My Son, the Wizard

Chapter Ten

Friar Ignatius pounced on it. “What boys?”

So they told him about Liam and his buddies. The friar heard them out, frowning, then nodded. “It would seem, then, that some quality in you overawed them.”

Papa shrugged it off. “It is as I have said… to them, I will always be as overpowering as I was when they were little boys.”

“And as kind?”

“He was,” Mama said instantly. “When their own papas ignored them, Ramon talked with them and counseled them and listened to their tales of woe.”

“Yes, and for thanks, they bedeviled my son,” Ramon said darkly. “I cannot say we were any longer friends when they strove to shut down my store.”

“Grown boys seek to defy the men they knew in childhood,” Friar Ignatius told him. “There must have been some quality in you that wakened their old feelings of awe and reverence.”

Papa frowned. “Do you say that ‘quality’ was magical?”

“There is an old word for it in our world,” Mama told him. “It is ‘charisma.’ “

“And in this universe, that ‘charisma’ manifests itself as magic. Yes.” Friar Ignatius nodded. “But that quality only gathers magical force; you must direct it with your verses.”

“If that were so,” Papa argued, “why would they have continued to bully my customers and tried to drive them away?”

“Because that charisma is not magic, in your universe,” Friar Ignatius told him. “It only works within the minds and hearts of people, not within the very forces that constitute the matter of your world. They obeyed you only so long as you were there in person; away from you, the magic faded, for in your universe, it was metaphorical, and a matter of metaphor only.”

“I do not believe that Good and Evil are only metaphors in any universe,” Papa said flatly.

“Nor are they.” Friar Ignatius’ eyes gleamed. “You do not mean to tell me that people in your world think they are!”

“Some do, and highly intelligent, educated people among them,” Papa told him. “Myself, I believe that actions may be evil, but that no people are really, truly evil by nature… only confused or sick in their souls.”

“But they can turn to doing only evil works,” Friar Ignatius reminded him, then smiled with gentle sadness. “Are you so heartsick, then, that your own goodness could not overcome the evil that sought to draw these boys into its grip?”

“I do not think of myself as a very good man,” Papa muttered, and Mama clasped his arm, as though trying to lend him strength.

“But you do think there is goodness in the rules by which you try to live,” the friar pointed out. “Are you disillusioned to discover that such goodness could not triumph in your own neighborhood?”

“I suppose I am,” Papa admitted.

“You should not be,” Ignatius said. “You were only one man, Senor Mantrell. How many were arrayed against you, to twist the souls of those boys?”

Papa stiffened, staring off into space, astonished. “Why… the drug dealers… the older boys who had taught them that the Law only oppressed them, and did not need to be obeyed unless it could punish them… the businessmen who saw them only as a source of profit, and were willing to tell them anything, sell them anything, so long as it would coax money from them… the singers to whom they listened, who urged them to distrust the police and be brutal toward others, especially women… “

“And the list goes on.” Friar Ignatius nodded. “I doubt that you could tell me all who unknowingly conspired to twist the souls of the young. I doubt that you know of them all.” He shook his head. “How can you blame yourself for losing against such odds? You should honor yourself as a hero for fighting alone against them, still striving to lead the boys to Right!”

“He grew up listening to tales of Don Quixote,” Mama said, beaming up at Papa. “As a man, he studied those tales in depth.”

“I do not know this don of whom you speak, but if he strove for goodness when no one else did, and against odds so great as those that faced your husband, he must have been a hero indeed.”

“He was to our century, though the man who wrote of him meant to ridicule his romanticism.” Papa frowned. “But surely it was only self-interest that made me rebuke the boys! Surely it was only the desire to save my store! You cannot mean it was goodness!”

“Was it self-interest that made you kind to them when their own fathers were not?”

“Of a sort, yes,” Papa said, frowning. “I enjoyed their company, enjoyed seeing them relax into innocent boyhood games when I took them sledding with my Matthew.”

Friar Ignatius turned to Mama in exasperation. “Is he always so unwilling to admit his own goodness?”

“Yes,” Mama said, smiling. “He tries too hard to exercise humility. But in his heart, he knows it is goodness that moves him.”

Papa spoke quickly, to avoid having to admit she was right. He allowed his twentieth-century skepticism to show, telling Friar Ignatius, “But in this universe, surely the power of magic doesn’t really come from Good or Evil! Isn’t it only that our goals clash, that what we believe to be right is opposed to what they believe to be right?”

