Loremaster

by Todd Fahnestock

  “I confess, I fail to see how one cage will release us from another,” Gruffy said. The drippy ceiling splattered water on his neck feathers. Gruffy shuffled back indignantly.

  “Makes no sense to me. No sense to me,” Pip said, stifling a laugh.

  “Don’t you ever watch spy shows? They do this all the time.”

  “What is a spy?” Gruffy asked.

  “It’s— Never mind.” Theron shook his head. He pulled a loose wire from the cage. “Can you bite through this?” he asked Gruffy.

  Gruffy put his great beak over the little wire and snipped it.

  “Dang,” Theron said. “Excellent. I’ll have us out in a moment.”

  Theron bent another wire away from the cage and had Gruffy snip it, too. “They always have two,” he said, straightening them as best he could. “Now all I have to do is learn how to pick a lock.” He put both wires in and twisted. Nothing happened.

  Gruffy and Pip looked at each other, then back at Theron.

  “I am missing the heart of this magic, Doolivanti,” Gruffy said.

  Theron tried again, wiggling the little bits of wire into the keyhole. He knew it wouldn’t work unless he was delicate. So he did that. Delicate twisting here. Poking at it there. But that didn’t work. He jammed the wires fiercely. Perhaps something had to get poked really hard. That didn’t work, either. He tried bending the wires a little, sticking them back in. He tried bending the wires a lot. He pushed them, tried to force them. The wires slipped and cut his finger.

  He yanked the wires out of the lock and threw them away in frustration. He sat down, put his bleeding finger in his mouth.

  Gruffy watched quietly. Pip leaned his head out of his cage.

  “Don’t look at me!” he shouted at them. “I’m worthless. I can’t do anything. I can’t turn into the Mirror Man. I can’t pick a stupid lock. I can’t help Lorelei!”

  Theron knew that he was throwing a tantrum, and he knew that Pip and Gruffy must be looking at him, judging him, thinking him a baby. But he couldn’t stop. It was all horrible.

  “But you are Darthorn. And Darthorn is the Mirror Man,” Gruffy said.

  “No, I’m not! I don’t have my comet stone. Jimmy crushed it and now I have nothing.”

  Gruffy looked like he was thinking hard. Finally, as though it was difficult for him to question anything at all, he blurted, “How did you first become the Mirror Man?”

  “Yes, that’s something Lorelei would ask. Something Lorelei would ask,” Pip encouraged the griffon. Gruffy beamed at the compliment.

  Theron didn’t want to talk about this. But he couldn’t help thinking about it now that Gruffy had said it. He thought of when he’d become Darthorn. He had been scared, running away from the monster that took his father. The forest at San Isabel had become the Kaleidoscope Forest, and he’d found HuggyBug the first time. The giant pug had been terrifying, with its mirror eyes and slobbery mouth. It looked ready to eat him. Theron had yelled and run away, only to run into the dog again. He couldn’t believe how fast the dog was, and how silent. Of course, back then he didn’t know that HuggyBug could instantly be anywhere in the Kaleidoscope Forest that he wanted.

  Finally, Theron couldn’t run anymore, and he had let HuggyBug come closer. He had looked into the pug’s mirror eyes and seen a tall superhero knight. It reminded him of the rock his father had given him, so he’d glanced down at the silver figurine. It slowly transformed into a thin piece of mirror that became the mirrors that covered his entire body.

  “It was the stone,” Theron said. “I saw who I wished I could be in HuggyBug’s eyes, and then the stone made me into Darthorn.”

  Gruffy and Pip exchanged a confused look. Theron stamped his foot. “If the stone isn’t what makes me Darthorn, then why don’t I turn into him?”

  Gruffy looked relieved. He nodded. “Yes. Exactly.”

  “What?”

  “Yes, what you just said,” Gruffy said.

  “No that was . . . That was a question,” Theron growled. “You’re talking in circles. No wonder Lore likes you.” Theron wished HuggyBug was here. He didn’t talk at all.

  Gruffy’s smile faded. “But you just spoke the answer.”

  “No, I don’t know the answer. I don’t know anything!”

  “You said you do not need the stone to become the Mirror Man. To become the Mirror Man,” Pip said.

