Tommy Black and the Staff of Light

by Jake Kerr

  “Good God, boy. Don’t do that!”

  “Why? Does it not belong to them?”

  “Have you not been paying attention? The staff belongs to no one but itself. Better to destroy it and rid the world of one of the last pieces of magic that humans can control.” Mister Ali had made the same argument, and while I vaguely understood Mister Ali’s point about the danger of magic, I also remembered his joy of magic working with the technology of the train. Maybe my great grandfather didn’t understand this exciting future.

  “But magic is a force for good, too! Your own son used it to help defeat the Germans, and what about the great achievements of magic and technology working together. I rode here on a train that was as fast as the wind and flew across water!”

  My great grandfather stared at me as if I were an idiot. “I would be angry, boy, but I can only pity you and your ignorance.” He leaned forward, and his glare was uncomfortable. “Let me ask you this: How does that majestic train run?” He emphasized the word “majestic” and sneered when he said it.

  “The engineer uses magic?” I answered weakly. I did not know but assumed it was powerful magic created by the engineer, who was some kind of transportation magician. Even as I considered the scenario in my mind, I knew it was ridiculous.

  “The train is powered by a Marid, enslaved in the engine and tortured until he uses his magic to power the train and create its magic.”

  “Marid?” I had heard them mentioned over the past few days, but I was still unclear on what they were.

  And my question was the last straw. My great grandfather’s temper boiled over. “A Marid! The most powerful of the magical creatures. It was enslaved by trickery, you ignorant child! Is that the magic you are proud of? Is that the magic you want to use to gain fame and power for your family?”

  “No!” I threw the cane to the ground. “I want none of that!”

  Joseph held up his hand, and the cane flew into it. “It is the bargain you now live with. Here—” He handed me the cane. “Take this and do with it what you will. I’m too old. I’m not even a Plan C. I’m a curiosity. Nothing more.” He stood up. “Give it to Vingrosh. He could rid it from the world. Exchange it for my son if you want. I don’t care.” He turned away from me and took a few steps and then paused. “Cain wants the staff. He brought me here as insurance. To use the staff against Hitler if he could not. I came only to hold it again and to remind myself that at least one person could use the staff to create beauty and not destruction. I have done that.”

  I stood up as he walked to the door and ran to him. “Wait!”

  “Goodbye, Thomas. I like to think that you’ll make the right decision, but, alas, I don’t have the energy to find out.”

  He was at the door when I reached him. He moved slow. He was old and frail, and I could tell that he had used more energy in the past few minutes than he had in a long time. “You said you were the second most powerful Archmage in history in the room. Did you mean that I was the most powerful?”

  He looked at me, and I wanted him to smile, to say, “You are! Now use your power for good.” But he did none of those things. He shook his head and opened the door. He walked out, then turned to me, and said, “How much do you know of light? Can it bend? What does its absence mean? What happens if you slow it down?” I didn’t understand what he was saying, and he clearly noticed. “Perhaps it is best that you don’t know.” And with that, he walked toward the stairs while I stood in the doorframe. I watched him depart, wondering if I’d ever see him again.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  VINGROSH SHOWS FEAR

  I considered following him, but I knew that I had no time. Mister Ali wanted the staff to destroy it. Cain wanted the staff to use it. They were probably looking for me, and no one seemed to care about finding or rescuing my grandfather. The best thing for me to do was to look for him on my own.

  Wait, not on my own. With Naomi. I quickly put my shoes on and rushed back to her room. I rapped on the door, and it opened after the first knock. “You will not believe what happened,” she stated as I walked past her into the room.

  I considered Cain arriving and warning her about me. Or Mister Ali chasing me down. Or someone else ruining our plans. “What?” I replied absent-mindedly, thinking of all the bad things that could happen. She walked over and fell onto the cot.

