The Night Sorceresses

by Erica Griswold

  A servant was standing in the entryway. When he saw Christabel, he ran upstairs and knocked on the door of Tareth’s room. “Come in!” Tareth’s voice said from behind the door.

  The servant walked into the room. “Sir, the guards have returned with the prisoners.”

  Ah, finally! Tareth thought. He put his sword in his belt and walked downstairs. He would have that belt back and fix the recession in no time.

  Tareth ran into the throne room. He saw Christabel standing in the room. One of the guards held her arms behind her back.

  “Here is your ring, sir!” one of the castle guards said as he handed the ring to Tareth.

  “This is a pouch that one of the prisoners had with her,” another guard said as he handed Riordan’s bag to Tareth. He opened the bag and laughed when he saw the tiny books. “What’s so funny, sir?”

  “Oh, nothing,” Tareth lied. He did not want anyone to know about the books and their contents.

  “That’s Angelina’s ring!” Christabel spat.

  “No, it’s mine! It was one my mother gave me!” Tareth said.

  “No, it isn’t! And your name isn’t Halvor, either! You’re Tareth, and that is a world-turner ring that you used to travel to other worlds!”

  “What?” Tareth gasped, obviously taken aback by the revelation. He leaned in and growled, “How dare you accuse me of such a thing?”

  Christabel grinned and said, “Oh, I know a lot of things about you, and there are a lot worse things that I can accuse you of doing. Because, frankly, you’ve done them. I can accuse you of stealing magical powers from sorcerers and sorceresses and killing Professor Edward Smith from Aralin University!”

  Tareth’s eyes darted around fearfully. “That’s not true!” he shouted.

  “Oh yes, it is! Just wait until my parents find out about you!” Christabel snarled.

  “You are hiding Banderon’s killer!” Tareth shouted.

  “Like you’d care! You just came in here four months ago, and somehow, you were able to convince Banderon to make you his heir!”

  “I helped him round up the sorcerers!” Tareth replied.

  Christabel noticed that the guards were watching their interaction with visible disbelief on their faces. Tareth was growing nervous. He had to make sure that he got his belt back, and that he got it back right now.

  “I’ll prove to these guards that you are Tareth. You wrote all these things down in your diaries! Sizus Maximus!” Christabel shouted. The bag suddenly grew to its normal size and fell on the ground. “You were Banderon’s most trusted advisor! What do you think the other nobles would think if you were caught doing magic in the kingdom?” Christabel said, obviously faking shock and surprise.

  The police threw Angelina, Riordan, and Willow in the dungeon. As soon as the guards were gone, Riordan’s grandfather came into the dungeon. He pulled out a syringe full of white liquid and injected it into each of them. Immediately, they woke up.

  “What just happened?” Willow asked.

  “Shhh! I will explain later!” Riordan’s grandfather hissed. He unlocked the door, and Willow ran out. He then unlocked the doors for Riordan and Angelina, and they, too, ran out of their cells. Willow noticed that her sword and wand were gone.

  They searched around the dungeon for weapons, but didn’t find any. Riordan pulled up his pants leg and pulled out the Valerian bottle, scalpel, and rag. So did Willow and Angelina. They doused the rags in Valerian and put the bottles in their pockets.

  “Hey!” a man shouted. Willow and Riordan glanced behind themselves and saw two men running toward them. They bolted around the dungeon and eventually found the staircase. The man chasing Willow grabbed her and threw her on the ground. She kicked him in the stomach, causing him to fall down. She jumped up off the ground and stuck the Valerian-soaked rag up to his nose. He immediately went limp, and Willow took his sword. She hit the other one in the head with her sword, knocking him out cold, and took his sword for Riordan. The three of them charged up the steps and slammed the dungeon door behind them.

  “Thanks!” Riordan breathed, his chest heaving up and down.

  “You’re welcome!” Willow said. “Now, let’s go find Christabel.”

  Christabel said to Tareth, “And there’s something else I need to tell you.”

