by Sean Wallace
He dragged her into the library. “There,” he said, pointing to the shelf where her book had been. “Six of twelve. It was there and now it’s not.” He relaxed his grip without letting go. “If you borrowed it, it’s fine. I just want it back.” He released her and forced a smile. “Now, where is it?”
“You’re right,” she said, “I borrowed it. I didn’t realize it was so important to you.”
“It’s very special.”
“Yes,” she said, her voice low and hard, “it is.”
And with that, she knew she had given herself away.
Miles shoved her away from him. She fell into the bookcase as he left the small library and shut the door behind him. A key turned in the lock.
It was too late.
She rested with her forehead against the door and caught her breath. She tried to pry open the small window, but it was sealed shut with layers of paint. She considered breaking the glass, and then thought better of it; she could escape from this house, it was true, but not from this world. For that, she still needed Miles.
She watched the sunset through the dirty window, and tried to decide what to do when he let her out. She heard him pacing through the house, talking to himself with ever greater stridency, but the words made no sense to her. It gave her a headache.
The sound of the key in the door woke her. She grabbed at the first thing that might serve as a weapon, a sturdy hard-cover. She held it in front of her like a shield.
Miles stood in the doorway, a long, wicked knife in his hand.
“Who are you?” he finally asked, his eyes narrowed with suspicion. “And how did you know?”
“Someone whose life you destroyed. Liar. Thief. Murderer.” She produced Emil’s ring.
He seemed frozen where he stood, his eyes darting back and forth between the ring in her hand and her face. “I am none of those things,” he said.
“You took all of this,” she gestured around the room. “You took him, and you took me. And what did you do with the things that were of no use to you?”
She had been edging toward him while he talked. She threw the book at his arm and it struck him just as she had hoped. The knife fell to the floor and she dove for it, snatching it up before Miles could stop her.
She had him now, she thought, and pressed the blade against his throat. He tried to push her off but she had a tenacious grip on him and he ceased his struggle when the knife pierced his thin skin. She felt his body tense in her hands, barely breathing and perfectly still.
“You still haven’t told me who you are.”
“Where is he?” she demanded.
“Where is who?” His voice was smooth and controlled.
“The man you stole, like you stole me. Like you stole all of it. Where is he?”
“You’re obviously very upset. Put that down, let me go, and we’ll talk about it. I don’t know about any stolen man, but maybe I can help you find him.”
He voice was calm, slightly imploring, asking for understanding and offering help. She hesitated, wondering what threat she was really willing to carry out against an enemy who was also her only hope.
She waited a moment too long. Miles grabbed a heavy jar off the shelf and hurled it at the wall.
The East Wind ripped through the room, finally free.
Fatigued and half-starved, Emil made his way slowly toward his home, and tried to unlock the spell. Soon he had three words, and then five, and soon a dozen. He would say them aloud, emphasizing this part or that, elongating a sound or shortening it, until the day he gave voice to the last character on the page, and something happened: a spark, a glimmer of magic.
He had ciphered out the spell.
Finally, on the coldest night he could remember, with not a soul in sight, he raised his voice against the howling wind, and shouted out the thirteen words of power.
As weeks turned into months the stories of Emil the Sorcerer grew, until finally even the King had heard, and wanted his power within his own control.
But Emil could not be found.
The angry vortex threw everything off the shelves. Audra ducked and covered her head as she was pummeled by books and debris. Miles crouched behind the trunk, which offered little protection from the gale.
There was a crash above Audra’s head; her arms flew up to protect her eyes; broken glass struck her arms and legs, some falling away, some piercing her skin.
The window broke with a final crash and the captive wind escaped the room. The storm was over. Books thumped and glass tinkled to the ground.
Audra opened her eyes to the wreckage. Miles was already sifting through the pages and torn covers.
“No,” he said, “no! It has to be here, my story has to be here . . .” He bled from a hundred small cuts but he paid them no mind. Audra plucked shards of dark glass out of her flesh. The shards gave off no reflection at all.
A cloud drifted from where the Mirror had hung over the wreckage-strewn shelves, searching. On the floor beside Audra’s trunk, the lid torn off in the storm, it seemed to find what it was looking for. It slipped between the pages of a blue cloth-bound volume and disappeared.
