Time of Trial

by Michael Pryor

  On the other side of the door was the stone prison corridor again – and the tantalising smell of food. The smell of bread was overlaid with other aromas – bacon, coffee, and something fresh and fruity. ‘Food,’ Aubrey said, staring at the doors stretching out on either side of the corridor. His stomach growled.

  ‘Real food.’ Caroline peered ahead. ‘And where there’s food...’

  ‘We should be able to find George.’ Aubrey set off, trying not to limp with his unbooted foot. Of course George’s idea of heaven would involve good food, and plenty of it.

  ‘This one, I think.’ Caroline drew up in front of a door. Aubrey sniffed and had to agree. It was like standing in front of the world’s best pastry shop during the morning baking. She pushed the door, it swung open and they stepped out onto another gallery.

  Aubrey stopped short. ‘That’s not what I imagined.’

  He’d expected George to be sitting back at a table laden with delicacies, being waited on, new dishes being thrust upon him, sampling, grazing, appreciating good food and drink. Instead, his friend was speeding about a kitchen – working like a whirlwind. One look at his white jacket, hound’s-tooth trousers and the tell-tale puffy white hat and it was obvious that George’s heaven was food-related – but as a chef, not as a gourmand.

  ‘Hidden depths, perhaps,’ Caroline murmured as she leaned over.

  Aubrey knew he shouldn’t have been surprised. George was the most generous person he knew. His idea of heaven wouldn’t be selfish, pleasing himself, it would be providing goodness for others.

  The kitchen was spotless. The floor was made of gleaming white tiles, while the great cast-iron stove that took up one side of the room was black. It beat out heat that Aubrey could feel from the gallery. He could also smell the baking bread smell from the man-sized oven on the opposite wall.

  Which made him think and, without realising it, he began to hum as he drummed his fingers on the rail and pondered the situation. Heat, smell, and light obviously passed through the barrier – at least, in one direction. Was it permeable in both?

  He took in the rest of the scene with a glance while he was thinking feverishly. Fresh wooden benches, a large trough, shelves and a servery window ledge where George was a blur, arranging plates of gorgeous-looking food. Breakfast, from the look of it, with bacon, eggs, mushrooms and neatly grilled tomatoes. George was managing to keep plate after plate moving through his kitchen and onto the ledge of the servery window, topped with piping hot toast with nary a sign of burning. The plates disappeared, whisked away, but try as he might, Aubrey couldn’t see how. One instant they were waiting, the next they were gone.

  George was sweating, red-faced, and grinning as he shook pans, cracked eggs and slapped bacon on a large griddle, cooking up a storm. He moved with smooth economy of effort but with the same prodigious speed that had infected von Stralick. Aubrey was impressed, but not surprised. He knew George’s large frame made people think he was clumsy, but George had a natural fluency of movement that would be called grace in another person. His sporadic efforts with the cornet showed that he was dextrous, and once he realised that dancing was a good way to meet young women, he had become very accomplished on the dance floor.

  Aubrey took a sixpence from his pocket and spun it into the air. It glittered and arced toward where George was busily working. Then it struck the invisible barrier and hung in the air, gently moving up and down like a cork on the sea. ‘The barrier is selective,’ he said to Caroline. ‘We can see him, he can’t see us.’

  ‘But smells are getting out. And sounds,’ Caroline said as George dumped a pan into the sink. It clattered against a collection of dirty utensils.

  ‘Or is it that nothing is getting in from this side? Light isn’t getting through, that’s why he can’t see us. No sound, so he can’t hear us. That makes it a one-way barrier.’

  ‘You’re trying to think of a way to get in.’

  ‘Of course. Before our turn comes.’

  Aubrey felt as if he were wrestling with a dozen ideas and possibilities at once. He was hard-pressed to deal with them all as they grappled, pulled and gouged at him. He’d worked with scores of spells and had knowledge of hundreds more. But if he was dealing with Dr Tremaine, he knew that he’d be up against very special magic. This whole place was magically constructed, and it also had an ongoing responsibility. It preserved Sylvia, and provided the environment that supported and protected her, as well as snatching outsiders and imprisoning them.

