“All right, Delph,” she said, refusing to look at me.
Delph glanced at me. “Now what?”
“The train will stop at True first, and those without brands will be let off to undergo this mind-erasing thing.”
“And we can’t stop that?” said Petra.
I looked at her. I mean I really looked at her. “Do you want to win a single battle, or do you want to win the bloody war? Because I don’t reckon we can do both.”
Now she looked back at me. At first there was anger on her features. And then, surprisingly, understanding. “I can see that, Vega,” she said. “You’re right.”
Bloody Hel, I thought. I never knew which Petra I was going to get. Crazy Petra or Rational Petra.
I said, “So after True will come Greater True, or perhaps the train will take us directly to Maladon Castle.”
Delph asked, “When you were at the castle, did you see a train or tracks running up to it?”
I shook my head. “But I was keeping my eyes on Endemen. I wasn’t looking at the ground all that much.”
I stiffened and motioned to the others to flatten themselves against the wall as I saw the very man enter the carriage from the other end.
Endemen was dressed in his usual attire, a pin-striped suit with a vest, a bowler hat and shiny shoes. This was in stark contrast to his appearance at the castle. I wondered if all Maladons had a hideous self under their outer layer.
I felt myself glance surreptitiously at Petra. Was a foul interior being hidden by her outer beauty? I wondered how Delph would feel about her if she suddenly turned into a hideous hag. And I was a bit ashamed to admit that a tiny smile dwelled upon my lips at this thought.
Endemen greeted each of the passengers in the carriage. Still under the spell, they mumbled their replies.
He looked them over and then knelt down next to Daphne, who was seated at the rear of the carriage only a few paces from where we were standing.
He pulled out his wand and gave it a little flick. Daphne slowly shook her head and focused on him.
Endemen said, “Your village is Clarendon on Hillshire, correct?”
Daphne nodded. “Yes.”
Endemen gripped her hand and held it up. “Are there others who live there with this mark?”
Daphne looked at her hand as though seeing it for the first time.
“Yes.”
“How many?”
She shook her head slightly. “A few at least. I don’t know the exact number.”
“Any in your family?”
“No. I’m the only one. What does it mean, this thing?”
Endemen looked at the mark, then at her, and smiled in a way that seized me with terror. It was like a jabbit about to eat its dinner.
“Well, at the very least it means the end of you.” He let her hand drop and said, “Now you will tell me exactly how to get to the village of Clarendon on Hillshire.”
She spoke the directions as Endemen used his wand to write her words visible in the air. Then he flicked his wand again and the images went directly into his head.
Without another word, he turned and walked over to one of the Bowler Hats.
The man said, “Do you want to leave immediately for this village, Mr. Endemen?”
“There’s no particular rush. I have some things to accomplish here. And it’s not like those louts are going anywhere.”
“Right you are, sir.”
“Bloody Hel,” said Delph. “The Maladons are going to that village and they’re going to kill everyone there!”
“We have to stop them,” I said.
They both looked at me.
“But how?” asked Petra. “We’re headed to the castle.”
“We were headed to the castle. Now we’re headed to Clarendon on Hillshire.”
Petra said, “You already sent that bloke Russell to warn them.”
“I have no idea if the folks in the village will listen to him, or if they do, how fast they’ll flee.”
“But what about that winning the battle but losing the war stuff you were spouting off about?” she said icily. “Was that just a load of tosh, then?”
I gazed at her. “No, Petra, it wasn’t. But I have my reasons.”
“What are they?” she demanded.
“I have my reasons,” I said. And my expression was so ferocious, I suppose, that Petra flinched and turned away.
“But we don’t know how to get there,” said Petra.
“Yes, we do,” said Delph.
We both looked at him and in unison said, “We do?”
He nodded. “She told that bloke Endemen. Didn’t you hear?”
“Well, yes,” Petra said. “But they were directions. Even he had to write them in the air.”
Delph tapped his head. “I have them all up here.”
Petra looked at me. I said, “Delph has always been good with directions.”
“Okay, so how do we get off the train?” asked Petra.
I had no choice but to try the spell with all of us together. It would either work, or we’d be lost in oblivion. I didn’t really have time to think about it.
I tapped my wand against my leg and said, “Pass-pusay.”
In an instant we were back at the train station in Bimbleton, which had been the destination in my head.
We crouched behind one of the shacks and looked around. There were few people about. Most, I imagined, were inside the shacks or else had struck off back to wherever they had come from, disappointed that they had not been selected, when, in fact, they should be thanking their good fortune.
From there we rose into the air and headed west, following Delph’s instructions.
It took us a while because we were four bodies flying together. I was desperate to get there as quickly as possible and feared at the rate we were going that Endemen would have already been and gone by the time we arrived.
I finally looked down and saw it. A tiny hamlet set on the side of a grassy hill.
