The Tyrant

Chapter One: An Evil Heart

Manfred Bloor

It was finally autumn and I could head home for the first time since the beginning of summer. I looked out the window of the train I had become a passenger to and watched the golden yellows, rustic oranges and dull reds of the trees as we sped past them. There was a girl in the seat across from me. Her head was propped up against the window, she had headphones on and she appeared to be asleep. The other seats around us were empty and everyone was quiet. Every now and then, I could hear the murmur of her music and I would peek up at her from my book. She was pretty and that made me happy she was asleep because I'm really bad at conversation with cute strangers. She had wild, wavy black hair that seemed to have a life of its own and freckles dusted her pale face. She looked familiar. I was almost positive she was a student at the academy.

The train came to a stop at our city's train station. I silently stood, grabbed my belongings, evacuated the train car and stepped onto the station platform. Of course my father and grandfather couldn't be bothered to pick me up, although I had been absent for three months. Instead stood their chauffeur Weedon. He took a couple of my bags for me and loaded them into the sleek black car that he could constantly be seen driving. I sat in the passenger seat and we were quiet the whole ride. No questions from him, wondering how my summer went or how my classes went. No asking how The States were or what I did when I wasn't in my classes. He didn't care. He was only there to clean up after us and get paid handsomely for it. And he was given a nice place to stay since he and his wife never had children anyway.

Seeing the city made me feel melancholy. I had liked New York much more. The air wasn't weighed down with magic or evil, the citizens actually lived their lives. The sky actually looked blue, the scenery was incredible. People actually smiled and joked around on the streets in the smaller cities, and the bigger cities didn't faze me because I had already had a taste of ignorance living here.

We approached the academy and I could already smell dinner before Weedon ever opened the door. Cook had outdone herself. Father had more than likely commanded her to slave over a stove all day preparing what smelled like a roast, potatoes of some sort and a mixture of vegetables. The dinner bell was rung after I had finished unpacking by bags in my room in the west wing. I hadn't taken much to school. Toiletries and furniture had been supplied in our dorm rooms. All I had needed to take was clothing and other personal items I had wanted.

I ventured to the family dining room where my father had already been sitting at the edge of the table. I looked nothing like my father. He was a tall, meaty man with broad shoulders and a big, thick face. His beady gray eyes were almost hidden by folds of flesh in his forehead. Under his nose was a pencil straight, iron gray mustache. His matching iron gray hair was immaculate and in a longer buzz cut. The only thing the two of us shared was height.

My great grandfather sat at his left side, his wheel chair was pushed over to the table. He blamed his handicap on Lyell Bone, who had shoved him to the ground when he was in his mid-nineties, but honestly, if that little episode hadn't happened, he probably would have been confined to the wheelchair soon anyways. He was over 100 and he resembled a skeleton very much so. His eyes were sunken back into his head, his nose was almost gone, and you could see every bone, as if his skin would soon fall off. His teeth were almost all gone, and the ones that weren't were rotted and black. The few strands of waxy white hair he did have left hung down from the skull caps he always wore. Even I was surprised he wasn't dead.

Both my father and great grandfather were angry, bitter people. My mother had been the only one to ever show me kindness as a child, and of course I ruined that when she tried to run away. I slammed her fingers in the door because my father had me convinced that if we didn't have her or her money, we would have to live on the street and because I was a spoiled little child I couldn't even fathom having less than the best. You're probably wondering how slamming her fingers in the door did anything. Well, she was a violinist (I could never stand the sound) and when she fainted from the crushing pain, my great grandfather dipped her hand in a potion that never allowed them to heal. She finally did escape us last January. I missed her so, even though I had not always treated her as great. She was beautiful. Tall and thin. Dark and mysterious.

Without her, Dinner was lonely. Great grandfather had taken her seat at the table, and I had the disgusting privilege to watch him try to eat, for I had to sit across from him. We enjoyed dinner in silence. Every now and then, someone would ask me a question which I would answer as quickly as possible, and then we would all get silent again.

I found myself immediately wanting to leave after dinner. I had seen how cheery the states were, and now being cramped in this mansion was the worst thing ever. I became hyper-aware of every cobweb and every evil grimace on the paintings that lined the walls. I almost didn't want to inherit all of this anymore. I stood up to leave, but I was stopped by great grandfather. "Where are you off to, boy? Aren't you curious of my summer work?"

Honestly, before I left I would have been deeply interested but the idea of being in his attic laboratory made me want to jump out the highest tower window. But of course, I nodded and sat down to listen to him talk about his plan to resurrect one of our ancestor's war horses. Just when I thought the speech would end, the dining room door was thrust open. Asa Pike, a friend of mine that should have graduated with me (but didn't), stood in the doorway panting heavily. His clothes were ripped, wrinkled, and very dirty. He had dirt on his hands and under his nails and he looked like a cross between a human and a beast. Gray ears poked up through his red hair, he had a tail, his nails were long, his hands were bigger, his teeth big and sharp. By the time he made it to where I was sitting, he was just a normal, dirty human boy with glowing yellow eyes. He placed an ancient, dirty box in my hands and told me to open. What was in the box made me gag and shut it. "Is that a human heart?!" I tossed the box onto the table, wanting it as far away from me as possible.

