CHAPTER 6: LAW OF PARADOX
"Two people may experience the same event yet perceive entirely different occurrences."
November 14th, 1978—Carl's POV
Carl doesn't belong here in this nice prestigious NYU dorm complex. He's trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, but he's still getting looks from passersby.
He casually walks up the stairs of the stoop and opens the door.
Then it's three flights of stairs and several turns made before he stops in front of his destination: apartment 329.
Carl hesitates. But before he can make any move one way or another, noises come from within, and he barely steps out of the way in time for the door to swing open and an NYU student to come storming out. The student takes two steps towards the stairway before seeing Carl behind him. He spins around.
"Who are you and what the hell are you doing here?" he demands of Carl.
Carl crosses his arms defensively.
"I could ask the same thing of you, pal."
The other—not much older than Carl himself—looks briefly affronted, then angry. "I live here, what's your excuse?"
"I came to see Tom. He lives here too, am I right?"
The other looks him up and down in judgment.
"Yeah, figures Tom would have friends like you," he sneers.
Carl cracks his knuckles menacingly. But before he can respond…
"Carl?" his name rings weakly through the air. From somewhere inside the dorm room, someone coughs.
Carl hesitantly pokes his head through the doorway.
He hardly hears the roommate storm off.
The place is a disaster. There are tissues strewn everywhere and takeout boxes on and off the tabletop. And as for Tom—Tom is lying on a couch in the middle of it all, looking particularly miserable.
Tom coughs again, "Hey Carl, what kind of trouble are you getting me into this time?" He motions to the door where Carl is still standing outside.
"Your roommate's a jerk," Carl says without preamble and before he could stop himself.
"Tell me something I don't know." Tom says, then blows into a tissue.
Carl steps inside, looking at the mess. "He's mad at you for this?"
Tom nods.
Carl steams inwardly at Tom's roommate briefly, before he bends over and starts picking up tissues and junk food containers.
"Carl," Tom calls down, protesting. "What are you doing?"
Carl stops and looks up.
What is he doing?
He shrugs uncomfortably but keeps going, finding a plastic bag, and clearing away the remaining stuff off the coffee table with a sweep of his hand.
Tom struggles to sit up, but Carl places a restricting hand on his shoulder. He slouches back onto the couch.
"Thank you," Tom says quietly.
Carl thinks of all the pizza and Chinese takeout he has just cleaned up.
"Is that all you've been eating?" he asks, indicating the old bits of food and plastic utensils in the plastic bag.
"Yeah, but it's too hard on my stomach. I can't eat it."
"Where's your wallet?"
"Carl, this is hardly the time to pick my pockets…" Tom jokes.
"I'll get you some soup from down the road." Carl replies defensively.
"Really?" Tom says, wide-eyed. "Thank you!" From somewhere beneath the couch's pillows he produces his wallet.
"Here you go then," Tom throws Carl the wallet without reserve. "I have to hide it. My roommate tends to take a few dollars for himself."
"But you trust me?"
"Of course. Are you going to be okay getting back in?" Tom asks nervously.
"Yeah," Carl reassures him.
Carl gets up to the door before he hears Tom call out hoarsely: "And get something for yourself too!"
An hour later Carl does manage to get the soup, something for himself, and a few other groceries. He also somehow manages to sneak back into the complex undetected.
When he returns Tom is sitting up slightly on raised pillows in anticipation; he's also changed into new pajamas.
Carl tosses him back his wallet and sits on the coffee table. He then hands Tom his chicken noodle soup and warns that it's hot.
Tom re-hides the wallet without even checking how much Carl spent. Then he blows on his soup a bit.
Carl munches on a bit of cheese himself.
Silence reigns for a long moment of chewing and sipping.
"I'm ready to tell you, Carl."
Carl looks up while taking a bite from an apple, juice dribbling down his chin. He wipes it away. "Tell me what?"
"I want to tell you everything about A Wizard's Companion."
Carl blinks and hesitates. It's finally happening and this is what he wanted...
Right?
He's been nagging Tom about this for weeks but now that the time has come he's not so sure he wants to know—or knows what he wants for that matter.
Something inside him is desperately afraid.
Yet something else is just as excited.
He's not sure about the 'why' for either.
Tom isn't watching Carl as he raises his hand to eye level, palm up, and mutters something under his breath, too low for Carl to make out the words. Out of thin air, his book suddenly appears hovering a foot above his outstretched hand, then drops. Tom catches it easily.
Carl jumps a good three feet back, which is a feat considering he had been sitting at the time. He knocks over the table and bits of food fly about everywhere.
Tom doesn't seem too concerned about it though. His face down in the book, he mumbles a few more choice words and the coffee table flips itself back over, the food settling into place. Even the soup is back inside the bowl.
Carl backs into the nearest wall.
"Carl, easy," Tom's face is a study in concern when he glances up.
"Wha…what just happened?!"
"Wizardry, Carl."
The answer is simple and straightforward.
