Markus’ Big Light Show

Markus didn’t understand why Karl Ess, owner of the “Light Museum”, needed a ‘special push’ in order to come to Moscow.  Alexander Nikolaevich had already offered the man a salary, benefits and a place for his daughter at Lomonosov.  But no, Karl loved his magical museum too much, and the Germans wouldn’t let Alexander Nikolaevich spirit the Opticist away in the night.  The museum was an issue. 

He’d been leaning against the lamppost across the street from the Light Museum all night. They oughtn’t treat him like this. Besides, surely the hour was up. He glared across the grey street, his eyes climbing up the building, over the PHARMACY sign, and through the conspicuously darkened windows of the museum.  

            What the hell. He fiddled with his new overcoat. It was a sleek black thing that made him look like a particularly fashionable otter. If they wanted the job done their way, they’d just have to fire him. Markus pushed himself off the pole and hopped into the road.  

            Markus pulled the pharmacy door open slowly so that the bell wouldn’t ring, then ducked past the store entrance to climb the stairs to the museum, careful not to make a squeak.  At the top of the carpeted landing, he sighed and stepped over the rope marking the museum as closed.

            Usually, the museum overflowed with fairy lights, ships in thunder-bottles, glitter mist and reproductions of famous illusions, and the air shimmered with heat and the occasional fat-bee buzz from inefficiencies in the magic.  

Now it was cold and dark. The wine bottles hanging from the roof were dry and empty, the picture frames lining the walls now cheap reproductions of Italian masters. A car passed in the street below, and through the large second floor display windows, it cast eerie green striations across the ceiling.  

Markus found the dead museum a depressing sight.  

            “Don’t look at me like that,” he muttered, hurrying through on padded soles. He tapped every wooden frame on his way past, infusing them for later. The job was simple, really; grab the documents from Karl’s workshop, then—

            Footsteps on the stairs.  

            Markus threw himself past the black fabric divider and into the first of the four rooms he would need to pass through before entering Karl’s workshop. He stumbled into pitch blackness.

“Hallo?” It was that pharmacist from downstairs.  

Markus quickly shuffled forward. There was no light at all. Karl kept full illusions here, entire Swiss villages or underwater trenches contained in a single room. But those were deactivated in his absence. Markus reached his fingers in front of him, trying to feel for a doorway on the other side of the room. The woman’s footsteps were rapidly approaching.  

There!  His hands brushed a doorknob and he wrenched it open, but when he stepped forward, he nearly tripped and fell into a rack of clothes. He’d just tried to walk into a cupboard.  Worst of all, it had made a dreadful wooden banging.  

“Karl?”

Markus rolled his eyes in the dark and slid his hands across the black wall until he found a corner. He flattened himself into it, drawing his dark overcoat close, and tried not to get too excited.   

The pharmacist shoved aside the curtain, sending a splash of dimness across the floor.  A short greyscale silhouette strode in booming, “Karl?”

She seemed to be talking directly to him, and now Markus was really starting to get nervous. So nervous in fact, that the fabric of his jacket was beginning to smoke.  It was the longest three seconds of Markus’ life.  

And then the pharmacist continued, deeper into the museum.  As Markus unpeeled himself from the wall, he ran a hand inside the cupboard across all the clothes to fill them with his magic.  

The pharmacist was going to be a problem.  Markus needed to spell things in the other rooms too, and he needed to do it before Karl got back with his daughter. But, he thought, hearing the woman’s footfalls beyond, I can’t do it with her around.

He ghosted into the next pitch-black room behind her.  Killing was not on the table—the Germans were very touchy about their turf nowadays—but she was right there. And he had a deadline.

“Forgot his medicine,” she muttered, stopping so abruptly Markus almost knocked onto her. Then she turned around and saw him standing right there.  

For an instant, neither one said anything. 

Then Markus’ anxiety overcame him, and his jacket caught fire.

Flickering orange light illuminated them both. He would get in trouble for this, but Markus stretched out a hand towards the woman’s face. No witnesses. She was frozen, probably as startled as he was, her eyes open wide, staring and milky white. 

She was blind.

Markus’ jacket went out with a fart, and he retreated. She’d obviously guessed that something was afoot—probably felt the heat on her face—because she cried, “Who’s there?!” but Markus kept quiet, and eventually she shuffled off.

Hurry. Markus skidded through the rooms as quietly as he could, wiping his magic over carpets, drapes and peeling wallpaper. He made a pass of the final room and sighed. A job well done, he thought, fishing around in his new coat for a packet of sugar. Ripping it open he dumped it all into his mouth. Markus had been doing magic for so long now that he hated the taste of sugar. Chocolate cake disgusted him. Icing made him sick. Thankfully he just needed to give it a few minutes to kick in, and then he could go home to a bowl of blissfully salty noodle soup.

But alas, no. As Markus continued to blink in the darkness, he became aware that moss-green grass had sprouted around his shoes, and trees loomed everywhere, with foamy grey and coral red lichen growing up their sides. An enormous forest stretched out all around him, and between the columns of trees in the far distance, an obsidian-black stag charged down an albino wolf.  

The lights were coming back on. The illusions were waking up and becoming clearer by the second.  Karl was coming home.  

Markus ran for the door. Noise didn’t matter now. If Karl caught him here now, he was toast. He drew in a breath and ignited his magic.  

The walls burst into flame, as hot as if they’d been burning for twenty minutes. They easily licked up the curtains and slid down into the carpets. Markus passed the cupboard in the first room and saw bright red and yellow billowing from its insides. Smoke choked the top of the rooms and the budding illusions started to shimmer and collapse in air that was becoming too volatile to contain any more magic.  

Wait, damn!  He couldn’t very well walk out the front door, Karl might even now be coming up the stairs. He doubled back, and with a practiced squint, followed the trails of blue smoke. Those led him into a workshop with an open window.  Finally, his luck was getting better.  Markus squeezed himself out and clambered down a freezing drainage pipe. It was slippery and dreadfully cold, but he circulated the coldness around his body so that his hands didn’t freeze off.  

Hopping off the metal, he slunk down the alley to peer at the crowd gathered in the street, watching black clouds billowing out of the enormous shattered display windows on the second floor.  

Right at the front, Markus spotted Karl. He looked like human dishwater, and he clutched a girl of about thirteen. His hair seemed almost dark compared to how white his face had gone.  All his life’s work, up in flames. Markus grinned. Karl Ess would be on a plane to Moscow by the end of the week.

Then he swore. The documents!  He’d forgotten the bloody documents.  

Up he scrabbled, trying to spindle up the pipe like a spider, but his red fingers kept slipping on the wet droplets before he could ascend more than a foot.  Focus.  

Markus slapped his hands to the water pipe.  His thermal magic did go both ways after all. Bracing his rubber soles against the wall, he froze his hands to the metal. His flesh burned, but his grip was firm and he began to climb, unfreezing and refreezing as he went.

Eventually, he tumbled into the workshop, trying not to breathe as his numb hands bumped around all the drawers and cupboards.  

With a whimper of relief, he found the box of documents. Two very flammable sets of passports, photos, birth certificates, visas and medical records dropped out the window and into a puddle below. Whatever, Markus thought as he lurched out the window again. Somehow, he ended up on his backside. No time. Scooping up the documents, he crumpled them into his inner pocket, then smoothed the black overcoat down his body. He needed to be presentable when he hit Mr. Karl Ess with the offer that—this time—he couldn’t refuse.