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This, then, is my secret, that which makes me altogether different than anyone could ever guess. I am more than man or policeman or tax collector. More than I have ever shown another soul until now.
My fingers work furiously, teasing reality’s threads upon the loom. Everything around me starts to turn, faster and faster with each passing breath.
Gunza struggles to his feet but can’t stay there. The spi
Unable to retaliate physically, he resorts to tried and true. “I wish that Oliver would be…”
Before he can finish, I slam my hands together with a sound like the pealing of a massive bell. A bolt of lightning crashes down from the clouds above-and Gunza is gone.
As reality continues to accelerate in its wild gyre, Magda appears beside me. “Who are you?” she says. “Are you dji
My fingers resume their weaving dance overhead. “Not dji
“I don’t understand!”
I have to raise my voice to be heard above the rushing of the world. “One good master, ages ago, wished for you to have a wish of your own. Do you remember?”
She frowns in thought, then nods. “That was a very long time ago.”
“Being a genie, you would ask for nothing for yourself, but he insisted. Unwilling to make a selfish choice, you put off the decision. You wished for one wish that you could call upon later, when you needed it most.”
Magda smiles. “And you are that wish?”
“I am.” Reality spins so fast around us, it is a blur of color and motion. I know that my work is almost done. “I waited for centuries for you to call on me, and you never did. I lived many lives, staying as close to you as I could, watching and waiting. Finally, I decided it was time for me to step in and give you a push.”
Magda touches her belly. “So you really can help us.”
“You have asked for what you need, and I will grant it. I will set you and your child free.”
“Free.” Magda says it like she’s tasting it, like it’s the first time she’s ever spoken. “Free from Rudolph Gunza?”
“Free from all masters. Free to go where you want and do as you choose.” I shoot her a grin and a wink. “Free to start a new life with your child.”
Magda wipes a tear from her eye. She removes the veil from her face and kisses me on the cheek with lips like tender plums. “Thank you, my wish.”
“My pleasure,” I tell her. “You deserve to be happy.”
“I only wish I could help you in return.”
My fingers ache as I weave the last glittering sigils. “You can’t. No more magic for you.” I shrug. “But it’s not all it’s cracked up to be, is it?”
“Sometimes it is.” Magda hugs me. “I’ll never forget you.”
“Then there you go.” I finish weaving the new world and wrap my arms around her. “I will get my wish after all.”
We squeeze each other tight as the world spins around us. A single tear crosses my face as I cease to be, dissolving into glittering gold dust that curls skyward like a puff of smoke from a dying lamp.
RPG Reunion by Peter Orullian
I learned magic was possible the day I toured Old Ironsides in Boston Harbor.
Ten years before I get this stupid-shit invite to see the old gang. Came by courier. As if that harkened back to medieval communication or something.
I was on my graduation trip. I think mostly we were in Boston because we thought the bar for Cheers was a real damn place. That, and Salem sat just up the road a piece. Easy drive to where they hanged and pressed some nice folks because they wanted their land. No magic going on there-I did the research.
Anyway, I’m on the underside of Old Ironsides (the oldest commissioned ship in the United States Navy), and the tour guide tells us that the ship used to carry the wives of officers, and that when they were in battle and shooting off their ca
At the time, I was mostly doing sessions of Traveler-a pretty good role playing game. (After it all went down with the old gang, I couldn’t even do speed sessions of D &D. Too much baggage.) But when I heard the term “son of a gun,” something got into me. Like, maybe kernels of truth live inside the old sayings. Made me think that the notion of magic was just too pervasive to be passed off as a geeky game played by pasty-faced youths when they’d finished their calculus assignments.
So I went to Rome.
Took me four years of nonstop study to ferret out the real stuff on magic. Bypassed college and all that nonsense in favor of a parking job that gave me hours to read (if no real compensation).
Turns out magic, for the most part, descends from religious things. Not in the way you’re thinking though. Not like transubstantiation to feed the masses or the regeneration of cells to wake the dead. It’s more like Lucas’s Force. Kind of sapping the inert life in things, calling forth the idea from the form. You could say Aristotle was onto something.
Point is, a group calling themselves Assinians professed to teach from texts the true method of drawing the idea from the form and using that “energy” (for want of another term) on the next guy.
They’re a cultish bunch, the Assinians. More like gypsies than ecclesiastics, roaming the dark hills some eighty miles north of Rome. Lots of lamps at night and star charting.
I spent six months with them. Cashed in my trust; gave half to the Primero (he liked to call himself that) that led the tribe, and used the rest to eat and get laid. (’Fraid I haven’t gotten better looking since the old days, either.)
But I don’t regret it.
Not a minute.
I learned real magic. God’s honest truth.
Problem was, turns out magic is mostly about offense. It’s not meditation for self-improvement, it’s not defensive bullshit like karate. It’s commanding things to inflict damage. I suppose it would require a revision of all editions of D &D.
But that’s just a game.
And then I get this invitation: “RPG Reunion” it says.
Like they’ve forgotten what the hell happened. How the Saturday Night sessions came to an end. Friggin’ idiots.
Though, to be fair, that night was what sent me on the quest for the real thing.
So, there was just one thing to do: Get my artifacts.
The reunion was being held in Cedar City, Utah. Our old dungeon master wound up doing stage combat choreography and a few creative writing work-shops out of CSU (Central Southern University), renowned for its Shakespeare festival every summer.
Just like him to make us all travel to where he lives.
And it left me just a few weeks to conceive my spells and determine what physical items I needed in order to give those spells life. You see, the whole idea of combat spells (spells without material components) is bunk; every spell requires a material component. And as I’ve said, the whole notion of i
So, in the end, it wasn’t hard to figure out what I needed. I hit a deli, a candy shop, and the maple tree behind my house. I figured that would do it.
Gary looked the same. Opened the door with a big-ass grin tucked into his neatly trimmed beard-now spotted with silver. Still looked as though he polished his head. He took me into a bear hug, which I thought kind of weird, given how it all ended. But I could bide my time.
“Good to see you, man.” He took my coat and dropped it on the sofa beside the door. “Damn, you haven’t aged a bit.”
“I know.” I nodded, distracted already by three cardboard tables laid end to end and strewn with all the fixin’s for a night of gaming. Asshole meant to actually have us play.