Magic Zero (6 page)

“Art?” Timothy asked.

Leander nodded appreciatively. “Yes. In a manner of speaking, it is art.”

The door had no visible latch or handle. Tentatively Timothy reached out and laid his hand upon it. The wood was warm to touch. The swirling colors of the art misted around his wrist.

“You won’t be able to—,” Leander began.

Timothy pushed and the door swung open. On the other side was a chamber swathed in near darkness. Only the illumination from the hall shed any light upon its contents, which included a rack of yellowed scrolls of varying lengths and thicknesses.

“Caw!” Edgar cried, rustling wings and resettling his talons on the boy’s shoulder. “Well, that’s interesting.”

“What is?” Timothy asked.

When he turned to glance at Leander again he found the mage staring at him. Timothy shifted uncomfortably. Sheridan’s
joints creaked slightly as he bent to peer into the darkened room. Beyond him, Ivar was only partially visible, his eyes darting about in search of any potential threat, hand on the pommel of a knife he wore in a scabbard at his waist.

Neither of his friends from the island seemed shocked the way Leander did. The mage shook his head in apparent disbelief, and then a low, humorless laugh escaped his lips.

“It seems we may have to rethink what it means that you are bereft of magic,” Leander said thoughtfully. At Timothy’s puzzled expression, he nodded toward the door. “Close that.”

Timothy did as he had instructed, pulling the door toward him and letting it swing back into place with a click. Leander motioned to Ivar.

“Come, my friend. Your turn. Open this door, please.”

The warrior emerged from the darkness, his body gaining definition as he came closer to the others, as though it was more difficult to remain unseen up close. The black tribal markings on his face and arms changed even as Timothy watched him, some fading, some stretching until they looked almost like claw marks upon his flesh, others swirling into strange symbols.

Ivar glanced wordlessly at Timothy and then cautiously reached out for the door. He flattened his palm on the wood, fingers splayed, and pushed.

Nothing happened.

Ivar glanced at Timothy, the tribal marks receding, fading from his skin. The marks came and went. The boy had asked Ivar about them several times, but the warrior was the last of
his kind and the marks were personal to him. He did not like to discuss their purpose or significance.

“I don’t understand,” Timothy said, glancing at Leander.

The mage loomed forward and waved a hand in front of the door, which swung open instantly.

“Doors are ensorcelled to admit only those their master or mistress would welcome. This door does not recognize Ivar. It would not open for him. If it had recognized you, it would have opened of its own accord the moment you reached out toward it.”

Timothy frowned. “But it did open for me.” He shook his head, gesturing toward the edge of the door. “This is silly, Leander. Look at it. There isn’t even a lock or bolt to keep it closed. Anyone should be able to push it open.”

Leander stroked his beard again. “Not anyone, young Master Timothy. Not Ivar. Nor I, myself, if the door did not know me. You have no magic of your own, we knew that much. But it seems there’s more to it than that. If the door will open for you, it can only mean that the enchantment fused into the wood cannot sense your presence. I . . . well, I’ve honestly never seen anything like it.”

A spark ignited within Timothy in that moment. All his life, in those times when he allowed himself to think of himself in relation to his father’s world, he had known what he was.
A freak. An abomination. Useless.
Yet as he turned to look back at the door there was the tiniest glimmer of wonder inside him as he considered the idea that it might not be so terrible being a freak.

The spark was extinguished a moment later, buried beneath years of darker expectations.

Still, as Timothy glanced around at his friends once more—and at the magic door and the levitating lanterns—a wave of relief washed through him. He had been prepared to retreat immediately to Patience, had felt the fear bubbling up inside him. Yet suddenly the fear had been dispelled, and he saw before him only possibility.

A grin spread across his features. The island was his home, but this mansion held within its walls his entire history, his father’s legacy. Timothy had no intention of staying permanently, but he wanted to explore. He glanced at the walls, at the doors, and thought how simple it would be to rig oil lamps to light the place.

Ivar slid into the shadows. Sheridan watched Timothy expectantly, a tiny wisp of steam curling up from the spout on the side of his head, his eyes glowing brightly.

