Rough Magic

by Caryl Cude Mullin

  After a time he grew numb, and he began to spend his time between each bout of illness remembering the fresh breeze that constantly blew over the stones and through the trees of the island. He thought of the small groves that were home to rare birds. He thought of the cold stream that ran thick with fine pink-fleshed fish returning from the ocean to the place of their birth. Then he was wrenched again by another bout of sickness, and he thought only of living to the next moment.

  The storm raged for three full days. Fear and fatigue numbed everyone on board. When they slept it was shallow and punctuated by strange violent dreams. Every soul on the ship made ready for death.

  And then it was over, suddenly and completely. The ship drifted into a harbor. The anchor was dropped. Sleep, healing and magical, fell upon the entire crew. Many simply lay down and slept on the deck, in the very spot where they had been standing.

  “Will they be all right?” Chiara asked. She stood beside Caliban, surveying the fairy-tale scene around them.

  “They will be fine,” he said. “The magic had a kindness in it.”

  “But after they awake, Caliban…they’ll know where we’ve gone, won’t they?” She chewed her lip. “Won’t they just come after us?”

  “No.” He gave her hand a comforting squeeze. “The enchantment carries a false memory within it. They will all dream that we were lost at sea. Together they will vouch that you were swept overboard in a sudden wave, and that I dove in after to save you.” Chiara smiled wryly. “You come off as quite the hero.”

  He grinned. “Noble in death,” he replied.

  They looked around. Fog obscured their view of the island, but they could hear the gentle lapping of waves against the shore. “We’re very close to land,” Chiara said softly. The combination of the spell and the mist made the world an eerie place.

  “Yes,” he said. He could smell it, taste it in the air: the land of his birth. But there was a strangeness, too. Somehow he felt that he was not welcome, that the island itself was angry and had turned its back on him.

  He whistled, a lonely, thin sound like the distant cry of a seabird. The wind stirred around them, drawing away the mist.

  And they saw the island.

  Act Four

  The Night Sea Journey

  IV.i.

  It looked like it had been burned and broken by some careless giant. Where there had once been groves of trees, there were now charred skeletal spears jabbing at the pale sky. The ground was blackened, the rocks split and cracked. The only sign of life was a dismal raven sitting on a twisted branch. It croaked when it saw them and flapped away, disappearing with dull wing claps into the mist. The air that wafted from the shore was sour.

  “We’ve come to the wrong place,” Chiara said. She looked at Caliban anxiously. This was clearly not the island of sweet airy breezes her mother and Caliban had always spoken of.

  Caliban looked as tortured as the land. “It’s the right place,” he said, dully. “It’s just all wrong.”

  “What could have happened, Caliban? A fire of some sort?”

  He shifted his shoulders wordlessly. His face was pinched, his birthmarks purple against the ashy pallor of the rest of his skin. She turned her gaze back to the shore.

  “Should we…” Her voice trailed off. What choice did they have now? The spell had been cast, the path had been chosen. Had she really expected to walk away from her life so easily? She stared at the wasted shore. They’d been prepared for hardship, but this was a land of death. She glanced at Caliban once again. He seemed shrunken, old. It’s hurting him, she thought.

  “We have to make it better, somehow. We have to make it right.” She wasn’t sure exactly what she meant, only that she would do anything to take away Caliban’s pain. She tucked her hands inside her cloak. They were cold, but she knew that wasn’t why they had begun to shake. “How do we get there?” she asked. She tried to make her voice casual, carefree.

  Caliban pointed toward the ship’s boat, lashed to the deck, upside down. “In that,” he said.

  The boat was made of oak boards, built to carry twenty men. Chiara doubted that she and Caliban would be able to budge it, let alone lower it into the water. That meant swimming to the shore. Chiara glanced at the dark waves of the deep harbor. The water looked cold and dangerous. Probably shark infested, too, she thought. She could hear it lapping at the sides of the ship, hungry for her life. The very thought of going into it choked the breath in her. She gripped the rail, her knuckles turning white. Resolutely, she held her voice steady and said, “We’ll never move that boat, Caliban. We have to swim.”

