by Nazri Noor
“Books, you say?” His eyes traveled between my face and the book in my arms. Dantaleon said nothing, no doubt still exhausted from his arcane exertions. “I might be willing to listen, if you let me have a glimpse at that thing in your hands.”
I froze. I was taking enough risks carrying Dantaleon around on my own. He was unaccustomed to this much contact, and it’d only be a matter of time before he woke up in a confused daze and attempted to incinerate me. What more would he do to this man? Still, Bastet did say he was a god. And the pieces were there, though I couldn’t quite put things together in terms of his identity.
“Quilliam,” I said, by way of a very belated introduction. “My name is Quilliam, and this is Dantaleon, my mentor. I don’t think he’ll very much like being handled, truthfully speaking.”
The man gave me a small smile, then shrugged. “Those are my terms, princeling. Let me browse your mentor, and I will be more inclined to help you with whatever you require.” He tapped the end of his nose.
Princeling. Bastet was right. Their situation was, politely speaking, less than ideal, especially for entities so accustomed to luxury and worship, but they definitely knew what was going on out there, out in the world. It didn’t matter that they kept a low profile. Bastet had eyes everywhere, possibly through every cat in the city, perhaps even beyond. And this man had his – birds, maybe?
But I stood my ground, pressing Dantaleon closer against my chest. “I’m sorry, but it wouldn’t be right for anyone involved. A mage’s book of shadows is the essence of who they are. And in my mentor’s case, this tome is literally, entirely who he is, body and soul. You would need his permission to look at his spells. Also, there’s the very present possibility that he’ll wake up and blow your hands off at the wrists.”
“How disappointing, though you do have a point.” The man sighed, then gave me a wry smile. “But a demon with a conscience, eh? You’re quite the interesting specimen, princeling. In any case, you should be so lucky to have such a talented tutor. A cruel one, judging by the spells he favors, but a talented one, nonetheless. Dantaleon’s reputation certainly precedes him.”
He scooped up his book, hugging it against his chest the way I hugged Dantaleon against mine. Then he sauntered away from the living room, beckoning.
I followed him to a closed door, puzzled. “I get the strangest feeling I might learn a thing or two from you as well.”
Like an echoing memory, Dantaleon’s voice cackled in the depths of my mind, taunting me. In theory, yes, I could potentially learn so much. Yet at the end of the day, in the pit of my gut, I knew that I would lean on the comforts of casting Ignis and Arma, perhaps with a Grandia thrown in here and there for flavor. I looked over my shoulder at Crystal, who was mopping up eggs and tomato with a crusty piece of bread. My lips pursed with envy, both at the food and the fact that she was so versatile, so diverse in her magic. I should be a dabbler, too.
“You could stand to learn so much,” the old man said, “if only you would open your mind.” He placed his hand on the doorknob, turning to me with a smile, his eyes twinkling. “I sense a stubbornness around you, princeling. You should know that your power could be limitless.”
I shrugged. “I’m nothing without my books, like I’ve had a limb cut off. It’s why I’ve come to you for help.”
He shook his head, his smile dropping. “You still don’t understand.” He pushed the door open, and my breath caught in my throat.
Beyond the door was a desert, miles upon miles of perfect, bleached sand radiating from a glorious oasis. And around the oasis, stretching on into forever, were rows upon rows of shelves, each filled with books.
“My dear boy,” the man said. “The possibilities are endless.”
24
Now this? This was how meeting a god was supposed to go. I took too long to put my eyes back in my head, but the vision was simply majestic.
Rows and rows of bookcases emanated in long, endless lines, running outwards from a crystalline blue oasis, like the spokes of a wheel. Above it all burned a perfect, golden sun, warm against the skin, but the star itself seeming so close in the sky that I could see plumes of flame leap and arc upon its surface.
And for good measure, the god had thrown in some palm trees. I thought I saw a couple of hammocks in the distance, and perhaps something that looked like a beach recliner.
