by Jack Heckel
This didn’t seem to commit me to anything except, maybe, that the semi-lich was banal or that contractors were delicious, neither of which I agreed with, but either of which I could live with. Anyway, Moregoth seemed uninterested in my answer as he was busy flipping through pages near the back of the book. “Vampich,” he chuckled asthmatically. “Such an ecstasy of despair.”
While I was still not sure what was going on, I needed to end this conversation, get through my class, drink several tumblers of good whiskey, and hope to the gods that there had been some hideous paperwork foul-up that might explain away today. I cleared my throat, a sound that Harold echoed from my shoulder. Moregoth’s single visible eyebrow rose quizzically up his forehead as though he was surprised I was still there. “Do forgive me, Professor Stewart. I am keeping you from your students. You and I can continue this discussion after class. With your indulgence, my friends and I will take the liberty of observing your lecture. I find the dark forces used to shape young minds such an inspiringly sweet slice of torment.”
Afraid to say anything I simply nodded.
“Oh, Professor Stewart, one last thing.”
“Yes?”
He leaned in close, far too close, and whispered menacingly, “If you hold anything holy. If there is anyone or anything that you love. Never lie to me again.” My blood froze in my veins. Moregoth pulled away and smiled a crooked smile. “Very well, Professor, until class is over.” He gave an almost imperceptible bow of his head. “Or until the darkness consumes us all.”
He pushed aside the curtain, and moved past me up one of the side aisles toward the back of the room like a three-dimensional silhouette of a man. I held it together until he joined the rest of his men in the shadows near the rear doors. Then my hands began to shake. I bent over and put my hands on my knees.
There must be a dozen perfectly reasonable explanations why two students that happen to also be from Trelari might be wanted by the Administration. That I couldn’t come up with even one reason that didn’t involve tiny, barren, hard-walled interrogation rooms was more a commentary on me and my lack of imagination than anything else. Right?
“Bloody lunatic,” I gasped.
“I like him,” Harold wheezed from my shoulder. “Granted, his fashion sense is appalling, and his haircut isn’t regulation. But he’s very polite.”
That’s when I blacked out.
Chapter 4
This Will Go Down on Your Permanent Record
I woke to the smell of dead mouse and Harold’s rheumy eyes staring down at me. He was wheezing heavily and fanning me ineffectually with my lecture notes. “I don’t want to tell you how to do your job . . . but now isn’t the time . . . to take a nap,” he said between ragged breaths.
I pushed myself up onto my elbows and winced as a shock of pain ran through the back of my head. Gingerly, I rubbed the bump that was rising there. We were still in the alcove and, based on the muted murmur of voices and shuffling bodies coming from the lecture hall, my class was still here. I couldn’t have been out long. I looked at Harold, thought of all the things I should say, but my brain settled on, “You’re talking.”
He rolled his eyes. “Obviously.”
A thousand questions rose in my mind. And having lived through two major shocks and minor head trauma in the space of a few minutes, I naturally started asking them all at once, and in no particular order. “How long have I been out? Why haven’t you talked to me before? Have you opened the box? Was there a key in it? How can you possibly think Moregoth is polite? Is it true your favorite candy is butterscotch? Do you know where Griswald is? Your accent is British, are you from Earth? Did you really eat the remote control for the TV?”
“And you wonder why I haven’t wanted to talk?”
He had a point. “Fine, but answer the question.”
“I did not eat the remote. I flushed it down the toilet. I will not tolerate reality TV.”
I glared at him. “Not that question.”
The imp shook his head and pulled the closed box from his vest pocket. He held it out to me. “Be my guest.”
I slumped back against the wall. “It won’t work, and you know it.”
“No, I don’t, and neither do you. Ever since that book—” he paused to cough spasmodically “—book came out, you haven’t wanted to touch it.”
I let this pass. “Can you open it?”
“That’s not the question.”
“Will you open it?”
“No.”
“Please.” I clasped my hands together.
“No.”
