by Danny Macks
He considered whether he should have said anything in advance. No. One or the other might have trusted him, but both would never have agreed to the procedure if they’d known. It was better this way.
Doris was still breathing like he might hyperventilate any moment. Perhaps he would calm down if Silva gave him something to do. “Would you mind cancelling the rest of my appointments today? I need to focus on you two.”
“You abused my trust.” Doris said. “How am I supposed to forgive that?”
Forgive? Silva's guess about the wemyds was right. He was certain of it. And if he was wrong, he would kill the wemyds and there would still be no harm done. “There’s nothing to forgive.”
Doris stalked toward the waiting area. “That’s what’s worst out of all this,” he called out over his shoulder. “I’m certain you believe that.”
An hour later, the wemyds in Charlie’s body had multiplied, but those in Doris had not. After several more hours, the wemyds in Doris all died, while Charlie’s aura was developing a green tinge even Doris could see. Silva killed the remaining wemyds and sent Charlie home with a promise to look in on Charlie’s parents in a few weeks.
“So what did you do to kill the yellow in me?” Doris asked after Charlie left.
“Nothing,” Silva replied. “They starved to death.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means …” Silva coughed to cover his nervousness. It was one thing to have a mad idea and quite another to wave that madness about. What if he was wrong? Doris was already angry at him, was he ready to sacrifice his respect too? Say, ‘I think, instead of curing the pollution in Winterhaven, we’re killing a creature which feeds on that pollution. Instead of fixing the problem, we’ve only made it invisible.’
Instead, Silva shook his head and said, “I think this means I need to talk to my father again.”
*****
The next day, the nurse at the front desk of the Home for the Misshapen asked Silva to come back another day. “He has bad days sometimes. Today is one of them.”
“I'm his son. I've seen his bad days. Either let me see him or fetch Dr. Anguilla and let the doctor tell you to let me in.”
After leaving the desk to consult with someone, she returned and led Silva to an open courtyard in the center of the facility. Stepping into the sunlight, his eyes were immediately drawn to a group of purple-robed mages standing in a circle around a steel and wood park bench and yelling at a man huddled between them: Father.
“What the hell are you doing?” Silva yelled as he sprinted toward the group. Father had his head bowed and his hands over his ears, rocking back and forth as the mages continued to yell at him. He wildly considered throwing stun bolts, but it was six against one. He grabbed the nearest mage by the arm and pulled him away from his father. The arm felt solid to the touch, then turned soft as smoke. Silva's hands passed harmlessly through the mage.
Silva took a step back and cast about for help. All of the patients were staring, but at him. Muddy yellow robed patients, white garbed nurses, and apprentice mages were gathering, but their attention was on Silva instead of the commotion right next to him. Only then did Silva glance at the purple-robed mages’ faces. None of them were healthy and some moved as if large pieces of their bodies were missing. Every one bore a sunny yellow band — plus several other colors — on his or her sleeve. Illusions.
And not any illusions. Father’s closest friends. The world knew them as Doctors Smyth, Penscott, Oscar, Bannister, Fielding and Ralston; but before their deaths, they had been as close as family. Silva had been raised calling them Uncle Gallmon, Aunt Sibbiah, Uncle Oscar, Aunt Peonea, Uncle Herbert and Uncle Zadok.
“I gave my life erecting that shield!” Uncle Gallmon yelled clearly, even though half his jaw was missing. “How dare you abandon me.”
“You failed us, Tobias,” Uncle Zadok said in a steely tone. He pointed at Father with a skeletal hand. “You're a failure.”
“Why are you bothering to stay alive? Your son?” Aunt Peonea asked. Her plump face was dessicated like a dried prune. “You failed your son.”
Father’s eyes were still closed and he continued rocking back and forth.
“Hey! I’m right here, you know.” Silva said to the illusionary ghosts in what he hoped was a light tone of voice. He dropped to one knee in front of where Father sat and crouched down in front of his line of sight. “Father. I’m here.”
