Titan Magic

by Jodi Lamm

  “Why? So you can kill her by killing yourself? You’re welcome to slit your own throat the day she’s free of you. I’ll even help you do it. But until then, you’re staying right where I can see you.”

  As Jas considered his options with increasing sobriety, Marcus whispered, “This is not how I wanted to tell you, Maddy. But things never go according to plan.”

  Maddy squeezed his shoulders, afraid of what she would learn from him.

  “Look under your right hand,” he said.

  She did, but she did not believe what she saw carved into her brother’s skin. She squinted and looked closer. No, there was no mistaking that mark, though it had been written in a different hand than the one on her thigh. Maddy held her breath as she ran a finger over each character, knowing how it would make him shiver when she found the Alef.

  Jas spoke again, but his voice sounded distant to Maddy, who no longer wanted to hear him. She wanted to be alone with Marcus, to ask him a thousand questions and write down every answer he gave her.

  “What do you want with her?” Jas was saying. “You want to rule the world? You want your own personal weapon like everyone else?”

  “I already told you,” Marcus said. “I want to marry her.”

  Jas laughed bitterly. “Nonsense. She’s just a gorgeous piece of clay. You know that as well as I do.”

  Maddy wanted Jas to stop talking, but Marcus balled his hands into fists and said, “Say that again.”

  Jas shook his head, repeating lines he must have learned long ago as though he actually believed them. “She isn’t human. She can’t love you. She’s just an animated statue.” Maddy sank to the ground when she heard those words from the mouth of her own creator: Jas who had given her life, Jas who had loved her, Jas who had taught her to write in the sand… Jas who finished by saying, “You can’t marry a piece of art.”

  No longer satisfied to hit him with the wind, Marcus threw his whole body at the Titan. All three of them fell to the ground groaning, but Marcus leapt up again and rained furious punches into Jas. Maddy felt every one of them. Deep down, though, the words of her creator stung far worse than any one of her brother’s punches.

  Only Maddy knew that Marcus was not fighting for her honor alone. Jas’ words had stung him, too. So she let him torture the Titan for his own sake. She knew he would not kill Jas. She felt no buzzing under her skin.

  But as her head grew lighter from the blows, Maddy began to realize that Marcus was being careless. If Jas saw the Alef on his shoulder, all he would have to do was erase it. “Marcus,” she called to him. When he turned his eyes to her, she held out her coat. “You should wear this.”

  “Don’t give it to me!”

  “Then borrow it!”

  “No, it’s too dangerous.”

  “But…”

  “Just keep it! I won’t hide any more.” He turned back to Jas who had curled into a whimpering ball on the ground. “Titan James, I’ll answer your question now. If you really want to know what I am, listen carefully. Once upon a time, a Titan called Simon created a boy out of the air…”

  “Simon Magus?”

  “Yes, Simon Magus. Simon the Titan. Simon the God of Fools. You wanted to know what I am? I am the insubstantial slave of your ancient predecessor.” He bowed low and growled, “And I am the air in your lungs.”

  Jas twisted around to see the dangerous shape standing over him. “You’re… Simon’s boy? That’s impossible.”

  Marcus planted his hands on his hips. “We’re both impossible: a bastard Titan and an antique, animated statue. But here we stand, so lifelike anyone would swear we were really here.”

  “But… without a master…” Jas coughed into the dirt and doubled over.

  “Oh, I’ve had masters. I’ve had hundreds of masters. Each one painted a new layer of soot in me until I couldn’t find myself in the mess.”

  Jas eyed the welts on his assailant’s body. “Am I your master now?”

  “Ha! Never! Do you honestly think I would choose a Titan for a master? I’m not a fool. I want to live, not die at the hands of a self-righteous, whimpering demiurge. No, you were an unfortunate side-effect.”

  Jas noticed the dried blood on Marcus’ trousers, exactly where his own leg had been cut. “That blood…”

  “Ah.” Marcus glanced at his thigh. “A sour, old man carved a message into my leg tonight. I’ll repay him for it when I see him again.”

