Magic Zero (30 page)

Even here beneath the waves he could not escape her.

He sucked air through the mouthpiece of the tube, and with thoughts of the mystery girl in green flitting across his mind, he smiled.

The sap he had used to glue the mouthpiece in place cracked, and water began to seep in. Timothy’s eyes went wide in alarm and he nearly dropped his speargun. His pulse sped up and he clapped his free hand over the mouthpiece, pressing it into place and pausing to steady his breathing. Time to get back to shore. In his mind he cursed himself for being so foolish. Now he would return to the surface without a single Bathelusk, the fish he had come down here to catch in the first place.

Frustrated, Timothy turned back toward shore and began trudging along the ocean bottom. He had been careful to avoid touching it before because he did not want his vision obscured, but now his feet kicked up clouds of dirt and sand.

Then he froze.

In the brown cloud amid the green water was a pair of fat, yellow fish as big as his head, each of them covered with cruel-looking spikes that would prick anyone foolish enough to try to grab hold.

Bathelusk.

Timothy raised his speargun.

But he did not smile. He prided himself on not making the same mistake twice.

*  *  *

Timothy was in his workshop, surveying the various tables and shelves for anything that might be useful for his trip to Wurm World, as he had come to think of it. Verlis had found a way to slip between dimensions in search of Argus Cade, to plead for the mage’s help in saving his family from the terrible civil war among the Wurm. Timothy’s father was dead, of course, but the young man had promised to do whatever he could to help Verlis. In return, Verlis had offered to help him defeat Nicodemus.

Now that Grandmaster of the Order of Alhazred was no more, Verlis had done his part, and it was time for Timothy to do his.

He scratched his head and looked at a wooden crate he had begun to pack. The speargun was in there, along with a weapon he had built for hunting birds, a crossbow. A smaller box containing two fresh and several dried Bathelusk went in as well. There was a slingshot. Now he stared at his forge and wondered if he would have time to hammer some of the metal in his workshop into armor for his torso, or even a helmet.

It wouldn’t be a terrible idea.

More importantly, though, he wanted to make sure that the saltweed cloak he was making would be ready. The
garment would be ugly, but it would also be fireproof.

“Time, time, time,” Timothy whispered to himself, rubbing his mouth where the tree sap was still sticky. “Once all I had was time, and now there isn’t enough of it.”

On another table was a rack of various herbs and potions in Lemboo tubes he wanted to bring with him. There were healing remedies there, as well as other things, tinctures to darken the skin, mixtures that would start a small fire when exposed to air, and—

His thoughts were interrupted by a loud clatter at the reed door of the workshop. It swung open and Sheridan—the mechanical man Timothy had built—clanked in, moving backward. Steam whistled from the pressure valve on the side of his head. Together, he and Ivar were carrying a large barrel into the workshop. The Asura warrior frowned as Sheridan bumped the open door.

Timothy flinched.

“No, no . . . please, you two, be careful!”

He rushed across the workshop. Ivar’s face was stoic as always, the tribal markings on his flesh shifting fluidly, beautifully. The Asura’s skin was covered in pigment that could be changed simply by willing it, so that he could blend into his surroundings and effectively become invisible. Timothy had often been mesmerized by the movements of those marks. Now, though, he was only panicked.

Ivar raised a fleshy brow.

Sheridan’s head turned around halfway, but his body remained forward, holding up his end of the barrel.

“What’s wrong, Timothy?” the mechanical man asked. “We’ve upset you.”

“No, it’s . . . Look, you should’ve taken that around the front,” the young man said. Then he shook his head. “Go through the shop and out the front door. But whatever you do, don’t drop it. It might be completely safe . . . but it might not be.”

“Not safe?” the Asura warrior asked, one corner of his mouth lifting in amusement. “What will it do? You expect a barrel to attack us?”

Timothy smiled, but his heart was still pounding. “No. But since the barrel is filled with Hakka powder and coal, I can’t promise you it won’t explode.”

Sheridan’s eyes lit up, blindingly bright in the gray light of the workshop, and steam hissed from the side of his head. He swiveled around to stare at Ivar. “Be careful.”

“Oh, yes,” Ivar replied.

He was kind enough not to mention that it had not been him bumping into doors with a barrel of explosive powder.

Timothy turned to make sure their path was clear. Even as he did, a black shape flashed through the open front door with a flutter of dark wings and an excited cry. It was Edgar, the rook that had been the familiar of Timothy’s father, and now of the boy himself.

“Caw, caw!” the bird called. “On the beach! The door. The door has returned!”

Timothy smiled and would have gone straight out the door, but in that moment Sheridan bumped a workbench
and nearly dropped his end of the barrel. Ivar muttered an Asura curse that Timothy had heard him use hundreds of times, but that the warrior had never been willing to translate. With a sigh, the boy waited to make sure his friends managed to get the barrel outside without blowing up the workshop, or themselves.

