by Dave Butler
“Magical things, mostly!” The dwarf stopped and waited at the top of the stairs. “Cold iron is the oldest magic. It fell from the sky, connecting the world of the stars with the world in which we stand, back when humans were scratching on cave walls and hulders were butting each other in the head to decide who was stronger.”
“They still do that,” Ollie muttered.
“Newer magic is different. Magic is changing in your century, and the collector Suleiman Abd al-Rahim is fascinated by it. He is studying the new magic to master it, as he mastered the old.”
“See?” Ollie said to no one in particular. “You can master magic.”
The dwarf chuckled.
Charlie and Thomas reached the top of the steps. Here too wooden lattices surrounded them, and here too cool breezes brought in the smell of the rushes and lotus flowers that Charlie could see growing just beyond the lattice.
Then Charlie stopped and scratched his head. “Ollie,” he said softly. “Down below, did we seem to be on the ground floor? Level with the water and the plants outside, I mean?”
“Yeah, mate.” Then Ollie whistled. “And we’ve come up the stairs and we’re still level with the water.”
“And as you go up again,” the dwarf said, “you’ll be level with the water still. Only it’s different water each time.”
Ollie sucked air through his teeth and said nothing.
“One more floor!” The dwarf turned and climbed another staircase.
“I ain’t seeing much in the way of people,” Ollie said.
“The magician is mostly served by his creations,” the dwarf said.
At the top of the stairs were more columns and lattice walls, but also a clear avenue with a throne at the end, standing on a round dais. The throne glowed like brass in a soft light that bathed it from above.
The dwarf trudged to the seat, the three boys following. When he arrived, he climbed into it, turned, and sat.
“That seems rather cheeky.” Ollie frowned.
“Suleiman!” Charlie gasped.
“That’s not my name either,” the dwarf said. “Obviously.”
“But you are the magician,” Thomas said.
“The more important a job is, the less you can trust it to a servant.” The dwarf grinned. “And collecting is the most important job of all.”
“The dwarf,” Ollie muttered. “The dwarf is the magician.”
“Are you a dowser, Sayyid?” Charlie asked. “That made sense to me when I thought you were someone who just found buyers for the merchants, but it makes sense for a collector, too.”
“I began life as a mere dowser.” The magician leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and smiled. “Every magician starts somewhere. But I outgrew that at an early age.”
“Too right,” Ollie murmured.
“Why are you willing to sell us the iron we want?” Charlie had a sinking feeling in his stomach.
“Ah, yes, let me show it to you.” The dwarf leaned back in his seat and pulled at some sort of control set into one armrest, out of Charlie’s sight. Out of the other armrest rose a long triangular dagger, with copper wire pounded in a cross-hatched pattern into the iron handle.
“Looks like a knife,” Ollie said.
“May I see it?” Thomas asked.
The dwarf nodded, and Thomas came forward to examine the object. After a few seconds’ inspection, he turned back to Charlie and Ollie. “This is it,” he said. “This is what we need.”
“Are you sure?” Charlie asked.
“I was made for this,” Thomas said. Was his voice sad? “I’m certain.”
Charlie pulled his bap’s money from his pocket. “I don’t know how much is here,” he said, “but you can have all of it.”
“Really?” The magician smiled and stroked his oiled beard. “This is what you offer, paper money from a country far away in space and time?”
“It’s what I have,” Charlie said.
“What use have I for that? Tell me.” The dwarf’s eyes glittered.
Charlie’s sinking feeling got worse. “I won’t give you the unicorn horn,” he said. “We need that, too.”
The magician guffawed, a laugh that shook his whole body. “What a delightful work you are! So innocent, so hilarious!”
Something about the way the dwarf said the word work bothered Charlie. “Thomas,” he said softly. “Come back here, please.”
Thomas didn’t need extra encouragement. He retreated to Charlie’s side, leaving the knife. The dwarf let him go, grinning broadly.
“So,” the magician purred. “You understand what I want.”
“Me,” Charlie said, and he could see no other way. “You can have me for your collection.”
“No!” Ollie and Thomas yelled together.
“Trade me instead!” Thomas suggested.
Charlie drew his friends in close to discuss. “It has to be me. Thomas is the one who knows the spell.”
“Maybe you do too, mate,” Ollie said. “Remember how you said you thought you might be the redundancy? The backup?”
Charlie frowned. “Are you suggesting I should give Thomas to this dwarf?”
Ollie blushed. “No, I don’t…No! I don’t want to give either one of you to him!” His shoulders slumped, and he stamped one booted foot on the floor. “Only, Charlie, it really hurts to think of losing you.”
“I know,” Charlie said. “But if I’m the redundancy, the backup plan, I don’t know how to do…whatever it is I’m supposed to do, anyway.”
Ollie turned abruptly to face the dwarf. “I have a counteroffer, Sayyid! Or Suleiman, or whatever you want me to call you.”
The dwarf arched his eyebrows. “Speak.”
“I’ll be your apprentice. Give these lads the knife, and I’ll be your servant. I’ll help you add stuff to your collection, and I’ll do whatever work you want, and you can teach me more magic, so I can serve you better.”
“More magic?”
