The Magician: An Epic Dark Fantasy Novel: Book One of the Rogue Portal Series (13 page)

EIGHTEEN

⌛

Stuart's heart pounded as he gasped for air, clamoring to get out of the library as quickly as possible. He didn't care that he was crying, or that people could see him do so, or that he looked mental. Hot tears coursed down his face as he traversed the staircase with the rapid feet of a rat in a wheel, which was appropriate, because that's exactly how he felt: scrambling without motion, a test rat in someone's cosmic lab.

              He'd never understood people who committed suicide, or killed another human being. For the majority of his life, he'd seen death as an unfortunate thing that far too many people took into their own hands. But as he ran toward the dorm rooms, he started to understand. Opening the door to the dorms and feeling the watchful eyes of giggling and chiding neighbors, he reconsidered. Using his key with trembling hands to open the door to room fifteen, he thought perhaps it was possible. And slamming the door behind him, sliding down the wall, gasping and coughing and crying and shaking all at the same time, his understanding transformed into empathy.
This is what it feels like to snap,
he thought.

              Connor meant well. Kit meant well. They all meant well. And that's what made the whole thing so maddening. Connor's eyes had been full of questions at the library, but he'd been kind enough not to ask. The disturbing thing, though, wasn't that he couldn't have answered Connor. But that he could have. Because he remembered everything. Rumsfeld had been right in the video, when he'd told him that the video would make him remember. Would force him to understand.

              His mind was split between two people. The person he'd always been, and the monster Rumsfeld had forced him to become. He knew his mission. Knew it better than he knew anything else. It was, in fact, the one thing he could rest his hat on as being guaranteed and unchanging. And the fact that the only answer he had was the horrifying truth of what he had to do.

              "I can't do this," he whispered aloud, still unable to breathe, still leaning against the door.

              His mind raced for an option. Any option. A way out.

              The conversation with Rumsfeld replayed in his mind like a nightmare he'd never quite woken from. Rumsfeld leaning down and whispering in his ear. Telling him of the thing he had to do. Must do. In fact,
would
do, even if he fought against it.

              But he couldn't kill. Could never take the life of another person, least of all someone close to him. Everyone he'd ever loved had been taken from him by death. By circumstances outside his own control. And now he was faced with the possibility that once again those he'd grown close to would not only be taken from him, but that he'd be the one to do it.

              He distrusted everyone by nature. But the one thing he'd always been sure of was that he could trust his own mind. And now that was the single thing he couldn't trust at all. Sleeping was dangerous. Breathing was dangerous. Because through it all he knew that, at some moment, he couldn't know when, he'd carry out his mission.

              He would kill Connor.

              His heart pounded faster, images racing through his mind like memories of the future, nightmares he hadn't yet dreamt, shaking, gasping, crying out because he didn't know what else to do. Didn't know where else to turn. His eyes fell upon the few books lined up along the desk. A law book caught his eye - nothing he'd ever use, just something he'd found interesting - but something made him focus. Through hazy, mist-filled eyes he crawled along the floor, shaking too violently to stand, gagging on vomit he'd not yet produced, stomach in knots.

              On the spine, engraved in gold...the scales of justice. Balance.

              And suddenly it all became clear. Of course there was a way out of this. Balance - everything in the universe had to come down to balance, didn't it? Of course it did. And it had to come down to give and take, had to be equal, right? Yes, of course it was right.

              He saw himself kill Connor. Saw it in a million different ways, different versions of the same torturous vision, all of them ending with Connor dying at his hands. But though there were countless ways he could kill Connor, one variable remained constant through them all. One thing had to be true in order for any of the rest of it to unfold.

              He had to be alive. Dead people don't kill other people. Living people do.

              Relief and heightened fear washed over him at the same time, leaving him on his knees, on the ground, sobbing in heaving gasps with cries so loud he was sure everyone outside could hear. Though he was equally sure he didn't care. Because after all...he wouldn't have to see them again.

              He collapsed on the ground. Pulled at his hair with both hands as he stared at the ceiling through watery eyes, seeing the world like a drowning man who was close enough to the surface to live, but knew he was better off where he was. Watching the world slip away. And feeling, for the first time, at peace. It was a nauseating peace, to be sure. Facing death wasn't easy. But it was necessary. Of that he remained sure.

              The ceiling came into sharper focus as he blinked tears out of his eyes, sending them down his face into his hair. And then he saw it. His way out. A hook he'd never noticed before. Never had a reason to notice. But now, suddenly, that hook became his salvation. The only thing he cared about in life. Because upon seeing the hook, he remembered two things simultaneously: a closet in their dorm room that the previous owners had left empty, save for a rope, and Connor's father.

