by Anne Zoelle
“Great. Make sure you do so or you will regret it. Have a nice day!”
I nodded quickly as he turned and walked back down the hall, tapping his tablet. I shut the door, threw everything except my bed linens and toothbrush into Marsgrove's paper, and ran outside. Standing at the front of the building, a pressure started to build in me. A painful cramp made me bend over briefly. I was hoping this was the punishment magic instead of Marsgrove doing something freaky to me from somewhere. Another cramp rolled over me.
I concentrated on the travel map and willed my magic to pinpoint my location and take me to the library by the fastest route possible. It snapped into place, like a freaky paper GPS.
I started running, following the dotted path on the page.
I knocked over a trash can, then stopped to right it—full body cramp.
Climbed a wall—too slowly—zap, zap, zap.
Bounded two fences with limited liabilities but had to dodge bushes that reached out to ensnare my shirt, which slowed me down—double cramp.
Ran through the middle of a practice field—got yelled at—social pain only.
Overturned another garbage can—left it. Guiltily circled back around to pick it up—light zap.
When I experienced remorse, the pain lessened. Interesting, but irrelevant in my current panic.
I vaulted the last impediment, and brushed a banana peel from my leg in disgust as I ran to the giant steel building in front of me. It reminded me a little of the mechanical spider I had seen walking in the Depot—all slim silver limbs crossing, beams supporting each other in diagonal and crosshatched fashion. I checked the map one last time to make sure I had the right place and breathed a sigh of relief.
Opting for the “fastest” way had obviously been the wrong thing to ask. Being a feral mage kind of sucked. I should have asked the map for the “best” way to reach the library.
I'm sure this was another one of those training things that normal mages were taught from birth—or at least for the two to three years at prep school—how to ask questions of and to magical objects and creatures. Visions of genies and lamps and frogs and sphinxes combined with dire warnings and consequences in my mind. Who knew what Aladdin might have become in this stinking world? And that frog prince? Probably a total bum.
The library building was...enormous. My skin tingled as I ran over a stone seal embedded into the walkway. A sign on the door shimmered, then read, “No chaos magic may be performed on textbooks under any condition—up to a Level Four Offense.”
I slowed down—no zap, no cramp, no pain. I leaned over, resting my hands on my knees as I surreptitiously looked around. I couldn't see Marsgrove.
My punishment seemed to be fulfilled by crossing the seal so close to the entrance. I could run somewhere else on the mountain now, and keep running, or I could enter a place overflowing with knowledge and try to figure out how to free myself.
I slipped in behind a group of mages.
A sea of desks, support beams, and open staircases spread before me. In contrast to my emotion, the space was brightly lit and optimistic; the lighting almost jaunty. Across the space, mages were flipping through books and taking notes by hand or with wands and small scepters, circling hands and cursive loops over papers, and plugging cards into readers similar to Delia's. Some desks were pushed together and people were animatedly talking to each other, yet quiet stretched over the whole room. Obviously an enchantment of some kind.
There was no evidence of a help desk.
I watched as students climbed and descended the various staircases. The floors above were made of glass—both clear and frosted—making the view visually terrific through the geometric layers that were formed. Most of the students descending the staircases were carrying cards. I jogged up the nearest staircase. No one on the first floor was going to help me unless I was prepared to start shouting insanities.
The second floor had a far different floor plan. Wall after wall jutted out from the sides, others formed cross sections in the middle to create large industrial partitions. Smaller nooks and crannies were set up between some of the walls and cross sections and contained cozy chairs. Students stood in front of the walls, manipulating pages and occasionally protrusions—pages blazing past, as if the walls were giant tablet computers. Fully-formed books slid out with pages printed by magic.
I perched uncomfortably on a chair and withdrew my journal and the single Layer 2 pencil that had survived the magical unpack explosion. I started drawing a snare for Marsgrove while surreptitiously and carefully watching a student's fingers manipulate a wall. Nearly all the books on her wall featured a woman dancing with magic.
Each time she touched a cover on the wall, out slid a faint rectangular outline that bloomed into a fully-formed book that she could flip through. She nodded at one finally, her dark brown hair moving like a silky curtain, let the book slide back into the wall, and swiped the picture toward the edge. A card popped out of a slot at the end of the wall. As she walked away with the card, the wall turned to plain frosted glass once more.
With the card in hand, she climbed a staircase to the next floor. I flipped my journal shut and followed. The third floor was a maze of white rooms that contained frosted floors. I watched her enter one and shut the door. A little green light blinked over the door and a timer beneath it indicated one hundred twenty. I discreetly checked out a few others. One timer read ninety-three. Another read forty-two.
Next to those rooms was a singular room with a red door. A red light shaped as a skull and crossbones hung over the threshold. The number fifteen in red was unblinking below it.
Continuing on, I tried to get up to the fourth floor, but ended up on the first floor twice, then the second floor before I stopped trying. Magic portals in the library? Great. Possibly useful as exits though. I sketched them quickly in my journal.
