Inconvenient Magic 01 - Potatoes, Come Forth!

by H. Jonas Rhynedahll

  The silent subordinate, clearly a magician of some sort, saluted with precision and left.

  The captain made a signal to one of the guards and the soldier removed Everett’s gag, a sewn strip of canvas with multiple folds of cloth fastened in the center to suppress the tongue. Obviously created for the particular purpose of disarming magicians, the Alarsarians had cinched it painfully tight about his head, and it left him with a dry mouth and sore jaws. Working his mouth to get the kinks out, he waited to see what would happen next.

  The captain smiled at Everett, not unkindly. “The lieutenant’s spell has determined that you are not one of the magicians. Are you a technician?”

  Everett kept his face blank. How could it be that Smythe’s magic had failed? It could not be a coincidence that two spells, the wizard Pourfrey's and now this Characteristic Revelation Variant of the lieutenant’s, had been somehow prevented from affecting him. What in the world was going on?

  For a split-second, he thought about trying to bluff the captain, but realized that his ignorance of technological specifics would give him away instantly should he be subject to detailed questioning. “No, I’m not.”

  “Then what was your association with Baronet Rorche?”

  “I was hired to be a cook on the flying contraption.” He had worked as a cook several times when his magic had failed to generate any income. The pay had been often poor, but at least he had been well fed. It was a role he felt confident that he could play.

  But Van Ghest simply nodded, apparently having little interest in anyone who was neither technician nor magician and thus unconcerned with any attempt to verify Everett's statements.

  “Sadly," the Alarsarian announced, though his expression gave evidence that the term was no more than a polite formality, "I must tell you that you are to be detained indefinitely, pending the recovery of the flying mechanism and the Baronet.”

  Everett wanted to ask what had become of Sarah, but kept quiet. He had had a few encounters with various constabularies in the past and knew submissive silence usually resulted in less unpleasantness directed at sensitive portions of his body.

  “Horst and Gavin will now take you to the room where you will be confined. Food and amenities will be provided as required. Thank you for your cooperation.”

  The two soldiers yanked him abruptly from his chair, marched him out the door, left down the broad entrance hall, and then up a curving stairway to another hallway. This had faded floral print wallpaper and a pair of guards armed with rifles stationed at both ends. At the fourth of seven identical rose stained doors on the right, the guards stopped, unlocked the door with a small brass key, removed the ropes binding his hands with practiced competence, shoved him in, and then slammed the panel firmly behind him.

  Only a single, dimmed oil lamp lit the room. Three men were present and these crowded around him solicitously. He recognized the faces of two from the first day at the warehouse, though he did not know their names, and the third was Edwin.

  The chemist wrapped an arm around Everett’s shoulders in a supportive display of camaraderie. “Are you well, Everett? Were you harmed?”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “What happened?” asked one of the others earnestly. He was a shorter, older fellow with chin whiskers and a wiry moustache.

  The last man was very young, thin but fit with plain features and a nervous tremble in his voice. “Where is Baronet Franz?”

  “Come now, Harold, Mitchell,” Edwin chided. “Let’s give Everett a moment before we bombard him with questions.”

  “I'm all right,” Everett assured the chemist.

  Harold, the older man, immediately pressed, “Well, have they captured the air carriage?”

  “No,” Everett replied and then looked around meaningfully. There were Distant Listening spells and for all he knew there might be some type of technological mechanism that would permit their captors to overhear anything said in the room. “But I’d better not say more about it.”

  “Oh!” Harold peered about as if expecting soldiers to appear from the very walls. “Right you are.”

  “Can you tell us anything without giving too much away?” Mitchell pleaded.

  “When last I saw them, both craft and crew were in good shape,” Everett said carefully as he took stock of the large room.

  There were six cots and a privacy screen of the type used to conceal chamber pots, but no other furniture. With no windows and considering the orientation of the hallway, he did not believe that the wall opposite the door coincided with the exterior of the building, but rather probably abutted an adjacent structure.

