Wizards: Magical Tales from the Masters of Modern Fantasy

by Gardner Dozois

  It was difficult for Sam not to keep glancing this way and that, studying some new thing or other that suddenly caught his eye. But at last he made himself sit in the other armchair and face Lucius, who was pouring them both glasses of fruit-juice from a crystal decanter.

  “I’ve been looking forward to this, Sam,” he said as he handed Sam a glass. “Your studies have been going well, I hear, and I thought it was time we met properly. We have questions for each other, I know, and you’ll get to ask them all over the next few weeks. No doubt you’ve been told to have a special question ready for me right now, so let’s get that out of the way so we can relax properly.”

  Sam felt a weight go from him. He set his glass down on a side table and didn’t hesitate. “What’s the difference between a Magikker and a Magician?”

  “Straight to the heart of it. Good. That’s an important question, and I thank you for it. There have been many true magicians in the history of the world—gifted men and women—but not really that many ever became the fullest quantity meant by that name. Most so-called magicians only ever had bits and pieces of the gift. But I bet you could even name some of the real ones.”

  “Well, Merlin for a start?”

  “Definitely one of the lucky ones, Sam, one of the very few.”

  “Yourself. Lucius Prandt.” It seemed appropriate to say it.

  Lucius gave his wonderful smile. “Good of you to say so, but no, Sam. I’m only an illusionist. That’s what most magicians are these days—people who create wonderful illusions, learn to be clever enough to use people’s perceptions against them. That’s nothing compared to real magic, of course, just fakery and fancy tricks, a knowledge of optics and sleight of hand, but sometimes it just has to do. But I was a true Magician for a short time, Sam. Seems a lot of us have a bit of the gift, just a bit and just for a short time, some evolutionary holdover from when the mind fired differently. It’s almost as if evolution started to take us down a different road, then got side-tracked.”

  Lucius paused to top up their glasses. “The thing is, most of us lose any traces of this gift by the time we become adults and never even know we’ve had it. It comes out in crisis situations mostly—a child lifts a fallen tree off an injured playmate. He could never have lifted such a load before. Suddenly he can. Another kid moves a parked car to free a trapped pet. Never knows how she did it. Another pictures the hand of someone buried in a land-slide half a continent away, maybe tells the right people in time. When they check, they find the person still alive, just a hand showing. It’s the birthright gift, the power some of us are born with and soon lose.”

  “But you had it.”

  “I certainly did. For seventeen precious and amazing years. That’s an incredibly long time. I was lucky. The memory of it made me become an illusionist. But for a short time I was a Magician, Sam! The real thing!”

  “And I am?” Sam had to ask it. Why else was he here?

  “Straight to it again, Sam. Good. You are—in a small way and for a short time. You may never have known it before coming to Dessida, but you are.”

  “All those tests at school—”

  “Were to prove it. Passed off as aptitude tests and personality indicators, all approved by the School Board and the Department of Education. They never knew otherwise. This year alone we’ve tested everyone at three hundred and fifty-two schools so far. You’re the only one we’ve found.”

  Sam was amazed. “The only one?”

  “Others had bits of a gift but were temperamentally unsuited or had family complications. They were better left as they were, undeveloped and unknowing. For their own sakes, really. I hope you understand.”

  “So what about my training here? The six months’ tuition?”

  “You want to be an illusionist?”

  “Not if I’m a Magician!”

  “Perfect answer! See, we picked well. So let’s get back to your question. A Magician with a capital M has the gift for life, just like Merlin and Sancreoch and Quen Dargentis, the Black Mage of Constantinople. But most are what we call Magikkers—people with a tiny bit of the gift, a single burst they can use once and once only, you hear what I’m saying? In magical parlance, we call them singletons. Magikkers.”

  “And I’m a—a singleton? A Magikker?”

  “Sam, you are. You have one magic act within you. A single magnificent spell. One big gush of power. It will all come rushing out at once, then be gone.”

  “Then—then I should wait. I should keep it until I really need it.”

