Two
They both appeared instantaneously in their first class of the day. Someone teleporting him always left him out of sorts. It felt like your entire body had been ripped to tiny little pieces, flung across the town, and then reassembled on the other side. He tried to gather himself as the other kids started blinking into class one by one. The classroom had no door and only one window. It was on the thirteenth floor of the school, and Duncan would have normally had to climb a rope he’d had Marissa install outside the massive spire that was the magic school. He had to climb to every class, and enter through windows, since there were no stairs in the building. Like his house before he was born, most magical people simply had no use for the antiquated additions. Why use stairs when you could simply blink your eyes and appear where you wanted?
The room was a mix of old maps, drawings of animals that hadn’t existed in a thousand years, and stacks of big, leather-bound books. He’d read all of them, at one point or another, and most had to do with the history of magic in the world. The history of the Magicians since the last war fascinated him, but he’d always wondered what happened to the people who came before them. None of the books covered the subject, and when he asked, his questions were usually swept to the side. Who cared what happened to those before? They were gone. It was a source of great mystery to Duncan because the people who came before the Magicians were like him, without magic.
Timmy blinked in next to him, looked at his hands, and grinned maliciously.
“You could have at cleaned your hands, Duncan. Or…how do you call it? Wash them? With water or whatever?” The other kids around them, used to their own clean spells, everything from soaping to magically brushing their teeth, laughed with him. Magicians didn’t bathe with water. They simply spelled themselves clean.
“I see you got the burn off,” Duncan said. “Too bad. You looked good burnt to a crisp.”
The other kids didn’t laugh but instead moved back, knowing the eventual outcome of Duncan standing up for himself to Timmy. It was the same every time, without fail, and had been since their first year in the magic school. Timmy would taunt, Duncan would respond, and then Timmy would turn him into a pig or a dog, or, once, even a horse. Then Duncan would wander around the school the rest of the day until someone felt badly enough for him to turn him back. Duncan steeled himself, preparing to become, well, something else. Maybe Timmy would turn him into a bird and he could fly away from all this. That appealed to him, the more he thought about it. He could fly out of New Dallas and into the Wastes, exploring and flying the days away. He liked the idea so much that gliders were a big project of his, but a project like many of his other ones that didn’t quite go anywhere.
“Stop it, Timmy,” Marissa said, stepping between the two boys.
“I’m not scared of you, Marissa,” the boy told her.
“Yes, you are,” Marissa said. “You know that my magic is not just stronger than yours, it’s better. There is no spell you can cast on me, no enchantment you can create, that I can’t break. You can’t beat me.”
Timmy was, of course, scared of his sister and everyone knew it. Some of the kids giggled at the back of the room, watching Timmy squirm uncomfortably.
“I can handle this, Marissa,” Duncan said, trying to interrupt the conversation. He knew the taunts he’d endure later when the other kids started picking on him for Marissa standing up for him once again.
One more person blinked into the room and everyone turned to see their teacher, Mr. Falcon, in his long gray robe staring back at them. “Good, class. I see that you’re all here. And even you, Mr. Cade, are here on time. That has to be a first.”
“Didn’t climb the rope, sir.”
“Good, good. There’s hope for you yet. Now if you’ll all take your seats.”
The tension instantly broken by the teacher’s arrival, the class mulled about for a few seconds and then took their seats. Mr. Falcon was a short, squatty man who obviously thought that body improvement spells were a great waste of time. He didn’t even bother trimming his long black and gray beard, and the whole appearance was a bit odd for Magicians. They were constantly modifying how they looked with one enchantment or another, magically losing weight, changing their hairstyle, or even becoming the opposite sex. A Magician could be what he desired, and that the old man chose his natural appearance never failed to stump Duncan. The man loved history, however, and it was one of the few classes that Duncan actually enjoyed. It required no magic to pass, no inventiveness on his part to figure out a way around magic. All it required was reading and learning. Most of the kids didn’t read, instead enchanting their books to read to them, and he knew that besides himself and Mr. Falcon, Marissa was the only other one in the room that could actually read the books. The other kids had no idea what the letters and words meant without their magic to read for them, and that fact made him sad. There was so much to be learned in these few books.
“Today, class, we talk about the Last War, when our kind brought peace to the world. The war itself has many names, depending on what part of the world you’re in. Some call it the Great War or the War to End all Wars. Others called it World War 5, though there are no histories remaining of the first four World Wars. Others call it the War of Magic, and in that, they would be right. It was the war to bring Magic to the people and stop, once and for all, the oppression our kind received at the hands of the non-magical.”
