Chapter 21 – The Unveiling
We didn’t have the luxury of standing and staring for much longer, for Lunae, stationed near the door, heard distant footsteps making impressions on the soft carpet. I stayed with eyes fixed on the motionless bones until Alye seized my arm and dragged me towards the wall behind the door, which would open inward. All of us were prepared to fight any soldiers who came through that door.
The wooden planks slowly moved, opening with hesitation but little sound. Pale fingers clutched the timber and eased the door open. And a sickeningly familiar face came into my view.
Blind rage. Without thinking, I struck out, hurling myself onto the figure who came through the door and slamming him to the floor. Alye burst into action and held her sword tight at his throat. Aubrey again.
“HOW did you get here?” Philipia hissed, glaring at him with blue eyes of fury. He didn’t even twitch, just lay there on the carpet with no expression.
“Your villagers are absurdly easy to get past, even without my staff,” he drawled smoothly.
“Your st…oh. Your dagger, you mean. The dagger that you murdered Redmond with and nearly killed me with,” I snarled, holding my own staff right between his eyes. He gave a mocking smile and would have laughed but for Alye’s blade. The midget locked her gaze on him with conflicting emotions in her eyes. I could barely comprehend what she must have been going through; she’d liked him for a while, but he’d turned out to be this total monster. But we had other things to worry about for now.
“What are you doing in the castle?” Lunae asked with a coating of venom in her voice.
“I don’t see how that is your business,” he retorted and Alye moved her sword closer to his gullet. He gave a low gasp and continued, “But you might as well know. I planned to take any supplies I could get and bury my father before you found him. A pity I was too late.”
Elspeth was the one who jerked us back to practicality. “We can’t keep him here on the floor, you know. Let’s get him to the cell.” Aubrey’s eyes widened, the only real sign of emotion he’d given, and we moved our weapons closer. Keegan and another villager jerked the creep to his feet and we hurriedly moved down the hallway, but then stopped.
“How do we find it?” I asked nervously. Aubrey snorted in disdain, but Alye reacted in a way I’d never expected her to. She strode in front of him, thrust her face in his, and then drew back her hand and slapped him as hard as she could. His face was thrown back and a trickle of blood oozed down his lip; she’d got him with her nails as well. Wincing, he faced forward and didn’t meet her eye.
“What happened to that map we’d had of the castle?” I heard Kymber inquire. Philipia started.
“Of course, why didn’t I think of that? We left it in the study when we were ambushed; I remember Redmond…” she stuttered to a halt and then made herself keep going, “…Redmond gave it to me and I dropped it when we were fighting. It might still be there.”
So we hastened through the castle, making several wrong turns until we returned to the study where the awful fight that had led to our capture had taken place. It hadn’t been touched since we’d last seen it except for a cursory pickup of the broken objects in the adjoining chamber. Philipia glanced around the floor, looking for a familiar piece of parchment. At last, she gave a triumphant call and reached underneath an intricate wooden table that had a nice lovely chip in it. Seizing something, she brought out a dusty, dirty, but familiar paper.
“And if you mislabeled anything on this,” she said matter-of-factly to Aubrey, “I will personally go postal on your sorry butt.” Searching the map for a few seconds, she finally found what she was trying to see. “Here we go, a nice little part right in the middle of the castle marked “unused storeroom” that I think is the size of our lovely little cell. How big was that thing, Tanya?”
I thought for a moment. “I think it was ten feet wide and about sixteen feet long.”
“And that’s exactly how long this blank spot is,” Alye commented. “So we have our place. Let’s go before people show up.”
“Wait, stop, we’re going right by it,” Philipia stopped, staring intently at the map. “Yeah, it’s right around here. But…where?” We looked around. It seemed to be just an ordinary, deserted corridor. The thick, clogging dust covered the fading paintings on the walls and the meager paint job had long since flaked away into multicolored grime.
