Avis Blackthorn: Is Not an Evil Wizard! (21 page)

He didn’t move still. “Plans?”

“Yes, plans of…
ending
Malakai.”

Suddenly, I saw the whole mess dawn across
his face. “
Of
course
…” I think I had just put one of
the last puzzle piece together for him. He sat down again slowly.
“That explains a great deal,” he said gravely.

I stood there for ages, feeling awkward. I
didn’t know what else to say. I had already given away far more
than I should have, what would Tina say if she were here?

Partington began muttering. “Can’t believe
the Lily stood for this. No choice, I suppose. Silly, silly T… and
Erns, that’s what he was up to, all that time…” Partington stopped
muttering to himself and looked up. “I never knew how he died. But
now, it’s obvious. He didn’t
jump
off the top tower. He was
killed
. I knew it. I always knew it. Just never realised in
all that time what he was doing. I knew something was up with him,
caught him sneaking around at night in the school, but he would
never tell me why… he went after Malakai… and got himself KILLED!”
Partington slammed a fist on his desk.

Something was working it’s way into a
conclusion in my mind, a question I had been wondering this whole
time:
why was Ernie going after Malakai? What possible reason
did he have?
But then I saw - Partington was rubbing his ring
finger. And a memory of Ernie going straight for the Book of
Names.

Partington talked through his hands. “Must
have been eating him up inside, the whole time.”

“What was, Sir?”

He pursed his lips. “The death of their
Mother. My wife… she was killed by Malakai.”

I couldn’t say anything, my mouth dried up. I
suddenly felt so sorry for him. This lovely man who had nearly lost
everyone he cared about to one person. Malakai had killed his wife,
that’s why Ernie went after Malakai… but also, more importantly… he
went after the Book of Names. Tina had said she wanted the Book of
Names to bring her Brother back, maybe Ernie wanted the book to do
the same for his Mother.

“When he was fourteen and Tina would have
been three… Malakai decided that Marcela was far too powerful, she
was in the opposition Government, and in opposition to his cause.
So he got rid of her. The Government marked the death as an
‘
accident’
. It was a travesty! And now my daughter is under
a curse for which I, nor anyone, has any idea how to break!” His
face dropped and his shoulders sank. I wanted to shake him, make
him see that he had powers greater than me… he could stop it, he
could break the curse. But he looked so small and shrivelled up,
that I feared he might never stand up again.

“Can’t the Lily help, Sir?”

“Pah!” cried Partington, his back rising.
“Chance would be a fine thing, he’s has no power against Malakai,
not anymore!”

“Why not?”

Partington shrugged. “Malakai has got some
hold over him, I don’t know.” I was beginning to think I did know.
More, in fact, than the adults in this school.

I left feeling awful. Even though it was my
Birthday, I didn’t care. I had to find a way of breaking the curse
over Tina. I was annoyed, if I had the courage and initially agreed
with her, then she would never have stormed off and got herself in
trouble. I also thought that Malakai must have cursed her for a
reason - maybe she knew something and this stopped her from telling
anyone. And why didn’t he just kill her?

I had just under two weeks to find a plan and
a solution before the Book of Names went back into Malakai’s
possession for another twelve years. And Tina… if I didn’t find a
way of removing the curse then she would remain under it
indefinitely.

When I got back to the clock tower, a glowing
figure awaited me. Ernie’s face was glowering at me.

“Why did you tell him about ME! YOU HAD NO
RIGHT!” he zoomed around the clock tower at lightning pace.

“I didn’t tell him about you, I told him you
left Tina the quest…”

“YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE!” he said zapping into
the bell.
DONG! DONG!

“STOP!” I said, fearful my secret place would
be found out. “He wanted to know why…” I called.

“I know! I heard you!” he stopped zooming
around and bobbed up and down in the corner. “I heard, I was there…
he’s right, there is nothing we can do about the curse. The only
person who can remove the curse is Malakai… no one and nothing can
remove it. She will be like that for twelve more years!” He zoomed
across to the clock face, sobbing.

“What? Why twelve years?” I said, following
him.

