Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

It’s a little known fact that there is exactly one fish that is in charge of the weather worldwide. It’s true! Whatever that fish feels is reflected in the weather patterns, and the stranger the occurrences in that fish’s life, the stranger the weather. Normal depredations of marine life may cause things like floods, droughts, or even the odd tornado. But there have been much, much stranger occurrences.

Take, for example, the time that the fish was a tilapia that was caught by an angler using a cheese-based bait, posed for a photo, and then thrown back. That caused a rain of jellyfish in one area and a crimson tide in another. Then, of course, there was the time that the fish, a blue tang, was caught by a poacher and lived out the rest of its life in a salt water aquarium? That caused a tornado outbreak, an El Niño, abnormally high Arctic pack ice, and the eruption of four volcanoes.

The moral of the story? Be nice to fish. You never know which one controls the weather.

Oh, and if the fish dies? You don’t want to know. Trust me on this one.

Isaac Wright, Isis’s older half-brother, was 15 years older than her but despite this they have always been extremely close, especially after the death of Isis’s father and mother in a car crash. He had long supported her financially via his work at the Wickerby, Driftwood, and Ember wandworks, enabling her to attend an expensive Montessori school a few hours away.

Eventually, however, Isaac began to be taken into the confidence of Obadiah Driftwood, the factory foreman, and Cyrus Ember, the school principal. As he had proved himself exceptionally able, he was used in a scheme that was intended to cut the third owner out of the wandworks, Elijah Wickerby, who was largely disengaged from the daily working of the place. Isaac earned a considerable sum of money–paid in gold–for this assistance, and was able to stop working on the literally soul-sucking mock assembly line, but he was greatly disturbed by the revelation of how the wandworks was operated, and by the fact that the quality and expense of a wand, rather than the skill of the person using it, was the deciding factor in their magical aptitude.

Isaac put into place a plan for ending what he saw as an inhuman charade. First, he began documenting the true inner workings of the factory in a series of notes, which he hid throughout the campus. Then, using his official position as a janitor, he began to secretly copy files at night using a stolen wand. Finally, he presented his findings–and the plot against him–to Elijah Wickerby, intending to turn Wickerby against the other two while blackmailing him into going along with a plan to wind down factory operations.

Instead, Wickerby reported the contact to his partners, who immediately put aside their plans for Wickerby and conspired to murder Isaac. While they succeeded in luring him into a killing zone under false pretenses, a running battle ensued leading not to a quiet death in the factory, as the men had hoped, but a loud and public one in the school. Even though the Davis police were able to squelch any serious investigation, ruling the case a tragic accident, enough information reached his sister that she began planning to avenge him, using the large amount of money he left to her in a living will to fund it.

Cyrus Ember cuts quite the figure, with reading glasses, a well-trimmed beard, and long white hair that he keeps in a ponytail, all worn over a series of expensive and custom-tailored suits. He does his best to project a grandfatherly air, and is widely seen by staff and students alike as having their best interests at heart in the constant struggle against parents and the board of trustees. This cultivated image is, however, a total farce.

In reality, Cyrus Ember is very much the son of his father Ehud Ember, and his father’s father Slias Ember: a cold, calculating man who uses his ability to seem warm, friendly, and caring as a ruse to make his enemies lower their guard. By utilizing Officer LQC Sparks as the hate sink for all his most unpopular actions, Ember is able to run Magnolian Academy his own way while remaining blameless and absolved. He is also heavily involved with the wand factory co-founded by his great-great grandfather, though he leaves most day to day decisions to his co-owners.

Ember is quite aware that the factory is essentially a charade designed to drain its workers of their life forces and use it to charge wands, but is committed to it as preserving the only way of life he has ever known. He was willing to kill Isaac Wright to keep the secret, and he is willing to do the same to his sister Isis, but he remains convinced that both Isaac and Isis were put up to their actions by a third party, a competitor or industrial spy or bleeding heart organization. He cannot conceive of someone doing it simply out of revenge for a loved one, as there is no one save himself that he would ever do that for.

