Page 4

After I cleaned up, not even bothering to change my clothes, but putting on the same shirt after I shook the dust out of it a bit, I sat down to read over my notes on the spell. My sword still clanked at my side as I sat down because I hadn’t taken it off yet. I thought it might put me in the right, warlike frame of mind to find a spell that would conjure up a battle-hardened old goat like Gratin.

Common sense told me I didn’t want to jump right in on a conjuring spell, however, and especially one I found in a book from the tower, as those seemed to never work too well for me. In fact, they were almost always disasters. Besides, the spell had to be done at midnight, and it meant calling up the spirit of the long dead king. I didn’t seem to be at my best in the vicinity of kings lately.

I opened the blue book again and turned the pages, looking for something else to start on. Maybe a nice evocation spell. Evocation included spells that manipulated energy or tapped an unseen source of power in order to produce a desired end. In effect, they created something out of nothing, like I’d done once before with the rabbits in Juul’s fur hat. Maybe I could do that again? With the words of the spell to guide me, and if I stuck strictly to these words, maybe I’d have more control? I decided it was worth a try.

I flipped through the pages, looking for an evocation spell that looked easy. It was then that I came across a picture of a rose. I paused over it, thinking hard. A flower—what could possibly be more harmless? Even if I messed it up and filled the room with them, it wouldn’t be too horrible, surely. The servants could take them away and burn them or place them in vases or whatever. It would make them extra work, but I had been earning my own gold for a while now, after paying Juul back, and I had quite a bit of it left. I could pay the servants for their work if it came to that.

I read over the words to the “rose” spell several times and tried to fix them in my head. Then I stood up, held out my hands, and began to chant the first line. “ Perfectum rosa cum spinis non . ”

At least that’s what I meant to say. The words twisted around my tongue as usual when I tried these kinds of spells and came out differently, for a reason I couldn’t fathom. My exact words were, “Perfectum surrexit, sed nihil spinis.”

That wasn’t right, but it sounded close. I wondered if it really made much of a difference. The pages in the book riffled in the slight breeze, sounding like they were whispering to me. I tried again, but as they had before, the words of the spell seemed to get tangled again in my mouth. It felt almost like I had popped pebbles in and was trying to speak around them. The words that were so clear in my head sounded garbled and mashed together and altogether godawful. I looked down at the words to memorize them, but my hand hit the ink pot on my desk, and I spilled ink across the page. I gasped in frustration, jumping to my feet so quickly that I cut my leg with my own sword. Cursing in earnest, I mopped everything up, took off the damned sword before I injured myself again, and tried the spell one more time.

I thought hard about the words and said, a little louder this time, “ Perfectum surrexit, sed nihil spinis.” That was it, wasn’t it? It sounded almost right. Still, nothing happened. I decided to add a few words which had always worked so well—too well actually—for me in the past.

“Tili tili boom. Ribi, ribi, la! Tili, tili, tili, tili, boom.”

Still nothing! Damn it, something had to work. Maybe if I just made a spell up as I went along… What was the Latin name for rose? Oh yes, “rosa.” I’d try that. Along with the variation that always worked for me in the past.

“Rosa rosa boom? Ribi, tili boom.”

Suddenly, in my hand, a rose appeared. It was small and the flower was curled tightly into a rosebud, but it was there in my hand. I tried again, varying the words a bit. “Rosa rosa boom. Sed nihil spinis cum! Tili tilli rosa rosa boom!”

The rose disappeared and in its place was a just a stem. A stem covered in thorns. What was I doing wrong? Before I could come up with an answer, the stem split in half and another one sprang up. They began to multiply in my hand over and over until I had to drop them. As they landed on the floor they seemed to proliferate and multiply. Rapidly! They began to take root right in the floor and grow, shooting up and wrapping themselves around every object in sight. I jumped to my feet as the stems began to swell and get fatter and fatter, until they were as big around as my arm. And from them protruded thick thorns, each one as fat as my thumb. The stem I held in my hand morphed into a twisted vine that began to curl itself around and around my arm, its thorns piercing my skin. I pulled my knife and cut it ruthlessly away, yanking the thorns from my bleeding flesh, but the drops of blood that spilled on the thorns made them even bigger. More vines sprang up, and they began to cover the room.

