Fain the Sorcerer (7 page)

In which Fain studies with Drake the Adept

 

Drake
'
s modest fortress was in the mountains to the north, its entrance concealed behind a waterfall. As he walked into the comfort of this sanctuary, Fain stopped short upon the deep emerald carpet. It reminded him of the sea around the mermaid
'
s island. Why had he left?

Drake led him through into a wizard
'
s laboratory hung with triangular clocks, and explained the principles of building a diceheart.
‘
Like many human beings, it owns only three opinions and, by alternating these to the right timing, it can reproduce the external appearance of thought.
'

Fain inspected bone bottles full of glass dust, bandaged toys with beaks, rusted autumnal fruit studded with nails, fragments of black honeycomb, an Ace of Hearts fossilized like a trilobite, an oversized sandtimer clotted fast with blood, a black rose on dark green velvet, and a skull of expertly fitted ebony and rosewood. He remembered a treasure the mermaid had shown him, a salmon carved from pink quartz.

Here were cantraps on onion paper furry with age and books with sectioned spines like the spines of fossils.
‘
What happened to the Insect King?
'
he asked.

‘
He wished to escape the nonsense of war and I enabled him, leaving a replica in amber while he quietly absconded to a more pleasing and fruitful life. This is one of his volumes here.
'
Fain took the proffered book:
A Guide to Beekeeping
.
‘
What
'
s this other one about?
The Seventy-Eighth Lie
.
'

‘
The wise know of seventy-seven species of lie and can see them all quite clearly. I notice you
'
re unable to lie at present.
'

‘
My word is my bond. I have to travel forward in time to undo it.
'

‘
You were fortunate to blunder upon time travel as your first gift. Do you see how your thin life has changed and grown richer? Time is central to life. Anything which is a process, requires the dimension of time. Flowers require it, for instance. Only something which is fixed and finished does not. Is it coincidental that when a thing is complete and fixed, as in a museum, all life goes out of it? You will know when someone has manipulated time because the day misses a beat.
'

‘
The time idol Suvramizana told me that decisive moments can tell a lot about a man.
'

‘
The formula of such a moment is rich and precise, like the deepest joke. Hackler Thorn too had one in particular that might be of interest to you. As a child, he encountered a monster
—
a werewolf, it seems. It walked in to his very nursery one night. Over the years, Thorn
'
s defences froze to potency. His arms dream quite separate dreams from his head. Arm dreams. To do with odd structural choices, ivory, wood, and tipped liquid angles.
'

‘
How do you know I
'
m searching for Thorn?
'

‘
For the same reason I knew you were searching for me. You leave traces throughout time. I met you before we met. Be grateful that Thorn doesn
'
t have that power.
'

‘
You
'
re immortal?
'

‘
Amortal. We arrive with death in us like a watermark. Since a person can live only a certain number of years, why not travel back and forth through those years, back and forth, eternally? Say, seventy years, plus the entire surface of the world: not bad. But there may come a moment in a person
'
s life when he finds that he has sampled finally all that is on life
'
s menu
—
and upon considering the bill of fare, decides in all reason that it is a shabby, limited affair and not to his taste. I won
'
t be around much longer.
'
64

Drake indicated a globe hung with the countries and nations peculiar to it. Touching its surface, it cleared like glass and gutless wonders wraithed upon its surface.
‘
These are Vagues
—
thoughts to do large things, but without real intent. Something more than daydreams but far less than acted plans. Look how beautiful these kinds of cities are. A shame.
'

‘
I move through life leaving blunders behind me like seeds to hatch a disastrous reputation
—
one I intend to be luxuriant and intricately interwoven.
'

‘
Have you forgotten the Princess?
'

Fain gasped.
‘
Yes, I had. And even now that you remind me, I can only remember her mouth. Whatever became of her?
'

‘
Perhaps she
'
s in trouble, perhaps merely bored. Or both.
'

‘
Next time I meet the old man, I
'
ll ask that all the gifts and powers I have, she must also have
—
then I
'
ll think no more about her.
'

‘
That
'
s certainly a plan,
'
said Drake, walking away.
‘
After all, understanding flows backwards.
'

Drake was as tall as the human bloodstream would allow, and taller, having a spare heart stowed in each shoulder. His sanctuary was a place of rose windows, the truth held inside a retort, and silver padlocks on every mirror. Behind the veil of water Fain studied for a year, learning to approach adversaries through their shadows, to read the code on the backs of Capricorn beetles, to transmute solid objects into water vapour, to carry an instantly accessible disguise by looking different from the side than from the front, to breathe backwards, to drink from veins in the earth, to fashion a sharrow - an arrow which can pin someone
'
s shadow in place - and to banish westwallow, a sour trance-like disease of taking others
'
orders and years from your own life. He heard a music made of eight varieties of silence, drank delirium nectar, and read a book of stories which could be browsed forever, its blessing and curse being that the same story was never found twice. A flower like a book, a book like a padlock, a padlock like a metal heart, a heart like a mineral clock.
‘
And remember to close your eyes when you sneeze or your eyeballs
'
ll fly out at a hundred miles an hour,
'
Drake added.