Then he took off, sprinting toward the beach.

He had spent his lifetime with only Sheridan and Ivar for company. Much as he loved them both, in his brief time in the world of his birth he had come to appreciate the companionship of others. Timothy Cade was deeply grateful for the friendship of Leander Maddox, and hoped he would build other friendships as well. Lacking even a single blood relative, he was gathering around himself a different kind of family. One of his own choosing. And in that strange family, Leander Maddox would certainly be counted as his favorite uncle.

Red sand flew up from beneath his feet as he ran toward the shoreline. The surf rolled up the beach, dampening the sand only inches from an ornate door frame that stood impossibly alone. The door hung open, and in front of it was a massive figure in flowing robes of green and gold, a hood shading his face from the suns. Upon his chest, and upon the crest of his hood, was the insignia of the Order of Alhazred, the sleeping dragon.

“Leander!” Timothy shouted.

The man reached up with both hands and slid back his hood so that it cowled about his neck. His shaggy mane of red hair and full bushy beard shone in the sunlight. But that
gleam did not reach his expression. His eyes were dark.

Timothy slowed nearly to a stop, as though the breath had been stolen from his chest. He could not keep himself from remembering, all too clearly, the first time Leander had come through that door with an expression much like this one. On that day, the mage had come to tell him his father was dead.

“What?” he asked as Leander strode up the beach to meet him. Timothy shuddered and his shoulders slumped. “What is it?”

Anger passed across the mage’s features like the surf upon the shore, and then receded. Leander collected himself and gazed steadily at Timothy.

“I have not wanted to burden you with bad tidings,” the mage said. “Not here. Not until you returned to the world, to your father’s . . . or rather, to
your
home. But circumstances force my hand.”

Timothy saw that he was deeply troubled and reached up to lay a small hand upon the thick arm of the burly mage. “What’s happened?”

“Since the truth about Nicodemus was discovered—and I was made acting Grandmaster of the Order—relations amongst the guilds have only worsened. With their greatest enemy gone, you would think otherwise. Unfortunately, the Parliament of Mages has only grown less trusting of one another, fragmenting further. Suspicion is rampant. Accusations of espionage and treason to the Parliament fly daily. A constable has been appointed.”

Timothy frowned. “What is a constable?”

“A peacekeeper. A single mage given far more power than any one person should have and assigned the task of setting things right. A constable is the law.”

“But that sounds as though it should be a good thing.”

“It ought to be,” Leander agreed. “But the man they have appointed, Constable Grimshaw, is cruel and arrogant. He has waited for power most of his life, and now he that he has it, he means to use it. When your father feared that there would be those who considered you a monster, a freak, because you have no magic, Grimshaw was precisely the sort of mage he was worried about.”

Timothy shook his head. “You think he means me harm?”

“Not directly, no. But he will watch you very closely because he sees you and any being who is not a mage—not a member of one of the guilds—as somehow less than other beings. And also, as a threat.”

Leander hung his head a moment and took a long breath. His thick hair cast his face in shadow and curtained his features from the sunlight.

“Wurms, for instance, would be considered quite a threat. Constable Grimshaw has ordered his men to capture Verlis. They have imprisoned him.”

A dark anger passed through Timothy. His eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared. Sadness pierced his heart, but he did not try to fight it, for it only made him angrier.

“Take me to him.”

THOMAS E. SNIEGOSKI’S
books for teens include
Legacy, Sleeper Code, Sleeper Agenda
, and
Force Majeure
, as well as the series The Brimstone Network. Together with Jeff Smith he writes the bestselling Bone novels, including
Tall Tales
and the Quest for the Spark trilogy. Sniegoski lives in Massachusetts with his wife, LeeAnne, and their French bulldog, Kirby. Visit him on the Web at
sniegoski.com
.

CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN’S
YA fiction includes
Poison Ink, Prowlers
, and the Body of Evidence series of teen thrillers. Golden has also written and cowritten video games, screenplays, and a network television pilot. His original novels have been published in countries around the world.

SNIEGOSKI.COM

CHRISTOPHERGOLDEN.COM

Jacket designed by Lisa Vega and Karina Granda

Jacket illustration copyright © 2013 by Andreas von Cotta-Schønberg

ALADDIN

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Also by Thomas E. Sniegoski and Christopher Golden

Dragon Secrets

Coming soon

Ghostfire

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the authors’ imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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First Aladdin hardcover edition April 2013

Copyright © 2004 by Christopher Golden and Thomas E. Sniegoski

Previously published as Outcast:
The Un-Magician
.

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Designed by Tom Daly

The text of this book was set in Bembo Std.

Library of Congress Control Number 2003110825

ISBN 978-1-4424-7312-6 (hc)

ISBN 978-1-4424-7311-9 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-4424-5924-3 (eBook)