Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 97

by Maria Dahvana Headley

  They arrived eventually, in a little dog-cart thing; an old man driving, a younger man and the Brother. One small pony, furry like a bear.

  The Brother did the talking, for which I was quite grateful. He was one of the better sort of country Brothers; short man, somewhere between fifty and sixty, a distinct burr to his voice but he spoke clearly and used proper words. The boy was the younger man’s son, the older man’s grandson. He’d been fooling about in a big oak tree, slipped, fell; broken arm and a hideous bash on the head. He hadn’t come round, and it had been a week now. They had to prise his mouth open with the back of a horn spoon to get food and water in; he swallowed all right, but that was all he did. You could stick a needle in his foot half an inch and he wouldn’t even twitch. The swelling on the back of his head had gone down—the Brother disclaimed any medical knowledge, but he was lying—and they’d set the arm and splinted it, for what that was worth.

  I thought; better than killing the restless dead. One of my best subjects at the Studium, though of course we did all our practicals on conscious minds, with a Father sitting a few feet away, watching like a hawk. I’d done one about eighteen months earlier, and it went off just fine; in, found her, straight out again. She followed me like a dog. I’d been relieved when Father Prior told me; it could’ve been something awkward and fiddly, like auspices, or horrible and scary, like a possession. Just in case, I’d brought the book. I’d meant to mug up the relevant chapter, either at the farm or on the coach, but I hadn’t got round to it. Anyway, it had to be better than that empty place.

  It was quite a big house, for a hill-farm; sitting in the well of a valley, with a dense copper-beech hedge on all four sides, as a windbrake. Just the five of them in the house, the Brother said; grandfather, father, mother, the boy and a hired man who slept in the hayloft. The boy was nine years old. The Brother told me his name, but I’m hopeless with names.

  They asked me, did I want to rest after the journey; wash and brush up, something to eat? The correct answer was, of course, No, so I gave it.

  “He’s in here,” the Brother said.

  Big for a hill-farm, but still oppressively small. Downstairs, the big kitchen, with a huge table, fireplace, two hams swinging like dead men on gibbets. A parlor, tiny and dusty and cold. Dairy, scullery, store; doorway through to the cowstalls. Upstairs, one big room and a sort of oversized cupboard, where the boy was. I could just about kneel beside the bed, if I didn’t mind the window-sill digging in the small of my back.

  The hell with that, I thought; I’m a qualified man, a professional, a Father; a wizard. I shouldn’t have to work in conditions you wouldn’t keep pigs in. “Take him downstairs,” I said. “Put him on the kitchen table.”

  They had a job. The stairs in that house were like a bell-tower, tightly coiled and cramped. Father and grandfather did the heavy lifting, while I watched. It’s an odd thing about me. Sometimes, the more compassion is called for, the less capable I am of feeling it. I offer no explanation or excuse.

  “He shouldn’t have been moved,” the Brother hissed in my ear, just loud enough so that everyone could hear. “In his condition—”

  ”Yes, thank you,” I said, in my best arrogant-city-bastard voice. I couldn’t say why I was behaving like this. Sometimes I do. “Now, if you’ll all stay well back, I’ll see what I can do.”

  I looked at the boy, and I could remember the theory perfectly, every last detail, every last lecture note. His eyes were closed; he had a stupid face, fat girly lips, fat cheeks. If he lived, he’d grow up tall, solid, double-chinned, gormless; the son of the farm. Pork fat and home-brewed beer; he’d be spherical by the time he was forty, strong enough to wrestle a bullock to its knees, slow and tireless, infuriatingly calm, a man of few words; respected at market, shrewd and fat, his bald patch hidden under a hat that would never come off, probably not even in bed. A solid, productive life, which it was my duty to save. Lucky me.

  Theory; theory is your lifeline, they used to tell me, your driftwood in a shipwreck. I reminded myself of the basic propositions.

  To recover a lost mind, first make an entrance. This is usually done by visualizing yourself as a penetrating object; a drill bit, a woodpecker’s beak, a maggot. The drill bit works for me, though for some reason I tend to be a carpenter’s auger, wound in with a brace. I go in through the spiral flakes of waste bone thrown clear by the wide grooves of the cutter. I assume it’s from some childhood memory, watching Granddad at work in the barn. You’re not really supposed to use personal memories, but it’s easier, for someone with my limited imagination.

