Out of the Darkness

“Do you?” Fernao wasn’t so sure.

But Pekka nodded. “I really do. She didn’t like the idea of what we’d been up to, but she liked you better than she thought she would. She told me so when we were down there, and she hasn’t said anything different in her letters since. And Elimaki has always been one to speak her mind.”

I’m not surprised, not when she’s your sister, Fernao thought. He didn’t say that, not when he wasn’t quite sure how Pekka would take it. What he did say was, “What are we going to do when the war is done?”

“I want to go back to Kajaani City College,” Pekka said. “If I can keep dear Professor Heikki out of my hair, it’s a good place to do research.” She cocked her head to one side and studied him. “And I thought you might be interested in coming down to Kajaani, too.”

“Oh, I am,” he said hastily-and truthfully. He didn’t want her getting the wrong idea about that. But he went on, “Not what I meant, not exactly. We’ve spent so much time working on this new sorcery. We’ll be out of our kingdoms’ service and ahead of everybody else in the world. Put those together and they likely add up to a good-sized pile of silver.”

“Ah.” Now Pekka nodded. “I see. Some might be nice, I suppose. But I think I’d sooner do what I want to do than do what someone else wants me to, no matter how much money I might make.”

“Theoretical sorcerers can use money just as much as anybody else can,” Fernao said.

“I know,” she answered. “The questions are, how much do I need? and, how much do I care to change to get it?”

By the way she spoke, the answers to those questions were not very much and not very much, respectively. To some degree, Fernao felt the same way-but only to some degree. He said, “If I can do work I’d enjoy anyhow, I wouldn’t mind being paid well for it.”

“Neither would I,” Pekka admitted. “If. If somebody wants to push me in directions I’d sooner not go, though, that’s a different story. And when you start trying to turn magecraft into money, that sort of thing happens a lot of the time.” She sent him a challenging glance. “Or will you tell me I’m wrong?”

If he tried to tell her she was wrong, she would have some sharp things to tell him. He could see that. And he didn’t think she was wrong. It was a question of … Of degree, he thought. “We would have to be careful-no doubt about that,” he said, “But sorcery and business do mix, or they can. Otherwise, the world wouldn’t have changed the way it has the past hundred and fifty years. A lot of the people who were in the right place at the right time were mages. And if you want to know what I think, when there’s a choice between having money and not having it, having it is better.”

“With everything else equal, aye,” Pekka agreed. “But things aren’t always equal, not when it comes to money. And you don’t always have money. Sometimes money ends up having you. I don’t want that to happen to me.”

Fernao knew more than a few people who would do anything for money. He didn’t care to go down that ley line, either. He said, “You of all people wouldn’t have to worry, I don’t think.”

“For which I thank you,” Pekka said seriously. “Some of the things we’ve done here shouldn’t be turned into charms anyone could buy, if you want to know what I think.”

“Which ones do you have in mind?” Fernao asked.

“For starters, the ones that could let old people borrow years from their young descendants-or maybe, once the techniques are improved, from anybody young,” Pekka answered. “Can you imagine the chaos? Can you imagine the crimes?”

Fernao hadn’t tried to imagine such things. Now he did, and cringed. “That could be very bad,” he said. “I can’t argue with you. You’ve got a twistier mind than I do, to come up with such an idea.”

“I didn’t,” Pekka said. “Ilmarinen did, after one of our early experiments. That was before you joined us. He saw just how things might work.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Fernao said. “But nobody’s talked much about that kind of possibility since I’ve been here.”

“I don’t think anybody wants to talk about it,” Pekka said. “The more people who know about it, the more people who think about it, the likelier it is to happen, and to happen soon.”

“Soon.” Fernao tasted the word, and found he didn’t care for its flavor. “We aren’t ready to do anything like that.”

“No, and we won’t be, not for years and years-if we ever are,” Pekka said. “But whether we’re ready for it and whether it happens are two different questions, don’t you see? And that’s probably the biggest reason why I’m not very interested in getting rich quick.”

Fernao’s laugh was at least half rueful. He said, “Well, one thing: you make it easier for me to support you in the style to which you’ve been accustomed.”