Josh and the Magic Vial (35 page)

“Well,” Millie fumed. “If it isn't Bonnie Prince Dempster?”

She knew she shouldn't be so furious, but after all that had happened — after his haughty looks and betrayal — she couldn't help it. Rage had been smouldering in her since their encounter at the Grand Procession and the sight of him fanned her fury.

Josh said nothing. Humiliated, he blushed and looked down.

“Don't be too hard on him,” Quiggle counselled. “If you knew how intoxicating the food and drink of Syde can be, and how slick the arguments in its favour, you would understand it wasn't Josh who betrayed you, it was the being Josh turned into after he had been poisoned by temptations almost beyond human endurance.”

“But he hasn't doffed that stupid robe, has he? Or wiped the makeup off his face? Look at him! He's still playing the puffed up prince.”

“Millie, take it easy,” Ian pleaded. “Mistakes happen.”

“There's a difference between a mistake and a betrayal, Ian.

I think
you
know that.”

Ian was about to answer, but Quiggle intervened. “We haven't time, Your Snubbed Benevolence” the valet said.

“Vortigen's troops are closing in. We must go.”

63

am part Sydean.”

T
his thought struck Josh as they tramped from the river back to the road. He would have beamed them to their destination, but he was not proficient enough at the art of astral voyaging to project three spirits as well as himself. It had taxed his power just getting himself and Quiggle to the Serpentine River. He feared they might get separated, or end up in a wrong dimension if he tried projecting the group to the other side of the Gallian Forest. Besides, there wasn't time to go through the preparations and rituals.

So they walked, and he thought his glum thoughts as they trudged along. He'd never asked to be Sydean, or noble, but in just a couple of days Athelrod had transformed him. Nothing would ever be the same. He wanted to return to Outworld and his old neighbourhood of course, but knew it would seem a tedious place compared to Syde — especially without Millie as a friend.

She had a right to be angry, of course. She didn't know he had saved them from the swift currents of the Serpentine, drawing them across the river with his newly acquired powers. Nor would Josh tell her. Magic was nothing to brag about. If he survived, and if the power stayed with him, he would use it sparingly and only for the right things — he would succeed where Endorathlil had failed.

“Penny for your Most Precious thoughts, Master,” Quiggle interrupted.

“I'm thinking I can never really go back to my home in Mount Pleasant, Quigs. At least not as the Josh Dempster who left.”

The valet nodded sagely. “No, Your Irreversibly Altered Highness. You will never be the same.”

“I don't know if I like that. I don't know whether I'm supposed to celebrate the new me or mourn the old.”

“Could you perhaps celebrate both, sir? Josh Dempster the young lion has stepped onto the stage, that doesn't mean Josh Dempster the boy must exit to make room for him. There is enough room for the two of you, perhaps. You can still laugh, or play a prank every now and then, or climb trees, or see shapes in the clouds. Maybe you still have all that, plus a whole new dimension to your life — one you were only vaguely aware of as a child.”

“Funny you should use that word ‘dimension'.”

“Not funny at all!” Quiggle mused. “We journey in so many ways, and no matter what mode of travel we choose, we are always moving from one dimension to another. The trick is holding all those experiences together in your mind and heart, sir.” He paused, looking abashed. “Pardon my saying so, Sire, but I believe that is the secret to a fulfilling life.”

Josh considered his valet with deepening affection. “What about the bits we'd rather forget?” he asked.

“Ah! The shameful bits you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps more than any other of our experiences, shame needs to be etched onto the tablets of consciousness,” Quiggle answered. “I am but a lowly spirit who has been given quarter amongst the powerful. But I have my own burden of shame, accumulated in this world and the last. I won't ever try to bury it or hide it in the shrubs sir. I carry it with me wherever I go. But when it is taken beyond the bounds of corrective medicine shame becomes a disease that weakens the spirit. It then becomes the tool of evil men, who build evil empires. Beware of that sort of shame, Master. Don't let anyone beat you down with that stick.”

“But Millie has a right to be angry,” Josh lamented.

