by Frank Tuttle
“It dropped nearly in half,” replied Donchen, his face grave. “Only for an instant. But it did change.”
“The thaumeter!” Meralda leaped to her feet, and made her way to the makeshift bank of dials and lights deep inside the machine. Donchen joined her, and they studied the instruments while whispering and pointing.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to translate,” said Mrs. Primsbite to Mug. “Mr. Kerns does the science column.”
“Dry as a bone,” Mug said, with a flip of his leaves. “It’s like this. Mistress may have been right about the appearances not being the result of magic. Magic doesn’t change the structure of the universe–at most, it moves matter or energy around. The look of the place might change, but the rules remain the same, if you catch my meaning.”
Mrs. Primsbite wrote. “I do. So, if all this clutter isn’t the result of magic, what is it the result of?”
Before Mug could answer, Meralda straightened. “There’s no longer any ‘if’ about it,” she said. “No magic is involved. I’ve just proven it.”
“She has,” said Donchen, frowning.
“What about the Oscillator?” Mug said. “You haven’t checked it, or the double-slotted illuminator.”
“Those measure purely physical values,” Meralda said. “The magical measurements all agree–no magic was involved in any of the materialization events.”
Donchen moved quickly among the remaining machines. “The primal thaumic elasticity changed,” he reported. “Just as the speed of light, only the etheric constant increased. The illuminator showed three slits, which it clearly does not possess.”
“Is any of that dangerous?” asked Mrs. Primsbite.
“Only if it persisted for more than an instant,” offered Donchen. “Do you agree, Meralda?”
“What? Oh yes. A prolonged shift in any of these values would quickly alter the way chemicals react.”
“So a few brewers would be inconvenienced,” Mug said. “What of it?”
“Your leaves might lose the ability to absorb sunlight,” Meralda said. “Or we might lose the means of taking in oxygen.”
“Oh.” Mug’s coils buzzed. “Let’s not do that, then.”
Mrs. Primsbite looked up from her notes. “I realize you may not be able to answer, dear, but if all this isn’t the result of magic, what is it, then?”
“The unmaker,” Meralda said. She tried and failed to hide a shiver. “Unmagic. A sort of rewriting. Reality is being altered, so that this silver platter –” she nudged it with her toe “—came to exist here, in my cabin, rather than wherever it came from.”
“Unmagic,” said Mrs. Primsbite. “Why call it that?”
“Magic has limits. Rules.” Meralda motioned toward the objects filling her cluttered cabin. “Unmagic has no constraints. Remember the pond and the pebbles? I can’t tell which of these events will be the pebble that creates a standing wave and destroys us all. And it seems I can’t stop tossing them, either.”
“I’m sure it’s not as dire as all that,” replied Mrs. Primsbite.
“The Vonats believe it is,” Meralda said. “Phillitrep’s Engine agreed.”
“You see what I’m dealing with,” Mug said, turning half his eyes to Donchen and the other half to the bewildered penswift. “Vonat superstition and a malfunctioning miracle machine. Aphids and root rot. Pardon my language. I believe I’ll find a card game, or perhaps just hide in a cupboard. Get the door, please? Before the universe implodes or explodes or turns into a vast plain of monotonous petunias? Thank you ever so much,” he said, as he sailed through the door Donchen held open.
“What now, then?” Mrs. Primsbite asked.
Meralda pushed a stack of hats out of her chair and sat. “I simply don’t know,” she said.
“We find out what triggered the emergence of this unmagic,” said Donchen. He laid his hand on Meralda’s shoulder. “Once we know that, perhaps a way to control it will reveal itself.”
“Ever the optimist,” Meralda said. “We’ve been over and over it. Nothing special happened. It simply began.”
Mrs. Primsbite closed her notebook, put her pencil behind her right ear, and stood.
“I have every confidence you’ll find a solution,” she said, picking her way across the floor. “Things are seldom as bad as they seem.”
Meralda nodded glumly.
