The man gave a watery, choking laugh. 'I am the master of black magics, redling,' he said. 'I know the powers of life and death. Are you willing to pay my price?'
'And your price is?' asked Feldon.
The master stroked his hairless chin. 'I want your walking stick.'
Feldon gripped his silver cane tightly. 'I cannot part with it. I pulled it from a glacier many years ago. It is like a part of me.'
'Ah,' said the master, 'and your love is such a pale, insubstantial thing that you cannot part with a hunk of metal for it.'
Feldon looked at the twisted spider of a man, and then at his rune-carved cane. He held it out. 'Your price is met.'
'Excellent,' hissed the master of the swamp, taking the cane. 'Let us begin.'
For three days and three nights Feldon studied at the feet of the master. He memorized the marshes around the village, and felt the thick, viscous pull of the land in his mind. It was very different than the cold, clear mountains that he normally used. It left him feeling soiled and unclean.
At the end of the third day the hollow-eyed guards escorted Feldon to a small, windowless hut at the edge of the village, just within the walls of the palisade. Here Feldon worked the spell that the master of the swamp gave him.
In the light of a single tallow candle, Feldon cleared his mind and meditated. Normally he would think of the mountains, but now he thought of the bogs around him. He felt their watery pull, sucking him down, embracing him with their power. He spoke the words of the spell and called forth Loran.
The candle flickered for a moment, scattering Feldon's shadow behind him on the wall. Far above him, the wind coursed through the mangrove branches and sounded as if the lake itself had built a great wave to swallow the village. Everything grew quiet.
There was the sound of footsteps outside.
They moved slowly and ploddingly, the thick mud pulling at heavy feet as the sound approached. It was the sound of a figure staggering and sloshing through the muck. For a moment Feldon's heart leaped. Had he succeeded?
Something heavy and wet thumped against the door, sounding like a bag of wet earth. Slowly Feldon pulled himself to his feet (he no longer had his cane) and shuffled to the door.
The door gave another sloshing thud and then another, as Feldon reached it and grasped the knob. The stench hit him. It was a moldering, heavy smell, of rotted flesh and damp earth. It was the smell of death.
Feldon's heart sank as he realized what he had done with the master of the swamp's spell.
There was another thump, and the door shifted, but Feldon was leaning against it now, seeking now to keep whatever was on the far side out. He did not want to see if the spell had succeeded. He did not want to know.
There was another thud and a gurgling cry that sounded like sloshing water. Feldon's heart shattered as he reached inside himself and willed the spell to end, to send whatever was beyond the door back where it had come from.
The smell of death was gone, and with it the sounds. Feldon stayed pressed against the door, holding it shut with all his might, until morning.
When morning came, he slowly opened the door. There were no footprints in the muck outside the door. Indeed, the entire village had been abandoned. There were no hollow-eyed guards, no master of the swamp.
Nothing called his name in a gurgling voice like sloshing water.
Feldon staggered to his wagon, pausing only to use a piece of black driftwood as a makeshift walking stick. He did not look back.
In time, as he traveled, the ground began to rise, and dry. He had circumnavigated the lake now, and all that was left was to return home.
He dreaded that, for fear of what he would find in the garden.
He was three days from his village when he heard of the scholar in a small town further west. Propelled in part by curiosity, in part by dread, Feldon turned his wagon westward. He found the scholar in the musty remains of a temple library. The building had been shattered long ago by an earthquake, and the snows and rains had rotted most of the books. Yet among the tattered remains of books and scrolls, the scholar hopped like a bird-shaped automaton. He was a spindly thing and regarded Feldon from behind thick lenses of crystal.
Feldon spoke of his tale-of his loss, of his resolve to regain what he had lost. He told of the hermit, the sorceress, and the master of the swamp. And when he finished his story, the scholar blinked at him behind heavy lenses.
'What do you want?' he said at last.
Feldon let out an exasperated sigh. 'I want to have Loran back. If magic can do everything, why can it not do this?'
'Of course it can do this,' said the scholar. 'The question is-do you want it to?'
Now it was Feldon's turn to blink, and the scholar gave a thin, amused smile.
'Green calls to the living,' he said. 'Black calls to the dead. Blue creates the shadow of life. Red consumes, and that's very important as well, because you must often destroy before you can build. I study, and the magic I wield is White, which is the magic of comprehension and understanding.'
'Can you bring her back to life?' asked Feldon, his voice catching. The memory of the swamp was still with him.
'No, I can't,' said the scholar, and, despite himself, Feldon sighed in relief. 'But I can help you to create an exact duplicated'
'I tried that with the automaton,' said Feldon.
'I speak of a creation not of gears and wires but of magic,' replied the scholar, 'identical in every way.'
'I don't understand,' said Feldon.
'When you cast a spell using fire,' explained the scholar, 'I believe you do not create fire. Rather you take the magical energy and form it into the shape of fire, which then does your bidding. It is for all intents and purposes fire, but it is made of magic.'
'But what about when I use fire,' asked Feldon, 'or when the hermit calls a great wurm?'
The scholar waved his hand, 'Different uses for the same tools. Yes, in those cases it is a real fire and a real wurm, but the magic alters it. For the moment, assume that you can create something made of magical energy.'
Feldon thought about it and nodded slowly.
'So if you study an object, you can create the object over time,' said the scholar.
Again, Feldon nodded.
'If you study me,' he said, 'you would be studying that which makes me a scholar. Therefore you could call at a later time that part of me which is my scholarliness and rely on its advice.'
Feldon shook his head. 'I'm not sure I understand,' he said.
'Study me for two weeks,' said the scholar, 'and then see if you understand. Don't talk to me. Just bring me my meals. Two weeks. That's my price. That, and later you'll have to let me and other scholars into your library. Is it a bargain?'
For the next two weeks Feldon brought the scholar his meals, in much the same way as he had brought Loran hers when she was bedridden. Feldon used his magic to keep a small flame going and to cook for the scholar as he pawed through the rotting texts and decaying scrolls of the ruined temple.
For the first two days the scholar seemed little more than an amusing bird, hopping from one location to another. But soon Feldon noticed there was method to the madness, that there was intent behind each of the scholar's movements. He began to see how the man thought and knew. Through it all the scholar ignored him, save at meal times.
At the end of the two weeks the little man turned to Feldon and said, 'Summon me.'
Feldon shook his head. 'Pardon?' he asked.
'You have watched me for two weeks,' said the scholar. 'Now see if you can use your magics to bring me into being.'
Feldon blinked. 'But you're already here.'
'So bring another me,' said the scholar. 'You've got the power. Use it.'
