The Dark Lord

by Jack Heckel

  It was an absurd suggestion and I laughed aloud at it. “That’s not going to happen, Vivian.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Avery,” she said, and the gold rings in her eyes blazed to life. “I happen to know that you and I are destined to return to your world tonight.”

  Something about her certainty unnerved me. Whatever this was, it was no longer an amusing diversion. I opened my mouth to tell her that it was time to leave and felt a stabbing pain in the bend of my arm. Looking down I saw that her forefinger was capped by a black metal thimble inscribed with dozens of magical runes. A needle extended from the thimble’s end and she was pulling its sharp point from my skin.

  In the time it took the pinprick of blood to well from the puncture, I felt the sleep spell, for that is what it was, pulling me under. I tried to draw power for a counterspell, but already my mind couldn’t focus on a pattern and the magic slipped away.

  “Please, don’t try to fight it, Avery,” she pleaded. “It’s a very powerful casting. I stole it from one of my professors.”

  “What . . . what have you done?” I slurred as my tongue grew thick and clumsy.

  “I’ve put you to sleep, Avery,” she said calmly. “I am going to take the reality key and return with you to your subworld. Don’t worry, I will bring you back. But I need time to learn how to use the key, and if I leave you here there’s a chance someone may find you and come after me before I’m ready.”

  The full horror of what she was saying took a moment to filter through my sleep-addled brain. When it did, I tried to draw away from her, but my legs weren’t working. The room tilted on its side. I stumbled and pitched forward, clutching the reality key to my chest. Only Vivian’s outstretched arms prevented me from cracking my skull on the stones of the floor. She lowered me to the ground and rested my head in her lap. Even if I’d wanted to fight her my limbs would no longer move. I gazed up at her with blinking eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Avery,” she said, and I heard the regret in her voice. “I wish this could have turned out differently, but it’s the only way. You never would have taken me to your world willingly, and I need to go. Your experiment is more important than you know. It could change everything, but it won’t unless I’m there. I don’t know what I’m meant to do. I can’t see beyond tonight, but I know that I need to be there. I hope you can understand.”

  I tried to answer, to beg her not to do this, to warn her of the danger, but the words wouldn’t come. My eyes flickered closed and only my thoughts remained. She is taking me back.

  I felt a wetness on my face and knew that I was crying. Vivian’s soft fingers wiped them away. The smell of her swirled around me. I realized she was saying very softly, “I’m sorry, Avery, I’m sorry.” She repeated it over and over again almost like a meditation until even her voice faded away and I heard no more.

  Chapter 5

  MORNING HAS BROKEN

  I awoke from a dream I couldn’t recall with a screaming headache. I was in my room, in my bed, which isn’t that unusual except that I couldn’t remember coming home. The last thing I could recall was stepping out of Arda Hall with Vivian on my arm. I smiled at the memory and instantly regretted it as a stabbing pain shot through my temples. I clutched at my head and groaned.

  “So, you’re finally awake,” Eldrin said in a voice that reverberated in my skull like thunder.

  I glared at him through slitted eyes. He was sitting on the floor, his back against his bed and a book propped on his lap. A dozen more open books were arrayed around him like an audience. “Shhh,” I hissed. “My head feels like Dave Lombardo’s drum kit after a concert.”

  He cocked his head to one side and pursed his lips, which was what he did when he didn’t get one of my earthly references.

  “It hurts like hell,” I clarified. “Vivian and I must have gone on one hell of a bender last night. I can’t remember anything.”

  “Night?” Eldrin said with a snort. “Try two nights and a day.”

  He was obviously trying to put one over on me, but I was in no mood. “Don’t, Eldrin. I’m really not feeling well.”

  “Don’t what?” he asked sharply, his ears twitching with irritation. “You abandoned me Friday night to go off with that woman, and now it’s Sunday afternoon.”

