Twisted Legends: Twisted Magic Book 4

by Kaye, Rainy

  “So you mean, if they need to bring you out of storage,” Randall continued. “If they needed the vault unlocked?”

  “Yes. It’s my job to stay in the pocket and keep the spell safe so the vault can be unlocked when a new prisoner is caught.” The key gazed up the side of the cliff to an opening ten feet up the side. “The passage is in there.”

  “You should probably be aware, the tower fell,” I said.

  The key swiveled around and stared at me, processing my words. Realization settled on his face.

  “Ah, no,” he said, and started climbing toward the opening.

  The cliff wall had plenty of hand and foot holds, and scaling it a few feet would have nothing on the crazy mountain climbing in Haven Rock.

  Partway to the opening, he looked down at us. “They made you go through the Dark Lands to get here?”

  I bristled. Made? As in, there was a friggin’ choice?

  Without a reply, I started up after him. He slipped into the cave opening, just barely enough room to wiggle inside, and disappeared. When I reached the hole, Randall right under me, I stopped and peered inside. The entrance was dark, and I couldn’t make out anything. It could be some crazy kind of trap the key was leading us into, but those were the risks with the job these days.

  I squished myself up and wiggled inside, using my elbows, bent under me, to pull myself along. Randall gently shoved on my ass, and it was a shame that the first time he touched my ass, it was the least sexual situation ever.

  As my legs dragged inside the entrance, the short tunnel pitched into a wide cavern lit with filtered sunlight from an opening I couldn’t locate. I stepped out of the way as Randall dropped down in a crouch next to me.

  Tall arches loomed up to the cavern roof, made from the same stone as the cliff. In the middle of the room, a lake swallowed the base of several arches.

  If the cave opened to a wide view of the beach, this would be an epic travel photo shot.

  “The passage is in there,” the key said, pointing to the lake. “I can’t access it.”

  “In there? The lake?” I scowled at the water like it personally offended me. “Do we have to go snorkeling or something?”

  “You need to move the water to reveal the passageway. Once the water is away from it, the passage activates and then anyone can cross,” he said. “They guarded the cave so that I can’t use my magic in it. In the event they needed the keys, they would send someone to clear the lake for us to use the passage.”

  “You’re prisoners,” Randall said matter of fact.

  The key stood taller, straighter, as if Randall had just thrown down some fighting words.

  “It was a sacrifice we were willing to make. The vault serves an enormously important function, and not protecting the spells to open it would be foolish. We remained on the island—that’s what all this is—” he said, gesturing to vaguely indicate the pocket, “and it was going just fine.”

  “Until?” Randall prodded, and he may as well have just poked the key in the forehead with his finger.

  Thudding pounded through the cave. The key jerked his head back to look up at the roof.

  “Until them,” he said, voice hoarse. “You have to clear the water. They’re almost here. If they catch us, they will kill us. The time for negotiations has long passed.”

  I still had so many questions. I wanted to demand answers, right here, before I did any such magic tricks, but I couldn’t imagine for a moment that the soldiers had anything pleasant planned for the key—and now, us, for daring to trespass on the island, in their own little magical pocket realm, where they kept their most powerful tools hidden.

  Those men, those soldiers, they worked for the consortium. I didn’t know how all this came together yet, but we would have to find out after I…

  Moved a lake.

  Well, I’d managed to float to the surface in an air bubble in a lake recently, so maybe this wasn’t so farfetched. At least, not in this world, where my magic had been my own without effort.

  I glanced at Randall, wishing for reassurance, but hoping he wouldn’t see that I needed it. With a tired smile, he reached out and squeezed my hand. Taking a deep breath, I stepped forward toward the lake.

  I put my hands out in front of me, trying to determine where to begin. Did I swirl the water up like a hurricane? Wash it up and out of the cave through the opening?

  Could I even do any of those things?

  The water didn’t move, even as I inched close enough to the edge my boots became wet. My magic didn’t seem to be influencing the water at all.

  Was it possible they had locked me out somehow?

  I didn’t understand enough to make any reasonable assumptions.

  My shoulders tightened, my arms stiffened, and I held my breath until my chest hurt.

  Except, that wasn’t how my magic worked, especially since arriving at the pockets. It came easily, naturally.

  I forced myself to breathe in and out, slow and gentle, easing my muscles to relax. Mostly, I just stopped trying.

  The lake began to churn, and I leaned into the feeling of it responding to my thoughts. I needed a path to the passage hidden by the lake.

  As if obeying me, the lake rolled back from the center, building in waves that grew higher and higher, but didn’t move toward us. The waves piled up, churning and rolling in their midst, peeling back from the ground into walls of water that rose up taller than me and kept climbing, revealing a raised stone dais with ornate carvings at the corners and wide set of steps that led to the top of the platform. It matched the one that had formed the base of the tower in the Dark Lands.

  With a thought, I brought the water around to form a path between where we stood and the stone.

  Randall and the key hesitated, and I felt a sense of obligation to go first. This was my masterpiece. If it all came crashing down, it would be my fault.

  I took one small step forward, just in reach of the churning water walls that blocked my view of the rest of the cave. Then, I shuffled forward one more step.

