CHAPTER 5
Darcie was an excellent travelling companion. Tobin had initially been nervous about their travelling arrangements, given Darcie’s towering intellect, and worldly experience, to say nothing of her privileged position as a member of the royal family. But she was so down-to-earth, and genuinely interested in Tobin and his life that they got along famously. Most surprisingly, she seemed to find his mundane life just as fascinating as he found her exciting life.
“You’ve lived in the same village your entire life?” inquired Darcie.
Tobin smiled at her question, and nodded. “It’s quite small, and quiet. It’s called Belvedon.”
“What is it like to come from such a small village? You must have known all the same people since you were a child!” she exclaimed.
“Yes, but it’s not very exciting....” he laughed.
“No, it’s delightfully ordinary!” she said, laughing with him.
“Yes, I’ve grown up in the same village as Elbert, Maven Thomson’s assistant,” Tobin told her. “Since I finished school, I’ve been working as a research assistant for the local historian, Mrs. Didlen, spending most of my time in the village library.”
“And you would see the same people every day?” Darcie asked, sounding strangely eager.
“Yes, we don’t really have many visitors to the village. It’s not as great as it sounds. Everyone has their nose in your business. That’s actually why I chose to live in a house just outside of the village. That way I get at least a semblance of privacy.”
Darcie nodded in understanding.
“Well, how about you? You must have an incredibly exciting life!” suggested Tobin.
“It’s definitely exciting, and I get to see some truly wonderful, and amazing things, but sometimes it can get very lonely.”
“Well, you have been by yourself for most of this last year,” Tobin pointed out.
“That’s true, but it was lonely even before that. Because I’m the crown princess, everyone keeps their distance. They maintain this kind of rigid formality. It makes me feel alone, even when I’m surrounded by people.”
“Wow...” Tobin trailed off. He didn’t really know what to say in response. He couldn’t imagine the kind of life Darcie was describing.
“That’s why being on my own, away from the court for the past year has been so interesting,” she continued, “I’ve been able to discover some fascinating aspects of magic I hadn’t encountered before. I hope to find even more,” she said.
“I thought you knew almost everything about magic!” Tobin exclaimed.
“Not at all!” she laughed, “What fun would that be?”
Tobin laughed with her.
“During my travels in the last year, I was able to meet so many interesting people who think about magic in unique ways. I met a wizard in Alserva, you know, the Elven kingdom, who had cultivated a type of ivy that grew in soil heavily saturated with pure magic. The ivy could grow at an incredibly accelerated rate! He let me take some seeds with me. I also met a coven of witches in the Muredon Mountains who use collective magic to create spells and elixirs. That was really fascinating.”
“That is interesting!” Tobin agreed. He couldn’t help but be envious of all the strange discoveries, and unique magic that Darcie was learning.
“Some of the most interesting magic, I’ve found, has been close to home though.” Darcie explained. “When I was growing up, I had several friends at the castle. Mostly the children of magicians, or castle courtiers. My best friend Vorn, was the son of a magician, and when he was ten, we discovered that Vorn too, was a magician. An absolutely brilliant magician. His mind was so rare; he could turn a problem over and over in his mind, looking at it from every possible angle, until he’d solved it. I’ve never seen anything like it, and I probably never will again...” Darcie trailed off unexpectedly. Glancing sidelong at her, Tobin was surprised to see a flash of pain cross Darcie’s face. It was gone in a moment though, replaced by her usual good natured expression.
“My other good friend was named Vivian,” Darcie continued. “Vivian had the most unique magic I’ve encountered to this day. Her magic is based on need. Whatever she needed when she was a child would come to her, and often in the most clever, or subtle ways.”
“That sounds dangerous!” Tobin said, imagining all the mischief a child with such magic could get into.
“It could have been, if Vivian were not the most kind and generous person I’ve ever met. As she got older, her magic deepened, and developed. Now she is able to exert her magic based on the need of others.”
“Really?” Tobin asked, fascinated. “How does that work?”
“Vivian lives in a little house that can move all over the place, to wherever she is needed.”
“Anywhere in Elden?”
“Anywhere at all,” Darcie said. “The last time I saw Vivian was three years ago. She was in Alserva, the Elven kingdom. Vivian has seen many strange worlds and encountered indescribably fascinating people. I can’t imagine anyone else being more perfectly suited for such a job,” Darcie said.
