by ‘Again?’ echoed Miranda, as a brisk wind tore yet more of her flyaway blonde hair out of its ponytail.
‘Jay has a bad habit of disappearing.’
‘Also for turning up again, yes?’
‘It’s more that I have a decent track record for tracking him down. There was that time when he was hauled off by your charming new employers, because apparently kidnapping is a valid headhunting technique. And that time Millie swallowed him up and spat him out on Whitmore. This time… Jay could have gone through any of these henges, and taken Emellana with him. But why would he? And besides, he was exhausted. I don’t know if he was capable of another jaunt through the Ways yet. So, it has to be Wyr’s doing.’ I set off down the hill, leading Addie, until I arrived at the approximate spot in which I had last caught sight of our shifty guide.
I found bottle-green grass riddled with rabbit burrows — or, something burrows. Did they have anything so mundane as a rabbit in these parts? That was it, really. A daisy or two made its presence known, smiling cheerily at me from among flourishing tufts, and the long slope of the hill rose behind me, discouragingly featureless.
‘Here,’ called Miranda, from some distance away.
I turned, and sloped off after her. She had wandered off around the other side, which made little sense to me since no one had been going that way.
But she had found something. A jutting piece of cloudy stone erupted from the grass, tucked right into the base of the hillside. At its top, a large jewel was inset. This one was green, not blue, but the general arrangement looked familiar enough.
‘Probably goes into Vale,’ Miranda suggested.
I realised that she was waiting for my approval before she tried it.
‘Surely they’d wait for us,’ I said doubtfully.
‘Not if they had a reason to hurry.’
Like Jay in a state of collapse and in urgent need of food. I looked at Addie. ‘Can we take a unicorn through that way?’
Miranda shrugged. ‘Try it.’
I tried it. Taking hold of Addie’s neck with one hand, I touched the green jewel with the other.
The world tipped and spun around me, and away I went, soaring over the deep green grass in bubble form. Probably. It isn’t easy to tell in that state.
But soon enough a second bubble came swishing up beside me, which sort of answered my question, although was this Adeline or Miranda? I couldn’t tell. I had only to wait, while I hurtled at insane speed over hill and dale, my stomach (did I still have a stomach?) turning itself inside out as we bobbed and spun in the wind.
Something changed. The bubble beside me sprouted wings, and antennae, and legs, becoming (in short) a butterfly. Its hue altered gradually from bluish to purplish and then it was a winged lemon with overlarge eyes and a tuft upon its head, sailing through the air just as though it had every right to fly.
After that it became a hedgehog, a cigar, and what looked to me like a cheese sandwich in quick succession.
‘Oof,’ I said soon afterwards, finding myself deposited with unceremonious abruptness upon a disappointingly solid floor.
I performed a brief check of my four limbs to ascertain that they were a) present, and b) suitably proportioned. They were.
‘Was it my imagination,’ I said to Miranda, who’d appeared beside me, ‘or was I not entirely bubble-shaped for some of that?’
‘You were a red cabbage first,’ said she, stretching, her eyes rather wild. ‘Then a purple potion bottle, and a dragonfly, and a golden flaming arrow.’
‘How imaginative of me,’ I murmured, looking around. ‘I’m getting the feeling this is going to be an… interesting stay… Jay!’
He sat three feet behind me, his back against the brick wall of some kind of shop, judging from the sign that hung from its eaves, though I couldn’t decipher the symbols that were painted upon it. We had fetched up in a town square, albeit an unusually circular one, and all around us were stone or brick-built shops with tall, tapering roofs and inconsistently sized windows. As I watched, the blue-slate roof of a nearby structure leisurely grew two or three feet taller, as though stretching itself, and then settled back down.
Jay was in one piece, which was nice. ‘Have you… shrunk?’ I said.
He gestured at himself with his free hand. The other held something breadish that oozed cheese, and he spoke with his mouth full of the stuff. ‘What do you think.’
He was three feet tall.
‘I may get to like being the taller of us, for a change,’ said I.
‘Wait till you see yourself.’
‘…Have you shrunk, or have I grown?!’
‘It’s more your hair.’
I checked it. ‘I have grass growing from my head,’ I said, in a very calm voice.
‘I’d classify it more nearly as hay, but yes.’
I took a deep, deep breath. ‘Right. Priorities. Where’s Adeline.’
As I spoke, a tiny unicorn zipped past my nose. Her pale coat and silvery rope harness looked familiar.
I captured her in my two hands, and sighed. ‘Emellana?’
