by J. J. Moody
Nothing happened.
Then, as sudden as lightning, a swirling cloud exploded into existence above them, bulging with a dark red, putrid smoke, like a monster about to be born. It billowed about in the sky as if barely contained by a hidden net, and grew larger and larger.
The chanting below continued to break.
Evander remained arms raised, face to the sky, silent. His eyes were closed now.
Ben moved to the edge of the balcony and looked down to the crowd. The faces were fixed on Evander's creation.
Something terrible was about to happen.
Ben looked at Eva. Their eyes met.
Finally, Evander's eyes opened, his arms fell, and the crowd silenced completely.
He spoke one final piece of the spell, echoing in the silence for all to hear.
His own name.
As he did so, the ball of terrible red smoke began to rain. But this was not normal rain. It was something red and black that blistered and bubbled like tennis balls of lava, as if the smoke cloud was erupting downward. But as it fell, the tennis balls came alive and swarmed together like terrible wasps, engulfing people in the crowd.
Ben's breath was choked away as he realised what was happening, and watched the steaming clusters fall onto those poor souls in its path.
He heard them scream. Screeches of horror and anguish which he had never heard before in all his life and hoped never to hear again.
And then one by one each was muted.
Dead.
"What are you doing?" Eva shouted, but Evander ignored her. He watched calmly. Ben thought he saw that same hard smile at the corners of his mouth.
In only a few seconds, the targets of Evander's lava storm had become nothing but ash, their cries replaced by those of their loved ones and friends, left scratching at the ground where they had stood a moment ago. People stolen in an instant, cauterised from their lives.
A moment passed. Then Evander raised his arms again.
This time, the chanting and cheers rose up quickly, obediently, desperately.
He stood for a moment, looking over the crowd, and then turned away inside, satisfied. Eva and Ben ran after him.
"You are evil!" Eva screamed, tears in her eyes. "What had those innocent people done to deserve such a fate?"
Evander stared at her, stone faced. "They were plotting against me." He moved back to the food.
"How can you know?" Eva shouted again.
"I know more than you can imagine," he said. He continued to peruse the platters, but lifted a finger on his right hand. He muttered something and Eva lifted off the ground, scratching at her throat. "And my magic is more powerful than you can ever comprehend."
"Wait! Please! I… won't be able to learn quickly if you harm her. Please!"
Eva was dropped to the floor, gasping. Ben ran to her side. He hugged her desperately.
Evander smiled at them warmly. "Tomorrow we will begin our classes, Silverstone. I will return for you in the morning. Be ready. But for now please make yourselves at home. Eat. Drink."
With that, he settled on a few pieces of fruit from the trays, and strode out.
Ben and Eva collapsed on the stone floor in a bundle of sobs.
They were escorted back to Ben's room and allowed to stay together.
Ben couldn't believe what he had witnessed. It was one thing to have seen strange people and creatures, but these were spells. Magic. Powerful magic. The mages were real, and Alder had been right to warn him of meddling with them.
"I'm so sorry, Eva. We should never have come here. Are you alright?" He reached for her neck. There was bruising as if a hidden hand had held her above the ground. He wanted to touch it, to reassure her.
She nodded. "What are we going to do, Silverstone? We need to get away from here." Her eyes were a mess of dread and sadness. "Those poor people."
"I don't know," was all Ben could say.
They sat on the side of the bed.
"I wish I knew what happened to Goldie," Ben said. "He really helped me in the mountain cave."
Eva touched her neck delicately.
"Well I don't think there's anything else we can do except play along, at least for now. Until we get an opportunity to escape."
Eva nodded.
They lay down side by side on the huge bed.
"I'll become his student and keep doing what he wants, and we just have to keep our eyes open for a chance to get away, OK?"
"I'm scared. Really scared," Eva said.
"Me too."
They stayed that way for a while, unable to sleep, overseen by the painted mage and his flock.
After some time a guardsman brought them two new enormous platters of food for lunch. He left them at a table, and walked out. At least they were being well fed.
They decided they were hungry in spite of everything, and sat at a table positioned in the middle of the room.
"So how do you think the Botilcester palace plates compare to stew and vol?" Ben asked, trying to lighten the mood.
"I prefer stew and vol," Eva answered shortly. "At least I know where it has come from and it’s simple. I don't think I could trust anything here. It's like everything is overcompensating. Trying desperately to conceal the boils and blemishes."
"But you're still going to eat?" Ben teased, with a half smile. After what had happened the idea of being poisoned by the food seemed immaterial, palatable even.
They tested some cloud shaped things that tasted like stale bread.
After their appetites had slowed, Eva spoke. "When we talked by the lake that time, do you remember asking me how old my dad was?"
"Yes. One hundred and thirty three wasn't it?"
Eva nodded. "And I am only thirteen."
Ben looked at her. "What do you mean?"
"Did that strike you as strange?" Eva dipped her cloud bread into something purple.
"That you are only thirteen while your father is one hundred and thirty three? Yes it did actually. Why is that?"
Eva chewed, as if she shaped the exact words to respond inside her mouth. "I am adopted."
