The Common King

by Brian Olsen

  “Nope. It was suddenly just there. Mr. Liefer, you’re not trying to prank me, are you?”

  He opens his eyes and waves his bandages at me. “Chris, basic teleportation is hard enough for me like this. You think I’m wasting my logomancy on practical jokes?”

  Alisa steps out of the way of a passing student. “We should figure this out before we go anywhere.”

  “Can’t we discuss it back at the museum?” Mrs. Liefer asks. “I’d like to call my sister and check on my daughter. And we know Emmet’s not here anymore.”

  “Right.” Alisa bites her lip. “How do we know that?”

  “The barista told us,” I answer. “Judy. She said he left school. Last she heard he was somewhere in Southeast Asia.”

  “Yeah, I remember.” She runs her hand along the trunk of a nearby tree. “In the coffee shop. And then we left there, and…why did we come into Harvard Yard?”

  “Because…” Huh. “I don’t know.”

  Mrs. Liefer walks down the path a little, back towards the entrance. “That’s odd. Why did we come in here? Why didn’t we leave right away?”

  “I remember us coming here,” Mr. Liefer says. “We left the shop, crossed the street, stopped here…” He looks around, taking in this fairly random and uninteresting spot between two buildings. “For some reason…”

  “But none of us know why,” Alisa finishes. “So do we really remember all that, or do we just think we do?”

  “Emmet,” I say. “Maybe he was there.”

  “Come on.” Alisa leads us hurriedly back down the path. We rush through the brick arch and across the street. Just as we reach the coffee shop, a young man hurries out, pulling on a denim jacket. I recognize him, even if nobody else does. Emmet Liefer.

  He sees us and stops. “Oh, come on.” He raises his hand.

  “Wait!” I say. “We’re not going to stop. We’ll keep coming. Please give us a chance to talk before you wipe our memories again.”

  He gives me a suspicious look, but then at his parents and sighs. “Okay. I guess if we’re going to talk we might as well not retread old ground.” He waves his hand at us in a circular motion. “Memory.”

  Oh. I remember everything since we arrived. Finding him in the shop. Getting my mind wiped the first time and deciding to walk through campus. Emmet confronting us on the path.

  Mrs. Liefer rests a hand on an empty chair. “I remember today, but nothing else about you. You’re Emmet?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re our son?”

  “No.”

  “In this world, I mean. In this reality, you were our son.”

  He shoves his hands in the pockets of his jacket. “Yes.”

  Mr. Liefer steps to her side “Then you’re the one who erased our—”

  Mrs. Liefer puts a gentle hand on his chest, stopping him. “Why?” she asks. “Why did you make everyone forget you?”

  He looks back into the shop. “You want some coffee or something? This is a long story.”

  Mr. Liefer glowers at him. “Story first, young man. Coffee after.”

  Emmet stares right back at him, unimpressed. “I’m getting coffee. Chris? Alisa?”

  “Orange juice?” I ask.

  “Tea, please,” Alisa says. “Chamomile, if you have it.”

  “I’ll have—” Mrs. Liefer starts.

  Emmet gives her the barest of smiles. “I know how you take your coffee. Have a seat, I’ll be right back.”

  A table has opened up, so the four of us settle in. Mr. Liefer watches the shop closely to make sure Emmet doesn’t make a run for it, but I don’t think he’ll rabbit now. At least, not without erasing our memories again.

  “Chamomile tea, Grandma?” I say to Alisa.

  “Shut up or I’ll tell you why I’m drinking it.”

  “Is it a woman-parts thing?”

  “It helps with cramps.”

  “Why must you stereotype me by assuming that as a gay man I’m uncomfortable with vaginal topics? I am not.”

  “I am,” Mr. Liefer mutters.

  Mrs. Liefer reaches over to a neighboring table and slides over a fifth chair. “Alisa, I have Midol in my… Oh, never mind. I forgot I lost my purse in the fire.”

  “All set.” Emmet comes back outside and sits in the empty seat. “Judy said she’ll bring out the drinks.”

  Mr. Liefer harrumphs. “I don’t care about the drinks. I care about explanations. Why did you erase our memories of you? Who are you, exactly? Who were you before the Moment, I mean?”

  “My name’s Stahl Olkminchild. I’m a logomancer, obviously, with power over memory. I joined the resistance late, in the final weeks before we cast the Moment.” He leans back in his chair and raises an eyebrow at me. “And I built the floating room.”

