Vega Jane and the Secrets of Sorcery

by David Baldacci

  ‘You’re emotional, Vega. It is not sound to try and think clearly under those circumstances.’

  As I watched her queenly, condescending chin slowly descend, followed by a pair of eyes that seemed to define haughtiness as something far more than a word or a look, I did calm. Remarkably, my reason did return amid all the chaos festering in my mind.

  ‘I saw you emotional, Morrigone,’ I said in speech as smooth as her own. ‘With your lovely hair all awry, and your pretty cloak stained, and your eyes full of not simply tears but fear. Real fear. I saw all that and more, much more.’

  Just the barest of tremors appeared at her right cheek.

  I continued primarily because I couldn’t stop. ‘And in case you hadn’t noticed, I repaired the window at my digs. After you left on your trail of blue mist of course. I just waved my hand, thought it, and it happened. Was that how it was for you, Morrigone? Because Thansius really didn’t elaborate on your powers when we spoke.’

  I thought she was going to raise her hand to strike. But instead, she spun on her heels and walked away.

  I looked over at John as he used his ink stick to jot notes and redesign plans and come up with the most wonderful Wall of all. His enthusiasm was as beautiful as it was terrible to behold. I walked back over to Kitchen and Henry.

  ‘If he tells you to make more holes, you will not obey. Do you understand?’

  ‘And who are you to be giving orders, female?’ said Henry indignantly.

  He looked at my grimy clothing and still bloody and bruised face. Kitchen took a few steps back. He no doubt saw the murderous look in my eyes. My rage was such that I felt tremendous energy coursing down to what seemed my very soul. It was all I could do to contain it: I drew closer and when I spoke, my voice was low and even but radiated more power than a thousand gospels from Ezekiel.

  ‘Non is in Hospital this light because I smashed his head so hard I heard his skull crack.’ Henry swallowed so slowly, it appeared he thought it would be his last gulp as my gaze threatened to split him in half. ‘So if I find another section of Wall has bellied up because of extra holes in my straps –’ I pushed my fist firmly into the side of his bony, whiskered face – ‘I will come to your home and do four times to you what I did to Non. Do I make myself understandable to you, male?’

  Henry tried to speak even as Kitchen let out a low whistle and seemed poised to run for it. Finally, Henry just nodded his head. I dropped my fist, turned and headed to Hospital as fast as my shaky legs could carry me.

  Hospital was a mere quarter-mile from the Care, the theory being that unfortunate Wugs often went from one to the other. It was a stark, flat-faced building, grey and foreboding and set at the end of a dirt road. Even if one had hopes of survival, it was doubtful they would remain after seeing this awful place.

  As I passed through the large double doors, a Nurse dressed in a grey cloak and domed white cap came forward. I explained who I was and why I was there. She nodded, her look sympathetic, which I did not think boded well for Duf’s prospects.

  His room was at the end of the hall. I heard quiet sobs coming from inside. My heart shuddered and I felt a bit queasy. I thanked the Nurse and she left me. I stood just outside the door and tried to steel myself for what I was about to encounter. I told myself that whatever it was, Delph and I would face it together.

  I gently pushed open the door and went in. Delph was leaning over the cot, his face littered with fresh tears. Duf lay in the cot, his eyes closed and his chest rising and falling unevenly. I crept forward until I was next to Delph.

  ‘How is he?’ I whispered.

  ‘Me-Me-Mendens just in. Say they got to co-co-come off.’

  ‘What? His legs?’

  ‘Say ’tis th-th-that or he’s next for the Ha-Ha-Hallowed Ground. Don’t underst-st-stand it all, Ve-Ve-Vega Jane.’

  I could well understand his stammering returning, what with all he was feeling. I closed my hand around his arm and squeezed lightly.

  ‘When will they do it?’ I asked.

  ‘S-s-soon,’ he replied.

  I gripped his arm harder. ‘Delph, I’m going to get the Stone.’ He looked at me quizzically. ‘The Adder Stone,’ I said in a low voice. ‘I can heal him in no time with it.’

  ‘But they say he could di-die.’

  ‘I know, Delph,’ I snapped. ‘I know,’ I added in a calmer voice. ‘If the Menders come for him, just try and stall. I’ll do my best.’

