SWNOVELS Chapter Chapter Twenty-Two
Sunday morning dawned bright and clear, as if apologizing for the previous day.
Richard was already gone, bed made, by the time Nick woke up late. His angelfish was missing from its tank as well. It seemed unlikely that the Warfield boy would be out at the Wiccan Sabbath rituals, which began at sunup, though his absence did suggest some sort of religious acknowledgment.
At the sound of Bruno snoring the morning away, Nick grinned. This roommate, at least, was uncomplicated. Like its master, Bruno’s newt familiar was lounging in its cage.
It took a few minutes to prod himself out of bed. Nick’s entire body felt like one massive bruise. When he at last managed to climb out of the warm mattress he padded almost blindly through his morning routine and then loped downstairs where he gobbled up breakfast without tasting anything. When the big clock gonged eight times, Nick stood and rushed to depositing his plate and silverware at the kitchen dish-slot. He then headed toward the exit.
In the atrium just outside the dining hall, he nearly ran right over the twin Asian girls Wut and Hu Wen. They were munching on a box of chocolates.
“Whoa,” Nick said, skidding to a stop. His face was mere inches from the girl’s taut smiles.
“Where are you off to in such a hurry, Nicholas?” Wut asked.
Her perfume momentarily slowed the cogs in his mind. Eventually he lied: “I thought I’d explore the grounds. My first year here and all, and I haven’t had a chance to explore yet.”
“What about yesterday?” Hu said as she squeezed a cherry cordial between thumb and dainty forefinger. “Oops,” she licked the creamy center before it could ooze out onto the floor.
“Yeah,” Wut added. “We thought maybe that’s where you were yesterday, inspecting the grounds. But we looked all over for you, and you weren’t anywhere.” When she fell silent, the girl proceeded to stare at Nick, who was still mesmerized by her sister’s activity with the cherry.
“What?” he said stupidly. “Oh, I was . . . out at Duchaine’s. He’s catching me up on the mythics.” He then added conspiratorially, “I’m a little behind in Bestiary.”
Wut’s face briefly took on a disgusted look. “It’s a vile class anyway,” she said. “Putting living beings in cages should be a crime.”
“Yup,” Hu concurred. “They should lock Duchaine in one of those contraptions, see how he likes it.”
“You know?” Wut agreed, right before placing a chocolate on her waiting tongue.
So pink and soft, Nick thought, staring.
“Well?” Hu shook him from his reverie. “Where are you off to today? Getting into trouble? Are you naughty, one of those don’t-bring-home-to-daddy bad boys?”
Nick chuckled nervously. “Maybe I am.”
“Ooh,” the girls scrunched their faces in delight. Before leaving, Wut laid a caressing hand on his right forearm. “You ever want any company during your little treks into the forest, you let us know, ’kay?”
The boy could only nod. As much as he enjoyed speaking with the twins, he derived even greater pleasure watching them leave—and not because he was impatient to meet up with Anaximander; they were dressed identically in the latest jeggings—no skirts.
Shamgar’s ramshackle forge stood down by the creek, toeing the line at the edge of the Institute’s property. On their walks from the school down to the forge, students would often blurt out ‘Old Smokey!’ when they spotted the black smoke belching from Shamgar’s chimney, hoping to be the first to see it.
It wasn’t until he was halfway down the stone pathway that Nick spotted Old Smokey.
On an infamous jagged slate stone protruding dangerously on the path, Nick’s foot froze; something wasn’t right here. He flashed through everything he knew concerning this meeting. A tidbit from yesterday’s encounter with Vinculus at the Department surged to the forefront of Nick’s thoughts, something the Grand Vizier had said.
‘Seeking knowledge of the Mythmage is a violation of Decree 187’ he’d warned.
No doubt Anaximander was aware of this stupid decree. Nick’s features became pinched as he realized what had caused the foreboding. They’re setting me up! He stomped on the protruding stone and started to turn back.
But the idea that his own teacher, someone who was supposed to be a guide and a light to him in this world, would set him up like this churned his stomach acid. He paused. It was difficult to formulate a plan of defense while boiling with rage. But within two minutes he’d settled on a plot.
With grim determination, fueled by sheer disgust, Nick marched straight for the forge.
At the heavy oak door, he pounded seven times.
The hinges groaned in high-pitched wails as the door was opened; an ancient man stood in the doorway. Striking Russian nose and brow, a shock of neatly trimmed white hair gave the old blacksmith a decidedly wizened countenance, a look Nick knew to be true to his character. During their two trips here to work on their amulets, Shamgar had offered the students sage advice in addition to his skills with the hammer and anvil and the pliers and gem setters.
The man nodded at Nick.
“Hello Shamgar,” Nick said. “I thought I’d see if you could use some company—” he peered into the forge past the old man’s body. His eyes were still accustomed to the sunrise, and so all he saw was blackness inside the forge. But from this close he was once again struck by the incredibly lean musculature of Shamgar body.
He may be incredibly old, but no one could mistake Shamgar for feeble.
Nick trotted into the smithy when the blacksmith gestured him inside. He then paused at the door. While Shamgar bustled about preparing a cup of tea for Nick, the boys’ eyes adjusted, and he spotted another man sitting at the table.
“Oh, h-hello Dean Delacort,” he stammered.
