Wicked As You Wish
Page 16
“That’s exactly why they want us to!” Loki grabbed at West’s collar. “Move!”
“Let’s go, Tala!” Alex yelled, but she hesitated, staring at Ryker. The boy’s eyes opened, focused on her.
“Why?” Tala choked, though she already knew what his answer was.
Ryker held her gaze for a few seconds, then turned away. “You should have stayed at the bonfire,” he said. “Solaaci cortra mei, Atu garu nek as sol.”
Ice warped around him, spinning so fast that Tala would have been caught up in it if her father hadn’t acted quickly. He grabbed Tala around the midsection, then a startled Loki with the other hand, and physically flung them all out of range just as the spell crystallized into a large sphere, with Ryker and the rest of the agents trapped within.
Tala rolled back to her feet, hammered at the new barrier with her hands until they were numb with frost. “Ryker!” she shouted. “What are you doing? Ryker!”
“We have to get out of here, Tally,” her father said, reaching out to her. “The boy’s lost. We need to get to th’ sanctuary before they—”
Tala brushed him off. “Get away from me.”
“Tally, I…”
“Get away from me!” They called him the Scourge of Buyan because he had wiped that country off the map. The Scourge had waged most of the Snow Queen’s wars, had killed millions in her name.
The Scourge was her father.
“Get away,” she repeated, and ran off in the direction Ken and Zoe had gone, without looking back.
14
In Which Objects in Mirrors Are Closer Than They Appear
The Casa Grande domes were most definitely haunted. Tala had little reason to think about the place despite its proximity to Invierno, because the unofficial consensus of people in town who’d actually gone to visit was that there was nothing to see there but the smell of urine and walls filled with rough caricatures of people’s junk—two of her least favorite things.
That didn’t explain the moans she was now hearing, as another tore through the air.
“It could just be the wind passing through the trees,” West suggested.
“This is a desert,” Loki replied. “There aren’t any trees.”
“I know what’s making that noise,” Zoe said, glaring at the dome as if it could collapse from her gaze alone. “And I really wish he would shut up.”
Another wail bounced off the walls in response, as if trying to wring maximum sympathy for anyone still listening in.
“We’re wasting time,” Alex said. “Tala, we need your help.”
“What exactly do you want me to do?” Tala began, Alex already tugging her toward the largest of the domes.
“It’s easier to let you handle this than have Zoe dispel the illusion,” the boy said.
“Handle wha—” Tala felt something solid brush against her palm despite there being nothing physical in front of her. She reached forward again, and a strange rippling effect spread across the space, the dome in front of her warping and twisting until a tower now stood before them, old and decrepit and made of interlocking stone and tightly packed sand. There was no visible entrance, save for a smooth slab of rock blocking their way.
“Holy crap,” Tala said.
“Now comes the hard part.” Ken rapped against the uneven surface with the hilt of his sword. A voice rose from inside the rock, thin and wavery.
“Password?”
“Open sesame, Cassim!” Zoe snapped. The sounds of battle were drawing nearer. The titos and titas were reluctantly giving ground, fighting off arrows of ice with their fans but unwilling to attack the Deathless that were starting to close in around them. The firebird was bringing up the rear, sending retaliatory jets of flame in the ogre’s direction.
“Wrong password!” the voice squealed, sounding terribly pleased with itself.
“Open sesame, Cassim, and you’d better open up or I’m shoving a sword up where the sun doesn’t shine so hard, you’ll spend the rest of your life like a pig on a spit.”
There was a harsh grating sound, and the heavy stone slid sideways, revealing a cadaverous-looking man with large eyes and a wild bristly beard. He was hunched over and made odd, involuntary jerking motions with his shoulders. The path behind him was lit by torches lining the stone corridor, filling the crude hallway with a ruddy, orange light.
Zoe pushed her way past him. “We’re in!” she yelled back. “Hurry!”
