“We’ve got to get out of sight,” Sam said. He turned to find Dodger standing by the fireplace, hand on the carved mantel. A dark space opened in the wall beside the stonework.
“In here.”
Sam stared dubiously into the darkness. “It’s a secret passage.”
“Of course. All well-designed houses have them.”
“But how did you know about it?”
“‘Tis a secret.” To Sam’s disgruntled expression, he added, “All well-brought-up Elves have them, too. Adds to the mystique. Now, get in here and be quiet.”
The entrance to their hiding place barely closed before they heard the latch of the outer door. Then they heard the voices of the Elves as they entered the room.
“...well enough, I think. His advisors were cowed even if your histrionics made little impression on him.”
“Your observations are faulty as usual, Laverty. The worm was suitably impressed. You know that they don’t display emotion as we do. It has to do with the lack of facial musculature and general structure of the skull. I must add, though, that over time I have learned to discern certain variances of reptilian physiognomy and characteristic head positions that show distinct correlations with understandable emotional states.”
“Thank you for the lesson, Ehran.” Laverty’s voice was cold. “I have had some experience with his kind.”
“One should always have a care to respect one’s elders, Laverty.” Ehran laughed. “I am reminded of a sage piece of wisdom I once encountered emblazoned on a wall in a burnout alley. Lengthy for its type, but containing certain truths. It went something like, ‘Watch your back, conserve ammo, and never cut a deal with a Dragon.’”
“And you find that applicable to our current endeavors?”
“Let us say that I find it suggestive. I would be happy to stay and elucidate, but I have pressing matters to attend to before the others arrive. It was kind of you to host this meeting.”
“It seemed the most expeditious way.”
“So direct. You really must learn to be more subtle, Laverty. A bit more discretion would stand you in good stead.”
“I’ll try to do better, Ehran. You said something about pressing matters?”
“I did, indeed. I really must attend to them. Until later?”
Laverty’s answer must have been non-verbal. Sam heard nothing more until the heavy doors that closed off the salon from the rest of the house shut with a solid thud. There was silence for a moment, then Laverty spoke. “You can come out now, Dodger.”
The hiding place opened and Dodger stepped out. Sam followed him.
“Good day, Professor. Estios told you we were here?”
“He mentioned no names.”
“Then how did you know it was Dodger?” Sam asked. “Or that we were hiding behind your secret panel?”
“Your hiding place was obvious deduction. If you had vacated the room completely, you would have run into some of Ehran’s people. That would have been a rowdy encounter, as indicated by Mr. Estios’s caution in not mentioning names where they could be overheard. As no uproar occurred, I assumed that you had gone into hiding here.
“As to how I knew it was Dodger, Mr. Estios spoke of a chromed Elf calling uninvited and dragging along a Human who is a reported renegade from his corporation and presumed dead. Added to the fact that one of you knew how to hide in this room, who else would it be?
“But I’m afraid my deductive clairvoyance has not given me your name.”
“Twist.”
“Samuel Verner,” Dodger said to Sam’s surprise.
Laverty cocked his head at the name. “You won’t be staying.”
“You’re not going to turn me in, are you, Professor?” Sam’s fear of exposure returned full force.
“Your apprehension by the authorities would cause a bit of discomfort to Ehran, given certain claims. Ehran’s chagrin is a prospect that has some appeal, but I did not mean to imply that I intended to turn you over to anyone. I meant rather that it would be inconvenient for you to be found here. I fear that with the capabilities of my current and future guests, such a discovery would be all too likely. Thus, you cannot remain here for very long. That being the case, we should get down to whatever business brought you.”
Sam looked at Dodger, who nodded. He wasn’t sure he trusted this Professor, but Dodger did. What did he have to lose? If the Professor had wanted to betray him to those who had hunted him, it would have been easy enough. He started in on his tale, trying to suppress the thought of how easy it would still be for the Professor to betray Sam to his enemies.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“Concentrate!”
Laverty’s voice was insistent. Sam was too tired to focus on the picture of a medieval shield that Laverty wanted him to imagine. Hours of sharp questioning about his travails followed by more hours of testing, some obvious standard medical examinations and others clearly arcane. For someone who was not supposed to be staying around long, Sam had been in Laverty’s company for quite a while.
“Keep the image of the shield in your head!”
Sam tried to comply, but his mental vision blurred as a sharp pain drove through his head, a spike of ice impaling his brain. He almost cried out from the hurt before rallying and driving it back. The pain receded, leaving him drenched in sweat. He slumped in the chair.
When he opened his eyes again, the Elf was staring at him, his look stern and thoughtful. Seeing Sam awake, Laverty checked a monitor screen and entered a note on a datapad. At the Professor’s nod, Estios stepped forward and began to detach electrodes from Sam’s head.
“That is the last test.”
Dodger got up from his chair against the wall and walked over to lean against the bench that held Laverty’s monitoring apparatus. “In truth, an overly long enquiry, Professor. My friend is not applying for citizenship.”
“You wanted to know what was wrong with him. I needed certain information to make a diagnosis. Now I have that information.”