  Twenty-seven

  Judy brings us our drinks. Emmet thanks her and takes a sip of his coffee, but I let my orange juice sit while I think over his words.

  Once our barista is back inside, I say, “I didn’t think any one logomancer created the floating room. I thought it emerged from the combined powers of all the logomancers.”

  “As did I,” Liefer adds.

  “Because that’s what I made you remember.” Emmet puts down his cup. “But no. Rahk…” He nods to his father. “You, I mean…you brought me in specifically to create a mental prison for the Common King. My word, combined with Quet’s and Yurn’s, of course—”

  “Who?” Mrs. Liefer asks.

  Alisa picks up her tea. “Ihsan and Kenny. Memory, imprison, and amplify working together. I see how that could work.”

  “The Common King is too strong for any single logomancer’s powers to affect him for long,” Emmet explains. “It took all of us working together, crafting a spell as powerful as the Moment, to have a lasting effect. So we told the Logos, ‘Create the world that would have been if you had never existed.’” Emmet takes another sip of coffee. “With a couple of great big exceptions, of course. The biggest being that our new lives needed to be close to the king’s. But we didn’t specify what those lives would look like. Or what the world would become. We couldn’t. How do you architect millions of years of history? We trusted everything to the Logos.” He looks out at the busy Cambridge street. “And all this just…happened. It’s amazing.”

  “Yes, amazing.” Mr. Liefer reaches for his coffee, but can’t get a grip with his bandaged hands and gives up. “Doesn’t explain why you stole memories from us.”

  “On the day of the Moment, I was in Charlesville, visiting from school.” Emmet mostly looks at me and Alisa while he talks. “I came back to Harvard later that same day, and my real memories started to return pretty quickly. Nature of my powers, I guess.” His eyes glance towards his parents. “I didn’t say anything to either of you. Rahk, you assumed I was one of the people created by the Moment, like, uh…” He hesitates, just for a second. “Like Mom, and Claudia.” He looks back at me. “When you got your memories back—”

  “When the Common King did, you mean,” I say.

  He frowns. “Sure, I guess. Rahk called, told me to come home. He told the three of us the truth behind everything. I already knew most of it, obviously, but I kept that to myself.”

  Mrs. Liefer furrows her brow. “You pretended you weren’t a logomancer? To your family? Why?”

  Emmet swirls his coffee cup, staring at the liquid. When he speaks, it’s as if he never heard his mother’s question. “When the Pillmans got kidnapped I went into hiding with everybody else, but—”

  Alisa puts down her tea, hard enough that some spills over the rim. “You were with us?”

  “Only for a few days. It took me that long to craft the spell I wanted to cast.” He looks at his mother and explains, “Using magic directly on other logomancers can be tricky.”

  “I know.” She pats her husband’s arm. “I’ve gotten a crash course in logomancy over the past few weeks.”

  He smiles an apology. “So you know, then, that I had to be careful. Extre
mely precise. I made everyone forget I ever existed. Forget Emmet Liefer from after the Moment, and Stahl Olkminchild from before.”

  “Everyone?” I ask. “Everyone, everywhere?”

  “Oh, no. I’m strong, but not that strong, not without help. No, everybody in our group. Any non-logomancers around Charlesville would have been caught up in it too.”

  “Wow.” Mrs. Liefer raises her coffee cup to him. “That sounds pretty strong to me.”

  Emmet shrugs. “That wasn’t even the hardest part. After I finished, I had to cast another spell on Alisa.”

  Alisa starts. “Me?”

  “Right!” I pick up my orange juice. “You made it so if she somehow learned her memory had been tampered with, she couldn’t remember that she could use her magic to get around it!”

  “That’s right. I did it to Mr. Ambrose, too. So he couldn’t consciously disrupt my amnesia spell.”

  Alisa whistles. “And we had no idea. I’m with Mrs. Liefer, that’s some impressive logomancy you’ve got there, Emmet.”

  “I guess. It helped that you didn’t know I was a logomancer. Our natural resistance to harmful magic is less effective if we’re not aware there’s anything to resist.”

  “Even so. We’re only here at all because Chris wasn’t around when you cast your amnesia spell. Without him we might never have remembered you.”

  “But why?” Mrs. Liefer puts her hand on her heart. “I don’t understand. Why make us forget you?”

