Industrial Strength Magic

Chapter 83: End of the Line

This text has been banned by decree of King Bron Zauberer for libel. If you are reading this, you are committing treason.

Fifteen years after the death of Amek Zauberer, his son, one Erbe Zauberer, was an extreme late bloomer. He was smaller, weaker and less clever than other children his age, constantly struggling to keep up with the other nobleson.

In the margins was a note: late bloomer or extra year of gestation?

While he was at play with some of his eventual peers, they were targeted for kidnapping by a Duke whose name has been scoured from memory. An older cousin of Erbe, a son of one of the princes who lost his life when Amek Zauberer defeated Abun’zaul.

As is often the case with grudges between royalty, things became a matter of life and death.

All of Erbe’s peers were released for modest ransoms, but this duke, a hale and hearty man of twenty-six, kept his cousin hostage, only willing to release him if the queen regent named him king.

The queen regent knew that to relinquish power to her nephew would surely spell the end of her son, and so what followed was a tense-standoff, with the queen regent laying siege to the duke’s territory, while the duke kept Erbe Zauberer in his own personal dungeon.

The siege lasted two months, during which time the Duke would parade Erbe across the walls of his castle, bound and naked, and often covered in fresh bruises, to humiliate, dishonor, and most importantly, verify that he was still alive, and still in the duke’s possession.

One night, one of the watchmen of the sieging army saw the light in the duke’s tower wink out, followed by the lumestones atop the inner, then outer walls, spreading outward in an expanding ring of darkness.

Soon enough, all took notice of the castle which stood dark and silent in front of them. There were no sounds of laborers or the clatter of armor.

Thinking the silence was possibly a trap designed to lure them in, it was decided to wait in until the next morning. An entire castle cannot stay silent an entire night.

Except it did.

In the morning, the sun shone down on empty walls devoid of their previous defenders, no smoke or ring of hammer on metal greeted the sun. no animals bleated or whinneyed.

The inside of the duke’s castle was silent as a tomb.

Except for Erbe Zauberer, who trudged out the front gate, having unspooled the magical defense himself.

The young man was wrapped in the duke’s standard, seemingly unclothed beneath it.

Erbe was quickly escorted away by loyal retainers of his mother. When asked what happened, the shaken young man only responded with: ‘I ate him.’

It was presumed he’d eaten a rat he’d adopted in the dungeon to survive or some other harrowing experience, as Erbe did not elaborate.

The boy had seemingly gone through a growth spurt while he was in captivity, at least four inches of height and a glimmer of calculation in his gaze that hadn’t been there before his capture.

Naturally, the rest of the army flooded through the gate as soon as their lord was secured, eager to revisit the humiliation heaped upon their master back on the nameless duke a thousand times over.

They could not find a living soul in the castle.

Castles do not run themselves. They require servants, laborers, soldiers, craftsman! None were to be seen, and no sign that they had ever been there either. No one could even remember who had sided with the duke.

Manita was a small country at the time, and peasants often have large families, there were bound to be family members on both sides of the dispute, yet none of the peasants who were asked could remember anyone who might’ve been in that castle.

Even the name of the duke himself slipped from people’s minds.

The only way we knew he was a duke was his territory was a dukedom, and the withered, white-haired corpse secured to the throne with seven-inch nails was a male: Presumably the one who’d kidnapped Erbe.

We’re not sure.

Incidentally, much later in his career, Erbe pursued an alliance with the nocul that helped secure the future of our country and the goodwill of the nocul to this day.

Cavorting with the cannibal savages led to rumors of Erbe’s participation in their ritualistic cannibalism, and the long-buried story of Erbe’s cousin resurfaced.

This author looked into the tale and found evidence that the dukedom had been owned previously by an unknown figure, but all references to him are smudged.

The ink on wine delivery receipts from forty years ago, that no one could have possibly thought to erase…are smudged whenever the recipient’s name occurs.

