“Very well, but don’t do that again,” threatened Ms. Birquel with a scowl towards Janus. “I still can’t believe you know so little about magic, Stavius. Now, where was I before we were so rudely interrupted? Ah yes, magical forms.
“Transformation does what you’d expect. Magicians can transform one object into another. You could, for example, transform a lump of mud into a piece of granite, or a pool of water into a silver mirror. You can even take a pile of raw herbs and vegetables and transform them into a meal. You cannot, however, transform anything living in any way or transform anything inanimate into something living. It just doesn’t work.”
“Ahem,” coughed Janus from the shadows. “While that is true, you can temporarily transform small parts of living creatures. That’s how doctors perform surgeries and help mend bones. It is temporary, severely limited, and requires considerable skill and effort, but it is possible.”
Ms. Birquel glared at the boy again and said, “Yes, Janus, but this young man cannot even create the illusion of a gray ball. I think we can skip the fringe areas of advanced magic.
“Now, shall we continue with the formal lesson? Enhancement is a variant of transformation. You might carve a sword out of wood, for example, and then transform it into steel. You could…”
“Oh, come on. What is with grownups and lectures?” groaned Janus, who had been doodling in the dust with a small branch. “Wouldn’t you rather see some hands-on demonstrations, Stavius?”
“Of course, you would,” continued Janus, before Stavius could reply. Stavius agreed with him, though. His mind had been starting to wander out to the tournament field instead of listening to Ms. Birquel’s creaky voice.
“Very well then,” muttered Ms. Birquel. “Why let a trained educator lead the class when you boys can do just as well on your own?”
“Thank you for your understanding, Ms. Birquel,” Janus laughed as he jumped off his rock and wandered over to the desk. Ms. Birquel just glared at him.
“You see,” he began, as he picked up a small stone, “I could transform this rock into glass and enhance it to glow.” The stone became smooth and changed into a translucent, pale blue color. It began to glow as he spoke.
“I could make it produce heat, which is how we cook and heat our homes, or I could make it absorb heat to cool us down,” he continued.
Ms. Birquel snorted. “Right, Janus. If we could do that, then we’d have enhanced our houses to stay cool and not need to spend so much of our time in a dingy cave during the summer.”
Janus tossed the stone to her, and her jaw dropped as she caught the frigid object.
Janus ignored her, began tapping on her desk with his branch, and said, “Let’s do a more complicated example. You see, I could easily transform this stick from wood to aluminum.”
The sound of his irritating tapping suddenly changed from high-pitched scratching to dull, muted clicking as the wooden branch became a silvery-gray metal.
“Now I can enhance it to turn it into something useful.”
He held the metal branch with his right hand and placed his left index finger and thumb around the base. Janus drew the branch through the circle formed by his fingers, and the stick straightened as he did this until he was holding a small wand about sixteen inches long. It was blunt on one end and tapered to a point on the other.
“Very impressive, Janus,” Ms. Birquel sarcastically muttered as she held the cooling stone against her neck, but Stavius thought it was a good trick. Janus ignored her and continued.
“Of course, you can keep transforming and enhancing until you get your object exactly right. In this case, I want it to be perfectly balanced and extremely sharp,” Janus added. He transformed the shaft of the wand to mahogany and the tip to hardened steel as he spoke. Then he attached a leather wrap on the blunt end and weaved some intricate carvings along the shaft.
“It takes years to become proficient at transformation and enhancement, and those who do tend to specialize in particular areas such as construction, weaponry, and sometimes medicine,” interjected Ms. Birquel, who was now appearing to be somewhat interested in Janus’ work while pressing the cooling stone against her forehead.
“And, if you’re highly skilled, you can scale your work,” laughed Janus, as he tossed the wand towards Stavius. It grew in size as it flew through the air and stuck into the ground at his feet as a six-foot-long spear.
