“Like you?” Joey laughed. “You should thank your lucky stars you never got your hands on this thing. The question isn’t if you’d go too far with it, but how long it would take you to wipe yourself out. I don’t think you’d last a single day.”
DeMayne lifted his shoulders half an inch. “Let’s test your theory. I’m game.”
“Can’t do it. I need you alive.” Joey looked at Hypnova. “I need you both.”
Hypnova put a hand on Joey’s shoulder. She leaned in close and spoke softly so only he could hear. “Joey, you know I’ll do whatever I can to help you. I want to bring the Imagine Nation back too, but I don’t know how to do it if you can’t use the wand. This is bigger than the Invisible Hand. We have the Secreteers to contend with as well. They’re the ones who keep the Imagine Nation hidden from the world. They’ve done it since Merlin first created the island. I don’t know how they keep it hidden, or in constant motion, floating all over the earth. That secret is known only to Oblivia, Grand Majestrix of the Clandestine Order of Secreteers. If we want to take down whatever it is that keeps the island hidden—without using the wand? We’d need to get Oblivia to tell us how to do it.” She shook her head. “That’s never going to happen.”
“We don’t need to talk to her,” Joey whispered back. “Not when we can talk to someone who was there with Merlin all those years ago.”
A second passed before Hypnova realized who Joey was talking about. “Him?!” she said, pointing at DeMayne.
Joey nodded. “I have another theory about our friend here,” he said, raising his voice to include everyone in the conversation. “We spent the last year finding out how to break the dark magic markers, but we found out something else, too. Ledger DeMayne is the same Emperor’s Hand who helped cut off the world’s access to magic a thousand years ago. This is the man who stole the world, for a little while anyway. Merlin, the first Secreteer, and a handful of other heroes defeated him and took the Imagine Nation into hiding. His stolen kingdom gone, DeMayne formed the Invisible Hand to control the world’s remaining magical items. He’s not the group’s most recent leader; he’s the only one it’s ever had.”
“You’re saying… he’s a thousand years old?” Hypnova asked. “Even with magic, that’s not possible, is it?”
“Don’t let his good looks fool you,” Joey said. “I’m willing to bet it’s just a glamour. Who knows what he really looks like under that. Probably not very pretty.”
“But glamours just disguise your appearance,” Hypnova said. “They don’t keep you young.”
“I don’t know how he does it.” Joey tilted his head to the side. “I don’t even know for sure if I’m right, but I’ve got a feeling. I got the idea when I was thinking about his name. All the names they use in the Invisible Hand… Mr. Black, Mr. Gray, Ms. Scarlett… They keep their aliases simple on purpose. It’s an inside joke with them. The idea is, they can’t be bothered to get creative about fooling ‘the little people’ because they’ll fall for anything anyway.” Joey turned to address DeMayne. “You like fooling people. It makes you feel powerful. Even your real name is fake. ‘Legerdemain’ is a word that means trickery, deceit, or deception. I looked it up. It’s an old word with origins in the late Middle English time period. A thousand years ago. I started to wonder, What if the name isn’t fake? What if you’re where that word comes from? Last year you used the Sword of Storms on us, an Arthurian relic. It was broken when Camelot fell. I think you were there. Now, tell me I’m wrong.”
DeMayne stared at Joey, a smug, superior look on his face. “That’s an interesting take on my life’s story, but your timeline’s a bit off. If the legends are true, King Arthur lived fifteen hundred years ago, not one thousand. Doesn’t quite add up, does it?”
“No, it doesn’t,” Joey admitted. “But legends can be true and a little bit off at the same time. Don’t forget, Merlin and the Secreteers rewrote history after they defeated you, so who knows what happened when? For all we know, five hundred years of nothing happening during the Dark Ages was just them fudging their dates.”
“And that’s not exactly a denial,” Janelle added.
“You’re wasting your breath,” DeMayne said. “Even if everything you’re saying is true… even if I knew where to find this Imagine Nation, or how it stays hidden, I wouldn’t tell you. I won’t tell you anything.”
“Not willingly,” Leanora said.
“What are you going to do, torture me? You think you have what it takes to make me talk?”