Tobin discovered he had a voracious appetite for magical knowledge, and he questioned Darcie extensively as they walked along the path through Elden Forest. The two of them passed many happy hours discussing different aspects of magic, and the unique methods other creatures used to manipulate magic. Tobin found it all riveting, continuing his thirst for magical knowledge. Several times each day, Darcie would check her instruments, to make sure that they were still following the signal. But it still pulsed as strong as ever, directly north.
One morning they stopped for lunch at the side of a babbling brook. Settling comfortably on the green moss, feet dangling in the refreshing water, Darcie pulled out a muffin for herself, and handed one to Tobin. It was blueberry.
“You don’t really look like your father,” Tobin said tentatively. It was something he had been thinking about ever since he had seen King Gerald with his daughter in the throne room.
“No,” Darcie smiled. “I look exactly like my mother. I think that’s why my father can be so overbearing; I remind him of my mother. He was absolutely devastated when she died.”
“How old were you when she died?” Tobin asked quietly.
“I was six,” Darcie replied. “I didn’t really understand why she was sick. Suddenly she just couldn’t hold me, or play with me, and then, near the end she couldn’t leave her bed. After she died, it took my grandmother a long time to explain to me why she’d died. I’d grown up with magic; I’d seen the amazing things it can do. It seemed to me that since my grandmother was such a powerful magician, that she should have been able to stop my mother’s death.”
“There was nothing at all she could do?” Tobin asked, surprised. He had thought there was nothing that magic couldn’t do.
“No,” Darcie replied simply.” And even if it was within her power, I don’t think she would have done it. There are some lines you just don’t cross. That was the first time I was exposed to the limits of magic. Or at least the limits of a magician. There are certain kinds of magic that an ethical magician will not perform.”
“What sorts of things?” Tobin asked.
“Well, bringing people back from the dead,” Darcie answered. “Only necromancers deal with death in that manner. Killing someone with magic is also forbidden. No magician would do that.”
“Really?” Tobin asked, fascinated. “So magicians don’t know how to do that?”
“Of course they know how,” Darcie smiled at Tobin’s confused face. “Magicians are required to know as much as possible about magic. That includes things like killing with magic, or reviving the dead.”
“So are there people who would kill with magic?”
“A sorcerer might,” Darcie replied musingly, “Maybe some others.”
“So if it’s forbidden to magicians, why even bother teaching it?” inquired Tobin.
Darcie turned to Tobin, her face serious. “You can’t know something is wro
ng without first understanding it completely,” she replied. “It’s similar to forming an opinion, when you haven’t looked at both sides of a situation. Information is powerful; it helps you decide between right and wrong.”
Darcie looked away and laughed into the sudden silence. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be so serious. Have you finished eating your muffin? We should get going.”
Tobin packed up his canteen and dried his wet feet carefully in the soft moss, before putting on his shoes. He was silent as they headed out onto the road again, thinking about their conversation. His discussion with Darcie had, once again, invited far more questions than answers.
It was almost noon, a week into their travels, when Darcie’s compass began to ping excitedly. She stopped suddenly on the path, and then turned slowly in a full circle, trying to pinpoint the exact location of the magical signal.
“Over here,” she called to Tobin when she had located the direction.
Branching off from the side of the road was a narrow dirt path, almost completely grown over with vegetation. Tobin suspected that without Darcie’s instruments they would never have identified it.
Through the tangled weeds and long grass, they continued, until they came to a clearing in the woods. Directly in the centre of the clearing was a large house.
It had obviously once been a proud manor house with beautiful sandstone architecture and stained glass windows. The sun glinted off jagged pieces of pink, blue and green glass from windows broken many years before. Clearly beginning to rot, the wooden doors suffered from lack of upkeep, as did the southern turret, which had collapsed into a heap of rubble.
Darcie hadn’t yet looked up from her intense scrutiny of the instrument in her hand, to notice the old manor house in front of them. “The signal is coming from that direction,” she gestured to the crumbling edifice, still not looking up.
“It couldn’t possibly be coming from inside this neglected manor, could it?” Tobin asked dryly. Finally Darcie looked up from her Field Scope, and saw the manor. Her eyes narrowed, as she examined the old, decrepit house.