Father shook his head and kept rocking, Silva put a hand on his shoulder and Father immediately flailed, knocking aside the hand. Silva lunged and grabbed his father in a fierce hug. Father struggled a moment, then sobbed into his son’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
Silva maintained the hug and ran a hand across the back of Father’s head. The hair had grown out from the shaving only weeks before, but was still short. “Shh. It’s okay. I’m really here.”
The mages gathered around them froze unnaturally and, beyond the illusionary crowd, the nurses relaxed. Patients returned to whatever they were doing.
After weeping, Father lifted his head and wiped his eyes on his sleeve. “Whenever I imagine you, I still picture a thirteen-year-old boy. You became a man when I wasn’t looking.” He turned to the illusions and they started to move again. “Would you please excuse me? I need to talk to my son.”
“This isn’t over,” one of them warned. Silva thought it was Uncle Oscar, but couldn’t be sure. His body appeared almost hollowed out. They didn’t disappear, but wandered away to other places in the courtyard.
“What was that?” Silva asked as they both sat on the bench..
“Guilt. Self doubt. Maybe a bit of grief.” Father waved an arm toward Aunt Sibbiah, who was pretending to look busy, but kept glaring toward father and son. Father noticed, even if he pretended otherwise. His eyes darted around as if he expected an attack at any moment. “As you can see, recognizing the problem doesn’t always make it better.”
“Can they hurt you?”
Father clenched his jaw and his eyes glistened. He shook his head. “Not too often.”
“If it has these kinds of side effects, why do you keep the spell running?”
Father blinked in surprise. “Why, my work. All my notes are tied up in that spell. If I lose it, I lose everything. I thought my work was obvious to anybody with half a brain.”
Silva laughed bitterly. “Then I have half a brain. Nobody understood what you eight did. For most people, it was the stuff of magic-fiction, along with space men and submarines which outrun clipper ships. But that was all years ago. Your specialty was communications, not theoretical trans-dimensional–”
“I wasn’t just the leader of the team. I was the chalkboard which didn't need to be erased,” Father interrupted. “Didn’t you understand? I gave you my scroll so you could understand. All your mother’s notes, and your Uncle Gallmon’s and Aunt Sibbiah’s …” He tapped his temple with a finger. “They’re quite literally written on the walls.”
“And all these years …”
“All these years I’ve been studying those notes, trying to understand the breach so we can finally close it.”
Silva frowned. “The breach was closed years ago. While you were injured and unconscious, the rest of them gave their lives powering the spells which closed it.”
Father shook his head. “They failed. Or, at least, they only partially succeeded. Kate didn’t believe in magic, but she did tests for me: the pressure of air and such. You can’t see it, but a hole is still there.”
And measuring things you couldn’t see was one of the things Kate was good at. Now that she was free and knew for certain magic was real, why didn’t she tell him about the experiments she had done for Father? Did she still hope to return to her world, damn the consequences?
Father smiled thinly. “When she learned enough Sparian for me to explain the problem, she hated my suggestion she plug the hole physically. Not that I blame her.”
Uncle Gallmon’s illusion appeared behind Si
lva and said caustically, “Yes, suggesting a woman willingly plug her only source of breathable air went over very well.”
“The dome was air tight?”
“Of course it wasn’t,” Father snapped. “It leaked. Through the soil. If it had been airtight, the problem wouldn’t have gotten worse year after year. And all Kate’s digging wasn’t helping either.”
“She was trying to escape her jailer,” Gallmon’s ghost said. “She tolerated you because she had no one else to talk to, but she never liked you.”
“And if you could have closed the portal and plugged all the holes …” Silva asked slowly. He didn’t like where this conversation was going. “Would you have?”
“Of course,” Father replied instantly. “Haven’t you been listening? I’ve been working to do exactly that for eight years.”
And Kate would have, slowly, suffocated.
