Tara Duncan and the Forbidden Book (10 page)

All this news reached the group by way of Master Chem, when he handed Tara a taludi that had just come in. Consisting of a white bony dome with three large round eyes, the taludi is a strange little animal that sticks on your face like a suction cup and covers your ears. When it's in place, it faithfully reproduces the image, sound, and even smell of the last person who spoke to it.

Somewhat apprehensively, Tara put the taludi on and was amazed to see her mother in front of her, looking so real she felt she could practically reach out and touch her. She could also see a swath of damage behind her. Lightning had shattered trees, the manor's blackberry bushes were but charred memories, and a smell of smoke hung in the air.

“I'm afraid we won't be making blackberry jam anytime soon,” said Serena, gesturing at her surroundings. “As you can see, your grandmother was a little upset about your leaving without permission. But Chem says that everything's fine, at least for the time being.”

Selena cleared her throat, and tried to look serious. “The next time you decide to take off somewhere—if there is a next time—you'd do well to tell me about it. Beforehand. This planet is fragile, and it would bother me if your grandmother damaged it. Let's avoid catastrophes, please. Anyway, we're anxious for you to get back home. Or to what's left of it.”

Selena smiled, showing her dimples.

That's funny,
thought Tara as she looked at her mother.
I never noticed that her dimples are just like mine!

“I know you're incredibly independent, darling,” the image was saying, “but I'd really like a chance to act like a mother. I was deprived of it for so long and then, no sooner are we reunited but
zip!
and you're gone. We still have so many things to share. So be very careful, darling, and come back quickly! Oh, and one more thing: I'd like you to keep me up to date on what you're doing. So please send me a taludi or a message. Your grandmother and I are worried, even though we know you're able to take care of yourself. I love you.”

When Tara removed the taludi, she felt a bit weepy. She would've loved to run to her mother's arms and point to the bad guys so her mom could protect her from them. The only problem was that when it came to magic, Tara was much more powerful than her mother. Of the two of them, Tara would be in a better position to beat up the bad guys. Well, whatever; nobody ever said the world was perfect.

Tara positioned the taludi and explained her situation to her mother, while carefully glossing over the details she wanted to keep secret. Then Sparrow fed the animal some silver nitrate. The taludi wolfed it down and went to a corner to digest its meal in peace. Later, they would give it to the Omois courier service to be delivered to Earth.

“Yikes!” said Sparrow suddenly, examining her list.

“What's wrong?” asked Fabrice.

“We're missing an ingredient. To maximize the strength of Robin's potion, I need three hairs from an elephant's trunk.”

“You're joking, right? Where do you expect us to find an elephant?”

“Actually, I saw one yesterday,” said Robin with a smile. “In the empress's private garden.”

“Oh, really?” said Tara. “That's interesting. I didn't know that garden was open to the public.”

“It isn't.”

Tara looked at him for a moment, then grinned.

“Oh, I get it. The empress has an elephant in her garden—right! She has Tyrannosauruses in her gardens and whales in her salons. So, why not an elephant?”

“And it's no ordinary elephant, either,” he said. “It's the great sacred blue Talabamouchi elephant. It was given to the empress's grandmother as a gift a few centuries ago, and it's the apple of the empress's eye, because it's apparently immortal, like Manitou. They ran a whole bunch of tests to understand why, but without success. I'll go pluck three of its hairs and be right back.”

“Wait, Robin!” said Fabrice. “I'm coming with you. I've never seen a real elephant up close!”

“It sure must be different from television,” said Tara. “Why don't we all go? I'd be curious to see this famous pachyderm.”

Robin opened his mouth, then closed it again. He found it very hard to resist anything Tara wanted, even when it made no sense. The girl had too much sway over him.

“Go and have fun, kids,” said Manitou. “I'll stay here with Gallant and keep an eye on the potion.”