We stood at the center of some great desert library, a marvel that dwarfed my own beloved Repository by several orders of magnitude. My heart twinged with longing, with loss. My soul thrummed with the proximity, with the closeness to so much accumulated knowledge – so much accumulated power.
My hand swept across the room – no, the oasis, logic be damned. “I have to admit, it’s a little hypocritical for you to lecture me about being so dependent on books when you’ve got all of, well, this.”
I stiffened just seconds after those words left my mouth, but I clenched my jaw, prepared to double down if I had to. Bastet was right. I was a petulant brat. It was something I had to work around – or work with, perhaps.
The god narrowed his eyes as he studied me for a scant few seconds. His glasses sparkled in the sunlight, dousing my vision with a splash of yellowish-white. I blinked, and in place of the god was a great bird with a long, hooked beak. I blinked again, and he was in the shape of a man once more.
“Do as I say, not as I do,” the god said, the severity falling from his face as he chuckled. “I have had millennia to commit very many of these books and their spells to memory, dear princeling. But that I could say the same for you. Perhaps you wouldn’t be in this predicament?”
His eyes twinkled as he taunted me, I could swear it. Ouch. He wasn’t wrong, though.
“Interesting how you can keep all these books here and never fear for damage.” I licked the tip of one finger and raised it in the air, realizing too late that I had no idea what I was doing. “Isn’t all this heat going to wreak havoc on the parchment, the leather covers? Not to mention all the humidity.”
The man scowled at me. “Please don’t patronize me. This entire realm is exactly as I crafted it, something to remind me of the old kingdom. The temperature, the sunlight, it has no impact on my collection unless I say it does.”
I nodded, impressed. This was the very definition of a domicile, then, the true home of a god, where they were safest, most powerful, and where they couldn’t be killed. The apartment was just the anteroom. He and Bastet probably shared it. Speaking of which –
“My apologies,” I said. “I should have figured it out sooner. You’re Thoth. The Egyptian god of knowledge.”
“And of magic.” The man’s face broke into a smile as bright as the sun above us. “It sweetens my heart to hear my old name. Not many remember, you know. I heard you and Bastet in the kitchen. She’s absolutely right. Some of the other pantheons are fortunate. Others, not so much. The apartment helps us stay incognito as we maintain what we can of a domicile. Not much ethereal real estate for those of us who have so little power in today’s world, and then there’s the hassle of paying the rent for our piece of terrestrial real estate. Bastet and I have taken to soothsaying to make ends meet, using Tarot cards and crystal balls. Smoke and mirrors, you see, so that our clientele won’t be suspicious when we tell them things about themselves that we already know. All in aid of paying far too much money for far too small a space. Frankly, I’m not sure how you humans do it.”
I shrugged. “I don’t, either. I’m only half human, and the whole of me was very much born with a silver spoon stuck in – well, every orifice, truthfully.”
Thoth chuckled. “What a horrible, yet grotesquely humorous notion. Here,” he said, reaching out to take Dantaleon from my grasp. “Perhaps this will help your mentor recover his energies sooner.”
I hesitated, but turned the book over. Thoth didn’t even take a peek between the covers. He carefully placed Dantaleon on a desk at the center of the oasis, one that looked very much like a pedestal, or a lectern.
Nothing happened, but I imagined that the proximity to all this ancient knowledge would help revivify his powers.
And speaking of revivification?
“I don’t mean to be so presumptuous,” I said, “but I do need your help, too. Something about the way my magic works means that I need books to fuel my power. If you could lend me just a few of your tomes – I mean, I swear I’ll return them just as soon as things are better for me – ”
Thoth held up one hand, stopping me in my tracks. “Ah, yes. About that. I am glad that you thought to mention it yourself.” He folded his hands behind him. “I have brought you here to tell you that I cannot help you.”
My heart skipped, my mouth falling open in disbelief. “Sorry. You what?”
Thoth slashed his hand through thin air, and the sun fell below the horizon, replaced by a huge moon. The world around us turned silver, the oasis itself transforming as the endless rows of bookcases began sinking into the sand.
