With a Single Spell loe-2

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  “I am a witch, you know,” Karanissa remarked. “You wizards aren’t the only real magicians around.”

  “I never said we were,” Tobas answered.

  “Derry did.”

  Tobas could think of no good answer to that; instead, he turned back to the Book of Spells.

  The Transporting Tapestry required thirty pounds of gold and thirty of silver, he noticed; he had made the right decision in taking the tapestry rather than any of Peren’s small heap of household furnishings. It also required all the usual makings of a tapestry as well as three fresh pine needles, three candles, one white, one black, one blood-red, a white rose, a red rose, a peculiar sort of incense — a footnote referred him to another book that gave instructions on preparing it — and, if he understood the little cross marking correctly, as he was sure he did, an athame.

  The athame symbol appeared after each mention of cutting the yarn or spun metal for the tapestry; Tobas interpreted that to mean that every thread used in making the tapestry had to be cut with the athame rather than with scissors or an ordinary blade. Obviously, no one but a wizard could possibly make the spell work.

  The initial ritual required one day, from midnight to midnight, and the making of the tapestry called for one full year, though it could be started at any time.

  There were no instructions for repairing or renewing a tapestry that had ceased to function.

  He stared at the page for a long moment, considering the prospect of spending a minimum of a year in this mysterious castle, with the beautiful Karanissa as his only companion.

  Or rather, remembering the way the tray of food had been delivered, his only human companion.

  The idea was not wholly unpleasant, actually; he was not particularly eager to go on wandering and he could think of far worse places a man might call home. However, he would have preferred to have a choice. The castle seemed comfortable enough, but he had never pictured himself making a home in another world, cut off from the rest of the human race.

  Besides, the wine was terrible.

  He looked over the spell again, to see if he had missed anything, and realized that he had badly misjudged the situation. If his only way out was to make an entirely new tapestry, he would be here far longer than a single year; the spell was a high-order one, requiring that every second of that twenty-four-hour ritual be absolutely perfect. He had learned enough from Roggit to know that his chances of performing the spell correctly on the first try, with no other preparation, were very, very slim indeed. In fact, he guessed that it was far more likely the spell would backfire and do something completely different from what he intended it to do, quite possibly something fatal.

  Most likely of all would be for it to do nothing whatsoever.

  Eventually, of course, he could study and practice and work his way up through the other spells, as any apprentice wizard would do, though he would not have the benefit of a master’s advice and encouragement, so it would probably take a good deal longer than the traditional six years. A good journeyman wizard might manage to make a functioning tapestry if the spell was, say, fifth-or sixth-order, and would probably be safe from any real chance of a serious backfire.

  If it were of a significantly higher order than that, as it well might be, well, a journeyman usually took another three years of study to rate as a master, and another nine usually conferred sufficient expertise to use the term “mage.” Some were said to attain Guildmaster status before they were forty, but Tobas understood that to be due as much to politics as ability, and Roggit had once said — enviously — that the youngest grand master was only fifty-eight.

  He might be here for a very long time.

  Or, looking at the list of ingredients again, he might be here forever if the castle garden did not include roses or pines. Even if Derithon had kept those ingredients somewhere on his shelves, after four hundred years pine needles could not possibly be “fresh,” and roses would have withered. Furthermore, he had no way of knowing when midnight was, and the ritual had to be begun exactly at midnight. There might be no midnight in this void. He might live out his entire life in this castle. Unless, of course, he could determine why the return tapestry was not working and remedy it. He began turning pages, looking for a low-order divination that might tell him what was causing the problem.

  He found none; Derithon had apparently not gone in much for divinations. He did come across Varrin’s Greater Propulsion, which he guessed had been the means by which Derithon got his flying castle off the ground, and spent several minutes admiring it, but after that he refused to be distracted further.

  With no divination possible, he realized he would have to figure the problem out for himself. He turned back to the description of the Transporting Tapestry and the three pages of notes, and read through them all carefully.

  If the tapestry was cut, even so much as a single thread, it was as good as destroyed and would never function again; he would have to check that and hope that was not the cause.

  If the tapestry was unraveled, even a single thread out of place, it would stop working, but reweaving the damaged portion in accordance with the spell’s directions would repair it and restore it to operation.

  That he thought he might manage; that would require none of the daylong preliminary spell. The actual weaving of the tapestry did not seem to call for anything much beyond his capabilities.

  He would have to inspect the tapestry very closely for cuts or raveling, even a snagged thread might count.

  The notes explained that each tapestry worked in only one direction and recommended making them in pairs, one for each way; Tobas grimaced ruefully at that advice. Derithon had followed it, but that did Karanissa and himself little good now.

  Derithon’s comments also emphasized the absolute necessity that every detail in the tapestry match exactly with every detail in the actual place. The slightest error could result in a tapestry that led to someplace else entirely from the desired arrival point.

