Magemother: The Complete Series (A Fantasy Adventure Book Series for Kids of All Ages)

by Austin J. Bailey

  The ogre.

  Brinley covered her mouth to stop a shout when she realized that Tabitha and Habis didn’t seem to be afraid at all. They were laughing. Laughing as they threw the stones, one by one, into the brook. Almost without her noticing, the memory of the man and the stick faded from her mind with their laughter, replaced with curiosity. As she watched a stone plunk into the water, Brinley caught a better look at the ogre. He was sniffing the water, walking along the opposite bank. Occasionally, he would dip his foot into the stream and Tabitha or Habis would toss a stone into the water in front of him, after which he would snatch his foot out, stomp in frustration, and start pacing again.

  Brinley took a few steps closer. She could just make out what Tabitha and Habis were saying now. They were whispering. Whispering to the rocks, it seemed. They held them up to their faces and whispered before they threw them.

  “A rash and a canker sore,” Tabitha was saying, but Habis cut her off.

  “No, no, no. Rhyme it, rhyme it!”

  Tabitha nodded vigorously and began again. “Warts and rashes and hammer toes, and a canker sore the size of a rose,” she said, holding a stone in her hand. She was squatting barefoot, her dress pulled up over her knees, looking very much like a toddler, and drawing on the stone with the mud-covered finger of her left hand. When she had finished, she stood up and threw the stone into the brook. The ogre, who had made it halfway across the stream, snarled as the rock slapped the water in front of him. He reared up and twisted around, retreating back onto the bank.

  “Seeds stuck in your teeth,” Habis was saying, painting mud onto a stone of her own, “and sour honey for painful pee.” She laughed and then threw it into the stream.

  Tabitha giggled. “Oh, Habis. That was a terrible rhyme.”

  The ogre gave up trying to cross the stream and sat on the far bank. Now that she could see him better, Brinley realized that he bore no marks of the ferocious temperament that he exhibited during their battle with March. He looked quite frightened now.

  “What on earth are you doing?” Brinley said. Tabitha dropped her stone. Habis hid her own stone behind her back.

  “We’re not on Earth, Magemother,” Habis said defensively.

  “Let me see that,” Brinley said, holding out her hand for the stone.

  Habis gave her a stubborn look, but handed it over. It had a strange pattern of swirls and lines painted across it with mud. The writing was unlike anything Brinley had seen before. “What is it?” she asked.

  “A curse rock,” Tabitha said brightly, having recovered from the shock of Brinley’s appearance. “Habis has been teaching me how to make them.”

  Brinley raised her eyebrows at Habis.

  “What?” the witch said, reaching out to snatch the stone back. She turned then, and hurled it into the brook, causing the ogre to scurry farther back from the edge of the stream.

  “Dark magic?” Brinley asked. She knew, of course, that Habis had spent most of her life as a witch, and that much of her magic was what people would call questionable, if not downright unsavory.

  “Pish posh,” Habis said, waving her hand. “Magic is magic. Only what you do with it is good or bad, and this,” she said, picking up another stone and handing it to Brinley, “is good. Unless you want to get eaten by an ogre.”

  “No,” Brinley said. “I don’t. But he doesn’t look very hungry.”

  “Ogres can always eat,” Habis said. “He wandered in an hour ago. Looking for help, I think. That sister of mine probably abandoned him. Ogres aren’t much use on their own after they’ve been domesticated, you know. Not too different from a horse. I expect he sensed that I would take care of him.”

  “Will you?” Brinley asked.

  “Yes,” Habis said. “But he’ll have to wait until morning. It’s not worth the risk messing with ogres at night.” She tossed another curse rock into the stream and dusted her hands off on her pants. “I think that will hold him for now, Tabitha.”

  “Uh oh,” Tabitha said, and Brinley glanced up at the ogre. It was walking away from them now, back toward the woods.

  “No matter,” Habis said. “He is probably just going to look for March again. When he doesn’t find her, he will be back.”

  “What if he does find her?”

