In which there is a great deal of witchcraft

Several hours passed. The dog-man was hungry again.Michael and Sophie decided to have lunch too. Sophie approachedCalcifer with the frying pan.

?Why can?t you have bread and cheese for once??Calcifer grumbled.

All the same, he bent his head. Sophie was just putting the pan ontop of the curly green flames when Howl?s voice rang outhoarsely from nowhere.

?Brace yourself, Calcifer! She?s found me!?

Calcifer sprang upright. The frying pan fell across Sophie?sknees. ?You?ll have to wait!? Calcifer roared,flaming blindingly up the chimney. Almost at once he blurred into adozen or so burning blue faces, as if he was being shaken violentlyabout, and burned with a loud, throaty whirring.

?That must mean they?re fighting,? Michaelwhispered.

Sophie sucked a slightly burned finger and picked slices of baconoff her skirt with the other hand, staring at Calcifer. He waswhipping from side to side of the fireplace. His blurred faces pulsedfrom deep blue to sky blue and then almost to white. One moment hehad multiple orange eyes, and the next, rows of starry silver ones.She had never imagined anything like it.

Something swept overhead with a blast and a boom which shookeverything in the room. A second something followed, with a long,shrill roar. Calcifer pulsed nearly blue-black, and Sophie?sskin fizzed with the backblast from the magic.

Michael scrambled for the window. ?They?re quitenear!?

Sophie hobbled to the window to. The storm of magic seemed to haveaffected half the things in the room. The skull was yattering its jawso hard that it was traveling round in circles. Packets were jumping.Powder was seething in jars. A book dropped heavily out of theshelves and lay open on the floor, fanning its pages back and forth.At one end of the room, the scented steam boiled out of the bathroom:at the other, Howl?s guitar made out-of-tune twangings. AndCalcifer whipped about harder than ever.

Michael put the skull in the sink to stop it from yattering itselfonto the floor while he opened the window and craned out. Whateverwas happening was maddeningly just out of sight. People in the housesopposite were at doors and windows, pointing to something more orless overhead. Sophie and Michael ran to the broom cupboard, wherethey seized a velvet cloak each and flung them on. Sophie got the onethat turned its wearer into a red-bearded man. Now she knew whyCalcifer had laughed at her in the other one. Michael was a horse.But there was no time to laugh just then. Sophie dragged the dooropen and sped into the street, followed by the dog-man, who seemedsurprisingly calm about the whole thing. Michael trotted out afterher with a clatter of non-existent hooves, leaving Calcifer whippingfrom blue to white behind them.

The street was full of people looking upward. No one had time tonotice things like horses coming out of houses. Sophie and Michaellooked too, and found a huge cloud boiling and twisting just abovethe chimney tops. It was black and rotating on itself violently.White flashes that were not quite like light stabbed through the murkof it. But almost as soon as Michael and Sophie arrived, the clot ofmagic took on the shape of a misty bundle of fighting snakes. Then ittore in two with a noise like an enormous cat fight. One part spedyowling across the roofs and out to sea, and the second wentscreaming after it.

Some people retreated indoors then. Sophie and Michael joined therush of braver people down the sloping lanes to the dockside. Thereeveryone seemed to think the best view was to be had along the curveof the harbor wall. Sophie hobbled to get out along it too, but therewas no need to go beyond the shelter of the harbor master?shut. Two clouds were hanging in the air, some way out to sea, on theother side of the harbor wall, the only two clouds in the calm bluesky. It was quite easy to see them. It was equally easy to see thedark patch of storm raging on the sea between the clouds, flinging upgreat, white-topped waves. There was an unfortunate ship caught inthat storm. Its masts were beating back and forth. They could seespouts of water hitting it on all sides. The crew were desperatelytrying to take in the sails, but one at least had torn to flying grayrags.

?Can?t they have a care for that ship!? someonesaid indignantly.

