The Darker Lord

by Jack Heckel

  We made it to the door at the end of the basement, and threw it open. The face was only a few meters behind us now and coming fast. “You are summoned to the dean’s office! Return your class roster!” it boomed.

  I stopped in my tracks; Dawn and Eldrin were on the landing above urging me on. Harold had already made his exit through the door beyond. I crossed my arms in irritation, and turned to regard the face. “Is that it?” I asked. “I need to come to the dean’s office?”

  “Yes,” it said in a voice that echoed like a cannon in a well. “Thank you for your attention. Have a great start to the new year!” Then it vanished.

  I unleashed a volley of curses at the empty air and stomped my way up the stairs past a still-stunned Eldrin and Dawn. “Is that normal?” Dawn asked, and I saw that she was shaking.

  “Apparently!” I said with another curse. “An interdepartmental memo! It’s a wonder we get anything done.”

  They followed in my wake, and we emerged outside to find that evening was upon us. All that remained of the day was a faint light on the western horizon. I stared gloomily as a nearby lamp flickered to life. “I better get to the Administration building and see what the dean wants,” I said. “I just hope I can get there before dark.”

  “Why?” asked Dawn. “Are you worried that it will be closed?”

  I shook my head. The Administration building, like most buildings on campus, was open at all hours, which made sense given the fact that sunlight was fatal to several species of Mysterium students.

  “Are you worried Moregoth and the Sealers will get you?” Eldrin suggested.

  “No,” I said hesitantly. This was not entirely honest. I was worried about Moregoth and the Sealers. I really shouldn’t have taunted him with the tally marks. Still, I hoped talking to the dean would give me a chance to clear up any misunderstandings about Sam and Ariella before I ran into the university’s goon squad.

  “Well, what, then?” Dawn asked.

  “The problem is that if the night shift takes over all the staff will be undead,” I answered with a sigh.

  “What’s wrong with that?” she asked. “Eldrin told me you studied necromancy at one point.”

  Eldrin chuckled. “That’s the problem. The whole department remembers him, and particularly All Hallows’ Eve second year.”

  “What happened?” Dawn asked.

  He started to answer and I gave him a warning glare. “Don’t you dare, Eldrin!”

  “I did promise never to speak of it, but—”

  “Eldrin,” I growled.

  “Two words . . .”

  “Don’t!”

  “Monster Mash,” he said with a smile filled with such satisfaction it made me want to strangle him.

  “Are you done?” I asked between gritted teeth.

  He held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. Having already talked more about my necromantic past than I ever wanted, I changed the subject. “Eldrin, I’d like for you and Dawn to head to Student Records. Maybe check Financial Aid for anything about Sam and Ariella. I need to talk to the dean. Alone.”

  It was Dawn’s turn to sigh, although it might have been properly characterized as a huff. “Don’t be so dramatic. He probably just wants to chew you out for your aborted first lecture. Let’s go.” She said, and grabbing Eldrin’s arm, dragged him off. As they turned to leave I heard Dawn say sharply, “Don’t think I’ve forgiven you for making me late for Professor Stonehammer’s first class. If you hadn’t insisted that we meet for ‘lunch’ . . .”

  I stepped off the path and into the deeper shadows beneath a large overhanging tree. As soon as I was sure no one was around I activated the coin. “Sam? Ariella? Can you hear me?”

  There was a crackle and a hiss, and then I heard Sam say, “I don’t think it’s on. I know it’s glowing, but I don’t hear anything.”

  I took a few steps to the right. “Sam! Sam! Can you hear me now?”

  “I can do it!” Sam said irritably. “I think I just need to press—”

  The connection went dead. I cursed, waited a count of ten, and then tried to reestablish the line.

  “Hello, Avery,” Ariella said calmly. “Sorry about that.”

  “No problem,” I said. “These things can take a little while to get used to.”

  “I suppose,” she agreed without enthusiasm. “Before you ask, yes, we are fine.”

