by Kyle Shultz
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Have you read Book 1?
Map
Prologue
CHAPTER ONE Whitlock and Barlow
CHAPTER TWO The Other Lady Beaumont
CHAPTER THREE Crispin Loses His Temper
CHAPTER FOUR Me, Myself, and a Monster
CHAPTER FIVE Breakfast with a Dragon
CHAPTER SIX The Mythfits
CHAPTER SEVEN Skeleton Pirates and Killer Unicorns
CHAPTER EIGHT Omen
CHAPTER NINE Cordelia vs. Malcolm
CHAPTER TEN The Tomb
CHAPTER ELEVEN The Truth
CHAPTER TWELVE The Second War of Land and Sea
CHAPTER THIRTEEN Aegiris
CHAPTER FOURTEEN The Sea Witch
CHAPTER FIFTEEN To the Death
CHAPTER SIXTEEN Class Dismissed
Epilogues
The Sea Witch's Lullaby
Book 3: The Stroke of Eleven
Author's Note
About the Author
The Tomb of the Sea Witch
Kyle Robert Shultz
Copyright © 2017 Kyle Robert Shultz
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 9781983032776
To my very wise mother, Nicole Suzanne Shultz, who convinced me to go ahead and publish The Beast of Talesend…
And to my readers, who didn’t hate it after all.
Thanks so much for your encouragement!
Have you read Book 1?
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Map made with assets from Inkarnate.com.
Used by commercial license.
Prologue
The problem with knights in shining armor is that they didn’t quite get rid of all the monsters lurking in the dark forests.
The problem with good wizards is that they sometimes forgot to burn the evil wizards’ spell books.
The problem with curses is that they don’t really care about true love’s kiss or tears shed by a lovely maiden.
The problem with fairy tales is that they never really ended.
Once upon a time, I was a human being who didn’t believe in magic.
Then I found out magic is real. The hard way.
My name is Nick Beasley, and I used to be a detective. Now I’m a hideous monster searching a world of forgotten fairy tales for some way to become human again.
I’m not alone in this quest. Lady Cordelia Beaumont, an enchantress on the run from an evil council of magic-wielders, is helping me…mainly because it’s her fault I was changed in the first place. Then there’s Crispin, my younger brother, who recently discovered he has magic powers as well.
The laws of magic say my curse can’t be broken. Cordelia is determined to prove them wrong—by any means necessary.
But I think her latest plan just might get us killed.
CHAPTER ONE
Whitlock and Barlow
The Republic of Caledon
The Selkie Straits
1922 E.A.
“We’re all going to die,” I muttered.
Cordelia gave an exaggerated sigh and shook her head. “Stop that. No one’s going to die. This is all perfectly straightforward.” Shivering a little, she pulled her dark-blue trench coat tighter around her and nestled deeper into her seat at the other end of the rowboat. Her blonde bob had been rendered a tangle of wild curls by the cold, clammy breeze. She held her wide-brimmed hat in her hands, having almost lost it once already to the wind.
My bat-like ears swiveled this way and that, listening for any signs of danger. The sound of water sloshing against the sides of our little rowboat was all I could hear apart from the eerie howling of the wind. I peered into the fog ahead of us, trying to make out the dark, looming shape growing ever closer. My hackles were raised, and my tail twitched in anxiety. Unable to sit comfortably in the confined space, I had adopted a crouching position in the back of the boat, ready to spring into action if anything went wrong. Even with a long, heavy coat on, and a layer of fur underneath my clothes, I could still feel a chill creeping into my bones.
“Perfectly straightforward?” I gave a short, barking laugh. “You’re joking, right? This is the most complicated and dangerous plan you could possibly have come up with! And you haven’t even told us all the details yet!”
“I think it’s a good idea,” said Crispin, eagerly rowing us deeper into the fog. He grinned like a little boy on holiday at the seaside. The wind blew his tousled hair into his eyes, and he briefly let go of an oar to brush it back. The rush of recent events hadn’t left him any time for a haircut—not that he would have bothered to get one if he’d had the choice. His face reminded me of my own—before the curse, that is. Granted, I had looked far more mature and sensible.
“You would think it’s a good idea,” I retorted. “And we all know why that is.”
“Oh, leave him alone,” said Cordelia. “Just because you look like a gargoyle with indigestion doesn’t mean you have to act like one.”
I frowned. “Oi!”
I was about to address this insult further when the boat bumped into something. The impact nearly caused me to tumble over backwards into the water. I dug my clawed toes into the wood, windmilling my arms. Cordelia made a heroic effort to save me, diving forward to grab my coat, but tripped over the oblivious Crispin in the process. She ended up lying facedown in the bottom of the boat, her feet sticking straight up in the air. I, meanwhile, fell into the water.
“We’re here!” announced Crispin cheerfully, hopping out of the boat onto the dock.
“Oh, really?” I struggled to clamber onto the dock. “I hadn’t noticed! Thanks so very much for telling us!”
Cordelia hauled on my arm to help me up. “You’re not going to shake, are you?” She gave my dripping form an apprehensive look as I rose to my feet. “I’m not judging you, I’d just like some warning so I can get out of the way first.”
