by Daniel Kirk
The Troll shuffled dejectedly from the room. Jardaine peered into the computer monitor. Silently she digested the words she read. Once she was certain she’d memorized the spell she looked away, mouthed the words, then checked the screen once again to make sure she had made no mistakes. “Does this magick work from afar?” she asked the Techmagician.
“Ma’am, it depends on the mental powers of the one uttering the spell!”
“Then I’ll have to see for myself,” Jardaine said, narrowing her eyes at him.
“Please, my Mage,” he cried, backing away, “have mercy!”
“All right,” she said with a sigh, “I won’t use it on you! But is there a way to minimize the effect?”
“According to our tests, permanent damage can be avoided by leaving off the last four lines of the text.”
“Very well!” Jardaine turned her gaze to the door and uttered the spell she’d memorized, being careful to stop before she’d recited the last four lines. There was a sound like a sack of grain hitting the floor. She raced to the doorway and peered into the darkened corridor, then went to Nick’s side and slapped his cheeks. “Nicholas, wake up,” she cried, “wake up!”
The Troll opened his eyes and groaned. Every muscle in his body was aching. “Are you all right?” Jardaine asked. “You must have fainted from the stress of the evening. Here, see if you can get up!”
“I don’t know what happened,” Nick said. “I thought I was standing next to you in the lab, looking at that box of blue light, and the next thing I know, I’m out here in the darkness, and you’re slapping me!”
“You remember nothing else?”
“Nooo,” Nick grumbled.
Jardaine turned again to the Techmagician, who stood trembling in the doorway. “I’ll take your lightning rod,” she said, “for what it’s worth. But what I really want is all the information I saw revealed in your magick box. You must copy it for me. I’ll be back before morning to pick it up. Do you understand? ’Tis a simple task, but if you fail, I will have your head on a pike.”
“My Mage,” said the Elf, moving toward another machine made of metal and plastic, “Human magick makes it a very simple task, indeed. With a push of a button, the words will write themselves on sheets of paper, which I feed into this device. ’Twill be ready in no time!”
Jardaine nodded, then turned toward the stairway. “Come, Nick. We’re going to pay a little visit to Prashta, and see how fast he’s willing to get us out of here.”
Prashta lay in the bed of his apartment in the Western Tower. Anxiety did not let him rest. His wife had prepared a tincture meant to bring sleep. Her own portion of the pungent liquid had sent her to the Gates of Vattar in record time; her husband, however, tossed and turned. Before retiring for the night he had stationed guards both outside the door of his apartment as well as in the foyer of the great stone building. Soldiers were still searching for Jardaine, Nick, and Jal-Maktar. They were advised to be on the lookout for King Macta and Princess Asra, too, in case they were still alive. It was the thought of Jardaine, though, that kept Prashta squirming uneasily between his silken sheets. She’d been ordered to leave Helfratheim immediately, but now that she’d been appointed Mage, she’d never willingly give up her position. A torrent of doubt swept through Prashta’s mind. If Jardaine and that shape-shifting monster Jal-Maktar forged an alliance of their own, Prashta knew he and the Council would be doomed.
Jardaine and Nick huddled in moon shadow behind the bushes surrounding the apartment tower. Nick saw the guards, more than a dozen in number, and a sinking sensation came over him. He’d chosen sides, and he was more certain by the minute that he’d chosen badly. Jardaine knelt behind the bushes, mouthing the words to the incantation she had learned. One by one, the guards began to fall.
Jardaine stepped up to the fallen guards and grinned. It had been far, far easier to strike them down with bursts of mental energy than it would have been to plant an image in their minds of Jal-Maktar in one of his hideous guises. Nick dragged the guards away, then held the door wide so that his Master could slip inside. Smiling coyly, she aimed the point of the Techmagician’s lightning rod at Nick’s cheek, then handed it to him and swaggered inside. “I’ll save three of the guards upstairs for you. Make sure they’re out cold, then tie them up.”
Outside Prashta’s apartment Jardaine and Nick quickly did their work. Inside, Prashta reached for his wife, who had been snoring at his side, and realized that her half of the bed was empty. He turned his head to see Jardaine looking down at him, a smirk on her face. “Wha—” he started.
