Chapter Thirteen
He figured after such a major, land-altering spell that he might feel a little worn out or drained in some way, but besides his usual drive to nap at all times and in all circumstances, he felt normal.
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“What a terrible nightmare,” James grumbled, rolling over onto a rock and groaning. If he had to sleep on the hard ground one more time, he’d have to take drastic measures. Like finding a spell to turn the entire earth into a soft, spongy surface. Come to think of it, that would probably make walking easier too, although Greenie might end up sinking.
Oh well.
The rest of his companions were still asleep, all except Gabriel, who was tending to a small fire and roasting what looked like nuts and greenery. James had yet to see Gabriel sleep once. Maybe the young man didn’t need to. Sure, hypothetically he slept at night too, but James was feeling wary, given that the handsome youth was always awake when he was.
“Are you okay, Just James?” Gabriel asked.
“Why would you ask that?” James said gruffly. “And… could you help me up?” James had been trying and failing to shift from a lying position to a sitting position, his long beard getting tangled in his robes, which were tangled around his legs. The only thing still in place was his crooked hat.
“Of course!” Gabriel removed his forest breakfast from the small flames and then rushed over, taking James’ hands and pulling him up with so much strength that James flew to a standing position, his long white beard whipping the young farmer in the face and knocking aside the crooked hat. Gabriel, unperturbed, easily snatched up the free-falling hat and gently placed it back on James’ head.
“Umm… I guess I should have expected that,” James said faintly.
“Did you have a nightmare?” the young man asked. Somehow he had magicked himself back to the fire and was cooking the plants and nuts once more, whistling a little tune as though he’d been there the whole time.
“Of course not,” James deflected. “Wizards don’t even need to sleep. They just meditate from time to time.”
“And how does the snoring help you meditate?” Day said smugly. James whipped his head around. He hadn’t even noticed the young woman stirring, and now she was behind him sitting cross-legged on the ground, nonchalantly juggling more than ten small stones she’d found on the ground.
“Are you a wizard?” James tilted his crooked hat over his face slightly, hoping it gave him a more mystical look.
“Afraid not,” she grinned. “Just a humble juggler, oh mighty snorer.”
“I should use some unfortunate spell on you for those kind of comments,” James said, rolling up his long satin sleeves as though preparing to cast a powerful incantation on the unbeliever.
“When you do, go ahead and take my hearing. Then maybe I’ll be able to sleep through the night without hearing the deafening roars that accompany your ‘meditating.’”
James was tempted to growl at the dark-haired woman, but Gabriel spoke up, interrupting their intense debate.
“You were muttering about someone named Lander and Bel.”
“You must have misheard. I’m sure it was Sander and Mel,” James lied.
“Isn’t Lander the name of the Crimson King?” Gabriel pointed out.
“It is,” Day affirmed.
James stood in silence. Now that he thought back on previous conversations with Gabriel and the discussion he’d eavesdropped on between Night and Day, they had both mentioned that the Crimson King’s name was Lander.
Definitely a coincidence. Lander was a common enough… not the rarest name in the world.
“And the name of the Queen of Life is Bel,” Night said, materializing beside his sister.
“Let’s pack up and get going,” James said abruptly, bending down with only a couple of creaks and hefting his small pack onto his shoulder. Without waiting to see if his three companions were coming, he shuffled rapidly, almost walking over to Greenie. Thankfully, the cow-dragon had been resting in the grass and was just now getting back on her feet. Before the creature had time to shift from her knees to her feet, James was clambering over her back and only teetering a little bit before nudging Greenie forward.
“Do you know where you’re going?” Night called in the wizard’s direction.
“Northeast,” James said curtly. The cow-dragon wasn’t the fastest mode of transportation, but she was consistent and faster than James. They’d been wasting too much time. From what James had observed when everyone had been discussing the map and their next move the night before, the fastest route was easily the Teeth Mountains, or whatever they were called—at least they would have been the best route if they were flat.
But James had fallen into the role of a wizard, and even if he couldn’t fly around and teleport things like sloppy Harold probably had, he could at least come up with something to get over or under or through the mountains and to the king’s posh rock mansion.
It was personal now. Maybe.
“Doesn’t necessarily mean anything that her name is Bel. Could be short for Belladonna or Belinda or Belle. Yeah, that could easily be the case, no need to panic,” he muttered to himself as he squinted in the distance and picked out the vague outlines of the pointy mountains.
Gabriel, Night, and Day just stared at the distracted old man as he rode off on his chubby dragon, muttering to himself and flipping through his spell book.
