A Meddle of Wizards Read online

  Welcome to Tandara, where gods are fickle, nightmares are real, and trolls make excellent bakers . . .

  Raine Stewart is convinced she’ll die young and alone in Alabama, the victim of a chronic, mysterious illness. Until a man in a shabby cloak steps out of her mirror and demands her help to defeat a bloodthirsty wizard.

  Raine shrugs it off as a hallucination—just one more insult from her failing body—and orders her intruder to take a hike. But the handsome figment of her imagination won’t take no for an answer, and kidnaps her anyway, launching her into a world of utmost danger—and urgent purpose.

  Ruled by unpredictable gods and unstable nations, Tandara is a land of shapeshifters and weather-workers, queens and legends. Ravenous monsters and greedy bounty hunters patrol unforgiving mountains. Riverboats pulled by sea-cattle trade down broad waterways. And creatures of nightmare stalk Raine herself, vicious in the pursuit of her blood.

  But Raine isn’t helpless or alone. She’s part of a band as resourceful as it is odd: a mage-shy warrior, a tattered wizard, a tenderhearted giant, and a prickly troll sorceress. Her new friends swear she has powers of her own. If she can stay under their protection, she might just live long enough to find out . . .

  Visit us at www.kensingtonbooks.com

  Books by Alexandra Rushe

  A Meddle of Wizards

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

  A Meddle of Wizards

  Alexandra Rushe

  REBEL BASE BOOKS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  Copyright

  Rebel Base Books are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp. 119 West 40th Street New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2017 by Alexandra Rushe

  Illustration by Rodica Prato

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

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  First Electronic Edition: January 2018

  eISBN-13: 978-1-63573-010-4

  eISBN-10: 1-63573-010-4

  First Print Edition: January 2018

  ISBN-13: 978-1-63573-011-1

  ISBN-10: 1-63573-011-2

  Printed in the United States of America

  Dedication

  To the dreamers and those who see the magic . . .

  FOREWARD

  Med∙ dle of Wiz∙ ards (med∙´’l uv wiz´ǝrds) [[ORIGIN medlen Elv ab (see AB-), ORIGIN wizard, prob. , wis, WISE + -ards, -ARDS]], n. 1 a group of three or more wizards [Better to face a hungry rock troll armed with a bent spoon than to trifle with a meddle of wizards.] SYN.— trouble

  Chapter 1

  Through a Glass Darkly

  Raine settled deeper into the upholstered armchair and opened her book. It was after midnight, but she wasn’t sleepy. God knows she spent enough time in bed. A breeze blew through the screen window, and she tucked the blanket around her thin legs. The April air was cool, but she didn’t mind. Alabama summer lurked around the corner and this might be her last spring.

  “Watch this,” Mimsie said, whizzing around the bedroom like a helium balloon escapee from a birthday party.

  Raine smiled at the ghost’s antics. Mimsie was a vision today in a polka dot Suzy Perette dress with rounded shoulders, full skirt, and cinched waist. A triple strand of pearls graced her slender neck and she wore her light brown hair curled and brushed away from her youthful face, a face Raine recognized only from faded photographs. The elderly relative who’d taken her in after her parents had died, the woman she remembered, had been more than half a century older, wrinkled and riddled with arthritis.

  Mimsie paused in her aerial high jinx. “You look awful. When’s the last time you ate?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not hungry.”

  “You’re skin and bones. I’ll see what’s in the kitchen.”

  The ghost sailed through the bedroom wall, leaving a cloud of Arpege in her wake.

  Raine shook her head in amazement. It had been five years since Mimsie had died. Five years without so much as an ectoplasmic peep and then bam! Mimsie was back. The ghost’s sudden appearance a few weeks earlier had sent her scurrying to the doctor, convinced she had a brain tumor. Headaches, nausea, blurred vision, and now the ghost of her dead aunt—what else could it be?

  The scans had come back negative. Raine had been sick her entire life, tested for every disease known to man with no diagnosis. The MRI to rule out a brain tumor was just one more procedure. She was twenty-five years old and she was dying, and no one could tell her why.

  In the ghost’s absence, quiet settled over the old house, unbroken but for the creak of a settling board and the hum of the electric clock on the table by the bed. Raine returned her attention to Ghosts of Behr County, a worn volume of eerie tales, and one of her favorites. She was engrossed in the story of the Wampas Kitty, a feline banshee whose shriek warned of impending death, when a sudden gust of briny air made her lift her head. The tangy scent of the sea blowing through the open window was overpowering and intoxicating.

  Raine loved the smell of the ocean, but she lived sixty miles from the Gulf. Inland. The universe wasn’t satisfied with hallucinations. Now she was imagining smells.

  A flicker of movement in the dresser mirror caught her eye, and the book in her hands tumbled to the floor. A ship rode a wintry sea in the silvered glass, the image shaky as an old silent movie. The sky above the vessel was sprinkled with stars, hard chips of brightness against the inky black, and a sliver of moon peeked from behind dusky clouds. A tall, broad-shouldered man strode about the narrow deck, flags on a mast snapping in the breeze. He paused and looked back, as though sensing her regard.

