The Un-Magician

by Christopher Golden

  The navigation mage glared at the rook, but Edgar paid him no mind, twitching his tail feathers and dancing from foot to foot.

  “So, are we ready to go?” the black bird asked his master.

  Timothy frowned, still not at all pleased at having to leave his new home. Then again, if Leander believed that it was necessary, who was he to argue. He had been born of this world, but he certainly did not understand it.

  “I’m as ready as I’m ever going to be, I suppose.” He took one final glance at the house, watching as Leander and Carlyle descended the stairs.

  “If you have any questions at all, do not hesitate to contact me immediately at the university or at home—day or night,” Leander told the Grandmaster’s assistant.

  “The boy will be fine,” Carlyle assured Leander, aloof as always. He wore a smug smile that Timothy found unsettling. It is inconsequential. His Asura friend’s wise words echoed in his mind, and Timothy made an effort to calm himself. Sheridan and Ivar were loading his things into the back of the rear carriage as Leander and Carlyle reached him.

  “This is it, then,” the burly, red-bearded mage said. In the brief time they had been together, Leander had become like family to Timothy, and now the big man seemed almost as nervous about their parting as he was.

  “Yes,” Timothy said, looking past the mage to the front of the house. He committed the sight to memory, every detail, no matter how small, would be there for him to remember anytime he wished. Timothy would keep the recollection close, until he was able to return. “I’d just gotten used to thinking of this as home. Patience seems so very far away.”

  “I know you don’t want to hear it,” Leander said, distracting him. “But no matter how dreadful this feels, it is all for the best.”

  Timothy focused on the face of his father’s friend—his friend—and felt a pang of sympathy for the man. Leander only wanted to do what was right, and it was obvious that this decision pained him terribly.

  “I understand.” Timothy did his best to muster a smile. “And besides, it won’t be forever, right?”

  Carlyle coughed into his closed hand and then glanced at the timepiece on his wrist. “If you’ll both excuse me,” he said in an officious tone. “Master Maddox, we’ll be in touch if the need arises.” The Grandmaster’s assistant offered the mage a slight bow. Then he turned his belittling gaze upon Timothy. “Young sir, I’ll be waiting inside the carriage.”

  Carlyle climbed in and the door closed tightly behind him.

  “Someone’s in a bit of a hurry,” Leander said, sniffing in annoyance.

  “Seems like the type that always would be, don’t you think?” Timothy watched the man through the window in the door and saw that he was scowling and again looking at his timepiece.

  “You’d better be off then,” the mage said with a halfhearted attempt at cheer. “Wouldn’t want to keep the Lord Nicodemus waiting.”

  Timothy nodded. “No, of course not. The Grandmaster doesn’t seem like he would have much more patience than his assistant.”

  They stood facing each other, hesitating. Neither, it seemed, wanted to say good-bye.

  “Timothy,” Leander began.

  “Don’t feel bad,” the boy interrupted. “I know you just want to keep me safe.”

  The mage placed a large, comforting hand upon his shoulder and squeezed. “I wouldn’t want you to think I was abandoning you—that I didn’t care,” he grumbled.

  Timothy patted the man’s hand fondly. “I would never think such a thing.”

  Silence came between them again. Then the carriage door swung open and Carlyle cleared his throat. “Timothy?” he called, and the boy knew that it was time for him to leave.

  “I’ll visit as often as I’m able,” Leander promised as the boy climbed up into the floating vehicle.

  Timothy raised his hand in farewell. “I would expect no less.”

  The spell that controlled the door of the floating vehicle did not recognize that anyone had entered the cab, so Leander passed a hand over it, purple sparks dancing from his fingers, and belatedly the door closed itself tightly Then he stepped back as the craft began its departure. Timothy watched him and felt the loss of Leander’s presence keenly, the departure aching his heart even more than he had expected. The house had provided him with a link to his father, now that Argus Cade was gone from this world, but in a sense Leander had provided an even more powerful link.

