The Choice of Magic

by Michael G. Manning

  Waving his hands, Will protested, “But I have!”

  “No, you didn’t,” said Tiny firmly. “You saw something you didn’t understand and called it magic. Modern men don’t need superstition to face the hard realities of the world. I’m a little disappointed you brought it up. I thought you were smarter than most.”

  “But…”

  Tiny wagged his finger in Will’s direction. “If magic was real, why aren’t we using it for war?”

  “It was used a lot in the last big war,” argued Will. “And Lord Fulstrom is a sorcerer.”

  Tiny shrugged. “I’ve never seen him do any magic. It’s just another excuse for them to claim power over regular people.”

  “I’ve seen his elemental,” said Will, but he realized that argument wouldn’t work either. All the sorcerers he had seen so far kept their elementals invisible to normal eyes most of the time. Frustrated, he changed directions. “I can do magic.”

  Disgusted, Tiny replied, “Show me then.”

  Tiny wouldn’t be able to see the runes even if Will produced them, but what he really wanted was someone to practice his new spell with. “I can’t show you here. If someone saw, I’d be put in irons.”

  “That’s what they always say,” said Tiny knowingly.

  “In five days, we get another free day,” Will told him. “Come with me and I’ll show you. If you don’t believe me, I’ll buy you as much as you can eat.”

  “I can eat a lot,” warned the big man.

  Will chuckled. “Trust me, I know.”

  “Not just some lousy pottage either,” added Tiny. “I want beef, or a ham.”

  “Whatever you want,” said Will confidently. “We get paid tomorrow. I’ll spend it all if you don’t believe me.”

  Tiny’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Don’t try to get out of it by spending most of it before our day off.”

  ***

  On the day in question, Will led Tiny to the hidden spring by the congruence that led to Faerie. He didn’t intend to use it to travel, but the place was free from prying eyes. Preparing himself, he gave Tiny a final warning, “I’m going to cast a spell. If it works, you’ll be paralyzed. Don’t panic. I promise I’ll release you right away.”

  “Sure,” said the big man, obviously not worried.

  Will lifted his hands and constructed the spell in a matter of a four or five seconds. As before, a green line shot out as he invested a small amount of turyn in it, and this time it landed squarely in the center of his new target’s chest and he felt it connect. The sensation was curious, as though he had two bodies. He was shocked to realize that he could feel everything that Tiny felt. “There,” he announced proudly.

  “What?” said Tiny, clearly unimpressed.

  Will frowned. “You can talk?”

  “Most people are surprised when they discover I can speak,” said the big man, his voice laden with sarcasm.

  Confused, Will made a suggestion, “Try to do something else.”

  Tiny shifted slightly to the side and farted so loudly that Will was surprised that the birds in the trees above them hadn’t taken flight. The big man shrugged. “Don’t blame me, it was your magic.”

  Stumped, Will tried to understand why the spell wasn’t working as he had expected. Even now he could see the green line connecting them, and he could feel all sorts of strange sensations coming through it to him. Then a foul odor caused his nose to crinkle, and he began waving his hands to clear the air. “Ack, what did you eat?”

  “Your magic is exceedingly potent,” said Tiny dryly, trying not to crack a smile.

  Perhaps he needed to do something. Sitting down, Will decided to try meditating to better understand the connection he had created. “Let me concentrate on this for a while,” he told his friend.

  Tiny shook his head. “Stop stalling. You’ve lost. Let’s go eat. I’m hungry and you’re paying.”

  Frustrated, Will stood up and dismissed the spell. “Give me your hand. I’ll show you something else instead.”

  The big soldier studied his open hand as though it might be a trap of some sort. Finally, he took it, saying, “Fine. I love holding hands with fools and drunks.”

  Will twisted them sideways through the congruence, and the landscape changed, becoming the open grassland that surrounded Cath Bawlg’s cave in Faerie. Then he looked over to see Tiny’s reaction.