Then the wind and the waves from the storm hit the harbor wall.White water lashed over and the brave persons out on the wall camecrowding hurriedly back to the quayside, where the moored ships wereheaving and grinding in their moorings. Among all this was a greatdeal of screaming in high, singing voices. Sophie put her face outinto the wind beyond the hut, where the screaming came from, anddiscovered that the raging magic had disturbed more than the sea andthe wretched ship. A number of wet, slithery-looking ladies withflying green-brown hair were dragging themselves up onto the harborwall, screaming and holding long wet arms out to more screamingladies tossing in the waves. Every one of them had a fishtail insteadof legs.

?Confound it!? said Sophie. ?The mermaids fromthe curse!? that meant only two more impossible things to cometrue now.

She looked up at the two clouds. Howl was kneeling on the lefthandone, much larger and nearer than she would have expected. He wasstill dressed in black. Typically enough, he was staring over hisshoulder at the frantic mermaids. He was not looking at them as if heremembered they were part of the curse at all.

?Keep your mind on the Witch!? the horse beside Sophieyelled.

The Witch sprang into being, standing on the righthand cloud, in awhirl of flame-colored robe and streaming red hair, with her armsraised to invoke further magic. As Howl turned and looked at her, herarms came down. Howl?s cloud erupted into a fountain ofrose-colored flame. Heat from it swept across the harbor, and thestones of the wall steamed.

?It?s all right!? gasped the horse.

Howl was on the tossing, nearly sinking ship below. He was a tinyblack figure, leaning against the bucking mainmast. He let the Witchknow she had missed by waving at her cheekily. The Witch saw him theinstant he waved. Cloud, Witch, and all at once became a savagelyswooping red bird, diving at the ship.

The ship vanished. The mermaids sang a doleful scream. There wasnothing but sulkily tossing water where the ship had been. But thehuge diving bird was going too fast to stop. It plunged into the seawith a huge splash.

Everyone on the quayside cheered. ?I knew that wasn?ta real ship really!? someone behind Sophie said.

?Yes, it must have been an illusion,? the horse saidwisely. ?It was too small.?

As proof that the ship had been much nearer than it looked, thewaves from the splash reached the harbor wall before Michael hadstopped speaking. A twenty-foot green hill of water rode smoothlysideways across it, sweeping the screaming mermaids into the harbor,rolling every moored ship violently sideways, and thudding in swirlsround the harbor master?s hut. An arm came out of the side ofthe horse and hauled Sophie back toward the quay. Sophie gasped andstumbled in knee-high gray water. The dog-man bounded beside them,soaked to the ears.

They had just reached the quay, and the boats in the harbor hadall just rolled upright, when a second mountain of water rolled overthe harbor wall. Out of its smooth side burst a monster. It was along, black, clawed thing, half cat, half sea lion, and it cameracing down the wall toward the quay. Another burst out of the waveas it smashed into the harbor, long and low too, but scalier, andcame racing after the first monster.

Everyone realized that the fight was not over yet and splashedbackward hurriedly against the sheds and houses on the quayside.Sophie fell over a rope and then a doorstep. The arm came out of thehorse and dragged her upright as the two monsters streaked past in ascatter of salt water. Another wave swirled over the harbor wall, andtwo more monsters burst out of that. They were identical to the firsttwo, except the scaly one was closer to the catlike one. And the nextrolling wave brought two more, closer together yet.

?What?s going on?? Sophie squawked as this thirdpair raced past, shaking the stones of the jetty as they ran.

?Illusions,? Michael?s voice came out of thehorse. ?Some of them. They?re both trying to fool oneanother into chasing the wrong one.?

?Which is who?? said Sophie.

?No idea,? said the horse.

Some of the onlookers found the monsters too terrifying. Many wenthome. Others jumped down into the rolling ships to fend them off fromthe quay. Sophie and Michael joined the hard core of watchers who setoff through the streets of Porthaven after the monsters. First theyfollowed a river of sea water, then huge, wet paw prints, and finallywhite gouges and scratches where the claws of the creatures had duginto the stones of the street. These led everyone out the back of thetown to the marshes where Sophie and Michael had chased the shootingstar.

