The Magician King

by Lev Grossman

  It felt like you could be sucked out through the doorway if you got too close, like through an air lock. But Bingle just stood there, looking around.

  “It’s down,” Elaine said. “You have to climb.”

  There must have been a ladder. Bingle turned to face them, got to his knees, moving slowly to avoid dislodging the sloth, and felt around with his foot till he evidently got it on a rung. He nodded goodbye to Quentin and began to climb down, step by step. His narrow olive face disappeared below the edge.

  “Once you get halfway gravity turns around,” Elaine called after him. “And you start climbing up. It’s not as tricky as it sounds,” she added to the rest of them.

  She turned to Quentin.

  Two times before Quentin had made this same decision. He’d stood on the threshold of a new world and then stepped over it. When he’d arrived at Brakebills he’d thrown his whole life away, his whole world and everyone he knew, in exchange for a shiny magical new one. It had been easy, he’d had nothing worth keeping. He’d done it again when he came to Fillory, and it wasn’t much harder the second time. But it was harder now, the third time, very hard. Now he had something to lose.

  But he was stronger now too. He knew himself better. It turned out his journey wasn’t over after all. He wasn’t going to go back. He looked at Eliot.

  “Go,” Eliot said. “One of us should.”

  God, was he that easy to read?

  “Go,” Poppy said. “This is for you, Quentin.”

  He put his arms around her.

  “Thank you, Poppy,” he whispered. Then he said it to all of them: “Thank you.”

  His voice caught on the phrase. He didn’t care.

  Standing in the doorway, he took a deep breath as if he were about to climb down into a pool. He could look out and survey it all: he was backstage at the cosmos. Far below he could see Bingle and the sloth, tiny, still climbing down what looked like an endless column of iron rungs. The entirety of the moon was hanging right there in front of him, bright and glorious in the abyss, glowing with its own light. It looked like he could jump to it. It was smooth and white, no craters. He hadn’t realized the tips of the horns were so sharp.

  He knelt down to start his climb.

  “That’s odd.” The Customs Agent frowned. “Wait a moment. Where’s your passport?”

  Quentin stopped, on one knee.

  “My passport?” he said. This again. “I don’t have it. I gave it to the kid in hell.”

  “In hell? The underworld?”

  “Well, yes. I had to go there. That’s where the last key was.”

  “Oh.” She pursed her lips. “I’m sorry, but you can’t go through without a passport.”

  She couldn’t be serious.

  “Well, but hang on,” Quentin said. “I have a passport. Eleanor made it for me. I just don’t have it on me. They have it in the underworld.”

  Elaine smiled, a tired smile that wasn’t completely devoid of sympathy, but wasn’t exactly brimming over with it either.

  “Eleanor can only make you one passport, Quentin. You’ve used yours. I’m sorry. I can’t let you through.”

  This couldn’t be happening. He looked past her to the others, who were standing watching him blankly, the way the passengers in a car look at the driver when he’s been pulled over for speeding. He tried to make his face communicate something, something on the order of, can you believe this shit? But it wasn’t easy. He was being asked to be a good sport, but this cut deeper than that. This was his destiny here, and she wasn’t going to take it away on a technicality.

  “There has to be a loophole.” He was still kneeling on the threshold, looking up at her, halfway out the door. He could feel the Far Side pulling at him, bright and joyful, with its own gravity. This was where his story led. “Something. I had no choice, I had to go to the underworld. And not to put too fine a point on it, but if I hadn’t we never would have opened the door. We wouldn’t be here. The world would’ve ended—”

  “That is what makes this all the harder.”

  “—so you know,” Quentin kept talking, louder, “if I hadn’t gone to the underworld there wouldn’t be any going to the Far Side of the World.” He knew if he stood up it would be over. “There wouldn’t be any Far Side left. All of this would be gone.”

  Her expression didn’t change. The woman was psychotic. She wasn’t going to give in, no matter what he said.

  “All right,” he said. He waited as long as he could, then he stood up. He held up his hands. “All right.”

