Magisterium

by Jeff Hirsch

  She could feel his heart fluttering deep inside him. Kevin stayed still for a moment, took a deep breath, then opened his eyes.

  “I’m not — I won’t leave you alone with this,” he said, laying his hand over hers. “There’s no way. No. Freaking. Way.”

  Glenn drew her hand away and stepped back. It was useless to fight him. If she wanted Kevin to go home, she would have to knock him out, drag him there, and tie him to the nearest tree. Kevin grinned at her silence, but he kept it small, like he didn’t want to rub her nose in his victory too much.

  Kevin turned with a grunt toward the window next to him. Glenn could dimly see people moving around outside and trees swaying over the tops of the walls and guardhouses. Kevin studied it all for a moment, then looked to her with a devilish cock of his eyebrow.

  “Okay, then!” he said. “Who’s ready to do a little exploring?”

  Kevin moved through the village’s dirt roads with a wincing gait, his hand clamped over his wounded side. Glenn followed close behind, ready to catch him, sure he was going to collapse at any moment.

  As they walked through the village, what struck Glenn the most was the smell of the place. Each shack along the road had a small chimney that billowed gray smoke and filled the air with the warm and woodsy scent of burning wood and leaves. All of it was mixed in with the heavy stink coming from pens that held chickens and pigs and a few runty-looking horses.

  The shacks were framed in the town wall. Soldiers stalked the wall’s length, glowering down at the villagers as they moved through the streets gathering up metal scythes, hoes, and long wooden forks before heading out toward the main gate. The soldiers were in gray wool with pieces of dirty armor over their chests, arms, and legs. The villagers wore plain wool in grays and browns that looked barely thick enough to keep the cold out. Their shoulders were broad, but their stomachs were flat, sunken even. Glenn saw hollow eyes and jutting cheekbones and she wondered if any of them got enough to eat.

  Whenever she or Kevin passed by, they immediately lowered

  their eyes and hurried away. Conversations broke off the instant they approached but people followed Glenn’s and Kevin’s movements out of the corner of their eyes. Are they afraid of us? Glenn wondered. The thought was so absurd she almost laughed.

  “So,” Kevin said when she caught up to him again, keeping his voice admirably low. For him, anyway. “Wanna tell me about our pointy-eared friend?”

  “You saw him?”

  “He’s kind of hard to miss, Morgan,” Kevin said. “And by the way, cat demon guy? Ideally he’s something I would have liked to have been introduced to a bit more gradually. Anyway, we chatted a bit before you woke up this morning.”

  “You chatted? About what?”

  “The usual. The weather. Stock prices.” Glenn cut him a look and he grinned. “He asked if I was okay. When I regained the power of speech, I said I was. He said he had to go take care of something and then he’d be back. Oh! He also said we shouldn’t leave the house under any circumstance.” He turned to Glenn and shrugged. “Oops. Hey, look, chickens!”

  Kevin veered toward a small area fenced in with a circle of closely set sticks. A trio of kids stood at the edge, giggling and throwing corn to a flock of chickens. They shrieked and ran when the birds approached, flaring their wings and squawking.

  Kevin hung his arms over the fence and watched the kids running around in the bright early sunlight. The show was short-lived, though.

  An old woman emerged from a shack, and as soon as she saw Glenn and Kevin, she looked up toward the guardhouse soldiers and then rushed the kids inside. Her door fell shut with a bang. Nailed to the center of it was one of the black and silver feathers.

  “Nice,” Kevin said and turned to Glenn. “So, what’s going on here, Morgan? I know I act all cool and devil-may-care and stuff, but I’m more than a little freaked.”

  Another group of villagers emerged from a shack and were

  coming their way. Glenn pushed away from the fence and set off down a different road, with Kevin trailing behind.

  “The … person who saved us is Aamon Marta.”

  “Why’d he help us?”

  The explanation — who Aamon really was, who he said he was

  — sat there, poised, but Glenn couldn’t give it voice. Kevin would think she was insane.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “He was just …”

  “What? Out to get groceries? Walking the dog?” Glenn ignored him and he shifted tack, tapping the edge of the bracelet. “So, they’re all after this thing, huh? What’s it do, anyway?”