  “The Head Boy stopped by. He told me that if I’d reconsider my unreasonable refusal to learn some domestic spells, he was given permission to teach me some elementary shields.” She grabbed a pillow and screamed into it, shaking her head back and forth, her hair flying about her face. She stopped and tossed the pillow next to her. “I needed that.” She looked at me, smiled, and then frowned again as she continued speaking. “He acted like he was going out of his way to do me some great favor, and when I asked him he couldn’t even do the Blessing of Kaveh! My mother taught me that when I was ten! The entire academy is filled with incompetents!”

  “You should have illustrated how to cast a detonation, using him as a target, of course.”

  “I was tempted.”

  I sat on the chair. “I had a visitor, too.”

  Naomi sat up. “Who? Was it Cain?”

  “No. It was my great grandfather.” I then described his visit, and the history of the staff. I left nothing out, because I wanted to see what Naomi would say.

  She was quiet for a bit, and then replied, “A gardener and a streetlight. Doesn’t sound very powerful to me.” I knew she was teasing because she was smiling when she said it. “Oh well, you may as well use your instrument of oppression to free us. You can deal with your wicked family legacy later.”

  While I knew that Naomi was teasing, the truth was uncomfortably close to the surface for me. I decided to change the topic to more practical concerns. “So, how am I to free us?”

  Naomi smiled and held up her index finger. “You blind everyone with the staff and we could just walk out while they stumble around.” She held up another finger. “I could send a detonation off through a window near the main building here, as everyone runs to investigate we could sneak out.” She held up a third finger. “I could just blow up everyone as we fight our way out.” She dropped her hand and when I didn’t reply, she added, “Actually, I rather like the third idea.”

  “I think there may be too many soldiers for you to blow up everyone.” I shrugged.

  “You’re right. Looks like you get to blind everyone.”

  “I don’t like that idea either!” I objected. “I don’t want to blind anyone.” I actually wouldn’t have minded blinding Cain, but I didn’t mention that. “I think we should just sneak out.”

  Naomi stood up. I could tell that I angered and disappointed her again. “Are you kidding? You expect to just walk out?” She waved her finger at me. “And you’re worried about blinding people when Cain set you on fire and Ali set Shadows to attack you?”

  She stood above me, her hands on her hips and her blonde hair a tangled mess and yet still magnificent as it framed her angry face. I wanted to do nothing more than to impress her, but the thought of hurting innocent soldiers as we escaped was repugnant to me. For the first time, I challenged her. “That’s always your solution isn’t it? Hurt others so things are easier for you.” I stood up, and her eyes went wide. “Well, you know what? Sometimes hurting people doesn’t get the job done.” It was my turn to point my finger at her. “I know you’re alone, and it hurts. I’m alone, and it hurts. But my solution isn’t to just destroy things.”

  I turned and threw my hands up and walked away from her. “You’re a powerful magician, maybe you can just cast an illusion spell!” I exclaimed, more out of frustration than as a real idea.

  Naomi was quiet, so I turned to look at her. To my shock the furious clench of her jaw that somehow made her even more pretty transformed into a smile. “Yes. That’s a good idea.” She shook her head, slid her hair behind her ears, and then rolled up her sleeves. When I didn’t say anything, she added, “I can
get us out of here.”

  And I believed her. I had never seen her cast an illusion, and it was obvious that the various magicians all seemed to focus on one aspect of magic. The Masters were an example of that. Naomi seemed to embrace the mastery of destructive magic that Master Richard did, but I had also seen her shield spell and also the spell she did for Lord Gort. Why couldn’t she be as mighty as three masters? She knew more about magic than anyone other than perhaps Cain.

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “It is a spell that will have us fade into the background,” she stated. “I have only cast it on stationary items, and it will be very difficult to maintain while walking. I will need to keep my eyes closed while I concentrate.” She turned to me. “You will need to hold my arm and guide me as we walk.”

  She held out her arm, and I fumbled with the cane as I moved it to my left hand. I took hold of her arm and Naomi then closed her eyes. It all seemed a bit sudden, but Naomi seemed impatient to get going.