Delacort set his cup down slowly, uncrossed his legs, and stood. “Visiting Shamgar on Sunday mornings is an old tradition of ours,” he said. “Though I will say this,” here he grinned at the ancient man, “I have not enjoyed the pleasure of his company as often as I have today. Why don’t you tell him that tale you shared with me, Shamgar? I think young Mr. Hammond would quite benefit from hearing such a legend.” With a quick nod to the boy and the ancient man, Dean Delacort whisked away, out through the door and back up the path. Nick watched him through a window until he disappeared over the rise.
“Was that true?” he demanded of Shamgar, who’d just sat down at the table with two steaming mugs. “Does Dean Delacort often come here?”
For the longest time Shamgar merely inhaled the steam from his mug, held in gnarled fingers close to his face. Logs in his fireplace crackled. The smithy was a sauna but Shamgar betrayed no hint of any discomfort; he merely sat there, drinking up the heat.
Nick moved his own cup off to the right, making a long scraping sound, and then leaned forward. “He’s lying, isn’t he?”
Shamgar nodded once, and then took a sip.
In his creaky chair, Nick pounded a fist against the tables’ rough, washed out surface. “I knew it. They set me up.”
With infinite patience the old man sat quietly, waiting and sipping at his tea while Nick steamed and raged and paced through the recently swept forge. He’d nearly drained his cup by the time Nick had tired of this and retaken his seat where he drummed his fingers and tapped his shoes against the floor, still a fount of nervous energy.
“Can you believe this?”
Shamgar made a face Nick could only translate as meaning ‘Sure I can. I’ve seen it all.’
“What should I do?”
In response, the ancient man stood. A series of creaking noises accompanied his rise, and Nick could not have said whether they came from the old beaten down chair or from Shamgar himself. They appeared equally prehistoric.
Nick followed him to the western window, which looked out and down towards the creek.
At the boathouse, Anaximander could be seen meditating. At the sight of his betrayer levitating there, all peaceful and wise-looking and floaty while he prepared to stab Nick in the back, set the boys’ blood churning again. For a second during their spirit walk, he’d felt a certain kinship with the teacher; which served to make this whole thing that much worse.
“He told me he was going to tell me everything about the Mythmage,” Nick explained, as much to Shamgar as to himself. “So that when I would ask to know about the man, Dean Delacort would be there to witness my violation of Decree 187 and . . . what, they would expel me? No, that can’t be right. They can’t expel me. What’s the point of this then?”
Shamgar looked down at the boy, a sad grin crinkling his features.
“Just to keep me in line?” Nick said, reading the answer on his face. “Show me who’s in charge and all that? Jeez, I know who’s in charge. They didn’t have to . . .”
He returned to his seat.
For a few minutes they were both silent, listening to the calm crackling of the fire. “Shamgar?” Nick said, looking up from his moping daydream. He took a few seconds to steel himself for what he wanted to ask. It was possible the weathered man was in on this schoolyard sting op, but Nick refused to believe that. There had to be someone he could trust here.
“Can you tell me about the Mythmage?”
And then he waited, poised to run, to apologize for his law- breaking tendencies.
Shamgar locked the door. After checking out the window, he closed the shutters and then moseyed over to a closet. He yanked on a section of wall until it tore free, revealing a tiny alcove within the closet. He then whipped a plastic tarp out of the alcove and withdrew a bundle of old crusty newspapers from the hidden recess. The bundle was tied with a length of twine, old-school paper-boy style. Shamgar dropped the dusty bundle onto the table and retook his place at the head in his rickety chair.
After coughing at the small dust cloud, Nick sat up straighter and peered at the top page.
“The Magic Times,” he read, “October Thirty First, Twenty Sixteen. FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF M-DAY: ‘Hunt Still On For the Mythmage. DME Says Lead Warlock on the Case, Helena Moss, Has Uncovered a Promising New Lead.’ Holy smokes!” Nick concluded. “Newspapers about the Mythmage, are you serious? I didn’t think they would even mention him.”
He paused to consider something, and then spoke low, to himself. “They must just not want my generation to know about him, since the Department never caught the Mythmage.” It was a satisfying theory, anyway.
There were pages dating back only a few years to all the way back to M-Day; there was even one edition (his parents had a copy tucked in their closet) headlining Nick’s successful birth in Genucorp, the day before the mythics arrived in 2015. The juxtaposition of Mythmage and mythics headlines with his own headline startled Nick. He had never before connected the two events. He had never before had any reason to, but now that he thought about it, he thought he sensed something important in the dates.
While trying not to look suspicious, Nick made a mental note to research those dates. Perhaps they were lunar events or something.
“These are great,” he told Shamgar a few minutes later. “I don’t suppose I could take them with me to my dorm and—” his mouth snapped shut as the old man suddenly stood and made to take the papers. “Right, I understand. You were hiding them for a reason. If you could get in trouble for having these, I guess I would be in deep.”
He had to think quick, couldn’t let this golden opportunity fly past him. “Sir,” Nick said, as Shamgar was gathering up the invaluable pile. “Could I . . . would you mind if I came by sometimes to study these?”
A long pause. Finally Shamgar nodded. Once he’d stuffed the pages back into their cubby he shuffled over to the door and waved Nick out.
Beside him at the door, Nick asked, “What should I do about Anaximander?”
The ancient man leaned down as though to whisper conspiratorially, giving Nick a whiff of molten metal. “Play the game, son.” Shamgar grinned. Of his few remaining teeth, most were yellow, some black.
Despite the cringe-worthy sight, Nick smiled back, and then he jogged down to meet his teacher by the creek.
All his half-cocked, harebrained, and decidedly ludicrous plans to call Anaximander out on the plot were shot to sunshine when he observed, from ten feet away the man was hovering in midair. How were you supposed to catch a man off guard when he could defy the laws of physics?