  The big man remained utterly still, with only his eyes moving as they darted back and forth to study their surroundings. After thirty seconds or so, Tiny released Will’s hand and turned around to look behind them. He stood there for a while, then his tanned cheeks began to pale and Tiny started to sway on his feet.

  Shit! Will grabbed his friend’s hand and shifted them back to the hidden spring. “Sit down,” he cautioned Tiny. “If you fall there’s no way I can catch you.”

  Tiny sat, and after a moment his color improved. The big man quietly studied the forest around them, then stared at the tiny spring for a while. “Where were we?” he said at last.

  “That was part of Faerie,” said Will. “It touches our world here beside this spring, and at other places. If I’m next to a spot where the two worlds come in contact, I can transport myself and others from one to the other.”

  “Faerie,” said Tiny. “Does that mean faeries are real?”

  Will nodded. “I’ve met several, but they’re different from what you’ve probably heard about in stories. In general, it’s probably best to avoid them.”

  “Does anyone else know about this?”

  “Anyone that can see magic probably knows about the congruencies,” he answered.

  “Congruencies?”

  “The places where different worlds touch.”

  Tiny continued staring into the distance, thinking deeply. “Worlds—does that mean there are others? If so, how many?”

  “From what my grandfather said, a lot, but no one knows how many,” answered Will. “There seem to be a lot more congruencies between our world and Faerie than other places. I think it’s closer to our world than most of the others.”

  Tiny’s head turned, and he fixed Will with a steady gaze. “I think you need to start from the beginning. Explain everything so I can understand this.”

  Feeling bad for the shock he had caused, Will asked, “Would you like to eat first? I’ll still buy you whatever you want.”

  His friend’s massive hand clamped onto his arm. “I need to understand this. Explain it for me. Food comes later.”

  And so Will did, beginning with his life with Arrogan. He abbreviated a lot of it, and he left out certain sensitive details, such as his bastard heritage, his grandfather’s name, or the fact that he was related to a couple of the fae. He did mention the goddamn cat, but he left out its name.

  “So, you’re a wizard, but you can’t use magic,” said Tiny at the end, summarizing. “Your teacher is gone, and you know a few of the fae, but you don’t trust them. The lady doctor is a sorcerer, but her elementals are invisible, so I can’t see them.”

  “And I’m not sure why she’s helping me,” added Will. “I think she wants to make me into her wizard servant or something.”

  Tiny chuckled once, then twice, and after a moment he broke into semi-hysterical laughter while Will stared at him in confusion. When his friend finally stopped, he said, “None of that was funny.”

  “Sorry,” said Tiny, wiping his eyes. “It just struck me that way. My entire world has been turned upside down and in the middle of it all you’re telling me that you think the doctor wants to enslave you. I may have been blind, but you’re dense, Will. Has anyone ever told you that?”

  Will smirked. “Yes, all the time. My grandfather never let five minutes go without reminding me. And I never said ‘enslave,’ I said make me her servant. I don’t think she’s evil per se.”

  Tiny put a hand on Will’s shoulder. “I won’t pretend to know why she’s helping you, but I can tell you this. She isn’t out to gain anything from you. I went bac
k for bandage changes for a week after that first day. Some days she was there, and others she wasn’t, but on the days she was there I saw how she treated the other soldiers. If she really is a noblewoman, there’s no reason why she had to do that job. She was doing it because she wanted to help others. She definitely isn’t selfish, and if she does have a problem, it’s the same one you have.”

  “What’s that?”

  The big man patted his chest. “Too much in here.”

  Will sighed. “I’d rather she didn’t pity me.” He shifted the subject. “So, now that you believe me, would you help me practice? I should be able to paralyze you with that spell.”

  “Depends.”

  “On what?” asked Will.

  “Are you still paying for the food?”

  Will laughed, and readily agreed. The two of them went back to town and sat down in a small eatery that was popular with the soldiers on their free days. The place was nearly empty since they arrived at an odd time of day.