  42

  TOO FEW SLIVERS

  I sprinted at the top of my speed to my digs. When I got there, I stopped dead. My door was open. Fearing the worst, I ran inside and found Harry Two slumped next to my cot.

  ‘Harry Two!’ I cried out, racing to my canine. He didn’t appear injured, only in a deep sleep, his breathing steady and normal.

  Who had done this, I wondered?

  I ran to my cloak where I had last put the Adder Stone. It was gone! Fortunately, I had hidden the shrunken Elemental and Destin under another loose floorboard. I checked and both were still there. I slipped Destin around my waist and placed the Elemental in my pocket. I raced back over to Harry Two and was cheered to see that he was stirring.

  ‘You stay, Harry Two. You stay and rest.’

  I shut the door firmly behind me and ran back out into the street.

  Hestia Loon was walking down the road and stopped when she saw me.

  ‘Vega, that was so wonderful to see you beat that awful Non.’

  I could tell she was bursting with pride, but I had no time for this.

  ‘Hestia, did you see anyone around my digs earlier?’

  ‘Well, I was passing by earlier, come to think, and I saw the blue carriage right outside about fifty slivers ago.’

  ‘Was it Thansius?’

  ‘Couldn’t have been. I saw him outside the Council building right before I saw the carriage.’

  My suspicions confirmed, I cried out, ‘Thank you,’ as I raced off.

  It had been Morrigone.

  Throwing caution to the wind, I ran into the woods and then leaped into the air. Luckily low, thick, darkish clouds had rolled in and I was able to fly just inside them. So no one below could see me, though I was drenched by the moisture in them when I got to my destination.

  My boots hit the ground right outside Morrigone’s stately home. The gates and front door opened at my advance. I entered and began to race from room to room. There was no one in the house as far as I could tell. I finally stopped in the library where the fire suddenly roared in the fireplace. I looked around and was about to leave when I saw it. The mirror over the chimneypiece. I walked over, and there it was, in the glass, barely inches from my hand. The Adder Stone!

  I reached out tentatively, my fingers lightly touching the glass. I jerked them back although nothing had happened. I decided I was just being an idiot. I touched the glass again. It was hard, like glass should be, and impenetrable . . . unless I smashed it. I wondered if I should use my Elemental to do so. But what if the Elemental also smashed the Stone? I couldn’t take that chance.

  Then I recalled what I had done in fixing the window in my house. I wasn’t sure how I’d done it exactly, but I looked at the glass and imagined that it was simply a wall of water. I focused all my thoughts on transforming glass to water.

  I reached out again, and my hand passed through the glass. I had done it!

  As my fingers closed around the rock, I felt a sense of profound triumph – until something seized upon my wrist and pulled me off my feet and head first through the looking glass.

  I landed on something rough and warm to the touch. Momentarily stunned, I quickly picked myself up and stood ready to defend myself. The darkness was all around me, quite a change from the well-lighted room I’d just vacated.

  I thrust the Stone into my pocket and stiffened when I heard something coming towards me from out of the black. I took out the Elemental and willed it to full size. Yet, for the first time ever, nothing happened. When I glanced down at my
gloved hand, the Elemental remained as small as a long splinter of wood. I shoved it back into my pocket and tried to take to the air. But Destin seemed as powerless inside the looking glass as the Elemental had been, and I fell back to the floor. I pushed down the lump in my throat and faced what was coming with none of my special tools.

  A vague silhouette a shade lighter than the darkness around it emerged into my line of sight. As it drew closer and I could see it better, I gasped in shock.

  It was a very young, dressed only in a cloth diaper. It had a few hairs on its head, and its skin was as pearl-white as the Adder Stone in my pocket.

  It closed to within a yard of me and then stopped. I felt my heart go out to the tiny creature because its mouth drooped, and its eyes narrowed, and tears dribbled out from them. Then it gave a little bit of a cry and something truly remarkable took place.

  Its features softened and turned Wug-like. When it was done, I could only stare transfixed. It was my brother, John, at age three sessions. He started to cry once more. When I instinctively put out my hand, he immediately drew back.

