The furniture store is all high-end
antiques, with enough alarms and security to make banks reconsider
their own security systems. It does not matter to me: I am a
magician, the oldest one in all the world, and I walk through a world
that feels almost wholly false to my reality. Other magicians are
real, and few things realer than that. What magic I hold has long
since fallen inside me, become a fulcrum and balance both. I can no
longer tell where it ends and I begin: I have not known this for some
time. All other magicians spread their magic into the world; I can no
longer do this. And yet I persist, for reasons so old even I do not
know most of them.
I was the first wandering magician, so
very long ago. I am not sure I had a human form then, but that could
be fancy more than truth. I pay attention to those who wander even
now, trying to see if any others will become what I am. How they will
avoid it. If they can do so. The wandering magician of this era has
wandered for ten years. I am not sure he can stop, even if he wants
to. But he has allies, friends. Companions, which is rare for any
magician to acquire. Magic demands much and leaves room for little
else in its wake.
He has stepped through a mirror in the
store, moved beyond the world and into the places that dwell behind
mirrors. Because creatures from Outside the universe that seek
entrance to our worlds do not always use simple means, do not always
hide in places where it is easy to find them. The mirror he used is
unremarkable to look at, but so is the boy who sits cross-legged in
front of it sucking on his right thumb.
He is pale and thin, and passes for
younger than ten when sucking on his thumb. Even to my eyes, to my
magic, to everything I am, he is human. I know he is not, and from
far Outside the universe, but Jay hides his nature with a skill that
worries even me. Not being noticed by security guards or alarms is a
minor thing for him. He sits, studies the mirror, and waits for the
magician to return. They are bound together by promises and magic,
but I have never seen him sucking his thumb like a small child would.
And so I wonder. And so I act.
“Boy.” Jay turns, blinks and stares
up at me. If he is surprised at my being here it doesn’t show at
all. “I see you are afraid.”
He follows my gesture and starts,
pulling his thumb from his mouth and just glares up at me. “Not of
you, Mary-Lee,” he snaps, sharp and defiant.
“You think you could stop me from
breaking this mirror?”
The boy stands, faster than anything
human can move. “He’d thtill return and find me,” he says
firmly.
“Because you are bound together, yes.
You think it is beyond my power to hide that?”
Jay grins, and the grin is huge and
happy. “I can hide any bindingth,” he says proudly. “And he
would thtill find me becauthe we are friendth!”
“Such faith, and in a magician at
that. And yet your body betrays you.”
The boy just stares at me blankly.
“You were afraid.”
“I’m alwayth afraid,” Jay says,
stating it as a simple fact. “And I’m thcared he might be hurt or
take a long time to make it back because he hath before and I don’t
know how to go help him if he ith
hurt and that’th all. Tho you can go away now.”
I pause. The boy –
creature – does not move. “You seem more comfortable with your
lisp when when last we met.”
He
flushes a little but doesn’t move. “And
you haven’t changed at all.”
“How clever of
you to notice that.”
He just grins proudly, my sarcasm
missing him entirely.
“And if I break this mirror?”
Jay’s grin vanishes. “I’d try and
thtop you,” he says, and there is nothing not serious in his voice.
“And we’d fight and people would notithe
me and I don’t want that and you don’t need to to thith.
Pleathe?”
I pretend to
consider options and his thumb slips back into his mouth. Jay sucks
on it nervously, waiting. And there is nothing beyond it but that: a
nervous habit, no doubt something the magician has caused.
I reach out and
pull his thumb free, the boy flushing bright with shame despite
trying not to. “I have no desire to fight a child who sucks their
thumb.”
“Tho go away,”
he snaps, yanking his hand free and shoving his thumb defiantly back
into his mouth.
“The wandering
magician did this to you. Damaged you.” Nothing, but the boy goes
still a moment. “Do you not wonder what damage may happen next if
he draws on your potential again?”
“Yeth, but I
trutht him,” Jay says, and there is no faith to his words but hard
certainty I am not sure even the magician could break if he wanted
to.
“So
you do.” And the game seems small next to his desperate bravery, to
his willingness to fight me and be noticed no matter what it might
cost him. I nod, and turn, and walk away, leaving him to sit back
down and wait.
No one
has waited for me in a long time. Not
in the way the boy waits.
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