Tara Duncan and the Spellbinders (32 page)

“What if I wanted to walk to Lancovit?” she asked

“Unless you have gills, I don't see how you'll manage,” said the map snidely. “There's an ocean between us and Lancovit, in case you didn't know. Otherwise, on foot it would take you about two years— if you walk and swim fast.”

Well, I'll be—a talking map! thought Tara, who liked its sense of humor. It would make a wonderful present for her grandmother, and she decided to buy it.

“What's it worth?” she asked, reluctantly looking away from the fascinating spectacle.

Before the merchant could answer, the map said, “I'm priceless!”

“The map is actually right,” said the merchant, who was trying to guess how much money she had. “But I could let you have it for ten gold immuta-credits.”

Tara could tell that he'd just plucked the figure out of the air, so she pretended to leave. “I'm very sorry, but I don't have that much on me. My master doesn't want us to walk around with too much money. Actually, you just saw him. He came into your store a few minutes ago: a high wizard in a blue robe with silver dragons.”

As Tara moved toward the door, the old man shook his head and started rolling up the map.

“Wait, wait, don't leave! Let's discuss the price of the map. But as to the high wizard, you must be mistaken, young lady. No one besides you has come into my shop for more than an hour.”

“Really!” exclaimed Tara. “That surprises me, because I also saw another wizard here, a young woman.”

The old merchant shook his head again, but Tara saw a sly glint in his eye.

“You must be confusing this with another shop, young lady. I assure you no one came in here. Now, for the map, I can give you a discount. Let's say five gold creds.”

“One silver cred,” answered Tara firmly. “Are you sure you didn't see anybody?

“Two gold creds, and I'm losing money at the price. And no, I didn't see anything.”

“Hey, that's not nearly enough!” gasped the map in a shrill voice.

“One silver cred,” said Tara, ignoring the map's comment. “That's the best I can do . . . unless you saw something.”

“One gold cred, and I'm slitting my own throat just to please you.”

“I don't want you to lose money, Master Merchant,” said Tara politely, “and I value your good health. One silver cred.”

The old man moaned. “Eight silver creds, and that's my best offer.”

“And that's selling me at a discount!” howled the outraged map.

“In that case, I'm sorry,” said Tara with a sigh. “I'm also sorry that you haven't seen anybody in your store for the last hour.”

The merchant squinted and then said thoughtfully, “I might remember something, but I now realize that this map is more valuable than I thought. Ten silver immuta-credits.”

Tara appeared not to care. “It's too hard to put a value on your recollection. Two silver creds.”

“The old wizard came in and he talked with another man, then he left. That's all I remember. Nine silver creds.”

“That's only part of the information. What was the nature of the discussion? Three creds.”

“Alas, they put a silence shield around themselves, young lady. Eight creds.”

“Come on, you're a master of spells. Who could keep you from listening whenever you wanted to? Four silver creds.”

“Your old wizard seemed angry at the other man. He reproached him for something that I really didn't hear, and the man answered that it was the wizard's own fault. The wizard said that he had been patient so far, but that all of OtherWorld would declare war on them unless the fids were returned. Then he left. Seven creds.”

“The
fids?
I don't . . . Oh, I see! Could it be ‘the kids'? And what about the young woman? What did she say?”

“Maybe it was kids. And where are my immuta-credits?”

“We haven't agreed on a price yet,” Tara shot back. “Five silver creds for the map and the young woman's discussion.”

“Done,” said the merchant, giving in. “Show me my creds.”

Tara carefully took five silver coins from her purse and showed them to the merchant, but snatched her hand back when he tried to take them.

“She talked with the same man,” he said, sighing, without taking his eyes off the money. “She seemed angry, too. It must not have been a very good day for him because as soon as somebody came into the shop, it was to bawl him out. That's all I know. Here's the map. Now give me my creds!”

Tara handed over the coins, which he promptly hid in the vast folds of his blackish robe.

“Good, good,” he said with a smile that revealed the stumps of three loose teeth. “What else can I give you, my young gentlewoman?

