The Darker Lord Read online

  The good news: now that nearly everyone was looking in his direction, I could spot Sam. He was sitting just behind the Shades in the third row. Through a crack in the bodies, I could see Ariella sitting next to him. Her head was in her hands, and she was shaking it back and forth. The bad news: Moregoth had also spotted Sam. I could see a stirring in the crimson wall of men lining the back of the lecture hall. They began to mass at the head of the aisles behind where Sam and Ariella were sitting.

  My entire plan, the one I made up between leaving the alcove and arriving at the lectern, had been based on the premise that I didn’t think Moregoth would make a move if he thought it would disrupt class and draw attention to what he was doing. Not that I thought he cared a whit about the education of the students, but rather because someone had told him to keep Sam and Ariella’s extraction clean and quiet. Unfortunately, my lecture had devolved into total chaos. There was a good chance Moregoth would use the confusion to make his move on Sam and Ariella if I didn’t act quickly.

  “I assure you,” I announced in my best imitation of an authority figure, “I am indeed Professor Stewart.”

  Several hands, one shadow appendage, and a tentacle (yes, I was lucky enough to have a Cthulhoid in class, and the smell of fish was making my eyes water) shot up at this announcement. The fact that there were so many questions over something as simple as my name did not bode well for the rest of the semester. I resolved to be patient, and so smiled and pointed to a bright-looking fellow with a long, forked beard sitting to my left. He was human, or at least looked human. “Yes, you had a question?” I asked.

  “It still says you’re Professor Griswald.”

  I turned and looked at the board. Indeed, the chalk had written directly under the first line: “I assure you all that I am indeed Professor Griswald.” It had even placed emphasis on the name by underlining it twice.

  The headache had arrived. I pinched my nose and cursed under my breath, “Damn chalk! Damn class! Damn . . .”

  I was into my third “damn” before I noticed that the chalk was still transcribing everything I said. It finished the third “damn” and hovered there smugly waiting for me to say something else. I obliged by calling it something really rude that I will not repeat here, but that it began to happily write. I lunged forward, snatched it from the air, and quickly whispered an erase spell. The board began to shed the chalk lines in much the same way a dog shakes off water. I waited until the words disappeared before turning back to my class.

  Clearing my throat again, I said, “Sorry about the confusion, just a little technical difficulty with the ensorcelled chalk. Which only goes to show that magic often creates as many problems as it solves. And that leads us to our topic of discussion for today . . .”

  I have never taken an improv class, primarily because I cannot condone any discipline that encourages you to say, “yes, and,” no matter what your partner says. If you think about it, I suspect you will agree that if such a doctrine were applied to any other field it would lead to almost inevitable disaster. Anyway, the result of this hole in my education is that I am not very good at ad-libbing. Unfortunately, this made the whole “no plan” plan somewhat ill-advised. Fortunately, I had mapped out my first couple of lectures. I began to read those now, hoping that Moregoth would hold true to his word and give me the chance to finish this class—and think up a way to escape.

  “I know most of you are novices,” I began to read from my prepared notes. “You are likely excited and perhaps a little unsettled about everything that you’ve experienced since you arrived at Mysterium University. You have to get used to new housing, new types of people, and, for many of you, the fact that magic is real and that you are being asked to learn it.”

  I turned the page and continued, watching Moregoth and his men from the corner of my eye. As the students settled back into their seats, so too did the Sealers fade into the shadows near the back wall.

  “This class is meant to provide you with a way to explore those talents which are inside everyone who comes to Mysterium. Perhaps some of you already know some magic and are questioning why you are here. You may have already set your heart on studying the subtle secrets of necromancy, or losing yourself in Moorcockian demonic channeling, or tapping into deep-space power using Lovecraftian rituals, but every well-educated mage should have a grounding in Rowling-speak. It represents a magical system and language so popular across the worlds its influence cannot be understated . . .”

