The Spellbinder (Tom & Laura Series) (3 page)

Now that he was getting closer to the deed, the fear he felt at killing had receded to be replaced with excitement. Very soon, Tom Carter and his Spellbinder friend would be dead.

Chapter 4
         
Pain in the Park

While Spellbinders can change the course of a battle by subtle destruction of the enemies’ capabilities, it is Healers who are in the greatest demand and the shortest supply. Maintaining the Empire requires soldiers patrolling the streets and naval ships whose crews are fit to fight.

Healers make a vital difference to warfare. Almost twice as many troops are fit to fight in the British Army at any one time compared to the Austrian-Hungarian forces while our fatal casualties in battle are nearly a third lower than theirs. However, there are never enough Healers to meet the needs of our forces and honour demands that the best of them are placed into the thick of the fighting where they are most vulnerable.

As with Spellbinders, Healers are prime targets for the enemy in any battle. Unlike Spellbinders, they cannot be kept apart from the thick of the action. All the magically talented are required to serve ten years in her Majesties forces commencing at the age of seventeen. Grade 1, 2 and 3 Healers rarely survive long enough to enjoy a civilian life.

   
- from A Short History of Military Magics by Sir Anthony Barrett

Despite the glorious weather the park was almost empty. With the reports of heavy casualties in
Persia
and the Crimea, the citizens of
London
were acting soberly of late and stayed at home or gathered in small quiet groups in the taverns. To be seen to be enjoying yourself while
England
’s youth died on the battlefields was considered poor form.

Even nannies appeared to be keeping their young charges at home rather than pushing their prams through the parks. The
British Empire
covered more than a quarter of the Earth’s land surfaces. However, it seemed the other three quarters of the planet was prepared to put up an increasingly effective fight to keep what they had.

Tom knew he would be on the front lines in less than a year.
 
It frightened him, but he knew his duty and intended to fulfill it. With the grade of talent he displayed he knew his chances of long term survival were slim, but if he could save the lives of even a dozen men before his own was lost how could he consider any other course of action?

He watched a couple of squirrels run across the perfectly manicured lawn between the ancient trees of the park. He could feel the roots of the Empire in this place.
England
had remained unconquered in over a thousand years, some of these trees might have been growing in those days and even back then; this had been a
Royal
Park
. He was part of a glorious history and his surroundings reflected it.

Tom was looking forward to seeing Laura again, even though he suspected he would spend most of his time tongue-tied when she arrived. He read her note for the hundredth time as he waited on the very park bench where Laura sat when he changed from dog to human. He was sure she would come.

Carmichael
had followed Tom to the park and sat on a similar park bench less than a hundred yards away. The trees blocked the view between them keeping him out of sight.

Carmichael
took out pen and parchment. He needed to see what Tom was up without being seen.

He took out the special bind he had prepared under Snood’s tutelage. It was a complex bind that required a final phrase to trigger it.
Carmichael
felt sweat form on his brow as he read it yet again. Whoever had created it must have sold his soul to the devil. It was a truly evil thing and it would take all of his power to make it work.

However, this was not yet the time to use it. He would require the Spellbinder to be present before he brought death to the park. Writing quickly,
Carmichael
bound a squirrel and added the phrases required to link his eyes and ears to the animal. He would have to keep the squirrel relatively close for the bind to work and he would end up with a terrible headache when it was finished as he would suffer double vision while the bind held.

Carmichael
completed the last phrase and the world spun as he felt himself to be in two places at once. He resisted the urge to vomit as his hands gripped the bench convulsively. After a minute or two of disorientation and with his human eyes half-closed he was able to regain control of his faculties and direct the squirrel towards Tom.

His control of the squirrel remained far from perfect, but this was to his advantage as the squirrel moved fairly naturally even as he was herded in fits and starts towards his target.

Carmichael
ignored the girl walking down the path towards Tom. She could hardly be the experienced and powerful Spellbinder he was looking for.

Tom smiled as Laura approached the bench. He noticed she was walking a little stiffly and had a determined and slightly pained look on her face. Laura gave Tom a strained smile in reply.

“Well met, Thomas. I trust you have received my note?”

Tom showed Laura the note he held in his hand and smiled at her.

“At least that is one good thing to set against the rest.”

Tom shuffled to one side of the bench so Laura had plenty of room to sit down. She hesitated and then sat very carefully. Tom frowned with concern as he saw the care she took. It was a manner of movement with which he was well familiar.

“The weather has been unusually clement, don’t you think?” he said, lost for the strength to ask the question at the top of his mind.

“I dare say some rain would be good for the gardens though.” Laura replied in an equally neutral voice.

“Have you noticed the squirrels?” Tom gestured towards one of the animals on the grass looking their way. The squirrel saw him point and retreated towards a tree before turning to stare at them again. Before Laura could answer him, the question on Tom’s mind burst forth to his considerable embarrassment.

“Have you been beaten? I couldn’t help notice how….” Words failed him and he waited to see how Laura would respond.

