College Magic Chapter 1
Here we go. This is the opening chapter of a story of modern fantasy, horror, and a touch of madness and magic. Read, enjoy, leave comments if you want. Oh, by the way, the current mood reflects what I'm going for with the chapter, not my mood when writing it, at least with stories.
(On a slightly geekish note, this whole thing was written with a programmer's text editor and hand-coded for HTML. There's not even any rich text in here.)
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It is a universal constant that by the time you realize that you should have just stayed in bed that morning, it is far, far too late to actually follow that advice. As may be imagined from that little gem's prominence in this narrative, someone was about to rediscover the tragic accuracy of that timeless pearl of wisdom. That someone is a young woman.
This young woman, let's call her Rhiannon Waters, was not having a bad day, until the afternoon. Indeed, it might be said that she was having a good day. Classes went well, her professors didn't assign very much work, and so forth. She was enjoying her walk back to her dorm at Gunther Brighton University. The campus at GBU was, to say the least, well-landscaped. Unlike some campuses, which are all asphalt, concrete, and litter, GBU had decided that its campus would have greenspace, actual trees, flowerbeds, and similar features, all maintained by the tenacious (some might say fanatical) efforts of the Facilities and Grounds Department. As a result of this decision, GBU was truly a beautiful campus, excepting certain (probably inevitable) aberrations like Smythe Hall, which had few windows, a concrete exterior, a rectangular floorplan, and had an exterior painted roughly the same shade of red as the bricks of an old schoolhouse. All of this gave rise to the building's popular name, "The Brick", which was used by nearly everyone on the campus, even proper, crusty old Dr. Simmons of the Literature Department, elected most despised person on campus twenty-two years in a row by both students and faculty.
On her way home from her evening LITR-2104 class, Survey of British Literature, Rhiannon ducked out the west door of Smythe as a shortcut back to her dorm instead of exiting through the front entrance on the east side of the building. In a mostly-futile effort to reduce the Brick's impact on campus's visual appearance that predated Rhiannon's birth, the groundskeepers had planted a number of oaks around Smythe to obscure the building's hideously blunt lines. Over the ensuing two and a half decades, they had grown large, casting a great shadow on the ground. While the main entrance was kept mostly clear of shrubbery, going through the western door of the building deposited one into a virtual forest, aptly nicknamed "the Grove". Occasional efforts by faculty members (usually the aforementioned Simmons) to get the "ghastly, animal-ridden copse" removed were always stymied by some combination of student protest, the fact that at least one endangered subspecies of squirrel had a few habitats in the Grove, and sheer bureaucratic inertia. Beyond that, the Grove was actually quite a nice little stand of trees in the eyes of most people, encompassing part of Appling Stream as the babbling brook wound its way through campus to deposit its flow into a river that eventually flowed into the Chatahoochee.
Rhiannon shivered, even in the warm September afternoon, as she ambled through the quiet woods. Cold here all of a sudden, she thought, glancing around curiously at the sudden nip in the air. A chill ran down her spine, reinforcing the oddly cool wind threading its way between the trunks. Too cold, she added, running a hand nervously through her ebon locks. Just to make her even edgier, a long, mournful howl sounded in the distance. Rhiannon's instincts screamed wolf before she could reminde herself that first, that was probably one of the Alaskan Malamutes that, like GBU itself, was owned by the Brighton family, and second, that Georgia was well outside the usual modern range of Canis lupus lycaon, the Eastern Timber Wolf, which had historically lived in the area. But there are black bears not that far north of here, Rhiannon recalled fearfully, forgetting that bears don't howl.