“Rest assured I will share none of this until it is both safe and reasonable to do so,” added the penswift. “And if that day never comes, well, I thank you for the story anyway.” Mrs. Primsbite paused at Donchen’s side. “And you, sir scamp. The Alons inventory their stores every afternoon, promptly at six. I’d make sure their candlesticks were back in their place before then. Word to the wise, and so forth, good day.”
With that, Mrs. Primsbite departed, closing the door behind her.
The wheels of the balanced-load thaumeter clicked and turned. The illuminator sent flashes of dim red light from its case, sending dim shadows dancing across every wall.
“Everything will be all right,” said Donchen. “There is an explanation for all this, beyond Phillitrep and the Vonats. We will find it. You will see.”
A bowl filled with yellow cake batter appeared knee-high above the floor, and shattered when it fell.
~~~
From the private journal of Mugglesworth Ovis, Novembre 24, RY 1969
Poor Mistress.
She’s convinced she is this Unmaker character from the Vonat’s ridiculous book.
You’d think anyone as pragmatic and levelheaded as my Mistress would see that bit of melodramatic claptrap for what it is, but Mistress has always had a weakness for penny-dreadful novels. And those amateur theatrical productions that line the streets every fall on Strode Avenue? She sees every one of them, if time allows.
So, the instant that Vonat started issuing dire warnings from ancient prophecy, I knew she was hooked.
She’s spent hours pestering Tower to drag hoary old tomes out of the Laboratory’s vault and turn the pages for her while she reads through the Glass. She’s furious because she can’t find even a single oblique reference to this Unmaker in any Tirlish record. Well of course you can’t, I pointed out half a dozen times. Because Tirlish Mages find better uses for their time than yammering on about prophecy, which by the way is a clear violation of Bendig’s Temporal Causality theorem, so there.
Then there’s the matter of the secret crate.
Mistress thought I was asleep–I have no idea why she got that impression, at times having only two eyes must be quite limiting–and she arranged for Tower to devise a way to remove a certain crate from a certain shelf and be prepared to open it at a moment’s notice.
I’d ask her what’s inside, but she seems determined to proceed in a clandestine fashion so I’ll humor her. I could, of course, ask Tower, or I could ask this desk, for all the good asking Tower would do. Tower lacks sufficient imagination to be any fun.
If it’s a wedding gown I’ll just open a porthole and fly back home on my own. They should at least hide a couple of chairs behind the Jenny if they plan to keep meeting behind it.
The Captain came on the loudspeakers earlier and announced that we were well ahead of schedule. We apparently crossed the halfway point in our voyage earlier tonight. There was quite a bit of clapping and cheering and throwing of hats when the announcement was made. As far as I’m concerned, being halfway simply means it’s as far to swim home as it is to make for Hang.
The fancy new telescope has been installed in the aft viewing salon, and is manned around the clock. So far they haven’t spotted anything even vaguely black or death-like. I am troubled by the bank of clouds that swallowed up the eastern sky as the sun set. That’s a monster of a storm, or I’m a peanut bush.
Halfway to Hang and half a world away from home. I wonder if I’ll ever see my windowsill or the Laboratory again.
Penned, you know the rest, Mugglesworth Ovis.
Chapter 11
Mug’s cage soar
ed down the passageway, his miniature flying coils buzzing like a fistful of angry bees.
Meralda heard him through her half-open cabin door. She put down the basket of just-materialized candy apples that had spilled all over her desk and met Mug in the corridor.
“Mistress!” cried Mug, bringing his cage to a bobbing stop. “The aft observation salon! They’ve sighted something in the telescope. Please come quick.”
The Bellringers flanked Meralda.
“Calm down, Mug,” she said. “Tell me what you saw.”
“Beastie saw it first,” Mug said. “Bessie, I mean. Airman Darling. I can’t make much out, even with my yellow eye. It’s just a fuzzy black spot. Maybe trailing smoke. But it’s airborne, Mistress. The Vonats sent an airship.”
A soft shower of rain fell briefly on a trio of bewildered airmen as they met and passed Meralda and the Bellringers. Meralda didn’t turn or slow.