              Gasping, he brought himself off the ground to a kneeling position, crawling across the floor to the closet at the foot of Connor's bed, opening it. The rope was still there. It all came together like pieces of a puzzle, like he was meant to do the thing he was about to do. He thought about leaving a note, but then thought better of it. Nobody would care that he was gone, and given what he knew the note would magically disappear anyway.

              He pulled the rope out of the closet. Pulled himself onto Connor's bed. Began tying the knot.
No, the noose. Not a knot, a noose. Let's just be honest,
he thought. His hands shook with such exaggerated motions that he found it nearly impossible to handle the rope, let alone tie it, but somehow he managed it. Loop and pull, loop and pull.

             
Loop
.

              The images cascaded through his mind, washing over him, torturing his every thought.

             
Pull
.

              The voice of Rumsfeld, echoing in his mind. Telling him his mission. Announcing that he must kill the person who had become his best friend.

             
Loop.

             
How this had excited him. He'd been possessed, sure, but still. Something in him was capable of enjoying the idea of murder.

             
Pull.

             
But maybe it had all been because of the raven...Eleanor...and hadn't Connor expelled her with his pocket watch? But still...

              He stood, finding his legs long enough to take shaking steps across the room, pull out the desk chair and, somehow, balance long enough to stand. To lift his hands. To string the rope.

              There was no way he could take a chance on it.

              No way at all.

             
Loop
.

              Around his neck he placed the rope. Tightened it. Knew it would be painful. Knew it wouldn't be quick - not from these heights with these materials - but knew, nonetheless, that it would be worth it.

             
Pull.

              He kicked the chair out from under him. Felt all the pressure in his body isolate in his head. Gasped. Gagged. Sobbed.

              And watched with mixed horror and relief as the world went black.

⌛

He awoke on the ground, staring up at the ceiling. For a moment Stuart thought that heaven shouldn't have ceilings. And then, in a moment of striking and nauseating reality, he understood: he wasn't in heaven. He was still alive.

              With great effort, he rolled over to his knees and stared at the bed. His head pounded like waves in a storm upon the shore. Nausea overcame him, and he put a hand on the soft quilt covering his bed, trying to make the world stay still while inwardly cursing the Universe for allowing him to still be in it.

              "You didn't really think that would work, did you?"

              The voice came from behind him, and he spun around, falling against the bed and sitting on it. Before him, in the chair he'd stood on just recently, sat Rumsfeld. The crimson suit must have been reserved only for the Void, because he wore the black suit they'd seen him in the first day of chemistry class.

              "You..." Stuart choked.

              "Yes, me. I know, I'm always..." He fingered the air as though it would deliver the word to him. "Messing things up."

              "You're the reason I'm not dead," said Stuart.

              "Indeed, I am."

              "And what reason could you possibly have to save me?" He narrowed his eyes, newfound hatred flooding him.

              "Because," Rumsfeld said, standing and walking toward him, his eyes narrowing, his voice heavy with anger. "YOU have a job to do."

              "Yeah, I remember. And I'd rather die than kill my friend."

              "But you will kill him, no matter what. You may not
want
to, but you will."

              "Exactly. And that's why I hung myself." Stuart jutted his chin in defiance.

              "And that's also why I brought you down. You didn't think it would be so easy to escape me, did you?  To escape your job, to break your oath? Where do you think you go when you die? To a fairytale land of sky gods and angels where they accept your broken, miserable soul? Or, perhaps you looked forward to the stench of burning flesh in a never-ending hell. You Mortals are all the same.

              "WE are the sky gods, and when your mortal life is dead you come to US. There is no salvation to be had except for you to fulfill your oath. And trust me, you didn't make the oath to me. If you knew who you made the promise to, you'd kill Galveston with joy rather than to suffer the wrath of the one to whom you promised his death. And until the time comes - and you'll know when it comes - you keep your mouth shut and your head straight. You made a promise that even death cannot unmake. So GET UP. And do your job."

NINETEEN

⌛

Connor and Kit watched Stuart leave, at a loss for what had just happened.

              "I'm worried about him," said Kit after Stuart had disappeared from sight.

              "Me, too," Connor replied.

              "We've got to find out what that raven thing was."

              "Absolutely," he said, "and what Rumsfeld said to Stuart. He gave him some kind of mission."

              "I know. But at this point I think we have a better chance of finding out the moon really is made of cheese."

              Connor chuckled. "True."

              "At least we know
some
thing about those creepy head toting things."

              "Demafae."

              "Shhh!"

              "Kit, it's not Beetlejuice. They won't just appear if you say their name."

              "How do you know?"

              "Because the book said they're sent."

              "As well as conjured."

              "And I think it's pretty clear who's doing the conjuring."

              "Oh is it, Wonder Boy?"

              "Come off it!" Connor was almost yelling now, and the only person left on their floor of the library scurried out, darting glances back at them as she went.

