Tara Duncan and the Spellbinders

by Princess Sophie Audouin-Mamikonian

  Tara shook her head, overwhelmed by the flood of information.

  “Yikes, it’s so complicated! Kingdoms, empires, republics, dwarves, elves, vampyrs, dragons, tatris!”

  “It’s so complicated that the rest will have to wait for another day,” said Cal, standing and brushing himself off. “Because now it’s time for kitchen duty. After that, we’ll go take a spin with the pegasi.”

  Gallant looked up with delight. Sparrow, who got dizzy riding a pegasus, was much less enthusiastic.

  The apprentice spellbinders had kitchen duty three times a week, which allowed them to refine their spell casting on a small scale.

  That day’s operation was being supervised by Master Dragosh, Tara noticed. Under his firm leadership, dinner rolls, meats, vegetables, and pastries were replicated, and then quickly carried to the dining halls to fill the many hungry stomachs in the huge Castle.

  “All right, time for the new crew to take over,” Dragosh ordered. “And remember, no eating before dinner!”

  Skyler, Robin, and Carole gratefully yielded their places to Cal, Sparrow, and Fabrice, who began to replicate what the cooks brought them.

  Tara knew she could use magic to help her friends if she needed to. When Gallant chose her, she’d asked Master Chem to contact her grandmother to make sure that meeting her familiar hadn’t laid Isabella out stone cold. Fortunately, she was fine. But Tara still preferred to avoid magic; she’d seen how the demonic fury inside her boiled up when she turned on her power. So she grabbed an apron, and with a sigh, started peeling carrots for the pot of soup simmering in front of her.

  Despite his itchy fingers and ravenous appetite, Cal managed to restrain himself until the moment when the cook took a beautiful mulberry pie out of the oven.

  “I’ll take care of that one,” he said innocently, and the unsuspecting cook handed it to him.

  Cal set the hot pie on the table and muttered, “By Duplicatus, I want three pies, just like this one, but a larger size.” Three mulberry pies appeared, and one promptly vanished . . . into Cal’s mouth.

  “C-C-Cal, be c-c-careful,” hissed Sparrow.”D-D-Dragosh is watching you!”

  “Ow, that’s hot!” said the young spellbinder, who’d burned his tongue. “Don’t worry, I’m a thief. The vampyr who’s gonna catch me in the act hasn’t been born yet. You want some?”

  Tara was mournfully staring at a mountain of carrots and thinking that if she were a rabbit, she’d be in heaven. A sudden cry of rage made her jump. She just had time to see three things— Dragosh grabbing Cal by the scruff of the neck; the pie falling from his hand; and Sparrow leaping back in fear—before a thousand gallons of hot leek soup flooded the kitchen.

  The vampyr slipped and fell in the sticky brownish liquid, releasing Cal, who raced off. The soup swamped the kitchen’s pots, pans, and skillets, put out the burners, half drowned the cooks and their helpers, and only stopped just before it reached the door.

  Tara, wide-eyed at the scale of the disaster, couldn’t suppress a nervous laugh.

  “You, you . . . ” roared the incensed vampyr, who was dripping wet and trying to stand on the slippery floor. “You did that on purpose, I know it! You’re going to clean up this whole mess, and with a mop and a bucket! No magic, or I’ll . . . ”

  Dragosh was so enraged that words failed him, and he flew out of the kitchen in pursuit of Cal. Drenched in soup, the other kitchen workers were glaring at Tara. She shrugged. The vampyr had frightened her, so he got what he deserved. Cal was gone, and Sparrow and Fabrice had vanished, so Tara started mopping and sluicing the soup down the drains alone.

  A few minutes later, Master Den’maril’s apprentice, Robin, came by. He was very surprised to see Tara on her hands and knees, wiping the floor.

  “What the heck are you doing?” he asked.

  “I’m mopping the floor,” she said through gritted teeth. She was so furious that she had to struggle to keep her magic from blowing up the kitchen and half the Castle. “And the more I mop, the more I feel like Cinderella.”

  “I see,” said Robin, approaching her cautiously. “And who is the evil stepmother who made you mop the floor?”