Duncan stirred uncomfortably in his seat, trying not to meet the gazes of his fellow classmates. He knew they blamed him for events thousands of years old, knew that he was the epitome of every mother’s story to her children about the bad humans coming to get them. He knew every time someone whispered about the non-magical monsters in the Wastes they thought of Duncan. He didn’t have to hear the lesson; he knew the history of the Last War from reading Mr. Falcon’s vast collection of books. Most Magicians claimed their kind had always been around, hiding in the shadows and hunted by mankind, misunderstood and persecuted. But the magic had not grown on a worldwide level until Jeremiah Fredrick, the man some called the First Magician, stepped into the light in order to protect what was left of the world from the ravages of pollution and war. Jeremiah Fredrick was the Magician’s savior, and the savior of the world.
Why the magical had never fought back or hid before Fredrick was still a mystery, even a thousand years later, and what it had finally taken to set them on that path to War was an even bigger mystery. The histories from that bloody time were mostly lost. What they knew had been laid down many years after the war by the survivors, and the human records were completely gone. All that remained after the human generations of war and destruction and the Last War were the few remaining magical cities and the continent of New Atlantis, the Magician’s homeland that had been raised from the very waters of the Atlantic Ocean by Jeremiah Fredrick himself. There were hundreds of cities around the destroyed planet, protected and powered by Magic. Only the Wastelands, vast expanses of dead earth where nothing lived, surrounded them.
“And one day we’ll fix it all, class. We will restore the Earth to its former glory, before the humans destroyed it all,” Mr. Falcon continued. Duncan hadn’t even heard most of the lecture, lost in his own thoughts about the old world. “The memory of Jeremiah Fredrick demands it of us. He did not protect us from the humans and stop the destruction of this world so we could hide in our cities, enjoying the spoils of our Magic, and not rebuild the planet.”
Mr. Falcon was a member of the Restorers, an organization that insisted the Magical fix the world outside the cities. Every year they gathered in great parties to make plans on what they’d fix first—restoring the great jungles of the Southern Continent, or maybe the animal herds that used to roam the Northern Land. Their parties were always fabulous and the most important and wealthiest people in New Dallas attended them. There were always great speeches and every year they agreed that they would start soon.
And every year they did nothing.
> People ventured between the cities, but only by teleportation. No one went into the Wastes and, as far as Duncan knew, no one had since their kind retreated into the Cities after the Last War had finished ravaging the planet. They were taught that nothing lived in the Wastes now, and that the land was not just uninhabitable but dangerous to be near.
The class applauded appropriately, Duncan included. He wished they would restore the old world, if for no other reason than so he could escape the realm of Magic. He dreamt of a world like his garden, only a million times bigger. He dreamed of exploring his life away, never having to climb a rope because there weren’t stairs, never having to figure out how to pass a coloring test without touching the colors. He dreamed of being free. He didn’t hear the rest of the lecture, lost in his own thoughts of what the world, a world filled with people like him, had been like.
“Duncan?” Marissa asked, shaking his shoulder. “Are you all right?”
“I will be one day.”
“Come on,” she told him. “We have to get moving or we’re going to be late for Dr. Felix’s lecture on the proper construction of Golems.”
“Wonderful,” Duncan said, a shiver running down his spine.
Golems gave him the creeps.
Dr. Felix was the polar opposite of Mr. Falcon. He was tall and thin and dressed immaculately. He’d obviously spent a lot of time considering body-sculpting spells. He was well muscled, but not overly so, and his suit hung at exactly the right angles around him. His hair was immaculately cut and there wasn’t an ounce of gray anywhere in it, despite his obvious age. Even his walk produced a sense of style.
“Good morning, class,” Dr. Felix began, “and Duncan. How are you this morning?”
Duncan tried not to groan loud enough to be heard. Dr. Felix did not believe he had any place in Magic School and made no bones about making that belief known. He’d let quite a vocal campaign against Duncan’s admittance since he’d started on the first floor of the eighteen-story Magic School. Duncan actually agreed with the Doctor. He felt that the time he spent in a school learning the basics of Magic was useless when he would never be able to perform the Magic. It was a waste of his personal time and resources—resources that could be better spent preparing for a time when he’d have to strike out on his own. No, it wasn’t that he disagreed with Dr. Felix at all; it was how the man went about making his beliefs known, never failing to paint Duncan as some sort of less worthy being, only a few steps above the Golems they were about to study.
“Today we’ll learn about Golems, the proper technique to summon them and the proper way to control them.”
Timmy interrupted. “Why are we learning that, Doctor? We can’t legally summon Golems until we’re twenty.”
“Despite the rude interruption, Mr. Toole, you are making a valid point. Why study the creation and control of Golems before you are allowed to do so? The basic reason, class, is that Golem magic is so new, so volatile, that you have to start learning it well before you have to actually use it. It takes years to learn the proper enchantments for Golem use. It takes years of practice just to be able to summon one of the lifeless creatures.”