              "No, YOU come off it! You don't know what we're dealing with!"

              "Oh and you do? Because as far as I knew you didn't know a damn thing about them until five minutes ago, just like the rest of us. So if you know something, I suggest you start talking! Maybe this is what you've
really
been hiding. Is that it?" He was standing now.

              She opened and closed her mouth twice, like a bird waiting for a worm.

              "Yeah, I'm not stupid Kit. You're holding something back - something that has to do with a lot more than having a Magician story like the rest of us. And I think at this point we all need to know everything everyone else does. After all wasn't it you who said information was our most scarce, but most important, commodity?"

              She crossed her arms and looked down, then looked away from him toward the rest of the study area at nothing in particular.

              "Have it your way. While you harbor your secrets I'm going to go make a copy of the page on the Demafae," he said, stressing the name of the entities to annoy her. "
IF
it so pleases you highness," he added with a half bow.

              He took her extended middle finger as permission and snatched the book from the table, storming off across the study area and down the small corridor that led to the copy room. As he walked, he fumed. His head pounded, and he walked so fast he thought it was possible that his feet had a mind of their own and were trying to keep up with his heart rate. His body felt like a bizarre assembly of disjointed parts, a member of a mad puppeteer's army. Maybe he had been too harsh. Maybe the stress of everything was getting to him. But the fact remained that Kit knew something about what was happening and she wasn't telling them. And that, he thought, was a justifiable reason to be angry.

              The copier hummed and made several
uchunk
sounds before finally producing the copies of the page discussing the Demafae. He hardly remembered putting the book down on the copier. All he knew was that, as angry as he was, nothing was going to change for the positive if he continued to treat Kit like a detainee. Anger wasn't going to solve the problem. He resolved to at least try to be more civil. A tall order, but it had to be done. Neutrality, he thought, was a good start.

              He retrieved the copies, put them inside the book, and took off toward the study area. As he passed down the corridor, he heard muffled laughter to his left. He looked, and noticed a mirror. It was a large oval mirror with ornate edging that came to a rounded point at the top and bottom. At the top an engraved head, something like cupid, with wings stared down at him. From the bottom another engraved head stared with dead eyes, but this one was a beast, a demon of sorts, with horns. The mirror's intricate design was beautiful and creepy all at once. Looking into the glass, he saw it ripple. But then...of course that wasn't possible.

              Are you entirely sure you know what's possible at this point?
His mind asked the question, but he had no answer. Perhaps he really didn't know what was real or possible anymore. And perhaps he'd have to get used to that. But still...

              The glass rippled again. Where he'd seen his reflection before he began to see a mountain range and what appeared to be a swamp. It was still transparent, but visible nonetheless. A faint but powerful scream. The smell of sulfur.

              "Beautiful, isn't it?"

              The mirror snapped back to its non-mystical form, and he once again saw his reflection, along with that of the Fifth Floor Librarian. She was a short woman with mouse brown shoulder-length hair who wore but little makeup, was fond of cable knit sweaters and long skirts, and who was seldom seen without a cart of books. The image in the mirror did not disappoint. Her age was hard to judge, but Connor thought she was at least in her mid-fifties. She had a pleasant smile and a small voice, and always appeared as though she was looking up from beneath a giant, invisible hat. She also had a habit of biting her thumbnail, a habit she was engaging in at the moment.

              "It's very nice, Dolores," he said, smiling at her. "I haven't seen it before. Is it new?"

              "New as its owner, I s'pose," she said.

              "Beg your pardon?"

              "Oh, yes well. It was donated." She stared at the mirror, entranced. She only looked at Connor through the corner of her eye and with darting glances at that. Unusual.

              "Who donated it?"

              "Hmm?"

              "Who donated the mirror?"

              "Oh well yes that...that would be Professor Rumsfeld." When she said his name she giggled, and then added. "Fine man he is."

              I'll take "Awkward Moments for $600", Alex,
he thought.

             
Giving a tilted glance at the mirror she finally ceased biting her thumb nail, put her hand on the cart of books, and snapped out of the daze nodded at Connor.

              "Well," she said airily, "You have a good day, boy."

              "You, as well," he said and smiled as she ducked and took off.

              Yet again, the importance of an issue had taken Connor away from his previously singular goal of getting answers from Kit. He gave a last glance at the mirror as he took off down the corridor, nearly running across the study area to where Kit was pouring over a megalithic book.

              "Kit!" he said. "Kit, you have to come see this."

              She looked up, her appearance uncharacteristically weary.

              "Look, I should probably..."

              "No you have to come here."

              "Listen, you were ri--"

              "Stop it! We can talk later, you
have
to come see this!"

