Inconvenient Magic 01 - Potatoes, Come Forth! Read online

  Everett slowly shook his head. “I can’t do that.”

  “Look – what was your name?”

  “Everett. And yours, Mademoiselle?”

  “Look, Everett, sorry to let you down, but you have absolutely no chance of developing a romantic relationship with me. I know you magic types have difficulties in social situations, but this is just not going anywhere. End of story. So, send me back and we can both forget this whole mistake happened.”

  Everett’s ire rose up. “You don’t understand, Mademoiselle Whateveryournameis, it’s not that I don’t want to send you back, it’s that I can’t. I don’t have a spell to send you back.”

  “Of course you do. The spell you used to bring me here must be a Gross Vital Transportation derivation, right? There’s nothing else that I’ve ever heard of that could move a person from one point to another without passing through intervening space.”

  “I suppose that you’re right, but if I transported you here – and I’m still not admitting that I did – then the spell just manifested to me only a moment ago.”

  “Aren’t you a little old for that?”

  Everett stiffened. “There are well documented cases of spell Manifestation all the way up to the age of forty-five.”

  “Yes, but those have to be extremely rare. Most manifestations, magical or technological, occur between the ages of twelve and twenty-six.”

  The authoritative nature of her statement irritated him yet more; nowadays it seemed that every passing vagabond considered himself an expert on magic. He had not participated in a theoretical discussion of magic since he had left Friar Albert’s Advanced Academy of Magical Study and having one now with a young woman that he had summoned out of thin air seemed decidedly ludicrous. Nevertheless, he felt behooved to assert his own official expertise on the subject.

  “Yes,” he noted in his best pedantic tone, “but manifestations outside those ranges do take place. For instance, I manifested my first spell at the age of three.”

  “And now you’ve manifested a Potent spell at the age of, what, forty?”

  “I’m only thirty-one. Men in my family gray prematurely.”

  The woman waggled a hand at him. “We’re straying. Cast the obverse of your first spell and send me back where I came from.”

  Everett straightened from his habitual slump to his full height and looked down at her with he hoped came across as an imperious air.

  “You might have a vague acquaintance with some aspects of magic, Mademoiselle, but it’s clear that your information is simplistic, misguided, and incomplete. Magic simply doesn’t work that way. Had you studied magic as a profession, as I have, then you would know that the Second Fundamental Precept of Magic clearly states that Manifestation is unpredictable, arbitrary, and random. Yes, it’s true that Potent spells sometimes appear to manifest in pairs, or compliments, with one positive spell, or reverse, and one negative, or obverse, spell, but that’s purely a statistically anomaly.”

  “All right. But how do you know you don’t have the obverse spell? Couldn’t you have also inadvertently manifested a second spell that will send me back?”

  His thoughts churning, Everett clamped his mouth shut on an automatic denial. There was nothing in settled magic theory that covered this situation and the circumstances of the casting of the spell that had brought her here seemed to violate generally accepted magical norms. If he accepted as a given that he had manifested a Potent spell with a weak Epiphany that had simply gone unnoticed in his distracted state, then it was entirely possible he might also have similarly manifested its complement.

  “I suppose it’s could happen,” he allowed.

  She smiled for the first time. “So let’s try it!”

  “Okay, but I’m not making any promises. Where do you want to go?”

  “Back where I came from.”

  “Right, but where’s that?”

  “I’d rather not say. You obviously didn’t know where you snatched me from, so logically you shouldn’t have to know where you’re sending me. For your privacy and mine, let’s keep this as anonymous as possible. I think it’ll be better for both of us that way.”

  Everett shrugged, then, with no confidence whatsoever, concentrated to select the woman as a focus, extrapolated the potential terms of the obverse, and said, “Beautiful Woman, go forth!”

  She tapped her foot. “Nothing happened.”

  “My spells are very seldom instantaneous.”

  “Well, how long will it take?”

  “I have no idea, but most of my spells actuate quickly and then generally evince in under a minute.”

  The woman waited another half minute, clearly counting silently, then inquired, “So it didn’t work?”

  “Obviously. As I expected, I felt no actuation.”

  “Are you sure you did it properly? Shouldn’t you make a commanding gesture or strike a dramatic pose?”

  Almost certain that she was making fun of him, Everett declared, “That part is just what my Commercial Aspects of Magic instructor called ‘salesmanship.’ Most employers expect something more than an enunciated incantation, but, truthfully, as the Third Fundamental Precept--”

  The young woman rolled her eyes again. “Could we dispense with the lectures?”

  Everett gritted his teeth. “Right. The key part is that only the words matter. The effects of the spell are initiated by the complete enunciation of the syllables.”

  “Well, did you say the words correctly?”

  “Again, I have no idea. In my previous manifestations – and this is normally the case with magicians -- the terms of the spells came as an unpresaged inspiration, what we in the profession call an Epiphany. That didn’t happen this time. Frankly, based on this lack of Epiphany and considering the additional evidence of the failure of the experiment with the obverse, I'm now convinced that I have not manifested a new spell, and, therefore, am not at all responsible for your involuntary transportation.”

