A Life Less Ordinary (13 page)

The bookstall was as brightly lit as ever, with the usual handful of would-be magic users inspecting the shelves and trying to pretend that the more interesting volumes were within their price range. Master Revels had told me that there were too many young magicians who believed that they could use the cheap books to gain an understanding of magic and then move onto the more advanced material without reading the books. If they were lucky, nothing happened; if they were unlucky, they killed themselves and anyone else in the general vicinity. Magic was not a very forgiving field of education.

“Dizzy,” a voice said. It dripped liquid sex. Despite myself, I felt my knees go weak as I turned around to see Cardonel standing there. He looked glamorous – in all senses of the word. “I was afraid that you would not come.”

I smiled, pulling myself back together. “I would not miss my first night on the town,” I said, as grandly as I could. His smile could have competed with the sun. “I’m afraid that I am going to have to ask you to swear for me.”

Cardonel didn’t look abashed. Master Revels had insisted – as a condition of letting me go on the date, where I would be out of his sight – that I made Cardonel swear not to harm me. The Elves respected nothing human, but their names were woven into their very souls – if Elves had souls, although I understood that the jury was still out on that. Cardonel, as a half-elf, would be bound by the same rules as his father.

“Of course,” he said. I’d been afraid that he would be offended. Any reasonable boy would be offended if the girl had asked him, prior to the date, to promise not to harm or rape her during their time together. Even if he had no bad intentions, it would still be insulting. “How would you like me to swear?” He winked. “I know damn, blast, fuck...”

I laughed, but I refused to be distracted. “Swear, upon your name, that you will not harm me on our date,” I said. Elves, I had been warned, were tricky. The wider the oath, the easier it would be for one of them to find a loophole. And then, of course, they could refuse to swear at all. “Please do that for me.”

Cardonel gave me a look of guarded respect. “I swear, upon my name, that I will not harm you on our first date,” he said. I snorted. I’d have to make him swear again on the second date and every date after that – if there was a second date. The jury was still out on that too. “I trust that that will please your master?”

“It pleased me,” I said, with a coy smile. “Where are we going for our date?”

Cardonel took my hand and led me out of the market, down towards a series of paths I hadn’t seen before. The dimensions of the magical world were themselves magical, twisting and turning at the whim of a magician, or fate itself. We should all have been crammed into the old town, yet the magical world was a dimension unto itself. I had been told that once I comprehended how the magic itself shaped the inner dimensions I would be ready to learn how to teleport, an art that few magicians had mastered. Quite a number, Master Revels had told me, had died trying to master it. Their remains had been preserved as a warning to anyone else intent on trying to learn the dangerous and subtle magic that went into a teleport spell.

We stopped outside an old oak door and Cardonel knocked, twice. A moment later, an unseen force opened the door, revealing a dance floor and a band of alien creatures playing on the stage. The music was old, a strange mixture of Scottish and Irish dance tunes, but it wasn’t that that held my attention. The players were...weird. They were wrapped in glamour-spells, yet I could see through them and I had no idea what they were.

Cardonel grinned at me as he pulled me through the crowd towards the tables at the far end of the room. The room itself seemed to be bigger on the inside than on the outside, with what looked like thousands of people drinking and enjoying themselves. The dull buzz of chatter was drowned out by the music, to which young couples were throwing themselves around on the dance floor. I tried to understand, at first, the steps of the dance before I realised that there were no rules. The dancers were dancing as they saw fit and, somehow, it all blurred together.

Many of the dancers were human, but some were quite clearly inhuman. I saw a pair of centaurs dancing past – the female of the couple topless, allowing her breasts to bounce in the air as she moved – followed by a yeti stumbling through the steps, partnered with a young Chinese-looking boy. A woman who looked old enough to be my great grandmother sat in the middle of the room, knitting industriously on a pair of knitting needles and ignoring the dancers dancing past her. In one corner of the room, a man wearing armour, a winged helmet and carrying a massive hammer was chatting to another armoured man, whose head was hidden in shadow, concealing everything but two red eyes. A pair of dwarfs shuffled past, each one carrying a heavy axe on their shoulders and eyeing the hammer-carrying man with cold, calculating eyes.

