“Let the prisoner come forward.”
Shotwell swallowed hard. He was shaking, but he walked to the railing unaided.
“Thodd Shotwell, you are charged with bringing into my realm substances that I have forbidden, that are forbidden by the compact your own mayor has sworn with me, substances that are injurious to my people. How do you plead?”
Shotwell cleared his throat. “Guilty, sir,” he said in a small, quavering voice.
“By the accords of Nightmare, you are subject to the laws of my realm. I am within my rights as sovereign to sentence you as I would one of my own subjects. There is a petition before me to relinquish my rights and return you to your own world. Can any say why I should do this?”
As Shotwell stood frozen, Leonid started to move forward. Werner grabbed his arm hard and held him back. “Wait,” he whispered.
From somewhere down the circular walkway, a voice said, “I will speak to that, with your leave, O Lord of Ventose.”
Leonid turned to look. A robed figure stood at the rail, human in outline under the robes, but strange in some way.
“You may speak, child of my sister Heget.”
The figure pushed back its cowl. The head that was revealed bore two faces side by side. The one on the left was a woman, on the right a man. This was an incubus, a native of Verdemaire. But what was it doing here?
The male face spoke and gestured with its right hand, also masculine, to indicate where Shotwell stood. “My queen, your sister, asks for clemency for the young human. He admits his fault and takes responsibility for his actions, unwitting as they were. He stands accused by the justice of the Midworld and will not escape punishment for his misdeeds.”
“I admit that this is true. Yet why do you speak to it?”
The incubus’s female face spoke then. “We believe that the human is best served by human justice. As none of your people were harmed, it seems fitting to us that he be returned.”
“Your petition has merit. I will grant it. Is an envoy from the Midworld present?”
Werner stepped to the rail. “I am here, Lord Chimiculeon.”
“Are you prepared to take the prisoner to the Midworld to face justice?”
“I am.”
“Then let it be so.”
The great body in the middle of the sphere collapsed then, the bodies scurrying away from the deflating mass to swarm up the walls of the chamber. Soon there was no trace of the figure, just the swarming motes covering the walls.
Werner took Shotwell by the arm and led him back out into the corridor. The warriors formed up around them again.
Once they were headed down the corridor Leonid asked softly, “What was that all about?”
Werner sighed. “Politics. Now Queen Heget has a marker she can call in the next time Verdemaire has a trade dispute with the Lord Mayor.”
He put his arm on Shotwell’s shoulder. The young man seemed to be in shock, moving like a sleepwalker. “I told you it would work out. I know that was rough, but you held it together. Good man.”
Twenty minutes later, the three of them had been transported back to the Midworld, the grid in the Malignium sending them to the front garden of Government House where agents of the Committee for Public Safety waited to take Shotwell into custody.
Leonid stayed with the boy through the arrest and booking and promised that he would be there for the trial. Then he headed back to his rooming house—not quite in time for dinner—and started to worry about his own upcoming inquest.
The worst they could do was fire him, he knew, and he didn’t need the job.
Well, that wasn’t quite true. He didn’t need the money. He’d retired from a lucrative private practice and had invested his money well. He’d initially taken the teaching position as a favor to an old colleague, when the school was starting up, and it was hard to find experienced magi who were willing to spend their days lecturing and their evenings preparing lesson plans. He hadn’t planned on making a second career of it, but then his Annalise had died, very suddenly, hit by a laundry van while crossing the street.
The school was all he had. Without it, he’d be just another old widower, spending afternoons feeding pigeons in the park and drinking too much. His students gave him something to look forward to.
Curse Shotwell, anyway, the fool. He had the gift, an intuitive grasp of the principles of spell work. He’d breezed through the mathematics of conjuration while other students struggled. He had so much promise—all gone now, squandered. You couldn’t get any kind of license to work in the magic industry with a criminal record. Where would he go now? Back to the docks, to be a stevedore like his old man? Such a stupid waste of talent.
A momentary lapse of reason—a single error in judgment. That’s all it took.
Even after several drinks, Leonid was long getting to sleep that night.
In a week, he was back in the classroom.
The inquest found him innocent of all wrongdoing. Just a lab accident; it could happen to anyone. Privately, he was cautioned that the incident might adversely affect his chances with the tenure committee.
Tenure. As if that had ever been a possibility. He wasn’t a researcher, with a stack of published papers to his name. He was a middling industrial magus, a man who had made a career with careful, unimaginative work. He knew the job and how to do it safely. Let other people experiment and get themselves torn to bits more likely than not.
On the following Sixday he was back in the lab. He ostentatiously studied his notes, not looking up as the class trickled in. At 1300, he looked up and counted heads. Twenty-three.
The room was silent as he got to his feet.
“Today we are beginning the unit on organic transformations,” he began, then fell quiet when he saw a hand upraised.
“Yes, Mr. Kent?” He asked nervously. “What is it?”
“Magus,” Kent said, standing. “We just wanted to say... we know you did all you could for Shotwell. You went with him, into the Malignium. You didn’t have to do that.”
“Well, I...” Leonid shrugged. “I just did my job.”
