She wondered if this might be a different kind of portal, that instead of walking through an archway, she had to ride a horse—no, race a horse—before she could gain an audience with the gods.
She mounted her horse and immediately it lurched into motion, speeding down the road at a full gallop. She glanced across the road and saw the dark rider bent over his own steed, pressing ahead. They were coming up on the end of the road. The dark rider beat her there and dismounted. He left his horse as she rode up. He walked to a large black tub of water with a familiar, arrogant stride. Who did it remind her of?
The tub was tall and deep and it shone with a clear iridescence, as if it had been hewn out of a single black crystal. He paused at the water, looking confused, then returned to his horse. The veil fell from his face as he mounted, and she gasped. It was Hugo, and yet not Hugo. His features were dark, twisted, as if she were seeing them through a nightmarish lens. She blinked, and she was back at the beginning of the road. They were starting the race over again, and the rider was not Hugo, but the man with the snake’s head.
She lost track of how many times her opponent beat her, how many times he dismounted eagerly, only to puzzle at the tub of water and return to his horse. Sometimes he was Hugo, sometimes he was the snake-man. She tried to win every time; every time, she failed. It was as if her opponents were just faster, stronger.
On the tenth race (or maybe it was twentieth), she felt a sort of rage, a sense of desperation. She had to win. She had to beat him to the pool. She didn’t know why, but she knew that she must do it. She felt something well up inside her, releasing like a spring uncoiling in her gut. The force of it rushed out of her body like an invisible wave, and then into her horse. It was the force of pure will, perhaps, or the need of her heart. She didn’t know, but whatever it was, it worked.
She beat Dark Hugo to the water and dismounted. As soon as she stood before the tub she knew instinctively what she had to do. She wondered why Hugo had not. She placed her cupped hands in the water, filled them, brought them to her lips, and drank.
Flat black steps like slabs of stone rose out of the water and curved around and above her. She climbed the first one, then the second. She fought back a fear of falling as she climbed the third and fourth, for the steps floated freely in the air with nothing around them to hold onto, and nothing between them to prevent her from falling. With each new step they were a little farther apart until on the sixth and seventh, she had to reach up with her arms and let her legs dangle in the air as she pulled herself up. She had to jump to reach the last one.
She was easily twenty feet up now. A fall could seriously injure her, but she pressed on. Need drove her. She knew instinctively what was waiting at the top of the steps. She jumped, slipped, grabbed at the smooth face of the stone, and slid backwards. Hands caught her, pulled her up, set her on her feet. Arms embraced her, held her close.
“Why did it take you so long to come?” a warm voice asked, holding her tightly as she trembled.
She pulled back from him, looked into the face of the god that had created Aberdeen. His eyes were blue; his brown hair sat on a high forehead. His wife stood beside him. She had the same clear blue eyes. She reached out and squeezed Brinley’s shoulder.
“I don’t know,” Brinley said. “I forgot. I don’t know how.”
“It is easy to forget who you are,” he said. “The challenge of life is to live in remembrance.”
She nodded. “I’m sorry. I have questions. I have so many questions. Where are the mages hidden? Where is my father? How can I find them? What is the keyword for the bridge?”
His blue eyes flashed, but he said nothing.
“Tell me what to do,” she begged.
His wife smiled. “That is not the way,” she said. “The answers that you seek are all before you. You will find them when you need them.”
And he said, “What else do you seek?”
She felt her mind go blank. What else was there? After all that, was he really going to tell her nothing? Do nothing for her? She felt a silent anger seize her heart. “What about my dreams?”
“Dreams are there to reveal your own mind to you,” he said, giving her a significant look. “Yours are filled with fear.”
“What am I afraid of?” she asked.
“You fear that you are not enough.” he said, touching her heart. “You fear that your friends will abandon you, as your mother did when you were a child. You fear that you will fail her, and your father.”
