The Uncooperative Warrior

by Sarah Noffke

  Niall stopped without notice and held up the lantern. “What you seek is there. I’ll wait for you if you like.”

  Liv looked down to where the tunnel dead-ended, a shudder tickling her core. “You should go. I don’t want to keep you.”

  The monk nodded. “Very well. Until next time.” He turned, limping back the way they’d come, the lantern light making the edges of his figure glow slightly.

  Liv opened her palm and summoned a light, but nothing happened.

  “Your magic doesn’t work here,” Plato said, appearing beside Liv, the white tip of his tail standing out in the dark.

  Liv rolled her eyes and pulled a flashlight from her pocket. “I bet you’re screaming, ‘I told you so’ in your head right now.”

  “I’m not one to gloat,” Plato said. “But it’s good that you have a backup option since you can’t use magic here.”

  Bouncing the beam of light around the tunnel, Liv searched, unsure what she was looking for. A round blue and green stone in the center of the space caught her eye. She strode over, recognizing how similar it was to the circle on which she stood in the Chamber of the Tree. Symbols like those in the House of Seven were etched around the circle.

  “Can you read it?” Plato asked.

  She squinted at the symbols, hoping that would help. “No. Why, should I be able to?”

  “You have the ability as a Warrior of the House, but the skill hadn’t developed yet.”

  Liv knelt, rubbing her hands over the symbols. As she had guessed they would, they danced and glowed under her fingers, responding to her touch.

  Something pinched her in the leg and Liv stood suddenly, pushing her hand into the pocket of her pants to find out what was poking her. She withdrew her mother’s ring.

  The symbols on the ground began to shift, rearranging themselves. Liv put the ring in the palm of her hand and the symbols froze, looking as they had before.

  She glanced at Plato. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

  “No, I don’t believe I am,” he stated. “What do you see?”

  She opened her fingers and picked up the ring, sliding it over the symbols. They floated into the air, transforming into a language she understood. “The ring decodes the ancient language.”

  Plato took a step forward. “And now you know one of its purposes, although there must be more.”

  “Like the wall in the library,” Liv said.

  “What do the symbols say?”

  Liv pulled the ring away and the symbols reappeared. Again she ran the ring over the symbols, and again they morphed. It says, “Look toward the heavens. Climb high to reach the treasure.”

  Liv’s chin tilted backward and she looked up, realizing at once that she was under one of the towers of the castle, which rose probably ten stories. Around the wall of the round room were pushed out rocks that formed small ledges. They went around and around, all the way up to the top.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Liv said dryly. “There has to be another way.”

  “You can’t use magic, so I don’t think there is,” Plato said.

  She growled at him. “You’re the cat who always lands on his feet. Why don’t you climb up there and let me know what’s in the room?”

  “We both know I don’t need to climb to get up there, but I also can’t go up there without you.”

  “How’s that?” Liv asked.

  “I just tried. Something’s preventing it. I’m guessing I need a House member to invite me.”

  “How come I can’t use magic here, but you can do your Houdini act?”

  “My magic doesn’t have the same restrictions as yours,” Plato explained.

  “You’re a very strange creature.” Liv slid her mother’s ring onto her finger and put her flashlight in her mouth since she’d need both hands to climb. She pulled herself up onto the first ledge, which was about three feet off the ground. It was so narrow that half of her foot hung over the side. Each block was roughly two feet long and the distance to the next ledge was about the same, but each was a foot or so higher. It was like a really shitty staircase.

  It was evident to Liv that she was going to need her hands to climb and her mouth was getting tired already, so she put the flashlight in her pocket with the beam of light facing up so she could still see.

  Carefully, Liv jumped to the next ledge, gripping the wall for balance. The rough stones gave her some purchase, but she recognized that wouldn’t save her if she lost her balance.

  The higher Liv climbed, the less inclined she was to jump from step to step. There was no magic to save her if she fell. There was no one to save her either, not that she regretted telling Stefan to buzz off. Liv wasn’t a princess in a tower looking for a hero. She was a Warrior, climbing to the top of a tower in a castle for justice’s sake.

  Plato appeared a few steps up, looking down at her as she continued the trek. As she got close to the slab he was on, he disappeared and reappeared a few ledges up.

  “Are you trying to tease me with how easy this is for you?” Liv said, sweating.

  “I’m supervising,” he said simply.

  Liv’s foot slipped as she stepped onto the next ledge, and her knee banged into the stone. Her hands caught the rock at the last moment as her legs dangled under her. She tried to pull herself up, but couldn’t manage it. Instead, she swung her legs to the side, catching the step she’d just come off with her foot. Once she was sure she had it, she pushed off the stone she was holding, bracing herself against the wall.

  For a long minute, Liv breathed hard, pressing her cheek to the stone. When her heart had slowed down, she opened her eyes to find Plato regarding her calmly from up high.

  “I need to work out more,” she told him.

  “I thought you handled that near-fall well.”

  “I couldn’t do a pull-up, which is going to change when I get out of here.”

  “I can’t do a pull-up either if it makes you feel better.”

