Space Magic

by Levine, David D.

  “Hmm. The Dragon can be invoked with the appropriate herbs, perhaps, but the Circle...”

  Su, Zhang, and the armorer talked for a long time, while the torches burned down and were replaced. Soldiers came and went, calling out watches at intervals. Finally, at the beginning of the last watch before dawn, they agreed that no better plan could be devised.

  “It will be dangerous,” advised the armorer. “The Dragon of the West is not easily tamed.”

  “I understand,” said Su.

  Zhang’s expression was serious. “Those who form the circle must remain behind. I cannot ask you to do this.”

  Su matched Zhang’s gaze with her own. “I have no choice,” she said. “The charm is tied to me. All I ask is that you give me a sharp knife, so that I may choose the moment of my death.”

  Zhang held Su’s gaze for a moment, then closed his eyes and bowed his head. Without a word, he drew the sheathed knife from his own belt and handed it to her. She bowed to him as she accepted it.

  “Come,” said the armorer. “We have little time.”

  They lit incense, and burned herbs, and spilled wine upon the ground. And then Su found herself kneeling before a large stone, trembling as though from cold though the night was still sweltering. Namo Guan Shi Yin Pusa, she prayed, as she held out her bracelet in her two hands and placed it on the stone.

  The armorer set his chisel on the bracelet, just where the Dragon of the West’s tail entered its mouth. “When you are ready,” he said quietly, and raised his mallet, awaiting her signal.

  Su looked into his eyes, and took a deep breath. Then she gave a fierce nod, and as the armorer brought his mallet down she spoke a word of power.

  The bracelet shimmered and tingled between her fingers for a moment before the metal parted.

  “Ah!” Su cried out, as cold fire burned along her arms and across her chest. It was as though she hugged a huge, invisible tree of ice—her arms were forced into a circle by the pressure of the spell, and a cold blast of air blew upward into her face. But though the broken bracelet seared her fingers with its chill, she held on.

  Then she felt warm fingers on her hands. It was Chen, Zhang’s youngest surviving lieutenant. All the lieutenants had volunteered for this duty, but Zhang had insisted that the skills of the other two could not be lost. Chen held tightly to Su’s trembling hands, his face impassive.

  “I... I will release my left hand,” Su said through chattering teeth, and Chen shifted his grip so that his right hand held Su’s left and his left grasped the bracelet.

  “I am ready,” said Chen.

  Su squeezed her eyes tightly shut and let go with her left hand.

  Then she screamed, as a burning-cold wall of wind forced her arms apart. Chen cried out at the same time, but he held her left hand with a firm grip.

  Su opened her eyes. Her arms and Chen’s formed a nearly circular loop, the two of them grasping the broken bracelet on one side and each other’s hands on the other. Looking down, though her eyes watered from the chill wind, she saw—not her own feet and Chen’s, but a pure unmarked patch of snow. “It’s working!” she gasped.

  Two more volunteers joined the circle. Soldiers. One cursed as the cold seared his hands; the other only clenched his jaw. The circle was now nearly a man’s height across.

  Chen and the man to his right now lowered themselves to one knee and dropped their joined hands to the floor, while Su and the fourth man raised the bracelet as high as they could. The circle was now a tilted ellipse, and the fierce wind pouring out of it whipped the clothing of the men nearby.

  “Go!” Zhang yelled into the gale. “Civilians first, then soldiers! Officers last! Hurry!”

  Women and children stepped over Chen’s hand and ducked under Su’s, squinting against the wind and gasping as their bare feet touched the snow. But they pressed ahead, driven by the knowledge that Yao would soon attack. Old men followed, and more women, some carrying babies and leading children. The warmth of their bodies as they passed eased Su’s chattering teeth, a little, and they stepped through the circle quickly and in good order, but as the civilians went on and on Su’s trembling began to shake her entire body.

  Namo Guan Shi Yin Pusa, she prayed, not knowing how much longer she could hold on.

  Then a warm weight settled on her shoulders. It was a horse blanket, and it stank, but it helped immensely. She looked over her shoulder and saw Zhang placing another blanket on the man to her left.

