Bishop_Betrayal Read online

  Now it was Rich’s turn to laugh, and it didn’t sound like him at all. In fact, it sounded a lot like...

  “Mallory,” Nadia spat. “Stop it. I don’t know how you’re impersonating Rich, but it’s not very good. Don’t think about starting a YouTube channel anytime soon.”

  The fake Rich sighed and rolled his eyes. A dark cloud swirled around him, and when it parted, Mallory stepped out, still laughing. “You should have seen your face, thinking that you knight in shining...or make that rusty armor had come to save you. There’s just something about killing hope that makes my day.”

  Though she was feeling a bit weak, Nadia vaulted herself over the bed to stand toe-to-toe with Mallory. “Rich has beaten you before, and he’s going to do it again. And when I do get out, I’m going to join them and learn how to be a knight so I can come back and beat you myself.”

  Nadia narrowed her eyes, looking intently at Nadia, her face hard and menacing. She held the expression for a moment and then burst out laughing again. “You can face me anytime, girl. Oh, but we won’t be doing spelling bees or obstacle courses. I only play in contests that matter, with real stakes and real glory involved. As long as that’s all right with you.”

  With a grin, Mallory withdrew a dagger from her hip with jagged pieces of metal for the hilt and a slender black blade. “What should we say—daggers at dawn? That has a nice ring to it.”

  Staring at the dagger, Nadia felt dizzy and nearly felt backwards, but instead she stumbled to the bed. “Maybe next time,” she said, holding a hand to her forehead. “I can’t believe you would give me a fair fight. What’s with Rich, anyway? Why do you want him so badly?”

  Mallory twirled the dagger and stuck it back in her belt. “Finally, a sensible question out of your mouth.” She started to pace like she usually did when explaining something. “Well, you see, good ol’ Richie has something that Siris and Morgana need. In case you didn’t do the homework, they’re the dark king and queen. They’ve offered quite the reward for the person who brings him in, and much more for the one who can turn him. Let’s just say I want that person to be me. If I do, I’ll be next in line for queen.”

  She stopped pacing and glared at Nadia, the side of her mouth twitching. Nadia found herself wishing she was back in Mr. Bickmann’s class. At least then the worst she could get was detention. She didn’t know if Rich was really coming. She wanted it so badly, but was she getting her hopes up?

  It was weird. Ever since she’d gotten here, she hadn’t thought about Trent. She wondered what had happened to him, but didn’t find herself missing him.

  “That’s where you come in,” Mallory whispered. “I’ve looked into Rich’s heart, and guess what? You’re in there. At first I was a little jealous that I’d been replaced so quickly, but now that I have you, it’s really about the same thing. You’re going to do the convincing for me.”

  Nadia arched an eyebrow. “Did I not say it loud enough with the flying potatoes? Not going to happen. I’m not going to join you, and I’m definitely not going to talk Rich into it either.”

  But was Mallory lying again? Did Rich feel that way about her? That didn’t sound like the worst thing in the world, but then again, could she trust anything that came out of Mallory’s mouth? It was like her ulterior motives had ulterior motives.

  “Would you rather see him dead?” Mallory asked. “Because that’s what’s going to happen if we can’t turn him. And as his Nemesis, I’ll get to do the honors. I know all his deepest fears, all his weakness and flaws. It will be torture, and that will be all your fault.”

  Nadia’s cheeks flushed with shame, but she pushed it away. What kind of thinking was that? Mallory was trying to manipulate her, and it wouldn’t work. “Yeah, I like the guy. When I first met him, I thought he was only a huge nerd, but he’s proven he’s a lot more than that. He’s probably the nicest guy I know, and I couldn’t live with myself if I asked him to betray who he really is.” She drew in a deep breath and then tried to stand a little taller. “So, yeah, the answer’s still no.”

  Mallory let out a grunt and shook his head. “I can see we’ve been too kind to you. Let’s see if your attitude changes once we’ve starved you for a few days.”

  Mallory reached out a hand in Nadia’s direction and then clenched it into a fist. It was like all the energy drained out of Nadia’s muscles at once. She flopped to the floor in front of her bed, unable to say anything as Mallory stomped away.

  CHAPTER 5: SPINNING GEARS

  From the Quest Log of Heinrich Wulfrich Witz

  I could barely sleep because I was trying to come up with some way around my problem. Watches and clocks filled my dreams, abstract at first, floating around in the darkness, but then I found myself in an old-fashioned clockmaker’s shop, complete with this kooky old man wearing a leather apron and magnifying goggles that made one eye look a bit bigger than the other.

  “What am I supposed to do?” I asked him in my dream.

  He looked up from something he was tinkering with and stared at me. “Do? About what?”

  It took me a second. My dream self sometimes isn’t that smart, but he’s much better at using my imagination. I reached into my dream pocket and withdrew a golden watch and opened it for the old man. It showed a miniature version of the puzzle I had to face.

  He took the watch and held it close to his magnified bug eyes, and then shook his head. “This is quite a complicated system. Where did all the gears go? Don’t tell me you lost them.”

