Magician (72 page)

That night he dreamed.

A strange man in a brown robe, tied
with a whipcord belt, walked along the roadway. The man in brown
turned and said, “Hurry up. We don’t have much time, and
you can’t fall behind.”

He tried to move faster but found his
feet were lead and his arms tied to his sides. The man in brown
halted his brisk walk and said, “Very well, then. One thing at
a time.”

He tried to speak and found his mouth
refused to move. The man in brown stroked his beard thoughtfully,
then said, “Consider this: you are the architect of your own
imprisonment.”

He looked down and saw that his bare
feet were upon a dusty road. He looked up, and the man in brown was
again walking briskly away. He tried to follow and again couldn’t
move. He awoke in a cold sweat.

Again he had been asked where his place
was, and again his answer,—
Where I am needed
—was
unsatisfactory. He toiled over another pointless task, driving nails
into a thick sheet of wool, which let them fall through to the floor,
where he picked them up and drove them through again.

His reconsideration of the last
question he had been asked was interrupted when the door behind him
opened, and his guide motioned for him to follow. They moved through
long passages, winding their way up to the level where they would eat
the scant morning meal.

When they entered the hall, the guide
took a place by the door, while others in black robes similarly
escorted the white-clad ones into the hall. This was the day that the
young man’s guide would stand and watch the boys in white, who,
along with the young man, were bound to eat in silence. Each day a
different wearer of the black robe filled this function.

The young man ate and considered the
last question of the morning. He weighed each possible answer,
seeking out possible flaws, and as they were discovered, discarding
them. Abruptly one answer came unbidden to his mind, an intuitive
leap, as his subconscious provided him with a solution to the
question.
I
am the architect of my own imprisonment. Several
times in the past, when particularly knotty problems had stopped his
progress, this had occurred, which accounted for his rapid
advancement in his lessons. He weighed the possible flaws in this
answer, and when he was certain he was correct, he stood. Other eyes
regarded him furtively, for this was a violation of the rules.

He went over to stand before his guide,
who regarded his approach with a controlled expression, his only sign
of curiosity being a slight arching of his brows.

Without preamble the young man in white
said, “This is no longer my place.”

The man in black showed no emotion, but
placed a hand on the young man’s shoulder and nodded slightly.
He reached inside his robe and removed a small bell, which he rang
once. Another black-robed individual appeared moments later. Without
word the newcomer took the place at the door, as the guide motioned
for the young man to follow him.

They walked in silence as they had done
many times before, until they came to a room. The man in black turned
to the young man and said, “Open the door.”

The young man started to reach for the
door, then with a flash of insight pulled his hand away. Knitting his
brow in concentration, he opened the door by the power of his mind.
Slowly it swung inward. The man in black turned and smiled. “Good,”
he said, in a soft, pleasant voice.

They entered a room with many white,
grey, and black robes hanging upon hooks. The man in black said,
“Change to a grey robe.”

The young man did so quickly and faced
the other man. The man in black studied the new wearer of the grey.
“You are no longer bound to silence. Any question you may have
will be answered, as well as is possible, though there are still
things that will be waited upon, until you don the black. Then you
will fully understand. Come.”

The young man in grey followed his
guide to another room, where cushions surrounded a low table, upon
which rested a pot of hot chocha, a pungent, bittersweet drink. The
man in black poured two cups and handed one to the young man,
indicating he should sit. They both sat, and the young man said, “Who
am I?”

The man in black shrugged. “You
will have to decide that, for only you can glean your true name. It
is a name that must never be spoken to others, lest they gain power
over you. Henceforward you will be called Milamber.”

The newly named Milamber thought for a
moment, then said, “It will serve What are you called?”

“I am called Shimone.”

“Who are you?”

“Your guide, your teacher. Now
you will have others, but it was given to me to be responsible for
the first part of your training, the longest part.”

“How long have I been here?”

“Nearly four years.”

Milamber was surprised by this, for his
memory stretched back only a little, several months at best. “When
will my memories be returned to me?”

Shimone smiled, for he was pleased that
Milamber had not asked if they would be returned, and said as much.
“Your mind will call up your past life as you progress in the
balance of your training, slowly at first, with more rapidity later.
There is a reason for this. You must be able to withstand the lure of
former ties, of family and nations, of friends and home. In your case
that is particularly vital.”

“Why is that?”

“When your past returns to you,
you will understand,” was all Shimone said, a smile on his face
His hawkish features and dark eyes were set in an expression that
communicated the feeling this was the end of that topic.

Milamber thought of several questions,
quickly discarding them as of less immediate consequence. Finally he
asked, “What would have happened if I had opened the door by
hand?”

“You would have died.”
Shimone said this flatly, without emotion.

Milamber was not surprised or shocked,
he simply accepted it. “To what end?”

Shimone was a little surprised by the
question and showed it. “We cannot rule each other, all we can
do is ensure that each new magician is able to discharge the
responsibility attendant upon his actions. You made the judgment that
your place was no longer with those who wore the white, the novices.
If that was not your place, then you would have to demonstrate your
ability to deal with the responsibilities of this change. The bright
but foolish ones often die at this stage.”

Milamber considered this and
acknowledged the propriety of such a test. “How long will my
training continue?”

Shimone made a noncommittal gesture.
“As long as it takes. You rise rapidly, however, so I think it
will not be too much longer in your case. You have certain natural
gifts, and—you will understand this when your memory returns—a
certain advantage over the other, younger, students who started with
you.”

Milamber studied the contents of his
cup. In the thin, dark fluid he seemed to glimpse a single word, as
if seen from the corner of the eye, that vanished when he tried to
focus upon it. He couldn’t hang on to it, but it had been a
short name, a simple name.

