“What, to rob people?” Mrs. Carlyle asked.
“That’s one possibility,” Oona said. “But what he really wants the wand for is to use it as a key. You see, Oswald used the wand to close the Glass Gates at the end of the Great Faerie War. And the wand is rumored to be the only way to open the Glass Gates again.”
Mrs. Carlyle’s eyes went wide. “Now why on Dark Street would he want to do that? I thought the faerie queen threatened to kill all humans. If those gates ever open . . .”
She trailed off.
“Red Martin thinks that if he has a key, he can more easily smuggle his illegal products across the Faerie border,” Deacon said shortly. “Now, if you don’t mind, Mrs. Carlyle . . . Miss Crate is preparing for her most challenging test yet and needs to concentrate.”
Mrs. Carlyle looked as if she were going to ask yet another question. Clearly, the maid, like most people on Dark Street, was unaware that Red Martin knew of a secret way to pass from Dark Street to the Land of Faerie. And while it was rumored that Red Martin himself was centuries old, very few people knew that this was actually true, and that he was able to accomplish this by smearing a magical plant known as turlock root on his skin, keeping him from ever growing old. The truth was, Red Martin had been smuggling his nefarious items from one world to the other for hundreds of years.
Seeing Deacon’s stern posture, however, Mrs. Carlyle closed her mouth and once again resumed her dusting.
Oona was tempted to explain what she had learned from Red Martin himself . . . that his secret method of sneaking from one world to the other was a very slow and arduous task, and that Red Martin wished to use the wand—the only known key to the Glass Gates—to speed up his importing process.
But Oona knew that Deacon was right, and now was not the time to go into such things. She needed to concentrate. Looking down at the open book, she raised her magnifying glass to read the tiny print. “According to the Apprenticeship Magica, today’s test is the next to last, and my ability to balance more than one task will be challenged.”
“Balance more than one task, huh?” asked Mrs. Carlyle. “I prefer to do one thing at a time, I do.”
“Then it’s a good thing that Miss Crate is taking the test today and not you,” Deacon said briskly.
“There’s no need to be rude, Deacon,” Oona said.
“It’s all right,” the maid said. “Your bird’s right, even if he is a bit pretentious about it. I should leave you to it.”
Unable to help herself, Oona let out a sharp laugh.
“Pretentious, am I?” Deacon said as all the feathers stood up along the back of his head.
“No, Deacon,” Oona said apologetically, though there was still a hint of laughter in her voice, “we know you have the right of it. In fact, it’s time to meet Samuligan and Uncle Alexander.”
“Is the test happening here again, in the house?” Mrs. Carlyle asked, now sounding slightly nervous.
“I believe it is taking place outside the grounds, in the street,” Deacon said.
“In the street?” said Mrs. Carlyle. “That sounds dangerous.”
Oona thought of the three tombstones Samuligan had been juggling and said, rather absently: “‘Deadly’ is more like it.”
“What?” the maid asked in alarm.
Oona shook her head and made her way toward the library doors. “Oh nothing.”
“Good luck,” the maid called after her.
Oona thanked her before venturing down the hall and out the front door.
She and Deacon met the Wizard and Samuligan just outside the Pendulum House front gates. The Wizard and the faerie servant sat at a round table, which had been placed in the middle of the sidewalk. The table had been set for tea.
Oona was surprised not only to find the oddity of the table on the sidewalk, but also to see Samuligan sitting in a chair. It surprised her because, though she had seen Samuligan take his seat upon the top of the carriage countless times, she had never seen him sit down in a proper chair in all of her years living at Pendulum House.
Overhead, the sky was darkening, and Oona felt quite certain rain was on its way. Because of the impending weather, the street was fairly deserted.
The Wizard gestured toward the open chair across from him. Oona took her seat as Samuligan filled her cup and pushed it in front of her.
“Why are we taking our tea outside when it is about to rain?” Oona asked.
