Elemental Magic: All-New Tales of the Elemental Masters Read online

  The introit, being sung a capella by the usual tenor soloist, seemed to me to get longer each week. I wondered whether he was singing to glorify God or just to show off. Maybe it was both.

  While I was waiting for him to finish, I looked through a blur caused by the heated air just above my candle’s flame and wondered what was wrong with me. El could light candles with her magic, even when seated in the congregation unwillingly pretending to be a young lady, while I had trouble lighting even a previously burned candle from the flame on the end of the candle lighter. If there was such a thing as an anti-Fire Magician, I seemed to be one.

  After the reading of the Gospel, Luke and I took the torches back to the sacristy and extinguished them. We wouldn’t need them again until the recessional, when all we had to do was carry them and follow the crucifer. The middle of the communion service was my favorite part; I had no problems with the collection plate, the bread, the wine, or the water. Especially the water; I like water.

  In London, the water is at least more wholesome than the air—usually. We’ve had epidemics of cholera, and Father often sees dysentery among his charity patients. He volunteers at a hospital for the poor, and he frequently takes El and me along to assist. Again, it’s something she’s better at than I am.

  But I enjoy handling the water during the service. It feels alive to me in a way that fire does not. The other acolytes help me with fire, but they all seem happy to let me do the ablutions: a carefully choreographed routine in which I pour water from a cruet over Father Pearce’s fingers while holding a small silver bowl beneath them, and then turn slightly so that he can take the towel draped over my left forearm to dry his hands. This ritual washing of the hands is purely symbolic; if his hands were dirty, this would not clean them. But before he consecrates the bread and wine so that they become the body and blood of Christ, his hands have to be symbolically clean as well. We finished the ablutions, Father Pearce and I bowed to each other, and I put the bowl, towel, and cruet back on the shelf at the side.

  * * *

  Our family stayed after the service to meet with Father Pearce. It was horrible, even though nobody was angry with me. Father was angry enough for everyone in the room to feel it, and Mother was furious as well. And I hate it when people around me are angry. I sat in a chair, shaking, and kept my mouth shut.

  Father Pearce wasn’t angry with El, either, but he was very upset to learn that she was a girl. Apparently there’s a rule in the Church of England that says girls can’t be acolytes. He told her she could join the Altar Guild when she was older, but I could tell she did not find that to be the consolation he obviously intended. Still, she thanked him politely, and she pointed out that the Bishop couldn’t blame him; there was no way he could have known she wasn’t a boy. Christ Church didn’t even have our baptismal records; we had been baptized at the estate of our mother’s family, out in the country, so the records were in the parish church there.

  He then tried to mediate between our raging parents, with limited success. Mother was determined to leave Father—and to take El with her. It was finally agreed that she and El would visit her family in the country. Father allowed this on the grounds that it would be better for her lungs, and that’s what he could tell anyone who had the impertinence to ask why his wife had left him so soon after her return. As for Mother’s argument that this would give Eleanora a place to learn to be a proper young lady, Father wasn’t enthusiastic about losing his best pupil and assistant, but he couldn’t say that in front of Mother, who would have thought him insane—and she already thought that raising her daughter as a boy was both crazy and cruel.

  From the look on El’s face as Mother promised her lots of pretty dresses and lessons in music, dancing, and embroidery, it looked as if the cruelty was coming from Mother. El had no more interest in those things than I did.

  El hugged me hard, and I hugged her back. Being separated from El was inconceivable; we hadn’t been apart from each other since we were born.

  Mother practically dragged El from the room before we could say a proper goodbye—although I felt as if I were choking and probably couldn’t have said anything anyway. I felt as if half of my soul was going with them. Maybe it was.

  Father scowled after them. “El will be wasted in the country; she’s been doing good work in my practice, and she shows the potential to become an Adept. Why did the one with real talent have to be the girl? The White Lodge doesn’t take women!”

  I was astonished to hear him mention the Lodge in front of an outsider, but Father Pearce’s reply surprised me even more. “You’ll have to find a teacher for her wherever she ends up. She needs to learn more control; she melted several inches of one of the altar candles this morning.”

  Father looked at me, and I said miserably, “I couldn’t light it; I think the wick had been covered by melted wax, but it was too tall for me to see. El lit it for me.”

  Father glared. “You do have some magic; I can feel it in you. You should certainly be able to light a candle with a lit taper; boys with no magic manage that!” He sighed. “I’ll step up your lessons; now that I have only one of you to teach, I can concentrate more on you.”

  This made me feel the way El had looked when mother was promising her embroidery. I didn’t seem to be able to learn anything from Father. While El was there, it hadn’t been as noticeable, but if he was concentrating on just me . . . I repressed a shudder. Father and Father Pearce exchanged a few more comments that I didn’t hear, and then we went home.

  * * *

  The next few weeks were very strange. I spent hours with Father in his workroom, trying to light a candle: a process that left him scowling and made me very thankful that it was Lent and the church had only the two altar candles to light. I wasn’t looking forward to Easter, when there would be dozens of them.

