With Strings Attached

by D. Aviva Rothschild

©1998

*15*

HEADSTRONG

In the morning, Grunnel, As'taris, Paul, George, and Ringo stood outside, staring up at the house like actors in a Spielberg movie. John sat nearby on a backwards chair (hidden almost completely by the long black cloak) at a small folding table, devouring his usual huge breakfast. He'd spent the entire night outside and still wasn't speaking to anyone.

Not best pleased by his abrupt summons, Grunnel yawned and rubbed the back of his neck. "It's not Brox," he said firmly, giving the elf a stern glance, as if As'taris should have known better. He tried to smooth his rumpled gray-brown clothing and failed miserably.

"It has to be!" As'taris countered, shifting his weight from foot to foot so fast that he seemed to be jogging in place. Somehow he had found time to dress himself in solid red from neck to ankle, and to decorate himself with an ornate silver brooch over his heart. "It wasn't you, it wasn't those magic-dead olyrr-tirin, and no one else could have bypassed our Protections!" He began to pace in a little circle. "Brox is returning!"

"Brox is not returning," the wizard said in exasperation. "I spoke with sar yesterday. Sar will age another twenty days or more in Zagesevregar."

Wondering how exactly Grunnel had communicated with Brox, Paul asked, "If it wasn't Brox, who was it?"

"It was Brox!" came the indignant reply from the elf.

"Sheath it, As," snapped Grunnel. To the three: "I want to know that too. I think someone not keyed to the house broke through our Protections. It is possible, whatever As things, but such magic requires more power than is usually worth the expense. We shouldn't have enemies who are that angry at us." He considered the three thoughtfully. "The magic targeted you. Do you have any furious enemies, olyrr-sars?"

Images of Grynun and Terdan and Remlar and a whole cast of Idris went through their minds. "Back in Ketafa," said Ringo.

"Psheh!" the wizard sneered. "Enemies in Baravada."

"Well, we shouldn't," said Paul, who carefully did not glance at John. "Nobody seems to hate us here. But maybe we offended someone without knowing it."

"Maybe it's someone who doesn't want us to find Lyndess's friends," said George. Grunnel lit up. "Possible! Lyndess may have powerful enemies who want sar to remain exiled. Certainly the god who sent sar there has that kind of power."

George went pale. "You mean a god is telling us to stop looking?"

"I don't think so," the wizard said, half-smiling as if amused by George's fear. "You received no message with the attacks, and why would a god attack you without telling you why? Perhaps the gods on your world act so foolishly, but our gods tell us what they want of us." He flexed his fingers. "Er-h'o, we waste time in speculation. If the house's Protections were breached, it may be possible to trace the direction from which the breach came back to the source. As-" he looked over at the elf, who had wandered all the way to the shed "-we need to scan the whole house for that breach."

"We won't find one," As'taris called. "Brox is back." But he mooched over to Grunnel's side anyway. "Tirin, stay outside," he instructed. "The spells we need to throw are easily disrupted. And let me cast them, Grun," he added to the wizard. "I need the practice."

The two Baravadans went inside, and the tirin sat on the grass to wait, occasionally throwing glances at John, who was just finishing up his breakfast and still hadn't shown the slightest interest in what was going on. Paul was sure that was just a ruse; there was no way John could be so indifferent to things happening little more than arm's-length away. Nope, Paul was sure John was far more involved than anyone else could possibly guess....

Green light blazed from Paul's bedroom window. It lasted about two minutes, then winked out and appeared more brightly in George's window. Suddenly that window blew out, startling everyone. Shining fragments showered across the grass. "Less salt, Ast!" they heard Grunnel call.

"I hope he didn't get glass in me bed," George growled.

After twenty minutes of green lights and another shattered window, the wizard and the elf emerged, tired and frustrated (the former) and tired and grinning (the latter). "I told you we wouldn't find a breach!" As'taris crowed, brushing his hands on his trousers.

"It's not Brox," Grunnel repeated wearily. He mopped his forehead. A large green gem, about the size of a saucer, stuck out of one of the open pouches on his belt. "Some sar must have learned how to break through Protections without scarring them." He didn't sound very confident as he said this, however.

The elf assumed a professorial pose. "That's not possible. No magic will hide the scar of a broken Protection. The very hiding of it creates a scar!"

Grunnel shrugged. "Perhaps at the College some sar created such magic...." He sighed, clearly distressed. "The only other explanation is that perhaps one of us brought a time-delay enchantment into the house, so the Protections didn't need to be breached."

