Duality by Rowan Erlking (best books for 8th graders .TXT) 📖

merchant’s trap. He saw a number of them caring for the animals, one leaning on his hayfork next to the elephant, blinking at Bernum, another scooping up pungent bear droppings though pausing to stare. There were three show women that cast Bernum flirtatious glances, fluttering their fake glittering eyelashes at him with giggles as he waved away the flies from his face and stepped over the sleeping terrier in colored clothes that then snapped at his heels with an offended bark when the chest bumped into the animal.

Bernum staggered to an open spot in the straw not far from the llamas, listening to the various caws of the talking cockatoos, magpies, and performing birds. He dropped one end of his chest to the floor. Their keeper leered at him with a smirk from his own perch on top of colorful stacked boxes used for the performing animals. Passing back a pained smile, Bernum set his magic chest all the way down.

“Prepare your show. You go on this evening,” the steward said, his eyes revealing his amusement though his mouth was set in a polite line.

Giving the proper flustered performance, Bernum exclaimed as the steward walked off almost following after him, “This evening? I don’t even know how to open the chest yet!”

“Figure it out, Magician.” And the steward stepped out of sight, just beyond the dog trainer.

Left alone, the cries of animals and foreign chatter in his ears, Bernum made a face with feigned reluctance then went back to the chest. The steward wasn’t the only one he had to convince of his incompetence. Glancing over his shoulder at all the staring eyes, he knew that every person in the circus was a potential spy for the merchant.

First task first. He set his hands to on top of the travel chest and peered at the lock. So far he had no honest luck in opening it. He had already tried his basic lock-turning spell, to no success. The head magician must have made some sort of trick that his student should be able to figure out before the performance. Bernum just had to think.

“What are you doing here, magic man?”

Bernum felt the shadow over him cast from the lamp light and looked up. He blinked at the hulking figure of the islander who, by all accounts was as dark as a Maldos but those freakish blue eyes shone as threateningly as his stance. No normal human had blue eyes, not even those from Brein Amon whose eyes occasionally were gray. This islander was a demon. Bernum was sure of it.

Rising, Bernum cleared his throat, squaring his shoulders. “I was sent here…as punishment.”

The blue-eyed foreigner’s expression did not change much. He merely grunted with a glance back at the other circus performers watching them. The Perri couple snorted, the woman twirling a pair of daggers in her hand as if for practice, but the look in her eyes maintained a teasing menace that said she would not hesitate to use her weapons. The blue-eye shoved Bernum back, his fingertips crackling sparks as if reaching toward Bernum’s skin underneath his shirt. “We don’t want you here. Leave.”

Clenching his teeth, Bernum stepped back. “It’s not my choice.”

The blue-eye reached out to shove Bernum again, but Bernum leapt back, immediately swiping his foot around himself in a spin while reciting the incantation for a hate ward. He stopped, panting watchfully, even as the blue-eyed demon blinked at him. “You can’t harm me, Sky Child.”

With a snort, the blue-eyed demon reached out to Bernum anyway. But the moment he touched the edge of the circle, the demon yanked his hand back, clenching it. With a growl, the blue-eye snapped at Bernum, “I am no Sky Child. I am a Blue Lord. Learn the difference.”

“Learn the difference?” Bernum just stared at him. “What is a Blue Lord? You aren’t a Cordril, and I don’t know any other blue-eyed demon that exists.”

To that, the self-proclaimed Blue Lord replied, “Blue Lords come from Lafea—the civilized land.” And he said it somewhat smugly.

Snorting back, Bernum replied, “If that is so, then why did you leave it?”

The huge islander replied with a glare, swiping at the ward with his fist. Rebound from the invisible wall sent the demon’s hand flying back, him clutching it once more.

Bernum nodded. “That’s right. The ward hurts. It is powered by your own hate for me.”

Immediately Bernum saw the dagger the Perri woman had just been holding fly at him. But then it deflected off the barrier, followed by another, then another, then three more. The woman stopped throwing them with a curse at him in her language. Bernum returned the sentiment with a dirty look.

“I told you. Now stop that.” Bernum sighed, turning his eyes up at the tent ceiling. “We’re going to be stuck with one another for a while so why don’t we all—”

He saw the short man and another foreigner pick up his chest, snickering at him while casting back foreign lingo epithets. They started to carry it off, but Bernum just shook his head and crouched down inside his hate ward, drawing yet another circle under his feet. He recited yet another series of words, though this time for a summoning spell.

Almost immediately after he gave the command word “here” with a justified smirk, the chest lurched out of their hands and dropped to the ground. It immediately slid across the floor as if the dirt itself shoved the chest along, straight to Bernum who waited for it. The large blue-eye sprang in front of the chest to stop it from arriving; but then the chest did the most extraordinary thing—it sank into the ground then emerged in Bernum’s hate ward without a scratch.

Bernum looked up with a smile, smugly lifting his eyebrows. He folded his arms.

