The Common King

by Brian Olsen

  “Do you remember us?” Alisa asks.

  Mrs. Wollard tilts her head. “I don’t think so, dear. I’m sorry, I have many patrons.”

  “She’s lying.” Alisa’s voice is in my head.

  I don’t need Alisa to confirm that. Mrs. Wollard reacted too strongly when we came in. She’s obviously held onto at least some of her memories since she attacked us on the Millennium Bridge.

  “You remember me, though,” I say. “I’m sure you do.”

  Her smile falters a little. “I can’t say that I do. I’m sorry, I’ll have to ask you children to leave. I’m closing up a little early today—”

  “Please, Mrs. Wollard. We need your help.”

  “Help?” She rests her hands on the counter. Her right hand is partially scarred. Burned. I did that to her.

  Her eyes follow mine to her hand, and she whips it off the counter. She shoots a glance towards the man at the back of the shop. He pulls out a book and opens it, his lips moving as he reads.

  I’m not sure how this telepathy thing works so I try to think really loud in my head. “There’s something about that guy.”

  “I saw,” comes the response. “And think at a normal volume. You’ll give me a headache.”

  “I can help you find something,” Mrs. Wollard continues. “But as I said, I’m about to close. Are you looking for any book in particular?”

  Zane leans against the door. “I don’t suppose you’ve got a copy of Creatures of Myth and Legend lying around? That’d be pretty useful.”

  She looks over at the man again. He looks back. His lips keep moving, even though he’s not reading his book.

  I hold my hand out to him. “Stop. Please. We’re not a threat.”

  Mrs. Wollard steps back, flattening herself against the wall behind the counter. “It’s them, Ihsan! Do it now!”

  The man drops the book. He throws his arms out towards us and shouts, “Imprison!”

  The bookstore shakes. I grab the counter to steady myself but it rises up out of my reach. A bookshelf grows out of the floor beneath it, lifting the counter and hiding Mrs. Wollard from view.

  All around us, the shelves rise, lifting the whole ceiling higher and higher. The display window rides one out of sight, as does the front door, sending Zane stumbling into us. New shelves rise from the floor in the narrow aisles, separating us from the man who cast this spell.

  The shelves, all fully stocked with books, grow and grow, reaching impossible heights. All the while the floor shakes violently beneath us. There’s nothing for the five of us to hold onto except one another, so that’s what we do, clinging to keep from falling.

  It all stops. The bookshelves tower so high above us that the ceiling is lost in darkness. We’re in a narrow corridor of shelves. Behind us is a dead end. A few feet in front of us is an opening to our left.

  “What the hell was that?” Nate asks.

  “He was casting a spell,” I answer. “While we were talking to Mrs. Wollard. He told the shelves what he wanted them to do.”

  “Where are we?” Zane shields his eyes, looking up at the vanished ceiling. “Are we still in the store?”

  Tannyl walks to the end of the corridor and looks down the turn. “I don’t believe so. Not any longer.”

  We hurry after him. He’s right. There’s a path through the shelves stretching down much farther than the original width of the bookstore. It recedes out of sight in the distance, but there are gaps in the shelves on either side here and there. We walk to the first one and look down. More of the same.

  “It’s a maze,” Alisa says. “A labyrinth.”

  “A prison,” I correct her. “That was his word. Imprison.”

  “Luckily, we brought our own door.” Nate nudges Zane. “Get us out of here, already.”

  “Oh, right.” Zane touches a shelf. A shadow spreads out from his fingers and grows until it’s big enough for us to pass through.

  He steps aside with a sweeping “after you” gesture, and Nate walks through. Alisa’s about to follow, but the sound of Nate’s voice stops her.

  “Uh, Zane? I think your shadow’s broken.” Nate steps out from a side corridor about twenty feet down. “Still here.”

  Zane frowns. “I was trying to send us out to the street.” He closes his dark doorway and clenches his fists. “Shadow.”

  Another portal of blackness opens. He steps through, but a second later comes right back. “Same. Took me to another section of bookshelves.”

  Nate jogs back to us. “Lost your mojo, tough guy?”