"We bought a lot of magic stuff lately," said Paul. "D'ye want to check it?"

"That finger trash?" scoffed As'taris. "We saw it. Tirin magic for olyrr-tirin."

"All those things burned the correct colors," Grunnel said. "Did you bring any magic out of the house, olyrr-sars?"

The three said "Uh-uh, don't think so, lemme check," and patted their pockets, when unexpectedly John stood up and held a fold of his cloak out to the wizard. "Could it be this, then?" he asked in a distant voice, eyes unfocused. "It's magic."

"Unlikely," said Grunnel, "but I'll do'ulkvar it." He took the gem out of his pouch and inspected the cloak through it. "As I thought, only the single Deception spell burns on it. It won't move objects."

"Brox is coming, Brox is coming, Brox is coming," chanted As'taris, dancing around.

"I'm not finished, As!" the wizard snapped. "I'm going to scan the olyrr-sars from hair to footprint. Unwitting, one may bear the item we seek." He began to scrutinize all of John, who stood looking out at the ocean, oblivious to the proceedings once again.

"Jesus," murmured Ringo, "our luck, one of their enemies sold us magic trousers." Then he noticed that Paul had gone pale. "Are you okay?"

Paul bit his lip to keep from screaming "It's him! It's got to be him!" and gave Ringo a quick nod, then turned his head so Ringo couldn't see him close his eyes.I don't want to know this, I don't want to-

"AY!" yelped Grunnel, and Paul heard the gem thump on the grass. A curious sense of triumph mixed with horror washed over him, and he opened his eyes as the wizard scooped up the gem and stared through it-

but he wasn't looking at John any longer.

*

"Shit!" Ringo shrank inside his clothing, which crawled on his skin. "Which is it? Should I take it off right away?"

Grunnel didn't reply, just grabbed As'taris and shoved the gem in the elf's hands. Puzzled, As'taris looked, and gasped. "Seopia on the ground! Sar's - "

" - kvarsar," Grunnel finished dreamily.

He was a something-person? What about his clothes? Ringo shook his head. "You've lost me here."

Again they paid him no heed. "The gem must be flawed," said As'taris. He made a scooping gesture and strode up to Ringo, reached to touch him-but jerked his hand away before making contact. He gave Ringo an odd, angry look. "Kvarsar."

An astonishing notion snuck into Ringo's mind; confused and wary, he asked "Would you please tell me what you're callin' me?"

The elf folded his arms. "You tell me, olyrr-sar kvarsar; how did you hide your magic from us for so many days?"

"My what?"

"His what?" exclaimed the others, John at last paying full attention.

"Don't lie. We know, now. Making me think Brox was back!" The elf grabbed Ringo's shoulder with a thin, strong hand. But it was As'taris who grimaced in pain while he struggled to hold on, as if he grasped a live wire. "Rust!" the elf cursed, giving up and stepping back. "You do burn brightly," he muttered, flexing his fingers.

"You should have canceled your touch-detect spell," said Grunnel.

"I didn't expect it to hurt. You wouldn't have either."

This must be a joke, Ringo thought, a little dizzy. He hadn't felt a thing except the pressure of As'taris's hand, and certainly not whatever he burned with. He must have done that to the others, he's just trying to - With a sickly, lopsided grin he said "Right, if you've been movin' all that stuff, you picked the wrong guy to frame for it.... I mean, I'm the last person who'd ever have magic."

"If you wanted us to think that, tirin, you shouldn't have uncovered while we used the do'ulkvar gem-or when we were near you." As'taris swung his hand near but not touching Ringo. "I feel you a fingerlength away." The elf tossed him the green gem. "See yourself uncovered."

Ringo's hands were numb and cold as he caught the gem and stiffly raised it to his eyes. The world became darker, mostly green, black where red had been, and his fingers-his fingers were outlined by a green aura-mitten three inches thick.

An exclamation made him swing around, and three green, unoutlined faces-and one faintly outlined cloak around John's body-gaped at him.

"You're... glowing," Paul faltered. "Through the gem, you're..."

The world felt very peculiar all of a sudden, shimmery and dreamlike and fluid, and Ringo was, he was, he was-

He couldn't remember giving the gem away, but it wasn't in his hands any more, and he stumbled over to the chair and sank dazed onto it. "I have magic?"

