Dragonborn (10 page)

All thoughts of keeping Sam from going into the College had disappeared. He rose up higher and higher. Before it even shaped itself in his mind as a plan, he swooped around and set himself in the direction of Flaxfield's house. He needed to know if the wizards were still there, and, if not, where?

They would be looking for Sam. They must not find him.

Starback knew where to lead them. His wings caught the night air. His tail was a splinter of silver in the sky. It was two days' journey to where he was going, and he would be there before dawn, ready.

that he was Starback.

His claws scratched on a cobbled street. The bulk of a huge stone building reared up behind him, gray and grim like a prison. His eyes searched the streets that met in this square in Canterstock. He was waiting for someone, waiting to warn him, waiting to keep him out of the gray, grim jail.

Sam wanted to feel more. He wanted to test this body, to see what it could do.

He lifted a cautious leg and moved one step forward. He was strong. He felt that he could carry many times more than his own weight. The muscles were like pistons. Rearing up, he moved his head from side to side, eyes searching. The power and precision of his vision startled him. His mind was agile, sharp. He had seen every detail around him in an instant, and he could recall it perfectly.

Sam thought of himself, dreaming he was Starback, thinking of Sam.

He wanted to go very fast, so he braced his back legs, pushed hard, and ran, and, without thinking he was going to do it, he rose up, spread his wings, flapped them briskly, and was flying.

He gasped with the beauty and wonder of flight, mounting ever higher, riding the rolling steady air beneath him.

Before it even shaped itself in his mind as a plan, he swooped around and set himself in the direction of Flaxfield's house. He needed to know if the wizards were still there, and, if not, where?

Sweeping around like a skate's heel on a bend, he set his course for home.

The river, then the willows, then the house itself. Sam circled the house. Below him the house seethed with magic. Then, as he stooped down, he woke, and was Sam again, and his heart in hiding broke, rebuffed by the wind.

 

WANDS. A wand is a bendy stick. That's it.

I've been told I have to write more on this page.

Well, a wand is a stick. Not just any stick that you might pick up—a wand is straight and slender. Willow trees make good wands when the branches are young.

Wands have many uses.

An old man may use a wand when he is walking, or an old woman. Or someone who has had a fall and hurt their legs and needs some way to help them balance.

Some teachers use wands when they want to point to things. Some teachers think that new learning goes in not through the eyes or the ears, but through the backside, so if a pupil is slow, they beat his backside with a wand to make the knowledge go in better.

Wands are flexible because they are cut when they are young
and the sap is in them, so they are still wet. This makes them useful for making all sorts of things.

Wands can be woven together to make a basket. If you weave wands in straight lines you can make a hurdle, for a fence. Or you can weave a wall of wands and cover it with a paste made of clay and mud and cow pats. This is called wattle and daub.

A wand can be used to make a horse ride faster, but it is cruel to whip a horse with a wand. A horse that is whipped too hard can throw its rider and kill him.

The secret of a wand is that it is flexible. It bends. It can be made into something else. Sometimes, as with the horse or the pupil, the wand is used on its own. Other times, as with baskets or hurdles, wands are plaited together with other wands to make something bigger.

If it does not bend, it is not a wand.

Wands make good fishing rods. A thick stick that does not bend is no good for this. You need to feel the wand move in your hand when the fish bites. There is a connection between the fish and the fisher, and it is the wand that makes the connection, just as there is a connection between the rider's hand and the horse's backside.

The wand used for fishing is sensitive and springy. It draws the fish to it, and it helps the fisher to play the fish, to land it safely.

The wand used to punish the pupil or urge on the horse flicks more painfully than a hand would. It gathers the pain into a single point, to sting.

This is why a wizard may use a wand. It makes a connection
between the wizard and the object of the spell. It concentrates the magic and makes it stronger, sharper.

Whenever a wizard uses a wand to help with a spell, he should always remember Tug Turner, and be careful that whoever the spell is working on can't turn around and make the magic hurt the wizard.

There's nothing very special about a wand. A wand is a bendy stick. That's it.

A wand does not make a wizard. A wizard makes a wand.

A wizard's staff is a different thing and needs a page of its own.

of contrasts. Sam had never seen a building as grim and gray as Canterstock College. And he had never met a person as twinkling and friendly and welcoming as Professor Frastfil.

As they were entering the town Sam wanted to turn around and run away. The College was vast. Hard stone, small windows, and great iron doors with cruel spikes. Frosty was small and plump, with a round, open face, spectacles, a smile, and the longest hooked nose Sam had ever seen. His clothes were loose and shabby, and he jangled his money in his pocket all the time, whether he was speaking to you or trotting happily along the long corridors or mumbling a spell. No situation was too solemn or too simple to stop him from jingling his pockets.

“Welcome, welcome. I'm so glad to see you. Come in, dear boy, come in.”

He jingled and smiled Sam through the iron door and into the College.

“Good morning, Trelling,” he sang out to the porter in his little lodge.

Megatorine pushed open the door into Trelling's little office and sat down on his barrel. He poured himself a cup of tea from a pot on the bookcase and settled in for a chat with his old friend.

The porter nodded to Professor Frastfil.

“Letters for you,” he said.

“Splendid. Splendid.”

Trelling lifted his arm. A stack of letters on a high shelf fanned up and formed themselves into a line like a skein of geese in flight and swooped down in formation. They came to rest in the air just in front of the Professor, who took them and put them into a deep inside pocket in his baggy jacket.

Sam blushed to see magic used for such a little task.

As they hurried into the quad he tugged at Frosty's sleeve.

“Couldn't he have handed you the letters?” he asked.

Frosty jingled and smiled, and pretended to box Sam's ears in a jolly way.

