Boroda sprang from the ground, shielding Fritz from the deathly blast. The spell hit him in the chest and knocked him back.
Fritz pulled him behind a pillar and hugged his mentor tightly. “Why did you do that?”
Boroda curled his hand around Fritz’s neck and whispered a single word: “Time.”
His heart stopped, and his body went completely limp.
“No!” Faruk yelled. “No. No. NO.”
Marzi jumped from the floor and hurled a spell at Faruk.
Vivienne screamed, and vines shot from a handful of seeds she’d thrown, wrapping themselves around Faruk’s body.
Streaks of ice laden with spikes raced down the vines at breathtaking speed as Gelé’s screams joined her sister’s.
The icy spires glowed white with deadly magic. Marzi poured every last ounce of fury into the shards.
Andor jumped from the floor several feet into the air. He raised his club above his head, ready to deliver a powerful blow.
Faruk blasted the entire group back with a single yell.
Gelé, Vivienne, and Marzi toppled to the floor, both from the blast and from exhaustion.
Knocked from the air by the shock wave, Andor crashed to the ground. He rolled to a stop as his dress tangled around his legs. Sweat and fresh blood poured from his wounds.
Fritz emerged from behind a column, Boroda’s medallion blazing brightly around his neck.
He leaned over and whispered in Franz’s ear, “Tell her we’re ready.”
Franz looked confused but agreed, then disappeared in a puff of smoke as Fritz traveled him away.
Far away, in Boroda’s bedroom, Cora sat in a chair, staring at a fixed place on the wall ahead.
Franz appeared in a puff of smoke. He jerked his head around, ready to dodge whatever this new setting threw at him.
Cora sat up in surprise. She saw Franz’s green eyes staring back at her in confusion.
“Are they ready?” Cora asked him.
Franz nodded.
Cora removed a cloth from her lap and held up the Celestine.
Faruk grabbed his sword, now flaming blue, and attacked Fritz. He swung, but Fritz sidestepped and counterpunched in the same move.
Faruk regained his footing and swung again.
Fritz blocked the sword with his staff, twirled it, and threw it from Faruk’s grasp.
Faruk spun, and his sword suddenly shot from a cloud of smoke at Fritz.
Fritz spun sideways, but the sword sliced into his arm down to the bone. He backed behind a pillar, gasping with pain, and tried to concentrate on a healing spell.
Faruk raced toward Fritz, sword blazing and rats materializing behind him as he ran.
Marzi rose to her feet, her face wan from exertion. She sprinted unsteadily toward the fight. Faruk was about to round the pillar where Fritz was healing the gash in his arm. She leapt forward and stuck two knives in Faruk’s back.
Faruk yelled out and pushed against her with a quick spell. Marzi landed on top of Andor and moaned.
Faruk tore the knives from his back and stretched both hands out toward the apprentices. “How about a taste of my childhood?”
He reached out and forcefully took hold of their minds.
They all shrieked in pain and writhed on the floor.
Fritz’s hands shook as he tried to mend his arm but his concentration faltered. He could hear his friends screaming in agony. Faruk was, for the moment, distracted. Fritz tapped into his new medallion, and strength surged through his body.
Faruk dropped one arm and a long whip, glowing silver with heat, melted from his hand and coiled on the floor under him.
“Drosselmeyer, your friends need you,” he taunted.
Fritz stopped his healing spell and, gut boiling with rage, stepped out to face Faruk.
Faruk lashed out with lightning speed, and the whip struck Fritz in the face. The vision in his right eye went blank. The smell of burning flesh filled his nostrils. Fluid from his punctured eye ran down his cheek. Another crack of the whip, and his back flared with pain. He flailed his hands, his staff stuck into a nearby column, and he clawed at his face, trying to regain sight.
The apprentices were stiff, frozen to the ground in Faruk’s control.
“Come out and play, Drossie!” Faruk screeched.
He twisted one hand, and the apprentices all cried in renewed agony.
Fritz pushed the pain from his mind and calmed his breathing. Boroda’s body lay nearby, face set in a placid smile. The final word was still frozen on his lips: “Time.”
It was time.
Fritz rose and stepped out from behind the pillar. Blood ran from his eye, and the skin around the wound was charred black. He held his head high in willful defiance.
Faruk whooped and coiled the whip back for a final strike, but Fritz vanished in a silvery puff of smoke.
