Fantastic Schools: Volume 2

by Nuttall, Christopher G.

A rumble of thunder punctuated his comment, but the lashing of the rain outside no longer accompanied it. Another burst of thunder echoed through the empty library. The hair on Alis’s arms stood on end.

  “That’s not thunder,” she realized, her eyes wide.

  Cahan swung around to face the far wall of the library, the one that faced the now defunct Spellfield.

  Another low clap of noise broke through the silence. It still sounded like thunder, but the floor beneath them shook.

  “It’s the golem,” Alis whispered, her face going white.

  She barely had time to even consider what to do about it when the monster tore open the far wall of the library, flinging stones everywhere. The lovely colored glass window on the end of the row shattered as its support pulled apart.

  “This situation is familiar!” Cahan said to her cheekily as he drew his sword. They had met for the first time when a dragon had broken into the library tower. And then he’d thrown them both out the window into the moat. Alis remembered it in terrifying detail.She cursed at him. This situation wasn’t funny either. It was easy for him to joke—the golem wouldn’t be fixated on him.

  They both jumped up from the table, taking several steps backwards to assess the situation. At least, the library was empty.

  The monster didn’t immediately enter the library, despite the hole easily being big enough for it to squeeze through. Alis watched as it paused, a mass of dripping and slimy mud lurking outside the college.

  Then it reached in, grabbing chunks of the destroyed walls and shoving them onto its body. The stone helped shore up the oversaturated mud constructing its form, allowing it to keep its shape.

  Cahan cursed. The monster finished reinforcing itself and clambered into the library, leaving huge squelching footprints across the floor. The librarian inside Alis flinched.

  It roared loud enough to make the bookshelves tremble, the shards of glass embedded in its sliding skin winking in the library torches. Nothing else in the empty library caught its attention. The monster headed straight for her and Cahan.

  Alis took a deep breath and carefully aimed a spell at the monster. Its one weakness seemed to be the fluidity of its form. Perhaps the right spell could compromise that.

  The concussive spell she fired at it hit the dripping construct and did nothing. The wet mud absorbed the power of it with a muffled whoooom.

  “Stars and stones,” Alis said in response.

  She doubted anything she could do would even touch the golem. Now she was out of ideas other than to try and melt it again. That was a spell she didn’t know. It would also ruin the library, and there was nothing to keep it from continuing to fortify itself with the stone from the walls.

  Cahan circled around behind the monster as it staggered across the library and lunged for Alis. He swung his sword deftly at the monster’s leg, right around where its knee should have been.

  His weapon only made it halfway through the leg, slicing into the mud with an audible sucking sound. The clay folded back around it, and Cahan stumbled forward as all his forward motion halted.

  He tugged fruitlessly on the sword, unable to yank it out of the suction the monster’s wet mud form had created. A wide swing from the lumbering golem forced him to abandon the blade and leap out of the way. He landed near Alis.

  “Second sword this year!” he swore.

  The room lit up with spells as Alis tried to find one that would affect the old golem, but none of them even slowed the staggering mass of earth and stone. Turning to run, she dodged around the wooden tables, but her enemy was too large. She underestimated its reach, and a minimally formed hand swung towards her from the right.

  Cahan leapt forward and knocked her out of the way. Alis went flying into the closest table and chairs, unintentionally widening the walkway as her body took them out. The table hit a bookcase and toppled it, dumping leather-bound books all over the table and Alis’s head.

  A massive earthen fist closed around Cahan, snatching him up into the air. Alis screamed.

  The golem stopped its charge, staring at Cahan with glowing eyes. It raised the warrior to its face, its barely formed mouth twisting into something resembling a frown. It sucked in great breaths that rumbled like the wind and fluttered the pages of the errant books.

  Alis paused. Was the golem sniffing Cahan?

  Another breath rumbled through what could only generously be referred to as a nose.

  “Bhhhhhhhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeeeeelyyyummm,” the golem spoke, but its form was too fluid to properly say the words. It also didn’t speak any tongue Alis understood, but the word rung a bell in her brain. She was too distracted to concentrate on it right now, however.

