The Danger of Destiny (31 page)

“Ralph? You okay?” I asked.

A leaf twitched and then lifted, pierced by a needle-sharp strand of gold. The Royal Amulet sat up groggily, disdaining Merry's help.

I spun around to give the old man a glare. “Was that really necessary?”

The Old Mage shoved Lexi's sleeves up, his movements fast and irritated. He inspected the scratch marring my brother's wrist with a puckered mouth. “You and your ‘friends' are vexing creatures.”

“Then bugger off.”

Evidently that suggestion required no thesaurus. He drew himself up to my brother's full six feet, except Lexi never stood as if he had a poker up his ass. “I am here to offer you terms for a new agreement.”

Said the devil to the dimwit.
“Go away, old man,” I replied.

“You desire the Asrais' freedom.”

Of course. Nothing came for free with the Fae. I lifted my narrowed gaze.

The wizard smiled faintly. “Though I cannot break the spell surrounding the one you call Ralph, I can easily destroy the enchantment that holds the female Asrai. With one pass of my hand, and a few short words, I can break the conjure that has long held her captive.”

Suddenly I felt heavy. Like I'd become hollow when I'd watched my brother's soul flit off and now that void was being filled by liquid that was neither life sustaining nor pure.

Ugly water. Fouled and spoiled. I could taste it on the back of my tongue.

“Let me guess,” I said woodenly. “All I have to do is agree to release you from your vow. Merry's soul for my brother's.”

“Precisely.”

Merry stepped closer to Ralph, her body suffused in a horrendous orange-red. “Why isn't Ralph part of the offer?” I asked on her behalf.

“The enchantment holding the Prince of Asrais is far superior to that restraining the female. Breaking the spell holding him would result in an explosion that could be heard and seen for miles.”

“It would kill him?”

“No. He is an Asrai.”

Nice to know, except I didn't have the faintest idea of what constitutes being an Asrai. Except for the attitude. Both Merry and Ralph had plenty of that. Though the latter's fell more into the “I'm entitled” category. Wait a minute …

“Ralph's really a prince?”

The old man lifted both shoulders in a supremely dismissive shrug. “Of the Asrais.”

I studied his self-satisfied smile, feeling a sick curl in my gut. “Who set the enchantment down on Ralph?”

“I did.”

No wonder Ralph reacted so violently to the Old Mage.

“What about Merry? If you break the conjure holding her, won't there be an equally big kaboom?”

“No. Her prison is not a blue diamond of the greatest clarity, but a piece of common amber, riddled with air bubbles and flyspecs. It will fracture easily.”

Really? If I pried up a rock, could I use it on Merry? One smash and she'd be free?

All I needed was blunt force. I scanned the area for a suitable hammer and spotted one near the edge of the stream. It was half-buried in the earth, but the general outline of it looked promising. It was substantial enough to deliver a shattering blow but not so large that I couldn't pick it up with two hands.

I started digging it out.

“It is a pity about your friend Merry,” the Old Mage said with a thoughtfulness that sounded wholly manufactured. “While the prince waged war against those he shouldn't, her mistake was trivial in comparison.”

The mage had the pole, he had the hook, and now he was baiting it. I knew he was dangling a lure in front of me and I knew it was going to hurt like hell if I bit down on it, but just like that lake bass, I still opened my mouth.

“What did she do?” I asked, raking away the damp earth.

“She ventured too far from the safety of their sacred hollow and her path crossed that of Helzekiel.”

“That's it?” I lifted my head. “She was in the wrong place at the wrong time? Helzekiel cursed her just because he could?”

I'll never call myself a Fae again.

“Helzekiel performed the conjure to prove his worth,” corrected the Old Mage.

Merry was a freakin' merit badge?

I swallowed down the snarl rising in my throat and bent my head again. “Is that part of your basic mage accreditation?” I gouged at the earth trapping the stone. “Screw over an Asrai and you get your wizard's cap and gown?”

