Inconvenient Magic 01 - Potatoes, Come Forth! Page 19

  Needing more information, he focused a hard expression on Clay. “But they had to get it close to her?”

  “Yeah, I’d say within five feet or so.”

  “Then I just have to make sure that none of the Zherians get that close to me.”

  “You’re not going to do another one o' those doomsday explosions, are you? I know most o’ our guys have retreated out o’ the town, but personally I don’t want to be close to that and we’ve probably still got other stragglers like me around about. That was your spell, wasn’t it, sir?”

  “Yes, it was mine and no, I’m not going to do it again. At least, not unless I need it.”

  “Everett, I think the best thing would be for you to come back with me to our lines. If you try to find Sarah, you’re bound to be captured or killed. If she’s still alive, she’ll be a prisoner and when the fighting slows down there’ll be prisoner exchanges like we’ve always had.”

  Everett shook his head with unshakable certainty. “No, I don’t think so. This war is different. No one has used mechanisms like the Zherian steam-mobile artillery before and even my ‘doomsday’ spell, as you call it, could only delay them. I think the Republic is going to crush Alarsaria totally. I’ll have to find Sarah and free her somehow.”

  The expression on her face gave proof enough that Clay could not deny his prediction. “All right, sir. Do you want me to come with you?”

  “No, it is best if I go alone.”

  Clay made no attempt to argue his point. “I can’t stay here and I need to get what little I know back to our lines. There’s a narrow alley out back. I’m going to try to make use of it to rejoin the brigade.” She stuck out a hand. “Good luck, Lieutenant.”

  “Right. Good luck to you as well, Clay – wait, what’s your first name?”

  The soldier gave a half smile. “It’s Pricilla, but no one’s called me that since I was little.”

  “Good luck, Pricilla.”

  “So long Everett.” She slung her rifle. “If we meet again, you’ll have to tell me the whole story.” It seemed clear that she did not expect this to occur.

  “I will,” he promised as she vanished into a hall at the rear of the shop.

  He gave her half an hour lead, then walked back into the street, taking the chance that any Zherian sniper that might happen to detect him would not be beyond the range of his protective spell. He was still a wizard and Magic was on his side and he was determined that he would find Sarah if he had to break every Zherian in half to do it. Confidently, he began to march along the street back toward the northern part of town. If any hidden enemy indeed fired futilely at him, he saw no sign of it.

  As he walked, he continually expected to be confronted by Zherians and so continually cast his magical strength. He did not know exactly what he would do, but he must be prepared. He was almost back to the damaged section of town when a squad exited a building and took firing positions blocking the way. All wore double-breasted bright red jackets instead of the more common red-brown uniform that he had seen on other Zherian infantry. One that Everett took to be an underofficer of some sort remained standing to one side. On one of the stiff collars of his jacket were black embroidered letters: E.S.A.T.

  “Halt!” the man warned loudly in a melodious baritone. “Surrender immediately or be fired upon!”

  Everett kept walking toward them.

  The underofficer grinned savagely. “Fire!”

  Triggers clicked without effect.

  The underofficer gave a shocked squeak, then barked, “Reload! Fire at will!”

  By this time, Everett had closed with the underofficer, and, as the red-coated soldiers hastened to open breeches and reload, he swung a roundhouse that clipped the Zherian’s jaw while he drew his pistol. The underofficer dropped, stunned, and sprawled on the street.

  Everett bent over the dazed Zherian and said viciously, “Lucky for you my strength spell had just expired or your head would have burst like a smashed melon.”

  The underofficer scrambled away from Everett, shouting to his men, “He’s a magicker!”

  One of them leapt to his feet, snatched something from his belt, and hurled it at Everett. The thing flew toward him, metal shinny and spinning, with copper wires flashing in the sunlight at one end.

  TWENTY-THREE

  The Epiphany, the First Enunciation, actuation, and the evincing came in a single eye blink. “Stay your passage, O Time!”

  The entire world froze in place: the underofficer in mid-scramble, his men in mid-reload, a blown scrap of paper in mid-scuttle across the cobblestones, the thrown object in mid-flight. There was also no background sound and an odd weakness and reddening to the sunlight.

  Everett could still move and he did so, hurrying from the path of what could only be one of the magic canceling mechanisms that Clay had described. As his mind raced to comprehend the consequences of this new spell, he took a position beside the thrower and prepared to cold-cock the man.

  Then someone tapped him on the shoulder, nearly making him jump out of his boot. He spun about to confront a short, rather dumpy, older woman wearing a frumpy housedress embossed with paisley daffodils.

  “I am sorry, Everett,” this new apparition apologized. “I just had to intervene. You were about to make a terrible blunder. Confronting the Esatis now will only needlessly delay you. Frankly, hero wise, you leave something to be desired.”

  “I’ve never claimed to be a hero and who in Magic’s name are you?”

  “Exactly.”

  Awareness dawned. “You’re Magic?”

  “Who else?”

  “Well, I don’t know –“

  “Rhetorical question, Everett.”

  “Ah, uhm, right. You know, the way you talk is very familiar.”

