Grayling's Song(34)

Two were gone now. Grayling would never smell sweet blossoms or feel soft sun on her face without thinking of Desdemona Cork.

They began again to walk, away from the sea, away from their adventures, toward home.

Pansy dawdled behind the rest and whined. “Sylvanus, I want to ride the mule. My feet are blistered and sore tired, and my head hurts.”

“If you hadn’t wearied yourself with devilment, you would not be tired out now,” Sylvanus called to her. Pansy opened her mouth to speak, but Sylvanus silenced her with a wave of his hand. “I will not burden him. Nostradamus has a far way to go to Nether Finchbeck.”

Pansy dragged and shuffled her feet but finally caught up with the others. “Tell me more of this place,” she said to Sylvanus.

“Nether Finchbeck?” His eyes unfocused, as if he were looking far into the distance and back into the past at the same. “Nether Finchbeck. A glorious institution of learning and spelling and necromancing, where mystery and manifestations of brilliance share the day with sheer befuddlement.”

“I long to be a powerful magician,” said Pansy. “Take me with you.”

“Nay, never,” said Sylvanus, shaking his head. “Or leastwise, not now. You have much to learn before you can be considered for Nether Finchbeck. You will go with Auld Nancy for the learning of it.”

“Nay,” said Pansy.

Sylvanus frowned at her. “’Twill be worth the effort, girl, to achieve mastery, and power, and a thoughtful nature. After all, ‘an empty head makes noise but no sense.’”

Pansy was silent, though her face was stormy.

The day was cold but sunny. Thin clouds made pictures in the sky and then passed on. Grayling and Auld Nancy now lagged behind the other two, for Auld Nancy’s weary bones slowed her down and Grayling was loath to leave the old woman’s side. Folks passed to and fro on the road, often gawking at the four bedraggled strangers with the mule, but none stopped to engage them. Had any of them been rooted to the ground and then set free? Grayling wondered. Or were the trees at the roadside more than they seemed?

Long past noon, they reached a crossroads. “We part ways here,” Sylvanus said. “I must make certain the evil has passed and all is as it was before.”

Pansy grabbed Sylvanus’s sleeve. “Take me with you! I have skills. You have seen them. Teach me to do great magic.”

Sylvanus pulled his arm away. “Nay, I said. I have seen your skills overcome by emotions you could not control. Your envy, greed, and anger burst forth in the power of the smoke and shadow, and you endangered us all. Auld Nancy has much to teach you.”

“I do not want to learn. I want to do!”

“And that is the primary reason you go with Auld Nancy.” Pansy’s face crumpled. “And, you,” Sylvanus said to Grayling, “you have proved yourself clever and brave.”

“Nay, I was most fearful, for I knew I had no magic to help me.”

Sylvanus whistled to his mule. “Only the very stupid do not fear danger,” he said. “And as for magic, the great wizard Gastronomus Bing of happy memory said true magic is like a sausage.”

Auld Nancy and Pansy listened intently, while Grayling’s jaw dropped in befuddlement. “Sausage? How sausage?”

“Made of bits and pieces of things everyone has—not pork and spices but tricks and charms, aptitudes and powers, some herbs, some skill and training, and some luck.” He tightened the straps of the saddlebags on the mule, and Nostradamus grunted. “The world is full of mystery. Not everything can be explained. Does that make it magic? You could sing to the grimoire with no words and no music and hear it singing back. How? Was this magic? Was it in you? In the song? Or does it speak of a bond between you and the grimoire?” Sylvanus pushed a wisp of hair from Grayling’s face. “And there is magic of sorts in your courage and your keen wits, the songs you called upon, and your caring heart.”

Grayling sniffed. Whatever skills she had were not at all awesome and astounding, not what she would call magical. She could not command smoke and shadow or shroud a boy in a glamour spell as Pansy had. But Pansy’s magic just caused trouble. Did magic always bring trouble? Would having magic be worth being as irritating and vexatious as Pansy?

“How was it, Sylvanus,” Grayling asked him, “that you knew nothing of the smoke and shadow and the damage it caused when we found you?”

“I was elsewhere, traveling,” said Sylvanus, “partaking of the pure aether there beyond the moon . . .”

Grayling ruckled her forehead in suspicion.

“Aye, you have the right of it. In truth,” he said, “I knew of the smoke and shadow, and I had concluded that the force’s magic was so strong it could not be defeated by more magic, but might feed off it and grow stronger. The force would be vanquished, I determined, only through courage, cleverness, imagination, good judgment, and good sense. I waited for someone with those qualities, for you. And you proved me right.”

Grayling looked at him in wonder.

“I do have some useful skills,” Sylvanus told her. “The school at Nether Finchbeck does not employ me merely for my handsome face. Now I must go.”

He dropped a handful of copper coins into Grayling’s hand. “Fare thee well, lass. Perchance we might meet again.” He touched his hand to his head in a salute as he walked off, leading the mule one way, leaving Grayling and Auld Nancy and Pansy to go another.