  “But you’re suffering my injuries.” Jas put a shaking hand to his forehead. “And now you’re inflicting them yourself. Why?”

  Marcus bared his teeth. “Because I hate you,” he said with tremendous satisfaction. “Any pain I feel is worth what I can inflict on you. You make me sick. You’re like a disease.” He squatted down to look the Titan in the eye. “Charlotte Lavoie froze me to the core while she had me. I thought anyone else would be a relief. But the first night I felt your heart move in me, I wept because it was so horrible.”

  When Jas finally spoke, he spoke slowly, tasting the words as though their flavor might give him an answer. “What am I to you?”

  “You,” Marcus growled, “are a worm in my head. You’re a demon.” He paused and glanced back at Maddy as though he wanted to make sure she heard him. “You’re a beast.”

  The beast. Maddy drew a hand to her mouth, but pulled it away again when she saw how Jas noticed. The creature that stole her brother from her, the beast that created the fire in him, the death kiss: it had all been Jas.

  Jas’ face lit up with sudden understanding, but every time he opened his mouth to speak, some new question stole his words away, and he fell back into tormented contemplation. Maddy felt every dark twist of the Titan’s thoughts, heard the ringing in his ears. When she saw Marcus use his palm to cool his own forehead, she knew her brother felt it, too.

  “You’re chaotic.” Jas barely breathed.

  “Of course I am,” Marcus said.

  “And you’re still alive…”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “I think a better question for this occasion is why.” Marcus circled Jas. “Titan James, why can’t I sleep at night? Why am I consumed with hatred for you? Why do I feel sick whenever I’m near her?” He pointed a finger at Maddy. “Why have I been living in hell this past year? Tell me! She’s my precious, little sister, but I can barely stand to touch her.” He clenched his teeth. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to be so close to the one thing you’ve spent a thousand years searching for, and not be able to touch it? It’s driving me mad!”

  Jas scrambled to his feet, and Maddy groaned from the pain his effort caused her.

  “Tell me!” Marcus screamed. “Tell me why!”

  Jas wrapped one arm around a tree, half leaning against it, half hiding behind it. He closed his eyes and pressed his cheek to the bark. “If it’s true that I’m the one who damages you, then you hate me because I hate myself.”

  Marcus smiled. His pupil had just begun to understand the lesson. “And why do I love her? Why do I want her?”

  Jas bowed his head. “You know why.”

  “And the sickness?”

  “I don’t have to answer your questions.”

  “You do if you want her to survive.”

  “Why?” Jas made an effort to look more confident. It didn’t work.

  “If you tell her the cause of your sickness, it will give her some anger to build on. She has to hate you if you want her to live.” When Jas looked unsure, Marcus said, “Don’t believe me? I’m the only one who knows how a golem can survive its chaos. You haven’t got a choice if you want her to live, and I know you do. You want it so badly it hurts all three of us.”

  “You aren’t making sense,” Jas said, his face bright red with an even mixture of humiliation and rage. “She takes my damage. She should already hate me as much as you do.”

  “And lust after herself as well, I suppose?” Marcus laughed. “Her hatred for you is buried under her instinct to protect
you, along with everything else that could thwart that instinct. She doesn’t even know it’s there. Me? I have no such instinct. I feel every mark in you more powerfully than you can imagine. I’ve been sick with your shame far too long. It’s time to tell her the truth. Let her finally see the ugliness in you. Tell her how the thought of loving her disgusts you. Tell her how monstrous you think she is.”

  Maddy couldn’t stand to listen any more. Instead, she focused on how cold she felt. Jas was freezing and the night was only getting colder. She wanted to give him her greatcoat, but Marcus would never allow it. Marcus would panic. Marcus would give anything to stop her. And that realization gave her the only chance she had to force the rest of her brother’s secrets from him. She removed her greatcoat and started toward Jas. “Take this.”

  “No!” Marcus leapt at her. “Don’t give it to him!”

  “Tell me why I shouldn’t or I will.” She tried to pull away, but Simon’s boy was stronger. “I want the truth from you, for once. What is it about this coat? Why do you panic every time I try to give it away?”

