The Magicians

by James Gunn

  The water was pure ice. It hit my body like sleet. I endured it as long as I could, puffing and blowing and gasping, and feeling virtuous, gaining points for every second I stood under the shower head. Finally I reached blindly for the towel. As I reached I remembered the feeling of uneasiness that had come over me as I entered the bathroom. Suddenly I knew why. When I had left, the towels had been used and disarranged. When I came back, everything had been straightened up. Someone had been in the room since I had left; someone had been in the bathroom. Not the maid; she couldn't get in. Someone dumb, dumb enough to arrange the towels neatly. But I was dumber.

  All the awareness was too late. The towel that I had raised to dry my face had slipped through my fingers like silk. It coiled itself around my neck. It tightened with the strength of a full-grown boa constrictor. I stumbled out of the shower, tugging at it with both hands, my face purpling, my lungs struggling for breath.

  I staggered and slipped across the tile floor. The room was beginning to turn red. The need for air was a frantic burning in my chest. I knew it was useless to struggle with this bewitched thing around my neck, but I couldn't give up. I had too much to live for.

  Fool! Fool! Half an hour, you told her, and it hasn't been fifteen minutes. And if she should arrive early, the door is locked and chained. Better to be stupid than half smart!

  The redness darkened. I staggered and almost fell. Life curdled in my chest.

  You can't fight magic with ordinary strength, Casey! Think, man, think! There must be a counter-spell if you can just think clearly. Think!

  But I couldn't think. The darkness invaded my mind like conquering slugs, and as they closed in I thought of Ariel, I thought of her sorrow and despair when she saw my body, and I grieved for her.

  And then the last light went out.

  Chapter 11

  Our trouble in the past has been poor communication between intelligence and instinct, which has meant that the intelligent people lacked power and vitality, while the instinctive people lacked vision and long-distance purpose.

  - Colin Wilson, The Occult

  I dreamed that I was drowning in a lake. Every time I came to the surface to get a breath of air, a hand would push me back down into the water. Or a foot, a woman's foot with a shoe on it. I knew it was a woman's foot because it had a high heel, and I got a glimpse of a shapely leg above it.

  Finally I stayed above the water long enough to shake the moisture from my eyes and recognize the woman who was sitting on a yellow rubber raft in the middle of the lake. It was Suzie. She was wearing a black string bikini, and she did great things for it, though what she was doing on a rubber raft in a string bikini wearing high heels I couldn't figure out. Nor why she kept pushing me back under the water, though I finally decided it all had some Freudian significance.

  Kick. Bubble. Splash. Gasp.

  Finally I got the lake out of my throat long enough to ask Suzie what she was doing here.

  “I've got some new friends,” she said.

  Kick. Bubble. Splash. Gasp.

  “What kind of friends?” I asked fluidly.

  “They're a strange bunch,” she said, “but they're very rich, and they have all kinds of unusual abilities."

  Kick. Bubble. Splash. Gasp.

  “What kind of abilities, Suzie?” I asked.

  “You know. They can give you good luck or bad luck, whichever they wish. They live in these turn-of-the-century apartments, uptown. You'd never suspect."

  Kick. Bubble. Splash. Gasp.

  “What do they want with you, Suzie?"

  “They keep bringing around this horny gentleman when they think I'm too stoned to know."

  Kick. Bubble. Splash. Gasp.

  “Why do you put up with it, Suzie?"

  “They treat me like I was the queen mother-to-be, or something. And this rough, scaly character is the king. You know?” She always used to say “you know” too much. But she had a great body.

  Kick. Bubble. Splash. Gasp.

  “They're Satanists, Suzie. They're using you as a breeder, to give birth to a new reign of evil on earth. ‘What rough beast,’ you know.” I got into the habit of saying it, too, when I was around her.

  “I know that,” she said sulkily. “Do you think I'm stupid or something? They keep feeding me some kind of ground-up root. But I've got them fooled."

  Kick. Bubble. Splash. Gasp.

