Dark Spell (14 page)

“I don't know how long that'll survive in here,” Callie
whispered, and conjured a light of her own. She set it drifting along just ahead of them.

They had reached the stairs now, and found those, too, transformed to rock: narrow, steep and wickedly slippery. The light floated ahead of them as they climbed cautiously, Josh with his torch clamped between his teeth.

Upstairs, there was no sign that this had ever been a house: everything was rock or water or mud. There were no doorways, except for a narrow opening that led to what had been Callie's bedroom. Cold, dank air stirred their hair as they stood at the entrance.

They stepped inside.

The ball of witch light hung in the air in front of them, gradually penetrating to the corners of the rocky chamber – it was certainly no longer a room – they stood in.

Callie's broken bed stood incongruously in the middle of the uneven stone floor, the only trace of what had once been here.

Patches of darkness clung to the walls and roof here and there. Josh half thought he could hear a sound like breathing coming from them. His skin was clammy with fear. The rock chamber was watching them.

The torchlight faded to a thin ribbon of dim yellow light and died. Josh shoved the torch back in his pocket. Callie was a couple of steps ahead of him, standing quietly, taking in everything that gave her a clue to the power she faced. After a moment she knelt down and pulled from her bag the things she needed for the spells: the black-flamed candles, a tied bundle of birch
twigs and a piece of paper with Duncan Corphat's name written on it in ink made from rowan berries.

As he watched Callie, Josh caught movement from the corner of his eye. He turned sharply and saw a blot of darkness creeping across the wall to his right to join with a smaller one.

“Callie,” he whispered, “the darkness is moving.”

By witch light and starlight, Rose and Bessie looked down at the scrubby undergrowth at the seaward end of Dane’s Dyke.

“Do we even know this is the right place?” asked Bessie, poking at leaves with the toe of a hiking boot.

“It’s the place George saw the grave,” replied Rose.

“So we’re assuming it’s got the decency not to roam around, anyway?”

“Yes we are.” Rose closed her eyes, concentrating.

“Coo-ee! Anyone home?” Bessie called into the darkness, making Rose jump.

“Behave yourself, Bessie!” she said sharply. “Come over here and look for it properly.”

Looking slightly chastened, Bessie went to stand by Rose’s side, rummaged in her pockets and produced a pair of chopsticks.

Rose raised her eyebrows as she took one of them.

“I know – they’re not traditional – but they work beautifully, and if we happen to magic up a bowl of noodles, we’ll be equipped to deal with them,” said Bessie brightly.

Rose opened her mouth to reply, but thought better of it. “Let’s get on with it then,” she said.

They separated, turned to face each other and held
out the chopsticks. Slowly they began to walk towards each other. At first the chopsticks did nothing, then they began to vibrate like tuning forks. The witches moved them around until they pointed in the direction that produced the strongest vibration, then sent witch light coursing through them.

The two beams of light crossed at a point near the highest part of the dyke. Rose and Bessie pointed the lights down at the ground where they intersected. Grass and nettles tore themselves out of the soil with a groan, revealing a long slab of featureless grey stone, under which, if legend was correct, the Longman lay waiting. Rose shivered, although the night was warm.

“That’s going to take some shifting. It’s a good job you thought to bring a crowbar,” said Bessie, resolutely ignoring the fact that the hair was standing up on the back of her neck.

“I just hope we’re strong enough to open it without using magic,” said Rose, probing for the best spot to insert the end of the crowbar. “We don’t want him expecting us.” She settled the crowbar. “Right. Push here, Bessie.”

They put all their weight on the end of the iron bar and were rewarded with a small sideways movement from the slab. After a few seconds they stopped pushing and Rose moved the bar to another spot. They shoved again and the slab moved a bit more.

“It’s not enough,” said Rose, peering at the gap they’d opened up. “It’s going to have to be magic.”

“Blast!” said Bessie. “I did so want to surprise him.”

Rose put the crowbar down and they both pointed at the stone.

“Open,” they told it.

With a noise of tearing roots the slab tilted up on one edge and fell backwards with a thud into the undergrowth.

They stared into the Longman’s Grave.

Callie and Josh stood as far from the walls as they could, watching the patches of blackness creep and scuttle about and gradually draw together.

“It’s Duncan,” said Callie. “Keep watching it. I need to get the spell ready.”

She swept a circle of the floor with the birch twigs and began to arrange the candles. Josh didn’t know how she could let the darkness out of her sight. He watched it with uneasy fascination.

“Surely you should be paying attention to this, not the candles?” Josh hissed.