  “The evil stepmother is a horrible vampyr who’s always tormenting me. I admit I sort of drowned him in soup, but it’s not my fault. He scared me!”

  “Ah, I get it,” Robin said sympathetically. “And is there any special reason why you aren’t using magic to clean the kitchen?”

  “Can’t do it,” she said tersely. “Not allowed.”

  “Well, in that case I’ll do what any knight errant would do for a damsel in distress.” With an elegant gesture, he said: “By Cleanus, I demand, make this kitchen spic and span!”

  A tornado instantly swept through the room. In the blink of an eye the pots scrubbed themselves clean, the soup disappeared, and the plates flew onto their shelves. Within moments, the kitchen was as clean and dry as if nothing had ever happened. Deeply impressed, Tara thought that Robin would bring joy to the heart of every house-wife on Earth.

  She wanted to hug and kiss him, but fought the impulse since she was still soaked with soup from head to foot.

  “Thank you!” she cried with delight. “You’ve saved my life!”

  Robin made a sweeping bow. “At your service, lady fair,” he said. With a tip of an imaginary hat, he went out.

  Tara shook her head and laughed, but deep down she was terribly worried. Since coming back from Limbo she’d been very careful about what she said and had managed to avoid using metaphors. But she flew off the handle too easily, and her abnormal rage made her want to hit, hurt, or destroy anyone who annoyed or crossed her. Worse, the influence of the demonic spell only seemed to be growing.

  Still feeling very concerned, she went to take a shower and scrubbed herself for a good quarter of an hour to get rid of even the faintest whiff of leeks. She got dressed and went down to the dining hall.

  Lunch was nearly over, and everyone had heard about the incident in the kitchen. As Tara headed for the table with her friends, muttered comments followed her.

  “She’s dangerous,” whispered Angelica to her little entourage. “She isn’t one of us, and she has no business being in the Castle. One of these days she might hurt someone, maybe even kill them.”

  “She shouldn’t be allowed to do magic,” whispered someone else. “She can’t control it. She’s reckless.”

  “She’s a weirdo,” said a third. “Who knows where she’s from?”

  And so forth.

  Tara kept her temper, ignored the whispers, and went to sit down next to Cal.

  “Don’t pay any attention to them,” said Cal loudly enough to be heard. “They’re just gutless cowards. And they’re jealous because your gift is more powerful than theirs.”

  “That’s right,” added Fabrice. “If Master Dragosh hadn’t grabbed Cal, everything would’ve been fine. I was just replicating a gallon of soup—”

  “—and I replicated a thousand!” interrupted Tara glumly. “I hate magic! It’s dangerous. Not only do I risk killing my grandmother, but I can’t control it. As soon as I get home I’m gonna ask her to take this blasted magic away forever.”

  Cal, Sparrow, and Fabrice stared at her in shock.

  “What are you s-s-saying?” asked Sparrow. “You d-d-don’t have the right! It’s your g-g-gift, and it’s dumb—”

  “—to react like that,” finished Cal. “Just because you can’t control your magic doesn’t mean you should give it up completely! You’re so gifted, Tara!”

  “No, I know I’m right,” Tara interrupted. “Besides, I’m putting you at risk. I heard what Angelica said. She said I might be dangerous to you, and she’s right.”

  “No, she isn’t,” said a voice. “Your gift is very precious, Tara. And you shouldn’t give it up because of a few nasty gossips.”

  Tara turned to see Robin standing there, watching her.

  She gave him a warm smile. “I want to thank you again for what you did
in the kitchen,” she said. “Without you, I’d probably be cleaning the place all night.”

  Robin shrugged off the compliment. “It was nothing. Any one of us would’ve done the same thing.”

  “That’s right,” said Fabrice, who didn’t seem especially pleased by Robin’s sudden turn in the limelight. “Master Dragosh was chasing Cal and we were chasing Master Dragosh.”

  “I really better avoid him for the next few days,” said Cal. “He looked pretty angry.”

  “Come on! He was so furious, smoke was coming out of his ears,” said Fabrice with a chuckle.

  “No, that was soup; it was still steaming,” said Tara with a hint of a smile.

  “He had celery up his nose, a piece of carrot in his ear, and was dripping soup everywhere, while screaming for Cal.”

