Old World Magic Ch. 22

I sighed and turned to face Cheyenne. I used the healing magic that I'd been practicing and funnelled my mana into the still new spells. I felt anger and bile rise up in me as I let the spell tell me where she'd been injured. Not only was her face injured but she had two broken ribs, bruises, and some tearing in a very delicate and important place considering her line of work. I weaved the mana in my system into the delicate and intricate pattern needed to set the bones, straighten her face, and close the rents inside of her that had to be hurting. It was draining, but I did what i could while still holding some mana to work on Erin. Only when it was done did I place my hands on either side of Cheyenne's face and whisper with a mental push, "Go lay down and take a nap now."

Slow, like an automaton, she turned, making for the bedroom. Only once she'd laid upon the bed did I release the glamour spell I'd had on her. I let out a breath that I'd been holding and turned to Erin. "I didn't know you could do it too," she said simply.

"A month ago, I couldn't." I answered, "Now hold still, it's your turn next. Thankfully Erin wasn't in as bad shape, but I healed the bruising on her body that I could, and still felt very drained afterwards. "Tell me what happened," as I finished the task with the last motes of mana in my soul.

"Sit down Mike," she said, "It's a long story."

I flopped down onto the couch behind me, in no state to argue. I felt exhausted now and simply wanted to know what happened. She sat in the chair facing me and took a long sigh before starting, "It all started like you said it would. I went to work at the hideaway, and at first I thought everything was fine. I couldn't contact you because for some reason Adam was around all the time. When he wasn't, his new apprentice Jade was. I could feel them probing me, questioning me, and I could feel them up here, in my head." She tapped the side of her head.

I tried to keep my mind off of things all the time, tried to do what you said and not think about our plan. Not think about the fact that you're alive. But they were around so much, always asking little questions, trying to get me to drop my guard. Adam's new apprentice is a cold woman, not cruel, but just cold. Her name is Eve, Evelyn but she goes by Eve. Mocha skinned and as beautiful as any of the girls working in the brothel, but just cold Mike, do you understand?"

I nodded my head, though I could feel the drain on my body. Weaving all of the magic I had done lately had drained me. I had done my very first ever healing today in the hospital and I'd overtaxed myself then. So to come back to the hotel and heal twice more, it was more than my mana pool had been able to stand, more than I could have done on my own. My eyelids were growing heavy and I felt myself drifting away as Erin spoke.

"Mike, are you ok?" I heard her ask almost as if from far away.

"Tired, need... to... crash..." I said. Then my eyes closed slowly as her voice got further and further away.

- - -

I awoke starving, with my stomach growling. I sat up and wiped a thin line of drool from the corner of my mouth. Voices nearby caused me to drift up out of the deep sleep I'd fallen into. Something had woken me up however, what was it? From the other room I heard Erin call out, "Mike, the phone's for you!" I nodded, still a little sluggishly. That's right the phone had been ringing.

Then a magical sound snapped me back to wakefulness, that of Cheyenne laughing. I sat up and looked around. I was shocked to see Hector sitting at the table with the beautiful and exotic native american prostitute. Erin crossed into my line of sight, looking through the doorway at me as she held the hotel's phone out as if to remind me that I had to take this call. Sleep shrugged off me as Cheyenne laughed again at something Hector said in his soothing accented voice.

I nodded to Erin and rolled over to the side of the bed, grabbing at the phone there. Putting the receiver to my ear I guessed at who it was. I said hello and a moment later I heard the click of Erin hanging up in the other room. Only after that did I hear a very serious sounding voice coming from the other end. "Mike," Emily Whitefeld said, confirming it was me before continuing. "I need to talk to you, in private. You're not going anywhere are you?" I told her I wasn't planning on it. "I'll be down to your place in a little bit as soon as I can get away." Then she hung up without any explanation or even a goodbye.

I wondered about the strange exchange, but knew that she wouldn't have said anything if it wasn't serious. I still felt the last vestiges of the mana drain induced sleep hanging onto my body and shook myself, slapping my face lightly to try to wake up. It was odd, ever since I'd become a mage, sleep was far less important to me. As long as I was willing to burn mana to stay up and keep myself fresh, I could stay up for days and days. Even when I did sleep it was short and light, and as long as I had some mana in my system, I always woke up refreshed. I guess this grogginess meant that I had really burned off a lot of mana today and needed to recharge. I looked through the door again at Hector as he sat talking to Erin and Cheyenne and wondered what he was doing here.