They would have covered me, too, if I hadn’t quickly leaped from my seat, putting my back to the wall and slashing at the thorny vines reaching for me with first my knife and then my sword when I managed to reach it, thanking God that I had just come from training and hadn’t changed yet, so my sword was nearby. I managed to cut away the thickest of the vines that were reaching out for me, ignoring the ones that were insinuating themselves around my legs. I didn’t know how much time I had left before they overtook me.

I began to yell for help at the top of my lungs. After a few desperate, hard-won minutes, I heard voices at the door, calling back to me. One of them was Pavel’s and he sounded scared. I could only imagine what the room looked like to him by then. From my own viewpoint, the thorny vines, even thicker now, were writhing like rat snakes, only much, much larger. They soared up to the ceiling and wrapped themselves over most of the furniture in the room. I was dripping with sweat and blood and covered in deep scratches where their thorns had scored my flesh. I was exhausted and trying to see if I could smash the window and climb out if only I could free my legs, when I heard the sounds of King Tarrak and Lord Juul shouting to each other as they hacked their way through the vines to get to me.

I saw King Tarrak first as he forced his way through, laying about himself with his sword, he and Juul shouting out their savage battle cries as they chopped down the snake-like vines that stretched toward them. The two warriors forced their way forward, and when they reached me, they took up a stance beside me with their backs to the wall, facing outward toward the thorn-vines. We were able to keep them back, but only with great effort, and I, for one, was beginning to feel exhausted. I honestly didn’t know how much longer I could hold out when we all heard a high, thin voice calling out from the doorway.

“Lár! Pusta!” It was the king’s Second Consort using the old Elven language again, just like before. And again, everything came to an abrupt halt.

The vines began to wither and die right in front of our eyes. Within only minutes, astonishingly, they were lying dead on the floor in huge, brown, already rotting heaps. I sagged against the wall, my strength totally depleted. King Tarrak turned those glittering, icy blue eyes on me, and his voice was deadly calm.

“What the fuck just happened here?”

I gazed at him helplessly. He wore the same white leather, trimmed with soft, white fur, as he’d worn earlier and his long, pale hair was caught up in braids by his face, with blue jewels hanging off them. A circlet of gold, studded with sapphires and diamonds, banded his forehead. He was as tall though not quite as broad as I was, but he was very fit, and almost too handsome to be real. You’d have thought I’d be used to how beautiful the Elves were, and I was, mostly. But the king was in a class all by himself. Not even the look on his face—his lips in a thin line, the corners turned down, his obvious fury crackling in the air around us—could mar his great beauty. He waited for my reply, unsmiling and grim.

“Well?” he gritted out. “Tell me what this is about.”

By this time, both Pavel and the King’s Consort-to-be had come over to stand beside us. Pavel’s eyes were searching my face, wincing a bit as he surveyed my wounds from the thorns.

“I was trying to, um…make a rose.”

He tilted his head to one side, in the Elven way, and repeated what I’d said. “Trying to make a rose.” Behind him, Prince Glorfindel giggled.

“A rose ,” Tarrak said again wonderingly.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” I said, holding my head up to look right back at him, though I gave some thought to the idea that his ferocious gaze might actually be scorching my skin. The silence that fell then was deep and scary, all five of us in the room simply staring at each other.

“You might have been killed,” the king said finally, his voice deceptively soft, like the hiss of a snake before it strikes. “What if you’d been here alone, or if none of us heard your calls for help?”

“I didn’t think…”

“No!” he practically roared in my face. Quite a contrast to the softness before. “You didn’t think! You never do!” He pointed a long, elegant finger in my face, almost touching my nose. “This ends here today, mortal boy. Do you understand? I forbid this. No more spells. No more magic! If I have to put you in chains to stop you from this foolishness, I won’t hesitate. Do you understand?”

I gulped hard. “I understand.”

He dropped his finger and whirled around on his heel to leave the room. Juul cast me one last, unreadable look and then followed him, while Pavel waited by the door, bowing slightly as they both swept past him. He glanced over at me with a long sigh.

“Oh, Sergey.”

Glorfindel smiled, his eyes full of mischief. “Well, well, imagine that.”

“What?” Pavel asked, looking as mystified as I felt.

