The Youngest Mage [Completed]

(22) Near Panic

"Where are Dalbreath and Deearo?" said Maurinn to Mrs. Nunn at half past ten.

"I'm sure they just slept in," said Fieatra Nunn. "Should I have Unda wake them?"

"Please do so," said Maurinn.

"What's wrong?" said Mauriel, sensing the tension as she came into the sun room from her morning walk in the garden.

"Probably nothing," said Maurinn, but her sister could tell she was addled about something.

Unda came back with a frown on her face. "They aren't there," she said.

Maurinn looked at her sister with real desperation. "Can you divine where they are, please?" She asked.

Mauriel nodded slowly. "Yes, but I need at least five red candles, and I need a silver basin of water. Do you have these things Mrs. Nunn?"

"Please dear, call me Fieatra. Yes, I believe so. You will find them in my meditation room, Unda. Be a dear, and fetch them, will you?"

Mauriel took some rouge lipstick from her purse and traced a red pentagram on the floor. Then when Unda had brought the items requested Mauriel set a red candle at each point of the pentagram while Unda filled the silver basin half full. Mauriel placed the basin in the middle of the pentagram and lit the candles before beginning an incantation:

"Six, eight,
Administrate,
A darkened turn
In time.
See into the swirl of action,
The present business of two boys."

The water to Mauriel's great surprise turned black, like a swirling cloud of black smoke. "Oh dear," said Maurinn, "she's blocking your vision. Oh, how utterly horrible." A big puff of smoke revealed that  Bekma had come.

"Maybe I could try," said Bekma, stepping into the room.

Bekma used a different method to see the present. He simply used a word and a complex hand gesture, which happened so fast no one could be certain what hand gesture he had used. Again there was black smoke, but they saw a cave briefly. "Don't panic, Maurinn. I know that cave. It is Ontiwa's summer cave."

"How do I not panic?" said Maurinn.

"Let's go to the cave and see what we see," said Bekma. "Grab hold of my cloak,."
So they did, and all three disappeared in a large puff of smoke. At the cave they found the footprints of two boys mingled with the paw prints of Ontiwa.

They did a primitive divination there in the cave using a technique that Bekma knew that involved a lit torch. They saw them in the flame and heard their plans to save the princess.

"Save the princess, what kind of nonsense has my son gotten himself into?" said Maurinn.

"We can track them," said Bekma, following the tracks outside the cave.

"Let's do that," said Maurinn.

Maurinn and a silent Mauriel followed Bekma as he followed their trail through the woods. It took them until nightfall to reach the fire and see the boys scared but so determined upon Ni Sheilo's back. Bekma quickly put up a shield that surrounded the boys, Ni Sheilo, with a greenish light. The panther shape-shifted into the cat-girl, who began circling the shield looking for a weak spot.

"I would have slit all four throats for daring to try and wake up my sister," she said.

That's when Ontiwa rushed her taking a great swipe at her head, sending it flying across the lake where it thudded in the grass on the far side, and then rolled into the lake. Then her body fell, a bloody neck with no head which fell right into the lake.

"Well done Ontiwa," said Bekma. "It will be a few weeks before her blood pools together. You have given us time to plan our next move."

"What can we do?" said Maurinn, softly.

"I have some ideas," said Bekma, "but for now let's go back to the Nunn mansion. I've never made a portal so big, but I want Ontiwa and Ni Sheilo with us now. They're not safe in the wild. So Maurinn, I will need your help."

"Very well," said Maurinn. Together they made a portal big enough to carry them all to the mansion. Maurinn was too sad to give the boys a proper scolding, and Mauriel was too silent to say anything, but Bekma chewed them all out properly, and even Ontiwa felt small when he was done scolding them. The boys hung their heads in shame, and said "Sorry, sorry," over and over again. But they knew it wasn't enough.