Tabitha wiped a tear from her cheek and sniffed. “I don’t like it,” she whispered. “The part of me that can do that. It scares me.”
Peridot nodded. “That is one reason the Magemother chose you.” She got to her feet, stretched her wings at her sides, and folded them in again. “Now,” she said, “let us go and heal your friend.”
“Fitz!” Tabitha exclaimed, rushing to his side as she remembered. He was unconscious, his leg torn and bleeding badly into the earth. “How do we heal him?” she said desperately.
“Love,” the lion said. “And perhaps a touch of remorse.”
“Your remorse?” Tabitha asked.
Peridot looked at her intently. “No, child, yours, for dragging him into this. This is your world, remember? Your dream. Everything in it is your doing.” She smiled warmly, confidently, and began to fade into the warm air like mist. “Heal him,” she whispered. And then she was gone.
Tabitha turned back to Fitz, taking his head in her hands, touching his leg. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. It’s all my fault!” She thought of the fear that had held her—the fear of hurting people—and how it had made her hurt him. She remembered the rage of the dragon, its power, and became a dragon again, white this time instead of black. She felt love fill her heart, compassion instead of rage, felt it flow out of her as fire. She bathed him in golden flames, bright as her love, warm as their friendship, and he stirred.
She shivered, becoming herself again, and took his hand in hers. “Thank you for coming back to me,” she said.
He groaned. “Is your dream over yet?”
She looked around curiously. “Yes,” she said. “I think so.”
At her words, the world around them changed. The sky darkened, the earth became water, filling up the space around them. The flowers became people, a great silent crowd of people watching her, their skin as blue as the water they lived in, their faces shining. Her breath caught in her throat as her mouth filled with water. She couldn’t breathe here, she realized. Then she felt a hand grab her own. Fitz squeezed her fingers, touched her lips, and she breathed air again.
“Thanks,” she said, not pausing to wonder how he had done it; the crowd was parting before them, revealing four silver thrones upon a raised dais, three with queens in them, one empty.
Tabitha and Fitz, hand in hand, crossed the distance to stand before them.
Halis spoke first. She sat on the right, next to the empty throne. “You are a strange and wonderful creature, Tabitha.”
“Dangerous,” one of the other queens said. Tabitha recognized her from their meeting earlier on the surface of the lake. She no longer wore her red apron, but her spear was laid across her lap.
“Yes,” Halis said, “that too.”
She lifted a hand and Archibald stepped out from behind her throne. “I believe this is who you came for.”
“Archibald!”
Archibald strode down the steps as if he hadn’t a care in the world, smiling warmly. He said, “You did well.” He didn’t look at all like a person who had been abducted and condemned to death.
“What’s going on, Archibald?”
Archibald placed a hand on her shoulder. “They needed to test you, to get to know you and see if they could trust you, see if they could respect you as the Mage of Earth someday.” He glanced back at the dais out of the corner of his eye. “They have their own ways of doing things here.”
“So you weren’t really kidnapped?” she asked numbly. “This was all for nothing?”
Halis stood from her place on the dais. “No, Tabitha,” she said. “This was the gravest of challenges, the most serious in nature.” She glanced around at the crowd of onlookers. “Nymphs are not rabbits or squirrels. We do not simply accept the passing of one Mage and the appearance of another. We do not give care of our world blindly into the hands of a stranger. Nymphs,” she emphasized, “are suspicious by nature. Our past has taught us to be cautious.”
“You can say that again,” Archibald mumbled.
“Belterras informed us of your apprenticeship to him and asked us to test you,” she said. “Though I don’t think he expected us to do so for some time,” she admitted. She folded her arms and sat down. “But the test is best performed when you are not expecting it. Take heart,” she added at the look of worry on Tabitha’s face. “You did well.” She motioned towards the queen with the spear on her lap and said, “This is my sister, Tolarin.”
Tolarin nodded curtly. “Everything you experienced today since entering our world has been a test of your nature. It has revealed many things to us.” The spear twitched on her lap as she paused. “We have seen your darkest memory, the brutal murder of your parents when you were a child.”
