by Layton Green
He set the key on the table and clasped his hands beside it. “A key to the world of the necromancer.”
Will lowered his eyes, and studied the key without leaning in too close. “Oh. What’s it made of?”
Will looked back up to find Salomon’s eyes focused on him. The old man’s stare had a heaviness to it, as if it possessed a force, a gravity, weightier than the air around it. “Magic.”
Will hesitated, then picked up the key and turned it over. “Where’s the door?”
“I’ve aligned it to your apartment,” Salomon said.
“You’ve been in my apartment?”
“You need only touch this to the keyhole of your front door, from either side, and transportation to the other realm will occur, along with anyone inside or in contact with you. I have not provided for the transfer of items derivative of the technology of this world, so as not to disrupt the probability waves. You would not find such items helpful, and they would lead to detention and imprisonment by the wizards.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Will said. “If we were to do this, when would we go? What do we do when we get there?”
“Your actions are your own responsibility, but there are items in Zedock’s world that can aid your cause. Oh, and I would advise leaving now.”
“Before the necromancer kills Charlie?”
“Before he kills you all.”
Will swallowed. “You do understand I’m questioning my sanity as we speak, and making jokes and blabbering on because I don’t know what else to do?”
Salomon’s grin was wolfish. “Sanity is a relative state, impossibility another. Quite relative.”
“But how do I know anything you’re telling me is real?”
His gaze flicked to the key, then upwards again, his eyes saying there’s only one way to find out.
A hysterical chuckle escaped Will. “Is there a time difference between the worlds, like in all the fantasy novels?”
“An astute question. With the recent shift in the time tides, the bi-universal gravitation differential is roughly sixty days to one, the one being this world. Though it can vary greatly.”
“So we have sixty days to find something in this other world to help Charlie?” Will balled his fists. “I thought you said you weren’t assisting?”
“I’m merely illuminating options and observing a potential expansion of probability. The results of which could be intriguing.”
“But why? How could anything about us possibly intrigue you?”
“I have an interest in the outcome.”
Will threw his hands up. “The outcome of what?” he shouted, causing heads to turn. “And what do you know about—”
He cut off when he saw Val push through the front door and hurry into the lobby, carrying his staff. Will waved him over, then turned back to Salomon.
And found himself looking at an empty chair.
-8-
Will scanned the lobby and then rushed to the window, straining to see in which direction Salomon had slipped away.
No sign of him. Somehow, as Will slunk back to Val, he didn’t think Salomon had used the same exit as everyone else.
“What’re you doing?” Val said.
“Just looking out for Ze—the man from last night.”
Val whipped towards the door. “Did you see something?”
“I thought I did, but no.”
He turned back around. “Good. Where’s Caleb?”
Something in Val’s eyes told Will now was not the time to discuss yet another encounter that defied reality. “The room, I guess.”
“Let’s grab him,” Val said. “Our flight’s in three hours.”
“Flight?”
“To Paris. Redeye.”
“What’re you talking about?”
Val’s face tightened. “I thought I had a search warrant for the house, but it was pushed off until the morning. I’m not taking a chance with sundown.”
“I can’t leave Charlie.”
Val touched Will’s elbow. “I’m sorry, Will. I really am. But I can’t let you two stay another night with that threat out there. We have to let the police handle it.”
“Evening,” Caleb said, strolling up to meet them. Will had his sword, Val was holding his staff, and Caleb had his bracers on. Good.
“You smell like alcohol and perfume,” Val said. He shook his head as if it were supporting the weight of the world. “I’ll check out and call a cab.”
After Val stepped away, Will updated Caleb on their older brother’s plan.
“Poor Charlie,” Caleb said. “I wish there was something we could do.”
A few minutes later they all piled into a taxi, and Will said, “I have to stop by the apartment.”
Val checked his watch. “We don’t have time—”
“Can’t we at least pack a bag?”
