Tara Duncan and the Forbidden Book

by HRH Princess Sophie Audouin-Mamikonian

  Then he turned back to his friend.

  “Cal,” he hissed,” if you don’t get out of this forest right away, I swear that Magister is going to look like a choirboy compared to what I’m going to do to you.”

  “All right, all right, I’ll transform myself. You’re such a spoilsport!”

  “Wait a second!” cried Robin.

  “What is it now? Make up your mind!”

  “The basket must weigh a couple of hundred pounds. How much do you weigh, about one hundred and thirty pounds? Do you want to get crushed?”

  Cal scowled at him and let him remove the howdah. Then he cast a spell to shift back to human shape.

  There was a poof! and Cal disappeared!

  Robin was searching for him everywhere when he heard a high-pitched little buzzing voice.

  “I zzzhink I kinda screwed up herezzz!”

  “Cal, where are you?”

  An annoying bizzz was hovering around Robin’s face, and he waved it away.

  “Zzztop waving your hand like zzzat,” buzzed the voice. “You’re gonna flatten me!”

  Robin’s eyes widened. “Cal? Is that you?”

  “I don’t know whazzz happened!” spluttered the little voice. “I wazzz about to transform myself, I saw a bizzz out of the corner of my eye, and bang! I zzzuddenly felt a tremendouzzz hunger for pollen. You know, I’m zzztarting to underzzztand what Tara meant about her power.”

  “Cal, will you kindly shift back to human shape? We’ll find a faster way to get to the Fortress, I promise.”

  A tiny poof! was heard, and gorgeous Cal reappeared in all his splendor.

  “Oh, man!” he groaned, holding his head. “How does Tara manage it? I swear, I’m never using her magic again. It’s too unpredictable.”

  “Great!” Robin’s approved. “An excellent decision. All right, let’s get going. We have a full day’s walk ahead of us.”

  “But you said you were going to find a faster way to go!” cried Cal.

  “I lied,” said Robin, striding toward the edge of the poor forest. “I’ll ask Master Dragosh to fly on ahead with Gallant and Tara. We’ll join them later. It won’t hurt her to wait a couple of hours before getting her power back. And it’ll be less dangerous for this world than letting you use it.”

  For a moment, Cal was speechless.

  “You lied!” Cal cried, running after Robin. “You can’t do that!”

  “Why not?” he asked with a shrug. “You do it all the time.”

  “That’s no reason!” said Cal angrily. “You don’t lie to your friends! And think about Tara for a moment. Imagine her being handicapped for life because we didn’t hurry. Imagine if she weren’t able to use her power anymore!”

  Then he delivered his most potent argument, lowering his voice for dramatic effect. “Imagine if I’m not able to give her power back and wound up keeping it for life?”

  At that, Robin shuddered.

  “No! The world wouldn’t survive!” he exclaimed. “Here’s what I suggest: Tara often uses the living stone to control her power. The first time they merged, the stone took over and dominated Tara’s mind, until she woke up—”

  “Yeah, and nearly killed us,” said Cal sarcastically. “I’ll never forget that thrilling moment when she came to her senses six hundred feet in the air, with us riding on her back.”

  Robin smiled. “Okay, we know you get dizzy. But if the living stone is controlling you—”

  “I won’t be aware of what’s happening, and the stone will do the flying for both of us. Perfect! That’s an excellent idea. Let’s do it.”

  Very carefully, they took the living stone from Tara’s pocket. She and Robin had worked together to shape it from its native quartz, turning it into a luminous ball of crystal. They’d earned the stone’s gratitude in the process. The stone was quite fond of Robin, so he hoped it would answer him.

  “Living stone? Can you hear and answer me?”

  Nice Robin, pretty Robin needs me? politely asked the stone, casting a halo of light on him.

  Whew, she recognized me, Robin thought. He quickly summed up the situation and what he wanted from her. The stone understood very well. Her vocabulary was somewhat limited but her understanding was not, though she sometimes interpreted in her own way what Tara asked her for. Before Cal knew it, he was back in his dragon body, with the living stone set in his forehead.

