"Do you know the Muffin Man?"

"The Muffin Man?"

"The Muffin Man."

"Yes, I know the Muffin Man. Who lives on Drury Lane?"

"Well she's married to the Muffin Man."

"The Muffin Man!?"

"THE MUFFIN MAN!!!"

"She's married to the Muffin Man..."


:)
Sorry, I just had to post that.

Anyway, a little something to pass the time by with?

(For those of you who haven't read the first four parts click here.)

Enjoy!

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Chapter Five – the invisible box

It’s been two weeks.

Two. Whole. Weeks.

No more schools to be found.

No more Chrons to be found.

Boring. Boring. Boring.

Delina and David came home three days later just like they said. Cathrine has been tired because she’s been staying out with friends since there is no school.

I reached level 27 with Alric’s help. But of course I couldn’t learn any more spells. So that makes dueling hard when Alric’s not there. Plus it’s Marlybone. So that makes it even harder.

One day after fighting an especially hard clockwork I was about ready to give up and leave when something caught my eye.

On the ground where the clockwork had been lay a necklace. I quickly run out into the street and pick it up. Once back on the safety of the sidewalk I examine it.

It was a simple. A plate of bronze inlaid with emerald and jade. It was a pretty thing but it had no status, making it useless.

As I walk back down the ally I pass a wizard in green dueling a clockwork. She looked like a Magus by the different style of clothing. She was furiously casting spells at terrified clockworks who looked liked they’d rather flee if given the choice.

I continue by.

When I get to Regents Square I go over to Prospector Zeke, he knew everything about the clothing and accessories from across the Spiral. The necklace didn’t look like it was from Marlybone, maybe he knew where it was from.

“Hello young wizard. How may I help you?” he asks kindly.

I smile at him. “Hello. I was won this necklace in a duel but it doesn’t have a status and it wasn’t a quest item. I was wondering what world it was from.”

I hand the necklace over to Zeke and he examines it with eyes that know what they’re doing. After a moment he hands it back and says, “I have not seen the likes of it before. Perhaps someone made it at a crafting table and decided it was just for decoration then accidentally lost it to a clockwork.”

I nod. “That’s makes sense. Thanks!” I plop the necklace in my bag and go back to Chelsea Court, where I was before as well. That’s usually what someone means when they say ‘went back to.’ But of course I don’t think you need me telling you that now do I?

Once back walking alone the rooftops I again pass the girl attacking the clockworks. Still? No, they were different ones. The last ones had been... rank four? These were rank four elite. And yes, there is a difference.

“Need any help?” I ask.

She glances over her shoulder. “Uh... sure!”

I join the duel and so does another clockwork. Together we finish them off, though I don’t really think she needed my help at all.

“What’s your name?” I ask.

“Calamity Emeraldshadow. You?”

“Suri. Rain.” If your curious the reason I say my first name, pause, then my last name is because I still have to think a moment before saying Rain. To me Silverwillow will always be my last name.

“Nice. Did you know ‘Suri’ in the ancient language means ‘rain’? So really your name is Rain, Rain. Though I guess that doesn’t matter. Storm wizard I’m guess?”

I laugh. “No, really? Hadn’t noticed. You’re a Life wizard then?” Some of the light and laughter in Calamity’s eyes die. She mutters something. “Pardon?” I say.

“Hmm? Oh, I was just saying that you were right.” She pauses. “You haven’t seen a necklace about have you? Bronze? Covered in jade and emeralds? A clockwork stole it form me and I’ve been fighting them all trying to get it back.”

I smile. “I have it actually. The last clockwork I fought dropped it. Here.” I dig it out of my bag.

She smiles a smile that makes the bleak evernight shine. “You don’t know how long I’ve been looking for this.”

Usually people say that meaning days and days. However the way she said it caught my attention. “Exactly how long then?” I ask.

She thinks for a moment. “Well, I won’t be here much longer, so I may as well tell you. I... I died during the Era of Darkness from the plague. But you can only die and rest in peace if you’re with the inanimate object you value most, because that is was what you want to take with you when you die.

“However when me and my family were traveling through Marlybone trying to get me to a doctor a clockwork stole it from me. And we couldn’t get it back. So I died, and I became a ghost, and I’ve been dueling these clockworks for years trying to find the one that stole the necklace. I’m surprised he dropped it to you.”