Grunnel stroked his chin. "You didn't know," he said with an air of certainty. "As, sar didn't know. Sar wasn't hiding it. We never felt it because sar didn't have it until last night."

I have magic?

The elf snorted. "Fires don't suddenly start burning if no spark is present."

I have magic?

"But lightning can start a fire. Perhaps the gods gave sar a gift last night. Sar's sleeping mind found it and told sar's waking mind as best it could." Grunnel nudged As'taris in the ribs. "You were right, As. The Protections weren't breached; the magic was cast by a keyed sar."

"I didn't want to be right in this way." Sullenly, As'taris kicked the ground with his toe.

Sure, that sounds right. Sure, I'm magic. Drunkenly Ringo lolled his head over the back of the chair and looked at the elf and the wizard upside-down, a silly grin on his face. "So what can I do?"

"Think of last night, deadbrain," As'taris said tightly. "You can move objects at a distance."

Ringo fluttered his hand in the air. "Right, I know about that stuff. Sci-fi movies, Uri Geller, you know. Telekinesis, huh?" He giggled, sat up straight in the chair, and pointed at a mug on the table. "Here, watch, I'll make that move." Remembering how they did such things in trashy science fiction, he narrowed his eyes at the mug and touched it with an imaginary finger-

He felt it.

His goofy smile disintegrated as intense, shocked awe tore through him. "Oh my God," he breathed. "Oh my God, oh my God." Something huge beckoned, too large to absorb all at once; the world grew hushed and apprehensive, waiting, waiting. Almost without being summoned, a second thought slipped out and touched the mug again. "I can feel it," he whispered.

And if he could feel it? why, then, it followed that he could.... His imaginary fingers closed on the handle and lifted.

The mug rose-

"Jesus!" Ringo gasped, and the mug crashed to the table, fell over. "Did you see, did you see!" he stammered, his eyes huge and locked on the mug. His hands trembled, terrified of this thing they didn't do. Gingerly, afraid that the least wrong move, the twitch of a toe, would dissolve the spell, he reached out with his mind

caressed the mug with mental fingers, felt at a distance its smooth glazed surface, the rough grainy clay on the handle where the glaze had worn off, dots of liquid clinging inside

and thought the mug upright, slid it across the table.

There it sat, the tip of the iceberg.

His heart pounding so hard it hurt, he babbled at the others "Did you see? Did you see that?" but they did not answer, standing pale and stiff. He forgot them and focused on the table again. I moved the mug! I moved George, I moved the guitar-I did all that! It scared him to form words in his mind, as if reality would flex and change with each one. He looked at a plate, reached, felt, lifted, circled it in the air, and it crashed back down as he began laughing, harder and harder until he rocked in the chair, blinded by tears.

A soft noise from someone brought him back to the world. Wiping his eyes, Ringo twisted in the chair to face the others again, but he barely saw them. "This is great!" he cried, leaping to his feet. "Watch, watch!" He mentally grabbed the edge of the folding table and thought it ten feet into the air (it weighed nothing! Nothing!), then began laughing again, and the table crashed to the ground, scattering dishes across the grass.

As'taris's annoyed voice rang through the air: "Don't break our furniture."

Ringo wanted to hug the elf but prudently refrained. "I'm sorry, I'm just so-this is fantastic! I can't believe it! It's the greatest thing that ever happened to me! If you guys hadn't told me-thank you, thank you!"

With a sour smile, As'taris folded his arms and looked adult. "It's just magic, tirin."

"Just magic! Well, maybe you're-"

"Mindmoving requires sight," Grunnel interrupted. He had the proud air of a teacher who had coached someone from an F to an A+. "You were asleep when your magic was awake, so you didn't use your eyes."

A grunt of realization from As'taris. "Sar has mindsight?"

Ringo stopped cold. "There's more? I have more?"

"Mindsight, tirin. Close your eyes and picture me in your mind."

Without hesitation, Ringo did so, imagining the elf-

"Oh!" As'taris burst into his mind like a psychedelic poster, his hair sunlight, his eyes amber set in pearl; a thousand shades of red glowed in his clothes, and his silver brooch was spun of moonbeams.

Then the picture burst outward from the elf, swept into Ringo's unprepared mind the fallen table, the grass, Grunnel, the others, the house, sky, cliff, sea, forest, until he was looking at everything before and behind, above and below, and he wailed and clapped his hands to his head as a million details pierced it, overloaded it, drove him cra-

A reflexive action he didn't know he had kicked in and narrowed his vision back down to As'taris before anything permanent happened.