I pointed us down as I searched for any sign of Endemen and his behatted cronies.
We alighted silently a bit to the east of the town proper.
We crouched down and looked around.
“Do you see anything?” I asked, my wand at the ready.
Petra had her wand pointed ahead of her but shook her head. “Nothing.”
“I don’t see no bodies lying around, or houses blown up,” added Delph.
Petra hissed, “There’s that bloke Russell.”
It was indeed Russell. As we watched, Daphne’s mate sprinted into the center of the village and started pounding on doors. When they opened, I heard him telling the people there what I had told him to say. The fear in their eyes told me that his warnings had been believed.
He was at the fourth house and word was spreading quickly. People were outside. Some were already holding packed bags in preparation for fleeing.
“I wonder where they’ll go that will be safe?” asked Petra.
I was wondering this too. At least for a moment.
And then it happened.
“They’re here,” exclaimed Delph.
Endemen and five Bowler Hats had appeared on the edge of the small village square.
The villagers looked back in terror.
Endemen smiled and raised his wand. In unison, so did the other Maladons.
The villagers were so stunned they were rooted to the spot.
“Embattlemento,” I said, my wand pointed between the Maladons and the villagers.
Their spells hit my shield and the explosion was so fierce that all the villagers were nearly knocked off their feet.
“Run!” I shouted from my invisible perch.
Russell echoed this command. “Run. Run!”
The villagers turned and raced off.
Endemen was not focused on them. He was looking wildly around for the source of the spell that had blocked his.
I lifted off the ground, pulling the others with me as Endemen and his men spre
ad out and charged ahead.
They passed directly underneath us.
I descended and we touched dirt near the spot where Endemen and his cronies had initially appeared.
I looked back at Endemen. He seemed to have forgotten all about the villagers. He was focused on finding us.
I rose again, and the others levitated with me. We followed the path of the villagers down below as they raced toward the dense forest that we had passed on our way here.
I looked back in time to see Endemen and his men take to the air and give chase.
They were so bunched together that an idea occurred to me.
I whispered it to Petra and we both raised our wands.
“Impacto,” we cried out at the exact same time.
Our combined spells hit the blokes with a thunderous blow, and they were all blasted out of the air and landed unconscious in a massive heap.
I led the others down to the fallen Maladons.
“Help me search them,” I said to Delph and Petra.
Delph said warily, “But what if they wake up?”
I raised my wand and made whirling motions with it around the fallen Maladons. “Ensnario.”
Thick golden cords spilled from my wand tip, and soon all of them were bound tightly. Then I used my wand to drive the ends of the cords deeply into the ground.
“Right,” said Delph, and he started searching the pockets of one of the Maladons.
I searched Endemen. In his hat I saw a bit of looking glass attached to the very top of the interior. Was this what he had been looking at back in Greater True when he said he’d been summoned? By the awful creature on the hideous throne back at the castle? I was pretty sure it was. It somehow allowed communication from a great distance. I pondered whether to take it, but then thought better of it. They would know it was gone and then might use it to track us somehow.
As I stared into the glass it became smoky and an image started to appear. I dropped the hat.
It had shown the foulest face I had ever seen.
Endemen had looked grotesque when he had changed into whatever he was upon entering the castle. But I would take that image any day over what I had just seen in the glass. I actually felt sick to my stomach.
It wasn’t a person. It wasn’t even a corpse. It was worse than dead, if that was possible.
Then I became worried. If Endemen didn’t answer what might have been a command from this bloke, legions of Maladons might start popping up all over Clarendon on Hillshire.
“I’ll be right back.”
I soared into the air and found the villagers shaking and whimpering in the woods. I landed in their midst.
“You!” exclaimed Russell.
One man raised a knife and started toward me. “You’re one of them lot.”
“Kill her!” screamed several others together.
Russell got between us. “No. She was the one who warned me. You saw what happened back there. She protected us.”
The man with the knife stopped in his tracks and looked at me apologetically.
“S-sorry, missy.”
“You need to keep going,” I said. “Those blokes back there are the Maladons. The Mal-a-dons,” I added for emphasis. “They use Bimbleton Station and others like it to entrap and then enslave all who board the trains. They take mostly young people because that way your kind will die out faster.” I looked around. “Who here has a mark on the back of their hands? Of the three hooks?” When none stepped forward, I urged, “Please. Nothing will happen to you, I promise.”
Two men and a young woman stepped forward. “We three do,” she said. “But we don’t know what it means.”
“It means you are magical, like I am. And it also means you could possibly be tracked by it. Come here.”
They stepped over next to me. “Hold out your hands.”
They did, and sure enough, there was the faint mark.
I raised my wand, pointed it in turn at their hands and said, “Embattlemento.”
A glow covered the mark and then sank into their skins.
I had just thought of that. I hoped it would work on their marks, because they were not very strong to begin with. But for all I knew the marks would grow stronger, and thus more traceable, as they became older.
