Puddlenose and the small, scrawny shape-changer named Ben slipped out of the last room in the tunnel—the lair of Puddlenose and his various traveling companions, and a catch-all for storage—to join them.
“Is he really gone?” one of the girls called.
“Yes! Time to decootie-ize this place!” CJ yelled. She waved her arms as though dispersing a terrible stench, and began stamping around the rug.
Three girls passed out plates and spoons, as the day’s cook came around with a pot of oatmeal.
“Jilo did have spells on him to ward initiative.” Clair sat cross-legged in the middle of the rug. She dug her spoon into the oatmeal. “Just as I always thought. Senrid found the evidence in Wan-Edhe’s personal spellbook, left on a table awaiting his return.”
“Urk.” CJ stopped stamping, and flopped down to eat. “If there is anything worse than Chwahir, it’s Marlovens. I still think it was as big a mistake to bring him in on it as it was to let Jilo know. If Jilo really is as smart as Ben says—”
“He’s smart,” Ben said, with conviction, as he took a bowl. “I’ve spent more time spying on him than any of you have. I think Jilo’s plenty smart. It’s Wan-Edhe’s spells that made him go stupid. It was always worst when we were around, or Wan-Edhe was around, or certain words were said. Like Wan-Edhe did it on purpose.”
“Of course he did,” Clair said.
Puddlenose had already downed his first bowl. As he got up to help himself to more, he said, “I can tell you this, after all my time as Wan-Edhe’s prisoner: he was afraid of Jilo. That is, afraid that when Jilo got old enough and learned enough magic he’d depose Kwenz, take over the Shadowland, then come after the homeland. After all, pretty much all the rulers in Chwahirsland over the past couple centuries got their thrones the quick way, rather than waiting for the previous throne-warmer to croak of old age.”
CJ glared his way. “I just hope Jilo doesn’t pop up on the horizon with a million ships full of Chwahir military loaded with swords and stuff.”
Clair shook her head. “I don’t think he’s going to. I can’t say why, I just don’t believe he will.”
“He wanted to take our Junky,” one of the girls put in, pointing dramatically to the braided rug. “How can you forget him and his group of groanboils riding around just to try to catch us sneaking in or out?”
Puddlenose shrugged. “True. But I bet that’s because Kwenz wouldn’t let him have a hideout like ours in the Shadowland. And pinching a hideout is not conquering. Besides, who could blame him for wanting a place to get away from Kwenz, especially when Wan-Edhe turned up?”
“I still hate him,” CJ said.
Clair got up to dunk her empty bowl in the water barrel with its purification spell. As she clacked the bowl back onto the stack, she said, “Aunt Murial is busy trying to replace the old protections, and I think I ought to learn how. The Chwahir might be gone, but there are worse villains.”
CJ groaned. “It’s not fair. I thought we were supposed to have a happy ending, after Siamis got defeated. We deserve a happy ending. We earned it. Yeah, don’t say it, villains aren’t fair.”
“That’s why they’re villains,” a redhead said, raising a forefinger.
Clair smiled as the girls laughed, then turned serious. “Before I go study magic, maybe we should make a patrol through the forest, as we always have. Aunt Murial said we couldn’t trust that all the Chwahir went away. She was going to talk to the regional governors about watching for any bands of Chwahir looking for trouble. We can help out by patrolling the woods.”
“I’ll take to the air,” Ben offered. He was wondering what he would do without any Shadowland to spy on.
CJ scowled. “I wish there was some kind of spell that would take an invading army and turn them into a field of petunias.” She kicked at the colorful mural that the girls had painted. “But no matter how much magic we learn, it doesn’t really stop villains. We need an Idea to Save the World.” The capitals conveyed themselves through extra sarcasm and an eye-roll.
The girls jumped up, some glad to be getting outside, especially after their long stay up north.
Puddlenose offered to help, and as the gang started up the tunnel toward the cave exit, he said, “If you see any Chwahir, give a yell. They probably know their king is gone. No one in control. They’ll be looking for sport.” He made a gesture, drawing his forefinger across his throat.
