Chapter One: Not in Kansas Anymore

Hey guys! I've been pretty amazingly busy, but I'm finally getting back to publishing, so hope you enjoy. Make sure you give me some feedback, so that I can make my story better. This is The Sorcerers, sequel to The Magician, by Lev Grossman.

Disclaimer: I do not, nor shall I, profit from any ideas from the book, Lev Grossman's book, The Magician. Basically, it ain't my book.

"I still cannot believe you got those fucking wings!" Janet shouted at Eliot. Quentin groaned as he twisted himself into an upright position to face Janet and Eliot, the latter's wings were twitching quite indignantly.

"It was a personal decision! Can't you go bother someone else?" Eliot replied exasperatedly.

Janet fumed silently and pulled out a chair from a circular table sitting at the foot of Quentin's bed. He rubbed his eyes and silently thought, well I'm pretty sure we make the most dysfunctional kings and queens I've ever seen in my life.

"Isn't it a bit early to be arguing, guys?" Quentin gestured to the rising sun to make his point. "And why are you guys in my room?" Quentin asked again, eying them furtively.

Janet blushed and Eliot snorted. "We're hiding, obviously," Eliot said with an air of indifference.

"From what?"

Julia burst in the room, her long dress trailing behind her and slammed the door shut. "If I have to deal with one more fucking centaur, I'm going to burn down that entire fucking forest!" she exclaimed. Realization and understanding hit Quentin like a freight train and he nodded sadly.

"What happened this time?" Quentin asked.

"Apparently somebody's been stealing food off their lands, and they just had to beseech the kings and queens of Fillory to help them with this troubling problem!" Julia answered scathingly.

"Well you're a hedge witch, just blow them all up and say it was an accident," Janet said, giggling.

Julia's scowl turned onto Janet, who in turn just looked smug. In response, Quentin pulled his soft and comfortable pillow over his head, "Fuck Fillory!" he shouted into his pillow. Eliot, Janet, and Julia each nodded fervently.

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Fillory was, Quentin mused, a place where you couldn't honestly ever be bored. There was too much going on, which in his opinion was perfect. Ever since he arrived there as a king, all he thought he'd honestly do was paperwork and the occasional exciting adventure. In truth, diplomacy between their subjects became a leading issue. Perhaps more correct to say that the four young adults that sat on the thrones were the subjects and all of the increasingly insane magical occupants of Fillory were the rulers.

Quentin listened to an absurd amount of advice from any passerby with an opinion. The worst was, by far he thought, the centaurs. They talked to him piteously, yet with a proper amount of reverence. It was the most infuriating thing in the world to listen to. Some walking and talking horse that spouted bullshit problems – and it always led to how walking with only two legs and no tail must be impossible. Quentin felt his fingers twitch a few times, thinking of how sweet it might feel to set that absolutely astonishing tail on fire and watch that motherfucker burn like a candle.

"Milords and ladies, the centaur Raudin requests an audience with you." The words were spoken by a messenger faun draped in a motley assortment of green leaves and silk. He bowed subserviently and Eliot snapped his fingers.

"That's it. He's going to come in this door and I'm going to strangle him. Screw magic, I think it'll feel better with my bare hands." Julia and Janet smiled slightly and a part of Quentin's brain thought, not if I get him first. I think I still remember that spell Penny taught us to make that fireball, just move my hands in this position-

"O Kings and Queens of this beautiful country!" the centaur interrupted Quentin's train of thought. "We have a most egregious problem, which I must say you probably will not be able to comprehend, but requires your attention."

Julia leaned over and whispered in Quentin's ear, "What do you think, Q? Think we can comprehend?" Quentin disguised his bark of laughter as a rather violent cough.

The centaur gave him a disdainful look and continued. "Food that we have laboriously worked for has been disappearing as of late. My people have been searching for the culprit of this theft, and have determined that it could only be the work of a magician."

Eliot had just taken a sip from his goblet and choked, sloshing a few drops of wine on his robe.

"A magician? Why a magician?" Janet asked.

The centaur stared at her disbelievingly. "Because only through the trickery and guile of magic could a race as old and wise as mine..."

Quentin started to drift off and calmed himself. A rival magician could be a major problem, but most likely the centaurs had just been tricked by some low level thief. He studied the architecture of the room he was in, that he had so often imagined sitting in as a kid. Plover had definitely managed to capture most of the main elements of the room in his literature, the cacophony of dark paintings and tapestries hanging on the wall directly to his left, and on the wall to his right were the largest stained windows Quentin had ever seen in his life.

"We found one of our centaurs, a young guard, lying on the floor in front of our warehouse, speaking nonsense on the floor. He had gone mad!" The centaur finished triumphantly.

Eliot rolled his eyes and sighed, "Listen, whatever your name is, tell him to go a bit easy on the drink and he should be fine." He shared a look with Quentin and Janet, "God knows that I've been in that state a few times myself."

The centaur looked outraged and drew himself up to his full height, "It is your responsibility, as the kings and queens of Fillory-"

"We'll look into it."

His friends turned to stare at him and Quentin sighed and waved at the centaur, "We'll be at your settlement in the Southern Orchard in two weeks. Is that acceptable?"

The centaur nodded imperiously and stopped before walking out the doors, "Two weeks?"

Fire suddenly splashed at his heels from Quentin's fingertips and he gave the centaur a meaningful look. The centaur ran out the door and Quentin sat back in his seat, sighing deeply. His friends were glaring at him and he snapped, "What?"

"You caved!" Janet accused, pointing her finger at him.

"I wanted him to stop talking! My head still hurts from that stupid lecture he gave us. Besides, we all need to get out of this castle. It's been getting a bit stuffy in here lately."

