Fearsome Magics

by Jonathan Strahan

  A faint blue light blossomed ahead, like a tiny falling star. It only lasted a few seconds, but the knight knew it for Fitz’s aid, the least possible light to conserve the power of his needle. In those moments of scant illumination, Hereward saw the outline of the cannon and knew where its maw lay, almost straight ahead.

  Hereward jumped for the cannon mouth as a tentacle grazed his back, the shadow-stuff burning like acid through his doublet and shirt and deep into the flesh beneath. He screamed but did not slow. It was only a glancing strike, the tentacle had no grip and could not pull him back.

  The knight went into the cannon like a rammed shot, sliding straight on his stomach for a good six feet before he got his hands and knees under himself and began to scuttle, once again faster than he had moved in such a fashion ever before.

  It was pitch black inside the cannon. Hereward sobbed and cursed Fitz, himself, the Hag, Withra, fate and all the gods and godlets who’d ever existed as he rubbed the skin off his knees, elbows and hands in his frantic passage over the thin sharp ridges of the rifled barrel. But he cared nothing for these pains, for the Hag came close behind him. He could feel the dread weight of her, and twice a tentacle lashed across the soles of his feet.

  One hundred feet was too far, thought Hereward through pain and fear. He would never make it to the breech, never make it out. The Hag’s tentacles would lash around his ankles and drag him back and then, then it would all be over, that fall from the razor’s edge that was bound to come one day—

  A blue, heatless light shone ahead, outlining an opening above.

  Hereward’s heart almost burst as he exerted all his remaining strength, leaping up through the open chamber to stand on top of the exposed cartridge, his bleeding fingers tearing at the wax seals and the peace strings of the old dagger, feet jumping and dancing as a single tentacle lashed across from left to right and then right to left, and he almost fell as he got the dagger free, its whiny voice piercing his head as if an icicle had been thrust through his eye and into his brain.

  “Who wakes me! Who wakes me!”

  “Deal death to my enemies, death to my foes, Anglar-Ithrix I command thee!” squealed Hereward, his voice weirdly pitched from exhaustion and fright, the words gabbled out so fast they were almost... almost but not quite... unrecognisable.

  He threw the dagger and leaped off the cannon, even as the foremost part of the Hag emerged into the chamber, a writhing thing of darkness and fog. The dagger bounced clanging off the bottom of the breech, shouted something peevish and drove straight at the shadow.

  Tentacles writhed to try and fend the weapon off, and then a great tentacle composed of blinding violet light arced over from the cascabel at the very end of the cannon, where Mister Fitz stood, wielding his one remaining sorcerous needle.

  This brilliant tendril reached in and rotated the chamber shut in one swift motion, locking the old dagger and the Hag inside.

  Evan as it did so, Mister Fitz jumped over the side, letting the three strings that would fire the cannon run through his open hand, and sped to his previously-prepared firing position. Though he was far more durable than a human, his papier-mache and wooden frame being heavily reinforced with sorcery, he still sought shelter behind the moklek he had made kneel down some dozen yards away.

  Sir Hereward was not behind the great beast, but there was no time for Mister Fitz to check where he had gone. From the sound of the shouting and cursing inside the cannon, the godlet Anglar-Ithrix who resided inside the dagger was getting the worst of his combat with the Hag.

  Mister Fitz lay down and pulled all three strings. Two of the pistols fired, long trails of sparks spurting up from the cannon.

  Then came the long second of uncertainty, the gunner’s doubt. A very long second indeed, almost long enough for Fitz to pull the strings again in vain hope the third pistol would do the job, even as thoughts of spoiled powder and blocked vents whisked through this mind—

  The cannon fired.

  The blast was titanic, destroying all other sound. A massive jet of flame enveloped the entire corner of the fortified house, floor to ceiling. The cannon itself bucked up and backwards, smashing the carts into thousands of pieces, sending wicked splinters flying in all directions, the great long tube of bronze itself almost dancing on one end before it toppled over and came smashing down in the Shallows, creating both a minor tidal wave and a splash so great it was like a sudden, short fall of rain.