  The navigation mage manipulated the crackling magics of levitation and they were off. Timothy turned away, not wanting to watch as the carriage descended the steep incline from August Hill toward the city of Arcanum waiting below. It was a panoramic vista that made his breath catch in his throat and his eyes widen in amazement. While he had not forgotten his sadness, it receded as they reached the base of August Hill and the sky carriage zipped along Arcanum’s busy streets. The sights of the city were almost more than Timothy’s senses could stand. He found himself closing his eyes periodically, protecting himself from the visual barrage parading past. Nothing could have prepared him for this.

  “It’s all so … incredible,” he muttered, barely aware that he had spoken the words aloud.

  Carlyle, who appeared to have been napping, gazed out the window as they passed a block of jagged, crystalline buildings that twinkled and glistened in the approaching dusk. Timothy wasn’t sure if he had ever seen anything quite so breathtaking. They looked almost as though they had been grown upon that location, rather than built. It occurred to Timothy that no one here really built anything, not in the way he understood the word, and that it was more than possible that his instinct was correct. The idea that anyone could grow crystal towers made him shudder with giddy pleasure. This world was one discovery after another.

  “Incredible,” Timothy repeated.

  “I suppose,” the assistant said with disinterest, already slouching back into his seat.

  They flew above a road that passed through the center of a bustling marketplace, and Timothy marveled at the brief glimpses of countless items he saw on display there. Amazing smells wafted up from many of the stalls. There were beautifully woven flying carpets, hoods and cloaks of myriad designs, racks of books and jars of herbs, and even stalls where the strangest of animals were tethered, awaiting purchase. Street magicians performed to the delight of children, dancing in the air, juggling multicolored flames, acting out scenes of high drama or low comedy, altering their clothes or their features with a flourish of a hand. Timothy would have given just about anything to spend some time wandering about the fabulous bazaar.

  Carlyle had begun to snore, a high-pitched whining sound that reminded Timothy of one of Sheridan’s straining servomechanisms, but he didn’t mind. He had no interest in conversing with the man, especially when there were so many fabulous things to see outside.

  The craft began to ascend, climbing so high that many of the taller structures and the spires atop them were suddenly at eye level. Timothy was anxious about the height at first, but his fascination with the architecture before him soon calmed him down. The spires in particular were marvels of magical creation—what Leander called conjure-architecture. They looked almost as though they had been sculpted from clouds, but were actually made of crystal or stone or wood, shaped and placed by sorcery alone. The speed of the carriage increased and soon they were gliding among those spires with unsettling speed. Timothy wondered how Ivar and Sheridan were doing; it was their first time in a sky carriage as well.

  Abruptly they emerged from among the spires and only clear sky lay ahead. He craned his neck to look down and saw that below them the city had been replaced by a churning ocean of icy blue, so different from the waters that lapped the shores of Patience. No one had mentioned the ocean, and Timothy wondered where it was exactly that Nicodemus called home. Great watercrafts sailed across the sea below him, their prows jutting so high, flying the flags of the many magical guilds. Timothy had never been on a watercraft, and he felt a yearning in his heart as he g
azed down upon them. One, a long, thin vessel colored the bright purple of vineyard fruit, sliced through the water so swiftly it seemed almost alive.

  Beautiful, he thought, but what are we doing out here? He would have guessed that the Grandmaster of the Order of Alhazred lived in Arcanum—in one of the fabulous towers that reached into the sky above the clouds—above his followers.

  “We’re approaching SkyHaven,” the navigation mage abruptly announced, startling him.

  Carlyle came awake with a loud snort and rubbed at his eyes.

  “SkyHaven?” Timothy asked with a puzzled frown, gazing out at the ocean below.

  “The estate of Lord Nicodemus,” the assistant responded, consulting his timepiece.

  The vehicle banked to the right and Timothy grabbed hold of a leather strap on the door to prevent himself from sliding across the seat into Carlyle’s lap. As the carriage tilted, the young boy, the un-magician, got his first glimpse of SkyHaven, the home of the Grandmaster. For a moment he held his breath.

