Magic and Mayhem: A Collection of 21 Fantasy Novels

by Jasmine Walt

  A middle-aged man from the family Gala had noticed before stepped forward, addressing the white-haired man. “Mayor, with all due respect, our children would have starved without that horse, with the drought and all—”

  The mayor held up his hand, stopping the man’s diatribe. “Indeed. However, fortunately for you and for the accused, you got your horse back safe and sound, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, Mayor,” the man admitted sheepishly.

  “In that case, the thief will make up for his crime by helping out at your farm. Hopefully, this will teach him the value of hard work.”

  The middle-aged man still looked unhappy, but it was obvious that he had no choice. This was the punishment for the horse thief, and he had to accept it.

  “And with that,” the mayor announced, “the court is over for today. You can all go forth and enjoy the fair.”

  “The fair?” Gala asked, curious about the sudden wave of excitement in the crowd.

  “Oh yes,” a young woman to her right replied. “Didn’t you hear? We’ve got the spring fair starting today. It’s right on the other side of the village.” And with that, she flounced off, apparently eager to get to this event.

  Gala grinned. The girl’s enthusiasm was contagious. “Let’s go,” she told Maya and Esther, starting to walk in the direction where she saw most people heading.

  “What? Wait, Gala, let’s discuss this . . .” Maya hurried after her, looking anxious.

  “What is there to discuss?” Gala continued walking, feeling like she would burst from excitement. “Didn’t you hear what that woman said? I’m going to this fair!”

  “This is not a good idea,” Esther muttered under her breath. “I’m pretty sure this is not what Blaise meant when he said to make sure she doesn’t draw any attention to herself. Her at the fair—she’s going to get attention galore!”

  “Yes, well, how do you intend to stop her?” Maya muttered back, and Gala smiled at their exchange. She liked having the freedom to do what she wanted, and she intended to see and experience as much of this village as she could.

  The fair was as amazing as Gala had thought it might be. There were merchants all over the place, their colorful stalls displaying various goods and interesting-looking food products. Right beside them, there were games and attractions, and Gala could hear laughter, loud voices, and music everywhere. In the center of the fair, there was a big platform where she could see young people dancing.

  Gala approached a merchant closest to her. “What are you selling?” she asked him.

  “I have the best dried fruit at the fair, for you or your mother and aunt.” He smiled widely, offering Gala a handful of raisins.

  She took a couple and put them in her mouth, enjoying the burst of sweet flavor on her tongue. Esther took out a small coin and gave it to the merchant, thanking him, and they continued on their way.

  “Ale for the ladies?” a man yelled out from one of the stalls. There were huge barrels stacked on each side of him, and Gala wondered if they contained this ale he was offering.

  “I will get some,” she said, curious to try the drink she’d read about.

  “No, you won’t,” Esther said immediately, frowning. “I don’t want you drunk on your very first day with us.”

  “Oh, come on, let the lass have some fun,” the ale merchant cajoled. “She won’t feel more than a little buzz from just one drink.”

  “All right, fine,” Maya grumbled, handing a coin to the man. “Just one drink.”

  Gala grinned. She would’ve tried this ale regardless, but she was glad she didn’t have to argue with the two women.

  Looking satisfied, the merchant took a mug, walked over to the pile of barrels, and started pouring from one of them into the mug. Gala noticed the way the barrels shook with the man’s movements, as though swaying in the wind.

  “Hurry up,” a male voice said behind Gala. Turning around, she saw a young, well-built man standing there. As soon as he saw Gala’s face, his eyes widened, and his cheeks turned red. He mumbled an apology, his gaze traveling from the top of her head all the way down to her toes.

  Gala gave him a small smile and turned around to look at the merchant again. She was getting used to these stares.

  The merchant handed her the mug, and she took a sip, swirling the drink around her mouth to better taste it. It wasn’t nearly as delicious as the raisins, but it did send a warm feeling down her body. Liking the sensation, Gala downed the mug in several large gulps and heard chuckles from the men standing in line behind her.

