Tara Duncan and the Forbidden Book (48 page)

Exhausted but happy to be back together, they all retreated to their respective rooms after the banquet had ended. Manitou, who was never full, headed to the kitchen for a little nighttime reconnaissance.

It was the middle of the night, and they'd been asleep for several hours, when Tara was abruptly wakened by Sparrow, who was trembling from head to toe.

“Tara!” she whispered fiercely. “Tara! Wake up!”

She woke from a dream in which she was just about to lift Magister's mask and finally learn his identity. She was still half asleep when she looked at her friend. “Is it time to get up already?”

“No, there's a problem. It's Manitou!”

Hearing Sparrow's alarmed tone, Tara felt her heart sink. She jumped out of bed and fumbled in the dark for her spellbinder robe.

“What's happening?”

“I just got this taludi. Take a look. The soldier on guard outside our door said that a kid gave it to him. I wanted to watch it, but it's addressed to you.”

Tara was completely confused. “A taludi? What does that have to do with Manitou?”

“Oh, Tara!” answered Sparrow. “I think your great-grandfather's been kidnapped!”

“W
hat?” asked a baffled Tara.

“Quick! Put on the taludi,” begged Sparrow. “Apparently the boy told the guard that if we want to see Manitou alive, you have to watch it right away! The guard was kind of out of it. I think he partied a little too hard last night, celebrating the kingdom's liberation. By the time he got what the kid was saying, he'd already run off.”

Up to then, Tara's bedroom had been lit only by images of the planet's twin moons.

“Castle, give us some light, please,” she requested.

The scented, peaceful night was promptly replaced by bright sunshine.

“Too bright!” said Tara, shading her eyes. “A little less, please. I just woke up!”

The castle immediately reduced the brightness. Tara slipped into her spellbinder robe and put the taludi on. In front of her she saw Manitou, trussed up like a Christmas turkey. With a crossbow aimed at his head.

In the taludi, a hoarse voice was heard. “I'd hate to kill your greatgrandfather, sweetie, but you give me no choice. I thought Magister or the Ravager would get rid of you for me, but those losers failed, so I'll have to do it myself. And if you think I'd hesitate to kill your greatgrandfather, you're mistaken.”

The crossbow shifted a few inches and fired its arrow, which slammed into Manitou's hind leg.

The dog's howl was muffled by his gag, but Tara's scream woke all her friends up.

“He's going to bleed to death,” the voice went on relentlessly, “but you might arrive in time to save him. Go to Master Chem's office, now!”

When she yanked off the taludi, Tara was white as a sheet. In a few words she described the horrible situation to her friends, who had come running when they heard her yell. They were still trying to grasp what she had said as Tara rushed for the door.

She was already at the threshold when Robin shouted: “Tara, wait! What are you doing?”

“I'm going to save my great-grandfather,” she said, tears running down her face.

Leaping to Tara's side, he grabbed her. “It's a trap to kill you! What good will you be if you're dead?”

She raised haggard eyes to him. “So, what do you want me to do?”

“Think,” said Cal very calmly. “He sent you that message so you'd rush there without using your head. That's exactly what he's hoping. You've got to act, not react.”

Cal nodded toward the tall cabinet they'd used to block the secret entrance.

“Suppose we went that way? He won't be expecting it. With a little luck we may even be able to free Manitou without his realizing it.”

“You should also transform yourself into an elf,” Robin added. “Your body will be more powerful. Faster too.”

With the living stone's help, Tara quickly assumed her she-elf identity.

“All right, let's go,” said Robin, grabbing Lillandril's bow. “We'll see if that crossbow shoots arrows faster than I do!”

Tara smiled. Her friends were again prepared to risk their lives with her. Unbelievable!

“By my axe,” growled Fafnir, “we'll teach that killer what you get when you mess with us!”

The dwarf contemplated her weapon for a few seconds, and grumbled.

“Our date's in the dragon's office, right? I hope that big lizard isn't behind all this, because if he is, I'm gonna need a larger model.”

