The Magician's Land

by Lev Grossman

  He shut the window. This workroom had a red door too. He opened it and stepped through.

  Now he was getting close to the heart of something, he could feel it. Three levels down, the innermost chamber, the littlest Russian doll—a tiny wooden peg with smeary features, barely a doll at all. This room looked nothing like anything in the townhouse, but he recognized it anyway. The hushed carpet, that warm, fruity smell—a stranger’s house, that he’d only been in once, and that for about fifteen minutes, but it was like he’d never left it. He was back in Brooklyn, thirteen years ago, back at the house where he’d come for his Princeton interview.

  It was like he was burrowing deeper into his own mind, back in time, back into his memory. This was where it all began. Maybe if he stuck around he could finally have his interview after all. He could go back and get his master’s degree. Was this really it, or just a simulacrum? Was there another, younger Quentin waiting just outside the door, getting even more depressed than usual as he stood there fretting in the cold rain? And his friend James, young and strong and brave-o? The loops were getting stranger, the time lines were in a Gordian knot, the thick was plottened beyond all recognition.

  Or was this a second chance? Was this how to fix her? Change it all so it never happened—rip up the envelope and walk away? He heard the sound of cracking wood, a long way off, in another reality. Two realities up. Last time he was here he went for the liquor cabinet. Lesson learned. He looked around: yes, a grandfather clock, just like in Christopher Plover. It was so obvious now. He opened the case.

  It was full of shining golden coins. They poured out onto the floor like a Vegas jackpot. They were like Mayakovsky’s coins, but there must have been hundreds of them. God, the amount of power here was unthinkable. What couldn’t you do with it? He had his master’s now, he was a master magician. He could fix Alice. He could fix anything. He stuffed his pockets with them.

  Speaking of whom: Alice came drifting through the doorway behind him, slow-rolling languorously onto her back like an otter. Time to go. He juked past her and back through the door the other way.

  In the workroom the snow was turning to rain, and the parquet had an inch of gray slush on it, and he half fell sprinting across it, his pockets heavy with treasure. He slammed shut the bathroom door but then fumbled the Sharpie and dropped it. No time. He spat out a spell that doubled his speed and scrambled up and over the sink and felt the hot prickle of way too much magic way too close on his trailing ankle. Alice was a blue blur behind him, and he wasn’t faster than she was but he was fast enough, just, to make it back across the landing and through the workroom and the red door and out into the real world.

  She hadn’t gotten him. Not today. Not today. He stood there for a minute, puffing and blowing and pulling himself together, hands on his knees. Then he dug his hands in his pockets and spilled the gold out on the table. Show ’em what they’ve won.

  He should have known. It was fairy gold, like in the stories—the kind that turns to dead leaves and dried flowers when the sun comes up. That’s what he’d found. The coins had turned to ordinary nickels.

  It was never going to be that easy. This wasn’t working. There had to be another way. He needed sleep. His ankle was starting to burn where his close call with Alice had scorched it.

  “Quentin.”

  Eliot was standing in the doorway, looking in his Fillorian court finery like he’d just detached himself from a Hans Holbein painting. He held a tumbler from the kitchen in one hand, full of whiskey, which he raised in greeting.

  “You look like you’ve just seen a ghost,” he said.

  CHAPTER 23

  Quentin hugged him so hard that Eliot spilled his whiskey down his front, which he complained about loudly, but Quentin didn’t care. He had to make sure Eliot was real and solid. It made no sense that he was here, but thank God he was. Quentin had had enough of sadness and horror and futility for one day. He needed a friend, somebody who knew him from the old days.

  And seeing Eliot here, out of the blue, for no reason whatsoever, felt like proof that impossible things were still possible. He needed that too.

  “It’s good to see you,” he said.

  “You too.”

  “You met Plum?”

  “Yes, charming girl. I assume you’re—?”

  “No,” Quentin said.

  “Not even—?”

  “No!”

  Eliot shook his head sadly.

  “I can see I came not a minute too soon.”

  They stayed up late filling each other in on everything that had happened, then they slept late and drank too much coffee and went over it all again. Eliot’s news brought Quentin up short and sharp: whether or not he was in it, whether or not he could see it or touch it, he’d thought there would always be a Fillory out there somewhere. He loved knowing it was there. It anchored his sense of happiness, the way a distant stockpile of gold might underwrite the value of a paper bill. It was inconceivably sad to think of it ending. And where would they all go—all the people and animals and everything else? What would happen to them?

  “But you think there might be something here that could save it?” he said. “Something Rupert had?”

  Eliot paced around the living room in circles. Plum and Quentin sat on separate couches watching him. While they slept he’d been up even later, going through Rupert’s notebook. He’d been excited at first when he realized that his search had converged with theirs—he’d come to Earth on a quest, and his best friend had already done it for him! But he’d gone back to being frustrated.

  “Maybe it was the knife. But what would I do with it? Who would I stab with it? I never know who to stab. But I don’t know what to do with the spell either.”

  “It’s not for reviving a dead land,” Quentin said. “It’s for making somewhere new.”

  “There must be something else in that manuscript then, a clue or something. And why would the bird want it?”

