"The Accidental Magician" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grace David)

Chapter Two

Grantin pulled back the cover and began to read the first page of the Ajaj's journal. The ink was of a brownish umber tone. The edges of each letter puddled and ran, as though the fluid were unusually thin. When Grantin concentrated on some of the broader lines he was able to detect in the strokes a shading of pale chocolate at the center darkening to a deep brown-black hue at the edges. The paper was an aged, mottled tan which popped and crackled as he turned the pages. Nevertheless, the script was precise and demonstrated a fine expressive flair. The Ajaj who had penned the book was a master scribbler indeed.

Grantin turned another rattling page, then halted to listen for sounds from the corridor beyond. He remembered the last time his uncle had caught him reading this book.

"Here you are," Greyhorn had screamed, "the nephew of a master wizard, and you can't even pluck a flower out of the ground without bending over to pick it up. Now, instead of studying your spells, I catch you wasting your time with this nonsense. You're deficient, and every day you become a worse embarrassment for me. Remember, this is not some sparkling dream planet. This is Fane, and I, as master wizard of this locality, have a reputation to uphold."

Now, Grantin held his breath. The house was so quiet he could hear the beating of his own heart. He exhaled. With another crackle he turned the page and continued his study of the history of Fane.

The Lillith was of acceptable construction and of the type often seen on our sad world Ajagel. Great blocks of metal and glass were fused as needed. From the outside the starship appeared as a tumble of interlaced blocks and cubes, joined haphazardly at sides, top, or bottom. In some ways she resembled the old, broken city of Alnarth built by our ancestors in the days of water before our sun grew red. Now we, the faithful Ajaj, are drawn from Ajagel like blood leaking from a wound.

Time period by time period the gray, twisted space slipped behind us. One after another the planets we investigated were rejected by the colonists who had chartered the Lillith.

One planet, 4-Clarion 4312, was passed because its gravity was twice what the humans were used to bearing. They did not wish to carry too heavy a load. Another, 2-Marissa 1847, had a trace too much chlorine in the atmosphere. Our passengers claimed that this would irritate their noses.

Captain Marvin had made an unfortunate charter arrangement. In an expansive moment he had agreed to take the colonists out along the great spiral arm, eastward to the very edge of the galaxy, until such time as they found a suitable planet. Here he had erred. Often we of the Ajaj, as well as the human members of the crew, disputed what might have happened had the contract contained the word "habitable" instead of "suitable."

The voyage continued farther and farther until, at last, we approached the Great Dog Nebula where the near stars were occluded by dust and debris. Beyond lay only interstellar fog and then the vast empty void.

Each time period that the Lillith pressed on increased our captain's unhappiness. Farther and farther he departed from his course for our next stop at New Ossening. Truly he was cursed that trip. He had also agreed to transport criminals to that bleak world, so much was Captain Marvin in need of riches.

In the center of the mist of the Great Dog Nebula, almost alone in the heart of the interstellar storm, rode the gigantic orange sun Pyra and its single planet: Fane.

Captain Marvin drove the Lillith toward this world. As senior apprentice empather, I was summoned to my dials and nodes to test the flavor of the orb. The long-range scanners reported it not only habitable but lush and fertile. Still, I tasted a strangeness about the world. This I reported to the captain, but it was news he did not wish to hear.

The second officer, an Earthman named Barth, contended that the world had a strange fluctuating magnetic field. He decreed that the core of the planet was of such an odd constituency that it generated an electromagnetic haze. This he assumed to be the cause of the disturbance to our amplifiers and our instruments.

Without incident we landed in a meadow surrounded by pale green trees and tall plants with leaves of striped blue and yellow. After the analyzer pronounced the atmosphere free of toxins, plagues, and noxious elements the convicts were shackled waist to waist and sent out first to test the air. Remote sensors monitored their blood and sweat. When they passed the test the colonists and the Ajaj and much of the crew were allowed to leave the Lillith.

Once outside, teams of colonists commenced gathering samples of plant and animal life in an effort to determine if they were healthful and nutritious. By the end of the watch the biologists had decided that all was well. Once freed of their roles as guinea pigs the prisoners lay in the long grass, backs against humps of soil and up thrusting trees. Here they took a last sweet rest before their shipment to bleak, bleak New Ossening where there are only clouds, damp, and death.