They silently slipped into the secret hallway and soon reached the hidden entrance to Master Chem's office. Tara activated her power, and blue fire danced on her slim elf fingertips. Sparrow shifted into the beast, barely avoiding bumping her head on the low ceiling. Cal readied his daggers, and Robin nocked an arrow.

Quietly, they swung the hidden door open.

The masked man clearly hadn't expected them to use his own passageway. He had put down his crossbow and was pacing in the dragon's office. When the friends burst into the room, he rushed for his weapon, but it was too late. Lillandril's bow was faster and shot an arrow through his hand. Screaming with pain, he raced to the main door and ran out.

The others ran after him while Tara untied Manitou. The poor Labrador had fainted from the pain of his wound.

She heard shouting. “Here he is! This way!” Then the sounds of a chase, and a loud thwack! followed by Fafnir's frustrated bellow: “Rats, I missed him!”

But Tara wasn't paying much attention. The crossbow arrow was still stuck in her great-grandfather's hind leg, and she didn't know what to do. Her elf blood was boiling, and she decided to shift back to her normal shape. Then she took a deep breath to settle her mind and cast a spell: “By Disintegratus, may this vicious arrow dissolve into healthy bone and marrow.”

The spell worked perfectly. All that remained of the arrow was a wet spot on Manitou's leg. Tara immediately cast another spell: “By Healus, may this wound be mended, and Manitou's health forever defended!”

Not a perfect rhyme, she reflected, but the best I could do under the circumstances. As she watched, the torn flesh knitted, the hole closed, and black fur grew over the wound.

“Ouch,” said Manitou, opening an eye. “I dreamed I was kidnapped and then someone shot me.”

Still shaken by fear, Tara gave him a weak smile.

“The cavalry showed up in the nick of time,” she said. “And I treated your wound. How do you feel?”

“I'm okay,” said the dog, grimacing as he tried to stand up. “It almost doesn't hurt anymore.”

The office door suddenly flew open, startling Tara. It wasn't her friends, but Lady Boudiou. The old wizard seemed surprised to find them there.

“Where's Master Chem? And what are you doing here in the middle of the night?”

Tara was about to answer when she noticed a red mark on the old lady's hand.

“It's her!” yelled Manitou at that same moment. “She's the one who attacked me! I recognize her smell.”

But Tara didn't have time to act. Lady Boudiou grabbed her and aimed the crossbow at her head.

“Not a move, not a word,” she said coldly. “If I detect the slightest spell or the tiniest bit of magic, I'll kill you. Understand? And you, pooch, don't move either. Otherwise . . .”

Tara was so petrified she practically stopped breathing; Manitou froze, his eyes locked on the woman, ready to pounce.

“I've got you at last, Tara!” the old woman exulted. “I was very disappointed that you didn't die earlier. I certainly set enough traps for you. But you've had the luck of the devil.”

Tara was so astonished that she didn't know what to say. Half strangled by Boudiou's arm, she managed to choke out one word: “Why?”

The old woman stiffened and glared at Manitou.

“Don't you remember me?” she screamed at the Labrador. “I was one of your customers, back in the day. One of those vain, foolish girls who bought your eternal youth potion.”

Manitou shuddered. “My eternal youth potion? But Chem told me that he cured all the spellbinders who had aged, except for—”

“Look at me! Look at my face! I'm thirty years old, Manitou!” the young-old wizard angrily interrupted him. “Your potion aged me fifty years in a matter of minutes, you filthy mutt! My husband left me. I became an object of ridicule in Omois, where I was living. My father and I have been consulting OtherWorld's greatest mages, including Master Chem, for the last year. But your accursed potion seems irreversible! The old dragon felt so bad that he suggested I come work in Lancovit, so he would have me close at hand while he looked for a cure. I was so mortified that I made him swear not to tell anyone.

“After his successive failures, I tried to find you. I wanted to make you pay for what you did to me. That's when I learned that you were on Earth and that you'd lost your magic and your memory. My father has been a Bloodgrave for a long time, so when Magister asked for a volunteer to kidnap Tara, he offered to do it. His plan was to kill you at the same time, Manitou. But my father failed and Tara wounded him horribly.