  As urgent as this was, Quentin’s mind was still with Alice upstairs. Part of him wanted to snap into hero mode, to leap to Fillory’s defense, but saving Fillory was Eliot’s business now. It was hard to admit it, but it was true. He would do what he could, but right now his job was Alice.

  “But so Martin made his deal with Umber?” Eliot said finally. “I thought Umber was good. And then didn’t Martin kill Umber?”

  “He still could have,” Quentin said. “The classic double cross.”

  “Or, maybe Umber’s still alive somewhere. Maybe we’re just supposed to think He’s dead.”

  “Ooh, I like that one,” Plum said. “How do you even know Martin killed Umber? God, I still can’t believe I’m talking about Them like They’re real people. Or animals or gods or whatever.”

  “Ember told Jane Chatwin,” Quentin said. “Jane told me. But you’re right, maybe this is all Umber’s fault. Maybe He’s the hidden hand or hoof or whatever behind the apocalypse.”

  “But why?” Eliot rubbed his face with both hands. “Why would He do that? How can He be alive? Where’s He been all this time? How can He be evil? What, is He Ember’s evil twin? It’s a bit of a cliché, even for Fillory.”

  Buckets of sunlight were pouring overenthusiastically in through the bay windows. It was claustrophobic in the house—Quentin hadn’t been outside for days. As tired as he’d been he hadn’t slept well the night before. It was hard knowing that Alice was right there, burning, always burning, with just a thin slip of world between them. He wondered if Alice ever slept. He didn’t think she did.

  “And Castle Blackspire?” Eliot was getting more and more animated. “What’s that? It screws up the entire structure! Where does it end? Umber’s got to be the key, one way or the other. Got to. That must be the clue Jane wanted us to find.” Coming to the end of his caffeine fit, he dropped bonelessly into a vinyl armchair. “I’m going to send a message to Janet. She
should know about this.”

  “You can do that? Send a message to Fillory?”

  “It’s not easy. Kind of like a very expensive telegram. But yeah, RHIP. Let’s talk about something else. What’ve you learned about your dead girlfriend?”

  “She’s not dead,” Quentin said.

  “Bzzt!” Eliot pressed an imaginary game-show button on the arm of the chair. “The answer I was looking for was, ‘She’s not my girlfriend, she’s a crazy magic rage-demon.’ Maybe you should just take the land apart. Scrub it out. Cut your losses.”

  “What, with Alice inside?”

  “Well, she’ll survive, probably. You can’t kill those things. She’ll just go back where she came from.”

  “But she’s still alive, Eliot, and she’s right there. Right there! If there was ever, ever going to be a chance to change her back, this is it.”

  “Quentin—”

  “Don’t Quentin me.” Now he was the one getting animated. “This is what I’m doing. What I have to do. You’re saving Fillory, I’m doing this.”

  “Quentin, look at me.” Eliot sat up. “You’re right. If there was ever a chance this would be it. But there isn’t a chance. That’s not Alice. Alice is already dead. She died seven years ago, and you can’t bring her back.”

  “I went to the Underworld. She wasn’t there.”

  “You didn’t see her, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t there. We’ve been over and over this. Quentin, I could really use your help. Fillory needs your help. And I hate to be crass, you know I do, but Alice is one person. We’re talking about Fillory, all of it, the entire land, thousands of people. Plus a lot of cute animals.”

  “I know.” They were wasting time, he had to get back upstairs. “I know. But I have to try.”

  “What’s your plan there?” Plum said.

  “I don’t know. Run around some more, cast some more spells. Maybe I’ll stumble on something. Trial and error.”

  Plum tapped her lips with one finger.

  “Not my place, but it sounds to me like you’re a little stuck.”

  “I am stuck.”

  “It sounds to me,” she said, “like you’re dicking around. Sneaking, dodging, avoiding confrontation.”

  “I’m not disagreeing with you, I just don’t know what else to do.”

  “Against my better judgment,” Plum said, “I’m going to give you the benefit of a woman’s perspective on this one.”

  “I am so excited to see where this is going,” Eliot said, “I can’t even tell you. Keep talking.”

  “What I mean is, meet her head-on. Stand and fight. Quit sneaking around. See what happens.”

  “I tried that. I lost.”

  “It sounds to me like you tried hiding behind like ninety shields,” Plum said. “That shit probably just pissed her off even more, and from what I’ve seen she was already plenty pissed. You know what makes people angry? When they’re trying to tell you something, and you’re not hearing them. Then they feel like they have to get louder and louder and louder, and then you’re still not listening. You’re just getting all scared.”

  “Because it’s fucking scary!”

  “She wants you to stand and face her, Quentin. What I’m talking about is walking in there and dealing with her. You want her to be a person again? Try treating her like one.”

  Quentin shook his head.

  “That’s suicide.”

  “Is it? It sounds to me like a relationship.”

  “You’re being glib,” he said.

  “Am I? Why hasn’t she killed you yet?”

  A heavy silence fell in the room. The trouble was that she was right. However Alice got here, it wasn’t an accident. He’d tried to make a land, and it hadn’t worked. He’d wanted to create something, make something new, be somebody new, but it was becoming apparent that he couldn’t, not until he’d dealt with something old. Not until he’d cleared his debts and laid his ghosts to rest.

