Rough Magic

by Jenny Schwartz

  Around us, the room went silent.

  I stared back at the people observing Radka and me. I wouldn’t apologize for stating the truth.

  Arnout stuck his head in the door. As a goblin, and a tradesman who generally employed limited magic, he was one of the Faerene suffering least from magic sickness. “Dad’s here with Stella.”

  I strode steadily from the clerks’ room. In a couple of hours I’d be risking my life and my friends’, both Faerene and human, in the hope of stabilizing Earth’s magic. I needed my family.

  Craig walked beside the pony cart, while Stella rode with Arthur. In his leather jacket and jeans, Craig appeared incongruously normal. He could have been any good-looking guy, pre-apocalypse. But our new normal was a Renaissance world with magic and magical people, and now, that magic was itself threatened.

  I helped Stella down from the cart, and she hugged me, her old lady arms surprisingly strong. We stood at the bottom of the steps at the front of the magistrate hall. The blanket she’d been wrapped in over her coat and headscarf fell to the ground.

  Craig scooped it up, slinging it over a shoulder.

  I freed an arm to grip his.

  For a second he rested his head against mine. “Don’t be too brave, sis. And don’t let Jarod be either.”

  He wanted us to be safe.

  Our hearts wished that for everyone, but to achieve it, some of us had to walk into danger. I understood his pain. Being the one left behind to wait hurt.

  Peggy’s husband, Arthur, leaned from the pony cart. “Tell Peggy I’ve had a bite to eat. Supplies need delivering. I’ll be back for the broadcast.”

  “Will do.” Craig slapped the pony’s dappled gray rump as Arthur shook the reins.

  Unimpressed by either of them, the sturdy pony had its ears pricked in the direction of the stables. It stood unmoving.

  “I’ll eat you,” Arthur shouted, although he was ordinarily a mild-mannered goblin and not a werewolf or dragon. Horse wasn’t on his menu.

  In response to the empty threat, the pony did what ponies do. It would be collected later by the street cleaner. Muck had valued. Once rotted, it would be utilized as fertilizer in the fields.

  “I miss cars,” Craig said as the pony finally condescended to walk on.

  Stella smiled as we started up the stairs arm in arm. “I had a pony like that when I was a girl. Stubborn as a goat. He’d have done well during the apocalypse.” Her voice lost its nostalgic wistfulness. “And now we have trouble, again. Tineke explained things to me. She sends her good wishes, Amy. She and Lajos are helping Sabinka. The apothecary shop holds magical ingredients, some imported from Elysium. Herbs like Lajos grows are fine, but these other things, they’re affected by the feral magic. Tineke and Lajos are containing them while they’re packed and moved out of town.”

  “Sabinka volunteered to move her stock.” Berre held the door open for us. “The bits that are trying to grow legs, bite people, influence dreams or do any of that weirdness.” He grinned toothily. “We live in interesting times.”

  I’d heard how active charms were morphing when rough magic flooded them. Sometimes the results were funny. For example, giant cookies from a home-baking charm harmed no one. Other examples of charm mutation were tragic.

  It was moderately warmer inside the hall, and much warmer when we reached the kitchen. Our backpacks sat lined up along a side wall behind the table where Rory and our group sat. The space was thronged with hall staff, their families and townsfolk, as well as people I didn’t recognize, people who’d sought sanctuary in Justice. We could have taken our breakfast in the family room, but Rory had decided that an air of secrecy would be detrimental to the town’s morale. Some would find it difficult to accept that the composition of our vital Faerene expedition to find the world spindle would be equal parts human.

  Peggy bustled about in absolute command of the hectic kitchen. Our table was laden with platters of bacon and eggs, a tureen of baked beans, another of porridge, and pots of tea and coffee. As soon as she saw Stella and me, she headed our way with a loaf of honeybread and a plate piled high with cornbread.

  No one went hungry when Peggy was around.

  Craig hung Stella’s coat over the back of her chair and put the folded blanket over his, while I slid in beside Rory, putting my hand on his shoulder for a second.

  Mike nodded at me.

  Jarod sat beside him, talking animatedly to Nils about spelunking.

