Niven, Larry - Magic Goes 1 - The Magic Goes Away.pdf - Larry Niven - przemosta

THE MAGIC GOES AWAY

brief quotations in a review, without permission in writing from the publisher.

All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

An ACE Book Cover art by Boris

First trade printing: October 1978

First mass market printing: October 1979

Second mass market printing: November 1979

46809753 Manufactured in the United States of America

THE MAGIC GOES AWAY

The waves washed him ashore aboard a section of the wooden roof from an Atlantean winery. He was half dead, and

mad. There was a corpse on the makeshift raft with him, a centaur girl, three days dead of no obvious cause.

The fisherfolk were awed. They knew the workmanship of the winery roof, and they knew that the stranger must

have survived the greatest disaster in human history. Perhaps they considered him a good luck charm.

He was lucky. The fisherfolk did not steal the golden arm bands he wore. They fed him by hand until he could feed

himself. When he grew strong they put him to work. He could not or would not speak, but he could follow orders. He

was a big man. When his weight came back he could lift as much as any two fishermen.

By day he worked like a golem, tirelessly: they had to remember to tell him when to stop. By night he would pull his

broken sword from its scabbard — the blade was broken to within two thumbs of the hilt — and turn it in his hands

as if studying it.

He stayed in the bachelors' longhouse. Women who approached him found him unresponsive. They attributed it to

his sickness.

Four months after his arrival he spoke his first words.

The boy Hatchap was moving down the line of sleeping bachelors, waking them for the day's fishing. He found the

stranger staring at the ceiling in grief and anguish. "Like magic. Like magic," he mumbled — in Greek. Suddenly he

smiled, for the first time Hatchap could remember. "Magician," he said.

That night, after the boats were in, he went to the oldest man in the village and said, "I have to talk to a magician."

8 THE MAGIC GOES AWAY

Prissthil and the village called Warlock's Cave were six hundred miles apart. Once the Warlock would have flown

the distance in a single night. Even today, they might have taken riding dragons, intelligent allies ... and in one or

another region where too much use of magic had leeched mana from the earth, they might have left dragon bones to

merge with the rocks. Dragon metabolism was partly magical.

It annoyed the Warlock to be leaving Warlock's Cave on muleback; but he and Clubfoot considered this prudent.

It was worse than they had thought. The mana-rich places they expected to cross by magic, were not there. Three of

their mules died in the desert when Clubfoot ran out of the ability to make rain.

The situation was just this desperate: Clubfoot and the Warlock, two of the most powerful magicians left in the

world, came to the conference at Prissthil on foot, leading a pack mule.

Clubfoot was an American, with red skin and straight black hair and an arched beak of a nose. His ancestors had fled

an Asian infestation of vampires, had crossed the sea by magic in the company of a tribe of the wolf people. He

limped because of a handicap he might have cured decades ago, except that it would have cost him half his power.

And the Warlock limped because of his age.

Limping, they came to the crest of a hill overlooking Prissthil.

It was late afternoon. Already the tremendous shadow of Mount Valhalla, last home of a quarrelsome pantheon of

gods now gone mythical, sprawled eastward across Prissthil. The village had grown since the Warlock had last seen

it, one hundred and ten years ago. The newer houses were lower, sturdier... held up not by spells spoken over a

cornerstone, but by

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their own strength.

"Prissthil was founded on magic," the Warlock said half to himself.

Clubfoot heard. "Was it?"

The Warlock pointed to a dish-shaped depression north of the city wall. "That crater is old, but you can still see the

shape of it, can't you? That's Fistfall. This village started as a trading center for talismans: fragments of the boulder

of starstone that made that crater. The merchants ran out of starstone long ago, but the village keeps growing. Don't

you wonder how?"

Clubfoot shrugged. "They must be trading something else."

"Look, Clubfoot, there are guards under Lion! Lion used to be all the guard Prissthil needed!"

"What are you talking about? The big stone statue?"

The Warlock looked at him oddly. "Yes. Yes, the big stone statue."

Winds off the desert had etched away the fine details, but the stone statue was still a work of art. Half human, half

big gentle guard dog, it squatted on its haunches before the gate, looking endlessly patient. Guards leaned against its

forepaws. They straightened and hailed the magicians as they came within shouting distance.

"Ho, travelers! What would you in Prissthil?"

Clubfoot cried, "We intend Prissthil's salvation, and the world's!"

"Oh, magicians! Well, you're welcome." The head guard grinned. He was a burly, earthy man in armor dented by

war. "Though I don't trust your salvation. What have you come to do for us? Make more starstone?"

Clubfoot turned huffy. "It was for no trivial purpose that we traveled six hundred miles."

