Gabriel Finley and the Lord of Air and Darkness Read online

  Adam’s university sent him to Iceland to continue his studies. He met his wife, Tabitha, there. Shortly after their son, Gabriel, was born, he learned of the tomb of a king buried with a mysterious wishing necklace.

  Could this be the wicked torc, forged in black magic? Adam wondered.

  He hiked into the northern caverns to find the tomb, but fell into a crevasse and gashed his leg. Limping and weary, he stumbled on until he arrived at a chamber filled with an ancient king’s possessions. A warning was written on the walls:

  Forged a thousand years ago, conceived with wicked glee,

  Be wary, stranger, of the curse this torc bestows on thee.

  Take heed, take care, and look out! We caution every host,

  For it will boldly steal from you what you may cherish most!

  But there was no necklace to be found, so Adam took the plainest-looking stick from the chamber to help him hobble back.

  As he made his slow return through the caves, his flashlight battery died, and he became lost in the darkness. “I wish I could get home,” Adam whispered to himself.

  Suddenly, his leg stopped hurting, his flashlight lit up, and the difficult hike became much easier.

  That plain, ordinary stick, you see, had the notorious torc wrapped around one end, concealed by centuries of dust and grime. The torc had granted Adam’s wish…with one dreadful catch.

  For when Adam arrived home, his baby, Gabriel, was in his crib and a hot meal waited on the table—but his wife, Tabitha, was nowhere to be seen. She had vanished the moment he walked through the door.

  The words on the tomb wall had warned him to no avail: For it will boldly steal from you what you may cherish most!

  Brokenhearted, Adam gave the evil torc to his amicus, Baldasarre, and asked him to hide it, then went back to his old home in Brooklyn with his baby son.

  When Corax was advised by a valraven that his brother had found the torc, he returned to the Finley house to claim it.

  Adam had been an infant when Corax fled as a boy, so when the two men faced each other, they were startled to see the same dark eyes and curly hair in the other. The resemblance was so striking that it might have brought them to smile and embrace if Corax had not suddenly thrust out his hand. “Give me the torc,” he demanded.

  “What? I don’t even know where it is,” Adam explained. “My raven, Baldasarre, has hidden it so skillfully that only my son—your nephew—Gabriel, will be able to find it. If you try to harm him before that time, the torc will be lost forever.”

  Corax was furious. “Then you’ll be my hostage until the boy is old enough to come looking for you!”

  And so he took his brother to Aviopolis, in effect leaving Gabriel an orphan, to be raised by his aunt Jasmine.

  —

  The hero of our first story (and of this one, too), Gabriel Finley, had a passion for riddles. When he turned twelve, he answered the riddle of a raven named Paladin, became his amicus, and went on a dangerous but successful quest for the torc, just as his father had predicted.

  With the torc and its staff in hand, Gabriel, Paladin, and several of Gabriel’s best friends ventured to Aviopolis to bargain for his father’s release. In a dangerous duel of riddles, Gabriel defeated Corax, but Corax seized the torc and made one devastating wish: for the torc’s enormous power to enter him.

  The wish backfired. Uttering agonized cries, Corax’s soul was ripped from his body, which vanished in a flash. His formless presence hovered, bewildered and enraged, over the scene of his defeat.

  From overhead, Corax’s lieutenant, a robin named Snitcher, fluttered down and seized the necklace. With the torc wrapped around his neck, the dim-witted bird fled the collapsing city of Aviopolis.

  Gabriel and Paladin pursued the robin, but they lost track of him. Dodging the shattering rocks and tumbling rubble, they emerged into the cool night air of Brooklyn just as the entrance caved in on itself.

  It appeared that Aviopolis was sealed for good and their troubles were over. Gabriel had rescued his father and they had safely escaped with Gabriel’s friends. But his victory over Corax was tainted by one regret: he had lost the torc.

  Up above the twinkling lights of Brooklyn, the gleeful robin savored his stolen prize—until his happy mood was interrupted by a voice in his head.

  Ah, my little lieutenant, it is good that we are together.

  “Who spoke?” sputtered the robin.

  It is me, Corax, your lord and master. It appears that the necklace you’re wearing contains my soul.

