He was once human, but the dark arts have elongated his life indefinitely, and given him magical power beyond all reckoning. It is said in ancient prophecy that the Dark Ruler can not be killed, that as long as his blood made offspring live, he shall live, and vice versa. He is forever unsure that something may be able to stop him though. It is written that where there is a will there is a way, and that even he can be undone. This has worried the dark ruler greatly since he first obtained his power. In looking into the ancient scriptures, he has found what that prophecy refers to. He destroyed all reference to this straight away as it could lead to his downfall. So, none should know except him how he can be defeated, and to make sure He wants everything under his control.
Trick like a few others around the country was not born of this world, his own world had been infested long ago, and his people enslaved. Like all those born with magic that couldn’t be sealed away, Trick was cast into the abyss of between worlds, in the hope, and general fact, that it would consume him, and he would not be threat any more. Only between worlds was magic truly nullified, it was too risky finishing of one like that in a normal reality, there tended to be an explosion of power wiping out everything within about 100 miles when it had happened in the past. Trick was fortunate that the ruler of another world was travelling through the abyss at that point, and time, and was rescued by him. Years had past since then, and Trick had learned how to control the magic that was at his beck and call. He had joined the army of the ruler of his new world as early as he could, to repay the debt of life to the King.
His talent and determination saw him rise quickly. But, when he reached 14, it was decided that he should have a place to protect in a world likely to be attacked by the forces of darkness within a decade. With that he was sent through the abyss, to begin life in secondary school education. Schools were notorious places for slips in reality, and there was always a member of staff at one of the schools he stopped in briefly who knew the ways of magic, just in case. His main purpose was to repair holes when they became too much to hide by one person alone. Upon joining the army, he had been awarded his own weapon. He had chosen the power blade, wielded by his adopted father, the ruler of his second home. He never spent more than a few months in any location, as there was always somewhere else in need of repair. Despite this, Trick managed to get an education.
When he sat his GCSE’s at 16 he got straight B’s, despite only being at that school six weeks. By that time he had become proficient in being a loner, in not getting attached to people, because he knew that soon he would be moving on. Then he had no excuse to stay in education, unless he took it through A-level. This was a slight problem, it was harder to move between schools at this level, at least on the basis that his work required. After consulting again with his father, via use of a small portable magic mirror, it was agreed that each of the soldiers would be assigned to a specific area to protect, and there were enough of them to roughly have one at every school, or other educational institute.
It meant pumping a lot more soldiers across the abyss to cover the world sufficiently. With that safely set up, Trick managed to work his way through his a-levels. The added bonus of having so many more soldiers in this world was that when a tear did occur, it was responded to a lot faster, and even gave some soldiers time off as the held it all together. Most were not yet older that Trick, that was the best way to keep them in education, although this meant that new recruits often got on the spot training, and were expected to just be able to cope.
Despite only living on Earth for 2 and a bit years, Trick had already grown to like the place, it wasn’t the dessert world he was used to, but greens and blues seemed to appeal to him much more than oranges and reds. Tarma, the King, said this was what his old world had been like, before the agents of the dark ruler took over.
It was important that the Earth people about never caught onto the magic in the world, there would be questions to be answered, the answer to which were too strange to be believed, and would usually upset most people, and those that could answer them would never be seen the same again. Everyone had the potential to unleash great power, but that was sealed away from them to protect them all from harm, thought to be in their best interests. But the more people that congregated in one place, the thinner reality got until a creature was able to force itself over. It wasn’t ever the immediate area that people occupied, but the outskirts, where reality was sapped from to make lives more real where they were being lived. The creatures of Darkness all had different shapes, and different purposes, each one created from the blood of their master, the Dark Ruler.
Despite there being more and more soldiers being pumped in, it seemed that the dark ruler was getting ever more desperate to take control of this world. He was no longer sending just solitary scouts, but small groups, in the hope they would have a better chance of setting seed, as it were. The more of them that appeared though the more soldiers came to fight them off. This continued on. Trick had now obtained his a-levels, and was ready to go to university. Due to Troop deployment, he was being sent right across the country, to where there was a large outburst rate, met with fewer soldiers.
He had the summer, like he did every year, free, as the masses didn’t gather in enough volume on a regular basis to thin the density of reality. This made it much harder for the minions of the dark ruler to do his bidding, despite how hard they tried. The summer was over now, come neatly to a close. It was time for the serious work to begin. Students tended to try a lot harder to break through reality. Voodoo, and black magic rituals were practically expected in some areas. It’s just what the students did to pass the time. These did not help the problem of reality thinning due to the mass of thought concentrated upon it. This particular group were meant to be the best of the best, thinking more than the rest. Ancient barriers, decayed with time and heavy expenditure were all that were keeping the forces of the dark ruler out. Trick arrived in just the nick of time to restore them to their former glory. Given another month or two and they would have collapsed, it was as if a Higher Being had stepped in, or something. These weren’t meant to interfere with the everyday happenings of the people who believed in them, even if they didn’t know they were doing it.
