Tara Duncan and the Spellbinders (23 page)

Roused by the demon's desperate attempts to avoid his attacker, Angelica opened her eyes, but promptly closed them again and resumed screaming.

Lady Kalibris was the first to understand what had happened. Using both her voices to make herself heard, she yelled, “Let her go, demon. She's been chosen!”

The demon promptly released the tall girl, who tumbled to the floor. The flying lizard immediately rushed over to Angelica and began to stroke her cheek, while uttering little cries of encouragement. The lizard was absolutely beautiful, with a golden body and glittering wings—the perfect bauble to flatter Angelica's vanity.

She was struggling to gather her wits. Then, her eyes wide with wonder, she announced, “Kimi! She says her name is Kimi!”

“Well, we're all very happy to hear that,” said the wizard, who didn't look happy at all. “Go back to bed, everyone, the choosing is over. Go on!”

He bowed to the red demon.

“Thank you for your prompt intervention. We are sorry to have bothered you.”

“No problem, it was a good little scrap,” said the demon with a smile that revealed an impressive row of teeth. On his body, the wounds inflicted by the lizard were already healing and fading. “I was bored stiff, sitting in my dimension, and this livened things up a bit. I'm happy to come back for guard duty whenever you like.”

Bowing to the king, the queen, and the high wizards, the demon vanished in a cloud of sulfur.

Angelica's friends surrounded her, in raptures over the beautiful flying lizard.

Finally, everyone headed for their respective dormitories.

Cal signaled to Tara and Sparrow that he had discovered something. But Lady Kalibris accompanied them back to their rooms, so they had to wait until the next day to find out what it was.

That night, Tara had trouble sleeping. She realized she was starting to enjoy her nightmares. They were all about power and domination, and she was always in charge, giving the orders.

Next morning, Cal had some bad news for the group.

“Master Dragosh is somehow able to come and go without my seeing him. All the racket last night should have brought him out of his room, but it didn't. But when I looked down the hall, who do you think I saw?”

“Dragosh?” guessed Sparrow.

“Bingo! But I was standing right in front of his room, and he never came out. Which means he can come and go without our knowing it!”

“Yikes! We've got a serious problem,” said Sparrow. “What do you know about vampyrs? I can tell you a lot about the habits of giants and dwarves, because we lived among them for a long time, but I don't know the first thing about vampyrs.”

“I seem to remember that they live a very long time, like human wizards,” said Cal. “They raise animals and drink their blood without killing them. They like the blood of sheep, cows, chickens, ducks, and pegasi. The only kind they can't drink is human blood. If they do, it makes them crazy and cuts their life span in half. When they drink human blood they can't stand sunlight and only go out at night. Oh, and they also can't stand the blood of dragons and unicorns. That's pretty much all I remember.”

“On Earth, vampires are also able to change shape,” said Tara thoughtfully. “Is that true of OtherWorld vampyrs too?”

“Of course, that's it!” said Cal, slapping his forehead. “What an idiot I am!”

He scowled at Sparrow, who had a big grin on her face and was energetically nodding in agreement.

“You're right, Tara!” he continued. “They
can
change shape. They can change into a wolf . . . or a bat! That must be how Master Dragosh can leave his room without our being able to see him. In this warm weather all the Castle windows are open. He can fly in without activating any magic spells, so he doesn't trip the alarm or the anti-mosquito spells.”

“That would explain last night,” said Tara, thinking hard. “But how can we keep an eye on a guy who can fly? And we can't go out at night anyway.”

Looking gloomy, the three friends were racking their brains when Gallant raised his head and whinnied joyously. He stroked Tara with his wing, then flew out the window to perch like a cat in the enormous oak tree that loomed over the south side of the Castle.

Cal, Sparrow, and Tara were trying to understand what he was up to when Sheeba also ran outside and climbed the oak tree. Then Blondin scurried through a hole in the wall, reappeared out on the grass, and ducked behind the oak, leaving only the tip of his muzzle showing.