  “Doesn’t work like that. The older you get, the sooner it’ll just fade away. It’s gone for most Magikkers well before they turn twenty.”

  “But—but Lucius…” Sam couldn’t finish.

  “Yes, Sam. You have to take my word that this is how it is. I’ve spent years researching and searching.”

  “For these—Magikkers?”

  “Indeed.”

  “So you’re saying I should use my gift soon.”

  “You should. And there’s an alternative. A suggestion I would like to put to you now.”

  “What’s that, Lucius?”

  “Sam, I want you to give me your magic.”

  Sam was amazed. “Give it to you?”

  “You have so little—one spell at most, a single act, probably limited in all sorts of ways—but whatever it is, however it is, I’d like you to give it to me.”

  The request stunned Sam. He felt a new weight settle on his spirit, a new hard emotion surging up. He quickly realised what it was. Disappointment. Disillusionment. “That’s why I’m really here, isn’t it? Why we’re all really here?”

  Lucius nodded. “Yes, Sam, it is.”

  “But it’s mine,” Sam said. “My gift. How could I give it? How could that be possible?” And behind those words, the unspoken ones: Why should I? How could you ask it?

  “I can’t help you there, Sam. That has to be your decision. It truly does have to be your decision. I just wanted to let you know how it is and what I’d like you to do for me.”

  The disappointment Sam felt took all the charm from the room, emptied the excitement and happiness out of the day. He wanted to be gone, needed to be anywhere else. “So I can leave whenever I want? I don’t have to stay?”

  “Dessida isn’t a prison, Sam. You can leave anytime you want. We’ll drive you to the station at Milton, even give you a certificate saying you’ve completed some important vocational training.”

  “But I’ll lose my chance.”

  “Only to be here with me. Taking our classes. To have us help you use that gift.”

  “Give away that gift.” Sam’s words sounded bitter. He couldn’t help it. “And they’re illusionist classes. Not the real thing.”

  “Afraid so, Sam. Once your magic is used up, that’s all we have to console us.”

  “You don’t.”

  “I assure you, Sam, I do. That’s why I’m asking for your magic. One illusionist talking to a young man who may one day become another.”

  “Once my magic is gone.”

  “Once your magic is gone, yes.”

  “So you can have another taste!” Sam said the words savagely. He was so angry, so disappointed. This wonderful man, wonderful place, wonderful chance had been ruined in a moment.

  “I—I need to go and think.”

  Lucius stood. “Of course you do. It’s right that you do. I wanted to be direct with you about this. But, Sam, please know. Whatever you decide will be the right thing.”

  Before Sam quite knew it, he found himself out in the corridor again, hurrying back towards the front of the house. He felt numb. He needed to be gone, to be out in the day, somewhere else, anywhere else. He rushed down the front steps and sat on his plinth again, but this time he didn’t greet Rufio. He couldn’t bring himself to.

  Everything was the same. Everything was different. Dessida still stood at the end of its once-grand promenade, still loomed there—an impressive, two-storeyed, nineteenth-century mansio
n on its gentle rise. But now Sam saw all over again how run-down it truly was: the lawns in need of mowing, the weeds in the gravel of the approach walk. The gardens to either side were overgrown with briars too, not just the pedestals flanking the path.

  So much for Lucius Prandt’s magic. He couldn’t even keep his estate in order, couldn’t even manage a “glamour” to hide how it really was.

  Sam left the plinth and set off across the lawns towards the estate’s western border. Members of the household staff watched him go. Standing with their rakes and gardening tools, they tracked him with their bright curious eyes.

  That just angered Sam further. They stood about with rakes and implements like that, yet always seemed to be doing more talking and daydreaming than actual work. Well, let them watch. Let them wonder.

  Finally, Sam reached the low wall of grey-brown fieldstone that marked Dessida’s western boundary. He leant on the waist-high barrier, glanced at it stretching this way and that off through the trees, then looked out at the world beyond, his world, sweeping away in fields and suddenly precious vistas.

