by Tim Susman
He swallowed his visions of the future, turned to Victor, and nodded. His idea seemed foolish and impossible now, but he had no other recourse, and possibly only minutes before even that was lost to him.
“Good. Now you know. You should have befriended me years ago, you know. You could have been my apprentice, could have helped me and shared in the glory I’m going to receive from this.”
“Glory?” Kip choked out the word. He could feel Malcolm wanting to mock Victor, so he spoke quickly, as much to forestall his friend as to work his way around to his desperate plan. “You’ve managed to perform a, a basic physical magic spell. And not very well, I might add.” His limited experience as a teacher helped him here. “Your levitation was uneven and wobbly.”
Victor scowled, and the beaver dropped five feet to the floor with a thud. Kip flinched, but a moment later the beaver shook himself and hurried away from Kip without even a noticeable limp. “Of course the magic from a single Calatian is limited,” he said. “That’s why you’re here.”
“And you don’t still have the magic, do you? You spent it all on one spell?” The more he focused on the academic and distanced himself from the reality of what Victor wanted to do to him, the calmer he became.
“I told you, the magic is limited.” Victor grew more annoyed. Kip hoped that it was because he wasn’t suitably impressed or scared, and that gave him a little more courage to keep going. “I’ve learned to hold back a little of it.” He lifted his arms so that Kip could see a little of the dark light flickering around them, and then even that vanished as Kip rose a few inches from the floor and hovered unsteadily there.
“So every time you need to cast a spell, you’ll need to sacrifice an entire Calatian? That’s not very efficient. You’ll use them all up, and then what will you do?”
Victor’s grin returned. He gestured, and Kip dropped to the stone floor. “I’ve thought of that, of course. I’ve been studying this for a year. I think you’ll be interested to see the solution.”
He walked to the other cell, the one that didn’t hold Malcolm, and went out of Kip’s view. A lock turned, a door opened, and Victor said, “Come on out, there’s a good lad.”
Shuffling footsteps followed him, and when Victor reappeared he held a pale hand, leading someone forward. Kip’s breath caught; he knew it was going to be Richard before the red-headed boy dragged his feet into view behind Victor.
He wore the same clothes that he’d been wearing at the Exposition, dirtier and torn in places that Richard would normally never have tolerated. The clothes were not the worst thing about him, though. He walked listlessly, with a vacant expression that took in none of the world around him. Even when he turned to Kip, there was only a fraction of a second of hesitation before his eyes passed with equal interest to the beaver behind Kip in the cell.
“It turns out that humans have a small amount of magic in them as well.” Victor spoke as conversationally as though he were presenting at the Exposition, as though the creature he led by a hand had not once been a bright, promising student. “Moreso if they can access magic. And while the supply of Calatians is limited, there are more humans than there have ever been. Besides which, he can still eat and perform simple tasks. He could likely be trained to carry a weapon for an army. He’s by no means as useless as a used-up Calatian will be.”
The words were clearly intended to apply directly to Kip. He quashed the vision of a four-footed future again and tried not to look at Richard, because unlike March, Richard looked almost exactly as Kip remembered him, and it was impossible not to connect that past Richard to this one. “It still seems very inelegant.” He’d stored that word as one that might annoy Victor in a subtle way, which was safest in his current situation. “I’m surprised you haven’t managed to simply forge a connection to magic the way sorcerers have.”
Victor’s smile curled up at the corners. “But my dear animal, that’s exactly what you’re going to help me do. The spell I’ve conceived has failed with inferior levels of power, but the amount stored in your body should be enough to break through.”
“‘Should be,’” Kip echoed. “And if it isn’t?”
Victor waved a hand carelessly. “You still don’t understand. The magic contained in you is only half of what I want from you.”
“You’ve held a grudge for this many years?”
