Tara Duncan and the Forbidden Book (46 page)

“In that case, it was worth it,” she breathed. And fainted again.

Robin checked Tara's pulse, but found it strong and regular. She just needed to rest. Relieved, he turned and smiled at Cal.

“Oh, boy! Have you seen that body of yours? You—”

“Yeah, I know,” said Cal with resignation. “When she shouted ‘Bond!' the image popped into my mind and
pow!
it changed me again. With the dose of magic she's stuck me with, it could last quite a while longer. I tell you, someone's out to get me. It's the only explanation!”

Robin couldn't help but laugh at his friend's comic despair.

“Okay,” said Cal, “let's take care of this other jerk.”

They turned to the motionless black dragon and got a surprise: Magister's body was floating in midair. Cal activated Tara's power, ready to strike again, when he realized that Magister wasn't conscious. Amazingly, it was being lifted by some invisible force. Before an astonished Cal had time to cast a spell, a sort of ripping sound was heard, two immense paws appeared out of the void, seized the black dragon's body in their claws, and disappeared.

Cal was dumbfounded. “What was that? Did you see the size of the paws that grabbed him?”

“The only time I've ever seen something like that was when a twisted spellbinder used a spell against our hunter-elves,” said Robin, frowning. “He'd gotten it from the Demon King. My father managed to knock him out, but a pair of paws grabbed him, and we never saw him again. After that, we only heard rumors. Some ifrits told us that he was a slave in the kingdom of Limbo, for eternity. He had pledged his life to get the spell. I'm pretty sure Magister must have done the same thing.”

Cal shivered. “Yikes! I don't want to know the details. Whether Magister is dead or a slave in Limbo, the important thing is that we're rid of him.”

“You're right,” said Robin. “In the meantime, we've got to take care of Tara and fast.”

“No problem,” said Cal with a satisfied smile. “I'll transform myself into a dragon and carry you all to the Fortress.”

Robin couldn't help but groan.

“A pegasus would be nice too,” he suggested hopefully.

“Nah, it doesn't fly fast enough,” said Cal, drawing a scowl from Gallant.

Robin was desperately trying to think of other convincing arguments when a deep voice startled them.

“Ooh, my head! Is . . . is everything all right? Where's Magister? And what happened to Tara?”

They had forgotten about Master Dragosh! The vampyr grimaced as he got to his feet, still groggy.

“Tara's fine,” answered Cal. “Well, she's sort of passed out, and I've got her power, but aside from that, everything's cool. Magister is either dead or alive in Limbo; right now we aren't sure. Naturally we're hoping for door number one.”

The vampyr grimaced again, but not only because of his headache. “Then the fiend has managed to escape again!”

“Well, we can't be too sorry he's gone,” said Cal with some annoyance. “Right now what I'd like is to get rid of Tara's power—or rather return it to her. And get my normal body back, which would be great. I don't even know what I really look like anymore!”

“She transferred her spellbinder power to you, is that it?” asked Dragosh in some amazement. “That's very unusual. Do you know how to reverse the process?”

“Er, not exactly, no.”

Robin stepped in. “Master, for all of our safety, not to mention the planet's, you have to remove this power from Cal. Who knows what'll happen the next time he uses it? He has to get rid of it, now!”

“That's impossible. This power is frightening for such a young girl. Caliban can't hand it over to her just like that. If it goes wrong, the power might scatter in all directions and Tara would die. I'm going to need Master Chem's help in channeling it. Let's go back to Lancovit.” Without waiting for Cal's assent, Dragosh shifted into bat.

Feeling a bit nervous, Robin waited for Cal to turn himself into a dragon.

At first, everything went pretty well. In the blink of an eye the handsome spellbinder became a handsome red and gold dragon—very elegant and matching his familiar's color.

Then Cal wanted to shrink Blondin so he would take up less room in the howdah.

“By Miniaturus,” he chanted in his booming dragon voice, “shrink my fox down to my knees, so I can take him where I please.”

Instantly, Robin was astonished to find himself in a forest of grass. The vampyr, now the size of a butterfly, was desperately dodging a ko-ax bent on eating him for dinner. All around them, little rosebushes furiously waved their tiny white flowers. Blondin gave a shrill, indignant yelp.

