Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction using characters from Wizard101. I do not claim ownership of these characters or the universes they inhabit. This story is written purely to entertain and is not intended to be read as canon. All rights to their respective owners.
The Balance School is deathly quiet, and Alhazred knows this silence is the sound of peace, but his heart is still heavy.
In the months leading up to this day, the Order of the Fang gathered every evening in this classroom, after all the students—Kroks, Manders, and men alike—had packed up their satchels with homework scrolls and fled into the sun-drenched freedom of the sands above. Once all of Alhazred's pupils (his precious pupils, bearing the bright-eyed wisdom of youth, who are now safe from the Tuts) had cleared out, he, Shalek, General Khaba, and Khai Amahte the Great came together to pore over tactical maps and war scrolls, hastily sketched diagrams and battle plans. Together, armed with the sagacity of Balance, they conjured up their most desperate idea yet: the Great Sleep.
The Tuts could not be convinced to put an end to their malice—to free the Manders, to release their mad ambitions of subjugating the other worlds—and the Order knew it was not their place to dole out the permanency of a death sentence. The Great Sleep, in the end, was the only option they had.
Alhazred just wishes it didn't come at so high a cost.
Today there were no students; the Balance School has remained undisturbed since sunup. Today all of Krokotopia's children—and their parents—coalesced in the Oasis to hold a celebration of freedom. The wicked Tuts are no more! was the resounding victory cry, and a thousand balloons and streamers went up, so many of them that they completely blocked out the sky. Fatteh and hawawshi were consumed by the pound, and Alhazred knows many of his students will be absent tomorrow, out sick with upset stomachs—but they'll be happy. Oh, they'll be happy.
Why shouldn't they be? After all, the wicked Tuts are no more. Alhazred should be happy, too.
But it is not only the Tuts who now sleep, and his heart is heavy.
The sound of shuffling feet reaches him, and he raises his eyes from the papers strewn across his desk (he wasn't really seeing them, anyway—he doesn't know that he's truly seen much of anything since he realized what happened) to find Shalek emerging from the dusty shadows. He offers Alhazred a smile, but it's strained, and when Alhazred does not return the expression, he immediately gives up the effort.
With characteristic slowness, Shalek comes farther into the Balance School, and he seats himself across from Alhazred. The silence now is tense as a mistuned harp string; neither of them wants to be the one to say it first.
Ultimately, Shalek's compassion caves under the unrelenting pressure of Alhazred's misery, which is all the keener for the lack of words to go with it.
"Alhazred," he says, in a low voice full of gravel and grit, "I am sorry."
Alhazred closes his eyes. He didn't think it would hurt so much to hear those words. "As am I, my friend."
Eyes closed, Alhazred can still see everything that happened so clearly: General Khaba, shouting orders to the brave Manders and good-natured Kroks under his command, never hesitating for a single second to dive directly into the fray and get his hands bloody, Khai Amahte doing exactly the same at his side. Together, the two of them held the Tuts' advance back long enough for Alhazred and Shalek, the more magically inclined members of the Order, to cast the Great Sleep, reading eldritch words from the Krokonomicon that shredded their throats and made tears of blood well in their eyes, but it had to be done. It had to be done.
When a violently sudden silence descended upon the halls of the Great Sphinx (that repulsive monument to the Tuts' self-proclaimed "glory," built on the sweat and blood of the Manders' lashed backs), Shalek was the one to stop reading first, and he slammed a hand into Alhazred's chest to make him shut up, too. The quiet that engulfed them made them stare at one another with wheel-wide eyes—and then they laughed, laughed uproariously, the sound edged with a kind of hysteria and so, so much relief, because they did it. The Tuts were asleep, all their weapons laid down beside them, and the Manders were free.
Alhazred was the one to start running first, rushing out of the alcove where he and Shalek had holed up with the Krokonomicon (wretched thing, never should have written it, what were they thinking?) to cast their spell, seeking the presence of General Khaba and Khai Amahte. If it weren't for their valor and willingness—eagerness, even—to be on the front lines, they never would have been able to pull it off. He wanted to congratulate them, to embrace them, and he called out their names and cried, "We've done it, we've done it!"
Then he realized that the quiet really was all-encompassing. Just as he could not hear the Tuts, he could not hear the other members of the Order, either.
And when he turned the last corner and found them, battle-brothers side by side, prone and sinking into sleep…
(great thoth what have we done—)
"Alhazred," Shalek says, interrupting his dark remembrance, "will you say something? Anything?"
