Calamity's Child by Steve Miller, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller Page A

fire. He spoke a Word and the flames
leapt upward, meeting over his head, sealing out the world and any
random magics still afloat in the late doctor's
laboratory.
    He closed his eyes, feeling the wand
vibrating in his hand; the air, warmed by power, caressing his
face. Invoking the trance was a matter of a measured breath, the
deliberate forming of a Word in the blackness behind his
eyelids.
    As always, it was as if he passed
through a door, leaving a shadowed room and stepping into full,
glorious daylight. All about him, he perceived the cords of power,
the lines of magic which knit the world of the spirit to that of
the flesh. There was no deception in this place, nor was there
mercy. Those who came seeking truth here had best be canny, and
skillful -- and wise. If one could not be wise, caution might
do.
    Nicky, who had studied caution at the
feet of a master, brought his attention to the sorry tangle of cord
and discord before him. Even in the remoteness of the sorcerous
viewpoint, he felt a thrill of astonishment, as he counted the
layers of spell enwrapping that which had been John Wolheim. So
numerous were they that the shine of each melded into the next,
rendering the whole a blot of meaningless, shapeless power, obscene
in this place of orderly peril.
    So, then. The sorcerer girded his
will, lifted his wand, and set about the tedious and dangerous task
of separating the layers, one by one, subjecting each to the
closest scrutiny before allowing it to evaporate back into the
common reservoir of magic.
    *
    Some hours later, baffled
and sweat-soaked, his ears ringing with exhaustion, Nicky leaned
against the work table. He had scrutinized each of the
eighty-five separate and distinct high
level attacks upon Wolheim's person, and yet discovered no smallest
trace of the magician who had conceived and implemented those
attacks. It was as if a textbook spell had suddenly become
maliciously animate, repeating itself over and over. Or a
machine...
    He closed his eyes. Memory replayed
Brian's voice, cheerful with gossip: "declared that it is possible
to store -- store -- a spell!"
    "Oh," Nicky murmured.
"Blast."
    *
    He was known to Benjamin Hillier's
butler, and so was shown to the upper parlor while that worthy went
off to roust his master from his work. Restless and exhausted,
Nicky stalked the bookshelves -- novels, mostly, with Benjy's more
interesting books reposing in the research library upstairs, next
to the laboratory.
    Sighing, he turned from the shelves --
and caught himself up. Curled into the corner of a wide damask
chair was a tow-headed girl of about twelve years, her dress rucked
up to expose thin knees. There was a book on her lap -- the
bestiary, he saw -- but she was staring at him out of frowning blue
eyes.
    "Good afternoon, Aletha," Nicky said
softly. "How are you today?"
    The frown extended to her face,
drawing the light brows together. "I'm reading," she stated. "Why
are you here?"
    "I'm here to see your father," he
answered, and moved carefully to sit in the chair opposite hers.
Quick motions frightened her, and loud voices. Music, she could not
abide, nor birds, nor dogs. Despite this, she had a fascination
with pictures and books on the subject of all kinds of animal, and
would spend hours immersed in one page of her bestiary. Indeed, it
was this characteristic of absorption in her own projects to the
exclusion of any other stimulus that sat at the core of her
affliction. Benjamin had the best and most learned doctors --
psychological, magical and spiritual -- to her, and some progress
was made in the direction of encouraging her to interact with other
humans. It was rare to find her in so talkative and gracious a
mood, however.
    "Your father tells me that you are
progressing in your magical studies," he said, choosing a topic of
conversation that might be expected to engage her
interest.
    Aletha stared at him, blue eyes
unblinking, then abruptly shut her book, slipped to her feet and
walked away. A