Story Thieves (27 page)

“WEAPON, SIR?”

“Why, the very same one that Kiel Gnomenfoot hoped to use against me, Commander. The one he journeyed all the way here to find. You see, the fabled Source of Magic has been locked away under this palace for thousands and thousands of years. When the first magic-users left Quanterium, they hid the Source inside the Vault of Containment to keep it safe. Here, on a world of science!” He snorted. “Truly disgusting that it's been here so long. But I've developed a weapon—a bomb, really. It's quite simple. It takes the power of the Source of Magic, recognizes any quantum connection between the Source and those who have ever used magic, anyone in all of history, and
destroys
them. Rather dramatically, too, I'd imagine. I'm hoping they'll
be burned from the inside, personally.” He smiled. “Billions will die, of course,” he said. “Throughout space and time. But magic will quite truly be no more. And it will all be thanks to the majesty of science!”

A bomb?! That's what this had all been about? Everything Kiel and Charm had done, seven books of finding keys, and it'd all been a manipulation, a trap on Dr. Verity's part? And now here Owen was with the first six keys, and a heart for the seventh, delivering them right to Dr. Verity? He had to escape before the doctor found him!

Dr. Verity stopped and glanced at the Science Soldier. “No questions, Commander?”

“NO, SIR.”

“Obedience,” Dr. Verity said, clapping his hands. “I love obedience! The fun part of all of this, though, Commander, is that I shouldn't have been able to do any of this. You see, those clever little magic-users thought of everything. They knew that we pure, true-hearted scientists might someday want to destroy their precious Source. So they ensured that only a scientist working with a magic-user could possibly locate all the keys to open the vault.” He grinned. “But what self-respecting Quanterian would ever associate with a Magisterian? I needed
a magician if I had any hope of getting into that vault.” He made a face. “Given that I was once one of those horrible creatures myself, thousands of years ago, I know how things worked there.”

Dr. Verity gave the commander a look, and when the robot didn't say anything, the scientist hit a button. The robot jolted, then asked, “WORKED, SIR?”

“Science builds upon what exists, Commander. Just like logic. But magic . . . dirty, horrible magic creates something where nothing once existed. And magic so infuses Magisteria now that it's changed how life there works.” He shook his head. “There, those with nothing inevitably become the most important. Orphans. Forgotten children. The least among the least. Magisteria takes those downtrodden and builds them up, just like magic does.” He looked disgusted. “You should see their greatest heroes. All came from nothing. It's almost a cliché there now. But when one understands the reasoning why, then one—
I
—can work with it. All I had to do was drop a child into one of their cities, produce a threat, and sit back waiting for my hero. Nothing could have been easier!”

He hit the button again, and the commander jumped. “HERO, SIR?”

“But I needed a trustworthy child,” Dr. Verity told the robot. “One I could count on to follow through and eventually see things my way. And since I trust no one but myself, I had no choice: clone myself. And it worked! My old friend the Magister found the little me and taught the boy everything he'd need to know to deliver me my keys. And do you know what, Commander?”

“NO, SIR?”

Dr. Verity leaned forward, then looked around as if to check if anyone was listening. Then, he whispered, “I think that boy might have even found the last one, the Seventh Key. The one that was destroyed!”

Dr. Verity waited for a reaction, but got none from the Science Soldier. Finally, the doctor sighed and shook his head. “You're a terrible audience, you know that?”

“YES, SIR.”

“Good,” Dr. Verity said. “Now, if only there was someone
else
here to listen to me go on and on like this. Someone who thinks he's disguised, tricking me into letting him run free in the Presidential Palace so he can go open the vault and use the Source of Magic
against
me.”

. . . .
Uh-oh
.

“Kiel?” Dr. Verity said, and the other Science Soldiers all took one large step back. Owen quickly did the same, but far too late.