  Time slowed and stilled. How long she sat there—seconds? hours?—Raine did not know. The neighbor’s dog barked, breaking the spell. She blinked, disoriented for a moment, and shook off her paralysis. Brain tumor. Definitely. Closing her hand around the heavy flashlight by her chair, Raine hurled it at the mirror. The glass shattered, and the ship and the man disappeared.

  Mimsie darted back through the wall. “I heard a noise. Are you hurt?” She spotted the broken glass. “Oh, dear. Why’d you break the mirror?”

  “There was a roach,” Raine lied. “One of those big, icky ones with wings. You know I hate those things.”

  Raine got to her feet and tightened the string at the waist of her cotton pajamas. She’d lost more weight. Mimsie was right—she should eat something, but she had no appetite. Avert ing her gaze from the broken mirror, she headed for the bedroom door.

  “Careful of the glass,” Mimsie warned. “You’re barefoot.” She fluttered after Raine into the upstairs hall. “There’s chicken noodle soup in the pantry and saltine crackers.”

  “Yay. I’ll have a whiskey instead.”

  “You don’t drink.”

  “I’ve decided to take it up.”

  Raine needed a drink. A lot of drinks. First the ghost and now the medieval hunk in the mirror. She’d lost her ever-loving mind.

  “But what about the glass?”

  “Later, Mims. It’s not going anywhere.”

  Holding on to the rail, Raine staggered down the stairs and made her way into the library with the ghost at her heels. She switched on a lamp and grabbed a bottle of Jack Daniel’s out of the liquor cabinet. Sloshing two fingers into a glass, she took a hefty swig, coughing and gasping as the fiery liquid burned its way down her throat.

  “Don’t guzzle it. That’s good sipping whiskey.”

  “For goodness sake, stop pecking.” Raine wiped her streaming eyes. “You’re worse than a broody hen.”

  “I’m not pecking,” Mimsie said. “I’m trying to educate you.”

  Raine took another cautious sip. “Tell me something. Why show up now? You’ve been dead for years.”

  The pretty young ghost sniffed. “I didn’t just show up, Mary Raine. Been here all along. It’s not my fault you couldn’t see me.”

  “I can’t get over the way you look.” Raine waved the glass at Mimsie. “You are not the Mimsie I remember.”

  Mimsie smoothed the silk dress that covered her slender figure. “I was eighty-four when I died. Why go through eternity an old woman if I don’t have to? Now I’m dead, I mean to live it up.”

  The doorbell rang, interrupting them before Raine could think of a response to that bit of nonsense.

  “Good grief,” Raine said, lowering her glass. “Who could that be at this time of night?”

  “Betcha a dollar it’s that nosy Mamie Hall. Probably saw the lights on.”

  Raine groaned. Her next-door neighbor was a notorious busybody. “You’re right. What in the world am I going to tell her?”

  “You don’t have to tell her anything. It’s your house. You don’t owe the old biddy an explanation.”

  The bell rang again, shrill and insistent.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Raine said. “She keeps that up, she’ll break the damn thing.”

  She set the glass down and hurried into the hall. She yanked the front door open. The porch was dark and empty, but the old bell in the middle of the door spun like mad, as if turned by an invisible hand. The porch lights flared on and the bell stopped ringing.

  “That’s strange,” Raine murmured, squinting at the glare.

  “Raine? Get back here. You need to see this.”

  What now? Raine thought, closing the door. Hurrying into the library, she found Mimsie standing by the window, her slim form shining in the dim light. The ghost raised her arm and pointed to the mirror over the mantel. The glass rippled like wind-tossed water.

  Raine gasped in shock as the billowing folds of the mirror parted and a man with shoulder-length auburn hair stepped out. He held a brilliant jewel in one hand and he was dressed in some sort of costume—a tattered brown cloak, a knee-length rumpled brown tunic worn over loose leggings of the same color, and scruffy brown boots. He was handsome, Raine’s stunned brain realized, but he was not the man on the ship. Oh, no. This was an entirely different apparition. She stumbled back, tripped on the hem of her pajamas, and crashed to the floor with the grace of a hippo en pointe. Ignoring her aching rump, she gaped at the stranger.

  “Do you see what I see?” Raine asked Mimsie, her gaze on her brain’s latest manifestation. Boy, when she had a meltdown, she had a doozy.

  “If you’re talking about the man in the funny getup, absolutely,” the ghost said. “Call the police.”

  “And tell them what? ´Scuse me, officer, could you send someone over? A man just broke into my house through the library mirror? They’ll lock me up and throw away the key.”

  The man gave Raine a quizzical look and said something in a strange language. He waved the jewel at her and took a tentative step closer.

  “Forget the police,” Mimsie said with a hiss. “Run. I’ll create a diversion.”

