The Colors of Magic Anthology (magic: the gathering)

by Richard Lee Byers

  The automaton jerked to life like a puppet whose strings had suddenly been pulled. Its head shook then cocked slightly to one side. One leg tensed, the other relaxed. One shoulder dipped slightly.

  Feldon nodded and raised a hand, pointing to the far side of the room. The automaton in the shape of Loran walked gingerly, like a woman finding her land legs after a long sea voyage. By the time she had reached the end of the workshop she was walking normally. She reached the opposite side, turned, and walked back.

  She smiled, hidden wires rippling the lips over ivory teeth. The smile was perfect.

  Feldon smiled back, the first time he had truly smiled since Loran had left him.

  Every day the automaton stood patiently in his workshop. He talked to it but had to point to command it. For the first month it was enough.

  But it was silent, save for the high-pitched whirring of gears and wire spooling and unspooling. At first Feldon thought he could live with it, but after the first month it became an irritant. After the second it was insufferable. The silence, its metallic lips crafted into that perfect smile, was more than he could bear. It seemed to mock him, to taunt him.

  He asked it questions, then reprimanded himself for he knew it could not answer. The Loran he had built was a creature of copper skin and geared muscles. It was not the woman he had loved.

  At last he reached behind her ear and touched the small toggle, deactivating her. She stiffened as the power left her, though the smile remained on her lips. He removed the powerstone from her heart, set the stone on the shelf, and placed the inactive automaton in the garden standing guard over Loran's grave. Within a week the steel gears had rusted solid, locking it forever in its stance, its glass eyes seeing but not recording the world around it.

  In the week that followed Feldon returned to the fireside, staring into the flickering flames as if they held some secret. At the end of the week, under a cold rain, he departed, leaving his servants to keep up the house in his absence. He left the town in a small wagon, heading eastwards into the lands most affected by the devastation of the Brothers' War.

  As he traveled, he asked questions. Did anyone know of mages, of spellcasters, of individuals with wondrous power? Before the destruction of the Ivory Towers, there had been many who had explored the paths of magic, but they had been scattered when Terisia City had fallen. Surely some survived, somewhere.

  He asked merchants and mendicants, farmers and priests. Some looked at him as if he were mad, and some were frightened, terrified that he was seeking to bring back the powers that created the devastation in the first place. But enough understood what he was looking for, and of those a few knew of this wise man or that shaman who walked the Third Path. In time he heard of the Hedge Wizard, and he turned his wagon to the east.

  He found the Hedge Wizard near the wreckage that had been Sarinth, one of the great cities that had resisted Mishra and was destroyed for its sin. Most of the great forests of that land had been later lumbered and its mountains stripped to feed the war machines of the brothers' battles. Now it was a barren landscape, its soil runneled and ravined by eternal rain. What forests that survived were overrun by a tangle of briars and young trees.

  In one of those briar-choked shambles Feldon found a hermit. The man had defended his patch of ground from Mishra's armies, and the strain had nearly broken both his mind and his spirit. He was a hunched figure, bent nearly double with age, with a drooling grin and a cackling laugh.

  Feldon approached him with open hands, showing he was weaponless. The hermit had heard of the Council of Mages at Terisia City and had known of Feldon's name among them. He laughed and capered and allowed Feldon to come within his forest, to study the hermit's magics.

  Feldon offered to teach the hermit his own spells in return, but the hunched madman would have nothing to do with the mountains or their power. Instead he taught Feldon of the woods, and they crossed and re-crossed his small domain, which he had so laboriously held against all invaders. Over the course of the next month Feldon felt he knew the land as well as the old hermit. They spoke of many things-of plants, of trees, and of the seasons. The hermit felt the world was getting colder beyond his borders, and Feldon agreed. It seemed to him that the glaciers of his home were swelling slightly with every passing year.

  Finally, they spoke of magic. Feldon showed his power, summoning images from the flames of birds, mythical dragons, and, finally, a simple, knowing smile. When Feldon had finished, the hermit cackled and nodded.