“It’s not a grudge.” The smile slipped, his thin lips straightening. “That implies that you’ve wronged me. But it’s not you that’s wronged me; it is the fickle nature of fate that chose to give such a great gift to an animal while leaving my superb mind unable to touch it. If there is a grudge, it is not against you, but against the universe. You are merely the symbol of injustice, and indeed the injustice that any of your race exist at all, that magic was spared to help animals upright and give them speech when that magic could have gone to good men, to improve the world.”
“By selling magic to their fellows?” This was Malcolm, unable to restrain himself, but Victor did not signal Farley this time.
“By taking magic from those who cannot use it properly and giving it to those who deserve it.”
“Deserve,” Kip said, and would have gone on, but Victor was at the bars in a step, and his eyes blazed.
“Yes,” he hissed. “Deserve. I have spent the last three years listening to what a wonder you are, simply because of the accident of your birth, that an animal can control magic, and what wonder, understands fire! Fire, the simplest of the elements; it is merely consumption and no more. And then that you have destroyed a Great Feat. All you can do is tear down: the school, the American Army, the British Empire, the Road. I would have built. I would have made the British Empire a nation of sorcerers, with magic to take the Union Jack to every corner of the world, bigger than the Roman Empire, lasting longer than the Zhou Dynasty or the Holy Roman Empire.”
“With you at its head.”
His eyes glittered. “I’ve better things to do than manage dozens of quarreling colonies. I will be its indispensable backbone, sorcerer to the sorcerers.”
Kip noted the change from “would build” to “will be,” but let it go. His heart pounded but he kept his demeanor as calm as he could, ears up, tail still. “I suppose that since you are so emotional about my death, it’s not worth proposing a bargain to you.”
The clear blue eyes stared, and then Victor stepped back and laughed. “Ha! Bargain!” He supported himself with one hand on the bars and doubled over laughing. “Do you hear this, Broadside? The fox wants to bargain. With what? He hasn’t even clothes to offer me, and the only thing of his I want I can take at any time.”
“Shouldn’t listen to him,” Farley said. “He’ll talk and talk. Best is to just take what you want.”
“Well, now, maybe that was true when you were holding his snout down in the mud and anyone’s parent might walk by. But there are no parents coming to rescue him now.” Victor stepped back and folded his arms. “I think it fitting that his last words will be an amusing pathetic plea.”
Kip shook his head. “You know, I’ve changed my mind. I’d rather die knowing that you never got the chance to have this knowledge.”
Victor nodded. “Very well, then. Demon, come here.”
The old fire-creature shuffled toward him, and for a moment Kip really thought Victor was going to ignore his taunt. But then Malcolm said, with perfect tone and timing, “Good job, Kip. I was afraid you were going to tell him.”
Victor glanced toward Malcolm’s cell in irritation and then back at Kip. Uncertainty passed over his expression. “Go on then,” he said. “Speak your bargain.”
“Have Master Gupta come down here and read it in my mind if you want to hear it so badly,” Kip replied. Victor wanted it now, thanks to Malcolm, and it annoyed him more that he couldn’t just have it.
Victor’s eyes flicked toward the demon—just for a second, but it was enough for Kip to realize that Victor didn’t want Master Gupta here for a very specific reason. It cou
ld be because he had summoned a demon; if the Indian sorcerer shared Chakrabarti’s beliefs, he would not approve of the way Victor used demons. There was more in Victor’s look, however, enough to give Kip a clue about his further intentions. “Oh,” Kip said. “You’re going to use my magic to cast a spell to steal the demon’s magic. That’ll probably kill it, shouldn’t you think?”
The demon shifted only enough to let Kip know that it had heard and understood. “Because you’re hoping to get magic from the demon plane,” Kip went on.
“Enough,” Victor snapped.
“It’s just interesting,” Kip went on, “because that was similar to my line of thinking when I was trying to figure out how to give magic to more Calatians.”
Victor’s expression froze. “Oh yes,” Kip said. “You think I was merely teaching students, traveling around to government officials, and trying to build a school? I’m trying to preserve my race. If all Calatians had magic—well, you laid out the scenario very clearly. But replace British Empire with Calatian Empire.”