“I've tried to heal him. Demiderus knows how many remedies, potions, and spells we tried—all in vain. His face causes him constant agony, and there's no relief. He's even begged me to kill him. But I found a better solution. Tara is the one I'll kill, because her death will cure my father. And after her, it'll be your turn. That way you'll never be able to harm any more bird-brained spellbinders.”

Tara remembered what her Soothsucker had foretold. The prophesicle had spoken of a father—it was Lady Boudiou's father! And she suddenly realized something else. “So the vortex attack . . .”

“That was me, of course,” Boudiou confirmed. “And I tried to kill Manitou before too.”

The Labrador opened wide, startled eyes. “Me? When, and how?”

“I hoped both of you would die in the vortex, but you didn't. Then I cast a Cerebelluboom on you during Caliban and Angelica's trial. But instead of exploding your brain, the way the spell was supposed to, for some reason it only made you leave the hall.”

Tara started. So it was because of Lady Boudiou that they'd stumbled upon Magister's plot to acquire The Forbidden Book.

Lady Boudiou continued: “When I saw that your dog body wasn't reacting to the Cerebelluboom as expected, I decided to get rid of Tara first and to take care of you later. I attacked her in the empress's boudoir, but that stupid guard captain heard our fight and intervened. The next time, I followed her when she and her friends went out into the park, and I heard them talking about visiting the mammoth. So while they were admiring the firebirds in the hallways I went ahead of them and bewitched the animal. But that big hairy fool didn't do the job right. I was about to attack her when the empress suddenly appeared. I joined her retinue and canceled the counter-spell I'd put on the mammoth, so as not to leave any evidence behind.

“I also set an animatrap in Lancovit in case Tara went back, but she managed to escape my carnivorous slug. There, I was afraid I might have serious problems, because the trap could have been traced back to me. So I used the fact that Master Dragosh was angry at Tara. I cast a very light, undetectable spell that amplified his rage and caused him to destroy all evidence of the trap, thus putting me out of danger.”

So that was it! thought Tara. She remembered the vampyr's baffled expression after he carbonized the slug. He'd seemed disconcerted by the intensity of his anger.

Boudiou turned to Tara. “I thought I'd finally succeeded when I shot you in your bed. You very nearly tricked me, but my father was still in as much pain as ever, which meant that you were still alive.”

“What if Tara offers to heal your father?” suggested the dog.

“It won't work, and she's far too powerful for me to risk trusting her,” cried the old wizard. “And now the time has come. When they find you, you'll both be dead, and no one will suspect me. Say goodbye to your great-grandfather, Tara.”

But Tara had no intention of saying goodbye to anyone. She mentally called to the living stone. Their powerful magic combined, ready to neutralize the old lady. But just then, they all heard a sarcastic chuckle overhead.

They instinctively looked up to see a shadowy figure hanging from the beams and looking at them ironically. Lady Boudiou quickly raised her crossbow but the mysterious person was faster. He pounced on the old wizard, and a pale hand with claws snatched away the weapon before she could make a move. Lady Boudiou released Tara and seized a dagger, but the figure disarmed her with blinding speed and grabbed her by the throat. He casually held the woman at arm's length, paying no attention to her attempts to free herself.

Tara stared at the figure in fascination. He was very tall, entirely dressed in black leather, his face covered with a leather mask. He had white hair that fell to very broad shoulders and a surprisingly narrow waist. He looked powerful. Worse, he looked pitiless. And his strength was terrifying. When Lady Boudiou tried to cast a spell, he slapped her so hard that Tara actually felt sorry for her.

When he spoke his voice was both soft and cold. “So, this is the prey I have been hunting for so long.”

The word “prey” reminded Tara of something, and she suddenly remembered.

“The Hunter!” she cried. “You're Magister's Hunter!”

He bowed, then pulled off the black hood hiding his face. Tara was shocked. It was a woman, a vampyress! As if carved from alabaster, her face had an unearthly beauty, and her perfection was almost painful. Her red eyes blazed with a hypnotic glow. But she was very different from Master Dragosh. Her skin, her hair, everything about her looked somehow faded, washed out. Except for her eyes.