by Booth, John
Jenny started to say something and then changed her mind.
“Nothing, Jake. Nothing at all. It was nice of you to arrange a party for Urda. Urda's very important to Salice as she's the wizard they hope might actually stick around to protect them. Esmeralda ran around like a scolded cat, getting the guests together and finding party dresses for the girls from Urda's world. Urda told nobody but you.”
“I can understand that. The girl doesn't like to make a fuss. I try and ignore my birthday most years.”
Jenny gave me an exasperated look. “Urda did want a fuss, but she was scared nobody would care. Do you have any idea what those girls went through? Wenna's younger brother was tortured to death in front of her, simply because he tried to help her escape. Esmeralda has tried to make this a birthday party for all the children we rescued, because we are bound to have missed a few of their birthdays.”
I flinched. I must be a bit soft because I always get upset when any of these things come up. Men are supposed to be tough, but I cry during the sad bits in Disney films. I know those kids went through hell, but I still didn't want to think about it.
We rejoined the others. Jenny ran off after Esmeralda when she spotted her in the crowd. I went back to Urda, who was looking at her empty box of chocolates with a look of deep regret.
“I'll get you some more,” I promised. “There's some stuff I need to teach you. It shouldn't take us more than a couple of minutes.”
Urda looked at me with eyes that looked unnaturally bright.
“I hope it takes a lot longer than a few minutes.”
I could tell we were talking but no information was flowing between us. I tried again.
“There's some magic and stuff I want you to know how to do.”
“Fine.”
Urda stalked towards the main doors and I followed her, catching up as she went through them.
“Put your hand against mine.” I reached for her hand but she pulled away. Then she changed her mind and thrust her hand at my face.
I stepped back, girls are peculiarly moody I've noticed. I put my hand flat against hers and taught her how to hop between worlds without using a hopscotch court. Then, before she could argue, I grabbed her wrist and hopped us to Wales. I took us to outside my home, then to outside Jenny's house and finally to the Bat Cave and Fluffy.
“Now you know where we live and how to get there.”
“Meep.” [You bring guests and the cave is a complete mess.]
Urda waved at Fluffy before turning to smile at me.
“Thank you, Jake. For teaching me and for trusting me with where you live. I'm sorry about … the other.”
“Forgotten already.” Which seemed like a wiser thing to say than 'I haven't a clue what you're talking about'. And when you think about the two statements, they amount to much the same thing.
“Meep, meep meep.” [Happy Birthday, Urda. Remember that Jake only sees what he wants to see. It's not a massive character flaw in his case.]
“Hey! Remember whose dragon you are.” Everybody insults me these days, even my dragon.
“Meep.” [I am my own dragon.] Fluffy telepathed at me with ruffled dignity.
“I have to get back to the party, Jake.”
“So go then.”
Urda vanished. I patted Fluffy on the flank and hopped to outside the ballroom door just in time to see Urda close it on me.
“Wizard Morrissey.”
The voice came from behind and I turned to see Wizard Lagan.
“Can we talk for a few minutes … in private?” He turned and began walking down the corridor. I ran to catch him up.
“We are here under false pretences,” he said in a low voice. “We all know the charges you made against our wizards are true, but better they hurt people outside Valhalla than bring their powers home and disturb the peace.”
“What do you really want?”
“To see if you threaten Valhalla. You have already disabled one wizard and killed another.”
I started to protest and he raised a hand to silence me.
“Let us not play games.”
“I have no intention of threatening Valhalla,” I said with sincerity.
“I believe you believe that. However, you have already changed the status quo and some on Valhalla seek to restrain our wizards in their actions off-world. That alone could lead to civil war. It is what you represent that causes us most concern.”
“What exactly do I represent?”
“The ideal of an incorruptible wizard. Who knows where an idea like that might lead?”
I stopped in surprise and Lagan walked on, finally turning to look back at me.
“Goodnight, Wizard Morrissey.”
Wizard Lagan hopped leaving me alone with my thoughts.
Chapter Sixteen: Cathedral
It was well past noon when I woke. Urda's party had continued into the early hours and dawn was breaking when I finally crashed out. Jenny was sleeping next door, which still felt strange. I wondered how the three of us were going to manage after we were married, but quickly decided there was no point in worrying about it. Undoubtedly the ladies in the relationship had already made up my mind and would tell me what I had decided … eventually.
The number of jibes I'd been receiving about not thinking ahead was getting to me. It was time to be pro-active, whatever that meant. One of the teachers at school had used that word a lot. Anyway, I knew the perfect place to start.
A quick search of the room revealed that the clothes I changed out of last night were gone. No doubt the ever efficient staff of the Palace had decided they needed cleaning. I could hop back home, but if Mam heard me I'd have to stay for a while and I needed to get on with things. My wizard clothes would have to do. If I met anybody important I'd stand downwind of them.
I left the room and headed for the Palace gates. I could have hopped but I craved the exercise. Walking can be incredibly invigorating and I was bouncing with nervous energy. I turned a corner and ran straight into Urda. She was lurking in the corridor as if she had been waiting for me.
“Urda, chocolates, I know. Later today if I can.” I tried to step past her but she moved to block me.
