Rough Magic (19 page)

“Stop it,” she snapped. “I can take care of myself.”

“Of course,” he replied. “I was merely trying to help.”

She bit her tongue. Let him think that she was meek. Let him think that he could control her. He was strong. She would need to surprise him to overwhelm his power.

“I thought Caliban was bringing the wood,” she said.

“He found it,” the spirit said. “He should be back soon. And then we can do the healing.”

“But the princess? She is not coming back?” She hoped her voice was calm, neutral. She did not want to seem too eager.

Ariel shrugged. “She is gone,” he replied, carelessly. “You will have to stand in her place as the wizard's power.”

It was what she hoped for, but she still shivered at the thought of the drowned princess. Calypso loved the sea, but she wanted to die on land. Every sailor did.

But she would have known the risk, Calypso thought. And she still thought the power was worth it.

“How do we perform the healing?” she asked.

“We must stand at points and place the staff on the ground, in the middle. Then we shall mend it, each in our own way, all at once. Do you know how to do it?” He looked suddenly afraid.

“Yes,” she said. “It is a common spell.”

The spirit looked at her sharply. She made herself stammer, as though confused. “I, I mean, is it like when you heal a bone? Or mend a broken pot?”

Now the spirit seemed worried. “Like that, I suppose,” he replied. “Like both of them together. Do you think you can do that?”

“I think so, yes. I am good at such things,” she said. She wanted to assure him of her ability and at the same time shield her strength. It was an awkward balance.

But she seemed to have achieved it because the spirit nodded in relief and began looking around. “We shall do it here, then,” Ariel said, “Once Caliban returns.” He looked impatiently at the trees. The agony of his waiting was palpable.

Silence stretched out between them. Calypso tried to make the fire, but she was awkward about it. It had been a long time since she'd had to do something like this. Finally she used a quick spell. It was an easy magic. Ariel barely glanced at her when it was done. Calypso sat back on a rock and let the new warmth calm her.

At last Caliban appeared, walking slowly from the shadow of the trees. He looked old and beaten. He would not be much of a threat. Then, as he came nearer, she saw his eyes. They looked like the eyes of her mother after her father's death. So, Caliban had loved the princess. She was sorry for him, but relieved as well. He did not look like he wanted the power for himself.

“Are you fit for the healing?” Ariel asked.

“Yes,” Caliban replied. He glared at the spirit. “I will not fail.”

“Good,” Ariel replied. He glowed purple, his excitement obvious. “Let's begin,” he said.

Caliban turned and went into the hut to fetch the staff. Calypso knew the instant he lifted it from the bed. She felt it pull away from her, but waiver. It was not sure that it wanted him, either. Better and better.

Caliban was clearly puzzled when he returned.

“What's the matter?” Ariel snapped at him. The spirit seemed to flicker impatiently.

“My connection to the staff,” Caliban explained. “It's different. It seems… muffled…or muted.”

“Everything is growing weaker. Hurry up,” Ariel said.

Calypso said nothing. She tried to look faintly curious but disinterested. But neither of them looked at her. Their attention was only on the staff.

Caliban laid the staff on the ground. Gently he untied the knot in the bandage and pulled it away. The wound bled afresh, causing all three of them to shudder. But it had to be exposed, so that their healing could be directed to the right place.

They formed the points of a triangle around it, an arm's length apart from one another. At a word from Ariel they began.

They stared at the break in the wood, and power flowed out from each of them. Ariel burned even more brightly, and the other two began to glow as well. The lines of power between them thickened, grew visible. The three became one power, one magic that wrapped around the staff and held the severed ends together.

Every living thing on the island held its breath and waited, standing still as stone. Yet the stones themselves seemed to breathe, to contain a pulse of life. The island opened itself to the power of the three, and the magic filled the void that had been growing and gnawing at its heart for so many empty years.

Ariel was fire heat, smoke dance, the kiss of sun on snow, pain of birth and pang of death. He was love's heart and hate's arrow, the seething song of the sea, the cry of a gull, and the crushing roots of a tree. He was the will of every lightning strike, and he sent it out to the center of the pain.