  “What?” said the worried bird. “Where is the rest of you?”

  I wish I knew, but you shall remain my servant until the day I find it.

  The weeks after Gabriel had rescued his father were the happiest the boy could remember. It was January, and his father took him for bike rides, to movies, and for pizza at their favorite restaurants in Brooklyn. They strolled along the waterfront as barges and ferries passed by, and went sledding down the snowy hillsides of Prospect Park.

  During these moments they tried to catch up on the years they had been apart. Mr. Finley wanted to know about the friends—Pamela, Abby, and Somes—who had helped Gabriel rescue him from Aviopolis; he asked who Gabriel’s best and worst teachers were and tried to answer his trickiest riddles. He wanted to hear about Gabriel’s hobbies and his favorite books, and where the tastiest dumplings could be found in the neighborhood.

  Eventually, they got around to discussing a more serious matter—the torc—and how it had caused Gabriel’s mother to disappear when he was just a baby. On a sunny day father and son went kite-flying in the park. Mr. Finley released a seven-foot multicolored kite into the sky, and as it soared and swooped above them, Gabriel asked his father a question.

  “Dad? Could you please explain exactly how Mom disappeared?”

  Mr. Finley lowered the kite string and looked at his son with gentle surprise. “Yes, of course,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for you to be old enough to understand. You had just been born, and your mother and I were living in a little turf-roofed cottage in Iceland,” he began. “One day I went hiking in the caverns where there was a tomb—”

  “Oh, I know that part,” Gabriel interrupted. “And I know how you got injured, and made a wish to get home, and your leg healed and you realized that the torc was on the staff you were using to help you walk. And when you did get home and stepped through the front door, you saw me, but—”

  “Your mother vanished into thin air,” said Adam.

  He paused to play out string and watch the kite float higher above the river.

  “The torc answered my wish, but its price was to ruin me. One minute Tabitha was there, as full of life as anyone can be—and the next she was gone.”

  Now Gabriel had to ask the dreadful question that haunted his dreams and lingered on the edges of his wakeful thoughts.

  “Dad, is she dead?”

  Adam accidentally jerked on the kite string. “Dead? Oh, my goodness. Absolutely not! If she were, I would feel it!”

  “How?”

  For a moment, Adam Finley looked embarrassed. He was a professor, a logical man who cited evidence to prove his points. He hated to admit that a feeling could be more significant than a fact. He chewed at his beard for a moment. “Well, I can’t explain it.”

  Then he frowned at the kite and began to turn the string winder to draw it nearer. “I believe that when the torc makes people disappear, it splits them—soul from body. I think Tabitha is alive because…well, because I sense her with me.”

  The professor looked worried that his son might laugh, but Gabriel seemed relieved.

  “Dad, has she ever talked to you?”

  “No. I just feel her presence.” Mr. Finley looked anxiously at Gabriel. “Has she talked to you?”

  “No, but…” Gabriel shrugged. “Sometimes I feel the same thing. She’s here, somewhere.” He raised his hand to his heart and rested it there.

  “Ah.” Adam nodded. “So it’s a
matter of figuring out how, um…”

  “To bring her back?” offered Gabriel.

  Before Adam could reply, a gust almost wrenched the metal string winder from his grip. “Good heavens, this wind is quite strong,” he said. “Help me.”

  They both wrestled to hold on to the winder, but snap! The frayed end of the string whipped away, and the untethered kite flew upward until it was lost in the great blue sky.

  The two of them stared bleakly into an infinity of blueness.

  “Oh well,” sighed Adam at last. “It’s just a kite.”

  As they walked back along the path, Adam continued their conversation. “Gabriel…I am quite determined to find your mother. I promise you that. We will bring her back.”

  “How?”

  “Well, the one thing we know about the physical world is that nothing just disappears. That kite, for example, will land somewhere.”

  “We just don’t know where,” said Gabriel sadly.

  “Don’t lose hope,” said Adam. “On Monday I go back to teaching my classes, but I’ll use every spare minute I have to find out where ‘disappeared’ things go.”

  “What can I do?” asked Gabriel.

  “Continue with school, of course,” replied his father. “Teachers, classes, homework, the usual.”

