Science and Sorcery

by Christopher Nuttall

  “But then he wouldn't have gotten the girl,” Frank said, sticking up his hand. “That Gwen said that she admired Ernest because of his name.”

  Calvin would have rolled his eyes a few days ago. Frank wasn't as bad as Moe – no one could be as bad as Moe – but he’d summed up the core problem with courting a girl. If you told her the truth, she might not want you any longer – and if you lied to her, your lies would inevitably come out. Of course, girls did have a remarkable talent for digging up the past when it should have been left safely buried...

  He laughed at himself in the privacy of his own head. How could he complain about Frank’s theory of female courtship when he’d done far worse?

  “Then perhaps he would have realised that Gwen wasn't worth marrying,” Miss Reynolds said, bluntly. “Lust is one thing; building a relationship is something a great deal harder.”

  She smiled at the class. “Miss Hoover didn't leave us any homework assignments for you” – there was a brief outbreak of delighted muttering – “so I’m going to ask you to read through the play again, if you haven’t read it already, of course. Dismissed.”

  “Hot teacher,” Frank muttered, as they pushed their way out of the classroom. His girlfriend promptly elbowed him in the side. “I would do her if she asked.”

  Calvin stopped dead as he suddenly realised what it was about Miss Reynolds that had called to him. She had magic. Not the strange magic that was preparing to Change Sandra into something else, but true magic, the ability to manipulate mana. He wasn't sure how he knew, yet he was certain of it. Miss Reynolds was a magician.

  And a perfect target, Harrow’s voice said. She’d been oddly silent all day, not even bothering to comment when he’d wondered about her motives. Now she was breaking into his thoughts again. She would supply enough mana to be the second sacrifice.

  “Now hang on,” Calvin said, out loud. Several pupils glanced at him and he found himself flushing, just before Frank tossed him a handful of mocking comments about talking to himself. He was careful to subvocalise the next few words. “She’s a teacher.”

  She is a waste of space, Harrow said. She doesn't teach you anything useful.

  Calvin rolled his eyes. To hear Harrow talk, everyone in her era had lived like one of the heroes from Atlas Shrugged, men and women who had been able to do anything and everything they might have wanted to do. Calvin had read it at fourteen and while he found the idea of being pushed down by society to be familiar, it hadn't taken him long to spot the logical flaw in the book’s argument. If everyone was a Great Mind, able to declaim for hours on philosophy and design the next great invention, who did the cooking, cleaning and – for that matter – production? Every great inventor stood on two sets of shoulders; the shoulders of the inventors who had come before him and the shoulders of the men who looked after him while he worked.

  “She’s still a frigging teacher,” he said, carefully forming the words in his mind. “When can we hope to go after her? We will be exposed.”

  You are not thinking, Harrow said. You are already exposed.

  “I don’t understand,” Calvin said, finally. He'd covered himself, hadn't he? The fact that the NYPD hadn't broken down his door and arrested him proved that they hadn't connected him with any of the murders, let alone Marie’s rape. “How am I exposed?”

  Harrow’s laughter echoed in his mind. She is not just a person who is charging herself with mana, but a magician who has already learned control, she said. Do you understand that her arrival is no coincidence? Someone has connected the four victims – six, if you count your little jest on the sporting fields – and drawn the right conclusion. The net is already tightening on you.

  Calvin opened his mouth to argue, but Harrow overrode him. Your shields appear to have held, but you will slip, sooner or later, and then they will have you. Right now, you are far better trained than anyone learning completely from scratch, yet that will change. You knew you would have to run soon.

  “Right,” Calvin said. How the hell had he fallen so far? “Why don’t I just run now?”

  Because this is an opportunity to remove one of the magicians opposing us as well as making a second sacrifice, Harrow said. Because if you run now, they will not need to catch you in the act to know that it was you. Because right now your only hope is freeing me, so that I may begin building the brave new world. Or you can die. They will not let you live. They would never have let you live.

  Calvin had watched Senator Whitehall on television. The man had demanded the death penalty for vampires, aided by a leaked report that had warned that it was unlikely that vampires could ever be reasoned with or rehabilitated, and for werewolves to be permanently confined in cages. Unsurprisingly; the recent full moon had seen nearly a hundred deaths, all seemingly innocent civilians. And he wanted magicians to be very strictly controlled...

  It was funny, in a sad way. He’d planned to leave home eventually, perhaps go to college in a different state, but not like this. But, as he walked to the next class, he realised that the decision had already been made. Miss Reynolds was going to die.

  ***

  Misty sat at Miss Hoover’s desk, mulling over her impressions in her mind. Magic sensitivity wasn't telepathy, unfortunately; whatever the ethical implications of telepathy, it might have allowed her to sort out the murderer from the innocents. She'd picked up all sorts of impressions, but most of them seemed to be flickers running through the background mana rather than tremors caused by a magician.

