Doubleborn (22 page)

“I think so. That’s sort of what it’s like with Starback.”

“I don’t know if I like it.”

“It’s odd. But you get used to it.”

“I don’t want to switch again. Not for a while.”

“Talk about the mirror,” said Sam.

“We don’t have to.”

“No?”

“No. We know what it is.”

“Say it.”

“It’s the very first mirror ever. It’s the mirror that brought magic into the world.”

“It can’t be.”

“You know it is.”

Sam put his hand to his throat, to help him to think. The pendant had gone. He scrabbled around.

“What’s the matter?”

“It’s gone. I’ve lost it.”

He dived back round the mirror, on his knees, hands wildly sweeping the floor.

“What? What have you lost?”

“It’s a leather cord, with a metal weight on it. A dragon’s head.”

He banged his shoulder against the stand holding the mirror. It lurched forward and Tamrin grabbed it and righted it.

“I can’t lose it. I can’t.”

“Calm down.”

Sam, still crouched, pushed the mirror aside and glared at her.

“Don’t tell me to calm down.”

Tamrin closed her eyes and made the switch. She felt a surge of panic, a sense of loss, a rage of having done something terribly wrong. It was going to be hard, feeling as helpless and angry as Sam. She layered her sense of calm over his agitation.

Sam stopped shouting, stopped flailing for the seal. He stood and touched his hand on the frame of the mirror.

“See,” said Tamrin. “Here it is.”

The leather thong was round her neck. The weight hung at her throat.

“You took it.”

He grabbed. She stepped back.

“It came to me,” she said. “When we switched.”

“Give it back.”

“All right. Don’t get angry.”

She untied the knot and held the pendant out to Sam. He tied it round his neck.

“Sorry,” he said. “It’s very important.”

“Are you all right now?”

He smiled.

She felt a heaviness at her throat. She raised her hand. The seal was back. Sam put his hand to his throat. It was gone.

“Did you do that?” he asked.

“No.”

“Give it back.”

“There’s no point.”

“Give it.”

She handed it over. He tied the leather and gripped the iron weight in his fist.

Tamrin felt it return.

“I can’t let it go,” said Sam. “This can’t happen.”

“Perhaps it will come back.”

Sam thumped the side of the mirror.

“Careful.”

She felt Sam’s anger flooding her. She closed her mind to it, tried to shut it out.

“If it is the mirror,” she said, “we need to take it. We can’t leave it here.”

“It isn’t.”

Tamrin walked to the window.

“See the stars.”

“Are they saying anything?” asked Sam.

“Of course.”

He looked up with her.

“Can it be the mirror?” he asked.

“Can it be anything else?”

“No.”

“We have to take it. Make it safe.”

“Where?”

They kept their eyes on the stars.

“You met Winny,” said Tamrin.

“Yes.”

“It’s the mirror Smith is looking for. It’s why she goes round collecting old metal. We should take it to him.”

Sam laughed.

“We should. It’s where it belongs.”

She felt Sam open his mind to her. She knew his thoughts, his doubts.

What did they know of Smith? How could they trust him? How could they trust anyone? And besides – with a shock of recollection – Smith was under attack from the kravvins, perhaps dead already. And the room of mirrors reflected the blank red faces of pure hate.

“Don’t,” said Tamrin. “Get out of my thoughts. Don’t take me over like that.”

“I didn’t,” said Sam. “It just happened.”

Tamrin couldn’t take her eyes from the sky, the black emptiness, the confused chatter of the stars. She was losing herself, sinking into another mind, another person. In a jagged lapse of sense she found that she wasn’t even a girl any more. Bewildered by male strangeness she dragged herself back.

“You know the way?” said Sam. “To Smith’s?”

“Yes.”

“We have to go there. See if we can save him.”

“What about Starback?” she asked.

“That too.” ||

at him. Fireflash and flight. Shards of glass grazed his scales. A rain of fragments. Blue and green of spread wings. He leaped and shook himself like a wet dog. The glass spun from him, bright as starlight.

“Stop.”

Starback let the earth touch his feet.

The woman, Winny – yes, Winny – huddled away from him, arms upraised, her scarf dragged round her face.

