Thaumaturgy

Of course the monks had dogs.

Wonwoo found himself chased along the gallery while metal grating sank down in front of all the windows, cutting off his secondary retreat path. The barking was coming closer.

He made his escape past the other visitors, who seemed too confused to react and didn’t even get out of his way. The Adore-Me was bouncing against his skull, barely shielded by his hair. The wand was still in his hand.

He made it to the end of the corridor where monks were already waiting to cut him off from the entrance. Damn. They wore full body robes now, covering their faces, even armored in the important places. They wielded nunchakus and shuriken, moving in his direction. Even damner.

“Chosen one! He who is emo. Why have you returned? And to bring unrest, no less.”

“I’m not emo.”

“Suffer for your crimes, trickster.”

Wonwoo sliced the air with his wand, vaguely aiming at them, and a lightning bolt smashed into the floor, just to bounce off and strike the ceiling. The monks looked at each other, pausing only for a second, and started pursuit. As the first one stepped under the charred spot, a huge tentacle erupted from the concrete as if the ocean was on the museum’s second level.

Magic had a humor Wonwoo never really appreciated, but now he chuckled at the sight without inhibition. The tentacle flailed at the battle monks and kept them at bay. A few of them conjured fireballs and attacked the outgrowth but the slimy thing barely reacted to the impact, shielding the thief from the guards.

The dogs arrived from behind, trapping Wonwoo. A few more battle monks followed them. Again he smashed his wand in a forceful pointing gesture. A bright orange light flowed from the vibrating sticks, blinding everybody present. As Wonwoo regained his vision he saw the same corridor as before but impossibly stretched. The dogs were a few hundred meters away.

They were, however, still gaining on him. He couldn’t get past them and he couldn’t get past the monks that were slowly hacking away at the ceiling’s tentacle. Wonwoo had the choice to stay and fight, possibly causing serious injuries to temple dwellers and hounds, or… flee from a narrow corridor somehow.

He patted the wand as if it was an obedient pet. “Please, help me out of here. Be a good magic device. I have no idea how much juice is still left in you, but if there’s something that’ll get me out of here… do it now, please.”

The response was swift. Wonwoo’s wand led his hand towards the wall at his side. As he touched it waves rippled from the point of impact. The air chilled.

As the first shuriken came flying his way, missing his neck by hair’s width, ice crystal appeared. The wall broke into pieces, shattering like glass. The shards formed fragile, spiky stairs unto the second floor. The boy raced upwards.

The climbable wall of ice and concrete shards began to melt even before he was fully upstairs. As the first few dogs arrived at the bottom, they began their ascent, but found themselves slipping down as soon as they had made a few steps.

Wonwoo was save. He was also still trapped, now too high above the ground to jump from a window.

The ice stairs retreated back into a cracked wall, cutting off his ground floor pursuers entirely. But new battle monks were already in position on his level. He found himself in a huge, oval room. Art installations lined the sides between pillars. The ceiling was sparkling with a skylight, used to hang up beautiful crystal stars. The sun fell inside, warming the scene as the boy got surrounded.

There was a third floor above, a promenade leading around the oval shape. More battle monks – and blood hounds - were already taking position there.

“Okay, my little friend, I know I’m asking a lot, but I promise I’m bringing you straight back to Chan if you help me out of here.”

The world went gray and cold. The stench of ozone everywhere. Sound vanished, leaving a jarring, surreal emptiness.

Time had frozen. Even the shuriken, dark curses and lightning bolts that had come his way were suspended in midair.

“I didn’t even know that’s possible. Magic is so damn overpowered.”

Wonwoo ran upstairs after confirming that the way down was blocked by time-frozen chasers. The fact that his steps made no sounds in this timeless world have him goosebumps.

The third and final floor was chock full of people who’d want his head as soon as time unfroze so he had to find a way out quickly. Where to go? What to do? How to escape?

Time returned to the art gallery and Wonwoo had precious few seconds before his pursuers would notice his new position. He had to get out. There was exactly one window, not protected by metal bars: Above him.

*************************

Somehow the Compsognathus managed to hide in the kitchen. This was not much of a surprise. The chicken sized dinosaur had simply followed the smell of snacks that emanated from the room whenever a student or two didn’t fully close a can or box. It was however, a bit unfortunate as the dino troopers Chan, Hansol and Minghao had spent the day outside, weeding through the school grounds and neglecting the possibility that the not-so-extinct animals could have remained inside.

Because of this, other students had found the little, angry dino first and raised the appropriate ruckus. It had cost Chan his month’s ration in sweets and a weeks’ worth of pocket money to buy the silence of Doyoon, Ming Ming and Dongjin, but he couldn’t let the incident get reported.

