Tara Duncan and the Spellbinders (35 page)

“My father said the locator spell would work for several days, but that if he didn't bring the cavalry riding to the rescue within twenty-six hours, I'd be on my own. He also said he needed at least twenty hours for the spell to activate and indicate my location.”

Sparrow mulled this over. “The kidnappers probably kept us asleep for several hours, so your father could arrive with help anytime between tonight and, say, tomorrow morning.”

“That's right,” said Robin. “So let's not go off half cocked. If nothing's happened by tomorrow afternoon, we'll take things into our own hands.”

“Let's go join Fabrice,” suggested Cal. “He must be chewing his fingernails wondering why we aren't there yet.”

In fact, it looked as if Fabrice had chewed right down to his knuckles. He was shooting nervous glances at Angelica, who was sitting at another table. The room wasn't a Discussarium, like the one in Omois, and it didn't have the charm of the common room in Lancovit Castle, but the chairs were comfortable and there was Tzinpaf to drink.

“Ah, there you are at last!” Fabrice cried with relief. “Angelica's gone off her rocker.”

“That's nothing new,” said Cal breezily. “Don't listen to her. Instead, tell us what she did.”

“It was terrible,” Fabrice moaned. “She jumped on me, demanding that I tell her what was going on here. At first she was pretty hysterical, but then when she understood that only the best spellbinders were held in this blasted Fortress she stopped screaming. Not a moment too soon either, because in another minute I would've gone deaf. What were you guys up to, anyway?”

His friends looked embarrassed, so Fabrice shrugged and continued.

“All right, you want to know the schedule? This afternoon you'll take tests to determine the level of your magic.” Tara rolled her eyes. Tests, what a drag! Especially when she needed time to search the Fortress. “Then they'll evaluate your speed, strength, and agility, both physical and magical. They say it's useless to recite spells or make magic passes. We should be able to visualize what we want and make it happen without any tricks. It's a lot harder than with spells, but they claim the dragons are the ones who need the help of reciting spells, and that the dragons taught us their system as a way of controlling us.”

“That's a pretty radical theory,” remarked Sparrow, pursing her lips. “But not impossible. Magister didn't recite a spell when he immobilized Cal. And I've noticed that Tara rarely needs to make passes. It's like she visualizes what she wants and it happens.”

“Well, sort of,” said Tara. “More like I think it, and then my magic works whether I want it to or not.”

“In any case it's a terrific advantage in duels,” Fabrice continued, “because your opponent doesn't know what kind of spell you cast before it hits him.”

“
Duels
?” the four friends exclaimed at once.

“Yeah,” said Fabrice, delighted with his effect. “Here they use duels to evaluate spellbinders' relative strength.”

“Like in Omois!” said Sparrow. “Except that in Omois, it's pretty unusual. I don't think I'm going to like this place at all.”

“Neither will I,” said Tara and Cal together.

“Duels? Great!” exclaimed Robin, his eyes shining.

“Oh, you elves, all you like is fighting!” said Cal in disgust.

The words were hardly out of his mouth before he realized he had blundered. Tara and Sparrow jabbed him in the ribs. And Fabrice was looking at him as if he'd lost his mind.

“Er, in case you haven't noticed, Robin is a human, not an elf!” he said.

“Yes, I know,” said Cal smoothly, “it was a joke. But Robin enjoys fighting, just like elves. You've missed a lot of stuff since being kidnapped. We even nicknamed him ‘Robin Hoodlum' because he almost took a guy's head off who was bothering Tara in Omois. And he's the first to come to her defense against Angelica.”

That little fable seemed to satisfy Fabrice.

The morning passed pretty quickly. Fabrice introduced them to several apprentice Bloodgraves, and Tara's theory was unfortunately borne out. They were arrogant, cruel, and impulsive. They enjoyed using their unusual magical gifts to torment the nonspells, giving them invisible slaps or hiding hidden obstacles in their paths for them to stumble over. Tara noticed that the gray spellbinders had a habit of rubbing their chests, as if something bothered them. With a shock, she remembered that the demon had emerged from her own chest. She and the others began to feel very frightened.

