“God approves of everything that makes this world even a little bit better.”
“Then why did he create it this bad?”
Elisa smiled again, clasping Alex a bit tighter.
“Maybe for us to make it better?”
“That’s sophistry.”
“Sophistry? Jesus. You do read too much, you little devil. You should spend more time playing with the other kids.”
Alex said nothing. They sat in silence for a while, listening to the crickets, the Klaxon horns, the tires hissing across the asphalt, the shouts of partiers, and the other sounds coming from the night streets.
“Your god will never love me,” Alex whispered suddenly with a sniff. “Nobody will. They all hate me.”
Elisa frowned. For the first time that evening, she looked serious and strict.
“Why do you think that, Alexander?”
Alex held out his hand, biting his lower lip hard enough that it bled.
Around his small fingers, a purple glow flashed just for a moment. But that was enough for the grass around him to fade.
“Because I can’t make this world better,” the boy whispered, panting and sniffing. “Because the other kids won’t play with me. Alex Doom will become a madman. Alex Doom will be shot like a dog. Alex Doom, go back to your horror movies. Alex Doom is the new dark lord.”
Elisa’s stern face melted into a light, tired smile as she continued stroking the boy’s hair.
“You’re as stupid as you are smart, Alexander.”
“But they are afraid of me! Just because that stupid doctor said I’m a black wizard. You know what people say about them: they…we all end up going insane. And doing evil things they execute us for. They even say kids like me are going to be given magic surgery to change their source soon.”
“Nothing like that is ever going to happen. Don’t worry.”
“It is. It’s going to happen. I’m positive. You should have seen that doctor shaking in fear when he saw the instrument readings.”
“People are always afraid of what they don’t understand,” Elisa said, clasping Alex in her arms again. So warm. So cozy. So comforting. “If god created you like that, he did it for a reason.”
“I don’t think so.”
Elisa turned Alex around suddenly, setting him down in front of her and crouching down so their eyes were on the same level. She placed a hand on top of his head.
“Remember this, you little devil, the day you believe your luck has turned against you. You haven’t had anything to do with everything you’re dealing with right now. It’s the world forcing you to do it. But when that day comes, I want you to remember one thing.”
Elisa shifted her hand from his head to his heart.
“In this life, there’s only one thing you truly own. It’s the only thing in the world that is completely in your hands, entirely up to you.”
“What’s that?”
“Your decisions, you little devil. They’re the only thing that always comes from you. Not from those who say mean things about you. Not from your life, however complicated it gets. Not even from him.” Elisa touched her cross. “Only from you. From your choice.”
“That’s complicated,” Alex replied with a frown
“Well,” Elisa said, smiling and standing up. “Don’t you enjoy figuring complicated things out? You’re the boy who reads too much.”
“I like books more than games.”
“You just haven’t tried playing them.”
“I don’t need to.” Alex stuck out his tongue, ending their argument. Or at least he thought that’s what he was doing.
Elisa just laughed, loudly and deeply. She kept laughing until a girl’s shriek came from the tall overgrown shrubs in the eastern part of the courtyard.
It wasn’t a merry, playful scream; it was a desperate one, fearful and hopeless.
“Help…” The shout stopped abruptly, giving place to distant, muffled moaning.
Alex had heard those sounds before. When Elisa turned and took a step in that direction, he grabbed her wrist with both hands.
His handbook fell to the ground, its torn pages scattered by the wind.
“Please don’t,” Alex begged. “Please. Please. Please. Don’t go over there.”
Elisa looked stern, more so than he’d ever seen her. She bent over and pulled herself away before taking him by the shoulders and looking dead in the eye.
“Alexander, if someone’s doing something wrong nearby, you can stop it, and you don’t, you’ll cause another wrong before you even know it.”
With that, she left.
The boy remained there, standing alone among the scattered pages.
He should have followed her.
Run after her.
But he couldn’t.
He couldn’t take even one small step.
He was paralyzed by fear.
***
Alex emerged from his memories, which were hidden deeply and covered in dust and mold, to see that the bus was empty but for him and the driver.
Despite the heavy traffic, they’d already reached the Natural Museum. It was a sizeable building with a white stone façade that stood in stark contrast to the steel and chromium of the surrounding skyscrapers. Built in the Grecian style, it had pillars topped by a triangular porch roof that presumably had its own grandiloquent name. Alex didn’t know what it was.
“Are you staying or going?” The driver was struggling to open his lunch box.
Alex gritted his teeth in pain. The cigarette had burned down devil knew when, and it had seared his fingers. He stood and walked toward the exit, dropping just one word on the way.
“Fool.”
“Who?” the driver asked, a bit startled.
“The cat.” Alex stepped out onto the street and lit another cancer stick.
“What cat?”
“The one I tried to steal.”
“Why?”
“It swallowed an earring.”
“Why?”
“Because it was a fool.”
The driver fell silent for a moment before finally replying.
“That makes perfect sense.”
“Exactly.” Slipping his hands into his pockets, Alex trudged after the student procession, which was ascending the marble stairs to the museum door.
