Rise of Allies (The Gryphon Chronicles, Book 4)

by E. G. Foley

  The large man gestured impatiently to the small ectoplasm table at the edge of the stage. It held a misty platter laden with grapes, cheese, bread, and cold cuts of meat. Beside it sat a bottle of ghost wine with half a goblet poured. Jake went over to the table and “picked up” the wispy ghost-goblet as best he could and carefully brought it over to Constanzio.

  To the audience, it must have looked like he was just pretending.

  “Grazie!” The ghost swigged with gusto.

  “Er, Mr. Constanzio, is there any message you have for the living today?”

  He swallowed the rest of the wine with a thoughtful gulp, then nodded vigorously. He had a deep, resonant speaking voice and an infectious laugh. “You tell that rogue, Sir Peter, that he still owes me twenty guineas over the wager we made shortly before my death.”

  “What sort of wager, sir?”

  “Ha! That skinny fellow bet me that I could not eat a whole double-chocolate almond cake by myself, and I did! Though, in hindsight, maybe I really shouldn’t have. Go on now, take yourself out of here, ragazzo. As you can see, Constanzio must practice his art. I have a huge concert in the Afterworld tonight. Greatness doesn’t grow on trees, you know.”

  “Break a leg, sir,” Jake said, and as Constanzio disappeared, he passed along the message to Sir Peter, who had apparently been great friends with the opera star before his demise.

  The wizard Elder laughed aloud to hear his old chum was alive and well, in a fashion, on the other side of the Veil. The crowd clapped uncertainly, realizing by Sir Peter’s reaction that Jake had been successful once again.

  Glancing around the field, he saw there were two more ghosts to contend with—or was it three?

  Jake wasn’t sure what to make of the shapeless blob hovering in the shadows under one of the bleachers. He narrowed his eyes and studied it briefly, puzzled.

  The being appeared to be made of a denser sort of ectoplasm, so it must have been a spirit of some kind. He did not doubt that the Elders would happily throw in some sort of a trick to challenge him. But given that the creature was lurking under the seats rather than joining the other ghosts on the field, he wasn’t sure if it had anything to do with his Assessment, after all, whatever it was.

  It had no face and did not act like any ghost he had seen before, showing no signs of turning itself into an orb or one of those little spiral shapes that spirits sometimes took to conserve their strength. (It took a huge amount of energy for a ghost to manifest itself as a full-bodied apparition, Jake had learned.) But not this one.

  If anything, the mysterious blob reminded him of those tiny amoeba creatures that Archie had showed him under his microscope once, only it was about three feet tall and floating in midair.

  Weird. Well, this is Merlin Hall, he thought with a shrug. Anything might happen.

  Putting the blob creature out of his mind for now, he moved on with his Assessment.

  The next ghost tried to terrify him by transforming into ghoulish shapes when he asked its name: a ragged skeleton with flesh still hanging off the bones here and there; a huge, growling black dog; a cloaked grim reaper that swung its scythe at him.

  “Look, I’m only trying to find out your name!” he insisted, taking a backward step for caution’s sake, though he wasn’t really scared at all.

  It was only a test.

  Finally, the ghost gave up the game and materialized in the form of a simple farmer. “Did I scare you?” he asked hopefully.

  “Not really. Sorry. Please, I need to learn your name for my Assessment.”

  The ghost sighed. “Very well. They call me the Cantankerous Caretaker. I worked here at Merlin Hall on the grounds for many years. Lived in a nice cottage and minded the acres assigned to me. Kept the woods nice and tidy for the unicorns. Dredged the brook every spring for the water nymphs. Ah,” he sighed, “it was a very good life.”

  “Then why were you so cantankerous?” Jake inquired.

  “Bad feet,” he said. “No arches. Bunions, too.”

  “Ahhh,” Jake said. “But you still haven’t told me your actual name.”

  The old, rugged farmer-ghost chewed a length of hay. “Aye, I’ll tell ye. But first I’ve been instructed to make you carry out an action so the Elders know your talents are real.”

  “Very well. What would you have me do?”

  The Cantankerous Caretaker told him.

  “Really?” Jake protested. “You’re going to make me humiliate myself in front of all these people?”