I gasp. “You’re... you’re dead?”

She smiles a little. “Don’t hear that often do you?”

I shake my head. “So what happens now?”

“Well, someone has to send me off. Care to do the honors?”

Send off a dead person? That was not exactly on the list of top-ten-things-I-want-to-do-before-I-die. But it couldn’t be that bad.

Could it...?

“Sure,” I say.

“Okay. Repeat after me, only add more meaning to the words.” I nod. “Okay. ‘I wonder shall you wander’.”

“I wonder shall you wander,” I repeat. Calamity glares at me.

“No, no. You have to add meaning, not just repeating it will do.”

“I’m sorry. How should I do it?” Honestly, I wanted to get this right.

“You have to add meaning to it. Like adding magic to a spell to make it work. Like that.”

“Okay. I wonder shall you wander.”

“No, no!”

“Ack! I’m sorry!”

“Try again.”

“I wonder shall you wander.”

“No!”

“I’m sorry!”

She takes a deep breath. “Magic. Add magic to it.”

I take a deep breath to calm my nerves and close my eyes. I reach deep into my soul and try to gather magic in my heart, as if I’m about to cast a spell. I try again.

“I wonder shall you wander.”

Silence. I open my eyes to see Calamity glaring at me. “Fail.”

I sigh.

“I wonder shall you wander.”

“You got it! Okay, now this. ‘Tis hope to pass on through’.”

“Tis hope to pass on through.”

“Great! Now, ‘with this object may you seek peace’.”

“With this object may you seek peace.”

“Now hand me the necklace.” I hand her the necklace. “Now, ‘rest in peace benevolent soul’.”

“Rest in peace benevolent soul.”

“And may you find your ancestors in the place above.”

“And may you find your ancestors in the place above.”

“Rest in peace.”

“Rest in peace.”

I look up to see Calamity slowly fading. Then a panicked thought crosses my find.

Life.

Could she have been the Chrons of Life and Ice?

“Wait!” I yell. I grab for her transparent hand. “Wait!”

“No!” she yells.

And with a feeling of falling off a cliff I leave the rooftops of Marlybone and am suddenly surrounded by white fluffiness. Like I was on a cloud.

“You stupid idiot!” yells Calamity furiously. She punches my arm. However having the disability of being a ghost it didn’t hurt as much had she been solid. However it did give me cold chills.

“Where are we?” I ask.

“You knocked us into limbo! A bleak oblivion of nothingness! Because I was dead and was trying to pass on and you are living you weighed me down so I couldn’t get up all the way and we got stuck in the middle! Don’t you know that’s why people don’t being their bodies with them? Cause they’re too heavy!” She punches me again and I jump up out of the way...

...and go flying.

I float back down like a feather and land softly on the clods. Calamity and me stare at each other with eyes the size of dinner plates. There was only on answer to this conundrum.

No gravity.

Or, considerably less than there is on the Spiral.

“Whoa,” I say.

After a moment of jumping around Calamity snaps, “How do we get out of here?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. I only know how to get out Places of Nowhere.”

“Places of Where?”

“Nowhere. A pocket of empty space. To get out you have to break something. I broke a mirror the first time. The second time I ended up there I broke my arm However,” I add at Calamity’s horrified look, “it healed instantly afterwards.

“You’re weird, you know?” she says.

“Yeah, I know.”

“Why did you follow me?”

“Well, I’m looking for people called Chrons, they have talent in two schools, not just one. I’m looking for someone in the talent of Life and Ice. Since you were Life it just crossed my mind at the last moment.”

Calamity makes a face. “No one in my family likes Ice because of some incident. hundreds of years ago. I wasn’t even allowed to be friends with Thaumaturge's.”

I sigh. “Oh.”

Inside I was wallowing in disappointment. Darn. I was so certain that she would be the Thaumagist, Life and Ice, Chrons. But then again, how could she be. She was a ghost!

“How do we get out of here?” I ask.

She shrugs. “There’s bound to be someone else here. Someone who couldn’t let go of his or her possession because it was too heavy. We should start looking.”

We start walking around the cloud place. Huge walls of clouds were all around us, and we could pass through them. They seemed to be in rows. Some of the clouds were also tinted different colors. Some light blues or purples and sometimes light reds and yellows.