  Maybe it was that his voice seemed to be trying to bore a hole through my skull, or maybe I was just pissed that I couldn’t remember the epic debauchery that must have contributed to my current state, but I didn’t want to get into it with Eldrin. “Seriously, stop it,” I grunted. “It’s not funny.”

  He closed his book with a sharp snap that made me wince. “You really don’t get my sense of humor, do you?” he said, and seemed to be genuinely aggrieved that I didn’t. “Let me make myself clear—you have been gone almost two full days. What I want to know is the censored version of what the two of you were doing, and where you were doing it, because when you didn’t come back yesterday, I tried to find you and, at least as far as every divination spell I know is concerned, you weren’t in Mysterium. Although I’ll admit that the state of scholarship in the field is atrocious.” He gestured about at the mass of books as if to confirm this fact.

  My forebrain was still trying desperately to claw its way out of my head. I closed my eyes and decided to delegate the higher thinking to Eldrin. “That doesn’t make sense. All I did was walk her back to her room—I think. Anyway, I don’t have the stamina to do two days of drinking . . . or anything else for that matter.”

  Funny thing though, I couldn’t actually remember even making it to her room. Not exactly. I opened my eyes and looked at Eldrin. He had on his angry expression. Shit.

  He shook his head. “You’re not getting what I’m saying. You weren’t anywhere in Mysterium. You must have gone off-world, which is totally irresponsible considering what you were carrying around with you. What were you thinking?”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  He blushed. He’d been doing that more and more lately. I wondered again if he had a bit of a puritanical streak in him, which would be unusual for a Hylar. They are typically very . . . open-minded.

  “Never mind,” he mumbled. “I guess no harm was done. It was still damned stupid though.”

  “You weren’t there,” I said smugly, which earned me a very elven eye roll. I didn’t want to admit that with as little as I remembered, I might not have been there either. I sat up. The movement made my brain knock about in my head. I needed coffee and aspirin and a plate of greasy eggs and bacon, but first I needed to know how I got here. I yawned. “My memory is a little hazy. How and when did I get home?”

  Eldrin shrugged. “I don’t know. I found you propped against our door this morning when I went to take my shower. There was a note pinned to you.” He gestured vaguely at my desk. “And before you ask, I didn’t read it. I have some boundaries.”

  With an enormous effort, I reached over and plucked a bit of old-fashioned parchment from the desk. It had been folded and the edge sealed with a rough circle of black wax into which had been pressed the image of a climbing rose. The note was written in an elegant hand I didn’t recognize.

  Dearest Avery,

  I’m sorry to leave you like this, but it is the only way. I have so much still to do here in Trelari, and you did not seem happy to be here any longer.

  When you get this you are going to want to panic, and you are going to want to come for me. Don’t. I promise you, there is a GOOD reason for everything. The world has begun to speak to me, and every day my path becomes clearer. I know now what I am doing. More importantly, I know what I will be doing and what I still need to do.

  You are the most extraordinary mage I have ever met. I hope one day you will forgive me and that we can meet again under happier circumstances and talk of all those silly things you wanted to talk to me about.

  Yours,

  Vivian

  P.S. Sorry about the headache; repeated sleep and compulsion spells will do that, I’m told.

&nbs
p; P.P.S. Please tell Dawn that I am okay.

  I read the letter twice through, hoping that it would change. When it didn’t, I sat, unmoving, with the paper in my hand, listening to the blood pumping through my brain.

  “What does she say?” Eldrin asked over the roaring in my ears. “If it’s explicit don’t read it to me. I like to keep a bit of mystery between us.”

  His words washed over me, heard but not registered. Then full weight of what she had done hit me. My nerves began to burn like my body was on fire. My hands shook violently. I dropped the paper and clawed at my neck, searching for the chain that was always there. It was gone. I leapt from the bed and tore at the pockets of my trench coat and then my pants. I was in the process of dismantling my desk and the books on my shelf when I felt Eldrin’s hand on my shoulder.

  “Avery,” he said quietly.