  Habis shrugged. “Then we have lost nothing. Ogres are not very communicative creatures. Useful in a fight, but hard to get information out of. He will not be able to tell her that he saw us. Why don’t we go back inside for some tea before you leave…and I do believe I have some rotoberry bread for the road.”

  Tabitha gagged softly.

  Chapter Seven

  In which Brinley challenges a troll to a battle of wits

  Outside Habis’s house, Tabitha changed into her favorite shape, a large jet-black swan. Brinley climbed onto her back.

  “Be careful,” Habis said. She had crawled halfway out of the opening and then stopped so that the whole back half of her body was completely invisible, her face and hands sticking out as if from nowhere. “You never know what you will find on Calypsis. That place is a mystery known only to the Magemother, and you have not been the Magemother long enough to learn it yet.”

  Brinley nodded. “Thanks for all your help,” she said, and Tabitha leapt into the air, her great black wings beating powerfully.

  They flew higher and higher, rising above the clouds. The air grew thin and cold and eventually Brinley had to stop breathing, holding her breath for the last leg of the journey. This was the part that always scared her. It seemed like it would take hours to cover the distance that remained between them and the moon, but whenever they got high enough for the air to grow thin, they crossed the remaining distance in a few seconds. That was the magic of it: only the Magemother, the mages, and those with their permission could make that journey. Anyone else would freeze to death or suffocate in the distance between Aberdeen and its moon.

  Moments later, they landed on the white sandy surface of the moon, and Tabitha changed back into herself. The great crystal palace jutted out of the sand in front of them, its clear glass spires twisting gracefully around ramparts of silver. No matter how many times Brinley saw it, she never got over the sheer size of it. “I wonder if this is what it’s like to be an astronaut on the moon,” Brinley said.

  “What is an astro nut?” Tabitha asked, cocking her head.

  “Never mind,” Brinley said, chuckling to herself as she walked up the castle steps. Tabitha skipped after her.

  “I like it here,” Tabitha said. “Do you really think that we will find clues about the mages?”

  “Dunno,” Brinley said honestly. “I hope so. Can you think of a better idea?”

  “Oh, no,” Tabitha said, startled at the thought. She patted Brinley’s arm. “I’m sure you’re right.”

  The tall ivory doors swung inward at Brinley’s touch to reveal a golden floor. It looked like clear glass with honey flowing beneath it, and it lit up from corner to corner at the touch of her foot. It was warm, and she swore she could feel it pulsing beneath her feet as if it were a living thing.

  “Wow,” Tabitha said, “it didn’t do that last time.”

  “I think it’s because I’m the Magemother now,” Brinley said.

  Tabitha nodded. “That makes sense.” She stared up at the fifty-foot ceiling of sculpted glass. “I like this place,” she said again. “But it needs more plants.”

  Brinley laughed. “Let’s just hope that it’s not filled with enemies this time.” She felt her pulse quicken at the memory. The Magemother’s home was the safest place on Aberdeen—except that it wasn’t actually on Aberdeen—but the first time they had been there they had been in a heated battle with the previous Mage of Light and Darkness, Lux Tennebris, who had lost control of the balance he was charged with keeping and became evil. Now, she knew, it was completely safe, but she had avoided coming here because of the bad memories.

  “You know what, Tabitha?” Brinley said, trying to think positively. “I
think you’re right. The entrance hall should be happier. Greener.” She raised her hand, wondering if what she had in mind would work. She had no real magic to speak of as the Magemother, but then, this place was built for her, and she had the sneaking suspicion that things would be different here. “Four big golden palm trees!” she said in a commanding tone.

  Nothing happened.

  Tabitha covered her mouth, laughing. “That’s embarrassing. At least you didn’t do it in front of Hugo.”

  “What are you talking about?” Brinley said, feeling her face go red.

  “You know,” Tabitha said. “Word on the street is you two like each other.”

  “Word on the street!” Brinley exclaimed.

  “Well, do you?”

