White Wind Rising Read online

  Writer hesitated. ‘There are lots of mentions of the Elixir of Life,’ she said. ‘You bred into many of the Vale folk the ability to survive its ingestion.’

  ‘And what is this Elixir of Life?’ he said, tilting his head to one side like a great, scrawny bird.

  Writer looked surprised. ‘I do not know,’ she said. ‘I believe that it is commonly fatal to those who take it. And especially to children. Children should never be exposed to it.’

  ‘Quite right, quite right,’ said the Alchemist. ‘And so why, when I have so many people in my Vale with the potential for special abilities, have I imprisoned only you four?’

  ‘I do not know,’ said Writer.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said the Alchemist. ‘Not so bright after all, are we? Do you have any idea how I have done this? Or, more importantly, why I have done so?’

  Writer looked pained. ‘No.’

  ‘No?’ he said, stroking his beard. ‘That is a terrible shame. But I swear to you that I will train you all just as soon as I have the time to spare.’

  He clapped his hands together. The sound was soft and dry.

  ‘And until then I am afraid you must all go back to your cells,’ the Alchemist said. ‘Until all of you and all of my other plans are ready. We are waiting on an old friend of mine, you see, and he is notoriously unreliable. He should be arriving any year now. So, until then, back you go now.’

  The Alchemist raised one hand toward them, curling his fingers.

  ‘Stop!’ Archer yelled, stepping forward. ‘Do not. We have done nothing to deserve this treatment.’

  Archer loosened his quiver so that he could have swifter access to his arrows. ‘It’s not right,’ he added. ‘You should release us.’ His heart hammered hard.

  ‘I have kept your families safe for generations.’ He jabbed his bony finger at Archer, and then at each of them in turn. ‘You. Your parents. Your grandparents and their grandparents before them. Hundreds of years I have protected you from the wars of England. From the tyranny of the kings and queens. From the madness and brutality of the Alchemists’ Guild. Those charlatans, frauds and imposters. The pseudo-alchemists who hide behind clever devices and pursue worldly power over the application of reason.’

  Archer had not the foggiest idea what the Alchemist was saying.

  The old man turned his head and spat on the floor. ‘Pah! So the very least you folk can do is allow me a few of your children out of every generation to experiment on while I perfect the bloodlines.’ He stalked forward a step, looking like a scrawny old heron about to catch a fish. ‘You ask why I chose you?’ he said to Archer.

  ‘Yes,’ Archer said, with his heart flying in his chest.

  ‘You selected yourselves,’ the Alchemist said, spittle flying from his lips. ‘You all have the necessary abilities. These have been focused in each of you through the generations. And yet most of your abilities remain dormant.’ The Alchemist glanced at Keeper. ‘Speaking for most of you, of course.’

  Keeper raised his eyebrows and glanced at Burp.

  ‘And yet you selected yourselves because each of you chose to approach my Tower. This you all did, in spite of the dire warnings I spread amongst your ignorant families. You all sought to challenge me in some way.’ He held up a palm to quiet their protestations. ‘You did. Whether it was a demand for knowledge or wealth or to threaten my person, you all did. Thus you marked yourselves as special and worthy of selection. For within each of you there is the spark of rebellion. And that spark I will in time fan into flame.’

  They all glanced at each other.

  ‘Well now we just want to go home,’ Archer said. ‘Please.’ He was ready to draw an arrow if he had to. But he tried not to show it.

  ‘Home, is it?’

  They all nodded their heads. Burp hissed steadily.

  ‘I see. Perhaps I should look to later generations. Or perhaps you require further development before your abilities truly manifest.’ He stroked his beard while peering at them. ‘Yes, yes you will brew a while longer yet. And this time I can see that I must chain you all to the walls of your respective cells.’ The Alchemist cackled to himself.

  ‘No!’ Archer yelled.

  ‘Oh do not be alarmed, dear boy, they shall be extremely long chains,’ the Alchemist said. ‘Though not so long as my chimney.’ He grinned.

  ‘No, you cannot do that,’ cried Writer. ‘Please let us go. I just want to go home. That is all I want.’ Her eyes flicked to the great book before her.

