A School for Sorcery (Arucadi Series Book 6)

by E. Rose Sabin

  “Now I want you to focus on this spot.” A round, dark hole the size of an eyeball formed in the air in the center of their circle. “That is the keyhole about which I have taught you. Let your power flow to it, surround it, sense it. When your powers converge, close your eyes and use your inner sight to follow the path that opens before us. But remember, stay together.”

  Tria concentrated on the dark spot floating at eye level between them. Aletheia’s power was creating that Focal point, the point of entry, but Tria understood that the instructor was leaving to her students the task of transforming that point into a door. Tria urged her power toward it, imagining a key inserting itself into a lock. The image strengthened as power poured into it from a second source. A third source joined in, and the key began to turn, but slowly, ponderously.

  With a jolt, a fourth source surrounded and infused the other three. The dark spot widened, lengthened, and became a door.

  Tria closed her eyes.

  At first she saw nothing. Tugs on her hands drew her forward. She sensed she was walking through that dark door, but she walked blindly, drawn along by her companions. She resisted the temptation to open her eyes, visualized a spark, and sent it flying along the line of power. It ignited in a starburst of white light as blinding as the darkness had been. Gradually it dimmed to a comfortable level and she could see her companions, not at first in recognizable form but like stick figures made of light brighter than the illumination around them. They moved through a round tunnel, with pearlescent walls that resembled a kind of membrane, pulsating slightly, like the vessels of a living creature. As Tria’s inner vision grew clearer, the tunnel walls acquired translucency, and through them she saw mysterious shifting shapes that gave her the impression of huge beasts lumbering about.

  With Aletheia in the lead, her back to them but her hands still clasping the hands of Petra and Irel, they moved slowly and steadily forward. They passed areas where the walls became transparent, giving Tria glimpses of weird and indescribable vistas: the first, a golden ocean hanging upside down over carnelian latticework through which and over which clambered an assortment of many-limbed creatures like nothing Tria had ever seen. Some were furred, some scaled, some winged. Some had long, twisting necks with heads like snakes; others were balls with legs sticking out all over them but with no head that Tria could see. Waves lapped the surface of the overhead ocean, and silver shapes erupted from these, flew in graceful curves, and returned with a plop that sent a shower of golden spray raining down on the creatures in the lattice. The ocean dwellers were not fish; they were two-dimensional geometrical figures: triangles, squares, rectangles, circles, and trapezoids. Fascinated, Tria stared until the wall-membrane thickened and became opaque.

  Another area of transparency showed a view of what she took to be forested mountains beneath a rosy sky, until the mountains straightened their humped backs and hobbled about like crippled old men, changing places, winding in and out among each other before settling down into a new configuration, while the sky changed hue from rose to orange to beige to bright yellow.

  With a pulsing motion, the tunnel wall became opaque.

  The next time the walls cleared, Tria gasped at the sight of a large crystal sphere rising from a barren plain. The sphere sparkled and shimmered; rainbows danced over its sides. Tria felt drawn to it, sure it was the place she had visited by the power of the Breyadon. But she could spot no way to get out to it and no door or other opening was visible in its faceted surface. Aletheia hurried onward, pulling Tria away from the tantalizing sight.

  The tunnel branched. Aletheia led them to the right, but as Tria glanced into the left-hand tunnel, a black panther streaked across it. A moment later she heard the cry of a large cat.

  Lina! Could it be?

  She had to know. Swiftly she pulled her hands together and clasped Petra’s hand around Irel’s, freeing herself from the circle. The others marched on. Turning, she raced back to the fork and started into the other tunnel.

  The light was much dimmer here, the walls completely opaque. As she ran forward, she became aware of sounds, soft at first but growing louder as she moved farther into the tunnel. Some might have come from human throats; others assuredly did not. Mingled with wails, sighs, sobs, shrieks, moans, and hisses, she distinguished the yowl of the panther. She must be nearing the region from which the Dire Women had come. If she found Lina, she would also find Wilce and Gray. Excited, she sped faster.

