Your Magic or Mine? (5 page)

“Could we cast our spells truly the same, with identical results? We have experimented with Dr. Forscher’s formula and found our enchantments remained slightly different in their amount of power, duration, results, and other aspects. The closest analogy I can think of comes from cooking. Two cooks make the same recipe, using identical ingredients, but … her meatballs taste better than mine.”

No, she has it wrong, she hadn’t, couldn’t have, cast precisely, Marcus thought, as another chuckle rippled across the room.

“In conclusion,” she said, “I applaud Dr. Forscher’s ingenuity, creativity, and effort in developing his equation. I’m sure some practitioners will benefit greatly from using it. I agree, we all need to cast our spells as efficiently and productively as possible. All I ask is for those who want to drag us into the future or impose a casting regimen, please, consider the reality of working magic. It’s a matter of art and mastery, a ‘feel’ for the forces within us, knowledge of and respect for our history, and above all, the combination of individual experimentation, experience, and emotions that result in great magic. Thank you.”

The audience broke out in applause—or rather about half of them did, Marcus noticed. Several people stood with their hands up, a couple waving wildly for attention. Ed called for order.

There had to be a fallacy in her statements. True, in typical mathematical theorizing, he himself had not experimented in the real world, had not practiced his formula beyond a bare minimum. Some of his colleagues had, and they reported good results. His theory remained valid. The business about “forcing a casting regimen,” however, was far off the mark.

“Let’s settle down, please,” Ed boomed into the microphone once more. “Everyone will have a chance. Hold up your hands, and I’ll call on you. One of the ushers will bring a mike. Please wait until all of us can hear you before asking your question.”

While waiting for the ushers to get to their positions, Ed pushed his chair back and said, “Nice job, both of you. I’m going to let the discussion go on until we start getting repetitions in the questions. Okay?”

Gloriana nodded and saw Forscher do the same. She wondered how he was taking her remarks. Before she could ask, however, Ed pulled forward and called on an elderly man in the front row.

The man stood and waited until the mike arrived. “I’ve been practicing magic, man and boy, for over seventy years, specializing in oil exploration. I’ve never heard of a general formula for all talents. If your formula is so great, why hasn’t somebody thought of it before?”

Ed turned to Forscher. “This one’s obviously yours.”

“Perhaps someone did, sir,” Forscher replied. “I found no record of one, however. From my research, I can tell you that before the seventeen hundreds and the Industrial Revolution, the number of existing spells was relatively small, and the differentiation among them was not great. When professions proliferated, likewise did the need for less general, more specific specialty spells, but everyone seemed to be wrapped up in their talents and even those at the highest levels didn’t confer with others outside their own circle. No ‘Renaissance man’ like Leonardo da Vinci came forward to survey or study a number of different talents or to attempt a consolidation.”

Ed called on a stylishly dressed woman in the third row on the middle aisle.

“I’m Loretta Horner,” she announced as though her name should mean something to the group. “Dr. Morgan, I can’t express how great my pleasure is in hearing you say what my husband and I have thought since we read Dr. Forscher’s articles. In our view, ‘regularizing’ spell-casting with a formula will take away all our individual processes and force us into a lockstep parade. Our traditional methods are best.”

A number of people applauded as she sat down. Gloriana nodded, but didn’t say anything because Mrs. Horner hadn’t asked a question.

Ed called on a younger man who looked more like what Gloriana expected a mathematics nerd to look like—thin, with round glasses, wearing jeans and a button-down blue shirt.

“I’d like to speak up for Forscher’s equation and theory,” he said. “I’m Bryan Pritchart, one of his mathematical colleagues, and I’ve played with the equation. It’s a good beginning for more efficient casting. Of course, it’s not perfected yet, and I can suggest a couple of improvements. We’ve been practicing magic the same way for too long. It’s time to try the new.” Some of the people sitting around the man clapped.

Gloriana snuck a glance at Forscher, who didn’t look very happy at the man’s statement—probably because he’d said the part about ‘a couple of improvements’ in a snide tone of voice.

“Thank you, Dr. Pritchart,” was all Forscher said.

