“This is the protection that your mother ordered the mages to place on the bridge,” he said, approaching the mist. He was pointing at a line of gold bricks laid out across the center of the bridge before them. They were arranged such that if you wanted to walk through the mist, you would have to step over the line. “It is a warding line,” Cassis said, folding his hands into the sleeves of his robes. “It was made long ago, by the mages of old. It was long before my time. Animus himself was not yet apprenticed. Its magic seems to hinge upon a keyword entrusted only to her. Without the keyword it cannot be removed or altered in any way.”
“So my mother is the only one who knows about this now?”
The mage’s brow furrowed. “There are rumors that the mages were helped by a wizard named Maazan Dow. He was exceptionally talented when it came to the bridges, and I do not doubt that the rumor is true, but he is of no use to us now. He is locked in the Ire himself, and most likely long dead.”
Brinley nodded sullenly. “Okay. So is the line broken? How are the creatures getting across?”
Cassis shook his head. “It appears to be in good working order—except for the fact that Shael’s servants continue to cross it, of course. It has long been a mystery as to how they have done so.” He straightened his shoulders. “Now, I believe I have the answer.”
Brinley raised an eyebrow.
“First I shall explain how it works.” Cassis took something from inside his robes, a gold talisman the size of a flattened tangerine. “This medallion is one of a pair. They alone allow a person to cross the warding line.” He stepped gingerly across the line to demonstrate, being careful not to step through the actual mist, then returned.
“And without it?” she asked.
“See for yourself.”
She regarded the gold bricks hesitantly, judging the distance between them and the mist on the other side. The last thing she wanted to do was stumble accidentally through the mist and end up hundreds of miles away in the Wizard’s Ire. She stepped over, and thought for a moment that she would be able to cross it, but as soon as her foot touched the ground on the other side, an invisible vice clamped down in the center of her thigh, causing her to cry out. Her shout was covered up by the deafening sound of a siren. It seemed to be coming from the bridge itself, and she knew that it was a part of the magic.
A troop of soldiers came sprinting up the bridge, swords drawn. Cassis reached out and touched her with the medallion. The thing holding her leg let her go, and to everyone’s relief, the siren stopped.
Brinley had expected the soldiers to be alarmed, but instead they wore expressions of mild annoyance. The foremost one, a strong-looking man, spoke to Cassis in an accusing tone.
“Were you playing with the line again, my lord?”
“Not I,” the mage said, pointing at Brinley. “The Magemother did it. You can lecture her, if you wish.”
The officer coughed nervously. “Of course not,” he said, shuffling his feet. “Just give us some warning of your intentions next time.”
“Of course,” Brinley said, feeling her cheeks go red.
As soon as the soldiers had turned their backs, Brinley rounded on Cassis. He held up his hands to stop her and said, “Now you know.”
Brinley nodded, watching the soldiers march back down the bridge. “It is well guarded.”
“Extremely well guarded,” Cassis agreed. “Captain Mark commands an entire battalion of soldiers stationed at the foot of the bridge to deal with the creatures that have been crossing it every morning.”
“I imagine so,” Brinley said.
“You said the medallion was one of a pair,” Tabitha cut in, addressing Cassis. “Where is the other one?”
“In the king’s possession,” Cassis said.
“And there is no other way to cross the line?” Brinley said.
“Not without the keyword,” Cassis said.
“Which is known only to my mother.”
“Perhaps,” Cassis said. “There was the wizard who helped her with the spell. He might have known the keyword, or some other secret, which would allow him to replicate the medallions.”
“But have you found medallions in the possession of the creatures that have crossed the bridge?” Brinley said.
“No,” Cassis said. “There have been five crossings now, in five days. An ogre, an anthropoboar, a troll, a great-horned bear, and a Minotaur. It was the Minotaur yesterday that gave me the clue that I needed. He was the first beast that wore clothing, and in the pocket of his breeches, I found this.” He pulled a small cloth bag from his own pocket and opened it to reveal a handful of fine gold dust.