  “How's that, Suzie?” What I could see of her looked great, I had to admit. The life apparently was agreeing with her.

  “I've got a secret supply of birth-control pills. Think I want a brat? All little kids are devils, of course, but this is ridiculous!"

  Kick. Bubble. Splash. Gasp.

  “Suzie,” I said, as I came up, “I've been wanting to ask you something."

  “So ask,” she said.

  Kick. Bubble. Splash. Gasp.

  “Why are you doing this to me?"

  “It's all Freudian,” she said. “You know? This lake is the womb, and you're struggling to be born, and I don't want another brat—"

  “Oh, the hell with it!” I said, and sank of my own volition. Fluid filled my eyes and lungs and all the empty places of my body, my stomach and bowels and sinuses and even the hollow bones....

  “Well, young man,” someone said, “are you going to wake up or do I have to drown you?"

  I opened my eyes, spluttering, and breathed deeply. The air went into my lungs like live steam, but I was so surprised and so grateful to be breathing again that I didn't care. I raised my hands and massaged my throat, wincing. It was wet, like my face.

  “Ah,” said the voice, “that's better.” It was a woman's voice, and I knew that I should recognize it.

  I turned my head in that direction. “You!” I said. It wasn't very gracious, but it was all I could think of, and it came out in a croak. She was standing beside the bed, an empty water glass in her hand.

  It was Mrs. Peabody. I hadn't even thought of Mrs. Peabody that day, and here she was, her gray curls bobbing as she nodded vigorously. “And a lucky thing for you that it was. Another minute and you'd have been beyond caring."

  I turned my head back and forth, wondering if it was going to fall off. Apparently it wasn't. My circumstances began to interest me a bit more after I decided that I was going to live.

  I was lying on the bed. I was cold. I was naked and wet, which was why I was cold. The towel that had tried to strangle me and had very nearly succeeded was lying across me, lifeless but strategic.

  Mrs. Peabody chuckled. She seemed to be enjoying the whole thing, and I resented it. “Is this the way you greet all your female guests? Well, don't lie there lewd and naked all day. Put on some clothes!"

  I sat up, clutching the towel. “You might at least turn your back,” I said.

  “You can't show me anything I haven't seen before,” she said. “Even here in this room. After all, that towel was around your neck when I came in."

  “Okay,” I said, and dropped the towel to slip into my clothes. She quickly turned her back and pretended to stare out the window at a dingy ventilation shaft filled with pigeon droppings. “How did you get in?” I asked hoarsely. “I'm not complaining, you understand,” I added quickly.

  “Same way your other visitors got in,” she said. “You may have had your door locked, but you left another doorway wide open.” She pointed at the center of the rug.

  There was the circle I had drawn last night, the circle in which Ariel had appeared and disappeared twice, one arc of it scuffed out by someone's foot.

  “You're a very careless young man,” the little old lady said, turning around abruptly to confront me. I turned my back to her and hastily zipped up my pants. There was no logic to it, but the act of zipping seemed better done in private. “Carelessness is always dangerous,” she went on, “but when you get to fooling around with magic and witchcraft, it becomes downright foolhardy."

  “You didn't ask me about my capacity for carelessness when you talked to me abou
t the job,” I said with a note of reproach, “any more than you warned me that I would be fooling around with magic and witchcraft."

  “Speaking of the job,” she said, getting away untouched, “what have you found out?"

  The question caught me flatfooted. I blinked twice. “Nothing,” I said.

  “Wasted my money, did I?” She nodded as if she had expected it all along.

  “Now, hold on,” I objected. “I've been on the case only a little more than twenty-four hours."

  “Long enough,” she said. The way things had happened she was right, I guess, but I didn't like the way she stamped around the room.

  Some of my annoyance must have shown in my voice. “I've got a few complaints myself. You threw me into this situation without a word of explanation. You let me think it was a simple case of shadowing—"

  “Would you have believed me if I'd told you the truth?” she asked shrewdly.