  “Gimme a minute.” Zane dispels his shadows, then leans back against a shelf. “I’ll bet if I push myself I can—”

  The bookshelf revolves ninety degrees. Zane throws his arms out but loses his balance and falls backwards into the passage behind. The shelf slams back into position before I can follow.

  Nate smacks his hands to the sides of his head. “Holy Scooby-Doo!”

  I pound on the shelves. “Zane! Zane!” I push and push but I can’t make it move.

  “Chris!” Alisa grabs my arm and pulls me away. “This way!”

  She leads us down the nearest side passage. A ways down is another opening. We take it and follow a path parallel to where we just came from, stopping at a dead-end.

  “This is it.” Alisa pushes the shelf at the end, but it doesn’t move. “I’m sure of it. This is the other side of the bookcase Zane fell through.”

  I look all around. It’s only been seconds, but there’s no sign of him. “It can’t be.”

  “Maybe he teleported somewhere else in the maze?” Nate suggests.

  Tannyl knocks on one of the shelves, then steps back, frowning disapprovingly. “This is a magical labyrinth. Zane may have been transported anywhere within it.”

  “The man who cast the spell is separating us,” Alisa says. “We need to stay close together.”

  I nod. “If we pick a wall and follow it, it should eventually lead to the way out.”

  “You assume there is a way out,” Tannyl says. “There is no guarantee…oh.” He puts his hand to his head. “My apologies. I should have asked Mr. Ambrose to reinforce his magic before we departed, but I did not want to reveal to him that we were leaving.”

  “Oh, no.” Alisa grabs his face in her hands and kisses him. “It’s all right. We’ll get you out again.”

  He caresses her cheek. “You will find your way free of this. I am certain—”

  His body blurs. A point on his chest stretches out and disappears into her sternum. The rest of him distends and follows, his head and feet, stretched out like string, vanishing last.

  Alisa lifts her necklace out from under her blouse, dangling it from its black cord. The medallion, a circle with a tree inside, all silver, gleams a little despite the dim light.

  “You all right?” I ask.

  She tucks the medallion away. “It wasn’t easy for Mr. Ambrose to find and free Tannyl out of all the elves in the necklace, but he did it once, he can do it again.” She taps her forehead. “And Tannyl and I are linked now. I can still talk to him, even in there.” She closes her eyes, then smiles and opens them. “He’s already checking up on us. I told him he might want to give us more than three seconds to find our way out.”

  I sigh. “Must be nice, knowing what your boyfriend is thinking.”

  She gives me a puzzled look. “That sounded a little loaded. Everything okay with Zane?”

  “Not really. But maybe we should discuss it later.”

  She nods. “Mr. Ambrose will know where we went. Liefer will come for us eventually.”

  “No way.” Nate scowls. “We’re not getting rescued by Liefer. Not a chance. We’re rescuing ourselves first.”

  “Agreed.” Alisa runs her fingers along a row of books. “Books, I want you to show us the true path out of this maze. Light up to indicate the route we should follow to get out. Truth.”

  Nothing.

  “Is your magic on the blink too?” Nate asks. “It didn’t w
ork.”

  She shakes her head. “It worked.”

  “So…?”

  “She means,” I say, “that there isn’t any path out of this maze for the books to show us.”

  Alisa grimaces. “Tannyl was right.”

  “How about a path to Zane?” I suggest. “At least we can be together.”

  “I’ll give it a try.” She touches a book. “Truth.”

  The spine of the book lights up a bright yellow. The next one along does the same, then another, creating a line of light all the way down the wall of shelves, ending at the turn we took.

  We follow the glowing spines around the corner, back the way we came. The light extends down the main passage farther than we can see.

  Nate groans. “How big is this place?”

  “As big as it needs to be, probably,” Alisa answers. “Come on.”

  We start walking. Following the light takes us past many side passages. Looking down them I see still more passages, with more branches. Even if this weren’t a magical maze, I don’t know that we’d ever find our way out.

  “Did you recognize that guy?” I ask Alisa. “Any memories of him from before?”

  She bites her lip. “Maybe? I didn’t get a good look.”

