The Magic Collector

by Clayton Wood

  “Morning,” Bella answered.

  “I assume early morning,” Gideon stated. “Very well then. It’s getting late. I’m going to go to sleep, and so should you,” he added, nodding at Piper. “We’ve got a big day tomorrow.”

  Bella narrowed her eyes, folding her arms across her chest.

  “I’m sorry, that sounded like you thought I wasn’t coming,” she accused.

  Oh, we’re definitely coming, Nemesis promised. Whether he wants us to or not.

  “You should stay here Bella,” Gideon reasoned. “You’ll be safe if you use the coffin upstairs to bring you to…that room you saw earlier. No one will be able to hurt you there.”

  “That’s what you said about being in Havenwood,” Bella reminded him. Gideon grimaced.

  “Yes, well trust me, no one is stupid enough to attack you in…”

  “In what?” Bella asked.

  Gideon hesitated, then sighed.

  “In the Plane of Death,” he answered.

  Bella blinked.

  “The what now?”

  “The Plane of Death,” Gideon repeated. “That’s where you went after Death brought you into the coffin.”

  “Wait,” Piper interjected incredulously. “Are you saying…?”

  Gideon shot him a deadly glare, and Piper backed down.

  “Okay, what are you hiding?” Bella demanded, her hands on her hips.

  “As I told you before, there are many planes of existence,” Gideon explained. “Your mother traveled to the Plane of Death from time to time, and her coffin is a…doorway to get to her apartment there.”

  “Okay…”

  “In any case, not even the Collector would dare try to get into the Plane of Death without permission,” Gideon continued. Bella nodded, remembering how the Collector had stopped short when he’d seen Death…and the coffin. How he’d turned and ran.

  “I’m still going,” she insisted. “I spent my entire life hiding from the Collector. I’m done hiding.” She drew herself up as tall as she could, squaring her shoulders. “I’m going to be the hero of my story, not the victim.”

  “No Bella.”

  “What if the Collector gets to me before I can get to the Plane of Death?” she inquired, raising an eyebrow at him. “Then you’ll be leaving me. And you won’t be able to protect me.” She shrugged. “Anything could happen.”

  Gideon frowned at her, crossing his own arms.

  “You’re preying on my insecurities,” he realized. “How deviously clever of you.”

  She gave him a wicked smile.

  “I’m a teenage girl,” she replied. “It’s what we do.”

  Nemesis lifted a clawed hand, putting it on Bella’s shoulder.

  We’re going to get along just fine, the dragon told her.

  Gideon sighed.

  “I still think…” he began, but she cut him off, holding up her ruby amulet.

  “The Collector tried to attack me, and this stole his life force,” she explained. “It aged him once, when I was a kid, and it did it again when he tried to kill me. If he tries to hurt me again, he’ll just be drained again.”

  “And that makes her the best weapon we have against him,” Piper concluded. The Actor put a hand on Gideon’s shoulder. “She’s got a point, Gid.”

  Gideon glanced at Piper, then at Bella. Even Nemesis crossed her bony arms, glaring at Gideon. He sighed, visibly deflating.

  “Fine,” he muttered. “You can tag along. But you need to stay with me.”

  “Deal,” Bella agreed.

  “All right, I’m going to bed,” Gideon declared. “Who knew having a daughter would be so exhausting?”

  “I second that,” Piper said. “The going to bed part,” he added hastily when Bella shot him a look.

  “You two should stay up a bit and get to know each other better,” Gideon recommended, nodding at Bella and Nemesis. “Then you can sleep.”

  “Alright,” Bella agreed.

  The two men said their goodnights, and Bella and Nemesis went to her bedroom. The dragon curled up on the floor, and Bella sat cross-legged on her bed.

  “So,” she began.

  Awkward?

  “Yeah, little bit,” Bella admitted. “Can you…read my memories?”

  No.

  “But you can read my thoughts,” Bella pressed. Nemesis nodded. “Even the ones I don’t, um, say in my head?”

  They’re less clear, Nemesis answered. But I can always feel your emotions.

