by Ann Macela
That drew a chuckle, and Marcus felt his lips twitch at her turn of his phrase. To gauge the effect of her words, he alternated his gaze between her and the audience.
“To me,” she continued, “one of the pleasures of practicing magic is learning how to manipulate the forces all those letters in Dr. Forscher’s equation stand for. To work magic in reality, not theory. To work magic until a spell becomes an integral part of me and I don’t need to think of every single step. Making a spell my own, with my individual refinements. Practicing, practicing, practicing.”
Marcus noted many nods, especially among the older spectators. She had some supporters, and he had expected that.
“No matter how great or small our potential power or level, or how simple or complicated the spell, or how difficult or easy the demands of our specific talent, casting a spell is a matter of art as much as precision, individual experimentation as much as following a precise recipe, and warm emotion as much as cold science. And, let’s face it, as we have all experienced from teaching children, making magic is often downright messy.”
The entire audience laughed. A few applauded. Marcus stopped himself from frowning, but damn. With only a few words, she had captured them. Practically the entire lot were hanging on her words. He’d never been able to accomplish that response unless he was with a group of mathematicians on his level.
“I’ll admit,” she said, “some of the spells and techniques I use have origins back beyond the tenth century and even farther, to ancient China and Egypt. Does that make them less potent, efficacious? Does the age of a spell in the hands of an experienced practitioner make it less efficient to cast?”
Several people—both young and old—shook their heads.
“Those ancient spells have been tested and refined by the greatest practitioners, and that knowledge has been passed down to us. Regarding emotion, who among us does not feel a thrill, a warm satisfaction, when casting precisely the right spell, exactly to the requirements of the job? Who is not driven to create new spells for the sheer joy of manipulating magic to make our professions easier, more useful, and, yes, more efficient? The practice of magic is not, has never been, static.”
A few practitioners clapped for her statement. Their approval meant nothing. Marcus remained sure of his argument. It might feel good, but emotion had no place in the actual casting.
“I agree wholeheartedly with our ongoing spell research and development,” Morgan stated. “As we enter professions that didn’t exist even fifty years ago, we must have new enchantments for them. As our older professions change to meet the demands of the modern world, we need new wizardry. If Dr. Forscher’s formula helps only one practitioner create only one spell to solve only one problem for only one profession, that’s great! If it helps more, that’s even better.”
At last, Marcus thought, she’s going to address what I’m really talking about—theory, not practice.
“Tonight I’d like to address a point about the issue that has bothered me from the beginning, but which has not really been touched on in the debate. I’d like to look at the larger, more general, more practical picture before it gets lost in the intricacies of the formula. Theory is all well and good. Working magic, however, is not easy or simple, as all of us can attest. Let us beware of thinking Dr. Forscher’s formula, or others like it, will solve all our casting problems.
“Educational fads come and go. One method of teaching a subject, magic or not, can rise to the forefront and supersede all others—but not always to the benefit of the students. Such could be the case here. Urging, especially going so far as forcing, the use of the equation in all spell training and ignoring our tried-and-true systems could have unintended results,” she said, a grim look on her face.
“Let us consider two situations, the first involving our young practitioners in whom magic has recently manifested itself. These people are working hard to master the concepts and manipulate the powers within themselves. We all remember the difficulty in our first spell attempts.”
Marcus felt himself begin to frown at his opponent. Forcing use of his equation? Did she think he was advocating exclusivity? Where was she going with her idea?
“Trying to use the formula may help some and hurt others,” she said. “For example, in the lowest level universal spells—where we all begin and where differing casting methods abound for each spell—a young practitioner learns to manipulate the energy within her and move that energy outward to cause something to happen. Five different people could, and probably do, have five different processes to accomplish the same result. Indeed, during training we stress the need to develop our own individual method.
“Will we let our ‘messy’ learning procedure continue, or will we try to impose a ‘regularized’ method? What if a young person cannot think in formula terms? Cannot at first separate the parts of a spell into discrete sections? Can’t deal with manipulating all the parts at one time? How will we handle the frustration and feelings of failure sure to follow?”
Marcus frowned harder. She wasn’t speaking to the point at all. She was a scientist herself, but she was appealing to emotions rather than the scientific worth of his equation. She hadn’t done it in her articles. There she’d dissected spell-casting into its constituent parts with examples of different processes. And no mention of frustration or feelings. What was she up to?
His opponent took a sip of water and gazed out over the audience. Marcus tried to find the focus of her gaze—ah, there. An older woman with dark curly hair and a heart-shaped face. That had to be her mother. In fact, the younger woman next to her must be a sister. The older man and one of the younger men had the same coloring, the same nose. Her entire family must be here. A pang of … something—longing? loneliness?—struck him in the chest. He ignored it. This moment was not the time for him to succumb to emotion.
Morgan was speaking to her second point, and he concentrated again on her words.
“The second situation,” she said, “involves casting at higher levels. I can speak with some experience here. My mother, a level ten, and I have the same basic talents with plants. Although we use them differently in most cases, many of our spells are the same. Enchanting is such a highly individualized art that even my mother and I, with similar talents and closely attuned to each other’s powers, do not cast our high-level spells exactly the same, even those requiring precise ritual. We achieve the same overall ends—only their details may differ.