“Certainly not!” I raised an arm to wipe the water from my brow. “Good grief, I’m not a dog.”
Crispin wrinkled his nose. “You smell like one, at the moment. Would you mind getting the luggage from the boat?”
“I’m not a pack mule, either,” I reminded him tersely, but he wasn’t listening. Grumbling under my breath, I reached down from the dock to retrieve our three suitcases—including Cordelia’s very large and heavy one. Our journeys in the past few weeks had taught me that enchantresses do not travel light.
The only item Crispin had bothered to carry from the boat was a small cardboard box with holes punched in the top. Handling it with great care, he sidled along the dock, taking in our surroundings. “Hellooo!” he shouted.
“Crispin!” Cordelia hissed. “Not so loud! This isn’t the sort of place where people shout!”
“What do they do, then?”
“Die, I imagine.” Hefting one suitcase under my arm and the other two in my hands, I looked up at the huge castle before us. It was…grim. In fact, it would have been almost dull were it not for the dramatic stormclouds overhead. The architecture was unimaginative to say the least—the building was essentially a giant rectangular box with towers sticking up at the corners. The enormous archway at the entrance yawned before us, accessible by a small cobblestone pathway leading up the hill from the dock.
And, of course, there was a big stone gargoyle sitting alongside the path, staring straight ahead with an expression of contempt.
I shuddered at the sight and nudged Cordelia. “Look.”
S
he looked, then shrugged. “What?”
“Gargoyle.”
“I see it. It’s not an unusual form of decor. A bit racist, perhaps, from your point of view, but—”
“That’s not what I mean. The last time I went to a palace with stone gargoyles outside it, I ended up looking a lot like them.”
“Well, that’s already happened, so you don’t need to worry, do you?” Her attention was already elsewhere. She was trying to jam her hat on her head in such a way that it wouldn’t try to escape her again. “Besides, this isn’t a palace. Not anymore. Hasn’t been for almost fifteen hundred years.” She indicated the architectural monstrosity with a sweeping wave of her hand. “Behold, the Warrengate Academy of Advanced Magic. My alma mater. This is the place where Charmbloods and magical creatures come to learn trickier enchantments after our families have taught us the basics at home.”
“Doesn’t alma mater mean ‘nourishing mother?’” I asked. “This place looks more like ‘aunt you hope doesn’t visit for Christmas.’”
“I think it looks amazing,” said Crispin, giddy with excitement.
I snorted. “You’d say that about any place where you thought you could learn more magic.”
Cordelia gave us a look of maternal displeasure. “Perhaps we could save the brotherly bickering for another time. Right now, we need to focus on getting into character.”
I nodded. “Right.”
She locked eyes with me, then with Crispin. “We need to keep our stories straight, act natural and confident, and above all, stay calm. It won’t help if we jump out of our skins every time something unexpected happens.”
“Hello,” a deep, sonorous voice intoned directly behind me.
“AAGH!” we all screamed in unison, leaping several inches off the ground.
At least the gargoyle statues I’d seen on my previous visit to a sinister castle hadn’t talked.
I spun around, unsheathing the claws at my fingertips. Cordelia sprang gracefully into a fighting stance from an obscure form of battle magic she had been teaching Crispin. One of her hands was clenched into a fist; the other was suspended over it, ready to enchant the fist with a temporary spell to give it more accuracy and strength.
Crispin, meanwhile, promptly forgot all his lessons and flung his hands out wildly, shooting a ball of spinning, crackling red runes in the direction of the voice. I didn’t know much about magic, but I had a feeling the shining symbols he’d conjured didn’t even fit together into a proper spell. Had they actually hit anything, heaven knows what they would have done.
The stone creature regarded us with dull grey eyes and a disapproving sneer. As Crispin’s fireball sputtered towards him, he waved a clawed hand at it, causing it to flicker and vanish in the blink of an eye. Then he began to stretch every limb as if recovering from a long sleep. The sound of his granite wings unfurling was like a rockslide.
“My apologies,” he droned, sounding half-asleep. Each word was spoken with meticulous effort, as if speaking were something he did rarely and grudgingly. “I did not intend to startle you.”
“Not pretending to be a statue would have been a good way to avoid it,” I suggested, blood still pounding in my ears.
The creature simply gazed at me, his expression never changing. “Unauthorized animals are not allowed on the college grounds,” he said.
A growl rumbled in my throat. “Look who’s talking, rock-breath!”
“I am not an animal,” said the gargoyle. “And I do not breathe. I am not even a person in any sense. I am merely a golem carved in the shape of a gargoyle. Now, I must insist that you all vacate these premises, or you will be forcibly ejected. Posthumously.”
“I beg your pardon?” said Cordelia.
Her tone caused me to turn and look at her in surprise. Normally, Cordelia is a nice person. Occasionally absent-minded, a little too confident in her magical abilities, and prone to come up with schemes that endanger the lives of those around her, but nice. Right now, however, her usual pleasant demeanor was absent. Her attitude toward the gargoyle was frigid and intimidating. Something about the arch of her eyebrows and the imperious bluster of her tone reminded me of her father.
Not a pleasant thought.
