Icespell Read Online Free PDF Page A

he’d called on to make himselfinto a dragonfly. He willed it to make the shape of the icespell, and he directed it at the rock.
    Nothing happened.
    Max pressed his lips together and tried again, harder.
    Still nothing happened.
    Jerome started to snigger. Snotty was concentrating on the stone with a frown. Olivia bit her lip.
    Max was puzzled. He’d felt the magic flow. He’d definitely felt it hit the stone and it should have been a solid lump of ice by now. But something was resisting the spell. It was as if the stone was enchanted, or bigger than it looked, or shielded somehow from his magic. It was some trick of Snotty’s, he was sure of it. Well, Snotty was going to get a shock.
    Max reached for every last drop of magic he could gather and shaped it into the icespell. Just as he did so, he noticed a tiny ant crawling on the grey flint surface, and as quickly as he could, wove an extra thread into the spell to protect any living creatureon the rock as it was iced. The he flung the magic at the flint in a great flood of power.
    The stone disappeared into the middle of a perfect sparkling crystal of solid ice.
    Olivia let out her breath, and Max looked up in triumph at Snotty.
    Snotty looked distinctly pale and slightly taken aback, but he recovered swiftly. He clapped slowly and turned to Jerome.
    “Well then, I suppose we’d better give him his sword back. He’ll be needing it soon anyway, eh Jerome?”
    Jerome, looking ever so slightly sick, nodded.
    Max suddenly felt a slight twinge of doubt. What had he done? Had they tricked him? Why was Snotty looking so triumphant, and Jerome so sick?
    Snotty threw Max’s sword over, and it landed at his feet with a clatter. Snotty laughed nastily.
    “You know you’ve done something, Pendragon, don’t you. You just don’t know what! Well, we’ll leave it to you to find out, shall we?”
    And he turned his back and slipped away through the trees, Jerome following, crashing through the undergrowth like a small herd of boar. Silence fell on the clearing as Max and Olivia looked at each other.
    What had he done?

Disaster at Camelot
    I t was Ferocious who broke the silence. He had watched the encounter between Max and Snotty with one eye open, while curled up for an afternoon doze on Max’s pack. But now he jumped down and stretched.
    “Well, it’s no use looking like a wet fish, Max. Whatever you’ve done, you’ve done. Better just go and find out what it is.”
    At that moment there was a flurry of splashing and squawking as Adolphus crash-landed in the pool alongside a small duck, and both of them flapped their way noisily to the bank.
    “Hello! Hello! I’ve made a friend! Come and meet him!” called Adolphus happily.
    The duck waddled out of the water with Adolphus bounding round him in circles, and bobbed his head at them all with a wide grin.
    “Quack!” he said cheerily. “Got any bread?”
    “What?” said Max, startled.
    “ Got any bread? ” said the duck. “Only, I always ask. If it’s humans. ’Cos they often do have. And I like a bit of bread.”
    “Umm, yes, I think so,” said Max, and looked in his pack. There was an old dried-up piece of bread he’d stuffed in there at breakfast a few days ago, intending to eat it later. He broke it up and threw it into the water, where the duck happily splashed around finding every last bit.
    “Quack!” he said, when it had all gone. “Muchobliged. Tasty bit of bread that. Got any more?”
    “No, sorry,” said Max.
    “Ah well, never mind. Maybe another time.” And the duck dived under the surface for a second, splashed water over himself happily, then waddled out of the river.
    “Pleased to meet you,” he said, putting his head on one side and looking at Max and Olivia with one beady black eye. “So – what are we doing now?”
    “We’re going back to the castle,” said Ferocious. “To see what wonders Max has managed to achieve with his latest spell. Probably turned all the fish in the