Nobody was yet aware that that particular museum tour would be the weirdest and most perilous in history.
Chapter 25
“Don’t push! Take your time.” The old man in tweed—Professor Camil seemed to be his name—was trying to get the apparently bored freshmen into line. “Please be respectful.”
“Professor.” At the front of the line was a big guy whose uniform bore the emblem of the battle faculty. Those hunks always go first. “With all due respect, we come here every year. Can we go in a bit faster? They’re expecting us.”
“Never mind, let them wait,” the old man said with a dismissive wave of his dry, wrinkled hand. “You’ll have plenty of time for your lust and devil’s water.”
“Lust and devil’s water,” came a whisper from the crowd. “Student parties haven’t been described like that since Merlin’s day.”
“No, longer—since Ptolemais’!”
A wave of giggles washed over the rows of students. Professor Camil and his two female colleagues had finally been able to organize their young prodigies into some semblance of a column.
Standing apart from the procession and resting his shoulder against a pillar, Alex watched them in amusement. The recent high school graduates were apparently daydreaming about celebrating their first day of “adulthood” at some night club.
“Put your battle storages into the blue box.” Two security guards in yellow uniforms stood at the entrance, flanking the archway magic detector. “Your consumer storages into the green box. Keep the tag. The fine for losing it is a hundred—”
“A hundred and fifty credits,” a voice called from the crowd.
Of course, they’d bee
n there plenty of times before. They knew the procedure for magic storage inside and out.
Calmly and without any arguing, the students removed all their magic storages and dropped them into the boxes.
Some wore their magic storages as bracelets, while others went for earrings, hair clips, or chains. Most, however, were shaped like rings, the most common form of consumer magic storage.
There weren’t any students carrying battle storages. The blue box remained empty.
The only one who didn’t hand in a special accessory was Miss Perriot. She just flashed her esper identity card to the guards and walked through the archway scanner.
Espers didn’t need magic storages. It was wizards who had limited mana reserves that ran out quickly without an external supply.
Without his storage, even Alex could only use his best spell in a real battle…once. And that left him as powerless as a mere mortal for a good while.
Higher mana levels meant wizards could hold more magic in their body, though that benefit was outweighed by the fact that high-level spells consumed more mana. That was why all wizards used storages. Ninety percent went with consumer varieties; the other ten percent opted for battle storages.
“That goes for you, too, young man.” The guard’s outstretched baton barred the way for Doom.
He could already see the inside of the museum he’d never visited before, but the two yellow uniforms weren’t letting him in. They were standing in front of a metal archway bracketed with sensors. At its side was a tall black box containing some equipment and topped by a monitor.
The magic detector.
Getting an artifact through without being spotted was impossible.
The baton the guard was holding looked like plain wood with a rubber handle, but it was actually a powerful battle magic staff.
[Item: ??? No access permit. Information unavailable.]
His lenses always failed him with things like that, but Alex felt the familiar tingling sensation in his fingertips.
“To begin with, that’s Professor Dumsky to you, young man,” Dumsky replied as he pushed the baton away. “Use that dildo on someone else.”
“Forgive me, Professor.” The guard stepped back instantly, hiding the baton behind him. “Rudeness won’t get you in, however. Please remove your storage and head through.”
“Professor Dumsky,” old Camil said with a frown that made his face look even more like the wrinkled jacket he had on. “Stop being a clown. I don’t know where you used to teach, but First Magic University is an old and respected institute where attitudes like that will not be tolerated.”
“Old and respected?” Alex snorted, although too quietly for anyone but the two guards to hear. “Sounds like an ad for a brothel.”
The yellow uniforms snorted back, losing their imperturbable calm for a split-second.
“I don’t have any storages,” Alex said.
“Then please walk through the archway detector.”
“Hell’s bells. I was going to walk through anyway!”
“Of course.” The guard who’d been showing off his artifact manhood flashed a predatory smile. “But now, if the magic detector shows that your ring is a storage, you will be fined 10,000 credits. If it’s a battle storage, then multiple that by ten and add a criminal charge.”
“A criminal charge?” Alex flicked his cigarette butt deftly into a trash can. “Oh, I’m so scared.”
His piece said, he walked calmly through the archway. It didn’t make a peep.
“I ap-pologize, Professor,” the astonished guard said. He scratched the back of his head, pushing his cap over his eyes.
“Who’s the clown, Professor Camil?” Doom asked as he walked by the old man.
Without waiting for his students or colleagues, he started through the first museum exhibit. He’d seen pictures online, but being there in person was completely different.
What Alex saw, if he was being honest, exceeded his wildest expectations. He had to wonder why the museum was only crammed with visitors a few days a year, in fact.
The exquisite wall mosaics didn’t just portray historical scenes. They themselves were magic, with the figures they portrayed moving as you watched them. They fought, feasted, signed contracts, stormed fortresses, painted, and crossed seas and skies.
