Rachel let out a long breath. “Okay…Um…The short version. We are on Roanoke Island. Only the Unwary, the mundane folks—if they look from the bank of the Hudson River or an aeroplane—they see Bannerman Island. This fake image is kept in place by a sorcerous Art called obscuration. Got it so far?”
“Maybe.” Siggy tossed his Bowie knife and caught it. It gleamed in the afternoon sun. Glints of blue and green and purple flickered across the blade. “Is there going to be a test?”
Rachel threw up her hands. “Eecks! Eegrec! Zed! You must remember something!”
“Really? Why is that?” Sigfried scowled at her. Something painful burning behind his eyes, like glimpsing the scorching sun through the clouds on an otherwise pleasantly overcast sky. “Everything I had been taught before this week is wrong. Every fact I learned about the world. Every law of physics. Every historical event. All lies. Even the things that the Wise Guys are telling me are apparently wrong—at least if my Metaplutonian theory is correct: that there is another secret world manipulating our world the way we manipulate the Unscary—the Wiser than the Wise. If everything I’ve learned is wrong, what’s the point of remembering any of it?”
Rachel sat extremely still, her heart thumping unexpectedly. The concept of not remembering disturbed her, partially because she was not exactly sure what people meant by it. She occasionally neglected to check her memory and thus missed an appointment or did not do something she had promised to do. That was a temporary oversight.
But forgetting? She tried to picture what that might feel like but failed.
“Magic shock.” She shook herself, continuing solemnly, “Can’t tell reality from fairytales. It happens sometimes, when sorcerers have been raised in the mundane world.”
Siggy shrugged again. He gestured at the giant lantern, burning away merrily. Glints of red and purple and blue danced over their faces. “So…what is this thing again? Is it important?”
“Okay…even shorter version. This lantern casts magic shadows. These shadows—these servants of the lantern—can be instructed to create illusions, called obscurations. The enormous chimes above us are part of the obscuration magic, too.”
“I don’t understand. It does…what?”
Rachel paused, collecting her thoughts. “You turn on the lantern and call up its servants. Then, you instruct them to create the kind of illusion you want.”
“The muskrat switched on the lantern…why? Did it think there was food inside? That, I could understand! It might be a great place to hide a stash. Adults would never look there.”
“No! It was possessed! By one of those horrid shades that came out of Mordeau’s cloak. It was using the muskrat to try and turn off the illusions and wards protecting the school.”
“You mean the protections that keep out wraiths—like the one we fought? And evil teachers—like the one we fought?”
In spite of the seriousness of the subject, Rachel could not help but giggle at the aptness of his insight. “Er, yeah. Only that was one wraith and one evil tutor, and they snuck inside. Beyond the wards, there are a whole lot more waiting. If the wards ever fail, they could all rush in. And, the Unwary would see us.”
Sigfried glanced eagerly out the western window—where Storm King Mountain rose in the distance, above the trees—as if he expected to see a horde of specters and malevolent instructors waiting to rush the campus. Seeing the gleam in his eye, she suspected he was already imagining Lucky charbroiling them all.
Rachel rubbed her temples, which were threatening to ache. “We need to turn this lantern off without calling the…” she formed the gesture for the taflu cantrip—middle fingers curled, outer fingers straight, thumb across the middle fingers—with both hands and crossed her arms in front of her, so that the repelling gestures blocked her mouth, “tenebrous obscurii, the obscuration spirits. One way turns it off. The other way, if you turn it the whole rotation…calls them. Which we don’t want to do.”
“Why not?”
“Because we are not their master.”
“Will these tenebrous obscurii know we’re not in charge?”
“Don’t call their name!” Rachel cried.
“You did.”
“No! This gesture—taflu—makes it so that supernatural creatures can’t hear me! Please don’t say their names. We don’t want them to come!”
Like the whispering in the tombs of the dead on All Hallow’s Eve, there came a soft sound. Dark shapes rose from the floor to loom above the lantern. Solemn, cloaked figures with deep hoods, they seemed to be made of solid darkness. Standing near the walls, they stared inward, forming a circle around Rachel, Sigfried, and the lantern.