It just wasn’t fair!
Nick cleared his throat.
Within moments Anaximander was back on two feet, like a proper human being. He looked at Nick and cocked his head. “How did you figure it out?”
Nick mimicked his birdlike gesture and carefully considered his next words. It probably shouldn’t have come as a surprise that the Voodoo Priest would know. The man had uncanny knack for knowing things.
“It just came to me,” Nick replied, “while I was walking along the path, that a teacher wouldn’t share information—” he realized he could stop here and the statement would be true in a general sense “—about the Mythmage. Plus, there’s that whole Decree 187 thing to consider.” He was quiet, awaiting Anaximander.
“So you’re not curious at all about the Mythmage?”
“Sure I’m curious,” he confessed, kicking a stone into the creek. “But I can’t ask about him without breaking the law, and you can’t tell me about him without breaking some sort of unspoken adult rule not to share information with teens. I guess that’s just something older people do to feel all smart or whatever.” He exhaled deeply. Had he gone too far?
Who cares? It felt good to get that raw truth out in the open.
“How did you know I knew?” Nick asked when Anaximander failed to take the bait.
“When you quiet yourself,” Anaximander said as he marched up to and walked by Nick, “the universe opens up to you, anxious to spill all its secrets. But then, I suppose you needn’t bother with such archaic practices, not when things ‘just come’ to you. Good day.”
Ten minutes later, having failed to find any lasting comfort in his telling off of Anaximander, Nick wandered along the stone path back up past Shamgar’s and then on through the grounds.
Eventually he passed the Mother, a Wiccan obelisk erected in the yard atop a green hill, where dorm Wicca was busy swaying to its own inner soundtrack in a great Circle, hands clasped. Not far from there Richard was sitting alone on an old sagging wooden bench. He was observing the ceremony with that strange knowing grin. Today though, Nick noticed, there was a trace of melancholy to the grin.
As his legs were starting to burn from his walk up the path, Nick settled onto the bench beside his bunk mate. The wood sagged down a smidgen more.
“Whatcha doing?” he asked Richard.
Richard permitted a beat or two of silence before answering. “When I first came here I thought I’d hate them, the Wiccans, I mean. Of all the dorms, only Wicca seeks out a supreme being, but instead of God they worship Ea, Mother, the goddess, whatever. It’s all idolatry.”
Nick squinted at Richard, whose head appeared to be sporting a halo under the fierce gaze of the sun. “Does this have anything to do with Bruno calling you ‘preacher’?” Nick asked.
There was a twinkle in Richard’s eyes now, adding to the light dawning on him. He took a bite out of his apple, chewed. “It doesn’t really matter though, in the end,” the boy continued. “Their goddess is counterfeit, a stand in idol for the one you all truly follow.”
Nick blinked against more than the sunrise. “And who is that?”
“The Devil,” Richard took another chomp out of the apple. Juice dribbled down his chin.
A few moments passed wherein the boys watched Dorm Wicca dance around the Mother. Then Nick said, “Are you like, a Christian?”
“I am.”
“You do realize you’re in a school of magic, right?”
A leering chuckle joined the knowing grin.
“I thought all you bible-thumpers hated magic?” Nick pursued his subject with gusto. He’d never known a real live believer; they weren’t exactly a majority these days. “If you think we’re all worshiping the Devil, then why are you here?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Richard tossed the apple core into a withering fern beside the bench. A flash of movement and the core vanished. It happened so fast Nick wasn’t sure what he’d seen, but he would’ve sworn on a spell book that it was a pair of tiny hands. “I’m here to convince all of you that you are wrong to learn and practice magic,” Richard explained. He lowered his head. “So far I’ve only managed to get three students to leave the Institute. Still, that’s three souls snatched from the Devil’s clutches.”
Nick shook his head and snorted derisively. “Man, I can’t believe what I’m hearing. It . . . I mean, from what I’ve seen you’re one of the best wizards in our grade. Top scores. I’ve seen you lay your hands on the sick in Miss Lamborghini’s class and perform pranic healing. I know you can astral project and imbue amulets to protect against curses.” He paused as the little hands under the fern darted out again. They scrambled around in search of more food before withdrawing. “For someone who hates magic,” Nick said, “you’re awfully good at it.”
Richard stretched, still watching the Wiccan dance with that abnormal grin. “I’ve never performed a single act of magic, done a working, or practiced a ritual of any kind.”
“Bull spit!” Nick accused.
The Wiccans stopped chanting and dropped as one, assuming meditative seated positions.
“It’s the truth,” Richard leaned forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped together.
“Then what are you doing in Amulets and Talismans when we’re charging our trinkets? I’ve seen you at your seat, muttering incantations with your head bowed.”
In the catalog of possible responses to this, Richard’s seemed the most contrived; he turned on the bench to face Nick, slinging his arm over the back, as though in mockery of a boy pulling the old yawn-and-stretch on his date. “While you’re all mumbling your silly little incantations, I am praying.”
“Praying? Really?”
Richard nodded. The grin never wavered. “I don’t do magic, I do faith. I pray, believing, and God answers—usually.”
“Faith huh?” Nick muttered. “What about when—”
“There you are!” Bruno and one of his pals came charging up to them, toting his bag, which was weighed down and had a funny bulge deforming it.
“Here I am,” Nick confirmed.
Sweat darkened Bruno’s shirt around his armpits and up front, forming a plunging gray shadow of a dress. “It finally came. Come on, before all the stupid novices show up there.”