  The old ghost cackled. He really was a grouch. “Can’t have you gettin’ too full of yourself, now, can we, Milord-Two-Talents-Who-Inherited-a-Goldmine?”

  “Fine.” Jake heaved a longsuffering sigh. Honestly, some people treated him worse now that he was an earl than when he had been a homeless thief. What else could he do?

  Dutifully, Jake followed the Cantankerous Caretaker’s instructions, turning three clumsy cartwheels, followed by three somersaults.

  Humiliating.

  Maddox St. Trinian would have never stood for this.

  When he rose to his feet again, Jake’s cheeks were scarlet with embarrassment. The whole audience was laughing at him, but Dame Oriel nodded in approval to confirm he had successfully carried out the silly instructions that she and the Cantankerous Caretaker had agreed upon earlier.

  “Real name’s Garvey,” the old ghost conceded, vanishing as Jake dutifully reported the ghost’s name through the speaking trumpet.

  “Well done, Jake!” Sir Peter called.

  “Hold on, I’ve got one more ghost here.” He marched toward the last ghost on the field, a hunched old crone stirring a cauldron.

  There were different kinds of witches, but she was clearly one of the nasty sort. She looked very much like a wicked witch from a fairytale. But she couldn’t be truly evil, Jake realized, or they wouldn’t have allowed her to stay at Merlin Hall.

  When he joined her, she barely acknowledged him, absorbed in her cooking, mumbling to herself all the while. He eventually figured out that her “message” consisted of the names of all the strange ingredients she was adding to her potion or stew or whatever it was bubbling in her cauldron. Jake quickly started calling out the names of the items as he heard them.

  “Er, toadstool…bat’s claw…goat’s tongue,” he echoed with a wince, though the old witch mostly ignored him. “Frogs’ feet. Powdered pixie. Wait—powdered pixie? Blimey!”

  He had met a tribe of pixies in Wales. He’d had no idea the tiny folk might be caught and turned into a powder.

  She looked up and cackled at his reaction. “Baby’s tears,” the witch continued in a raspy voice. “Dead man’s toenails.”

  Jake repeated these, too, disgusted. Then she spit into the cauldron, and he reported that, too.

  “What is that you’re making, ma’am?” he ventured.

  “Why? Would you like to try it, dearie?” She offered him a spoonful.

  Jake stepped back, shaking his head. “No! No, thank you, ma’am. But I would know your name, if you please.”

  “Oh, come, try my little potion, and I’ll tell you,” she wheedled him.

  He glanced at the pot boiling away, but grimaced. “Sorry, I don’t think I had better. I don’t trust you.”

  She laughed. “Then you are wise for I am Mother Mehitabel! Beware the Boneless, young Jacob,” she added, then disappeared in a puff of smoke.

  Huh?

  Beware the Boneless?

  Oh, wait…

  Maybe her mysterious warning concerned the shapeless blob apparition he had seen lurking underneath the bleachers. So that thing is part of my Assessment, then!

  But why would the old crone see fit to warn him about it? On second thought, he had noticed that each of the ghosts seemed more challenging than the last. Maybe the Boneless would prove to be the trickiest one yet. Well, he wasn’t scared. Not anymore. He felt like he was on a roll now.

  When he reported the old hag’s name through the speaking trumpet, Dame
Oriel rose from her chair with a smile and walked toward him. Sir Peter followed her, ready to resume his duties.

  “Very well done, Lord Griffon,” Dame Oriel congratulated him, offering a handshake. “You got all five, a perfect score!”

  “Ah, but what about number six?” he countered, not about to fall for the Elders’ trickery.

  “Six? No, there were only five,” Dame Oriel said, tilting her head curiously.

  “No, the blob thing. I still need to talk to him, don’t I?”

  She shook her head. “No, that’s all the ghosts we have for you today.”

  Jake suspected they were putting him to the test. “But it’s right over…” He started to point toward the bleachers, but the Boneless had vanished.

  Dame Oriel chuckled. “Shake my hand, Jake, there’s a good lad. You passed part one of your Assessment with flying colors. Now, I shall hand you over to Sir Peter once again to complete the telekinesis portion of your testing. Well done. Goodbye.”

