The Width of the World

by David Baldacci

  As Alice came fully out of the shadows, I saw that, like Uma, she was not truly flesh and bone. How could she be, since she was long since dead?

  Her cold eyes settled upon me, but she said nothing.

  Slightly unnerved, I looked at Uma.

  “What is this place?”

  “ ’Tis a place of restless souls,” said Uma. “For they need somewhere to go, and Empyrean is as good as any. We had such happy times here. And of course it was Alice’s home. Naturally, she would return here.”

  I turned back to Alice. She was still watching me. Then her gaze dropped to the Elemental. She flicked her fingers and the Elemental sprang out of my hand and into hers. A moment later she apparently had willed it to its original state, six feet long and the color of lustrous gold.

  She looked the Elemental up and down and as her hand stroked it, I saw a wistful smile emerge on her face.

  After a few moments she turned back and held it out for me to take.

  I tentatively reached out for it, but before it could make contact with my hand, the Elemental shrunk back to my wand and leapt into my hand, my fingers instinctively closing around it.

  I was astonished by this, but when I looked into Alice’s face, I could tell by her expression that I shouldn’t have been.

  “ ’Tis truly and properly yours now, Vega,” she said quietly.

  I looked down at the wand, and there was warmth that hadn’t been present before.

  And I felt strangely empowered.

  I said, “Alice, I’m taking up the fight against the Maladons.”

  “I know.”

  “You’re not by chance still alive somehow, are you?” I asked hopefully. “We could certainly use you.”

  She touched her chest at the site of the hole.

  “ ’Tis not possible, Vega.”

  She looked me up and down. “You made it through the Quag.”

  “I did. Astrea Prine trained me as a sorceress.”

  “Astrea, ever vigilant. I’m surprised she let you pass.”

  “She knows what I came here to do. She agrees with it.”

  Alice slowly nodded. “Tell me your problem.”

  I explained about the slaves, and how I wanted to assemble them as an army to fight the Maladons.

  Alice looked down at my wand. “All you need, you now have to accomplish that.”

  “But I don’t know how! Not really. I just have vague ideas about how it could all work.”

  “Have the confidence of your convictions,” said Alice.

  “Can’t you just tell me how to do it?” I asked, frustrated.

  She pointed to the door through which I’d entered the room. “No one needed to tell you how to open that, did they? You figured it out all by yourself. By believing that you could do so.”

  I looked at the door and realized that it had been a test. A test of my wits, maybe? But I didn’t see how that was going to help me now.

  When I turned back, Alice was gone. When I looked around to ask Uma where she had gone, I realized that she had disappeared as well.

  And then my eyes opened and I was lying on my bed, with a snoring Harry Two right next to me.

  I sat up and looked wildly around.

  Had any of that happened, or had I simply dreamed it?

  I looked down at my hand. My wand was in it. And … it did feel different. The warmth was still there. The possibilities in my head were definitely still there.

  I thought about what I wanted to do. And I thought about what Alice had told me. And in a tremendous flash of clarity, it all came together.

  FIVE MINUTES LATER I was staring at it. Bastion Cadmus’s golden wand in the box.

  I had reached up to lift the box off the wall when a surge of power hit me and knocked me heels over arse across the room.

  Groaning, I slowly rose, rubbing my head, which had hit the stone.

  All right, we’ll see about this.

  I took out my wand, pointed it at its golden counterpart and said with a backward sweep of my hand, “Rejoinda, Bastion Cadmus’s wand.”

  Absolutely nothing happened.

  I tried every spell that I thought might work.

  Again, absolutely nothing happened. The little box remained on the wall.

  Befuddled and irritated, I looked around the room for something, anything, that might aid me. But there was absolutely nothing there. I recalled the blank diary that had spoken to me when I was in the room full of battered and bloody weapons and Gunther Adronis’s coffin. It said that if I did not want to pay the price, I could end my years in comfort and safety here at Empyrean.

  “Oi,” I said. “I don’t intend to stay here and grow fat and old. I intend to leave and fight the Maladons and make things right. That’s my decision. Now, you promised me aid if I did that. So I’m here and I’m asking for the wand in that box. May I have it? Or was all that a bunch of rubbish before?”

  Before I had even finished, I felt something in my pocket. I withdrew it with my hand. It was the golden wand.

  Just to be sure, I looked at the box. The wand was no longer there, because I indeed had it.

  And along with it, I had a plan.

  And because of that, we had a chance.

  I ran back toward my room.

  But then I halted.

  I was in front of Delph’s room again. And once more, I heard the voices coming from within.

  Again, I shouldn’t have done it. I realized that. But I did it anyway.

  “Crystilado magnifica.”

  Instantly in front of me appeared Delph and Petra. They were still perched on the bed. They were even closer to each other. Her hand was on his shoulder. I saw the look on her face and realized I had probably had that same expression on my face when I was feeling especially affectionate toward Delph.

  I felt my features harden, and there came such coldness in my heart that I didn’t think I had ever felt before. It felt strange, terrifying.

