No Magic Here

Zarin sat on the edge of a building overlooking the city. It wasn't much of a city. Deep in the forgotten counties of West Texas, surrounded by desert-like plains on all sides, and prone to tumble weeds, he felt like it was something out of an old west movie. A dead end town, where people went when they didn't have anywhere else to go. Or at least it felt that way to him. He closed his eyes, and took a deep breath, the smell of dirt and oil drifting to him on the constant breeze. The pump jacks continued to pump in the background, working hard to draw up the only income this town had had at one point. That was before though. Before Clyde Parker had built his water park, before the town of Corinth had grown considerably, and before the university had been founded.

"It'll be all right Zare." A voice said behind him, and he glanced over his shoulder at the empty air. There was no one there. The voice had spoken long ago, in a different time, and a different place, but he always remembered it when he felt this misery. He had almost forgotten... He shook his head and stood up, looking down at the three story drop to the ground, and considered diving. Head first. The distance wouldn't matter then. His neck would snap, his head would break open, and it would all be over. He curled his lip in disgust, and backed away from the edge. It was true, she'd made him forget, for a little while, but then she'd reminded him what misery felt like, what tears of despair tasted like, and how easy it could seem to end it all. He would never forget again.

***

"I swear I didn't know!" It cried, and the Master glowered at It.

"What am I going to do with you now child? King Soren has prayed for your death, and we're all inclined to grant it. You violated our rules, and interfered in the affairs of mortals directly! That's not something that can be so easily forgiven."

"I didn't know he was mortal Master! I swear it never even crossed my mind. I was just having some fun with the others. They dared me to do it!" It cried, and the Master shook his head.

"Child I love you like my own... Wait you're not one of mine are you?"

"Um... I'm not sure."

"No neither am I. Oh well. I have so many children that I can't really be expected to remember them all." The Master chuckled, and It felt a surge of anger, which it quickly squashed before the Master could detect it. That's the way it had always been between them, between all of the Gods and those beneath them. The gods did as they wished, and the suffering of others be damned. They cared not who suffered because of their actions. Why should they? It was beneath them.

It smiled as contritely as it could, and dared to shuffle closer to the Master's throne. The god was perched on a massive throne of Jade, which seemed to barely contain him as he lounged on it. They were in the Master's throne room in the palaces of heaven. The room was large, incredibly so. If one hadn't been summoned by the Master directly, it would take at least a day to walk from the entrance to the foot of his chair, which itself was only in the center of the room. The Master could cover that distance in three strides. It felt an unending awe the first time It had seen the Master. He was a Greater god. One of the three most powerful beings in their universe, and he was also morbidly obese. He was the god of food after all, and no one trusted a skinny god of food.

"Set me free Master. I will leave and never return. There's no need for an execution. I can assume mortal form, and live among them in exile. The will never..."

"No."

"Pardon me Master?"

"No. You have broken one of our sacred laws. Exile to the mortal realm, where you can use your powers to live a comfortable existence is completely out of the question. You deserve to suffer for this, but the others and I agree that it would set a bad precedent to execute one of our own just to appease a mortal, King or not. Therefore, we have decided to exile you to another world."

"Another world Master! How is that even possible? This is the only world, created by my benevolent Masters, and existing at their pleasure. No other worlds could possibly measure up to the magnificence of..."

"Exactly. There are other dimensions, other worlds, built by other gods, but none of them quite measure up to ours. Therefore you will be sent to the lowest of them, the cruelest of them. A planet called Earth, in dimension 171G. A world completely and utterly devoid of all magic, and all ability to use magic."

"What?! No Master please! I swear I will do better next time! Please don't send me there. I can't survive without my powers."

"Oh yes! That reminds me. Your innate powers will be bound as well. We don't want you running amok in a world devoid of magic now do we?" The Master said with a wink and a chuckle. It felt it's life flashing before it's eyes. How did things go so wrong? How could it change this? There was no way. Nothing to do, no one to help it. It's friends had long since abandoned it. It would be sent to this Earth, it suddenly knew, and it would die there. That was unacceptable! It needed power to come with it. It needed a chance it survive!