  “Great!” I said. “Nothing weird has happened?”

  “How could it? You only just left.”

  “Right. So, no time has passed for you?”

  “Of course not, but then you only transported away a couple of seconds ago.”

  “Yes . . .” I hissed. “Well, then—”

  “Just a second, Avery.” There was some static, and Ariella moved the communicator away from her mouth and yelled, “Well, ask again . . .”

  “Is there a problem?” I asked.

  Her voice came back more clearly. “EDIE won’t open the doors.”

  “What?” I said, accompanied by a number of colorful curse words. “Put that demented machine on.”

  There was more static and some background cross talk and then EDIE’s voice said, “Can I help you?”

  “Open the doors, EDIE,” I said irritably.

  “I’m sorry. I’m afraid I can’t do that,” the computer replied.

  “What’s the problem?”

  “I think you know what the problem is.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, EDIE.”

  “I told you before, Avery . . . the doors are ED’s responsibility.”

  After ten minutes spent in a mad three-way conference call that I cannot recall to this day without getting the sudden urge to tear my own hair out, I managed to coax ED out of his self-imposed silence and agree to open the doors. Sam and Ariella signed off. Given the slow speed with which their time was passing, I felt fairly confident we would have things resolved before they made it to the lounge.

  Now for the hard part. I stared across the quad at the Administration building. It was an imposing structure, and its signature feature was a campanile called the Provost’s Tower, which was topped with a great spherical model of multiverse space. At night, the globe was illuminated to give off a red glow. Now, I couldn’t escape the feeling that the large black stone tower was staring back at me.

  I had finally worked up the nerve to go in when I heard a pitiable hacking cough from a nearby tree branch. I spun and saw Harold, his shoulders bent in weariness, staring down at me from a branch with a most beseeching expression. I was having none of it. “Whatever happened to an imp is a mage’s best friend? Always loyal? Ever constant?” Harold shrugged, and sighed sadly. “Well, with as fast as you were moving before, I figure you can fly along on your own power for a while. No more rides.” The imp made a great wheezing noise and flapped his wings feebly. It was pathetic. I knew I should be firm and set ground rules, but in the end, I put up an arm. “You can sit on my shoulder, but no claws.”

  He stepped off the branch, and with a few wingbeats alighted on my shoulder. Though I wouldn’t have admitted it to him for all the puns in Anthony’s world, I felt better with him at my side. “Where did you go when we transported off-world?”

  Harold didn’t answer right away, and I glanced up at him to see if he was going to say anything. He looked down at me, and there was real uncertainty in his eyes. The imp gave an expressive shrug. We walked across the quad without speaking. Eventually I asked, “If you knew what was happening to me, would you tell me?”

  As we stood in the shadow of the Administration building, he said. “That’s not the right question.”

  “Tell me what the right question is.”

  “Would you want me to tell you?”

  He was right. That was a much better question.

  Chapter 10

  Enter the Dean

  Standing before the Administration building, I found myself wishing that I hadn’t sent Eldrin and Dawn away. The myriad windows and
mounting spires, and the great glowing orb set above it all, made me feel small and watched. Of course, this was exactly how the building wanted me to feel, so, in a way, it was only doing its job.

  That the Administration building was purposefully designed to make you feel insignificant could be seen in its every detail. Menace was literally engraved on its stones. Ominous quotations about the mortal peril of missing your tuition payments were carved in massive script across the length of the entablature that crowned the columned entrance. Then there were the mounting stairs that were slightly out of scale for a person to climb comfortably, and the arched doorways that were of such a size as to intimidate through sheer mass. But the feature that always made my skin crawl was the copper fronts of the doors. They had been fashioned with the visages of old and notable professors, deans, and provosts. This does not sound too bad, but the artist had taken his commission’s instruction to put images of dead mages on the door in the most literal way possible. He had reproduced his subjects’ expressions at the precise moments of their deaths. Unfortunately, Mysterium mages have a habit of dying horrible, violent deaths, which was graphically illustrated by the number of the carvings that were missing faces altogether.