“Oh, Kiel, let's not play this game anymore,” the doctor said, picking up a laser rifle almost three feet long from the desk and aiming it right at Owen. “Please, you're insulting my intelligence! And if there's one thing I absolutely won't stand for, it's an insult to my intelligence.”

Owen winced and pulled off his mask.

“Ah, there he is!” Dr. Verity said, beaming. “The apprentice magician. The one destined to defeat the big bad Dr. Verity. The clone himself, ready to take a shot at the real deal!” He winked. “You
are
quite intimidating.”

And then Dr. Verity shot Owen right in the chest with the laser rifle.

“Well, at least you were,” the doctor said. “Commander! Have your soldiers search his body for the keys.” He grinned widely. “It's time I got to play with a weapon of
magical
destruction!”

A
shrink ray?!” Kiel shouted at her.

“It worked, didn't it?” Bethany asked, frantically looking through the shelves. “Stop complaining and help me look!”

“A shrink ray,” Kiel repeated. “You do understand that when you shrank down the monsters, you hit me as well? Meaning they could still easily eat me? Not to mention the insects that used to be normal-sized but now were spiders the size of small horses?”

“You're fine,” Bethany said, pulling a book off the shelf, then tossing it away. Where
were
they?

“A shrink ray,” Kiel said, shaking his head. “I was almost eaten for a forty-third time!”

“Forty-fourth,” Bethany said absently. “And aren't you the one who told me to be more fictional? To take more risks? Don't you
like
danger?”

“Well, yes,” he said indignantly. “Though it is a
bit
less fun
without magic, I can't lie. What'd you do with all those monsters, anyway?”

She nodded at a large overturned bowl in the middle of the library. “Rounded them up and threw that over them,” she said. “They're kind of cute, at that size.”

“Not if you're that size too,” he said, tapping the bowl. “Aww, look at the little blob monster! Blub blub blub!”

“We'll put them back where they belong as soon as I find the last Kiel Gnomenfoot . . . the last
you
book.” She'd seen copies of the series when she was in here last. She'd even taken a copy of the first book, which she'd used in her chase with the Magister. But where had it—AH! “
Kiel Gnomenfoot and the Source of Magic 
!” she said, yanking the book off the shelf. “This is it!”

“Shouldn't it be blank without me in it?” Kiel asked, giving the book a confused look.

Bethany quickly opened to the one of the final chapters. “No, because Owen somehow turned into you and lived out your story.” Of course he had. Why had she assumed that just because Owen was trapped outside of space and time he still couldn't get himself into trouble?

“
No one
turns into me,” Kiel said, looking offended. “I'm one of a kind.”

“Now you're two of a kind,” she said, showing him the page she'd flipped to.

Kiel's eyes opened to find Dr. Verity bending over him. “AAH!” he screamed in surprise, and tried to push himself backward but found he was strapped down.

“Wow,” Kiel said, cringing. “Things don't look like they've gone too well.”

“I know,” Bethany said quietly. “You need to get back in there and take his place.”

Kiel glanced over the page. “He's getting his heart taken out? That doesn't sound healthy.” He sighed. “I knew it had to end. That's what the historical documents from the future told us, back when we found the Second Key. I knew I wouldn't live through this. Though having my heart removed does explain a few things.”

“We need to get him out of there!” She started to reach into the book, but Kiel grabbed her hand.

“Find a place where he's not being watched, or you're just
going to turn up in the book,” he said quietly, all the arrogance of a moment before gone. “I'll switch with him then, and no one will know.”

Bethany nodded, and flipped forward a few pages. “Here. He's been knocked out by the Science Robots to have his heart taken out.”

Kiel nodded and prepared himself. “I'm ready.”

Bethany started to take his hand, then stopped as something occurred to her. “You don't know any magic.”

“Doesn't seem so, no.”

“But you're going to just switch places with him? You'll be trapped without any spells!”

“I knew it was coming,” he told her. “It's been nice having this little break from things, out here with you. But now it's time to get back to the real world.” He shrugged. “Or my version of it.”

