Vega jane and the maze o.., p.31
Vega Jane and the Maze of Monsters, page 31
When I looked back up I almost cheered as I saw Delph slam into the male, lift him up, turn him upside down and drive him into the floor. The bloke went limp.
The next instant a light shot right past my face, hit the wall behind me and knocked a hole in it. The concussive force of the spell knocked me head over heels and broke the magical tether keeping the others invisible.
‘Got you!’ roared the other bloke who had shot at me, as he pointed his wand right at Delph’s exposed chest.
Before I could regain my feet and aim my wand, a voice called out, ‘Subservio’.
Petra’s spell hit the bloke square on, and he instantly went rigid and his wand hand dropped. He then simply stood there looking blankly ahead.
We rose on shaky legs and approached him.
‘Thanks, Pet, you saved me,’ said Delph weakly.
‘That was quick thinking, Petra,’ I said.
She let out a long breath. ‘I’m . . . I’m just glad it worked.’
Delph pointed at the wand still held in the other bloke’s hand.
I stared at it, stunned.
Etched on his brightly glowing wand was the mark of the three hooks! The same mark that had been burned on to my hand. The mark on the wand was pulsing as though alive.
Delph said, ‘That’s how they managed it. Your mark, it must give off a signal.’
I nodded. But what was I to do? I couldn’t very well cut off my hand.
‘Vega Jane, your glove!’ said Delph.
‘My what?’ I said distractedly.
‘Your glove. It has powerful magic. See if it can block the signal.’
I plunged my hand into my cloak pocket and pulled out the glove Alice Adronis had given me in order to handle the Elemental, which was now also my wand.
I hastily pulled on the glove, covering the mark, hoping whatever magic it had was enough.
I looked at the fellow’s wand and breathed a sigh of relief. The mark of the three hooks was gone from it and the wand was no longer glowing.
‘That was brilliant!’ said Petra to Delph.
I saw him smile.
‘It was very smart of you, Delph.’ I turned, pointed my wand at the unconscious bloke, performed the Subservio spell and removed any memory he might have had of this. I did the same with his mate. Next, Petra and I repaired the damage to the building.
Finally, I turned the ring back round, attached the magical tethers, and we became invisible once more. It was only then that I released our attackers from the spell.
They both looked round.
One said, ‘What are we doing here?’
His mate looked down at his wand. ‘I don’t know. Was it something to do with my wand?’
The other fellow shook his head. ‘Last thing I remember, I was in bed. And that’s where I’m going back to,’ he added angrily.
He turned and left. His mate gave the place one more searching look and joined him, shutting the doors behind them.
I let out a long breath. ‘Now let’s go find a place to hide.’
The long winding staircase carried us upward. It would, I was sure, lead all the way to the bell tower. But I stopped short of that. There was a door to the right. I tried it. Locked. I pulled out my wand, and a moment later the door opened.
I had grown accustomed to being able to do things like this, but I never wanted to take it for granted. I had come to completely adore being a sorceress!
Inside the room were old trunks. There was also a window. Which I had hoped there would be.
I closed the door behind us and locked it. I pointed to the window. ‘And when the light comes, we can watch the goings-on down there. Get the lay of the land.’
‘Right good plan,’ said Delph, though Petra merely shrugged.
‘We should get some sleep,’ I said. ‘But like back in the Quag, we’ll take turns keeping watch, just in case.’
I offered to take the first watch, and the others settled down on the floor, with their tucks as their pillows. We retrieved some blankets that were stacked neatly in a corner, for the floor was hard and the room was cool.
I took up watch by the window for a bit with Harry Two lying next to me. I didn’t see any movement down below. I was hoping that I would see another of those metal-and-wood things with wheels, but I didn’t. In the distance I thought I heard a long, high whistle of sorts, but I couldn’t be too sure of that, for the sound carried strangely up here.
