The Conjuring of Zoth-Avarex

by K. R. R. Lockhaven

  “Please, Magician? We’d be insta-friends.”

  “My name is actually Harris.”

  “I’m Jake.” His hand was huge and strong. He could have broken Harris’s hand with his grip but he’d made it only slightly firm. “So, what do you say, Harris?”

  Looking at Jake’s goofy grin made Harris want to be friends with him. He had all but lost contact with his high school and college friends and was eager to make new ones.

  “All right, I suppose I could maybe try something. I literally just got here and haven’t done any magic yet. I have my orientation test later today . . . It would be nice to give it a go.”

  “You’re awesome.” Jake turned to lead Harris to the station, but stopped and swung back around. “You have orientation today?”

  “Yep.”

  “Oh, cool. You’ll be in there with my fiancée, Silvia Flores.”

  “I know Silvia. We went to school together.”

  “Right on.”

  The two regarded each other for an awkward moment. Harris’s brain worked to find something clever, or at least relevant, to say. As usual, he came up short.

  “Well,” Jake said. “We’ll have to chat after this little prank. I don’t want to miss out on getting Jenkins.”

  Harris mentally kicked himself. He should have asked Jake about Ana’s. . .status. He shook his head with the all-too-familiar feeling of thinking up the perfect thing to say when it was too late.

  After being led to the building, Harris took out his new rune-drawing wand, focused his will, and drew summoning, protective, and binding runes in the air, being extremely careful to get every detail right with every flick of the wrist. His drawings, once complete, became floating images of light in the air, like faded neon signs.

  Then, in an even, monotone voice, Harris said, “Xop, I call you to this world.” Xop was one of the few names of minor imps that Harris thought he remembered seeing listed in one of his books.

  From the air in front of him, something popped into existence with a literal popping sound. A furry flying creature appeared, flapping its wings and seeming thoroughly confused. It looked like a light brown baby sloth, except that it had bat-like wings that were covered in a fuzzy brown fur. A little puppy-dog nose stuck out just a bit between playful brown eyes surrounded by a mask of darker brown fur. It was almost too cute, as if some writer was trying way too hard to create a clichéd adorable animal companion. It was the second cutest being Harris had seen that day.

  “Iyo Xop,” the imp said, its voice that of a two-year-old child. “Kay uyo woo?”

  “I’m Harris.” He tried to remember anything he could about imp language, although he had never heard of an imp that looked anything like this before. Most of them were supposed to look like gargoyles, or worse.

  “Oon. Kay uyo woo?”

  “It’s asking you what you want,” Jake said, seemingly unimpressed by the conjuring of such a strange creature. “Here, I think I have an extra. . .” He fished through a big pocket on his uniform cargo pants and pulled out a small, plain-looking ring. He handed it to Harris. “It’s a translator ring. I’m surprised you don’t have one yet.”

  “I literally just got here. But thank you.”

  “It’s imbued with some kind of magic that helps you understand anything being said to you, in any language,” Jake said. “Like a Babel fish, but magic, and you don’t have to put it in your ear. You can keep that one.”

  Harris liked Jake even more for knowing what a Babel fish was.

  Xop crossed his arms and moved his foot as if impatiently tapping it on the ground.

  Harris slipped on the ring and said, “Okay. . . well, Xop, I need you to carry this bucket of water up to the roof of this building. Then I need you to dump it on a man holding a golf club on the opposite side.”

  The baby sloth furrowed its brow. “Is that nice?”

  “Please carry out your charge as commanded, Xop.”

  The imp didn’t move. Although it was bound by ancient runes to do as Harris said, it floated defiantly in front of him, wings flapping softly, arms still crossed.

  “It wants to know that it won’t be hurting anyone,” Jake said. “I’ve seen this type before.”

  “Really? They never taught us that in school. I thought I’d have total control over it.”

  “I think you do, but it would be really put out if it had to do something mean to someone.” Jake stepped forward and spoke to Xop. “My friend is playing golf and is feeling really hot. I want to help him by cooling him off with this refreshing ice water.”

  “Oh, all wight, then.” The imp nodded, grasped the bucket’s handle, and with little apparent effort, flew up to the roof of the firehouse.

  “Come on,” Jake said to Harris as he took off around the building.

  The two of them hid behind one of the fire trucks and watched the imp approach the edge of the roof. Jenkins was still underneath the eave, hitting plastic golf balls across the lawn.

  “I hate to lie to the little guy,” Jake whispered. “But it would have taken way too long to convince him that this is just a harmless prank.”

  When he reached the edge, Xop carefully tipped the bucket, spilling its frigid contents directly onto the unsuspecting man’s head.

  Jenkins tensed up with a forceful wheezing inhale. The club dropped from his hand. He stood unmoving for a moment, apparently frozen in place.

  “Sumner!” he cried out, looking up at the roof.

  Jake giggled like a preschooler in his hiding place. Harris couldn’t help releasing a giggle, too.

  “Thank you, Magician!”

  “No problem, Firefighter.”

