“Right,” Cannon said, hiding a half-smile. “Well, first is the Slugbear.”
“Oh, yeah,” Hugo said. “Giant bear. Lives in a swamp, right?”
Cannon nodded. “And it eats you, of course.”
“Of course.” Hugo had remembered the second one now. “And the Hoarfrost Forest,” he said.
“Yes. It’s supposed to be a particularly nasty place. A grove of perpetually frozen trees. You wander into them and freeze so fast that you can’t get out before you die…Though why you would go strolling through a bunch of frozen trees in the first place escapes me.”
Hugo shrugged. “Maybe you’re looking for a nice place to picnic? Very pretty, probably. That’ll be the one that gets the girls.”
Cannon chuckled. “Number three is the Janrax.” He didn’t say anything else, and he didn’t need to. Everyone knew what the Janrax was. The shape-shifter. Probably the scariest creature in the whole world—apart from Shael—since it could be standing right in front of your face at any moment and you wouldn’t know. The Janrax could take any shape, it was said, and if it wanted you dead, that’s when your life came to an end.
“I hope we don’t meet that,” Hugo said darkly.
Cannon nodded. “Could just be a myth.”
Hugo frowned. “Not with our luck,” he said. There were too many rumors, too many myths and accusations for all of them to be false. In the old days, they said the Janrax would impersonate people. It would appear to you after your brother died, looking just like your brother, until you went mad from fright. Or it would appear as the king in a meeting and create some terrible new law. The Janrax lived to create chaos, large and small…But that was before it was locked away in the Ire. The mages had trapped it long ago, it was said. No one had seen it since.
“Number four, though,” Cannon said. “The Sea King. He’s just a myth for sure.”
“I don’t remember much about him,” Hugo said.
Cannon waved a hand. “Crazy stuff. They say the great North Sea flows right out of the night sky to touch the northern border of the Ire, far beyond the edge of the map. They say a creature lives on the shore, half in the water, half out, and half god, no doubt. He has the head and arms of a goat and the body of a fish, but he speaks the language of men.”
Hugo laughed. “That’s right. I remember him now. You go crazy if you set eyes on him or something like that.”
“He tells you your future,” Cannon said. “That’s what makes you go crazy.”
Hugo stopped smiling.
“Oh,” Cannon said. “I didn’t mean…”
“What?” Hugo said. “That I’ll go crazy?” He gave Cannon a sharp look and then shrugged. “It’s okay. You’re probably right. I don’t think we need to worry about this Sea King, though. My future’s probably the same as every other Mage of Light and Darkness. You know, madness, death, and all that. Can’t imagine that hearing it from a crazy goat-fish would make it any worse.”
“See?” Cannon laughed. “That’s the spirit.”
They walked for a few minutes in silence, then Cannon clamped a hand over his nose and glared at Hugo. “Ugh! Wow!”
“It wasn’t me,” Hugo said, raising his hands innocently.
They rounded a corner and Cannon stopped short, ducking down to study the dirt. “Looks like the same tracks again. More of them this time.”
“It’s the Slugbear,” Hugo said.
Cannon bent lower over the tracks. “Hmm.” He waved at the air around his nose absently. “Phew, wow, that’s bad.”
“It’s the Slugbear,” Hugo said again, more quietly this time.
Cannon matched his quiet tone, eyes still intent on the tracks. “I don’t think you can blame that on the Slugbear, Hugo.”
“How much you want to bet?” Hugo tapped Cannon on the shoulder, careful not to take his eyes off the creature that was watching them.
Cannon looked up, and when he followed Hugo’s eyes, he leapt to his feet. “Ah,” he said, voice straining. “Okay. Maybe it is the Slugbear.”
The ground before them sloped sharply into a murky bog. It looked like a long valley filled with rotten egg soup, and it smelled like it too. In the center of the bog, a large, gangly creature, covered in fur and mud, was leering at them. It looked vaguely like a squirrel, Hugo thought, but was sized more like a grizzly bear. It made no noise. It didn’t move, either. It just sat there, staring. But that was threatening enough, in Hugo’s opinion. He could sense what would happen if they ventured into the bog. The creature had razor sharp claws and fangs that protruded slightly from its closed mouth. Its long, bushy tail was laced with thick, spike-like hair.