Trick shrugged it off though as just being good foresight on behalf of the advisors to the King. His accommodation on campus was basic at best. The walls seemed to be made of breeze blocks, which carried sound from several rooms away almost perfectly, and painted white. The curtains were so thin that the barest amount of light at dawn managed to flood through them, waking him each and every morning at the same time. There wasn’t enough room on the desk to fit all the things he needed to get on. The bookshelf in his room seemed unsafe, and barely attached to the wall. The mattress was hard, and uncomfortable, whilst the quilt was airy and light, barely providing enough warmth at night. There was no-where to hang his faithful leather jacket that had helped isolate him from other people, and there were dead things in one or two of the corners. The worst part was having to share a bathroom with 5 other people, well, technically, it was 2 bathrooms between 12 of them, but the principle was the same.
He couldn’t live in such cramped conditions. Whilst technically he had little Earth money, he did get a regular wage for being a soldier in the Army of King Tarma. There were laws and rules to using magic, you couldn’t just create things out of nothing, to give yourself an unfair magically gained advantage of normal folk, it was just considered impolite to do so. However, there was nothing stopping you turning what you already had into something of the same value, it had been how he had managed to feed himself. Trick didn’t unpack his stuff. He wasn’t about to stay in those halls. Making sure his door was locked, which was only just barely possible, he closed his curtains and took out a small ornate box from his backpack. He opened it, as if the contents were the most valuable thing in the entire world. To him, they were. Inside was an old-ish, dog eared black book, a small extremely sharp stake knife a glass orb and several metres of string. It all had a purpose, a reason for being, but all he needed right then was the glass orb. Carefully he took it out. It was a standard army issue communicator, worn down with frequent use.
Trick turned it on with a stroke of his hand over the top of it. “Account 1244540-349, managing Imp.” He informed it.
A grizzled and shrewd looking face appeared, the nose exaggerated due to the curvature of the orb. “Whatcha’ want?” It growled, sullen, and miserably.
“I’m making a withdrawal from my account.” Trick informed the Imp. “I’d like the money sent to me here. My account number is 1244540-349. I’d like 3 Crognets worth, thank you.” He rubbed his hand back over the top in the other direction to cancel the call. The gold coins materialised in a bag, along with the identification taking device. Trick placed his thumb in the slot, and felt the sharp pricking sensation as it too a sample of his blood for testing. Once confirmed, the device, and bag, disappeared, leaving the gold behind. Trick then placed his hands on his money and muttered the spell for currency conversion. The gold turned into crisp notes, and a few loose coins that were always left over from currency conversion. The accommodation supervisor was in the kitchen that the university had provided for its students. “Excuse me, I’m not very happy with my accommodation, is there any chance of being moved to another one? Preferably with my own bathroom?” Trick asked, trying to sound polite.
The accommodation supervisor looked up at him over a thick bagel, covered in creamy cheese, crispy bacon and what looked and smelled like barbeque sauce. “Two month waiting list if you want one of those places, and it’ll cost you.” He continued eating. Trick was used to this kind of person, they could help if they wanted to, but didn’t unless it was worth his while. Trick sighed slightly, and boldly walked over, and began counting the money out in front of the supervisors. He watched for minute changes in posture, and facial expression. He spotted what he was looking for and stopped instantly. “Meant two weeks, two weeks and there will be a chance to upgrade.” Trick continued counting out the money at that point. “2 Days is the best I can do for you.” Trick fanned out the money a little to show the man how much he was still able to spent. The guy was visibly sweating now, it was obvious that there was some internal struggle going on, possibly between his desire to be an evil git, and watch others suffer, and to get rich.
Behind his back, Trick crossed his fingers. That was another thing about magic, you couldn’t alter free will, it just didn’t happen, of course you could fool people with illusions and so forth, but in the end they decided to believe in them, or not.
He got moved to a different room. The supervisor had eventually caved under the sight of so much money, almost readily handed over, for him to do his job. It had probably been less than 200 that was handed over, but that was several weeks wages, most probably. Trick looked at his new room. The en suite bathroom seemed to have given the designers to use even less room for the entire thing, but that didn’t matter. What was important was that he didn’t have to fight everyone else for a shower in the morning.
