The Gift of Magic Pt. 02

"It was very likely these followers would disrupt your mother's wedding and move against Mr Neilson directly, once Mr Nees had turned against them. They certainly didn't want any little witchlets around that they couldn't control. So I had to do something to protect you, and to protect the elven spirit that still existed within Mr. Neilson and his community. I knew this would mean leaving the grounds of my house and this would very likely kill me, but I had to take that risk. That's why I spoke to you about things happening to me, and you got so frightened.

"I knew where to find the last remaining Spider worshipper, and at one stage I could have used teleportation to project myself right into his lair, but my magic ability has withered with disuse and the all pervasive effects of useless technology. So I hitch-hiked to the place instead. I still have some ability to shape change, so I transformed myself into a younger woman in ragged clothes. I changed the shape of my lute to a battered guitar, which I slung over my shoulder, and stuck out my thumb.

"It did not take me long to get a ride. The first driver made the mistake of making eye contact with what he thought was a beautiful young woman on the road, and so he soon found himself stopping and then insisting on driving me all the way to my destination; the isolated house in one of the less fertile parts of the forest I told you about.

"The door was locked, but I still remembered my opening spells and I stepped into the single room. A derfen was lying in the bed, fast asleep. I shouted at him to wake up, and he sat up groggily and rubbed his eyes.

"'Who are you?' he demanded. 'Get out of my house.'

"I glared at the twisted, bitter little man. 'You are a disgrace to your people,' I said. 'The pit dwarfs were an honourable race who worked hard and produced many beautiful things, but you have betrayed them. Get out of here, summon your master and then start running and don't come back.' I was not interested in minions. The derfen had some limited magical ability but I knew that he was taking orders from another - one who was far more formidable.

"The derfen gave a single whimper and fled. As I expected, it was not long before his master arrived. It appeared in the doorway; a huge hairy monster, eyes burning with hate, tongue lolling out in hunger, with bloodstained horns on its head, and lightening playing around them.

"'Very impressive,' I said. 'Very Halloween party. Very stick or treat.'"

"Hold on," said Merrin, interrupting Lucy's reading. "Shouldn't that be 'trick or treat'?"

There was a pause while Lucy had a closer look at the screen.

"No, 'stick or treat' is right. There's a link. Shall I click it?" Lucy clicked the link and read what appeared.

"'Stick or treat' was a game favoured by dark elf children on Halloween. The children would dress in frightening costumes and visit elderly neighbours living alone, threatening to beat them with sticks if they did not treat them to everything they have. This was later popularised as the 'trick or treat' customs popular in this part of the world.'"

"Jade was right," said Merrin. "She did live in cruel times. Keep going, Lucy." Lucy continued reading.

"...I cast a spell to dispel illusions, feeling an agonising pain shoot up my body from my toes to my head as this powerful spell kicked in. Obviously I was already feeling the effect of being outside my home. My enemy now appeared in his true form; a dapper clean-shaven man of early middle age, dressed in a suit and tie and carrying a briefcase.

"The spell had vaporised my own shape change, so I too appeared before my adversary in my own form.

"'Jade!'" he muttered. He obviously knew about me from his Mistress.

"'The very same. Are you going to engage in a spell battle with me? Will you pit your dark magic against my elven enchantments? The last elven magician against the last spiderling? Or are you going to stop your harassment of elven families, and leave them to continue their task of protecting the planet.'

"It was all bluff on my part, Lucy, or rather as I have explained to you, 'necessary subterfuge'. I knew that in my present weakened form, far from the home that was giving me my strength, I was not in any fit state to be engaging in spells even with a mere technician like this man, whose only power came from Another.

"I detected a flicker of fear play around the face of my enemy. This is what probably caused him to make his fateful mistake. He pulled a gun out of his pocket and then he suddenly seemed to gain confidence. He started taunting me, giving me all sorts of contradictory orders; telling me to take my clothes off, to get out of his place, and to dance for him, putting on a strange drawling accent. All sorts of silly nonsense he must have picked up from TV. In the end I got tired of his antics and just said to him calmly, 'either shoot me, George, or put the gun away.'

"He got angry then, and pulled the trigger with a snarl. Nothing happened. His mouth dropped open with surprise and I burst out laughing.

"'You silly man, George.' I said. 'You're forgetting the curse your own Mistress put on the world to get rid of grey elves like me. You have just recently cast two powerful spells. What made you think you could use a technological device?'

"Well when he realised he had been tricked, George the banker yelled out a very rude word which I am not going to print here, and threw the gun at me. It was a pathetic throw and I dodged it easily. He then tried a spell. It might have been a rather nasty one if it had worked; in my weakened state I couldn't muster enough energy for the counter-spell. However, just as I thought would happen, it failed. A spell that should have created a huge vacuum and sucked me into it, simply fizzled out with a flatulent sounding pop.

"'Foiled again, George,' I said. 'Your spell spoiled your technology, and now your technology has spoiled your spell.' The banker gave another snarl and slowly drew a long hunting knife out of his brief case with the flamboyant flourish of one of those phoney magicians pulling a rabbit out of a hat.