  “Just a sec. I’ll be right back.” Jake stepped out from behind the fire truck with his arms outstretched, bellowing laughter at his sopping coworker.

  Harris sauntered back to his car, calling for Xop to return on his way. The imp obeyed, flying back and hovering in front of him.

  “Thank you, Xop.” He took out his wand and redrew the runes going backward, erasing the bonds and unneeded protections. “I release you back to from whence you came.”

  The imp continued to cheerfully fly near Harris’s head. It should have vanished when Harris had spoken the words of release.

  “I hereby release the minor imp named Xop to from whence he came.”

  Xop shrugged and smiled.

  “I am such an idiot,” Harris said to himself.

  How could he have been so stupid? Risking his job on his first day by performing an unauthorized conjuration. And now the imp remained stuck in this world as evidence.

  He checked his digital watch; he still had about twenty minutes before he was expected back at orientation. Maybe he could un-conjure the imp before then.

  Jake came jogging around the corner. “I got something for you,” he said.

  “Can you make this imp disappear?”

  “I don’t know anything about that, but I can tell you something about your test later.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Every answer is either—”

  A shout sounded from across the street. A man sprinted toward them cradling his left arm with his right hand.

  “That’s the Alchemy building,” Jake said. “They’re always hurting themselves.” He rushed across the street to meet the man in the tall dead grass just outside the entryway. Harris followed, with Xop close behind.

  “It hurts!” the man cried.

  A gruesome laceration lay across the man’s forearm. Its edges were blackened as if the wound had been caused by heat or an explosion of some sort. It was only about two inches long, but it looked extremely painful.

  “Shit,” Jake said. “I should have gone back for the medic.” He looked back to the station, seemingly gauging the time it would take to fetch help.

  “Please!” th
e man pleaded. “Help me!”

  “Shit.”

  Jake closed his eyes and began to whisper some kind of incantation. He moved his hand slowly over the wound, continuing to whisper throughout the motion.

  The wound began to heal. First the charred edges cleared up, then the laceration itself began to close. Jake kept whispering until the man’s arm was completely wound-free.

  “Wow, thank you,” the man said. “Sorry about all that moaning and stuff.”

  “I actually did it,” Jake said, looking shocked. “Nice!” He held up a hand to the man, who gave him a vigorous high five with his previously injured arm.

  Then, Jake’s head bobbed and he looked like he might throw up for a moment, but he was able to shake it off.

  “Was that your first time doing that?” Harris asked.

  “Yeah,” Jake said, a bit out of breath. “They’re finally letting us try it. It’s like a trial run. We’re hoping that if it works out, we can spread it to other fire departments, outside the Site.”

  “I’d say it’s working out,” the man said, pointing to his healed arm.

  “Yeah. I couldn’t have helped you if the injury was any bigger than that, though. My paramedic probably could have. It takes more concentration and costs more energy for bigger problems. I’m completely drained right now.” Jake sighed and let his head flop forward.

  “It seems obvious to me that this should be one thing that makes it out to the real world,” the man said, studying his arm.

  “Yeah, but you know what SITE stands for.”

  “Secrecy, Inefficiency, Tediousness, Embarrassment.” Both men spoke at the same time.

  Harris was taken aback by the blatant disrespect shown to the Site, right out in public. He had never dreamed there would be anyone lucky enough to get inside who didn’t revere everything about it. This was the only place in the world with access to actual magic. This was the pinnacle of human civilization.

  “Yeah, we don’t have a lot of faith that we’ll be able to get this important magic out into the world any time in this century,” Jake said. “But we gotta try. I think this could be a good first step. I was hopeless in the healing magic class they just gave us, but I pulled it out of my ass when it counted.”

  Harris checked his watch again. He only had ten minutes to get back.

  “Gotta go,” he said as he turned to run back to his car.

  “Good luck, Magician,” Jake called to him.

  Harris jumped in his car and sped away, not realizing at first that Xop was sitting in his passenger seat.

  Disorientation

  Harris had planned to take the long way around and avoid the Conjuring Dome on the way back, but he didn’t have time for that now. Instead, he turned on the Binge Mode podcast and cranked it up, hoping to drown out the voice he had heard.

  It didn’t work. The strange voice resounded inside his head. It was unnerving and made him feel like he wasn’t in control of himself.

  Come on, bro, the voice said as he passed. I’m telling you, everything is gonna be fine. You are in complete control of yourself. It’s just a good decision, that’s all.

  “Do you hear that?” Harris asked Xop, who seemed to be enjoying the car ride.

  “Hear what?”

  “Never mind.”

  He skidded into the parking lot and jumped out of his car. “Stay here, please,” he said to Xop as he slammed the door and rushed inside the building.

  He found the group lined up and filing into a classroom. Discreetly as possible, he slid into the back of the line and followed them in.

  After everyone took seats at two rows of tables, a very overweight man, with his pants pulled up high and his shirt tucked in, addressed the class.

