The 49th Floor

Hector stopped halfway up the long, winding staircase to look out the window. The sky was veiled with wrathful clouds that threw down rain like heavy artillery. Thunder boomed, shaking the glass, and he could see tiny bolts of lightning hitting the lake in the distance. Trees were being toppled over by hurricane-force winds, but Hector was unnerved. This was just another Sunday to him.

When Hector had first arrived at the University of Magi—what, three years ago now?—the violent weather had terrified him nearly to the point of tears. But he couldn’t cry—not in front of the other students. They were almost as nasty as the weather. As were the professors who taught there. Each and every one of them seemed to be over the age of a hundred, despite some looking nearly as young as the students. Hector loathed how stuck in their ways they were, how stubborn and unrelenting they seemed to be in their rhetoric, and how—and this was the most unforgivable sin to Hector—terribly boring they all were.

One might have thought being a mage meant losing all your sense of humor. The professors didn’t laugh or cry or even smile, except when other students cast spells wrong and hurt themselves. That seemed to provide them the utmost joy. Hector hated them. Hector hated that he was learning to be one, that he soon would be just like them. But that wasn’t even the worst part about the wretched place.

No, the most terrible part about the University of Magi was being stuck in the tower itself—a great achievement of human architecture with fifty stories made entirely of obsidian, despite its fragile nature. He was told during his first week that the stone had been enchanted, making it seemingly indestructible. Hector spent most of his days thinking of ways to reverse such an enchantment, if you even could. He’d destroy this place and everyone in it, had he the chance.

Hector wasn’t a nervous adolescent nor a defiant one. He wasn’t an overachiever or a lagging student. Professors never noticed him and never scolded him. While he could perform all the spells, there was no flair in his magic, no finesse or elegance to it. He was the most average wizard pupil in the whole University, which was how he preferred it. This way, no one ever had him on their radar. He could go wherever he wanted, and no one seemed to care.

Today, Hector was in pursuit of curing his incurable boredom. All the students had left on holiday except him, who had nowhere to go, so every day was a twelve-hour attempt at finding something to do. Despite being the only student in the whole tower, he found it agonizingly annoying that he couldn’t find something to do. At times, he even wished other students were around, even though they didn’t like him.

Hector continued up the stairs, winding slowly upward along the tower’s fifty floors, hoping to find a floor he fancied—a secret potion laboratory, an ancient library with forbidden texts, or maybe a secret dungeon housing the most dangerous beasts in the Twelve Kingdoms. So it was that Hector made it nearly to the top of the five-hundred-foot tower, to the forty-ninth floor.

It was the door that piqued his interest. It also helped that the top fiftieth floor could only be entered by the Council, the leaders of the University. The old wooden door, with an odd crest that looked like silver woven snowflakes, stood a head taller than Hector. The brass lock was covered with ancient, red rust. It was no problem for Hector. With a mutter of words and a wave of his hand, the door opened.

Inside was dark as pitch; the room swallowed all light. Hector was not deterred. Within moments, a small orb of glowing flame hovered in his left palm, and he walked inward.

Much to his dismay, he found himself in a library. An ordinary, boring old library with what seemed like a million shelves filled with a plethora of, no doubt, uninteresting books and tomes covered in thick blankets of dust. He walked along the rows of books, careful not to trip on any fallen chairs or overturned tables, mindful not to light the whole place on fire. No one had been in here for ages. Hector wondered why. He would soon find out, and the fate of the University would be forever changed.

At the back end of the library, on the wall, was a lone shelf shorter than the others but no less dusty. Hector inspected the shelf and found that there was one book—a red, leather-spined book that had no dust, no dirt, nor any sign of age at all. Most intrigued by this, Hector went to grab it from its place, but it wouldn’t budge. He tried again. And again, using all of his strength, but to no avail. It remained in place, glued to the rotten wooden plank. The red book sat there mocking Hector, but Hector hadn’t given up yet. Careful not to let his fire catch anything nearby, he, with his free hand on the book and his legs propped against the bottom of the shelf, pulled with all his might until—suddenly—there was a dull clank and the book was loose. Hector flew backward into the shelf behind him, crashing hard against it, dousing his flame in the process and sending him back into a world of darkness.

Before Hector could get to his feet, the shelf he slammed into had fallen backwards into the next one, and that one into the next, and so forth and so forth. Within half a minute, the untouched, ancient library had been rendered to splinters of wood and parchment rubble. Hector conjured up the flame once more to inspect the damage. It was, to say the least, not good. He stood there frozen, his rapid heartbeat and the soft landing of stray papers all he could hear. But then—distant voices, followed by the encroaching light of torches. It was the professors!