At last, the three hunters had surrounded the little fellow, who was peeping at them like a sad kitten. The door was locked, to keep other students out. The Compsognathus had its back to the wall and looked around nervously for a route to safety.

“Minghao,” said Chan, holding up the open book, “anytime now.”

“But it’s so cute. Can’t we keep it?”

“Absolutely not. Someone would find out it came from me. I just know it. And even if not, Seungcheol it such a jerk. He always finds a way to blame me for the things I do wrong.”

“Aww, but it’s so cuddly and-“

Chan slammed the book into Hansol’s chest and grabbed Minghao’s wand arm. “Now! Do it now.”

“No, let me go,” Minghao yelled before swearing at the maknae in Chinese.

The dinosaur saw its chance. Lunging forward, the little creature tried to make its way through the fighting wizards’ legs. Both boys screamed in surprise.

The combined force of two wizards slamming down a single wand caused an eruption of sparks and lightning that made every cup and plate in the surrounding cabinets tremble audibly.

Exploding into the air, the Compsognathus screeched before flying in a high arc across the room, a trail of fire behind it.

Hansol jumped in its path, the book raised high above his head, and tried to catch it in the archeological volume like catching a tennis ball with a racket. But the dino hadn’t been properly enchanted for a return into the book and slammed against the pages.

It was smacked onto the floor with a dull thump and didn’t move.

Minghao yelled “You killed it.”

Hansol yelled back “No, you killed it.”

“No, you killed it.”

“No, you.”

“No, y-“

“Uuughhhh!” Chan sank to the ground, his hands tearing on his hair. He’d have to confess everything. Now he had a slab of meat the size of a chicken in the kitchen and no chicken in the freezer for dinner and-

“Hey,” said Chan, slowly standing back up again. “I think we just solved two problems at once. Do either of you know how to prepare meat?”

The Chinese wizard scratched his head. “I think I have seen a spell for that in my magical home economics book.”

Chan was smiling for the first time in a few hours. “Go grab it. I’ll fire up the grill.”

*************************

The wand wasn’t responding. The lightning rod felt cool. It hadn’t before. Was it drained now?

“Please work, please.”

Nothing. The monks realized where he had reappeared. Shouts came his way and soon they’d be followed by weapons and spells.

“Please? I’ll do anything. I don’t know if a piece of wood can understand this, but all I’ve done today I’ve done for love. Don’t let it end like this. I need him.”

Maybe the wand still had a load in reserve. Maybe it was magic itself responding to the plea. A huge burst of power blew everybody on the third floor to the ground. But the devastating gust of wind was only a side-effect. A blast of air - so dense it was nearly material – erupted from Chan’s wand and tore the skylight to dust.

Moreover, the same room-destabilization occurred as it had in the Adore-Me’s room. The monks didn’t have time to get up before they found themselves stuck in the ground, sinking a finger width into the linoleum. Wonwoo alone was unaffected by the goo floor.

The wand vibrated with life, the useless metal rod dropping as the duct tape vaporized.

“Thank you, Chan’s wand. Thank you so much. I don’t know what you are, but I hope I can make it up to you somehow. Now… how do I get-“

Again the wand led his hand. Wonwoo touched his head with the tip of the stick.

The boy and all he carried turned into a thousand bright canaries.

The swarm fluttered around the hall, chirping as if to mock the struggling guards and visitors. As one, the flock of Wonwoo-bits rushed out the hole above, knowing the way home as if by intuition.

*************************

There was one last dinosaurian being missing from the pages.

The trio found the Pterodactyl exactly where they expected. On the roof. And it had already built a nest made of twigs, newspaper, plastic bags and a whole lot of empty bottles.

As it saw the boys, it spread its wings and cawed with its long beak anytime they stepped too close, but it seemed unwilling to fly off. Hansol held a net ready, Minghao performed the charm and Chan held up the book.

The three boys surrounded the prehistoric avian and the charm went off without a hitch. The boys sighed in relieve as the image reappeared in the book and Chan danced in triumph, swinging the hardback around like a dance partner.

Hansol peeked into the nest. “Channie? Hyung? We have a problem.”

Three large, smooth textured orbs were sitting in the mixture of twigs and trash. They were the reason the Pterodactyl had refused to leave the nest. It had laid eggs.

“We can’t get those in the book,” said Chan to himself, “But we can’t let them hatch either.”

He turned to his companions. “I know. This is no problem at all. The hyungs will love me if I make fried egg rice with the erm… chicken. This is the opposite of a problem. We’re having a dinosaur feast.”