Fiction | Magic | Riddles

Whispers of a Hidden Realm: The Climb

A fiction story

This story continues from “Whispers of a Hidden Realm: The Grimoire.”

Zain stopped, panting, his back against a college building. It was dark here, with no streetlights close, and he was sure that the jeering gang weren’t following him any more. Not surprising, perhaps — their bearded friend was surely going to need urgent medical care after what had just happened.

He looked again at the book in his hands. “What the hell is this thing?” he murmured, turning it over again and again gingerly, trying not to grip tightly in case his own hands would somehow get sucked in like that of his attacker. It was no normal book, clearly. It had just done something that could only be described as supernatural… and, perhaps, as evil.

But still…

After a moment, Zain rapped at its scarred leather cover. It was very old and unusual looking, sure, with a musky leather scent, but it nevertheless looked like just a book — a mundane object. If it had any further tricks or traps, he couldn’t see how they worked. It looked perfectly safe to his eyes.

Clearly, he would need to examine it more carefully in better light.

His breathing returning to normal, Zain began to walk again. His first thought had been to lose his pursuers among the college buildings, and then circle back to his bus stop to make his way home. But now he found himself very close to the building where Professor Wright’s office was located, and decided to hurry in that direction instead.

Soon he was looking up at the long, four-storey building. It was made of stone, with metal fencing around the fire escape along one end, and overall it looked cold and unwelcoming. It was closed, of course — that much was only to be expected at this time of night. But after what he had seen, Zain had decided that he needed answers.

Answers to questions such as:

How the fuck can a book devour someone’s arm?

and

Why had Professor Wright sent him the cryptic note in the first place?

Zain didn’t know where the professor lived, and the man presumably wasn’t at home, anyway, given the police investigation.

The only avenue he could think of was to find a way into Wright’s office, and look around for any information that could explain the professor’s disappearance, the note… or the deadly book.

Clenching his fists and trying to calm his breathing, Zain walked towards the tall wire fence that surrounded the fire escape. The building may be shut up for the night, but how hard could it really be to get in? If he could get over the fence, and make it four levels up, and he would be outside the Philosophy department.

His heart starting to pound at the prospect, Zain reached up and put the fingers of one hand through the small openings of the fence. He was tall; he thought he could climb over, but it felt cold and sharp against his hands. It would be harder to get a foothold, too.

And then there was the book. He would need both hands to climb, but he certainly didn’t want to leave it behind. But was it safe to tuck it inside his jacket, after what he had seen?

With a grunt, Zain placed the tome carefully on the ground, then unzipped his jacket. He then wrapped the book in the jacket, zipped it up again, and did his best to tie the sleeves in such a way as to secure the book inside.

Then he carefully lobbed the tied-up book over the fence. It landed with a soft thump on the other side.

“Just like a basketball lay-up,” he murmured.

Zain glanced behind him one last time in case the thugs had decided to pursue, or some campus cops were patrolling. Nobody was around. Campus was near-deserted at this hour.

He began to pull himself up, his feet scrabbling at the fence but getting very little purchase — and making a loud clattering noise in the process. Reaching up, he looped his right hand over the top, and tried to calm himself, hanging still for a moment.

Then, with a grunt, he shifted his left hand onto the top of the fence as well, then twisted to get one leg up and over the top. The top of the fence was composed of multiple steel points, and as he now shifted his weight on top of it and began to drop down the other side, it dug into his cock and balls, and he yelped sharply in pain.

Then, as he twisted and began to drop down on the other side, a metal spike pierced through one leg of his jeans, and ripped a large hole, scraping the skin beneath.

“Shit,” Zain muttered, as he wriggled to free himself, and then lost balance. He grabbed at one of the other bars of the fence with both hands, jerking downwards painfully, and wincing as his whole body’s weight crashed sideways against the inside of the fence. He hung there for a moment, then looked down. He was only a foot from the ground, and he let himself drop down, then bent over, panting and wincing in pain.

After a few seconds spent rubbing at the various minor injuries he had sustained, Zain decided that he wasn’t seriously hurt. He straightened up, pushing his dark hair back from his eyes, and took a last look back at the campus. There was still nobody around, despite the terrible noise he had made. As he peered out, he noticed once again the thin white cat coming in his direction. It stopped as Zain looked at it, then sat down a dozen yards away, and began to lick its paws.

Zain gave a wry smile “I wonder if you saw anything when the professor disappeared,“ he murmured. “They say nobody was around. But somebody must have seen something, and you seem to be everywhere….”

He now noticed that the bar at the top of the fence that he had briefly clung to had bent almost double under his weight. If broken off, it might be useful in forcing entry.

“I wonder,” he said to himself, reaching up to it. He then pushed the bar up so that it was almost straight again, and then pulled it down. It was stiff at first, but after being bent back and forth several times, it moved easily. Then, at last, it snapped. With a satisfied smile, Zain picked up the parcel with the book, pulled his jacket on once again, and shoved the ten-inch length of metal inside his jacket pocket.

Zain now turned to the fire escape, heart thumping harder as he contemplated what he needed to do next. One thing that he knew very well about himself was that he didn’t have a head for heights. In truth, he didn’t even like standing close to windows on the upper levels of tall buildings. Now, as he spiralled around the first level of the fire escape and began to step up towards the second, he made the mistake of looking down.

“Oh, damn…”

Zain felt his stomach churn, and he gripped the side of the metal staircase closely, stopping suddenly. He turned and sat down on the step, book held tightly in one shaking hand, his fear of what it could do set aside for the moment. “Come on, man,” he said to himself. “You can do this. You have to.”