“We don’t need to,” Hypnova said, realizing what Joey and the others had in mind. “Memory powers, remember?”
6 Head Games
Ten minutes later, it was obvious something was wrong.
“It’s not working,” Leanora said. “Why isn’t it working?”
“Could he be resisting her somehow?” Shazad asked.
“I don’t know about that,” Janelle replied, doubtful. “Judging by the look on his face, he’s not resisting much of anything right now.”
They had moved to Hypnova’s cabin in the interior of the ship. The room was filled with pictures, souvenirs, maps, and charts from her travels around the world. All of it was very interesting to everyone but DeMayne. He was seated across from Hypnova, or more accurately, precariously balanced in a handcrafted wooden chair with his feet propped up on a stool. Still tied up in Gleipnir, DeMayne was completely helpless, not to mention catatonic. His eyes were glazed over, and his jaw hung down, a thick bead of drool forming on his lower lip. Hypnova had her hand raised in his direction. Her eyes were closed, and she had a look of intense concentration on her face.
“I don’t understand,” Joey said. “Usually, it’s just a tap on the forehead or a bit of that smoke and boom! That’s it. What’s taking so long?”
“Maybe it always takes this long and she just rewrites everyone’s memory afterward to make it look easy?” Shazad suggested.
“No,” Joey said, dismissing the idea out of hand. “I mean, she could do that, but I don’t think she’d do that to us. What would be the point? I think we have a problem here.”
Hypnova opened her eyes, breaking her connection with DeMayne. “We have a problem here,” she confirmed.
DeMayne came around a second later. He woke with a start, sucking up his drool with a loud slurp. Joey smirked as his eyes darted left and right, checking to see if anyone noticed.
“What’s wrong?” Leanora asked.
“I’ll tell you what’s wrong,” DeMayne said with his chin in the air. “I’m too strong-willed, aren’t I? You can’t break me.”
Hypnova cast her eyes at the ceiling. “Don’t flatter yourself,” she said without turning around. “You’re not the problem.”
“And, just so you know, you have drool all over yourself,” Janelle told DeMayne. She waved her hand in a circle. “All over you. It looks like someone spilled a glass of water on your shirt.”
DeMayne looked down at his collar. Sure enough, it was drenched. “That’s not funny,” he said, sulking. Everyone laughed as he tried to hide his embarrassment, but Joey was worried that DeMayne might be right about being unbreakable.
Joey leaned in close to Hypnova and spoke in a low voice. “What’s wrong? Is he using something to keep his memories hidden from you?”
“We should have searched him before we tied him up,” Leanora said.
“There wasn’t time for that,” Shazad replied.
“It wouldn’t have mattered,” Hypnova said. “It isn’t anything he has or anything he’s doing. His mind’s an open book, except for the last page.”
“What’s stopping you, then?” Joey asked. “Why can’t you read it?”
“His memories aren’t hidden from me—they’re hidden from him. One memory in particular. There’s something in there, but I can’t access it, because he can’t access it. It’s something even he doesn’t know about. A memory he’s repressed or been forced to forget. But you’re right about him. His memories go way back. I l
ooked past centuries before I started to lose my way. The memory we’re after… it’s buried deep.”
“Too deep?” Janelle asked. “You can’t reach it?”
“Even I have limits. If I go too far down the well, I might not make it back.” Hypnova paused a moment. Her eyes lit up with a new idea. “But you could. The four of you.”
Joey, Shazad, Janelle, and Leanora traded looks of confusion and disbelief. “Us?” they said in unison.
“What are you talking about?” Joey asked. “We can’t do what you do.”
“You can if I help you,” Hypnova said. “I could join your minds. You could go in to unearth the memory, and then I could pull you back out.”
“Can you really do that?” Shazad asked.
“The question is, can we do that?” Janelle said.
And the answer is, I don’t think so, Joey thought.
He wasn’t the only one who was skeptical. “If you can’t reach the memory, and you were a Secreteer, how are we supposed to find it?” Leanora asked.
“You can find it,” Hypnova said. “You won’t have to worry about keeping one foot in the real world while you look. I can do that for you. I’ll be your anchor out here, which means you can explore his mind with a freedom I never could.”
