The Book of Thoth

Chapter 1 - Erk



         Twisting and turning through a slight breeze, the sun’s rays warmed all of New York’s Tristin Park. Tree leaves shook with the brief, cooling winds, the trees themselves standing tall and proud amongst the pathways and benches. Set in the middle of the busy city, the large forest refuge remained a nice break from the constant noise and commotion that always seemed to accompany industrialized life.

         Erk pushed his crooked glasses back up his nose. This mid-teens boy wore a midnight robe, despite the heat, and stood slightly bent over from years of reading in dark rooms. Standing around five foot eight, he carried little acne on his face and could be described as slightly chubby. His pale skin stood out as a stark contrast with the dark clothing that he loved to wear. Erk thought to himself, after nearly a year of searching, I shall finally have the tool needed to find other users of the art! At last, no more meddling with the multitude of useless nongis.

         Before him, on one of those decrepit wooden tables that dot often visited parks such as this one, a small dark book sat. Its intricately carved cover and archaic look gave the manuscript a beautiful but fragile appearance. From afar, a person could mistake it for a box because the edges of the pages had turned black from age. The particular entry Erk was skimming described a spell that could extend your vision and enable you to see around objects.

         At about the age of ten, Erk had discovered something different about himself. Erk always had an interest in how things worked, what made them tick, so he often pulled stuff apart to look at the structure. He had been dismantling a watch and needed a thin screwdriver that rested just out of reach from him when it simply rolled across the table towards him. At first glance, one wouldn’t think much of it; he must have simply bumped the table and set it rolling. But that table had a slight lean to it that should have made the screwdriver roll off the side if it had been bumped. It had actually rolled up an incline about au foot just to get to Erk’s outstretched hand.

         Since then, Erk had practiced this new ability in secret. He could never again get the telekinesis to work but found his talent lay in a different area; written spells. Rather than an automatic power that can be used at will, such as throwing a fireball or moving things with your mind, Erk simply needed to recite a spoken phrase, sometimes accompanied with some movement, to work a magic. He preferred this since it gave him greater range in his abilities as long as he could find the appropriate wording and Erk spent much of his time pouring through spell books, most of which ended up being fake, to find the ones that work.

         Ready to cast the spell he had found, Erk straightened from his slouched position, pushing his spectacles up again, gained the appearance of someone concentrating deeply and spoke, “Verus meus visum.” His pupils twisted and turned the eyes themselves whipping left then right, up then down. He could feel a presence taking over his vision, giving him the control he wanted.

         Suddenly aware of all the things around him, Erk took notice of each and every one. The trees were dwarfed by the immense, surrounding constructions. Erk once again felt that feeling of being small and unimportant, but he brushed it aside as he once again focused on the spell. More senses assaulted him; the fresh cut smell of the park’s grass, the feel of a breeze caressing his skin, the stench of someone’s dog’s feces, the birds singing jubilantly in the trees, the wet caress of the dew, the buttery taste of breakfast’s toast still on his tongue. All was going well. Then, with a barely audible pop, Erk went blind.

         “Mother of a Farnacian water beast! Not again!” He grasped for the black spell book but only proceeded in knocking it from the wooden park table. “What a useless book.” With near constant profanities, most of which would mean nothing to the average listener, Erk knelt onto the ground, shuffling around on all fours. Grass, dew, worm? Ah! Finally he could feel the book. But also Erk heard panting. He reached desperately and only just made it in time to grab onto an end of the volume as canine teeth clamped onto the other end. “Blasted animal! Shoo!”

         “I am so sorry. “ Another voice, possibly male but Erk couldn’t tell, had arrived. The apparent owner of the dog managed to detach his, or her, pet’s mouth from the novel. “I hope Scruff didn’t ruin your book. Is it ok?”

         Don’t do it Erk, he thought to himself. Don’t blow up again. “Well, let’s see. Your vile creature that you call a pet only bit a book over five hundred years old and drooled all over it while trying to play tug-o’-war with me. The damage will probably be irreparable and may make this useless for the rest of time. I guess everything is just dandy wouldn’t you say?”

         “God, what crawled up you this morning?” Leaving quickly, much to Erk’s pleasure, the owner tugged the creature along with him or her leaving the sightless Erk to himself.