  “Okay, we need to get beyond this. Try the first spell on me again. If it works, then we’ll know.”

  He shrugged. Her suggestion was a simple and obvious way to prove his innocence.

  The nature of the terms of the purported spell hinted that it, like his seventh spell, would summon its target to a locus rather than dispatch it to one as the failed obverse would have done, but this distinction was, now that he considered it, probably irrelevant for practical purposes with a single target. He turned and concentrated on a discolored paving block at the center of the highway.

  “Beautiful Woman, come forth!.”

  Expecting nothing, he felt shock again as the actuation of a spell sent a subtle shiver through his body. There was no denying it, the particular nuances of the sensation identified it clearly—the spell was indeed his!

  With no delay whatsoever, the as-yet unnamed woman appeared above the stained block, swaying slightly as her footing changed.

  “So you can transport me!” she accused.

  “Hold on! Let me check something.”

  Nerves vibrating, Everett turned and selected a spot a hundred yards out in the soybean field to the east of the highway. “Beautiful Woman, come forth!”

  The young woman appeared at the locus in the midst of the knee-high soybeans and began jumping and shouting.

  Everett felt like jumping and shouting himself. He had manifested his eighth spell! And it was indeed a Potent! Magickers with Transportation Variants could demand exorbitant fees. He would be rich!

  Even better – the manifestation of a Potent spell meant that there was an excellent chance that he would manifest at least one more and earn the exalted magical rank that he had dreamed of since his first manifestation -- Wizard!

  But – and with his magic there was always a but – he could not shake the worry that something was not quite right. Why should this spell be any different? Why would it not, like all his others, have some value-draining limitation?

  Though classified into Variant familie
s, spells could and did manifest in myriad variations through the expression of primary characteristics and the modifying effects of Component sets. In short order, he ran some conjectures through his head concerning the terms of the spell and devised an experiment to determine the nature of a key primary characteristic. Choosing a pebble atop the highway curb some three feet in front of him to establish a locus, he concentrated on the image of a comely young woman he had seen a few weeks previously on the street in Pylton, and pronounced carefully, “Beautiful woman, come forth!”

  The comely woman did not appear. There had been no magical actuation whatsoever. His heart sank.

  Then, to further define the bounds of the spell, he thought of the place where Bob had given him a ride, some miles away, and locked on the location using a meditation technique that the monks of Friar Albert’s had taught him before their high estimations of his potential had evaporated. “Beautiful Woman, come forth!”

  Out in the field, his original victim continued to wave at him unaffected and unmoved.

  Dejected, he selected a locus immediately before him and cast the spell again.

  She appeared, slightly breathless, and caught his arm to steady herself.

  “I’m starting to get dizzy.” She grinned. “It’s sort of fun though.” She awarded him a warm, interested smile, then sobered, let go of his arm, and straightened. “Okay, no doubt about it now. Congratulations on the new spell. Send me back, please.”

  Everett shook his head hard. “Sorry, it won’t work.”

  “What? Why?”

  “The first problem with the spell is that it's a Specific.”

  “How's that?”

  “All spells can be classified as General or Specific. General Spells, like my Major, will operate on any item that fits their descriptive identifier. Specific Spells only operate on one particularly defined item.”

  “I know that!” she snapped. “What has that to do with sending me home?”

  Everett blew out a slow breath. “My Major Spell is--” He paused a moment and blanked his mind to prevent the establishment of either a focus or a locus. “ -- Potatoes, come forth! It works not on one specific set of potatoes, these here for instance, but on any potatoes within its range, which is about a thousand feet. If it were a Specific, it would only work on one particular group of potatoes and never on anything else.”

  “Fine, but--”

  “Think about it. A General spell would bring a random beautiful woman each time if I had no focus. Instead, it only worked when I focused on you. Tell me your name.”

  “I thought we decided that, under the circumstances, I should remain anonymous.”

  “It’s important.”

  She stared hard at him for almost three minutes. “All right, if it’s absolutely necessary, you can call me Sally.”

  “No, your full formal name please.”

  The woman hesitated again. “Why do you need to know my full name? It seems to me that --”

  “I have a suspicion concerning the enunciated terms of the spell. Trust me, I’m a magicker.”

  She did not answer immediately, but after a further moment of quiet thought, she relented. “Sarah Louise Mathilde de Bisghfaem Monte-Jaune.”

  “That’s a mouthful. Bisghfaem?”

  “It’s an ancestral surname on my mother’s side. In ancient West Phagaellean, it means …”

  Everett held up a hand. “I know. Beautiful Woman.”

  “So, you’re saying…but that’s absurd!”

  “I know, but it’s true – my new spell will transport you, and only you, because your name is Beautiful Woman. But the part that really matters is that this spell, like all my others, expressed with a Visual Restriction Component and I can only establish a locus in my own vicinity. In other words, I can only transport you to a spot that I can physically see.”

  “But that’s utter and total--”

  “Crap,” Everett finished sourly. “Of course. It’s just like my other spells. Utter and total crap.”

  FOUR

  Everett refused to leave his potatoes.

