The Magic came screaming out and hit Wish on the chest and there was a mind-blowingly loud noise, and a blinding white light, and something exploded with such energy that Xar was knocked over.
The earth came to a shuddering halt at last, and great clouds of dust billowed and wafted across the shattered remains of the courtyard.
The ball of iron that encased the Kingwitch was, strange to say, exactly the shape of the stone that used to be Queen Sychorax’s Stone-That-Takes-Away-Magic, maybe because it was a shape that Wish had seen before.
The clouds of Witches who had been hovering, waiting, watching for the outcome of this battle, shrieked across the sky, howling and raging against the defeat of their leader, before dispersing, flying away, who knows where?
The ball of iron rocked once, twice, on its pointed axis… and then it rolled to the edge of the battlements… and fell over the edge… and down, down into the ocean below, before disappearing under the waves.
The Wizards and the Warriors, the Witchsmeller, the Droods, and the Magic creatures staggered to their feet, coughing and choking, trying to work out exactly what had just gone on.
Queen Sychorax leaped up, and ran toward Xar, Encanzo and Bodkin running by her side. The dust fell all around them like blue rain.
Xar picked up the Enchanted Sword, which had landed right in front of him.
The writing on the blade had gotten so scratched and rubbed away on both sides by the helmet and the other iron things, that it now just read:
Once…
“We did it! AGAIN!” grinned Xar as he put the sword into his scabbard. The two monarchs reached him where he stood, ragged and shaken, his quiff a little awry but still Xar-like in his jubilation.
“I TOLD you we could do it, Father! And did you see, Bodkin? Did you see, Caliburn?” he cried, punching the air in triumph. “I DID fight the Kingwitch! I TOLD you I could!”
“What on earth is the boy talking about?” snapped Queen Sychorax. “Where is my daughter?”
“There she is,” said Xar, pointing at the great cloud of gentle, shimmering, bright blue dust falling around them.
Queen Sychorax was without words.
“She exploded,” explained Xar.
Queen Sychorax’s chest heaved as she looked around at the clouds of blue dust before…
“EXPLODED?” she said in horror. “My daughter EXPLODED??? What do you mean she exploded? And why are you celebrating? The child saved you, you horrible boy! You’re as bad as that Witch!”
If she hadn’t been such a very great queen you might have thought that Sychorax staggered a little. She certainly turned deathly pale, and then she knelt down on the floor where the Enchanted Spoon and thirty iron pins lay quiet and cold and lifeless.
She reached out a trembling hand to touch them.
Squeezjoos whispered, “Don’t you worrys, ice queen, don’t you worrys… She’ll be back,” putting his little clawlike hands lovingly on the bewildered queen’s cheek.
Queen Sychorax had given her heart away long ago.
But kneeling in the dust there, one, two, three tears dropped from her cold blue eyes.
“Outss of the way! Outsss of the way!” said the Once-sprite, swooping from nowhere, jumping from the back of the hovering falcon, and collecting the tears, one, two, three, as they dropped from the cheek of the mourning queen.
Encanzo stepped in hurriedly. “For shame, Xar, you have to explain! Your daughter will regenerate, Sychorax. She has a Magic eye, which makes her a very great Enchanter, and very great Enchanters have more than one life.”
“Regenerate?” said Queen Sychorax, blinking blankly. “Magic eye? More than one life?”
She had forgotten how horribly confusing Magic people were.
They couldn’t even obey the normal rules about life and death.
“When? When will she regenerate?” gabbled Sychorax.
“In a moment or two,” said Encanzo soothingly. “It can take a while… In the meantime, we have to be careful not to step on any of this blue dust…”
“This blue dust is MY DAUGHTER???” said Queen Sychorax, looking around in astonishment and horror.
“What issss that man doing?” hissed Squeezjoos, eyes narrowing.
That man was the Drood Commander.
The Drood Commander was behaving in rather a peculiar manner.
He was working frantically, and as they looked more closely they could see he was actually spelling the blue dust with his spelling staff, collecting bright clouds of it and putting it in a gourd.
“Yes,” said Encanzo, very puzzled, “what on earth are you doing, Drood Commander?”
“Didn’t you see? The girl, the Enchanter, has Magic-mixed-with-iron, which makes her very, very dangerous!” said the Drood Commander. “Quick! We don’t have much time! We must trap her in here and then she won’t be able to regenerate!”