Island of Legends

  He was getting a little dizzy with all the concentrating. Bringing life to a creature was no light task. He moved on. “Intensity,” he said, thinking of Ms. Octavia and her abilities, and then going off script as he sometimes had a tendency to do in Actors’ Studio, he added, “Speed,” and pictured the whale positively flying through the sea.

  Alex moved on. “Passion.” Yes, Alex thought. Passion is what must take the place of fury. Passion makes us want to live another day, to try to do the right thing. Passion contains love and fear and anger and motivation. Passion keeps you fighting when you want to give up. It was, Alex reflected later, something you could even work to improve inside yourself.

  As he neared the end, Alex was tempted to add “fury” despite Mr. Today’s crossing it out. But Alex didn’t want to mess with Mr. Today’s obviously well-thought-out spell. Having “Furious” in her name would have to do. And really, Spike Furious was probably the best name a creature could have.

  Alex turned the page, keeping one hand on the whale.

  Finally, address your new creature by name, urging him or her to take a breath.

  Don’t forget to step back and give your creature some room to breathe and move about.

  Alex put the book down and placed his other hand on the whale. He took a deep breath and said, “Spike Furious, you are alive! Take your first breath!”

  There was a hum, a buzz in the air, and the whale began to shimmer. Alex stumbled backward so he could watch, taking it all in. “Spike,” he breathed again, unable to contain his excitement. “Breathe!”

  The enormous creature opened her milky eyes, which expressed immediate surprise in a most beautiful way.

  Her blowhole pulsed and her tail flapped.

  She breathed once, twice.

  And then her body began to slump and sag.

  Her eyes became pinpricks of fear, and her gorgeous blue skin turned a sickening shade of gray.

  The Short, Uneventful Life of Spike Furious

  Alex paled. His hands rose to his forehead, his fingers threading through and gripping his hair. “What is it, Spike? What’s wrong?”

  Spike’s eyes rolled back and her lids closed. Her sides heaved, and a moan came from somewhere deep inside her.

  In an instant Alex realized that he had made a horrendous mistake.

  He ran to her side and placed his hand on the whale, struggling to think of the term he needed. “Um, Im-Improve!” he shouted. “Be able to live on land!” He jiggled the heaving creature’s side, which had become very hot. “Stay alive,” he cried. But it was no use. The spell had been enacted, and there was no way to go back and fix it.

  Wildly Alex looked around for water, but there was nothing here—he’d have to run all the way to the kitchenette, and even then he had only teacups with which to transport it. “No!” he cried as the memory flooded back—the memory of Mr. Today talking about how he had found this whale on the shore, and how he had watched it die because it couldn’t get back into the water. Now Alex had brought it to life only to watch it die again. It was the most horrible thing he could imagine. And he had done it to the poor creature. Guilt raked his insides.

  “Water!” Alex yelled, pointing at a book, trying to create it. But nothing happened. He’d never been able to do it—Lani was the only one he knew of who could turn things into soup, and as far as he knew, putting the whale into soup wouldn’t exactly solve the problem. He needed to get the whale into water. He needed to get the whale into the sea.

  An idea sprang to Alex’s mind. The transport spell! He’d transport the whale to the sea. But what if she swam away? Alex whipped his head around, looking for any other option that would assure him that Spike would live, but there was none. All he knew was that he couldn’t let this whale die. Alex put his hands on Spike’s side once more.

  He screwed up his face, clenching his jaw and squeezing his eyes shut, as he pictured the sea of Artimé, just off shore but in deep enough water that the whale could be fully immersed. And even though he was exhausted from creating the beast, he mustered up his strongest concentration, picturing the location where he wanted to transport her.

  When he was sure he had focused sufficiently, he muttered, “Transport.”

  He waited a moment, but he could still feel the creature struggling under his touch. He peeked at her, then shut his eyes once more. “Transport,” he said, louder and more desperately this time.

  But the whale didn’t disappear.

  “Ugh!” Alex had no idea why it wasn’t working. “Come on!” He tried a third time, to no avail.

