SWNOVELS Chapter Chapter Twelve
“You repelled me,” Anaximander said. He was on his hands and knees, sweat drizzling onto the floor in tiny puddles. “That was extremely advanced magic, boy. Who taught you that?”
“No one.”
Anaximander slowly stood. He looked to be struggling; the man certainly wasn’t going to be floating around again anytime soon. “Then you’re ability to activate the Law of Astral Light is inherited.” The Haitian shuffled backwards into a wicker chair where he sat leaning forward, elbows on knees.
Nick moaned quietly; his limbs felt like they were made of lead. He could hear the little plinking sounds of his sweat dripping to the floor, though he could barely see anything. The lone red candle had been extinguished at some point during their spirit walk. When he tried to stand, Nick lost control of his muscles and fell in a heap. This level of fatigue was unnatural. Nothing but time and carbohydrates and sugar was going to recharge his depleted system now.
And yet he couldn’t help but grin. Anaximander had called what he’d just done ‘advanced’ magic, and considering his exhaustion, Nick knew it was not sorcery he’d employed.
Though this idea of accessing dormant memories—the Law of Astral Light—excited him, Nick doubted he could do it again without years of training. Luck had its place, even in the wizarding world, despite practitioner’s vehement denials of this fact.
Nick removed a smooshed Nutri-Grain bar from his cargo jeans pocket and liberated the blueberry and crumbly bar from its wrapper. Three minutes later, as he was attempting to stand again, Anaximander called out from the darkness, his voice barely above a whisper: “I did manage to glean one word from your memory in the Dreaming.”
Nick froze. “Um, and what word is that?”
Anaximander stood. The wicker chair creaked in complaint. “Mythmage.”
Was it possible to stop breathing and not die? Of all the words Nick had tucked away in his mind (and there were plenty of dirty birds he’d never say aloud), that one, ‘Mythmage’ was by far the most exotic and well defended. He hadn’t even had a chance to find out who or what this Mythmage was.
“What’s that?” He hated to revert to the stupid ignorant card, but . . . desperate times.
It was now past lights out, and the castle was dead silent. The only light in the room was a stray moonbeam, wide and dim, leaking in through the vaulted window. It caught Anaximander’s sugar-skull face tattoo as he stepped up to Nick.
“The truth will out, boy. This is the most important question anyone will ever ask you,” Anaximander said, not unkindly. “What do you know of the Mythmage?”
“I think I met him in the Dreaming,” Nick confessed. “But I don’t actually remember.”
Ten seconds crept by like ten hours. Was the Haitian going to accuse Nick of dabbling in black magic and blah-blah-blah? Would he feign ignorance of the Mythmage, or would he haul off and smack Nick in his smart mouth?
“Sunday, during the Wiccan goddess ritual, meet me at the dock outside Shamgar’s forge. I’ll tell you about the Mythmage.” The man shuffled away, dragging his feet.
Nick couldn’t believe his luck. A teacher was finally going to reveal some answers! He just hoped he’d survive the mythic hunt with Duchaine on Saturday; it would be a shame to die before finding answers.
Twenty minutes later he entered the Necromancy common room and tried not to freak out on noticing that one of the suits of armor was missing. Richard was still up in the monitor’s bunk. Nick mumbled out an excuse why Richard no longer needed to keep him awake, and then both boys dropped into their respective beds.
When he awoke hours later it was to the mewling whines of Severus demanding his food.
“Why don’t you get one of those automatic feed dishes for him?” Richard asked as he packed up the books and paraphernalia he’d need for class.
Nick sat up, rubbed sleep from his eyes. He decided he wouldn’t confront Richard about his backstabbing. Best to keep the lines open between them. “I tried that,” he explained. “But Severus always got nervous whenever the food bottle got low, like he was going to starve or something, so he’d eat all the rest and then go around puking up rainbow stains all over the house. Mom would have a fit and threaten to get rid of him.”
Richard laughed. “They’re not the brightest familiars, cats.”
Severus huffed at Richard, like a tiny hiss. It was something the tomcat did when he was annoyed or insulted, like whenever Nick commented on the stink of his scat when he cleaned the cat’s litter box. Richard looked quizzically down at the feline and eyed him warily as he continued packing his bag.
“Hey,” Nick said. “You got any candy?”
“Sorry,” Richard admitted, careful to avoid stepping on Severus’ tail as he maneuvered over to his bookshelf. “Mom’s real big on cavity prevention.” He rolled his eyes.
