Vega Jane and the Rebels’ Revolt

by David Baldacci

Delph pulled out his axe and hurled it.

  The Bowler Hat laughed and said, ‘Oh, why that’s a stunner.’

  He shot a spell right at Delph, and had I not blocked it, Delph would have been crushed. As it was, he was thrown head over heels against the wall and slumped down, barely conscious.

  Petra and I kept shooting spells and the Bowler Hat kept blocking them. He shot spells at us, and between the two of us we barely stayed alive. It was clear that he was by far the superior fighter, and had it been one on one, we would be dead.

  He had backed us up against a wall. I felt the cold stone behind me with one hand while my other gripped my wand. I was frantically trying to think what to do. I had cast so many spells and blocked so many of his that I was completely exhausted, while the Bowler Hat looked perfectly fresh and ready to battle on. They truly were elite fighters, as my grandfather had said.

  He sneered at us. ‘Well, luv, lucky for you that you’re wanted alive, or I would have already killed you and your mates.’

  When I was battling creatures in the Quag, it had not been nearly this tiring, but then most times a single spell had been sufficient for victory. Looking into the vile face of our opponent right now, I could see why my kind had lost the war against his kind.

  My wand was so heavy it felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. I glanced at Petra. Her chest was heaving and sweat poured down her face, as it did mine. Her wand hand was twitching uncontrollably.

  Our foe, sensing our weakness, smiled and moved from side to side, seeming to build both power and momentum in his mind. He raised his wand and I knew that we could fight him off no more.

  So, I thought, this is it. This is the end.

  What I had not counted on was Harry Two.

  He charged straight at the bloke, an easy target.

  I screamed, ‘No, Harry Two!’

  The Bowler Hat smiled nastily and leisurely took aim.

  I raised my wand, but the spell shot out of his wand so fast I had no time to block it.

  ‘No!’ I screamed again.

  The spell hit.

  But Harry Two wasn’t there.

  The spell rebounded off the stone and blasted a hole in the ceiling.

  I looked wildly around for my dog.

  The fellow was looking madly around for him too.

  Until Harry Two leaped out of the darkness and sank his fangs into the bloke’s neck. Then he knew right where my special beast was.

  Green shot out of the neck wound, and the Maladon screamed in agony.

  He twisted sideways and managed to knock Harry Two off with a glancing blow from a spell.

  Harry Two hit the stone floor and rolled away.

  I could see the venomous look in the Maladon’s eyes as he located Harry Two and pointed his wand.

  ‘Rigamorte.’

  I said the spell, not him. The killing incantation shot from my wand and hit the Maladon right in the chest.

  He staggered back, looked at me with a disbelieving expression and slowly sank to the floor.

  Dead.

  I looked down at my shaky wand and then over at the dead man.

  I didn’t know how I had found the strength to do that. But I had. I could not allow Harry Two to die. There was nothing I wouldn’t do to prevent that.

  I felt something nudge my arm.

  It was my dog. He looked perfectly fine.

  I wondered if he had done what he did to give me the motivation to finish off the Maladon. Putting himself in jeopardy, to give me the emotional strength.

  But how? He had vanished and reappeared behind the Maladon. I really wanted to know the answer, but it wasn’t like I could ask him.

  Yet in those bewitching mismatched eyes, I think I received all the answer I required.

  He truly was more than a mere beast. In some ways he was as magical as I was. This was a thought that gave me shivers up and down my spine.

  And they were good shivers!

  I knelt down and hugged him, pushing my face into the wonderfully soft fur.

  He had once more saved my life.

  ‘Thank you,’ I murmured into his one remaining ear.

  ‘Vega Jane?’

  I looked up and saw that Delph had risen on shaky legs and was staring past me.

  ‘We . . . we need to, um . . .’

  ‘The body,’ interjected Petra. ‘We need to get rid of it.’

  I looked over at the dead Maladon and knew that she was right. If it was discovered, then for all I knew, every slave in Greater True would be rounded up and put to death. Our grand plan would be defeated before it had even been given a chance to succeed.

  I rose and pondered the matter.

  There was only one way that I could see.

  While the others stayed behind, hidden in the station, I tethered the dead man to me, and, covered by the invisibility shield, I flew far out of Greater True, smack into the middle of the countryside.

  I found a thicket of trees and landed in the middle of them.

  It was so dark that I needed my wand to light the surroundings.