“No,” I said, hurling myself stupidly at the ground as the closest shelf slipped under, leaving nothing but dunes. My shoes filled with sand, grit grinding into my palms and my knees. I hadn’t known I was so starved for magic. I hadn’t realized I was so desperate.
The sand was hot between my fingers, a reminder of my favorite spell. Fire, pure and simple, burns everything, a demon mage’s first line of defense, and the first element I ever learned to command. Nothing can match the feeling of putting your open hand against someone’s chest or face, triggering a blast of fire magic, and watching your problems literally melt away.
And now? I could produce wisps, at best. Swamp gas. Blasted farts.
“Your problem, princeling, lies in the fact that you have grown so dependent on your innate talents.”
“Then teach me,” I said, surprised at the words falling from my own mouth, knowing how much I complained all those bitter years about the mind-dulling routine of Dantaleon’s daily lectures. Maybe this time would be different. What wonders could I learn from an actual god of magic? “Please. Teach me.”
Thoth laughed. “There is nothing more I could possibly teach you. That mentor of yours shouldn’t be taken for granted. He knows much. And quite crucially, he knows that there is more to an arcane education than simply stockpiling a collection of books.” He smiled, spreading his arms out at the empty desert around us. “I realize this must sound very strange, coming from someone who loves books of magic quite this much.”
I frowned at him. “So you know about the Inscription.”
Thoth shrugged. “Enough to know that you’ve grown too complacent and comfortable, and now that it’s been taken from you, you’re flailing like a fish out of water. Grounded, like a bird with clipped wings.”
My fingers raked into the sand as they formed a fist. “That’s annoyingly accurate,” I muttered.
“The god is correct,” said Dantaleon, his voice even more crackly and raspy than normal as he shuddered on Thoth’s desk. “What have I told you all these years, Quilliam? Your gift of Inscription and your knowledge of magic are separate. One should complement the other. Instead you grew too dependent on your precious Repository. And what do you have to show for it? A fire spell, and a shield spell.”
I dug furrows into the sand with my fingers, forming a line between me and the two wiser, certainly older magicians haranguing me. They were right. Being able to call on my books meant that I had little reason to memorize the spells within. I’d gotten along just fine on Ignis and Arma, knowing that the rest of my arsenal was just a whisper away.
But now I was hamstrung, no better than a hedge witch, or a carnival illusionist. I folded my legs up underneath me, sulking, perfectly aware that I looked very much like a child on the beach being told things that he knows are right, and true.
It just wasn’t easy to hear.
Dantaleon gave a cough – pretend for a moment that this makes sense given the absence of lungs, or a mouth – and he ruffled his pages like some odd, wrinkly bird. He hovered off of Thoth’s desk, spreading his cover open as he turned to face the god.
“Normally, I would be horrified to confess that a demon of my stature would ever require aid from an entity of earth. But I am infernal, not amoral.” He lowered himself to Thoth’s waist level, Dantaleon’s version, I realized, of a reverent bow. “I thank you for your assistance.”
Thoth smirked at him, adjusted his glasses, then bowed his head in return. “Despite your thinly veiled insults, you are most welcome, most unholy sorcerer of the prime hell of Lust.”
“You flatter me,” Dantaleon said, sniffing as he flew back to eye level. “Then if we are quite finished here, my protege and I will take our leave. Perhaps one of these days prejudices and protocol will loosen between us, and we might even exchange fragments of our knowledge.”
Thoth’s eyes flitted to me briefly, then back to Dantaleon. “I look forward to this remarkable and most unlikely of occasions.”
I followed Dantaleon as he drifted towards the door, dusting the sand off of my pants.
“Be sure to shut the door behind you,” Thoth said. “I don’t enjoy the draft.”
I nodded wordlessly at him, knowing that I should say something in gratitude, despite having received nothing of use. A lesson, perhaps, in understanding that I needed to unshackle myself from material possessions, from arcane foci? A lesson far too many people – even Crystal, of all people – had already tried to hammer into me.
