Chapter 13 #2
Abbi wandered about in the safe room, careful of the sigils on the floor, Hado in kitten form draped across her shoulders.
Lorde wasn’t in the room, because we didn’t want her to get hurt, so she was currently sleeping with the toys and bones Pamela and Josie had showered on her.
Elmer turned in for sleep right after breakfast. Pamela, Josie, and the lizard were holding down the fort.
On Card’s suggestion, Lu and I were both wearing comfortable clothes, and we’d brought blankets, pillows, a first-aid kit, and (worryingly) a fire extinguisher into the room. All of them were stacked in a corner.
“Since the book needs both of you to work with it, I want you both to step into the spell circle at the same time,” Card said, his voice falling easily into a teacher’s patient, upbeat tone.
“All right,” I said. “Three, two, one.”
Lu and I both stepped inside the protective circle.
“No fire, no smoke, no ancient horrors bursting through the walls,” Card said. “I like this. Great start.”
I’d like to say he was joking, just keeping it light, but I had a feeling he was dead serious.
Breakfast sat heavily in my gut, and sweat trickled down my pits and spine.
Fear, I thought, clenching and unclenching my fists. Every instinct in me said I should run. Grab Lula, Abbi, and Card, and shove all of us out of the room.
Wild images of locking the witch’s box in chains, of burying it beneath the stone floor, of pumping concrete into the safe room to contain and hide the book for good, whipped through my mind.
I wanted out of here. I wanted us all out of here.
But that choice wasn’t mine. Even if I could talk Lula into not trying to use the book (an option I knew was hopeless, but which I wasn’t entirely giving up on, either), we still had to take it somewhere safe.
Leaving it here wasn’t an option. The hunters couldn’t keep the gods from finding it, no matter how protected their hideaway might be.
It had to be taken to Ordinary. And Lula and I were the only two people who could attempt it.
I understood the logic of the situation we were in. But my self-preservation instincts were howling.
I wiped a palm over my mouth, scratching at the sweat in my beard.
Lu threw me a concerned look. I shook my head.
We’d had our talk before breakfast. I wanted us to find another weapon. She wanted to use the book.
I’d lost the argument (again). I wouldn’t be able to talk her out of this until we had given this whole spell-casting thing a real, concerted, guided effort.
That didn’t make me want to toss my breakfast any less.
Just knowing she was going to open the book, and that I’d have to consume the magic, those concepts, and try to read it, made me want to set the thing on fire.
Maybe that was why Card had insisted we bring a fire extinguisher.
Lu tugged the shadow cloth off of the witch’s box. Card made an impressed sound.
“That cloth is brilliant. The box is too. I can’t sense the book at all.”
“Told you,” Abbi said.
“Witches?” he asked.
“Witches made the box,” I said, trying to control my breathing. The book whispered, leaves shivering under winter’s hand. “Cloth was loaned by the hunters.”
“They have quite the stash of things tucked away in this place,” he said. “Can’t imagine they got it all on the up and up. Which I approve of. How are you doing, Brogan?”
“Me? Fit as a fiddle.” I couldn’t seem to get my words and breathing lined up.
“You’re panicked, which is to be expected.”
Lula raised an eyebrow and took a minute to size me up.
“Who are you going to believe? Me or the wizard?”
“I can feel your nerves from here,” he said, like I’d been talking to him. “As I said, I would be more worried if you were perfectly calm.”
“We’ll take it slow,” Lula said. “We’ll be careful.”
“We?” I asked, trying to smile. “Not sure 'careful’ is a state you and I have ever visited.”
“This is a good time to try it.”
Her concern, Card’s attention, and even Abbi, chewing on her bottom lip and looking worried, made me fill my lungs and exhale slowly.
“I’m fine, I’m fine. Just a little spooked from yesterday. I can do this.”
To prove it, I bent and picked up the witch’s box.
Maybe it was the storm last night, or hearing Lula say holding the book was like holding a living thing, but, well, it felt like something was alive in that box.
Something that wanted out.
“So far so good,” Card said. “Just hold it there a minute, Brogan. I want to set some wards of my own. Abbi?”
“I can help.” She pulled her mortar and pestle from wherever she kept them.
Card said something to her I couldn’t make out. She nodded and walked in the opposite direction around the room, pausing at each corner to do something with the powder in the mortar.
“Still good?” I asked Lu.
“It’s the same as yesterday,” she said. “I know it’s in there. I’m sure it knows I’m out here. But I don’t feel…malice?”
“Don’t tell me you’re gonna start trusting it.”