  Oddly, it was the calm in his voice that pushed me over the edge. I felt my knees give out beneath me, and Eldrin guide me back to my bed. I knew he was saying something to me, but it took a while for the words to filter through my panic.

  “. . . a deep breath. You’re as pale as chalk. You’ve got to calm down or you’re going to pass out.”

  He knelt down so his eyes were level with mine. “It’s the key, isn’t it, Avery? She’s taken the key to your subworld.”

  I nodded. “She’s there now, in Trelari.”

  I saw a mixture of sadness and disappointment pass over his face. He picked up her letter and began pacing back and forth across our room as he read it. I watched him and hoped that he was going to come up with a plan, because at this point I was beyond rational thought. He stopped with a shrug. “Well, the only thing for it is to go and get her.”

  This made sense and sounded simple. “Right,” I said. “We can use the circle to go to Trelari and find her.”

  He looked at me with an expression that made my stomach sink again. “It would only be that simple if she wanted to be found,” he said patiently, “but from her note it seems clear that she doesn’t. And if she doesn’t want you to bring her back, then you’ll be trying to compel someone with absolute control over reality. Remember what it was like to be the Dark Lord?”

  I lay back on the bed and groaned. “I don’t understand. Why did she do it? What can she want with my subworld? It’s only special to me because it was the one Griswald assigned me to study.”

  Eldrin started pacing again, folding his hands in a distinctly Eldrin-esque way. “In her letter she mentions ‘knowing what she will be doing and what she still needs to do.’ Do you know what she’s talking about? What does she need to do?”

  I shook my head and mumbled, “I have no idea.”

  “Do you remember anything about her, or about what you did with her?” he asked, his jaw clenching and unclenching in frustration.

  “No,” I wailed. “I . . . I remember meeting her in the bar, having a drink with her, and then leaving, but nothing after that.”

  “What did you talk to her about in the bar?” he asked.

  I wrinkled my brow in concentration as I tried to reconstruct the evening. It was like trying to watch a movie through a thick mist. Everything was obscured and diffused. At last I said, “I think we talked mostly about her. She told me she was an acolyte seer and that she’d been accepted into a research group and was going to be studying . . . something . . .” I snapped. “Future shaping! That was it. She went on and on about how she was going to join Herbert’s group and study future shaping.”

  Eldrin’s eyes widened and he crouched down in front me. “This is very important, Avery. Did you tell her about your experiment?”

  I started to shake my head, but then stopped as an image of Vivian and me standing in front of the Subworld Studies building crystalized in my mind. “Yes!” I said. “She was very interested. She wanted to know all about what I was studying, and got very excited that my method might be able to stabilize subworlds permanently.”

  We both looked at each other and Eldrin said, “She thinks she can predict the outcome of your experiment.” I nodded. “But that’s going to be a disaster,” he said, his voice rising. “She’s going to get all sorts of bogus visions, and if she tries to future shape in a subworld, well . . .”

  “The whole place might unravel around her,” I supplied.

  “Dammit, Avery!” Eldrin shouted. “Why did you have to keep that key with you? How could you be so stupid?”

  I didn’t even try to muster a defense. “I don’t know,” I whispered, and I didn’t. Why had I been so unhappy and reckless that night? How could I explain something to him that even I didn’t understand?

  We sat on our beds, staring at the narrow gap of floor between us, both lost in our own thoughts. I was considering alternate career paths and trying to remember the lyrics to a certain song when Eldrin jumped off his bed in a sudden burst of energy and went to his desk.

  “No use sitting about,” he said with forced brightness. “I’ll do some quick calculations to see how best to insert ourselves into the subworld. We can probably reuse your old circle with the right modifications.”

  As he sat down at his desk, the sucking sound of our wall dissolving echoed across the room. Eldrin glanced over at the corner with a sigh and went back to his books, his pencil beating a rapid staccato as he thought through our options. I stared at the wall, and considered my roommate.

  “You know it was my idea to try and build an extradimensional closet in our room,” I mused aloud.