Even having magical restraint as high as he had, there would come a point when he would think ‘screw it, be gone!’ and then they would be no more, or at least no more there, no one new exactly how the command worked, it wasn’t magic, and only did that to humans. He thanked the guy for moving his stuff for him. That was technically magic, but it was just thought adding really. The thought he had added was ‘If this guy is paying so much, the least I can do is carry some of his bags’. That’s where it got a bit edgy on the rules front.
He hadn’t made him do that, some people wouldn’t, even if you did put the idea into their head, but most minds don’t think of the possibility of a voice in their head being one other than there own, so will usually comply. The supervisor left shortly afterwards, closing the door behind him. Trick sat down on the bed. He brushed the thick hair out of his eyes with his right hand. ‘So? This is it? My room until June’ he thought looking around. The place seemed hostile, inhospitable, and barren. But then, it wasn’t meant to be nice, that’s what posters and so forth were for.
Trick once again took out his box. It was at times like this that he got home sick. He always did when he settled down in a new place. Very carefully, as if it was going to explode, he took of the length of string. He tied the two end together. He looked at the loose looking circle. He travelled home during the school holidays, as there was no where else to stay. You could only rent a hotel room for so long before someone started asking questions. Carefully he threw the string down to form the circle.
Circles were important in magic, they gave it boundaries and guidelines, preventing mess and spillage. Any shape would probably do, but circles were the easiest to maintain at there were no angles to measure, and magic didn’t have to expand out further to fill in the corners. “Elements of this planet, I awaken thee,
Come forth from where you sleep,
Cross ancient land and barren sea,
Come forth, and come to me.
I bind you know to this time and place,
Do my biding and send me across time and space.
Elements of Earth win and fire,
Elements, Here my cry,
Come to me across the sky!”

It was a lot of bravado and unnecessary for the most part, but he couldn’t be bothered to look up the quick spell conversion for it. It didn’t matter what language you did it in, it was the thoughts and iconic representations that your thoughts held that made it work. The string glowed lightly. All he had to do them was step through, and the magic would do the rest. He was about to step over the thresh hold when a knocking came at his door. He froze. He turned, lowering his raised foot as he did. Had there been anyone else in the corridor when he moved in? He couldn’t remember. He walked over to the door nd opened it cautiously, doing his best to keep the circle hidden.
“Hi, my names Karen, I’m from number 7, just across the corridor, I just thought I’d say hello, you know, as we’re going to be neighbours for a while.” Trick looked down at the thin girl. Her outgoingness was a surprise, he’d never met any one that wanted to get to know him after he’d only just moved in somewhere, he had found that people usually kept to themselves.
“Er, hi.” He stated after a couple of seconds of uncomfortable silence. “I’m Trick.” He held a hand out through the gap in the door. She looked at it for a second, seemed to think, and then shook it gently.
“Are you up to something weird in there?” She asked, a slight look of puzzlement on her face.
“Just unpacking, the place is a bit of a mess, and I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t want you to see it that way.” He smoothly lied, trying to sound bashful, and clean obsessive to make it more believable. Her face lightened. “That’s alright, mines just as bad. Well, it was nice meeting you.” She turned to leave.
“Likewise, maybe we could go for a drink sometime?” He blurted out before he could stop himself. She turned to face him again.
“Sure.” She uttered, seeming to be taken aback a little. Then she turned back again to return to her room. Trick closed the door, and leaned against the back of it. The circle was waiting expectantly in the middle of his floor. Once again he locked the latch on his door. ‘Home’ He thought as he stepped over the threshold. He stood in the middle of the circle for a minute, waiting for the magic to kick in. The first time he had done this he was just about to step out again as it hadn’t seemed to work, when it had gone off. The magic flared into existence, spreading out from him until it found the boundaries. This was the string. The wall shot up at that point, forming a dome over his head, and then there was a crackle and the world around him seemed to change. Whilst he was in the abyss Trick summoned up his sword, and armour, to at least make some kind of grand entrance. There was the sound of a lightning strike and the magical walls were gone.
On this world it was night time now. No one was about, making him feel a bit stupid for getting all dressed up for nothing. The grand clock above the main entrance showed it was still early evening, and if he rushed, he could make it in time for supper in the mess hall. Despite being the adopted son of royalty, Trick had never wanted to be treated any differently from the rest of the population, especially not the soldiers, it was just the way he was. He banished the magical armour in exchange for casual clothes, which were far more comfortable. Quietly he snuck into the mess hall and joined the queue at the back to get food. He wasn’t that hungry, and would probably slink off to his room to pick up the extra supplies of magical equipment that would make battling the creations of the Dark Lord much better.