  Glenn pulled the bracelet underneath her sleeve. She guessed he had some right to know what he had been shot for, so she told him as best she could about her father’s theory.

  “Huh. A reality bubble,” Kevin said with his usual nonchalance.

  “Good name for a band. Reality Bubble. So I guess your dad really is some kind of genius, huh?”

  Glenn paused, the sadness tugging at her again.

  “What did he make it for?”

  In the thousand things she’d had to deal with since the previous night, this was the one thing that had been crowded out. Maybe the one thing she wanted crowded out. Dad said he made it to rescue Mom. To bring her back. Glenn had thought it was a deranged knightin-shining-armor fantasy, but now that it seemed like so much else was true, could that be real too? Aamon had said outsiders weren’t welcome in the Magisterium. Could her mother have crossed over for some reason and been imprisoned by someone like this Garen Tom, or the Magistra Aamon kept referring to? And if she was … what was Glenn supposed to do about that?

  “Hello? Earth to Morgan?”

  “What?” Glenn said quickly, snapping herself out of it and

  continuing down the road without a destination in mind. “Nothing. It was a project. Theoretical. That’s all.”

  Kevin eyed her carefully, but after a moment’s consideration, he let it go. He took off again, pausing to kick at a pebble and sending it careening into an open building that had racks of herbs drying outside of it.

  “You know,” he said. “I think you need to give me some credit here.”

  “For what?”

  “Well, for starters, for my being so magnanimous when I was right about everything. The Rift wasn’t some big boom that made this place into a wasteland. It made medieval villages and people with tails.

  I won’t even mention how you called me an idiot the other day.”

  “I never — ”

  “You suggested. You intimated.”

  “Look, just because — ”

  “You’re not about to say that all of this proves nothing.”

  “Well …”

  “Oh. Come. On!”

  Glenn hunted for the right words. The desire to not hand such an easy victory to Kevin and his Rifter friends was overwhelming.

  “Obviously, there’s more to the Rift than we’ve been told.”

  “Really? You think?”

  “But we’ve only been here a day. Less than a day! I’m not ready to start believing in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy.”

  “How about a giant talking cat man? Who, by the way, looks an awful lot like — ”

  “Enough!”

  “Ha! It’s true, isn’t it?” Kevin stabbed one finger at her nose. He was practically dancing beside her. “I knew it! Aamon is totally Hopkins! That is so awesome! It’s that white patch on his neck. It completely gives it away.” A sudden look of horror came into Kevin’s eyes. “Oh no, your mom and dad never …”

  He made a little snip-snip gesture with two fingers.

  “No,” Glenn said. “Dad wanted to take him to the vet, but Mom would never let him.” And now I guess that makes sense….

  “Well, that’s one lucky cat. He may have nine lives but only two

  — Hey, look!”

  Kevin pointed down the road to where Aamon had appeared from behind a set of buildings. He moved toward the far end of the village to
a thick stand of trees enclosed by the outer wall. Aamon stopped at the edge of the woods, then turned around to scan the empty plaza. Glenn shoved Kevin behind a nearby building. After a pause, she peeked around the corner. Once Aamon had ensured he was alone, he slipped into the woods and disappeared. Glenn looked back at Kevin.

  “We so have to find out what he’s up to,” he said.

  Most of the villagers had gone through the gates by now, so the square behind them was quiet. Glenn peered into the woods ahead but couldn’t make anything out.

  “Okay, but we have to be careful. A qui-”

  But Kevin was already hobbling past her, his hand grasping at his injured side.

  “Kevin!”

  Glenn cursed Kevin in her head but had to admit she was also curious to see what Aamon was up to. They crossed the plaza, circling around to the far side of the stand of trees.

  The woods were deeper and thicker than Glenn would have

  guessed, enough so that it looked to be a grim sort of twilight within it.

  There was no sign of Aamon. Glenn’s heart began to thrum in her chest.

