The Magic Collector

by Clayton Wood

  Simon frowned.

  “Isn’t that illegal?”

  “It’s carefully regulated now,” the Collector corrected. “But not so much back then.”

  “What do you use it for now?”

  “For my collection,” the Collector answered.

  And then he fell silent, and it was clear to Simon that the conversation was over.

  They continued walking through the empty rooms and corridors of the inverted castle, until at last they stopped before a narrow wooden door. There was no doorknob, nor other obvious way to open it; only a human skull embedded in its center.

  “This is it,” the Collector declared. His tone was curiously flat. He glanced at Simon for a moment, then pressed his forehead against the skull’s. A faint red light flashed in its eye-sockets, and the door swung open of its own accord.

  The Collector turned to Simon, gesturing for him to step through. Simon obeyed, stepping through the doorway, and found himself standing on a white marble balcony, pale, weak light from a lantern the only illumination amidst utter darkness. A few feet ahead, the balcony ended.

  Simon felt a cool draft, and cleared his throat, hearing the sound echo as if across a vast space. The hairs on the back on his neck stood on-end.

  Something’s wrong, he felt Doppelganger warn.

  You always say that, he shot back.

  The Collector stepped onto the balcony, stopping at Simon’s right side. He looked at Simon for a long, silent moment, his expression unreadable.

  “Are you ready Simon?” the man inquired.

  Simon nodded.

  The Collector snapped his fingers, and the room was suddenly filled with bright, golden light.

  Simon’s breath caught in his throat.

  They were standing on a balcony near the top of a huge tower, the floor hundreds of feet below…and the walls were covered in paintings. Thousands of paintings.

  He felt the Collector’s eyes on him.

  “Behold, my collection,” the Collector declared.

  Simon said nothing, his eyes darting from painting to painting, taking it all in. Some of the paintings were rather barren, merely landscapes or backgrounds with nothing in the foreground. Live canvases whose original foreground contents had been drawn out. Which meant they were ready to have other things put in them.

  It didn’t take long for him to find out what those things might be.

  For many of the other paintings had people in the foreground. Men and women of various ages, some facing away from him, some facing forward. All of them appearing terrified or surprised.

  And all of them wearing the same black cloak he was wearing.

  He felt Doppelganger’s voice screaming in his head.

  “What do you think, Simon?” the Collector inquired. Simon swallowed in a dry throat.

  “Why are you collecting Painters?” he asked bluntly. The Collector sighed.

  “That’s a long story, Simon.”

  Simon looked up at him.

  “They hurt you, didn’t they,” he guessed. The Collector stared back at him for a quiet moment.

  “One did,” he confessed.

  “Your father,” Simon guessed again. The Collector’s green eyes bored into him.

  “Yes.”

  “My father hurt me,” Simon confessed, lowering his gaze to his forearms. Scars crisscrossed the pale skin there, and beneath the skin of his right forearm was a small lump. A piece of glass he hadn’t been able to get out.

  “What did you do about it, Simon?”

  “I learned not to love someone that can’t love me back,” Simon answered.

  The Collector took a deep breath in, letting it out slowly.

  “My…father told me he loved me,” he confessed. “He said he loved me more than anything in the world. He spent time with me. He…was everything a father should be.”

  He lowered his gaze, his jawline rippling.

  “Growing up, I had problems remembering things,” he continued. “I couldn’t remember much of anything that had happened before I turned eight. My father said it was because I’d gotten into a horrible accident then, and lost most of my memories. But that it didn’t matter. That I was perfect the way I was.”

  He paused.

  “He was a Painter, my father,” the Collector admitted. “So was my mother. I wanted desperately to paint…I had these memories – very vague, but there – of what it felt like to feel the Flow. The magic of it. But my father would never let me. He’d always say he’d teach me later. Kept putting it off. Until one day, when he was sleeping, I stole one of his canvases and starting painting.”

