The Magic Book

by Fredric Shernoff

“Okay…so you’re religious?”

  “Nay. I know of him. And his father the Klaus. And the prophet Weber. But I don’t believe in them, or the cult gods…Khedis and Ra and all the others. Didn’t believe in them, I should say. The Goldman says that Weber exists in this time and place.”

  She fished in her bag. “I don’t get most of that at all, but I mean, Weber’s the president. Everybody knows that. I don’t care how long you were away wherever you were. The guy’s been in charge damned near forever at this point.” She produced a small black object and squeezed it. There was a high-pitched sound a short distance away.

  Nathaniel followed the sound and saw a dark blue carriage sitting near other similar transports.

  “Where is the horse?” he asked.

  “The horse?” Lilli laughed. “Like to pull the carriage?”

  “Exactly. I saw some of these moving around without horses. I assume it’s sorcery?”

  “It’s science, bud. We haven’t needed horses for like, I don’t know, a hundred and fifty years or something like that. Get in the car.”

  “Car. I’ll remember that.”

  Lilli walked to one side of the car and Nathaniel walked to the opposite. He pulled on a small handle and the door opened. The seats of the car were coated in a soft fabric, like a very thin rug.

  Lilli used a wheel to navigate the car onto the black path. Nathaniel watched with fascination.

  “You control it.”

  “Sometimes,” she said. “On the highways it can drive itself. You know, there are plenty of cars out there that could drive themselves anywhere, but I don’t have one of those.”

  “Nicole asked why you weren’t working. What is your responsibility to this town?”

  “You have the strangest way of putting things. My job is a bank teller. Kind of the opposite direction from where we’re going. You know what a bank teller is?”

  Nathaniel shook his head.

  “Wow. I’m starting to think you got hit in the head at some point.”

  “Aye. The Authority put a spike through my brain. When I healed I’d lost a good amount of memory.”

  “I’m sorry, what?” She put her hand on her head in a pantomime of the action Nathaniel had described. “Never mind. You know what? I don’t need to know. I’ll just go with the assumption that some crazy shit happened to you and you don’t know the things that a normal person would know. How does that sound?”

  “That sounds very helpful, thank you.”

  She shook her head and laughed. “Jesus!”

  14

  Nathaniel watched the buildings and people move by quickly as the car worked its way down the road. “This world…your world…the book said it’s been through much upheaval.”

  Lilli frowned. “If you mean the wars, yeah, upheaval’s a good word for it.”

  “The prophet, Weber, he is not a good man?”

  She sighed. “It depends what side you’re on I guess. He’s not a fucking prophet, though, as much as the crazies want to believe he is.”

  “Where I come from, he has moved into the ranks of legend.”

  “Where you come from,” she mused. “That mystery place that’s sounding more and more like it’s either the future or another planet.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Thanks. You continue to be helpful.”

  “I understand sarcasm, Lilli.”

  “Well, damn, that’s good! At least you aren’t totally broken. No offense.”

  “I’m not broken. Not yet. The portal weakened me but I’m not exactly what you would consider mortal.”

  “Come again?”

  “I’m what the people in my world call a ‘Great One,’” Nathaniel said. “I was the last, or I thought I was, until I encountered Opellius, but as I said, he’s an old man and—”

  “Slow down. You think you’re…what? A superhero?”

  “Can you stop this car?” he asked.

  She pulled over to the side of the road. “What’s wrong? We’re almost at the hotel.”

  Nathaniel opened the door and got out of the car, and Lilli did likewise on the other side. He walked around to the rear of the car and slid his hands under the bottom edge of it.

  “What are you doing?” Lilli asked.

  Nathaniel bent his knees and braced himself. He straightened back up and the back two wheels of the car left the ground.

  “Jesus Christ,” Lilli exclaimed in a whisper.

  Nathaniel returned the car to the ground. “You see? A normal man can’t do that, can he?”