Rhiannon gave herself a little shake. Stop that! she firmly commanded herself. Bears don't howl and anyway, there aren't any bears in here. This whole stand of trees is enclosed by a college campus. Hell, the Brighton estate employs rangers to manage the wildlife. They don't want bears wandering around on the populated part of the estate, she added, remembering that part of the student handbook. While Gunther Brighton University was somewhat more expensive (and far, far more exclusive) than, say, the relatively nearby University of West Georgia, it was also better managed. Letting bears wander around in the more populous areas of the Brighton estate's grounds would have been dangerous for everyone involved, including the bears. There were a few bears in the northern part of the estate but all of them wore radio tags which were monitored to head off the possibility of the 'known' bears from getting too far south. Unknown bears were usually warded off by the locals, without the need for the rangers to do anything, and a set of IR cameras watched the campus with the intention of discriminating between humans, machine traffic (such as the golf carts that were used as light utility vehicles on the campus), and animals. If something classified as animal was over a certain size threshold, a patrol unit from Campus Security was dispatched to look into it. The campus really was about as safe as it could be from wild animals, considering its relative isolation from the nearest decent-sized town.
That being the case, Rhiannon was understandably quite shocked when she turned a corner and ran smack into a large animal. She was not, unfortunately, so shocked that she was unable to scream. Screaming is not generally a recommended means of greeting a wild animal or keeping it calm and in a generally positive and non-aggressive mood, of course.
The animal in question was built on the same general lines of a wolf but scaled up a tad from your average timber wolf. Her quick estimate placed the animal's height at about four feet, a good 50% over the average timber wolf, and the length was probably longer than she was tall. The creature's fur was mostly red with splotches of white on its face and paws and a white underbelly. The face, it should probably be mentioned, that was currently twisted in a snarl. The lupine creature gave a short, percussive bark at her before suddenly lunging.
Rhiannon stumbled backwards, ducking the thing's jump and barely staying on her feet as she tripped over a tree root. The creature paced menacingly, growling at her. "Good doggy, good doggy," Rhiannon said soothingly as she continued stepping back. Her tormentor matched her step for step, seeming to enjoy the fear it was evoking in her. Rhiannon cringed when she felt herself bump into a tree. The wolf-thing's next bark almost sounded like a condescending laugh as it jumped at her. She dove sideways, landing face-down but at least not being trampled by the creature. The creature seized on the opportunity presented by Rhiannon's prone position and pounced on her.
As she closed her eyes, mentally preparing herself to die, something happened. The lupine suddenly reared up, howling horribly. Rhiannon cautiously opened her eyes and stared at what she found.
The creature yelped and scrambled away from her as a bowstring's distinctive snap sounded, launching an arrow into its hide to match the green-fletched arrow already there. Running from its new foe, the creature disappeared into the woods. Tracing the arrow's flightpath back to its source, she saw a tall man, slender but with a wiry build. His narrow, angular face was made hard with concentration as he stared after the creature that had attacked her, having already drawn a third arrow. His long blonde hair, swept into a ponytail, failed to conceal his long, pointed ears. Satisfied the creature had retreated, he turned his attention on the girl he had rescued while he returned the composite shortbow to its place on his back. "I trust, foundling, that you're quite alright?" asked this strange man, looking her over for wounds. "I fear those cursed wolves have been something of a nuisance of late."
Rhiannon found her breath and nodded, too weirded out to worry about the fact that her savior was either a very determined cosplayer or an honest-to-Goddess elf. "Yes," she answered, still staring at him. His clothes, a dark forest green jerkin over brown leather pants, were simple but extremely well-tailored. The gold trim on them completed the image of a man of elegantly simple tastes.
"Good." He took a longer look at her. "Where did you come from, then, girl?"
Huh? What does he mean where did I from? she thought to herself, puzzled. "From Smythe, back that way," the coed replied verbally with a vague gesture back towards the Brick.
The man frowned and then, after a moment's thought, shook his head. "I know of no place named Smythe," he answered. "Men yes, but not a place."
"Smythe Hall? The Brick?" Rhiannon clarified. "You know, that ugly red thing?"
Her interrogator shook his head. "I've no idea what you're talking about, foundling," said the elf, frowning at her. "What trod did you follow to get here?" He didn't seem terribly concerned about the fact that she wasn't an elf herself.