Three adults wearing black business suits strode down the staircase from the third floor and toward the steps behind me that lead to the first floor. I pulled my hair forward and concentrated on reading the bulletin board near me, keeping my back to them, but my senses open. Papers were attached to the board by little white dots of swirling magic.
“Art Expressionists—join us for chats and workshops on all things artistic! Thursdays, Cancer Rising, 14 Rubens Hall, Third Circle”
“Want to advance rare mage types and creature rights? Or are you a muse who just wants to be seen for yourself? Come to a meeting! Eighteenth Circle, 3rd and Evergreen, on Tuesdays at Libra Rising.”
“Sniffer training—suss out undesirables under the guidance of mages with fifty-five years of combined experience.”
I waited for the adults to descend to the next level before I darted over to a wall.
Luckily, using one was easy. I flip-flip-flipped through books, keeping one eye on the nearby staircase. Having a search up on the wall did serve to make it visible to anyone walking by. Since I was thinking of the snare drawing I was creating, I accidentally channeled both gophers and prisons into my mental search, and subsequently out through my magic. That meant that my current search results showed gophers imprisoned or on trial.
Likely a pretty sketchy search wall, if someone were to walk behind me. A sad little picture of a gopher with its paws around the bars of a cage, peering out, made me swipe the book to the card slot, though. If I figured out how to free an imprisoned one, maybe it would want to live with me.
Clearly, I was not meant for people friends.
I tried more searches—removing spells, death magic, magical tracking, feral mages, art magic—and popped out card after card. The cards felt like smooth, thin plastic—envelope sized, with rounded edges.
I grabbed my cards and took the stairs two at a time to the third floor and the white rooms.
White walls, white floor, white ceiling. I had the sudden thought that I had been led into a trap finally by the guys in the white jackets. A little unnerved, I entered anyway, and closed the door. In the wall were eight small s
lots, one large slot, and a red button. I looked at the cards in my hand. They would fit in the smaller slots. I wondered what went in the larger one.
A small, neatly written sign above said “Recommended: five card maximum.” I looked at the nine cards in my hand, shrugged, and looked for somewhere to put four of them. It was odd that there wasn't a table for materials or a hook for bags. I decided against the floor—I'd likely step on them knowing my luck—and tucked unlucky cards six and seven into my back right pocket and eight and nine into my left. Hopefully, I wouldn't accidentally sit on them later and blow my jeans from existence.
I plugged in my first card and heard a whirring noise suspiciously close to my ear. A breeze slid over my hand. I plugged in number two and both the whirring and breeze increased. I paused. Should I just go with two? I had no idea what was going to happen. But my front pockets weren't really card sized, so I inserted the rest. A light pounding began and I felt the beat on my skin.
I looked around waiting for something else to happen, but the pounding just steadily continued. I looked back at the panel and pressed the button.
The compressing feeling of the cuff...popped. And the energy trapped beneath drove forward in a great wave.
A layer of air around me sucked toward the panel, then my world was suddenly filled with light. A corona of light flew toward me in a beam that shot out a grid in all directions. Like all of the stars in the universe had shot toward me and were now surrounding me. I took a step back and the system followed.
Another light shot from the panel, but more focused and intense this time, and a line zipped around me, shooting right, then right again, then up, then right, framing me, and building around me, connecting the stars in some places and leaving them free in others. I watched in fascination, turning my body and craning my head as the beam of light wrapped, re-wrapped, and overlaid in a geometric web.
A second beam joined the first, but took a different path, intersecting with the first stream at some places, mapping new areas in others. A third light shot out, then a fourth and fifth, all intersecting to form an intricate, complex pattern surrounding me. The individual lines became less sharply defined and more twining as they joined together, hiding parts of their brilliance in curling loops. As if there were secrets that had to be literally unraveled from the coils.
I touched one of the intersections and felt the magic. The point zoomed closer.
“Cross reference of the Mad Mage and Sergey Kinsky. The reference in Text A refers to the explosion and subsequent death of the Mad Mage. Text D refers to Kinsky, but using almost the same language and style. It is within a realm of 85% probability that the reference is to the same person. At least two other texts to cross reference and validate is recommended. None of the other texts in this grid contain similar subject data. Turn twice to experience Text A. Three times for Text D.”
I didn't so much hear the voice as feel it. Know it.
Holy...awesome.
I quickly touched another point.
“There is a fierce disagreement between Text A and Text C on the aspects of rare mage types. Text A has a very small piece that agrees with Text C on origin mages, though—saying that it is still considered in the best interests of the world to enslave them. Points in common, against, and with judgments are provided. Turn twice to—”
It was strange, but I could see tiny lights blinking along the zoomed portion of the line. As if I could access the actual pieces of that statement. I touched one.
“A separate reference text has not been provided, so the word fierce is used in the context of Mage Manual of Style CMXI. Fierce—the disagreement of more than 75% of points and opinion.”
I touched another.
“Points in agreement between Texts D, E, and F are as follows—when trying to rid oneself of an enchantment, it is best to—”
I touched another.
“It is within a 50% likelihood that—”
I touched a little to the right of that.