Ben nodded. "That makes sense then. Why are you telling me now anyway?"
"My parents found me when they were leaving Norchand after the great plague. I had been left in a basket beside Lake Gakkur in the lands just north of Beniford when I was a baby.
"Do you think maybe that... I came from another world through a portal, just like you did? Like he did?" Eva's eyes were still red. But now they had grown big with a new worry: the possibility that she might have something in common with Evander.
"I don't know Eva," Ben said. "I don't know how the portals work - it doesn't seem that anyone does. But perhaps you did."
They finished eating, and stayed silent for some time.
As they sat there Ben's thoughts drifted to his family again. What they must be thinking now. His poor parents thinking he had drowned. He wished they had never sent him to Hulstead College and into this mess.
And now he felt something else too, sitting across from Eva, a girl he hardly knew, but with whom he seemed so connected already.
He glanced again at Eva’s white hairs. They seemed to have arranged themselves together now. Was she becoming wisecrinkled? She had told him that generally affected people when they had stopped growing, and she didn't seem to have any wrinkles that would match her rapidly whitened hair. At last he found the courage to ask her. "Have you noticed your hair has a streak of white in it?"
Eva looked up, nodded. "Yes. Maybe your company is making me wisecrinkled after all."
Their eyes locked together.
Suddenly there was a faint thumping.
Ben and Eva looked at the door, but it was coming from somewhere else. They listened again. The noise was regular and consistent. Something soft, tapping on something hard. It was coming from the balcony.
They leapt to the stained glass door, and pulled it open.
They were greeted by loud, emphatic miaowing.
"He has got even bigger!" Eva laughed, looking the felion up and down. "Must be all the scraps he's been eating around the palace."
"Where have you been old friend? And now on earth did you find us and get up here?" Ben asked, as the felion ribboned around his legs.
"He's surely got some kind of trickery and magic in those paws, that's for sure!"
Goldie purred loudly and they brought him inside.
They were both glad to have his company again. The animal seemed to radiate happiness, effortlessly cheering them up. Simply patting and playing with him distracted their minds for a short moment from the horror they had just observed.
They played quietly for the rest of the day, hiding Goldie in the largest wardrobe when the guard returned for their dinner trays, and concealing the sounds of his urgent padding by singing one of Ivor's songs. The man had been rather surprised to find the food from the lunch trays completely finished, the gluttonous creature having helped himself to most of it.
Finally the friends collapsed together on Ben’s bed.
The next morning soon after dawn, Ben was escorted down from his room to a large courtyard inside the palace walls. He was placed in a carriage, drawn by a single guardsman dressed all in black like the others.
As they rolled through the grand palace gates, Ben looked up to the balcony of his room and waved to Eva. He prayed nothing would happen to her.
They left the palace, and rode through the winding city streets amidst the beginnings of the new day. Botilcester had seemed so splendid from high up in the palace. But down here on the pavements and paths, there was fear, scratching at the veneer. In the eyes of the people, the way they moved, the shop fronts, the eating houses. Quiet everywhere.
As the carriage passed them by, Botilcester citizens bowed. One or two dared glimpse inside, and caught Ben's eye. They looked puzzled to see him.
They wound their way through the streets, and eventually began a climb.
Further still they entered a fortified perimeter, and then continued uphill before finally coming to a stop in another courtyard. This place was surrounded only by hard white stone walls, no decoration whatsoever. As Ben emerged he could see this was nothing like the handsome palace built for the Blue Lady. Here there was no vanity. Surfaces were bare, muscular. He was now in a castle, designed for war.
"Welcome Silverstone," Evander's voice behind him.
Ben turned. The mage came across the courtyard from the shaded walkway which encircled it. He carried in his hands a large leather book. Behind him came a young woman carrying a straw broom, a crooked wooden staff and a pale little pointed thing that Ben guessed was a wand.
Evander came to a stop directly in front of Ben, and looked up at the sky, drawing a deep breath. "Well what a simply stunning day to begin training, don't you agree?"
Ben nodded apprehensively.
"Well where to begin, I suppose that is the very first question!" Evander chuckled to himself. He obviously relished being the teacher. He began to pace, like he had the day before, back and forth in a zigzag away from Ben, with the young lady racing after him.
Ben decided he was not expected to follow. He quietly imagined a wind up mechanism inside the mage, like one of those wind up cars Toby played with, building up energy before exploding into action.
"Perhaps with something of the essence of magic,” Evander recommenced. “What with it being so far confined to your imagination and therefore rather a novel concept!"
Ben said nothing.
"Our world - our real world that is - is full to overflowing with imaginary characterisations of magic, Silverstone. Full of them! But as we both know very well, they have always been just that - imaginary. Confined largely to tales of fantasy but safely contained there.
"Well here in this world of the western realms into which we have been thrown, magic is very real." He paused for a moment to heighten the drama of his statement.
"However, just as a great many imaginary things are distorted from a starting point in reality, so too with magic, for it does not exist here in precisely all of the ways it has been envisioned in the world of our origination."
He reached the apex of his circuit and returned to Ben.