  The parade of women, children, and men continued. Ice caked in the folds of the blanket, and Su’s hands ached from the cold. Namo Guan Shi Yin Pusa.

  Her prayers were interrupted by Zhang’s harsh, commanding voice. “This is too slow!” he said, and placed his hand on the bracelet.

  “No!” Su cried out, but it was too late—Zhang had inserted himself into the circle.

  “Two by two!” he yelled, and the civilians complied, walking two abreast from the heat and dust of Guang-xi into the cold and snow of the Xian mountains.

  “Zhang, how could you?” Su called to him across the endless flow of heads and shoulders. “You cannot remain behind. The people need you!”

  “The people need me now,” he replied in a matter-of-fact tone. Snow was already accumulating in his beard. “And I could not allow myself to live, knowing that my brave priestess stayed behind to save me.”

  Su’s head bowed, and her knees sagged. “Oh, Zhang...” The cold bit through the heavy horse blanket, and she began to tremble anew.

  And then, impossibly, Zhang began to chuckle.

  “What do you find funny in this situation?” she demanded of him.

  “It reminds me of when I was a child,” he said. “Do you know ‘Little Mousey Brown’?”

  Shivering, Su just looked at him.

  “It is a circle dance the Li children do. You hold hands in a circle, and dance around, and sing.” And then he opened his mouth, and in a frog-like bass he began to sing:

  “He climbed up the candlestick,

  The little mousey brown,

  To steal and eat tallow,

  And he couldn’t get down.”

  To her own astonishment, Su recognized the rhyme, though she hadn’t thought of it in years. She began to swing her arms gently back and forth as she joined Zhang in the second verse:

  “He called for his grandma,

  But his grandma was in town,

  So he doubled up into a wheel,

  And rolled himself down.”

  She was nearly unable to finish the verse, she was laughing so hard. Laughing like a child in the snows of Xian. “Yes, we had this rhyme in Xian,” she gasped. “And at the end, when the mousey roooolled himself down, we would all...”

  She stopped.

  “Would what?” asked Zhang.

  She explained how the Xian version of the dance ended. “Do you think...”

  “I don’t know.” Zhang’s face grew thoughtful. “We can try.”

  Newly invigorated, the circle waited while the last of the civilians stepped through and the first of the soldiers followed them. Soon only a handful of soldiers and one lieutenant remained in the wind-whipped room. But then the last two scouts hurried in and barred the door behind themselves. “Yao has broken through the blockade!” said one, sweat running down his face.

  “He will find a surprise,” said Zhang. “Go!”

  The scout ducked under Su and Zhang’s hands, joined at the bracelet, and vanished into the snow. “Good luck,” said the lieutenant as he followed, leaving the room empty save for the circle of five and the whistling wind.

  Their isolation did not last long. A moment later came a heavy thud at the barred door, and the latch splintered.

  “Shall we roll ourselves down?” said Zhang, but though his words were light his expression was serious. None of them knew what the consequences of their action might be.

  “Yes,” said Su, and raised the bracelet high. “Let us roll ourselves down.”

  A second thud,
and the door crashed into pieces.

  The man opposite the bracelet took a deep breath and, without releasing his grip on either side, ran under Su and Zhang’s hands.

  The circle turned itself inside-out.

  Su felt as though she, herself, were turning inside-out.

  The last thing she saw in the garrison of Guang-xi was Yao’s face, livid with anger, his hair blown back by the wind from Xian.

  And then she found herself standing in the snow—in a cold but gentle breeze. A natural, not supernatural, cold. The sun was just rising, causing the trampled snow to steam gently.

  Su sagged to her knees, and the broken bracelet dropped to the snow beside her. It was only inert metal now.

  “How far from here to the temple?” Zhang said to her.

  “Half a day’s walk.”

  “Then let us begin,” he said, and extended his hand.

  General Zhang Hua returned to Li from Xian the next spring. With the support of the priestesses of Miao Feng Shan, the advantage of surprise, and the loyalty of the people of Li, he was able to not only re-take the Li territory lost to Wu, but overcome the conscript forces of Yao and capture the Wu capital. He went on to found a great dynasty, ruling for many years with the help of his chief adviser Yüen Su.