  Caliban turned to her. It was clear that he saw through her mask of bravado.

  She tried to smile, but found it impossible. She resorted to reason, convincing herself more than Caliban. “Besides, what will we do with the boat once we get to the shore? The captain will know someone deserted the ship. They’ll come after us.”

  “They’ll have to swim,” Caliban said. “No sailor swims. And we could hide the boat, pull it up on shore and…” He stopped, his argument obviously pointless. They wouldn’t be able to lift it over the deck, let alone drag it up the beach.

  Chiara took his hand and squeezed it, as though he was the one who needed reassurance. “We’ll have to swim, Caliban. There’s no help for it.” Then she let go of his hand, because her own had begun to shake again. She wrapped her arms around herself and pretended to be chilled.

  She could tell from his expression that she had not fooled him. And then, while she gathered her courage, the air seemed to thicken around them. She heard a sighing – like strange and distant lilting music. Right before them the light twisted into a rainbow whorl that suddenly took human shape. The creature was no taller than Chiara, and even more slender. It looked at them with almond-shaped, purple eyes, the pupils of which were slitted like a cat’s. It stood in the air as easily as they stood upon the deck.

  Caliban took one step away, and then stopped. He hunched beneath his cloak, seeming to dwindle before Chiara’s eyes. For the first time she saw that his strength might fail him. A sudden burst of protective anger bolstered her flagging courage. She would not let Caliban be diminished. This stranger could be only one person. “Ariel,” she said. Then, overcome by curiosity, she reached out and touched his arm.

  It was not flesh. It felt like water, only her hand was dry after it passed through the creature’s substance. The touch raised goose pimples on her skin and raised the fine hairs on the nape of her neck. Something had swept through her: a current of magic. Ariel pulled his arm away. She let her own drop.

  “You are Prospero’s kin,” he said flatly.

  “Yes,” Chiara replied. “How did you know?”

  “I was bound to the wizard for fourteen years. I know his blood.” He stared at her for another moment with his strange violet eyes, then turned his gaze upon Caliban. “So you have returned, earth-man.”

  “Yes,” said Caliban.

  He was still hunched beneath his cloak. He looked shuffling, lumpen. Chiara wanted to shake him, tell him to be proud. She glared at Ariel.

  “And you brought a new master with you.”

  Caliban flushed, making the purple birthmarks on his face almost black. Chiara knew he was furious. He straightened his back and squared his shoulders. “I have no master,” he said, his voice low and rough. “I am a free man.”

  “Then a man with a mistress?” the creature asked. He smiled, cruelly.

  The words made Caliban wince. Chiara flared again at the sight of his embarrassment. “Caliban is my friend,” she said.

  “You’ve grown bitter, Ariel,” Caliban said, taking her hand and giving it a thankful squeeze. “You were often spiteful before, but you were never vicious.”

  “I’ve discovered that I’m a heartless being,” the spirit replied. He laughed dryly at his own joke, but no one joined him.

  “Why are you here, Ariel?” Chiara asked. “You were freed by my grandfather over fifteen years ag
o. Why haven’t you left?”

  The creature glowered at her. “I was always free, Prosperogirl, whatever your grandfather thought. And I did leave. I wandered through your human lands and saw how you people destroy each other and everything around you. So I returned. This island is one of the last magic places left on the Earth. It is, as much as any place can be, my home. Why are you here, Prospero-girl? Have you come to enslave us all again? Or have you come to finish the great work of destruction that your grandfather left behind?” Ariel glanced at the island, briefly. “It may be for the best,” he added bitterly.

  “What are you saying?” Chiara asked. “Are you suggesting that it was my grandfather who did this?” She threw her arm wide at the wasteland before them.

  “Suggesting?” Ariel shifted his shoulders carelessly. “The land is dying,” he said. “And it was Prospero who dealt the death blow.”

  “How? Why?” whispered Caliban.

  “You need to ask?”

  Caliban gestured hopelessly. “I need to ask,” Chiara said.