  “You’re very strong, I’ll give you that.” She reached into her bag and removed one of the objects he had seen other people staring into. She touched the smooth surface a few times, then turned it to him. “Look.”

  The device seemed to be a window into another land. Through that small window, he saw a massive man, as big as the largest mutant Nathaniel had encountered, performing the same feat of strength with an even larger car than Lilli’s.

  “You see?” she said. “You’re strong. That doesn’t make you Superman. Sorry.”

  “I don’t understand this portal you hold. What world does its sorcery provide entry into?”

  “You’re asking me? Aren’t you the master of sorcery?”

  “I only learned that magic is a real thing very recently.”

  She rolled her eyes again. “Well, you’re still several steps ahead of me, chief. Anyhow, this thing’s a smartphone. I’m just playing a YouTube video. Someone used one of these things to save images of an actual thing that happened somewhere in the world, and then other things like this can play it back. It’s not magic, even if it might seem like it.”

  Nathaniel walked over to a metal pole. It had a red sign on the upper end of it, and white characters he could not comprehend. He grabbed the pole with one hand and tugged. There was a grinding sound, and the pole came out of the ground. A clump of lumpy concrete and dirt was attached to the base.

  “Okay, that’s different,” Lilli admitted.

  “You see? I am a Great One. It’s a fact that I—” His knees buckled and the world spun around. Nathaniel fell to the ground.

  “Nathaniel!” Lilli cried. “Are you okay?”

  He looked up at her. She looked like Esther, he thought, and that made him feel worse. He concentrated on his breathing, and slowly the dizziness and weakness subsided. He sat up and she put a hand on his back.

  “Are you okay?” she asked again.

  “Being on the far side of the portal is weakening me. That strength you saw was but a fragment of the power I once possessed. The Great Ones are no longer. I’m working my way down the path to my eternal rest even in my own land. Being here is making it worse.”

  “Well, right now we need to get back in the car and get on our way. Your stunt was impressive but it’s going to catch the attention of the eyes in the sky. Can you get up?”

  “I’ll try.”

  Back in the car, Lilli showed Nathaniel how to recline his seat. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply.

  “That was something,” she said.

  “So, you believe me?”

  “I don’t know. This is a lot.”

  “I’m sure it must be.”

  “We’re in some trouble, I think,” she said.

  “From the Loyalty Guard?” he asked.

  “Not necessarily. They pretty much just go around making sure people aren’t doing anything that goes against what Weber wants. But the police are agents of the president as well. At every level, he’s got control over everything.”

  “I’ll defend you,” Nathaniel said.

  “I appreciate that, but that’s only good until you get dizzy and fall over. Or get shot a bunch of times. I don’t know how they do things where you’re from, but the Weber administration is brutal. Just hoping by some chance, the drones didn’t see us. Anyway, here we are.”

  Nathaniel opened his eyes and looked out the car’s window. They were heading toward a large building with
many windows arranged in a grid. “This is the ‘hotel?’”

  “Yep. Holiday Inn Express.”

  “Aye. This is where the Goldman should be staying.”S

  “Mmhmm. Can I ask you something?”

  He nodded. “Go ahead.”

  “What do you think he’s going to have for you? Goldman, I mean. I don’t get what you’re looking for or why you think he’ll have the answers.”

  “There was a book. It’s hard to explain. The Goldman wrote a story about what happens now, and it found its way into an enchanted book that opened a portal here. But it’s only a short tale that cuts off abruptly. It speaks of the turmoil of the last many years and the threat Weber poses, but it doesn’t give any answers. And I know that his story is key to understanding what the Authority of my world has been keeping from everyone.”

  Lilli opened her mouth to respond but closed it again. She seemed to not know what to say. She stopped the car near the entrance to the hotel and they exited.

  “Let me do the talking, okay?” she asked.

  “Why?”

  “Because your appearance is enough to weird people out, and almost every sentence out of your mouth is cause for someone to notify the police.”

