"He has," said Carolinus dryly.
"—but it is growth of the individual's body that heals such wounds over time, and in destroying the scar, we must destroy some of that, too. This comes very close to the prohibition of our Collegiate against taking offensive action, for first must all scar tissue be removed, then the original open wound closed cleanly and magickally. It has proven successful in some cases, not in others, and so far no reason for the different results has been discovered. You understand—" he glanced at Carolinus "—there will be a heavy cost involved?"
"Actually," said Carolinus, still dryly, "Jim can pay you out of his own account, after his saving the life of the current English King—to the great relief of all of us—by his recent coup de main against the aggressive goblins from Deep Earth."
"Ah, yes," said Son Won Phon, and surprised Jim by adding, in a tone of simple regret, "I beg you will accept my apologies, Jim. Of course I had known of and been overjoyed by that recent valuable feat, as every Magickian in the Collegiate has been. Like the rest, I am deeply grateful for your success in preserving Edward on the throne. I was in error in even asking such a question. I pray you forgive me."
He said this seriously, without any apparent self-consciousness, and without losing any of his aura of personal power and authority.
"Of course, Son Won Phon," said Jim, floundering slightly. The point of payment seemed too tiny a matter for such elaborate courtesy—particularly to an inferior like himself. But the Eastern Magickian was going on.
"In any case, I would have wished to do it. It is an interesting case. You may leave it in my hands. Mage, Jim, will you forgive me if I now depart?"
"Certainly," said Carolinus. Jim, unsure of how to respond or whether Carolinus had not spoken for both of them, made an inarticulate sound in his throat. Son Won Phon disappeared.
Jim stared at the space where he had been, and turned on Carolinus.
"Is that all there is to it?"
"It is," said Carolinus. "You didn't expect him to let you involve yourself in his magickal process, whatever it is?"
"No, no…" said Jim, "I was just surprised to see the Magickian was Son Won Phon; I thought he would want to know more about it, before he went to work."
He had, though—had hoped to watch what Son Won Phon would do. But if that wish had seemed possible earlier, clearly there was no hope of it now.
"Son Won Phon is the most capable in the Collegiate in this specialty. But no Magickian is going to let you look over his shoulder as he works," said Carolinus. "Would you?"
"Certainly," said Jim, staring at the Mage. "What harm could it do?"
"Hah!" said Carolinus derisively, and vanished in his turn.
Troubled, Jim went to the fireplace and tried to make himself a cup of tea. While he was struggling to get the kettle swung over the fire where it would best have a steady heat without covering the kettle's bottom with soot, Angie came back in.
"Did you tell May Heather she was elevated to the rank of Mistress?" she asked.
"Certainly."
"Did you forget completely she's still apprenticed to Mistress Plyseth in the Serving Room, and no more than a day over fourteen or fifteen if she's that? Plyseth will have to be asked, first."
"She'll be told, not asked. I'm the lord of this castle. I can promote someone to Mistress or Master if I want to."
Angie looked at him with concern.
"You don't have to snap my head off," she said, but in a voice more worried than anything else. "What's the matter, Jim?"
"Sorry," he said, "I didn't mean it the way it sounded."
"It's not that," she said. "It's just not like you to talk so. What's bothering you, Jim? Tell me. Are you all tired out again?"
"No, no."
"Well, something's wrong. Here, let me at that kettle before you set the place on fire, pumping on those bellows. Turning the fireplace into a blast furnace's not necessary. You go sit down—or lie down, if you find yourself feeling like it. I'll bring you a cup of tea."
"Here you are," she said, minutes later. He was in the bed, but sitting up against the headboard when she brought him the steaming cup and sat down on the edge of the bed beside him.
Jim took the cup and sipped gratefully.
"I guess I was a little wound up," he said.
Tell me."
"Well, I've wanted to magically do away with that scar on Geronde's cheek before her wedding if I could, for a long time."
"Jim, what a wonderful thought! That's why you asked me about that before?"
"Not as easy as it sounds, it seems. I wanted to surprise you. I thought I could do it myself, but I can't. So I asked Carolinus, and he said it was practically impossible, but there were some Magickians in the Collegiate who'd looked into the problem, he's not one of them, but he'd see about getting one to help. So he did."
"That's terrific!"
"Not quite. The specialist Carolinus brought here just before you got back was Son Won Phon."
"Not that Magickian who's been out to get you all along, and fought the duel with Carolinus over you?"
"Yes, but maybe no. I mean Carolinus told me it wasn't a vendetta. I mean, I may've been wrong about that. Carolinus says he's simply the soul of principle and would as soon condemn himself as anyone else."
"He doesn't sound like it."
"Well, I don't know now," said Jim. "As I say, he came and it was the first chance I'd had to meet him. He wasn't what I'd thought. Maybe Carolinus was right. Anyway, he's going to try fixing Geronde's scar. There're evidently problems with scars because they aren't like healing a fresh wound. You have to destroy what the body's grown to close the wound, and that's attacking a living part of another human being—against the rules of the Collegiate. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, no Magickian knows why."
"Jim," said Angie, "why don't you just tell me everything, from the time he first showed up until the time he left?"
