Katie leaned forward expectantly. “You said earlier that you found her case unsettling….” she said.

“I did, yes, and still do,” said Lizbet. “Your mother went up against a powerful sorceress and lost, but what I found most unsettling was that there was some question as to the sort of sorceress she encountered.”

“I always suspected mother’s old arch nemesis, to tell you the truth,” said Katie.

“So did I—at first. But I later discovered that Brunhelga was living in retirement at the time of the murder.

Besides, her powers were too weak. The woman who killed your mother was not your ordinary run-of-the-mill sorceress, you know.”

“I don’t understand,” said Katie.

“Every woman alive today, Katie, be she sorceress or seamstress, draws upon the same magickal source as everyone else. At the very moment of birth, we are linked to it, and this link becomes a sort of time reference point. The sorceress who killed your mother apparently did not draw her power from the same Source as the rest of us. In fact, the magick she used was, apparently, of a kind that existed in the ancient past.”

Katie nearly choked as she sipped her tea. “But that’s impossible,” she said. “Zaley’s First Law of Magick says that no one can use ancient magick because its source no longer exists.”

“ ‘Magick exists only in the present,’ ” Lizbet quoted. “But what if Zaley was wrong? We know that the life energy of every living woman creates and sustains the magick we use, and that magick evolves as the generations slowly die out. But what if a sorceress were to somehow find a way to cheat death? Could it be possible that a part of the magick that existed during her time would linger even as she does? And would she then be able to use it as she did in the past?”

Katie thought for a moment. “Dunno,” she said. “I suppose it might be possible, but I don’t see how anyone can cheat death. Magick has its limits, and no spell or enchantment exists that could prolong life indefinitely.”

Lizbet chuckled. “Then you’ve obviously never heard of The Book of All Things,” she said.

“No, I haven’t,” said Katie, frowning. “What is it?”

“The Book of All Things was an extremely unique book,” said Lizbet. “Five thousand years ago it was fashioned by the Elder Mages, the women who first discovered the Source, as a sort of guide to later sorceresses. It is said that the book was intelligent…that it could reason and communicate as we do. And not only that, it knew everything about anything conjured by magick in the Ancient Days, including every spell, hex, enchantment, curse, and artifact. Hence its name.”

Katie whistled. She was unable to imagine something as fantastic as an all-knowing book. “I’d love to get my hands on that,” she said.

A greedy look scuttled across Lizbet’s face. “So would I,” she agreed. “And so would most sorceresses, for that matter. People would probably even kill for it, if it ever turned up.”

“You mean it’s lost?” said Katie, feeling a sudden pang of regret.

“The answer to that question very much depends on who you ask,” said Lizbet. “Every scholar and Archaeomagi from here to the Western Wastes believes the book was destroyed nearly a thousand years ago. But I believe it wasn’t.”

A flash of understanding lit Katie’s mind like lightning. “You think the sorceress who killed my mother used The Book of All Things to cheat death, don’t you?”

“Clever girl. Yes, that is exactly what I believe,” said Lizbet eagerly. “And what’s more, I believe that sorceress to be none other than Notorcia Lellanni, the black snake of Kyzyl Kum.”

Katie set her cup and saucer on the table and ignored them. “Notorcia,” she said, running the name slowly across her tongue. “I’ve never heard of her.”

“It doesn’t surprise me that you haven’t. History has been most unkind in its remembrance of her. Although Notorcia was once a formidable sorceress, women far more terrible and wicked in reputation than she have long since eclipsed her. And now, a thousand years later, only the Learned Historians and Archaeomagi remember her.”

Lizbet paused to refill her cup; the fire newts embraced as the teapot was upended, and then quickly swam out of range of each other as it was returned to the tray.

“As legend has it,” Lizbet continued, “Notorcia began her career as the apprentice of one of the senior sorceresses—Anya Sterling was her name—governing the High Council of Odyssey, which was the main ruling body back in those days. She was a model student, eager to study and quick to learn, and soon had everyone talking about her. Then one day she was introduced to The Book of All Things and, shortly thereafter, began to grow…darker.”