  “I understand.”

  They entered the hotel. “This is magnificent,” Nathaniel remarked.

  “Magnificent? The lobby of the Holiday Inn Express?”

  He nodded. “Aye. Look at the design. Not one detail left to chance. Manufactured brilliance. I’ve never seen anything like it outside of my palace.”

  “Like I said. Let me do the talking.”

  She walked up to the desk. A bored young man sat in a chair with his hands linked behind his head.

  “Afternoon,” he said. “You need a room?”

  “No, thank you,” Lilli replied. “We are actually looking for someone who we think is staying here. A Mr. Goldman?”

  The man tapped on what looked to Nathaniel like a large version of the smartphone Lilli had shown him.

  “No Goldman staying here, sorry. Have you tried the Fairfield Inn? It’s just a mile down the road.”

  “He used a different name,” Nathaniel said. Lilli shot him a look.

  “What name would the room be under?” the man asked.

  “May I speak?” Nathaniel asked Lilli.

  “Fine. Go ahead.”

  “Thank you. His name is Grant. Grant Sully perhaps?”

  The young man’s eyes widened. “Grant Sullivan. You’re not the first looking for him today.”

  “What do you mean?” Lilli asked.

  “Loyalty Guard was here this morning asking for him. They went up to his room. Never saw them leave so I assume they went out the back after they were finished.”

  Lilli looked concerned. “Could you take us to his room? We need to make sure he’s okay.”

  “Um…well, that’s a little unusual. Hang on.” He tapped on the glass device some more and there was a strange sound. The sound repeated several times, then the man tapped the glass again and the sound cut off. “He’s not answering. Listen, I can’t let you in his room if he’s not there, but you can follow me up and I can poke my head in there.”

  “That would be great,” Lilli said. She looked at the man’s name tag. “Thank you, Charles.”

  The desk clerk, whose name tag read “Charles” but who had asked to be called “C.J.,” led them down the hall to the room rented to Grant Sullivan. He touched a smartphone to the side of the door, which emitted a chirp. A small dot on the wall turned green, and the young man grabbed the handle and opened the door.

  “Mr. Sullivan?” he called. “You in there, Mr. Sullivan?” He reached in and suddenly the room lit up. The man gasped.

  “What is it?” Nathaniel asked.

  The young man turned away from the doorway and looked at Nathaniel and Lilli with fright. “Blood,” he said. “A lot of blood and damage. Somebody got really fucked up in there.”

  “Do you have access to the security footage?” Lilli asked.

  “We don’t have security cameras in the rooms,” C.J. said.

  “I’m talking about the exits,” Lilli said. “You said the Loyalty Guard left out the back. I want to see that footage.”

  “Ma’am, I don’t know about that,” C.J. said. “I’m a citizen in good standing, and I don’t want to get on the bad side of the Loyalty Guard.”

  “You let us worry about the Loyalty Guard,” Nathaniel said. “And you can worry about not being on our bad side.”

  The young man gulped. “Okay. Okay.”

  They walked back down the hall and he led them into a back room. Nathaniel saw another of the large panels of magic glass, and C.J. used it to produce strange, distorted, moving images that were void of color.

  “There!” Lilli exclaimed. “Pause it right there!”

  C.J. touched the glass and the image stopped moving. It showed three heavily armed men dragging an unconscious and bloody man down the hall.

  “Goldman,” Nathaniel said. “They took him.”

  “Like I told you,” Lilli said. “The Loyalty Guard is bad news. Your friend must have done something wrong.”

  Nathaniel thought of the guards in his territory and what they had done to him, and to Achmis and to Esther. These Loyalty Guards were not terribly different than the Authority’s soldiers.

  “We need to find them,” he said to Lilli.

  “You want to track down the Loyalty Guard?”

  “Aye. And I can’t control your car, so I need you to handle it for me.”

  “Fuck, Nathaniel, I don’t want to be involved in this.”