Then, almost as if he sensed my gaze, he turned in my direction and said to the girls, "Ok girls, go get some dinneh and brin' somet'ing back for Mike, we nee' to have a chat." Then to my surprise they both agreed without even a slight argument, and Cheyenne even leaned in and kissed the old man on the cheek, hugging him lightly.

I stood up and stretched, trying to wake up as I watched the two women gather their things and head out of the hotel room. Hector walked past me and stood at the window, looking out on the night sky of the Vegas strip. He was waiting for me, waiting to speak. I joined him, looking out and not at him.

"The silence is concerned," he said simply. "Adam Saks, he is no archmage, but he also no one ta be trifled with. He has money, influence, an' a lot of experience. More than that, while he an eros mage, he one extremely skilled at manipulatin' minds, a master of illusion and subterfuge. When it come to mental magic, very few that are 'is peer, even among the arch mages." He paused, letting that sink in for a moment, "So you shouldn' be surprised that when you sent Erin, it was only a matter of time till he learn everyt'ing."

"So," I asked, "He knows I'm alive?"

Hector nodded, "He petitioned the Silence. He wants to amend his mistake."

I looked at him, "Mistake?"

He turned and looked at me, "You Mike. He say it was a mistake to help you become a mage. He say that you like a rabid dog, needin' ta be put down."

I was shocked and without words. Finally I found my voice, "Because I broke from his insane training, because I didn't follow his directions? I've learned so much more on my own, in a shorter time, following people like you, watching Emily Whitefeld, practicing on my own, then I ever did with him. How can he just say I need to be 'put down'?"

Hector sighed and turned, putting a hand on my shoulder, "Because Mike, you're a young one. He been alive more than ten times you. He come from an age where the master an' apprentice role was very serious. He lived through more than one inquisition, an' he knows how dangerous a rogue mage can be. But most of all, there a lot of mages who think like him in the Silence."

"So what?" I asked, my body tensing, "You're here to kill me or something?"

Hector looked at me for a moment and then laughed. He clapped his hands together as he laughed, "No Mike, of course not, we friends I think. I figgur'd I was too old an too tired to ever make a new friend, but I know you. I know your heart, an' you a good man. E'en doin what you did to them men from New York, I know you a good man."

I winced as I thought about the two men I'd killed. Two? Or was it three when you added in Erin's father, who committed suicide because of my mental manipulation? The realization that I didn't even know if I counted him made me feel slightly ill. But Hector saw the look on my face, "If you wern' a good man, Mike, you wouldn' be feelin' that way right now. Thas what I mean. I know it, the Silence know it, an' them two pretty young girls know it. Thas why they cling to you. Maybe it's love they think they feel, I don' know. But maybe it's that there isn't enough goodness, enough decency in this world, and when someone find that, they wanna be around it."

I swallowed and looked away from him then, looking out the window at the Las Vegas strip. I thought about how my life had been a year ago. Trapped in a marriage that had grown cool, not aware yet that my teaching position would be eliminated at the end of the school year. I was a good teacher, I thought, and I figured that even though my wife and I never had kids, I'd just sort of 'run out the clock' on my life. I figured I'd be happy enough work to retirement, then maybe take up painting or something as my body failed around me. That was the way it was supposed to go wasn't it? For normal people at least. You did the best you could, you took your lumps when they came, you did what you thought was right, and you hoped that the good outweighed the bad.

But this new life, it was so foreign, so alien. Magic, mages, sex, succubuses, genies, intrigue, secret groups monitoring my life, and a mentor that now wanted me out of the picture for failing to follow his mental picture of what an apprentice should act like. I closed my eyes and pressed my head against the cool glass of the plate window. My breath came out in a ragged sigh.

"Do you know why I only use healin' magic now mike?" I heard Hector ask from beside me.

"No," I whispered, not particularly caring at that moment as I was wrapped up in my own self pity. Although the way he phrased the question told me he could use other forms, confirming my suspicion that he was in fact an archmage like me.

