The Familiars Read online

  He flicked his paw, spinning the sun reflector so the concentrated beam of sunlight was directed right at the smoky beast. The light seared a hole straight through the apparition, and it let out a blood-curdling scream. Then, in a flash of black, the hound exploded. Only a sprinkling of powdered obsidian was left behind.

  Aldwyn took a deep breath, picked up the flounder, and exited the temple with an air of cockiness, ignoring the commotion he had caused among the worshippers. He crossed through the garden, climbed up a nearby tree, and leaped over the fence to the neighboring street.

  Crossing the merchant square, Aldwyn passed an elderly woman with a patch of chin fuzz selling potted plants from her handcart. He looked around and realized that he had never been down this block before. At first glance, it looked no different from any other row of stores selling cauldrons, spices, or books. But he had never seen steam pour out of an empty cauldron or the pages of books flip on their own—although there was a good chance it was just the wind. And, come to think of it, why was the old lady with the chin fuzz selling plants that were shriveled up and dead? What use could they have? Well, it didn’t really matter, as long as there was a flat rooftop where he could finally eat his flounder in peace and catch a long nap afterward.

  Thwoop!

  Aldwyn could feel his teeth vibrating as the fish was shot straight out of his mouth with a bolt from Grimslade’s crossbow.

  “You’re an impressive foe,” Grimslade called out, “but the chase ends here.”

  For a split second, Aldwyn was torn between running for his life and retrieving the fish, which was now pinned to a wooden barrel by the arrow. A second bolt that brushed past the fur on his head helped him make up his mind. Aldwyn dashed around the corner and ran for the first window he could find, leaping into where he did not know.

  2

  UNFAMILIAR SURROUNDINGS

  At first he could hardly see anything, so dark was the inside of the room. Then Aldwyn’s eyes adjusted to the dimness, and he noticed dozens—no, hundreds of cages, stacked floor to ceiling. Inside were animals of all kinds, from butter newts and salamanders to periwinkle falcons and three-toed sloths. There were spoon-billed mockingbirds, badgers, and hedgehogs covered in poisonous-looking needles. In a nearby glass tank, six diamond-shelled tortoises levitated in a circle while fast asleep, floating a few inches above the bottom. On a shelf beside them, a mouse with a single ivory horn sticking out from its head was in the midst of a heated debate with a hairless aardvark.

  “You can’t cast a proper hex without black lichen,” argued the mouse.

  “Yeah, well, you’d be surprised what you can do with locust dung,” said the aardvark. “It’s a pretty versatile component.”

  “But who wants to smell that stuff?” responded the mouse, cringing.

  Aldwyn didn’t have the faintest idea what they were talking about—hexes, components, locust dung—so he decided to turn his attention to a neighboring cage, where a buck-toothed wombat was munching on the last bite of a baby carrot stick. After finishing, she gave her tiny tail a shake and disappeared. Aldwyn blinked, not sure if the light was playing tricks on his eyes. He gave a quick glance around, and spotted the wombat now standing on the store counter, stuffing her furry pouch with more carrots from a wooden bowl.

  It was a lot for Aldwyn to take in, these unusual creatures with their unusual talents. But before he could give it any more thought, he spotted a rotund, middle-aged man with curly red hair walking out from the stockroom with a cup of appleberry cider in his hand.

  “Hey, you,” a voice whispered behind Aldwyn. “You better get back in your cage.”

  Aldwyn turned and saw that the warning had come from a large-eyed lemur who was hanging upside down in his cage. On second thought, it couldn’t be a lemur since, as far as Aldwyn knew, lemurs definitely did not have two tails.

  Aldwyn spotted an empty cage and scurried over to it. He figured this would be a perfect place to lie low for a little while. Grimslade would never come looking for him in here, and if he did, he wouldn’t be able to find him among this bizarre collection of animal oddities. He was probably still combing the back alleys looking for kitty droppings. Aldwyn tried to pull open the handle with his paw, but lacking a thumb made gripping and turning the metal knob a bit of a challenge. As the shopkeeper crossed through the store, Aldwyn used his teeth and tail to help unclasp the cage door. With a pop, the gate finally swung open, and Aldwyn slid inside just as the curly-haired man passed by on his way to the counter.

