Magic Zero (19 page)

Nicodemus pulled his hands away from the box’s latch and turned to stare at the boy, ice in his eyes. “Did you speak with the oracle?”

Alastor continued to rub his furless body against the outside of the oracle’s case.

A tremor of nervousness went through Timothy. “Well, yes. Or, actually, it spoke to me. When I found it, the box was open—and it spoke.”

The Grandmaster narrowed his eyes as he digested this information. “How could it be? When you touched the box, the aura of negation that surrounds you should have disrupted—”

“It spoke to me before I touched it. And when I realized I was . . . affecting it, I stepped away,” he replied. “Have I done something wrong?”

The Grandmaster was about to answer when the box containing the Oracle of Vijaya sprang open, the locking mechanism triggered by the attentions of the Grandmaster’s familiar.

“Alastor!” Nicodemus snapped, startling the cat, which leaped down from the table to hide in a shadowy corner of the room.

The oracle’s eyes fluttered open, and a smile blossomed across its withered face as it saw Timothy from across the room.

“Hello there, Timothy Cade,” the oracle said cheerily as it began to look about its new surroundings. “I see you’ve succeeded in bringing me back to—”

The head stopped abruptly when its gaze fixed upon Nicodemus, who loomed above the box. The oracle’s eyelids became hooded and started to flutter, its mouth twitching, just as it had done before, in the Strychnos citadel. It was seeing the future.

The Grandmaster reached down to close the case just as the oracle’s eyes grew wide.

“What have you done, Nicodemus?” it cried, sheer horror in its voice. “What have you done?”

The old mage slammed the box shut, double-checking its latch. His movements were jittery, anxious, and Timothy felt his stomach churn and a chill go through him as he wondered what exactly it was that the oracle had seen.

“The Oracle of Vijaya has been in the possession of an opposing guild for far too long,” Lord Nicodemus said dismissively, but it was several moments before he looked Timothy in the eye. “It must be examined thoroughly before it can be allowed to divine for the Order of Alhazred again.”

Timothy slowly nodded, his misgivings over what he had heard at the tower again heightened. “Who knows what the Strychnine might have done to it?”

“Exactly, Timothy,” Nicodemus said, pushing the golden case of the oracle to the far side of the table. Alastor had emerged from the shadows and now mewled at his master’s feet.

“Well, you must be tired,” Nicodemus stated softly, stroking the head of his animal. “I suggest you return to your quarters for a well-deserved rest.”

“I am very tired,” Timothy lied, yawning. Fear and doubt were like a fire racing through his veins. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt
less
tired. It would have been impossible to sleep even if he had wanted to.

“Very good then,” Nicodemus said, escorting the boy to the door. “We’ll talk further in the morn, and discuss your next endeavor.” The Grandmaster smiled, pushing open the study door. “Good night, Timothy. You’ve served the Order of Alhazred greatly this night, and I’m sure your father would have been quite proud.”

As Timothy walked the dimly lit corridors of SkyHaven he became convinced that his father would not have been proud of him at all. In fact he was sure the man would have been quite disappointed.

His friends were waiting for him back in his workshop, so Timothy did not go straight back to his quarters as Nicodemus had suggested. Instead he began to descend through the floating island fortress to the only room in SkyHaven where he felt even remotely comfortable.

As he made his way through the lonely hallways, he began to feel as though he was being watched. The boy was certain that it was all just nerves brought on by his newly aroused suspicions about his benefactor, but he could not help but search every shadowy nook and cranny that he passed for a pair of spying eyes.

He descended the winding staircase that would take him to the room that Nicodemus had made his workshop, passing long, open windows that looked out onto the ocean that surrounded the floating estate. The storm had passed. If only the same could be said about the tumult in his life at the moment.

Timothy pushed open the wooden door to his workshop and stalked inside.

“So?” Edgar greeted. “Was the old bird impressed or what? Bet he’s going to name a street after you.”

Timothy didn’t reply. He was lost inside his head.

“Is something wrong, Tim?” Sheridan asked with concern. “Your rather cryptic words to Ivar before you left have certainly left all of us speculating.”

