by Brian Farrey
Nothing happened.
“Boshoren!” Callie insisted again.
The Satyran mage looked ready to eat us all alive. She marched over, and Callie stood at attention.
“Sorry,” Callie said quietly, “I only just got my spellsphere. I’m still learning—”
“Again!” the mage said. “And concentrate.”
Callie gulped. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath through her nose. Then she said forcefully, “Boshoren!”
This time, the spellsphere flickered to life. A cascade of purple and orange sparks spilled out of the sphere and danced along the surface of the wooden platform. A moment later, the platform rose up into the air.
Callie kept her eyes closed, and the platform rose until we were higher than any of the other groups, almost to the ceiling. As the platform came to a halt, Callie opened her eyes and nearly killed me with a hug.
“What are you doing here?” she asked. She looked over to Maloch and frowned. “And why is he with you?”
“Hey, you’re no prize either, Strom,” Maloch said, folding his arms.
I had completely forgotten that Callie was here. When I imagined Kolo going through with his plans to destroy the palace, I hadn’t even realized that Callie would be among those . . .
I shrugged off the thought. “Callie, what’s going on here?”
I looked over the edge. Below us, the other trios of apprentices continued their mini war games, dodging one another’s spells and improvising defensive maneuvers.
“Pretty intense, huh?” Callie asked, rolling her spellsphere between her fingers.
“I thought apprentices weren’t allowed to have spellspheres until they were sixteen,” I said, eyeing the dark gray marble.
Callie shrugged. “That used to be the rule. But it got thrown out the window when we were evacuated. Not only do we all have spellspheres, but we spend half our days learning the magical language. It’s supposed to take years to master, but they expect us to learn it now. Let me tell you: it’s not easy.”
“Yeah,” Maloch said with a laugh, “that much is obvious.”
Callie grabbed a fistful of his robe. “You want to give it a try? It’s exhausting. Half of our training is to build up stamina. Every time you use magic, it drains you. Use too much and it can knock you out. So give it a try, Maloch. I’d really love to see that.”
Maloch looked away, and Callie turned back to me. “It’s crazy here, Jaxter. When it was just me and Talian, we moved at a slow pace, learning all about the history of magic. But now we never stop learning. We spend mornings learning how to speak magic, afternoons training in here, and evenings working our assigned jobs—in the forge, in the gardens. . . .”
She sat cross-legged on the platform. “It’s like they can’t teach us fast enough. People keep getting hurt. Everyone’s trying to please their teachers, and when they try too hard, they get sloppy. The Palatinate is convinced the Sarosans are out to get them. But most of them are locked up in Umbramore Tower. I can’t imagine the few left are any threat.”
Maloch cleared his throat. Callie’s face fell. “What?”
I pulled out the pocket watch and eyed the fast-moving second hand. “You might want to rethink that.”
25
An Impossible Menagerie
“When you sell the impossible, you are a master thief.”
—Kaelis Grimjinx, architect of the Dagger
By the time Maloch and I had finished recounting everything that had happened to us since Vengekeep, I thought Callie was going to fall off the floating platform. Her eyes got big when we described being kidnapped by the Sarosans. Her jaw dropped when we told her about being hunted by the bloodreavers. And her hands shook when we talked about dodging traps in the Dagger. I didn’t think she’d have any reactions left by the time we got to Kolo’s plot to blow up the Palatinate.
I was wrong.
“We have to warn everyone!” she said, leaping to her feet and pulling out her spellsphere. She barked a command, and nothing happened. “Come on, you stupid thing. Go down! Down!”
“Whoa!” Maloch said, holding his hands up. “You can’t tell anyone.”
Callie pointed over the side of the platform. “There are two hundred mages in this building and almost as many apprentices. Most of them are our age. And they’re my friends. Of course I have to warn them!”
This was going to be hard.
“Callie . . . ,” I said gently, and got the same deadly look she’d just given Maloch.
“Talian’s here, Jaxter,” she said, seething. “Remember him? He’s your friend.”
