Patricia Wrede - Thirteenth Child

I could see the spells Lan was pouring his magic into, and the way he was reaching out for me. I could see the way the beetles pulled at the magic all around them, even the magic of the mirror bugs. And I could see the little twist in the magic of the mirror bugs that kept the beetles from taking it along with all the other magic. It was a lot like the slippery twist in the magic of the charm Wash had given me, only not so old or complicated.

I stared into the cloud of mirror bugs, trying to hold on to everything I was sensing. If there was a way to include that twist in the settlement spells, the twist that kept the beetles from absorbing the mirror bugs’ magic, then maybe the beetles wouldn’t be able to absorb magic from the settlement spells, either. But I didn’t know enough magic to do that, and anyway I couldn’t get at the settlement spells. Papa and Professor Jeffries would know, but I couldn’t get to them, either. I couldn’t even get to Lan.

But I could get at the mirror bugs.

I smiled, and reached out.

APHRIKAN MAGIC DOESN’T TAKE A LOT OF POWER, AND IT DOESN’T take a lot of ingredients. You don’t have to memorize gestures or chants. You just look at whatever you want to cast the spell on, in as many ways as you can think of, until you have an understanding of it, and then you sort of nudge whatever magic is already there, so it moves the way you want it to.

What Aphrikan magic takes is timing. Also practice, which is how you learn to get the seeing and the timing right. I’d been studying and practicing Aphrikan magic for nearly eight years, and for the last five, it had been the only magic I could get to work for me. Eight years wasn’t enough to do anything that would take a lot of power or make a big change in something, but it was plenty enough time to get good at things that just needed a little bit of a push to make them happen anyway.

Straightening out the little twist in the mirror bugs’ magic, the one that kept the beetles from absorbing magic from the mirror bugs, didn’t take much more than a nudge.

The carpet of beetles seethed. The cloud of mirror bugs trembled and began to die as the crawling beetles absorbed more and more of their magic. It spread fast, like setting fire to the corner of a sheet of paper—first there’s just a small flame in the corner, then it spreads up one edge, and then suddenly the whole page is aflame, turning black and curling, and you have to drop it or singe your fingers.

Mirror bugs dropped out of the sky like silver rain. New mirror bugs rained upward as the crawling beetles popped and took off, then fell in turn as the beetles farther out absorbed their magic. It didn’t take long for the cycle to spread outward from the settlement in an expanding ring. All I had to do was keep holding that little twist straight, so that the beetles could absorb magic from the mirror bugs.

Beside me, William yelled in surprise. “Eff! What are you doing?”

“Killing bugs,” I said. I couldn’t explain more without losing my concentration.

At first it was easy. The magic in natural things doesn’t come one-thing-at-a-time, like it does with people. Oh, each mirror bug had its own little bit of mirror bug magic, but the magic itself was still all one thing, the way a river is all one thing even though it’s made up of lots of buckets and cups and drops of water. Normally, that overall mirror bug magic would be stretched thin and hard to feel, but with so many mirror bugs all in one place, it was concentrated and easy to sense.

But as the mirror bugs close to the settlement died and were replaced by new mirror bugs farther out, it got harder to hold on to their magic. I had to reach farther and farther, and in all directions at once. It was the hardest thing I’d ever done, like trying to hold a full bucket of water head-high at arm’s length with nothing to brace against, but I knew I had to keep at it. I had to be sure that all the beetles heading for the settlement died, or the whole mess would start up again as soon as the next wave of them arrived. I wasn’t sure I could do this a second time. I wasn’t sure it would work a second time.

So I hung on, feeding my spell with determination and anger and all the magic I had bottled up inside me. Soon the ring of changing beetles and mirror bugs was nearly a quarter mile from the settlement. Outside the ring, beetles crawled steadily forward to meet it. Inside, the ground was covered in dead mirror bugs. They were heaped over a foot high around the walls of the settlement, but where I stood, they were only an inch or so deep. I could feel my hold on the mirror bug magic starting to slip, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep the spell going much longer.

And then I heard Wash’s voice, and William’s, talking next to me. A minute later, a hand touched my shoulder. “Miss Rothmer, have you ever done a spell hand-off?” Wash asked.

I nodded.

“I see what you’re doing. Pass it to me,” Wash said.

I’d never handed off a spell like this one before, but I didn’t have time to worry that it might not work. By the time it came to me that I might not be able to do it, I’d already done it. Wash had the spell, and I was just standing next to him, feeling shaky and gasping like I’d been running.

Wash’s eyes narrowed. “Mr. Graham,” he said, and I felt William reach out and take part of the spell from Wash. Then Wash said, “Miss Rothmer, this would be a sight easier if the settlement could drop those protective spells for a bit.”

I nodded and ran for the gates of the settlement, crunching and sliding on dead mirror bugs with every step. I’d gotten about halfway there when the gates opened cautiously and someone peered out. I shouted up to the bewildered stranger to tell Lan to stop the protective spells, but he just stood there. Then from behind him I heard Papa’s voice yelling, “Eff? Eff, what are—”

“Tell Lan to shut off the protective spells!” I shouted again. “Wash says!” I was dizzy and nearly out of breath, and I didn’t know what I was going to do if they didn’t listen. I couldn’t shout an explanation up the rest of the hill.

But Papa took one look at the dead mirror bugs and Wash and William concentrating like mad, and started yelling. A few seconds later, I felt the protective spell around the settlement collapse. As soon as it did, the ring of mirror bugs started moving outward faster and faster, and in less than five minutes it was all over.

With those extra-strong settlement spells gone, the beetles quit crawling toward the settlement and started milling around at random, the way they normally would. All they had left to pull magic from were the mirror bugs, and it seems that without that little twist in the mirror bug magic, the beetles were really, really good at sucking out mirror bug magic. It stands to reason, I suppose. They were different stages of the same creature, after all.

Wash and William held the untwisting spell until the chain reaction of beetles to mirror bugs petered out about two miles from the settlement. They figured out the distance later, by where they ran out of dead mirror bugs all over the ground.

All of us—me and Lan and Wash and William and Papa and Professor Jeffries and the settlement magician and a bunch of settlers who knew enough magic to have gotten roped into helping when the mirror bugs showed up—were pretty well exhausted. The settlement folks treated us real well, and didn’t even make a fuss about getting their protective spells back up. Mr. Harrison did, though, until Papa made him be quiet.

The first thing Papa did when everyone started feeling a bit better was to get all of us together to piece together exactly what had happened and write an account of it before anyone forgot anything important.