Vega jane and the end of.., p.6
Vega Jane and the End of Time, page 6
I tapped my leg again and again and said the words over and over.
‘Pass-pusay. Pass-pusay.’
A spell shot right over my head.
I looked behind me, and my spirits dropped right through the dirt.
Endemen, Necro’s most trusted fighter, was right behind me, along with at least twenty Maladons in pinstripe suits and bowler hats.
Something made me glance down at the ring of invisibility that had once belonged to my grandfather, who had, in turn, been given it by Colin Sonnet, Petra’s ancestor. It had given me protection for so long that I really took it for granted.
But now, as I looked down at it, I saw that it was glowing a dull red. It had never done that. I looked back over my shoulder at the oncoming Maladons.
It was clear.
They can see me!
Then I thought back to the creature before the fire – who I had thought was my brother, John. It had touched my finger.
No, it had touched my ring. And somehow disabled my power.
Another spell struck, and Harry Two howled.
I looked down at him as he hung limply from the harness.
‘Harry Two. No!’
At the same instant, I felt the very air around me harden, just like it had done back at Maladon Castle.
This must mean Necro was somewhere nearby. I was unafraid of Endemen because I had bested him before. But Necro was a different matter altogether.
I knew that he would kill me.
I found it harder and harder to breathe.
I felt my body growing limp.
So this is how it is going to end.
I stroked the limp Harry Two’s ear.
I’m sorry, Harry Two. I’m so sorry for being so bloody stupid.
I could no longer stay in the air. I felt myself flip over, and then I was in a long, steep dive.
I would soon hit the ground. And that would be that.
I closed my eyes and said my goodbyes.
Goodbye, Delph. Please forgive me for leaving you. Do your best. Goodbye, Petra. Take care of Delph. And beat the Maladons to dust. Goodbye . . .
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the streak of light heading my way.
I knew that this had to be a killing spell. They were taking no chances.
I braced myself for impact.
It struck me.
And I was gone.
9
HER, FINALLY
The sense of falling this time was beyond anything I had ever felt. Even when I was first learning to fly with Destin and had my share of hard encounters with the dirt after tumbling from lofty heights.
I landed – but there was no hard collision with the ground.
I opened my eyes and looked around.
I felt Harry Two’s body lying on top of me.
‘Harry Two!’
He just hung limply in his harness.
A hand passed in front of me, reached out to my dog and rubbed his fur.
I looked wildly around to see who it could be. But it was dark; all I could glimpse was a silhouette.
‘Who are—’ I flinched when I saw a wand tip appear and tap the spot where the hand had touched my dog.
I was about to pull my wand, when I felt something. I felt something absolutely wonderful.
Harry Two was moving. I could feel his heartbeat against my chest.
‘Harry Two! You’re alive!’
He licked my face, and I hugged him.
And then every single part of me froze as if I had been struck by the Paralycto spell.
‘M . . . Mum?’
My mother, Helen Jane, was staring back at me as she slowly lowered her wand.
I had not seen her for over three years. She looked like she had aged twenty. I barely recognized her. Yet it was my mother.
Her fingers graced my cheek.
‘Vega, thank the Steeples that you are unharmed.’
I sat up and unbuckled Harry Two.
Then I stood on shaky legs, held out my arms and hugged my mother so tightly I thought we might both burst.
I felt her thin, strong arms hug me back. I buried my nose in her hair and breathed in her scent. I started to sob. She did too. We both stood there shaking together for I don’t know how long.
When we drew apart, I took her in fully, as she did me. ‘You saved my life,’ I said. I looked at her wand. ‘The Rejoinda spell?’
She gave a teary smile and nodded. ‘Slightly modified. It was born of necessity,’ she added.
‘Someone told me all magic is born from that.’
Then I asked the question I barely dared ask.
‘Where’s Dad?’
Her smile faded. ‘Come. I will take you to him. It’s not far.’
She held out her hand, which I took. I was now taller and physically stronger than her. But it was as though I was once more a little girl reaching out for her mother to guide her.
I glanced at the back of her hand and saw the mark of the three hooks.
‘The Maladons can track you that way,’ I warned.
‘They can no more,’ she said. ‘We turned the link upon itself, so that the trace creates a confusion incantation only in a Maladon. That allows us to take distinct advantage. It was your father who thought of it.’
‘That is quite clever,’ I said admiringly, thinking that my grandfather Virgil had done something very similar to overcome the challenges of his mark.
Harry Two trailed behind us.
‘How did you save Harry Two?’ I asked. ‘I have a magical healing stone, but I had no chance to use it.’
‘Healing herbs paired with a bit of magic did the trick,’ she said. ‘Where separately they would have failed.’
‘Was that also born out of necessity?’
‘Everything here is, Vega. Everything.’
‘So, is Dad OK?’
She looked ahead. ‘Let’s just wait until we get there, Vega.’
I did not take any comfort from that.
‘How did you know I was near?’ I asked.