His words cut like glass. “That’s not true,” she said. “I know my mother left me because she loved me.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Your mind knows that,” he said. “Your heart does not.”
She glared at him. “You aren’t helping,” she said. “I’m the Magemother. You’re supposed to help me.”
He smiled at her again, his blue eyes reflecting some inner fire that she could not see. “I have given you everything that you need to succeed. What else do you want?” He touched her head with his hand and light fell from it like liquid gold, falling over her, enfolding her with warmth. She closed her eyes, breathing it in, and felt her questions seep out of her like sand. Her mind relaxed. She couldn’t remember why she had been troubled at all. Everything was just as it should be.
She opened her eyes, took a step, and was back in the throne room. Her mind fell over the things that she had seen, the things that she had heard. She wasn’t sure she had really learned anything useful, but she did feel better. If nothing else, it was a relief that the gods were not as worried as she was. They didn’t seem worried at all, in fact.
There was something else that was bothering her: she knew she would not be able to hold on to the peace that lingered in her now. Her fears, her worries, they would return soon, as they always did.
She kicked a stone, and it skidded across the hard floor. She picked it up, thinking that it was an odd place for a stone to be. It was smooth, black, perfectly round, and flat. It fit perfectly into the palm of her hand. It was solid, warm. It reminded her of the way the gods had made her feel. Solid. Warm. Fearless. She put it in her pocket. Maybe carrying a reminder would help.
She found Tabitha looking for her in the entrance hall. She met the other girl at the front doors. “Oh, there you are. Are we done?” Tabitha said. “Where are we going next?”
“To search,” Brinley said.
“For Unda’s lake?” Tabitha asked. She grinned excitedly, absently turning one shoulder into a wing momentarily; she was ready to be a bird again.
“For Unda’s lake.”
***
Later, on the shore of the sixteenth lake that they had checked that day, Brinley was crouched on a flat rock that jutted out over the water, comparing her drawing to the view before her. Tabitha stood behind her, changing out of the swan shape and into her own.
Brinley sighed, letting the notebook drop to the ground. “This isn’t it either,” she said.
“But it is a very lovely lake, isn’t it?” the other girl said pleasantly. She held up her hand to block the sun, which was low in the western sky. “And it is such a hot day. Come and put your feet in the water.”
“No,” Brinley said. “We can do a couple more before the sun goes down. Let’s go.”
Tabitha shook her head and sat down. “I’m tired,” she said. “I’ve been flying all day, you know.” She rubbed her arms. “I think they need a break.”
Brinley put a hand to her head and sat down beside Tabitha at the water’s edge. “Oh, geez. I forgot! I’m sorry, Tabitha.” She was glad for the rest herself, and she knew the water was going to feel good on her feet. She took her boots off, then laid her socks out on the rock and dipped her toes in the water; it was ice cold, in a refreshing sort of way.
“What else have you got in here?” Tabitha asked, picking up the notebook and thumbing through it.
“Nothing,” Brinley said, lunging for it, but Tabitha held it out of reach. “Brinley, it’s beautiful,” she
said, staring in awe at a page. “It’s me!”
Brinley had drawn a quick portrait of Tabitha one night, just to experiment, and it hadn’t turned out too badly, but she didn’t know about beautiful.
“Ooh ooh,” Tabitha cooed eagerly, handing the book back. “Do another one!” She struck a ridiculous pose and fluttered her eyes in what Brinley guessed was supposed to be an alluring fashion.
Brinley laughed and began to draw. A few minutes later she handed the completed sketch to Tabitha, who shrieked and dropped it. “You gave me antlers! And a mane!” She put a hand to the top of her head and grinned. “Actually, I look pretty good in antlers. Brinley, can you give me feathers?”
After feathering Tabitha, Brinley drew Cassis, then Belterras, then Animus, and then the world came crashing back down on her as she began to sketch Unda. She had forgotten her worries as she played with Tabitha.