A large balding man in the middle back of the audience was next. The fellow rose and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m against highfalutin folderol. The formula is too complicated, most people won’t be able to follow it, and why should we try to fix what’s not broke? I’m a level five, I raise cattle, and I don’t have the time to think up an ‘e-qua-shun’ while gelding a calf or inseminating a cow, I can tell you that. Nobody is going to force me to do it, either!” He gave a sharp nod of his head and sat down to a couple of “you tell ‘ems” and “amens.”

“Sir,” Forscher said, “nobody is trying to force anything on you or anyone else here. I’m offering a possible method for more efficient casting. It needs testing and refinement. You are free to try it or not, as you wish.”

A young woman in an orange UT sweatshirt took the mike. “I don’t understand you people who refuse to see Dr. Forscher for the genius he is. He’s helping us understand the building blocks of magic. We need to look to the future, not back to the past. Tradition and the so-called tried and true ways are okay for you old practitioners. We young ones need more, especially for the new professions we have to deal with.”

Gloriana heard “harrumphs” coming from several “old” practitioners. When Forscher thanked the student for her support, she flushed beet red.

A woman who could be the photo on a “Soccer Mom” poster was next. “Look here. I’m at best what you might call ‘mathematically challenged.’ Are you telling me I have to use math to prepare my children to become practitioners? When they have talents that have nothing to do with math?”

Gloriana watched Forscher frown. Like many theorists, he must have been so far into his equation that he didn’t think of the practical or of people who could not or would not welcome his formula.

“No, ma’am, I’m not saying that,” he replied. “It’s a theory, an experiment at the moment. And you might be surprised how much math there is in everyday life.”

Gloriana stifled a smile. He probably should not have made the last statement—or sounded quite as condescending.

Sure enough, the woman responded, “I’m not stupid or uneducated. There’s math in cooking and cleaning and making change and filling up the car. But that’s arithmetic. What you’re selling here looks like calculus to me. If you’re cooking up a spell, then how much is a cup of power, tell me that?”

Almost everyone laughed at the exchange. Even Forscher grinned before replying, “That’s what we need to study.”

Ed pointed to a white-haired man sitting next to the stylishly dressed previous questioner. “I’m Cal Horner,” he announced in a slow drawl. “Something’s been bothering me about your all-encompassing equation, Dr. Forscher. There are all kinds of talents, and every one has a set of spells that goes with them. Everybody can’t possibly cast a spell the same way. How do you expect to apply one equation to all of them? How can, for example, a plumber cast one of his talent’s spells the same way a cook can?”

Gloriana suddenly recognized the names. He was a retired industrialist and she a society hostess from Dallas. The Horners had a reputation in the non-practitioner world for their conservative opinions on every issue imaginable. Were they making another stand here?

“I believe people can cast in the same manner, and we can apply the formula to all,” Forscher replied, leaning forward with his elbows on the table. “In general. There may be corollaries to the original equation. That’s one of the situations we must study. Suppose a plumbing spell and a cooking spell are fundamentally the same enchantment, but applied to different objects. Is a plumber heating solder different from a cook heating water? If you have a spell
H
for heat, is
H
for solder the same as
H
for water? The plumber casts
H
-open parentheses-solder-close parentheses and the cook casts
H
-open parentheses-water-close parentheses.” He gestured the parentheses as he spoke. “Same spell, different targets, possibly different amounts of energy needed.”

Horner looked confused. “I don’t know …”

Gloriana saw confusion and puzzlement on a number of faces. Throwing parentheses and other such terms around was a sure way to lose his audience.

Before Horner could ask another question, Ed called on someone else, another man who appeared to be in his thirties.

“I, for one, welcome your ideas, Dr. Forscher,” he said in a somewhat pompous tone. “I’m Mike Brubaker from the University of Chicago. We need more research into the broader universe of casting. What you’re proposing fits nicely with mathematical theory. I can think of several spells that satisfy the definition of a mathematical object and in combination can be formed into groups and rings. For example, the simple
flamma
spell could be cast as a positive ‘F’ to light the candle and a negative ‘F’ to extinguish it. Also,
lux
can be seen as two spells, ‘L’ for the light energy plus ‘C’ for the cage it inhabits, and that’s a group.”