  “No doubt. To save some time, here is the deal straight up: Sarah is my great-granddaughter. I have been helping you with spells so that you could help her. Now I need you to rescue her from Technology and not waste a lot of time bothering with this lot.”

  Not quite keeping up, he took a moment to review. “Right, I had already figured out some of that. Not the great-granddaughter part though. How exactly is that possible? Aren’t you some kind of mystical spirit?”

  The woman sighed. “Fine, I guess we have to do this the hard way. To answer your second question, it would be more accurate to describe me as a noncorporeal sentient entity.”

  Everett looked her up and down once more. To all appearances, she seemed entirely and mundanely human, from her worn, fur-lined house shoes to her thinning gray hair tied back in a practical bun.

  “Aren’t you ‘corporeal’ now?”

  “No, this is just a convenient, non-contemporaneous light spectrum projection made possible by the disruption of physical time. A mirage might be the easiest term for you to understand. I do not actually exist presently in the corporeal realm.”

  “And the great-granddaughter part?” he prompted.

  Magic sighed again in a put-upon way. “Eighty years ago I had the idea to embody myself as a corporeal biologic in order to obtain a greater understanding of the nature of residence in the physical realm. To facilitate that, I exceeded operational parameters and manifested a specific spell to a young, not un-handsome magicker. In the process of that, I engaged in the normal biologic prerogatives and produced a son, who, in the natural scheme of things, also later reproduced. And so on and so forth. I currently have some forty odd direct descendents here in the physical realm.”

  Everett shook his head. “You’ll have to give me that first part again.”

  Magic gave him a highly displeased look. “You know, Everett, I would not have selected you if I had had any other choice.”

  “This does not surprise me.”

  “Well, in any event, I will try to simplify it for you. I gave a young man a spell to create a young woman out of thin air and placed a segment of my identity into that young woman. I take it that you can understand why a young man would be inclined to use mag
ic to summon a young woman and that the natural consequence of that inclination is a baby?”

  “Oh! Right. What did you mean, ‘operational parameters’?”

  “The residents – and I use this term loosely -- of the noncorporeal realm function according to an immeasurable magnitude of omnipresent operational parameters, or, I suppose you could say, boundaries of accepted behavior.”

  “So you broke the rules?”

  “No, I cheated.”

  “And my new spells were also cheats?”

  “Obviously.”

  “Right. So, did the other, ah, residents complain about your cheating?”

  “No.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “At this rate, we will be here all day. Sure you don’t want to just cut ahead to the part where I tell you what I want you to do?”

  “No. I think I need to first understand this whole situation as well as I’m able.”

  This produced another drawn-out sigh from Magic. “Okay, from here on out just assume that I have simplified my explanations into human terms.”

  “Right.”

  “As I had created an exception,” she continued, “Technology was now free to intervene directly in the physical realm.”

  “Technology could also cheat?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that’s the source of all these new mechanisms?”

  “Yes. In this universe, Technology and I have a relationship that in many ways resembles a competition. In the vast majority of universes --”

  “There’s more than one universe?”

  “Try to keep up, would you Everett? As I was saying, in most universes, only one of us holds sway, but here our influences co-exist. There is a lot more to it that you cannot possibly comprehend, but suffice it to say that in the normal scheme of things this competition would have concluded at some point in future. The result of that conclusion would be that one of us would be deemphasized and the other would become dominant. Still with me?”

  “One of you would win?”

  “Yes. Now, here is the key point. Technology is determined to accelerate the process. Since he can now also cheat, he has come in on the side of the Zherians, who have always favored schematics over spells.”

  “Come in? You mean he’s become a human like you did?”

  “Yes. Please stop interrupting. Technology intends to aide the Republic of Zheria to victory over the Alarsarians, who have always had a tendency to favor magical solutions, and then use that as a springboard to conquer the rest of the world. Once in total control, he will entirely eradicate magic users. This will leave Technology as the predominant aspect of nature and spells will no longer function.”

  “Sorry, I don’t think I understand.”

  “Humph! Well, let me think a minute.” She rubbed her chin for a second or two and then snapped her fingers. “I’ve got it!” Her eyes unfocused.

  A spell manifested to Everett. He enunciated it. “Behold the future!”

  Everett blinked once and opened his eyes in a different place.

  Crouching below the stub of the parapet wall as the mortar shells continued to fall sporadically on the fortress, he struggled to bandage the gaping hole in Clay’s chest. She had taken a shrapnel hit from the last bombing run. As her blood pooled obscenely beneath her, her face became pasty white.

  “Leave me…,” she gasped and then, with a choking rattle, she simply died.

  Everett threw his eyes skyward as he again heard the drone of the air carriages. Another wave was coming in.

  “Take cover!” he screamed at the few remaining defenders as the bombs, with their bone chilling warning screech, began to fall.

