The Magic Book

by Fredric Shernoff

  “Ah man, look, forget what I said earlier. If this shit’s too painful to bring up, you don’t have to talk about it.”

  Nathaniel held up his hand. “You were right. There are so many lies in the world, and I would have my truth known. Especially if my time is as limited as I fear it may be.”

  “I get it. If you’re sure you want to talk, I’m here to listen.”

  “When I was young, which was a very long time ago, the Great Ones were considered the keepers of order in the land. We did not have many births, because the older ones didn’t die. And perhaps that limited birthrate was a blessing.”

  “How do you figure?” Goldman asked.

  “I have long thought that our power diminishes in some way when it’s passed to children. Like it’s shared among the generations. Except in certain unusual cases. My great-grandmother was one of those, I believe. And so am I. So maybe we kept ourselves in existence longer than we would have otherwise by limiting the birthrate. I don’t know.”

  He stopped. “Are you certain you want to hear this?”

  “Definitely,” Goldman said. “I’m all ears.”

  “Very well.”

  Nathaniel spoke, and as he did, his mind crossed the barrier of thousands of years as if passing through another portal like the one to Goldman’s world. The memories of a long-gone past came tumbling back in.

  In the land that was, the Great Ones lived their endless existences in the capital city. The oldest among them, a man named Duncan Mycroft, claimed that he was born with the world itself. That he and the walls had emerged simultaneously as one magnificent creation of the Klaus and a blessing bestowed by the prophet Weber.

  There was nobody else old enough to question Duncan’s claim. Those who couldn’t easily trace their lineage to him found dead ends when trying to understand their own existence. Other Great Ones had lived and died, that much was clear. There was always a limit to their power, and battles among their own kind had taken many lives, or so it was said.

  Every generation of Great Ones was trained by the one that preceded it. It was the responsibility of those who didn’t have children of their own to work tirelessly passing their skills and knowledge to the children of others.

  The very last of those groups of children, though of course nobody knew it at the time, consisted of three boys, Maxwell Goodheart, Patrick Shelvey, and me. Even by the relatively low reproduction rates among Great Ones, this crop of children was unusually small in number and strangely all male.

  This gave our families a distinction among the other Great Ones, as the only ones to produce the continuation of the line. As the years went by and there were no additional births, greater and greater reverence was focused on my group of friends and our parents.

  In many ways, Patrick was the natural leader of the trio, though we all were inseparably close from the time we could speak. Maxwell was awkward and clumsy by Great One standards, while I was shy and reserved. Patrick was bold, sometimes brash, and overflowing with confidence.

  When we turned sixteen, we were required to complete a series of complicated tests. These challenges were meant to push the very limits of a young Great One’s inherent power. The final test was the most sacred and most terrifying.

  None of us knew what went on in the basement of the tower that served as the palace of the Great Ones, but we knew its results. Whoever came out of the basement was made fully mortal for a week.

  The three of us completed every aspect of our challenges with great skill and dignity. Finally, the day of the final test arrived. I remember it as if it was yesterday. That is no small feat with the many years I have lived and the Authority’s violation of my mind.

  Patrick woke us up bright and early, giggling like a goddamned fool. Max argued with him and received a hard wooden ball to the head for his efforts. That was Patrick. When he got in one of his ridiculous moods, he was insufferable.

  For my part, I simply observed everything around me. I was excited for the final test, and nervous as well, but that was no different than expected. More than any of that, I was curious. I wanted to know what it would be like to be a normal. To be allowed to walk among them and live as they lived for only a week. And of course, there was a rush to the threat fundamental to existence as a normal. We could be injured. We could die, even, should it come to that.

  “I still don’t get it,” Goldman said. “Were the Great Ones immortal or not?”

  “We were as close as anything could come,” Nathaniel replied. “An uninterrupted life could span millennia, but we did age, albeit slowly. Eventually old age came, and with it a gradual decline. The silver years for a Great One could be measured in hundreds at their shortest. Nothing like the quick deterioration that happened in more recent times and is happening to me now.”

  “And you could be killed?”

  “Aye. It would take a great deal of effort. Beheadings were the most common way to kill Great Ones, but of course one would have to catch the victim quite off-guard. In all my life, I have never been aware of a normal killing a Great One.”

  “The Great Ones killed each other?” Goldman asked.

  Nathaniel shrugged. “All species take the lives of their own kind. It’s normal in my world, as I assume it’s normal in yours. May I continue with my story?”

  “Yeah, yeah, go on.”

  We got up and went to the special room where the final test was administered. The room was a cavernous space with marble on every surface. Massive columns lined a makeshift hall down the center, leading to a series of steps down into darkness. Nobody had ever been down there other than the Great Ones, and none of the elders talked about what was down there. It was part of the protocol to keep the secret from the younger generations.

  Patrick was sent down first, and when he returned a while later, he was limping,

  “Twisted something on my way up the stairs,” is all he said to me. His spirit was not the same as it had been earlier.

  Maxwell went next, and I remember he was shaking with fright. He didn’t come back for a long time, and I learned later that he had fainted once his power was gone.