  “Goodbye, ma’am, thank you,” he mumbled, a bit puzzled, but he supposed he must have been mistaken about the strange creature.

  Still, if it wasn’t anything to worry about, he wondered why Mother Mehitabel would have warned him to beware.

  CHAPTER SIX

  My Own Private Stonehenge

  “Now, Jake,” Sir Peter said to him and the crowd, “I’ve heard the longer one uses his telekinetic powers, the greater the strain becomes. So, since it is our purpose to put all our candidates under the most intense stress of their young lives, we are going to test you first for precision and then for strength. How does that sound?” Not waiting for an answer, Sir Peter beckoned to the edge of the field. “Gnomes, your assistance, please.”

  Jake waited nervously and watched along with everyone else as a row of four gnomes trudged out, two carrying a quiver of arrows between them, the other two hefting a round target painted with the usual array of colored circles.

  “We’re going to have you demonstrate your skill at archery, Jake—with one small twist. Instead of using a bow, you will fire these arrows using only your mind.”

  The crowd reacted to this interesting challenge with oohs and aahs. Jake nodded, grateful for the chance to make up for the silliness of his earlier cartwheels and somersaults with a more manly display.

  “Farther, go, go!” Sir Peter waved the gnomes carrying the target halfway down the field. “Stop! There.”

  It was now very far away, but Jake wasn’t worried in the least. He already knew that he could do this.

  He practiced this sort of thing back home at Griffon Castle all the time, at Derek’s suggestion.

  “Excellent!” said Sir Peter. “Now, then. Your first task, Jake, is to fire ten arrows into the target in rapid succession. We want to see both speed and accuracy, so we’ll be timing you. And you are not to step across this chalk line. See?” Sir Peter pointed at the line by Jake’s feet.

  The first two gnomes set the quiver of arrows down nearby. Things got a tiny bit more complicated when Sir Peter told the gnomes on the far end of the field to hold the target higher.

  One climbed up onto the other’s shoulders and lifted the target up over his head. The wee fellow barely cleared the tip of his pointy red hat. The target wobbled as the gnomes struggled for balance.

  Jake looked at Sir Peter in alarm. “Are they going to stay there, in the line of fire?”

  “Well, that target isn’t going to hold itself up now, is it?” he asked lightly.

  “Yes, but…doesn’t that seem dangerous?”

  “Then you’d better watch your aim, I daresay,” Sir Peter answered with a wink. “Don’t worry. Gnomes are very hardy. And if you kill these two, we’ve got plenty more. Good luck, Jake.”

  As Sir Peter walked away, Jake took a deep breath and focused all his concentration on the arrows by his feet. He had learned by trial and error that a clear mind was everything in getting objects to move without touching them.

  Bringing up his hands, he made the first arrow slip out of the quiver and rise up off the grass; it hovered in midair, awaiting his command. Please don’t skewer those poor gnomes.

  Jake knew that nervousness usually made him put too much force into his telekinesis—which, in turn, threw off his aim. So he pulled back on the intensity as he sent the first arrow on its way with a cautious flick of his hand.

  The arrow gathered speed as it traveled down the field. With nine more to go, he decided to take them in threes. This was as much as he could manipulate at one time.

  His attention was already split between the first arrow nearing the target and the next three rising off the grass like angry hornets, lined up and hovering in midair.

  Turning forward, Jake homed in on guiding the first arrow toward the bull’s-eye. It did not help that the gnomes could barely hold the target steady. With one sitting astride the other’s shoulders, they wove to and fro and tilted back and forth.

  Jake scowled and concentrated harder as the arrow gathered velocity. Better aim high. Maddox St. Trinian hadn’t killed any of his gnomes, and Jake did not intend to be the first.

  Thunk!

  The arrow struck the target nowhere near the bull’s-eye. The crowd clapped for him anyway, but Jake was irked to have only hit the upper arc of an outer ring.

  He wasted no time, but sent the next three arrows whizzing down the field all at the same time.

  Starting to get a better feel for what he was doing, he stared at the target until he picked up the rhythm of how the gnomes were tilting back and forth under the strain of their heavy burden.