Callie gave him a puzzled look. “I need to get this right before I do anything else. Do what I told you!”

Josh stared at Callie, taken aback.

“Sorry,” she said stiffly.

“Yeah. Me too.”

Callie finished positioning the candles and got to her feet.

“I almost feel sorry for him,” she said. “He was so desperate to escape, and all he’s done is bring his prison with him.”

You dare pity me, witch
? said the rock around them, and the darkness coalesced into a great stain on the roof
above them.
You would do better to fear me. This place is mine now.

Callie lit the candles and began to weave the rope.

As cloud covered the stars, Rose and Bessie drew their witch lights closer to the grave. At first all they could see was a layer of sand sifted over whatever else it contained. As they watched, a wind sprang from nowhere and began to move the sand in little eddies, rising in thin, rotating columns like miniature whirlwinds, pouring and swooping out of the grave. They shielded their eyes from the stinging particles for a few seconds, and when they looked again, the sand was gone.

In front of them now lay a huddle of bones, broken and brown and spotted with age, jumbled together in a formless heap, broken shards showing white here and there. A stench of ancient death and decay rose from them, making Rose and Bessie take a step back, hands to their noses.

On top of the heap, brown and smooth and whole, sat a skull, with eye sockets full of night. The Longman looked out at the mortal world for the second time in living memory.

Josh’s eyes flickered between Callie and the monstrous shape on the roof. The whole cavern seemed to breathe
harshly around them now, as Duncan Corphat brooded over them. Josh watched Callie weave black flames into a loop of rope, without understanding anything of what she was doing. The rope settled to the floor and she set the piece of paper with Duncan’s name in the centre of the circle it formed.

“Duncan Corphat,” she said steadily, though her heart was hammering, “I conjure you. I know your true name and you must answer to it.”

WITCH!
screamed the room.

The blackness from the roof dropped into the circle, and Duncan Corphat unfurled himself from it, bloody and terrible.

Josh shrank back from the figure as it stood up, and up, towering the full height of the rocky chamber.

“Get out, witch,” said the figure. “We will not tolerate your presence again. This place is ours now.”

“You’ve dragged your prison with you, Duncan Corphat. You told me, down there in the dark under the castle. You told me you longed for air and light again. What good is this to you?”

“It is ours. It is all we have.”

“You are all
dead
. You should be at peace, sleeping under the earth.”

“There is no peace,” the figure roared. “None for us. None for you.”

“I can give you peace.”

“LIAR!” The roar was so loud that it dislodged rocks from the walls.

“Callie – let’s get out of here. You can’t beat him, he’s too strong,” yelled Josh.

“Shut up, Josh. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Just shut up and keep out of this.”

“
Keep out of this
? You need me or you can’t do anything with him. Do you even know what you’re doing? You’re only a beginner. You can’t do this.”

“Shut up!” Callie screamed, and raised her hand sharply. Josh was flung back against the wall behind him and slid to the floor, winded.

“Just shut up,” she said, more quietly.

Beyond her, Duncan Corphat laughed.

“Give up, witch-girl. You’re no match for me and you know it.”

Callie’s resolve wavered. Rose and Bessie couldn’t have properly understood what she would be facing, or they would never have thought she could do this. Why had she listened to them? They were nothing but foolish old women.

Sprawled on the floor, Josh tried to catch his breath. He saw Callie hesitate, saw the doubt in her eyes, and had a second of total clarity.

“Callie, it’s him! He’s putting the doubts into our minds. He’s making us argue. We have to fight it. Don’t listen to him.”

What would he know
? said Duncan Corphat inside her head.
He doesn’t understand. How could he
?

She shook her head, trying to dislodge the insistent voice. There was something she had to do, but what was it?

Rose and Bessie stared wordlessly at the Longman’s skull, chills running across their skin. The air above the grave hummed with power, making the grass around it shiver.

The witches looked at each other and nodded agreement, then released the spell from the grimoire that had written itself inside their flesh. The words rose like a cloud of tiny moths, settled on the heap of bones and sank gently into them.

There was profound silence for a few seconds, then a voice like bones grinding together came from the open grave.

“Why have you woken me?” it demanded. “Who dares wake the Longman and disturb the spirits he guards?”

“It worked,” breathed Bessie. “Oh heavens.”

In the grave, something moved, and the witches clutched at each others’ arms apprehensively.

Something like a silver snake slid among the bones, growing larger and duller and fainter as it did so.