“What are you saying over there?” DeMayne barked out from his chair, trying to follow the conversation. “No one’s going to do any exploring in my mind. I won’t allow it. This is a violation! It’s assault!”
“QUIET!” everyone yelled at once. Hypnova raised a stern finger toward DeMayne, and he wisely stopped complaining.
“What if we get lost?” Joey asked her. “You said if you go too deep, you might not make it out. How are we going to find our way back?”
“I’ll pull you out,” Hypnova promised. “I know it’s hard to understand, but it’s different if I go in alone. If I surrender myself to the expedition, I’m operating without a net. If we do it this way, I’m your net. I’ll join your minds, but I’ll stay here, focused on you. Tracking you, so I can extract you.” She snapped her fingers. “Just like that.”
“Ha! Just like that!” DeMayne laughed. “I hope you’re not falling for this. ‘You go in. I’ll stay here,’ ” he said, in a mock impression of Hypnova. “Listen to what she’s really saying. She’s afraid. That’s good. She ought to be. I wouldn’t do this if I were you, children. Look out for yourselves. That’s what she’s doing.”
Now it was Hypnova’s turn to be quiet. Joey knew DeMayne couldn’t be trusted, but he had to admit he was making sense. “I don’t know about this,” Shazad said, looking uneasy.
“I’ve done this before from both sides,” Hypnova assured him. “Secreteers do it all the time.”
“With other Secreteers, I bet,” Shazad said. “This isn’t our specialty.”
“Your specialty is doing impossible, dangerous things. You wouldn’t be here otherwise. Am I right?”
“Let’s talk about the dangers,” Leanora said. “What’s it like in there?” she asked, pointing at DeMayne.
“I won’t lie to you,” Hypnova said. “It’s ugly. His mental defenses will come after you. They’ll try to kill you.”
“Count on it,” DeMayne said with sinister glee.
“But it’ll just be the version of us that’s in his mind,” Joey said, hoping for some good news. “We’re not really there, so it doesn’t matter what happens to us. It’s like a video game, right? We die in there, we get kicked out and respawn out here. No big deal. Right?”
Hypnova said nothing.
“Right?” Joey asked again.
“Yes and no,” Hypnova said reluctantly. “It depends on where you are at the time. I’ve been back and forth across his mindscape. I can put you close to the memory we want, but past a certain point, things get murky. As long as you’re conscious, I can track you anywhere, but the deeper you go, the harder it gets. If you die inside his mind, our connection will be momentarily broken. If that happens and you’re somewhere I can’t see you… I might not be able to reacquire you.”
“What does that mean?” Shazad asked. “We’d be trapped in there?”
“Maybe forever,” Hypnova admitted. Her words hung heavy in the air. No one liked the sound of that.
“We do know how to defend ourselves,” Janelle said, holding up the Staff of Sorcero.
“That’s the other thing,” Hypnova said. “No magic weapons. Those are here in the real world. You won’t have them with you in the mindscape, because you’re not really there.”
“This keeps getting better and better,” Joey said.
“Excuse me, I have an announcement to make,” DeMayne said, smiling his first genuine smile of the evening. “I’ve decided to have an open mind about this whole endeavor. By all means, come in. Explore.”
“He wants a shot at us,” Shazad said, nailing the reason for DeMayne’s sudden change of heart.
“I think it’s only fair. Let’s even the playing field. See what happens.” DeMayne’s smile turned cruel. “I’m game.”
Joey looked at the wand in his hand. “The alternative is, I use this to get the information we need.”
“No,” Leanora said instantly. “It’s fine. I’ll go.”
“Not alone you won’t,” Shazad told her.
Joey, Janelle, Shazad, and Leanora looked at one another. No one said anything. Everyone already knew where they stood. Together.
“We’ll all go,” Janelle said.
The decision made, they dumped DeMayne out of his seat and deposited him on the floor. Joey and Shazad sat across from him, leaving the two wooden chairs for Janelle and Leanora. “How do we do this?” Joey asked.
“Nothing to it.” Hypnova held up an open palm. “Just look here.” Joey watched as Hypnova waved her hand across her body in a slow, sweeping motion. Purple smoke trails ran off her fingertips as she moved, and Joey’s vision blurred.
