SongMaster's Realm

by Wolfram Donat

  * * * * *

  “So it’s all in how I see it happening? I was seeing a really good image of the log catching fire, and it didn’t burn.”

  “No, no, no. That’s where you’ve got it wrong. You don’t imagine it happening, you imagine it as already happened.” Joel and J’Mart were walking east on the road to Beláin while J’Mart was trying to explain to Joel the methodology used when controlling magic. “If you visualize the process as occurring, it’s like it’s always in the future tense, and then nothing ever happens. You have to imagine it as already done – in the past, finis. If I want to conjure a fundarg, I don’t picture it ‘coming into being.’ It’d be stuck in this ‘coming into being’ state forever. Rather, I picture it as already in existence, and there it is.” J’Mart snapped his fingers, and suddenly a strange blue furry creature about the size of a hedgehog materialized about two feet in front of Joel with what could only be described as a shocked expression on its face. Joel came up short in order to avoid colliding with the creature, but before he could investigate it further, it disappeared with an audible ‘pop.’

  “Okay, I think I’m getting it,” said Joel excitedly. “Let me try again.” He swung his guitar around in front of him and strummed an A major chord. He was rewarded with a splash of blue light surrounding his hands and the pleasant tingling that seemed to accompany his magic. Continuing to pick out the notes of the chord, he looked around for a dry branch.

  His eye came to rest on a small branch up ahead in the middle of the road. He closed his eyes, pictured as vividly as he could the branch engulfed in flames, and strummed the chord. J’Mart’s exclamation made Joel’s eyes snap open. Sure enough, the branch was smoking and sputtering, although it wasn’t quite on fire.

  Joel was so excited he felt like jumping up and down. He had just managed to almost light a piece of wood on fire using only a magical power that he hadn’t even possessed until yesterday. He was vaguely aware of J’Mart congratulating him, but his ears were buzzing with the thrill of accomplishment. He also noticed that the vibrations in his arms were stronger than before, and had a definite feeling of warmth, almost uncomfortable in intensity. As he watched, the branch fizzled out and was quiet, but it did not diminish his elation. He ran forward and picked up the branch to investigate the damage he had caused. His arms were still vibrating, but the colors had disappeared with the last sounds of the guitar.

  As he looked at the charred spot in the wood, he heard voices coming from around the corner ahead of them. His first impulse was to hide. It was the first contact he would have with any people in Alera other than J’Mart and Massar, and he was a little cautious. After some consideration, however, he realized that this would seem suspicious to whoever was approaching, so he moved over to the side of the road and waited.

  He didn’t have to wait long before a group of about twenty men rounded the curve. He guessed they were soldiers, but the uniforms were similar to what he would have expected to find in Earth’s Middle Ages – they were wearing chain mail and metal helmets. They did not march in unison, but close enough together that he judged they were a troop or garrison of some kind.

  They did not look at him as they passed by. He thought this was a little strange until he remembered that he was the only person who could see J’Mart. Good thing I didn’t start talking to him. The troop had almost passed him when the last person in line, who seemed to be in charge, yelled, “Halt!” The leader, a swarthy, bull-necked man, walked over and examined Joel.

  “Where you from, boy?” he asked rudely. “Mighty strange clothes you got on, there.” He had a strong, unfamiliar accent, but it was definitely English, and Joel did not have too much trouble understanding his words.

  Joel wasn’t sure how to answer, so he bluffed. “A little village over those hills. And I made my clothes.”

  “Village over the hills, huh? Made ‘em, huh? Uh huh, uh huh.” He rubbed his oversize chin and seemed to be thinking. “You hail from Hargrove, then?”

  “Uh, yeah. Tell me, am I going the right way to get to Beláin?”

  “Hmmm? Oh, yeah. About five leagues that way.” He pointed in the direction from which he had come – the same direction Joel and J’Mart were headed. “Everybody in Hargrove talk like you do?”

