The magical markets? Darka thought. Her head buzzed like the flies that were already surrounding them, attracted to the chimaera’s fresh corpse.
This was how Alaric really made his living, she realized. Not by hunting deer or rabbits or foxes or even wolves—but by hunting monsters like this one. And now he was letting her in on his secret.
“Does it bother you?” he asked, watching her face again. Darka understood, though she did not know why, that her answer was of the utmost importance. Alaric had let her in. It was up to her to accept his invitation—and accept him, knowing that from here forward, her life would be much more dangerous than she’d ever imagined.
Her chest still heaving from running after the chimaera, Darka plucked her knife from her belt. She looked at the green blood smeared on Alaric’s hands. It scared her. And it thrilled her.
“Show me how,” she said.
***
Almost as suddenly as it had begun, the quiet moment between Clementine and the unicorn was shattered. A strange, fast-moving cloud had appeared on the horizon, a dark blur against the fading orange of the sunset. The unicorn’s head twitched toward the movement, breaking Clementine’s gaze. And though she looked back a second later, the unicorn was gone, nothing more than a white flash galloping through the cliffs and into the growing darkness.
Clementine took a shaky breath and looked back at the strange cloud, trying to clear her head of all thoughts of unicorns and the Three Rules of Evildoing. It did not take much effort, because she quickly realized the dark cloud was not a cloud at all, but a giant flock of birds—and it was headed straight for Castle Brack.
Was this the frontal assault the Whittle Witch had been building up to? Clementine stood frozen to the spot, unable to tear her eyes from the fast-approaching swarm. But no, she assured herself. Those red-eyed ravens were all too familiar. They had not been sent by the Whittle Witch, but by men Clementine feared almost as much: the Council of Evil Overlords.
The Council clearly thought its earlier messenger birds had not been properly received.
Clementine ducked as the ravens soared overhead—but they did not fly to her father’s tower, as she had anticipated. Rather, they flew through her open window.
She ran into the castle and up to her room, her heart thudding with each pounding step against the stone stairs.
The Council of Evil Overlords had finally taken notice of Clementine Morcerous—and for all of the wrong reasons.
***
In the absence of any blank parchment lying about, the birds chose to deposit themselves on the next best thing: Clementine’s bedroom wall. The message loomed over the entire room, each shining black letter dripping spindly dark drops onto the line of text below.
To Lady Clementine Morcerous, heir to the Dark Lordship of the Seven Sisters:
It has come to our attention that your father, the Dark Lord Elithor Morcerous, has neglected to submit sufficient evidence of a qualifying Dastardly Deed for over six months. As our previous attempts at contacting Lord Elithor have been unsuccessful, we hope this letter finds you both well (and by “well,” we of course mean “terrible”).
The Council wishes to remind you that the primary function of Dark Lords is to terrorize lesser beings through Dastardly Deeds. Failure to execute this sacred duty may result in revocation of Dark Lord status, requisition of Dark Lands, and/or transfiguration of the guilty parties into many small insects, which will then be individually squished.
Should the Dark Lord be temporarily indisposed, imprisoned, stuck in an alternate dimension, or otherwise occupied, it is permissible for his heir—in this case, you—to carry out Dastardly Deeds on his behalf and/or temporarily assume the title of Acting Dark Lord. See the helpful list below for Dastardly Deed suggestions to get those creative juices flowing:
1.A poisoning
2.An unfortunate transfiguration
3.A racket*
4.A stampede
5.A frame-up
6.A murder
7.A tempest**
8.A kidnapping
9.A plague
*Tennis equipment is unacceptable. **Or other magically enhanced weather phenomena.
We request that you, the Dark Lord Elithor, or any previously acknowledged avatars of darkness licensed to speak on his behalf, submit proof of a Dastardly Deed within a month of receipt of this letter. As official Council investigators may be sent to the scene of the Dastardly Deed to confirm any questionable reports, we recommend that you leave between one and three witnesses alive and in a suitable condition to give testimony.
Yours in infamy,
The Council of Evil Overlords
Chapter 9
A Sickly Shade of Violet
or When Trees Attack!
Clementine evaluated her Dastardly Deed options carefully, poring over old Morcerous records in the library until late into the night. She woke up the next morning on the stone floor, a novel-length account of old Dark Lord Poringrar Morcerous’s instigation of mass hysteria in the village still open on her lap. (It was an expert Dastardly Deed, which had resulted in the burning at the stake of three innocent women and two men on suspicion of being witches, not to mention generations of suspicious grudges between various families—but the prep work sounded like a nightmare.) Clementine sat up and spat a tuft of wool out of her mouth; she’d fallen asleep leaning against the black sheep, who was still snoring softly.
No, a plan as complicated as Poringrar’s wouldn’t do. She needed something simple, straightforward, and with a quick turnaround time. Extra points for easily quantifiable results. These were her father’s preferred qualifications, anyway. She yawned and stretched, piling her tangled hair into a messy bun, and returned Poringrar’s diary to the shelf (thankfully, no ladders were involved). The moonstones in the ceiling shimmered, giving the sleeping sheep’s black coat a blue-purple cast.