  Stupid, she told herself. It was broad daylight. Nothing was going to happen. And she had no reason to be afraid of Aamon. Right?

  Glenn stepped away from the edge of the plaza and into the forest.

  Kevin zipped up his leather jacket as quietly as he could and stuffed his hands in the pockets. He was pale and sweaty despite the cold. This was a terrible idea, Glenn thought. He needs rest. We can’t — Dry twigs and pine needles crunched out ahead of them. Glenn froze as a flash of gray passed from tree to tree and then vanished.

  Aamon. They were close. Before she could say anything, Kevin took the lead and walked them right to the edge of what seemed to be the heart of the small woods: a thick circle of broad trees overgrown with vines, fallen leaves, and thick splashes of white and green moss. Glenn and Kevin knelt down behind two trees and peered inside.

  In the center of the forest were the ruins of a large stone building.

  Judging from the partial walls that remained, Glenn guessed it had been at least three or four times the size of the smaller village shacks. A meeting hall? A church? Large irregular stones and remnants of the plaster that once held them together lay in heaps, tossed with pine needles and vines. Underneath the growth of moss, many of the stones were cracked and blackened as if they had been in a fire. Whatever had been inside the building was blocked by one surviving wall that stood in the way of Glenn and Kevin’s view.

  Aamon stood at the edge of the destruction, looking down at it all.

  His great shoulders were slumped, his head low. Kevin shifted his gaze to Glenn, waiting for her cue. When Aamon stepped onto the blackened ground and behind the wall, she made her move.

  They eased deeper into the woods, choosing their steps carefully to make as little sound as possible, drifting to their left so they could see around the remaining wall. All of the rubble seemed to radiate from one central point, what had been the center of the ruined building.

  There sat a high stone table that was cracked in two and charred. It was surrounded by wooden pews set in a circle, some of which were little more than ash and black timbers.

  Aamon kicked away pieces of the crumbled pews, making a path to the table. When a pile of debris got in his way, he reached into it with a growl and threw the charred wood over the wall and out into the forest. It echoed as it crashed through the woods. A flight of birds squalled and fled. Aamon dropped to his knees before the table. Glenn moved forward to get a better look, but Kevin held her back. She turned, uncertain, then held up one finger and he grudgingly let go. Glenn continued on and hid behind a closer tree.

  On the base of the stone table, partially gouged away and

  darkened, a perfect circle, divided across the middle by a thick line, had been carved into the stone. Aamon traced the circle with one clawed finger before laying his palm flat against the stone and closing his eyes.

  “Forgive me.”

  He sat for a moment longer, his head down, whispering unheard words beneath his breath in a quiet rhythmic chant.

  Praying, Glenn thought.

  When he was done, Aamon turned his head to the side and

  sniffed the air.

  “I told you both to stay in the house,” he announced, his voice shockingly loud in the hush of the forest.

  “It’s my fault,” Kevin said, striding out into the middle of the clearing. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to, uh …”

  Aamon’s green eyes pierced the space between him and Kevin, immediately cutting off his halting babble. Glenn stepped out of the trees to stand by Kevin’s side.

  “It was both of us.”

  Aamon regarded them for a moment, then turned back to the altar.

  13

  “What is this place?” Kevin asked.

  “An abomination,” Aamon rumbled. “It was a temple.”

  Glenn drew closer to the pile of remains. Here and there, small saplings and shoots emerged from the black wreckage. Dry vines curled around the rocks and benches, strangling them. Glenn noticed other dark streaks in places along the ground. On closer inspection, she saw that they were black feathers with silver patches at the tip.

  “I left before dawn,” Aamon said. “Went to Karaman and

  Redfield. The temples are all gone. The monasteries too. The great monument to Kirzal in Karaman … it used to shine for miles in every direction, gold and marble. Now it’s a scorched pile of stone. The people bow and scrape and the Magistra’s soldiers are everywhere.

  This is not the Magisterium I left.”

  “What happened to it?” Glenn asked.

  Aamon looked around the ruins.

