Vega Jane and the Rebels’ Revolt

by David Baldacci

‘I have lots to tell you,’ I said.

  ‘And I want to hear all of it,’ Delph replied. ‘But I think you should go and change first. And maybe wash.’

  I realized what a state I must look. While Mrs Jolly prepared a meal, I went to my room, took off my dirty garments, cleaned up, put on fresh clothes and headed back downstairs.

  Delph was already waiting for me in the kitchen. While we ate, I told him all that had happened to me.

  He looked very thoughtful. ‘This bloke on the big throne. The one Endemen was summoned by. Did you get a look at him?’

  I shook my head. ‘But he was very powerful, Delph. I felt the entire air around me hardening. Another moment and I don’t think I could have escaped.’

  Delph rubbed his jaw and thought about this. I could almost see the gears in his head whirring as I sipped my tea.

  ‘Show me the bottle you took.’

  I had brought the bottle of sparkling dust down with me and now I pulled it out for Delph to see.

  He took the bottle from me and held it up to the light.

  ‘Delph, the man was taking it from the prisoners. He said to one of the men . . . that he was going to become an Ordinary.’

  ‘That must be what they call non-magical folks. Ordinary.’ His expression was one of unbridled disgust. ‘The Maladons are vile, Vega Jane. I’d take an army of jabbits over them.’ He stood. ‘Wait here. There’s something I want to show you.’

  A minute later he returned carrying a large book. He set it down in front of me.

  ‘While you were gone, I found this in the library, behind a panel.’

  ‘How’d you find the panel?’

  ‘It was an accident. Hit it with my elbow.’

  I looked down at the book. It had no title.

  ‘Turn to page two twenty-four,’ said Delph, a bit ominously.

  I flipped to the page. It was a chapter heading, in ornate writing.

  ‘Incada Masacarro?’

  ‘It’s a spell. A wicked one, and it looks mighty tricky to manage. It tells how you can remove the magical powers of another. It’s done through a series of torture incantations. It leaves the person with nothing inside.’

  I turned the pages of the chapter – Delph was right. The pages were full of incantations and terrible drawings.

  ‘This is horrible, Delph. So what happens to the person after this is done to them?’

  ‘That’s the other awful part. Since there’s nothing there, they can be filled up with anything you want. Make ’em slaves for life. That part’s at the end.’

  I read this section and drew a quick breath. ‘Delph, when I was in Greater True, I saw servants with blank eyes, like the people in the looking glasses back at the castle.’

  He nodded, his gaze on the page I was reading.

  ‘I think you saw the result of a full bottle taken, then, Vega Jane,’ he said grimly. ‘A sorcerer or sorceress turned into an Ordinary and then enslaved.’

  I swallowed. Was that to be the fate of all those back at the castle?

  All those you left behind, Vega?

  I thought of the full bottles in the niches along that wall. Each bottle represented a person who used to be magical, but was now a slave.

  I glanced at the spine of the book, where there was something printed in faded letters. My eyes widened in disbelief.

  ‘Delph, look who wrote it!’ I exclaimed. ‘Colin Sonnet! Now, how much coin would you wager that he’s related to Petra?’

  He nodded slowly. ‘I already saw that.’

  I frowned. ‘That means Colin Sonnet had to be a Maladon!’

  ‘We don’t know that. And remember, the book belonged to Jasper Jane. You saying he’s a Maladon too?’

  ‘Of course he wasn’t a Maladon. He needed to know about the dark forces so he could better fight them.’ I tapped the name on the spine of the book. ‘Like this evil bloke.’

  ‘Vega Jane,’ he began in a weary tone. ‘We don’t know he was evil and we don’t know that Pet is either.’

  I hesitated, then told him what I had seen – Petra, casting dark spells in her bedroom.

  To my surprise, he shrugged. ‘So what? Like Jasper Jane, maybe Petra was studying those spells so she could better fight the Maladons, eh?’

  ‘Why do you keep defending her?’ I said suspiciously.

  ‘Because she’s proved time and again that she’s on our side.’

