Tara Duncan and the Spellbinders (51 page)

To their complete astonishment, the roof stopped moving, and the moon once again illuminated the eyes of the forgotten god.

“Who is it? Who dares awaken me?” rumbled the statue in a terrible voice.

“She did!” cried Magister, pointing at Tara, forgetting in his demented fury that he needed the girl. “She called on you! She wants to open the rift so the demons can invade the Earth! She must be destroyed!”

“Hey, that's not true!” protested Cal furiously. “He's the one who woke you up! We didn't do anything!”

But the forgotten god didn't listen. With a deafening screech, the statue tore itself from its pedestal and raised its spear to run Tara through.

Rigid with fear, she could only stare as death flew toward her. Suddenly Cal levitated and, quick as a cat, landed on the statue's shoulder. He tore off his spellbinder robe and used it to blindfold the god.

With moonbeams no longer reaching his empty eye sockets, the god stopped moving with his spear mere inches from Tara's heart. The temple roof began to close again.

Magister tried to destroy Cal's robe, but this time Selena was faster.

“No you don't!” she growled. “By Rigidus cause this man to perish, and his magic forever extinguish.”

Selena's power wasn't enough to kill Magister, but it paralyzed him for a while. The temple roof closed shut with a loud crash. The throne was destroyed and the rift sealed again.

When Magister was able to get up, he reached for Tara, but They-Who-Judge intervened. Their immaterial bodies encircled him, claws and teeth glinting in the shadows. When he realized that they would no longer allow him to attack the heir, he howled with disappointment. Seizing a still-smoking piece of basalt, he slashed his arm and yelled:

“This isn't over, Tara! There's more than just the Throne of Silur! Keep looking over your shoulder, because I'll never be far behind!”

Then he drew a crimson circle of blood around himself, recited a spell, and vanished.

At that, the whirlpool magically holding the ocean back started to shrink, and millions of tons of water began gaining ground. Terrified, Tara realized that if they didn't get out of there very quickly, they would be crushed.

“What are we going to do?” screamed Cal, as the roaring whirlpool started to close in.

“Place the heir, place the heir on the altar, place the heir,” chanted Those-Who-Judge.

They rushed to the altar and jumped onto it. The roar had now become deafening, a sign that the ocean was flooding into the temple. With a wall of water rushing toward them, Cal opened his mouth to cry out as Those-Who-Judge chanted a spell . . . and everything disappeared.

A
moment later they found themselves in a puddle of sea water in the Initiation Hall, under the astonished eyes of Chem, T'andilus, Sparrow, Fabrice, Manitou, and Fafnir.

Sparrow ran to hug Tara before realizing that she was soaked.

“I was so afraid!” she exclaimed, then pulled back. “You're all wet. And why is Cal in his underwear?”

A very embarrassed Cal quickly pulled his robe on while glaring at Robin, who was unable to stifle an attack of nervous laughter.

“Yes,” said Tara with a smile, “I'm wet and I'm exhausted. And I'll tell you all about Cal's underwear as soon as Master Chem has released Mom from Magister's deadly spell.”

The old wizard, who had opened his mouth to ask for explanations, promptly closed it. Instead he walked around Selena, studying her carefully.

“Hmph! I see,” he said, looking a little disdainful. “Very evil, and very complicated, but not impossible to counter. The formula involves a very ancient tongue . . . Hmmm . . . ‘
Illandus contrariant annihilus mortifera sanglarus poh!
'”

A kind of black mist rose from Selena's mouth and eyes, and evaporated.

She screamed with joy.

“Free! I'm free at last! Free!”

She hugged everybody in sight. Robin, Fabrice, and Cal blinked in surprise, but Sparrow and Master Chem hugged her warmly. If Fafnir was surprised, she didn't show it.

Tara, Robin, and Cal learned that some of the Bloodgraves had vanished the moment Magister escaped. Master Chem had nearly gone crazy when he reached the bridge, saw the arachne's body at the bottom, and found only Sparrow and Fabrice in the Initiation Hall. Despite all their efforts, they weren't able to reactivate the passage to Atlantis and had been forced to wait for the group's return, their alarm growing as time passed.

