Faculty of Fire (58 page)

When I bounded straight back up off the ground, I found myself face to face with Neville again. This time a firebird appeared in the air in front of him ... I’d really got out of the habit of all this ...

“Why are you just standing there?” shouted Alice, who was suddenly there beside me. She was a bit mussed, but basically she looked pretty lively.

The firebird shattered against the shield that Alice had put up.

Yes, I’d certainly lost my edge. After one day without any energy at all, I’d forgotten everything I learned in more than two months.

“I’m feeling dizzy,” I lied.

Alice wasn’t listening to me, because she was completely focused on defending us from Neville’s attacks. She could barely create shields fast enough for all the firebirds, butterflies and fireballs. I wondered why I’d bothered to waste all that time developing my snakes!

I ran through the familiar pattern and launched a few snakes. Now at least, Alice and I had a while to get our breath back.

“Have you seen Chas?” the vampiress asked, keeping a sharp eye on Neville.

“No,” I answered. “Have you seen any of our group at all?”

“No one, apart from you and Neville,” Alice replied. “Ah, but wait ...”

I followed the direction of her gaze.

The square was slowly coming to life. Kelnmiir was kicking at the trolls so they would stay down, but all the hypnotised pupils were already on their feet.

“The two of us against the rest,” Alice murmured. “How romantic ...”

“Death at the hands of your friends,” I continued. “How touching ...”

We looked at each other and laughed.

“Hey, what are you braying at?” I heard Chas’s voice say from under the scattered stone remains of the trolls. “Why don’t you help pull your old pal out?”

“Cover me,” Alice said and hurried over to help Chas.

“Burn them!” I shouted, launching my fiery snakes after Alice.

I never thought I’d pick up that idiotic battle cry from Chas.

I prepared to erect my favourite wall. If I could only decide where to put it ... Kelnmiir was on my left, kicking hell out of the trolls, Alice and Chas were on my right ... and for some reason, I was in the middle, facing the hypnotised pupils ...

To be on the safe side, I had to erect the defensive wall in front of myself. Something told me the first blow would come my way.

I was right there, no sooner had I erected my defences than it all came flying at me ... the whole works – fireballs, air fists, water spears ...

I didn’t know how hypnosis affected people, but these lads certainly hadn’t lost their common sense. They were working as a team, almost like in the competition ... and that was bad.

“Zach, come over here!” Alice shouted from behind the heap of stones.

Easily said. If I came out from behind the wall, they’d tear me to pieces! But then, on the other hand, the wall was about give way at any moment anyway ...

I waited for a brief pause in the attack and ran towards Alice as hard as I could. As it happened, I chose just the right moment. During that brief pause my opponents gathered their strength and struck at the spot where I had been just a few seconds earlier. The main offensive strike consisted of an immense fireball – I suspected that our own fiery boy must have been responsible for that. The fireball swept aside my defensive wall, and then they let me have everything they had. If I’d stayed behind my energy wall, I’d have been vaporised!

I jumped onto the heap of stones, trying not to think about the fact that this heap had been living creatures. But other thoughts came crowding into my head. Or rather, not thoughts, but feelings. Fear! We were used to having the Monitoring Party– the Craftsmen would always prevent any fatalities. But now they weren’t here.

I automatically launched a bunch of snakes behind me. Just in case.

“Erect shields!” Alice commanded Chas, and the two of them covered me with a double shield.

I hadn’t recovered my strength yet, so unfortunately I couldn’t put up another wall.

“The important thing is to hold out for a while,” Shins said in a quiet voice.

That was when I noticed the Craftsman lying on the stone surface of the yard. He was pinned down by a huge boulder, which must once have been the trunk of a troll (maybe even
our
troll).

“How are you?” I asked in a dull voice.

“I’ll live,” the Craftsman said, wincing. “Although not for long, without the right help ...”

“It’s okay, you’ll outlive us yet,” said Chas, trying to cheer Shins up.

“But by how long?” Alice laughed. “What do we do now? We can’t hold out against this horde. I can’t understand why they haven’t overwhelmed us already.”

I peeped out from behind the stones.

There was a jingling sound.

That was one of the shields breaking ... or both of them?

“Just a moment,” Shins whispered.

A duelling dome appeared over our heads.

“That’s a bit better,” Shins said. “They can’t break through that shield so easily ...”

A trickle of blood appeared in the corner of the Craftsman’s mouth.

Things were looking bad. Shins had strained himself too much ... or maybe his injuries were just too serious.

“We have to do something,” Alice said firmly. “We can’t just sit here.”

“Sure we can,” Chas disagreed. “How are you planning to get out of the duelling dome?”

That was right, a duelling dome wasn’t a pitiful little shield ... it was a complex pattern that only Craftsmen could produce.

I glanced out from behind the stones again, more confidently this time. I was seriously worried about one thing: What had happened to Kelnmiir?

The vampire wasn’t in the square. At least, I couldn’t see him. The only ones standing up were eight pupils in yellow livery and five battered trolls. The stone remains of trolls were scattered across the square, and among them I could make out two spots of colour. Yellow and blue – a pupil and a senior pupil ... Caiten. Could they really be dead? Or had they just been knocked out?

The other eight pupils were standing in a semi-circle round our dome and blasting it monotonously with all the spells they could think of. It was a good thing Caiten was unconscious (I hoped very much that he was alive) – the pupils couldn’t destroy the dome, but as a former Craftsman, Caiten certainly could have...