By this time all six creatures were bounding black dots, vanishinginto the flat distance. The crowd spread out into a ragged line onthe bank, staring, hoping for more, and afraid of what they mightsee. After a while no one could see anything but empty marsh. Nothinghappened. Quite a few people were turning away to leave when ofcourse everyone else shouted, ?Look!? A ball ofpale fire rolled lazily up in the distance. It must have beenenormous. The bang that went with hit only reached the watchers whenthe fireball had become a spreading tower of smoke. The line ofpeople all winced at the blunt thunder of it. They watched the smokespread until it became part of the mist on the marshes. They went onwatching after that. But there was simply peace and silence. The windrattled the marsh weeds, and birds began to dare to cry again.

?I reckon they must have done for one another,? peoplesaid. The crowd gradually split into separate figures hurrying awayto jobs they left half done.

Sophie and Michael waited until the very last, when it was clearthat it was indeed all over. Then they turned slowly back intoPorthaven. Neither of them felt like speaking. Only the dog-manseemed happy. He sauntered beside them so friskily that Sophie wassure he thought Howl was done for. He was so pleased with life thatwhen they turned into the street where Howl?s house was andthere happened to be a stray cat crossing the road, the dog-manuttered a joyful bark and galloped after it. He chased it with a dashand a skitter straight to the castle doorstep, where it turned andglared.

?Geroff!? it mewed. ?This is all Ineeded!?

The dog backed away, looking ashamed.

Michael clattered up to the door. ?Howl!? heshouted.

The cat shrank to kitten size and looked very sorry for itself.?And you both look ridiculous!? it said. ?Open thedoor. I?m exhausted.?

Sophie opened the door and the cat crawled inside. The cat crawledto the hearth, where Calcifer was down to the merest blue flicker,and, with an effort, got its front paws up onto the chair seat. Thereit grew rather slowly into Howl, bent double.

?Did you kill the Witch?? Michael asked eagerly,taking off his cloak and becoming himself too.

?No,? said Howl. He turned round and flopped into thechair, where he lay looking very tired indeed. ?All that on topof a cold!? he croaked. ?Sophie, for pity?s saketake off that horrible red beard and find the bottle of brandy in theclose?unless you?ve drunk it or turned it into turpentine, of course.?

Sophie took off her cloak and found the brandy and a glass. Howldrank one glass off as if it were water. Then he poured out a secondglass, and instead of drinking it, he dripped it carefully onCalcifer. Calcifer flared and sizzled and seemed to revive a little.Howl poured a third glass and lay back sipping it. ?Don?tstand staring at me!? he said. ?I don?t know whowon. The Witch is mighty hard to come at. She relies mostly on herfire demon and stays behind out of trouble. But I think we gave hersomething to think about, eh, Calcifer??

?It?s old,? Calcifer said in a weak fizzle fromunder his logs. ?I?m stronger, but it knows things Inever thought of. She?s had it a hundred years. And it?shalf killed me!? He fizzled a bit, then climbed further out ofhis logs to grumble, ?You might have warned me!?

?I did, you old fraud!? Howl said wearily. ?Youknow everything I know.?

Howl lay sipping brandy while Michael found bread and sausage forthem to eat. Food revived them all, except perhaps the dog-man, whoseemed subdued now Howl was back after all. Calcifer began to burn upand look his usual blue self.

?This won?t do!? Howl said. He hauled himself tohis feet. ?Look sharp, Michael. The Witch knows we?re inPorthaven. We?re not only going to have to move the castle andthe Kingsbury entrance now. I shall have to transfer Calcifer to thehouse that goes with that hat shop.?

?Move me? ? Calcifer crackled. He was azure withapprehension.

?That?s right,? said Howl. ?You have achoice between Market Chipping or the Witch. Don?t go and bedifficult.?

?Curses!? wailed Calcifer and dived to the bottom ofthe grate.

Date: 2016-06-12; view: 106