The Future King

by James Riley

  “Ellora, seriously, you’re ruining the mood!” William shouted. “Do you think I started a fire in here because it’s cold? It’s all to create the right atmosphere!”

  Ellora rolled her eyes. “Oh, I didn’t realize this was about you and the fireplace. I thought it was about Damian!”

  Damian? Fort had almost forgotten about the dragon boy completely upon seeing Sierra frozen in time. He should have been here too, frozen next to her. Where was he, then?

  “What’s Damian got to do with this?” Rachel asked. “I thought he got freed from the Old Ones’ control.”

  William broke off glaring at Ellora to turn to Rachel. “You still don’t know? Damian’s going to destroy London if you don’t stop him. I mean, how did you not get that? I told you this quest would involve dungeons and dragons!”

  - TWELVE -

  WHAT? DAMIAN WAS THE ONE who’d destroy London? But that didn’t make any sense. As much of a jerk as he was—and he was a huge jerk—Fort couldn’t see the boy ever actually attacking someone, let alone destroying a city.

  Unless he was possessed by another Old One.

  “Damian?” Jia said, his name shocking her out of whatever was going through her head. “There’s no way. He’d never hurt anyone.”

  “We’ve seen it, Jia,” Ellora said quietly. “And you’ve seen what it leads to yourself.”

  “But why take our word for it, when you can see for yourselves?” William asked, his voice lowering again as he gestured dramatically, his hands glowing with black light.

  “William, wait—” Ellora shouted, but the room had already disappeared around them, replaced by a sort of shimmering, dreamlike vision of a long room with red velvet wallpaper and tapestries hanging every few feet.

  And everything was on fire.

  Fort immediately raised his arms to protect himself, but just like with the tsunami, he couldn’t actually feel the heat from the flames or smell the smoke filling the air. But as real as the water attack had looked, this vision now seemed much less concrete, like watching something through the heat haze coming off asphalt in the summer.

  A roar shook the room, and even though he wasn’t able to be hurt, Fort still unconsciously took a step backward in fear as a dragon faded into view out of the shimmering fog just yards away, roaring and shooting flames from its mouth. Held tightly in one massive foot was what looked like a large, leather-bound book, but it was hard to make out as the haziness seemed to be emanating from the book itself.

  And then the haze obscured the dragon again as the roof above began to crack from the heat, crumbling into the room below.

  “This is the palace,” said a dazed voice next to him, and Fort almost leaped out of his shoes as he whirled to find Rachel and Jia, both transparent as ghosts, standing right beside him. Apparently more than one person could see the future together. And not only that, but they could talk, too? “Buckingham Palace. It’s where the British royals live.”

  “Was that Damian?” Jia asked, staring at the spot where the dragon had disappeared. Another roar echoed down the hall, and Fort realized it hadn’t left. They just couldn’t see it. But why?

  “It sure looked like him,” Rachel said. “We saw his dragon form when the Old Ones took him over in the Dracsi dimension, and he looked exactly like this dragon. Right, Fort?”

  Fort nodded but jumped again as the dragon swirled back into view, sending another plume of flames into the walls as the roof above them began to collapse in on itself. “You’re all traitors!” the dragon roared in Damian’s voice, breathing even more fire into the walls. “I’ll burn you all to the ground before I let you take this book!”

  He disappeared again, but worse now, huge timbers had begun falling from the roof, cracking through the marble floor below.

  “We have to get out of here! It’s not safe!” Fort yelled, forgetting in the heat of the moment that this was the future.

  “Fort, we’re not really here !” Rachel told him, then leaned over to push her hand right through his body. “See?”

  “But other people are,” Jia said quietly, pointing at several people on the opposite end of the hall, cringing away from the fire.

  Without even realizing it was futile, Fort tried to open a teleportation circle for the people before the fire could reach them or the roof fully cave in. But just like the last time, no portal appeared, which of course he should have known, since he wasn’t actually here.