  The shimmer across the path in front of her seemed insubstantial until she crashed into it and was hurled backward by the force of the unexpected collision. She picked herself up and limped to the shimmer. She could see through it as through a faint haze. She probed it with her hand. It seemed a mere trick of light, yet to the touch it was as solid as a brick wall. Her careful exploration found no way around it.

  While she looked for a way to breach it, a panther bounded into view on the other side of the barrier and loped toward her. Sleek and shiny-coated, it rose on its hind legs and clawed at the impregnable curtain of light.

  “Lina?”

  At Tria’s question, the animal showed its sharp teeth; its tail twitched. It lunged at Tria with a ferocity that made her glad for the protection of the mysterious wall. Its attack frustrated, the cat sat back on its haunches, ears cocked, tail swishing back and forth.

  “Lina?” Tria asked again. “Is it you? Do you remember who you are?”

  The ears flattened. The animal crouched as if for a spring. Its slitted eyes radiated rage.

  “You do remember. I’m sure you do,” Tria persisted. “You must change back. Try. Try now.”

  The panther rose, flicked its tail at Tria, and stalked away. Uselessly she called after it until it disappeared around a bend in the tunnel.

  Tria became aware of an ominous stillness; the hideous noises had ceased. A charnel stench poured over her, making her gag. She whirled around.

  The thing that stood behind her had the appearance of a ravaged corpse wrapped in a decaying shroud. Its eyes were sunken deep within their sockets, its face half eaten away; its blackened flesh hung loose in places, revealing diseased bone. But it lived. It moved. It groped for her.

  Her back pressed against the barrier that cut off her only means of escape.

  The living corpse’s lipless mouth was a jagged hole. Within the hole a swollen tongue moved. A croaking sound issued forth, repeated. With difficulty, Tria recognized the sound as human speech. “Help me,” the thing said.

  “Who—who are you?” Scarcely able to breathe, Tria gasped the words.

  “Oryon,” the thing croaked. “I was Oryon.”

  A skeletal hand plucked at her sleeve. She tore free, shoved the thing away, and vaulted past it. She heard it blundering behind her, moaning piteously. She raced away until she could no longer smell the odor of putrefaction. Slowing, stopping, she looked around her.

  She was alone in the tunnel. Unless she could find Aletheia and the others, she would never find her way out of this dreadful place.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  REFLECTIONS

  Turning and seeing the passageway empty, Tria slowly started to retrace her steps along the first tunnel. She had to find the door Aletheia had made, had to get out.

  But without Aletheia the door might not be there. She hesitated, trying to think. It might be better to go back to the window through which she’d seen the crystal sphere and try to find a way out to it.

  No. She turned again. She’d go in the direction she’d last seen Aletheia, Petra, and Irel, and hope she could catch up to them.

  But that would require traveling an unfamiliar path, and if it branched she would have no idea which direction to take. She stood still, hugging herself, trying to tell herself that her trembling was from the chill of these tunnels.

  Was that a step behind her?

  She whirled around, saw nothing, heard nothing but the drumming of her own heart.

  Finally she walked forward. Better to hunt for an
exit in the tunnel she knew than to chance unknown ways alone.

  Aletheia and the others must be searching for her. They’d find her any minute. They had to—before that nauseous thing that had named itself Oryon found her again.

  Casting frequent glances behind her, she hurried along the way she thought the four of them had come. The tunnel was the same everywhere; the only identifying features were the scenes visible through the transparent sections. To Tria’s dismay she recognized none of those she passed.

  One “window” revealed a field of unblemished snow spreading outward from a blue-white glacier so bright with reflected sunlight that it hurt her eyes to look at it. She knew she had not seen it before. Other scenes were equally unfamiliar. She must have taken a wrong turn, but how? She had separated from her companions at the only fork they had passed.

