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The Book of All Things: Chapter Twelve

Katie burst through the doors of the Museum of Magickal Antiquities to find Widdershins conversing quietly with an enormous blue-green dragon. Normally, Katie would not have blinked twice at such a sight, but the fact that the dragon in question was mounted on the wall, and comprised solely of a wide, spiked head and barely half a neck, gave her considerable pause.

“Katie!” cried Widdershins joyfully as she turned at the sound of the banging door. “I’d like you to meet a dear friend of mine.” The gems of her down-turned rings flashed as she raised a hand toward the truncated dragon.

“This is Maggie Mountaintail, last of the ancient race of dragons that once inhabited the Brimstone Isles.”

“Nice…to meet…you,” Katie said as she struggled to catch her breath.

The dragon ponderously lowered its enormous head until it filled Katie’s entire field of vision. Without warning it inhaled quickly, sucking Katie’s head into one of its cavernous nostrils, and then exhaled with a loud snort, expelling her with such force that she wheeled backward and tumbled to the floor.

Widdershins indulged an amused chuckle as she helped Katie to her feet. “I should have warned you…” she began, but Katie cut her off with a forced laugh.

“No harm done,” she said briskly, hoping silently that the warm, sticky goop sticking to her face was merely condensation and not dragon snot. Retrieving her backpack, she caught a faint string of muffled curses—“Fuffilargenfefflegoffin!”—which she silenced with an abrupt shake of a strap.

“That was, er, quite a greeting,” Katie said as she glanced up at Maggie.

“Normally I’d offer you a wing to shake,” said the dragon in a slow, deep, resonant voice that reminded Katie of distant thunder, “or even a tail, but as you can see, I’m a little short on appendages at the moment. Sniffing and snorting is the best I can manage, I’m afraid. But I daresay, you smell terrific.”

“If only the boys would tell me that,” Katie joked.

Maggie tossed her head back to laugh, and with a sudden gasp, Widdershins seized Katie by the sleeve and dragged her to the floor. A split second later, a long, sizzling, jet of flame streaked over their heads, searing the far wall and reducing the windows there to red-hot slag. Katie made as if to stand, but Widdershins held her down.

“She’s not finished yet,” Widdershins explained as six quick spurts of dragonfire streaked past. “Dragons tend to laugh a long time. Best to wait it out. But try not to crack anymore jokes when this is over, okay? Maggie is, um, easily amused.”

Katie nodded dumbly and pressed her head against the floor to prevent her hair from being singed.

In the end, it took five minutes for Maggie’s laughter to sputter out.

“That was a good one!” cried Maggie as Katie staggered to her feet.

“I’m afraid we must go, Maggie,” said Widdershins cheerfully, as though she found rolling about on the floor like a rotisserie sausage great fun. She seized Katie’s arm and gently coaxed her toward the nearest archway.

Katie flung a hand in the air as she went, waving it briskly. “It was nice meeting you, Maggie!”

“You’re too kind,” called the dragon. “Come back anytime. We’ll have a few laughs.”

Katie and Widdershins emerged into a cavernous hall nearly twice the size of the library’s central rotunda. Vaulted ceilings soared overhead, decorated with bas-reliefs of ancient heroes and prancing fauna, which reflected off the mirror-like surface of the exquisitely polished marble floor. A tiny gift shop huddled in a recess near the front entrance, crammed with a small goldmine of t-shirts, caps, reproductions, posters and other useless bric-a-brac. The lone student manning the till glanced up and gave Katie a bored look and then resumed her study of the book nestled in her lap. A small forest of decorative trees and shrubs accented the gaping maws of the six corridors leading into the hall. A brief glance down the nearest corridor revealed dozens of archways, each leading to a labyrinth of galleries, side exhibits, and stand-alone displays.

Katie crossed to a row of display cases in the center of the hall and trilled a whistle.

“Wow! Hokir Vong’s Amulet of Protection!” she exclaimed. And there was Urpsilla Urpsilla’s magick lasso! And Wogg the Barbarian’s enchanted mead stein!"

“Wait until you see what else we have in store for you,” said Widdershins as she charmed Katie’s clothes with a drying spell. “This museum contains the finest collection of magickal artifacts in the world. You can learn everything there is to know about the magickal history of Odyssey just by roaming its halls and seeing its sights.”