“It was for the greater good,” Father added, when he saw his son’s expression. “People looked up to me, expected me to take care of them. I officiated their marriages. Spoke at funerals. Even after the disaster. Everybody else left and I stayed behind to make things right.”
Silva stood up and marched away, but Father grabbed his sleeve. “Before you go, I have a question. What do you want? Overall. From life.”
Seriously? He talks about working methodically for eight years to kill someone then shifts to talk about … about … career goals?
“Respect,” Silva replied, not knowing what else to say.
“From who?”
“Okay, validation then. To be judged for what I do instead of who my father is.”
“Is what you've done admirable?” Uncle Gallmon asked.
Silva Vatic the Necromancer, son of Tobias Vatic the Delusionist. The Murderer. Like father, like son. Silva hung his head. “No.”
Father let go of Silva's sleeve. “Sounds to me like you need a different goal.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
During the entire walk back to the capital, Silva stewed over everything he had learned. Everyone knew the wemyds were the infection that robbed people of magic and turned them into drudges. Whether they were called wemyds or the yellow, the existence and nature of the little diatoms was a known fact by anyone with any amount of education. Except the “facts” everybody knew didn’t stand up when tested.
Before him, no one had been capable of affecting a wemyd without also moving the energy the wemyd was attached to. Now that Silva could do so, the Fenwick’s ability to control magic had not returned. The problem wasn’t the wemyds, but the energy itself. Had any of his patients seen any improvement in their power reserves? Silva doubted it.
And the one man who had known this, all along, was considered insane. He needed to find a way to tell people what was happening in a way they would believe. But first, a more personal issue.
Shortly after sunset, Silva walked directly to Kate’s office. The secretary was gone, but he saw movement in the back and let himself in.
“Good evening, Silva,” Kate said with a tired smile. “I was just leaving. What brings you by?”
“I came here to apologize. For my father. I found out, today, what he planned to do to you … with the air in the dome.”
Kate studied Silva for a long moment then laid a hand on his arm. “I know it wasn’t anything personal. He had a goal he needed to accomplish to protect his kind of people and I was in the way. Killing me would have only been a side effect. ‘Poor Kate, too bad she had to die for our greater good’.”
“His kind of people?”
Kate fixed Silva with a stare. “Mages.”
Silva couldn’t meet that stare and glanced at the floor. “He doesn’t hate you. I think he likes you.”
“I know he’s your father and you want to think the best of him, but he doesn’t care about me enough to hate me. Men like him don’t go out of their way to step on ants, but they don’t make an effort to walk around one either.” Kate shrugged. “Given a choice, everyone wants to be the one wearing the boots instead of the ant. I understand you've been doing your fair share of tromping about since you graduated mage school.”
“University,” Silva corrected automatically.
Kate pursed her lips, but only shrugged again.
Silva sat in the chair in front of Kate’s desk, and rested his chin in his hand. What could he do to apologize for his father which would be meaningful? Kate was a drudge, so — of course — couldn’t turn on a shower or open a locked cabinet without someone’s help. Couldn’t rise in society, without someone’s help. Someone like Drudge Delan.
But Drudge wasn't really helping her. He was using her, exploiting her talents and intelligence. And when things went wrong, she would be the one blamed. She needed a different path.
“May I be dismissed?” Kate asked, in the silence.
“Huh? Oh.” Silva sat up in the chair and gave Kate his attention. “I wasn’t ignoring you. I was trying to figure out how best to help.”
Epiphany struck. Silva slid off the chair onto one knee.
Kate stood and backed up a step. “What are you doing?”
“Kate Janos, would you marry me?” As Silva rose in society, so would she. Everybody would get what they wanted. A perfect plan.
Instead of honored, Kate appeared uncomfortable and a little mortified. “I’m too old for you.”
“That doesn't matter. We've known each other for years. Nobody will object. I love you.” There. He said it. Out loud. “I told you I loved you, years ago. I do, still.”
But Kate shook her head. “I was a teenager’s first crush. Nothing more. If it wasn’t me, it would have been a school teacher or a babysitter. You were eleven or twelve, Silva, and I was new and exotic.”
