I, of course, graciously accepted Giovanni’s offer. To do otherwise would be the height of rudeness after Zatanna interceded with her father on my behalf. My decision absolutely had nothing to do with wanting to get out of my overly muggle accommodations and eat food with a proper wizarding family, nor Zatanna’s presence at that location. Absolute nothing at all.
Giovanni and I stood in silence as Zatanna ran off to grab her bag, him clearly not particularly interested in speaking to me right now and me unwilling to say anything that might anger him without Zatanna present. I’d clearly made a much better first impression on the younger Zatara than the elder, and needed to use that to my advantage as best I could.
When Zatanna came back with her bag hanging off her shoulder, she came over to me, grabbed my arm, and pulled me towards her father. “Let’s go! I’m starving! I bet Uncle Kent is already waiting for us.”
One the three of us were all standing together, Giovanni turned to look at me. “The sensation may be disorienting. Do not fight my magic or the spell may drop you along the way.” I nodded quickly and took a half-step closer to the two of them. Magical transportation tended to be a bit finicky at the best of times and I didn’t want to get splinched across half of America.
Giovanni raised his cane in the air between the three of us. “Ekat Su Emoh,” he declared, and I pulled tightly on my magic like I would to smooth out a side-along apparition.
The world around us shimmered and fell away. For a moment, we were surrounded by nothing but an orange shield, and then we reappeared in a well-appointed foyer. I stiffened as I felt the faint touch of immensely powerful wards pass over me, not the strongest I’d ever been under but much closer than I’d expected to find in America. This was a proper wizard’s manor, protected by enormously powerful and extremely lethal wards like the ones on Grimmauld Place and some of our older properties abroad.
Zatanna frowned and looked up at the ceiling. “He’s a guest,” she said firmly.
The ward’s attention turned away from me, leaving only a faint sort of pressure pressing down on my magic. I exhaled softly, “Thanks Zatanna.”
We removed our shoes, Zatanna left her bag on the floor, and then I followed Giovanni further into the manor. We passed by the entrance to a large hall with a table big enough to seat forty or fifty people, turned left into another hallway, and then finally reached a much smaller, more intimately decorated dining room.
Hand-drawn pictures hung on the walls, some of them signed with Zatanna’s name in big, messy letters. A number of ribbons and scholastic awards hung beside them. There were a quite a few family photographs as well, most of them featuring a younger-looking Zatanna, her father, and a woman who I could only assume was Zatanna’s mother.
There was also a man waiting for us in the room. He was an older, stately looking gentleman with gray hair and blue eyes. He was dressed somewhat like Giovanni, making me wonder if perhaps that was a common look for wizards in this time, except instead of a suit he wore a brown sweater over his white button down shirt and a regular tie instead of a bowtie.
A simple-looking wooden cane stood upright beside him, his hand drifting towards it as we entered the room. I lingered in the doorway, not wanting to get in the way just yet. “Ah, hello there, Giovanni. A pleasure to see you as always.” He stood up slowly and the two men shook hands.
He then turned to Zatanna, who rushed forward and embraced the elderly wizard. “Ah, it has been too long my dear. I’m sorry for not visiting more often. Travel wears on these old bones. Even magic can only do so much.”
Zatanna pulled back slightly, “Oh, don’t talk like that! You’re still young.”
The two shared a laugh and I mentally pegged the man at about two- or three-hundred, maybe a bit older. He had an air about him that elderly wizards often carried with them, a weight of magic and experience that was more common to ancient structures than people.
Zatanna finally let go of the man, presumably the Uncle Kent she’d mentioned earlier, and he turned back towards Giovanni. “I’m sorry to intrude, but I fear this isn’t merely a social call. A few days ago the Tower detected an unusual phenomenon near Gotham that I’ve been investigating, and I was hoping you’d be able to help me out. It could be nothing, but I’d rather have backup and not need it then the alternative, and I’d rather not turn to Fate right now.”
I wasn’t exactly sure what they were talking about, but ‘unusual phenomenon near Gotham’ and ‘a few days ago’ certainly sounded familiar. Giovanni and Zatanna exchanged a meaningful look, and then Giovanni turned back towards Kent.
“Of course I would be happy to assist you, Kent, but I think I may already be a step ahead of you.”
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I took that as my cue to step fully into the room. I inclined my head towards the wizard and smiled, “It's a pleasure to meet you sir, Zatanna has spoken highly of you. My name is Hydrys Black, and I’ve recently had a very strange experience just outside Gotham city.”
Kent eyes and cane both lit but with a soft yellow glow and he stared at me silently for several long seconds. My fingers twitched and I twisted my wrist, my wand ready to fall into my waiting hand at a moment’s notice.
