The Voyage to Magical North (26 page)

Cassie emptied the bucket back over the side. “This is the exact spot. Right where we sank the
Antares
.”

Beside her, Rob Grosse hung over the side of the ship, staring into the water as if he expected to see the
Antares
rising from the depths at any moment. “Maybe he hasn't gotten here yet.”

Brine shook her head. Her insides were as empty as the ocean. They'd arrived too late; she knew it. Marfak West had already left.

“What now, Chief Planner?” Ewan asked her, breaking into her thoughts. Brine shot him an irritated glance. Ever since Cassie had made her the official planner, people seemed to think they weren't allowed to do anything without asking her first. The truth was, she'd been trying her hardest, but the place in her mind that should have been filling up with plans was still blank. Marfak West was the one with all the plans; the
Onion
had just been following behind, and far too slowly, it seemed. The magician could be anywhere by now.

No, that wasn't true. Marfak West could take all the starshell in the world, but he'd still be Marfak West. He could only be himself. What did he want most? Brine screwed her face into a frown, trying to remember every detail of the conversation she'd seen and heard from Magical North. First the
Antares
, then what? “He said he was going to erase Cassie's story,” she said slowly. “He said he wouldn't have won until her story was gone and everything she'd done was undone.” She fell silent. Her gaze shifted slowly to Tom, and a dreadful, empty feeling settled inside her. “Where do all stories live?”

One by one, everybody on board turned to look at Tom. The color fell from his face, his eyes widening first in realization and then fear.

Ewan Hughes said it first, although everybody was thinking it. “Barnard's Reach,” he said. “He's going to destroy Barnard's Reach.”

*   *   *

Barnard's Reach. Peter should have known. The island where all the stories in the world were written down. It was here, in the stories, that Cassie had become a hero and Marfak West a villain. The one place in eight oceans where Marfak West was not allowed to go—a group of librarians daring to tell the world's most powerful magician what he could and couldn't do.

Peter gazed out at the multiple images of the
Antares
reflected in the Mirrormist, and he shivered. Occasionally, in the reflections, he saw a close-up of his own face. The first time it happened, he gasped, wondering who the skeletal figure was. All he needed to do was grow tall and lose his hair, and he'd look like Marfak West.

“This is it,” said Marfak West. “We are going to change the world together, Peter. With all their stories gone, people will have a blank page, a chance to start again, unhampered by any twisted notions of heroism or villainy. No longer tied to the past, we will truly be able to look to the future.”

Peter shivered. “But even if you destroy Barnard's Reach, people will still know the stories. They'll still tell them.”

“We'll deal with that later,” said the magician. His face was set like stone. “Stories are an infection, and the only way to deal with an infection is to cut it off at the source. Barnard's Reach is the source.”

The
Antares
slowed in the water, then stopped. Peter wondered why, then he saw that the Mirrormist had thickened right in front of it, acting like a shield to keep the ship out.

“We can't get through,” he said, trying to keep the sudden surge of hope out of his voice.

Marfak West cuffed him around the head. “Don't tell me what I can't do. The Mirrormist won't let me through because it recognizes me as a threat. But you're so pathetic you couldn't threaten a sand snail. It's time you started earning your keep. Go and tell those boring book readers that they have one hour to surrender to me before I tear their island apart. Hold out your hand.”

Peter obeyed and screamed as his flesh suddenly turned into a furnace. The black spot in the middle of his palm flared with bright amber magic. The pain quickly subsided, changing to a dull throb that pulsed all the way past his elbow.

“I've linked the
Antares
's magic to the starshell in your hand,” said Marfak West. “I'll be able to work magic through you, and I'll be keeping an eye on you, so watch what you say. Now, stand still.”

A glowing circle appeared on the deck around Peter's feet. “What are you doing?” he asked, or rather he started to, because the ship abruptly vanished and he was standing on top of a cliff, surrounded by seagulls, with the same circle of magic turning the grass brown. He yelled in fright and fell over.