Then they watched their first duel—much against their will.

It started when two boys in gray got into an argument. Their voices grew louder with each point they made, until they filled the room.

“Tarda was right!” yelled the first. “It doesn't take even the thousandth of a thousandth of a second to lift the spell.”

“And I'm telling you, Tarda was wrong. She didn't take the speed of the counter-spell into account. It can't be done in less than a second.”

“Okay, that does it!” screamed the first. “I'm challenging you!”

“Fine with me!” snapped the second. “Let's go to the Dueling Hall.”

To the friends' surprise, no adult intervened. Instead, all other spellbinders left the room and Fabrice leaped to his feet to follow them.

“Come on,” he yelled, “we have to go watch the duel, it's a rule. But don't worry, it shouldn't be too bad. Those two got here the same time I did, so they haven't been initiated yet.”

Sparrow stared at him in disbelief. “What? You mean we have to see this?”

“I thought it was pretty interesting before I heard about that business with the dragons,” admitted Fabrice. “Now, let's say it's best to act like everyone else and follow them.”

Robin nodded enthusiastically. His elf temperament was excited at the idea of watching the duel, while his human reason felt concerned. He often wondered why his father and mother got married, considering how different they were. He hated just being a
half
. He was enjoying this mission because in his disguise he felt entirely accepted as a human by his friends for the first time.

When the friends reached the hall, all the best seats were already taken, and they had to climb up to the nosebleed section of the bleachers.

The hundred-odd Bloodgraves weren't the smallest group in the hall, which gave Tara the shivers. They must obey a very precise hierarchy, she thought, because the circles on their chests weren't all the same color. They varied from yellow to red, just as their robes went from light gray to a gray so dark it was almost black. You couldn't see the Bloodgraves' masked faces, but their restless hands betrayed their eagerness for the duel to begin. The group gave off a sinister and threatening tension.

The two duelists stood opposite each other and together shouted “Duel!”

Immediately, the floor rose so that everyone could see clearly. A transparent force field surrounded the duelists, isolating them from the rest of the space.

In the movies, duels between wizards are usually fought as a series of transformations: “I turn into a chicken, you turn into a cat. I turn into a dog, you turn into a lion. I turn into a flea, you turn into a monkey. I turn into a crocodile, you turn into an elephant. I turn into a mouse, and you turn into a dragon and try to incinerate me, which is illegal, ,” and so forth.

But these two boys hadn't seen the same movies as Tara and really seemed to want to tear into each other.

They began in very classic fashion, but they were clearly still in the habit of chanting and gesticulating, and the audience easily recognized two paralyzing Pocus spells. Both managed to break free of the meshes at the same time. First round score: 0-0.

One of the boys made a pass and a pair of magnificent donkey ears popped up on his opponent's head. The whole hall burst out laughing. Furious, the second boy cast a Transvestus, and his opponent's robe vanished, generating catcalls from the boys and blushes among the girls.

Enraged, the offended boy countered with a Detritus, and a ton of manure came falling on the other duelist, who jumped aside to avoid it.

It looked as if magic could be avoided if you were fast and agile enough. In fighting a duel, you had to move like a boxer: graceful, smooth, and quick on your feet.

The two spellbinders had now reached the stage of “I shoot you something dirty, viscous, and stinky,” and “I shoot you something just as disgusting back.”

Then one of the boys smirked slyly and cast his spell without moving or speaking. At first, his opponent thought the spell had missed him. He wiggled his fingers to fire something, but realized that instead of hands, he now had
fins
! He opened his mouth to yell, his legs stuck together, which caused him to fall, scales covered his skin, and soon an enormous fish was flopping in the middle of the arena, feverishly searching for water to survive.

To admiring applause, the winner sadistically took three turns around the arena while his opponent flopped desperately, trying to breathe. A Bloodgrave finally made the winner restore the unfortunate fish to his original shape.

“That was really interesting!” cried Robin enthusiastically as they left the hall. “Are there often duels like that?”