She drew Unda from memory, but made him older. When she finished, there was something in his eyes that she had not intended to put there. Worry, she thought, and before she closed the book she wondered if the worry belonged to him, or if some of her own had leaked out onto the page.
“Tabitha?” she said, looking up.
Tabitha was fishing in the pockets of her coat for something. Finally, she drew out a small paper bag filled with tiny cut-up apple pieces. They were so old now that they were brown and nearly dry, but Tabitha didn’t seem to mind. She popped one in her mouth and threw several others into the lake.
Brinley sighed. Tabitha had done this at every single lake, claiming that it was the best way to test for sea dragons. “I don’t think there are any here,” Brinley said patiently, but Tabitha waved her into silence.
“You never know what you will find in a lake,” she said. “There are sea dragons here somewhere. There have to be! Belsie said a whole family of them came up the river from the sea and were never heard from again!” She plopped back down beside Brinley and dropped her feet in the water, then slipped into the lake.
“Tabitha, you’ll freeze!” Brinley said.
Tabitha shrugged. “I doubt it,” she said. She twisted in the water and vanished. In the space where she had been, a tiny minnow leapt twice above the water. Brinley stretched and crossed her legs, settling down on the warm rock to watch the minnow swim. The water was clear, and she could track its movements from a surprising distance. It moved to and fro, darting under rocks, exploring, then diving into the depths of the lake. It returned after a few minutes and began to circle lazily.
Brinley stretched out on the warm rock and rested her head in her hands. She wondered what it would be like to have that kind of power. If she could be a fish or a bird, she would disappear for a week just to think. Well, maybe when she was younger she would have done that. Now she had too many responsibilities to disappear. She thought of her mother, trapped in the naptrap, and of her father, trapped who knew where. She thought of Shael and his dark forest and his monsters and his malice, and how they threatened to pour over a bridge into her world.
Finally, she let her worries slip away and watched the fish. It swam with a perfect, relaxed rhythm. Left, right, left, right, left. She watched it for a long time, longer than she realized, and drifted off to sleep in the rays of the setting sun.
Brinley woke in the little bedroom of Habis’s invisible house and couldn’t remember how she had gotten there. “Tabitha?” she called, and jumped out of bed to check the room next door. She wasn’t in there.
“Tabitha?” she called, walking down the hallway. The door to Habis’s storage room was open. She thought she heard a faint tinkling sound coming from within. She entered it, walked past the rows and rows of jars and boxes and books, looking for the source of the noise. Finally, she found it and stopped in her tracks. In the very center of the massive room there was a veritable mountain of naptraps: tiny crystal bottles stacked ten feet high in the shape of a giant pyramid. There were thousands of them.
“Gotcha,” a voice whispered in her ear, and she screamed.
She felt a hand brush her pocket and turned to see Hugo backing away from her. There was a wicked grin on his strange, darkened face, and in his hand he held her mother’s naptrap.
“No!” Brinley cried, feeling in her pocket for the naptrap, but sure enough, it was gone. He had stolen it.
Hugo laughed and tossed it over his shoulder so that it landed on the pyramid. She thought maybe, just maybe, she might find it. She had seen where it had landed.
Then Hugo gave a high, cold laugh and kicked the pyramid. It toppled over, falling into itself and flowing across the floor in a cacophony of shattering glass.
“NO!” Brinley screamed. “NO! MOTHER!”
The stream of crystal vials grew, forming into a wave. It chased her across the floor. She searched for the door, but couldn’t find it. The wave swallowed shelf after shelf as it chased her. Finally, when there was no place else to run, it swallowed her too, and sunlight blinded her.
She blinked and held her hand up to block the sun. She was standing on the bridge to the Wizard’s Ire. Cassis was there, along with Animus, Archibald, and Cannon. They were all staring at her gravely. Archibald looked sad.
“We’ve figured it out,” Cassis said. “We know why the bridge is failing.”
Cannon gave her a disgusted look. “It’s you,” he said. “The Magemother is in charge of these things.”