  “And what is that?” Tareth asked. “Never assume that a noblewoman doesn’t know how to get herself out of a lock.” Suddenly, Christabel’s handcuffs fell to the ground. She stomped on the insole of the foot of the guard holding her arms, causing him to buckle in half, howling in pain. Christabel turned around, made a fist, and punched the other one in the face.

  She yanked the sword out of the guard’s belt, turned to Tareth, and said, “I’ll show you how I survived that attack that Desdemona orchestrated to try to kill me!” Tareth yanked out his sword and swung it at her. She quickly disarmed him and sliced off his hand, sending it and the sword tumbling to the floor. One of the guards yanked his sword out, and the two began clashing their swords together.

  Christabel saw the blood drain from the other guard’s face. “How is it still—” He gasped as he pointed at something. Christabel saw that he was pointing at the hand, which was crawling across the floor. Christabel stomped on the crawling hand, crushing it. She then lifted her foot, and Tareth’s hand shot right to his arm and reattached itself. The guard stumbled backward, fell to the ground, and let out a high-pitched scream. “What are you?” he screamed at Tareth.

  Willow, Angelina, and Riordan saw a guard running down the hall. He was very distraught and was whimpering something about body parts reattaching themselves. Willow, Angelina, and Riordan thought they should probably run in the direction the guard came from.

  He screamed, “Don’t go in there! It’s a monster!”

  Riordan said, “Well, I just happen to make my living slaying monsters in the police force.” The man shook his pointer finger at the throne room door and shouted, “It’s in the throne room!”

  Riordan thanked him. He, Angelina, and Willow ran down the hall. “What do you mean you made your living slaying monsters?” Willow asked, remembering that he had previously worked in the police force pretending he was helping them catch fairy blood folk.

  “That’s what the government hired me to do. To find out what kinds of monsters were behind the Faeblood Wraith killings,” he said.

  Willow, Riordan, and Angelina ran through a door and into the throne room. They saw Tareth standing in the middle of it, covered in blood, and the other guards were cowering in a corner. Christabel stared him down and held her sword out, ready to strike him again. He grinned gleefully.

  “Hey, Tareth, wanna see something really cool?” Willow asked.

  Tareth’s face turned bright red. He shouted, “He’s been dead for centuries!”

  “Not according to your journal!” Willow said as she pointed to Riordan’s bag. “And, given that he is immortal like you apparently are, I think it is an extraordinary coincidence.”

  “You have probably read that I have others on my side!” Tareth said, grinning.

  “Yeah, Desdemona and Ambrosia. Speaking of which, where are they?” Willow asked.

  “Oh, you will find out soon enough! Especially your noblewoman friend here!” Tareth said, grinning deviously.

  Christabel’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “Oh, you will find out if you live!” he replied. He shouted something in a strange language. In the blink of an eye, the rope from the chandelier snapped, wrapped itself around Christabel’s neck, and yanked her off the floor.

  Angelina watched in horror as her friend dangled from the ceiling. Christabel tried to swing her sword up into the air to cut herself down, but missed. Then, Angelina had an idea. She pulled the coal out of her pocket and threw it to Christabel. “Rub it on the rope!”

  Christabel rubbed the coal on the rope, causing it to sizzle and light on fire. It burned part of the rope, causing it to break in half. Christabel
dropped to the floor, landing on her feet but crumpling under her weight. Angelina ran and took the coal from Christabel.

  “Oh, Tareth! Do you want to see a really, really cool magic spell?” Angelina asked. She knew it was either now or never for her to perform the trick that she had learned back home.

  “Hey, look at her!” Riordan screamed. He grabbed Tareth’s arms, knocking his sword out of his hand.

  “Let me go!” Tareth barked as he squirmed around. Apparently, his physical strength was not as strong as his magic. Angelina held the piece of paper in her left hand, and the charcoal in her right. She rubbed the charcoal on the paper, and it caught on fire. She cupped the fire in her hands, and when she pulled her right hand away, a piece of copper sat in her left hand where the paper had been.

