Gabriel Finley and the Raven’s Riddle (38 page)

This should have been a moment for despair. All seemed lost. Everything Gabriel had set out to do had failed. The demon had won. Yet Gabriel felt a surge of confidence. Had the staff delivered an extra helping of self-assurance before it left him?

He turned to Abby, Pamela, and Somes. There was an intense look of admiration and loyalty on their faces. He couldn't have made it this far without their help. And now, well, he felt stronger, just looking at them. They all knew that this demon had to be stopped. In that moment, he realized what he had to do.

For Gabriel, it felt like the task he had been practicing for his whole life.

“I challenge you to a duel!” he cried.

The Duel

C
orax's mouth opened in disbelief. His cold round eyes darted about the room for the robin, who had disappeared suddenly.

“A duel? There's no such thing!”

“Oh, yes,” Gabriel replied, “I can demand a duel.”

Corax looked at the other children. They stared back defiantly; even Somes, dabbing his shirtsleeve to the wound on his cheek, picked up his glasses and gave a thumbs-up to Gabriel.

The demon sneered. “Another of your childish pranks, I suppose?”

Ignoring Gabriel, he walked over to the window, shook the staff, and issued his first wish.

“I want my citadel back the way it was!”

Nothing happened.

There was no glow from the torc. No thunder. Not a sound.

Confused, Corax repeated his wish, but the torc didn't even flicker.

“It won't serve you,” Gabriel explained. “If I challenge you
to a duel, you must accept. When one of us fails to guess the other's riddle, the winner takes the torc and the loser …” Gabriel's lips trembled as he tried to finish his sentence. “The loser dies.”

Something fluttered frantically to one of the windows. The robin was desperately throwing itself at the shutters, trying to escape.

“You!” Corax pointed a finger at the tattletale robin. “Is this true?”

The robin trembled. Its beady little black eyes darted from Corax to Gabriel and back to Corax. Then it uttered an indignant chirp.

“Useless bird!” murmured Corax, throwing the staff to the ground. “Very well, Nephew, you'll have your duel!”

Somes attempted to pick up the staff, but Corax placed his foot upon it.

There was not a sound in the room as Gabriel prepared his first riddle. Corax waited, flexing his enormous wings impatiently.

Corax narrowed his eyes. He turned to the children, as if expecting that the answer would appear on one of their faces.
Somes quickly looked down, Pamela stared at her shoes, and Abby removed her glasses.

“Something that breaks, something that rises, but never falls.” A sneer formed on his mouth. “Quite simple. That would be the
dawn
!”

The children looked disappointed. Abby replaced her glasses and gave Gabriel a determined smile that said
Don't give up!

Gabriel took a deep breath.

The demon paced for a moment; then, peering out the window, he spoke:

Being careful not to look at Corax, Gabriel repeated the lines in his head.
Without me, time's a mystery.
So it had to do with time.
A baby hasn't much of me.
Could it be a lifetime? But a baby has a lifetime ahead, while an old man has very little that remains. It must be something to do with age.
Old men consult me endlessly.
Well, it couldn't be memory, because anybody can be forgetful. On the other hand, time would be a mystery without the past, present, and future. And babies have almost no past because they've just been born!

“Got it!” said Gabriel. “It's the past!”

The demon arched his wings, then lowered them in obvious disgust.

“Proceed,” he said.

The sneer on Corax's lips promised that Gabriel's next question would be infinitely harder. Gabriel looked at Abby. She nodded at him as if to say that this one had to be his best.

Gabriel suddenly remembered something Abby had said before.
Valravens can't laugh.

It should be something funny.

Of course
, he thought.
It must be something very funny. Something ridiculous!

“Are you ready?” asked the demon impatiently.

“Okay, I'm ready,” said Gabriel. “What do you call a country where everybody drives a pink automobile?”

The demon frowned and began pacing about the chamber.

“Everybody drives a pink automobile? It doesn't make sense? Why would they …”

Minutes ticked by as the demon kept flexing his wings with frustration. Again, he peered at the faces of the children, trying to find the answer. Finally, he scoffed at Gabriel.

“There's no name for such a place!”

“Of course there is,” Gabriel replied. “It's a pun.”

“A pun …” Corax shook his head. “There is no answer!”

“Yes,” replied Gabriel. “A pink carnation!”

“Pink carnation?”
repeated the demon.

“A
pink car
nation,” said Gabriel.

Zing!
The staff flew to his fingers.

