Magemother: The Complete Series (A Fantasy Adventure Book Series for Kids of All Ages)

by Austin J. Bailey

  “But how did your father survive in such a place?” Unda asked. “Can a person live inside a void? Would he not just be turned to nothing?”

  “A dark and lonely place,” the Swelter Cat said. “No food or light, just space. Minds are torn, thoughts die as they’re born, and all sense of self is gone. Whatever’s left just drifts along.”

  No one spoke after that for a long while. Each time they passed another one of the hatches, Brinley tried not to look at it or think of what horrors her father had experienced beneath it.

  After a few minutes, the Swelter Cat stopped.

  Ahead of them, the ground appeared to be broken up by a series of crevasses. Deep fissures in the ground where the golden floor of Inveress turned to black and led downward.

  “What’s on the other side?” Brinley asked, peering down.

  “Fountains,” Unda said.

  “We have come to a challenge, the first of three,” the Swelter Cat began. “The Laughing Cracks are what you see.”

  Brinley eyed them suspiciously. “Laughing Cracks? What do they do?”

  The Swelter Cat pushed her question away with a flick of his tail. “Ignore what you see, and follow your feet. The cracks will show what you don’t want to meet.”

  “What we don’t want to meet?” Brinley asked.

  “Our fears, no doubt,” Archibald said, straightening his hat. He moved in front of them to follow the Swelter Cat. Brinley went after him, and Lignumis and Unda brought up the rear. Their path narrowed more and more as the fissures on either side widened, and soon they were forced to walk in a single-file line through what looked like a network of stone catwalks suspended over a series of deep, canyon-like pits. Occasionally the path would take an odd, sharp angle, and they would find themselves moving in an entirely different direction. To Brinley, it was an incomprehensible maze; she was grateful that the Swelter Cat was with them. He moved from path to path without hesitation, as if there were clear signs that only he could see.

  Several times, the path before them completely disappeared and they had to jump over empty space to reach solid ground again. All the while, the canyons became deeper and deeper. An hour after they had begun, each one was like a black hole, vast and empty. Brinley tried not to stare into them, but she could hardly help it. Presently, the strip of stone she was walking on became so narrow that she couldn’t stand with her feet side by side. It was like walking on a balance beam that stretched across empty space. Just when she thought it couldn’t get any worse, she heard a distant, throaty chuckle from somewhere below. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up.

  “Here we go,” Unda said resignedly from somewhere behind her.

  “What’s down there?” Brinley called to the Swelter Cat.

  “Crack-specters,” the Swelter Cat called back cheerfully. “Dream-jesters. Dead laughing mage-pesters!”

  “Mage-pesters?” Brinley said.

  “He’s reaching now,” Unda muttered behind her.

  “Just what do these specters do?” Archibald said. The path had widened slightly, but he was still walking with his hat in one hand, cane in the other, and both hands spread wide for balance.

  It wasn’t long before his question was answered. Far below them, Brinley saw a giant, flat face appear in the darkness. She tried not to look at it, afraid that she would lose her balance, but it was no use. The face was as large as a house. She couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman, but it had a mop of shaggy brown hair, and it was smiling at her greedily.

  “Archibald,” she said nervously.

  “I see it,” he said. “Just keep walking.”

  A moment later the creature’s giant mouth opened and he let out a peal of laughter that made her knees shake. She turned sideways and crouched to the ground, squatting into a ball and placing her hands on the ground to regain her balance, then glanced at the creature again just in time to see him lifting his arms. She thought that it was reaching for her, but soon realized that it was releasing something into the air—a strange, floating, fluffy thing that it had been holding out of sight. The shape drifted up to her like a dark cloud, and as soon as it came close, she saw that it contained an image.

  It was a bird—a magpie. It was her mother. The poor thing was barely able to keep airborne, and then she was falling, pelting toward the earth. She crashed with a crunch, and Brinley knew that she was dead.

  “No,” she whispered, trying to remind herself that it wasn’t real.