  This was followed by a paragraph of what Tobas at first took to be theoretical musings, suggesting that intentionally creating a faulty tapestry might make an opening out of the everyday World entirely; it was only with a sudden shock as he read that section through for the second time that he realized that that must have been the method by which Derithon had conjured up his private, otherworldy castle. He had not built the castle and then created a tapestry that would transport him to it; he had created the tapestry first, and the tapestry, compelled by its magic to transport Derithon someplace, had created the castle!

  That concept was almost too much for Tobas to deal with; he sat back in his chair and thought it over very carefully before looking at the book again.

  The Transporting Tapestry could create entire new worlds, if he understood it correctly; that was far more than sixth-order! Was he ready to deal with something like that?

  “Gods, no!” he answered himself, inadvertently speaking aloud.

  “No what?” Karanissa asked from behind him.

  He started. “Oh, nothing,” he replied. Unable to resist, he added, “But I think I just figured out how Derithon conjured up this castle.”

  She looked suitably impressed as he turned back to the book.

  He wondered how Derithon had ever had the nerve to try such a thing; the wizard had, according to his own notes, no way of knowing that the castle he created would not already be inhabitated by something or other. The old man had obviously not lacked for courage and self-confidence.

  So the tapestry had to match the actual scene exactly; that did not seem to be the problem here, however, since the tapestry he wanted to know about had worked at one time. The lighting had to be exactly right; presumably it was. The Book mentioned, cryptically and without further explanation, that this could affect travel time; Tobas was puzzled by that, since using the tapestries virtually eliminated travel time altogether. He guessed it had something to do with the angle of the sun’s light, but could not imagine how it would work.
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  The tapestry would transport anyone and anything; selectivity was not the problem. The spell was not known to wear out or need renewal.

  He wondered if the problem might be related to the fact that the flying castle had crashed in an area where wizardry did not function; since the magic was on the sending end, rather than the receiving one, that did not seem reasonable; but then, as every magician knows, magic is often unreasonable.

  Could the tilted floor of the flying castle affect something? After all, the tapestry depicted the room as level, while it was actually sloping rather steeply. But the picture did not specifically show up or down; there were no hanging objects out of place, or anything of that sort. Tilting the tapestry to the angle of the fallen castle might be worth trying, but he doubted it would make any difference.

  None of those sounded like a sufficient reason for the tapestry’s failure, though any of them might be involved somehow.

  He closed the book and sat back, thinking. He had the feeling that, in time, he would be able to figure out what the problem was, and possibly even right it, but at this particular moment he did not feel himself to be up to further study. He was utterly exhausted. The explanation would have to wait.

  Whatever it might be, unless it proved to be simply a pulled thread or the tapestry’s angle, he was certain he would be in this castle for several days, at the very least, and perhaps for the rest of his life.

  CHAPTER 22

  Karanissa gave him the use of a comfortable, richly furnished bedchamber near Derithon’s study and provided him with a few of Derithon’s clothes; these fit loosely, but were far better than the worn and filthy outfit he had been wearing constantly since leaving Dwomor, the only clothes he had owned since Roggit’s hut burned.

  The witch also ordered one of the three invisible servants, the least of the three, to wait on him. At first Tobas found the thing unsettling, this one was no mere sentient wind, like the one he had seen her command to bring food, but something small that skittered about, making nasty little squeaking noises and leaving wet spots on the floor. It would, however, fetch him small objects or run to bring Karanissa when he told it to.

  He was unsure which spells had created the three servants; there were several in Derithon’s book that seemed as if they might apply, from someone-or-other’s Homuncular Animation to Lugwiler’s Haunting Phantasm. He wondered whether he might find a way of conjuring up something more agreeable; he did not care for his servant’s way of tittering unexpectedly at odd moments, startling him. One such uncalled-for giggle had caused him to spill a chamber pot, and when he had, in righteous anger, ordered the thing to clean up the mess, he was fairly certain it had licked up most of it, which was downright nauseating.

  After that he did not ask it to clean anything.

  For some time, he had no way of knowing just how long, he simply rested, eating and sleeping and studying Derithon’s books or talking to Karanissa when he was neither tired nor hungry.

  He also took a few hours to acquaint himself with the castle; it was larger and more complex than he had thought. In fact, it was larger and more complex than he had thought possible; it seemed significantly larger inside than out.

  Of course, he knew nothing about this alternate reality in which it hung. Perhaps it was larger inside than out.

  Karanissa used about a dozen rooms ordinarily, and those were pleasant enough; she had the servants keep them supplied with lamps and candles, and the windows, with their unsettling purplish glow, were kept shuttered. The routes to important areas, gate, kitchen, tapestry room, and garden, were stocked with torches that the servants could light on a moment’s notice when needed. In the gate itself a pair of torches were kept lit at all times; Karanissa explained that she had originally insisted on this as a sign of welcome for Derithon when he returned, and Tobas, seeing her expression, did not point out the obvious fact that Derithon was never coming and that there was, therefore, no more reason to maintain them.

  The rest of the huge structure was left unlit and empty, but even the darkest, most obscure little cubbyhole was clean and dust-free; when not waiting on their mistress, the servants spent their time blowing away dust and cobwebs. Since they never slept, and Karanissa slept as much as possible, they had plenty of time for routine maintenance.