  He is known to this day as the Compassionate Emperor.

  Tk’Tk’Tk

  Walker’s voice recorder was a beautiful thing of aluminum and plastic, hard and crisp and rectangular. It sat on the waxy countertop, surrounded by the lumpy excreted-looking products of the local technology. Unique selling proposition, he thought, and clutched the leather handle of his grandfather’s briefcase as though it were a talisman.

  Shkthh pth kstphst, the shopkeeper said, and Walker’s hypno-implanted vocabulary provided a translation: “What a delightful object.” Chitinous fingers picked up the recorder, scrabbling against the aluminum case with a sound that Walker found deeply disturbing. “What does it do?”

  It took him a moment to formulate a reply. Even with hypno, Thfshpfth was a formidably complex language. “It listens and repeats,” he said. “You talk all day, it remembers all. Earth technology. Nothing like it for light-years.” The word for “light-year” was hkshkhthskht, difficult to pronounce. He hoped he’d gotten it right.

  “Indeed yes, most unusual.” The pink frills, or gills, at the sides of the alien’s head throbbed. It did not look down—its faceted eyes and neckless head made that impossible—but Walker judged its attention was on the recorder and not on himself. Still, he kept smiling and kept looking the alien in the eyes with what he hoped would be interpreted as a sincere expression.

  “Such a unique object must surely be beyond the means of such a humble one as myself,” the proprietor said at last. Sthshsk, such-a-humble-one-as-myself—Walker could die a happy man if he never heard those syllables again.

  Focus on value, not price. “Think how useful,” he hissed in reply. “Never forget things again.” He wasn’t sure you could use htpthtk, “things,” in that way, but he hoped it got the point across.

  “Perhaps the honored visitor might wish to partake of a cup of thshsh?”

  Walker’s smile became rigid. Thshsh was a beverage nearly indistinguishable from warm piss. But he’d learned that to turn down an offer of food or drink would bring negotiations to an abrupt close. “This-humble-one-accepts-your-most-generous-offer,” he said, letting the memorized syllables flow over his tongue.

  He examined the shopkeeper’s stock as it prepared the drink. It all looked like the products of a sixth-grade pottery class, irregular clots of brown and gray. But the aliens’ biotech was far beyond Earth’s—some of these lumps would be worth thousands back home. Too bad he had no idea which ones. His expertise lay elsewhere, and he was here to sell, not buy.

  The shopkeeper itself was a little smaller than most of its kind, about a hundred forty centimeters tall, mostly black, with yellow spine-tips and green eyes. Despite its insectile appearance, it was warm-blooded—under its chitin it had bones and muscle and organs not unlike Walker’s own. But its mind and culture were even stranger than its disturbing mouth-parts.

  “The cup of friendship,” the alien said, offering a steaming cup of thshsh. Walker suppressed a shudder as his fingers touched the alien’s—warm, covered with fine hairs, and slightly sticky—but he nodded politely and raised the cup to his lips.

  He sipped as little as he felt he could politely get away with. It was still vile.

  “Very good,” he said.

  Forty-five minutes later the conversation finally returned to the voice recorder. “Ownership of this most wondrous object is surely beyond price. Perhaps the honored guest would be willing to lend it for a short period?”

  “No trial period necessary. Satisfaction is guaranteed.” He was taking a risk with that, he knew, but the recorder had never failed him in all the years he’d owned it.

  Tk’tk’tk, the alien said, tapping its mouthparts together. There was no translation for that in Walker’s vocabulary. He wanted to throttle the thing—couldn’t it even stick to its own language?—but he struggled not to show his impatience.

  After a pause, the alien spread a hand—a gesture that meant nothing to Walker. “Perhaps the honored owner could be compensated for the temporary use of the property.”

  “Humbly requesting more details.”

  “A loan of this type is generally for an indefinite period. The compensation is, of course, subject to negotiation...”