  “Don’t look at it,” Unda called from behind her.

  She risked a glance back and saw two similar clouds on either side of Unda, showing him things that she couldn’t see. There were more faces beneath them, more arms lifting and releasing clouds. Each cloud delivered its little nightmare and then dissipated into the air, so that before long a thick mist hung about them like a chill specter of their own fear.

  Brinley put her head down and tried to focus on her feet. The path that they followed had become particularly confusing now, with tiny side routes blossoming every few steps. Between that and the mist, she was having difficulty following Archibald and the Swelter Cat.

  Suddenly, she came to a crossroads. The ground branched left, right, and continued straight on, but she could only see a few feet through the mist and the others were gone.

  “Archibald!” she called. “Tobias!”

  A second later, she heard Tobias begin to hum somewhere directly in front of her. Archibald’s voice came out of the mist as well, even closer to her.

  “Excellent idea, Tobias,” he said. “That is very helpful.”

  Brinley followed Tobias’s humming through the misty tangle of ridges without too much difficulty, making sure that she never went too fast for Unda to keep up. At one intersection, she thought she could hear two voices humming instead of one—one from the right path and one from the left—but then the second voice disappeared. Perhaps she had imagined it.

  A moment later a strange noise met her ears. It sounded vaguely like a drum, but she couldn’t quite place it.

  She looked up and saw armies marching over the bridge from the Wizard’s Ire. Rank after rank of black, twisted shapes poured into Aberdeen, with Gadjihalt at their head. She was there too, standing alone in the field below the bridge, with the Panthion lying open at her feet. Two figures rose out of it, both of them pitch black, shimmering with the darkness that they had let into their souls. Shael on one side, Molad on the other. Hugo had not survived.

  She shivered and dropped her gaze, refusing to believe it.

  “They’re just meant to scare us,” she said aloud.

  “That’s the spirit!” Archibald said. His voice sounded small, oddly distant. Behind her, Unda gasped.

  She turned and found him leaning precariously into the gorge, peering at an image in one of his clouds—rivers and oceans drying up, and what looked like the people of an underwater civilization all screaming his name. She grabbed his coat and pulled him back, and he gave a small shout of surprise. He leaned so far to compensate that he nearly pushed Brinley into the crevasse.

  “Oh, sorry! Thank you,” he said. “Nearly lost myself, didn’t I?”

  “No problem,” Brinley said shakily.

  Brinley placed his hands firmly on her shoulders, and he kept them there until the strip of ground beneath them had widened. The mist began to dissipate a moment later, and soon they were stepping away from the edge of the last crevasse, the sound of laughter fading into a memory behind them.

  “Phew,” Unda said. “I, for one, am grateful that is over.”

  Brinley nodded her agreement.

  “I saw all the water drying up, and all the water creatures dying. And I saw you getting attacked, Magemother, and armies coming over the bridge from the Ire.”

  “I saw the armies too,” she said. “And my mother dying.” Brinley felt relieved to talk about it, as if voicing the nightmares made them somehow less real.

  “What did you see, Lignumis?” Unda said, his voice suddenly sh
arp. He turned to look behind him, but Lignumis was nowhere to be seen. “Lignumis?” he called.

  At the same moment, Brinley called, “Archibald?”

  “What happened to them?” Unda said, rounding on the Swelter Cat.

  The Swelter Cat shrugged. “Wandering lost, I do not doubt. If they keep their heads, they may yet get out.”

  “Archibald! Lignumis!” Brinley cried, running back to the edge of the cracks. She could see only mist. She listened for a long minute, but no sound came back.

  They were gone.

  Chapter Six

  In which Hugo has lunch with an evil sorcerer

  “Hugo,” a voice said. It was the voice that had been calling to him since he arrived in the Panthion—low, gentle, and strangely persuasive, and it was even more powerful in person. Hugo braced himself for an attack from Molad, but it never came.

  He kept his eyes shut tight, even under the blindfold, waiting. Surely in this moment, here in the presence of Shael himself, Molad would break free. But he made no move to.