The history of the Golems was shrouded in mystery. The first had appeared just a few years back, summoned accidentally in Dr. Felix’s very own class. The story went that the class was trying to breathe life into a wooden man, a worker to perform the menial tasks that were currently performed by magic. People couldn’t be troubled to dispose of their own garbage, or to carry off their own waste. And while it was easier to cast a spell to paint a house or clean the street, it was just as simple to enchant a Golem to do it instead. And the Golem, once enchanted, didn’t need further magic to maintain it. And though no one would discuss it, Duncan knew that one of the reasons was the fading of the magic. People, fearing their magic was failing, simply didn’t want to waste it on the mundane.
Instead of animating the wooden man, though, the story went that it instead turned into the flesh and blood Golem. It had no life of its own, however, no will, no desires. Golems didn’t talk, didn’t complain, didn’t tire. When they could be controlled, they were the perfect worker. Supposedly, that first Golem had went on a rampage in the class like a feral animal, and it was only Dr. Felix’s quick thinking lightning bolt that had stopped it.
Or so the story went. Duncan didn’t know anyone that had actually been in that class and didn’t know did.
Now the Golems were everywhere. Duncan hated the one his family owned. They called the big, hulking Golem Steve. Steve was always around, sweeping, cleaning, and taking out the garbage. Duncan knew that Steve wasn’t really alive, not in the way they were, but he still thought it was cruel to keep the creature as a slave. The Golems looked just like men and women, and were equally as diverse in their appearance. There were male Golems, female Golems, even the occasional child Golem. Some had long hair, some short, some were tall and some were not. They looked real until you stared into their cold, dead, and lifeless eyes. He avoided the things wherever he could throughout the city of New Dallas like they were the proverbial plague.
“Golems are our perfect worker,” Dr. Felix continued. “They perform flawlessly when enchanted correctly. It’s when they are not enchanted correctly that they can become a problem. There have been incidents of destructive Golems, feral beasts bent only on destruction. Interestingly enough, they are the only Golems that ever demonstrate any sort of emotion. So that is why you’re trained, starting now, to properly maintain the Golem that you will no doubt, as adults, create.”
“They look so real,” Marissa said. “The one in our home…she looks like a girl about our age.”
“Of course they look real, but they are not real, Miss Toole, not in the sense that we are. While they have all the same organs and constructions that we do, they are no more like us than the humans we defeated a thousand years ago.” He looked directly at Duncan. “They are just as soulless as those old humans. They are mere constructs, flesh and bone, yes, but without emotion. They feel nothing. Their resemblance to us is by design, I assure you. The conjured beasts are made to resemble us so that they fit into our world. You don’t very well want Ork Golems, do you?”
Duncan felt the class shiver collectively. The foul Orks were among the various magical creatures created during the Last War to battle the humans and were, under no circumstances, allowed in the cities. They were born to be especially destructive, and though not a single one of the kids had ever seen one, they’d all seen images of the monsters in memory stones. Duncan remembered a documentary showing the Orks at war with each other. They were immune to pain, and even if you cut both their arms off, along with their legs, they would find a way to keep coming at you. The last remaining Ork tribes lived high in the mountains of New Atlantis where they were in a constant state of warfare with each other.
“They are still pretty creepy,” Marissa commented, and many of the kids in the class agreed with her. “Even if they aren’t Orks. Their eyes…”
She didn’t have to finish the statement; the whole class knew what she was talking about. A Golem’s eyes were the first sign that you weren’t dealing with a true person. They were gray and lifeless, with no pupils to speak of.
“And you can, should that bother you enough, enchant them to have eyes that aren’t, as you say, creepy,” Dr. Felix said. “But like the mundane purposes we create Golems for, that’s a waste of magic. So, class, we have an exercise today. We will enchant and control a Golem and make it perform a menial task…” He looked around for something for their Golem to do.” Such as cleaning the chalkboard. Yes, that will do.” Dr. Felix rubbed his neatly trimmed beard. “That will work.”
“But, Dr. Felix,” another student asked, “shouldn’t we summon a Golem first?”
“I think we have a suitable subject,” Felix responded, looking directly at Duncan. “You would volunteer, would you not, Duncan?”
Duncan stirred uncomfortably in his chair, but didn’t answer.
/>
“You will, of course, pass this class should you decide to participate. I have no desire to see you another year, and this is something you can do to fulfill your obligations to this class. The magic is perfectly harmless, and, because you do not possess magic, you will be affected just as a Golem would.”
“Don’t do it, Duncan,” Marissa whispered. “You don’t have to.”
Timmy interrupted. “What, are you scared?”