“I know,” I said to her. “Really, I know. But Kolo’s got spies watching for an evacuation or attack. He’ll ignite the tinderjack if he suspects the Palatinate has been alerted.”
We locked eyes for what felt like an eternity. She didn’t seem entirely convinced. “We have to do something,” she insisted.
I kept my tone even. “I don’t know what we can do. It’s not like we can have Kolo and his men arrested and taken—”
Or could we . . . ?
“The Dowager!” I said. I drew my hand back into my robe, rummaged around in my pouches, and pulled out the star-shaped gem from the Dowager’s pendant. “I can talk to her with this. All we have to do is have her send the Provincial Guard to arrest everyone in the Sarosan camp, and it’s all over.”
“Would she do that?” Maloch asked.
“If it means saving hundreds of lives, she will,” I said. “Here goes.”
I tapped the gem three times as instructed. Nothing happened. I waited a moment, then tried again. Still nothing.
Callie shook her head. “It won’t work in here. While we’re on lockdown, the Palatinate is fortified so that no magic gets in or out. You’ll need to go outside to use it.” She tilted her head as she considered. “Although it might work if you went to the North Tower. The top is open air.”
It was as good a plan as any. “There’s no telling how long it will take the Dowager’s guards to arrive.”
“Then we get the Sourcefire and give it to Kolo,” Maloch said. “We can stall him until the troops come.”
“You contact the Dowager,” Callie said, taking charge the way she often did. “Me and the Armpit here will find the Sourcefire.”
“‘Armpit?’” Maloch asked.
Callie grinned. “Didn’t you know that’s what everyone in Vengekeep calls you behind your back?”
I nodded. “A couple more baths a year wouldn’t kill you, Maloch.”
Maloch’s jaw tightened. I took that to mean I would pay for that remark later. I’d lost count of how much I had to pay for later.
“The Sourcefire is heavily guarded with magical defenses,” Callie said. “But I think I’ve learned enough magic to get us past them.”
“You think?” Maloch asked.
Callie ignored him and held out her spellsphere again, trying to coax the platform to go down. Instead, we just continued to float. I tried not to sneak any nervous peeks at the pocket watch. Callie was already under enough stress. But at this rate, we could be stuck up here right until the moment when Kolo ignited the tinderjack.
A few more tries and suddenly the platform lurched downward. Thrown to the surface of the dais, we dug our fingers in and cried out.
Our free fall dropped us past the other training platforms. The other apprentices gaped in stunned silence as we plummeted, the floor rising to pulverize us. As we were seconds from death, a green glow surrounded our platform. For a moment, I felt weightless. The dais gently slowed until we touched the floor with a tap. Madam Zaia stood there with her spellsphere, clearly unhappy.
“It’s a simple spell,” she said to Callie, whose face had gone so red she looked a bit like a bloodreaver. “If you can’t even—”
A deep, sonorous bell rang out, echoing off the walls. It sounded loud enough to be heard throughout the entire Palatinate. As it faded away, a strong woman’s voice took the bell’s place.
One by one, the other floating platforms descended. The apprentices stepped off and began filing out of the room. With the Satyran distracted, we quickly mixed in with the departing crowd and exited.
We followed the other apprentices until we got to a wheel-spoke juncture. There, people peeled off in groups, each heading down whichever corridor led to their workstation. We waited in the hub of the spoke until it was just the three of us.
“Won’t you be missed at your ‘workstation’?” Maloch asked. We were both thinking back to the ruby-eyed forge master. He seemed the sort to send bloodreavers out to retrieve any apprentice who was even a minute late reporting for duty.
Callie blew it off with a wave of her hand. “They were in such a hurry to get everyone safe in the Palatinate that they didn’t take any time to . . . well, organize it. I’ve skipped plenty of work sessions and classes.”
“Says the girl who’s going to get us past the magical defenses of the Sourcefire,” Maloch said.
Callie elbowed him and turned to me. “Okay, Jaxter, here’s how you get to the North Tower—”
“Down that hall, take two lefts, up the stairs all the way to the top,” I said.