“Is The Book of All Things evil, then?” asked Katie.

“It is neither good nor evil. It merely is what it is: a book of spells. In the hands of the right person it is a powerful tool. But in the hands of the wrong person, it becomes a dangerous weapon. No, the book did not make Notorcia evil; the promise of absolute power, which the book represented, made Notorcia evil, and she used the book to achieve her wicked ends.”

“What happened next?”

“The book did a rare thing: it bonded with her. In the four thousand years of its existence it had only bonded with three other sorceresses, and people began to wonder if the book had discovered yet another Shi’ar (she pronounced it “Shee-are”)—a woman made almost entirely of pure magick—as the previous sorceresses had proven to be.”

“I thought the Shi’ar were just myths,” said Katie, her tone of voice skeptical.

“No, they exist, my dear,” said Lizbet. She nodded, making the tiny bells on her headscarf chime. “And The Book of All Things had a knack for finding them. As it turned out, the people were correct: Notorcia was indeed a Shi’ar—but a dark one, the first of its kind. By the time the High Council discovered this, however, Notorcia was already a force to be reckoned with. For a hundred years she terrorized Odyssey, and very nearly destroyed the sorceresses living during that dark era. And then, one day, she simply disappeared. Kyzyl Kum, her fortress in the Scuttlespine Mountains, stood open and deserted. Her dark armies were scattered to the six winds. When, after several years, she did not resurface, people began to believe that she was truly dead, and they began to concoct elaborate tales about how this brave knight or that unwilling hero managed to defeat her against overwhelming odds. The history books from that period are filled with such stories. They’re all poppycock, of course. But they make for interesting reading.”

“What really happened to her?” Katie asked.

“Ah, now, that will take some explaining,” said Lizbet. She smacked her hand against the table and shouted: “Ey! Chronicles of Sir Herbert!”

Katie watched as a book high atop a nearby stack wiggled from its slot, spread its covers in a spray of fine white dust, and soared down to them as if it were a majestic hawk riding a downdraft. The moment it settled on the table, Lizbet bent over it and tapped its ragged cover with a finger. “I wish to see chapter twenty-one, if you please,” she said. The book burst open and rifled through its pages at lightening speed. When it had located the desired chapter, it fell flat against the table and remained motionless. Lizbet nodded her pleasure.

“It took many years of research, but I finally managed to discover the true story of Notorcia’s disappearance here in the Chronicles of Sir Herbert. Sir Herbert was a collector of odd tales and idle rumors round about the time Notorcia disappeared. Most scholars nowadays dismiss his research as unreliable, but I tell you, Katie, there is always a nugget of truth in any tall tale you may hear—even if it is a thousand years old.”

She stabbed her finger at the open page. “This particular tale is one that Herbert experienced first hand. Listen.”

Lizbet tapped the book twice with her finger, said “Book, speak,” and suddenly an old man’s voice—Herbert’s, Katie assumed—began to whisper from the pages; it was hoarse and wispy, like a winter wind, perhaps because the book itself was very old.

“I was traveling to Pickleberry early one evening in the Spring of 486,” it said, “when a most violent storm caught me unawares in the foothills of the Pendarming Mountains. The mischievous mixture of thunder and stinging rain quickly became too much for my trusty steed, who reared, threw me to the ground, and without so much as a by your leave, galloped off in search of shelter. As I set off in pursuit, I met a man along the road who invited me to weather the storm in his humble cottage. Never one to shun hospitality, I thanked him and passed a most interesting evening as his guest.

“What immediately struck me about this man as we came in from the rain was his most peculiar character; he tended to mutter to himself whenever his attention wavered, and to giggle when the conversation invited no laughter. He was quite mad, that much I can tell you, though not in a violent sense. He seemed genuinely pleased to learn everything about me, and when I told him I was a scholar, he shared with me a most interesting secret.

