B stared at her as she spoke. “Marla,” he said. “You really deal with hard people, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” she said, thinking, And I’m the hardest one of all. “So Susan tried to wipe me away, break my ties to the world, but since I’d already left this world, there was nothing for the spell to work on, so it just…fizzled.”
“Has anyone ever done this spell before? No, never mind—you don’t know, right? How could you know?” He laughed, harshly. “That’s the whole point.”
Marla wondered what would happen to B’s movies if someone cast an erasure on him. Would they be unchanged? Would he be replaced in all footage by a star of a similar age, or some forgettable character actor?
More pointless mental meandering. She usually kept her thoughts in better order than that, especially in times of crisis, but she supposed she was just trying to avoid thinking about Rondeau being tied up somewhere—though not at the sorcerer’s shop, not yet. Nowhere Marla would be able to find him. She returned her attention to B. “We assume the spell has been done before. It’s tough to perform, but no harder than half a dozen other spells of such magnitude. It takes about a year of steady prep work—I’m talking hours of meditation every day—which is why my spies had time to discover that Susan was planning it. Even so, I cut it close.”
“Will it be another year before Susan can try again?”
Marla flipped a dagger in the air and caught it. “I wish. No, she can do it again in a day or so, once she replaces the spell components that were consumed in the casting, and gives herself over to more meditation.” So that was what the Possible Witch had meant. If Susan had eaten a bit of bad fish, spent the night puking, and delayed her spell until this morning, Marla would have been back in this world, and the spell would have worked on her. “So I’ve got to move fast to get the Cornerstone.”
“And the Cornerstone is useful because…?”
“Good to see Rondeau exercised some discretion. The stone is an artifact, a sort of…magnifying glass and industrial-strength fixative for spells. It makes magic stronger, and it’s especially useful for binding spells, and making things last forever. It’s also handy for overcoming the inertia of reality.”
B looked at her blankly.
Marla made a vague hand motion. “Reality is pretty resilient. You can bend it, but it always snaps back into shape. That’s why magical gold turns back into leaves and cow patties after a while—magic bends the rules of the world, but it can’t break them. With the Cornerstone, you can bend reality to the breaking point, and do all sorts of things. Like make yourself live forever. Really forever, not just a long time, like my friend Lao Tsung lived. Fortunately, most people who are powerful enough to brew up magic like that are smart enough not to try it. The ones who do go for eternal life usually get about a century past their normal life span and then go bat-shit crazy. They’ll still be floating around in space when all the stars have burned out, poor bastards. You can do other things with a Cornerstone, in theory.”
“Like bring a god back to life?”
Marla nodded. “Unfortunately. You have to bend reality a lot to get it to accept a giant frog-monster whose mouth opens onto the Land of the Dead. But Mutex can push things that far, with the Cornerstone.”
“So what are you planning to do with it?”
“I’m going to use the Cornerstone to bind myself to this world, and I mean bind. Hell, after I cast the binding, I doubt even a visit to the Possible Witch would be able to shift me. I probably couldn’t even get to her temple, since it’s outside of this reality—so yeah, there are drawbacks. It’s a hell of a sacrifice, actually. I won’t be able to enter folded space anymore, like the Chinese guy’s shop. But I’ll be erasure-proof, so it’ll be worth it. And then I’ll deal with Susan.”
“Wait,” B said. “Didn’t you say that if Susan succeeded in casting her spell, it would doom your city to destruction? But it sounds like it would only doom you.”
Marla tucked her daggers away. She was sweating now, and her head felt clearer. “It would bring doom down on Felport. Because I’m the only one qualified to look after my city. All the other sorcerers, those bitches and sons of same, are incompetent or power-hungry or paranoid to one degree or another, and if any one of them—Susan included—took over, the whole damn place would fall apart. No one else can strike the perfect balance of fear, loyalty, obligations, and threats that I do to keep business and magic running smoothly. Most other chief sorcerers can’t even leave their cities without risking a coup, but look at me—I can go away for a few days, and the only thing I have to worry about is being edited out of existence. Most of the other sorcerers hate me, but they know I’m the one who keeps things running smoothly, and they accept it. Except for Susan. She was always too ambitious for her own good.”