by Pam Uphoff
"That Rustle is damn smart." He eyed the seven young men. "Mind you, by Scoone standards you're a bunch of weaklings, not hungry enough for power to castrate yourselves."
A shudder rippled though the boys.
He shook his head in mock dismay. Scooner society would have eaten you lot for breakfast and been ready for a snack by mid-day. Maybe you'll be safe to let loose on the world after all. "But these decadent modern times . . . Well, you're old enough that the spell has done all it can do." He waved an obvious left hand, and stripped the hormone spell away. "Let's just see how much of the early lessons you remember. Gather power."
He showed them the easiest, brute force effects first. A simple push. They pushed sand around for a bit then started pushing it at each other. When Hal complained about Deni pushing the sand at him, Nil suggested he push the sand back at him. Then he and Dydit sat back and watched the magical wrestling matches. As a way to judge the students, it was hard to beat.
Deni was an arrogant, overconfident snot. Very powerful, but no grasp of subtleties. Luz was a good strong pusher, and quickly picked up maneuvering tricks to keep Deni from running over him. Hal and Ronnie were good friends, and quickly teamed up to pick on Osten. Gar and Jeri made it a game and a joke.
Nil sighed as Osten retreated. A corner of his sand scooper got under Hal and Ronnie, and flipped them and dumped them. That got the others’ attention, and suddenly those pushes were going deep and coming up fast.
Deni sneered as Luz dodged. Luz tried it and "missed" Deni, producing a shower of sand upwind and taller than Deni. Deni cursed as the sand hit him, propelled by more than wind.
Dydit grinned. "Looks like you've got a precocious student and a bull."
Nil nodded. "Just as well Luz isn't too strong. Nor Deni trickier. Ah, now isn't that just a thing of beauty?"
Luz was holding a steady push, but had thinned the area of effect and come very close to forming a physical shield.
Nil projected his voice. "Excellent, Luz. Good shield. Get it tighter, picture a rectangle just large enough to protect yourself." He let them wrestle around until they'd all learned how to maneuver, how to shape sand and use it indirectly, and how to shield. Then they walked up to the only two buildings on the planet for an advanced math lesson.
Nil had kept a strict eye on Dydit and Never when they started getting carried away with their building magic. He'd managed to keep them to two medium-sized buildings. With fancy "carving" around the main doorways and across the top. He'd yelled at them to take away the columns. And they'd just blinked at him from a haze of magical euphoria and added carved caps and bases. So he'd had to yell, "Good job. All done. Stop now!" until they finally did.
One building contained an oversized kitchen and dining room, and storage. The storage loft was big enough for the boys to move into, if they ever got seriously bad weather. The larger building had enough classrooms for ten times the students on the ground floor and two apartments above, with room left over to expand. So far, the kids had been delighted to camp out on the beach and build makeshift shelters for themselves.
Not a bad Wizards' School . . . especially since it was just two weeks old. And classes just starting.
He got a niggling itch off and on, and finally slid off to check it out. Half an hour of careful stalking put him behind the diminutive watcher. Xen needs a bit of a lesson himself. He decided a temporary spell for purple hair would be a salutary lesson.
A huge huffing snort exploded behind his head, he spun and threw the weak spell—quickest way to clear his mind—grabbed the web . . . and glared at the big chestnut gelding. He heard muffled snickers and looked back at the boy . . . no, the clothes stuffed with grass. The boy was somewhere else in the long grass. He crossed his arms and glowered.
"If you feel you need extra lessons in math, you may attend openly. You may not practice any magic you learn here unless you are supervised by me, Dydit, the Auld Wulf, Gisele, or one of the senior witches. Got that, Boy?" The boy has a damn good mental shield. So, for that matter, does the horse. He turned and eyed the chestnut horse. Chestnut, not purple. "So. You've got a shield up around your horse? That's a rather advanced trick."
"Pyrite shields himself." Xen was standing right at his elbow, all innocent and young looking. Rustle and the Auld Wulf's kid. I best remember to not underestimate him.
"I suppose you told him how?" Nil snorted. All we'd need is magic horses.