That night he dreamed again.

The man in brown walked along the road,
and this time Milamber could follow. “You see, there are few
objective limits. What they teach you is useful, but never accept the
proposition that just because a solution satisfies a problem, that it
must be the only solution.”

The man in brown stopped. “Look
at this,” he said, pointing to a flower beside the road
Milamber leaned down to see what the man was pointing at. A small
spider spun a web between two leaves. “That creature,”
said the man in brown, “toils oblivious to our passing. Either
of us could crush out its existence at whim. Consider this, then, if
that creature could somehow apprehend our existence, our threat to
its life, would the spider worship us?”

“I don’t know,”
Milamber answered “I don’t know how a spider thinks.”

The man in brown leaned upon his staff.
“Considering how little humans think alike, it might be that
this spider would react with fear, defiance, indifference, fatalism,
or incredulity. Anything’s possible.” He reached out with
his staff and gently caught a piece of spider silk on the wooden
pole. Lifting the tiny arachnid, he transported it over to the
opposite side of the road. “Do you think the creature knows
that this is a different flower?”

“I don’t know.”

The man in brown smiled. “That is
perhaps the wisest of all answers.”

Returning to his walk, he said, “You
will be seeing many things soon, some of which will make little sense
to you. When you do, remember one thing.”

“What is that?” asked
Milamber.

“Things are not always what they
seem. Remember the spider, who at this very moment may be offering
prayers to me in thanks for its sudden bounty.” Pointing back
with the staff at the plant, he said, “There are a great many
more bugs on that one than the other.” Scratching at his beard
he added, “I wonder: is the flower also offering prayers of
thanks?”

He spent weeks in the company of
Shimone and a few others. He knew more of his life, though only a
fragment of what was missing. He had been a slave, and he had been
discovered to have the power. He remembered a woman, and felt a faint
tugging at the thought of her vaguely remembered image.

He was quick to learn. Each lesson was
accomplished in a single day, or at most two. He would quickly
dissect each problem given, and when it was time to discuss it with
his teachers, his questions were to the point, well thought out, and
proper.

One day he arose, in a newer but still
simple cell, and emerged to find Shimone waiting for him. The
black-robed magician said, “From this point on, you may not
speak until you have finished the task set for you.”

Milamber nodded his understanding and
followed his guide down the hall. The older magician led him through
a series of long tunnels to a place in the building he had never been
before. They mounted a long staircase, rising many stories above
where they had started. Upward they climbed, until Shimone opened a
door for him. Milamber preceded Shimone through the door and found
himself upon an open flat roof, atop a high tower. From the center of
the roof a single spire of stone rose. Skyward it shot, a needle of
fashioned rock. Winding upward around it was a narrow stairway,
carved into the side of the needle. Milamber’s eyes followed it
until the top was lost in the clouds. He found the sight fascinating,
for it seemed to violate several canons of physical law that he had
studied. Still, it stood before him, and what was more, his guide was
indicating that he should mount the steps.

He started upward. As he completed his
first circumnavigation, he noted that Shimone had disappeared through
the wooden door. Relieved of his presence, Milamber turned his gaze
outward from the roof, drinking in the vista around him.

He was atop the highest tower of an
immense city of towers. Everywhere he looked, hundreds of stone
fingers pointed upward, strong structures with windows turning blind
eyes outward. Some were open to the sky, as this one was; others were
roofed in stone, or in shimmering lights. But of them all, this one
alone was topped by a thin spire. Below the hundreds of towers,
bridges arched through the sky, connecting them, and farther down
could be seen the bulk of the single, incredible building that
supported all he saw. It was a monster of construction. Sprawling
below him, it stretched away for miles in every direction. He had
known it would be a large place, from his travels within, but this
knowledge did nothing to lessen his awe at the sight.

Still farther down, in the dim extreme
of his vision, he could see the faint green of grass, a thin border
edging the dark bulk of the building. On all sides he saw water, the
once-glimpsed lake. In the distance he could make out the hazy
suggestion of mountains, but unless he strained to see them, it was
as if the entire world were arrayed below.

Plodding upward, he turned around the
spire as he climbed. Each circle brought him a new detail of the
vista. A single bird wheeled high above all else, ignorant of the
affairs of men, its scarlet wings spread to catch the air as it
watched with keen eye the lake below. Seeing a telltale flicker on
the water, it folded back its wings and stooped, hitting the surface
for the briefest moment before it climbed aloft once more, a flopping
prize clutched in its talons. With a cry of victory it circled once,
then sped westward.

A turn. A play of winds. Each carried
suggestions of far and alien lands From the south a gust with a hint
of hot jungles where slaves toiled to reclaim farmlands from deadly,
water-shrouded marshes. From the east a breeze carried the victory
chant of a dozen warriors of the Thuril Confederation, after
defeating an equal number of Empire soldiers in a border clash. In
counterpoint there was a faint echo of a dying Tsurani soldier,
crying for his family. From the north came the smell of ice and the
sound of the hooves of thousands of Thün pounding over the
frozen tundra, heading south for warmer lands. From the west, the
laughter of the young wife of a powerful noble teasing a
half-terrified, half-aroused household guard into betraying her
husband, away conducting business with a merchant in Tusan to the
south. From the east, the smell of spices as merchants haggled in the
market square in far Yankora. Again south, and the smell of salt from
the Sea of Blood. North, and windswept ice fields that had never
known the tread of human feet, but over which beings old and wise in
ways unknown to men walked, seeking a sign in the heavens—one
that never came. Each breeze brought a note and tone, a color and
hue, a taste and fragrance. The texture of the world blew by, and he
breathed deeply, savoring it.