by Deva Fagan
“A fiction, to disguise the fetid truth. Serafine has much to hide.”
“Such as?” I asked.
“Do you want to hear the truth? Will you listen to another side of the tale? You will not care for it, I think, if you’ve come here simply chasing glory.”
I looked down to Barnaby. “Remember what Skillimug said? She is the great darkness. He must have been talking about Serafine.”
He nodded. “We’re willing to listen,” he croaked, peering up at Blackthorn.
“Very good,” he said. “But first…” Blackthorn looked again toward the lectern. “I am surprised you didn’t take that, witchling. Don’t you know what it is?”
“The grimoire of Esmeralda Bogthistle,” I said.
“It is yours, if you wish,” said Blackthorn. “I’ve only been minding it until the right person came along. The true heir of Esmeralda Bogthistle.”
“Just minding it? But I thought—”
“That I stole it?” He shook his head. “Do you want it?”
I took a step toward the lectern, then stopped. My legs trembled, but I wasn’t sure yet if they wanted to dash forward or run away. Halbert’s face rose up in my mind, haunting me with his sightless eyes. Blinded by a curse. Did I truly want to have that power? Or worse? I shuddered.
If I opened that book, I would gain power, surely. I might even convince Grandmother to take me back. But I could see the person I would become. She had stood before me on the deck of the mummers’ steamboat. I would be reviled, a figure of horror in little children’s bedtime stories.
I wanted people to think better of me than that. It was a revoltingly unwitchly sentiment, but I didn’t care anymore. I wrenched myself around. “Keep it. I don’t want to be another Esmeralda. I don’t want to curse people. I want to make things right.”
“Fascinating.” Blackthorn stared at me. Then he strode forward to pluck the grimoire up. He held it out to me. “Go on. I think you may be surprised by what you find.”
Was this some sort of trick? I set down the Mirable Chalice behind me, away from Blackthorn and his minions, where Barnaby could keep an eye on it. Then I took the grimoire.
Near my feet, Barnaby’s throat belled out with a series of agitated ribbits. Flipping the leather cover open, I bent my nose to the crabbed handwriting that filled the paper. Frowning, I paged forward.
“But…this is a spell to keep away wood mites. And this one’s for soothing fevers. And this”—I squinted, not sure I was reading it properly—“ ‘A Charm for the Proper Digestion of Beans’? I don’t understand. This can’t be Esmeralda’s dark grimoire. There aren’t any curses at all!”
“Well, there are a few. Old Ezzie always did have something of a temper, even in her better days. But that is, without a doubt, the grimoire of Esmeralda Bogthistle.”
“How are you so sure? How did you even get it?”
“She threw it at me the day she ran away and hid herself in that bog and turned her back on everything else. I will explain.” He held up his hands against my babble of questions. “But, first, there is something in that grimoire you might find useful.” Blackthorn nodded down at Barnaby. “If you truly wish to set things right.”
I hastily flipped forward through the spells. There! “For the Release of a Charmed Form,” read the inscription at the top of the page.
I crouched down and opened the book beside Barnaby. “This is it! I can break the curse. You’ll be a person again.”
Barnaby looked offended. “I’m still a person. I just don’t want to be warty and green.”
“Oh, and it’s so easy.” I sketched the gestures the grimoire described over Barnaby’s squat form. “There’s that, and now I just need to…oh.” I sat back on my heels. “But that’s ridiculous. That’s not a proper spell.”
“What?” croaked Barnaby. “You don’t need to smear me in bladderwort sap, do you?” He peered at the book, then sputtered with froggy laughter. “That’s it? You have to kiss me? That’s the rest of the spell?”
“I am not kissing you!”
He hopped onto my knee. “Come on, Prunella, pucker up. You did this to me, you undo it. It’s just a kiss.”
Well, then. If that’s how he felt, fine. I would do it. I leaned down and pressed my lips to the top of his bumpy head, closing my eyes. The grimoire did not specify where the kiss had to be administered.
