Third Time Lucky: And Other Stories of the Most Powerful Wizard in the World

by Tanya Huff

  "Slut!"

  "Ha! Now you're repeating yourself. I'm so not surprised by your total lack of imagination."

  Two gestured. One countered. Power sizzled against power in the centre of the room.

  * * * *

  now

  * * * *

  Darkness rose out of the shadows, divided an infinite number of times, took form and substance.

  "Imps?" Two stared at the swarm of tiny figures scuttling toward her. "They dare to send imps against me?"

  "Whatever." One didn't bother standing. She waved a languid hand and several imps imploded. The rest kept coming. Chestnut brows drew in. "That can't be good."

  "Do not start that again," Two snarled as the first imps reached her.

  They climbed into mouths and ears and noses. They tangled in hair. They tried to fit themselves into every bleeding wound they made. And for every dozen Magdelene destroyed, another dozen rose from the shadows.

  Driven out of the chair, One staggered around the room, flailing power at her attackers. Stumbling over a muscular body, she began to fall and grabbed hold of the closest solid object: Two's hand. As their finger tightened, the wizard looked herself in the eye and smiled.

  An instant later, the only sign that a battle had been fought, and nearly lost, was the tangled mess of Two's hair.

  "I can't believe they'd send imps after us," she growled, her hair rearranging itself back into a tight bun.

  "I can't believe the imps almost kicked ass," One added.

  A whimper turned them to face Dr. Bineeni. The doctor knelt on the floor, staring up through the bars of his stool. "You're actually her!"

  Yawning, One dropped back into the chair. "Yeah, we actually are."

  "And we need your help. You saw what happens when we try to fight the darkness as two separate wizards."

  Drawing in a long, shuddering breath, the doctor seemed to come to a decision as he slowly stood. "Who did this to you?"

  "Well, it's like, uh..."

  "Are you blushing?" Two demanded ,taking a disbelieving step toward her double. "I wouldn't have thought you still knew how to blush."

  "Up yours."

  "You know what your problem is? You're not willing to face reality." Straightening her robe, Two speared Dr. Bineeni with a irritated glare. "We did it to our-self. Ourselves."

  "And you want me to...?"

  "Put us back together."

  Bushy grey brows rose above the rims of his glasses. "You want to be back together? Because I have to say, it certainly doesn't seem like you want to be back together."

  "It doesn't matter what we want," Two explained over One's gagging noises. "We have a responsibility to the world to be back together before the Netherhells attack again."

  "Not to mention a responsibility to not be personally sliced and diced."

  "I see." He studied them for a long moment. "You held hands to defeat the smaller darkness."

  "Smaller darkness," One repeated.

  "And we can't keep doing that," Two told him.

  "Why not?"

  "We can't stand each other."

  "Again, why not?" He spread his hands. "You are, after all, both you. Do you not like yourself?"

  "I like myself just fine," One said before Two could answer. "It's her I can't stand. Bossy, uptight, neat freak!"

  "Lazy, lubricious – you don't care about anything but yourself!"

  "Lady Wizards, please." Stepping over one of his sleeping bodyguards to stand between them, the doctor looked from one to the other and sighed. "What could have happened to make you dislike yourself so?"

  * * * *

  Dr. Bineeni's consultation room was as full of books and scrolls and candles and jars as his inner sanctum, but it also held a wide chaise lounge. The instant she realized what the chaise was for, Two created a second, and the wizards – wearing identical apprehensive expressions – laid down.

  "All right." Lowering himself into the room's only chair, the doctor picked up a slate and a piece of chalk. "Let's start with some stream of consciousness. I'll begin a phrase, and you'll finish it with the first thing that comes into your head. You..." He pointed the chalk at One. "...will respond first and then you." The chalk shifted toward two. "As the questions continue, you will alternate responses. Are you ready?"

  One laced her fingers over her stomach. "Sure. I guess."

  "With great power comes great...?"

  "Sex!"

  Her chaise lounge collapsed.

  "Lady Wizards!"

  Two looked smug as One lowered her hand and untangled herself from the wreckage. "It was the first word that came into my head," she muttered, reforming the chaise.

  Pinching the bridge of his nose, Dr. Bineeni sighed. "Let's try something else," he said. "What's the last thing you remember before this happened?"

  One flashed a rude gesture at her double and laid down again. "I went to bed."

  "Alone?"

  She shrugged. "It happens. I'd just gotten back from Venitcia, and I was tired."

  "Venitcia?"

  "A city." Two frowned, trying to remember.

  "Why were you in Venitcia?"

  Two's frown deepened. "I don't know."

  The doctor turned to One, who shrugged again. "You got me."