  “You should pace yourself,” Maya admonished, and Esther gave Gala another frown.

  “I’ve never had ale before,” Gala tried to explain, not wanting the two women to worry. “I think I like it even better than your stew.” Turning to the merchant, she asked, “Can I have another one?”

  At this, Maya grabbed Gala’s hand and dragged her away from the confused ale merchant and his customers. Gala let herself be led only as far as the next stall and then stood her ground firmly.

  “You are strong for one so small,” Maya said, looking impressed when Gala resisted her tugging. “It’s as though she grew roots,” she told Esther. “I can’t make her move another inch.”

  “This is just a clown stall,” Esther told Gala, sounding exasperated. “There is nothing for you to see here.”

  Gala didn’t agree. To her, the stall was fascinating, surrounded as it was by dozens of children. Children—these miniature humans—were an enigma to Gala. She had never been a child herself, unless one counted her brief stage of development in the Spell Realm. Then again, she reasoned, perhaps she was like a child now compared to the person she would become.

  Another thing that interested her was the man with the painted face. He was wearing strange-looking clothing and doing what seemed like sorcery for the children—pulling out coins from their ears and then making those coins disappear. He also seemed to be doing it without any kind of verbal or written spells. When she focused on his hands, however, she saw that he was actually hiding the coins in his palm. A fake sorcerer, she thought, watching his antics with amusement.

  Suddenly, there was a loud shout. Startled, Gala looked back toward the ale merchant’s stall, where she heard the sound coming from.

  What she saw made her freeze in place.

  One of the older children had pushed a younger girl into the stack of barrels at the ale merchant’s stall. The large barrels swayed perilously, and Gala could see the top barrel beginning to fall.

  Time seemed to slow to a crawl. In Gala’s mind, she saw the chain of events exactly as they would play out. The barrel would fall on top of the girl, crushing her frail human body. Gala could even calculate the precise weight and force of the falling object—and the child’s odds of survival.

  The young girl would cease to exist before she’d had a chance to enjoy living.

  No. Gala couldn’t stand to see that. Her entire body tensed, and without conscious thought, she raised her hands in the air, pointing them at the barrel. Her mind ran through the necessary calculations with lightning speed, figuring out the exact amount of reverse force necessary to hold the falling object in place.

  The barrel stopped falling, floating in the air a few inches above the girl’s head.

  The silence was deafening. All around Gala, the fairgoers stood as though frozen in place, staring at the near-accident in morbid fascination. The ale merchant recovered first, jumping toward the shocked child to pull her away from under the barrel.

  As soon as the girl was not in danger, Gala felt her focus slipping, and the barrel fell, breaking into little bits of wood and splashing ale all over the place.

  The rescued child began to cry, her small frame shaking with sobs, while the spectators seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief. Many of them were staring at Gala with awed expressions on their faces, and one woman took a step toward her, addressing her in a quivering voice, “Are you a sorceress, my lady?”

  “
She had nothing to do with that; it was the clown,” Maya told the woman, lying unconvincingly.

  Esther grabbed Gala’s hand. “Let’s go,” she said urgently, dragging Gala away from the crowd.

  Gala did not resist, following the old woman docilely. Her mind was in turmoil. She had done it. She had done direct magic, as Blaise had designed her to do. It hadn’t been a spell—certainly she hadn’t said or written anything. Instead, it was as though something deep inside her knew exactly what to do, how to let some hidden part of her mind take over. All she’d known was that she didn’t want the child hurt, and the rest had seemed to just . . . happen.

  When they were sufficiently far away from the crowd, she stopped, refusing to go any further. “Wait,” she told Maya and Esther, bending down to pick up a small pebble lying on the ground.

  “What are you doing?” Esther hissed. “You just drew a lot of attention to yourself!”

