A Mix of Magics (Arucadi: The Beginning Book 3)

by E. Rose Sabin

He saw her then. Renni leaned against the side of the outhouse wiping her mouth. She must have just vomited.

  “I never killed anyone before,” she said, walking toward him. “I had to do it, but it was too late. He shot Miss Leah before I could even aim the gun. I thought he’d fire at me or Miss Abigail, but he shot her. I couldn’t stop him.” The catch in her voice and her trembling hands exposed the grief she tried to hide.

  “I can heal her,” Abigail said. “I have to.”

  She must know Leah had already died, but she couldn’t accept it. “Miss Abigail,” Ed said softly, “Please, I think it’s too late for healing.”

  She shook her head so violently her hair flew about her face like a gray mourner’s veil. “No,” she said, “No. I need Veronica. And Winnie. And Marchion to enhance our powers. We can bring her back. We have to.”

  “Veronica and Winnie and Marchion aren’t here,” he said. “But even if they were, they can’t bring someone back from the dead.”

  “She isn’t dead. She can’t be. Please, if you can’t bring them here to me, take me and Leah to them.”

  “But we don’t know what’s been happening in … in Jerome’s land.” He’d almost said in my land. “We don’t know what danger we’d arrive in the middle of.”

  “I’m willing to take that chance.” Abigail raised her head to gaze directly at him for the first time. Her eyes were red-rimmed but empty of tears. “Are you too afraid to go?”

  “I’m afraid for you and for Renni,” he said. “And I don’t think it would save Leah.”

  “We won’t know unless we try,” Abigail insisted.

  “I want to go back,” Renni said. “Jerome has to be stopped.”

  “And you know how to stop him?” Ed felt defensive.

  “I know someone who may,” Renni said. “And I can’t do any more here. Let’s go.”

  “I don’t know that I can take so many.”

  “You can try,” Abigail snapped, glaring at him.

  “Shouldn’t we go back to Kyla’s house first and tell Zauna and Petros what we’re doing?” He was grasping at straws. He wanted to return, wanted to be with Marta. He did not want to take Abigail and Leah. Why transport a dead body to a dead land?

  “Zauna can look into her crystal ball and see where we’ve gone,” Abigail said.

  “Her crystal ball is cracked,” Renni put in. “She says it doesn’t work.”

  “That’s her problem,” Abigail said, refusing to accept any answer but the one she wanted. “Take us, Ed. Right now.”

  “All right. I’ll have to carry Leah. You can’t.” He bent and gently lifted Leah from Abigail’s arms. Her body was already cooling, and the blood that had flowed from her chest was coagulating around the wound. “Grab my shoulders and hang on,” he told Renni and Abigail.

  Renni helped Abigail stand. Abigail leaned against his right side, her arm around his back, her hand resting on his left shoulder. Renni, standing on his left, took hold of his arm with one hand and helped support Leah’s body with her other.

  Ed closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and pictured the land with the terrible desolation Jerome had brought to it. He opened his eyes when he felt the hot sand beneath his feet, burning even through the soles of his shoes.

  Petros had never felt so helpless. The feeling had nothing to do with his physical condition. He could get around just fine on his wheeled platform. But he could not leave Zauna alone, unguarded, with Dreama in her care.

  Zauna had dragged Dreama’s crib into the living room, saying, “We need to stay together.” She sat beside the crib, watching the baby sleep. Petros found the silence maddening.

  Too much time had gone by since Lore and Renni left. When Abigail and Ed had come back, Petros had considered sending his consciousness into Ed once again, but Abigail had run off to find Leah and then Ed had announced his intention of following after her, so Petros knew he had to stay with Zauna and the baby. He wouldn’t be much protection, but he would be better than none. He could at least keep her from panicking and from feeling lonely and abandoned. But as time stretched and Ed and Abigail failed to return with or without Leah, not knowing what had happened to them became unbearable.

  “Can’t you try again to use your crystal ball?” he asked Zauna. “Dreama is sleeping. You have time.”

  “I’ve told you it’s cracked. That makes it useless,” she answered crossly.

  He tried to answer calmly, knowing her snappishness was unlike her and indicated that the same tension that tormented him tortured her as well. It wouldn’t do for them to argue. That could only make them both feel worse. “I know you’ve told me that, but you could still try.”

