My Son, the Wizard

by Christopher Stasheff

Good point, Matt wrote. I’d better check. Aloud, he said, “Just as well I washed my hands of them. In fact, might not be a bad idea to wash my hands, period. You never know, they might bring us dinner.”

  “That would be pleasant,” Papa agreed.

  Matt poured water into the bowl, then passed his hand over it, murmuring,

  “Darken, churn, and stew!

  Show another view!

  Receive what’s sent from other pools!

  Answer to another’s rules!”

  The water darkened, even as he’d said, then began to churn about and about. Bubbles arose; then the surface stilled, became glassy, and Matt told it,

  “Now, with some reflection,

  Engage you in detection!

  Discover sights of far-off prospects,

  And make of them election.”

  Papa’s eyes widened as he saw an image take form in the water, three-dimensional, seeming chaotic at first until he realized he was looking down from above—down at Bordestang and the countryside about it, with the river curving like an embracing arm. It was a freckled arm, though, and Matt stared. “Ships! Burned hulks! And ones that could still sail, tied up at the wharfs!”

  “What is that ring around the town?” Papa asked.

  “Tents!” Matt was tense in an instant. “And soldiers! They’re charging the wall!”

  Cavalry galloped up the boulevard to the huge town gates. Behind them rolled a wooden tower, archers ready at its windows, spearmen standing at its doors with plank bridges to drop onto the battlements.

  “Here comes the artillery!” Matt cried as genies appeared to hurl huge boulders at the gates.

  But the boulders slowed in midair, then dropped onto the Moorish host.

  “Well done, Jimena!” Papa cried with glee. “She is a spellbinder indeed!”

  “You knew that before anybody else.” Matt watched with concern as the boulders faded, growing insubstantial, until they were only clouds that wreathed themselves about the soldiers. “They’ve got their magicians, too.”

  The Moors plowed through the fog anyway, but met a storm of arrows from the archers on the wall—arrows that looped in midair, turning to speed back at the men who had launched them. But they slowed abruptly as they crossed the wall, and the archers reached out to snatch them and set them to bowstrings again.

  “That could have been Mama, or it could have been Saul,” Matt muttered.

  Then the ground exploded in front of the Moors, sending up a cloud of chicken feathers that filled the air, blinding the invaders—and, Matt was sure, making them gag and choke as well.

  Then the gates swung open, and a band of horsemen charged out led by a knight in black armor.

  “Sir Guy!” Matt cried with relief. “He came to join the party!”

  The clash in front of the gate was brief and furious, but the defenders could see clearly, and any attacker riding against them was still half-blinded by feathers and gagging on down. The Moors retreated in chagrin. In one last punctuating action, a small catapult on the wall released a boulder that took the top off the siege tower. The scene faded as Sir Guy’s sally party rode back into the city, the gates closing behind them.

  Matt was livid. “The bastard! The sneak! The genius! He sent his army around by sea! As soon as we were out of sight, they came sailing up the river! No wonder he’s sitting here by the Pyrenees, instead of attacking Rinaldo!”

  “Why, yes,” Papa said, his eyes widening. “He has only half his army, has he not? And that half must wait for the queen to come through the mountains!”

  “No wonder Rinaldo’s courier got through—Tafas wanted Alisande to come riding to the king’s rescue! Damn! I could strangle that kid, if I wasn’t awed by his strategy!” He waved a hand over the bowl. “We’ve got to tell Alisande—if he hasn’t ambushed her, too!”

  The vision of the castle dissolved, and another image grew in its place—an army on the march, filling a road that strayed between newly planted fields.

  Papa frowned. “It is night here, but we see them by morning light.”

  “Predawn,” Matt pointed out. “It’s grayish, and there’re no shadows. Must be some kind of time delay here.” He pointed out the figure at the front, golden hair spilling around armored shoulders. “Alisande! She really does get her troops up and moving at first light.”

  “She is well,” Papa pointed out. “They march, and are not ambushed.”

  “Yet,” Matt said darkly. “How can I get word to them?” His brow knitted as he searched for a message spell.