  “You’re both technicians?” he asked Mitchell and Harold.

  Mitchell nodded timidly. “I'm a mechanic, yes.”

  “I’m just a copper fitter,” Harold admitted.

  Everett frowned slightly. There would be no magic from these to help then. “Have you been allowed outside at all?”

  “No,” Edwin replied. “The guards bring our meals and take the chamber pot away to be emptied. But we’ve only been here since we were arrested yesterday, so that might change. Are you thinking of trying to escape?”

  “Of course not!” Everett lied for the benefit of any potential listeners while nodding his head emphatically. Then he sat down on one of the cots to try to figure out how to do exactly that.

  FOURTEEN

  Now that his gag had been removed, Everett could transport Sarah whenever he chose. Using different combinations of his own and Sarah’s spells, he ran several scenarios through his mind. Most struck him as simply ridiculous and a few seemed predestined to disastrous failure. The most straightforward – breaking down the door with his strength Potent and having Sarah sleep or set alight the guards – appeared likely only to result in both of them being shot dead. With four soldiers, it seemed unlikely to him that she could cast fast enough to incapacitate all of them.

  However, the only other plan that occurred to him -- using his transportation spell to escape the building – required that he be able to see a distant locus. Could he get access to the roof?

  “I didn’t really pay attention when I was brought in,” he asked. “Do any of you know if this building is three stories or four?”

  Edwin gave him an odd look. “I’m pretty sure that there are four floors.”

  The other two nodded.

  Everett looked up to study the ceiling four feet above his head. It was white plaster over lathe with a simple design texture of curving lines. Above that would be wooden joists and resting on those the sub floor of the next storey. The joists would probably be no more than sixteen inches on centers and might be as few as twelve. His magically enhanced strength would permit him to make a hole large enough for a person to pass, but the noise involved in ripping out the plaster below and the floor above was certain to alert the guards.

  He shook his head, discarding the idea, and then realized abruptly that he should simply take a chance that the Alarsarians were not listening to the room at that precise moment and transport Sarah. She was good at thinking on her feet and was sure to have some idea as to how they might effect their escape. The guards might notice her disappearance, but it struck him as highly unlikely that they would think to search this particular room for her first.

  “I’m going to cast a spell,” he warned the others in a whisper. “Please don’t make any sound that might bring the Alarsarians.”

  Edwin and Harold nodded seriously, but Mitchell simply appeared to freeze in panic.

  Everett chose a locus in a clear space and incanted in barely breathed words, “Beautiful Woman, come forth!”

  Sarah appeared, not bound or gagged as he had expected, but simply in a seated position with her legs crossed as if she had been casually occupying a chair. Her eyes went wide as she flopped down on her rear, her mouth wide but making no sound.

  Everett’s fellow prisoners were startled, but, as he had asked, made no commotion.

  He rushed to help the woman
up, telling her, “We need to figure a way out of here right now!”

  Sarah brushed off his hands, tense and flustered, but only made an exaggerated nod in reply.

  Suddenly worried, Everett demanded in a low voice, “What’s the matter?”

  Sarah tilted her chin up and made an X with her index finger across her voice box.

  “You can’t speak?”

  She awarded him another strong nod.

  “For magic’s sake! Is it a spell?”

  She threw her hands up in a gesture that he took to mean, “Of course you dope!”

  “If you can’t speak you can’t cast!”

  “This is indeed a dastardly act,” Edwin condemned.

  “You have to admit,” Harold mused, “it is an effective way to keep a magician from using magic.”

  Mitchell, enthralled or perhaps stupefied, said nothing.

  Rolling her eyes, Sarah made her mouth into a thin line, then stuck out a hand and tapped the side of her head with a finger of the other hand.

  “Err, give you a minute, you’re thinking?” Everett guessed.

  Nod.

