Prologue

I magine an age of giants. It was a long, long time ago, in a British Isles so old it did not know it was the British Isles yet, when the country was all wildwood, and there were two types of humans fighting in the woodlands.

The WIZARDS, who had lived in this forest for as long as memory, and were as Magic as the wood itself, and rode on the back of the Giant Snowcats. And the WARRIORS, who hunted the Magic down with bright swords and fire, so they could build their forts and their fields and their new modern world.

The Warriors were winning, for their weapons were made of IRON... ... and IRON was the only thing that Magic would not work on.

This is the story of a young boy Wizard and a young girl Warrior, who were both cheerful and hopeful and full of good ideas, but they had been taught since birth to hate each other like poison. It is the tale of how they met, and learnt to be friends and to see things from each other's point of view, and it really wants to be a HAPPY story... but unfortunately in the course of their last joyful adventure...They accidentally let the KINGWITCH out of the Stone where he had been imprisoned so safely for century upon century And WITCHES had returned to the wonder of the wildwoods

Now, I do not want to scare you, dear Reader. But Witches had feathered wings, and acid blood, and every clawed hand ended in five talons as long and as slice- sharp as a freshly sharpened sword.

Which would be fine if they were well-intentioned, But Witches were the kind of evil that hates all things good and eats the hearts of robins and wants to destroy the world and everything in it.

And the Kingwitch commanded them all....

Nobody knows where the Kingwitch was now hidden. But I do.

I want the boy, thought the Kingwitch, in cramped, wicked thoughts. I want the Boy-who-is-Very-Nearly- Mine, for HE can help bring me the Girl-who-has-Magic- that-Works-on-Iron... for if I GET that Magic, I shall at last be invincible....

But fear not, dear Reader! This must be impossible. Xar had been locked up in the great prison of Gormincrag. And nobody gets out of Gormincrag, which may not be very nice for Xar, but it also follows, as night followsday that the Kingwitch and his Witches cannot get in

And as for Wish, why Wish's scary mother, the great Warrior queen Sychorax, has built a gigantic Wall across the entire western edge of her kingdom, a Wall so high that even a Longatepper High-Walker Giant couldn't see over it on tiptoes, to protect her people from the attacks of the Witches.

So our heroes can't possibly meet each other, or the

Kingwitch, in a story as short as this one.

It was extremely unlikely that they would ever have

met in the first place. It happened ONCE.

Surely it couldn't happen

TWICE?

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