  Its towers and turrets twisted impossibly above the circular foundation of the mansion, as though the gray stone and black wood had been frozen in a timeless dance. Yet despite the formidable beauty of SkyHaven, what astonished Timothy most was that the entire estate—castle and fortress and the lush and verdant expanse of land beneath it—hovered, as if weightless, above the endless rolling waves of the azure ocean hundreds of feet below, earth and stone and roots dangling above the water as though they had just been ripped from the very planet itself.

  “It’s … it’s incredible,” Timothy said in an excited whisper as the air carriage flew nearer.

  “Yes.” Carlyle yawned. “Somehow I knew you would say that.”

  “The magics it must take to keep it aloft,” Timothy said, more to himself than to his riding companion. This was business as usual for Carlyle. But for Timothy, well … it was more than he could comprehend.

  The craft began its descent to SkyHaven. With amazing precision the carriage dropped out of the sky, passing beneath an ornate stone archway covered in thick flowering vines, to land in an open courtyard before the estate’s most prominent structure.

  Carlyle’s door sprang open of its own accord, and he climbed down from the carriage. Timothy pushed his own door open, and as he stepped out he saw Nicodemus emerge from the castle, appearing as though from nothing in front of a pair of metal doors as tall as a Yaquis tree. They were ridiculously high, the boy thought, for who or what could the Grandmaster invite into his home that was as tall as that?

  Nicodemus looked regal in long, flowing robes of vibrant green, and he carried his hairless feline familiar in his arms as he strode across the courtyard toward the carriage. Those two absurdly large doors swung open and an entourage of ten robed men and women emerged, bustling closely behind their lord and master.

  “Welcome to SkyHaven!” the Grandmaster called out as he drew closer, a charming smile upon his distinguished features. “Welcome to my home! Do you like it?”

  Timothy was certain that the grand mage could tell he was impressed just by reading the expression on his face, but he answered anyway, simply to be polite. “It’s amazing!”

  “More than three thousand, four hundred spells of weightlessness are perpetually maintained to keep my floating paradise aloft,” Nicodemus said proudly as he stepped up beside Timothy, and then the two of them turned to admire the castle together.

  Carlyle joined them, standing on the other side of the Grandmaster. “The boy was rendered nearly speechless by SkyHaven’s majesty,” the assistant said with an overly dramatic flourish of his hand.

  Nicodemus chuckled. “Can you blame him, Carlyle? I conjure-built the estate myself, every tower, every room, and yet to me, it is still the most wondrous of sights to behold.”

  The door to the adjoining carriage swung open and there came a fluttering rush of wings. Edgar cawed loudly, angrily, and took flight from within, soaring above their heads, stretching his wings after being confined so long. Sheridan stepped out into the courtyard after the rook’s abrupt departure, followed by a very cautious Ivar, who looked at the ground beneath his feet as though he did not trust it.

  Timothy forgot all about the Grandmaster for a moment, and rushed to join his friends. “Can you believe this?” he asked excitedly. “It floats! Above the ocean!”

  “Truly spectacular,” Sheridan said, his head rotating three hundred and sixty degrees to take in all the sights.

  “Caw! Caw!” Edgar cried. “I think the place has grown even bigger since I was last here,” the rook said, surveying his surroundings from a branch in one of the many fruit trees that grew around the courtyard.

  Ivar had not moved from the shadows cast by the sky carriage, and his entire body was a golden yellow, toned to blend with the color of the craft.

  “It’s all right, Ivar,” Timothy said, approaching his friend and extending a hand. “We’re going to stay here for a while.”

  The Asura looked about nervously, before gravely allowing himself to be drawn from cover. “This place,” he said, his skin returning to its natural shade. “It is unnatural.”

  “Precisely the sort of reaction one would expect from a savage,” Nicodemus sniffed. The Grandmaster strode toward Timothy and Ivar, the cat in his arms. He was not sneering, not cruel, but there was something cold in his eyes when he looked at the Asura. “It is we—the mages of the world—who determine what is natural and what is not.”