  The madman stood, arms folded in front of him. Feldon started to say something, but the hermit held up a hand to quiet him. For a moment there was silence in the forest.

  Then there was a noise, or rather, a sensation, a rumble that pounded through the ground and into Feldon's bones. The ground quaked beneath his feet, and the campfire collapsed in on itself from the shuddering ground. Feldon cried out despite himself, but the hermit did not move.

  Then the wurm appeared. It was a great, ancient creature, as large as one of Mishra's dragon engines of old. Its scales were golden and green, and it had baleful, red eyes that glimmered in the dark. It loomed above them for an instant, and was gone. A wall of scales surged past them-the wurm's elongated body hurtling before them. After a long time, the wurm's whiplike tail spun out, smashing the trees like a line pulled from a runaway wagon.

  The ground stopped shaking. The old hermit turned and bowed deeply. Feldon returned the bow and understood how the ancient mage had kept this patch of forest for all these years.

  Carefully, Feldon outlined his problem: He had lost someone dear to him, and his own magics lacked the power to restore her. Did the power of the hermit hold more?

  The old hermit rocked back on his heels and grinned.

  "Is this one who is dear still alive?" he asked.

  Feldon shook his head, and the hermit's grin faded. He, too, shook his head.

  "I can only summon the living-that is the power of the growing briar. But perhaps I can send you to someone who might have the power you seek."

  Feldon left the hermit's forest the next morning, heading north.

  Ronom Lake bordered the lands of Sarinth, and the lake had faired as badly as the land. Where once there were expanses of white beach now only leprous gray moss flourished, and the lake itself was little more than wide expanses of stagnant, oily water broken by pungent algae blooms in greasy shades of green and red. Feldon guided his small wagon along the perimeter of the lake. The hermit said he would recognize the signs when he reached the domain of the sorceress who ruled part of the shore.

  Indeed he did. The gray moss began to fade and at last retreated fully, leaving only a cascade of white sand as pure as any Feldon had seen. It was broken at the shore by a thin line of rounded black stones, themselves smoothed by the rolling surf. Feldon took a deep breath and smelled the fresh spray, without a tinge of musty fog.

  He found her at the foot of a crystalline waterfall, in a small pavilion that seemed to be spun from golden threads. She was taller than he, dressed in a shimmering robe that looked like a translucent rainbow. She granted him an audience as muscular servants brought a simple meal of cheese and dried apples. The provender seemed insufficient for such opulent surroundings, but Feldon said nothing and accepted the sorceress's hospitality.

  She asked him his quest, and he told her: He sought to regain a love that had been lost. She nodded, and a tight smile appeared on her face.

  "Such matters have a price," she said.

  Feldon bowed his head and asked her to name the price.

  "Stories," she said. "You must tell me the stories of Loran, so I may better grant your wish."

  Slowly, Feldon began to tell the tale. He recounted what he knew of Loran from her own tales, and her journals-of her life in the far east, in the distant land of Argive, of her early life with the brothers, and how she eventually rejected their war to seek another path. He spoke of how she came to Terisia City and joined a band of scholars looking for that path-sc
holars that included Feldon.

  He stumbled a few times, but the sorceress said nothing. He told of how the two met, how they studied together, and how they had fallen in love. He explained how they had separated when Mishra attacked their city and what had happened to Loran at Ashnod's hands. She seemed to heal slowly in their time together before spiraling downward into her eventual death.

  As he spoke, he halted fewer times, and his mind was alive with her memory. He recalled her black hair, her lithe figure, her touch, and her smile-always that knowing smile.

  He spoke of how she had died, and what he had done afterward. He recounted his construction of the automaton and his trip to the hermit and now his visit to her.

  As he spoke, he forgot the sorceress was there. Loran was alive for him.

  At last he came to the end of the tale and looked at the enchantress. Her face was impassive, but a single tear trickled down her cheek.