Up in the dome, the mosaics all came together to depict the starry universe. The sparkling constellations and nebulas drifted over visitors’ heads, complete with various magic birds soaring around—from the Thunder Falcon to the giant Rukh and Phoenix.
Alex felt like he was once again the small boy climbing into the florist girl’s lap so she could show him a magic trick and tell him about magic theory.
But all that was overshadowed by everything on the rows of shelves, on the velvet pillows under glass caps, and inside the giant glass cubes guarded by yellow uniforms.
The museum displays.
“Attention, please.” A strict-looking girl in a business suit, her brown hair tied back tightly in a low bun, used her pointer to tap one of the posts holding the red cord separating an item on exhibit from the visitor space. “This is what we traditionally begin every tour with.”
She was talking to a bunch of first-grade children, apparently from an elite school. The museum was too small for the crowds that wanted to get in on the first day of the school year, so it only allowed in a lucky few thousand.
Although it was too small for everyone to fit, the Natural Museum was no smaller than the Louvre or the Hermitage.
It was probably bigger, in fact.
The kids gasped, gripping the cord. Their guide had lost their attention. Instead, they were captivated by a large stone, smoothed and rounded by the glaciers that once formed it.
An absolutely ordinary stone.
…save for the sword protruding from it.
“One of the most powerful artifacts ever. It was created by Merlin, hardened by dragonfire, and forged from the light of a falling star.”
A small hand poked up. It belonged to a little girl with braces and comical ponytails.
“Wasn’t it forged from the star itself?”
“No, dear, from its light,” the museum guide replied with a smile.
What an expressive smile. It spoke of weariness and impending doom but also resilience and resoluteness, and all at the same time.
That was when the tour began.
Darting a quick glance over at the freshmen, Alex followed the guide. It was his first visit there, after all, and he wanted a fresh look at the tourist mecca of Atlantis.
***
Two hours later, with most kids doing anything but listening, the museum guide at last got to the final part of her speech.
She looked just as bad as the kids’ schoolteacher. Sweaty and panting the same way they were, she fanned her face with a tablet.
But Alex was happy.
In those two hours, he’d seen so many fragments of magic history that his memories were going to last him for the next few years. King Arthur’s sword had given way to Merlin’s staff and Morgana’s wand. Then the real travel through the ages began.
Gilgamesh’s club and Enkidu’s belt. A small replica of the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Scepters belonging to the pharaohs of ancient Egypt. The Book of the Living and the Book of the Dead. (That was surprising. Alex used to think those two were fakes, making it small wonder they were guarded so thoroughly.) The first totems. Ancient relics of magic races. The sword of Achilles. The lightning of Zeus. The Fountain of Youth. (It was completely dry, though, and featured a plate that read Temporarily not working. Alex had a feeling it was just a mold.) A jade sword from the Warring States period. The sword of Izanagi. The bow of…that Chinese guy who shot the sun with an arrow. The staff of Sun Wukong. And many, many more.
There were even skeletons and molds of all different species and varieties of incredible magic creatures.
In a word, the tour was packed. And it was nearing the end.
The bunch o
f first graders Alex was following stopped by a giant statue.
Apparently made by a Greek sculptor, it was a muscular man with his arms outstretched overhead to hold a black ball. An orb. Once whole, but now smashed.
“There’s the crown jewel of our collection,” the museum guide, panting a bit, told the children. “I’m sure you’ve all seen it in your history textbooks. It’s called…”
“Poseidon’s Pearl,” came a whisper in Alex’s ear. He turned to meet the peach-haired girl’s eyes.
Leia Perriot was standing next to him.
“…Poseidon’s Orb,” the guide announced proudly.
“A common translation error,” Leia said with a smile, flashing a row of even, snow-white teeth.
“Once upon a time, the god of the sea and storms, the patron of Atlantis, created this pearl to hide his island from the rest of the world. But as with the island of magic, he later had to conceal the magic itself from mortals. All of it. It was this artifact, this orb, that upheld the barrier between our worlds for thousands of years.”
A small girl’s hand popped up.
“Was that the thing they tried to destroy? I mean, those—”
“Those and many others.” The museum guide interrupted the curious girl for the first time. She must have really been exhausted. “Everyone tried to destroy it. The total number of attempts is over a thousand.”
“Seven hundred and forty-two, to be precise,” Leia said, still in a whisper.
“What are you—”
Before Alex could finish, his colleague put a finger to her plump lips and hissed like a rattlesnake.
“But it all ended with the arrival of those little round things we all wear on our eyes today. The orb was no longer needed, so it was smashed during a special ceremony by the residents of Atlantis and representatives of the UN, a precursor to the United Races.”
“So, if I take my lenses off, I’ll be able to see all the places the orb used to hide?” the small girl asked, her forehead wrinkled.
“No, my dear. Those places belong to the magic races. They’re their native homes, all known by different names. Olympus. Tir Na Nog. Shambhala. Atlantis.” The guide paused. “El Dorado. Etheria. Neverland. And many more. They’re scattered around the world, and it was only recently that they changed the invitation-only policy.”
Dark Wizard's Case Page 14