"I found it in the ruin. In a grave marked with a "b". B for Borlath." He stammered, avoiding eye contact. Asa, the werewolf, was embarrassed of his dog like habit. Borlath was eldest child of the Red King, the ancestor of the Bloor family.

I felt my bouts of wickedness creeping back and now I felt truly at home in the academy. I suddenly began to wonder if I could resurrect Borlath, or if my grandfather could. What if we could use the heart and processions of Borlath that had been passed down through my family and put them in the body of the warhorse my grandfather was working on? That's when I began to work late nights with my great grandfather, studying potions and science and magic by candlelight. I didn't sleep at all, completely engrossed in my work. I kept myself working at all times for that whole week before the students were supposed to come back. Then one day, we needed more vervain. The Yewbeam sisters had run out and we needed something to soak the horse bones and heart in to make them even stronger. So I went out in search of it. I didn't even know where to begin looking, so I decided to maybe take a look at Ingledew's book store to see if they still had that book on it.

When I stepped into Cathedral Square, the bookstore was in my sights, but my gaze veered a little towards the left to the windowless store that I had never even noticed was attached to it. It didn't have a name, just a protruding sign with a red blazing sun on it. I passed my destination and placed my hand on the thick, mahogany door of the nameless store and grabbed the golden knob with my other hand. I pushed the door open and stepped into what might be the strangest store I had ever seen. Although there were no windows, it was bright as could be inside, for the roof had been made of a dome like glass. The right wall was stacked with bookshelves of books with information everything from the Red King to every other bit of witchcraft, wizardry and magic. There were plants and charms and strange glass bottles, and a very big counter with many different types of jewelry, which were probably bewitched in some way. This was an alchemy shop; a store that I hadn't even known existed.

A man stood behind the counter. He wore a white dress shirt and a red tie. He was very tall; maybe about six foot four and he had pale skin. Although he was thin, he had broad shoulders and he had wavy medium length blonde hair. His eyes were a very particular blue-gray color. Stubble surrounded his thin lips and he smiled to show off pearly white teeth. He wore a gold nametag that read "Magnus" and I felt as if I should know him.

"Are you lost, Mr. Bloor?" He asked calmly. He had a heavy Swedish accent. "I believe you're after Venetia Yewbeam for your needs, not me."

I was surprised and very curious that this man knew who I was. "How do you know my name?" I demanded. Then I spotted the vervain on the shelves. "And I've come for that vervain."

"Out of Vervain. That's my parent plant. It's out of season, but I bet Venetia could have told you that." He drummed his fingers off the counter. "My daughter is a student at your academy and I don't think I want your kind in my shop."

"You can't discriminate who you sell to." I glared at him. I was slightly curious as to who his daughter was.

"Actually, I can." He pointed to a sign behind him that I had overlooked. It read Members Only. "You fill out an application that the head manager approves or denies and I happen to be the head manager." He set the application down in front of him.

"I'll find it elsewhere." I turned and walked towards the door. There was still the vervain in the Gunn household that I could get my hands on. I stormed out the door and passed the fenced off garden of the building with the intent of heading towards the Gunn household.

Stealing the vervain wouldn't be hard. Mrs. Gunn kept it right on the windowsill and it was a nice day, so of course the window would be open. The Gunn House was never quiet, so I couldn't be heard if I was careful enough. I usually had Asa do this kind of work for me, but I figured he'd mess it up somehow in the broad daylight. I on the other hand could be sneakier. I ran up the side of the house and crouched under the window sill. I peeked up quickly to see if anyone was there. Mrs. Gunn had her back turned as she tried to desperately sort out the music sheets that had been abandoned on her kitchen table and I grabbed the plant and sidled back down the side of the house. It was almost too easy. Maybe I'd start doing my own dirty work instead of having Asa mess it up all the time.

I walked back to the academy and by the time I made it back, I was tired. I took the vervain back up to the attic and went to bed. The bones would soak over the night and be ready for construction in the morning.

That night I dreamed of something going terribly wrong in the experiment. The King's Queen was named Bernice. And in my dream, the heart that Asa had actually found was her heart, and instead of bringing Hamuran the warhorse back to life, we had brought a majestic white mare that had gained favor of the queen back to life instead. My dream had been interrupted by an explosion that had come from the attic. I found myself jumping out of bed and running up the stairs only to find my father, grandfather and the four Yewbeam sisters all stood around the table. I pushed them aside only to find all the horse bones still there, but the heart and all of Borlath's belongings gone.

"What happened?" I asked, angry that they had resumed without me.

"There was an explosion and he disappeared…" Venetia looked around, bewildered. "Those were all priceless belongings…"

"Maybe if someone would have come and woke me up, this wouldn't have happened." I grumbled.

"I bet it was your vervain. You probably got it from an inadequate source." Eustacia accused.

"Really, Eustacia? I stole it back from Bone. And it was grown by your sister." I walked over and touched the horse bones. Why had they been unaffected by the explosion? They only had a thin film of ash on them.

Somewhere across the city, a fire engine raced to its destination.