George Martin - The Way of the Wizard

One by one, the man who called himself Glew Croll saw the jewel merchants. Each reacted in his or her own way — shock or laughter, sorrow or gloom — at the news of the spell fatigue in the binding of the Ponti Bridge. And, beneath the sneers or the dismay, each of them began to judge profits and balance sheets, mentally judge and guess possible tenders, activate spies in rival jewelers’ houses.

Carthus himself told no one anything, not even his beloved, unattainable Aathia. He locked himself in his study and wrote tenders, tore them up, wrote tenders once again. The rest of the jewelers were similarly occupied.

The fire had burned out in the Rogues’ Club, leaving only a few red embers in a bed of gray ash, and dawn was painting the sky silver. Gloathis, Redcap, and I had listened to the man called Stoat all night. It was at this point in his narrative that he leaned back on his cushion, and he grinned.

“So there you have it, friends,” he said. “A perfect scam. Eh?”

I glanced at Gloathis and Redcap, and was relieved to see that they looked as blank as I felt.

“I’m sorry,” said Redcap. “I just don’t see… ”

“You don’t see, eh? And what about you, Gloathis? Do you see? Or are your eyes covered with mud?”

Gloathis looked serious. She said, “Well… you obviously convinced them all that you were a representative of the Ruling Enclave — and having them all meet in the anteroom was an inspired idea. But I fail to see the profit in this for you. You’ve said that you need a million, but none of them is going to pay anything to you. They are waiting for a public announcement that will never come, and then the chance to pay their money into the public treasury… ”

“You think like a mug,” said Stoat. He looked at me and raised an eyebrow. I shook my head. “And you call yourself rogues.”

Redcap looked exasperated. “I just don’t see the profit in it! You’ve spent your thirty gold coins on renting the offices and sending the messages. You’ve told them you’re working for the Enclave, and they will pay everything to the Enclave… ”

It was hearing Redcap spell it out that did it. I saw it all, and I understood, and as I understood I could feel the laughter welling up inside me. I tried to keep it inside, and the effort almost choked me. “Oh, priceless, priceless,” was all I could say for some moments. My friends stared at me, irritated. Stoat said nothing, but he waited.

I got up, leaned in to Stoat, and whispered in his ear. He nodded once, and I began to chortle once again.

“At least one of you has some potential,” said Stoat. Then he stood up. He drew his robes around him and swept off down the torch-lined corridors of the Lost Carnadine Rogues’ Club, vanishing into the shadows. I stared after him as he left. The other two were looking at me.

“I don’t understand,” said Redcap.

“What did he do?” begged Gloathis.

“Call yourself rogues?” I asked. “I worked it out for myself. Why can’t you two simply… Oh, very well. After the jewelers left his office he let them stew for a few days, letting the tension build and build. Then, secretly, he arranged to see each of the jewelers at different times and in different places — probably lowlife taverns.

“And in each tavern he would greet the jeweler and point out the one thing that he — or they — had overlooked. The tenders would be submitted to the Enclave through my friend. He could arrange for the jeweler he was talking to — Carthus, say — to put in the winning tender.

“For of course, he was open to bribery.”

Gloathis slapped her forehead. “I’m such an oaf! I should have seen it! He could easily have raked in a million gold coins’ worth of bribes from that lot. And once the last jeweler paid him, he’d vanish. The jewelers couldn’t complain — if the Enclave thought they’d tried to bribe someone they thought to be an Enclave official, they’d be lucky to keep their right arms, let alone their lives and businesses. What a perfect con.”

And there was silence in the Hall of the Lost Carnadine Rogues’ Club. We were lost in contemplation of the brilliance of the man who sold the Ponti Bridge.

Christie Yantis a software tester by day, a science fiction/fantasy writer by night. She is also an assistant editor with Lightspeed Magazine and the podtern for The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. This story is her first fiction publication. In addition to writing fiction, she has also narrated several stories for the Starship Sofa podcast, and reviews audiobooks for Audible.com. She lives on the central coast of California with her two amazing daughters and assorted four-legged nuisances. Her website is inkhaven.net.

Fiction often seems more real to us than reality, and many of us wish that we could climb right into a book and inhabit the world it describes, or that the characters could step right off the page and join us for a drink.

Our next tale is about two characters named Miles and Audra. “They were inspired by and loosely based on two real artists for whom I have a great deal of respect,” says Yant, “They each have a very unique and public persona and weave a twisted kind of artistic magic of their own.”

The book of fairy tales described in this story is also based on a real book. “It was given to me by my paternal grandmother and dates from the 1930s. It’s a book of fairy tales called Through Fairy Halls . I read it over and over as a child, and from it I learned that fairy tales exist all over the world, and are unique little realities unto themselves. That book is where I learned to love them, and it makes perfect sense to me that the stories between its covers are true, and that maybe one is missing.”

She called herself Audra, though that wasn’t her real name; he called himself Miles, but she suspected it wasn’t his, either.

She was young (how young she would not say), beautiful (or so her Emil had told her), and she had a keen interest in stories. Miles was old, tattooed, perverted, and often mean, but he knew stories that no one else knew, and she was certain that he was the only one who could help her get back home.

She found him among the artists, makers, and deviants. They called him Uncle, and spoke of him sometimes with loathing, sometimes respect, but almost always with a tinge of awe — a magician in a world of technicians, they did not know what to make of him.

But Audra saw him for what he truly was.

There once was a youth of low birth who aspired to the place of King’s Magician. The villagers scoffed, “Emil, you will do naught but mind the sheep,” but in his heart he knew that he could possess great magic.

The hedge witches and midwives laughed at the shepherd boy who played at sorcery, but indulged his earnestness. He learned charms for love and marriage (women’s magic, but he would not be shamed by it) and for wealth and luck, but none of this satisfied him, for it brought him no nearer to the throne. For that he needed real power, and he did not know where to find it.

He had a childhood playmate named Aurora, and as they approached adulthood Aurora grew in both beauty and cleverness. Their childhood affection turned to true love, and on her birthday they were betrothed.

The day came when the youth knew he had learned all that he could in the nearby villages and towns. The lovers wept and declared their devotion with an exchange of humble silver rings. With a final kiss Emil left his true love behind, and set out to find the source of true power.

It was not hard to meet him, once she understood his tastes. A tuck of her skirt, a tug at her chemise; a bright ribbon, new stockings, and dark kohl to line her eyes. She followed him to a club he frequented, where musicians played discordant arrangements and the patrons were as elaborately costumed as the performers. She walked past his booth where he smoked cigarettes and drank scotch surrounded by colorful young women and effeminate young men.