  Father and sons had very different personalities, but they shared the habit of concealing their reliability. Mike hid his with grumpiness, Craig pretended not to care about others, and Jarod let his natural humor hide his shrewdness. Yet here they were, present for one another and for Digger, Rory and me, to support us by sending us off as well-prepared as possible, including emotionally.

  “Niamh has to watch the broadcast with the other cops,” Mike said. “Olsen’s orders. She’s going to try and see you before you leave, but if she can’t, she gave me this for you.” He passed me a foil-wrapped chocolate.

  Niamh and I had been saving them and gifting them to each other when we thought one of us required a mood boost.

  “Thanks.” I tucked it beside my plate.

  Peggy added two pieces of cornbread to it and put the loaf of honeybread on a board in front of Stella. “Eat.” She kissed Stella’s cheek affectionately. “You need more than coffee.”

  The Faerene honored their elders, and few had joined the Migration. They had offered Stella respect from the beginning of her time in Justice, but I saw the difference, now. Now, their respect was personal.

  “You’re sneaky, Peggy,” Stella said. “You know I can’t resist your honeybread.”

  “Nor can I.” Craig began slicing the loaf, thickly.

  Rory reached for a piece of cornbread, while I added bacon and eggs to my plate. Ordinarily, I’d have been content with Peggy’s cornbread for breakfast, but with the expedition ahead of us, more was better.

  The buzz of conversation dipped as Istvan entered. He took his place at the head of our table and one of Peggy’s nieces instantly put a platter of grilled catfish in front of him. Without preamble, he launched into discussion of the expedition. “We have a likely access point to the cave system. It was Quossa’s idea. The ancient mages wanted their non-magic using descendants to find the world spindle millennia ago. They assumed that they would. That tells us that they placed the spindle somewhere accessible, but that accessibility was compromised. Given the nature of the region, Quossa posited a rockfall and went looking at surface images. He found a rockfall a couple of millennia old less than a mile from where Amy determined the world spindle is.”

  I grimaced. We were betting a lot on my unproven ability to tap into something as mysterious as acua.

  “The rockfall isn’t recent, other than on a geological timescale. It could have covered a cave entrance. We’ll need to move the rocks, which means magic. We’ll be departing as soon as Harold’s broadcast concludes to maximize our time for active magic. We have permission to use magic if required, but Nora and Quossa believe we shouldn’t. Humans wouldn’t have if they’d been the ones to discover the world spindle, as the ancient mages intended.”

  Rory took over so that Istvan could eat. “If we don’t find the world spindle at the rock site, we’ll try the Yucatan site next. We’re making a huge assumption that djinn mark the spot.”

  “Djinn?” A dozen voices queried the term.

  “Radka will explain,” Rory said. “Later.”

  Sitting on Rory’s right, Yana stabbed her knife in the air. “Once the moratorium starts and our active duty constricts. We’ll have time for stories, then.”

  The pragmatism of her statement struck everyone. Presumably, it also reminded them, as it did me, how the magistrate hall’s purpose, to maintain the balance of magic in the North American Territory and respond to perilous magical happenings, would be impossible during the moratorium.

  Given the exhaustion on the face
s around me, hopefully they’d be able to rest, and that ceasing to employ magic would lessen their magic sickness suffering.

  “Twenty minutes till Harold’s broadcast,” Radka said.

  Istvan nodded at Rory, who stood. Istvan was the magistrate. This was his hall. But a magistrate was a judge, not a leader. As a werewolf alpha, Rory had the skills and aura better suited to the moment.

  The swift silence that spread across the kitchen was proof of that. People swiveled on benches and chairs to face him. To face us.

  “Dangers we didn’t anticipate and can’t define are uniquely terrifying,” Rory began. “I am proud of the people of Justice, of my pack’s hometown. You are meeting this crisis with commonsense and compassion. Only a few of us are going on this quest to resolve the rough magic, but we leave our loved ones in your care. Heroic ballads aren’t sung about daily life. It’s so essential that we take it for granted. Keep living, keep Justice alive, and you are doing the real work of the Migration, the hard work that we all signed up for. Thank you.”

