Casander Darkbloom and the Threads of Power

The hushed voices of the crowd grew into shouts of awe, wonder and amazement. The teachers leaning over the balcony either stood there gaping or, in Dr Bane’s case, rushed down to rapidly usher Cas off the platform. Madame Aster tried to calm the roaring crowd, but it was useless. Dr Bane frog-marched Cas out of the Atrium to a crescendo of cries and pointed fingers.

Another faint protest of “Hey, no, I’m Dewey!” was the last thing Cas heard before the Atrium’s doors slammed behind them.

Luckily, the parents from earlier had been escorted elsewhere, but there must’ve been another way down from the gallery because the entrance hall was teeming with jostling students, many of whom Cas recognized as those who had watched the proceedings. He spotted the pale twins, a boy and a girl, near the front of the throng. The smug smirks had been wiped off their faces.

“See, I told you!” she shouted at Dr Bane, beaming. The ends of her black hair glowed a victorious shade of yellow. “I saw the whole thing. You said I was wrong, but I told you! I told you!”

Dr Bane gripped Cas’s shoulder so tightly that he thought his arm might fall off. “Not now, Warrior,” said Dr Bane firmly. Out of the corner of his eye, he clocked the bespectacled librarian from earlier and called out to her. “Mrs Crane, alert the Grand Council. Tell them we’ve found the One they’ve been looking for!”

Mrs Crane instantly dropped the armful of hardbacks she was carrying and nodded, scurrying up the stairs, her glasses askew. “You can bring him to the library.”

Dr Bane marched Cas all the way up to the second floor, the Oracle, Warrior and about half the school trailing in their wake. When they reached the library, he hurried their ragtag group inside, before barricading the doors. They could hear students scuffling among themselves, trying to peek through the keyholes or peer under the crack at the bottom of the doors, but Dr Bane rapped his hand on the wood and threatened to give everyone enough extra homework to last until Christmas if they didn’t go away.

Mrs Crane promptly reappeared, panting. “They’re – GASP – on their way – GASP – now,” she wheezed, leaning on a bookcase to catch her breath.

A glint of sunlight caught Cas’s eye as something shone from between the row of bookshelves Mrs Crane had emerged from. Seconds later, four figures in gold, orange-trimmed cloaks emerged from a gilded mirror.

As the four almighty figures approached, Cas and Warrior stumbled back, sinking into a mismatched pair of armchairs with a poof.

“I thought nobody could enter Wayward without going through the wards…” Cas began.

“Shhh,” Warrior hissed respectfully. “Not ordinarily, but the Grand Council Chambers has its own direct waygate to the school.”

Neither of them could take their eyes off the two men and two women who had appeared in the room. “High Councillor Du Villaine, Head of Airscapers.” Dr Bane greeted an older, silver-haired woman who had a fearsome, choking stare. “High Councillor Aster, Head of Earthshapers.” He shook the hand of a tall, elegant man with tufty sideburns. “High Councillor Brooks, Head of Wavebreakers.” A curt nod at the other man, who had a plaited beard down to his waist. “And High Councillor Hephaestus, Head of Firetamers.” He bowed low in front of a woman with startlingly scarlet locks. “Thank you for coming.”

“What is the meaning of this, Bane?” yapped High Councillor Du Villaine. Her thin lips curled back so ferociously that she made Miss Grimbly look like a cuddly teddy bear. “I swear on my family’s honourable name, if this is a trick or joke you think is funny— You interrupted us in the middle of a very important meeting. We were on the brink of deploying a secret squadron of Earthshapers and Firetamers to deal with a volcano that keeps threatening to erupt on the Indonesian border. You better hope that what you’ve got to say is worth it, otherwise—”

“What Tyrannia means to say,” cut in High Councillor Aster calmly, steepling his fingers, “is what is the nature of your call today?”

“This boy,” said Dr Bane, unintimidated by Du Villaine and gesturing towards Cas, “is the One we’ve been searching for.”

“It is true,” said the Oracle in the same quiet, weighty voice she had used in the Atrium. “I tested him myself this morning.”

“And where exactly did you find him?” said High Councillor Du Villaine stiffly, shooting Cas a suspicious look.

“Actually, I—” Warrior started to say, but Dr Bane sliced her off with a wide-eyed look.

“In the Normie world,” Dr Bane said, spinning a vague and plausible tale as smoothly as if it were silk. “Warrior and I were holidaying there briefly before term started again. We happened upon the boy by chance.”

Clearly, Dr Bane didn’t want the Grand Council knowing about Warrior’s unsanctioned, unsupervised mission to find Cas by herself.

“He has no memory of who he is,” chimed in Warrior, seemingly determined to get a word in edgeways. “He didn’t even know he had any powers.”

“And does he really?” asked High Councillor Hephaestus, eyes aglimmer. “Have Life and Deathmaker abilities, I mean?”

Relief and elation spread across three of the Grand Council members’ faces like a cool, welcome breeze. High Councillor Aster smiled; High Councillor Brooks’s shoulders sagged, free from an invisible weight; and High Councillor Hephaestus even did a little dance on the spot.