“Don’t bother calling for help,” Jardaine snapped, knowing that Prashta would try to alert the guards stationed outside. “Your henchmen are sleeping on the job.”
Prashta’s wife was bound to a bedside chair, and she was gagged to prevent her from screaming. “Whatever you want, Jardaine,” Prashta said, trembling. “I’ll give whatever you ask.”
“Indeed you will,” Jardaine said, holding the lightning rod close to Prashta’s wife. “I need an Arvada and a flight crew. I need maps that will guide us to the Pole. I need provisions—food and water for three months’ journey.”
“Three months?” Prashta cried. “What makes you think—”
Jardaine held the tip of the lightning rod so close to Prashta’s wife that a blue spark jumped to her quivering flesh. “Three sheets of royal stationery, Nick,” Jardaine said and gestured to Prashta’s writing desk. “Paper and pen.”
Prashta sat up in bed. With trembling hands he wrote letters to the captain of the Arvada, the Guild Hall mapmakers, and the Secretary in charge of provisions, ordering them to fulfill all of Jardaine’s demands. He slipped the notes into envelopes. “Will you leave us in peace now?” he pleaded.
There was a groan from just outside the door; the guards Nick had shocked into unconsciousness were waking up. “We’ll leave you in peace,” Jardaine said, “when we’re sure the letters have been delivered and that you haven’t betrayed us.”
Nick severed the vines around the guards’ wrists, while Jardaine kept the lightning rod handy. “Deliver these letters,” Prashta said to the guards. “Return with formal replies as quickly as you can. Our new Mage is to have all the resources of Helfratheim at her disposal.”
“And don’t try anything heroic,” Jardaine said, holding up a handful of hair she’d clipped from the heads of the guards while they were unconscious. “I can use this to cast spells on you that will make you wish you’d never been born.”
“She’s not fooling,” Prashta said. “Just do what I ordered, and hurry back!”
Nick opened the door for the guards to leave. They stepped over the fallen bodies of their fellows and hurried down the hallway.
“Where is King Macta?” Prashta asked cautiously.
“That’s none of your concern.”
“I spoke to our people this evening,” Prashta said. “I told them that you and Macta had retired to the palace, after a long day.”
Jardaine nodded. “Very well. I’d feel reassured to hear news like that.”
“We’d make a good team, you and I,” Prashta said. “If you were my ally, instead of my enemy, perhaps we—”
“Too late,” Jardaine interrupted. “What’s done is done.”
“Where is Jal-Maktar?”
“He’s tending to my affairs,” Jardaine lied. “He’ll come to my aid at a moment’s notice if I encounter the slightest resistance from you or any of your cronies.”
Prashta’s wife, behind her gag, was squealing, desperately trying to speak. “Shhhhhh, my dear,” her husband soothed. The door of his apartment hung open and a sliver of light fell upon the guards piled in the hallway. He knew what Jardaine would likely do next, and there was nothing he could do to stop her.
Before long the guards returned with written reassurances that all of Jardaine’s requests would be met. Nick slipped up from behind and touched them lightly with the lightning rod. He moved so fast that the guards h
ad no time to protest, and they fell without a sound. At a nod from his Master, Nick brought the lightning rod to Prashta’s wife, still gagged and trussed in her chair. Prashta offered no resistance when it was his turn. His face, in fact, bore a look of relief when the device touched his neck and flashed blue against his pale skin.
Jardaine wrinkled her nose at the scent of ozone and stepped out of the room. Nick turned to follow, but she blocked his exit. “Wait. You’re not finished with that rod. Shock them again, just to be sure.”
Nick’s eyes widened. “You don’t mean—”
“I mean you’d best not question my orders,” Jardaine interrupted.
The Troll nodded and turned back into the bedroom.
“Make it fast,” Jardaine called. “There’s much to be done! I must pick up the spells from the techmagick labs, and then I want to see to it that their doors are closed forever. Once we’re gone, we don’t want them coming after us!”
hurtled, arms outstretched, through the Cord. The three of them had been heading north for hours. Matt couldn’t stop his mind from drifting back to the fate of his parents and sister Emily. He had no way of knowing that they were free, safe and sound, and back in the human realm; but if he’d known what had happened to Becky since he’d left her in the woods outside Ljosalfar, he’d have far more reason to worry.
