Ten Gentle Opportunities by Duntemann Jeff

Author:Duntemann, Jeff [Duntemann, Jeff]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science fiction, fantasy
Publisher: Copperwood Press
Published: 2016-01-14T18:30:00+00:00

23. Stypek

Stypek awoke writhing on his bed with a toppled pile of shirts on his face, groaning and chewing on a collar button. His dreams of slithering, searching horrors had grown more intense for three nights. Then it changed: In the midst of this night’s sleep a curtain of roiling black clouds parted, and beyond them he saw Jrikk Jroggmugg standing amidst the battlements of his high tower, laughing maniacally and pointing at him. The magician had discovered his hiding place. Precisely how it had been done was unclear, but the fact that Stypek was still alive suggested that a magic-free universe was beyond the reach of even the stoutest Adamant-class adept.

Was it?

Stypek spat blue threads and swung his feet onto the floor. Bright sunlight made it clear that he had been fighting his wardrobe most of the night, his trousers tangled on the bed and the floor as though struggling among themselves. He glanced at the digits on the glyph clock. The morning was half-spent, and he hungered for an omelette dripping coffee, concocted by Carolyn’s faithful familiars. That might not be the right word; could they be hemorrhoids too?

One should not keep a sorceress waiting. He stumbled into the bathroom and stood under the raincaster, trying to sort out his impressions of the previous night.

The peril of being discovered obscured the triumph that had come before: He had learned that at the highest level, software was no different from magic—he simply needed to learn the properties, methods, and gestures that governed its operation. Cosmo’s simulacrum had by no means finished its lesson. When the large slab came back to life with one touch to Cosmo’s tapper, the elderly adept was still there, frozen in mid-word with a diagram hanging over his head. If Stypek could learn the rest, he could become a software-bender…hacker…and perhaps earn enough in Cosmo’s employ to live in something warmer than a cave, or at least drier than a drain pipe.

And, with any luck at all, forever beyond the reach of aggrieved magicians.

Stypek dried himself and drew on one of his shirts, spun of the finest polo, and trousers woven of stoutest khaki. He bumbled down the stairs and commanded the great door to draw back. The day was clear but cold, and his breath become a tortured cloud when he exhaled. It was not a fragment of his soul, as the old gossips warned, but water droplets—physics!—as old Byggryn had revealed to him.

Knowledge was empowering, in this universe as well as his own.

He swung the door wide and almost ran into the kitchen. Carolyn was there, already seated at the table. His own chair had been pulled back in welcome.

Something was wrong. Carolyn was wrapped in a robe of frizzled cloth, her potent black hair bound up in a scarf, her feet in thick-furred slippers. Her arms were crossed in front of her. She frowned, her face and lips lacking their usual color.

There was no steaming omelette on his plate, nor clay mug of coffee to dip it in.

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