“She goes too far with her anger,” Quiggle declared, “and that is the lesson your young and otherwise delightfully forward friend must learn. There is a world of difference between taking responsibility and accepting blame. You took responsibility for your actions the moment you joined the fight against Vortigen. Overweening shame can only weaken that resolve.”

Astounded, Josh scrutinized his companion. He'd never taken Quiggle for a deep thinker, and now he chastised himself for being so shallow in his judgment. He slapped the valet on the back. “You are a surprising man, Quiggle,” he smiled. For the very first time Josh knew what it meant to laugh as a man. There was a richer, deeper delight in this friendship with Quiggle than anything he'd experienced before. He saw in the timid servant a true friend — and realized with awe, that along with friendship came deep obligations. He saw, too, that the nature of his friendships with Millie and Ian would have to change — had already changed.

His new understanding warmed him, but before long Josh's anger at Vortigen blazed. Now that he'd shaken off the demon's influence, he could not believe how thoroughly he had been duped. Syde was an empire built on lies and Josh hated it. “We must destroy him!” he said, bitterly.

“You can never destroy him, sir,” Quiggle cautioned.

“We have to try!”

“Is it not good enough to avoid his influence, My Inestimable Friend, and gather around you those of like mind? Must you go that one step farther and attempt the impossible. Vortigen and the Ancient Law are written into the very atoms of nature, Master Dempster, as is the impulse to build a world outside his crushing commandments. You cannot defeat Vortigen; at best you can build a world outside his influence, and then defend it.”

“Love, not hate,” Josh murmured, remembering Puddifant's teaching.

“Too true, Sire. Too true.” Quiggle agreed.

Their conversation was interrupted by the tattoo of horse's hooves coming from just over the ridge that lay ahead. Vortigen's troops had arrived.

“Ian! Millie! Stand together!” Josh yelled.

The approaching horde shook the ground, and a cloud of dust roiled over the horizon.

“What are you going to do?” Millie cried.

“Just stand still,” Josh commanded.

“Oh! I see! They're going to mistake us for a couple of shrubs,” she said testily.

“Something like that,” Josh sighed. He waved his hand, then spun it in a circle over them, as if he were whipping the air into a tornado. The atmosphere wrapped around Millie and Ian like a cloak and they vanished into the folds of space.

“What's happening!” Millie shrieked.

“You're okay,” Josh assured her. “It's a vortex. You will be able to see out, but they can't see in, unless there is a warlock with them. You do have to be quiet, though.”

He offered this last bit of advice with a smidgen of satisfaction.

“Masterfully executed!” Quiggle cheered.

“Can you see them?” Josh asked anxiously.

“Not a trace,” the valet replied. “The atmosphere has swallowed them up.”

Josh inspected his handiwork, looking for any signs of Ian and Millie, but he was cut short by the sudden appearance of riders swarming over the ridge. At the head of the squad was the newly minted Captain, who had reported to Vortigen earlier.

“Whoa,” he yelled, reining his horse to a shuddering stop inches from Josh. Recognizing his new crown prince the soldier's eyes popped open and his jaw dropped.

“Sire?” he squawked.

“Do you have anything to report, Captain?” Josh demanded.

The man looked doubtful.

Josh sighed. “I've been sent to see if we might save your rank sir, not to mention your hide,” he said sternly. “After the fiasco with the wagon, Vortigen thought he'd better dispatch me to help. I know the two villains; a sneakier, peskier, more conniving pair you are never going to meet.”

Something like a growl mixed with a snicker emerged out of thin air behind Josh, causing the captain to peer suspiciously in that direction. Quiggle coughed loudly, overcome by a sudden tickle in the throat.

“Now, as I was saying, Captain, do you have anything to report?”

“They swam across the river, Sire. We are searching for them even now.”

“Then you'd best get on with it.”

“Yes, sir,” the captain agreed. With that, he spurred his horse and the troop galloped down the road.

“Let's go,” Josh said when the last of Vortigen's troops had clattered out of earshot. “Ian, Millie, if you are careful, you should be able to stay within the Vortex. It will follow as long as you do not make any sudden movements.”

