Robert Carter - The Giants’ Dance

‘I’m only here to help you, you stupid creature,’ he said. There was blood on his fingers where the ingrate had bitten him. Drops of blood pooled at the wound and began to run in red lines down his arm as he watched. Blood dripped from his elbow into the void below.

He was dimly aware of upturned faces as Duffred and the other folk watched him. He hoped Duffred’s claim about a poison bite was empty.

‘Those folks down there think I’m either very brave,’ he told the frozen creature, ‘or very foolish. I’m not sure myself which it is. What do you think?’

But the beast was not listening.

‘Magician, heal thyself!’ he said, and laughed at the irony. So much healing had come from his hands just lately, yet he could do nothing for himself.

‘That’s how magic works, I’m afraid,’ he said, looking hard at the beast. Then he realized that nothing his magic could do was likely to be worse than the injuries he would end up with by fighting the creature’s stubbornness headon.

There was nothing for it but to use a spell of great magic. He resettled himself on the wall like a man astride a horse. He put his hands together and summoned up his inner calm. After all the practice of yesterday a magical state of mind came to him easily and he felt the tingling in his skin begin to rise in waves. Then he fixed his attention on the chain.

He began to blow on it. Hot breath, hotter as it left his lips, hotter still as it played on the iron chain link. Soon the rusted iron began to glow a deep cherry red. The red intensified until it was glowing yellow and then white. Will put two fingers through the link and opened it easily.

When magic snaps, best beware the afterclap!

Will recalled the rede only just in time as the effort of the spell broke back against him. It was like a fall from a great height. Darkness closed in on him very suddenly. For a moment he was in a faint, then his thoughts seemed to move outside his head, and he was looking down at an unconscious fool who sat astride a battlement with two pieces of chain clasped in unfeeling hands.

But as the chain swung free the creature’s eyes opened. It sensed freedom and came to life, scuttling first halfway across the wall. Then it launched itself into the air.

It fell for a moment in a great flat-bellied curve, weighed down by the trap and chain that dangled from its leg. But the rush of air under its wings bore it upward, and it flapped in a desperate arc over the trees and disappeared.

Will saw everything haloed in blue light. He battled to bring his mind once more into focus. Stupidly he looked at the patterns of the ground far below but could make no sense of them. But then he felt a trickle of spittle run wetly from the side of his mouth. He felt his teeth grating on the stone and a great sickness welled up in his belly.

A moment passed before he understood his precariousness. Another moment before he began to wonder just how long he had been slumped on the wall. He heard Duffred calling to him. Then the life started to flow back into his limbs again, and he breathed a deep draught of air that made him realize just how close a fool had come to killing himself.

Bright sunshine was shafting through an open window and sparrows were chasing one another noisily through the eaves when Will came to again. He found himself stiff in every joint, and his left hand was tied up tightly in a cloth strip.

Bolt began to bark and came up to him with a wagging tail when he tried to turn over. Then Duffred appeared and said, ‘How are you feeling this fine morning? – what’s left of it, anyway.’

‘Sore.’ He smiled. ‘And hungry.’

‘Soon fix that. Does bacon and eggs sound good enough?’

‘Hmmm.’ He glanced up at the window. ‘What about the folk outside?’

‘Oh, they’ve all gone.’

‘But I can hear voices.’

‘Market day. And a busy one too. I should lay low if I was you, in case folk start to put the word out you’ve come back again.’

He gave Duffred a nod of agreement. ‘Good idea.’

Will replaited his braids, dressed and slipped down to the snug. Dimmet appeared from one of the pantries. He planted his hands on his hips when he saw Will was awake and laughed his great laugh. ‘Oh, so you’ve come back to us, have you? You was as mad as a March hare when we put you to bed. Rattling on about this and that.’ He turned to Duffred. ‘How is he now?’

‘Says he’s hungry.’

Duffred raised his eyebrows. ‘And how’s the hand?’

Will flexed it testingly. ‘Stiff. And I still feel tired, despite sleeping a full night on your softest mattress.’

‘Two nights and the day in between if you really want to know. We was getting a mite concerned about you.’

Will was astonished. ‘ That long?’

‘I suppose doing magic takes it out of a body.’ Dimmet’s voice hardened. ‘Duffred here says them folks from Morton Ashley weren’t best pleased you let their goggly get away, mind.’

‘It didn’t get away. I let it go.’

Dimmet blinked. ‘What? A-purpose?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, then. No wonder they was upset with you. Gogglies ain’t the easiest of things to catch ahold of by all accounts.’

‘I thought I’d been called there to save a life. But they’d caught the creature in an iron snare. They wanted me to kill it for them. What do they think I am?’

Dimmet put a pewter platter down in front of him and withdrew. Will make short work of the breakfast, then he went back upstairs, having remembered the red fish that was still in his pouch. He took it out. A stunning idea had come to him.

Maybe, just maybe, it was his own green fish. Maybe something or someone had stolen it away from Nether Norton, and had taken it to Little Slaughter where it had been altered by the heat of the fireball.

He looked at it with new eyes. If it had been altered, then it was a change for the worse. There was something secretive about it now, something that did not sit very comfortably with his magical sense. Even so, he felt prompted to put it on a thread and wear it inside his shirt, just as he had before. But after a while sitting alone he began to feel so restless that he decided to go out.

He tied a bundle to his staff, stuck his hazel wand in his belt and put up the hood of his cloak. Then he crept downstairs again and stepped out by the back way.

He felt drained, like a man who wakes in the thin hours of the night and cannot get back to sleep. The wound in his hand had begun to throb. He knew he should rest, but what he wanted most was to get away from Eiton and its throngs of people for the rest of the day. He needed to plant his feet in the good earth, drink his fill of pure spring water and feast on fresh air. He would walk the lign, and soon he would feel more like his old self again. The sun would burn the tiredness out of him, and he might even be able to think a few things through at last.

He slipped back into the Plough’s yard unnoticed a little after sunset. He was tired and displeased with what now seemed to have been a fruitless and ill-spent day. The night was clear and warm. Many stars were twinkling overhead, but he had no time for them. He came in past the stables, and felt the presence of a big animal shifting its weight from foot to foot. His magical sense flared vividly, and he got the impression that the beast in the stall was thirsty, but he was too tired to pull the thought fully up into his conscious mind or to do anything practical about it.

The inn was warm and welcoming and busy with village folk making merry, but it seemed to Will both close and stuffy. There was a man sawing on a fiddle and another beating on a tabor. Duffred was washing a bucket of greasy wooden spoons over by the ale taps, and he hailed Will.