  Perhaps his calm voice had an effect. “All right, I’ll try. Will that satisfy you?”

  He smiled. “I can’t ask any more than that.”

  She went to the table on which her crystal rested in its stand. After gazing at it ruefully, one finger tracing the crack that marred one side, she turned the crystal so that the cracked side no longer faced her, cupped her hands around it, and gazed into it.

  He waited, watched her shake her head despairingly, and said, “Don’t give up. You may not see anything because you don’t expect to see anything. Try to forget that the ball is cracked. Look into it as you normally would, expecting to see something.”

  She sighed but kept staring into the globe. Petros suddenly became aware that he was drumming his fingers against his platform. He curved the fingers into a fist and sat perfectly still.

  “Something’s taking shape,” Zauna cried, and bent closer to peer more intently into the crystal.

  Petros waited eagerly now, suddenly more hopeful.

  “No, no, no!” Zauna sat up straight and pushed the crystal away from her. “I can’t look anymore.”

  “What did you see?”

  She turned toward him, tears filling her eyes and spilling down her cheeks. “Dead,” she said. “They’re all dead.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  EXCHANGE

  Abigail lowered Leah’s body to the ground and looked around, her eyes wild and filled with fear.

  Ed stood still, only his eyes moving as his gaze roved across the desolation. “Marta. Where is she?” he murmured.

  That was not the question Renni most wanted answered. She saw no one but Trille, Camsen Wellner, and Winter. Trille rushed to Ed and grabbed his arm.

  “You have to take me home. Now. Before he kills the rest of us.”

  “Where’s Marta?” Ed asked more firmly.

  “Under there with the rest.” With a sweep of her hand Trille indicated the mounded sand. “That mound, I think.” She pointed to a mound not far from where Camsen Wellner knelt. Wellner seemed unaware of their arrival.

  Ed pried Trille’s hand from his arm and ran to the mound, sank to his knees, and began digging frantically.

  Trille would have run after him, but Renni caught her arm and swung her around. “Get hold of yourself,” she told the singer. “You’re needed here.”

  Trille gave a loud laugh that bordered on hysteria. “I’m useless,” she said. “There’s no water any where.”

  Renni slapped her face, leaving a red splotch on her cheek. “Calm down. Where is Jerome?”

  “I don’t know, but he’s going to come back. He took Lore and said Kyla had deprived him of too much of his fun. He was going to arrange something special for the toys he had left. He meant us!” Her voice rose to a scream.

  Renni slapped her again. “There’s no time for hysterics,” she said. “We have to act fast.”

  Renni ran to Winter, took hold of his shoulders, and shook him until he looked up at her. “Draw dark clouds,” she ordered. “Draw rain, lots of it, falling from them. Hurry!”

  He gave her a puzzled look. She reached down grasped the hand that still held a stick of charcoal, and positioned it on his sketchpad. “Draw dark clouds and rain. Now!”

  His hand moved on the paper. She watched long enough to see a cloud take sh
ape, see him shade it in darker and darker. “Good,” she said. “Keep going.”

  She ran back to Trille. “Sing rain,” she ordered.

  “Why? What good will that do?”

  “It may save our lives,” Renni said. “Now sing.”

  “I can’t make it rain,” Trille objected. “There would have to be rain clouds.”

  “Pretend there are. Sing as if the sky was covered with clouds.”

  Trille looked at Renni as if she thought Renni had lost her mind.

  “Look up!” Renni said and pointed at the sky. A dark cloud hovered above them, and as they both watched, a second joined it. And a third.

  Trille sang. Tentative at first, her voice grew stronger, instilled now with confidence.

  Renni felt a raindrop on her arm. More, on her face, her shoulders. In moments rain pelted down from the clouds. It fell hissing onto the hot sand, sending up clouds of steam. It formed pools on the hard sand, ran in rivulets through the valleys between the mounds.

  Ed gave a strangled cry, drawing Renni’s attention away from Trille. He held Marta in his arms. “She’s dead,” he cried. “She can’t be dead.”

  Unable to witness his grief, Renni turned away and saw Abigail trying to shield Leah’s body from the rain.