"Your pardon, but my grandfather used to fly half

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around the world to attend a banquet," said the head guard. "Poor old man. None of his spells worked, there at the

end. He kept going over and over the same rejuvenation spell until he died. Wanted to train me for magic too. I had

more sense."

A grating voice said, "Waaarrl... lock."

The blood drained from the head guard's face. Slowly he turned. The other guard was backing toward the gate.

The statue's rough-carved stone face, a dog's face with a scholar's thoughtful look, stared down at the magicians. "I

know you," said the rusty, almost subsonic voice. "Waarrllock. You made me."

"Lion!" the Warlock cried joyfully. "I thought you must be dead!"

"Almost. I sleep for years, for tens of years. Sometimes I wake for a few hours. The life goes out of me," said the

statue. "I wish it were not so. How can I do my duty? One day an enemy will slip past me, into the city."

"We'll see if we can do something about that."

"I wish you luck."

Clubfoot spoke confidently. "The best brains in the world are gathering here. How can we fail?"

"You're young," said Lion.

They passed on. Behind them the statue froze in place.

It was luck for Orolandes that Prissthil was no farther. Else he would have died on the way. He made for a place he

knew only by name, stopping sometimes to ask directions, or to ask for work and food. He was gaunt again by the

time he reached Prissthil.

He circled a wide, barren dish-shaped depression. It was too circular, too regular; it smacked uneasily of sorcery.

There was a great stone statue before the city gate, and guards who straightened as he came up.

"We have little need for swordsmen here," one greeted him.

"I want to talk to a magician," said Orolandes.

"You're in luck." The guard looked over his shoulder, quickly, nervously; then turned back fast, as if hoping the

swordsman wouldn't notice. "Two magicians came today. But what if they don't want to talk to you?"

"I have to talk to a magician," Orolandes said stubbornly. His hand hung near his sword hilt. He was big, and scarred,

and armed. Perhaps he was no longer an obvious madman, but the ghost of some recent horror was plain in his face.

The guard forebore to push the matter. The stranger was no pauper; his gold arm band was a form of money. "If

you're rude to a magician, you'll get what you deserve. Welcome to Prissthil. Go on in."

THE WARLOCK II

The inn the Warlock loved best was gone, replaced by a leather worker's shop. They sought another.

At the Inn of the Mating Phoenixes they saw their mule stabled, then moved baggage to their rooms. Clubfoot

flopped on the feather mattress. The Warlock dug in a saddlebag. He pulled out spare clothing, then a copper disk

with markings around the rim. He moved to set it aside; then, still holding it, he seemed to drift off into reverie.

Hundreds of years ago, and far east of Prissthil, there had been a proud and powerful magician. He was barely past

his brilliant apprenticeship; but he had the temerity to forbid the waging of war throughout the Fertile Crescent, and

the power to make it stick. He consistently hired himself out to battle whichever nation he considered the aggressor.

Oh, his magic had been big and showy in those days! Floating castles, armies destroyed by lightning, phantom cities

built and destroyed in a night. In his pride he nicknamed himself Warlock. Had he known that his nickname would

become a generic term for magicians, he would not have shown surprise.

But over the decades his spells stopped working. It happened to all magicians. He moved away, and his power

returned, to some extent... then gradually dwindled, until he moved again.

It happened to nations too. Bound together by its own gods and traditions and laws and trade networks, a nation like

Acheron might come to seem as old and stable as the mountains themselves ... until treaties sealed by oaths and

magic lost their power... until barbarians with swords come swarming over the borders. All knew that it was so. But

the Warlock was the first to learn why, via an experiment he performed with an enchanted copper disk.

THE MAGIC GOES AWAY

If he kept his discovery secret through succeeding decades, his motive was compassion. His terrible truth spelled the

end of civilization, yet it was of no earthly use to anyone. Fifty years ago his secret had finally escaped him, for good

or evil; it was hard to know which.

"Never mind that," said Clubfoot. "Let's get dinner."

The Warlock shook himself. "Shortly," he said. He set the Wheel aside and reached again into the saddlebag.

Clubfoot snorted. He gathered up spilled clothing and began hanging it.

The Warlock set a wooden box on the table. Inside, within soft fox skins, was a human skull. The Warlock handled it

carefully. One hinge of its jaw was broken, and there were tooth marks on the jaw and cheekbones and around both

earholes.

Clubfoot said, "I still think we should have contrived to lose that."

"I disagree. Now let's get dinner."

The inn was crowded. The dining hall was filled with long wooden tables, too close together, with wooden benches

down both sides. The magicians fitted themselves into space on one of the benches. Citizens to either side gradually

realised who and what they were and gave them plenty of room.

"Look at this logically," Clubfoot said. "You've carried Wavyhill's skull six hundred miles, when we had to throw

away baggage we needed more. It's just a skull. It's not even in good condition. But if there's enough local mana to

power your spells, and if you work your spells exactly right, you just might be able to bring Wavyhill back to life so

he can kill you!"