“What’s gotten into him?” Day asked, abruptly tossing her juggling rocks on the ground and getting up. Her brother was stuffing his belongings, which looked like they had exploded out of his bag the night before onto every available surface, back into his bulging bag. Gabriel, naturally, was already packed and quickly putting out his small fire and eating his roasted food as fast as possible in preparation to follow the blue-robed wizard.
“I think he might have had a vision of the Crimson King and Green Queen,” Gabriel said reverently.
“It kind of seemed like he knew them,” Day noted. She was still cleaning up her bedroll, and her brother didn’t look like he’d be ready to go for the next thirty minutes, which was a generous estimate.
“A powerful man like Just James undoubtedly has many impressive connections,” Night agreed with a nod before stuffing several black shirts and pants that had been hanging from a tree branch into his bag. It was already ready to burst, and he hadn’t packed half of his belongings yet.
“I’ll go see if I can be of assistance,” Gabriel said before sprinting off in the direction James had gone. Greenie was deceptively fast when she wanted to be. Maybe she’d spotted a greener bit of grass further north.
“We’ll be behind you,” Day grunted. She gently cuffed her brother on the head before grabbing his bag and dumping the contents on the ground, clearly with the intent of packing the bag better so Night could bring his many, many belongings with them.
“Don’t know why you didn’t go ahead and pack the farm while you were at it,” she grumbled.
“Great idea! I would have tried, but we were running short on time, and I thought Mom and Dad…”
***
“Just James! Just James, could you slow down a little? High Wizard?”
James heard Gabriel behind him but didn’t bother telling Greenie to slow down. She was moving at a fast clip for once, and he wouldn’t look a gift horse—cow—in the mouth. Besides, Gabriel would easily catch up with them, even if James was riding a beautiful white stallion, or broomstick, or whatever wizards were using for transportation these days.
“The quest calls,” James called back absentmindedly. He had been rapidly searching through his tome of mysteries since he and Greenie had started toward the mountains, determined to find the perfect spell to aid him in crossing the sharp, jagged peaks.
“Ohh,” Gabriel said. He sounded closer now, and when James glanced at his side he saw the handsome blond man easily keeping pace with the cow-dragon. He didn’t even seem winded, which James found offensive.
“Will we not be traveling through the swamp then?”
“Nope. Not through it, under it, over it, or any other variation I might have missed. The Green Queen has been missing long enough. We can’t afford any delays.”
“And traveling through the Dragon’s Spines will be faster?”
“Is that what they’ve named these mountains? I think I still prefer Teeth Mountains. I’m honestly shocked they didn’t just name the mountains The Mountains.”
“That’s the name of the mountain range to the far east,” Gabriel supplied helpfully.
“Glorious.” James still hadn’t found a single spell that looked like it would help his cause at all. There were countless spells that seemed to be about cleaning and organizing, which he found terribly ironic. Spells on dealing with dragons, ogres, goblins, even ants and wasps, but nothing that looked useful for crossing the Dragon’s Spines.
However, after looking through so many spells consecutively, James was starting to pick up patterns. Every spell rhymed and seemed unnecessarily wordy at times. Maybe Harold had been an aspiring poet.
One thing was obvious: he had not used the fifty-odd spells dedicated solely to cleanliness.
Maybe James could invent his own spell. Normally even mentally voicing the idea would have made him shudder. Even if he was successful, James did not know how to rhyme. He’d failed the simple rhyming writing assignment in first grade and had never emotionally recovered.
But Bel… the Green Queen was in trouble. Probably. Time was of the essence.
Greenie stopped abruptly, dropping her head into a patch of only slightly yellow grass with gusto. The Dragon’s Spine towered above them, and up this close, the thin, sharp peaks did look like the spines of a dragon. They were even the color of bone.
“… and then I thought, going under a swamp didn’t really make sense in the first place…”
James closed his eyes and started wracking his mind for any words that rhymed.
Cat and bat. And hat. Sat. Mat. Did I already say cat?
But none of those words would help him get past the mountains, unless the “cat” in question turned into a massive bat they could all sit on and ride over the towering peaks.
Even if that worked, James would be humiliated for coming up with something so dumb. Nope, he’d have to come up with something else.
“What rhymes with mountain?” he asked himself out loud.
“… but don’t worry, I haven’t gotten injured in five years, and I never would have broken my finger if that cow hadn’t been so eager to…”
“Twin? No, that’s not quite right.”
