First Place Winner First Chapter of a Novel 2004 El Paso Writers’ League Contest

CHAPTER ONE

It was a fine October day when Destiny quite literally slapped Alistair Grunt in the face.  He knew it was Destiny, because it came in the form of a little white postcard with the word “Destiny” printed imperiously on the front in bold black capital letters.  On the reverse side (in slightly smaller print and the ordinary number of capital and lower case letters) was an address.

He was walking along Queen Victoria Street.  More like racing, actually.  He was late for school, the fourth time this week, and if he did not arrive before the final bell, his teacher, Miss Wendsleydale, would give him a Grand Talking To.  He had been the recipient of many Grand Talkings To, but the honor did not seem to grow with time and frequency.  In fact, with each Grand Talking To, Alistair’s parents spoke more and more about What Was To Become Of Him.  His father’s solutions were many, and none to Alistair’s liking.  Most involved long stretches in the confines of his bedroom with neither television nor video game system to keep him company.

And so it was the morning he collided with Destiny, or rather it collided with him.  The autumn wind had been blowing steadily; the kind of wind that was useful for sailing boats, flying kites or conjuring rosy-cheeked nannies.  Alistair had been searching the skies for any of these (a strong wind could likely carry away a boat, he imagined), when the white post card struck him in the left cheek with a sharp buzz.

“Ouch!”  The blow was not particularly hard, but unexpected.  When he touched his face, a tiny smudge of blood stained his fingertips like cherry syrup.

The card had stuck in his coat collar and now waved jovially at passers-by, flapping in the breeze like a gull’s wing.  Plucking the card from his coat, Alistair moved to drop it into the trash bin when the strange message caught his eye.  It said:

Your Destiny Awaits You

Report to No. 31 Quay Street

London

He examined the card for a recipient, but found no name, only the address.  Alistair could not bring himself to toss Destiny in the trash bin just yet.  Instead, he placed the card in his arithmetic book and hurried to school.

Alistair arrived just before the final bell, thereby receiving only a glare from his teacher rather than a scolding.  He attempted to forget about the card, but it was nearly impossible.  The card appeared during each lesson, tucked within the pages of his textbooks or fluttering out of his assignments.  He tried desperately to pay attention; there was a geography exam that afternoon and he could not remember if Istanbul or Constantinople was the capital of Turkey.  Or was it Turkmenistan?  It was rather difficult to focus on subjects like mathematics and history when Destiny was quite clearly trying to get his attention.  Alistair managed to wait until lunchtime.  When his classmates filed out of the classroom, Alistair snuck away.

He followed the directions on the card to a small alleyway.  The pavement was buckled and large pools of green water dotted the surface like leopard spots.  At the end of the alley was a large oval door.  The door was striped in orange and purple, emblazoned with a roughly scrawled image of either a dragon or a vulture in what appeared to be navy blue crayon.

He spied his reflection in the window.  His round face was red and beaded with sweat and his freckles had darkened to muddy splotches.  The wind had mussed his red hair, and the strands of a particularly quarrelsome clump sprouted upward from his head like a peacock’s tail.  Hardly a fitting appearance to meet one’s Destiny.

If his mother were present, she would have taken water and some of her pink setting gel to tame the unruly hairs.  He could almost hear her shrill voice, “Alistair, What Is To Become of You?  Imagine, going to meet your Destiny looking like that!”

To ease the imaginary voice of his mother, Alistair spit in his palm and slapped the sticky fluid onto his scalp. Despite his best efforts to smooth them, the wayward strands were now more pronounced, standing on end like a porcupine’s quills.  With a sigh, Alistair opened the door.