  Timothy felt the blood rushing to his face. He didn’t like the way Nicodemus treated Ivar; not at all. “He’s not a savage. He’s the last of the Asura, a noble tribe of—”

  Nicodemus made a dismissive gesture, then beckoned a pair of powerful men from his entourage toward them. “Yes, of course he is, Timothy. I’m well aware of your primitive friend’s background, thank you.” The Grandmaster seemed about to turn away, but then he paused and focused his gaze on Timothy, his eyes strangely sad, yet also, now kind. “You were born of this world, son, but you have never lived here. There is much you do not understand of our ways, our culture, and our history. Some things will delight you, others will disappoint you. This is the way of the world.”

  Two attendants stood on either side of Ivar, tensed as though expecting trouble. The Grandmaster gestured to them again and nodded.

  “Allow my staff to show your … friend … where he will be staying,” Nicodemus commanded.

  “You mean, where we’ll be staying?”

  Nicodemus shook his head. “I’m afraid that cannot be. Rules of the house, you understand. The familiar may stay with you—and that toy of metal,” he said pointing to Sheridan. “But the sav—Asura,” he corrected himself, “will sleep elsewhere, and will be barred from the main chambers of my home. When you know more of this world, you will understand.”

  Timothy looked to Ivar, unsure of what he should do. “I … I don’t think that’s—”

  The Asura signaled him to be silent. Ivar tilted his head slightly to one side and fixed Timothy with a steely gaze. “It is—”

  The boy sighed knowingly. “Inconsequential,” he said. And yet as he watched Ivar allowing himself to be led away to his quarters, he could not help feeling that it was not inconsequential at all. Ivar was sacrificing a great deal so that Timothy could be safe, and the boy felt the responsibility of that weighing heavily upon him.

  “Come, my boy,” Nicodemus said, his robes flowing around him as he turned and walked toward his residence. He lifted Alastor to his shoulder and the hairless cat curled itself around his neck and rested there. “Let me show you to your room so you may settle yourself before joining me for dinner.”

  Timothy hesitantly followed.

  “A toy?” Sheridan whispered indignantly at Timothy’s side. “I’d like to see a toy do half the things I can.”

  Edgar fluttered down from above to land on Timothy’s shoulder. “If you thought the outside was impressive, wait till you see the inside.”

  They followed Nicodemu
s and several members of his staff up the stairs and through the doorway into a grand hall. Again Timothy’s breath was taken away by SkyHaven’s opulence. The ceiling was at least fifty feet high and gilded with a strange design of spirals turning in upon themselves, radiating into a starburst at the apex of the concave ceiling. High arched windows of translucent energy allowed a view of the sky, which even now was darkening to the blue-black of evening. The moons and sister planets had never seemed so clear. Upon the walls of the grand hall were tapestries and portraits, sculptures and pictographs like those in his father’s house.

  “This way,” the Grandmaster urged, and Timothy followed obediently up a winding staircase, constructed from smooth, white stone flecked with streaks of solid black.

  They left the other aides behind, Carlyle included, and at once Timothy let out a breath. Despite Nicodemus’s treatment of Ivar, he felt more comfortable with the great mage when no one else was around, when there were no servants bowing to him as a constant reminder of his power and stature.

  With Sheridan clanking along the hall, emitting a peep of steam now and again, and Edgar riding upon his shoulder, Timothy followed the Grandmaster for what seemed miles along winding hallways, until they came to a wing of the castle whose door was made of wood and seemed imperfect to his eye, as though it had been carved by hand and not by magic. He found himself letting out a small breath, taking comfort in the presence of at least one thing that, like him, did not have the perfection of magic.

  “Yes,” the Grandmaster said, noticing Timothy’s focus. “I thought you might like that.” With a wave of his hand Nicodemus opened the door and led them into the small yet elegant foyer of a suite of smaller rooms. A door to another room stood warmly open and the Grandmaster went through it, gesturing for the boy and his mechanical man to follow. Edgar leaped from his shoulder and glided inside the bedchamber to perch upon a bureau of dark wood.

  “Not bad,” the bird croaked.

  Timothy was shocked to see that his satchels were already there.

  “Get acquainted with your new surroundings, my boy,” Nicodemus said, stroking Alastor’s head, the hairless feline still draped over his shoulders. “I’ll send someone to fetch you as soon as dinner is served.”