“Our rules haven’t changed,” Clair said. “Pairs or threes!”
“Follow anyone we find, then use our transfer medals,” Irenne recited, rolling her eyes and flipping back her long light brown ponytail. “Puddlenose, it’s not like we haven’t been doing this for simply ages.”
Puddlenose patted the air. “I know. I know. What we don’t know is if Wan-Edhe’s experimental loyalty spells and all the rest of his weird magic and crazy proclamations will still keep ’em afraid to try anything. When those spells do break, the Chwahir are going to be really, really angry.”
* * *
—
A short time later, Clair tramped along next to CJ, looking up and down the gentle hillocks and rocky glades, before saying, “While you think up your idea, I’d better find my aunt.”
“But the idea is so obvious,” CJ said, throwing her arms wide. Birds rose out of a nearby shrub, squawking. “We lived it, there at the end. None of us kids could defeat Siamis by ourselves. But when we worked in a big group, we were great. We worked it all out, some searching, others decoys, you remember!”
Clair said doubtfully, “The nine of us have always worked together.”
“I don’t mean just our gang. I mean, like a . . . a pact, with other kids. Who could help.” CJ smacked the front of her black woolen vest, then said, “There’s the stream.”
Clair ran beside CJ down a grassy hill. They plunged into the green shadows of a shaded path, and CJ went on. “By others I mean the kid rulers, the new generation, like those old mages called us. Sartora’s generation. Yeah, we don’t have mind powers like she does.” On the words ‘mind powers,’ CJ whizzed her hands around her head as if she were shooing flies. “But we still are smart. Look how many villains have tried to wipe us out.”
“Look how close we’ve come to being wiped out,” Clair said, then shook her head, her blue-white hair a silky curtain around her arms. “No, no, I agree. And I know you’re not saying we should go looking for trouble.”
CJ whirled so that her green skirt flared and fell back to ankle length as she walked backward. She knew the forest well, and if strangers had been lurking around, the local birds would have been sending up the alarm. “The way I see it is, Eleven-Land is grown-ups who all want power. Siamis is a grown-up, or so close you may as well call him one.” She made a sour face. “I don’t know if he’s younger or older than Disgusting Rel the Disgusting Hero, but anyway. From what everybody said, Siamis was able to pull off his enchantment because grown-up rulers found him so handsome, and so well spoken, and good at everything he did,” she warbled in a syrupy coo. “No kid is going to fall for Oooo, yer so haaaaaaandsome, Siamis!”
Clair squashed the impulse to remind CJ that they’d met plenty of kids who would have wanted to be Siamis, and that she not only trusted but relied on adults, beginning with Aunt Murial. And Janil the Steward, queen of the kitchen, who had seen that Clair ate, bathed, and dressed when she was small, while her mother was drinking or dosing under the effects of sleepweed. And the city’s guild leaders, and the oldest of the provincial governors. She was a queen because they let her be one, she thought privately. It was not a new thought.
But she understood CJ, who had come from a home in which the adults were abusive and untrustworthy, and further, she understood what CJ was trying to do. Their group of friends looked out for one another, and so CJ wanted to form a larger group to do the same.
Like . . . an alliance.
“May
be an alliance is a good idea. I remember Senrid of Marloven Hess saying that he didn’t think Siamis was really defeated. He said it was a retreat, that Siamis is coming back.”
“Senrid would say that,” CJ scoffed. “Being a Marloven. He probably hopes Siamis comes back, so they’ll have an excuse for a lot of battles and military junk. But Siamis skunked so fast he left behind that Ancient Sartoran sword of his, remember? What else can that mean except he’s too scared to come back? But. We need an alliance to be ready for the next villain. Because one thing you know about Norsunder is, they have to have a crop of ’em, ready to come boiling out to try their next evil plan.”
