Up There, Somewhere

At the risk of sounding cliched, it was a dark and stormy night. The wind tore through the mountain with vitriolic force. Lightning announced its rage through reverberating crashes of thunder.

All I could do was thank the stars for the lack of rain, as Erin and I trudged through the merciless thunderstorm. Hours earlier, our horse had been too scared to continue. Fortunately, we’d been able to hand it over to a stable, before beginning our walk up the mountain path.

Despite the cold, I was sweating bullets. If a gust of wind were to hit either of us at the wrong angle, we’d be launched off the mountainside.

Couldn’t they have built this thing inside the city?

Eventually, we spotted it, up in the distance. A tall, sprawling castle. Its black, gothic architecture seemed like a warning; one we were willingly ignoring. Erin fell to her hands and knees. I suppose there are two different types of people: Those who rest up once they see the end in sight, and those who try to finish things as soon as possible. Unfortunately for Erin, I was the latter. The wind blew far too loudly to speak, so I simply pulled her up and dragged her by the arm. I was determined to end our journey.

I read the sign carved in front of the towering gates: Ruhe University of Magic and Science.

I’d lose my mind if it read anything else, I half-joked to myself.

We walked up the dilapidated, stone staircase, leading to the side of the building. The storm had decided to subside right as we’d reached our objective. It felt like a bad prank.

The dual entrance doors were far smaller than I’d anticipated. They contained one thick knocking ring each. “I can’t take it anymore!” Erin declared. She whacked both knocking rings until I forced her to stop.

One of the doors popped open. Bulging eyes attached to a gaunt face peered through the crack. It was a short man in his thirties. “Can I help you?” he asked.

“Good evening, sir. I’m Sato Kugo. I wrote to the university about a contract,” I explained.

“Yes, I remember you. Your artifact is of great interest to us. Please, come in.” The man opened the doors, and we stepped inside.

“Did he say artifact?” Erin whispered to me.

I shrugged. “They didn’t explain anything in their last letter; they just told me to come urgently,” I whispered back.

“I’m Mr. Hokey, the one you corresponded with,” the man greeted us. We shook his hand, introducing ourselves in turn. “Professor Vodu is the one who looked into your artifact. Shall I take you to him?” he asked us. We agreed.

Despite its dark, ancient exterior, the castle’s interior told a brighter, more modern story. The entrance hall was white and gold, with marble floors and pillars. A few students wandered around. They wore the university’s signature black gown. The man led us up the wide staircase at the end of the room. We made a few turns and eventually found ourselves in front of a door. It was rounded at the top and wooden, with gears of different sizes stuck to it; though what purpose any of them served, I couldn’t tell you. The door was labelled Magic Study – Staff Only. Our guide knocked three times.

“Come in!” the voice replied almost instantly. We entered.

The study was larger than I’d expected. Everything looked mechanical yet outdated. There were various clocks, tools and instruments. Three cushy armchairs surrounding a rug created a cozy reading area near the bookshelves. Sat at one of the four desks I could see, was a baby-faced man with big, round glasses. He wore a dark blue robe and matching pointed hat. The man couldn’t have looked more like a wizard if he’d tried. Right now, he was hunched over a sheet of paper, examining it with a mechanical head magnifier. “Approach,” he instructed us, without looking up.

“Shall I leave them with you?” asked Mr. Hokey. The baby-faced wizard grunted in response, which Mr. Hokey took as confirmation. He bid us farewell and closed the door behind him.

The wizard nodded in satisfaction at whatever he was doing and looked up. “Good evening, lady and gentleman. I am Professor Vodu. Though I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, you’ll forgive me if I don’t shake your hands.”

“Why don’t you?” Erin jokingly asked.

“I don’t touch poor people,” the professor replied. We paused, stunned by the admittance. But then, the professor wheezed a self-satisfied laugh. “I’m joking- I’m joking!” he exclaimed. “Please, take a seat, let’s sit in the reading area. We have a lot to get through.”

