1 – The Noodle Book
"Dragon lung, dragon liver, dragon lice...dragons have lice?" I stopped, looking up from the book I was skimming, trying to imagine the kind of parasites that would have the gall to live off a dragon. Then I shook my head and peered back at the page. "Argh! This isn't a spell book! It's an ingredient book!"
I shoved the book back onto the shelf with such force it pushed the ladder I was standing on away from the wall. It clattered to the floor, leaving me clinging to the edge of the shelf by my fingertips. "Ack! Gary! Help!" I shrieked.
My name is Lira. Lira Gabriev, but most of the people in town call me Lira Inverse, after my mother. I think they can't get the rhythm of it out of their heads. I'm fourteen, nearly fifteen, and studying to be a sorceress. That is, if I could find the right spell.
"Coming!" I heard the voice from behind a stack of books across the room. That's Gary, my brother. He's sixteen. Yes, our parents were really trying to confuse someone when they named us. It's the type of people they are.
My brother leapt over the stack with typical grace and caught me just as I fell. Gary's strong for his age. "Geez, Lira," he said, setting me down. "Why didn't you just levitate?"
I hadn't thought of that.
"Um," I covered quickly. "The wind generated by a levitation spell would have blown these books all over the place, and then we'd really have a mess on our hands."
Gary looked around at the stacks of unshelved books and misplaced papers sitting around the library. "Point, but shouldn't we clean up the mess we have made before mom gets home? We're going to be in big trouble if she finds it like this."
"We've got time," I brushed him off. Gary's such a worrier. "I'm not quitting until I find the Dragon Slave! I know she's hidden it around here somewhere." I stalked back to the shelf I'd been looking at before and righted the ladder. "Cooking sounds just about right."
"Why don't you just take mom's word for it that we're not ready?" Gary urged, even as he started looking through the books opposite me.
"Maybe you're not ready," I said, reaching for a book just out of my reach. Concentrating briefly, I made it slide off the shelf and into my hand. "But I am. I know it. Mom knows it. I just don't know why she won't teach me. I think she'd just so proud of being the youngest sorceress to cast such-and-such a spell that she doesn't want to see me beat her." I tossed the book over my shoulder, where it smacked Gary on the head.
"Ow! Lira!" he yelled. I ignored him.
"But I'll do it, she'll see. I can do it. All I need is...the book!" I grabbed another one off the shelf and glanced at it. A Thousand and One Uses for Egg Noodles. I sighed and started to put it back when a tingle ran up my arm. I looked at the book again, then opened to a couple of random pages. They were full of noodles. I frowned and closed it again, staring at the cover. The longer I stared, the more that collection of noodles, right in the center, looked like...
"Gary! Lira! We're back!" A familiar voice echoed from the hallway. I jumped and hurriedly put the book back. I scrambled down the ladder and pulled it to the other side of the library.
"What are you doing?" Gary whispered. "There's no way we can clean this up before they..."
"I'll explain later!" I snapped. "Just get away from that shelf!"
"Huh?" Gary can be a bit dense sometimes, but he trusts me. He left the cooking section and pretended to look at some other books when my mother burst into the room.
"Lira Larenia Inverse Gabriev, what do you think you're doing?" Notice she automatically figured we'd be doing something wrong in the library. Also notice she automatically yelled at me and not Gary. Also notice my full name. Now forget it. That's an order.
"Nothing, mom," Gary immediately tried to cover for us. "We were looking for a form book so we could practice our fighting later." He held up a book from the shelf he was looking at. It said Ted the Cat Meets Bill the Rat. I looked at the shelf behind him. The rest of the books were on swordplay. I slapped my forehead. "And, um, doing a bit of reorganizing while we were at it," he tried to fix his mistake. "This place is a mess."
"It wasn't before!" My mother snapped, unfooled. "I knew exactly where everything was!" She stepped into the middle of the room and raised her hands. The books we'd piled on the floor rose into the air and began reshelving themselves in rapid succession. She reached out and snatched one out of the air as it sailed by.
"The Forgotten Spells of the Fifth Age," she read, then grabbed another. "Black Magic, a Comparative Study. Lost Enchantments. Expert Casting for Dummies." One by one the titles broke down our ruse. My mother's eyes snapped back and pinned me down. "What do these have to do with swords?"
"Er...they were misfiled under weapons of mass destruction?" I tried. I heard Gary snicker behind me, but my mother was not amused.
"Go to your room," she said angrily. "Both of you."
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I sat on my bed, kicking the box bitterly. I was so close. I could hear my mother's voice occasionally raised from Gary's room next door, but not enough to understand what she was saying. I hoped he'd be smart enough not to tell her we'd been looking at the cooking books. Otherwise, she might move it and it would take forever to find again. I heard Gary's door shut and footsteps approach my own. I steeled myself.
Let me clarify something before you get the wrong impression. My mother is not a perpetually angry raging maniac on a twenty-four seven basis. Only twenty-three. No, I don't mean that either. She's actually pretty level for a woman who has to deal with two run-amok sorcerous children. I think she does a pretty good job most of the time.
Not, mind you, that I'd admit this to her.
My mother, the great Lina Inverse, slayer of dragons, defeater of the great Shabranigdo, Dark Star, Dragon King Gaav, Hellmaster Phibrizzo, and countless other demons and monsters of all shapes and sizes, peered around my door.
"And now," she said ruefully. "Comes the hard part."
It worked. I laughed. My mother smiled and came the rest of the way into the room, closing the door behind her. "Lira," she said more seriously. "What are you trying to prove?"
That caught me off guard. I had been expecting her to yell at me for messing around in the library, ask me what I was looking for, already know what I was going to say, tell me again that I wasn't ready for it, and then set me to some hated chore for the rest of the week for disobeying her. Instead she was asking me a question in that tone of voice that meant she wanted a real answer.
Not answering a question like that would be worse than anything I could have done in the library.
"I...I wanted to prove that I could be just as good as you." I know, it sounds horribly over used, but it's the truth, and my mother knew it at once. She smiled at me.
"I'm not going to yell at you. I just got enough guilt out of your brother for the pair of you and don't really need any more," she explained. "I know what you were doing, and now I know why, so I'm going to explain something to you instead.
"Lira, a spell like the Dragon Slave takes a lot of control, a lot of power, and most of all, a lot of restraint. It took me a long time to learn that. When to use it, when not to. When I was young I just ran around aimlessly, going everywhere, doing everything I wanted."
"Capturing thieves and killing bandits," I helped her along.
"Heh, that's right," she grinned in remembrance. "I thought it was a great way to test my abilities and, yes, show off. I wanted to be the best sorceress in the world, and I wanted everyone to know it. I used that spell too much. Irresponsibly. But as I got older, I realized something. If I was going to be the best sorceress in the world...I would have to be the best sorceress in the world."
I shook my head, not getting it. She continued. "It means taking care of the things that other people can't do. If you want to learn the most powerful spell in black magic," and here she caught my eyes again. "You're going to have to be prepared to use it."
I stared at her. Then it clicked. Sort of. "I think I understand."
She sat back, looking a little sad, though I didn't know why. The room was silent for a while. Outside, a bird twittered loudly, telling the world what a good singer he was. My mother smiled slightly. "Well?" she asked.
"What?"
Her eyes sparkled. "Which book was it?"
My own eyes widened. "I don't..." I started, then stopped. There's really no fooling Lina Inverse. "The noodle book."
My mother nodded and stood up. It was always hard to tell when I'd actually won something with her, but this time I think I did. "Don't look for it again," she said.
"I won't," I assured her, and was surprised to find that I meant it.