  “Just so,” Gruffy said.

  Theron shook his head. “I said if! If I don’t need the stone, why don’t I turn into the Mirror man?”

  “Yes,” Gruffy said. “That is the answer.”

  Theron’s anger drained away, and he squinted at them. “Waitaminute. What do you mean?”

  “You said you saw your true self in HuggyBug’s mirror eyes,” Gruffy said.

  “Then you became the Mirror Man. You became the Mirror Man,” Pip said.

  A thrill of realization went up Theron’s spine. He had been looking into HuggyBug’s mirrored eyes. He saw Darthorn first. The rock changed afterward, because he made it happen, because he knew what he wanted.

  “I need a mirror,” he said.

  “Yes,” Gruffy said, triumphantly.

  “But where am I going to find—”

  Golden sparkles swept into the cavern like a swish of sunlight. They shimmered through the bars and circled Theron, jumping, anxious, as though they wanted to lead him somewhere. He could feel Lore in those sparkles. That was her magic, come to get him. He could smell her like a bottle of her shampoo had been opened in the cell.

  “Lore’s is in trouble,” he said. He looked frantically around the room, tapping on his legs double-time. There had to be something more than broken wires, a sad piece of makeshift rope, and a drippy ceiling.

  A drippy ceiling . . .

  Theron jumped past Gruffy and leaned over one of the puddles, but the drip kept fuzzing the water.

  “Stop that drip,” he said to Gruffy.

  The huge griffon leaned over Theron, letting the water trickle down his head and feathers. The puddle’s surface settled, and Theron looked down.

  The invincible Darthorn stared back, mirrors gleaming. Theron closed his eyes and folded his fingers into a fist. When he opened both, the shining, silver figurine lay in the palm of his hand, whole as ever.

  “Doolivanti!” Gruffy roared.

  The figurine flattened into a silver mirror the size of a playing card, then opened like a book, doubling in size and unfolding over his hand, then it unfolded again, racing up his arm. The mirror armor expanded, clacking into place over his body as he grew. Action rushed through his him, and there was no need to talk anymore.

  He ran across the cell and slammed into the bars, rebounded, and crashed into the lava rock wall. With a grunt, he got up. The golden sparkles flowed into the bars, and Darthorn nodded. He ran at them again.

  They shattered, and he stumbled into the room. He reached up and bent the bars of Pip’s cage. Pip squawked and flew through the open doorway. “To Lorelei! To Lorelei!”

  “She is close,” Gruffy said, “Follow me.” The great griffon shot down the hall, wings beating, his talons only inches off the floor.

  Darthorn sprinted after them. He was going to save his sister. Jimmy could not stop him. Eric Bragg and a hundred Doolivanti bullies could not stop him.

  Nothing could stop him now.

  Twenty-Seven

  My Monster

  Fire burst from Agatha’s fingers. André and I jumped off the throne and stumble-ran down the stairs. Agatha’s rolling lava wave took her past us, and she had to circle the island to attack again from the other side.

  Okay, Theron. Anytime now.

  Agatha rose up in front of us. Her lava pillar flamed and spat with the pent-up rage of every volcano that had never erupted. Her red eyes glowed inside her giant head. Even her teeth were burning.

  “It is over,” she said, huffing flame and pointing.

  I braced for the searing heat, but something giant yanked me and Andr
é into the air. The flames torched the ground beneath us. We went up, then swooped underneath a second burst of flames. I grunted, craning my neck to look up at the best monster in the Wishing World: My monster.

  “Gruffy,” I yelled.

  The Mirror Man waited beside the doorway below. Gruffy fell like a bomb toward it, then spread his wings and shot down the hallway just as another burst of fire reached us. Darthorn stood in front of it, blocking most of it. Fire raged around him and followed us, but Gruffy stayed one wing beat ahead.

  He banked hard left and right through two twists, his enormous wings grazing the walls. The flame fell away behind us, spent, and Gruffy flapped his wings the other direction, hovered, then landed gently, setting me and André on the ground.

  Pip zipped over our heads. “Now that was flying. That was flying,” he said. He knocked his beak against Gruffy’s.

  I threw my arms around Gruffy’s neck, and he leaned into me.