              "But I--"

              "Please, Kit. It's important. There's a mirror in the corridor. Rumsfeld donated it and I heard voice and...just come look at it."

              A moment passed.

              "Alright, fine" she sighed.

              The look on Kit's face quickly changed as she observed the object before her. She uncrossed her arms and the look of bitterness and resentment that had previously taken up residence on her face dissipated, swallowing hard.

              "Wow...Rumsfeld donated this?"

              "Yeah. But there's something...wrong with it," Connor said.

              "Well of course there is, Rumsfeld donated it."

              They laughed for the first time in what felt like years.

              "What do you think it's for?"

              He shrugged "I don't really know. It's just odd. When I walked by it a few seconds ago I heard voices. Saw things...I don't know."

              Connor took a step toward it and ran his hand along the frame. It was cold and, from what he could tell, heavy. He walked his fingers across the frame and pulled back as the glass rippled.

              "Did you see that?" he asked Kit.

              She shrugged and shook her head.

              He heard the same laughter he'd heard before, only it was louder, and sounded as if a greater number of voices resided within it. Lightly, he touched the glass.

              It started as a vision. At first he saw mountains and a swamp. Everything was blanched and white, like a force had swept across the land and taken all the color from it. He began to sense motion, like the place was alive.

              As suddenly as the image had appeared, it was no longer in his mind but all around him. The library was gone, replaced by a vacant land that reeked of sulfur. Above him a vulture flew, and he noticed the laughter again. Louder this time.

              The mountains extended far into the sky, although they were a long way from where he stood. Their cliffs were jagged, and they were capped with snow. The mountains had a haunted feel, and the shadows they cast seemed not to hold true to the laws of physics as he knew them.               Connor's eyes scanned the sky and he saw two suns - or planetary objects - that cast light onto the world in which he was standing. One was a violent white, and the other was a murky green. Both were responsible, in tandem, for creating the atmosphere, which was both stark and overexposed.

              The laughter continued, and more voices joined it, but more than that Connor was now able to make out the sound's quality. The laughter was not the melodic, joyful laughter of children, although the voices sounded child-like. Instead, it sounded pinched, gurgled, like the deranged laughter of drowning people who had so fully embraced their fate that they were now laughing, maniacal accepters of death.

              Looking in front of him, he saw the swamps contained pits of murky liquid. The liquid looked like mud and slime and water all together in one sickening sludge. The pits seemed not to be singular formations, but rather a singular body of murk made into pits by grey masses of land that had the appearance of granite, stone, and mud all compounded into one material. The pits were steaming, and it dawned on Connor that perhaps they were the source of the sulfuric smell that accosted his senses with increasing vigor.

              He shuddered. The atmosphere was heavy and felt like a thousand snowfalls of ice made up the air around him. His skin had collected an icy dew that, when he cleared it away, accumulated again almost instantly.

              The ground on which he stood was rocky and made of dirt, as was the expansive landscape around him leading up to the swamp. Slight spurts of grass were audacious enough to show themselves in a scattered formation, but the only green that appeared in multitude was moss.

              He sensed motion coming from the swamp. Squinting, he saw a dead white form extend from the muck, dripping with sludge, and grime, and mud, and it wasn't until he saw the fingers move that he realized it was an arm. The fingers flexed like those of a person who had been sitting on his hand for too long and was trying to regain feeling in it. Then, the arm found the ground like a felled tree, and the arm's pair extended from the swamp and groped the ground in the same manner. Finally, the arms pushed into the earth, and ejected their owner. The being rose, then knelt, and then stood, all with incredible slowness.

              Connor wanted to run, but he couldn't force his body to move. Like a statue, he was bound to his location and stance, forced to watch with unblinking eyes as the figure righted itself and, standing tall, locked eyes with Connor. It was entirely white, like plaster, and had the appearance of a woman, though it was not entirely human. It had hair, but it was slicked back, and were it not for the texture Connor wouldn't have known it was hair because it was the exact same color as the rest of its body.

              A sound like booted feet treading across gravel forced Connor to turn around, while still keeping an eye on the albino form that had just emerged from the swamp.               Approaching him was a woman with blond hair, slicked back and stained with blood, wearing leather boots with several buckles, tattered clothing, and an oversized coat that looked as though it had originally belonged to a man. She was dressed entirely in dark colors. The woman looked much like the alabaster figure that had emerged from the swamp, only the color version.

              She limped in a drastic manner, clutching her side. A sword dangled from her and drug along the ground thanks to her leaning posture. She gasped every so often, and then, finally raising her head, laughed a breathy, resigned chuckle. She was looking past him, toward the alabaster visage of her own body. When her eyes finally made their way to Connor, he was still positioned with one version of the woman off either hand. She started for her sword, then looked at him more closely, lowering her eyes to chest level, then meeting his eyes again with newfound joy.