Farley made a growling noise. Kip leaned over to see what he could of the marmot. “You could be part of it, Farley, if you stay in this much preferable form.”
“When you’re an animal,” Farley growled, “I’ll choke you with my shit.”
Kip returned his attention to Victor. “I can see why you like him.” The more he asserted his control of the situation, the calmer he felt. If indeed he were going to die in the next minute, then it didn’t matter what he did. “Did you also discover the truth about the demon plane?”
He had no idea, honestly, what truth he might be talking about, if any. He only wanted to goad Victor into bringing Master Gupta down, because Victor would be much more likely to believe Kip’s idea if he heard Master Gupta read it out of Kip’s mind. If Kip spoke it, it would sound ridiculous. It might still work, but he felt the chances were slimmer.
Victor, however, stopped and narrowed his eyes. “I discovered something,” he said. “What truth did you discover?”
“Ask Master Gupta.”
“I rather think I’ll have Farley ask O’Brien if you don’t tell me. I’m getting tired of having to make these threats.”
Malcolm made a strangled noise, probably a stifled plea to Kip not to worry about his well-being. And now Kip had to make up something, something relevant and interesting. He connected the two most recent things Victor had mentioned: that he wanted to be able to draw magic himself and that he was going to do it through a demon, and he remembered something Chakrabarti had told him about a sect of Hinduism and their beliefs. “That it’s where our magic comes from,” he said.
Victor’s eyes widened, and Kip felt a jolt of relief. “How did you come to that? The papers of Master Alia had not been viewed in decades.”
“Oh, Master Albright and I had some interesting conversations before he tried to kill me.” Kip had the desperate feeling that he was staying just one step ahead of Victor, and if he made one mistake, he would be a four-footed fox a moment later, his life as he knew it gone. “He told me about Alia’s work and also about some other research he’d done.” Here was a good place to throw in a nugget of truth, and so Kip did. “He once told me that the knowledge I was pursuing was dangerous, more so than I knew. Did he not tell you about it? Perhaps that’s why.”
Albright had said that during the war, when Kip mentioned the name of the demon Master Windsor had called to destroy the American schools. Another master had pointed Kip to an old text in a library that mentioned this demon, but Kip had failed to understand the context. Still, the name itself was enough to unnerve Albright, who had killed the master who’d given Kip that clue.
“He did mention that you were seeking knowledge you oughtn’t.” Victor rubbed his chin and went on, more peevishly. “And he won’t tell me what it was. But you’ll tell me.”
“Why should I?” Kip inclined his head toward Malcolm. “Because you’ll make him suffer? For how long? We can both bear it. You’re going to kill us both anyway, and I can assure you that it would give me a great deal of satisfaction to go to my grave with a piece of information that could have helped you, knowing you willingly threw it away.”
Victor drew in a breath, glaring, but no words came from between his clenched teeth. Farley, to the side, said, “You want I should pull his tail off? Open his stomach?”
“All right,” Victor said in a low, taut voice. “Name your bargain.”
19
On Demons, Again
Here was his moment. Kip drew in a breath. “I’ll share my knowledge. You will promise to release me, Malcolm, and Richard, and to never harm us nor anyone from our school again.”
Victor raised his eyebrows. “A modest assurance.”
“I wanted to ask for a promise I can trust you to keep.”
In the next cell, a choking noise came again. Both Victor and Kip ignored it. “Very well,” Victor said. “I will leave everyone associated with your precious school alone.”
Kip flicked his ears. “And release myself and Malcolm?”
Victor raised a finger. “There we may have a difficulty. You see, you’ve already seen enough to make things very difficult for me, and I will not insult you by asking you to promise never to reveal what you’ve learned here. Therefore, I will not agree to that. If your information is useful, you can spare your loved ones.”
“Deal,” Malcolm rasped from the other cell.
