A Tale of Sorcery... Read online

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2021 by Christopher Colfer

  Illustrations copyright © 2021 by Brandon Dorman

  Cover art copyright © 2021 by Brandon Dorman. Cover design by Sasha Illingworth. Hand-lettering by David Coulson. Cover copyright © 2021 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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  First Edition: September 2021

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Colfer, Chris, 1990– author. | Dorman, Brandon, illustrator.

  Title: A tale of sorcery… / Chris Colfer ; illustrated by Brandon Dorman.

  Description: New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2021. | Series: A tale of magic… ; [3] | Audience: Ages 8–12. | Summary: The Southern Kingdom is in the grip of Emperor Seven and his war on magic, books, and learning; even worse, a malignant darkness is rising and threatening everybody, including Brystal Evergreen, who has gathered allies among the fairies and other magical creatures to confront the threat, but she is also aware that the days of her life are slipping away, and if she does not find the Book of Sorcery in a few weeks she will die.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2021019241 | ISBN 9780316055994 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780316055932 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Magic—Juvenile fiction. | Witches—Juvenile fiction. | Fairies—Juvenile fiction. | Good and evil—Juvenile fiction. | Books and reading—Juvenile fiction. | CYAC: Magic—Fiction. | Witches—Fiction. | Fairies—Fiction. | Good and evil—Fiction. | Books and reading—Fiction. | Fantasy. | LCGFT: Fantasy fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.C677474 Tao 2021 | DDC 813.6 [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021019241

  ISBNs: 978-0-316-05599-4 (hardcover), 978-0-316-05593-2 (ebook), 978-0-316-39391-1 (int’l), 978-0-316-30096-4 (large print), 978-0-316-37025-7 (Barnes & Noble), 978-0-316-38997-6 (Barnes & Noble Black Friday), 978-0-316-38987-7 (signed edition)

  E3-20210829-JV-NF-ORI

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Map

  Prologue: Creatures from the Deep

  Chapter One: The Righteous Empire

  Chapter Two: The Countdown

  Chapter Three: The Icy Truth

  Chapter Four: The Message

  Chapter Five: The Alchemist

  Chapter Six: A Necessary Intervention

  Chapter Seven: The Alchemy Institute

  Chapter Eight: The Conference of Kings

  Chapter Nine: Watch Your Step

  Chapter Ten: Into the Northeast

  Chapter Eleven: The Elvish Prince

  Chapter Twelve: The Unlikely Guardians

  Chapter Thirteen: The Dragon Keys

  Chapter Fourteen: Dinner with Elves

  Chapter Fifteen: The Temple of Knowledge

  Chapter Sixteen: Bait

  Chapter Seventeen: The Riddle of Four Doors

  Chapter Eighteen: The Immortal Agenda

  Chapter Nineteen: The Blessing of a Curse

  Chapter Twenty: Raising Demons

  Chapter Twenty-One: The Sorcerers’ Vault

  Chapter Twenty-Two: The King of Demons and the Queen of Snow

  Chapter Twenty-Three: A War of Fire, Ice, and Alchemy

  Chapter Twenty-Four: The Fiery Farewell

  Chapter Twenty-Five: A Neglected Science

  Acknowledgments

  By Chris Colfer

  To all the “Caretakers” out there who are fighting for our planet and all its inhabitants. Thank you.

  PROLOGUE

  CREATURES FROM THE DEEP

  The woman was woken by the sound of footsteps. It was still dark when her eyes fluttered open and lazily drifted toward her bedroom door. However, the disturbance wasn’t coming from the hall beyond her chambers, but from behind a colorful mural on her wall. She immediately sat up in her large bed, wide awake. Just one other person knew about the secret entrance to her bedroom, and their presence could only mean one thing.

  A frantic knock came from inside the wall.

  “Ma’am?” asked a gruff voice. “Are you awake?”

  “Yes, come in,” the woman said.

  The secret door slid open and a man covered in dirt peered inside the room. His sunken eyes were wide with excitement, but his body was stiff with fear.

  “Well?” the woman asked impatiently.

  The man nodded slowly, still in disbelief of the news he was about to share.

  “We found it,” he said breathlessly.

  The woman flung off her bedsheets and jumped to her feet. She threw a robe over her nightgown, stepped into a pair of slippers, and charged through the secret door. The man escorted the woman down a hidden corridor that snaked between the walls of her spacious residence. The corridor led to a steel staircase that spiraled through the floors below and into the ground beyond the basement.

  The duo descended the steps at a feverish pace, causing the stairs to sway and creak. At the bottom, they entered an enormous man-made tunnel that wove through the earth like the hollow root of a gigantic tree. It stretched for miles and miles underground, reaching depths humanity was never meant to reach.

  The tunnel was an extraordinary achievement and had taken centuries to construct. If it hadn’t been shrouded in complete secrecy, it would have been considered a wonder of the world—but once someone entered the tunnel, very few were permitted to leave it. The dirt walls were lined with the graves of all the unfortunate souls who had died while digging it and the people who had threatened to expose the project.