“Jake, Jenny's explained to me why you can't... I thought if you already had Esmeralda and Jenny, one more wouldn't make any difference. But I understand now, I'm sorry.”
My blank look must have got through to her. But instead of explaining, she sighed and took the conversation in an unexpected direction.
“I need a favor of you. I want you to show me where my world is.”
That set off a whole string of alarm bells in my mind. I could think of only one reason why Urda would want to go back there. She was a fully fledged wizard now. She could kill all those who had tortured her.
“Revenge isn't all it's cracked up to be, Urda.” The image of Talder Plath's neck snapping rose unbidden and unwanted in my mind. That had been different and I pushed the image away.
She looked down at her hands for a second and then lifted her gaze and locked her eyes with mine. They were glistening; she was near to tears again. I really don't need all these diversions, especially with Bronwyn to worry about.
“I want to see my mother. This isn't about revenge.” She was telling me the truth, I could tell. But not the whole truth, women never did. I sighed.
“We'll go together and if you're lying I'll block you from ever going there again. You know I can do it.”
Urda nodded reluctantly. “When?”
“I've got something to do first. Later, after I've finished. I'll collect you from your room.”
She nodded again and I walked away from her even more briskly than I'd been walking before. I'd let myself in for something bad, I could feel it. It was a relief to get out of the Palace and into the city. Flowers were in bloom in hundreds of window boxes and flower beds in the streets. The air was heady with a thousand scents. It felt like leaving prison and I'm speaking from experience when I say that.
&nb
sp; I knew where the cathedral was even though I'd never been in it. It blew away the Palace for sheer prettiness as it appeared to be made entirely of stained glass. As I got closer I saw the building was made of stone covered in glass cladding. It was held away from the inner walls with wrought iron bars. Mirrors lined the stonework reflecting light back and making the glass glow brightly in the sunlight.
It turned out that the inside of the building was similarly clad and the windows were big enough to fill its cavernous interior with mottled colored light. A central aisle down the rectangular bit of the building led to a circular section over which there was a large dome. Daylight must have been cleverly channeled from above because the circular dais below the dome was lit as if by multi-colored spotlights. There was a strong religious feeling to the place, a sense of mystery and awe, as if people had prayed here for centuries.
I knew nothing about the religion of Salice. I'm not the slightest bit religious and the King and Queen have never introduced me to a priest. I'd got the impression the country was secular, which was a bit stupid when you considered the time and money that must have gone into building this cathedral.
Going to the nearest wall I began to lay the magic I'd planned. This was a vast building but I intended to give each bit of it everything I could. It helped if I was touching the surface so I walked around the interior of the cathedral with my fingers lightly touching the glass wall. By the time I finished I could barely walk as I was so tired from using the magic. I went to the nearest pew and sat down to recover.
“Welcome, Wizard Morrissey, to the Church of Light.”
The voice was warm and welcoming. I turned towards it and saw a fat man dressed almost completely in white except for the shoulders of his jacket, which were embroidered with golden thread.
“Have we met?”
“I am the Bishop of Salice. Like you, I'm easy to recognize because I'm wearing my uniform.” He waved his hands across his clothes. “I will be marrying you to your brides on Quarter Day. I must say that will be a first for me in many ways.”
“Very much a first for me too,” I said with feeling.
“May I?” He indicated he wanted to sit on the bench in front of me. I nodded and he sat facing me.
“I gather you come from another world. In a way, so do I. I thought I was going to spend the rest of my days in theological debate in Alhenra when I was ordered to pack my bags and take up the role of Bishop of Salice. I only arrived this morning and have yet to meet the King.”
“You seem to be very well informed for a newcomer.”
“Urgent messages were sent when your wedding date was set. The King knew I was coming but I had to make haste to be sure to arrive in good time. The rest of my retinue and all my books are several days behind me.”
“Shouldn't someone have been here to start with?” Or at least some priests. I'd seen nobody around Salice dressed remotely like him.
The Bishop looked sad. “All the priests in Salice were put to death by the Master. I've been travelling for nearly half a year to get here. Alhenra is a long way away.”
“You've picked a dangerous time to come. We have an adolescent wizard planning to take the kingdom by force and three wizards from a world called Valhalla whose motives are beyond me.”
The Bishop looked up at the dome and then back at me.
“Do they have religion where you come from?”
“Rather too many of them for my tastes.”
“The Religion of Light is very simple. We believe that the multiverse began as pure white light. Then for reasons theologians argue over, it broke into light of uncountable colors. Look up at the stars and you can see so many colors, no two exactly alike. This disintegration allowed the light to change and grow in unexpected directions, into Humanity and Dragons, for example. It also allowed darkness to come into existence, which the light must constantly fight if it is to survive.”
“When we have explored all that it is possible for the light to be, many believe the light will merge together and the multiverse will once again become pure white light. But hopefully a better, stronger and wiser light.”
As religions go that didn't sound like a bad one, but I saw an immediate flaw.
“How do you define what darkness is?”