With a bitter, ironic gleam of amusement in his eye, Alhazred meets Shalek's gaze, so full of heartfelt concern. "Did you hear what they're calling you now?"
Shalek frowns; clearly, though he asked Alhazred to say "anything," this isn't what he wants to hear. "Yes," he says. "I was actually at the celebration, unlike you. 'Shalek the Wise.' " He shakes his head and snorts. " 'Wise.' Wisdom would have been taking the Krokonomicon and burning it. Or better yet, never writing it at all."
Uneasy at the self-recrimination in his friend's eyes (his only friend left, now, now that Khaba and Khai are—), Alhazred says, "The Fang—"
"The Fang! Bah!" Shalek spits in the hard-packed soil. "The Fang nothing," he says sternly. "We're the ones who found the damn thing, and we decided to take it and turn it into a Spiral-damned book. We may have felt compelled—" and here he meets Alhazred's eyes once more, and Alhazred is arrested by the dim exhaustion he sees there, "—but we had a choice. We could have put the Fang back where we found it, but we were just so sure we could handle it."
Alhazred does not argue, for he knows this is true. The Golden Fang possesses a number of strange and uncanny powers, not the least of which is its enchanting magnetism, but it did not exert total control over them. When Alhazred and Shalek decided to write the Krokonomicon, they were under the Fang's spell but not subsumed by it. They had a choice. They made a choice. It was the wrong one, and the Manders paid for it.
Khaba and Khai Amahte paid for it.
"Yes," Alhazred murmurs, gaze falling once more to his desk. "We did think that, didn't we?"
"Alhazred," Shalek says, with a sudden, great urgency, "General Khaba and Khai Amahte knew what they were getting themselves into. They wouldn't have wanted you to mourn."
"And you're telling me you're not mourning?" Alhazred shoots back, his dagger-like eyes cutting to Shalek's face in a glare. When Shalek winces, he almost feels bad, but he can't bring himself to apologize. He is all out of apologies. He spent them all over the slumbering bodies of Khaba and Khai.
Shalek breathes deep—in and out—and Alhazred knows he is trying to regulate his wild emotions, unlike Alhazred himself. He has always admired Shalek's level head and cool temperament, how hard he always tries to keep himself from lashing out, even when Alhazred knows there's nothing more he'd like than to scream and cry and rage against the heavens. More than once, Alhazred has suggested, only half-jokingly, that Shalek ought to be the Balance professor, but Shalek's response has consistently remained: "You are wiser than you know, my friend, and make a much better teacher than I. Have faith in yourself. I am content to sit back and watch you, for now."
Shalek the Wise, indeed. Alhazred thinks it a fitting honorific, though he understands why it stings Shalek to hear it so soon after the Sleep was cast.
"Of course not," Shalek says evenly. "I am just as bereaved as you, Alhazred. Do not insult me by suggesting otherwise." Here the urgency re-enters his voice, and he leans forward and braces his arms on Alhazred's desk as he says, almost pleads, "But we told Khaba and Khai Amahte what might happen when we cast the Great Sleep, and they readily accepted that risk. They were brave, Alhazred. Now it is time for you and I to be brave as well."
Once again, Alhazred's eyes slip closed. He mimics Shalek—a deep inhalation, a slow exhalation. He thinks of Khaba's staunch discipline and Khai Amahte's blood-frenzy. He thinks of Khai's bold smile as the Order met one last time before the casting of the Great Sleep, thinks of Khaba's confident declaration. "On this day, the scales will tip in our favor. I know it."
And the scales did. But, oh…
Right now, Alhazred really feels like they didn't.
But Shalek is right. Their companions—their battle-brothers, their friends—showed nothing so much as courage in their final waking moments. And now, it's time for the more magically inclined members of the Order to at least try to live up to their warrior-brothers' bravery.
"Yes," Alhazred says. He opens his eyes to see Shalek's countenance, once again concerned. He tries to smile and doesn't quite succeed—but that, he knows, will come again in time. "After all, it's only fair. They did their part, and now we will do ours."
Shalek gives a slow nod in clear satisfaction. "That," he says with an air of finality, "is the nature of Balance."
"May we always tip the scales in the favor of justice," Alhazred intones solemnly.
Above their heads, the blazing orange sun dips low on the horizon, setting on a free and balanced Krokotopia.