“I’d like you to meet some friends of mine,” Cardonel said, as we reached a table. He waved a hand at a small group of young humans; at least, they all
looked
human. “Dizzy, this is Linux” – a short spotty boy who would have been attractive if he took more exercise – “Sparks” – a blonde-haired girl with a wry smile and an attitude that suggested trouble and strife – “and Robin.”

I gave Robin a puzzled look. Her features were indistinct, as if they were permanently blurred, yet I could see no trace of a glamour-spell hiding her face. It was odd; I knew that someone could slip a glamour-spell past me, but normally a glamour-spell concealed or deceived. Spotting a glamour-spell was halfway towards breaking it outright.

“There was an accident,” Robin said. Her voice was dull and atonal. “My master sold my appearance to the Queen of the Fair Folk. I am cursed to remain unseen until they sell it back to me, if they ever do.”

I shivered, for there was nothing human in her voice. The Fair Folk was a very old term for the Elves. The Elves demanded respect from those they saw as inferior to them and wouldn’t hesitate to punish anyone they thought had been rude to them or about them. Back in the olden days, before the Elves had been pushed into the magical world, they had heard whenever their name was spoken. If Robin had lost her face and voice, the chances were that she would never get it back. The Elves would enjoy her torment too much.

The other two were more normal, I was relieved to discover. Linux belonged to the Rationalists, the group that tried to find a unified theory of science and sorcery. Master Revels had commented, back when we’d visited them a few days ago, that the Rationalists were doomed to failure because science failed to understand that some of the forces underpinning the universe – even the mundane world – were
people
. Sorcery, on the other hand, accepted that and worked towards placating and recruiting the personalised forces, but few scientists were prepared to accept that the laws of science could change at a Being of Power’s whim. Those that did were generally laughed at by their fellows.

Sparks, on the other hand, was an apprentice magician like me. She explained, in-between teasing Linux mercilessly, that she’d worked in a herbal and medical shop where the owner had sold magical remedies for everything from the common cold to AIDS. Sparks had grown interested when the cures had been proven to
work
and had started to ask questions. She had finally asked one question too many and so the store’s owner had shown her the magical world and offered her a chance to start a new career. Working as a brewer of magical potions, she explained, was far more fascinating than accounting – and besides, she had never been able to find a job since graduating.

“Working for her isn’t too bad now that I finally got the hang of it,” she said, when the boys had gone off to buy drinks. “The Mistress used to strap me every time I made a mistake – she’d go on and on about how many people could have been killed if they’d drunk a poorly made potion – but now I’m working towards my freedom. I haven’t yet decided if I am going to continue working for her or start up my own business.”

The next hour went very well, I was pleasantly surprised to discover. The three apprentices were good company, although I did keep glancing at Robin’s forehead and wincing inwardly. Cardonel was the perfect gentleman, keeping the conversation going and occasionally offering a pointed comment on how the older generation of magicians kept the younger generation down. Robin’s master, he added, being a case in point. He’d used her as a bargaining chip with the Elves.

I leaned back and caught sight of a fat nerdy man sitting on his own at a table, a thin superior smile covering his face. When I asked Cardonel who he was, the half-elf looked blank, but Linux had the answer and explained that the man was the founder of a web forum that had somehow extended itself into the magical world and taken on a life of its own. Somehow, in the process, it had granted its founder considerable wealth and power, ensuring that he would have a place and a reputation that would awe most challengers. I found myself shaking my head in amusement. The magical world never seemed to stop surprising me.

A few minutes later, Cardonel convinced me to come out onto the dance floor. I was nervous at first, but after several turns around the dance floor I felt surprisingly relaxed and confident about the whole thing. The music seemed to push us forward, directing the dance; I found myself wondering if the music was being played by the musicians or if the music was playing
them
. The more we danced, the more we seemed to be dancing in tune. Cardonel bent down to kiss me, during a sudden shift into a romantic tune, and I let him. His kiss sent another tingle down my spine as the music came to a stop and we stumbled back towards the table.