  “Just wait, please.” This was too important to Gala. Throwing the pebble in the air, she focused on it, trying to replicate her actions from before. Don’t fall, don’t fall, don’t fall, she mentally chanted, staring at the pebble.

  The little rock didn’t react in any way, falling to the ground in a completely normal fashion.

  “What are you doing?” Maya was watching her actions with disbelief. “Are you throwing rocks?”

  Gala shook her head, disappointed. Why didn’t it work for her again? She’d stopped that barrel, so why not this rock?

  Esther approached her, putting an arm around her shoulders. “Come, let’s go home, child,” she said soothingly. “We’ll give you some more stew—”

  “No, thanks, I don’t want any stew right now,” Gala said, stepping away. “I’m sorry I drew attention to myself, but I don’t regret that the little girl is unharmed.”

  “Of course.” Maya glared at Esther. “You did the right thing. I have no idea how you did it, but it was the right thing to do.”

  Gala smiled, relieved that she hadn’t messed up too much. Looking back toward the stalls, she noticed the music again, a lively melody playing in the distance. It called to her, tempting her with the promise of beauty and new sensations. “I’m not ready to go home yet,” she told Esther. “I want to see more of the fair.”

  Now even Maya looked alarmed. “My lady . . . Gala, I don’t think you should go back to that fair now—”

  “I want to dance,” Gala said, watching the figures in the distance. “I want to dance to that music.”

  And without waiting for her chaperones’ reply, she hurried toward the music.

  24

  Augusta

  “Blaise did what?” The expression on Ganir’s face as he sat behind his desk was priceless. If Augusta hadn’t been so distressed herself, she would’ve enjoyed Ganir’s reaction more. As it was, she was still shaking from the aftereffects of the magical battle—and from learning about the horror that Blaise had unleashed on Koldun.

  “He created an unnatural being—a thing forged in the Spell Realm,” Augusta repeated, pacing around the room. “And then he attacked me when I tried to reason with him. He’s gone completely insane. It would’ve been far better if he had been an addict—”

  Ganir frowned. “Wait, I’m still not clear on this. You’re saying he created an intelligence? How could he have done this?”

  “I know exactly how he did it,” Augusta said, remembering the notes she’d found. “He simulated the structure of the human mind in the Spell Realm, and then developed it using Life Captures—the same Life Captures that you thought he was getting for himself.”

  Ganir’s eyes widened. “He must’ve used some of my research on the human brain,” he breathed, his voice thick with excitement. “But he had to have gone leaps and bounds beyond what I had discovered in the process of creating the Life Capture Sphere—”

  “He also had some help from Lenard’s writings,” Augusta told him, stopping in front of his desk. “He had a secret stash of them that he had never shared with anyone.”

  “Lenard’s writings?” Ganir’s eyes lit up. “The boy has them? I heard a rumor once that Dasbraw had something like that, but that wily bastard always denied it.”

  “Wasn’t he your good friend?” Augusta asked scornfully. “I thought the two of you were thick as thieves in your youth.”

  “We were.” Ganir’s wrinkled face creased into something resembling a smile. “But Dasbraw always liked his secrets when it came to sorcery. I think he resented the fact that he started off as my apprentice . . .” For a moment, there was a faraway look in his eyes, but then he shook his head, bringing himself back to the present. “So you’re saying that Blaise has them? Those writings?”

  “He doesn’t have them anymore,” Augusta said with poorly concealed satisfaction. “I had to use a fire spell when he tried to detain me.” She didn’t mention that, at this very moment, the precious writings were sitting inside her bag, safe and sound. In the Tower, it always paid to have some leverage.

  “You burned Blaise’s house?” Ganir gaped at her, his mouth falling open in shock.

  “I had no choice,” Augusta said sharply, annoyed at the Council Leader’s reaction. “You weren’t there. He refused to listen to reason. You don’t know what he’s become, how obsessed he is with that creature. He’s completely under its control now.” The expression on Blaise’s face as he blocked her way flashed through her mind. He had been determined to keep her from going to the Council, she was sure of that. Would he have killed her to protect that abomination? Once, Augusta would’ve thought such a thing impossible, but not anymore—not after she took that droplet and experienced the depth of his feelings for his horrifying creation.