“Stop it,” she said.

Starback kept still.

She drew back the scarf.

He had shot splinters of glass at her. Her face was red with specks of blood, spreading, dripping. She wiped her sleeve across her face. The bleeding stopped.

He breathed an apologetic wisp of flame towards her.

“Never mind me,” she said. “Look.”

Starback followed the line of her finger and he remembered. The smith. The storeroom. The ceiling pierced. The kravvins. The chase. The mirrors. The flight into his own reflection.

Sam had gone. Starback opened his mind to Sam and there was nothing. No boy any more. Alone again.

He skimmed the air, low over the stubble. Winny ran behind, hopelessly outpaced.

Smoke from the forge chimney. Something different about it. Something wrong.

Starback, flying low, banked and went around the storeroom, ignoring the breached door. He flew to the other side, the outer door of the forge. All the kravvins had swarmed the other way, straight after him and Smith, so the door was clear. His claws grasped the clinker path. He hunched and moved towards the door, low, not from fear but for purchase, to spring forward and attack.

The smoke stank. He raised his head and looked up. The grey was streaked with red.

Winny had made good ground and was nearly at the gate.

Starback couldn’t wait for her.

He pushed through the door, ready to take on the army of kravvins if there was any hope for Smith. Ready to find Smith dead at his forge.

“You’ll be safe here till we get back,” Sam said to Shoddle.

With the tendons and muscles sheared by the scissors, the tailor couldn’t move his head to look at Sam. Only magic kept him alive.

“Can’t you put this right?” he shouted.

“I don’t know.” Sam moved so that Shoddle could see him clearly. “And I don’t care. I’m not going to waste magic on you now. I’ve got other things to do. More important things.”

Even in his helpless state Shoddle couldn’t stop his vicious tongue.

“You’re not the only one with magic, you know.”

“I know.”

“I’ve got a friend with more magic than you. He’ll fix me up. And then he’ll fix you.”

Sam shrugged.

“No you haven’t,” he said. “You’ll wait here till I get back. Then I’ll decide what to do.”

“I’ll starve. I’ll die of thirst. I’m thirsty now.”

“I’ve taken care of that,” said Sam. “You’ll last long enough.”

“What if you don’t come back?”

“Then you’ll die.”

Sam could still hear Shoddle’s raving when he closed the door. There was no key. As he made the sealing spell Sam remembered using it once before, on the door of Flaxfield’s study. He longed to be there now. To sit in the panelled room with its walls of books and the ash tree outside the window, the blue and white china, the oak table.

“He has got a friend,” said Tamrin.

“Yes?”

“Yes. It’s Smedge. I’m sure of it.”

Sam checked the sealing spell at the name of Smedge. They had met at the college a year ago. He remembered that boy with loathing.

“This will keep anyone out,” he said.

Tamrin put her hand to the door. She pushed and it opened.

“Except me,” said Sam.

Tamrin sealed it again and they looked at each other.

“This is going to take a lot of getting used to.”

Once he realized they were not coming back Shoddle settled into a vengeful silence.

Solder was ready for a quiet night and an early bed. Jaimar hugged them both this time. She was beginning to understand something of what was happening, though they had not told her who they really were.

“You can’t go now,” she said. “It’s dark.”

“Easier to travel in the dark,” said Sam.

“You stay here,” said Tamrin to Solder.

Sam could see she was ready for an argument and a little disappointed when none came.

“All right,” agreed the roffle. “Let me know how you get on.”

Just like a roffle. Sam had little time for them, after the treachery of Megatorine. Which reminded him.

“Do you know a roffle called Megatorine?” he asked.

“Megantople? Yes, he’s a very famous roffle.”

“I said Megatorine.”

“Oh, sorry. Perhaps if you spoke a little louder. And you’re not very clear, you know. Have you thought of having lessons?”

Sam started to make a spell to tip gravy over Solder as the young roffle seemed to like eating so much. He stopped himself and spoke very clearly and slowly.

“Do you know a roffle called Megatorine?”

“Have you noticed,” said Solder, “that all roffles, well, all men roffles, have names that begin with Mega? Take me, for instance,” he said. “Although you call me Solder, my real name—”

“Just answer the question, will you?”