  The class had been...strange. Certainly, every class contained its share of enthusiastic children and ones who really couldn't be bothered, whose mere presence dragged the rest of the kids down. If the law allowed them to separate kids by ability, it might have been much easier to teach the entire school...

  She pushed the thought aside – it was an old frustration, one born of actually caring about the kids she was supposed to teach – and concentrated on her impressions. Some had been shocked, suffering from stress; she’d heard that psychiatrists in New York were actually being overworked after the events of the last month. Chances were that some of them genuinely needed help and they weren't going to get it. Other kids had been boisterous, as if they had been trying to convince themselves that nothing was wrong. And some had just withdrawn into themselves and stayed there.

  Poor kids, she thought, sadly.

  She keyed the hidden microphone built into the pin she wore on her jacket. “Nothing so far,” she reported. The whole idea of carrying about a permanently open mike still sounded weird to her, and she really wasn't looking forward to going to the toilet. “Just a faint sense of doom. I’ll keep my eyes open.”

  And then it was time for her next class.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Washington DC, USA

  Day 31

  “Why don’t you just test everyone in the school for magic?”

  “Because that would be illegal,” Caitlyn said, patiently. For someone who was supposed to be in charge, she seemed to have very little actual authority. “And because we don’t have any real proof, just suspicions.”

  Golem suspected a human would have punched a wall in frustration at this point. “Are you aware,” he said, “that the most evil sorcerers in all of history are just waiting to be released from their confinement? Or that one of them has already got her hooks into some poor damned fool who is helpless to resist her manipulations?”

  He’d tried to explain the implications to Caitlyn and the other researchers, but they hadn’t listened. Or, rather, they hadn't understood. A full-fledged sorcerer would be a difficult opponent even for someone of Enchanter’s calibre; the modern world would be almost defenceless against him once the mana level rose to the point where he could use some really destructive spells. And Golem was aware of his own limitations as a teacher. A human sorcerer from his own time would find it much easier to train an apprentice – and, at the same time, corrupt him to the point where he wouldn't know right from wrong.

&nb
sp; “Right now,” he added, “he has killed at least one person to boost his mana. A few more murders and he’ll have the power to break the Queen of Nightmares out of her prison. And then you’ll have to deal with her, somehow, before she breaks the rest of her comrades out of the prison, or starts taking over the world herself.”

  Caitlyn didn't understand, he realised. The modern world didn't seem to think much of personal power, at least in countries governed by the rule of law. Even a man with a gun couldn't do that much damage before he was stopped, even if it was more damage than a swordsman could have done in his wet dreams. But a sorcerer, armed with the knowledge to use mana properly, could dominate – or destroy – an entire city. The wards he’d been teaching his students couldn't hope to protect all of the possible targets. They could barely hope to extend over some of the most important buildings in the country.

  “Even if we’re wrong,” he said, “and he has no intention of breaking the Thirteen out of their prison, he’s still going to be a great deal more powerful than anyone else.”

  “Because he has an additional supply of mana to draw on,” Caitlyn said.

  “Yes,” Golem answered, flatly.

  The human race never ceased to confuse him. There had been nine murders following the discovery of the ritual murder in New York, all what the humans called copy-cat crimes. The only thing that had kept Golem from panic, or at least the closest he could come to outright panic, had been the discovery that none of the symbols or runes carved onto the other murder victims were actually magical, let alone anything to do with the Thirteen. He knew he should be grateful – ten victims meant enough magical power to teleport, as well as breaking through wards and human transfiguration – but he just wanted to deal with Harrow’s ally before it was too late. And prepare the new magicians for their first real test.

  “I believe that I should go to New York,” Golem said, after a moment. “Matt will require my assistance in executing the rogue sorcerer.”

  Caitlyn frowned. “We are trying to take him alive...”

  “And that may be impossible,” Golem said. “You had problems confining werewolves. What makes you think that you can confine a sorcerer?”

  They hadn’t really believed Golem’s warnings about the strength of a werewolf. Their formidable strength was boosted by their regeneration abilities, allowing them to damage themselves in their struggles to break out of confinement. In hindsight, iron bars – iron helped to dampen some forms of magic – simply hadn't been strong enough to hold the creatures. They’d been very lucky that only one werewolf had managed to break free, only to be shot down moments later. A team of swordsmen would have been nothing more than werewolf food.

  A sorcerer could be incredibly difficult to keep prisoner, particularly if they managed to store enough mana before being captured. He could manipulate his guards, open locks...or simply blow his way out of the prison. The only real solution was to force him to drain his power, which was incredibly difficult even for a first-rank sorcerer, of which they had none. Any of the Thirteen could have done it, but the Thirteen were on the wrong side.

  “Very well,” Caitlyn said, finally. “You may go to New York.”