The Old Mage kneaded Lexi's right thigh as if it ached. “Long ago, I made an error in judgment that a few viewed as a crime of treason. It was decreed that I should be punished. But as in all things, the Royal Court was divided. Half were poised to select a mild censure, as they feared losing their mage. Half were in favor of the Sleep of Forever, as they feared my growing powers. The outcome of the vote rested on Helzekiel's potential. Could he, in time, become
almost
as useful as I? Naturally, I was aware of my assistant's ambitions, and so I never allowed him to witness a spell completed in its entirety.”

“Then how did he know how to do the nasty to Merry?”

“The court demanded that the Prince of Asrais' punishment be performed in public as a caution to those who considered waging war against them. Unbeknownst to me, Helzekiel took secret notes of every word and gesture.”

Merry's belly was effused with bloodred light.

“Behold the result of Helzekiel's ability to follow instructions,” the Old Mage drawled. “Note the substantial differences between the two amulets. The Royal Amulet is a blue diamond set in a meaningful design. Your friend Merry's setting resembles a robin's nest. The knave could not follow a simple sequence without erring.” He clucked his tongue against my brother's teeth. “Fae gold shouldn't be squandered so.”

“Yeah, I feel real bad for the Fae gold.”

Now that I'd dug around all the margins of the rock, I realized it was both heavier and larger than I'd thought.

The old man lowered himself into a squat beside me. “She has suffered,” he said.

Tell me something I don't know.

“If you use brute force in an attempt to break her loose from that which holds her, you will not be freeing her. She will not be her true size, nor will she have all her talents.”

I'd seen her shape under a magnifying glass. She was no bigger than a piece of rice. Unless that's the true size of an Asrai? Maybe they truly were mite-sized? The Old Mage was as adept at lying as I was.

What if she really was smaller than the
i
at the end of my name? Would I be freeing her to live the remainder of her life as a shrunken tiny version of herself?

“No one truly loses,” he continued. “In return for this Asrai's freedom, I can give your twin a life such that you could never provide him in Creemore. I can place him at the highest table of the court, giving him prestige, power, and influence. He will live a very long life—and never again will he threaten the longevity of your own, or that of your mates.”

With the Fae the devil is in the details. For instance, “I can” does not mean the same thing as “I will.” Perhaps once my twin would find himself seated at a place of honor. But soon enough Lexi would start spending more and more time in Threall. Awash in his new addiction, he'd hardly notice as the length of his “not-here” moments stretched to eternity and beyond.

My brother's an addict. He'll always be one.

“I will see the book destroyed,” the old geezer promised. “You can leave this realm now assured of the continued safety of yours.”

As if it were that easy. “That doesn't save the Raha'ells or Ralph, does it?”

“Are we bargaining, nalera?”

“So far you haven't said anything really tempting.”

He rubbed one thumb over the other, his gaze shuttered as he thought. “What about the Raha'ells?” he offered abruptly. “As soon as I have taken my rightful place as mage to the Royal Court, I will petition the king for their freedom.”

Yeah, we all know how useful petitions are.

His eyes glinted. “I give you my word that the Raha'ells will return to their hills and their hunting grounds. You can return to your world with a clear conscience. Knowing that no evil will seep through your portals.”

I cocked my head, finally struck by the non-specific nature of the last threat. “What bad things are we really talking about? Locusts? Plagues? Evil mage magic? What precisely is written on the last page of the Book of Spells?”

“You would not understand it.”

“Try me. Go ahead. You can use little words.”

He considered the wisdom of answering. Then with a slight lift of his chin, he said, “The results of my studies into realm dimensions.”

“More mumbo jumbo. Get specific or get lost.”

“I was testing the elemental boundary dimensions between one world and another.”

“Whose world?” I asked sharply.

“Not yours.”

There really were other dimensions? The physics geeks would be agog. “So,” I said slowly, “what you're telling me is that you left DIY instructions for creating portals like the ones between Merenwyn and Creemore?”