Brinley looked at it doubtfully, unsure how this cleared up the mystery. “And you think this dust,” she began, gesturing for him to elaborate.
“Works like our medallions,” he said.
“It doesn’t look like a medallion,” Tabitha mumbled, leaning in to sniff at the dust.
Cassis closed the bag. “No, indeed,” he said. “Nor does it have the power to get through the mist any longer.” He tossed the dust at the veil of mist and it hit the gray curtain with a little puff and fell to the ground. “But I think it did once,” he went on. “We have found this dust in the possession of every creature that has come over this bridge from the Ire. It seems likely to me that it is the dust that allows them to get across, as it seems to have no other function. It may be that it only works for Shael’s servants, or perhaps it only works the one time.”
“So,” Brinley said, “Shael has his own keys now.”
“I think so,” Cassis agreed. “Keys that are strong enough to take the bearer at least once across. This could also explain how Animus was able to cross the line when he followed the Idris. The creature could have planted some of this dust on him, or he may have touched the Idris and got some on himself, which allowed him to cross over.”
Brinley nodded. “You have done well, Cassis. Will you share your findings with the king? I think he sent me here to see if I could remember whatever power the Magemother has over the bridge, but the keyword is not magically occurring to me. I expect we will have to wait for my mother to pass it down to me. Until then, this should help to ease his mind.”
Cassis nodded. “As we suspected, but the king has to be satisfied, eh?” He grinned at her and she smiled back, glad that he understood.
Brinley was suddenly serious. “Cassis,” she said, “what about the other matter we discussed?”
Cassis looked confused for a moment, then smiled. “Of course,” he said, and withdrew something from the pockets of his robes with a flourish. “Your—what do you call it?—pensill?”
“Pencil,” Brinley said, grinning. She took the thin metal rod from his hand almost reverently. Art had been her passion back home, and she dearly missed drawing. There was nothing in Aberdeen but quills and ink and some terrible colored wax sticks worse than crayons. In what she considered a stroke of genius, however, she had described pencils to Cassis and set him to work on it.
“I think you’ll find it meets all of your specifications,” Cassis said. “Though I found it quite impossible to sheath the writing medium in wood as you described. I daresay we will need Lignumis for such a thing. However, I did come up with an alternative.”
“It’s brilliant!” Brinley beamed. She twisted one end of the metal tube and the lead eased out of the other. “They have these where I’m from,” she said. “They’re called mechanical pencils.”
Cassis’s face fell slightly. “Ah,” he said. “And here I was thinking I had done something unique.”
“Oh, no,” Brinley spluttered. “But it’s wonderful, Cassis. Simply wonderful!” She slipped the notebook from her bag and tried it out. “The lead is a bit hard, though.”
Cassis cleared his throat. “Actually, it is not lead at all,” he grumbled. “It’s a simple planar carbon construction infused with clay for hardness…less clay would make it softer, I suppose, though I daresay it would change the shade.”
Cassis’s stern face went slightly pink, and he grumbled something unintelligible. Then he folded his arms. “Very well, Magemother,” he said, his smile returning. “It shouldn’t be hard to make you a veritable array of these…pencils.” He glanced up at the sun. “It is nearing midday. We had best be off the bridge when the attack comes.”
“I will leave you to it, then,” Brinley said, and Cassis gave her a polite bow.
As soon as they were airborne again, Brinley relaxed. She was looking forward to seeing Habis, and to getting some of her questions answered. She was determined to give the woman a hard time for missing the meeting. No doubt she simply couldn’t bring herself to visit with King Remy. She was a witch, after all, and had spent most of her life fighting against the Paradise kings.
Brinley examined her new pencil again, then wound her hair into a sloppy bun and stuck the pencil through it. She gave a relaxed sigh, feeling more like herself than she had in weeks.
They soared together across the city toward the seventh bridge, which would transport them to the city of Cemlin in Aquilar, which was near the forest of Kokum, where Habis lived. As they neared the bridge, Brinley heard a faint whining sound.
