Tara Duncan and the Spellbinders (39 page)

Tara left as well, her head full of questions but her heart singing. She'd seen her mother. She'd kissed her mother. Her mother had held her in her arms!

Still on a cloud, she ran down the stairs and through the dining hall. By the time she got outdoors, she was dragging a recalcitrant Fafnir, followed by Cal, Fabrice, Sparrow, and Robin, who still looked very pale and was rubbing his chest.

“Hey! Why d'you interrupt my breakfast?” grumbled the dwarf, who was in a foul mood.

“Yeah, I'm still hungry,” said Cal, for whom the meals were sacred. “Besides, where were you? We looked for you—”

Turning to Fafnir, Tara crisply asked, “Do you have a map?”

The dwarf looked at her resentfully. “What business is that of yours? I'm not taking you. Period.”

“I asked you a question. Answer it, please.”

“No, I don't have a map. Happy now? Can I go back to my breakfast?”

“‘And then Angelica sent Kimi at me to get revenge.' Well, I have one.”

It took Fafnir a moment to grasp what she was saying. “What do you mean, you have one?”

“Gaze and admire!” With an elegant gesture, Tara pulled the map from her pocket and unrolled it on the grass.

“Hey there, take it easy! I'm delicate!” it protested.

Tara ordered the map to display their location, and it showed them sitting outside, next to the Fortress. Fafnir's jaw dropped. Fabrice, who loved everything that could be read or deciphered, gazed at the map in fascination.

“Hey, we're in Gandis, just as I thought,” said Sparrow, looking closely. “My parents and I lived in the land of giants for years.”

“Absolutely,” said Tara warmly. “According to the map, the Swamps of Desolation aren't very far—maybe two or three days' walk, max. On the other hand, the nearest border with Hymlia, the dwarf country, is a month away!”

“That's right!” agreed the map. “At the very least!”

The dwarf fell to the grass with a cry of despair. “We're in the middle of nowhere!” she moaned. “I thought there'd at least be a town around where I could use a Portal. I'll never make it! And my Exordium is in less than six days!”

“Listen,” said Tara. “I have a solution.”

“Oh yeah?” asked Fafnir indifferently, caught up in her misery. “You do miracles?”

“Better than that. I have a pegasus!”

Gallant, who was cropping the delicious grass, raised his head upon hearing himself referenced. But he frowned. He had caught Tara's drift and quickly estimated the dwarf 's weight.

“Pff, your pegasus is tiny!” hooted Fafnir.

“Tara shrank him so that he could go wherever she did,” explained Cal, who found Fafnir's arrogance irritating. “In his normal size he could carry five of you!”

Gallant rolled his eyes and sniffed. Really, five? Come on, let's not exaggerate!

“If you help us escape,” continued Tara, “I'll accompany you to the Swamps of Desolation and lend you Gallant so you can get home in time for your Exordium. The merchant who sold me this map said that you divide the time by five if you're traveling by pegasusback. We'll find this black rose of yours whose juice eradicates magic. Then you fly home on Gallant. Once there, you contact Master Chem right away, he sends reinforcements, and it's a done deal!”

Everyone looked at Tara in dismay.

“Are you saying we're going to cross the land of giants without any supplies or water, with wild animals and all?” wondered Cal. “Have you gone absolutely nuts?”

“He's right,” said Sparrow seriously. “You don't know the country. I've lived there, and it can be very dangerous.”

“Besides, you won't be able to use your magic,” added Fafnir. “As soon as you do, the Bloodgraves will detect it, especially if you create food or weapons. They'll locate you right away!”

“You don't understand!” cried Tara, on the verge of despair. “We have to get out of this fortress right away! We don't have any choice. Magister wants to infect me with demonic magic tomorrow. He killed my father and he kidnapped my mother!”

“What?”

“How?”

“Huh?” said Cal (who was no more original than the others).

“It's too long to explain. Seven of us will be escaping.”

“Then we may as well put up signs and send out invitations!” snapped the dwarf. “Seven—that's impossible!”

“In that case, you can forget about your Exordium with the other dwarves, because unless we escape, there's no map and no pegasus.”