  Mister Fitz stood up as the rain fell, and looked about for Sir Hereward. A great swathe of acrid gunsmoke billowed over everything, obscuring even Fitz’s vision. His moklek shield was trumpeting its pain to its fellows, but the puppet adjudged it was not badly hurt. He would tend to it once he found Sir Hereward and ascertained the fate of both the Hag and the old dagger.

  Sir Hereward had just kept running until the cannon blast knocked him over. It took Mister Fitz several minutes to find him amidst the clouds of thick, acrid smoke from the cannon’s firing. The knight was sitting in the water, looking dazed and very bloody.

  “You did well,” said Mister Fitz, carefully checking over his companion’s head, torso and arms for serious wounds. “Stand up.”

  “What?” shouted Sir Hereward. He was deaf from the blast, and stupid with weariness. Running from the Hag had taken all the strength he possessed, and then some more.

  Fitz heaved him up and supported him when Hereward’s knees buckled and he would have fallen again. As he did so, he looked over the lower half of his companion, noting that in addition to many cuts and abrasions, there was a small splinter buried several inches in Hereward’s thigh. But it was not bleeding freely, and so it too, could wait.

  “Did it work?” shouted Sir Hereward. He looked about him, blinking furiously. Even with a good part of the house of the Sisters of Mercantile Fairness ablaze and shedding light, he could hardly see anything through the gunsmoke. He took some comfort from Mister Fitz’s cool wooden hands, but less from the knowledge that the puppet had used his last sorcerous needle.

  “I am not yet certain,” said Mister Fitz, loudly, but not loudly enough for Hereward to hear him. “I still detect some essence of the Hag... a small remnant—”

  He suddenly let go of Hereward, who promptly fell onto his knees and only just managed to stop himself tilting over face-forward, to suffer an ignominious death by drowning in six inches of water.

  Withra was advancing towards them, a gleaming knife in her hand. The left side of her face had been shattered by the silver ball from Sir Hereward’s pistol, her cheekbone and part of her jaw bare to the elements, a wound that should have her curled up in agony. But she showed no pain, and when she opened her mouth, Sir Hereward saw why. Instead of a tongue, Withra had a small tentacle of shadow, the very last piece of the Hag still extant upon the earth.

  The small, sharp knife Mister Fitz used for dissecting appeared in the puppet’s hand. He crouched to spring, but before he could do so, there was the sudden whoosh of a large blade moving very fast, the flash of firelight on steel, and Withra’s head parted from her shoulders. The head landed upright in the water, the shadow-tongue writhing and eyes blazing. Emengah stood above it, the Archimandress’s own bastard sword held bloody in both hands.

  “We take care of our own,” she said wearily. “And all debts must be paid.”

  Fitz wasn’t listening. His head was tilted, listening to a high-pitched whistle akin to the cry of a falcon speeding to its prey. It suddenly grew louder. The puppet lunged forward, quick as a snake, and snatched up Withra’s head, holding the horrid remnant in front of Sir Hereward just in time to interpose it between the knight and the flying dagger that sped out of the darkness like an arrow.

  Dagger and head meet with a ghastly squelch. The two were torn from Fitz’s hands and went rolling off through the water, the dagger’s imprecations and curses muffled by the shadow that came out of the gaping jaw and wrapped around the blade. Fitz started to walk after them, but halted as it became clear they were n
ot going to stop, but would keep on rolling and fighting till one defeated the other. Or as was to be hoped, they both lost the strength to maintain their existence in the world and were forced to retreat and rejoin the greater part of themselves in some other dimension.

  Emengah walked over to Sir Hereward and grounded her sword. Behind her, the flames from the burning house rose higher, and black smoke billowed forth to eclipse the last acrid swirls of white smoke from the cannon.

  “The Sisters of Mercantile Fairness thank you Mister Fitz,” said Emengah. “And you, Sir Hereward.”

