Once In a Blue Moon Read Online Free PDF

asked Roland, right to where his face should have been . . . but no one ever got the same answer twice. Roland always made a point of telling these people exactly what they didn’t want to hear, so they’d go away and stop bothering him. The Administrator made a point of asking each new Hawk and Fisher to get rid of Roland, because he wouldn’t take orders from the Administrator, and had been known to do very painful and destructive things to students who disappointed him. Usually for having the wrong attitude . . . The Administrator kept pointing out that Roland the Headless Axeman scared the crap out of the students, and most of the Academy staff; and every Hawk and Fisher in turn said the same thing: that this was the best possible reason for keeping Roland around.
    Because if the students could face him, they could face anyone.
    And it had to be said: Roland did turn out first-class warriors. All just packed full of the right heroic attitude.
    Hawk and Fisher stood at the back of the practice hall just long enough to make sure all the students were giving it their best shot, and then they nodded to Roland. He made a brief movement of his shoulders that suggested he might be nodding back. (Hawk had once let his hand drift casually through the space above Roland’s shoulders, where his head should have been, just to assure himself that there really was nothing there. Roland let him do it, and then said, Never do that again. All the hairs stood up on the back of Hawk’s neck, and he decided right then and there that he had no more curiosity in the matter.) The students duelled up and down the hall in pairs, stamping their feet hard on the wooden floor, thrusting and parrying in perfect form. The clash of steel on steel was oddly muffled, as though the wood of the Millennium Oak absorbed some of the sound, to show its disapproval of so much steel inside the Tree.
    •   •   •
     
    H awk and Fisher were heading unhurriedly down the long, curving corridor that led to the Alchemist’s laboratory, when there was a sudden and very loud explosion. The floor shook ever so lightly beneath their feet, and the door to the laboratory was blown clean off its hinges, flying across the corridor to slam up against the far wall, while black smoke billowed out through the open doorway. Followed by howls, screams, and quite a lot of really bad language. The Alchemist didn’t take failure well. The black smoke smelled really bad, and dark cinders bobbed and floated on the air. Hawk breathed in a lungful of the smoke before he could stop himself, and for a moment wee-winged bright pink fairies went flying round and round his head, singing in high-pitched voices a very suggestive song about someone called Singapore Nell. Hawk shook his head firmly, and the pink fairies disappeared, one by one. The last one winked, and blew him a kiss.
    The fairies might actually have been there, temporarily. The Alchemist could do amazing things with unstable compounds.
    “I see our Alchemist is still hard at work,” Fisher said solemnly, batting at the black smoke with one hand as it curled slowly on the air, before being quickly sucked out the open corridor window. The Tree could look after itself, though the Alchemist tried its patience more than most. “Is he still trying to turn lead into gold? I keep telling him, if gold becomes as common as lead, it won’t be worth anymore than lead; but he won’t listen to me. I think it’s all about the thrill of the chase, myself.”
    “A surprisingly good cook, though,” said Hawk. “I suppose all that messing about with potions gives you a feeling for combining the right ingredients . . . Is he still banned from the Tree’s kitchens?”
    “Damn right he is,” said Fisher. “That macaroni pie of his had me trapped in the jakes for hours.”
    “It was very tasty,” said Hawk.
    “Strangely, that didn’t make me feel any better,” said Fisher.
    “It cured your