  “I’m so sorry!” he cried, clinging to Spike. “I don’t know what to do! Why won’t it work?” Alex turned away, slumped to the floor in agony, and buried his head in his hands. He would have to stay until it was over, that much he knew. The whale’s gasps and moans, her shuddering flank—all of it was the most horrendous thing Alex could imagine. And he was the cause of it. No wonder Mr. Today had stopped making creatures. It was too painful when you made a mistake.

  When Alex looked up, he found himself staring at the statue of Ol’ Tater and remembering his conversation with Mr. Today about the transport spell. And soon the words came back to Alex. Ol’ Tater had been transported to the Museum of Large with a transport spell, but that was after Mr. Today had put him to sleep. “It doesn’t work with humans or living creatures,” Mr. Today had said.

  Alex looked up at Spike in horror. That was why it didn’t work. Spike was a living creature. At least for a few more minutes. It was agonizing. Would he even be able to bring back a creature who had died? Ol’ Tater hadn’t died—Mr. Today had put him to sleep. Was there a difference? Alex jumped to his feet. He couldn’t stand it—Spike was in misery. He looked at Ol’ Tater once more, and then, slowly, Alex turned toward the whale and began singing, his mind searching desperately for the words and changing the ones that mattered:

  “Spikey girl, Spikey girl,

  Too much sadness, no repeats.

  I am sorry, more than sorry,

  But it’s time for you to sleep.”

  Immediately the whale ceased her struggles, and her body turned back into the materials Alex had used to make her.

  The new mage checked her over carefully and emitted a long sigh. At least he had put her out of her misery. But he was still very sorry to have made her suffer so much first. It had been a mistake. A big one. And it had been made on someone else’s life. Alex knew he would most certainly never forget it as long as he lived.

  Still shaking, Alex touched the whale’s side once more, eager now to right his wrongs. “Let’s get you into the water,” he said. “Ready?” He sucked in a deep breath and let it out. “Okay.”

  Alex closed his eyes and once again pictured the sea, just offshore but deep enough for the whale to be fully immersed. He concentrated on the spot in his mind for a long time. And then he whispered, “Transport.”

  The whale disappeared.

  Alex’s eyes flew open. He stared at the empty spot. And then he ran out of the Museum of Large and through the hall to the balcony, tripped down the steps and around the few residents who remained awake at this hour, raced past dozing statues Simber and Florence, and flung open the front door, which immediately woke Simber.

  Before Simber could speak, Alex, still running, yelled, “Going for a late night dip in the sea!”

  At the edge of the water he kicked off his shoes and fought his way out of his pants, but kept his robe on, and then dashed out to the water, running and splashing until it became too deep, and dove in.

  Pulling a blinding highlighter from his robe pocket while he swam, he aimed it at the ocean floor, trying to find the lifeless Spike. He knew she’d be at the bottom, like Simber had been. But where exactly? Alex also knew the transport spell wasn’t entirely accurate.

  The effects of Ms. Octavia’s underwater breathing class became evident as Alex searched. It was loads easier to hold his breath underwater now, using the oxygen in his blood to keep him
going, and he could easily stay underwater for six or seven minutes without coming up to the surface.

  He needed those six or seven minutes now. In the murky water, magically coaxing the blinding highlighter to hold a steady, not-blinding light rather than flashing quickly and fading away, Alex pushed himself along the ocean floor. As he searched for the large body, he realized he didn’t remember all of the live spell—he hadn’t memorized it. Perhaps he should go back to shore and get the book.

  But then he shook his head. He didn’t need the live spell—that’s not what had brought Ol’ Tater back to life. He needed to use the restore spell.

  Frantically he tried to recall the words from that spell and the order they went in. It started with “imagine.” Could he remember the rest? It seemed like years ago that he’d restored Artimé, even though it had only been a matter of months. He pictured Sky at his side like she had been back then, and that seemed to calm his mind as he recalled her patient hand signals to help him remember the words: “imagine,” “believe, “whisper” . . . He hesitated, knowing that the next word was the one he always forgot, and today was no different. He closed his eyes to concentrate for a moment, and pictured Sky, pressing on his chest. He smiled and opened his eyes, letting the seawater sting them once more. Of course—the one thing he’d forgotten to do then and couldn’t exactly do now. It was “breathe.” And then finally, the word that would trigger rebirth: “commence.”