The bishop clapped me on the shoulder and laughed. “You missed your calling as a theologian, Jake. May I call you Jake? That question has been argued over since the dawn of time. Let me simply say that I believe the Master was an agent of Darkness and you are one of Light and leave it at that.”
“Let's hope I don't bring that fight into the cathedral on Quarter Day.”
The Bishop looked at me and I saw unexpected resolve in his eyes.
“If the fight comes to the Church we will not shirk our duty, regardless of the outcome. Why do you think the Master killed all our priests?”
I offered the Bishop my hand and he took it and gripped it tightly. Normally I don't have a lot of time for priests, but this one seemed to be something special.
Chapter Seventeen: Sparse
I found an excellent pie shop outside the cathedral. Not that I had any money on me, but they knew who I was and were more than happy to charge it to the Palace. I suppose this shows the advantage of me wearing the wizard costume. I still felt uncomfortable in it though and hopped to my room as soon as I finished eating.
My clothes were waiting for me, pressed and neatly folded on my bed. Jeans with neat creases aren't everybody's cup of tea, but I was more than happy to settle for them. Jenny wasn't in her room when I looked and I didn't fancy trying to find her so I hopped to Urda's door and knocked.
She was dressed in her wizard costume and wearing subtle makeup. She wanted to impress someone when we got there, that was for certain.
“I didn't think I'd need to ask you to help me. I've lived there all my life. You'd think I'd be able to hop back without help.” Urda's enquiring look showed she expected me to explain why she couldn't find her home world.
“I think wizards make a mental note of where they are,” I told her, willing to have a go. “Before I learned to hop my parents took me on holidays to seaside resorts. But I can't hop to them because I don't really know where they are.”
“You hopped to Salice and Barren without having been there.”
“You can hop to random places or you can follow someone. I used to think wizards hopped to boundary places like mountains, shores or rivers because that's where I always ended up. Now I'm not so sure. Bronwyn hopped to the edge of a volcano and then to a desert on your world. The only thing they have in common was that they were dangerous places.”
I felt I was stumbling on the verge of an insight into Bronwyn when Urda interrupted my thoughts.
“The desert was east of Barren?”
I had hopped across the desert following the setting sun so it seemed likely. I nodded.
“That's where we should start. I don't want to go to Barren. I want to go home to Sparse.”
You have to hand it to the people of Urda's world. They picked names for their towns with consummate skill. I was willing to bet they also have towns called Nothing and Despair.
Urda carried on talking, blithely unaware of my insights into her people's minds. “It's a small town, little more than a village really. It might take some time to walk there though.”
“I have other skills at my disposal,” I said in my best enigmatic voice. I took hold of her hand and we hopped.
A moment later we stood in a bleak, almost featureless desert many miles from Barren. It was unpleasantly hot and dry and the temperature change took my breath away. Using the position of the sun as a guide I looked east and spotted a rocky outcrop on the horizon. Urda stood silently beside me, lost in thought. I took her hand and hopped us to the outcrop.
“I didn't know we could do that,” she said delightedly as we dropped a couple of feet through the air to the ground.
“It's not an exact science.” I brushed dust off my jeans, having
fallen onto my knees when we landed. Annoyingly, Urda landed lightly and stayed on her feet.
We weren't quite at the top of the hill so we walked east for a while. Gradually a valley came into sight. A small river wound through its heart. There were signs the river had once been much bigger, but not for many years. A hamlet of dour flat roofed buildings huddled together on both sides of the river’s meager water. A bridge, far too big for the river, provided a crossing point, though I suspected you could walk across the river without getting the tops of your shoes wet.
“That's it, that's Sparse.” Urda sounded excited. Had I come across the place on my own I would have hopped straight home. It didn't look the slightest bit inviting. It was three or four miles away and I looked for a good spot to hop to. A long dead, massive tree stripped of its lower branches dominated the landscape about half a mile from the town. I took Urda's hand and hopped us to it.
“This is the Wishing Tree,” Urda said happily. “It's said if you put a hand on its trunk and make a wish it will come true.”
“And in all these years, nobody's wished for rain?”
Urda gave me a disapproving look and I did my impression of 'Happy Jake' giving her a broad smile. She pushed me onto the track beside the tree before smiling at me.
“You're a rat, Jake Morrissey.”
I gestured towards the hamlet ahead. “Perhaps my Lady Urda would care to lead the way?”
Urda led me through the maze of huddled homes. It would be unfair to call the dust tracks we trod streets or alleys, they were simply barren ground between the buildings. We saw no one. A few dogs and goats lay listlessly in what shade they could find, but there were no people in sight. Nor did we hear any human activity. If it hadn't been that the goats were tethered and not starving I would have concluded that the town had been deserted.
Urda stopped besides a squat ugly baked-mud house and tried the door. It was locked so she banged on it. There was no response.
It takes time to learn what you can do as a wizard. I gently moved her to one side and used magic to lift the three internal bars locking the door. They fell heavily to the floor and the door only half opened before they blocked it. Halfway open was good enough and Urda slipped through the gap. I followed her, breathing in to get through. I stopped just inside the door as I waited for my eyes to adjust to the gloom. The room was much hotter than outside, not surprising as all the windows were shuttered.