Matt tried to distract himself by imagining what the landscape was like aboveground—if there were people, and towns. He wondered how far north they’d managed to come. He wondered what the repercussions had been in the human world after the horrible sacrifice in Helfratheim. He wondered if he’d ever get to Helfratheim to rescue his parents and baby sister, after planting the Seed from the tree at the North Pole. His mind bounced from feelings of hope to despair, and after a while it was too much to bear.
Tuava-Li flew behind Matt, in fierce concentration, watching for any sign that he was sinking into sleep or a stupor. She couldn’t afford to lose him now. On occasion she spoke to him in thoughtspeak, so that he would stay as sharp and attentive to his surroundings as he possibly could. With no sleep and little food, and nothing in their field of vision but the endless length of gray, even Tuava-Li and Tomtar, accustomed to travel in the Cord, were having a hard time staying alert. It was time to take a break. When Tuava-Li felt the elevation rise and saw a feeble yellow glow in the distance, she gestured to Tomtar and called out to Matt. Prepare yourself. We must get out of the Cord and rest, clear our heads with talk, and food, and fresh air.
Matt and Tomtar shifted their arms and banked to the right, allowing Tuava-Li to pass by. The color of the Cord they’d been traveling through was little more than a dull beige, like the inside of a tree root, but there was a faint warm glow ahead that let them know there was sunlight outside. Tuava-Li clutched the wall of the Cord and flung her body into the pulpy mass. With one sharp fingernail, she drew a line through it, and climbed out. Air spilled from the opening with a loud whooosh. Matt and Tomtar gripped the wall with their fingers and pushed with their feet. They found the slit, and followed Tuava-Li out into the open air. Matt was crawling on his hands and knees. After so many hours in the Cord, his tongue felt thick and dry, and his ears were ringing. His body still felt like it was going a hundred miles an hour. On solid ground he felt awkward and clumsy; it was a strange sensation. In the Cord, he and his companions had learned to move together as elegantly as birds in flight. He sat down and looked around. The Cord rose out of the earth like the knuckle of an enormous finger, ten feet wide and thirty or more feet in length.
Tuava-Li was already smoothing the cut she’d made, sealing the opening with gentle strokes of her fingers. The Cord was healthier here, more resilient than other tributaries she’d seen lately, even when so much of this one was exposed to the elements. But the fibrous skin did not immediately heal itself, and it bulged and flapped as the hot, damp wind blew through it. “Where are we?” Tomtar asked.
“It’s obvious,” Matt said with a sigh, “it’s clear as day. We’re in the middle of nowhere!”
A rocky plain spread out before them on all sides. Long brown grass clung to the ground in patches, and a few bare trees stood in the distance, silhouetted by black hills. There was no sign of civilization, no trace of Human hands on the landscape. Neither, however, was there any sign of Faerie life. The sky was gray and streaked with yellow, and there was a strong wind from the north. The air was far colder than it had been in Pittsburgh.
Tomtar shivered. “I hope we’re near the North Pole!”
“Me, too,” Matt said. “I’m beginning to wonder what we’re supposed to do when we get there. We don’t have coats, or boots, or anything! We’ve got to find a town where we can buy some gear, or we’ll be frozen solid before we find that magic tree at the top of the world.”
Tuava-Li drew the hair out of her eyes when the wind whipped it across her face. “The Gods will provide,” she said. “They always do.”
Matt sighed in frustration, but without the anger that had eaten at him before. “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, if there are any gods out there, they’d want us to take care of ourselves, Tuava-Li. You honestly think the gods have time to worry about our little troubles?”
“Is there any food?” Tomtar asked.
“You misunderstand,” Tuava-Li said. “Our troubles aren’t little. Our troubles are the troubles of the world, and the Gods watch our every move with great interest. They must, for the future depends upon our success. We must succeed in our efforts, and yet without their help, we’ll fail. Let us see if your tattoos have changed!”