“I am Mir,” the third queen said. Her narrow, grave features held something that Tabitha didn’t recognize, something between fascination and mild dislike. “We have seen how your darkest memory gave birth to your deepest fear: the fear of violence. The fear of becoming that which you hate.”
“We have also seen your greatest strength,” Halis said, “which is your love. You will lay aside your fears to save your friends. We have seen your heart itself…a beautiful country.” She gave a formal nod. “You have won our trust and our friendship, and you are permitted to leave here with Archibald and return to your world. When the day comes that you become the Mage of Earth, we will follow you.” She raised a hand. “Our gift to you is the test itself, for we have given you a great knowledge. To know yourself is the foremost mystery of life, to find yourself, the critical discovery. Use it well.”
Tabitha gave what she thought was a grateful sort of bow. “I will. Thank you. But…”She looked at the boy beside her. “What about Fitz? Won’t you let him go, too? He helped me, and he’s my friend. Doesn’t that count for something?”
Halis smiled. “Fitz will not leave with you,” she said. “But do not worry for him. Fitz was a part of your test.” She rolled her hand gracefully toward Fitz and he shimmered and shifted around the edges as the flowers had done, growing taller, leaner, his skin turning blue. “This is my son,” she said. “He agreed to help us with your test.”
Fitz lifted Tabitha’s hand and brushed it lightly with his lips. “I’m sorry,” he said. Tabitha yanked her hand out of his, blinking at him in surprise. His eyes, at least, were still the same. “Come with me,” he said, gesturing to the empty throne. She followed him. “Sit,” he said.
She shook her head.
“Sit,” Halis repeated, moving beside her. The other queens had left their thrones too. They were standing beside her, waiting for her to sit. She did.
“I don’t understand,” Tabitha said.
“This is the other reason we brought you here,” Halis said. “To sit on the empty throne.”
“It is not yours,” Tolarin said, noting the question on Tabitha’s face.
“It belongs to our sister,” Mir said.
Halis nodded. “To Lewilyn.”
“Brinley’s mother,” Tabitha whispered.
“Yes,” Halis said. “Once she filled it. Once she reigned with us in glory and happiness, but she was taken from us.”
“You want her back,” Tabitha guessed. Her voice grew soft, tentative. “But she died.”
“No,” Tolarin said. “We do not want her back. It was her choice to leave.”
“And no,” Mir added. “She is not dead.”
Tabitha looked at her questioningly.
“She is our sister,” Halis said. “We would know if she died. She has not.”
“We brought you here,” Tolarin said, resting the sharp blade of her spear on Tabitha’s thigh to get her attention, “so that you could see her beginnings, her roots. We sit you on her empty throne so that you will remember.”
“We did not give up a queen and a sister to see her forgotten by your world, lost to a half‐death, unexplained.”
Tolarin lifted the spear to Tabitha’s chest and there was cold certainty in
her eyes. “You will find her.”
Halis touched the spear, pushing it away. “That is our charge to you,” she said. “That is the first thing you will do for us as the future Mage of Earth. This you must do for us to keep our trust.”
Tolarin brought the butt of the spear down with a click on the dais. “Swear it,” she demanded.
Tabitha nodded. “Well, of course I’ll help find her. I’m sure when Brinley finds out that her mother is still alive, she’ll want to help me look.” Her face went blank, staring at nothing. “I wonder if she already knows,” she mumbled.
Tolarin struck her spear on the dais again. “Swear it,” she said.
“Oh,” Tabitha said, shaking her thoughts away. “Yes. I swear it.”
The three queens regarded her silently a moment, then Halis motioned for Archibald to join them on the dais. Following her instruction, Tabitha took Archibald’s hand in her own. “Go now,” Halis said, “with the blessing of Nymia and the three queens.”
Tabitha curtsied awkwardly, still holding onto Archibald’s hand, and the underwater world unraveled around them, twisting into colorful swirls like wet fireworks. She felt Archibald beside her, forced upward by the same invisible current that pushed her, tumbling, toward the sky.