  Perhaps it was something about the air or the light, but Tobas could find no trace of decay anywhere in the castle proper. Nothing was mildewed or rotting, despite the extreme age of the place, so that it was hard to believe that it was all actually four or five hundred years old.

  The entire structure was fraught with magical curiosities, such as the corridor that led to one room if one walked down the center and an entirely different one if one walked along either side, or the tower window that gave an inverted view of the rest of the castle. Tobas wondered whether Derithon had planned any of these quirks or whether they had simply happened as a side effect of the castle’s magical creation; Karanissa had never given the matter any thought and could give him no answer.

  He discovered the castle’s vast magical gardens almost by accident in the strange spiral-sloped courtyard behind the kitchens. The outer part, where flowers grew, he found quite pleasant, despite the way the colors were distorted by the unnatural glow of the void and despite the way Karanissa had to warn him away from some of the more poisonous or otherwise dangerous blossoms. The inner part also seemed nice enough at first, the tiny apple trees almost buried beneath their own abundant full-sized fruit, the stalks of corn that threw their own shucked ears into his hand if he held it out, but when he came to the source of the castle’s endless supply of beef, he became quite queasy. The beef plants did not bother to recreate the head, hooves, or hide, but did possess all the other anatomical attributes of the cattle they mimicked, though not necessarily in the same arrangement real cattle used. The sight of beating hearts and breathing lungs atop fleshy purple-green stalks, with rich blood coursing through the arteries that were strung about like vines and the smell of fresh, raw meat billowing forth like perfume, thoroughly unsettled him, especially in the ruddy light.

  Tobas spent a few futile hours trying to figure out what combinations of spells had produced the various monstrosities, but eventually gave it up. It sufficed that the garden was there and functioning.

  Except, Karanissa pointed out, it was not functioning perfectly; here time had taken some slight toll, and some of the plants had died, withered, or become diseased, so that over the years her diet had become less varied. She had beef, corn, apples, and a variety of other grains and fruits, as well as an assortment of vegetables and cheeses; but except for one small and not very productive chicken bush, the fowl were all long since vanished; the lamb, mutton, and pork had become inedible, and the candies and cordials that had once been her special delight were dead and gone. Any sort of food or drink not provided by the garden had run out long ago, save for the vast wine cellars, and those were reduced to half a dozen bottles of ancient, barely potable stuff that she saved for special occasions.

  If Tobas were unable to find a way back to the World, she hoped he would be able to restore the gardens to their former splendor. Otherwise it was entirely possible that they might eventually starve.

  Tobas found the incredible profusion of magic in the castle daunting; Karanissa explained that Derithon had spent most of his free time for a hundred years or so in embellishing the place and that she, with her witchcraft, had added a few touches of her own as well. She had never reached the upper echelons of her craft, however, and witchcraft was always less permanent and less inherently powerful than wizardry, an admission that startled Tobas, so that most of her work was minor by comparison, and she had been unable to maintain some of Derithon’s spells.

  “I hadn’t realized that wizardry was necessarily that much more potent,” he remarked, which was polite but not exactly true. He had not known it absolutely, but he had certainly suspected it.

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “Of course, it’s also
much more dangerous. Derry told me once that wizardry somehow taps into the pure chaos underlying our reality, so that the effect can be completely out of proportion to the cause, completely unrelated to what the wizard actually did to bring it about. Witchcraft isn’t like that at all; a witch’s power comes from his or her own body and mind. Oh, it’s free of the limits of space and time and physicality, to some extent, but it’s still human energy. If I tried to work a spell that needed more energy than I have, it would either fail or kill me, but you wizards do things like that all the time without even thinking about it.”

  “I don’t,” Tobas said.

  “Oh, but you could; you could light a hundred fires and it wouldn’t tire you out at all.”

  “My wrists might get sore,” Tobas argued. “From all that gesturing, you know.”

  “That’s nothing. If I lit a hundred fires by witchcraft, I’d be exhausted. I could probably do it; lighting a fire with witchcraft takes about as much effort as starting a fire by rubbing two sticks together, and a hundred of those, have you ever lit a fire by rubbing sticks?”

  “No, I haven’t. I’ve heard of it, but never tried it.”

  “Well, it works, but it takes about, oh, ten or fifteen minutes, usually, and your arms get tired and sore. A witch can light a fire instantly, and her arms won’t hurt, but she’ll be just as tired as if she’d taken the ten minutes, do you see?”

  “I think so.”

  “Of course, I don’t need the brimstone and gestures that you use; I don’t need any ingredients or ritual for my spells.”

  Tobas nodded. “Only wizards use all that stuff, I guess,” he said. “The warlock on my ship never used any.”

  Karanissa stared at him blankly for a moment. “What’s a warlock?” she asked finally.

  Embarrassed, Tobas remembered that warlockry hadn’t existed in her day, and tried as best he could to explain the mysterious new magic, but without much success. He knew very little about it, after all.