Fafnir stood up, her eyes glittering with anger.

“And I'm telling you, I can't take you. End of discussion!”

Tara smiled at her sweetly. She had been dealing with stubborn adversaries all morning and she knew what tack to take.

“You have my proposal,” she said calmly. “Take it or leave it. I'll wait for your decision. But I wouldn't waste any time, if I were you. You only have six days left! Tick, tick, tick—the clock's running.”

The dwarf clenched her fists, glaring at the slender girl defying her. Then she turned on her heel and stormed off.

“Whew!” breathed Sparrow. “I thought she was going to make mincemeat out of you.”

“Don't tell her, but so did I,” said a very relieved Tara.

“Man, when you want something, you're like a bulldozer!” said Robin admiringly. “You charge straight ahead!”

Tara decided that Robin was praising her determination, and not her manners. But her legs felt shaky after all the morning's emotions, and she had to sit down on the grass.

“So tell us all about it!” urged Fabrice eagerly, who suspected that something big had happened.

Sparrow said, “‘And then Angelica sent Kimi at me to get revenge.' Okay, you can go ahead.”

Tara decided to stick to the essentials. “I found my mother,” she began.

“Hang on a moment!” said Fabrice. “Your mother? Who's dead?”

Tara didn't have time to explain everything. Besides, she felt a little guilty about hiding from her friends the fact that she had been searching for her mother ever since coming to OtherWorld. She decided to keep it short.

“We thought she was dead, but she's actually been imprisoned in this fortress for the last ten years. I found her and we were talking in the apartments next to Magister's when something very loud with colored smoke happened. Mom ran off, and so did I. She's going to contact me again tonight. I don't have any choice. She has to escape with us.”

“Well, of course,” agreed Cal, who for once liked the idea of having an adult along. “What do you want us to do”?

“We need to get as many provisions as possible. I don't know Fafnir's escape plan yet, but things won't be easy once we're outside. Beg, borrow, or steal some weapons, like knives. Everything has to be ready by this evening.”

“A bow and arrows!” declared Robin, who was again rubbing his chest despite Sparrow's look of annoyance. “I need a bow. It's essential for hunting.”

Tara realized that she hadn't paid any attention to his condition.

“Oh my goodness, Robin, I'm so sorry,” she said contritely. “What with everything I completely forgot to ask how you're doing.”

“It itches something terrible,” he said with a thin smile. “But aside from that, I'm doing pretty well for someone who almost died yesterday. That Bloodgrave doctor is very good at her job. If she weren't a gray spellbinder, I'd recommend her to my father.”

“If you stopped rubbing your chest it might heal a lot faster,” said Sparrow placidly.

“Do you think you'll hold up, once we're outside?” asked Tara.

“Don't worry, I'll manage. Give me just a few more hours and I'll be fine.”

Tara was far from convinced. He looked so tired.

“So we were saying, a bow,” said Cal, pulling out a notebook. “What else do we need? I'm the best at stealing stuff, so I'll take care of blankets, bags, and weapons. I hear they have a good armory here; we just have to find it. Fabrice, I'm going to need your help. I can't steal big things by myself.”

“Er, you sure I'll be able to help you?” asked Fabrice, who looked less than pleased at being pressed into service. “You know, for me stealing—”

Cal cut him off: “Don't worry about it,
partner
. I just need a sidekick to be a lookout and help carry things. I'll handle the hard part.”

Fabrice rolled his eyes, but didn't answer,

“Perfect,” said Sparrow. “I'll take care of food. I can deal with that.”

“Aside from thinking, I can't do very much for the time being,” said Robin, smiling weakly. “So I'll think about our escape plan and time each stage of the operation. Be sure to get some warm clothes and boots. The other apprentices tell me it's going to get cold in a few days, and we can't afford to get sick.”

“As for me, I'm going to bug Fafnir until she gives in,” said Tara. “And we have to dream up a diversion to keep the Bloodgraves busy while we help my mom escape.”

The afternoon aptitude tests were suspended because of the incident the day before and the absence of Lady Manticore. Tara suspected that the thunder and smoke in Magister's office may have been connected to that absence.

