TARA DUNCAN
AND THE SPELLBINDERS
TARA DUNCAN
AND THE SPELLBINDERS
TRANSLATION BY William Rodarmor
Sky Pony Press
NEW YORK
Copyright © 2012 by HRH Princess Sophie Audouin-Mamikonian; Translated by William Rodarmor
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Sky Pony Press, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.
ISBN: 978-1-61608-733-3
Printed in the United States of America
CONTENTS
Chapter 1 Powers and Lies
Chapter 2 A Midsummer Night’s Scream
Chapter 3 Wizard and Fire
Chapter 4 Mass-less Transit
Chapter 5 Apprentice Spellbinders
Chapter 6 The Vampyr
Chapter 7 The Demons of Limbo
Chapter 8 The Familiar
Chapter 9 Vanished!
Chapter 10 High Wizards and Evil Spells
Chapter 11 The Demon of Metaphors
Chapter 12 Deadly Vortex
Chapter 13 Magnificent Tingapore
Chapter 14 In the Bloodgraves’ Lair
Chapter 15 Exit Strategy
Chapter 16 The Swamps of Desolation
Chapter 17 The Attack
Chapter 18 Aerial Acrobatics
Chapter 19 Those-Who-Guard
Chapter 20 All’s Well that Ends Well, Sort Of
An OtherWorld Lexicon
About the Author
About the Translator
Acknowledgments
CHAPTER 1
POWER AND LIES
She was in her nightgown, floating half a mile above the ground. It wasn’t exactly what you would call a normal situation.
Tara swallowed and moved her feet a little. To her great relief, she didn’t fall out of the sky.
That was something, anyway.
The dream she was having was bizarre, to say the least. She was flying above a highway. With a stab of fear, she abruptly descended and flew above a powerful black limousine, effortlessly matching the car’s speed. It was night, and the peaceful sleeping towns and villages of the southwest were bathed in moonlight. Inside the car, four dark figures sat quietly, cautiously respecting the silence of the fifth, who startled them when he suddenly burst out laughing.
“At long last!” he said jubilantly. “What an honor and a pleasure to be the one to destroy the powerful Isabella Duncan! We’ll reach Tagon in a couple of hours, and we attack tomorrow night. Be ready!”
Tara was shocked. Her grandmother, Isabella Duncan? She struggled to wake up, vaguely sensing the terrible danger emanating from the black car, but the dream was already fading, bearing the sleeping girl toward other shores.
As Tara stirred in her bed, the big limousine was eating up the miles, getting closer to the village of Tagon with every spin of its wheels. And the hiss of tires on the asphalt whispered soon . . . soon . . . soon . . .
The magpie was late. Its golden, red-rimmed eyes glinting evilly, the bird chattered in frustration. Tara had once again escaped its surveillance. The bird anxiously scrutinized the village of Tagon as it passed beneath its black-and-white wings. If it didn’t find the girl soon, it risked winding up roasted on a spit, something it really preferred to avoid.
The magpie suddenly dove. Whew—saved! It had just spotted Tara’s slim figure sprinting across the fields. The girl yanked a barn door open and slipped inside. The magpie cursed. Rats! What could it do now? It circled the old barn twice before catching sight of Tara’s pursuer. He went into the barn too, and the bird flew in right behind him. It perched on the barn’s ridge beam, where it could watch the action. Folding its wings, the magpie settled itself comfortably.
Hiding behind a big bale of hay, Tara held her breath. Her pursuer could arrive at any moment.
A creaking in the barn alerted her that he was there. He had followed her in. Tara pushed a little deeper into the hay, desperately struggling with an urge to sneeze.
A sudden deep chuckle made her jump.
“I know you’re in here, Tara,” said a sinister voice. “I feel you’re in here. And I’m finally going to get you!”
High above the scene, the magpie repressed a sarcastic cackle. It had a front row seat for the final act—great!
The person who’d spoken had yet to spot the girl, whose lightcolored clothes matched the hay enough to help her pass unnoticed.
Tara was watching as he turned on his heel, about to give up, when a field mouse clambered onto her left shoe. When it realized that the mountain it was climbing was alive, the mouse gave a discreet little “Eeek!” But Tara let out an “Aaaaaaahhh!” that rang through the whole barn. She shot out of the hay like a rocket, right into the arms of the person hunting her.
Realizing she was caught, Tara’s reaction was completely instinctive and sent her attacker ten feet straight into the air. There he hung upside down, arms and legs flailing.
“Tara!” he yelled in protest. “You promised!”
“It was your fault,” claimed Tara disingenuously. “You scared me!”
“Well, that was sort of the idea,” a voice behind her murmured, making her jump.
“Betty!” exclaimed Tara in surprise. “Are you crazy, sneaking up on me like that? I almost had a heart attack.”
The chubby brunette smiled. Given her weight, Betty was amazingly light on her feet, and she moved like a cat.
“Tara!” yelled Fabrice, who was still hanging in midair. “Get me down!”