“Well,” Cannon said, “good thing we’re mages, eh? Meet you on the other side.” Cannon leapt into the air the way Hugo had seen him do numerous times now…and fell face first into the bog. He surfaced, spitting bog mush and cursing. If Cannon hadn’t been in danger, Hugo would have loved to sit back and laugh for a while, but as it was, the Slugbear was speeding toward his friend.
“Oy!” Hugo shouted, dropping to the ground and reaching for Cannon. He caught him by the arm and pulled him quickly onto firm ground again, just in time to avoid being lunch.
“Agh, ouch, Hugo,” Canon spluttered, wiping the gunk out of his eyes. When he could open them again he gave a yelp and jumped back. The Slugbear was wading back and forth right in front of them, sniffing the edge of the ground.
“He’s fast,” Hugo said. “Very fast.” He’d never seen an animal move like that before.
“So I see,” Cannon muttered, squinting at the bog to judge the distance the Slugbear had covered. “Must be magic.”
“Nice belly flop.”
Cannon scowled. “An accident,” he snapped. “You distracted me.”
“Okay,” Hugo said. “Try again, then.”
Cannon nodded, then jumped into the air, this time sideways instead of out over the bog. He landed a few feet away. “I don’t understand it,” he said. He lifted his arms and twirled them around, but nothing happened. “It’s like it’s gone.” Hugo could hear the panic in his voice. “Just gone!”
“Why, though?” Hugo said. “Is it the Ire?”
“Could be,” Cannon said. “Could be that my magic just doesn’t work here. It happens sometimes. I’m not a mage, you know, and in some very magical places, lesser magic can malfunction. You try.”
Hugo closed his eyes. It seemed like ages since he had moved in the light, but he thought he could remember how. He opened his eyes and looked down at their shadows. They were standing close enough together that their shadows touched. Hugo slipped out of himself, into his shadow, then into Cannon’s, then emerged, standing on the other side of his friend.
Cannon turned. “I guess yours still works,” he said bitterly. “Typical.”
“What’s the plan now?” Hugo asked. They turned back to the bog to find the Slugbear staring up at them. The beast backed away slowly, putting more distance between them. “Why doesn’t he come out?”
“He can move like lightning in there,” Cannon said. “Faster than a slug, that’s for sure. Maybe he’s really slow on dry ground. That would explain the name.”
Hugo nodded. “I’m going to try and get across. I’ll take you with me.”
“No, thanks,” Cannon said. “I’ve already tried that light-traveling thing, remember? Didn’t care for it.”
“What choice do we have?” Hugo said. “We have to at least try.”
“Fine.”
“Give me a second,” Hugo said. Then he focused his thoughts inward.
You will not come out tonight, he told Molad. He built a prison in his mind. He built it out of need and will and determination. He built an iron floor out of his iron will, fixed and determined to remain in control. He built an impenetrable roof out of the truth of who he was, good and loving and decent. He fashioned bars out of his brightest memories: learning secrets in the castle library as a boy, meeting Brinley for the first time, being called as th
e Mage of Light and Darkness, and his only memory of his mother (that one may have just been a dream). He built bars instead of walls because he was not sure, truly, if it was right to build a prison at all.
You will not come out tonight, he whispered again, ignoring the feeling of betrayal that was emanating from Molad. If they were going to do this, Hugo was determined not to accidentally let Molad loose halfway through and ruin the whole thing.
I will, Molad whispered out of the cell.
No, he said, setting his jaw firmly. Not here. Not in this place.
“Ready?” Cannon said.
“Ready.”
Cannon gripped Hugo’s arm, and he shifted into shadow, speeding around the edge of the bog. He was hoping to skirt it quickly instead of going through it at all, but there was no end in sight.
Magic, he thought, an enchanted bog. He glanced into it and saw the Slugbear keeping pace with him. He dropped out of shadow and stood on the bank, thinking.
Cannon reeled at his side, clutching at his gut, moaning. “Did we make it?”