The criminals numbered sixteen and were of mixed and varied backgrounds. Included in their number were three zombiests, a gamemaster, a handful of expurgators, four housebreakers, and a master necromancer of the Black Church on Abraham V. The necromancer, Gogol by name, was accompanied by his chief helper, Windom, both of whom had been sentenced for a too energetic dedication to genuineness in the staging of human sacrifices. According to the rumors, Windom had procured the subjects, while Gogol, at the height of the Black Mass, performed dark deeds to the rapt approval of his faithful acolytes.

By mid-afternoon Fane had been adjudged salubrious. The stevedores commenced unloading the colonists' supplies. The task was almost complete when, from between two piles of duraplast crates, there appeared a strange creature.

Four-armed, smooth-skinned and hairless, the biped was dressed in a seamless green garment which extended in the form of trousers from just above the midpoint of his legs upward across the hips, groin, and stomach to cover his chest, shoulders, and back. The arms were sleeveless and the feet and ankles bare as well. No seams, clasps, or fastenings could anywhere be detected.

The creature's skin was a medium gray, with the dome of his skull deepening to a slate gray, almost charcoal color. The being's forehead seemed permanently wrinkled. The brows above the large round eyes were ridged with gristle.

The Fanist calmly walked to the center of the camp and with mild courtesy watched the exertions of the colonists and crew. The creature seemed neither hostile nor concerned.

One thing above all must be said about our Captain Marvin-he was not a timid man. In fact, he was often referred to by the human crew members as possessing that-emotion which they termed courage.

He approached the Fanist with a weapon prominently displayed at his belt, but with empty hands. In the background all work stopped. The human crew soon armed themselves and formed a perimeter guard about the camp and ship. They found no other natives, nor could they discover how this one had entered our midst unseen.

Captain Marvin went through the standard procedure for communicating with a strange being. He recited a list of nouns, emphasized by gestures with his right arm.

"Marvin-rock-tree-ship-" The Fanist stared at the captain but made no attempt to reply in kind.

Next, Captain Marvin attempted to demonstrate the personal pronoun "I," then to introduce a series of simple verbs.

"I run," he said as he pranced a few feet forward and back. "I sit," he announced and flopped down onto the ground. An instant later he arose while declaring: "I stand."

The Fanist remained impassive, watching everything but speaking not at all. Finally, to our amazement, he uttered two Terran words, "Talk more," followed by a sweep of one of his hands in the direction of the captain, colonists, and crew. Immediately all conversation ceased. The humans stared at the Fanist with open amazement. Angrily the captain shouted: "He said to talk. Everyone start talking."

For ten minutes the Fanist stood quietly in the midst of the babbling colonists and crew, then, at last, he held up his upper right hand.

"Enough. I understand now. You are accepted."

"This is your world?" the captain asked.

"We are here."

Captain Marvin pondered that statement for a moment and then replied: "We wish to be here, too."

"You are here," the Fanist answered.

"You have no objections, then?"

"The world is as it is. Destiny shapes itself. Everything will set itself in proper order. You are here. You are part of the order. What will you do?"

Amis Hartford, the leader of the colonists, now strode forward. "We will build our city here," he declared. "We will grow and multiply and found our world."

"The world is vast and there are limits. You are mistaken."

"With our things," Hartford continued, pointing to the bales and bundles of equipment which had already been unloaded from the ship, "we will build a great city. If you will let us, we will work with you and help you and we will be friends."

"You will not build a great city."

"You intend to stop us, then?"

"Things are as they are. If you tell me that you will drop a rock and that it will fall upward without the words, then I tell you it will not happen. I do not stop it, but it does not happen."

"What will stop us? What words?"

"The words are necessary. Everything must be done with the words. My words will not work for you. Each life has its own way. You will learn."

"Do you mean spells, incantations, witchcraft, mysticism? We are civilized men. We do not believe in such things. We know better. The machines will serve us well."

The Fanist looked around the clearing. He stared intently at the crated equipment, then looked back to Marvin and Hartford. With an almost human expression he shook his head.

"You will see. You will find your own way. It is all one. Destiny will take you where it will. I say back to you your own words: 'Good luck.'"

The Fanist turned to his left, weaved through the piles of supplies, and apparently without exiting from the other side, disappeared.