“He is reluctant to admit his own virtues,” the friar told Mama. “Remember, Senor Mantrell, that there comes a point at which too much humility ceases to be a virtue and becomes false humility, a form of bragging.”

“Do you say that the good in this universe are truly of Good, and the evil truly of Evil?”

” ‘By their works you shall know them,’ ” Friar Ignatius quoted. “I could give you many examples, but look at the worst… the first man who brought down holy Reme: Tatali the Nomad, leading a vast barbarian army whose soldiers had been enslaved by evil magic. They exploded out of Central Asia on horseback, galloping around the Caucasus Mountains, looting, raping, and pillaging as they went, leaving heaps of corpses behind them, making torture and raping a sort of sport to be enjoyed as much by watching as by partaking, delighting in the agony of those they conquered and dedicating the pain of all their victims to their evil god, whose description is strangely like Satan’s.”

Papa shuddered, but remembered the Huns of his own world and protested, “They were deluded. They followed a leader who persuaded them that victory was everything, and that their gods loved brutality.”

“Exactly!” Friar Ignatius cried. “You have seen the core of it! Satan seduces a few humans to his worship by lying and pretending to be their defender, then helps them to seduce and compel hundreds of thousands to follow them… but he could not do so if there were no desire for evil in human hearts.”

” ‘You can’t cheat an honest man,’ ” Papa quoted with a wry smile.

Friar Ignatius’ eyes gleamed. “That has the sound of a saying invented by one who made a living by cheating.”

“It does indeed,” Mama said, with indignation. “One might as well say that a man cannot seduce a woman by lying that he loves her, if she does not want to be loved.”

Friar Ignatius frowned. “Isn’t that true, Dame Mantrell?”

“As far as it goes,” Mama said, “but the man lies that he loves the woman and wants to marry her, and the woman wants to believe that she has found true love. Is this dishonest?”

“In him, yes,” Papa said, affronted.

“But in her, no,” Mama said. “Surely there is no sin in desiring love!”

“Surely not,” Friar Ignatius agreed. “But if she held to her principles and refused to make love till they had married, she would not have been seduced by the man’s lies.”

“There is truth in that. Believing in goodness and God can give a woman belief in herself.”

“I do not doubt it,” the friar said.

“So you say that goodness, and holding fast to the principles goodness teaches, can be a source of strength even in our own world.”

“That is so, Dame Mantrell… but in this world of Merovence, it is the only source of magic that nurtures and builds. All others will, sooner or later, destroy and kill.”

Mama’s fierceness faded, and she reached out to touch Papa’s hand. “Then it is doubly my good fortune that the first man I believed, spoke truly.”

It is that charisma of which I told the good friar that drew me to Ramon… though truly, it was his handsomeness that first attracted my notice. I was reluctant to credit that he was so wonderful to behold, because all the other girls told me that the beauty of his face , nearly made them swoon. But when I saw him, I believed them… and it was not just his face, for even though he wore his shirts loose, you could see the breadth of his shoulders and the play of his muscles beneath the cloth. I was even more reluctant, though, to admit to the attraction, and it was not until I heard him reciting the poetry of Calderon that I could no longer deny my infatuation. Indeed, I had to confess to myself that I had fallen in love with him.

This was in a coffeehouse, for this was the early sixties, and we both played at being beatniks… at least, think we were playing. When it came my turn to recite, I read the poetry of Lope de Vega and saw the fire ignite in Ramon; I think he tried to devour me with his eyes then and there. I refused to go out with him at first, for I was afraid to be alone with him, which is to say that I was afraid of my own desires… but I need not have worried, for his machismo was balanced by his gallantry and, I think, by the Catholic upbringing he tried so hard to deny. He never tried to do more than kiss me, though he did that so constantly and so well that both of us nearly fainted with the desires it kindled in us. We waited years until we had money enough to wed. He finished his doctorate while I began mine, and it was a blessing that we were in separate cities, though it is amazing that our letters did not ignite fires in the mailboxes into which we dropped them. But it was worth the wait… it was a most memorable honeymoon.

Now the young folk come back early from their wedding trips; they tell us they were bored. I pity them deeply.