  Robin again strapped the howdah on his back, but left Tara and Blondin on Gallant for the time being. He wanted to see if Cal was able to master both takeoff and his dizziness. They walked for a few hundred yards to find an area open enough for him to take off. Robin thought it best that they be far from the forest in case of any mishap. Despite his fatigue, Robin levitated, the better to watch Cal as he began to flap his enormous wings.

  With the living stone’s help, she and Cal performed a perfect takeoff, as if they’d had wings all their life. Once airborne, they next flew over to Robin.

  “Is everything all right, Cal?” he asked cautiously.

  “We are fine,” Cal answered in a melodious voice, a curious mix of the dragon and living stone’s voices. “We are not afraid, and we love flying.”

  “Great!” Robin approved with satisfaction. “I suggest we fly high enough to have time to take action in case there’s a problem. May I come onto your back?”

  “Come ahead, half-elf friend of Tara. You are welcome!”

  Robin carefully sat down in the wicker howdah, then retrieved Tara and Blondin.

  The flight was smooth as silk and brought them within sight of the Gray Fortress in just a couple of hours. They landed and waited for Gallant and Master Dragosh to catch up. The two couldn’t fly as fast, but had prudently declined the living stone’s invitation to take them as well.

  The Gray Fortress lookouts saw them arrive, and they were met by a loud trumpet fanfare. Master Chem, King Bear, Queen Titania, half the Lancovit court, and all their friends spilled out to greet them.

  “Bravo! Bravo!” shouted Chem deliriously. “They saved us!”

  “Hurray!” shouted Fafnir as loudly as she could—which was saying something. “Hurray!”

  The courtiers started to shout, stamp their hoofs, neigh, roar—in short, to make a deafening racket.

  Somewhat taken aback by the rousing ovation, Robin got down from the dragon carrying Tara, who was still unconscious.

  Master Chem rushed over and gave a strangled cry of concern.

  “Is Tara—” He couldn’t bring himself to say the terrible word.

  “Dead? No, she’s just exhausted,” said Robin with a smile.

  He managed to stay upright when his friends ran to hug him, though Fafnir’s resounding thump on his back almost bowled him over.

  “Why’s she out cold, then?” asked the dwarf worriedly.

  Robin nodded toward the big red and gold dragon behind him. “She gave all her power to Cal to help him defeat Magister.”

  Chem frowned in puzzlement. “Magister? What does Magister have to do with all this? Weren’t you battling the Ravager?”

  “We were, Master,” explained Cal in his deep dragon voice. “But it was Magister who managed to defeat him.”

  Chem’s eyes widened, imitated by those of Manitou, Fafnir, Sparrow, and Fabrice.

  “All right, I can see that we have a lot of things to talk about,” the old wizard finally said. “Let’s go into the Fortress. We’ll be more comfortable there.”

  “Wait,” said Robin. “We’re still missing—”

  Just then a beating of wings interrupted him, and the bat and the pegasus landed in their turn, exhausted from flying so fast.

  Master Dragosh shape-shifted and offered no resistance when two guards recognized him and immediately took him into custody.

  Robin tried to plead the vampyr’s case.

  “I know that Master Dragosh escaped from prison,” he said, “but we would never have been able to defeat the Ravager and then Magister without him! You must pardon him.�
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  The king felt deeply troubled. “Doing a good deed can’t erase the horror of a crime, unfortunately. Master Dragosh must pay for his offense. Otherwise his entire race will suffer ill will.”

  The half-elf insisted. “But—”

  “Don’t worry about it, young Robin,” interrupted the vampyr. “We have something urgent to accomplish before we go into the Fortress, and I go to jail. I think we’re going to need plenty of room to do it.”

  Master Chem raised a questioning eyebrow.

  “We have to give Tara her power back,” Dragosh explained. “And for that I’m going to need you, Chemnashaovirodaintrachivu. Her power is too great for me.”

  “Oh? All right, no problem. I’ll create a pentacle to protect everybody. Cal?”

  “Yes, Master?” answered the red dragon in its curious melodious voice.

  The old wizard frowned again. “Are you under the influence of something? You’re talking strangely.”

  “We were suffering from dizziness,” explained the dragon, “so we merged in order to control it. That is how we were able to get here safe and sound.”

