The Past Is Prologue
Chapter 19: Olivia and Ash vs. the chinopos
"During the reign of Queen Shuriki I was watched like a hawk. Through sheer attrition I found myself closest in line to the throne of the old Castillo dynasty. I did what I could to make myself seem as shallow and inoffensive as possible so the queen would not see me as a threat. It was the queen who arranged my marriage to the son of a loyalist of hers. We were married for over a year before we trusted each other enough to confess our hatred of Shuriki." Condesa Dolores Herrera de Vivar, A People's History of the Reign of Queen Shuriki, compiled by Professor Catalina de Torres
It felt weird that after all the trouble Olivia had gone to escaping, she was now openly walking through the Baja Bahia market square, and walking next to the very malvaga she'd been fleeing. Of course, she was in disguise, and Ash had radically changed her own appearance. After they'd snuck out of the hacienda grounds Ash had banged her tamborita and chanted, "Disfrazare!" Her white hair had darkened, and her malvago robe seemingly transformed into an ordinary-looking blouse and skirt. Olivia's jaw had dropped. She didn't know that effect was possible without a shape-shifting potion. When Ash was finished, she had coolly said, "Come along, niña."
They'd snuck past the guards at the hacienda and then simply strolled down the main road through the town. Olivia was itching to run, but Ash had hissed at her, "There's no quicker way to be caught." Olivia thought the malvaga probably had a lot more experience evading capture than she did, so the wizard-in-training (ex-wizard-in-training) decided to listen to her.
And they were being chased. By the time they'd reached the market square, guards were already looking for them. But Ash had been right about "changing their profile." The guards couldn't spot a woman with Ash's distinctive white hair and malvago robes, nor the royal wizard-in-training in pigtails. They might make it out of Baja Bahia after all.
At least, that was what Olivia thought until they rounded a corner and she found herself face to face with Javier. He looked as shocked as she felt. Ash was pretending to peruse the merchant stalls and didn't notice the young inventor. Olivia and Javier locked eyes, and the apprentice wizard slowly shook her head. After an agonizing few seconds, Javier called out, "They're not down here." Ash whirled at the sound of his voice as Javier ran around the corner. The malvaga pulled her young companion into the back of a stall and held up a bolt of cloth as if to examine it, conveniently shielding them from sight.
"Blast it!" The sound of Fiero's voice made Olivia's blood run cold. "Ash probably made for the jungle. She's more comfortable in the wild than in civilization. We'll never find them now."
"So we should go back to the hacienda?" Javier asked in an anxious voice.
Ash kept a tight grip on Olivia's shoulder as they heard Fiero snarl at the guards to keep looking. After a few moments, she led Olivia out through the back of the stall, ignoring the merchant's protests.
They managed to escape Baja Bahia without further incident, and once they were in the jungle, the malvaga dismissed her disguise with a wave of her hand.
"So if you have that spell, why not just turn us into jaquins so we can fly out of here?" Olivia wanted to know.
"You think it's that simple?" an amused Ash replied.
"Well, not for me, but it looks like you can do it."
"Very well. Let us see, shall we?" Ash raised her tamborita and pointed it at the girl, striking the drum wand once while chanting "Disfrazare jaquirandi!"
Olivia looked at herself in amazement, trying to catch her twitching tale and admiring her large wings. "I'm a jaquin!" she cried excitedly. Over the years, on and off, she'd begged Mateo to use his shapeshifting potion to transform her into a jaquin. But it was one of a zillion things the master wizard had deemed "too dangerous" for her, and had once observed drily, "With my luck, you'd take it into your head to fly to the sun to see what it's made of." Olivia hadn't exactly helped her case by musing about the nature of the sun. Mateo had shaken his head and handed her a few books on the subject.
But now she was a jaquin! She turned around, trying to get a good look at herself.
"Well?" the malvaga asked. "Aren't you going to try to fly?"
Olivia's heart beat faster. She was going to get to fly! She flapped her mighty wings and leapt from the ground…
Only to fall flat on her face, the jaquin image dispelling like mist around her.
"It is an illusion spell only," Ash lectured serenely as the disgruntled young woman picked herself up and dusted herself off. "To actually fly like a jaquin you'd need a shape-shifting potion."
"You could have warned me," Olivia grumbled.