Kent reached into his book bag and pulled out a bottle of a familiar square shape and filled with a green liquid that sparkled in the sunlight. “We wanted to get you something.”
He walked down the row between the lab tables and deposited the bottle on Leonid’s desk. “We just wanted to say thank you. On Shotwell’s behalf.”
Leonid looked at the bottle. Absinthe. The good stuff, too, a pricey bottle. There was writing on the label, in black glass marker.
Leonid picked up the bottle and examined it. They’d signed it, looked like the entire class.
“Thank you, gentlemen,” Leonid said formally, to cover the lump in his throat. “I don’t think I can say how much this means to me.”
He felt his eyes filling with tears and turned away to the board to hide his face. A bit shakily, he started writing, then broke off. Without turning around he said, “I wish I could have done more. I wish... none of that had happened.”
He stood silently and got himself back under control, blinked away his tears. When he felt he was ready, he finished chalking the equation he had begun, then turned back to face the class.
“Organic transformations,” he began again. “The important thing to remember with organic transformations is that the total value of the humors will always balance out. Understanding the relationships between them is vital to workings of these natures. You must maintain equilibrium.”
He sighed, then repeated. “Equilibrium. Really, that’s what magic is all about. Maintaining your equilibrium.”
Misha Burnett has little formal education, but has been writing poetry and fiction for around forty years. During this time he has supported himself and his family with a variety of jobs, including locksmith, cab driver, and building maintenance.
* * *
His first four novels, Catskinner’s Book, Cannibal Hearts, The Worms Of Heaven, and Gingerbread Wolves comprise
a series, collectively known as The Book Of Lost Doors.
* * *
Major influences include Tim Powers, Samuel Delany, William Burroughs, and Phillip K. Dick.
More information about upcoming projects can be found at http://mishaburnett.wordpress.com/
The Fox and the Snake
Audrey Andrews
Ulrykah Fletcher never quite fit in at regular school, but when she started at Pender Academy, a well-respected college of magic, she expected that would change. But after managing to befriend only two classmates (and one magical creature) her first year, it turns out it’s not about magic – she’s just terrible at making friends. And now that she’s a sophomore prefect, she’s even less likely to receive invitations to forbidden parties where she could totally-not-flirt with that cute guy she’s been secretly crushing on since last year. No, she’ll be too busy dealing with bratty dorm-mates, investigating the creepy dungeon, and spying on a certain mysterious character – all while studying hard to keep her scholarship. At least the monster that was loose on campus is probably gone…
The Fox and the Snake
Once upon a time in the mysterious and cursed land of New Jersey, there was a little girl standing on a playground crying tears of rage. It was an all too normal scene at a normal school, of normal children surrounding a classmate with an abnormal name. Ulrykah Fletcher wasn’t the only child to be bullied for an obvious strangeness, but she was the only one struggling not to use to her secret talents to retaliate against… was it her entire second-grade class? She looked from face to face, blurred through her tears, and saw every single one of them, either watching curiously and being no help at all, or cruelly joining in Jimmy’s chant. Even though she wanted to, even though he deserved it, there was one rule she must not break: don’t let anyone find out. And she hadn’t, not even when she’d caused Jimmy’s homework to disappear mysteriously and him to miss recess the day before. She had been careful—he couldn’t know.
But now, with everyone, even Sandra and Miranda, who were supposed to be her friends, watching… Well, she would just have to handle this the normal way.
She marched up to the loathsome little boy, who was waggling his fingers with his thumbs in his ears, singing “RIKA REEKS!” over and over at the top of his lungs, and kicked him in the shin.
She backed up a few paces to admire the beauty of the scene, as his wide eyes narrowed and his gasping mouth turned to a snarl.
“Serves you right!” she yelled. “You should know better!”
The chanting had finally stopped, but the crowd still stood watching as Jimmy’s eyes began to water.
“Look, he’s crying!” Clint exclaimed.
“I’m not crying—my eyes are watering!” Jimmy yelled back. “I’m gonna get you!”
Rika hadn’t meant to start a fight, but if that would distract Jimmy, then maybe she could finally get around the wall of kids and make it to a teacher—but why was Jimmy walking toward her?
OH. Uh oh.
Rika only had time to take a single step back before Jimmy pushed her to the ground. For a moment, her mind protested, and she couldn’t react. It wasn’t fair—he had been mean to her first, so her kicking him was justified, but this?
“Stupid Ulrykah!” he said, laughing. “No one likes you!”
Well then, it was on.
She ran her right palm over the dirt and scattered sand from the nearby sandpit, summoning the tiny grains until she had a fistful. Then she pulled her feet back underneath her and, as she stood, flung them into his eyes, her aim guided by a softly whispered spell. Then she ran, intentionally bumping in to him, knocking him back, heading for a small gap in the wall of children, and plowing right between Sandra and Miranda, who complained loudly about being run into. Oh there were their voices. She began sobbing again but kept running and didn’t stop until she reached the classroom.
Stop that, Rika told herself, shaking her fluffy mane of hair as if it would rid her of all her childhood insecurities. Dwelling on something that had happened so long ago, in the normal—no, the unmagical—world when she was now about to start her sophomore year of college, studying magic at Pender Academy, was silly.