  “Because…” Marcus gentled and stroked her in a way that made her squirm. “Because whoever owns that coat is master of me.”

  Horrified, she said, “I knew it,” and she had. Beneath it all, she’d always understood the importance of the greatcoat: that it bound her to her brother completely, that it gave him to her in a way no law ever could. “That spell you had me recite… It wasn’t a spell at all, was it? It was a command.”

  “We have more power to obey than we have to act on our own. I couldn’t risk losing you.” Marcus clung to her, pleading with his whole self. “I’m yours, Maddy. I don’t want to belong to anyone else. Please. I’ll do whatever you ask. Just keep me. Keep me.” He rested his head on her shoulder and rocked back and forth with her in his arms. Maddy wanted to escape, but she knew she could not succeed without hurting him, and he had already been hurt so much.

  She was his master. The idea made her feel ill. She didn’t want to be anyone’s master. It wasn’t right.

  “This won’t end well,” Jas said, echoing the thoughts in Maddy’s own head. “A golem can’t belong to another golem.”

  “Shut up,” Marcus hissed over Maddy’s shoulder.

  “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

  “I said, shut up.”

  “Listen…”

  “Quiet!” Marcus pushed Maddy away and marched toward the Titan. “I’m tired of your voice. I know what’s possible. I won’t be ruled by a coward ever again!”

  In the silence that followed, Maddy imagined she could almost hear the words Jas was too afraid to say: this was what happened when you did not take your creation with you to the grave; this was the madness that came out of chaos; this was the danger in bringing unhallowed life into the world. Simon’s boy may not have destroyed civilization yet, but his chaos, his longing for freedom would bring him to greater and greater extremes until he did.

  ***

  Long after midnight, Jas and Maddy stared into a healthy bonfire and waited for Simon’s boy to speak again. Both their lives hung on every word he refused to say, though Marcus hardly seemed to care. He just held his arm over the fire, watching it blister and heal and blister and heal again. Maddy moved closer to Marcus and rested a hand on his shoulder. Every muscle in his body tensed at her touch. She wanted to soothe him, but a thousand years of damage will not be undone so easily.

  Jas was impatient. “Teach us how she can survive, if you know,” he said.

  “I’m busy.” Marcus turned his arm over as though he were only cooking a piece of meat.

  “Please.” Jas was desperate—anyone could tell by just looking at him. Maddy thought he would always lose this kind of game because he wore his whole self on the outside. But trying to hide his fear was pointless. Both Maddy and Marcus suffered everything with Jas, so long as it left a mark. And this night was leaving marks enough for each of them to feel as though it were their own personal nightmare.

  Marcus stirred the fire with his bare hand. “She has to betray you,” he said, at last.

  “What?” Jas said.

  “She has to choose a new master. To do that, she has to betray you.”

  Maddy tucked her knees into her chest. “I don’t want to betray him.”

  “Part of you already has,” Marcus said. “That’s why you have a voice. All that’s left is to use the power it gives you to break from him and cling to someone else.” He pulled his hand from the fire and stared at his perfectly unmarked skin. “You can actually bathe this way, did you know?”

  Maddy felt sick.

  Jas watched her grow pale and cringed. “How can she break from me? I’ll do anything to let her live.”

  “Anything at all?” Marcus grinned, licked his lips, and began poking at the fire with a stick. “This is an excellent fire, Titan James, though you really should apply yourself more diversely.”

  “Please!” Jas rose to his knees, a pathetic look in his eyes.

  Marcus sighed. “She needs a piece of your body. When she has her own voice, her own will, and a piece of you, she can choose a new master.”

  Jas picked up his knife and cut a lock of his hair. “Here.” He held it out to Marcus. “Take it.”

  “Keep it, Titan. I already took what I needed while you were hiding in the beast.”

  Jas shuddered and let his hair scatter in the wind. Some of it flew into the fire and burned like insects that had come too close.

  “Relax.” Marcus smiled when he saw the Titan’s discomfort. “It wasn’t gruesome. You’re wearing it around your wrist right now, actually. I’m surprised you haven’t noticed it yet.”