  ‘Ah, my dear Writer,’ the Alchemist said, smiling with what appeared to be affection. ‘Long have you coveted my incantations. I should punish you for this. It may temper your will, somewhat. I should take your eyes. Or your hands. However, if you did not recover then I would require a new Writer. No, I think, perhaps, you would learn your lesson well enough if I were to remove no more than your ears.’ The Alchemist started walking towards her with a crooked smile on his face.

  Writer clapped her hands over her ears and stepped back. ‘Please, do not,’ she said.

  Behind her was the table and then the window. Nowhere to run.

  ‘Oh, do not be worried, my dear,’ he said. ‘They will very likely grow back.’ The Alchemist laughed. ‘Eventually.’

  Archer was angry. He did not understand what the Alchemist was babbling about. He was so frustrated that he could barely think straight.

  We have done nothing wrong but we are punished all the same. The sheer injustice of it made him furious, angrier than he had every felt before and he decided that he was not going to let the Alchemist get away with this.

  And he was not going to allow the Alchemist to hurt his new friends.

  Quick as a flash he pulled his bow from his back, whipped out an arrow from his quiver, nocked it to the string and drew the bow back in one single, fluid motion so that the arrow was pointing straight at the Alchemist.

  ‘No you don’t, Alchemist.’ Archer shouted. ‘Stop right there.’

  The Alchemist froze. He held up one hand and for just a half a moment the Alchemist looked afraid.

  And then the he began to laugh.

  A slow, deep, mirthless cackling laugh. A noise like when an old saw gets caught in some wood. When he spoke, his voice was quieter and his tone almost reasonable but if anything that only made him still more menacing.

  ‘And what do you think you are going to do to me, my little Baker? One little arrow from one little boy cannot hurt an Alchemist as powerful as I.’ The Alchemist took a step forward, leering at him. ‘Come, now.’ He took another step. ‘Put the bow and arrow away before you hurt yourself, Baker.’

  ‘I’m not Baker,’ he said, feeling the anger swirling up inside him, ‘I’m Archer!’ He loosed his arrow and it flew straight and true right through the Alchemist’s floppy bed cap, which flew off the Alchemist’s head and stuck to a bookshelf on the far wall.

  Archer whipped out another arrow and had it nocked and pointed at the Alchemist again.

  ‘I knocked your hat off on purpose,’ Archer said. ‘I didn’t have to miss.’

  The Alchemist froze.

  Then his mouth dropped open.

  Then his mouth flapped.

  ‘How dare you!’ he said, eventually. ‘How dare you shoot an arrow at me? How dare you. After all I have done for you.’ The Alchemist raised a bony hand and pointed it at Archer. He flicked his fingers around in a strange wiggling dance. ‘Now you can wait there to receive your punishment.’

  Archer had to shoot the next arrow on target.

  He had to hit the Alchemist. He had to stop him. He did not want to do it but he had to.

  Archer released the arrow.

  Only... he did not.

  His fingers did not move.

  They would not.

  Archer struggled to pull his fingers from the bowstring, to let the arrow fly, but they simply would not move, not even a tiny bit.

  The Alchemist came right at him, then, eyes shining and angry. Archer tied to run, to lowe
r his bow and run away, to duck under a table and scramble to the trapdoor. But his arms would not answer, his legs would not shift themselves.

  He could not move an inch.

  The Alchemist smiled. There merest flicker of the corner of his mouth but it was a smile full of scorn and triumph.

  The frightening old man came right up to Archer, within arm’s reach and loomed right over him. The Alchemist raised his clenched fist ready to smash it down on Archer’s face.

  Still, Archer could not move, could not even cry out in fear and anger, could not even close his eyes at the coming blow.

  The Alchemist froze, his fist raised. The Alchemist cocked his head to one side and turned away from Archer.

  Archer frowned. Someone was saying something.

  Saying something in a rhythm.

  Chanting.

  It was Writer.

  She had the spell book, the Alchemist’s Wicungboc, open on the lectern. She was reading the words from the pages and waving her hands in a complicated pattern in the air.

  ‘Reduce, reform, mutate,’ she chanted. ‘Bushel, cradle, crate.’