  If Eldrin heard he didn’t respond. He was engrossed in sketching a series of incredibly complicated runes and waved my words away with the eraser end of his pencil. But the thought was stubborn and kept bothering me. The fact was, most of the bad ideas we’d had over the years had been mine, and this was no exception. I suddenly knew what I had to do. I stood and braced my feet so that they were solidly set on the floor. I hadn’t performed magic of this sort since my third year of acolyte training, so I made sure I had the pattern of the magic set in my mind very carefully before I started. Then I began.

  I gathered my energies slowly and steadily. There was no reason to alarm Eldrin unnecessarily. When I was certain I had enough magic stored up for my purposes, I focused it through the pattern and willed him to sleep. It was not until the first tendrils of power touched him that he reacted. He began to turn, but by then the spell was already beginning to take hold. His movements began to slow, I saw his mouth open as if to say something, and he slumped forward—unconscious.

  I dressed quickly and turned to leave. There was another sucking sound from the corner, and the passing wind fluttered the papers on Eldrin’s desk. I examined the sketch he had been working on. It was brilliant, of course. I slid the paper out from under his arm and tucked it into the pocket of my trench coat. He stirred in his sleep.

  “Thanks, Eldrin,” I said and, grabbing the pillow from his bed, I laid it beneath his head. “Sweet dreams.”

  Outside, with the warmth of the midday sun beating down, it all seemed so impossible. Adepts were playing plasma Frisbee and touch football on the greens; even the acolytes and novices had emerged mole-like from their study holes to enjoy the brilliant weather. Nothing could be wrong on a day like today. Still, impossible or not, there was a clock outside a door in the basement of a building that was ticking down the days to the end of my career. I had two weeks to bring Vivian back, and each minute that passed for me would be hours for her. I started running.

  Before I could figure out exactly how much subworld time I might have to chase down and subdue a woman with the power of life and death in her hands, I was standing in front of my closet door breathing hard. I reached for the handle and paused. Had she remembered to lock it? If she had I would be sunk. The only way to get into the shielded room would be to get the spare from the stores, at which point my deception would be known and Gristle would get involved. Even if I survived the fallout, Vivian never would. Stealing a reality key meant expulsion at a minimum.

  I clos
ed my eyes, whispered prayers to a dozen deities at once, and twisted the knob. It didn’t budge. I rested my head against the cool hardness of the metal and muttered profanities to the same gods I had moments before pleaded to for help.

  I was considering my very limited options when I heard the sound I’d been dreading—footsteps. They were coming, fast, and their echoes rebounded down the tile corridors like miniature thunderclaps. I only had a few seconds to act. Hiding in the empty and featureless hallway was out of the question, but every ten feet or so was another door letting on to another circle closet—most of which would not be in use. I opened the nearest one and ducked into the darkness of room 13A.

  I had just enough time to pull the door closed when whoever it was turned the corner. I gave the gods one last try and begged for their intervention. Please keep going, please keep going. Of course the unwanted interloper stopped right outside my room. Gods can be such pricks.

  I heard a key turn in a lock and the sound of a door opening. It must be my closet, which meant it had to be Gristle. He must have seen me come in, I thought, followed quickly by the silent whine, Why me?

  I was in the process of coming up with some truly inventive excuses when Eldrin’s whispered voice broke the silence. “Avery?”

  The relief at knowing it was him, or at least not Griswald, was exquisite. I fumbled for the door and came spilling unsteadily out into the hall. “Eldrin?!” I said in a half shout. Then more quietly, “How are you here? You are supposed to be—”

  “Asleep?” he said in an injured tone. “You think a third-year charm is going to keep me out of commission? What sort of poser do you think I am, and what the hell were you thinking anyway?”

  I smiled at him. “I was thinking that you can’t come with me, Eldrin.”

  “Why not?” he asked, and this time the hurt in his voice was real.

  “Because this is my problem, and I won’t have you risking your career to help me fix it.”