  Tareth was thunderstruck. That tiny piece of metal could solve all of the economic problems that had befallen Ethermoor since Angelina had stolen his belt. His eyes widened, and his whole body trembled when he realized that he was standing in the presence of either a witch or a sorceress who was much more powerful than he was. He had never, ever figured out how to make copper in either magic or alchemy. “How, how did you do that?”

  Angelina saw his hair suddenly turn bright white. She thought this was extremely funny. She smiled and said, “A good sorceress never tells her secrets.”

  Tareth’s skin started wrinkling. “You tell me how to do that right now!” he thundered.

  “That’s the thing about wishing for an immortal life, the smallest of things can kill you,” Angelina said, smiling triumphantly.

  He continued to wrinkle right in front of them. Willow’s face twisted in disgust, and the guards gazed at the scene in utter fascination. Tareth stumbled to the throne and sat on it. “Take pity! I am your king!” he whimpered.

  “Take pity? You tricked me into helping you usurp the throne so that you could become king and have me arrested for practicing sorcery. You assisted Banderon in killing my parents and other sorcerers and sorceresses! They’d still be alive if it weren’t for you!” Willow shouted. She felt fantastic getting all her anger at him out of her.

  Tareth’s body became rigid, and his face became terrifyingly gaunt. He suddenly dried up. His skin turned to dust and crumbled away. Within seconds, Tareth was a pile of dust sitting in the middle of the throne. There was silence in the room as they all tried to absorb what had just happened.

  “Is that it?” Christabel asked. Angelina burst out laughing at the comment.

  “Well, that was dramatic!” Willow said.

  “It looks like that’s it!” Riordan said.

  “I am . . . not cleaning that up,” Christabel said in disgust, looking at the mummified human dust sitting on the throne.

  “Hahaha! He’d dead! We’re free, and we don’t have to worry about him anymore! Well, we still have to worry about Desdemona and Ambrosia, but Tareth is dead,” Willow shrieked.

  One of the guards said, “In all my years in the army, that is the strangest death I have ever witnessed.

  Another one of the guards turned to Christabel and asked, “Why do you think he wanted you dead so badly?”

  Christabel answered, “To try to start a war between Kalnoreth and Oloredian.”

  Who’s going to rule over us now?” the guard asked.

  “Let’s make Angelina the queen since she defeated Tareth.”

  “Wait, we need to return Tristan’s powers to him in Mount Pyraxia before he turns into a Faeblood Wraith,” Angelina said. Willow picked up Riordan’s bag off the floor. She looked inside and saw both of Tareth’s books in it.

  “Wait, doesn’t the previous king pick the ruler?” one of the guards asked.

  “Well, seeing as they are both dead, we need to do something else now, don’t we?” Willow asked. “Angelina here comes from a different country where they vote on their rulers.”

  The guard’s eyes widened. “Well, I vote for Angelina, then!”

  “Wait a minute, that’s not how we vote for leaders!” Angelina laughed. “We hold nationwide elections on certain days, and multiple people run for president.”

  “President?” the guard asked.

  “Yes, that’s what we call the leader in my country. For now, we have more of Tareth’s students to find. He did not act alone,” Angelina said.

  “Why don’t we put this dust in some kind of urn and take it back to the library for safekeeping?” Riordan asked. Angelina and the others thought it was a good idea too. They went into the kitchen and found a large jar. They swept the ashes into it and screwed the lid on.

  Angelina felt an odd tugging on the belt. She turned and saw Tristan’s spirit smiling at her. Then, she suddenly had a flash in her mind of the conch shell that Cecilia had told her about that had belonged to Celestia. “I think that before we go back to Mount Pyraxia, we should try to find other remaining things that belonged to the sorcerers who also became Faeblood Wraiths.” Angelina could feel that Tristan’s soul was freed from Tareth.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Tristan! You’re here!” Riordan said when he saw Tristan’s spirit.

  “Go take the belt back to Pyraxia and place it on my body!” Tristan said to Angelina. He did not open his mouth. Angelina heard his thoughts projecting into her mind.

  She could feel the belt tugging her in the direction it wanted her to go. “Tell them what I tell you,” Tristan projected into Angelina’s mind.

  “I don’t think he can speak in his current form,” Angelina said to the others.