“Here!” Audra said, clutching the volume to her chest. He scrambled toward her until they kneeled together in the middle of the floor, face to face.
Smoke curled out of the pages, only a wisp at first. Then more, green and glowing like a sunbeam in a mossy pond, crept out and wrapped itself around both them.
“The Guide you sought was always here,” a voice whispered. “Your captive, Emil, and your friend, Aurora.” Audra – Aurora – looked at the man she had hated and saw what was there all along: her Emil, thirty years since he had disappeared, with bald head and graying beard. Miles, who kept her because she looked like his lost love, but who wouldn’t touch her, in faith to his beloved.
Emil looked back at her, tears in the eyes that had seemed so dead and without hope until now.
“Now, Emil, speak the words,” the voice said, “and we will go home.”
So should you happen across a blue cloth-bound book, the sixth in a set of twelve, do not look for “The Magician and the Maid”, because it is not there.
Read the other stories, though, and in the story of the fairy who brought the waterfall to the mountain, you may find that she has a friend called Audra, though you will know the truth: it is not her real name.
If you read further you may find Emil as well, for, though he never did become the King’s Magician, every story needs a little magic.
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS
Jay Lake (1964–2014) lived in Portland, Oregon, where he worked on numerous writing and editing projects. His books include Kalimpura, Last Plane to Heaven and Love in the Time of Metal and Flesh, and his short fiction appears regularly in literary and genre markets worldwide. Jay was a winner of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and a multiple nominee for the Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy awards. He blogged regularly about his terminal colon cancer (www.jlake.com).
Chris Willrich’s stories have appeared in Asimov’s, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Flashing Swords, Lightspeed and Fantasy and Science Fiction, where his characters Gaunt and Bone first appeared. Chris has also written the Gaunt and Bone novels The Scroll of Years (2013) and The Silk Map (2014) as well as Pathfinder Tales: The Dagger of Trust (2014).
After a brief career in the legal profession, K. J. Parker took to writing full time and has to date produced three trilogies, five standalone novels, five novellas (two of which won the World Fantasy Award) and a gaggle of short stories. When not writing, Parker works on a tiny smallholding in the west of England and makes things out of wood and metal. K. J. Parker isn’t K.J. Parker’s real name; but even if you knew K. J. Parker’s real name, it wouldn’t mean anything to you.
Tanith Lee was born in London in 1947. She began writing at age nine. Her science fiction and fantasy has been published since 1974–5, beginning with The Birthgrave. Since then she has published over ninety books and more than
300 short stories, and written two TV scripts (Blake’s 7) and four broadcast radio plays. She has won many awards, was made Grand Master of Horror in 2009, and given a Life Achievement Award in 2013. She lives with her husband, writer/artist John Kaiine, and two black and white cats in Sussex, near the sea.
Bradley P. Beaulieu is the author of the critically acclaimed epic fantasy series The Lays of Anuskaya. Along with fellow author Gregory A. Wilson, Brad runs the science fiction and fantasy podcast Speculate (www.speculatesf.com). He continues to work on his next projects, including a Norse-inspired middle-grade series and The Song of the Shattered Sands, an Arabian Nights-inspired epic fantasy (www.quillings.com).
Aliette de Bodard lives and works in Paris, where she has a day job as a systems engineer. She writes speculative fiction, including the Aztec noir trilogy Obsidian and Blood. Her short stories have appeared in Clarkesworld, Asimov’s Science Fiction and the Year’s Best Science Fiction. She has won Nebula, Locus and British Science Fiction Association awards, and been a finalist for the Hugo, Sturgeon and Tiptree awards (www.aliettedebodard.com).
Benjamin Rosenbaum lives near Basel, Switzerland, with his wife and children. His stories have appeared in Harper’s, Fantasy and Science Fiction, Asimov’s Science Fiction, McSweeney’s, Strange Horizons and Nature. His work has been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, BSFA and Sturgeon awards, and has been translated into over twenty languages. His stories are collected in The Ant King and Other Stories (www.benjaminrosenbaum.com).
