by Rain Oxford
I spotted a bowl of steaming porridge at my normal seat and sat down. Magnus was very considerate of me, which made me feel uncomfortable. I was a sorcerer; I grew up without any kindness in the house. I expected it to be different when I was a real wizard.
“What’s wrong?” I asked Asiago when I saw him frowning at me.
“Nothing.” He looked at Magnus. “Did you go on a lot of adventures when you were Ayden’s age?”
Magnus shook his head regrettably. “I was raised very secluded. My parents only allowed me to practice magic and read books. When I was ten, I began sneaking out and made friends. My best friends, Hokis and Leo, were a necromancer and a warrior. Unfortunately, Leo was killed when he was thirteen. He was the one who kept us out of trouble. Hokis and I were both rebellious and it didn’t take long for us to get in trouble. My parents relocated to the middle of the Misty Mountains so that I couldn’t have any friends. They believed, as most wizards do, that a wizard is not supposed to have adventures.”
I hadn’t known that, but it made sense. Sorcerers usually had stationary or mobile businesses, but they often went out and did their own dirty work. People went to wizards when they needed help, but wizards didn’t usually leave their castles. Warriors were the ones who went on heroic quests. Sometimes they weren’t that heroic. Nevertheless, sorcerers didn’t like to outsource villainous quests if they could help it. My mother always said it was because sorcerers believed in power whereas wizards believed in hope and dreams.
“This is the crystal Veronica is after,” Magnus said, pulling it from one of the pockets of his robe.
I took it carefully. It was the length of my palm and half as wide as it was long. The crystal itself was clear, but inside it was what looked like glowing red smoke, which swirled slowly. “This is dark magic?”
“The red smoke is the manifestation of her dark magic, yes.”
“It isn’t much, is it?”
“There is more dark magic in the crystal than Veronica has. In fact, it contains more dark magic than all of your brothers put together.”
I gaped. “Are you sure I should be holding this? The dark magic can’t get out, can it? I don’t think I should hold it.”
“As long as you don’t break it, you will be fine. The magic doesn’t make you malevolent.” He turned to Asiago and pulled a ribbon made of dried herbs out of his pocket. “I made you something to help you with your zombie problem.” When he let the strand go, it flew to Asiago and tied itself around his wrist.
“Thank you!” he said.
“It won’t keep them away completely, but it should make you more difficult for them to find and it should repel them enough to keep them off of you. Now, I think you should meet Sam,” Magnus said, standing. We followed him out to the main room, where the unicorn was playing with an even rarer beast. I was surprised to see the unicorn with a slim saddle, but even more surprised to see his playmate.
Sam was a griffon. He had the body, tail, and back legs of a lion, and the head, wings, and front legs of an eagle. Asiago gaped. “Is it safe to ride?”
“If you’re polite. With all magical creatures, you have to show them respect. Approach him slowly, but don’t touch him. He will let you know when he’s ready to be touched.”
“What if he’s never ready? Do griffons even like necromancers?”
“If you show him respect, he will reciprocate. I have already discussed it with them this morning. If you get attacked by an animal under Veronica’s control, Sam can protect you and Kirin can help you escape.”
At that point, the griffon cautiously approached Asiago and sniffed him. Asiago very slowly reached out and pet him. Soon, the griffon stretched out his wings and lowered himself.
“He’s allowing you to climb on.”
Asiago studied the position of the wing carefully before gently stepping up onto the base of the griffon’s wing and swinging his left leg over. It took him a moment to get into a comfortable position, and then the griffon stood.
I slipped my bag and wand into the saddlebag. There was also a hook for my staff. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than trying to hold it and my bag.
Magnus retrieved a small leather purse from a pocket in his robe and handed it to me. “You should have some money in case you find yourself in some trouble, since you can’t use sorcery.” I slipped it into the saddlebag. “Before you go,” he said, trailing off. He made a motion towards the crystal on my staff and it flashed with a deep red glow.
“What was that?”
“It will now tell you if you are doing sorcery.”
“I know when I’m doing sorcery!”
“If you want me to seal your power, this is what you have to do.” He waved his staff and the room filled with light.
Chapter 6
We appeared in front of a very pleasant-looking forest. There was a path leading into it and I could hear birds singing happily. Next to it were several signs.
Endless Forest
Dead End
Do Not Enter!
Go Back!
There was another sign with arrows. The forest was to the east.
To the north: Food
To the south: Comfortable Lodgings
To the west: The City of Branson
To the east: Certain Death
“It looks safe to me,” Asaigo said.
“What could go wrong in a place named the Endless Forest?” I tried to go forth, but Kirin neighed and stepped in front of me, nearly filleting me with his horn. “Don’t be scared, Kirin. Livia needs us.” I pushed his head out of the way and continued into the forest. Asiago followed and then the unicorn and griffon reluctantly trailed after us.
For a while, it was utterly peaceful.
* * *
“Do you think we’re almost there?” Asiago asked.
“I don’t know. I wish Magnus had told us how far it was.” At that point, we came to a strange tower, surrounded by a very small moat. It wasn’t a tall tower, maybe twice my height, but that wasn’t the strangest part. There was a thick, yellow rope hanging out of the only window. I left Kirin and hopped over the moat.