  J’Mart stood over the man’s head and did a silent imitation of the man that forced Joel to struggle to stifle a grin. “I guess so,” he answered with a shrug. J’Mart continued to mock the man’s mannerisms as the man seemed to think about Joel’s response.

  “All right, then,” he finally said. “Move along. We’re on the King’s business, we are, and we don’t have time for strange-talking peasants. Company! Move ‘em out!” Joel decided against pointing out that the man had stopped to talk to him, and stood quietly aside as the troop set off again.

  As soon as they had disappeared around the next bend, he whirled on J’Mart. “What did you do that for?” he asked. “Here I am, trying to talk to a person of authority, and you’re making fun of him behind his back! I’m lucky I didn’t start laughing!”

  J’Mart grinned. “Sorry. That guy was obviously not the sharpest artichoke in the bunch, and that’s just what I do. It’s kinda cool when nobody else can see you. And you did a good job not laughing. Very impressive.”

  Joel shook his head. “Okay, okay. You’re right, of course. He wasn’t a brain surgeon. But I did learn some important things, though.”

  “Like?”

  “They speak English, here, for one thing. Or at least I can understand whatever it is they’re speaking. They’re dressed like knights from the Middle Ages, so I can handle that. And they’re relatively friendly, I suppose, although if you had made me crack up while I was talking to that guy I don’t know how he would have handled it.”

  The little man waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. “Ah, all you’d have to do is play that guitar of yours and break yourself out of the slammer.”

  “Thanks, but no thanks. I can barely set a piece of wood on fire. I don’t want to try pissing off the locals and getting thrown in jail. Right now all I want to do is find this ‘Fender’ fellow and figure out what to do next. Got it?”

  “Sheesh! All right, Mr. Grumpy. Let’s keep practicing while we walk, shall we?”

  A few miles later they came across a family walking with a pair of horses pulling what looked like a load of produce. It was a very idyllic scene and reminded Joel how Massar had mentioned the similarities between Earth and Alera. If I didn’t know better, I’d think I went back in time to medieval Europe. Remembering just in time to stop talking with J’Mart, he passed the family and continued on his way.

  Before long Joel had to cease talking with the Ramiken altogether. They came across more and more people traveling the same road going in both directions. He assumed it was because they were nearing the city. He was also beginning to see houses at fairly regular intervals along the side of the road. They were little more than shacks, but they looked well-built and comfortable. About half had smoke coming from the chimney, and many had wonderful smells wafting from their direction.

  That reminded him that he hadn’t eaten at all, and it was now past noon, judging by the sun. He waited until they were on a deserted stretch and said to J’Mart, “I know you don’t have to eat, but I do. Any idea what I should do for lunch? Or dinner?”

  The Ramiken shrugged. “Couldn’t tell you. Not something I worry about on a regular basis. You could try some of those leaves over there. They look tasty.”

  Deciding that he didn’t trust the little man’s guesses about what might or might not be edible, Joel gritted his teeth and prepared to go hungry until he got to Beláin. He thought he recognized some of the plants they passed, but he had never been an outdoorsman of any sort on Earth and certainly didn’t trust his instincts in an entirely different world. J’Mart, for his part, didn’t seem concerned and continued his latest game, a weird version of “I Spy” that Joel didn’t really understand.

  After the
two walked for what seemed like miles and miles, coming upon many others on the road to Beláin, the sun began to dip below the horizon and Joel decided to stop for the night. He found a likely clearing that was back a little way from the road and settled down against a tree trunk, his stomach grumbling. His legs ached, his stomach was empty, and he was exhausted. Some adventure this is turning out to be. J’Mart settled beside him and looked up at him. “Feel like practicing some more?”

  Joel sighed. “Not really. I’m tired, I’m hungry and my feet hurt. I just want to sit here for a while.”

  J’Mart nodded. “All right, but it’ll do you good to practice. You’re not gonna get any better if you don’t, and you sure won’t be materializing any coffee tomorrow. Still want to rest?” He grinned impishly.

  “Dammit, you have to play on my weaknesses, don’t you? All right, how do I go about magicking up some coffee?”