  “Tabitha, you are around me all the time. If I liked a boy, don’t you think you’d be the first to notice?”

  Tabitha looked suddenly confused. “Oh, yeah. I forgot…Well, I think he likes you.”

  Brinley shook her head, striding across the entrance hall. “I’m the Magemother and he’s a mage. Plus, I’m barely fourteen…That would just be—”

  Suddenly the floor began to shake. There was a rumbling sound, and then the glass floor began rippling like water, starting at the corners so that the golden ripples converged under their feet in the center of the room. Four beautiful palm trees, at least thirty feet tall, rose from the floor in the corner of the room. At the same time, the domed glass ceiling sparkled and changed as if an invisible hand were drawing on it. A second later, there was a beautiful scene carved into the glass: four palm trees mirroring the ones on the floor, surrounding a mother with a child in her arms.

  “Wow!” Tabitha said. “How did you do that?”

  Brinley shook her head, still staring up at it. “I don’t know…”

  Tabitha grinned. “I guess being the Magemother has some perks!”

  They took a curved staircase to the second floor and stepped into a long hallway interspersed with tall windows and pillars and a dozen doors.

  “This is going to take forever,” Tabitha said. “We should have brought Belsie to give us a tour or something. It could take us all day to find the mages’ rooms.”

  “You’re right,” Brinley said. “I wish we had a map.”

  At her words, a sculpted pillar burst from the floor in front of them, rising to the height of a pedestal. On it, carved into the smoky glass surface, were detailed diagrams of the various floors and wings of the palace.

  “Well, that’s handy,” Brinley said, grinning. She pointed to a golden dot pulsing on the map. “Look, here we are on the second floor.”

  “Show us where the mages’ rooms are located, please,” Tabitha asked.

  Nothing happened.

  Tabitha sighed. “You ask it.”

  Brinley repeated her question, and several rooms lit up on the drawing. There were far more than the seven that Brinley had expected. There had to be more than twenty of them. “Oh my. I guess whoever built this place was planning ahead. Show us Chantra’s room, please.”

  A large round room lit up on all three levels. Apparently, the room was three stories tall.

  “Let’s go!” Tabitha said excitedly, and she sped off down the hall.

  When they reached Chantra’s room, they discovered that it was indeed very tall, but if Brinley were to sum the room up in one word it would have been “red.” The walls were painted, and the windows had little rubies set into them so that the light from outside played across the red walls in shimmering patterns. A large round bed was set off to one side like a giant apple that had sunk partway into the floor. And there was a long oval window seat under the largest window.

  “Oh,” Tabitha said, “this one is definitely going to be my favorite.” She skipped off to the bed, pushed her fist into it, and then stepped onto it and started jumping. “Yep! I can tell I’m going to like Chantra when we find her.” That last thought made her stop bouncing and she added, “What are we looking for in here?”

  “I wish I knew. Clues, I guess. Anything that could give us an idea about where she might be hidden.”

  “But did the mages choose where they were going to hide?” Tabitha asked, jumping down from the bed.

  “I don’t know,” Brinley said. “I think so. But even if they didn’t, I’m sure my mother would have picked someplace that they would like to spend a lot of time in. That’s what I would have done.”

  Tabitha stared at her. “You’re really good at this Magemother stuff,” she said with a nod of her head.

  Brinley blushed. “I don’t know about that.” She definitely didn’t feel like it. “I should be able to find them more easily than this.”

  “That’s okay,” Tabitha said, shaking her head. “I’m not a very good herald either.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Tabitha sat down on a cushion and put her face in her hands sullenly. “I’m not good at protecting you. Belsie said so himself.”

  “He did not!” Brinley said, shocked.

  “No,” Tabitha said, looking up, “he didn’t, but that’s what he thinks. That’s what everyone thinks.” She stared despondently at the floor. “I’m not vicious…I’m not a lion like Peridot. I’m a…butterfly. I mean, I could be vicious, if I really wanted to be.” A look of panic crossed her face at a memory. “But I don’t want to be. I can’t!”

