by Alane Adams
“Don’t worry, Keely-pie,” he said, giving her a thumbs-up. “Sam’s coming for us.”
“Put me down!” Mavery screamed, pounding at the guard’s armor with her fists. The guard had had enough and cuffed her upside the head. The girl went limp. Another guard threw a black hood over Keely’s head and gave her a shove. It was hard to breathe, and disorienting, but Keely fought back panic with rapid rationalization. It didn’t make sense that Endera would harm them. The witches obviously needed them for something, something to do with Sam. So Keely kept her head up, controlled her breathing, and followed where the guard led her.
The sound of a door clanging shut echoed like they were in an expansive room.
Someone clapped his or her hands. “My wonderful hostages.”
Endera, thought Keely. That malevolent voice was unmistakable.
Keely’s hood was ripped off, and she caught a first glimpse of her new surroundings. They were in a great hall, two stories at least. It was dim and musty, lit by flickering candles that seemed to animate the eerie carvings around the alabaster support columns. Not exactly welcoming, but a definite upgrade from the wretched dungeon.
Endera sat before her prisoners on a raised dais with a pair of other witches on each side of her. More witches filed in behind the children as the guards marched them forward into the center of the hall.
“I hope you have enjoyed your stay so far,” Endera said with cruel glee.
“Where’s Sam?” Keely asked.
“We know he came here to rescue us,” Howie added.
“And look how that worked out,” Endera mocked.
Mavery let out a low growl. “He’s going to . . . to tear your head off when he gets here!”
Endera fanned herself. “Oh, dear sisters, we should all be trembling at the thought of a boy who doesn’t yet know how to control his magic.”
The other witches tittered with laughter.
“Now, if you’re quite finished, let’s play a little game. It’s called Don’t Get Eaten,” Endera jeered.
Keely took a step back, instinctively putting one arm around Mavery’s shoulder. Howie rested his hand on her back.
“We don’t want to play any games,” Keely said.
“Now, where’s the fun in that? We’re going to put on a show, and you are to be my stars.”
Endera went to the back wall and dragged a long black curtain to the side. All Keely saw at first was a shimmery web. Mavery must have known what it meant, because the girl let out a keening sound of terror as a long set of jointed legs unfolded into the candlelight, carrying a car-size, brown torso covered in thick, oily hair. With deadly grace, the creature crawled from the dark corner, spreading more legs and clacking its ferocious mandible jaws at the presence of live prey. Before Keely could scream in horror, someone tied a gag around her mouth.
Chapter Twenty-Six
In the morning, a guard brought Sam a bowl of cold gruel and unchained his hands and feet. As soon as he was released, Sam reached for the familiar pouch, disappointed to find it gone. He forced himself to eat, even though the gruel tasted like swamp water.
There wasn’t much to his dungeon: the smelly bucket, some bones from a small animal, and the chains he had been bound with. A single window covered with rusted bars perched high on the wall. He jumped up, grabbing hold of the iron rods, and pulled himself up so he could see out.
Sam was eye level with the ground. Across a courtyard, Endera stood talking to a man on a horse. He was bald and round, dressed in black robes. A Balfin, no doubt, judging by his clothes, but Sam couldn’t see if it was Emenor, the High Council representative who had conspired with Lord Orrin back in Skara Brae to help him escape. Had this been their intention all along, to drive him into the witches’ clutches?
Dropping back down, Sam paced his cell. He felt naked without his dad’s pouch and the precious piece of Odin’s stone, like he had been stripped of his powers. But then something occurred to him—something empowering. Maybe I don’t need it to do magic. Maybe, thought Sam, that gift from his father was just like training wheels. A starter kit.
He was the son of a witch, after all.
“Fein kinter,” he said, facing the door.
Nothing happened.
He tried again, shaking his hands out to get the energy flowing. “Fein kinter . . . something, something.”
His mind was blank. The problem was, he couldn’t conjure up any spells. When he was in trouble or angry, the words flooded his brain, but now he couldn’t even make the door rattle.