  Except green light did appear in the room—

  And then the room, the green light, and the fire all disappeared, replaced by rooftops over a city, sprawling out in every direction.

  For a moment, the new height sent a wave of dizziness through Fort, and he desperately grabbed for the railing on the fence surrounding them, only for his hands to pass right through it, just like Rachel’s had through him a moment ago. Still, he managed to catch himself before falling through the fence, at least, and straightened up to find large glass triangles rising up around them.

  But where was he? He peered over the fence as close as he dared, knowing he wouldn’t be able to grab it if he fell—though hopefully he wouldn’t be able to fall, since he wasn’t even here—and noticed a familiar sight: Not too far was a bridge with two castle-like towers spanning a river.

  He’d seen that bridge before. This was London.

  “Look!” someone shouted from behind him, and Fort whirled around again to find Rachel, with Jia beside her, pointing out over the city from nearby. He ran over to them, but froze in place as he saw what Rachel was shouting about.

  Orange light from a thousand different sources was flooding into the domeless sky, like streams of magic. And as they stared, more and more appeared, all emptying out into a sort of humanoid form that stood as tall as a skyscraper.

  “What kind of magic is that?” Fort asked softly, not sure he wanted to know.

  When neither of them answered, Fort turned to find Jia looking as confused as he felt, which made sense. But Rachel, always confident and fearless, looked terrified.

  “It’s … it’s Spirit magic,” she said finally, holding her arms tightly to her chest. “That’s … that’s what the Old One Q’baos used on the dwarves. And on me.” She shuddered. “It changes who you are, down to your core. Into whatever the caster wants. That’s why the dwarves worshipped Q’baos. It’s that powerful.”

  They were too far to see clearly, but even from a distance, Fort could tell that the orange light was forming around something large, with huge wings. A dragon, it had to be. The center of the light even shimmered the same way Damian had, back in Buckingham Palace.

  Wait. Hadn’t Cyrus mentioned something like this, when looking into the future? He’d said that the books of magic fogged things up, making them really hard to pin down. Something about how they were too powerful, too chaotic for seeing their future clearly.

  Was that what this was? Had that really been a book of magic being held in Damian’s foot? Was that what was causing the shimmering in the vision?

  And if so, was it Spirit magic?

  As the orange light continued to stream in, it formed a sort of massive creature, which began to reach down to swipe at nearby buildings. Apparently it was solid, because wherever it touched, the buildings collapsed to the ground.

  Buildings with people in them, maybe.

  Again, Fort cast Teleport, trying to open a portal over to the monster, not knowing if he could help, but not being willing to just sit and watch. But just like the last two times, no teleportation circle opened, and—

  “There’s someone on those rooftops,” Jia said, pointing now as Rachel looked away. Fort followed Jia’s finger, squinting enough to make out a few figures on the roofs near the monster, just as she’d said.

  As he watched, one set off a green light, and the three disappeared into what looked exactly like a teleportation circle.

  Fort gasped. “Was that … me?”

  “Who else even knows that spell?” Rachel asked. “Just
Damian, and Gabriel …”

  But there was no chance to answer her as the skyline of London faded momentarily, then reappeared.

  Only this time, where the orange monster had once stood, now there was nothing but destruction.

  Whole blocks of buildings were razed to the ground, leaving behind devastation and chaos. Soldiers walked in formation through the remaining streets as ambulances’ sirens rang out through the air, so many they all seemed to come together as one.

  Below them, even in the blocks where buildings still stood, people lay on the ground unmoving, like they’d been knocked unconscious. Here and there, thin tendrils of orange light flittered back to the ground like discarded ribbons, where they seemed to explode with a light too intense to look at. Fort covered his eyes, but when the light faded, he discovered that there was now a dazed, confused-looking human lying where the light had landed.

  Was the orange light … people? How could Spirit magic do that, though?

