Gabriel Finley and the Lord of Air and Darkness

by George Hagen

  “Brother Burbage? Where am I?”

  “You are in the Chamber of Runes, dear brother Crawfin,” said the gray raven. “I’ve set you free.”

  “Did not!” Punch interjected. “I did!”

  The white raven looked puzzled. “Where is Septimus?”

  “He put you here,” grunted Burbage. “Deserted you. If I hadn’t come to free you, you’d still be encased in rock, like that one.” The gray raven tipped his beak at the rune containing Corax.

  “Truly? Septimus didn’t try to free me—his own amicus?”

  “Indeed.”

  The white raven gave a bitter shrug. “Humans are all the same. They use us, then betray us. They can’t be trusted.”

  The two ravens took to the air and flew through the brass doors of the chamber so swiftly that they didn’t notice Gabriel and Abby huddled in the doorway.

  Snitcher hopped on Pleshette’s shoulder. “Now it is time for my master’s liberation.”

  Pleshette propped the monkey before the pedestal. “Again, Punch. Let us proceed.”

  “Don’t, Punch!” shouted Gabriel, who had chosen this moment to step forward. “If you guess wrong, you’ll be stuck in a rune, too.”

  “And Pleshette will leave you in it forever,” added Abby.

  Pleshette spun around and glared at them. “You again? Go away!” he snapped. “Little troublemakers. Haven’t you cost me enough already?”

  The monkey, however, seemed to be considering Abby’s words. He searched Pleshette’s face for a hint of compassion, but the shopkeeper’s greedy eyes were fixed on the stone beyond the dancing blue flame.

  “Get on with it,” he said. “I’ll soon be richer than Croesus!”

  Regarding his master with dismay, Punch whispered to himself with disgust, “Don’t be stupid, stupid, stupid.”

  Suddenly, Pleshette grabbed Punch and tried to thrust him through the flames. The monkey shrieked, tore at Pleshette’s cheek with his hand, then leaped over him and scuttled down the passageway.

  “We don’t need him, Pleshette!” roared the robin in Corax’s deep, booming voice. “The boy can answer the riddle, and if he fails, we’ll use the girl.”

  Pleshette nursed the scratch on his cheek and beckoned to Gabriel. “Come here, boy.”

  Abby shouted, “No, Gabriel! Don’t!”

  Pleshette seized Gabriel’s hands and tried to thrust them into the ring of fire.

  “REACH INTO THE FLAMES!” shouted Corax. “Or Snitcher shall wish you into a rune of your own!”

  It was a terrible choice. Gabriel struggled against Pleshette’s grip.

  “Gabriel,” Abby said, meeting his eyes, “don’t forget what happened to the dwarf’s rune.”

  “Fine,” said Gabriel. “I’ll do it. Just get your hands off me.” The shopkeeper relaxed his grip.

  Gabriel remembered that a rune could be smashed to smithereens. But how? he wondered. How did Septimus extract the dwarf’s rune from the ring of fire without answering a riddle? This was the puzzle.

  He turned to the dancing flames. If I reach in, I won’t be able to move. So how can I shatter it?

  “Gabriel!” said Abby, her eyes bright with inspiration. “Remember the coat!”

  The coat? thought Gabriel. What is she talking about?

  Scrutinizing the pedestal, and the fire that lapped around its edge, Gabriel had a piercing thought. The blue flames made a perfect circle. Where had he seen it before?

  Suddenly, it came to him. The coat. Of course! Septimus’s coat had a burn mark on it that was the exact same shape and size as the ring of fire.

  “Okay,” he said to Pleshette. “I’m ready.”

  “Hurry up!” cried the shopkeeper.

  The robin’s little black eyes darted suspiciously from Gabriel to Abby.

  Gabriel removed his sweatshirt and took a deep breath.

  Abby nodded slowly. “I believe in you, Gabriel,” she said.

  Gabriel smiled, then turned to the flames, but instead of reaching in, he threw his sweatshirt over the pedestal. For a brief second, the flames vanished, and smoke wafted through the sweatshirt.

  Now Gabriel grabbed the rune with the fabric and slid it from the pedestal. The blue flames immediately started up again, but the pedestal was bare.