“Oops!” said Cal. “By Normalus, it would be wise if you all regained your normal size!”

With that, the ko-ax suddenly found itself with an enormous bat in his mouth that was looking at him with some annoyance. It immediately spat Master Dragosh out. In a fury, he turned on the frog, which wisely dove into the water. Robin and the rest of the island regained their usual dimensions. The bat said nothing in words, but its screeches sounded distinctly irritated.

Robin took charge of the miniaturization operation. He also created a wicker howdah for Cal's back and strapped Tara and Blondin in. Gallant took off, followed by the dragon.

Cal paid attention, and his takeoff was fairly smooth. He had watched Tara's maneuvers carefully and was beating his huge wings efficiently. Once airborne, he headed for the Gray Fortress. It was still dark and Robin suggested they gain some altitude so as not to smack into a mountain.

Then the sun rose.

Marveling at the beauty of OtherWorld as it slowly emerged from shadow, Cal looked down. Big mistake.

Suddenly, he felt terribly dizzy. His smooth flight turned chaotic, and he started flailing with his legs instead of slowly beating his wings. The howdah lurched from side to side.

“Hey! What are you up to?” cried Robin.

“I feel dizzy,” moaned Cal. “I'm afraid I'm going to fall.”

“You can't fall!” Robin screamed. “You're a dragon, you have wings!”

“But the ground is pulling at me! I'm falling!”

“No, you aren't! You aren't falling in the least! Look up, look anywhere you like, just don't look down.”

But down was the only direction Cal was looking. His long neck followed his head, and of course so did the rest of him.

Now they really were falling. Cal was using his wings only to glide, since he was feeling too dizzy to beat them. This slowed his descent somewhat, but without stopping it.

The bat couldn't speak, but Dragosh was clearly upset by the dragon's behavior.

Robin looked over at the pegasus flying nearby.

“Gallant, come here, quick!”

The pegasus came alongside, clearly wondering why Cal was diving straight for the forest.

“You take Tara and Blondin,” cried Robin. “I'll deal with Cal.”

He immediately levitated the two over onto Gallant's sturdy back, who took the extra weight without batting an eyelash.

Just before the red dragon landed—or to be more precise, crashed noisily into the forest—Robin cast a cushioning spell to protect Cal, then a Levitatus for himself. The spell saved Cal from breaking his long dragon neck, though he cut a swath of devastation through the forest three-hundred-yards long.

“Ow, ow, ow!” he moaned, holding his muzzle in his claws and looking glassy eyed. “What happened?”

Robin was so incensed he could hardly speak. He floated around with Gallant at his side, glaring at Cal.

“Do you know how long it took those trees to grow?” he finally yelled. “I told you not to look down, you stupid idiot!”

Still groggy, Can nodded his dragon head.

“When I stared down before, this forest wasn't there,” he muttered.

“It's been here for five million years,” screamed Robin, out of his mind with rage. “Believe me, it didn't just appear all at once. But you glided down, and instead of landing in the plain you veered off into the forest. I told you not to look down!”

“Okay, okay, I got it. You don't need to keep repeating the same thing. When you're flying and you get dizzy, don't look down. Right!” Cal quickly changed the subject so his friend would stop yelling at him. “Is Tara okay?”

“She's doing better than this forest!” roared the half-elf, who was still outraged by the destruction of the trees. “She and Blondin are on Gallant. Listen, Cal, I can understand that having Tara's power is pretty heady stuff. But you're a little dangerous in your dragon shape. So if you don't mind, you, Blondin, and I are going to continue on foot. Tara and Gallant will fly directly to the Gray Fortress, and we'll meet them there.”

“No, it's okay,” answered Cal, gingerly feeling his muzzle. “I think I've got the hang of it now. I can do this.”

“I don't want to take the chance,” retorted Robin stubbornly.

“We have to get to Lancovit as fast as possible,” said Cal. “I have Tara's power, and Chem and Dragosh are going to need me to give it back to her. Besides, I don't feel like walking for a whole day.”

“Well I do, as it happens!” answered the half-elf. “In fact, I'm going to start right away.” Robin gracefully floated to the ground, resolutely turned his back on his friend, and headed for the edge of the woods in the direction of the Gray Fortress.