“Why the hell not?” I clambered to my feet and began pacing unsteadily around the alcove, cursing, and throwing my arms about in impotent frustration. “Why won’t you do what we both know you can do? Is it because I’m not Griswald? Or because you don’t like me? Or because you want to teach me some mystical life lesson like a shorter, uglier version of Mr. Miyagi? Wax on. Wax off. If so, I don’t understand the lesson. Just teach me karate already.”
I stopped, not because I didn’t have more to complain about, but because my head was starting to spin and I was afraid I was going to fall down again if I didn’t. “You done?” Harold asked.
I was being ridiculous, but I refused to admit it. I crossed my arms over my chest and glowered. “For now, but I reserve the right to throw another tantrum if the mood strikes me.”
“Very mature of you,” he said with irritating calmness. “I won’t open it because you are already seven minutes late to your first class, and the students are counting down the seconds to fifteen past when they can walk out. You need to go in there and teach.”
“I don’t care two figs about the class, Harold. We have too much to talk about.”
“Yes, far too much,” he sighed. “However, there are two very good reasons why you need to teach this class.”
“Name them,” I snapped. “Give me two reasons why I should teach an introductory magic class to a bunch of kids who would rather be anywhere else doing anything else when this box may have the answers to a thousand questions, including where Griswald and Vivian went when they disappeared.”
In answer, he thrust the papers he’d been holding under my nose. I looked down at the page. It was my class roster. “And . . . ?”
He pointed a finger at one of the names: “Ariella Moonsong.” I blinked, but the name didn’t change. While I was trying to absorb the fact that Moregoth was right and that I had Ariella on my class roster, Harold shifted his hand and stabbed his finger at a second name; it simply read: “Sam.”
“Sam and Ariella are here,” I whispered.
“Yes, they are,” Harold said soberly.
In a kind of daze, I plucked the sheet of paper from the imp’s hand. Harold took hold of my chin and pulled my head down so my eyes fell on the bottom of the page. There was a note in the margin in official glowing letters: it was from the Administration. “Professor Stewart, two of your students, Ariella Moonsong and Sam (no last name given), both of Trelari, need to report to the Office of Student Enrollment at once. There are some discrepancies in their applications and potential issues with financial aid. Representatives from Mysterium Security will be present in your class to take charge of them. Please make every effort to cooperate with them in this matter, and let’s have a great first day of class!”
My heart sank. Moregoth had been telling the truth, and if anything, my worst fears were made even worse (yes, I know worst can’t be worse, but that’s how I felt) by the upbeat message at the end of the notice. Usually when the Administration gave a pep talk it was following, or followed by, a notification that a class had been torn apart by out-of-control vector magic, or gotten lost in some shadow dimension. I peeked through the curtain and tried to scan the faces to see if I could spot Sam and Ariella, but from this angle it was impossible to see past the first row. “Moregoth really means to take them.”
“Yes, he does.”
I stared at the two names. The certainty that Sam
and Ariella were not only in trouble but in real mortal peril from a foe I did not have the slightest chance of protecting them from should have sent me into another panic. Oddly, it did not. Instead, it filled me with a measure of resolve. To hell with Garth Moregoth and his Sealers. I would find a way to save Sam and Ariella if it was the last thing I did. Which it probably would be.
“Right!” I said. “Let’s go teach this bloody class, and save Sam and Ariella while we’re at it.”
I started to pull the curtain aside, but Harold held out a taloned hand. “Wait! Aren’t we going to make a plan?”
He was right, of course, but I had nothing. Nor did I think that the imp and I could come up with anything that would have even the slightest chance of working against an entire squad of Sealers in the next couple of minutes, or days, or even weeks. And I had a feeling that if I delayed much longer Moregoth would run out of patience and take matters into his own, exceedingly pale and lethal hands.
I gave Harold my most irritating grin. “Plans are overrated, and the fifteen-minute rule is a myth by the way.”