Trick managed to get a decent sized bowl of stew, and semi-crusty bread, with not too much of a burnt patch upon it. By the time he got to sitting down, there were only one or two seats left, and they were at the back. After the soldiers had eaten, the tables were cleared, and the chairs were set up for the nights entertainment. Trick didn’t stay long enough to find out what it was. Up in his room he began to pack the items that would only be useful once or twice that he had strewed around the place. He never used them, most only worked half the time, and even then not very well. But deep down some feeling told him that they would be needed shortly. It was then he looked over at his shelf. He kept his charged magical stones on there. These could help thicken reality within a few miles radius, but they could also weaken it. A balance had to be struck up between what was needed, and how much it took the damage the other way. Often several stones had to be used in various quantities to get them to balance out.
Trick was tempted to take them, but he had yet to find notes on firstly working out what the current magical balance was, and secondly, how much of each stone would be needed to achieve equilibrium. The equations for these had been worked out long ago, but they were far to complex for him to try and understand, so usually Trick just left them in his room, which was under the magical balance of the key stones that these smaller ones had been cut from. He moved on. The portable, one use only, energy shield arm band collection, of 3 he had. These were a lot more useful, and despite them being one use, they could be recharged, it just took a couple of hours after each time. He had found that generally that apophyllite crystals worked best, they were currently working on adding some kind of direct linkage store for rapid recharge down in the basement levels of the castle, but nothing concrete had been formed yet.
The usual method of just surrounding the arm bands with four or five of them until their energy was mopped up, was what took so long for them to recharge. Since one of his earliest battles, Trick had carried a piece around with him on a small silver chain. It was more for the comfort of the feeling that it was there, rather than it being of much use that he did. Usually Trick didn’t wear one of the bracelets, unless he got some for warning of an attack, often by the three minute or so time delay between reality tearing, and something coming through. That was when the illusion would kick into effect, hiding whatever did. It didn’t hide him though. So, with this in mind, the research department had developed the stealth ring. Each had a total lifespan of a year before running out of power, no matter how much they were used.
Trick looked down at the one he was wearing. It had a month or two max left on it before it would need to be renewed. Most of the standard ones were either illusion reactive, or press on press off. Trick’s was a press on, press off one, but he found that more convenient than the illusion based one, as the illusion didn’t always kick in, and more and more often these days, memories had to be erased when they didn’t. But that was to be expected when the magic that created them was thousands of years old. That was the basic equipment needed, or at least recommended for the soldiers of the king to fight with.
Different military orders changed the basic requirements slightly, but usually it was something along the same lines. The only real differences were the uniforms. The armour of the knights of the King was either blue or green, the armour of the Queen’s knights was red through pink, with a brief stop off at purple along the way, the soldiers of God, the so called Paladins, wore just plain silver, or occasionally white gold, and the soldiers of the people wore orange and yellow, and were generally referred to as the knights of Jack, they were generally the equivalent of a police force, having little or no magical training, and only marginal combat, aside from how to keep rank.
Trick decided he had got all he wanted from his room, and decided to head back to Earth realm, before someone noticed he was missing. He gathered up the few small pieces of extra equipment that he had decided on taking and left, locking the door, as he always did behind him, before returning to the entrance hall to use the high magically powered ring there to send him back. It was almost always active, due to the vast numbers of soldiers that used it to get in and out of the castle. Vastly complicated spells had been written into its design to allow quick and easy travel to where you wanted to be. As he arrived at the bottom of the stairs leading from his room to the main entrance he froze. A cloaked figure all too familiar to him was waiting there.
It was Mellick, the leader of the research facility bellow the castle, this was the man who had taught him most of what he knew about his life long active magic, and a close friend, if you could call him that. He never usually appeared above the base level though. Something about the harsh world seemed to keep him down bellow, perhaps it was fear, perhaps it was too many memories of times gone past. He turned to face Trick. “I wondered when you would be returning. I think we may have found something!” He cackled, which turned into a haughty cough, all cracked and weathered.
“Found what Mellick?” Trick asked cautiously. It was never good to let your guard down around Mellick, he tended to think people learnt by experience, which isn’t that funny when you’re five and he hurls a bolt of near pure black magic at you to try and teach you how to stop it. Trick had never really gotten over that encounter. “Relax boy, I aint going to throw nothing at you. But you have to come see this, its one of a kind!” He began to hobble away. Trick looked around nervously. Mellick had said the same thing once before, it had turned out to be one of the most vile curses imaginable, which he though it would be good to test out on a 12 year younger Trick. Once a year until Trick had left he had found something interesting to try out on him. Trick had of course got his own back numerous times, including the time he had stolen Mellick’s glass eye and made it keep randomly teleporting around the castle. That had been extremely fun to watch.