For a moment he stood, swaying. "Whoa," he mumbled. "Whatta trip."

"Oh, Christ," said someone behind him-John-and almost involuntarily Ringo shifted the picture in his head to the man himself, beautifully sheet-white next to the rich, complex, dusty black of his cloak, drops sweat glistening like diamonds on his forehead. "Oh - oh - oh, God!" Suddenly John was racing for the cliff, fingers tearing at the clasp of his cloak; it fluttered off behind him, and he emerged blue and white, Baryshnikov-bodied, screaming "I can't take it any more!" With a tremendous diving leap that must have carried him twenty feet past the edge of the cliff, he plunged over the side-and moments later reappeared, soaring up on wide wings out over the ocean, toes pointed, hands gripping the waistband of his pants. His tortured face blossomed into ecstasy, and he screamed again, wordlessly, a wild, joyful, inhuman sound.

Ringo stared open-mouthed. He really can fly! was his first thought; He looks like a god, was his second; and all these transformations were suddenly too much for him; he opened his eyes, abruptly ending the vision, and ran to the house.

***

[All right, Jeft, I will give you one chance to explain why you did this to Ringo, and then I am going to wrap my hands around your skinny white neck and pop your fat white head off.]

~Never jump to conclusions, you might not find a foothold. Don't hit me! I didn't do nothing to him. I found out about it a couple days ago, that's all. He's natural. Isn't he great?~

+You know, Shag, we never did check for psionics.+

[That's because there isn't a Field on Earth, remember? No magic? No spells? NO PSIONICS, JEFT?]

~Look, if I could induce that level of psionic ability in someone, I'd do it to myself, not some stupid worthless-excuse me, some intelligent valuable human who's luckier than a roomful of Oldarian probability changers. He's a sixty-eight percent transformer.~

+Wait, my Field Mechanics are rusty. You mean he can use sixty-eight percent of the Field?+

~No, stupid. The Field of magic is universe-sized, remember? He can use sixty-eight percent of the little bit that flows through him.~

+Is that a lot?+

~Are you kidding? They put beings that high in bottles and study them. You know I'm psi, right? I'm two percent. The highest psi I know personally is twenty-two. The highest they let you know about in my universe is twenty-nine, but government agents supposedly go up to forty. The highest I ever heard of anywhere was seventy percent. Which means - ~

[You have not answered my question. How could he be psionic when he comes from a completely Fieldless universe? And if he's always had the potential, why didn't it manifest right away?]

~Just because he couldn't use it don't mean he didn't have it. The potential was there, just not the Field. And there's no reason why he couldn't've had it. With five billion people on Earth, some of them're gonna have the useless mutation for psionics. And I think it showed up so late in the run because his body was kind of resistant to the flow of the Field 'cause it hadn't experienced it before.~

[So you're saying that by an amazing coincidence I just happened to pick a man who just happens to be one of the most powerful psionics you've ever heard of.]

~Uh-huh. Pretty amazing, huh. Actually, right now he's hardly using any of it. TK starts being usable at what, half a percent, and the clairvoyance starts at about ten percent. He's gonna have to do a lotta digging- ~

[Oh, shut up.]

***

John ebbed and faded as Ringo stepped into the house. Dreamily he walked to the center of the huge living room. He spread his arms and touched only air; and, thrilled, touched the walls twenty feet away, the couch, the windows. Now the room was small, within his reach. "God," he breathed.

A breeze from the door ruffled his hair. "I'm cold," he decided, and grandly waved his hand at the door. It just sat there, and he had a bad moment. The power wasn't reliable! He'd heard stories about how telekinesis waxed and waned at random; what a blow, to find out it was true! Nervous, he tried again, pushing the door with a mental hand, and this time it closed, to his great relief. Right, I can't just want things to move, I've gotta make them do it. Waving my hands won't do anything. Still, to be sure, he thought the door open and closed again.

There was a shirt draped over the back of a chair. He frowned at it theatrically-no, that didn't work either, it wasn't a conscious act of will, and it distracted him from the real work to be done-thought it through the air to his hand. But it dropped at his feet instead. Bending to get it, he caught himself halfway, grinned, straightened, and thought it back up. "Why - "

It dropped again.

"Okay, rule number two: I can't stop thinking about it." He sat on the couch. "Let's see how long I can keep it up."

