The Keeper of Magical Things

One

Certainty Bulrush was in the midst of arguing with a particularly intractable quilt.

Which, as far as morning chores went, was not really something to complain about. Not when other novices were stuck transcribing dusty old scrolls, or mucking out the stables by hand for reasons as dubious as "it builds character" and "the horses like to see you work." No; Certainty knew she was lucky to be warm and dry in the laundry rooms, with only a few dirty blankets between her and freedom.

But still. It'd be so much easier if the bedding could just be a little more reasonable.

"Don't you want to be nice and clean? That ink stain makes you look a mess; why don't we just get rid of it . . ."

"I am a quilt. I display patterns. My purpose is to be beautiful." The object-voice of the quilt was soft and muffled in Certainty's mind, but gave the strong impression of pouting nevertheless. The problem was simply that the quilt liked its splotchy new ink stains.

"Yes, but you're also meant to keep people warm in bed, and no mage wants to sleep under a dirty quilt," she cajoled.

"I'm not dirty," it insisted. "I'm decorative."

But she sensed a tremor of hesitation in its words. Aha-there was her angle of attack. What objects wanted, above all else, was to be used. To fulfill the purposes for which they had been made. To be valued.

Certainty knew this well because she was a physical mage. (Well, a mage-in-training.) However, unlike the Guild's more powerful physical mages-ones who could hurl boulders great distances (preferably in the direction of an enemy army), or ones who wove enchantments into precious metals-her abilities were slightly more . . . mundane.

By touching objects, she could speak with them to understand their purposes and convince them to do small things for her. She could sweet-talk a cup of tea into being less bitter; she could shame a shirt into unwrinkling-but, unfortunately, that was about the extent of her powers.

Hence her being here in the Guild laundry rooms. A sixth-year novice, magicking ink stains out of bedsheets while trying not to think about how her entire family had pinned their hopes on her magical career.

Certainty set her jaw and pressed on.

"Just the other day, I saw a steward get rid of some pillowcases. A novice spilled some potion ingredients all over them-wyvern blood, you know, impossible to clean-so the pillowcases had to be thrown out."

There was a pause as the quilt absorbed this information.

"Thrown out? You mean-discarded?"

"Left for rags," she confirmed. "Latrine wipes, I think."

The fringes of the quilt twitched in alarm. "But I'm a good quilt! I'm very comfortable . . ."

"I'm sure that's true." Certainty patted the quilt, trying to be both stern and reassuring. Then her fingers skimmed over its dark splotches, and she frowned. Now that she was looking more closely, there was something funny about the way the ink had spilled . . . It almost looked like a floral pattern-were those roses? "How did you get this stain, anyway?"

"It's not a stain," said the quilt, still sulky. "I made it with some of the extra magic floating around. I thought people would like it."

Extra magic . . . ? What could that mean? Sometimes objects spoke in riddles. Certainty supposed that they experienced the world rather differently, on account of being things and not people, and Mother and Sons knew that people were hard enough to understand as it was. She shrugged it off.

"I'm afraid not. And even if they did, you'd never match with the rest of the decor, see? Look, you're a lovely quilt already, we can all see that-quality stitching, padding still nice and thick-so let's just shake off all that messy ink so we can put you back where you belong, hm?"

The quilt wavered, rustling indecisively under her hand. ". . . latrine wipes? Really?"

"Really."

The quilt shivered once more, and then-thank the Mother-finally complied, with a reluctant sigh like the whisper of fabric against skin. The ink welled up from the fibers, tracing the quilt's edges before dripping in dark rivulets onto the floor. A puddle of ink gathered on the stones, and the quilt was soon crisp and clean once more.

Certainty beamed down at it. Hours of scrubbing saved, just like that.

"Well done, quilt. Thank you!"

A sullen silence was her only response. Certainty shrugged and withdrew her magic. Carefully, she refolded the quilt and balanced it atop the basket of clean bedding in the corner. The quilt was the dean's favorite, apparently; the laundry staff would be grateful that she'd managed to salvage it. The Guildtower servants always were whenever Certainty was able to help with a favor like this. It was just too bad the servants weren't the ones who decided which novices got to advance to magehood.