Callie and Maloch pursed their lips as one. Maloch tapped his foot impatiently. Finally, Callie said, “You know we’re going to ask how you could possibly know that, so stop showing off and tell us.”
I pretended to pout. “You used to like it when I did that, Cal.” I pointed to the flickering torches on the wall. “There’s a breeze wafting through the corridors. Faint scent of jewelpine trees. This palace lies just south of the largest jewelpine forest in the Provinces. Since we can smell the forest and we know the wind comes in from the north, that way must be north. When the defense classes let out, I could hear students head down that hall. From the angle their voices echoed back off the walls, I knew they—”
“Let’s go,” Maloch said, pulling Callie away. “By the time he finishes, Kolo will have blown us up a dozen times over.”
Sometimes, I really think my deductive skills are woefully unappreciated.
When I arrived at the stairway to the North Tower, I found myself wishing I’d let Callie give me directions, instead of just deducing it all. She probably would have mentioned the 1,543 spiral steps that led to the very top.
Oh, yes. I counted.
The stone stairs wound in a tight spiral through the tower’s core. By the time I reached the last step, my jelly-like legs could barely support me and my lungs ached from all the heavy breathing. The top of the tower was completely flat and open. A blast of freezing wind hit me as I moved to the center. I spotted the jewelpine forest to the north, and to the west, I watched the sun sink closer to the horizon. Time was running out. I could only hope the Dowager could get here fast enough. Fingers shaking, I took out the star-shaped gem and tapped it three times.
It started to glow dark orange. Red dots of light danced beneath the gem’s surface, and a moment later, they shot up out of the gem and hovered above my palm. The pinpricks of light swam around and chased one another, going faster and faster until they suddenly stopped and formed a fuzzy picture of the Dowager’s face.
“Jaxter?” The Dowager’s voice, distorted and wobbly, sounded from the red dot image.
“It’s me, Dowager,” I said, staring into the image’s eyes. Even this replica of her face had the same dreamy quality to it.
“There you are!” she exclaimed. “I’ve been worried about you. Listen, things are not going well here. My brother is being as stubborn as a ganchmule. Won’t listen to a word of reason. I keep telling him and telling him—”
“Dowager,” I interrupted gently, “I need your help.”
I quickly explained the situation and stressed that the Provincial Guards she sent needed to be stealthy, because if Kolo knew they were coming, he’d kill Ma and Da and blow up the Palatinate.
“How do the guards find the caves?” she asked.
We’d been unconscious when Kolo’s men brought us to the safe house. I had no idea how to get there from the outside.
I scanned the surrounding area, my eyes resting on a river to the east that ended with a waterfall. I remembered my walk with Kolo and the sound of rushing water . . .
“There’s a waterfall to the east of the Palatinate Palace,” I said. “The entrance to the cave is there. Please, Dowager, hurry.”
The Dowager’s head tilted to one side. “You and your friends should get out of there. It’s much too dangerous.”
“I can’t,” I said. “Not until I know Ma and Da are safe. Besides, we have a plan.”
We didn’t really. We hoped that once we had the Sourcefire, we could bargain with Kolo. Maybe stall. But stalling would only last so long.
“I’ll be there soon!” the Dowager said. Her face vanished, and I slipped the gem back into one of my pouches. In the distance, the sun continued to vanish. My shoulders slumped. It might take me until sundown to go back down all those stairs again.
Turned out that the way down was much faster. I took five steps, tripped on my robe, and fell down the remaining stairs.
A fall like that would have killed most people. But then, most people hadn’t spent a good portion of their lives falling from trees, off rooftops, and over their own two feet like I had. I knew just how to tumble to protect myself from major damage.
A dubious talent, yes, but one I was fiercely proud of.
It’s too bad my talent gave out before I reached the bottom. Just as the final steps spun into view, I struck my head against the wall and was knocked out cold.
Somewhere in the distance, a warbling howl pierced the air.
