by Lucia Ashta
“Can you get up on your own?” Clara asked Mordecai.
He looked affronted by the question. “Of course I can,” he snapped. But when he fumbled to find a grip on the dragon to climb him, I realized Clara’s question had been a fair one.
“Wrap your arms around his hind leg and shimmy up,” Clara suggested.
Mordecai glared at her but then did exactly as she suggested. I was impressed that she was able to keep a straight face as he shimmied up the dragon’s leg with far less grace than she had, but still with an impressive range of motion for his old age. He looked as if he were at least a hundred, though it was hard to tell, especially since I knew no one else who was that advanced in years.
He scrambled up the side of the animal but then started to slide back down when he didn’t find a place to grab on. At the same time, Clara, who already sat astride Humbert, reached a hand back to Mordecai. And Marcelo, while keeping one hand occupied in the hovering of my brother, offered his other hand as a foothold for Mordecai, who stepped into it and slid on his stomach up the dragon’s back, all with a reluctant scowl on his face.
Clara pulled Mordecai up the rest of the way, and the old man wrapped knobby-looking legs, which peeked out from his robe, around the dragon. “See, I told you I could do it.”
Clara shared a brief look with her husband, then turned forward so Mordecai wouldn’t see her smile. Once her expression was composed, she turned back around.
Marcelo was already floating Nando up and across the dragon’s back.
Tension rolled through me. How would they keep Nando safe while flying on a dragon at high speed? The notion seemed totally crazy, but I refused to examine what was happening and how I felt about it. Later I’d deal with the madness that magic appeared to truly exist. Right now, I had to do only what would most help Nando. “How will they keep my brother from falling?” I asked Albacus—a ghost, another fact I’d further examine later.
“Don’t you worry, girl. This isn’t the first time they’ve done something like this. Mordecai will keep your brother in place with magic.”
A simple answer for an insane situation. “I see.” And it looked as if that was exactly what was happening. Mordecai was fussing over Nando. His lips were moving rapidly within his long, beaded beard.
Then he turned back toward Clara, wrapped his arms around her waist, and said, “He’s bound to Humbert’s back. We’re ready to go.”
Clara nodded. Her hair, braided only around the crown, flared outward in a halo of red. “Albacus, please take care of my husband.”
“I will, my girl. You know I will.”
With a final meaningful stare at Marcelo, she leaned over Humbert’s neck, and closed her eyes. “Let’s go, Humbert,” I heard her whisper. “We fly to Acquaine, as fast as we can.”
The dragon leaned back into strong haunches, then bolted forward with shocking strength, and leapt into the sky. With that one single bound, they must have gained at least twenty or thirty feet. He pumped his wings, the tips of them almost touching us where we stood. They lunged upward. With another couple of flaps of his wide, leathery wings, they finally achieved smoother flight, evened out, and continued climbing more gradually.
I watched Humbert, flying away with my brother on his back, until he was nothing more than a dark silhouette in the sky.
“It’s time to go, Isadora.”
I turned to see Marcelo waiting for me, his handsome face resolved into tense lines. All of the intimacy he shared with Clara was absent, everything about his expression leading me to understand how immediate the danger we were in was.
“Call me, Isa, please.” But I was already hurrying over to the carriage. He didn’t have to tell me how important it was that we leave right away. I could feel the need.
“We won’t be taking the carriage. It will just slow us down. You can ride, right?”
“Of course I can ride.” I shot a dubious look to the carriage. Were they so wealthy that they would abandon such a fine carriage? “You’re just going to leave it here for robbers?”
“Leaving it is our best option. A carriage is worth far less than our lives. Do you have everything you need from it?”
“I have a trunk with my clothing.”
“We’ll have to leave it. Bring only what’s special and small for travel. The rest stays behind.”
“I don’t have anything like that.” I had nothing to remember my parents and brothers by beyond my memories. “Oh! Nando’s sword. He left it in the carriage.”
“Grab it.”
I ducked in the carriage and retrieved the sword, with a single longing glance at its interior and the moments before my life—and Nando’s—had been turned upside down. I stepped out. “I have it.”
“And its sheath?”
I shook my head. “My brother wears it around his waist.”
“Then give it to me. I’ll carry it for now.”
As I handed over the sword, I couldn’t help but feel I was somehow betraying my brother. That sword was a gift to him from our father. When our parents left him in charge of my protection, they left him with this sword. But my feelings were silly, there was no betrayal. All I was doing was to help my brother.
Marcelo received the sword and tucked the blade behind his back, within his vest, as if he did things like this every day. “You’re sure that’s it? You have everything of yours and your brother’s you need?”
“Yes, why?”
He didn’t answer. He was busy mumbling beneath his breath again. With a flourish of arms, and a pulsing of open palms, the carriage burst into flames. No, they weren’t flames exactly. They weren’t orange like fire, nor did they crackle or smell of it. Tongues of violet light licked at the carriage for a full minute, before the carriage, wheels, glass, our trunks, all vanished in a loud pop. One moment it was there, the next it was gone. Like magic.