Guess I’m a pretty lousy witch, Sam realized, his spirits sinking again.
The sound of boots clomping down the hallway broke his gloom as the door to his dungeon opened. A guard dressed in a black leather breastplate, with a black cowl covering his face, grabbed Sam by his collar and shoved him into the hall, where three other guards waited.
“What’s going on? Where are you taking me?”
Offering no answers, they pushed him along. Sam kept his head down, looking furtively side to side, hoping for a sign of his friends. But the cell doors were all firmly closed, and the narrow slit-windows were too high to give him a chance to see inside.
The guards trudged Sam up a set of spiral stairs lined with cobwebs. At the top, the first guard unlocked a heavy, reinforced door. Sunlight burst through the opening, and Sam threw his arm up, shading his eyes as they entered an enclosed courtyard. He instantly recognized this place as the one where he had seen Endera talking to the horseman earlier.
Stark gray walls rose up three stories around him, leaving a large, open space in the middle. It was planted with lush green grass and neat flower beds, with scattered benches set under willowy trees. Not at all what Sam expected from a witches’ fortress.
As they walked down the corridor, doors opened up, spilling out girls of all ages. They wore identical gray dresses, and each clutched an armload of books. Their long black hair was twisted into braids down their back, and they looked at him wide-eyed and slack-jawed, as if they had never seen a boy before. Strange as it seemed, it appeared to Sam to be some kind of school.
Reaching the far end of the courtyard, the guards ushered Sam into a quiet hall that led directly to a set of ornate metal doors. Two more guards stood in front, holding tall lances.
As Sam approached, the two guards pushed on the handles so the metal doors swung open. The other guards, his escorts, gave Sam a shove, sending him stumbling forward into the room as the metal doors swung closed behind him.
This place is humongous was Sam’s first thought. The ceiling had to be two stories high, held up by carved alabaster columns. A narrow red carpet led to the opposite end of the room, where a raised dais stood in front of a large, black-curtained wall. He caught a faint whiff of something familiar—cherry, like the Chap-Stick Keely liked. His friends were close. Joy shot through him. He searched the room, scanning every inch for a sign of his friends.
Endera sat on a throne-like chair in the center of the room. Around her were five witches of varying ages, all seated in a semi-circle, their eyes fixed on him. Endera was speaking to a man in black robes—the same one from the courtyard. This time, Sam recognized Emenor’s scowl as he drew nearer. He was right—the Balfin had betrayed him, just as Rego and Teren had warned.
Emenor turned as Sam approached. His fleshy lips twitched, and beads of sweat shone on his forehead. He smiled, seemingly pleased with his treachery.
“My dear nephew, how did you sleep?” Endera said cheerfully.
“I’m not your nephew,” Sam said, adding, “How does it feel to be a traitor, Emenor?”
“That’s rich calling me a traitor,” Emenor said, not looking the slightest bit guilty. “You’ve come running after your friends and left all of Orkney to suffer. Who’s the traitor, I wonder?”
Sam felt like he had been punched in the gut, but Endera cut in.
“You can go now, Emenor. You have done well,” the hateful witch said.
Emenor n
odded, avoiding eye contact with Sam, and said, “Yes, milady.” He bowed and then seemed to hover, as if he were waiting for something.
Endera sighed and beckoned him forward. The Balfin eagerly stumbled to her chair and knelt down. She waved her hand over the medallion he pulled out from his cloak, the same one he had used to open the wall back in Skara Brae. A flash of green transferred from Endera’s hand to the medallion. The Balfin was getting his little token recharged with magic.
Sam shook his head in disgust as the Balfin bowed reverently and backed away behind the black curtain.
“Where are my friends?” Sam demanded.
“Silence!”
The shrill voice came from one of the other witches, an older woman with gray streaks in her hair and the same piercing eyes as Endera. She clutched a cane with an emerald knob, which she rapped on the ground in sync with her voice. The sharp crack echoed in the room.
“Where are your manners, boy?” Endera murmured. “You haven’t even been properly introduced. Hestera, meet Samuel Barconian, the brat with the bloodline of Odin and Rubicus.”