My hand lingered on the doorknob as I left Thoth’s dimension, but I stopped at the threshold when he cleared his throat. I looked at him with a blank expression, the hope quiet, but glowing in a secret place in my chest.
“I do not withhold my tomes and grimoires to be cruel. This is something you must learn for yourself. All these long years you have trailed at your mother’s skirts, becoming the very thing she wishes you to be. Have you admitted to yourself your deeper desire to finally carve your own niche, to find your own place in this world? Not as the son of Asmodeus, not as her fist. Simply as yourself: Quilliam J. Abernathy.”
How could he know all this? How could he be so correct? It was infuriating. But I said nothing to betray my anger, only nodding back.
“Tell Bastet that I will join you all for dinner very soon. See you again shortly, princeling.”
I pulled the door shut behind me as I stepped from an oasis into the cat-filled confines of a California apartment. The warmth of the desert fell from my skin, replaced by the controlled temperature of Bastet’s living room. I turned to stare at the door. Gone was my chance to acquire any tomes of magic, even temporarily.
Gone were the endless possibilities.
25
The metal railings fencing in Bastet’s balcony were cool against my skin. I leaned there, staring out at the city, or what little of it we could see from the gods’ apartment. Not much of it, truthfully, though the night was oddly peaceful. Even the neighbors seemed to have settled in for the evening.
I sighed, my insides feeling empty in spite of a good meal. Bastet’s shakshouka was delicious, and Pierce had loaded up on enough bread to put himself into a carbohydrate-laden nap. He was dozing off on the couch, covered in a small pile of cats. Thoth did come out to join us eventually. He was polite with me, though I could tell that he was still cautious in our interactions, as if he was afraid that I would use some enchantment to convince him to cough up some of those tasty tomes.
Maybe this was how my life was meant to go, after all. At least I didn’t have to be a harbinger of destruction. The thing about a cosmic cataclysm that Mother never seemed to really consider was the very annihilation of all that could bring pleasure. The thought of having nothing but my apartments in her prime hell or the Palace of Veils to visit on holidays made my skin crawl. I liked to burn things, yes, but I didn’t much fancy the idea of the rest of the universe being incinerated into a featureless void. Oh, Asmodeus talked – at length, and often – about reshaping the world in her image. I wasn’t sure I wanted that.
> I’m a creature of leisure, and to an extent, so was Pierce. We’d always talked so much about how things would be different for us once we fulfilled our commitments to Asmodeus. Of course, the reality was that it would never happen. The Prince of Lust and hopeful, eventual High Imperator of the Cosmos, or whatever she wanted to be called, would always have work for us. But we promised, all the same, to slip little indulgences between the cracks. Pierce had always wanted to see Hawaii. I wanted to as well, though mainly because of him. He could be infuriating at times, an overgrown child, but what Pierce wants, as far as I’m concerned, Pierce deserves to get.
As for me? I wanted a home, a place to call my own, far enough away from Asmodeus and her clutches. But all that was out the window now. No home in hell, and certainly no home on earth. I’d have to rebuild on my own somehow. I frowned, picking at a peeling bit of paint on the railings.
“How the hell do you even get a job?” I muttered.
“Simple,” said Crystal’s voice. “You apply for one.”
I flinched, parts of me stiffening when I realized I wasn’t alone. It always paid to keep my guard up, especially around a witch.
She placed her forearms on the railing, matching my pose, then tilted her head at me. “Of course, that’s assuming you have any qualifications.”
I groaned. “Go ahead. You can say it.”
Crystal grinned. “But as a rotten, spoiled brat who’s had every one of his needs catered to from birth, you don’t have any qualifications.”
I scowled at her, then sighed in resignation, resting my chin on my arms. “Pierce is probably more qualified than I am. He’s good at two things: fucking and fighting.” I cocked an eyebrow at her. “Can you make money that way? Are those very marketable skills?”