One by one, the rest of the group retreated into the opening, Lola Urduja and the firebird the last to slip past.
“Close sesame,” Zoe instructed.
“The password is not—”
“Close the goddamn sesame, Cassim!”
The slab slid shut. Something large and powerful slammed itself into the walls from outside, sending the place shuddering.
“There is no need for threats,” the man accused, with another quick, convulsive jerk of his head.
“You’re not playing by the rules either, Cassim,” Zoe reminded him. “You’re here to guard the place and grant safe passage to anyone who asks.”
“But I smelled ogre on you,” the man whispered with a conspiratorial smile. He wore his dirty blond hair long, his clothes disheveled but otherwise intact. But to Tala, the rest of him felt off, a feeling that grew as he continued to speak. “Ogres and shades, ogres and shades. Never to the sanctuary before, never come. Lurking everywhere. Perhaps the sanctuary they will attack—” He broke off, staring toward Alex and the firebird.
The man slid to the floor with a hoarse moan, prostrating and gesturing, a look of such abject terror on his face that the young royal shrank back without thinking.
“Prince,” the man groveled. “Oh, good prince, young prince. Remember old Cassim when you ascend the Winter Throne and rule the world. Remember old Cassim when you grasp the Flame and Ice, and purge the lands of all that is evil and good. Remember old Cassim, the first of all men to honor you. Avalon’s salvation, Avalon’s damnation, all that is to come. And firebird, lovely firebird!”
“Here we go,” Ken muttered from behind Tala. He stepped past the group, then pointed his blade at the man, who was right on the verge of pawing at Alex’s knees, attempting to reach the firebird. Cassim recoiled.
“You know the rules, Cassim,” Ken told him. “No touching.”
“Ignore him,” Zoe murmured, as they shuffled past the kneeling man. Cassim, still muttering to himself, reached up again, defying Ken’s command, to grab at Alex’s pants leg as he passed, but Ken had his sword leveled, keeping him at a distance.
The staircase at the end of the passageway smelled of damp and rust, and spiraled upward. Leaving the still supplicant Cassim singing feverishly behind them, Ken began to climb the winding stairs, motioning for the others to follow.
“What’s wrong with him?” Tala whispered, torn between revulsion and pity.
“The same thing wrong with every criminal punished to guard the sanctuaries,” Lola Urduja murmured. “It’s a lonely place. We’re probably the first humans he’s seen in a while.” She stopped, spotting Tala’s horrified expression. “Ah, I’d forgotten. You don’t know much about sanctuaries yet.”
“Why is he being punished like this?”
Zoe shrugged. “Only convicts who have committed the most heinous of acts are sentenced like this. I asked a Cassim once what crime he committed to deserve this punishment, but he grew hysterical. I asked this Cassim, and he reacted the same way. Something about staying here turns them this way. Avalon doesn’t have the death penalty, and this is the harshest sanction they administer.”
“Cassims?”
“It’s the name they all have to answer to. A spell binds them to the place, and they can’t leave on their own until they finish their sentences. This Cassim’s a little too obsessed with some of the absurd prophecies flying around, I think.”
“What were all those things he said? About the Flame and Ice?”
“I don’t really know either,” she admitted. “I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you. He doesn’t strike me as someone with a solid grasp on sanity.”
Tala forced herself not to look back and watch the wretched figure they were leaving behind. What kind of horrific crime had he done to warrant such an eternal, lonely punishment? She didn’t want to know. There were far too many things happening today that she didn’t have time to process yet. The firebird, the ice maiden, Ryker’s betrayal…the Scourge.
She couldn’t even look at her father.
A wooden door awaited them at the top of the stairs; slightly decayed, it looked to Tala like it could crumble any second. The smell of mildew grew stronger. “The looking glass is inside,” Ken said. “Protected by enchantments.” He winced when another tremor rocked the place. “As you can probably guess by now. The invulnerable and invisibility spells help keeps ogren and other uglies from getting near the place.”