"Trod?" Rhiannon asked, baffled. "What's a trod?" And isn't trod a verb, anyway? she wondered privately.
"Trei'vale," the stranger breathed in a mild oath. "Come with me. We'd best find a lore singer," he told her, setting a quick pace through the woods.
Rhiannon stayed put where she was. "Uh, no, I don't think so," she finally pronounced. He stopped, turned around, and gave her a quizzical look. "I don't have any idea who you are, what the hell that thing was, or what's going on here. Just what makes you think that I'm going to follow you on a hike through the damned woods?!" snapped the girl, losing her patience.
The elf considered her words for a moment before responding. "If you don't, you aren't going to find your way home," was his reply. His piece said, he shrugged at her irked expression, turned around, and set off again, seemingly not caring whether she followed him or not. For lack of any better ideas or any pressing demands on her time, and certainly not wanting to get caught alone if that wolf chose to come back, Rhiannon snatched up her bookbag and then jogged to catch up to her rescuer.
Why me? she asked herself as the pair trotted along. For that matter, aren't these damned woods supposed to be smaller than this? Out loud, she asked, "Where are we, anyway?"
Her companion chuckled lightly. "I'm not surprised you're lost, child. You must have followed a trod without knowing it. I did the same thing my first time, girl, though it's been some time since I've been back to England." A brief shadow passed over his features. "A long time, indeed. Tell me, girl, who rules in the Isles?"
Rhiannon blinked. Of all the questions he might have asked her, that was pretty far up the list of unexpected ones. "Elizabeth," she answered hesitantly.
"Surely not Elizabeth Tudor?" asked her companion, somewhat surprised. "I would swear before man and God that I'd attended her funeral," he said, perplexed. "While I've certainly heard strange tales before, girl, this would be among the oddest."
"What? No," Rhiannon replied, shaking her head. "Elizabeth I died four hundred years ago," she pointed out. "This is one of her distant relations, a cousin or great grand-nephew through James I, I think. I'm not that familiar with the monarchs after James," she added. "I know a little bit about the English Civil War but other than that?" She shrugged. "You weren't kidding when you said you haven't been back in a while, have you?"
The elf turned and regarded her with a small, sly smile. "Does the name Marlowe mean anything to you?" he asked whimsically.
"Vaguely," Rhiannon told him, frowning thoughtfully. "Wait, you mean Christopher Marlowe? Wasn't he stabbed to death?"
"So is that how I'm supposed to have died?" the stranger mused thoughtfully, chuckling lightly. "Truth be told, I'm not surprised the scholars don't have a good record. I had enemies, girl, and some of them wouldn't have been averse to making it seem they'd arranged my end. I wasn't stabbed. That little scene in the tavern was meant to help me disappear." He gave Rhiannon a frank look. "There was fairly unpleasant business going on around that time. Not just the Spaniards, although they weren't exactly being very friendly," he added, smiling a bit wryly. "Things you don't want to know about, really." He shivered in rememberance of some old horror.
Rhiannon frowned at him. "And I'm just supposed to believe that you're Christopher Marlowe, returned from the grave?" the girl asked suspiciously. "The fey aren't exactly known for honesty, elf, even the Seelie."
'Marlowe' shrugged. "I don't care what you believe and as for my being 'returned' somehow, I never died in the first place, girl." He looked off into the distance for a moment before continuing. "The Seelie Court's been gone for a long time, even by our standards," he added. "Arthur's fall wasn't a story of England. I've heard tell that your scholars have tried to fit it in there but the myth was garbled by some incompetent debtor, from what I understand. Arthur was the last king of the Seelie, and that of a realm already shattered by civil war."
The historian in Rhiannon was fascinated. The skeptic in her was rapidly approaching paranoid. The rest was just plain confused at the whirlwind of facts surrounding her. "Uhm..." she trailed off, trying to marshall some line of interrogation, any question, just to keep him talking.
