Wandmaker

by Ed Masessa

  She didn’t hesitate. She raced up his chest to the closest exposed skin and sank her teeth into his neck.

  “Ahhh!” He screamed and yanked her away with his free hand. “What’s wrong with you?” he yelled.

  “He said ‘Three!’ ” she snarled angrily.

  One glance at the two old men on the ground snapped him back to his senses. He could never give in to evil. Everything that was wrong in the world had the corruption of power as its source. He was determined to use his power to protect and defend. Fury arose in his chest and pushed outward like an electrical charge in a thunderstorm. “Nooo!” he yelled in pure rage. But instead of throwing the gold into the uranium, he closed his hand around the gold and squeezed it, tighter and tighter. His knuckles turned white from the strain, and the glow from the energy radiated through his skin, revealing his bones like an X-ray.

  With an audible CRACK! the energy leapt from the nugget in a blinding streak of lightning. At the same time, Coralis yelled in pain as the quartz ring exploded, releasing the moon’s evil beam and tossing the Wand Master aside like a rag doll. The energies from nugget and ring coalesced into a single ball of malevolent gaseous energy. It swirled in the dark tunnel, expanding, threatening to infect them all.

  Acting on pure impulse and instinct, Henry thrust his wand into the center of the energy. The gas reacted. It changed from hot white to pitch black to raging red as Henry focused his willpower—and finally drew the ball of gas into his wand.

  “Now … three!” he shouted, pointing the wand at the uranium and shooting the energy from his wand like a ray gun.

  Joseph slammed his own wand into the ground at the exact moment the energy streamed from Henry’s wand into the uranium rubble. Activated by Joseph’s wand, the uranium erupted with a field of wavering energy of its own, encircling all of the bad energy and clamping down on it like an iron fist.

  Henry fell to the ground in exhaustion as the uranium finished the job, squeezing the bad energy out of existence and leaving the tunnel in deafening silence.

  Lois was the first to react, rushing to her son’s side. “Are you okay? Oh my God, you’re bleeding!” She pulled a tissue from her pocket and pressed gently on his neck.

  “My sister the vampire,” he croaked weakly. All attention focused on Brianna, who lay in a limp heap at Henry’s feet. “Brianna?” He reached for her but pulled back sharply as her outline flickered. For just a nanosecond, the form of a small girl appeared. Then, just as quickly, it winked back into a hedgehog.

  “What happened?” Brianna sat up groggily.

  Serena picked her up gently. “You saved us.”

  “Yeah, right.” But when she saw their faces, she knew it was true. “Well … I couldn’t let Henry have all the fun.”

  “Modesty is a fine trait in a young lady.” Serena gave her a quick kiss.

  “Are you bleeding?” asked Brianna.

  “Don’t you remember? You bit me.” Henry smiled.

  Brianna blanched. “Cool.” Then she passed out.

  “It would appear we have our answer.” Coralis addressed the group as they gathered in a circle on the floor.

  “What came out of the uranium?” Lois asked.

  “Gamma rays,” said Joseph. “I attended government hearings while trying to get them to close the mines. Many of our people became sick—some died—from exposure to radon gas and gamma rays. I suspected uranium might provide some help in defeating our enemy … ”

  “Suspected?” said Henry.

  Joseph smiled coyly. “Call it an educated hunch. But you showed us something else. How did you know to release the energy from the gold?”

  Henry shifted uncomfortably. The gold nugget in his hand was just a nugget now—Coralis has declared it completely devoid of the moon’s energy. “I didn’t know anything. I don’t even know why I did that. It was like something took over my body. I was so angry, and I was afraid … ” He hesitated. “I was afraid we were all going to die.”

  “Ha!” Coralis beamed. “I knew you had it in you, my boy. From the moment you made the sun flare in the car.” He stood, energetically brushing the soil from his coat. “Enough talk. Lois?”

  “Thirteen minutes.”

  “Lucky thirteen,” said Brianna.