  I accompanied Father to his surgery and to the hospital. Although I don’t have El’s talent, I was moderately useful as an extra pair of hands.

  * * *

  But not only did I miss my twin, I was starting to fear that I was losing my mind. Whenever I went out alone, I saw things. Creatures. I’m not talking about Elementals like salamanders; I’d seen them as long as I could remember. I think they lived in the fire in our nursery. But now I saw tiny naked women—with long hair covering at least part of their bodies—splashing in the pond in the garden near our house or perched at the top of every rain barrel I passed on the way to school. I watched the boys with me carefully, and I could tell that none of them could see the creatures. And when we all went down to the river one afternoon, the women were there too, but this time they had seaweed draped around their bodies. They called to me: “young magician”—and I was thankful that none of the other boys heard that. I really hoped it was just that I was reaching the age when boys started thinking about naked women, because if those creatures were real . . .

  * * *

  Lent came to an end, school was out, and I was busy at church with the various services for Holy Week. Father was busy with his medical practice; there was a sudden increase in dysentery in London.

  Although I was serving as an acolyte on Easter Sunday, I wasn’t one of the ones who had to deal with all of the candles. On Easter everyone in the parish came to church, including the “Easter Lilies” (the people who come only at Christmas and Easter), so we had extra acolytes and extra Altar Guild ladies.

  The only thing I had to handle for the Easter communion was water, so I was feeling pretty relaxed—until I picked up the water for the ablutions. It felt as if it were twitching in my hands, despite being contained in a glass cruet that was not moving, and it looked to me as if it were full of red flecks. I must have been seeing things, because not even the most inexperienced new Altar Guild member would put out something that really looked like that. But a new lady might not know to boil and filter the water . . .

  Father Pearce’s hands w
ere clean; the ablutions couldn’t make them physically cleaner. But pouring this water over his fingers could make them spiritually clean and physically dirty, right before he distributed consecrated—and contaminated—bread to everyone in the parish. It would be a nightmare, an epidemic. I could not let that happen.

  Father’s lessons had been all about pulling power through me and pushing it out to light the candle. I found myself doing the same thing now, except that instead of trying to call up fire, I pushed power through the cruet, visualizing pure, uncontaminated water. I felt dizzy, the stopper jiggled in the top of the cruet, and the crucifer hissed, “Don’t just stand there!” I blinked and looked again at the cruet. The water looked clear, and it felt pure. I quickly removed the stopper, gathered up the bowl and the towel, and crossed to Father Pearce to do the ablutions. He looked at me oddly, but I thought it was just that I had been slow about it. The rest of the service was normal.

  After the service I was absolutely starving. I had never been so hungry in my life. Father and I had been invited to the house of some friends of his for Easter dinner, and I tried very hard to behave properly, despite my desire to eat everything in sight. I obviously didn’t quite succeed, because the man sitting next to me made a joke about growing boys with hollow legs. But then he had one of the footmen give me second helpings, so I guess he did just think I was a growing boy. Still, it’s a good thing that Easter dinner is a feast.

  * * *

  That night I dreamed of those little naked women again. I was sitting next to the pond in the garden, with my pajama legs rolled up and my feet in the water, and they were frolicking around me like a pack of puppies, excited because their human had returned. I could hear their voices still in my head: “magician, Water Master . . .”

  I woke suddenly, remembering something Father had said when he first started teaching us. There were four elements; he had mentioned that briefly before concentrating exclusively on Fire. The other three were Earth, Air, and Water, which was Fire’s opposite! So an anti-Fire Magician would be . . . a Water Magician. If I were a Water Magician, no Fire Magician could teach me properly. That might be why I couldn’t learn anything from Father!

  It was just dawn, and nobody was around to stop me. I dressed quickly, slipped quietly out of the house, and almost ran to the pond in the garden. I knelt next to it and cautiously dipped one hand into the water while trying to think friendly thoughts. The water rippled as the creatures swam to me. “Hullo,” I said tentatively. “Can you answer me something? Am I a Water Magician?”

  The water in the pond positively churned as the creatures started rolling about, hooting with laughter. “Answer me!” I snapped.

  The laughter stopped instantly, and every face turned toward me. “Yes, Master,” they chorused.

  Ooops. Did I just command them? I forced a smile. “Very well. You can go back to laughing at me now, if you wish.” There were a lot of smiles, along with just a few giggles, as most of the creatures vanished into the water.

  I need to talk to somebody. Not Father, though. Maybe Father Pearce? That reminded me about the water at church. Somebody should do something about that. Actually somebody should have done something about that yesterday—or even earlier. I headed for the church.

  The doors were unlocked, and Father Pearce was leading Morning Prayer. I hadn’t realized I’d spent that much time at the pond. I knelt in a pew at the back of the nave, lost in my own thoughts. I am a Water Magician. I wasn’t a miserable failure who couldn’t learn even the simplest things; I had been trying to learn to master the wrong element. I was different from Father and El. Much as I loved them, I wasn’t like them. And it would be a waste of the gift God had given me to try to be.