“And?” Sam and Dodger said almost in unison.
“I believe that the available data offers only one reasonable conclusion.” Laverty carefully placed his datapad on the console. Then he pulled a chair around in front of it and sat down. He seemed content to draw out the moment of revelation. Just as Sam was ready to prompt him again, he spoke. “You, Samuel Verner, are a magician.”
Sam blinked.
“Impossible!”
“Is it?” The Professor rubbed his right index finger along his upper lip. “Your headaches are prime evidence that you cannot function normally within the hypothetical world of the Matrix. Such a limitation is almost universal in those who have strong magical talent. Had you sought counseling before, you would have learned this a year ago.”
“I thought the headaches were normal, that everybody got them.”
Dodger shook his head.
“Well, if I’m different, it must be something else. I’ve never had anything to do with magic. It must be some kind of interface problem,” Sam protested. “Bad neural connections.”
“Soriyama doesn’t make those kind of mistakes,” Dodger informed him. “The way your icon limps shows some kind of psychological interface problem. It’s neither built into the software nor a glitch in the hardware.”
Laverty tapped the back of his chair to get attention. “Let us put aside the issue of the Matrix for a moment,” he said. “When you were attacked by Ehran’s people, the sorcerer Rory Donally used what, by your description, was a fireball spell. But it did you no real harm. How might that come to be?”
Sam ran his hands through his hair. “The mage wasn’t very good at his job.”
Laverty smiled indulgently. “Donally may not be a full mage, but he is an accredited adept. He passed the Tir’s certification competitions for noble ranking. He is a sorcerer of high skill and unusual efficiency. He could not work for Ehran if he were not good at his job.
“No, Sam. Donally’s spell was ineffective be
cause you cancelled its effects. Unconsciously, you opened a mana channel to dissipate the energies that Donally had gathered. You routed those energies back into astral space, where they dispersed harmlessly.”
“Unconsciously or not, I could never do that.”
“But you did. You can do it still. The last test we conducted let me watch you in action. Mr. Estios cast a spell at you while you were supposed to be concentrating on the selected image. It was a very real and a very dangerous spell. Had you not shunted the energies, we would not be having this conversation.”
“You could have killed him!” Dodger rocketed erect. Estios stepped between the decker and the Professor, cutting off Dodger’s move toward Laverty.
“The Professor knew what he was doing, Alley Runner,” the big Elf sneered as he blocked Dodger’s attempt to get around him.
“The lesser tests were inconclusive, Dodger. It was a risk, but I was already certain Sam had the necessary capability. I surmised that it would take a legitimate threat to trigger his latent capacity, and it did.”
Sam thought the Professor was pretty casual about putting someone’s life on the line to test a theory, and he didn’t like it one bit. But then he only had their word about the spell. All he got was a headache and he had those all the time. “Even if I did stop Estios’s spell,” Sam said wearily, “that doesn’t make me a magician. I’ve read about people who can protect themselves from magic without being magicians. They’re called negamages.”
“Negamages don’t project astrally,” the Professor said.
“Neither do I.”
“Ah, but you do. How else did you return to that lamentable clearing where you observed Ehran’s paladins?”
“I sneaked up on them,” Sam said flatly.
Estios laughed heartily. “Not with you exhausted from your run, city boy. Not on those paladins.”
“Didn’t you say that Grian looked right at you?” Laverty asked.
Sam nodded.
“Do you know how well an Elf can see in the dark? He would not have missed you.”
“He must have,” Sam insisted. He was an ordered, rational person who had built himself an ordered, rational life. His father had instilled in him a deep distrust of anything to do with magic. He could never accept what they were telling him. This magic talk was too strange.
“Why do you fear the magic?” the Professor asked.
“I don’t.” Sam heaved himself out of the chair and began to pace back and forth. “It’s just that all this magic stuff is illogical. It doesn’t make sense.” Or it’s just tricks for gullible people. It’s not part of my world.”
Laverty sighed. “The spell that Rory Donally used burned your clothes and the trees in the forest. The cloth and the wood were part of the real world. They really burned. If that result wasn’t part of your world, then perhaps yours isn’t the real one.”
Sam stopped pacing and stared at the ceiling. Now that suggestion was the open door to madness. “I don’t deny that something happens when a real magician does what he calls casting a spell. I was trained to believe in hard evidence. Yes, his spell burned something. How can I deny that? I felt the ash and smelled the smoke. But don’t try to tell me it’s funny hand gestures, strange words, and the power of the stars. It’s got to be something else, some kind of subconscious manipulation of ultra-low-frequency electromagnetic radiation, maybe.”
“First negamages and now EMR. You’ve been reading Peter Isaac,” the Professor accused.
“Once, a long time ago. My father said that if magic was scientific, Isaac was on the right track to explaining it. His Reality of Magic was on the public datanet and I scanned it. It made some sense, but Isaac wasn’t rigorous enough if he wanted people to accept his work as science. I figured that if he was the best, then there was no good explanation.”
“What about the work of White Eagle and Kano at Caltech? Or Ambrosius Brennan at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Magic? Ever read them?”
