Novel - Arcanum 101 (with Rosemary Edghill) (18 page)

“Well, in that case, Lord Moonlight or I would have stepped in and taken over. But you did a great job, Tomas. You kept your head, and you didn’t panic, and you came up with a good solution that kept everybody happy.”

“Yeah,” Ms. Smith said. “You rocked, kiddo.”

“Indeed, young Master Torres, you comported yourself with distinction here today,” Mr. Moonlight said.

By now the three girls were on their feet, and Kenny was explaining to them what had just—sort of—happened. According to Megan, they’d wandered into this clearing to look at the flowers—all of them knew better than to actually pick any—and that was the last thing they really remembered.

“Time to go,” Eric said firmly.

As they walked back to the buckboard, Destiny dropped back to walk beside Tomas. “Thanks for getting us out of there,” she said.

“It wasn’t really anything much,” he said, feeling awkward.

But Eric and Ms. Smith—and even Mr. Moonlight—seemed to think he’d done a good job, and he was a little embarrassed to realize how much he valued hearing their words of praise.

“Are we gonna be late?” Chloe asked, when they were moving down the road in the wagon again.

“Not really,” Eric said over his shoulder. “Time is pretty much a suggestion in Underhill, not an absolute. We’ll just skip a couple of stops on the tour, and reach Misthold pretty much when we said we would.”

“And be home on time?” Tomas asked. Underhill was great, but he’d trade everything he’d seen here for tomorrow—a real date with VeeVee.

“You got somewhere to be?” Devlin snarked.

“In time for dinner,” Eric said, ignoring the byplay. “Hey, it’s Friday. Wouldn’t want to miss Pizza Night.”

Destiny groaned, too low for anyone but Tomas to hear.

He’d never actually met anyone who hated pizza before.

About ten minutes later the buckboard reached a stone circle. They drove into it, but they never reached the other side. Chloe made a startled sort of hiccupping noise, and Tomas turned to look at her, and suddenly the light changed, as if somebody had turned up the sun.

And the buckboard was driving along a cliff road above a beach.

“Hey, cool,” Kenny said.

“I wish we’d stopped here for lunch,” Megan said wistfully, gazing out at the ocean.

Tomas found himself in agreement. From their viewpoint at the top of the cliff he could see the perfect white sand beach below—it looked like something out of a travel poster—and beyond it, the ocean was a glowing pale turquoise.

“You wouldn’t get along with the locals,” Eric said. “And none of you can breathe underwater. So….”

“You mean this place isn’t safe?” Johnny asked indignantly.

“Devlin, did you sleep through everything that happened in the last place we drove through?” Kenny asked.

“No place down here is safe,” Tomas said, reasoning it out. “But I guess… some places are safer than others?”

“We’re okay here as long as we don’t go down to the water—or into it,” Eric said. “And Lord Moonlight and I could probably keep the merfolk from luring the rest of you in. Probably.”

He sounded like this was all a great big joke, Tomas thought—and it probably was, if you were up here on the road, and safe, and knew you had magic to protect yourself besides. But he was just as glad when, a few minutes later, the road curved away from the cliff and they went through another Gate.

“Euw,” Chloe said immediately.

It was dark—not night-dark, but overcast. And foggy. And after a few seconds Tomas realized that he expected it to be damp and cold, too—because when it was dim and foggy like this, it was always damp and cold—but it wasn’t. It wasn’t much of anything.

At the edges of the road he could see—he was pretty sure—trees. It was hard to be certain. On the one hand, what else could they be? On the other hand, he couldn’t really see them clearly at all.

“Um… shouldn’t the weather be a little better?” he heard Ms. Smith say.

“Yes,” Eric answered. “I’m going back to the Gate. We’ll take a road through another Domain.”

He pulled the buckboard to a stop and clucked to the Elvenponies, and the wagon began to make a wide careful turn. Soon they were heading back the way they came.

Destiny poked Tomas. “Wrong turn?” she asked in a low voice.

“I guess so,” he said.

“The ways through Underhill are not always straight,” Mr. Moonlight said. “Nor do they remain the same from season to season. Yet I had thought this was Prince Panariel’s Domain, and Elfhame Silverleaf should be willing to grant us safe passage.”

“Yeah, well, how long since you’ve been here?” Ms. Smith asked.

“Long,” Mr. Moonlight answered shortly.

Shouldn’t we be there now? Tomas thought a few minutes later.