  The man and woman spent hours climbing deeper and deeper, never stopping for a moment of rest. The man’s lantern barely illuminated the ground below their feet as they trekked through an infinite tube of darkness. The farther they went, the hotter it became, and their clothes were dampened by perspiration. A smoky stench of scorched earth filled the air, making it difficult to breathe. The pressure increased, too, causing their eardrums to throb and their noses to bleed. But still, the pair pressed on, too determined to stop.

  Boom-boom… Boom-boom… Boom-boom…

  At five miles below the surface, a faint noise echoed from ahead.

  Boom-BOOM… Boom-BOOM… Boom-BOOM…

  The sound increased with every step they took. It thumped in a consistent rhythm as if they were approaching the earth’s beating heart.

  BOOM-BOOM… BOOM-BOOM… BOOM-BOOM…

  Eventually, they saw a bright light that strobed with the thunderous beat. Against the light, the woman could make out the silhouettes of people standing in a row. Their thin bodies were chained together and they clutched shovels and pickaxes i
n their trembling hands. These prisoners-turned-slaves were the last generation of diggers the tunnel would ever need, because they had just made one of the greatest discoveries in recorded history.

  The diggers were frozen with shock as they stared ahead, but the woman stepped past them and gazed with fearless wonder.

  They were facing a pair of double doors that were over two hundred feet tall and one hundred feet wide. The doors were made from iron that glowed bright red from the heat behind it. Something very big—and very hot—was trying to escape through the doors, but the handles were bound shut by a monstrous chain. As the doors were pushed, flames and magma spewed out from between the cracks, offering glimpses into a world of fire and chaos beyond them.

  “At last!” the woman gasped. “We’ve found the gates of the underworld!”

  “Ma’am?” her exhausted and sweaty companion asked, a nervous quiver in his hoarse voice. “What do we do now?”

  The woman’s eyes went wide and a devious smile grew across her face. She had been waiting not just one but several lifetimes for this moment.

  “Open them,” she ordered.

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE RIGHTEOUS EMPIRE

  It had been almost a year since the Southern Kingdom’s last sunrise. The citizens would never forget the horrifying afternoon when Prince “Seven” Gallivant marched his Righteous Army of the Dead through the countryside and took Chariot Hills by storm. There, the prince sat upon his late grandfather’s throne in the Champion Castle and declared himself—not the new king of the Southern Kingdom—but the emperor of a new Righteous Empire.

  Unfortunately, there was nothing anyone in the Southern Kingdom could do to stop him. It was well within the prince’s legal rights to change his newly inherited kingdom however he wanted. But not even his most loyal followers could foresee the horrors he had in mind, and soon they began to resent the monster they had helped create.

  The emperor’s first act was to dissolve the Southern Kingdom’s military and replace it with his Army of the Dead. His second act was to strip the Justices of all power and give their positions to the clansmen of his devoted Righteous Brotherhood. Third, the emperor eradicated the Southern Kingdom’s constitution and created a new one based on the principles of the Brotherhood’s oppressive Righteous Philosophy.

  Under the new laws, all schools and churches were shut down—the only thing citizens were allowed to study or worship was the emperor himself. All the markets and shops were boarded up—food and supplies were now distributed at the emperor’s will. All the talking creatures—elves, dwarfs, trolls, goblins, and ogres—were exiled to their respective territories and banned from returning. The borders were permanently closed, and any communication with the outside world was strictly forbidden.

  The emperor also placed his entire population under harsh curfews and social restrictions. No one was allowed to be outdoors from dusk until dawn, citizens needed permission to travel beyond their homes, and it was illegal for people to gather with anyone outside their immediate family. Additionally, all forms of creative expression, such as art, music, and theater, were outlawed. The only clothes the citizens were allowed to wear in public were the drab black uniforms the emperor provided. Private residences were routinely searched for money, jewelry, weapons, and other valuables, and they were taken as “donations” to the Empire.

  The emperor’s dead soldiers patrolled the streets day and night to make sure the new laws were being followed, and the walking corpses weren’t shy about making grotesque examples out of people who disobeyed. So the citizens stayed in their homes to avoid trouble, all the while praying for something—or someone—to liberate them from this new nightmare.

  However, the most severe change to the constitution was the law regarding magic. The Empire sentenced people to death simply for sympathizing with the magical community. The broad decree gave the emperor the right to imprison anyone he thought might be supporting his magical enemies.

  In the months following the emperor’s succession, the Army of the Dead rounded up over one hundred “magic sympathizers,” and they were quickly sentenced to hang without any evidence or trial. Strangely, although the verdicts were rushed, the actual executions were put on hold. The emperor never gave an indication of what he was waiting for, but secretly he was saving the executions for a very strategic occasion.

  In his first weeks of power, the emperor demolished the University of Law in the Chariot Hills town square and constructed a massive coliseum in its place. The coliseum towered over the other buildings in the capital—it had enough seating for thousands of people—and was purposely built with only two entrances, making it difficult to enter and exit. The project was finished just two weeks before the Righteous Empire’s one-year anniversary. On the evening of its completion, the emperor ordered all citizens of Chariot Hills to the coliseum to witness the delayed executions of the “magic sympathizers.”

