Chapter 4: Finally, An Explanation!
He felt weightless for over a minute, but instead of slamming into the ground and being crushed into a fine paste, he landed softly.
"Yeah that's right..." He thought. "You're not supposed to feel it when you die like that. Wait, why can I still think?"
He felt soft, gentile sand beneath his body, the sound of tranquil silence all about him. Still, it wasn't a complete silence. He swore he could hear the lapping of water upon a shore. He opened his eyes.
"What...What is this place?" he said to himself.
The landscape before him was impossible. Though deep underground, it was filled with a gentile and pure light. A great lake presented itself before him, propagated by bookshelves and islands. The waters were pure, clear, and fresh, more than able to quench his thirst and cleanse his body. There was even a Victorian house in the distance, covered in roots and vines yes, but still undeniably pristine and beautiful.
He dove into the waters and investigated the bookshelves submerged there. The texts he recovered were unusual. They were written in Latin, a language he had just recently began to learn. However, even his inexperienced eyes could decipher peculiar properties within them. The texts showed clear symptoms of linguistic drift. This ought to have been impossible. Latin is supposed to be a dead language. "Dead" languages don't experience this phenomenon. Syntax and the meanings of words do not change over time unless the language is used in day to day life. They also don't have any borrowed words from the modern forms of other languages like English and Japanese, yet here they were. However, that was all secondary to what these texts described. These were texts on magic and alternate history, yet they were unlike the occult or apocryphal works he had read. These books were nothing like Aleister Crowley's "The Book of the Law", Frazier's "The Golden Bough", or even Leon's "Zohar". He could barely understand the titles of these works, let alone the information contained within. He needed someone with knowledge of ancient Latin. Such an individual may be able to parse through the drift within these pages and arrive at the true meaning the authors were aiming for.
Niven could do it, he was recognized as one the foremost authorities on ancient Latin, but could he trust him? The more he thought about their conversations, the more certain he became that he knew more than he was telling him. What would a priest hide from him? Did he know the truth? Was he in on whatever 'conspiracy' kept the things he had seen confined to the unseen and unacknowledged places in this world?
He dove down into the deepest depths and procured the most provocative titles he could decipher. "High Ancient Incantations for Dummies", "Strange Tales from the Old World", "True Histories of the Magical World", "Annual Journal on Offensive Magic, 1984", a small and unassuming work titled "The Throne of Mnemosyne" hidden behind a Latin copy of "The Sickness Unto Death", and a strange tome labeled "The book of E" the title was obviously supposed to be longer, but the rest had been purposefully scourged out of the leather binding for some reason. Said title also looked to have been done post market, scratched into the spine with whatever sharp instrument was nearby at the time. Sure enough, all were written in the unreadable Latin he had anticipated. They had either been written by authors who had experienced too much lingual drift, or were in a form of Latin so archaic that only the likes of Niven could ever hope to decipher them. Frighteningly, none of them experienced any real damage despite being submerged in water. In fact, once he brought them out of the water they dried off quickly, the pages becoming legible and turnable without inflicting damage upon them almost instantly. Somehow, this impossibility failed to elicit the headaches such things normally did.
After the episode above, he had began to form theories and possibilities of whatever it was that kept everyone else from recognizing and accepting the magic that was all around them. Like in many contemporary works of fantasy, magic users had to be capable of erasing memories, so they didn't have to kill to keep the secret. Even so, the measure was only used as a last resort. Probably because they subconsciously perceived the immorality of such a practice.
"Yes," he thought, "this is the correct theory." I recited the theory to himself in his head.
Here's how it all goes down. A "cognizance field" puts the individual in an altered mental state where a person's natural tendency to dismiss "strange" or "unusual" things as tricks of the eye or something is greatly amplified. If questioned, the 'actor' would respond "It's CGI" or something similar, hopefully convincing them to do what they should have. If they did not, in the rare cases where one was somehow resistant to the field, they would either tell them the truth and order them to keep their mouth shut, or erase their memory. If they did purge their personal data banks, the only explanation that would remain then would be "Magic exists, and I somehow saw someone use it". That conclusion, however, is almost universally accepted as impossible even by the wackiest, most "out there" conspiracy theorists and tabloids. The response to the victim's forum post would read thusly;
"Where's the devil worship, the aliens, the reptilians, the pentagrams and human sacrifice? Huh, you mean it wasn't anything like that? That it's really more like in those Video Games, RPG's, fantasy novels and whatnot? Nonsense! We all know magic doesn't work that way! You're crazy! Stop posting this bullcrap, stop playing so many video games and for God's sake stop watching so much anime you wapanese wanker!"
There was no hope, the system was pretty much airtight. No mere mortal would ever be able pierce, let alone shatter, the masquerade.
Yet somehow, those cognizance fields and mem wipe spells don't work on me. Only one explanation fit the facts. I must have some kind of inborn trait that makes me immune to mind affecting spells and effects. Yet such an incredible gift comes at a price. It just isn't natural, is it. In all likelihood, my kind ought not exist in this world. Humans can sense these things, sense that some things ought not be, and they don't want to be anywhere near them.
He remembered that people always seemed to distance themselves from him in school despite the fact that he was always polite and cordial to them. No girl, no matter how desperate, ever hit on him nor did they respond positively to his romantic propositions. Nobody even sat next to him at lunch, and hardly anyone ever talked to him, even in dive bars. Not even his own parents wanted anything to do with him. He was always alone, rejected by everyone in the world.
His thoughts were digressing, he was losing the focus that had brought him this far. He had what he had sought for so long cradled in his arms, but now he had to find a way out. He had to get these materials to Niven. He would tell him. Despite whatever doubts Alexander had about him, he was still a good man, he hoped.
He began to search the outer walls. The house, thought beautiful, felt like yet another trap. It likely held a path leading further down, the exact opposite of what he wanted now. The walls were solid, and the amount of territory he had to explore vast, but within the span of a few hours he had found what he sought. Behind a waterfall was hidden a door leading to a great spiral staircase.
"What the hell, I've gone this far down? That's just not possible. Damnit, if that bastard doesn't tell me what I want to know…"
After half an hour of walking up those endless stairs, he arrived at an elevator. He pushed 1 and arrived at the other end of library. He ran as fast as he could, suppressed pistol in hand, to his car and deposited the books. He then headed to Scott's room and left the outfit. After this he headed to the nearest hotel and bribed the manager to forget he even existed. He had to be sure of a few things before he confronted Niven.
Yay, chapter 4. Hope you're not bored or nothing, this story really does pick up after a bit.