Fearsome Magics

by Jonathan Strahan

  “WERE YOU IN the war?” she asked.

  Not a question I’d been expecting. “No, of course not,” I said. “The war was centuries ago and I’m not that old. Also, the Studium wasn’t involved, I told you that. It didn’t even exist back then.”

  She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. I like it when women do that; it’s either alluring or endearing, sometimes both. In her case, neither. “So your people didn’t build this tower?”

  “No, of course not. But we can use it, because we’re talented. Just as you can. Because you are too.”

  She frowned. Then she went to the stone food jar and lifted the lid. She reached down inside—

  “There,” I said. “You see?”

  —and took out a knife.

  (WHICH IS WHY it’s so important that, one of these days, someone gets to the bottom of this towers business. Are they third-floor Rooms, or are they something quite distinct and different? It’s important because, as everyone knows, a merely physical weapon can’t harm a properly-prepared adept; he simply uses scutum or lorica and the weapon skids harmlessly off his skin, or he dislocates and floats away to safety as a cloud of fine grit. But if the inside of a tower is a third-floor Room, it’s not like that at all. Room weapons (as everyone knows) work in a different way. They cause Room-wounds and Room-death, the proverbial Fates Worse Than, and not even lorica is guaranteed to protect you against them. With a Room knife, skilfully handled, you can do so much more than just kill someone. Worst case; you can cut off their fingers. No fingers, you can’t turn the doorknob. You can’t turn the doorknob, you can’t leave the Room. Now that’s—)

  AND A LOAF of bread. She cut two thick slices. “Want some?” she said.

  “No thanks,” I said.

  “Suit yourself.” She took another dip in the jar, and came out with a small piece of bacon, the size of a clenched fist, and a slab of white cheese.

  “Is there anything to drink?” she asked.

  I was staring at her. As previously noted—

  “Middle of the south-east wall,” I heard myself say. “There should be some sort of three-legged table. Under it, you’ll find a small horn bottle.”

  “Ah, right,” she said. I heard liquid gurgle into a glass.

  As previously noted, the jars in towers and Rooms can’t do cheese. I stared at it. Maybe it’s butter, I thought wildly. But butter isn’t stiff and crumbly.

  “So,” she said briskly, “you aren’t one of the original tower-builders.”

  “No,” I said. “How did you—?”

  “So,” she went on, with her mouth full, “really, you have no right to be here.”

  Something sort of plucked a string in my stomach. “Excuse me?”

  “You shouldn’t be in here at all,” she said. “You’re an intruder.”

  The small and underdeveloped part of me that deals with self-preservation issues was waking up. All right, I was thinking, time to be sensible. In which case, let’s bypass scutum altogether and go straight to lorica.

  I couldn’t do it.

  You know what it’s like in first-year; when they tell you to do such and such a form, and you just can’t. You try and try till your eyes pop, but it’s real thaumaturgical constipation, you simply can’t make it happen. I was actually clenching my fists, white knuckles and everything. What that was supposed to achieve I have no idea.

  “I told you I wasn’t safe,” she said.

  Oh, I thought. Oh, I see. “I’m not sure what you mean,” said my voice.

  She gave me an oh-come-on look. “You’re an intruder,” she said. “You aren’t on our side, so you must be the enemy. I’m really sorry, you’ve been really rather sweet while I was waking up, but I’m afraid I’m not allowed to make exceptions. So you see, I’m not at all safe. I’m dangerous.”

  The door is to the left of the centre of the north-east wall. Because of the need to maintain eye contact I didn’t turn and look for it, just backed towards it, groping for the handle with my left hand. It didn’t seem to be there.

  She clicked her tongue sympathetically. “No door,” she said. “Sorry.”

  And she was quite right. There was no door anywhere in the room.

  “You can’t hurt me,” I said, in a loud, wobbly voice. “I’m an adept of the Studium, with distinctions in military forms. If you make me fight, you’ll just get hurt.”

  She sighed. “I know you are,” she said. “Luckily for me.”

  “Luck—”

  “That’s right.” Slight nod. “Unlike me, you’re an adept. A powerful one. Me, I’m just a proxy.” She smiled. “The talent’s so rare among women, as you well know.”

  “You’re a proxy?”

  Another nod. “That’s right,” she said. “Yours.”

  The wall felt very solid against my back. Evidence, now I come to think of it, against the towers-are-third-floor-Rooms hypothesis. At the time, though, my academic instincts weren’t exactly to the fore.

  “You’re not making any sense,” I think I said.

  “Oh come now.” She was smiling. “Don’t you see the elegant simplicity? Towers defend themselves against enemy intruders by drawing power from them; the defending proxy is powered up and the intruder is weakened. It’s a very slight modification of ruetcaelum, that’s all. You know, the form that you people use to control us.”

  “Ruat,” I said, “not ruet.”

  She shrugged. “I stand corrected. Anyway, that’s why you can’t do scutum or lorica. In fact, because you were so very sweet and opened yourself up so generously, you can’t even make a door any more. There’s no way out, I’m sorry. I’ll try and make it as painless as possible, I promise.”