  “Well, no,” I admitted. “But you let me blunder my way around this hotel, nearly getting killed two or three times, or maybe worse, and—"

  “Told you there'd be danger."

  “Not this kind of danger.” I motioned toward the deadly towel.

  “You didn't think of that when you were looking at that bill.” She chuckled. “All you had in your eyes were zeros. Want to give it back?"

  I hesitated and then made up my mind. “All right. Deducting a day's work and expenses.” I pulled my billfold out of my right rear pocket.

  She held up a pale, thin hand to stop me. “Now, wait just a minute. I haven't said I wanted it back. I just asked if you wanted to give it back. You can't quit a job that easy. What have you found out?"

  “I told you,” I said. “Nothing.” I took the remains of a thousand dollars out of my billfold. Luckily I hadn't used too much of it.

  “Didn't find out his name?” she asked spryly.

  “Solomon,” I said. I started counting the bills again. “Solomon Magus."

  “Nonsense,” she said impatiently. “You know what I want: his real name."

  “No,” I said firmly. I counted out nine hundred and seventy-six dollars on the bureau top, picked up the seventy-six dollars to make it an even hundred dollars for the day, and I shoved the rest toward her.

  “No clues?” she asked. “No guesses? Is that all I get for my hundred dollars?"

  “Well,” I said reluctantly, “I found an open airline ticket to Washington, D.C."

  “Ah,” she said with great significance.

  “But I'm not even sure it belongs to him. There's your money. Take it."

  Her faded blue eyes looked me over shrewdly. I shifted uncomfortably under their gaze. “You're too eager. Why? Got another client, have you?"

  “Maybe,” I admitted.

  “Who is it?"

  “That,” I said pointedly, “is none of your business."

  “Well,” she said, “I reckon until I take that money back you're still working for me, and I reckon I haven't got much so far for my money, and I reckon that it is my business."

  “Go to hell!” I said.

  “Paying you as well as I am?” she asked curiously. “Bet not. Bet it's a girl,” she said, her eyes sparkling. “Paying you in kisses, I bet. You look like the kind of young fool who'd rather have kisses than money."

  I thought of Ariel and felt my face get warm. “Maybe you're right,” I said. “Good-bye and everything."

  “Don't rush me, young man!” she snapped. “I'll go when I'm ready. I'm not sure I want to call you off this case. A bargain's a bargain."

  “Only when it's made in good faith—on both sides,” I said. “You misled me."

  “You're an ungrateful young man,” she said, shaking her head in wonderment. “Here I save your life, and now you're tossing me out of your room without even a thank-you. I tell you, it's enough to shake your faith in this younger—"

  “I'm sorry,” I said, and I was. “I do thank you, but I can't work for you. My new client may show up soon, and I think it would be awkward if you met."

  “That's better,” she said. “Now. Tell me. Does this new job conflict with what I paid you to do? Eh? Is this new client asking you to do something you couldn't share with me? Eh?"

  “Well—” I said, hesitating.

  “Then,” she said triumphantly, “why not do both jobs at once? You have no real dislike for my money, do you?"

  “It's not that—” I began.

  “What is it, then?"

  I thought about it for a moment and shook my head. “I'm sorry again. I can't take anybody as a client if I don't know their real name."

  “Know the girl's real name, eh?” She chuckled again as my face got red. “All right, young man, I won't torment you. If that's the way you want it."

  “You won't tell me your real name?” I asked.

  She shook her head decisively, picked up the money from the bureau, and walked toward the door. As she unhooked the chain, she turned back. “You can tell that girl for me,” she said, “that she's a very lucky woman."

  I smiled and looked aside a bit embarrassed, and was turned to stone. Somehow the black mirror that had been leaning against the wall had been turned around so that it faced into the room. The little old lady should have been reflected in it, but it wasn't the little old lady I saw.

  Darkly, glimmering up at me through the mists of night, was the face of Ariel.

  Chapter 12

  Here we may reign secure, and in my choice

  To reign is worth ambition though in hell:

  Better to reign in hell, than serve in heav'n.