  When the guards signaled that it was my turn, I walked down the steep stairs. It wasn’t actually dark at the bottom. A few candles were lit along the stone walls. At the far end of the room was a metal platform. I had no instructions to go on, but there was nothing else in the room to interact with. I walked to the platform and stepped on it. The second my foot connected, the whole platform dropped a few inches.

  Sharp instruments came out of the walls and stabbed into my arms. I was unaware of anything after that.

  When my wits returned, I was back in my room. Max was sleeping quite loudly. Patrick was not there. I felt strange. It took me a while to realize exactly what that feeling was. My body was aging by minuscule amounts with each passing second. That was what it meant to be a normal. I didn’t like that feeling, but my attentions soon turned to the excitement and opportunity of seeing the world through the eyes of a normal.

  I was provided with clothes and sent on my way into a different enclave than the one where we lived. My friends were sent to other places. It was on the second day of my wanderings when I met Amara.

  “You’re not going to tell me much about that week, are you?” Goldman asked.

  Nathaniel shook his head. “I thought I could, but it’s more difficult than I expected. Perhaps on the other side of all of this, there will be time. You needn’t worry about it right now.”

  “Come on!” Goldman protested. “You’re not gonna give me anything?”

  “Amara was a village girl,” Nathaniel said. “Meaning she did many jobs around the enclave, with no particular skill required.”

  “Ooh a village girl! Nice.”

  Nathaniel gave him a condemnatory look.

  “Sorry,” Goldman said.

  “She wanted to stay with me, and I wanted that as well. It was…impossible.”

  “Your parents didn’t approve?”

/>   “Nobody approved. They were right to discourage our love.”

  “Can’t help who you love, Nate. That’s just part of life.”

  “The Great Ones are above such desires. We are supposed to have our mates selected for us. But as I said, the decline in births provided me with no options.”

  “So there was nobody after her?”

  “No. I don’t need anyone. And it’s all irrelevant now.”

  “Right. Well, if it’s all the same to you, I’m gonna turn in. Just keep it quiet if you’re gonna open the door after I’m sleeping, could you?”

  “Aye. Sleep well, Goldman.”

  Goldman got back in the car and reclined the seat. Nathaniel walked along the wall for a while, tracing his fingers along the small divots in the surface. He’d been foolish to let the memories of his time with Amara flood back in. Memories were weakness, and he could afford no more of that.

  Still, the thoughts of his one lost love and his friends, all now long gone, haunted him through the night and had only begun to fade when the earliest hints of daylight crawled up from the edge of the land.

  21

  In the morning, Nathaniel and Goldman dropped through the exposed opening along the side of the wall. The passageway looked different than the one Nathaniel had seen in the other territory, but served the same purpose. The air down there was hot and thick, even early in the morning before the sun had been given proper time to warm the land.

  “Wait here,” Nathaniel said.

  “What for?” Goldman asked. “You worried there’s something waiting for us up ahead?”

  “Maybe. And maybe I’m worried there’s nothing waiting for us. Hard to say.”

  “That’s very mysterious of you, Nate. But fine. I’ll wait. Do your thing.”

  Nathaniel walked deeper into the tunnel. His footsteps echoed. Small puddles of dirty water had formed in depressions in the floor, and he deftly navigated around them.

  At the end of the tunnel was a ladder. Its rungs were bent slightly, likely from the mutant’s entrance, but they would hold Nathaniel and Goldman just fine. As he’d suspected, the mutant had burst through a cover at the top of the ladder, and the cover hadn’t been replaced.

  Nathaniel scaled the ladder and poked his head through the ravaged opening. The woods grew heavy against the wall in this spot. He couldn’t see any Authority structures or guard posts.

  He dropped back down and ran to where Goldman waited in the corner of the pit on the outside of the wall.

  “What’s it look like, chief?” Goldman asked.

  “It seems clear. It’s not likely the Authority is waiting to ambush us.”

  “Well that gives me a ton of confidence,” Goldman said. “Let’s get out there. Or in there. Or whatever.”

  “You remind me a great deal of Patrick,” Nathaniel said.

  “He must have been quite handsome,” Goldman replied.

  Nathaniel started walking. “Let’s go.”

  He climbed the ladder first, confirming that things remained the same as they had been minutes earlier. “Still clear,” he called down. “Follow me up.”

  For a change, Goldman didn’t protest or wisecrack. He’s scared, Nathaniel thought. He’s right to be.

  Once they were both past the broken grate, they crouched against the interior of the wall. Goldman was sweating from the tunnel’s heat and humidity, and he drew in deep breaths, shoulders rising and falling.

  “Will you be okay to continue?” Nathaniel asked.

  “Yeah,” Goldman panted. “It’s hotter than hell out here, that’s all. Also, that ladder was hard to grip and I’m apparently in horrendous shape.”

  “You give yourself too little credit,” Nathaniel said. “You are one of the most capable normals I’ve ever met. Perhaps that’s a testament to your world.”