“Yeah.” Ollie squirmed and then changed shape. Bamf! He was a long yellow cobra for a few seconds. Bamf! He took his own shape again.
The dwarf laughed. “You’re a bold one, child. But I won’t give you what you want in exchange for what you also want. That would make me a fool, wouldn’t it?”
Ollie looked down at his feet.
“Besides,” the dwarf continued, “I already have enough shape-changers in my collection to fill a zoo. The largest shaitan community in captivity is right over your head, boy.”
“I ain’t a shaitan,” Ollie grunted.
The dwarf turned back to Charlie. “Yes. The dagger for one of you. I don’t care which.”
“Me,” Thomas blurted out.
“No,” Charlie said. “Me.” He looked at his brother. “It has to be me, and you know it.”
Thomas’s lip trembled. “But how can I possibly be brave enough to do what needs to be done without you? You’re the brave one, Charlie.”
“Ollie will help you,” Charlie said. “And Bob and the others.”
“Bob will help.” Ollie grimaced. “Bob might not talk to me ever again, but Bob will help.”
Thomas looked down at his feet. “Okay.”
Charlie hugged his brother.
He didn’t know what exactly his bap had built him for, but if Thomas succeeded and undid the very magic that had created Thomas and Charlie, Charlie would die anyway.
Why, Bap?
Charlie hugged his brother tighter.
“One more thing!” Ollie cried.
“Oh?” the dwarf asked.
“We give you Charlie, and you do two things. You give us the knife, and you show us your collection.”
The dwarf’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“I’m the same as you,” Ollie said. “You st
arted as a dowser and you wanted more. So you kept your eyes open and you learned, and now you’re a big wizard. I started as a shape-changer but I always wanted more. Show me. Let me see the magic.”
“Hmmm.” The dwarf chewed his lip.
Ollie laughed. “Oh, knock it off. You know you want us to see it.”
“Ha!” The dwarf leaped to his feet. “You’re right, of course. Come upstairs with me, all three of you, and I will show you marvels.”
“Watch your feet,” the dwarf warned them as they reached the top of the next flight of steps. “Don’t cross any lines in the floor. The creatures within are trapped and cannot come out, and if you enter their cages…I won’t rescue you.”
Charlie held Thomas’s hand tighter.
As the magician had promised, this floor too seemed to be on the ground level, and through wooden lattices and deeply shaded balconies Charlie saw long bodies of blue water fringed with green and white, and, beyond, brilliant red sand.
With one small difference—these waters churned. Charlie squinted to get a closer look, and he thought he saw crocodiles and very large snakes.
“Blimey,” Ollie said.
After the landgrave’s collection and the souk, Charlie imagined he’d be dulled to wonder. He was wrong.
He saw a column of salt that sang—once the Babel Card sorted out its words—of a city burned by the vengeful fires of heaven. He saw a suit of lacquered blue armor that marched itself through military drills though no one was wearing it. He saw a bow that burned in seven colors and emitted a noise that made Charlie want to sing for joy. He saw a pair of polished ivory dice that rolled themselves over and over on a golden platter; at each roll, a shower of small objects burst from the dice and fell through slots in the floor surrounding the platter. Some dice results rained gold, pearls, silver, or gems; others threw out frogs, scorpions, snakes, or mice.
He saw a large plain boulder, and he pointed at it. “What’s that?” It seemed so out of place.
The dwarf chuckled. “That, my boy, is the Foundation Stone. It holds down all the waters of creation, and if it were to be lifted up, the flood that would burst forth would destroy the Souk of Wonders in moments, and the world with it by sunset.”
“Seems dangerous to keep around, don’t it?”
“Herakles and Samson together could not budge it an inch,” the magician snarled. “The only thing that can move that stone is the dancing of the king.”
“Which king?” Charlie asked.
“The true one, of course,” the dwarf answered.
“Good thing I don’t dance,” Ollie said.
And there were creatures. Charlie was very careful to follow the magician’s instruction: each creature or group of creatures was in a space marked off by a thin black line on the floor, and the creatures, however much they might hiss and howl, never crossed the line. Charlie saw a seven-headed snake, a lion with fire for its mane, and a troop of little men with only one leg each, who hopped about or knit their shoulders together to stand in pairs. He saw owls with human faces, perched high in an oak tree that sprouted from the floor. He saw werewolves, which snarled and threw themselves at the line, only to be hurled back by an invisible force, yelping in pain. He saw a man with a scorpion’s tail and sad eyes, who tried to sting himself but couldn’t because his tail was weighted down with iron.
And then he saw four shape-changers.
“Red Cloak,” he whispered.
The magician chortled. “I don’t know that name,” he said, “which probably means it’s wrong. They’re generally called shaitans, and sometimes rakshasas.”
The four shaitans, squatting in a mound of filthy straw, stared at Charlie with their black eyes. As one person they opened their lipless mouths to show needlelike teeth and hiss.
Then they sang. It was a wordless song, like an openmouthed hum. It was the same melody he’d heard from the shape-changer in the landgrave’s museum, only now it had layers of harmony woven in above and below.
The song made Charlie want to sleep, and the thought of sleeping in the presence of such monsters made him shudder.