We all started feeling around the sides, fingers searching for any peculiarities. It was Lunae who found it first, whispering, “I think this is it.” She pointed at one especially miserable portion of the corridor, adorned with a truly hideous sculpture. “The wall juts out slightly from the rest.” And as we looked closer, I could tell. Aubrey just stood with his two guards, looking nonchalant and bored out of his skull.
“But how do we get in?” Elspeth demanded. “Breaking through will defeat the whole purpose of it.”
“Hold on for just a second,” I replied. I placed both hands on the wall and gently pushed, allowing my magic to flow across the (suspected) door. And it worked. With a faint chink, the wall pushed inward, revealing a dank, dark, and infinitely recognizable prison cell. Viewed from the inside, I realized that it was impossible to see which part of the wall formed the doorway. Without any further ado, Alye shoved her sword at Aubrey’s back, forcing him away from Keegan and the other guy, and pushed him through the door into the cell. Quickly, before he could try to recover, I pulled the door closed with my magic. Smirking in glee, we left. No one could possibly know he was there and we’d send back guards at the first opportunity and then question him. But right now, we had other things to attend to.
I won’t go into detail about the cleanup of the battlefield. We’d already quietly taken away the fallen forms of our people, but the soldiers remained to be buried. Digging a large pit, we laid their frozen bodies in the cold ground and shoved the earth back over. Among them we placed Delroy’s skeleton, figuring he shouldn’t just lie there on that mattress any more. That was a horrible job…still, what followed wrenched at us.
Two pyres had been constructed on the hill we’d fought upon. One was huge, holding the villagers who’d died in battle. But then there was a small one, holding only a single person.
Redmond.
We’d left him in his battle outfit, though someone had stitched back the cloth over his wound. At his feet were his jester clothes, which we’d found tossed in a rubbish heap right outside the castle walls. Aubrey hadn’t taken Redmond’s departure from his service too kindly. Our friend had a peaceful expression, one without thought but also without his trademark smile. As the entire village stood grouped before the two pyres, I felt a rush of sadness and couldn’t stop the tears from leaking out. There were few dry eyes anywhere.
First Adaline stepped forward, holding a torch that Selene had lit. Winking back quiet tears, she bent down and placed the flames to the wood. It lit instantly and slowly licked at the sky, the cold wind playing with the brave flames.
Then Kymber walked up to Redmond’s pyre with her torch. Sobbing silently, she set it afire. We stood in the snow, some of us watching the fallen villagers. But I watched Redmond. I’d never lost someone dear to me…And we cried. Cried for the loss of those who had not deserved death and for those who should never have tasted steel blades. And we wept for brave courage in the face of what should have been a complete disaster. We should all have perished on the battlefield.
But we hadn’t. We’d come up against a superior foe and defeated him. And for now, that would have to do. Still, as I looked through the haze of tears at the twin columns of smoke reaching for the heavens, I felt my naivety go with them.
Several days later, I looked up and felt a rush of déjà vu. Here I was, seated at a desk, scribbling notes, and blinking from lack of sleep.
And now, I wasn’t back at school and no, the past few months had not been all “just a dream.” Instead, I was in the castle library, doing cheery research. Ick. Trying to find ways of extracting magic from someone was an almost-impossible task, since apparently that’s one of the most painful and horrible things you can do to people, usually limited to sadists who try to steal other’s powers. But this was a matter of safety; if we didn’t take away Aubrey’s magic, we’d have to kill him, and I couldn’t do that. In spite of everything horrid thing he’d done, I didn’t want his blood on our hands.
So we had settled for this. But if I didn’t find something soon, I had a feeling the angry villagers were going to take matters into their own hands. So I needed to hurry. Getting up and knocking over several sheets of crumpled parchment, I shoved my current book back on a random shelf and ran my fingers over the delicate leather spines, trying to find something decent. Pity the librarian wasn’t here at the moment; we’d found him while searching the castle, hiding in the library and defending himself with one particularly huge encyclopedia. Seems he hadn’t cared much for Aubrey and Delroy so he wasn’t too upset over the news of Delroy’s skeleton and Aubrey’s imprisonment.