“No,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”
Archibald placed a hand on her shoulder. He looked sad. “I’m afraid it is all your fault, my dear,” he said. He looked at the others. “We shouldn’t blame her. Not everyone is cut out to be a good Magemother.”
Animus nodded. “True, true,” he said. “Nothing she can do about that. Just a bad egg. A pity she is not more like her mother.”
Tears were rolling down Brinley’s face. “I’m sorry!” she said. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I didn’t know.” She squeezed her eyes tightly against the disappointment in their faces, and when she opened them again she was in Cornith.
The king’s city was empty, covered in a blanket of winter snow. She shivered, wishing that she had a coat, and then found that she had one on. That was nice. But what was she doing here? She couldn’t remember. She shrugged it off, walking towards the castle. There would be warm fires there. She could stay up all night talking with Hugo and Tabitha and they could get hot chocolate in the kitchen.
She stopped as a faint sound reached her ears. She turned, looking for the source, but heard only the soft, feathery sound of snowflakes landing on the ground with a whisper. She took another few steps to the castle and heard it again, more clearly this time.
Whimpering.
Who on earth would be out at this hour? She followed the noise and stopped in an alley between two tall buildings. The whimpering came again, directly below her, filtering faintly through the piled snow. She dropped to her hands and knees and dug at the snow until she hit the cold, hard stone of the street. Her hands moved, searching, digging, until they hit metal. In another minute she had dug out a drain grate. A dark, frostbitten hand slid through the grate slowly and wrapped itself around the cold metal. A face peered out at her, pale, sickly.
“Maggie,” Brinley whispered. “What are you doing down there?”
“It’s the only place I could find,” she said. “My shed burned down. I couldn’t build another.” A tear pooled in one eye and she raised her hands. “The season was over. I couldn’t make any money.” She squinted, and then her face changed in sudden recognition. “Magemother, I thought you cared. Why did you leave me? I don’t have anyone.”
“I know,” Brinley said, bending over to tug on the grate. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m here now.” She tugged on the grate again but it would not budge.
Maggie shook her head. “It’s too late,” she said. “I died.” As she said it, the life went out of her body and she fell onto the frozen floor of the sewer hole.
Brinley stared at her motionless form in di
sbelief, and then it changed. Maggie’s worn face changed into the flat, calculating face of a snake, its beady eyes glowing with life. The man with the head of a snake shifted in Maggie’s empty grave and lunged for her. “Let me in,” he cried.
Brinley woke. The sun was nearly down now. There was a miniature yellow songbird perched on her hand. The tiny minnow that was Tabitha swam in a small circle in the water next to her. Brinley felt herself relax. It was just a dream, she told herself. Just a dream, like the others. She closed her eyes, willing the image of Maggie in the frozen sewer to leave her mind, but it wouldn’t. She had to do something.
Brinley’s eyes shot open again. There was a bird on her hand! She jumped in surprise, sending the little bird fluttering, but it righted itself with a few quick beats of its wings and returned to her wrist, where she stared at it warily. “Tabitha?” she said. But the bird simply cocked its head and ruffled its feathers impatiently. “Uh, Tabitha,” Brinley called, glancing at the minnow in the water. “I need you.” The minnow didn’t respond. Holding the bird carefully on her hand, Brinley cast about for a stone or something to kick into the water.
She felt a rush of air on her shoulder and glanced up to see a large bird gliding toward the water. It was very large, with a deep, round bill like a pelican, and it was…hunting.
“Oh, no!” she said aloud. “Don’t!”
But it was too late. The bird snatched Tabitha from the water and circled away. Then several things happened at once: the minnow grew and the bird slipped in the air and Tabitha was hanging onto the bird’s legs with both hands, at which point the bird gave a startled squawk and fell out of the sky.
Tabitha rolled on the soft grass as she landed.
Magemother: The Complete Series (A Fantasy Adventure Book Series for Kids of All Ages) Page 41