Had Hector been watching the bookshelf in front of him rather than the ensuing destruction, he would’ve noticed the red book did not come off the shelf. It only tilted forty-five degrees outward. If he had kept watching, he would’ve noticed the shelves rearranging themselves to reveal a doorway into the wall. Hector felt a cold draft hit his neck, and he turned to see the dark corridor. He didn’t think twice. Anywhere was better than being caught in the middle of the crime scene. Hector bolted inside and ran as fast as he could into the tunnel, not caring where it might’ve led. But if he had looked back, he would’ve seen the shelves realign themselves and seal him within the wall.

Hector traversed the dark tunnel for what seemed like days but was really only two minutes. Even with his flame, he could not see very far ahead of him—if there was anything to see. He walked along until, finally, there was a faint light ahead, like a pool of dim, pale moonlight on the cobbled floor. He hurried forward, hoping it was a way out, but he was proved wrong when he entered another vast open room.

It was one of the most expansive, imposing rooms he had ever been in. He had no need for the flame now. The storm must’ve lifted, for the room lay in darkness, its edges swallowed by shadow, but moonlight spilled through the skylight in a pale wash, silvering the floorboards and dusting the air with a ghostly sheen. As he walked, he knew he was no longer in the library but some sort of abandoned laboratory. He noticed the shelves along the walls did not have books or tomes, but glass jars filled with viscous, pale green liquid. Its contents Hector could only guess—yet he didn’t want to.

The further he went in, the more the hairs on the back of Hector’s neck stood up. There were rows and rows of beds, caked in a dark red matter Hector could only describe as old blood. Next to each bed was a small table with a silver tray atop it—a multitude of different tools and instruments the young mage had never seen before. Some were sharp, others dull, and some looked like their sole purpose was inflicting pain. He could only guess what a place like this was meant for, and he wondered if the Council was aware of its presence.

Past the jars and bloodied beds came tanks—sizeable glass constructs capable of fitting a human. Hector neared one of them. He saw it was filled with the same pale green, viscous liquid as the jars. As he walked on, he saw one of them still had its contents preserved within it. He neared it, conjuring his flame once more as the moonlight was fleeting; the clouds must be circling back. He put his hand warily to the glass, and in the orange glow he saw the face of a young boy—maybe a year or two younger than he—trapped inside. Hector cried out, stumbling and falling onto his back. His first instinct was to get up and run—run as fast and as hard as he could back to the library. He’d rather be in trouble for destroying school property than for discovering this type of school property.

But he didn’t run. He got to his feet, brushed the dust from his pants, and looked closer at the boy suspended in the liquid. Hector saw his robes were much different than his; older, he thought, so it couldn’t have been recent. He noticed rips and tears all along the old robes, as if he had struggled against his captors, and his face had the expression of one who literally saw death come before his eyes. Hector sat there and stared at the young boy’s face, thinking if it were him instead and ruminating on how much he truly hated this place. He’d bring the whole thing down if he could.

Hector walked on. He desperately needed to find an exit, but the laboratory seemed infinite in its expanse. Finally, he saw another white light—a beam of direct moonlight upon a bed just like the others—but wait, this one was different. It was occupied.

Hector neared the bed, cautiously putting one foot in front of the other in case whatever was lying there had ill intentions if it were to wake up. But as he got closer, his shoulders lowered, his breathing stabilized, and he lowered his guard. It was a girl around his age. She had olive skin and ebony hair that hung in long curls down her slender frame. She lay there still, motionless, yet Hector could tell she was breathing as he lowered his ear to her chest. With hot cheeks, he jerked his head away from her breasts and moved back a little. She was the most beautiful woman Hector had ever seen.

He leaned in closer to her face. Too close. The girl’s eyes shot open, and before Hector could do anything at all, her hand thrust out, seizing his neck like an iron vise. Had she squeezed any harder, it would’ve shattered his windpipe. She lifted him off the ground, his feet kicking madly trying to find a foothold, but it was no use. She had him.

She spoke to him in a strange tongue Hector had never heard.

“What?” he choked, trying to pry her fingers from his throat. “I can’t understand you.”

Her dark eyes looked confused, and she brought him in closer.

“Who are you?” she said. Her voice had an accent—a clear, perfectly articulated accent that pleased the ear and reminded him of coastal lands. Had he not been about to die, he would’ve thought she spoke in musical notes.