  Truth be told, this description of the influence of Rowling-speak on magical casting was a bit of an understatement. Like saying that the Sun might be important to life on Earth, or that a towel is of moderate importance when traveling through Adams-space, or that as a rule one should probably never tie your soul to anything called Stormbringer. Rowling’s Primary Omnibus Treatise on Terminologically Expressive Rheology was a fantastic breakthrough in wizardry. It provided a very simple system for people who struggled with the complex primary patterns of Mysterium casting to gain familiarity and comfort with manipulating reality through spellcasting. But—and it is an enormous “but”—somehow when the tome was translated across worlds it had gotten entangled with a set of young adult novels the author had been reading to her children. The result gave people some terrible ideas about magic. Let’s just say that I have never traveled to a world that had train stations and not seen one or two people attempting to plow their way headfirst through a solid wall, or trying to get things to fly with some odd mix of Latin and English. Mysterium has lost a number of students to head trauma and catastrophically miscast spells since the book’s multiversal publication. As a system of magical education, it also requires something so universally reviled that its use in classrooms has been banned on some worlds as a form of torture.

  I turned the page on my notes and there it was, under the heading “Mandatory Elements,” subheading “Group Projects.” I shuddered, because I knew what was coming next.

  “Before we begin, it is traditional in Rowling Magic classes to assign you to smaller groups. It is hoped that these small groups will help you get to know your fellow students a little better. The four small groups for this class are—”

  Hands shot up all over the room and voices shouted out to be put in this group or that group, and why it had been that person’s dream since childhood to go to this group or that group, and not that group or this group. Students wanted to know where the hat was. Arguments broke out over which group was better. Lines were drawn. Factions formed. I had lost control again.

  This time Moregoth’s men sprang into action. They began to file down the aisles in the lecture hall so they could approach Sam and Ariella from both ends of their row. Frantically, I turned over the third page of my notes to see if I could skip ahead to something less prone to duels, and found that somewhere in the chaos of the morning my lecture had gotten scrambled. I shuffled through the papers on the podium in desperation as the Sealers advanced. That’s when I found the Administration’s Mandatory Missive on Magical Mayhem. The MMMM was the single most soul-draining part of any class. It was perfect. The class would be pacified, if not unconscious, in less than a minute.

  “Safety!” I bellowed.

  Harold gave a start at my shout, and toppled off the side of the lectern. I held up the Administration’s notice like a trophy as he clambered back up to his perch—bow tie now askew. The uproar died down and everyone took their seats again.

  “Before we decide on group assignments, the Administration has asked that all professors of novice-level classes read the following guidelines on safe spellcasting . . .”

  Moregoth’s men paused as order was restored.

  “It may not be the most exciting topic, but I assure you . . .”

  Realizing they were the only ones still standing, the Sealers began a slow retreat.

  “. . . it is better than finding out the hard way . . .”

  I could see Moregoth in the back. He applauded mockingly, and then turned slightly a
nd pointed to the clock above the doors. There were only five minutes of class left. His dark lips stretched into a grim smile.

  “. . . how painful it is to get a fazestone burn, or have your organs scrambled from . . . an ether backlash . . .”

  And that’s when inspiration struck.

  “. . . and that is why I am going to give you a little demonstration of the dangers of casting without observing the four M’s of proper spellcasting: method, mind, and . . .”

  I had no idea what the third or fourth “M’s” were.

  “. . . and the other two.”

  This caused a great deal of vigorous scribbling from the DERP panel, but I didn’t have time to worry about them right now.

  “I will need two volunteers.”

  Hands, tentacles, paws, claws, and every other manner of appendage shot into the air. The orc in the front row waved his dead rat around so vigorously that the string snapped and it went sailing off. One of the Jellicles pounced after it.

  I made a pretense of looking at my roster. “Ms. Moonsong and Mr. Sam?”

  Hands dropped in disappointment, but I heard Sam say, “That’s us, Ariella. Come on.”

