The Dwarves of Whiskey Island

SURPRISINGLY, ONE PHONE CALL got me a meeting with the Chief Operations Officer of Magetech. It was unexpected enough that I had to reorder my whole day to fit in the sudden appointment. When I called to reschedule with members of Mazurich’s staff, most of them sounded relieved.

Magetech was housed in a cluster of office buildings sheathed in mirrored glass. Even before I reached the parking lot, I could tell there was something unusual going on here. If you looked at the right angle, you could see something else in the mirror, something dark that traced glyphs and symbols that barely registered in the conscious mind.

The wards, if that’s what they were, seemed only to register on my peripheral vision, and when I tried to look at them directly, my eyes hurt and I felt something between paranoia and dread.

One of the annoying things about the world post-Portal was the fact you couldn’t readily dismiss sensations like that. The sense that this was not a good place might actually have a concrete source outside my own subconscious.

I pulled up and into the visitor parking area, feeling the uncharacteristic hope that this was a wild goose chase. As I stepped out of the car, I pulled my jacket close against the chill in the air. I walked up to the building, under a logo hovering in midair, and into a cavernous neo-industrial lobby: a few cubic acres of glass, exposed steel, and ductwork. Everything had been polished, so that even the rivets in the exposed girders gleamed.

Display cases lined the polished granite floor between the lobby doors and the reception desk. Floating in rune-carved Lexan cubes were artifacts of Magetech’s R&D efforts. The objects were all pretty mundane and wouldn’t have made much of an impression on someone who wasn’t a Cleveland native; PDAs, cell phones, laptop computers, televisions, radios, digital cameras . . . so what?

The “so what” was the Portal. The mana flowing out from the world next door caused interference, severe interference, in every type of recording and communication media known to man. Magetech was jump-started by being the first to patent ways to correct for the problem. Because of that, Magetech got a piece of nearly every electronic device sold in Northeast Ohio.

I walked up to the reception desk. It was staffed by a woman who looked like a cross between a librarian and one of the nastier guards at a women’s prison. She looked at me over the top of her glasses.

I turned and faced the Chief Operations Officer of Magetech. He was taller than I expected, and balder. There wasn’t a lick of hair on his naked skull, and he was almost elven in his height and the way he moved. He held out a long-fingered hand and I shook it.

He nodded and looked toward the receptionist. “I apologize, Nora. Last minute addition.”

Lucas led me past the reception desk, past a few corridors, and to a bank of elevators. “Nice setup you have here.”

“These are just the corporate offices,” Lucas said as he pressed the up button. “The heart of the operation is in Solon.”

The interior of the elevator was all chrome and mirrors, and I again got the headache-inducing sense of seeing something out of the corner of my eye. As if something was written underneath the reflections, something old, arcane, and evil . . .

I realized I was rubbing my temple and I lowered my hand. “I’m fine. But I am correct? This is where operations started for you?”

To my relief, the doors slid open. It was all I could do to avoid racing Lucas for the exit. Outside the elevator, there was a plush lobby where a glass wall opposite us looked out over the shorter buildings of Magetech corporate headquarters. Beyond that sat the rest of the Kucinich Technology Park, backed up by the Cleveland skyline.

The sky was clear enough that I could even see the cylindrical clouds marking the static weather front above the Portal itself.

I followed him down a corridor dotted with portraits, most dwarven. I took out my notebook and jotted down names as I followed Lucas. No titles were provided, but I suspected I was looking at the founding members of Magetech.

Two of the portraits were of humans. The first, little surprise, was of Councilman Mazurich with tie uncharacteristically straight. The second was a man I wasn’t familiar with at all. I suspected that meant that he wasn’t a politician. The name on the engraved plaque was “Dr. Eric Pretorious.”

Lucas stood by an open door, waiting for me. I stepped away from Dr. Pretorious and into Lucas’ office. “So how did you come to be part of Magetech?”

“I do not work for that kind of recognition.” He held out a hand toward a chair at a large oval conference table. “Have a seat.”

The office was impressive, almost the size of the lobby downstairs. Two walls were glass, looking out at the Cleveland skyline, and everything was appointed in black-lacquered hardwood, chrome, and leather. It made me wonder what the CEO’s office was like.

“You are here to talk about our history,” Lucas said as he walked around me to fold himself into another chair across the table.

I held my notebook in front of me and nodded. “I’m doing a story about Councilman Mazurich’s influence on the city.”

At first, I thought Lucas misspoke. However, he didn’t strike me as one to make a casual slip of the tongue. He was very controlled. It made me think of what Teaghue Parthalán said, “A soul like Mazurich should have an epic written to him.”

Lucas leaned back. “Impressive efforts they were. He did much to create their world on this side of the Portal.”

“Yes, the councilman was instrumental. He brought all the initial people together, including myself. He was adept at recognizing a problem, and seeing who might have potential solutions.”

“Our first viable product was a police radio and a walkie-talkie for the National Guard. Those first government contracts were the seed money that allowed all of this to happen.”

I rubbed my forehead. The phrase “government contract” clicked one of the journalistic circuit breakers in my brain. “Was Mazurich involved in getting Magetech that kind of business?”

Politicians, especially at the city and county level, were always open to the charge of conflict of interest. It would be hard to find a local official who didn’t have an incestuous relationship with local business. That was the nature of the beast. As long as the politician in question wasn’t directly involved in the decision to award largesse, there wasn’t anything criminal to it.

But there’s something called, “the appearance of impropriety.” And, of course, it’s the job of every corporate hack and politician to keep that “appearance” minimal.

I looked up from my notes, “Are you saying that the councilman helped steer contracts toward Magetech?”

Lucas smiled. The grin was predatory, and disturbing. As if Hieronymus Bosch did a hairless portrait of Jack Nicholson. Though the surreal appearance of Mr. Lucas might have had more to do with the office I found myself in. I got the continual sense of something trying to pry itself into my skull.

“Mr. Maxwell, the councilman did everything in his power to help our enterprise . . . Are you feeling all right, Mr. Maxwell?”

It was the damn reflections again. With all the lacquer and chrome in the office, wherever I looked, evil gibberish tried to drill itself into my eye sockets. “I’m fine . . .” I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths. “Did he benefit financially from those contracts?”

“Mr. Maxwell.” Mr.Lucas steepled his too long fingers. “I assumed you realized he was part owner of this company.”

He was still smiling. I couldn’t read him at all. He had to know that he was dangling red meat for a political reporter like me. Mazurich was not just a corporate kingmaker, bringing all the principals together, brokering the deals that formed Magetech.

Lucas had just told me that he was a principal investor, and benefited personally from city contracts with the new company.

“Mr. Lucas, are you saying . . . ?” I sucked in a breath and looked down. I was getting a deep sense of vertigo.

“Yes, he did.” I heard water pouring over ice. “It was a different time, and Magetech was the only company available to do what needed to be done. As I said, he recognized a problem, and found solutions.”

My brain was swirling inside my head. He’s just told me that our late council president was profiteering off the chaos from the Portal.

I nodded, weak and light-headed, the claws of a migraine just beginning to bite into my forebrain. “How much . . . ?” I couldn’t actually complete the sentence. I closed my eyes, knowing that this wasn’t right, that nothing about this was right.

Lucas asked for me, his voice low and breathy. “How much is his portion of Magetech worth?”

I looked down into the icy water and saw a skull in the ice, laughing at me. The glass slid from my hand and, while I remember hearing a shattering noise, I don’t think I ever saw it hit the ground.