  Raine scrambled to her feet and backed toward the door, her gaze on the stranger. He spoke again and the jewel in his hand flared, bleaching the library walls white. Raine’s muscles went stiff and hard as rock. She froze, unable to move, pinned to the floor like a bug.

  “Let her go,” Mimsie screeched.

  She flew at the man, passed through him, and came out the other side, but if the intruder noticed, he gave no sign. With a despairing wail, Mimsie disappeared, leaving Raine alone with him. Closing the space between them, he lifted Raine’s arm and examined the splotch on the underside of her left wrist. She stared at him, dizzy and disoriented. His hands were strong and uncallused, and his palms were hot against her skin.

  He felt awfully real for a dream. No matter, she told herself. Tomorrow morning when I wake, he’ll be gone.

  The stranger regarded her, his gaze troubled. “There must be some mistake.”

  English, the man had spoken English, though his accent was peculiar.

  He released her and stepped back. “You are not what I expected, but you have the mark.” He stroked his chin. “Still, best to be sure.”

  He waved the stone again. Raine’s petrified muscles relaxed without warning, and she crumpled to the floor.

  “Allow me to introduce myself.” The man bowed. “I am Archimedes Brefreton, a wizard of the order prime. You may call me Brefreton, Bree, or Red—anything but Archie, which I detest. What is your name?”

  Wizard? The guy was a total nutter. Correction: she was the nutter. She’d had a complete brain melt.

  “There’s a good girl.” Brain Tumor Boy gave her an encouraging smile. “Tell me your name.”

  Raine struggled to her feet and straightened her pajamas. This was ridiculous. She would not be controlled by a lump on her brain.

  But, to her fury, the words tumbled out of their own accord.

  “Mary Raine Stewart, but that’s my adopted name,” she heard herself say. “No idea who my birth parents were. They left me on the steps of Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church when I was a baby. My father’s aunt raised me after my parents died.”

  She stamped her foot and glared at this latest fancy of her beleaguered brain. “Stop that. You’re making me talk and I don’t like it.”

  “Then I suggest you stop fighting me and cooperate.” He looked her up and down, taking in her ashen complexion, frizzy locks, and gaunt frame. “You are unwell?”

  “Wow, someone give Captain Observant a free T-shirt.”

  “What ails you?”

  “Ding, ding, ding. That’s the fifty-million-dollar question. The only thing the doctors know for sure is that I’m dying.”

  “Dying? Inconvenient, to be sure, but hardly insurmountable.” He brandished the gemstone at her. “Do you know what this is?”

  “You got a shiny rock. Yay.”

  “It is not a rock. It is a god stone and very powerful. With it, your vitality can be restored.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Talk about denial. She was so desperate to be well that her psyche had cooked up this garbage. Pathetic.

  “Come with me.” He held out his hand. “Help me save my homeland and you will be made healthy and whole.”

  “Mister, I wouldn’t go to the corner store with you, even if you were real. Which you are so not.”

  His handsome features hardened. Grabbing her by the arm, he pulled her close. “You are under a misapprehension. You have no choice. One way or another, you will ac company me. There are more lives at stake than your own.”

  Lifting the jewel, he began to murmur in that strange language, and the mirror over the mantel shimmered and pulsed in response.

  Something clattered outside the window, and he turned with a start. “What the–”

  Good old Mimsie. She’d promised to create a diversion and she had, rattling the garbage cans around and making one hell of a racket.

  Raine jerked free of the man’s hold and punched him in the nose. Hard.

  “Ouch.” She shook her throbbing hand and glared at him in outrage. “What gives? Dreams aren’t supposed to hurt.”

  He winced and prodded the bridge of his nose. “Now, see here, young lady,” he said as she drew back her fist. “Do not—”

  Raine took another swing at the man. He cursed and made a defensive move, and her fist glanced off his upraised arm and slammed into the jewel. It blazed bright as a miniature sun and flew into the air.

  A tremendous wind howled through the library. Books tumbled off the shelves. Vases and bric-a-brac crashed to the floor. The couch skidded across the room and Mimsie’s favorite Queen Anne chair smashed into the wall. Raine was lifted off her feet like a papier-mâche doll and tossed toward the mantel mirror. She screamed in helpless terror as the glistening surface of the glass parted like a pair of grotesque lips and swallowed her whole. She tumbled, head over heel, through darkness.

  Stars melted around her. Down, down she plummeted, toward a distant shard of light. The splinter of brightness widened, and she caught a fleeting glimpse of mountains and an ocean of trees. Then something slammed into her head and Raine knew no more.

  Chapter 2

  Magog’s Temple

  The broken moon Petrarr smiled upon the temple with crooked teeth. Una, her twin, glowed beside her, round and smooth as a new cheese. The moons were high in the sky by the time the priests had finished their cleansing rites. Chanting, they held their lanterns aloft and marched down the hill, swaying to the beat of the drums.