  If there was one thing he’d learned on this fucking quest it was how to take a punch. He dropped his hands. He was still a king, for Christ’s sake. That would do for a destiny. He had no complaining to do. He’d had more than his fair share of adventures. He knew that. Quentin went over and stood next to Poppy, the woman he’d just tried to abandon. She put her arm around his waist and kissed him on the cheek.

  “You’ll be okay,” she said. Her hands felt cool on his. Elaine was closing the door.

  “Wait,” Julia said. “I want to go through.”

  The agent stopped, but she didn’t look as if she thought she’d made a mistake.

  “I’m going through,” Julia said. “My tree is waiting for me there. I can feel it.”

  Elaine conferred with her partner quietly, but when they were done they both shook their heads.

  “Julia, you must take some blame for the catastrophe that nearly occurred. You and your friends invoked the gods, and drew their attention to us, and brought them back. You betrayed this world, however unknowingly, in order to increase your own power. There must be consequences.”

  For a long moment Julia stood perfectly still, staring not at the Customs Agent but at the half-open door. Her skin began to glow, and her hair crackled. The signs weren’t hard to read. She was prepared to fight her way through if necessary.

  “Wait.” Quentin said. “Hang on a minute. I think you’re missing something.” It was almost dark out now, and the sky was a riot of stars. “Do you two have any idea what she’s been through? What she lost? And you’re talking about consequences? She’s had plenty of consequences. And oh, by the way, not that it counts for much apparently, but she saved the world too. You’d think she was due a bit of a reward.”

  “She made her own decisions,” the man who sat by the door said. “All is in balance.”

  “You know, I’ve noticed that you people, or whatever you are, are pretty free with assigning that kind of responsibility. Well, Julia wouldn’t have done what she did if I’d helped her learn magic.”

  “Quentin,” Julia said. “Cease.” She was still powered up, ready to make her move.

  “If you want to play that game, let’s play it. Julia did what she did because of me. So if you want to blame somebody, blame me. Put that wrong on me where it belongs and let her go through to the Far Side. Where she belongs.”

  The silence of the beach at the end of the world descended again. They saw by starlight now, and by the light of the impending moon, leaking through the half-open door, and by Julia-light: she was glowing softly, with a warm white light that threw their shadows behind them on the sand and glimmered on the water.

  Elaine and the well-dressed man conferred again for a long minute. At least they weren’t quibbling about passports. Probably Julia hadn’t needed hers to get into the underworld. She slipped in under the radar.

  “All right,” the man said, when they were finished. “We agree. Julia’s fault will be upon you, and she will pass through.”

  “All right,” Quentin said. Sometimes you win one when you least expect it. He felt strangely light. Buoyant. “Great. Thank you.”

  Julia turned her head and smiled at him, her beautiful unearthly smile. He felt free. He’d thought he would carry his share of that unhappiness for the rest of his life. Now, suddenly, he had shed it when he least expected it, and he felt like he was going to float up into the air. He had atoned, that was the word for it.r />
  Julia took both his hands in hers and kissed him on the mouth, a long kiss, full at last of something like real love. Demi-goddess or no, at that moment she seemed fully herself to him in a way she hadn’t for years, not since their last day together in Brooklyn, when both their lives had been changed beyond recognition. Whatever losses she’d suffered, this was Julia, all of her. And Quentin felt pretty whole now too.

  She stepped up to the doorway, but she didn’t kneel. She straightened and squared herself like an Olympic diver and then, disdaining the ladder, she dove off the edge, straight down, and disappeared.

  When she was gone the beach was a little darker.

  It was over and done with at last. He was ready for the curtain to come down. He wasn’t looking forward to the all-night slog back to the Muntjac, and God knew how they were going to get home from there. Surely there must be some trick, some more magic lying around somewhere that would enable them to skip over that part. Maybe Ember would come.

  “Where’s the damn Cozy Horse when you need it?” Josh must have been thinking the same thing.