  She stopped at the next transparent section and stared at water that poured from an unseen sky, but did not fall straight down. Instead, its separate streams twisted, braided, looped around each other, and finally splashed onto a shiny flat surface resembling steel. On striking that surface, it fountained upward again in even more intricate patterns. Tria stared in fascination.

  Several minutes passed. The scene blurred and disappeared, a different section of wall cleared, and a new scene appeared in it a short distance beyond where she stood. No wonder none of the scenes look familiar, she thought. These windows shift around all the time. I’ll never find the crystal sphere.

  The new window revealed a pit filled with a fleet of huge machines moving on treads and equipped with giant jaws that bit into the earth and devoured dirt and rock, so that as she watched, the pit deepened and widened beyond the limits of her viewing space.

  With a shudder she turned away, feeling that machines like those in the pit were digging at her brain.

  Aletheia had to come back for her! She squeezed her eyes more tightly shut and sent her power questing for them. It found nothing, but the attempt reminded her that all this time she’d been using her inner vision; her eyes had been closed since she’d passed through Aletheia’s door. Aletheia had insisted on the necessity of relying on inner vision in traversing the paths to other worlds, but Tria could not recall being told what would happen if she tried using normal sight. Maybe if she opened them, this whole nightmare scene would vanish, and she’d be back in the classroom.

  Her eyelids resisted her attempt to raise them; she used her fingers to pry them up. Her opened eyes refused to focus and take over their normal task. They provided no sight beyond a vague gray blur. Of only one thing was she certain—she was not in Aletheia’s classroom.

  After trying in vain to clear her vision, she closed her eyes again. The inner vision was gone; she saw only darkness. With neither inner nor normal vision, she was blinded and helpless.

  Mustn’t panic. Think! Got to think!

  She thought of her earlier success at using her mirror image to increase her power. She wasn’t sure now whether her power had truly increased or her active imagination had only made it seem so. But not knowing what else to do, she tried once more to call up the reflected power.

  Eyes closed, she visualized the mirror hanging on the back of her door. When she could see it before her, she bade her reflection appear in it.

  Wavery and indistinct at first, the reflection grew clearer. She saw herself positioned before the mirror, behind her the two desks, hers and Lina’s, and behind the desks, the beds. The window was open, as she had left it, the green curtain blowing in the breeze. The wind riffled the pages of the book she’d left lying on her trunk beneath the window. It was so vivid, so real that Tria’s eyes popped open. The scene remained before her. Her reflected self faced her with a wide-eyed stare and lifted her arms as Tria raised hers. They reached toward each other.

  Tria’s outstretched hands encountered cold glass. She let her arms fall to her side. Her mirror image duplicated the gesture. Tria turned her head. From the corner of her eye she saw her image do the same.

  But unlike the reflection in the mirror, Tria saw no familiar room around her. Her wandering gaze met only darkness. The mirror alone held light. With a jolt the terrifying realization hit her: she was the reflection within the mirror. The room she saw through the glass was not reflection but reality.

  But the girl in that room couldn’t be real. She was the real Tria—wasn’t she?

  Footsteps behind her sent her whirling around. The other Tria had been alone in her room.

  The putrid smell more than the dimly seen form identified the shrouded specter that called itself Oryon. “Now,” the ghastly voice croaked, “now you begin to understand.”

  Tria turned away from the mirror feeling oddly diminished. Again she wished she’d heard all of Master San Marté’s lecture. Gazing at her reflection this time might have returned the power she’d taken before. Aletheia had warned them that the trek through the interdimensional pathways could leave them tired and weak. Probably that was all that was wrong.

  She slipped out of her skirt and blouse, hung them in the chifforobe, and put on her old blue robe. Sitting on her bed, she massaged her temples, recalling how the strength gained from her mirror image had drained away in the tunnels between the worlds.

  The drain had not been gradual; it had occurred without warning. They had passed a fork in the tunnel, and Tria had wondered how Aletheia knew which way to take. Suddenly she found herself drawing her hands together and leaning forward onto the clasped hands of Petra and Irel. They kept moving, though at a slower pace, and gradually Tria was able to let her arms relax and walk on without the support of the others. The weakness eased, and Tria again took note of her surroundings, fascinated by the scenes revealed through the transparent wall sections. When Aletheia stopped at one of these, the incident passed from Tria’s mind.