They caught up to Katie’s class in the “Ancient Weapons” gallery, trailing behind an attractive, red-haired woman who seemed oblivious of the amorous looks the young men were giving her.

“That’s Curator Woolf,” Widdershins whispered. “Brilliant woman. Her knowledge of ancient magickal artifacts is second to none.”

“Second only to Archaeomagi, you mean?” came Dame Lizbet’s voice from behind them.

Widdershins whirled to face her, a look of indignant fury on her face. “What are YOU doing here?” she snarled in a harsh whisper.

“I came to see how Katie was getting on in her classes,” Lizbet said with a touch of haughty self-possessiveness. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

“Oh, but it is my business, Vambrace!” snapped Widdershins. “I’m dean of this college, in case you’ve forgotten.”

Lizbet sniffed.

“You can’t just waltz in here anytime you please, you know,” Widdershins continued. “We have rules.”

“So what are you going to do, give me detention?” Lizbet chided.

A deliciously wicked smile crept across Widdershins’ lips. “No, but I can have you arrested for trespassing.”

Lizbet’s smug expression faltered. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Oh, I would,” Widdershins countered. “I’d do it just to see how you like spending a couple of days locked in an interrogation cell, without food, without water…”

“Is that what this is about?” Lizbet rolled her eyes and sighed. “But that happened over ten years ago!”

“Some things are difficult to forget,” said Widdershins coolly.

“I was just doing my job…”

“And so am I.” Widdershins’ hands glowed with a summoning spell, and Katie saw one of the Golem Knights standing guard over a display of magickal charms snap to attention and begin to stomp in their direction.
Katie decided the quarrel had gone on long enough. She slipped a hand over Widdershins’ to quash the spell and offered a smile when the woman blinked at her, uncomprehending.

“I asked Lizbet to come see me today,” Katie admitted.

Widdershins frowned. “Why?”

“Because—”

“Katie…” Lizbet muttered in warning.

“I’ll tell you later,” Katie answered, ignoring Lizbet’s surreptitious headshake.

Widdershins extinguished the spell and dismissed the Golem Knight with a wave of her hand. “I’d better like what I hear,” she said in a tone that suggested she was more than prepared to have Lizbet arrested despite whatever explanation Katie was to give her.

With a heavy sigh, Katie turned her attention to the class.

“…yet no weapon, ancient or otherwise, has a more shocking history than the one before you,” Curator Woolf was saying, gesturing toward a painting of a bejeweled sword. “This is the infamous Conqueror’s Sword. It enjoys the distinction of being the only weapon in the history of Odyssey ever to be forged of magick—forged, mind you, not enchanted. There is a difference.”

Woolf paused to give the students time to scribble the comment in their notes, and then continued.

“The dark sorceress Mursha created the Conqueror’s Sword over two thousand years ago by fusing together seven evil spells, which, if I may add, have thankfully vanished from all knowledge. Mursha, as some of you may remember from the old nursery rhymes, aspired to destroy Odyssey and remake it in her twisted, evil image. By wielding the awesome powers of this sword, she very nearly succeeded in her aims. It took the combined might of twelve young sorceresses to work the spells that ultimately destroyed it—and, as a consequence, Mursha as well. I say as a consequence because in order for Mursha to have used the sword, she first had to merge her soul with it, a foolhardy act that irrevocably bound her fate to that of the sword’s.

“This painting depicts the sword exactly as it looked two thousand years ago. You will note the seven gemstones decorating its hilt. These were used to contain the seven evil spells Mursha used to create and maintain the sword’s awesome powers. It was an elegant looking weapon, I’m sure you’ll agree. ‘Beautiful, but deadly’ is how one of the twelve sorceresses described it. Moving on…”

The class surged ahead as one and swarmed around a large glass display encasing a creature that Katie thought looked like an ordinary wolf, only bigger and bursting with muscles.

“This,” said Curator Woolf with a mischievous smile, “is a Shriek—don’t be frightened; get in real close. It won’t harm you. Now, a thousand years ago an obscure sorceress by the name of Norticia…“

“That’s No-tor-cia, you trollop,” Katie heard Dame Lizbet mutter.