By now all six of the students were exchanging nervous glances, and even Ms. Smith was looking edgy. They’d been heading back up the road toward the Gate for longer—a lot longer—than they’d been coming down it, and they were still in the middle of the fog and the mist. In fact, it was getting thicker.

“I think I see something out there,” Megan said uneasily.

“Oh, no,” Ms. Smith said. “I’ve been in this movie.”

Eric looked back at them over his shoulder. “We’ve got a little problem, and all of you need to help. This, ah, used to be an Elven Domain. Now it isn’t. And that means it’s returning to Chaos Lands again.”

“Breaking down into the elemental stuff of magic,” Chloe said.

“And that means it can be shaped by the thoughts of anyone who travels through it,” Eric finished. “Now, Lord Moonlight and I can shield you from its effects while we make a run for the actual Gate—never mind the details now—but it will be a really good idea if you don’t look at the mist, stay calm, and, above all, don’t imagine things. Okay?”

Now how the hell are we supposed to do that? Tomas thought with a combination of irritation and panic. But he said “right” along with the others, because what else could you do?

He wasn’t even sure what the Chaos Lands were, but it sounded really bad.

The Elvenponies moved from a walk into a trot.

“Why don’t they, you know, just magic us out of here?” Johnny asked in a loud whisper.

“The Chaos Lands are made of magic,” Ms. Smith said. “Any magic anybody uses is just going to feed the Chaos. And, of course, attract the attention of anything that happens to be around.”

“And that would be bad?” Megan asked.

“It’s the Chaos Lands, so yeah,” Ms. Smith said.

Suddenly there was a howl from somewhere out in the mist.

It didn’t sound like either dogs or coyotes—Tomas had heard both back home—and it didn’t sound like the wolves he’d heard in the movies, either. It sounded like a monster.

The Elvenponies broke into a run. It was odd, Tomas thought—with the part of his mind that wasn’t on its way to a full-scale panic—that the wagon didn’t bounce, but it was as if whatever its wheels were rolling over was absolutely smooth. He could barely hear the hoofbeats of the ‘ponies, either: he didn’t know whether the mist was muffling them, or whether the whatever-it-was that they were running over was soft.

“Eric?” Ms. Smith said tensely.

“We might be in trouble,” Eric said.

Tomas heard the howling again, louder. It echoed weirdly, the sound bouncing off the mist, and he couldn’t tell whether it was one… thing… or… more than one.

“Guys! Look at me,” Ms. Smith demanded.

Everyone did. Chloe and Megan were holding hands, white-faced, and Destiny was hugging herself tightly. Kenny looked like he wanted to throw up, and Johnny looked like he wanted to cry. Tomas put his game face on and gritted his teeth.

“We will get out of this. Once we’re through the Gate, we’re safe, and we’re almost there. Chloe, Destiny, Megan, down on the floor. Now.”

“Because they’re girls?” Johnny demanded. His voice was high and shaky.

“Because they’re Mages, jackass,” Ms. Smith snapped, as the girls moved to obey. “If we have to fight, it’s up to you Talents to do it. Your psi-powers won’t feed the Chaos-energy.”

“Incoming!” Eric shouted.

“There!” Ms. Smith said. “Tomas! Hit it!”

All he saw in the direction where she pointed was a darker shape in the mist. He flung a fireball at it anyway, and something screamed. The mist swirled away from his fireball for a moment before his fire vanished and the mist closed again, but he still didn’t get a good look at what he’d hit.

The howling was a definite chorus now; dozens of voices, not just one. He tried not to think about what was out there—Eric had said that anything you thought of would appear—but he couldn’t help it. Dogs hunted in packs. So did coyotes and wolves.

He heard Ms. Smith talking to Kenny and Johnny, directing them at targets. Pick them up, throw them, shove them, stop them-

Tomas looked for shadows in the mist and launched Fire at every one he saw. He didn’t try for elegance or control—the fireballs he conjured would have torched entire cars back home—and when he had to hit something in the air ahead of them, the ponies ran through a rain of falling sparks.

He didn’t know how long he could keep this up. He hadn’t been practicing endurance, only control. And he was already tired from showing off for the Low Court Sidhe. What if he ran out of fire? Kenny was good, but all he could do was shove them; Johnny could throw things a long way, but Tomas didn’t know if he could throw really big things. Only Tomas’s power could really hurt them.