Caliban was young again, laughing on the shore, imitating the shriek of an eagle as it plunged into the sea for its prey. Then he was running through the forest, playing tag with the spirits of the trees. He knew them all by name, and they loved him, no matter who his mother was, no matter what she had done. He was the island's child. He was the island's hope. The trees knew his voice, the air whispered his name, the mermaids sang him lullabies. This was his home, and he sent his love out into the pain.

Calypso was strong, stronger than they guessed, stronger than she knew. She had the strength of the stones and the force of the tides. The moon was her servant. Knowledge she did not know she possessed filled her mind and revealed the path she must take. She could take and shape and hold things to her will. She reached out and grabbed the staff, right around the wound.

They screamed, all of them, but the ties that bound them could not be broken. The staff knew her, and named her: Sycorax.

The island began to writhe.

V.iii.

“My life!” the staff cried into the pain that flooded all their minds. “Pay the price,” it demanded. “Pay the price and make me whole.”

“Take it from her, Caliban!” Ariel shrieked. “Only you have the power! Take it from her, now!” The spirit flailed desperately, unable to touch her.

Caliban tried. He grabbed the staff with both his hands and tried to wrestle it from Calypso. Sweat stood out on his brow, and still he could not pull it free. The earth was heaving beneath their feet. Ariel buffeted them with a wind, but it threw Caliban off balance instead of Calypso. He fell to the ground, losing his hold on the staff.

Both Caliban and Ariel were thrown from the magic, cut from the staff. The spell was done.

Caliban stared at her, horror washing over him. The ghost of Sycorax played across the features of this strange girl's face. She looked triumphant, and mad. A wild, maniacal laugh broke from her lips and spilled into the wind whipping around them all. Then she crumpled to the ground, unconscious.

It took Caliban a moment to recover. The island grew steady once more, exhausted. Ariel stilled the wind, and Caliban crawled to Calypso's side. His face was grim. “Look at this,” he said to the spirit.

The staff had been healed, but it had not gone to its new master easily. Calypso's right hand was now made of wood, up just past her wrist, and it was permanently fused to the staff. Her flesh had been taken for the healing. It was only because of her strength that she was still alive.

“We must kill her,” Ariel said. “Kill her and free the staff.” He raised his arm.

“You'll kill the island if you do,” Caliban replied.

Ariel lowered his arm. “So,” he said, dully, his colors fading to pale gray, “we are to be enslaved once again. It would be better to die, I think.”

Caliban looked down at Calypso. Gently he pushed her dark hair away from her face. “How can she be related to me?” he asked. “Sycorax died long before she was born.”

“Your mother had a daughter, older than you, born in a distant land. She sent me to see her once, to discover if everything was well with her.”

He had a sister. A Greek sister. A witch, who had a child. This child. Calypso, the sailor nymph; his niece. “And was it?” Caliban asked.

Ariel shrugged. “She was a plain girl. Stayed in her rooms. When I appeared she hid from me. Sycorax never sent me back.”

Caliban looked down at Calypso. “She was a witch,” he said. “People were cruel to her.”

“Imagine that,” Ariel said bitterly.

Caliban gently touched Calypso's face. His niece. His sister's child. An unknown sister, for certainly his mother had never mentioned her. Now he understood the bitter silence that came over Sycorax whenever she spoke about her life before the island, the life of her home. Her grief was not for linen and gold and other fine things. It was for her daughter.

And now the child of that daughter was here, caught in the suffering of her grandmother's magic. Caught by her same desire to possess and control. His mother had found a way to reach out from death and make a final grab at the power she had once held. The power that had held her. Calypso would be driven mad, just as his mother had been. She would twist and die.

He could not let that happen.

“Perhaps we can cut her hand off,” Ariel said. His words tore Caliban's thoughts. “It would be best to do it now, while she sleeps.”

Caliban considered the grim suggestion, but touching her again showed him that it was impossible. “Her life fuels the staff,” he said. “It will not release her without demanding its price. If we cut her from it, both will die.”