  A warm hand brushed his hair, and Hugo flinched. A single finger lifted the blindfold from his head.

  A man in tight-fitting black clothing was holding the handkerchief and smiling warmly.

  “Hugo, it’s good of you to finally arrive,” he said. “I was beginning to worry that I would have to come looking for you.”

  Hugo felt his jaw slacken. There was something about this man that was…relaxing. Could this be Shael? Could this be the man that had killed mages and tried to overthrow the world? He hardly looked evil. He was supposed to be ancient, but he was barely middle-aged. His head was bald, but his beard was still jet black. His eyes were cold, the color of metal, but in that moment they seemed bright and welcoming. He held out his hand.

  “Hugo, Mage of Light and Darkness, I am Shael. Welcome to my humble house.”

  Hugo didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing. After a moment, Shael raised an eyebrow, folded Hugo’s handkerchief in half, and put it in his pocket.

  “You will not be needing this,” he said.

  “I won’t?” Hugo asked, finding his voice.

  Shael shook his head. “I can sense that you are surprised to find yourself still possessed of your faculties. You thought that your darkness would overpower you in my presence?”

  Hugo nodded.

  “And yet he has not. You see, everything is not as you had imagined. I think that once you get to know me you will realize that I can be of great assistance to you. I want to help you, Hugo. I don’t want to see your mind destroyed. I need you whole.”

  There it was.

  “For what?” Hugo asked, bracing himself. Shael was certainly not what he had been expecting. Still, he was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Nice or not, Shael couldn’t be trusted. He wished that he had his sword.

  “Ah!” Shael snapped his fingers, reached behind him, and pulled Hugo’s sword out of thin air. “You want this, don’t you? Take it.” He flipped the sword around and handed it hilt first to Hugo. “Consider it a gesture of good faith.”

  Hugo stared at the sword for a moment. It couldn’t actually be his sword, could it? Gadjihalt had his sword. This one had to be some sort of fabrication. Still, it looked real. He reached out tentatively and grasped the hilt. The moment he did so, he had the undeniable urge to run Shael through with it.

  Shael raised an eyebrow. “Of course, killing me right now would be impossible. Not to mention rude.”

  Hugo didn’t move, and for a moment they stood there, holding opposite ends of the sword. “I suppose,” Hugo said slowly, “that you could kill me with a glance or something.”

  Shael shrugged modestly. “Let’s not find out.”

  “Right,” Hugo said. He swiveled the sword slowly and slipped it into the scabbard that he still wore at his side.

  Shael took a step toward the center of the room and clapped his hands. Servants entered and placed a small table and two chairs on the tiles in front of the throne. Others came in with wine and platters of bread, cheese, and fruit.

  “Sit with me,” Shael said. “We have much to discuss.”

  Hugo eyed the table cautiously but remained standing.

  “It’s not poisoned,” Shael said with a laugh. He sat down and picked up a piece of bread. “Do you truly not understand why you came here?”

  Hugo considered him a moment and then sat. “Why you brought me here, you mean.”

  Shael held up a finger. “I invited you, to be sure, but you chose to come. Or at least a part of you did. I did not have the power to force you, nor would I choose to do so.”

  “Right,” Hugo said, stabbing a piece of cheese with his fork and taking a bite. He had forgotten how hungry he was. It tasted wonderful.

  “I brought you here to tell you the truth, Hugo,” Shael said, lifting his goblet. “The truth about you and me.”

  “Fine,” Hugo said. Focusing on his cheese, part of him was still waiting for Molad to awaken. “Go ahead, then.”

  Shael folded his hands in his lap and gazed at Hugo intently. “The truth, Hugo, is that we need each other.”

  “We do?” Hugo popped a grape in his mouth. “Why?”

  “Because only you and I can stop the fighting.”

  Hugo glanced up over his food. “What?”

  Shael motioned for him to rise, and Hugo followed him to one end of the throne room, where Shael threw open long curtains to reveal a window that looked out over the city.