  Here I was using every bit of energy I had to come up with a plan to take the battle to the Maladons, and here Delph and Petra were, supposedly my friends, being all cozy with each other. I was their leader. They had told me over and over that I was to lead them. And this was how I was paid back? Did they think it was easy doing what I was doing? Did they think I could just come up with a brilliant plan whenever it was needed? Well, we would see about that.

  I released my spell, pocketed my wand and knocked on the door.

  “Hello, Delph?”

  I heard movement from within as they no doubt scrambled off the bed.

  Delph opened the door a few moments later, looking awkward.

  “Delph, I have good news.”

  “What’s that, Vega Jane?”

  “We need to tell Petra too. Let’s go get her.”

  “Um,” began Delph. He wouldn’t meet my eye.

  “I’m right here,” said Petra, who sauntered up next to Delph and gave me what I took to be a simpering smile that made my blood flame and hardened my decision to do what I was about to do. In reality, the look wasn’t really simpering at all. But I couldn’t see that at the moment.

  “Absolutely cracking,” I said. “Follow me.”

  I saw them glance uncertainly at each other before falling into step behind me.

  We reached my room and entered.

  Harry Two was on the bed, and he slowly lifted his head to peer at us.

  “What’s the plan, Vega Jane?” asked Delph.

  I took a few minutes to tell them.

  “Do you think it’ll work?” asked Petra in what I, unfairly or not, interpreted as a condescending tone. Right now, nothing she said or did would strike me as anything other than negative.

  “I have no idea. But do you have a better idea?” I added sharply.

  She looked taken aback and shook her head.

  “Now, there is another part to all of this, and you, Petra, are going to play an especially important role.”

  “What?” she said curiously.


  “You will go to Greater True and take up a position near the center of town. You will be my eyes and ears, Petra. When I engage this spell, I have no real idea what’s going to happen. But you can communicate with me via the wand wire incantation.”

  “But, Vega Jane, sending her there by herself, not knowing what’s going to happen …” said Delph. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Or fair to Petra.”

  I gazed up at him with what I hoped was an expression of utter surprise.

  “Delph, we’re a team. We all have roles to play. Petra is part of that team. I very much trust her to do this. Don’t you trust her? Or do you think she’s not up to it?”

  His features collapsed as I neatly flipped his entire argument on its head.

  “O’course I trust Pet.” He hastily added, “Petra.”

  “Then I don’t see the problem.”

  “I could go with her.”

  I shook my head. “You need to stay here and prepare for the arrival,” I said. “There’s going to be a lot going on and we need to be ready.”

  “But —”

  I talked right over him. “Petra will have the ring and her wand. I’ve gone to Greater True with just those two things and come back alive. I’ve gone to Maladon Castle alone with just those two things and returned in one piece. If I can do it, so can Pet.”

  I looked at Petra, slipped off my ring and handed it to her. “So, are you ready?”

  She nodded dumbly, glanced at Delph and then quickly looked away.

  “You’d better get ready to leave now. The preparations will take me a bit of time, but I want you in place. Send me a wire when you get there. Aim for near the train station and then work your way to the center when you’ve determined that the path is clear.”

  Delph blurted out, “But, Vega, if your plan causes things to go all wonky in Greater True, the Maladons might show up in full force. Petra might get trapped.”

  “She has her wand. And she can use the Pass-pusay spell to get back here if need be. It’s no more dangerous than what I’ve done. And I don’t remember you having a problem when it was me doing it.”

  “But …”

  “But what, Delph?” I said, staring up at him.

  His voice trailed off and he looked away, beaten.

  I put out my hand to Petra. “Good luck.”

  She lightly shook it, turned and hurried off.

  I looked at Delph. “You better take up your position outside by the front door,” I said.

  He nodded, gave me a furtive glance and then left.

  My heart was beating so fast I thought I might faint.

  The flint inside my heart started to break down a bit, and I told myself that what I’d done wasn’t really that awful. We had come and gone before from Greater True without incident. She was invisible. She had her wand.

  But Delph was right. I couldn’t predict what would happen when I performed my spell. Petra might be caught in something that she couldn’t get herself out of. She might be injured, captured.

  Or killed.

  As soon as I thought this, my head began to pound, and then I felt something wet on my forehead. I touched it.

  It was blood.

  For some reason, I looked down at my wand.

  There was blood there too. As I watched, the blood from my head was being soaked up into my wand.

  And then I remembered.

  The blood oath! I had sworn allegiance to Petra and she to me. But by my actions I was breaking that oath. I didn’t know what was going to happen to me. Was I going to oblivion?

  I dropped to the floor, holding my head. Harry Two came over to me and licked at my hand. His tongue touched some of the blood and I felt a tingling sensation all over my body.

  Nothing is worth Petra being hurt by something you’ve planned, Vega. It’s wrong. If she loves Delph and he loves her, that’s just the way it is. You’re acting like a bloody Maladon. And you are not like them!

  I wiped the blood off, jumped up and ran to Petra’s room. She was just coming out, her cloak on.

  “Stop,” I said.

  “What?”