  Shortly, she snapped her fingers and then pointed emphatically at him.

  “Me?”

  Nod.

  She raised her right arm to shoulder height, made a fist, flexed her bicep, and pointed at it.

  “Strong?” Edwin guessed.

  Nod.

  She pointed to Everett again, then held up nine fingers.

  “Got it. My ninth spell is strength.”

  Edwin looked pleased. “Oh, you’re a wizard, Everett? I had thought you were just a magicker.”

  “Yes, but just recently. You see--”

  Sarah waved both hands in a broad exasperated gesture.

  Everett ducked his head contritely. “Sorry.”

  “My apologies, Mademoiselle,” Edwin added.

  She gestured forcefully with both hands at herself. Pay attention!

  Then, in sequence, she pointed at herself, at the floor at her feet, and across the room at another spot. Then she held up eight fingers.

  “My eighth spell transports you.”

  Nod.

  Without another pantomime, she held up seven fingers.

  “My potato spell.”

  Nod.

  Finally, she raised an eyebrow while consecutively showing him six, five, four, three, two, and finally one.

  “Oh, you want to know what my other spells are?”

  Nod. Nod.

  “Well, my fifth and sixth spells you also already know. They’re the Liquid Transubstantiations.”

  Sarah made a go on gesture.

  “My fourth spell is a Minor Item Translocation. It works on manure.”

  Harold burst out laughing, then caught himself and said, “Sorry about that.”

  “My third is an Unclassified Insignificant.”

  Sarah motioned. Explain.

  Everett blew out a breath. “It makes beans sprout.”

  Harold doubled over, holding his sides, and then tried to stretch his guffaws into coughs, somewhat unconvincingly. Edwin went red in the face trying to maintain a polite stony expression. Mitchell simply looked confused.

  “I told you my spells were crap,” Everett complained to Sarah. Then, tired of presenting his magical shortcomings as the butt of amusement, he rushed on. “My second is an Insignificant Process Acceleration variant. It will cause a flower to bloom early. My first is--”

  Sarah threw up her hands. Wait. Then, she grasped one of his and began writing letters on his palm.

  Mitchell moved alongside Everett and tilted his head to see, calling out each letter as it formed. “W-H-A-T-W-O-R-D-S.”

  “You want to know the terms of the spell?” Everett asked her.

  Nod.

  “Which one?”

  She held up two fingers.

  In order to prevent an inadvertent actuation, he concentrated on nothing as he pronounced the words. “Fulfill thy destiny.”

  Sarah snapped her fingers again and pointed at him. That’s it! She held up two fingers and then indicated her throat.

  Everett shook his head. “That won’t work at all.”

  She pointed at her throat again and then tapped her wrist where a watch would be.

  “Okay, I see what you’re saying. The spell that prevents you from speaking is a timed spell and you think that my Process Acceleration will, well, accelerate it?”

  Nod.

  “No. It only works on flowers.”

  She stamped her foot. Try it!

  Everett threw up his hands. “Fine.” He concentrated on her lovely neck and said, “Fulfill thy destiny.” To his profound astonishment, he felt his spell actuate.

  Sarah coughed and made a throat clearing noise. “Good. Now, I think--”

  “Why, that’s amazing!” Edwin exclaimed. “It’s unheard of for one spell to affect another!”

  Everett could only manage, “Uhm.”

  “Not really,” Sarah contradicted shortly. “Back to what I was saying--”

  “But don’t you see?” Edwin rushed on enthusiastically, “this is a fantastic breakthrough! It will turn everything we thought we knew about Magic and Technology upside down! Think of the possibilities!”

  “I’d rather work out how we’re going to get out of here,” Sarah urged.

  Unheeding and exuding a passionate glow, Edwin turned to Mitchell. “Remember this moment, young man, for it is truly an historic event! I had always suspected that the expression of natural forces was mutable rather than immutable as is the current consensus, but now I have seen positive proof with my own eyes!”