  With that admission, the golem dismissively tossed Cahan to the side. He smacked into the far wall of the library with a wet splat.

  Now the golem’s attention recentered on her, and Alis didn’t even have a chance to run this time. She crawled under the table, grabbing onto its legs, but the golem seized her by the ankles and pulled her out. He shook her several times, rattling her brains about in her head and shaking stray books off her body like he was clearing dirt off a snack.

  His other massive hand pulled around and grabbed her around her waist, turning her upright. Alis pressed her hands against the fingers gripping her lower body, but they only sunk into the clay.

  “Auuuuuuuuuggghhhhh!” it screamed.

  Alis stopped struggling. She’d recognized the word it had shouted at Cahan, and now she almost knew this one, too. But the sloppy, sliding construct of a mouth paired with the already unnatural tone made it almost impossible to understand.

  “AhmmmmGURrrrrrrhhhh!” the golem screamed in her face. Alis winced as the volume hurt her ears. “AmmmmgggggRRREEaaaaa!”

  The grip around her waist was tight but not painful, and now that she was in its grasp, it did not harm her. She stared at the wet, muddy face, the only constant in it the glowing circles of its eyes. Alis tried to figure out what it shouted. It lurked right on the edge of her brain.

  “Augurium!” She suddenly shouted as another half-formed rumble came out of the undefined mass that held her captive. “You’re saying Augurium! Wizards!”

  The mass shifted its head in some semblance of a nod, then pulled her right up to its face. The clay forming its facade coalesced around the mouth, causing it to solidify.

  “FIGURA MEA!” it bellowed at her, blowing her hair back and spattering her face with flecks of mud.

  But she didn’t know what that meant. The golem shouted it again, shaking her for emphasis.

  “It said ‘Shape me!’” came a voice from behind Alis. She looked over her shoulder, and saw that Maera had reappeared. Alis frowned. Even the teenager could speak the old tongue. She needed to fix that.

  “Shape me?” she repeated, not knowing what the monster wanted. But the phrase obviously meant something to it, as it shouted it again. It shoved her face towards the glowing rune on its chest before shouting again.

  Alis wasn’t up to date on her ancient runes either. She only knew some from shelving certain books in the library, and even then she used a guide. Middle-history runes? Sure. Ancient runes was a specialty she hadn’t studied at all. Because she wouldn’t use it outside the library. She could see the irony, but at the moment it did not amuse her.

  She didn’t know what it said. It was almost unreadable anyway with the constantly shifting mud of the construct’s skin. What if it was some kind of trick? It didn’t matter at this point. She didn’t have much of a choice, now that the monster held her in his grasp.

  Alis tentatively reached out and touched the glowing rune. She gently pushed some of her power into it. Cracks lit up all along the monster’s skin, glowing the same color as the rune in its chest.

  The golem unceremoniously dropped Alis. She hit the stone with a thud, her tailbone taking the brunt of the fall for the second time this adventure. Chunks of stone and shards of glass tumbled to the floor. Alis covered her head with her hands
and scrambled away from the monster towards Maera.

  The dripping mud continued to solidify, shedding all the golem’s makeshift reinforcement. Soon a more-defined face appeared, and square, broad limbs. The glow from the cracks faded as the clay skin sealed shut, and the rune scratched into its chest disappeared.

  The golem took a minute to look over itself, stretching and testing its restored limbs. Then it turned to look at them, glowing eyes still alight in deep sockets placed in a now solid face. It had basically no nose, and a wide, rough mouth. Blocky arms ended in huge four fingered hands, and grooved legs ended in feet with the same number of toes.

  The creature’s mouth opened, and a sentence rumbled out of it. The words were much clearer now, even if Alis could not speak the language.

  “His name is RuhmGohm, and he is looking for the blood of his master,” Maera translated for her, staring at the great golem construct. The golem waited patiently for an answer.

  The blood of his master? Was that some kind of threat?

  “He wants to be set free,” Maera said again to translate the golem’s words. Alis frowned.