  “I worried about you so much.” All I really wanted to do right now was fly with my griffon, but there was a haystack of work in front of me, and I had to find some needles.

  Dripping lava like pool water, Darthorn burst through the flames and stood in front of us. He looked down at me, and I smiled up, seeing Loremaster in his mirrored visor, with my burnt, blue embroidered jacket, my wild hair, and soot-smeared face.

  “You will all burn for your sins, witches,” Agatha shrieked. The flames vanished, and she strode around bend in the hall. She raised her hands. Behind her, the red light grew brighter. Lava smashed against the side of the wall, then slid underneath her.

  “Leapin’ lava-surfing nuns!”

  “Jokes later, perhaps?” André suggested, moving toward Gruffy.

  “Squeak,” said Squeak, hopping onto my shoulder.

  “You can say that again. You can say that again,” Pip squawked.

  I helped André onto Gruffy’s back and jumped up behind him. Squeak flashed from my shoulder onto Gruffy’s head.

  “Darthorn,” I yelled. “Come on!”

  Darthorn stood in the center of the hallway, facing Agatha, and the lava that was coming fast. Really fast. Really really—

  “Theron, I’m serious. Come on!”

  Darthorn shook his head.

  “I need you! I have a plan, and if you don’t get on this griffon right now instead of getting burbled by lava, we all lose. Come on!”

  Darthorn spun around and the mirror armor pulled away all over his body. He shrank into Theron and leapt onto Gruffy’s back. Gruffy launched himself into the air and flapped his wings so powerfully that we shot down the corridor like a bullet.

  “I could have beat her,” Theron yelled through the whistling wind.

  “Don’t worry, you big baby. You’ll get your chance to stop Agatha. You’re the only one who can,” I said.

  “I am?”

  Gruffy banked left, right, then left again and approached an intersection. There were two ways to go.

  “Left,” I shouted, and Gruffy immediately turned. Lava splashed out of the tunnel behind us.

  “If I could beat her, why didn’t you leave me there?” Theron asked.

  “Because you’re not going to do it by punching her in the nose.”

  “I’m good at punching people in the nose.”

  Gruffy lowered his head and kept flying. Somehow, Pip was keeping up with him, but only barely.

  “Pip, come here.” I held out my hand to him. Pip dove into my arms. I tucked him under my jacket against my chest, then held tight to Gruffy with one hand and André with the other.

  Squeak pushed his nose into the breeze like this was a rollercoaster at Elitch Gardens.

  “Squeak,” he said happily.

  “What do I have to do?” Theron asked.

  Gruffy took a hard right down another tunnel. If the tunnels got much smaller, he wouldn’t be able to fly anymore. The lava splashed against the wall, following us. All of these tunnels must be filling up. If we hit a dead-end, we were done for.

  “We have to get her to look at you, see her reflection in your armor,” I finally answered Theron.

  “Why?” Theron asked.

  “Because when someone looks in your mirrors, they see the hero inside themselves. Connie’s parents were killed, and Connie feels that she was the one who made it happen,” I said. “But she didn’t. She’s not really Agatha. She’s a heroic little kid who wants to do the right thing, who has been doing the right thing for years. She just doesn’t believe it. She needs to see her true self.”

  Flicker was Connie’s true Doolivanti self. That’s why Flicker got the upper hand and kept it for so long. That’s why Flicker sounded more like me than some Puritan from the 1700s. That’s why Constance called herself Connie. She was trying to learn. She wanted to evolve like Flicker had evolved, but Agatha was stuck so firmly in her mind that that’s all she saw when she looked in a mirror.

  Well, she just hadn’t been looking into the right mirror.

  Theron was quiet for a second, clinging to my back as I clung to Gruffy. The tunnel snaked suddenly and Gruffy pushed hard left, then it almost doubled back the other direction. He twisted, hitting the wall with his legs and launching off.

  “Oof,” I said.

  “Apologies, Doolivanti,” Gruffy said.

  “You’re doing great,” I yelled. “Just keep going!”

  Ahead, daylight beckoned. Over my shoulder, lava gushed down the tunnel, pushing a blistering wall of hot air in front of it.

  “Go, Gruffy!”