“You can’t be sure it was either Vonat or an airship,” Meralda said, “if all you saw was a fuzzy black spot.”
“Well what else would it be?” Mug swung, coils whining, to avoid a spark lamp. “I tell you it’s Vonat, and it’s aimed right at us.”
Meralda glanced about before whispering to the staves. “Nameless and Faceless,” she said. “Report, please.”
A moment passed. Meralda kept walking.
“They don’t usually take so long,” Mug said.
Meralda repeated her call. The Bellringers pretended not to hear, but both lost their smiles.
Mere feet from the bulkhead to the aft observation salon, a pair of shadows appeared near the ceiling, cavorting and darting.
We saw a speck on the horizon, said one.
Aye, agreed the other. A speck, but growing. We know not its nature.
Not yet, added the first. Soon, we will know more.
“Can you judge its distance?” asked Meralda.
One hundred and fifty of your miles.
One hundred and forty-two, corrected the other.
“All right.” Meralda stopped, turning away from the porthole beside her. “Watch it. Try to determine its speed and course, then its nature.”
As ye wish, said the shadows, in chorus, before vanishing.
“Stay here, please,” Meralda said, to the Bellringers. She raised her hand before Kervis could protest. “I’m not likely to be attacked in the salon.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Mug? Let’s go.”
Meralda opened the door and stepped into the salon.
A mob filled the tiny chamber, all crowding around the telescope and demanding a look. Meralda could barely make out the slim form gripping the telescope’s base while struggling to keep the tube aimed low in the sky to the west.
“Back up,” shouted Meralda. “Back away and let me pass.”
A few heads turned her way. The Lord Mayor of Tirlin sneered at her, and went back to grabbing at the crewman on the telescope.
Meralda’s face flushed red.
The air in the tiny salon went cold. Ice cold, turning exhalations to clouds of steam and sending trails of ice racing across every pane of glass. “I said back away.”
Meralda’s words crackled, echoing throughout the salon.
Heads turned. The shouting fell silent, save for the Lord Mayor, whose steady chant of “Let me see!” continued unabated.
“Empty this room at once,” Meralda said. She fixed the Lord Mayor in a glare. “Especially you.”
“Now see here—”
Meralda didn’t raise her hand, or speak a word, or even twitch a finger. But the Lord Mayor was lifted bodily from the floor. He hung flailing for a moment before floating across the salon like a plump birthday balloon and finally being thrust, still shouting, through the open door.
The rest of the mob hurried after, leaving Meralda alone with the terrified crewman, who still held the telescope in a fierce hug.
“Um, Mistress,” Mug said, hovering close by Meralda’s right cheek. “Your eyes.”
“What about them?” asked Meralda. She took a deep breath, tried to push away both her anger and the awful realization that she’d just somehow levitated a man without first crafting or latching a spell. “I’m wearing my dark spectacles. The light isn’t bothering me.”
“Your eyes are glowing,” Mug said. “You might want to try to stop that.” He turned his cage toward the wide-eyed young woman before Meralda. “It’s all right, Beastie. She’s always grumpy and a bit luminous in the optical regions before supper. Now then. Tell the nice Mage what you’ve been watching.”
Meralda blinked.
The young woman before her swallowed hard and struggled to speak.
“Rigger First Class Darling, ma’am,” she said. “As the sun set, I noticed what appeared to be a patch of smoke low and due west. I waited until I could turn the telescope on it–the sun was too close at first–and I saw an object in the air, moving due south. It’s trailing smoke, but not losing altitude. I don’t know what it is, ma’am, but Cap’n said to report anything out of the ordinary.”
Meralda nodded, keeping her eyes closed behind her dark glasses. She opened them again.
“Good work, airman Darling. Can you estimate the object’s size or speed?”
“Sorry, ma’am, but not without more observation and help from the navigator.”
“If you had to guess,” Mug said. “Remember, Beastie, you owe me seven dollars.”
Airman Darling frowned. “Just a guess, but I’d say at the far range of seeing. A hundred and fifty miles. That would make it awfully big,” she added. “Big and flying and possibly in flames. What could that be?”