"Jet showed him. Jet can do all sorts of shields, it's really cool when he kicks. He doesn't actually touch the thing he's kicking, it just looks like it because it happens so fast."
A tiny trickle of doubt crept in. The Auld Wulf's warhorse had carried the god in battle for fourteen centuries. What were the odds of a horse surviving that? Nil had fought from horse back enough times to know it was impossible for a man to wield a sword, throw magic spells, shield oneself, ride, maintain a grasp of the battlefield situation and also generate a mobile shield flexible enough to allow a horse to kick—all at the same time. Three of the above was hard. But the Auld Wulf was a god. Gods were supposed to be able to do the impossible.
"I see. Why don't you check with your parents and teachers about advanced math classes here, every afternoon. In six months I'll have some younger magic students here, and the things I'll be teaching them might be things you're ready to learn." He frowned down at the boy. I hope you're not sexually precocious. Because once you can put some serious power behind your spells you're going to be scary.
The boy grinned. "I hope so!" He grabbed his clothes, shaking the grass out of them.
Nil watched the horse toss him up on his back and shook his head. Once they were out of sight he scratched his greying hair irritably. "I dunno if Old Scoone would have eaten you, or you would have eaten Old Scoone. And I think maybe you're already a bit scary, Boy." He stomped back to his other pupils.
Chapter Eight
Summer 1380
Ash, Kingdom of the West
"A spell for purple hair. That is so excellent." Xen admired the effect on the dog. Then nibbled a fingernail. "Except I don't know how to take it off." He glanced up at the horse. "Oh. Good idea."
"Lion. Stay!" He trotted down the hill, between the rows of carefully pruned grape vines. Mom was in the library, the first place he looked.
"Hi, Mom. I learned a really silly spell today. See?" He held out the Purple Hair Spell. To their inner sight it was an insubstantial chain of sparkling points. "It makes hair purple, and I don't understand why."
"It's an epigenic spell." She concentrated for a moment, opening her mental shields so he could see what she was looking at. "See all the fuzz around the DNA ladders? Some of those can turn genes off or on. See this part of the spell? It looks for a specific gene and attaches to it, which turns it on. Then this part of the spell finds a different gene and makes the RNA pay it extra visits . . . hmm, that's the red pigment complex. The first gene is one of the engineered genes, an add on. I've only once seen it turned on naturally, which is probably why there aren't children running around with blue or purple hair. Now, if you look at the end of the switch, this ending here means it will only work for a couple of weeks, then drop off. That's the complex part of the spell. This little piggy back spell just changes the chemistry of the pigment already in the hair to blue and red. The whole of the front part is sort of overkill—or," she eyed him. "Something to ensure that a strong student couldn't just brush it away."
Xen tried hard to look innocent. "So, to turn it off, you'd just reverse the chemical changes here, and sort pluck off these two things?"
"Umm, plucking isn't advised. But the end segment that limits the time? You could easily change it to this and it'll be gone in less than a day."
"Oh. Instead of doing it yourself, you just change the instructions, and the cell does it for you." He looked glumly at the magnified chromosome. "I can see it when you show me, but I can't look that small, myself. And . . . what if there were a whole lot of cells to change back?"
"Once you understand the situation, you make a spell. Like a tiny set of tools to do what you need to have done."
He saw the sudden glitter on the "epigenic" thing. It changed the chemistry, then lifted away to hang in the air by itself. And he suddenly realized how to make it into a spell, with all the stuff around it, just like the purple spell.
"And this is how you change the pigments back to, oh, say brownish."
"Wow. That's cool, Mom."
As he left he heard his father's voice. "Who, or what, do you think he turned purple?"
Xen paused, listening.
"Hopefully just Pyrite or Lion. I'm almost afraid to look."
"Could it be worse than your purple bunnies?"
"Shh! Don't give him ideas. Beside I changed the genes themselves. My purple was not just permanent, it was inheritable."
Purple bunnies? He fixed Lion's color, and hunted around for something else to try it on.
:: Not. Me. ::
Xen grinned. "Good thing you had your shield up. I think you almost got turned into a goat, like Grandda."