“Fountain rhymes with mountain,” Gabriel said, eager to contribute to James’ plan in whatever way possible.
“That wouldn’t work… at least, I don’t want to imagine what would happen if the fountain ended up throwing us in the air and tossing us directly into the spikes…”
What other words also meant mountain? Peaks, really tall hills, cliffs, bluffs, alps, mesa, range…
Perfect.
“Are you ready for some magic, Gabriel?”
“Certainly, Just James!” The young man looked like a small child at Christmas, his blue eyes shining with anticipation, golden hair shimmering in the early-morning light.
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“You weren’t planning on flying off without us, were you?” Day asked dryly from behind them. Her formfitting black clothing was immaculate, as well as her white cloak, and she was studying her fingernails in a show of boredom.
“Yeah… Just James! We… we’re here now too,” Night huffed. It seemed as though he’d added fifteen additional pounds to his massive bag since the night before, and he was panting as he struggled to escape the straps and set the pack down.
“A little quiet please, I’m trying to concentrate,” James murmured, eyes still shut. It’s not like he needed to look at the intimidating mountains sprawled in front of him and almost touching the clouds drifting above their heads.
Taking a deep breath, he opened his eyes and gripped his walking stick—mostly out of comfort, although given that the general population was convinced the long shaft of wood was a staff, he guessed it completed the look.
Then he spoke.
“In front of us is a large mountain range.
It’s… ummm… strange.
It is also sharp and pointy right now,
Which will not work for my dragon-cow.
So instead of spikes that probably hurt,
Turn the mountains to… uhh… dirt.”
Once again, his voice boomed forth like a sports announcer. Even Day looked impressed—if not with his pathetic rhymes, at least with his loud, commanding voice.
James waited, tempted to close his eyes again. If the spell didn’t work, he would have humiliated himself for nothing.
Everyone present would know James was still at a first-grade rhyming level.
After several long, prolonged moments passed, Day smirked and crossed her arms over her chest.
“I have to say, you might have fooled...”
She never got to finish her sentence. Maybe due to the fact that roughly 15,000 feet of mountain was shifting from immovable stone to dust. Hundreds of tons of dust.
She doubled over, coughing, as the mountain range crumbled into powder with a tremendous whooshing sound, like a sandstorm or tornado.
James would have happily rubbed his victory in her face, but he was busy hacking and spluttering, pulling his crooked hat over his face as much as possible in a vain attempt to block out the apocalyptic dust storm cascading over them.
He had done it. Well, at least he hoped so. It was impossible to see anything right now, but unless he was imagining things, the mountains had actually turned to dirt.
The beginnings of a terribly mischievous grin formed on James’ face.
Practicing his rhyming was now at the top of his list. Right under taking a well-deserved nap.
***
Gabriel and Night were staring at the map, their heads huddled close together as they argued about how to address their most recent dilemma. James had, miraculously, transformed the mountains into dirt—adding to the environmental problem En was suffering from, but at this point James was confident it couldn’t get any dustier.
Once Day had managed to cough enough dirt and dust out of her lungs to speak, she had glowered at James but kept her peace. Probably worried James actually wasn’t a wizard fraud.
Which was honestly news to both her and James himself.
She’d stomped off ahead of them at a breakneck pace, occasionally fingering her once-white cloak in horror.
It was mostly brown now, which likely had at least a little to do with James’ uncontrollable wizardly power.
Oops.
Out of all of them, the only person who hadn’t suffered from the colossal dirt attack had been Gabriel. Not a hair out of place, not a single smudge of dirt across his chiseled jaw or dirtying his vibrant red-and-gold tunic. James was too used to Gabriel’s magic powers of cleanliness to be fazed at this point, but Day was clearly fuming about it.
Night was oblivious, looking around them in wonder as they crossed the now perfectly flat plain stretching out in front of them where the Dragon’s Spine had been five minutes before, his black hair now an exceedingly dusty brown.
They were currently standing before a major chasm that conveniently lacked a bridge of any kind. Jumping or swinging across was out of the question, especially with Greenie as part of their company. James didn’t think the dragon-cow could jump an inch, even in a life-or-death situation.
Gabriel and Night were both studying the map and throwing out ideas. Day was nowhere to be seen, but James figured she was sulking somewhere nearby. There was a tiny copse of trees to the east—she was probably there, desperately trying to restore her brilliant-white cloak to its former glory.