  “Let me know when you’re ready,” I stated, but Naomi was already making motions with her right hand and moving toward the door. I opened the door, and I guided Naomi through.

  I guided us down the stairs and almost jerked us to a halt when I saw Felice pacing around the entryway, as if she were waiting for someone. I trusted Naomi, however, and continued to walk steadily toward the door. Felice didn’t notice us. When her gaze wandered our way, she just continued to look around. As Naomi said, we had somehow faded into the background.

  We exited the building, and I considered whether I should try to find some other way out, but the front gate was closest. Her arm constantly moved under my hand, and I did my best to guide her while not interrupting her spell.

  I noticed trouble. In the distance I could see the three masters moving in a group toward the door we just exited. I did my best to increase our pace, but we were still a long way from the gate.

  It was at that point that I realized the illusions surrounding the Citadel had completely confused me. I looked around. I saw the gate clearly ahead, but as I looked elsewhere it moved to my left. I had just assured myself that the gate was ahead of me, when it appeared to the left again. Surprised, I jerked Naomi’s arm as I tried to change directions and get our bearings correct. She exhaled an “Oh.” I steadied both of us, but it was too late. Naomi’s hands started to move even faster, and as I looked at her, perspiration formed on her forehead.

  We took another few steps before Naomi whispered, her voice strained, “The illusion is failing.” After a few more steps she opened her eyes and looked right at me. “Run!”

  We ran.

  There were shouts and soldiers swarmed across the field toward us. There were a few dozen soldiers at the gate, and the nonchalance of how they stood waiting for us was more disturbing than the soldiers chasing us. It underscored the absurdity of our position: We were just running into their arms.

  It was then that I saw a flash and then an explosion above the gate. Bits of stone rained down on the soldiers, and their nonchalance quickly turned to attention. Some fled through the gate while others dropped to their knees and raised rifles to their shoulders. I looked at Naomi. She was preparing another detonation.

  “Hey, I didn’t kill anyone!” She was breathless. I had hoped it was from effort, but a part of me knew it was from joy.

  The rat-a-tat of machine gun fire sounded, and I could see the bullets hitting the dust behind us. “They have machine guns. We can’t beat them with force!”

  I looked at the staff in my hand, and I knew what I had to do. Cain would kill us for the staff. There was no doubt. I didn’t want to think that Mister Ali would kill us to destroy the staff, but he had attacked his own family at the Persian Garden for it. Our situation was desperate. I knew I could blind everyone with the power of the staff. They would not be dead, but they would live the rest of their lives in permanent darkness. Was that something that I could accept?

  We ran toward the wall as the words of my great-grandfather entered my head. I was the most powerful Archmage in history. But all I could do was create light. Wait, he said I could do more than that. Could I bend light? And what was that about absence? Then it hit me. Could I absorb light? Could I blind everyone temporarily not by burning their eyes with light but by taking the light away?

  I squeezed the staff and everything went black. No, it was darker than black, a fuliginous deepness that was impossible—the total absence of light. I stumbled and threw my arms out as Naomi said, “What happened? Have you blinded us, too?” I grabbed Naomi’s arm. I shook my head in disbelief. I had blinded everyone all right, including us. “You idiot! You did it, didn’t you? You have blinded us, too!” Naomi tried to pull her arm away, but I held strong.

  “We are not blind. There is just no light. Keep walking. They still know where we are.” I could hear shouts in the distance and the sound of boots stumbling about.

  “Where does the darkness end?” Naomi asked. Her voice was hushed, and my heart leapt as I took her tone as meaning she was impressed.

  “I don’t know, but I wanted darkness for as far as I could see, so I believe it is to the horizon.”

  “Nice job, but it would be nicer if we could see.” I considered the idea of just letting light enter our eyes but no one else’s, but I sensed that it would be impossible. I then considered creating a cocoon of light that only surrounded us, and as soon as I thought of it I realized that the staff could make it so.