  “Go and fetch the Headmistress!” Alis ordered Maera, hoping to get her out of the area. She shouldn’t have come back in the first place, but Alis couldn’t be too angry with her. She probably would have snuck back too. Maera hesitated, but then obeyed. She rushed out the door of the library, not even glancing behind her.

  Cahan warily made his way over to Alis, limping slightly. The bottom half of his body, save his calves and his shoes, was covered in the slimy mud the monster had been leaking.

  “You alright?” he asked once he ended up at her side.

  Alis nodded, not willing to take her eyes off the golem. But now that he’d been shaped, he made no move towards them.

  After a long silence, Cahan spoke again. But this time he spoke to the golem, and not to Alis. The words coming out of his mouth were the old tongue.

  The golem considered Cahan for a moment, staring at him intensely with his bottomless eyes. Then he reached down to his leg and grabbed the sword that still bisected his hardened knee. He pulled it out easily and turned back to Cahan.

  Alis gasped, a spell prickling on her fingers, but the monster didn’t attack them. He handed the sword back to Cahan carefully. A thundering sigh whooshed through his open nostrils.

  “I asked for my sword back,” Cahan explained as he found a clean spot on his pants to wipe off the residual clay on the sword. Alis smacked him on the arm.

  “Next time, warn me first,” she growled. Cahan laughed. They waited in an awkward silence for the Headmistress to arrive, the only noise the dull roar of the construct’s breathing.

  Finally, Maera returned with Enna. A crowd of other teachers and upper class students came with them. Alis started to feel self conscious about the mess in the library and the mud covering her clothes. None of them seemed to notice it, though.

  As soon as Enna Mordwin approached, the golem immediately turned to face her. The runes on his body lit up again, casting a bright glow all over the darkened library.

  The construct spoke, and Cahan translated for her. Alis’s cheeks burned beneath their dirt because it seemed everyone but her could understand him.

  “You are Mordwin,” the monster said, bending his massive frame to be face to face with Enna. It was not a question. “I can sense your blood.”

  “Yes, I am the Headmistress of this school,” Enna answered him, looking over the magical creature with interest.

  “Set me free.”

  Enna stared at him, not knowing what to answer.

  “Your ancestor created me. He bound me to this place to protect it. But I wish to be free,” RuhmGhom said. Despite the almost monotone rumble of his voice, he sounded sad. “Only his blood can set me free.”

  “Where have you been all this time?” Enna asked, avoiding the question. Ruhm took in a great breath, thinking.

  “Asleep,” he finally answered cryptically. “The magic in the fabric of this world lessened, and the gods put me to sleep. But I no longer wish to be a slave. Set me free,” he said again. Alis watched Enna, wondering what she would do.

  “Before I decide, you must answer my questions.”

  Ruhm rumbled an assent.

  “What will protect us if you are gone?” she asked.

  “I will,” he thundered. “As long as a Mordwin exists to call me, I will return if I am needed.” He straightened, looking proud. “RuhmGhom will not forsake this place. I cannot. But let me guard it under my own free will.”

  “If this is so, then I will free you,” Enna told the golem without hesitation. His face twisted into what must have been a smile but looked more like a terrible roar.

  Enna and RuhmGhom continued to speak to one another, talking about everything from his history to the power he had. By the time the discussions with the golem ended, dawn peeked through the massive hole in the far wall of the library. Alis struggled to stay awake.

  Cahan continued to translate for Alis, who felt simultaneously grateful and embarrassed.

  “Then, RuhmGhom, as a Mordwin, I release you from your slavery,” Enna finally said after their discussions ended. The golem bowed low, touching his head to the stone of the library’s floor. He called out to the whole group, motioning with one blocky arm towards the damaged library wall.

  “He wants us to follow him,” Cahan supplied as the clay golem turned and lumbered back through the hole he’d made. The group gathered in the library stepped out onto the grounds of the college to follow the golem. The chill of the morning and the dampness of the air helped Alis wake up a little bit. She hadn’t pulled an all-nighter for a while.

