The Darker Lord

by Jack Heckel

  “No! I don’t,” he said, and, pulling away from her, jumped to his feet clearly wanting to move about, but unable to in the confined space of the elevator. Instead, he ran a shaking palm through his hair. “As long as Trelari remains where it is, we are a subworld. During my career, I’ve watch thousands of them explode into ether dust, and how many more of them have Mysterium mages like Avery used for their personal playgrounds?”

  Now he was pissing me off. I stepped toward him so we were eye-to-eye. “So, as long as we mess with them, instead of them messing with us, it’s fine?”

  His ears flushed. “That’s not what I’m saying, and you know it.”

  “To quote you, ‘No! I don’t.’”

  Dawn put herself between us. She turned to face Eldrin and stroked her palms across his chest in a soothing gesture. “What are you saying, Eldrin?”

  He leaned against the wall of the elevator. “I’m saying that we, and I mean we, the Mysterium mages, need to understand what’s happened and what it means. I’m saying that as unfortunate as it might be, the Administration may be right about needing to study the Trelarians.”

  “Sam and Ariella!” I shouted. “Their names are Sam and Ariella!”

  His eyes flashed angrily. “Fine! Sam and Ariella. But I will remind you this is not my fault. You and your experiment brought Trelari into this, and you and your book brought your friends to the Administration’s attention. Between the battle-axes and your notes for posterity, this is quite the mess.”

  “Eldrin,” Dawn said sharply.

  “It’s okay, Dawn. He’s right,” I said.

  And he was. I slumped back against the wall opposite them and stared at my shoes. It’s not that I thought he was right about Trelari being dangerous. Eldrin always had been a little reactionary when faced with change—something to do with basically living forever. Given some time for reflection, he would come around. But he was absolutely right about my habit of putting my friends in danger. I was doing it now. The Administration had to know we escaped 7734 by now, which also meant they probably knew what Dawn and Eldrin had discovered, and where we were.

  The lighted panel now showed a fading three. There was a better than even chance the Administration would be waiting for us in the lobby. It was time for me to do the responsible thing. Eldrin was going to be furious.

  I took a deep breath. “I think it’s time for us to get out of here. Everyone to the middle of the elevator.”

  “Where are we going?” Eldrin asked.

  “And how are we going to get there? The walls of these elevators are shielded,” Gray said.

  I didn’t have enough time to explain. We were already passing Level 2. Pulling Griswald’s key from the pocket of my robes, I started drawing a circle centered on the group. It was crude, but that didn’t matter. The key was shifting about like it was alive. At last it locked on to an odd corkscrew configuration, and the portal blazed to life.

  “How the hell does it do that?” Eldrin shouted. “It’s not possible.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said, and stepped out of the circle as the spell activated. “And, Eldrin, don’t worry about me.”

  Too late, he realized what I meant. “Avery, don’t—”

  His words were cut off like the drop of a guillotine. As the glow faded, I wondered what they would do next, and whether they would all fit in Eldrin’s cramped little office. I’d transported them there because I knew that building was shielded. The Administration would not be able to trace my spell back to their location, and my friends would need extra time to get to a place where they could travel again, which would keep them away long enough for me to refocus the Administration’s attention where it belonged—on me.

  Fortunately, I didn’t have much time to ponder my future, because that would probably have been pretty depressing. I only had a few seconds to wipe away the evidence of the circle before a chime rang out. The elevator had reached the lobby.

  I stuffed my hand and the key into one of the pockets of my robe. The doors opened. A small army of crimson-robed Sealers stood in a semicircle around the elevator, wands at the ready. At the center of the group was Moregoth.

  “Garth!” I said in my most upbeat voice. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here. What a pleasant surprise.”

  As I spoke, I very carefully tested the weight of the mystical energy in the key, but forming that last portal had drained it. I needed time. My only hope was Moregoth’s penchant for monologuing. I decided to encourage him.