  “You make offer?” he interrupted. He realized that he was not being as polite as he could be. But it was already late afternoon, and he hadn’t eaten since breakfast—and if he didn’t conclude this deal successfully he might not have enough money for lunch.

  Tk’tk’tk again. “Forty-three,” it said at last.

  Walker seethed at the offer. He had hoped to sell the recorder for enough to live on for at least a week, and his hotel alone—barely worthy of the name—cost twenty-seven a night. But he had already spent most of a day trying to raise some cash, and this was the only concrete offer he’d gotten.

  “Seventy?”

  The alien’s gills, normally in constant slight motion, stopped. Walker knew he had offended it somehow, and his heart sank. But his smile never wavered.

  “Seventy is a very inopportune number. To offer seventy to one of your exalted status would be a great insult.”

  Damn these aliens and their obscure numerology! Walker began to sputter an apology.

  “Seventy-three, on the other hand,” the shopkeeper continued, “is a number with an impeccable lineage. Would the honored guest accept compensation in this amount?”

  He was so busy trying to apologize that he almost didn’t recognize the counter-offer for what it was. But some salesman’s instinct, some fragment of his father’s and his grandfather’s DNA, noticed it, and managed to hiss out “This-humble-one-accepts-your-most-generous-offer” before he got in any more trouble.

  It took another hour before the shopkeeper actually counted the money—soft brown lumps like rabbit droppings, each looking exactly like the others—into Walker’s hand. He passed his reader over them; it smelled the lumps and told him they were three seventeens, two nines, and a four, totaling seventy-three as promised. He sorted them into different pockets so he wouldn’t accidentally give the luggage-carrier a week’s salary as a tip again. It angered him to be dependent on the Chokasti-made reader, but he would rather use alien technology than try to read the aliens’ acrid pheromonal “writing” with his own nose.

  Walker pressed through the labia of the shop entrance into the heat and noise and stink of the street. Hard orange shafts of dusty late-afternoon sun glinted dully on the scuttling carapaces of the populace: little merchants and bureaucrats, big laborers and warriors, hulking mindless transporters. No cars, no autoplanes... just a rustling mass of aliens, chuttering endlessly in their harsh sibilant language, scraping their hard spiny limbs and bodies against each other and the rounded,
gourd-like walls. Here and there a knot of two or three in conversation blocked traffic, which simply clambered over them. The aliens had no concept of personal space.

  Once a swarm of juveniles had crawled right over him—a nightmare of jointed legs and chitinous bodies, and a bitter smell like rusty swamp water. They had knocked his briefcase from his hand, and he had scrambled after it under the scrabbling press of their bodies. He shuddered at the memory—not only did the briefcase contain his most important papers, it had belonged to his grandfather. His father had given it to him when he graduated from college.

  He clutched his jacket tight at his throat, gripped his briefcase firmly under his arm, and shouldered through the crowd.

  -o0o-

  Walker sat in the waiting room of his most promising prospect—to be blunt, his only prospect—a manufacturer of building supplies whose name translated as Amber Stone. Five days in transit, eight weeks in this bug-infested hellhole of a city, a fifteen-megabyte database of contacts from five different species, and all he had to show for it was one lousy stinking customer. Potential customer at that... it hadn’t signed anything yet. But Walker had been meeting with it every couple of days for two weeks, and he was sure he was right on the edge of a very substantial sale. All he had to do was keep himself on site and on message.

  The light in the palm-sized windows shaded from orange to red before Amber Stone finally appeared from its inner office. “Ah, human! So very pleased that you honor such a humble one as myself with your delightful presence.” The aliens couldn’t manage the name “Walker,” and even “human” came out more like hsshp’k.

  “Honor is mine, Amber Stone. You read information I give you, three days?”

  “Most intriguing, yes. Surely no finer literature has ever been produced.”

  “You have questions?”

  Questions it did have, yes indeed, no end of questions—who performed the translation, where did you have it reproduced, is it really as cold there as they say, did you come through Pthshksthpt or by way of Sthktpth... but no questions about the product. I’m building rapport with the customer, Walker thought grimly, and kept up his end of the conversation as best he could.