Od Magic

by Patricia A. Mckillip

  Without thinking, Brenden reached for the water in the fountain. He guided it as he had guided the golden sash, through the same enormity of darkness, where it became something he could mold with his desires, transform to his implacable need. He tracked the water splashing into the stone basin to its underground source, and felt a power there to match his need. The river, cold, strong, deep, flowed with its own will. His need was stronger; his had no boundaries, it seemed, knew no end. He shaped the river flowing out of the fountain to his wish.

  The basin cracked in two; water shot out of it, spilling all over the street. Brenden raised his hands, coaxed it upward into a column, higher and higher, not seeing the startled faces staring at him now instead of the fire. Tears he held, a deep welling of grief, and something else, more powerful than either, that he had mistaken for sorrow. It had no name, this power, no name he had ever learned, and no face but his own.

  He touched the fire then, let it come into his mind. That, too, he recognized: the glowing, dangerous beast that ate and ate and was never satisfied, never finished until there was nothing left. It gave life and death without knowing either word; it was of a piece, always itself whether as big as a thumbnail or as big as a house. Brenden found, in the great, grinding shift of stones within him, the spark they made that blazed to life within him, fueled only by the nameless dark.

  Fire and water leaped toward one another within him, and outside of him. Great, awkward, unwieldy beasts, they staggered together and clashed above the heads of the crowd. There was a huge hiss; a cloud smelling of river and smoke roiled over the street; for a moment no one could see. It dispersed, leaving half the street in darkness, for the water had put out all the nearest lamps and torches.

  Fire sprang to life all around them, this time in tidy, controlled patches clinging to burning brands, to hanging lamps. As the crowd began to see again, it became suddenly vociferous, laughing, shouting, applauding. Brenden, still holding the sash taut as the woman descended finally into the giant’s waiting arms, found his eyes drawn beyond her to the house she had fled. He blinked. The sash, loosed from the balcony, rippled down in little rivulets of gold. The woman caught it and stood, as gracefully as the acrobats who formed it, on the shoulders of the giant.

  The house stood unharmed. Not a single splinter burned in a beam; not a shadow of ash marred its painted face. Even the hangings hung whole. The water had stopped shooting out of the cobblestones; the fountain was again in one piece and singing softly to itself. Nothing, Brenden’s stunned brain told him, even looked damp.

  Someone shouted, “Tyramin!”

  The crowd echoed the word with one voice, like a roar of water. Brenden felt hands seize him, lift him off the ground. The crowd chanted now, rhythmically, as it raised him limb by limb and balanced him somewhere between earth and air.

  “Tyramin!” they shouted to him. “Tyramin! Tyramin!”

  He looked around bewilderedly, not knowing what the word meant. A fire had burned; he had put it out; now he was riding the wave of a crowd through the streets, a stranger to himself, but not to the crowd, who seemed to know exactly who he was.

  “Tyramin!”

  He twisted to find the dark-haired woman, whom he thought he had rescued. Maybe, he hoped wildly, it was Meryd and she would recognize him.

  She looked down at him from the giant’s shoulders, close enough for him to see the glittering amber catching fire in her eyes. She did not smile, nor did she call that name. She seemed, as her wide eyes held his in that instant, as surprised as he. Then the giant strode ahead, the top figure catching hold of its painted head as the crowd tossed it up. Brenden shifted again, trying to drop. But the crowd would not let him go without magic, and magic, he finally understood, was what had gotten him into that predicament in the first place.

  Unexpectedly, he recognized a face. It belonged to the tall, darkly cloaked man who gazed at him under a torchlight on the edge of the street. Brenden stretched a hand toward him.

  “Yar! Yar Ayrwood!”

  His voice did not carry through the din. But he felt the riveted attention of the wizard in the shadows, and he pleaded silently, with all his strength, as though a stone within him cracked open and spoke:

  Help me.