  “Perhaps there is no need,” Papa suggested. “Do they march toward the rising sun, or away from it?”

  “Good question!” Matt seized on the notion and passed his hand over the bowl again, muttering. The army shrank in the circle, the surrounding countryside filling more and more of the aperture, until golden light burst at one side.

  “Sunrise!” Papa said, then remembered the listening ears. He seized the pad and wrote, She marches away.

  “Thank Heaven,” Matt breathed, as softly as he could, and took the pen to write, Back to Bordestang. Saul must have gotten the word to her somehow. Then he frowned and wrote, She’s going back to catch the Moorish army between her forces and the city wall. I ought to be there.

  Perhaps, Papa wrote. He watched his son for a moment, frowning. Had he realized that his wife was riding away and leaving him to his fate? If so, it didn’t bother him—but this wasn’t the time to talk about it.

  Papa said aloud, “We must consider how much good you’re doing here. You show a knack for diplomacy that I had never suspected in you, my son. It may be that you can shorten this war by thinking and talking, or even end it completely.” On the pad, he wrote, Stay.

  “I have difficulty believing I can do that much good,” Matt said sourly. But he realized that his father had a point—if he could show Tafas which force really lay behind his invasion, he might sue for peace, and Alisande might not have to fight when she arrived back in Bordestang.

  Guerrilla, Papa wrote, and Matt nodded grimly. If diplomacy failed, he might do better to organize a resistance movement. After all, he wouldn’t be the first member of his family to be a Spanish partisan. “Of course, we can’t do anything inside this tent.”

  “What choice have we?” Papa asked, but his eyes were gleaming again.

  Matt sighed; he’d been putting it off long enough. He pushed himself to his feet and strolled around the tent, next to the walls, reciting,

  “Stone walls do not a prison make,

  Nor iron bars a cage...”

  He reached out to touch the silken wall—and a big fat spark jumped out at his finger, making a crack as loud as a firecracker. He mouthed agony, cradling one hand in the other, bending over as he waited for the pain to pass. Papa was by his side in an instant, frowning and massaging the knuckle, but Matt shook his head—there was nothing to do but wait for it to pass.

  “Static electricity,” Papa offered.

  Matt shook his head impatiently, but Papa pointed toward the walls, then cupped his ear, and Matt understood—any words would do, so that the guards wouldn’t wonder why they were being so quiet. “These walls are very heavily guarded by magic, Papa.”

  “So.” Papa nodded. “It does manifest as energy, then?”

  “It can,” Matt told him. The pain was receding now. “Mind you, I don’t think the sorcerer who set this spell knows about electricity—he probably just made a simile to lightning.”

  “ ‘Fire from the sky,’ eh?” Papa nodded. “I suppose you can ground it?”

  Matt had to admit this dialogue would probably be confusing the guards delightfully—presuming any of them spoke the language of Merovence. He decided that he would indeed presume it—less chance of an unpleasant surprise that way. “Dunno. The potential might be automatically renewed. Even if it’s not, we might get one heck of an explosion.” He held up a hand. “I know that sounds feeble, but the other H word isn’t a good one to say around here.”
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  “Yes, I can see how that might be,” Papa said thoughtfully. He went back to the table and scrawled a question mark on the pad and sighed, “I still have a great deal to learn about the physics of this universe.”

  “Well, the Moors have algebra, so they may be ahead of us.” Matt didn’t really think so, though—the forces of this universe seemed to be best expressed in poetry, not equations. He took the pen and wrote, I’ll try a transportation verse. Hold tight. He caught his father’s hand and recited,

  “Take me somewhere east of Suez,

  Where the best is like the worst,

  And they don’t know the Commandments,

  And a man can raise a thirst:

  For the temple bells are callin’,

  And it’s there that I would be,

  By the old Moulmein Pagoda,

  Lookin’ lazy at the sea.”

  Papa looked up in alarm, but it was too late now—too late to change the verse, and too late to explain; the world seemed to go crazy, slipping and sliding about them...