The room beyond smelled of dust, old books, mayonnaise and dirty sweat socks.  Rows of candles flickered from a chandelier constructed of moose antlers and a blue fire danced in the old stone fireplace.  Most of the space was occupied by shelves of various sizes, shapes, and materials.  There were tall shelves of wood and metal, short fat shelves constructed of jewel-colored plastics, and even thin shelves suspended from the ceiling with rusty chains.  Stuffed into every crevice were a strange array of books, scrolls and artifacts.  One shelf was crammed so full with old parchment, the wrinkled yellow pages spilled onto the cluttered floor.  On another, brightly colored bottles stood in a line like soldiers, guarded by a wide-socketed skull that stared at Alistair woefully, the narrow cheekbones seeming to frown at him in disapproval.  Alistair began to wonder if he had stumbled upon a museum storeroom.  He was positive this was exactly what he had done, when he saw the man.

He was an old man with a shining bald head and a long white beard.  Silver moon-shaped spectacles sat on his long rat-like nose.  He was dressed in a gray tweed coat, bright purple dress shirt, and blue jeans.  Too small to fully cover his head was a twilight blue velvet bowler hat, embroidered with a band of the same silver dragon-vultures drawn on the door.

The man looked up at Alistair as the striped door slammed shut.  “Ah!  So you have arrived at last.  I was beginning to think you weren’t coming at all!”  His voice was high and squawky, like the cry of a seabird.  Dragging himself out of a stuffed pink chair, the man picked his way through the crowded room and began to assess his visitor.

“Let’s see.  The age is about right, although the height is a little less than I expected.”  He began, tapping one index finger on his chin.

Alistair drew himself up straight, trying his best to appear presentable.

“I don’t suppose you could do anything with that hair?”

Alistair’s hand reached toward his head.  “I’m afraid not, sir.  It has a design of its own.”

The man continued to regard him carefully, cocking his head first left, and then right, his shaggy eyebrows knit together like a pair of albino caterpillars.  Finally, he heaved a great sigh. “Well, I suppose you will do.”

Alistair released his breath in a whoosh.  He still did not know what the man intended with him, but was glad he had at least passed inspection.

“And what is your name?” the old man asked

“Alistair Grunt,” the boy replied proudly.

The old man blinked rapidly.  “Are you quite certain?”

Alistair thought hard for many minutes.  His mother sometimes called him “Dumpling” or “Preshy” or even “Little Prince Pudding Socks”, but Alistair suspected those were not the sort of names the old man wanted.  “Yes.”

The man frowned.  “No, no, no, that will never do.  It must be something grand and noble.  Like Rudigard Frogmorton.  Or Benevolio Stilgar Heatherton Westchester.  Or His Imperial Majesty Julius Copernucus Xavier Montefilbert.”

Alistair didn’t feel like he belonged to any of those names, and found himself disappointed his own name was not more to the old man’s liking.  “I’m sorry.”

The old man’s face brightened.  “We could change it!”

Alistair shook his head sadly.  “I have never been fond of it, but I am rather attached to it.  My mother gave it to me, you see.”

Alistair’s companion grunted.  “Very well, Alistair Grunt it is.  Are you ready then for your Grand Destiny?”

“How do you know the Destiny is mine?”

“Well you did find the card, didn’t you?”

Alistair waved the card beneath the old man’s long nose.  “But it could have been meant for anybody.  The wind blew it in, you see.”  Alistair pointed to the scratch on his cheek.  “I just happened to get in the way.”

The old man shook his head.  “No, the spell was quite specific.  The card was meant to find you.”

“A spell?  Then you’re a wizard?”  Alistair was quite excited.  All his favorite books had wizards in them.  Now that he thought of it, the room did appear the right sort for a wizard’s lair.

“I am indeed.”  The old man straightened up proudly.  “You may call me Gerontus Aloysius Albacore Berry.”

“That is quite a lot to say.”

Gerontus Aloysius Albacore Berry sighed.  “I suppose Gerontus will do, if that is all you can manage.”

Alistair shook Gerontus’ hand, the boy’s eyes falling on the velvet bowler hat.  The fabric was dotted with moth-eaten holes, and there was a small dent on the left side.  “Shouldn’t your hat be tall and pointed?”