The Master gestured at a space next to It, and a portal popped into existence. It felt it's powers slipping away, and felt panic set it. The portal began to suck it in, swirling around it like a whirlwind, drawing it in, and to its doom. It's powers were fading fast, being drained from it, and a binding put in place so it would never be able to recover naturally. It needed to break that binding, but how? It's eyes fell to its Master, who had already turned away as if bored. He probably was, and it sneered at the god. The arrogance of the Master had gone too far this time, and now it knew what it had to do.

It gathered the last dregs of its power, and hurtled itself at the Master, who didn't even bother to glance in its direction. It grabbed the lower him of his robe, and the Master suddenly looked at It curiously. It smiled. The Master was arrogant, truly, and vain. He couldn't help but display his power, even when alone. The Master's robe, was literally made of power. It ripped a piece off, about three feet in length, and two feet wide. The Master snarled in disgust, and kicked it. It flew into the portal, laughing all the while.

***

For all that Corinth had grown, there were still places like this. Places were the sophisticated developments of modern man hadn't bothered to reach yet. Places where nature still held sway. Too bad, it was a butt ugly piece of land. Zarin thought to himself as he stared at the brown grass swaying in the persistent breeze. The wind was always blowing here. There were no trees to slow it, nothing to stop it, and only grass to dance with it. He shook his head, and sat on the bench behind him.

A few years ago, when Zarin had still been in high school, the town had decided to establish a nature preserve. Three square miles of protected land, covered in scrub brush, dirt, grass, and wildlife. Zarin was sitting very nearly in the middle of it. There was a hiking trail through it, not that anyone ever really used it. There wasn't much to see in the Preserve. A visitor's center at the beginning of the trail-head, and then three miles of rolling hills, where someone could easily go to find privacy when one wished it. Zarin wished it.

The sky crackled with thunder, and Zarin glanced up with a frown. It rarely rained here, and there hadn't been anything on the forecast for today. That's why he'd decided to come out here. He actually had been caught by rain once. It had been back when he was still a freshman in College. He had been struggling in class, and had come out here to think. He'd made it all the way to the end of the trail, and started back when the sky had suddenly opened up on him, and he'd tried to run three miles in the rain without an umbrella. It hadn't been fun, or successful. By the time he'd finally reached his car, the rain stopped, the sun came out, and he was soaked to the bone. He couldn't help it. He'd laughed. Zarin smiled at the memory, but his smile vanished when lightening split the sky, and struck the Earth just two yards away from him.

"Holy shit!" He cried, and jumped to his feet, tensed to run, when he suddenly heard laughing. He peered over towards where the lightning had struck, and did a double take. There was a person laying on the ground, rolling around laughing, and clutching a swath of purple cloth, which almost seemed to glitter in the sun.

"Varya!" The person cried, and leapt to his feet, jumping up and down in excitement. Zarin took a hesitant step backwards when he got a good look at him. He was barely three feet tall, and nearly bone thin. His skin was almost completely devoid of color, as was his hair and eyes. Only his lips held a hint of color, and even then it was a sickly looking blue. The creature wore a thin toga of white, which was dirty and covered in ash. It was still smoking as he jumped around, but that too was fading as Zarin watched.

"What are you?" He said, and the creature stopped, and looked at him.

"Carsha ne thuo aba?" It asked questioningly, and Zarin shook his head in mute wonderment. "What are you?" It said in a perfect mimic of Zarin, looking puzzled. "What, what, what I, I, I are... I am me. I am It. Hello mortal. I am It the godling. Who might you be?" The creature asked in lightly accented English.

"What was that? Where did you come from? What are... No screw all that! Did you just learn English?!"

"Of course. I am a godling. I have the gift of tongues like all of my kind. All I need is one sentence of any new language and I can instantly understand it. At least the Master didn't take that from me too."

"Um... What?" Zarin asked, and shook his head. He was going crazy. That was the only possible explanation. This thing with Beth had driven him to the brink of sanity, and now he'd crossed over into complete and utter madness! He closed his eyes, and shoved the tears down as he opened them. It was gone. Zarin sighed in relief.

"These are strange garments mortal?" It said behind him, and Zarin yelped as he spun around. The diminutive creature was running its hands along his jeans, and Zarin pulled away from it in sudden fright. The godling looked up at him curiously. "What is wrong mortal? Do you not have godlings in your world?"