  Mr. Liefer snarls, “Isn’t it obvious? He was afraid. Ran away so the Common King wouldn’t find him.”

  “Sure I’m afraid.” Emmet fiddles with his mug. “Of course I am. The Common King is vindictive. If he learns I’m responsible for locking him away, I don’t even want to imagine what he’ll do to me.”

  Mrs. Liefer touches his hand. “And that’s why? You wanted to get away from us so he wouldn’t find you?”

  He pulls his hand away. “Yes. Sorry to disappoint you.”

  “You’re lying.” Alisa pushes her tea away. “Not about being afraid. That’s as true for you as it is for any of us. But that’s not why you ran away. That’s not why you erased all our memories. Wanna try again, Emmet?”

  We look at him, waiting. He looks down at the table.

  Finally, he sighs. “This was a mistake. I’ll include Chris in the spell this time, and go somewhere you won’t be able to find me if you break it again.”

  He lifts his hand.

  I reach out to stop him, but before I can, everything shakes. The table, our chairs, the coffee shop, the street, everything. My orange juice tumbles and spills. Is this an earthquake? Does Massachusetts get earthquakes?

  Screaming. All around us.

  Across the table from me, Mrs. Liefer’s eyes widen. She’s looking up, above my head. Way above my head. Her jaw drops and she points.

  I turn around in my seat.

  Oh.

  There’s a man standing behind me. Not directly behind me. He’s actually in Harvard Yard across the street, behind the nearest building. But I see him clearly, since he’s several stories taller than any structure in Cambridge.

  “A giant,” Mr. Liefer whispers unnecessarily.

  The giant just looks like a regular guy. Dark haired. Nose like a potato. White, but really tan. Not a lot of shade at his height, I’d imagine. He’s bare chested, but I can see the top of a rough furry loincloth above the roof of the school building.

  He doesn’t look hostile. More lost. Confused. I can’t say I blame him.

  “Poor thing.” Mrs. Liefer touches her husband’s elbow. “He must be so scared.”

  “WHERE AM I?” the giant bellows. Or I guess he just says it, but his normal speaking voice is awfully loud. “WHICH HUMAN CITY IS THIS?”

  We stand up and get clear as people pour out of the coffee shop. Up and down the street, people are reacting to the giant’s appearance. Some flee, some get out their phones. From the gate to Harvard Yard across the street, those who were nearest to his sudden materialization run out onto Massachusetts Avenue in a frenzied panic.

  “I’ll talk to him,” Alisa says. “I’ll keep him calm.”

  “Alisa, no.” Liefer steps in front of her. “Giants can be dangerous.”

  “Not always.” Emmet walks to the curb. “Giants are people, and like people, they’re all different. This one might be a threat, or he might not be. We won’t know until we talk to him.”

  “WHY IS EVERYONE SCREAMING AND RUNNING?” the giant says. “YOU ACT LIKE YOU’VE NEVER SEEN A GIANT BEFORE.”

  “Doesn’t seem too dangerous,” I say. “More confused.”

  The giant rests his hands on top of the building and sighs, shaking the entire structure down to its foundations.

  Mr. Liefer grits his teeth. “The Common King wouldn’t have released him without a reason. We should be cautious.”

  “Agreed,” Alisa says, then immediately runs across the street, towards the giant.

  All four of us follow her through the gate back into Harvard Yard. We run past the remaining fleeing students, then past a few more who are recording the giant from a safe distance.

  When we reach the giant’s enormous feet, Alisa cups her hands over her mouth and shouts, “Hello up there! Can you hear me?”

  “WHAT?” The giant puts a hand to his ear. “YOU’LL HAVE TO SPEAK UP. HOLD ON. HERE.” He lays a hand down flat on the ground, palm up. “CLIMB ABOARD.”

  Liefer shakes his head. “This is a bad idea.”

  “Don’t be prejudiced.” Emmet gets a leg up on one finger and climbs into the palm. “He’s friendly enough. Come on.”

  “They don’t eat people, do they?” Mrs. Liefer asks him.

  “Not that I know of.” He extends a hand to her. “I won’t let him hurt you.”

  She takes his hand and he pulls her up. Alisa and I follow, then help up Mr. Liefer, who has a hard time getting a grip with his injured hands.

  “THAT’S EVERYBODY?”

