by Rain Oxford
“Fewer,” I corrected him automatically.
Langril leaned forward. “Hush now, Luca. I like your brother’s bluntness. He’s smart not to take my usual deal. I’ll tell you what I want, Nathan, but I won’t tell you why, and if you want your mother to survive without handing over the book, you’ll take my deal. I rarely tell people what I want upfront.”
“What is it?”
“I will help you bring down Maori, get your mother, and keep the Book of Names. In exchange, I want the Sword of Draskara.”
Chapter 9
Langril’s plan was a good one. Although I didn’t like the idea of giving anyone a weapon that could kill gods, Luca swore it was safer with Langril than the warden of Kradga. Thus, I agreed to the deal.
He took us to a small study with wall-to-wall books and an overloaded writing desk. He found a blank book and placed it on the desk next to the Book of Names. When he held his hand over the Book of Names, it glowed yellow. Then, when he put his hand over the new book, the glow followed. Even the cover changed to look like the powerful one.
“This should do it,” Langril said, holding up the fake.
“Looks good, but I’m still not sure it’ll fool Maori.”
“It’s identical except that the names are all changed. Otherwise, you might as well give him the real one. He’ll even be able to sense the power of the book.”
“I still think we should hold onto the real one.”
“That will ensure your failure. You can’t convincingly give him the fake if the real one is on your person. Furthermore, he will probably sense it on you.”
“You act like you have a lot of experience creating fake books.”
He laughed. “I knew a guy who was even better than me at forgery magic books, but he’s dead now.”
“I hope it wasn’t from making a deal with you.”
“No, no. He was actually killed for a book very similar to this.”
“And Maori won’t know that the names are changed?”
“Not until he tries to use them.”
“Do you know how to use the book?” Luca asked. “His name should be in it, so we can use it to control Maori and make him give us the weapon.”
“For one thing, I can’t teach you to understand the book,” Langril said. “That is something that requires a particular skill. Second, magic like this is dangerous. If you try to use it without proper understanding, your world could be destroyed. Think of it like a control panel that controls every atomic bomb in the world. None of the switches are labeled, but you know one of them will kill your enemy country. Are you going to play with the switches?”
“No. I don’t want Maori to have those switches, either.”
“Then sell the fake like your life depends on it. Now that you have this, I suggest you go outside before calling him. You don’t want him sensing me near you or he’ll expect an attack.”
“How do we get back to you?” Luca asked.
“Oh, right. Vampires love your gooey mortal blood.”
That was disturbingly similar to what Luca would have said. “Or the other wizards,” I added. “They weren’t too friendly.”
“Yes, there is a shortage of friendliness here. Give me your arm.”
“Why?” I asked.
“I’m hungry,” he answered as Luca held out his hand trustingly. Langril grabbed Luca’s hand and placed his right index and middle finger against Luca’s wrist. A small flash of green caused Luca to gasp and try to jerk his hand away. Langril let him go, but Luca now had an emerald green symbol tattooed on his wrist.
“This had better come off,” he growled.
“When your debt is repaid, it will fade.”
“I didn’t have to get branded last time.”
“We weren’t in Dothra last time. Show anyone on Dothra this and you will be brought to me instantly and completely unharmed. Vampire, wizard, or worse wouldn’t dare touch you.”
“Do you really have that kind of power?”
“I do. There was a reason I spent so long on Earth.”
“I thought it was to protect Heather,” Luca said
He laughed. “No. I’ve got big plans and everyone on Dothra wants to be a part of it.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“Oh, don’t worry. Syndrial won’t be harmed.”
“We don’t live on Syndrial, we live on Earth.”
Langril frowned. “In that case, you should probably move very soon. Your turn,” he said, holding his hand out to take mine. I relented and he touched my wrist. I was expecting pain, but it was more like a strong vibration. The symbol could have been a word or a seal. It wasn’t anything I recognized.
After that, he asked Heather to take us out. “You’d think if he’s that powerful that he’d have some guards,” I said when the study door closed behind us.
“He sees them as a weak point,” Heather explained. “He had a massive following until an enemy of his threatened me. He gave up his position here to save me when my mother was killed and his followers were converted or killed.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said.
“I don’t remember her.”
“What do you mean?” Luca asked. “You’ve told me a lot about her.”
“Right before my father and I chose to return here, I gave up my memories of her.”
“Why?”
“They were holding me back.”
“I’ve never met my birth parents,” I said. “It doesn’t stop me from wishing I had.”
“No. I suppose not. I don’t regret it, though.”
“You’re different,” Luca said. “You were much warmer before.”
“Then it’s a good thing. Dothra is a dangerous place and being warm or soft here would get me killed.”
At that point, we reached the porch. “Well, stay safe, shadow of Heather,” Luca said rudely.
Her eyes widened, but Luca was already walking away. I followed. When we left through the gate, I asked, “What was that about?”
“I can’t respect Heather for doing that to herself.”
