by Dante King
I looked up for a moment to see the sun rising through the windows, but when I looked back down to where the woman was, she was no longer there.
Weird.
Had I imagined her?
Whoever—or whatever—she was, she’d suddenly disappeared. Was my mind playing tricks? Was she a poltergeist or some other kind of spiritual entity? Regardless, I let it slide.
I started brushing my teeth in the bathroom and then smiled at my reflection in the scarred and faded mirror.
“Could be worse problems to have,” I said with difficulty, through a mouthful of toothpaste foam.
It was an absolutely perfect morning when I stepped off the front porch and bid my two frat brothers, Nigel and Rick, farewell. Neither of them had classes that morning, and they were sitting on the chairs on the deck with cups of coffee and the contented faces of students who knew that they wouldn’t be required to use a single neuron until at least 11a.m.
“Have a swell time at class, friend,” Rick said to me as I walked up the garden path.
“Was that sarcasm, Rick?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Fuck you very much.”
“What have you got first up, Justin?” Nigel called after me.
I stopped walking and consulted my spellbook. ”Uh, Avalonian History,” I told him.
Nigel pulled a face.
“Not the goods?” I asked.
“Did you like learning about history back in your world?” Nigel asked as Rick slurped his coffee.
“Honestly, I think I’d rather self-circumcise than go through another history lesson,” I said. “I was always too interested in what the future might bring to spare much thought as to what had happened hundreds of years ago. I’ve never believed that you have to understand the past to define the future. Life in my world made me a little too cynical for that. I come from a place where those who control the past control the future, and those who control the present control the past.”
Nigel’s intelligent face crinkled momentarily as he digested these words. Then it cleared, and he said, “Good gods, that was f-f-f-fucking insightful, Justin!”
I didn’t have the heart to tell the halfling that I’d just stolen the wisdom of Confucius and George Orwell almost in the same breath. Besides, he wouldn’t have known who the hell I was talking about anyway. It wasn’t often that I got to feel smarter than Nigel, so I allowed myself to cheat this one time.
“I figure that this might be different though, you know,” I said. “Magical history can’t be boring, can it?”
I flipped them both the bird as I wheeled about and set off down the hill.
I was running early, thanks to my interesting dreams and the disappearing mystery woman in my bed. I thought I’d treat myself to a bit of an amble through the town that clustered about the knees of the Mazirian Academy—the graveyard of which our frat house overlooked from its perch on the cliff.
Nevermoor was as pretty and quaint a town as I had ever seen. It was the sort of sandstone-built town that you’d expect to see on the front of a cookie tin or as the backdrop of some lame-ass commercial for maple syrup.
The cottages were roomy, square affairs with thatched roofs and fluffy white smoke coming out of the chimneys. Some were whitewashed to give the place a little variety. The hedgerows were neat and orderly, and most of the gardens sported impressive flower beds and well-tended vegetable patches.
The cottages on the edge of the town had larger gardens and, in many of these, the owners had fenced in some of the fattest, happiest-looking pigs that I had ever seen. The animals grunted contentedly as they walked about and rooted through the grass and mud.
A couple of the more inquisitive pigs approached their fences as I walked past. As I strolled along, I found myself beaming at nothing. After self-checking that I hadn’t suffered some sort of unexpected aneurysm, I realized that it was just that Nevermoor was just so fucking twee. It was, in a word, idyllic.
I was in a pretty sunny and buoyant mood when I entered the Academy’s main entrance, passing under the enormous and breath-taking chandelier in the cavernous hall. My spellbook guided me through a series of passages to my Avalonian History class. I imagined that this was how people who microdosed on LSD felt all the time, or alcoholics felt after their first martini of the day.
I sat myself near the back of the lecture hall, so as to less obtrusively slip into daydreams should the lesson prove to be about as comfortable to sit in as a pair of cactus briefs.
“Well, look at this fucking guy,” a familiar female voice said from behind me. “You look like the cat who got the cream all right. What did you get up to last night that put that silly smile on your face?”