The girl snagged the strange white strand that stood out in her shock of golden hair, and started furiously chewing it.
“Ummm, the problem is that I don’t know how.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know how?” cried Fabrice in a panic. “I wanna get down! Do something!”
Tara concentrated with all her might, waved her hands, frowned fiercely, held her breath, and squinted her dark blue eyes. Nothing happened.
Stifling an imminent attack of the giggles, Betty tried to think of possible solutions.
In a complete panic, Tara turned to her.
“What are we gonna do? I can’t even move him!”
Above them, the magpie was in no mood to laugh. Its eyes had practically bugged out of its head when it saw Tara levitate her opponent. By Demiderus, the kid had the gift! Wow, wow, wow. Things were about to get complicated. And the other two kids seemed to know all about it!
Fabrice quit struggling and let himself hover, glowering at Tara with dark eyes whose unusually long lashes drove the girls in Tagon half wild.
“Tara, try to remember,” said Betty calmly. “What were you feeling when you pushed him away?”
The girl thought carefully.
“Fear, anger . . . and some irritation at the mouse who mistook me for a hay bale.”
“All right,” exclaimed Fabrice.
“What if I said you better get me down real fast because otherwise everybody’s gonna learn about your gift and you’ll wind up being dissected like a frog in some laboratory? What would you say then?”
“I’d say I still don’t have the slightest idea how to do it,” she answered, her jaw tight.
Betty shook her brown curls and pointed to a neatly coiled rope hanging from a nail.
“What if we use that rope? We could pull Fabrice over to the hayloft. It isn’t very far.”
In fact, he was floating just a few inches from the loft where his father’s tenant farmers stored sacks of grain.
“You’re right,” said Tara. “Let’s try it.”
They took the rope and after several attempts managed to toss it to Fabrice, who tied it around his waist. Then they very carefully towed him over to the hayloft. He had barely touched the planking when all his weight suddenly returned. Caught unprepared, he almost fell. Then he raced down the ladder and planted himself in front of an embarrassed Tara, who was energetically chewing on her white forelock.
“All right, let’s take it from the beginning,” he growled. “What did we agree on at the start of the game?”
“No levitation, no telekinesis, nothing,” she obediently recited.
“So please clear something up for me. When I was floating ten feet off the ground, what was that?”
“Levitation, no doubt about it,” said Betty with a chuckle.
“Listen, Tara,” Fabrice said, trying to keep his tone reasonable. “When you discovered you were some sort of mutant and told us about it, we all swore to keep it secret. But every time you use your gift, we’ve had problems. Like that time you wrecked the other barn and screwed up the tractor.”
“That wasn’t my fault,” she grumbled. “Besides, you were the one driving the tractor.”
“Yeah, and I was the one who got punished. I’m happy to do experiments to try to understand what’s going on with you, but not when we’re just having fun.”
Practically in tears, Tara slumped to the floor.
“I don’t know what to do anymore!” she moaned. “I don’t want to be different! I don’t want this stupid gift! And I especially don’t want to send people flying whenever I get scared.”
Fabrice calmed her down.
“Come on now, this gift of yours is terrific. True, it’s a little out of control right now, but that’ll change, I’m sure of it. Listen, here’s what I suggest: we’ll have practice sessions every day. Vacation ends in two weeks, right? If between now and then we can’t figure out what to do, we’ll go see your grandmother and tell her everything.”
“Never!” snapped Tara savagely. “She’s the very last person I’d want to talk about it with.”
“Why?” asked Fabrice, baffled by her anger.
“You know ‘Brutus,’ don’t you?”
“Pascal Gentard, the big bully? Of course. He tried to push me around, but since I’m as big as him, he wound up leaving me alone. Why?”
“In elementary school, he got his kicks cutting off girls’ hair. So you can imagine, with that braid of mine, he couldn’t resist.”
“So what happened?” asked Fabrice, intrigued.
“Well, as soon as I felt him grabbing my hair, I turned around and pushed him.”
“You didn’t! You mean like with me just now?”
“Not quite. I was only nine, and my gift wasn’t that strong. But he still wound up on his butt a couple of yards away.”
“Oooh, now I understand!” said Fabrice with a grin. “That’s why he always looks at you as if you’re going to turn into a slavering monster and eat him alive!”
“Yeah. Problem was, I got punished for ‘inappropriate roughness with a classmate.’”
“Ouch,” he said sympathetically. “So?”
“I went to see Grandma to have her sign my punishment slip, and to explain what had happened to me.”
“And of course she didn’t listen,” Betty broke in, who knew the whole story.
“She punished me for fighting,” continued Tara sadly, “and she didn’t listen to my explanation. Ever since, I’ve sworn she would be the last person to know about my gift.”
“Then let’s go see my dad,” said Fabrice. “He’ll know what to do. If we aren’t able to help you before then, that is. Meanwhile let’s go back to the castle. I don’t want one of your panic attacks to wreck this barn too. If we keep demolishing his buildings, my dad’s eventually going to get suspicious.”