Officer Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Sparks is the Magnolian School’s Sorcery Resource Officer or SRO. As a result, he is a sworn police officer in the town of Davis, complete with badge, but spends his time at the school and is only rarely called upon to do any police work outside of it. He still shows up to work in a full blue uniform, however.

Despite being named after an illustrious forebear, Officer LQC Sparks is a suspicious, irritable, and unpopular man at Magnolian, widely loathed by students and teachers. The LQC in his name is often taken to mean “Low Quality Cop,” which Sparks will react strongly and negatively to. This is quite deliberate on the part of the school’s principal, Cyrus Ember, who is well aware of Sparks’s shortcomings but prefers to use him as a hate sink, pinning him with unpopular decisions and the enforcement of rules. While seemingly undermining him at every turn, Ember nevertheless has Sparks’s total loyalty due to his gift of a rather low-quality wand, which Sparks has taken to carrying instead of a pistol.

He is not a smart man, nor a creative one, but Sparks does have a certain cunning about him and, unlike most students and staff, he is allowed to sling spells with the intent to harm. Rumor has it that he only knows one spell–bullet ant, a spell that feels like the pain of being stung by a South American venomous ant.

“What was your brother up to in the factory?” Ember said. “What had he learned?”

“I don’t know,” Isis sobbed. “He never told me before he died.”

“Bullshit,” Ember spat. His wand came up again. “Tell me, Wright. In your botany class, have you gotten to Florida yet? Have they told you about the manchineel tree, also known as the death apple?”

A tremor passed through Isis at the name.

“No? Pity. It’s a fascinating tree. Verdant…tall…and overlooking some of the most beautiful beaches in the country. Laden with ripe, inviting fruit, shining and green.”

The principal lifted his off-hand, which was curled into a claw, leaving his wand hand resting limply on the chair back.

“It’s also quite toxic, through and through,” Ember continued. “Manchineel is one of the most toxic trees in the world, dripping with burning, blistering sap. Even standing beneath the tree during the rain will cause blistering on unprotected skin.”

Ember’s wand came up, hovering above his other hand. “Why, it seems you’re standing underneath a manicheel during the rain, Wright. Why are you standing underneath a manicheel during the rain?”

He dropped his wand into his off-hand, and immediately Isis felt a searing, burning sensation over every exposed part of her body. The pain was so intense that it made Sparks’s bullet ant cantrip seem a tickle in comparison.

“Who put you up to this?” Ember said, flatly. “Who are you working for?”

“N…no one,” Isis croaked. “I’m here…by myself…for my brother.”

“Bullshit,” Ember growled. He lifted his wand again, tossing it back into his dominant hand. “It seems the rain is letting up, but you are unwisely plunging your hands into manicheel sap and smearing it all over yourself. Do you think like cures like, Wright? Why would you do such a foolish, ludicrous, thing?”

Even though her skin was unmarked, the sensation was suddenly a hundredfold worse, a thousandfold. Isis could feel, could all but see, angry red chemical burns spreading across her arms, blisters raising and swelling at the touch of the toxic sap.

“Tell me who you are working for. Is it the Anti-Wand League? The Mundanocratic Party? Siggur Wandworks GmbH?”

“I’m…working for…myself…” Isis said, straining in agony against her restraints. “You…you killed my brother…I had to know…why…”

Sparks had regained his composure and was now standing behind Ember. “Maybe she’s telling the truth,” he said. “It could just be a personal vendetta.”

“Sparks, you’re an outsider, so I don’t expect you to understand,” said Ember, grimly. “The Wickerby, Driftwood, and Ember Wandworks is my life. Magnolian Academy if my life. I’m willing to do whatever it takes to protect my way of life against all comers. If I don’t make absolutely sure the girl is telling the truth, I am failing in that charge. Do I make myself clear?”

“Y-yes, Principal Ember,” Sparks said.

“Good.” Ember turned back to Isis. “Is that a manchineel death apple I see you picking, Wright? I know it looks enticing, but why are you eating it? Such a silly thing to do.”