Carl shakes his head in denial. "Impossible! It doesn't exist!"
Magic doesn't exist!
"Carl come over here, you look like you're about to faint." Tom sits up and pats the space at the end of the couch in invitation.
"There's no such thing," Carl whispers, trying to wake up from whatever dream he must be having and keeping his distance at the same time.
"But there is Carl." Tom says patiently. "I'm a Wizard."
Wizardry…
Tom's a Wizard…
And somehow it made sense. It all made sense.
Carl still refuses to believe it though
"No! You're tricking me…"
And again Carl feels the irrational anger towards Tom that's always there just beneath the surface. The one he can't explain, but intensifies every time Tom does something that Carl sees as a betrayal.
It doesn't happen as often as Carl would like… and where did that thought come from?
Carl doesn't want to be angry around Tom and he's been trying to control himself since the day they met. He likes Tom, he really does. Tom treats him in a way no one else has in a long time, hell maybe ever: with respect, possibly even admiration.
But then something like this happens and he wants to boil over and lash out and he doesn't understand why because despite his hot Italian blood he is level-headed and Tom doesn't deserve to be injured over just a lie, granted a rather large lie…
"Why would I do that?" Tom inquires softly, sounding upset and there it is. Carl's already hurt him inadvertently.
Carl bolts for the door, but finds it somehow locked beneath his hands—no matter how many times he unlocks it. The act of trying is useless but he finds shaking and banging on the door a good way to burn off his negative energy.
"Carl, calm down! Please?" Tom sounds panicked.
Finally, defeated and deflated, Carl stumbles over to the couch and plops down where Tom indicates.
Tom reaches out for him but stops at Carl's flinch.
Immediately, Carl wants to apologize—for flinching, for being mad, for wanting to walk away, for not walking away sooner—but Tom, who is either reading his mind or being very perceptive, beats him to it.
"I'm sorry, Carl. I shouldn't have startled you like that. If you don't believe me, why don't you try a bit of Wizardry on your own? Like, let's say, call your Manual."
Despite his current state—or maybe because of it—Carl gives Tom a bit of a hysterical look.
"Call it huh? Just reach my arms out and yell 'Hocus Pocus'? Or is it more like a dog, where you clap your hands and say "Here Manual. Manual come!"
At the end of his mocking, he can't figure out the look on Tom's face.
"Carl," Tom says and points directly in front of him...
Floating—floating?!—in midair is his Manual.
My Manual?
"Don't waste energy, Carl. Take it." Tom chides.
Easy for you to say, Carl thinks but, acting on autopilot, does as he's told.
A moment stretches between them, in which Carl traces the outline on his book's—Tom calls it a Manual—binding and thinks of everything it could mean to be a Wizard.
"I had a hard time when I was first introduced into Wizardry too."
Carl scowls, eying him suspiciously. "Are you reading my mind?"
Tom looks affronted. "Not without your permission I'm not! I just remember the old days and…" he trails off, frowning at someplace in the distance for some time, trying to decide what to say, how to say it, and just how much to disclose.
Finally, Tom sighs.
"Look, Carl, you and I are different somehow."
"Different? You've got to be kidding me!" Carl's voice drips with sarcasm.
"We're not supposed to have Manuals for one thing, I don't think," Tom spoke calmly, as though the topic was the weather and not life-changing in the least, "and we're not supposed to know Wizardry exists for the other, as far as I can figure out. We're not supposed to be Wizards."
"Why not?" Carl asks, somewhat curious albeit still terrified.
"Wizardry is all about the younger generations, and we're far too old for one thing. Most Wizards come of age around twelve to fourteen. And we—well I—haven't had my Ordeal yet and it's been a year since I took the Oath."
He looks at Carl this time, "And then there's the fact that you…" Tom coughs and appears embarrassed to say the rest.
"That I what, Tom?" Carl asks impatiently. "Just say it, you know I hate runarounds."
Tom glances down at his lap. "…we have problems. You and your dyslexia, me and my non-Ordeal..."
Tom clears his throat, and then frowns.
He's looking at Carl's Manual, the page that had opened with the Oath, except…
"I can't read this." His frown deepens as he pulls the book to him. "The letters and words are all jumbled."
Carl glances down, his eyes widening in awe as he scoots closer to Tom to get a better look.
"I can read this, plain as day! But how...?"
He flips back a few pages, through what looks like the requirements from the little bit he scans, and it is like magic. At first the page is just a page, but then when his eyes land on a word he can't make out, the word rearranges itself into something he can read. The print is larger, the spaces between words extended and…
"I can read this Tom!" Carl exclaims, excited beyond himself. All other thoughts and emotions gone, like they'd never been there.
"Now all you have to do," Tom tells him carefully, "is decide."
Tom acts as if he's known this would happen all along,
"Decide on what?" Carl asks, still enthused, casting Tom's strange behavior to the side for the moment.
"Whether or not to become a Wizard Carl…"