  "So you know you were in Venitcia, but you don't know why." Dr. Bineeni pushed his glasses up his nose and tapped the chalk against the slate. "Interesting."

  The wizards exchanged an identical raised brow. The chalk turned into a slice of papaya.

  Dr. Bineeni blinked at the fruit. "Was the sound bothering you?"

  "I don't think he can help," said One.

  "As much as I hate to agree with you..." Two sat and swung her feet over to the floor. "...I find myself agreeing with you. Doctor..."

  He raised a hand, palm out. "Just one more thing, Lady Wizards. If you could finish this sentence: I went to Venitcia because...?"

  "Because someone asked for my help."

  "Our help."

  * * * *

  Right hand gripping the rail with white knuckled fingers, Magdelene straightened and wiped her mouth on the back of her left. "Did I happen to mention how much I hate boats?"

  "You did." Trying not to smile, Antonio handed her a water skin. "And then you called a wind to speed our passage, and then, if I'm not mistaken, you mentioned it again." He waited until she drank then reached out and gently caressed her cheek. "Did I happen to mention how grateful I am that you would not allow this hatred to keep you from helping my people?"

  "You did." Leaning into his touch, Magdelene all but purred. Not even the constant churning of her stomach could dull her appreciation of a beautiful, dark-eyed man. She liked to think that she'd have agreed to help regardless of who the Venitcia town council had sent to petition her, but she was just as glad that they'd hedged their bets by playing to a known weakness.

  Until he'd climbed the path to the turquoise house on the hill, Antonio had thought he'd been sent on a fool's errand – that the most powerful wizard in the world was a legend, a story told by wandering bards. Told enthusiastically by bards who'd wandered in the right direction. Magdelene had always been partial to men who made music.

  And to those who actually made an effort to seek her out.

  "My village was built many, many years ago on the slopes of an ancient volcano, a volcano that has recently begun to stir. My people cannot leave a place that has been home to them for generations."

  "Cannot?"

  "Will not," Antonio had admitted, smiling, and Magdelene was lost.

  "We're close," he told her, tucking her safely into the curve of his arm as the boat rolled. "That's the smoke of the volcano. When we round this headland, we'll see Venitcia..."

  When they rounded the headland, they saw steam rising off the water in a billowing cloud as a single lava stream continued to make its way to the sea. There was no town. No terraced orchards. No temples. No wharves. No livestock. No people.

  The captain t
ook his vessel as close as he dared, then Magdelene and Antonio took the small boat to shore, Magdelene creating a current so neither had to row. It took them a while to find a safe place to land and then a while longer to walk back to the town. Antonio said nothing the entire time.

  Magdelene pressed her palm against the warm ground, against the new ground, so much higher than it had been. "It happened just days after you left. Long before you found me. It was fast. So fast. Ash began to fall, then before anyone could escape the rim of the crater collapsed. The town was buried..." She left the word almost in a pause too small to notice. "...instantly."

  "How do you...?"

  "The lava told me." It had been bragging actually. She left that part out.

  Antonio walked to the edge of the crust and stared down into the last river of molten rock. "Is everyone dead?"

  "Yes."

  He sighed, brushed a fall of dark hair back off his face, and half turned; just far enough to smile sadly at her. "It wasn't your fault," he said.

  Before Magdelene could stop him, he fell gracefully forward and joined his people in death.

  Until that moment, she hadn't even considered that it might be her fault.

  * * * *

  "I didn't take it seriously enough."

  "I should have hurried."

  "You called a wind to fill the sails of the boat," Dr. Bineeni reminded them gently.

  "That was for my comfort," Two said bitterly. "Not for Venitcia."

  Sitting with her back against the wall, legs tucked up against her chest, One dried wet cheeks on her knees. "I was too late."

  The doctor shook his head. "It wasn't your fault. Antonio was right."

  "Antonio is dead."

  "Yes, he is. But he made his choice. You have to let that go." Looking from one to the other, he spread his hands. "You can't raise the dead."

  "Actually, I can."

  Dr. Bineeni blinked. Then he remember to breathe. "You can?"

  "If the flesh is still in a condition for the spirit to wear it," Two amended.

  "Although I sort of promised Death I'd stop," One sighed. "It messes with her accounting."

  "So, given the manner of his death, you couldn't bring Antonio back."

  "No."

  "Nor any of his people."

  "No."

  "But if I'd known," Two insisted, "I could have stopped it."

  "So many things I could stop if I knew," One agreed.

  "But I don't know. And do you know why I don't know?" Two stood, arms hugging her torso, holding in the grief, allowing only a little of the anger to slip free. "Because all I do is lie in the sun and have a good time."

  The doctor's brows rose at Two's declaration. "All you do?"