‘
I have something very particular to say to you,
'
said Drake finally one day, petting a snake banded black and yellow like a wasp.
‘
Seagulls forget soldiers. The present is stronger.
'

‘
Your personality
'
s lacy enigmas are doing my nut in, master.
'

‘
I
'
m sorry. But objectivity will not tell all.
'

‘
Why not?
'

‘
It lacks emotion. Therefore it doesn
'
t have all the information. We disagree on many things because we see them as they are. The emotional half has dried out in you, your brief happiness almost forgotten. You and Thorn are not so unalike. And I would not have you die having grown only one wing.
'

‘
You
'
re scaring me. What do you mean?
'

‘
Our time together is done. I grant you this curse and blessing: the day you truly see yourself for the fool you are, your fondest wish will be granted.
'

Drake unlocked a mirror, and Fain stepped through into Envashes forest. He travelled back to a time before his previous visits to the old man, and approached the cave.

66

 

 

In which Fain is finally a man of his word

 

‘
My queen to your rook nine!
'
(or something like that) cried the crazy old man after Fain smashed the urn.
‘
This urn is enchanted, and it falls to you to receive its final three wishes!
'

‘
So,
'
said Fain.
‘
Three wishes eh? Well, I wish to be able to travel instantly forward in time to any point in the future I choose, while retaining my clothing and baggage. Secondly, I want to know where Hackler Thorn is at any time. Thirdly, I wish to be able to transport instantly to any place in this world that I choose, when I choose to do so, while retaining my clothing and baggage.
'

‘
You choose well, cloaked stranger,
'
cackled the old lunatic.

Buying a store of rope and canvas, Fain travelled a thousand years into the future, finding himself immediately surrounded by dicehearts. They sped around him, belching smoke behind them and honking with laughter. And looking closer, Fain saw that human beings were trapped within them all. They were compropede captives, being sped to judgement! Fain could barely breathe. He wished himself forward another fifty years and time clenched the three thousand teeth of silence. He was standing in a landscape of human skeletons in papery snow. Broken towers crowded a gloomy horizon. He transported himself to the dragon
'
s cave, and lit a torch.
‘
Next time I should state a wish to be able to see in the dark,
'
he thought. The creature
'
s ribcage was clean and still in the dead cavern, its doglike skull sad in the flickering light. He wished fire upon the skeleton and it burned, then he extinguished the fire. Roping the corpse into the canvas, he encircled the neck with his arms and wished himself above, then wished himself more than a thousand years back in time. Then he wished himself near to Camovine town. He left the dragon beneath a tree and wished himself into town, buying a horse and cart. Riding back to the dragon, he loaded it into the cart and set off again.

Seeing the expected figure appear over nearby trees, he dismounted and walked to the leafy clearing where the crumpled youth lay screaming, having sustained one-hundred-and-eleven broken bones. Pulling up the hood on his cloak, he knelt over the young man, administering absentia draft and explaining all the while what he was doing.

Soon the younger Fain was riding beside him on the wooden seat of the cart.
‘
We approach the city of Camovine,
'
Fain told him.
‘
Beware the local autarch. He keeps a mirror by which you may travel far, and he would use it to evacuate the town if he could, but a gewgaw lives within, which eats down those who enter and spits them out like apple cores.
'

‘
I
'
m hungry,
'
said the young Fain.

‘
If I
'
m hungry I pull up one of the earth
'
s veins, slit it open and drink from it. What else do
you
do?
'

‘
Kill a warthog.
'

‘
Which of itself has drunk from the veins of the earth.
'

‘
I should have said
“
try
”
to kill a warthog. They
'
re hard to find, and even harder to catch. To kill, perhaps impossible. It
'
s the same with bears.
'

‘
I know it is.
'

‘
So this earth vein business might not be such a crazy idea.
'

‘
Not crazy at all. Just boring. Lacking adventure, and thus creating no stories. And because it creates no stories, it is a wisdom repeatedly lost and only by chance rediscovered. True wisdom is like that. Not spectacular. This is Camovine. I leave you here.
'

Leaving the young man at the city gate, Fain rode to an inn and lodged there a while. Presently he fetched the cart from the stable and took it further into town, waiting near the palace until he spotted the scorched figure of his younger self walking in. He brought the cart up to the palace entrance, removed the canvas from the coiled and gruesome skeleton of the dragon, and walked away, hearing delight and commotion behind him.

‘
Finally,
'
he thought with relief,
‘
my word need no longer be my bond.
'

69