  “Wizards,” snapped the creature. He moved closer to Caliban, his whole being dangerously spitting flames. “The life of the island was taken and held by Sycorax, this earth-fool’s mother. When she died, it moved to this,” he stared at Caliban, “her hag spawn, though he did not honor it. Then Prospero came and took it for his own. You gave it to him, clod-waste. Before Prospero left, he broke it. It has been bleeding away ever since.”

  “What are you talking about?” Chiara asked. “What life did my grandfather take?”

  Caliban stared at the fiery creature. “The staff,” he said.

  Ariel nodded, snorting contemptuously.

  “The staff, Caliban?” Chiara asked.

  “Your grandfather had a wizard’s staff when he lived here. He did all his magic with it. He found it here. It was my mother’s. She made it from the island’s guardian tree. Long ago,” he said. His voice wavered and he looked down at his own hands.

  “Found? Found? It was given to him, given by you, monster. The island’s power,” Ariel snapped. “The island’s life.” He burned brighter, making Chiara squint. But she would not turn away.

  “He told me about that, about his staff and how he broke it. He was proud he’d done that,” Chiara said.

  “Proud!” The spirit burned so brightly Chiara did not understand how there could be anything left of him at the end of his anger.

  Her grandfather had told her the staff had made him reckless at times. “I knew it would destroy most of my magic, but I broke it anyway. Never let anything control you, Chiara,” he had said. “If anything comes to rule your life, you must let it go. Desire can bind as tightly as fear. Walk free of both.”

  “He didn’t understand,” Chiara said, slowly. “He didn’t realize what breaking the staff would do. I’m sure of it.”

  No one said anything.

  “I’m sure of it!” she repeated.

  Caliban nodded, but he did not look convinced. “He had no love for the island, Chiara...” he began, then faltered. She couldn’t hide her sense of betrayal. How could Caliban think her grandfather would hurt anyone or anything?

  “He couldn’t have known what harm it did, Caliban. If he even suspected it, he would never have sent me back here.”

  “That is true,” Caliban agreed. His expression lightened.

  Chiara felt more hopeful. “The staff is still here?” she asked Ariel.

  The creature eyed her suspiciously. “It is,” he said, finally. “It lies abandoned in your grandfather’s hut, where he threw it before he left.”

  Chiara turned to Caliban, excitedly. “Perhaps we can mend it, Caliban. It would heal the island if we could, wouldn’t it?”

  Ariel stared at her. “It can only be healed by three magics working together: wizard, wild, and island. It will take a great deal in the spelling.” The spirit shifted his gaze to Caliban.

  Chiara saw him stiffen. This was a bad time for him to be stubborn about doing magic. “We can do that, can’t we Caliban?” she asked him. She hoped he could hear the pleading in her tone.

  “I will stand for the island,” Caliban said slowly. “It is part of me. It is my land.”

  Chiara just barely managed to stifle the impulse to cheer out loud. “So we need wizard’s magic. And wild.” Chiara bit at her fingernails. She glanced at Ariel. It was unlikely there was any magic more wild than the fiery rainbow man. Surely he would help them, if it meant restoring the land. But a wizard?

  Her grandfather had always said she had the gift. Chiara had never believed him. She didn’t feel magical. Nerves twisted in the pit of her belly. “I guess that will have to be me,” she said lightly. She did not feel light.

  “Of course, you,” said Ariel. “You have it in your blood. I felt it. But it is untried. It will not suffice for the spell-making.”

  The blood began to hum in her ears. “Well, what can I do?” she said. “There must be some way I can ready myself. Some sort of test,” she said, poking Caliban gently in his ribs. He did not smile.

  But Ariel did, and it was a terrifying sight. “Oh no,” Caliban said. Chiara glanced at him anxiously. The mist had lowered around them again, swirling, filling the air with threat. For an instant it cloaked her, and she could see nothing. Then it cleared again.

  “There is only one way,” said Ariel. “You will need your grandfather’s book.”

  “His book,” said Chiara. “He threw his book into the sea.”

  Ariel nodded. His eyes glittered; his whole being seemed to shimmer with glee. “You will have to get it,” he said, tasting the effect of his words. “It lies in the sea, five fathoms down, beneath the claws of the Leviathan.”