  "I rule in the sea and sky," she said, "much as you rule in the mountains, and the hermit the growing vegetation. You have paid my price with a story. Now let me see what I can do."

  She shut her eyes, and for a moment, it seemed that outside the golden pavilion the sun passed behind a cloud. Then it brightened again, and Loran stood before Feldon.

  She was young again, and whole, her black hair shimmering like a dark waterfall. She smiled that knowing, secretive smile she always had for him. Feldon rose and reached out to embrace her.

  His hands passed through her like smoke.

  The relief in his heart was replaced with fire, and he turned toward the sorceress. She had risen from her divan now and held up her hands as if to ward off a blow.

  "She isn't real," cried Feldon, spitting out the words.

  "I rule in the blue," said the sorceress, "and blue is the stuff of air and water, of mind and imagination. I cannot bring back that which is gone, only create its image. If you want her truly back, you must seek another."

  "Who is this other?" asked Feldon, and the sorceress hesitated.

  Again, Feldon asked, "Who is this other?"

  The sorceress looked at him with cold crystalline eyes.

  "There is a swamp farther north. He who lives there rules in the black. He can bring back what you seek. But be warned"-and here her voice softened-"his price is higher than mine."

  And another tear appeared on the sorceress's cheek.

  Feldon bowed, and the enchantress offered him her hand, which the old man kissed. While the sorceress's flesh appeared young and supple, to Feldon's lips it felt leathery and ancient. He reboarded his wagon and continued.

  A short distance beyond the golden pavilion, he dismounted on the pristine white beach and felt the ground. It looked like pure white sand but felt like rocks covered with gray moss.

  Feldon gave an understanding grunt and set out for the swamp.

  Here along the northern border of Ronom Lake there had been a village, but the land of the village had settled, or the lake had risen, so that it was nothing more than a collection of buildings rotting in a ruined swamp. Great dark birds hovered through the arch-rooted trees. No, Feldon corrected himself. Bats. They were bats, which no longer feared the light in this land of eternal gloom.

  The village had a rough, rotting palisade, little more than a collection of sharpened logs driven into the muck. The guards at the gate were sallow, hollow-eyed men dressed in tattered armor. They threatened Feldon with capture, but he summoned fire in a great wall between him and them. After the guards stepped back from the flames, and after a quick consultation with each other, they chose to escort Feldon to their master.

  Their master was an aged spider of a man who received his visitors on a throne carved from a gigantic skull. Feldon thought briefly of the great wurm that the green hermit had summoned, and wondered if the flesh-less skull before him was of the same type. The ruler of the swamp was short, pot-bellied, and bald, and slouched in a corner of the throne as Feldon explained his quest. He had lost someone dear, said Feldon, and was told that the master could find a way to return her.

  The man gave a watery, choking laugh. "I am the master of black magics, redling," he said. "I know the powers of life and death. Are you willing to pay my price?"

  "And your price is?" asked Feldon.

  The master stroked his hairless chin. "I want your walking stick."

  Feldon gripped his silver cane tightly. "I cannot part with it. I pulled it from a glacier many years ago. It is like a part of me."

  "Ah," said the master, "and your love is such a pale, insubstantial thing that you cannot part with a hunk of metal for it."

  Feldon looked at the twisted spider of a man, and then at his rune-carved cane. He held it out. "Your price is met."

  "Excellent," hissed the master of the swamp, taking the cane. "Let us begin."

  For three days and three nights Feldon studied at the feet of the master. He memorized the marshes around the village, and felt the thick, viscous pull of the land in his mind. It was very different than the cold, clear mountains that he normally used. It left him feeling soiled and unclean.

  At the end of the third day the hollow-eyed guards escorted Feldon to a small, windowless hut at the edge of the village, just within the walls of the palisade. Here Feldon worked the spell that the master of the swamp gave him.

  In the light of a single tallow candle, Feldon cleared his mind and meditated. Normally he would think of the mountains, but now he thought of the bogs around him. He felt their watery pull, sucking him down, embracing him with their power. He spoke the words of the spell and called forth Loran.