The siren again.
“I hope everything is okay,” Brinley said, wondering if they should go back to investigate.
“Do you want to turn around?” Tabitha asked.
Brinley shook her head. “No. I’m sure they will be fine. None of the monsters seem to have been any trouble for them yet. Anyway, we’ve waited long enough to see Habis. She had better be home.”
***
When they found her, Habis was in her garden shelling peas. Brinley almost did not recognize her at first. The first time Brinley had seen her, Habis had been wearing an eerie cloak of thin, flesh-colored skin. Now a close-fitting set of gray cotton clothes gave her a clean, monk-like appearance.
Tabitha landed on a large stump in the middle of the garden and Brinley dismounted. Tabitha didn’t bother changing back into herself. Instead she started munching on some nearby greenery in the garden.
“Get out of my cabbage, you blasted bird!” Habis shouted. “What kind of swan eats cabbage?”
With a small pop the swan was gone and Tabitha was there, her hands firmly planted on her hips. “I’ll have you know,” she said indignantly, “that swans eat all kinds of greenery, and though we do prefer spinach, we go for cabbage when we have to.” Tabitha blinked, surprised at her own vehemence, and then turned to pick at another cabbage leaf.
“I know that,” Habis said. “I just wanted to see if it was you. Tabitha, they call you, yes? I heard that Brinley picked a young shape-shifter as her herald. Stupid choice, I thought.” She was circling Tabitha now, eyeing her critically from head to toe while Tabitha fidgeted nervously under her gaze.
“Leave my herald alone, Habis,” Brinley said, and the witch turned to her as if she had just noticed Brinley was there.
“My goodness, if it isn’t the Magemother herself! Come to lecture me for missing my meeting with the king, no doubt. Or perhaps she has come to strike another bargain. Well, I won’t have it. Nope. Not again.”
Brinley smiled. She had once crept into Habis’s evil sister’s lair and stolen a ring in exchange for some help. She held up her hands in surrender. “No deals,” she said. “Though it looks like the last one worked out quite well for you.”
Habis glanced around at her garden. The beautiful plants had grown up remarkably fast. They had not been there weeks before, when Brinley had first met the witch. Indeed, the exterior of Habis’s lair was completely changed. There were flowers all around the edge of the garden. There was even a flower pot hanging from a nail in the sheer rock wall where her secret front door was concealed. “Habis,” Brinley said, “I don’t know how secret your secret house is anymore. You might as well hang up a welcome sign.” Brinley was thinking of all the witches who, since Habis had clearly switched sides during the battle at Caraway Castle, would now be eager to see harm come to the woman.
“What?” Habis asked, looking up as she shelled the last of the peas. “Oh, don’t be stupid. I don’t live here anymore. The house is a trap. Take one step inside and you’ll be in a world of hurt.” She smiled deviously. “It seemed a pity to waste this place, so I have been keeping up appearances. I trap a witch a week, on average…” she trailed off regretfully. “Though most of them could hardly be called witches.”
Brinley hid a smile, remembering the rather high opinion that Habis had of herself.
“Would you like to meet one of my prisoners?”
“Prisoners?” Brinley said.
“Dung!” Habis shouted at the top of her voice. “Get over here, Dung, the Magemother’s here with her bird!”
At her shout, a very odd-looking young man came striding around the corner of the rock wall, carrying a bucket in each arm. He was remarkably lanky, as if Habis had somehow plucked a human string bean right out of her garden. He had a face like a mean fish, but beyond that he looked nice enough.
“Wheresa bird?” he asked, looking from Brinley to Tabitha to Habis. “Wheresa bird?”
“Here,” Tabitha said brightly, becoming the swan again.
“Ooh, pretty,” Dung said, reaching out to pet her long black tail feathers. “For dinner?” he asked eagerly.
“Absolutely not,” Tabitha said, returning to her normal form.
Dung jumped back in surprise and glared at Tabitha for a long moment. “Abtholutely not,” he said slowly, as if he had come to the conclusion on his own. He turned and began to empty the buckets into the garden. “Pretty bird,” he muttered to himself. “Abtholutely don’t eat it.”
