FOR A MOMENT, FORT JUST lay in the middle of the kitchen as the smoke from the book of Mind magic dissipated. Apparently it really had been destroyed, then. Whatever was happening to Sierra, she must have been pulled away before she could make the illusion.
Sierra? he thought. I’m sorry. I hope you’re okay?
Again, there was no response, and Fort slowly sat up, grabbing the book of Summoning before it fell to the floor. He checked to see if Dr. Opps’s phone was still there and had any updates, but there was no sign of it, so Rachel must have taken it with her.
Rachel, whom he’d completely betrayed. Not to mention that Jia and Cyrus had heard the same things Rachel had. He’d effectively lost every friend he’d made at the Oppenheimer School, all in one night.
Even after all of that, though, Rachel had left him the book. For someone who’d attacked Fort when she’d just overheard Dr. Opps saying he was a danger to the school, leaving him the book was a sign of how much she trusted him.
Or had trusted him.
He groaned again, then turned to the book lying in the middle of a dusty kitchen floor, the book he’d given up everything he’d cared about just for this moment.
The Magic of Summoning, and Creating Gateways to Other Realities.
Even with everything he’d been through, Fort couldn’t help a chill going down his spine at having the book in his hands after all this time. In a matter of moments, he’d be off to the monsters’ dimension, and if everything went well, he might be back with his dad within hours. And maybe his friends would see that it’d all been worth it when he returned with his dad, safe and sound?
Probably not, but stranger things had happened.
But hadn’t he been right not to tell them? Rachel had admitted she would have come, and then he’d have been putting her in danger. And look what had happened with Sierra, when Colonel Charles had caught her in his trap. That was even in friendly territory, not some dimension of horror! He couldn’t imagine the terrible things that might have happened to his friends in the creatures’ homeworld if they’d come along.
No. He’d do this on his own, and keep his friends as safe as possible, whether they hated him for it or not.
“I’m coming, Dad,” he whispered. His hands trembling, Fort slowly opened the book, mentally readying himself for the monsters’ home domain. He took a deep breath, then read over the first page.
One for the body, bones and skin,
One for the spirit, its spectral kin,
One for the mind, thoughts and dreams,
One for the world, from dirt to streams,
One for all space, wide and vast,
One for all time, future and past.
Seven from six, the rest unearthed.
One saves all, if proved their worth.
Oh, right. The opening page was the same in all the books of magic. Fort had seen those words back when he’d first arrived at the original Oppenheimer School. Dr. Opps had taken him to be tested on which form of magic he had more natural talent with, Destruction or Healing. At the time, he’d had no idea what the poem meant, but now the words took on a different meaning.
“One for the body, bones and skin” had to be talking about Healing magic. The mind line was telepathy, and time probably referred to Clairvoyance, the magic that Cyrus had studied. So had a bunch of other students, but Cyrus was the only one to not go insane doing so. Fort shivered at the very thought of what that school must be like now.
The other lines, though, he wasn’t quite sure about. Destruction had a spell to control the ground, which had dirt and streams in it, so maybe that was the one about the world? Which left only spirit and space. Summoning had to be space, which sort of made sense… Summoning opened portals to other dimensions, which was like crossing through space. Not that Fort understood how in any way.
So what was the line about spirit referring to?
He was getting distracted. The poem didn’t matter, not while his father was waiting.
His heart beating faster with anticipation, Fort turned the page, ready to absorb the Summoning magic spell to create a portal to another world. He took a deep breath, then read the words for the first spell:
Teleport Within the Same Plane.
A horrifying sinking feeling turned Fort’s stomach over, and he shook his head, quickly turning to the next page, which was blank.
No. No! The next page was also blank, and the following one, and the rest of the book. Fear closed around his heart, and he quickly turned back to the first page and read over the first spell.
When an object must pass between nonadjacent spaces, yet still within the same reality/probability time line, a teleportation circle can be opened, connecting those two spaces.
NO! Teleportation, not dimensional travel?! Within the same reality, it said.
“No, no, no, no, no, no,” Fort whispered, shaking his head, staring at the words on the page before him. Something began bubbling up inside him, and he wasn’t sure if he was going to laugh or cry or just set the book on fire. “No. No! NO!”