'George,' I said. 'You fight like a spoiled middle class banker. I on the other hand have been handling a weapon since before my baby hands could properly grasp one. Drop the knife and you won't get hurt.'

"Another bluff, I'm afraid. I had no weapon with me and would not have been able to use one if I had. My muscles were no longer answering my brain, but were responding as though I was pushing through treacle.

"Nevertheless, George was not very brave, and the bluff, backed up by my enchantment ability, seemed to work on him. He dropped the knife and then tried to make a run for it, leaving his mind exposed. My muscles were shot, my defensive spell ability was all over the place, but my mind magic, while considerably weakened, was still operational. I felled him with a mind spell before he had gone two paces. I hobbled slowly up to his unconscious form, and started to probe his mind, dragging out of him all the details I had not yet pieced together.

"George it appears had always been a rather nasty child. The sort who liked pulling the wings off flies and taking the toys off children younger than himself. It was rather unfortunate that at the same time as he was growing up into a young man with an unhealthy interest in the trappings of incredible wealth, the Spider was also putting on one of her periodic feeble attempts at a revival, and saw young George as a potential acolyte.

"George had no magical ability himself, but he did know how to make strategic alliances. It was while he was in the house of worship with his parents, and as was his wont, disregarding the prayers of the priest and instead chanting his own requests for wealth and power, that he heard the voice.

"'No use asking Him,' she had said. 'But I can certainly help you.'

"George was hooked after that experience, and used to commune regularly with the Spider, not totally realising who she was, though he must have known she was evil. The Spider, like all dark spirits, can only work through willing helpers.

"The Spider gave George the wealth he required, and at the same time transferred some of her magic power to him. She in turn used George as part of her plan to suppress the last remnant of elven influence in this part of the world. When George had secured a position in his bank he used his boyhood companion Hans Nees junior to gain a hold over his father, Hans senior. As a magician of sorts, albeit a grubby, inferior sort, George recognised the Gift in Hans and thought of ways he could make use of it.

"George's colleague Fred Salander, another money-obsessed businessman, tangled Hans senior in a number of investment schemes and then made sure they failed. Hans senior, desperate to pay off his debts, planted too many crops too quickly, depleting his soil in the process. The infertility of the soil weakened the crops and made them susceptible to the vicious insect pests that are attracted to large areas of one continuous crop.

"Hans senior had to spray more to protect his fields from the pests, and in his stressed state the normally careful farmer accidentally sprayed the neighbour's organic property. The neighbour took him to court for chemical trespass. The resulting settlement was not enough to compensate the neighbour for loss of organic certification, but it was as much as Hans senior could afford without becoming bankrupt. The neighbour, being essentially a decent sort, did not force Hans senior into bankruptcy, instead accepting quite a major financial loss himself. A satisfactory outcome all round, George decided.

"I could see in George's mind that he had no idea who had caused the death of Hans senior. It might even have been a genuine accident - though I doubt it. But after Hans senior died, and Peter Neilson became interested in Sophie, George decided he did not want any of the Neilsons getting their hands on Sophie's quite considerable investments, which his bank was siphoning off at the time. Peter was not exactly an astute businessman, but he would certainly figure out that the investments should be returning more interest than they were.

"George kept Hans junior poor and desperate, and trapped him and his other dupe Fred into colluding on insider trading. George then introduced Hans to Sophie and planted the suggestion in his mind that Hans should court her for the sake of her investments. George had underestimated Hans's courage and had never thought that Hans would dare to take him to the police. It was this that had shocked him in the pub, not Hans's discovery, which he already knew about and in fact had contrived.

"When I had wrung all the information I had wanted from George's twisted mind, and highly unpleasant it was too, like a walk in the sewers, I had to decide what to do with him. He was far more evil than Hans junior, whose main fault had been a pathetic desire to impress. He was more evil than the bitter derfen, another local with the Gift, who George had arranged to be his henchmen.

He deserved to die. But not at my hand.

"When I was a young woman I would have had no hesitation in killing anyone who had wronged me or my family and friends. I once single handedly killed seven people who had conspired to sell my first ever friend into slavery, thereby causing her death. But old age has given me wisdom and I realised that while there are some who are bad enough to die, nobody is good enough to kill. George was just a puppet, and I knew more than anyone else who my real enemy was.

"So I didn't kill the banker. I killed his magical ability instead, severing the part of his brain that connected to his Mistress, using another mind spell. This last spell made me dizzy and there was a buzzing in my ears. I knew that if I didn't get home quickly I would never get there at all. I snapped open the brief case George had been carrying. It was very heavy, because it had a thin layer of lead inside to isolate the magical from the technological. I took George's cell phone out of the case.

"I knew that using it might irrevocably damage my magic, but I had little more need for spells. I used the phone to call a taxi to bring me home. I was now too weak to use my shape shift or my charms so I had to rely on the natural kindness that a normal human would feel towards a weak old lady. Fortunately the taxi driver was most solicitous, not only helping me into the taxi but also escorting me to my bedroom, lying me on the bed and even getting me a glass of water. On the way home, I made an anonymous call to the police and told them everything I had gleaned from George's mind about his doings. As the taxi drove over the bridge I dropped the banker's mobile phone out of the window into the river.