  He raised the smoky bundle high over his head.

  “What are you—” began Pleshette. “Don’t!”

  “Hurry!” cried Abby.

  With all his might, Gabriel threw the rune down on the stone floor.

  A brilliant blue light illuminated the room. A deafening crash, like a thousand shattering windowpanes, filled Gabriel’s ears. The last rune vanished.

  As the light faded, Corax rose before the pedestal, his enormous black wings flexing above him. He smirked at the boy with malevolent triumph as the excited robin fluttered about him.

  “The Lord of Air and Darkness has returned!” chirruped Snitcher.

  “Pathetic child,” muttered Corax. “You thought you could destroy me? I’m free, and you are helpless to do anything about it.”

  Gabriel felt Abby’s hand squeeze his shoulder. She was trembling.

  Corax held out his sharp-taloned forefinger. “Come, Snitcher, you have served me well.”

  The robin alighted upon Corax’s claw.

  “You know what to do,” said the demon, his jaundiced eyes glittering at the exuberant bird.

  “I wish you to have the torc, Eminence.”

  At that instant, the silver semicircle tipped with two raven heads released its hold on the robin and floated up to rest around Corax’s neck. It looked larger now, and all the more formidable.

  “Mine at last,” he said. “Oh, what shall my first wish be? So much to do.”

  But then Corax’s knees buckled slightly. He looked surprised, and gasped, then doubled over, clutching his belly. “What is happening?” he groaned.

  When the demon’s knees struck the floor, Gabriel was not surprised, for he remembered seeing the same thing happen to the dwarf in Pleshette’s shop.

  Corax’s wings fell slack, his head sank between his shoulders, and as he struggled for breath, his yellow eyes flickered toward Gabriel. “You knew this would happen!”

  Gabriel nodded.

  Corax struggled to fly, but fell clumsily back to the floor. “You’ve won,” he whispered.

  “I’m sorry,” said Gabriel, watching the demon struggle to breathe.

  Wrapping both arms around his belly, the winged ghoul tried to sit upright, but his head looked unbearably heavy and his eyes had dimmed. Something awful seemed to be happening inside him, and yet he appeared more puzzled by Gabriel’s reply. “Why are you sorry?”

  “I wish you could have been my uncle…and Pamela’s father…and part of my family instead of what you are,” Gabriel said sadly. “I wish you could have been…human.”

  “Human,” echoed the feeble voice. “Human.”

  It was his last word.

  The explosion in the chamber was deafening. A million bright, shining pieces burst into the air and swiftly darkened to fluttering black cinders. The ring of fire swelled into a hot ball and burst. The pedestal collapsed to dust. The strange words shimmering upon the domed ceiling faded into darkness as a huge crack spread across it and crumbled into thousands of fragments that rained down on the floor. The open chamber revealed the dark cavern walls above it as the explosion rumbled and echoed, back and forth, in shock waves that boomed through a thousand unseen pathways and passages. There were no more words, no riddles, no runes, and there was no need to free anybody from this place. With Corax destroyed, so were the torc and the Chamber of Runes.

  Pleshette staggered to his feet. His pale pink head was scratched from the monkey’s attack and smeared with ash from the explosion. He dusted the cinders from his raincoat and pointed a trembling finger at Gabriel.

  “You ruined me!” he shouted weakly. “I’ve lost everything—my animals, my monkey, my living.”

  “Oh, a
nd don’t forget—he saved the world,” said Abby. “C’mon, Gabriel, let’s go home.”

  —

  Dusting powder and cinders from their shoulders, Gabriel and Abby descended from the plateau back into the maze. Their coats and headlamps were lost in the debris, but they knew that as long as they followed the wall, they would find a way out.

  In time, they heard voices close by.

  “…I think we’re almost there,” said a boy.

  “Somes, is that you?” called Abby.

  “Hey, Abby!” answered Somes.

  After two more turns, Gabriel saw headlamps, and three figures appeared: Pamela, Somes, and a strange boy standing between them.

  “Gabriel, Abby, this is Cassius. He’s been living here in Aviopolis his whole life,” Pamela explained.

  Even at first glance, the link between this strange, lost boy and Pamela was obvious. He had the same dark eyes, long, curly hair, and look of yearning. It was easy for Gabriel and Abby to guess the boy’s connection.