Once Erin and I were comfortable, the professor waltzed over. He hopped into the spare armchair and held up the piece of paper he’d been examining. It was the contract. “This is what we’ve gathered here for,” he announced. “In all my years studying magic, I’ve never seen anything quite like it. It’s a shame that there’s only one available-”

I took out the nineteen other contracts I’d found inside Allister’s desk drawer. I’d rushed back into the burning house to retrieve them as soon as I’d seen the city guards approaching.

Professor Vodu’s eyes popped out of their sockets. “Am I to take it that these are all made of the same material?” he asked.

The same material? I shrugged. “They should be. I found them stacked on top of one another.”

“Well, this is exciting, isn’t it?” The professor loudly clapped his hands, startling Erin. “Right,” he began. “The first thing of note is the material these contracts are written on. You see, it looks and feels like paper, but after testing its chemical composition, I concluded otherwise. In fact, the reason it took me a week to get back to you is because I searched every archive in the university. These contracts are written on a material that we’ve never even heard of!” he cried, enthusiastically.

Man, relax, I thought. Though, I suppose it was interesting.

“Now, next we must talk about the contents written on this sheet. You wrote to me that the names on these contracts matched up with the names of missing people, correct?” he asked.

“Yes, they vanished within the blink of an eye,” I confirmed.

Professor Vodu nodded hard. “You know, the staff at this academy were highly interested in this case even before it reached Ruhe. Many of us have been working on uncovering the secrets to teleportation our entire lives. In fact, that’s what got Professor Bergold into magic in the first place!” The man paused. I followed his gaze straight to the documents in my hand. “Sorry, but could you hand over one of those papers?” he asked.

“Yeah, sure, take them all,” I said.

“No, I just need one for now.”

I gave him a single sheet of paper.

He briefly examined it, before tearing it in half.

“Why did you do that?” Erin yelped.

“Oh, I was just reading over the contract to see if it was identical to the previous one,” the professor unhelpfully explained.

“I think she’s asking you why you tore it in half,” I elaborated on behalf of Erin.

“Ah, I see. I wanted to see if the material was tearable, but with only one sample, I was too afraid to compromise its integrity. But now? I can experiment to my heart’s content!” he told us. “Do all of those contracts have different stipulations?”

“Most of them, though there are a few that say pretty much the same thing,” I answered.

“And I take it none of them mention disappearing as a penalty?”

I shook my head. “In fact, none of them even have penalties laid out for either party. They all simply say that ‘if the conditions are not met, the offending party will have broken the terms of the contract’.”

“I have so many questions. Is disappearing the penalty? Is the contract a distraction and the material itself is what causes people to vanish?”

***

Erin was curled up in a sleeping ball in her armchair, as Mr. Vodu spoke about our papers and his research. He’d been at it for three hours now, but I listened intently the whole time.

“But my boy, how did you know to send a contract to us? You must have strong magical attunement,” he concluded.

“No, it was just a hunch,” I said, dismissively. I wasn’t exactly lying, though I did have access to information that I wasn’t yet ready to divulge.

“I see your companion has fallen asleep,” the professor observed, as if Erin hadn’t been snoring for the better part of an hour. “There’s a bed over there you can sleep in.” He pointed at a white mattress across the room, stood up against more bookshelves. “Please leave the contracts on my desk.”

He got up and walked over to the door. “Oh, and one last thing. I don’t know if it’s real or not, but there have long been rumours of a library in the sky,” he said.

This immediately got my attention. Just how much more ridiculous could this world get?

“Supposedly, this library contains every word ever written by man, be it a best-selling novel or a child’s private birthday card to his mother. Maybe someone, somewhere, once wrote about these contracts,” he mused. “Anyways. Classes begin at 7 o’clock, so be sure to be out before then. Speak to Mr. Hokey at the reception before you leave. He’ll have a gift ready for you.”

With that, he closed the door behind him.