Shadow Spell (16 page)

And back at the Terrible House, Strood's army got on its way.

It was still early morning. Nin had been riding on Floyd's shoulders since they had set out at dawn around four hours ago. They could travel faster that way and to a goblin-Grimm the weight of a Quick was thistledown. Floyd's sturdy legs had been eating up the miles at a terrific pace, and although they had seen a lot of Raw, luckily none of it had been in their way. They had also seen a horseman in the distance, heading in the opposite direction, towards the Heart. The dark shape had been riding along the top of a hill and had looked huge, a menacing hulk on the back of a black horse with hooves that flickered with red flames.

‘Gotta be Fabulous,' said Floyd, ‘if 'e's ridin' a fiery steed. Only the Fabulous can do that. 'Ope ‘e's not off t' join Strood's army!'

Other than that the journey was uneventful and Nin was beginning to think they would make it to Hilfian by breakfast. She hoped her friends would turn up there too, and soon. She couldn't afford to delay too long in her search for Simeon Dark, but she knew she would
need their help in finding the last sorcerer. Lucky or not, she couldn't search the Drift alone.

It had been a comfortable trip so far because Floyd's shoulders were broad, but now she wanted to stretch her legs, so he set her down and they walked on at a slower pace, following the ragged edge of a wood bordered by a field of daisies and clover. There was a smell of old iron in the air that Nin was sure came from the band of Raw just the other side of the trees. Shadows lay across the meadow grass, even though there was nothing to cast them. They seemed to shift too, stirring restlessly as if disturbed by the nearness of people. Even so, bees the size of Nin's fist hummed from bloom to bloom. According to Floyd, Hilfian farmed bees and exchanged the honey for goods and food.

Also according to Floyd, the town should be very near by now.

‘Y'know, we might even 'ave gone past,' he said anxiously. ‘S 'ard t' tell. The Land's changin' so fast.'

Nin looked up at the cornflower-blue sky that was too peaceful to be hanging over a world on the edge of death. She was conscious of Dark's shadowy spell twined about her forearm. Occasionally it moved, stirring against her skin as if getting more comfortable, and once or twice she caught it humming to itself. She could still see the colours in it, purples and midnight blues and iron greys all swirling together. Sometimes a touch of vivid rose would swim to the surface.

‘If we find Simeon Dark he might be able to do something about Strood,' she said. ‘Then Strood will stop killing the last remains of the Seven and the Raw will stop spreading so quickly.'

‘Yew fink?' Floyd didn't sound convinced.

‘I do,' said Nin firmly. ‘What do you think he did to stay alive? As a sorcerer, I mean.' If he is alive, she added privately, remembering what the Dark Thing had said about the sorcerer having died of the plague and nobody knowing. She supposed it was possible, but she decided not to believe it anyway.

Floyd shrugged. ‘My favourite story is that 'e lives in the woods as a great bear and 'unts Quick fer food.'

‘Jonas told me it was his favourite too! Only without the hunting Quick part. Enid thinks he's disguised as a Quick, that he married one and had a family.'

‘So there might be some Quick kid runnin' around wiv a bit o' Dark in 'im? Or 'er?' Floyd looked at Nin speculatively, wondering about her father. She didn't notice.

‘They wouldn't be Quick though, would they? They'd be Grimm. I mean, Dark'd only be pretending to be Quick, not
really
being Quick like Senta.'

Floyd thought about it. ‘True, but magic is a funny thing. Sometimes it can be tricked, so if ‘e was pretendin' to be a Quick so ‘ard that everyfin' believed it, then ‘is kids might be … not Quick true, but not Grimm eiver.'

Nin was still trying to puzzle it out, wondering if
magic could be tricked enough to allow Dark to live in the Widdern, when the air began to tingle with something electric, like the feeling just before dawn. For a moment the iron smell grew stifling and all the birds stopped singing. In the eerie silence, Nin shivered and reached out to find Floyd's hand. But before she could take it, something horrible happened.

With an inner lurch, she saw the distant wall of Raw expand, exploding outwards, its thick white mass rushing towards them as swift and overwhelming as a slow-motion tidal wave. As it poured through the wood, trees began to twist and buckle, their trunks screaming as they split, the terrible shriek filling the air. In seconds they were gone, bursting into vapour and swallowed by the Raw as it swept on.

It all happened so fast, and although Floyd was calling to her to run, Nin couldn't help but stare for a second longer as a rabbit tumbled out of a clump of bushes, its eyes stark with fear and its ears laid back. It took one huge leap into the field and then stopped in its tracks, caught by a thin tendril of Raw running ahead of the flood. At once, the creature began to tear apart in front of her, its fur and flesh shredding away from its skeleton. Nin screamed, horror finally taking hold as the filigree of bones split and crumbled, dissolving into fine mist.

Floyd grabbed her arm and pulled, jolting her into life. ‘I said run, kid. Run!'

They ran, clover bursting into swirls of mist under their feet, but it was no use. The Raw flooded over and around
them, drenching them in chill cloud that smothered sight and sound in a dense blanket of luminous white.

Nin's feet thudded on stones now, even the soil was turning to mist. The Raw was everywhere, surrounding them, filling up her vision until there was nothing left but the curling fog and the dark bulk of Floyd leading the way. She followed him until he stumbled to a halt.

‘Dunno where we are!'

Nin's heart sank at the sound of his voice. It was faint, threaded with panic.

‘What does the Raw do to Grimm?' she asked, ‘I know it dissolves the Fabulous, but you are only part Fabulous.'

