Summer's Cauldron (12 page)

“And we’ll know you need us and where you are,” his mother said.

“The whistles give a tug toward the one that blew,” his father said. “So we’ll know what direction to run.”

“Cool,” Nina said, blowing on her whistle and smiling as the other three sounded in response.

“We need to get some of these for the Guild,” Alex said, examining the whistle and trying to sense the enchantments upon it.

“Keep them handy,” his father said, staring at Alex. “And heed your mother. If you think you see the person in the cloak, or if you recognize one of the voices from the tent, find us or blow the whistle. Don’t try to save the town by yourself this time.”

“I wasn’t by myself,” Alex said. “I had Nina and the Guild.”

His parents frowned, but said nothing. Nina, meanwhile, grinned, and Alex knew why. It would only be a few more days and she would be old enough to be an official member of the Young Sorcerers Guild.

After breakfast, Alex and Nina stopped by the Guild House in the backyard to collect a few other items Alex thought might be useful. They found Daphne and Clark examining the cauldron from the Dead Forest. Clark held the cauldron upside down while Daphne stood beneath it, her head deep inside its cast-iron shadows.

“Don’t drop that,” Nina said.

“Hmm, that’d be the last thing I’d do,” Clark said with a grimace.

“You’re gorping right it’d be the last thing you’d do,” Daphne said, her voice made louder by the echo from within the cauldron.

“If you’re going to cook her,” Alex said, “you have to turn the pot the other way around.”

“Hmmm,” Clark said with a quizzical look that Alex wasn’t sure was a frown of disgust or a hungry smile.

“Very funny,” Daphne said, emerging from beneath the cauldron. “We’re trying to figure out what it does.” Clark took this as his cue to set the cauldron down.

“Good idea,” Alex said. “Any luck yet?”

“Mmmm, not really” Clark said. “I can smell the magic, but it doesn’t smell like anything in particular. Except maybe onions.”

“Even I can smell the gorping onions,” Daphne said.

“Onions?” Nina asked.

“Someone used it to cook a soup, I think,” Daphne said. “But other than that, I can’t tell what it’s used for or what the magic is supposed to do. We’re going to run some tests on it later.”

“Tests?” Alex said.

“You know, light a fire under it and see what happens when we put different things inside,” Daphne said.

“Things?” Nina said.

“Nothing dangerous,” Daphne said. “Don’t worry, I’ve got a plan.”

“Hmmm,” Clark said.

“Now I know how people feel when I say that all the time,” Alex said with a laugh.

Daphne frowned and punched him in the arm on her way out the door. Alex laughed again and followed her.

“Let’s get to the carnival,” Daphne said. “We have work to do.”

“More than you think,” Alex said, feeling the laughter fade away.

A few minutes later, the Guild assembled under the old sycamore tree at the edge of the carnival. Alex’s mother had managed to convince their parents they would all be safe enough to attend the carnival in broad daylight. The Guild stood in a circle and listened to Alex explain his attempts to use astral travel to spy on the carnival and the surprising results.

“I can ask Daddy if he’s ever heard of such an artifact,” Victoria said when Alex had finished. “He’s ever-so-knowledgeable about such things.”

“We’ll check my mom’s books tonight,” Alex said. “The library will be closed all weekend.”

“We could always break in again,” Rafael said in a dry tone. “It was so much fun and so successful the last time.”

“No,” Alex said, frowning at the memory. “We have enough to do today trying to find the followers of the Shadow Wraith and this artifact.”

“Mystery person,” Ben said. “We also need to find the person in the cloak.”

“I’m not so sure it’s someone from the carnival,” Alex said.

“So what in the name of Theseus’s toenails are we waiting for?” Daphne said, stomping off toward the carnival.

The others looked at each other silently for a moment and then followed Daphne toward the carnival and all the dark mysteries it contained. Normally, Alex would have been filled with excitement about spending a day at a carnival, but the feeling that caused his stomach to tighten more with each step toward the colorful tents was not enthusiasm. It was fear. People were trying free the Shadow Wraith again and whoever those people were, they knew who Alex was, and they had no compunction about trying to kill him.

