zombies of widgeroo – chapter six

chapter six – containing the magic of illusions, lesser conjuring, earth magic and alchemical symbology wrapped up in the lore of the apprentice.

back in the late 1900s, the multinationals templar had dominated the globe. their enforcers, called managers, had amassed such fortunes that they invoked the gods of jealousy among lesser corporate entities and occult organisations, such as the now rising macdonalds corporation which is merely a smaller less-religious version of a larger corporation which existed during the 1900s.

when jubei, the capitalist overlord, returned for the second time, the multinationals templar were accused of heinous crimes and were overthrown by their lesser counterparts.

nowadays, the enforcers claim some relationship to the once powerful organisation, but they really have no concept of the realities of the time.

for example, coogs rules his enforcers with fear, whereas the templars ruled with greed. after all, in the 1900s, what’s good for me is better for you. however, with the change brought by jubei and the downfall of the multinationals templar, the enforcers have learned to rely on such powers as their own fists and they often find strength in numbers. where one devoted multinationals templar manager would walk unscathed through the contempt of millions then bring them all to their knees at his feet while he slowly decapitated their children, the enforcers of today are forced to settle for cowing small towns and erecting simple sects in order to maintain order in a land of chaos.

i remember watching one such manager as he enjoyed the worship of many billions of customers, and discovered the joys unlimited credit could buy. he had sat next to me in a hotel lobby and told me a story of how he had accumulated his position through careful attention to detail.

“i never forget a debt, my friend,” he told me. “not in a trillion years would i forget how much you owe me. and,” he added as he sipped his drink. “i always accept drinks bought for me by strangers such as yourself, but i would never return the favour. such is how wealth is maintained.”

his spells were the most powerful i’d ever seen in many years. he could cast a rune of imagined need across an item of such simplicity and uselessness, that its value would seem unattainable and that it was indeed made available to the customer was seen as generous beyond all expectations.

his customers were thankful for his presence and, even as the second coming of the capitalist overlord came to being, his customers never forgot him and he was the only manager offered the option of a quick death as opposed to one which was prolonged through many centuries.

but i think it is to his credit that he instead chose the death of many years for, in his words, there is always hope of profit when there is life in which to spend it.

i thought of that manager now as i lay in the earth, wrapping the girl in my arms to protect her from the sand. she breathed through me, and relied on me for life.

her name was cen. she had been the daughter of the body in the pavement. or rather, she had presumed she was his daughter.

his name had been doll. doll by name, but not by nature. he had instead intended for cen to be his doll. hanging her from the ceiling on lengths of torn linen, he often used her for his sexual pleasure, demanding compliance and, above all, silent acceptance.

painting her face, and dressing her in florals, he always called her his little toy. his little doll.

doll knew a thing or two about killing, too.

cen said he’d often made extra cash by burying travellers behind the watershed.

“you were lucky you got here shortly before the truckers arrived,” she told me. “if you’d made it in a few hours before, he’d have poisoned your food then dragged you to one of the holes in the ground behind the watershed. he has me dig them in advance, you see. never knew when he’d need some extra stuff from travellers.”

we lay there, under the dirt in front of the roadhouse and we listened to the truckers making their stops. they found the body and ignored it. they poured their petrol and raided the fridges for food. they took all the coffee and when the last trucker left, he set the place alight.

the sand we used as our blanket was warmed by the glowing roadhouse and thus the night’s chill was licked away by fiery tongues.

as we slept, i dreamed of long-tongued salamanders wading into molten lava streams to be purified.

when they emerged from the heat, their bones shone with quiet light.

such humble beings they were.

they assembled into a gathering and built themselves into a pyramid. at the top of the pyramid, a lone salamander curled up to sleep, and it dreamed a dream of an island paradise and a hotel. inside the hotel, the salamander crawled and asked for water of the bellboy.

the bellboy looked down at the salamander and, in slow english, said, “sorry, we don’t serve salamanders here.”

but the salamander never got the joke. he died there of thirst in his dreams, and thus died in life. beneath him, the other salamanders wept at his passing and carried his body back to the molten rock where they slipped his bones into its current and watched him float downstream to be consumed in lakes of fire.