“Has an ogre ever gotten inside a sanctuary?” Alex asked warily.
“None that’s been successful, to our knowledge. We’re safe inside. When anything attacks the sanctuary for too long, it triggers a spell that’ll turn the whole rock from outside into flames. And then it’s ogre flambé, usually.”
“Doesn’t sound very safe for the Cassim,” West said.
Tala glanced around at the old stone walls and at the unkempt conditions of the place. It didn’t look like a place that had a lot of spells to its name.
The room they entered was simply furnished. There was a lumpy-looking cot at one end, and a rickety wooden table at the center, gray from disuse. A tiny window looked out over the grounds, one not even large enough for a small child to fit through, and crisscrossed by metal frames.
A worn world map hung from the farthest wall—an outdated world map, torn and drawn in faded ink, with the country of Wonderland still intact on its yellowing paper. A large floor-length mirror stood several feet away, as golden and as ornate as the rest of the room was not.
“I can understand why all the Cassims turn violent,” Ken said. “This isn’t exactly a five-star hotel. There’s barely enough room here to swing a cat.”
“Why?” Loki asked.
“Why what?”
“Why would you want to swing a cat?”
“That’s a mean thing to do, Ken,” West said, reproving.
“It’s called a figure of speech, Loki,” Ken said resignedly. “We’ve talked about this before.”
He made a beeline for the golden mirror. Tita Teejay and Tita Chedeng followed after him, both tsking and shaking out handkerchiefs to start cleaning the centuries of dust and grime that marked its surface, almost from impulse. Cole leaned back against the door and crossed his arms, grim and impassive. General Luna very gently set the still-unconscious Lumina down on the small cot. “She’ll be all right,” Tita Baby promised Tala gently. “But she needs some rest. Let Urduja work her magic.”
Tala wanted to crawl into the cot with her mother, but knew she was right. After some hesitation, she approached the decrepit-looking map instead, trying to distract herself. Strange names were scrawled across it, labeled in fading ink.
“Albion,” she read aloud, tracing marked areas with a finger. “Altai. Scythis. Esopia.”
“They’re the four main regions of Avalon,” her father said quietly from behind her. Tala stiffened. “Each location has its own kind of magic. Almost like a regional flavor, if they could be compared to food. Lyonesse’s the capital over here at Albion, where Maidenkeep is. Tala…”
“Stay away from me,” Tala said.
Her father’s hand dropped. “I just want to say that I—”
“I said stay away!” Tala screamed, not caring when all eyes in the room turned to her. “You! You’re the Scourge of Buyan! And the Snow Queen! You were her…!” She couldn’t even force the word out without feeling like it might choke her. Kay, the Snow Queen’s consort, her most ruthless right-hand man. Kay had invaded countries at her command. Historians had lost count of just how many had died because of him. The Winter Scourge. The Butcher of Neverland.
And he was her father.
“Tala,” Lola Urduja said. “It’s much more complicated than that.”
“How?” He’d betrayed her. And her mother had lied to her too, for all her talk about honor. They couldn’t leave Invierno, but not because she was crap at negating magic. They couldn’t leave because her father was the world’s most wanted man and for good reason, and her mother and Lola Urduja and everyone else were helping to hide him when they should have taken him to the International Criminal Court and hanged him with the rest of the terrorists. How could anyone else in this room stand to be here with him? Tala felt sick to her stomach. “What can he possibly do to make any of this better? Offer an apology? I’m sorry for masterminding the genocide of millions of people around the world? Is that enough to unmake everything else he’s done?”
There was a pause, no one able to answer. It was her father who finally spoke again, sounding defeated. “No,” he said. “There is nothing forgivable about what I’ve done.”
She turned her back, refusing to meet his gaze.
“We’ll still need to leave,” Lola Urduja said softly. “I understand your anger, hija, but let’s all wait until we are somewhere safer. Baby, how fares the looking glass?”