"Um. Hell no! We don't have any kind of magical creatures in this world."

"None? No magic either?"

"Nope. There's no such thing as magic." Zarin replied, and felt the familiar tug of disappointment on the edges of his mind. He was still waiting for his acceptance letter to Hogwarts, even though he had long since accepted that it was never coming.

"So the Mater spoke truly." It said, and then suddenly grinned, and held up its scrap of cloth. "Fortunately I came prepared." It said, and squealed with glee as it resumed hopping around, and clutching the cloth to his chest.

"What is that?" Zarin asked, curious despite himself. If this was a delusion, then it was a persistent one. The godling glared at him, and shoved the cloth behind its back, then suddenly relaxed.

"You truly do not know do you? Excellent! This is a scrap of cloth from my Master's robe. It is fashioned with magic, and contains enough power to rid me of the binding that is on me, and allow me to recover my power. I have just enough of my original power left to activate it." It replied, and held up his pinky finger. The finger glowed a dull white, and Zarin couldn't help himself any more. He slowly reached out, and tapped the godling. It was solid! There was contact!

"You're real!" Zarin said in awe, and It looked at him in confusion.

"Of course. Aren't you?"

"Well of course I'm real, but I wasn't sure that you were, but you are. You're really real! This is actually happening! Something amazing is actually happening, and its happening to me!" Zarin shouted, and then suddenly burst into excited laughter, and started hopping around in a circle with glee. It stared at him briefly, then suddenly grinned, and resumed its own hopping and giggling. The two of them danced in glee, and Zarin picked the godling up, and spun him around, It laughed with joy as he did.

"This is fantastic! What are we celebrating?" It asked between its laughter, and Zarin suddenly stopped.

"Oh. Oops sorry about that man." Zarin said sheepishly, and placed the godling back down.

"Sorry about what? Also I'm an it, not a man."

"What?"

"I'm neither male nor female. I'm a godling." It said, looking at Zarin expectantly, and then suddenly blushed, the faintest hint of red coming to its cheeks. "Oh my! I'm so sorry I forgot. You have no idea what a godling is do you?" It asked, and Zarin shook his head. "We are the offspring of gods, which makes us potential gods ourselves. Until I can gather followers though, and people begin to pray to me , I am nothing. I have no name, no gender, and I am expected to serve a true god. I was fortunate to be accepted into the household of Master Pary, one of the esteemed Greater gods."

"Greater gods?"

"Yes. In my world there are many gods, all mingling with the mortals, and doing favors in exchange for prayers. We are forbidden from interfering directly, but so long as we are prayed to, that rule need not apply. There are seven classifications for gods. The Greater gods are our rulers, our masters. Then there are the higher gods, their immediate underlings, and rulers of their own households. Then there's the lesser gods, the lower gods, the godlings, and finally the demigods. The demigods can never actually become full gods, because they are the offspring of a god and a mortal, but I am not. I am a godling. The child of two full gods, and gifted with immense power."

"Really? Don't take this the wrong way man, but you don't look very powerful."

"Oh I am I am! I... Oh. I guess I don't have any power anymore." It said, and the smile faded from its face, before suddenly returning with a vengeance. "Wait! I can grow in power!"

"Um what?"

"If I break the binding that's been placed on me, and gather worshipers, I will become incredibly powerful! I will be a full-fledged god, maybe even a higher or greater god! There are no other gods to compete with me here are there?"

"Well there's various religions and all, but I don't know if there's actually any proof..."

"Excellent! You can be my first worshiper!" It shouted with delight. "You can give me a name, a body and everything!"

"Wait what?"

"Yes! You can break my binding for me. Here!" It said, and shoved the bold of cloth into Zarin's startled hands. "Just write your prayer down, and I will activate it. Pray that I'm something big and strong. Ooh! Like a god of war! Make me a war god, big and manly, strong enough to crush all who stand in my way. Or a powerful storm god! Just write it all down and the binding will break when the prayer takes effect, my body will change, and I will become..."

"No!"

"No? No! What do you mean no!"