  I did not want to be a disappointment to Father—although I suspected that was unavoidable—but I realized that I didn’t want to be like him either. For all the love and respect I had for him, it had not escaped my notice that he was quick-tempered (probably a Fire trait, because El was too) and arrogant, and those were not things I admired or wanted to see in myself. I didn’t want to grow up to be the man Father was. I need a different teacher.

  The small congregation had left, and Father Pearce stood next to my pew. “Albert? Is something wrong?”

  “The water,” I blurted out. My thoughts were still too chaotic to be put into coherent sentences. I felt as if my world had been turned upside down and backwards. In a way, I guess it had. “Yesterday. The water in the cruet was bad.”

  Father Pearce nodded. “Yes, it was,” he said. “I went to the well last evening and cleaned it.”

  “Are you—?”

  “I’m a Water Adept,” he said quietly. He smiled. “I’ve been wondering how long it would take you to come to me.”

  I took a deep breath. “Can you teach me?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Yes, Albert; I can. I’ll be happy to teach you.”

  “And I’ll be happy to learn from you.” I knew that Father Pearce could teach me what I wanted to learn: not just how to use Water Magic, but also how to grow up to be the man I wanted to be.

  For the Sake of Clarity

  Cedric Johnson

  There was nothing special about the town of Forest City. The entire span of the Rocky Mountains was dotted with such mining towns, and Colorado had its fair share. Nestled into a small pass and miles from anything resembling a real city, Forest City was like every other town created by the rush for gold and silver. A railroad line had been laid to bring people in from far and wide, as well as to haul away the wealth pried from the earth. With people came the buildings, and Forest City had its general store, its town hall, a hotel, telegraph and newspaper offices, a school, dance halls and, of course, saloons.

  There was nothing special about Forest City.

  There was, however, something special about Thaddeus Wohltat—though few people knew it, and fewer still admitted it. For all appearances, he was a simple man fallen on hard times. Thaddeus had been meandering up and down the main street for most of the day without purpose. He was, in fact, simply killing time.

  But as the afternoon steadily turned into evening, the air grew colder still and eventually Thaddeus wanted out of the cold. He found himself next to a single-story wooden building with a simple sign that bore the single word, SALOON, to which he started walking.

  “Perfect,” he said as he walked toward it, wrapping his threadbare coat tight around himself. “A no-name establishment for a no-name magician.”

  * * *

  The saloon had few patrons this early in the evening. Most of the town’s miners were either still working, sleeping, or at other establishments. Not counting the man behind the bar, Thaddeus made the number an even half-dozen. No one made note of this, or paid him any attention. The bartender spared him a brief glance of acknowledgment and went back to cleaning glasses.

  Thaddeus paused in the doorway for a moment. Even though he had no friends or acquaintances in this town, he’d come to expect at least a casual greeting from the other establishments. The almost complete lack of reception made him feel entirely unwelcome. But the feeling soon passed as he continued to be ignored. Thaddeus relaxed and walked to the bar, choosing a stool that was a comfortable distance from the other patrons, but close enough to get the bartender’s attention.

  “What can I get you?” asked the bartender, still focused on his cleaning.

  Thaddeus looked up at the collected bottles of liquor along the wall behind the bar. He wasn’t one that partook in alcohol very often—better to have a clear head in case a need for magic ever arose, was his thinking—so he really didn’t know what to ask for even if he was in a position to be choosy. It was all brown water to him.

  He reached into a pocket of his coat, dug out the small handful of coins he had left and placed them on the bar. “Whatever this will get me,” said Thaddeus.

  �
�That’d get you a swift kick out the door in most places,” said the bartender, not bothering to keep the sneer out of his voice. “It’s not going to get you much more around here, either.”

  Thaddeus let out a quiet sigh, but managed to keep any expression off his face. “You are absolutely right, sir,” he replied. “I should have expected no less nor any more than that.” He stood up and managed to give the bartender a faint yet cordial smile. “You may keep it anyway, my good man. I have no need of it any longer.”

  Thaddeus turned and walked toward the door without a second thought. But something about their encounter, something about the man’s bearing and demeanor, had apparently struck a chord of sympathy with the old bartender and made him call out to Thaddeus as he reached the door.

  “Come, sir. Have yourself a drink. It’s to be a cold night, by all the signs. Stay a while and fortify yourself against it before departing.”

  Thaddeus paused with his hand on the door, turned and looked back at the bartender warily. But the old man was good to his word, and drew a beer that he placed on the counter with a genuine smile. He glanced at the other patrons, but none showed any sign that this was some sort of prank—or moved for that matter.

  Still a bit cautious, Thaddeus returned to the bar and sat again. The beer was waiting there in front of him, the coins he had left on the bar untouched. He left them alone, to show he wasn’t taking advantage of this strange generosity. It was a drink bought and paid for, after all.