‘Crystilado magnifica,’ she replied. ‘The Maladons keep coming back to this area, so I maintain a constant watch. I saw them appear earlier. They went to that cottage and did something to the old woman who lives there. Then I saw the Bowler Hats show up. They only come when something significant is about to happen. So I kept watching.’ Her hand twitched inside mine. ‘That’s when I saw you in peril.’ She paused. ‘He is nearby.’
‘You mean Necro?’ I said. ‘I did not think he ever left Maladon Castle.’
‘I didn’t think that he did either,’ she said. ‘But he is near.’
I glanced around. ‘Shouldn’t we be prepared for the Maladons to follow us?’
‘I have taken precautions,’ she said. ‘We are safe, for now.’
‘Even against Necro?’
‘Powerful as he is, he is not infallible,’ she replied in a firm tone. This boosted my spirits considerably.
I squeezed her hand, not believing my good fortune at having been reunited with her at last.
‘I have been looking for you and Dad,’ I said. ‘Ever since you left Wormwood.’
I hesitated as anger swelled up inside me. I quickly pushed it back down. Now was not the time to bring up my parents abandoning me and my brother back in Wormwood. I’m sure there was a good explanation.
‘We have been looking for Virgil,’ she said. ‘We had no idea that you were here, Vega. I was never more stunned in my life than when I saw you tonight.’
I nodded and said in a shaky voice, ‘Virgil is dead. Killed by Necro.’
My mother stopped walking and simply stood there staring out into the darkness. I felt the pulse in her wrist start to race.
‘Virgil is dead?’
‘Yes. He told me he was never able to find you.’
She started walking again and pulled me along. We reached a small hill and she stopped.
Down below, there was a little glen, but that was all. ‘Is Dad somewhere around here?’
She nodded.
She waved her wand, and the air in front of us seemed to shimmer. We passed through what felt like a barrier.
‘Boundary incantations,’ explained my mother.
Revealed in front of us was a small shack with a curl of smoke escaping from its stone chimney.
She moved her wand again, and the door opened.
She walked through and beckoned me to follow.
I did so.
And screamed.
10
A FRIEND IN NEED
I don’t really remember the return journey to Empyrean. I know that my feet hit the front steps. I know that my wand opened the door. I know that we were greeted by Delph, Petra, Astrea and many others. That my mother was ushered inside.
And all the while I carried in my arms, and wrapped in a blanket, my father.
Dropping my cloak on the floor and telling the others I would explain fully later, I took him and my mother to an upstairs bedroom. Together, we laid my father on the bed and looked down at him.
He was still my father. But the light had gone out of him so horribly that he seemed barely alive. His eyes looked past me dully. He was a wraith, feather-light, insubstantial. It was him, but . . . not him, at the same time.
‘What happened?’ I gasped.
My mother sat on the side of the bed and gently rubbed her husband’s forehead with her hand.
‘We were surprised by a group of Maladons. We fought our way clear, but as we were escaping, two Maladons sent spells at us. Before they hit your father, they collided and their mingled magic struck him.’ She cast her gaze down at the unseeing figure on the bed. ‘And this was the result.’
‘When did it happen?’
‘Two months ago.’ She shook her head in misery. ‘I have tried everything I could think of to bring your father back, but nothing has worked. At least he is still alive. Which gives us a chance of restoring him to what he was.’
I had a sudden thought. I took the Adder Stone from my pocket.
I waved it over my father and thought absolutely good thoughts. And though we both stared at him anxiously, absolutely nothing happened.
‘It was a worthy try, Vega.’
I nodded and put the Stone back in my pocket.
My mother looked around in wonder. ‘What a beautiful place this is.’
I had explained Empyrean to her on the journey. But it was like she only now believed it to be true.
‘You are safe here,’ I said. ‘Both of you. And we will do whatever we can to try and bring Dad back to what he was.’
She nodded, but said nothing.
I studied my mother more closely. After losing her so long ago, and after searching for her ever since, it was unfathomable to me that she was here, sitting on a bed in Empyrean. It was almost as if we had never been apart.
My mind wandered back to the days in Wormwood. John was still a child, and I was not yet ten. We had a good life.
I had not yet started work. I still went to Learning back then, and my parents would walk us there every morning and return in the evening to take us home. My fingers would interlace with either my mother’s or my father’s. They would ask what we had learned that day, and I would do the answering. My brother, painfully shy, would simply stare at his large feet and nibble on whatever snack our parents had brought us. I would rail against what we were being taught, or rather what we were not being taught, for even back then I was suspicious that much about our history was being kept from us.
My mother would listen carefully, while my father would snatch anxious glances at the both of us. She could have told me to stop asking such questions, but she never did. Instead, she had said, ‘Keep raising your hand and keep asking, Vega. That is the only way you will ever get answers.’
And I had. Right up until the time they kicked me out.
We would spend the evening cooking our last meal of the day together in the tiny kitchen, which, back then, seemed as big as Empyrean’s to me. My mother was a fine cook, and, though we hadn’t much in the way of coin to buy the food they sold on the high street, we ate very well indeed.
And then our happiness had been blasted away when my parents were struck down by a curse from Morrigone and placed in the Care.
I leaned into her. ‘Mother, it’s so good to have you back. I can’t believe you’re really here.’
