Final Class Assignment

Prologue

The island of Fleghorn remained as the white wizard Abbas remembered it. From his vantage point at the top of dormant volcano, he became aware of the fissures and crevices that filled its surface. He knew some of the openings were caves populated by human tribes left from the Apocalypse.

He focused his ability to see through solid matter on a cave containing a band of eight naked men and women. Having no tinder available to form a fire with, the natives were forced to tolerate the ocean climate that could often be chilly and cold without protection. Hair covered their bodies and their skin was the color of red magma. A pile of bones rested in the back of the caverns and small drawings of individuals covered the walls. Abbas recognized that a young adult male lying on the floor was engaged in a death dance.

Another man sat beside him. A rib bone sharpened along one side in the observer’s hand told Abbas all he needed to know.

The onlooker waited while the man grappled with mortality. Despite the dying man’s efforts, it ended soon. “It’s over,” yelled the observer to his fellow cave dwellers occupying the front of the cave. The three other men and three women joined him. He sliced pieces of meat off the dead human and bit into the flesh, signaling for the others to follow.

Abbas tapped his finger against his staff and sighed.

They ate their fill, and all but one of them lay down and rested their bellies. The lone waking member retrieved a crusty black stone from among the boulders to the back of the cave. She sketched a surprisingly lifelike picture of the victim, adding to what Abbas estimated to be hundreds of human drawings on the wall. These seven humans were all that was left of the original colony.

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The giant seven feet tall robed in white stood over the dying senior. “By Abbas’s will,” he said.

“Yes, Messenger Pole” said a man beside him assisting him. “Abbas in all and one.”

“Ready the bucket and flasks, Emmer,” said Pole. He lifted his magic rod above the subject laying face first on the table and waited.

Emmer obeyed the instruction, placing a bucket on the floor beneath the dying man’s head. “Now?” asked Emmer.

Pole paused. “Now!” He contacted the man’s ribcage above his heart with his staff. Clear, odorless solution dripped from the corpse’s mouth, and out his nose and ears into the bucket.

Emmer placed five flasks, glass containers with open tops for easy filling, beside the bucket. When there was no more liquid to be drained, he tipped the contents of the bucket one at a time into the flasks, producing five cans of Juice.

“I’m going to commence interment if the juicing is done,” said a second Messenger stepping forward from the shadows. This angel was also dressed in a white robe. He wore black shoes and stockings along with red silk gloves up to his elbow. The glare of reflecting light beams off his head made his facial features difficult to decipher.

Emmer felt the sunshine emanating from his body as if he were a furnace the Potters used in forging objects made from Dough.

“Go ahead, Collector,” said Pole. “His soul is ready to be collected and sent off-world.”

The Collector held up the dead man’s head in his hands, leaned over his face, and recited, “From those that come and so return, their life is done but peace did earn.”

The dead man’s skin puckered up and twisted and his bones cracked and splintered, falling into fragments the size of a finger. The tissue decomposed into dust and the Collector gathered a handful of it and blew it on the bone. The skeleton crumbled and disintegrated.

Emmer looked on awestruck as always. Pole motioned for him to clean up as the Messenger collected the five flasks of “drain”, tagged, and dated them. Pole covered them so that no spill could take place and gave them to a waiting courier to be transported to the Central Bank.

Emmer was still amazed by the power of Abbas’s magic. In the four hundred years since the wizard had been here, the island had become totally self-sufficient. Abbas’s spell transformed the force that keeps humans alive into a potion that extended their lifespan, keeping them young and healthy beyond their years.

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Blackhound visited the citadel being constructed on the cap of the mountain by the white powers. His magic concealed him from the humans and Messengers. Leaning on his cane, he vented vapor out of the slits of his nose and raged over the influence Abbas’s magic had taken on the island. He admitted he had been derelict.

A Hardened Dough statue of the white wizard sat in the center of the square. Blackhound struck his cane against the rock and cursed the Juice. “Let those who choose be tempted and lose.” Pleased, he returned off-planet to wait to see his handiwork take effect.