  Tiny made good on his previous boasts, eating enough to fill up at least three grown and very hungry men. Will finished while Tiny was still getting warmed up, so he spent his free time practicing as his friend ate.

  Creating the spell was easy enough, and each time he felt that same strange sense of duality, as though he partly inhabited a second body. The trick was sorting out which was which, but eventually he figured it out. The main thing wasn’t so much picking out Tiny, but identifying himself, since in the future the spell would be used on different people.

  Once he could separate who was who within his perceptions, he simply had to force changes on the one that wasn’t himself. Will remembered that sense of complete helplessness, when his grandfather had separated his conscious will from control of his body and turyn, and he used that as a guide.

  Tiny had almost finished his last piece of ham when Will had his breakthrough. The big man’s body seized up, causing the knife in his right hand to lightly stab into the meat of his thumb before he stopped moving.

  “Ow!” exclaimed Will, feeling a sharp pain as it happened.

  Tiny, of course, was unable to reply, but his eyes rolled back and forth wildly, and Will could feel his friend’s panic building. Will released him quickly.

  The big man gave him a hard look, then took a deep breath. “That was you?”

  Will nodded. “Sorry.”

  “You couldn’t wait to practice. Have you been trying the whole time we’ve been sitting here?”

  Will glanced sheepishly down at his empty plate. “Only since I finished eating.”

  Tiny looked at his thumb, where a small drop of blood was beading up. He wiped it on his trousers and then took up his knife once more, spearing another piece of ham and putting it in his mouth. He talked as he chewed. “Wait until I’m done. We can go back to that spring in a few minutes. You can work your black magic there.”

  Will was surprised by Tiny’s nonchalance. “It isn’t black magic, but—thanks.” While he waited for his friend to finish, Will thought about the pain he had felt. Did that mean grandfather felt it when he killed those soldiers he had frozen? He shuddered at the thought. Either Arrogan had been able to overcome unbelievable pain while he was fighting, or the old man had had some method for blocking the sensations from the people he linked with.

  Either way, he was a badass, thought Will. He wasn’t sure he could do the same.

  Once Tiny had finished, they went back to the forest and Will practiced linking and paralyzing him over and over while Tiny sat in the grass. When he was sure he had a good feel for that, he made a new request. “Mind if I try something different?”

  “Is it going to hurt?”

  “It shouldn’t,” said Will. “I want to figure out a way to incapacitate someone without pain.” He explained what had happened when Tiny had stabbed himself earlier, then continued, “I think if I draw some of your turyn into myself it should make you tired, or even faint.”

  “Turyn?”

  “Magic,” said Will. “The stuff everyone uses to move and do things, even normal people.”

  “Just promise you won’t kill me,” said his friend with remarkable equanimity.

  Will promised. “Don’t worry. I’m really good at manipulating turyn, even if I haven’t learned much about spells yet.” With that said, he cast the spell again, and this time he used the link to draw out some of Tiny’s turyn, pulling it into himself. A faint wave of nausea passed through him before disappearing as his body converted the turyn, but Tiny’s reaction was more pronounced. The big man’s eyes drooped.

  “Are you all right?” asked Will.

  “Just tired.”

  “I’ll replace it. Give me a second.” Reversing the flow, he sent his own turyn back across the link, replacing what he had taken with some of his own turyn.

  Tiny shot up into a sitting position, his eyes bulging wide and his face twisting. Leaning forward, he began to violently heave, expelling his stomach contents onto the ground. Will felt terrible as he watched his friend continue retching and heaving long after his stomach was empty. When it finally stopped, Tiny looked accusingly at him. The big man’s face was damp with sweat and he looked haggard. “You poisoned me!”

  Naturally, Will realized what he had done, remembering the time he had drunk the elixir of turyn that Arrogan had given him. “Sorry, Tiny. I wasn’t thinking. Your body isn’t adapted to accept turyn from other people. When I gave you some of mine it caused that reaction.”