Purple. That was it! Clementine immediately remembered a potion her father had made a few years ago to poison the village water supply. It had made several villagers queasy and turned them slightly purple for days. Surely, enough time had passed that a repeat Dastardly Deed wouldn’t be too frowned-upon. Besides, for all the Council of Evil Overlords knew, the purple poisonings could be practice for a much larger plan to make the villagers of the Seven Sisters Valley permanently sickly and violet.
There was only one problem. The key ingredient for the poisonous potion was a mushroom called the amethyst deceiver—and there were no amethyst deceivers on the silent farm. They grew best out in the woods, feeding off the decay of the forest floor. The most potent ones were full of arsenic they’d absorbed from the soil around them.
But Clementine had never ventured into the woods without her father by her side. The woods were home to creatures—both magical and mundane—outside his command, as well as (though he never openly admitted this) the camps of the local hedgewitches.
Clementine wandered out of the library, padding along the corridors through the quiet castle until she came to the entry hall. It was lined with the still and silent sentries she hardly took notice of anymore—suit upon suit of shining black armor, each armed with a spear or sword. They looked menacing enough, but Clementine knew they were empty, and not even animated, as the scarecrows were. How long had it been since these suits had real men inside them, eager to wreak havoc and destruction, and defend the Dark Lord with their lives? If only she had a Brack Knight to call upon to accompany her into the forest—if only she had anyone to accompany her—she might not feel so nervous.
Clementine considered bringing one of the scarecrows with her but decided against it. The scarecrows were getting unreliable enough on the farm; she didn’t imagine the magic animating them would last long outside the borders of the estate. The Brack Butler was busy attending to her father, and she certainly didn’t want to leave Elithor alone up there in his tower.
There was no getting around it. She would have to go into the forest alone. She needed to find those mushrooms.
And maybe—though she would never admit this was the purpose of the exercise, as that really would be breaking her father’s rules—she would find some hint of the witch so determined to destroy her family.
***
Bulbous clouds hung thick and gray in the sky as Clementine, the black sheep, the Gricken, and a young nightmare set off into the woods. Clementine hoped that the sight of the future Dark Lord Morcerous riding a jet-black nightmare would be enough to intimidate any potential adversaries, even if the nightmare in question was only old enough to inspire slight feelings of unease and disconcerting stress dreams about forgetting to turn the oven off. She would go in, find the amethyst deceivers, and get out. Simple and straightforward.
The weather, unfortunately, seemed to have other ideas. The sky grew darker the deeper Clementine rode into the forest, and the air was humming with the pressure that comes right before a summer storm. Thunder rumbled above, and the wind grew strong enough that the Gricken stopped its haphazard hopping from tree branch to tree branch and perched on the back of the nightmare’s saddle, its tiny talons digging into the stiff leather. A few raindrops started to fall, dampening the Gricken’s papery wings. (Fortunately, said wings appeared to dry almost instantly, much to Clementine’s relief.)
“Have you ever worn a wool sweater out in the rain?” mused the black sheep, blinking mournfully into the dripping sky. “That is what I’m going to smell like. A wet sheep. I will be a wet sheep. For days.”
Clementine ignored his complaining. The wind and the rain picked up, slapping smaller branches across their path and in Clementine’s face. The nightmare whinnied.
“Maybe we should turn back,” suggested the black sheep.
“It’s not much farther,” Clementine said, but in the growing darkness and with the landscape rendered murky in the rain, was she so sure? It had been a while since her father had taken her into the woods. Suddenly, with the wind howling and the tree branches whipping at her face—one stung her hard enough she was sure it would leave a scratch—the entire landscape seemed more alien, more hostile. How was she going to spot a cluster of mushrooms in all this mess?
It was almost as if the forest wanted to get in her way. Clementine hopped off the nightmare’s bony back and led the horse by its bridle, looking for any sign of the small bright purple mushrooms. Lightning flashed, and with a great crack, a small tree limb fell from overhead. Clementine was forced to let go of the nightmare to duck out of the way, and the horse scampered off in a panic, its shrill screams raising goose bumps on Clementine’s already chilled flesh.
“Wait!” cried Clementine, but her view of the retreating nightmare was soon blocked by a great feathery mass launching itself at her head. The Gricken squawked and screeched along with the wind, desperately seeking shelter in the folds of Clementine’s cloak, for which it was much too big. Clementine grabbed the Gricken around the middle and tucked it under one of her arms as best she could, using the other to whack aside the branches blowing in their path.
“Still think we shouldn’t have turned back?” asked the sheep, his quavering voice even shakier than usual.
Clementine turned to glare at him, pushing another branch out of their way, when smack—the branch whacked back. Clementine yanked her arm away in surprise and blinked, sure the flashing lights of the storm were playing tricks on her eyes. But she hadn’t imagined it. The trees were hitting her on purpose.
She remembered that page in the Witchionary, with all of its “Unknowns”—and the one entry that wasn’t blank at all.
***
Specialties: Simulacra, arbomancy
***
Clementine stomped her foot in the mud. “We have to get out of the forest,” she muttered. The Whittle Witch had been this close this whole time, she realized, and Clementine hadn’t taken two steps out of her own front door before falling right into the Witch’s trap.