  Once you’re in; first ward, immediately, because you never know what might be waiting for you in there. I raised first ward as soon as I felt myself go through. I use scutum fidei, visualize a shield. Mine’s round, with a hole in it at twelve o’clock so I can see what’s going on.

  I peered through the hole. No nasty creatures with dripping fangs crouched to pounce, which was nice. Count to ten and lower the shield slowly.

  I looked around. This is the crucial bit, and you mustn’t rush. How long it takes depends on the strength of your gift, so naturally I take ages. The light gradually increases. First things first; get your bearings. Orientate yourself, taking special care to get a fix on the point you came in by. Well, obviously. If you lose your entry-point, you’re stuck; in someone else’s head forever. You really don’t want that.

  I lined up on the corners of a ceiling, drawing diagonal lines and fixing on their point of origin, measuring the angles with my imaginary protractor (it’s brass, with numbers in gothic-italic) One-oh-five, seventy-five; repeat the numbers four times out loud, to make sure they’re loaded into memory. Fine. Now I know where I am and how to get out again. One-oh-five, seventy-five. Now, then. Let the dog see the rabbit.

  I was in a room. It’s nearly always an interior; with kids, practically guaranteed it’s their bedroom, or the room they sleep in, depending on social class and domestic arrangements. In all relevant essentials, it was the room upstairs I had him carried down from. Excellent; nice and small, not many places to hide anything. So much easier when you’re dealing with a subject of limited intelligence.

  I visualized a body for myself. I tend not to be me. With children, it’s usually best to be a nice lady; the kid’s mother, if possible. I’m not good enough to do specific people, and I have real problems being women. So I was a nice old man instead.

  Hello, I said. Where are you?

  Don’t worry if they don’t answer. Sometimes, they do, sometimes they don’t. I walked round the bed, knelt down, looked under it. There was a cupboard; one of those triangular jobs, wedged in a corner. I opened that. For some reason, it was full of the skins and bones of dead animals. None of my business; I closed it. I pulled the covers off the bed, and lifted the pillow.

  Odd, I thought, and touched base with theory. The boy must still be alive, or else there would be no room. If he’s alive, he must be in here somewhere. He can’t be invisible, not inside his own head. He can, of course, be anything he likes, so long as it’s animate and alive. A cockroach, for example, or a flea. I sighed. I get all the rotten jobs.

  I adjusted the scale, making the room five times bigger. Go up in easy stages. If he was being a cockroach, he’d now be a rat-sized cockroach. If he was being a rat, of course, he’d be cat-sized and capable of giving me a nasty bite. I used lorica, just in case. I looked under the bed again.

  I visualized a clock, in the middle of the wall opposite the door. It told me I’d been inside for ten minutes. The recommended maximum is thirty. Really first-rate practitioners have been known to stay in for an hour and still come out more or less in one piece; that’s material for a leading article in the journals. I searched again, this time paying more attention to the contents of the cupboard. Dried, desiccated animal skins; squirrels, rabbits, rats. No fleas, mites or ticks. So much for that theory.

  I visualized a glass jug, to represent my energy level. You can use yourself up su
rprisingly quickly and not know it. Just as well I did. My jug was a third empty. You want to save at least a fifth just to get out again. I visualized calibrations, so as to be sure.

  Quick think. The recommended course of action would be to visualize a tracking agent (spaniel, terrier, ferret) but that takes a fair chunk of your resources; also, it burns energy while it’s in use, and getting rid of it takes energy, too. I drew a distinct red line on my measuring-jug, and a blue line just above it. The alternative to a tracker is to increase the scale still further; twenty times, say, in which case your cockroach will be a wolf-sized monster that could jump you and bite your head off. I was still running lorica, but any effective ward burns energy. If I found myself with a fight on my hands, I could dip below that essential red line in a fraction of a second. No, the hell with that.