Isis had the sensation of biting into something juicy and piquant, even though her jaws were clenched shut. The sensation was pleasantly sweet for a moment, but before long a bitter note of pepper crept in, and then all at once the burning sensation was inside her mouth, coursing to her stomach, and constricting her throat. She wanted to scream, to howl, but all that could escape her mouth was a weak hiss. There was no real constriction, no real swelling, but she was gasping for air and slowly turning blue all the same.

“Just tell me who sent you, who you work for, and maybe–just maybe–you won’t choke to death,” Ember said.

The door flew open, revealing Principal Cyrus Ember, wand in hand, academic robes blown back by the force of the blow. His face was a mask of silent fury above his beard, far more furious than Isis had ever seen him.

“What,” Ember barked, “is the meaning of this?”

“I-I can explain, Principal Ember,” said Sparks, rising to his feet. “We caught Ms. Wright in the very act of-“

“And already strapped her down in the Disciplinary Suite, I see,” Ember said, striding over to Sparks. “In mid-application of a Greater Bullet Ant enchantment, as well. Extraordinarily painful.”

“Yes, Principal Ember, but-“

“I am doing the talking now, Sparks,” Ember barked. With a flick of his wand, he tossed the Magical Resource Officer aside like a rag doll. He then grasped a chair, turned it around, and sat down on it, resting both hands on the chair back.

With Sparks’s concentration broken, the incendiary pain from the Greater Bullet Ant enchantment quickly faded, but the ashes of the pain still left Isis gasping.

“T-thank you, Principal Ember…” she gasped.

“Pick yourself up, Sparks,” said Ember, his gaze resting, unbroken, on Isis. “Has she said anything?”

“She…she has been extraordinarily resistant to the pain, Principal,” said Sparks.

“He has been questioning me, accusing me of all sorts of lies,” Isis cried. “He-“

Ember curtly waved his wand at her, briefly silencing her with Maxine’s favorite classroom control spell. “This is why you don’t start interrogations without me, Sparks,” he said. “I’m surprised your wand doesn’t go off in its holster, you miserable incompetent.”

Sparks seemed to crumble a bit. “I’m sorry, Principal Ember.”

“Spare me your sniveling.” Ember said. He dispelled the silence enchantment, leaving Isis’s labored breathing and gasps audible. “I will do this myself.”

“It’s a lie,” Isis cried. “It’s all lies! Sparks made everything up!”

“Oh?” Ember said. His eyebrows arched. “Are you telling me that my Magical Resource Officer has been chasing at paranoid shadows, letting his imagination run away with him, and accusing an innocent little girl, one of our star pupils, of all sorts of fantasy?”

“Yes,” said Isis. “He’s been against me from the start.”

“Oh, I don’t think so. The man hasn’t an imaginative bone in his body,” said Ember, cooly. “If anything he’s been blundering from the beginning. I’ve told him time and again to leave you be, that if you go to ground we will learn nothing. But now, I fear, the time has come for our little non-magical infiltrator to tell all.”

“You…you know?” A sensation of dread, blazing and more painful than even the Bullet Ant enchantment, welled up inside Isis.

A flash of something flitted across Ember’s face. Isis thought it might have been pity, before she realized it was contempt.

“My dear girl,” the principal said. “I’ve known from the very start.”

Dr. Ocsid and his wife Margelet have, in the course of his work as a mercenary and hers as a camp cook in order to fund their scholarship, collected a number of recipes that the both desire to see cooked yet have proven, for one reason or another to be impossible to procure thus far. It includes:

-Unicorn Foduvx: A standard Genaïs cream foduvx but with shank of unicorn rather than leg of lamb. Margelet believes that this would result in a richer, creamier dish, but still needs a unicorn that has died of natural causes.

-Jerked Dragontongue: The tongue of even a relatively young firedrake would yield several pound of jerky which would be naturally fireproof and long-lasting once the five-year curing process is complete. Dragon tongues—and dragons themselves—are however rather hard to come by.