Stavius pulled the spear out of the ground and was amazed by its smooth, polished feel and heft. He verified that this was no illusion and handed the spear to Ms. Birquel to inspect. She was staring at its size in disbelief. “I’ve never actually seen anyone scale anything, Janus,” she said. “Only the most powerful of wizards can do it. How did you learn how to do this?”
Janus ignored her again and said with a mischievous grin, “Of course, a birthday cake is just a cake without the frosting.” A smiley face flag exploded out of the spear’s handle and showered Ms. Birquel with glitter. “So, I conclude my show with an illusion.”
He took a bow while Ms. Birquel sneezed imaginary glitter out her nose.
“But what about teleportation, Janus?” Stavius asked as he tried to stifle a laugh. Ms. Birquel’s elegant, blue gown was now a rainbow of multi-colored sparkles.
“Ah, I should let our professional educator demonstrate that skill,” Janus replied with a serious look.
“Hilarious, Janus. Teleportation is a known magical power that no human has ever been able to perform. The only creatures having this ability are a few small animals like squarells and those annoying bugs that buzz in your ears and teleport away right before you swat them,” explained Ms. Birquel. “Can you enhance some more of these cooling stones, Janus?”
“And the Soul Reapers,” added Janus.
“Yes, and the Soul Reapers,” agreed Ms. Birquel with discomfort.
“What are the Soul Reapers?” asked Stavius. “They sort of look human, but spooky.”
“No one knows,” said Ms. Birquel. “They’ve been here forever and never age, change or say anything. They merely silently stand in their corner of the cave staring at the walls and, now and then disappear. Sometimes they reappear with a hero candidate or a trainer, and sometimes they return a few weeks or months later looking drained and tired.
“So, we don’t know who they are, what they do, or what they are. We aren’t even sure how many Soul Reapers exist in the world. Four of them seem to reside in our cave, but we suspect there are more living elsewhere if they are alive.
“I think that is enough for today’s lesson, though. I need to figure out how to teach you how to do what should come naturally and, perhaps we should hold our classes outside in a sunnier environment without an audience,” said Ms. Birquel, clutching the cooling stone and brushing some glitter out of her hair. Thinking about Soul Reapers and their proximity was depressing her, and Janus’ ceiling full of bats probably wasn’t helping either.
Urtish didn’t seem to mind being underground. Stavius arrived on time for his history class, but his teacher was already looking quite at home while seated at a desk in the dim light from a few glowing stones. Urtish could’ve easily illuminated the entire room by enhancing the walls or ceiling, but he didn’t. Instead, he and Stavius sat in the small circle of light encompassing the two people, the desk, and the blackboard. Everything beyond their little, illuminated area was black and silent, except for the occasional dripping of water or a hushed conversation somewhere in the distance, or a yelp of pain followed by a curse from someone stubbing their toe in the darkness.
“Excuse me, Urtish, I have a question,” said Stavius.
Urtish answered without looking up. “I insist that you call me Mister Urtish, young man, and I welcome any questions regarding history or prophecy. However, I advise you not to use your query as an attempt to weasel out of this class.”
“No sir, Mr. Urtish,” Stavius quickly replied. “I was wondering about the last group you trained. When were they here?”
&n
bsp; Urtish looked up, and Stavius saw a sense of sadness in his eyes. “We trained our last team six years ago,” he said. “They were a fine group of talented magicians, and we had high hopes for their success.”
A long and awkward silence followed Urtish’s statement until Stavius said, “But they didn’t succeed. Did they?”
“No, they never even made it to the talismans,” sighed Urtish. “They were attacked not more than ten miles from here. We found their belongings scattered along the road and heard stories of them being captured and killed, but none of us knows what happened. I have always hoped that they managed to escape somehow and are happily living somewhere far from here.”
“And what happened to their visitors if they died?” asked Stavius.
“That is a fair question,” sighed Urtish. “The short answer is that no one knows. There are several possibilities, but I like to think that they simply awakened and never dreamt of this world again. May we discuss less-depressing topics?”