“…created hordes of these creatures by taking the common forest wolf—sorry, no relation, heh-heh—and ‘twisting’ it with an unknown curse which endowed it with the rather remarkable physical attributes you see before you. Note the proliferation of muscles and the razor-edged teeth…”

“What did she use them for?” said a squeaky voiced girl nearest the display, looking both revolted and intrigued as she stared unblinkingly at the creature.

“An excellent question!” said Woolf. “Norticia used them to hunt down and slay other sorceresses—including us ordinary women…”

A collective gasp sprang from the mouths of the girls scattered throughout the group, including Katie.

“Shocking, isn’t it?” agreed Woolf. “Shrieks possessed the ability to detect the magickal essence that exists in all women, and once a Shriek was on the hunt, it would run its victim to ground and then tear her to shreds with its hideously sharp teeth. Yes, they were unrelenting creatures, to be sure.”

“But why were they called ‘Shrieks’?” asked a student from the extreme rear of the group.

“Ah, yes,” said Woolf, turning to the glass case. “Upon detecting a sorceress, a Shriek would emit a high-pitched screech powerful enough to carry for miles—hence the name.

“Now, the Shrieks—thankfully—had a short lifespan, roughly eight months or so—but certainly long enough to perform the hideous task for which they were created. Once born, they are virtually indestructible, as no known spell or curse exists that can destroy them or limit their powers. Wounds do not harm them, pain does not slow them; they are relentless. This specimen before you was captured somewhere in the foothills north of the Torpid Lake district over nine hundred years ago.”

“Captured?” squealed a girl from the front ranks.

“Yes,” Woolf laughed, slapping her hand atop the glass case. “Didn’t I mention that this specimen is still alive?”

The entire group of students—boys and girls alike—backed away from the case, murmuring nervously amongst themselves.

“What are you so frightened of?” chuckled Woolf. It was clear that she was having great fun taunting her students. “It’s immobilized by an incapacitation charm! The only things it can do is blink and breathe, nothing else.”

Katie leaned in to get a better look at the creature, and sure enough, saw its chest expanding and contracting in quick, jabbing bursts. The crazed and ravenous glint in its eyes made it look positively beside itself with frustration. The magickal signatures pouring off the girls in the group had to be driving it mad.

Katie shivered as she withdrew to the back of the group and into the safety of Widdershins and Lizbet’s presence, convinced she was going to have trouble sleeping for the next two years.

“Okay, okay,” said Woolf in an amazed tone. “Wow! Some heroes you bunch are going to make, scared of a little petrified Shriek… Moving on…”

The group rushed ahead immediately, pushing and jostling each other in a frantic attempt to put some distance between them and the Shriek. Katie lagged behind, shaking her head at the immaturity her fellow students were demonstrating. She felt embarrassed just to be among them.

As Curator Woolf paused beside the next exhibit, there came from behind a sudden explosion of shattering glass, followed immediately by a soul-rending screech that pierced Katie’s skull like a steel spike.

She spun around to see the Shriek bounding to the floor through the shattered remains of its display case, slobbering uncontrollably and raking its wild, red eyes across the faces of the stunned students.
With utter incredulity, Katie watched its hackles bristle and its ears flatten as its ravenous gaze zeroed on her and held fast. She staggered back a step, and then another, wondering in some strange and distorted way why her legs weren’t moving as fast as she wanted them to.

Out of the corner of her eye she caught a vague glimpse of Lizbet backpedaling rapidly, her magick-sheathed hands raised as if to ward away the creature. And then someone jerked her arm and spun her around.
“Don’t just stand there,” Widdershins screamed at her. “Run!”

Snapping out of the benumbed state of terror that had flash-frozen every joint in her body, Katie seized her backpack in an iron grip and raced from the room. Behind her, as she knew it would, the Shriek howled and gave chase.

Rounding a corner, she dashed into the “Legendary Accessories” exhibit looking for a door through which she could escape, but found only another archway leading to yet another exhibit.

Something crashed behind her, and she shot a quick glance over her shoulder to see the Shriek extracting itself from the ruins of a display it had knocked over in its eagerness to run her down. Taking advantage of the creature’s blunder, Katie summoned a stunning spell to her fingers and let it fly. She whooped in triumph as the pulsing pink missile struck the creature’s chest and spun it into a life-size crystal statue of a praying goblin, which tottered on its pedestal and crashed spectacularly to the floor, missing the animal by mere inches. It shook off the stun charge like a duck shaking water from its back and, without hesitation, renewed its chase.
Katie jinked left into another room and then darted into a hallway, nearly colliding with a Golem Knight tramping to its post outside an exhibit of enchanted pinecones.

