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

look back. The demon only watched the Blue Lord as he walked to the KiTai warriess and the white-and-black-haired, feathered man…all three whispering low.

The Perri sand dancers rushed into their huddle, urgently eager to put in their two words as the Blue Lord conspired with them.

Bernum braced for their next attack.

“I don’t believe it.” The red haired warriess peered back at Jonis with savage readiness.

Bernum inched away.

Immediately Jonis’s arm stopped him from retreating. “Just wait.”

More heads looked up at the white demon. The white-and-black haired one peered with bird-like interest rather than hostility, though the others remained quite the reverse. Only the Blue Lord seemed changed. He said in a louder voice, “I know it to be true. You cannot transmit a lie through touch. I could read into his head with that connection just as much as he into mine. He is only after the cabinet. He doesn’t want anything of ours.”

“But why just the cabinet?” the KiTai warriess snapped, stabbing her sword into the wood flooring.

“It was left to me by a dear friend—my guardian,” Jonis said, taking a step toward them, dragging Bernum along. Bernum tried to shake Jonis’s hold off, but Jonis’s bare hand was just a smidgen away from his skin and he didn’t want to make any sudden movements that would startle the demon side of the man.

“In the drawers, I am hoping, are a number of magic scrolls that were left to me. I just want them back,” Jonis said.

“What for?” the KiTai woman asked again.

Bowing his head to her, the white demon said, “I’m writing a book—a book containing all the magisterial knowledge that I have available to make a…” He glanced at the Blue Lord then shrugged. “…demon hunting guide.”

The black-and-white haired man hopped from the white demon, his interest already transforming into fear. With a narrow look at Jonis, Bernum started to wonder if it was such a good idea to let Jonis do the talking.

“See, what did I tell you?” the woman of the Perri pair said to the feather-cloaked man.

The Perri man nodded, slapping the black-and-white haired man on the shoulder while casting a severe loathing glance for Jonis, as well as Bernum. “You can’t trust magic men.”

Bernum ruffled, filling all the indignity he had suffered through due to those foreigners surge within. He stomped forward, fists clenched. “Hold it!”

They all shifted their glares to him. He almost stopped from fright, but then drew himself up more.

“Look,” Bernum said, “I don’t like you, and you don’t like me…and I’m sick of trying to negotiate with assassins, demons, creepy wizards, and rogue warriors out for my skin. And I know you don’t like the demon my sister conjured up. But we aren’t your problem here. It is Merchant Omoni. I want my sister, and you want your travel documents, but Jonis also wants his cabinet. But if we stand here and argue over who is the most untrustworthy in this whole stupid mess, none of us are going to get what we want.”

Jonis smirked, leaning back with a mild glance at Bernum.

“Now I have a plan that can get us all we want without so much as a finger lifted by you people,” he said to the KiTai warriess and the Blue Lord who was strangely lowering his head as though he were embarrassed—or possibly ashamed. “All I need is to get something from that wizard of yours.”

“What do you need from our wizard?” the warriess asked, her eyes narrowing still.

Inhaling then exhaling with a look to Jonis, Bernum said, “I need some of his clothes.”

“His clothes?”

Jonis glanced about the people there then bumped Bernum in the arm with his elbow. “Why the wizard’s clothes? Didn’t you say Omoni wouldn’t know me from any of these performers here? Well, the pale ones anyway.”

Turning to the side to face him, Bernum nodded. “Yes, I did. But I was thinking of the wizard specifically when I said that. Omoni won’t want to see any of them.”

Jonis frowned.

Some of the performers scowled. Yet more of the performers’ eyes started to widen. A few of them even began to nod, following where Bernum’s thoughts were leading.

“The wizard, you see, is the guy I’ve replaced,” Bernum said, sharing looks with the Blue Lord now. “Omoni thinks he’s run off. And I hear the audiences loved him. What I’m suggesting is that I can take you to Omoni’s place, act like I just found the wizard, and that you, the wizard, want to negotiate the reinstatement of your job while I am trying to get out of mine.”

Giving him a dry look, Jonis leaned nearer to Bernum. “Do you actually think this Omoni will buy it? He can’t be that dense.”

“No.” Bernum shook his head, glancing to the warriess whose expression was lightening. “But we only have to fool the guards. I figure Omoni will know the difference. But by then, I can pretend to be surprised that I’d been used and—”

“But this doesn’t prevent me from being shot,” Jonis said to him, leaning closer.

Bernum stepped back, emitting a groan. “Look. I can get you into the manor. That’s all I can manage right now unless you want to wear a hate ward on your belt.”

Blinking, Jonis stared. “Wear a hate ward?”

Rolling his eyes, Bernum waved to the KiTai woman. “Yes. That’s what the KiTai do.” He then tugged on his belt. “That’s what I do.”

Jonis touched Bernum’s belt, turning it inside out as Bernum gazed to the ceiling with exhaustion for being groped. Clearly the demon didn’t hate him. Jonis could go right through the ward.

Jonis then chuckled, letting go. “And here I was, using it as a weapon. You really are a great magician, Bernum.”

Not expecting that, Bernum lowered his eyes to the Cordril’s pale mirth-filled glow.

The white demon sheathed his sword then walked over to the Blue Lord where he shared a touch of hands with the dark warrior. Tiny sparks passed between their fingers and palms. The Blue Lord nodded then leaned to the red haired warriess with a whisper.