"Where's the fun in that? Now come along, niña. It will likely start raining in an hour and I want us to find shelter before it does." The dark wizard set a brisk pace, and her companion had to scramble to keep up.
"Señora Delgado…"
"No."
That's right; Ash had said she didn't use the name Delgado. "Doña Ash…"
The dark wizard sighed. "If you must be formal, you may address me as 'malvaga.'"
Olivia stopped, confused. "But that's an insult!"
"Not to malvagos." When she realized the wizard-in-training was no longer moving, she turned. "What do you think 'malvago' means, anyway?"
"Well, evil wizard."
"I see. And how do you define 'evil'?"
"Um, being mean I guess…" Ok, that sounded childish. Ash's mocking laugh reinforced that. Olivia tried again. "Malvagos use their powers to harm others."
Ash nodded. "So Mateo is a malvago."
"What? No! Of course not!"
"He turned Fiero into stone, twice, and never turned him back, despite having the means to do so. He's tried to blast me more times than I can count. And let's not forget your queen with that deadly scepter of hers. Do you consider her a malvago?"
"You know I don't."
"Keep moving, joven. I'm serious about wanting to find shelter before that storm hits." Ash put her hand on Olivia's back and firmly pushed her forward.
As the (ex)wizard-in-training trudged through the jungle, she tried to think of counter-arguments. Finally, she gave up. "So, according to you, what is a malvago?"
"A more powerful wizard."
"More powerful than what?"
Ash impatiently brushed at something by her head. Probably a bug, Olivia concluded.
"More powerful than you wizards who practice Maruvian magic."
Wait, Maruvian magic? Wasn't magic just – magic? But the malvaga's disparaging comment also stung Olivia's pride. "If malvagos are more powerful, then why do we keep beating you?"
The malvaga shot the girl a dirty look, and then sighed. "Arrogance, mostly. We keep underestimating our opponents." Then Ash turned to her left. "No, she's not!" the woman snapped.
"What are you talking about – wait, who are you talking to?" Olivia started to put the pieces together. "There's someone invisible here, isn't there? Ooh, can you talk to your chanul?"
Ash stopped and stared. "How in the Everrealm did you work that out?"
"Queen Elena can see her chanul whenever she wants because she was trapped in the Amulet of Avalor. Were you trapped in an amulet too?" Olivia asked excitedly.
"Not in an amulet, no," Ash responded drily. "And you, hush," she said into thin air.
"You know," Olivia pointed out, "you could always cast a spell to summon your chanul so I could meet them."
"Absolutely not!" Ash sounded shocked. "It's bad enough that I have to listen to her incessant chatter; I'm not subjecting you to that as well…I said no!" she snapped at her invisible chanul.
"I don't mind," Olivia insisted. "It would be the polite thing to do."
"I have been called many things in my life, but 'polite' has never been one of them….I'm so glad you agree," she added sarcastically to the unseen creature.
Olivia bowed the way Mateo had taught her towards the general direction of the invisible spirit guide. "It is an honor to meet you, oh Ash's chanul."
"You would think so," Ash grumbled, and Olivia knew that the malvaga wasn't talking to her.
The jungle, already dark because of the thick foliage overhead, suddenly darkened even more noticeably, acquiring an uncanny air. A distant thunderclap startled them both, and Olivia could smell rain in the air.
"I was hoping the storm would hold off a bit longer," Ash muttered. "We need to get to a cave, and soon. There should be one in that mountain up ahead. It will take us at least half an hour to get there. We're looking at a soggy climb." The (ex)wizard-in-training didn't quite see what Ash meant by "mountain;" as far as Olivia could tell, they were already on one. But the malvaga was the expert.
"So long as you can walk and talk at the same time, we can continue our discussion," the dark wizard told the girl. "I'm curious – what else did your master tell you about malvagos?"
"Well, that you become malvagos as a shortcut to power rather than taking the time to study like proper wizards."
"I studied with Zopilote for eight years before I ran off with Victor, and then another ten once I returned to him to complete my education as a malvaga."
Olivia knew the name Zopilote, of course. Mateo had told her how the infamous malvago had murdered Mateo's grandfather, Alacazar. It was weird to hear anyone talk about the evil wizard so casually, though. But Ash had said something else interesting.
"You ran off with Victor?"
The malvaga smiled thinly. "Zopilote had other plans for me."