  We shot from the tunnel like a rocket and everything was, of course, upside down. The rivers of lava were on the ceiling and the floor was, well, the white-streaked blue sky of Veloran with a big, red rip provided by yours truly. Still, rip or no rip, it was good to be out of those tunnels. I gulped the fresh air.

  Then gravity flipped, and suddenly we were pulled toward the lava rivers. Gruffy rolled gracefully, wings flaring, and now the sky—and the huge upside-down mountain—were above us where . . . Well, I would say “where they should be” except that there was an upside-down floating mountain.

  Lava shot out of our tunnel and three others on that same slope. They arced down the slope then reversed direction as they hit normal gravity, splashing onto the plains below. The volcano top spewed full blast at the ground. The lava consumed the plains, drowning the zig-zagging rivers of fire and becoming a huge lava lake.

  “Where is all the lava coming from? All the lava coming from?” Pip asked.

  “Agatha’s making the volcano erupt,” I said. “She says she’s got enough lava to cover the entire Wishing World, and I believe her. So what do you say? Shall we help this girl?”

  “Always with the helping. Always with the helping. Let’s go find a Grimrok and invite him to tea, too. Invite him to tea, too.”

  I smiled and looked down at my hand. The hourglass had become a part of me. I didn’t feel anything, and the only indication it was there at all was the softly glowing outline on my palm. I tried not to think about what that meant, and that I had an unpleasant showdown with Jimmy waiting for me after this one. I had to concentrate on the present. One thing at a time. Don’t rush. Do it right.

  I looked at Theron. “Okay, little brother, let’s end this.”

  “You got it,” he said, and he sprang from Gruffy’s hindquarters.

  The mountain’s gravity grabbed him, then he was falling up toward its slopes. He transformed into the Mirror Man and landed with a thoom.

  Twenty-Eight

  Where Darthorn Says . . . Nothing

  Upside down above us, Agatha emerged from the tunnel on a tongue of lava that coiled and writhed, throwing flecks of fire. Her giant head swung left and right, searching for us. She looked “up” and immediately spotted us flying above the lava rivers. She didn’t see Darthorn, though. Well, not until he jumped on her.

  She held up her hands to shoot lava, but he crashed into her, wrapping her in a bear hug. He hit the slope, then jumped with h
er in his arms, shooting out of the mountain’s gravity and falling like a flaming comet. Agatha struggled, but Darthorn held on. They hit the lava lake with a schlorp. When they bobbed to the surface, Agatha breathed flame on Darthorn.

  “Release me, demon,” she shouted.

  To which Darthorn said . . . nothing.

  He bear-hugged her waist to keep her from escaping, but his head was stuck underneath her ginormous chin. He reached up, grabbed her nose and pulled her face down until she was looking into his visor.

  She froze.

  “Watch this,” I said.

  “How do you know that Connie will choose Flicker?” André asked.

  “Because.”

  Agatha tried to pull away again, but if there is a stronger creature in Veloran than Darthorn, I hadn’t met him. She wasn’t going anywhere.

  “Cease, foul demon! Go back to hell,” Agatha screamed.

  Darthorn said nothing.

  “Those with unholy powers must burn!”

  And Darthorn said . . .

  Yeah, you get the picture.

  “Noooooooo,” Agatha wailed, thrashing like a snake in a bear trap. “They have to burn! They have to.” Lava splashed about. Darthorn held tight.

  “Asking the frightened to see the truth about themselves is not easy,” André said softly. “Are you sure she will—”

  “Yes.

  “And if she doesn’t? If she doesn’t?” Pip asked.

  “Then we all learn to swim in lava,” I said.

  “Noooooooo,” Agatha said. She twisted back and forth, and started to change.

  “Lorelei.” André touched my shoulder. “The lava.”

  “What?”

  “If she turns into Connie in the lava—”

  Double important with a why-didn’t-I-think-of-that on top. “Oh, crap.”

  “What? What?” Pip asked.

  “Connie isn’t immune to heat,” I said. “She’ll die. Gruffy—”

  Gruffy dropped into a steep dive. I barely caught his ruff of feathers in time to keep my seat, and I hung on tightly.

  Agatha wailed. A pitiful flicker of flame and puff of smoke came out of her mouth, as though all her rage was spent.