Suddenly the buckboard made a sharp right turn and he was nearly flung over the side. Ms. Smith grabbed him around the waist, yanking him backward. He sprawled on top of Kenny and Johnny, kicking and elbowing at them as he struggled to get to his knees, because he couldn’t fight what he couldn’t see. He heard Eric swear, and now the ground beneath the buckboard’s wheels was so bumpy that it spent more time in the air than on the ground, and each time it landed it came down with a crash that jarred Tomas so badly that he saw stars. Somebody was crying, and Johnny was saying something over and over—not even a swear-word—and Tomas realized that he’d bitten the inside of his mouth.

And behind them, the mist started to swirl, like water going down a drain, and turn pitch-black.

There was a bright flash of light. Tomas felt his ears pop and his stomach lurch, and the buckboard jounced slowly to a gentle stop.

“Warn a girl, will you, Banyon?” Ms. Smith snapped.

Eric laughed. He sounded relieved.

Johnny shut up.

“Oh yeah,” Kenny said, over and over. “Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah…”

They were out of the Chaos Lands.

Tomas blinked, squinting against the light. Not sunlight, exactly, because he really hadn’t seen any sunlight since he’d come through the first Gate, but the sky was so blue it made his eyes water, and the wagon was resting on grass as short and green as if they were on a golf course, and a gentle breeze that smelled like roses was playing over his face. He looked around wildly, but all there was to see was the edge of a forest that could have come out of a photograph. Tall trees, with bright yellow and blue butterflies flitting around the lower branches, and everything looking as peaceful as Church on Sunday.

“Everybody okay back there?” Eric asked.

“Fine,” Ms. Smith said.

“There’s no telling what those things were,” Eric said a few minutes later. “Either they were created by the Chaos itself, or possibly they were creatures trapped there when the lands started to dissolve back to Chaos.”

Eric had called another rest-break. Both he and Mr. Moonlight swore they were all perfectly safe now that they were on this side of the Gate, and they’d driven on for a few minutes until they found a single enormous tree standing by itself in the middle of the meadow. Chloe said it was an oak tree—a dancing oak, whatever that meant. They’d stopped there, and Eric and Mr. Moonlight had spread out the picnic blankets again. Most of their picnic supplies had gone to ransom Destiny, Megan, Johnny, and Chloe from the Low Court Sidhe, but there were Cokes and candy bars left, and Eric used his magic to ken them (which was kind of like Xeroxing them), so there were plenty to go around, and Mr. Moonlight conjured crystal goblets and bowls full of water out of nothing, as far as Tomas could see. Everybody sat around and washed their faces and tried to pretend that they all hadn’t been scared out of their minds just a few minutes ago—as far as Tomas could tell, the only one who hadn’t actually been scared was Mr. Moonlight.

There were plenty of bumps and bruises to go around, too—the girls were banged up from rolling around on the floor of the wagon and Kenny had a sprained wrist and Johnny had a big bleeding gash over one eye—but Ms. Smith was a Healer, and once they’d all caught their breath, she fixed them all up. Kind of like the school nurse, if your school nurse was some kind of bruja.

Being Healed was weird. She touched his face—his lip was already starting to puff up where he’d bitten through it—and Tomas felt a weird tingling feeling run all the way through his face and jaw. And then all the pain and swelling was gone, and Ms. Smith was sitting back, rubbing her fingertips together and reaching for a Coke as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

“But they’re all gone now?” Megan asked nervously. She kept looking back over her shoulder, even though none of them could actually see the Gate they’d come through.

“Indeed they are not,” Mr. Moonlight said. “They are precisely where they were before—in that which was once Prince Panariel’s Domain before his unraveled. If they were but manifestations of the Chaos Lands, they were nothing more than the manifestations of our own thoughts.”

“And whatever they were,” Eric said firmly, “they can’t get through the Gate. Only the Sidhe—or one of the other powerful inhabitants of Underhill—can use the Gates to travel between Domains. But I think we’re gonna scrub the rest of this field-trip and head on home anyway. I think we’ve all had enough Underhill for one day.”

Tomas looked around at the others. Nobody was actually crying—though a couple of them looked pretty close. It didn’t matter how cool Eric and the other teachers were playing it, though. They could all have gotten killed just now, and all of them knew it, because they’d taken an accidental wrong turn into a neighborhood that was supposed to be safe, but wasn’t.