The look she gave him made the weight that seemed to have shifted from Brooks’s to Cas’s shoulders feel heavier.

“How convenient,” Du Villaine cawed. “A simple Normie boy, plucked from obscurity, with no memory of who or what he is, just happens to be our saviour. And you were the one who found him, Bane.”

High Councillor Aster glanced skyward. “This isn’t a competition, Tyrannia.”

“The Foretold has come,” butted in High Councillor Hephaestus. “You heard the prophecy as well as we did. Only one born from the same stock, with power equal to or greater than the Master’s, can stop him. They will grace us within the next twelve twirls around the sun. We haven’t seen a Lifemaker or Deathmaker in seventeen years – be grateful that we have finally found one.”

“Well, how come you didn’t know about this?” High Councillor Du Villaine sneered, focusing her wrath on the Oracle now. “Do you expect me to believe that your strange abilities were strong enough to know that the boy was coming, but not to know when he came? That’s like inviting someone over and then being surprised when they ring the doorbell!”

“The threads of power work in great and mysterious ways,” retorted the Oracle cryptically. She turned her unseeing eyes to stare dead straight at High Councillor Du Villaine. “He is the Foretold. The truth is what it is, whether you like it or not.”

Something about the Oracle’s hard tone made High Councillor Du Villaine bite her tongue, seemingly cowed into acceptance.

“You must enrol him at once, Bane,” High Councillor Aster commanded. “It is essential that he completes his proper education. Only then will he be ready to join us and stand a chance against the Master of All.”

“Certainly,” agreed Dr Bane, inclining his head as if he wanted to do nothing more than honour their wishes.

“And we must instigate a plan of counter-deception at once!” said High Councillor Brooks. “We can circulate false rumours about the boy and his whereabouts. Undoubtedly, the Master and his Heretics will hear whispers that the Foretold has been found soon enough!”

“Is that what you want too, child?” asked High Councillor Hephaestus, turning to him. “To stay here and help us?”

High Councillor Hephaestus grinned warmly. “Of course. This is your life we’re talking about.”

High Councillor Du Villaine snorted and stepped forward to protest, but Hephaestus held up a hand to stop her.

There was Warrior, sitting and smiling proudly beside him; Dr Bane, shooting him a gentle and knowing look; Mrs Crane, who bobbed her head encouragingly and gave him the thumbs up; and the four Grand Council members staring back at him, waiting for an answer.

“I do,” said Cas, a kindling flame of belonging, of being wanted, striking up inside his chest.

“You’ll need a proper name,” Warrior said, as she escorted Cas away from the library towards the headmaster’s office.

After the Grand Council and the Oracle had departed, repeatedly declining Mrs Crane’s offer to stay for tea and custard creams, Cas had been shown out of the library by Dr Bane, who wanted to take him to meet the headteacher. Unfortunately, multiple students were still milling around outside, desperate to get a glimpse of the Foretold. So, whilst Dr Bane dealt with them, he had entrusted Warrior with the task instead.

“Make sure he signs the school register,” Dr Bane said grimly, before rolling up his sleeves and venturing off to face the horde.

“No, I mean a last name,” said Warrior. “A family name. If you’re the Foretold, you can’t expect people to keep calling you Casander No-Name for ever.”

“But I like it. No-Name sounds cool, mysterious… I bet nobody else is called it.”

Warrior threw Cas a sidelong glance and chuckled. “Nice try. But I didn’t get to pick my name, did I? Dr Bane gave it to me when he took me in.”

The headmaster’s office was located at the end of a wide corridor on the far side of the Atrium. A marble archway led into a foyer, complete with gilded statues of the five emblems, a sculpture of the world flipped on its head and a mahogany desk, behind which sat Miss Grimbly.

“Good morning, Miss Grumply,” said Warrior, putting on her best sickly sweet voice, the one she knew annoyed the secretary the most.

Miss Grimbly stopped feeding pieces of bread to the two crusty parakeets in the cage behind her and whirled around. She gripped the sandwich ends so hard that her knuckles turned white. “What do you want, heathen?” She scowled. “Didn’t I tell you not to hang around with this one, boy? She’s nothing but trouble, I tell you. Nothing.”

“Could you please tell Headmaster Higgles that Trouble is here to see him?” said Warrior, batting her eyelashes frantically. “Or I could go and tell him myself…”

Like a cat on a hot stove, Miss Grimbly leapt from her chair and threw her frail, brittle body in front of the headmaster’s door.

“Don’t you dare,” she said sharply, raspy breaths rattling through her fragile chest. “You’ll have to make an appointment.”

The waging war between Miss Grimbly and Warrior was abruptly interrupted by Headmaster Higgles opening his door.

“Well, well,” guffawed the huge figure who filled the doorway. “If it isn’t Bane’s ward and the Foretold himself.”

Headmaster Higgles was a very tall man who largely resembled a garden rake. His tufty head of hair brushed against the top of the door frame as he towered above the rest of them. He had the distinctly wide-eyed, bemused expression of someone who has been hit over the head with a frying pan. His spindly arms and legs folded unnaturally this way and that like a giant spider as he passed through the entrance, almost dislodging the small napping pillow tucked under one arm and the half-eaten blueberry muffin sticking out of the opposite breast pocket.