The Longman’s bones began to shift. Shattered fragments reassembled themselves before Rose and Bessie’s eyes as the bones drew themselves together, drew themselves up. Feet, legs, hipbones, a palisade of ribs; skeletal fingers flexed at the end of bony arms. With a click, the skull settled into place atop the spine and turned, with terrible slowness, towards the witches.

The Longman stepped from his grave.

“Callie. Callie, what’s wrong?”

Josh’s voice brought her back to herself with a jolt.

“Nothing. It’s all right.” She tried to concentrate on the rope, to begin to draw it tight around the spectre. With a terrible laugh, Duncan Corphat stepped out of the loop. He spread his arms, blood dripping from the wrecked stump of his left wrist.

“Was that meant to imprison me, witch-girl? It’s a feeble thing. Is it your best?”

Behind the spectre, the stone walls began to burn. Josh could feel the heat on his face. He pulled himself to his feet, fought down his doubts.

“You can do it, Callie,” he yelled. “Don’t listen to him. I know you can do it.”

Callie lifted the power-heavy rope with her mind, dropped it over the looming figure and began to speak the words of the embedding spell.

As the noose fell over him, Duncan Corphat cringed away from it, seeming to Josh to shrink. Hope surged in him as he heard Callie chanting the words of the spell. The fire had reached halfway across the room now. It licked at the rope and began to consume it. Duncan Corphat laughed again, bent, and tore the burning rope apart.

“You should have run when I gave you the chance,” he roared, advancing on them.

“Who dares wake the Longman from the quiet of the earth?” demanded the voice of bones.

Rose gulped, but took a determined step towards the
spectre.

“Rose Ferguson. I dare wake you by the power I command.”

Bessie straightened her hat. “Bessie Dunlop. I dare wake you by the power I command.”

The Longman stepped out of the air above the grave to confront them.

He was well named, for he stood almost two metres tall, even now: a brown skeleton clothed in the memory of flesh and armour and weapons. Fathomless eyes regarded them.

“Why have you broken my long sleep? No one has dared disturb me in many years. Why have
you
dared to do so? Why have you poured this power into my grave? Why have you broken my rest?”

“We need your help,” said Rose.

Fire roared in front of Josh’s eyes, Callie and the spectre outlined against it. He could see that she was trying to re-make the rope, her hands shaking as she did so. He had to do something to help her, but what? How could he buy her some time?

He shoved his hands in his pockets, feeling for… he didn’t know what. His fingers closed around the useless torch and he pulled it out of his pocket. What good was a broken torch, though? Unless…

With clumsy fingers he unscrewed the end of the handle and tipped out the batteries. The spectre and the fire were only a couple of metres away from Callie and
her half-made rope now.

“Callie, step back. I’ve got an idea,” he said urgently. “Batteries and fire – think what will happen. It might distract him.”

She nodded absently and took a step back, working the ends of the rope together. Josh lobbed the torch casing at Duncan Corphat’s bloody face so he wouldn’t notice as he flung the batteries into the fire behind him. For a few seconds nothing happened, then there was an explosion and a gout of yellow flame among the red. Caught unaware, Duncan Corphat’s figure shrank, and in that instant Callie cast the new rope over him and without pausing, began to tighten it.

He’s escaped twice. I will not let it happen again.
Anger flowed through her like blood.
I will not let this happen
.

She gave herself up to the spell, let it take her and make her part of it. She ignored everything – Duncan, Josh, the burning room – and became the spell. She heard a scream, ignored it, let the spell and the power pour out of her.

Callie realised her eyes were closed and opened them. The room was full of smoke from the flames she had killed without even realising. A small, black circle lay on the floor, infinitely dense, heavy with power.

She lifted it with her mind. “Josh,” she said, “come here.”

When he stood by her side she slid the black loop over his right hand and saw him shudder as she sealed the spell and locked Duncan Corphat away inside him.

“It’s done,” she said flatly.

Side by side, illuminated only by witch light, they
walked out of the shattered room.

“We need you to take charge of another unquiet sleeper – one who has not accepted that he is dead,” said Rose.

“Why?” demanded the old, cold voice.

“He is dangerous, full of power that he does not understand and cannot control. He’s becoming more and more of a threat as his power grows. He must be contained before he becomes too powerful to stop.”

“Deal with it yourself, witch-woman.”

“I don’t have the knowledge.”

“You had the knowledge to wake me. That is surely enough?”

“No. I could fight him moment by moment, but we need a refuge for him, rest for the poor soul. He is not evil, just frightened and angry. Very angry. You have offered help to others in the past.”