"This was three days before your mother's wedding, and I spent those days in bed, gradually rebuilding my strength from the magic in the house. I eventually became strong enough to cast one more tiny cantrip, but I knew that after that my magic would be permanently drained and I would not live much longer. I arranged for my story to be posted on line, and for it only to be found if the term 'grey elves' was used in the search. I knew you would eventually find it and then you and your friends would be the only ones to know my story.

"Goodbye Lucy. You have been a good friend, and I have really enjoyed our times together. I know that one day I will meet you again, together with your wonderful friends and family."

There was silence as Merrin stopped reading.

"Wow," said Nils eventually, "that's an amazing story. I never believed your tales about witches, but now it seems it's true. We need to save this site and show it to others." Nils pressed the 'save' function on the tablet, but just then the screen went blank. Nils tried to restart the machine and after several minutes got it to reboot, but the search function and the web history both failed to find the website. The children spend several hours in attempts to restore files and Nils de-fragmented the hard drive, but no trace of the website or its browsing history could be found.

Nils enlisted the help of his father, a systems analyst for a software company, and the next day he took the tablet to work and searched the disk, byte by byte. No luck. Jade's story had gone. The 'secret letter' had taken effect.

Epilogue

"So that, Emil," said Lucy, "is the story of how I gained the gift of magic, and how I lost it." Now turn off the light, it is time to go to sleep."

"Oh, not yet mum!" cried Lucy's son from the bed. "You haven't told us what happened to everyone."

"Well, George the banker eventually regained consciousness and found his way home. He went back to work in his bank, but now he didn't have the Spider's help he was unable to do so much harm. Then a few weeks later he was visited by the police, who had been gathering evidence against him. He and his friends Fred and Eric were eventually convicted of insider trading and fraud, and they went to prison for a long time. Mr Nees was also arrested because he did do a very foolish thing. But he and Hilda convinced the court that he was really sorry, and that he had done his best to pay back what he had taken, so the judge was lenient on him and gave him a suspended sentence."

"What does that mean?" asked Emil.

"It means that he was not sent to prison, but he would be if he did anything else wrong. But Mr Nees had learned his lesson and has done nothing else dishonest. He and Hilda are running a very successful organic farm and they have teamed up with your grand-dad Peter's relatives to help all other farmers in the area go organic. They have been doing a lot of good for the village and the planet as a whole."

"What happened to the other people in the story?"

"The dentist moved to the city after his association with the two criminals became known, and I don't know what happened to him. Grand-dad Peter saw his first wife Anna at the back of the chapel during his wedding, though she had slipped away before he could talk to her. Later he tracked her down and they had a long conversation. She was living in a tiny bed-sit in the city, existing on the unemployment benefit, and feeling very sad and angry at the way her wealthy lover had treated her. Your Grand-dad persuaded one of his relatives to take her on as a farm labourer. She later married a labourer on the adjacent farm, and they are saving up to buy their own land. Both of them seem happy.

"It was a good thing that Anna was dumped by the accountant in the end. He was later arrested for knowingly giving bad advice to clients and receiving bribes from George. As an accountant he should have told Hans that he was paying too much for his mortgage, but it was convenient for him not to. His assets were confiscated by the state, and he also went to prison."

"And the Spider, what happened to her. Was she killed?"

"The Spider can never be killed. But we can neutralise her power if we ignore her. When the grey elves took an unhealthy interest in her and started to worship her as a goddess, her power grew to terrible proportions. The grey elves became the cruel drow, the race that enslaved Jade, killed her mother and caused all of them to lose their immortality. The Spider's power weakened when Jade defeated her high priestess, and the drow became grey elves again. The Spider has remained weak, though her power flares up again when somebody like the greedy banker wants to use her."

"And what did you mean by losing the gift of magic?"

"The magic in the gifts that the enchantress Jade had given us started to fade after a while. Originally your grandma could not go wrong using the brushes Jade had given her. They were the exact same brushes that painted that picture in Jade's old house. The one that you thought was so scary. But eventually they became like any other paint brush. Good quality but not magical. Fortunately your grandma by that time had become a talented artist in her own right and didn't need them.

"It's the same with Aunty Merrin's music; she's a successful concert violinist and no longer needs magic. My mind magic, being something inside myself, lasted a bit longer, but eventually it too faded. The witchlet never grew into a witch. It seems that with the death of the last real magician, the gift of magic has also vanished from this part of the world."

"Are you sad about that?" asked Emil.

"No, I don't think so. The gift was given to me when I needed it, but now it is no longer necessary. I have a beautiful son, a wonderful family, a satisfying job and a fulfilling life. And those are most precious gifts that magic will never bring me."

Lucy tucked her son into bed and turned off the light. She heard the muted sound of the television in the lounge, another documentary about the rich wildlife to be found in the former 'dead zones' now they had inexplicably come to life again. Lucy walked into the living room, where her husband Nils was waiting for her.

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