Trapped

"Oh, sadly," Dreamsinger said, "I am crazy. I walk the Burdensome Path." She glanced at the Caryatid with a Dear sister, why must we suffer expression. Then she returned to the enforcer. "But I am also a Sorcery-Lord of Spark. If you are not my loyal subject, you are an enemy of the human race."

"Ooo, I'm shivering," the man said. "You might scare these other lollies, but to me you're just a big-titty bitch. Someone taught you a pissy little trick, freezing the air… but as soon as I get loose, I'll show you some real magic, whore. I'll do you with my fist. Make you howl for mercy."

Uh-oh. Thanks to Kaylan's Chameleon, Hump must have seen Dreamsinger as some penny-a-poke prostitute… which told you something about the man, if that kind of woman most aroused his ardor. On seeing the image of his innermost lusts, his first inclination was to beat her up. What a world. Then again, maybe it was good the enforcer was an utter bastard-I wouldn't feel so bad when Dreamsinger chopped him to sashimi.

The Sorcery-Lord's face formed a gentle smile-a fond smile-and she patted Hump on the cheek. "Thank you, thank you, thank you, dear friend. Several people in my family say whenever I walk into a room, something bad in my head won't let me leave until I've killed at least one person. They tease me mercilessly; they say I'm compulsive. But you know what?" She leaned close to Hump's ear. "Whenever I walk into a room, I find there's always at least one person who needs killing."

Dreamsinger placed her hand lightly on the man's shaved head. He growled obscenities and tried to duck away… but she simply squeezed tighter, her gold-painted Hafsah fingernails digging into the man's scalp. With her other hand, she traced a complicated pattern in the air, as if spelling words in some arcane language. Soon she began to hum, a single tone that started in her throat, then moved without changing pitch: traveling into her nose, then opening up to get more lung-power and finally reverberating all the way to her diaphragm.

Wind rushed past my ears-as if invisible forces were answering a summons, gusting out of the night to do the Sorcery-Lord's will. Nanites, I thought. Nanites gathering by the billion for some hellacious spell.

The flame on the Caryatid's shoulder-burning all this time, even while the rest of us were frozen-disintegrated into a million tiny sparkles that flew in Dreamsinger's direction: nano-sized particles of magic, ripped from the Caryatid's weak power and drawn toward the Spark Lord's greater attraction. Every atom of enchantment in the room, every high-tech microscopic mite except the ones still holding Hump frozen, came in response to Dreamsinger's call. The unseen shell around Impervia evaporated; she gasped and crumpled out of sight behind the bar. I could hear her pant and wheeze, but didn't dare move to help her.

The expression on Dreamsinger's face had become beatific… and my friend Caryatid also seemed transformed. Avid. Hungry. Like a music-lover who's spent too long listening to amateurs tweedle on tin flutes, then hears the full glory of a great symphony orchestra: Yes, I remember-this is what it can be like. The Caryatid possessed only modest gifts of sorcery, but she knew the real thing when she felt it.

The real thing. Magic. Just how good good can be.

I saw it in the Caryatid's eyes-recognized it from my own eyes twenty years past, when I was going to be amazing. When I was going to wield power. A world-shaking physicist/mathematician/composer/philosopher/hero. Revolutionizing society. Correcting the mistakes of previous generations. Cutting through the crap and never getting bogged down in distractions. Or self-pity. I'd stood on the verge of an epic life, and was certain no great deed would elude me.

Remember the feeling that anything was possible? How we would ride Life like a wild stallion that only we could tame?

I knew the Caryatid remembered as she watched Dreamsinger gather sizzles of magical force. My sorcerous friend once told me she'd invented her guild name, the Steel Caryatid, when she was only thirteen years old: a name that would look good in history books. Sorcery came so easily to her compared with everyone else in her little school. Then she went to the big-league sorcery department at her provincial university…

You can fill in the rest yourself: shock, denial, bouts of crazed studying, bouts of depression, bouts of self-sabotage with men/drink/procrastination, finally leading to acceptance of a humbler destiny. But the Caryatid could still look at Dreamsinger with sharp-edged memories of what it was like to touch greatness. The power that might have been.