The Warlock stopped eating long enough to say, "Even if I revive it, it's still just a skull. You'll be all right if you

don't stick your fingers in its mouth."

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"He's got every reason to want your life! And mine too, because I'm the one who led you to Shiskabil and Hathzoril.

If I hadn't found the gutted villages, you'd never have tracked him down."

"He may not have known that."

"I'd rather he did. Hellspawn! He's branded my memory. I'll never forget Shiskabil. Dead empty, and dried blood

everywhere, as if it had rained blood. We may never know how many villages he gutted that way."

"I'm going to revive him tonight. Want to help?"

Clubfoot gnawed at the rich dark meat on an antelope's thighbone. Presently he said, "Would I let you try it alone?"

The Warlock smiled. Clubfoot was near fifty; he thought himself experienced in magic. At five times his age the

Warlock might have laughed at Clubfoot's solicitude. But the Warlock wasn't stupid. He knew that most of his

dangerously won knowledge was obsolete.

The mana had been richer, magic had been both easier and more dangerous, when the Warlock was raising his

floating castles. Clubfoot was probably more in tune with the real world. So the Warlock only smiled and began

moving his fingers in an intricate pattern. -

Primary colors streamed up from between the Warlock's fingers, roiled and expanded beneath the beamed roof.

Heads turned at the other tables. The clattering of table knives stopped. Then came sounds of delight and

appreciative fingersnapping, for a spell the Warlock had last used to blind an enemy army.

Now a lean, scarred swordsman watched the Warlock with haunted eyes. The Warlock did not notice. As he left the

dining hall he took with him a bunch of big purple grapes.

THE SKULL OF WAVYHILL

The Warlock could remember a time when murder was very dangerous; when the mystical backlash from a careless

killing could reverberate for generations. But that was long ago.

The magician nicknamed Wayyhill — as all magicians carried nicknames, being wary of having their true names

used against them — had learned his trade in an age when all spells were less powerful. There was still strong mana

in murder, but Wavyhill had learned to control it. He had based a slave industry on the zombies of murder victims,

and sold the zombies as servants, then set them to killing their masters to make more zombies ...

He had also used magic to make himself unkillable. For these past twenty years he must have been regretting that

terribly.

WavyhlH's skull sat grinning on the table. Clubfoot regarded it uneasily. "It may be we've had too much wine to try

this sort of thing tonight."

"Would you rather try it tomorrow, before dawn, with hangovers? Because I want Wavyhill with me when we meet

Mirandee and Piranther."

"All right, go ahead." Clubfoot bolted the door, then worked spells against magical intrusion. Reviving a murderous

dead man was chancy enough without risk of some outsider interfering — and there were amateur magicians

everywhere in Prissthil. Magic was an old tradition here, dating from a time when starstone was plentiful.

The Warlock sang as he worked. He was an old man, tall and lean, his head bald as an egg, his voice thin and reedy.

But he could hold a tune. The words he sang belonged to a language no longer used except by members of the

Sorcerers' Guild.

He knotted a loop of thin leather thong to mend the broken jaw hinge. Other strips of thong went along the

THE SKULL OF WAVYHILL

cheekbones, the jaw hinges, the ears. Many overlapped. When he finished they formed a crude diagram of the

muscles of a human face.

The Warlock stepped back, considering. He cut up a sheet of felt and glued two round pads behind the ear holes. A

longer strip went inside the jaws, the back end glued to the table between the jaw hinges.

He looked at Clubfoot, who had been watching intently. Clubfoot said, "Eyes?"

"Maybe later." The Warlock said in the old language, "Kranthkorpool, speak to me."

The skull opened its jaws wide and screamed.

Clubfoot and the Warlock covered their ears. It didn't help. The skull's voice was not troubling the air, and it did not

reach the ears. At least it would not bother the other guests.

"He's insane! Shut him off!'" Clubfoot cried.

"Not yet!"

The skull screamed its agony. Minutes passed before it paused as if drawing breath. Into the pause the Warlock

shouted, "Kranthkorpool, stop! It's over! It's been over for twenty years!"

The skull gaped. It said, "Twenty years?"

"It took me almost that long to find your true name, Kranthkorpool."

"Call me Wavyhill. Who are you? I can't see."

"Just a minute." The Warlock plucked two of what was left of the grapes. He picked up the skull and inserted them

into the eye sockets from inside. He inked in two black dots where they showed through the sockets.

"Ah," said the skull. The black dots moved, fo-cussed. They studied Clubfoot, then moved on. "Warlock?"

The Warlock nodded.

"I thought I'd killed you. You were two hundred

THE MAGIC GOES AWAY

years old when I cancelled your longevity spells."