It was odd.

I look forward after getting tiered of looking left and right and spot something small and black. “Look!” I say. I point to the object and Calamity’s eyes widen. We quickly make our way to the blank thing.

It was a book. A small black boot covered in a gray dust. All around it the clouds were sprinkled with this gray dust. The cover was black leather, old by the way it was cracked. Some dry, yellow pages stuck out here and there.

“What is it?” I ask.

“It might be a possession of a person who got stuck here like we did. But you need this to get all the way up there. By would they leave it?”

I pick it up and flip through the pages.

Blank.

Every last one of them.

I hold it up for Calamity to see and she takes it from me, looking through it herself. After a moment she hands it back. “Weird.”

I take hold of the front and back covers and hold them out like wings and give the book a little shake. A small, silver stick falls out and lands on the cloud floor with a ping that resonants around us. Once it dies down I pick it up.

A pen.

Like a pen you’d have back home. On earth I mean.

Not a feather pen. No ink well. A common, everyday, earthen, silver, pen.

Calamity takes it from me and says, “what is this odd contraption? Does it write? Is it a tool for eating?”

I laugh. “No, it’s a pen. For writing.”

“Really?”

I take it from her. “Yeah, watch.” I draw a line in the first page of the book. “See? It holds the ink inside of it instead of having to keep dipping it in an ink well.”

“How odd.”

We continue walking. I keep the book under my arm and continue to explain to Calamity how a pen works. Soon we come to a hill of clouds. We walk up it and then stop, and then gasp.

Honestly do I need to go into detail about stopping on a white hill which was made of the softest thing I had ever felt? And how the gasp made me start coughing because what I saw startled me that much?

No, I think I do not.

Below were about five, small houses made of glass. They shimmered in an unknown light source. We could both make out figures making their way between the houses.

“What is that?” I ask.

Calamity doesn’t answer.

She starts running.

“Hey wait up!” I yell. I start to run after her but trip over my own feet and fall face first into a puff of cloud.

How graceful.

The book had spilled from my arm however the pen was still firmly in my grasp. Deciding it wasn’t worth it to accidentally lose the book and pen I stick the pen back in the book and stick the book in my bag.

There.

Safe.

...I hope.

I follow Calamity down into the house cluster. The people, slightly transparent I notice, don’t seem to see us.

I walk over to an elderly lady and try to tap her shoulder.

My hand passes right through.

The lady gasps and the same time I gasp and she looks behind her, squints, then turns back around.

She hadn’t seen me at all.

I walk over to Calamity who was talking to a man maybe in his mid thirties.

“Calamity, somethings wrong here,” I say.

She turns to me. “What do you mean?”

“What do I mean?” says the man. “I mean that you need to hurry up and get out of here before it happens to you too!”

“Before what happens?” I ask.

“I was talking to her,” says Calamity pointing to me. The man squints.

“Who?”

“Her.”

“The old lady?”

“No. My friend right here not two feet away from you.”

The man shakes his head. “No one there, sorry sweetie, talking to air you are. Perhaps it’s already started...”

“Nothing has. How do you stop it?” asks Calamity.

“Stop what?” I intervene.

“The curse here,” she says softly.

The man was talking. “There is said to be a book. A book that has supreme, magical properties. This book is lost somewhere in this in between world. The key to the door that will destroy the curse was destroyed. Then a man came here not too long ago, maybe a decade ago, and started terrorizing this place with monsters. He said if we did everything for him he would let us go. But he never did. Then he vanished, and his book was lost.”

Suddenly terrified of knowing who it might be I say, “Calamity, ask him if he knows who this man was.”

She nods. “Who was this man?”

The other man shrugs. “Don’t know his first name. Only went by his last name I believe.”

“And what was that.”

“Um... I think it was Silverwillow. Yes, his name was Silverwillow.”

I stumble back, passing through some people who yelped in surprise as a cold feeling washed over them, and then I collapsed on the ground. Calamity rushed over to me.

“Are... are you okay?”

I shake my head. I was sure I looked panicked and frightened. Silverwillow. Again my last name had popped up as someone who had wrecked havoc and destroyed lives, even if these people were no longer living.

I decide to change the subject. “The book I found. Could it be the same book?”