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” a voice announced. I looked around to see a man standing on the stage – the magicians had vanished, leaving me to wonder if they had ever been there at all – illuminated under a bright globe of light. “For your delight, I have purchased the finest slaves from the market.” I felt a chill running down my spine as the crowd cheered loudly, waving glasses of beer and other liquids in the air. “Now remember, all of the normal rules apply; no ordering them off the stage. Anyone who breaks the rule will be evicted from the club and barred for life.”

He nodded towards the rear of the room, towards the oak doors. There were four men standing there, wearing white shirts that displayed their improbably large muscles. Master Revels had told me that some men used magic to enhance themselves physically, but it was the first time I had ever seen anything of the sort. They looked like comic book heroes come to life, men with muscles on their muscles. It wasn’t a glamour-spell either, I realised; those muscles were real. It was a miracle that they could walk without toppling over.

The lights grew brighter as a drum roll echoed through the room, announcing the arrival of twelve men and women. I felt a sudden wave of nausea as I recognised some of the slaves I’d seen back at the market, an entire family that had somehow been sold into slavery. There were no children in the group, thank all the Powers That Are, but there were six teenage girls, two teenage boys and their parents. They all wore slave collars and had the same damned and hopeless expression on their faces. The crowd was cheering now, stamping their feet and demanding that the show begin at once. The speaker, who was clearly trying to milk every last piece of attention from the display, finally gave in and barked an order to the slaves. Against their wills, their faces revealing their silent struggle against the orders they had been given, they started to undress.

I had to struggle to hold down a sudden urge to be sick. The crowd didn’t seem to notice – or care about – my torment. They greeted every removed piece of clothing with a loud cheer and a hail of obscene suggestions. I watched in mute horror as the teenage girls were ordered forward, once they had removed their clothes, and ordered to perform a sexual dance. The crowd didn’t care about the tears rolling down their cheeks. They cheered and laughed at every motion, calling out suggestions...suggestions that the helpless girls obeyed. At a command from the manager, the boys stumbled forward to join the dance while their parents were pushed into...I couldn’t watch. I stumbled backwards and started to make my way out of the room. I no longer cared what anyone thought of me. I wasn’t going to watch.

Cardonel came after me. “Dizzy?” he asked, in genuine puzzlement. “What’s wrong?”

I ignored him until we were in one of the backrooms and sure of some privacy. “That’s sick,” I said, finally giving in to the urge to be sick. Cardonel looked away as I threw everything I’d eaten up in a tidal wave of vomit. The experience crystallised my determination. “We’re going to free the slaves.”

Chapter Twelve

Cardonel stared at me. “Are you out of your mind?”

I had to smile, despite the churning deep inside. It was the most human reaction I’d seen from him. “We’re going to liberate them,” I said, firmly. I didn’t know, really, if it was the right thing to do…no, I knew that it was the
right
thing to do, but I wasn’t sure if it was the
legal
thing to do. Of course, as far as I could tell, the general rule in the magical world was
might makes right
. If we did it, and got away with it, no one would give a damn about it. “Where are they kept after the show?”

Cardonel looked astonished, and then grinned, even though I had found a basin and was washing myself clean. I was glad that I hadn’t eaten too much before the dancing. It would all have come pouring out of me. The half-elf didn’t look away, nor did he look disgusted with me, for which I mentally awarded him extra points. There are boys who would have fled a girl, no matter how pretty or sexy or desirable, if they saw her throw up in front of them. I won’t even talk about the temporary deafness that overcomes most boys when any talk of women’s issues is raised. Or perhaps the Elves were perverted enough to find it funny. After looking at Robin’s face, I was prepared to believe anything of them.

“They will be kept in the basement, of course,” Cardonel said, finally. He looked as if he had decided to grasp a very unpleasant nettle. “You do realise that it won’t be remotely easy to break them out? You’ll have to break the very complex magical spells binding them to slavery and then…”