Doubleborn by Toby Forward Page A

“Well, it’s too late now if you’re off. I’ll say goodbye to Winny for you.”
    “I want to say goodbye to her myself. Where is she?”
    “I’ll take you to her,” he offered. “She’s in the storeroom, unloading the cart.”
    They crossed the yard together. He was taller than she remembered from the night before, broader at the shoulder, and with strong arms.
    He pointed out the arrangement of buildings to her.
    “The house runs along the side of the road,” he said. “And the forge is set at the back, separate and on the square from the house. The storeroom is an extension of the forge.”
    Together the forge and the storeroom were more than half as big again as the house.
    “Forge is a strange word,” he said. “It means the furnace where you heat the metal, and it means the building you work in as well.”
    “It means to make a false copy,” said Tamrin. “To try to cheat.”
    “Clever girl,” he said. “It means exactly that. You would forge a signature on a contract, or forge a painting.”
    “Or a coin,” said Tamrin.
    Smith pulled open a heavy door, twice as high as himself and broad enough for a pair of horses pulling a wagon to pass through.
    “This way,” he said. “Mind your step. Winny,” he called out. “Are you there? Tam wants to talk to you. She wants to say goodbye.”
    His voice echoed round the room and back to them. No reply joined in.
    “She’s not here,” said Tam.
    “Oh, she’s in here,” he said. “She’s wandered off and she’s busy. We’ll look for her.”
    He walked away from her and was gone, leaving his first question of the day rolling around in her head.
    “Who are you?” he had asked. Reflecting on it, she thought it had been a strange question to ask.
    It was her own question.
    “Winny.”
    He was still calling for her. Tamrin had the idea that it was just a game to him. He was teasing. He knew where Winny was.
    She looked up and around. It wasn’t a storeroom at all. It was very like the other big barn they had been in on the way. Stone walls, high oak roof. And it was full of stuff. Piled up, heaped high, taller than she was. With paths between the stacks. It was a library of junk.
    Tamrin walked in and turned left. A passageway unfolded ahead of her, with side alleys branching off. She walked a few paces, turned right and found the same. This was no good. She decided to go back to the door, readjust her directions and start again. She retraced her steps but didn’t find the door. It was a maze. She had made one false turn and now had no idea at all which way was out.
    “Winny.”
    Smith’s voice sounded impossibly far away and there was still no answer.
    Tamrin made a tracker spell. She took off her shoe, tapped it on the ground six times, tossed it into the air. It span and tumbled, taking longer to fall than was quite normal. As it hit the floor a line of footprints glowed against the stone slabs. Tamrin smiled and put her shoe back on. Every step she had taken since entering the barn was illuminated and all she had to do was follow them and she would be back at the door.
    She felt better now. She was in control again. She stuck her tongue out at Smith, wherever he was, and set off.
    Now that she wasn’t worried about getting lost she took the time to look at the piles of junk as she passed.
    Much of it was the sort of thing she had thrown on the cart with Winny. Household objects that had broken or worn out or were no longer loved. Some of it was not like that at all. Her eyes found a handle, not quite neatly tucked in. She stopped, grabbed it and pulled out a sword.
    “You don’t want to mess with that.”
    Tamrin dropped the sword and wheeled around. No one.
    “Are you going to pick it up?”
    She worked out where the voice was from and looked up.
    Someone was lying on top of the pile of junk, looking down at her.
    “You should put that back,” he said. ||

T amrin picked up the sword
    but she didn’t put it back.
    She held it for