11 - Points of Inquiry

 Julia asks Mr. Elsevier her first formal question. 

Transcript

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It became harder and harder to tell what was real, and then one day nothing was. This is reality's end. Points of inquiry Julia There are no more breaks after we quit the burning house. Our overwhelming imperative is simply to put as much distance between it and ourselves as possible. The first part of the journey isn't so bad. Geraldine, as it turns out, had come down from Petawawa on a snowmobile, and there's room enough on its saddle for all of us, albeit with Mr. Elsevier standing perched on the very back, to literally cover our trail behind us with some kind of magic. The engine is loud, but under the circumstances, this is a bonus. I don't know that any of us are in a mood to talk right now. After a couple of hours, though, the snowmobile runs out of gas, and so we have to resume our journey on snowshoes, or tennis rackets in my case. Elsevir, somewhat to Geraldine's protest, sinks the snowmobile behind us after we've gathered our things from it, unwilling to leave even that small amount of evidence behind. I can feel his anger even as I watch him walk on in front of me. Since we left the mansion he has spoken only enough words to instruct Geraldine on what direction to drive, north, and then to overwhelm her protests by saying North more forcefully. We are presently heading north. I have never before exerted myself continuously over such a sustained period. By the time that the sun starts to decline in the sky, every joint and sinew in my legs feels like it's burning. How many steps have I taken today? If my phone still had any power, I'm sure my app would congratulate me. But my steps are becoming more and more pained, more and more uncertain, and finally I'm unable to take the next without flopping over into the snow. For what feels like several minutes I lie there panting, fighting for the energy to get up, and then I feel Geraldine's arms around me hoisting me up into a standing position. Thanks, I say with a nod. She must be twice my age, but apparently she lives a more active lifestyle. She pulls her scarf down from her nose and mouth. Guess it don't snow much in Vancouver, eh? I shake my head. No, mostly rain. As I speak I wonder whether that's still true. Did the winter queen impose the typical conditions of winter for each climate? Or did she just inflict a deep freeze everywhere? If it's the former, Vancouver is probably doing all right, relatively speaking. If it's the latter, well, I wonder how many of my childhood friends are dead. Probably best if I don't think about it. You'll get the hang of the snowshoes, says Geraldine, shattering my reverie. But you should get yourself some real ones, you look fucking goofy with those tennis rackets. In spite of myself I chuckle under my breath. Duly noted. She smirks at that and we resume walking. Can I ask you something, Julia? Go right ahead. She gestures vaguely at Elsevier's form in the distance. What the fuck business you have with this guy? I sigh and let out a puff of air, trying to figure out how best to put it. He's my sponsor, I guess. Your sponsor, she echoes. Prospectively, I should say. Sponsor for what? Magic, I reply. Nuclear magic, like I assume he did back at that house. And I wasn't lying when I said he could turn things to gold, or at least to barium. Apparently his guild has a position open, if I can impress him. At that point I begin relating the terms of our contract to her. The ten questions, one already wasted, the voyage to Ferry, the consequences if I fail to impress him, especially now that he may kind of sort of technically have saved my life. Through it all, Geraldine listens impassively. Finally, once I've finished, she says So uh this apprenticeship he's dangling out for you, yeah actually done any magic? I pause, remembering my embarrassment back at the shelter as practically everyone else around me learned the art of setting fires with their mind. No, I admit. Hmm. For a moment all that can be heard is the low crackling of the snow beneath our shoes with each step. Then at last she says, I think you been had. I make a soft clicking sound with my tongue and then draw in a breath. I mean, I don't think it's a good deal, but I do think the apprenticeship is real. Oh yeah. He had me at his mercy, I say. He could have taken anything he wanted from me, but he offered me a deal instead. One wonders why. Geraldine shrugs her rounded shoulders. I don't know how magic works. Maybe there's things he can only take if you agree to it. The thought hadn't occurred to me. For an instant I find it troubling, but then no, no, but he can make gold. Surely he could just buy off some other poor sap using trinkets. He doesn't need to go through this charade with me. Maybe everyone else was too fixed on staying alive to give a fuck about trinkets. I detect her implicit rebuke, that my priorities are out of order, but I don't buy her logic. No, I say no, if I were just some mark, he wouldn't have bothered saving me, certainly not at the risk of his life. I think he needs me, specifically. He offered you an apprenticeship in magic without even seeing you do magic, Julia. I pause. That was a point. Well, maybe the selection criterion is something else, I equivocate. Like he knows that I'm a physicist. Maybe my voice trails off. Geraldine stops with a sigh. Look, you know what? Maybe you're right. Maybe he does need you. I don't know. All I know is my son-in-law, Alex. Paul's dad, I recall, the soldier. Yeah, he's a soldier, she says. He also has a bad habit of uh buying into scams, you know, supplements, boner pills, all that shit. I can't say I love that comparison. Well my point is he can't talk him out of it, 'cause once he's bought in, he don't want to be wrong, yeah? He don't want to be the guy who wasted