  Rory’s speech wasn’t a rallying cry, it was an affirmation of the best of Faerene society and beliefs.

  Silence swelled into a shout of assent.

  Rory nodded once, sharp and decisive. “We’ll watch Harold’s broadcast in the main hall.”

  Fae King Harold appeared larger than life on the huge wall slate at the side of the hall. We’d all squashed in for the broadcast: staff and their families, townspeople, and anxious visitors. The latter tended to be the lone Faerene who’d converged on towns like Justice for safety and reassurance.

  “We are facing an extinction level event,” Harold said starkly. “The feral magic is dangerous and increasing in both intensity and unpredictability. It was bad, yesterday. It’s worse, today. It is making us sick. At six hours from the end of this broadcast a three day moratorium on the use of magic is in effect.”

  He scowled at everyone watching around the globe. His stern expression failed to mask his concern and sorrow. “For three days no one can use magic. This is a survival order. On joining the Migration, each of you vowed to respect survival orders. You must adhere to the moratorium for your own and everyone’s survival. It begins six hours from the end of this broadcast.

  “We have neither time nor magic to spare on explanations until this threat is dealt with. You know that as you try to channel magic to your slates to hear me. If the magic flows are stabilized early, one of the Fae Council will broadcast a repeal of the moratorium survival order. Until that repeal or the conclusion of the three day period, you may not use magic on pain of death and the eternal damnation of your honor. The six hour count begins, now.”

  The broadcast ended. The wall slate went blank. The centaur clerk, Urwin, who’d been maintaining ours, wiped his face with a large, white handkerchief.

  Harold hadn’t mentioned the world spindle.

  “Do we get an explanation?” Mayor Bataar asked into the silence.

  “Very briefly,” Istvan replied. “The ancient human mages intended humanity’s orb to be discovered after their descendants gained possession of a world spindle. When we activated the orb first, millennia-old patterns that had been locked into unnatural stasis broke. The theory is that the world spindle, design unknown, was meant to manage the release of the magic flows. Nora and her team have identified three likely locations for the world spindle. Amy, Rory, Nils, Jarod, Digger and I are going in search of it.” He paused. “Pray for us.”

  The chaplain of Justice’s all-faiths temple stepped forward at Istvan’s nod. “We pray for the Earth, for our family and friends, for strength in difficult times and the courage to live with honor. May peace bless us and love unite us. Amen.”

  “Amen,” we answered in ragged chorus.

  Chapter 7

  The portal to Monument Valley appeared as normal, but then the desert landscape on the far side rippled.

  Someone behind us swore.

  I didn’t turn to see who. Like Rory, whose hand I held, all my attention was directed forward.

  Istvan’s claws dug into the dirt. The landscape steadied. “Now!”

  We ran. For all Istvan’s skills and experience, to some extent we were trusting to luck, exactly as we might do if we dived into a lake, unsure of how deep the water was. In this case, the uncertainty had been what proximity to the djinn would do to a portal. The assumption had been that it would tear apart a portal. Yet Istvan and Rory had agreed that with the harshness of the landscape and the urgency, cutting close had to be risked.

  The space-collapsing connection of two separate locations lasted long enough for Istvan to join us. Then the portal disappeared with a clap of thunder.

  Rory and Nils, who understood the principles of portal making, got incredibly grim expressions. However, they didn’t spare any attention for the space where the portal had existed. Instead, they looked around for threats.

  Digger did the same, a throwing knife in his right hand.

  Istvan stood with his legs spread wide, braced, while his sides heaved. His beak gaped as he sucked in air.

  I tried to calm down and sense for the world spindle, or less focusedly, for a compulsion from my acua as to where to go. I’d be a handicap to the team if I had to psyche myself into a panic for it to work.

  In theory, we didn’t require confirmation of the direction. We’d studied the maps, and Digger had one stashed in his backpack. We had a compass and a plan. But when we got underground, me being able to sense the direction of the spindle would be reassuring. Maybe even lifesaving. We had to get underground, find the spindle, and get out, fast.

  Then, when we possessed the world spindle, we had to work out how to use it.

  Maybe it would operate automatically?