Except for the obvious problem that she wasn’t any better at making friends now than she had been then and had opted to go out for breakfast with her mother rather than sit alone in the dining hall on the first day. So perhaps a little reflection was warranted, she thought as she walked up the path through the freshly-mown grass toward Pender Academy’s stately Graeme Hall for orientation. Now that she was studying magic full-time, keeping up with and even surpassing her peers who had gone to private magical schools their whole lives, she could forget about trying to connect with her old high school crowd. Now she just had to figure out how to connect with the college crowd.
I made two real friends last year, she thought. If I keep going at that rate, I’ll have eight when I graduate!
She took a deep breath and exhaled her negative thoughts into the still warmish early fall air. It was a new year, after all, and she was on track to succeed in life. All that time last year she’d spent studying, chafing under the ridiculous requirements to read this boring book instead of that interesting one, to direct her magical abilities into mentally manipulating equations instead of learning to levitate, and not getting into the magically-enhanced mischief typical of freshmen, had paid off with an appointment as a dorm prefect. Accepting the offer came with a substantial reduction in her tuition, the reason she couldn’t say no to becoming, in essence, a paid snitch. She was an obvious choice, she supposed; although what the faculty committee didn’t realize was that the reason why she hadn’t been involved in the drunken debauchery and forest fire last January, the summoning-gone-awry a month after that, or even the Friday the thirteenth incident was simply that she hadn’t been invited. Not only that, she hadn’t even caught wind of any of the incidents prior to them occurring. However, if she were being honest with herself, she would have to admit that, had she known, she would have advised the organizers against carrying out their plans and refused to participate. And, if she were being very painfully honest, she’d also have to admit that, at least in the case of the stolen combustible bromeliad extract, she would have alerted staff—not to ruin anyone’s fun, but to prevent the otherwise inevitable explosion.
Yes, she was an obvious choice after all, she admitted, as she climbed the stone steps to the stately main building. The grass was still green, and the leaves only faintly tinged with yellow. That would change, though, as soon as Professor Belosevic returned from her travels in Croatia and spread her love of autumn with unnaturally-cold temperatures. Ulrykah stood for a moment on the wide stoop of Graeme Hall, drinking in the sun’s warmth on her bare arms until she felt both relaxed and energized enough to take on the crowd.
Ulrykah wrapped her hand around the iron dragon-tail door handle and stepped back, using her body weight (not magic—that would be pathetic) to pull open one of the heavy wooden doors of the gothic revival castle and slipped into the entry hall before the door could slam shut on her. To her relief, there wasn’t much of a crowd yet, and it was confined mostly to the sunlit lounge to the left and, from the sound of echoing chatter and clatter, the dining hall beyond. That gave Ulrykah a chance for a few deep breaths and to focus on what she could see, not on the growing anxiety that made her feel both conspicuous and invisible. New banners had been hung for the start of the year, but everything else was the same: the wide stairs with dark wooden banister opposite the front doors and the hall on the right, just past the creepy dungeon stairs, to classrooms and offices. The hall was creepy enough because there were no windows, only faint light from orbs in sconces that cast odd shadows of perfectly normal people and things, like the guy in the dark hoodie who was crossing the long passage halfway down. He held what looked like a swipe card in one hand, which the light orbs turned into a shadow of giant talons. She glanced back at his hand as he passed through a doorway to reassure herself
, only to see that he did indeed have long yellowed fingernails.
Gross, she thought. Someone needs to tell that guy nail fungus is treatable. She stuck out her tongue at the thought and turned away to see if anyone she knew had arrived yet.
The first familiar face she saw in the entrance hall that morning belonged to Rav, a friend who wouldn’t care about her new status—not because his behavior was always in line with school rules but because his mischief occurred mostly in a boys’ dorm, which Ulrykah wasn’t responsible for. How he got around the male prefects, she didn’t know; maybe they also had a taste for mushroom powder. Or maybe he was just so likeable that no one wanted to get him in trouble.
They greeted with a casual hug, as usual (Rav was a hugger). As Ulrykah answered his questions about her summer, she noticed a small unfamiliar boy walk by with wide eyes set on Rav. She chuckled. Rav did tend to stand out. He was tall, though not a giant, and in shape, although not especially muscular, with a healthy golden-brown glow to his skin—and absolutely no hair whatsoever. He also looked a little like a bird around the eyes, which he’d asked Ulrykah not to say anymore, so she didn’t; but she couldn’t help thinking of him as a giant featherless avian creature. The little freshman would get used to him soon, though, as everyone did.
She was especially glad to have someone to talk to a moment later, when James walked past. If Rav was a bird of prey, James was a wolf—a friendly wolf, though, the kind who would help you find a misplaced book in the library during finals just because he’d noticed you had been looking for something without any luck, not the stalking and eating you type. Maybe a Husky or a Malamute then.
“Hey,” he said as he passed.
“Hey,” she replied, so casually, so smoothly. He would never suspect a thing. “How was your summer?”
Fantastic Schools: Volume 2 Page 25