  The Righteous Brotherhood—dressed head to toe in their ghostly silver uniforms and armed with their glowing bloodstone weapons—herded the tired, hungry, and dejected citizens into the coliseum. The emperor was already there when his people arrived, standing in a private balcony at the very top of the coliseum. He radiated crimson light thanks to his bloodstone suit, cape, and crown that curled around the sides of his face like the horns of a ram.

  The emperor never looked down as his citizens filled the seats—he only had eyes for the land surrounding the coliseum. He held a pair of binoculars tightly against his eyes, scanning every inch of the horizon and every patch of the evening sky.

  “Your Greatness.” The emperor’s High Commander bowed as he stepped onto the private balcony. “The citizens are seated and the soldiers are in position, sir.”

  “And the archers?” Seven asked.

  “Stationed throughout the coliseum and on every rooftop in the capital.”

  “And the entrances?”

  “Completely surrounded, sir,” the High Commander said. “I’m confident we’ve created the most secure structure in the world.”

  “Secure enough for her, High Commander?” Seven pressed.

  “If she finds a way inside, she won’t get out alive.”

  Seven grinned under his binoculars but didn’t lower them.

  “Good,” he said. “Let’s begin.”

  The High Commander hesitated. “Sir, are you certain she’ll show? Given the extra security measures, it would be extremely risky for—”

  “Trust me, High Commander, she’ll take the bait!” Seven said. “Now proceed. I’ve waited long enough for this moment.”

  With that, the High Commander turned on his heel and faced the center of the coliseum. At his signal, two clansmen began turning a lever, and a heavy caged door opened behind them. More clansmen came through the door, escorting over a hundred prisoners from a dungeon belowground. The hands and feet of the “magic sympathizers” were wrapped in thick chains, and they could barely shuffle forward as the clansmen shoved them into the arena.

  Although the citizens wanted to scream at the sight of their friends and family in chains, they remained as quiet as possible. Still, a few cries escaped their lips and echoed through the quiet coliseum.

  “Start with the Evergreen family,” Seven called over his shoulder.

  Five clansmen plucked the five members of the Evergreen family from the long line of prisoners. Justice Evergreen and his wife, their sons Brooks and Barrie, and Barrie’s wife, Penny, were all dragged up the steps of a tall wooden gallows and placed in a row behind a single noose. The citizens were impressed by how stoic the Evergreens remained—some of them even seemed eager to be there. Mrs. Evergreen eyed the noose with a wide and creepy smile, Penny was so excited she was practically buzzing, and Brooks gave a thumbs-up to the people in the crowd.

  “How dare you treat us like criminals!” Justice Evergreen shouted. “For God’s sake, I am a Justice of the Southern Kingdom! I’ve devoted my life to preserving the law!”

 
“No, you were a Justice,” Seven scoffed. “And soon you’ll cease to exist at all.”

  “Shall we start with the former Justice, my lord?” the High Commander asked.

  “No, hang the younger brother first,” Seven instructed. “If that doesn’t get the Fairy Godmother’s attention, nothing will.”

  The clansmen pushed Barrie forward and fastened the noose tightly around his neck.

  “Oh, w-w-woe is me!” Penny cried. “I can’t b-b-believe I am about to witness my husband’s d-d-death! What a c-c-cruel world!”

  “Don’t worry, Jenny—I mean, Penny!” Barrie could barely speak with the rope around his throat. “It’ll all be over soon.”

  “P-p-please show him some m-m-mercy!” his wife pleaded.

  “I suppose in some ways hanging him is rather merciful,” Brooks said. “It’s much quicker than being burned, drowned, crucified, or boiled. And it isn’t nearly as messy as beheading, impaling, drawing and quartering, crushing by stones—”

  “Pssst! Brooks!” Justice Evergreen whispered. “Zip it! It’s not your turn to speak!”

  “Oh, sorry!” Brooks whispered back. “I didn’t realize I said that out loud.”

  “Well, I agree with my son!” Mrs. Evergreen announced theatrically, making sure everyone in the coliseum could hear her. “You call this a public execution? I’ve been to tea parties that were more menacing! Come on, Emperor, you can do better than this! Give us blood! Give us suspense! Give us absolute terror!”

  Mrs. Evergreen stared up at the emperor with large, exhilarated eyes, as if she was daring him to order a more gruesome death for her son. Justice Evergreen groaned and gave his family members a dirty scowl.

  “Guys! We all agreed to stick to the script! Stop going rogue!”

  “You can’t expect a mother to remain silent at a time like this!” Mrs. Evergreen proclaimed. “I want the best for my son—and that includes his execution!”

  Justice Evergreen winced and slapped an open palm against his forehead.

  “Had I known you were going to act like this, Mrs. Evergreen, I never would have asked you to be my wife!” he grumbled. “Everyone just shut up! I’ll do all the talking from now on!”