  “Look at all those people,” Shael said. “A whole city full. Do you know what they want?”

  Hugo shook his head.

  “Freedom, Hugo. The same thing you want. The same thing I want. You want freedom from your fate. You want to be free of that dark half of your mind. I want to be free of this place.” He glanced around at the walls as if they were a cage. Then he pointed back at the window. “These people want to be free to do what makes them happy.”

  Hugo snorted. “Yeah. Too bad killing people makes them happy.”

  Shael frowned. “Do you really think that’s true? Come now, Hugo. What started the war between your people and mine? What makes them want to kill you?”

  Hugo floundered for an answer. “Hate?”

  “Fear,” Shael said. “We fear what we do not know. We fear that which is different from us, and soon that fear becomes intolerance, which grows into hatred and violence. Before you know it, we are banishing whole civilizations just because they are different. Even in your own mind, two forces are so different from each other that it has made them enemies.”

  “So what?” Hugo said. “Do you expect me to fix it?”

  “I expect you to do what you can,” Shael said. “And you expect it of yourself. You are the future king of Aberdeen, and you are the Mage of Light and Darkness. There is much that you can do.”

  A glimmer of understanding flashed in Hugo’s mind. “You want me to unite our lands?” he asked. “Aberdeen and the Ire? You want me to become the king and then do what you say? Even if I took your side, the other mages would oppose you.”

  Shael shook his head. “That is not what I want.”

  “What, then?” Hugo asked. “You want me to let the darkness in me overpower the light, so that you can win your war?”

  “I want you to understand the truth!” Shael exclaimed, and some of the kindness seemed to fade from his face.

  “What truth?”

  “That there is no war to win,” he said.

  Shael considered him, expression shifting between dour and hopeful. “What I tell you now is the whole truth. You may not believe me, but the day will come when you will see that I am right.” Shael put a hand to his chin and rubbed his beard as if remembering something. “I have watched your kind, Hugo. Mages of Light and Darkness. I have watched them rise and fall, strive and fail.” He raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I admit that sometimes I have encouraged their failing. But no longer. I have finally come to understand something in my old age that I am
going to share with you.”

  “Why?” Hugo couldn’t figure it out. “What’s your angle? What do you get out of it?”

  Shael waved him into silence. “I have learned something about the process of the Mage of Light and Darkness that you do not yet know. An important choice will face you soon. You will be forced to choose between two paths. Two courses of action that will shape your future, and the future of us all.”

  Hugo’s eyes narrowed. Was this some kind of trick? There had to be a lie in there somewhere. That was how Shael operated, wasn’t it?

  “One day, when your moment comes, the choice will be clear to you, and you will know that I was right. Your burden is to carry the light of the world, and its darkness, within your own soul. Your burden is to balance the light and darkness within yourself, and so for the world at large. Would you agree?”

  Grudgingly, Hugo nodded.

  “What you do not know,” Shael said, “is that this cannot be done.”

  Hugo’s hand slipped off the table nervously and automatically settled on the hilt of his sword. What was Shael talking about?

  “All those who have come before you came to this fork in the road of which I speak. It is a place, I am told, that will appear before you quite literally. Your choice will be clear. At the end of one path, you will see a shining door, a brilliant white portal. This is the path of annihilation.”

  “Annihi-what?” Hugo said, eyes narrowed. He knew what the word meant, but he was trying to buy time. He needed to focus. He was the Mage of Light and Darkness. He should be able to detect whether Shael was speaking truth or lies.

  “Annihilation,” Shael repeated. “It is the path of certain death. On this path, the light and darkness will become unbalanced. Light will rule over the darkness. Everything will become light, they say. Even the darkness will become a shadow of its former self. Balance, then, will be annihilated forever, but so will you.”

  “Me?” Hugo said, startled.

  “Yes,” Shael said. “That is a price of the path—one of many—and it is a high price to pay. Too high. You will be no more. You will die, annihilated along with the balance that you have broken, and the darkness that you have robbed from the world.”