  “Cassius’s father has been missing for over a month,” explained Pamela. “What happened to you guys? Did you get lost, too?”

  “Totally,” said Gabriel, who decided it was the wrong time to explain what had happened to Corax. “Good to meet you, Cassius,” he went on. “Are you coming with us?”

  “Is that okay?” replied the boy.

  “Of course it’s okay,” said Abby, and she reached forward and shook Cassius’s hand with a very sturdy grip.

  Cassius looked at Abby, with her mismatched shoes, multiple sweaters, and pigtails. “Is this how girls dress in Brooklyn?” he asked.

  “Nobody in the world dresses like Abby,” said Pamela, laughing.

  Then Somes remembered the staff. He held it out to Gabriel.

  “Hey!” said Gabriel, taking it. “Where in the world did you find this?”

  “Cassius found it in the ruins and gave it to me.”

  “Way to go, Cassius,” said Gabriel.

  Cassius dipped his head modestly.

  They were all quick to move on. In a few more turns, they discovered the passageway that ascended the steep cavern. The return journey seemed faster, which probably had something to do with their high spirits, and presently they arrived at the brick-lined corridor with the rungs leading upward.

  Voices echoed from above. “I tell you, I can only climb slowly! This is exhausting. My legs are wobbly,” cried someone who sounded like Septimus.

  “We’re almost there, Septimus,” replied Adam, who was pushing the old fellow up the rungs from behind.

  “Dad!”

  “Ah, Gabriel,” said Mr. Finley, peering down. “We were just trying to decide whether to go back and look for you. Pick it up, old fellow. We’re all here now.”

  They scrambled up the rungs and crept into the waning light of dusk. The streetlamps were turning on all over Coney Island.

  When the Finleys and their friends emerged from the manhole, Paladin and Vyka were waiting for them. The road was littered with bone fragments, beaks, claws, and heaps of black feathers. Paladin was quick to explain that the group had missed an immense battle between the valravens and the owls, which the owls had obviously won. All the bones wriggled, like pieces of some immense jigsaw puzzle attempting to reassemble itself.

  “It’ll probably take them years to get back together,” sneered Septimus.

  On the way to the subway station, they passed a group of reporters and photographers clustered around squad cars with lights flashing. The police and several detectives held up a plastic bag containing a dazzling array of diamond jewelry.

  The white-haired commissioner stepped forward to speak: “I’m happy to report that the stolen diamonds are recovered!”

  “Who recovered them?” replied a reporter. “Your crack team of detectives?”

  “Er, no…it was owls,” replied the commissioner.

  The reporters all laughed as the bristling detectives stalked back to their cars.

  —

  On the subway ride home, Adam and Tabitha sat together, arms around each other, deep in conversation. Gabriel and Pamela had their ravens perched on their shoulders while they spoke with Abby, Somes, and Cassius.

  “Okay,” said Somes. “One thing has been bugging me about this visit to Aviopolis.”

  “What’s that?” replied Gabriel.

  “I’m very suspicious of Mr. Coffin. How did he know to give me a hook to open a manhole cover? And why did he tell us how to navigate a maze? I think he was up to no good.”

  “Somes,” said Gabriel, smiling, “he’s my aunt’s boyfriend. Whatever he was up to, I think he’s on our side.”

  “I’m not so sure,” murmured Somes. “He’s given me the worst grades of all my teachers. Maybe he was just trying to steer us to our doom.”

  “But he didn’t, Somes,” argued Abby. “It all worked out in the end, so I think your theory is ridiculous.”

  “Look,” said Gabriel, “I’m sure Aunt Jaz knows the truth about him.”

  His friends laughed, because they were all aware that if Aunt Jaz (or anyone else in the Finley house) did know the truth, it might be a secret for many years.

  The group parted ways on Fifth Street. Abby and Somes hugged the others and headed back to their homes. Septimus went grumbling down the hill, annoyed at having nothing to show for his dangerous journey. Pamela led Cassius and Tabitha Finley up the block toward the Finley house, while Adam lingered for a moment beside Gabriel.