  Sir Hereward smiled crookedly. He couldn’t hear a word she said, but he knew gratitude and good will when he saw it, and the scarred Emengah with the bastard sword in her hands seemed to him to be fair indeed, a most welcome sight. He managed to stand up with Fitz’s considerable help, and made a fair effort at a courtly bow before he fainted.

  WAKING IN DAYLIGHT, Hereward found himself in a feather-bed in a corner of the hall that while it smelled extremely smoky, was undamaged. That could not be said for the other end of the great room, which was open to the sky, allowing the over-bright sun unfettered access past the tumbled walls of blackened stone.

  Mister Fitz sat on the end of the bed, sewing up the many rents in Hereward’s shirt and breeches. The novice Parnailam, clad now in an ordinary homespun habit, watched his sewing intently, marveling at the tiny, ordered stitches and the speed with which the needle moved.

  “Ah,” said Mister Fitz to the knight. “You wake. Good morning.”

  “If you can call it that,” said Sir Hereward muzzily. His ears hurt, but at least he could hear again. He was not so sure about his mind, or his memory, and the many pains along his legs and arms indicated he would remain abed for quite some time. “I take it the plan worked as expected?”

  “Indeed,” said Mister Fitz. “Though there is a slight chance we might have to deal with the old dagger again one day. A very slight chance, in my estimation.”

  “I hope so—” began Sir Hereward, but he paused and tilted his head, frowning as his ears caught a distant rumble. “Cannon fire!”

  “No,” said Mister Fitz equably. “Thunder. The rains have begun.”

  As if responding to this statement, the sky darkened suddenly, the sun vanishing. Heavy drops fell through the open, destroyed part of the house, and a great fusillade of rain began to sound on the roof above.

  “The Shallows... the mokleks... the cannon,” blurted Sir Hereward. He sat up and made as if to get out of bed, but Mister Fitz and Parnailam together pushed him back. “We must repair, get new wagons somehow, move out before the water deepens—”

  “There is no need,” said Mister Fitz calmly.

  “Why not?”

  “The Sisters are building us a boat, in gratitude for ridding them of the Hag. We can take the cannon across the Shallows to Junum, I have a letter of credit at the Bank of The New Ingots there. We can recruit a century of ox-men haulers to drag the cannon on rollers. True, there is the small matter of the Loathsome Worms to deal with—”

  Mister Fitz stopped talking. Sir Hereward had either passed out, or was feigning sleep. The puppet took up his sewing again, Parnailam sitting down to watch once more.

  “You are most adept with your needle, Mister Fitz,” the novice said shyly.

  “Indeed,” said Mister Fitz. His round head turned slowly, his strange blue eyes met Parnailam’s, and his mouth quirked up in something that was not quite a smile. “But then I have had a great deal of practice, with many different needles, stitching... and unstitching.”

  Parnailam gulped, though she did not quite know why, and soon made her excuses to leave.

  Mister Fitz returned to his sewing. Sir Hereward slept.

  Outside, a line of mokleks stood happily in the rain, all of them watching a dented pink howdah float past the tumbled cannon and drift away.

  GRIGORI’S SOLUTION

  ISOBELLE CARMODY

  IT MIGHT AS well have been magic, for all that people could understand of how it worked.

  Mathematics at an exalted level is a kind of magic.

  If the fateful sum had been set down in all its inexorable and deadly perfection in the Middle Ages, it would doubtless have been regarded as a spell, and like as not the young savant who penned it would have been burnt at the stake.

  And is it not a spell, in the sense that magic spells were traditionally—are still, I suppose for those who believe in such things against all modern rationality—words of power; that is, words, or in this case, numbers, which, when said, effect physical change?

  To the Middle Ages magic was not a game to engage and enliven the imaginations of children, nor a literary device for writers too lazy to grasp the nettle of reality. It was regarded as a darkly potent force that might be tapped, though never without consequence.