  “That’s a good question. Never had to make the stuff, myself. Think about what you’ve learned so far.”

  Joel sat back again and thought. What was important was that he visualize the finished product as already being in existence. According to J’Mart, he was catching on to that concept fairly quickly. What continued to give him problems was figuring out what to play on the guitar to give him the results he wanted. He could now produce sparks, but couldn’t get an actual fire to start. And he had had no luck at all in producing anything else, although he had tried everything he could think of, from a feather to a football.

  Okay, think. What sort of sound means “coffee” to me?

  And then he had it. He leaned forward, placed his fingers, and began to play Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumblebee.” He hadn’t played it in a while, so he waited until he was sure of his notes before he closed his eyes and began to visualize a cup of hot coffee. As the notes of the tune flowed from the guitar, he could feel the now-familiar vibrations beginning to stream up and down his arms. He knew that if he opened his eyes he would see an explosion of colors surrounding the guitar, but he was curious to see how “Flight” looked, so he opened his eyes.

  Almost his whole body was engulfed in light and color. The individual notes of the tune were like individual streaks of light that came and went through the colorful aura. The effect was dizzying, so Joel closed his eyes again and concentrated on visualizing the coffee once again.

  As he carefully pictured the cup and the liquid as explicitly as he could in his mind’s eye, he gradually became aware of some other presences dancing around the edges of his awareness. He tried to reach out to them with his mind to explore who or what they were, but had no success. The image of moths circling a flame came to mind, but he could neither see nor feel anything specific about the visitors, merely that they were there. Since they didn’t seem to have an interest in bothering him further, he put the thought of them aside and concentrated on his magic. When he had finished the first hundred bars or so of the piece, he stopped and opened his eyes to check his progress.

  Sitting in front of him on the grass was a blue mug filled with what looked to be coffee. The brown liquid was steaming, and the steam brought to his nose the unmistakable aroma. J’Mart was sitting directly opposite the cup, looking at him through the steam with a half-smile on his face. “Quite a bit of music-making there, I must say,” said the little man. “Now I have two questions for you.”

  Slightly awestruck at his success, Joel nodded slowly, not taking his eyes off of the cup. “Shoot.”

  “Okay. First: How confident are you that it’s coffee in that cup? And second: Can you do it again tomorrow morning?”

  Refusing to let J’Mart dampen his enthusiasm, Joel picked up the cup defiantly. “I’m willing to taste it and see. As for tomorrow, we’ll have to see how I do in the morning.” He raised the cup to his lips, hesitant despite his defensiveness. It certainly smelled like coffee – a strong, black French roast. He waited a moment more, than took a large sip. If I’m going to be done in by a cup of coffee, so be it.

  It was arguably one of the best brews he’d ever had. Strong, aromatic and smooth. He wanted to finish the cup, but was also aware of the fact that he was tired and wanted to get some sleep before he continued to Beláin in the morning. Rather than throw it away, he set the cup down carefully next to him.

  J’Mart cocked his head. “Well?”

  “It’s excellent, thank you very much. I must say, I conjure a damn good cup of coffee. Starbucks has nothing on me.”

  “Congratulations. And why are you setting it over there?”

  “In case I can’t repeat it in the morning, I can heat it up again over a fire.”

  The Ramiken smiled. “All kidding aside, congratulations, my man. Conjuring something out of mid air isn’t something that just everyone can do. It takes some doing, and you did it on your second day of trying. I really do think you’ve got a natural talent for magic.”

  “Too bad I was born in a world where magic doesn’t exist.”

  “Is that really what you think?”

  Joel shrugged. “Well, I don’t see too many people making things appear out of nowhere. Just stage magicians and so forth. Magic only exists in books and movies.”

  The Ramiken shook his head. “You might think so, but there actually is magic in your world. It’s just a little more hidden than in other places. People tap into it all the time. Remember what Tall, Dark and Grumpy told you? Magic exists everywhere in the multiverse, just in different concentrations.”