Cordelia stepped forward. “Who are you?” It sounded more like a demand for him to justify his existence than a simple inquiry about his name.
The creature’s perfect calm wavered for a split second. His brow twitched as if he were considering adopting a worried expression, but wasn’t sure it was worth the effort. “My name is Linus, ma’am.”
Cordelia didn’t seem mollified by this revelation. “This is completely unacceptable,” she huffed. “When I attended here, we had a sentient being in charge of guarding Warrengate. What happened to Finley the watchman?”
“He was devoured, ma’am. By a kelpie.”
Cordelia clicked her tongue, in frustration rather than sympathy. “How very irritating. He would never have wasted my time like this.”
“And you are?” Linus inquired with hauteur.
“Lady Whitlock.” Cordelia spoke the name with boisterous pride, sounding more like her father than ever. “The Lady Whitlock.”
This revelation put a significant dent in the gargoyle’s haughty reserve. He now definitely looked worried. “Lady…Whitlock?” he said hesitantly.
“Yes. Now if you’ll be so kind as to escort us to the Headmaster, I’ll postpone my plan to create a rock garden with your remains.”
Linus gave a hasty nod. “Yes, ma’am,” he stammered. “Of course, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am. And may I say, ma’am, welcome back to Warrengate.”
“Shut up.”
“Right. Yes. Sorry.” He spread his wings, rose into the air, and began gliding up the path toward the school. I could only assume that some kind of magic was responsible for him getting off the ground in the first place—there was no way a creature made of stone could achieve flight by natural means.
Cordelia snapped her fingers in our direction as she followed Linus. “Come along, Barlow.”
Crispin frowned. “Is that you or me?”
“It’s both of us. We’re the Barlow brothers now. Try to keep up.”
“Is Cordelia scaring you too?”
I nodded. “A bit. Yes.”
“Reminding you of—”
“Let’s not go there.” I put my hand on his back and gave him a shove. Cordelia had never called herself by her father’s title before, and it was making me very uncomfortable, but I didn’t want to get into that right now.
We hurried up the path after Cordelia and the watchman, taking in the scenery as we walked. “Grim” continued to be the primary motif. Warrengate didn’t shout its scariness from the rooftops, like the Palace of Villeneuve where my misadventures with Cordelia had begun. It was more vaguely foreboding. Lamp-posts lined the path, topped with green, glowing orbs. Green lighting, I had noticed, was popular in the magical community for some reason. Shadows shifted and danced around us. Sometimes this could clearly be attributed to the green orbs bobbing about—and sometimes it couldn’t. I didn’t even want to know what might be skulking in the corners of a place like this.
“This is the main courtyard,” said Linus, indicating the scene before us with a nervous wave of his hand as we stepped through the enormous archway.
Cordelia clicked her tongue in impatience. “I know. I attended this school. Albeit briefly.”
Linus flashed her an apologetic grimace. “Sorry, ma’am.”
The courtyard was spacious, about the size of Challenger Square back in Talesend. In the center stood a single, towering statue on a huge pedestal. I watched it intently, wondering if it was going to start moving around and ordering us off the premises as well. Given how lifelike the statue looked, it wasn’t difficult to imagine that happening. It depicted a woman dressed in long, flowing robes that billowed around her as if moved by a strong wind. Her arm was thrown up in self-defense, and there was an expression of surprise and fury on he
r face. A ring of trees surrounded the figure, rising from circles of bare ground partitioned off from the cobblestones. Lighted windows dotted the stone walls surrounding us, like dozens of glowing eyes watching our every move.
“Who’s that?” asked Crispin, pointing at the statue.
“That’s Morgan le Fay,” said Cordelia, keeping her voice low. “One of the most powerful enchantresses in history. She wrote most of the authoritative texts on casting runes.”
“Why did they carve her in such a weird position?” I asked, tilting my head in curiosity as I regarded the stone figure.
“They didn’t,” said Cordelia. “When I said ‘that’s Morgan le Fay,’ I was being literal. They never figured out how to disenchant her after she got cursed by Merlin.”
“Aha.” I nodded. “Lovely. So Merlin was real too.”
“Yes,” said Cordelia. “She was.”
“Wait, what?”
Before I could find out more about this revelation, Linus stopped and turned to us, an uncomfortable smile plastered awkwardly on his face. “If you would be so kind as to wait here—”
“The Headmaster will want to see us at once,” said Cordelia.
He gulped. “Ah, er, he is currently quite busy…”
Cordelia gave him a withering look. “The Headmaster. Will want. To see us. At once. I trust a third repetition will not be required.”
Wide-eyed, Linus nodded, then beat his wings and soared away toward a set of double doors at the far end of the courtyard.
I raised an eyebrow at her. “Is this really necessary?”
She blinked in surprise. “Is what necessary?”
“You acting like…you know.”
She bit her lip. “Sadly, I’m afraid it is. This is the kind of behavior people expect from ‘Lady Whitlock.’ If we’re going to maintain our cover, I’ll have to act...well...”
“Evil?” suggested Crispin. “Nightmarish? Terrifying beyond all reason?”
Cordelia glared at him. “I was going to say ‘austere.’”