  Ganir looked taken aback. “That doesn’t sound like Blaise,” he said dubiously. “You said he tried to attack you?”

  “He wanted to stop me from telling the Council,” Augusta said, a little less certain now. Blaise hadn’t attacked her, exactly, but she had felt threatened nonetheless. “He even tried to lie to me that the creature’s form was unstable, and it was no longer in existence—”

  “So, are you going to tell the Council?” Ganir interrupted, staring at her.

  “I should, shouldn’t I?” Augusta met the old sorcerer’s gaze. “They need to know about this thing. It’s dangerous, and it needs to be eliminated.”

  “What do you think would happen to Blaise if they found out what he had done? They won’t just get rid of his creation and let him be.”

  Augusta swallowed. Now that she was thinking more clearly, she realized that Ganir was right—that telling the Council would doom Blaise as well as the abomination he’d created. And she couldn’t let that happen, no matter how upset she was with him. The thought of Blaise dead, gone, was as unbearable as the idea of him being attracted to that monstrosity. “What would be the alternative?” she asked. The old man cared about Blaise, and she doubted he wanted to see him brutally punished any more than she did.

  Ganir leaned back in his chair, his face assuming a thoughtful expression. “Well,” he said slowly, “first of all, there is a small chance he didn’t lie to you. If he was surprised that this being took the shape that it did, then he probably doesn’t understand it fully. It’s very possible that she—it—is indeed unstable and gone by now.”

  Augusta snorted dismissively. “I wouldn’t hold my breath for that possibility—he was just desperate to save the creature. You think I don’t know after all those years together whether he’s lying or telling the truth?”

  “All right,” Ganir conceded, “let’s suppose you’re right. I’m still not convinced, though, that this intelligence is as big of a threat as you think—”

  Augusta gripped the edge of his desk. “You’re not convinced?” She could hear her voice rising as the old childhood nightmare reared its ugly head. “I took that droplet—I was in Blaise’s head—and he himself doesn’t know what this creature is capable of! It could have powers that are beyond anything we can imagine. What if
it turns against us? What if it decides to wipe us all out?”

  Ganir blinked. “What kind of powers does it have? What can it do?”

  “I don’t know,” Augusta admitted, taking a step back and drawing in a shaky breath. “And neither does Blaise. That’s the problem. Just because it hasn’t done anything yet, doesn’t mean we’re safe. It’s only been in existence for a short time.”

  The old man looked at her. “In that case, why don’t we just let it be? We have never seen anything like it before—an intelligence that was created, not born, a being from the Spell Realm—”

  “No.” Augusta shook her head, everything inside her rejecting that idea. “We can’t take that kind of risk. The thing needs to be destroyed now, before it has a chance to destroy us. For all we know, it might be growing more powerful with every moment it’s in existence. This is our chance to contain this situation. If we don’t stop it now, we might never be able to do so in the future. Think about it, Ganir. What if it ends up creating more abominations like itself?”

  The old sorcerer looked stunned. He obviously hadn’t considered that angle. Augusta could see him wavering, and she pressed her advantage. “Can you imagine how powerful an entire army of creatures from the Spell Realm might be?”

  Ganir’s eyes widened, as though some new thought occurred to him. “You said it took a female shape, right?” he said slowly. “And you said Blaise is attracted to it?”

  Augusta nodded, staring at him in horror. Was he implying what she thought he was implying? “Ganir, are you suggesting—?”

  “That she and Blaise could reproduce?” He raised his eyebrows. “I have no idea, but I would be curious to find out . . .”

  Augusta felt like throwing up. “Curious? About whether the monster could spawn?” Was the old man sick in the head?

  The Council Leader appeared inexplicably amused. “If Blaise is attracted to it, it can’t be all that monstrous.”