But the friends did get to see an Initiation, and if they hadn't felt that they'd better get out of there really fast, it certainly convinced them.

A trumpet blast called all the Bloodgraves and their apprentices to the Initiation Hall, which was in the very center of the Gray Fortress. A pair of giants guarded the entrance, which was also protected by a precipice so deep you couldn't see the bottom. Two whitish sheets hung above it, preventing any levitation.

Tara and her friends were anxiously wondering what would happen, when suddenly something moved overhead—a greenish thing that glowed in the darkness. The something came closer, and to her horror Tara realized that it was an enormous spider! Well, not exactly a spider. It had eight legs and eight eyes, but its tail curved around like a scorpion's and a drop of poison hung from a nastylooking stinger. What the spellbinders had mistaken for white sheets were in fact part of the spider's web.

“Yikes! A giant arachne!” murmured Cal. “I thought they only lived in gnome country.”

Magister, who was leading the procession, bowed and said, “Lady Arachne, guardian of these high places, weave us a bridge over these spaces.”

“To pass without danger to the other side, an answer to the riddle you must provide,” answered the arachne in a surprisingly melodious voice. “In one word, one attempt, otherwise, your death you'll tempt. I will count time, while the riddle you unwind.”

Magister bowed again. “I'm listening, Lady guardian.”

“So, here it is,” said the monstrous arachnid. “The first clue is what goes with peanut butter, and then put you and me in between. The answer is what others feel before my great superiority!”

“Ha!” Fabrice laughed. “That's obvious!”

The arachne finished, “To one hundred I will count, and then the riddle you must recount.”

Magister obviously knew the answer.

“
Jelly
and
us
=
Jell + us + y
= Jealousy!”

The arachne bowed, folding her front legs, then scuttled up her thread.

“Bah, that's a bad riddle,” whispered Cal. “The peanut butter thing doesn't work. She should have said: ‘The first clue is the first part of Jell-O, the second one is you and me, the third is the letter after d.' Otherwise, it's really easy!”

“Well of course it's easy!” said an exasperated Sparrow, looking at the vaulted ceiling. “The guardian isn't about to sting her own boss! Just try to pass some other time, without Magister, and see how easy it is!”

While they were arguing, the enormous arachne was busy weaving a bridge across the abyss. Hanging by her thread, she first connected the two sides with four other threads, two for the ramp and two for the parapet. Then she wove the center at dizzying speed.

So the spellbinders wouldn't get caught on the sticky threads, she scattered the surface with . . . bones! Big, flat bones that must have been part of one of her meals.

As they crossed the swaying bridge, Tara couldn't help shuddering, especially when she walked under the arachne's hairy stomach.

Then they reached the Initiation hall. It was huge, like all the other rooms in the Gray Fortress. Floating in its center was a black granite altar and a black throne.

The room was lit by black candles whose flames burned with a red smoke. Seats covered with shiny black material were arranged around the room, facing the altar. Cal gasped when he noticed the sculptures that decorated them. The carved demons could have been the little brothers of the ones they had seen in Limbo.

A heavy, dead mood weighed on the room, and Tara found herself thinking that if the day ever came when the bad guys chose a pink and white décor, she would really be surprised.

There was a sudden movement. Four black snakes appeared on the table, hissing and slithering nervously.

“There weren't snakes, before,” whispered Fabrice. “But when they tried to initiate Fafnir and it didn't work, it made Magister so angry that he added them.”

“Why” asked Sparrow, who was rigid with fear.

“You'll see,” said Fabrice with a grimace. “And you'll understand why I've twice tried to run away.”

The Bloodgraves and the apprentices around Tara and her friends were impatiently awaiting the future initiate. When he appeared, they saw it was the boy who had turned his opponent into a fish during their duel. He held his head high, but you could feel he was frightened.

At Magister's order, he levitated to the table, hesitating for a moment above the snakes. With a sharp nod of his mask, the Bloodgrave leader commanded him to lie down.

When he did, the four snakes initially made room for him, then all at once sank their fangs into his flesh, nailing him to the table.