"To begin with then, I will teach you what a mage does not require to perform magic." He lifted a hand in the direction of the young lady, and waved it vigorously.
Ben instantly tensed.
"Wand," Evander said casually.
The girl rushed over and handed him the wand. Her head bowed low, muscles tightened.
"This is what would have been referred to in fantastical literature as a wand. A vital tool - a magical appendage you might say - to cast spells, or so various stories would have us believe."
He snapped the pale bone of wood in half and cast it to the ground in contempt, eyeing it for a moment as if confirming it would not reassemble itself and fight back.
"Similarly with -" he pointed at the girl again and she hurried back, holding up the broomstick "- broomsticks, pointed hats, staffs -" he seized the broom and wooden staff and threw them on top of the broken wand "- and any number of other magical tools."
He walked away from the magical pyre again, winding up for the next delivery of his lecture. Ben couldn't help but feel a little disheartened by the discredited pile of objects. Ever since he could remember, each had figured heavily in the stories he had read of faraway lands where wizards and witches roamed. Even now, sprawled ignominiously on the hard ground, they still conjured something up in his mind.
"None of these items is anything but a sensational extravagance. Not necessary in the least for true magic."
Ben looked at him.
"True magic comes from the mage himself. From his mind, through the proper incantations." He raised the heavy leather volume in both hands above his head.
"Za....flar!" he shouted, and pointed a single finger at the pile of objects in front of him.
There was a split second of nothing happening, and then the pile ignited in flames.
The young lady cried out in fear as if she herself had been cast alight, and stepped back.
"Ha ha! Do you see, Silverstone? So simple."
He held the book tightly. "It is just a matter of learning what I will teach you from this great book which was itself passed to me, and where I have recorded my own spells. Then in time you will learn the arts of magic, and surely become a powerful mage just like me. And then we will crush the others!" He was instantly animated and red faced.
He stopped, and calmed down. "And send you home."
Ben looked at the bonfire. Deep into the hot flames. He could feel the warmth, but felt cold inside. He thought of what his parents would think of this man. This dictator. Megalomaniac. He didn't know all of what had caused him to take this desolate, vengeful path, but he felt certain the objective had long ago ceased to be noble.
Who could tell what the other mages were like, whether they were even worse than him. Perhaps they slaughtered the people of this world just as freely.
And so to get home, and away from this madness, he had to join this psychopathic magician. To become his willing servant. All in the name of seeing his family again, and getting back to where he belonged. What would Evander instruct him to do, after he had learned a few spells, to demonstrate his allegiance? What would he do to prove he was something he didn't want to be, for a positive eventual outcome? And if indeed he finally made it home, what would he have become? Would it still be his home then?
His chest throbbed impossibly. He had not felt it this much since Eva's birthday.
Evander placed a hand on his shoulder, waking him.
Ben turned to the mage. His face had become firm, like the walls.
"What should I do first?"
The time passed by without Ben being fully conscious of it. Days came and went without him really existing in them, without sensing anything around
him. He was numb to the world. His sole focus was the tutelage of Evander. In becoming reshaped in his image.
He would wake in the dark before dawn, dress, and eat from the silver tray of fruits and other foods brought to him by the guardsman. Then he would make his way to the courtyard, wrapped in a dark cloak given to him by the mage. His path outside was soft and silent, tracing the corridors and stairways like a wraith in the candlelight. He was quietest when leaving his room, as he was anxious not to disturb Eva, and yet in that tiny moment of every day he was most alive, the memory of her and Goldie behind those doors tugging his heart open again.
Soon he hadn't seen his friends in days, weeks perhaps.
Each day he would arrive at Evander's fortress, to be taken before the mage. And each day they would practice. Evander called out incantations and demonstrated spells, and Ben patiently learned, forcing himself to concentrate, to absorb the knowledge, to gain the power, to get him home. Home; the fleck of light in his black tunnel.
He learned spells for changing walls into water, for creating fire, for moving bricks from one place to another, and for controlling the small insects that prowled the lower reaches of the fortress. All he saw were stepping stones toward the one spell he wanted.
Each night he would emerge from the sunless rooms of the castle back into the night, and travel to his room at the palace. He did not know what hour it was, or how long he had been gone. He would eat silently from the food left for him, and then go to bed.
Each morning he did not know how long he had slept. It didn't matter.
Some time after Ben had begun his tutelage, Evander talked again of the festival in his honour.
"You have learned quickly and well Silverstone. I think the time has come to reveal you. The day after tomorrow, the people of Botilcester will honour me. And I will reveal you to them, to give them renewed hope of our victory, and their safety from the other mages in this world."
He laughed loudly. "Word of our combined power will spread quickly around the lands. It will not be so very long before even mighty Thane bows to us."
Ben stared blankly at him. "What would you have me do?"
The day of the festival came. Ben was to be presented at a great feast, taking place in the evening in the greatest hall of the palace. The servants arranged the room with enormous gold statues of Evander, set glorious table arrangements and positioned bouquets of flowers everywhere possible. Silver trays, double the size of those from which Ben had been served were placed across the many tables.