Rebels of the Lamp, Book 1 (7 page)

Parker took the screwdriver out and the lightning subsided. He was, frankly, more than a little freaked out. He could smell the burning ozone in the air.

He reached out to touch the canister again and there was a knock on his door.

“Parker? You in there?”

Theo. Why not? thought Parker. The guy did live here.

“Hang on! I’m...”

“You’re what?”

Parker couldn’t think of anything he might be doing that wouldn’t make Theo suspicious, so he gathered up the canister and the tools, wrapped them in his blanket, and threw them on
the bed. “Nothing. Come on in.”

Theo opened the door to find Parker standing by the bed.

“What are you doing in here in the dark?”

“Just, you know. Thinking.”

“Thinking? Thinking about what?”

“Just thinking.”

Theo jammed his hands into his pockets and stepped carefully into the room. He spent a few moments looking around. There wasn’t much to see.

“I got the keys back to my dad. He didn’t even know they were gone.”

“That’s good,” said Parker.

“Yeah,” said Theo. “Yeah.”

He walked over to the bed. Parker cast a worried eye down to his blanket, but Theo didn’t sit. He turned to Parker.

“Look,” he said. “I’m sorry about what I said yesterday and just, you know, about how I’ve been treating you in general since you got here. I know that what
happened in your family wasn’t your fault. It must be tough to move three thousand miles away from all your friends and your mom and everything that you know.”

Parker was more than a little surprised.

“It is,” he said. He meant it.

Theo ran a hand through his own hair.

“So, anyway, me and a couple of guys I know are going over to this go-kart track in Tramerville, and, you know, if you want, you can come along. If you want.”

“Yeah! Great! Absolutely!” said Parker. “Just let me get changed.”

Theo stared at his cousin.

“You don’t have to wear a tux. It’s a go-kart track. In
Tramerville
.”

“Well, yeah, but still. There might be girls there.”

Theo rolled his eyes.

“Fine. Whatever. I’ll wait.”

Before Parker could stop him, Theo threw himself down on the bed. He hit his elbow on something hard and grimaced. Theo’s face fell.

“Parker,” he said. “What’s under here?”

B66002—VESIROTH’S JOURNAL, CIRCA 900 B.C.

I performed the ritual alone, near my new lodgings deep in the empty desert. No one was there to witness the greatest act of the world’s most powerful
sorcerer. I need no audience. I crave no glory.

I dug the pit and lined it with rare jade as the book demands. I set the burning sulfur in bowls of obsidian facing the north, south, east, and west. I garbed myself in robes
covered in runes that were ancient even before this continent had a name.

I fasted for nine days and nine nights, sitting motionless by the pit’s edge. When my mind wandered, I dug a golden spike into my leg to regain focus.

At midnight on the ninth day, I stood. My body was weak with hunger, but my will was girded with iron. There was no turning back. My time was at hand. I would succeed where
every other man who had ever lived had failed.

I chanted the age-old spell. My eyes filled with smoke as the words took effect. The ground beneath me shifted, but I was not deterred. When the moon reached its highest point
in the night sky, I said the last words and I plunged the sword into the pit.

The earth responded with a roar and I was thrown through the air. I heard the low, moaning sound of pain, and I staggered back to the pit.

Through the gloom of smoke and the stench of hellfire, I saw him in his first moments of forming. He was shaped as I am, and he had the features of my face. He was clothed in
robes as black as the blackest reaches of the night sky.

He rose before me, floating above the ground in a cloud of mist. He was a creature of untold power. I admit that even I was awed by the sight of him, and even I was visited by
doubt. Was he a thing that could not be controlled? Had I created a beast that would destroy me? Was Tarinn right all along?

Then my creation bowed his head and in his first words called me “Master,” and I knew that I would have my way. I named the genie Fon-Rahm.

The world is mine.

B66015

His power is immense.

He has the gift of flight, and he has dominion over lightning and smoke. He can cause men to overlook him as if he is not there. He can conjure objects at will. Men are like
insects to him. He is a marvel of magick.

I have spent weeks inside with Fon-Rahm, teaching him the ways of man. He learned quickly, drinking information and knowledge like a child drinks his mother’s
milk.

In many ways he is a child. My only child.

I find myself weakened after creating Fon-Rahm. I assumed it was temporary, but my condition persists. I will study my texts until I find the cause.

It is a small concern. Soon I will bring my genie out to the city, and all will know the glory of my creation.

I really cannot wait.

B66027

He will not obey!

I called him into being from nothingness. Without me, he was just an idea, an impossibility, a dream that could not be real. I am his creator, the most powerful man to ever
walk beneath the sun.

And he will not obey!

When I felt that the time for books and schooling was over, I took Fon-Rahm into the city. He looked with wonder at the buildings that towered overhead. The achievements of
man were fascinating to him, proof that mankind is a race of artists.

I know better. I know that mankind is a race of killers.

I waited, and I watched him explore. I knew that soon we would come across some tempting target.

And soon we did.

The soldiers were blocking the street. In their arrogance they assumed that there were none more important than those in their own ranks. Everyone else in the city was there
simply to be bullied and spit upon. These were men just like the men who killed my family.

My time had come.

I smiled at my creation. Fon-Rahm had been called forth from the void to be my sword. With his might I would be ruler of all men. War would be a thing of the past.

I issued my command. Fon-Rahm was to wipe the soldiers from the face of the earth.

And he would not obey.

I spoke again, with more force. He was to kill these men, with no mercy. Their deaths would be an example to all armies of my awesome might. To defy me would bring about their
destruction.

He would not obey.

Fon-Rahm spoke. He told me that he would not kill a human being, any human being. He would not submit mankind to my rule. He said that man must be free to make his own
decisions, for good or ill. A world ruled by a wizard was a prison.