  A figure rode between them then, a man wearing some kind of uniform, buttons and sword hilt glittering, his short hair as red as fire, his eyes narrowed as Brenden swept past him, caught like a spar in the night currents of the Twilight Quarter. He turned his mount to ride with the crowd, keeping abreast of Brenden, who didn’t like what rode with him, but didn’t know why.

  He glanced back desperately, but could not find the wizard again. The crowd bore him down toward the river, still shouting his incomprehensible name.

  THIRTEEN

  News of the flamboyant and mysterious doings in the Twilight Quarter made its way swiftly out of the Twilight Gate, up the streets to the office of the quarter warden, who for once was actually in his office. He was trying to decipher a bill of lading for a ship docked in waters under his watch. Lord Pyt seemed to think it suspicious; Arneth found it nearly unreadable. The few words he understood seemed to have to do with exotic varieties of fish. Or was it trees? He couldn’t say with certainty. He opened his mouth to summon his secretary, a knowledgeable young man; the secretary put his head in the door before Arneth produced a sound.

  “One of your street wardens is here,” he said. “Paquin Bel. He says it’s urgent.”

  Arneth closed his mouth. Perhaps it was urgent, perhaps not; Paquin Bel had an exalted sense of duty. He nodded; the door opened wider, emitting the brawny, red-haired man.

  “Sir,” he said briskly.

  “Yes.”

  “In the matter of the magician Tyramin, we have finally found a face.”

  Arneth raised his brows. “Really?”

  “Yes, sir.” Expression came into Paquin’s eyes then; he leaned impulsively over Arneth’s desk. “There was magic tonight in the streets of the Twilight Quarter.” He found his hands on Arneth’s desk and straightened hastily. “True magic.” He stopped, then added, “I think.”

  Arneth grappled with that. “What form,” he asked finally, “did this magic take?”

  “Fire.”

  “Fire? Fire as in what? Tyramin uses fire in his tricks like a cook uses pepper.”

  “A house on fire. As in, Tyramin put it out.” He paused, added again before Arneth could speak, “I think.”

  “What do you mean you think?” Arneth demanded. “A house on fire anywhere in the city is an extremely dangerous matter. Don’t tell me what you think, tell me what you know.”

  “Yes, sir,” Paquin said, his face wooden again. He fixed his eyes somewhere on the wall above Arneth’s shoulder, and continued without thinking, “A giant juggling fire tossed a brand too high; it fell onto the top balcony of one of the houses. The house caught fire. A woman was trapped on the balcony. A young man in the crowd below rescued her by means of a dancer’s sash, which he caused by magic to elongate itself to reach the balcony and remain stiffly in the air while she made her way down it by means of her hands. While she did that, the young man broke open a fountain nearby, pulled the water out of it with his hands, and directed it toward the fire, which had spread by then to the roof and was threatening the buildings next to it. There was a puff of smoke. Or steam. Or both. When it cleared, the fire was out, the woman on the ground, and the”—he hesitated, continued doggedly—“and the house and fountain as they had been before the fire broke out.”

  “What?”

  “Unchanged, sir. Not a mark on them. The streets were bone-dry. The crowd chose to see it as a trick of Tyramin’s. They bore the young man away, down to the warehouse where the magician performs, shouting his name along the way. Magic or not magic, I don’t know. That’s what happened.”

  Arneth closed his eyes, opened them again. He rose abruptly. “Come with me.”

  He took the street warden to Lord Pyt, who listened silently as Paqu
in Bel repeated himself, word for word, Arneth noted with wonder. Lord Pyt’s craggy face turned from the color of suet at the threat of fire to the hue of undercooked liver at the threat of magic.

  He glared at Arneth as though he were somehow responsible. “Magic or no magic, this Tyramin might have set the Twilight Quarter on fire!”

  “He put it out,” Arneth said. “Very handily, it seems.”

  “If it was truly a fire,” Paquin reminded them.

  “Fire is fire,” Lord Pyt snapped.

  “Tyramin might say it was an illusion of fire,” Arneth said. “Another trick.”