  She lay back on the bed and wrapped her blanket around her to ward off the chill in the room. Her thoughts turned to Irel. Had the girl known what Aletheia planned? Tria had certainly never suspected, and she was sure that Petra hadn’t, either.

  Compared to the other scenes they’d passed, the one at which they stopped looked surprisingly ordinary. They looked at a garden filled with familiar plants and flowers, with graveled paths winding through it and red-tiled roofs visible beyond it. An older man and woman strolled down a path and paused by a small fountain.

  Aletheia released Petra’s hand and, reaching forward, drew the tunnel wall aside as if it were a curtain. Tria heard birdsong and the tinkle of the fountain; she smelled the fragrance of the flowers.

  “Petra and Tria, wait here,” Aletheia said and drew Irel with her into the garden. The “curtain” closed behind them, shutting off the sounds and smells.

  The man and woman looked up as Aletheia and Irel approached and greeted them with welcoming smiles. Tria wished she could hear their conversation. After a few minutes, Aletheia placed Irel’s hand into the woman’s. The man and woman walked away, taking Irel with them. Aletheia watched them go, then stepped backward to the window and passed through it, rejoining Petra and Tria.

  “We must go back,” she said. “Irel will stay here. She could not endure our world. Where I’ve left her she can be happy. Time moves in the opposite direction in that world: our past is its future and our future its past. Irel’s foreseeing will be nothing more than remembering, and memories, even sad ones, cannot cause the pain that foreknowledge brings.”

  Taking their hands, she led them away from the pleasant garden and back the way they had come. The return seemed to take much less time; in only three or four minutes they stepped through the gate into their familiar classroom.

  But perhaps it had taken longer than Tria had thought. The bell rang to end the class period at the same moment that Aletheia dissolved the door. Aletheia dismissed them with the warning that they would feel tired and shaky and should rest until time for supper. She promised to devote tomorrow’s class to a discussion of their experiences.

  Thinking about all the questions
she wanted to ask Aletheia in that discussion, Tria drifted off to sleep.

  A soft but insistent tapping on her door awakened her. The room was dark; she rose, found her way to her desk, and fumbled for the light, turned it on, and looked at her clock.

  She blinked and looked again. It was ten at night. She had slept through supper and most of the evening. No one should be knocking at such a late hour.

  She shrugged out of her robe and grabbed the first thing she saw in the chifforobe, a dark red dress that was too large for her, with the weight she’d lost. She slipped it on anyway and went to the door. She barely had it open when Kress slipped inside and slammed it shut behind him.

  “What took you so long?” he asked, clasping a paper-wrapped bundle in front of him. “If Oryon catches me …” He shuddered and thrust the bundle at her. “Take this.”

  She guessed what it was before she tore it open and saw the Breyadon.

  “How did you—?”

  Stole it.” He was breathing hard; his face was pale, his hands shaking. He walked to Lina’s desk and sat on its edge. “He’s got too much power already. He doesn’t need what he says this will give him. He’s ready to use it. I couldn’t let him. He’s not—he’s not sane anymore.”

  Tria frowned. She didn’t trust Kress, though his fear seemed genuine. “Why bring it to me? Why not take it back to Mistress Dova?”

  “I’ll need protection when Oryon finds out what I’ve done. I’m not sure Mistress Dova would—or could—protect me from him.”

  “And you think I can?”

  “If anybody can. Lina said you had more power than anybody she’d ever known, but you were afraid to use it. She said you’d find a way to defeat Oryon. She was willing to bet her life on it.”

  Tria stared at Kress in stunned disbelief. He had to be lying. Lina would not have said such a thing. Would she?

  “You can’t believe that,” she stammered when she’d found her voice. “Not after what happened to Lina. If she really did bet on me, she lost.”