  Once more, Mitchell looked confused. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

  “This proves, my dear Mitchell,” Edwin barreled on, oblivious, “that Magic and Technology -- and surely Chemistry as well -- cannot be impersonal and random but must instead be guided by some unknown directed spirit! A Mystical Spirit, if you will! Does anyone have any paper? I need to write this down for a dissertation.”

  Harold, with a sour look, disagreed. “Balderdash! Are you trying to claim that Magic, Chemistry, and Technology are deities? I’m sorry, Edwin, but that simplistic notion was discarded centuries ago!”

  Everett started to interrupt, but Edwin, in full oratory, cut him off.

  “Of course not! Or, at least, not in the way the ancient civilizations did, as capricious, occasionally malevolent gods who awarded spells, schematics, and formulas according to selfish whims! I accept the fundamental precept of modern thinking: that the three primary aspects of nature cannot be personified in a human sense. The concept that I'm trying to explain is just an extension of that precept.”

  Harold made another face. “And what would be the difference between a malevolent god and a mystical spirit? It seems to me that you're still trying to assign human characteristics to a simple natural process.”

  “But that is exactly my point! If Magic, Chemistry, and Technology were simple natural processes like, say, gravity, then it would be impossible to see such evolutionary changes as we have today witnessed. Clearly, some guiding spirit that shepherds the advancement of humanity must be involved!”

  “Poppycock!” Harold rebutted. “It has been thoroughly established by Wizard Randolf Eskin in his Proof of the Metaphysical Nature of Magic that--”

  At that very moment, the door burst open and Captain Van Ghest entered, pistol drawn. Lieutenant Smythe and four soldiers rushed in behind him.

  “Do not move!” the captain commanded.

  Everett heard a barest whisper escape Sarah’s lips and then Van Ghest and all of his men instantly collapsed.

  FIFTEEN

  Mitchell goggled at the sprawled men. “Did you kill them?”

  “No, they’re just asleep,” Sarah assured him.

  “I didn’t know your spell worked that way,” Everett protested. “I had the impression that it was a single target.”

  “That’s normally the way I use it,
but if I distribute my focus it almost always works on an entire group.”

  “Almost always?”

  “Well, actually, the one time I tried it I put an entire pack of dogs to sleep once. Except for three puppies.”

  “I see. Well, don’t you think we should get out of here? If we get to a window, I can transport us away.”

  “There must be other soldiers,” Harold cautioned. “We probably shouldn’t just rush out.”

  “He’s right,” Sarah confirmed. “We need to be careful.”

  “Could we possibly free the others?” Edwin asked. “It would be terrible to leave without them.”

  Everett began to shake his head. “No--”

  “Of course we can!” Sarah promised the chemist. “How many are they?”

  “There’s Margaret, Roger, Stephan, Will, Suzette, and Beatrice,” Harold said.

  “We don’t know where they are, though,” Mitchell said. “We haven’t seen the rest since we were arrested yesterday.”

  “I was in a room with two other women,” Sarah supplied “Both were also mute.”

  Harold nodded. “That must be Suzette and Margaret. They are both magickers.”

  Edwin began, “Maybe we could--”

  “Hold it!”

  All three of them stared at Everett, jolted by his outburst.

  “You can’t seriously believe,” he demanded, “that the five of us are going to be able to traipse through this building – that is full of soldiers with guns -- just as we please? Did I mention that this building is full of soldiers with guns?”

  Sarah made a dismissive motion. “Don’t worry, Everett. We have Magic on our side.”

  Shaking his head, he told her, “There has never been a spell manifested that can stop bullets. My spells are useless against soldiers and there’s no way that you could sleep everyone in the entire building.”

  “Excellent idea. I’ll try it.”

  “What? Wait …what idea?”

  Sarah’s eyes went blank. “Good night, dear Alarsarians, and sweet dreams.”