  “I understand. If you can get me to where the Guard is keeping the Goldman, you can leave me there and go on with your life.”

  She considered and nodded. “Fine. Fuck it. Loyalty Guard operates out of the town police department when they do the raids. There’s a chance they’d still be there, but I don’t know. This whole thing is beyond weird.”

  Nathaniel looked at the desk clerk. C.J. was looking at him with a strange half smile on his face. “C.J., are you well?” Nathaniel asked.

  “It’s just…could I come with you? This is all pretty exciting.”

  Nathaniel and Lilli shook their heads in parallel.

  “Come on, guys, please?” C.J. pleaded.

  “When I face this Guard, there is likely to be death aplenty,” Nathaniel said. “I don’t want you to be among the fallen.”

  “Um…thank you?” C.J. looked crestfallen and went back to the front desk.

  Back in the car, Nathaniel studied Lilli. She did look like Esther, but younger, and softer in a way. She turned and caught his gaze.

  “Something I can help you with?” she asked.

  “You remind me of someone. A friend. And wife of my friend.” He paused and looked down at his feet, which were still bound in the leather wraps the hive mind had placed on them when he’d returned to Opellius’s house.

  “What is it?”

  “They’re dead. Everyone I love is gone. You asked me why I seek the Goldman. I don’t know what answers he might have for me, but I have to find something. My world…the world I have known for my entire long life, it’s a lie. And something about the reality of my world connects to this one, and the story the Goldman has to tell.”

  Lilli watched him with, he thought, some sympathy. He expected her to speak, but she turned her gaze back to the dark road ahead.

  15

  The Ethos police station was in the center of town. As the parking lot came into view, Lilli bolted upright.

  “Loyalty Guard vehicles. Fuck.”

  “You were hoping not to see them?” Nathaniel asked. “Isn’t finding them the whole point?”

  “Yes…no…shit. I don’t know. They’re just bad news. I’m scared, Nathaniel.”

  “Nate.”

  “What?”

  “Call me Nate. It’s what my friends did, before they were taken from me.”

  She shook her head. �
��Thanks. Really. But if the people who called you Nate all wound up dead, it’ll be Nathaniel for the time being.”

  He nodded. “I understand. Can you bring me near the front of the building?”

  She sighed. “I’m a little nervous they’re gonna mark me if I get too close. I don’t want them to know I’m part of this if I can help it.”

  Nathaniel pointed up and to the right. Through the glass, one of the flying machines was following them, its cold black eye watching their every move. “You’re part of this, Lilli. Like it or not.”

  She looked up at the machine and slammed both hands on the wheel. “Fuck! Fine. Goddamn it. I’ll pull up front. But here’s the deal—if this goes south, I found you in the middle of the street and you forced me to take you here. Can you go with that?”

  “Aye. I will protect you.”

  “Thank you.”

  She maneuvered the car closer to the building and pulled alongside the double doors at the front. Nathaniel opened the door and stepped out of the car. He leaned back in to look at her.

  “How do I find you when this is over?” he asked.

  She closed her eyes and shook her head. “You don’t. Goodbye, Nathaniel. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

  He closed the door and she pulled away so quickly, the wheels of her car screeched on the black ground.

  Nathaniel opened the doors. A bald man in a black uniform sat behind a desk. He looked up and regarded Nathaniel with the same suspicion Nathaniel had seen from everyone in this strange, noisy world.

  “Can I help you?” the man asked.

  “I’m Nathaniel of the house of Mansfield. I’m seeking Grant Sullivan. I believe the Loyalty Guard has brought him here.”

  “Seriously? What’re you, his lawyer?” The man laughed.

  “I’m a friend who needs to speak with Sullivan before the people who took him do something drastic.”

  “Listen, ‘friend,’” the man said, “nobody gets to go back in that room. I work in this goddamned place and I’m not allowed back. That’s CSA property until the Guard leaves. Don’t even have anybody else but me from the station on duty.”