Hestera spat at his feet. “He’s an abomination. He should be put to death immediately.”
The other witches nodded. Sam could see the bloodthirst in their eyes.
“And what of our quest?” Endera said. “Shall we give up on that?”
Another witch next to her, younger and pretty, with luminous eyes, sat forward, simpering, “How do we know this little child can do it?”
“Now, now, Lemeria, give the boy a chance,” Endera chided.
“I’m almost thirteen.” Sam stretched his age by a few months. “And who says I want to help you witches anyway?”
The witches cackled with laughter. But Sam wasn’t trying to be funny.
The youngest witch, Lemeria, pointed her finger at him and said, “Dance.”
Sam felt an electric current jolt through his body, which inexplicably began to shuffle side to side, as if someone were pulling strings, making him move in a crazy jig like a marionette.
“Knock it off.” He tried to fight the magical forces moving his limbs but ended up tripping over his feet, landing hard on his backside. Now the witches’ laughter became a stinging cacophony.
Endera raised her hand to quiet them. “Enough! Sam, we will make you a deal. We need something only you can obtain for us, and you want something that we possess.”
“Forget it,” he said, getting back on his feet. “I’m not making any deal with you.”
“The boy is insolent, like his father,” Hestera hissed. There were murmurs of agreement.
“And here I thought you would do anything to keep your friends alive. . . .” Endera clapped her hands. The black curtain that lined the wall behind them fell to the ground with a loud swoosh.
Sam gasped. Keely, Howie, and Mavery were suspended in a silvery spiderweb that stretched from the ceiling to the floor. They were gagged and wrapped so tightly in webbing that they couldn’t move their hands or feet. They were alive—their imploring eyes wide with fear—but probably not for long.
In the upper corner of the web, a black spider the size of a Volkswagen Bug perched. Its long, nimble legs furiously spun more webbing. Red bands circled each leg. Giant mandibles on either side of its head looked as if they could devour all three kids in a single bite.
“Let them go!” Sam lunged forward to help his friends, but Lemeria raised her finger, and his feet were instantly glued to the ground.
“Take another step, and one of them dies,” Endera said. She made a kissing noise, and the spider skittered forward a few feet on the web, clacking its mandibles in anticipation of a meal. The creature stopped directly above Keely, who screamed through her gag.
“Did you know the Tarkana witches get their name from this beautiful specimen?”
Endera went on as if she were merely reciting an interesting bit of history while Sam’s friends were about to be eaten alive.
“One bite paralyzes her victims so they can’t move, but they can still feel everything. Then she slowly sucks their blood, savoring every drop. I’m sure the pain is unimaginable.”
“Stop it. Don’t hurt them,” Sam pleaded. “Please, just tell me what you want.”
Endera steepled her fingers under her chin and then smiled to her sisters. “The High Council wants this boy to seek out Odin and ask him for a cure for the red sun. It’s ironic, isn’t it? Those hapless Orkadians send the one who brought the curse to find the cure.”
Another cackle of laughter broke out among the witches.
Endera continued speaking to Sam. “We seek the Horn of Gjall. It’s buried somewhere near the root of Odin’s sacred Yggdrasil tree. You will have to steal it. Odin will never give it to you.”
“What do you want it for?”
“This brat asks too many questions,” Hestera said, rapping her cane on the ground in a deliberate cadence. The spider veered left, toward Mavery. The little witch screamed, her eyes wide with terror as she thrashed in the webbing. The spider was right over her now, its powerful jaws poised to snap off her head.
“I’ll do it!” Sam said frantically. “I’ll do whatever you ask. Just don’t hurt them.”
Endera made her kissing noise again, sending the spider into retreat. “Wonderful. I knew we could work together. Bring us the Horn before the moon wanes, and your friends will live to see another day. And, Samuel, if the High Council finds out about our deal, or if you fail, I promise each of them will die screaming your name.”