Swinging his feet out of bed took just about every ounce of strength Nick could muster. He looked over at Bruno’s empty, unmade mattress. “You think Bruno’s got any candy?”
Richard grinned. “Have you met the guy? Course he’s got a stash.”
Nick found a plastic rollaway bin underneath Bruno’s bed. Inside he discovered a smorgasbord of junk food, skin mags, a small pack of firecrackers, and, serving as the only surprising find, a photo booth picture of Bruno with his arm around a girl who looked suspiciously like Delrisa Morgana. The girls’ face had been scratched off.
Magical Lore with Mr. Orville Pitts up on the third floor was dragging on, despite the two packs of Snow-Balls Nick had filched from Bruno’s pantry and spent all of two minutes gorging on. Sugary and starchy foods may help wizards recharge their chi, but it did nothing to alleviate the tedium of Mr. Pitts’ droning. Nick managed to endure ten minutes of details on the Inquisition before his sagging lids closed and his drooping head dropped to the desk.
“Mister Hammond!” Mr. Pitts’ voice broke through Nick’s dreamscape.
“Sir?” He could feel the raised letters of the enormous History of Magic edition indented in his cheek where he’d slept on it.
“Detention, tonight. Report for duty with Mr. Fukushima in the chandlers shop.”
“But—”
“No sleeping in my class!”
Hmm, Nick mused, so Mr. Pitts can be interesting if he wants. I see how it is.
On the way to gym class outdoors, while wondering what his tour of duty with cranky old Yutuu Fukushima might involve, Nick ran into Delrisa. He didn’t bother apologizing for knocking her books out of her hands—she wasn’t carrying any. She never seemed to carry books.
“Watch where you’re going, manfac,” the Shaman girl hissed.
“Manfac?”
Delrisa did an about face; she’d been cruising away from Nick but now seemed ready to pounce. “Yeah, manfac, as in manufactured human. Because that’s what you are.”
Nick marched straight up to the girl. They were about the same height, and when you combined this fact with her fierce talismanic face tattoos, Nick lamented sensing a faint feeling of being intimidated. Determined not to reveal this weakness, he refused to avert his eyes. Going long spans without blinking was a discipline he’d developed from years of staring contests with Severus. Of course, he always lost those to the cat.
“What is your problem?” he sneered. “Your parents got issues with me being taught here?”
Delrisa laughed, a derisive yet alluring sound that in no way bordered on the cackling-witch cliché. “I don’t give two craps what my parents think.” She leaned in. “I just don’t like you. You’re an arrogant prick thinks he’s something special.”
“You’re right,” Nick decided to go with shooting straight, maybe catch her off balance. “I am arrogant, but that’s only because I am special. I am the only one of my kind. That’s the—”
“Ha!” Delrisa interrupted. “I’m sure that was going to be astoundingly witty, but sadly I lost interest two minutes ago. Bye.” She whisked around, expertly whipping Nick in the face with her long black ponytail.
While cinching his backpack Nick mumbled, “It was going to be witty.”
It soon became clear that he and Delrisa were heading toward the same destination. Nick tried to let this annoy him, but something about the sight of her swaying hips in that snug skirt wouldn’t let him. One side cocked up, the other down, then that side . . .
On the steps leading out to the stunning green front lawn, Delrisa swiveled around. “Stop following me.”
Nick shrugged, tugged his sagging pack back onto his shoulder. “Can’t help it. We both got gym class right now.”
Her dark eyes scrunched together, morphing her tats into wholly new talismanic configurations. “Just . . . stop staring at my butt, manfac.”
Nick flashed his patented Hammond-come-hither grin. “I will, as soon as you admit that you’ve got the hots for me.”
“What?” her voice shot up several octaves.
“The hots. For me. Big time.”
He was moving past her when she grabbed his arm, whipped him around, and faced him, standing on the step above so she could look down her nose at Nick. After waving a few of her friends on, she hissed: “Let’s lay it out on the table, right now.”
“Ooh, that sounds fun. Top or bottom?”
Ignoring his innuendo, Delrisa said, “This is not like one of those stupid corny young adult flicks where girl meets new boy, girl and new boy bicker until girl falls for new boy. Or even those clichéd paranormal romance crapolas where girl falls instantly in love with the new bad boy.”
“All I heard was ‘blah-blah-blah in love with the new bad boy’,” Nick continued flashing his perfect white gnashers at her.