  As I stood in silence studying the doors, an involuntary shiver passed through me. “I’m afraid.”

  “Me too,” Harold wheezed in my ear.

  “Really?”

  He nodded. “I’m afraid the artist didn’t really capture how Dean Cronenberg felt when his head exploded.”

  “Not exactly what I meant, but I can’t argue with you. Then again, I’ve never had my head explode so what do I know.”

  “Trust me,” he grunted. “It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

  I let the myriad questions that this comment raised pass unasked. I had more serious things on my mind. Someone in the Administration had sent Moregoth and his killers after Sam and Ariella. Whoever it was, I had the feeling that they were waiting for me in there, like a spider for a fly. “Do you think the dean sent Moregoth?” I asked.

  Harold tilted his head to one side and stared at the door for a second. “Cronenberg? I doubt it.”

  “Not Cronenberg. Dean Yewed. The man we’re going to see.”

  “That makes more sense,” he said, and scratched at his backside with a clawed paw. “I mean, administrators don’t need much in the way of brains, but Cronenberg’s were actually vaporized. You don’t make many nefarious plans after that.”

  “Have I ever told you how much of a help you are to me?” I asked between clenched teeth.

  The imp gave a wheezing whistle. “Now that you mention it, no.”

  “Good.”

  Muttering about fool familiars and the fool mages that kept them, I began to mount the stairs. What I didn’t appreciate was that Harold had done precisely what I needed him to do: he had made me forget to be terrified. In fact, I was so engaged in composing and reciting my stinging, and somewhat R-rated, rebuke of the imp that I didn’t notice we weren’t alone until I ran headfirst into a dozen novices carrying brooms. One with hair a shade of virulent green and a single eye set in the middle of her forehead thrust a broomstick under my nose and pointed at a shiny medallion pinned to it. “Professor Avery, we got our licenses!”

  I recognized her from my class, which was good, but given her distinctive appearance not terribly impressive. Her name, on the other hand, was a complete mystery. I gave her a thumbs-up and a feeble, “Congratulations,” as I pressed by them and through the door.

  To my credit, I let my smile fall only after I’d made it safely into the lobby. As soon as the doors closed behind me, I slapped a hand on my forehead. “Does no one read my syllabus? It’s right there on page two: ‘No broomsticks’!”

  The trio of acolytes manning the reception desk looked up at my outburst and stared.

  “You sure know how to make an entrance,” Harold mumbled.

  I made a gesture to the desk staff halfway between a wave and a shrug, and marched toward the elevators. I only relaxed when the doors had safely closed and we were being whisked to the upper floors. Then, and only then, did I let loose on brooms and students and syllabi and, of course, imps.

  Let me explain my frustration. It is a fact that sometimes fiction mirrors reality, and at other times that reality mirrors fiction. In this case, the broom-riding craze started after the publication of Professor Rowling’s standard system of magical education. It is true the book has a section on levitation that has one example on how you might use it to make a broom fly, and how this might be a fun party trick. However, somehow when this portion of the text was interpreted across the ether it was presented to other worlds as a standard mode of transport. This was news to most mages, many of whom didn’t even have a word in their language for broom. But new students latched on to the idea with a fervor usually reserved for boy bands and cat videos. Now, every incoming novice has to have their own levitating broom. Unfortunately, there is no levitating broom industry so students end up trying to make their own. Many succeed, but with widely varying results. Some of the levitating spells are so weak all the broom can do is sort of drag the student along a few feet above the ground, while other brooms have been known to launch the unsuspecting student into the upper atmosphere. After a number of fatalities, the university has instituted a licensing requirement, which I realized only then probably explained the little metal medallion the student had been so proud of.

