Catweazle

THE FLIGHT
     
    It was still dark in the cave. Outside in the forest, the
birds screamed and chattered. Catweazle, who had been dreaming of monsters,
woke with a sudden cry and shivered with relief. He scratched himself, sneezed,
removed a moth from his beard, and sat up. Such a dream was a bad omen, he
thought uneasily as he rubbed his thin chest, and climbed stiffly from the pile
of hay he slept in.
    The Sacred Fire was almost out, so he knelt down, his joints cracking,
and blew on the embers. Wood ash rose in the air and settled on his beard, but
the fire glowed red, and he soon had it warming him again.
    The firelight flickered over the walls of the cave which were covered
with magical designs. There were pentacles, spirals and rings within rings.
Most of them had been used for various spells, but some had just been doodles
to use up the paint, especially the spirals.
    Holding his hands out to the fire, Catweazle thought again of his dream.
‘An omen - ay, an omen. Mayhap of doom,’ he muttered.
    A rather fat toad crawled out of the shadows. It was Touchwood,
Catweazle’s familiar. All magicians had familiars; they were more than just
pets, they helped with the magic. Touchwood didn’t help much but Catweazle was
fond of him, and it gave him someone to boss around.
    Touchwood croaked as he crawled towards the fire. He didn’t like it. It had
once shot a spark at him, hitting him on the leg, and Touchwood had disappeared
under a stone for nearly a week. He stared balefully at Catweazle. The magician
and his familiar weren’t at their best, first thing in the morning.
    ‘I dreamed of monsters, Touchwood,’ said Catweazle, turning the pages of
a huge book. ‘ ’Tis an omen of doom.’
    Touchwood crawled carefully round the fire, keeping well clear of it. He
wasn’t interested in omens of doom, he was looking for spiders.
    Catweazle continued to search the tattered pages. The book was his
Grimoire, a collection of magical writings. The pages were all different sizes
and thicknesses, which made them difficult to turn. Some were of parchment,
others were of vellum, and some were thin sheets of leather. It was the
strangest book in the world.
    It was full of spells for every situation: healing spells and harming
spells, making and breaking spells, spells to make things grow, and spells to
make sure that nothing would grow. There were spells so secret that even Catweazle
didn’t know what they were for, curses and incantations, conjurations and Words
of Power - everything, in fact, to do with Demons, Devils, Dragons, Spirits,
and Monsters. It was all written in the curling, wriggling, cabalistic
alphabet, part script, part heiroglyph. Some of it went across the pages, and
some went up and down. Some even went diagonally from corner to corner. Little
drawings of birds, butterflies and fish, shells and tiny flowers, covered the
margins.
    Catweazle stopped turning the pages; he had found what he had been
looking for. ‘ “If thou wouldst protect thyself from the evil shadows of the
night”,’ he read, ‘ “make thou a circle, and with thy knife, point to the four
winds, saying the while, Sator, Arepo, Tenet, Opera, Rotas.” ’
    He nodded approvingly. This was one of his favourite incantations. After
all, it was the same forwards or backwards, and if a square was made of the
words, it could be read up and down as well.
    SATOR
    AREPO
    TENET
    OPERA
    ROTAS
     
    Catweazle was sure that this talisman would protect him, and, carrying
the book, he went over to his magic circle, a ring of sand surrounding a rather
badly drawn star. At each of the five points of the star was a candle. He had
made them himself and they didn’t burn very well. They weren’t particularly
black either, as the book had specified, but he had said all the right words
while he made them, and the words were the important thing.
    He lit the candles, after nearly burning his fingers, and then, standing
in the middle of the circle, he drew his ceremonial knife from the sheath he
wore round his scrawny neck. The magic name Adamcos was engraved down the
blade. Catweazle was very proud of his dagger. He had made it himself,
carefully following the instructions in the book, and as well as being very
magical it cut rather well.
    Waving it to the North, to the East, to the South, and, finally, to the
West, he intoned the Words of Power. Then, sheathing the knife, he stepped
carefully out of the circle with his fingers crossed.
    Touchwood was