  ‘It’s OK, John,’ I said in a hushed voice. ‘I’m going to get you out of here.’ A small part of me knew none of this made any sense. My brother couldn’t be here, and even if he were, he wouldn’t be only three sessions old. But my mind wasn’t working very well in here, and despite my misgivings I put out my hand once more. And once more he shrank back. Throwing caution to the wind, I lunged forward and gripped his hand tightly.

  John looked up at me, his tears now stopped. ‘Vega?’

  I nodded. ‘It’ll be OK. I’ll get you out of here.’

  As I turned to look around for a way out, I let go of his hand. Or at least I tried to. I looked down at my hand and what I saw made me more than slightly sick. His fingers were now part of my fingers. They had somehow grown together. I jerked my arm back, but all that did was lift John off the floor. His other arm reached out and gripped my shoulder.

  Instantly, I felt a weird, invasive sensation. I looked down and his hand and arm were now growing into my shoulder, right through my cloak. And when next I looked at his face, John was no longer there. Instead there was the most odious, foul creature I had ever seen. It was like a mouldering skeleton with bits of skin dangling in odd spots. And there we no eyes in the sockets, only ripples of black flame. Its teeth were black and grinned at me like some savage demon.

  I screamed, turned and ran. All this did was allow the thing to wrap its small legs around my waist. I felt the invasive feeling again, but I kept running. I just wanted to go back through the looking glass, yet I had no idea how. I could feel the thing melding on to my back. And then I suddenly felt like I weighed a thousand pounds. My legs buckled. I fell forward on to my face. I felt my nose shatter and my already injured eye swell even more. A dislodged tooth fell out of my mouth. I spat up blood.

  The thing was on my head now. I could feel fingers like tentacles encircling my skull. And in my mind grew darkness so profound, so overwhelming, that I felt paralysed. And then something vanquished the darkness. What I saw next made me wish the darkness would return.

  It was every nightmare I had ever had times a factor of a thousand. From my earliest memories to seemingly the last sliver of my life, every painful fragment of memory I had ever experienced exploded on to my consciousness.

  Then I was on a flying steed dressed all in chain mail, like the female I had seen. I was fighting. I had a sword in one hand and the Elemental in the other. Bodies were falling all around me as I cleaved and thrust my way through a horde of attackers. And then a light hit me directly in the chest. The pain was unimaginable.

  The next instant I was falling through the sky, down . . . down . . . down . . .

  I tried to scream but nothing came out. I felt the creature on my back tightening its grip around me. I swung my arms back and tried to hit it. But in hitting it, I was only striking myself. This was so awful, all I wanted was to die. I was being dissolved from the inside out.

  I’m not sure how it came to me because I don’t really remember doing it. My hand reached down to my waist, and I managed to slip Destin free.

  I flipped it upward over my head and felt it settle around the creature’s neck. I crossed my arms as fiercely as I could. This, in turn, made Destin replicate that movement. It encircled the creature’s neck and then tightened. I pulled with all the strength I had left. I heard a gurgle, the first sound the creature had made since it stopped crying.

  The next thing I saw struck me first with horror and then with relief as the chain grew lax. The thing’s head hit the floor in front of me, bounced once and then lay still. Slowly, an inch and a sliver at a time, I felt the grip of the thing begin to ease and then fall away. In three excruciatingly long slivers, it was gone. My mind cleared. I rose on wobbly legs.

  I turned and ran as fast as I could. Only this time I knew where I was going because the darkness inside wherever I was had started to lift. It was as though the evil dead thing was absorbing all the blackness, allowing the light to shine once more.

  When I saw my reflection, just up ahead, I sped up and leaped, my hands outstretched. I flew through the looking glass, tumbled to the hard floor, and was up in an instant. The Adder Stone safely in my pocket, I raced outside and I soared into the air. I had to get back to Hospital as fast as possible.

  Slivers later, I pushed through the doors of the Hospital and raced down the hall. Another sliver passed and then I was back in Duf’s room. Breathing hard, I skirted around the sheet that hung from the ceiling giving the space some privacy.

  Then I stopped dead. The room was empty. I rushed back down the corridor, thinking only terrible thoughts.