The magpie preened its feathers, thinking hard. So Tara had known about her gift since she was nine years old. The little sneak! Young as she was, she’d hidden her power remarkably well. All right, it was time for the bird to make its report, and it knew someone who wouldn’t be too happy to get it. Chuckling at the surprise it had in store, it took off and flew unnoticed out of the barn.
Tara and Betty had a lavish afternoon snack at the castle of Fabrice’s father, the Count of Besois-Giron, then slowly headed for the pink stone manor house that Tara and her grandmother Isabella had moved into after the death of Tara’s parents.
“How are things with your grandmother?” asked Betty.
“Same as usual,” said Tara with a sigh. “All she cares about are my grades. If they’re good, she doesn’t say anything; if they’re bad, she complains. That’s the only communication we have.”
“That sucks,” she said, frowning. “Have you been able to get her to talk about your parents?”
“No way!” answered Tara bitterly. “Every time I try, she clams up. ‘They’re dead,’ she always answers. ‘They caught a virus when they were doing archaeological research in the Amazon jungle, and it killed them.’ That’s all I can get out of her. And when I told her I wanted to become a biologist so I could track and destroy viruses, you know what she said?”
“No, what?”
“She just said I’d have to work harder in math if I wanted a career in science.”
There was nothing Betty could say to that. Feeling sad for her friend, she left Tara at the gate to the manor grounds.
Surprisingly, the talk actually did Tara good. In a more hopeful mood, she decided to have another conversation with her implacable grandmother, and headed for her private part of the house.
Behind her, the magpie flew to an open window, banked neatly, and slipped inside. It made its way to a workout room where a young woman was practice-sparring with a mannequin, her bare hands a blur of movement. She raised her hazel eyes to the magpie, which started gesturing and waving its wings, as if it were explaining something. What the young woman heard must have startled her, because she put her hand to her mouth to stifle a gasp of surprise just as Tara raced past the gym. The running girl slipped on the black and white marble in the hallway, recovered her balance in the little yellow parlor, and burst into her grandmother’s big study.
As it happened, Isabella Duncan was alone in the wood-paneled room, which was normally crowded with visitors from the four corners of the world.
When Tara burst into her sanctuary, Isabella was consulting a book. She snapped it shut, but the girl had time to see the title before her grandmother put it away: Pandemonium Demonicus. A tall woman with gleaming silver hair, Isabella had green cat’s eyes on a face that was hardly wrinkled, in spite of her age.
“Well!” she exclaimed. “What manners, Tara’tylanhnem! I’ve already asked you not to run in the manor!”
Tara made a face. She hated it when her grandmother used that weird first name of hers, which she carefully kept from her friends.
“Sorry, Grandma. Can I talk to you? It’s about my friend Fabrice.”
“I don’t have much time, child, but I’m listening. What happened? Did you have an argument?”
“No, no, I wouldn’t bother you for that. Actually, we were talking about our parents. You know his mother is dead and he lives at the castle with his father, right?”
“Yes, I know that.”
“Well, his dad tells him about his mom
all the time, but you never talk about my parents. It hurts me not to know. I feel you’re hiding something from me.”
Her grandmother seemed to catch her breath. Tara then realized that Isabella was gripping the edge of the table so tightly her knuckles were white.
Yet her grandmother’s voice was completely calm when she coldly answered, “I have nothing to hide, Tara’tylanhnem.”
“So why won’t you talk about it? Every time I raise the subject, you send me to my room or you find something else to distract me. It pis— . . . It’s a real drag! I’m not four years old anymore!”
Isabella made an almost painful effort to let go of the table. She flexed her fingers and was thoughtfully drumming them on the beautifully inlaid tabletop. Tara noticed with surprise what looked almost like burn marks on the wood. But within seconds, they disappeared.
She turned her attention back to her grandmother.
“You’re only twelve, Tara’tylanhnem,” Isabella continued, “and I’m not about to discuss what I should and should not tell you.”
But Tara had inherited from her grandmother a stubbornness at least as strong as hers.
“Why not? She was your daughter, but she was my mom. All I have are a few photos and no memories. Why won’t you share yours with me?”
Isabella took a deep breath, the old sorrow overwhelming her. Tara’tylanhnem looked so much like her beloved daughter, Isabella thought. She had the same willful chin, the same straight nose and intelligent forehead. From her father she’d inherited the mass of golden hair marked with that characteristic white forelock, and those unusual deep blue eyes. Isabella couldn’t help herself. Each time she saw the girl she suffered, and that suffering drove away the tenderness she felt for her granddaughter, leaving only duty, responsibilities, and the pain of exile.
“I don’t have to give you any explanations,” she said coldly. “Go to your room.”
Tara felt completely frustrated. She had so many questions on the tip of her tongue. Why did she and her grandmother have the same last name, since her parents had been married? Why didn’t Isabella ever want to talk? Why didn’t her parents have a tombstone? And what was the mysterious work her grandmother did?
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