The ex-guard's bulk sagged. Nin grabbed his arm and shook as hard as she could. ‘Floyd!'

‘Dunno. Went froo the ‘Eart on the river an' it was movin' so fast the Raw didn' get an ‘old. This is different. Feels like … somefin' in me is … kinda … gettin' lost.' His voice slurred. He shook his head, as if the fog was trying to get into his mind, then sat down suddenly. ‘Legs don' work no more.'

‘Get up, Floyd.' Nin pulled, but she might as well try to move a mountain. ‘GET UP,' she yelled. ‘Cos if you don't move, then I don't move and we're both dead.'

Floyd mumbled something like, ‘Nah, save yerself, kid,' and slumped a little further. Nin hurled herself at him, pushing and heaving and pummelling until he staggered back to his feet. He had as good as saved her life once, when he had let her get away in Strood's laboratory,
and now she was going to repay him. Gathering her strength, she rammed him, pushing him on, and together they lurched further into the mist. She was shivering as the cold seeped steadily under her skin, her feet were going numb and her hands were frozen. She prayed they were going in the right direction, though there were no landmarks to see. For all she knew they could be wandering round in circles.

Floyd stopped again, jerked into movement for a few steps and then crashed to the ground, sending coils of Raw spinning around him. Nin screamed and dropped to her knees, shaking him hard. He didn't stir. She grabbed his jacket and tried dragging him, but it was hopeless. Sobbing, she leaned against the mound of his body and realised that the only way she could repay his kindness was to stay with him while he died.

Skerridge eyed the way ahead gloomily. Their haphazard path to Hilfian had taken them all the way around one block of Raw, only to be stopped by another. According to Jik they didn't have far to go now.

‘Tik wik,' said Jik, pointing with one stubby arm to a rise of hills on their left.

‘Yew ‘ope,' snapped Skerridge. ‘Wha's t' say the ‘ole town isn't surrounded by Raw? Wha's t' say there's a way in at all?'

Jik sent him a look. It was the sort of look that was running out of patience.

‘What on earth is
that
!' gasped Hilary, her eyes watering as they tried to make sense of a blur streaking across the landscape alongside the bank of Raw. It looked like a pulled thread in a tapestry, only moving. Even before she had finished speaking, the blur stopped being a blur and became a boy wearing a lot of jewellery and some interesting boots.

He looked them over and said, ‘Bogeyman Skerridge, I believe. And the new Fabulous too.' His eyes shifted to Hilary. Then away. Then back again. His face reddened slowly.

‘Hilary Jones,' said Hilary, who was used to people getting all overcome when they first met her.

‘Um … Seth Carver,' said the boy. He got a hold of himself and grinned back. ‘Took my breath away for a moment there,' he confessed.

Skerridge was eyeing the thing in Seth's hand. He sneezed. ‘Faerie magic,' he said by way of explanation. ‘Gets up me nose. Where's it leadin' ya? ‘Iilfian?'

‘Ninevah Redstone,' said Seth. ‘Thing is, it's been taking me round and round this …' he nodded at the curtain of Raw, ‘and I'm getting the bad feeling that the reason is, it's protecting itself, see. If it goes into the Raw then it will be undone.'

‘An' if it's takin' yer to Ninevah Redstone and it don' wanna go in the Raw, then
…'

Eyes turned to the curtain of cold mist in front of them.

‘Then it means she's in there,' said Hilary.

The tears were freezing on her face and her brain was full of stars that exploded in showers of silent white. She felt as if the world were growing smaller, drawing in on her and binding her in cold bandages of mist. She coughed and a spot of blood appeared on her chin, bright in the colourless Raw. Floyd did not move and she thought he must be dead. She knew she should get up and go, but she was so frozen that she could barely shift her position, let alone stand or walk. Her ears were playing tricks on her too, because she thought she could hear voices, which was stupid. There was no one here but her and a dead Grimm.

She felt so horribly tired that all she wanted to do was give in and sleep, but she tried again to struggle up. Her limbs just wouldn't do what she told them and she fell back with a cry as pain stabbed through her arms and legs.

The voices went quiet, as if they had heard her. A shape loomed out of the curling white. A dark shape, a slash in the white.

‘Nin!'

‘Mirage,' she croaked. ‘Seeing things now. You're dead.'

More tears leaked out and then someone put their arms around her and lifted her up and a voice that sounded just like Seth said, ‘All right, Nin, we've got you now.'

Then another voice that sounded just like Skerridge
said, ‘Galig's teef, if it isn't Guard Floyd!'

Cuddled against Seth, Nin gave in and believed. ‘I'm fine,' she murmured, only it was more of a croak.

‘We'd better get her out of here,' put in a third voice, a female one that seemed familiar.

‘Senta?' mumbled Nin.

‘'Ow's that compass?' demanded Skerridge.

‘On its last legs, I'm thinking.' Seth held out a circle of dulled metal, its surface so corroded and eaten away that it was barely holding together.

‘Fikkik mik,' called out a voice that nearly made Nin burst into tears to hear it again. ‘Jik nik tik wik.'

‘Better hurry. Skerridge and Jik are going all wispy. Look, if we all pitch in and pull the guard, we should be able to move him,' said the Senta-like voice. ‘We've got a bogeyman after all.'

There was hasty movement and some grunting, followed by the sounds of hurrying feet and a heavy body dragging on the ground. And then light and a gentle warmth that made Nin gasp and tip her head to try and catch it all.