The lake spat them out ungraciously onto the shore. Tabitha felt smooth stones under her hands again and wondered if the whole thing might have been a dream. “Was it all a lie?” she asked, pushing her wet body off the stones, pulling her knees into her chest protectively. “Everything you said to Halis earlier?”
“No,” Archibald said. “It was the truth. I did not know that you followed me, or that they would test you. Believe me,” he said, dumping water out of his hat with a sigh, “I was just as surprised as you when that snake grabbed me.”
“Did you know that she is alive? Brinley’s mother, I mean?”
Archibald’s voice grew quiet. “No,” he said. “Not until they took me.” He turned to her. “Do you know where she is? Do you know what has happened to my wife?”
“Not exactly,” Tabitha said honestly. “It’s true, then, what she said? You really are Brinley’s father?”
Archibald stared into his hat thoughtfully. “Yes,” he said. “I don’t know how to tell her.”
She placed a hand on his arm. “You will.”
“She already has a father,” he said. There was something in his voice that was halfway between bitterness and regret. “I have heard her speak of him. I do not think she would want another.”
“That’s it!” Tabitha said. “Her father! Archibald, you can help her.”
He frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“Her father is lost,” Tabitha explained. “He tried to follow her into Aberdeen and he got lost somehow.” She shook her head. “We don’t understand it, but I know she thinks about it all the time. Maybe you could help her find her father and then…” She trailed off, frowning. A moment earlier she had been certain that this would help Archibald’s situation but now she couldn’t remember how.
“Hmm,” Archibald muttered. “Yes. I think I see what you mean. I will speak to Brinley.”
Tabitha felt a jolt of panic. “Oh,” she said. “Wait, maybe you shouldn’t. I don’t know if I should have told you that. I think it was a secret.”
Archibald chuckled. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m sure she won’t mind, so long as I can help.”
“You will be able to help,” Tabitha said.
He nodded as he got to his feet. The first rays of sunshine were beginning to color the sky. “You were given a great gift tonight,” he said, nodding towards the lake.
She shook her head. “I didn’t want it. I don’t know what to do with it.” She felt her heart tighten with fear and questions. “I don’t know who I am anymore. I don’t know how to be enough for everyone…” She stopped as she caught sight of a pair of eyes watching her from the water. Fitz’s eyes, she thought, but then they were gone.
Archibald picked her up, set her on her feet. “You are the apprentice to the Mage of Earth, and you are the Magemother’s Herald.” He looked at her seriously. “And I wouldn’t want anyone else protecting my daughter. Most important of all, you are you. And that will always be enough.”
End of the Novella
Book Two
The Paradise Twin
by Austin J. Bailey
Prologue
In which there is darkness
In the dark, haunted heart of the Wizard’s Ire, four gnarled, evil-looking trees stood silent. They held something between them—a black box, hard and smooth, wedged into their intersecting branches. A voice boomed from it, breaking the silence and calling into the clearing.
“Gadjihalt!” it said, and a man appeared. He was a large, hulking figure with a rigidity to his movements that suggested both great strength and advanced age. He was a soldier, or had been, a knight of the High King of Aberdeen. But that was long ago. He was a traitor to the crown, and the king he had betrayed was long dead, fallen to the hands of time, the same hands that he had eluded now for five hundred years.
“I am here, master,” he said, kneeling before the box.
“The Mage of Light and Darkness has awakened,” the voice said. “The darkness calls to him.”
“Shall I retrieve him for you, my lord?” Gadjihalt asked reverently.
“Send my daughter with a message for him. Tell him that he must listen to the darkness, and that I will instruct him. After that, there will be no need to force him. He will come to me.”
Gadjihalt bowed his head. “And what of the Magemother? We have received word that she is searching for the lost mages. Soon their power may be restored. Their presence might make it difficult to conquer Aberdeen.”
The box was silent for a moment. Then it said, “Send the Janrax. Tell him to release his haunts. In exchange for his service, he will receive his freedom. Go now.”
Gadjihalt bowed again and moved away. When he reached the edge of the little clearing, a woman appeared at his side, hooded and cloaked in a robe the same dank color as the trees. “What did he say?” she asked.
“A message is to be sent to the Paradise prince,” Gadjihalt grunted.