Janet Thunderstone slipped into the seat beside me, engulfing me in a delicate perfume that at once pulled at my heartstrings and fiddled with my fly. Her thigh brushed mine as she nestled a little closer to me, hunkering down in that time-honored position of the student who wishes to stay out of sight of the teacher so that they might more easily get a quick nap in.
“I didn’t do anything last night,” I said, which was true, since it had been mid-afternoon when Alura and I had exchanged body fluids. “I just walked through Nevermoor for the first time this morning. What a great little place. I feel totally at peace with the world, you know. It’s like my brain went for a massage and paid a little extra for the ‘happy ending’.”
Janet rolled her eyes. “Men are so fucking gross,” she said. “Even pleasant analogies have to be steeped in sex.”
I grinned. “I thought that was a pretty good one.”
Janet grinned back and then nudged me as the flickering flames of the wall sconces in the lecture hall magically dimmed. A plump woman with a shaved head, a scar across her scalp, and a bust that you could hide a badger in walked out of a side door. She looked up at the class, and I saw that she only had one jewel-bright blue eye in the very center of her face. Her lips were painted a dark plum, and she lickled them as she gazed briefly about the room. For a fractured moment, that bright blue eye came to rest on me. The woman blinked and then looked down at her notes and shuffled them.
“Hey,” I whispered, “with a cyclops, how do you know whether they’re blinking or winking?”
“Shh!” Janet whispered, stifling a giggle.
Our teacher, Madame Fledwer, launched with little introduction into the very dense and convoluted beginnings of the Avalonian Kingdom, the various worlds that sheltered under its umbrella, and the rise of Queen Hagatha.
“This doesn’t seem all that relevant to being a War Mage,” I muttered into Janet’s ear, making sure that my lips brushed her earlobe accidentally on purpose.
Janet gave a little smile. “Just because the Mazirian Academy has built this reputation of developing some of the most formidable War Mages ever to exist, doesn’t mean that every mage who passes through its doors wants to be one.”
“I guess…” I replied, trying to think why the hell anyone would want to be anything other than a professional badass.
“No matter what you end up graduating as, or becoming after your time here is done, everyone becomes a member of the Avalonian Kingdom. No matter what world they are originally from.”
“I suppose it makes sense knowing a little about the place you live,” I conceded.
“That’s right. Whether you give a shit about what has happened in the past or not, I think it’s interesting to at least know how we got to where we are now.”
“Right.”
“Now,” Janet said, giving my thigh a squeeze, “give that pretty mouth of yours a rest, before Madame Fledwer tears you a new asshole.”
I made a zipping motion across my lips and settled back to try and soak in as much of the rest of the lecture as I could.
Within minutes, if not seconds, I was adrift amongst a sea of unfamiliar and fantastical-sounding names. I really did attempt to concentrate and make a few desultory notes on a piece of parchment that I had found in my pocket, but i
t was just so hard. From the dimness of the room, to Madame Fledwer’s soothing voice that acted like a dose of Ambien, and the warm press of Janet’s thigh against mine, it wasn’t long before I zoned out.
Thoughts of becoming a War Mage filled my imagination, and I was soon picturing myself riding a giant dragon while I blasted energy bolts from my crystal staff at my opponents. Each would blow into a thousand chunks of bone, blood, and viscera before they assembled outside the circula arena. A smile settled on my face as I realized how amazing my life had become and how much I had to look forward to.
Chapter Twelve
The history class concluded with an ear-splitting clap from Madame Fledwer that broke me from my imaginations with a jump. The rest of the student cohort started to filter out of the lecture hall.
Today, there was no opportunity nor time to try my hand at sneaking off with Janet for a bit of slap and tickle. Both of us had classes straight after the snoozefest that had been Avalonian History.
“I’ll see you later on,” Janet said. “Maybe we can hang out sometime and listen to a little Iron Maiden?”