Cold fingers of terror touched the back of Rachel’s neck. She clutched Sigfried’s arm.
“What’s that?” he hissed. “Are they what possessed the muskrat?”
Putting her finger to her lips, Rachel shook her head wordlessly.
Ignoring her warning, Sigfried turned toward the nearest figure and made a shooing gesture. “Hey, obsceney-thingy or whatever. Stop what you are doing and go! Scat! Vamoose!”
All the shadowy hoods all turned toward him at the same time. A dozen sibilant voices spoke in unison, “Master Warder, we hear and obey. Everything we do, we shall stop.”
No. No. This was bad!
Rachel threw up her hands, palms out flat, and shouted, “Maintain! Maintain!”
The tenebrous obscurii turned their many hoods toward her and paused, as if puzzled.
She raised her hands and held them exactly as she remembered her father had, when he had dismissed them at Gryphon Park.
“Oyarsa! Taflu!” cried Rachel, which she knew meant: return to your duties, depart.
The shadowy cloaks shivered. Silent as black moths under a new moon, they sank into the stones of the floor. The instant they were gone, Rachel raised the index finger of her right hand—the gesture for the Word of Ending cantrip—and spun in a circle, shouting over and over.
“Obé! Obé! Obé!”
They did not reappear. Rachel drew a ragged breath. Then, she turned to Siggy and glared at him, tapping her foot.
“What? Why was that a problem?” Siggy asked innocently.
“You told them to stop protecting the school!”
“Oh.” Siggy rubbed his jaw, considering this. He shrugged once more. “It would have been exciting if wraiths and black magicians had rushed the campus.”
“Not today, Sigfried,” Rachel said solemnly. “We just got done fighting geased proctors, possessed students, and a math-teaching dragon. People got hurt. I think,” her voice trembled, “your roommate might be dead.”
Siggy’s face turned pale. “Ian MacDannan? Or Enoch the Wuss?”
“The wuss, as you call him.” Her voice felt too thick to obey her. “He threw himself in front of our alchemy tutor.”
Sigfried scowled. “Who hurt him? I’ll have Lucky burn his face.”
“It was a crazy, possessed girl.”
Siggy threw up his arms. “Why does it always have to be a girl?”
“Okay…” Rachel turned back to the obscuration lantern and pulled up her long sleeves. She took a deep breath. “Here goes…something!”
Lunging forward, she turned the lantern key all the way to the left. The flame sputtered and died away. The multi-colored lights dancing around the tower flickered and winked out. They stood, again surrounded by drab straw, without the wonder lent by the lantern-light. With a sigh of relief, Rachel slumped forward and rested her forehead against the lantern’s column. She drew back with a yelp. The brass was hot.
Whoosh.
Through the southern window flew Vroomie, obedient to Rachel’s call. Shouting for joy, she grabbed her steeplechaser, a marvel of polished dark wood and brass, and hugged it to her. It was the most beautiful bristleless flying broom in the world.
“Mission accomplished!” She flourished the broom victoriously, dashing for the stairs. “Let’s go tell the proctors that shades from Mor
deau’s cloak are on the loose!”
Chapter Two:
The Elusive Sparks of Truth
Rachel and Sigfried clattered down three flights of stairs, her broom bouncing on her shoulder. At the bottom, they threw open the door to the disenchanting chamber, where they had left their fellow freshman, Nastasia Romanov, the Princess of Magical Australia, to be questioned by the proctors. Within, bagpipes blared an eerie tune. The air smelled newly-washed, as if it had rained in that chamber and nowhere else.
Rachel charged in and skidded to an abrupt stop. Above her, the supernaturally lovely princess hung in mid-air, surrounded by a whirlwind of golden sparkles. Her arms were spread, her head thrown back. Her black robes swirled around her. Her fair hair flowed upward, surrounded by the glints of twinkling light, as if she were twirling underwater amidst a thousand, thousand fireflies.
Siggy raised his trumpet, an expression of intense concentration on his face.
“Stop!” Rachel cried. “What are you doing?”
“Saving the princess!”