“
Give
me!” said Tara mockingly, as she carefully folded the map, which yelped that it had been sold for
much
less than it's worth. “Your ‘gifts' are expensive! I have what I need, thank you. Good—”

A terrible racket was heard outside, and Angelica stormed into the store. Catching sight of Tara, she rushed at her, screaming.

“You're gonna pay! It's because of you that I lost Kimi. I'm gonna kill you!”

She shoved Tara against the shelves, which collapsed around her in a terrible crash. The merchant started screaming like a stuck pig.

Angelica, who was stronger and heavier than Tara, slapped her with all her might. Stunned by the blow and truly enraged for the first time in her life, Tara lost control of her magic completely. Her eyes turned entirely blue and she levitated. A tornado arose out of nowhere that blew off the roof and propelled it several yards away, as passersby screamed, and sent Angelica crashing into the merchant.

Cal, Robin, and Sparrow entered the store in turn, closely followed by Deria and Master Dragosh.

Meanwhile, Tara must have decided that the tornado wasn't frightening enough and had conjured a huge set of jaws in which the compasses, squares, machetes, knives, and lances cluttering the store become sharp, gleaming teeth snapping in threateningly.

Master Dragosh saw Tara flying right at Angelica, preceded by the voracious jaws, and quickly cast a paralyzing Pocus. The spell closed around the two combatants and immobilized them.

But Tara knew exactly how to counter the Pocus. Defying the vampyr, she visualized the mesh and got rid of it with a scornful twitch of an eyebrow. Then she drove the howling tornado toward the paralyzed Angelica, whose eyes were wide with fear. (The merchant, on the other hand, wasn't looking at anything; he had fainted.)

Tara spoke in an icy voice she didn't recognize as her own: “If you ever try something like that again, if you even
think
of raising your hand against me or one of my friends, there won't be enough pieces of you left to fill a teaspoon!”

“That's enough!” Deria's voice rang out. “Stop that immediately, Tara! I'm not joking!”

Tara's totally blue eyes turned to Deria, and for a moment the others thought their friend was going to vaporize her.

Then Tara wrinkled her nose, shook her head as if to get rid of something, and obeyed. With a gesture she stopped the howling wind and floated gently to the floor. Her eyes reverted to their usual color as the instruments rained down around her with loud bangs, clicks, and crashes.

“That's better,” said Deria. “Now, can somebody tell me what is going on here?”

“I don't think this is the best place to discuss it,” said Master Dragosh, nodding toward the gathering crowd and the merchant, who was slowly coming to. “Let's transfer the children somewhere else and we'll decide.”

Without waiting for Deria's response, he began to recite a teleportation spell, and the air around his fingers started to glow.

“Nooooo!” screamed Deria. “I won't let you do it!”

She raised her hands and a ray of red light blasted the vampyr, who barely had time to raise a shield. Within seconds the two spellbinders were dueling, each firing wizard fire, each sheltering behind a magic shield, then firing another ray that burned everything in its path. Half the store was already in flames.

Astonished, the friends shoved Angelica, who was still paralyzed, under the desk. The terrified merchant hid behind the few display cases still standing.

Suddenly Deria spotted an enormous cauldron hanging directly above the vampyr's head. She said: “By Gravitus, cauldron, fall to your doom. Send this wizard to his tomb!” The cauldron fell, knocking Master Dragosh unconscious.

Before the spellbinders could react, Deria yelled: “By Transmitus help us leave this rubble, and avoid all further toil and trouble.” A ray of light shot from her hands, split, and touched Tara and everybody near her. To her horror, the vampyr had gotten to his feet behind Deria and was about to cast a spell. The young woman barely avoided it, and yelled something. For Tara, everything faded to black.

A
t first, it felt like the rocking of a boat and made Tara feel vaguely nauseated. I really don't like sailing, she thought.