  I visualized a terrier. I’m not a dog person, so my terrier was a bit odd; very short, stumpy legs and a rectangular head. Still, it went at it with great enthusiasm, wagging its imaginary tail and making little yapping noises. All round the room, nose into everything. Then it sat on the floor and looked at me, as if to say, Well?

  Not looking good. My jug was half empty, I’d used up my repertoire of approved techniques, and found nothing. Just my luck to get a special case, a real collector’s item. Senior research fellows would be fighting each other for the chance of a go at this one, but I just wanted to get the job done and clear out. Wasted on me, you might say.

  I vanished the dog. Quick think. There had to be something else I could try, but nothing occurred to me. Didn’t make sense; he had to be in here somewhere, or there’d be no room. He couldn’t be invisible. He could only turn himself into something he could imagine—and it had to be real; no fantasy creatures the size of a pin-head. At five times magnification, a red mite would be plainly visible; also, the dog would’ve found it. Tracking agents, even inferior ones visualized by me, smell life. If he was in here, the dog would’ve found him.

  So—

  As required by procedure, I considered abandoning the attempt and getting out. This would, of course, mean the boy would die; you can’t go back in twice, that’s an absolute. I’d be within my rights, faced with an enigma on this scale. The failure would be noted on my record, of course, but there’d be an annotation, no blame attaches, and it wouldn’t be the first time, not by a long way. The kid would die; not my problem. I’d have done my best, and that’s all you have to do.

  Or I could think of something. Such as what?

  They tell you; be wise, don’t improvise. If in doubt, get out. Making stuff up as you go along is mightily frowned on, in much the same way as you’re not encouraged to fry eggs in a fireworks factory. There’s no knowing what you might invent, and outside controlled conditions, invention could lead to the Cartographic Commission having to redraw the maps for a whole county. Or you could make a hole in a wall, which is the worst thing anybody can do. At the very least, I’d be sure to end up in front of a Board, facing charges of unauthorized innovation and divergence. Saving the life of some farm kid would be an excuse, but not a very good one.

  I could think of something. Such as—

  There’s no such thing as magic. Instead, there’s the science we don’t properly understand, not yet. There are effects that work, and we have no idea why. One of these is spes aeternitatis, a wretchedly inconsistent, entirely inexplicable conjuring trick that no self-respecting Father would condescend to use. That’s because they can’t get it to work reliably.

  I can.

  Spes aeternitatis is an appearances-adjuster. You can use it to find hidden objects, or translate lies, or tell if a slice of cake or a glass of wine’s got poison in it. I do it by visualizing everything that’s wrong in light blue. It’s a tiny little scrap of talent that I’ve got and practically everybody else hasn’t; it’s like being double-jointed, or wiggling your nostrils like a rabbit.

  I closed my eyes and opened them again, and saw a light blue room. Everything light blue. Everything false.

  Oh, I thought; then, one-oh-five, seventy five, and I started lining up diagonals for my escape. But that wasn’t to be, unfortunately. The room blurred and reappeared, and it was all different. It was my room; the room I slept in until I was fifteen years old.

  He was sitting on the end of the bed; a slight man, almost completely bald, with a small nose and a soft chin, small hands, short, thin legs. I’d put him at about fifty years old. His skin was purple, like a grape.

  “You were wrong,” he said, looking up at me. “The talent survives death.”

  “That’s interesting,” I said. “How did you get in here?”

  He smiled. “You practically invited me in,” he said. “When I heard that fool behind me, with the axe, I looked at you. You felt sorry for me. You thought; is he not a man and a Brother, or words to that effect. I used Stilicho’s transport, and here I am.”

  I nodded. “I should’ve put up wards.”

  “You should. Careless. Attention to detail isn’t your strongest suit.”

  “The boy,” I said.

  He shrugged. “In there somewhere, I dare say. But we aren’t in his head, we’re in yours. I’ve made myself at home, as you can see.”

  I looked round quickly. The apple-box with the bottom knocked out, where I used to keep my books; it was where it should be, but the books were different. They were new and beautifully bound in tooled calf, and the alphabet their titles were written in was strange to me.

  “My memories,” I said.

  He waved his hand. “Well rid of them,” he said. “Misery and failure, a life wasted, a talent dissipated. You’ll be better off.”

