Magi Saga 1: Epic Calling (29 page)

‘Right, we’re ready. Ben, come and help me with the Artefact,’ Steph said, and they quickly disappeared.

Fran turned to Liz when they were out of the room. ‘Are you okay?’ She asked.

‘Yeah, I’m fine. A little worried perhaps, but nothing to be concerned about.’

‘As long as you’re sure.’

‘Yeah, I’m sure. Ben’s a little worried though. He told me.’

‘Really?’

Liz nodded.

‘So how are you two getting on then? Have you asked him out or anything?’

Liz flushed bright red and shook her head while her eyes dropped to the floor in embarrassment.

‘Oh Liz. Don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll ask you out one day soon,’ she said with concern.

Liz made a non-committal gesture with her head and shoulders.

There was movement then as the two guys re-entered the room, Steph carrying the Slab while Ben helped him out. A few tense seconds later and they had set the Artefact down on the Altar and Stephan breathed a sigh of relief.

‘There, all ready,’ he said. ‘Shall we get on then?’ He asked before he turned to the nearest book.

Over the course of the next few hours, the foursome tried everything they could think of to do to try and get some kind of effect out of the stone slab.

They had books filled with chants and spells that they worked their way through, calling out to the powers that be to give them some kind of sign that there was Magic in this thing somewhere.

They called to the elements and the watchtowers, they asked the gods and their servants and the powers of nature all around them. They pricked their fingers with the dagger Stephan had bought a few months ago from the local new age shop and dripped blood into a cup, using it to make a potion that they used to try and get a reaction out the stone when they dripped some of it onto one corner.

They tried Yoga and mind control and even Christian chants, but nothing had happened, no lights, no movement, no pyrotechnics of any kind, and all they had to show for their efforts were sore bums, stiff legs and several bouts of pins and needles.

Coffee had been made a few times already, but their latest cups sat next to them cold and only partially drunk, they had made numerous trips to the bathroom throughout their time here.

They sat round the now rather pathetic looking Altar in silence after finishing their last idea for something to try, and now they all felt tired, annoyed and more than a little let down. Their hopes had been high, but they had long since been dashed on the rocks of failure.

Stephan sat cross legged with crossed arms and looked just generally cross to Liz as she looked over her friends and sister. Fran lay on her front, her head in her hands looking board while twirling a lock of hair round her finger and Ben sat with his back against a chair front, head back on the seat.

‘Arse!’

It was Stephan, he had taken to swearing at the stone slab this past hour, perhaps in the hope of getting a reaction out of it thought Liz.

‘Arse, arse, arse.’

Liz looked up at Stephan, her eyebrow raised in slight amusement.

‘Big fat smelly arses!’

‘Well, that’s it. We’ve tried everything…’ Fran said.

‘Feckin’ Arse.’

‘…and nothing seems to work,’ Fran finished.

‘I thought we might have had something with that Potion,’ Ben offered. ‘That’s a potent spell that one.’

‘Yup, but as with everything else, it did diddley squat didn’t it,’ Fran replied.

Ben brought his head forward off the chair and addressed Stephan. ‘So fearless leader, what’s next?’

Stephan looked up at Ben, his golden hair looking bedraggled and lank after the fruitless work they had been doing all afternoon. He shrugged bad temperedly and grunted something that sounded like ‘I dunno,’ but Liz couldn’t be sure

‘Well, what time are your parents back?’ Ben pursued.

Stephan stuck his bottom lip out and begrudgingly moved his head to look at the clock. ‘Not for a few hours yet.’

‘Okay, well I propose we get ourselves a pizza. I think we’ve earned it, what do you reckon?’ Ben suggested.

Stephan nodded, Fran also agreed, and when Ben looked at Liz, she smiled and nodded her assent as well. She felt hungry and a few slices of pizza would go down a treat right now.

‘We’d better clean this up then hey Steph,’ said Ben, gesturing at the occult instruments laid out before him.