Calamity turns to the man who was looking quite confused. “What did this book do?” she asks instead. I smack her, but without much force. I was surprisingly weak from the shock.

“Well, he would write in it, then whatever he had written would fold off the page and become a monster.”

I quickly take the book from my bag and flip to the first page.

The line was gone.

I stare at the page.

Then I have an idea.

Taking out the pen I look around. Only a key could release this place from some curse. What did the key look like? Was it even a key? I begin to walk around the place looking at stuff.

Calamity must’ve figured out the same thing because she asked the man, “what does the key look like?”

“Um, small? Silver too. It kind of looks like a... rose. It has to fit those doors.” He points to two massive doors I hadn’t see before. Maybe I should get glasses, they were humongous! They stood by the outer reaches of the houses. Made entirely out of a silver metal, it was decorated with constellations and celestial patterns. Above them on a silver stone sign were the words: pass through these doors and they shall take you to where you are supposed to go.

“Big,” I mutter.

I begin to draw.

I don’t mean to boast but I was a rather good drawer. But I mostly kept my drawing to myself. As I drew this time I let the image of a rose shaped key flutter in my mind. As I drew I felt a tingle go up my fingers.

This book had been made for evil.

But I was using it for good.

Soon an interesting looking key was on the page. I turn the book upside down and shake it. The image of the key falls out and solidifies on the ground. The man and several other by passers gasp and quickly make a dive for it. I step out of the way.

Though as they try to grab for it their hands pass right through.

“What is this hallucination!” yells the man. He turns to Calamity. “You! You are working for him aren’t you! You have given us false hope to try to learn our secrets!”

“What? No! No I’m not! I’m trying to help!”

“Lies!” he yelled as he made a lunge to attack her.

“No!” I yell. I step in front of him but he simple passes through me. Calamity tried to defend herself but he had an unfair advantage.

But I had the trump card.

Piking up the key I run towards the doors. They were even more massive up close. Without bothering to think I jam the key in the key hole and turn it.

A buzzing noise fills the air and everyone behind me freezes what they’re doing to watch the huge doors, doors that had never been opened, open to reveal a blinding light.

“The doors have opened!” everyone was yelling. And then they were rushing up to it. Full of hope of finally going to where they had waited so long to go.

Soon they’re are only a few people left. I turn to Calamity as she walks up behind me. “Well, this is it,” she says.

I smile. “They’ll take you where your supposed to go. So, go on!”

She smiles, then hugs me. I was startled for a second. I had only known her for about four hours but I guess that was enough to become a friend. “Thank you,” she whispered.

Before I could say anything she let me go and walked towards the door, never looked back, and disappeared.

Then it was my turn.

Being the only one left I didn’t have a reason to look back.

Book under my arm I walk through the shining doors. The light vanishes around me and morphs into buildings and rooftops surrounded by an ever night.

And a very familiar voice yelling words that shall remain unrepeatable.

“Calamity?” I ask. Yes, it was Calamity, solid as a wizard can be. Her clothes, originally a dull green since she was, well, dead, were now a vibrant neon and decorated with Life symbols that I hadn’t seen before. She was stomping her feet and looked incredibly angry. “What are you doing here?”

She turns and sees me. “The stupid door brought me back here! Why!?”

“Um...” Honestly I didn’t know. “You seem like a wizard again. Not a ghost.”

She looks down at herself, as if stunned. “But... I’m supposed to be dead. Please don’t tell me I’ve come back to life. That breaks the laws of life. Any Theurgist knows that.”

“Well I’m a Diviner. But, maybe you need to finish something?”

“Well if that’s it I’m gonna be mad. I was ready to move on. I’ve been stuck as a ghost for ten years. Enough is enough.”

“Fine. So what are you gonna do?”

She sighs. “Not much I can do about it now. Where can I stay?”

I think, then it comes to me. “There’s an abandoned apartment in Hyde Park. You can stay there. I like to duck in there to escape a clockwork mod. I’m sure you can stay there. No one will find you. And it’s not a quest stop.”

She sighs. “Suppose I don’t have a choice. But what about food? I have to eat now. And drink. And sleep.”

“Wow. As a ghost you don’t sleep? Ouch. Ten years of sleepless nights.”