“What are you going on about?” Nick asked.
A sound like a gurgling drain proceeded out of Bruno’s mouth. Nick could only assume it was the bully’s version of laughter. “Dude, come on. You got to see this. I’ve been planning it since last month. Just come on already.”
“All right,” Nick stood and Richard made to follow.
Bruno held a hand out toward the believer. “He can’t come. Preacher boy’ll ruin it.”
“That’s fine,” Nick said, eyeing Richard. “I’m not sure I want him around anyway. He thinks we’re evil.”
Richard sat back down.
In an effort to ignore a pesky sense of guilt, Nick followed his bunk mate across the grounds without looking back. They trod down the brick path that forked off at Shamgar’s and sped off along a rocky outcrop overlooking the creek. The foliage here, made up mostly of birch and maple, was aflame with late autumn turning, and the brilliant leaves seemed to be applauding in the wind, though Bruno was oblivious to this beauty, too intent on his own personal plot.
“So what’s in the bag?” Phillip, Bruno’s pal, asked when they reached a long sprawling garden bordered by a low white fence.
“Scram,” Bruno growled to a few little novices. The kids scrammed.
Now that they were alone, Bruno dropped onto an old wooden bench losing a battle with time and shoddy craftsmanship. His bulk made the bench shed chips of peeling paint as it quivered. He set his pack down and beamed up at Philip and Nick. “You ready?”
“Sure,” they shrugged.
While slowly unzipping the bag, Bruno explained: “My older brother told me something really cool about gnomes that the teachers would never tell us.” The zipper was half open, but Nick could not yet see inside. “He said that gnomes can’t tell the difference between their own race and—” he quickly undid the rest of the zipper and then opened the bag with a flourish, revealing—
“Garden gnomes?” Nick sat down at seeing the colorful yard ornament. “Seriously?”
“Well,” Bruno said, “my brother’s been known to lie, I guess. But check it out. It’s just us and the dirt-herders. Now’s our chance. Watch this.” He hoisted the ornament out of the pack and then stepped over the low fence into the liveliest garden Nick had ever seen.
Within the border of the fence, there seemed to be an explosion of verdure, produce of every sort growing wildly, many species partially sprouting out of the ground as though in haste to be harvested; flowers, breeds of which Nick had never seen, bloomed in perfect rows to one side, in patterns of red white and blue, with yellows hedging the spangled fence. Grapevines and fruit trees took up vast tracts farther in, twining their branches into each other while ears of corn peeked out of stalks to the left; miniature ladders pushed nearby, too small for humans.
The entire garden had the heavy humid feel and the cloistered stink of a greenhouse.
Bruno crept forward down a narrow dirt path, his size 12 shoes wiping out dozens of miniscule footprints in the soil. He stopped. With great care he placed the ornament before a pink tulip, facing it toward the flower. Then he backed away, retracing his steps.
“Come on,” Bruno whispered.
During their short trek back to the other side of the fence, Bruno failed miserably to conceal a bad case of snickering.
Three minutes later Philip sighed and left.
Two minutes after that Nick sighed. “Dude, this is boring. Can we go now?”
“No, man,” Bruno hissed. “I’m telling you, this is going to totally rock. The gnomes are just skittish. Like rabbits. You got to give them a few minutes—ut, there’s one, there’s one. It’s taking the bait!” He slapped Nick on the back in his glee.
Together they watched as a tiny bearded man, about eighteen inches tall (though its dunce hat helped him to top out at an even three-feet), round about the middle, waddled over to the ornament in largish boots. He moved in an irregular gait. Nick imagined that a rabbit walking on only its hind legs would move in a similar fashion. Like a rabbit, the tiny man warily made his way towards the fake gnome, his gestures uncertain, one foot always turned out as though ready to flee. On reaching the ornament the man bowed graciously and spoke.
“Good morning pally,” the little man had a small voice, although Nick did not have any trouble hearing him, even from twenty feet away. “I am Handy Andy.” He rocked on his heels, hands clasped behind his back. “And you are?”
When the ornament rudely ignored Handy Andy, not even bothering to turn around and face him, Handy Andy changed his tact. He tapped the ornament roughly on its shoulder. “I said I am Handy Andy!”
No response.
“I see, sir, that you have no respect, that you do not honor the trivialities. I hereby charge you with malicious intent to ignore, and first degree disrespect. How do you plead?”
Still no response from the ornament.
Beside Nick, Bruno was having a hard time stifling his laughter. Such was the violence of his guffaws that they threatened to bring him to tears any moment now.
“Oh, good Gob,” Handy Andy cursed. “You are a discourteous boor, make no mistake. If you will not turn and face my charges, I claim trial by combat. First hit is yours, sir.”
The ornament resistance all urge to respond.
Handy Andy stomped his tiny feet. “Very well,” he said in his toughest little-guy voice. “As you have refused the first hit, properly offered by me as per the Rules, you give me no choice but to retaliate as is my right according to the Magnus Charter of 1215.” He rolled up his sleeves, reared back, and socked the ornament on its shoulder.
A squirrely hoot escaped the gnome’s mouth.
Bruno fell to his knees in pure ecstasy.
Apparently not one to be dissuaded from a fight based on a single upset, Handy Andy reached down, dug a stone (a pebble to Nick’s eyes) right out of the dirt and slammed the ornament with the weapon. The clay statue shattered.
For a few moments Handy Andy stood gawking at his defeated foe. Then he whistled shrilly. Four gnomes emerged from the shrubbery nearby. Together they surveyed the remnants of the fake gnome as Handy Andy explained what had happened, and then they proceeded to stomp on the clay shards until all that was left of Bruno’s ornament was an earthly mound marking the location of its obliteration.