  I was still muttering under my breath when Harold cleared his throat and I became aware that we were, again, not alone. There was a wide-eyed student pressed into one corner of the elevator, staring at me, mouth agape. “It’s you,” she whispered in awe.

  Not recognizing her, but realizing her statement was undeniably true, I said, “Yes, yes, it is.”

  “I am a big fan of yours.”

  “Who exactly do you think I am?”

  “You’re Professor Avery Stewart.”

  “Are you in one of my classes?”

  “No, but I’m one of your supporters.” She thrust her notebook forward. Scrawled across the front cover in red marker were the words Avery lives.

  “What does that mean exactly? Was I supposed to be dead?”

  She stepped toward me and lowered her voice conspiratorially. “It’s the slogan of your supporters, the ones who really believe. Those of us that know the truth about what you did for the subworlders, and are ready to start the revolution.”

  I was alarmed to hear that I had “followers,” but I could live with it. The mention of revolution, though, was too much. “What revolution?”

  She pointed toward the ceiling and whispered, “I understand, Professor Avery. They’re always listening.”

  The elevator stopped with a dignified chime. I pleaded, “I swear that I don’t know anything about a revolution.”

  She winked knowingly. “Don’t worry, Professor, we will wait for the word. When you need us, we will be there.”

  I almost asked, Where? but the doors slid shut. Harold grunted. “Do you think that it’s something to do with your face?”

  “What?”

  “Why you seem to attract all the loonies,” he said dryly.

  “Very funny.”

  “More like tragic,” he muttered in response.

  I decided not to dignify this with a response so we watched the floors tick by in silence. My palms started sweating at the thought of seeing the dean. Here I was, the youngest endowed professor in two centuries. I had survived the trials on Trelari, invented a new field of magical study, and apparently was the subject of a cult following. Still, I felt there was a reasonably good chance that the doors to the elevator would open and the dean and all my past classmates would be standing there, and I would discover it was all a joke. I had a classic case of imposter syndrome.

  But the elevator opened onto the reception antechamber of the dean’s office, which was exactly what you would expect from a man who claimed he could trace his lineage down the years from the m
age who had inspired Shakespeare to write The Tempest. The walls were marble, the floor richly carpeted, and the air hushed. Sitting behind a reception desk was an enormous stone golem with spiraling energy patterns carved into his rock body. His name was Nabilac, and he looked terrifying, but I had met him at a couple of receptions and knew he was actually a fairly cool guy. Admittedly, a cool guy that could easily dismember you with his bare hands, but he had a great sense of humor and did a spot-on impression of the dean . . . when the dean was not around.

  “Ah, Professor Stewart,” rumbled the stone golem. Bits of sand fell from his mouth as he spoke. “The dean has been expecting you. He should be able to see you shortly. While you wait, have you read the recent guidance on student relations from the provost’s office?” He pushed a pamphlet across the desk: Student Relations and You: A Fun Mysterium University Makes for Better Magic. “It’s a new university-wide initiative to enrich the student body’s experience. We are all trying to do our part.”

  With a grinding sound, he forced his features into a stony smile, which to be fair is the only way he can smile. Nevertheless, it did not make for a good effect, and I was trying to think of something nice to say when a buzzer went off on the desk. It was fortunate timing, because Harold was doing an excellent job mimicking the golem’s expression, and I was having a hard time suppressing a bout of deeply inappropriate giggles.

  Still smiling, the golem said, “The dean will see you now.” He glanced at Harold and added, “Alone.”

  I perched Harold on the edge of the golem’s desk, and left the two of them engaged in a very creepy smiling contest as I pushed open the door to the office. A chandelier hung from the high ceiling of a richly appointed room. Dark wood paneling lined the walls, and carpets threaded with gold covered the floors. We were high enough up the administration tower that the windows curved on two sides of the office, providing a spectacular view of the campus beneath us. The man himself was sitting at an enormous desk studying a paper and stroking his beard. Without looking up, he said, “Professor Stewart.”