“Trouble,” Mug said. “Beastie, why don’t you take a break. Get something to drink. Grab an off-duty navigator and the watch officer, whoever that is. We’re going to need to know everything we can about this thing, and fast. Scoot.”
The airman looked to Meralda, who nodded.
Beastie saluted and hurried out of the salon.
“My eyes?” asked Meralda, in a whisper.
“Still glowing,” Mug said. “But they’ve gone from bright red to a nice burnt umber.”
Meralda brought her hands to her face, rubbing her eyes behind the spectacles.
Stop it, she intoned silently. Stop it, stop it, stop it.
She pulled her hands away.
“Your eyes aren’t glowing,” Mug said. “But you should probably have a look at your hands.”
Meralda bit back a shriek. An egg-sized ball of blue flame hovered above each palm, burning without a sound or any sensation of heat.
“Blow them out, as if they were candles,” suggested Mug.
Meralda lifted her right palm and blew.
The flame winked out. She lifted her left hand and blew. It too expired.
“Fascinating,” Mug said, flying closer. “How’s your head, Mistress? Are you in any pain?”
“A little,” Meralda said, as the beginnings of a fierce headache settled in behind her eyes. “Mug, what is happening to me?”
“Something you’re learning to control,” Mug said. “Watch. Conjure me a gardening spade.”
“I can’t,” began Meralda, but a gardening spade fell down beside the telescope.
“I’d like a nice shower of fresh rainwater,” Mug said.
Rain fell briefly from the ceiling. Mug lifted his leaves and eagerly caught the fat, cool drops.
“Now a nice bag of Mr. Pete’s All-Purpose Mulch,” Mug said, dodging the bag of mulch that nearly smashed him into the floor.
“Enough,” Meralda said.
“Wanted to make a point,” Mug said, hovering close. “If you can’t stop unmagic from happening, Mistress, you have to control it. But first, you have to accept it.”
“It appears I don’t have a choice,” Meralda said. She felt sick and afraid. She wanted to wrap herself in a blanket and hide until the Intrepid reached land, and perhaps for a long time after.
“I don’t want this,” she said. “It isn
’t right. One cannot go about creating matter, or transporting it without expending energy. It’s a violation of natural law.”
“Maybe it’s not so much a violation as a new rule,” Mug said. “But I hear boots tromping our way. You’d better have a look at this mystery airship. You know there will be questions.”
Meralda swallowed back a rude word, and she put her eye to the telescope. She swung it about, trying to find the black ship against the darkening red sky.
“More to the right,” Mug said.
Meralda obliged, and–
— there it was.
She saw only a dark black blot at first, as though someone had hurled a bucket of ink against the sky. It had no clear shape. It was a blob, from which spiky filaments protruded, all concealed by a thick black cloud of boiling, roiling smoke.
The smoke trailed behind it, slowly increasing in diameter until it was an ugly smear against the red-gold sky.
Meralda turned the lens, focusing as best she could on the blob’s center, trying to pick out any detail from within the thick cloud of vapor. An elongated blob? Is it solid? “I should have made a more powerful telescope.”
“Can you make out any detail?” asked Mug, hovering near. “It looks like a fat hairy caterpillar to me.”
“I can’t even make out that much detail.” She stood, letting the telescope swing free. “Of course, there’s another way I can look at it.”
Mug’s eyes turned toward her. “Is that a good idea, Mistress?”
“Close the door,” she shouted to the Bellringers. “I’m about to use Sight. Admit no one until I am done.”
“Yes, Mage,” said Kervis.
The door slammed shut.
Meralda removed her dark lenses.
Mug backed up several feet. “Be careful.”
Meralda managed a smile, then she closed her eyes and invoked her magical Sight.
“Glowing again,” Mug said. “Does it hurt?”
Meralda opened her eyes, and saw.
The salon was awash in faint traces of magic, each residual charge twinkling and shining like a handful of miniature stars plucked from a deep winter sky and sprinkled on every surface. Meralda realized she must be seeing traces of magic that were years, even decades old.