“Let’s not get too complicated, here,” Ed cut in quickly. “We’re not all mathematicians.” He pointed to a gray-haired woman who was holding up her cane, but the man who had identified himself as Bryan Pritchart took the mike when it passed him on the way to her.

“To carry Brubaker’s theory forward, I think he’s onto something,” Pritchart announced as if he were conferring an award. “We need to identify essential and innate features versus those that are merely details or personal idiosyncrasies. We have to consider diffeomorphism and topology and … Hey!”

The woman whom Ed had called on snatched the mike out of Pritchart’s hand. “It’s my turn, young man,” she snapped and pointed her cane at him, only narrowly missing the person between them. “You youngsters always think you’re smart. You come up with these ‘formulas’ and think you’ve invented something revolutionary. Let me tell you, that is not the way people cast spells. We’ve been doing fine without the blasted thing for millennia. You ought to leave well enough alone.”

“Look, lady,” Pritchart said, grabbing the mike back. “Casting mathematically will be the wave of the future, and I don’t intend to be left behind with the bunch of you geezers who refuse to accept the idea.”

“See here, Pritchart, don’t talk to Mrs. Shortbottom like that.” Horner’s voice came thundering out of the loud speakers as he appropriated a microphone from a nearby usher.

Gloriana jumped. Some audience members turned sharply, and a few snickered.

Horner didn’t pause for breath. “She and many of us were casting spells before you were born and we’re doing all right. Forscher’s formula may look like manna from heaven to you. To the rest of us, it looks like a gift horse. Foisting it on practitioners who have no need for it is tantamount to forcing us to deny our heritage, to ignore our centuries of casting experience. I, for one, will have no part of it. Let’s go, Loretta. If we can’t carry on a decent conversation here, we’ll leave.” He handed the mike back to the usher and led his wife down the aisle to the doors at the rear.

“Oh, yeah?” Pritchart sneered, his lip curling as he watched the couple walk by.

“Yes, you, you … hippie!” Mrs. Shortbottom poked Pritchart in the belly with her cane and stormed off in the opposite direction while he doubled over.

That exchange brought half the audience to their feet, most of them with their arms raised and yelling for attention. Those seated started talking to their neighbors, some clearly arguing and waving the handout in the air. Several participants surged into the middle aisle in the wake of the Horners.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” Ed shouted and stood. “Take your seats and come to order.” He pounded on the table for emphasis.

His attempt to restore order went unheeded. If anything, the tumult increased.

Gloriana searched for her family and saw them making their way to the side of the room rather than into the center aisle. That space had filled with people. The cattle rancher was yelling into Pritchart’s face, the soccer mom was fussing at Brubaker, and Mrs. Shortbottom was swinging her cane, taking no prisoners on either side.

“Practitioners! Come to order!” Ed called again into the mike.

Gloriana slid her chair back and looked at Forscher, who had a bemused smile on his face. As if he could feel her gaze, he faced her and said something.

When she shook her head and pointed to her ears to signify she couldn’t hear him, he rose, came to her, and bent over to say in her ear, “See what you caused?”

“Me?” She pulled back enough to see his face. When she took her next breath, she inhaled his scent, a woodsy-and-pure-male concoction she felt fill her nostrils and muddle her brain. She shook her head to clear it and said, “The formula was your idea.”

“Yes, but I said nothing about ‘forcing’ it.”

She couldn’t tell if he was angry or laughing at her. Either way, she was not going to take the blame for the debacle before them. “I simply brought out the ramifications you neglected to mention. You can’t make enormous changes without looking at the entirety of your project.”

Before he or she could make another statement, Ed turned around and leaned down so they could hear him. “I think we’ve lost our audience. They’re more interested in talking to each other than listening to us. I, for one, am not going to get in the middle. Security’s here and will make sure nobody starts more than a verbal argument. Let’s go out into the side hall.”

Gloriana stood up and led the way to the entrance where her family was waiting. Everyone went into the hall and, when the door closed behind them, she gave a sigh of relief at the quiet. She introduced Ed and Forscher to her family.