Salamander (8 page)

Alys addressed Master Dur as he came back into the front part of the shop:

"Could you help me with this amulet case? It seems to be stuck."

He picked up the case, tried to twist off the lid; nothing happened.

"It is stuck; I wonder how that happened. Let me see … ."

He walked along the counter to where a small anvil was sitting, next to it an iron hammer.

"This might do it." He tapped the amulet case gently on the anvil, turned it, tapped it again, again. This time the cap came off with a gentle twist. Alys gave the jeweler a startled look.

"If it gets stuck that easily, I don't think I want it. Have you a sapphire pendant I could look at? I think the color would go with a dress I have."

By the time the jeweler returned with a tray and several pieces, Mari and Ellen had agreed on an amulet case. Dur left the tray with Alys and came over to speak to them.

"You plan to enchant it?" The question was put to Ellen. She nodded. "I assume that is its intended purpose?"

"Yes. Virgin silver; I refined it from the ore myself."

Ellen took the amulet case; Mari paid the jeweler, turned back to her friend.

"Now I'm going to see what else I can find. You can stay and advise."

Ellen shook her head. "I should be getting back. I have work to do." She glanced down at the amulet case. "I'll come by your rooms later this evening; you can show me what treasures you have bought then." Mari nodded farewell and turned back to the jeweler’s wares.

It was a good hour past vespers when Ellen knocked on Mari's door. Mari was at her
desk inspecting her purchases. Ellen handed the amulet case to Mari, then sat down. Mari examined it curiously.

"It looks just the same."

"It is a pretty piece, but you won't be wearing it for looks. Wear it where it doesn't show, next to your skin. If you feel it getting uncomfortably warm, someone is trying to enspell you; if I am not too far away I will know. There is no way to protect you from everything, but at least we can be warned if Joshua tries a spell rather than a potion next. Now show me what other treasures you’ve acquired."

"I must tell you what happened after you left. You remember that Alys asked the jeweler to show her sapphire pendants?"

Ellen nodded; Mari went on, "I was a bit surprised. She doesn't wear anything that expensive, and I wouldn't have thought she could afford to. I wondered if she might be wanting to drop a hint to one or two of the young men she has running after her. But now I'm not sure."

"What happened?"

"After Dur got a few things for me, she called him over to complain of something wrong with the pendants. I went to look. They were nice work, mostly gold. You would expect to see valuable stones set in, but they weren't sapphires;
two were clear, like rock crystal, and one dark. Dur looked annoyed, as if he made a mistake in what he had brought out. He apologized, picked up the tray, and suddenly Alys screamed. I looked at her and her hair had caught fire. She was standing with her back to the fireplace at one end of the shop, and I suppose a spark must have caught it; you know how fine it is.

"For an old man, Dur moved pretty fast. He dropped the tray on the counter, picked up his beer mug, and dumped it over her. It put out the fire but she was a mess—soaked with beer and half her hair burned black. She’ll need a scarf tomorrow, and a haircut. But something felt strange about it all; first the stuck amulet case, then the sapphires that weren't, then the fire."

"Yes." Ellen thought for a moment. "It must have been an accident, but I think Alys got what she deserved."

"What do you mean?"

"The stuck amulet case was her doing; I saw it. Before she put the cap back on she sprinkled something onto it and said something under her breath. I suspect it was the spell Magister Bertram told us about two days ago as a simple example of a union of similar materials. She probably got the powder from one of her older admirers with access to lab supplies. She must have been practicing it by trying it out on master Dur."

"Why didn't it work?"

"It did." Ellen was smiling.

"Not for long. He got it loose with almost no trouble at all. Just a couple of taps."

"It wasn't the taps, it was the anvil. The spell depends on the similarity of one piece of silver to another. The amulet and the top both tried to identify with the iron, so the spell collapsed. But I don't know why Alys was doing it. Did she think the jeweler would give her a discount if there seemed to be something wrong with it?"

Mari shook her head. "I expect she was just trying to play a joke on the old man. After he gave up trying to open it she would have said the counterspell and left him wondering why it hadn't opened for him. She's mischievous, but I don't think she would cheat someone."

"Well, the joke didn't end up being on him then," Ellen said. “I wonder if it was an accident. He must have been dealing with students from the college for a long time, maybe guessed what was going on years ago and asked one of the magisters how to counter such tricks, then amused himself by turning the tables on students like Alys. That's why I wonder—but I don't see how he could have … ."

"Were the sapphires another trick?"

Ellen nodded. "Last week in Simon’s language class, remember? One of the names we had to memorize was the true name of sapphire. She must have gotten someone to teach her an illusion spell. With that and the true name it would be easy to make the stones look different, at least for a while. I expect by now the spell has worn off and Master Dur, if he's had another look, is relieved."

"And if he's used to students doing pranks …?"

"He might have suspected what she was up to. He's probably at least as good as you are at guessing what customers can and can't afford to buy; it's how he makes his living, after all. But unless he happened to have a friendly fire mage in the next room, I don't see how he could have made her hair catch fire. Accidents do happen. Now, show me what you bought."

Coelus handed back the papers and gestured Ellen to the chair. “One careless mistake, two places where there is a more elegant solution than the one you found. I have marked them. See if you can improve your answer. One place where you found a more elegant solution than anyone I’m aware of ever has. I marked that too.