Master Chem grimaced when he learned that Tara's group had destroyed the Throne of Silur. The demonic power objects were as important for the dragons as for the demons, which is why they hadn't been dismantled.

When he learned that Tara was the daughter of Danviou, the heir to the Empire of Omois, his eyes widened in surprise. So did Selena's, who had missed that part of the story. She now understood why Danviou had hidden his identity from her. He wanted to be sure that she loved him for himself and not for his title as heir to the Empire! Then she sighed and bowed her head. Something about that explanation didn't feel quite right. Her husband must have had some other reason to hide such an important “detail”!

Finally, Tara announced that Magister had apparently located other demonic objects and clearly planned to use her to access them. At that, she thought the old wizard was going to have a stroke.

“Certainly not!” he thundered. “Even if I have to stay with you twenty-six hours a day, that dog of a Bloodgrave—sorry, Manitou, I don't mean you—won't touch a hair on your head, on my word as a dragon!”

“Of course not,” said Tara, who was none too keen at having the old wizard on her back all the time. “Now, let's get out of here. This place gives me the creeps.”

When they reached the Gray Fortress courtyard, they found that the apprentice Bloodgraves—the former apprentice spellbinders—were in the elves' custody, and were being stripped of their enchantment.

As the young spellbinders were brought to them, the dragons treated them by driving out the demonic influence. The red circles on their chests disappeared one after another, and with them the demons' power. Tara couldn't help but laugh when she saw that some of the dragons unexpectedly found themselves turned into pigs, skunks, camels, or dogs. Clearly, some of the metaphors were still striking!

The nonspells were freed and sent home, overjoyed at finally escaping their enslavement to the sinister Bloodgrave master.

Having heard the high wizard's story, Master T'andilus decided to have the Gray Fortress searched from top to bottom. Master Dragosh joined him. What they found wasn't reassuring. In Magister's office they found plans. Plans for conquest and especially a list that the old wizard ripped from the elf 's hands when he brought it to him.

“By my ancestors!” murmured Chem, deeply troubled, “He's found more of them.”

“More of what?” asked Dragosh.

“Tara was right,” he said. “This lunatic has managed to locate several of the demonic objects that we took from the demons. But the protections will only allow the heirs of the five high wizards to pass, which means that he will probably try to use Tara again. That's terrible!”

“You must neutralize Magister,” murmured Dragosh. “You know what they did to my family. He must never be able to approach Tara again.”

“I will protect her as best I can,” Chem answered.

“Wouldn't it be best to . . . eliminate the problem?”

The old wizard looked up sharply from the list he was studying.

“Safir, I hope I didn't understand correctly what you just said!”

The vampyr refused to back off.

“If this girl's life is the only thing that stood between us and Limbo, I wouldn't hesitate,” he hissed.

The old wizard stepped close to Dragosh, his eyes narrowed.

“This girl is the heir to an immense empire, my friend. She's not just a key giving access to the demonic universe. Remember that before you declare war on her.”

Defeated, the vampyr bowed. But a glint remained in his eyes that didn't fool Master Chem. If Dragosh had to choose, he would do so without hesitation!

Tara, her mother, and her friends were still in the courtyard when the old dragon joined them, after carefully pocketing the list.

“We can return to the Royal Castle of Travia,” he exclaimed joyously, “to celebrate both our victory and Tara's mother's return to the land of the living!”

“We've put the unicorn tapestry back in place, High Wizard,” said T'andilus, who was in charge of operations. “The Portal is working again. You can return to the Castle whenever you like.”

“Perfect! Good work,” said Chem. “Keep an eye out for anything that looks suspicious, and send me your report. I don't care to hang around here any longer. Let's go!”

“Er, Master?”

“Yes, Tara, what is it?”

“Can you get someone to take Fafnir home? She drank an infusion of black roses that wiped out her magic powers, and her Exordium is coming right up.”

“An infusion of black roses?”

The wizard was shocked.