  "All I did." Her lips pressed into a thin, disapproving line as she nodded toward her double. "All she does. I recognize my responsibilities."

  "I'm sure you do, but without her, you can't fulfill them." He rubbed his upper lip with a chalk-stained finger as he studied his slate. "I have one final question."

  One scooted forward to the edge of the lounge. "Then you can fix us?"

  "No. Then you can fix yourself."

  "If I'm going to fix myself," One muttered, "why'd I have to come see you."

  Dr. Bineeni ignored her. "You have to learn to like yourself again."

  "Myself, yes. Her..."

  "...no." Two finished, lip curled.

  "We'll see." He sat back, glanced from one to the other, and said quietly, "You have, in your house, a flight of stairs that descends to the Netherhells. Why?"

  One snorted. "It's convenient."

  "Convenient? To have demons emerge out of your basement?"

  She ran a hand back through her hair. "Well, it's more of a sub-basement, but yes."

  "Why?"

  "So I know where they are," Two interjected before One could answer. "The demon princes gain power by slaughter. You don't want them running around the world unopposed."

  "No, I don't." As the silence lengthened, he added, "Legends say there were once six demon princes, but the most powerful wizard in the world stood between the mighty Kan'Kon and the slaughter he craved and now there are five. Mourn for Antonio, mourn for his people, but do not define the rest of your life by his loss."

  * * * *

  The boiling oil ready at the top of the stairs, Kali stepped gratefully aside as a single pop of displaced air heralded the return of her mistress. The clothing suggested that only Magdelene-one had returned, but then she noted the purposeful stride and the light of battle in the wizard's eyes, and the demon-housekeeper gave a heavy sigh of relief.

  Even given that the light of battle could be more accurately described as the light of extreme annoyance.

  "Mistress, they are very close."

  "I can see that," Magdelene noted as a bone spearhead came through the door. She yanked the door open and smiled at the demon, two steps down, attempting to free his weapon from the splintered wood. "Hi. I'm back."

  It froze. Those members of the demonic horde pushing up the stairs behind it who were within the sound of her voice froze as well.

  From deep within the bowels of the earth came a blood-curdling growl. "What's the hold up?"

  "She's back."

  Silence stretched almost to the edge of awkwardness.

  "Oh, crap."

  The demon at the top of the stairs curled a lipless mouth into what might have been a conciliatory smile.

  "If it's any consolation," Magdelene told it, raising her hands, "you'll be at the top of the pile."

  A moment later, the stairs were clear. Although the bouncing continued for some time. Magdelene waited until the moaning and the swearing and the recriminations died down, then she leaned out over the threshold. "Don't make me come down there."

  The lower door slammed emphatically shut, the vibration rocking her back on her heels.

  "Temper, temper," she muttered, stepping back into the hall.

  "I am pleased you are yourself again, Mistress." Lifting the vat of oil, Kali carried it into the kitchen. "I am happy the doctor was able to heal you."

  "He got me moving forward again," Magdelene allowed, following her housekeeper. "Although I am the most powerful wizard in the world. I probably could have figured it out eventually on my own."

  "We had time for neither probably nor eventually, Mistress."

  "True. I guess I needed someone to get into my head."

  Kali stared at the wizard for a long moment then surrendered to temptation. "That's a change," she said.

  [Publisher’s note: “We Two May Meet” is the last story of the collection, whether you opted to read Third Time Lucky in chronological or written order.]

  ALSO BY TANYA HUFF

  THE BLOOD BOOKS

  Blood Price

  Blood Trail

  Blood Lines

  Blood Pact

  Blood Debt

  THE SMOKE BOOKS

  Smoke and Shadows

  Smoke and Mirrors

  Smoke and Ashes

  THE FOUR QUARTERS

  Sing the Four Quarters

  Fifth Quarter

  No Quarter

  The Quartered Sea

  THE KEEPER CHRONICLES

  Summon the Keeper

  The Second Summoning

  Long Hot Summoning

  TORIN KERR NOVELS

  Valor's Choice

  The Better Part of Valor

  Heart of Valor

  Valor's Trial

  The Truth of Valor

  Peacemaker

  THE ENCHANTMENT EMPORIUM

  The Enchantment Emporium

  The Wild Ways

  The Future Falls

  DARKNESS, LIGHT, AND FIRE

  The Fire's Stone*

  Gate of Darkness, Circle of Light*

  Wizard of the Grove

  The Silvered

  SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS

  What Ho, Magic!

  Stealing Magic

  Relative Ma
gic

  Finding Magic

  Nights of the Round Table*

  February Thaw*

  Swan's Braid, and other tales of Terizan*

  He Said, Sidhe Said*

  Third Time Lucky*

  *available as a Jabberwocky ebook

  THANK YOU FOR READING

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