A flare of warmth radiated from that single, slight touch. A gentle whump of displaced air fluttered against my skin. Something tickled my nose. I opened my eyes to find myself kissing Barnaby on the forehead.
I scuttled backward, slamming my eyes shut.
“It worked!” Barnaby called out, as jubilant as a crow at dawn. Then he gave a strangled yelp and crouched over, apparently realizing the same thing I had a moment earlier. “My clothes!”
I was already digging through the pack. Well, it served him right. I chucked the jacket, hat, shirt, and breeches back over my shoulder. “Here. Dandy yourself up.” I pretended to search for Barnaby’s boots and socks until I heard him clear his throat. Then I turned back around, looking at a distant point on the far wall and trying not to blush. Barnaby busied himself brushing off his cap. He perched it on his head and gave a sort of sigh.
Our host had gone to the far end of the room and was speaking to his jacks. “Now will you tell us this so-called truth?”
Blackthorn inclined his head. He snapped his fingers, sending one of the jacks marching forward to collect the pack. The other approached me, reaching out ropy fingers for the Mirable Chalice. I snatched up the goblet, backing away. The jack turned its pumpkin head toward its master.
“Very well,” Blackthorn said, dismissing the creature. “Keep it for now, witchling. Once you have heard the truth, you will be the first to set it right back where you found it. But it is a long story, and you mortal folk must thirst and hunger. Even though my home has few comforts, there are rooms more pleasant than this, and food and drink to be shared.”
He led us along a series of dark corridors to another room full of decayed majesty and spiky vines. At least here there was a fire in the hearth, and a platter of tea and toast. I plopped myself into one of the dusty velvet chairs beside the tea table. Barnaby settled in the other.
Lord Blackthorn did not sit. Instead, he paced back and forth before the fire, pausing occasionally to look up at the portrait hanging above the mantel.
“That’s her, isn’t it?” Barnaby said.
Blackthorn nodded. He stared at the beautiful woman in the portrait so intensely it seemed his eyes might set fire to it. “The legendary queen. You’ve heard stories, I am sure, of her valor, and how she used the Mirable Chalice to avert the doom that came to Orlanna?”
“Yes,” said Barnaby, taking the cup of milky hot-leaf I offered. “Everyone in the Uplands hears that tale on their mam’s knee, growing up. All the dark frights of the bog rose up and would’ve destroyed the Uplands, but Serafine the Adamant banished them and drove the evils back into the Bottomlands, where they belong.” He glanced at me. “I mean, that’s what the stories say.”
I snorted. “They leave out the part where Esmeralda was the one who did the real work until that jealous snake Serafine turned on her. They also say you’re the villain behind the uprising in the first place.” I held a cup out to Blackthorn. “Is it true?”
Blackthorn pulled his eyes from the portrait. “No.” He waved away both the tea and the question. I sipped it myself and tucked my legs up under me, settling more comfortably into the chair. Our host didn’t seem inclined to murder us at the moment, and I wasn’t going to waste an opportunity for a cup of hot-leaf and a rest. “So what’s your version?”
Blackthorn shook his head. “Even now I wonder how much she concealed, how deep her treachery ran. When she came to me for help, telling of a terrible force rising from the bogs, I believed her. I had seen the wights stalking the lands. I had heard of the lost, the harrowed, the taken. I wanted to save my people from suffering.�
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He gave a shaky laugh. “My people. Yes, that is what they were, back then.” He stared again at the painting. “But, whatever lies she told, Serafine spoke the truth when she promised she could keep the land safe from evil magics. In two hundred years, not a single ghoul or disembodied hand has crept farther than three miles into the Uplands.”
“What did she do?” Barnaby asked. “If she stopped the frights from coming after the Uplanders, isn’t that a good thing?” He sat forward in his chair. I munched a slice of toast. I still didn’t trust Blackthorn, but I had a feeling I’d need my strength later. And the toast was delicious.
“Have you never wondered why the Uplands have no magic?” Blackthorn countered.
“We do have magic,” insisted Barnaby. “The wards in Nagog. And the well in Sweetwater. Proper enchantments, not like the wild stuff down here in the Bottomlands. They do good things, and they stay where you put them.”