"I told you I was old," he said, and I could hear him walking away from the window, away from me as he spoke. He moved towards the kitchen and began boiling water on the small stove as he told his story. "I was already more than seventy years old when the white men came to my land. Dey wanted slaves. Slaves meant somet'ing different to us den it did to dem. See, if one tribe beat another tribe, sometimes it didn' mean ya kill em, it mean ya take em as slaves. Sometimes the slaves, they let go after a year, sometimes never. Sometimes you trade your slaves back to their family for food, good, or even just bragging rights. Sometimes the slaves your tribe took never left, but they became a part of your tribe. Dey come an dey work for your tribe, an eventually dey just a part of your tribe. Maybe the chief he takes a few of the pretty ones as his wives, and den they have kids, and that's that. So we didn't really understand, at least my tribe didn' when the white men wanted slaves, exactly how different it was gonna be. At least I didn' know, I didn' comprehend it."

He poured hot water into a mug and put a tea bag into the mug. He didn't ask if I wanted any. I turned and looked at him as he dipped the tea bag with old gnarled hands. His deep brown eyes gazing down at his mug and far back into his own history. "I had switched tribes already a few times, cause no one lived as old as me. They called me Zulwini then, it meant from the gods. I was a shaman, a healer, even then it was my greatest skill, even then I knew magic though I thought it was a gift from the gods."

He shrugged and pulled the mug to his lips taking a sip, "Maybe it was, but I saw dese white men taking away entire tribes of slaves. An it wasn' jus' the white men. Chieftains traded away their slaves for rifles, cloth, beads, whatever. I don' know how much I went for, but I was the tribe's healer, so I always hoped that the chief of my tribe at the time got a lot for me. But eventually I ended up in the shacks behind the sugar fields. They thought I was too old to work. But I could cook and take care of the sick or the whipped."

"An I was eventually sold again to a different white man. I changed myself. Became young again, a trick I'd mastered decades earlier. I was put into the fields. I didn't like being a slave, but I did like working with my brothers and sisters, an I knew that they'd die from the lash if I didn' heal em. Den, Mike, I fell in love. De masteres had named da girl Mary when she was born into slavery. She grew up in slavery. She became a woman in slavery. And Mike, I don't even know how long I had been a slave for, but I fell in love with Mary. Suddenly I didn't want to be a slave no more. I wanted to be free, I wanted to live and love Mary and nothin more. But they took her from me, they punished her, they punished me, and I couldn' take it no more. That's when I finally used my magic for selfish reasons."

He paused and looked up at me, "You ever heard of the flower 'Ghamilia,' or 'Gabriel's Wings''?" I shook my head no. "Didn't think so, I'da been surprised if you had. Doesn' exist any more.... but used to be popular. Pretty flower, triangular leaves, white at the base, faded to purple almost black at the edges. People used ta say that the petals looked like angels wings."

I was confused, "What's that have to do with Mary or your story?"

Hector sighed and set down his mug in the sink, staring at it for a long time before answering, "When they took my Mary, when dey killed her, I went mad. I didn' jus' kill all of dem. I cursed the Ghamilia plantation we was workin on. I haded that flower, blamed it along with the masters. So I killed them. I killed the masters, I killed the whips, I killed them all. But it didn' bring Mary back. So I killed the house servants and I burned the flower plantation to the ground. But my Mary was still dead. Killed like an animal because she damaged some flowers. So I turned my rage on the flowers. I killed all of the Ghamilia out of rage Mike."

I nodded my head, not understanding exactly what he was saying. But he looked at me again with his penetrating gaze, "I didn' set fire to the crops Mike, you don' understand, I killed," he paused and jabbed his finger into the counter next to the sink violently as he enunciated the next word slowly and carefully, "all of the flowers. Every single last one. Every seed, every root, every blossom, every single spec of pollen that came from Gabriel's Wings. I killed it. Across the world wherever it was, it was gone. Gone from our reality, gone from our world, like it never existed."