Bethany closed the book. “I'm not going to just let you die.”

“It's how things are meant to go, Bethany. You can't change a life story.”

She glared at him, hearing her own voice telling Owen the same thing. And then she heard herself snort. “Don't be
stupid. We just need Jonathan Porterhouse. He wrote it, he'll change it.”

“The book is
written
.” Kiel grabbed the copy from her hand and showed her the words. “See? It's all there! Look. Look at the end—”

She knocked the book out of his hand. “Don't look at the end! I'm going to find Mr. Porterhouse, and he's going to fix this. I don't care how.”

“You don't even know where he is!” Kiel said. “Just bring me back, Bethany. Owen doesn't belong there.
I
do.”

Bethany glanced around the library. “You're right, I don't know where he is. But I can find him.”

And she could. She had the magic, after all.

“How? Didn't you say the Magister hid him in one of these books? It'd take years to check them all.”

“Not if I use a spell,” she said, letting out a deep breath. The location spell she'd learned would find him, of course. After all this time, she knew that magic did what it was supposed to do. The only problem was, this was it. Spells were only good once. Which meant she'd be no closer to finding her father, and nothing good would have come of
any
of this. For a moment
she couldn't do it, any more than she could cast the spell the day before in the library.

Bethany glanced up at Kiel, ready to admit she just couldn't. Kiel stared at her with concern, looking like he was ready to catch her if she fell.

Well, okay, maybe
one
good thing had come out of this.

She raised her hands the same way she'd seen Kiel do, then felt the location spell she'd learned to find her father run through her mind. She took a deep breath, then recited the words, and her whole body began to glow with the same warm feeling like hot chocolate on a cold day. And then she released the glow, saying Jonathan Porterhouse's name.

A tiny ball of light appeared in front of her face, then slowly floated off into the shelves of books.

“Follow it!” she yelled, then took off after the light.

The glow passed over and through books, zigging and zagging until finally settling on one in particular. Bethany picked it up quickly, then dropped it in horror.

“It's a Stephen King book,” she whispered.

“What's that?” Kiel asked.

“Nowhere you want to go. Ever.”

“Eh, I'm not worried,” he told her, grabbing her hand. “I have a half-fictional girl to protect me. Now let's go find my creator so we can pull your friend out of my story and get me back to losing my heart, shall we?”

She couldn't help it. She grinned at Kiel, then jumped them both in.

O
wen's eyes opened to find Dr. Verity bending over him. “AAH!” he screamed in surprise, and tried to push himself backward but found he was strapped down.

“Finally,” Dr. Verity said. “I didn't think you'd ever wake up. Looks like I set the stun setting up just a
bit
too high. Didn't want you using any magic, though.”

“AAH!” Owen screamed again.

“Let's move past that, shall we?” Dr. Verity said, beginning to pace. Owen quickly looked around and realized that he wasn't in the audience chamber anymore. Instead, this looked like some sort of dark hallway, lit by the smallest of nuclear explosions on either side. And in front of him was . . .

“The vault,” Dr. Verity said. “Notice anything unusual about it?”

Owen frantically looked over the door, but didn't know what to say, so just shook his head.

“It's not OPEN!” Dr. Verity shouted. “Do you not see the problem here, boy? I count one-two-three-four-five-
six
keys here! What kind of hero are you, showing up without all the keys you'd need to find the only weapon that can defeat me?!”

Owen stayed quiet, thinking as quickly as he could. There was no way he could give the mad scientist the last key he needed. No matter what it cost him, he couldn't let Dr. Verity use a bomb to wipe out everyone who'd ever used magic! Not only would that be the entire population of Magisteria, but also Kiel, the Magister, Owen himself, maybe even Bethany!

But how could he keep the Seventh Key from the doctor? If all it took was a selfless heart—

Wait a second.

Dr. Verity peered down at him impatiently. “Well?”

“Well what?” Owen asked, stalling as he walked his way through the plan.