  Oh, Sky, he thought. Maybe if he hadn’t been so googly-eyed about kissing her, he wouldn’t have made such a stupid mistake, and he wouldn’t be in this predicament right now. He frowned. Now wasn’t a good time to be thinking about her either. All Alex really needed to do was find the whale. Which was turning out to be impossible. His lungs began to burn. It was time to surface.

  He pushed himself upward and broke the surface, taking in deep breaths of the cool night air. He looked around to see where the lights of Artimé lay and found himself a good bit offshore. Had he missed Spike somewhere? Perhaps he should double back. He saw Simber, backlit by the mansion lights, licking a paw and then yawning at the edge of the water, and waved to him. Simber nodded in return. Alex was secretly proud that the cat hadn’t come out over the water to see what Alex was up to. That meant Simber trusted Alex not to drown. It was a positive step, Alex thought.

  Once he had his wind back again, Alex dove down and resumed his search, this time swimming laps parallel to the shore, drawing closer and closer to shore until he could nearly touch the bottom. Since the whale was quite a bit taller than he, she would stick out above the waves, so she couldn’t be here. Alex had to keep searching.

  After about an hour, he caught sight of the whale a good thousand feet on the other side of the mansion, where no one liked to swim because of the big rocks and sharp edges of the reef. The very tip of Spike’s tail stuck out of the water just slightly, as she was lodged on the reef, head pointed down at the ocean floor.

  “Finally,” Alex grumbled. “That transport spell needs a bit of work, if you ask me.” But no one was there to ask him, so all Alex could do was continue on. Once he had his breath, he stood cautiously on the reef and reached down under the water to touch the whale’s side. His sopping-wet robe stuck to his shivering body, but once again that night Alex concentrated and began to utter a very important spell. One that he knew he should never forget.

  “Imagine,” he whispered, imagining the whale alive again. “Believe.” Oh boy, did he believe it. He’d seen it happen before, and he didn’t need anybody to convince him that this spell would work. “Whisper,” he said, knowing he’d be whispering all along, his magic and his energy giving life to the whale.

  Without hesitation this time, Alex uttered the next word. “Breathe.” However you do it best, Spike, you must do it now. And with that, he ended it. “Commence.” He repeated the words two more times, and then he waited.

  When he felt something electric pulsing through his fingers, Alex opened his eyes. The whale’s tail was moving the slightest bit. “Spike!” he shouted. “Spike Furious, you’re alive!”

  The water was charged with the great creature’s presence. Alex could feel the life around him—the rebirth of this creature, the return to her natural habitat. And then he felt the slap—the really extremely hard slap—of her tail on the side of his face, and he felt his body being lifted out of the water and thrown ten feet aside.

  When Alex resurfaced, sputtering, and came to his senses, Spike was gone.

  Overwhelmed

  Aaron Stowe, covered in leaves and dirt, got up from the bottom of the jungle tube. He brushed himself off and watched as the panther jumped from tree to tree, the little dog following along, yipping from the ground below and then hopping up to grab a branch with his teeth and swinging from branch to branch by the grip of his mouth. Aaron didn’t know what to think. All he knew was that he needed to get out of here before something else went wrong.

  He wiped the dirt off his clothing and looked at the rock. “Okay, well, good-bye then.” He hesitated. Now that the danger was over, he felt strangely drawn to this place.

  The rock moved closer. “We shall see you again soon, I hope,” it rumbled.

  “Ahh . . . right. Of course. I shall come by again soon to make sure everything is working as it should.” He looked over his shoulder at the tube’s button, as if that would help him leave more quickly. “By the way,” he said, “how many creatures are out here?”

  “A dozen or so. Some of them I haven’t seen in . . . well, in years, I suppose. I think about them, though. They know how to find me if . . . if they need me.”

  Aaron frowned. The rock’s voice had turned wistful, and Aaron didn’t know how to process that. And frankly, he didn’t want to know. Not today. He’d had enough for today. He nodded and said another awkward good-bye. And then he pressed the button.