  How dare Lucius! How dare he!

  Sam could so easily jump that wall and be gone. He felt his body tensing for it.

  “Hey, Best Sam!”

  The voice reached him through the forest, and when Sam turned, there was that gangly, elderly groundswoman, Ren Bartay, heading towards him. She was tall and sun-tanned and was whacking the taller weeds with a stick as she came, a big smile on her face.

  “Isn’t it just a day?” Ren called, grinning away. “I love this time of year.”

  And then, when she was right up close: “Thinking of bailing out, eh, Sam? It’s an easy leap.”

  “Seriously considering it, Ren,” Sam replied. Why not say it, he figured. Like Lucius had said, it was his choice to make.

  “Don’t blame you,” Ren surprised him by saying. “The magic is all used up here.”

  “Is it?”

  “First Interview Day. You know it is. You’re the only one with a bit right now.”

  “If that’s true. If any of it’s true. What about the others? Bettina and Susan and Crip and the rest? There are eighteen other—”

  “Already given. Already gone. Never really had any.” Ren set down her stick and started checking that the stones were securely packed atop this section of wall.

  “I can’t be the only one!”

  “Right now you are,” she said, turning back. “Lucius would have asked you for it, yes? First Interview Day.”

  “But if they’ve given theirs, why do they stay on? How can they stand it?”

  Ren looked off through the trees, then pointed to a spot well inside the wall. “Because how they used their magic is still here—in almost every case.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Let me show you.”

  They started walking back towards Dessida together, then made a detour south so they entered the thickest part of the forest.

  In the dappled autumn light, Sam saw things—structures—amid the trees. To his left there was a cottage, a full-size picture-book gingerbread house with smoke curling from the chimney, smoke that vanished six metres above the chimney-pot before ever reaching the open air.

  “That’s Bettina Anders’s creation,” Ren said. “The Eternal House. How she used her single magic act. Step inside, you’ll meet her grandmother Dika, her grandfather Brent. There’s always music playing, always something cooking, always a welcome at their table. Couldn’t do something like that away from Dessida, Sam. Lucius explained it to Bettina very carefully. You can’t bring people back from the dead, put them back in the world, without causing a real fuss. Wouldn’t be right. That sort of fix-up needs to be done very discreetly.”

  Then Ren pointed to a twisted and, yes, twisting tower off to the right. It glowed like amber in the soft light streaming through the trees. “That’s Sophie Ramage’s Living Tower. She would’ve preferred it in her own backyard, of course, but Lucius made her see that people would gawp and gape and never leave her alone. They’d be forever wanting to know how it was possible, where it came from. She’d never have a moment’s peace, what with intruders and souvenir-hunters breaking off bits and pieces. Here it stays intact and hers! She’ll be able to come see it anytime she wants.”

  “And that’s what it’s all about,” Sam said, more annoyed than ever. “Lucius can’t do magic anymore, so this way he gets other people’s marvels! Talks them out of keeping them.”

  “Sam, Sam,” Ren said, in her wonderful calming voice. “See it another way. These were done by Magikkers who didn’t give Lucius their magic! The things they used it for have been left here for safekeeping. Discarded here if you think about it.”

  Sam tried to grasp the sense of what Ren was saying. “But Lucius wouldn’t be able to convince everyone, surely.”

  “You’re right. So he exercises an important custodial role, a true duty of care, and uses hypnosis. He makes them forget that they ever had the gift in the first place. He can’t let them go back into their everyday lives and do some outlandish thing or other. Not once they know about the gift. So they leave Dessida thinking they’ve been given some training in basic illusionist skills, that’s all. They go away, and the magic dies in them, then everything’s okay.”

  Sam felt a moment of panic. “I still remember all this! He hasn’t hypnotized me!”

  “You haven’t jumped the wall yet.”

  “What! If I jump it and run away, I’ll forget!”