The Wizard looked up. “I suppose it is. Well, perhaps we should just get on with it. Drink up.” All at once he drained his own cup and wiped at his mouth with his sleeve.
Oona glowered at the strangeness of her uncle’s behavior, but she did as she was told. She had only just begun to drink when her uncle began: “Welcome to your penultimate test, Oona. The next to last. The complexity of today’s challenge may seem simple at first, but it will get more difficult the longer it goes on. And how long it goes on is entirely up to you. Good luck.”
Oona set her cup down, confused. “Is that all? Aren’t you going to tell me what I’m supposed to do?”
The Wizard stood and looked to Samuligan. Samuligan, too, rose from his chair before reaching his long faerie fingers into his pocket and bringing out a thick metal linked chain. He tossed one end of the chain into the air, and, like a snake rising from a snake charmer’s basket, it rose higher and higher until the end disappeared into the clouds.
“Well, that’s quite extraordinary,” Oona said.
But Samuligan paid her no mind. He laced his fingers together and cracked his bony knuckles before leaping onto the chain. The chain held his weight quite easily, and to Oona’s surprise the faerie quickly climbed up the silvery links and disappeared into the ominous-looking clouds above. A moment later the chain was pulled up behind him.
“Now what?” Oona asked, but her uncle did not answer. He only stared at her expectantly, watching, waiting.
“I see,” Oona said. “Not speaking, are you? Well, what about you, Deacon? What do you make of this?”
But as Deacon opened his beak to respond, the Wizard raised a hand and the only thing that came out of Deacon was a low raven caw. Uncle Alexander made another motion and Deacon flew from Oona’s shoulder to the Wizard’s.
Oona frowned, feeling somewhat irritated and yet excited at the same time. Here was a puzzle, and Oona loved nothing more than something to put her mind to solving.
“So, that’s it, is it?” she said, and stood from the table. “I’m to figure out what to do on my own. Fine.”
She did not know the spell for conjuring a chain out of thin air, but she was fairly certain that Pendulum House would know it, or something similar.
“Profundus magicus!”
The moment she linked to the house, the answer was there . . . the power was hers. As if she always carried it with her, Oona reached into her dress pocket and brought out the end of a piece of rope. The curious thing was that though Oona often carried a small ball of string in her pocket, along with other handy objects such as a bit of metal wire, paper and pencil, and a needle stuck in a bit of cork, she certainly had never carried around a length of rope so long as this. The house must have put it there.
She tossed the rope into the air, and as it uncoiled from her pocket, the rope weaved back and forth, tying knots and looping around itself. It ascended into the sky, creating a sturdy rope ladder, which climbed so high that, like Samuligan’s chain, it, too, disappeared into the clouds above.
Oona smiled, pleased with herself at how quickly she had figured it out, and then all at once felt her stomach take a turn when she realized that she was most likely supposed to climb up the ladder after the faerie.
“Well, no sense thinking about it,” she said aloud before placing one foot upon the rope ladder and grabbing hold of a higher rung with her right hand. The moment she placed her weight upon the ladder, however, the entire thing came falling back out of the sky and fell into a huge tangled heap in the street. Oona lost her balance and fell back
against the gate. Her head struck one of the iron rods and the entire gate rattled on its hinges.
Rubbing at the back of her head, she pushed herself back upright and scowled at the rope . . . except the rope was now gone. What had gone wrong? She looked to her uncle, hoping he might point out what her flaw had been, but he only watched her, running his hand absently through his long gray beard, and Oona remembered that he was keeping quiet.
Clearly, the rope had disappeared when she had struck her head and lost her concentration. That meant that the enchanted rope existed only when she was concentrating on it.
Balancing more than one task, she thought, remembering what she had read about this particular test in the Apprenticeship Magica. I’m being tested on how many things I can do at one time.