  “And how should Quentin pay?” the Customs Agent said. She was speaking to the man in the black suit.

  Suddenly Quentin felt less tired.

  “What do you mean?” he said. They were whispering again.

  “Hang on,” Eliot said. “That’s not how it works.”

  “It is,” said the man, “how it works. Julia’s debt is now upon Quentin, and he must settle it. What is it that Quentin holds most dear?”

  “Well,” Quentin said, “I’m already not going to the Far Side.”

  Brilliant. He should have been a lawyer. A thought froze him: they were going to take Poppy. Or do something to her. He was afraid to even look at her in case it gave them ideas.

  “His crown,” Elaine announced. “I am sorry, Quentin. As of this moment you are no longer a king of Fillory.”

  “You exceed your authority,” Eliot said hotly.

  Quentin had been braced for devastation, but when it came he didn’t feel anything at all. That was what they were taking, and they would take it. Had taken it. He didn’t feel any different. It was all very abstract, kingliness, in the end. He supposed what he would miss most was his big, quiet bedroom at Castle Whitespire. He faced the others, but none of them looked at him any differently. He took a deep breath.

  “Well,” he said stupidly. “Easy come.”

  That was the end of Quentin the Magician King, just like that. He was somebody else now. It was a silly thing to be sad about, really. For God’s sake they’d just saved magic, saved all their lives. Julia had found her peace. They had finished the quest. He hadn’t lost, he’d won.

  Elaine and the man in the suit had resumed their stations, on their chairs, like a pair of seated caryatids. Job well done. God, he couldn’t believe he’d flirted with her back on the Outer Island. She wasn’t so different from her father, in the end.

  He had high hopes for her daughter, anyway.

  “Give my best to Eleanor,” he said.

  “Oh, Eleanor,” Elaine said in the dismissive tone she reserved for her daughter. “She still talks about the time you picked her up, how far she could see. You made quite an impression on her.”

  “She’s a sweet girl.”

  “Can’t tell time yet. Do you know, she’s absolutely obsessed with Earth now? She asked me to send her away to school there, and I’m sorely tempted to do it, I can tell you. I’m counting the days.”

  Good for Eleanor, Quentin thought. She was getting off the Outer Island. She would be all right.

  “Imagine that,” he said. “When she’s old enough for college, drop me a line. I might be able to recommend one.”

  It was time to go.

  The sea was no longer empty. Something was coming toward them across it: it was Ember, late as usual, trotting neatly across the skim of water. Wouldn’t be like Him to miss a good dethroning.

  “So,” Quentin said. “Back to the Muntjac? Or?” Maybe the magic sheep would be good for a ride home. He really did hope so. Ember took His place by Eliot’s side.

  “Not for you, Quentin,” He said.

  And then Eliot did something Quentin had never seen him do before, even after everything they’d been through together. He sobbed. He turned away and walked a few steps down the beach with his back to them, arms crossed, head down.

  “It is a dark day for Fillory,” Ember said, “but you will always be remembered here. And all good things must come to an end.”

  “Wait a minute.”

  Quentin recognized this little speech. It was the canned farewell that Ember delivered in the books, every time He did what He did best, which was to kick visitors out of Fillory at the end.

  “I don’t understand. Look, enough is enough.”

  “Yes, Quentin, enough is enough. It is exactly that.”

  “I’m sorry, Quentin.” Eliot couldn’t look at him. He took a rattling breath. “There’s nothing I can do. It’s always been the rule.”

  Fortunately Eliot had a gorgeous embroidered handkerchief to blot his eyes with. He’d probably never had to use it before.

  “For God’s sake!” Quentin might as well get angry, there was nothing else left to do. “You can’t send me back to Earth, I live here now! I’m not some schoolkid who has to get back in time for curfew or fifth form or whatever, I’m a fucking grown-up. This is my home! I’m not from Earth anymore, I’m a Fillorian!”

  Ember’s face was impassive beneath His massive stony horns. They curled back from His woolly forehead, ribbed like ancient seashells.