  “Too bad you don’t have your powers, Chris,” Nate says. “A paper prison wouldn’t hold up against fire magic.”

  “Burn books? Bite your tongue. I’d never.” I pull a book off a shelf. A mass-market paperback of a popular young adult fantasy title. Not my thing. I put the book back and watch the titles as we pass them. “They repeat. The titles. It’s the same books, over and over.”

  Alisa shrugs. “This helps us how?”

  It doesn’t, so I don’t bother answering. After another minute we see an end to the light up ahead.

  “Finally,” Alisa says.

  I squint. “I don’t see Zane.”

  She points. “The light goes down another passage. He must be there.”

  The lights go out. The book spines return to their normal colors.

  “Um.” Alisa drops her hand. “Or not.”

  “Alisa?” Nate turns around. “I think your spell is messing with us.”

  The lighted books are behind us now. They stretch back the way we just came, then disappear into another side passage.

  Alisa puts her hands on her hips. “I don’t get it. I was sure the spell worked.”

  “It did.” I rub my forehead. “He’s teleporting. Probably trying to find us.”

  “Oh, great. We’ll be running all over the place.” Nate cups his hands around his mouth and yells, “Zane! Quit it! Stay in one place and we’ll come to you!”

  There’s no response. No echo, either. The books dull every sound.

  I take a closer look at the books’ spines. Apart from the ones lit by Alisa’s spell, all the colors on them are pale and faded.

  “We have no idea how big this place is,” Alisa says. “He could be miles away.” She notices me looking at the books. “What?”

  I pull one out and flip through it. The pages are brittle and a few of them flake apart in my hand. I put the book back and brush myself off. “Nothing. Nothing that helps us right now, anyway.” I turn back to her. “Can’t you magic up a solution? Like, use your word to know the true way to find Zane and get out of here?”

  She raises an eyebrow. “I’ve tried that trick before. I can’t just make myself know whatever I want. We’d have solved all our problems weeks ago if I could. Come on. Show a little hustle, boys. Before short-dark-and-handsome teleports again.”

  “Wait.” Nate puts his arms out to stop us. “You hear that?”

  “What is it?” I ask. “Zane?”

  “Shut up and listen.”

  I do. It’s deathly quiet, though. I can’t—

  Oh. There it is. Definitely not Zane. It sounds like…

  “Howling.” Alisa swallows. “Like a wolf.”

  “Mrs. Wollard,” I say. “She’s coming after us.”

  “Why now?” Nate asks. “Why didn’t she come after us right away?”

  Alisa furrows her brow, then groans. “Probably because you just told them Chris doesn’t have his magic anymore.”

  Nate’s jaw drops. “They’re eavesdropping? That’s so rude!” He cups his hands around his mouth again and yells at the unseen ceiling, “Mind your own business!”

  Alisa smacks his hands. “Stop yelling!”

  The howling comes again, louder this time. It’s coming from the direction we were headed before the lights changed.

  “Start running,” I say.

  We run. Without discussing it, we follow the new path laid out by the lights, turning down a passage to the right. We run straight for a while longer, then take a few more turns. We come out in another corridor, seemingly infinitely long, where the light continues out of sight.

  Mrs. Wollard howls again. She’s even closer now.

  We run down the corridor.

  “We can’t go in a straight line,” Nate protests. “She’ll catch us easy.”

  “We have to keep following the lights.” I’m starting to get winded from all the running. “We need to find Zane.”

  Alisa nods. “Yes. His power’s the best defense we’ve got.”

  “Aw, man.” Nate picks up a little more speed. “I better not get turned into a wolf again!”

  Alisa tries to smack him but misses. “Stop giving them ideas!”

  Another howl. This one isn’t muffled by distance. I look over my shoulder and there she is. Mrs. Wollard, in her half-wolf form. She’s still humanoid, although she’s running on all fours. Her fur is white, like her hair, and her face protrudes in a partial snout. She snarls, showing off her sharp teeth, and her claws tear up splinters in the floor as she runs.

  I stop. Nate and Alisa keep going for a few more feet before realizing I’m not with them.