I awoke bruised, nauseated, and seeing little white lights before my eyes. I stood groggily and tried out all my limbs. Everything worked. Ma and Da would be impressed to hear I hadn’t broken any bones this time.
The green-blue torches in the hall had turned dark purple, painting the walls with thick shadows. Between the distant howling and the throbbing in my head, I found it hard to concentrate. What was going on? Why was it suddenly dark? What was that sound?
The whats and whys vanished as a new question occurred: how long had I been out? Obviously, it wasn’t sundown, or I’d have been in bits and pieces. But I’d lost precious time. I searched my robes for Kolo’s pocket watch, then noticed it smashed on the floor. For all I knew, it could be minutes to sundown.
Maybe that’s what the howling was: an evacuation notice. But no. Kolo had promised to blow up the palace if he saw the Palatinate trying to leave. That meant the sound was . . .
A warn charm. Someone had triggered an alarm. And I had a pretty good idea who.
I had to leave.
The upside of Maloch and Callie triggering the warn charm meant it would be easier for me to find them. All I had to do was follow the horrible, horrible, earsplitting wailing to its source and try not to go crazy in the process.
Bangers.
I ran down the hall toward the warn charm. The closer I got, the more my skin crawled. Fear coursed through my body. It felt like stickworms burrowing in my brain, urging me to turn back. Oh, zoc. This wasn’t an ordinary warn charm. This one was enchanted to cause intense fear meant to send thieves into a blind panic. Inevitably, that fear would drive the thief toward waiting captors.
And it appeared to be working. Distracted, I’d lost track of where I was going. Just ahead, a line of four mages was moving toward me. Beams of light from their spellspheres swept the corridor walls. Trying to stay calm—hard to do when magic is forcing you to panic—I disappeared behind the nearest door.
Like everywhere in the palace, the room was very dark, save for the purple torches. But even still, I could tell this was the largest room I’d seen yet. Easily the size of several city blocks in Vengekeep, the room was so long I couldn’t see the far end. And everywhere I looked, I saw cages. Hundreds and hundreds of cages filled with
more exotic beasts than I could count.
My mind reeled back months ago to when Callie, Talian, and I discovered the rogue mage Xerrus in his hidden Onyx Fortress. Xerrus had been doing horrible, illegal experiments, using magic to combine different types of animals. But there was no evidence of that cruelty here. The creatures in these cages all seemed perfectly normal: healthy, well-fed, even docile. A marked difference from Xerrus’s experiments, which were crammed into cages too small for them and abused terribly.
I watched as a pair of mages moved from cage to cage. The first mage examined the creatures and murmured instructions that the second mage hastily scribbled into a large book.
“This is naff-nut,” the second mage said. “You hear the warn charm. We could be under attack. We’re here, doing our job like always, when we should be out there defending the palace.”
“Relax,” the first mage said. “The Sentinels are investigating. Nalia told us we’re not to leave this room. She wants a complete catalog of the menagerie by nightfall.”
As my eyes adjusted to the lighting and I got a better look around, I realized I didn’t recognize any of the creatures. No sanguibeasts. No garfluks. But while I didn’t recognize them, they seemed familiar.
The hulking pair of black-furred, trihorned animals in the corner looked like nightmanx. The monstrous, spiky-skinned reptiles—two stories high—resembled torranthars. And the gelatinous, childlike creatures that swung on the bars of their cage were the spitting image of skeelapes. Every beast that I could see wore a small gold amulet around its neck.
Nightmanx, torranthars, and skeelapes.
Which was impossible, because none of these things existed.
They were legends. Stories.
Weren’t they?
My curiosity got the better of me, and I tiptoed closer for a better look. Just then, I heard an unearthly howl that made my blood run cold.
Looking up, I saw a row of cages hanging from chains in the ceiling. Each was home to a bloodreaver. They still wore the golden amulets I’d seen on the one in the forest. The many-armed creatures batted against the bars lightly. My breath caught in my throat. One of them met my eyes and suddenly went wild, howling and thrashing at its cage. Soon, all were doing the same. The cages smashed into one another as they swung like pendulums.