by Dante King
“Great,” I said. “Now, on the subject of ‘magic now exists’, what about the world this Academy is part of? Are we talking supernatural horror fantasy with vampires, werewolves, ghouls, et cetera, or is it more traditional fantasy? You know, elves, dwarves, orcs...”
“Everything you’ve heard of in tales and myths exists in some form or another. Stories originated there.”
“Dragons? Even Dragons?” I couldn’t help sounding like a little kid.
One of Enwyn’s slender eyebrows lifted, and her eyes took on a glimmer. “Even Dragons—but you wouldn’t want to meet one of those.”
Hell, this woman obviously didn’t know me very well. If there were dragons, then by God I was going to ride the fuck out of one.
“And this magical world exists alongside our own world?” I asked, sorting rapidly through the knowledge gleaned from a wealth of fantasy novels read over the years. “Is it integrated? Or do we always have to go through portals?”
“There are multiple planes of existence, such as the one I’ll be taking you through. But, as you can attest, magic also works within this plane.”
I nodded as I took in the information. “That all makes sense.” Well, as much sense as it ever would. Hopefully studying at this Academy would fill in the few million other gaps in my knowledge.
I was about to ask her whether there were any succubi in the magical world—I wouldn’t have minded binding a beautiful demon goddess to my will—but Enwyn put a fingertip on my lips. I only just resisted the urge to suck it.
“If I stand here and keep answering your questions, we’ll miss our transport.” She pulled her finger away and wiped it on my shirt. I shuddered. I could only resist so far.
Down boy. Focus.
“Transport? Flying car? Hidden train? A luck dragon named Falkor?” I asked her.
“Nothing so vulgar.” She shook her head and took me by the hand, leading me back into the store. “The gateway should be back here somewhere,” Enwyn said as she navigated her way through teetering piles of books in the shop’s rear storeroom.
“You’re telling me there was a magical portal in the bookshop this whole time?” I asked as I slipped between two ceiling-high stacks of boxes. I doubted whether even my uncle knew what was in those boxes, they had been here so long.
“Not exactly. There are certain doorways that can be used for such a purpose.”
“Are we heading to Narnia or something?”
She smiled in amusement. “Why don’t you wait and see?”
I shrugged. “You’re the boss.” She really seemed to like that idea. Her grip on my wrist was stronger than ever.
“Where does this door lead?” She pointed to a half-buried door that was inset into the wall and covered behind old junk.
I stated the stupid version of the answer first. “That’s not a door.”
Enwyn gave me another one of her special eyebrow raises. I interpreted this one to mean, “Well, what the fuck do you call it, then?”
“I mean, it’s a door, but there’s nothing behind it but a brick wall,” I said. “It’s just some kind of decoration that’s been here for as long as I can remember.”
“Then this must be it.”
Oh, obviously, I thought. Guy tells girl that a door isn’t a door, so that means it must be the fucking door she’s looking for.
Then I paused. Now I actually stopped to think about it, my uncle had used to take some of his ‘connoisseurs’, as he called them, out to this storeroom. I’d never really paid too much attention—figuring that the special merchandise that my uncle said he peddled to these select few was just grass or something.
Maybe though, he actually knows something about this magical realm? Seems possible. I mean, what the hell can you really occupy yourself with for an hour in a storeroom?
I looked at Enwyn Emberskull.
I guess it depends who you’re in the storeroom with...
Enwyn removed her wand from her dress and started an incantation. She paused halfway through and cursed under her breath. “Damn. Barry must have been screwing around again. He must have changed the passcode.”
I heard the doorbells chime from behind me and turned to see a trio of men in janitorial uniforms enter the workshop. They had the largest vacuum cleaner I’d ever seen, and they quickly went to work sucking up what remained of Bernard. With a flick of a janitor’s wand, the bookshelves started to reassemble and return to their former placements. It sort of reminded me of a trick I saw Mary Poppins do in a movie once. I looked to see if I was walking backward, like film played in reverse, but their activity seemed to be limited to the shelves.