“She doesn’t need saving.” Rachel grabbed his arm with her free hand, yanking the instrument away from his mouth. He was much stronger, but her action had taken him by surprise. His arm dipped.
“That’s the Spell of True Recitation,” she continued. “It’s supposed to do that. Though why they bother using it on the princess, I don’t know. Not sure she could lie, if she wanted to.”
“Sorcerers can force people to tell the truth?” Sigfried’s brilliant blue eyes filled with horror. “Is evidence extracted that way admissible in courts?”
“Yes,” Rachel replied solemnly. “The justice of the Wise is swift and terrible.”
She wanted to charge forward and report about the muskrat and Dr. Mordeau’s cloak, but she knew better than to interrupt a spell. She looked around her, impatiently tapping her foot.
The disenchanting chamber was a round room with stone benches against the walls. The heavy flagstones were painted with arcane symbols. Oak cabinets held bags of salt, sacks of flower, and piles of horseshoes, all useful for disenchanting spells. The central area was open. It was here the princess floated.
They had left their friend with campus proctors, but now she floated before an Agent of the Wisecraft. Agent MacDannan, an intelligent-looking woman with bushy red hair, played a set of green bagpipes. The tiny golden sparkles issued from it. She wore a black Inverness cloak, large glasses, and high black boots. A ribbon attempted to restrain her bushy ginger locks. A black-and-white rat sat on her shoulder. Her tricorne hat lay discarded on a nearby stone bench. On her fingers glittered seven rings of mastery inset with arcane runes and bright gems.
Rachel noted the mastery rings. Most students at Roanoke were awarded one or two rings of mastery upon graduation. Earning three was rare. Four was extraordinary. The number of people who had earned five rings was less than a dozen; one of them was Rachel’s older sister, Sandra Griffin. In the history of Roanoke, only one person had earned rings of mastery in all seven of the Sorcerous Arts—Scarlett Mallory MacDannan.
“We have to wait for her to finish.” Rachel bounced up and down on the balls of her feet. She hated waiting. “Then we tell her about Mordeau’s cloak. After that, I guess it’s our turn.” She pointed at where Nastasia spun in mid-air.
“You mean she’s going to cast that truth magic on me?” Sigfried scowled. “I’m gonna attack her, after all.”
“You can’t attack her! She’s on our side!”
“Not if she’s going to use truth magic on me!”
“Sigfried! She’s an Agent of the Wisecraft—the law enforcement arm of the Parliament of the Wise. They’re the best trained sorcerers in the world.”
“I’m a sorcerer, too.”
“You’re hardly a proper sorcerer! You’ve been studying magic for five whole days!”
“So? She doesn’t look so tough.”
Rachel waved her arms. Her steeplechaser swished to and fro. “That’s Scarlett Mallory MacDannan, one of the Six Musketeers who defeated the Veltdammerung during the Terrible Years. They don’t come better than her.”
“Is that supposed to scare someone? All the more glory for me when I defeat her!” Sigfried put his hand under his robe for his knife. “I think I can take her.”
Rachel rolled her eyes in exasperation. “She’s your roommate Ian’s mother.”
“Oh.” The orphan boy looked woebegone. “Can’t mug someone’s mother. Wouldn’t be knightly. What would Arthur say when he gets back?”
“Arthur who?”
“King Arthur.”
Rachel blinked twice. “You literally believe King Arthur is coming back from the dead?”
“If someone other than a magical girl, going to a magical school, to study magic, asked me that question, I’d dignify it with an answer.”
They stood a moment longer, watching Nastasia twirl amidst golden sparkles. Watching her friend thus, Rachel felt uplifted yet torn. Nastasia was her second-ever real friend, a kindred spirit, someone who understood the difficulties of aristocratic life—a rare quality in this egalitarian age. Also, the princess had stood up for her against the bully-girls from Drake Hall, for which Rachel was extremely grateful.
Until today, however, Rachel had been an obedient child. She had liked pleasing adults, especially great heroines such as Roanoke’s dean. Dean Moth was one of the most respected sorceresses alive, and she had been kind to Rachel. Defying the dean had been tremendously difficult, but she had done it to protect the boy who had so helped her, Gaius Valiant.