Then her vision cleared, and she realized that what looked like sails hanging in front of her weren't part of a boat but canopy bed curtains. For a moment, she thought she was back at Travia Castle until she realized that the curtains were white, not blue. The room she'd woken up in looked a lot like an infirmary. It was white from floor to ceiling, and its glass-fronted cabinets contained unpleasantlooking instruments. Then she looked down at her robe and was startled to see that the last piece of the puzzle had fallen into place.

Tara thought back on everything she had heard, what she knew, and what she guessed, and she could see it all taking shape. It wasn't a pretty picture. She had done everything in her power to get here, but she hadn't anticipated that it would be as a prisoner, or that her friends would be caught with her.

Around her, people in other beds begin to stir, and she saw Sparrow, then Cal, Robin—and Angelica. Freed from the Pocus, the tall girl was looking around in a panic. “Where are we?” she shrieked. She was answered only with silence.

Gallant preened his feathers. Then, with Sheeba and Blondin, who were yawning, the pegasus headed off to reconnoiter the area.

To the spellbinders' astonishment, Fabrice suddenly entered the infirmary, followed by Manitou. He rushed over to them, and Tara's great-grandfather energetically licked her face.

“Gee, it's good to see you!” said Fabrice. “I've really missed you guys! How did you get here?”

“Hey, wait a minute,” mumbled Cal, who was still half asleep. “When did you manage to get free? And where the heck are we, anyway?”

“Free?” said Fabrice frowning. “Er, no, I'm not free. You're the ones who are—”

“—in the Bloodgraves' fortress,” interrupted Tara.

“Son of a gun!” said a stunned Robin. “How do you know that?”

“I've had my suspicions for a couple of days now. There were lots of clues, but they seemed contradictory. Then what happened in the magic shop made everything clear. And look at the color of our robes. They're still ours but they've been changed; now they're gray!”

“Would you mind explaining that?” cried Sparrow. “Because I don't get it.”

“I guess this is my fault,” said Tara, sitting down on her bed. “Even though it was perfectly obvious.”

“What was obvious?” snapped Cal.

“Master Chem and Master Dragosh weren't the people trying to kidnap me; it was Deria. She's behind all this. Deria was the one who alerted the Bloodgraves the day I first revealed my gift. She led them to kidnap me. Because of the Memorus, the spell that recreates past events, she couldn't kill me herself without blowing her cover, I guess. So she waited for an opportunity when she wouldn't be suspected. She couldn't know that the spell wasn't working properly. When Magister attacked me on Earth, that's why she took such a long time bringing Master Chem back from OtherWorld. And it wasn't Master Dragosh who was prowling around our dormitory, but Deria. She didn't realize that Manitou was with Fabrice instead of me, and kidnapped them. Finally, it was Deria who met the Bloodgrave in the magic shop. When she saw us there, she must've figured we'd been spying on her and cast a spell to send us here. I'll bet she's the one who cut a lock of my hair one night to prepare her Transmitus.”

“But what about the conversation we heard between Master Dragosh and the other wizard outside the Training Hall?”

“If you remember, Master Dragosh never said he had arranged the kidnappings, only that he thought Master Chem's policy was stupid.”

“You know, you're right! But Chem went into the magic shop with the Bloodgrave too.”

“Well, of course he did,” said Tara soberly. “Because it was Master Chem and his fellows—”

“—who created us, in a way,” purred a velvety voice.

The young spellbinders jumped. They hadn't noticed the man entering the room. A mirror mask hid his face, and a rich gray robe covered his powerful body.

“What do you mean, ‘created us'?” asked Sparrow. Since learning that she could shape-shift, she had lost most of her shyness.

“That fool wanted to create an elite group, against the wishes of his fellow dragons,” said Magister with a scornful laugh. “He secretly trained a thousand of us to help him destroy the demons once and for all. But some of us became more powerful and we chose a different path, and he couldn't bring himself to admit the truth. That's what I find especially amusing. He doesn't even know the identity of his worst enemies! Isn't that terrible? Here, we're doing exactly what he did: training the future masters of the world.”

“I want to go home!” shouted Angelica. “I have nothing to do with this girl! I'm here by mistake.”