“Oh, nothing.” He came closer, picking his way fastidiously over the piles of decaying vegetation on the floor. He put the tips of his fingers on my chest. “You’re looking very...fit these days. Quite handsome. I suppose it’s true what they say. If you polish a plain stone, you often find a gem underneath. You’ve changed quite a lot since I last saw you, mortal boy. Where on earth did you come from, Sergey?”

“What do you mean?” Pavel said, coming over to stand protectively beside me. “He’s my little brother.”

“Not so little, I think,” Glorfindel said, looking me up and down. “Where is the Infernal Magic coming from then? Do you know?”

“Infernal?” Pavel looked at him blankly. “What are you talking about? Like magic using demons?”

“Oh yes, it’s definitely Demonic. I wondered about it when I first heard about how you, Pavel, danced old King Orrin off that cliff years ago, but then Tarrak told me of your healing skills too. A very interesting and confusing combination. I think you have both Folk Magic and Infernal all mixed up inside you. Sergey here seems to have only the Infernal kind.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Fairy?” I asked him, way too belligerent and hostile. I knew I shouldn’t be so rude to him, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. He seemed to bring out my aggressive nature, though I had no idea why.

“I’ve heard the stories, Sergey,” he said, looking down his nose at me. “You covered a room and yourself in hair when you first came here, I believe, with the Necromancer’s mixtures. Caused an infestation of dragon flies with another and other extraordinary tricks. Then a few years later, you flooded the palace hallways with rabbits. From what I’ve heard of your other attempts at magic, they haven’t exactly been an unqualified success, have they? Have you ever considered the fact that you’re trying to use Ceremonial spells with Infernal powers? A recipe for disaster every time. You’re lucky it was rabbits that came out of that hat and not poisonous snakes or fire-breathing dragons.” He laughed again, a mean little laugh, and turned to walk out. I glared after him as Pavel came over to stand beside me in solidarity. He put a hand on my shoulder and surveyed the wrecked room. He gave one deep sigh.

“I suppose I should call the servants to clean up.”

“I’ll do it myself,” I growled at him, then instantly regretted it when he looked at me with a hurt expression.

“I’m sorry, Pavel,” I said, feeling my shoulders slump. “I know it’s not your fault. I’m just so tired of all this. And in front of the king…God, I was mortified. Did you see his face?”

“I think sometimes when Elves like Tarrak and my husband are scared, they appear to be angry because they can’t admit to anything else.”

“Scared? Of what? These Elves don’t seem to know what fear is.”

“Even so...”

“But how could I scare him? I’m nothing to him.”

“Well, you’re the close relative of his best friend. The Elves are very loyal, you know, and their emotions run deep.”

“Hm. I’ll take your word for that.” I glanced around the room. “I better start clearing this mess out of the palace before it stinks everything up to high heaven. Why is it rotting so fast?”

“I don’t know. I confess I’m at a loss as to how you did any of this.”

I was quiet for a second or two, looking anywhere but at his face. Finally, I gathered my courage to ask the questions I’d been too stubborn and angry to ask the Fairy. “What Glorfindel said…about the Infernal Magic. Do you know much about it?”

“Yes,” Pavel replied. “I’ve read about it, anyway, in those books we have in the turret and in some that Glorfindel gave me to study. I’m afraid he might be right. It’s dark, destructive, and meant to do harm. It’s very powerful and can even be deadly.”

“I’ve never wanted to hurt anyone .”

“I know that. But tell me how this latest disaster happened.”

“I really don’t know. I was reading the books you gave me, and I found myself interested in finding out more about the sword and battle-axe you mentioned. The ones that belonged to King Gratin. According to the book, he hid them, but I thought… I was wondering if I could raise his spirit and ask him about them.”

Pavel’s eyes grew big, and he gasped, but I kept doggedly on. “I thought before I conjured him, I needed a little practice. So I thought a simple conjuring spell might help me get my confidence built up. I started saying the words to one I found in one of the books in the tower. It was supposed to make one perfect rose. I thought—and I was so wrong—that even I couldn’t mess that up.”

“Tell me the words to the spell you used.”

I grabbed the book off the desk, and it ruffled its pages at me in outrage. I ignored it and showed him the passage.

He read it out loud . “Perfectum rosa cum spinis non.” A perfect little red rose suddenly landed on the table in front of us. Pavel picked it up and looked down at it in his hand.