“Could we cast our spells truly the same, with identical results? We have experimented with Dr. Forscher’s formula and found our enchantments remained slightly different in their amount of power, duration, results, and other aspects. The closest analogy I can think of comes from cooking. Two cooks make the same recipe, using identical ingredients, but … her meatballs taste better than mine.”
No, she has it wrong, she hadn’t, couldn’t have, cast precisely, Marcus thought, as another chuckle rippled across the room.
“In conclusion,” she said, “I applaud Dr. Forscher’s ingenuity, creativity, and effort in developing his equation. I’m sure some practitioners will benefit greatly from using it. I agree, we all need to cast our spells as efficiently and productively as possible. All I ask is for those who want to drag us into the future or impose a casting regimen, please, consider the reality of working magic. It’s a matter of art and mastery, a ‘feel’ for the forces within us, knowledge of and respect for our history, and above all, the combination of individual experimentation, experience, and emotions that result in great magic. Thank you.”
The audience broke out in applause—or rather about half of them did, Marcus noticed. Several people stood with their hands up, a couple waving wildly for attention. Ed called for order.
There had to be a fallacy in her statements. True, in typical mathematical theorizing, he himself had not experimented in the real world, had not practiced his formula beyond a bare minimum. Some of his colleagues had, and they reported good results. His theory r
emained valid. The business about “forcing a casting regimen,” however, was far off the mark.
“Let’s settle down, please,” Ed boomed into the microphone once more. “Everyone will have a chance. Hold up your hands, and I’ll call on you. One of the ushers will bring a mike. Please wait until all of us can hear you before asking your question.”
While waiting for the ushers to get to their positions, Ed pushed his chair back and said, “Nice job, both of you. I’m going to let the discussion go on until we start getting repetitions in the questions. Okay?”
Gloriana nodded and saw Forscher do the same. She wondered how he was taking her remarks. Before she could ask, however, Ed pulled forward and called on an elderly man in the front row.
The man stood and waited until the mike arrived. “I’ve been practicing magic, man and boy, for over seventy years, specializing in oil exploration. I’ve never heard of a general formula for all talents. If your formula is so great, why hasn’t somebody thought of it before?”
Ed turned to Forscher. “This one’s obviously yours.”
“Perhaps someone did, sir,” Forscher replied. “I found no record of one, however. From my research, I can tell you that before the seventeen hundreds and the Industrial Revolution, the number of existing spells was relatively small, and the differentiation among them was not great. When professions proliferated, likewise did the need for less general, more specific specialty spells, but everyone seemed to be wrapped up in their talents and even those at the highest levels didn’t confer with others outside their own circle. No ‘Renaissance man’ like Leonardo da Vinci came forward to survey or study a number of different talents or to attempt a consolidation.”
Ed called on a stylishly dressed woman in the third row on the middle aisle.
“I’m Loretta Horner,” she announced as though her name should mean something to the group. “Dr. Morgan, I can’t express how great my pleasure is in hearing you say what my husband and I have thought since we read Dr. Forscher’s articles. In our view, ‘regularizing’ spell-casting with a formula will take away all our individual processes and force us into a lockstep parade. Our traditional methods are best.”
A number of people applauded as she sat down. Gloriana nodded, but didn’t say anything because Mrs. Horner hadn’t asked a question.
Ed called on a younger man who looked more like what Gloriana expected a mathematics nerd to look like—thin, with round glasses, wearing jeans and a button-down blue shirt.
“I’d like to speak up for Forscher’s equation and theory,” he said. “I’m Bryan Pritchart, one of his mathematical colleagues, and I’ve played with the equation. It’s a good beginning for more efficient casting. Of course, it’s not perfected yet, and I can suggest a couple of improvements. We’ve been practicing magic the same way for too long. It’s time to try the new.” Some of the people sitting around the man clapped.
Gloriana snuck a glance at Forscher, who didn’t look very happy at the man’s statement—probably because he’d said the part about ‘a couple of improvements’ in a snide tone of voice.
“Thank you, Dr. Pritchart,” was all Forscher said.
A large balding man in the middle back of the audience was next. The fellow rose and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m against highfalutin folderol. The formula is too complicated, most people won’t be able to follow it, and why should we try to fix what’s not broke? I’m a level five, I raise cattle, and I don’t have the time to think up an ‘e-qua-shun’ while gelding a calf or inseminating a cow, I can tell you that. Nobody is going to force me to do it, either!” He gave a sharp nod of his head and sat down to a couple of “you tell ‘ems” and “amens.”
“Sir,” Forscher said, “nobody is trying to force anything on you or anyone else here. I’m offering a possible method for more efficient casting. It needs testing and refinement. You are free to try it or not, as you wish.”
A young woman in an orange UT sweatshirt took the mike. “I don’t understand you people who refuse to see Dr. Forscher for the genius he is. He’s helping us understand the building blocks of magic. We need to look to the future, not back to the past. Tradition and the so-called tried and true ways are okay for you old practitioners. We young ones need more, especially for the new professions we have to deal with.”