  “His tricks are becoming very disturbing.” Lord Pyt thought a moment, calculating various aspects, and added portentously, as Arneth expected, “The king should hear of this immediately. Then you, Arneth, must find Tyramin and arrest him yourself.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “Yes, Fath—Yes.”

  “You will take the royal guard with you. And wizards from the school in case he is dangerous.”

  Arneth hesitated, but only briefly; his father did not notice. “Yes, sir.”

  “Both of you, come with me.”

  Lord Pyt led them through the endless hallways and the drafty marble tunnel that connected the High Warden’s offices to the palace. In an antechamber at the end of the tunnel, he sent word to the king of the strange events. They waited for an unusual amount of time for word to come back to them. So much time, Arneth thought, that the king must have sent someone else—Valoren Greye perhaps—to investigate the fiery incident in the Twilight Quarter.

  But Valoren came to them himself.

  “The king has been at the school with Wye,” he told them. “He sent me ahead to question you. There is also a mystery at the school. It may be related.”

  “What mystery?” Lord Pyt demanded officiously.

  The inexpressive eyes considered him a moment before the wizard answered. “The gardener, Lord Pyt.”

  “Ah,” the High Warden intoned mysteriously as Paquin Bel echoed bewilderedly, “Gardener?”

  “The new gardener,” Valoren answered, “who may indeed be a powerful wizard, has vanished from the school. The king had taken me with him earlier to question the wizards about him. They seem to know very little. And now the gardener cannot be found. There was some suggestion that he might have gone to the Twilight Quarter. Tell me,” he added, at their baffled silence, “what has disturbed the quarter.”

  “In brief,” Lord Pyt said, “magic. My son the quarter warden will tell you.”

  “Paquin Bel will tell you,” Arneth amended. “I wasn’t there.”

  Paquin Bel had dutifully begun, “A giant juggling fire tossed a brand too high—” when the king entered. Paquin stopped, swallowing audibly. Galin’s face was flushed beneath his white-gold hair as though he had been fanned by the flames from the Twilight Quarter.

  “What is going on?” he demanded. “I’m hearing rumors of fire in Kelior.”

  “From whom, my lord?” Valoren asked instantly.

  The king gestured incoherently at the question. “Guards on the walls—What does it matter? Is there, or is there not—”

  “Yes, my lord,” the High Warden answered.

  “Yes, which?”

  “Both, as far as we can ascertain. Yes and no—” The king’s color deepened alarmingly; Lord Pyt finished hastily. “As the street warden Paquin Bel was about to describe to us.”

  The king looked explosively at Paquin, who swallowed again. Then his eyes crossed slightly in concentration; he drew breath and started over courageously under that fixed glare. The glare did not dim by a flicker when Paquin finished, but the king turned it upon Valoren.

  He consulted the wizard silently a moment before he spoke. “The gardener?”

  “It may be, my lord,” Valoren said slowly. “The gardener and the magician appeared in Kelior about the same time. And no one sees Tyramin’s face.”

  “We haven’t seen the gardener’s face, either,” Galin said testily. “Nor the wizard Yar’s, since we sent him to find the gardener.”

  “If it was truly magic,” Valoren guessed, “Yar would have been drawn to the Twilight Quarter. Do you trust him?”

  “Yar? He saved my city before he even passed through the doors of the school.”

  “By means of unsanctioned magic.”

  “He didn’t know any better,” the king said impatiently. “And he has remained at the school ever since; his reputation—if not his good sense—is impeccable.”

  “Then we will trust him to find the one who worked the magic,” Valoren said simply. “If he needs help, he can summon any of us. With such a faceless force loose in Kelior, I will not leave you unprotected.”

  Lord Pyt cleared his throat. “My son will take armed men from the royal guard to the quarter. I have given him orders to arrest this man called Tyramin.”

  “And if he uses magic against the guard?” the king queried.