  I found a patch of dirt near a mighty oak and used my wand to dig the grave. I laid the Bowler Hat in it, unable to look at his face.

  He was undeniably evil and would have killed us with absolute glee in his heart, I was certain. But still, I had ended his life.

  And something in me, I was sure, had died alongside him.

  As my grandfather had said, that was the true difference between us and the Maladons.

  I magically covered him with dirt after breaking his wand in two and then crushing it to mere splinters with an Impacto spell. I sprinkled the remains of the wand over the countryside as I flew back to Greater True.

  The words of Astrea Prine came back to me once more.

  Could we really prevail against the Maladons, who were absolutely smashing at slaughtering their enemies?

  I had killed, with ample justification, but I felt sick to my stomach.

  I told myself that it would become easier over time.

  But as I landed near the station, I knew in my heart that it would only become more difficult.

  32

  A WELL-TIMED PIECE OF ADVICE

  Empyrean.

  The only place I had ever truly felt safe since leaving Wormwood.

  But right now all I felt was frustrated.

  We had freed all the slaves and then I had placed them back into a trance.

  That had been the most difficult part of my plan. How do you free someone and then tell him they have to go on being a slave for a bit longer? I knew if it had been me I would have rebelled. I also knew it was the only way to make this work. Otherwise, all would be lost. Still, I had felt sick having to do it.

  Now they were unconsciously waiting for the signal from me.

  I was desperately trying to make sure that signal could actually be sent.

  I was sitting in the old chambers of my ancestor Jasper Jane, with virtually every book I could find in the place.

  They were stacked haphazardly, some in towering piles. I had read them all, trying to make the idea in my head a reality. The problem was, I had found nothing that could absolutely do what needed doing. And there was no room for error.

  I had a sudden inspiration and took the parchment out of my cloak. I summoned Silenus and he dutifully appeared moments later.

  I explained everything to him, what I had done and what I needed to do.

  He pondered all this for such a very long time that I seriously wondered if he had become totally frozen in the parchment.

  Finally, he stirred. ‘The problem is you do not have the requisite knowledge to make this happen.’

  ‘You once told me that magic was borne of necessity,’ I said sharply. ‘That if I needed a spell, I could create it. I was counting on that, Silenus.’

  ‘What I told you was perfectly true. But from what you’ve just said, you don’t have in your mind the firm idea required to create the necessary spell. Are you certain that n
one exists currently to perform the task?’

  I shook my head. ‘Not that I know.’

  ‘Then perhaps you should try to know more.’

  ‘What do you think I’ve been doing?’ I pointed around at the stacks of books.

  ‘Knowledge needn’t always come from books,’ he noted.

  Well, that was true enough, I thought. Astrea had been a font of knowledge. But she wasn’t here. She was back in the Quag.

  ‘I doubt that Pillsbury or Mrs Jolly will know how to do the necessary spell work,’ I said in a depressed tone. ‘And there’s no one else I can turn to.’

  Silenus looked around. ‘I sense certain elements here that one cannot see.’

  I thought about this. There was Uma, but I could see her. Yet like Silenus said, she might not be the only element hereabouts.

  ‘You think someone like that might be able to help me?’

  Silenus said, ‘Well, when one has no other options . . .’

  He disappeared from the page and I put the parchment away.

  Sometimes, Silenus could really be infuriating!

  Immensely frustrated, I headed back to my bedroom.

  Along the way I heard voices.

  I stopped at the door, which I knew was Delph’s room.

  I put my ear to the wood.

  There were two voices coming from inside, and I recognized them both.

  I knew I shouldn’t, but I couldn’t help myself.

  ‘Crystilado magnifica.’

  On the other side of the wood I saw Delph and Petra sitting together, talking. They were close, their hands nearly touching.

  I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but I did hear my name mentioned twice.

  Petra was smiling, but Delph looked unusually serious.

  I released my spell and hurried down the hall to my room.

  Harry Two was asleep on the bed.

  My mind awhirl with dark thoughts, I lay next to him, staring at the ceiling.

  I finally concluded that what I had seen was innocent enough. I had been spending a lot of my time alone searching for what I needed. I had to confess: I had been ignoring Delph lately.

  I sighed. I had been through this before. I was not going down this jealousy route again. I simply didn’t have time for it.

  As I stared up at the ceiling, I imagined the woman’s face in my mind.

  Sure enough, a few moments later, Uma appeared.

  ‘Can I ask a favour?’ I said.