  Spending less than a second in the tube in his brother’s mansion, Aaron pushed the first button, which would take him to Haluki’s. When he arrived there, he felt a cool draft, colder than any temperature he’d ever felt in Quill before. His heart pounded. Had he hit the wrong button by mistake? He pushed his hand out of the tube and found the familiar closet doors. Cautiously he opened it and stepped into Haluki’s office. His shoes squished on the wet floor.

  What in Quill? Aaron wondered, stepping gingerly across the room. It was almost chilly in there. The walls were wet. The ceiling dripped with water. And the floor was soaked. It was more water than he’d seen in one place before, if you didn’t count Artimé. And he didn’t.

  He dipped a finger into a small pool of water and tasted it. He’d never felt something so cold on his tongue before. And it tasted good. He cupped his hands and drank some more, glad for it but feeling like he was in a strange dream. Why was it here?

  Puzzled, he wandered through the house, still in a daze from the jungle experience. It was the same everywhere—water dripping from the tables and chairs, standing in the sink, soaking into the wooden floorboards. And in the center of the dining table was a small white puck of something strange. Aaron reached out and touched it. “Ouch!” he cried. It had felt good at first, but then it made his fingers burn. He dropped the puck, watched it skate across the floor, and pressed his fingertips to his cheek. They were cold.

  Aaron could feel a strange, anxious feeling welling up inside him. It was all too much for him to process after what he’d just been through. He couldn’t make sense of anything tonight. It was all he could do to keep his legs from collapsing under him as he made his way to the palace. What Aaron needed more than anything right now, he decided, was to forget everything weird that had happened and go to sleep for a week. Then he could figure out just how to handle this new, secret part of his life.

  Staggering back home to the palace, Aaron didn’t even notice Secretary on the side of the road, hiding in the shadow of the wall, talking quietly with a friend . . . or perhaps it was an enemy.

  But Eva Fathom saw him.

  » ?
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  “He’s up to something,” Eva said in the shadows after Aaron was out of sight. “I can feel it.”

  “Well, you’ll have to hold him off for a while.”

  “I’ll try. He’s a bit of a coward, so it shouldn’t be difficult. Be safe.”

  “You too.”

  The two—friends or enemies, perhaps not even they knew for sure—clasped hands and then parted ways.

  The List

  By morning, preparations were in full swing for the rescue, and Alex didn’t have time to lament the loss of his first creature. He’d been preoccupied, had acted hastily, and hadn’t thought things out, which had resulted in several obvious mistakes. Perhaps that was why Mr. Today had never tried to re-create the whale. There was no place to keep it and train it, or simply talk to it.

  It was a bit embarrassing, actually, now that the fear of Spike’s dying was over. Alex was glad he hadn’t brought an audience around to witness it—especially Sky. What if she was disappointed in him? He hoped she wouldn’t ask about it. Though maybe if he’d included her more in the planning, she might have had some better ideas. She was known for that, after all. But the truth was, whenever Sky was around, Alex felt like he wasn’t concentrating enough on being the leader of Artimé. And it was when he wasn’t concentrating enough that mistakes were made. It was a serious problem.

  “Blurgh,” he muttered, thinking not for the first time that maybe mages just weren’t cut out for having relationships—not romantic ones, anyway. Alex hoped Sky wasn’t hurt that he hadn’t asked her to help. He decided that if he just didn’t mention the whale and acted really busy and focused on the quest to rescue Sky’s mother, all these awkward feelings about Sky, and about his mistakes with Spike, would go away soon enough.

  Simber had witnessed the entire Spike saga from shore, of course. Eventually he’d been joined by Sean, who’d gone out for a late-night walk, as he often did. Simber tried to explain to Sean what was happening to Alex, but he didn’t actually know all the details, so he made them up, much to Sean’s delight. The two had waited patiently on shore as Alex swam back alone. The giant cat had held his tongue, hard as it sometimes was, so at least Alex had that relief. Sean just laughed once he knew the whale was all right, and he promised not to say anything to embarrass Alex.