  I studied his features and thought, Or maybe for another reason entirely.

  ‘You didn’t see how . . . happy she was to be casting these dark spells, Delph,’ I said. ‘If she turns against us, we need to be ready.’

  He rose. ‘Fine. Let’s go and talk to her then.’

  I gaped. ‘Delph, no, we shouldn’t do that.’

  ‘Vega Jane, I believe in Petra, but you obviously don’t. So we need to put this to rest once and for all. Otherwise, you’re going to be looking over your shoulder all the time, and what will that help?’

  ‘If she is our enemy, she won’t admit it.’

  ‘Leave that part to me, Vega Jane. But we can’t take Harry Two with us.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  18

  A BLOOD OATH

  We knocked on Petra’s door. At first there was no answer. We knocked again, harder; Delph actually pounded with his fist against the stout wood.

  ‘Who is it?’

  Petra’s voice sounded tight and unnatural.

  Delph said, ‘Me and Vega Jane. She’s back. We need to fill you in on what she found out. About the accursed Maladons! You might find it interesting, them being your kind and all.’

  I glanced at him, confused. He was being antagonistic, when a moment ago he had fiercely defended Petra.

  We heard hesitant footsteps coming towards the door.

  It opened and there she was.

  She was dressed in her nightshirt though it was well into the day and her hair was damp and tousled.

  In her right hand was her wand.

  I slipped my hand into my pocket and gripped mine. Just in case.

  ‘So you’re back,’ she said, shooting me an odd look. ‘You’ve been gone long enough.’

  ‘I heard you haven’t come out of your room,’ I said. I hesitated. Delph was right; I might as well find out. ‘I know you took those pages from Jasper’s room. They were from the book on dark incantations.’

  Petra instinctively shot a glance at the nightstand next to her bed. ‘Have you been spying on me?’ she said.

  Delph pushed past her and into the room. I followed and closed the door behind us.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Petra said. She crossed her arms across her chest and scowled at us.

  Delph said, ‘Vega Jane found out quite a bit ’bout them Maladon blokes.’ He turned to me. ‘You want to start filling her in?’

  ‘OK,’ I said hesitantly. I still had no idea what Delph was up to.

  I had only just opened my mouth to begin when, with a sudden yell, Delph ripped a broadaxe off the wall and swung it towards me.

  I was so stunned that I had no chance to protect myself.

  ‘Embattlemento,’ Petra cried out.

  The force of her spell was so strong that Delph and his axe were tossed ten feet backwards and he crashed against the wall.

  ‘What the Hel!’ shouted Petra, her wand aimed at Delph’s chest.

  I stared at him, stunned. ‘That was your plan?’ I shouted. ‘Almost getting yourself killed?’

  Delph dusted himself off, put the axe back on the wall and shook his head.

  ‘See?’ he said. ‘On your side. Whatever that book says.’

  Delph pulled the book from his pocket and passed it across. Petra saw the author’s name and her face paled.

  She looked up at both of us. ‘I don’t know who this is.’

  ‘I’m sure you don’t. But he’s probably an ancestor.’

  Petra bit her lip. ‘You still don’t trust me,’ she said. ‘After all this, you
still don’t trust me. What do I have to do? Tell me, what?’

  ‘You can stop practising dark spells behind closed doors without telling either of us!’ I said.

  There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Petra shook her head. ‘I thought we were friends,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Petra—’ I began.

  She held up a hand. ‘Just don’t. I don’t want to hear it. Not now.’

  ‘We want to trust you. But the Maladons are evil.’

  ‘And because their blood runs in me I must be evil too, eh?’ she snapped.

  ‘I’ve seen what they can do,’ I said. ‘I’ve seen what they do to people. How they turn them to . . . well, nothing. Take their powers away and collect them in bottles. And then enslave what’s left, little though it is.’

  ‘They . . . th-they d-do that?’ Petra said, her voice cracking.

  I held up the bottle of dust. ‘This is what they take from them. Their magic, their souls, everything that makes them who they really are.’ I added bitterly, ‘They leave nothing behind except a blank-eyed slave.’