  Then it jarred to a halt. Matt lurched forward over the table, and Papa fell backward among the cushions. Dazed, Matt pushed himself to his feet and started toward Papa in frantic worry. Papa levered himself up, though, looking very disoriented, and Matt relaxed with a sigh.

  “Let me guess,” Papa grunted. “Our jailers thought of that possibility, too.”

  “Either that, or they’re watching us closely this very minute.” Matt flirted with the idea of one of the guards being a sorcerer in disguise, then wondered who was in the tent next door.

  Papa nodded and took the pen. Call Lakshmi.

  Matt stared. Then he felt a panic rise that had nothing to do with counterspells or listening sorcerers. He shook his head very emphatically.

  Papa sighed and started singing.

  “Oh, Lakshmi lass, where are you roaming?

  Oh, Lakshmi lass, where are you roaming?

  Oh, stay and hear! To us be coming,

  For we shall need you high and low,

  We shall need you high and low!”

  Matt kept shaking his head more and more frantically, but a tiny whirlwind sprang up in the middle of the room, growing amazingly, beginning to make a small whine as it reached five and a half feet in height, a whine that descended the scale and turned into a contralto that demanded, “Why should I come to men who have spurned me?”

  “Why, to return a kindness,” Papa said, all innocence.

  The whirlwind began to shrink in on itself, assuming contours that would have set Matt howling at the moon if he hadn’t known how much potential for mayhem they contained. “Kindness?” the contralto challenged. “I have returned your kindness twice over! I have spared your lives, I have chased away lesser djinn, and I have taken you to the Mahdi! Would you have me return your favor tenfold?”

  “It was a very big favor,” Papa reminded her. “However, if paying a debt is not reason enough, then I pray you do it for friendship.”

  “For friendship?” The whirlwind shrank in on itself even further, died down, and Lakshmi took a step closer to Papa. She glanced at Matt, looking him up and down, and he could almost hear her thoughts: If I cannot have the son, perhaps the father will do.

  She turned back to Papa, purring, “What evidence of friendship do you offer?”

  “Why, only what I ask,” Papa said with a slow smile, “to help you when you are in danger, in any way that we can.” But he took a step closer, too, and Matt suddenly realized that his father— Papa!—was exuding a testosterone glow.

  “In danger?” Lakshmi’s voice was more throaty than ever as she stepped even closer to Papa. “Is that the only case in which you may give me comfort?”

  “Alas, I fear so,” Papa said, though his body language screamed regret, “except to offer companionship if you are lonely.”

  “Djinn are solitary creatures,” Lakshmi murmured, “but there are times when we long for closeness.”

  “I know such longings well.” Papa’s voice was heavier now, too. “But it would be wrong for me to offer what I have already pledged to another. Still, friendship is no small gift.”

  For a moment, Lakshmi blazed with anger—literally; small flames danced upon her brow, her shoulders, her breasts—and Matt, on the verge of panic, summoned up his most powerful anti-spirit spell.

  “All men long for the companionship of beauty, great and wondrous beauty,” Papa murmured.

  The flames doused on the instant, and Lakshmi’s glare turned into a sardonic smile. “Yes, but you already have such beauty for companionship, do you not? Nonetheless, perhaps friendship is not to be lightly refused, and I am sure your wife will befriend me as strongly as you do. Enough, then, O Promiser of Favors Not Given! What would you have me do?” She glanced at Matt, a long, lingering, speculative glance that set every hormone howling even as it rang every warning bell in his intuition.

  Papa said quickly, “Why, we ask nothing but that you take us out of this silken prison to which the Mahdi has consigned us.”

  Lakshmi turned back to him, frowning, leaving Matt shaken with relief and racked with thwarted desire. The djinna said, “Two mighty wizards seeking escape from a mere silken pavilion? There is more to this than mortal eyes see.” She turned to scan the walls, and a strange glow sprang from her eyes to shimmer about her face as she pivoted in place. Then it died, and she nodded. “Strong spells indeed have been worked into the very fabric of this tent!”