Sparrow, who was the most intuitive of the three, suddenly got it.

“They're geniuses! Our familiars are geniuses!”

Cal and Tara were staring at each other, unsure of what their friend meant, when their eyes lit up at the same instant.

“They're going to be our lookouts!” they said together.

The familiars had found the answer. They were much freer to come and go than the young spellbinders—and who better to follow a flying animal than another flying animal? Standing watch became a lot easier, because when Blondin wasn't watching, Sheeba or Gallant was.

But Master Dragosh didn't seem to fly anywhere special. He simply fluttered around the Castle without entering any particular room. The three spies finally decided that he was an insomniac, or that he liked moonlight, or that it was something vampyrs did, exhausting themselves by flying here and there all night long.

Tara was feeling so worried about Fabrice that she had chewed halfway through her white forelock, and Cal didn't know what to do to reassure her.

For her part, Sparrow was also going through a difficult period. She had a secret that she couldn't share, and it was eating at her.

She had already almost given herself away several times—when she unpacked her clothes, for example. Tara was smart enough to know that the person Sparrow claimed to be didn't have the means to pay for those kinds of clothes. Sparrow had noticed her reaction and had almost told her the truth. She liked Tara, but something still stood between them, and she knew that her friend was aware of her distance.

For his part, Cal noticed that Angelica's flying lizard seemed to spend a lot of time around them. Whenever he turned his head, Cal would spy the tip of a glittering wing, a golden eye, or a scaly claw. In the beginning, he thought the little familiar was just curious. But as the business continued, he laughed when he realized what was going on.

They were watching the vampyr, and Angelica was watching
them
.

Angelica was nasty, but she wasn't stupid. She clearly understood that Tara was powerful, even though she had trouble controlling her gift. She also was in no doubt as to the identity of the person who had blown her up. Finally, she felt she had less influence over the other apprentices than she'd had the year before. A terrible hunger for revenge began to build in her.

So Angelica sent her flying lizard to see what the three were up to. She hoped to catch them redhanded doing something wrong, so she could turn them in. And if she could do worse, she wouldn't hesitate.

Lying in bed, she often wondered how she could get rid of her rival.

One approach would be to get Tara in trouble during a session of the Council. Another would be to leak information only the high wizards had, to make Tara look like a spy. But Angelica's trap had to be perfect, so no one would suspect her of having set it. And the apprentices were all too close for her to act without being noticed.

One evening, she was mulling over revenge fantasies when she suddenly sat up. Yes! She knew what she would do!

Angelica glanced toward Tara's room and gave a nasty chuckle. That girl will rue the day she'd ever set foot on OtherWorld, she thought.

T
he following day, Tara awoke with a feeling of . . . emptiness. As if something had been taken from her.

She spent nearly all day wondering about it until the moment she absentmindedly grabbed her white forelock to chew on it and missed by a couple of inches. Someone had cut her hair—or at least a strand of it.

Tara mentioned it to Sparrow, who just laughed.

“You've been so worried about Fabrice, you never quit chewing on that silly strand. I'm not surprised it's shorter.”

“Look, I know somebody cut it,” Tara said firmly. “I don't know who, why, or how, but I know how long my strand is, and last night it was different, and—”

She was interrupted by a sudden burst of excitement at the door to the common room. An excited Cal rushed in, holding a sheet of paper.

“Listen to this!” he shouted. “Thanks to our dear Tara here”— Cal grinned at her—“we've asked the Omois high wizards for help. ‘I am therefore announcing that the Omois High Council has agreed to receive us in Tingapore to help cure the poor child of her attacks of demonic magic. The Lancovit high wizards
and
their apprentices are hereby invited to the Imperial Palace.' You heard it here first!”

A lively hubbub filled the room. Cal walked over to Tara and Sparrow. Besides hair problems, they'd also been discussing the lives, mores, and customs of OtherWorld, some of which struck Tara as totally weird. Female dwarves, for example, weren't allowed to shave until they reached the age of 250. And lady elves couldn't have more than five husbands.