He thought the shirt up for the third time. Shirt... shirt... shirt... shirt... shirt... window behind it... At once it fell.

That wasn't very long, he thought, disappointed. Guess it'll take a bit of practice. But he couldn't stay unhappy with all that magic bubbling inside. He propped himself on his side like a Roman reclining. "I'm thirsty," he told the air, and thought to his hand a half-full cup of wine from the table. His fingers closed around it, the first object successfully fetched, and he toasted himself and drank, spilling a little down the corner of his mouth when he started giggling again.

Now the cup was in the way, so he thought it out of his grasp. It dropped when he broke concentration to admire how it hung in the air, but it bounced on the couch, so he picked it up manually and began again, sent it back to the table. When it was secure, he thought of his other magic, his mindsight, and shuddered at how he'd almost burned out. Should I try it again? What if it gets away from me again and I can't stop it? But that sight-that glorious, perfect, insanely beautiful sight. Oh, what the hell, he decided, if I've got it I ought to use it. He closed his eyes and pictured As'taris.

Previous experience barely tempered the shock of the sudden movie in his head, the wildly bright colors and unbelievable clarity of detail. As'taris, windswept, tight-faced, was talking (no sound) with someone to his left, but Ringo kept his mind on the elf only, until he was satisfied that he really did control the horizontal and the vertical. Then, drawing on the peripheral details around As'taris, he carefully expanded the image until he was looking at the front yard from a point a foot or so above the elf, who turned out to be talking to Grunnel. Both looked into the sky, a shadow passed over them, and Ringo quickly opened his eyes, canceling the image before he saw something he couldn't deal with.

How drab everything was, like faded laundry! Even sunlight seemed washed out. He blinked, trying to restore the color, but that didn't help. Absurd guilt surged in him for rejecting his eyes, but he dismissed it with a chuckle and closed them again, imagining this time the front of The Owner's Head. The place popped into view, glorious in its blue walls and brown roof. Someone had posted a sign on the door, and in focusing on it Ringo discovered he could pan in or out like a movie camera, without having to visualize the sign separately. Could he move something all the way out there? He tried touching and opening the door, but nothing happened; it was clearly out of his TK range, or maybe he just couldn't use it in conjunction with his mindsight. He would have to experiment later. For now, he swung his mind away from the building and watched the people in the street, pulling in to examine them more closely when the whim struck. Even at a distance he could discern the tiniest details of their bodies, wispy hairs on their faces, wrinkles on their hands, infinitesimal scuffs on their shoes.

I feel like God, he thought.

An odd thing: the city seemed to be missing buildings. He tried to see the shop where they'd bought the tirin magic, but nothing came into his head, and when he envisioned a building that he remembered to be near it, he found empty land where it was supposed to be. Puzzled-had it burned down?-he watched a woman walk up to the emptiness, open a door he couldn't see, and vanish! I wonder if that's what they mean by Protected? It had to be.

Mystery solved; and he flashed back to Ta'akan and pulled back from it into the sky, farther and farther until the whole city, sprawling and so beautiful he wanted to cry, fit in his head. He hovered above it, at once tiny and enormous: one small man, a side effect in the grand scheme of things, dwarfed by almost everything in the world-yet containing that world within him. He surrounded the city, and it was his, and he looked down upon it and found it good, and he shook his head and canceled the vision. "Oh, shit, let's not start that."

A noise outside. Ringo shifted his mind to the yard. Paul was staring at the front door. Too high to notice the expression on Paul's face, and just dying to show off, he opened his eyes, called cheerily "Eh, Paul, c'mon in!" and thought the door open.

Paul gaped, white-faced, and fled.

Ringo was honestly surprised at this reaction, and in the back of his mind it occurred to him that the others weren't quite as enthusiastic as he was about his marvelous new abilities. For one crystal-clear moment he saw himself through their eyes, saw how their almost quintessentially ordinary friend had been replaced by something powerfully alien. The picture even disturbed him a bit, and he wondered just how much he had changed. Again his knowledge of trashy sci-fi exerted itself, and cartoons of shriveled-bodied, huge-headed telekinetics popped into his head. Am I gonna turn into one of those? Tenderly he felt his head with both hands. Was it swelling? It could hold such a huge picture, and he was always pushing outward with his thoughts.... He got up and inspected himself in a mirror. Nothing looked different, but maybe he hadn't used his magic enough yet.

Oh well, he thought with a shrug. If it happens it happens. His magic was worth it.

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