  Ren grinned. “Just kidding, Best Sam. Lucius picks his Magikkers very carefully. Mostly it works out fine. He rarely has to resort to mind-tricks. You still have your gift to use. He’d rather you use it than lose it.”

  “He’d rather I give it to him.”

  “Oh yes. He’d much rather that,” Ren said, smiling and, before Sam could ask why, added: “But for a very good reason. One I’m duty-sworn never to reveal.”

  That made Sam stop and think. He liked old Ren. It made the anger subside a bit. “But how can I give my magic to him?”

  Ren’s smile never wavered. “See what a special boy you are, Sam? You said ‘how can I’ not ‘why should I.’ That’s a nice distinction, especially when you’re feeling like you are right now.”

  “I’m serious, Ren. How could I give it to him?”

  But Ren just put a finger to her lips as if to say: Can’t tell. Can’t tell. Keeping a secret! Then she seemed to change her mind a bit. “Well, the Magikkers who worked their spells here certainly didn’t do it. Bettina insisted on her cottage. Sophie had to have her tower. Over there you see Kristi Paul’s Magical Soda Well and Grant Hennessey’s Nifty Golden Treasure Mill. They certainly didn’t give their magic to Lucius.”

  “But he would’ve asked for it.”

  “Certainly did. First Interview Day every time.”

  “But if it’s my birthright gift, mine to use, how can I give it?”

  They seemed to be in a loop. “Exactly,” Ren Bartay said. “How could you give your bit of magic to someone else?”

  Then, just like that, without another word, she turned and headed back towards Dessida.

  Sam watched her go, saw the tall spry woman stop to exchange a word or two with other household staff doing grounds work—first Carla, then Jeffrey—then saw her hurry on.

  What had she told them? What?

  No way to know, so Sam turned back to the marvels laid out amid the trees: Bettina’s cottage with its endless plume of cookfire smoke and—to hear Ren Bartay tell it—endless happiness within, lost happiness found again; Sophie’s miraculous twisting tower, curving on itself like so much settling honey; Grant’s mill glinting and cycling away. He heard the fizz from Kristi’s well too, heard other wonderful sounds coming through the forest from who knew how many other wonders hidden there? Sam realized he could probably spend hours, days, weeks here exploring what else was laid out among the trees, what years of other Magikkers had chosen.

  Because they woul
dn’t give Lucius their magic!

  Sam marveled at it. Just how long had Lucius been bringing Magikkers here from all across the world, asking for their bits of the gift?

  Which made Sam think further. What single thing did Lucius hope for with the piece of magic Sam carried within him? What was it that Ren—or Martin, or Lucius for that matter—wouldn’t tell him?

  Sam couldn’t fathom the purpose, of course, but suddenly he did realize something. He would know none of this, nothing of what Magikkers were and about this gift he had if it weren’t for Lucius, weren’t for the testing and the Prandt Scholarship that had brought him here.

  He owed Lucius for that, and it took the last of the anger out of him.

  And blossoming up behind that realization came something else. Sam knew right then how he could give his magic to Lucius, and it was so obvious, so simple.

  He ran, actually ran back to the main house, making more sudden Sam-commotion in the peace of the day. Grounds staff stood leaning on their rakes or left off sweeping the paths to watch him rush by.

  What were they thinking? Sam asked himself as he ran. Here comes the magic boy, the First Interview Day Boy. Best Sam. But what did they think, what did they know, smiling and wondering like that?

  Sam saw other students watching him too. Susan and Crip and Hagrib were on the south terrace, Sanford and Nettie by the fountain. And there, there at the top of the tower, leaning on the balustrade, yes, was Princess Bettina, watching from her safe place.

  Sam didn’t care. He deliberately turned into the old approach promenade, deliberately let her see him run past the plinths and thorn-bushes. He called “Hi there, Rufio!” as he rushed past, just as he’d always done, then he leapt the steps three at a time and plunged into the cool familiar gloom of Dessida’s front hall.

  Martin Mayhew was waiting for him there, of course.