  “No.”

  “This isn’t how it ends!” Quentin said. “I am the hero of this goddamned story, Ember! Remember? And the hero gets the reward!”

  “No, Quentin,” the ram said. “The hero pays the price.”

  Eliot put a hand on Quentin’s shoulder.

  “You know what they say,” Eliot said. “Once a king in Fillory, always—”

  “Save it.” Quentin shook him off. “Save it. That’s bullshit and you know it.”

  He sighed. “I guess I do.”

  Eliot had himself back under control now. He held something out, small and pearly, pinched in his handkerchief.

  “It’s a magic button. Ember brought it. It will take you to the Neitherlands. You can travel back to Earth from there, or wherever you want to go. It just won’t take you back here.”

  “I can hook you up, Quentin!” Josh said, trying to sound cheerful. “Seriously, I practically own the Neitherlands now. You want Teletubbies? I’ll draw you a map!”

  “Oh, forget it.” He still felt angry. “Come on. Let’s go back to our home fucking planet.”

  It was all over. He always hated these parts, even when they were just stories, even when they weren’t about him. He would think about the future soon. It wouldn’t be that bad. He and Josh could live in Venice. And Poppy. It wouldn’t be bad at all. It was just that he felt like he’d just had a limb severed, and he was looking down at the stump waiting to start bleeding to death.

  “We aren’t coming, Quentin,” Poppy said. She was standing by Eliot.

  “We’re staying,” Josh said. Even in the cold and the darkness, Quentin could see him blushing furiously. “We’re not going back.”

  “Oh, Quentin!” He’d never seen Poppy look so upset, not even when they were freezing to death. “We can’t go! Fillory needs us. With you and Julia gone there are two empty thrones. One king, one queen. We have to take them.”

  Of course. A king and a queen. King Josh. Queen Poppy. Long live. He was going back alone.

  This, now, this stopped him. He’d known that adventures were supposed to be hard. He’d understood that he would have to go a long way and solve difficult problems and fight foes and be brave and whatever else. But this was hard in a way he hadn’t counted on. You couldn’t kill it with a sword or fix it with a spell. You couldn’t fight it. You just had to endure it, and you didn’t look good or noble or h
eroic doing it. You were just the guy people felt sorry for, that was all. It didn’t make a good story—in fact he saw now that the stories had it all wrong, about what you got, and what you gave. It’s not that he wasn’t willing. He just hadn’t understood. He wasn’t ready for it.

  “I feel like an asshole, Quentin,” Josh said.

  “No, listen, you’re totally right.” Quentin’s lips were numb. He kept talking. “I should have thought of it. Listen, you’re going to love it.”

  “You can have the palazzo.”

  “Great, man, thanks, that’ll be great.”

  “I’m sorry, Quentin!” Poppy threw her arms around him. “I had to say yes!”

  “It’s okay! Jesus!”

  You didn’t want to be a grown man saying come on, it isn’t fair. But it didn’t feel all that fair.

  “It is time,” Ember said, standing there on His stupid little ballerina hoofs.

  “Listen, we have to do this now,” Eliot said. His face was white. This was costing him too.

  “Fine. Okay. Give me the button.”

  Josh hugged him fiercely, and then Poppy. She kissed him too, but he could hardly feel it. He knew he would be sorry later, but it was just too much. He had to do this right now or he was going to implode.

  “I’ll miss you,” he said. “Be a good queen.”

  “I have something for you,” Eliot said. “I was saving it for when this was all over, but . . . well, I guess it’s all over.”

  From inside his jacket Eliot brought out a silver pocket watch. Quentin would have known it anywhere: it was from the little clock-tree that had been growing in the magic clearing in the Queenswood, where all this began. Eliot must have harvested it when he went back there. It ticked away merrily, as if it were happy to see him again.

  He put it in his pocket. He wasn’t in the mood for merriness. Too bad it wasn’t a gold watch: the classic retirement present.

  “Thank you. It’s beautiful.” It was.