F. E. Higgins - The Bone Magician (Tales from the Sinister City, Book 2)

Praise for The Black Book of Secrets :

This clever, atmospheric debut, about kindness and cruelty, with its richly drawn and sometimes grotesque characters, its mysteries, its magic and its surprising climax, is a piece of perfectly constructed, old-fashioned storytelling of the most compelling kind

Sunday Times Childrens Book of the Week

A deliciously rich mix of Gothic nastiness... and black humour... Higginss prose has terrific verve, with glittering descriptive flashes... Its a bravura debut

Guardian

You are in for a terrific read...The fierce yet sophisticated denouement of this excellent debut leaves you longing for a sequel

The Times

Beautifully written... this imaginative extravaganza also offers food for thought

Times Educational Supplement

Also by F. E. Higgins

The Black Book of Secrets

F. E. HIGGINS

M ACMILLAN C HILDRENS B OOKS

First published 2008 by Macmillan Childrens Books

This electronic edition published 2008 by Macmillan Childrens Books
a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Basingstoke and Oxford
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com

ISBN 978-0-230-71401-4 in Adobe Reader format
ISBN 978-0-230-71400-7 in Adobe Digital Editions format

Copyright F. E. Higgins 2008

The right of F. E. Higgins to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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To Andy

Anon.

And none could rival the Beast in its ugliness

Anon., The Tale of the Hideous Beast, from
Houndseckers Tales of Faeries and Blythe Spirits

Boane magycke anciente praktise of raiysing deade bodyies

Jonsens dictionary , c. 1625

When we last met, I was snowbound in Pachspass, the ancient mountain village where Ludlow Fitch and Joe Zabbidou had such trouble in The Black Book of Secrets . While I waited for the thaw, intending to follow in their footsteps, I uncovered the seeds of another story in a city to the south. Its name was Urbs Umida and that is where I went, for I had to see the place from which young Ludlow had fled his evil ma and pa.

Hardly altered by time, the River Foedus flows silently as ever through the heart of the City. The north side has flourished, but the south side is practically abandoned. After three days of searching, using what sparse clues I had from Ludlows memoirs, I found the narrow alley where Lembart Jellico, Ludlows good friend, had kept his pawnshop. To my surprise, the shop was still standing and occupied, by a Mr Ethelred Jelco, who dealt in antiques. It was he who sold me the exquisite wooden box containing the battered remnants of Pins Journal and the articles from the Chronicle wherein I first read of Benedict Pantagus and Juno.

The Bone Magician is neither a sequel to The Black Book of Secrets , nor a prequel. It is what I like to call a paraquel. The events in this story took place at the same time as the adventures of Joe Zabbidou and Ludlow Fitch in Pagus Parvus. To read this story it is not necessary to know what came before, but perhaps after this you will want to go back to find out.

As ever, it is not my place to advise you, only to reveal to you what I know.

F. E. Higgins

England

How I have come to hate this place of evil, this city of nightmares . Urbs Umida they call it, Dank City, and well it deserves its name . It has taken everything that was precious to me . But I shall leave one day, soon, when I know the truth . I shall pass through those gates and it would please me greatly to not look back. Imagine, never again to inhale the stink of rot and decay, never again to see despairing eyes in the shadows, and never again to hear the name Deodonatus Snoad or to read the lies from his poisonous quill.