What Miracles May Become

"A miracle!"

"Marrish has brought the gift of magic to the Mar!"

"Weard Darflaem received the gift!"

Weard thought, If I let go of Tharv's hand, he'll collapse. The candle will fall, and the last thing we need is for the entire yard to go up in flames. But why isn't the flame flickering in the wind?

The herbalist could just believe Marrish had given him the gift of magic. The wind, the lightning, the clouds but no deluge were too powerful for the normal weather pattern, at least in Weard's memory.

Oh, Marrish, save me from your worshippers.

He barely had time to think the prayer before the crowd reached them. The handclasp shattered. As they lifted Weard up in cheers and shouts, he saw the cooper stagger and fall back, drowned in the sea of people. The candle fell as well, its light vanishing into the Mar. Powerful gusts of wind threatened real flames among the people, and the lightning and thunder sounded very close.

Surely all this is a sign from Marrish, he thought. Surely, this is the Lord of Wind and Fire granting all the Mar the gift of magic.

And surely, Weard thought, Seruvus has told Marrish that his gift wasn't given so much as stolen. The herbalist began to panic though the growing, suddenly malevolent wind and the evil, heavy clouds above. The cheers seemed less joyous and more angry, though the words hadn't changed.

Weard struggled against the few lifting him up, trying to put him closer to the clouds and Marrish. He squirmed and yes-yes'd his way back to the ground, fending off the people who snatched at his clothes. However kindly they put it, Weard could only see one thing in his future if he stayed out here in Marrish's sight. Finally he made it into a large, fairly empty room and tried to stand as close to the center as he could.

*******

Sophi watched the crowd surge at her father, four hundred Mar making a mob of jubilation. But she saw who didn't rush forward: most of the elders, including Hugrit and Geflo, the evangelical leader. Lauf, who watched the people like she did. Aussie, whose smug smile was more righteous than anything. Tharv, getting trampled. It didn't matter that, maybe, his appearance with a candle was the reason Weard had been able to cast his spell; Sophi could see the strain in her father's eyes before he had the white bar of wax to focus on.

Schafft had rushed forward, probably to help carry Weard. He would want to be one of the first to ask questions on how. The agriculturalist had been briefly angry, no, more frustrated, that he hadn't been told. He had muttered something to himself, something like, "tea or sap? Which?", then had whooped like a little boy and joined the crowd.

The clouds gathered menacingly overhead, flashing with lightning in the distance. Thunder rolled around them. The wind was strong, as though a hurricane had made landfall without anyone having warning.

Strangely, the fire her father had summoned to the candle, this time, had not wavered in the wind. It had not blown out. They had been able to easily beat out the fire when he had set his beard ablaze the first two times. This flame, though, seemed to be nothing but white light.

The crowd surged back like a powerful tide, pushing her toward the house. She saw her father riding the crowd like a man tumbling down a wave and reached for his sleeve so he could take her with him. It reminded her of when she was little, always grasping for him to stay or take her with him.

Maybe, she thought, I stayed because he was so much more interesting than mother. He always let me play in the garden, always showed me what he was doing. He always spoke to me like I was an adult, and answered my questions, even when I kept asking why. She remembered once asking "why" many many times in a row, just because it was funny, but every time he had an answer that seemed to fit, even if, when she got older, she found out he was mostly playing her game right back at her.

Now, whether he was aware of it or not, he pulled her into a large room and held still in the center, shivering. She wrapped her arms around him, and he put his arm around her like a protective wing. She watched the people, watched Hugrit and his farmer's stoop leaning in to listen to Geflo's urgent whispering. The evangelical leader was purple with rage.

A score more people spilled into the room in an excited torrent before Lauf entered. Weard heard the diplomat shouting, then saw him close the door and lean back against it, a broad smile on his face. The herbalist smiled back uncertainly.

"I hadn't expected ..." Weard shouted, but Lauf's face suddenly took on a look of broad panic.

"This is my damn house!" he roared and opened the door again, shouting all the louder to people to maintain order. His face was quite red when it popped back into the room to grant an optimistic smile upon the herbalist, then it vanished again.

"How did you do it?" Schafft asked, springing into existence at Sophi's left. "Was it the kalysut sap, like we talked about?" She saw Aussie standing next to the agriculturalist, grinning self-righteously. He was the reason people hadn't drunk the kalysut tea.

Weard waggled his hand. "It wasn't the sap. What happened was ..."

"I demand an explanation," Geflo roared. The room became quieter, the few dozen people in it tamed by the evangelical leader's rage. "How did you do this? Why did you do this?"

"Geflo, he has given us the gift of Marrish," Schafft said blandly, but was overridden.

"Hogwash, balderdash and damnen hunt, lad, that was not magic. I saw it with my own eyes! The cooper, what is his name? Tharv Haggart! Ran up with the candle and it lit! I saw the sparks from the flint and steel where their hands hit."

Hugrit stood behind him, nodding with each successive word. And when Geflo paused to take a breath, he leaned forward and hissed, "Cheap trickery! What possessed you and your midnight cabal to cheapen our rites thus?"

"Cheapen our rites?" Weard said, and Sophi also felt clearly baffled by this tirade. "You saw with your own eyes what happened."

"I saw you fake the most precious of our tenets, that Marrish would grant us the gift of magic after our years of sacrifice!" Geflo interjected.