  Tiny was pulling up handfuls of grass to wipe his mouth with. “Well, I’m not tired any more, but please don’t ever do that again. I think I’d rather die.”

  It was then that Will realized he hadn’t felt the nausea himself. He had severed the link as soon as it had begun, but even before then it hadn’t affected him. That’s probably the safest way for me to disable someone, he decided. “I won’t do it again,” he said, “but I’d like to try—”

  Tiny held up one hand. “No. I’m done. You’ll have to find another test subject.” Getting to his feet, he began making his way unsteadily back toward the road. Then he looked back, “Come on.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “You owe me another meal.”

  Will gaped. “You can eat after that?”

  “I damn sure will, if only to get even with you,” said Tiny, spitting to clear his mouth.

  “Aren’t you still nauseous?”

  Tiny gave him a malicious grin. “If I throw up, I will make certain to aim in your direction.”

  Will shuddered.

  “Not to worry, though. I have the strongest stomach in Company B,” Tiny assured him.

  When the server at the eatery saw them returning, his jaw dropped. Glancing from Tiny to Will he asked, “You can’t be serious?”

  “I can pay,” said Will.

  The server scratched his head. “Money or not, if you keep coming back we’ll run out of food and have to shut our doors.”

  Chapter 45

  A week later Sergeant Nash informed Will that he was to return to the armorer. This time it was a bit less stressful, since he had been expecting the notification, and being given part of the day away from his normal duty was something of a treat.

  Being in a good mood, Will smiled when he found Master Harless. The older man stared at him for a moment, then asked, “Is something wrong with your face?”

  Will dropped the smile. “No, sir.”

  Harless nodded. “Off with your gambeson.” He pointed at a pile of similar garments. “Drop it in the pile. We can use it for other things.”

  “Sir?”

  The armorer sighed. “There’s a new one with your mail. I don’t do shoddy work. The new gambeson and mail should fit perfectly together.”

  Will did as he was told and soon one of the apprentices was helping him into a new, padded linen coat. The mail shirt went over that, and after a few claustrophobic minutes of shimmying back and forth Will felt it settle into place. It wasn’t as heavy as he
expected, but it still put a noticeable burden on his shoulders. He wondered what it would feel like after wearing it for most of a day.

  The apprentice handed him a well-made leather belt. “This goes just above your hips. Be sure to cinch it tight. I’ll mark a few extra holes in case your weight changes later.”

  Puzzled, Will asked, “What’s this for? The shirt fits pretty well—”

  Harless chuckled. “Damn right it fits well, but you’ll still be miserable after a few hours without that belt. Trust me.”

  Will wrapped the belt around his waist and held it in place while the apprentice marked it. That done, the young man took it away to have the holes punched. When he returned a few minutes later, he returned it to Will who put it on. He noticed the difference immediately.

  The mail shirt was long, reaching his mid-thigh, which coincided with the length of the new gambeson. The overall weight was probably close to twenty pounds, but with the belt on some of the weight was taken off of his shoulders. The belt transferred the strain from the lower portion to his hips, making the entire thing much more comfortable to wear.

  The fact that the gambeson was sized to fit him was also an improvement. Overall, he was carrying some more weight, but it didn’t seem like it would be too much of a burden. Harless walked around him in a slow circle, poking and prodding him now and then. Then he gave a grunt of approval. “If you don’t die this year you should consider coming back.” The armorer reached up and poked Will’s throat. “This is where you’re most likely to get a mortal wound. Remember that.”

  “What do you do about that?” asked Will.

  “A padded coif and gorget, mail over that and sometimes a double layer of mail over the throat—or if you have enough coin, a new helm with a mail aventail, padded coif, and a gorget,” said Harless.

  “How much does that cost?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” replied the armorer. “Your patron asked the same, but we’re too busy with everything else right now. Things will be different once the war dies down.”

  Will thought for a moment, then asked, “How did you find enough time for this? Doesn’t mail take a long time?”