  Jas pushed up both his sleeves and stared at the braided chain clasped around his left wrist. It was woven with what looked strands of dull gold. “Is this my hair?” he said.

  Marcus nodded. “Your golem has to take it from you herself. I made it into a bauble, so she could do so without your noticing. I meant to be far more discreet than this, originally. Once she’s relieved you of ownership, she can choose a new master. If she wants a soul, she’ll choose me.”

  “A soul?” Jas looked doubtful. “You know how to give her a soul?”

  “Yes, Titan James. You heard me right.”

  Jas nearly leapt across the fire in his excitement. “She’s already found a voice and defied me. What else are we waiting for?”

  Marcus shrugged. “The wedding.” Then he half-smiled and admitted, “And there is some unpleasantness involved in the transition. I just want to make sure she’s ready.”

  “Unpleasantness?” Maddy hadn’t heard that before.

  “Nothing lasting.”

  But Maddy didn’t believe him. The way Marcus never met her eyes told her he was hiding something.

  Jas twisted the chain around his wrist and appeared to consider everything with a sober, lost look in his eyes. “The wedding,” he said, at last. “You really want to marry her?”

  Marcus just stared at him.

  “You can’t love her. Why do you want to marry her? Why can’t you just take ownership without the ceremony?” Jas looked a little braver when he saw the way Marcus shrank from his words. “I heard a rumor. Maybe you can tell me whether it’s true. I heard that a golem without a master is an empty vessel, that it will attract lost spirits. I heard such a creature would eventually burst from the pressure of too many selves, and whole worlds would collapse in the wake of its dementia.” Jas paused, but Marcus was silent, so he gulped and went on. “Is that the ‘unpleasantness’ you’re talking about? Is that why you hesitate?”

  “Not only that,” Marcus said in a voice so low it could barely be heard over the crackling fire. “Still it won’t last long. The moment Maddy receives her soul, she’ll become the only master either of us will ever need. I know this will work.”

  “Then do it,” Jas said, “and do it quickly. But why marry her? Why promise her love when you know it will vanish the moment you free your
self of me?”

  Marcus ground his teeth. “You’re only jealous.”

  “Yes.” Jas sighed. “Of course, I am. And you know it because you feel it, too. You’re sharing my soul, my scars, my suffering with me. You’re using my heart to love her. Once you free yourself from me, that part of you will heal. Does she know that? Marcus? Does she know what you’ll become without me? Do you?”

  Jas had gone too far. Maddy knew it by the way Marcus dropped his shoulders and gazed through the fire. She could read the past in his expression. He was remembering what he’d been, how he’d changed with every master that possessed him. She looked away, ashamed, as though she had seen all his secret fears while spying through the keyhole to his room.

  After a long silence, Marcus stood and pushed a shaking hand through his hair. “I think I’m finished answering your questions now, Titan James.” He threw the branch he’d been holding into the fire and sank into darkness, leaving Jas and Maddy staring like fools at the place he used to be.

  22: The Serpent’s Story

  There was a chill in the air as soon as Marcus’ shadow faded from view, and Maddy knew he had been keeping them warm all along. Jas pulled his legs into his chest, rested his chin on his knees, and stared into the fire. His stillness came from exhaustion rather than peace. Now and then, his eyes would close in weariness and then snap open again.

  “You should sleep.” Maddy said.

  Jas just stared at her as though she’d suggested the impossible.

  “We need you to sleep.”

  He glanced back over his shoulder and all around, squinting in the night. Then he wrapped his arms around his knees again and resumed his examination of the fire. “I’m afraid of him,” he said at last, his voice hoarse and weighty.

  “Of Marcus?”

  “He wants you for himself, and he wants me dead.”

  Maddy wanted to tell him he was wrong, but it would have been a lie. The ire in Marcus’ voice, the way he bore his teeth and pierced through Jas with his looks. If anyone ever longed for the blood of a Titan, Marcus did. “But he won’t hate you once we’re separated, will he?”