  “We had n-n-no t-t-trouble following him,” said a giggling Sparrow. “He left s-s-soup t-t-tracks all over the c-c-castle.”

  “And got chewed out by the steward for making such a mess,” said Fabrice. “His face turned so red, I thought he was going to have a heart attack.”

  “Yeah; it’s crazy what a souper wizard the guy is,” Cal concluded.

  The friends looked at each other and burst out laughing.

  “Oh, man, I wish I’d seen that,” said Robin, wiping his eyes.

  “Stop it!” said Tara, still laughing. “My stomach hurts!”

  That evening, the five gathered in the dormitory common room to get to know Robin a little better. Angelica and her friends were off in a corner, chatting.

  “It was s-s-so funny,” said Sparrow, remembering the soupsoaked vampyr. “Lady K-K-Kalibris told me that s-s-she’d m-m-met M-M-Master Dragosh in the hallway, and s-s-she mentioned—”

  Angelica, who’d been eavesdropping, suddenly snapped.

  “Are you ev-ev-ever g-g-gonna f-f-finish y-y-your s-s-sentence?” she shouted, imitating Sparrow’s stutter. “It’s maddening enough to make a normal person blow up!”

  She’d barely finished her tirade when Tara’s magic slipped off leash and struck. Angelica started to blow up. She got bigger and bigger, and floated up toward the ceiling, screaming in panic.

  Dumbfounded, the young spellbinders looked up to see her wedged between the ceiling beams.

  The Castle was so surprised that the walls wavered and the landscapes disappeared for a moment. But it quickly gathered its wits, as well as its sense of humor. It created a blue sky for Angelica to float in, along with a few birds and some puffy white clouds. It also made the floor disappear. Overcome with vertigo, Angelica closed her eyed and screamed even louder.

  “Jeez Louise, she’s never gonna stop!” said Cal, plugging his ears. “She must have a hundred gallons of air in her lungs. Let’s haul her down before my eardrums burst.”

  Cal, Skyler, and Carole levitated and tried to lower her but they failed, even when pulling with all their might. Angelica was as buoyant as a helium balloon, and stuck tighter to the ceiling than two-week-old chewing gum. They didn’t dare cast any spells for fear of making her situation worse.

  “Nothing works,” said Skyler as he landed. “We can’t get her unstuck. We better get a high wizard.”

  “Maybe if we had some sort of serving utensil,” mused Cal. “You know, one of those flat things you use with a pie—or a tart.”

  “Angelica is not a tart!” exclaimed Carole. “That’s mean, Cal! We’ve got to do something!”

  After ten more minutes of fruitless effort, they finally called Lady Kalibris. Her powerful magic got Angelica unstuck from the ceiling but couldn’t deflate her or get her down to earth

  Tara watched with some pleasure as Angelica was tied to a rope and towed to the infirmary in front of the whole Castle.

  “I can’t believe you did that!” whispered Sparrow to Tara when Lady Kalibris had taken Angelica away. “What a pain in the neck that girl is, anyway. Serves her right!”

  “Hey, you aren’t stuttering,” said Cal.

  Sparrow blushed happily.

  “Gee, you’re right! Let’s see: ‘Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers; a peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked!’ I can’t believe it! I’m not stuttering anymore. That’s fantastic!”

  She started dancing around the common room with Sheeba, who looked just as happy as she did.

  “But how did it happen?” she asked. “Mom took me to the best medical spellbinders in the kingdom and they all said they couldn’t cure me!”

  When Tara answered, it wasn’t her speaking, but the demonic thing that controlled her mind and sparked her rage: “Angelica needed to be taught a lesson, and her mocking your stutter made me want to kill her.”

  Taken aback by the brutality of the statement, Sparrow gaped at her for a moment. But she decided that her friend was joking, and smiled.

  “So you’re the person I have to thank. It’s fantastic!”

  To her astonished friends, Sparrow now recited: “When a fox is in the bottle where the tweetle beetles battle with their paddles in a puddle on a noodle-eating poodle, this is what they call a tweetle beetle noodle poodle bottled paddled muddled duddled fuddled wuddled fox in socks!”