  Golem didn’t smile as he lumbered out of her office and back towards the rooms he’d been given, barely aware of the two Navy SEALs following him at a distance. No one had ever shown him the consideration of giving him a set of rooms, even though he didn't really need them. He needed no sleep, nor did he have to eat or drink; he could and did keep lecturing students all day, if necessary. Most of them would never have become true sorcerers in his time – they just didn't have the complex set of talents that made up a sorcerer – but some of them had potential. And no one had ever considered the advantages of trying to teach several dozen students at once.

  Enchanter had been an apprentice before graduating – and he’d taken on four other apprentices in his time. Tradition said, quite firmly, that one master was to teach one student at a time, just to ensure that the master could give his sole student undivided attention. What would be harmless when studying a mundane subject could be disastrous when magic was involved. But Golem had nearly thirty students and they were practicing, sharing notes, with or without his approval. Some of them had improved when their peers had helped to put old concepts into modern words. A handful were even on the verge of becoming research wizards in their own right.

  And where exactly would that lead them?

  Golem had told precisely one untruth to his new allies, one that Enchanter had bound him never to reveal to another living soul. He did know the true nature of the prison Enchanter had devised for the Thirteen, and the underlying secret that Enchanter had never shared with the rest of the sorcerers in his world. Very few sorcerers understood mana as thoroughly as Enchanter. It was quite possible that Enchanter was the only one who had ever truly understood it.

  The modern world was ignorant about magic, but that hadn't stopped their storytellers from coming up with all sorts of concepts, so many of them that they had to get some of them right. Their combined imagination was far greater than anything Enchanter had ever enjoyed, or even the Thirteen themselves. Mana had been part of Enchanter’s world; few had questioned its presence on any fundamental level, just as a modern scientist might ignore the law of gravity. But they were poking and prodding at mana, because it was something new to them, and they were likely to uncover the truth.

  And then?

  Golem didn't know, but he doubted that it would be anything good.

  A human would have shaken his head. Instead, Golem returned to his rooms, picked up the small bag of tools he’d painstakingly made, and then headed for the helipad. The sooner he was in New York, the better.

  ***

  “...Two hunters in Alaska saw a large flying creature and took a shot at it,” the newsreader said, as Caitlyn switched to CNN. “The creature was hit and fell out of the sky. When they reached the body, they discovered a small dragon-like creature that was previously unidentified.”

  Caitlyn sucked in her breath as the camera panned across the creature’s body. The dragon – if it was a dragon, as Golem had said that most dragons were the size of jumbo jets – was tiny, barely larger than a man. Indeed, looking at the body, Caitlyn found herself wondering if it was some kind of were-dragon, a human who could transform into dragon-form at will. If one looked at it just right, one could just imagine that the rear set of claws were actually human feet...

  “The Alaskan Department of Fish and Game condemned the hunters who shot the creature on the grounds that they killed a member of an endangered species,” the newsreader continued. “However, it seems unlikely that charges can be brought against them, as dragons were not included on the endangered species list prior to their actual discovery. A team of wildlife experts from the department are believed to be preparing to search the area for additional dragons. In the meantime, the Department has issued a strong recommendation that wildlife hunters avoid the area, as the dragons may be dangerous.”

  Caitlyn rolled her eyes. Barely a month ago, everyone would have been checking the date on the report, convinced that it was April 1st. Now...it seemed almost mundane compared to the other reports filtering through the internet and even the mainstream media. There were haunted houses, strange lights seen near places of power...and even weirder reports, coming out of the less developed parts of the world. Something had happened in the Urals, in Russia, but the Russian government wasn't talking. All of the expensive spying systems the United States had produced could only tell them that there had been a high-energy discharge and now thousands of people were fleeing the area.

  “...In other news,” the newsreader said, with the faint tone of someone who barely scraped past her SAN role, “lawyers representing JK Rowling began the process of suing Roy Scranton, who changed his name to Professor Dumbledore and set himself up as a teacher of witchcraft and wizardry. Professor Dumbledore claimed that it was nothing more than harassment and threatened to
turn the lawyers into snakes, or toads, if they ever showed themselves near his school.”

  And a great improvement it would be, Caitlyn thought, as she clicked off the television and looked back at her notes. ‘Professor Dumbledore’ had actually been running his school long before the mana started to leech back into the mundane world, allowing him a chance to claim that he and his students had summoned the magic so that everyone could be magical. The Mage Force had looked into his claims and decided that they were probably baseless; his magic spells were nothing like the spells they’d learned from Golem and besides, he didn't seem to have produced any real magicians. His entire school, the FBI report had concluded, was designed to separate idiots from their money, even if he did seem to take it seriously.

  She picked up the next report, looked down at it, and then shook her head. All she seemed to do was read reports these days. Instead, she stood up and headed for the werewolf confinement facility. Joe Buckley had requested an interview, according to one of the researchers, and it was the least she could do. The werewolves were going to have even more cramped quarters in future.