money on uh snake oil. That's called the sunk cost fallacy, I recite from memory. You're saying that's me. Me, I dunno, she replies. All I'm saying is maybe he does need you, but you better make goddamn sure he needs you for what you think he does. We continue on in silence for another hour or so until sunset, when, at last, Mr Elsevir stops in his tracks. As we come up to him, he simply points at a small abandoned boathouse on the frozen river's right bank, and abruptly its main door rolls upwards just as if electricity still existed. We break in for the night? asks Geraldine. Elsevir doesn't bother to answer but instead just walks into the building. I guess so, I mutter. There are no words for just how exhausted I feel, and yet there's still work to be done, wood to be gathered, a fire to be built. At first I'm concerned that Elsevier might object to revealing our position in such a fashion, but he makes no complaint. Maybe he figures that we're far enough away from the scene of the crime that any other knights won't be looking for us here, or maybe he just needs to weigh that concern against the possibility of us freezing to death. In any case, I don't have time to worry about it. There are minutes to spare before the sun finally dips below the horizon, and I don't care to go hunting for kindling in the post shift woods by the light of a four day old moon. Once we get a small bonfire going, Geraldine produces a tin of beans and a hunk of now frozen raccoon meat from her personal stash. Under the circumstances it's the most delicious looking thing I've ever seen. I offer to top it up with some beef jerky I found in my department secretary's desk, but Geraldine shakes her head. Nah, she says. You should save it for that quest of yours. You don't know how far away that portal is. It doesn't matter. We won't be going there after all. My head snaps up in surprise. The words, spoken with an uncharacteristic matter of factness, issue from the mouth of the long silent mister Elsevir, who sits in the lotus position in a darkened corner of the boat house, his eyes lock in upon me. I clear my throat. One wonders why not? Elsevir books at Geraldine. Did you happen to hear anything just now, my dear? A faint and annoying insectile buzzing, perhaps. Geraldine rolls her eyes. Why won't you be going to the portal? she asks on my behalf. Ah, an excellent question, dear Geraldine, he replies, snapping to his feet and sauntering toward us. And the answer is that we will not be going to the portal, because the portal will be in lockdown on this end. And why will the portal be in lockdown? I hear you ask. Well, because your idiot friend, Julia, went and got two servants of the Winter Queen killed through her pathetic inability to make basic inferences. I leap into a standing position, finding a fresh combative energy on the far side of exhaustion. Well, just how the hell am I supposed Julia? Geraldine interrupts. I break off the question just in time. Elsevir smirks. For a long moment I just stand there. Then I limber up my stance a little and crane my head up at the ceiling rafters. I assumed, I say, looking back at him, that you were pretending to be, I don't know, some kind of door-to-door gold maker. Elsevier squeezes his eyes. Why in the name of the spirits of land and sea would I be offering you jewels if I planned to turn them into gold? You offered me my own rations, I retort. I was confused. I thought they were supposed to be fine curiosities from fairy or whatever. Indeed, he replies, hence why I cast the glamour to make them look like jewels. They didn't look like jewels to me, I exclaimed, turning away from him. Not after that knight changed them back. Apparently your glamour wasn't all it's cracked up to be. They looked like jewels to me, pipes up Geraldine after a moment. You stay out of this, snaps Elsevier. Geraldine grunts indifferently. In any case, I say as I round on him, it wouldn't have occurred to me that oar spinning was illegal. Maybe you might have volunteered that information. It seems like it might be kind of useful for, you know, avoiding run-ins with the law. Well, if you hadn't felt the need to rest so often, or maybe, I interject, you might have told me that you were trying to initiate me into some kind of magical crime syndicate when you raised the possibility of an internship. Elsevier crosses his arms over his chest and huffs. I spend a long moment waiting for him to make some kind of retort, but instead a strange smile passes over his face. You have absolutely no idea what an oar spinner is, do you? I roll my eyes. You spin straw into gold and caesium into barium. Yes, I've read your business card, thank you. He issues a single mocking laugh. Okay, then, I reply. One wonders No Elsevier raises a hand. None of that. I keep my gaze fixed on him. He looks expressionlessly back at me. Fine, I sigh at last. What exactly is an oar spinner? He grins and then extends a hand as if inviting me to dance. Let me show you. I hesitate only an instant before accepting. Welcome to the very bottom of the universe. I look around, at first seeing nothing but darkness. Only then do I notice them, small, indistinct shapes appearing and vanishing at random. I strain to extend my hand to one of them, but I can't. There's a crushing weight on all sides, like nothing I felt since my childhood bouts of sleep paralysis. Do you recognize this place? Elsevir's voice booms from nowhere in particular. You may not have been so intimately acquainted with it. With Herculean effort, I manage to lift my left hand in front of my face, where it glows with unearthly light. Its motion appears strangely discontinuous, like bad clamation, moving directly from one position to another without occupying the points between. An instant later I recognize it as discrete. Quantized Elsevier confirms what I already suspect. I believe that the human