  She raised one finger, and I felt as though I was being gutted alive; as though all my insides were being pulled out through my ears. She’d taken practically all of my talent, and now she was holding it, balanced on the palm of her hand, a little glowing red egg.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  “Please,” I said, edging away down the wall. “The war’s over. There’s no need.”

  “Not up to me,” she said sadly. “I just do what you clever men tell me to.”

  I was stuck in the corner. Nowhere to go.

  “I’m not one of them,” I said. “The Studium doesn’t fight wars. We clean up after them. I’m on your side, really.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  There was no use trying to argue with that. So instead, I stabbed her with the breadknife.

  SHE TOOK SEVERAL hours to die. If I’d had my full talent, I could have saved her. I tried. But it took so long to come back (as life ebbed out of her and back into me); by the time I was able to do anything, it was too late. She started to cry. I wanted to ask her to forgive me, but a refusal often offends.

  The moment her eyes went blank, a door appeared in the wall. I sat and looked at it. Stupid door, I thought. I know where you lead, and I’m not sure I want to go there any more. I could just stay here and—I don’t know, defend the tower against intruders, or just sit and stare at the walls. Just exist; it’s not much, but it’s more than a lot of people can do.

  But it doesn’t work like that.

  Some time (which doesn’t pass, of course, in Rooms) later, I got up, brushed the dust off my trousers, opened the door and went outside. The clothes came with me, which was nice. I wandered around in the forest for a bit, distracted by a wide variety of thoughts, and eventually strayed out into the open fields. Which was where they found me.

  I think they hit me with something from behind. When I came round, I was tied to a chair. The chair was on the bed of a cart. The tailgate was hanging open. The cart was under a tree. There was a noose round my neck.

  “You again,” the hangman said. He was still wearing the scarf.

  I laughed. I felt so happy. “Gentlemen,” I said, “please. Think about it logically.”

  HEY, PRESTO!

  ELLEN KLAGES

  ON A GRAY Thursday afternoon, the four
th-form lounge was crowded with girls studying for exams. “I can’t make heads or tails of this,” one said with a sigh. She tossed her chemistry text onto the couch. “I’m just not the school type.” She looked down at her Giles Hall uniform with a grimace.

  “Have you thought about running away with the circus?” another girl asked.

  “Oh, wouldn’t that be a dream? Spangles and spotlights and applause. That’s the life for me.”

  Several girls nodded in agreement. Polly Wardlow bit her tongue and kept her head down, her short brown hair falling over her eyes. None of the others noticed her look of disagreement. She concentrated on her own chemistry book, happy to lose herself in the refuge of equations and numbers—reliable, constant, and utterly practical.

  Unlike her father, the magician. That was the family business, arcane secrets passed down from the men of one generation to the next. Even now, she thought, Hugh Wardlow—Vardo! on his posters—was performing somewhere on the continent, astounding the gullible with his illusions and legerdemain.

  Perhaps just a bit of that had rubbed off, because Polly had a trick of her own. She knew how to make herself invisible. She kept quiet, sat at the back of each class, and sometimes wore a pair of window-glass spectacles, nicked from the props room after a pantomime in her second term. They hid her face and made her look more serious. With the exception of the cricket pitch—she was an athletic girl and quite a skilled bowler—Polly preferred her own company, and spent her time reading and preparing herself for university, where she would study science, not trickery.

  “The post is here!” called a girl from the doorway. There was a mad scramble as girls leapt from couches and chairs and clustered around the table in the corner of the room. Polly waited until the crowd had dispersed before checking for a letter of her own. She was hoping to hear from her Aunt Emma, her late mother’s only sister; Emma and her husband David taught at a small college in Sussex. Because her father was always traveling, Polly spent the summers with them and their three sons, exploring the woods and ponds by day, reading in their library each night.

  But the only letter was from London, on Vardo! stationery.

  She returned to her chair and opened it. Just a few lines, in bold blue ink, and they changed everything.

  Your uncle has been offered a research position in America for the summer, a marvelous opportunity, and the boys have never been abroad, so they’re sailing the end of May. Naturally, you will summer in London. Will meet your train on 7th June.

  —Father

  Polly read it once more, then gathered her books and retreated to her room. She lay on her narrow bed, gazing out the window at the sports field, but seeing in her mind the rolling Sussex pastures. She willed herself not to cry. She was fourteen, hardly a baby. And London did have the British Museum, and the Library. Besides, it was only for a few months.

  She knew that if she told any of the other girls, they would swoon with envy. Their fathers were in shipping or insurance, barristers and judges, from all accounts stuffy, dull men, not dashing international celebrities. Who would understand that she viewed this summer with as much anticipation as a trip to the dentist?

  Polly did not dislike her father, nor fear him. It was just that they were, for all intents and purposes, strangers. His face was familiar, but his habits and interests were mysteries. And he knew just as little about her.

  Her visits during Christmas week were a mix of parties with his fashionable friends—from which she was dispatched early—and the occasional awkward supper. He was at the theatre until late, rose at noon, and spent the day at his club or at his workshop, tinkering with whatever it was that he did between performances.