Whatever magic was used to snuff out the unnamed duke, it was powerful stuff:

As for the rumors of Erbe being a monster or cannibal who devoured the entire castle…This author doubts it. The less outlandish outcome is instead the young man met a nocul prisoner in the duke’s dungeon, who taught him potent gintaxian draining magicks and set the stage for an alliance with their race later in the young man’s life.

If that is not the case…this author dreads to think what really happened in the duke’s castle.

When it comes to the Zauberers, over the generations they have accumulated something of a reputation which has been passed orally from father to son, growing throughout the years alongside the lineage themselves.

This reputation, distilled into the common parlance, is as such:

‘Fuck around and find out.’

• Legends of Manita

***Paradox***

Titan’s bass rumble echoed through Perry’s cell phone, directly into his ear.

“Kid’s a ticking time-bomb. No dice.”

“Oh, come on, you don’t feel bad for him?” Perry asked.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but he tried to kill you, correct?”

“Only a little. I corrected him,” Perry said, waving to Plagius across the cafeteria and giving him a thumbs-up.

“Man, a drainer is a huge risk, and this one already fell off the wagon. They’re also a huge time investment, because they have the tendency to go wildly insane until their late twenties when their brain finishes developing. You think I wanna babysit this kid for twelve years when statistically he’s likely to kill me inside the first year?”

“I mean, you’re a nexus officer now. Imagine if you recruited him and raised him up to a sweeper. It could be done, and if you pulled it off, you’d climb that ladder a few rungs, I bet. Maybe you could take over The Door.”

• The Door: Department of Recruitment, or D.O.R, commonly referred to as The Door.

“You’re just trying to take advantage of my entrepreneurial nature,” Titan grumbled. “As it stands though, your Plagius kid is basically an accident waiting to happen, and I wanna keep my nose clean.”

“How about a grace period?” Perry asked. “I keep him in my team for a time, say a year, and if he doesn’t blow up in my face, I can sell him to you for a premium?”

“You’re gonna charge me?” Titan asked.

“I figure in a year, he’ll be a promising newbie. Maybe heading towards being a sweeper. I can’t just give him away at that point.”

“That could be acceptable with certain stipulations about the kid’s-“

Perry flinched away from his cell phone as it gave a loud, disturbing warble, almost a mechanical shriek of pain.

Connection lost.

Frowning, Perry dialed Titan again.

“I’m sorry,” His cell phone said. “Your call could not be completed as dialed. Please check the number and try again or contact customer service.”

Perry obviously hadn’t dialed wrong: He’d clicked on Titan’s brick-like face in his contacts list. Perry tried again.

“I’m sorry,” His cell phone said. “Your call could not be completed as dialed. Please check the number and try again or contact customer service.”

Well, that could be bad, Perry thought. It was possible someone had sideswiped Titan in the middle of his phone call and busted the cell.

Perry dialed Sophie, aiming to get her to pass her phone to Titan until they could finish their negotiations.

“I’m sorry,” His cell phone said. “Your call could not be completed as dialed. Please check the number and try again or contact customer service.”

Perry’s eyebrows rose.

He dialed Mom.

“I’m sorry,” His cell phone said. “Your call could not be completed as dialed. Please check the number and try again or contact customer service.”

Okay, Perry thought, staring at his cell phone. That’s seriously concerning.

It wasn’t completely out of the ordinary, though. With several ton powerhouses tossing each other around like ragdolls through the streets, sometimes cell towers got wrecked in the tussle.

Perry called dad.

Dad had his own communication gear that was supposedly unblockable because it existed outside the bounds of conventional physics.

“I’m sorry,” His cell phone said. “The specified spacetime address could not be connected to. Please make sure your reality-piercing cell-phone is properly calibrated, or, if you are using a blood sacrifice to make this call, make sure any lingering blood from a prior sacrifice is thoroughly washed off the blood stamps before entering the address, as it may cause interference. If you are a fourth dimensional entity using natural powers to make this call, please make yourself born as an Old One or other eldritch entity beyond human understanding within four million lightyears of each dimensional axis. Failure to do so will corrupt the signal, and may lead to disconnections. Simply moving your current physical location will not help, you need to move your beginning and end within the appropriate spacetime so that your entire being is within range. If you are calling from the future to warn a past self, please, stay where you are. It will allow our continuity assurance team to have an easier time finding and ‘assisting’ you.