“How interesting,” she said slowly. With a last glance at her instruments she moved towards the small courtyard, strewn with rubble and weeds. “Well, shall we?” she called over her shoulder.
Carefully, they entered the massive, wooden, double doors to the courtyard. Reclaimed by the forest, vines had climbed liberally along the walls, their roots seeking out cracks in the stonework. Passing through the main entrance, where doors hung off their hinges, they entered a dark central hallway. Following the pulsing light from Darcie’s compass, they explored the manor from the bottom levels to the top. The pulsing light and the ping of the compass grew steadily more excited as they moved up throughout the manor.
Filled with the decrepit remains of someone’s life, the rooms remained fully furnished. Though covered in dust, they harboured a large assortment of small rodents, who had adopted the manor house as their own.
“I wonder why anyone would have left such a beautiful old house,” Tobin mused to himself. Darcie didn’t seem to hear. She was still biting her lip, looking increasingly perplexed, which Tobin was starting to find quite worrisome.
“This is so strange,” she said suddenly, stopping to stare at one of the dusty tapestries hanging on the walls of the corridors. She seemed to be talking more to herself than to Tobin. “Everything here is so familiar. I feel as though I’ve been in this place many times before. Only I don’t think I’ve ever actually been here.”
She stared down the dark corridor lost in thought, until Tobin cleared his throat loudly. “Darcie,” he called. “Let’s finish searching the house.”
She nodded slowly, and with one last searching glance at the tapestry, followed Tobin up to search the top floor of the house.
Finally, in the large master bedroom upstairs, Darcie’s compass pinged and whistled with such ferocity that Tobin knew they had finally found their query. The room was in shambles; wall hangings in tatters, furniture in pieces and drapes pulled from their rods to lie on the floor in a heap.
The only untouched piece of furniture was a small table, upon which rested a small copper orb, decorated with intricate patterns in base relief. It was glowing faintly in the dark of the room.
“This looks familiar,” Darcie said, pointing her Field Scope at the orb, which was identical to the one in the package Murphy the Mole had been delivering when Tobin’s front lawn had exploded. The flashing lights and sounds from Darcie’s compass confirmed the magical signature. She tucked the instrument back into her bag as Tobin came to stand at her side.
“Why is it glowing?” he asked, hoping Darcie would finally be able to answer this question.
Darcie however, frowned. “Glowing? It’s not glowing,” she replied.
“Yes it is,” Tobin insisted.
He stretched out a hand to pick up the orb, and just as his hand made contact, the orb glowed a fierce red. Tobin felt a massive wave of energy pass over him, pushing him backward. He barely managed to stay on his feet but Darcie, unprepared for a wave of energy to emanate from the orb, was flung backwards, with incredible force. Fortunately, she landed on the relative softness of the bed behind her. Her landing kicked up clouds of dust, and dirt. Coughing, Darcie shook herself off quickly; brushing away Tobin’s helping hand, as she moved closer to the orb, which was no longer glowing.
Darcie opened her satchel and pulled out her Field Scope.
“How strange,” she mused, watching the dials on the Field Scope spin, and then settle.
“What?” Tobin asked, unable to read the complicated device.
Darcie moved away from the orb, and towards the door of the room, arm outstretched with the Field Scope. Once again the scope began to ping faster, and faster as she approached the door.
“The source of magic has moved from the orb, to somewhere else in the manor,” she said, still staring at her compass, which beeped hysterically as she approached the door. Her face was puzzled as she stretched out her other hand, moving it towards the door. The air surrounding the door seemed to shimmer, and Darcie pulled her hand back quickly with a sharp yelp. Her fingers were an angry red, as though they had been burnt. Cradling her hand she looked over at Tobin, her face filled with concern.
“There appears to be some sort of force shield in the doorway,” she told him, her eyes wide in pain and confusion. “It hurts to touch it.”
“What does that mean?” Tobin asked, a sinking feeling in his chest.
She didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she walked to the windows, and tentatively reached out her uninjured hand. The same shimmer appeared in the air again, and she pulled her hand back immediately with a hiss of pain and frustration.
She turned back to Tobin, brow furrowed. “It means that we’re trapped in this room.”