“Ah yes, the soundtrack to our courtship,” I said, fluttering my eyelashes and pressing a hand to my heart.
Janet laughed and stuck her tongue out at me.
“Nah, I’m kidding,” I said. “I’d like that. I’ve got to get my ass to my potion-making class, but I’ll try and catch up with you later on.”
Janet nodded, waved, and marched away. That phenomenal ass of hers moved in a way that drew my eyeballs like a couple of steel balls to a high-powered magnet.
Having such a spring in my step, I made it to my potion-making class with time to spare. Alura was already there, but she was not the only familiar face. Just as I had reached the Gemstone Princess, touched her on the shoulder, and given her a smile of greeting, a hail of greetings made me look over to the right of the spacious classroom. I saw that my fraternity brothers were sitting along one of the long, high benches and waving at me.
“What the hell are you boys doing here?” I asked.
“Got transferred in,” Damien said. “Apparently, your numbers dwindled down a little after your last class. Quite a few students were a little shaken up with whatever your teacher had them doing.”
I recalled the mayhem that had been part and parcel of that very first potions lesson, with the manic running around and spell-casting as everyone tried to wrangle one of the cauldron-like beasts.
“Yeah, I could see that,” I said. “There were a couple of dicey moments.”
“Ah,” came a sneering, supercilious voice from my left. “If it isn’t the Academy’s collection of offcuts and rejects. What a bloody depressing sight.”
I turned and saw that it was none other than my pal Arun Lightson, the High Elf Holy Mage whose testicles I’d attempted to dropkick up through the top of his head. On either side of him were his buddies; Qildro, Ike, and Dhor.
This pompous jackass must have figured we were still in high school. He must have thought that his lame attempts to goad me and my friends would actually work. I’d learned a long time ago that the best way to counter these fucking stupid little snipes from across classrooms was to reply with a sort of naive kindness, as if you didn’t realize that your antagonist was poking at you.
“Oh, hey, Arun!” I said with a cheery, over the top wave. “Didn’t recognize you with that little extra treble in your voice. How are the old penis boobies, man?”
Rick, Damien, Nigel, and Bradley all burst out laughing on the other side of the room. I had regaled them, albeit briefly, on my first meeting with the douchebag fraternity. It was obvious that they recognized Arun and co for the champion cocklobsters that they were.
Arun’s face flushed a satisfying puce color. The other members of the class, not knowing exactly what was going on, could nevertheless tell that they were witnessing a couple of sticks rubbing together, as it were, and that the friction could result in a fire. A frisson of anticipation shot through the assembled students like ripples across the surface of a pond.
Arun glanced at his cronies sitting along the bench next to him. They all had the ubiquitous scowls of blindly loyal idiots smeared across their faces.
“That was a low blow, Mauler,” Arun said through gritted teeth.
“Shots to the bro globes usually are, Lightson,” I said. “I suppose I could have gone for those beady eyes that are tucked under that little pecker on your forehead, but I just didn’t have the time for that level of accuracy, what with having to deal with you and your three pets over there.”
This elicited some muffled laughs of appreciation from the onlookers, not to mention some highly fulfilling grumbles of rage from Dhor, Qildro, and Ike.
“I find it interesting that the biggest outcast in the Academy has the gall to even walk into a classroom filled with people who are so obviously better suited to being at the Academy than he is. The fact that you managed to find a fraternity that would even take you in is something that I cannot wrap my head around.” Arun’s eyes were as hard and full of hate as those of a wild boar.
“You know what I find interesting and can’t wrap my head around,” I said, still with the pleasant air of clueless politeness, “is that somewhere there is a tree somewhere whose sole purpose is to produce the oxygen that you breathe. I think it’d be the gentlemanly thing for you to find that tree and apologize to it.”
Arun opened his mouth, flushing a furious deep scarlet, all the way to the tips of his elven ears.