My eyes opened in shock. That was why I didn't know of the flower. I hadn't ever heard of it because it had been wiped out of existence centuries before I was even born. I stared at him, finally grasping what it was he was telling me. "The backlash, it almost killed me. Maybe it did kill me, I don' know. Cause when I woke up, I was buried in a slave grave. Clawed my way out to find the plantation the same way it had been before my act of rage. The masters, they was all gone, but they been replaced by new ones. New slaves, new bosses, everyone, everyone been replaced, cept Mary of course. And cept for the Ghamilia. It was a sugar plantation now. I asked someone later, an they said they never heard of no flower called Ghamilia or Gabriel's Wings. They said that plantation always been sugar. But I know Mike, I know what it was and I know what I did."

"I met another mage later in life that remembered the Gabriel's Wings. He knew how it had looked, remembered the sweet smell of it, and remembered the day it had ceased to exist. So I know I wasn't crazy, but I know too, what I done. I lived more than three centuries Mike, and in all that time there isn't a single day that I don't catch a whiff of Ghamilia on the breeze at least once. When I do go to sleep at nights, I dream of vast fields of white and purple flowers. More than three hundred years later, I'm still paying for my crimes against the fabric of reality."

He sighed and suddenly looked very tired, "Every person I heal, every life I save, it's still just a drop in the bucket for taking somethin so beautiful away from this world. I don't remember the faces of the men I killed. I did for a while, but that faded. Cause a man killing another man, that's life, that's the way things work at times. You feel your own guilt, and eventually you gonna move on from that. But when you use your magic, when you mess with reality, well, you step outside of everything that ever made you human. You stop being a part of this world and you become something else. The bigger your sin, the longer it clings to you, and now after all this time, I don' know if it something I ever gonna come back from."

We stood there, silently, for a long time. I don't know how long. He staring down into the sink as if some answer might float up out of the mug, me just watching him quietly, taking in everything he'd said and pondering the deeper meaning. Was he granting me forgiveness for killing two men? Could he even do such a thing or was that a power beyond even him? Beyond any archmage?

Finally he spoke again and he sounded a little more energized, "I just want to warn you Mike. See, the Silence, it decided not to honor Adam's request. You your own man, not his. But Mike, there much greater things to worry about then some group of mages that be watchin' you. You know about feedback and the risks of altering our world with magic. You an arch mage. We as much a step above regular mages as they above humans. But that don' make you anyt'ing but more vulnerable in some ways. You trip and fall, you gon break yo neck, same as anyone else. You get stabbed, you gon bleed out. If Adam hires some thugs, like the ones you took care of, an they get the drop on you... well... you might have a bullet in you before you even know they there."

He paused for a few heartbeats and nodded, "There a reason I stick to just healin people. Archmage or no, I got no enemies left alive. People think I'm an old doddering man from an old world that passed me by centuries ago, an maybe they right. But I seen more than a few archmages come up an rise too quick. The wrong people take notice, an then they gone."

He snapped his fingers, a loud crack from the old weathered hands, "Juss like that. But what's worse is when they forget how powerful they be. We archmages, we can reshape reality, make something that wasnt, be. Or like them flowers, make something beautiful and make it never have been. The universe, it don't like that. Reality always gon' be pushin back against you, every step of the way. The more you push, the harder it push back. If you don' remember that, well Mike, you gon' be your own worst enemy."

I nodded my head, the sombering effects of the few bouts of feedback were still sharp in my memory. I knew enough about it to understand that the mana I stored, my energy to weave spells, it powered my drive to reshape reality. It didn't matter if it was healing a cracked rib, or delving into someone's memory. But what I did know was that I could get away with more if there were less witnesses, for lack of a better term. Healing Cheyenne's wounds in front of Erin had been much more draining then when I'd healed far worse injuries in the hospital in front of Hector. It was because Hector's understanding of reality included magical healing. But while Erin knew it existed, she was only human. Erin's subconscious mind couldn't really grasp the concept of magic and magical healing, it went against her reality. So the feedback was much greater, and I offset it with expending my mana, but it still knocked me out cold for several hours.

"So what am I supposed..." I started to say, but was interrupted by a knock at the door. I looked at it for a moment, wondering who it was, Erin and Cheyenne had a key to the room, they wouldn't have knocked. I thought about dropping into my magical 'room' inside my head and casting a spell to see who was outside the door, by scanning their thoughts. But Hector was quicker than me. He simply walked to the door and looked out of the fisheye peephole.