  I nodded. “With yours.”

  “Quite. Oh, they’re not pleasant reading,” he said, with a scowl. “Bitter, angry; memories of bigotry and spite, relentless bad luck, a life of constant setbacks and reverses, a talent misunderstood. You’ll see that I failed the exam the second time because, sitting there in Great School, I suddenly hit on a much better way of achieving unam sanctam; quicker, safer, ruthlessly efficient. I tried it out as soon as the exam was over, and it worked. But I got no marks, so they failed me. I ask you, where’s the sense in that?”

  “You failed the retake,” I said. “What about the first time?”

  He laughed. “I had the flu,” he said. “I was practically delirious, could barely remember my name. Would they listen? No. Rules. You see what I mean. Bad luck and spite at every turn.”

  I nodded. “What happens to me?”

  He looked at me. “You’ll be better off,” he repeated.

  “I’ll stop existing. I’ll be dead.”

  “Not physically,” he said mildly. “Your body, my mind. Your fully qualified licensed-practitioner’s body, and a mind that saw how to improve unam sanctam in a half-second flash of intuition.”

  It says a lot about my self-esteem that I actually considered it, though not for very long. Half a second, maybe. “What happens now?” I asked. “Do we fight, or—?”

  He shrugged.”If you like,” he said, and extended his arm. It was ten feet long, thick as a gatepost. He gripped my throat like a man holding a mouse, and crushed me.

  I guess I was about seventy percent dead when I remembered; I know what to do. I drew a rather shaky second ward; he closed his fingers on thin air, and I was standing behind him.

  He swung round, roaring like a bull. He had bull’s horns sticking out of his forehead. I tried second ward again, but he got there before I did, grabbed my head and smashed my face into the wall.

  Just in time, I remembered; there is no pain. I used Small Mercies, softening the wall into felt, and slipped through his fingers. I was smoke. I hung above him in a cloud. He laughed, and fetched me back with vis mentis. The back of my head hit the floor, which gave way like a mattress. I became a spear, and buried myself in his chest. He used second ward and was the other side of the room.

  “You fight like a first-year,” he said.

  Which was true. I
clenched my mind like a fist; the walls closed in on him, squashing him like a spider under a boot. I felt him, like a nail right through the sole. Back to first ward, and we stood glowering at each other, in opposite corners of the room.

  “You can’t beat me,” he said. “I’ll wear you down and you’ll simply fade away. Face it, what the hell have you got to live for?”

  Valid point. “All right, then,” I said.

  His eyes opened wide. “I win?”

  “You win,” I said.

  He was pleased; very pleased. He grinned at me and raised his hand, just as I got my fingers round the handle of the door and twisted as hard as I could.

  He saw that and opened his mouth to scream. But the door flew open, knocking me back. I closed my eyes. The door was, of course, the intersection of two lines drawn diagonally across the room, at 105 and 75 degrees precisely.

  I opened my eyes. He’d gone. I was in the boy’s room, the room upstairs. The boy was sitting on the floor, legs crossed, hands under his chin. He looked up at me.

  “Well, come on,” I snapped at him. “I haven’t got all day.”

  They were pathetically grateful. Mother in floods of tears, father clinging to my arm, how can we ever thank you, it’s a miracle, you’re a miracle-worker. I wasn’t in the mood. The boy, lying on the kitchen table under a pile of blankets, looked up at me and frowned, as though something about me wasn’t quite right. A quiet, analytical stare; it bothered the hell out of me. I refused food and drink and made father get out the pony and trap and take me out to the crossroads. But the mail won’t be arriving for six hours, he objected; it’s cold and dark, you’ll catch your death.

  I didn’t feel cold.

  At the crossroads, huddling under the smelly old hat father insisted on giving me, I tried to search my mind, to see if he’d really gone. There was, of course, no way he could have survived. I’d opened the door (Rule One; never open the door) and he’d been sucked out of my head out into the open, where there was no talented mind to receive him. Even if he was as strong as he’d claimed to be, there was no way he could have lasted more than three seconds before he broke up and dissipated into the air. There was absolutely nothing he could have done, no way he could have survived.