  It had not always been that way. When she was very young, he had delighted her with tricks—pulling shillings from her ears, making her stuffed rabbit appear and disappear, cracking open her supper egg and releasing a butterfly that hopped up onto the window sill.

  Then her parents had gone on a tour of the Antipodes. Her mother contracted a fever and died on the ship home. Polly was seven. Her father locked himself away with photographs and grief, and a few months later, Polly was packed off to Giles Hall.

  HER FATHER WAS on the platform when Polly alighted from the train at St. Pancras. As always, his dark hair was slicked back with brilliantine, and his moustache was trimmed to a stiff brush, but he was not in his performer’s top hat and tails, just a business suit.

  “Hello, my dear,” he said, leaning down to pick up her valise. She could smell the bay rum on his breath. “Hope I’m not late. There was a meeting at the admiralty, and it ran long.”

  “Have you joined the service?” War was brewing. It was all Mr. Patterson, the history master, had talked about for the last month of the term, but surely they would not be drafting men as old as her father?

  “In a manner of speaking. They’re forming a rather specialized unit—Stars in Battledress, catchy name—and they’ve offered to make me a captain.”

  “Will you be fighting? If there’s a war?”

  “Hardly. We’d be charged with maintaining morale and entertaining the troops, that sort of thing.”

  “Oh,” Polly said. “I’m certain they’ll appreciate it.” They walked toward the station entrance. After a moment, she said, trying to keep her tone neutral, “You’ll be traveling, then?”

  “Not right away. In September, perhaps. Ah, here’s a taxi.” He held the door open as she got in, then settled himself beside her. “Alfred Place, Bloomsbury,” he told the driver.

  Polly sat quietly, watching the city stream by.

  “But in the meantime,” her father said when they stopped at a light, “I’m putting together another show.” He pulled out his briar pipe. “The premiere is in a month.”

  “How very nice for you.”

  “Yes, quite.” He lit his pipe and leaned back against the seat. “We’re developing a new illusion for it. I’ve had to put a man on the door to keep prying eyes away until we open.”

  “So the public won’t know?”

  “And so other magicians can’t—borrow. It’s a rather cut-throat business,” he sighed. “Once we’re finished, it should play well, but there are more than a few kinks to work out before we get it on stage.”

  “You’re in rehearsals now?”

  “Day and night. I’m afraid your old dad may not be home for supper much, but duty calls.” He tapped the driver. “This is it. Number twenty-three.”

  “They also serve who only stand and wait,” Polly said, hiding a smile. “I’m sure I’ll get along somehow.”

  FOR THREE DAYS, Polly reacquainted herself with the house and the neighborhood, settling into a pleasant routine. She decided on an overstuffed chair in a sunny corner of the parlor as her reading spot, found a shop that stocked her favorite brand of sweets, and secured a library card. She dressed in comfortable trousers and a jersey and was out by the time her father woke, supped alone on soup and good bread, and was in bed reading or asleep by the time he came home.

  So she was quite startled when she came down the stairs at half past eight, her mouth watering in anticipation of Cook’s cinnamon scones, to see her father seated at the table in his bathrobe, the Times folded beside his plate.

  “You’re up early.” She helped herself to tea and, after a moment’s hesitation, sat down beside him. At close quarters, she could see that his eyes were a bit red, and he had not yet shaved.

  “Yes, well—” He brushed a finger across his moustache, as if reassuring himself of its presence, and cleared his throat. “I have a bit of a problem, and thought I might ask your help.”

  Wariness and curiosity vied for Polly’s attention. The tea slopped into its saucer as she set it down. “What is it?”

  “How tall are you now?”

  “Excuse me?” She had not expected that.

  He looked at her, eyebrow raised, and she said, hesitantly, “Five—five feet four. And a half. I think.”

  “Excellent. Are you limbe
r?”

  “I suppose. I’m quite good at sports.” Polly pinched off a bit of scone, but her stomach informed her that at the moment it was not inclined to receive it, and she put it down. “Why do you ask?”

  “Well, you see—” He paused, turning the handle of his teacup, and Polly realized, another surprise, that he was as nervous as she. “Fact of the matter is, one of my assistants gave notice last night. Valinda Banks. Says she’s been accepted to the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, of all things.”

  “I see,” Polly said, as if it were a point in a debate. “But what does that have to do with—” she let her words trail off, because she was not yet entirely clear what they were discussing.

  “Valinda is about your size, and well, the illusion has a rather small trap, no one else fits, and we haven’t the time to build another.” He smoothed his hand across the unwrinkled newspaper. “What do you say?”

  “Wait. You want me as your assistant?” Polly’s voice squeaked. His few female performers were always vivacious, attractive blondes. She was none of the above.

  “I suppose I could advertise for someone just like you—small, smart, and a quick study—” He smiled at her, his moustache turning up at the ends, “But here you are. And you’re a Wardlow. It’s in your blood.”

  She sat very still, her unswallowed tea acrid in her mouth.

  “Now, now. It’s not that difficult.”

  You wouldn’t know. Polly thought. You love to perform. But he looked so earnest that she could find no excuse to refuse him. Finally she gulped and managed a weak, “I don’t have any experience.”

  “No one does, not with this one. We’re all learning from the ground up.”