  My words stirred Harry Two. When he saw Uma he didn’t react, but simply closed his eyes and went back to sleep.

  Uma nodded.

  I explained my dilemma. My needing more knowledge, anything that would allow me to accomplish the task I had set out.

  ‘Come with me,’ she said.

  I leaped up from the bed as she disappeared through the door.

  She led me not up this time, but down.

  I thought I had by now explored all facets of Empyrean, but I apparently had missed some things.

  I thought we were in the very bowels of the place when suddenly a tiny door appeared that I had never noticed before. Uma passed right through it. When I reached it, however, I found it would not open.

  I used every spell I could think of to open the door, but none worked.

  Well, I thought. This is a bit of a pickle.

  I wondered if Uma would come back and tell me how to get in, but she didn’t.

  I rubbed my hand along the old wood of the door. It reminded me of the little door back at Stacks, through which I had passed to escape a pair of murderous jabbits.

  Next, I used my wand to shine a light on the door.

  I gasped.

  The door handle I had gripped was made of metal. And it was cast in the shape of a tiny screaming Wugmort.

  Just like back at Stacks.

  Then I recalled that Stacks was really the former home of Bastion Cadmus. Which meant it was the former home of Uma Cadmus too.

  But this wasn’t Stacks. Stacks was back in Wormwood.

  I stood there feeling like an idiot.

  Was Uma on the other side of the door, wondering what had become of me?

  I took a step back and pondered what to do.

  It began as just a trickle of sensation down my spine; the commencement of inspiration.

  I looked over my shoulder. There was nothing there of course.

  But there could be if I exercised one thing that I had long possessed in abundance.

  Imagination.

  A pair of foul jabbits had chased me all the way to the top of Stacks – or at least what I had thought was the top. That’s when I had come upon a little door like this one. I never believed that such a puny thing could hold back a pair of enraged serpents. Still, I’d had no choice but to grip the tiny screaming Wug doorknob and flee inside.

  In my mind, I recreated the fear, the total and complete horror that being chased by those jabbits through the darkened spaces of Stacks had instilled in me.

  The awful slithers, the terrifying screams, which were their trademark cry right before they struck.

  I put myself back outside that little room, so close to certain death. My lungs heaved; my heart pumped. I felt my skin tingling, my spirits plummeting and my hope near extinguished.

  With all of that boiling inside of me, I reached out and gripped the screaming Wug.

  The door opened and I was on the other side of it.

  Uma was hovering right there. We were inches apart.

  I thought I saw her smile.

  ‘Good, Vega. Very good.’

  She beckoned me onward, and I followed her down a dark corridor.

  We turned a corner, and the brightest lights assaulted me from all corners. Things were swirling to and fro, bits of what looked like tiny clouds whipping around like lightning spears.

  ‘What is this place?’ I asked Uma.

  She didn’t answer me, but she did put a finger to her lips and point towards a distant corner.

  I crept towards this spot as Uma receded a bit.

  Foot by foot, I drew closer to the blackness. As I did so, I noticed the silhouette of a figure in the midst of the dark.

  I edged right to the perimeter of this space and stopped.

  At first the figure didn’t move. I wasn’t sure what it was or whether it was capable of movement.

  The next moment it turned.

  When I saw the face, all my breath left me.

  My mind reeled back like a pitching sea to the great battlefield where I had seen her fighting valiantly, indeed saving my life, before being vanquished.

  Alice Adronis was wearing the very armour in which she had perished.

  My heart gave a jolt when I saw that the mortal wound to which she had succumbed remained gaping in the centre of her chest.

  When I had gone into the past courtesy of Eon back in Wormwood and seen Alice for the first time, I had thought that she and Morrigone looked quite a bit alike. But now I could see quite clearly that it was Alice and I – despite our different hair colours – who looked very much alike.

  Alice stared at me. We were roughly the same height; her auburn hair swirled around her broad, muscled shoulders.

  There was movement in my hand, and I looked down in time to see my wand bending towards her. As it had at her grave, my wand, which formerly had been her Elemental until she had bequeathed it to me, bowed in respect towards her.

  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 colour of lustrous gold.

  She looked the Elemental up and down and 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 shrank back to my wand and leaped into my hand, my fingers instinctively closing around it.

  ‘’Tis truly and properly yours now, Vega,’ Alice said quietly.

  I looked down at the wand. There was a warmth to it that hadn’t been present before. 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 to accomplish that, you now have.’

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

  ‘Have the courage 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.