“What’s happening out there?” Shins asked in a quiet voice.

“We’re not in any danger yet,” I replied. “If the dome holds ...”

“The dome will hold,” Shins said adamantly. “You know, you three ...”

The three of us moved closer to him.

“You’re my best pupils. I think you’ll make good Craftsmen.” He looked at me and laughed: “Even you, Zach.”

There! Even at a moment like this he found a way to taunt me!

“Don’t talk like that,” Alice sobbed.

Shins slowly closed his eyes. At first I was afraid he was dead ... but he was still breathing, so he must have passed out.

The flashes of spells smashing against the dome suddenly stopped.

“What are they up to?” Chas asked in surprise, and glanced out from behind the heap of stones. “Hooray! The cavalry have arrived!”

Scene 10

Alice and I jumped up to get a look at the Craftsmen dealing with the hypnotised pupils, but we were too late. It must have been over very quickly. All eight pupils were lying motionless. I hoped the Craftsmen had been careful not to hurt them at all ... and I hoped they were alive! Neville and Naive were there with the others ... they just had to be alive!

The Craftsmen included my uncle and my new acquaintance Revel. Well, those two couldn’t have blundered ...

We waved to them through the duelling dome.

“Over here, quick!”

The Craftsmen ran over to us with untypical haste, and when they saw Shins pinned to the ground behind the dome, they shut down the DED in an instant.

“He’s alive,” said Romius, but I wasn’t sure if he was telling us or asking.

“He is,” Alice rapidly assured him. “But he needs help urgently ...”

“Don’t even think of lifting the boulder,” Craftsman Revel warned us, as if we really could have done so. “They’ll bring the druids in a moment, and they’ll do everything necessary.”

“And now you, young people, tell us briefly what happened.”

Chas and Alice both looked at me. Clear enough. It was up to me again.

I told him as briefly as I could what had happened to me after I was captured.

“Well, well,” said Revel, clicking his tongue. “How very amusing ...”

Amusing? He thought this was amusing?

We left our refuge in order to not to get in the druids’ way. Standing in the middle of the square, we looked around, feeling rather dazed. It was a scene of real devastation. The first thing that attracted our attention was the huge hole in the wall of the Academy. Romius told us that the beam of energy had pierced right through the tower! And we could have been in the way of that beam ... may a dragon take all this magic!

“But where’s Kelnmiir?” I asked. “I can’t spot his yellow livery anywhere.”

“Oh him?” Romius drawled slowly. “The last time I saw him, he and a troll were helping us to escape from the Main Hall. If not for him, we probably wouldn’t have got out until dawn. Even though you destroyed the field, not much energy had found its way into the Academy yet.”

Would you believe it? And there was I thinking he hadn’t survived. But it turned out that he was the one who had saved us ... that vampire was some operator, he’d been everywhere. And he’d taken Dogron with him ... that was logical. Without a troll the teleports wouldn’t have worked.

“Way to go, vampire,” Chas said admiringly. “Now I see why they live so long. With that kind of power, anyone could live a couple of thousand years!”

“It was a good thing you decided to give him some blood after all. Without it he wouldn’t have been able to give us so much help ...”

“Blood?” There was puzzlement clearly written on Romius’s face. “What do you mean?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said cheerlessly.

So Kelnmiir had lied. I wondered where he got the blood from?

“And what’s going to happen to them now?” asked Alice, nodding at the pupils who had been hypnotised, lying in the yard.

“Yes, what’s going to happen to them?” Chas put in. “Some of them are our friends ...”

“Don’t worry,” Craftsman Revel reassured us. “They’re all alive, and nothing’s going to happen to them. The traitor is most likely one of them ...”

“Which of them is the Master?” Chas asked. “I’d like to look into that bastard’s eyes ...”

“I think a lot of people would like to do that,” Romius laughed.

“And how will you find out which of them is the traitor?” I asked.

“Hypnosis,” Revel said with a shrug. “We’ll give every one of them a thorough checking ... By the way ...” – he looked at me – “... I’m sorry, of course, but you will be checked too.”

I sighed.

“You mean you really think he’s a traitor after everything that’s happened?” Alice asked in astonishment.

“No,” Romius replied. “And I didn’t think he was a traitor before. But we need to get this hypnosis business sorted out as soon as possible.”

“I agree,” I said, nodding. “That’ll make me feel a whole lot better too.”

Even though we felt deadly tired, we decided to hang about in the square for a bit longer and watch what they did with the Vickers brothers and Caiten. We were really worried about what would happen to them ...

“You should go into the building,” said Craftsman Revel, trying to get rid of us. “Make yourself comfortable in one of the studies, rest ...”

But we stood our ground. Until we were sure that the Vickers brothers were all right, we weren’t going anywhere.

Speaking for myself, apart from concern for our friends, I had a hunch that made me want to stay in the square ... some time earlier, I’d had this interesting idea about how to identify the traitor. Logically speaking, he should be the only one of the ten who wasn’t hypnotised. Maybe the Craftsmen couldn’t tell that right now and the spy would be discovered during the check ... but I wanted to be the one to expose him. It would be my little revenge.

All ten of them were brought round. I didn’t know what the Craftsmen had done to them, but they behaved very calmly – they didn’t attack anyone and they didn’t try to run away.

“They’re tied up,” Romius explained. “You just can’t see it.”

“And where will they take them now?” Chas asked.