‘She and Wyr went shopping.’
‘Wyr! I thought he had made off with you.’
‘Sorry,’ said Jay. ‘We—’
Wyr’s dusty voice interrupted. ‘You thought what? I am outraged.’
‘Sure you are.’ I watched him narrowly as he skulked into view, expecting to see some sign of alterations in him. There were none.
‘How are you unscathed,’ muttered Miranda, echoing my own thoughts. Her ratty old jumper had found a new lease of life as a gown, which would have pleased me immensely, especially since it was made of fiery autumn leaves and what looked like velvet. Or clouds. I couldn’t altogether say. Though, I couldn’t blame her for being displeased about her nose, which now more nearly resembled a beak.
Perhaps she hadn’t noticed.
‘You get used to it,’ said Wyr. ‘Your first dose of pure, prime-grade magick tends to have side effects.’ He saluted me. ‘Don’t mind the bees,’ he said. ‘They’ll leave you alone when your hair changes again.’
So that was the buzzing sound I’d been half aware of. I put up a hand to check my haystack, and found it merrily sprouting flowers.
‘I dread to ask,’ I said, letting this pass. ‘What’s become of my pup?’
Wyr pointed at a sparkly, polychromatic brick that lay in the middle of the square. As I watched, all the cobblestones around it pulsed, washing over with shifting colours.
‘She’s a brick,’ I said, keeping it together somehow. I don’t deny that I was beginning to feel just a touch… high.
‘For now. She was an alikat ten minutes ago, if an unusually small specimen. In a minute she’ll be a balloon, perhaps, or herself again.’ He wandered over, and put a glass bottle into my hand. It felt positively chilly to the touch, a quantity of amber-coloured liquid sloshing about inside it. ‘Drink that,’ he instructed.
I must have looked doubtful; I certainly felt it. He gave me a wounded look. ‘What, don’t you trust me?’
I watched in fascination as his wide-angled hat slowly sprouted an exquisite, miniature lily. ‘No,’ I said bluntly, as the world swam before my eyes.
He grinned. ‘It has your troll friend’s approval, if that helps. It’s a… let’s call it a dampener. It will moderate the effects of Vale, at least for a little while.’
The hat grew a tiny dragon, which swallowed the lily, and then disintegrated in a puff of red dust.
‘Uh huh,’ I said, dazed. A giggle escaped.
Opening the bottle, I quaffed the contents.
Emellana herself reappeared moments later. She, to my confusion, looked but little affected by the chaos; even less so than Wyr, considering his bizarre hatly antics. She saw the question in my face, for she winked at me, and briefly mimed a strumming motion.
The lyre! Did she still have it? If it absorbed magick, according to Orlando’s theory, then perhaps it was acting as an effective dampener by itself.
I wondered what configuration that much “prime-grade” magick might leave the instrument in. What might a magick-drunk lyre look like?
Anything, I supposed. Anything at all.
‘I hope we did not unduly inconvenience you,’ said Emellana. ‘Jay was in urgent need of sustenance.’
Considering Emellana’s unshakeably laid-back nature, when she said “urgent” I judged she truly meant it. ‘Thanks for feeding him,’ I said.
She smiled. ‘Wayfinding can be hungry work, and I fancy the effects in these parts are more profound.’ She surveyed Jay critically. ‘His fourth sandwich,’ she added. ‘He will be able to stand again after one or two more.’
‘How did you get him here if he couldn’t walk?’
Emellana’s response consisted primarily of an amused look. ‘How do you think?’
I remembered her height, bulk and general attitude of implacable competence, and promptly withdrew the question.
‘So,’ I said, checking my hair. Still hay. ‘What do you mean by prime-grade magick?’ I addressed this question to Wyr, who was still ambling about with a sackful of goodies.
Wyr handed a bottle of green liquid to Jay. It was supremely weird to see those two about the same height. ‘Lectures cost extra.’
‘I will kick you for free,’ I offered.
He scowled at me. ‘Why did you want to come here if you don’t know anything about Vale?’
‘To learn about Vale,’ I said.
‘Obviously,’ Jay added.
Wyr declined to follow Miranda to the other side of the square, and merely lobbed a bottle of something-blue at her instead. Thankfully, she caught it. ‘It’s a place of cultivated magick,’ he said. ‘Said to be the purest and most potent, hence grade-A.’
‘Why’s it so quiet?’ said Jay, glancing meaningfully at the empty square.
‘Considering the state of yourself,’ said Wyr, ‘Do you really need to ask.’
Jay’s smile was crooked. ‘Fair point.’