“Likelihood is defined by—”
I waved a hand along the line, and the grid rotated. I pulled my hands together, and the entire grid grew closer together, zooming out. Spreading my hands made it larger. I grabbed one point with my finger and drew it to another point, then pushed.
“Cross referencing the Mad Mage with Toilet Habits of the Fligobbony Tribe. Both had the unusual practice to—”
I bit my lip and pulled another point to the intersection.
“Adding in Gopher Mating Rituals gives one point of familiarity. Brushes. While the brushes of the latter two refer to grooming, the Mad Mage used his as a primary weapon when pai—”
I pulled my hands out and grabbed another point, then another.
...preventive spells could be nullified if a mage was under a chaos field.
...a litter of ten gophers would form three pair bonds.
...rare mage types were either highly celebrated or aggressively feared.
...art mages couldn't bring things out of their art that hadn't been put in.
How had I pulled out the butterfly?
...embedding larger objects into smaller objects required the manipulation of universe space, which was extremely dangerous and difficult.
Point upon point upon point responded, until the grid started to look more like a web, and I became increasingly tangled within it. The red button glowed. I pushed it, and the whole thing vibrated then snapped back into original formation.
Harsh breaths filled my ears.
I started again. The more I selected, the more I had to select. I had come in here for...for something. What was it?
A gaming system? There had to be one for this room. I had to get my hands on one of those cards. Christian would love them.
“Ren. You can help me.”
Yes. I could help. I could do anything. I attacked harder, trying to figure out how to turn, shape, and work the information grid. I'd bet there were a thousand tricks and endless ways to do it. Like living inside of one of my graphic patterns or on a Mobius strip. This was the answer to my prayers—exactly what I needed.
I couldn't remember what I needed it for, but I needed to find it—the answer, the end.
Ping.
Ping, ping.
Ping, ping, ping.
I distractedly checked the red button at ten pings in a row. It seemed fine. The sounds were coming from outside the room. Annoying. I had work to do, and I could feel that I was close to the core of the intersections and what drove them. Maybe I could figure out how to generate this type of system away from the library? Harness the magic? What if I could imbed it in a painting? A grid of knowledge that could be visually shown. How would I—
PING.
I used a little magic to push the distracting outside sounds away when they became a steady siren. I could almost hear voices now too. I pushed harder, trying to absorb the information I was seeing and tasting.
A new stream of magic tapped me. It had a warmer, smoother feel to it, than the annoying pings. I shuddered at the brush of it across my skin. But I was getting off target. I batted the titillating magic away sloppily, using a pinwheel motion I had seen a man with golden eyes and a golden ear cuff do...sometime, somewhere...and concentrated again on deepening the intersecting points of the texts and figuring out how it worked. The smooth magic tapped harder, a bit of a vibration to it this time. It seemed annoyed. I slapped it in mirrored annoyance.
Then the magic came at me hard. Startled, I nearly lost the thread, but managed to push back just as hard, dulling the grid for a moment, which irritated me. I heard someone swear. The magic probe strengthened, and I pushed equally, giving an extra twist to my shove. I had seen that too somewhere, in some place filled with electric ultramarine-blue paint. The audible swearing grew more violent and a vision of a winged snake popped to mind. I paused on the image...what...?
A hand thrust through my magic field, breaking all my threads and shocking me stupid. The back of my shirt lifted, and I left my
feet, as I was yanked from my new world. I hit the ground hard and different types of stars twinkled through my vision. My cuff felt heavy against my wrist again.
“What the hell?!” I yelled, as soon as some air worked its way back into my lungs, reality seeping back in much more slowly.
“No, you, what the hell?” a voice said.
I had to really concentrate to get my eyes to uncross in order to see two very irritated faces staring down at me. Ultramarine blue swam into view, and that vision of something winged, the creature I hadn't been able to stop drawing for weeks, burst through the cloud covering my mind.
I shut my eyes hard and blinked again. The vision of the creature was gone, but ultramarine blue eyes remained in a face that was Michelangelo hot, even with my eyes crossed. The other boy's face above mine was unexceptional, the visage of a guard statue that didn't stand out in a line. Unexceptional, but pissed.
“Of all the stupid, fathead stunts!” Even his voice was pissy.
I had no idea what pissy, unexceptional guy was talking about, and I was still sorting out my vision and reality, but—“Fathead? Seriously?”
That seemed to anger him more. Unsurprisingly, because I was good at saying the wrong thing without Christian nearby.
Wait. Christian? I rubbed my head and reality returned fully—thrusting back upon me like a sudden, intense migraine.
Hot guy—no, Alexander Dare—looked mildly amused, but he was also staring at me in an intense, considering way. Like I was a strange breed of Chihuahua he had never before encountered. I could feel the heat in my forehead, chest, and the back of my neck—the sweat gathering. I had the feeling I was in trouble. It seemed a sound notion considering I hadn't two clues to rub together about this place or magic. I wondered suddenly if Marsgrove was waiting somewhere to the side, handcuffs in hand.
“You are in so much trouble,” the pissy guy said. I needed to stop calling him that in my head. He looked about nineteen or twenty, a student then.