  - John Milton, Paradise Lost

  She turned her head, and I looked into the mirrored eyes of a frightened angel. Dark angel. She could see me, and she knew that I could see her. I looked back and forth between the night-shadowed image of youth and beauty and the reality of withered age. Angel? No, witch. And I loved the one in the black mirror.

  “Ariel?” I groaned. “Why? Why? And how do I know which one is you?"

  She took a step toward me, the gray-haired little old lady, her hand half raised, and as she did the door swung open behind her. Uriel walked into the room calmly and stopped, glancing once at us and then at the wall where the mirror rested. He may have been old, but he was quick. He grasped the situation almost instantly.

  Uriel was only an inch or two taller than the old lady, and his white hair went with her gray, perky curls. They made a jolly old couple. But where did that leave me? In love with a phantom in a dark glass? “For now we see,” I recalled, “through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known."

  But before that, I thought sadly, is the phrase about putting away childish things. Like love and trust.

  A sob broke from the old lady's throat. It was incongruous. Old ladies don't sob. “Don't you know?” she asked, and the voice was Ariel's.

  “How can I?” I groaned. It was getting to be a habit. “Everybody's someone else. Nobody's themselves. How do I know what to believe? Who are you?"

  She broke into tears and sank down in a chair, sobbing. “You don't love me,” she said brokenly. “If you loved me you would trust me."

  “Look in the mirror, son!” Uriel said firmly. “Not directly. That would be dangerous. Look at me!"

  I looked. Uriel was mirrored there. Uriel himself, not someone else. “What is that supposed to tell me?” I asked. “That you're not disguised?"

  “Exactly,” Uriel said. He walked quickly to the mirror, keeping to one side of it so that he did not see his own reflection, and turned it to the wall. “And that means that the mirror shows people as they are, not as they aren't.” He inspected the letters around the blackened back of the mirror. “Interesting,” he mused and became engrossed.

  I turned to Ariel—and it was Ariel. Mrs. Peabody was gone, but she had left her clothing behind. It looked strange on Ariel. I looked at her face. Her eyes were wet with tears as she looked up at me.

&
nbsp; “How old are you?” I asked sternly, unable to keep my doubts from spilling over.

  “Twenty-two,” she said, her voice breaking.

  “Really?"

  “Well,” she said, “twenty-three."

  I sighed. That had the real ring of truth. I would have recognized it in my classroom. And, after my experiences of the past twenty-four hours, I had begun to doubt my ability to recognize truth when I heard it. “But why?” I asked. “Why did you do it?"

  “Think, Gabriel!” she said, and her tone of guilt was yielding to a note of impatience. “I didn't want anyone to know that I was investigating Solomon. And I certainly had no way of knowing that I could trust you."

  “Not at first,” I said doggedly. I may not be the quickest guy but I'm persistent. “But you had plenty of chances to tell me later."

  She blushed. “I was going to tell you, Gabriel. I was all ready to tell you when I came down here. And then when I knocked and couldn't get an answer, and I had to materialize inside your room and saw you with your face all purple—I decided it would be better for Mrs. Peabody to save you. You would never have to know that I had—concealed my identity the first time we met, and Mrs. Peabody could just fade away."

  “And then you had to make one last test to be sure you could trust me,” I added, scowling.

  “If I'd known you were going to act like this, Gabriel, I'd never have bothered,” she retorted, her chin up stubbornly, with supreme illogic.

  It was unfair, and I couldn't stand it any longer. “And for God's sake!” I shouted. “Stop calling me Gabriel! You know my name—"

  Her eyes widened with alarm. “Be quiet!” she said. “Don't say it!"

  I went toward her with some high-class illogic of my own, my arms outstretched to bring her close to me. “Then you do care,” I sighed.

  The next thing I knew, I was sitting in the chair and she was curled up in my lap, her head on my shoulder, whispering in my ear all the things she had liked about me from the beginning and all the other qualities she had grown to appreciate, and Uriel was coughing, having spent as much time inspecting the mirror as he could justify.