“When I try to say those words, they come out differently. The words in the books always trip up my tongue, and I can’t seem to say them right. Instead, they come out like”—I whispered the words in his ear, just in case—” Perfectum surrexit, sed nihil spinis. And I don’t even know any Latin.”

“Wait a minute—I’ve been learning Latin and that doesn’t mean ‘make a perfect rose.’ It means ‘a perfect rose is nothing but thorns.’”

“I was afraid it might be something like that. But how did my brain conjure up those words in the first place when I barely know any Latin? Anyway, I said that, along with what I said the last time I had a spell that worked. The uh… tili boom thing.” I whispered those last words in his ear too, looking around myself suspiciously, afraid something might be conjured up unintentionally.

Pavel raised his eyebrows. “That’s so odd.”

“I know.” We both sat quietly for a moment and then I turned to look at him, making sure I looked directly into his eyes so I could see the truth. “Do you think I’m some kind of demon, Pavel?”

“ What? No!”

“Then how do you explain this?”

“I don’t. But one thing I’m sure of is that you’re not evil. You’re not a demon, Sergey, so the Demonic Magic could never truly take hold in you. I think for the magic to be really evil, it would need a corrupt vessel to hold it, and you’re not corrupt. It would be as if a-a pious nun were bitten by a werewolf—I don't believe she'd become a rabid wolf. The magic would be tempered. She’d maybe be a French poodle or a toy terrier.”

I smiled at him. “Oh, so now I’m a poodle?”

“You know what I mean. Although…”

“Although?”

He turned back to me and smiled. “No, silly. I was going to say, although there is our unknown grandfather to consider.”

“Oh.” I thought about that for a moment. “You think he could have been a demon?”

“It’s possible, I suppose. They’re also beautiful creatures, and they have powerful magic. They’re supposed to be deceitful too. Is it possible that our grandmother called him up somehow without meaning to? Maybe it was an accident when she was doing her little spells and then…then he seduced her?”

“Or raped her. It would account for both our grandmother’s and our mother’s attitudes about him.”

Pavel glanced back at me quickly, and I shrugged. “Mother was always so troubled, and she never wanted to discuss her father with us. She clung to her religion and her faith, wore her crucifix, and kept others all over the house. She wore her religious medals every day too, and she prayed all the time. And I-I think she hated Grandmother in some ways. Maybe she blamed her? Our mother was beautiful, like some demons are supposed to be.”

“Maybe. I guess it would account for some aspects of my magic as well,” Pavel said. “But mine is tempered by Grandmother’s, I think. She had a real talent for healing, and I feel that deep inside me.” He laid his hand on his chest as if to illustrate. “My music with the pipes can be healing, and most of the time the tunes and songs just come to me out of nowhere and make everyone around me smile.”

“Or they can make a man dance off a cliff to fall to his death.”

“Yes,” he said softly, sounding so forlorn and sad that I instantly regretted saying it. I put my hand over his. “You saved the lives of Tarrak and all his Elves that day. Including your own husband, Juul. They would have fought and never given up until the Dark Elves pushed them right off that cliff. You’ve told me the story many times, and the soldiers all love you for what you did that day.”

He rolled his eyes a little. “I think ‘love’ might be too strong a word. They’re still Elves, you know. But thanks for trying to make me feel better.” He sighed again and stood up. “I just don’t ever want the Infernal Magic to corrupt you—make you desire riches or great power and then cast spells to help you get those things.”

“I honestly don’t think that will happen. I grew up with riches and jewels all around me. I have everything I need.”

Pavel smiled and leaned over to kiss my cheek. “Come on and I’ll help you clean this mess up.”

“But what about my magic? Does what you said mean you think I really might have Infernal Magic?”

“I truly don’t know, Sergey, but yes, I think it’s possible. You can’t do anymore of it now anyway, according to what King Tarrak just said. I think he really might put you in chains if you do.”

“I don’t understand why he cares. I guess he thinks I’m in danger of destroying his Ice Palace or whatever.”

“Well, he’s an Elf. I gave up trying to understand their thought processes a long time ago. Now go find a broom, Sergey, and tell a few of the servants to come help us before this whole wing starts to smell like rotting cabbage.”