“No,” Hugo said, and he grabbed Cannon’s arm again, slipping back into the shadows. This time he moved right out over the bog. Instead of trying to speed across it in one step, he oozed over it like a night shadow. Somewhere, beneath him, in the physical world that he had left, the Slugbear twisted and struck out at him with its bushy, spiked tail. Somehow it caught Hugo right in the chest and he tumbled out of thin air and into the bog.
This was not good. Cannon made a gurgling noise, half submerged in the stinking mud beside him. Something bristly brushed his leg, but he couldn’t see it. Then the Slugbear’s gaping mouth opened out of the murk in front of his face and lunged for him. Hugo slipped into the shadows again, but he did so alone. He looked on, helpless, as the Slugbear latched onto Cannon and started dragging him towards the opposite shore.
His friend’s screams lit the night, and Hugo didn’t know what to do.
I can help, Molad’s voice whispered, but Hugo ignored it. He moved, slipping through darkness, becoming a part of it. He followed the Slugbear, watched as it dragged Cannon, still screaming, onto the shore.
Hugo slipped out of the shadows and drew his sword. The bushy tail slammed across his body, tossing his sword from his hand and throwing him against the ground. He blinked up at the beast in surprise and it opened its mouth, revealing a long line of pale incisors.
To his surprise, it did not eat him. It merely breathed in his face.
Odd, he thought, and then he felt his body go limp. He could still see, still breathe, but he could not move. The beast lifted him, set him on its back, and carried him to a nearby den. It was little more than a hole dug out under a rock outcropping. There were faint sounds coming out of it. Scuffling, whining. A pale nose poked out of the hole, then another, and another, and Hugo realized suddenly that he was about to be the guest of honor at a family dinner.
He panicked then, and his fear unlocked the prison in his mind. Molad slipped out of it, and then forced Hugo in. He found himself helpless, locked in a prison of his own making.
Molad breathed deeply, inhaling the darkness from the shadows around him. He held his breath, forcing the darkness into his blood. He waited as the blood was purified, cleared of the toxin from the Slugbear’s breath, and then rose to his feet. The great beast growled at him, reaching out with a clawed hand, but the hand never touched him. The beast froze in fear, seeing nothing but darkness, feeling at once every fear that had plagued its life of hunting and digging and swimming in the bog. It screamed and scrambled blindly for its hole, its children.
Molad laughed at the Slugbear’s fear, glorying in his power to scare such a beast, then turned and laid his eyes on Cannon. The Wind Mage’s apprentice was lying on the ground, clutching his arm where the Slugbear had been pulling him, eyeing Molad contemptuously.
“Hello again, Mr. Poopy Pants,” he said. “What are you going to do now?”
Molad was impressed by the lack of fear in his voice. There was nothing of panic either, or despair. Just contempt. Hatred. He could respect that. He picked the other man up without a word, slung him over his shoulder, and walked into the woods.
When he found a suitable spot, he set the apprentice down and began gathering wood. The wood came to him out of the darkness, old branches and deadwood, carried by the shadows. Then he did something he did not mean to do. He reached out and touched the pile of wood with light. Pure light, a tiny sunbeam from one finger. It set the wood ablaze. He shook his head in confusion. Why had he done that? He looked at Cannon. Why had he carried him all the way here? What was wrong with him?
“Hugo?” Cannon said tentatively, searching his face.
Molad’s face split in a slow grin. No. He was not Hugo. The apprentice raised a thick branch with his good hand, more quickly than Molad had expected, and cracked him on the side of the head.
***
Hugo woke to another splitting headache. He groaned.
“Ah, you’re back.” Cannon said. “Sorry about the head. It is you, Hugo, isn’t it?”
Hugo opened his eyes to see Cannon sitting over him, a thick branch held high, ready to strike. Strike again, he realized. “Yes!” he croaked. “Yes! It’s me.” He rolled into a sitting position, rubbing his head again. “Did you hit me with that thing?”
“I didn’t like the way you were looking at me,” Cannon said, tossing the branch onto the fire. “Though I have to say, it was thoughtful of you to carry me here and build this fire before you decided to kill me.”
“Yeah,” Hugo said. “Yeah! You know, I think I was controlling him a bit this time.”