Jim did.
"I don't know about him now, either," said Angie, nipping at her lower lip with her teeth. "But you say he struck you as honest?"
"Yes, he did."
"Well, then," she said, "there's no harm in letting him try, is there? He might as well go ahead. If he does, tremendous. If he doesn't, that's that."
"You're right, of course. God!" said Jim, looking at her gratefully. "It's good to have you to talk things over with, Angie!"
"That's one of the things I'm here for," said Angie, leaning forward to kiss him. "How do you feel now?"
"Much better," he said, setting down the empty teacup on the bedside table. "You're right. It was still bothering me a bit. You know, I think I will take a small nap."
"Good," said Angie, "you do that. Sleep's what's good for you right now."
He lay down on the bed, and sleep folded in over him immediately. He had a vague memory of Angie pulling up a bed cover over him, and then nothing—not even dreams.
He slept until the next morning.
He came to slowly. Judging by the sunlight through the windows, it was late morning, and Angie was not in the Solar. He lay there in a sort of delicious peace, coming to the full surface of consciousness. Sometime during the night she must have undressed him and got him fully under all the covers—none of the servants would have dared to—although it was standard practice for a knight or lord who'd drunk too much. But a Magickian—that was different.
Lazily, he tried to think of what he should be getting up and busy at, but he could think of nothing. Blessed nothing at all! He snuggled down under the covers and closed his eyes, willing himself back into the cozy well of sleep. But he did not sleep. Instead he gradually became more awake, and as he did, he began to think.
This was the next day. Why hadn't he heard from Son Won Phon—or at least from Carolinus—before this? A delicate magical—or even magickal—operation would not need what Jim's future world had needed in the way of time. With magic you could either do something or you couldn't. Essentially, you command
ed it to happen, and if you knew what you were doing, it happened. Otherwise it didn't. In either case, you knew almost immediately.
He became rapidly more awake, and the emotion in him about Geronde's scar began to rise. He was astonished at the power of it, greater than his concern with the goblins. But that had been a case of instinctive survival. Necessity, not emotion, had been on his mind. But this determination that the scar should be gone at last was driving him like a storm wind at his back. No doubt it came from the years during which he had told himself he would fix it but had actually done nothing—and now time was short.
He got up from the bed abruptly and dressed. When that was done, he called Son Won Phon, the same way he was used to calling Carolinus and Kinetete.
Son Won Phon
There was no answer. He tried again, putting extra energy into the call, on the chance that the lack of an answer came from the fact Son Won Phon was probably on the other side of the world. He was wading recklessly into the magic he had just earned in defeating the goblins, but that didn't matter now.
Son Won Phon!
No response. When the other got his message, he would, in effect, be hearing those words in Jim's voice, know who was calling him and realize the urgency behind the intrusion. But there was no reaction.
He tried calling twice more, in each case with less hope. No reply.
Jim braced himself. If Carolinus did not answer either, he would try Kinetete to see if she could help him get some news from Son Won Phon. She was a woman and might understand better how much a successful result to the operation would mean to Geronde. If even she was no help, or the answer from Son was bad news, he'd… he did not know what he'd do, but he'd keep trying on his own.
Carolinus!
Awake, are you, now, Jim? Carolinus's words sounded silently in his mind, with a foreboding kindliness to their tone. Son's with me now. Stay where you are. We'll be with you in a moment.
Remembering the unmade bed, Jim called in the servant to tidy up the Solar. While she was doing this, Jim paced the floor. As usual in such cases, the wait seemed to stretch out as if it would last until doomsday. The servant finished, curtsied and left. Jim reminded himself that Magickians—senior Magickians—had a bad habit of not paying attention to how prompt they were. But they always showed up eventually… the thought did not help.
Finally, Carolinus and Son Won Phon appeared.
"Here we are, Jim," Carolinus said. "Knowing how important sleep is to you right now, we didn't want to disturb you until you were fully awake." The treacherous kindliness in his voice, all wrong for him, was still there. "Son Won Phon will tell you of his efforts," he wound up.
"Jim," said Son Won Phon, "in this case, the necessary magickal process failed. I regret it extremely, and wish there was more to be done. But there is not. If all had gone well, as I hoped, Geronde would have woken up this morning with her disfigurement gone. She did not."
"I see," said Jim bleakly.
"As I say, I wish there was something further I could do. But the magick normally works immediately if it is going to work at all. Neither I, nor any of the other Magickians who have looked into this problem—some of much more exalted rank than I—have been able to understand why it succeeds in some cases and not in others. The magick is identical in the cases of both failure and success."
"Is there anything in common about either the failure or success?" said Jim desperately. "Something about the time the magick is used, the age or condition of those it's used on—anything at all in common with that separate group of failures that you don't find in the successes?"
"I do not understand you," said Son Won Phon.
"I'm wondering about the conditions under which the magick has to take effect—for example" he said, suddenly remembering something, "could the successes have all been people who as a group were more innocent than the failures—in the sense that animals are innocent and therefore immune to magick?"
"I see what you would suggest," said Son Won Phon. "Let me run over in my mind the cases I have personally known."
There was a long moment of silence in the Solar.