James was still in shock. He hadn’t thought the mountain would actually transform so easily or quickly. He didn’t feel any different, so maybe his magical abilities were more extensive than the talking cat at Beacon Tower had led him to believe. He figured after such a major, land-altering spell that he might feel a little worn out or drained in some way, but besides his usual drive to nap at all times and in all circumstances, he felt normal.
“If we want to reach the castle as soon as possible, it looks like we should go through the Deserts of…”
“I’m not sure going from seas of dirt to seas of sand is the best idea…”
“But we obviously can’t cross this chasm!”
“Well, do you think a running start…”
“… would result in death? Yep. Likely.”
“… I was worried about that.”
“Maybe we could ask Just…”
James, who had caught the end of Gabriel and Night’s deliberations, realized their concern and smiled widely when he remembered a certain spell he’d come across in his spell book earlier.
“I have a solution for the chasm, leave it to me,” he said confidently. He smacked at his blue robes in a half-hearted attempt to rid them of some of the dirt and dust before reaching for his tome of mysteries and flipping until he got to the page he was looking for.
“Are you sure you don’t need some time to meditate before you cast yet another magnificent spell, Just James?” Night asked the old man.
“We’re already extremely late for a garden party,” James said, rolling up his sleeves, a strange sensation of excitement swelling within him. Maybe this was how other people felt when they learned how to work something like the internet.
As shocking as it sounded to himself, James was actually looking forward to casting another spell. Besides, if it would get him to the queen faster….
“Shouldn’t we wait for Day?” Gabriel said.
“She’s close by, not to worry,” Night replied, rolling up the map and returning it to his pack.
The two young men looked at James expectantly. He was sitting perched on Greenie, who was licking the ground with a dejected look in her massive brown eyes. It didn’t seem like she was a fan of the dirty, dusty landscape around them. Thankfully, the earth on the other side of the chasm looked almost green. It was definitely the most lush area James had seen so far in all of En.
Feeling confident, James cleared his throat, pushed his beard out of the way of the spell book’s pages, and began to read.
“When you come across great holes in the land,
Take control of the danger at hand.
With axes, diligence, and time,
Forge a bridge of branches sublime.
Work as one, united and strong,
And you cannot go wrong.”
James’ voice died down like rolling thunder, and the two men looked around in excitement, waiting for something magical to happen.
Before they could ask James if the spell had worked, they found themselves walking in the direction of the copse of trees in perfect unison. When Gabriel tried to slow the pace, which wasn’t unbearably fast but insistent, he quickly realized his feet wouldn’t obey his intentions.
“Uhh, Just James…” Gabriel called, craning his neck back to catch sight of the wizard. He didn’t see James on Greenie and was confused until the old man responded from beside the young man.
“Right… here,” James panted. He was somehow keeping up with Night and Gabriel, which looked both comical and painful. He was still shuffling his feet, just at a much faster pace.
“Why aren’t you using Greenie?” Night asked, who was marching in time right next to the wizard and farmer.
“I… felt like stretching my legs,” James said lamely, hoping the two young men couldn’t read the expression of panic in his eyes.
The “bridge of branches” spell had looked perfect at the time. Working in a united capacity to get things done? Good. “Cannot go wrong”? That sounded good too. But James had realized, with a sinking feeling in his stomach, that the spell had interpreted “work as one” as a command and was guiding them accordingly, like puppets on strings.
That was likely the one reason James wasn’t currently face down in the dirt. He couldn’t fall over from the demanding pace because he wasn’t in control of his feet—or anything else, for that matter.
The trio quickly approached the woods, and as soon as they reached the trees Night started gathering broken branches methodically while Gabriel searched for large stones and started beating them together mechanically, somehow knowing exactly how to sharpen certain stones until they looked quite a bit like axe heads.
James was led to a pond in the middle of the trees, where Gabriel and Night soon joined him, the first carrying four sharpened stones, the second carrying four short, thick, sturdy branches.
“What… what’s going on?” Gabriel asked as his hands placed the four stones next to James, who was now sitting by the water. James’ own hands took one stone at a time and submerged them in the water briefly before returning them to their perch at the side of the pond.
“All part of the plan,” James said, just as bewildered as his companions, even though he now knew what was going on. Knowing the spell was controlling them was one thing. Believing it was something else entirely.
“Of course,” Night said as he handed James the four sturdy branches. “I… I didn’t know spells could control… umm, teach me new skills.”
“You didn’t think magic never involved hard work, did you?” James said as his hands reached for one of the branches and lined it up with the stone until the outline resembled an axe. When the wood and wet stone were touching, they heard a strange squelching sound. The three men were looking at the makeshift axe with wide eyes when Day suddenly appeared. She bent down and scooped up the axe before marching over to a tree and swinging at it with practiced precision.