  This is not the Middle Ages and yet in the sense that the labeling of a thing as ‘magic’ is a primitive means of surmounting fear, it may be reasonable that some folk prefer to call that dreadful sum that has been writ ‘magic’, since it will affect the greatest change of all: It will unmake existence.

  Despite everything, it gives me a little shiver to write those words down in my notebook. How heavy and cold they seem. How inexorable. And how strange, too, to discover at the tail end of a life full of earnestly penned words, the unimaginable extent of the power that can be contained in markings I had hitherto seen only as the bearers and vessels of meaning. I am like a child discovering the building rods he has played with for so long are sticks of dynamite.

  That I heard of the sum as early as I did was by sheerest chance.

  I had just settled into my room here at the Olympus, dispersing my few items of clothing from suitcase to wardrobe when I was inescapably reminded of all the times I had waited by the telephone in anonymous hotels abroad for a call from an interview subject or contact. It is odd how, viewed in retrospect, a life full of busyness can begin to seem rather empty. Perhaps this is why I had a sudden sentimental impulse to hear English and as the phone I had purchased had an application that allowed me to tune into radio stations anywhere in the world, I searched until I happened on an English voice. It was the host of a late night science program coming out of Boston and it did not take me long to discern that its main aim was not to present science but to turn science into that spurious thing—entertainment. The invited guests were the sort that spoke sensationally and none too clearly of the more speculative ends of science and the sloppiness of intellect displayed by the host was acutely irritating.

  I was on the verge of shutting the application when a new guest, a young Scottish mathematician, began to speak with refreshing doggedness about something the host called the Doomsday Formula, but which the young man urgently insisted was the resolution of a mathematical problem he called Grigori’s Solution. He was clearly upset about some aspect of the solution, but he lacked the slick patter and practiced urbanity of the other guests and his conversation was very technical. Nor was he entirely clear about the sum that was the center of his disquisition, for as he frankly admitted, the math involved went far beyond his considerable ability. The host soon lost interest when he could not persuade his guest to agree that the completed sum could be applied to the creation of some sort of weapon of mass destruction. Indeed, all the young man would say was that the sum itself was the thing to be feared, before again launching into labyrinthine mathematical explanations. The host managed to silence him by the simple expedient of cutting him off midsentence with a song, having no notion that the end of the world had just been announced on his trite show.

  I had no idea of the magnitude of what I was hearing either, but I had heard enough to want to know more. It may be, indeed, that I was the only person listening with the right combination of an understanding of pure math and a love of philosophy to have been capable of getting some inkling of what the sum might be.

  It took a little time and effort to get the telephone number of the station and by
the time I called, the receptionist informed me the mathematician had left. Indeed he had left before the program ended, she added disapprovingly. I managed to extract his name and the information that he had an American wife, lived in Charlotteville and had left in a cab. I eventually tracked down his home number but by then it was the middle of the night in the States. I called at what seemed to me a reasonable hour the following day, only to be told by his wife that he had flown to Australia directly after the program. He had been scheduled to fly there the following week to deliver a paper at a conference at the University of Queensland, but he had altered his flight to leave earlier. Garrulous by nature, she did not have to be coaxed to tell me that her husband had been in Boston to deliver a series of lectures when the opportunity had arisen to appear on the science program. He was not normally interested in that sort of thing, but he had learned something in Boston that had got him tremendously excited and upset and he had told her that he had felt the need to let people know about it as swiftly as possible. She had no more notion than the science show host what had got him into such a state, but she said it was connected to a problem that had been solved by a young mathematician in Estonia.

  She had no idea how her husband had learned of the Estonian mathematician or why his solution of a sum should have prompted her husband to speak on the radio, then fly to Australia early so that he could consult with colleagues in Adelaide. Or was it Melbourne? She thought it was Adelaide, but she had no way to reach him because the poor darling had left his mobile behind in Boston. The radio program had called her about it after his hasty departure. An email address, I suggested, rather hopelessly. She gave it to me but said her husband was unlikely to check his emails until he reached his hotel in Brisbane. Before I rang off I got the address and phone number of the hotel and the date of his arrival.