I went back to my graduate classes in cultural anthropology as soon as Mateo began high school. I finished my coursework as he entered college, and passed my preliminary examinations in the spring of his freshman year. Then I took a teaching post in the nearest junior college and began the research for my dissertation on the mythic roots of Spanish literature. The research is finished now, but the writing is only begun. I was not awarded tenure… there are not so many students pounding on the doors of the colleges as there were when Ramon and I began our studies… so I was out of work and seeking another position when we lost our house.

Since Papa taught literature and I taught Spanish, we really could not complain too loudly when our son wanted to major in comparative literature. We are only disappointed that he did not become a teacher.

We were looking forward to his gaining a Ph.D. of his own, and teaching college. But I console myself with the thought that he is, at least, engaged in research, although magic is more my field than his, at least in terms of academic study. We are delighted that he has married a nice girl, even if she is an Anglo. Well, I know, of course, that Merovence should be more French than English, but she seems more like a Briton than anything else. Friar Ignatius has told me that there is no English Channel in this universe, and never was… that Hardishane, their great emperor who is equivalent to our Charlemagne, conquered England too, and made them very much a part of his empire. The two cultures have clearly melded, and at least the English and French do not hate one another here.

I have always been a devout Catholic, so I have been delighted to make the acquaintance of Friar Ignatius. Perhaps he is right, perhaps it was the morality of a strong religion that kept me from letting young men exploit me… but I would rather think that it was simply believing that I would know true love when I felt it, and would not be deceived by my own sexuality, and the lies of handsome and charming young men. Not that my Ramon is not handsome and charming… he is both. However, he was the only one who asked nothing but a kiss of me, and the only one with whom I fell in love because of poetry… but then, Ramon too took his religion rather seriously.

Still, the friar is right in many things, and I will not deny that a young woman must have some firm beliefs to which she can cling, to give her the strength to say no. As to his discourse about powers stemming from good and from evil, he speaks of something that every mother knows, once they begin to fear for these bold little ones who are given to them to protect. The difficulty is to tell the good people from the evil ones. The good may sometimes appear rather forbidding at first, for they pay little attention to appearances, and the evil are very skilled at disguise.

I told this to the friar, and he explained it.

Friar Ignatius nodded. “That is true, Dame Mantrell. In this world of enchantment, though, you can look into a man’s heart with your magic.” He went to the window and pointed down into the courtyard. “That guard who stands at the left side of the door to this very castle, for example… craft me a spell that will let you see him as he truly is.”

Mama frowned. “I am not sure that I understand you, but let me see what I can achieve. Do I dare attempt a verse of my own making?”

“You do,” Friar Ignatius assured her, “as long as you are careful to say that you wish to see his true nature, not to have him change his appearance to all the world.”

“Ah!” Mama nodded. “Subjective, not objective. This I can do.”

“You see? You have words that I do not, and ideas that I have never heard to match them.” Friar Ignatius bowed her toward the window. “You, too, are trained in poetry, good dame. Let us see what verse you can render.”

“That? It is simple; I have only to remember one English sentence and craft another to match it.” Mama frowned down at the sentry.

Both men suddenly felt the tension in the room, the ferocious concentration she bent to the task. Then Mama intoned,

“Must she not say to whom she directs that?” Papa asked in an undertone.

“Not as intensely as she is concentrating on him,” Friar Ignatius told him. “You or I would, yes, but not she.”

Mama gasped, and there was no delight in the sound. In fact, there was horror.

Friar Ignatius was beside her in an instant. “What do you see?”

“A snake!” Mama said. “His head has turned into a snake’s head, and a forked tongue flickers between his lips!”

Friar Ignatius frowned down at the sentry. “You have seen his true nature, Dame Mantrell. In his heart, he is a traitor… perhaps a spy.”

The sentry suddenly looked up, darting quick glances around the courtyard.

“He senses that someone is studying him,” the friar said. “Withdraw!”

But before they could, thunder rocked the castle, overwhelming their ears so that they staggered. Then their hearing adjusted, and the booming became laughter, gargantuan laughter. Staring out the window, they saw three vast djinn looming above the castle, each swinging a huge boulder. They loosed, and the missiles shot toward the wall.