“And if we don't?” Ariel asked.

Caliban touched the sleeping face once more. “If we don't, she will be taken by the staff, slowly. In time she will be nothing but wood.”

Ariel grew brighter, flaring suddenly with malevolent glee. “She will be imprisoned in a tree,” he said. “How appropriate.”

Caliban gritted his teeth, biting into his patience to keep it from slipping away. “When her life is gone the staff will have nothing to sustain it. The healing will fail and the island will die.”

“So, we are left with enviable choice. Will it be a quick death, or a slow one?” Ariel stared down at her callously. “We could bind her into sleep and let the island feed off her.”

Bile rose in Caliban's throat. “What, turn the island into a parasite? Make us all a tapeworm huddled in a child's gut?” He threw his words at the spirit. He wished they were stones, wished they could hurt Ariel for making such a suggestion.

Ariel glared at him. “You want me to pity her? I have no pity left for wizards. She was the island's last hope, and she chose to kill us all. The blood of Sycorax,” he spat. His flames burned white.

Caliban had to look away. He swallowed his revulsion and considered Ariel's idea. The staff would drain her whether she was asleep or not. It was probably merciful to bind her as Ariel suggested. But he could not bring himself to do it. The thought of her lying there while the staff slowly leeched the life force from her bones was unbearable. “There must be another way,” he whispered.

“Don't be a fool,” the spirit hissed. “She is not worth saving.”

“She is a child,” Caliban replied. “All children are worth saving.”

Ariel sneered. “Such noble sentiments,” he said. “It's the island I care about, not some witch-brat.”

Calypso shifted restlessly. Ariel reached out an arm to cast the spellnet around her, but Caliban knocked it away. Her eyes flew open. The spirit flew upwards, his face boiling with terror and hatred. “Fool!” he shrieked, just before he vanished. “Treacherous, earth-born fool!”

Caliban took Calypso's good hand in his. “Everything's fine,” he lied, his voice soothing. He stroked her hair. “How do you feel?” he asked. “Do you have any pain?”

Calypso watched his face, her eyes troubled and confused. Caliban repeated his words, hoping she'd understand. He remembered that she did not speak his language well.

“My son,” the girl whispered, in a voice that seemed hardly her own. “Where is Caliban, my son?”

V.iv.

Caliban had lost his mother tongue long ago, but Calypso's words, spoken in Sycorax's own voice, stirred a forgotten understanding. Caliban gripped her hand, the left one, still flesh. Cold flesh, the warmth and strength pulled away. He rubbed it gently between his, quieting its trembling. “Hush, now,” he whispered. “You need to rest. You need to be peaceful.”

Clearly she was confused. Her lips moved soundlessly, as though they were trying to pluck words out of the air. He could not make out what she was trying to say.

“Can you tell me your name,” he asked, gently.

“Sycorax,” she said. Then her face twisted. “Calypso,” she said. She looked angry. “I tell this to you before, my name it is Calypso.”

“Of course,” he said. “I forgot, that's all. I forget things.”

“Yes,” she responded, relieved, almost eager. “Me as well, forget things….” Her eyes drifted away, to the clouds. “I remember the sky over Greece,” she added softly, in her own language.

She was so still that Caliban thought she would fall asleep, but soon her gaze turned back to him. Her expression grew hard, fierce. “Who are you?” she demanded. She pulled away from him and tried to rise.

It was then that she saw her hand. She touched it, puzzled. “Strange,” she whispered. She looked at him uncertainly. “My hand, it is wood,” she said. She laughed nervously, a wild note in her voice once more.

“It was the healing, Calypso,” Caliban said, trying to keep her with him, trying to keep Sycorax away. “You took the staff in the healing and bound it to yourself.”

She stared at him, her eyes wide, her left hand prying at the right's grip on the staff. “Yes, this happened,” she said. She looked down at her hand, growing more desperate. “Take it, Caliban!”

“I will,” he said. “But we must find a safe way. You are joined now—”