“Does he want me to take it?” she inquired.
He nodded.
She squinted at his face. “What?” she asked. “What else?”
“The Janrax is to be released and given his freedom in exchange for setting his haunts upon the mages.” He considered her thoughtfully then gave a curt nod and turned on his heel. “Go fetch him from his hole and take him with you when you go.”
March froze. “Me?” she whispered. “The Janrax? Why him?” But Gadjihalt said nothing, only disappeared into the trees.
***
Hours later, March tossed a thin wooden wand over the narrow ledge that jutted out of the rock face on the side of a deep ravine. Then she swung herself over and hung, dropping the last few feet to the black valley floor. She was in the crater of a dormant volcano. She had only been there once before, and if she had not been ordered to do so, she would never have come again. The hard-packed ash beneath her feet smelled almost as putrid as the stagnant lake that ran beside her, but neither was as foul as the creature who inhabited this place.
She picked up the wand, careful not to touch the animal figures that were carved into the handle. The wand belonged to the creature that lived in here. He would need it if he was going to help free her father, but she did not like the idea of giving it to him. March did not consider herself a good person. At least, she understood that most people in the world rather she were dead. She had done terrible things in her time, as witches are often wont to do, and rubbed shoulders with the cruelest of characters, but she would prefer the company of any one of them to the Janrax. People who held such power as he once had could not easily be trusted. Her father trusted him—enough to use him—but she did not like to, no matter how much of his power he had lost in the long years since his demise and impris
onment.
A crude-smelling cloud of smoke curled from the top of a black pipe in the ground and told her that she had reached her destination. She lifted the steel grate to reveal a dark hole in the ground and jumped into it, leaving behind the dim light of the Wizard’s Ire for an even darker setting: an intersection of long, low corridors lined with workbenches, cauldrons, hammers, and ore. Fire burned in a pit in the floor and cast dancing shadows across the walls.
There was a sudden hiss of steam and March ducked, letting a spell of light and water slip to the tip of her tongue before she realized who it was.
“Hold your tongue, witch!” a voice snapped. The air filled with an acrid smell as the steam cleared, revealing a thin, twisted wisp of a man. He swung his tongs brusquely over the workbench and dropped the little bronze disc that he had been quenching. As he moved, something jangled around his legs and March saw that he was shackled to the floor with a long chain as thick as a man’s arm.
“What?” he asked. His face was small, his skin gray and pinched and taut around the edges, as if he had spent his life attempting to crawl backward into some invisible shell. “What does that tyrant want from me now?”
“The tyrant is my father,” March said. “Watch your words.”
“Do you know who I am?” the Janrax whispered, turning to face her straight on.
“Nobody knows who you are now,” March said, leaning casually against a bench to show that she was not afraid. “No one remembers. How does that feel?”
The truth was she knew something of who he was. Once he had been the greatest sorcerer of all time, they said. The one who taught men to use magic. The very man who had taught her father, once upon a time.
The Janrax cocked his head and laughed. “I broke the bridge to heaven and cut this world off from the gods, little witch. And in return they stole my name and my power, but they did not take it all.”
His face changed for the briefest instant, and she had a glimpse of something, flashing teeth and gaping maw and fierce eyes. It was gone as soon as it came, but it left her thinking about the powers that he was rumored to still possess: the ability to take any shape he liked, and the power to control some of his oldest weapons. His current powers were but frail shadows of his former glory, but his skill with the bridges of Aberdeen was unparalleled. It had taken him years, in his current state, to work out how the mages had constructed their line of warding on the bridge to the Wizard’s Ire, and years more to successfully construct a key. Now he spent his time creating the enchanted coins that unlocked the barrier, a process that Shael would trust to no one else. The medallions weren’t perfect, however. They were only strong enough for a single use, after which the power of the barrier would reduce it to dust. Luckily, this was only true for the particular medallion in use, so that a person could easily take a second for a return journey. She had used them several times now, and even she had to admit that his help had been indispensable.
Magemother: The Complete Series (A Fantasy Adventure Book Series for Kids of All Ages) Page 29