“He asked me if I had ever heard of The Book of All Things—an outrageous question, of course, for whom in their right mind hadn’t heard of that wonderful and ancient tome? Naturally I replied that I had heard of it, and the very next thing he did was produce it from out a small locked box sitting beside the hearth! I could hardly believe my eyes, but there it was—that famous old book that had long outlived legend and myth. There was no question of its authenticity. Its voice was silenced by a leather strap that had been crudely stitched into its cover. It quivered and shook in the mad fellow’s hands with such ferocity that I almost believed it was pleading with me to rescue it.

Knowing the full history of the book’s most recent adventures—perhaps misadventures is a better word for it—I asked him how he had come by it. His reply was cryptic: “The only one sure way to defeat a snake is to deprive it of its fangs.”

“How he had accomplished this task he did not say, but he made it quite clear that his intention was to hide the Book, so that it ‘would fall into the right hands a second time.’ These were his exact words, but what he meant by ‘right hands’ and ‘a second time’ was a bit of a puzzler. He had stolen the Book from Notorcia, the black snake of Kyzyl Kum—that much was certain. But, her hands were decidedly the wrong hands, or else he wouldn’t have stolen the Book in the first place. In addition, since Notorcia had been the only one to possess the book in several hundred years, how could there possibly be anyone alive to possess it for a second time?
“These were the questions swirling in my mind as I retired for the night, and I resolved to press him for a better answer in the morning. But when dawn came, he was gone, and the little box beside the cold hearth was empty. After retrieving my horse, I went in search of the snake killer, but soon lost his trail. I searched after him for weeks and, while rambling about in the hills west of Pickleberry one afternoon not a month after our encounter, I discovered a newly raised barrow with a gravestone erected atop it, upon which was written the scallywag’s name…”

“Azareth,” Katie said with a gasp.

Lizbet’s head shot up. Her eyes sharpened as they bored into Katie’s. “How do you know that name?”

“His barrow rests in the fields behind my house. I never knew his name until last night, when I went to charge his barrow stone. There I met a woman, a very old woman, who told me his name. She said that Azareth had stolen the fangs from ‘the greatest she-snake that ever lived,’ and that the snake had killed him for it.”
Lizbet shot to her feet, so fast that Katie flinched. She set her cup and saucer on the table—Katie noticed that her hand was shaking—and frowned down at her. “I want you to tell me everything the old woman said to you. Leave nothing out. I must hear it all.”

Katie obeyed and recounted every word of her conversation with the crone. Long before Katie had finished her tale, Lizbet began to pace the floor, slowly, and with great deliberation. Her expression turned grim, as if a dark cloud had settled on her face, and her eyes cast about the room in steady, nervous flicks. When Katie fell silent, she continued to pace for several minutes, deep in thought. When at last she spoke, her voice carried the same distant, yet focused, tone as someone thinking aloud.

“The Elder Mages bound The Book of All Things to the Source,” she said. “It will endure as long as magick endures. The Book eventually bonded with Notorcia. If Notorcia is bound to the Book, and the Book is bound to the Source, then logic suggests that Notorcia will live as long as the Book does.”

“Azareth stole the Book from Notorcia and hid it,” added Katie, seeing exactly where Lizbet’s thoughts were heading. “And since the only mention of Azareth was recorded by Sir Herbert, who himself is largely ignored as a historian, it stands to reason that the only person living today who could possibly know the exact location of Azareth’s barrow would be….”

“Notorcia,” concluded Lizbet, adding, “Because she killed him and then buried him where he fell.”

“Do you suppose she’s still searching for the Book?”

“Almost certainly,” Lizbet said, as if she thought the question silly.

Katie shivered and reached for her tea, but found that it had gone cold. “But why would Notorcia have a score to settle with me?” she asked. “I never met her until last night.”

“A most troubling question, to be sure,” said Lizbet. She thought for a moment. “It is quite possible that all this has something to do with your mother. If indeed Notorcia was the sorceress that killed her—and I have no doubt now that she was—then she may be going after you out of spite. Do you happen to know why your mother was poking around the Fellforest highlands?”

Katie shook her head. “I don’t think anyone knows, really,” she said.

“Not even your father?”