“It’s been banged up some, but it still works, even after all these years.” The tita traced an odd pattern on the surface of the now-clean glass, leaving a silver streak wherever her finger made contact.
“Can you contact the Gallaghers this way?”
“I think…yes. Just a few more seconds…”
The golden mirror gleamed brightly, their reflections disappearing as the surface shimmered, then faded, revealing a dark-skinned, doe-eyed boy with curly brown hair and a nervous grin.
“Mirror, mirror on the wall,” Ken called out. “Tell me I’m the fairest of them all.”
“You do this every time,” the boy complained, by way of greeting. “Zoe? Loki? West? You guys there?”
“We’re here, Dex!” Zoe told the mirror, relieved. “Is everything ready?”
“A cuh-couple more seconds. This sanctuary’s looking glass hasn’t been used in about…well, f-fifty-eight years, from the feel of it. It won’t take you all in at once, but I think I can oh crann’i santua, is that the firebird?”
The inquisitive creature had approached the mirror. Its beak touched the surface, warping the boy’s features for a few seconds. By the time it cleared up again, the boy had his face pressed up against the mirror in his eagerness.
“Of course it’s the firebird, Dex,” Ken drawled. “That’s the whole purpose of the top-secret mission we’re on that no one else knows about, remember?”
“A real f-firebird,” the boy in the mirror breathed, staring in awe, and then looking absolutely goggle-eyed when he spotted Alex. “Your Majesty,” he squeaked. “I-it’s an honor! My great-great-grandfather fought yours at the Caucasus Front—I mean, he fought with yours against the Ottoman—”
“Thank you,” Alex said politely. “I know of you Gallaghers. My father had nothing but high praise. Severon Gallagher is your father, right? The inventor of the fortune splicer?”
“There’s very little time, Mr. Gallagher,” Lola Urduja said, stepping forward.
Something like a squeak escaped Dexter’s throat. “Y-you’re th-the Captain Urduja of the Lost brigade! And the Katipuneros!”
“Yo,” Tito Boy signed.
“But that m-means…” The boy was now staring at Tala. “And you, y-you’re a Makiling, aren’t you?”
“Guilty.”
“It’s very nice to meet you. I-I’m Dexter Gallagher, r-represent!”
“Represent?”
“Susmaryosep,” Lola Urduja growled. “Dexter.”
“Sorry, sorry. You guys better suh-step back for a minute. The looking glass hasn’t been used in a while, so I c-can’t tell you what to expect activating this twice in so short a time.”
“Activated?” Tala echoed. “He can do that?”
“Like Zoe pointed out,” Ken said. “Gallagher’s a spellforger. The first eighteen-year-old category one spellforger, I might add. They’d put him down in the Guinness Book of World Records if they knew he existed. His family claimed asylum in Norway, but you know what they say: You can keep us out of Avalon, but you can’t keep Avalon out of us.”
“It’s a very precise science,” Dexter said proudly. “All quite muh-mathematical. Like a…a Tardis! See, I’ve watched many of your American and British television series, and I know s-some things. I know what a Tardis is, and operas in space, and what many of your countrymen refer to as a gym, a tan, and a laundry.”
Zoe lifted a hand to her face in resignation.
“What’s a Tardis?” West asked.
“I’m going to regret wading into this,” Ken said, “but it’s from a television show, West. Doctor Who.”
“Doctor who?”
“Exactly.”
“Which doctor?”
“Doctor Who.”
“That’s what I want to know.”
“Can we postpone the interesting discussions until we’re back at the Cheshire’s, gentlemen?” Lola Urduja asked tartly. “We compromise revealing the duke’s location in England with every second we delay.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I m-mean, Sarge. I m-mean…” Dexter flailed, then abruptly disappeared. A strange humming noise whirred through the room before the mirror pulsed and glowed again, but with a brighter, steadier light.
“We’re going inside the mirror?” Tala asked.