  “My name is Glen Turner.” He pointed to a screen showing a powerpoint presentation. “This is your Site Orientation Training: Initial Orientation Course/Orientation Briefing. I am a Certified Orientation Technician and an Orientation Presentation Presenter. I am Orientation Masterclass-Certified and hold a Somewhat Satisfied Rating on the Orientation Presentation Course Satisfaction Survey.”

  Everything he said was spelled out on the screen. Harris was awed by the number of capital letters.

  “I am here for your orientation.” The man paused before changing the picture on the screen. “So, if you leave this classroom today with one nugget of information, I want it to be this: secrecy is the number one rule. You’ve heard this before you began your specialized magical training, but it is of the upmost importance, so you’ll hear it many more times. The public isn’t ready for magic yet.” He switched the slide to a cartoon of a witch being burned at the stake. “We must first find out what it is, and how it works, before the public can find out about it. We are doing valiant work here. Holding back the chaos and making magic follow our rules.”

  The next slide said only THE CURSE.

  “You have all already been voluntarily cursed before magic was revealed to you. I am not here to waste your time or my own going over the gory details of The Curse, but I do want to remind you that it is real and not something you want to test. You have already gone through a vigorous clearance process. You wouldn’t have been chosen to have magic revealed to you unless you passed that screening, and showed particular aptitude for whatever your field happens to be.

  “Of course, some magic is going to slip out. Other governments are dying to know what is going on here. And we’ve had considerable trouble with the Conjuring Department. Several conjured gargoyles and the like have gotten offsite and caused all kinds of havoc. Is anyone here a Conjurer?”

  Harris, Silvia, and Patrick tentatively raised their hands.

  “As I’m sure you know, you’ve been brought in for a major project that is about to take place any day now. Your diligence will be of the upmost importance when it does.”

  Harris bit a fingernail, thinking of Xop and whether the imp was still safely sitting out in his car.

  The next slide showed the logos of every social media site Harris had heard of, and a few he hadn’t.

  “You’ll be tempted to post some of the fantastical things you see here on your goddamned precious social media.” The instructor showed his first hint of personality, although it wasn’t much more than facial reddening and a clenched jaw. “But A, phones are not allowed on Site and B, The Curse applies to all of that crap as well, obviously.”

  The next slide said, “Magical Limits.”

  “As far as we know,” Mr. Turner continued, “there is only so much magic in the multiverse. So the Site has imposed strict magical limits. All magic must be approved by your manager. No exceptions.”

  The next one read:

  Ethics

  In today’s complex magical environment, you may find yourself in an ethical dilemma. If you’re unsure how to proceed, ask yourself these three questions, ranked by order of importance.

  1. Is it in the best interest of the Site?

  2. Is it legal?

  3. Is it right?

  If the answer to these questions, especially the first, is not an obvious “Yes,” you should absolutely refrain. The second and third questions can be labeled “Gray Areas” at your manager’s discretion, but the first is set in stone.

  The next slide had a black-and-white aerial picture of the Site labeled “The Site in 1944.” Mr. Turner explained.

  “The Site was first opened in 1943, when an inter-dimensional wormhole spontaneously opened in the Pacific Northwest. Why did this happen?” He shrugged. “Why not? How did it happen? We have yet to figure that out, either. What’s more important is what the government did when it opened.”

  Next slide: an American flag fluttering in a stiff wind.

  “Tactfully, we decided to immediately conceal this strange and possibly horrible truth from the general public and the world. We took on the noble respons
ibility of protecting the world from this potentially dangerous occurrence. The Site’s mission became one of understanding, of knowledge. Our aim is to harness this magic, to master it. Only then will it be safe to reveal it to civilians.”

  Next slide: a picture of the Berlin Wall.

  “Magic was a key factor in preventing the Cold War from turning into an apocalyptic World War Three.”

  Next slide: an artist’s rendition of a giant meteor striking New York City,

  “In 1959, still unbeknownst to the public, magic from the Site was used to change the course of Finem Mundi, an asteroid of dinosaur-extinction proportions that was on a collision course with our planet.”

  Another slide of the Site, this one in color. It appeared to be photoshopped, as everything looked pristine.

  “I’ve left out hundreds, possibly thousands of achievements accomplished here at the Site. Most of them are above your security clearance level, but you may soon find out at your respective departments.”

  Patrick leaned over and whispered, “They’re really not going to mention the tragedy?”

  “What tragedy?”

  “Excuse me!” the Orientation Presentation Presenter said.

  “Sorry.” Harris straightened up, ashamed.

  “Sorry, dude,” Patrick whispered to him after Mr. Turner turned around.

  “In lieu of any more orientation, we have an assessment for you to take. Any additional training will be conducted when and if you fail the test.”

  The instructor passed out stapled stacks of papers to each new employee. The packets were thick enough to push the staples’ ability to the edge. Harris flipped through the test, feeling his heart sink at the sheer scope of it.

  “Don’t begin yet,” Mr. Turner said.

  Harris slapped the test down onto the table.

  “Okay, begin.”

  Question 1

  What will happen to an employee who lets slip the secrets of magic concealed at the Site?