Stopping suddenly, I gently leaned against the bookshelf (this one nailed to the wall so I didn’t have to worry about toppling it over) and rested my aching head. I’d been rifling through papers for the past three days and I thought I was about to drop. Sighing in exhaustion, I rubbed my eyes and noticed they were wet.
Not again…, I thought wearily. I’d been fighting back tears a lot lately. Wiping my dusty palms against them didn’t help in the slightest and I dropped back into my chair, letting my head just fall on the desk. For a few moments, I was completely still, trying not to think or move or anything at all.
At last, I had it. Standing up, I felt my back cracking in several places. I’d been hunched over for hours and felt a wash of dizziness as I straightened. Gripping the sides of the desk for support, I focused on regaining my balance. Finally, I was sure I could walk without tipping forward and stepped slowly out of the library, wincing at my headache.
Outside the door, I glanced up and down the hallway, expecting to see someone, but nobody was there. Rolling my eyes, I hurried through the corridor, making for the dining room. It had become the favorite spot for us to meet, with plenty of cushy seats and that huge table that could seat at least twenty or more. Finally, I saw the familiar door and shoved it open. Several pairs of eyes looked up in surprise. Alye, Philipia, Lunae, Harmon, Adaline, and Kymber were there, chewing absently on some cold food.
“I’ve got it. I know how to get Aubrey’s magic out,” I announced triumphantly but with a rough edge of tiredness in my voice. The faces looking back at me mostly had thrilled expression, but not Alye. She looked perplexed, on the one hand glad that I’d found the info, but I guess not wanting to…you know…hurt Aubrey. I seized a piece of bread and gnawed at it, ravenous.
“When can you do it?” Adaline demanded hurriedly. “Everyone’s been getting very worried about this.”
“As soon as I’ve had a good sleep,” I replied. “I’ve been in that bloody bookroom for three days straight and have had about twelve hours of rest altogether. The process I have to use is absolutely grueling and I’m not going to risk passing out in the middle of it. That WON’T help matters.”
“Okay okay,” Philipia started, talking to me like I was a riled horse and she was trying to calm me down. “We get it. He can wait another day. By the way, you probably ought to know that Aubrey’s been incredibly uncommunicative in our little interviews. He sits and stares and sulks and makes nasty comments but not much else. Methinks he’s holding out on escaping so he doesn’t want to tell us anything.”
“But that will change,” Harmon cut in, eyebrows furrowed.
“I know, ain’t it great?” I said sarcastically, finishing my bread. I moved away from the table and toward the door. “I’m going to BED. Good night.”
Falling into my comfy mattress, I wondered how Delroy had died. Old age? Illness? Murder by his darling son? But then why had he remained in that bed? How long had he been there? For that matter, how long had Aubrey been lording it over Glovebern? With these cheery thoughts, I slipped into a dreamless sleep.
As we walked toward his cell, I felt a queasy sick feeling, like a horde of butterflies were flying around in my stomach without any formation. We would take him out to the courtyard and extract the magic there. Philipia would be waiting for us (she was going dragon one last time, just for this). Alye strode beside me without saying a word, her face completely expressionless. And when I opened Aubrey’s cell, I found him sitting up against the wall, pale and disheveled, looking like he’d spent the last half of a week in a hole. Oh, wait, he had. Perfect.
He looked up and fixed me with those horrible green eyes. I glared back, cobalt and brown against emerald. Our gazes felt like a reenactment of the hill, where we’d pitted our magic against each other. This only lasted a few seconds and then he looked away, running his eyes over the rest of our group. At least three heavily-muscled guys were standing behind me and Alye, while the rest of the village was clustered in the courtyard.