Cas wondered which had been the urgent business Headmaster Higgles was attending to instead of watching the Oracle’s ceremony: his mid-morning snooze or early lunch.

“Let’s get a good look at you, boy,” said Headmaster Higgles, blundering towards Cas in an oversized green cloak. “Yes, that’s it – turn left, now right – spin around a bit – my goodness, you’re nothing like I expected.”

“No, I suppose I expected the Foretold to be, well – something more, something greater – a strong, strapping lad, quite like myself,” said Higgles. “But I’m sure you’ll look the part once we’ve fed and trained you up a bit, got a bit more than fluff going on in your head and some meat on your bones.”

You’re one to talk, thought Cas, spying a ham sandwich sticking out of Higgles’s other pocket.

“We’re here to sign the register, sir,” Warrior informed him, as the headmaster started making Cas spin around again like a new toy.

“Oh yes, right.” Headmaster Higgles’s words were muffled by the giant bite of muffin he had just taken, thick dribbles of drool sliding down his pointed chin. Cas wondered if the headmaster grew continuously up instead of out. “Get it out for them, Grimbly. That’s it, hurry up – then scurry along and see if Cook Fiddlepot has prepared my second brunch yet.”

“Chop, chop,” said Headmaster Higgles, clapping his hands. “Second brunch.”

With a disgruntled noise, Miss Grimbly pulled a heavy calf-hide book out from her desk, but hovered for a moment, reluctant to leave them alone with it, before striding past them towards the kitchens with a grimace.

“Just pop it away when you’re done,” instructed Headmaster Higgles, licking his lips and returning to his office to polish off his muffin.

“Ah, this is the life,” said Warrior, plopping down on Miss Grimbly’s chair and lazily kicking her feet onto the desk.

Cas peeled back the register’s front cover tentatively. “So, what do I do?”

On the pages in front of Cas, there were columns upon columns of students’ names listed under each of the Orders. It seemed to date back centuries.

“Flip to the back,” said Warrior, deliberately smudging a muddy footprint into the centre of the desk. “That’s where all the available last names are.”

Sure enough, on the back pages of the book there were more columns, though these were sparsely populated.

“Names that are used by people who come to Wayward without one,” she explained. “People like us. Orphans. Others born in the Normie world. Those who don’t want to use their real last name because they’re estranged from their family.”

Cas scanned the lists in front of him. There was certainly an interesting selection to choose from:

EARTHSHAPERS
Rockforth
Ivywove
Fernheath
Mudstroke
Forrester

AIRSCAPERS
Gale
Windfierce
Draftblast
Gustpuff
Blowbreath

WAVEBREAKERS
Covey
Shorenear
Dropper
Pitterpat
Splosher

FIRETAMERS
Sparkshooter
Flintflick
Embershade
Kindler
Forger

LIFEMAKERS AND DEATHMAKERS
Darkbloom
Lightfall
Crowblight
Newbone
Bleakdawn
Dustbringer

“No, because once you write your name in the register, there’s no turning back. You’re stuck with it.”

Cas raked his gaze over the list of names again. Whichever one he chose, this was going to be his new identity. His true identity. Or at least, the only one that he could remember. Maybe if Warrior was right and he was originally from the Balance Lands, then one of his family members’ names could be in this book already. His blank-faced parents. His unknown brother or sister. A mysterious aunt, uncle or cousin, who’d never know he was about to sign his name at the back of the book, renouncing theirs and claiming a new one of his own.

In a way, it didn’t matter what life he might have had before, whether in the Normie world or the Balance Lands. This was the first one he could remember. It was the first time he could remember being himself, claiming himself, being able to decide who he was and actually stick with it.

One particular name called to him above the others, until he could see nothing else.

“This one,” Cas said, tapping his finger against the first surname on the Lifemakers and Deathmakers’ list: Darkbloom. He flicked to the fifth Order’s page at the front of the book, picked up a pen and dipped it in a pot of ink. He started to scrawl his new name – but faltered halfway through. “Hey, how come this name is scratched out?”

Jumping off Miss Grimbly’s chair, Warrior peered over Cas’s shoulder to see what he was pointing at. There was only one other Darkbloom in the book, but the name had been repeatedly struck through. Cas squinted hard to see if he could make out the letters.

She swallowed hard. “Do you remember me telling you how we don’t call the Master of All by his real name any more?”

Cas nodded, a chill sweeping through his bones. He could sense what she was about to say before she did.

“That was his name,” said Warrior coldly, “before he renounced it. He turned up here, a mysterious boy from the Normie world with no family or parents, like you. I must’ve completely forgotten; it’s been years since I’ve heard it.”

At the look of dread on Warrior’s face, Cas quickly dipped his pen back in the pot. “I’ll choose something else.”

“No,” she said quietly, eyes transfixed on the book with a mix of wonder and fear. “You chose that name. For whatever reason, the threads made it speak to you.” She shuddered. “It’s just … spooky … that’s all.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, finishing writing his name in the register. “Spooky.”