  Delph held up the book. ‘The spell that does it is in here. Written by your ancestor.’

  ‘But I’m not my ancestor, am I?’ she yelled.

  A silence fell. Then Delph said, ‘There is something, something that each of you can do, to put this matter to rest once and for all.’

  We looked at him.

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  He held open another page in the book. We stared at the writing there.

  ‘The Oath of Oblivion?’ I read out.

  Delph nodded. ‘You each take a bit of your blood and give it to the other. Then you swear allegiance to each other, touch your wands together, say the spell at the same time and a bit of your blood is magically transferred to the other.’

  ‘And if we don’t keep our promise?’ I asked.

  ‘Then you go into oblivion,’ said Delph. ‘And from the pictures in the book, you don’t want to go there.’

  Petra and I stared at each other.

  I said, ‘I . . . I don’t know.’

  ‘Me neither,’ said Petra.

  ‘Well, then that’s a bit of a problem,’ said Delph, his features unusually dark. ‘Because, Vega Jane, I’m getting tired of having to come back to this question of Petra being loyal or not.’

  I flinched and glanced at Petra, who had the trace of a smile on her face. Irritation rose, but Delph wasn’t finished.

  ‘And you, Petra. I’m sick of you always complaining that everyone is against you. You’re not the only one who’s had it rough.’

  The smile on Petra’s face vanished. We both just stood there glaring at Delph.

  He barked, ‘There’s a whole world out there we have to confront, and it’s got plenty enough evil in it, I reckon. Too much for us to have to worry about whether we trust each other. So it has to end. Now!’

  He abruptly stopped and glared right back at us.

  ‘Well?’ he prompted.

  ‘Shall we have a go at it, then?’ I finally said to Petra in a small voice.

  Petra seemed to roll this around in her head, too long to suit me, but she said at last, ‘OK. I guess.’

  Delph guided us through the spell.

  We said the oath first, together, and then we ever so carefully touched wands.

  As soon as the wood of our wands touched, they held fast to each other, like they had been sealed together. Petra gasped, and I heard myself do the same. The astonished look on her face, I’m sure, simply mirrored the one on mine.

  ‘Now, the spell,’ said Delph.

  We read off the words, speaking in unison. As we spoke the last word, we both yelped in pain.

  Gashes had opened on our foreheads. Blood poured down Petra’s face, leaped from her skin to her wand, then on to my wand, and from there it catapulted directly to the wound on my face. The blood seemed to disappear inside me. I felt a sudden chill and then a comforting surge of warmth. I could sense the skin closing up and the wound healing. The exact same thing had just happened to Petra.

  Our wands parted and we instinctively stepped back.

  We were both breathing heavily, as though we had just fought some duel or run a long distance.

  We simply stared at each other. I couldn’t find words, and apparently neither could Petra.

  Delph stepped between us and said, ‘The oath is done. You two, I reckon, are in this together, for as long as it takes. So, no more fighting between you.’

  I slowly lowered my wand and gazed at it. When I looked closely enough, I saw a new indentation there. It was crimson. Apparently not all of Petra’s blood had entered my body. A bit was still on my wand.

  Petra said, ‘If you must know, I found the incantation book. I was curious. I knew the spells were dark, but I still wanted to attempt them. It just seemed like a good idea. To know how the other side fights.’

  I said, ‘My ancestor Jasper Jane thought the very same thing. So it probably is a good thing. I’m sorry if I thought otherwise.’

  ‘There’s something else,’ said Petra. Her face was flushed and her voice was unsteady. ‘There was something in those spells that . . .’ She faltered for a moment. ‘That seemed natural to me. They were compelling me to try to perform them.’ She drew a deep, tortured breath and looked directly at me. ‘So I’m glad we took the oath, Vega. I would never want to do anything to hurt you.’

  ‘I know,’ I said.

  A moment later I could feel Delph’s arm around my shoulder. His other one went around Petra, and he drew the three of us together into an embrace that lasted for a long moment.