  They rose and began making their way up to the front of the class. As Sam and Ariella mounted the stairs, Moregoth glowered at me and made a slashing gesture. The Sealers surged down the aisles.

  I clapped my hands, which startled everyone, even the Sealers. “Okay, class, for this demonstration I need everyone to cast a spell.”

  The Cthulhoid raised a tentacle. “I thought our first lesson was about spell safety.”

  “He’s right! What about our organs?” the Kurgan bellowed.

  There was a general murmur of agreement until I shouted, “Extra credit on the midterm for the most impressive display!”

  All protest vanished at the mention of extra credit. Moregoth raised his hands to countermand my instructions, but his asthma kept his voice to a harsh whisper. In a lecture hall full of shouting students, he had no chance. Every novice in that hall who could cast a spell did so almost simultaneously. The individual effects were impressive: I saw a glowing phoenix, a thundercloud with violet lightning, a watercolor painting come to life, a dragon formed out of a young woman’s blood, a windstorm of flower petals, and so much more. The intermixing of the different magics was pure, creative chaos. The phoenix was struck by the violet lightning and erupted into a shower of indescribable colors that peppered the watercolor with spots of cubism. The blood dragon somehow melded with the flower storm to create a creature that spouted gouts of ruby-red petals from its fearsome toothed mouth. It was beautiful and inspiring. It also warped the reality lines in the lecture hall so badly that it staggered the Sealers, and made it nearly impossible for them to close on Sam and Ariella.

  I bounded from the lectern and rushed to their side. Sam was in the middle of waving his arms and shaking a feather about in a looping motion. I grabbed him before he could finish casting. “Come on, we have to get out of here!” I shouted over the din of the pops, whizzes, and bangs of the spells going off around us.

  “What do you mean?” he said as I yanked both him and Ariella toward the alcove. “I was going to do a magic arrow!”

  “I wanted to summon a unicorn,” Ariella insisted.

  “Later,” I said as I dodged a burst of flower petals from the diving floral blood dragon. “Right now we have to leave!”

  As we slipped out the door behind the lectern I glanced back. The Sealers hadn’t given up, but their progress had been slowed to a crawl, literally, because one (or more) of the Jellicles had created an enormous ball of yarn that was spinning around the hall like a whirling dervish, unspooling vast drifts of yarn across the seats and along the aisles, making walking impossible. I turned to leave, but realized that it wasn’t very professorial to simply sneak out.

  I poked my head back through the curtain and shouted, “By next class I want a thousand words on spell safety! With a focus on spell containment, proper casting distance buffers, and a list of the five most common side effects of unintended spell interaction.” For the DERPs I added, “And remember the four M’s!”

  It was at this moment that several spells collided near the ceiling and a slimy, gray goo began raining down on everyone. I grimaced as screams erupted and students began rushing for the exits. “Class dismissed!”

  With that I ducked into the alcove and led Sam and Ariella out the secret door in the back. If there was one piece of advice I had taken from Griswald, it was this: if you are a professor, always have an escape route . . . from your students. I wasn’t sure exactly where we were running to, but there was one certainty: I was not going to be showing up to my office hours today.

  Chapter 5

  Exit, Stage Right

  We took off across campus like characters in a cartoon, which is to say quickly, but to no great effect. Imagine Scooby and Shaggy sprinting back and forth across a hall through doors running everywhere, but getting nowhere. This was partly because I couldn’t figure out where to take Sam and Ariella that would be safe, but it it didn’t help that it was the first beautiful day in weeks. If you have ever attempted to get somewhere fast on a university campus when classes are in session, and the sun is out and the sky is blue and the temperature is pleasant, then you know what futility is.