"Well its just... I mean I just... Look. You seem like a nice guy, it, person thing, but I just don't want to be the one to unleash an all-powerful god upon the world. I mean war gods have a super negative connotation, and we have enough conflict as it is so... Yeah. No."

"It need not be war. It's entirely up to you what you have me be the god of. The sky's the limit. Just use your imagination."

"No. No I don't want to get mixed up with things. I've been having a really bad time lately, and I..."

"You would deny me my birthright!" It screeched, taking a menacing step towards him, and Zarin flinched as he stumbled backwards.

"No its not that I... Look I... I'm ah... I'm very busy, and I just don't have the time to ah, to worship you properly. You should really just find someone else to ah... Well you know."

"It need not be permanent. Just do it this once. I'll find other worshipers once I'm a true god. Please mortal! I need your help."

"I'm sorry. I just... I'm sorry." Zarin said, and pushed the cloth back into It's hands, and started walking away.

"I will grant you a boon! You can include it in the prayer! Anything you want."

"No."

"It can be anything! Money! Wealth! Women! Men?"

"I said no!"

"Power!" It cried, and Zarin stopped in his tracks. He shouldn't. He knew he shouldn't. It was such a cliché. He could just hear the voices. "Oh men are so weak! Men can't resist power. Just look at the Nazgul. Nine rings gifted to them, and all they wanted was more power!" It was such an unfounded, and hurtful stereotype. Zarin turned around.

"What kind of power?" He asked, and swallowed. His mouth was suddenly very dry. He knew it was wrong. It went against everything he believed, and it felt dirty, but power... He could do so much good with power. He could change the world. He could go into politics, and actually change things, rather than just pretend to. Or he could become fabulously wealthy, splurge on himself all day every day, and occasionally donate a million or two to charity to ease his conscience. He could feed starving children in Africa. He could adopt disadvantaged orphans. He could save... He could get revenge. He thought, and felt a shiver run down his spine.

"Any kind. Any and all kinds of power that you can think of." It said with a sudden smile, and moved towards him, the cloth outstretched. Zarin hesitated, and then took it from it. He was just thinking about it. He told himself. He hadn't made a decision yet.

"It's..." He began, and licked his suddenly dry lips. "It's wrong. Power should be earned through good deeds, and only responsible people should have it. I don't have the right..."

"You're responsible aren't you?"

"Well. I mean yes I guess I am." Zarin whispered, and it was true. He'd always been responsible, and it had brought him nothing but misery. He'd been raised without a father and with two older sisters, and one younger. They and his Mother had pushed him around all his life. They'd raised him with a massive inferiority complex, and taught him to always be respectful and subservient. It had grated on his nerves, but what could he do? Suddenly he heard their voices.

"Come serve us drinks Zarin! Come rub my feet Zarin, they're sore. Zarin I'm cold, bring my blanket to me. Zarin how dare you talk back to me! I will have you sent to prison the day you turn eighteen! Zarin my boots are dirty, come clean them with your tongue. Oh my god you were actually going to do it! You are such a perv Zarin." On and on, years and years. It had seemed so hopeless. The he'd met Bethany Tucker, and it had all seemed to change. She'd given him hope. Hope that he could stand up for himself, he could be a man, he could be someone good, and they could be something together. Then she'd taken it all away from him.

"I shouldn't." Zarin whispered, his blood boiling.

"Okay. I'll just take this back and find someone else then." It said, and reached for the cloth. Zarin snatched it back.

"Give me a second okay." He said, and walked back to the bench. Could he do it? He asked himself, and immediately knew the answer. Absolutely! Should he do it though, and that's where things got iffy. He'd had a friend once. Once. That friend had had a grandfather, and Zarin could remember one time when the old man had been talking about opportunity. He'd said that when opportunities come along, you should always ask yourself one question. Will you ever get another chance at this? If the answer was yes, don't be greedy, wait your turn. If the answer was no, you jump on that chance with everything you have.

"Well?" It asked expectantly, and Zarin nodded.

"I'll do it." He said, and pulled a pen out of his pocket. It smiled, and Zarin noticed that it wasn't a particularly kind smile. He knew he was being played. It wanted something from him, and would promise him anything to get it, but the joke was on it. Zarin had been pushed around all his life, he knew what it looked like, and he knew how to get even.