term for where you are now is atomic nucleus, the very soul of the thing, and it is with souls, dear Julia, that magic concerns itself. The void lights up with a phantasmagoria, not just of images but shapes, smells, colours, concepts, things I don't even have names for. Some almost recognizable, a snatch of music, the texture of a book cover. But there are so many piling up so rapidly that I feel only sensory overload. I long to cover my head with my hands to make it all stop, but the crushing pressure renders that impossible. In the end it's all I can do to pray that it will be over soon. Everything has a soul, Julia, Elsevier's voice comes in over the din. Humans included. The mage's role is to find these souls and make them change. Lesser mages concern themselves with trivial surface level changes. Human to spider, for example. I feel my body rearranging itself as he speaks, and for the briefest of seconds, become conscious of having eight legs and a great many more eyes. I barely have time to register my shock before the feeling passes, reverting me to human, give or take a nigh overwhelming phantom limb sensation across my whole body. The ore spinner, however, wastes not their time with parlor tricks. We are a nobler breed. The Phantasmagoria abruptly ceases, leaving a stillness so absolute that I've only rarely encountered anything like it. And yet I'm not alone, a small figure, a child swathed in black, sits somewhere out there as well, holding still as if deeply meditating. We have a much more subtle sense, Elsevier whispers, coming up behind the child. Like lesser mages, we seek the essence of a thing, but while they content themselves with rearranging the elements of matter, we change the elements themselves, and what this entails is ripping them apart. Suddenly I feel a terrible force pressing around my waist. I crunch my eyes shut in a childish reflex, but neither it nor my attempts to scream do anything to dull the agony of being pinched in half, and then the pain is gone. I open my eyes and find myself looking into my own face from a distance of several meters. The other Julia looks back at me with a confusion mirroring my own. We're merging them together. I, both of us, scream as we are accelerated into collision. For an instant I have two heads and limbs all over the place before I finally resolve into a human form. I cry out, my voice straining against the pressure. Enough! The pressure abates and I collapse onto my knees, gasping for breath. The void is gone, replaced by a lush green plane. Enough! Our ministrations granted us a power far in excess of that of other mages, says Elsevier. In tapping the fundaments of matter, we could unleash primal energies, the merest shadow of which even you mortals are aware of. Power enough to refine our craft still further, to pick at the very threads of reality, power enough to build an empire. Around us spires rise quickly and silently from the ground, a magnificent gleaming city spiraling upwards into the blue sky, a cheering throng stretches off forever into the distance, as Elsevier sets a crown atop the head of an imperious fairy queen, or lay one to waste. The city, as suddenly and as silently as it arose, crumbles into dust, queen and people and all. We stand now on a desolate plain, alone against a blood red sky. Elsevir picks up a handful of ash. Power enough to make enemies. He looks at me and smiles faintly. Too many enemies, without and within. They spurned us, they turned against us, in their envy they hunted us, and now, now we hide from them, a proud and noble and ancient order of magicians, reduced to criminals and recluses and refugees. He lets the ash slip from his hand, forming a long dusty plume against the sky. I rise to my feet, trying to decide whether I should feel sorry for him. You asked what exactly an oar spinner is, dear Julia, Elsevier says. And it is this a magician of refined sensitivity, a master of unfathomable power, a creature, even so of the margins. But above all I suddenly find myself directly in front of him, the distance between us disappearing. An oar spinner is someone who can turn things into gold. Like so. I feel a faint tap against the back of my hand, and then nothing at all. There is numbness, yes, but beyond that, a horrid tingling sensation, climbing like an army of ants up my arm. I'm just in time to see my shoulder turn to gold when the infection spreads to my torso. My lungs have become a rigid mass before I even get a chance to scream. Adam by Adam, Mr. Elsevier says softly, eyes fixed mercilessly on my own. Carbon to gold. Thus the oar spinner plies his trade. He keeps speaking, but I can no longer hear him. My eardrums having turned to metal. My sight goes in similar fashion. It must be in my brain now I try to I try to I And now you know what an oar spinner is. I can hear again, I can see, I can feel, I can think. I find myself curled up into the fetal position, my face pressed against the planks of the boathouse dock. I blink up at Geraldine. What did you do to her? she demands. Answered her question, he replies. He leans toward me. Two down, eight to go. You have been listening to a serialized audio adaptation of the novel Reality's End, a Theory of Magic, Book One, by JP Babb as narrated by JP Babb. The novel is available from Otter and Osprey Press and can be purchased in trade paperback on Amazon or as an electronic copy wherever ebooks are sold. The podcast, Reality's End, A Theory of Magic Book One, is licensed under copyright by JP Babb. Special thanks to Alex Kachan for composing our theme music, an epic arrangement of the Quebec Waff folk song La Le Bon Bon, Sarah Clark for her services as a sensitivity reader, and berserka design for the cover. You can support me on Patreon at patreon.com slash JP Babb for early access to new episodes, bonus commentary, and material from the unpublished sequel.