Gloriana heard “harrumphs” coming from several “old” practitioners. When Forscher thanked the student for her support, she flushed beet red.
A woman who could be the photo on a “Soccer Mom” poster was next. “Look here. I’m at best what you might call ‘mathematically challenged.’ Are you telling me I have to use math to prepare my children to become practitioners? When they have talents that have nothing to do with math?”
Gloriana watched Forscher frown. Like many theorists, he must have been so far into his equation that he didn’t think of the practical or of people who could not or would not welcome his formula.
“No, ma’am, I’m not saying that,” he replied. “It’s a theory, an experiment at the moment. And you might be surprised how much math there is in everyday life.”
Gloriana stifled a smile. He probably should not have made the last statement—or sounded quite as condescending.
Sure enough, the woman responded, “I’m not stupid or uneducated. There’s math in cooking and cleaning and making change and filling up the car. But that’s arithmetic. What you’re selling here looks like calculus to me. If you’re cooking up a spell, then how much is a cup of power, tell me that?”
Almost everyone laughed at the exchange. Even Forscher grinned before replying, “That’s what we need to study.”
Ed pointed to a white-haired man sitting next to the stylishly dressed previous questioner. “I’m Cal Horner,” he announced in a slow drawl. “Something’s been bothering me about your all-encompassing equation, Dr. Forscher. There are all kinds of talents, and every one has a set of spells that goes with them. Everybody can’t possibly cast a spell the same way. How do you expect to apply one equation to all of them? How can, for example, a plumber cast one of his talent’s spells the same way a cook can?”
Gloriana suddenly recognized the names. He was a retired industrialist and she a society hostess from Dallas. The Horners had a reputation in the non-practitioner world for their conservative opinions on every issue imaginable. Were they making another stand here?
“I believe people can cast in the same manner, and we can apply the formula to all,” Forscher replied, leaning forward with his elbows on the table. “In general. There may be corollaries to the original equation. That’s one of the situations we must study. Suppose a plumbing spell and a cooking spell are fundamentally the same enchantment, but applied to different objects. Is a plumber heating solder different from a cook heating water? If you have a spell H for heat, is H for solder the same as H for water? The plumber casts H-open parentheses-solder-close parentheses and the cook casts H-open parentheses-water-close parentheses.” He gestured the parentheses as he spoke. “Same spell, different targets, possibly different amounts of energy needed.”
Horner looked confused. “I don’t know …”
Gloriana saw confusion and puzzlement on a number of faces. Throwing parentheses and other such terms around was a sure way to lose his audience.
Before Horner could ask another question, Ed called on someone else, another man who appeared to be in his thirties.
“I, for one, welcome your ideas, Dr. Forscher,” he said in a somewhat pompous tone. “I’m Mike Brubaker from the University of Chicago. We need more research into the broader universe of casting. What you’re proposing fits nicely with mathematical theory. I can think of several spells that satisfy the definition of a mathematical object and in combination can be formed into groups and rings. For example, the simple flamma spell could be cast as a positive ‘F’ to light the candle and a negative ‘F’ to extinguish it. Also, lux can be seen as two spells, ‘L’ for the light energy plus ‘C’ for the cage it inhabits,
and that’s a group.”
“Let’s not get too complicated, here,” Ed cut in quickly. “We’re not all mathematicians.” He pointed to a gray-haired woman who was holding up her cane, but the man who had identified himself as Bryan Pritchart took the mike when it passed him on the way to her.
“To carry Brubaker’s theory forward, I think he’s onto something,” Pritchart announced as if he were conferring an award. “We need to identify essential and innate features versus those that are merely details or personal idiosyncrasies. We have to consider diffeomorphism and topology and … Hey!”
The woman whom Ed had called on snatched the mike out of Pritchart’s hand. “It’s my turn, young man,” she snapped and pointed her cane at him, only narrowly missing the person between them. “You youngsters always think you’re smart. You come up with these ‘formulas’ and think you’ve invented something revolutionary. Let me tell you, that is not the way people cast spells. We’ve been doing fine without the blasted thing for millennia. You ought to leave well enough alone.”
“Look, lady,” Pritchart said, grabbing the mike back. “Casting mathematically will be the wave of the future, and I don’t intend to be left behind with the bunch of you geezers who refuse to accept the idea.”
“See here, Pritchart, don’t talk to Mrs. Shortbottom like that.” Horner’s voice came thundering out of the loud speakers as he appropriated a microphone from a nearby usher.
Gloriana jumped. Some audience members turned sharply, and a few snickered.
Horner didn’t pause for breath. “She and many of us were casting spells before you were born and we’re doing all right. Forscher’s formula may look like manna from heaven to you. To the rest of us, it looks like a gift horse. Foisting it on practitioners who have no need for it is tantamount to forcing us to deny our heritage, to ignore our centuries of casting experience. I, for one, will have no part of it. Let’s go, Loretta. If we can’t carry on a decent conversation here, we’ll leave.” He handed the mike back to the usher and led his wife down the aisle to the doors at the rear.
