The Wizards of Once

The story is set in an ancient version of the British Isles, when dark wildwoods stretch from coast to coast. Two types of humans inhabit these forests: Wizards, who possess Magic, and Warriors, who do not possess magic but who wield iron, the only substance Magic cannot affect. The Warriors invaded from across the seas and drove the Witches, the most dangerous form of Magic, to apparent extinction. Now they seek to eliminate all remaining Magic, chopping down forests to build iron forts. An unnamed narrator, who claims to be a character in the story, introduces the tale.

Xar (pronounced "Zar"), the thirteen-year-old son of Encanzo the Enchanter, King of Wizards, is the most disobedient boy in the kingdom. He leads a band of followers, including sprites, snowcats, a giant named Crusher, and his talking raven advisor Caliburn, into forbidden Warrior territory to trap a Witch. His motive is personal: Wizard children normally develop Magic around age twelve, but Xar's has never come in. He plans to catch a Witch and extract its Magic for himself. His older brother Looter arrives, ridicules the plan, and persuades most of Xar's followers to abandon him.

Meanwhile, Wish, the young daughter of Queen Sychorax, the Iron Warrior Queen, secretly leaves her fortified hill-fort at night with her nervous Assistant Bodyguard, Bodkin, a studious thirteen-year-old on his first assignment. She is chasing her runaway pet: an enchanted iron spoon, a banned Magic object in Warrior territory. Wish is small, odd-looking, wears a patch over one eye, and is considered a great disappointment by her imposing mother. She has also taken a large sword from the fort courtyard, one missing from Sychorax's dungeons, whose blade reads "Once there were Witches..." on one side and "...but I killed them" on the other (63, 65). As they argue about these forbidden objects, something invisible and terrifyingly cold pursues them from the treetops.

The two storylines collide when Wish's pony gallops into Xar's clearing and triggers his trap. A massive explosion fills the glade. Xar discovers he has caught a Warrior girl, not a Witch. The two fight: Wish wields the Enchanted Sword, which anticipates Xar's attacks, but after she hesitates, Xar's snowcats disarm her. Neither can bring themselves to harm the other, and a tense standoff leads to wary introductions. The two begin challenging each other's beliefs about Magic and Warriors. Crusher gently lifts Wish to the treetops, proving that giants are vegetarian and not the people-eaters Warriors claim.

Xar notices a drop of green blood on the sword's tip. Caliburn warns it could be Witchblood, but Xar deliberately presses his palm against the stain, scratching it into his skin, hoping to absorb Witch Magic. Caliburn warns the stain could turn him to the dark side. Xar keeps the sword and brings Wish and Bodkin to the underground Wizard camp. Squeezjoos, a small hairy fairy who has grown fond of Wish, stays at her side.

At camp, Xar enters a Spelling Competition against Looter and tries to use the Witch-stain to perform Magic, but nothing happens. Looter humiliates him with spells until Xar draws the Enchanted Sword, which slices through Looter's Magic. The sword then wrenches free and causes an explosion. Encanzo confronts Xar, convicts him of disobedience using a truth-revealing potion called "Love-Never-Lies," and confines him to his room.

What no one realizes is that the iron sword's presence has created a breach in the camp's protective Magic barrier, opening an undetectable path for anything following the iron's trail. While Xar was at the competition, a Witch followed this path into his room and attacked Wish and Bodkin. The Enchanted Sword tore free from Xar downstairs and hovered within Wish's reach. She grabbed it and killed the creature, but a drop of smoking green Witchblood fell toward her. Squeezjoos threw himself in its path. The poison spread through his body, turning him rigid and jade-green.

Xar returns to find the devastation. Caliburn warns that Squeezjoos will die within 24 hours. Wish proposes a plan: sneak into Sychorax's dungeons, where a Stone-That-Takes-Away-Magic can remove the Witchblood from Squeezjoos and the stain from Xar's hand. They escape on Xar's enchanted flying door toward the Warrior fort.

Their infiltration fails when sprite invisibility spells collapse under the fort's iron. Wish improvises, pretending she captured Xar. Sychorax examines the Witch-stain and the poisoned sprite, publicly announces that Witches have returned, and imprisons Xar, threatening to let Squeezjoos die unless Xar reveals the sword's location. As Sychorax sweeps away, the master key to every room in the fort falls from her belt. Wish picks it up.

That night, Wish, Bodkin, and Bumbleboozle, one of Xar's hairy fairies, descend into the dungeons, a vast maze holding Once-Magic-people: sprites, giants, and other beings who have had their Magic removed by the Stone-That-Takes-Away-Magic. Their haunting songs echo through the corridors. Following a trail of sprite dust Xar scattered, the rescuers find and unlock his cell. When Sychorax approaches, Wish throws Xar the sword and hides. Xar confronts the queen at sword-point, forces her to reveal the stone chamber's location and the secret exit password while holding the truth potion, then locks her in her own cell.

In the chamber, Xar and Wish carefully place Squeezjoos on the enormous grey stone. The green fades from his body, and the sprite breathes again. They pull him off quickly, preserving enough of his Magic for him to fly. Xar then places his own stained hand on the stone, and the mark disappears.

As Wish rises, she stumbles and presses both palms against the stone. Her hands stick fast, and the stone becomes transparent, revealing the Kingwitch, the leader of the Witches, imprisoned within for centuries. The Kingwitch has been absorbing the Magic of every creature Sychorax brought to the stone. He reveals that Wish possesses the extremely rare Magic-that-works-on-iron, and that the Witches awakened from hibernation because they sensed it. Xar drives the Enchanted Sword into the stone, triggering an explosion that frees both Wish and the Kingwitch. The creature solidifies into a horrifying feathered body, turns invisible, and dives at Wish, tearing off her eyepatch. Beneath it, her hidden eye blazes with an extraordinary color. Magic blasts from it, and the Kingwitch explodes into charcoal and feathers. At the same instant, the Kingwitch's final blast shatters Wish into fragments.

Xar and Bodkin mourn, but Wish's fragments rise and reassemble. A heart descends into her reconstructed chest, and she gasps back to life. Caliburn explains that Wish is a Great Enchanter, a being with multiple lives who can regenerate after death, though the number of those lives is unknown. They leave the sword embedded in the stone, free the imprisoned Once-Magic-people, and part ways. Caliburn gives Wish the Spelling Book and one of his feathers, urging her to conceal her Magic. Wish returns to the fort; Xar escapes through Sychorax's secret exit disguised in the queen's red cloak.

Unbeknownst to anyone, the Kingwitch also regenerates and escapes into the forest. The next morning, Sychorax confronts Wish, but after Wish subtly leverages knowledge of her mother's dungeon secrets, the queen acknowledges her daughter with wary respect.

Xar returns to Wizard camp as a hero with the freed Once-Magic-people. Encanzo, who spent the night searching desperately for his son, embraces him and declares a celebration. He tells the crowd that "there needs to be room in the Wizard world for those who have no Magic!" (440).

Yet Xar harbors a secret. The Witch-stain was not fully removed because he pulled away from the stone too quickly. A faint green mark remains. He points his hand at a tree branch and blasts it apart with Magic for the first time in his life. Caliburn is horrified, recognizing that Xar has not rejected bad Magic. But Xar pulls the old raven into a dance under the midnight stars, insisting they worry tomorrow. The epilogue warns that the Kingwitch is alive and hunting for Wish, whose unique Magic he needs to become invincible: "FOR WHERE THERE IS ONE WITCH, THERE WILL BE OTHERS..." (453).