“I got caught writing that stupid note.” Laura’s face turned slightly pink and she was worried she might burst into tears.
‘How stupid’
she thought, angry with herself. She knew she was tougher than this and punishments were a continual hazard in school and at home. Somehow having Tom sitting with her was breaking her self-control.

“Oh jolly bad luck, Laura, that’s awful.” Tom moved his arm as if to comfort her and stopped before he touched her. There was something on his mind and he didn’t know how to say it.

“Would you mind awfully if I take a look?” were the words that came out. His voice then failed him, so he could not explain what he meant.

Laura was outraged at the suggestion. Then an urge to make this boy look small overcame her. “Why not?” she asked, getting up and dragging Tom to his feet. “That holly bush has proved big enough to conceal you so it should be more than big enough for me. Come and look your fill.”

Tom wanted to explain, but the words would not come out and it’s difficult to talk when a strong and determined girl drags you behind a bush, drops her undergarments and bends over, raising her skirt. Tom found himself staring at something that took his breath away, and not because of the six angry red stripes surrounded by purple bruising that adorned it.

“Oh, I say.” Tom said weakly as Laura continued to hold her position.

“Well? Have you seen enough, young man?” Laura said as sarcastically as one can say such a thing while holding such a position. She began to straighten up.

“Stay still.” Tom ordered more sharply than he intended. Laura responded to his commanding tone as he sounded so much like her father when he punished her. Tom stepped closer and with his index finger traced each of the stripes, touching them as lightly as a feather. Laura was about to turn around and strike him for his impertinence when she discovered the throbbing pain in her backside was rapidly diminishing.

Tom saw each stripe disappear and the bruising fade as his finger caressed them. The skin behind his finger took on a slightly pinkish tinge, but was otherwise normal. What Laura experienced was a wonderful warmth deep within her bottom and a gradual increasing freedom from pain.

Despite the awkwardness of her position, she felt like she could stay like this forever, safe and warm. Tom coughed politely, and she remembered what was within his view. As she stood, she noticed that Tom’s trousers appeared to encompass a bulge rather larger than she would have imagined possible. As he covered his crotch with his hands, she straightened her clothing. She noticed that the squirrel Tom had mentioned earlier was still staring at them, which seemed very strange.

“I thank you for your kind ministrations, Thomas. You had not mentioned previously that you are a talented Healer.”

“The opportunity to discuss the matter had not arisen.”

“Well, it is clear it has come up now,” said Laura primly, but with a solid glance at the bulge in his trousers. She raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps we can both be grateful for that, for it must be an inconvenience when it does.”

As Tom stammered incoherently, she led him back to the bench where she sat down. Tom sat beside her and for a few minutes they kept their silence.

Carmichael
felt the special bind in his hands. It needed just one simple phrase to activate it and bring the Grim Reaper down on the park. He remembered the way Snood had ranted at him as he had prepared it.

‘Killing Carter would be a bonus, but I want that Spellbinder dead. You hear me, Carmichael, as soon as you get a chance to use the bind on the Spellbinder you take it. If it kills Carter as well, then that’s all to the good.’

‘Was this girl the Spellbinder?’
It didn’t seem possible to Carmichael, not such a young girl.
‘I would have heard about her, surely?’

“I’m not a go…go…good healer,” Tom stuttered apologetically. “Just a Grade 3, good enough for bruises, but I have trouble with open wo…wo…wounds.”

“You will get better with practice. I felt the warmth of your power. You will be very good one day soon. I can see that I was very fortunate to meet you the other day. You have proved well worth the trouble you put me to.”

“I say, I really want to thank you again for that bind. I’m sure you have saved me from getting expelled or worse. I am certain
Carmichael
will have tried again when the first one failed.”

The squirrel that was the eyes and ears of
Carmichael
stood stock-still, it was as if in that moment they had become the same mind, and both were equally shocked by what they had heard.
‘It
is
the girl. She is the Spellbinder.’

Carmichael
’s hand seemed to move of its own accord. He dropped the bind for the squirrel, which burst into flames as it hit the ground. His hands groped for the special bind as his eyes came back into focus and his mind returned to his body.

He stood up from the park bench and moved in a daze along the path until he could see Tom and Laura in the distance. He completed the bind with a shaking hand.

As birds fell out of the sky and squirrels collapsed on the ground gasping for breath,
Carmichael
ran for his life.

Chapter 5
         
The Silent Death

It is not straightforward for a Spellbinder to use their talent to kill. They cannot transform living things to dead ones or vice versa. To cast a bind which cuts a person in two will instantly rebound on the binder, killing him. Nor can they transform a man into a mayfly and wait a day for him to die. Provided the victim can find warmth and food he will live for as long as he would have as a man. No one knows why this should be so, but time and experiment have found it to be a law of nature.

It is also difficult to place a bind on another Spellbinder. If they are more powerful they can reverse most binds so it will bind the binder.