"What do you mean?" Olivia asked curiously.
"At the time, Zopilote, Fiero, and Alacazar all contended against one another. My master sought to make an alliance with Fiero against their mutual enemy by offering him, well, me, in marriage."
"Blech!" Olivia could not imagine it.
Ash burst into laughter at that. "My sentiments exactly. I sometimes think Victor's most attractive quality was that he wasn't Fiero."
Olivia was fascinated by this view into her fellow apprentices' history. (Former fellow apprentices, she reminded herself with a pang.) It wasn't like Victor or Carla talked a lot about their lives before being pardoned by Elena.
"So you eloped with Victor, but then went back to Zopilote? I don't get it."
"Shuriki – " Ash spat the name, surprising Olivia who'd just assumed that all evil wizards were friends, "-placed a bounty on malvagos when my Carla was just seven. Even though we lived in the Kingdom of Cordoba at the time, fortune hunters still came looking for me. I did not then have sufficient power to defend myself. So when Zopilote appeared and told me that all was forgiven, that he could make me such a powerful malvaga that no one would dare threaten me or any under my protection again, of course I gratefully accepted."
"Zopilote told you all was forgiven? Not the other way around?"
"It was I who'd betrayed my master when I fled with Victor. I promised to serve Zopilote when I became his apprentice," the malvaga answered. "Would you not obey your master in similar circumstances?"
Olivia snorted. "First of all, Mateo would never in a million years tell me who to marry. And if he, or my parents, or even Queen Elena tried to 'arrange a marriage' for me, I'd just tell them to shove it!" Not that she could imagine any of them doing that. In fact, the only times Mateo or her parents had ever tried to tell her what to do was when they wanted to "keep her safe." It drove her crazy and she often didn't listen, but she knew they had her best interests at heart. They would never treat her like a…tool, the way Zopilote had with Ash. She began to feel sorry for the dark wizard, and realized how lucky she'd been to have been trained by someone as kind as Mateo.
There was another loud clap of thunder followed by a deluge of rain, and both women were soon drenched to the bone. Instead of slowing down, Ash moved faster, and kept turning around to impatiently snap at Olivia to hurry up. At last they came to the cave Ash had spotted, and tumbled gratefully inside. Ash cast a spell to make a rock glow red, and soon they had light and warmth.
"Hey, Ash?" Olivia called out. "Could you do the 'secare' spell again, please?"
The malvaga raised an eyebrow. "You remember the name of the spell?" she asked with some amusement.
"I have a good memory, especially for magic," the wizard-in-training shrugged, and then sneezed.
Ash shook her head, and then banged her tamborita and chanted, "Secare!" Olivia gratefully felt the water wick away from her sodden skirt and blouse.
"Thanks," Olivia said, and started to look around the cave. As far as she could tell, she and Ash were the first people to enter here. There were loose rocks lying about, and some cool-looking stalactites on the roof of the cave, but that was about it. It didn't go very far back. There were numerous holes all over the back wall of the cave, but when Olivia curiously tried to put her hand in one to see what was there, Ash grabbed her wrist and yanked her back.
"You realize that those holes are perfect hiding places for snakes, scorpions and spiders," she observed drily.
"Oh."
"Why don't you sit down by the fire so you don't hurt yourself?" Ash suggested. "Wait – you do actually know not to touch hot objects, right?"
"Ha…ha…ha." Olivia rolled her eyes, but sat down by the glowing rock. She was glad to be warm and dry, but found herself quite hungry. She was determined not to say anything, though, because she was getting a bit tired of Ash implying she was stupid or weak. Ash might be kind to Olivia, but she certainly was not nice. So the girl was surprised when the malvaga pulled a handkerchief full of anoki berries from her pocket and offered some to her. "Thanks, Ash," Olivia said as she gratefully accepted the fruit. She'd never really liked anoki berries, but as the saying went, hunger is the best sauce. "When did you have time to pick these?"
"Every time I had to stop and wait for you to get back up after falling on your face," Ash smirked. Olivia just sighed.
Two thunderclaps sounded in rapid succession and Ash visibly stiffened until it was clear there would not be a third. "Worried about chinopos?" Olivia teased.
"If you must know, yes," the malvaga snapped.
Olivia shot her a pitying look. "Chinopos aren't real. They're just a children's tale."