“Except when they fade away,” I said. “Like they all have lately.”
“ ‘Drain’ would be a more accurate word,” said Blackthorn. “The truth is that the Uplands did have magic once, as much as the Bottomlands, pulsing through the fields and along the roads. Now that power is bound. And it was I who gave Serafine the means to bind it.”
I nearly choked on my toast, understanding suddenly. “The Mirable Chalice.” I breathed out in amazement, turning the golden goblet to catch the light.
“With the magic bound, the frights were exiled. Save for on the Thousandfold Night, when the swell of magic is strong enough to reach even the green hills and villages. The people of the Uplands had no more fear of frights. But they had lost much. A few enchantments remained, yes, but they were the last.”
“No more enchantments doesn’t seem too bad a price for not getting your spirit eaten,” said Barnaby.
“Perhaps.” Blackthorn shrugged. “But magic feeds more than just spells. There is magic in all creation. In art. In innovation. In change. The Uplands are safe, yes. Safe and unchanging.”
“Remember the library, Barnaby,” I said. “The book of fashions.”
He nodded, though he did not look convinced.
I lifted the Mirable Chalice in my hands. The gold warmed my skin, humming like the beating wings of a moth. “You made this?” I searched Blackthorn’s leathery features.
“To my shame. Serafine said she needed the power for only a short time, to drive back the doom. And I believed her.” He lowered his eyes. “Esmeralda warned me not to. She never did trust Serafine. But I—I was weak.” He was silent for a moment. “When I saw what Serafine had done, I went to Esmeralda, begging her help to stop the monster I had created. She was not pleased.”
“Did she say, ‘I told you so’?” asked Barnaby.
“And worse.”
“But did she do anything?” I asked. “The way my grandmother tells it, Esmeralda tried to stop the doom, but Serafine was jealous and wanted the people to love her alone.”
“That is true. Esmeralda did fight against the uprising, protecting people from the frights with her not-inconsiderable magics. When she discovered what the queen had done, she flew into a rage. She said Serafine was a greater doom than any fright. And when the queen would not relinquish the chalice, Esmeralda and I made one last attempt to stop her.”
“You tried to kill Serafine?” Barnaby asked.
“No. Death would not have been enough. We sought to cut off her magic. It was a brave and bold gambit, but it failed.” He sighed. “That was when Serafine discovered how to use her greatest power.”
“The magic in the chalice, you mean?” I said.
Blackthorn shook his head. “Fear. With her beautiful face and her cruel heart, she turned the people against Esmeralda and me. They believed us villains, kin to the very evils we had stood against. They even tried to burn Esmeralda. I think it broke her heart. People she had struggled so hard to help, people she had cured of colds, children she had brought into the world, all slavering after her like a pack of rabid hounds. I tried to convince her to stay, to have hope. That was when she threw the grimoire at me. ‘I’ve no more need of such magics,’ she said. ‘They have turned from me, so I will turn from them.’
“And so we retreated to our own domains, where magic still flowed untrammeled and wild. In time, we became nothing more than the villains of mummeries and songs.”
“All right,” said Barnaby. “It makes a good story so far. But I still don’t follow what’s causing the curse. Why is everything going bad now, ever since I”— he swallowed, then finished the question—“stole the Mirable Chalice?”
“That is Serafine. In order to preserve her life, her strength, her beauty, she needs magic. The chalice has fed her these two centuries. Now that she is denied it, she takes what’s left.”
“She’s draining away the enchantments,” I said. “But what happens when it’s all used up? Will she try to steal the magic in the Bottomlands?”
“I expect she has tried. But there is another source of magic closer to hand.”
My throat tightened. “The people. The ones who are getting sick.”
“Hold on,” Barnaby said. “I thought all the magic was gone.”
“There is always magic in people,” said Blackthorn. “Though rarely is it enough to be noticed. But there are those who have it more strongly. Those who could be witches or wizards. The chalice dampens their power, but it cannot stamp it out.”