Matt pulled up his shirt. “Wow,” he exclaimed. “Usually I feel all tingly when they change, but I guess I was distracted in the Cord. What is that?”
“Elves,” Tuava-Li said, closely examining Matt’s torso. “Nooo, children. I think they’re Human children. Holding hands and spinning in a circle.”
Matt sighed. “What is that supposed to mean? My body’s turned into a kids’ book illustration. Is it symbolic, that we’re acting like children, not being responsible enough, smart enough? We’re doing everything we can!”
“Can we think about it while we’re looking for something to eat?” Tomtar pleaded.
Matt yanked his shirt back down. Then he took off his pack and rummaged around through the pockets. “I had a few almonds,” he mumbled, “unless I ate them already.”
“Fungus?” offered Tuava-Li, drawing a gnarled, dusty-looking root from her own pack.
“You bet,” Tomtar said, reaching out a hand. He was already drooling in delight at the prospect of having something—anything—in his belly.
“Give it to me,” Matt said with a sigh. He pulled his knife from his pocket, and holding the fungus against a rock, cut it into three equal strips.
“’Tisn’t fair,” Tomtar said, munching on his piece. “Matt, you’re bigger than Tuava-Li and me put together; you should have gotten a bigger piece for yourself!”
“It isn’t fair that all we have to eat is fungus,” Matt said. “Eat up. I’ll find something else!”
Matt, hoping he might find a berry bush or some edible-looking plant, took a few tentative steps across the rock-strewn ground. “Whoa,” he cried, bending over, and bracing his hands on his knees. “I’m dizzy!”
“Go easy,” said Tuava-Li. “Balance is hard to maintain when one’s been traveling long in the Cord.”
“Tell me about it,” Matt said. “Or maybe—don’t. Just help me find something to eat, guys!”
“Be careful,” Tuava-Li warned. “I’m not certain where we are, but the Human realm is full of poisonous plants.”
“And the elf realm?” Matt asked. “Poisonous plants there?”
“Mushrooms, puffballs, scurvy grass, those are all safe,” Tuava-Li said.
Other than the distant trees, there were only stunted bushes with brown leaves clinging to withered twigs. “Look here,” Tuava-Li said, slipping her pack from around her shoulders and bending by a low bush. “�
�Tis whortleberry. Look for blue-black berries and small oval leaves. These normally ripen in August, so we’re lucky to find any now still on the branches.”
“Luck of the Chosen Ones,” Tomtar said with a grin, plucking some of the berries and stuffing them into his mouth.
“Chosen to suffer,” Matt said, nibbling a few of the berries and wiping the dark juice from his lips. “They’re not bad, but we can’t make a meal out of these things. Tuava-Li, we’ve got to find something more substantial. I’m completely starving.”
Tuava-Li got up and walked away, keeping her eyes on the ground. “If we’re far enough north, the reindeer eat the bark of the arctic willow and ground birch. We could probably eat that, too, if we had to. We could look for lichen, crowberries, many things.”
“There’s a stream over this way,” Matt said.
“Then we might look for something called Archangelica. ’Tis a tall plant, Matthew, sometimes it grows as tall as you. The leaf stalks are tender, and if there are any flowering stems, I’ve heard the Elves of the North find them delicious when prepared in a soup.”
“Soup!” Tomtar said excitedly. “We could get some water from the stream, build a fire, and cook the greens!”
“If we had anything to put it in,” Matt grumbled, walking along the water’s edge. He stepped carefully, as the stones on the bank were slippery, and he didn’t want to fall into the freezing water. He waved away the tall grass and peered into the burbling stream. There was something moving in a shallow pond, where the rocks had blocked the passage of swift-moving water. “Hey, you won’t believe this. There’s a fish trapped over here!”
Tomtar scampered over to take a look. The fish was easily a foot long, and its gray back was spotted with white. “We should move the rocks,” Tomtar said, “so it can get back into the stream. It’s probably trying to reach the sea!”
Matt shook his head. The fish was sluggish, and its dorsal fin rose out of the shallow water. “I don’t want to do this, Tomtar, but I’ve got to eat. You should go over there with Tuava-Li.”