A Life Less Ordinary (39 page)

She smiled. “Are you going to ask the other question?”

I swallowed hard. “Am I dead?”

“In a manner of speaking,” she said. She gave me a mischievous smile. “You chose to give up your life to prevent your lover from unleashing the apocalypse. You’re currently floating in…let’s call it the Waiting Room. You have several possible choices.”

She grinned. “I don’t often make such an offer,” she added, “but you deserve to choose.

“You can choose to return to your life in the mundane world. You would be seven years old again, with your whole life in front of you. You’d have a second chance at life.

“You can choose to return to your life in the magical world, where you would have an eventful life that might well kill you earlier than your appointed time.

“Or you can go onwards to judgement.”

I stared down at the floor. I didn’t want to admit how badly I’d missed my mother and the first home I’d known, even though it had all turned sour in the end. Or maybe it hadn’t. This time, with foreknowledge of what had happened in the past, I’d be able to change things. Instead of wasting my time at school, I could learn and gain qualifications and then live a better life. And yet…I loved the magical world. I wanted to be part of it.

“If I go back home,” I said, slowly, “what would happen?”

She smiled. “You’d wake up back in your own bed, convinced that everything you’d gone through was just a bad dream,” she said. “You’d hold your mother tightly in the morning and promise never to leave her again. You’d go to school and start studying desperately. You’d grow up as a studious girl, eventually qualifying to be a doctor because you still want to help people. You’d go on a field trip to North Korea after the blockade ends and meet your future husband there. You’d be married at twenty-seven and will have four kids, who will grow up into pretty girls and strapping versions of their father. You will be happy.”

I looked up. “Do you promise?”

“I have never promised anyone happiness,” she said. “I have merely given them the tools to become happy, if they chose to do so. You could throw away your second chance.”

I looked back down. “But if I don’t go into the magical world, the apocalypse is still unleashed…”

“It won’t be unleashed,” she said. She smiled at my confusion. “People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect...but actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it’s more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly...timey-wimey...stuff.”

I had to laugh. “You’ve watched that show too?”

She laughed too. “Take it from me,” she said. “The apocalypse will not be unleashed because of you, even if parts of time have been rewritten to allow you to return to the mundane world. You saved the entire world.”

I nodded. “One final question,” I said. “What happened to Cardonel? Is he…?”

She held up a hand. “No one is told anyone’s story, but their own,” she said. “He has to find his own way out of where his choices have led him.”

I thought about it. The thought of being back with my mother and having a second chance at life was tempting, yet…I wanted to remain within the magical world. I understood, somehow, that if I returned to the mundane world I would never be able to visit the magical world again. I realised now what Cardonel must have been thinking when he’d been reminded that he could put his elfish aspect aside and walk into the mundane world. He would have been happy and ignorant, unaware of the truth behind how the world worked.

And besides, I owed Master Revels an explanation.

“I choose to return to the magical world,” I said, firmly.

She didn’t try to discourage me. “Very well,” she said. She reached out and gave me a hug. Just for a second, I was wrapped in the tenderness of undying love. She
was
love. “Open your eyes.”

“My eyes are open,” I protested.

She smiled. “Then close them,” she said. “I will always be with you.”

I closed my eyes. When I opened them again, I was lying in my bed at Master Revels’s house. He was sitting by my side, staring down at me anxiously. Fiona was seated on her perch, preening herself. She was alive! I sat up and felt a stab of pain. The sword was still part of me. She – God – hadn’t mentioned anything about that.

“Well, of course,” Fiona said, when I got over my shock. “I’m a creature of wild magic. What did you think that more wild magic would do to me?”

“I thought you were dead,” I protested. “I thought…”

“He managed to cancel most of the magic in my form,” Fiona said. “It was a very ingenious attack, in its way. I fell out of the air and right into the nexus. A quick bath and I was as right as rain.”

I rubbed my head. “What happened?”

“A cup of tea, first,” Master Revels said. “And then we will tell all.”

I listened and drank my tea as they talked. After I’d stabbed the half-elf – everyone was careful not to mention him by name – the gateway to hell had collapsed. Master Revels and a handful of others had rounded up Linux and the rest – I was relieved to discover that Sparks wasn’t among them – and arrested them. They’d found me lying on top of the altar, completely out of it. Master Revels had taken me home, put me to bed and waited for me to wake up.

“You saved the world,” Master Revels said. “There isn’t a person or humanoid or Great Power in this universe that doesn’t owe its life to you. You’re a hero.”

I rubbed my head. Everything seemed like a dream. Had I really met God?

“I’m proud of you,” he added. “And so is the rest of the world.”

“Thank you,” I said. I didn’t want to know, but I had to ask. “What is going to happen to the other members of…of his conspiracy?”

“There’s no room for losers in this world,” Master Revels said, grimly. “They’ll be interrogated under truth spells and then escorted to the gateway and shoved into the Dark Continent. After what they tried to do…we’d execute them, but it might not take.”

“Oh,” I said. I stared down at my hands. “I trusted him.”

“Everyone makes mistakes,” Master Revels said, flatly. “The thing that defines us is how we respond to those mistakes and correct them – if we’re lucky enough to realise that we have made a mistake in time. You saved my life and that of my companion.” He reached out and stroked Fiona’s scales. “And you saved everyone else into the bargain.

“A wise man said that if you saved the world, it will reward you every day,” he added. “I think that you are about to discover the truth of that statement.”

He smiled as a letter appeared out of nowhere and dropped down into the table. “Let’s see,” he said, opening it. “There is a werewolf running somewhere in Newhaven, a report of a stranded mermaid in Portobello and a new and deadly vampire cult down near London. That should keep us busy until lunchtime.”

Master Revels stood up and held out a hand. “Coming?”

“Of course,” I said, pulling myself to my feet. I felt fine; great, in fact. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world. I love this job.”

The End

Elsewhen Press

a small independent publisher specialising in Speculative Fiction

Visit the Elsewhen Press website at elsewhen.co.uk for the latest information on all of our titles, authors and events; to read our blog; to find out where to buy our books and ebooks; or to place an order.

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About the Author

Christopher Nuttall has been planning sci-fi books since he learned to read. Born and raised in Edinburgh, Chris created an alternate history website and eventually graduated to writing full-sized novels. Studying history independently allowed him to develop worlds that hung together and provided a base for storytelling. After graduating from university, Chris started writing full-time. As an indie author, he has published a number of novels through Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing.
A Life Less Ordinary
is his third fantasy novel to be published by Elsewhen Press. Chris is currently living in Borneo with his wife, muse, and critic Aisha.