“What if this little girl does not turn out to be a mage?”
“Then they’ll have wasted their money, won’t they?”
I could imagine the life of such a child once she had failed the crystal test. The disappointment. Maybe the anger. How could Klea have done it? How could she? Why?
I found my eyes filling with tears and dashed them away.
MAGE COMING!
Katti’s thoughts hit my mind with the warning.
Had Illuminus got away from them? I wasn’t hanging about to find out.
I seized the ghost’s arm and pulled him off the path and into the undergrowth. He had not heard Katti’s warning, but he followed me with only the briefest protest. We dropped down behind some rocks and huddled there with Katti between us. For a short time, we could hear nothing but birdsong and the wind in the trees. Then I saw mage light, less visible in the light of day but still bright enough. A figure shot past us along the path and was gone. Illuminus!
Eff had been right about my family’s priorities. They’d clearly let themselves get distracted by Klea’s mess and given Illuminus the chance to escape. No thought of the damage he might do to people like me.
“What do we do?” hissed the ghost.
“I’m not sure,” I said. I judged we’d come about two miles, less than a third of the way. I examined our options in my mind. There weren’t many. Illuminus was moving round the forest between us and the old mine. If only I could get a message to Bright. But perhaps it was better not to expose him to Illuminus.
This was the only path up the hill and Illuminus could wait anywhere beside it and ambush us as we went past. And he would, too, when he got to the top and hadn’t found us. Climbing up through the scrub would make a very difficult and probably dangerous journey and would be too noisy. Sitting tight seemed to be our only real option. I took the bolt out of my cross bow and slung it over my back.
“Best find a comfy place to hide and wait for him to go away.”
“What? That’s it?” said the ghost
“Can you think of better?”
The ghost shrugged.
WONDERING ALL THE time how we would work out when it was safe to go on, I began to consider how we might spend the night out here. We had Katti to tell us if any wildcats were in the vicinity and help us keep warm, but the sky was threatening rain sometime during the night and the surrounding shrubs wouldn’t keep out that out. We needed some tree cover, and the closest one was some distance away through the scrubland.
Keeping low and testing every footstep carefully, and with Katti ahead sniffing, we crept through the prickly undergrowth till we reached the tree.
Its trunk was scrawny, but it had plenty of low hanging branches, and not so low that we couldn’t stand up. The ghost and I stretched our backs up gratefully. The ground was remarkably clear of leaves, so we had no need to worry about snakes or creeping insects.
Yet something worried me about spending the night here. I wasn’t sure why. The branches promised to give good cover from rain.
Katti licked the air, tasting it with her tongue and put my thoughts into words.
Something smells funny.
I stepped around the tree trunk and was brought up short. The tree was growing at the edge of a large pit, probably where the roof of a mine shaft had collapsed. The pit was choked with bushes and vines, but it looked deep enough to for an unlucky fall to break a neck or a leg. The carrion stench I could smell clearly on this side of the tree told of some poor animal that had done just that, lying dead at the bottom. I peered into it to see what was there. Corpse lily vines grew all over the side of the pit, making it hard to see.
Leaves crashed behind me as if in a high wind and suddenly I was engulfed. Something whacked me hard in the back and I lost my balance and stumbled forward.
There was nothing beneath me; I lost my balance and fell. My hands stung as I scrabbled to get a hold on something. For a moment I had a firm hold on a little bush and then it gave, torn out by the roots, and I was falling again and it was dark. With a crashing thud that jarred all my bones, I landed on my hands and knees and slid on something that clattered and was gooey and springy and filled my nostrils with a foul stench.
“Shine!” shouted Shadow. “Shi—” The same crashing of leaves drowned out his call. He screamed. I rolled sideways as he fell at me. He thudded down beside me and let out a yelp.
“Katti, run!” I cried. But she’d already gone safely out of range
“Whahthafah!” groaned the ghost. “Did that tree move?”
“Must be crystal shot. Cursed crystal. Never done me any good. You hurt?”
Up above us the tree was still thrashing about wildly as if a whirlwind had settled on it. Or as if it was doing a victory dance. Hilly always said the still hated the moving, just as the dead hated the living.
“I’m fine. But there’s goo. Juthekiytj! That smell.”
The smell of rotting carrion was so thick it seemed to choke me.
“We’ve landed on its last victim. Think it’s a deer. Ladybless, I hope it’s just a deer!”
I couldn’t make out much in the dim light down here, but I thought I could feel some kind of hide as I rolled gingerly over.
Mage coming, came Katti’s thoughts from above. Her furry face peered over the edge and was gone. I didn’t need to tell her to hide.
Curse it. Illuminus must have heard us. Our screams had probably echoed for miles. Would he see where we had fallen in? I made for the wall of the pit, which was still covered by vines. As I clattered and slide down the pile of refuse, I remembered my crossbow was still slung over my back. Did I still have bolts? Praise the Lady! Yes.
I could stand up straight against the pit wall. The ghost was still sitting on the enormous pile of refuse in the middle. Belatedly I realised he wouldn’t have heard Katti.
“Quick. Over here,” I hissed. “He must have heard us. He’s coming back.”
As Shadow scrabbled to my side, I pulled the crossbow off my shoulder and loaded it.
Our falls had pulled down some of the vines at the lip of the hole, but here against the opposite wall, they still gave plenty of cover. Around to our right I could make out a darker patch in the pit wall that hinted the possibility of an opening—perhaps the remains of the mine shaft.
Typical. I’d chosen the wrong side. The old mine shaft would have offered a much better hiding place.
Or maybe not. I could see something white squirming in the darkness over there.
“Is something moving?” murmured Shadow in my ear. “Snakes?”
“It’s under the tree. I think it might be its roots.
“Moving roots? That’s horrible.”
“All this carrion. Be full of goodness for the tree.”
Stay still. He’s here, came Katti’s thoughts.
Beside me Shadow was scrabbling about in his bag.
“Sshh!” I hissed.
A glimmer of light hit the wall beyond us. Shadow and I crouched in the darkness like frightened rabbits while the light of Illuminus’ crystal played back and forth across the wall above us; he must be peering down into the hole. Hopefully his vision would be obscured by the vines and shrubs. At this point any movement might give us away, so I couldn’t even turn my head to see what he was doing up there. I held my crossbow ready for the moment when I would have to shoot and try and wound my cousin enough for us to get away.