“But I thought a shaitan only took someone’s shape after it ate him,” he said.
The magician snorted dismissively. “No, that’s nonsense. You’ve been reading all the wrong stories. A shaitan takes someone’s shape in order to eat him, and then keeps it for a time afterward. Watch this.”
The magician unwound his turban. The black hair underneath sprang outward in a tightly curled mane. After balling up the length of cotton, the dwarf threw it into the shaitan cage.
The shaitans leaped on it. All four seized the turban and tore away pieces. Hissing and snarling at each other, they retreated to the four corners of the cage, where each clutched a fragment of cloth to its chest and stroked it obsessively.
“Impressive,” Ollie said. “They must have the strength of, what, a ten-year-old?”
“Wait.”
Within the space of a single blink, all four shaitans changed. They all resembled the dwarf magician, and as one they smiled at him.
Charlie had been wrong. The creature in Marburg, working with the Prussians and the Iron Cog, had been a shaitan after all.
“Amusing, no?” The dwarf snapped his fingers; the scraps of cotton disappeared, and the shaitans returned to their rubbery, noseless look.
“Yeah,” Ollie said. “I’m laughing hard.”
Thomas squeezed Charlie’s hand tighter.
“This will be where you sleep, Charlie.” The magician crossed a row of columns to where there was a small bed and nothing else. The bed was surrounded by a black line in the floor, creating a space ten paces long by ten paces wide.
Charlie was careful not to step over the line.
Around his cage, on this side of the columns, were machines. Charlie saw a pump, drawing up a continual stream of water that fell back through a grate in the floor. There was a pair of mechanical wings—very similar to the ones invented and built by Heaven-Bound Bob—attached to a silver ball, flapping up and down of their own accord. Mechanical legs ran on a band of India rubber that moved without stopping, creating a belt so the legs could run and yet remain stationary.
“The new magic of your time,” the wizard said. “I am learning it too, the art of ball bearing and crankshaft, the fine nuances of aerial geometry, the secret explosion of the combustion engine, the transformation of the four elements together—earthy coal, celestial fire, mundane water, and fine air—into motive power.” He looked at Charlie. “And you.”
Charlie released Thomas’s hand and stepped to one side. “When you deliver the dagger, I’m ready.”
But the wizard seemed to be in no mood to rush anything. “And who would have thought this would prove the strongest magic? By it the earth is tilled and food is grown in great abundance! By it man moves as fast as ever he did on any elf road, and as high as he could on any ifrit’s carpet! This flowering of invention will feed the masses and bring wealth to all—mark my words, in a century the poorest person in your England will enjoy luxuries never imagined by Henry the Eighth!”
The wizard’s words caught Charlie up short. This magic-hoarding sorcerer who was about to imprison Charlie forever as part of his collection saw Charlie and the wave of invention of which he was a part as a good thing. Charlie stretched his mind back a few weeks to recall what Isambard Kingdom Brunel had said. “But what about…the bad side?”
The dwarf shook his head impatiently. “Technology has no good and bad side; it is just a tool. Does a shovel have a bad side?”
“If I bopped you on the head with a shovel, you might think it did,” Ollie said.
The dwarf laughed. “The ill will, the evil, the harm, are all in you. In us. They’re not in the tool. The tools give us power to do great things, according to what is in our hearts.”
&nb
sp; What the dwarf said made a great deal of sense, but Charlie struggled. If the worst weapons were taken away, people could harm each other less. “But…”
“Look at you!” the magician cried. “You’re so charming-looking; no doubt your maker meant you as a companion, or a toy. But you don’t breathe, do you?”
Charlie shook his head.
“And I’ll wager you resist heat, too!”
“No need to experiment,” Ollie muttered.
“What a worker you would make!” The magician clapped his hands against Charlie’s shoulders with excitement. “You could mine veins of ore in places no human could ever go. You could farm the bottom of the ocean. You could rescue stranded climbers in the Himalayas, in snow that would kill an ordinary man. You could perform delicate medical operations for hours on end, and your arms would never grow weary!”
“And you’re going to take all that away from the world,” Thomas said, “by locking him in here.”
The dwarf hesitated, then sniffed. “It’s a museum, a record. If the world outside loses this precious knowledge, it can come here and I will restore it.”
“For a price,” Ollie said.
“That’s only fair!” the dwarf cried. “And besides, I’m only keeping one of you; I’m setting the other one free! That’s generous!”
“You might be a bit confused about that word,” Ollie suggested.
“Hand over the knife.” Picking a fight with this magician didn’t seem like a winning proposition. Charlie had made his deal and he’d keep it, but he had no intention of lying here awake for all eternity, watching the dwarf play games with the shaitans. He’d let his mainspring wind down, and hopefully the magician wouldn’t know how to wind it up again, and Charlie could just sleep in blissful ignorance while his brother and friends stopped the Iron Cog.
Or maybe he’d dream again. That had been all right, dreaming.
“Get in your room first,” the magician answered.
Charlie stepped over the line. The magician chanted several quick words, too quick for the Babel Card to catch, and snapped the fingers of both hands at the same time. Nothing obvious happened.