I finally turned to some of the trunks and, trying to remain as quiet as possible so I wouldn’t wake the others, I started searching them, hoping they would give us some idea as to the place we were now in.
The first trunk was filled with clothes. Trousers, coats, shirts, shoes and frocks. Even some hats. They were of a style, cut and material I had never seen. I looked down at my own clothes under my long cloak. Then I had an idea. I pulled out a number of the clothes and matched them up as best I could. If we were going to fit into this place, whatever it was, we had to dress like the others who were here.
I put these aside and opened the next trunk. When I saw what was in there I felt like I had happened upon a treasure trove.
Books! I pulled a number of them out, sat on my haunches and, using the conjured light from my wand, began to look through them.
The first few books were filled with what looked to me to be sermons that someone like Ezekiel would deliver. However, the next book was far more interesting and potentially useful.
It was entitled A Book of True.
True, I quickly came to learn, was the name of the place we were in. Astonishingly, there were words in the book that I had never seen before: years, horse, man, woman, church and motor being among them. Fortunately, at least for most of the words, there were accompanying pictures. Thus I learned that man and woman were like our male and female, and both were referred to as people, not Wugmorts.
My education continued. A horse was our slep. A canine was a dog. Sessions translated to years, which were divided up into twelve months and the twelve months were divided up into something called days. And slivers were minutes. And sixty of those minutes represented something called an hour. The church was the place we were currently in. And a motor was the contraption we had seen rumbling along. Oh, and there was something called the morning, which apparently was when the sun was coming up, and the rest of the light was called the day. And the Noc was called the moon.
I leaned back against the coolness of the stone and repeated these terms over and over, hitching them to the pictures in the book. I didn’t know that learning a new language would be required here, but why not? Everything about this journey had been totally unpredictable. Just because we had escaped the Quag, that simple rule needn’t change.
And if we wanted to fit in here, we couldn’t very well go around this place calling horses sleps and the moon the Noc.
As I continued to read, I learned that True had experienced several centuries of peace following some difficult periods of war and uncertainty. There were pictures of Wugs – or I guess ‘people’, since they never lived in Wormwood – engaged in fun activities with their youngs, who were called children. I looked at the illustrations of the smiling children and wondered how that fit with what I had been told about the ruthlessness and savagery of the Maladons, the magical race that Astrea Prine had told us had beaten her kind in a great war. Presumably the Maladons now ruled this place.
But hang on! Had these people fought and overthrown the Maladons? That would explain the reference to past wars followed by peace. But how had they done this? Were they magical? How else could they have beaten the powerful sorcery the Maladons supposedly possessed? After all, they had thrashed my kind, who were powerfully magical in their own right.
And most telling of all, I believed we had run into a pair of Maladons twice already. So they were here. It was truly puzzling.
I continued to read and learn as much as I could.
I gazed at the picture of the motor and marvelled how it could move without sleps, or horses rather, pulling it. Had this been created by magic?
Before I knew it, the sun was coming up outside. I had forgotten to wake Delph or Petra to take over my watch. But I was not tired in the least. My head filled with all this new information; my mind swirled with questions and possibilities. But mostly questions, I had to admit.
I moved back over to the window and looked out. With the sun up, I could see things quite clearly now. True was larger than it had appeared last night. I could now see spires of many buildings in the distance. Wugmorts – I caught myself – people were emerging from buildings. I waved my wand and muttered, ‘Crystilado, magnifica.’ Instantly, I was seeing all of this as though it were inches from my face.
I noticed, gratefully, that the people looked like us at least; otherwise it would be awfully hard to fit in. And their clothes looked like the ones I had pilfered from the trunk. Again, a good thing. But, then again, we might stand out anyway. We were three strangers with a canine. How would we explain our presence here? A clattering sound caught my attention, and in my magnified line of sight came another motor speeding down the cobbles. It was followed by a second motor. The second motor looked different – it was bigger than the other and had more people riding in it. They rode in one lower and one upper level. At a corner, the bigger motor stopped and some people got off and others got on. On the side was a sign that read TRUE TRANSPORT. This must be how they moved from one place to another, I thought.