All the circus performers stared at him. Several exchanged looks, including the blue-eye who walked back to the white-and-black haired man in the feathered cloak. The red haired woman ducked in their huddle, her green eyes peering at Bernum with calculation.

Hunkering down, Bernum decided to go back to working on his chest. He would have to figure out a way to go to the performance without being harassed, but he felt that he could get it done, even if it meant summoning a huge swarm of bees to drive the others away. Setting his hands on the lock then feeling the hinges, Bernum recited all the spells he could think of. He even tried to unlock it the old fashioned way, with a bit of wire he kept on himself for such an occasion. He cursed under his breath several times, wrangling the box until he pounded on the top with a bang. “Open, stupid!”

Nothing, though he did notice the other performers staring at him with skepticism now. The shared huddles broke up some, them watching him.

Attempting to burn a hole in the top, again the spell was rebuffed. Whatever spell Jimmit had set on the chest, it was a good one. Bernum kicked the chest a couple of times, but that did no good. Banging his head on the top, Bernum shouted aloud, “Come on! I have to get ready for the show!”

Immediately the chest popped open, almost whacking Bernum in the chin.

He staggered upward then blinked at the contents. Crouching down then delving his arms into the contents, Bernum lifted out a rubber yellow toy duck to peer at it, then a brightly colored cone hat they usually put on dunces at school, and a heaping pile of colored scarves along with fake bouquets of tawdry silk flowers, several stuffed toy bunny rabbits and equally tacky stuffed pigeons. Tossing each one of the gag performance items back into the chest, Bernum muttered, “Thanks a heap, Jimmit.”

Already the circus performers snickered, going back to their business. Shrugging with the thought that at least he had established himself as a joke to these people, Bernum bent down and sorted once more through the piles of stuff he had been given to begin formulating a basic show plan…one just good enough to please the merchant but poor enough to still look like a fool kid under punishment for being a slacker.

After taking out the scarves and stack of colored paper he had also found in the chest, Bernum closed the lid and sat on it. He also had the cone hat in his hands, his mind going over and over all the spells he had already tried back at the school that would prove good for a show. In a way, he was glad he had been somewhat of a mischief-maker in his younger years because the ideas started to come without much difficulty.

The first thing he did was make another circle spell. Bernum took out his school spell book, pretending to read the words as he drew the line in the dirt and straw just outside his hate ward, marking the four cardinal points. Then, drawing in a breath he uttered the words: “Northern Lights bring in, Eastern Seas roll in, Southern Heat draws in, Western Wild grows in, Trap encircle and contain all Pigeons.” He snapped his fingers and declared, “Wall!”

Several heads looked over, but nothing of significance happened. Only, Bernum looked satisfied. He bent over the circle he drew, glanced around at the performing birds as if to see there were any pigeons among them, then grinned slightly more crooked as he drew yet another circle inside that circle. The words he recited this time were different.

“Out from the North. Right from the East. Down from the South. In from the West. Come to this trap, white pigeons from outside.” He struck the ground in the center of the circles with his hand, and said, “Here!”

At first nothing happened. All the circus performers peered at him with snorts, several of them going back to their preparations for that nights performance—but then the tent flaps started to stir. One white bird flew in and landed in the center of that circle. Bernum stepped back from it, nodding to himself even as the bird trainer snorted at him.

But then three flew in. Then five. Then a flurry of birds that caused a sudden cacophony of calls from the animals, the performers and even voices from outside screaming to know what was happening. One of Omoni’s men rushed in shouting. “What is going on here?”

He then halted, staring at Bernum and his practical tower of fluttering pigeons that struggled to get out of the circle trap they found themselves stuck in.

“You?”

Bernum blinked then shrugged. “What?”

Cocking his head to the side, Omoni’s man marched over the straw scattered floor which was now covered in white feathers, his hands balling into fist. He stood taller than Bernum by only an inch. “Are you going to be trouble?”

Tilting back as if trying to remain objective, Bernum replied, “Isn’t that what I told Merchant Omoni when he hired me?”

The man ground his teeth, his fists tightening. Bernum merely took a step back into his hate ward, closer to the birds.

“If you cause my boss any trouble—”

“What? You’ll fire me?” Bernum smirked with a glance at the other performers who now watched with interest. “I was sent here as punishment for doing stuff like this. What did you expect?”

“Why, you…” The man swiped at Bernum, but it just rebounded, stinging harder than it had the Blue Lord. His eyes popped wider on the hired magician as he clenched his wrist. “What did you do, you beast?”

Bernum shrugged. “It’s not what I did. It’s what you—”

The man struck at the ward’s invisible walls again, this time the shock running harder up his arm. He stumbled back, clenching up to his shoulder with a completely hate-filled glare. “I’m telling the boss about this.”

“Go ahead,” Bernum cast back, smirking way too smugly for anyone to misinterpret his taunt. “I don’t care what he thinks. I only answer to Head Magician Jimmit.”

Omoni’s thug stalked off, his eyes flickering also to the circus performers as