  Thwack, thwack, thwack!

  His next arrows slammed into the target in quick succession. He’d managed to get them inside the red and blue rings, but still, none of them had hit the yellow bull’s-eye.

  “Come on,” he said under his breath and hurried onto the next three, since he was being timed.

  The secondhand was ticking.

  Whoosh! The next trio of arrows shot forward, faster as they flew toward the target. All three hit at once, and now Jake’s temples were beginning to throb with the effort of using his gift in such a concentrated way. Again, no blasted bull’s-eyes, but the middle one was pretty close—and the gnomes were still alive.

  Three more arrows remained. This time, Jake took them one by one in quick succession instead of launching them all together. They flew toward the target, nose-to-tail, but he gasped as the lower gnome stumbled and started to drop the fellow on his shoulders. The whole target started falling down.

  Blast it, this was his last chance to impress the Elders!

  Eyes blazing, Jake did not take his gaze off the bull’s-eye, but pointed his finger, directing the arrows as the target fell toward the grass.

  The eighth hit the blue ring. The ninth hit the red. But the tenth arrow bit deep into the yellow bull’s-eye as the gnomes toppled onto the grass.

  Yes!

  Jake visored his eyes with his hand to make sure neither of his little assistants had any holes in them. One had lost his hat, but picked it up and put it on again.

  Whew. The gnomes climbed to their feet, unscathed.

  Jake finally noticed that the whole audience was clapping for him, including some of the Elders. To his surprise, even the Old Yew waved his branches in approval.

  A smile spread across his face.

  Sir Peter returned to the field, his robes flowing with each stride. Since the smarmy master of ceremonies had not yet reached him, Jake had a brief moment to sweep a searching glance across the bleachers. There they are.

  He saw Aunt Ramona beaming with pride, Henry clapping with a grin, and his cousins and the carrot-head cheering wildly for him. His biggest fans. The sight of them renewed his strength. If only Red could be here, too.

  At least Derek was watching, applauding, and whistling loudly in approval from where he stood at the edge of the field. Even Maddox St. Trinian, who was sitting idly in the front row, looked somewhat impressed.

  Ha, thoug
ht Jake. Then he turned to Sir Peter as the wizard rejoined him.

  “Well, well, that was extraordinary, Jake.”

  “Ah, it was nothing, sir,” he said into the offered speaking trumpet with a grin.

  The crowd laughed.

  “Any sense of the wobblies yet?” Sir Peter inquired in amusement.

  “Not really,” he answered, though he was not being entirely honest. In truth, he could feel the headache starting to pound in his temples from the exertion. And it seemed like the sun was in his eyes when it hadn’t been before. The glare hurt, but he could ignore it for now. His Assessment was too important to let pain bother him.

  “Hmm, we’ll have to try harder,” said Sir Peter. “Maybe the next task will get you good and green around the gills.”

  Jake chuckled and waited to hear what they wanted him to do next. After his success with the ghosts and getting at least one bull’s-eye, he was feeling much better about all this, especially since he could feel the crowd’s support. The people seemed to like him, and that made it almost kind of fun. It wasn’t really as bad as he had thought, being the center of attention.

  A lad could get used to this, actually.

  “I’m ready, sir,” he told him with a nod.

  “Good. Up to this point, we’ve looked at the speed and precision with which you can manipulate objects. But now comes the hard part. For your last task of the day, we’re going to test your strength. Tell me, what is the heaviest object you have ever lifted using only your mind?”

  The question took him off-guard. “Um, I once got stuck in a mausoleum behind a sealed granite door. I had to blast the door off to get out of there. I really wanted out,” he added.

  “A mausoleum? With dead bodies? Egads, I can imagine you did!” Sir Peter feigned a shudder for the amusement of the audience. “In that case, I think you’re going to enjoy your final task today—if it’s not too painful.” With that, he stepped back, lifted his wand, and conjured a new feature on the field.

  Jake’s heart pounded as he waited to see what might materialize from the wizard’s incantation. But when a pile of huge boulders took form, the color drained out of his face. He stared in shock at the haphazard rubble of massive rocks.