“There it is,” Enwyn said as she stood back from the doorway. The outlines glowed, before the entire doorway shimmered and turned into a reflective liquid. It was like something out of Stargate, or maybe from The Matrix. It occurred to me how many examples there were like this—was this the foundation for those images, like werewolves being real there made them legend here?
I shook my head. I’d figure it out later. In the meantime, I was facing a magical portal. A fucking magical portal. This was turning out to be the greatest day of my life. Sure, I’d just murdered an official from the magical academy, but Enwyn seemed to think it wasn’t that big of a deal. Bernard probably would have disagreed with that. I probably should have felt more remorse, maybe even been a little traumatized, but I was too rapt with the idea of a real magical world at my fingertips. And Enwyn was holding my hand again.
“Barry is a more deviant bastard than I previously thought,” she said.
“What was the passcode?” I asked.
Enwyn looked like she was about to gag. “Queen Hagatha’s Snatch.”
“Queen Hagatha? Is she some kind of magical ruler?”
“The Avalonian Kingdom’s current monarch, yes.”
I burst into laughter. “This Barry sounds like an irreverent bastard, then. I can’t wait to meet him.”
“I wouldn’t speak too soon. Come.” Enwyn gestured at the doorway.
I left a musty old store full of strange odds and ends to enter a musty old store full of strange odds and ends. All in all, it was a little anticlimactic. Instead of great hallways of spells and people flying broomsticks and flicking fire at dragons as if they were playing fetch, I was in a shop with bottles and scrolls and glass cases and all sorts of…crap. It felt like an antique shop belonging to J. R. R. Tolkien.
In front of me stood a large display case made of glass, holding every sort of wand imaginable. They coiled and straightened, a couple of them did both while I was watching. There were rings and bracelets, and other various items I wasn’t sure where they were meant to be worn.
“Damn it Barry! Where are you?” Enwyn called, looking around as if this Barry person was going to suddenly appear out of thin air. Worse, she was looking up at the ceiling while she called him.
“Who exactly is this ‘Barry’?” I couldn’t help myself from looking up at the ceiling too.
“Barry isn’t a who so much as a what,” Enwyn said, but her concentration wasn’t on me or my questions. She was busily looking around for any sign of the mysterious Barry. This, apparently, included a quick check into a small box on one of the tables. “Barry is—was—an ancestor of one of the greatest families of magic that ever lived: the Chillgraves.”
“Chillgraves?” I thought Enwyn’s name was hilarious. This was better.
“He used to be a pirate, a couple of hundred years ago. He invented the flying ships and turned his talents to creating magical items, including vectors. He’s currently in a great deal of trouble for violating the rules.” She said that last part at a high volume, as if chastising someone.
“A couple of hundred…” I thought I’d been getting used to magic—what with the exploding recruiters and everything—so I didn’t know why this shocked me, but it did.
“Oh, he died a long time ago.” Enwyn waved that off as if it was of no consequence.
Of course he di
d. Why wouldn’t he? And he still runs the store. That’s my uncle’s worst nightmare, to be stuck in the store for all eternity.
“He’s cursed; he can’t transition away from this life.” Enwyn sighed and leaned on a counter. “He’s stuck here, not that he minds too much.”
I decided to change the subject to something my brain could handle. “What’s all this stuff?”
Enwyn looked around her as if seeing it for the first time. “These are vectors.”
“Oh, here I was thinking we’d entered the world’s strangest pawn shop. Uh... what’s a vector?”
“A vector,” a male voice behind me made me jump.
I spun, looked at the person speaking, and wanted to jump again. I was suddenly in the bad parts of Pirates of the Caribbean; face to face with a skull-faced pirate in full costume. How a skull managed to have a full beard and eyes was beyond me, but Barry was most definitely dead.
“A vector,” he said again, his accent more aristocratic than Jack Sparrow’s, “is a focus point for casting magic so that you don’t set your flesh on fire.” He leaned over, and for some reason, I thought he was grinning, though he didn’t have lips. “That’s not a pleasant feeling, young master, believe me.”