“Those ridiculous things?  Impossible to fit through a doorway without stooping.”  Gerontus patted the bowler hat.  “I had this one made in the 1800s.  Far more practical.”

The boy agreed, but he was a little disappointed Gerontus did not own a proper wizard’s hat.  “So what can you tell me about the spell?”

“What spell?” the wizard asked.

“Destiny,” Alistair reminded him.

“Of course,” Gerontus said impatiently, waving his hand impatiently.  “I was just coming to that.”

Alistair had his doubts; in fact, he was quite certain the wizard had forgotten about it entirely.  Gerontus appeared rather easily distracted.

“What do you know of lost princes, maidens locked in towers and All Encompassing Evil?”  Gerontus began.

“Not much,” Alistair replied regretfully.  He wanted to tell the wizard about his favorite tales, like the one where the young cabin boy fought the band of ghostly pirates, or the one where the girl stepped in the fairy ring only to emerge a thousand years later, but he was afraid the wizard would think of such things as baby stories.  Gerontus was, after all, the genuine article, and Alistair did not want to begin their acquaintance with a bad impression. Hope flooded into the boy’s heart.  “Is that it, then?  Am I a missing prince?”

“Hmm?  No,” Gerontus waved his hand in the air absently.  “I was just hoping you might know something about them.  You see, it will help you on your quest, and would save me the time of explaining it to you.”

“Oh.”  Alistair’s face fell.  He looked too much like his parents to be adopted, although there were times he felt he truly did not belong to them.  They were Professional People, and quite serious.  His father was always criticizing Alistair for daydreaming.  Once he met Gerontus, his father would have no choice but to be impressed, particularly when he discovered Alistair’s Destiny.  “What can you tell me about my Destiny?”

“All in good time,” Gerontus replied, patting the boy on the head.  “First, I must tell Pru we have company.”  The old man moved to a rusty suit of armor.  He tugged on the arms and legs in a series of rapid motions.  With each pull, the armor let loose a string of expletives.  Alistair felt his face burn with embarrassment.  Speaking even one of those words would have him standing in the corner with a mouthful of his mother’s favorite lavender soap.

Gerontus frowned at Alistair’s expression.  “What do you expect?” the wizard asked impatiently.  “The armor’s cursed!”

There was a loud grating noise, like concrete dragged across a chalkboard.  The room shook slightly and the wall beside the armor slid open.  The mouth of a darkened passage gaped at Alistair like a hungry troll.

“I’ll just be a moment,” Gerontus said.  Tapping the brim of his hat in salute, the wizard vanished into the corridor.

Alistair waited several minutes, slowly pacing the room.  He glanced at his watch.  Lunchtime was almost over.  He desperately wished the wizard would hurry; he would be late for class if he waited much longer.  Only his curiosity prevented him from leaving.  After all this trouble, Alistair certainly could not abandon Destiny now.

He passed the time trying to read the withered labels on the gem-colored vials.  His progress was slow and difficult.  The writing was in an old, ornately fashioned calligraphy, and the crimson ink was faded.  Making the task more difficult was the changing firelight.  The flames had shimmered from blue to red to brilliant violet. He could barely make out the words “Dragon’s Liver” on a bottle of deep purple paste.  The one marked “Gryphon’s Heart” was filled with gold sand.  His fingers itched to open one of the flasks.  What harm could come from just sniffing one of these strange elixirs?

Slowly, his hand moved toward a vial of ruby liquid marked “Manticore Essence”.  As he twisted the cork, Alistair heard a loud hiss behind him.  Alistair froze, his breath catching in his lungs, the bottle halfway to his nose.  The hiss came again, this time louder.  He pinched his eyes shut, wondering if opening the bottle had unleashed the Manticore like a flesh-eating genie.  Alistair’s hair rose on end, his ears straining for the sounds of raspy breaths at his ear or sharp talons dragging across the floor.  He could almost feel the slow trickle of warm venom dripping onto the back of his neck.