“Ugh!” Delrisa blew past him, nearly knocking him off his step.
While the thirty-odd students representing all five dorms were listening to Miss Katerina Quaffle explain today’s exercise, Nick spotted a boy off to his right, staring at him. Beyond the boy, high in the sky, circled a flock of eagles, and on the gravel driveway a few dozen paces behind him stood Driver Jensen, helping a very pretty (but Mom’s age) lady down out of his carriage.
But these things were mere white noise compared to the appearance of this boy.
He looked exactly like Nick.
Growing up wizard, books of magic lurking in the family library within arms’ reach, Nick had long known of the Law of Similarity, where correspondences can be made between things that are similar (identical twins being the most potent) and can forever after effect each other.
It was the magic on which the creation and use of poppet’s depended.
So it was only natural that the appearance of a doppelganger inspired all manner of mischief and mayhem in Nick’s teenaged mind.
He made his way over to the boy, marveling at their similarities. As they drew closer, the other boy let his mouth drop, the corner of his lips curling upward. Two feet apart at the back of the crowd, the boys stared stupidly at each other until each raised his right hand, palm out, as if to put it up to a mirror. The reflective action inspired a fit of quiet laughter in both boys.
“What’s your name?” they said.
Another quick laugh.
“I’m Nick.”
“I’m Nick too.”
“Hammond?”
Nick nodded.
The other Nick shook his head. “I can’t believe I look like the famous Nick Hammond. Man, I thought I was seeing myself in a mirror the other day when I saw you across the hall. For a few ticks there, I was even afraid I might be seeing a shifter imitating me.”
Thanks to lunchtime perusals of Fantastic Beasts and How to Kill Them, Nick was aware of the mythic species known as shifters. Nasty pieces of work, shifters could mimic anyone.
“But then I relaxed when I realized no shifter would bother looking like me,” Other Nick continued humbly. “Hey, think we could use our likeness to mess with people?”
“You read my mind,” Nick chirped
“Do you have something you’d like to add, Nicholas?” Miss Quaffle spoke over them.
As Other Nick shied away, Nick shook his head. “No, Miss Quaffle, I think you covered it.”
The yoga session was a bore except that Nick was fortunate enough to be positioned behind an oblivious Wiccan girl who’d forgotten to wear her leggings beneath her skirt today, providing him a few primo peeps during the downward dogs.
Following twenty minutes of stretching and breathing techniques, Miss Quaffle started dividing the class into pairs. As Nick waited, he voiced his desire to the universe, that he’d get paired with Other Nick.
“Nick Hammond,” Miss Quaffle said at last “and Delrisa Morgana.”
Somewhere off to his right Nick heard a ‘You’ve got to be kidding me’ as clear as day. Shoulders sloped, he shuffled over to Delrisa. Neither spoke to the other.
Once the pairs were all sitting cross-legged opposite each other, Miss Quaffle handed out Eye-of-Thoth capsules. A miraculous philter, Eye-of-Thoth, with its root essence of kratom powder, was used to boost energy while swiftly inducing delta wave sleep. It was a sort of magical lubricant for entering certain realms within the Dreaming.
When Miss Quaffle passed out of hearing, Nick looked at the little black pill in his hand and said, “Man, I love this school. They want you to eat junk food, they hand out drugs, and you get to carry around knives and play with fire.”
“Pfft,” Delrisa retorted. “Typical guy.”
Once they’d all swallowed their pills, Miss Quaffle said, “Now take your partners hands.”
“Gross,” Delrisa said, recoiling. “Why are your hands so sweaty?”
“Oh, that’s just my skin disease flaring up,” Nick teased. “Don’t worry, it’s only mildly contagious.” And then he reached over, grasped her hands firmly in his again. He tried not to stare, but as the pill began to take effect, her tattoos slithered around her eyes and down her chin.
Warmth and a profound sensation of calm seeped through his body, making his lids heavy and his limbs tingly. Soon he forgot all about Delrisa’s baffling negative responses to him. Somewhere—but really nowhere—water dripped, its lazy drizzling sound echoing in his minds’ eye. Open to suggestion, he unconsciously followed Miss Quaffle’s instructions on entering their target realm, visualizing as she led them in, her voice a disembodied guide in the astral realm. This was mind-diving, taking the plunge into the next world. When the moment came, Nick felt his arms float for the briefest period; a dizzying sensation, as of plunging off a cliff without really caring.
When he opened his eyes Nick was sitting in a vast grass-carpeted field.
