Good Ogre by Platte F. Clark

Maelshadow!” Max cried out, letting go of the portal.
    â€œHurry, close it!” Sarah exclaimed. “Max! Do something!”
    Max grabbed hold of the artifact again, this time pushing on it with all his might. The stones flickered, but grew a darker shade of red. The frame refused to budge.
    â€œIt’s not working!” Max cried, not knowing what else to do. Suddenly a black fog poured from the open portal, reaching with handlike fingers as it crawled along the floor.
    â€œDon’t let it touch you!” Wayne shouted, stepping away.
    The sound of thunder exploded around them as a lightning bolt tore through the ceiling of the old gymnasium. The blast sent Max and his friends tumbling as bits of tile and insulation fell with the rain. They scrambled to their feet, standing knee-deep in the sable fog flowing like a river from the mouth of the portal.
    â€œIt touched us,” Dirk said, looking from the black fog back to Wayne. “It’s not going to be good, is it?”
    â€œNo,” Wayne answered.
    Above them the storm raged as black and gray clouds bubbled to life; lightning danced between them, followed by a shrill screech as if the very sky was being torn apart. The wind and rain broke more pieces of the ceiling off, but this time the chunks of roof flew upward, joining a cyclone of flying debris. Max looked up through the rain and wind and saw, to his horror, a twisting tornado taking shape.
    â€œRun!” Sarah yelled, pulling Max and dragging him toward the exit. Dirk quickly followed, and the three scrambled toward the door. Wayne hesitated, however, looking at the portal and then back at Max.
    â€œHurry, Wayne!” Max cried back to him. Wayne considered the mass of black swirling around him, then turned and ran after the others. The group sprinted down the stairwell, up to their waists now in the fog, before darting down a side hallway and to a set of double doors that led outside. They flew through, but were nearly swept off their feet by a gust of wind that hit with the force of a boxer’s punch.
    â€œLook!” Dirk cried. Above them the storm continued to rage, the clouds not only stretching across the sky, but also down . Madison was being walled in.
    A shudder traveled down Max’s spine as a nearby wall exploded. He felt chunks of brick pelt him along his back and side. As one, the group took off across the schoolyard, dodging debris and rain that moved like bullets in the ferocious winds. But there was something else going on—something more terrible than the storm. Max turned around in time to see the school grow . The rows of neatly packed red bricks broke apart as large gray stones erupted into place around them. Then the whole structure rose from the ground, the stones coming to the surface like the roots of an obnoxious weed pulled from the earth. The building twisted on itself, rising like a tower—and at its top, a tornado whipped about and stretched to connect with the dark clouds above.
    The humming in Max’s ears returned, and with it a new pain exploded in his head, causing him to ­stumble forward. The others stopped to help him as the black fog spilled from the former school’s misshapen windows, pouring to the ground and surging like a wave. There was something in the fog—something that was dark andmenacing and surged with the power of dark magic. Max could actually feel it. He looked at his friends, and they stared back at him, their faces flushed and eyes growing distant. The magic was affecting them—it was changing them!
    Max reached out with his mind and found the Codex in his backpack. He’d long since committed the names of the Prime Spells to memory—spells so powerful that all other magic was drawn from them. He felt his own mind begin to drift, the spell slipping away. He was beginning to change too.
    â€œPanoply!” he shouted, and the Prime Spell came roaring to him. It flowed through Max