The gnomes bowed to the mound once and then resumed their gardening.
Bruno finally burst out in full expression of his mirth, loud rumbling laughter escaping his soft mouth. “That was . . . oh man! That was great. I’m gonna order five more statues.”
Nick shook his head. “You’re a sick man, you know that?”
“What?” Bruno said, wiping his eyes. “I was just having some fun! Don’t pretend like you didn’t enjoy that. That stupid little grubber totally thought he was being ignored by a real gnome! How can you not find that funny?”
Nick turned and left, shaking his head. It was good to let the bully blow off some healthy steam; he’d need Bruno to be in a good mood if he was going to convince him to help.
On the way back to the Institute, they spotted Richard reading on the bench.
Nick whispered to Bruno. “I need a favor. If you do it, I won’t tell the teachers what you just did to that poor gnome.”
“You’re blackmailing me?”
“It’s not like that,” Nick said, knowing full well it was exactly like that.
“I let you in on a family secret and this is the thanks I get—”
They were fast approaching hearing range of Richard. Nick whispered, “I’ll owe you one. I’ll do all your sigils and symbols after-class work. You won’t even need to bother trying to learn the stuff. Okay?”
“Cool,” Bruno said. “What do you need?”
“To start, I just need some time alone in the monitors bunk.”
Bruno recoiled. “Dude, most guys take care of that in the bathroom.”
“Not that,” Nick hissed. “I need to study a spell book and I can’t have anyone walking in interrupting the rituals.”
“Study something, huh?” Bruno snorted. “Right. Fine.” He bee lined over to Richard as Nick continued on toward the Institute doors. “Listen, Pastor Dick,” Bruno said, dropping down beside Richard. “There are a couple of guys in Dorm Shaman I want you to meet. You’ll like them; they’re a lot like me.”
The whole trip back inside and up the stairs, heading back to his dorm, Nick suffered from an acute sense of being watched, a sort of gurgling unpleasantness in the pit of his stomach that had nothing to do with his hasty breakfast. On the stone stairway, carved out of the mountain itself, he paused to execute a Watch with his third eye. Normally this required several minutes of determined focus and meditative breathing, but today, whether enhanced by his new position as a warlock, or whether he was now simply more attuned to the world than the last time he’d done this back at the mall, Nick was instantly bombarded by impressions and presences. That specter he’d seen was hovering in the stairwell. Gypsum weed was emerging from cracks in the floor. (How it survived being trampled or harvested by the black market boys was a mystery to Nick, but he could smell its green toxicity.)
All these things faded into the background when he spotted a boy lurking one landing down, Nick’s third eye giving him a sort of dove’s tunnel vision peek at the lurker.
Nick recalled his consciousness, gathered his strength and plunged ahead, up the stairs two steps at a time. When he reached the second floor, he hid behind a pillar and waited. A few moments later . . . footsteps. Nick had to give his pursuer kudos; he moved quietly, though not as silently as the warlocks.
He waited for the glistening moment. Any second now . . .
“Hey!” the boy shouted as Nick grabbed him from behind.
“Nick?” he said. “What are you doing spying on me?”
As though imitating a mirror, Other Nick mimicked Nick’s every gesture, even down to his facial expressions and mannerisms. “I was playing Whizzing Frisbee down on the field when I got this sudden desire to study.” Here he leaned against the marble banister, mirroring Nick’s own relaxed position. “Since I hate studying, I figured it must be our Law of Identification acting up, and that you were the one wanting to study. So I went in search of you.”
Nick crossed his arms. Other Nick did the same. He uncrossed his arms, only to witness a mirror image of this act. “But how did you know where I was when you went looking?”
Other Nick shrugged. “Not sure. Just kind of felt it, I guess. So, what are you up to?”
Could he trust his doppelganger? “There’s this book in my bunk,” Nick explained.
“A book?”
“An old grimoire of magical rites and spells and—” dare he share this provocative bit of info? “Curses. I need to find something in it. Can’t be disturbed.”
Other Nick leaned over and whispered. “Are you looking for a way to understand your connection to the mythics? Because if it’s an old spell book, it probably won’t have anything on them, you know. Ooh, is it about the one you encountered in the Dreaming?”
Nick considered this, nodded. “It’s not exactly something the teachers would want me finding out about, you know? Bruno knows I’ll be in the bunk, so if something goes wrong, he’s going to suspect me.” He liked where this was headed. But could they pull it off? There wasn’t exactly a butt load of lore on doppelgangers. “Think you could pretend to be me?”
Other Nick nodded.
As he scrutinized him, Nick realized his unrelated twin had recently gotten a haircut to match his own, and his mannerisms were pitched perfect. They were the same height, and roughly the same weight and build, so that only left their wardrobe as distinctive. Nick was fond of flannel and blue jeans, whereas Other Nick tended to be more chic. Probably his warlock father Luc had the dough to spend on fancy duds for his boy. They were from different dorms, so if they were going to pull this off, he’d have to get Other Nick past the Necromancy gargoyle.
He looked down the hall at the mythic guarding his dorm.
“Okay, I’ve got a plan. Follow me.”
Together they trekked down to the sentry. At their approach, its stony wings stirred, and it looked at Nick. This alien nod of recognition had become the norm. Nick wrapped an arm over Other Nick’s shoulders. To increase his focus on the mythic, he slowed his heartbeat through pranayama, a yogic technique Miss Quaffle had been teaching them (following the golem attack, the teacher had been annoyingly skittish about reentering the Elysian Fields to play Mageball), and then Nick gazed directly at the pebbly pupils set deep in the head of the mythic.