"I was able to renew them. Partly. I give you a technical victory, Wavyhill. It was my ally who defeated you."

"Technical victory!" There was hysteria in the skull's falsetto laughter. "That werewolf rug merchant kept tearing and

tearing at me! It went on forever and ever, and I couldn't die! I couldn't die!"

"It's over."

"I thought it wouldn't ever be over. It went on and on, a piece of me gone every time he got close enough — "

The skull stopped, seemed to consider. Its expression was unreadable, of course. "I don't hurt. In fact, I can't feel

much of anything. There was a long time when I couldn't feel or see or hear or smell or ... Did you say twenty years?

Warlock, what do I look like?"

The Warlock detached a mirror from the wall, brought it and held it. Wavyhill's skull studied itself for a time. It said,

"You just had to do that, didn't you?"

"I owed you one. Now you have a decision to make. Do you want to die? I can cancel the spell of immortality you

put on yourself."

"I don't know. Let me think about it. What do you want of me, Warlock?"

"Some technical help."

The skull laughed. "From me?"

"You were the world's first necromancer. You were powerful enough to defeat me," said the Warlock. "I'd be dead if

I hadn't brought help. You used your power for evil, but nobody doubts your skill. Tomorrow I meet two powerful

magicians. We'll want your advice."

"Do I know of them?"

"Piranther. Mirandee."

"Piranther!" The skull chuckled. "I'd like to see that meeting. Piranther walked out on your conference,

THE SKULL OF WAVYHILL

didn't he? After you called him a shortsighted fool. I heard that he took a whole colony of his people to the South

Land Mass and swore never to come back."

"You heard right. And he never did come back, but he's coming now."

The skull was silent for a time. Then it said, "You've roused my interest. I don't care to die just now. Under the

circumstances that may be silly, but I can't help it. Can you make me a whole man again?"

THE MAGIC GOES AWAY

THE SKULL OF WAVYHILL

"Look at me."

The Warlock's back was festive with colored inks: a five-sided tattoo, hypnotic in its complexity. The famous demon

trap, once a housing for the Warlock's guardian demon, was empty now; but he still preferred to wear nothing above

the waist. Its purpose had been lost, but the habit remained.

It showed him to disadvantage. The Warlock's ribs protruded. His small pot belly protruded. Pouchy, wrinkled,

unflexible skin masked the strong lines of his face and showed the shrinkage of his musculature. Vertebrae marched

like a tiny mountain range across the fading inks of the empty demon trap.

The skull sighed mournfully.

"Look at me! I'd wish my youth back, if wishing were all it took," the Warlock said. "I was young for two hundred

years. Now the spells are failing. All spells are failing."

"So you need a necromancer." The dots on the grapes turned to the red man. "Are you involved in this madness too?"

"Of course."

The Warlock said, "This is Clubfoot, our ally."

"A pleasure. I'd take hands, but you see how it is," said Wavyhill.

Clubfoot was not amused. "One day you may have hands again, but you will never take my hand. I've seen the

villages you gutted. I helped kill you, Wavyhill."

The dots on the grapes turned back to the Warlock. "And this tactless boor is to be our ally? Well, what is your

project?"

"We're going to discuss means of restoring the world's mana."

The skull's laugh was high and shrill. The Warlock waited it out. Presently he said, "Are you finished?"

"Possibly. Will it take all five of us?"

"I tried to call a full meeting of the Guild. Only ten answered the call. Of the ten, three felt able to travel."

"Has it occurred to you that magic can only use up mana? Never restore it?"

"We're not fools. What about an outside source?"

"Such as?"

"The Moon."

The Warlock expected more laughter. It did not come. "Mana from the Moon? I never would have thought of that in

a thousand years. Still.. .why not? Starstones are rich in mana. Why not the Moon?"

"With enough mana, and the right spells, you could be human again."

The skull laughed. "And so could you, Warlock. But where would we find magic powerful enough to reach the

Moon?"

The door rocked to thunderous knocking.

The magicians froze. Then Clubfoot stripped a bracelet from his upper arm. He looked through it at the door. "No

magic involved," he said. "A mundane."

"What would a mundane want with us?"

"Maybe the building's on fire." Clubfoot raised his voice. "You, there — "

Neither the old spells, nor the old bar across the door, were strong enough. The door exploded inward behind a

tremendous kick. An armed man stepped into the room and looked about him.

"I have to talk to a magician," he told them.

"You are interrupting magicians engaged in private business," said the Warlock. No sane man would have needed

more warning.

The intruder was raggedly shaved, his long black hair raggedly chopped at shoulder length. His dark eyes studied

two men and a skull decorated with macabre humor. "You are magicians," he said won-

Niven, Larry - Magic Goes 1 - The Magic Goes Away.pdf

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