  A tiny bell over the door rang as two customers and a gust of air swept in from outside. Aldwyn had a clear view to the front of the store, where a bald, mustached elderly man dressed in a black robe decorated with tiny stars was accompanied by a young boy, whose green eyes peeked out from beneath his dirty blond hair. The shopkeeper put down his cup of cider and walked over to greet them.

  “Ah, Kalstaff, I’ve been expecting you,” he said before turning to the young boy. “And this must be Jack.”

  “It is. And it’s his birthday,” replied Kalstaff. “He turns eleven today.”

  “Then you’ve come to the right place. I have the best selection of familiars east of Split River.”

  Ah, so that explained all the extraordinary creatures in this store: they were familiars, the animal companions of wizards and witches or any spellcaster. It was common knowledge that familiars assisted their humans in tasks both remarkable and mundane. That they possessed magical powers of their own was known only by those who had had a firsthand encounter with a familiar—a select group that Aldwyn was now a part of. He turned his attention back to the boy, who appeared overwhelmed by the choices before him. He’d begun to wander around the shop, peeking into this cage then that.

  “How do I choose?” asked Jack.

  “That depends on what kind of wizard you wish to become,” replied the shopkeeper. “Say you’re keen on healing magic. Then perhaps your talents would best be complemented by a raven.” He gestured to a black bird sitting on a perch. “Ravens are capable of mending wounds with a stroke of their feathers.”

  “I want to be a Beyonder,” said Jack. “I want to travel to distant lands and fight off enemies. Maybe I’ll be the first one to find the center of Necro’s Maze.”

  “In that case, we can skip past the elephant snails and ponder toads,” replied the shopkeeper.

  Aldwyn watched Jack head in his direction, with Kalstaff right behind him. As they got closer, he noticed that the stars on Kalstaff’s robe were rotating like constellations in the sky, and what had to be a magic rod was floating at his side. Aldwyn had never seen one in the flesh before, but going by the looks of these enchanted items, it was easy to guess that Kalstaff was a wizard and the boy had to be one of his pupils.

  Aldwyn, like everyone, knew that spellcasters walked among the non-magical majority of Vastia’s population. Often indistinguishable from regular folk, magicians lived peacefully alongside those who didn’t have the gift, serving as teachers and healers and protectors of the queendom in times of peril. At least that’s what Aldwyn had once overheard two town elders discussing while he was hiding under a loose floorboard in an all-you-can-eat sausage parlor. Not that he’d been paying close attention—he’d been rather distracted by a puddle of pork grease that had dripped to the floor beside the buffet table.

  Jack pointed to a snake-like creature with little wings on its back.

  “What’s this?”

  “That’s a pocket dragon. They can breathe fire.”

  Aldwyn watched with a sense of wonder as wisps of flame shot out from the pocket dragon’s nostrils.

  “But they also have a tendency to burn your hair off,” continued the shopkeeper. “I don’t recommend them, unless you want to be as bald as Kalstaff.”

  While burning your hair off might be an unpleasant side effect to a human, it was downright terrifying to a cat. Aldwyn would be keeping his distance from pocket dragons.

  “This is one of my personal
favorites,” said the shopkeeper as they passed a brass pot with a small crab sitting in a pool of water. “Chameleon crabs. They specialize in camouflage spells that can make themselves and their loyals blend in with their surroundings.”

  Loyal? Aldwyn had never heard the word used in this way before. But it was clear that the shopkeeper was referring to a familiar’s human companion.

  The store owner dipped his hand into the pot for a demonstration, and within seconds his skin began to change color, starting with his feet turning the same dark brown as the floor. Then his legs and torso transformed into the metallic gray of the cage doors behind him. Before he was entirely camouflaged, he pulled his hand out of the bowl and immediately returned to his normal state.

  The boy stood with a look of awe on his face.

  “I just don’t know,” said Jack, clearly torn between too many options. “They’re all so amazing.”

  “Yes, they are,” said the shopkeeper with great respect. “But count yourself fortunate. There was a time when young wizards in training didn’t have so many choices, when they had to go and find their familiars out in the wild. That’s why my great-grandfather opened this store: to make certain that spellcasters would get the best assistance the animal kingdom could offer.”