“Even so,” Barnaby said, “how can losing a little magic make someone sick? It’s not as if Uplanders are running around trying to cast spells and charms.”
“Aren’t they? Have you never seen a wheelwright who does her job so well the wheel never breaks, not if it jolts over a hundred rocks?”
“Or a tailor who could create something like this?” I said, tapping the star-shaped buttons of my pea-green jacket. “Mary Morland. Halbert. All those others wasting away. The chalice stopped them from becoming wizards, and now Serafine is draining them away to nothing. That’s what’s making them sick.”
“Filthy fens, that hag is going to pay for this,” burst out Barnaby. “Sucking the life from the people who look to her to keep them safe. And they don’t even know it’s her. She’s got them all convinced it’s folks like Prunella.”
I choked suddenly, nearly spitting out my tea. I dug into the pack for the sketch Halbert had drawn. I held it up, staring. “This is her. Serafine the Adamant as she really is, not that pretty, enchanted face.” I brandished the paper. “She’s the hag who cursed Halbert. It is a peacock on the chain around her neck. The royal insignia.”
“That is her true face,” Blackthorn said. “I am surprised she would be so careless as to let a likeness be taken.”
“She blinded the boy who drew it,” I said. “And we’ve seen others sickening.”
Blackthorn nodded. “In time she will take it all. The folk of the Uplands will know only blindness, lethargy, dullness. Eventually, there will be nothing left. And then, finally, she herself will waste away. And my work will be done.”
“And you’ll just sit back and let the Uplands suffer, all that time? Until every bit of spark is gone?”
“It is the only way.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Barnaby, bounding up from his chair. “There must be another way. What if we destroy the chalice?”
Blackthorn shook his head. “That would only prolong the matter. It would flood the Uplands with magic. She would have to make efforts to regain it, but in the end she would only feast longer.”
“Might give us time to try to kill her,” said Barnaby.
“I fear even that may not stop Serafine,” said Blackthorn. “She has spent the last two centuries fighting death.”
I pulled out the grimoire and began paging through it. “What about that spell? The one you said Esmeralda tried, to cut off Serafine’s connection to the magic. Here.” I laid the book open, puzzling over the page of closely written text. “This looks like it.”
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bsp; “It failed for a reason,” Blackthorn said. “Serafine was too powerful, and too tricksy. The spell could not hold her.”
“What if we used the drawing?” I said. “You said it is her true face. That ought to make it stick.” I read through the remainder of the enchantment, which involved a good two dozen alchemical components and at least a half-day of inscribing the runes and sigils necessary to— “Oh.” I pursed my lips.
“What?” Barnaby asked.
“Well, the spell is complicated, so you can’t just spout it off. You have to invest it in an object—Esmeralda talks about using a peacock feather. Anyway, in order to complete the enchantment, we’d need to be touching Serafine with the feather while I lay out the final components and finish the incantation.” I sighed. “How are we ever going to get that close to the queen of all the Uplands? And even if we did, she’s hardly going to stand still for very long if we’re tickling her with a stinking feather.”
“Does it have to be a feather?” Barnaby said. “We could use this.” He pinged the rim of the Mirable Chalice. “If we offer it to her, she’ll be quick enough to get it in her mitts again.”
Energy hummed through me. “It could work. It’d be stupidly dangerous, of course, but it just might work!”
“I’ve survived plenty of stupidly dangerous things,” said Barnaby, grinning. “And at least it gives the Uplands a fighting chance. Let’s do it!”
“No,” said Lord Blackthorn. “No. I will not risk the Mirable Chalice falling into her hands again. I will not tolerate it.”
“Oh? I’ll tell you what I won’t tolerate,” said Barnaby. “A tattered old geezer who’s supposed to be some great wizard, who’d rather sit and stew in his juices while his old flame destroys the lands. You talk a lot, Blackthorn, but what’ve you done? Nothing, except to sit here waiting for two hundred years until I came along to steal the chalice for you.”
He seized the goblet. “We’re taking this thing and we’re putting an end to that hag. You can help us, or you can get out of our way.”