-Dryad-Steeped Tea: Dr. Ocsid believes that the mood and possible local knowledge of a dryad can be transferred by drinking tea steeped in its leaves. However, all dryads that have been approached have reacted either with horror or disgust.

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The halfling chef Margelet is a vociferous collector of recipes and a constant, tireless, experimenter with various concoctions. Much as her husband Dr. Ocsid collects information about painful wounds, curses, and poisons during his mercenary work, Margelet collects information on delicacies that are hearty or healing.

Her particular specialty is stonebread, which is famous—infamous—as a road food due to its rock-hard texture which is highly resistant to mold and rot but must be soaked in a liquid to be eaten. Margelet’s stonebread, in addition to being far softer inside than the standard variety, often includes baked-in watery berries that can help moisten the concoction.

Those same berries are used in her famous Sweetberry Biscookies, which do not keep well but are hearty enough to take the place of a whole meal and delightfully sweet. So sweet, in fact, that rigorous experimentation by Dr. and Mrs. Ocsid has established that eating more than three—two for those of small stature—will result in a painful stomachache that they refer to as “berrybelly.”

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In the course of my occasional work for the Columbarium, I have been able to inspect some of the more unique artifacts in their reference collection. In particular, an anonymous donor with a fondness for masks has recently gifted two particularly macabre specimens which I was allowed to examine.

The first appears to be in the shape of a jet-black dog and is carved of ebony wood, with arcane symbols from an unknown and possibly dead language inscribed upon it in rounded squares. In addition to a generally frightening countenance, it enables a particularly brutal easy of slaying—daggers slide home more surely, swords find vital arteries, hammers smash their way through helmets all the quicker. The Columbarium assures me that these effects have all been tested thoroughly. The final power that the mask is said to possess—which the Columbarium insists they have not tested—is that anyone slain by its wearer must linger as a ghost for one hour after death and truthfully answer any questions put to them.

The second is wrought gold in the shape of a featureless face, with black lenses over the eyes and pursed lips. If not for the markedly different workmanship and lack of strange markings I would call it a twin to the dog mask, for it too has a grim power to entrap souls. In this case, the mask can be inhabited by a shade of the dead, who may inhabit it as long as they wish until they move on to oblivion of their own accord or are forced out by a more powerful spirit. The wearer of the mask may speak with the current occupant, and if slain, they occupy it themselves if they can displace the occupant, if there is one. It is currently inhabited by a fearful spirit identifying herself as Cattail-of-the-Rushes, who will say little of her life or death except that “he” promised to return for her and place her in a resurrected body. Given the dialectical peculiarities evinced by Cattail-of-the-Rushes, I believe this promise to have been made—and broken—centuries ago.

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Dr. Ocsid is known for his work as a mercenary in addition to his work as a scholar, having a voluminous memory and a keen experimental mind despite lacking any innate talent necessary for the magickal arts. As such, he is often subject to various poisons, curses, and other unpleasantries, which he views as yet another opportunity for scholarship. This has led to him devising what he refers to as the Derived Ocsid Pain Scale or DOPS, carefully analyzing the pain and/or unpleasantness of their effects—at least their effect on a healthy man of middling years and orcish extraction.

Here are some of his findings in preliminary form:

Blisterbark – 7. Causes painful blisters wherever items of any kind rub against the skin, including eyeglasses. Gossamer gowns and carefully slung spidersilk hammocks are the best defense until toxin has run its course.

Pinetouch – 1. Causes pine sap to be exuded instead of sweat. Not painful at all other than the occasional twinge when pulling away from stuck items. Possible source of sap for industrial purposes without harm to trees.

Feverpitch – 3. Causes profuse sweating even in cool climes. Unpleasant but not painful for brief durations, but can result in trench foot or typhus if left unchecked. Palliative care is mostly in the form of hydration.

Skinslough – 10. Most beings naturally regrow their skin in small pieces over time, with the old skin being shed invisibly or occasionally as eczema. This causes the entire process to take place at once. Indescribably painful with risk of infection; the product of a twisted and sadistic mind.

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