  “I can feel yours too,” Bella admitted. They were hard to distinguish from her own emotions. “So you know what we’re doing tomorrow?”

  No.

  Bella told Nemesis all about the Collector, and Grandpa, and their plan to get him back. And of Piper and Kendra. Nemesis listened without interruption, other than the occasional emotion.

  “And that’s that,” Bella finished at last.

  We’ll get him back, Nemesis promised.

  “Yeah, I hope so.”

  If he isn’t already dead.

  Bella jerked back, her eyes widening in horror.

  “You can’t say that!” she protested.

  The Collector might’ve already killed him.

  “Yeah, but you can’t say that,” Bella repeated.

  Why not?

  “Because it’s a terrible thing to say,” Bella answered. She felt Nemesis do a mental shrug.

  It’s the truth.

  “Yeah, but…it’s mean,” she insisted. She felt the dragon scoff.

  I’m a dragon, she retorted. If you wanted warm and cuddly, you should’ve painted a dog.

  Bella opened her mouth to argue, but realized her Familiar had a point.

  You made an undead dragon. Called Nemesis.

  “Ok,” Bella grumbled. “I get it.” She took a deep breath in to calm herself. “Let’s just agree that if we have a chance at saving Grandpa, we’ll save him.”

  Deal.

  Bella grimaced, realizing that this was going to be a little more complicated than she’d imagined. Nemesis was truly alive – real, not something that just existed in her mind, or in a notebook. And it was going to take a while for them to get to know each other…and get used to each other.

  “Maybe I should get some sleep,” she said, flopping onto her back in her bed. “We have a big day ahead of us tomorrow.”

  Nemesis didn’t answer, but walk-slithered on all fours toward the bedroom door, opening it up.

  “Where’re you going?” Bella asked. Nemesis looked back at her, and Bella could swear the dragon smirked at her.

  Out.

  And that’s exactly where Nemesis went.

  * * *

  The next morning, Bella awoke to knocking on her bedroom door. She could tell that it wasn’t the first round of knocking, either.

  “I’m up,” she called out, sitting upright. She stretched her arms up, then to the sides, yawning widely. It took her a moment to remember what day it was…and to realize that Nemesis had never come back to her room during the night.

  Relax, a voice in her head said. Coming to you now.

  Where are you? Bella asked.

  Flying back to Havenwood.

  “Are you decent?” a voice behind the door asked. It was Gideon’s.

  “Getting there,” she grumbled, finding her Painter uniform on the floor and pulling it on. She opened the door then, seeing Gideon – already fully dressed, his black cloak covering his uniform, black cane in hand – standing there.

  “Where’s Nemesis?” he asked. For Myko was at his side.

  “Out,” Bella answered. Gideon raised an eyebrow. “Don’t ask,” she muttered.

  “Is everything okay?”

  “She’s a bit of a b…”

  I can hear you.

  “…bother sometimes,” Bella stammered. “But we’re getting to know each other.”

  “Good,” Gideon replied. “It can take a while to build a relationship with your Familiar,” he added. “Be patient with it.”
r />   “Did it take long with Myko?”

  “Um…no.”

  Myko wuffed his agreement, licking Gideon’s cheek. Bella felt a few rather evil thoughts toward the wolf, and realized they were Nemesis’s, not hers.

  Be nice, Bella scolded.

  “We’d better be off,” Gideon advised. “Piper is already near the lake waiting for us. Get your paintings and we’ll go.”

  Bella did just that, grabbing her paintings and rolling them up, stuffing them in her thigh-holsters. She put Sleep Terror in her chest-painting, and let Goo out. At Gideon’s insistence, she placed a few fireballs and lightning bolts and such in her uniform. Not that she had any intention of using them.

  Why not? Nemesis inquired.

  I’m not a murderer, Bella answered.

  Not yet.

  Not ever, Bella insisted.

  You might not have a choice.

  Bella shook her head, remembering the guards who Gideon had killed back at Devil’s pass. The heartbreaking screams as they burned alive.

  There’s always a choice, she argued.

