Where Did the Magic Go? (580 words)

 

Where Did the Magic Go? (580 words)

By Mike Barker

Helvira glared at the judge. They couldn’t do this to him! Just because he had let his magic run a little too far, and it killed...

The judge banged his gavel. “Very well. As laid out in the accords that have ruled Fairie for the last four hundred years, we find you guilty. This means you will be stripped of your magic, and then sent to another world, where you may find another life. May you find peace there.”

The courtroom quieted. Helvira could hear his mother crying in one corner, but he just shook his head, and waited.

The bolt of lightning fell quickly, and swept down his body. He felt the magic draining out of his body, following the lightning pulsing down his body and into the floor below him. Then he suddenly couldn’t feel it at all. It was as if his magic was... it was gone! He blinked, and shivered. He hadn’t realized just what it would feel like to have no magic. That sense of every cell in his body was gone, and that feeling of interacting with the entire world around him... it was all gone.

Now he dropped his head into his hands, and cried.

While he was still stunned, blinking away tears, they pushed and shoved him through a portal that opened in the air beside him. He stumbled forward, and tried to turn back. But the portal was already gone, and he just ran into a wall. He turned around and around, looking at the alley he had been pushed into. Dark walls, a floor that seemed oddly uneven, a large metal container of some kind that smelled as if someone had dumped trash in it and left it sitting. What kind of world was this?

A man in a strange blue suit glanced into the alley, then walked in as if he was in charge. He looked Helvira up and down, then shook his head. “And what do you think you are doing back here? Come on out to the street, and let’s see if we can figure out where you should be.”

He took Helvira’s arm and walked him out of the alley. In the street, they had lights on poles, and metal boxes running along the street. The man led Helvira under one of the lights, then stepped back and looked him over again. 

“Well, I don’t know where you got the fancy clothes, but you shouldn’t be hanging around in an alley, boy. You’ll get yourself in trouble, and I don’t need any problems on my patrol.”

Helvira blinked. “Patrol? Are you a guardsman, then?”

The man laughed. “Sorry, just plain old police. It sounds like you have been reading too much fantasy, though. Where do you live?”

Helvira chewed on his lip. “In the valley of Handesmann, near the river?”

Now the man chortled. “Okay. But right now, you’re in downtown LA. Are you on some drugs?”

Helvira shrugged. “No drugs.”

The man scratched under his hat, then settled it again on his head. “I think we’re going to have to take you in, and let someone else figure out what to do with you. Sorry, but a beat cop just isn’t going to help you find that valley or that river.”

The man raised his hand, and pushed at an ornament on his shoulder. Then a voice came from it, and he talked with it. Helvira felt his eyes widen. They had magic here! 

To be continued (maybe...)