She thought of what her uncle had said just before the test began: how the test would seem simple at first but would get more difficult as it went along. Creating the rope ladder had seemed simple enough, but climbing the ladder was, for some reason, another matter.
She looked toward the sky and scratched thoughtfully at her head. That was when she felt the first drops of rain upon her cheeks. She did her best to ignore them, along with the fact that if she didn’t figure out what she was doing wrong quickly, then she would soon find herself getting wet indeed.
Why would the house let me conjure the rope but not let me climb it? she wondered, and then it occurred to her that perhaps the reason for this was because the rope ladder was not connected to something at the top that could hold her weight. The clouds were not solid, so there was no help there.
I could try to create a wooden ladder, she considered, but then realized that, same as the rope ladder, with nothing to support it at the top, it would only fall over. She also understood that the house had given the rope ladder to her because it was the right magic to use; her link with the house was still strong, and she understood this to be true.
Perhaps what I need to do is create a second spell that attaches the ladder to something in the clouds . . . or makes the clouds solid.
This seemed reasonable enough, though it meant concentrating on two spells at one time, something she had never done.
“Balancing more than one task,” she said aloud, and once more reached into her pocket. Just as before, she brought out the end of a thick piece of rope and tossed it into the air. This time she was more aware of the magic working through her. Some of what was happening was her own magic, and some of it was the ancient magic from the house. The two intertwined, working together so perfectly that it was nearly impossible to tell where her magic stopped and the house’s magic began.
The rope once more weaved its web of square-shaped patterns into the sky, disappearing into the ever-darkening clouds.
Okay, she thought, wondering how to begin the next step. I need another spell to hold this steady.
The thought sparked the house into an immediate response.
Gospinster’s Wind!
And though she had never heard those words together in her life, they materialized in her mind as if she had known them always.
The clouds began to swirl and twist. Like an artist sculpting an enormous masterpiece in the sky, the wind formed the clouds into two massive hands that clamped hold of the end of the rope ladder, holding it steady.
Oona’s head felt heavy as she concentrated as hard as she could upon both spells at the same time, splitting her mind in two. She tugged on the rope ladder. It felt strong and sturdy.
Now all I have to do is climb, she thought, which she had a feeling was going to be difficult to do while concentrating on two magical activities at the same time. She pulled herself up onto the first rung and the ladder continued to hold. So far so good, and yet as she began to climb, she became immediately aware of how difficult it was to climb even two rungs, let alone hundreds of them. The rope ladder rose hundreds of feet into the sky and she did not believe she had the strength to make the climb.
Once again the house knew precisely what to do, and it occurred to Oona that she had the solution already . . . except for one tiny problem: it required another piece of magic. Holding two spells within her mind at the same time was difficult enough, but could she hold three?
Looking down, she realized that she was only a few feet off the ground; if she fell now, she would not be too badly injured. She opened her mind once more to the house’s magical influence and allowed the magic to enter, placing it side by side with the creation of the ladder and the cloudy hands that held it up.
It worked.
Slowly, steadily the ladder rose into the air. Oona looked down and could see the ground dropping away—her uncle, and Deacon, and soon even Pendulum House began to shrink in size—and then she looked up in amazement as the massive cloud hands pulled her up to meet them. Her heart began to pound rapidly from both excitement and fear as she clung desperately to the rope. The higher she rose, the stronger the breeze and rain felt upon her face. The thought of falling occurred to her time and time again, but so long as she did not let go she felt somehow that all would be right.
For now, she thought.
What sort of treachery Samuligan had planned within or above the clouds was another matter altogether.
As she rose into the sky and the wind played with her hair and dress, it occurred to her that, so far today, she had not uttered a single spell, which was strange because usually magic required a verbal command. She was aware that very powerful magic—that which was beyond the scope of what she had learned so far in her training—was often conjured using thoughts and feelings alone, but thus far her uncle had not taught her such advanced skills.