  The Alchemist cackled again. ‘A valiant effort, my dear Writer,’ he said. ‘But you must study for a few decades more to be able to complete something as complicated as a transmutation spell.’

  Writer did not even pause in her chant and spoke over him.

  ‘Shape, temper, tamper. Canister, carton, hamper.’ She traced an intricate series of shapes with one hand.

  The air around her shimmered and crackled. It was like looking through very clear water, or through the heat haze above a blazing fire.

  ‘Wait, no,’ the Alchemist said, taking a hesitant step backward. ‘No, you are not ready for this. You cannot be ready.’

  The Alchemist raised his bony hand and pointed it at Writer. He was going to freeze her in place too, Archer realised, with the same spell that he was frozen with.

  Archer struggled and strained to free himself again.

  It was useless. No matter how he strained or concentrated he could not move a muscle.

  So they were going to be captured again. He had to do something. Think, Archer, he told himself. Think, think, think.

  ‘Aargh!’ Someone behind him yelled a cry of anger. They rushed past Archer, right at the Alchemist.

  The old man yelped in pain and clutched his knee, bent right over.

  It was Weaver.

  She kicked him in the same knee again, hard. The Alchemist cried out, leaned down and took a vicious backhanded swipe at her head. She ducked under it and came up to deliver a powerful punch into the Alchemist’s throat.

  He staggered backwards across the room, knocking over tables and sending bottles flying everywhere. They clattered and smashed. Colourful liquid sprayed and splashed across the floor.

  Weaver yanked out her knife from her belt and rushed after him. She was going to stab him!

  The Alchemist pointed at her, his fingers danced and she froze in place, her face a mask of fury. He knife held raised in her hand.

  Writer had not stopped her chanting.

  ‘Convert, diverge, transfigure,’ her voice was powerful, filling the room.

  The Alchemist coughed, clutching his throat, and took a step forward. His knee gave out and he fell down, clutching it, crying out in agony. He got halfway to his feet, panting.

  ‘No, no, you must not do this,’ he said. ‘Only together can we save England from Cromwell’s madness. You must not harm me, my dear. You need me. We need each other.’

  Writer’s voice rose louder. ‘Vos es bascauda!’ As she spoke, flashes of white and orange noise swirled around her.

  ‘No,’ he shouted, shuffling back. ‘You have no idea of your power. Find Cedd. You must reverse—‘

  He was still babbling as Writer threw her hand out and the air between them turned thick and shimmied like water. Like a torrent of magic flowing from her.

  The Alchemist raised his bony hand. It danced at her but there was a great bang and a whoosh of white and blue steam. The floor shook and light with bright sparks of green and red smashed into the Alchemist and surrounded him.

  Weaver toppled over.

  Keeper cried out in fear and Burp growled.

  Sparks flew through the air and the Alchemist cried one last time.

  ‘No!’

  The word stretched out longer and longer and then stopped. The colours vanished. The light faded.

  Silence.

  Archer collapsed onto his knees. His bow and the arrow clattered across the floor. He coughed and waved the smoke from his face. He could move.

  Weaver lay

  The air stopped shimmying and the smoke cleared.

  The Alchemist was gone.

  Instead, right where the Alchemist had been standing, there was an enormous wicker basket.

  Escape Plan

  A huge wicker basket, like an oversized picnic hamper with no lid. Wisps of blue-green smoke rose from it.

  Archer turned to Writer, who was looking just as shocked as he felt.

  ‘What did you do?’ Archer asked her.

  Writer’s eyes were wide.

  ‘I do not know. I simply read this incantation and spoke it aloud. It was very much like one he made me copy out before, long ago. I was required to copy it many times. I did not know what it would do. I merely read it aloud and performed the patterns with my hand and, and...’ she faltered, pointing at the basket. ‘This happened.’

  ‘Well, whatever you did, it saved us,’ said Archer. ‘I was completely trapped, I couldn’t move a muscle.’

  ‘It was Weaver,’ said Writer. ‘If you had not attacked him when you did, we would all have been in significant trouble.’

  Weaver climbed to her feet and held on to a table. She shuffled toward the basket, holding her head.