“Her mother was killed. She was just trying to---”
“Our mother was killed,” Luca interrupted. “I was there when it happened. For ten years now, she’s been dead. I was reminded of it constantly. I would see someone with red hair or green eyes and wonder, ‘what if that was her.’ But no. Our mother was dead. She only existed in our— my memories. I was the only one left who remembered what she sounded like. What she smelled like. What she said to you before she put you in the portal.”
I put my hands on his shoulder. “But she’s not dead.”
“She’s not safe yet. It’s basically the same thing.”
“She’s not Schrödinger’s fucking cat. She’s alive.”
“I can’t have hope, Nathan.” His eyes were starting to water and his voice was strained. “Hope has already destroyed me over and over again. I can’t come back from this if I let myself hope that she’s alive.”
“I thought you accepted that when you saw her. That’s why we went to Langril in the first place.” He shook his head. “It hadn’t really sunk in until now?” I asked. Again, he shook his head. “Is it because of Heather or because we’re about to go get our mother?” He nodded.
“I can’t imagine Heather doing what she did. If she doesn’t remember her mother, that part of her mother is gone forever.”
It finally dawned on me why Painter didn’t think he was wrong to kill my parents. He honestly didn’t think of Julia and Marco Jones as my parents. They were the people who raised me as their own, but to Painter, they were the ones who tried to replace the family he thought I was meant to have. He thought they prevented me from being our mother’s son or his brother. I didn’t mourn the loss of our mother with him because Julia was there instead.
Luca had all the same memories as the ones Painter planted in my mind. Most of my childhood memories were accurate, except that he implanted himself into them. This meant that
he remembered Julia’s bedtime stories and Marco’s awkward puberty discussions. He remembered loving them. Yet he knew none of it until after he killed them.
He couldn’t have known how lonely I was. I loved my parents, but there was always something missing. It wasn’t a mother, though; it was the person I shared the first nine months of my existence with. It didn’t matter how many worlds apart we were or how few minutes we had known each other after our birth. He could never be erased from my life.
And that meant I had to accept everything about him, even if I didn’t like it.
“When all this is over, we’ll do some digging and talk to our father. We’ll find out when her birthday is and do something for her.”
He smiled. “That sounds good.”
“Are you ready to see her again?” He nodded. “Maori, Maori, Maori.”
I was expecting a flash of light. Instead, a portal appeared beneath us and the world grew dark… well, darker.
* * *
When my vision returned, we were back in Maori’s lair. Maori was standing before us with a faceless guard on either side of him. I wondered for a moment where Hakta was before figuring he had probably been sent to his islet with a new torturer. Knowing firsthand what they could do, I pitied him.
The angle in the mirror had changed. It still showed my mother, but it was now from a position of standing in the room. “We brought the Book of Names. Release our mother,” I said.
Maori pointed his scepter at the floor in front of the mirror. Red light shot from it and created a portal. “You can free her yourself. She is in an ancient, abandoned temple of Syndrial, protected by old magic from the gods. You probably don’t want to waste time; my servants have done their best to feed and water her, but they’re not natural caretakers.” I took a step towards the portal before he blocked my path with his scepter. “First, I want the book.”
I took it out of the bag and handed it to Luca. “I will go in and save our mother. Once I do, Luca will give you the book and you’ll give him the sword.”
After a moment, Maori nodded and lowered his scepter. “Very well.”
I looked at Luca and he gave me his best encouraging smile, which I didn’t believe at all. I hated leaving him, but I was afraid of him walking into a trap powerless. I stepped into the portal and a moment later, I was standing in the ten-by-ten-by-ten room the mirror had shown us. It was dark and dusty. The floors were stone with an inch-thick layer of dirt on it. The walls and ceiling were all made of stone as well. In fact, it reminded me a lot of the pyramids.
There was no door, window, or hole in the wall, so I assume there was a secret door. I saw numerous vertical lines in the ceiling, which I hoped were air vents. My mother was on the stone altar, wearing a dirty, sky-blue sundress without shoes. Her red hair was a tangled mess and her face had smears of across it.
Behind me, the mirror looked like a window in the wall. I saw Luca and Maori. Where did the faceless men go? “Can you hear me?” I asked.
Luca nodded. I wasted no more time in going to my mother, but when I stood next to her, I hesitated. I hadn’t allowed myself to feel hope either. It hadn’t dawned on me that my mother was alive and I was about to meet her… if this wasn’t all a trick. If it was, I didn’t want to know.
Her chest rose and fell softly with her breaths.
What do I say? I didn’t even know if she would like me. Julia and Marco got me as a baby, so they raised me their way. They loved me. Talot had two newborns ripped away from her. Painter got to meet with her when he was still a teenager and they had a little time to bond. I had nothing. She didn’t even leave me a note. Painter was first born; the one Set had planned on. I was just a… bonus. A two-for-one. I was an unplanned mistake.
Julia and Marco chose me to be their son and loved me. I couldn’t imagine Talot considering me her son when she had only known me an hour.
“Nathan, please!” Luca said, interrupting my negative thoughts.
I untied the blindfold first and it woke her. Startled, she blinked at me a few times. “Am I dead?” she asked.
