Split Infinity

Stile began to play. The presence loomed. He tried to see it, but it was invisible, intangible. This time he did not stop his music. The grass seemed to wave, bending toward him and springing back as if driven by a wind, but there was no wind. The air seemed to sparkle. A faint haze developed, swirling in barely discernible colored washes. Stile felt the hairs on his body lighten, as if charged electrostatically. He thought at first it was his own nervousness, for he did not know what thing or force he summoned, but he saw Neysa’s mane lifting similarly. There was potential here, and it centered on him—but it never acted. It just loomed.

Stile stopped playing, growing weary of this—and yet again the effect faded. “Almost the form of an electrical storm,” he mused. “Yet—“

He was cut off by a sheet of rain blasting at him.  Lightning cracked nearby. The sudden light half-blinded him, and a gust of wind made him stagger. He was soaked as if dunked in a raging sea, feeling the eerie chill of the violent water. There was a swirling of fog reminiscent of a developing tornado. The flashes of light were continuous.

Neysa charged back to him, seeking to protect him from the elements with her body and her anti-magic.

Both helped; Stile flung his arms about her neck and buried his face in her wet mane, and the swirling wind had less force there. Her mass was more secure than his, and the rain struck her less stingingly. They settled to the ground, and that was more secure yet. “Now I’m embracing you in your natural form,” he told her laughingly, but doubted she heard him over the wind.

What had happened? A moment ago there had been no slightest sign of bad weather. Stile knew storms could develop quickly—he had taken a course in primitive-world meteorology, and often visited the weather dome for demonstrations—but this had been virtually instantaneous. He had been playing his harmonica, trying to trigger whatever monstrous force was lurking, to bring it somehow to bay, then idly likened the effect to—

“I did it!” he cried. “I invoked the storm!” Like the amulet, it had been there to be commanded, and he had innocently done so.

“Storm abate!” he cried.

The two of them were almost swept from their impromptu nest by another savage bout of wind. The storm was not, it seemed, paying heed.

Yet this power was somehow keyed to him. He had invoked the storm; was he unable to banish it? He had evoked the demon from the amulet, before; that had evidently been a one-way thing. But a storm? Was it impossible to put this genie back in the bottle?

It was hard to concentrate, in this buffeting and wet and light and noise. But he tried. What, specifically, had he done to bring this about? He had played music, and the storm-spirit had loomed close without striking.  Then he had said, “Almost the form of an electrical storm.” An accidental rhyme, of no significance.

Rhyme? Something nagged him. When the harmonica had appeared, so fortuitously—what had he said? Hadn’t it been—yes. “A harmonica is what you play. I wish I had one here today.” Something like that.

Joke doggerel. Two times he had spoken in rhyme, and two times he had been answered. Of course there had been other magic, like the attacking demon of the amulet. No rhymes there. But—worry about that later; it might be a different class of magic. Now, try to abate this tempest. Abate—what rhymed with that? Fate, late, plate. Try it; all he could do was fail.

“Storm abate; you’re making me late!” he cried.

The storm lessened, but did not disappear. He was on to something, but not enough. Half a loaf. What else had he done, those other two times?

Neysa played a note on her horn. The storm had eased, so she preferred to stand. She felt most secure on all four feet

That was it! He had been blowing his horn—in a manner. The harmonica. Making music, either singing or playing.

Stile brought out his wet harmonica and played a soggy passage. Then he stopped and sang in an impromptu tune: “Storm abate. You’re making me late!”

This time the storm lessened considerably. The lightning stopped, and the rain slacked to a moderate shower. But it still wasn’t gone.

“Neysa, I think I’m on to something,” he said. “But I don’t really have the hang of it yet. I think I can do magic, if I can only get the rules straight.”

The unicorn gave him a long look whose import was unclear. Evidently she distrusted this development, but she made no comment. And he marveled at it himself: how could he, .the child of the modem civilized galaxy, seriously consider practicing magic?

Yet, after what he had experienced in this frame, how could he not believe in magic?

They resumed their journey, plodding through the drizzle. After an hour they got out of it, and the sun warmed them. They did not make music. Stile knew he had learned something, but not enough. Yet.