  Trille’s voice faltered. “Don’t stop!” Renni shouted at her.

  Renni hurried back to Winter. He looked up at her in wonder. “Did I bring the rain? With my drawing?”

  “Yes. You’ve discovered a power you didn’t know you had.”

  “But we’re all getting soaked, and my sketch pad will soon be too wet to draw on.”

  A furious roar told Renni that Jerome had returned. She looked around, saw Jerome standing near Ed, saw him shove Lore, whom he must have brought back with him. Lore lurched forward, then broke into a run, zooming toward them. Through it all, Trille continued to sing.

  “Quick, turn your pad over. The back should be dry enough to draw on. I’ll shelter you. Draw Jerome bound like you did before.”

  She leaned forward, hands on Winter’s shoulders, shielding his sketchpad with her body. Winter had only begun to sketch when Lore barreled into them, knocking her into Winter and toppling Winter backward, with Renni falling on top of him. She felt Lore throw himself on top of her, so that she and Winter sank into the wet sand.

  “Sorry,” Lore hissed in her ear. “Jerome sent me to kill you both.”

  Ed stroked Marta’s hair, holding her head against his chest. The rain had washed the sand from her body. It would revive her, he thought. It had to. She couldn’t be dead. Not Marta!

  The rain was slowing now. It had been a pelting downpour from which he’d done his inadequate best to shelter Marta, but now it settled into a slow, steady soft rain that brought a refreshing coolness to this hot, dry land.

  The hard rain had exposed those who’d lain beneath the other mounds of sand. Ed gasped to see Veronica washed free of sand. She couldn’t be dead too. But her stillness, the lack of any sign of breathing, told him otherwise.

  Others just as still now lay exposed, and the rain, while freeing them from the sand, revived none of them. He refused to believe they had all suffocated beneath that mantle of sand. That Marta had.

  Continuing to stroke Marta’s hair and face while murmuring words of endearment and pleas for her to return to consciousness—to life—he noted in his peripheral vision Jerome’s sudden reappearance, Lore at his side. He looked up and saw Jerome give Lore a shove and Lore sprint toward Renni and Winter.

  Ed knew he should do something to help them, but how could he leave Marta? He watched Lore barrel into Renni, knocking her into Winter so that both of them fell backward with Lore on top of them. Ed wouldn’t be able to reach them in time even if he abandoned Marta. Jerome stomped toward the three—victims and attacker—without casting so much as a glance toward Ed.

  A shadow fell over him. Ed looked up. Kyla stood just behind him. “I’ll take care of Marta,” she said. “You go distract Jerome so he won’t see what I’m doing.”

  He didn’t question her order but eased Marta back onto the now wet and soggy ground. He hesitated just long enough to see Kyla bend over Marta and reach down to place her hand on Marta’s forehead. As he ran toward Jerome, he heard Kyla say,” Take life from me as I take death from you.”

  Ed’s steps slowed. He turned to look at Kyla and Marta, saw Marta’s eyelids flicker. He caught his breath as her eyes opened and she looked up into Kyla’s face. Kyla smiled at her, then glanced at him. “Don’t waste time,” she ordered. “Go!”

  This time he obeyed.

  Marta shook her head, feeling as though she’d been awakened suddenly from a very long and deep sleep that still clouded her mind. She couldn’t seem to recall where she was, why she’d been sleeping, or why Kyla had awakened her.

  Kyla was speaking to her, but the words were indistinct, and the few she caught didn’t make sense.

  Kyla caught hold of her arms and raised her to a sitting position and supporting her there. “Marta, I need you to listen to me. You have to concentrate. I don’t have much time.”

  Marta nodded, finding it easier to understand now that she was sitting up. But then she looked around. She thought she remembered lying on hot, dry sand, but around her the ground was wet and water pooled in many places. Her soaked clothing stuck uncomfortably to her body. Rain was falling, not a hard rain but steady. She wasn’t cold; the air was warm. Somewhere nearby a voice sang a stirring melody.

  Veronica lay sprawled on the ground not far from her. Marta stared. The girl didn’t seem to be breathing. Her mouth was partway open, her eyes were closed, and no movement was visible.

  “Veronica?” Marta managed a hoarse whisper. “Dead?”