“Yeah, pitiful right?”

I show her the apartment and then we saw goodbye to each other. I had no idea how long we had been in the cloud place, and if I still had time before I had to go home I wanted to go to the library.

When I got to Wizard City I found that it had only been an hour since I had gone to Marlybone. Yes, that meant I had time.

I go over the library. Harold smiles at me as I walk up to him. “Are there any books on dark materials?”

“Well Suri, usually that’s a Necromancer asking. Back right. Lowest shelf. You’ll know it’s covered in cobwebs. Whatever for?”

“I heard some Necromancers talking about something or other and it got me curious.”

“All right.”

I head to the back. Indeed the lowest shelf was covered in cobwebs. I start going through the book titles.

Frog Worts and the Wraiths Scythe

Death and Domination

A Common Spell for Necromancer

Resisting the Dead

Tales from Dragonspyer

Nothing I was looking for. There had to be something though. There just had to be. There just wasn’t nothing on something.

But like there was nothing on the School of Shadow there was nothing on the book I had found or the secrets it held.

Such as the Rose of Interchange.

It was written on a scrape of paper tucked between the pages of the book, close to the binding so it was hard to get out. On it had been written: Never draw the Rose of Interchange, for it’s power is unbelievable, and should never be used. This is a warning for those who have the power to use this, for only a Silverwillow can create.

I wouldn’t do it, I was just curious as to what a Rose of Interchange was. There had to be something about it somewhere.

As I was putting a book back there was a small tremor and the shelf above the one I was searching decided to collapse.

Right on my hand.

Ouch.

While I was nursing my bruised hand I look at the 20 some odd books that had fallen. Great, I may as well put them back. As I start trying to put the heavy, large, wooden, long, (did I mention heavy?), shelf back I spot in the darkness a panel.

A panel slightly loose.

Just inviting me to open it.

Just a pretty little invitation tied off with a silk ribbon.

So of course I opened it.

Not much happened.

Just a puff of chilly air.

I reach my hand in and pull out a very small, very thick book.

The pages were thick with age and the leather cover was nearly cracked. A few strands of ribbon thread showed here and there, worn away with age.

I quickly glance around to make sure that there isn’t anyone around then I take it out of the small compartment. I smelled strongly of damp leather and mold. Obviously it had been there a long time. I carefully open the cover. It was only staying on due to some thin lengths of worn out binding.

The first page was yellow and stained. It was inscribed with:

~The Invisible Box~

And Other Strange Objects Unknown to Wizards

Was this a Jackpot?

I hope so.

Carefully, ever so carefully I turn to the next page.

Unreadable.

I turn to the next page. I was able to make out ‘... and then there is ...’ but nothing more. How old was this book?

The next page was slightly more readable. I started reading it, hoping it would tell me about the Rose of Interchange and maybe, just maybe, something about the School of Shadow.

‘There is known in the world the four element: water, fire, earth, and air. However where did these elements come from? Were they made? Or are the natural? The answer is simple: they were made. But how, and by what? This is something we don’t dwell on. But after years of research I have found the answer. There is an object called the Myhu. It merely looks like a book but it has extraordinary magic that none can fathom. With the power to create it is by far the most powerful force in the universe.

‘However, there is no creation without time. Time is a necessity in all things. Without time nothing would happen. We would all stand frozen doing nothing, if we even here in the first place. For the Myhu to work it must have it’s partner Levan. When both Myhu and Levan are together there becomes a force that can change everything. Levan represents time. It merely looks like a pocket watch but like Myhu it holds unimaginable abilities.’

That was it. The whole page consisted of those two paragraphs. My mind buzzed over what they had said.

Mahu and Levan. The book and the watch. Creation and Time.

Awesome!

To be able to control creation and time would make you uber powerful and totally unstoppable. Epic!

“Suri! Where are you!?”

I look around, was Alric near? No, that was a whisper chat. “In the library,” I respond. “Why?”

“You better come out to the Commons quick! Something weird is going on!”

“Okay, be right there.”

I delicately put the book in my backpack and put the still spilled books in a messy pile in the corner. Then I run towards the front of the library, anxious as to what could’ve happened this time.

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Evil cliff hanger I know. MWUAHAHAHA!

And unedited. I know that too.

Laterz!
~Emma