first one of them seemed to look straight at me, then they all seemed to look straight at me.

i felt uncomfortable. i was standing in the lava, hip-deep, and the stuff was chewing into my flesh. the salamanders began to chant words of power. so many words, some i’d never even heard before.

as the last of my flesh was eaten from my bones, the salamander who had first noticed me, said, “remember the first law of magic, and you can remember the world.”

then he pushed a bone claw into the rock and carved one of the most incredible signs ever to be carved.

something in my head switched on, and i scrambled to the edge of the lava and bent over the symbol the salamander had drawn.

“but that’s so perfect!” i cried. “how can it be?”

the salamander shrugged and clicked the bones of its jaws. “it can be because it is the first law, and as such, the last.”

“it is magnificent!” i declared.

the salamander chuckled. “we have often wondered,” he said, half-turning to his companions. “what the chaos lords might have thought of it.”

the other slamanders began to roar with laughter, and i couldn’t understand why.

“why are you still here?” the salamander asked as they settled into silence. “you should be gone by now, practising your art. there are others to think of now. fatty will turn events to their proper course. don’t be late.”

and, with a flick of its tail and a whispered word, it banished me from my dreams.

when i woke, we were above the ground, and cen was sitting cross-legged in front of me, toying with her hair. her eyes studied me with intense curiosity. i shook my head to clear the dream, and said, “yes?”

she shrugged. “i don’t know. it was your dream.”

“so it was.”

we were in a field, far from where we’d been when we first slept. the roadhouse was gone. in its place stood an abandoned farmhouse. long ago, possibly during the war, kids had come and painted their favourite slogans on the walls.

reality is manifest.

speed is relative.

time goes on.

That kind of mindless decorative scrawlings had long ago become drivel, but it amused the younger generations so much they even studied the stuff. cen followed closely as i wandered over to the farmhouse.
i pushed open the brittle door and we went inside.

the table had been laid for two. the food long ago decomposed and all that was left were the bones of some animal. maybe pig. cen screwed her expression and made a sound of distaste. “they ate animals?”

“it was a long time ago,” i told her. “they didn’t have the wisdom of our age.”

“still… it’s hard to believe we were them, and they were us.”

i picked up a fork and twirled it in my hand. “i’m a vegetarian.”

she watched the light play on the stem of the fork. it flickered across her face, and the reflections in her eyes were like slivers of ice spat to the earth from a great height. i tried not to think of stabbings and let the fork fall to my feet where it landed with a rusty clang. cen shuddered. “what’d you do that for?”

“i didn’t need it.” i looked in the cupboards and found a packet of noodles. ancient noodles. the thought made me smile. they were probably still okay to eat, but i wasn’t going to give them a try.

“what’s this?”

i turned to find her holding up a twenty cent piece.

“that,” i said, taking it from her. “is a coin. it is very rare. where did you find it?”

“under the plate. that’s money? cash?”

i nodded.

“wow,” she leaned closer, getting a good look. “aren’t they supposed to be banned, or something?”

“they are indeed. this must be unique. see? you can still see the ridges on its edge.” i pocketed it. “powerful magic.”

“hey! i found it! it should be mine!”

“trust me, you don’t want it. in the hands of children they can be too powerful. they’ll warp your mind and drive you insane. you have to know what you’re doing.”

“are you a ceo?”

i almost laughed at the thought. “no, i’m no ceo. or a manager. no, i’m just someone looking for someone else.”

“you have to be something! a mage?”

“sometimes.”

“then show me something! show me something a mage would do.”

“i’d rather not. it’s early. i’ve only just woken.”

“please!”

i sighed. she was going to be a handful. i threw everything off the table, throwing the plates and cutlery to the floor. cen giggled at the mess and even helped me to destroy a vase. when the table was clear, i placed the twenty cent piece in the centre of the table. around it, i used my biro to scratch an equilateral triangle, with one point aiming north. then i circled the whole thing and beside the circle i carved the sacred three letters of mtv.

as soon as the final letter had been scratched, i said the invocation key. “i want my.”

and the coin began to dance. it jumped from the centre of the triangle and waddled around inside it like something drunk and disorderly. cen clapped her hands and shrieked with pleasure as the thing bounced and jangled its way around the table.