  I must be getting old.

  RuhmGhom brought them out to the grassy plain called the Spellfield. He gestured towards it, stretching his clay arms out in front of him, speaking in Old Tongue again.

  “He says that he is the source of the power for the Spellfield, and when he went to sleep, it died,” Enna explained briefly for mostly Alis’s benefit. “He will reactivate it so the school will be protected from all darkness and evil magic.”

  Alis frowned. Wizards rarely spoke of evil magic, as they had decided it did not exist, but the golem obviously believed it to be so. After dealing with the Formless, the bodyless shadow creatures that had awoken beneath the university last year, Alis wasn’t so sure he was wrong, either.

  The golem clomped about the old Spellfield, stopping every couple of meters to lean down and touch the earth. Where grass or stone blocked his way, he simply ripped it up. When his great four-fingered hands brushed the dirt, all the runes on his constructed body lit up. Each time he did this, a rune activated in the ground, glittering for a moment in the morning sun before fading.

  “I suppose you’ve got to get married now,” Cahan mused to Enna as RuhmGhom lumbered into the trees of Maybane Forest. His clay body and the runes that powered it soon vanished into the dense undergrowth of the wood.

  Enna snorted delicately, half-frowning and half-smirking.

  “I suppose I do,” she replied. “You up for the challenge?”

  Alis couldn’t tell how serious she was. Jealousy stirred in the pit of her stomach before she could stamp it down. But at least she had done what Enna could not – figured out how to save Mordwin College. Alis could hold onto that for comfort, at least.

  “Certainly not,” Cahan answered, laughing. “We would drive each other mad within a fortnight. Besides, I can’t marry a bloody Salamander witch. I’d never hear the end of it.”

  Enna smiled at him.

  “Back to the drawing board, then. But as it seems we may need this golem in the future, I’d better make sure there are Mordwins to command him. If you see any eligible bachelors who would pair well with the likes of me, send me a scroll.” She playfully punched his arm. Alis struggled to make sure she didn’t have a sour look on her face. It was none of her business who Cahan did or didn’t marry.

  “Thanks again for your
help. Both of you,” The Headmistress smiled at Alis.

  “Now I can show you the hospitality of my school! After you get a little sleep, I’m sure our dining hall can prepare a proper meal for you. Then I will give you a tour of the grounds. You’ll enjoy our magical laboratories,” she said, now cheerful and excited. “I’ll send our groundskeeper out for your things once the sun dries everything up a bit,” Enna finished. She motioned for them all to head back into the college.

  As the group moved en masse towards the front doors of Mordwin, Alis hung back a little, hoping Cahan would join her. He did, and they allowed the group to continue ahead.

  “Thank you,” Alis said quietly.

  She still struggled with the idea of Cahan marrying Enna Mordwin. That would, of course, be how it ended. Nobles...descendants of the old kings of Gale, at that, didn’t marry dirty little farm girls, no matter their magical skill.

  “For what?” Cahan asked her, looking confused. She laughed, the tension from the past several hours leaving her body.

  “For taking that first hit from the golem.” Cahan shrugged.

  “You’re welcome. But that’s what I do. You don’t need to thank me for it.”

  “No, I do,” she said, remembering how so many of her kind viewed physical warriors as disposable. Cahan seemed taken aback by her attitude but accepted her answer all the same.

  Alis yawned loudly.

  “I agree,” Cahan answered, grinning at her. “Pity the monsters don’t keep to reasonable hours.”

  “After a nap, I want to look around. This place is very different from Scholae,” she continued her small talk as they both ascended the stairs towards their guest rooms.

  “I might even need to have a sit-down with the Headmistress to see what childhood stories she can share,” she added with a mischievous smirk. Cahan stopped climbing, staring at her.

  “I’m only jesting,” she said, laughing at his expression.

  “You are silly when you’re tired,” Cahan said a moment later. “When you’re not being a massive grump.”

  “Goodnight, Cahan,” she said kindly as she reached her quarters. He waited for her to close the door, and then continued on to his own room.