When he made it back to his feet, people were watching him. Six women stood in a line. They were all dressed in brown robes identical to Tom's, and five of the women carried swords.

“I can see you, remember,” Marfak West's voice said in Peter's ear.

The women watched Peter curiously. His heart thrummed. He wanted to run away, but he could barely stand up, his legs were shaking so much.

The unarmed woman pushed back the hood of her robe. She was the Mother Keeper, Peter guessed. She fit Brine's description of her—pale face, yellow hair, and a mouth that was set in an angry straight line. “A boy?” she said. “Is that the best he can do? You're breaking the rules, boy. Men are not permitted here—not even undergrown ones.”

Peter's legs stopped shaking, and he backed up a step. Couldn't she see he didn't want to be there? He was only a messenger, and a most unwilling one at that.

His palm tingled warningly, reminding him that Marfak West could see and hear everything. “Marfak West is back,” he said. “He's alive, and he's right on the other side of the Mirrormist. If you don't surrender, he'll destroy Barnard's Reach.”

“This is exactly why men should not be allowed to read,” said the Mother Keeper icily. “It gives them ideas, and men with ideas are always trouble.” She clasped her hands in front of her. Her fingers were stained blue with ink. “Go back to your master and tell him Barnard's Reach will not surrender so much as a single book to him.”

Marfak West was not his master, but there was no point trying to tell the Mother Keeper that. “I don't need to tell him,” said Peter. “He can hear you.”

The Mother Keeper's eyebrows rose. A thin, bright pain cut through Peter's head, making him gasp. “Never doubt my power,” he heard himself say, but his voice was the voice of Marfak West. “I am giving you one chance to live. Surrender.”

The Mother Keeper laughed. It was the worst thing she could have done.

Peter's palm flared with heat. He knew with a sick certainty what was about to happen. He closed his fingers over his palm and tried to keep the magic in, but Marfak West was controlling it and Marfak West was a lot stronger than he was. Peter could only watch as a thin snake of magic crawled out of his hand and twisted itself into a shape that seemed to writhe and crawl in the air. Peter tried to drag it into a harmless arrow or circle, but he might as well have been trying to pull down a mountain with his bare hands.

The librarians raised their swords threateningly, but the spell blazed to life quicker than any of them could attack. A ball of magic struck the Mother Keeper between the eyes. For a second, she stood, swaying, her mouth open in shock, and then she began to shrink. Her features disappeared, her arms shriveled away. Her robe tumbled onto the grass and lay still, a discarded puddle of cloth. A fat, pink worm crawled out of one sleeve.

Peter's stomach heaved. He would have collapsed if Marfak West hadn't held him upright. “You have one hour,” he said in Marfak West's voice. “Surrender or you'll all die.” Then the island blurred and Peter felt a wrenching sensation, as if his insides were being pulled out. He looked down and saw a circle forming around him; he shut his eyes. When he opened them again, he was back on the
Antares
.

Marfak West grinned at him. “Well done, apprentice.”

“I'm not your apprentice!” Peter yelled, shoving him away. He stumbled to the edge of the deck and threw up over the side. “They won't surrender,” he said. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “It doesn't matter how much time you give them.”

“I know. I need the hour to get through the Mirrormist, but let them think I'm being generous. Now, would you like to see what I've been doing while you were away?”

Peter shook his head. Whatever Marfak West had been doing, it couldn't be good. His ears filled with a dull pounding. He thought he was imagining it, but then he started to feel the vibration through the floor: a rhythmic thumping like the tramp of hundreds of feet.

A door opened across the deck and Cassie O'Pia came out and waved at him.

Peter's legs nearly gave way.
Cassie, here?

Then the rest of the crew came marching out. Ewan Hughes took up his usual position at Cassie's shoulder. Rob Grosse and Bill Lightning stood together, Trudi and Tim Burre fell in behind them. Everyone was there except Brine and Tom. This wasn't happening. Cassie was Marfak West's sworn enemy. She wouldn't have joined forces with him, not willingly. The magician must be controlling them.