“The question is what to do with you beyond lectures at the College. I will be happy to continue teaching you what I can. In particular, I would like to work through Olver’s first treatise with you. It is a tantalizing piece of work, a signpost to the future of magical theory, and I’d be happy to have your view of it.

“But doing problems I set, reading treatises that I assign, is not enough. It is time for you to start on your own work, learning things I cannot teach you because I do not know them.

“Independent research is for select third year students. You are not yet at the end of your first year but, at the level of pure theory, you already understand more than half my colleagues. There is much you can still learn, but less and less left that I can teach you. At your age I too was a student, but it did
not
stop me from starting my real work. There is no reason you should not do the same.

“You do not wish to help me with my project. I do not agree with your reasons but I accept them. So you should have a project of your own, and perhaps more than one.”

“What sort of project, Magister?”

He hesitated a moment, opened his tablet, looked down at the first leaf. “It is your decision but I have a few ideas. It could be either research in understanding something that already exists. Or research in creating something new. My advice would be to start with the first, and perhaps go on to the second later. I have a short list of puzzles here; you could choose one of them or find another for yourself.”

“What sort of puzzles?”

“We have spoken a little about the stability problem—the tendency of constructions, static spells, to decay over time. One of the problems you did last week involved calculating the rate of loss for a simple static spell, and from that, the time to collapse.”

The girl nodded, said nothing.

“I have long been puzzled by the stability of the containment sphere. I did some rough calculations a few years ago and concluded that either it was much stronger when it was built—and I could find no evidence of that in the records—or it should have collapsed years ago. You are better fitted than I to examine it, tease out its structure. So one project would be to redo my work more carefully and precisely, calculate how fast the sphere ought to be losing its fire, and, if you can, determine how fast it is fading, either now or using any old records there may be from which its past strength can be deduced.

“It is a puzzle that should test your abilities. If it turns out to be too easy for you, there is another sphere of fire, a somewhat brighter one, whose continued brightness may pose a still more difficult problem.”

She looked puzzled for a moment, then smiled. “You mean the sun. I have wondered about that.”

“Yes. By Olver’s calculation, it ought to have burned out centuries ago; that’s one of the six puzzles he starts the thesis with.”

“Does Olver have a solution?”

“Some day you might go and ask him. When I did, he told me that he wasn’t willing to publish half finished work. Perhaps you would have better luck.”

Ellen shook her head.

“The containment sphere will do for the moment. Do you want me to work it all out myself, or am I free to look for information from others more familiar with the construction?”

Coelus shook his head. “It won’t do you any good. Nobody here knows anything useful and I searched through the library years ago. If Durilil left any description of how the sphere was constructed, it is long lost.

“But you are welcome to look. This is a project, not a test; there is no need for me to test you any more. In seeking truth, one uses what one can find.”

* * *

“You’re sure you want to risk it?”

Maridon nodded. “You invented the Cascade effect and you are the only one who really understands it. If something goes wrong, you have to be here to fix the schema and try again. I do not.

"Are all the preparations made?”

Coelus looked around the lawn. Maridon had taken the center position with three mages arrayed in their appointed places around him. With himself in the fourth position as air, all four elements were there to start the Cascade. It should be easier than the earlier experiments, with the improved geometry and with all four positions held by elemental mages instead of some only by material symbols. Coelus was in reach of the core line of the first stage; his athame, newly sharpened, lay on the table by his right hand, its silver blade gleaming. With luck, if something went wrong … .

Maridon glanced at him; Coelus nodded. Everything had been rehearsed; this was it. One side of the lawn was the wall of the magister’s wing, windows shuttered against the late autumn chill. The other was the inside surface of the containment sphere; at least if something did go wrong only the college was at risk. His colleagues, having advised him confidently that his absurd pooling schema could never work, would have no business complaining if it turned out to work too well. Idiots.

“Ready.”

Maridon began the first invocation of the schema. Coelus chimed in on cue, then the other three. With eyes closed, Coelus could see the web building, woven with mixed lines of the elemental colors. For a moment it trembled, then froze, a solid four pointed star centered on Maridon, drawn everywhere in the Four Colors.

Maridon spoke the Word. The Colors poured through him, up his right arm, out the outstretched hand from each finger, in a spreading web, further and further. One line pulsed, froze, a bright line of cold blue—a mage pulled into the web. A line twisted of blue and white. Again, this time a hair thin line—not a mage, but every drop of power mattered. Again. Again, until the air was filled with a spiderweb of lines.

Maridon’s face held triumph in part, in part something else. He half turned, pointed with his left hand. Coelus looked down; the silver blade of his athame was sinking into the grass, vanishing, only the handle visible. He tried to turn, willed the link broken. Nothing.

Maridon pointed, one after another, at the other three. Cold lines from his fingers to them. They too froze. For a moment time stopped, save for Coelus’s mind racing. No answer.

Coelus watched, unable to move, as the most powerful mage in the world, the most powerful mage that had ever lived, walked slowly over to the wall of woven fire bordering the garden, the inside surface of the sphere protecting the college from the world, the world from the college. Maridon reached out with both hands, caught strands of fire, pulled.

For a moment the weave held. Maridon said another Word, Coelus felt the shock and saw the others sway. For a moment the world darkened. Slowly Maridon’s hands pulled apart. Through the widening gap, Coelus could see the elm tree just outside the dome, the barrier that no mage in the world could break. Until now.

Maridon said a final Word. From his fingertips new strands spread, beyond the sphere. A million ordinary folk, each with his little magic to tap, thousands of mages.