Nevertheless, Spellbinders can kill others, they can turn someone into a worm and stand on them and they will die. The victim will instantly change back into a squashed human and the action might dirty the killer’s boots. They can turn a pussycat into a lion and hope that the creature kills their intended target. If the victim was a tightrope walker, a Spellbinder might turn his rope into string and watch him fall to his death as the string breaks.

In battle, a Spellbinder can change the nature of a gun barrel or a bullet so the gun will explode on its user and, over the years, considerable inventiveness has gone into devising ever more sophisticated ways for them to spread death and destruction in the cause of serving the Empire.

                
- from A Short History of Military Magics by Sir Anthony Barrett

Snood had been given a highly classified bind that the
British Empire
had developed for use only if the realm or the Queen herself was threatened, so horrible was its nature. It turned the oxygen in a volume of air into carbon, which was not a difficult change in itself as the two elements are close to each other in the periodic table.

This results in the creation of a large hemisphere of dead air, the size of the zone being dependent on the power of the Spellbinder who established the bind. Though the gas that remains is not poisonous, without oxygen it will not sustain a living being and all humans and animals it encompassed would die of asphyxiation.

If someone was quick witted, they might deduce what was happening and try to get out of the zone, but unless they ran towards a strong wind, they would likely collapse before they could clear the dead zone.

There was no wind that day and
Carmichael
’s power added to in some part by Snood was sufficient to ensure no human could run far enough to get outside the dead zone if they were in the center of it. Laura and Tom did not know it, but they were already dead.

Laura and Tom stopped talking as the bind took effect around them. They looked at each other in astonishment.

“Spellbind,” Laura gasped as she felt the traces of magic around her. The next breath she took in had no oxygen and she felt the sudden urge to pant.

Tom grasped at his throat and breathed out the last of his oxygen. As he gasped in a new lung full of air it felt as though he was drowning. Squirrels and birds squirmed their last on the grass in front of them.

“Run,” the two said simultaneously and struggled to their feet.

They ran together, hand in hand, Laura threw down her valise as it was slowing her down. Running uses up the oxygen in the blood very quickly and before they had gone more than a score of yards they collapsed onto the gravel path, out of energy and out of time.

Tom felt something strange happening to his body as he lay on the gravel. He stopped breathing as he found an unexpected reserve of energy enter his body.

He looked over at Laura as saw her rolling around on the path. He could see her breathing heavily, her chest heaving with the effort as she pulled the useless air in and out of her lungs. There was no oxygen in it and her face was beginning to turn a dark shade of blue. Tom hadn’t taken a breath since falling onto the path and felt no urge to do so. He knew in some instinctive way that it would only make matters worse.

It was still difficult to think even though he had the energy to move. Tom got slowly to his feet and picked up Laura, though she struggle against him. Her arms flailed in all directions and her legs kicked, but he held onto her as best he could as he took his first hesitant step and then another.

His stagger turned into a run as he found even more strength from some impossible hidden reserve. He travelled a distance twice as far as they had originally run and still the air was dead around them. Laura was breathing raggedly as he ran. Her arms flailed out and seized him around the throat. She squeezed at it as if she was trying to kill him, though he knew it was only mindless desperation as her body struggled for survival.

He slowed to a walk as even the unexplained energy in his body began to falter. Somehow he managed to keep hold of Laura in his arms. Her hands dropped from his throat and she stopped kicking. If she was still breathing he couldn’t hear it. There was a red haze across his vision and his legs felt like they had become bloated balloons unconnected to the rest of him.

As his legs finally gave out, Laura gave a sudden gasp and convulsed in his arms. A part of Tom wondered if that was what a death rattle felt like. It was one of the things boys who knew they were destined for the army talked about in whispers. He staggered forward another three steps and then lapsed into unconsciousness, falling on top of Laura, his head ending up in her lap.

In a small metal box by Tom’s bed back in his school dormitory, the picture Laura had drawn of him burst into flames with enough force to bounce the box onto the floor. In the limited confines of the box, the flames flared up and quickly died down. The picture was totally consumed and the paper turned to black ash

Laura recovered consciousness and felt dizzy. There was a weight on her groin and she looked down her body to see Tom’s head in her lap. His face was blue and he didn’t appear to be breathing.

“There’s never a Healer around for a Healer when you need one and that’s a fact,” she muttered irritably and sat up enough to slap him hard across the face.

“Wake up, Tom, or I shall never forgive you,” she told him severely. It seemed to do the trick as he drew in a great breath of air at her words. “Now keep breathing, you wonderful gorgeous boy,” she instructed. As he began to breathe in fits and starts she gently caressed his face. “You saved my life in some impossible way and I shall not forget it, Thomas. I shall not ever forget it.”

Tom opened his eyes and tried to smile, but he only managed a lopsided grin.

“I shall hold you to that,” he said and then closed his eyes and began to snore gently.

“Isn’t that just typical of a man?” Laura said in exasperation, but she made no attempt to remove Tom’s head from her lap.

She could hear police whistles blowing in the distance and the sounds of racing horses on cobbles. It seemed to her as if the sounds were coming from everywhere, but one thing she was certain of was that they were coming closer and would soon be with her.