“Wonderful,” Cannon said with a snort. “That just puts me right at ease.”
They stared into the fire for a while. It felt good as the fire dried away the damp and cold of the bog. Cannon obviously needed a bit of a rest. He ripped a strip from his shirt and bandaged his shoulder. Hugo’s stomach grumbled.
“Got anything to eat?” he said hopefully.
“Nope. Didn’t think to pack a lunch in the middle of the night.”
Hugo nodded. “Right. You know, you never did tell me the whole story about how we got to the Ire.”
“Very well,” Cannon said. “I’ve got nothing better to do, I suppose.”
When Cannon had finished, Hugo asked the question that had been nagging at the back of his mind. “Why did you do it? Why did you follow me?”
“Oh, that,” Cannon said. “Well, you know. I left you on the road the other day and you got into trouble. I was supposed to be with you, you know…”
“Cannon,” Hugo said, touching his chest dramatically, “I didn’t know you cared so much.”
“Ha!” Cannon barked. “More like I don’t want to get in trouble with Animus again. He doesn’t like it when you’re in danger, and you obviously can’t take care of yourself.”
“Right,” Hugo said. He glanced at Cannon’s injured arm, then out into the black, menacing expanse of trees. “Well, at least we’re not in any danger.”
“Right,” Cannon said, grinning weakly.
Hugo mulled Cannon’s story over in his mind, wondering what Molad had been up to. Why he had brought them here. Was it really to get the sword? Was Molad helping them? He found it hard to believe. He squinted at Cannon thoughtfully, poking the fire with a stray stick.
“Cannon, what was I doing in Brinley’s room?” he asked, trying to remember. “Why didn’t I just go out my own window?”
Cannon propped himself up on his good arm, frowning. “Good question. You don’t remember anything?”
Hugo shook his head.
Cannon closed his eyes, thinking back. “Well, when I came in, you were already by the window. Tabitha was talking to you, Brinley was sitting up in bed.” He pursed his lips. “What else? The room was empty otherwise, except for Tabitha’s boots. Those were on the floor by the bed. And the Magemother’s bag. It was on the bed.” His eyes snapped open. “Hugo, what does she keep in that bag
?”
Hugo’s eyes went wide. He had a sudden sinking feeling in his gut. He had done something bad. Very bad. He just couldn’t remember what.
“Check your pockets,” Cannon said.
Hugo did. He had patted them on the bridge, but he’d been looking for a heavy medallion. He found it in the right front pocket of his pants and pulled it out. The small crystal vial flashed in the firelight.
“The naptrap,” Cannon whispered.
Hugo groaned. That’s what Molad had been doing. They had brought the Magemother into the Wizard’s Ire. “How could I have been so stupid?”
“Just poor breeding, I suppose,” a deep voice said behind them. “The Paradise kings have always been a bit dim.”
Hugo shoved the naptrap back into his pocket and spun around to discover the source of the voice. To his horror, a group of soldiers stood there. At least, he assumed they were soldiers. They were not the kind of soldiers he was used to seeing, clean cut and dressed in polished suits of armor with bright weapons. These men, if they were indeed men, were the exact opposite. Their clothing was the color of mud, their hair was long, their faces were bearded, and they were covered in sweat and grime. Hugo was amazed that he had not smelled them coming. They were big, too, bigger than most men Hugo had seen, and they carried an array of weapons—axes, clubs, bows, hammers, but not a sword among them, except for the one their leader was carrying. It was huge, and it had a hilt like a dragon’s spike.
“Hugo,” their leader said, pointing at him with his sword. His face looked like it might have been carved from stone, the features hacked into it with a dull blade. “It was very kind of you to join us here. It would have been terribly difficult to force you here. My master has sent me to collect you.” His voice was firm, as if daring anyone to contradict him. This was a man that was used to being obeyed.
“Gadjihalt,” Hugo said, resting his hand on the hilt of his own sword nervously. He couldn’t tell how old the man was. His face looked old, but it might just be the scars. He moved slowly, carefully, but it was hard to say whether that was due to creaking joints or a warrior’s self-awareness.
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