“He knows what he is doing - nasty, clever
man - the Book of Names will vanish at twelve minutes past twelve.
If he is near it, he has Magic to know where it goes and can follow
it to it’s next residence, which could be anywhere! Therefore, he
will be virtually unobtainable after this point…”

“I don’t get it…” I said truthfully.

Ernie huffed. “Oh LOOK! The Book of Names is
in the school
now
! That’s one of the
places
it goes.
So Malakai, for the last few years, has been forced to come here to
do his work with it. You can’t move it, or take it somewhere else.
The opportunity to end him is here and now while he is in the
school! God knows where he will be next! It could be anywhere… No
one will be able to find him… and then we can’t make him take the
curse off Tina! And she will be like that until her death…” he
sobbed hard into his fluorescent hands.

I feared that the only reason Ernie was so
animated was because he felt guilty. Guilty because he knew that
this was all his fault. He shouldn’t have sent Tina his papers. I
checked the notes on my bed while Ernie sobbed. One page of Ernie’s
notes detailed twelve possible locations where the Book of Names
might go. Hailing Hall was on there along with places it had been
previously, along with seven locations with a question mark by
them. Before, when I read this, I had no idea what it meant.

My mind flittered about between facts and
plans. There was a definite plan in my head, I just couldn’t
extract all of it. If I could find a way to remove the Jarred Spell
and say Malakai’s true name, then I would be able to… make him
remove the curse and surrender the Book of Names.

“Ernie,” I said.

“WHAT?”

“Do the same rules that apply to us, er,
living… apply to ghosts?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know… like can you do Spells?”

“No, not really. Most Spells tend to pass
straight through me.”

“Hmm…” things were kicking off in my mind, so
many ideas. “If I want to get hold of you, how can I?”

“I don’t know, I don’t work in appointments,
or summonses.”

“But if I really need you?”

He cocked his head and narrowed his eyes at
me. “Just do a Summons…
Vocataste
-Ernest,” he said bitterly,
jumping into a dive.

“One more thing… How did you become a
ghost?”

He sniffed. “Because I felt
guilty
for
leaving Tina the QUEST OF COURSE!” He dived through the floor and
was gone, leaving his voice to echo around the clock tower.

Ross was concentrating very hard on his
upcoming end of year exams, where he will most likely, qualify as a
P.W.W -
Professional Working Wizard
. He was taking them
quite seriously, getting himself ready to join Malakai’s team, no
doubt. I noticed a lot of people around the school concentrating
very hard. The last years were doing everything they could to get
some peace. Whereas it suddenly became a game for the years below
to do everything in their power to make noise and mayhem wherever
the seventh years were studying. It got to the point where
Magisteers were patrolling the seventh years’ dorms to make sure
people didn’t pass. And they made them these Magical protective
spheres wherever they went, so they could work without being
disturbed by anything. They looked like big glassy bubbles. Francis
Buttery, from two years above, said that it blocked out all noise
and people, and played soothing classical music. The P.W.W exam is
notoriously hard, and if you don’t pass you’re buggered.

But all this special treatment just caused
more people to do everything they could to penetrate the thin,
glassy, protective bubbles. One fourth year boy, Ramid Khan,
actually managed to slip inside Evan Roberts glassy sphere, but
then started to panic when he couldn’t get out! Evan, with three
other seventh years in his vicinity, stood together and sent
whizzing sparks at his bottom. He wouldn’t be that bravado again
for a long time and needless to say, sitting down would be a slight
problem for a week or two.

I didn’t see the Lily out at all any more.
Usually, at meal times, he would be at the Magisteers table,
talking to anyone who approached, but recently he was keeping to
his office. I wondered why. I toyed with the idea that I should
tell the Lily everything, perhaps he could help? But then Tina’s
voice echoed
“No…”
inside my head.

I had seen very little of Robin since he
returned. He had been roped into helping Caretaker Ingralo, a big
and gruff man who didn’t expel much more than grunts and orders.
People are chosen randomly to help Caretaker Ingralo, like a kind
of jury duty, five people are chosen a week. And this week, of all
weeks, Robin pulled the short straw. Obviously, last years are
exempt, and everyone moans like hell when it’s their turn to help.
Apparently, by all accounts, Ingralo is a bit of a slave
driver.