“All right,” Kip said. “But you’ll give us a chance to say good-bye to each other first.”
Victor rolled his eyes theatrically. “You can do that now.”
“In person.”
“Yes, fine, very well. Go on, already.”
Kip crossed his arms and took a breath. “You’re sure you don’t want Master Gupta here to read it from my mind? Or to confirm that you’re going to keep your promise?”
“Tchah. The fact that you’re willing to subject yourself to that is enough. As for me…” Victor gave Kip a beatific smile with cold blue eyes. “You have no choice but to trust that I abide by my word. But I promise you that I always do, and I will.”
“Very well.” The sudden fear that Victor would laugh in his face and cast his magic-draining spell in the next moment seized Kip, paralyzing his chest and throat. He struggled to pull in a breath, squeezed his eyes shut, and opened them again. “Have you never tried traveling to the demon plane?”
For a moment, it looked as though Kip had told Victor a joke that he hadn’t understood, and then the blond man scowled in disgust. “I have to give you credit. For a moment you had me thinking that you had actually made a breakthrough. But Farley was right; you were merely stalling for time. Well, now your time is up.”
“I’ve done it,” Kip lied.
Now Victor did laugh. “You’re making it worse. Yes, I’ve looked into it, of course I have. So have a dozen other sorcerers and I’ve read all their notes. Here is the problem, or rather the two problems, which I will lay out so you may see how idiotic your made-up ‘discovery’ is: first, while in the Æther you would be at the mercy of thousands of unbound demons, and second, even if by some miracle you were able to survive, most sorcerers believe that you cannot simply translocate back from the demon plane, otherwise demons would infest our world. In fact, many believe that you cannot translocate to the demon plane at all. So you see, Penfold, you are not nearly as cunning as you believe you are.”
“In the first place, if a demon brings you to the plane, they will guard you against others. And in the second—”
“Nonsense,” Victor scoffed. “Your binding spell would not survive the transition. Demons who are dismissed without being unbound do not return bound, as Master Halis discovered a hundred years ago and his students recorded. All that work to pull apart the dismissal and unbinding spell, and for nothing.”
“That’s why you need an unbound demon to take you. One you can trust.”
“You can’t trust a demon. There are two accounts of sorcerers who thou
ght they could trust their demons, and both of those accounts are written by other people after those sorcerers disappeared.”
Kip flicked his ears. “To the demon plane, perhaps, as I did.”
Victor’s scowl remained, but his tone grew less dismissive. “And how did you manage to come back, then?”
“A summoning spell. But it has to be someone who knows your sorcerer name.”
“Ridiculous.” But Victor said it more softly and he turned to look at Farley. “And you have a demon you can trust, do you?”
“Master Gupta told you that I summoned a demon and didn’t bind it. You didn’t believe him.”
“I still don’t. It’s a fairy story. You’re trained—you would never do something like that.” Now Victor paced back and forth. “This demon…it’s still out there?”
Kip’s heart gave a leap. He had Victor now, hooked on the idea. “As far as I know. I haven’t any magic, so I can’t feel the link.”
“It’s being kept away by the wards.” Victor stopped his pacing. “Is this a trick to get me to drop the wards? You should know that I have altered the spell slightly. The few seconds that allowed your student to escape have been eliminated.”
“Then what are you worried about? That I have somehow worked out a signal with Emily that at this precise time she should attempt to translocate to us? Malcolm and I don’t even know what time it is beyond your pronouncements of ‘morning’ and ‘evening.’ And we haven’t any magic to contact her.”
“Very well,” Victor said, clasping his hands together. “If you’ve been there, describe the Æther to me.”
This, Kip had been ready for. He had ‘seen’ the plane of fire elementals, and had talked to Nikolon about what her home was like. “It’s like floating in a sea of power. You can perceive the demons all around you but there are no physical features to distinguish them. But you can sense the difference. A little like when you dream of someone and you know who it is.”