  “It was at this very shop that I chose Zabulon as a boy,” said Kalstaff. “And the queen found her familiar, Paksahara.”

  Jack turned and spied a six-inch-long green lizard wearing a tiny saddle on its back, peering out from between two candlesticks on the countertop. The shopkeeper came up behind the boy. “That’s a riding lizard.”

  “For what? Ants?”

  “No, for people,” answered the store owner. “Rub the back of its head.”

  Jack stood there reluctantly at first. Then curiosity got the better of him. He reached his hand out and ran his finger across the back of the lizard’s scaly scalp. The diminutive reptile flicked out its tongue, striking the boy’s fingernail and causing him to shrink to the size of a peanut and land on the lizard’s back. He fit perfectly in the miniature riding gear.

  “Hey, what happened?” squeaked Jack, who had to grab onto the reins for dear life as the riding lizard sprinted down the counter, leaping over ink pots and feeding dishes. Jack managed to brace his now minuscule feet in the stirrups as the galloping reptile charged for the edge of the countertop, racing straight past Aldwyn, who watched from inside his cage.

  As the lizard sped toward the three-foot drop, the inch-tall Jack seemed half terrified and half thrilled, his hair bouncing in and out of his eyes. Then the two went airborne, and the shopkeeper snatched the lizard out from under the boy. As soon as Jack was no longer touching the magic reptile, he expanded back to his normal size and landed with a thud on the floor.

  “I think I’m going to pass on that one,” said Jack, shaking off the after-effects of the spell before dizzily rising to his feet. He was starting to look a little discouraged.

  “Just remember Pharkum’s three T’s of animal companionship: temperament, toughness, and talent,” advised the shopkeeper. “At least two should match your own.”

  Kalstaff put a reassuring hand on the young boy’s shoulder.

  “But what’s most important is that you find a connection with your familiar,” he said. “Its magic skills won’t help you, however impressive they may be, unless you share this deep bond. You’ll know when you feel it.”

  The shopkeeper gestured to the cage next to Aldwyn’s, with the large-eyed lemur—or whatever it was—still hanging upside down.

  “This one came from the jungles north of Vastia. It can see through solid objects. Useful talent but impossible to get any privacy.”

  Jack only half heard, as he had already moved on to Aldwyn. The boy bent down and looked straight into his eyes. Aldwyn was attempting to lie low and not call any attention to himself, but here he was being singled out. He tried to look bored and as uninteresting as possible.

  “This cat’s got green eyes, just like me,” said Jack.

  The shopkeeper walked over and looked at Aldwyn.

  “I don’t remember where I got that one. Must have been one of the telekinetic bicolors I picked up from Maidenmere.”

  “Ooh, I want to see!” exclaimed the boy.

  They all waited expectantly, but Aldwyn just lay there.

  “The truly powerful don’t need to put their talents on display,” said the shopkeeper. “His gifts must be especially strong.”

  Aldwyn couldn’t believe just how mistaken the store owner was. He was an ordinary alley cat, whose only real talent was for getting into trouble.

  “I’ll take him,” Jack blurted out.

  Aldwyn thought he hadn’t heard right. Had the young wizard apprentice—in this shop filled with countless amazing animals, one more magical than the next—really picked him as his familiar?

  “Are you sure?” asked the shopkeeper. “This is not like a wand or a hat. A familiar must be chosen very carefully.”

  Jack reached into the cage and stroked the underside of Aldwyn’s chin with the backs of his fingers. Aldwyn instinctively nuzzled his cheek against the boy’s hand, and a little purr of pleasure escaped from his mouth. He felt his tail curl, something that rarely happened. He didn’t know why, but Aldwyn felt a connection to Jack, an instant sense of belonging that could only be described as magical.

  A smile crossed Kalstaff’s face. “He’s sure.”

  The bald wizard handed the shopkeeper a leather purse filled with coins, and Jack pulled Aldwyn out into his arms.

  “I’m going to name him Mittens!” he said excitedly to Kalstaff. Aldwyn shuddered at the thought.