The horse snorted.
"Yeah, you'd have been an awfully big goat. But it was just part of a huge spell web. Nil put it all away so fast I didn't have time to do anything except recognize the goat spell." He bit his lip. "And Nil did say to not use anything I learned . . . not that he meant to teach me that. So it wasn't like it was part of a lesson." He nodded. "Good. Because I'd hate to have Nil really mad at me."
Pyrite nodded, and looked suggestively up at the hills behind them.
"Sure. Maybe we can find a way around the waterfall. I think we'll be able to find those bandits, once we get up those cliffs. Then I've got to find out about changing genes, for permanent, inheritable, changes."
They ran out of daylight about the fourth route they attempted. Home was quiet and empty, and a glance down the hill showed why. Harry had brought the Tavern back.
Chapter Nine
Summer 1380
Ash, Kingdom of the West
Xen eyed his parent's table, full, then sighed resignedly. Jek, the only reasonable young male around, was chatting with Obsidian, Peridotite and Quartz. There were younger witches, but . . . He looped around to the kitchen door, and Pixie handed him a plate.
"Pity there aren't more boys your age around."
One of the older witches in the background sniffed, dismissively. Hematite, probably. He ducked out and joined Pyrite, who was talking to the Old Dun. There was a log bench up against Lady Gisele's garden fence, perfect for sitting and talking. The horses wandered over, giving the fragrant herbs across the fence a good whiff. They knew better than to sample.
The Old Dun was a seriously magical horse. He'd taught Pyrite all sorts of stuff, like opening locks. Come to that, he'd taught Xen how to be invisible.
"Do you know anything about changing genes?"
The old horse pricked his ears and nodded. A huge, complex spell glittered in his mind.
"Whoa." Xen breathed reverently. "You can turn a horse into a person. That is incredible. I mean, they would still look like a horse, but the genes would be just like a person’s."
That one the horse had made up himself. He held out another, oak tree to peach, that Xen's mother had made. And with an amused snort, the spell for purple bunnies.
"Of course they were ordinary bunnies to start with. I wonder if you could give bunny hair to something larger. They make such nice coats." He glanced apologetically at the horses. "Sorry. Carnivores aren't very nice neighbors, are we? Omnivores, technically."
They both snorted complete indifference to the fates of stupid cows and stupider sheep. So the three of them thought about how to improve the hairiness of several types of animals. So many animals had the same genes controlling their hair, that they made up a general spell for a change to rabbit quality hair. The Old Dun did most of it, being the oldest and best trained of them.
:: You need lessons from the witches. From Lady Gisele. I listened in, and Rustle read to me and let me watch her practice. ::
"Hmm." Xen wondered if his mother would be too careful about what she taught him. But she would teach him some things. The other witches wouldn't teach him anything. Perhaps he could persuade Nil to let him start some wizarding early. And the old wizard probably knew all about hair, because of the sheep.
"Hmph. Sheep!"
Xen jumped guiltily and looked over his shoulder. "We were talking about genetics. Good evening Lady Gisele."
"Genetics? I think you need to start with biology, young man." The old woman let herself through the gate. By the time she'd closed it, she had straightened, and a wave of dark swept through her hair. She turned at footsteps. Sir Romeau Ayres held out a hand, took her's and kissed the knuckles. The Goddess of Heath and Fertility lost the last of her wrinkles and even Xen gasped a bit at her beauty as she took the God of Love's arm and was whisked away to dinner.
"Wow."
Pyrite switched an ear around, dubious. :: Are you going to act like an idiot stallion when you grow up? ::
The Old Dun reached and gave the gelding a tiny nip.
"Not yet! Yuck." Xen failed to keep an edge of uncertainty out of his voice.
:: Magic is more fun. :: Pyrite tossed his head, one eye on the Old Dun in case he was inclined to do more than nip.
Xen grinned suddenly. "That's true." He added the purple spell to a copy of the rabbit hair spell.
Pyrite nodded approval, and visualized his Mom in a warm purple fur coat.
Two days later, he started taking biology classes in the herb garden.