  Simon gave a little smile. He’d done the same thing, in his attic. Painting without a license, feeling the Flow in secret. Until his father had caught him, and…

  “I painted, but nothing happened,” the Collector continued. “I couldn’t feel the Flow, no matter how hard I tried. I felt…nothing.”

  “Why?” Simon asked.

  “I asked my father the same thing the next morning,” the Collector answered. “He told me some nonsense about my injury having stopped me from being able to feel the Flow. I didn’t believe him. I called him a liar, and demanded to know the truth. I told him…” He paused, swallowing visibly. “I told him if he really loved me, he’d tell me the truth.”

  He gave a wry smirk.

  “So even though he didn’t, he did.”

  The Collector’s fingers curled into fists, and he went silent for so long that Simon almost thought he was done. But then the Collector turned to face Simon, with a gaze so intense it made Simon take a step back.

  “I did have an accident,” he revealed. “It was my eighth birthday. I was playing with my friends…we were taking turns jumping off a raft in the middle of a lake. Apparently I slipped when jumping off, and hit my head on the edge of the raft. I was knocked unconscious, and slipped below the surface. My friends tried to save me. Then my mother tried. But they were too late.”

  The Collector swallowed.

  “So I died,” he concluded.

  Simon frowned, shaking his head.

  “I don’t…”

  “My mother left my father, and my father – struck with guilt and grief – did the unthinkable. He painted his son. Painted him to be as close to the original as possible. And then, one night, he drew that painting out.”

  Simon’s eyes widened, a chill running down his spine. The Collector turned away from him, gazing at the paintings hanging on the wall of the tower.

  “You see Simon, my father wasn’t my father at all. He never loved me. He loved his son. His real son. He pretended that I was his son, deluded himself into believing it. But deep down inside, he knew I wasn’t. And so did I.”

  He gave a bitter laugh.

  “My entire childhood was a lie, Simon. Everything he told me was a lie. I was a lie. I wasn’t real…I was a copy of something real. A forgery. What little memories I had of before I’d been painted, those were given to me. They weren’t mine.” He shook his head. “His love was for his son, not for me.”

  Simon didn’t say anything. Didn’t dare say a word.

  “So I left,” the Collector revealed. “At first I wanted to kill myself. I didn’t think I was worthy of existing. I was just a copy, after all. A creation of a delusional mind. But I didn’t kill myself, Simon. I vowed to make something of myself instead. Something more than what my Painter had painted. Something far more.”

  “You did,” Simon murmured.

  “I did,” the Collector agreed. “And now I’ve created this,” he declared, gesturing at the thousands of paintings before them.”

  “You’ve turned Painters into paintings,” Simon realized.

  “And Painters turned paintings into people,” the Collector pointed out. “That’s all we are, Simon.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Why is it that most people can’t paint, Simon? Or Write, or Act? Why do some people feel the Flow, but the majority can’t?”

>   Simon shrugged.

  “It’s hereditary, Simon. If either of your parents can sense the Flow, you’ll be able to. If both can, you’ll be able to sense it more powerfully. But if neither parent can feel the Flow, their children won’t be able to either…and most people can’t feel the Flow.” He paused. “Why?”

  Simon just stood there.

  “Because they’re paintings,” the Collector revealed. “Like me.”

  “But…”

  “Humanity was created, Simon. By artists. Writers and Painters. They created a people in their image, identical in every way…except for the ability to feel the Flow. From those ancestors, all non-artists were born…except for me.”

  Simon lowered his gaze, hardly believing what he was hearing. It was impossible…but it had to be true. There was no other explanation.

  “They know this,” the Collector continued. “The aristocracy. The Pentad. Other governments. They know the truth, and have been hiding it from humanity. Most of them are humans themselves. Descendants of paintings. And they’ve taken power from the artists, forcing them to be licensed, to paint only what they’re allowed to paint. And reaping most of the profit.” He smiled grimly. “The humans have taken over, Simon. They’ve all but conquered their creators.”