Then the glow died and he nodded. “A pleasure to meet you as well, young Planeswalker. It has been many, many years since one of your kind ventured to this plane.”
We stared at each other in silence for several seconds. My mind was racing. Though I’d never heard the word before, something about it resonated with me, that same whisper that had told me the names of Slaughter Swamp, Solomon Grundy, and Mana silently agreeing that this man was right. I was a Planeswalker…whatever that was.
My eyes flickered to the Zataras. They both looked equally confused, though Giovanni’s grip on his cane had tightened and Zatanna was looking between me and Kent with worried eyes.
Kent tapped his cane against the ground. “I take it from your response that you are unfamiliar with the term?” he asked kindly.
I nodded. “Indeed, and yet something about it…seems right.”
“Curious. Well, I don’t know much, but I’ll tell you what I can. You seem like a nice young man.” He turned to Giovanni, “It seems I picked a good night. I guess this is a social call after all. Let’s eat, I’ve been shut away in the Tower’s library all day and Zatanna looks ready to start gnawing on the furniture like she did as a baby.”
“Uncle Kent,” Zatanna exclaimed in a strangled voice.
The older man just laughed. “I’ve been sitting here smelling the fresh bread and risotto for thirty minutes! Excuse an old man his small amusements, my dear.”
Dinner was…very interesting. I felt very out of place at first. Dinner at home was always a formal affair, even if it was just members of the family present. Dinner at Hogwarts was less formal, but no less deeply political, with seating, who you could and couldn’t speak with, and more determined by your position within the house.
This on the other hand was much more casual. There was only one fork at my plate and the Zataras and Kent seemed very close, certainly closer than I’d ever been to anyone in my own home. As the dinner went on, I relaxed slightly, the tension in my spine easing and the urge to reach for my wand temporarily falling away.
The food was excellent, but I had little attention to give it. Instead, I spent most of the dinner either talking or listening to Kent. What he said was both deeply shocking and somehow completely unsurprising, like on some level I had known it all already but been unable to put it into words.
I was a Planeswalker, one of a tiny, tiny handful of people in an infinite Multiverse able to traverse the gap between Planes of my own accord. The heat I sometimes felt inside me was my Spark, the fragment of energy woven into my soul that granted me these abilities.
Kent didn’t know many details about what planeswalkers could do, but even the basics he told me helped me fill in the gaps. Planeswalkers could understand any spoken language––something he demonstrated by cycling through a half-dozen tongues I’d never heard before and yet each and every word made perfect sense. They were powerful wizards one and all, their natural abilities augmented by their Spark and their ability to learn new styles of spellcasting unmatched.
They were also well known for summoning men and beasts to fight alongside them and creating powerful spells, enchantments, and magical items from nothing. They also had some way of connecting with the land of the Planes where they found themselves, but Kent didn’t know anything more about that ability, for instance how I could draw strength from Slaughter Swamp.
The knowledge that I was not simply in a new time but a whole other world was both shocking and lifted an immense weight from my shoulders. It explained so many of the day’s revelations and completely removed the anxiety I’d been feeling about introducing myself to Zatanna by my own name.
Eventually, Kent exhausted his knowledge of Planeswalkers and the conversation turned to other topics. Zatanna asked me about my world and I was happy to oblige her, telling the table about Hogwarts and the wizarding world. I very carefully avoided mentioning the circumstances around how I’d become a Planeswalker, along with a number of the other less savory things I’d done over the years that the Ministry would have frowned on.
In exchange, the trio took turns telling me about this world and its magical community. There were far fewer wizards in this place, and they mostly did not live fully separate from the muggles, which was very, very strange to me. However, this world played host to a much vaster array of powerful non-humans than my own did. The greatest threat to wizards in this world were not other wizards and muggles, but spirits and ancient creatures of myth like demons and angels.
By the time dinner wrapped up and Kent needed to leave, I had learned a lot. Some of it was very promising, such as the ability of Planeswalkers to learn methods of spellcasting native to the planes they visited. I was very interested in some of the magic that Kent and Giovanni had mentioned in their stories. Other information was rather terrifying, such as the scale of some of this world’s dangers. I was a skilled wizard, but I was only seventeen. I did not know how much I liked my odds against some of the more terrifying threats they’d described.
I wished everyone a good night and Giovanni showed me to a guest room. Sleep did not come quickly, my mind racing with new knowledge, ideas, and plans. Eventually though the gentle thrum of magic moving through the manor’s wards lulled me to sleep and my eyes closed.