"I can assure you, my dear, they are quite real," Ash said grimly.
"They'll put rocks in your pillow and fill your socks with mud?" Olivia asked skeptically.
"They are the rocks beneath your petlatl and will fill your boots with blood – when they sever your femoral artery and you exsanguinate," Ash corrected.
"That's not the version I learned in school," the would-be wizard laughed. She recognized the Maruvian word "petlatl," which meant "woven sleeping mat," but doubted the story of the chinopos was even that old. It was completely ridiculous.
"It is the version Master Zopilote taught me," the white-haired woman said darkly.
As if to illustrate her point, there was a thunderclap, then a second…and a third. When thunder strikes three times, then come the chinopos – Olivia shook her head at such childish nonsense. She'd never seen the teleporting land piranhas before, and had lived through plenty of thunderstorms. Besides, she had free reign of Alacazar's arcane biblioteca, and if they were real at least one of the books would have mentioned them. Then Olivia winced as she remembered her last conversation with Mateo when he had rescinded her access. She would never read any of those books again. Tears began to well in her eyes, but she impatiently brushed them away.
The ex-wizard-in-training stole a glance at her companion, hoping the sharp-tongued malvaga hadn't seen her almost cry, and was startled to note the malvaga had her tamborita drawn and looked all the world like she was preparing to do battle. At least the tamborita wasn't pointed at Olivia.
"Uh, Ash –," she began.
"You asked earlier about what makes one a malvago. Trust me when I say this is it – our order was created to fight chinopos during the Preteca civilization!" Right on cue, there was a thunderclap, followed by a second, and then a third.
The Preteca civilization! The mysterious people who lived before the better-known Maruvians, very little was known about them. Though the ancient Maruvian writing system (completely different from the classical Maruvian which Olivia had studied) was derived from the Preteca, no one had yet been able to decipher Pretecan glyphs.
"Chinopos were rampant then," Ash continued, looking suspiciously all around her. "The survival of humankind was at stake. A special order of wizards was needed; wizards who wouldn't have to spend years of training before they could wield their power, wizards who would be absolutely ruthless in destroying their enemies. And so the malvagos were created to defeat the chinopos, and they did so, banishing the monsters to another plane. It was malvagos who saved humanity!"
"Um…if the chinopos were banished, then why are you so worried?" Olivia asked.
The malvaga took a deep breath. "Know this, young wizard. With magic there is always a way out, a back door if you will. Chinopos can only appear…"
"When lightning strikes three times," Olivia chimed in, remembering the rhyme.
"When lightning strikes thrice three times," Ash intoned. Then will the chinopos appear." Olivia felt a shiver go down her spine. A palpable aura of dread filled the cave. This was ridiculous! Of course chinopos don't exist. Olivia remembered her older brother Lucas frightening her with tales of the creatures when she was younger. That was the source of this fear, nothing more.
"Ash," Olivia said gently, "that was just a story Zopilote told you to control you with fear. You don't need to be afraid anymore."
The lightning struck once, twice…Olivia held her breath. Just as she exhaled, she heard the third thunderclap. Okay, maybe now the malvaga would be able to relax when she saw that no chinopo – "Ouch!" Something behind her elbow had bitten her!
Ash spun around, and in a steely voice told Olivia, "Don't…move!" Olivia complied. Ash raised her tamborita, pointing it directly at the girl, and chanted, "Contali!" as she struck her drum wand.
Olivia felt a highly concentrated blast of violently directed wind whiz past her left ear. She heard a squeal and a splat, and quickly turned around to see a round fuzzy creature, no bigger than her fist, strike the back wall of the cave and slowly slide down it. It looked up at Olivia with a hideous grin of very sharp teeth. The girl gave a yelp and stepped back in surprise. No way! Was that a chinopo?
She heard Ash repeat the Contali spell multiple times, faster than she would have thought possible. Olivia desperately wished she had her tamborita. As it was, she could do nothing but stare in horror as the cave filled with dozens of the tiny, vicious creatures. A few more attempted to bite her, but most of the chinopos seemed to sense that Ash was the real threat, and focused their attack on her. Soon, Ash was bleeding from a score of cuts and seemed to be weakening. A chinopo jumped up and bit her wrist, causing the malvaga to drop her tamborita. She fell to her knees, and disappeared beneath a chinopo swarm.