Alex Dally MacFarlane is a writer, editor and historian. When not researching narrative maps in the legendary traditions of Alexander III of Macedon, she writes stories for Clarkesworld Magazine, Strange Horizons, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Phantasm Japan, Solaris Rising 3, Heiresses of Russ 2013: The Year’s Best Lesbian Speculative Fiction, The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy: 2014 and other anthologies. Her poetry can be found in Stone Telling, The Moment of Change and Here, We Cross. She is the editor of Aliens: Recent Encounters (2013) and The Mammoth Book of SF Stories by Women (2014).
Saladin Ahmed’s poetry has earned fellowships from several universities, and has appeared in over a dozen journals and anthologies. His short stories have been nominated for the Nebula and Campbell awards, have appeared in numerous magazines and podcasts, and have been translated into five languages. He has also written nonfiction for the Escapist, Fantasy Magazine and Tor.com. His first novel is Throne of the Crescent Moon.
Scott Lynch was born in St Paul, Minnesota, in 1978. His first novel, The Lies of Locke Lamora, was released in 2006 and launched the ongoing Gentleman Bastard sequence. His latest novel, The Republic of Thieves, reached the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists. Scott has been a volunteer fire-fighter since 2005. He lives mostly in Wisconsin and occasionally in Massachusetts, the home of his partner, SF/F writer Elizabeth Bear.
Carrie Vaughn is the author of the New York Times bestselling series of novels about a werewolf named Kitty. She’s also written a handful of standalone fantasy novels and over seventy short stories. She’s a graduate of the Odyssey Fantasy Writing Workshop, and in 2011 she was nominated for a Hugo Award for best short story. She’s had the usual round of day jobs, but has been writing full-time since 2007. An Air Force brat, she survived her nomadic childhood and managed to put down roots in Boulder, Colorado, where she lives with a fluffy attack dog and too many hobbies (www.carrievaughn.com).
Tony Pi is a Taiwanese-Canadian writer whose childhood memories of a sugar sculptor inspired this story. His works appear in many places such as Clarkesworld Magazine, InterGalactic Medicine Show, The Mammoth Book of Steampunk Adventures and The Dragon and the Stars (www.tonypi.com).
N. K. Jemisin is a Brooklyn author whose short fiction and novels have been multiply nominated for the Hugo, World Fantasy and Nebula awards, shortlisted for the Crawford and the Tiptree awards, and won the Locus Award. Her latest novel is The Shadowed Sun (2012) and she is working on her next trilogy (www.nkjemisin.com).
Benjanun Sriduangkaew enjoys writing love letters to cities real and speculative, and lots of space opera when she can get away with it. Her works can be found in Clarkesworld, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, The Dark, The Mammoth Book of Steampunk Adventures, Upgraded and Solaris Rising 3. They are also reprinted in The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Vol. 8, The Year’s Best Science and Fantasy 2014 and The Mammoth Book of SF Stories by Women.
Yoon Ha Lee’s fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Fantasy and Science Fiction and other publications. Her collection Conservation of Shadows came out in 2013. She lives in Louisiana with her family and has not yet been eaten by gators, books or dolls.
Matthew Hughes writes science fiction and fantasy. His novels are: Fools Errant and Fool Me Twice, Black Brillion, Majestrum, The Commons, The Spiral Labyrinth, Template, Hespira, The Damned Busters, The Other, Costume Not Included and Hell to Pay. His short fiction has appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Fantasy and Science Fiction, Postscripts, Storyteller, Interzone and a number of anthologies. His short story collection, The Gist Hunter and Other Stories, was published in 2005. Formerly a journalist, he spent more than twenty-five years as a freelance speech-writer for Canadian corporate executives and political leaders. His works have been short-listed for the Aurora, Nebula, Philip K. Dick, A. E. Van Vogt and Endeavour Awards (www.matthewhughes.org).