I stood still mostly because I’d forgotten how to move my legs. I gaped at the apparition and forced my mouth shut.
He wore a dark red surcoat with brass buttons, a feathered hat big enough to give even the most egotistical admiral a stiffy, a belt as wide as my hand could have stretched, and high boots with his pants tucked into them. It was a Hollywood pirate, with the notable exception of skin, and a good dose of man’s greatest adversary: death.
“Barry,” Enwyn said, “this is Justin. Justin, Barry. You were wanting to meet him.”
I nodded, still unsure about speaking to a corpse in pirate cosplay, even if he did seem rather personable.
“How do you do, young master?” He held out his hand. When I went to shake it, mine passed right through his. He seemed to think this was the height of humor because he chuckled like some sixteenth century English baron who’d played a prank on a servant.
“Justin here threw a level 3 Storm Bolt with a grimoire for a vector,” Enwyn said.
“Really?” Barry seemed interested suddenly. “Whose?”
“Shivoshan’s,” I replied.
That really got the specter’s attention. How a skull without eyebrows could look surprised was beyond me, but Barry nailed it somehow.
“That’s hardly an authentic spellbook,” he said. “And it wouldn’t function as a vector. You must have used your own body as one. Casting spells from your body is very dangerous; it’s never done for that reason. So…it’s time for you to have a vector before you burn yourself out.” He made a grand sweep of the store, like I was supposed to understand what to do.
Which, of course, I didn’t. I made a show of looking around, hoping that was the right thing to do.
“Nothing?” Enwyn’s eyebrow arched in surprise. “There’s nothing that calls to you?”
To me, it was a vast collection of junk. Now that I knew what I was looking for, I found myself frowning in concentration as I turned in a slow circle. Only, I didn’t feel anything at all. I looked around, craning my neck to see past the nearest cases, trying to hear a call or feel a tug, or some sort of something since Enwyn felt it was so important. Nothing.
I leaned on my staff and sighed.
Blink.
Staff?
Sure enough, in my right hand, was a long, twisted bit of wood straight out of Gandalf’s gun cabinet. There was even a round glass ball nestled in the wood at one end. I had no idea where it came from or how it got there, but it felt natural; very much an extension of me. I stared into the glass ball for a moment, back at the ghost, and then at the beautiful woman in the slinky black dress.
Am I even awake right now?
I wondered if I was on the floor of my uncle’s shop having a fantastic dream—or a seizure.
I tapped the glass ball twice with my finger. “Hello? Sauron? Are you there?”
The ball flashed a bright red cat’s eye at me. I might have screamed. It was possible. On the other hand, I didn’t drop the staff, as it didn’t occur to me to let it go.
“Don’t vex your vector.” Barry waved a finger at my face.
Honestly, if there was any feeling I got from the staff at all, it was amusement.
“Good,” Barry said, casting a connoisseur's eye over me, “walk around with your staff in your hand—the girls will love it. Especially such a big one—excellent girth too.”
“Barry.” Enwyn’s voice could have frozen on contact.
“What?” Barry tried to look innocent, but it was more of a zombie in truck headlights kind of look. “A young man needs guidance on how to squeeze his stick in public.” He elbowed me with a wink and, that time, I felt the nudge as much as I would have if he’d been flesh and bone. Mostly, he was just bone though.
Barry sidled up next to me. The fact that I didn’t pull away attested to the fact that I was getting used to him and that I was still shocked with the whole spontaneously appearing staff business.
“She doesn’t know about you yet, does she?” Barry whispered in my ear.
“Know what?” I don’t know why I whispered—it must have been contagious.
Barry looked at me in astonishment. “You don’t know about you!” He chortled and actually danced a little jig in his merriment. “Ooooh, you’re both in for a big surprise!”
“Barry, what are you talking about?” Enwyn huffed, crossing her arms under her breasts. In that dress, even the dead man had to pause a moment to pay respect to that move.
“Just remember to use your staff liberally around the ladies!” Barry said, literally slapping his knee in delight. “Thrust hard and often and don’t let up!”