  “One thing, Gabriel,” he said. “What was that terrible explosion? I thought I might have lost you forever. You can’t imagine how relieved I was when you appeared at the end of the tunnel.”

  Gabriel explained that he and Abby had spotted the pistachio shells and found Pleshette in the chamber. “Anyway, I managed to destroy the last rune.”

  “And Corax? The torc? The chamber?”

  “It’s all over, Dad,” said Gabriel with a weary smile.

  Adam gave a sober nod. “Well done,” he said. “Well done indeed.”

  —

  Trudy was in an agitated state when the family arrived home. “Oh, Pamela! Adam! Gabriel!” she sputtered. “Where have you been? And who are all these people?”

  Adam knew he had some difficult explaining to do. “Trudy! At long last, Tabitha is back from Iceland…,” he began. “She lost her passport twelve years ago. You wouldn’t believe how complicated it was to get a new one. But here she is, and she brought her nephew!”

  “Twelve years to get a new passport?” said Trudy. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.”

  “And that is exactly what I told the man at the passport bureau,” said Adam. Then he turned to Cassius and put his hands on the boy’s shoulders. “I would like you to meet my nephew. This is Cassius.”

  “Cassius?” Trudy repeated. The moment she set eyes on him, she recognized his resemblance to Pamela—his long, curly dark hair, his brown eyes, and something else, lost in some foggy, forgotten region of her memory. She put her hand to her heart and stared at him with tender astonishment.

  “Have we met before somewhere?” she asked the boy.

  Cassius felt it, too. He smiled back at her. “A long time ago, maybe?”

  “Oh, my goodness,” she whispered. Trudy’s cool stare became glossy with emotion; she uttered a gasp and suddenly hugged the boy very tightly. “What a special, special day!”

  There was so much that needed to be explained to Cassius, but it could wait. The boy had found himself in a welcoming family, and after so many years of dark solitude, he was drenched in love, light, and more companionship than he had ever had before.

  —

  Although their school days now settled into a calmer routine, Gabriel and his friends often sat on his stoop and looked back over the adventure of the past month, pondering some of the mysteries they had never quite solved.

  Abby, for example, brought up something that bothered her. “Gabriel?” she said. “Don’t you think it
’s strange that the valravens never attacked your house before? It would have been so easy. The robin could have commanded them to do it a month ago.”

  “I think I know the reason,” said Somes. “The robin used to peek in Gabriel’s windows, so he must have seen Trudy, which means Corax saw her, too. He probably wanted to protect her.”

  “So you think Corax still loved her?” said Abby.

  “Definitely,” said Gabriel. “I think that was the only human part of him left—the part that loved Trudy.”

  They were curious about Pleshette, and took a detour on the way home from school one afternoon, expecting to find his shop boarded up or sold. Instead, they saw his shaved head glowing beneath a single lightbulb; he was doing crosswords at the counter and sipping tea from the magic samovar. There were no cages to be seen, and the monkey’s urn was gone. They guessed that Punch never dared return after Pleshette tried to force him into the ring of fire.

  As for Cassius, Mr. Finley had to fill out a stack of papers to get him enrolled in school. On the first day of class, Gabriel led his new cousin along a hallway crowded with students, and everybody seemed to notice something different about him. Students spun around, feeling his presence. Teachers forgot what they were saying when he entered the room. Maybe it was just his deep gaze, or perhaps there was a little bit of something else that made him different from any other human.

  —

  Late in the evenings, if they didn’t have homework, Pamela and Gabriel would call to their ravens and paravolate. They flew a grand loop around the city, just to make sure all was well, swooping over Coney Island, past the glittering lights of the big rides and Tillie’s lunatic grin.

  They circled the hilltop cemetery, anxious to see if any yellow-eyed phantoms were lurking, but all they saw was a robin, pacing back and forth, back and forth, upon a statue of an angel.

  And when they were all tired out, they flew back to the Finley house, where the stove always prepared hot chocolate for them. Tabitha Finley would hear it making its bonking noises and pad downstairs to listen to the children describe their adventures. She believed in talking birds, merging with ravens, and magic of every kind—after all, she had survived twelve years in the Chamber of Runes. Then, after everyone trudged to bed and all the lights were out, the Finley house appeared to be at peace.