“I doubt it. Mother never liked to discuss work when she was home. And even if she did tell him why she was going up there, he wouldn’t have remembered. He has a knack for forgetting important things.” Like his only daughter’s graduation day, she wanted to say.

Lizbet rubbed her eyes and sighed. “If only we knew what your mother was up to!” she said.

“You’re a Seer,” said Katie. “Don’t you have ways of looking into the past?”

“Sight doesn’t work that way, Katie,” said Lizbet, sadly. “It only allows us to look ahead, and rightfully so, for what good can come of gazing over our shoulders at the past, eh? But perhaps a glance at the future might reveal what we seek.”

Lizbet wheeled around and pinned her shadow to the wall with a finger. “Find Ezmerelle,” she muttered. “Tell her that I request her presence in the library—immediately.” Dutifully, her shadow bowed, melted into the wall, and vanished. Lizbet returned to her chair and drummed her fingers upon the table as the mantle clock neatly sliced away at the passing minutes.

“I can part the veil between the present and the future for only a few minutes,” Lizbet said. “Other than the answers to the mystery that surrounds you, is there anything specific you wish me to look for?”

“Oh, yes!” said Katie, shooting erect. “I’d like to see if Principal Abercrombie will give me another application to the contest.”

“Another application?” Lizbet said, frowning. “What was wrong with the first one you received?”

“Spooked if I know,” said Katie with a shrug. “It recorded the wrong answer before I could think of the right one.”

Lizbet chuckled. “Sneaky things, those applications. You’re not the first to be tricked by them, surely. But I don’t have to look into your future to predict what that old hoot owl will tell you.

The tone in Lizbet’s voice spoke of doom and failure; Katie’s heart sank just to hear it. “Oh?” she said, trying to sound upbeat.

At the exact moment Lizbet cracked her mouth to offer an answer, an explosion of dazzling white light rent the air in the direct center of the table. Katie shot from her chair and retreated nearly halfway across the room, shielding her eyes from the stunning light. A thunderous voice boomed from the rift and sent shivers of dread spiraling up her spine.

“I am Ezmerelle, the mighty and ancient Oracle of Marmadane! Who dares disturb the sublime hour of my repose? Speak now, and you may find me merciful!”

“Ginflargut!” Lizbet cursed, banging her fist atop the table. “How many times have I told you not to do that? Stop playing games and show yourself this instant, Ezmerelle! I have pressing work for you to do!”

The pulsing white light vanished, leaving behind a crystal orb that drifted about in front of Lizbet’s face like a bubble of soap. Katie blinked in awe to see a woman’s head suspended within it, framed by luxuriant ringlets of raven-black hair. A long, spidery crack stretched halfway down the orb’s left side, and the glass itself appeared stained with dust. Spurred by Lizbet’s impatient wave, Katie returned to her chair and continued to stare at the orb.

“Don’t lose your head, Lizzy ol’ girl,” Katie heard it say. “I was just sporting with you. Jeesh! Loosen up, will you? Have some fun! Every frown adds another wrinkle, you know.”

Lizbet bristled at the comment. “If I have any wrinkles at all, you are the cause of them, you insufferable fishbowl.”

“Now, now,” said the Oracle. “Insults do not become you, Lizzy.”

“Can we get down to business?” Lizbet said dangerously.

“Right!” cried the Oracle. “To business!” It glanced at Katie, did a double take, and zoomed up to her, halting within an inch of her nose. “Aren’t you a lovely little thing! Who are you, then?”

“Er, I’m Katie.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Katie!” said the Oracle. “Come to have your fortune read, have you?”

“As a matter of fact…”

“Not to worry, my dear. Not to worry! I have everything in hand! Er, figuratively speaking, that is.” The Oracle’s head spun around several times as it laughed uproariously. “But let’s see now, what do you want to know? I see a tall, dark, and handsome young man in your future. I see romance. I see intrigue. I see...”

“Ezmerelle!” Lizbet cried. “If you please!”