  Cool water misted my skin as I made way through the water-walled corridor. The water churned and beat as if held behind glass, but if I were to dare to reach out, I would be able to touch it, to submerge my hand.

  The water walls could be released with a thought.

  A thought like that one. I tried to steel my resolve, my mind, batting away any notions that it could fall in fear of a self-fulfilling prophecy, and then my heart sped up more as I realized the attention to not thinking fateful thoughts would also bring down my walls.

  I found myself at the stone dais before I noted how far and fast my thoughts were spiraling, and clamped down on them. Randall and the key inched down the water corridor toward me.

  Randall came up behind me.

  “Saf,” he said, breathless.

  I didn’t look at him. I wasn’t sure what I would see in his expression, and I didn’t want to deal with anything more right now.

  The key came around to stand by the dais.

  “What is this thing?” I asked. “I’ve seen a portal or two now, but this is…different.”

  The key gave me a curious look. “The paths between worlds aren’t simple, but you can think of the portals like doors. They’re big, strong, and intentional entrances and exits. Passageways, these daises, they’re more like tunnels. They’re sneaky. Sometimes the passageways have two points, one on each end, and sometimes just one. Portals and passageways differ not in what they do, but how they were created.”

  “Good lesson,” Randall said, “but we need to get going, yes?”

  “We need to cross through here, you last,” he said, indicating me. “Otherwise, the lake will be cut off from your magic and collapse back into position.”

  “I got it,” I said, barely opening my mouth, as if my voice could shatter what must be an illusion. “What about the other key though? Do they live in a different pocket?”

  “No…” He reached out and hovered his palm ove
r the water side, and I had to bite down on the urge to yell at him not to touch it. “She used to live here but…she’s as good as dead now.”

  Barking filled the entrance to the tunnel. They had found us.

  He snapped his hand away from the water. “We have to go.”

  I opened my mouth to ask what he meant about the other key—good as dead? That couldn’t be right—but he stepped forward onto the dais.

  Blue magic swirled up around him in a small cyclone and he vanished.

  “You gotta be…” I had so much to say, mostly rants, but I gestured toward the stone slab without looking at Randall. “After you, sir.”

  My words came out snarkier than I had meant them, but Randall either understood I was a mess or had long given up on me. Maybe both.

  Shouting echoed outside, followed by noises that sounded as if they were scaling the cliff. In a few short minutes, we would be surrounded.

  I could feel Randall’s hesitation, even though he was still just far enough behind me I couldn’t see him.

  “You heard the key say the walls will come down as soon as I leave,” I said. “Please just go so I can get out of this god forsaken armpit of the universe.”

  Randall strode toward me, and then seemed to rethink whatever he wanted to say. Instead, he stepped up on the stone dais and blue magic engulfed him. He was gone as fast as I could think abracadabra.

  “Halt,” a familiar raspy voice shouted.

  I spun around, lips parted in a silent gasp. The leader of the army stood at the entrance of my water corridor. Behind him, his men spilled into the cave through the tunnel. The dogs barked and snarled just out of sight.

  “The world depends on the keys,” he said.

  Was he…trying to reason with me?

  “You don’t understand what you are doing, what damage you are causing,” he continued. “Hand over the key, and we will assure your safe return to the central world.”

  Did he not realize the key had already gone through the passageway?

  “I…” My words trailed off before they really began.

  What was I supposed to say to that? He worked for the consortium, and they had commissioned the quorum. They had sent Joseph Stone. That meant, these were the people I had been wanting, or at least hoping, to reach the whole time. The ones who could take over hunting the dark witches and mages, like Joseph had done.

  Walking away from the soldiers here was turning my back on my first opportunity to free myself of the task that was much too large for me, and never should have been served up onto my plate in the first place.

  But what did it mean that the consortium was hunting their own quorum? They had chased the key through the island paradise they had built for him, if I understood correctly. Had they collapsed the fortress in desperation to get to him?

  Or had the key lied to me and I had just aided and abetted a criminal?

  I stood rooted to my spot, torn by indecision, unable to determine whose side I was on.

  Mine, I concluded. I was on my side. Mine and Randall and Fiona’s.

  With that, I turned and charged over to the dais.

  The leader of the soldiers raised his hand. Green and purple magic, twisted and twined together, flew toward me as I stumbled up the steps, ducking as I reached the top.

  The blue swirls from the passageway coiled up around me. The waves trembled and as I flickered out of that world, the water walls crashed down, flooding toward me. I dropped down into a crouch.

  Everything went dark and then dimly lit again. I jerked to my feet, expecting to be drenched but the waves had never reached me.

  Randall and the key stood nearby, and a second later, I made sense of where I was: back in the sod house outside Green River.

  “Wait, how the hell did we get here?” I asked, patting myself down for no good reason.

  “That particular passage aligns to wherever the last portal to the Dark Lands is opened,” the key said, as he strolled toward one of the small windows.

  I turned to follow him. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “That’s the point of contention you’re going to make?” he asked. “Not the fact they killed the other key?”

  “Oh, they didn’t kill Chaand,” Otilia said.