  “This is no ordinary pet,” replied the old wizard. “You don’t name them. Familiars reveal their names to you.”

  “But how?” asked the boy.

  “Vocarum animale, a simple but powerful spell created by Horteus Ebekenezer, the great forest communer. You’ll see later.”

  Before they reached the door, the shopkeeper called out to Jack with one last piece of advice. “Don’t expect too much from him at first,” he said. “He will reveal his powers when the time is right.”

  With Aldwyn in his arms, Jack nodded and followed Kalstaff back out to the street. Aldwyn spied Grimslade lingering on the corner, his crossbow menacingly in hand. A most distressing image flashed through Aldwyn’s mind: his own fur laid out on Grimslade’s sitting room floor as a catskin rug. Quickly, Aldwyn nestled deeper into Jack’s arms, hoping he would remain hidden.

  “Let’s pick up some fish for your new friend before heading home,” suggested Kalstaff.

  Aldwyn felt his whiskers tingling and couldn’t hold back another happy purr. It had been a rough start to the day, but at long last things were looking up.

  3

  STONE RUNLET

  As promised, before leaving Bridgetower, Aldwyn had enjoyed a delectable piece of fresh fish. Then tucked in the crook of Jack’s arm, he’d been carried across the wide stone bridge over the moat that stretched along the easternmost wall of the city. Upon reaching the other side, the old wizard led them along a dirt road that wound its way toward the highlands. It wasn’t long before they passed a caravan of driftfolk, tattooed traveling merchants selling beads and spices out of the backs of their mule-drawn wagons. As the driftfolk crowded around the trio, Aldwyn caught a whiff of orange mint leaves and cumin clinging to their garments. Kalstaff purchased a small pinch of nightshade before they continued on their way.

  Their journey took them through hills of emerald whistlegrass humming an outdoor symphony as the wind blew over the rolling slopes. Aldwyn listened as Kalstaff told Jack how every field had its own song. Each told a different story, some playing triumphant marches in honor of battles fought there long ago, others whispering lullabies for those who had slept soundly under the starlight.

  They left the whistlegrass behind them, and, having veered off the main road, Kalstaff led them across the Aridifian Plains, a long expanse of rocks and sand
where what little vegetation remained had been singed black. Aldwyn quickly spotted the reason why: volcano ants! These bright-red insects had built thousands of ant hills, with tunnels that stretched down to the earth’s very core. The magma that spit out from the tiny hills had charred everything green in its path, and travelers had to be extra careful not to set their boots on fire while stepping through these parts.

  Aldwyn thought himself a fairly knowledgeable cat, but he was already realizing just how little he knew of the natural wonders that lay outside Bridgetower’s walls.

  The last hour of the trip had been nothing but field after field of half-harvested crops. The barley stalks hung limply, a result of the sudden hail of snow and ice that had fallen on that otherwise warm summer day. During the entire long walk back home, Kalstaff and Jack had only taken a short rest to shake the sand out of their leather boots. Now, as the sun was setting, they were crossing a tiny stream and heading for an isolated meadow whose name, Stone Runlet, was written on a signpost.

  Stepping out of the runlet’s ankle-deep water, they entered the low-lying field. Up ahead, Aldwyn spotted a small stone cottage on the edge of the woods. Fruit trees, berry trees, and oaks with leaves the size of pie crusts bordered the meadow. A boy around fourteen with a square jaw and broad shoulders sat under one of the trees, reading an oversized book in a beautiful leather binding. Above him, a girl, who also appeared to be about fourteen, sat on a thick branch while juggling three walnuts. Ringlets of blond hair were falling over her face.

  “Marianne, Dalton, we’re back!” Jack called out.

  The girl swung down from the tree, sticking a perfect landing in the dirt below. The boy carefully marked his page before closing the book, then stood up. The two walked over to welcome the returning travelers.

  Aldwyn could now see that both the boy and the girl were accompanied by animal companions of their own. A blue jay sat on Dalton’s shoulder, its feathers a deeper shade of blue than the sky itself. Marianne was joined by a red-eyed tree frog, its bright orange webbed feet clinging to her cloak. Aldwyn couldn’t help but wonder what special powers these two familiars possessed.