  “One other can be saved as well. Her name is Celestia, and she told me that Willow has her cauldron. You have to take my belt and her cauldron to our corpses, lay them on top of them, and let our bodies absorb our magic to bring us back to life,” Tristan said to her.

  “The cauldron that Willow has belongs to another wraith who can be saved,” Angelina said.

  “How are you able to communicate with him?” Riordan asked.

  “I think it’s because I have the belt. Or perhaps it’s because I broke Tareth’s spell over him a couple nights ago.”

  W”ell, let’s go back to my grandparents’ house and see if we can help Celestia,” Riordan replied.

  “But how was Celestia able to last longer with her soul if we needed to help you so quickly?” Riordan asked Tristan.

  Tristan spoke to Angelina, and she turned to Riordan. “Celestia’s mother was a mermaid species that doesn’t eat meat. Therefore, she never consumed meat in life and never consumed the soul of a living thing in her wraith form. He also says that we have to lay the cauldron and the belt on their corpses and let their bodies absorb the magic to bring them back to life.”

  “Well, let’s get going, then!” Riordan said.

  Angelina picked up her ring off the throne and put it back on her finger.

  “Wait! My sword and wand!” Willow said. Tristan suddenly floated out of the room.

  “He’s going to get them. He says the guards took them when we were thrown in the dungeon,” Angelina said.

  They heard a man scream from some far-off part of the castle. “Ghost! Ghost!” he wailed. About a minute later, Tristan flew through the door, carrying Willow’s sword and her wand. He was grinning deviously.

  Willow took her sword and her wand from him and said, “Thank you!”

  Tristan nodded to her, and Angelina heard him say, “You’re welcome.”

  Angelina said to Willow, “He says you’re welcome.” Tristan signaled them to follow him out of the room. Then, he disappeared into Angelina’s belt. “He’s going to show us where your mother’s spell books were hidden when the police caught you the first time.”

  Willow was so happy to finally know what happened to her mother’s things that she took with her when they left Fernhollow. All of them walked out the door, down a long hallway, and through a set of double doors. Behind the doors was a library. Tristan took them down an aisle, and Angelina stopped about halfway down. She pulled out a large spell book, which Willow rec
ognized instantly as her mother’s. Tears streamed down her cheeks as Angelina handed it to her.

  “Oh, thank you, Tristan!” she sobbed, hugging the book to her chest. Tristan smiled and nodded.

  “Grandpa!” Riordan said. Willow looked up and saw Nicholas standing at the other end of the aisle.

  His eyes widened with fear, and he hissed, “Riordan! What are you doing! Get out of here!”

  Riordan held up the jar and said, “It’s okay, Grandpa! We killed Tareth and have his ashes in here.”

  “He’s in there?” Nicholas asked confusedly as he pointed at the jar.

  “Well, yes. His ashes are. Hey, what was that stuff you injected us with?”

  “I found a recipe for an iron anecdote in the archives here. I copied it, bought the ingredients, and made it.”

  “What are the ingredients?”

  “I will tell you later.”

  They walked back to Riordan’s grandparents’ house, and their horses greeted them with delighted neighs and whinnies. Jinx Lightning and Sugarplum were among them.

  How do these horses always get out of their stalls? Willow wondered.

  Marian opened the door and ran toward Riordan. She threw her arms around him and sobbed. “I thought you were dead! The weirdest things have been happening around here for the last two hours!”

  “What kinds of things?” Riordan asked.

  “Well, there’s this shadow that has been standing in one of the bedrooms, and there’s this strange whooshing sound coming from Willow’s bag!”

  The five of them walked inside, and Willow heard the sound. She recognized it as sounding like the ocean waves she had heard when she was on the island of Enchantica.

  “It’s behind the door there!” Marian said, pointing down the hallway.

  Willow walked down the hall and saw a blue glow coming from under a door. She opened the door and saw a beautiful young spectral woman hovering above her bag. She immediately recognized her as the specter who attacked her, Desdemona, and Ambrosia on Enchantica Island. Willow heard the sound of ocean waves pounding on the seashore.