  “It doesn’t.” Liv stepped carefully to the next ledge, keeping her center low. She continued to move like that around the tower, getting into a rhythm as she climbed higher and higher.

  She didn’t mean to, but when she was close to the top, Liv looked down. She immediately regretted it. “Holy shit! It’s a long way to the bottom.”

  “So don’t fall,” Plato said, now a step below her.

  “Thanks. Your advice is stellar, as always.”

  “Anytime,” Plato replied.

  There were only five more steps to the top, which led to an opening in the ceiling of the tower. Liv had no idea what she was climbing up to and risking her life for, but everything she had found had led her there. Whatever was at the top of this tower, she’d face it.

  She looked back at Plato when there was only one more step left. “Can you still not get into the room?”

  He shook his head. “You have to go first. I need you to invite me in.”

  Liv swallowed, turning back to the ledge. She ducked her head so as to avoid hitting the ceiling and crawled onto the last step, poking her head through the hole. Then something she hadn’t expected during the long, arduous climb happened. The ledge she was standing on shifted, partially falling out of the wall. Liv grabbed the edge of the hole, her feet kicking. The stone dislodged from the wall completely, tumbling to the ground below.

  Liv nearly screamed as her legs dangled. She tried to find the step before the last one, but it was too far away. Liv tried to find her footing on the wall, but her hands kept slipping. She was blind, looking at the stone in front of her, and her fingers had cramped. She was sure she was about to fall to her death when her boot found the hole the stone had fallen out of. Liv sucked in a breath as she regained her balance; her heart felt ready to jump out of her chest. Although she had saved herself, Liv didn’t want to stay there much longer.

  “I’m freaking getting strong enough to do a pull-up,” she said, emphasizing each word as she pushed off with her feet and pulled herself u
p through the hole.

  When she’d cleared it, Liv pushed away, trying to put some distance between the hole and her.

  Blinking to clear her vision, Liv realized that this room was much brighter than the tower she’d just come from. She stood, her breath hitching in her throat. Liv didn’t know what she had expected to find in this room, but what she saw was definitely not it.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Liv had come all this way and nearly fallen to her death to try to determine what had happened to one canister of stolen magic. She spun around, her mouth hanging open as she gaped at the hundreds of canisters lining the shelves that filled the circular room. Glowing blue canisters sat on top of one another on dusty shelves.

  “What in the world?” Liv whispered.

  “Well, now we know what happened to the canister,” Plato said, now beside her. “It joined the others.”

  “Who is hoarding all this magic? And why?” Liv stepped closer to the first row, reaching out to touch a canister. It glowed brighter when her finger grazed the glass.

  “And storing it in a monastery run by mortals.” Plato strolled around the room, inspecting the contents.

  “I fear we have more questions than we do answers at this point.”

  Liv followed his path, lost in a daze as she walked around the small room. “I just don’t understand why this is here, or how it got all the way up here. Climbing up was terrifying. I couldn’t imagine doing that with a canister of magic as many times as it would have taken to get all these up here.”

  Plato stopped in front of the hole in the wall, peering down at the floor far below. “May not be a good time to bring this up, but have you figured out how you’re getting down with that first step broken?”

  Liv pressed her eyes closed, feeling stuck. “Yeah, I don’t know. I guess I’ll be living here. Maybe you can go back and tell Clark to come and rescue me, although I’m not sure how he’ll do it without using magic.”

  “Isn’t it ironic that you can’t do magic in the monastery, and that’s where all this magic is being stored?” Plato asked.

  Liv scratched her head, tension making it ache. “I don’t understand anything that is happening here.”

  A soft hissing at Liv’s back made her straighten. “Please tell me that was you, Plato.”

  “It wasn’t.”

  Liv tentatively turned around not seeing anything at first, only the glow of the canisters. Then she saw them—two bright yellow eyes staring at her from behind two canisters. Were there rats up here? she wondered, stepping back.

  The eyes moved forward, and a snake’s head materialized between the canisters. Gracefully, the snake slithered down from the lowest shelf, its body winding around the canisters. It had to be over twelve feet long.

  “Ummm, Plato? What do you make of this?”

  “It’s a lophos,” Plato said, and for the first time in their five years together, there was an edge of fear to his voice.

  “A lophos?” Liv asked as he took the position beside her.

  “It is a magical serpent that doesn’t age or need food to survive. It’s used to guard important items, and when someone trespasses into its territory, it paralyzes them using hypnotism.”

  “How do I fight it?” Liv asked.

  “That’s the thing. You can’t.”

  “Can’t? Do you mean I can’t without magic?”

  Slithering to the ground, the serpent moved back and forth like a silky ribbon.

  “Liv, there is no spell that will stop a lophos’ hypnotism.”

  The snake hissed, a long melodic sound that laced around Liv’s thoughts, carrying her off to a faraway place.

  “But you’ll be okay? Can you get out of here? Go back and get Clark.”

  Plato swayed, his head lolling. “Liv,” he said his words slurring. “Lynxes have many enemies, but none more dangerous to us than the lophos. I can’t combat…”

  The cat slumped to the stone floor.