Before the gathered class all got to enjoy whatever verbal diarrhea was about to burst out of his mouth, the door to the potion-making laboratory burst open. Madame Xel swaggered into the room and tossed herself unconcernedly into her chair. She was dressed in a similarly libido-fizzing outfit as she had been last time, a garish yellow this time and so tight that it looked like it might have been painted on. She wore a pair of thigh-high silver boots with platform soles and fingerless gloves of a matching silver material. All in all, she looked like the wet-dream of a teenage cosplay enthusiast.
She stared about her with her strange flitting eyes, and her gaze came to rest on me. She tipped me another wink. I swallowed and held the gaze. Eye-fucking was one thing, but the look that Madame Xel was giving me now took that fairly lighthearted term and turned it up to eleven. I swore I could feel my dick hardening through the strength of that gaze alone. Not wanting to have to excuse myself to rub one out in the men’s room so that I could concentrate, I looked away.
Madame Xel grinned wolfishly and banged her heel against the desktop. Instantly, the class quieted.
“Now, my little potioneers,” she said, “I know what you’re thinking. ‘Where are the cauldrons that we so painstakingly captured yesterday?’ and ‘Why are we using these rather old-looking Academy ones?’ Well, I shall tell you, my clever things. They are still being cured in the hanging rooms in the cellars. This process will take at least the rest of the day to complete, but your cauldrons will be delivered to your dungeons after the Academy day is done.”
I looked at the cauldrons that Madame Xel had indicated as she spoke. They were hanging along the laboratory walls. It was only by looking very closely that I could determine that the things had ever been part of anything organic at all. However they were processed, they had turned out to look more like metal than hide. Someone had severed the feet from the legs, and they now looked more like metal than skin and bone.
“I see and feel that we already have some pre-decided groups among us.” Madame Xel cast her succubus eyes around the gathering of students.
I realized now that part of her disquieting and hypnotic demeanor was the habit she had of not blinking. Since she had entered the room, I didn’t think she had blinked once.
“This is fine and natural, of course,” she went on. “Being placed into fraternities and sororities means that you naturally wish to go with those with whom you are more comfortable. However, part of what it takes to be a War Mage is dealing with the
unexpected. With this in mind, I shall walk among you and divide you into tables.”
She locked eyes with me again and, with exquisite slowness, uncrossed her lycra-clad legs and got to her feet.
Rick and Nigel were put into a group containing a couple of young women—one a dwarf and the other a nymph—and moved to a table at the front of the class. The four douche-baguettes led by Arun Lightson were, for whatever reason, kept together and placed at the table behind Rick and Nigel. Bradley, Damien, Alura, and myself were sitting at the table behind these guys.
Madame Xel quickly set us to whipping up something called a Chill Pill. I couldn’t help but laugh when she told us this, but apparently it was a fairly common medicine in the magical world, and I was the only one that found anything humorous about it.
It quickly became apparent that Bradley was the bee’s knees when it came to potions. I wondered whether this had something to do with the fact that he loved to cook and guessed that it probably was. He had a real knack for the measuring and blending of ingredients, but also an instinctive nose for knowing when something should be added.
Damien, on the other hand, did not. For a dude who was a designated Fire Mage, it seemed that he had little control over not burning or over-boiling stuff—or maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised by that. When I mentioned this to him, he said, “Hey man, what the fuck do you expect? I’m a goddamn convicted arsonist back on Earth.”
I laughed. “That’s a good point. I guess keeping an eye on fires isn’t your forte, huh?”
While we all got on with making the Chill Pills, I perused through my spellbook. I’d learned that there was no harm in looking through this little book, as it was always turning up little surprises for me. This lesson, it seemed, was going to be no exception. I wondered briefly whether the spellbook responded to external stimulus—whether it was, in fact, reading the environments that I was in—or reacting to what I was learning as I learned it.
I turned to a page and there was a little section—written in a messy, scrawled hand, as if the spellbook had dashed it off when it should have been doing something else—named HIDDEN RECIPES.