“You will let my friend pass. He belongs here as much as I do.”
The gargoyle did not move.
“Okay, I think it’s cool,” Nick said. “Let’s go.”
Other Nick hesitated. “Whoa. How can you be sure? I mean, it didn’t nod or anything. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.”
“It’s a brilliant idea,” Nick argued. “Think about it. If anyone sees you in Dorm Necromancy, in my clothes, they’ll just assume it’s me. No way will anyone believe a guy from Dorm Wicca could sneak past our gargoyle.”
“Did you just rip on my dorm?”
“Kinda,” Nick confessed. “Just trust me on this.”
Nick nudged Other Nick past the mythic. For precisely two steps they were golden . . . and then flinty wings fluttered. The gargoyle stepped off its dais.
Other Nick jerked back, trying to wrench free of Nick’s grasp.
“Hold steady, darn it,” Nick muttered, restraining his doppelganger. “It did the same thing the first time it saw me, too.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel safer?”
“Duh,” Nick said. “Obviously it didn’t kill me. Just let it sniff you.”
The gargoyle continued its inspection by snapping with protruding stone jaws at Other Nick’s hand. The boy yelped and recoiled. When it leaped at him, Nick pulled Other Nick out of the way, sending the mythic crashing into the door post. For a glittering moment all three parties froze—and then the gargoyle leapt at the boys, leaving deep gouges in the floor where its claws had dug to gain traction.
The boys shoved off from each other and dove for safety. Apparently living statues didn’t have any more flexibility than real statues, because the gargoyle failed once again to turn in time; it smashed into the doorway, sending dust and bits of carved stone flying everywhere.
Through the dust Nick saw the mythic shake its head. It was going after Other Nick.
“Okay,” Nick said. “Maybe I was wrong.”
“You think?” Other Nick shrieked.
Heavy sandstone paws thumped against the floor. BOOM-BA-BOOM-BA-BOOM. “Um, run?” Nick suggested.
On the other side of the gargoyle, the boy scrambled to his feet and fled down the hall.
Nick covered his face as the beast stretched out thin wings. Creaking sounds of flint stones rubbing against each other filled the air; the wings began to beat. Soon Nick felt wind batting at his face. Through spread fingers he watched as the stone wings grew fleshier, as stone began to flow and drip like wet concrete. Incredibly, the gargoyles feet lifted off the floor. For three seconds it hovered there, wings beating violently at the air. And then it shot down the hall.
Nick stood. “Holy frigging crap. This is turning into one nasty kerfuffle.”
Almost before he decided to pursue it, Nick’s feet were moving, legs pumping, chasing the impossible nightmare creature as it pursued his friend. He couldn’t let this happen, and not just because it was wrong to let another student die because of his bonehead decision.
“Stop!” he screamed after the gargoyle.
As he rounded a corner, Nick could hear screams echoing off the walls. He hoped they were screams of terror, as of a boy being chased, rather than the considerably worse type of scream, that of a boy being eaten or stomped to death.
Hopeful screams, Nick decided.
Thick oil paintings of former deans lined this corridor. As Nick caught up with the gargoyle, still flying, its claw-tipped right wing caught one of the canvases, sending it crashing to the floor. The stern-looking oil face in the painting glowered up at Nick as he ran by.
“Sorry,” he said.
“Help!” Other Nick screeched. “Someone help!”
“Keep your voice down,” Nick pleaded. Last thing he wanted was some blabbermouth showing up and seeing what a bloated kerfuffle he’d gotten them into.
A stairwell was coming up on Other Nick’s right hand side. If he reached it and ran downstairs . . .
Nick shuddered at the thought. Most of the students were outside participating in the Dance of the Mother, or were acting as amused spectators to the ritual, but some few dozen, Nick knew, would be downstairs in the Great Hall, lounging about on the sofas and recliners. They’d hear Other Nick’s screams, see the flying gargoyle, and then . . . pandemonium.
No matter what, Nick could not let that happen.
He recalled a chapter from some magical tome whose title was quite beyond his memory right then, about wizards issuing Commands on animals, using Words of Power, or mantrams. Supposedly the spell was used to help facilitate borrowing into the creatures. It was fairly advanced stuff; third year journeymen lessons, or perhaps placement college level.
But Nick had a connection to the mythics.
He steamed ahead before they could reach the landing, cutting the distance between himself and the gargoyle in half. Then, blotting out all other sight, sound, and thought, he focused on the mythic and spoke a Command, sprinkling in the few Words of Power he knew from listening to his father.
“Beast of the other world,” he boomed. “Araum, kuros. By the Fates I command you to stop. Araum, kuros. Thus speaks Nicholas of the line Hammond!”
Cringe-worthy dialogue to be sure, but he didn’t laugh at the hokey words, afraid such an act might nullify their power.
The mythic hesitated. Smoke emanated off the membranous wings as they morphed back into stone, and the gargoyle thudded to the floor, making a slight impression in the stonework.
Nick watched this as blackness crept up at the edges of his vision.
With a soft thud he slunk to the floor.
Time seemed to waver in a haze every bit as blurry as his sight had become. Nick watched, struggling to hang onto a tendril of consciousness, as Other Nick ran up to him, taking a wide detour around the frozen gargoyle.