“I’m pretty sure that’s not how you make axes in real life,” James mumbled.
“What’s happening to me!” Day shouted as she continued chopping the tree with measured strikes.
“James cast another spell,” Gabriel said helpfully as he scooped up the second axe James had magicked together and started on another tree nearby.
“I think we’re working together to build a bridge we can use to cross the chasm,” Night said, moving out of the way just in time to avoid Day’s tree from falling in his path. “But I’m not magic expert.” He was also wielding a homemade axe and getting into position to chop.
James looked down at the fourth axe he had somehow just created by touching a wet rock to a stick and sighed deeply.
How he wished his magic hands had only made three.
Day was now chopping her fallen tree into smaller pieces, every move expert and experienced, as though she’d been a lumberjack for the last twenty-odd years of life. Gabriel’s tree was falling, Night was halfway through his trunk, and James was staring at the tree in front of him in horror as his arms swung the axe, which bit into the wood. He watched in fascination and exhaustion as his body moved of its own accord, efficiently cutting down the tree and then making smaller pieces.
“I can’t believe that you would involve me in this hair-brained scheme,” Day was muttering under her breath in an intentionally loud voice as her body walked out of the copse of trees toward the open stretch of land in front of the chasm. She dropped mechanically to the dusty ground and started positioning her sticks, almost as if she was preparing to build a strange raft. The spell seemed to have designated Gabriel as the full-time tree chopper, and his muscles bulged as he chopped down four or five trees in quick succession. The pile of lumber next to him was kept in check by Night, who chopped the large trees into smaller pieces. That was where James came in. He took the pieces from the small forest over to Day, who continued to lay them out against her will. His joints were groaning and moaning, and James was tempted to join their sad song.
The spell couldn’t have taken pity on an old man. Why couldn’t I be the interior twig designer like Day?
He was just relieved to not have Gabriel’s job.
As the sun started to sink from its position high in the sky, the four busy lumberjacks continued to work without pause. At one point they formed a neat line and each took turns drinking water from the pond before returning to their various tasks. After two or three hours had passed, the four of them suddenly felt sleep calling them. In unison, Gabriel set down his axe and lay down on the grass, Night set down his tool and curled up next to his pile of wood, Day lay on her side and closed her eyes, and James found himself nodding off, his eyes closing as he leaned his back against a tree and pulled his hat over his eyes.
***
After their scheduled nap, which lasted precisely thirty minutes, the lumberjack crew resumed their tasks. Gabriel and Night seemed perfectly happy doing hours of forced manual labor and talked animatedly to each other as they worked. Day was mostly silent, concentrated on the task in front of her. James was doing his best not to yawn and drop his sticks before he made it to Day.
Before long, the spell decided Gabriel had cut a sufficient number of trees and the blond man joined Night until each of the trees were cut into smaller pieces. Once Night and Gabriel joined James in the task of moving the sticks over to Day, the entire process went much faster. Mostly because Gabriel and Night carried large armfuls of wood in their arms instead of the one or two pieces James could manage at the time.
“How are we going to get all these pieces to stay together?” Night asked as they dumped their final load of sticks in front of Day. She’d been working without pause, forming a rectangle out of the many individual pieces of wood that looked about five feet wide and maybe twenty feet long. It should easily clear the chasm, but Night had brought up a good point.
“All in good time,” James said vaguely. He had no idea what this horrible spell had in mind next. It would probably be something time-consuming and exhausting.
Suddenly, all four of them, including Day, marched off toward the woods. As one, they reached into their various packs and pulled out their waterskins. After filling them at the pond, they walked back to the branch bridge in unison.
“Let me guess,” Day said sarcastically as they all uncapped their water, “we’re going to pour this magic water on the wood and it’ll stick together.”
“Actually, you’re probably right,” James said, thinking back to his strange experience making the axes.
They each poured their water slowly over different sections of the sticks laid neatly next to each other. Sure enough, it looked like the water was somehow fusing the sticks together.
“This is going to take a while,” Night said, although his spirits didn’t seem dampened in the slightest.
“Magic has been quite an eye-opening experience for me. Thank you for giving us this opportunity to actively assist with one of your spells, Just James,” Gabriel said with a sincere smile on his handsome face.
Day huffed and blew a strand of her pitch-black hair out of her face as they walked back to the pond.
“One down. Only forty-nine trips to go,” she said dryly.