  First question: could anything pass through the barrier both ways? If he could determine that, it may give him something to work with.

  Air, that was for certain. Neither George nor von Stralick showed any signs of gasping for breath. He shook his head, violently, and scowled.

  ‘No answer yet?’ Caroline asked.

  ‘No.’ He was acutely aware of his sock-clad foot. He tried to curl it around his leg. ‘I thought air was the answer, but the whole floor below is isolated from the gallery. It could have its own source of air.’

  ‘True.’ Caroline joined him. She, too, gripped the rail and scowled over George’s busy domain. Aubrey decided that a scowl, on her, was decidedly becoming.

  She turned to him. ‘You said the barrier felt spongy.’

  He nodded. ‘Springy, definitely not a rigid barrier.’

  ‘Your boot was bobbing up and down. It would tend to indicate that the surface undulates.’

  ‘It wasn’t liquid, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ Aubrey said, but Caroline had set him thinking in a different direction. ‘More like a rubbery blanket, held at four corners but not drawn taut.’

  ‘Allowing room for expansion? This whole place must be adaptable, from what we’ve seen.’

  The solution was close, hovering just beyond reach, Aubrey knew it. Talking aloud, working with Caroline was a definite help – another good reason to keep associating with her. ‘I couldn’t push my way through it. It resisted effectively enough.’

  ‘If you can’t push through it, why not try to pierce it?’

  He smacked himself on the forehead. ‘Of course. Or we could slice it.’ He looked around, then patted his pockets. ‘Of all the days to forget my sword.’

  ‘I was thinking of that scythe you left behind,’ Caroline said, keeping a straight face. ‘Rather short-sighted of you.’

  ‘You’re right. Next time before we head off for a spot of adventuring, could you please remind me to take some sort of large, sharp-edged implement? Agricultural or military, doesn’t really matter.’

  For a moment, swept up in the banter, they caught and held each other’s gaze. In a heartbeat, Aubrey felt a wave of emotion so intense that it almost made him stumble. His affection for her, his desire to be near her shook him – and he thought he saw it mirrored in her eyes. No, he told himself sternly, the voice of duty coming to the fore. It’s wishful thinking. Don’t deceive yourself.

  ‘Aubrey,’ she said. She looked away, briefly, then she brought her gaze to bear on him, steady, luminous and all-enveloping.

  It took all his strength, but with a great effort he coughed and took a tiny, shuffling step back, unsure if it was the right thing to do but feeling it was the only thing to do. ‘No sharp objects?’ he said lightly. He wiped his face with a hand. ‘Right, then it’ll have to be magic.’

  She paused a moment, then hooded her eyes. ‘Of course. That’s your department.’

  Was it his imagination, or did her voice catch a little?

  ‘Indeed.’ He cudgelled his brains, but no ready-made spell summoning large, sharp blades immediately sprang to mind.

  So it’s back to first principles, he thought, glad of the distraction of wrestling with spell elements.

  Slicing, piercing, bisecting, dissecting. Could he conjure up some sort of force to cut the barrier? The Law of Division had some useful applications when it came to chopping up substances, but ensuring that each bit still retained the characteristics of the whole...

  He
stared at where the barrier must be. Perhaps he was thinking about this the wrong way.

  Just as it was a necessary part of many applications to limit the time of a spell’s effect using the Principle of Duration, many spells limited the spell’s range by including a component based on the Principle of Range of Effect. A restraining diagram was another magical way of achieving the same thing.

  Which was, Aubrey realised, just like putting a barrier around a spell.

  If he could take this principle and invert it, it might be a way to remove a barrier instead of putting one in place. With a snort, he remembered the old Arabian fairy story where a simple ‘Open Sesame!’ was enough to open a magically sealed doorway. He wondered if it was the ‘sesame’ that did it, or if naming any aromatic seed would have done the trick – and he wished things were that simple in the real world.