  “I did,” he said quietly.

  “What do you mean?” Kevin asked. “Aamon — ”

  “Come,” he said, turning his back on the altar. “I have supplies and fast horses for all of us. There’s no time to wait.”

  “Uh, we don’t exactly do a lot of horseback riding at home,”

  Kevin said.

  “Then it’s time to learn.”

  Aamon left them there, striding into the trees. Kevin turned to Glenn after he was gone.

  “What do you think he did?”

  “What?”

  “He was asking forgiveness.”

  Glenn thought of the dead agent lying in the snow, and Aamon’s massive body looming over him with blood on his hands.

  “It’s not what I am,” Aamon had said that night. Whether it was an explanation or another prayer, Glenn didn’t know.

  The first thing Glenn and Kevin saw when they returned to the house was three horses tied up around back. There were two small black ones and an enormous beige one with a white mane, which must have been for Aamon. Each was saddled and loaded down with supplies and there was a large sword in a scabbard lashed to Aamon’s.

  Kevin reached for it but Glenn pulled his hand away and led him around to the front of the house. Before they could get there, though, she heard a commotion out front.

  Glenn waved Kevin back and flattened herself against the wall.

  “What?” Kevin asked as he blundered into her.

  “Shh!”

  Glenn eased forward. Standing in the courtyard in front of the house was a small company of men dressed in leather overlaid with steel armor that was dented and streaked with dark scorches. They were all broad-shouldered, with faces that were a mix of crooked noses, scars, and thick beards. Some carried swords or spears while others toted longbows and had quivers full of arrows strapped to their backs. They moved farther into the courtyard, directed by a thing that stood at the center of the main path leading from the village gate.

  He was, if anything, larger than Aamon. A towering creature, but more dog than cat, with a short brindle coat and pointed ears. His face was black and brown and heavily scarred. A sword hung from a scabbard around his waist. His eyes were small and shrewd, cast in a sulfurous yellow.

  The men were mo
ving closer to the house. If Glenn and Kevin didn’t find somewhere to hide, they’d be spotted in seconds. She grabbed Kevin’s arm and fled backward.

  “Who was that?” Kevin whispered as they stumbled into a tight gap between the house and the one behind it.

  “Garen Tom, I’m guessing,” Glenn said, pulling him down into the dirt and scraps of shadows. “I think he’s in charge here. He has some kind of history with Aamon.”

  “Best friends?”

  Glenn glared at him. How is it possible that even in times like these …?

  Booted footsteps approached from the street. They were trapped.

  Glenn turned, hunting for an escape. Just then a door opened into the alley and Aamon’s clawed hand reached out to them. As one of the soldiers was about to pass across the gap between the two houses, Glenn and Kevin ducked inside. Aamon slipped the door shut and stood at it, listening. Glenn held her breath. It was dark in the house, every shade drawn.

  Aamon paused to let the soldier pass, then hurried toward the front room.

  “Why don’t they just break in?” Glenn asked.

  “They’re not here for us.”

  “What?”

  “Even if Calloway sent word last night, there’s no way he could have gotten back so soon.”

  Glenn followed Aamon to the front room, with Kevin behind her.

  “Then why are they — ”

  A bell started to ring above the town, loud and urgent. Aamon motioned for them to get down. Seconds later, shadow after shadow began passing in front of the curtained windows. Glenn peeked out and saw the villagers gathering in the courtyard.

  “What are they doing?”

  Aamon dropped to his knees in the corner and started stuffing supplies into a large leather pack. “We’ll have to leave the horses.

  There’s a tunnel exit in back. You can count on Garen to always leave a good escape route. We’ll be gone before he knows we were ever here.”

  The sounds of the crowd and the tolling bell grew louder. Glenn and Kevin moved to the nearest window just in time to see a soldier on a horse come tearing through the main gate behind Garen Tom, trailing a cloud of dust. When the dust cleared, Glenn saw that he was dragging another man behind him. The prisoner was facedown in the dirt, his hands bound and connected by a long leather line to the soldier’s saddle.