Savonah said to him. “This is about as chaotic an environment you could ask to live in.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“The ocean is eroding the shore almost as fast as the volcano can produce it. Look at this violence, this conflict! Fire against water, ocean against rock. This island itself could explode at any moment. This is reality in constant flux. You couldn’t ask for a better place to study magic.”
“I can feel the power in the island.”
“Can you?” Savonah gave him an appraising look, his face lit by the eerie luminescent light from the waves. “Let’s try something.” He looked around on the ground until he came up with a small piece of dry driftwood. “See this? I want you to picture in your mind that it is full of tiny spinning wheels. Absolutely convince yourself that this is the truth.” He carefully put the wood down at their feet. “Concentrate, now. Feel the wheels spinning. Feel it. Tell me when you can feel it.”
Kyle stared down at the wood, thinking of tiny gyros spinning.
After a few minutes he nodded. “I can feel it.”
“Can you? Yes? Now speed those wheels up. Speed them faster and faster. No upper limit, they can go as fast as you can imagine them. Speed them up to the–”
There was a bright flash, and both of the men took an involuntary step backward. The piece of wood was consumed in fire.
Savonah laughed. “You have a natural born talent for this!”
“I did that?” Kyle said. “No, I didn’t do that. You did that.”
“No, you did it, Kyle.”
“I don’t know any spells or incantations!”
“An incantation is only a mnemonic tool to bring the right set of thoughts together for a certain piece of magic. A talented sorcerer doesn’t need them, or can shorten them down to a few words.” He patted Kyle on the back. “You have talent.” Savonah concentrated a moment, and another piece of driftwood burst into flame. “Incandescence is one of the most simple and useful pieces of magic.”
Kyle stared at the flames, his mouth open. “What makes it work?”
“What makes what work?”
“Magic. What force is it that makes magic work?”
“Perception of reality.”
“Perception?”
“One of the earliest quandaries of particle physics was that perception affects reality. Normally it’s only at a quantum level.
But the fact is, reality as we know it is made up of information.
Solid matter is made up of particles, and those particles are made of fields, and those fields are nothing but information. It’s very much like living in a giant VR program — nothing is actually here.” He moved closer to Kyle, his voice lowered. “This is what got me kicked out of Technica. It’s my theory that thought is as real as matter, and our perception of reality can, in and of itself, affect external reality. That’s how I began my studies of applied telekinesis, then of ancient books of magic. And that…”
he said, raising his voice again and gesturing to the island around him, “is when I found out it actually worked.”
Another piece of driftwood burst into flame, began spinning around frantically, and suddenly shot like a fireball out into the sea.
#
Three weeks on the island followed, with Debbie taking her lessons in the day and Kyle taking his lessons quietly at night. It became clear to Kyle that Savonah was teaching Debbie only simple, relatively harmless things, whereas Savonah took Kyle to the very heart of magic theory. The man was excited and pleased by Kyle’s natural feeling for the art. Kyle had never thought about the Universe or reality before, but now it was on the top of his mind every waking hour. It all became very clear to him, how science and magic were the same thing, just approached from the opposite ends of the spectrum.
Savonah kept reinforcing the point that, while reality can be changed and altered by the mind, basic laws of nature still held true. The universe always demanded a balance. Disturbing any balance in reality could bring about immediate and total disaster.
#
It was during the forth week that Debbie followed Kyle out of the hut while Finney was sleeping. He was almost down to the beach when she caught up to him. “Where are you going?” she asked.
“Down to the beach.” Kyle kept his voice casual, not wanting to let on that he was startled.
“I’ll go with you,” Debbie said.
“Why?”
“Well…” she took a step forward, pressing her body against his, tilting her head way back and resting her hands on his shoulders. “We haven’t been alone together for weeks.”
He put his arms around her. “You’re feeling lonely?”
“I’m feeling horny.” She smiled.
Kyle frowned. “I told you before. I don’t have sexual relations with my employers.”
“Okay. I’ll fire you, and you can be my kept man.”
“No.”
“Oh, Kyle.” She pressed her face against his chest, kissed him, then bit him gently. “Please.”
Kyle shook his head.
“Kyle please. Please. I’ll say anything, I’ll do anything.”
She had one of his legs in between her’s. “It’s driving me crazy. I have to have you.”
“What about Finney.”
“What about Finney?”
“Why don’t you do it with him?”
“I don’t want him. I want you.” She pulled at his shirt, got it open. He felt her hot breath on his stomach, and saw her trying to pull down his pants with her teeth. Kyle gave up, let her do it.
He took a deep breath and held it as she got his pants un-done and they slid to his knees.
Debbie’s eyes grew wide and she made a surprised sound. She pulled away from him, turning her head as if she’d seen something forbidden. She seemed to draw into herself, crossing her arms in front of her chest.
Kyle was red-faced and humiliated. He hurriedly pulled up his pants and fastened them with fumbling, inept motions. “You just had to do that,” he said.
“I don’t understand,” Debbie said, her voice small.
“Nobody does,” Kyle told her. “That’s why it’s nobody’s business.”
“I mean, you … you don’t have anything there at all. What happened to it?”
“I’m what’s called a eunuch. I was created in a genetics lab to attend some rich guys harem back on Earth. My father says his name was ‘His Supreme Eminence Sheik Mohammed Julmaar’.”
“A harem guard,” Debbie said, with a bit of wonder in her voice. “How did you get away?”
“I didn’t get away. They seized me in a raid. Apparently my creation was an illegal act, and my brothers and I were all confiscated and most destroyed. They spared a few of us that were near full term, and put us up for adoption.”
“But you’re male, right? A guy.”
“I’ve got a male body. I feel male. I identify with males, yes–”
“And you’re attracted to women?”
“I’m not attracted to anybody.”
“You don’t do any sex at all?”
“Never. No. I think the whole issue is repulsive.”
“Sex is repulsive?”
“I was engineered that way!” Kyle said, very agitated. “I can’t help it.”
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?”
“It was none of your business! I let you know right up front that I was not going to be your lover. You forced the issue.”
“This is not fair.”
“Not fair?”
“No, it’s not,” Debbie said. “This would happen to me!
Somebody like you would come into my life, then turn out to be a eunuch.”
“I am someone like me because I am a eunuch. It takes a eunuch to be someone like me.”
“I want someone like you who would be my lover. I …” Debbie made strange, confused gestures with her hands, like she was out of words but was still trying to say something. “I’m going back to the hut,” she said suddenly.
Kyle watched her go. He waited until she was out of sight, then continued on his way to the beach.
#
That night Savonah noticed Kyle was distracted from his studies. “Perhaps,” Savonah said, “it’s time to review some of the things you already learned.”
Kyle squinted, staring at the bonfire they had built on the rocky shore. “Okay,” he said.
“What are the five basic levels of magic, in order of easiest to hardest to master?”
Kyle cleared his throat. “Mental telepathy,” he said.
“Excitation or sedation of atomic activity. Manipulation of mass and gravity. Compression, expansion, or shaping of space/time.
Conversion of matter from one form to another.” Staring into the fire, he bit his lower lip, concentrating.
“You have a question?” Savonah said.
Kyle raised his eyebrows and looked at him.
“You have a question,” Savonah said. “I can see it in your head.”
“Can magic be used to … grow … a part of anatomy? Say if I wanted another finger on each hand. Could that be done?”