  “We? Oh, I understand; you mean you and the livings stone, like with Tara. Very well. It is now time to break the connection, but with all our thanks to you, living stone.”

  You are welcome, Master.

  With a claw, Cal delicately unseated the stone from his forehead.

  He staggered for a moment, then brought his muzzle down to Robin, who was beginning to find Tara kind of heavy.

  “Don’t tell me I admitted being dizzy in front of everyone,” Cal whispered.

  “Well, yeah, that’s exactly what you said.”

  “Darned stone! Didn’t anybody explain the notion of tact to her?”

  “You mean the notion of lying,” he chuckled. “Hey, telling the truth will be a change for you. You see, it’s a little hard in the beginning but you get used to it fast.”

  The dragon shot him a furious glance. On Master Chem’s order, he then went to stand with Tara in the center of the immense pentacle the wizards had drawn on the ground. Fafnir, Sparrow, Manitou, and Fabrice were allowed to remain during the transfer operation, but forbidden to enter the pentacle under any circumstances. The rest of the court cautiously retreated to the Fortress. The courtiers didn’t especially care to find themselves turned into toads because of a magical operation gone wrong.

  For starters, Master Dragosh asked Cal to retake his human shape. He obeyed, and gorgeous Cal appeared. He scowled to hear the sigh of admiration that arose from the Fortress windows where the courtiers, king, and queen were gathered.

  On Chem’s order, Cal took Tara’s hand, who was still unconscious. The two high wizards then levitated, conjuring fiercely: “By the Exchangus, the power from one body flows and to the proper body goes. By Confinus, it must not stray, but travel there straightaway. By the Exchangus, the power from one body flows and to the proper body goes.”

  At that, gorgeous Cal seemed to melt. As the power drained out of him, his physique changed and shrank, and he reverted to his boyish body.

  Suddenly, an incredibly bright, glowing shape materialized above Tara. It attempted to penetrate her body, but encountered terrible resistance. Twice the power tried to “inhabit” the girl, and twice it was rejected. The magic flux then took the shape of a fiery pegasus that tried to break out of the pentacle and head for Fabrice. The boy stumbled backward and the two astonished wizards stopped their incantations.

  “By my ancestors, she’s refusing her power!” muttered Master Dragosh.

  At the Fortress windows, murmurs of surprise greeted the pegasus’s apparition. Then word began to spread: Young Tara is rejecting her own power!

  “She’s right to do it too!” said Fabrice, who disliked magic as much as ever. “In fact, it would be good if I could do the same thing!”

  “It certainly looks as if she’s trying to give it to young Besois-Giron,” said Master Chem.

  And in fact the fiery pegasus kept fighting to cross the invisible barrier to reach him. Deeply frightened, Fabrice continued to back away.

  “Tara’s unconscious,” remarked Cal. “Magic has completely upset her life, it deprived her of her mother and father, and it’s constantly putting her life in danger. So, unconsciously, she’s trying to get rid of it. We have to wake her up, otherwise this will never get done.”

  “How can we wake her up?” asked Chem. “Except for returning Tara’s power to her, we can’t perform any magic within the pentacle. The fiery pegasus representing Tara’s power wants to return to a body, any body, and she’s refusing it. If we use magic, we’ll be exposing ourselves. The pegasus might take the opportunity to penetrate us and the shock would kill her.”

  Cal smiled slyly. “I’d be happy to slap her a few times upside the head, but I don’t want her to get mad at me. Not to mention that Robin would tear me to pieces. Fortunately, I have something that will revive her without magic. Take a look!”

  He proudly held out a little flower with white petals and a mustard-colored center.

  “A tatchoo?” exclaimed Master Chem. “How in the world did you happen . . . No, I don’t want to know. Go ahead!”

  Cal put the tatchoo under Tara’s nose, but she didn’t stir. For a moment he thought it wasn’t going to work. Meanwhile the fiery pegasus continued struggling to reach Fabrice.

  Then Tara’s chest heaved, and she produced a magnificent, deafening, perfect sneeze!

  She opened a bleary eye, absentmindedly wiped her nose, and spoke.

  “What . . . what’s going on?”

  Then, seeing the fiery pegasus attacking the invisible barrier separating it from Fabrice, her eyes widened.