Suddenly he couldn’t even think past his rage, and he threw the book as hard as he could straight at the nearby kitchen cabinets. The crash as it hit was so loud that someone might have heard it, but Fort didn’t care. He slammed his fists down on the floor until pain shot through his hands, then bent over and curled up over his knees, holding his head down as he screamed into the floor.
The first spell wasn’t the one he needed, and to get to the next one… he’d need to master the Teleport spell. After everything he’d done, he couldn’t even get to his father. Mastering teleportation would take days, maybe even a week, time he didn’t have, time his father didn’t have!
He could feel it all slipping away from him, and his anger faded, pushed out of the way by a deep, devastating despair, one that sank all the way to his core.
He’d lied to and betrayed his friends. Sierra might have just gotten caught by TDA agents because of him. And all Fort had gotten out of it was a teleportation spell, leaving his father still beyond reach.
Teleportation magic? he could hear his father saying. Why, you could go anywhere, see anything with that spell! That’s maybe the most amazing magic I’ve ever heard of!
Except it wasn’t, because it couldn’t do the one thing Fort needed it to do.
“Stop it,” he whispered to himself, digging his nails into his palms. This wasn’t helping, this wallowing. Yes, things were awful and terrible, but he still had the book, and more spells would come after he mastered Teleport. And he knew the right spell was in there somewhere, because Damian had used it to bring the monsters here in the first place.
It would mean at least a week of practice. But maybe the portal spell would be the second one. Or worst case, the third. He’d already waited two weeks just to get the book. He could survive three more.
More weeks while his father suffered who knew what—
Stop! he shouted in his mind. Focus. That doesn’t help. You need to master this spell as quickly as you can, not worry about what’s out of your control for now.
He quickly stood up and grabbed the book from where it lay on one of the counters, opening it back to the teleportation spell again. This time, he read the description, just in case there was anything he’d missed.
When an object must pass between nonadjacent spaces, yet still within the same reality/probability time line, a teleportation circle can be opened, connecting those two spaces.
Though true magicians know that space is a false equivalency, and everything lies within our own reach, to convince the cosmos of this, one must first bring to mind one’s destination location and merge it to your starting point.
Even through his roller coaster of feelings, Fort’s eyes started to glaze over at the text, completely unable to concentrate enough to figure out what it was trying to say. The Healing book’s language had been nice and simple; why couldn’t whoever had written the Summoning one spell things out in plain English? Or whatever magical language this actually was?
Please note, it continued. Distance can only be traversed when the mind accepts that reality is naught but a figment of our imagination, and what we see as separated can never truly be.
“Ugh, get to the point!” Fort hissed, scanning down to the bottom of the page:
A portal shall open, bridging the distance like a termite eats through wood, and remain open until such time that the magician desires it to no longer exist. Please do not leave your various teleportation circles open, as it may create hazards to indigenous life.
All right, see, that he needed to know! If he made a teleportation circle, it’d stay open until he canceled it. Fair enough. Now all he needed were the spell words…
Something began to glow at the bottom of the page, and when he looked closer, two words filled his mind, followed by a flood of energy he hadn’t felt in weeks.
Gen urre’plat. The words to the teleportation spell.
Weirdly, the magic didn’t feel the same as when he’d learned Healing spells. That energy had felt cold, whereas the Summoning magic almost made him itchy, like he wanted to jump out of his skin.
That didn’t matter, though. He’d take some itchiness if it’d help him master the spell faster. As it was, he’d still have to cast it a few thousand times to master it. And then, finally, he might get to a spell to open a portal and save his father.
There was no time to waste, either way.
“Gen urre’plat,” he said, bringing to mind the first place he could think of and opening a teleportation circle there on the wall of the kitchen.
That same itchy energy filled his hands, making them glow a strange green color, which matched the circle of energy that appeared on the wall, a tiny circle no bigger than his hand. He concentrated on increasing the circle’s size, and it widened to about the size of his torso, letting a frigid wind into the room, making Fort’s teeth chatter.
He stepped closer, then slowly stuck his head through the hole and found himself staring out of the very top of the Empire State Building in New York.
For just a moment, all of the anger and worry were put aside, and Fort actually found himself staring in wonder at the lights of the city spread out below him, as the high winds a thousand feet in the air buffeted his face.
His father was right. This spell was pretty amazing.
And soon, he’d show his dad in person.