Mama recovered from her surprise and threw up her hands, chanting, but she was too late. One of the boulders smashed into the tower, and the room shook. The three people seized one another and managed to stay on their feet by bracing against each other. The shaking passed, and Friar Ignatius snapped, “That was no coincidence! Down to the battlements, quickly!”

Another crash sounded near them as they ran down the stairs, and the building shook, toppling both Mantrells… but below them, Friar Ignatius braced arms and legs against the sides of the stairwell. They struck against his back, jolting him, but he managed to hold firm. They scrambled to their feet, saying, “Thank you, Father.”

“My pleasure.” Friar Ignatius was already in motion again, running down to the battlements. “Let us go!”

They came out of the tower door, and the genie who had been targeting them saw and changed the direction of his swing at the last moment, hooking the stone to hurl at them.

But Mama was ready now. She threw up her hands, shouting a verse in Spanish, and the boulder suddenly dropped to bury itself in the hillside below the castle.

The genie bellowed in anger, swinging his hand in a circle, and as he did, another boulder materialized in his grasp.

Farther along the battlements, Saul and Matt, hands joined with two junior sorcerers, finally finished shouting a choral verse. The boulder, and the latest missiles from the other two djinn, suddenly slowed, stopped, then fell.

The djinn roared in rage and dove at the castle. They slowed suddenly and drastically, then rebounded.

They screamed imprecations in Arabic, pounding at the unseen barrier with their fists. One of them soared high, then dove down. He bounced back up as if he had hit a trampoline.

Mama stared, then ran to her son. “What is it?”

“Saul’s.” Matt pointed.

“It’s a Wall of Octroi,” Saul explained, “like the one the French Revolution accused Lavoisier of trying to erect around Paris. I got the idea from King Boncorro in Italy. Best border fence you ever saw… if you wanted to keep out things that flew.”

“Only ones that flew?” Papa frowned.

“It’s like the barrier dividing Maxwell’s demon-box,” Matt explained.

“I remember that the hypothetical demon had to decide whether or not to let individual molecules through.”

Matt nodded. “Maxwell was trying to get around the Laws of Thermodynamics. He imagined a box of lukewarm air with a wall down the middle, and a little door only wide enough to admit one molecule.

His doorkeeper was a hypothetical miniature demon, who would only open the door if a slow-moving molecule came by. After a long enough time, all the fast molecules would be on one side of the wall, and all the slow molecules on the other. Fast-moving molecules are hot, so he would be getting more energy out of the box than he put into it.”

“If he didn’t count the energy of the demon opening the door,” Papa qualified.

Matt nodded. “And didn’t mind the fact that as a whole, the box still averaged out to the same temperature. So he failed in trying to outsmart the Laws of Thermodynamics, but he did invent a supernatural being that’s stood me in good stead, one time and another.”

“Even if a neighboring king borrowed an idea from him?”

“Right. Boncorro’s Wall kept out flying monsters, such as dragons, but anyone moving at a walking pace could get through without even noticing there was a barrier.”

“I don’t think you should have said that out loud,” Saul said, pointing at the djinn.

One of them was sinking down to the ground of the talus slope. As he fell, he shrank, and by the time he hit the ground, he was no bigger than an ordinary mortal. He strode up toward the castle… and passed through the Wall of Octroi as though it didn’t exist.

With a whoop of glee, the other two djinn swooped down to the ground, dwindling.

As they did, the one who had crossed the Wall stepped up to the drawbridge, raised his arms, and chanted a spell. The drawbridge came crashing down, and the genie waved his hands.

“What is he doing?” Mama wondered.

She saw her answer quickly enough. Their tower stood far enough out from the wall so that they could see the portcullis begin to dissolve.

“How impertinent!” Mama said severely, and held up her hands as she began to chant in Spanish.

“She has remembered her talent,” Friar Ignatius told Matt in glee.

“Uh… which one did you have in mind?”

“She is a spellbinder!”

Mama snapped her arms down, speaking her last phrase as a command. The portcullis froze half-faded, then slowly gained more and more substance until it was solid again.

The djinni howled in rage as his spell was canceled.

Mama pointed at him, snapping out another short Spanish verse, and suddenly they could all understand the genie’s words. “Cursed be the sorcerer who has frustrated my spells! Cursed also be the sorcerer who has brought me here!”

“Brought him?” Matt stared. “Not sent?”

“Even so,” Mama said. “That sorcerer must be nearby, then.”