Timothy did not feel safe in SkyHaven anymore. No matter how hard he tried to convince himself that he was letting his imagination get the better of him, that he should get a good night’s sleep before doing anything rash, the ominous words of the guild masters kept intruding. He had been ready to dismiss them, but when he saw the oracle’s expression as it looked upon Nicodemus, he knew with absolute certainty that something was amiss.

He felt Sheridan’s metal hand fall gently upon his shoulder. “Timothy?”

The boy sighed. “Tonight I heard some things about Grandmaster Nicodemus—bad things—and I think they may be true.” A kind of relief washed over him now that he had voiced his fears, and yet speaking them aloud also gave them a new weight.

Ivar emerged from the shadows, arms crossed and eyes narrowed sagely. There was a strength and firmness in his manner, and Timothy took a deep breath and tried to draw on that, to learn from the Asura’s example.

Edgar fluttered down to perch atop Sheridan’s head, careful not to scald himself on the escaping steam. “Do you know what you’re saying, kid? This is Nicodemus you’re talking about.”

“I know what I heard—and saw, Edgar,” Timothy told his familiar. “I need to speak with Leander right away—he’ll know what to do.”

The rook was strangely silent, studying him with quick cocks of his pointy head. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“Very,” he answered.

“Then so am I,” Edgar responded. “Fill me in and I’ll fly to Leander’s house and—”

“No,” Timothy interrupted. He glanced over at Ivar, who nodded slowly in understanding. “I don’t think it’s safe for us here anymore,” the boy explained. “I . . . I’m afraid for you, my friends, even more than I am for myself. We should all go. Right now. Before Nicodemus decides he didn’t believe the answers I gave him about tonight.”

Timothy went to his flying machine, flipping the hatch open to check the engine and the fuel level. “We’ll use the gyro,” he said. “Dawn is just arriving. Maybe it will be a while before anyone notices that we’re gone.”

“You expect that contraption to carry all of us?” Sheridan asked as he shuffled across the stone floor toward his creator.

Timothy nodded, inspecting the inside of the gyrocraft. “Edgar can fly on his own, and if we’re careful, there should be just about enough room behind my seat for you and Ivar to squeeze—”

Sheridan shook his head from side to side, gears clicking, servos whining. “No, Timothy,” he said, a soft hiss of steam leaking from one of his valves.

“What do you mean, no?” the boy asked. “We have to leave.”

“I’m too heavy, and you know it. Pile me into your sky craft and it will crash into the surf within yards of your departure. You must go without me.”

The mechanical man’s words triggered a flurry of ideas. Sheridan was right; the gyrocraft would not support the weight of all of them, but with some adjustments, he thought he might be able to increase the craft’s power.

“I have an idea,” Timothy said, going to his workstation.

“You always do, my friend. But there is no time, Master Timothy,” Sheridan said. “If your suspicions are true, you need to reach Leander as soon as possible.”

“But I can’t—,” the boy began, horrified.

“You must,” Sheridan said with a curt nod of his head. “Come back for me later.”

“And so we have a plan,” Ivar noted quietly.

Edgar fluttered his wings, still perched on Sheridan’s metal head. “Not a plan that I like, mind you, but I don’t think we have much of a choice.”

The flesh of Ivar’s body undulated with symbols of stark
black, indicating his deep concern. “I will stay, and Sheridan will go,” he said with finality.

Sheridan walked over to the warrior, reaching out to touch his arm. “Thank you, my friend, but I would still be too heavy for the flight. No, it is decided.”

Timothy knew that Sheridan was right, but it pained him greatly. “I will come back for you,” he promised. “I’ll find a way.”

“I know you will,” Sheridan responded. “Now go on your way, so that you can return for me all the faster.”

Without another word Timothy leaned into the gyrocraft and flicked a switch to activate its engine. The machinery whirred to life, the blades atop the craft and the small wing propellers slowly beginning to spin. Ivar went to the vast window, unlatched the wooden shutters and threw them wide.

From the corner of his eye Timothy detected movement on the ledge outside the window. Something had been out there, watching them, listening to their conversation. He didn’t think himself quite so foolish about his paranoid feelings anymore. Ivar leaned out the window. He had seen it as well.

“It is the Grandmaster’s familiar,” he said over his shoulder as he pulled his knife from the scabbard at his side. “Depart quickly. I will deal with the creature before it can inform its master of our plans.”