‘Blimey!’
I whirled round to find Delph and Petra staring over my shoulder.
‘You didn’t wake us to take a watch,’ said Petra disapprovingly.
‘I thought I’d just let you sleep,’ I replied a bit lamely.
Delph said, ‘Vega Jane, you can’t do this alone. I know I can’t do magic, but I didn’t fight my way across the Quag to be useless!’
His words cut into me with the force of a hurled blade. Delph never talked to me that way.
I composed myself and said, ‘You’re right, Delph. But I’ve learned quite a lot actually.’
I took some time showing them the clothes and the books and telling them of the new terms I had learned, like people and dogs and morning and horses and motors. They took this all in, though I could tell they were even more overwhelmed by it than I had been.
Then I heard Delph’s belly rumbling.
It was then that I realized I was starving. I looked in my tuck to find that my larder was basically empty. Delph and Petra did the same, with similar results.
Even Harry Two’s expression was one of hunger.
I decided on a course of action and parcelled out the clothes I had found in one of the trunks. We swiftly dressed and put our old clothes and boots along with the spare new items in our tucks. I slipped the book on True into my coat pocket.
Petra said, ‘But what now? We can’t go outside, can we?’
I replied, ‘I’ve seen lots and lots of Wu—’ I stopped. ‘I mean I’ve seen lots of people coming and going. And almost never did I see one of them hail another. I think this place is far larger than we initially thought. If there are lots of blokes around, then maybe, in our new clothes, we can blend in with them.’
‘But what about Harry Two?’ asked Delph.
‘You saw the pictures of canines – I mean dogs – in the book. And I’ve seen four people walking ca—’ I stopped again, frustrated with having to learn a new language so quickly. ‘DOGS!’
Delph said, probably equally frustrated, ‘Can we speak Wugish for now?’
I nodded. ‘Yes, but we can’t when we’re dealing with blokes from here. We have to start thinking in their language, Delph. And since only those from Wormwood are Wugs, we have to call the blokes here “people”.’
‘That makes sense,’ he replied.
‘Maybe best we say nothing at all, till we hear some of them talk,’ suggested Petra.
‘That’s a good idea, actually,’ I replied, giving her a smile. I wanted to like and trust Petra, I really did. And if she turned out to be a Maladon, I hoped I could kill her before she killed me.
Delph nodded. ‘All right, then, but that doesn’t explain how we’ll get food to eat. We got nothing to pay with.’
I hadn’t thought about this.
‘We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,’ I said gamely.
I returned us to visibility and we headed downstairs.
We had reached the front doors of the place, and I had just opened them with my wand when a voice cried out.
‘Oi! What in blazes are you lot doing here?’
I didn’t even look for the source.
As we had so often done in the Quag, we just ran for it.
Other books by David Baldacci
Vega Jane and the Secrets of Sorcery
First published as The Keeper in the US 2015 by Scholastic Press
First published as The Keeper in the UK 2015 by Macmillan Children’s Books
This revised edition published as Vega Jane and the Maze of Monsters by Macmillan Children’s Books 2021
This electronic edition published 2021 by Macmillan Children’s Books
an imprint of Pan Macmillan
The Smithson, 6 Briset Street, London EC1M 5NR
EU representative: Macmillan Publishers Ireland Limited,
Mallard Lodge, Lansdowne Village, Dublin 4
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-1-5290-3795-1
Text copyright © Columbus Rose, Ltd 2015 and 2021
Illustrations copyright © Tomislav Tomić 2021
Cover illustration by Steve Stone.
Text illustrations by Tomislav Tomic.
The right of David Baldacci and Tomislav Tomic to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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David Baldacci, Vega Jane and the Maze of Monsters
