Author’s Note: This story was something of an experiment. I wanted to write a story in first person, but I didn’t want to be confined to a single narrator. So, after some input from the good folks on the Fictionmania Message Board, I decided to write the story as if it were a journal. The story is compilation of the protagonist’s journal entries. It contains several entries from the journals of his mother who plays a large part in the story.

There is a brief part of the story that bears some resemblance to the movie ‘Die Hard’. This is intentional and was meant as a tribute to both the film and the book. For some reason I found the idea immensely amusing and decide to go with it.

I’d like to thank both Holly H. Hart and for djkauf for the wonderful job they did editing the story.

There is a glossary of terms, which includes a list of days of the week months on my website.

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Freydag 9. Harpa

I’ve been writing in this journal for a few months at my mother’s request and I’m finding it harder and harder to find something to write about. Of course, today is an exception since it’s Independence Day.

When I saw those great scarlet bursts of energy hurl upward and coalesce into a single great conflagration in the sky, I couldn’t help but stare upward and wonder if there was there any limit to the power of the Spellbinders. The fires in the sky then merged to form into the figure of a dancing couple who twirled around in the sky and shared a kiss before shimmering with a vast array of colors and then faded into oblivion.

The whole display was disgusting. It isn’t so much the fireworks themselves that I hated but the arrogance of those putting on the display, the Spellbinders. For centuries, they have subjugated men for the simple fact that we do not share their ability to use magic. They see men as little more than mindless grunts who are incapable of doing even the simplest tasks without supervision. There have been great strides made by the civil rights movement in the last thirty years, but it’s still the Spellbinders who dominate politics and the corporate world.

Not all Spellbinders are bad, a few have even been involved in the men’s civil rights movement, but the vast majority of the Spellbinders are power hungry manipulators who only care to line their pockets with more money and grab more power for themselves. It doesn’t help that the Spellbinders are granted long life spans far beyond that of men and women with lesser amounts of magic, allowing those in power to stay in power centuries at a time.

More burst of light hurled into the night sky and I couldn’t help but continue to stare in disgust at the display. Today is the day our nation celebrates its independence from the Nordic Empire and the formation of the Free Federalist States of Nyrland. What a farce. The only people who are truly free are women. Men, can never hope for the freedoms that most women take for granted. Still disgusted, I turned my back on the display and never looked back.

Manadag 19. Harpa

I know it has been a while since my last entry, but considering the week I’ve had I think it’s understandable. This entry is going to cover a whole week and is probably the most significant journal entry to date. Yeah, it has been that kind of week.

It all began on last Manadag, and as usual the building was empty except for me. Of course that was to be expected since I was the night watchman. Though, I’m sure I’ve mentioned that before. Just as I always did, I started my shift by making rounds. I checked all the doors and windows on the main level, then gradually made my way up each of the five floors of the office building until I reached the top. About halfway through the top floor, I noticed that one of the offices had the light on. That wasn’t right, everyone was supposed to have signed out and left the building. Maybe one of the bosses had decided to burn the midnight oil. It happened sometimes, but building security procedures required they notify the current night watchman. Not wanting to piss anyone off by walking in on them I brought my hand up to knock on the door. Just before my knuckle was about to strike on the hardwood I heard a voice speak and I froze.

“So, this is what it’s come to,” a man’s voice said with resignation.

“You had to have known this was coming.” a woman’s voice said coldly.

The first voice sighed warily, “You’ve betrayed the cause.”

The woman grunted, “It was never my cause. It was simply a means to an end.”

“The others will know what you’ve done, Jeanne,” the man said angrily.

The woman laughed, “Will they? The only one that was ever suspicious of me was you and you won’t be alive much longer.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I stood there aghast, frozen with indecision. A life of frustration and anger coalesced in that moment. I have been oppressed and cast down by women of this world and I just couldn’t stand by while another man’s life was in jeopardy.

I slammed the door open and locked eyes with the would-be killer. “Hey bitch.” I said with all the bravado I could muster, “You’re not going to kill anyone on my watch.”

The woman scowled at me then brought her hands up and focused her will on me. Suddenly, I found it very hard to move and I struggled against the binding spell that she had laid on me. I felt a strange pressure begin to build up inside of me. Then without any apparent reason, I was suddenly able to move again. I immediately started in towards the would-be assassin. She brought up her arms and shouted something with a vicious snarl. The spell hit me right in the chest and I felt my knees strain against some unseen force. Then a strangely warm tingly feeling seemed to spread inside my chest and the pressure from the spell was suddenly gone.

“What in the name of Hel?” the woman cursed. Then she gathered up more energy and hurled a huge blast of sickly green light at me.

The spell was much more powerful than the last two and I fell to my knees against the sudden onslaught. The green light blinded me and I felt a strange sensation crawl across my skin. Darkness closed in the corners of my eyes and I felt death’s chilling touch upon my skin. Just when I thought all was lost, that strangely tingling warmth from before spread across my entire body. The warmth pushed out against my skin and struck against the nauseous green light, with a blinding flash of pure white light, the pain was gone and I could move again.