"The castle's been stuffy," Julia repeated. "That's why we have to go to a forest filled with nasty things to catch some idiot teenager who's probably on a dare from his idiot teenager friends."

Quentin raked his fingers through his hair, wishing he had an answer for why he had said yes. Because Alice would have, a voice in the back of his head replied. He felt the familiar tightening in his chest and closed his eyes for a second. Finally he responded, "I'll go alone, I'm the only one that said yes. Maybe it'll be a really sexy woman who's stealing to feed herself and when I rescue her she'll be so happy we'll get married and live a happy life together."

Julia and Janet rolled their eyes, but Eliot narrowed his. After a few moments of stony silence, Eliot cut through the tension, "I can't believe I dropped wine on my cloths. You know, wine stains."

"Shut up you fucking fairy," Janet replied angrily.

Quentin stood on a balcony, watching storm clouds roll in from across the Nameless Mountains. The wind caused a slight chill in his body and he formed a few fingerings and spoke several words so softly they were stolen by the wind. Warmth blossomed around his back and the corner's of Quentin's mouth twitched upwards. Thank God for Aradial's Warmth spell... Lightning danced around the mountains, giving the mist a ghostly pallor and Quentin flinched when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"You know you look like some kind of ghost standing there," Eliot said warmly.

"Well you're the fucking fairy."

Eliot leaned against the cold stone of the balcony and shivered, "It's freezing like Ant-freaking-arctica out here. How are you staying warm?"

Quentin snorted. "Magic," was his short reply.

"You still think about her, don't you?" Eliot asked.

Quentin cast his eyes down, "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"You thought of her today. That's why you're going to help those centaurs." Eliot wasn't asking for affirmation. He was stating fact. "Man, I'm going to be honest. I have a bad feeling about this. This doesn't sound like your run-of-the-mill thievery shit at all. Not to mention the crazy centaur they found. Nothing is adding up." Eliot sighed, and his wings flitted back and forth slowly.

"Q, you're going to drag yourself into some real shit. I think you're just looking for a problem to move on-"

"I'm not trying to move on, you idiot. It's not like she's dead. She just became..."

"A niffin. She became a niffin. You don't come back from that." Eliot shook his head.

"It's possible that with magic you could bring her ba-"

Eliot cut Quentin off, "Q! There's nothing to bring back. She's gone. That niffin is in no way her-"

"Then why did that niffin protect us? Why did she go for our little 'ole bud Marty Chatwin instead of wonderful, defenseless us?" Quentin shouted angrily.

They both fell silent. "I can't get that out of my head, Jesus man. There has to be something there. Or it would have killed us too."

"I don't know, maybe because it was filled with vengeance or something. We don't know anything about niffins. Usually, nobody can even get close."

A stony wall of silence fell on the balcony now. They both inhaled and exhaled deeply. Quentin stared at Eliot, his gaze both furtive and challenging, as if asking Eliot to try and stare back with the same intensity.

""Let's just sleep on it," was all Eliot grumbled out after a lengthy minute.

"Thank you, Eliot."

"You're going to get us all killed.

"Hey all I thought we were doing was sleeping on it."

"After this kind of conversation? I'm in need of some hard liquor. Lots of hard liquor."

"We're lost," Quentin said, after hitting the same dead end tapestry that they had hit four times previously.

"This is our castle. We cannot get lose, my dear friend." Eliot gave a crooked smile with one side of his face. "Let's try this door, it looks promising." He gestured towards a solid dark-wooded door and twisted on the handle. The door didn't budge and Eliot started hammering on it with his fist.

"Helloooo? Can someone please open this Goddamned door so that we can get into our lovely Queen's room?" Eliot shouted at the door.

"I told you that shortcut was stupid."

"It worked last time," Eliot snapped back.

Quentin sighed and started to bounce the back of his head on the stone.

"99 bottles of beer on the wall, 99 bottles of beer..." Quentin sang tiredly.

Eliot gave him a scathing look. "That's really going to help the situation."

"We could try blasting the wall down," Quentin suggested offhandedly.

Eliot pounded on the door furiously. "It's late and I want a freaking glass of wine! Open this fuck-"

The door swung open and Eliot shut his mouth.

"Hey guys," Janet said nonchalantly, standing in the doorway wearing a nightgown.

"Your rooms are over here?" Quentin asked.

Janet rolled her eyes. "Julia and I got tired of people interrupting us in the night to do our queenly duties so we changed rooms. How the hell did you find us?"

"You know how we are. Geniuses and stuff. If we want it, we get it," Quentin said airily.

"So you want us now?" Julia asked coming over to engage the rest of the group in conversation.

Quentin blushed and stammered slightly, "N-no, that came out wrong. We just wanted to tell you this idea we had-"

"Yeah this crazy new idea," Eliot said sarcastically. "We're going to drink until standing becomes arduous."

"And this is new, how?" Janet asked, rolling her eyes.

Quentin glanced over at Eliot, and Eliot shook his head ever so slightly. Wait he mouthed to Quentin. Quentin began to feel a red hot feeling in his chest, and he realized it was anger. Wait? For what. So that we can avoid the issue until it's too late? He clenched his hands and tried to get a grip on his emotions.

"Hey Q! You coming?" Julia called from the end of the hallway.

Quentin unclenched his hands. I suppose waiting for right now is okay.

"What kind of retarded question is that?" He laughed out as he met up with the rest of the group.

"You know what else is retarded?" Janet asked, glancing at Eliot.

"Shut up, Janet. I will strangle you with my wings, one day."

A bit short, but I intend to increase the length a lot. Get ready for a long and bumpy adventure, with humor, action, magic, and maybe a bit of love.