“Help me up,” Nick managed, though it sounded more like ‘Helmup’. “Back to the dorm,” came out as a slurred ‘Bactadum’.
Other Nick hoisted his idol up and struggled to lead him back toward Dorm Necromancy. He hastened his pace when, on looking back, he discovered the gargoyle padding along after them. “I can’t believe we just got chased by a mythic and survived,” he said, starting to sag under Nick’s weight. “Oh sorry, I’m sure it’s old news for you, but this was my first time.”
“Hold up,” Nick said. Though weary and two breaths from doing a face plant into the cold stone floor, he hobbled over to the fallen painting. “Help me place it back up.”
Other Nick groaned but moved to help, keeping a wary eye on the beast lurking just over their shoulder. Together they hefted the surprisingly heavy painting in its gilded frame and stretched on tiptoes to re-hang it. On standing back to determine if it was straight or not, Other Nick made an observation that thrust Nick into a defensive mode.
“Hey, look at the nameplate: Albertus du Cain. Think it’s any relation to Agabus Duchaine?”
Nick shrugged, inciting a wormy haze of black-edged vision. “Don’t know. It’s possible, I guess. Come on, let’s hurry back. Don’t want anyone to catch us taking this mythic for a walk.”
It might have just been the blurry vision, but Nick thought he caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of his eye as Other Nick drew his arm around his shoulders. A glimpse of someone—or something—watching.
Back at the entrance to dorm Necromancy, the boys very slowly stepped across the threshold while the gargoyle observed them both with its lifeless eyes.
From the other side of the door they released a pair of held breathes as it climbed back up onto its plinth. “That was too frigging close,” Other Nick gasped. “Next time you’re all like ‘trust me, trust me,’ I’m gonna hit you in the face.” But he peered around the other doorway just the same, making sure no one was lurking.
“Well?” Nick asked as he leaned against the suit of armor. “Is the coast clear?”
“A couple of guys are snoring it up, but it doesn’t look like anyone else is around. Is that your monitors bunk at the end to the right?”
Nick nodded. “Let’s make this fast.
Other Nick made their trek down past the beds quickly. So quickly, in fact, that he tripped at the monitors bunk, sending Nick flying into the room to fall spread-eagled onto Bruno’s bed.
Nick grumbled through a mouthful of dirty blanket, “Puah. Nasty. Shut the door.”
Privacy at last.
Dead on his feet, Nick forced his weary muscles into action, pushing himself over, and then sliding down to the floor in a heap. Without looking at what his hand was doing, he reached beneath the bed and tugged on Bruno’s rolling junk food bin. It wouldn’t budge.
“Give me a hand, would you?” he was about to ask, but Other Nick beat him to it, taking hold of the bin’s molded plastic handle and dragging it out to within reach of Nicks hand.
Following a three course meal of Sno-Balls, Snickers, and Hershey’s Kisses, washed down with a few hearty swigs of Bruno’s last Red Bull, Nick belched, loud and long. His pants felt tight and he needed to use the bathroom.
“Ahhhh,” he stood. “That’s much better. Sleep will complete the job, but I’ve got work to do first.” Beside his bed, Nick recovered Lemegeton and thumbed through it quickly.
“So what should I do while you’re off educating yourself?” Other Nick asked.
“Um . . . sit on my bed and basically pretend to be me.” Not exactly rocket science. Nick wondered how many points separated his IQ from that of his doppelganger. At the door he added, “Help yourself to Bruno’s stash. He’s going to bust a vein when he finds it raided anyway, so you might as well enjoy the snacks too.”
“Ooh,” Other Nick purred with anticipation. “Don’t mind if I do.”
Following a visit to the bathroom, Nick halted at the entrance to the common room. Another student was standing near the exit, gawking at the damage the gargoyle had caused.
“Crap,” Nick hissed to himself. He raced back to the monitors bunk. “Nick,” he said. “We have a problem. Daniel Wilson is in the common room. I need you to distract him, bring him back here and keep him occupied so I can slip out. Tell him you want to show him something.”
“My thing?”
“What?” Nick frowned. “No. Eew. Jeez. Show him . . . Bruno’s stash, or Severus.”
“Fine,” Other Nick promptly did as he was bidden. To his credit he played a convincing Nick, lowering his voice an octave and altering his walk into a sort of saunter to match Nick’s. Daniel Wilson seemed too preoccupied by the mysterious damage to the doorway to notice any other slight discrepancies between this faux Nick and the real McCoy.
“Dude, have you seen this?” Daniel asked Other Nick. “What do you think happened?”
“Whoa,” Other Nick said, inspecting the damage. “You know what I bet it was? I bet someone from another dorm tried to enter.”
“You think?”
Other Nick laid it on thick: “Definitely. I mean, that’s the only thing that’ll rouse the gargoyle, right? I bet it was those Asian chicks, the Wen twins. They’ve totally been crushing on me. I bet they tried to come see me. Yep.”
“Should we report it?” Daniel Wilson wondered.
Other Nick pretended to vacillate before replying, “Nah. Hey, you want to raid my bunk mates’ candy stash?”
“Does he have Ho-Ho’s?”
Nick stifled a laugh as Other Nick led Daniel past his hiding place and on into the monitors bunk. Back at the common room doorway, he was detained by the suit of armor, which had decided to park itself smack in the middle of the five-foot wide exit.
He sighed. “I really don’t have time for this. Can you please move?”
The helmet creaked against the gorget beneath it as it shook back and forth.
“Look,” Nick sighed, “I don’t know if you’re a ghost, or if a spell was put on the suit of armor, or if a glimmering is animating it, but I have a small window of free time right now to research something very important. So please move aside.”