No, it was magic, I had to remind myself. My thought patterns weren’t used to including the outlandish notion of magic. Up until this morning, almost all that I knew of magic was that it was forbidden. Any who practiced it would be punished with death.
And now magic was all around me, being practiced in the open.
“Will you do the same to the sorcerers?” I asked.
“No. They’ll remain as they are.”
“But we can’t just leave these men and women like this! No matter who they were, they deserve some kind of burial.”
“If you understood what they were truly about, you might think differently.”
I started to complain; he held a hand up. “But that’s not why I’m doing it.”
“We must leave them for the others in the SMS to find,” Albacus said. “Their comrades will come to look for us soon. When they find their fallen sorcerers, perhaps it will make them think twice about coming after us again.”
“If only,” Marcelo muttered.
“Yes, well, we can hope.”
“So we leave them behind as a warning?” It still felt wrong somehow.
“It’s what we have to do,” Marcelo said. “Besides, we can’t take the time to do anything more. We ride now.”
He began unhitching the two horses that had drawn the carriage from whatever remained of their harness and straps. I rounded them to help from the other side. He gave me an appreciative nod. “Is there a particular horse you’d like to ride? One, perhaps, you feel connected to?”
I hadn’t had the chance to connect with any horse. I patted the mare right next to me. “This one.” She at least seemed kind, and she hadn’t spooked when I approached.
“Good choice. That’s Trixie. She’ll take good care of you. Can you ride without a saddle then?”
I hadn’t thought of it. These two horses were outfitted to draw a carriage, not carry a rider, while the horses the sorcerers had ridden were prepared for a rider. Still, I didn’t want to ride one of their horses. “I can manage.”
“Then I’ll take this one. They’ve been together a long time and enjoy working w
ith each other. Do you need a leg up?”
“Please.”
Marcelo folded his hands into a basket and I hopped onto Trixie. She didn’t startle under me, and I figured that was a good sign. I was used to a saddle beneath me, and adjusted awkwardly across Trixie’s back.
The magician moved to his own horse, gripped a hand in the horse’s mane, jumped and swung a leg around its back. He settled onto the horse as if he rode bareback every day. I hoped he’d make sure I could keep up.
He clucked a couple of times and his horse trotted forward. “Try to keep up.”
“What of the other horses?”
“They’ll follow.”
“What? How?” Strangers’ horses didn’t just follow someone else.
“You forget that I’m a magician.”
As the ghost flew ahead to float by Marcelo’s side, I thought, Why, how could I forget? I clucked at my own horse and she took her first steps toward my very uncertain and most unsettling future.
The sorcerers’ horses moved into line behind me just as Marcelo said they would.
Chapter 7
I planned to wait to ask questions until Marcelo and Albacus relaxed, but we’d been riding for what felt like at least an hour, and they weren’t any more relaxed than they’d been when we first started out. Marcelo continually looked to either side and behind him, though his eyes only whisked across me. He wasn’t watching me, he was looking out for more of those sorcerers.
Albacus was doing the same, though being a ghost, he traveled while looking backwards half the time, unconcerned about running into anything. A few times he passed through trees and shrubs before he whipped around to try to avoid obstacles—perhaps a lingering reaction from his time alive. Beyond a bit of discomfort, apparent from the grimace on the old ghost’s face, it appeared that nothing of the physical world affected him.
I tried to adjust across Trixie’s back, but nothing helped. Already my butt and thighs were sore from riding without a saddle. But I didn’t dare complain.
“So,” I called up ahead, awkward at talking to their backs with the length of a horse between us. “How far away is this Acquaine place?”
Albacus stared at me, looked as if he was going to answer, but instead turned to face forward.
“How much longer do you think we have to ride?” I tried again.
All I heard were the sounds of horses’ footfalls, and I feared no one would answer me. Then Marcelo looked toward the sun and said, “I figure we’ll arrive at dusk.”
“Oh, that’s good, right?” To me, it sounded wonderful. That meant I wouldn’t be stuck out in the middle of nowhere with men I didn’t know and their horses. I might even get to sleep in a warm bed tonight. If I was lucky, I might also be able to find a bath to soothe what would inevitably be my aching muscles.
“Yes, that’s good.” Marcelo answered right away this time, but he was still terse.
I thought about letting it go and allowing them to concentrate on preventing an attack. Clearly, they weren’t in the talking mood. But I knew so little about what was happening....
The road was wide enough here that I could ride next to Marcelo’s horse. I nudged Trixie next to the other horse, careful not to ride into Albacus.
“How long will it take Mordecai and Clara to get to Acquaine? Will they be in time to help my brother?”
“They’ll arrive far sooner than we will, and there’s no one better to treat your brother’s injuries than Mordecai.”
“That’s very true,” Albacus added. “There’s no finer magician than my brother. If anyone can save your brother, he can.”
In Mordecai’s absence, gone was Albacus’ critical eye. Obviously he cared for his brother a great deal, no matter how much they might squabble.
“We’ve—” Albacus cleared his throat. “Mordecai has been doing this for a long time.”
Marcelo looked to me with unexpected sympathy. “Don’t worry. There’s a chance that your brother might even be awake by the time we get there.”