Duncan was scared, even more so than any of them could imagine, but he didn’t want to admit it. Being a lifeless Golem was about the worst thing he could possibly imagine. Controlled by another person, unable to exercise any free will…he simply couldn’t fathom what that would be like. He didn’t want to do it, but to actually pass Dr. Felix’s class…to be done with the teacher who hated him…it was too big a temptation to pass up.
“I’ll do it,” Duncan said somewhat hesitantly.
“Good,” Felix said, clapping his hands together. “Now…if you’ll just come to the front of the class.”
The class was silent as Duncan stood and walked to the front of the class. His arms were trembling and he was sweating so much his shirt was soaked. He kept telling himself that he would be fine, and even better, he’d pass, but he could barely take a step.
“This will only work on Duncan, class, since he is non-magical. Thankfully, these Golem enchantments will not work on our kind. Can you imagine what chaos there would be if you could maliciously enchant your fellow Magician?”
“No one would do that,” Timmy said. “We aren’t the old humans. We don’t fight each other like that, and we don’t hurt each other.”
Dr. Felix laughed. “While we are different, our base emotions are the same as our ancestors. There is still fear and greed, love and hate. Our main safety net, against these most basic of human emotions, is that we want for nothing. Anything we desire, we can create, and one Magician’s power is generally leveled out by the power of another. But if a real person…” again he looked directly at Duncan, and the boy understood the implications of real, “…could enchant another to bend to his will, then we would have just the same chaos that the humans had for the first few thousand years of their history. No class, trust me, it is best that the magic will inherently not work on those with a soul.”
Duncan was too scared to get the full implications of what Dr, Felix was saying. That the man was implying he didn’t have a soul didn’t scare him as much as what was about to happen.
“All right, class, now, if you’ll open your text books to page fifty-seven and have your personal reading spells read the incantations to you, we’ll begin.”
Duncan trembled more as he felt the enchantment begin to wash over him. His body felt numb and he couldn’t wiggle his toes or move his fingers. He felt his mind drifting away, though he could still see through his eyes, smell through his nose, and taste though his mouth. It was like seeing down a long hallway, though, and besides the tinny pinprick of light at the other end, he was immersed in total darkness. He could hear the other children laughing as his body began to scrub the chalkboard and hear Marissa asking him if he was all right, but he felt like he was watching the whole thing on a memory stone, disconnected. He could even feel his hands moving, though not of his own will. He was absolutely helpless and tried to scream, but nothing came out.
He drifted further away from the classroom, the image of the chalkboard becoming tinier as if he were backing down a long tunnel. The further his mind reached from the classroom, the darker it got, and the darkness was formless. There was no floor that his other mind’s self was standing on, no walls to reach out and touch. He tried to scream, to tell Dr. Felix that he didn’t care if he passed the class, that he just wanted this to be over with, but there were no sounds coming from his physical mouth. There was no sensation of speech, no feeling of his jaws moving. There was, however, something else in the darkness with him, maybe multiple somethings, but they were just as formless as the void. They were there, though, and he could sense their agony. They were lost and frightened, together in the void but alone at the same time.
The contact with his physical body faded and he began to hear voices in the void.
“Help me.”
“Please…it’s so dark.”
“I’m cold, so cold.”
The voices had to be aware of each other, as he was of them, yet they didn’t talk to each other. Each was in their own world of pain and fear, each alone in the void of darkness. The classroom’s light was a pinprick, a tiny dot in the darkness like the night sky with only one star shining. Duncan wanted to cry, not just for himself, but for them, but he couldn’t feel his face. He couldn’t feel anything but their pain and fear as it washed over him like a waterfall.
He tried moving in the Void, tried getting his legs to do something, and became aware of the separation of his mind’s body and his physical body. They were two separate things. As he lost the last vestige of contact with his physical body, he felt his mind’s form more and more. It didn’t feel like he was standing on anything, but it also didn’t feel like he was floating. He was just there, in the darkness, surrounded by other formless people who were nothing more than voices in the darkness.
“Hello?” he asked tentatively, finding that his mind’s voice, like that in a dream, was distant, and it didn’t feel like it came from his own mouth.
“Hello?” another answered. “Can you hear me? Can you help me?”
The voices began chattering loudly, as if the addition of his voice were the catalyst. The din rose to a roar and he wished he had hands to cover his ears. The voices that he could make out were begging him, pleading with him to help them.
“Please,” a man’s voice called out, “can we leave stasis yet? Please can you let us out? We had to have won by now.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Duncan cried out. “I don’t know who you are or where I am.”
The voices grew even louder like a torrent of sound racing through his mind. He stood there, while not actually standing, helpless to do anything to help not only himself but the other people in the Void.