After several seconds passed, Alistair began to feel a bit foolish.  Surely a ravenous beast would have eaten him by now.  He slowly lifted one eyelid, and then the other, prepared to come face to face with a mythic horror.  The room appeared exactly as before.  Alistair was almost disappointed to find no looming horror waiting to devour him.  Still, he could not shake the feeling he was being watched.  As he reached for another bottle, Alistair heard something move behind him.  His heart beating like thunder, the boy slowly turned.

An old cat with a shaggy grey coat lounged in front of the fireplace.  One eye was open and watched Alistair carefully.  A low growl rumbled from the cat’s chest.  It was a squat beast, with a plump body and short cobby legs.  The hair above the cat’s lip was thick, curling at the ends like a handlebar moustache.  His whiskers were long, twisting into knots near the end.  The cat yawned in boredom, displaying his wedge-shaped pink tongue.

Alistair liked cats; his grandmother owned dozens, and he was happy to feed them slivers of fish or dangle strings in front of their noses.  This particular beast looked too old to do more than grumble, and Alistair was lonesome in the cramped, dusty room.  As he approached, the cat watched him suspiciously with its eerie silver eyes.  Alistair held out his hand and spoke in a soft voice.  The old mouser sniffed his hand cautiously, and then promptly bit him.

Alistair yelped in pain.  Two pinpoints of blood welled where the cat’s fangs had broken the skin.  Instinctively, the boy placed the finger in his mouth, and began to suck the wound.  Remembering the finger had also just been in the cat’s mouth, Alistair immediately removed the bleeding finger, and wiped it on his trousers instead.

The wizard emerged from the cellar.  “Heimdall Nordax!” Gerontus waved his finger at the cat.  “Bad Heimdall Nordax!”

“You named your cat Heimdall Nordax?”  Alistair thought it was an odd name for a cat.

“Of course!” Gerontus frowned.  “What would you name a wizard’s cat?  Fluffy?  He is named for the man who founded magic in 2573 A.D.  Certainly you have heard of Heimdall Nordax?”

Alistair never had heard of such a person.  “So you’ve come from the future?”

“Oh, no.  The past.”  Gerontus pointed to the bowler hat.

The boy was very puzzled.  “But you just said magic was founded in 2573.”

Gerontus sighed in exasperation.  “Please try to keep up, if you would.”

Alistair nodded helpfully.  He was trying his best to understand, but some of the things Gerontus said were very confusing.

The wizard’s brow furrowed deeply.  “Wait!  Do you have motor cars and televisions?”

“Of course.”

“Out of order!  Out of order!” the wizard murmured to himself.  To Alistair, he explained, “Heimdall Nordax is the scientist who will discover the secrets of magic over five hundred and fifty years from now.  Once he figured out how magic worked, all the other mysteries fell into place:  eternal youth, time travel, transmogrification.”  Gerontus ticked off a list of magics on his spindly fingers.

“Transmog—what?”

“Transmogrification.  Turning oneself into an animal.  Nordax traveled back in time to share his secrets with those like myself. Over the centuries, we’ve improved upon Nordax’s early discoveries.  By the time Nordax is actually born, his world will be an entirely different place.”

“If that’s true, why isn’t there magic in my world?”

“That’s because Nordax hasn’t been born yet,” Gerontus replied as if that explained everything.

“But if magic already exists when he is born, he won’t be able to discover it.”  Alistair considered himself a logical boy, and the wizard’s line of thinking had a few faults.

“Precisely!” Gerontus beamed.  “It’s a paradox.  Once Nordax is born into a world of magic, magic will cease to exist, and he will need to start all over.” The wizard’s face clouded with regret.  “I’m afraid you were born in one of the time lines before Nordax arrived, or perhaps something went wrong while he was here.  There are only small hints in your world of Nordax and his discoveries.”