  “You know, you are looking particularly gloomy and spectral this evening. I love the black lipstick.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Stewart,” he replied with a cinematic rasp. “You can’t know the unearthly ecstasy I feel in seeing you again. It has been quite a chase. A lovely peek into the dark places of your psyche. It was naughty of you to attack the counselor.”

  “You call it naughty, I call it self-defense—potaytoes potahtoes.”

  Moregoth flipped his bangs back away from his left eye and regarded his black-painted nails indifferently. “Speaking of which, are you intending to come quietly, or do we get to do this the hard way? As you say, tomaytoes tomahtoes.”

  “Let’s call the whole thing off?” I suggested.

  As we had been talking, I had been pulling power from around me and pouring it into the key, but it was slow-going and I wasn’t at all sure if I could pull off a transport spell. I needed more time, but Moregoth seemed intent on bringing our witty repartee to a swift end.

  He smiled a thin, cruel smile. “Step out of the elevator, Professor Stewart, or I will have my men cut you down where you stand.”

  I tested the power in the key again. It was not enough, not nearly enough.

  At a slight gesture from Moregoth, the Sealers raised their wands. “I am waiting, Stewart, and I am not patient.”

  I had a couple of options, and none of them were good. I could make a shield and hold out for a few seconds, I could go on the offense and take a couple of them out with me, or I could surrender. I had been leaning toward this last option and taking my chances with the provost, but there was something so irritatingly smug about Moregoth’s expression I decided I would rather be unconscious when he took me in.

  I affected my most obnoxious smile and readied the key in my pocket, drawing all the power I could into it. “You’re impatient, and I’m bored. This isn’t what you would call a classic standoff, is it?”

  He started to make some snide remark. In a flash, I pulled the key and fired a blast of pure mystical energy at him. Unfortunately, while quick draw duels look good in the movies, it’s actually really hard to do. The blue bolt sailed past his shoulder and hit one of the Sealers standing behind him. The man was lifted off his feet and thrown back. There was a frozen moment as the man slid across the highly polished floor and came to rest, groaning, against the far wall.

  Moregoth turned back to me, a joyful malevolence dancing in his eyes. “Tomahtoes, it is, Mr. Stewart,” he chuckled, and then shouted, “Sealers, attack!”

  The glow and weave of a dozen bolts of energy converged on me. I had just realized that the Sealers’ spells were designed to kill when something small and gray and wearing a bow tie came flashing into view. The imp, who must have been lurking in the shadows above our heads, latched on to my chest just as the spells struck.

  I tried to twist around, to shield him, but it was too late. His body glowed bright white as the Sealers’ spells were drawn to him, some swerving unnaturally at the last second to hit him instead of me. I felt each impact as a distant, phantom pain. Harold held on until the last of the spells dissipated, then his grip failed. I clutched him to me. “Why?” I asked.

  “You have a coffee date,” he coughed weakly. “Can’t be late for that.” The imp tried to smile, but his body spasmed violently and he went very still. For a moment, I thought he was gone, but then his eyes flickered back open. “Socrates was right, Avery. There is only one evil. Don’t give in to it.” He gave a gasp, an
d his eyes went wide. “Interesting,” he hissed.

  I felt the life drain out of him, and then, like a sand painting caught by the wind, his body dissolved into motes of sparkling energy. They swirled about the chamber of the elevator and then surged into me in a rush of power. Looking at Moregoth, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with all that magic. I raised the key, fully intending to kill him, but the imp had done something to me. I felt my reality take a step to the right. A quickly diminishing part of me was still in Mysterium, but increasingly I was back in New York. I heard Moregoth shouting at the Sealers to attack again, but when the next wave of spells struck, I was already gone.