Sam met Howie’s eyes across the dais. Howie nodded at him, like he was trying to let Sam know it was okay, even though there was nothing remotely okay about any of this.
How was he supposed to find Asgard on his own? He flashed on the book in the library back home. The one Keely had shown him. It had mentioned the Yggdrasil tree. Keely might remember something that would help them.
Lemeria released the spell that bound his feet, and Sam took two steps closer to the dais. “I need my friends to come with me.”
“Now, why would we ever permit that?” Endera said airily.
“What you want me to do, I can’t do alone,” Sam insisted. “I never would’ve made it here without Mavery. She knows this place much better than I do. And Keely’s an expert on Odin and his tree.”
Endera tapped her fingers on the armrest of her throne. “And your other little friend? Is he so worthless?”
“No, he’s the best friend I’ll ever have,” Sam proclaimed. “I’d do anything for Howie.”
The witches whispered among themselves, and Hestera finally nodded. Endera turned back to Sam.
“We agree. You may take the girls, we’ll keep the boy, and everyone’s happy.”
Sam looked at Howie’s face and saw his fear, but Howie managed to raise his thumb, signaling his agreement. “No, I didn’t—”
“Or we could kill him now and keep the girls. Make up your mind. I’m getting bored.”
The enormity of what he had just done sank in. Howie would be all alone in a dungeon for what could be days. “You have to swear to me you won’t hurt him.”
“Don’t make me wait too long,” Endera warned. “A boy could get eaten alive by the rathos in my dungeons.”
She snapped her fingers, and the guards cut the three kids loose from the web.
Sam ran over to them. Keely grabbed him, nearly breaking one of his ribs.
“Sam, I’ve been so scared.” She seemed relieved and angry at the same time. She pushed him away to look at him. “We can’t leave Howie here; you don’t know how awful it is.”
“I didn’t have a choice.” Sam turned to Howie. His friend’s glasses were bent, but he managed a grin.
“Don’t worry about me. I get to kick back and enjoy the fine cuisine in this place while you guys do all the work,” Howie joked.
Sam hugged his friend. “I swear I’ll come back for you soon as I can.”
“I know you will, bro. I’m not worried. Just, you know, hurry. Li
ke, get here yesterday, if you know what I mean.”
Sam nodded and smiled—Howie could always make him smile, even now. Then Sam turned his eyes to Mavery, who looked mad and sad at the same time.
“I’ll stay and your friend can go,” she said, her lips quivering.
“I meant what I said,” Sam told her. “I need you, Mavery.”
She rushed forward and threw her arms around him, then stepped back self-consciously, swiping at her tears with the back of her hand. “We can’t split up the team, right?”
“Right,” Sam said.
Keely hugged Howie, and then guards pried Howie away. The last thing Sam saw was Howie’s uncertain face as he clung to the door frame on his way back to the dungeon.
“See you when I see you,” Howie said, pushing his glasses up on his nose.
“Not if I see you first,” Sam answered.
“How touching,” Endera said, standing as the other witches trailed out. She swept down the steps to where they stood. “I’ve arranged a Balfin ship to take you to Asgard—one of the fastest in the fleet.”
“So, how do I find this place?” Sam asked.
“There are no maps. Odin’s island appears and disappears according to his whims, but this will help you locate it.” She handed him a leather satchel.
Opening it, Sam saw a heavy brass compass inside, dull and scratched with age.
“I need my pouch,” Sam said, as Endera turned to go. She paused. “If you want me to find Odin, I need all the help I can get. That pouch might help me.” When she still didn’t respond, he added, “Please, Endera.”
She gave a little shrug and turned back toward him, reaching into the pocket of her gown and pulling out the pouch, holding it up by the string as if she found it distasteful. “Why would a powerful witch like you rely on such a meaningless piece of stone?”
Sam didn’t answer; he snatched it from her hand before she changed her mind. He took out the stone and smoothed its rough edges, before putting it back and looping it around his neck.
“You have one week to return with the Horn of Gjall before I feed your spineless friend to my pet.” Endera turned and swept out of the room.