“What became of him?”

“Nordax disappeared sometime in the first century.  Burned at the stake or tossed to the lions, I would imagine.”  Gerontus frowned.  “What do they teach you in schools anyway?”

Alistair felt his face grow warm.  “I was never very good at lessons.”

Gerontus leaned forward, pressing his nose close to Alistair’s.  The boy felt those grey eyes scrutinize him closely.  A deep scowl creased the old man’s features.  “Well, the spell has worked before,” Gerontus murmured, “I suppose I do not have time to wonder if the message reached the correct person.  You’ll have to do for now.”

“What do I need to do?”  He was eager to help, particularly after the wizard seemed so sorry to see him.

“You’re to be my . . . assistant,” Gerontus said with profound reluctance.

His assistant!  Alistair had never imagined something so wonderful.  His imagination swirled with images of magic carpets and flying books.  Wait until the lads at school heard about this!  “If I am a wizard’s assistant, do I receive a magical cloak?”

“Err, of course.”  Gerontus glanced around the room.  Shooing Nordax with his foot, the wizard collected the tattered mat.  He shook out the hearthrug, ash, dead bugs, and clumps of cat hair falling to the floor like bits of confetti.  With a flourish, Gerontus draped the rug around Alistair’s shoulders.

“There.  Feel more official?”

“Not really,” murmured Alistair.

“There’s a lad!” Gerontus said, clapping Alistair on the back.

After another series of complex tugs, and a second poisonous verbal assault by the armor, the wizard led the way into the cellar.  The tunnel was lined in ancient brick, the brittle clay grinding into soft powder under Alistair’s sneakers.  The chilly air was scented with mold and wet worms.  Soft threads brushed past his cheeks, and Alistair was glad it was too dark to see what dangled from the low roofs.  He was afraid it might be spiders, and Alistair was afraid of spiders.

As they neared the bottom of the passage, a faint blue-green glow emanated from a crooked archway.  The damp, earthy scent was replaced by something stronger, something that reminded Alistair of the time his father had clogged the loo.  He knew the sewers of London were old, from the time of the Romans, he guessed, and the thought of entering one of those crumbling tunnels made his heart race.

Gerontus appeared unconcerned, stepping from the tunnel into a small room.  “Pru,” the old man called.  “He’s arrived.”

A high-pitched cackle echoed from the glowing chamber.  The frightful laugh was enough to send Alistair three steps back into the tunnel.  He was being foolish, he knew, but prejudice told him nothing pleasant owned a laugh like that.

Gerontus poked his head through the archway.  “Well, come on, boy.  We mustn’t keep Pru waiting.”

Alistair decided Pru would, in fact, have to wait, because wizard’s assistant or not, nothing would convince him to enter that room.  For all he knew, “Pru” was the name for some vicious beast Gerontus kept as a pet, and Alistair was quite content not to end up as something’s meal.  He glanced back up the darkened passage.  He had watched Gerontus very carefully, and was certain he knew the sequence for opening the door.

The eerie glow became stronger, further illuminating the tunnel and the room beyond.  Venturing a peek, Alistair saw a twisted troll-like figure huddled over a large kettle.  It was all Alistair needed to convince him a geography test was more desirable than wizardry.  He turned, fully intent on fleeing up the tunnel, when he saw the transparent filament dangling from the ceiling.  At the end, a fat white spider swayed like a pendulum.  Alistair bit his tongue.

The glow intensified, revealing dozens of tiny eight-legged horrors gleaming in the darkness like pearl pendants.  Alistair’s skin began to creep and tickle.  His eyes bounced from the chamber to the passage, as he determined which posed the least threat.  Alistair’s choice was determined as a pasty colored arachnid dropped onto his arm with a wet plop.  With a decidedly un-heroic scream, he plunged after Gerontus.  He would rather face the twisted creature Pru than the bobbing spider army.