Clair was nodding slowly. She hoped Senrid was wrong in saying that Siamis’s retreat wasn’t even a defeat in any real sense, just an abandonment of a plan when it ceased to be successful. She didn’t want to tell CJ that she’d been having occasional nightmares about the pleasant, smiling young man who so easily put the world under a web of enchantment. Not horrible nightmares, which somehow made it worse: he always seemed so friendly and kindly. She found that more sinister than evil old Wan-Edhe, who never pretended to be anything but mean, and who had labored for years to create his web of spells over his own people. Siamis had bound people in enchantment in moments.
CJ paced in a circle, one fist pounding the palm of the other hand. “It has to be a kid alliance, ones who aren’t villains or power-mad. Friends only! Code names, so anyone nosing in won’t know what we mean. And we’ll have code words, too, ones that the grown-ups would never pay attention to. And if someone gets into trouble, we all promise to go and help out.”
“I’d be glad to send out messages to see who else might like the idea. Whom were you thinking of inviting?” Clair asked.
“Our friends. Ones we know and trust.”
“Of course,” Clair said. “Beginning with . . . ?”
“Arthur and Sartora up in Bereth Ferian. That is, Arthur would join. He’s like us, though he’s been learning magic forever, and Sartora might, if she’s not too busy being famous.”
Clair made a face. “Sartora asked us to call her by her real name.”
“Liere, Sartora, it’s all the same,” CJ said, whirling her hands upward. “We should ask her, too. Of course! I’m just saying she might be too busy being important.”
“Is that fair?”
“It’s true. They made her a queen up there, after all, and she’s got those weird mind powers, and she knows how to use that even weirder dyr thingie from the days of Ancient Sartor, that thing that broke Siamis’s enchantment.”
“I’m not certain that thing is trustworthy,” Clair observed as they turned onto the forest road.
“I agree,” CJ said fervently. “After all, if Siamis wanted it, it has to be evil, in spite of all that hoola-loola about how it was made of this mysterious stuff that no longer exists, and it has Great Powers, and all the rest of it. If Detlev used to use one of those things back in the old days, and everybody up north seems to agree that he did, it definitely has to be evil, right?”
Clair said doubtfully, “Maybe not evil, not in ancient days. But old. Really, really old, and no one understands how to use them, or what they’re for.”
“Except Ancient Sartoran villains,” CJ stated.
“And Lilith the Guardian,” Clair countered. “Sartora said she’s real, not just a story from ancient days.”
“Real or not, she never seems to be around when she’s needed.” CJ sighed.
“Well, I’m just glad Arthur’s mother took that dyr away. She’d know where to stash it so it can’t do any more damage if anyone does. So, who else in this alliance?”
“The Queen of Sartor, of course,” CJ said quickly. “They say she’s fifteen. And. You know. Sartor. If the Queen of Sartor joins, then others will follow.”
“No argument from me,” Clair said, and, relentlessly, “Who else?”
CJ heaved a long-suffering sigh. She knew where this was going. So she sidestepped. “Hibern. Your aunt said that she’s really advanced in light magic studies, and that Arthur’s mom would only take a really smart student.”
“Good. But what about Senrid? He helped Hibern when she asked. And for that matter, he was the one who suggested that plan when Siamis was defeated.”
CJ made a face. “Isn’t Hibern enough? We don’t need any more Marlovens.”
Clair said, “Senrid knows more magic than anyone our age. Even Hibern, I think, though it’s dark magic. But he’s learning ours really fast. And you did make your peace with him.”
CJ sighed, rolling her eyes.
“Or is this alliance just supposed to be ‘people CJ likes’?” Clair asked.
“That’s not fair.” CJ scowled.
“You don’t look dangerous with that whipped cream mustache still on your upper lip from breakfast.” Clair tipped her head to the side.
CJ had to laugh, a big guffaw, startling more birds from the trees.
“You still don’t trust Senrid?” Clair asked.
“No.”
“I do. I think. Oh, I know that he started out badly. Very.” Clair frowned down at her hands, remembering their first meeting with Senrid the previous summer, when he’d snatched one of them for execution, on the regent’s orders. “But I think he’s changed. The Senrid we dealt with before Siamis came wouldn’t have bothered looking for that spell on Jilo, much less warning me to pass it on if I thought it a good idea.”