“Did you hear that?” Cal asked, eyes shining with excitement.

“We aren't stone deaf, so your stentorian voice was strong enough for us to perceive it,” said smiling Sparrow, who was having a minor
s
relapse.

“I hope the trip is soon,” said Tara. “My gift has been acting very strangely the last few days and I'm really worried. Where are we going again, Tingapore? That's in Omois, right?”

“You really don't know a thing, do you?” came a chilly voice behind her. “Tingapore is the
capital
of Omois, and its Palace puts this pathetic Castle in the shade, believe me.”

Her hissing lizard perched on her shoulder, Angelica was scornfully looking down at Tara.

Cal was about to protest but Angelica had already turned and left.

“What a pest that girl is!” he snapped.

“What's she so excited about?” asked Tara.

“Once you're cured, we'll get to visit the sensational, fabulous, extraordinary, unique city of Tingapore, since the Imperial Palace is right downtown. The high Omois wizards probably want to impress us, so that we—Lancovit's talented and good-looking apprentice spellbinders—will want to work for them.”

“Tingapore! That's so cool!” said Sparrow, her eyes shining. “They say there's more business done there than in any city on the planet. All the races go to Tingapore to trade. I absolutely must crystal my mom and get her to send me some extra creds.”

She turned to Tara. “Did your grandmother give you any money for this sort of occasion?”

Tara was about to say no when she suddenly remembered what Chem said when she registered.

“Yeah. I have fifty of those gold thingies, I think.”

Cal looked like he was going to choke.

“
Fifty gold immutacreds?
Is your grandmother a millionaire, or what?”

“Why, is that a lot? And why are they called immutacreds, anyway?”

“With fifty gold immuta-creds you could live in the fanciest resort in Omois for months. Each gold cred is worth three silver ones, and each silver cred is worth twelve brass ones. Fifty gold immuta-creds would be . . . lemme see . . . about what a skilled worker could earn in two years. My dad gave me ten brass creds, which is really chintzy. That might just buy me a giant scorpionhide belt or a few pounds of Boom Bars, those candies that explode in your mouth. They're called ‘immuta-credits' because they're immutable; they can't be forged or transformed. Spellbinders can't replicate them or change their value, which avoids inflation problems. What about you, Sparrow? How much do you have?”

“I have ten silver creds,” she happily announced, “and I plan to spend it all in Tingapore!”

“I don't need that much money,” said Tara. “We can share it.”

“You'd really do that?” asked Cal.

“Well, sure. Why not? You're my two best friends. Besides, what do I need to buy?”

Cal was delighted. “You're gonna eat your words when we get to Tingapore! But a promise is a promise!”

“Did you guys go on any trips last year?” Tara asked.

“Man, did we ever!” said Cal, remembering happily. “We went to Earth to Novel York, for a secret conference arranged by the nonspells.”

“Don't you mean New York, in the United States?”

“Yeah, that's it. There's a Portal on top of one of your skyscrapers, the Chrysler Building. Really tall and handsome, with lots of shiny chrome everywhere. After the conference we had a couple of days to visit nonspell cities, and it was great. But the trip was cut short when High Wizard Chemnashaovirodaintrachivu had a little problem.”

“Really? What happened?”

“We were admiring the view on top of another skyscraper, the Empire State Building, when Master Chem noticed a pretty girl wearing a scarf. The wind blew the scarf away, and Chem caught it just before it went over the guardrail. The girl was really grateful. But her hunky boyfriend came back with a couple of Cokes just then and saw Chem putting the scarf around the girl's neck. He blew up, called him a dirty old man, and wanted to punch his lights out. Chem was so startled, he reflexively turned into a dragon.”

The two girls began to laugh.

“No kidding? Right on top of the Empire State Building?”

“That's right. We had to erase the memory of the previous ten minutes from all the nonspells on the observation deck and get the heck back to OtherWorld. The High Council called Chem on the carpet and really chewed him out.”