Faruk’s whip cracked through empty air as he ran for the melting cloud, desperate to catch it before it disappeared completely.
Fritz landed in the library turret room and rolled to a stand. He turned toward where he’d just traveled, lifted his hands, and the Celestine appeared, still warm from Cora’s lap.
The portal he’d traveled through re-opened. Fritz gathered the entirety of his magical reserves, raised the spell already in his mind, and whispered, “Time.”
The cloud rolled to a stop.
Faruk—body suspended half in the library and half in the Czar’s palace—pointed his snarling visage toward Fritz.
Fritz held up the Celestine and traced a shape on the surface of the globe: O.
It was Perrin’s final message. The key to unlocking globe magic.
The Celestine pulsed, and Fritz threw it at Faruk. He canceled the time spell, and life snapped back to regular speed.
Faruk, whip in hand, tore through the portal directly in the path of the Celestine. The glass ball melted open, still a sphere but ready to accept whatever touched it next. It enveloped Faruk, pulling him into its interior.
The sneer on Faruk’s face quickly turned to panic as he realized his loss of control. He whipped around and reached out to grab hold of something to stop his descent into the globe.
Books and furniture flew around the room in a wild cyclone as Faruk scrambled desperately for a handhold. He reached out and a roiling cloud of smoke opened into a ring. On the other side of the churning circle, the small group of apprentices lay motionless on the floor, still firmly under Faruk’s control.
Faruk turned briefly to Fritz, his eyes flashing with pure hatred. He yanked the apprentices to him, then stopped fighting the Celestine’s pull.
In a blur of color faster than a breath, Gelé, Vivienne, Andor, and Marzi were whisked through the portal and deep into the interior of the Celestine.
In the aftermath of the chaos, the room fell silent.
The “O” on the Celestine continued to burn until its lines fractured, leaving a dashed circle behind. Then it sealed shut and returned to the perfectly smooth globe it had been only a minute before.
Fritz’s world went black, and he fell to the floor.
“Welcome, Drosselmeyer,” a female voice said behind him.
He looked around, clutching the Celestine tightly in his arms. The library had faded away, and he was now hovering in a bright void. There was no sky or ground—just light.
A beautiful woman clothed in golden robes hovered near him. Her hair hung freely around her face, and her blue eyes sparkled against her dark brown skin.
“Where am I?” Fritz asked, his voice echoing in the bright abyss.
“You are in the realm between worlds,” the lady answered.
“What does that mean?”
“It means you are now responsible for a world you’ve created. You belong to the Guild of Watchers,” she explained.
“I need to get my friends out of this globe. Can you tell me how to do that?” Fritz held out the Celestine.
The woman frowned. “To do that is not an easy task.”
“I will do anything.” He searched her face. “Please. The girl I love is trapped inside.”
The woman took the Celestine and looked into it. After a few moments, she handed it back to Fritz. “They will remain in there as they were out here until they are set free.”
“Under Faruk’s control?” Fritz asked, his voice tinged with anger.
The lady nodded.
“How do I set them free?” Fritz begged.
“One who is magic must enter the globe and kill the one who holds the others in his control. Then, those who have the will to choose may leave the globe with your permission.”
Fritz traced an “O” on the Celestine, but the rune would not appear. The broken “O” that sealed the globe faded, leaving a blank surface on the Celestine.
“Tell me how to enter the globe,” Fritz demanded. “I need to get in there now.”
The lady let out a beautiful, musical laugh. “If you enter your own world, you will be trapped, and then no one can escape. You must send another.”
“All I have to do is send another wizard into the Celestine to kill Faruk, and the others can come back?”
The woman bowed slightly. She breathed out, and sweet-scented air wafted past Fritz. “Goodbye, Drosselmeyer, High Wizard of The Order.”
Fritz closed his eyes, breathed in deeply, and when he opened them, he was in the library.
Liquid from his eye oozed down his cheek as blood from the wound in his arm soaked through his uniform.
The couch where he and Marzi had spent so many hours together lay in a splintered heap against the wall.
Fritz traveled back to the mansion, collapsing on the floor of Boroda’s room.
Franz sat huddled in the corner, staring wide-eyed at the new stranger.