Certainty sighed and went to fetch the next basket of laundry-and that was when, as her da would say, everything went thoroughly pear-shaped.

First came the sudden deadening of noise-a heavy, disorienting silence that plugged her ears up as if she'd just jumped into a lake. Then there was a great shrinking sensation, as if the Guildtower itself were contracting with Certainty at its center. Her stomach swooped in a highly unpleasant fashion, and a little late, she wondered whether she ought to start panicking-then-

WHOMP.

The sound was so loud, yet of so low a register, that it vibrated right through the stone walls of the laundry room, rattling the contents of the shelves, the baskets, and Certainty's skull in the process. She wobbled and grabbed at the wall for balance, heart thudding and breath coming short and jumpy. Was the Guildtower under attack? Had the alchemists blown up their laboratories in the Paper Quarter again?

But no further whomps or strange shrinking sensations followed, so Certainty edged toward the door, cursing the fact that she was alone. Blasted unlucky that the laundry staff were all taking their break and gossiping in the courtyard instead of here with her, where they might be able to protect her from . . . whatever this was. Certainty was not built for combat.

Still, a weapon couldn't hurt. She grabbed a wicker rug beater from its hook on the wall before poking her head through the doorway to see if anyone else knew what was going on.

"Hello?" she called out.

Nobody responded, but strange and muffled noises were coming from the kitchens down the hall . . .

Mustering her courage and brandishing the rug beater like a floppy sword, she followed the sounds down the stone corridor and approached the kitchen entryway with caution. Then she breathed a sigh of relief. Everything inside looked fine: There were partially sliced loaves of bread on the counter, glistening chickens and ducks roasting on their hooks above the fire, an enormous stewpot simmering merrily away in the corner, cabbages rolling around on the floor . . .

Wait. Cabbages?

Ordinarily, the kitchen was staffed with a dozen-odd people: cooks, bakers, off-duty pages loitering hopefully near the ovens, and so on. It had been bustling and noisy with the day's preparations when Certainty passed by earlier.

But now . . . the kitchen staff was nowhere to be seen.

And instead, there were a number of large, round cabbages, green and squeaking on the kitchen floor.

"Oh dear," Certainty breathed.

The Guildtower was, of course, a place of magic. Unusual things happened often in places of magic; Certainty had seen her fair share of them. But they generally happened in controlled environments under the supervision of a senior mage-and transforming the kitchen staff into leafy greens didn't seem likely to be on anyone's syllabus.

She crouched down to examine the cabbage closest to her. It was a marvelous specimen whose size alone would have made it a prize contender at any Spring Fair. It looked properly vegetal-as cabbage-like as a cabbage could get, really-yet somehow, it also bore an uncanny resemblance to Ger the head cook. Something about the bumps and veins on the outer leaves . . . tentatively, she reached one finger out to prod it.

"Squeak!" said the Ger-cabbage, wobbling indignantly.

Certainty nearly fell over. She sprang to her feet, making a vaguely reassuring gesture with her hands while trying to remember the protocol for magical emergencies. "Don't worry, I'll get help! Stay here-"

She wasn't sure if Ger could understand her, but supposed it didn't really matter, as he didn't look capable of going very far in his current state. Notify the dean-that was the first step. She dashed out of the kitchens, running so fast that she nearly knocked over the uniformed errand boy conveniently headed down the stairs.

"Oy! Watch where you're goi-"

"The dean," she said, grabbing at the boy's shoulders. "There's been an emergency in the kitchens! Fetch the dean, and any other senior mages, too-"

"What? What kind of emergency?"

"The kitchen staff have all been turned into cabbages-a transformation spell-look, just go get them, would you?"

The page's eyes went wide, and he sprinted back up the stairs much more quickly than Certainty could have managed. She flopped against the wall, trying to catch her breath. She hated how powerless she felt. Undoing transformation spells on any living thing-let alone a person-was far beyond her capabilities; she knew better than to even try. So all she could do was send for help and wait for the real mages to show up. Stupid mages with their stupid circles, and spells that actually worked when they cast them . . .