  Simon stared at the Painters trapped in their paintings. Hundreds of them, frozen in the canvas. Not quite alive, not quite dead.

  “You’re turning Painters into paintings because…Painters turned paintings into people.”

  “They’re pretending to be gods, Simon,” the Collector explained. “People creating living things, making them exactly the way they want them, like my father did. Painting things and giving them false memories. False emotions. Forcing the paintings to love them and do things for them. Lying to them and telling them they’re real.”

  He paused for a moment, collecting himself.

  “My creator never loved me, Simon. He loved a real person…not some paint on a canvas. If he could have brought his son back from the dead, he would have discarded me in a heartbeat, ashamed that I ever existed.”

  Simon lowered his gaze, swallowing past a lump in his throat.

  “My father loved the person he thought I was. But it wasn’t me.” He swallowed past a lump in his throat. “When he found out, he…tried to change me.”

  The Collector said nothing, and Simon grit his teeth.

  “Then he found out he couldn’t change me,” he added. “And that who I was…was something he couldn’t love.”

  He lifted his gaze to the Collector’s, almost defiantly.

  “Paintings are the only things that’ve ever cared about me. Because I made them that way. But I didn’t make you.” He swallowed. “Was everything you told me a lie?”

  The Collector stared back at him silently, not answering. Simon turned away from him, gazing at the vast collection of paintings before him. His vision blurred with tears, and he let them build up, rolling down his cheeks. He refused to hide them. Refused to ever hide again.

  I told you, he felt the Doppelganger say. Simon grimaced, shoving the Familiar from his mind.

  Eventually, the Collector stirred.

  “I remember what it was like to feel the Flow,” he murmured. “Even though it’s not a real memory, it feels real to me. But I’ll never be a Painter, because I’m not real.”

  “You’re real to me,” Simon retorted.

  They stood there, side-by-side, staring at the paintings lining the curved walls of the tower for a long moment. Then Simon cleared his throat.

  “You’re not a Painter,” he declared. “But this…” he added, gesturing at the collection, “…is your story. This is your art. These paintings. The castle. Your armies. All of it. Your story is your power, and it wasn’t given to you. You took it.”

  He looked up at the Collector then.

  “It’s a masterpiece.”

  The Collector didn’t respond, and Simon returned to gazing at the man’s collection. They stood there for a long while, at the edge of the marble balcony.

  “I love it,” he stated.

  Still the Collector said nothing.

  I’m coming, he felt the Doppelganger declare. But as quickly as his Familiar was moving, there was no way it would reach him in time. And there was nothing it could do against a man like the Collector.

  Simon gazed at the countless Painters trapped within their framed prisons, all dressed in identical black robes. The same robe he was wearing. He clenched his fists, his heart hammering in his chest. His whole body seemed to tremble, desperately trying to keep in the secret that had destroyed his previous life. That had proven his father’s love a lie…just as it would the Collector’s.

  “I love you,” he confessed.

  A bolt of terror shot through him as soon as the words left his lips, his breath seizing in his throat. He had the sudden mad urge to fling himself off the edge of the balcony, to escape the consequences of what he’d just done.

  But though Simon felt the Collector’s eyes on him, the man said nothing in reply.

  An eternity seemed to pass, the silence between them growing so vast that it seemed that nothing could end it. Simon’s vision blurred, and he closed his eyes, feeling wetness trickle down his cheeks. For the first time in weeks, he was struck with the terrible need to cut himself. To feel the pain that would make everything better, if only for a moment.

  And then he felt the Collector’s warm hand come to rest on his upper back, between his shoulder blades.

  Chapter 43

  Bella pulled.

  She saw her hand withdraw from the surface of her canvas, grasping onto a skeletal, black-clawed hand a little larger than hers.

  A chill ran down her spine, the realization of what she was doing striking her. Finally, after so many years of dreaming, she was bringing her dream to life. It was being born, as if pulled from a womb.