Cora looked past Fritz, waiting for Boroda to appear. When she saw the medallion around his neck, she flung her arms around him and sobbed on his shoulder. Fritz buckled under the weight, and he felt the heaviness of the day press down on his chest. He held Cora as tightly as he could. The three of them remained in Boroda’s room until the solitary clock on the wall chimed the top of the hour.
Fritz traveled in Boroda’s body and laid him on the bed. He put his arm around Franz and led him out of the room. He would grieve his master’s death later, but this was Cora’s time to mourn her husband.
Under Boroda’s memory spell, Franz could remember nothing of his life with Fritz, so this bloodied wizard before him was but a stranger. After helping Fritz wrap bandages around his head, Fritz ran from the room and searched for a place to hide until his father, General Andoyavitch, could come to collect him. He felt no imminent threat in the mansion; still, he longed for his own mother’s loving embrace.
Franz finally found a spare bedroom and curled up in a chair. He could hear Cora’s muffled sobs echoing down the hallway. Her long, heartbroken wails made his skin prickle. He clutched his knees tightly to his chest, burying his head in the chair cushions to drown out the noise.
Fritz collapsed onto his bed. His body ached from wounds he was too weak to heal, his throat hoarse from crying.
His bandaged eye had been damaged beyond repair. He didn’t know enough about the eye to heal it, and by the time he learned, not even magic had the ability to quicken dead, scarred flesh. He would have to wear a patch.
Perhaps tomorrow, if his strength allowed, he would check on the other wizards. His body ached with fatigue, and the mere thought of moving from his bed made his muscles tense.
He would also have to find and train an apprentice to fight Faruk. He took off his apprentice charm and held it in his hands. It was a toy compared to the medallions The Order wore—it was a toy compared to the medallion Faruk wore. Whoever fought him would have to be well-trained.
A little girl with a dagger can kill a wizard if he’s unprepared.
Boroda’s words gave him small comfort.
“Where am I going to find another wizard who can fight?” Fritz’s voice quivered as the last bit of strength drained away. His body and spirit drifted into the healing embrace of sleep.
Doll, alert to his creator’s voice, turned his head and answered, “I.”
THE END
Acknowledgments
A special thanks …
To Kevyn Robertson for teaching me about ballet during our many musical theater adventures together.
To Kathy Chamberlain for letting me play Drosselmeyer and ask all the questions.
To Katie Martin for translating my directions from ballet to musical theater.
To Al Gallo for being an awesome brother on stage.
To Toby Mattingly for playing my apprentice. You were a HUGE inspiration.
To Betty Lipscomb for watching my dog C.K. and so much more.
To Ashley Boyd for reading the first part of the book and then listening to me blather ad infinitum about the story.
To Benjamin Hannah for reading my manuscript and discussing time travel at length over chips and salsa.
To Sandra Nichols and Snug on the Square for keeping my coffee cup full.
To Darci Wantiez for introducing me to my editors.
To Lori Lynn and her editorial team (Mary Rembert, Clare Fernández, Ollie Cunningham, and Natalie Brandon): Without your editorial wizardry, my little book would never have made it.
To Shanda Trofe for your beautiful design choices. Without your guidance, this book would be printed in comic sans.
Backstory
In 2019, the Chamberlain School of Ballet in Plano, TX, asked me to dance (and later “move on cue” when they saw me “dance”) in their Christmas production of The Nutcracker at the Eisemann Center. I played Uncle Drosselmeyer and, having never seen the ballet, had many questions about my character.
While preparing for the role, I searched for any clues as to why Drosselmeyer would send his niece, Clara, into another world to battle a rodent king. None of the instructors or bunheads had any clue, and when I asked the prima donna (NYC ballet) about it, all she told me was, “Get out. I’m changing.”
Not to be dismayed, I decided to write my own backstory to The Nutcracker, and my hope is that for years to come, every actor/dancer who is tasked with playing the enigmatic character Drosselmeyer will have a new source from which to draw inspiration and motivation.
About The Author
Paul Thompson is an award-winning, internationally performed composer for theater and film. The youngest of five children, Paul often escaped familial hazing with a good hiding spot and a great book. After earning two black belts and getting his own apartment, he got involved in local and professional theater without fear of wedgies from his older siblings. Paul is the CEO of House of El Music and currently lives in McKinney, Texas, with his moderately well-behaved beagle, C.K.
Drosselmeyer: Curse of the Rat King Page 28