“Maybe. He’s still a know-it-all and a bigmouth.”
“You mean, as fast as you with a nasty crack?”
CJ’s grin was quick and rueful. “Well, maybe it’s better to have him on our side than against.” As they turned toward home, she added under her breath, “Maybe.”
Chapter Seven
Three days later
Valley of Delfina, home of Tsauderei
BEFORE I get to how the alliance began to spread, I need to sketch an overview of the mage relationships of that period.
Before Sartor was enchanted the century previous, the magic world acknowledged two leaders. First was Lilith the Guardian, who had fought during the Fall of Ancient Sartor. Since then—like the Norsundrians she had dedicated her life to opposing—she had recourse to refuge beyond time.
Her appearances had been less rare than those of Detlev, but rare enough that many believed she was mere myth. One of her purposes was to seek promising youth and put them in the way of training, though often her next appearance would be decades later, sometimes a century or more after they died.
Next was the Sartoran mage guild led by Chief Veltos Jhaer, oldest guild in the world. Ninety-seven years ago, when Norsunder Base attacked Sartor, the kingdom was frozen in time.
With Sartor inaccessible to the rest of the world, the gap in magic leadership was eventually filled by Evend of Bereth Ferian. He’d nearly gone to the Sartoran mage school, but then the war between Sartor and Norsunder Base broke out. So Evend’s family kept him in the north to study magic, and eventually he became the King in Bereth Ferian (a title that meant little more than presiding over treaty meetings concerning the ancient wards against the Venn) and head of the newly expanded northern school of magic.
Tsauderei, ten years younger, was one of Evend’s first students. Tsauderei was so gifted that Evend broke many of the traditions of magic teaching, maintaining that education had to evolve as did everything else. His style of teaching, individual lessons tailored to the interests and abilities of the student, had worked well for the northern school.
Once handsome, vigorous, and strong, Tsauderei at over eighty was still commandingly tall, though gaunt under the robe that had been male fashion in his young days. Every year, as soon as the snows of winter began to melt, Tsauderei had dared to explore as close to Sartor’s enchanted border as was safe, which enabled him to discover that the enchantment was gradually receding. This discovery
he kept to himself in hopes that Norsunder would overlook it.
His determination strengthened one spring fifteen years ago, when his journey disclosed two living persons in century-old clothes: a palace guard, her wound still fresh, protecting an infant who turned out to be the youngest of the royal children. This baby was the last living member of the ancient Landis family, who had ruled Sartor for a couple millennia.
This girl, nicknamed Atan (for her name was surely warded), had been raised by Tsauderei and taught magic and history according to the northern school’s teachings, until the enchantment broke at last, and Atan was joyfully reunited with the Sartorans, who crowned her queen and surrounded her with guardians—and guards.
But once the enchantment was broken, bringing Sartor back into the flow of time, Sartor was striving to reclaim its ancient authority. Its mage school objected strongly to any deviation in their centuries-old tradition of moving students through classes in cohorts, overseen by Sartor’s mage guild.
To their objection, Evend had pointed out that they were now a century behind. And so the northern school stayed separate from the Sartoran.
That was one cause of tension. Tsauderei’s refusal to put himself under the authority of the outdated Sartoran mage guild was another. He prized his independence and all the knowledge he had learned after decades of watching over enchanted Sartor in his effort to break the enchantment.
And so, after Atan was restored to Sartor, Mage Guild Chief Veltos and the rest of the Sartoran mage guild—though professing gratitude and friendship—effectively shut Tsauderei out.
* * *
Roth Drael
Erai-Yanya woke up to a friendly note from Tsauderei that from anyone else would be a summons.
Erai-Yanya grimaced. It had to be politics, and she hated politics. She had chosen early to live and work alone largely to avoid mage politics. Further, she knew Tsauderei loathed politics as well, but as the oldest of the senior mages, almost anything he did had political repercussions in the mage world. He had also been her tutor during the time she studied with Gwasan and Murial.
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