“You must really hate magic to do something like that,” he said to the dwarf.

“That stuff is all very well for you,” Fafnir answered. “But an honest dwarf doesn't want anything to do with that funny business.”

“Well, we're losing an excellent apprentice,” said the wizard with a sigh, “but gaining a friend. Now that you've spent time living with us, I hope you'll get your fellow dwarves to see that they're wrong to reject magic outright. It can be very beneficial!”

“After what we've endured these last days because of your beneficial magic, I'm clear on this much: you can keep it!”

Chem couldn't help but smile.

“Well, goodbye then, Fafnir. Stay well, and may your hammer ring clear.”

“Thanks, Master. May your anvil resound!”

The dwarf turned to her friends.

“That's it. I'm going.”

“Thanks for everything you did for us, Fafnir” said Tara, hugging her tight. “You've been great. I hope we meet again!”

Fafnir grimaced a little, then hugged her back.

“Yeah, well, not too soon. I get the feeling you attract catastrophes like a magnet attracts filings. Anyway, good luck! May your hammer ring clear!”

“May your anvil resound,” said Tara, who had picked up on the polite expression.

Fafnir waved goodbye to Robin, Cal, Fabrice, and Sparrow. She gave a curt nod to Angelica, whom the high wizard had sent for, and walked off with an elf toward the Portal Hall.

“All right, it's our turn now,” said Master Chem. “Let's go home.”

Their return to Travia was not what you would call low key. It was the middle of the afternoon there, and everybody knew that the elves and dragons had launched an expedition to get their apprentices back. Those who had stayed behind were terribly worried, and when Master Chem and his group emerged from the Travia Portal Hall, the whole palace, including the king and queen, was waiting for them.

Everyone was exhausted from the sleepless night and from the emotion of it all, so the high wizard suggested a nap before dinner.

Tara stepped back into her bedroom with a feeling close to veneration. As the guest of honor, her mother had been given a suite nearby.

When Tara woke up, she raced to her mother's suite and began to make up for ten years they had lost. They cried a little, and laughed a lot. The moment was . . . magical. Moved by their joy, the Castle adorned the walls with the most beautiful OtherWorld landscapes it could find.

When the two were somewhat recovered from the flood of feelings, they went down to join the others at a grand banquet presided over by the king and queen. They were the last people to enter the room. When they were seated, the high wizard spoke: “It is my great pleasure to announce that thanks to six brave young spellbinders and to Tara Duncan, we were able to find the Bloodgraves' lair and free our apprentices along with Tara's mother, who has been imprisoned for the last ten years.”

A wave of applause cut him off.

“Thank you . . . thank you,” he said, smiling. “Caliban, Robin, Tara, Gloria, Fabrice, and Angelica, along with Fafnir the Dwarf, succeeded in thwarting the kidnappers' plans!” (Angelica was very pleased to be included in the group even though she hadn't done much, and she gave Tara a nasty smile.)

This time, deafening cheers drowned out his speech.

“Thank you . . . thank you,” he resumed modestly. “I didn't have much to do with it. They're the heroes. And now, let's eat!”

Tara and the others had to wait for their dinner, however. They were literally mobbed. Everybody wanted to know what had happened, and even though Cal moaned that he was starving, they had to tell them before they could touch their plates.

Just a few weeks before, nobody knew about Tara, or if they did, they were afraid of her. And now she was being celebrated like a true heroine.

Tara glowed with happiness. She was finally back with her mother and surrounded by her dearest friends. Cal was making everybody laugh with his comical descriptions. The high wizards had given their apprentices a week's vacation. Tara would be finally returning to Earth under the protection of two high wizards. These would certainly be the most wonderful moments of her life!

She had just finished her Soothsucker when she got a jolt. She had expected a fortune along the lines of, “A job well done, and you've had your fun.” But that wasn't what appeared. Not at all.

Instead, she read: “Stay alert, if death you fear. The hunter is already drawing near.”

Tara gulped, painfully aware of the grim accuracy of previous predictions. Then she shrugged with resignation. So the hunter was after her. All right, let him come.