  If he were to make this work, he needed to construct a spell that would cover extent, duration, physical parameters, intensity and range of effect, as well as dealing with the time differential. His spell would need to manipulate time, space and also the intricacies of another’s magic, all without creating channels where the intersecting magics would feed upon each other, perhaps creating ferocious confluences which could run out of control.

  And, of course, he was mindful of Ravi’s Second Principle: the more complex the spell construction, the more effort is required from the spell caster. Unconsciously, he fingered the Beccaria Cage that lay against his chest. After the late Lanka Ravi’s masterly exposition, Aubrey understood its significance in an intensely personal manner. Performing magic was perhaps the most taxing thing he could do, and it was the act most likely to stress the bond between his body and soul. The so-far useful magic of the cage would likely be tested most when he performed complex magic as he was about to do now. Would it hold? Or would it collapse, sending him into a crisis?

  And did he have any options?

  ‘It’s dangerous,’ Caroline said, watching his face.

  ‘Perhaps,’ he said, with a fair stab at calmness. ‘We’ll soon find out.’

  He decided to use Danaan, a language he’d been immersed in. With the efficiency of effort he’d learned since beginning university (‘Don’t re-invent the wheel!’ Professor Fortescue was fond of saying in his Aspects of Spell Construction lectures. ‘Reuse parts of spells that have worked well in the past!’) he plucked components from spells he’d hammered out for temperature stabilisation, light intensity and controlled acceleration of distant bodies. Of course, none of these were in Danaan, so he had to translate them in his head, but luckily none of the numerative determinants were outlandish.

  ‘You might like to stand back,’ he said to Caroline when he was ready.

  She nodded, gripping her hands tightly in front of her. ‘No theatrics. Just get the job done.’

  He threw her a quick grin. ‘Bare-bones magic this time, I assure you. I want to get out of here quickly.’

  He cleared his mind and then drummed his fingers on the rail while he gathered himself. Then he lifted his hands and rubbed them together to find that they were sweating, a sign that his body knew it was nervous, even if he denied it.

  He coughed, clearing his throat, and tried to ignore the fact that Caroline was watching him like a hawk – and the fact that he was wasting time.

  He settled, then began, every muscle in his body taut. The first component (delineation) came smoothly, then the spell was under way.

  A small part of Aubrey’s mind monitored his performance, the inner critic ready to carp, but each element unfolded with the clarity, the certainty of purpose of a master mason building a wall.

  The inner critic, however, had a proviso. It was bricklaying of the sort where a mason builds a wall by standing ten yards away and lobbing the bricks into place one by one, blindfolded.

  Eleven

  A soft ‘Pop!’ signalled that the spell had been successful. The floating sixpence tumbled to land at George’s feet. Aubrey had a moment’s alarm when he felt, through his magical senses, a fleeting examination, a distant awareness turned his way, but then it was gone.

  George was looking up, startled. He held a frying-pan in one hand. It had an omelette in it. ‘I say!’ he said in a voice that was completely normal in pitch and pace. ‘What are you two doing there?’ Then he looked at the frying-pan, his clothes and his surroundings. ‘More to the point, what am I doing here?’

  Caroline looked to Aubrey, but he didn’t answer. ‘Magic, George,’ she said. ‘Best not to dally. Can you climb out of there?’

  George looked around, bewildered. ‘It’s not a dream?’

  ‘No.’ Aubrey was a little dazed himself, but it was a minor cost for such a complicated spell. Then he realised that something warm was nestled against his chest.

  The Beccaria Cage.

  He fumbled under his shirt and found the wire mesh was warm to the touch. Warmer than could be explained just by skin contact. He wanted to inspect the artefact to see what was going on, but a metallic crash shook him out of his introspection.

  ‘Here, old man, what about a hand?’

  George was balanced on an huge upturned stock pot that he’d placed on one of the benches. Cookware was still bouncing on the hard tiled floor, the result of his making room, but Aubrey saw that George had removed all the pans from the stove top to keep their contents from burning. Thoughtful to the last.

  George grasped Aubrey’s proffered hands, but Aubrey immediately found himself slipping until Caroline came to his rescue. She anchored him delightfully, bracing his shoulders while George clambered over the rail. ‘What is going on?’ George said as he brushed himself down. He plucked his chef’s hat from his head and regarded it curiously.