Robin came to the Clock tower the second
night, after cleaning and mopping the hallways for ten hours
straight. Poor guy looked exhausted and was swaying on the
spot.

“I got… blisters on me hands, and feet… and
he don’t let ya’ have a break!” he said, clutching onto a wooden
beam.

“Sounds awful,” I said leafing through
notes.

“Listen, I tried to get out of it, best I
could, so I could come help you, but there’s no way out… not with
this guy.”

“It’s fine…” I said. It was a blow, I needed
Robin. “But you’ll be finished by the end of the week? I’ll need
your help then, you might just be crucial to this plan
working.”

There were so many social occasions popping
up that I was struggling for excuses. Hunter was celebrating his
Birthday and having a party in the Condor’s form room. “It’s
amazing I made it to thirteen!” he said winking at me.

We also received a Riptide schedule and were
expected to go to every game! Unless we had a good reason, like
cleaning the school or doing end of year exams - which I didn’t.
Thankfully there were no games that we had to play in, I speak for
all of us when I say there was a collective sigh of relief.

After a whole weekend in the Library, I came
across a couple of things that I found immensely intriguing. The
first was a simple but quite brilliant Spell. I nearly yelped with
surprise when I found it hidden in a book all about water
creatures…

“…
to approach these creatures who sense
humans by their thought frequencies given off by the brain, a Spell
is required which hides this:
Avertere
, forces whatever
looks at you to not register your form. But more, it hides your
thought frequencies, which the brain rather haphazardly gives off
at all times. The Spell is not full proof, one can be spotted out
of the creature’s peripheral, this may alert them, but when looked
at directly you will not be spotted, thus they think they are
seeing things. Immensely useful in approaching marine wildlife,
some Wizards have experienced it working well on other
Wizards…”

This was a revelation. It meant that now I
could walk around, especially to the Library, without being
disturbed. But also, I had read that Wizards, mostly the highly
trained ones, could sense what you were thinking, and your next
move, by reading the thought frequencies that your brain leaks out.
What I never knew was, thoughts are emitted as vibrational waves,
just like a Spell, or a radio wave, which can be interpreted just
like a radio antenna interprets a radio wave and turns it into
sound! I had no doubt that Malakai could read thoughts, even people
like Partington had a good grasp of it, and the Lily was a master,
I was sure. This Spell, would be very useful - especially if I
combined it with something else.

I found another really interesting book, down
one of the darker corners of the Library, about the
‘Evolution
of the Wizard’
- something I had already learnt at First
School, plus a little with Partington, but this went into extra
detail, for example I never knew that as a Wizard I was a “
Homo
Noeticus”
— not a “
Homo Sapiens”
like most of you.
Wizards are the next step in Human evolution! Or so this book
reckoned so.

It reminded me of an assembly we had a few
weeks ago, led by Magisteer Dodaline talking about Outsiders. She
said that more schools like Hailing needed to be built to keep up
with the demand of Outsiders waking up as Wizards. She didn’t say
why though.

Later, I came across a chapter in this book
about
True Names
. It must have been a rare book because I’d
never seen another book about them. It said how all Outsiders now
had to pass through this Veil a few weeks before they started
school, which made them and their family and indeed anyone who
knows them, forget their old name completely. Also, I thought that
if you knew someone’s name, you had power over them… but what did
that mean? Malakai is all powerful anyway, he could kill anyone he
wanted to. Why did he need to know all True Names?

This book had several illuminating passages:
True names, discovered in 1243, are commonly misunderstood
today. Initially, it was thought, if one found out the true name of
a Wizard then you had an all encompassing power over them. In
actual fact, this is largely mythical. Knowing one’s true name does
not give one infinite power. In fact, if you know and say a true
name of an enemy, and they know not yours, then whatever Spell you
direct at them will trump theirs. You have a huge level of control
over them, some say you take over as the master of their destiny,
but this is an exaggeration. Merely, where the power lies, is in
the sharing of the true name - for if one shared a Wizards name
out, the power of the Wizard will wane both physically and actually
- great power had lay in knowing a Wizards true name and
threatening to share it, this in itself can guarantee their
compliance in all you require.