Habis chuckled. “He used to serve that rotten sister of mine. She came looking for me,” she said, winking conspiratorially. “Unfortunately she had the good sense not to come into the house.” She jabbed a finger at Dung. “She sent him in instead, just to test things out.”
“Looks like he caught the brunt of it,” Tabitha said, still watching the lanky man work.
Habis waved her hand. “He was like that before. I was able to repair the damage done to him by my little trap. Needless to say, he was glad to leave my sister’s employ.”
Brinley gave Habis a skeptical look. “And his name is really Dung?”
“I don’t know,” Habis said. “He couldn’t remember what his name was after my living room hit him, so I started calling him Doug. He can’t pronounce it though…kept getting confused, so I’ve given in to saying it like he does, and he’s much happier now.”
They were interrupted as Dung dropped his buckets and stared up at the tree line behind them. Tabitha laughed at the look on his face, and Brinley almost did the same. He looked not unlike a dog hearing the dinner bell. If he had ears made to perk up, she had no doubt that they would have.
“What is it, Dung?” Habis said, eyes narrowing.
“Baddies comin’ this way.”
“Baddies?” Brinley asked, searching the trees herself now.
“Dung is much like a watchdog,” Habis explained. “Sensing the near future seems to be one of his little gifts—no doubt the reason my sister kept him around for so long.”
“Should we hide?” Tabitha asked, taking a step closer to Brinley.
“No,” Habis said. “His good and bad has been a bit mixed up since his accident. We don’t have to worry unless he tells us friends are coming.”
There was a crash from the tree line and a horse came flying out of it at a full gallop, carrying a soldier.
“Well, he’s in a hurry,” Habis said.
Brinley had never seen a horse move so fast. Horse and rider seemed to blur together as they raced across the field toward them. Both seemed bred for speed. The rider was short and lithe and wore no armor. Apart from the long, narrow, single-handed sword at his side, he carried no
other gear.
“Magemother,” the man said, dismounting smoothly before the horse had come to a stop.
“You are going to kill your horse!” Tabitha said, poking him roughly in the chest as she hurried to the animal. Sure enough, the large black horse was dripping with sweat. His breathing was coming in ragged gasps.
The soldier ignored her. “Magemother,” he said, “I have pursued you since you left the bridge this morning. I am sent to you by Captain Mark with urgent news.”
“What happened?” Brinley asked. “We heard the alarm sound as we passed out of Ninebridge, but we assumed it was the normal daily challenge.”
“It was,” the soldier said. “It was an ogre. Nothing we haven’t seen before. But the first ogre was just a distraction.”
“The first ogre?” Habis said.
The soldier nodded. “Just as we engaged the first, a second came hurtling through the mist. It caught us quite by surprise, I am afraid. We have had a breach.”
“It got through?” Brinley asked, glancing back at the direction the soldier had come, half expecting to see the ogre burst out of the trees.
“Yes,” the soldier said. “And it wasn’t alone. There were two figures on its back. One of them was the March witch. Several of us recognized her from the attack on Caraway Castle.
“And the other?” Habis demanded.
“A man, or a boy, we couldn’t tell. Wrapped in a black cloak.”
“Did they make it out of the city?” Brinley asked.
The soldier nodded. “They are not more than a half an hour behind me. I caught a glimpse of the ogre in the distance. He looks formidable. He must have been, to make it out of Ninebridge alive. I was sent away as soon as he appeared, so I didn’t see it happen.”
“We haven’t a moment to lose,” Habis said. “I take it you were on the bridge before they came out, Brinley?”
“Yes,” Brinley said, thinking of how close it must have been. “Moments before.”
“Then we must assume you are the target.”
They will probably not be fooled,” she added to the soldier, “but it would be good if you get back on your horse and keep riding.”
Magemother: The Complete Series (A Fantasy Adventure Book Series for Kids of All Ages) Page 34