I looked at all of them. “You must warn everyone you come across of the Maladons’ plan. They want to rule all of you. And they will kill anyone who tries to stop them.”
Russell looked at me. “They … they took Daphne. She had that mark on her.”
I nodded. “I know. She’s on the train right now. And I promise I will try to save her, Russell. I give you my word.”
He nodded, tears in his eyes. “I knew this whole train thing was dodgy. But Daph said we should try. Is … is that why you were asking all those questions, Vega?”
“Yes.”
The man who had held the knife said, “Are you going to try to stop them?”
“Yes, I am.”
“If it’s just the one of you, what chance have you got?”
“I have a chance to win. That’s all I ask.” I hesitated. Another idea had occurred to me. “But one day I might come and find you and ask for your help in defeating them.”
Russell glanced at his mates and then back at me. “And we’ll be willing and ready when you do.”
I thanked him with a smile. “Now go. Quickly!”
They all turned and raced away.
I returned to the others.
“We need to get going,” I said sharply.
“Right,” said Petra. “So we kill ’em, right?” She held her wand at the ready, and her features screwed up as though she were marshaling all of her energy for the death spell.
I shot Delph a glance. He looked as surprised as I felt.
I turned and gazed at Petra.
She read my expression easily enough.
“Like they wouldn’t kill us given the chance,” she snapped.
I had no doubt she was correct. But I wasn’t like these blokes, which, after all, was the whole point. Yet maybe Petra was far closer to the Maladons than I had thought. But, I had to concede, what she said did hold truth. We might never get another chance like this. I looked down at my wand. I had no doubt I could summon the requisite emotion to do the deed. I pointed my wand at Endemen’s chest. It would be over in a sliver, and with one of our strongest enemies vanquished, we would not have to worry about him anymore, the evil, despicable git!
But as I stood there I realized I could not kill someone in cold blood. If he were trying to kill me, yes. But not this way. I lowered my wand.
I glanced up in time to see Delph look relieved.
When I gazed at Petra, she simply looked disappointed.
“So what, then?” she demanded in disgust. “Just leave them here so they can wake up and keep killing?”
“I have another idea.”
I snatched up all their wands, flew into the air with them, raced a hundred yards away, blasted a deep hole in the ground, dropped the wands in it and then used another incantation to cover the hole back up such that the ground looked completely undisturbed.
I returned to the others, tethered us together, and we lifted off.
I tapped my leg with my wand, said, “Pass-pusay,” and we were instantly transported back to the train roaring on its way to True.
Well, I thought, we had done a right good job back there.
I didn’t yet understand how far out of my league I truly was.
But I would, soon enough.
And then I would very much regret not taking Petra’s advice and killing Endemen while I had the chance.
THE TRAIN PULLED into True as it had before, in the middle of the darkness with a belch of smoke and a rasp of brake. We were all alert as the train came to a full stop.
We heard the sound of doors opening but not in the car we were on. This did not much surprise me. I didn’t expect any of the “branded” ones to get off here.
Petra and Delph look
ed at me questioningly.
They obviously wanted to know what we should do.
I was torn. I knew that the people taken off here would have their minds altered by the bloody “mesmerizer.” But I also knew that whatever happened to the people getting off in True, it would pale in comparison to what would happen to the poor devils who would not be getting off here.
There were no windows on this train car so I couldn’t tell if it was still night or if the sun had come up. I was tense and on high alert because I was wondering when my spell on Endemen and the others would wear off. Would they be able to easily retrieve their wands? Were they right this minute on their way to intercept us somehow?
You should have listened to Petra, you git. You should have just …
I shook my head, trying to clear it. Obviously I could do nothing about Endemen now, so I counted for the tenth time the number of other passengers in the car.
There were five of them, including Daphne. They all sat rigid in their seats, staring at nothing, oblivious to the awful fate that awaited them.
I looked behind us. “Come on. I want to go into the next car and see what’s happening. Then we’ll come back here.”
We rose quietly, and I led the way toward the car attached to this one.
We passed by the guard at that end. He made no sign of having seen or heard us. I looked over my shoulder to make sure the other guard wasn’t looking and then I quietly opened the door into the next car. We passed through and Petra closed it behind us.
The car was quiet, as I knew it would be. The people there were not restrained, but they were all under the Subservio spell and could do nothing to escape. As we watched hopelessly, the doors to the car opened and a Maladon entered. He waved his wand and all the passengers rose as one and started to file out. When the train car was empty, the doors closed and we started moving again. We would be heading on to Greater True now, I thought. I had just turned to go back into the other car, when the train came to a jolting halt.
“What the Hel?” exclaimed Petra.
We next heard a gnashing of metal on metal, and then came another jolt.
Delph saw what was happening first.
The Width of the World Page 16