“But where are we?” Millie wanted to know.

“As Athelrod describes it, a vortex is a sort of vacuum where physical time and space are distorted, allowing the occupants to partially slip into another dimension.”

“So you're saying we partially don't exist?”

“Your spirits are not wholly in this space-time continuum, no.”

“Oh lovely,” Millie moaned. “But you can get us back I suppose.”

Josh didn't answer.

“You can get us out!” Millie repeated.

“Well, Athelrod said I was a ‘natural', and that I'd get the hang of it. He told me not to worry too much about the cat . . . ”

“Cat?”

“Yes. It's still alive. We just don't know which space-time continuum to look in.” He paused thoughtfully, then allowed himself a smirk.

“Josh Dempster! When I get out of here . . . ”

“I hate to spoil your fun, Your Magical Magnificence,” Quiggle interrupted, “but we should make haste, should we not?”

Chastened, the group tramped up the slope. A casual observer would have seen a pompous youth and his devoted servant out for a stroll; a more astute onlooker would have noticed something like a heat haze shadowing the two; a warlock would have seen through the ripple in the atmosphere instantly.

64

W
as it the strange electricity of the vortex that made her feel out of sorts? No. Millie couldn't blame her moodiness on that. Surges of anger gave way to sudden bouts of stifled laughter, which hardened into stony resolve, followed in quick succession by yearning, sadness, fear, panic . . . “What's wrong with me?” she wondered. “Get a grip.”

“What?” Ian said.

“Oh nothing!” Millie sighed. She hadn't meant to talk out loud.

She watched Josh through the whizzing wall of the vortex. It had been easier being angry with him than it was wrestling with these confused emotions. What had he become? “Pompous ass!” she muttered. But even as she mocked, she had to admit there was something stately and mature to his manner. She couldn't imagine this “young man” on a skateboard, for instance, clattering down Main Street, or back in their classroom at Mount Pleasant Elementary.

“What's wrong, Millie?” Ian asked.

“I don't know. Nerves, I guess.”

Ian accepted her vague answer. He had matured too, Millie suddenly realized, blushing because she remembered how smug she'd been when they first met. Who was she to condemn his rough manners and adaptable morals? How would she have turned out if she'd been raised in poverty, by a single dad, who was an alcoholic and a petty thief? She cringed at the thought and, for no reason in particular, touched his arm.

“We're all special, Ian,” Millie said.

He nodded, but she could tell he was puzzled.

“I'm fine,” she assured him. “But there's a danger we might not make it home, and I can't help thinking how much I would miss you and Josh, if we didn't all end up in the same place.”

“Me?” Ian looked surprised.

“Yes, you!” Millie insisted crossly. “You're my friend, too. The funny thing is, I feel like I miss you, even though we're trapped inside this stupid bubble together.”

Ian smiled, a fond smile laced with sarcasm. She knew immediately what he was thinking. How long would her resolve stand up against the hard reality of their very separate lives? Could they remain friends in Mount Pleasant, if he went back to his former life? Could their friendship survive if he moved away with Adele? Would her mother ever accept Ian?

“We can stay friends when we get back, can't we?” she pleaded.

“I'd like to, Millie, but who can say, eh?”

“Come on, you two!” Josh barked from up the road They smiled at his impatience. “Oh shut up!” Millie shouted, then they quickened their pace to catch up.

The road seemed familiar. They had passed from the rolling farmland of Tilth into the rugged isolation of the Gallian Forest. Steep walls rose up to their left. They were very close now to the place where they had entered Syde . . . very close.

“Here!” Millie said. “Right here!”

“Are you sure?” Josh asked.

“Look at the grass there, by the side of the road,” she pointed. “See where it's flattened? That's where Ian and I came up, out of the ditch. We laid on our stomachs there, hiding.”

“It's time for you guys to come out of the vortex,” Josh announced. He whirled his hand again, this time in the opposite direction to the whizzing electrons, and mumbled a few words. Instantly the shimmering wall dissolved, falling away like glittering powder.