“Well…” Perry murmured, staring at his phone. “I’m starting to think there’s a problem.”

Perry was about to put his phone away when it began ringing, Heather appearing on the front, making a face.

“Yeah?” Perry said, raising the phone to his ear.

“Come outside the train. You’re gonna wanna see this.” Heather’s voice emanated from his phone.

“You’re not an infected trying to lure me outside, are you?” Perry asked. “Because that’s how you get brain worms.”

“Just get your ass outside!” Heather reiterated.

“Okay, okay, jeez,” Perry muttered, hanging up as a sense of ominous tension spread through his guts and seized his heart.

***Ten minutes later***

“Huh.” Perry said, crossing his arms and studying Franklin City…or at least…where it should’ve been.

Instead of the welcoming concrete walls, barbed wire, and massive auto-turrets of home, there was a pitch-black void.

It was a hemisphere of pure black, like some sick bastard had taken a cosmic ice-cream scoop and scooped the city out, leaving behind a chunk of nothing where home used to be.

“I guess that explains the cell phone thing.” Perry said to himself.

“I can’t reach my dad.” Natalie said, glued to her phone, dialing and re-dialing the same number.

“If I can’t reach my dad, you definitely aren’t gonna be reaching yours,” Perry said.

Natalie looked up at him with watering eyes.

“I…I’m sure he’s fine though. Your dad’s probably gonna lay low.” Perry hastily corrected before Nat could make him feel any more insensitive.

“You think it’s a black hole?” One of the dumber supers standing atop the train asked. Perry was distressed to note that it was Plagius.

Oh god, please let the decision to help this kid not blow up in my face because he’s an idiot. Please let it be a stupid question and not a stupid person.

The surrounding supers gave Plagius a long sideways look.

“If it were a black hole,” Perry said, to clarify for him. “We would all be dead.”

“Oh. Okay. What is it then?” Plagius asked, peering into the distance.

“It’s severed spacetime,” Matador said, sitting on the edge of the train and studying the black void that seemed to grow in size as they got closer to the city. “Someone or something cut Franklin City off from the rest of the universe.”

“How?” Plagius asked.

“I’unno,” Matador shrugged.

“Attention all passengers, staff, and escorts, please make your way to the auditorium.”The conductor’s voice echoed from the P.A. system.

Perry took a long look at the black hemisphere covering his home, then joined the stream of people heading for the auditorium.

He joined the crowd beside Hardcase and Wraith, who were in their super personas, for obvious reasons.

Up at the front of the auditorium, was a raised platform, where the conductor marched up to the microphone.

“Alright, shut up and listen,” Walthers said without preamble. “We’ve got an unknown phenomena cutting off all contact with Franklin city. Cell phones, sound, even light doesn’t seem to penetrate whatever is surrounding the city.

I sent one of our speedsters ahead. He threw a rock in and poked it with a stick. Whatever it is, is a one-way trip as the stick wouldn’t come back out once it was in contact with the field. It’s assumed the stick still existed on the other side, but there’s no guarantees.”

“Now, weird shit like this happens all the time, and it’s my job to handle it. While I could just order you, I don’t wanna ask anyone to do anything they don’t wanna do, so we’re gonna take an informal vote. How many of you want to continue towards Franklin City?”

Nearly everyone raised their hands, Perry included.

“Now…Who’s willing to walk into the potential death-field and kick whatever is making it in the nuts so we can finish our damn job?”

Nearly everyone raised their hands, Perry included.

Conductor Walthers wiped a single manly tear from his eye.

“Goddamn, I love Franklin City supers.”