I looked to Enwyn. I had no idea what he was talking about, though the sex jokes were getting a little thin.
“A decent grunt should suffice where you don’t know the incantations,” the wraith continued. “It’ll be a weaker spell, but sometimes all you need is a really good thrust with a thick staff.”
“Alright, if you’re through?” Enwyn tilted her head toward the door. I understood it was past time to leave.
“Oh no!” Barry reeled back in shock. “Done? Of course not! You’re certainly not going to let him go to the academy with a mass-market grimoire! People will laugh!” He snapped his fingers, or rather he tried to. There was no flesh on those hands, just bare finger bones, worn knuckles, and a large gold ring that slid up and down his index finger as he talked. “I have just the thing.”
“Like a spell book?” I found myself salivating at the idea.
“Of course.” He rummaged around in the case behind him and came up with a small book that could easily have been a teenager’s diary but, instead of flowers and unicorns on the cover, it held a large ornate symbol. It looked like a twisted Celtic circle with three snakes coiled around a pole. I ran my fingers over the image tenderly.
“What does this mean?” I asked him, pointing to the cover. His index finger, complete with gold ring pointed out the fine print. “Academy Publishing.”
He shrugged. “It’s just a design.”
Enwyn rolled her eyes.
“I kind of thought that spell books would be…” I gestured with my hands, the staff bumping the floor, “bigger.”
“They are when they need to be.”
“Proper grimoires read your abilities and provide you the elements to cast spells according to your level and ability,“ Enwyn said. “They’ll hold spells that you’re not able to do yet, but they’ll blur them out until you’re ready. Mine is…” and she held her thumb and finger a good thickness apart. There was a little pride in that gesture.
“It’s not the size of the man’s book that counts!” Barry laughed again at his own joke. “It’s how he uses it!”
I opened the book and, sure enough, that same Storm Bolt spell
I had used back in my world glowed back at me. There were a few others, but only a handful. The pages were yellowed and brittle, but they smelled new, like the book had never been opened.
“That’s it?” Enwyn looked surprised. She turned to Barry. “You said he was ‘special’. Did you mean the unable-to-perform kind of special? He’s practically handicapped—one step from a non-mage.”
I was about to protest, but the ability to perform even a single spell—let alone a handful—was making my mind whirl with possibilities.
“But a very important step!” Barry waggled his bony finger at her. “Remember, the headmaster himself sent you to recruit him!” He turned to me, tilted his head, and nudged me again. Again, I felt it. “Was she electrifying? I hope she was, because you stole something very magical from her.”
“Who?” If he meant Enwyn, I wondered if he somehow knew she was naked in front of me moments ago.
“The woman you fucked last night, young master!” Barry crowed, thrusting his hips twice in imitation of sex. “I bet the sparks really flew!”
I didn’t know how he knew I was with a girl last night. Maybe he assumed, or maybe he was just yanking my chain and hit close to home. I’d been to an Iron Maiden concert; my ears still had a ringing to them from the noise. At the afterparty, with a bunch of people milling around and getting high, this beautiful young thing approached me. Neither of us had been interested in the weed that was being passed around, but we’d managed to polish off a bottle of scotch between us.
Yeah, like Barry said, there had been sparks alright, and they’d ignited a goddamn inferno in the bedroom. The sex was incredible—so intense that I’d nearly passed out as she rode me—but in the morning, I’d woke up on that dresser by myself, naked and with no idea whose house I was in. I also didn’t get her number. I was still kicking myself for that.
“The young master brought his own staff I see!” Barry was looking at my crotch. “Which one will he employ the most?” He shrugged and said as an aside to Enwyn, “Well, he has two hands, doesn’t he?”
Enwyn scowled at him.
Barry caught the tail end of that look and suddenly had somewhere else to be. “Remember, young Master,” he called out and floated toward me, “beware of the Chillgraves! You may not know it, but they’re no friends of yours. It’s an old feud, I’m afraid.” His voice took on a sorrowful tone. “And I’m not just saying that because they’re my family many generations descended.”