As they followed the hallways to the garden, Tara noticed that the empress had decided to plant trees throughout the palace that day. They had taken root directly in the green marble and extended their branches in vaulting domes of golden leaves. Firebirds flew along the hallways. Their flaming wings were treated with an anti-fire spell, but it was wise to avoid their nests, so as not to get burned. Captivated by the birds' beauty, Tara and her friends paused to admire them. At the young people's feet, trash boxes trotted around on their tiny legs, hungrily looking for any scrap of paper, while large, shining globes with wings cast enchanted light everywhere. There were also suits of armor—lots of them. Their empty arms held weapons whose hooks, blades, and teeth made Tara shiver.

The kids passed a pair of elegant unicorns who were seriously discussing philosophical subjects, their cloven hooves in comfortable felt slippers to avoid scratching the marble floor. Tara was dazzled, and she had to make an effort not to reach out and touch their silvery coats. Anyway, creatures who said things like, “The empress's idiosyncrasies are reflected in the
sui generis
nature of her palace” probably weren't inclined to let themselves be stroked without spearing the interlopers—after giving them a lecture in philosophy.

Walking the hallways, it was sometimes hard to know if you were dealing with an animal or a deep thinker. A kind of red cat whose lower body was encased in a pink shell lay purring in the branches of a green tree, and the tree was stroking it. But when Tara got closer, she saw that the cat held the tree on a leash, and she couldn't tell which was the master and which the companion. Further on, transparent palace walls formed a room for a delegation from the moon Tadix, whose gravity is much weaker than OtherWorld's. The delegates were strange, fragile-looking creatures, pale and elongated, whose eight-fingered hands reached almost to the ground. Their heads were crowned with a kind of green algae that wavered in the low gravity created especially for them, and very light clothes hung limply around them. Tara got the feeling that the slightest breeze might snap them in two.

Eventually, the four friends reached the empress's private garden. The huge gates were closed, but there were no guards in sight. Spotting a tall tree growing in the hallway with branches that extended over the garden wall, Robin jumped up, quickly climbed it, and disappeared over the wall. A few seconds later the gates silently swung open, revealing an astonishing landscape.

As elsewhere in the palace, magic had transformed everything. From inside the garden, the walls were invisible, and the place looked like Mentalir, the unicorn country. Blue meadows were dotted with little white flowers, and the trees hung heavy with fruit. Beautiful little fairies—tiny winged creatures—flitted from flower to flower in competition with the bizzz, OtherWorld's red and yellow bees. Gorgeous purple butterflies fluttered in strange patterns, and a choir of birds chirped unearthly melodies. It was almost night in the rest of the palace, but oddly enough, a beautiful red sun shone here, its rays turning the white blossoms pink. The air was sweetly scented, and a single breath of it drove all cares away. Tara sighed with happiness. It was a true fairytale landscape.

Suddenly, Fabrice let out a groan. Mesmerized by the sight of the fairies, he had stepped into what looked like an enormous cow pie.

As if in response to his noise, a huge footfall shook the earth, and the creature that had produced it strode directly toward them.

Tara gaped. This wasn't an elephant, it was a
mammoth
! A gigantic, very hairy blue mammoth with massive tusks that curved high on either side of its large head.

When it spotted the four teens, the mammoth stopped and stared at them with tiny, red, evil-looking eyes, then trumpeted shrilly.

“Robin, are you sure you want to pluck hairs from this monster's trunk?” shouted Tara, hands over her ears.

“This is very strange!” he yelled back. “It was completely calm yesterday! I don't know what's going on, but I'd get out of the way, you guys.”

The enormous pachyderm swept the ground with its trunk, tossing bits of grass and earth here and there. It shifted from foot to foot for a moment, then seemed to make up its mind. Trumpeting loudly, it charged straight at Fabrice and Sparrow.

Instinctively, Sparrow shape-shifted. In the pretty brunette's place stood a ten-foot-tall beast armed with razor-sharp fangs and claws. But in the face of such a charging mass, Sparrow didn't have many options. With superhuman speed she dodged the mammoth's charge, snatching Fabrice—who was paralyzed by the sight of onrushing death—out of the way.

The mammoth was surprised at not finding anything to trample and dug in with all four feet. Carried by its momentum, however, it slammed into the invisible garden wall with a
boom!
so loud it that rattled the entire palace. A little stunned, it turned around and shook its head, panting with rage and pain. Then it spotted Tara and Robin racing toward a tree for safety.