  Still she pulled, seeing a bony forearm, then an upper arm bone, and a shoulder.

  Then a skeletal dragon head appeared through the canvas, twin points of blood-red light in its eye-sockets turning to focus on her.

  A burst of surprise struck her, followed by a sudden realization.

  Bella, she thought.

  A warmth spread through Bella, and she nearly dropped her dragon’s hand. She felt a profound happiness, one that made her want to weep.

  “Pull her out, Bella,” she heard Gideon prompt from behind.

  She focused, pulling her dragon out all the way. A long body emerged from the canvas, wings folded on its back. And a long, skeletal tail.

  It was done.

  Bella stared, hardly believing what she was seeing. An undead dragon, plucked from her wildest dreams, standing before her. Looking at her. Its body was roughly the same size as Bella’s, but its long neck and wings made it seem much bigger. It spread those wings out wide, seeming to fill the room with them…and bowed its head to Bella.

  Bella let go of its hand, reaching up to touch the side of its face.

  “Hey you,” she greeted.

  The dragon lifted its gaze to meet hers.

  Hey girl, a voice replied. It took a second for Bella to realize the voice wasn’t sound, but thought; she’d heard it inside of her mind.

  “I’m Bella,” she introduced.

  I know who you are.

  “Oh, right,” Bella stammered, feeling herself flush a bit. She glanced back at Gideon. “She knows who I am.”

  “Naturally,” Gideon replied. “You can hear her thoughts?” Bella nodded. “Then she is truly your Familiar,” he declared. He stepped up to Bella’s side, inclining his head at the dragon. “I am Gideon Myles, Bella’s father,” he introduced. “A pleasure to meet you, Nemesis.”

  Nemesis eyed Gideon.

  He’s so old.

  “Um, yes,” Bella admitted, flushing again. “But he’s good, I promise.”

  Gideon raised an eyebrow, and Bella grimaced.

  “She says you’re old,” she admitted apologetically
.

  “Oh really,” Gideon replied, eyeing Nemesis. “Well you’re looking a bit undernourished.”

  Tell him I could always eat him, Nemesis requested.

  “She says she could always eat you,” Bella complied. Gideon chuckled.

  “I think I like her already,” he quipped. Then he turned to Bella. “We don’t have much time…you should paint her wings.”

  “Oh, right,” Bella remembered. Her wings were made of canvas, after all. If she painted them, and activated them, they could be used to shield her from any attacks, and serve as a storehouse for other paintings. She glanced at Nemesis. “If it’s okay with you,” she added.

  Go on, Nemesis replied. Make me look pretty.

  * * *

  A few hours later, Bella finished painting – and activating – all of the canvas-like webbing between Nemesis’s wing bones. Then she led Gideon and Nemesis out of the studio and into the living room, where Piper was practicing his craft. The Actor looked like he had when they’d first seen him in Havenwood, hidden behind a black cloak. He morphed back to himself when they entered the room, his eyes widening as he saw Nemesis.

  “Wow,” he breathed.

  Who’s this? Nemesis asked.

  “Nemesis, this is Piper,” Bella introduced. “Piper, this is Nemesis.”

  “Nice meeting you,” Piper replied. “Sorry for ‘dragon’ you into this mess.”

  You like this guy? Nemesis asked, eyeing Piper dubiously.

  “Yeah,” Bella answered. “He’s alright.”

  Piper arched an eyebrow, and she felt a flash of irritation. But it wasn’t hers, it was her dragon’s.

  You don’t have to talk to answer me, Nemesis pointed out. I can hear your thoughts.

  “Oh, right,” Bella replied. Then she grimaced. Oh, right, she thought. She paused. Can you hear me now?

  Yes.

  “I’m just alright, huh?” Piper grumbled.

  Puns, Nemesis warned, are a sign of a demented mind.

  “Back to the siege tomorrow,” Gideon interjected, thankfully changing the subject. “Did the Dragonkin mention what time we’d meet?”