  Another siren went by, and something flashed in Fort’s mind, the National Mall and police sirens racing toward the Reflecting Pool as a giant monster clawed its way up from the depths below. He flinched at the memory of the Dracsi attack, only to find something similar unfolding below him, this time real, not just in his nightmares.

  A wave of dizziness hit him again, but not from the height, and he wanted to cover his eyes, to look away, anything, but he knew he couldn’t.

  It was all happening again. And this time, he knew who’d caused it.

  “Take us back!” he shouted into the air, making Jia jump next to him, though Rachel didn’t seem to notice. “We’ve seen what you wanted us to see, William. Bring us back, now !”

  But the sirens continued to shriek through the air, and shouts from people below echoed up to them, even high above the rest of the city. Fort finally did look away, shutting his eyes, not willing to watch any longer. “We’ll stop this, okay?” he shouted again. “We will. Just bring us back and tell us what we need to do! We don’t need to see this anymore!”

  “Okay,” said William’s voice, and Fort’s eyes opened to find he was back in the Carmarthen Academy’s headmaster’s office, with William and Ellora in the same spots they’d been in, as if no time had passed. Next to him, Jia and Rachel both jolted as if coming out of a dream as well, which Fort wished had been the case.

  But even with the shimmering, even with the fog, that had been far too real.

  “Now, my fellow wizards,” William said, his smile more genuine this time, “you have seen the enemy, and the awful future he seeks to bring about.”

  “I don’t get it,” Rachel said. “I thought you couldn’t see the future when a book of magic was involved, but we saw plenty.”

  “Only William’s been able to see that much,” Ellora said. “That’s why he had to show you. If the rest of us look, it’s all fogged up. Probably had to do with him getting trapped in the near future, so he had more time to—”

  “False,” William said, shaking his head. “I was destined to see it, and to be the messenger of our future peril!” Ellora rolled her eyes as he continued. “Now, brave souls, tell me you’ll follow my lead in our endeavor. Our plan is truly the world’s last hope.”

  Fort took a deep breath, then looked at his two friends. Jia seemed distracted, like she was lost in the future still, while Rachel had her arms wrapped tightly around her chest, like she was freezing cold.

  “We will,” Fort said. “Tell us the plan.”

  William gave him a tight-lipped smile. “No.”

  - THIRTEEN -

  NO?” FORT SAID, NOW EVEN more confused. “You don’t want our help? Then what—”

  “If I share the full plan with you, Damian will pluck it from your mind like a flower from a garden,” William said. “In order to keep it safe, none of us know the full plan. It is the only way.”

  Rachel sighed loudly, but at least her annoyance seemed to be bringing her out of the funk she’d been in. “First, you really need to talk normally, or I’m going to explode. Second, if you can’t tell us the full plan, we still need to know how to stop Damian.”

  “And why Damian is acting like this,” Jia said quietly. “He must be possessed. He’d never do this.”

  “Oh, he’s not possessed,” William said. “But I can’t fully explain his actions, not without taking a peril-filled journey into his mind—”

  “What did I say about the language?” Rachel said, taking a step closer to him.

  William sighed, rolling his eyes. “Great art is never appreciated in its time. I can use simpler words if that helps you. Is that better?”

  “Yes,” Fort, Jia, Rachel, and Ellora all said at once.

  “Philistines,” William said, then held up his hands in surrender at a look from Rachel. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry. This all started yesterday, when Sierra brought us back to the present. From where, you ask?” His face lit up a bit. “Ah, that’s a story worth telling—”

  “Another time,” Ellora said.

  “Fine,” William said. “Sierra brought us back from somewhere. And that’s when things get interesting. Because before we came back, I’d foreseen what was to come. Originally, we’d have returned, and Damian would use his Mind magic to try to find out where the book of Time magic was. Only, we didn’t know, because the teachers had taken it. But instead, he found something much more interesting.”

  Ellora waved her hand for him to hurry it up, and he shook his head in disgust. “Damian found that one of us knew where the book of Spirit magic was, okay? Long story way too short.”