The Asura sprang up onto the window ledge, but Edgar launched himself into the air. “Caw! Caw!” the bird cried
out, black wings flapping. “Get into the flying machine with the boy. I’m better designed for heights. I’ll take care of the snooping cat and catch up with you as soon as I’m done.”

Timothy watched as the rook darted out the window into the waning darkness. “Ivar, come on!”

The Asura nimbly leaped down from his perch on the sill and cautiously approached the gyro.

“Get in the back,” Timothy told him.

Ivar stared at the machine with wary eyes.

The boy reached out and grabbed the warrior roughly by the shoulder, giving him a shake. The Asura glared at him, but there was no time for subtlety. “Please, Ivar, you need to get in right now—we can’t afford to waste any more time.”

The Asura grumbled something beneath his breath in the guttural tongue of his people and slid his bulky frame into the space behind the pilot seat of the flying machine. Timothy climbed in and gripped the gyro’s controls.

Checking the instruments to be certain that everything was functioning properly, he spared one final glance at Sheridan. He could not help but think that the mechanical man seemed sad, even afraid, though his features were incapable of revealing much emotion. “I’ll see you soon!” Timothy yelled over the whine of the gyro’s engine.

Sheridan responded with a thumbs-up and a burst of steam from his head.

Manipulating the controls, Timothy lifted off from the floor of the workshop and steered the craft toward the open
window. With the extra weight of Ivar added to the mass of the machine, the gyro did not respond as quickly, or as easily, as it had before, but he took all of this information into consideration, clearing the window and navigating the machine out into the open air.

The storm had subsided, but the night air was still cool and ripe with moisture.

“We have to find Edgar,” Timothy yelled over the sound of the gyro’s motor as he worked the craft’s control stick. The flying machine banked to the left, arcing back toward the hovering estate.

“There!” Ivar cried out, and it took a moment for him to spy what the expert hunter’s eyes had seen almost immediately.

Edgar, blacker than the diminishing darkness, flapped his wings furiously, hovering at a ledge not far from the window they had just left. As Timothy moved the craft in for a closer look, he saw the hairless Alastor balanced on his two back legs on the outcropping of stone, his front paws swatting at the bird. The rook beat his wings crazily at the feline familiar. The cat hissed fiercely, lashing out with its hooked claws as Edgar dipped, wove, and fluttered in the air, narrowly avoiding the cat’s strikes. But Alastor proved cunning. He feigned a strike to the left, then spun around to lash out to the right with his other paw. The claws ripped across Edgar’s wing, sending feathers fluttering in the early morning breeze.

The rook screeched, then retreated, flying back from the
ledge to collect himself. The cat saw its opportunity, slinking along the stone sill, on its way to the next open window and back into SkyHaven.

“Edgar!” Timothy cried out.

The familiar flapped in the air, glancing over his shoulder briefly. Their gazes connected, and Timothy was certain that the rook was well aware of the importance of stopping Alastor from getting back inside. Edgar spread his wings, and angling his body toward the estate, dove at the hairless cat, his earsplitting battle cry filling the air.

Timothy held his breath as the two familiars raked at each other with claw and talon, unable to tell where the cat ended and the rook began. The furiously fighting animals seemed to be suspended in the air, their cries and hisses a cacophony of battle—and then they began to fall.

Purely on instinct, Timothy dipped the gyrocraft toward the plummeting figures still locked in combat. “Hold on, Ivar,” he warned.

Suddenly Edgar unfurled his impressive wingspan to slow his descent and reached out with his talons to grip the loose, pale flesh around the neck of Nicodemus’s familiar. Edgar flapped furiously to keep aloft with the struggling feline. He flew out over the cold ocean, opened his claws, and dropped the flailing cat into the water below.

Timothy watched as Alastor was swallowed up by the churning sea, but felt a spark of relief when the cat’s head broke the surface, and it began to paddle toward the distant shore.
That should give us plenty of time,
he thought.

Edgar landed on the smooth surface of the gyro’s nose and began examining the missing patch of feathers on his wing. Just as the sun broke over the horizon, spraying spears of gold across the surface of the ocean, the rook looked up at Timothy with his dark eyes.