“A chance, yes. But don’t get your hopes up, girl. It might take far longer than that. Getting hit by a killing spell is serious business, no matter what magician is working on the healing from it.”
“But Mordecai is truly the best. Try not to think about it.”
Not think about Nando? When he was flying on a dragon off to who-knows-where or what? Impossible. “Then maybe you can distract me by answering some questions.”
“We don’t have time for questions now, girl,” Albacus said. “The SMS could attack at any moment.”
I deflated and resigned myself to silence. But then... “I understand they could attack at any moment, and I promise to quiet down the moment we spot danger. But it’s also possible that we’ll be riding for hours without incident, and I’d really like some answers.”
Albacus looked at me. “The point is that if you do talk, we might not spot danger until they’ve gotten too close.”
My shoulders drooped, and I looked away, off into the distance over my right shoulder. I guessed they were right, and they didn’t need to see my disappointment. To say I felt vulnerable and confused was to understate the rawness, which had started to pulse within me.
I leaned forward and ran a hand along Trixie’s neck. At least she felt like a companion, though maybe she resented having to carry me, what did I know?
“If we speak quietly enough that we can still hear our surroundings, then we can afford to answer a few of your questions. Don’t you think, Albacus?”
My head shot up, surprised by Marcelo’s acquiescence. Immediately, that protective part of myself that didn’t like putting myself out there, that didn’t want to need anything from others, especially that which they were reluctant to give, wanted to say, Forget it. But I needed answers more than I needed to run from hurt, and I was locked into place next to these men. I had nowhere to go but where they led me.
I steeled my features into a mask, which hid my hopefulness and hurt, while Albacus said, “I think she can wait for answers.”
“Would you be able to wait?” Marcelo said.
Albacus swept his gaze across the horizon and then all around him in a show of how important being a lookout was.
“You’ve been around for so long that perhaps you’ve forgotten what it’s like not to understand what’s happening. Besides, you’ve always known of magic. Your parents taught you of it right away. Think of what it’s like not to understand any of what’s going on.”
Albacus was stubborn! He continued to sweep his head in every direction, as if evil sorcerers were already rushing us from every direction.
“Remember what it was like for Clara, and remember what happened to her because you and Mordecai didn’t explain things to her. She lost three years of her life to Mirvela and her merworld, or have you forgotten? Do you want that to happen to Isadora?”
I hadn’t expected Marcelo to be on my side.
“There are no merworlds in Acquaine.”
Marcelo just looked at the old man’s ghost, waiting.
“Oh, fine.”
“You know I’m right. We don’t know of any merworlds, but you know better than I that life, especially one with magic, always surprises. That’s a guarantee.”
They were referring to things and events I really didn’t know anything of, but clearly Albacus did. His entire demeanor changed. The grumpy ghost gave way to a gentle old man who was tired of shouldering regret. “You’re right. Tell her everything. At the very least I should know how to learn from my mistakes by now.”
Marcelo didn’t smile at me as I’d hoped he would, nor did Albacus. But neither of them looked threatening or mean, and that, at least, was something.
“What questions do you have?” Marcelo asked.
What questions do I have? The better question might have been what questions don’t I have. I didn’t know where to start.
“Well, girl,” Albacus said. “Do you have questions for us or don’t you?”
; I did. I definitely did.
Chapter 8
“So magic is actually real?”
As soon as I asked the question, I realized it sounded stupid. Obviously magic was real. I’d seen things that couldn’t be explained otherwise. But still... it was the one question that kept nagging at me. Could all of this be real?
Albacus actually chuckled. When he smiled, even dead, he seemed fifty years younger.
But Marcelo answered. “Magic is as real as it gets. I take it you hadn’t been exposed to it before Albacus and Mordecai came to get you?”
I shook my head. “Not only had I never been exposed to it, but my uncle, the man I was living with, taught me that it was the worst possible offense.”
“Oh, he’s one of those, is he?” Albacus said.
I nodded, suddenly tight lipped. I hadn’t wanted to talk about my uncle. No matter what had transpired since we left his house, I was still glad to be putting him behind me.
Marcelo continued to scan our surroundings as he asked, “So your uncle taught you that magic is forbidden and punishable by death?”
“That and that anyone who practices magic is in leagues with the Devil and so despicable as to be barely human, if human at all.” My words were soft with the shame of my uncle’s bigotry. No matter that I didn’t know anything about magic, his words had always felt too harsh, too hateful, his judgment too severe.
But neither Marcelo nor Albacus seemed particularly affected by my admission. “Why doesn’t that bother you, if you practice magic?”
Albacus laughed again, but it was a strident sound. “Because if we let ourselves be affected by the odious things ignorant people say, we’d be fools.” His words softened. “And because we’ve lived with other people’s condemnation of us our entire lives. It’s nothing new.”
Then maybe they wouldn’t hold my uncle’s actions against me. As magistrate of his village, he was the one responsible for condemning the witches and wizards he deemed deserving of death. They shouldn’t be allowed to exist, he’d say, just as he’d say about the “savages” my parents went to live with.