  The giant hand curls around us, just slightly, and we rise into the air. It’s not quite as cool as flying under my own power, but it’s pretty cool. Harvard Yard drops away as we lift up towards the giant’s face. He reaches out over the roof of the building and lowers us onto it, waiting while we climb down from his palm.

  “Can you hear me better now?” Alisa shouts.

  “MUCH.” The giant bends over, bringing his face to our level. “NOW WHERE IN THE NAME OF THE LOGOS AM I? I’VE NEVER BEEN INSIDE A HUMAN CITY BEFORE. TOO CROWDED. IS THIS THE CAPITAL?”

  “No.” Alisa moves towards the ledge, closer to his face. “All of the human cities are gone…”

  Alisa continues explaining the Moment, and the changes it caused, to the astonished giant, while the rest of us hang back. Emmet heads over to the other side of the building, the side facing the street.

  “I don’t like this.” Mr. Liefer’s eyes narrow at our tall new friend. “Even if the giant is an innocent, he’s serving an evil purpose.”

  “Yeah,” I reply. “I’m sure you’re right. But what are we supposed to do? Chop down his beanstalk?”

  Emmet rejoins us. “Police are coming.”

  “Alisa!” I yell. “Cops!”

  She holds a finger out to me in acknowledgment, but doesn’t interrupt her explanation to the giant.

  Mrs. Liefer tilts her head at Emmet. “You weren’t afraid. Not at all.”

  He shrugs. “There’s a giant settlement near where I grew up. They were always friendly.”

  “And Alisa said you weren’t afraid of the Common King either,” she continues. “Not enough to do what you did.”

  He doesn’t answer.

  “Why wouldn’t you want your own parents to remember you? Why haven’t you given us our memories of you back, even now?”

  A loud bang makes us all jump.

  “OW!” The giant rubs his shoulder, then looks at the tiny smear of blood on his hand. “WHAT DID YOU DO THAT FOR?”

  That was a gunshot. Alisa
backs away from the ledge, out of sight of whoever’s on the ground. “Don’t hurt them! They don’t understand—”

  “DON’T HURT THEM? I’M MINDING MY OWN BUSINESS AND THEY ATTACKED ME!”

  He leans down, out of sight. I run forward, past Alisa, to look over the edge. A couple of police in riot gear. I have no idea what they think they’ll achieve, but I guess I can’t blame them for not having a proper procedure for a situation like this. The giant brushes his hand and they topple over.

  “THERE.” He brings his face back to our level. “I DIDN’T HURT THEM. I’M NOT A VIOLENT PERSON, BUT HONESTLY.”

  “More will come, soon,” Mr. Liefer says. “We have to deal with this quickly.”

  “Any suggestions?” Alisa snaps. “I’m happy to hear them!”

  Mrs. Liefer grabs Emmet’s arm. “Were you Ronald’s son before? In the world before the Moment?”

  Emmet pulls away from her, joining Alisa and me. “This isn’t the time.”

  “I think it is.” She follows. “I don’t know when you’ll say your magic word and disappear again, so I’m using the time I’ve got. Answer me. Were you Ronald’s son?”

  “He wasn’t, Helen,” Mr. Liefer says. “He said his name was Stahl Olkminchild. That means his parents were named Olk and Min. My name was Rahk.”

  “Oh.” Mrs. Liefer folds her arms. “So you have another set of parents.”

  Emmet nods. “They weren’t logomancers. They could be anywhere in the world. I thought of looking, but all I know about them is their faces, and some names they won’t remember.”

  “YOU LOST YOUR PARENTS?” The giant leans closer. “ME, TOO. I WAS WITH THEM IN OUR VILLAGE BUT THEN WE FOUND OURSELVES IN A STRANGE ENDLESS MOUNTAIN RANGE. ALL THE GIANTS WERE THERE AND I LOST TRACK OF MY FAMILY IN THE CROWD.” He looks around with a worried expression. “ARE THEY IN THIS NEW WORLD SOMEWHERE TOO, DO YOU THINK? OOH! WHAT’S THAT?”

  A helicopter. I can’t tell if it’s police or news. The giant jumps for it but it’s too high even for him. He stumbles when he lands, catching himself on the building. All of us are knocked off our feet and a chunk of the facade breaks off in his hand.

  “OOPS.” He lets the crumbled brick drop to the ground. “SORRY.” The helicopter swoops closer and he reaches for it again.