“ ‘Ere now!” it cried as Katie tore past it. “What’s going on?”

“Shriek…chasing…me!” Katie shouted.

“What?”

Katie continued to pound down the hall. “You’ll…see!” she said, more to herself than to the knight.

Almost as soon as the words left her mouth, there came a clattering of claws, and Katie turned to see the Shriek emerge from the room she had only just exited. The Golem Knight drew its sword, shouted “Halt!” and had just enough time to make a quick jab before the Shriek leapt into the air and tore its helmet from its shoulders. The knight crashed dissonantly to the floor, and the Shriek fell with it.

Out of breath, Katie stumbled to a halt at the end of the hallway and faced her foe.

The Shriek made quick work of slipping out from under the remains of the Golem Knight. It staggered erect, and Katie saw blood streaming from the wound the knight’s sword had gashed in its neck.

A faint glimmer of hope began to burn in Katie’s chest.

Without hesitation, she wove a bone-shattering hex and let it fly. It caught the animal in its hindquarters and sent it pinwheeling up the hall. When it climbed to its feet a second later, she fired off another blast, and another, and then another. Four times her hexes struck the beast, and four times it staggered impossibly back to its feet.
On the fifth try, the Shriek screeched in rage and, despite whatever injuries it had sustained, lowered its head and charged her.

Muttering a string of curses, Katie shot a greasy-grime hex at the floor and raced to a nearby door, upon which a sign read:

Domestic Wing:
Enchanted Cupboards,
Commodes, Tables, Chairs
Doorways, and etc.

She cast about for a catch, a bolt—anything that would allow her to lock the door and transport to her room—but found instead only a gaping black hole where one had been. A tiny sign beneath the doorknob read:

This door is non-magickal

Katie flung open the door and found herself racing into yet another warren of exhibit rooms and connecting hallways. As the door slammed behind her, she heard the Shriek crash into the wall with a bone-crunching thud, followed by a series of explosions suggesting that someone was fast on its heels.

Throat gummy with panic, Katie ducked into an exhibit celebrating a hundred years of “Thrice-Cursed Bathroom Fixtures” and sought desperately for another door. Two. Three. Four. Five—each room she came to was maddeningly the same.

As she entered an exhibit of antique enchanted doorways she saw, to her dismay, the Shriek standing beneath the room’s opposite arch, slavering uncontrollably and quaking with exertion. Blood oozed from dozens of wounds, and one of its hind legs was broken. It stared at her with murderous intent, panting as though on the verge of exhaustion.

Slowly, cautiously, Katie moved toward the nearest doorway. A sign to the right of the display read:

Warning!
NOT FOR USE AS MODERN TRANSPORTATION

She disregarded it.

The Shriek took a step toward her and halted, exposing its razor-sharp teeth in a silent snarl. Katie refused to stop and continued to inch closer, ever closer, to the door.

Finally, her hand touched its dented doorknob, and she locked it.

“Ca…C-Cahernan H-House,” she stammered.

The Shriek stepped closer, claws clacking ominously on the floor. Katie licked the sweat from her upper lip and tried to hold its gaze as she waited for the door to respond.

There came a faint click!

Turning as fast as she could, she tore open the door. But just as her foot crossed its threshold, a bolt of red-green energy lanced out and blasted her directly in the chest, lifting her off her feet and hurling her across the room. She landed hard and skidded across the floor, coming to an abrupt rest against the base of a platform upon which a series of Leprechaun-sized doors were showcased.

Wincing from the sharp pain stabbing through her neck, Katie hauled herself to her knees and reached for the backpack that had mercifully landed only a foot away from her. As she seized its strap, she felt a tug and looked up, expecting to see the Shriek looming over her, fixing to make the kill.

But it was not the Shriek.

It was another Katie.

Katie blinked, unable to believe her eyes.

The Shriek padded closer, glancing from one Katie to the other as if uncertain which to attack first.