“No, Mother. My name is Nathan, I’m your son, and we’re both alive.”
“Your brother…”
I pointed to the mirror and she looked. “He looks different than when he helped you escape.”
She didn’t say anything.
“I know this isn’t what you were expecting, but---”
“I’m sorry,” she interrupted softly. I shut up. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, I just don’t believe this is really happening. Maori has subjected me to all kinds of visions, both good and bad. I don’t know if this is real or not.”
“What do you need me to do to prove it?” I asked, cutting her ropes with my dagger.
“What did I give your brother when I sent him through the portal?”
“A letter and an amulet.”
She sighed with relief.
Once I freed her from her restraints, I quietly said, “Bast, Bast, Bast.” With a flash of light, Bast appeared. “Mother, this is my girlfriend. I need you to go with her while I finish up here. You’ll be safe and I’ll be right behind you.”
“You can’t…” She was too weak to protest, so Bast disappeared with her.
I turned back to the mirror. “She’s safe. Give him the book,” I said.
Luca reluctantly handed it over. “Now the sword,” Luca said.
Maori smirked. “After I authenticate this.” He opened the book and scrutinized the names for a few minutes. “Good.”
“Now the sword,” Luca said with more force.
“Why the rush?”
“I haven’t seen my mother in years.”
“Then it won’t hurt you to wait a little longer. You can see what I intend to use the book for and when I’m done, I’ll give you the sword.”
I wished with every fiber of my being that I could speak telepathically with my brother and tell him to run for the portal. The sword wasn’t worth it and we could get it another time. Maori tapped his scepter on the altar twice and the white glowing designs in the walls, floor, and ceiling all turned red.
“It won’t be long; I have been preparing for this for a long time now,” Maori said, opening the book.
He spoke in Sacred Syndrial. Luca inched closer to me, trying to get out before Maori was finished without him noticing. I knew he wasn’t going to make it.
Maori stopped speaking, waited, and not to my surprise, nothing happened.
He turned to glare at Luca, who gave up trying to sneak away and ran towards the portal. Maori pointed his scepter at Luca and shouted that he be stopped. To my horror, hands reached out of the stone floor like it was liquid. They grabbed him and he fell with a pained grunt.
I ran for the portal, but Maori was quicker. Lightning shot from his wand and struck the portal on his side. It vanished from my side an instant before I could get to it.
I gently touched the mirror’s glass surface, wishing I could reach through it and pull my brother to safety.
“How dare you try to fool me!” Maori bellowed.
“Just because you suck at casting doesn’t mean we tried to trick you,” Luca said, kicking the hands away.
Maori motioned with his scepter and Luca went flying across the room to crash into the wall with a cry of pain.
“Don’t hurt him!” I yelled.
“You should be begging me not to kill you,” he sneered.
“You’ll never get the book if you do.”
Maori bared his teeth like a mad dog and said, “This is your last chance! Bring me the book or he dies!”
“If you hurt him, you’ll never get the Book of Names.”
“Your time is limited!”
With that, he aimed his wand at the mirror and the mirror shattered.
* * *
I spent twenty minutes getting out my frustrations by blasting the altar to pieces before I could control myself. It was my fault Luca was captured, and not just because my plan had gone wron
g. Painter could have gotten out of there in a heartbeat.
Finally, I called Keira and she took me home, where my mother was sitting on the couch with a cup of tea. The dress had been replaced with a clean pair of blue flannel pajamas with white kittens on them. Her waist-length, deep red hair was damp and slightly curly and her face was clean. Obviously, Keira had cleaned her up.
When she saw me, she started shaking so hard I had to take the cup out of her hand. “Where is he?”
“Maori got him.”
She started crying. “You have to save him.”
“I will. I promise.” I had made the same promise to my brother about her a few hours previous. I knew that she wasn’t rejecting me as her child. Saving Luca was the priority.
Besides, Julia was my mother. I couldn’t replace her with Talot any more than I could get back all those years I lost. Julia had been a great mother and I was being greedy to hope for anything with Talot. And if that wasn’t enough, tough, because I was an adult and I had to get over it.
“Keira, do you know how to use the Book of Names?”
She shook her head. “It wasn’t meant for someone like me.”
“Then please send me back to Langril.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me with you this time?”
“I need you here, protecting my mother.”
Talot took my hand gently, so I sat next to her. “I don’t want to lose you, either,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. “I never expected to see either of you again, but I can’t…”
“Talot has been tortured for more than a month,” Keira explained. “She needs some time to recover before she can express herself.”
“I imagine you weren’t allowed to express yourself as Isis’s vessel, either,” I said softly.
My mother shook her head.
I stepped away from my mother and Keira transported me to Dothra.
Like before, I appeared on a deserted street. This time, however, my anger fueled my magic like gasoline to flames. I wasn’t going to be detained. I started walking, knowing the castle was too big to miss. That meant it was either disguised by magic, or it was blocked from view by the roof of a building. I walked about ten feet before three shadows converged in front of me. Out of those shadows, three men appeared.
