The Threads of Magic by Alison Croggon (best books for students to read .TXT) 📗

You only think that my father is bad because of what the witches said. But you can’t trust witches.

You’re talking to your father?

No. Again a pause. But I can hear him. He’s calling me . . .

As if a door had opened inside his head, Pip could suddenly hear him too. If it was hearing. He couldn’t understand any actual words, but he didn’t need to: the meaning was clear. A soft, melodious voice, full of love and regret, calling to Pip. No, not Pip. Calling to Clovis. Come home, be safe, be happy, be loved, you will never again be alone . . .

For a moment, Pip almost fell into the lure of the enchantment, feeling the seduction of its promise. But the streetwise part of him flicked alert. And then he did hear a voice, speaking as clearly as if there were a person just ten feet away.

Come home, Clovis, my dear boy. Come home . . .

Underneath its bewitching music, Pip sensed something hard and chilling. Something . . . deadly.

He’s lying, said Pip sharply. Don’t even think about it. Don’t you dare tell him where I am.

Who are you to question the honor of a royal? And suddenly the trusting child Clovis had been for the past few hours was gone, and the princely arrogance was back.

I’m me, said Pip. Your friend. Pip. Remember?

Come home . . . The voice was even stronger now, and Pip struggled with an overpowering longing to answer that voice, to say yes, to give in and run toward it. He could feel the aching void inside Clovis, the desire for a father who loved him. Clovis was shutting himself against Pip, turning away.

Don’t answer him, Pip said to Clovis. Don’t. It will be the end of us both. Don’t you care about me?

Pip’s headache was getting worse and worse, a throbbing pain. He clutched his brow, stumbled against the wall of a house, and slid down.

Princes have no friends, said Clovis.

No wonder, thought Pip bitterly.

Come home, my son. Come home and be with those who love and understand you.

Pip gasped and bit his lip, trying to will the voice out of his head. It was bad enough having Clovis there, but this as well? He could feel its malignance: it beat against him as heat beats out of a fireplace. At the same time, he could feel Clovis surrendering. He was drowning in a wash of confused feelings that weren’t his own, that were somehow wound through the very fiber of his being.

I’m Pip, he told himself. Me. Pip. Me. Not anybody else.

He tried to push everything away, to think.

It’s a trick, he said desperately. Your father’s dead. Even as he said it, he thought that was a ridiculous thing to say to a dead boy. It can’t be your father . . .

Don’t be a clod, said Clovis. Don’t you think I remember my own father?

I don’t remember mine, said Pip. He died of typhus. Anyway, they killed King Odo. The witches said he was destroyed. They cut his head off with an ax. This isn’t him.

It is my father, said Clovis, but now there was doubt in his voice.

Can’t you feel it, you pea-brain? It just wants to eat you. In any case, your real father never gave a spit for you. He just wanted to eat you as well.

He felt Clovis’s anger like a spike in his temple. My father is a king, said Clovis indignantly. It’s different for kings. You don’t understand. You can’t, you’re just a commoner.

“I am full of love for my son,” said the voice. This time it wasn’t inside Pip’s skull.

In the street before them stood a tall man with a pale face, clad in a dark green cloak. He had a simple gold chain around his neck and a gold brooch on his shoulder, and he was smiling.

Father!

The gladness in Clovis’s voice made Pip’s heart lurch with unexpected pity. This must be the semblance of Clovis’s father. The man who had been turning Clovis into a vessel for the Specter’s soul. He had never loved Clovis, no matter how much Clovis longed for his love. Surely Clovis knew that. How lonely did you have to be?

Pip looked up into the man’s eyes. All he saw there was cold, bottomless greed. His insides dissolved in naked terror.

In that moment, he knew that Clovis felt what he was feeling.

No, said Clovis.

The vision shimmered and reformed. The king’s face shriveled to a skull, with empty sockets where his eyes should have been. He was clothed in livid flame, and through the fire Pip could see his skeletal form. He was floating closer, his bony hands stretching out, and around Pip there was only darkness, swallowing everything else.

So that’s what a Specter looks like, Pip thought. I wish I hadn’t seen it.

He closed his eyes, but it made no difference: he could still see the terrible vision before him. He felt as if his soul were being sucked out of his body, as if the Specter were a spider, already draining the fluids of its victim.

Pip screamed. There was a flash of searing green light and a weird jolt, as if the ground itself had jumped. Oh no, thought Pip. The Rupture. Then he blacked out.

When he came to, his eyes were still squeezed shut. Very slowly, he opened them and blinked, dazzled. Had Clovis thrown him into the Rupture again? Which was worse, the Rupture or the Specter?

He decided that the Specter was definitely worse.

He was crouched on the cobbles of a tiny lane that ran between two shabby, crooked buildings. A beam of sunlight, finding its way unsullied through the leaning hovels and walls of Clarel, struck him straight in the face.

It didn’t seem like being in the Rupture. And anyway, there hadn’t been that weird flashing tunnel. Somehow it felt . . . solid. Gingerly Pip reached out and touched the cobbles with his fingers. There was a pile of