That sounded like a great idea to Stavius, who said, “One last question. Mayre said that we wouldn’t realize our full potential until we were merged. What does merging do other than let us share each other’s memories?”
“An excellent question, Mr. Stavius. That is an excellent question, indeed,” grinned Urtish. “As you already realize, when you merge you don’t just share each other’s memories, you gain each other’s skills. What you may not yet realize, particularly due to Mr. Staven’s unique magical situation, is that merging also impacts your magical abilities. Your visitor’s mathematical and scientific abilities amplify your host’s magical abilities here.”
“What!?” exclaimed Stavius.
“The more advanced Mark is in math and science, the greater your conjoined entity’s magical powers are here,” confirmed Urtish. “It doesn’t matter in your case, though, because multiplying zero by anything will still result in zero magical abilities.”
“But if I could develop my magical abilities and Mark could improve his math skills, we’d become more powerful, right?” Stavius hopefully asked.
Urtish laughed and answered, “Yes, but Staven has failed at learning how to do magic his entire life, and there is no way to get a message to Mark to hit the books. I wish there were a way to communicate with our visitors though. There is much I would like to research back on Earth if I had the means to influence myself over there.”
“But if you could communicate with yourself, and the other visitors, would you?” asked Stavius. He was getting excited and starting to come up with a plan for Team Stavius back on Earth.
“No!” Urtish shouted and banged his hand on the desk. “That isn’t possible and, even if it were, it would be far too dangerous.”
Stavius jumped back in alarm, and Urtish softened his tone. “Stavius, our two worlds are far more connected than just the five of you. Visitors are brought over here all the time and not just to be heroes. Remember that some of us were guided here to help train you. There’s no reason to think that other Earth dreamers aren’t arriving in various places around the world for different purposes.
“Likewise, it is reasonable to conclude that some people from here visit Mark’s Earth in their dreams. I think it would be odd if that weren’t the case.”
That possibility had never occurred to Stavius. “But what would they do? Why would they be there?”
“We can only guess,” said Urtish. “But we have our suspicions. Many people here fear that the prophecy will destroy our world, should it come true. The people who own the talismans and are profiting from their powers tend to promote those beliefs because they do not want you to succeed. They are some of the most powerful people in the world. They have wizards who might possess sufficient skills to send visitors over to your Earth to thwart you there along with their attempts to stop you here.”
“How would they do that?” asked Stavius, suddenly nervous about having shared his story with his friends back on Earth.
“Well, it would be pretty easy to eliminate you if they knew who you were in that world, right?” Urtish replied as Stavius gulped.
“It becomes more difficult if your enemies don’t know who you are, but they could probably slow you down. Magical abilities of visitors to your world would likely manifest themselves as increased persuasiveness. These people might tend to be successful politicians, religious leaders, and other inspirational leaders, but I’m not sure what they would attempt to do, and I don’t want to find out.
“The fact that almost no one has ever been able to communicate from here to the other Earth is both our greatest frustration and our greatest defense. It prevents our enemies from being able to target attacks on our visitors.”
“But you said almost no one remembers Mearth when they wake up over on Earth,” said Stavius. “That makes it sound like it’s possible. How often does it happen?”
“Well, it doesn’t happen, or at least hasn’t happened yet,” answered Urtish. “The Keys are the only ones ever able to do that, but only once the four heroes have succeeded in their part of fulfilling the prophecy. The Key is the one who guides us about what to do with the talismans after they are retrieved and could use information hidden on your Earth. Our friend Janus is the Key for your group. He will not, however, gain the ability to communicate with his visitor on his Earth until the heroes bring all seven talismans together.
“That is why he stays here rather than helping the heroes retrieve the talismans. And that is why the Key is not considered a hero, even though he is an essential part of the prophecy.”
“But why does everyone hate him so much?” asked Stavius. “Is it simply because of his name and the hard feelings about the demigod Janus?”