“What are you doing?” Asiago asked.
“I’m curious. Maybe someone needs help.”
Asiago scoffed. “You don’t want to be a wizard; you want to be a hero.”
“I really don’t.” I picked up the end of the rope, which made a wadded pile on the ground, and frowned. “This is hair.” It was braided tightly and had lots of split ends, but it was definitely hair.
“That is really weird. Who doesn’t cut their hair? Oh, maybe it’s magic hair.”
“That is the silliest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Hello?” yelled a woman from inside the tower. “Has my prince finally come to save me?”
I grabbed the sill of the window, put my foot on a ridge in the stone, and hefted myself up to look into the tower. It was a mess, with a small, pink bed and drawings all over the wall. It was only one room, though a pink silk screen blocked part of it off from view. There was a young woman standing in the middle of the room, dancing to music I couldn’t hear. Her long, light blue dress was dingy and worn in spots.
“How long have you been here?” It wasn’t the most polite question, but it was more polite than anything else I wanted to ask.
She startled and turned to me. “I’ve been here my entire life!”
“In this forest?”
“In this tower.”
“Why?”
“I was brought here when I was a baby, and I’ve been waiting for a prince to come and rescue me.”
“You know you could get down easily, right? You wouldn’t even hurt yourself if you fell out.”
She gasped. “I couldn’t do that! I’m a princess! I wouldn’t survive a day without my one true love.” At that point, she started singing, but the pitch was too high to understand.
“That’s unfortunate. I’ll leave you to it, then.” I hopped down and returned to Asiago. “Ap
parently, it was a princess, but she didn’t look like she could manage a vegetable garden, let alone a kingdom.”
I mounted the unicorn and Asiago got back on the griffon.
“Just so I’m clear on this… quest… Livia is your aunt, and she was kidnaped by your cousin, Veronica. Veronica kidnapped her because she wants her magic. And if you can save Livia without using sorcery, your uncle will seal your dark magic like Livia did.”
I didn’t really think of Magnus as my uncle. “Pretty much.”
“And you haven’t met Veronica?”
“No. I have met my other cousin, though. Sonya was Livia’s second daughter, and she only had light magic because she was born after Livia sealed her magic. Well, I sort of met her. She’s a ghost, and she doesn’t remember anything from before she died. She doesn’t even remember her name; she goes by Kisha.”
Asiago stopped and gaped at me. “She’s a ghost?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe she can help us. Sisters typically know secrets about each other.”
“She doesn’t remember anything.”
“I’m a necromancer. I can either access those memories, or find out what happened to them. I can even see her last moments of life. The only problem is that I need something of hers.”
“How did you raise an entire cemetery on accident if you need something of theirs?”
“It’s a completely different thing. Raising a zombie is not like calling a spirit. A zombie is only an impression of the person that was once alive. Some of them can speak words that they used a lot, some can say the name of their killer, and stuff like that. Spirits are fully coherent, assuming they didn’t die in some horrifying way. A spirit once followed me around and I couldn’t figure out why because her mother had sewn her mouth shut when she was alive and her spirit mouth wouldn’t open.”
“That’s horrible!”
“Was it? Her mother had warned her that she talked too much. The point is, I need something of Sonya’s in order to call her here.”
I reached into the saddlebag. “This isn’t something of hers, but will this work?” I asked, pulling a drawing out. It was a drawing of Sonya between Livia and Magnus, where Livia and Magnus’s heads were cut off.
He took it and nodded. “It should work.”
“What about your bag that the villagers took?”
“Magnus gave me some supplies this morning,” he said, pulling out two candles, a ball of red yarn, and a dagger. “Well, at least the supplies he had, which surprised me. I didn’t think a wizard would have anything I could use.”
“What else do you need?”
“Fire, dirt from the footprint of a virgin, and the blood of a unicorn.”
Kirin neighed and tried to knock Asiago off of Sam with his horn. Sam easily dodged him. “You can’t use Kirin’s blood,” I said.
Asiago shrugged. “That’s okay. Unicorn blood isn’t really necessary, it’s just popular to sell to the younger generation.”
“Where are we going to get dirt from the footprint of a…” I stopped talking when I saw his expression. “Don’t you dare.”
“Hop down,” he said.
“I’m going to feed you to the first monster we see in this forest. Do you really need a footprint or did you just say that so you could tease me?”
“I just wanted to know if it was true. Obviously, it is.”
I leaned down to whisper in Kirin’s ear. “If he disappears in the night while I’m asleep, I won’t say anything.” The unicorn nodded.
“What are you two talking about?” Asiago asked. When I didn’t answer, he glanced down at Sam. “You’ll protect me while I sleep, right?” The griffon shook his head solemnly.
“What in the world is that?” I asked when I saw what appeared to be a house made of straw. We stopped in front of it because even Kirin and Sam couldn’t believe it. “Maybe there is a wooden frame under it. Otherwise, what would protect it from the rain?”
Asiago frowned at it. “It looks like a strong wind could knock it down.”