Sparrow shivered. The tree wasn't tall enough! The pachyderm would still be able to reach them with its trunk. At top speed, she recited: “By Pocus, I summon the forces at large to stop this mammoth's frightening charge!” The spell flashed toward the animal—and stopped in mid-air.

“It's protected by a counter-spell,” she screamed. “Watch out! It's been enchanted to attack us!”

“Get higher,” Robin yelled.

“I'm not a squirrel!” answered Tara, who was climbing as fast as she could. To her alarm, the branches were thinning out just as fifty tons of demented mammoth drew closer.

Fortunately, the mammoth decided not to reach up and grab them. Instead, it wrapped its trunk around the tree and started to shake it.

“D-d-do s-s-something!” Robin managed to say through teeth rattling under the assault.

Living stone, help!
cried Tara mentally. 
Let's tie this animal up before it kills us!

Power you want?
sang the strange stone.
Power you take.

Without bothering to recite a spell, Tara visualized a blue net dropping over the mammoth and trapping it.

The spell didn't work at all. When the net touched the mammoth, it made a kind of cracking noise and vanished. Now Tara was
really
frightened. Sparrow had been right: this animal was well protected.

While the two young spellbinders were clinging to the branches with despair, the mammoth must have realized that it wasn't accomplishing anything. Setting its huge head against the tree, it now began to push, planning to knock it down.

“All right, that does it!” muttered Robin through gritted teeth. From his spellbinder robe he pulled out a little twig with a silvery bud on top. He held this at arm's length toward the grasses, bushes, and brambles under the mammoth, and chanted: “By the tree that is alive, I want those plants to grow and thrive.”

At first, the animal was too busy pushing against the tree to notice that the surrounding vegetation was getting taller. But it must have started to tickle, because it flailed with its trunk to get rid of the prickly bushes jabbing its belly.

Tara put her hand on Robin's, joining her magic to his, and recited: “By the tree that is alive, I want those plants to grow and thrive.”

Galvanized by Tara's powerful magic, the plants made a great leap upward, trapping the pachyderm in a living prison. It struggled to free itself, but the grasses and bushes tangled its feet and trunk. In minutes, the mammoth was helpless, able only to trumpet furiously.

Tara and Robin climbed down from their tree and cautiously backed away.

“Very effective!” he said with a grin. “You can hold my hand any time you like.”

Tara blushed. Sparrow and Fabrice, who were still shaken, joined them.

“Yikes!” said Fabrice, “I was so scared! I thought that monster was gonna flatten you like a pancake!”

“Hey, look out!” Sparrow's cry made them turn around.

Alarmingly, the vegetation entangling the mammoth had started to smoke. They were about to run out of the way when the monster suddenly burst from the scorched bushes and grabbed the nearest person: Fabrice.

The boy screamed as the huge trunk crushed his ribs. But just as Sparrow was about to leap into the fray with fangs and claws, and just as Tara was activating her power, something very odd happened.

The mammoth suddenly jerked to a stop, paralyzed, apparently unable to move. Then it gently set Fabrice down, whose cheeks were now wet with tears. The huge animal started shifting awkwardly from foot to foot while its trunk delicately stroked the boy's head.

“He . . . he . . . he
chose
me!” stammered Fabrice. “He says his name is Barune. He feels terribly sorry. He doesn't know what came over him. He . . .
chose
me!”

Jaws slack, the friends stared at Fabrice as if he'd gone crazy.

Then Sparrow started. “By my ancestors,
it's a familiar!”
she exclaimed. “This . . . this monster has become a familiar. Look at his eyes. They've changed, they're golden!”

She was right. The small, angry eyes had turned gold—and they looked very concerned.

Robin was so astonished that his legs buckled, and he slumped to the ground.

“No! I can't believe I'm seeing this!” he moaned. “Don't tell me Fabrice was just chosen by the empress's favorite animal!”

“I hate to say so, but that's exactly what happened,” soberly said Tara, who could feel a giggle rising in her. “From now on, Fabrice's familiar is an immortal fifty-ton blue mammoth. Do you think we'll have any trouble hiding this little . . . detail?”