Without thinking, Olivia dove for Ash's tamborita. She struck it with all her might and chanted, "Vetzi!" in a clear voice.
Ash and the chinopos went flying. As Olivia had predicted, Ash, having a heavier mass, did not go far, but the chinopos were blown off of her.
Olivia had not anticipated the force of Ash's tamborita, however. The spell knocked her back as well, so she was on the ground when she saw the chinopos snarl and come for her.
She managed to pull herself up to one knee and instinctively chanted one of the very first spells she had ever learned. "Conglari!" Ice spread across the chinopo swarm like a wave. It was far more powerful than any spell she'd ever cast, but felt wrong somehow, like inchworms were racing up her arm to her heart. The ice wasn't stopping! It was about to encase Ash!
"Parare!" gasped the malvaga. "And strike the edge, not the center!"
Gulping, Olivia struck the tamborita and called out, "Parare!" The spell stopped. The chinopos were encased in ice, and Ash was safe.
The two humans remained in stunned silence for a moment. Then, breathing heavily, Ash dragged herself to her feet. Shakily, Olivia followed suit.
They both realized at the same time that Olivia still held the tamborita.
The young wizard-in-training recognized that the balance of power had radically shifted. When Ash had the only tamborita she was clearly in control, even if she was no longer technically holding Olivia captive. All that had changed in an instant. The young woman knew she should hold on to the tamborita, both to use it if need be and to keep it out of the hands of a dangerous malvago. But Olivia hated the feel of this sinister drum wand, with its magic that was commanded and not coaxed like Olivia's old tamborita, with its mysterious power source so unlike the warm light of a chispa, and with a taste for destruction and not creation. And so Olivia solemnly and carefully returned the tamborita to Ash. The malvaga gave a short laugh and reholstered it. "That was well-cast, niña. I didn't know you had it in you." Then she swayed on her feet, and Olivia rushed forward to catch her.
"You're hurt!" Olivia helped Ash sit down, and tended to her wounds. Mateo had trained her in basic first aid, because as he'd pointed out, "People expect wizards to solve all sorts of problems." So she did what she could to staunch the bleeding from the numerous chinopo bites.
"Thank you," Ash said shortly. "Could you fetch me some water? If you pull one of the large flat leaves at the mouth of the cave you should be able to roll it up and collect rain water in it." Olivia did so and quickly brought the homemade cup back to Ash, who drank it in gulps.
After a few minutes she said, "That's better. Now, to deal with the chinopos." The malvaga stood up, pointed her tamborita at the nearest ice-encased chinopo, and chanted, "Contali," smartly rapping her drum wand. The ice statue shattered in a thousand pieces.
"What are you doing?" Olivia cried out.
Puzzled, Ash glanced at the girl. "I'm eliminating a threat." She turned back to the task at hand, demolishing every chinopo.
Numbly, Olivia watched her, her stomach churning. She had immobilized the creatures, meaning she was now partially responsible for their deaths. She hadn't meant to! She'd just been trying to save Ash's life.
The image of César being turned to stone and then shattered by Fiero's spell rose to her mind, and she saw him in every pile of chinopo ice crystals. It was too much for Olivia. She fell to her knees and began to sob.
"But…but it's over now!"Ash said, bewildered. Hesitantly she put a hand on Olivia's shoulder.
"It's …just…like…César," Olivia tried to explain between sobs. But it was so much more than that. The chinopo attack, the foreign magic of Ash's tamborita, being captured by and fleeing from Fiero, and most especially Mateo's repudiation of her all came crashing down into her consciousness.
"I don't understand," the malvaga said. At least she wasn't mocking Olivia.
"Fiero turned him to stone and then shattered him," Olivia cried.
"In front of you?"
Olivia nodded.
"I see." Ash knelt by the girl and pulled her into an embrace. She began crooning while Olivia cried herself out, and the crooning turned into a lullaby. If she weren't hysterical Olivia might have been offended, but as it was, she let herself be comforted.
Ash stroked her hair and murmured, "Tomorrow, niña, I will get you back to your people."
AN: A story cannot contain a song, of course. But if you would like one, imagine the lullaby sung by Ash. The lullaby is a bit disturbing; it's all about how the world is dangerous and filled with monsters, but the chorus says, "Sleep now, for while I am here you are safe."