The rook cawed, and Timothy glanced to his left, eye to eye with the bird.

“You’re too quiet, kid. Talk to me. Whaddayathink?” Edgar asked.

Timothy’s gaze shifted to Leander, then to Ivar, and came to rest on Sheridan. “I want to see it,” he said, feeling a prickle of excitement rush through him. “I want to see everything.”

He started down the corridor again, much more swiftly this time, noting the presence of every door and every bit of art adorning any surface. There was a window at the far end
but he never reached it. The hallway turned and Timothy followed, and soon enough he was practically running. Edgar cawed and took flight, soaring along above him, then turning back to circle his head.

Timothy wanted to look in every room, to catalog in his mind everything he could learn about his father, about magic, about this world. Transforming this house so that a boy without any trace of sorcerous power could live here would be a fantastic undertaking.

Yet, in a way, it thrilled him, for it would be his greatest project ever.

Around another turn in the warren of corridors, he found himself at the top of a set of circular stairs that wound down into the heart of the house. Ivar was beside him, silently keeping pace without effort. Sheridan clanked along the floorboards, trying to keep sight of them, steam hissing from his metal skull. Leander strode quickly along, watching them all with an expression of wonder.

Though there was much to explore, Timothy had a greater priority. The very first thing he wanted to see lay below. He started down the stairs, quickly descending toward the ground floor, gazing around at the grand chandeliers that glowed with magical incandescence and down the hallways of the floors that he passed. When he reached the foyer, he looked up and saw the others coming down as well. Leander seemed to be moving much more slowly.

The burly mage leaned over the rail of the circular stair and gazed down at him.

“Timothy? How did you get down all of these stairs so quickly?”

The question puzzled the boy, and he frowned as he watched Leander continue slowly downward, still only halfway to the ground floor. Even Sheridan had made his way nearer the bottom of the stairs, gyros whirring and steam spitting.

“There aren’t that many stairs,” Timothy said. “Why are you moving so slowly? Are you all right?”

Leander paused on the steps and squinted down at Timothy as if trying to focus his vision. The big man swayed from side to side ever so slightly. Then he craned his head around, peering in every direction and at last gazing upward at the massive central crystal chandelier. At length his attention returned to Timothy.

“I knew there was an enchantment on the stairs, but I never understood why,” Leander said. He tsked loudly and shook his head and a small chuckle escaped his lips. “There’s a glamour cast on the stairs. Argus must not have thought visitors would find it grand enough, so he . . . altered their perception.”

Timothy had no idea what the mage was talking about, but already the conversation was slipping away from him. The rhythm of his heart increased and his chest was tight with excitement and, yes, a little bit of fear. He had not banished it completely. Holding his breath, the hair rising on the back of his neck, a warm prickling running over his skin, Timothy turned toward the massive front door.

Above him, Edgar cawed loudly, fluttered to a landing, and rested atop a large statue—a stone representation of a creature Timothy had never seen in all the scrolls his father had brought him.

“Careful, kid,” the rook warned.

Timothy stepped toward the front door, reached for it . . . and then took a step back as the wiry form of Ivar emerged from invisibility beside him. The warrior crouched slightly, so that his face would be level with the boy’s.

“You are certain this is wise?” Ivar asked.

With a deep breath, Timothy shook his head. “No. Not certain at all. But I’m not going to let that stop me.”

For a long moment the warrior gazed at Timothy, golden eyes gleaming with their own inner light. Then, slowly, Ivar nodded and stepped aside, gesturing toward the door. Timothy reached for it, laid his hand upon the thick, dark, deeply grained wood.

And he pushed.

The door swung wide.

Timothy felt his mouth opening, jaw dropping, but it was as if his entire body was behaving of its own volition. A whistle of breath, the tiniest sound, escaped his throat.

He saw it all: The broad, stone steps in front of the mansion ended in nothingness. Some kind of conveyance, a vehicle of sorts, floated in the air at the bottom of the steps. If he walked off the bottom stair, he would plunge into a nighttime abyss that would tumble him down and down for hundreds of feet before he at last collided with the face of the mountain cliff
upon which the mansion had been built. Timothy whipped his head to the side and noted the place where the corner of the house was rooted—anchored—to the mountainside, and wondered if that was to keep the structure from falling or from floating away. There was magic in every inch of architecture here.