  Light exploded around us, and I had to cover my eyes. It wasn’t that the light was extremely bright; it was that our eyes went from no light to light in an instant. The contrast was painful, and both Naomi and I stumbled.

  As my eyes got used to the light I could see that we were surrounded by a perfect sphere of light that extended about five feet around us. Beyond was perfect black. The light emanated from the tip of the staff, and as I moved the staff the sphere moved. I walked forward a step, and the light followed.

  “Streetlight!” Naomi said, and while it was her insult of choice for me, I could see that she was smiling when she said it.

  We made our way toward the gate, and that was when we ran into someone. As the soldier entered the sphere of light, he threw his arms over his eyes and cried out. A voice mere feet away yelled out, “What is it?” As we retreated backward from the soldier, he yelled out, “I found them!”

  My wonderful magic didn’t seem to be very effective, after all. We could find our way out with the light, but there were too many soldiers for us to get away without alerting them to our position or allowing them to see us.

  “Make for the field. It is so large that our likelihood of running into someone is low,” Naomi whispered. I led us across the lawn.

  After about thirty yards, Naomi spoke up. Her eyes were darting around us. “Could you make the light smaller? That would lower the chance of others finding us.” I nodded and reduced the size of the sphere to just outside our grasp. As the light settled around us, I heard a deep metallic voice.

  “Hail…” The slight echo, the baritone… The last time I heard the voice was in an alley back in New York. The only difference was that the voice was now speaking in English.

  “Vingrosh,” I whispered.

  “Archmage.” The voice came from just beyond our circle of light.

  I squeezed the staff in my hand, considering destroying him immediately by filling the entire countryside with a blistering magical light, but I stayed my hand. I wanted to know of my grandfather, and I had hope that Vingrosh would know his whereabouts.

  “The leader of the Shadows.” Naomi whispered, shrinking away from the direction of Vingrosh’s voice. I nodded.

  “I have been following you, Archmage, but I feared to approach.” The idea that Vingrosh feared me made me smile even as it awed me. Vingrosh was afraid of me! I was not just a streetlight. Perhaps my great grandfather was correct.

  “Where is my Grandfather?” I asked. My voice was not just steady but commanding. Un
derstanding my power over the Shadows gave me confidence. I may still have been weak compared to Cain, but for creatures of darkness, I was mighty indeed.

  “The Pehlivan is safe, but the Djinn have taken him and his shield.” His shield. He meant Mister Oz. “I cannot order the Djinn to return him. They follow their own counsel.” The voice had moved behind me. I swiftly turned to face it. While that would have frightened me before, now I considered it as an indication of Vingrosh’s fright. “This darkness you have created…” Vingrosh paused.

  “I want my grandfather back,” I stated, extending the light around us slightly. There was a metallic cry, and before he could reply, I added, “and Mister Oz, too.” I thought of the last time I saw them both, bruised and bloodied in the Persian fortress in Manhattan.

  “I will lead you to them, but can do no more than that. It is up to the Djinn. I will speak to them on your behalf, but you must,” he paused, and then repeated, an almost pleading emphasis in his voice, “you must build us a home of this darkness you have created.” His words came in a rush. “I have followed you to discuss the staff, but this is something else entirely. This darkness. I have never experienced anything so tranquil and beautiful.” There was a pause and then he repeated, “You must build us a home of this darkness.”

  It took me a moment to understand what he was saying. I had removed all light. I had created a shadow deeper than any possible. For a Shadow, the magical darkness I created must have been like heaven. Vingrosh wanted me to build that for him and presumably his people.

  I considered the idea. I could do it. That was obvious. The staff told me so. This was the price of freedom for my grandfather and Mister Oz and perhaps others. But what of the staff? Vingrosh attacked us for the staff. Would he still try to take it?

  “You will take the staff,” I said flatly.