  She followed Gideon out of the mansion then, and they made their way up the Water Dragon tunnel to the surface. Somehow, she knew that Nemesis was near…at the mouth of the cave ahead, actually. A few minutes later, that feeling was proven right. For there, silhouetted by the sunlight behind her, was her skeletal dragon Familiar, wings folded on her back.

  “Hey you,” Bella greeted as she and Gideon approached.

  “Morning Nemesis,” Gideon greeted. He led them out of the cave and leftward toward Main Street, but Nemesis stopped near the edge of the waterfall.

  Come with me.

  “What?” Bella asked. Gideon frowned.

  “Hmm?”

  “Not you,” Bella apologized. “I was talking to Nemesis.”

  “Best if you do it using your thoughts,” Gideon advised. “Otherwise you’ll confuse people…or they’ll think you’re…”

  He made circles with one finger around his ear.

  “Hold on,” Bella requested. She walked back to Nemesis. “What’s up?”

  They walk, Nemesis replied. We fly.

  And then Nemesis leapt up, grabbing Bella’s shoulders in her feet-claws, and leapt off the edge of the cliff!

  Bella screamed as they plummeted down the side of the waterfall toward the lake thousands of feet below.

  Then Nemesis spread her wings out wide, and Bella felt a jolt as their descent slowed abruptly. She cried out again, half-expecting the dragon’s bony grip on her shoulders to slip away. But they held fast…and suddenly they were gliding instead of falling.

  They soared over the lake, and Nemesis turned in a wide circle, spiraling gradually toward the bottom of Dragon’s Peak. A full minute later, Nemesis steered them toward the rapidly-approaching shoreline…and slowed their descent with a few flaps of her wings, depositing Bella gently on the ground.

  Bella’s legs wobbled, and she lowered herself to her hands and knees, feeling queasy. The sensation passed quickly, and she stood, turning to glare at Nemesis.

  “Are you crazy? You could’ve killed me!” she accused.

  Keep that in mind.

  Bella blinked.

  “Excuse me?”

  Flying is faster, Nemesis reasoned. You’ll get used to it.

  And Bella had to admit, it was a lot faster to fly. It was a long while later before Gideon and Myko made it to the bottom of Dragon’s Peak and joined up with them. Apparently Piper had been waiting on the road further up, because he was with Gideon and Myko when they arrived.

  “Everyone ready?” the Actor inquired.

  “Ready when you are,” Gideon replied. Bella nodded, and Myko wuffed.

  And then they all turned to the lake, and jumped in.

  * * *

  The Dragonkind army was huge.

  It had assembled just outside of the mushroom forest, on the plains beyond where the White Dragon would have been in the original world. Row upon row of Dragonkin in blue and white armor polished to a mirror shine, thousands upon thousands of them.

  An army many times larger even than General Craven’s had been.

  King Draco was in a tent at the head of the army, standing four times as tall as any of the other Dragonkin. They met in this tent, which housed a large table upon which a map had been placed. It was covered with markings that seemed to show troop movements. Draco inclined his head at Bella when she approached, and after introducing Gideon, Myko, and Nemesis, they got down to business.

  “The Collector’s castle in your world is named Castle Under,” Draco informed them. “It is heavily guarded, far more so than Castle Over, the castle in our world. My armies will attack Castle Under.”

  “Thereby capturing the attention of the bulk of its defenses,” Gideon noted.

  “While we slip in Castle Over and grab Kendra and Thaddeus,” Piper concluded.

  “Precisely,” King Draco agreed. “We shall send a small contingent with you to aid in your defense, and you shall extract the Creator.”

  “While I go and deal with the Collector,” Gideon finished.

  “Not without me you’re not,” Bella reminded him. She put a hand on his shoulder. “We’re a family. We stick together.”

  He nodded, giving her a smile.

  “Your mother would’ve been proud of who you’ve become,” he told her. “I’m proud of you, Bella.”

  “Yeah, well the Collector’s got some really nasty beasts guarding his castle,” Piper warned. “The most dangerous are the Reapers, but he’s got other defenses. Hell, if he decides to hide behind that magic door protecting his office, we’ll never be able to get to him.”