  “Oh no, you didn’t,” Liv found herself saying, although she didn’t know why. It was hard for her to remember exactly where she was. All she knew was, some dumbass snake had just messed with her cat.

  The snake hissed again, its long forked tongue flicking out of its mouth.

  Liv shook her head, trying to dispel the strange feelings attempting to take over her. She bent over, scooping Plato’s limp body from the floor and cradling him to her chest. “Look, I get that you have a job to protect this magic. I’m not here to take it. I’m trying to figure out…” Liv’s voice trailed off as she tried to remember why she was holding a strange cat and standing in a room with a bunch of glowing snow globes.

  Wait, they weren’t snow globes. They were magic, and she was a magician. This was Plato. And there was still one more chance to save them.

  Her mind wasn’t gone yet, but it would be soon, and then they’d die there.

  But that wasn’t going to happen. This was not Liv Beaufont’s last day on Earth. Not even close. She reached out and grabbed the closest canister of magic.

  The snake lunged at her, its hiss growing in intensity.

  Liv jerked the lid off the canister as the snake shot forward. It struck, biting her in the leg and making her double over with a pain she had never conceived of. Its venom filled her veins, and she thought she’d die there from the bite rather than waste away in a hypnotic state. However, the canister was open.

  Liv forced herself to dip her hand into it. She lifted it into the air and blew, hoping against hope that it formed a portal. The reasoning was that personal magic couldn’t be used in the monastery, as if it was somehow locked. But a third-party source of magic could be used—like the canisters.

  The portal shone in the room, the best thing Liv had ever seen. She didn’t step through it like she intended but instead fell into the entrance to another place, carrying Plato and the canister with her, hoping the lophos didn’t follow. She didn’t want that magical monster taking over her thoughts for the rest of her life—if she had much more life to live, which she prayed she did.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Liv’s head hit the side table next to her couch when she fell out of the portal, into her apartment. With no time to worry about her newest injury, she closed the portal immediately, not wanting the lophos to follow her.

  She released Plato, who was still passed out, and cradled her leg. Blood was everywhere, soaking onto her carpet.

  Her head swam as she looked around the apartment, trying to figure out what to do next. She needed help but felt close to passing out from the snake’s venom. It burned in her veins, making her leg feel like it was on fire.

  With a shaking hand, Liv pulled out her cell phone. Barely strong enough to hold the phone to her head, she switched it to speaker and rolled over on her side, her face mushed into the carpet.

  The phone rang once.

  Twice.

  Liv’s eyes fluttered shut. Staying conscious felt impossible.

  Again the phone rang.

  “Hello? What happened?” Clark asked in a rush.

  “I need help—” Liv wanted to say more, but couldn’t. The venom sent her into a blackness that felt never-ending.

  “It would be a lot easier to know what bit her if she was conscious to tell us,” a woman’s voice said, stirring Liv from the haze holding her hostage.

  Impatient footsteps echoed on the floor one way and then the other. “How does it look?” Clark asked, his voice tense.

  “I’ve extracted the venom,” the woman replied. “But without knowing what kind of snake it was, I can’t treat her properly.”

  “L-L-L,” Liv muttered, still locked away.

  “Liv.” Clark rushed over, grabbing her hand. “You’re awake.”

  Not really, she thought, trying to break free of whatever was keeping her in the strange blackness. She sensed the light on the other side of her eyelids, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t open her eyes—something she realized she’d taken for granted
all her life.

  “Why doesn’t she wake up?” Clark asked, pushing her hair back from her face.

  “I’m not sure,” the woman said. “What do you think she’s trying to say?”

  “L-Lo-Lo,” Liv stuttered, unsure if she was actually speaking out loud or just in her head.

  Clark leaned down, putting his ear close to her mouth. “What are you saying? Lo-what?”

  “Lophos,” Plato said, his voice groggy but clear enough.

  A gasp fell out of the woman’s mouth. “A lophos bit her? Where… Never mind that. I know exactly what I have to do now.”

  “What’s a lophos?” Clark asked. “Will she be all right?”

  “I need to work now,” the woman answered. “And she’s not going to wake up until I heal her of that bite. The poison will keep her asleep.”

  Liv reached out, finding Clark’s hand again. She squeezed it with as much force as she could muster, not knowing if it was enough for him to register. He gripped her back and rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand. “I know you’re in there. Hold on and we’ll fix you. I promise.”

  “I told him that she had a bug,” Clark said from the other side of the room, his voice exhausted. “And then what? He told you?”

  “She’s been out for almost two days,” Rory’s familiar voice said. “I knew something was up. And John will think something’s up too if we’re not careful.”

  “I just don’t understand,” Clark stated. “When is she going to wake up?”

  “The lophos’ bite is lethal,” Rory replied. “The fact that she’s still alive is incredible.”

  “I know you’re trying to make me feel better, but it’s not working.”

  “I would never dream of making you feel better, magician,” Rory said.

  Liv called out in her mind, screaming that she was awake, and yet she knew they heard nothing. She was trapped. Trapped on the other side of a blurry wall where she could hear everything but no one could hear her.