If so, what was the big deal? Earth didn't have wizards, but it had many covens of witches. Wards could and would be purchased. Every known portal could be contained within one. Kind of like double-bagging the grocery bag weighted by the juicy steak. Countermeasures could be taken to reduce seepage.

“Those were early studies,” he said with disdain.

Early?
I turned my head to stare at him. I'm not a student of higher learning, but I'm becoming very good at decoding facial expressions, and the gleam of acquisition in his eyes set all sorts of alarm bells tolling.

“You went past that, didn't you?” I evaluated the satisfied curl of his mouth and felt hope die. “Did you leave step-by-step instructions on how to slip into other universes on that last page?”

A pause, then he answered proudly, “Yes.”

I thought it through. “So, Helzekiel wouldn't need a portal to visit me in Creemore. He could just snap his fingers and appear in my local Tim Hortons.”

“Yes. That is my fear.”

No, it wasn't.

“One day you'll need to rule,” Trowbridge had told me once. “And some of the decisions you have to make will damn well kill you.”

He was right.

My gaze slowly traveled from the embedded rock to Merry.

You'll never know how sorry I am for what I'm about to do.

I spoke to her. Not the guy who squatted in my brother. Not the audience of the Gatekeeper, and the pony and the half-blooded kid named Mouse. I spoke to the brave soul who had stood by me all these many years. I spoke to the person I was going to betray.

“This isn't about Lexi anymore,” I said. “It's about what a man like the Old Mage will do if he's not stopped. He's a wizard with a score to even up and a reputation to reestablish. Once he's taken care of Helzekiel—and trust me, he
will
take care of Helzekiel—he'll move on to eliminating those in the court who sentenced him to the Sleep of Forever. I don't think they're good people, but without them there's no one to check his relentless curiosity and ambition.”

I wet my lip. “No one except us, Merry.”

Oh Goddess, her color is turning black as a witch's blood.

“He'll start walking the world again,” I told her, my words tumbling. “But his ego and curiosity will keep pushing him to expand his horizons and soon walking through universes won't be enough. You know I'm right, Merry. You know he'll start tinkering with those other worlds. Those people won't see him coming. They'll be as unprepared for him as you were for Helzekiel.”

Forgive me,
I pleaded with my eyes. “He's so much more dangerous than the Black Mage. I can't release him from his vow.”

She stared at me for a long moment. And then, the bright fire inside her—one that was fed on a hope so edged with yearning that it could have lit a hundred homes with its brilliance—slowly extinguished itself. When the light in her belly was no more than a muted glow, she did something she'd never done before. She deliberately turned her back on me.

Ralph extended a golden arm and drew her close.

My eyes fell to the mucked-up earth and the piece of rock that was bigger than I'd ever anticipated. Had I really thought it would be as easy as that? Forget the mumbo jumbo, just break the stone? One strike and the entire my-best-friend's-enchanted problem would shatter? If that were the case, Merry would have led me to the closest rock pile as soon as she got me used to being led around by her golden leash.

Idiot.

I used to think she followed me. That wasn't quite right, now was it? We went together. Sometimes me leading, sometimes her leading. Both tethered by links stronger than Fae gold.

Broken now.

I pushed the earth back, knowing there were more truths to face. I forced myself to check the tall fir in the west. I knew what I'd see—my mental clock had never stopped ticking. The sun had sunk behind it.

Something's happened. Trowbridge should be back by now. They've caught him, and right now, even as I stand here, they're leading him to Wryal's Island.
Panic, a sickening flutter in my chest.
I'm the leader now. I'm the person who has to see this through.

Ralph curled two arms around Merry when I crouched beside them.

“You heard him. Every piece of magic he knew up to when he was sentenced is written in his journal. The Book of Spells holds the key to releasing you. I'll find it. I'll tear it out. There has to be someone in this world or ours who can free you.”

Merry swiveled around.

“I can't do better. I wish I could.” I offered my hand.