Yet as she linked with the house, she was linking with all of the knowledge of the Magicians of Old, who had pooled their magical know-how into the house hundreds of years ago. She began to wonder if there were any limits at all to what was possible.
She did not have time to wonder for long, however. At last the ladder pulled Oona into the graying clouds and beyond.
***
Her dress collected tiny pellets of water as she passed through the dense clouds. The water beaded on her eyelashes, and she blinked the drops away only to have them form again seconds later. But the ride through the clouds was brief, and before long she emerged into the bright sunlight above. There the clouds spread out beneath her like a sea of gray and white waves. It was a breathtaking sight, and for one brief moment her apprehension about what challenge Samuligan had for her vanished as she took in the awe-inspiring view.
Oona cast her gaze about, wondering where the faerie had gotten to. She spun around, only to find Samuligan waiting patiently for her inside a small rowboat. The boat bobbed upon the clouds as if floating upon rippling water.
“Climb in,” Samuligan said.
Oona did as she was told, though reluctantly. Despite the beauty of her surroundings, she felt quite anxious about what might come next. The instant her foot left the ladder, the rope dropped away through the clouds and disappeared below. She peered over the edge of the boat after it, and that’s when the first flash of lightning lit up the sea of clouds beneath them, followed by a rolling rumble of thunder. The sound resonated through Oona’s entire body and caused the boat to rock unsteadily from side to side. Oona took her seat and clasped hold of the sides for support.
Samuligan’s expression was as calm as a windless lake. “How many spells did it take?” he asked.
“Three,” Oona said. “Though none of them were spoken.”
“Impressive,” the faerie replied. “Of course, you’ll need to do better than that to wake up.”
Oona’s eyebrows slid closer together. “Wake up? What do you . . .” She trailed off, looking about her and frowning. “Is this . . . another illusion?”
Samuligan shook his head. “No . . . not really. We did illusions yesterday. But then again, what isn’t an illusion?”
Oona could feel her frustration beginning to rise. “That’s not very helpful at all. And if it’s not a
n illusion, then what is it?”
“That I can’t say. I’m not the one creating it.”
“Creating what?”
Samuligan gestured toward the sea of clouds, which all at once looked not so much like a vast sea, but more like the rolling hills of the Dark Street Cemetery. Countless headstones poked out of the tops of the clouds, the sight of which sent goose bumps skittering up Oona’s arms.
“What’s this all about?” she asked.
“Again, I have no idea,” the faerie replied. “Yesterday I was the one who created the illusion of Faerie. But this . . . this I suspect is a dream.”
“A dream?” Oona said skeptically.
Samuligan shrugged. “In all of your history lessons, have you ever heard of someone being able to climb into the sky?”
Oona considered the question hard before shaking her head. “Now that you mention it . . . no.”
“No. Not even faeries such as I possess such powers.”
Oona peered around at the cemetery landscape in the sky. “I still don’t understand. Then how did we manage it?”
“I did not manage it.”
“What do you mean you didn’t when I can see you clearly right—” But she stopped abruptly, a strange thought occurring to her. “You mean to say that I am creating this? Yesterday you created the illusion of Faerie, but today I am creating this illusion myself. But why . . . how—” She took in a sharp breath, remembering the cup of tea the faerie had poured for her. “You put something in my drink. In my tea. A potion.”
But what potion specifically? she wondered. Every apprentice Wizard was taught that potions were breakable by their ingredients. Know the parts of the potion, and then a counterpotion or spell could be used to reverse the effects.
Samuligan only watched her with an amused expression on his long faerie face. He was not going to help.
How can I know what it’s made of? she wondered.
The question stirred Pendulum House’s magic to life. A sensation like that of being squeezed through the neck of a very small bottle overcame her as her consciousness suddenly descended into her body. Her purpose was clear as the magic pulled her deeper and deeper, sniffing out the foreign substance like a bloodhound on the scent.
The Magician's Dream (Oona Crate Mystery: book 3) Page 16