“You can borrow my clothes, or I’ll buy you some. Just until this blows over.”
“My meds are there.”
Val put his hand on Will’s knee. “Of course. I’m sorry.” He gave the driver new instructions and urged him to hurry. “I feel terrible about leaving Charlie, but we can’t risk it. Also—and I hate to say this—but I believe he’s behind this in some way.
Will spun to face him. “Not a chance.”
“What’re the odds of something this weird happening at the same time he spouts this crap about Dad? And why kidnap Charlie? A brother is a much more effective bargaining tool.”
Caleb slouched in the cab, locking his hands behind his head. “You’re one calculating man, brother mine.”
“It was Charlie who gave us the sword,” Will said.
Val tapped the end of his staff. “I told you what the jeweler said. Maybe there’s more of this stuff out there. Look, I love Charlie, too, but you’re my brothers. And the only thing that makes sense right now is that Charlie’s involved in some way.”
“You’re wrong about this one,” Will said, resting both hands on the scabbard.
“I hope you’re right,” Val said. “And we can leave the sword at the apartment for Lance to pick up. But we can’t risk going anywhere near that psychopath.”
As they drove away from the hotel, the last strands of daylight dissipated, leaving Will feeling as if he had just slipped under the murky waters of a lake. The taxi sped through an abandoned portion of the warehouse district before heading Uptown along the river, and Will wished the driver had chosen a more populated route. The gray wall shielding the docks climbed the darkness to their left, pinning them to a desolate stretch of Tchoupitoulas that ran along the backside of the Irish Channel. The isolation and lack of ambient light pressed down on Will. He kept expecting the necromancer to swoop down from the sky, rip the roof off the car, and jerk them all out.
The taxi turned right on Jackson, re-entering the livelier portion of Uptown. Soon they were pulling alongside Will and Caleb’s building on Magazine. All three brothers scanned the streets and the night sky.
“I don’t think we should separate,” Will said. “Even for a minute.”
“Agreed,” Val said. He gave the driver a twenty and asked him to wait.
They scurried out of the taxi, sword and staff in hand, necks craned skyward as Will unlocked the common door. As they climbed the stairs and approached Will and Caleb’s apartment, Will extracted the blue key and concealed it under his shirt. He hunched over the door as if fiddling with the lock. “Hey guys, grab onto me.”
“What?”
Will slumped. “I’m feeling a little weak in the knees.”
Val and Caleb rushed to put an arm around him, used to propping him up during panic attacks. Will moved Salomon’s key the remaining few inches towards the keyhole with the sinking realization that he was about to make a very large fool of himself.
Just before he brushed the tip of the blue key against the keyhole, he heard Lance call out from inside the apartment. “Blackwood, is that you?”
Salomon’s key made contact with the bronze
keyhole. The instant they touched, Will felt a mild electric shock, the key and the door merged together, and he had the sensation that his entire body was both vibrating and dissolving at warp speed, his molecules yanked forward by an impossible force.
The world went black.
-9-
The sensation lasted an instant, less than an instant. One moment Will was trying to fit an oversize key into his doorway, the next he was standing in the middle of an unfamiliar room, lit by standing iron candelabra.
Gray stone blocks comprised the ceiling, walls, and floor. It wasn’t the smooth sort of stone Will had installed in fancy homes in the suburbs, but a rougher, much larger cut. Like a room in a castle.
His brothers were still beside him. Lance was there, too, standing five feet away and blinking. “What the hell just happened?”
“We must have been knocked out,” Val said. He touched his head, pinched himself. “Someone—and I think we know who—must have drugged us and stuffed us in this room.”
“Who?” Lance said. “What’re you talking about?” His head swiveled to take in the strange environs. “Where are we?”
Caleb’s eyes looked like headlights. “We weren’t drugged. I’d know if I’d been drugged. Trust me.”
Val sneered. “What’s the answer, then? Group hallucination? One of us is dreaming?”