He stood again, and tried his best to keep low as he proceeded. It was slow progress, as he moved one foot and then another, pressing his shins painfully against the next step before he was willing to jerk his hand forward to the next section of railing.

In this manner, clinging on to the stairs, he proceeded. Each level had a door without an external handle. Of course — they were only designed for leaving the building. Once he got to the right level, would he even manage to force his way in, Zain asked himself? He could only hope that he would find a way. For if he didn’t, he would somehow need to get back down.

He took another step upwards.

On the third level, the panic began to move from his stomach to his head. A dizziness took hold, and he paused, wondering for a moment if he was going to pass out. “Breathe, man,” he said to himself through gritted teeth. And somehow, he pushed himself to move on.

The strange feeling in his head didn’t hurt his progress. Perhaps it was even helping. It was like being drunk or stoned; he could disconnect his thoughts from his body for a moment, and focus on the repetitive crawl upwards. All he needed to do was move: leg, leg, arms; leg, leg, arms…

At last, he reached the door on the fourth level. He sank to the floor of the metal landing, and crept up to it on his knees. Then, turning, he sat with his back to it for a moment, once again struggling to control his breathing. With another force of willpower, Zain twisted around, still on his knees, and began to look carefully at the door.

He didn’t want to put on the torch on his phone — not yet. It would be too visible around the area. But the streetlights were enough, being too high for anything to block the light.

Zain now pulled the broken length of fencing from inside his jacket. He spent a few seconds wiggling it until it was firmly wedged between door and doorframe, and then pulled.

Crack!

Moments later, Zain was inside the corridor of the philosophy department, and he closed the door behind him, feeling elated despite the fear that had wracked his body just moments before. There was no time now to think about that.

No.

There was work to do.

Zain flicked on the torch on his phone, and began to walk along the corridor of the deserted building. Although the surroundings were familiar — and very much like any college or office corridor across the land, he was sure — it felt deeply strange to be here at night.

As he shone the light from one side to the other, he momentarily wondered why he had never paid any attention to the various colorful posters before. One even advertised a LARPing event. That might have been fun, and his roommate Jessie would surely have loved it. But for now, he dismissed it from mind.

Reaching the professor’s office, Zain saw that there was a single limp strand of police tape across the door. He pushed at the door with his foot, and it swung open.

Unlocked.

Wasn’t that kinda surprising, he wondered, given that the man’s disappearance had been the subject of an official investigation? Perhaps the police work had been more half-hearted than Zain had realized.

He now ducked under the police tape and walked into the room. Flicking the main light on, Zain glanced around. There were several filing cabinets, a wooden desk and window at the far side, cluttered shelves all around, and a single tall cupboard on the right-hand wall. Everything looked in order, with no signs of a struggle. Zain could see why the police would take only a brief glance around the place.

He now moved over to the professor’s unexpectedly neat desk. Standing in front of it, Zain looked at the various things that sat in a wooden desk-tidy to one side — unopened mail, mostly, and a few magazines or journals. A computer sat to the left, and there was a small pot containing paperclips, and a red stone paperweight.

Nothing unusual, in short.

Zain now placed the book in the center of the desk and seated himself in the professor’s chair, gazing at its leather binding in proper light for the first time since the library. Something about seeing it here gave him a sense of anticipation, as if there was something that was about to click into place.

Without knowing entirely why, he reached down and pulled the little note from the professor out of his pocket. As he unfolded it, he wondered what had prompted him to do so. Had something about the desk or the setting reminded him of a word or phrase?

He read the note again:

Magic portals and travelers;

do right and create order;

sever incoming light;

voracious echoes respond.

Clearly the note was a puzzle that Professor Wright had expected a student to solve, as he had done. And somehow, the man had arranged for the note to be sent to at least two students — though probably the whole senior class, Zain guessed.

Perhaps further puzzles — and their solutions — would lead him all the way to the professor, and get the man out of whatever trouble he had gotten into. And if so, then surely Wright would have expected one of them to find and investigate the book, and perhaps even to search this very office for clues. Zain was now perfectly placed to do both things.

He ran his fingertips over the rough, scarred cover of the leather-bound volume. It more resembled something from a magic shop than an academic library. Its tough cover looked like it had narrowly escaped at least one fire in its time; it was slightly singed in several places. And although Zain was sure had heard it mentioned, he was also certain that it hadn’t appeared on the reading lists for his course.

All the same, if the book contained information that could explain the professor’s disappearance, then Zain intended to find it.

He reached out to pick it up — and found himself unable to curl his fingers around it. It was as if it had glued itself to the desk.

“What the…?”

Zain leaned closer, peering at the place where the book met the desk in case he had somehow activated some kind of hidden mechanism. As he did so, he noticed that a thin black arrow had been inscribed into the very center of the desk’s surface. It was the kind of doodle that he might have expected a school student to do — not an academic.

And it pointed towards the only other significant object on the desk — the computer.

Zain took one step to the side and tentatively pressed the space bar, waiting for the screen to come to life. Rather than the usual university login page, a single dialogue box appeared; white lettering on a black background. It seemed to require a code or password.

It said:

Where to start:_____

So. Another riddle…

Added: part 3 is now available:

Thanks for reading, thanks to Sweet Chaos for the header image — perfect! Tagging a few of the people who commented the first chapter, because it was a while ago, thank you all for your support: Nerdishwrites, Rayne Sanning, Jacinta Palmer, Sieran Lane, Kathy K, Lysergic World Design. Oh, and a shout-out to Eva MacInnes, who loves to make her characters suffer!!