I turned to see Astrea standing there, her wand still upraised. She looked down at me, pointed her wand at my leg and said quietly, “Eraisio.”
My cuts instantly healed. I stood on shaky legs.
She pointed her wand at my face and said, “Unmutado.”
“What was that thing?” I asked, my voice now returned.
She looked at where the creature had been. The grass underneath was burned.
“A dopplegang. A creature that can become whatever it sees. In this case it became you.”
“But when I tried to cast a spell on it, the spell hit me instead.”
“That’s the primary strength of the dopplegang. Its prey will strike out at the thing, never realizing that it is, in fact, attacking itself. The dopplegang will wait patiently for its prey to kill or incapacitate itself, and then it will eat the unfortunate one.”
“So when I tried to use the Rigamorte curse?”
“I stopped you. Because you would have killed yourself.”
“But how did you stop me?”
“Mutado. A spell that takes your voice away. I just performed the reverse curse, which is why you can speak once more.”
“And you struck the dopplegang blind because if it can’t see, it can’t become something else? Meaning it reverts back to its true self?”
“And with that defense gone, I was able to kill it.” She added sternly, “You’re quite fortunate that I found your room empty and came looking for you.”
“I was flying around when a storm struck.”
“Of course it did.”
“Because the Quag doesn’t want me to fly over it?”
Her angry look faded. “Excellent, Vega. You are treating the place as a living, breathing, evolving organism, as well you should.” She looked at the spot where the dopplegang had been. “You actually learned a valuable lesson this light, Vega. You must be prepared for anything. I can teach you much, but I can’t teach you all that you will face in the Quag.” She pointed ahead with her wand. “The first of the Five Circles lies just out there. Destin’s flying ability will be limited from now on.”
“But not impossible?”
“No. But you should use it only in extreme circumstances. And even then the danger you’re fleeing may be as nothing to the peril you create by attempting to fly.” She looked pointedly at me. “But speaking frankly, please do not think that all three of you will make it through alive. The odds against that are so enormous as to approach the miraculous. And while I do obviously believe in magic, I do not and never have believed in miracles.”
She turned and walked off. But I stood there, as though rooted in the dirt of this awful place. I’m not sure the dopplegang could have hurt me any more than Astrea just had.
Viginti sex: Lessons from Hel
I sat in my seat and stared up at the blackboard. Delph sat to the left of me, while Harry Two was at my feet. He wasn’t dozing. My amazing canine was paying attention! Archie sat in the very back. At the head of the room and standing in front of the blackboard was Astrea, clothed in a long cloak.
She tapped her wand at the blackboard, and writing appeared on it. “The Quag, as I told you before, is divided into Five Circles.”
Delph had his ink stick poised over his parchment. It appeared to me that he was even more focused on this lesson than I was. And then it struck me why. He couldn’t do magic. But he could know the circles as well as anyone. That might prove important later on.
“The First Circle,” began Astrea, “is named the Mycanmoor.”
I flinched. The Mycanmoor had been mentioned on Quentin’s map.
“The Mycanmoor is a maze of startling complexity and populated with creatures that might well prove lethal in any encounter.”
“What is the maze made of?” I asked after I wrote all this down.
“It can be many and various. Thick, living hedges and forests of trees. Walls of stone so high you can’t see the tops of them. Vines of poisonous plants. Battlements of bones. And these elements can change on a whim.”
“Bones?” I interjected. “What of?”
“Bones only have one source,” she said. “The dead.”
“Yes, but dead what?” I persisted.
“No Wugs, if that’s what you mean. Other creatures that were killed in there. The principal threats in the Mycanmoor are the chontoo and the wendigo. Also the manticore is nothing to be trifled with.”
“So what’s the secret of getting through the mazes?” Delph asked.
In response, Astrea tapped the board and on it appeared a mess of pathways that seemed to have no end. She pointed her wand at it and said, “Confuso, recuso.” The maze lengthened out and became as straight as a poplar tree.
I turned to her in amazement. “That’s it, just the one spell?”
“It’s not simple if you don’t know what it is. In fact, if you don’t, you’ll wander the maze forever, for it is what is deemed a perfect maze.”
I looked curiously at her. “What does that mean, a perfect maze?”
“One with no detached walls, and no isolation sections, which refer to a passel of passages totally encircled by walls. These are completely unreachable because there is no trail to those sections from any starting spot in the maze. There is exactly one solution to a perfect maze and only one. And there is only one path in the maze from one spot to another spot. Making it utterly perfect, hence the name.”
She tapped the board once more. Instantly, another maze appeared there. As I looked at the thing, I could make neither head nor tail of it.
However, as though in a trance, Delph rose and went over to the board. He ran his eye up and down the drawing and then picked up an ink stick that lay on Astrea’s desk and started to draw a line. Around and around he went, up and down, side to side, down this path, down another, left here, right there, and the whole time, Delph was staring at the board, his focus complete. Finally, his line of ink ran itself right out of the maze.
He turned to see both Astrea and me watching him in amazement.
“What?” he said, eyeing us warily.
“How did you do that?” Astrea exclaimed.
“Do what?”
“Get out of the maze,” I blurted out. “Ruddy brilliant it was, Delph.”
He looked at what he had done as though he was seeing it for the first time. “I... I just went the way that would get me out of the bloody thing.”
Then it occurred to me that Delph had always been like that. He had found the most efficient paths through the forests in Wormwood better than anyone. He had come up with a strategy for me to prevail in the Duelum. He had come up with a diversion so that I could escape from Thorne’s room. He had a mind that grew large thoughts from small things.
“Well,” said Astrea. “I think that you might do very well in the Mycanmoor even without the spell I just gave Vega.”
I was glad she had said that, for I could see Delph’s spirits lift immeasurably.
“Now we must move on to the beasts that will confront you in the Mycanmoor. You must be prepared for them.” She looked at Delph. “Both of you.”
She waved her wand. Appearing on the blackboard was something that made me jump up, my wand at the ready, and Harry Two to bark and then attack.
Astrea waved her wand once more and my canine was whisked gently back to where he had been sitting. She looked at me and said, “This is a chontoo.”
I was staring at a head without a body attached to it. The face was foul with jagged fangs, flames for hair and eyes that were utterly demonic.
“What does it do?” I asked fearfully. “And where is the rest of it?”
“That is all there is,” she replied. “The chontoo was spawned over the centuries by different creatures and species intermingling, as we call it here. It is said that the chontoo will wildly attack anything in the hopes of using its prey’s body parts to replace the ones it does not have. As this is not possible, it will always fail. But its bloodlust never wavers.”