  “Well, I’m glad I ended up here. I can’t see magic on Earth like I can here, much less do it like I can here. I just need to learn to control it.” It was getting dark fast, and Joel could feel his eyelids getting heavy. He knew he had walked a long way, and his legs and feet were complaining. He ignored the grumbling of his stomach, lay back against the tree and closed his eyes. It wasn’t long before he was asleep.

  * * * * *

  “No, no, no, no, no!” exclaimed Gaen as he slammed his mug down on the table. “You are being exasperating again.”

  Fender just smiled at the outburst. “I’m being exasperating? Who’s not listening to reason?” The two men had met for dinner to compare notes after finishing their respective tasks. As was so often the case, before they had begun to discuss their agenda a slight argument had broken out. In this particular case, they were debating the Warmaster’s kill-or-be-killed view of the world.

  Gaen snorted into his ale. “Here’s some reasoning for you, wizard – a hypothetical situation. Suppose in your travels you come across an evil man. You are aware, somehow or other, that this man will kill hundreds, maybe thousands of people in the future. You have an opportunity to destroy him, although he has done nothing to you personally. What do you do?”

  “That depends, I suppose. How do I know that he will do these things?”

  “Doesn’t matter. You’re avoiding the question. Let’s just say you have it on very good authority.”

  Fender shrugged. “I can’t see it happening, so that affects my answer. You or I may never come across a man like that.”

  “Wrong. I am talking about a Sarth general. Leave him alive, and he’ll kill every last one of our troops.”

  Now it was Fender’s turn to get irritated. “But you don’t know that. You can’t. For all you know, he may turn over a new leaf in a fortnight and become a monk.” He held up a hand to signify that he wanted to finish the thought. “Granted, it may be extremely improbable, but it is possible, and just killing him outright would be wrong.”

  Gaen shook his head and drained his mug. “All right, I can see this isn’t going anywhere. Let’s talk about today. I sent a detachment west toward Brin this morning, immediately after we talked to our little friend. After they left I briefed his majesty about what had happened. He’s upset, because the Duke is a close personal friend, and he urged me to have you discover whatever you can and fill him in. What did you find out?”

  Abruptly somber, Fender sat up straight. “I was able to find references to
creatures similar to what Colin described in Guide to Magical Creatures. The ten-foot tall four-armed monstrosities are probably what the book calls eldars. They are apparently from a dimension that is similar to ours but quite a ‘distance’ away. There is no record of them ever being seen in Asria before. The little ones with armor and fangs almost sound like orcs, but there haven’t been reports of orcs in almost four hundred years.”

  “I was afraid of that,” growled the Warmaster. “That book of yours give any idea of how to handle them? Can you kill them?”

  “It didn’t say, but if they are flesh and blood, regardless of their origins, they should be mortal, in a sense. Does that answer your question?”

  “No. Will they die with a sword? Arrows? Magic? I would like to track them down and rescue the Duke, but I need to know what I’m getting myself and my men into. Interested in maybe coming along?”

  The magician grimaced. “It’s a possibility. Castle life has been boring lately. I was looking forward to the Grand Council, but this might be much more important. I have a feeling there’s more at stake here than simply the Duke’s life, as important as that is.”

  “I agree. There’s something ill on the wind, my friend. Something I haven’t felt before.” There was an unusual look on the Warmaster’s face, and it took Fender a moment to identify it, as out of place as it seemed. The Warmaster, while not scared, was definitely apprehensive.

  On a hunch, Fender asked him, “Have you had any unusual dreams lately?”

  “What do you mean by unusual? Different from the ones where I’m surrounded by goblins with no escape in sight? No. Why?”

  “Never mind. Just curious. Want another ale?”

  “Most definitely. I want to get some sleep tonight, and then maybe tomorrow we can start planning a rescue party of some sort. The King will want to be kept abreast of things, as well. Get yourself another one, too.” Fender signaled the barkeep and headed in that direction. He was looking forward to continuing their earlier conversation, but at the moment the images circling in his head were those of a young girl and a mysterious book.