I looked about the room, the woman lay on the floor either unconscious or dead and the man stood in the corner with a look of pure terror on his face. Feeling extremely weak, I forced myself to my feet. I staggered towards the inert form of my attacker, growing weaker by the moment, and lost my balance. Darkness closed over me and I remembered muttering the phrase “Friggin’ crap,” before drifting into unconsciousness.

On Eirdag, I woke to a really annoying buzzing sound somewhere to my right. I opened my eyes and cast them in the direction of the sound to discover its source. The device had two rods sticking out from it, an electrical current which fluctuated in a representation of my heartbeat ran between the two rods, below the rods there was a bell housed in the device’s casing. It was a typical heart monitor.

Apparently, I was in the hospital. It seemed odd that I should awaken there of all places, but with a flash, all my memories from the previous night came back in one great torrential flood of images. I struggled in my bed and tried to get up, but I was so weak that I was unable to do so.

“Thurston, thank the Norns. You’re awake,” a voice said from the left. I turned my head and found my mother, Brigit Steenberg, standing in the doorway “How do you feel?”

My mother is an Enchantress, a moderately powerful-magic user, who looks to be in her mid-twenties, rather than her actual sixty-two years. “Like I was run down by a herd of Horsemen.” I said groaning.

Mom smiled, but in a fragile worried sort of way “It’s a miracle you’re even alive.” she said, “From the sound of it you were hit with some incredibly powerful magic.

I grunted, “That’s what I figured. The woman that attacked me. Is she…?” I asked choking on my words at the very thought that the woman might be dead.

She nodded having apparently understood, “Dead.”

I grimaced; that didn’t bode particularly well, “And the man?”

“The detective was pretty vague on the details,” she said “She mentioned that there had been a man involved, but not much else.”

I let out a sigh, “I don’t understand what happened. I don’t understand how I was able to withstand her attacks.”

“You withstood the attacks because you were drawing on a reservoir of magic within yourself,” a new voice said from the door. My eyes darted back to my left to look upon the newcomer. A middle-aged woman with dark brown hair, wearing a doctor’s lab coat with a stethoscope around her neck, stood in the doorway looking down at me. “I’m Dr. Poganski,” she said with a sour look on her face.

“Hello, doctor,” I said, “If what you say is true that would mean I’m a magic user,” I said, feeling a bit of excitement at the idea. If I did have the magic perhaps I could make something of myself. Perhaps I could disprove all the misconceptions the world had about men.

The doctor nodded almost mechanically, “Yes, that’s exactly what it means.”

Mother gasped “But that’s-”

“Impossible,” Dr. Poganski finished, her voice flat, “It is common medical knowledge. The chemical composition of a man’s body is supposed to prohibit magic and yet somehow you have seemingly done the impossible, Mr. Steenberg. Unfortunately, the magic seems to be having an adverse effect on your health.”

“What do you mean?” I asked suddenly feeling extremely worried.

“There’s no use hiding it from you,” the doctor said with clinical detachment, “Your body is treating the magic as a foreign material and is rejecting it just as it would a failed organ transplant. The magic in turn is behaving like a caged animal attacking everything within its reach.”

I bit my lip, “What you’re saying is, this is going to kill me?”

The doctor nodded, “In all likelihood, yes.”

I shook my head dejectedly, “When you said I had the magic. I thought that this would be my chance to make something of myself. To prove that I wasn’t another worthless man.” I spat out the last two words in sarcastic rage.

Mom smiled sadly and put her hand on top of mine, “Is there nothing we can do?”

The doctor shook her head, “Your son’s situation is unprecedented and is beyond my abilities as a healer.”

Mom gritted her teeth with sudden determination, “If you can’t help my son. I’ll find someone who can.” she said. Then, without warning she disappeared with a great gust of wind.

A few minutes after Mother’s sudden and dramatic disappearance, the doctor departed and I was left alone. Still very weak, I almost immediately fell asleep. I don’t think I was asleep very long when I was awakened. It wasn’t as much a sound that woke me, as a presence. I opened my eyes, and much to my surprise I found a hand perched above my chest holding a nasty looking dagger.

My first instinct was to roll to my side and grapple with the person holding the knife. I tried to do just that, but I quickly realized that I was far too weak to lift my hands, let alone fight off my attacker. A great sense of dread filled me as I realized that there was nothing I could do to fend off my would-be killer. Desperately, I racked my mind trying to think of something I could do.

Then almost without thinking about it, I reached deep inside myself and touched the wellspring of magic that resided inside me. Just as I tapped into that reservoir of power, the knife came hurtling down towards me. After a brief moment of hurried uncertainty I wrenched that power loose and the blade stopped a few centimeters shy of my chest. Clumsily, I sent the magic outward hoping to hurl the blade further away from myself. At first, I didn’t think I had succeeded, but the blade soon tumbled out of the assassins hands and clattered across the floor with several dull thumps. Without hesitation, my attacker reached inside a black jacket and procured a rather wicked looking blade from within.

A heavy weight fell upon my legs as I realized the attacker was kneeling over me atop the bed, the blade poised to strike at my heart. I brought my magic to bear against the new blade, attempted to divert it as it came crashing down towards my chest. I was only partially successful; the blade completed its arc and planted itself inside my shoulder. The use of the magic must have drained what little energy I had because it was about then that I lost consciousness.