  Chiara turned to Caliban. “Well, at least it isn’t Spain,” she said.

  IV.ii.

  They stood on the rocky land spit of the southernmost tip of the island. Ariel had brought them from the deck of the ship, his magic carrying them in a brief but terrifying whirlwind. Chiara flung herself onto the ground until the world stopped spinning around her. “Can’t you just magic yourself to the bottom of the sea and bring the spellbook back for me?” she’d asked.

  Ariel stared at her, burning with a chill-blue flame. “My domain is the air,” he said flatly. “Regardless, the task is yours. You may avoid it, of course. Go back to your life and leave the island to its death. It is what Prospero did, after all.”

  Chiara stood up and brushed herself off. It was madness, this plan of theirs. She should just let the island die. She should get back on the ship, go to Spain, marry a prince, and raise a brood of children. That was a real life.

  She’d rather die.

  “I wasn’t serious,” Chiara said, finally answering the spirit. She smiled half-heartedly. “I was hopeful, but not serious. Nevermind. I’m ready.”

  She wasn’t, of course. No one could ever be ready for what she was about to do.

  The Leviathan. The great eternal serpent that surrounded the world. The ancient monster of the deeps. Chiara had seen countless drawings of him during her study of alchemy. She believed he was a metaphor.

  She was wrong. Don’t faint, she told herself. Don’t faint.

  Ariel’s purple eyes gleamed maliciously. He could smell her fear, Chiara was sure. Not that he needed to. Her terror was written on her face, obvious in the shaking of her hands.

  In the shaking of her entire body.

  “Close your eyes,” Ariel said.

  She did as he commanded and was suddenly thankful that she’d been seasick for three days. If it weren’t for her empty stomach, she’d be ill. It was bad enough that her fear made her almost witless. She couldn’t stand being humiliated by it as well.

  A warmth pressed against her face. She smelled strawberries in the sunshine. Then, all at once, she could not breathe. Her eyes flew open and stared into the strange violet ones of Ariel.

  The spirit smirked. “You’d best get under the waves,” he said.

  She gaped at him, h
er blood beginning to thrum in her ears.

  “You’d better hurry,” Ariel said, his voice seeming to come from across a great distance. “You can no longer breathe air.”

  Caliban snatched at her arm before she threw herself into the foam. “You can do this. I have seen it in the stars.”

  “Liar,” thought Chiara.

  She wished she could look brave and wise, but it was hopeless. Closing her eyes, Chiara plunged beneath the surface, throwing down her body before she could think anymore about what she was doing.

  It was cold and dark and smothering and heavy. She slid downwards to the deeps, pulled by the undertow and by some charm woven into Ariel’s magic. Seaweed caught at her, but could not hold her. She was twisted and tumbled, yet still she managed to live. All at once she stopped, and found herself lying on the bed of the sea, pressed there by the weight of many waters, wondering why she was not dead. Her lungs screamed for air, her throat burned, her head pounded to the drumming of her heart. She gasped, and saw her last breath rise away from her, a quicksilver orb, a bubble of life. Oblivion beckoned her as a warm embrace. She gulped her certain doom.

  And she breathed. The water carried life to her, borne on the back of Ariel’s spell. The sea had become, for this small time, her home. She lifted an arm and stared at her hand as it moved through the water, assuring herself that she had not been changed into a fish. The wild magic within her began to sing its mastery. Her flesh glowed softly, casting a pale light. She stood up, marveling at the weightless feel of her body, and examined the strange world around her.

  There were wide expanses of sand stretching out in all directions, save where the land rose up like a mountainside. She realized this was the island’s root. There she saw patches of sea plants. Some were low and scrubby, others clumped like underwater shrubs, and some waved long leafy fronds up into the heights of the ocean. She could see the path her body had torn in the silt already being covered by the shifting sand. A lobster crept across her foot. She yelped and kicked it away. It waved and snapped its claws, but it did not pinch her. She supposed that the magic protected her from injury. She hoped it would help her against the Leviathan as well. Remembering Ariel’s expression she let that hope die.