Modern Magick

The Heart of Hyndorin: 1

10:38am on a bright, shiny day in July (I'd lost track of the date), and I was beginning to get a deep sense of déjà vu.

'The Hyndorin Mountains,' I had said to about thirty-eight passers-by in succession, and received the same response from all of them: a puzzled frown and a shake of the head. 'Sorry,' they said. 'Never heard of it.'

Which is pretty much exactly what happened a couple of days ago, when we went in search of the Vales of Wonder.

'Maybe it's just so far from Scarborough that the people here don't know it,' I said, stopping on a sunny street corner.

But Jay shook his head. 'Someone ought to have at least heard the name before. We're getting nothing but total incomprehension.'

I sighed. 'Which means what, it's had a name change? Like Vale?'

'Could be.'

'Or,' said Emellana Rogan, my idol, 'It is either inaccessible or it no longer exists.'

Why is it that the voice of reason always has to be so depressing?

'It must exist,' I objected. 'Mountain ranges don't just disappear.'

'Is it a mountain range? Whatever Torvaston considered of interest in those parts, it cannot have been simply a piece of topography. Perhaps it was a town. Or an area within a wider mountain range, which can no longer be reached, and has therefore faded from public knowledge.'

'Either way,' said Miranda, 'asking around doesn't seem to be helping much.'

Quite right, we were wasting time. But coming from Miranda, who summarily failed to follow up her observation with a useful suggestion, I found it nettling.

'Right,' I said, hiding my irritation. 'We could be looking for a piece of history, then. Fortunately, we're good at that.'

'To the library?' said Jay, perking up.

'To the nearest library, and post-haste.' I asked the next passer-by for directions to the library, instead of the Hyndorin Mountains, and received a much more satisfactory reply.

'Second to the left, and straight on till morning?' said Jay.

'I knew it was a good idea to bring the navigator.'

Jay bowed.

'Alternatively, next street over on the right, around the corner, and across the road.'

'Reality is always so prosaic.'

'I know,' I said, patting Jay's arm. 'It's disappointing.'

I tried not to notice the way he flinched when I touched him, just as I'd tried not to notice that the others were surreptitiously giving me a wide berth.

'Sorry,' said Jay, noticing me noticing. 'It's just that it—'

'Feels like a shot of pure bliss directly to the heart?' I said hopefully.

'More like an electric shock straight to the brain.'

'I'll work on that.'

The problem was, I was overflowing with magick. Ever since someone had put that wretched lyre into my hands, up at the top of the town of Vale. You know, right where its ancient magick was at its most potent.

It and I might since have parted ways, but I'd managed to take quite a lot of the magick with me. Or something. Whether I'd simply absorbed a small ocean of the stuff and failed to discharge it (making me a walking magickal battery), or whether I'd become some kind of magickal generator (like the griffins), was still under question.