  “I … I just figured out another way. You don’t have to go to Greater True. You can stay here. It’s okay.”

  “But you said —”

  “Right, I know what I said, but it’s okay, you don’t have to go. Like Delph said, you might get trapped there. And … and that would not be good.”

  “If you’re sure?”

  “You and Delph can wait outside of Empyrean.”

  She looked at me oddly and then touched my forehead. “You’re bleeding.”

  “It’s nothing. Okay, well, I’ve got things to do, so …”

  I turned and rushed off, leaving her staring after me.

  In my room I sat on my haunches and laid the golden wand down directly in front of me.

  I touched my forehead. The blood was gone. I looked at my wand. There was no blood there either. But if that hadn’t happened? Would I have let Petra go? Possibly to her death? Did all the Janes actually have a bit of Maladon blood in them, as my grandfather had suggested after telling us the story of Alice’s evil father?

  I closed my eyes and then reopened them. I couldn’t think about that now. I had to focus. There were many people counting on me.

  Something that Uma had told me had given me this idea.

  He was not simply my father, but the father of all of our people.

  I was counting on that statement to be quite literal.

  From my pocket I took the book with the names of all those enslaved by the Maladons. I set it in front of me, open to the pages listing them.

  I tapped my wand against the pages and murmured, “Accumuladis todos.”

  When I looked at the pages, they had turned blank.

  Okay, so far, so good.

  I pointed my wand at Bastion’s golden one.

  Drawing another deep breath, I closed my eyes and cast my mind back so that I could recall the incantation exactly as the Maladon had told it to me.

  Now it got tricky. Now I was in totally uncharted territory. But I supposed every spell had to be done for the first time by somebody.

  The only thing was, I was planning to use an existing spell, but in a way that it had never been used, to do what I needed it to do. And it wasn’t simply one spell. I was attempting to link three of them together and unleash them at the same time.

  In my mind I formed a clear thought of what I wanted to have happen. It was actually multiple things occurring at precisely the same time.

  I drew one more long breath. I was totally focused. I had never concentrated like this in my life. I hadn’t even known I had the capacity to do it. But somehow, I had found it.

  I had three images, neatly compartmentalized in my head.

  The golden wand.

  The names on the list.

  And Greater True.

  I touched the tip of my wand to the tip of the golden one.

  Then I spoke the words tightly, curtly, firmly. Never had I possessed such confidence, such sheer willpower. It was like everything I had ever done to reach this spot, every strength that had shown itself in me on this long journey, every power developed from necessity, every obstacle overcome, every loss followed by a savage desire to triumph, had all been for this very moment.

  “Disassemblius, projecta …”

  I drew a breath.

  “Amplifius spectrumaca …”

  It was as though someone else was doing the talking and using me to channel the words.

  But I held my focus, my absolute concentration.

  “Vamon recipitcus. Agante apertus.”

  When I opened my eyes and looked down at the golden wand, it started to shake violently. But I kept my wand touching it.

  A flash of light erupted from Bastion Cadmus’s wand. It was blinding, and I could feel my eyes go wonky. The light covered the entire room, and I could hear Harry Two barking madly.

  But I kept my focus.

>   Those three images: the wand, the names and the place.

  Next moment the golden wand shattered into tiny pieces. These splinters of gold swirled upward as though caught in an overpowering funnel of air. Up, up to the ceiling they went.

  “Catapulus targerius.”

  And then with a pop they vanished.

  The light vanished as well.

  And still my focus never wavered.

  I was only halfway done.

  New images replaced the old trio.

  Faces, hands, eyes.

  Words slipped from my mouth.

  “Erectica. Desimminus. Plutarium.”

  I took another breath, kept the images clear in my head.

  “Emancipatico stelara.”

  Eyes popped open in my mind. Faces became normal. Reason returned. Real pasts supplanted magically conjured ones.

  Hands gripped hard objects across Greater True.

  Still I pressed on. I had more to do.

  I gripped my wand with both hands because it was starting to shake so violently that I wasn’t sure I could control it with merely one.

  I supposed I was at unprecedented levels of sorcery here. It didn’t make me feel special. It made me fear failure. Because if I did fail, I had the terrible feeling that all these people were going to instantly die or forever remain in a limbo of my creation.

  Now I had two images in mind: people and a place.

  That place was not Greater True.

  That place was right here.

  Empyrean.

  I was attempting to perform the Pass-pusay spell, only remotely, to move others. And not simply one.

  I was going to bring fifty people here, to safety.

  My wand was pitching and heaving like a ship on stormy seas.

  Smoke started to emanate from its core.

  The poor Elemental felt like it was going to burn up in my hands.

  Yet still I held on.

  “Aggretata … Cumuladis … Elevata …”

  My wand was nearly out of control. It gave such a violent upheaval that it smacked me in the forehead. I felt blood trickle down my face.

  I summoned all the energy I had left. This was the moment of truth. It was now or never, and while I was confident, part of me was also scared to death.

  The normal spell, I knew intuitively, would not be enough. I had transported others with me using it, but not remotely and not fifty of them.