The Oracle colored in embarrassment and zipped away from Katie, uttering a string of chuckles. “Just having a spot of fun, dear. Pay me no heed.”

Lizbet reached out, seized the Oracle in both hands and, with an impatient yank, positioned it directly in front of her. “Now stay put,” she warned. “And keep your mouth shut. I have much to see…”

Lizbet directed her unflinching gaze at the orb. The Oracle’s interior began to roil with a murky gray mist that completely obscured Ezmerelle’s grinning face. Katie leaned closer to peer into the churning fog, eager to catch a glimpse of her future. Dark, distorted images swam past her, much too fast for her to make sense of. Once she thought she saw an image of Hercule dangling from a high cliff, but it came and went so quickly, she doubted her eyes.

From time to time Lizbet muttered and nodded, as if seeing something that confirmed some thought or suspicion; at other times, she would simply frown and shake her head, clearly perplexed by the images she was seeing. A dozen questions gathered on Katie’s tongue, eager to be voiced, but she knew better than to interrupt the fragile connection between Seeress and Prophecy.

With a cry that made Katie nearly jump out of her seat, Lizbet tore her gaze from the Oracle. Katie glanced at the orb and watched Ezmerelle’s face materialize out of the mist. Her grin appeared frozen, as if from extreme shock.

“Did I really see what I just saw?” Ezmerelle said in a confused tone. “Or did I just think I saw what I saw? I mean, how can a perfectly ordinary doorway do that to a person…?”

“Doorway?” Katie asked. “What doorway?”

“Thank you, Ezmerelle,” Lizbet interrupted quickly. “That will be all.”

“But…”

“I said that will be all!” Lizbet barked.

Ezmerelle buzzed her tongue at Lizbet, shot Katie a playful, yet strangely sympathetic wink, and vanished in a flash of light.

Katie leaned forward in her chair. “What did you see?” she asked in an expectant whisper. Her heart was pounding in her chest like a war drum. She knew Lizbet had seen something significant, and she was eager to learn of it.

Lizbet frowned at her, and then suddenly brightened.

“I don’t know,” she answered.

Katie blinked at her, stunned. “What do you mean ‘you don’t know?’ I thought you were a Seer.”

Lizbet laughed as if to make light of the question, but it came off sounding fake. It was obvious to Katie that she was hiding something—something that deeply troubled her—but what? Why wouldn’t the woman speak of what she’d seen?

“You mistake me, Katie,” said Lizbet. “When I say ‘I don’t know,’ I mean that I won’t know the meaning of the vision until I give it some thought. So, indeed, I don’t know, at this very moment, what I saw, but I will know it…eventually.”

Katie frowned in confusion. “But surely you saw something significant in my future, else you wouldn’t have cried out like that,” she countered. “And what is this about a doorway…?”

“Readings are difficult to interpret, Katie,” said Lizbet. “The images that are revealed come quickly, and often arrive in a jumble. It takes time to sift through them and piece them together. Think of a reading as a jigsaw puzzle, and you will understand what I mean. A hasty interpretation is often a wrong interpretation. That is why I hesitate to give you an answer.”

“But can you tell me anything?” Katie said, on the verge of desperation. “Will Principal Abercrombie grant me a second application? Please, Lizbet. If there’s anything I wish to know, it is that.”

“Sometimes, Katie, it is best to let the future run its course. That is the only answer I dare give you. It isn’t much, I know. But it is an answer. Read into it what you will.” Lizbet’s face softened and she offered Katie a warm smile. “That being said,” she continued, “I am not unsympathetic to your plight. I can see how important the contest is to you, and I will make every effort to help you. Principal Abercrombie owes me a few favors and I will try to persuade her to grant you a new application. But I cannot make any promises, mind. The final decision is hers.”

Katie nodded and thanked her. It was a gracious offer, but she would have appreciated it more if she weren’t so angry from not having any of her questions answered. What a complete waste of time this day turned out to be!

“And I would discontinue using those Dark-Glass glasses that you and Chani created,” Lizbet added at length. “All manner of undesirable and nasty things can result if the glasses are not formed properly.”