  “Surely not too strong for a princess of the djinn,” Papa protested.

  “Surely not,” Lakshmi said absently, then reached out to catch both their hands in vise grips as the tent began to rotate around them.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Lakshmi pulled the two men in against her bosom. Either they were shrinking or Lakshmi was growing, but that couldn’t have been happening or she would have ripped right through the roof of the tent, which was spinning around them, faster and faster until it was a blur and Matt was fighting to keep his stomach down. Then the blur darkened; streaks of light appeared, then began to grow fatter, and Matt’s insides told him they’d begun to slow down. The djinna-tornado rotated more and more slowly as the streaks shrank into points of light swinging past, slowing and slowing until they came to a stop.

  Lakshmi released the men. They staggered away stumbling and reeling. Matt caught hold of Papa; the two of them braced against each other until the world stabilized and they saw the Mahdi’s camp spread out below them, thousands of campfires imitating the stars that spattered the sky above. Matt realized they stood on top of a low hill. Relief surged, and Matt fought to keep from sagging to the ground. He managed to say, “Th... thanks, Princess Lakshmi.”

  “Yes, a thousand thanks, O Gem of Djinn,” Papa said. He sounded a little shaky, too.

  “It was my pleasure,” Lakshmi said with a sniff of contempt. “After all, what need have I to do anything that is not my pleasure? By your own spellbreaking, Wizard, I am freed to go where I will—or will not!”

  Matt stared; she fairly seemed to glow against the sky. But the glow began to turn again, spinning, whirling, swirling, fading...

  Gone.

  Now Matt did let himself sag to the ground with relief. “I never knew such tantalizing feelings could be such an ordeal!”

  “That’s not how I remember it from your high school experiences,” Papa said, but his voice trembled a little, too.

  Matt took a deep breath and looked up. “Frankly, Father, you amaze me.”

  “Did not know that the old man still had it in him, eh?” Papa managed a grin.

  “Didn’t know you were a football player,” Matt said, “but you sure know how to intercept a pass!”

  “It is a skill which, once learned, is always easy to recall.” Papa frowned, concerned. “I hope you do not think I have been unfaithful to your mother, Matthew.”

  “Well...”

  “Be assured I have not,” Papa said earnestly. “A man cannot help being attracted t
o a voluptuous woman—but he can help what he does about that attraction.”

  Matt nodded. “He can say no—but he could hurt the woman really easily if he did.”

  “Ah, I see you understand,” Papa said, relieved. “A woman will accept rejection more easily, if you make it clear to her that you wish you did not have to refuse her favors, but that you must be loyal to your wife.”

  “Or your principles,” Matt said, remembering.

  Papa flashed him a smile. “Yes, you have taught undergraduates too, have you not? There are very few women who will not honor faithfulness, though, Matthew, for they wish that same fidelity in their own men, when they find them.”

  Matt nodded. “Must have been tougher on you before you met Mama, though.”

  Papa was silent long enough that Matt turned to stare at him, appalled.

  “I can only speak for myself,” Papa said at last, “and I have learned from some men that they have felt the opposite—but personally, I find that living with a beautiful woman makes all other women seem more wonderful, more spectacular.”

  “And makes you desire them more?” Matt asked, mouth dry.

  “That, it does not,” Papa said frankly. “It is more of an aesthetic impulse that allows me to admire other women, but to desire my Jimena even more.” He turned to look directly into Matt’s eyes. “Does that stand to reason?”

  “Only from personal experience,” Matt assured him. “Sense it makes not.” He grinned at his father. “But it does make me feel a lot better—less guilty about Alisande.”

  “There should be no guilt at all,” Papa said promptly. “You cannot help physical responses, and must not distance yourself from any of your feelings, or they will leap out to overcome you when you least expect it. But you can control your actions.”

  “And you do a great job controlling yours,” Matt said. “Must have been tough when you were a grad student teaching pretty undergrads, though.”

  “I have never been sorely tried since my Jimena came to protect me from them,” Papa assured him.