“how did you do that?” she cried.

i touched my temple. “you’ve got to know stuff.”

“i want to know!”

i reached out and grabbed the coin in midair. “maybe tomorrow,” i said, shoving the coin into my pocket. “but not today. today we have to be somewhere else. the enforcers will be here shortly.”

“how do you know?”

“because i just did this. they’ll hear the invocation to the demon soon enough.”

“you promise you’ll teach me?”

i thought of my former master, so long ago. too long. i have forgotten his name, but he had kind eyes and a sharp beard. he reeked of ale, and nicotine. in those days, we used to write our symbols in the sand with a wand.

now i use a biro.

“how the world changes,” i said to noone.

the girl tugged at my sleeve. “promise?”

“i have never had an apprentice. i’m not sure where i would begin.”

“with the coin.”

i shook my head. “i don’t think so. it’s too powerful.”

“then with something else. something fun!”

“then i will begin with one rule, which you must always remember.”

“okay…”

“magic is never fun. dangerous, yes. exciting, maybe. but never fun. if you think it’s fun, you will be dead before the first lesson is complete.”

cen pouted at me. she almost poked her tongue out. instead, she settled for saying “spoilsport!”

“next rule: never ignore the words of your master,” i slapped the side of her head. “remember these things!”

she winced and rubbed her head where my hand had made a mark. “you didn’t have to hit me! doll hit me all the time.”

“then you should be used to it. come. and next time, don’t make light of what i say. one day, it will save your life.”

i remember my master telling me that. he had never hit my head, though. he’d once beaten me so badly my ribs had poked through my skin. and he pulled my guts out of my belly and used them for three days as a decoration on his wall. i didn’t think i’d need to go that far.

he’d been trying to tell me about the chaos lords. the salamanders had mentioned them. i don’t know what they had to do with the first law of magic, though. the first law didn’t have much to do with the chaos lords who, legend tells it, would have been opposed to the first law.

the chaos lords existed before time began. they were driven from this world, although none remember how, or why.

there is a sentence from an ancient grimoire the cagliostro once showed me, which read, and the lord of chaos looked down upon the overlord and cursed him, saying, “your blood will return us.”

your blood will return us.

when he died, the overlord ordered his body to be buried in a secret location so none might find it until his corpse was ash so no blood remained.

where he was buried is a secret long forgotten.

some maintain he was placed beneath the sphynx so it might guard his blood from the ignorant.

the girl scampered after me, seizing a few shiny things from the farmhouse as i went outside into the evening sun. it would soon be dark, which was the best time to travel the desert.

“we will go across the sand, and will come to a road in three days,” i told her. “that road is the one we want. we could go the long way, i guess, but that would mean running into enforcers. we don’t want that. i guess it will give me the opportunity to begin your lessons. that is, if you’re really serious.”

“i’m serious.”

“then we shall begin. what is the primary rule of magic?”

“i don’t know,” the girl said, almost complaining.

“correct.”

she looked surprised. “i don’t get it.”

“that’s the point. think about it and you will.”

“you mean i was right? the answer is ‘i don’t know’?”

“technically, you’re right, but you’ll always be wrong, that is the primary rule. do you understand?”

“i think so.”

i smiled, knowing she didn’t. “then explain it to me as we walk. why is that the answer, and why are you wrong?”

“i don’t know?” she asked, trying for two for two.

“close,” i admitted, “but you may as well attempt a full explanation, right? seeing as we’ve a long walk ahead of us. are your feet okay? do you need better shoes?”

she looked down at her sneakers. “what’s wrong with these?”

“nothing at all. now, explain the primary rule.”

“i don’t know how. where do i begin? you’re supposed to be teaching me!”

“i am teaching you. but you must know how to learn.”

and, continuing this banter, i led us across the sand hills behind the farmhouse and into desert dunes which were, for the moment, warm but would soon be as ice.

Tags: zombies of widgeroo