23
‘You told us that there were reports of unrest from Fisherberg, about the war,’ Aubrey said to George after they had all withdrawn to the edge of the village. The rain was still heavy as the Enlightened Ones made camp, but Aubrey hardly noticed. Pieces were falling into place.
‘That’s right, old man.’
‘The stalemate has made people unhappy with the war,’ Sophie said. ‘Caroline and I did what we could to make them more unhappy with it.’
‘I thought as much. So imagine the response in Fisherberg if this massacre had gone ahead.’
‘Opposition to the war would disappear,’ von Stralick said. ‘A helpless village destroyed by perfidious Albionites? No patriotic Holmlander would fail to respond to that.’
‘Keeping aside a few survivors would guarantee that the outrage would be known. It was well planned.’ Ghastly, horrible, but well planned – so it had all the hallmarks of a Dr Tremaine plot.
Except that his plots usually had other plots hidden inside them, Aubrey thought. So what’s the plot within the plot here?
‘This Crystal Johannes,’ Aubrey said to von Stralick. ‘A slab that size. How much would it be worth?’
‘It’s incalculable. Priceless.’
That couldn’t be it. What good would a lot of money do for Dr Tremaine now? He had all of Holmland at his beck and call.
Aubrey scowled and wiped rain from his brow. Think! he ordered himself. What would someone like Dr Tremaine want Crystal Johannes for?
As soon as he thought it, he knew it was the wrong question. Not ‘What would someone like Dr Tremaine want Crystal Johannes for?’ but ‘What would a magician like Dr Tremaine want Crystal Johannes for?’
Any answer to that was likely to be very dangerous indeed.
Caroline’s pistol was suddenly in her hand again. ‘Lorries approaching.’
Madame Zelinka gave a short laugh. ‘We do not have to worry.’
‘No?’
‘These are friends. These are the rest of my Enlightened Ones.’
24
After some hours of sleep in the rear of their lorry, Aubrey emerged into an afternoon where the rain had stopped. The clouds were breaking up and going their own ways, like old school friends after a reunion, and blue sky was beginning take possession of the sky. His neck and back ached. He found his friends around a fire near what had been the machine gun emplacement on the main road into Korsur.
He dragged up a log and sat on it, stifling a groan. Von Stralick and Madame Zelinka were sharing a cup of coffee, while George and Sophie huddled, trying to ignore the dripping that came from the overhanging oak. ‘The appearance spell,’ he explained after noting the questioning looks from Caroline and Sophie. ‘It was more draining than I expected.’
‘Ravi’s Second Principle of Magic,’ Sophie murmured. ‘The spell was complex, working on a number of levels. It must have had an effect.’
Aubrey shrugged, then winced at the muscles thus abused. ‘I’ve had worse.’
George had a suspiciously fresh-looking slice of bread in his hand. Aubrey assumed the Enlightened Ones must have brought some supplies from Fisherberg. ‘Where are we off to?’
‘We have some work still to do here,’ Aubrey said. ‘Remember the second step in our plan?’
‘We’ve removed the troops, which is a good start.’ George looked about, vaguely, then turned to Sophie. ‘What was Step Two?’
‘We have to hide the village.’
‘That’s right. Fear of reprisals.’
Each of them glanced at the village. Wholesome smoke and the smell of cooking was coming from chimneys again. Children were jumping in puddles, laughing as if they were the first ever to engage in such an outlandish activity.
‘Kirchoff isn’t an idiot,’ von Stralick said. ‘Our ruse will be discovered, eventually. He will hurry back to complete his task and hope that Dr Tremaine doesn’t find out.’
‘Which is why Sophie and I were working on Step Two last night,’ Aubrey said. ‘Sophie?’
Sophie reached into her pack and took out her spellcraft notebook. ‘Misdirection. It could save the village.’
Von Stralick wrinkled his brown. ‘Misdirection?’
Sophie gripped her notebook in both hands, suddenly uncertain. ‘If they cannot find the village, they cannot destroy it, true?’
George beamed. ‘Sophie, my gem, that sounds like a splendid Step Two.’
Sophie nudged him with her elbow. ‘Whoever is coming will be using maps and compasses -’
‘And roads,’ George said, ‘following signposts.’
‘We do not have to move the village off the map,’ Sophie continued. ‘We simply have to make it easy for those looking for the village to get lost.’
‘Confusion,’ Aubrey said. ‘Bafflement.’
‘Making a thing appear to be what it is not,’ Sophie said. ‘If the road to Korsur looks like the road to somewhere else, it will be ignored. If north looks like north-east, or south-west, it will do them no good.’
‘We’ve had many variables to take into account,’ Aubrey said, but he felt excitement rising, the excitement that came from a magical challenge.
‘The Law of Familiarity,’ Sophie said. ‘It was most important.’
‘And the Law of Patterns, and the Law of Action at a Distance and an important application of the Law of Seeming.’ Aubrey’s voice trailed off when he saw Caroline’s tolerant smile. ‘Sorry. Boring magic talk?’
‘I’m sure it’s interesting to both of you,’ Caroline said. ‘I think I’m speaking for the rest of us when I say that we’d much rather see your work in action than hear it discussed.’
With that, they set about making a village vanish.
25
‘If I didn’t know better,’ George announced in the darkness, ‘I’d think I’d eaten some bad oysters.’
‘I doubt the Holmland army will be sampling seafood on its way to destroy Korsur,’ Aubrey said, but he knew what George was talking about. Almost as an afterthought, he’d woven a spell that would cause a faint level of nausea when facing the direction of the village. He hoped it was subtle enough to encourage anyone approaching to look in other directions, where Sophie had done her best to make more attractive options appear.
Night had fallen by the time that Sophie and he had completed the hiding of Korsur. Aubrey began the project assuring himself that he would simply coordinate and help Sophie along with her spell definitions. Soon, however, the discussions involved him to an extent that he was seeing places to concatenate spells, joining them together to enhance their effects and their efficiency. Naturally, he cast the spells that enabled this concatenation and one thing led to another…
The result was a dizzying locality, a hidden village and a thundering headache that tested the limits of his skull. He did his best to hide his discomfort as Sophie was looking wan after her efforts and he didn’t want to make her feel worse.
Midnight was nearing by the time all was done. Aubrey was yearning for a soft place to stretch out – rock,