  Fort winced at the mention of Spirit magic and saw Rachel shudder out of the corner of his eye. So they’d been right about the type of magic they’d seen back in the vision of London’s destruction. He really wished they hadn’t been.

  “So then Damian goes and gets the book,” William continued. “Probably planning on using it on our teachers, to find the book of Time magic too. Only what he doesn’t know is that Spirit magic can affect the weak of mind, tempt you with its power. And Damian, who’d just found out that everything he ever knew about himself was a lie, had quite a bit of anger boiling around inside him.” Here he paused, giving Fort a long look. “Though you three probably know just as much about that as I do, eh?”

  Fort turned bright red in response. But that wasn’t even fair. Gabriel had been the one who’d betrayed Damian to the Old Ones, not Fort. And that had been how Damian had found out about his dragon heritage.

  Yes, Gabriel would never have been in that position if Fort hadn’t gone looking for his father, lying to his friends about it, but …

  He sighed. Maybe it was time to stop making excuses.

  “I don’t get how Damian finding out he’s a dragon makes him destroy everything,” Rachel said. “What exactly did the magic do to him?”

  William leaned in close, an excited glow in his eye. “You think of magic as a power, a tool you can use like electricity or gravity.”

  “Gravity’s not exactly a tool … ,” Ellora said, but William ignored her.

  “Magic doesn’t care about your physics or laws of nature,” William said, getting closer to Fort, Rachel, and Jia to the point they all stepped backward. “Magic has a mind of its own, one not too happy with humanity, from what I’ve felt.”

  Felt? Fort frowned. How had he “felt” that? What was he even talking about, magic having a mind of its own? That couldn’t be possible. Magic couldn’t have its own opinions on things and just not like human beings.

  … Could it?

  “He’s making this up,” Ellora said. “None of the rest of us felt anything like this.”

  “None of the rest of you were sent where I was,” William said, his face going pale. “And from what I’ve seen, magic has it in for us. It wants us to fail, to fall before its masters. And it’ll help them in any way it can. Especially Spirit magic. No other type has as strong a will as Spirit, and when someone as conflicted about things as Damian messes around with it�
��BOOM.” He shouted this last bit, making them all jump.

  Could that be true? Damian hadn’t exactly seemed calm and together when burning down Buckingham Palace. And stealing all the people in London to form a giant Spirit monster didn’t help either. But how could magic itself have such an impact on someone’s mind?

  “I don’t know about the rest, but Damian definitely thinks everyone’s out to get him, even his former friends,” Ellora said, nodding at Jia. “You must have seen yourselves there in the future, trying to stop him.”

  And failing, from the look of it. Fort frowned. That didn’t bode well.

  “There’s no reasoning with him,” Ellora continued. “Whatever Spirit magic is, he uses it to absorb the power of every citizen of London and destroy the city. After seeing the TDA powerless to stop Damian, all the other countries decide they need to protect themselves any way they can. And that means they want their books of magic back, now.”

  “To which your government says ‘no thank you,’ ” William continued. “And in the department of unfortunate timing, this is when the discovery is made about how to give magic to adults. Word gets out, books of magic are stolen, and the world goes to war, resulting in scenes like the ones you all saw.”

  For a moment, everyone was quiet, each lost in their own memories. Visions of the tsunami and of Damian destroying London flooded into Fort’s head, no matter how hard he tried to push them out. Was this going to be how the world ended, in a war because Damian couldn’t control his magic?

  No. It’d be a war because Fort couldn’t let his father go. Everything else had come from that, and there was no one else to blame but himself.

  But if he hadn’t gone to the Dracsi dimension, he’d never have known if his father was still alive. His dad would have been left there, living out his life as a monster. That couldn’t be the better choice, no matter what came of it!

  But maybe there was a better way to do it. One where he worked with his friends instead of lying to them. Where, together, they found out what Gabriel was up to before he almost gave the Old Ones the whole world.