  “Lucky indeed. We have bigger fish to fry,” Coralis exclaimed.

  “Like the size of a whale,” Brianna quipped.

  “Technically, a whale is a mammal,” said Henry. “Perhaps a whale shark?”

  “You might be a decent Wandmaker, but you’re still my brother the nerd.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.” Henry smiled, but another thought nagged at him. “If just a small amount of gamma radiation could kill us, what’s going to happen when … ”

  The group was lost in silent thought as another minute ticked by.

  Coralis extended a hand, helping Henry to his feet, a black circle of burnt flesh where the ring once resided. “We will take our bumps and bruises, but we will not be defeated,” he said with intensity. “This is not the first time a small legion of Wandbearers has confronted overwhelming odds. We will do this,” he said directly to Henry. “And then we will return to my castle. And you will help me rebuild a powerful council so we will never again be caught flat-footed.”

  Henry smiled. But just for a moment.

  “Ten minutes.”

  Dai She rubbed his hands together in giggling glee. He had come a long way from the tortured little boy with the blotched white skin and blistering disposition. All the suffering and shame of his childhood had been locked away—encased in a hardened shell and buried deep inside him. It was a shell filled with really bad mojo. Over the years, he had allowed that shell to open only by the tiniest of cracks. It provided a source of adrenaline in times of need. Not the kind that an athlete would use to win a race, but the kind an evil overlord bent on revenge would tap into.

  And now, with only two minutes to go until the vilest moon in centuries would achieve its perigee, he picked that shell fully open. No longer confined, the darkness oozed, puslike, soaking into every fiber of his being. It spread outward, filling him with bitterness, rage … and an undeniable appetite for vengeance.

  There was no reason to contain it any longer. He was about to bring this planet to its knees.

  And when he was done, he would get rid of that sniveling worm of a self-appointed Wand Master, Markhor. Dai She had no more use for him than a cactus had for water. He would never have what it took to become a true Wand Master and Dai She’s trusted general. Markhor had spent too many years creating relationships with people—creating weaknesses within himself.

  But Markhor had served his purpose and, despite his occasional hostility, served it well. And for that, Dai She would reward him with a quick, merciful death.

  Speak of the devil, he thought as Markhor strode toward him, glancing at his watch. “One minute.”

  Dai She nodded. He checked the positioning of the Corsini Mappaemundi, hovering his stubbly fingers over the surface, unwilling to touch it lest he disturb something before the time was right.

  “Thirty seconds.”

  Markhor’s voice betrayed his tension. There was no turning back. He had allowed Dai She to use him. Ever since he had occupied this body, Malachai had known that he would have only one chance to draw Coralis out into the open. To see what defenses the Wand Master had left, what kind of network remained of his old empire. Malachai had plans—big plans—and he didn’t want that old fool to get in the way.

  Of course, he couldn’t allow Dai She to get in his way either.

  He glanced once more at his only son. He would have no remorse when this was over. Dai She could have been good, but never great. There were mental and emotional flaws that could not be overcome or corrected. In the language of war, he was expendable.

  “Open the door!” Dai She squealed with delight.

  Markhor shifted his eyes in a look that could kill, and obeyed one last command.

 
Tainted or not, Randall withdrew the Urania Wand. It seemed like eons had passed since he’d last used it; the day that changed his life forever. Whether it was luck, skill, or a remarkable combination of both, the wand had given him the power to foresee the future. What he saw had brought him to this place at this moment.

  He hadn’t foreseen all the random events and detours that had led to hitching a ride on a vulture, but that had only added spicy seasoning to the adventure.

  Using the wand wasn’t an exact science, after all. It could foresee a future, but not tell what might happen to alter it.

  With the moon’s greatest shower of evil power just moments away, he needed to use it one more time. Interesting, he thought, I almost said one last time.

  The time for speculation had passed. With no further hesitation, he grasped it firmly in his beak and willed it to show him what he needed to know.