  “The more creative we are, the more powerful our magic will be,” Bella recited. “And my dad’s the most creative person I know.”

  “I’ll give you that one,” Piper conceded. “All right, so we’re taking the Underground then. Nearest entrance is here,” he noted, pointing to the map on the table. “That’s a good twenty miles away, over some pretty rough terrain.”

  “Terrain?” Draco inquired with what appeared to be an attempt at a smirk.

  “Well yeah,” Piper replied. “There’s hills and lakes and a marsh along the way. Gonna take an army this size a hell of a long time to get there. Unless you plan on flying,” he added sarcastically.

  Draco spread his wings out wide…so wide that their tips touched either side of the big tent. Piper grimaced.

  “Right,” he muttered.

  “We shall fly ourselves and you to the Underground,” Draco decided. “You shall stay at the shore of the lake in our world while we fly up to the great mirror in the sky and pass through to your world. We will begin our assault, and when the battle becomes heated, you will be flown to Castle Over to complete your mission. Any questions?”

  “Um, lots,” Piper replied. “These are real broad strokes here. We need more specifics.”

  “Leave the specifics to me,” Draco reassured. “Concentrate on your mission.”

  “That’s what I m-” Piper began, but Gideon elbowed him in the ribs, giving him a look.

  “We appreciate everything you’ve done for us, King Draco,” Gideon stated. “And what you’re doing for Thaddeus Birch.”

  “T’was the Creator that gave us life,” Draco replied. “It will be an honor to save His.”

  Chapter 44

  The dungeon of the Castle Over was dank and musty, its underground cells small and cramped. The only amenity offered any prisoner unlucky enough to be find themselves trapped within it was a pot to piss in. No bed, no window. No light save for the dull glow of the magical lanterns illuminating the narrow hallways. Despite its dozens of cells, only one was occupied.

  The Collector crossed his arms over his chest, glaring through the prison bars of that cell, at an old man standing within it. A man with deep brown skin contrasting sharply with white curly hair, a pair of golden glasses propped on the bridge of his nose.

  “This doesn’t
need to be unpleasant, Thaddeus,” he insisted.

  “On the contrary,” Thaddeus replied. “That is the only way this can be.”

  “Agree to work for me and I’ll provide far more comfortable living conditions,” the Collector offered.

  “Working for you would be far more uncomfortable for my soul than these conditions are for my body.”

  The Collector sighed.

  “Clever turns of phrase won’t help you, Thaddeus.”

  “My words are the truth,” Thaddeus countered. “Clever or not, I find they are the only things that can help me at this point.”

  “Then use your words for my cause.”

  “No,” Thaddeus replied. Simply, without anger or defiance.

  “I can make things much more unpleasant for you,” the Collector warned. “I won’t enjoy doing so, but if you push me, I’ll be forced to do it.”

  Thaddeus raised an eyebrow.

  “An old, unarmed man trapped in a cell forcing you to do something?” he inquired. “And here I thought you were powerful.”

  The Collector grimaced, resisting the urge to argue. There would be no winning a war of words with Thaddeus Birch.

  “You will be tortured,” he promised.

  “Naturally,” Thaddeus agreed.

  “You won’t be so calm about it when my men get started,” the Collector warned, suddenly irritated with the old man. “Trust me when I say they’re very good at their jobs.”

  “Unfortunately I’m in a position to test that assumption,” Thaddeus replied. “I daresay I’ve been tortured by the best.”

  The Collector sighed.

  “Then you leave me no choice,” he muttered, turning away from the Writer.

  “Wrong,” Thaddeus retorted. “Nobody makes our choices for us but us. Still playing the victim I see.”

  The Collector paused, then turned back to Thaddeus.

  “I’m not a victim,” he retorted. Thaddeus raised an eyebrow.

  “Oh really?” he replied. “You’re seeking revenge, aren’t you?”

  “Against the Painters that…”

  “Oh it hardly matters why,” Thaddeus interrupted. “Only victims get revenge, Collector. By definition, they must have been victims of something or someone to want revenge.”

  The Collector said nothing.

  “Heroes want justice,” Thaddeus continued.