medical tents. The smell of disinfectant was strong and Aubrey shuddered. ‘They’ll aim to make us exhausted, frightened, on edge, and then launch a major attack. It’s from the manual.’
‘I’m sure the magical feints are not,’ Sophie said. ‘Generals are suspicious of magic, I hear.’
‘They used to be,’ Caroline said. She was stretching, pushing her hands up over her head in a display that drew glances from those hurrying past, officers and troops alike. ‘Now they’re happy to entertain any possibility that could help them win. Isn’t that right, Aubrey?’
‘Certainly. That’s why Dr Tremaine has had no trouble convincing the Holmland Supreme Army Command about his tactics. They love success.’
George snorted. ‘Supreme Army Command. They wouldn’t be so chuffed if they could swap with some of their front-line infantry.’
Aubrey sometimes imagined his mind as a long line of dominos, with bits and pieces of information – observations, readings, overheard conversations – as tiles, standing independently until one is given a tiny shove.
This time, George Doyle was that shove.
Aubrey jumped to his feet. ‘Does anyone know where Colonel Stanley is?’
‘Before we left, he said he was going to check the other neutralisers,’ Sophie said. ‘Then he was coming back to headquarters.’
‘What is it, Aubrey?’ Caroline said. ‘You have that look again.’
‘What? This look?’
‘Not that one. Another one. The one that says you have a hare-brained, dangerous idea that could save the day.’
‘Day-saving is one of his specialities,’ George pointed out to Sophie. ‘And if ever I saw a day that needed saving, it was this one.’
They found Colonel Stanley halfway from the front. He was making hard work of it, pushing against a mass of troops heading to bolster numbers against the expected attack. He cheered up remarkably when they greeted him.
‘Transference Magic?’ he shouted over the tramp of marching feet and boom of artillery, the allies beginning to return fire. ‘It’s been a while, to tell the truth. The last few years I’ve been in admin, mostly. Not much chance for practical magic.’
‘You’re the best we have,’ Aubrey shouted back. ‘If you can help, I might be able to buy us some time.’
‘For our reinforcements to arrive?’
‘That’s it,’ Aubrey shouted, loudly enough to attract stares. He lowered his voice. ‘But I need to know if I’m attempting something incredibly stupid or not.’
50
Midday was near by the time they found a dugout in the secondary line of trenches, one that showed signs of being temporarily unused. Wooden packing boxes were scattered about, and a wit had used one of the uprights that supported the ceiling to begin a list of fine restaurants in Trinovant.
While troops hurried past in both directions and the crackle of rifle fire sounded near and far, George and Sophie organised the packing boxes into instant seats while Aubrey wandered vaguely to the far end of the dugout and lit a lantern to illuminate the map that was spread on the wall, an old Gallian map of the region. He rocked back and forward, toe to heel, humming softly at the back of his throat while he studied it. He was aware that his friends were busying themselves, but if pressed, he probably couldn’t have nominated exactly what they were up to.
Aubrey took the map from the wall and spread it on a few packing boxes that George and Sophie had just dragged together. He sat and began tracing the various tracks that had been pencilled in.
Colonel Stanley approached, and Aubrey looked up. ‘Sir, I need your help in constructing a transference spell. Several transference spells.’
‘What sort of transference spells? Moving material? It’s easier and more reliable to do it the conventional way.’
‘I want to shift people.’
Stanley raised an eyebrow. ‘Snipers, eh? We tried shifting snipers about, early on, but you know the disorientation such a thing causes, even if you can find a magician who’s capable of such high-level magic. They wouldn’t be much use for anything after moving a single sniper any distance at all, either. Too costly.’
‘I’m aware of the Principle of Cost.’ He held up a hand, anticipating Stanley’s next objection. ‘Sir, I also understand the implications of the Law of Transference, where the further a magician proposes to move an object by magical means, the more complex the spell.’ Aubrey rested his elbows on his knees and leaned forward. ‘I’m not afraid of a little complexity.’
‘I’m glad of that, Fitzwilliam, but I understand that you’re not a transference specialist.’
‘I’m more of a magic generalist, I suppose.’
‘Quite. My experience is in this particular field and I can assure you that we’ve canvassed all the possibilities and costs of such magical action and we’ve ruled them all out.’ Stanley crossed his arms on his chest and glanced at Caroline, who was seated nearby, stripping down and cleaning one of her firearms. George and Sophie were also doing their best to appear as if they weren’t eavesdropping while they compared stories from their notebooks. ‘I must say that I’m disappointed. I’d been expecting something rather more innovative, if I can put it that way.’
Aubrey contemplated the rough boards that made up the floor. ‘I wasn’t thinking of snipers,’ he said softly.
‘Good.’
‘I’m thinking of transporting all the members of the Holmland War Cabinet and the generals of the Central Staff from their comfortable positions in Fisherberg to the middle of no-man’s-land.’
Again, Aubrey was immensely proud of his friends. They barely reacted, accustomed as they were to the outlandish. Caroline merely caught his eye and nodded, while George rubbed his hands together in anticipation. Sophie looked startled for an instant, but when George took her hand she bit her lower lip and looked determined.
Colonel Stanley, however, made up for their lack of surprise by a superabundance of his own. He half rose, then his knees gave way and he sagged onto his wooden box. His mouth opened and closed several times before anything emerged. He flapped a hand, once, then pointed at Aubrey before faltering. When a sentence finally made its way from his lips, it was broken, the essence of disbelief: ‘You… No… It’s impossible… That’s the most…’ He settled for shaking his head. ‘No. No. No.’
Before Aubrey could respond, Caroline cleared her throat and raised a finger, drawing Stanley’s attention. ‘Colonel? He’s quite capable of it.’
Slowly, his head swivelled, turret-like, until he was gazing at Aubrey. He swallowed, a mighty Adam’s apple moving up and down his throat. ‘How do you propose to do this?’ he croaked.
Aubrey sighed. ‘Well, it’s not easy…’
The limitations of long-distance transference were immense. Many recent experiments suggested that some sort of uncertainty was built into such shifting, with potentially disastrous results. The relative locations and determining them were crucial in hoping to achieve any satisfactory result. Such a thing was fiendishly difficult.
On top of that, Aubrey knew about costs to a spell caster. The more complex a spell, the more sapping the effect on the magic user. Transference spells were staggeringly complex, and the reaction was potentially enormous.
Approaching such a scheme in a conventional manner was fraught with danger and, most likely, doomed to failure. Which is why Aubrey was banking on another line of attack.
‘Colonel, bear with me, if you would. The source of magic is human consciousness, correct?’
‘That is the current accepted theory.’ Stanley hesitated. ‘You understand that I’m being cautious here. I have no reason to believe otherwise. Human consciousness intersecting with the universe itself spawns the magic field, for want of a better description. A talented and skilled magic user can shape this to their will through constraining and channelling the medium of language.’