Delrisa was already on her feet, searching for her friend. Lindsey, the girl Other Nick had been paired with, seemed happy to leave him behind to join Delrisa. This was fine with Nick too, as he could now team up with his doppelganger.
“Where are we?” he asked as Other Nick came over to help him up.
“Elysium Fields. This is where we play Mageball.”
“Mageball?” Nick wondered. “Baseball for Mages?”
“Exactly,” Other Nick offered his hand.
When Nick grabbed it, a shimmering bolt of blue lightning shivered out from between their hands, momentarily enveloping both boys. Nick fell back in shock.
“What the blazing heck was that?” Other Nick gasped.
Thinking about it, Nick believed he understood. “I think we just created a sympathetic bond.”
They gawked at each other before simultaneously exulting: “Cool!”
“Welcome to Elysium fields,” Miss Quaffle’s voice echoed. “Now, since this is our first trip here this year, we’re going to be doing some warm-ups. Who hasn’t done the jump yet?”
“Dude, you got to do the jump,” Other Nick started nudging Nick towards the teacher.
“Ah, Nick, this is your first time in the Fields, yes?” Miss Quaffle said.
Nick nodded and permitted Miss Quaffle to lead him to the edge of a deep gulley—mostly because he enjoyed being led by the twenty-something teacher in the snug leggings and sleeveless tee.
Peering down, he noticed the gulley was filled with thousands of metal spikes the size of baseball bats. The span to the other side was a good fifty feet.
“You want me to jump that?” he asked, appalled.
Miss Quaffle smiled at him.
“What kind of sadistic Mage came up with this exercise?”
The teacher laughed and then called Delrisa over. “Delrisa, be a dear and show your partner how it’s done.”
“Gladly.” Delrisa backtracked from the edge a few paces, crouched, and then sprinted. When she reached the perimeter of the gulley, she locked her legs and simply glided forward, all the way across the span.
It looked to Nick like someone had frozen her solid and then shoved her across a sheet of ice. On the other side the girl placed her hands on her hips and winked at Nick.
Other students made the jump, some gliding like Delrisa, others actually leaping across, while a few even stretched their legs to obscene lengths to step across the gully. Miss Quaffle, watching beside Nick, explained.
“You have to realize that here in the Dreaming, our capabilities are limited only by our imaginations. Almost anything is possible in this place.”
“Really?” Nick enthused. All he needed now were long mustachios to twirl.
Miss Quaffle nodded and gestured for Nick to make the jump. He positioned himself at the precipice, recalling a line from one of his favorite classic movies: There is no spoon.
If anything were possible, he thought, then why follow the mundane methods of other practitioners? He spread his arms and peered down into the spike-filled pit. “There is no spoon”. He soon felt the contours of the gulley in the deepest recesses of his mind, every spike protruding from the gulley’s dirt bed. He could do this. Here he could do anything.
The spikes began to tremble. The walls of the gulley shed dirt and then began to collapse in on itself. Seeing it done in his imagination, resolving it to be done through his will, Nick watched as the gulley became a culvert, became a fissure, became a smooth tract of land.
Students from the other side now stood nearly face to face with Nick.
Some cheered in a glorious concert of adulation, while others looked on in shock and perhaps even awe. Nick reveled in every single diverse response. He especially enjoyed the look of admiration on Miss Quaffle’s pretty face. Adults always underestimated him.
Finally the teacher found her voice. “Okay. I guess we’re ready. Let’s play ball.”
She divided the class into teams of nine, conjuring team jerseys over their clothes. Nick didn’t like the idea of someone messing about with his apparel, even if it was only in the Dreaming; what if someone decided to make his pants disappear?
He was playing shortstop for the Highlanders when Bruno came up to bat. Charlie whipped a zinger straight down the middle. It dipped two feet before reaching Bruno. The big guy still managed to smack it with the sweet part of the bat—probably because he’d made the entire bat into the sweet part. The ball zipped towards Nick. He bobbled it, retrieved it, and zinged it across the diamond, straight at the first baseman.
The throw was perfect, a beamer right into the glove, and with plenty of time to spare. But Bruno grew as he flew down the line. By the time he reached first base, he was twelve feet tall, built like a rhino. He slammed into the first baseman, sending the player flying a good twenty feet, forcing him to drop the ball.
Nick was sure the baseman had broken his neck in the ugly collision.