  Chapter 18

  Bleaker Street

  There was no portal, no sensation of folding or falling; one moment I was in the Student Records building on Mysterium, and the next I was standing in an alley, in the gray light of a cold New York City fall morning. A searing, sorrowful pain cut through my body, and dropped me to my knees. I clutched at my chest where, moments before, Harold had been and let the tears spill down my face. I wept for Harold and myself. I had not realized it before, but the little imp had occupied a part of my being quite close to where the soul must reside. While he was with me I had not been able to feel the depth of our connection, but now that he was gone I could. There was a void in the pattern that was me, and it hurt like hell.

  I don’t know how long I sat in the alley feeling Harold’s loss. I know it would have been easy to let it consume me, but eventually I stirred. I had things to do, and Moregoth to kill. Harold had given his life so I could meet up with Rook and do whatever it was people like Griswald and Vivian and others thought I had it in me to do. I would probably disappoint them, but it wouldn’t be for lack of trying. I picked myself up off the ground and put a hand to my shoulder where Harold had perched so often.

  I wanted to mark the moment, maybe say a prayer for him, but I did not know what to say or do. I had always been indifferent to religion. When I prayed it was to those multitudes of gods I had encountered in my many travels, and not to any deity I had a personal relationship with.

  Not knowing what else to do, I touched the place to the left of my heart where I felt Harold’s absence most keenly, and said, “Harold, I’m sorry our time together was so short. You deserved a better end than you came to, and a better final companion. For those things, I’m also sorry. I’m not sorry to have known you though. I hope you can find a measure of peace in whatever afterlife death has brought you to.” I started to walk away, but then I considered the imp’s last word and smiled. “I hope it’s full of surprises.”

  As usual, there was no response from the heavens, except that an icy drizzle began to drift down from the overcast skies. I turned up my collar, and made my way out of the alley and onto the street.

  As I walked to the coffee shop I considered all the questions I had. One thing troubling me was the key, and the effect it was having on my magic. To say my power level as a mage had increased since it came into my life was as much an understatement as saying those gamma rays may have made Bruce Banner a little buff. As usual, though, it had taken too long for me to make the connection.

  I should have noticed something was up when I precisely transported to my lecture hall with no preparation. Six months ago, a circle that capable would have taken me weeks to design. At the time, I’d put it down to luck, but the odds of successfully making that jump by accident were staggeringly small. I now firmly believed Harold’s decision to carry the key with us was responsible. I also wondered if his desire to do so was a conscious choice. Maybe he knew what the key could do.

  The effects were even more dramatic after he had given it to me. There were the quick escapes I’d made from the Sealers in the townhome and Eldrin’s shielded office. There was also all the magic I’d performed in the magic-proofed elevator of the Student Records building. I needed to understand the nature of Griswald’s key, and I suspected Rook had the answers.

  Another issue at the top of my list was whether Trelari had actually become more real than Mysterium. I wouldn’t put it past the Administration to concoct the entire thing, but I couldn’t see what possible advantage they could gain from such a story getting out. If it was true, Sam and Ariella could easily be two of the most powerful mages in the multiverse. The scary thing was that they had no training in using magic outside their own reality. They might unravel a world without even knowing they were doing it. They might even accidentally unravel the world they were in. The implications stopped me in midstep.

  I reached into my reservoir of four-letter words and let loose with something colorful and descriptive, only to realize my curse was one of dozens raining down around me. I’d stopped dead in the middle of the street. I stepped back onto the curb before the cabbie could follow through on his threat to introduce me to the underside of his car, and moved to stand against the side of a building.

  I pulled the communicator coin out of my pocket and activated it. It clicked and buzzed for a few seconds, and then Ariella’s voice came on. “Hello, Avery. We’ve been in the lounge for about an hour and everything is fine. We’re okay. You don’t have to check up on us so often. The biggest danger here are ED and EDIE. They won’t let us alone. They are like incredibly competent but overbearing nannies. Wait! What? Sorry, Avery, I’ll be right back . . .”