“H-Hector,” he gasped. “Please. Stop.” She looked him up and down and saw his student robes. Her grip loosened, and Hector fell to the cold, cobblestone floor.

“I am sorry,” she said, offering him a hand up. He stared at it for a moment, noticing her long, thin fingers and perfectly cut nails, and then took it.

“That’s alright,” he said, still catching his breath. “I didn’t mean to startle you.” But she was no longer paying any attention to him. She had gone to a desk against the back wall and was rummaging through a chest.

“So,” Hector started nervously, “what’s your name?”

“Andrea,” she said. How she said her name reminded him of easy waves splashing on warm golden sand on a summer day. He had never heard that name before.

“Andrea,” he repeated, committing it to memory. “That’s a lovely name. And what’re you doing here, Andrea?”

She faced the blank stone wall now, a tall broadsword hanging from her waist.

“I’m leaving,” she said. “I will not waste another moment in this accursed place. The screams of those who came before echo across my mind. I will silence them and give them peace.” She held up both hands to the wall, chanted words in that same tongue Hector did not recognize, and the bottom half of the wall was engulfed in iridescent rays of purple and blue hues.

“A teleport?” Hector asked. “A teleport to where? Where are we? And what about me? What am I gonna do?”

Andrea did not look back. “You can sit here,” she said, “or you can come with, and I’ll show you.” She stepped through the portal, and before Hector had time to think, had time to wrap his head around the fact that two minutes ago she was asleep, one minute ago she was trying to kill him, and now he was following her into a portal to God knows where.

He didn’t even have time to breathe. He dashed forward, mind moving as fast as his feet, and leapt into the void.

In the blink of an eye, Hector saw an entire lifetime. He saw a young girl alone amidst a town engulfed in flames. He saw a pile of smoking bodies, charred beyond recognition, and a man put his hand on the girl’s shoulder. He saw the girl standing in a lab next to the man, looking at a bed with other children all around.

Hector saw the girl strapped down, helpless, with other men standing over her—men he recognized as members of the Council. They had her hooked up to strange machines with sacks of multicolored liquids being siphoned into her arms and legs. He watched her sob soundless cries, heard her pleas fall on deaf ears as the mad wizards pushed on with their experiments.

“You will be the finest soldier the kingdom has ever seen,” a disembodied voice echoed. But Hector knew that voice. It was the Elder Mage, the Head of the Council. Hector watched as tears streamed down her face and her veins swelled.

Now the girl was older, taller, her face hardened with dulled emotions but with dark eyes that shone with cold, brooding fury. He saw her in a ring with a boy across from her—knees shaky, teeth clattering—the Elder Mage standing firm behind her.

“Kill him,” he ordered. The girl charged forward, her motions blurred from speed. The boy could not react in time. A flurry of kicks and fists pummeled him until the ring was soaked in a growing pool of blood. The girl stood tall, fists bloodied, breathing near imperceptibly. The Elder Mage smiled wickedly in the darkness.

Hector couldn’t see anything then. He only felt cold—a bitter cold that consumed his entire body—and a fear he could not name. He heard cries of pain, of anguish, pleas of no, and grunts of exertion. He could not see, but could feel a great sadness weighing on his heart and bones—the kind of sadness so deep that it seeps into the spirit like black tar, sticking the unwanted memories of pain to the soul so that no matter where one goes, so too does the sorrow, making it forever a part of the self.

From the blackness, Hector could see the girl lying in the bed, her eyes closed and face finally in a state of relative peace. The Elder Mage hovered over her, stroking her face softly as a lover might.

“Sleep, my child,” he whispered. “I shall return soon, and then you will be unleashed upon the world. My perfect soldier.”

The vision began to blur and contort, the images morphing into kaleidoscopic fragments until Hector felt the touch of solid ground beneath his feet and his eyes could see once more. He was in the library on the forty-ninth floor, the wreckage from earlier not yet cleaned up. To his right stood Andrea, a ball of conjured flame in her left hand, staring at him with dark eyes brimming with fury.

“Do you understand?” she asked him, drawing the sword from its scabbard, the cold steel gleaming menacingly in the orange hue of the fire.

Hector stood there quiet for a short while, studying the deep purple scars along her arms and the pinkish marks along her knuckles. When he looked into her eyes, he saw all the pain and suffering and rage of a little girl who just wanted to go home.

“I do,” Hector said at last.

Andrea began walking toward the door. “Then,” she said, “let’s go.”