The Prof Croft Series: Books 0-4 (Prof Croft Box Sets Book 1) by Brad Magnarella (best business books of all time txt) 📕

“Did you summon a gatekeeper from the In Between?” he asked pointedly.

Crap. “Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say summon. I had a brief chat with one, if that’s what you’re getting at. Emphasis on brief.”

“And what did he say?” Chicory asked.

“Not much, to be honest.”

“They rarely do, unless it’s in the act of claiming your soul.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not careless enough to let that happen,” I said, recalling the sensation of dangling into the frigid void, my fingers clenching the mirror frame.

Chicory let out a humpf as he lowered himself to my reading chair. “You know the Order’s policy on summonings.”

“I told you, it wasn’t a summoning. It was more of a … leaving the back door open. I didn’t force the gatekeeper to come through.”

Chicory’s eyebrows crowded his dark eyes. He wasn’t buying it.

“Look,” I said, “I was just trying to find out some information on my mother. I went to the Order first, I’ll have you know.”

“Then you should have awaited their response.”

“Oh, yeah? And when would that have been? The next fossil age?”

“Everson,” he said sternly, “I needn’t remind you that there are penalties for wayward wizards.”

“No, you needn’t.” I sat on the couch with a hard sigh. “I just find it funny that whenever I ask for a hand, the Order seems to fall off the face of the Earth, but when I commit a minor infraction—bam!—you’re suddenly up in my face.”

“You shouldn’t expect your priorities and the Elders’ to align. But preventing wizards from turning to the dark arts is a priority we all share. There’s a reason there’s only been one rebellion against the Order in its centuries of existence.”

“Rebellion?” I said, sitting upright. “I’ve never heard anything about a rebellion.”

Chicory, who had been pulling a smoking pipe from his jacket, paused to frown, as though he’d let something slip. He regarded the bowl of packed leaves for a moment before nodding. “That’s not a story we tell our novice practitioners, but perhaps it’s time you heard it.”

I bristled at the word novice before reminding myself that, though I’d been wizarding for more than a decade, I remained an infant in the eyes of those who’d been practicing for hundreds, even thousands, of years.

Chicory drew his wand from another pocket, touched it to the pipe, and puffed until the leaves began to crackle. When he moved the stem from his lips, a sweet fragrance of tobacco drifted over the room. “The First Saint from whom we’re all descended had nine children,” he began.

“I already know that part of the history.”

“Are your own students this impertinent?” Chicory asked with a frown. “If you want me to tell you the story of the rebellion, I need to start at the beginning.”

I showed a hand to say fair enough and nodded for him to continue.

He took two quick puffs. “Now, the Order began informally, as you know. A way for Michael’s nine children to train their own children in the art of magic, battling dark creatures, so on and so forth.”

“Sort of like community homeschooling,” I said.

“Very much so,” Chicory decided after a moment’s pause. “But like with any growing organization, as the practitioners multiplied and spread around the ancient world, the training became more formalized. Michael’s children called themselves the First Order. They appointed regional heads, whom they called the Second Order. Later Third and Fourth Orders were added. Decisions made by the First Order were disseminated down the ranks. Over time, the Diaspora came to be known as the Order of Magi and Magical Beings.”

This was still a review from my training under Lazlo, but I didn’t say anything.

“Now,” Chicory continued, “around the time of the late Roman Empire, the First Order attained a level of magic that transformed them. Some would say they became gods or at least god-like. Though they continued to exist on the physical plane, they inhabited more ethereal planes as well.”

“The Elders,” I said, scooting forward. Though I had heard all of this before, the thought of attaining that state—as indeed I might one day (if I managed to stay alive)—fascinated me.

“Precisely,” Chicory said, the smoke that rose from his pipe seeming to bend reality. He aimed the stem at me. “Now here’s what you weren’t told. Of the original members of the First Order, only eight attained that godlike state. No one can say why the youngest did not.”

“Runt of the litter?”

Chicory shrugged. “Perhaps he didn’t inherit as much power from his father as the others. But it wasn’t for lack of practice. This ninth sibling was intent on perfecting his magic, of transforming that art into science. Indeed, Lich—for that was his name—Lich devised the regimen for fledgling magic-users, penned many of the world’s first spell books. You might imagine his disappointment, then, when his siblings ascended and he was left behind.”

I caught myself nodding.

“But Lich was determined to join them,” Chicory continued. “The legend goes that he practiced more fervently than he ever had before, the effort nearly killing him, until one day, after hundreds of years, his efforts opened a deep, deep fissure in the fabric of our world. Through it, he heard the whisperings of a being more ancient than the First Saints and Demons.”

I leaned further forward, the rest of my apartment seeming to disappear.

Chicory nodded gravely. “By eavesdropping on the being’s whisperings, Lich learned secrets that could elevate him to the level of his siblings and possibly beyond. From those secrets, he cultivated power. And with that power, he confronted his eight brothers and sisters, demanding his rightful place among them. They questioned the source of his magic. When he told them, they attempted to close the fissure to the Deep Down. Lich fought back.”

“What happened?”

“A horrible battle. Indeed, the Order almost fell. But in the end, they destroyed Lich and sealed the opening to the domicile of the being who came to be known as the