“No.”
The Professor gave Sam a long look. “Perhaps it is best not to be hasty about what you do not know,” he said. “Magic is very real, Sam. It is much more than subconscious manipulation of energy, and at the same time, it is less. Its manipulation is both an art and a science. Magic is part of the real world. You know as well as anyone that the Awakening has brought forth a plethora of beings that traditional science cannot account for. Elves and Trolls, for example.”
“Mutational genetic expression.”
“Genetic, yes. Mutational, hardly.” Laverty sat back. “What about Dragons? You say one aided your escape and then betrayed you. You also saw one here today. You cannot deny their existence nor explain them away as genetic mutations. Even if you could, what about their flight? They are too large to obey the scientific laws for muscle-powered flight.
“In ages past, our planet was steeped in magic. That is how we got all those tales of fairies and dragons, monsters and goblins. They are memories of ancient truths handed down through the years. The worldwide existence of such beliefs suggest strongly that the mana, magical energy, was once of a sufficiently high level for magical powers to work and magical beings to flourish. That time of magic has come again.”
“Didn’t Ehran’s book say something about cycles of time and creative power?”
“He never actually used the word cycle, but the implication was clear. Even if you accept the theory of cycles, what proof is there? He also implies that these cycles would be extremely long, the last ending around the time recorded history began. That’s why we have no reliable written record of high levels of magic. Before that? Well, I’m afraid that mana doesn’t fossilize.”
“Dragons would.”
“And perhaps they have, but a bone is pretty much a bone. Who can say whether an extinct creature was paranormal? To date, no paleontologist has described a six-limbed creature like a Dragon. Perhaps they are rare enough never to have fossilized.”
“Preservational bias?”
“Exactly. Or perhaps the Dragons dealt with their dead in a way that prevented fossilization. But these abstruse issues don’t clarify the situation. Whether the mana flow is cyclical or has simply passed through a low period, the effect is the same. Here and now, magic is real. Mana has been a part of the Earth in the past, possibly for longer than man has walked the planet. It has returned in abundance to enrich our lives. Mana is as much a part of the Earth and us as we are of it. It is everywhere and in everyone.”
“And I suppose this power should only be used for good, too?”
Laverty turned his palms to the ceiling and shrugged. “It is power. It knows neither good nor evil; those are Humanity’s concepts. The Earth and its mana simply are.”
“And it is capable of miracles? Will you tell me that magic can replace God’s grace?”
“I would not presume to do so. But with skilled manipulation, some effects that might be termed miraculous are possible. Such skill only comes with years of study and training.” The Professor slid a chip case forward across the table. “These contain some texts and practice exercises. They are elementary, but you should be able to grasp their extent.”
“I don’t have years right now to stop and learn magic. Even if I could, it’s the people who murdered Hanae that interest me, and that trail gets colder every day.” Sam ignored the Professor’s sigh. It would be nice to gaze into a crystal ball and find the murderers. Even better to wave his hand and deliver them to justice. Presuming, of course, that Laverty was right about all this. Besides, he still had to find Janice. If magic could do miracles, let Laverty help him with that. “Professor, are you are skilled in the use of mana?”
The Professor stared directly into Sam’s eyes for some moments before answering. “Some consider me so.”
“Would you use your magic to help my sister?”
“I do all I can to help the unfortunate.”
“Then you could cure her?”
The Professor sat back, as though S
am’s question were unexpected. His cool green eyes seemed to be assessing Sam, weighing conviction and promise. No doubt Laverty was also calculating a price.
“Many things are possible to a master of magic, but even the most powerful magician cannot change what is ordained to be.” His tone made it clear that he wasn’t promising. “After you have completed the task you have set for yourself, speak with me again and we shall see.”
Sam took the Professor’s response to mean that he would do what he could for Janice. No promise of success, but Sam couldn’t reasonably expect one. He had no plan for what to do once he found his sister, but now at least he had a hope. Or rather, she had a hope, a chance of returning to a normal life. Sam also had hope of being able to meet the Professor’s price, for he sensed that Laverty was a compassionate being.
It’s all moot, the voice of doubt told him. You don’t even know where she is.
He refused to surrender to despair. I will, Sam promised himself. First Hanae’s killers, then I find Janice.
As he had told the Professor, the trail was getting colder. He stepped up to the bench and took the chip case with a bow.
“Thank you,” Sam said, pocketing the case. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got things to do.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The Elf looked completely out of place standing within the rough-hewn walls of the cabin. His suit was strictly plex wear and his shoes were beyond salvation after their meeting with the local mud. His accent was pure metroplex and his hands were soft, unmarked by any dirty work. The primitiveness of his surroundings should have discomfited him a little. The gun on the table and Hart’s reputation should have done more.
“I am only the messenger,” he said in a cool and distant voice.
Hart bit back a retort. What was the point? Her earlier outburst hadn’t affected him. He was slick, riding the smooth edge. She should have been equally so, but she hated it when a job went sour. This one had had enough problems. She lifted the gun from the table and holstered it.
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