"Don't worry about it," Marlowe advised. "You'll figure it out soon enough and you've more than enough time to learn our ways."
Rhiannon blanched as a couple of things occurred to her. "What do you mean I've got more than enough time to learn the ways of the fey?" she asked in a voice grown reedy with looming fear.
Marlowe raised an eyebrow. "I may as well tell you now," he said, sighing. "You're a changeling."
"And just how would you know that?" Rhiannon demanded sharply. "You don't even know who I am, Mr. 'Marlowe'!" she went on, snapping at him. "I've seen several damned strange things today, I'll admit, but I'm not so far gone as to swallow that nonsense!"
Marlowe sighed again. "Why do we never believe revelations like this?" the fey asked rhetorically. "Girl, I'm not the one to show you this sort of thing and I apologize for it. However," he continued, holding up a hand to stem her objections, "there's simply no other reasonable explanation. No one can wear a mortal form here... except changelings or mortals who've somehow found a trod. An experienced changeling or paranormalist would know better than to go unarmed, as well, and you carry neither blade nor gun," he pointed out. "Combined with your genuine surprise and there's little else you could be other than an unawakened changeling who stumbled down a trod by accident. Humans can't find trods by accident. They have to go looking for them."
Rhiannon sighed and decided to ask another question. "If you know about guns, why not carry one?" she asked, slightly curious about his decision to carry a shortbow instead of a firearm. "They're a lot less obvious than a bow like that," she pointed out.
Marlowe looked amused. "Back in America, maybe," he answered. "Not here, though. Carry a firearm and people assume it's loaded with cold iron. Guns are seen as nothing more than instruments of murder. A changeling who still plays a role in the mortal realm has more liberty about that," he added, "but then, I've not left Arcadia in a century and more. Bows are traditional weapons for us, foundling, and we've neither need nor desire to change that. The time of the sword has not ended for us," he concluded, smiling. "Some say it never will... and personally, I don't see any reason to disagree." His whole manner, so tolerantly and condescendingly pleased by her bemused expression, gave Rhiannon the sudden, strange desire to punch him in the nose, just to get rid of that smug smile.
Marlowe, clearly enjoying her annoyed glare, grinned a tad wider. "There's magic in the air here, foundling," he explained, "and an arrow and a sword will get you farther than a gun ever would."
The girl cocked her head, thinking. "You mean that a sword is more, say, mystically powerful than a gun?" she inquired, frowning thoughtfully.
Marlowe smiled like a teacher pleased by a student. "Exactly. A gun is just so much metal, no magic to it all, just the base elements it's made of." He shook his head, gestured at the sword on his hip. "A sword, though, is a work of art. I'm not saying that your various handmade guns aren't well-made. Some of them are masterpieces of mechanical design," he pointed out. "But they don't have the simple grace of a true sword. A gun is a tool. A sword is artwork. We, the fey? We prefer the art." The old spy smirked a bit. "It helps that, thanks to that very attitude, a gun is somewhat less useful here in Arcadia than it might be on Earth."
"Why?"
Marlowe's smile was still that of the teacher. "Good question. Magic... sometimes, if enough people want something, deep down, they can make it so, without spells, without fetters, without any of the tools of the sorcerer's trade."
Rhiannon nodded, as if it had just clicked into place. "And that restriction on firearms is part of that?"
"Partially. Again, though, a gun simply doesn't have the mystic weight to it that a sword or a bow does, anyway," Marlowe reminded her. "Since most of us have the time and resources to acquire enchanted arms, that means that a gun is less useful to us, even without the fact that guns just aren't terribly useful to begin with. That fact is probably why firearms never caught on, actually," he added thoughtfully. "We're not as different from humans as we like to think, not in that respect, that we're unwilling to forego a useful weapon simply for the sake of tradition."
Rhiannon looked at him doubtfully. "Why not? The French did it at Agincourt."
Marlowe burst out laughing. "Quite so, girl." His chuckles continued for a good time as they walked through the woods.