  Flame, hurtling earth, and rock mushroomed in sequential lines across the cratered courtyard and the already smashed central keep, ripping open the hastily dug trenches and medical shelters and hurling bodies and bits of bodies all about. A blast from one of the bombs brought down the old stone tower alongside the main gate, leaving a break in the curtain wall. Zherian infantry swarmed over the rubble and began firing at the wounded and dying Alarsarians. A red-coated Esati squad followed and quickly set up the tripod of one of their multi-firing guns. Immediately training the devastating mechanism on the wall platform, they began pumping bullets at over two hundred rounds per minute into the remaining Royal Infantry.

  Everett felt bullets rip through his chest and then knew nothing.

  He blinked again and found himself once more facing Magic, who watched him with a keen stare.

  “That was the future?” he asked her.

  “One short, relevant and significant segment of a potential future extrapolated from current circumstances. The extrapolation assumes that there will be no significant changes in existing behavioral trend lines. There are several more visions available to you at this time.”

  Everett felt an urge similar to the immediacy of a First Enunciation, save that this urge could be resisted, though not denied. Relenting, he cast again. “Behold the future!”

  This time he was not himself, but an old man by the name of Hargrove, standing along the Grand Avenue of Eyrchelle with thousands of other cowed Alarsarians as long files of the hated, fanatical Esatis marched in triumph toward the Royal Palace.

  A traitorous sky shown above blue and clear as the syncopated tramp of the invaders boots signaled the final humiliation of defeated Alarsaria.

  Everett felt hot tears roll down Hargrove’s cheeks. His home and neighborhood had been bombed into nonexistence from the air. Zherian mechanisms had crushed his fields and scattered his livestock. And his seven sons and daughters had died in defense of the hopeless cause of the Kingdom.

  Hargrove pulled the old style single shot pistol from his tattered coat and fired at the marching Zherians. He laughed gleefully when one of them pitched over, blood erupting from a chest wound. The old man reloaded and fired again just before a dozen shots from the repeating rifles of the Esatis struck him down.

  As he sprawled in the gutter, his life leaking away, he heard the Esatis begin shooting into the crowd. A young girl fell within Hargrove’s view, her eyes lifeless.

  Everett shuddered as the horrifying future faded, but did not resist as the urgency of another impending vision took hold and he cast once more.

  Again he inhabited the body of another, a powerless witness, as the woman’s hands raised a rifle at the shouted command of an Esati underofficer.

  The next command came quickly. “Fire!”

  Cyn O’Blen could not restrain a smile as her index finger stroked the trigger. The big rifle bucked against her shoulder and the bullet threw the filthy magicker in the center of her sights, a young man no older than twenty, backward into the wall. Her expert shot had pierced the scum directly through the heart. Some of the other members of the firing squad had not been so keen in their aim and Sergeant Perkins had to draw his sidearm to finish off three, an older man, a woman, and a girl, with shots to the head.

  As Cyn gazed contemptuously at the bodies, Everett realized with a jolt that he recognized three of the executed magicians: Abigail, Artie, and Silvia.

  “Come on, people!” Perkins sneered. “We’ve got to empty this ghetto today. Make your shots count. These magickers aren’t worth two bullets! O’Blen, you and Shulm hit this next house.”

  Everett gasped as his stomach heaved. He managed to restrain the reflex, but still tasted the acid burn of bile in his mouth.

  “Now do you understand?” Magic demanded.

  “Not completely. Who are the Esatis?”

  “Members of the Enlightened Society for the Advancement of Technology. The group has been around for a century and was founded as a social organization with the stated goal of fostering technological development. Along about the time that Technology embodied, they began to become radicalized and more political so that today ESAT is one of the strongest political factions in the Republic. As you have seen, they have created special military units that operate alongside the regular R
epublican Army.” She gestured at the redcoats.

  “And they hate and despise magickers?”

  “Hate is a powerful tool, Everett. It is much easier to get humans to hate than to love.”

  Everett felt another urge to enunciate the spell. “Behold the future!”

  This time Everett saw through the eyes of a young girl of eight named Caroline. She had run down to the fisherman’s pier with all the other children and most of the adult occupants of the village to see the sleek warship that had anchored just beyond the breakwater. Eilbrek, her home, was the northernmost settlement on the Kyalt Peninsula and thus the most remote outpost on all the continent of Gheyr. A great stir of excitement passed among the crowd as a launch departed the low-slung cutter and sped without sail or oar toward the pier. A dozen red-coated marines bearing long rifles tipped with bayonets alighted on the pier, barged contemptuously through the crowd, and marched to the factorage where the standard of Lord Kelvan fluttered spryly in the inshore breeze.

  Without ceremony, the marines snatched down the blue flag and raised a red one in its place. Caroline had begun to learn her letters, so she sounded out the black symbols on the new one.

  “E-S-A-T”

  Blinking back to the present, Everett interrupted Magic as she opened her mouth to speak. “Wait. There’s one more.” He cast.

  Bargman Herk struggled through the knee deep drifts of ash and toxins, swinging his head in a slow oscillation to search for any recoverable, though he was certain that this area had long since been picked clean. The faceplate of his environment suit was scratched almost to the point that he could not see out into the dreary, nearly featureless rust-colored landscape. He had put in a requisition for a new one two hundred wake periods ago, but had not yet been granted a replacement. The rare spares went to scavengers with better production than him.