Katie snatched the backpack into her hands and lurched to her feet. The Shriek lunged and she hit it with a stunning spell, knocking it clear across the room. It shot to its feet with amazing speed and, without so much as the slightest hesitation, charged directly at the other-Katie, who gave a desperate, strangled cry as she scurried toward a display of empty doorframes in a frantic attempt to save her life.

Katie watched in horror as the Shriek leapt into the air and sank its teeth deep into the other-Katie’s shoulder. As its momentum carried them both through a doorframe, there was a flash of searing white light, a muffled scream, and then an explosion of sound that knocked Katie off her feet. When she glanced at the doorframe a second later, she saw that nothing remained of either the Shriek or the other-Katie.

Both had vanished into thin air.

Katie stared, disbelieving, at the smoking doorframe, barely registering the sounds of scurrying feet and frantic shouts filling the room. A pair of hands slipped beneath her arms and hauled her to her feet. But standing or sitting, she could not bring herself to take her eyes from the doorframe. It was the only tangible object in her universe.

“What happened, Katie?” asked a voice from a million miles away. A face moved in front of hers, hazy and undefined. “Where’s the Shriek? Did you kill it?”

“Can’t you see the girl is in shock, Agnitha?” a second voice grated from just behind Katie’s ear.

“Of course I can!” the other voice snapped. “But if the Shriek is still in here somewhere…”

Katie flinched as the name brought the image of the creature snarling into her addled brain. “It’s dead,” she heard herself say. The sound of her own voice filling the room wrenched her out of her daze. “I…tried to escape through that door, but I was struck by some sort of weird energy blast. I fell, and when I looked up there was another me sitting right next to me…”

“Another you?” said Lizbet sharply.

Katie nodded. “The Shriek went after her. She—that is, the other-me—ran for that doorframe over there, and just as she reached it, the creature pounced on her. The two of them fell through the frame and…and just…vanished.”

Katie looked at the two women for the first time. “I can still hear her scream,” she said with a shudder.

Widdershins nodded at her in grim understanding.

Lizbet stalked to the doorframe, studied it intently, and then silently read the plaque affixed to its display pedestal. “Intriguing,” she muttered thoughtfully. She frowned, and her eyes seemed to search the room as if finding it suddenly familiar.

“What?” said Katie.

“It says here that the door is ‘believed to destroy anyone who enters it.’” Lizbet turned to Katie and harrumphed. “At least they had a quick death,” she sighed matter-of-factly.

Widdershins gasped and slung a protective arm around Katie’s shoulder. “Show some decency, Vambrace!” she protested. “Katie just watched herself die…!”

“It’s all right, Aunt Aggie,” Katie said softly, too stunned to be offended by Lizbet’s candor and far too tired to even care.

Widdershins smiled pityingly at her. “Let’s get you back to Cahernan House,” she said. “You need to rest…”

“She’s not going anywhere,” Lizbet announced.

“And why not?” Widdershins looked genuinely surprised as she turned to face the Archaeomagi.

“She has a meeting with the Council of Magi.”

“For what purpose?” said Widdershins.

Lizbet opened her mouth to reply, but Katie beat her to it. “I found The Book of All Things last night in the library,” she confessed.

At Widdershins surprised gasp Lizbet’s eyes flashed angrily. “Katie!” she growled warningly.

Katie forestalled the woman’s objections with a fierce shake of her head. “Aggie has a right to know, Lizbet,” she said cuttingly. “Not only is she the dean of Derring-Do, she’s also my mother’s best friend. I’m not going to lie to her or go behind her back.”

Widdershins gave Lizbet a triumphant look. “And when, exactly, is the Council arriving?” she asked in a singsong voice.

“Within the hour,” Lizbet blurted testily.

“Fine,” said Widdershins. “I’ll arrange to have them meet in my office.”

“Fine,” replied Lizbet. She shot a scathing glance at Katie, turned, and stormed from the gallery.

Widdershins adopted an exasperated expression as she watched the old woman’s shadow jerk as if startled and then race after her. “The Book of All Things?” she said, turning to Katie. “You really found it?”

Katie nodded and held up her backpack. “I have right here,” she said.

Widdershins harrumphed. “Then you’d better keep it close to you,” she said. “Given Dame Lizbet’s reaction a moment ago, I’d say she has designs for it.”

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