  “And what’s that thing?”

  “That thing is your power,” said Cal, laughing with relief. “For some mysterious reason you seem determined to give it to Fabrice.”

  “Who? Me? Of course not . . .”

  “Of course yes,” said Cal flatly. “So, if you don’t mind, we’d really like it if you would fetch it back so we can go have lunch. I’m hungry!”

  Tara frowned, then mentally called the immaterial pegasus. To Fabrice’s great relief, it immediately obeyed. It stopped struggling to escape the pentacle and dove toward Tara. When it was right above her, it spread into a cloud, enveloped her, and disappeared.

  “Whew! That’s better!” said Cal, as he helped Tara to her feet. “And here’s your living stone back too. Now can we go eat?”

  The high wizards erased the pentacle. Fafnir was the first to give Tara a hug.

  “May your hammer ring clear, Tara!” she cried, while nearly crushing her.

  “May your anvil resound!” answered Tara, delighted to find her friends safe and sound. “Is everything all right?”

  “Thanks to you, yes, everything’s fine,” said Fafnir. “Except that the blasted magic that caused all these problems is still in me. I thought the black roses brew would get rid of it, but not so. It’s back. I’ll have to find something else.”

  Cal gave her a sharp glance. “Listen, Fafnir, we just barely saved our skins and almost witnessed the end of the universe because of you, so please give us a bit of a break before you cause another apocalypse!”

  The dwarf shrugged and didn’t answer. After all, the little thief was right.

  Though Sparrow was smiling at Tara, she seemed angry at something.

  “You have no idea what Angelica put me through while I was possessed and forced to serve her!” she snapped. “Believe me, I would’ve a thousand times preferred to be with you fighting against Magister and the Ravager. Still, I’m eager to see her again,” she added, her eyes glittering with evil glee. “She’ll find out what it means to face the fury of the beast.”

  Tara nodded. If she were Angelica, she would already have left and gone to some galaxy far, far away. Sparrow looked as if she was ready to put her through a cement mixer.

  Fabrice kissed Tara on the cheek at least a half-dozen times. And he m
ade the kissing last, taking advantage of the fact that Robin had no excuse for doing the same thing.

  Then they all went into the Gray Fortress. A little hop in the Transfer Portal followed, and they were back in Lancovit. The Living Castle greeted them by projecting scenes of happy crowds applauding the heroes. And the courtiers who hadn’t been able to go to the Gray Fortress gave them a triumphant welcome.

  Lady Boudiou hugged Tara so tightly that she nearly crushed her, followed by about a hundred other people, not a one of whom the girl recognized. The crystalists shouted into their crystal balls while writing headlines: “Adolescents Save OtherWorld!” “Brave Young Spellbinder Defeats Ravager!” The scoops jostled each other to film Tara and her friends, who felt a little overwhelmed by all the commotion.

  That evening, the king and queen held a sumptuous feast and invited the entire city of Travia. The tables were set outside in the gentle late-summer warmth.

  By the light of OtherWorld’s two moons, the kids told about their exploits, their fears, and their doubts, while their voices were relayed to the whole city. A blushing little girl presented an enormous floral wreath to Cal, who immediately started to sneeze. Flowered Burnsides, the lord mayor of Travia, gave them the city’s heroism award.

  After eating tons of sweets, Tara picked up a Soothsucker. As usual, the lollipop’s message was cryptic: “Everything will soon be clear, because it’s actually the father.”

  The father? What father? Though perplexed, she soon forgot the message.

  At last, the friends were able to gather in Tara’s suite to talk in peace. Fabrice, Sparrow, and Manitou described their adventures while possessed by the Ravager. Tara, Cal, and Robin told about their fights and other adventures.

  The business with Cal and Angelica had them all howling with laughter. But Robin was the funniest when he described Cal’s aerial acrobatics.

  Exhausted but happy to be back together, they all retreated to their respective rooms after the banquet had ended. Manitou, who was never full, headed to the kitchen for a little nighttime reconnaissance.

  It was the middle of the night, and they’d been asleep for several hours, when Tara was abruptly wakened by Sparrow, who was trembling from head to toe.