‘Most people can’t cope with it, or they choose not to. It’s not for the masses.’
‘Then who is it for?’ I asked.
Wyr shrugged. ‘It’s more of a… supplier. Most of the best magickal produce is made and packaged and shipped from here.’
‘And beasts?’ put in Miranda. ‘You implied there’s a buyer for unicorns here.’
‘Yup,’ said Wyr.
His sudden laconic fit made me suspicious. ‘What kind of buyer?’
‘Why don’t we deal with that now?’ said Wyr, his charming smile back in place. ‘Then I can get out of your hair.’
‘Absolutely,’ I said.
‘Great.’
‘But first I’m going to need to know more about the history of Vale.’
He stared at me in disbelief. ‘What do you think I am, a history professor?’
‘There must be a library, hereabouts?’ I suggested.
‘No.’
‘Local history society?’
‘No.’
‘Venerable crone of great wisdom, dispensing nuggets of magickal lore for a fee?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘Internet café?’
He blinked. ‘What?’
‘Never mind.’ Being out of ideas, I looked Emellana’s way. ‘It’s Torvaston. How do we find out if he was here?’
Wyr rubbed at his eyes. ‘Who the blazes is Torvaston.’
‘Um. You might know him as…’ I’d forgotten the name.
‘Furgidan the Dispossessed,’ Jay supplied.
‘That’s it!’
Emellana said, ‘A great troll king, said to have settled in what were once called the Vales of Wonder.’
‘And according to the storytellers of Whitmore,’ I added, ‘he just might possibly still be alive somewhere.’
‘In a manner of speaking,’ said Jay. ‘Might be a bit ghostish around the edges.’
Wyr cleared his throat. ‘The lot of you are insane, but you probably know that, don’t you?’
My heart sank. ‘So you don’t know anything about Furgidan?’
‘It’s a known name in some circles.’
‘Ah!’
‘But if you thought you were going to pop up here and have a nice chat with him, I’ll have to disappoint you. He died hundreds of years ago.’
‘Ghost?’ I said hopefully. I felt a touch of something warm against my leg, and looked down to find pup (thankfully hound-shaped) nosing at my shin.
‘Like I said,’ Wyr answered. ‘Insane.’
‘Fine, forget the ghost.’ My pup had something in her mouth. I bent down to wrestle it off her. It was a stick… probably.
‘What’s known about him?’ said Jay.
‘Not much.’ Wyr shrugged. ‘Claimed to be some kind of a king, went off to found a new kingdom with a bunch of cronies… the details escape me. Why are we caring about him when we’ve a unicorn to dispose of?’ He looked around. ‘Or we… did.’
I’d been obliged to let go of Addie some minutes earlier, when she’d developed something spiky which stung my hands. Where (and what) she was right now was beyond my knowledge, but I was not unduly worried. With Wyr on the lookout, she was probably safer as a mayfly or a waterlily than a standard-issue-sized unicorn. And I could always fall back on the pipes.
‘She’ll turn up,’ I said, and smiled. ‘Listen, what if we had something of Furgidan’s? Do you think we could find out what became of him?’
‘What, his handkerchief or his chamber pot?’ Wyr smirked. ‘Don’t be absurd.’
I was beginning to get tired of the thief.
‘That’s a lie,’ said Emellana calmly. ‘Isn’t it?’
Wyr gave her a bland stare. ‘I guarantee, Furgidan the Dispossessed’s chamber pot will get you nowhere.’
‘But something more personal might,’ said Em. ‘Mightn’t it?’
‘Like a scroll-case,’ I said. ‘With a map on it, drawn by his own hand.’
‘The unicorn trader’s this way.’ Wyr jerked his thumb in the direction of a narrow, crooked street that meandered away to my left.
‘Ves,’ said Miranda suddenly. Her tone held a note of some urgency, and I looked sharply at her. She hadn’t spoken for some minutes.
‘Yes?’
‘Those griffins.’ She pointed in the direction of the tall hill we had glimpsed an hour or two before, on Addie’s back. I followed her gaze, shading my eyes against the strong sun. ‘They’re behaving oddly.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘They’re… their flight’s too regular. It’s as though they are following some kind of circuit.’
‘That isn’t normal?’
She hesitated. ‘I haven’t had much chance to study live griffins, understand. But it doesn’t look right.’
Vague, but I’d take it. Milady was right about Miranda: few people were more to be relied upon when it came to magickal beasts. If she had a hunch… ‘What might be causing that?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know, but I want to find out.’
