The Law of Nines

She shrugged. “We do the same things you do. You do it by means of technology, we use magic. The words may be different but they do basically the same thing. They both implement intent and that’s all that really matters. They both accomplish the same tasks.”

“Technology is nothing at all like magic,” Alex insisted.

“Technology itself is not what’s important, is it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you really know any better than I do how a phone device works? Can you explain to me how the message gets from one place to another”—she waggled her fingers across in front of them—“how the words come invisibly through the air and end up here, in the device in your pocket, in a way that you can understand them? Do you really know what makes all that technology work? Can you explain all the unseeable things that happen, the things that you take for granted?”

“I guess not,” he admitted.

“Nor can I explain how a journey book works. What’s important is that the people here used their minds to create this technology in order to accomplish their ends, much like those where I come from think up ways to create things using magic to accomplish what we need to accomplish. It’s as simple as that. It’s second nature to both of us. We both use what has been created. For all you know, your phone really could work through magic and you would never know the difference.”

“But there are people here who understand the technology and can describe exactly how all of the parts work, how the phone works, how the words appear.”

“I know people who can describe exactly how a journey book works. I’ve even sat through long lectures on the subject, but while I get the general nature of it I still can’t tell you exactly how to align the fibers within the paper with Additive and Subtractive elements to give them the sympathetic harmony needed to make words appear. It’s not my area of expertise. What matters most to me is that someone somehow did create it and I can use it to help me accomplish the things I need to do.

“We simply say that it works by magic and leave it at that. How it works isn’t so important to me. That it does work is what matters.

“If you wish to describe what we do in our world as merely a different form of technology rather than use the word ‘magic,’ if that makes it easier for you to accept, then call it by that name. The name makes no difference.

“Magic and technology are merely tools of mankind. If you called that phone a magic talking box, would you use it any differently?”

“I concede the point.” Alex gestured. “So, do something. Show me.”

She leaned back and slipped the little black book back where she kept it. “I told you, this is a world without magic. I can’t use magic here. Magic doesn’t work here. Believe me, I wish it did, because it would make this a lot easier.”

“I hope you realize how convenient that excuse sounds.”

She leaned in again with that deadly serious look she had. “I’m not here to prove anything to you, Alex. I’m here to find out what’s going on so I can try to stop it. You just happen to be in the middle of it and I’d not like to see you get hurt.”

That reminded him of what he’d said when he had pulled her back from getting run over by pirate plumbers—that he’d not like to see her get hurt.

“A little difficult, isn’t it, if you can’t use your sorceress powers, considering that you don’t know how this world works. I mean, no offense, but you didn’t even know how to make tea.”

“I didn’t come here thinking it would be easy. I came out of desperation. There is a saying in our world that sometimes there is magic in acts of desperation. We were desperate.”

Alex scratched his temple, unable to contain his sarcasm. “Don’t tell me, the people who sent you are sorcerers. A whole coven of sorcerers.”

She stared into his eyes for a moment. Tears welled up.

“I didn’t risk eternity in the black depths of the underworld to come here for this.”

She set down her napkin, picked up the painting, and stood. “Thank you for the beautiful painting. I hope you heed my warnings, Alex. Since you don’t seem to need my help, I’ll attend to other concerns.”

She stopped and turned back. “By the way, covens have to do with witches—thirteen of them—not sorcerers. I’d not like to even contemplate thirteen witch women all together in one place at once. They’re known for their rather rash temperament. Be glad they can’t get here; they’d simply gut you and be done with it.”

She marched away without a further word.

Alex knew that he’d blown it. He’d crossed a line he hadn’t known was there. Or maybe he crossed a line that he should have known was there. She had wanted him to listen, to try to understand, to trust her. But how could he be expected to believe such a preposterous story?