  When we parted, I was smiling, and so were Delph and Petra.

  I looked at Delph and said, ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Yes, thanks, Delph,’ echoed Petra, her look one of grudging admiration.

  ‘Wait a mo’. Why didn’t you want Harry Two to come along?’ I asked him.

  ‘Are you mad? When I attacked you, he would’ve torn me apart.’

  I laughed. ‘I think you’re right about that.’

  Delph said, ‘Are we all good now?’

  We both nodded.

  ‘And now we need to figure out where we go from here,’ he said.

  I shivered at his words. I well knew where we would need to go.

  Directly into the black hearts of the Maladons.

  And we might never get back out.

  19

  BIMBLETON STATION

  Later that morning, Mrs Jolly put together a wonderful meal and brought it into the library for all of us.

  I had to get something off my chest.

  ‘Delph, I don’t know how to get back to the castle. I followed Endemen there, but I wasn’t paying attention to directions, then I used the Pass-pusay spell to get out.’

  ‘Why not use the Pass-pusay spell to go back then?’ suggested Petra.

  ‘I don’t think I can. When I tried to leave by incanting, it didn’t work. I had to use the Elemental to break out. Besides, even if I could, we might land in a mess of garms and jabbits and Maladons!’

  ‘That’s all right, Vega Jane,’ Delph replied. ‘I don’t think we need to go to the castle; at least not yet.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I snapped. ‘Not go to the castle?’

  ‘I think first we need to go back to the beginning,’ he said, his voice calm.

  ‘To the beginning?’ I retorted. ‘What, the beginning of the Quag?’

  ‘Not that,’ he said. ‘I meant we should go back to True.’

  Well, this brought me up short. ‘What is there in True?’ I asked.

  ‘The people on the train. The ones who are taken. We need to find out where are they taken from. I was thinking that maybe by going to the source, we could help all of them.’

  I let out a long sigh. Leave it to Delph to come up with a noble plan to help others.

  We set off the next night. Pillsbury and Mrs Jolly saw us off.

  We stepped outside the front door, which Pillsb
ury firmly closed behind us.

  ‘Are you ready?’ I asked Delph and Petra.

  They both nodded, and Harry Two, who dangled in his harness, licked my hand.

  I tethered all of us together with my Lassado incantation and then reversed my grandfather’s ring, making us invisible.

  ‘Are you going to use the Pass-pusay spell?’ Delph asked.

  I shook my head. ‘Astrea never said it was meant for more than one person to use. I’m afraid something might go wrong.’

  We kicked off and soared upward, Delph on my right and Petra on my left, like a pair of wings.

  We all kept our gazes swivelling, looking for any sign of Endemen or his cohorts.

  We flew over the trees, and I tacked back in the direction of where he had been travelling on the train.

  I kept my gaze pointed down searching for it, but Petra saw it first.

  ‘There,’ she said.

  I looked where she was pointing and saw the train tracks.

  I nodded and took a moment to get my bearings.

  I peered around, looking for a landmark that might be helpful to orient me better, and I found it in a bluish hill to my left. We had passed that coming from True. That meant True was to the left and Greater True was located off in the distance to my right.

  I turned to the left, changing our flight path to match the route of the tracks.

  ‘Petra,’ I said. ‘Use your wand to do the magnification spell.’

  She looked at me strangely but pulled out her wand, pointed it downward and spoke the pair of words.

  Instantly the tracks were right in front of us and we followed them easily, all the way back to True.

  Although we had travelled quite a way, it was still nighttime when we arrived in True. With the aid of the spell, I could see a couple of people walking and one motor passing down an otherwise quiet street.

  Then True was behind us as we continued to follow the train tracks.

  We passed a number of towns and smaller villages, none near the size of True or Greater True. We kept going until Delph said, ‘There!’

  The train tracks ended, and there was a structure.

  I descended slowly, scanning the area to see if anyone was around, but the place looked deserted.

  We alighted at a spot about a hundred yards distant from the structure. I could see that it was small and wooden with a metal roof and was open to the elements on all four sides.