The night sky was painted with swaths of milky luminescence, and beyond that veil was a sky filled with stars and ghostly orbs that must have been moons or nearby planets. Timothy tore his gaze from the heavens and cast it downward, beyond the stairs, beyond the base of the mountain, to the pale, glittering rainbow of lights that flitted about the sprawling landscape of the city below.

Arcanum.

Home?
he wondered.

It was breathtaking. All of it. But he was not ready to step off into the abyss just yet. Timothy Cade reached out and closed the door, then turned to look back into his father’s house. He stood in the foyer with his friends around him. Ivar was crouched by the door, on guard as always. Edgar was perched atop Sheridan’s shoulder, black eyes gleaming. Leander had only just reached the bottom of the circular stairs. He wore an expectant gaze.

Timothy smiled. “I think I’ll start small.”

*  *  *

One week later, on a beautiful morning when migrating birds filled the blue sky above Arcanum with song, Leander returned to the Cade estate under very different circumstances. The
world still mourned the passing of Argus Cade, the Parliament still recalled his memory at every session, and even the most hideous of magical guilds professed to honor his name. None of them were aware of the extraordinary events that had transpired that night when Leander Maddox had first attempted to deal with the aftermath of Argus Cade’s death, to collect his research and fulfill his final wishes.

The world did not yet know about Timothy Cade.

Leander had spent every night since at that home at the peak of August Hill, and during the day he stayed every hour he could be spared from his duties at the University of Saint Germain. Along with the savage Ivar and the mechanical man, whose every word and motion still astounded Leander, Timothy had traveled back and forth to the Island of Patience many times during that long week to gather supplies from his workshop. Timothy saw everything as a challenge, as a puzzle to be solved, and he was quickly adapting the house to deal with his magical handicap.

Extraordinary boy,
Leander thought now.

Upon his high seat, the navigation mage had his fingers splayed before him, reins of cobalt energy guiding and lifting the carriage. Behind his veil, Caiaphas was silent, though Leander knew the man must be exhausted from a week of journeying up and down the sheer face of August Hill. He made a mental note to reward Caiaphas in the next wage cycle.

Leander leaned over to gaze out the window of the carriage, his eyes riveted upon the peak of the mountain, upon
the turret he could barely see, jutting from those dizzying heights even farther up toward the heavens. A cold ache filled his heart, and for a moment, Leander closed his eyes. These past days had been filled with such wonder and excitement that there were times he could forget his grief at the passing of his friend and mentor. Then he would see something of Argus in Timothy’s face, or think of the old mage in a quiet moment, and his sadness would return.

“His passing is a loss to all of us,” rasped a voice beside Leander, a voice as deep and cold as the ocean.

A kind of peace settled upon Leander’s heart, and he nodded once, then turned to gaze at his passenger. Lord Nicodemus was ancient, far older even than Argus had been, yet there was a vitality to him that belied his age. His fine hair was silver, as was the mustache that hung down far below his chin, and his eyes were the pale translucent blue of the deepest ice. Upon the seat beside him sat the gray, hairless feline, Alastor, Nicodemus’s familiar. Not all mages had familiars, and one look at the purring, hideous creature on the seat reminded Leander why he had chosen against one.

“Yes, of course, my lord,” he replied. He wanted to say more, to explain that while Nicodemus was speaking about Argus’s talent, his skills as a mage, that he himself missed the man, not the magician. That Argus had been his friend. But he knew that Nicodemus was offering his condolences, in a way, and so he said nothing more.

For several moments they sat together in silence as the navigation mage guided the carriage up August Hill. Leander
knew it was an honor to have Nicodemus with him. The man was Grandmaster of the Order of Alhazred, the guild to which Argus had belonged, and of which Leander was still a member. Nicodemus was among the most powerful men in the Parliament of Mages, respected both as a diplomat and a sorcerer.