she asked them to open their text books again.

“Please read chapter three as your homework, and copy out the first table covering possessive adjectives and memorise it.  Please also bring your last homework forward at the end of this lesson, and hand it in to me at the door as you leave, so that I can check your sentences.”

Caught! 

Steven’s stomach churned wildly!  He wasn’t the only one though, there were a number of wide-eyed students around the classroom who were clearly about to cop it!  With perfect timing, the bell rang at that moment, and there was a general scrabbling about by the students who
had
done their homework to have it ready in their hands as they left the room.