  Unfortunately, his earlier thought was correct.

  Henry, Lois, Serena, and Joseph positioned themselves as corners of a square. Coralis stood in the middle. At his instruction, they withdrew their wands. “This is not the time for gadgetry. We must focus every ounce of our essence through our wands and into the uranium. Joseph, I’m assuming you’ve prepared your students?”

  “They await my mind-link. You will have the full power of my people behind you,” Joseph answered proudly.

  “I will gather our collective energy and focus it into a single stream,” Coralis said. “The only way to win is to create a chain reaction that will ignite every gram of uranium and use it to form a shield that will take the bad energy head-on.”

  “What if it’s not enough?” Henry nervously rubbed the top of his head.

  “Then we will need a bit of luck.” Coralis honestly didn’t know if there were any more lucky cards in his charmed deck, but they were out of options. He closed his eyes and reached out with his mind to connect with the other four warriors. Once more unto the breach, he thought. One more time.

  Interesting, he thought, I almost said one last time. Then he realized that thought had come to him from another place. Good luck, my son, he projected to a solitary figure in a lone valley.

  When he opened his eyes, a universe of stars swirled deep within his pupils. He could already feel the power of many Wandbearers building within him. He hoped he would be able to handle it. “On the count of three.”

  The wand-bearing warriors were emitting a constant energy flow—all but Henry. His power fluctuated wildly. It came at Coralis in raging torrents, threatening to engulf him one moment, then winding down to a trickle the next.

  Coralis struggled to harness and modulate the energy. He told them to touch their wands to the tunnel walls.

  “Focus!” he commanded, bringing them to a heightened state they didn’t know was possible.

  “Now!”

  Markhor opened the door. Immediately the crystals began to glow.

  Dai She shouted, “And evil shall reign!” With one hand he took his personal wand and touched the crystal pillar next to him. With the other hand, he touched the Corsini Wand to the map. He sent a stream of energy outward, an invisible streak of lightning that connected pillar to pillar up the tunnel until it reached the one at the entrance.

  The moon had reached its perigee at the precise moment that it could no longer contain the centuries of evil it had accumulated. To the untrained eyes of billions of people around the world … nothing happened.

  But within the diabolical mind of Dai She, a flood of evil coursed outward and latched on to every single thread of moonlight. For just a second, the moon darkened as if a cloud passed before it. A single second was all it took for the moon to return to its original luster.

  A meteoric pulse of energy rocketed toward the Earth at the speed of light and collided headlong into Dai She’s snare. The first crystal pillar nearly exploded, but it held fast and allowed the energy to pass, streaking down the tunnel and into Dai She.

  The Wand Master strained and bucked as he began to glow, his eyes the color of crimson fire, his body red, purple, and black.

  Markhor edged away from the opening. For the first time, fear etched his brow. He crept along the wall, steering clear of the crystals. He knew he had to escape from the tunnel before Dai She released the energy but could not tear his eyes away. To witness destruction on this scale was simultaneously horrifying and thrilling.

  And he wanted to witness it as himself. He allowed the glamour of his facade to dissipate, revealing himself as Malachai.

  Dai She saw the shimmer at the outer edge of his peripheral vision. Through red-stained eyes, he imagined it was his father and not the sniveling Markhor who was about to witness his greatest achievement. When he felt his body was about to burst, he concentrated on the map and unleashed the power into the giant crystals all around him.

  The map began to buckle … and the Earth along with it.

  Having the senses of a falcon, Randall felt the tremor in his mind a few precious seconds before the Earth trembled beneath him. There was no turning back. The Urania Wand had foretold his future.

  But as a falcon, he would be unable to use his full power. Unlike Malachai, he was not using a glamour—reverting to his original form would not be easy. Doing what he feared most, he gathered his wands beneath him and lay flat on the ground against them. He recited in his mind the phrases that would reverse the transformation. The Earth shuddered from one source of power, and he from another. A wing became an arm; a claw became a foot. He was using valuable energy and hoped it wouldn’t cost him in the end.