I was enraged. I spit at him to do what I commanded. I was his master! He was nothing, a clump of sand in a hole I dug in the desert. He would bend to my will!

But he would not obey.

I heard laughter. The soldiers had heard my pleas, and they saw me, an old man with half a face, begging an empty space in the air to do his bidding.

Humiliated, I returned to my books with greater intensity than ever before. What had gone wrong? Why was my creation weak?

I found my answer. The spell demanded that I create Fon-Rahm using a shard of my own life force. A portion of the power that gives me life and energy was taken from me and
went into the genie. It gave him life, and it gave him power that was no longer mine. That life force was charged with my thoughts and emotions at the exact moment it was transferred to my
creation. In my excitement and naïveté, I had called on the most pure and incorruptible parts of myself, the memories of my wife and children, parts years dormant but not yet
extinguished. I know now that Fon-Rahm represents me at my most merciful. Goodness and mercy were built into him, and they would always come before any commands to subjugate man.

I had failed. On every level, my creation was inadequate.

A rare misstep. I wash my hands of this pathetic creature. If this genie will not obey me, I will create another who will.

AS PARKER FAILED TO FIND
an explanation about the stolen container that would satisfy his cousin, a black Cadillac Escalade stopped at an
intersection outside of Cahill. Another car pulled up behind it. The light changed, but the Escalade didn’t move. The car behind honked, waited, and then pulled around the big Caddy and drove
off.

The driver of the Escalade rolled down his window. He was a tall man with blond hair and deep, cold blue eyes. His jaw was clenched. He stared intensely out at the landscape as two passengers in
the truck’s backseat argued. Like him, they wore black suits with no ties. One was from Spain and the other from Thailand, but they spoke in a shared language any linguist would tell you had
been dead for generations.

As their argument grew more heated, the driver raised his hand. His passengers instantly shut up.

The driver reached down and pulled a coat aside to uncover a tablet on the passenger seat. It was about the size of a laptop computer, and it seemed to be made of the same metal and to be from
the same era as Parker’s canister.

The driver closed his eyes and placed his hand over the tablet. Slowly, the metal plates on its surface began to rearrange themselves. When they stopped moving, the plates had formed an arrow
that pointed to the right.

The driver covered the tablet and rolled up his window. The Escalade drove through the red light and made a right turn.

B66044—VESIROTH’S JOURNAL, CIRCA 900 B.C.

I returned to my pit and I chanted again.

I had learned my lesson well. This time I summoned the darkest and most cruel parts of my nature. I would not repeat the mistake I made with Fon-Rahm. This creature was to be
cold-blooded and without mercy. He would follow my instructions completely, without pity for the deluded humans I was born to rule. He would respect the power of fear.

My new creation was born in a ball of fire, and as he rose to meet me, flames engulfed him. His robes were red. I was surprised to find that he, like Fon-Rahm, resembled me,
but where Fon-Rahm adopted a look of deep contemplation, my new son wore a sneer.

He was perfect.

I called him Xaru. He and I will reign over this world. Men will cower in fear before us.

B66051

Xaru has proven to be every bit the student that Fon-Rahm was.

I am fascinated in the differences between my two creations. Fon-Rahm is always willing to give man the benefit of the doubt. He takes for granted the fact that man is, at his
heart, good. Xaru scoffs at the idea. To him, man is an animal to be tamed.

Unlike his older brother, Xaru is not content to sit inside. While Fon-Rahm pouts in his corner, watching us like a chaperone, Xaru paces. He is restless. Energy radiates off
him, and he seems eager to follow my every command.

He, like Fon-Rahm, calls me Master, but in Xaru I sense defiance and anger. I see him often watching the fire, delighting in the way it consumes everything it touches. I have
told him to wait, that soon his power would be unleashed, but I feel his patience is coming to an end.

Xaru craves violence. He is far more my son than Fon-Rahm.

We are going to have lots and lots of fun together.

THEO STORMED OUT OF THE HOUSE.
Parker followed him, the canister cradled in his arms like a baby. A heavy, weird, metal baby.

“I had to take it! It was like it was calling to me! It was like I was supposed to take it!” Parker said.

“You mean you were supposed to
steal
it?”

“Who said I stole it?”

“It’s not yours, is it?”

“It was buried in the ground! It’s not anybody’s!”

“We have to take it back,” Theo said. “Today.”

“Just let me have a little time with it.”

“Today.”

“Let me get it open, at least. I won’t keep it, I promise. This is something special. It’s important. I just have to find out. If I give this thing up without ever knowing
what’s inside of it, I’ll never think of anything else for the rest of my life.”

Parker planted himself in front of his cousin.

“Let me keep it for the rest of the weekend,” he said. “No one will even know it’s gone until Monday. Come on. Please.”

Theo shook his head. It was just like Parker, he thought, to put him in this position. Parker was the one causing all the trouble, and now he was making Theo feel guilty about doing the right
thing.

Parker said, “We’ll take it back on Monday before school. First thing.”

Theo sighed. “First thing on Monday. You swear it?”

“Absolutely. You have my word.”

Theo threw up his hands. “I guess that’s okay,” he said.

Parker smiled. He had always been able to talk his way out of stuff like this. It was a gift. Poor Theo never stood a chance.

Theo looked at the canister.

“Can I see it?”

Parker handed it over and Theo hefted it.

“There’s a crowbar in the barn,” he said. “Under the screw jars.”

“Great!” said Parker. As he ran to the barn, Theo walked to the side of the house for his mountain bike. He cradled the canister in one arm and pushed off.

Parker saw his cousin stand on the pedals.

“Hey! Theo!”