  It seemed like the entire Mysterium student body, not to mention all their individual bodies, were sprawled or sitting or standing or playing or eating everywhere I wanted to go. Magical resin bags and fazediscs (both visible and invisible) were as thick in the air as bees, and so were impromptu jam sessions and drum circles, and the odd (and I mean very odd) theatrical performances. Seeing a group of orcs and ogres recreate the death scene in Hamlet (or at least their translation of it) through interpretive dance would make anyone reevaluate their appreciation of the arts. Several of the quads were filled with students protesting some policy, or celebrating some cause. Other quads had been transformed into open-air markets selling cheap shirts, homemade jewelry, and posters with humorous riffs on classical magic texts. Like the poster made to look like a classified ad: seeking one ring to rule them all (must be into voyeurism and bondage). Or: voldemort’s top ten places not to hide your soul that includes the classic: in the dude you really, really want to kill. Or the slogan, avery lives! in bright red letters.

  Sam and Ariella nearly collided with me as I skidded to a stop in front of the booth. Harold, who had been clinging to my back like Yoda on a training run, dug into my shoulder with his needle-sharp claws to keep from flying off.

  “Ow! Dammit, let go,” I yelped.

  “What’s going on?” “What is it?” “Are we under attack?” Sam and Ariella asked in an alternating and rapid-fire fashion.

  I pointed at the poster and simultaneously tried to detach Harold’s claws from my body. It was your standard dorm room movie poster—27” x 41”—but instead of references to Zelazny or LeGuin or Tolkien or Rowling, it had a picture of the bench by the jogging path at the edge of campus that led to Trelari. On the bench, someone had painted avery lives!

  “Well, of course you’re alive,” Ariella said with typical elven disdain.

  It took Sam a few seconds before he caught on. “Wait, that’s about you? You’re famous!”

  I immediately clamped a hand over his mouth and pulled them into a run. While the poster was a bit of a shock—okay, more like a heart attack inducing shock—it might have been a blessing in disguise. It made me realize that my office—the place I’d been heading toward in my mad dash—was the first place Moregoth would look. As long as Sam and Ariella were on campus, he would find them. I needed to get them out of Mysterium altogether, and there was only one place in the entire multiverse where they would be safe: Trelari.

  We’d been jogging for a while when Ariella asked, “Haven’t we already been this way?”

  “Yes,” I wheezed, sounding a lot like Harold, who was huffing into my ear like a steam engine, even though so far I’d been doin
g all the running.

  “Well, where are we going?” Ariella pressed.

  “This way . . .”

  “But why?”

  “No more . . . no more . . . questions,” I said between gulped breaths.

  She ignored me and continued to rattle off a number of logical questions. Why were we running? Where were we running? Who were we running from? I didn’t answer. Not because I didn’t have answers to give, although I was fuzzy on a number of points, but because there was a stabbing pain in my side so intense I couldn’t physically form words.

  Before we go any further, I need to confess something. My time in New York may not have been the most active. As Dawn mentioned, I had spent a lot of time on the couch watching television. I had put on a layer of very professorial pudge over the last few months, something Eldrin never failed to point out. Among the many things that make elves so annoying is that they can apparently eat anything they want without ever gaining an ounce. Don’t believe me? I defy you to think of a single example of a fat elf, and no, Santa Claus doesn’t count. The song might say he’s a “right jolly old elf,” but it’s being allegorical, not literal. The fact of the matter is all the elves of legend are skinny, even though their primary source of food seems to be a kind of sweet cake. In my opinion, and I think there are a lot of you that will agree, there is nothing more irritating than someone that can eat loads of carbs without consequence.

  Anyway, to be perfectly honest, I looked a bit of a mess. In addition to my overall conditioning, or lack thereof, I’d not been sleeping well, but then you probably guessed that from the fact that I had been spending so much time in a coffee shop. I had deep, dark circles under my eyes that made me look like a raccoon, or a student on the last day of finals. I was also trying to grow a beard, that being the sort of thing I thought I should do as a professor. It was not coming in very well. Where it had grown at all it was patchy and scratchy, and made me look less like a professor and more like a poorly groomed werewolf, or a student on the last day of finals.