“I’ll see you on the other side,” he told his friends. His voice sounded warped and dreamlike inside his head.
“I’m looking forward to it,” DeMayne’s voice returned, clear as a bell.
Joey closed his eyes, and when he reopened them, he saw nothing. Pitch-blackness. He blinked again and he was there. Inside Ledger DeMayne’s mind. The effect was instantaneous, devoid of any fanfare or spectacle. One second Joey and his friends were sitting in Hypnova’s cabin, and the next thing he knew, they were standing on a dreary mental plain. There was nothing around for miles but crooked, spiky mountains and barren fields. Everywhere Joey looked, he saw jagged rocks and hard earth. Geysers of flame erupted across the land in random bursts. Some came and went in seconds, and others remained, burning low like little campfires. Dry weeds poked out of the ground at the foot of blackened trees, and a gloomy, overcast sky stretched over the land like a blanket of depression.
“Isn’t this lovely?” Leanora said sarcastically, surveying the dismal wasteland of DeMayne’s mindscape. “I don’t know if this is the ugliest place I’ve ever been, but it’s up there.”
“I’d still take it over Transylvania,” Joey said. “Don’t hold me to that,” he added. “I might change my mind.”
“DeMayne’s office was way nicer,” Janelle said. “I guess this is what he’s like on the inside. Pretty creepy.”
“Hypnova did warn us it wasn’t pleasant here,” Shazad reminded them.
“She also said she’d drop us near the memories we’re here to find.” Leanora scanned the area with dubious eyes. “I don’t see anything, do you?”
“We may have—problem.” Hypnova’s voice came in as if it were being broadcast by a radio station with a dying signal. “Listen to me careful—don’t—much time.”
A gentle breeze kicked up a cloud of dust, forming an image of Hypnova that was much clearer than anything she tried to say. It was like watching a lagging video where the audio didn’t match the picture. Hypnova’s face kept freezing and skipping.
“What’s wrong?” Joey asked her.
Hypnova’s image fluttered a moment, but quickly re-formed. “DeMayne—working against me. Trying—he wants to separate us.”
“I think it’s working,” Janelle said.
“Where is DeMayne?” Shazad asked.
“DeMayne—everywhere—ground beneath your feet. His head—world. He has the power here—makes the rules—what he wants.”
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Shazad said.
“I—like it either.” Hypnova’s image ruptured again, but this time she wasn’t able to rematerialize fully. Her sentences grew choppier and harder to understand. “Be quick… I—pull you out—up to you.”
“Did she say she wanted to pull us out?” Leanora asked.
Hypnova’s image collapsed before she could reply. This time it didn’t come back.
“That can’t be right,” Joey said. “We just got here. We haven’t learned anything yet.”
“Something tells me she couldn’t pull us out right now if she wanted to,” Janelle said. “Hypnova?” she called out, turning around and looking up at the sky. No one answered. “I don’t think she can hear us.”
Everyone stared at one another in silence as their predicament became clear. They were on their own in enemy territory. For the time being, at least.
“Hypnova will come through,” Joey said. “She can take DeMayne. I’ve seen her do it. We all have.”
“What are we supposed to do in the meantime?” Shazad asked.
“We find the memory, of course,” Leanora said.
“Find it where?” Shazad spread his arms out. “There’s nothing here. Which way do we go?”
“I know which way I don’t want to go,” Janelle said, pointing off in the distance. She looked like she had seen a ghost, but the reality was much worse than that.
Joey turned to look where Janelle was pointing and saw what appeared to be a pack of orcs on patrol. They were twenty yards away on the crest of a ridge, which was way too close for comfort. The orcs were big and terrible with thick, knotted muscles, hard as chunks of rock. Their skin was a mix of gray and green, and their bodies were smeared with black grease and oil, or maybe it was the blood of their most recent kill. Joey couldn’t tell from this distance, and he didn’t care for a closer look. The orcs were armed with all manner of brutal weapons and wore iron-plated armor that was decorated with bones. The largest of the bunch, the pack leader, flipped up the visor on his helm and let out a guttural snarl. A low, clicking noise echoed across the rock trail. Joey’s stomach dropped. The orc was looking right at him.
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