Solder looked astonished. It was a good look and Sam would have admired the artistry if he hadn’t been so frustrated at wanting an answer. Jaimar touched his sleeve.

“I think he has answered,” she said. “It’s a roffle’s answer.”

She insisted on making them food for the journey.

“And you can tell me all you know about Winny,” said Sam, partly to make time pass on the journey, partly to keep from thinking or talking about the mirror and what it had shown them about who they were, and partly because he really needed to know about that strange woman.

He let Jaimar hug him and opened the door as Tamrin dodged out of the way of a hug.

It was good to be a rat, but it made for slow progress. Smedge was reluctant to change. Of all creatures he liked rat best. On the other hand, Ash needed to be told what was happening. He changed to fox, to keep his nose full of the scents of earth and his feet on the ground. It was faster. Not fast enough. So it was as a crow again that he landed on the high wall of the Castle of Boolat.

“Here again,” rattled Bakkmann. “Can’t stay away. Want some more fun?”

“I’ve got news,” said Smedge, melting back into human shape.

“She likes good news,” Bakkmann clattered. “I wouldn’t want to be the one who brings her bad news.”

Smedge kicked out at Bakkmann, snapping a leg.

Bakkmann scuttled away, hurt, because she had once not been as she was now and remembered what pain was. The leg would grow again. So would Bakkmann’s hatred of Smedge.

Ash was in the dungeons, playing with prisoners.

“Remember this one?” she asked Smedge.

“Is it the old wizard?”

“Axestone?” said Ash.

“That’s the one.”

“No. This is the dark one, Khazib.”

Smedge poked the figure with the toe of his boot.

“Doesn’t look like him.”

Ash shimmered. Smedge wondered again just how substantial she was. He thought he could put his hand right through her. To Khazib she was substantial enough. Ash held a tooth between her thumb and forefinger.

“I pull them out,” she said to Smedge. “And they grow back, so I can pull them out again. Don’t I?” she asked Khazib.

Smedge remembered Khazib as a tall man, with skin the colour of winter ale. Strong and upright. With a subtle magic that was like a distant music. This grey waste of life on the filthy floor seemed to be a different creature. It was only when Khazib spoke that Smedge recognized him.

“Magic always has its returns,” he said.

“What?”

Did Ash demand that he repeat it because she had not heard, or because she dared him to say it again?

“Magic always has its returns,” he said.

Smedge felt afraid of him. Of this! This broken prisoner. He kicked him hard in the face.

“Careful,” said Ash. “The teeth grow back, but they’re slow. And I want to pull more.”

Khazib shifted his position. He felt inside his mouth with his finger and cleared fragments of teeth.

“Magic doesn’t forget,” said Khazib.

Smedge left the cell. Ash didn’t bother to lock the door. Khazib couldn’t escape just by walking out.

“What news?” she said.

Smedge explained about Tim and the hunt for Tamrin.

“They had a special friendship,” he said. “I thought about it. The bonds of trust will draw him to her. He’ll find her.”

“Why didn’t you just go and look for the tailor? You know where he lives.”

“I don’t think that’s where she’s going,” said Smedge. “And even if it is, it’s how she gets there. Who she meets on the way. That’s what we need to know.”

He was pleased with the small expression of surprise and approval that crossed Ash’s face. She made no attempt to praise him.

“You could have done it,” she said. “You make as good a dog as he does.”

Smedge’s pleasure melted.

“No,” he said. “She spread magic behind her, hiding her way. It’s the friendship that will find her out.”

“Friendship,” said Ash. “Weakness. We’ll use it.”

She gestured for him to leave her.

“What about the tailor?” said Smedge. “I could go and see him.”

“Would you like that?”

Smedge wondered what he liked. He liked playing with the prisoners in the cells. He liked smacking Tim. He liked hurting the little ones in the college. He especially liked the hurt he saw in Tamrin when she was accused of bullying and lying.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I would like to go and see the tailor.”

Ash laughed.

“He won’t like it,” she predicted.

“No. He won’t like it at all. I’ll go there, shall I?”

“Do that.”

Ash watched Smedge through the gate. When he was out of sight she crooked her finger for Bakkmann.