"No," the Oriental Magickian said, breaking the silence at last. "There is no group difference such as you suggest, and I can think of nothing else that would divide those in whom the magick fails from those in which it does not fail."
"It happens, Jim," said Carolinus. "Happens to the best of us. Sometimes magick does not work."
"In any case," said Son Won Phon to Jim, "I must leave now. As I say, I regret extremely not being able to be useful to you in this matter. There will be no charge, of course."
"No," said Jim. "I'm going to pay you anyway, as far as I can in magical energy, at least. I don't have a great deal of worldly goods to pay for such—"
"I regret," said Son Won Phon, "but I will not accept payment in any form from you. At the risk of disagreeing with the Mage—although I would assume it would be simply in the way he would seem to phrase his objection, if he should—my answer would be I feel you are not quite ready to accept the result in this case, and you would be quite right in not doing so, though I have little belief in your being able to improve upon what I failed to achieve."
"I didn't mean—" Jim began.
"It makes little difference what you meant," said Son Won Phon. "I simply warn you against unreasonable expectations. If you should by rare chance be successful in trying further yourself, knowledge of your solution would be greatly welcomed by all who have searched for the answer. Each of us who work with magick know that every other worker has his or her own way, which may give an answer when all others have failed. As a Magickian superior in rank to you, permit me to remind you that it is never magick itself that fails, but the Magickian who uses it. Therefore I have done nothing for you and no pay is due. Other Magickians may deal otherwise. That is up to them. I do not. Farewell, Apprentice Jim."
He was gone.
"He can be a prickly fellow sometimes," said Carolinus. "But it's a good idea just to accept the way he wants to do something. He lives by his own code, as all of us must."
"I follow you," said Jim, not quite truthfully. "But I can't help remembering someone said where I come from—said it a very long time ago, I think: 'There's nothing so dangerous as a completely honest man.' Or words to that effect. I hate to think he's the one who's going to observe me and report on me to the Collegiate before the rest will accept me into it—as you said has to happen."
"You'll do well," said Carolinus. "Don't concern yourself with that, Jim—not with that nor with Geronde's scar. Everyone did their best. Put it out of your mind. Just don't make any mistakes when you're being observed."
"Hah!" said Jim. "As if that was easy!"
"It's not easy. But you have to do it, now of all times. So do it."
"Don't worry," said Jim—adding, entirely untruthfully, "I've almost forgotten about Geronde's scar already."
"Good!" said Carolinus, and vanished.
Jim looked at the empty place where his Master-in-Magick had been. He had just lied to Carolinus. Lied in his teeth, and Carolinus was an old friend. What chance would he have of living up to Son Won Phon's expectations?
But none of that mattered. His mind could no more give up searching for a way to get that scar off Geronde's face, impossible as that now seemed, than Saint George could have turned his back and walked away from the dragon, or for that matter, than the dragon could have turned and left. Their battle could well be legendary—though not in this world, he reminded himself, in this improbable world it could well have been sober truth.
That was beside the point. Inside Jim, wrath was kindling. So Son Won Phon had failed. So, judging by Carolinus's reaction, he would never have shown him how his scar-removal magick worked. None of that mattered.
Jim was not a person of instant fighting reflex. If someone without warning threw a punch at him, he might dodge the blow, if he could, but instead of hitting out himself automatically, he was more likely to ask
his attacker, "Why did you want to do that?" It was simply built into him to act so.
Usually, not until he saw the second blow coming would fury wake in him, and he would begin to fight. After that, of course, he often stood a fair chance of winning, since his fury would keep growing as he fought, until he no longer noticed being hit. But that delay of his could be suicidal, in this world, he reminded himself. Slow to reply could mean a dead James Eckert.
So, give up the idea of getting rid of Geronde's scar, as Carolinus had said, a duty which had been a burr in his conscience ever since he, Brian, Danielle, Dafydd and Aargh had not rescued her in time to keep her face from being cut?
Hell, no! She and Brian had been forced to wait too long to marry—and the actual marriage process meant too much to both of them. They had loved each other too deeply and too long not to deserve the most he could do for them!
Chapter Forty-Four
"How much time did he have, Jim asked himself?
The wedding was tomorrow noon, and would take place on the steps of the chapel, to be followed immediately by a celebratory Mass inside. If the scar was to be gone, it would have to be gone before Geronde came out for the ceremony. He mustn't just make it disappear in the middle of the day, when everybody could notice its vanishing.
Local people would be quick enough to wind up calling it a miracle anyway, but he wanted them to give the credit to the wedding, the Mass—any number of things, just so they didn't suspect that magic and he had anything to do with it.
The only really practical time for it to disappear was overnight, when Geronde was asleep and didn't know about it herself until morning.
All right, he had time, then. Ignore the fact that Son Won Phon would not let him know how he had tried to do it. He was used to figuring magic out in his own way, anyway.
In fact, Carolinus had always left him to figure things out by himself—the equivalent of throwing him into deep water to teach him how to swim. No two Magickians, Carolinus had insisted from the start, made identical magicks the same way—that much was true. But it had been some years before Jim began to understand this was not the standard way of training apprentices in magick.
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