He thought about arguing for a second, gave a mournful sigh, and scrambled up to sit on my shoulder. I walked through the curtain and up the stairs to the lectern. The buzz of conversation died and the eyes of over two hundred students bored into me. I was sorely tempted to take a moment and scan the room for Sam and Ariella, but I didn’t trust myself not to give them away. My lone hope was that Moregoth didn’t know what they looked like. Being careful not to make eye contact with anyone, I turned to the blackboard, retrieved my piece of enchanted chalk from my robe pocket, and set it on the board. “Introduction,” I whispered.
The chalk began to write in a long, looping hand, “Welcome to Rowling Magic 101 . . .”
I turned back around and got the first look at my class. I’m not sure how to describe what I saw, because any large gathering at Mysterium University is as incredible as it is indescribable. This is because the student body of Mysterium University is a virtual kaleidoscope of races and species. There were all your usual suspects: bearded dwarfs, backpack-sized halflings, and radiant-skinned Hylar, but there were more exotic peoples here as well. In the front row, arranged like a leather-encased, ochre-fleshed wall, was a band of massive, pig-snouted orcs. The largest of whom was clutching a stick on the end of which he had tied a dead rat. It was difficult to see who or what was sitting directly behind them, because the enormous girth and height of the orcs blocked my view of the next three or four rows (I would definitely have to make some adjustments to the seating assignments before my next class). I suspected a group of Shades (sort of living cloaks that existed by absorbing the radiance and joy of beings around them) had gathered just behind the first row, because there was an indistinct area of deep shadow right behind the orcs that made me want to weep every time I looked at it. I put the class roster down on the lectern and made a note to separate them. It might not be fair, but if I didn’t I’d have a class of depressed novices within the week.
The Shades were not the only beings I would need to talk to either. As I was studying the room, I saw there was a general miasma of smoke hovering in the air. That would be the Dracos, a species noted for being of varying degree, part dragon or lizard or snake or (and don’t ask me to explain it) turtle, with scales and flaming breath and all the rest. Anyway, it appeared I had a number of them in my class, because they were blowing smoke like mad. As it was their first day, I would give them a break, but I would have to send out a reminder about university rules concerning vaporous emissions inside of campus buildings. If I didn’t, we would be setting the smoke alarms off every lecture.
This was just one of the many unique hazards of teaching at a university like Mysterium. You had to lay down your ground rules right off the bat, or things could get out of control in a hurry. I didn’t think I had any Lolths in my class this year (a species of giant, superintelligent multidimensional spider), but they were notorious for webbing up whole lecture halls during periods of high stress, like exams. This often made it impossible for anyone to leave the room at the end of the test, and really annoyed the janitorial staff. It was dealing with these difficulties that made Mysterium what it was. Where else in the multiverse can you learn alongside other beings that don’t just speak a different language, but in some cases are not entirely contained within three-dimensional space? What’s truly amazing—in fact, as I thought about it, seemingly impossible—was that all of us could coexist in one place. That, in and of itself, was a kind of magic, and for a second, I forgot about Moregoth and the Sealers and the danger Sam and Ariella were in and even my own doubts about Mysterium, and simply reveled in the moment. Or I did until I noticed the three gray-cloaked DERPs sitting, grim-faced, off to my left.
A DERP is an Evaluation Review Panel—the D in DERP is unofficial and stands for Damned. The DERPs are the bane of all professors’ existences. They might be watching you or the students, it might be a review for discipline or promotion, but invariably they sit and they stare and they scribble down notes in their official evaluation forms, and generally make everyone self-conscious. Plus, they all wear the same inscrutable expression, the sort of expression that makes it difficult to know if they are happy, sad, bored, irritated, or simply fixated by a large pimple on your forehead or something in between your teeth.
I rubbed my nose self-consciously. Of course I would have a DERP review on my first day of class while Sealers were trying to kidnap two of my students. I was wallowing in the unfairness of it all when it dawned on me that the room had grown very quiet. Even the DERPs were sitting, pens at the ready. That’s when I realized that I had been standing at the lectern, saying nothing, for I didn’t know how long.