  The way he really knew Plum was right was that it was what Alice would have done.

  “I still think you should scrub it out,” Eliot said, obviously disappointed. “Fresh beginning. Start over.”

  “I have a feeling,” Plum said, “that it’s a little bit late in the day to start over.”

  —

  Back in the fourth-floor workroom, Quentin opened the red door again. He was starting to hate the sight of his land. It was a stillborn thing: he’d meant to make something fresh and real, and instead he’d produced this cold, sterile photocopy. Something had gone wrong, and more and more he was starting to think that the problem was him.

  He sat down at the worktable and stared at his notes, thinking about what Plum had said and waiting for some kind of signal to emerge out of the noise. Should he just walk in, stand there, look her in the eye? Maybe he should.

  There she was, right there in the doorframe, watching him as if she knew what he was thinking.

  “I’m here,” he said. “Alice. It’s time we talked. It’s time we figured this out.”

  She floated there, free-falling in place, staring right through him. Something was missing: if they were going to talk, and if it was going to count, it should be here in the real world, not the copy. He wanted to bring her through, to force her out into the open, onto his ground. It would be a terrible risk. A niffin in lower Manhattan—if he lost control he could be looking at a magical September 11th. But you could talk yourself out of anything.

  “Come here.” Could she? “Come out here. Let’s finish this.”

  Faint smile, but nothing more. Alice couldn’t or wouldn’t come through on her own. That meant he had to help her.

  He began with a series of erasures and banishments and antimagic attacks, each one more powerful and violent than the next, but the land was tougher than it looked. They didn’t scratch it. It wasn’t going that easily, not without a fight.

  He changed tacks: he picked up his staff, his lovely black wood and silver staff. It took five tries, whacking it against the brick pillars in the workroom, but he broke it in the middle and then twisted apart the two halves.

  And even then the land persisted. Alice looked like she was enjoying the show. Maybe this wasn’t a question of brute force.

  He walked up to the threshold and stood six inches away. Closing his eyes, he willed the land to go away. He imagined it giving up, surrendering its existence, letting its cold substance dissolve as if it had never been. It never should have been. It didn’t want to be. Let go.

  Yes. He opened his eyes.

  “Out, brief candle,” he said, and blew softly, one puff.

  The mirror-house collapsed from the outside in. There was a moment of silence—Quentin imagined the cold sandy outskirts dispersing outside, the raining streetlights ceasing to be. Then came a distant bang as the lower floors began contracting like an accordion. Quentin backed up as far as the doorway. Alice looked over her shoulder—if a niffin could disbelieve, there was disbelief on her face. Then the banging came closer, and finally the room behind her shut like a trash compactor and she was shoved rudely through the doorway into reality.

  When she turned to face him again there was a new seriousness of purpose on her face. She wasn’t playing anymore either. Quentin called down the stairwell.

  “Guys! Plum!”

  Alice smiled at him as if to say: sure, go on and call your little girlfriend.

  “It’s not like that.”

  As she passed the table her fingers brushed it and it began to burn. He backed down the stairs gingerly, never taking his eyes off her, as if she were a wild animal.

  “Plum?” he called. “Eliot? Alice is out. I collapsed the land and she came through.”

  He heard Plum stir in her room.

  “What?” She opened her door in a sweatshirt, hair loose, and saw Alice at the top of the st
airs. She must have been taking a nap. “Oh. Was that a good idea?”

  “Probably? Eliot!” Where was the High fucking King?

  What was weird was, Quentin wasn’t afraid. Usually in moments of crisis he was lost in a swarm of choices, paralyzed by the possibility that he might do the wrong thing—there were so many wrong things to do, and so few right ones! But not this time. This time the throughline was clear to him. There was only one right option, and it could be fatal, but death would be preferable to a life spent doing either the wrong thing or nothing at all.

  “Plum, get behind me.”

  She did, for a wonder, and together they retreated downstairs to the living room, where he tried to stall Alice by blocking off the doorway. Kinetic magic: crude, but he had to try it. He threw together a barrier out of books, dishes from the kitchen, the pillows from the sofa, whatever he could get a magical grip on. But she passed right through them, and where she touched them they burned.

  “Quentin!” Plum said. “This is my house! That I own! Don’t break it!”

  She put the fires out, but the air smelled like burning insulation.

  “Plum, you have to get out of here,” he said quietly. “Find Eliot and go.”

  Whatever he was going to do, he couldn’t do it if he was worrying about Plum too. He couldn’t hold back, and his control wasn’t going to be good. In fact if he was lucky his control would be really, really bad. It was going to end here one way or the other: he was going to fix Alice or he was going to die trying. She’d died for him once already, he couldn’t do any less for her.

  An experiment: he brought his hands together, laced his fingers, and all the electrical cords in the room made for Alice like striking snakes. It was a trick he couldn’t have pulled off before his father had died, but he carried that extra strength with him now. Current flowed, the lights browned out, and Alice’s blue aura flickered. Quentin smelled melting plastic. Alice slitted her eyes with pleasure.