  Finally, a naked young man emerged, glistening with sweat and gulping air into his expanded lungs. The transformation had left him stunned and shaken. A sound in the distance got his attention: rocks tumbling from cliffs and rolling down mountainsides, small ones at first but followed in quick succession by an avalanche of boulders the size of houses.

  With the effort of a gladiator thrust into a den of lions, he grabbed every wand from his harness, held them tightly in his fist, and rammed them into the ground.

  Coralis absorbed energy much like Dai She had done, but his eyes glowed with the white-hot intensity of the sun. In his mind’s eye, legion upon legion of warriors were gathering at the crest of a hill, readying for a gallant charge. And when he, too, could no longer contain it, he jammed his wand into the packed earth.

  The impact nearly threw him, but he held steady, gripping the wand as searing heat drove through him and into the uranium.

  The reaction was not instantaneous. The walls began to glow, but slowly. He needed more power, and there was only one source.

  “Henry!” he shouted above a deafening roar. “Let yourself go!”

  Henry gasped. Surely Joseph, Serena, or his mother was capable of greater power than he. What was he to let go of? He was doing all he could to help.

  And yet a part of him was holding back. His imagination was haunted by the fear of turning Monument Valley into a mushroom cloud of destruction. Everything he had ever read about uranium, all the documentaries he had seen about atom bombs … If he were to accidentally do something to trigger a holocaust …

  “Listen to Coralis.” Henry glanced down. Brianna had crawled into his pocket. “You must trust him, Henry.”

  Sweat dripped down the side of his face. Droplets rolled from the tip of his nose, moistening the dirt at his feet. Brianna spoke again, but this time her voice hummed with persuasion. “If you don’t act now, evil will win. Millions will die. People are counting on you. Those who love you know what’s best. You must not be afraid, Henry. Concentrate on your wand. It will not let you down.”

  He knew she was right, of course. Besides, if he failed … he’d be dead. Not a comforting thought, but superheroes didn’t save the world without taking chances.

  He focused. Hard. He pushed every other thought from his mind but one. He let himself go.

  Coralis reeled from a jolt of power the likes of which he had never felt. With a massive effort he channel
ed that energy into his wand. The uranium in the walls around them began to glow brighter until suddenly the chain reaction fired.

  The uranium wanted to explode. Coralis couldn’t let it. He cried out in agony as he fought to contain the explosion and reshape its energy into a shield. The earth shook beneath their feet. Chunks of rock fell all around them, but the walls held fast as the streaks of uranium fused together. When he reached the limit of his endurance, at the moment he would cross from living to dead, he released the power.

  The effect was magnificent. Bright green light illuminated the tunnel as the power surged out in all directions, connecting molecule to molecule. The light flooded through the mine shaft in an instant to race outward into the valley and beyond the uranium-rich Navajo Nation.

  Infrared images from space would later reveal a subterranean network of veins that glowed like molten rock and would be mistaken for volcanic activity—stumping scientists for decades.

  It continued to spread beyond the borders of states and into Mexico, where it collided with the energy of the evil moon that Dai She had released.

  And the two forces collided at the precise point where a young boy named Randall would feel the full impact.

  Malachai had seen enough. He turned his back on his son and ran. The fissure he had seen earlier had widened to more than a foot. He had no doubt the tunnel would collapse, entombing Dai She … and the map! He skidded to an abrupt halt, nearly stumbling into the path of the crystal pillars. To lose the map would be devastating. To go back for it would almost certainly mean death. Malachai cursed his son—his biggest failure—then continued to run.

  As he reached the mouth of the cave, he heard the final cry of a terrified man.

  “Father!”

  The valley was no longer a valley. Mountain peaks split and crashed downward hundreds of feet, adding to the tremors. Tectonic plates that had been silent for millions of years pushed upward with incredible speed, forcing their way skyward. Randall was afraid but he held his ground.