“Ah yes, the little witch, I believe,” he drawled, sneaking a glance back at me. “And her sword-wielding friends.”
That didn’t even deserve to be dignified with a response. “Let’s go,” I said tersely, moving out the door. The three guys seized his arms and hauled him out, where he didn’t make much attempt to struggle or escape.
Until we got to the courtyard. Then he froze, forcing his guards to stop, and shouted a couple words I couldn’t understand. A burst of green thrust the men away from him and blasted me and Alye to the ground. Unprepared for this, I was toppled over and opened my eyes to see him making for the wall, yanking Alye along with her own sword to her throat. Behind me, I heard the collective gasp of the entire village, which’d been standing patiently, looking forward to the removal of this threat from their lives. And now it looked like all that was crashing down around us.
Once again, I overlooked the dragon.
With her characteristic roar, Philipia flapped in from overhead and tore Aubrey away, dislodging the sword from Alye’s jugular and smashing him against the wall, where he crumpled to the snowy earth and was still, breathing but knocked out for a second.
“Thanks, Philipia,” I gasped, wincing from the magical blast. She nodded and cheers erupted from the crowd behind us. Philipia reached over and seized Aubrey by his torn collar, dragging him over the snowy grass to the center of the courtyard. Still trying to catch her breath, Alye struggled to her feet and gripped her sword tightly. Aubrey came to quickly and found himself kneeling on the ground with Alye’s blade tight at his gullet.
“Do you know what we’re going to do, Aubrey?” I asked softly.
“Kill me, I suppose,” he replied without a trace of anything in his voice.
“No. We’re going to suck your magic out.” And that got a response. His eyes widened and a look of panic grew across his face. He clamped down on the emotion quickly, but it had been there.
“Wouldn’t simply cutting my throat be easier?” he asked desperately.
“Get a grip, you don’t deserve anything as easy as that,” Alye snarled abruptly, a tear starting to leak from her eye. I took a deep breath and focused my energy for a few seconds, then placed my staff right over his heart. When he attempted to wriggle away, Philipia slammed to the earth right behind him and loomed over him like the angel of death.
Closing my eyes for an instant, I hesitated for one more moment, preparing myself. This would be hard and horrid, but it had to be done. Then, I began.
First, blue magic flowed out of the tip of my staff and across his chest, seeping below the shirt onto his skin. I can’t explain how, but basically I was feeling for his magic, housed deep inside his body and centered around his heart. At last, I sensed something…a horrible pulsing, writhing mass of energy that lashed out at my probes. Wincing as his green magic tried to fight off my blue, I pushed harder, drawing the evil stuff towards my staff. It was coming…moving through him…inching out slowly and painfully. Aubrey was sweating now and I was too, salty liquid flowing down my brow and into my eyes.
At last, it emerged, clawing its way out through his chest. A silver x-shape had formed across his heart and I slowly forced the twisting emerald tendrils to rise out of his body. Now he was screaming and Alye looked like she was about to burst into tears. Gritting my teeth, I pulled harder against his magic, which fought me every second, not wanting to be separated from its user. Now it was a pulsating green ball that hovered over his chest, my staff’s tip right in the center of it, drawing it out like a ridiculously stubborn trout at the end of a fishing line.
Only connected by a single last string of emerald, I relentlessly pulled it up. It was rising past my head, and with a final shout of agony from Aubrey, the thread snapped and his magic floated above him. Shuddering at the effort of keeping it contained, I flung my staff up and fired that evil energy toward the sky. It sprayed up above like a diabolical geyser, hissed, sputtered, and dissipated until not even a sliver of green remained.
Alye released her sword from Aubrey’s neck and the man fell forward, almost sobbing from the pain. I was coated with sweat and my clothes stuck to my back. Aubrey lay there in the snow, panting, and then opened his eyes and looked at me. I stared back with a feeling of wonder.
His eyes were no longer green, but neither were they the intense azure of before. Now they were only a pale, watery, sickly blue.
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