“Got to use the magic,” he said, “or it gets rusty.”

“Does everyone know magic here?”

“Oh, indeed, yes. Yes, yes, yes. Got to have magic all around the place. It's what we're for.”

“Even the man who watches the gate?”

“Trelling? The porter? Oh, yes. One of our best pupils, was Trelling. Could have gone on to do anything, but he loved the College so much he didn't want to leave. Everyone who works here, cooks, gardeners, everyone was once a pupil.”

They stepped into the building and plunged into a world that Sam never believed could have been. Frosty led him along highly polished wooden floors down a long corridor with classrooms off to one side. It was lit by globes, floating in the air, that bobbed and drifted and glowed. As they passed each door, Sam could see and smell and hear the business of magic going on in the classrooms.

They climbed a narrow, winding stone staircase almost all the way to the top of the building. Professor Frastfil waved his hand and an office door swung open. He flung himself into an armchair and pointed to another for Sam to take.

“This desk,” he said, “belonged to Cosmop, my third cousin, twice-removed, and one of the greatest and most respected wizards there ever was.”

Sam thought it was just a desk, whoever else had sat at it. Sitting at a great man's desk didn't make you a great man.

“Our friend the roffle speaks very highly of you,” said the Professor with an encouraging smile. “But I really need to see for myself that you are a serious candidate for a place at the College. You are also, well, a little older than most students when they arrive, and perhaps you will need to be put with younger pupils than yourself, to catch up.”

Sam was annoyed at this, and his eagerness to prove that he was as good as any other twelve-year-old took away some of his caution.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Let's test you on your recipes,” said Frastfil. “What are the ingredients for a charm to keep a man free from colds all winter?”

“That's not the thing to do,” said Sam. He quoted Flaxfield's words exactly: “Colds keep a man sensible. Never try to stop them coming, or he will walk about in winter without a woolen coat and die of stupidity.”

“The correct answer,” said Frastfil with a frown, “is goose fat, dried mandrake root, the hard snot from a butcher's handkerchief, and seven drops of lemon juice.” His money jangled louder than ever in his pocket.

Sam laughed, thinking it was a joke. Then realized it was not.

The Professor made his face merry again and twinkled at Sam.

“Never mind. Let's try this one. What spell would you say to rid a house of all its spiders?”

Sam couldn't understand why he was asking these questions, except to test his understanding. They had nothing to do with magic as far as he could see.

“Why would you do that?” he said.

“Just tell me the words of the spell.”

Sam could only tell the truth. It was all he knew to do.

“You would never drive all the spiders out of a house,” he said. “They keep down flies and other insects that are dirty and cause diseases, and the spiders do no harm to anyone.”

“Ladies are very frightened of spiders,” said Frastfil. “Sometimes they ask us to get rid of them. What spell would you say?”

Sam shrugged his shoulders and looked away through the window. A kestrel hovered, wings trembling. Sam admired the fire of its feathers, the freedom of its flight. How much better to be a
bird than to be sitting with Professor Frastfil smiling at him and jingling the money in his pockets.

“I won't say it now,” said the Professor, “or it will drive all the spiders away from the College, and then where would we be?”

Just where I said,
thought Sam.
Infested with flies.

“But even a beginner at the College would be able to tell me how to do that,” the Professor carried on. “I really don't see how we could think of taking you on here. I'm sorry.”

Sam's dream of the freedom of the falcon melted away. He was alone and without friends or money. That was more of a prison than a freedom.

“Where shall I go, then?” he asked.

“I'm afraid,” said the Professor, “that I really don't know.” He smiled happily and jangled. “I would offer you a job in the College, but, as you have seen …” His smile was broader than ever.

Sam nodded again. Even the kitchen staff were old students here, every one of them a wizard.

“Sorry, sorry.” He jumped and jangled to his feet and started to show Sam out.

“I don't do spells and potions,” said Sam.

“Quite so,” said Frosty. “All the roffle's fault. He must have misunderstood.”

“I do magic,” said Sam, standing up.

“Rabbits out of hats? Card tricks? Wonderful stuff for children's parties, but not for us, I'm afraid.” Frastfil gave him another encouraging smile. It was the smiles that had begun to annoy Sam
and make him want to demonstrate what he could do, just to show this man.

“Proper magic,” said Sam. “Not tricks.”

Frastfil was eager to get rid of Sam and waved him to the door. Sam stood firm where he was.

“I'll show you.”

“We really must go. I have to, um, that is, uh …”

Sam folded his arms.

“Are you ordering me to show you some magic?” he asked. “Really?”

Frastfil gave him a silly smirk.

“Yes,” he agreed. “I'm ordering you to.”

Sam clapped his hands. The door slammed shut, wrenching itself away from Frastfil's hand. Frastfil found himself swept back into the room and forced around the silly desk that his whatever had owned and into the armchair. The chair spun around and around and around, and lifted into the air, with Frosty holding on in terror of falling out. All the books jumped off the shelves and formed a cloud of paper and boards around Frosty's head, spinning in the opposite direction from him, like a dust whirl in hot summer.

“Put me down. Put me down!”

Sam dropped the chair to within an inch of the floor, jolting Professor Frastfil but not hurting him. Still it spun. He turned the books into crows and had them break out of the circle and dart at the Professor, jabbing their orange beaks at him, cawing and flapping and diving till he was dizzier from dodging than he was from
spinning. Sam clapped his hands again, and the crows became books once again and roosted on the shelves. The chair came to rest exactly where it had begun, and Frosty sat, gasping for breath and fumbling for a handkerchief to wipe his forehead.

“I'll go, then,” said Sam, picking up his bag and opening the door.

“Wait! I think we can find you a place.”