         Well, that went quite well this time. Erk had difficulty maintaining his temper when conversing with nongi, a term he had coined soon after discovering his powers. Used to describe people without supernatural abilities, Erk never intended it to be a compliment. This slight anger issue has lead Erk into a few bad predicaments that he barely came out of in one piece. His mother would try to call the police but Erk felt that he should either keep his mouth shut, a feat he found rather difficult, or be able to take them on himself, not have someone else do it for him.

         Book in hand, Erk stumbled across the park to the wooden table he had previously been at. Unfortunately he had crawled much farther away from it than he originally thought, if he was even going in the right direction, and made quite the peculiar sight doing so. After all, how many times does one go for a walk in the park and see a teenage boy in black robes on a hot day stumbling around, tripping on his own clothes while desperately clinging onto a torn, dripping old book? Not to mention his glasses had a habit of falling off, forcing him to delay the search for the table lest he lose them.

         “Forget it! The ground will have to do for now.” Erk could hear some laughter, perhaps playing, in the distance but ignored it as he plopped the book on to the grass. After flipping through a few soggy pages he thought, this is pointless. How can a blind man read a book? Even if I did somehow manage to find the page I couldn’t read the reciprocal. I’ll just have to try the healing spell.

         Erk began reciting the steps to a handy, easy to perform, rejuvenation. Since he had some difficulty appropriately performing even the most basic magics, the easy to perform part was especially important to Erk. Place arms straight out in front of you at shoulder length, palms down, fingers together. Say the phrase, “He By All,” then place hands on damaged area. Hold for five seconds then remove. As Erk finished he waited impatiently for his eye sight to return.

         “Ahhh!” Screaming and a great deal of commotion came from the direction of the voices earlier. Worried that something bad was going down in the park, Erk picked back up the book and began to run in whatever direction he was facing. Only bits a time, his vision returned to him until Erk could make out figures running in the direction away from whatever was behind him. Also, he could see the fuzzy outline of what appeared to be the park’s children’s playground.

         Just as Erk was beginning to realize what seemed to be going on, much to his dismay, a mother, pointing at Erk, confirmed it when she screamed, “Terrorist!” as she scooped her son off the ground and began to run away from Erk. Somehow, Erk had managed to wander over to the children’s play area in Tristin Park. Many children played there every day while being watched over by their parents and it usually stayed a pretty peaceful place. But when some guy walked over in black robes, carrying what looked like a black container from afar, and began making strange prayer-like symbols in the air and talking to himself, everyone panicked and immediately assumed Erk to be a terrorist with ah bomb trying to blow up the playground. They especially freaked out when he began running towards them with the black ‘box’.

         The panic was incredible. Parents leapt over the fenced in play area to grab their sons and daughters, swooping in and carrying the confused and worried children away. One or two of the adults had pulled out cell phones trying to call someone while running, possibly the cops. The whole ordeal drew the attention of anyone even near the play park causing them to worry and speed off to safety. Fearing that he would get arrested if he waited too much longer, Erk turned in a direction without any people and ran like no chubby mid-teens boy has ever ran before.

         As he cleared the view of the terrified park-goers, Erk pulled off his robe leaving him in hi white t-shirt covered by a blue, unbuttoned over shirt and blue jeans. Quickly wrapping up his book with his removed garment to make it look like a wrapped gift, Erk melded with the busy New York City life. It was difficult to walk with his limited vision, Erk could only make out fuzzy features of peoples’ clothing and faces, but he eventually made it out of the jostling crowd and into a somewhat secluded alley.

         By now, Erk panted hard. “I *gasp* really *gasp* need to get in shape.” He calmed his breathing and heart down over time. “You, my friend,” Erk said aloud addressing his book, “have caused me far more trouble than you’re worth.” Then Erk heard a thud up above him and looked up. Sunlight blocked by the high alley walls, Erk saw a tall, shadowy figure standing on top of a building glaring down at him. A shiver ran down his spine and all the life in the area seemed to be sucked away. Then, just as quickly as it appeared, the figure faded away as if never there.

         “Wow I really need to get my head together. Now I’m seeing things.” And with that, Erk headed to the bus stop to get home.