  ‘Thank you, Weaver,’ said Keeper, his arms still tight round Burp’s neck. ‘That was incredible. You really beat him up.’

  Burp growled, his tail flicking back and forth.

  Weaver shrugged, not looking at them. ‘He had it coming,’ she said, poking the basket with her toe. ‘Would have finished him off if he hadn’t spelled me.’

  ‘That is a strange spell, is it not?’ Archer said to Writer. ‘Turning something into a basket? I do not understand.’

  ‘Well,’ said Keeper. ‘It’s handy if you’re going on a picnic.’

  ‘A big picnic,’ said Archer as he walked over to the basket.

  It was as tall as his chin and wider on all sides than his outstretched arms. Inside it was empty. The walls of the basket were thick and sturdy and the woven wicker strands creaked against each other when he lent on them.

  ‘So what do we do now?’ asked Writer. ‘What is the plan?’

  ‘We are free to leave,’ Archer said, grinning.

  ‘Let’s go home,’ said Keeper. ‘I can’t wait to show Burp to my grandpa.’

  ‘We still have to find a way out of the Tower,’ said Archer, looking around. ‘Look, let us just go up the far staircase and see what the next room is.’

  ‘Never a moment’s rest with you, is it,’ said Keeper, but he was smiling. They were all smiling; after all, they had defeated the Alchemist.

  The steps led up to a huge wide hatch in the ceiling. They all climbed them and Archer pushed the hatch open.

  Wind. Bright sunshine.

  They climbed up.

  They were at the very top of the Tower. A flat, open, circular platform.

  The wind blustered hard and tugged at their clothes so that they had to lean into it to stay upright. They blinked up at the blue sky and the sun shining down on them.

  The view was amazing. They could see for miles and miles in every direction. Archer looked out across the whole valley.

  He could see from the swift, narrow Sweetwater near his house, down to where the river widened into the glinting estuary at Morningtree. Beyond was the long bay, protected by the Alchemist’s magic barrier. Thought they had boats, none h
ad ever sailed away from the Vale.

  In between the head of the valley and the mouth of the river were hundreds of patches of ripe wheat and barley, blowing in the breeze like golden water. Woodland, copses, orchards and curving, crisscrossing hedgerows divided it all.

  Houses, farms and villages scattered everywhere. Smoke drifted from the bustling towns of Bures in the west and Morningtree in the east.

  On the hills on the sides of the Vale were tiny flecks of white sheep. Around it all, stretching away from the tops of the hills was the deep, dark green of the Moon Forest. The border, the barrier of the Vale.

  And down there, far away, would be his own house, where his mother and father and little brothers and sisters waited for him. They were so close but how could he get to them?

  There was no way down from the top of the Tower.

  Even though they had escaped their individual prisons and defeated the Alchemist, they were no better off than before.

  ‘How do we get off the roof?’ said Keeper, the strong wind almost blowing his voice away. Burp was stretching his neck up, sniffing the air. His tail was swirling around. His chains stretched and his claws scrabbled upon the stone. Keeper patted his dragon friend upon the head.

  ‘Oh great,’ said Weaver. ‘Now what do we do? Are we supposed to fly home?’

  ‘Fly home?’ Archer frowned. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Let me think.’ Fly home, he thought. Why does that not sound ridiculous?

  ‘Think?’ said Weaver. ‘How’s thinking going to help? Thinking does not do anything, does it. We are stuck here now, even more than we were before, probably.’

  ‘Oh stuff a smock in it, Weaver.’ said Writer. ‘Thinking helps more than moaning, doesn’t it.’

  Weaver crossed her arms and sulked. At least she went quiet.

  ‘You said fly,’ Keeper said. They all turned to him. ‘Well, Burp can fly.’

  ‘Can he?’ said Weaver, looking at Burp’s chained-up wings.

  ‘Well, he could if we can get the chains off,’ said Keeper. Burp rubbed his head against Keeper’s leg.

  ‘How could we do that?’ said Writer, looking at them too. ‘They look extremely tight. There appears to be no end to unravel, nor a lock to open. In fact, how did the Alchemist even get them on if there are no ends to the chains?’