Will was looking around the room with a dazed expression. His sword was still in the scabbard strapped to his waist, Val was holding his staff, and Caleb had his bracers. Val’s watch was gone, Will’s wallet and knife were not in his pocket, and Caleb’s cell phone was no longer in his hand.
Will swallowed. “Guys, I think I can explain. Sort of.”
Lance folded his arms. “Someone better.”
Will started at the beginning and went through everything, from the first sighting of the zombie dog to his meeting with Salomon. Val looked shocked and then thoughtful, as if processing all the angles in order to figure out the trick. Caleb, though incredulous, was walking around the room and observing the decor, adjusting to the present reality. Will’s middle brother had an amazing ability to go with the flow, even if the flow had crossed the boundary of the known universe.
Lance, however, was looking at Will as if he had sprouted an extra head and a forked tail. He also looked as if he were about to be sick.
Will studied the rectangular, windowless room while they digested his words. Closed wooden doors bookended the room. Three standing armoires lined the long wall to their left, and a hanging tapestry draped the entire wall opposite the armoires. The tapestry portrayed two men facing each other on a rock bridge spanning a chasm. Two fortresses, one silver-blue and one gold and crimson, loomed on either side of the bridge. The men were dressed in formal archaic clothing similar to what Zedock had worn. Shadows and high collars obscured their faces. One clutched an orb of swirling darkness, the other held a rod formed of a substance that looked akin to the crescent-moon atop Val’s staff.
Looking closer, Will noticed the men were floating a foot above the bridge. Bright swirls of color ignited an inky sky, as if some type of galactic event were occurring. Bizarre creatures swooped through the air and dotted the rocky ground beneath the two fortresses. The artistry was stunning.
Caleb started to open the first armoire. Will rushed to stop him. “What if it’s rigged?”
“Either we’re dreaming and it doesn’t matter,” Caleb said, “we’ve been kidnapped by the CIA and used for a mind-bending experiment, or your friend the intergalactic wizard sent us to a different world. I’m gonna take a wild guess and say that no matter which one is right, we weren’t sent here to be killed by a booby-trapped cabinet.”
Will put a hand on the door. “You know we’re not dreaming,”
“No, I don’t. Though I will say, little brother, that it doesn’t feel like a dream to me.”
Caleb opened the cabinet, revealing hangers full of leather breeches, vests, tunics, grey cloaks, and boots. Val opened the next armoire, which contained two swords and two shields, three daggers, two suits of leather armor, one suit of bronzed metal armor, a mace, a flail, an axe, a war hammer, and a halberd.
No one spoke as they absorbed the contents of the weapons cabinet. Will felt queasy.
Val slowly shut the door, then moved to the next cabinet. Three leather sacks, each filled with silver and copper coins, hung from metal hooks. A huge chest filled the bottom of the cabinet, and Caleb eased it open.
It was stuffed with gems and gold coins.
“Whoa,” Caleb said.
Lance stomped back and forth. “We’ve entered one of Blackwood’s nightmares. Or one of his wet dreams.”
Val strode grimly to the nearest door. It opened to reveal a hallway with four closed doorways. They cautiously traversed the corridor, which led to a kitchen with wooden utensils and three loaves of bread on a cutting board, next to a dish of butter. The aroma of freshly baked bread filled the room.
Huddled together as one unit, they tried the doors in the hallway. Will could feel Caleb’s hands grasping his shirt as the doors revealed three identical bedrooms, each with a Murphy-type bed bolted to the wall, a bedside table, a rug, and a giant candelabrum. The fourth door contained a wash basin and a rudimentary flush toilet.
“Three of everything,” Caleb said.
No one responded.
There were no windows in the entire dwelling. Will wondered out loud, “Is this a prison?”
“Let’s try the final door before we draw any conclusions,” Val said.
Will led the entourage back down the hallway, past the tapestry, and to the door on the other side of the stone-walled great room.