Without wasting any time, Gabriel made his wish. It was a simple and sublime wish, a wish that didn't require him to separate his friends from a storm of valravens, and most of all, a wish that served others rather than himself. This was why he knew it would work.

In that instant, a comforting amber glow surrounded Abby, Pamela, and Somes.

“What's happening, Gabriel?” Abby cried. “What did you wish?”

“I'm sending you all back safely!” he cried.

“But what about you? How are you going to get home?”

“Best not to use a wish on myself,” he said. “I'll paravolate back with Paladin!”

“Gabriel, I'm sure it's okay if you—” cried Pamela, but she didn't finish her sentence because all three of them vanished in a sudden flash.

The demon stared blankly at the boy and his raven, for although he had lost the torc, he was still standing, intact.

I thought the loser was supposed to die!
said Paladin.

That's what my father said
, Gabriel replied.
Unless … if one is a valraven, doomed to live forever, there's really no such thing as dying.

It was a good guess. Corax seemed utterly unaffected by his defeat. His wings beat the air with malicious intensity as he advanced on the boy.

“Congratulations on your
victory.
”

Gabriel raised the staff—he remembered its power against valravens.

“You wouldn't do such a thing to your … uncle, would you?”

It should have been easy for Gabriel to point the staff and watch him go
pop!
like every other valraven, but he couldn't. How could he kill his own uncle?

Corax gloated over the boy's hesitation. “What a pathetic hero you've turned out to be.”

Boldly, Corax reached forward, tearing the silver necklace from its place on the staff. Then he put the torc on his neck, just as Septimus had, and he made a wish.

“May the torc be
my
body! May its magic be
my
magic! May its power be
my
power!”

Nothing happened for a moment. Then Gabriel noticed something odd about the two ravens' heads at the ends of the necklace. Their eyes began to glow red. And as those little red eyes glowed, Corax began to tremble, then scream. He reached up to the necklace, clawing at it—but to no avail, for the torc remained, fused to his skin. Corax began weeping. Piteous, agonized tears rolled down his cheeks, as if his body was going through some horrible invisible transformation.

Then, quite suddenly, the cries stopped. Corax had vanished. The torc clattered to the floor.

“What happened?” asked Paladin, looking around. “Where is he?”

Gabriel looked at the necklace. The eyes of the raven heads had dimmed again, but he felt leery about picking it up. The dwarfs were right. It was more of a curse than a blessing.

“Wow,” said Gabriel. “I think Corax expected the magic to enter him, but instead, he entered the torc. Do you think that's possible?”

Paladin shook his neck feathers. “All I know is, good riddance!”

At that moment something flew over from its hiding place at the shutters. It was Snitcher the robin. Seeing that the boy hadn't picked up the torc, the robin approached it, examining it carefully from every angle. His black eyes darted at Gabriel, then Paladin; then, without waiting another second, he bowed to the necklace, which flopped conveniently onto his neck and shrank to exactly the right size.

“Wait!” Gabriel shouted to the bird.

Ignoring his warning with a triumphant chirp, the robin flew off through the open window with his prize.

“What a stupid bird,” said Paladin. “Even a half-wit would think twice after seeing what just happened!”

“The dwarfs were right. Nobody can resist a wish,” said Gabriel. “We'd better go after him. The torc belongs back on the staff.”

The collapse of the tower had propelled dust in every direction. Thick columns of debris filled the staircase. Uttering
a chirp to light its way, the robin weaved through the murky shaft like a spark going up a chimney.

Coughing and gasping as one, Gabriel and Paladin flew blindly after Snitcher. It was a perilous chase in the dark, but the little bird shot ahead with reckless determination.

Eventually, the air in the shaft began to smell fresh and clear. Paladin glimpsed a rectangular opening ahead with a bright, starlit sky. Above them, the gate of the mausoleum hung wide open—a signal, perhaps, that Corax's power over it was gone.

They burst out, seizing every clear breath of cool wintry air with a great sense of relief. Alighting on a patch of frosty grass, Gabriel and Paladin jumped apart and peered past the frosty cemetery stones to see the dim shapes of birds who had escaped Aviopolis. A bustard fluffed his feathers on the ground nearby. Three guinea fowl were cooing bitterly on a tree limb. A fat white ptarmigan dusted herself off as she uttered an embarrassed apology to no one in particular.

Gabriel's thoughts turned to his father. He wondered if he had survived the long walk up the staircase.

As if in answer to his concern, a man's voice called from behind.

“Gabriel!”

The Homecoming