“Oh, now she agrees with me!” groused the sheep, who was responding to the growing chaos by trying to curl himself into as small a crouch as possible. As he was very woolly—Clementine would have to see about shearing him if they survived—this was not very small. Clementine clutched the squirming, clucking Gricken and kneed the sheep in the behind, prodding him back the way they had come.
But the trees pressed thicker and thicker on both sides of the already barely detectable path, hemming them in. These trees had no intention of letting Clementine go.
“Ugh, it’s no use!” spat Clementine. She nudged the sheep again. “Get out of here while you can, and get back to the farm!” she told him. “It’s me she wants to stop!”
But that didn’t mean Clementine planned on making it easy for the Whittle Witch. She turned on her heel, ignoring the black sheep’s cries for her to come back, and ran deeper into the forest, trying to zigzag between the grasping, thumping limbs of the trees.
She tripped on a gnarled root and went sprawling, rolling down a shallow embankment until she came to a dizzying stop against the rocks of a dry creek bed. The Gricken let out an indignant squawk and hopped down after her, pecking at rogue roots.
Clementine looked up—willing her head to stop spinning—and saw that the trees were chasing her. The soil at their roots shifted as they shuffled down the embankment. Some of them simply toppled over, but others popped right out of the ground, marching like wooden soldiers using their large roots for feet. They would soon be upon her.
The closest white birch reached out, its limbs lengthening and stretching, transforming into grasping wooden hands, and—
Thunk. An ax soared through the air, cutting one of the hands off at the wrist. Something grabbed Clementine from behind, and she screamed. She felt a tingling sensation from the top of her head down to her toes and released the magic building inside of her; there was a bright flash and the faint smell of something burning, and the grip on her arm immediately went away.
She whipped around to see Sebastien Frawley swearing, his eyebrows visibly singed.
“Whoa! Relax! I’m not going to hurt you!” he exclaimed, shaking out his arms and legs from the effects of Clementine’s magical shock. He hurriedly picked up his ax and gripped it tightly. “It looks like they might, though.”
He looked at the rest of the approaching trees, gulped, and extended a hand to Clementine. She didn’t know if he was more scared of the murderous trees or of her, by the look on his face, but the fact remained that he had an ax and she did not. She took his hand—it was freckled and tan and still warm despite the cold wind and rain—and allowed herself to be hauled to her feet by one of her lowly subjects. The day just kept getting better and better.
Sebastien swung at another branch as Clementine scooped up the Gricken. They ran along the creek bed, Clementine trying not to slip on the damp rocks and Sebastien seeming a little too excited about the chance to wave an ax around.
The trees fell back at Sebastien’s swings, and those that were still rooted at the top of the embankments on either side seemed content enough to stay put. All they had to do was wait, after all—Clementine and Sebastien couldn’t stay in the creek bed forever.
Clementine noted with mild embarrassment that her hair had turned bright white, presumably from the various ugly shocks of the afternoon. She could only hope it wasn’t stuck that way forever. Assuming she survived.
“Where are we going?” asked Clementine, her lungs starting to burn. Dark Lords in training were not used to being the ones running for their lives.
“The loggers’ paths aren’t far from here,” said Sebastien. At Clementine’s mutter of confusion, he explained, “They’re sections of the forest that’ve been cut down. They’ll be clearer!” He suddenly swung the ax downward, smashing a sneaky root that had been about to snatch at their ankles. He yanked on Clementine’s hand. “
Keep moving, will you?”
Sebastien led her toward the tree line again.
“Now wait just a minute,” Clementine fumed. You—”
Sebastien cocked his head. The branches waved at them in an eerily cheerful salute.
“You . . . you . . . extremely knowledgeable woodsman,” she finished through pursed lips.
The boy snorted, and seemed to notice he was still holding Clementine’s hand. He dropped it. “We’ll have to cut our way through to get there,” he said, hefting the ax—he truly seemed very fond of doing that—and rolling his shoulders. “I don’t suppose you could blast those trees like you did me back there?”
Clementine blanched. “I, um . . . I . . .”
Sebastien rolled his eyes. “Stay behind me, then. And keep that chicken out of the way.”
The Gricken squawked indignantly. Clementine agreed with the sentiment, but she had little choice. She followed the boy up the rocky bank and back into the trees.
Chapter 10
Women with Hyphenated Names
or The Ultimate Betrayal of All of One’s (Im)moral Principles, with an Egg
Their progress was slow, what with the roaring wind, spitting rain, flying debris, and trees throwing punches. Clementine did in fact manage to zap a few feisty boughs, but battle magic was not exactly in her repertoire—who knew that it would ever need to be, what with the comfortable Morcerous reign lasting hundreds of years?—and so Sebastien did most of the hacking. But soon his reactions began to slow, and his swings lost some of their wild enthusiasm. He was tiring.
“How much farther do we have to go?” asked Clementine. Now that she had a second to think about it, she was not so sure it would be wise to follow Sebastien all the way to the village. She could not allow herself to be seen wet and bedraggled, and depending on a mere boy for safety.
The Dark Lord Clementine Page 8