“It looks like a slight breeze could knock it down.” We continued for another moment before we came upon a second house. “This is ridiculous.” It was a house made of sticks.
“It’s so ridiculous that I really want to knock it down,” Asiago said.
“Don’t knock it down.”
“Why not? No one could actually live there.”
I sighed and moved along. We didn’t get very far before we came upon a block house. “Well, at least that one looks like it can stand up to an attack.”
“What kind of attack?”
“Werewolves maybe?”
“Weird. Where are we going, anyway?”
“Out. You’re right, though. We should find someone and ask for directions. We’d better be quick, too; it’s going to be dark soon. I would like to reach Veronica before it’s completely dark.” I got down from the unicorn. “Maybe there’s someone in the house who can give us directions.”
I approached the house, half expecting some monster to jump out at me, and knocked on the door. There was no answer. I went to the window, which was just a circular hole in the wall. There was nothing inside but a cot, a table, and three mops. I gaped, for the mops were mopping the floor on their own.
I returned to Kirin without a word.
“What did you see?” Asiago asked.
“Nothing. Nothing at all. The next person we see, whoever it is, we’ll ask them.”
* * *
It didn’t take long for us to come across… something. It looked like a little fairy, but it was more like a shapeless figure, glowing bright blue. “Hello, there,” I said cautiously. “Do you know where we can find a sorceress named Veronica?” The little creature darted off into the woods and stopped. “It must not understand.”
“Or it wants us to follow it.”
“You want to follow a glowing ball into the darkness?”
“It’s not like we’re going to get lost.”
“I have a feeling we’re both idiots,” I said as we followed the glowing creature. It kept darting away and then stopping to wait for us, so it wasn’t afraid. It could change direction very abruptly, which clearly irritated both Kirin and Sam. Unfortunately, the creature kept getting faster, until both the unicorn and griffon were fully galloping.
Just as the sun was setting, Kirin and Sam stopped so suddenly that I nearly went flying off Kirin’s back. Asiago did actually lose his grip around Sam’s neck and hit the ground, pulling out a few of Sam’s feathers.
In front of us was a thick, knee-high wall of fog. I could easily see over it; there were no trees across it. At the edge of the fog was a sign, stating that it was Nightmare Valley. “That’s a little ominous,” I said.
Asiago climbed to his feet and shot Sam a glare before reading the sign. “It’s just a bit of fog.”
“Actually, we don’t know that. It could be a lake,” I argued.
“It’s called Nightmare Valley.”
“It’s called Nightmare Valley. Besides, I definitely don’t want to go in there this close to night. Let’s find somewhere safe to sleep. I can’t help but think there’s a monster or something in there… probably with tentacles.”
Agreeing with me, Kirin backed up, turned, and walked away from the fog. Sam followed without his rider and Asiago had to run to keep up. It was very dark by the time we reached a stream and large tree that looked as good as any place to rest.
I patted Kirin’s neck. “Should we stop here for the night?” I asked. Both the unicorn and griffon stopped. I got down and stretched while Kirin and Sam drank from the stream. “Do you think you can call Sonya here, or do you need to rest first?”
He sat down on a large boulder, untied the herb band from his wrist, pulled the drawing out of his pocket, and studied it closely. After a moment, he went around to the other side of the tree. “I need privacy for this.”
“You’d better be using that only to summon her.”
“It’s
got to be quiet, too.”
I pulled out some of the edible clay from my bag and transformed it into bread, then peeked around the tree to see what the necromancer was up to. I had met necromancers before, but I never got a chance to watch them work. The drawing was placed between the two lit candles, although I had no idea how he lit them. I could just make out that there was something etched into the candles. He was whispering something I could barely hear.
The magic Merlin taught me from his world used a different language than mine and was extremely difficult to use. The tradeoff was that it was very powerful. Basically, he could do with his words and mind what I could only do with my staff. I often told my wand or staff what to do, but the words had no power. Unfortunately, I had never once been completely successful with Merlin’s magic. I accidently used one of Merlin’s spells wrong and spent a month cleaning spiders out of my room. That was one itchy lesson.
Of all the magic users on Caldaca, necromancers were the only ones who relied on words. Wizards and sorcerers had wands or staffs, magicians had their hats, elementalists used movement, and mages and seers didn’t need anything.
When he leaned back, heavy smoke rose from the candles and accumulated in front of him. “Sonya Dracre, answer my call,” he said. The smoke began to swirl violently and I heard several whispers before it suddenly dispersed, blowing the candles out with it.
I quickly returned to Kirin and pretended to look for something in the saddlebag so Asiago wouldn’t know I had been watching. “What happened?” I asked.
“Something was holding her back. I could sense her, but something was physically holding her there. Since you said you met her in a mansion, I’m betting there is an object inside that is keeping her there. Or, it could possibly be the house itself.”
“I found a really creepy doll that she somewhat recognized.”
“I doubt it’s a doll. Nobody ever curses or haunts a doll.”
“My mother creates dolls of people and uses them for curses.”
“If she’s so powerful, why hasn’t she made you return to her?”