  Brinley threw her arm around the other girl, pulling her to her feet. “Now you listen to me, Tabitha,” she said. “Why do you think I picked you to be my herald?”

  Tabitha stared at her blankly.

  “It’s not because you are terribly vicious looking,” Brinley said, bringing a smile out of the other girl. “It’s not because you are the biggest, scariest, strongest bodyguard in all the land.” Tabitha laughed at that. “It’s because you were the right person to pick. Sometimes you just know a thing is right, even when you can’t tell why.”

  Tabitha smiled. “See,” she said. “You’re good at this Magemother stuff.” She sniffed proudly. “Told you so.”

  “Come on,” Brinley said, “let’s search this room.”

  ***

  Four hours later they were sprawled on Chantra’s bedroom floor, exhausted from their search. Tabitha had gone through all of her drawers and books and papers before finally settling down to help Brinley read the journals. There were five of them, each one a different size, but all of them red, like most everything in her room. Chantra, it seemed, had a love for all things red, especially rubies, which apart from being in the windows they had noticed earlier, also decorated many of her other possessions including her bed frame, desk chair, and all five of her journals. Brinley had made it all the way through Chantra’s first journal and halfway through the second, and she was finally starting to feel like she was getting to know her.

  “Listen to this,” Brinley said, picking up the second journal and beginning to read,

  Today I went with Mom to visit the king of Caraway. He just got married, and there was lots of food left over, so Belsie was there too.

  “Did you hear that, Tabitha? She calls Belterras Belsie, just like you!”

  Tabitha forced a weak smile. “And she knows how Belsie likes food.”

  Anyway, Cassis was there too and he gave me a beautiful ruby that he found in the ground while he was working, and he said he was going to cut it and polish it for me. I asked him if he would set it into a new diary for me and he said that he would do it!

  Brinley held up a different journal. It was shaped like a heart, with a great red ruby set into the center of it so that all of the pages were cut out around the ruby. “See?” she said, tapping the ruby. “I bet this is the ruby that she was talking about. Isn’t that interesting?”

  Tabitha was holding her hands in front of her face as she lay on her back, making animal shapes against the ceiling, clearly not interested in the least. “I suppose,” she said. “But what does it mean?”

  “Well,” Brinley said slowly, “we’ve learned that she
likes red things…” Slowly, the enthusiasm drained from Brinley’s face until finally she slumped down beside Tabitha. “Oh, you’re right. Maybe we’re wasting our time here.”

  Tabitha cocked her head, letting her hand-bird fall apart. “Yes. And she liked Cassis. I read a bit too, and it doesn’t sound like she got along very well with the other mages.”

  “Yeah,” Brinley agreed. “Animus told me that she used to snoop through their things.”

  Tabitha sat up abruptly. “I guess we have learned something.”

  Brinley nodded. “Let’s go find Unda’s room.”

  Back at the map, two rooms lit up when Brinley asked for directions. Lignumis’s room was a tiny thing on the top floor, while Unda’s was several floors down, far below ground level, and incredibly large. After some debate they decided to start with Lignumis’s and leave the larger one for last.

  The door to Lignumis’s room was made of a rich, dark wood and was covered from top to bottom in intricate carvings of trees and rocks and birds, with a great lion in the center.

  Brinley tried to open it and it didn’t budge. “Oh. Please open up.” She tried the handle again confidently, assuming that the castle would obey her wish, but the result was the same as before.

  Tabitha put her hands on her hips indignantly. “It should let you in,” she said. “You’re the Magemother!”

  “Hmm,” Brinley returned. “Well, Lignumis was a boy, you know, and boys like their privacy.”

  “What’s this?” Tabitha asked, pointing to something on the door handle.

  Brinley bent down to inspect it. It was a very ornate brass handle with trees and a river stamped into it, and it took her a minute to see what Tabitha was talking about. There was a tiny line of writing scratched around the outside of the handle. “A lion’s roar will open the door,” she read. “What do you suppose that means?”