  The candle flickered for a moment, scattering Feldon's shadow behind him on the wall. Far above him, the wind coursed through the mangrove branches and sounded as if the lake itself had built a great wave to swallow the village. Everything grew quiet.

  There was the sound of footsteps outside.

  They moved slowly and ploddingly, the thick mud pulling at heavy feet as the sound approached. It was the sound of a figure staggering and sloshing through the muck. For a moment Feldon's heart leaped. Had he succeeded?

  Something heavy and wet thumped against the door, sounding like a bag of wet earth. Slowly Feldon pulled himself to his feet (he no longer had his cane) and shuffled to the door.

  The door gave another sloshing thud and then another, as Feldon reached it and grasped the knob. The stench hit him. It was a moldering, heavy smell, of rotted flesh and damp earth. It was the smell of death.

  Feldon's heart sank as he realized what he had done with the master of the swamp's spell.

  There was another thump, and the door shifted, but Feldon was leaning against it now, seeking now to keep whatever was on the far side out. He did not want to see if the spell had succeeded. He did not want to know.

  There was another thud and a gurgling cry that sounded like sloshing water. Feldon's heart shattered as he reached inside himself and willed the spell to end, to send whatever was beyond the door back where it had come from.

  The smell of death was gone, and with it the sounds. Feldon stayed pressed against the door, holding it shut with all his might, until morning.

  When morning came, he slowly opened the door. There were no footprints in the muck outside the door. Indeed, the entire village had been abandoned. There were no hollow-eyed guards, no master of the swamp.

  Nothing called his name in a gurgling voice like sloshing water.

  Feldon staggered to his wagon, pausing only to use a piece of black driftwood as a makeshift walking stick. He did not look back.

  In time, as he traveled, the ground began to rise, and dry. He had circumnavigated the lake now, and all that was left was to return home.

  He dreaded that, for fear of what he would find in the garden.

  He was three days from his village when he heard of the scholar in a small town further west. Propelled in part by curiosity, in part by dread, Feldon turned his wagon westward. He found the scholar in the musty remains of a temple library. T
he building had been shattered long ago by an earthquake, and the snows and rains had rotted most of the books. Yet among the tattered remains of books and scrolls, the scholar hopped like a bird-shaped automaton. He was a spindly thing and regarded Feldon from behind thick lenses of crystal.

  Feldon spoke of his tale-of his loss, of his resolve to regain what he had lost. He told of the hermit, the sorceress, and the master of the swamp. And when he finished his story, the scholar blinked at him behind heavy lenses.

  "What do you want?" he said at last.

  Feldon let out an exasperated sigh. "I want to have Loran back. If magic can do everything, why can it not do this?"

  "Of course it can do this," said the scholar. "The question is-do you want it to?"

  Now it was Feldon's turn to blink, and the scholar gave a thin, amused smile.

  "Green calls to the living," he said. "Black calls to the dead. Blue creates the shadow of life. Red consumes, and that's very important as well, because you must often destroy before you can build. I study, and the magic I wield is White, which is the magic of comprehension and understanding."

  "Can you bring her back to life?" asked Feldon, his voice catching. The memory of the swamp was still with him.

  "No, I can't," said the scholar, and, despite himself, Feldon sighed in relief. "But I can help you to create an exact duplicated"

  "I tried that with the automaton," said Feldon.

  "I speak of a creation not of gears and wires but of magic," replied the scholar, "identical in every way."

  "I don't understand," said Feldon.

  "When you cast a spell using fire," explained the scholar, "I believe you do not create fire. Rather you take the magical energy and form it into the shape of fire, which then does your bidding. It is for all intents and purposes fire, but it is made of magic."

  "But what about when I use fire," asked Feldon, "or when the hermit calls a great wurm?"

  The scholar waved his hand, "Different uses for the same tools. Yes, in those cases it is a real fire and a real wurm, but the magic alters it. For the moment, assume that you can create something made of magical energy."