  ‘What do you remember?’ Caroline shepherded both George and Aubrey to the western door.

  ‘I went to explore, as agreed.’ George frowned, flapped a hand. ‘That’s about it.’

  ‘You were sucked into your dream,’ Aubrey said. ‘You were given a place where you’d be happy, and you were going to stay there.’

  ‘A velvet prison, eh?’ George glanced over his shoulder. ‘Never really thought about cooking like that.’

  ‘Did you enjoy it?’ Aubrey asked. Caroline opened the door.

  ‘It all seems a bit distant now. But it strikes me that I did.’ He looked thoughtful and stroked his chin. ‘I thought it was real.’

  ‘You would have been happy. Deceived but happy.’

  ‘Forever?’

  ‘It would have been a lifetime, at any rate.’

  They found von Stralick’s library prison with only one false start. Sylvia wasn’t there.

  Von Stralick was less philosophical than George. After Aubrey and Caroline shared the explanation, he was angry. ‘She was going to watch me? Like a zoo creature?’ he burst out after a pile of books on top of a table had provided his escape.

  ‘There you go, von Stralick,’ George said. ‘You’re a specimen.’

  Von Stralick shot George a look, but restrained himself. He straightened his lapels and brushed his jacket. ‘Now, let us get out of here.’

  Easier said than done, Aubrey thought as he laced up his retrieved boot. He studied the four doors.

  ‘We should find Sylvia,’ Caroline suggested. ‘She’s at the heart of this.’

  George grimaced. ‘Our keeper? I’d have thought it was a good idea to stay away from her.’

  ‘If anyone has answers, it will be her,’ von Stralick said, automatically taking up a contrary stance from George. They eyed each other steadily. Aubrey could see the tension. Much of it could have come from being wrenched from a happy dream, but some of it went back to their simmering antipathy.

  ‘I have an idea,’ he said abruptly. The other three swivelled and locked on him. It was like walking out onto the stage and having the spotlight find him, solo, the centre of attention.

  He never minded that.

  He adopted a pose designed to inspire confidence – shoulders back, fe
et apart just so, one fist on a hip and the other hand on the chest. It had worked well in the production of The Barber and the Berber and he was a little disappointed at the uniform scepticism that faced him, but he ploughed ahead. ‘This whole place, the prison in the pearl, is a magical construct. She said that she doesn’t do anything here – it’s all done for her. This suggests that to keep his sister safe, Dr Tremaine provided the place with a guardian spell, one that would bend the place to her whim – and provide her with opportunities for learning.’

  ‘That’s you, von Stralick,’ George pointed out.

  ‘And you too,’ von Stralick said. ‘Although what she could learn from you, I have no idea. How to be a buffoon, perhaps?’

  ‘I felt something earlier,’ Aubrey continued, ‘when I freed George. I think it could be this guardian. It lies inward, at the heart of this place, like a control room in a foundry. If we can find it, I might be able to manipulate it to free us.’

  As long as it’s a passive watcher spell, he thought. The possibility of it being rather more aggressive did cross his mind, but he thought it wiser not to raise this.

  Aubrey asked Caroline to choose a door. Without hesitating, she took them through the northern door; once again they were in the stone walls of the prison corridors.

  Caroline raised an eyebrow at Aubrey. ‘Well?’

  ‘Let me see what I can do.’

  Caroline adopted an alert attitude, doing her best not to look at Aubrey. George and von Stralick, too, were on guard.

  Which left Aubrey to ply his magic.

  This should be straightforward, he thought, and his hand brushed the bump of the Beccaria Cage under his shirt. It no longer felt warm, but now was not the time to investigate.

  Straightforward. All he wanted to do was use his magical awareness to sense the density of the surrounding magic, hoping to trace it to its source. Since this whole place was a magical construct, it was imbued with power, every wall, every stone positively dripping with it. If he concentrated he hoped to be able to detect differences, quite unlike trying to trace magic in the ordinary world, where its faintness was easily swamped by the vigour of the everyday.