Damn!
I cleared my throat and, with great dignity, reached into the pocket of my robes to pull out my lecture notes. They were not there. Harold let out a loud coughing hack from my shoulder. I tried the second most likely pocket in my robes. The notes were not there either. Harold tapped a talon on the top of my head. I shooed his hand away and began patting myself down like a drunk looking for the keys to his house at the end of a long night. I had just retrieved my piece of folded reality and was about shoulder-deep into my search of it when Harold waved a stack of papers in front of my face. They were, of course, my notes. He’d been holding them all along. A ripple of uncertain laughter rolled through the classroom, and I felt my face flush with heat.
Double damn!
Closing my eyes, I said what I knew was going to be an entirely ineffectual prayer to the gods to get me through this day, and very carefully took the papers. I cleared my throat authoritatively. “Good morning, students. Welcome to Rowling Magic 101. My name is Professor Stewart, and my assistant’s name is Harold.”
On cue Harold flapped off of my shoulder to perch on the right-hand side of the lectern. He straightened his tie and took a bow. There was a general round of applause and laughter. I silently thanked the imp for having impeccable comedic timing.
Just when I thought I’d gotten the room back under control, the biggest orc, the one with the rat on the stick, the one sitting dead center at the front of the class, boomed, “You’re not Professor Stewart!”
“That’s right,” said a visored student sitting behind the DERPs. “Everyone knows that Professor Stewart is bald and uses a wheelchair.” The DERPs obviously thought this was an extremely important observation, because they were scribbling away furiously.
“Seriously?” questioned a Hylar student sitting just to the left of the orcs. “What subworld have you been on all summer? This is Professor Avery Stewart! The one who moves subworld orbitals.” He said this in a condescending tone that only a Hylar could accomplish.
“Wrong!” shouted a bare-chested Kurgan. The Kurgan are a group of chaos-loving barbarians, ostensibly human and often capable of great magic, but generally known for trying to out-savage the orcs. Despite that, they are a great deal of fun at parties. He rippled his oiled chest muscles a
nd stabbed a finger at the orc. “Professor Shadowswan said she detected the movement of Trelari months ago. The Stewart phenomenon is a complete myth!”
That was the end of the conversation that I could follow. More and more students started to talk; a jumbled mix of chatter filled the hall. I had lost control, and the DERPs were recording it all. This is when Harold, who had been standing motionless on the edge of the podium, rolled his bloodshot eyes, raised a finger, and pointed at the board behind me. I turned my head just in time to hear the Kurgan below, “He can be only one professor, and the board says he is Professor Griswald!”
And sure enough, there in big, bold, looping letters read: “Welcome to Rowling Magic 101. My name is Professor Griswald.” It was only then I remembered I hadn’t bothered imprinting Griswald’s enchanted chalk. The chalk was his. The handwriting was his. The name was his.
While I studied the chalkboard, wishing it would magically say something else, the volume in the around the room continued to increase. Confused voices shouted questions asking whether they were in the wrong class, whether I was in the wrong class, and, of course, whether this would be on the exam. Then, bubbling up over the crowd, Sam’s voice rang out, “I don’t care what the board says. That is Professor Avery Stewart. I know him personally.” I held up my hands, trying to regain control of the situation and see if I could shut Sam up before he said anything else, but I was too late. At my urging, the rest of the class had begun to quiet when Sam said in a voice that could be heard quite clearly throughout the hall, “Of course, I knew him as the Dark Lord.”
You could have heard a pen drop. In fact, I think I actually did hear two or three of them hit the floor right after he said this. The orc sat down. The Hylar stopped glittering quite so smugly. The Kurgan ceased his flexing. Even the DERPs stopped their scribbling. Everyone turned to look at Sam. Well, everyone but the two or three catlike Jellicles in attendance. True to form, they were all either asleep or stretched out across the backs of seats, staring at invisible things that I assumed were floating about the lecture hall at random.