  Her voice got fainter, like she had turned her head away from the communicator, but I heard her say, “No. Thank you, EDIE. I don’t need another pillow. Ten are quite sufficient. Yes, ED, I understand my tea is getting cold, but I’ve had three cups already, and . . .” A hard edge came into her voice. “I assure you both I am quite able to go to the bathroom on my own.” There were a few deep breaths like she was trying hard not to explode, and then she said, “If you two give me five minutes on my own, I will let you make me lunch. Gods!” Ariella boomed into the communicator, setting my ears ringing. “I don’t know where those two came from, but I pity the poor people living in this ship.”

  “Is that Avery?” I heard Sam shout from somewhere in the distance. “Tell him hi, from me.”

  “Sam says hi.”

  As much as I was happy that nothing actually bad was happening to them, I needed to warn them about what might happen, and get to Rook fast. “Ariella, I have some news.”

  Something in my voice must have told her that things weren’t going well in the “real” world. “What’s happened, Avery? Are you okay?”

  “Yes, I’m fine.”

  “Have we been expelled?”

  “We’ve been what?” I heard Sam shout. He must have grabbed the coin from Ariella, because there was a hiss of static followed by him saying, “I have receipts!”

  More static followed this, and then Ariella was back. “Sorry. Please go on. We promise not to interrupt.”

  How do you tell someone that they might literally be a god? I wondered. I decided to work up to that. “First, and I don’t want the two of you freaking out, but time is passing a bit more slowly for you than it is for us,” I said. “Over here a full day has passed, and—”

  “A day!” Ariella shouted. “We’ve missed all our first day classes? Avery! How could you?”

  I had to remind myself they had no idea what we’d been through over the past twenty hours. I took a deep breath. “It gets worse, Ariella.”

  “Worse? Did we miss an assignment? An exam? This early!”

  “It’s nothing about school! Please, listen.”

  “Okay.”

  I took another deep breath. “Trelari’s shift has destabilized Mysterium. The Administration of the university, basically the leaders of my world, have decided your world poses a danger. They admitted you and Sam so they could study you.”

  There was a long silence. “What do they hope to learn from us?” she asked quietly.

  “I don’t know for certain, but I’m pretty sure they are trying to figure out a way to destroy Trelari.”

  “What do we do?” Sam asked. I realized Ariella and he m
ust have been listening together.

  Technically, this shouldn’t have been possible, and I wondered if they were already unconsciously manipulating the magic constructs around them. It reinforced how desperately I needed to get them off that ship as soon as possible. Unfortunately, there was no easy solution to the problem of where to take them. Pulling them to Earth was simply not an option. It was common knowledge I lived here, which meant it would not be long before Moregoth paid New York a visit. “At the moment, stay put,” I answered.

  “But—” he protested.

  “I know you want to help, Sam,” I said to forestall more argument. “Right now, I need the two of you safe. We are going to be coming your direction very soon. With the reverse time dilation, we will probably be there before you’re done with lunch. In the meantime, I need the two of you to very carefully test out the potency of your spells.”

  “What do you mean?” Ariella asked.

  “Trelari’s reality has grown more powerful. It means your magical energy may have also grown stronger. I need the two of you to find a place on the ship where you can safely practice your spells, and cast a few.”

  “Cool!” Sam said.

  “But, and I cannot stress this enough, start small! The ship has a pretty robust reality, but you’re still basically traveling through the void of etherspace in a tin can.”

  “We are?” Sam asked.

  “Yes,” I sighed. “And please don’t say cool.”

  “Okay,” he said. “But it is pretty neat!”

  I groaned and Ariella said, “We will do our best to be careful, Avery. Just come back soon.”

  “I will. I have to go. Call me immediately if there are any problems.”

  The connection went dead with that mind-jarring pop Eldrin had never been able to fix. I pocketed the coin and rejoined the stream of New Yorkers hurrying up 6th Avenue.

  Chapter 19

  The Secret of the Baristas