Annoyed, she grumbled back. Then she said aloud to Bernum, “Ok, Magician. We’ll summon the wizard for you.”

 

They waited over an hour before the wizard actually arrived. Their message system was a crude one, one that required them to leave a note at a special place where his monkey would regularly pick it up. Lucky for them that time had not passed. The wizard didn’t walk in the doorway or take the window, though. Just like his flashy rainbow clothes, his entrance was either meant to wow or to look formidable. The floor parted. As it did, he pulled himself through it with a skip in his step as if to say ‘ta-da!’

Bernum frowned. Yet, he rose from his seat next to the hearth to greet him. “Hello, Wizard.”

“Aldovio,” the wizard said with a grandiose bow, sweeping down with one arm across him. When he straightened up, his smile kinked at the corners. “So, you have at last come up with a decent plan. Let’s hear it.”

Jonis got off of his chair. He had been sitting with the Blue Lord ‘silently’ discussing something with him, palm to palm. The other performers still kept their distance from the white demon, watching him as he walked past, though the KiTai warriess seemed more thoughtful when looking at Jonis.

Giving Jonis a glance, Bernum then made way for him. “We need one of your outfits for him to wear. He and I will go to Omoni’s to get the documents out of the cabinet. But I need you nearby to get the collar off Malkia.”

Aldovio the wizard hardly heard beyond the request for his clothes. His eyes had fixed on the white-skinned demon from the north. With a tic, the wizard looked to Bernum again then leaned in. “Do you actually trust this demon?”

“Trust?” Making a face, Bernum glanced at Jonis also before saying, “At this point I don’t have much of a choice.”

Jonis chuckled, stuffing his hands into his pockets.

“Actually,” Jonis said, glancing up at the wizard, “I was thinking the same thing about you. Hann aren’t all that well known for being honest.”

The wizard bristled. A couple other Hann stood up. However some of the other performers snickered, sharing teasing looks.

Bernum put himself between them, lifting his hands. “Alright. Alright. Knock it off. This isn’t helping.”

Jonis took a step back with a polite nod to Bernum. “I’m sorry. You’re right.”

But Aldovio lifted his chin, jutting it higher.

Without any desire to drag it out, Bernum led the wizard to the table where he pulled out a chair. Aldovio had airs when he sat down, watching Jonis take the chair from the fire where he had been sitting, pulling it opposite without any pretention at all—though it did look like Jonis was using it to fend off any attackers that would burst out in that hostile room. Bernum remained standing.

“Here’s the deal,” Bernum said. “We dress him in your clothes tomorrow night. Then he and I go into Omoni’s manor pretending to want to negotiate ‘our’ contracts. When he and I are—”

“Wait a minute. Wait a minute.” The wizard Aldovio raised his hand first then pointed to Jonis. “You are trying to pass him off as me?” The wizard started to laugh, slapping the table.

Though Jonis made a face, he did not look upset at all. He waited for Bernum to continue; and for that matter so were the others.

So Bernum did—though Aldolvio was still chuckling.

“Anyway, once we are inside the manor house, Jonis will claim his chest, and I will go search for Malkia. I figure Jonis will make enough of a stir that the gate guards will be summoned in, giving you just enough time to break in also and help me with Malkia.”

Still smirking, Aldovio shook his head. “There are so many things wrong with that plan, I find it laughable.”

Jonis shrugged with a glance to Bernum. “He has a point.”

His exhaustion was making him weary of their banter. Bernum clenched his fists then unclenched them. Lowering his head a smidgen, he said, “I know it isn’t elaborate or anything…but we only have a little window before the chance is gone. We go tomorrow or never.”

Rising, Jonis looked to the wizard. “Ok.”

“Ok?” Aldovio leaned back incredulously. “Are you mad? How is any of this ok?”

Jonis ignored him. “I’ve never tried dressing up as someone else before, and you did say we all look the same to you so—”

“All look the same?” Aldovio sprang to his feet. He glared from Bernum to Jonis, whose blue eyes had flickered with enjoyment that he had gotten another rise out of the Hann man. The wizard turned to Bernum. “Do not put me in the same category as that…that…that Cordril! My skin has the finest color. I’m a man of distinction. That demon is walking death!”

Bernum glanced at Jonis who merely scratched his chin.

“They’ll take one look at his demon blue eyes and know he isn’t me!” Aldovio said.

“He’s right,” the warriess said, though she was also looking at Jonis’s straw colored hair as if comparing it to the tea colored hair on Aldovio’s head. “They don’t look anything alike.”

Rolling his eyes, Jonis plucked a hand’s-length, two-finger-width, folded up item of metal wire that held together two flat pieces of oval shaped obsidian colored glass. He pried open two sides of it and set it on his face. Darkened-glass covered his eyes so that not a peek of blue shone through. Then Jonis mussed up his hair, flipping up the back just a fraction as he said, “I can put in some hair wax and style it like he does. I can also wear stage makeup to make me look darker, if you want. In the dark we’ll both look equally white though.”

Bernum nodded. “Agreed.”

Aldovio stomped his feet as if tromping over soggy ground. “But him going as me? How is he supposed to pull off that? I have style. I have class. I have—”

“An ego the