Grantin jerked his head as he heard his uncle's slapping steps. He slammed shut the oversized volume and shoved it under his arm. Greyhorn was close now, almost to the right-hand angle of the corridor. Grantin whirled and ran for the shelves on the far side of the room. There he replaced the Ajaj history, then grabbed Hedgkin's The Magician's Constant Companion and Source Book Compendium. Opening it at random, he settled in a chair with the volume on the table in front of him.

Grantin tried to suppress his harsh breathing and will his heart to slow its pace. His eyes barely had time to focus on the page before his uncle entered the room.

"I hope you're doing something useful for a change, nephew," Greyhorn announced in an accusatory tone.

Grantin looked over his shoulder in a pathetic attempt to appear surprised. Greyhorn's expression remained unchanged, the winter-gray eyes open, unblinking, the tip of his short, narrow nose pointing at a spot in the middle of Grantin's forehead, hard lines running from each nostril to the comers of his mouth. A hint of angry furrows marred the sorcerer's brow.

Grantin swallowed and replied in a breathy, nervous tone. "You'll have to excuse me, uncle, you startled me. Yes, I was just now reading the, uh- Magician's Compendium, trying to sharpen up my skills."

"Skills!" Greyhorn exclaimed. "I've seen cross-eyed, one-legged virgins with more skills than you possess. You couldn't conjure up a tip of your hat if your life depended on it. Why I've been cursed with a nephew like you…" Greyhorn halted in mid-sentence, his cunning eyes looking past Grantin, across the table, and down to the lower shelf where the Ajaj scribbler's history now lay slightly askew.

Greyhorn strode around the table, his wide cuffs and cape flapping behind him in the wind of his passage. In an instant, he bent and examined the volume for signs of recent use. Greyhorn's suspicions aroused, he stood and turned to face his nephew. Leaning forward across the table, he placed his hands on the planks and angled his great triangular head down and forward until his nose halted only a foot in front of Grantin's nervously darting eyes.

Greyhorn stared at Grantin for a long minute, as if he could divine his nephew's thoughts by shear mental concentration. Even though Grantin knew that his uncle's skills were those of a high manipulator, master sorcerer, and workmanlike prestidigitator, he still felt a rippling chill course through his spine as though Greyhorn now possessed the talents of a telepather as well.

One great, long-fingered hand shot out to cover the page that Grantin supposedly had been reading. Greyhorn's bone-white member protruding from his midnight-black sleeve seemed like a skeleton's hand thrust out from a freshly dug grave.

"What were you reading on this page?"

"Why, I-I- The Magician's Compendium-"

"What were you reading on this page?" For an instant Grantin's eyes flicked downward to scan the right-hand sheet.

"'-and so with the tri-finger and arm upraised one pronounces, in the fourth voice and at the intermediately high volume, the incantation-'

"It's the spell… the spell for warding off noxious mendicants and-and-other such people," Grantin suggested in a querulous tone.

"A Traditional Spell to Clear One's House of Demonized Politicians and Other Odious Creatures," Greyhorn announced as he read from the book.

"Well, uncle," Grantin suggested with a weak smile, "that's more or less correct. I can't be expected to memorize the titles of all of these things. As long as I get the spell right, that's what really counts, isn't that so?"

"Bah! One more time, Grantin, one more time that I find you wasting your days instead of working to make yourself worthy of being my nephew and I will evict you from my home. Only my solemn promise to your father has allowed you to stay here this long. As you know, in one month you will be twenty-two and so, in law, my debt will be discharged. Take care that I do not on that day send you out to make your own fortune. No doubt you would end up as little better than a barkscraper or toothbuilder. Heed me, nephew: put this nonsense behind you or else there will be dark days ahead."

With a slap of his hands Greyhorn stomped out of the room like a great black bird of prey. Grantin again looked down at The Magician's Compendium and, remembering some long overdue debts, attempted to read one of the pages. The words seemed to shift beneath his gaze, and by the time he gained the bottom of the page he had forgotten what he had read at the top.

Well, perhaps the fair at Gist two weeks hence would provide a solution to his financial problems. With a thump Grantin closed the Compendium and began to plan how he might return to the library after dinner and finish reading the ancient Ajaj history.