“Janus has probably been tormented his entire life due to his name, and I can’t imagine the type of cruel people his parents must have been to name him that. It is unusual for anyone to name their child Janus over here. No, people hate him because he’s a jerk like all Keys. Keys are always practical jokers who take their jokes too far. They are always very powerful magicians with huge egos. Keys are all shifty, duplicitous, and you cannot trust them with anything. One minute they’re your best friend and the next they’re stabbing you in the back. I don’t know why this is, but every Key in recorded history has had the same, annoying personality.”
Stavius wondered how much of their perception of Janus was due to his personality and how much was due to their preconceived opinions of him but he wasn’t afforded the opportunity to ask. A low horn was sounding in the distant village indicating that it was lunchtime and Urtish was already out of his chair and heading for town.
Chapter 7
School
AUGUST 15, EARTH
The morning of the first day of school is always the same. Mom gently wakes Chloe and me at about six and then goes into the kitchen to make our breakfasts. Then, she yells at us at about quarter past to get ready. And then, she comes racing into our room at six thirty, yanks off our covers, and screams that we’re going to be late. We get up, get dressed, and eat our soggy cereal in the kitchen while Dad reads the news and Mom unpacks and repacks the lunches that he packed the night before. I guess it’s some sort of tradition from when he grew up or something.
This morning the new District Superintendent of Curriculum was in the news gushing about how the new STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics) curriculum was going to revolutionize education in Hamilton County. She claimed it was developed to correct problems a scientific study had unearthed.
The new curriculum emphasized teaching multiple techniques for solving problems instead of forcing a one-size-fits-all approach. It also tested students on a more granular level to ensure that the entire curriculum was learned. The scientific study concluded that there was no way to tell what even A-students with ninety-percent test scores got wrong. They might have only missed a few random questions, or they might not have understood an entire ten percent chunk of the curriculum. This new teaching and g
rading approach would remedy that.
Mom said it made sense to her, but Dad was unconvinced. He seemed to think that people who excessively used the term “scientific study” in an explanation probably didn’t understand what the phrase meant. He observed that this woman had said “scientific study” eight times in five paragraphs without ever mentioning who had run the study, how broad it was, or anything specific about its findings.
The discussion ended, however, when Mom glanced at the clock and screamed that we were going to miss the bus. We ran out the door, and I didn’t even get to answer Tyler’s text. He had sent one last night claiming he had “epic news” that had to be shared in person and another one this morning trying to get Team Stavius together at lunch. This probably wasn’t going to happen until after school anyway, since we weren’t all in the same classes. I stuffed my phone in my pocket, ran out the door, and forgot my lunch, just like every other first day of school.
The last few weeks of summer had been awesome. Malik had done a great job of engaging the guys in Team Stavius, Earth Division and we had a blast, even though they teased me pretty hard about Nancy Wellington. We spent hours talking about magical possibilities and exploring the area around home trying to identify significant natural landmarks. Ethan wanted to use naturally-occurring objects to map Mearth to Earth since Mearth didn’t seem to have any of our buildings. I didn’t think that this was going to be at all helpful, but it was fun, and we got to wander around the hills of Cincinnati for several days. We even took a couple of bus trips to areas we hadn’t explored before.
I convinced my parents to sign me up for martial arts again and strove to focus on it this time. Honing my existing skills and learning new ones would be helpful to Stavius. I also began eating healthier food and getting myself into shape. Becoming fit on Earth wasn’t going to help Stavius, but it was because of him. I had always thought I hated sports like soccer because I stink at them. While that is true, I discovered the real reason while I was on Mearth. I hate playing sports because I become a panting, sweaty, miserable pig after a few minutes of any strenuous activity. Staven was in shape, and I was amazed at how good it felt to run and jump and fight as Stavius. I wanted to feel that way here on Earth, and I’m already starting to notice some results after a month of diet and exercise, although I have a long way to go before I look and feel like my Mearth counterpart.
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