  I gave a strangled yelp as I flailed and turned to face her. I grabbed at my chest, like I could comfort my heart.

  “What are you doing here?” I straightened up. “Where’s Fiona?”

  “She and Sasmita are resting at my house,” Otilia said, voice terse. “I figured you would be back soon.”

  I didn’t bother to ask how much time had passed.

  She stood a few feet from the far wall, arms crossed, as she eyed the key. “The spell to unlock the vault took so long to weave into Chaand. They wouldn’t just kill her without a second thought.”

  “They certainly seemed to be willing to,” the key replied, and I could see metaphorical spikes raise on his back.

  “It must be terrible being on the wrong side of the consortium,” she said without an iota of sympathy.

  “Oh, right,” I said, motioning between them. “You two know each other, right? Go way back.”

  They glared at one another, and that was answer enough.

  I raised and then dropped my hands and staggered toward the bed. “You two duke this out. I’m sitting my ass down.”

  I plopped onto the bed, and Randall joined me, in part because it was the most comfortable seat, and also, it gave us the best view of the impending showdown.

  My legs throbbed and I winced as I extended them, propping my heels on the floor. My knees snapped.

  “I know they wronged you,” the key said to Otilia. “I wasn’t a part of that.”

  “You unlocked the vault anytime they asked,” she said, matter of fact.

  “Yuto was dangerous,” he said, and then waved his hands around. “Never mind, we don’t have time for this discussion now. The consortium took Chaand, and it was not to play Mahjong.”

  “Wait, wait,” I said; apparently, this show was participatory theater. “Let me get this straight. You were both in the quorum, along with the other key, and…”

  “Amari,” the key said.

  I squinted, pulling words from my overused brain. “Amari…that was the painter, right?”

  Otilia gave a tight nod. Time did not heal, after all.

  “Okay, so two keys, the painter Amari, and Otilia, you were the huntress,” I said. “Then the whole Yuto thing happened, Otilia was kicked out of the quorum, and the consortium brought in Joseph Stone as a hunter. Joseph died, and we’ve been kind of playing a hunter, without actually being one. So, why did they take the other key…Chaand?”

  I retracted my legs and curled them up under me on the bed.

  “They came for both of us,” the key said. He seemed to want to sit in one of the chairs at the table but may have had a healthy dose of fear about Otilia that kept him on his feet. “I got away, but I couldn’t help her in time before they…”

  “But why?” I glanced at the faces around the room. “Can someone solve the damn puzzle, or should I buy another vowel?”

  “They think we opened the vault,” he said, not quite looking at Otilia.

  “Well, did you?” I asked.

  “No!” He stared at me like he couldn’t believe I would accuse him of such a horrible betrayal. “We couldn’t even leave the damn island without someone helping us through the passage.”

  I turned to Otilia, stiffly. “Yeah, about that—”

  The key cut me off, but finished my thought. “Really, Otilia? The Dark Lands?”

  “I had to be sure,” she said with a shrug.

  “This show isn’t making any damn sense,” I said, waving my hands around.

  Boo, hiss.

  “The tower,” the key said.

  I shot him a look that said, plainly, if he didn’t complete his thought, I was feeding him to those hellhounds we had just escaped. He apparently read me loud and clear, bec
ause he continued.

  “The tower in the Dark Lands is a test. The idea is simple but effective. If you’re willing to take down the door by using enough magic you would harm the inhabitants, then the door will never open.”

  I slowed down what he said and played it back in my head a few times before I said, “Okay, go on.”

  “If you’re not willing to harm others for your goal, then the tower unlocks and you can reach the keys,” he finished.

  “Oh…That explains why my magic worked in the Dark Lands, why I wasn’t bound to the elemental magic rules of the pocket. I was there for my own reason, being tested by the tower. Couldn’t test my magic if I had none. Quite the little loophole.” Even as I spoke, a new layer of understanding settled over me, and I turned to level an evil glare at Otilia. “There was another way in, though. You sent us through the Dark Lands to make sure we were worthy of reaching the keys?”

  The realization stunned me, hard, and she did not alleviate my disgust.

  “The stack of evil mage portraits I’ve been collecting didn’t answer that question or not?” I snapped.

  “Yes, for someone who is so opposed to the consortium’s methods—” the key began, but Otilia pushed off the wall and stormed toward him.

  “I’ve had enough, Bhaskar,” she said, coming to stand in front of him. “They accused me as well, and they actually would have killed me without any thought—but the keys? They can’t afford to lose you, not while the dark witches and mages are out of their portraits.”

  “They have Chaand,” he said, with warning. “Nothing good is happening to her right now.”

  “If they keys didn’t open the vault,” I said, “then someone had to have used your backdoor, Otilia.”

  Bhaskar and Otilia broke their glare-down to turn their attention to me.

  “That’s not possible,” she said, defiant. “The magic spell is a level you have never seen, never experienced. I hid it, and only my own magic, my own fingerprint, if you will, can unlock it. No one else could even find it.”

  “No, we’re missing something,” I said. “There’s a piece we’re not seeing, or we haven’t found yet. The vault was intentionally opened, and we don’t know who or how, but we do know the keys didn’t do it.”