“Quite a few,” said Fabrice with a grimace. “Once or twice a week some boy or some girl will say the wrong thing, and it's off to the arena. Duels between apprentices are different when they're arranged by the Bloodgraves, because you can only cast the spells they assign you. In a duel of honor you can cast any spell you like, provided you don't kill your opponent.”

“Are we allowed to go outside during the day?” asked Tara.

“Yes. And the Familiars go out onto the grounds a lot, even though it's getting chilly. This is the start of one of the cold seasons.”

“Do you think we could go out now?”

“Sure, follow me.”

“Wait a sec,” said Tara, stopping him. “I want to ask someone to join us.”

Seeing the dwarf passing, Tara discreetly called to her.

“Fafnir, do you have a moment, please?”

“Yeah?” The tone was laconic.

“We're going outside, and we'd like you to come too.”

The dwarf looked her over, and seemed to be thinking hard. Then she shrugged and said, “Okay.”

“Great, let's go.”

They walked in silence until they reached the tall trees that loomed over the outside benches and tables. Fabrice was right; it was chilly. But even though the dwarf 's arms and legs were bare, the cold didn't seem to bother her.

Tara spoke: “Sparrow, I'm going to ask you to make a great effort. Do you remember the incantation that our wizard recited after the Omois incident?”

“Yeah, I remember it, why?”

“I want you to write it down, but not say it. I want to try an experiment.”

Though perplexed, Sparrow obeyed. She produced paper and pencil from a pocket, wrote out the incantation, and gave it to Tara.

Before the others could do anything, Tara said, “By Informatus, the secret we share. May no one else know of this affair!”

As she was saying the words, she powerfully expressed the wish that Fabrice, Manitou, and Fafnir would have access to their secret, while the others would still be protected by the old wizard's spell.

To her great satisfaction, the same greenish fog as at Omois settled over the other three. But then Tara suddenly found herself flat on her back with a blade pressed against her throat.

Feeling the spell touch her, Fafnir had whipped out her knife and pinned Tara so quickly the girl never saw it coming. She was now crushed under the dwarf 's weight, and her face was so close, Tara was looking cross-eyed. Maybe I should have warned Fafnir before casting the spell, she thought.

“What in the world did you just do to me?” snarled the dwarf. “Cancel that fast, before I slit your throat!”

The others were paralyzed, not daring to move. When Tara spoke, the movement nicked her throat on the dwarf 's blade, but she couldn't help that.

“Wait! It's a protection spell! We witnessed an incident in Omois, and Master Chem told us not to talk to anyone else about it. To be sure we obeyed, he put this spell on us. I noticed earlier that you suddenly stopped talking at one point, so I figured you knew someone was watching us. And I thought we might be able to help each other.”

“That doesn't give you the right to cast a spell on me,” answered the dwarf, ignoring the bleeding cut. “You're lucky I'm a calm girl. Any other dwarf would have cut your throat first and asked questions later.”

She lifted the knife and sheathed it, then jerked Tara upright. The girl tottered for a moment, surprised by Fafnir's strength.

“Anyway, you don't need to use that stupid magic,” she growled. “I can sense when someone's listening to me.”

“But we can't!” protested Tara. She cautiously touched the knife cut. It had practically stopped bleeding, but by Baldur's horns—her grandmother's favorite curse—did it ever sting! “If we're able to say, ‘And then Angelica sent Kimi at me to get revenge,' that means nobody's eavesdropping on us. Check it out yourself, you'll see!”

The dwarf shot her a menacing look and strode off.

Sparrow ran over to Tara, put her hand on the cut, and said: “By Healus, let the pain be gone, let Tara's wound be cured anon!”

The pain eased, and Tara heaved a sigh of relief.

“I'm getting tired of people going for my throat every thirty seconds,” she said. “Obviously, I forgot that you're not supposed to cast a spell on a dwarf without permission. Fabrice, I don't know whether Fafnir has gone to check out our story or if she's stormed off in a total rage. Would you do something for me, please? Go up to the first person you meet, and say the sentence, ‘And then Angelica sent Kimi at me to get revenge.' If you can do it, it will mean that my magic has outdone itself and I've accidentally extended the protection to the whole Fortress instead of just to us. If you can't do it, it'll mean that it worked.”