  “Brava!” cried Cal. “That’s amazing!”

  “It’s by an Earth writer called Dr. Seuss. Want to hear more?”

  Cal was enthusiastic, but he wasn’t crazy.

  “Er, no thanks. That was very good. Congratulations again!”

  Sparrow never stuttered again.

  Lady Deria, who didn’t much like Angelica either, was very amused by what had happened. She’d been keeping an eye on Tara and spent as much time as she could with her, talking about magic and powers.

  One day when they were in the training room, Deria was working out with an exercise sword, slashing the air with total concentration. As Tara admired the precision of her movements, she reflected that she was glad to be Deria’s friend. She wouldn’t care to be her enemy.

  Deria said to Tara later: “You know, Tara, I’ve known you ever since you were a little girl and I never suspected that you had magic powers. But when I saw how powerful your gift was, I knew it was important for you and for OtherWorld for you to be able to use it.” Deria didn’t know about the blood oath, and Tara didn’t tell her. As the days passed, Deria encouraged Tara to use her magic as much as possible. There was nothing better than practice, she said. Tara gradually let herself be tempted. It wasn’t much, she thought to herself, just a few exercises. Changing her hair color, for example (red didn’t suit her at all, and neither did brown), changing the color of her pegasus’s coat (Gallant really hated the green polka dots and purple stripes she made him wear one whole afternoon), or improving her wardrobe (that was hardly conclusive, and it was awkward to put on a shirt with one sleeve on one side and three on the other). But because of the abnormal rage that boiled up when she was crossed and which amplified her magic, Tara was careful not to use her magic around her friends. It was safer—for them.

  The Bloodgraves hadn’t tried anything since the harpy attack. Not a scrap of gray cloth had been seen. Tara hadn’t learned anything in Lancovit about the Gray Fortress, and she was impatient to continue her research in Omois.

  If she hadn’t been on a mission, she might have enjoyed her stay on OtherWorld more. Aside from the chimera and the vampyr, the people were pretty nice. The chimera had a nasty habit of popping up when she least expected it, staring at her from a distance, then disappearing. It got on her nerves. As for the vampyr, he looked at Tara the way a cat looks at a particularly appetizing canary. Except he didn’t realize that this canary could be a lot more dangerous than the cat.

  Aside from those vexations, she and Fabrice were fitting in well, and the tall, handsome earthling had drawn plenty of girls’ looks.

  One afternoon Fabrice burst into the library looking furious.

  Cal was levitating, trying to chase a recalcitrant book. When he grabbed the wriggling tome, he saw Fabrice’s expression and said, “What’s up with you? You look lik
e someone who bit into a plum and found a family of worms having dinner in it.”

  “That’s pretty much it,” grumbled Fabrice. “I was just ambushed.”

  “Really?” said Cal, who immediately came down to earth. “Tell me about it.”

  Fabrice plopped down onto a chair.

  “Do you know those two bimbos who are always gossiping with Angelica?”

  “You mean the two looky-looks?”

  “What the heck is a looky-look?”

  “A big bird with golden feathers that spends all its time parading around and clucking. They’re very easy to catch. You just set up a mirror in the forest, and within ten minutes you’ll have half a dozen of them admiring themselves in it.”

  “You’re pulling my leg,” said Fabrice.

  “Not at all,” said Cal very seriously, though a dimple in his cheek gave him away. “I think the description fits Angelica’s friends perfectly. So?”

  “Well, your looky-looks cornered me when I was playing with Manitou, and they asked why I hung out with losers like you.”

  Cal started to laugh. “Is that all? You must really interest them. What did you tell them?”

  “Nothing. I was so surprised I couldn’t think of a thing to say. But Manitou came to my rescue. He put his muddy paws on their nice clean dresses and they took off.”

  Cal scratched the dog behind the ears, producing a moan of pleasure. “Now that’s a good doggie!”

  “Er, remember that’s Tara’s great-grandfather,” said Fabrice. “How about a little respect, okay?”

  “Has he spoken in the time he’s been with you?”

  “No.”

  “Then that makes him a very good dog,” said Cal, stroking Manitou’s silky head. “And speaking of dog, I saw what you did last night.”