Daylight and a blast of sticky air greeted him on the other side. With everyone crowding behind him, Will shielded his eyes from the sun and stepped onto a cobblestone street.
And was almost crushed by a passing horse and carriage.
“Are you daft!” the driver yelled, as Will stumbled back into the group. Shaken, he looked around the vaguely familiar street, taking in the collection of timber-framed buildings and wrought iron balconies, sprinkled with the occasional stone structure. The street was muddy but free of trash, and the air, though fresh, possessed that cloying smell of decaying vegetation distinctive of the Garden District.
It was a busy street, with merchant stalls lining the road and people traveling to and fro, both on foot and in carriages. The people in the carriages dressed like they belonged in Victorian England. The pedestrians looked more akin to medieval peasants.
From where he stood, Will could see a bakery, a blacksmith, and two pubs. There were no cars, no electrical or telephone wires, no evidence of the twenty-first century. Lance made a choking sound and pointed at two familiar words carved into the wooden sign marking the intersection to their left.
Magazine Street.
High above the sign, in the direction of the French Quarter, was the most amazing sight of all: hundreds of slender, multicolored spires piercing the sky high above the city. Will could make out the tops of some of the buildings that supported the spires: an assortment of domes and obelisks and stone towers, some as tall as skyscrapers. More exotic architecture was sprinkled in as well, ziggurats and poly-sided towers with entire stories jutting outward at odd angles, dream-like creations of dripping stone that bore a vague resemblance to photos Will had seen of Barcelona.
Will looked from the spires to the street sign and then down at the rough cobblestones beneath his feet, his next words leaving his lips in a stunned whisper.
“Ohmygod.”
-10-
As a group, they scrambled back inside and slammed the door. Will was reeling, the ground slipping out from under him as if a heavyweight boxer had just clocked him on the chin.
Lance put a hand on the door to steady himself. “ChristChristChrist.”
“Either that’s the best movie set ever created,” Will said, his voice hoarse, “or we’re in another world. Or dimension. Or universe. Or somet
hing. Because that . . . that was New Orleans.”
“Only it wasn’t,” Caleb said. “But I know what you mean. It felt like New Orleans.”
Val stared at the door, his face as white as a mime’s.
“Give me that key,” Lance said. “Cuz there’s an easy solution to this.”
“That might be difficult,” Will said.
“Huh?”
“The key’s gone.”
Lance walked right up to Will, his eyes hard. “What do you mean, gone?”
“It dissolved when it touched the door to my apartment.”
Lance grabbed Will by the collar. “You knew, didn’t you? You knew and you did it anyway.”
“I didn’t know it was a one-way ticket! And no, Lance, I can say for fairly certain that I didn’t know the key would actually send us to another world. Nope, didn’t see that one coming. Let me also remind you I had no idea you were in my apartment.”
“I went to check on you, since you kept calling during work and then wouldn’t answer!”
“My phone died,” Will muttered.
Val put a hand on Lance’s arm, which was still holding Will’s collar. “That’s enough.”
“Dammit, I’m a police officer! What the hell’s going on here?”
“Lance,” Val said.
Lance dropped Will and turned towards Val, fists balled, face contorted. Val crossed his arms, and Lance looked away in disgust.
“Poor Charlie,” Caleb said. “We can’t help him if we’re stuck here. Not that there’s anything we could have done.”
“That might not be true,” Will said. “Salomon said there are things here that could help—he didn’t say what—and that the time differential was sixty days to one. Zedock gave us until nightfall tomorrow in our world, so we should have roughly two months to get back and help Charlie.”
“The time what?” Lance said, and all three turned towards Will. “Stop talking nonsense.”
Will waved a hand. “Einstein proved that time flows at a different rate depending on gravity, and who knows what happens in another dimension.”
Lance snarled. “You’re loving this, aren’t you, Blackwood?”