  Then I heard the scream. I looked wildly about because I recognized the voice. I hustled towards the sound, rounding one corner and then another. The screams kept coming and then they abruptly died out. I reached a set of double doors, pushed them open and hurtled into the room.

  Duf lay on the table, a sheet covering the top of him. As I looked down below, my stomach gave a lurch. There was nothing there. His legs below the knees were gone. Duf was covered in sweat and was unconscious.

  Delph was just standing there, his big hands tucked into fists, his great chest heaving, the tears spreading over his cheeks as he peered at his father. I looked at the Menden who stood there with blood smeared across his white gown. A Nurse stood next to him, staring anxiously at Delph.

  ‘What happened?’ I asked breathlessly.

  ‘Cu-cut ’em off,’ said Delph, not looking at me. ‘Just cucu-cu—’

  I gripped his hand and looked at the Menden. ‘When did you do this?’

  He was staring at my injured face, but then focused on my question.

  ‘Finished about a sliver ago. Delph wanted to wait for some reason, but it had to be done. Otherwise, we’d have had a dead Wug.’

  I couldn’t find the breath to speak. My mind was so full of things that it was impossible to form a response.

  A sliver. A sliver!

  I didn’t think even the Adder Stone could help now. Still, I slipped it from my pocket, thought of Duf with his legs fully healed and then waved the Stone over his stumps, disguising the movement by pretending to straighten the sheet.

  I held my breath, waiting for the legs to be regrown. And I kept waiting. And nothing happened. Finally, sick to my stomach, I let go of the Adder Stone and it fell to the bottom of my pocket.

  I said to Delph, ‘I’m so sorry. So very sorry.’

  He sniffled and rubbed his eyes. ‘You tried, Vega Jane. I know ya did. Just ran out of slivers, didn’t we? Just ran out of . . .’ His voice trailed off.

  ‘But he’ll live,’ I said.

  ‘If you can call it that!’ said Delph in a sudden rush of anger. He calmed just as quickly and looked tenderly at me. ‘Glad you’re here.’ He saw my face and gaped. ‘Vega, you’re hurt bad. You need to—’

  I gripped his arm tighter. ‘It’s nothing, Delph. It’s really
nothing. I’ll be fine. I tripped and hit some stone. Just stupid of me. That’s all.’

  ‘OK. Uh, do you mind if I have a mo’ with me dad?’

  I nodded quickly and hurriedly left the room.

  I waited until I was well down the dark and dank corridor before I sank to the cold floor and sobbed uncontrollably.

  But then I stopped crying, I grew calm and my expression hardened.

  I rose on unsteady legs. One thought dominated everything.

  Morrigone.

  I raced from Hospital and took to the air. Slivers later my boots hit crushed gravel. My skin still ached where that awful thing had pinned itself to me. And my head reeled from the impressions of a lifetime of nightmares bundled into one continuous dark vision.

  I knew what the creature was because it had been in Quentin Herms’s book.

  It was a maniack, an evil spirit that attached to your body and then your mind and drove you irreversibly insane with every fear you’ve ever had.

  I hurried up the walk, pushed open the now closed gates and sprinted to the massive doorway. I didn’t bother to knock. I just opened the door and stormed inside. William, the pudgy Wug in his sparkling clean uniform of the servant, came into the hall and looked at me in surprise.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he exclaimed.

  ‘Where were you when I was here before?’

  ‘Here before?’ he said, looking puzzled.

  ‘Never mind. I need to see something.’

  He continued to bar my path. ‘Madame Morrigone is not here.’

  ‘I don’t want to see her,’ I barked.

  ‘Neither is Master John.’

  ‘Or Master John,’ I snapped.

  ‘She told me of no visitors. And so, no visitors will be admitted—’

  He stopped because I had hoisted him off the floor and hooked the back of his collar over an unlighted torch holder set on the wall. With Destin around my waist, William was as light as air.

  ‘Just stay there,’ I said. ‘I’ll let you down when I’m done.’

  Blocking out his cries of protest, I rushed down the hall to the library. I threw open the doors and entered. No fire was lit. The sunlight streamed in through the windows. I stepped up to the looking glass that had recently been my prison.