Silva remained on his knee. “Well, would you marry me anyway? I can give you a comfortable home, and a place in society, and … and I’ve got a strong lineage. Our children won't be drudges.”
Kate’s expression hardened. “I'm proud of who I am and what I've accomplished. Why would I give that up to … pra ser a esposa trófeu de um babica?”
“I didn't get that last part.”
“Out!” She jabbed a finger toward the door. “Get out!”
*****
Slumped at his desk, back at his own office, Silva saw a mage light enter the office before Doris found him.
“What are you doing here?” Silva growled.
“I could ask you the same question,” Doris replied. “I’m not the one sitting in his office in the middle of the night in the dark.”
“She hates me. Hates all mages.” Silva crossed his arms and slumped even further down in his seat.
“She does not. You aren't Mrs. Wardic’s favorite person right now, but the little pin-holes you carved in her chest when you pulled the wemyds out of her healed almost immediately. When I checked on her, her husband was of the opinion a little pain is character building.”
“Not my last patient. Kate. Kate hates me.”
“So, multiple women don’t like you right now.” Doris chuckled. “What did you do to Kate?”
Silva glanced up at Doris. “What makes you so sure this is my fault?”
Doris stepped around the desk, laid a hand on Silva's shoulder and raised an eyebrow.
Silva grumbled and stared back down at the desk. “I asked her to marry me.”
Doris threw back his head and laughed. “Oh the horror. Is that all?”
“When I started talking about kids, she got so mad she started speaking in that Portugues language of hers. I don’t know what she said, but it wasn’t complimentary and probably not repeatable in polite society.”
“Poor boy.” Doris patted Silva on the shoulder. “Does she want children?”
“And it's not like marrying me is a bad thing. I’m a mage. Respected. Marrying me would be good for her.”
“And you, being you, told her that.” Doris sighed, but couldn’t quite wipe the smirk off his face. “When an ox starts blundering about delftware, few people
care if the ox has good intentions. Have you considered asking people what they want instead of telling them what’s good for them?”
“Do you think that would work with Kate?”
“How about you practice the idea a bit on somebody who likes you, first? You can work yourself up to using it romantically. Which brings me back to why I am sneaking into your office in the middle of the night. I seem to have a business partner who doesn’t tell me important information …” Doris held up a restraining hand when Silva sat up to object. “… like why you couldn’t share the results of the experiment which got the entire office in an uproar.”
Silva glowered. “I’m the grieving party here. How did you make this about you?”
Doris shook his head. “That’s called deflecting. Try again. I like you, Silva, but I need to know what is going on if I'm going to help you.”
“There’s nothing you can do to help.”
“No, let me decide that. Try again.”
“Promise me you won’t panic?”
Doris left Silva’s side and sat at the chair across the desk, still smiling faintly. “I promise no such thing, but I will do my best. Tell me anyway.”
Silva took a deep breath and leaned forward with his hands on the desk. Fine. He asked for it. “The treatments we are performing are useless. I don’t think the yellow is actually hurting anybody. We are killing a microorganism which feeds on the pollution blocking people’s magical abilities instead of clearing the blockage. Our treatments are cosmetic. Instead of removing the pollution draining people’s ability to power magic, we are only hiding it from view.”
Doris didn’t panic. Didn’t jump up and run out of the office in an effort to distance himself from the fraud sitting across from him, like people used to when they heard the name Vatic. He leaned back and steepled his fingers. “I see. Thank you for telling me. I received a visit from an inquisitor while you were away. What does this have to do with Drudge Delan?”
Silva sighed and leaned back, happy to change the subject. “That is a different kind of pollution. Drudge is using a non-magical water cannon Kate invented for strip mining coal, out near Cupriton. He’s fouled the drinking water for miles. I introduced a journeyman beast speaker who lives in the area to an inquisitor, and helped convince the inquisitor to look into it.”