  “I’ll take care of Veronica. Don’t worry about her. Just listen to me and don’t look around. Look at me.”

  Thinking more clearly now, Marta felt certain that Veronica was dead. What else did Kyla not want her to see? “Ed?” she asked. “Where?”

  “Ed is all right. Now listen.” To emphasize her words, Kyla gave her a shake. “I must tell you something. I’ve talked to Claid.”

  “Claid!” That got Marta’s full attention. “Where?”

  “That doesn’t matter. He gave me a job to do. But I have to talk to you before I do it.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “I’m going to do what I can, what Claid told me to do, but it won’t be enough to defeat Jerome. It’s going to be up to you and Ed and Veronica to defeat him. And to do that, you have to have Claid’s help because Jerome’s power comes from an evil Dire Lord. You can’t defeat him on your own, but you can pull the Community together and use their all their talents to bind him. Trille’s water power has slowed him down. Winter is doing his part. But you have to be the center, the director, and the inspiration.”

  “I don’t know that I can do that,” Marta said, shaking her head. “You’re the leader of the Community. It is your job.”

  “It was my job, but I failed at it. Now it is yours. I won’t be here to lead them much longer.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t ask questions. Just listen,” Kyla said. “We’ve all been working at cross purposes. Each member of the Community has a gift, and if put together correctly like pieces of a puzzle, the combined gifts will overpower Jerome at a critical moment. You’ll know when that moment comes. Don’t waste it.”

  Marta thought bitterly of the moments Kyla had been wasting. As if she’d read her mind, Kyla said, “Don’t make the mistakes I did. And don’t underestimate anyone. Keep them working in harmony.”

  “How can I do that when you couldn’t?” Marta couldn’t disguise her bitterness.

  “You can. Think of Dreama. She’s your incentive. The daughter you want. She will be your reward.”

  “If Ed and I can keep her safe.”

  “You can. You will.”

  Kyla sounded so sure, so positive, that Marta had to ask, “Did Claid guarantee it?”


  “I guarantee it. Now gather your strength and get up. Ed needs your help.” Kyla straightened and helped Marta stand. She turned her to the left and pointed. Looking where Kyla indicated, Marta saw Jerome swinging Ed around in a circle by his arms as though he were a rag doll, and all the while laughing uproariously.

  She ran toward them, her strength returning as she ran. Drawing near, she heard Jerome say, “How do you like the ride, Simple Eddie? Good as the ones at the County Fair back in Carey, right? Getting dizzy? Let’s see if we can go a little faster. Oh, how sweet! Here’s the little wife, come to watch the fun.”

  Oh, how she despised Jerome at that moment! How she wanted to tear him apart! But she was no match for him. Just past him she saw Lore sprawled on top of Renni, choking her. She was struggling against him, but she was losing the battle.

  Marta ran in a wide arc around Jerome and launched herself at Lore. Grabbing him from behind, she caught hold of his face and poked her fingers in his eyes. With a roar of rage and pain he released his grip on Renni to tear Marta’s hands from his face.

  Coughing, Renni pushed Lore off her and rolled off Winter. Instead of helping Marta subdue Lore, Renni helped Winter sit up. “Draw in the sand,” Renni said, her voice so hoarse Marta wondered how she got the words out.

  Lore fought Marta only with his physical strength, not power. Even so, she couldn’t defeat him. Worse, she heard a loud thump followed by Jerome’s raucous laughter. Although she couldn’t, in the midst of her battle with Lore, look to see what had happened, she knew Jerome had tossed Ed free. She could only hope he hadn’t been badly injured.

  Lore had her flat on the ground, pounding her into the sand, getting the sand into her eyes, blinding her. And then he jerked back, and she lifted her head, shaking the sand from her hair and face, and saw that Renni had attacked Lore from behind, pulling him away from her. As he turned on Renni, Marta sat up and gathered her strength. She had to help Renni as Renni had helped her. But first she looked for Ed.

  Jerome had thrown him with a force that landed him some distance away. His unsuccessful attempts to rise showed her he’d been injured by the fall as well as being dizzied by being swung around. She wanted desperately to go to him, but she couldn’t leave Renni to cope with Lore alone.