  Gabriel’s heart sank. How could he possibly go back to the usual when his father had raised the possibility of bringing his mother home? School was so boring after rescuing his father from a prison cell and defeating his demon uncle in a duel of riddles, not to mention escaping a collapsing underground city.

  “But I want to help find Mom,” he said. “Don’t forget, I have my own amicus, Paladin. We could paravolate all over the city and even farther.”

  “And there are plenty of valravens loyal to Corax who would relish capturing you, especially for revenge.”

  “But I’ve fought valravens before. Paladin and I fought an eagle! And we have birds on our side, like the great horned owls!”

  “Gabriel?” Mr. Finley suddenly became stern. “I don’t want you to paravolate.”

  The boy’s shoulders dropped. “But why? I’m not like Corax when he was a kid.”

  Adam laughed. “I wasn’t suggesting you are.”

  By now, they were walking beneath the span of the Brooklyn Bridge. The slick gray current of the East River rolled by with immense power and speed.

  “Dad?” said Gabriel, finally. “Do you remember me telling you about the robin named Snitcher who stole the torc after Corax vanished?”

  “Yes, you followed him out of Aviopolis and he disappeared.”

  “Well, what happens if he makes wishes with the torc?”

  “Very good question,” replied Mr. Finley. “Have you seen him?”

  “No, but if I do, shouldn’t I try to get the torc back?”

  The professor paused for a moment to think. “I’m not too concerned about a robin,” he said at last. “They have such small brains; they’re much more likely to take orders than give them.”

  “Whew,” said Gabriel. “I was worried about that.”

  And what had happened to the robin?

  In the weeks since the fall of Aviopolis, Corax’s little red-breasted lieutenant had been enjoying his freedom in the blue skies of Brooklyn. He didn’t miss digging for ugly gray grubs or sipping from the murky puddles of Corax’s gloomy underground domain. Now he enjoyed pink worms, doughnut crumbs, and pizza crusts.

  In fact, the robin regretted stealing the torc because it weighed so heavily around his neck. He had tried to shake it off, but it grew tighter when he resisted it. Snitcher might have tolerated this, too, but for the voice that spoke from the necklace.

  Snitcher? Where are we? said the voice one frosty morning as the robin settled upon a smoking chimney to warm himself.

  The startled robin glanced around. “Who said that?”

  It is I, Corax, you fool….Have you forgotten that my soul is trapped inside this thing?

  Indeed, with each word, the torc shook with fearsome intensity. The robin gulped.

  “Dear master,” he replied, “we’re in a place called Brooklyn. Your great citadel is rubble and dust.”

  Then my valravens must be awaiting my orders. I have a domain to rebuild. We must find my body! I must plot my revenge!

  “How would I know where your body is? You’re just a voice in my ear,” replied the robin.

  This reply infuriated Corax. How can I rule like this? Formless, adrift, lost…I must wish myself free!

  The puzzled robin waited expectantly.

  Several moments passed without any bright flash, tingle, or transformation.

  “Master?” said the bird finally. “What’s taking so long?”

  It seems I am helpless, replied Corax. This torc binds me as tight as manacles and leg irons.

  The voice stopped, as if thinking.

  Snitcher, I have an idea, it began again. Perhaps if you were to wish me to be united with my body, it would obey.

  “Yes, Your Eminence!” The robin puffed out his scarlet chest, and his two beady black eyes trembled as he tried to concentrate (a staggeringly difficult task for a robin). “I wish that my master, Corax, the Lord of Air and Darkness, were whole and standing here before me.”

  Again, nothing happened. The torc hung around the robin’s neck like a dull trinket.

  “Hmm,” said the robin. “Perhaps it is broken, Your Eminence.”

  Broken? Corax’s voice turned scornful. Impossible! It answered the Finley boy’s wishes. He brought down my citadel and destroyed Aviopolis.

  “I think it’s broken,” repeated the dim bird.

  Black magic does not break, muttered Corax. And if my soul is trapped in this torc, what has become of the rest of me? Where does the body go when the soul is cast adrift?

  “It’s all Gabriel Finley’s fault. He brought down your citadel and destroyed Aviopo—”

  I just said that! snapped Corax.