“No. I’m just not planning to get in a battle with it either. Not if I don’t have to. If we were made to use the book, to wield those spells, I don’t see why it would want to fight us.”
“That’s done.” Card came around to stand at our side, outside the circle. “We’ve put up support for the wards, added cushioning. Dampeners for explosions and stray magic.”
“Not sure explosion was on my bingo card,” I grumbled.
Card grinned. The tattoos on his bare arms and up his neck glowed. “This is magic training, Brogan. There’s bound to be some kind of exhilarating moments. Which is why we’ve padded the room. I promise you. This is safer than most places where I’ve trained.”
“Guy who gets powerful people mad at him? Not sure you’re the shining example you think you are.”
“Says the man who gets powerful gods mad at him,” Card noted. “Plus, you have no idea what kind of power I’ve dealt with before.”
His eyes, usually a brilliant green, were shot with flickering fire.
I was beginning to wonder where, exactly, he fell in the powerful hierarchy of the wizard ranks. With that kind of response, I notched him up a few tiers.
“Remember,” he went on, the amenable teacher once again. “I just need you to hold it and turn the pages. Brogan, you’re going to keep your mouth shut. Just put on the glasses—you still have the glasses, don’t you?”
I shifted my hold on the box and drew the glasses out of my shirt pocket.
They were made of bronze, silver, and gold. Card had been working on them most of the night.
“Go ahead and put those on,” he said. I slid the glasses into place.
The room looked exactly the same. So did Lula, Card, and Abbi, but Card assured me the glasses were built with magic that would allow him to see some of what I was seeing.
“Are they working?” I asked.
Card hummed. “We’ll know as soon as Lula opens the book. So, are you both ready? Remember, Lu, you just need to hold it and turn the page. Brogan, no talking. Just look at the page. Got it?”
“Yes,” I said.
Lu nodded, her gaze steady on me. “I’m taking it out of the box.”
She opened the box. She pulled the book out, and unlike yesterday, she was moving slowly and treating it like it was made of glass. Explosive glass.
“Got it?” I asked.
“Got it.”
I put the box on the floor, then didn’t know what to do with my hands. I wanted to touch her, to brace my hands under hers to carry the weight of the book, but I didn’t dare brush the cover.
“Card?” Lula asked.
“I’m right here,” he said. “I see it. Go ahead.”
Lula unlocked the book and opened it. I braced myself for the song, for the power and the magic and the tidal wave of concepts and clashing realities.
Instead, I saw a page with symbols burning in soft yellow light.
“That’s not how it was,” I said.
“Things change,” Card said. “There could have been a trigger spell to ward people off. If so, that’s done, and we’re into uncharted water.
Even if not, the book is sentient enough, it might be on to us.
It might know we’re here to find a spell that will help us get rid of one of the gods who wants to possess it and use it poorly. ”
I figured he was talking for our benefit and also (weirdly) for the book’s.
“Can you read that?” I asked Card.
“It’s an opening screed. Not a spell. The god who wrote it is not lost.”
“That’s a lot of expertise all of a sudden, Card,” Lula said.
“I’m good at magic,” he said matter-of-factly. “Yay, for me. Let’s take advantage of it.”
“Turn the page?” Lula asked.
“Yep,” I said.
She did. The symbols here were violet and looked like holes burned into the universe.
“Keep going. Not a lost god,” Card said.
Lu turned the page again.
“Is this it?” Abbi asked. “Is this all we’re going to do?”
“What did you think we were going to do?” Card asked.
“The magic. Trying it. Letting it loose.”
“Oh, they’ll try it,” Card said. “But not until we think we’ve found a spell that won’t kill us or destroy half the world. Preferably a spell written by a lost god.”
Lu turned the page. It seemed to disappear as soon as it was turned, leaving behind the scent of crushed rosemary and sorrow.
“Lu?” I asked.
“I’m okay,” she said, but I could see her hands were beginning to shake. She turned the page.
“Step back!” Card yelled.
We both jumped backward.
Something lashed out of the book, snapping and wailing, then was gone.
“Holy shit,” I said. “Card?”
“Not a lost god spell.” He didn’t sound the least bit fazed, the jerk. “Let’s do five more and take a break.”
“You okay?” I asked Lu.
She nodded, her breathing a little fast.
“Five more,” she said.
“Five,” I said.
She turned the page. A shower of wind chimes and bleached bones sang out ancient curses.
“Four.”
She turned the next page.
The flash of light was blinding.
I yelled, Card shouted, and Lula jerked backward, the book tumbling to the stone floor.