The princess betrayed Gaius to the dean. Rachel did not know how she felt about this.
The bagpipe music rose to a crescendo and then grew quiet. The sparkly light issuing from the instrument slowed and swirled downward. The princess floated to the ground. Her golden locks settled around her utterly-beautiful face. As Agent MacDannan led her to the bench and began asking questions, a door opened on the far side of the disenchanting chamber.
Two men in black tricorne hats strode in, their Inverness cloaks swirling around them. Each one wore an Agent’s medallion, a circle of pewter showing a lantern surrounded by stars, and each carried a fulgurator’s staff—a length of polished wood topped with a gem the size of a man’s fist. As the men advanced, the staffs clanked against the stone.
The first had skin the color of dark coffee, thick dark hair that fell to his shoulders in tight, oiled curls, and a neatly-trimmed beard. His boots were a deep forest green. A cheetah stalked at his side. The great cat surveyed the chamber and then sat regally beside the door, like a guardian from an Egyptian tomb. The second man had pale skin, short dark hair, and an impish gleam in his blue eyes. A tortoiseshell cat padded beside him. At the sight of his familiar face, Rachel’s heart leapt.
Finally, someone who would answer her questions.
She started across the floor, but Sigfried grabbed her shoulder.
“What about those two?” He turned his back to them and covered his mouth with his hand. “Real Agents? Or imposters—like that creep who tried to kill my girlfriend?”
Rachel squeezed Siggy’s arm in delight. “That’s Dorian Standish and James Darling! They’re as real as Agents come. Agent Darling used to be my father’s partner.”
Rachel refrained from adding that her father was now the head of a secret department called the Shadow Agency. Nor did she explain that she had not known this until a couple days ago—when she had been told by a certain intriguing, yet possibly dangerous, older upperclassman whom the princess had recently betrayed to the dean.
Siggy interrupted her reverie. “You mean James Darling, Agent? The guy from the comic books? The guy our alchemy tutor told us about?”
“That’s him.”
“Huh.” Sticking his trumpet back in his enormous pocket, Sigfried crossed his arms, unimpressed. “I don’t see why Darling gets all the credit, when it was Mr. Fisher who defeated that horrible death guy. What was his name? Cost-Eye the Deathless?”
James Darling bent down onto one knee, so that he and Rachel were eye-to-eye. His hair was thinning. Otherwise he looked like the youthful version of himself in the painting of the Six Musketeers that hung in the Wisecraft offices at Old Scotland Yard, where her father and sister worked—a handsome young man with intense blue eyes, spiky black hair, and a cocky grin.
He also looked a great deal like his son, John, a senior at the upper school along with Gaius and Rachel’s brother Peter. John Darling had been Rachel’s crush from afar for three years running, ever since he paused to admire her pony at a Yule Party at Gryphon Park. She had glimpsed John a few times since coming to school but had not found the courage to speak to him.
Agent James Darling leaned back and gave Rachel a charming smile. His familiar, Pyewacket, rubbed against her leg, purring. Rachel bent down and pet the cat. “Well, what have we here? Little Rachel Griffin. All grown up.”
“I must disagree with you, Darling. She has not yet grown much up.” Agent Standish prodded her fondly with the butt of his staff. His voice was rich and deep with a touch of an accent that Rachel knew was from Sub-Saharan Africa, a country of the Wise known as Prester John’s Kingdom. His dark brown eyes were wise and compassionate, but there was an air of danger about him. “Why is this, Lady Rachel? Fourteen-years-old and no bigger than a radish?”
Rachel smiled at his use of her formal title. Few people realized that, as the daughter of the Duke of Devon, she was technically Lady Rachel Griffin. “I’m only thirteen. I was invited to come to school a year early.”
“Ah! That explains all.” He laughed, a deep, jovial sound. “By next year, I expect you to be as tall as trees. As tall as mountains. As tall as the Dragonslayer here.” He extended his staff toward Sigfried, who was still standing on the far side of the room.
The Raven, The Elf, and Rachel (A Book of Unexpected Enlightenment 2) Page 2