  “Yeah, they’re gone,” I told him. “And I’ve got to make new ones. Can you help me?”

  The man set the watch back on the table and looked right at me. “I suppose I can help you help yourself. How were you going to replace the gears?”

  I sighed and waved my hands in the air like a magician. “Uh, this might sound weird, but I’m supposed to use my powers to imagine them into existence. But I can only do five things at once, and there are a lot more gears than that in there.”

  The clockmaker nodded slowly, rubbing at the white stubble on his chin. “Perhaps you’re seeing the gears as single pieces and not part of the whole. These gears are so closely interconnected that they’re really one system. You shouldn’t think of them as a bunch of singular objects, but as one complicated object. Does that make sense?”

  Because it was a dream, an enormous light bulb actually did go on over my head for a moment.

  I tried to create the gears in my dream because it seemed so much easier to use my imagination that way. I thought of the missing gears like one big shape like the rock in the first test, only a lot more complicated. I had to image some of the teeth of the gears being tiny, with some being bigger. It took me a while, I think. It’s hard to tell in a dream.

  But then I thought I finally had the shape figured out. I used my power, and the whole set of interconnected gears appeared in my hand. I handed them to the clockmaker, who inserted them into the watch with care and closed the back. He wound it up tight and then let it go. A rhythmic ticking sounded from it, getting louder and louder by the second.

  The clockmaker handed it back, grinning, and for a moment, he looked just like Arlenen. Before I could say anything else, the ticking grew so loud that it woke me up.

  I sat up and realized that the pocket watch from my dream now lay on my lap. Its gears were much too small, but it would serve as the perfect pattern for the larger one. Not wanting to waste a second, I ran back to the wall with the clock and took out another conjuring stone. I held it in one hand and the watch in the other, using the little gears I had made to imagine the big gears. It was a little like tracing something in my mind, if that makes sense.

  Jan stood by, grinning, but saying nothing. The new gears slid into place and th
e clock whirred to life, filling the cavern with constant ticking. My parents ran toward the sound from opposite ends of the cave. Yeah, they were hanging out as far apart from each other as they could. But it didn’t bother me so much right then because I had figured out the second test on my own...sort of.

  When the clock struck the hour, it also opened up a door to—you guessed it—another staircase down into darkness. This cave didn’t look all that different than the rest of it, and Jan didn’t say anything right away. I tried to figure out what was missing that could be part of the next test, but unless it was a stalactite that needed repairing, I couldn’t see anything.

  My parents stayed back, talking softly to each other. They didn’t look all that happy, but at least they were talking. I ran up to Jan and decided to take things into my own hands. “Hey, how do you know so much about this sort of stuff?” I asked him. “You’re a knight too, right?”

  Jan fished in his blond beard and took out a familiar amulet with a rook in a cage. “Yes, young master. But I’d give my best fishing net and all the fish in Helsinki to have the potential you do. Some people are just born into the right time, don’t you think?”

  I’d never thought about it like that, I guess. I mean, if it hadn’t been me, it would have been someone else, right? The more I thought about it, the less I knew how to answer.

  “So, what do I need to do here? Maybe create a cool Viking ship to sail across an underground lake?”

  Jan chuckled as he rubbed his hands together. “You like Vikings, do you? Well, you could think up a Viking for the next task if you really want to, but it doesn’t have to be.”

  Now that made me more confused than ever. Was he talking about using my imaginative powers to make a person appear? I didn’t think they worked like that. I asked him exactly what I had to do, and his laughing calmed down a bit.

  “Well, the first room was supposed to show you how precise you need to be with your powers, the second was to show you how you can create more complex objects as one, and this room is to show you the boundaries of your powers. You need to bring a person into existence. It’s like a temporary helper who can come and go as you imagine him or her. It’s not a real person—more like an extension of yourself to be an extra set of...well, everything!”

  This was where I really wished this knight thing came with instructions. I asked him exactly how I was supposed to do that, but he shook his head. “It doesn’t work if I just tell you directly, but I am here to steer you and cheer you on. Give it a try and see what happens.”

  So I closed my eyes and gave it a shot. I had mentioned Vikings before. I pictured this blond guy with a bunch of muscles and a battle ax. I read somewhere that people now think that Vikings didn’t actually wear horns on their helmets, but I didn’t care. The horns made them look much cooler, and so I put the biggest set of horns I could imagine on my creation.

  I tried bringing him into existence with my powers, and for a second, a picture of my Viking friend flickered in the air. He looked more like a cartoon than a real human, though. His arms and legs were much too big, and he looked like he was missing a lot of detail. The Viking warrior raised his battle ax once and then vanished in a puff of smoke.

  I had to lean against the wall for a few moments. That took more out of me than anything else I’d tried.

  “Not bad,” Jan said. “But you’ve got to be more specific. Think about the things you’ve learned in the previous lessons and try that again. Imagine it more like a photograph and less like a comic book.”

  Easier said than done. At least when it came to Vikings. For my second shot, I tried someone more normal I could imagine better. Closing my eyes, I pictured Aunt Laura in my mind. Bad idea. It didn’t take me long to remember where she was—in some Nemesis dungeon. My picture broke down before it really got started.