My mother smiled at me. ‘I can hardly believe it either, Vega, my dear, sweet child. Though you are clearly no longer a child. You are a woman.’ She looked me over. ‘And if I had to hazard a guess, you have grown into a fine sorceress and warrior.’
‘I’ve had my share of battles.’
‘Who leads you?’ she asked.
I took a breath. ‘I am the leader,’ I said.
She looked at me, clearly surprised. ‘Indeed?’
I felt my face redden. Had she supposed a man was in charge?
‘Yes. I fought my way across the Quag with Delph and my dog, Harry Two, after escaping from Wormwood. Then I fought my way through this place. I have personally killed over a hundred Maladons,’ I added for good measure.
She looked at me, shocked and disbelieving. ‘Over a hundred Maladons?’ Then she smiled. ‘Your grandfather always said that you were special, Vega. That you would do great things.’
I didn’t smile. Virgil had never told me that.
‘My holy Steeples,’ she cried out. ‘I must be losing my mind. Where is John? Did he come with you into the Quag? Or is he still back in Wormwood?’
I stood there frozen as she looked up at me.
‘Is . . . is John not here, then?’
I shook my head. ‘No, he’s not.’
I saw the light go out in my mother’s eyes. ‘Is . . . he . . . ?’
‘He’s not dead. At least not that I know.’ I sat down on the bed and took her hand in mine.
‘I have been back to Wormwood,’ I said. ‘It no longer exists. The Maladons were able to pierce the Quag, reach Wormwood and destroy it. They killed all. Thansius died in my arms. They had left him behind half-dead and blind to dig the graves.’
She swallowed. ‘But you said John was not dead.’
‘There was no grave for John,’ I replied. ‘I have no proof of this, but I believe . . . I believe the Maladons took him.’
She shuddered and looked like she might be sick. ‘But why?’ she exclaimed.
‘John is exceptionally bright,’ I began. And then I plunged in and told her how Morrigone had taken John under her wing. How he had helped design the wall to keep us in.
‘He found that dark magic fascinating. He had changed, Mum, by the time I left. John was still in there somewhere, but so were many other things in him too. Things I did not recognize.’
She withdrew her hand from mine and looked away from me.
‘And so you just left your brother in the clutches of that . . . woman?’ she said coldly.
My jaw slackened. ‘There was nothing I could do. It would have been impossible for me to have taken John.’
‘I saw Delph downstairs. You managed to bring him. But not your brother? Your own flesh and blood.’
Hurt, anger and guilt warred within me. ‘We were very nearly all killed as it was when we fled Wormwood,’ I said at last. ‘Since that time, we have been nearly killed dozens of times. John would never have survived.’
She looked at me, with an expression I had never thought to see on my mother’s face. It was bitter and angry.
She snapped, ‘You can’t possibly know that. And better death for him than to be in the hands of the accursed Maladons.’
My mother didn’t understand, despite my words, what John had become. He was no longer an innocent little boy. He had grown into someone I didn’t recognize. Someone, dare I even think it, who could choose the side of the Maladons over us.
‘How long have they had him?’ she said, still looking at me with a face full of fury and betrayal.
‘Two years, possibly.’
I saw her demonstrably tremble at my answer. ‘My . . . poor . . . son,’ she said, her words coming out in long gasps.
I tried to get my emotions under control but only half succeeded. ‘You must be hungry. I will have food brought up. You can wash and rest.’ I looked at my father. ‘What nourishment does he require?’ I asked lamely.
‘He will share mine, thank you,’ she said coldly.
She turned away from me. It was as though she was a complete stranger.
The fate of John had driven a block of granite directly between us.
I had dreamed many times of finding my parents. Not once had I ever imagined this.
I left without another word and fled to my room down the hall. I slammed the door shut, threw myself on the floor and lay there sobbing and quaking for how long I wasn’t sure.
When I finally sat up, I was drained. My limbs were weak, my thoughts muddled and my spirits crushed.
There came a knock on the door.
I closed my eyes and said nothing in response. I just wanted whoever it was to go away.
‘Vega Jane?’
It was Delph, and I did not want to talk to him or even see him.
‘Not now, Delph. Please. I just need to be by myself for a bit, OK?’
Several minutes of silence were followed by another tapping on the door.
‘Delph, please, just go away.’
‘It’s not Delph. It’s Petra.’
I shook my head in frustration. ‘What is it, Petra?’
‘I heard, Vega. I heard what was said.’
I slowly got to my feet, crossed the room and yanked open the door.
‘You heard what precisely?’ I snapped.
‘I think this might be done better in private,’ she replied quietly.
I glanced down the hall to see several people staring at us. I stood back and let her pass. Then I shut the door and faced her.
‘So, you were spying on us?’ I said accusingly.
‘No, I came to your room to bring you this.’
She held up the Elemental. ‘It was in your cloak. You left it on the floor of the hall.’
I blinked and took it from her.
‘Thank you. But that doesn’t explain how you heard my mother and me speaking.’
Surprisingly, she pointed to my wand. ‘I don’t know how it worked, Vega, but I heard everything through your wand.’