  “I guess that’s one positive thing that could be said about my world,” Goldman said. “I don’t know. It’s a really screwed-up place. I know you have issues with things here, and I get the lies and the betrayal and all that, but everything you describe has an order to it. In my mind, that’s not all bad. You know, when the Authority isn’t killing innocent people and all.”

  “Aye. It’s not terrible. If the people choose to continue living the way they’ve always known, I will not tell them that they’re wrong.”

  “Well, that much I totally agree with. Freedom of choice is important. It’s kinda what we used to have in my land. We called it democracy. It had its flaws, but it worked…mostly. Then Weber came along and the whole system collapsed.”

  “I wonder about him,” Nathaniel said.

  “Weber?” Goldman questioned. “Why give him the benefit of your thoughts? It’s the prophet thing, isn’t it?”

  “It is. I keep wondering about the coincidence and it seems less and less like coincidence. But how can that be?”

  “I don’t know. Your world has magic books that lead to mine. Maybe your Authority made contact with Weber in some way and thought he was a prophet?”

  “Has he performed miracles? The Weber I have heard stories about all my life performed amazing feats. Brought people back from the dead and bestowed powers on others.”

  “The Great Ones?” Goldman asked, eyes wide.

  “Maybe. Duncan Mycroft claimed to have been touched by the prophet. As I told you, he made many such claims, but most of us felt secure in our belief that he was full of shit.”

  “Well, the Weber from my world was thought to be selected by the Lord to do His will on Earth. I’m not entirely sure what the hell that meant, but Weber embraced the notion. Whether he was out there raising the dead, I can’t say. Ever since he began the war, he was hidden away in his compound in the Midwest. That’s very far away from the part of the world you came out in.”

  “Nobody has seen him?” Nathaniel asked.

  “Well, his advisors and chief supporters, sure. And he’s always popping up on television or the Internet, but that barely counts as having actual visual confirmation of the guy. I don’t know.”

  “There’s something to it. To all of this. It’s what my teacher wanted me to understand when he found the book.”

  “There’s a lot we don’t know, Nate. We don’t know if the book he found was the same as the one you found. It may not have been mine. None of it makes any sense.”

  “The Authority has the book that belonged in this territory,” Nathaniel said.

  “Had the book. You think. That was hundreds of years ago, Nate.”

  “More like thousands, but I don’t think the books or their wrapping age. If the Authority had it then, they could still have it now.”

  “The books are like you, in a way.”

  “There’s nothing magical about me,” Nathaniel said. “Magic wouldn’t just run down over time.”

  “Who knows what magic does or doesn’t do?” Goldman asked. “I’m way beyond my areas of expertise here, and I think so are you. The second you remembered seeing that first book, your life was transformed.”

  “Aye. It has cost me greatly.”

  “Well what’s our plan to make things right?”

  “We proceed with intense caution. We don’t know where we are, and we don’t have the benefit of the car on this side of the wall. That means we have a tremendous distance to cover in an indeterminate direction. In addition, the Authority guards are scattered throughout the land.”

  “Do they know to be looking for you?”

  “They didn’t know it was me who escaped over the wall, and at least some of them would believe that anyone who went over didn’t survive. But at this point they surely know I’m missing, and they may have put it all together. I can’t say.”

  They spent three hours picking through the woods. Nathaniel did his best to keep the wall to his back even when it had disappeared from view. That way, he knew they were headed toward the center of the territory.

  “We have no true allies here,” he cautioned Goldman. “The people are deathly afraid o
f the Authority and they will not likely join our cause. There’ll not be a war in this land.”

  “That’s fine by me, Nate. I’ve lived through more war than I can stand. So what do we do?”

  “We head toward the central enclave. It’s where the Great Ones lived and where they hid me away when I became the last. It’s also where the Authority operates.”

  “You want to walk right into the Authority’s stronghold?” Goldman asked. “That sounds like a suicide mission.”

  “I want to covertly enter their stronghold,” Nathaniel said. “My world doesn’t have the level of surveillance that yours has. There aren’t any drones in the skies. I know my way around the central enclave, and that gives us an advantage. We just have to deal with the guards, and they aren’t likely expecting any kind of a problem.”

  Goldman sighed. “I’d really like to get my hands on a weapon that could do more than fire one bullet.”

  “I think we can make that happen.”

  They paused at the edge of the woods. Nathaniel saw a cluster of deerkin, younger and healthier than the one that had eluded him at the start of it all. That made him think of Achmis, who had cautioned him so strongly about pursuing this quest. If only Achmis could see how far he had come and the many things he had learned.

  “More questions for every answer,” Achmis likely would have said, and wouldn’t he have been right?

  “You’re doing that far-off look thing again, Nate,” Goldman said. “Dwelling on the past?”

  “Something of the sort. Being back here feels somehow less heroic a homecoming than I had planned.”

  Goldman laughed. “What had you planned?”

  “It’s not clear. I simply thought…I don’t know. That I would return with the fury of the hellfire that was supposed to exist outside the walls. In my dreams while I recovered at Opellius’s home, I saw myself burning like the sun itself and spreading that scorching blaze to everything the Authority held dear. This return is so quiet.”