Lady Gisele taught him how to magnify his magical vision, to see the cells, and then the parts of the cells. How things worked. The differences between plants and animals. Fungi and bacteria and some of the odd things that grew in the hotsprings.
And then on to genetics. And genengineering. Genetic engineering.
He learned spells that sorted through the chromosomes to find the one wanted. And spells that changed around the desired base pairs, once they'd been found. Changing them was easy. Changing them so you didn't kill your cell culture was hard.
She laughed at his purple spells, and the vision of his mother in a warm purple coat. And set him to changing pigment genes and then those for hair length and density. He got really careful about what he changed or duplicated, both with and without changes. She finally approved, and borrowed a sheep from Nil. Xen was allowed, under supervision, to turn it yellow, reddish, brown and finally a deep solid black. And back to almost-white, before he returned it to Nil. Then they started on changing the shapes of bones and muscles—physical morphs—and other genetic changes. It was all fascinating.
Chapter Ten
Fall 1380
Ash, Kingdom of the West
Ultra ran her brush through Swish's mane of curly black hair. In many ways, Swish was her exact opposite. Ultra's hair was straight and blonde, her skin a golden tan, eyes deep blue. But they were alike in feeling tied down by their children, and then held back from advancement until the wretched brats grasped power.
"What if we wind up like Mostly? We ought to have rated the men by how young their children grasped power, and seduced one with precocious children."
Swish wrinkled her nose. "You already have three, surely that's enough to guarantee at least one will grasp power."
"Well, Crimson is Ras's child—and he never grasped power to become a Mage until Rustle did something to him. For Jade, well it was a Rip Crossing orgy, so who knows—except that most of them don't have any power. For Walnut, well, it was another one of those orgies, with Richie this time. I should have thought and been exclusive." She put the brush down. "I'd kill for your curls."
Swish shook her head. "I think you're worrying needlessly, look at Jade, I think she's doing subconscious stuff already. My two . . . There's just nothing unexplained about Emerald. Not much glow, you know? And like you said, the orgy with Richie, honestly, who invited those other guys? Violet may not
be any good either. I know they're too young to be grasping power, but they ought to glow!"
Ultra nodded. "That Quicksilver is so bright it nearly hurts to look at her.
"Maybe the Auld Wulf did something, again."
"Like with Xen. That's such an icky thought. So, what guys have precocious kids?"
Swish made a rude noise. "Dydit and the Auld Wulf, except that Ask was really late—and he's your father too, so that would be really icky."
"And I was sixteen, and Whoop was eighteen before we grasped power. Just because Xen was early, doesn't mean a thing. And Dydit? No. Way. I wouldn't even bird him. I mean, a goat!" Ultra shuddered.
Swish narrowed her eyes. "Birding. I hadn't thought about that! I've been doing just a bit of place recognition, in case I can Travel when I've gone up a few levels. Moving just a tiny bit of semen . . . I wonder if I could do it. They say almost everyone in Scoone could."
Ultra frowned. "But they were all wizards. Not that a witch isn't better . . . You know, that is such an intriguing idea."
"I wonder if what the Auld Wulf did to Xen would carry through to the next generation?" Swish narrowed her eyes. "He grasped power when he was, what? Three? Four?"
"Yeah. We should, you know, lag a bit and listen in on the lessons for the Waning Half. I heard Answer saying something about teaching the traveling spell, so it didn't get lost."
Swish nodded. "Then, if neither Emerald nor Violet start glowing by the Winter Solstice . . . maybe I'll try that birding trick."
Chapter Eleven
Late Fall 1380
Ash, Kingdom of the West
"One thing you need to be careful of, is accidentally triggering spells that have a lot of charms in common with the spell you wanted to evoke." Nil gave the students a razor edged smile. "If you want to stun your opponent, you just want to slap his brain and knock it against his skull. You don't want to trigger a general push spell and shove him off a cliff. Or a slice spell when you want a shield. Lots of vibrational modes, sub-spells if you prefer, in common, very easy to accidentally trigger a second spell while you're deliberately throwing a similar spell."