‘Yeah, I suppose so,’ Stephan said, and picked up a bunch of books and handed them to Ben before picking a few up himself. ‘Would one of you take that blasted thing back into the office?’ he said back to the twins.

Looking for a way to help Liz thought she might do this, so she excitedly offered and picked up the stone. It was much heavier then she thought it would be, but she braced herself and finally lifted it up from the altar. ‘There, no worries, I’ll have it back in a jiffy,’ she said, and started across the room.

Steph and Ben stood at the other door in the living room and were talking with Fran before they headed upstairs as Liz headed to the office, but within a few steps Liz became aware that this slab of stone was much heavier then she had ever given it credit for and as she reached the doorway out the room, she winced as she knew she couldn’t hold on any more, and it fell from her grasp.

It had been only a couple of feet to the floor, but it felt like a mile as she watched the artefact fall, seemingly in slow motion.

She jerked her feet out from under it and let out a little yelp a fraction of a second before it hit, while her stomach did a back flip inside her.

There was an almighty smash of stone as the thing hit the ground and settled there, although Liz’s eyes were tightly closed, she could feel the eyes of her friends on her like hot coals as she stood there, elbows tucked in, hands raised, shoulders hunched and a grimace on her face.

She opened one eye and looked at each of her friends, they stood about eight foot away from her with chairs between them and Liz, meaning they couldn’t see what the effect of the fall had been on the slab, their faces identical expressions of shock, their mouths O’s, their eyes wide. Liz waited for the inevitable rant from Stephan while she glanced down at the slab.

‘Oh my god, what have you done? Oh shit, shit, shit, please don’t tell me it’s broken, please. Oh god, you stupid…little…ungh!’ He raged, not wanting to call Liz names, but unable to say nothing, Stephan vented. ‘Oh fuck, oh shit, I should have moved it myself.’ He put the books down and started over towards Liz continuing his rant. But Liz hadn’t been aware of any of this, because she had seen something which had made all other sounds disappear as her mind took in what she was seeing.

The slab had landed flat, and a great crack had cut across the stone breaking it in two while loose chippings had scattered about.

Seconds later Stephan had arrived right next to Liz and was ranting right up until he looked down too, and then he stopped dead in his tracks as well.

Ben and Fran looked on, bewildered by Liz and Stephan’s sudden silence, but their own curiosity got the better of them and with a glance at each other, they quickly hurried over and peered over the nearest chair to the slab, their jaws dropping only a second later.

The four of them weren’t looking at the stone and the ugly crack that had rent it right across the middle, instead they were looking at the thing which they could now see had been inside the slab and had been revealed by its breaking.

The gold glinted in the light from between the two halves of stone, tantalizingly peeking out at them while the four pairs of eyes looked on.

Stephan crouched down on one knee and looked closer, but Liz couldn’t move, the shock of dropping the slab mixed with the surprise of what had been inside it, especially the glinting gold had frozen her solid. It felt like almost too much to take in, but she stood there and watched as Stephan began to reach for it.

‘Careful,’ blurted Liz.

Stephan looked up, surprised by her outburst.

‘You…you never know, it might be dangerous.’

‘I think its fine Liz,’ he replied, and took one half of the stone slab and pulled it away from the other.

With a wobble, the thing inside of the slab dropped out onto the wood.

It appeared to be gold, pressed gold, and looked ancient. Rectangular in shape like the stone is had been within, it appeared to be made up of pages, flat thick gold pages of metal that were bound by golden rings on one side. On the top surface there were embossed carvings of runes in some incredibly ancient language.

Stephan gently picked it up, the other three looking on as he held it up and with one hand, tested lifting one of the sheets of metal. It lifted and pivoted on the rings binding it to the whole.

‘It’s a book,’ he said in a low almost whisper of a voice.

He carried it from the dropped stone and sat down on a nearby chair. With one hand he held the book while with the other he took the velvet Altar cover and draped it over his knees, laying the book on top.

Nearby Liz looked on, glancing back at the stone slab where it lay forgotten and then back to the wonder they had found inside.