  “I don’t think you understand,” Sarah argued, “I must return home. It’s vitally important.”

  He crossed his arms to indicate that he had no intention of rising from his seat on the overturned barrow. “I’ve already apologized for bringing you here, Mademoiselle Monte-Jaune, but it really isn’t my fault. I have no choice in which spells manifest to me. Settled research has determined that manifestation is a natural process whose results are for all intents and purposes random. In other words and at the risk of anthropomorphizing a force of nature, Magic determines which magician gets what, not the magician.”

  Sarah stared at him hard. “I understand that, but it also seems to me that you should feel obligated to help me to return home.”

  “And I undoubtedly will, when I’ve gotten my potatoes to market.”

  “But I need to get back as soon as possible!”

  “And I need to sell my potatoes as soon as possible.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Surely you can’t believe that the pittance you'll receive is anywhere near as important as my…”

  “Yes?”

  “Fine, I suppose I must tell you, but you must swear to keep the information confidential.”

  Everett shrugged. “Sure.”

  “Swear and be bound.”

  Feeling a slight unease, he hesitated at the odd wording, but finally said, “All right, I swear to keep what you tell me a secret.”

  Sarah nodded and seemed to relax. “Tomorrow, I'm to be married.”

  “Congratulations. I’m happy for you. Happy nuptials and all that. But I'm sad to say that there is no way, aside from a magical or technological miracle, that you're going to be able to cover twelve hundred miles in one afternoon. You’re going to be late.”

  “Well, it’s certain that I’m not going to find a wizard capable of sending me home here!”

  Everett shrugged off the insinuated insult. He had no pride to injure where his magic was concerned, having long since accepted his status as possibly the worst magicker in the entire world.

  A maxim that his father had customarily bestowed upon his sister popped into his head. “If it’s love, he’ll wait. If it isn’t, then good riddance.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Love has nothing to do with it. My betrothed, Burgrave George-William D’Orth, is twice my age, an unrepentant bore, and a confirmed lecherous drunkard.”

  Everett’s mouth dropped open.

  Sarah gave him a sour look. “It’s a marriage of state.”

  “I see,” he replied slowly. “What a pity.” That such dazzling beauty was to be wasted on something as mundane as diplomacy must surely be a crime.

  “What’s that?”

  “Nothing. Hey, wait a minute! I’ve heard this story. So you’re actually a princess who’s in love with the common but brave son of the gardener but is forced to marry the evil heir to the throne of a rival empire?”

  “Stop trying to be funny. You do it badly. And, besides, that’s just silly. No one could force me to do anything. For your information, I volunteered. I’m the only eligible female in our family that has the moral rectitude to put up with a total idiot.”

  “But you are a princess?”

  “Wrong again. I’m the grand-niece of the Elector of Kleinsvench.”

  “I’ve heard of that place. It’s one of those tiny city states wedged between the Kingdom of Alarsaria and the Republic of Zheria, right?”

  “Our nearest neighbors are actually the Grand Duchy of Filingham, a close ally of the Kingdom, the Principality of Gainsfield-Schloss, and the Potentate of Yarb, but, yes, you’re essentially correct, and that explains why I must wed an idiot tomorrow.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Everyone knows that the Kingdom and the Republic are on the verge of war. You’ve likely even heard this here in the hinterlands. All the buffer states are making alliances with stronger neighbors in order to
weather the storm. We’ve cut a deal with the Principality, which is aligned with the Grand Duchy and thus the Alarsarians. Lands of the Principality lie geographically between us and the Zherians and we hope that they will be able to shield us from the fighting.”

  The small, sovereign demesnes where Everett had lived his entire life, both in the coastal highlands where he had been born and here in the plains along the River Edze, were, apart from an occasional fuss over trade duties, serenely peaceful. For almost ten years, there had been talk of open war among the major powers but the prospect had never caused great concern; it was generally accepted that no war in the metropolitan west could greatly disturb life in the agricultural east.

  However, there was one thing Everett was sure of: if there ever were a war, he would not be involved. He might be just a mediocre magicker, but he had sense enough to keep himself out of the insanity of war.

  “Now,” Sarah continued. “Is it clear to you why we need to get to a town where we can find a wizard that can send me back?”

  “No,” Everett answered honestly. Really, did she think that her problems were more important to him than his own?

  “Fine!” She seethed, once again using the word to mean something entirely at odds with its general definition. “Suit yourself.” She spun on a heel and started marching in the direction of Pylton.

  “You won’t find any wizards in Pylton,” he called after her. “There isn’t enough business for one. You would have to go to a city.”

  She stopped and spun about. “All right, where is the nearest city?”

  “I suppose that would be the capital of the barony, Eriis, which is on the Edze River about seventy miles from here.”

  “All right. How do I get there?”

  “Go north along this road about fifteen miles. At the ferry landing, which is on a tributary of the Edze called the Green River, you can probably buy a ride on a riverboat all the way down to Eriis. It’s probably twice as far as an overland route, but easier. I’ve been told that the trip takes close to a week.”

  Sarah stalked back to him and thrust out a hand. “Give me money for the fare.”