Mary Robinette Kowal is the author of the Glamourist Histories series of historical fantasy novels. In 2008 she received the Campbell Award for Best New Writer and, in 2011, her short story “For Want of a Nail” won the Hugo Award for Short Story. Her work has been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards. Her stories appear in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Clarkesworld and several anthologies. She is a professional puppeteer and performs as a voice actor, recording for authors such as Elizabeth Bear, Cory Doctorow and John Scalzi. She lives in Chicago with her husband Rob and over a dozen manual typewriters (www.maryrobinettekowal.com).
Naomi Novik is the New York Times bestselling author of the Temeraire series and winner of the Campbell, Locus and Compton Crook awards. She was born in New York in 1973, a first-generation American, and raised on Polish fairy tales, Baba Yaga and Tolkien. Her next fantasy novel, Uprooted, will be published in 2015. Naomi lives in New York City with her husband Charles Ardai, daughter Evidence and many purring computers (www.naominovik.com).
Elizabeth Bear was born on the same day as Frodo and Bilbo Baggins, but in a different year. When coupled with a childhood tendency to read the dictionary for fun, this led her inevitably to penury, intransigence and the writing of speculative fiction. She is the Hugo, Sturgeon, Locus and Campbell award-winning author of twenty-five novels and almost a hundred short stories. Her dog lives in Massachusetts; her partner, writer Scott Lynch, lives in Wisconsin. She spends a lot of time on planes.
Matthew David Surridge is a Montreal-area writer. He has an ongoing fantasy serial at www.fellgard.com and writes about fantasy fiction at www.blackgate.com.
Richard Parks has been writing and publishing science fiction and fantasy longer than he cares to remember . . . or probably can remember. His work has appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Realms of Fantasy, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet and several annual anthologies. His second print novel, To Break the Demon Gate, was published in 2014. He blogs at “Den of Ego and Iniquity Annex #3” (www.richard-parks.com).
James Enge lives with his wife in northwest Ohio, where he teaches classical languages and literature at a university. His first novel, Blood of Ambrose (2009), was nominated for the World Fantasy Award. He is also the author of This Crooked Way, The Wolf Age, A Guile of Dragons and Wrath-Bearing Tree, as well as short fiction mostly focusing on Morlock Ambrosius (www.jamesenge.com).
Genevieve Valentine’s first novel, Mechanique, won the 2012 Crawford Award. Her second is called The Girls at the Kingfisher Club. Her short fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons, Journal of Mythic
Arts and Fantasy, and the anthologies Federations, Running with the Pack, After, The Way of the Wizard and more. Her nonfiction and reviews have appeared at NPR.org, The A. V. Club, Strange Horizons and io9 (www.genevievevalentine.com).
Cinda Williams Chima grew up with talking animals and kick-butt Barbies. She nearly failed first grade because she was always daydreaming instead of listening. By junior high, she was writing novels in class, which were often confiscated. She was also caught reading a very racy novel in Problems of Democracy class. Cinda believes in the magic of books. Books took her from first-grade failure to first-generation college graduate to college professor to New York Times bestselling author of The Heir Chronicles and the Seven Realms quartet (cindachima.com).
Christie Yant’s fiction has appeared in anthologies and magazines including Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2011, Armored, Analog Science Fiction & Fact, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, io9, Wired.com and China’s Science Fiction World. She lives on the central coast of California with two writers, an editor and assorted four-legged nuisances (Twitter @christieyant).
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
SMALL MAGIC © 2006 by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. Originally appeared in Weird Tales. Reprinted by permission of the author.
KING RAINJOY’S TEARS © 2002 by Chris Willrich. Originally appeared in Fantasy and Science Fiction. Reprinted by permission of the author.
A RICH FULL WEEK © 2010 by K. J. Parker. Originally appeared in Swords & Dark Magic, edited by Jonathan Strahan and Lou Anders. Reprinted by permission of the author.
THE WOMAN IN SCARLET © 2000 by Tanith Lee. Originally appeared in Realms of Fantasy. Reprinted by permission of the author.
FLOTSAM © 2004 by Bradley P. Beaulieu. Originally appeared in Writers of the Future 20, edited by Algis Budrys. Reprinted by permission of the author.
A WARRIOR’S DEATH © 2006 by Aliette de Bodard. Originally appeared in Shimmer. Reprinted by permission of the author.