‘Liz, you’re amazing,’ said Stephan, never taking his eyes off the golden book.

Liz shrugged, too shocked to do anything else, and looked on as Stephan turned another page and looked carefully at the script on the second leaf.

‘Do you recognise it?’ Fran asked.

‘Well, it’s bizarre, half of each page is taken up with text that is Cuneiform in style, which suggests Ancient Sumerian, Mesopotamian, or Acadian, something like that.

‘What’s Cuneiform mean?’ Ben asked.

‘It’s one of the earliest types of writing, it means wedge shaped,’ Fran muttered.

‘Oh, of course,’ Ben raised his eye brows at Liz as he commented sarcastically.

‘But look at the text on this side, it’s like nothing else I’ve ever seen. It’s all curvy and intricate.’

‘But can you read it?’ Fran asked.

‘No idea, we’d have to find a way to translate it.’ Stephan had still not looked up, engrossed in the golden wonder he now held.

‘But is it Magical?’ Ben asked.

Stephan raised his eyebrows now, thinking about his answer. ‘I hope so, I mean, I think so, given some of these symbols.’

Silence fell over the room for a few moments as Stephan turned over each page carefully, until he came to the end. He looked off into the middle distance, his friends watched and waited.

Liz still felt more than a little bewildered. She had only wanted to help and thought she could handle the slab given how Stephan had been moving it around so easily. But she hadn’t walked far before it dropped, and the pure horror she had felt as it slipped from her grasp had been stifling. Her stomach had dropped and she had felt very sick, but the shocks weren’t over. When she had seen the golden thing inside it, it had felt like the world had tipped and gone more than a little mad right then and there.

Things were falling into an order now as she started to get her head around it all and the situation grew clearer. It seemed so fantastical though, something from a movie, but this wasn’t a movie, this was real life.

Looking back at the pieces of stone not a couple of foot away, she knew someone would have to take the blame for it. She hadn’t apologised for what she had done yet either she realised, and she had been raised to always own up when you made a big mistake.

‘I’m sorry for dropping the stone Steph,’ she said, her voice sounding meek.

‘Forget it, its fine.’

‘But, you’ll get in trouble won’t you, with your parents?’

‘I don’t care, not after finding this. A little heat is fine.’

‘I can take the blame; after all, I dropped it, it’s my fault.’

He looked up at Liz then. ‘No, you won’t, it’s not your fault, its mine. I should have moved it, I should never have asked you to do it for me, I’ll take the blame.’

Liz nearly objected again, but stopped herself and just nodded. ‘So, what do we do about the mess?’ She pointed at the broken stone.

‘Nothing, leave it, Dad would want to deal with it himself. He’s always telling me to leave things I’ve broken where they are for him to clear up, I think it’s the Archaeologist in him.’

‘And what do we tell your parents about that?’ Liz pointed at the golden book.

Stephan smiled to himself and looked back down at the treasure in his hands. ‘Nothing, we tell them nothing. Dad would only take it off to the museum anyway. We’ll keep this a secret until we know more about it. If its magical, we can find it out, if not, then it looks like gold, so I say we would then get it valued and see about making some money off of it. What do you all think? You in?

They all nodded.

The barrier stopping us crossing into the Aetheric Realm is as strong as it ever was, it seems the Earths spirit world will be forever barred to us after being so cruelly taken from us by the Archons.

Of course, the Nomads and other Magi continue to taunt us with stories of Magi who have made the crossing, but we in the Ordo Obscura will need to see some concrete proof before we agree that anyone has managed to do the impossible.

One story that continues to raise its ugly head is that of Shaitan, the Nomad who is most famous for apparently crossing into the Abyss and returning, although where he is now? No one knows. I personally think it’s more likely it’s a hoax and he never even existed.

We may be called Arcadians, but I have my doubts we will ever return to the fields of Arcadia.

- Louisa Hunt, Magi Scholar from the Ordo Obscura Coven.