Feeling annoyed, Cal watched him walk off as he thoughtfully sniffed a small flower he had plucked. Suddenly he felt a terrible sneeze rising in his muzzle. He stared at the little white flower in horror. Crap! It was a tatchoo, whose seeds are used as pepper on OtherWorld. He opened his mouth to warn Robin, but it was too late.

Cal's flaming breath missed his friend by less than a foot, sent him diving to the ground, and incinerated the trees that had survived his landing.

Robin whirled around, his elfin blood boiling.

“By my ancestors!” he yelled. “What the heck are you doing?”

“Oops, sorry,” said Cal apologetically. “I just sneezed. You know, now that I think of it, I'm going to choose another shape. This one's a little too hard to control.”

Robin stood up, pointed at the blazing trees, and quickly recited: “By Aquus, give me a drenching wave, and this poor charred forest save.”

Then he turned back to his friend.

“Cal,” he hissed,” if you don't get out of this forest right away, I swear that Magister is going to look like a choirboy compared to what I'm going to do to you.”

“All right, all right, I'll transform myself. You're such a spoilsport!”

“Wait a second!” cried Robin.

“What is it now? Make up your mind!”

“The basket must weigh a couple of hundred pounds. How much do you weigh, about one hundred and thirty pounds? Do you want to get crushed?”

Cal scowled at him and let him remove the howdah. Then he cast a spell to shift back to human shape.

There was a poof! and Cal disappeared!

Robin was searching for him everywhere when he heard a high-pitched little buzzing voice.

“I zzzhink I kinda screwed up herezzz!”

“Cal, where are you?”

An annoying bizzz was hovering around Robin's face, and he waved it away.

“Zzztop waving your hand like zzzat,” buzzed the voice. “You're gonna flatten me!”

Robin's eyes widened. “Cal? Is that you?”

“I don't know whazzz happened!” spluttered the little voice. “I wazzz about to transform myself, I saw a bizzz out of the corner of my eye, and bang! I zzzuddenly felt a tremendouzzz hunger for pollen. You know, I'm zzztarting to underzzztand what Tara meant about her power.”

“Cal, will you kindly shift back to human shape? We'll find a faster way to get to the Fortress, I promise.”

A tiny poof! was heard, and gorgeous Cal reappeared in all his splendor.

“Oh, man!” he groaned, holding his head. “How does Tara manage it? I swear, I'm never using her magic again. It's too unpredictable.”

“Great!” Robin's approved. “An excellent decision. All right, let's get going. We have a full day's walk ahead of us.”

“But you said you were going to find a faster way to go!” cried Cal.

“I lied,” said Robin, striding toward the edge of the poor forest. “I'll ask Master Dragosh to fly on ahead with Gallant and Tara. We'll join them later. It won't hurt her to wait a couple of hours before getting her power back. And it'll be less dangerous for this world than letting you use it.”

For a moment, Cal was speechless.

“You lied!” Cal cried, running after Robin. “You can't do that!”

“Why not?” he asked with a shrug. “You do it all the time.”

“That's no reason!” said Cal angrily. “You don't lie to your friends! And think about Tara for a moment. Imagine her being handicapped for life because we didn't hurry. Imagine if she weren't able to use her power anymore!”

Then he delivered his most potent argument, lowering his voice for dramatic effect. “Imagine if I'm not able to give her power back and wound up keeping it for life?”

At that, Robin shuddered.

“No! The world wouldn't survive!” he exclaimed. “Here's what I suggest: Tara often uses the living stone to control her power. The first time they merged, the stone took over and dominated Tara's mind, until she woke up—”

“Yeah, and nearly killed us,” said Cal sarcastically. “I'll never forget that thrilling moment when she came to her senses six hundred feet in the air, with us riding on her back.”

Robin smiled. “Okay, we know you get dizzy. But if the living stone is controlling you—”

“I won't be aware of what's happening, and the stone will do the flying for both of us. Perfect! That's an excellent idea. Let's do it.”

Very carefully, they took the living stone from Tara's pocket. She and Robin had worked together to shape it from its native quartz, turning it into a luminous ball of crystal. They'd earned the stone's gratitude in the process. The stone was quite fond of Robin, so he hoped it would answer him.