Nervously, Trick followed Mellick down the familiar corridors and tunnels and staircases with missing steps until they reached the converted dungeon. All of the apprentices had long ago called it a night, and it was deserted, aside from a small alter that had a stone tablet upon it. “It’s the first clue left by the ancients!” Chirped Mellick proudly.
“First clue to what?” Trick asked, looking at the tablet.
“To…” He lowered his voice and got right up close next to Trick “how to do the magic of the gods. It also talks of a power that can undo even the most evil of beings, but it doesn’t say what it is!” “Where are the other clues then?” Trick asked before he could stop himself.
“If I knew that, don’t you think I would have them?” Uttered Mellick before turning, and hobbling off.
“Why did you want to show me this?” Trick asked confused. Mellick didn’t answer. Trick turned to face him, but he was gone. Trick looked back at the tablet. In the centre of it was a small emerald. Now he was aware of it, he could feel its power. This was like the effect of the Key stones that were in the towers of the castle. If you didn’t know about them, you couldn’t feel their power. Carefully he reached out and touched it. The power sprung to life, lifted him up, and hurled him across the room. It slamed him into the wall behind very hard. It took him a minute to come around. Mellick was standing over him when he did. “What did you see?” He asked eagerly. It took trick a minute to collect his thoughts.
“I saw a desert. There were priests…and the tablet, along with three others. They were surrounded by monoliths of stone…and…I can’t remember after that.” “The desert! That’s where this tablet was found! Get up! You have to touch it again!” “You touch it! It doesn’t like me!” “Do as I tell you!” Power came into being around him, sensing his anger and impatience. Once, long ago this would have been enough to get Trick to do what Mellick wanted.
“I HAVE A BETTER IDEA, HOW ABOUT I DON’T!” He growled, summoning up his own power around him, and shoving Mellick away as he did.
“Don’t challenge me to a duel boy! I taught you everything you know!” “Really? Bet you never taught me this!” He jabbed one hand into Mellick’s chest, seizing one of his hearts, and squeezed. He collapsed to the floor, fighting for life. Trick withdrew his hand. It took Mellick a minute or two to regain his breath, all the while a look of horror remained upon his face, as he looked up at Trick. “Where did you learn that?” He asked eventually sure he wasn’t going to die.
“One of the priests in the memory did it to me on the alter.” “What do you mean boy?” Mellick stood up.
“One of the priests was doing it to someone on the alter. Like some kind of ritual.” Mellick walked over to the tablet and touched the emerald. Nothing happened.
“What’s going on? At least I got searing pain last time!” “What’s the matter, don’t it like you anymore?” “You try!” Ordered Mellick, almost frantic. Trick walked over and casually put his hand against it. He felt the shift of it all. The power used him as a conduit to conduct itself out to the rest of the world, and all realms connected to it. It was the briefest of eruptions, that could easily have been missed. It was faster than a blink, and travelled at a magical frequency that nothing but its target was designed to receive. It was searching, looking for that one thing. Trick came around at the foot of the pedestal. “What have you done, boy?” Demanded the warped and twisted face of Mellick, immediately in front of Trick when he opened his eyes. Trick shot back out of shock and surprise, with a hint of pure terror as his mind caught up with his senses he relaxed a little.
“I did exactly what you wanted me to do, I touched it.” “I meant the second time boy!” “Don’t be daft, I’ve only touched it once, now are you going to help me up or not.” He held out the hand that only a minute or so earlier he had stuck into Mellick’s chest. A weary look crossed the old sorcerers face, then he carefully held out his hand to help up the boy. Trick grabbed hold and hoisted himself up. “What happened to all the assistants you usually have running about the place?” He asked, almost out of the blue. Mellick looked away, mumbling something. “Sorry?” “I said they were blown up when I ordered each of them to touch the centre piece.” “Why didn’t you stop when the first one had?” “Hehehe…well, it was fun to watch, and I was bored with that version of mindless drone anyway.” “Oh, ok. So, why’d you leave it out for me to touch?” This was met with complete silence from the old man, if you could call him that.
“Ok, let me rephrase that, why have you thrown spell after spell, and curse after curse at me while I was growing up.” Again there was silence from Mellick. “Was it against me personally, or just how you treat young innocent children?” Mellick tried to turn and leave, but Trick grabbed his wrist. “Please, just give me some answers.” “You’ve never asked for answers before, why should I be the one to tell you now?” Mellick replied gruffly.
“Why not now? Will there ever be a good time?”