The distressed squeaking increased in volume behind her, and it occurred to Certainty that the Guildtower's kitchens were home to several cats and at least one dog, any one of which might pass by and decide that the cabbages rolling around on the floor looked like fun new chew toys. Sighing, Certainty headed back down the stairs to guard them while she waited. At least there was something useful she could do.


Fortunately, no curious animals appeared, and it was only a quarter-bell or so before a gaggle of senior mages clustered in the entrance to the kitchens. They looked as out of place in their elaborate robes as peacocks in a chicken coop. (It wasn’t often that senior mages deigned to descend all the way down to the kitchens, but Certainty imagined that the sudden and unexpected transformation of Guildtower staff into cabbages ranked fairly high on the faculty agenda.)

b

It wasn't only senior mages, either. A woman whose dark hair was threaded with silver strode to the front of the group with a no-nonsense air, and Certainty swallowed. The High Mage herself had come.

High Mage Melea looked both older and sharper than Certainty remembered from the last novice assembly. Unlike the other mages, she wore plain blue robes adorned only by two golden pins: one bore the Guild circles, and just below, the other displayed the twin lions of the Eshteran Crown. It was this latter that marked her as elected leader of the Guild of Mages and Minister of Magic to the Crown, and therefore the most powerful mage in the kingdom-politically speaking, anyway.

Behind her spectacles, the High Mage's shrewd gray eyes took in the kitchen, the squeaking vegetables, and then Certainty in an instant.

"Novice . . . ?"

"Certainty, High Mage." She bobbed a nervous curtsy.

"Novice Certainty. Report, please." Her voice was crisp and authoritative.

There wasn't much to report beyond the obvious-the kitchen staff seem to have turned into cabbages-but Certainty did her best, beginning with the strange sensations she'd felt immediately before finding them in their current state.

"Hmm," said the High Mage. She made a complicated gesture with her fingers that Certainty recognized as a spell of magic detection, and her eyebrows drew together. "No spell signature. It wasn't a mage who did this. Dean Leverin, would you kindly return our cooks to their original forms?"

The dean, a heavyset man with a neatly trimmed beard, nodded and rolled up his sleeves. He took on a look of great concentration-then muttered a spell that was followed by a gentle pop, and the cabbage by the stove abruptly turned into a woman wearing an apron and a bewildered expression. All watched (Certainty with a particular envy) as more pops followed, and one by one, with gasps and cries of relief, the kitchen staff reappeared safe and whole in their human forms. Many touched their limbs and faces anxiously, as if to make sure they were still there. Certainty couldn't really blame them.

"Thank you, Leverin. Nicely done." The High Mage turned toward one of the other mages. "Mage Farid, your theories as to the cause of this?"

A mage wearing pointed shoes was running his hands along the kitchen walls with a look of concentration. "I cannot be certain yet, High Mage. I'll need samples to study. There are several possibilities-"

"Perhaps accidental ingestion of a transformation potion . . ." mused a female mage with a belt full of glass vials. "Something in the stew?"

But Certainty suddenly remembered what the quilt had said. "Extra magic!" she blurted.

The senior mages looked at her in faint surprise, as if they'd forgotten she was still there.

"What do you mean, Novice?" the High Mage asked.

"I mean-" Certainty felt their eyes on her and swallowed. "I think the transformations might have been caused by an excess of magic. I was doing laundry just next door before it happened, and there was a quilt I was speaking with-my ability, you see-and it said something about there being . . . extra magic."

A muttering arose from the mages at this, and the High Mage nodded thoughtfully. "Magical spillover . . . interesting. Farid-could this be possible?"

Mage Farid stroked his beard. "Well-yes, I suppose. My thaumic compass has had some erratic readings lately. I thought the thing was just old and needed replacing, but perhaps the girl's right, and we've surpassed the safe threshold for magical energies."

"But how?" blustered Dean Leverin. "We've always taken great precautions to prevent magic leakage in the Guildtower! Our spells cast only within containment fields, our magical artifacts stored only in warded vaults-"

A small noise interrupted him. It came from within the group of mages. It sounded like a cough that didn't especially want to be noticed.

"Mage Mortimer," said the High Mage, narrowing her eyes at its source.