"We have sacrificed for many years," Schafft retorted. "How did you think the gift would come to us?"

"It certainly wouldn't come to someone who strayed from our faith."

Sophi held her father tighter. The old man seemed at a loss for words, and she could understand why. In all of her talks with him about what would happen today, in not one of them had they considered someone would say he had faked the entire thing.

Weard squeezed her shoulders, then pushed her slightly away. He pulled a flask out of his pocket and tipped it all the way out. A tiny trickle spilled into his mouth.

He's going to try again, she thought. Pay attention everyone. But she couldn't get herself to say it out loud.

"Strayed?" Schafft laughed, a false sense of lightness in his tone. "Until today, you would have said, Weard is among our elite, our most respected. He is a leader in our faith, you would have said. If I did not think highly of you myself, Geflo, I would think you expected Marrish to grant you the gift of magic to show everyone."

"I do not think that highly of him," Aussie growled into the stunned silence as Schafft's backhanded accusation settled over the small group. "Your evangelical leader is a weak man who is afraid his role will mean less because the gift has been found."

The mapmaker looked around him at the gathered men and women in the room, the small group who had stayed crowded in before Lauf had closed the door. Geflo spluttered incoherently. Hugrit raised his voice to defend the evangelical leader. Arguments of character sprang up on both sides, and Sophi wished the diplomat was here to do just what his job entailed: mediate in the dispute.

"Geflo will not be the only one," Aussie said loudly, quieting most of the people. "Our religion has stagnated, run by men and women who use their positions to escape meaningful labor. This house is barbaric, and home to a leader of your church. The first hero would be appalled. What kind of sacrifice are you giving, when there are rooms full of luxuries hidden away here?"

Schafft looked stricken. Aussie had just reprimanded one of the most staunch supporters of Weard. Sophi could only be thankful Lauf wasn't here, just a moment after she had wanted him to show up. Argh, she thought, I'm acting like a little girl. I should be defending my father just as strongly as Aussie is. And I could do it better.

But Aussie seemed to be winning them over by telling them they were self-centered beasts than arguing their stupid points with them, as Schafft tried to. Schafft's approach of laughing their pathetic concerns back into their faces was degrading, but something about Aussie's direct attacks at what they thought they were made them look again.

They had seemed to reach a standstill, Aussie and Schafft on one side, Hugrit and Geflo on the other. Fists clenched, teeth bared, hair standing on end in the static-charged room. Sophi was glad they were inside. She stepped away from her father finally.

"Whatever we argue about," she said slowly, and their attention slowly slid to her. She felt like a pond in winter, slowly freezing under the cold breath of Heliotosis. "Whatever we argue about," she went on, "there is an entire town out there that saw what happened," she waved off a protest, speaking more loudly. "That saw my father create fire. They believe, or they disbelieve. We should elect a panel to investigate the event."

"A panel?" Geflo scoffed. "It is clear in the eyes of men and gods ..." Hugrit pulled on his sleeve.

"A panel," the farmer said, nodding slowly. "Your father should have had the sense to do that in the first place."

Sophi reddened. Aussie smirked. Schafft said, "Aussie, you were right. Imagine if they had all had the tea!"

"Tea?" Geflo said. "Your mind-altering drugs were not enough? Is this tea from Kafthey?"

"It grows in everyone's back yard!" Schafft yelled back. Aussie stayed him with a punch to the shoulder.

"I suggest, in three days, the panel meets," Sophi went on, "and my father does what he did again for the panel to see and judge the authenticity of the gift. In the eyes of Marrish, the mind of Seruvus, and the wisdom of Fraemauna, this is the way it must be done."

"We can argue forever," Hugrit said, "but we will get nowhere without proof. I side with the herbalist's daughter on this."

"Weard can and will create his magic again, and you will see that this indeed was a miracle," Aussie said quietly.

"Whatever trickery you used will fail you before the judges. I nominate myself for this panel," Geflo said.

"Of course," Aussie said. "I nominate Schafft."

"Hugrit, you will be a part, as will the rest of the leaders," Geflo said. "Excepting Weard. Who will stand in his stead?"

"Tharv Haggart," Sophi surprised herself by saying. She shrugged when they stared at her. "Your panel is six to two biased against my father already. Having another friend there will help him."

*******

Weard didn't hear the arguments. He didn't hear the decision to do the panel. All of his concentration was on what was happening in the mystical fog before his eyes, or, rather, what was not happening.

The motes moved peacefully amidst the turmoil of the arguing crowd. They always made him joyous to see them. The world flattened a bit around everything, become a bit brighter. He assumed that was so that someone viewing all of these colors could still identify what was happening in the real world ... could still walk, for instance. It took effort to focus on walking and not on the colors around him.

But as he calmed himself, tuned out the argument, withdrew from everything but the colors, and started nudging the motes around, he felt greater strain than he had yet. To get two to stick near each other felt like holding up a towering kalysut as it tried to fall on him. They would move, individually, but he couldn't keep any two near each other. And it took far more than two to create the fire.

Weard tried one last push, one last strain, for as long and as hard as he could. The last thing he noticed before he passed out was everyone staring at him in shock.

Copyright 2005-2007 Eric Zawadzki and Matthew Schick. All Rights Reserved.
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