A Questionable Quest

Chapter 18... in which magical mirrors might make me mad

"Open the door."

Could really you call that a door? My brain commented mildly, through all of my other racing thoughts. It's more like a... porthole?

Whereas ordinarily I would have paused to ponder the question (and maybe turned to Van for a second opinion), I pushed it to the back of my mind, to be pondered at a later, less pressing moment.

As it was, my gaze remained glued to the 'door'. It didn't budge.

"Open. The. Door," I growled, just as Van said, "you want to do as she says."

"Because she's a witch?" This was distinctly Felix's voice. He followed it up with a derisive snort. "That doesn't mean much in this company, does it?"

"You'd be wise not to oversell your abilities, Felix," came Avvenor's deep, unruffled voice. Felix immediately shut up. "I'd hardly call you a formidable foe."

(If I hadn't been so livid, I might have felt sorry for the wizard's apprentice. As it was, I didn't feel anything but the slightest sliver of sympathy -- he did, after all, work for an evil wizard.)

"No," Van said, in response to Felix's derision. He ignored Avvenor's comments. "Because I'm just as much a prince as she is a witch." I winced. (Felix snorted again, and murmured something that sounded suspiciously like "not much, then".) Van continued. "And those are odds I'm willing to bet on."

I drew my upper lip between my teeth, then released it. Calm down. Calm down, and you might make it out.

Blind anger, Mordrin had always advised, is to magic what poison is to an apple. Stronger though it may be, the intended purpose is not what results.

I took three deep breaths. Van was saying something overly noble about our "impending victory", but I tuned it out.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

In... and out...

I blinked, stared at the trap door, and gently shouldered my satchel onto both shoulders. "Stay in there, okay?" I whispered to Dero. He squeaked, though whether or not he understood me remained to be seen, and ducked into the bag, ruffling his wings ever-so-slightly.

"-is he always this... pompous?" Avvenor's voice was asking when I turned my attention back to the room, Dero sufficiently stored at my back.

That made me grin -- a real grin. I turned slowly to face Master Avvenor. "More, sometimes."

Van shot me the same narrow-eyed look from earlier, but this time it might have been laced with amusement.

I sobered, after a moment, and turned a serious gaze on the older wizard. "You know what's inevitable if you don't open that door, don't you?" One last attempt to reason with him.

I didn't expect it to work -- the man had, after all, attempted to blow up my eldest sister and the entire royal family during her coronation thirty years ago. (He'd placed volcanized stones underneath each throne, and the water bath, to explode as soon as he lit them with fire.)

The wizard was apparently beyond reason. He just spread his arms -- which looked just a little ridiculous as he remained sitting -- and replied evenly, "I can see both the past, and the present. Alas I am not able to predict the future. I am no hag."

"Seer," Van and I said, in unison.

The man hummed in indifferent disagreement. "Pray tell, what then might happen if I do not open that door?"