However, it wasn’t himself he was so much worried for. His sister, his parents, his friends, and the whole town were in danger. Focusing on that thought helped turn his fear into anger. Anger was an emotion Alex knew could get him into trouble, but a ball of anger in his stomach felt better than a knot of fear.

Alex and the Guild showed the ticket taker at the entrance booth their golden tickets. The ticket taker, an old man with a gray beard and a gray fedora on his head, frowned at the tickets and then at Alex and the Guild. He seemed unhappy to lose so many paying customers, but eventually, he waved them through.

Victoria said her goodbyes and headed off to help staff the booth of magical inventions her father had setup. After their tour of the grounds, and their adventures the night before, Alex and the Guild were very familiar with the carnival, but they were not used to seeing so many people present.

Word must have traveled fast, because it seemed like the whole town and most of the residents of the Rune Valley had descended upon the carnival. Normally, the Founders Festival was a one-day event, held on Saturday in the town center, in front of the statue of the five founders of Runewood. The presence of the carnival had extended the festivities to include Friday and the entire weekend. The carnival would close its gates on Sunday night, pack up and be gone the following morning. This meant the Shadow Wraith’s followers had a limited window of time in which to accomplish their dark mischief. It also meant Alex and the Guild had a limited amount of time to stop them.

They wandered through the carnival grounds, pretending to be just a group of local kids out having fun. They used their golden tickets to pay for games, rides, and entrance to the various sideshows. Alex avoided the rides, preferring to leave them to the others.

As they walked, they tried to taste as much of the various carnival food as they could. They ate magical cotton candy that shifted shape as it got smaller, beginning as an elephant, becoming a lion, then a hawk, and ending as a mouse. They consumed cones of ice-cream that changed flavors as it melted, starting off as chocolate, becoming lime, then banana, then coconut, then peppermint, then pistachio, and then finally, strawberry.

They ate breaded corn dogs that barked as they bit into them and drank sodas that fizzed and bubbled and became all the colors of the rainbow, leaving their teeth tinted like a box of crayons, while they rode the colorful metal backs of lions, unicorns, and hippogriffs on the ever-spinning carousel. The carousel never stopped, it only slowed enough for people to hop on and off, before picking up speed once again in a circular cascade of color.

The whole time, they kept their eyes open, talking to as many of the carnies as they could, Alex straining to hear anything in the voices he might recognize as belonging to the three people he had overheard in the tent the night before.

After a while, they came across a game that caught Rafael’s attention. Alex and the others followed him over to it. There was a carnie barker at the edge of the brightly-colored open tent, urging the people standing around to pay for a chance to win one of the stuffed animals hanging around the edge of the canvas enclosure. He had long, blond hair trapped under a faded green felt top hat. Alex noticed the stuffed animals were all what Outsiders would call mythical creatures. Hydras, unicorns, dragons, and even a centaur or two. In the middle of the tent sat a circular platform with three empty cages. Alex looked up at the red and blue cloth banner running along the top of the small tent. It read,
Find the Fake
.

“Place your bets, ladies and gents,” the carnie barker shouted. “Find the fake and win the prize.” At a wide gesture from the barker, the platform with the three small cages rotated to reveal three numbered cages of medium size, each with a large boa constrictor in it.

“One dollar a bet,” the barker said, taking bills from the people gathered around. “Which snake is the fake? Is it number one, number two, or number three?”

“Number three,” Rafael said, handing the barker a dollar.

“They all look the same,” Alex said.

“Trust me,” Rafael said.

“Final bets,” the barker said, taking money from several people in the crowd. “We have five for number one, six for number two, and one for number three. And the winner is…” the barker made a melodramatic flourish with his arm and the snake in the third cage coiled itself upward, its head looking right at Rafael and winking.

“Told you,” Rafael said with the smile. The snake’s head briefly glowed blue and Kendra’s head, covered in scales, appeared on the snake’s body. The crowd burst alive with surprise, some laughing, some gasping in shock, and other cursing their luck. The barker frowned and tossed Rafael a stuffed toy unicorn.

“Wow.” Ben said. “How does she do that?”

“I wish I knew,” Rafael said as the circular platform with the cages rotated out of view and the barker began coaxing people to gather around for the next round of betting.

“I’ve never seen you do that,” Nina said to Rafael.