  I tried a bunch of other people I knew—my mom, my dad, a few people from school and the community center. But all of them either turned out way too cartoony or distracted me.

  I guess Jan could see things weren’t going well, and he put one of his huge hands on the top of my head to get my attention. “You know who I think of?” he asked.

  He gave me a few seconds to think, but then supplied the answer. “My wife, Frieda. Ah, she was a beauty. I have never seen such beautiful blonde hair. She is gone now, but I still can see every detail of her face when I close my eyes.”

  He sighed and changed the subject. “Rich, you’re tired. If you keep trying tonight, you’re going to burn yourself out. At least go take a nap, and we’ll try again later.”

  He showed me where he kept some cots and bedrolls just for this purpose. I didn’t know why he had to set up shop in this creepy cave, but at least he had thought being prepared.

  I lay down and just managed to get this entry in. My eyelids are falling fast.

  . . . . .

  Unfortunately for Nadia, Mallory wasn't bluffing. No food arrived for the rest of the day or the day after that. Nadia tried to think positively. Maybe she’d lose some weight this way. She’d wanted to do that for a while, just not on the "dungeon diet."

  On the morning of the third day, she was just about to test whether sheets were edible when Mallory stepped into the room holding a tray with a tall glass of water and a bacon cheeseburger.

  "Want some?" Mallory asked, her head cocked smugly to the side. Of course Nadia did, but she felt almost too weak to talk, and so she only nodded. After setting the tray down on a table, Mallory looked at the burger, gripped it with one hand, and took a large bite, letting the sauce and juice dribble down her chin. She sighed contentedly and took a long draw on the water. “If I didn't know better, I'd say that food is the best kind of magic."

  Mallory nodded toward the open door, still chewing. She swallowed and then spoke. "Follow me if you want even a crumb.”

  Nadia slid out of bed, hoping she could still put one foot in front of the other. Even though the food before had been terrible, no food was even worse. She hadn’t seen a friendly face in days or had a good night’s sleep. She might have been able to hang on if she’d had either of those.

  She followed the best she could, watching Mallory pause every so often to take a big bite out of the burger. She needed a napkin, as she let the grease trickled down her face. It made Nadia want to scream, but screaming would take too much energy.

  Instead of making their way to the banquet hall, they ran down the hallway toward what the map called "interrogation rooms." Even as they passed the door that led to the potion room, Nadia was too weak even to think about making a break for it.

  Mallory polished off the burger as they reached the door to one of the interrogation rooms, gleefully licking each of her fingers and her lips. "Well, they just don't make them like that at McDonald's. But guess what? I brought you a friend."

  Not sure whether she should be excited or terrified, Nadia stumbled into the room. It held a table that looked like it had been made out of black granite with a few three-legged stools around it. At one end of the table sat Angela, looking a little like today was Halloween and she’d dressed up like a zombie. She lifted her head, her face a mixture of relief and fear. “Nadia," she whispered. "Do I look as bad as I feel?"

  She spoke like she was half asleep, but she did manage to bring up one side of her mouth. "Probably worse," Nadia said. "What did they do to you?"

  Angela's head flopped like a broken bobblehead doll for a few seconds before she answered. "Well, I can't really remember all of it, just that it hurt...A lot. I'm hungry and thirsty, and I’m having a hard time staying awake."

  Nadia looked at Angela's eyes, which were bloodshot and swollen. A bit of her old anger returned. It looked like they treated Nadia a little better because she actually had
the potential to join them. Angela was just a hostage, someone they could play their sick little games with.

  Before Nadia could ask any more questions, Mallory stepped in and shut the door. "Sorry about that. Had to clean up. Why didn’t you tell me I had something on my face?"

  Nadia said nothing, but growled in the back of her throat. Mallory stood between the two of them at the side of the table and grinned. "So, here's how this will go," she said in a peculiar sort of singsong voice. "I'm gonna make you an offer, Nadia, and if you refuse, I hurt your friend. And that's about it. Any questions?"

  "Same offer as before?" Nadia asked through clenched teeth. She couldn't let this happen. It was one thing to let them hurt her, but they’d already done terrible things to Angela. She couldn't let them keep doing them. They’d kill her.

  "Something like that," Mallory said. "I've been talking to the king and queen, and they have consented to let Angela and the other prisoners go. All it will take is for you to accept your role in the family. Become one of us and help us with our Rich problem. That's all you have to do. One of the benefits of being a dark knight is being able to live with yourself because you didn't let the rest of them die.”

  Mallory held out her hand and uncurled her fingers, revealing a black pawn. Feeling hot shame rise in her face, Nadia took the piece and wrapped her own fingers around it. She couldn’t let them hurt the others anymore.

  Mallory nodded and then motioned for Nadia to follow. "All right then, well done. Follow me. The king and queen will want to meet you and tell you more about what we have in mind for you. Are you by chance an actress?"

  Nadia had never been in a play or anything like that, but she was good at hiding behind a tough persona so she wouldn't have to show her real self to people. Wasn't that a lot like acting? "What about Angela? What about Rich's family?"