  “Dude!” Nate shouts.

  “We can’t outrun her. We have to fight.”

  They come back to join me. “How?” Nate asks. “Throw books at her?”

  I take a hefty hardback off a lower shelf. A history of witchcraft in America. I get ready to throw it, but half the pages fall out, cascading to the floor. I drop the rest of the book. “Maybe not. You got another idea?”

  “Keep running! That’s my idea!”

  “No, Chris is right.” Alisa steps past us. She plants her feet and flexes her fingers. “I’ve got this.”

  Mrs. Wollard increases her speed, racing right at Alisa.

  Alisa holds out her hands. “Mrs. Wollard, take your true form. Truth.”

  The wolf-woman shudders violently and trips. Her arms, or front legs or whatever, give out, and she falls to the floor face first. Her whole body twists and distorts.

  “It’s working!” I pat Alisa’s back. “You’re turning her human!”

  Alisa cracks her knuckles. “Told you I got this.”

  “Uh…” Nate points at Mrs. Wollard. “Should she be getting hairier?”

  Mrs. Wollard’s forced transformation completes. She shakes herself off once and gets to her feet. All four of them. Instead of turning human, she’s fully a wolf. A huge white wolf, easily four feet high at the shoulder.

  “Alisa?” I say.

  “Oh.” She takes a step back. “Some truths are subjective. This must be what she considers her true form.”

  The wolf growls at us.

  “Hand me a book?” Nate says weakly.

  Mrs. Wollard charges. I run a few steps forward, putting myself between her and my friends. It’s me she hates. Maybe she won’t hurt them after she’s done with me.

  A few feet away, she pounces.

  A wall of darkness appears between us. A solid silhouette of the wolf flies out of it. I throw myself aside and Mrs. Wollard, paralyzed by shadow, lands with a thud on the rough wooden floor.

  “Come on!” Zane is behind us, near a side passage. The lit up row of books blinks out as he steps into the main corridor. “She’s too strong, I c
an’t hold her!”

  The dark statue is already shaking as Mrs. Wollard fights her way free. The three of us run to follow Zane down a few twists and turns.

  “You found us!” I say.

  He grins at me. “I finally figured out why all those books were glowing. Followed them back to you.”

  There’s no awkwardness between us now. Whatever’s bothering him, running for our lives has pushed it aside.

  We sprint full out, taking turns at random. Somewhere behind us, the wolf howls.

  “She’s free,” Zane says.

  “Dead end!” Nate shouts. “Dead end!”

  We stop just short of a shelf that cuts across the passage we’d been following. We’ll have to double-back to take another route.

  “Wait.” I try to catch my breath. “We can’t keep running. Eventually she’ll get us.”

  “But I can’t get us out!” Zane smacks a shelf. “I can’t find the exit!”

  “Not on your own.” I put one hand on Zane’s shoulder and one on Alisa’s. “What if you combine?”

  “Yes!” Alisa snaps her fingers. “Of course! Our words are more powerful together.” She takes Zane’s hand. “Zane, find the true way out.”

  Zane rests his hand on a shelf. “I want a shadow portal leading out of this maze, to the street outside the bookshop.”

  They say their words together. “Truth.” “Shadow.”

  The shelf disappears behind a veil of darkness.

  “She’s here!” Nate shouts. “She’s here!”

  Mrs. Wollard bolts out of a side passage, skids to a stop, turns, and charges us.

  We run through the portal. The sudden shift to daylight momentarily blinds me and I blink my eyes until they adjust. We’re on the street again, just outside the bookshop.

  A howl sounds from the large shadow on the wall, but Zane collapses his portal before the wolf can follow us through. He immediately opens another. “Let’s go before her friend lets her out.”

  Nate and Alisa head for the portal, but I don’t budge.

  “Chris.” Alisa touches my arm. “We have to regroup. We need Mr. Liefer, as much as I hate to say it.”

  “No. We’ve scared them. If we leave now, they might hide and we won’t find them.”

  “But if we don’t leave now,” Nate says, “we’ll wind up back in the book maze, or turned to wolf chow, or both.”