To his surprise the suit of armor shifted about a foot to the right and gestured for him to pass with a broad wave of its gauntleted hand.
“Thank you.”
As he strolled down the corridor, Nick decided to ask Duchaine about that magical suit. Judging simply by its behavior toward him, Nick was sure it had to be a glimmerling animating the thing. Maybe Lemegeton had something to say about controlling alien entities, demons and spirits and whatnot; it sure would be useful to have a suit of armor watching his back.
Just then, racing upstairs, he felt that niggling sensation of being followed.
It was fast becoming the norm for this place, but he couldn’t shake the feeling, and there was no more time to waste sending his Sight out in search of a possibly imaginary eavesdropper. If there was someone following him, he or she was from some other dorm; he hadn’t felt anything inside dorm Necromancy.
Orville Pitts was muttering to himself in his classroom as he read aloud what sounded to be a particularly dull narrative of medieval magical law. Too bad. Nick would’ve liked to work in there, the classroom was filled with scrolled glyphs in the fretwork to promote peace. Perfect setting for delving into old magic as set forth in Lemegeton.
He strolled past a few more doors.
Ah yes, there it was, the perfect practice room.
Nestled in the large turret overlooking Lake George, was the aviary, where students from all five dorms kept their bird familiars when not using them in divination workings.
Never locked, rarely hampered by supervision or pesky teachers, it was ideal.
And no one was inside at the moment.
At the door Nick’s hand froze on the knob. He’d heard footsteps. Or maybe they’d just been the clicking noises of the birdies cleaning their beaks against their poles.
“Snap out of it, Nicky boy,” he slapped his cheek.
Once the delightfully solid wood door was closed, Nick wedged a hefty bag of hardseed beneath it. Half a dozen ravens cawed. Owls hooted. Robins caroled. Blue Jays screamed. The songs of the smaller canaries, finches, and parakeets were lost in the cacophony—to Nick’s dismay. He enjoyed the gentle, relaxing chirps of finches. On the other hand he’d once shot a blue jay with his BB gun when it wouldn’t shut up. It’d survived the pellet only to get eaten by Severus when it fluttered to the ground in shock.
Served it right, Nick mused as he eyed one of the big blue birds screaming at him.
Lemegeton fit snugly on an old lectern nestled in an alcove, though Nick felt a smidgen guilty about placing such a sacred text on old dried bird droppings.
He opened the tome and flipped randomly until it stayed open on its own. Then, turning round to face the room, he surveyed his surroundings. Sure, it stank, crap practically painted the floor in putrid shades of yellow, purple, and brown, and the air was humid, but there was also a series of sunbeams lighting up the motes and feathers, and Nick was, after all, alone in a wizarding school and about to commence with his self-taught training in magical defense.
All things considered, it was a good day. Almost good enough to wipe out the memory of Anaximander’s betrayal.
But those blue jays were still annoying.
For a few minutes Nick perused the old book of magic, searching for something along the lines of mystical shields or—as he knew it existed, thanks to Vinculus’s use of the geas on him—a silencing charm to keep people from squealing on him. That would be useful, he mused, thinking about Richard.
A dozen fascinating passages and headings caught his attention and slowed his pursuit. Eventually his finger snagged on a small dog ear. He followed down to the verse and read: “Tethering Enchantments: Weaving and Thwarting Tethers - for Advanced Adepts.”
Of course, it was written in ruddy Latin, language of the enlightened (and of practitioners across Europe and the Americas), so reading it was a bit tedious. All practitioners were taught Latin from the cradle. Nick imagined his struggle with the old tongue dampened some of the manuscripts magic. But it was still a fascinating read. If someone had walked in and asked why he needed to know about tethering enchantments, he wouldn’t have been able to answer.
But then, like a half remembered dream he recalled a dim conversation about a powerful tether enchantment and an old . . . scrying ball? Mirror?
The sounds of the birds began to dwindle as he read aloud.
By the time he was satisfied he knew how (without knowing why he needed to know) to thwart a potent enchantment placed on a mirror, Nick was flipping through pages like a Druid. They were dry as old newspaper; place a candle too close and they would go up with a puff and be lost forever.
Or maybe not. Nick detected a faint whiff of animal skin stink to the pages. Perhaps they were vellum. The ancient Druids were master book binders. It was likely, considering the age of this particular edition of Lemegeton, that the publisher had indeed used dried animal skin.
Nick grinned a grin that could’ve won an award.
Five minutes later he was reading up on a very clever little invisibility spell unlike anything he’d ever heard of, when a crashing scuttle from somewhere outside the door yanked Nick out of his reverie. He hotfooted over to the door and peeked out. The sound had died almost as swiftly as it’d erupted, leaving no sign. Just as he was turning back, however, Nick spotted a mop handle rising through the air at the end of the corridor. Then it vanished.
Back inside the room, leaning against the closed door, Nick ruminated on the floating mop handle. Stranger things had happened. This was a school of magic, after all.
Still, it seemed a mite coincidental. With a little shiver and a mental jolt to get back to work, Nick dispelled all thought of the Mop Handle Mystery of 2030 and resumed his study of invisibility spells. The ‘light method’ seemed the easiest. In fact, if his comprehension of the Latin incantation and gestures was correct, it appeared rather too easy.
He shrugged. “No harm in trying, right, birdies?”
Nick was halfway through the ritual, a tingling sensation erupting all over his skin as the sunbeams reacted to his aura, when the doorknob began to rattle.