  “I’ll instruct the wizards to keep their minds open for the unexpected use of power,” Valoren told him. “They are finished with their teaching for the day; they can put their full attention to this. Most of them can be in the Twilight Quarter in a breath if there is need. And, if Yar is already there, he can protect the quarter until he has help.” He paused, added to Arneth, “It would be best if Tyramin is arrested as quietly as possible. If he is really a harmless trickster, then it will be the crowds he draws that pose the greater danger. Can you manage that?”

  “I’ll do my best,” Arneth said, relieved that there was some measure of common sense behind the unsettling eyes.

  “Then go,” the king said brusquely. “And don’t come back without him.”

  Lord Pyt went to assemble the guard in their quarters below the palace; Arneth armed himself and called for his horse. He sent Paquin Bel back to the Twilight Quarter to see what he could see with orders to meet Arneth at the Twilight Gate if he saw anything amiss. The royal guard was armed and mounted without delay; Arneth rode to meet the lines of men in the yard, two dozen guards armed from helmet to metal bootheel, waiting for his order.

  He surveyed them a moment, thinking. Against a very clever and annoying yet harmless trickster, they were overpowering: the king’s mailed fist hammering down to crush an ephemeral pleasure. Set against great magical power, they would be helpless; they would be destroyed. Either way, as a threat or a weapon, they were useless.

  So he left them outside the Twilight Gate to wait for his summons and rode alone to find Tyramin.

  FOURTEEN

  Mistral rescued the astonishing young man when the exuberant flow of people reached the warehouse by the river. They carried him inside. Somehow, between doors and stage, they lost sight of him; they misplaced him; he disappeared. Still they called his name, certain that Tyramin would rejoin them to work his magic. They settled themselves to wait. Some climbed up into the rafters, or opened windows and perched on the sills. Even from the rafters they could not see over the curtain behind Tyramin’s stage; Mistral made sure of that as she guided the stupefied young man into the tiny, untidy room where she did her sewing.

  He gazed bewilderedly at the vivid costumes hanging on their hooks, the swaths of airy, glittering fabric strewn on the floor, the empty-eyed masks. Riveted by the gigantic head, he caught his breath.

  “Who is that?” he whispered.

  Mistral picked up the head, a finger through one eye-hole. “Tyramin.”

  He struggled over that, trying to understand. “What happened out there? The house was on fire. Meryd—it looked like Meryd up there on the highest floor. But it was you again, wasn’t it? I put—I put—”

  “You put the fire out.”

  “I put the fire out,” he said, summoning courage to say it. “I did that. I didn’t know how, but I had to. That was magic.”

  “Yes. Very powerful magic you worked, in front of the entire Twilight Quarter, street wardens and all.”


  He stared at her without seeing her, remembering something. “There was other magic. Someone else.”

  “Listen. You must stay here, hide so that—”

  “Someone else put the fountain back together. Mended the house. I didn’t do that.”

  “Didn’t you? I must go and help Tyramin dress, so that he can appear before the crowd grows too restless.” She paused briefly; he was seeing her again, too clearly, she felt, more clearly than she permitted any stranger. “Wait here,” she said, backing toward the door. “Stay hidden. The street wardens will be searching for you.”

  He started to speak, say what he saw. She reached him in a step, put a finger to his lips, and then to hers. So close to him, she sensed the bulky enormity he carried, that he had barely begun to shape and define as his own. It was the shadow, the footprint, the wordless voice of his power. He stood silent again; she pulled the huge head into a firmer grip, watching him grapple with his own cumbersome burden.

  He loosed the soft breath of an empty laugh. “I just came here looking for a plant.”

  “Please,” she said softly. “Wait here until we have finished the performance. The crowd has followed you here thinking that you are Tyramin. They want more magic. Tyramin will give it to them. By morning they will barely remember what you look like. They will only remember this face.” She patted the painted paper in her arms. “You’ll be safe in the streets, then. The night wardens will have gone to bed; nobody will remember anything, except that Tyramin played one of his wonderful tricks again and filled the warehouse for his performance.”

  “And then what?”

  “What?”

  He gazed at her, hearing very clearly, she saw, all she did not say. “I don’t even recognize myself,” he said simply. “Where do I go to forget?”