“I didn’t even know it was possible,” Rafael said. As the only changeling in the town of Runewood, Rafael had only himself to rely upon for learning the limits of his shape-shifting abilities. “I think I may stay here a bit. Catch up with you all later.”

“So you can learn more,” Alex said, his face serious, but his tone amused.

“So you can pick up a few tips,” Daphne said, her voice slightly mocking.

“Kendra,” Ben said, unable to contain a giggle. “So he can pick up a few tips from Kendra.”

“It’s a handy skill,” Rafael said, refusing to look the others in the eye. “Might come in useful someday.”

“Hmmm,” Clark said.

“Be careful,” Alex said.

“I’ll be fine,” Rafael said with a laugh. “I’m hardly ever in danger when you’re not around.”

As Alex and the others left Rafael at the sideshow booth, the circular platform spun again to reveal three cages with three identical foxes in them. Alex chuckled to himself. It was nice to see that look on Rafael’s face. The look he so often saw on Clark’s face when he was staring surreptitiously at Daphne.

Alex wondered if he always had a look like that on his face when he was around Victoria. This made him wonder how Victoria was fairing at her father’s booth and how long it would be before Nathan stopped by to say hello to her. Alex found it was more pleasant to contemplate who among the carnival’s staff might be a follower of the Shadow Wraith.

Ben yanked Alex from his thoughts with a single word.

“Archery,” Ben said, his low voice booming.

They had wandered to a part of the carnival near the back edge of the field where several archery targets were set up. A banner held aloft by two slender poles declared they had discovered
The Archer Queen
. Alex was not surprised to see the Archer Queen was, in fact, Elaeda.

“A simple game, because I’m a simple girl,” Elaeda said to the small crowd of people gathered nearby. “Best me at any target, and win a prize. One dollar for each arrow. I match you arrow for arrow. Get closer to the bull’s-eye than me and you win the silver arrow. We used to have a golden arrow, but I was tired one day. In fact, I’m feeling a little dozy now. It’s been long day and my arm is sore. Who wants to try their luck, I’m sorry, I mean skill, who wants to try their skill against a tired girl with a sore arm? Pick a bow and knock your arrow.”

“Me,” Ben nearly shouted. “I’m your man.”

Alex snapped his head around and down to watch Ben step forward and hand Elaeda a dollar bill. Alex smiled at the look on Elaeda’s face. Ben had been pestering the Guild to take up archery since shortly after its founding. They had tried a few times, but Alex was miserable at it, Clark broke too many bow strings, Daphne and Nina were offended by the smallness of the bows they were forced to use, and Rafael had been utterly bored by the whole endeavor. Ben had been disappointed. He had saved for two months to buy a small dwarfish bow made of bone with curved arms. He picked up a similar, well-used bow from those stacked on a table near the archery range.

“We have a challenger,” Elaeda said in a loud voice. In a quieter voice that only Ben, Alex and the Guild could hear, she said, “Get within an inch of my arrow, Dwarf boy, and I’ll buy you a hotdog.”

“Ice cream,” Ben said. “Any farther than an inch, Elf Girl, and I’ll buy you an ice cream. Then I win either way.”

Alex noticed what might have been a blush in Elaeda’s cheeks, but she whipped around to face the target before he could be certain. Her ponytail flicked back and forth as she shook her head and knocked an arrow. Then she drew back the arrow and let it fly in what seemed like a single motion. The arrow struck the target with an audible
thunk
a second later. Alex was not surprised to see the arrow was dead in the center of the bull’s eye. She turned and smiled at Ben. It was a dazzling smile and Alex noticed Ben grinning back at her.

Ben turned and knocked an arrow, drawing the bowstring back to his cheek as Alex had seen his friend do thousands of times. Then the arrow was speeding toward the target some eighty feet away. The arrow struck and Alex found himself cheering aloud with the rest of the crowd. Ben’s arrow was well within the bull’s eye.

“Well, this may be an interesting day, after all,” Elaeda said, slapping Ben on the back.

A young carnie boy ran over to the target, carrying a wooden ruler.

“One inch exactly!” the young carnie boy shouted back from the target, holding up the ruler to show everyone.

“Dutch,” Ben said. “We can go dutch. You buy the hotdogs, I’ll buy the ice cream.”