  “The Finley boy should be destroyed,” suggested the robin. “That would solve all your troubles. Useless child. And his father. I bet he broke the torc.”

  Silence!

  They were a most unhappy pair. The robin wouldn’t stop talking and Corax wouldn’t stop telling him to be quiet.

  Eventually, however, something uttered by Snitcher gave Corax an idea. “I’ve watched them through the window,” the robin confessed. “The boy shares riddles with his raven, the father reads from his wall of books—”

  That’s it! Adam Finley has studied the torc for years. The boy and his father understand its power. They must hold the key to my freedom.

  “I know the way to their house,” said the robin.

  Very good, Snitcher. We must listen at their windows. Go there now!

  “Yes, Eminence.” Snitcher took to the air and flapped over the rooftops of Brooklyn while the cumbersome torc bore down on his neck.

  Presently, he began to feel tired and hungry. “Your Eminence,” he pleaded, “I’m starving. Surely first I could—”

  I command you to go to the Finley house!

  In moments, the frightened robin had flown to a window on the topmost floor of an old brownstone on Fifth Street. He perched on the windowsill, then peered into the room, with its single occupant.

  It was a boy around twelve years old, asleep in bed. Upon a bed knob was a very handsome raven with black satin feathers and a ruff of single quills around his neck. This was Paladin.

  The raven had been sleeping with his head tucked under his wing, but grew alert when he heard a sound. His neck feathers rose in alarm, and he turned to the window.

  The robin stared back at him, his little black eyes ruthless and vengeful.

  Gabriel, wake up! There’s a robin at the window. I’m positive that it’s Snitcher, with that wicked torc around his neck.

  Paladin’s silent message woke Gabriel, who quickly rubbed the sleep from his eyes and sat up. He squinted at the window and saw the little bird through the pane
of glass. Then he noticed the indentation around the robin’s scarlet breast.

  “You’re right, Paladin,” he replied. “But my dad said there’s no safer place for the torc than around a robin’s neck—they’re followers, not leaders.”

  Paladin scrutinized the robin. I’m not so sure your father is correct. I don’t like the look in that bird’s eyes.

  As Gabriel got dressed, Paladin raised his wings and flew at the window, issuing a threatening cry. The startled robin staggered backward, and toppled out of view.

  From downstairs, a voice announced breakfast. Gabriel set Paladin upon his shoulder and hurried to the kitchen.

  Adam Finley was eating breakfast beside a tall, spindly woman with red hair bound in a topknot. This was Gabriel’s Aunt Jaz, Adam’s sister. She was a schoolteacher. Her faint eyebrows were drawn in with dark mascara to resemble two little boomerangs, which gave her an expression of perpetual surprise.

  “Good morning, Gabriel,” she said. “Bonjour, Paladin.”

  “Bonjour, Madame,” said Paladin, bowing to Aunt Jaz.

  Gabriel glanced curiously at Paladin. “I didn’t know you spoke French.”

  “I’m teaching him a little each day,” explained Aunt Jaz. “He’s a quick learner.”

  At that moment, a girl about Gabriel’s age entered the kitchen. “Good morning, Mr. Finley, Aunt Jaz,” she said.

  “Oh, good morning, Pamela,” said Aunt Jaz.

  Pamela had a sensitive, yearning expression, deep brown eyes, and long, curly dark hair. She and her mother had been living with the Finleys since their apartment building had burned down last year. Pamela set her violin case by a chair and went to the stove to prepare some oatmeal.

  Mr. Finley glanced up from his newspaper to see Pamela pour water into a saucepan and set it on the burner. “You know,” he whispered, “the stove could make that for you.”

  “What?” asked Pamela.

  At that moment, Pamela’s mother, Trudy Baskin, entered, and Adam slyly put a finger to his lips, hinting that this was not a subject to be discussed in front of her.

  Although Trudy had once loved riddles, and solved one as a favor for Corax long ago, the years had changed her. She had cropped gray hair and piercing blue eyes, and a pinched, irritable personality. Gabriel didn’t know much about her past, but he felt pretty sure that some unpleasant event had erased her sense of humor and fun.