  I scuffed my boots in the dirt at that optimistic thought. Hope wasn’t a strategy. But getting overwhelmed or ahead of myself wouldn’t help either. First, we had to find the spindle.

  Shoving a hand in the pocket of my jacket, I found the chocolate that Mike had given me. Niamh hadn’t made it to the magistrate hall before we passed through the portal. The foil crackled as I unwrapped it. The melting chocolate was beginning to stick to it. I wasn’t hungry, so the chocolate mattered more for what it represented than for giving me energy. The taste was smooth and sweet, lingering on my tongue after I’d crumpled the wrapper and stuck it back in my pocket.

  “The Anasazi used to live around here,” Jarod said as we hiked west-southwest. The rising sun sent our shadows out ahead of us, intruders in this desert land. “I saw a TV documentary on them. Apparently, they mysteriously vanished a few centuries ago. Woo woo and gone! Do you think the world spindle sucked them in, like a vortex? Maybe they’re stuck in some alternate reality.”

  No one answered him, but Jarod was an enthusiastic monologuer. He continued to ramble, not out of breath at all despite the fast pace Nils set. “They were cliff-dwellers, though. You know, they lived up there.” He gestured at the nearest towering mesa, one of those iconic burnt orange sandstone formations recognizable (to humans) from old western movies. We hoped that a fallen one concealed the entrance to the cave we needed. “I don’t think they lived in caves, like not underground caves. I get that. I prefer the heights, too.”

  I found my gaze straying slightly to the right of Nils. That would be where the world spindle lurked underground. We’d have nearly a mile of caves to traverse to reach it. There would be no sun to warm our backs and our only light would be from what we carried. Instinctively, I patted the pocket with my firelighter. There were two candles in my backpack. Rory and Digger carried lamps among their gear, and Nils spare oil. Jarod had predominantly burdened himself with rope.

  Drilling down directly over where I believed the spindle had been hidden wasn’t possible. For a start, we didn’t know what arrangements the ancient mages had made to hide the spindle. In reaching it destructively from above we might lose important information or even destroy it.

  Quossa, Nora and the other scientists also
believed that attempting to employ magic within the inner sphere of the djinn’s influence would likely fail, fatally.

  Traveling through the cave system might also enable us to pick up clues about how the ancient mages thought and employed their magic. Communication from the orb was slanted by what they wished us to know. The traces of their work in the caves might offer other insights.

  We reached the rockslide; a raised, tumbled lump on the ground, beginning to erode. A yucca grew to the side of it, its spear-like leaves pointed defiantly at the sky.

  We mightn’t be able to drill down, but Istvan intended to employ magic to move the rock aside from what we hoped was the cave entrance.

  “I can feel the chaotic magic,” Nils said, his gaze ahead of us. “If we call it a djinn, we’re inside the djinn.”

  Jarod whistled, irrepressible. He winked at me as he lowered his canteen. Each of us had two. One on our belts, one in our packs. He replaced the lid, screwing it tight.

  Unexpectedly, Nils seemed to enjoy Jarod’s humor. “On the outskirts of it, I should have said.” A grin twitched the former assassin’s mouth.

  “I think I can risk magic to move the rocks,” Istvan said, answering the underlying question in Nils’s observation. “This may have the benefit of drawing the djinn’s attention to me. Not that I believe it is sentient,” he added hastily. “But moving the rocks will be the last active magic performed in the area. And I’ve felt the building intensity of the chaotic magic. Hopefully, it came towards us, or rather, towards where the portal was, as much as we’ve been approaching it. If that’s true, you may avoid its focus as you seek the spindle. Ready?”

  Rory scrutinized each of us. He was in charge of the spelunking stage of our expedition, while Istvan stayed on the surface. If all went well, we’d return to this spot and reunite with Istvan. We had a secondary, fallback rendezvous location two miles to the west at a spring.

  As Rory met my eyes I gave a small nod. I could sense the djinn as a feeling of unsettled difference and potential. It was strange, but not ominous. I didn’t try to “see” it through magic sight. Understanding the djinn was not the purpose of the expedition. I could analyze my experience after we’d found the spindle and gotten away safely.