“Oh, yeah,” Katie said, completely forgetting that she had wanted to ask Lizbet about the glasses. “Okay.”

Lizbet smiled, stood, and beckoned Katie to the door. She seemed suddenly eager to be rid of her, and her eyes cast eagerly about the room for Chani. “It is time for you to go, granddaughter,” she called out. “The hour is growing late, and I have much work to do.”

Chani’s face appeared from behind the last row of shelves. There were smears of dust on her cheeks, which made Katie chuckle, even despite her anger. She thought Chani looked like one of Pickleberry’s sooty-faced chimney sweeps.

“Can’t I have just a few more minutes?” Chani moaned.

“You’ve filched enough forbidden spells for one afternoon, I should think,” Lizbet replied.

Chani sighed and trotted out of her hiding place, her pockets bulging with spells she had torn from the many books she had inspected. Lizbet escorted the two of them to the front door and bid them farewell. As Chani ran ahead to find the trail, Lizbet pulled Katie aside and placed her lips close to Katie’s ear. “Speak to no one of Notorcia,” she whispered. “Let her be our little secret for now. And guard your back. If she returns to confront you, do not challenge her—under any circumstances. There is no shame in running. And if you need me, send a shadow at once.”

Katie nodded, thanked Lizbet for the advice, and plunged into the rain after her friend.

“Mission successful,” Chani beamed as Lizbet’s door boomed shut behind them. She plunged a hand into her pocket and retrieved a fistful of spells. “We’re going to be busy all summer learning these! How was your luck?”
Katie harrumphed. “A fortune cookie could have given me a better reading,” she grumbled. “Lizbet didn’t tell me anything. She just warned me to let the future take its course.”

“Well, that’s something, anyway,” Chani said optimistically.

Katie glared at her, and then sighed. “She saw something, though. That much I know. Something that troubled her. I could see it in her face. I’d give my right eye to know what it was…”

Upon arriving home that evening, Katie discovered Principal Abercrombie’s shadow waiting for her at the field gate. Despite its stoop-shouldered appearance, it moved to intercept her with the usual fleet footedness of shadow messengers. Katie felt a sinking feeling of despair at seeing it, for Abercrombie was never this fast in replying to anything, but she bit her lower lip in hope.

“Katie,” the shadow said in Principal Abercrombie’s whisper-wind voice. “This afternoon I spoke at great length with Dame Lizbet about your application, and I am afraid I have to tell you that I cannot issue you a new one. As I’m sure you remember, I warned the graduates to take great care when determining their replies. And though I am of the opinion that it was somewhat underhanded for the application to record your answer without your permission, I must agree with the contest judges on their point that a spoken reply is still a reply.”

Anger and disappointment knotted inside Katie. She kicked open the gate and stalked to the house; the shadow followed her. She halted at the foot of the porch steps as it began to speak again.

“Do not lose heart, however,” it said. “A frank answer is often better than a thoughtful one. Many students have found themselves in the exact same position you are in now, and most of them were rewarded with an acceptance letter at the end of the summer. Lies and deceit are not of your character, Katie. I would find more truth and honesty in your frankness than in any thoughtful answer you could ever give. And it is my belief that the judges will feel the same. Do you have a message for me?”

Katie swallowed the despair in her throat and nodded. “Thank you, Principal Abercrombie,” she said, barely able to hold back the tears welling in her eyes. “I had to try, as you knew I would. Being a hero is all that ever really mattered to me…”

She dismissed the shadow with an abrupt wave and ran up the steps, tears blurring her vision. As she reached for the door, she heard a sneering chuckle, and looked up to find Morga leering at her through the tattered screen.

“Having a little trouble with our application, are we?” she said in a taunting hiss.

Katie ignored her. She wrenched open the door and raced upstairs to her room, where she remained for the rest of the night, brooding over her bad luck and wishing that she could blot the last two days from her memory.

Copyright © 2008 by Kevin Scott Munnings
“The Book of All Things” ISBN-13: 978-1-4276-1874-0
All Rights Reserved