But the guy stood, dusted himself off and started complaining to Miss Quaffle, accusing Bruno of breaking something called the dimension limitation rule. They were still arguing two minutes later, Bruno’s defense being that he’d been well within dimensional range considering his already larger proportions when the second baseman, a Wiccan girl, collapsed and vanished.
Another girl screamed, prompting Miss Quaffle to notice the baseman and run over to her. As she performed an astral probe on the fading girls’ consciousness, another player, this one in the dugout, crumpled to the ground and disappeared.
And then a third student collapsed.
“What’s happening?” someone shrieked.
“We’re under attack!” someone else screamed.
Miss Quaffle stood, took the gleaming brass whistle from where it hung around her neck, and blew it for seven seconds.
Just as a fourth student was collapsing, Nick felt his insides clench, like he was about to puke. Momentary deafness and blindness took him. When the pain and sensory deprivation vanished, he found himself back in the waking world, back into his body.
Delrisa tore loose from his hands and started running, joining the melee.
Through the chaos Nick spotted the source of the mayhem: an attacking golem. At least, he was seventy percent sure it was a golem. Comprised of compacted dirt and bristling with jagged stone spikes, the mythic was lumbering across the front lawn, smashing statues and barreling over students left and right. From what he’d read, Nick understood there was little you could do against a golem except run.
Though he felt the perfectly sane compulsion to run, Nick also experienced a gentle—but definitely insane—impulse to confront the golem.
He was climbing to his feet, shielding his head from statue debris flying through the air, when a gargoyle leaped down from a parapet, slamming into the soft earth, and prowled up to the rampaging golem. In that moment, glittering with apprehension, uncertain why he was doing it, Nick turned towards the two mythics. He was twenty feet away—much too close for his taste. And yet his stupid legs kept on moving, insistent on dragging him closer.
The golem swiped at the much smaller gargoyle. The lion-like creature darted back to avoid the strike and then leaped up, latching onto the golem and digging into its earthen form with granite claws.
Students continued to flee, running for the safety of the entrance to the castle; some few remained behind to tend to their fallen friends. But the most disturbing element was the silence of the mythics. Neither one bellowed or roared or growled. Knowing next to nothing about mythic anatomy, Nick could only assume this meant neither one had any lungs.
They tore and bit and slashed at each other, all in complete vocal silence. The only sounds were the whimpers of students and the peculiar scratching of stone on compacted dirt, almost like some demonic zipper opening and closing.
Nick’s legs continued to bring him closer to the battle. Hands trembled, heart pounded. He flinched as the golem tore the gargoyle off its torso and flung it away. Fissures in the golem’s chest and legs caused by the gargoyles’ claws stitched themselves back together while the gargoyle landed on its feet.
Shivering, the gargoyle sprouted wings, the thin stony members tearing loose from its back and stretching out a good five feet on either side. Dust and pebbles fell to the grass. Flapping its wings, sounding like a faltering helicopter, it sprang into the air. Soon it was lost in the clouds.
The golem turned its attention to Nick, pebble-filled eye holes pointing directly at him.
It charged.
Nick considered using his athame, but seeing how ineffective the gargoyles claws had proven, he dropped that hope as pathetic. The various tinctures in his belt would likely prove just as useless on a golem, so instead he decided to run.
Once again his legs had other plans.
Frozen, with an eight-foot behemoth charging his way, Nick closed his eyes and mentally prepared himself for the inevitable death-by-squashing. He supposed being killed by a monster was as good a way to go as any. Brave, and such.
Something inside, a small voice perhaps, from the deepest sordid region of his unconscious mind, broke through his fear. Nick opened his eyes, held out a hand, and drove his gaze into the nothing of his enemy’s eyes. The gargoyle was four feet away, giant arm reared and poised to strike, when Nick shouted a single ballsy command: “Stop!”
The golem froze, thick branch-sized arm teetering overhead, almost comically. A golem playing Green-Light, Red-Light.
Dizziness took hold. Nick fell to hands and knees as students and teachers gawked.
Beyond the golem Duchaine came rushing up, some sort of tank strapped to his back, a long shafty weapon nestled in his hands. A blue flame was spitting out of its tip.
“Nick!” Duchaine shouted. “Grab the hose, over there behind the bird bath. Soak the golem! Do it, do it now!”
The small voice that had prompted Nick to stand up to the golem abandoned him.
Petrified again, Nick could only watch as the golem began to move. Out of the corner of his eye he also saw Richard flying down the steps, heading straight for the hose.