“Let them go,” said Peter.

Marfak West laughed.

Another door opened. Cassie O'Pia came out of it and waved at him. Peter blinked. A pair of Ewan Hugheses took up position on either side of her, then three identical Trudis, another Tim Burre, and, last of all, Brine, who for some reason was completely bald.

“Peter, meet the crew,” said Marfak West. “I call them my pirate copies. Attention!”

The last word was snapped to the pirate copies, who stamped to attention and saluted. Some of them hit their neighbors in the face. Some of them hit themselves in the face.

“They're not particularly bright,” said Marfak West, “but they make up for it in numbers. Now, I'd like you out of the way for the next hour. Pirates, take the boy to the brig.”

Twenty Cassies advanced across the deck. Peter screamed. The circumstances seemed to require it.

 

C
HAPTER
31

Rules are a statement of how the world usually works, and this is their problem—they deal with the usual. When faced with the extraordinary, rules fail us.

(
From
ALDEBRAN
BOSWELL
'
S
BOOK
OF
SCIENTIFIC
KNOWLEDGE)

“Ready?” asked Brine.

Tom nodded, cradling his trembling messenger gull against his chest. With his long hair blowing in the wind and his library robe tucked up into his belt, he looked like a warrior from a story, about to go into battle.

Imagine the stories if we succeed
, Cassie had said once. Brine bet that even Cassie had never anticipated this happening. And now, if they didn't succeed, all the stories of Barnard's Reach would be lost.

Tom released the gull. The pirates all watched her fly to the top of the mainmast, perch there for twenty seconds or so, and then, as if finally realizing she was free, spread her wings and take off into the sky.

“You think she'll really be able to find her way to Barnard's Reach?” asked Brine. Every direction looked the same to her.

Tom nodded. “Messenger gulls always find the way home. Mum will know we're coming.”

He kept staring up into the sky, his face creased with worry. Cassie nudged him. “I can't wait to see the look on your mother's face when we turn up at the last minute to rescue her.”

Tom smiled, but the worry didn't leave his eyes. “If you don't mind, I'd like us to turn up before the last minute. Just so we have a bit more time to do the actual rescuing.”

The crew went back to work, and as the
Onion
sped on, Brine stood beside Tom, both of them watching the horizon. The gull had already vanished into the clouds, and there was no sign of anything ahead, just a big, blue, empty sea.

The
Onion
picked up speed. Brine listened to the familiar sound of the wind in the sails and the slap of water on the hull. The creaks and thuds settled in a rhythm and she seemed to hear another sound beneath them—a quiet and steady
thud-thud
,
thud-thud
, as if someone was beating a drum very gently just below her feet. She tapped her fingers on her leg in time with it, counting the seconds go by. The new
Onion
traveled fast, but Barnard's Reach was still over an hour away and Marfak West might be at the island already.

“We'll get there in time,” said Brine, but it sounded very much like she was trying to convince herself.

*   *   *

Ursula had been on hourglass duty when she heard the cries. She abandoned the glass without a thought and ran.

Outside, one Book Sister was clutching an empty robe. Another was holding a pink worm in her cupped hands. Others were in tears. Ursula couldn't think properly. A gaping hole had opened up where all her thoughts should have been, and a single word echoed in the emptiness:
Tom
. Something terrible had happened to Tom. She didn't know how she knew it; she just did. She seized the nearest Sister. “What's happening?”

“Marfak West,” the Sister said.

Of all the answers Ursula was expecting, that didn't even come close.

The Sister pointed across the grass toward the sea. “Marfak West is alive.” Her voice was flat with shock. “He turned the Mother Keeper into a worm, and if we don't surrender within an hour, he'll destroy the island.”

Ursula's hand slid from the Sister's robe. She couldn't feel her fingers. Marfak West was dead; she'd helped send out the news herself. This had to be a trick, someone using his name to frighten them.