“She’s not my mother?”
The Emperor of the Air waved his hand and suddenly the dam inside Jam’s mind broke and he was flooded with memory. Of another family. Another home. “Oh, God,” he cried, thinking now of his real father and mother, of his sisters. “Do they think I’m dead?”
“That was not right,” said Mother — no, not Mother — she was Mrs. Fisher now. “We were so close.”
“Not so close you weren’t willing to tear his heart out to get at the stone. But you wouldn’t have found it,” said the Emperor of the Air. “Because you never knew what he was — and is.”
“What is he?” demanded mother.
“His whole body is a philosopher’s stone. He gathers power from everyone he touches. The stone flew to him the way magnets do. It went inside him because it was of the same substance. You can’t get it out of him. And that knife of yours can never cut him.”
“Why are you doing this to me?” she cried out from her heart.
“What am I doing to you?” asked the Emperor of the Air.
“Punishing me!”
“No, my love,” said the Emperor. “You only feel punished because you know you deserve it.” He held out a hand to Jam.
Wordlessly, Jam took his hand, and together they passed Mrs. Fisher by, entering the house without even glancing at her.
The Emperor led Jam to Gan’s bed. “Touch the lad, would you, Jamaica?”
Jam leaned down and touched Gan.
Gan’s eyes opened at once. “My lord,” he said to the Emperor of the Air.
“My good servant,” said the Emperor. “I’ve missed you.”
“I called out to you.”
“But you were weak, and I didn’t hear your voice, among so many. Only when your brother called did I hear — his voice is very loud.”
Jam wasn’t sure if he was being teased or not.
“Take me home,” said Gan.
“Ask your brother to heal you.”
Jam shook his head. “I can’t heal anybody.”
“Well, technically, that’s true. But if you let your brother draw on the power stored up inside you, he can heal himself.”
“Whatever I have,” said Jam, “belongs to him, if he needs it.”
“That’s a good brother,” said the Emperor.
Jam felt the tingle, the flow, like something liquid and cold flowing through his arm and out into Gan’s body. And in a few moments he was out of breath, as if he had been running for half an hour.
“Enough,” said the Emperor. “I told you to heal yourself, not make yourself immortal.”
Gan sat up, swung his legs off the bed, rose to his feet, and put his arm around Jam’s shoulders. “I had no idea you had so much strength in you.”
“He’s been collecting it his whole life,” said the Emperor of the Air. “Everyone he meets, every tree and blade of grass, every animal, any living thing he has ever encountered gave a portion of their power to him. Not all — not like that trivial stone — but a portion. And then it grew inside him, nurtured by his patience and wisdom and kindness.”
Patience? Wisdom? Kindness? Had anyone every accused Jam of such things before?
Gan hugged Jam. “We can go home now,” he said. “I to the Emperor’s house, and you to your true family. But you’re always my brother, Jamaica.”
Jam hugged him back. And with that, Gan was gone. Vanished. “I sent him home,” the Emperor explained. “He has a wife and children who have needed him for long years now.”
“What about Mother? I mean Mrs. Fisher? What she did to Gan. To me. Taking away even my memories of my family!”
The Emperor nodded gravely, then gestured toward Gan’s bed.
Mrs. Fisher lay there, helpless, her eyes open.
“I’m kinder to her than she was to Gan,” said the Emperor. “Gan did no wrong, yet she took from him everything but life. I’ve left her eyes and ears to her, and her mouth. She can talk.”
Then Mr. Laudon stood beside the bed. “And that will be Laudon’s punishment, won’t it, dear lad? To take care of her as Jam once cared for Gan — only you get to hear what she has to say.” The Emperor turned to Jam. “Tell me, Jamaica. Am I just? Is this equitable?”
“It’s poetic,” said Jam.
“Then I have achieved even beyond my aspirations. Go home now, Jam, and be a great wizard. Live with kindness, as you have done up to now, and the power that flows to you will be well-used. You have my trust. Do I have your loyalty?”
Jam sank to his knees. “You had it before you asked.”
“Then I give you these lands, to be lord where once this poor thing ruled.”
“But I don’t want to rule over anybody.”
“The less you rule, the happier your people will be. Assume your duties only when they demand it. Feel free to continue high school, though not at Riddle High, alas. Now go home.”
And at that moment the house disappeared, and Jam found himself on the sidewalk in front of the home where in fact he had lived for the first twelve years of his life. He remembered now, how he met Mrs. Fisher. She came to the house as a pollster, asking his parents questions about the presidential election. But when Jam came into the room, she rose to her feet and reached for his hand and at that moment he was changed, he remembered growing up with her as his mother, and being Gan’s brother, and the tragic incident where “father” knocked him down and damaged his brain. None of it true. Nothing. She stole his life.
But the Emperor of the Air had given it back, and more besides.
The door to the house opened. His real mother stood there, her face full of astonishment. “Michael!” she cried out. “Oh, praise God! Praise him! You’re here! You came home!”
She ran to him, and he to her, and they embraced on the front lawn. As she wept and kissed him and called out to everyone in the neighborhood that her son was home, he came back, Jam — no, Michael — murmured his thanks to the Emperor of the Air.
Robert Silverberg—four-time Hugo Award-winner, five-time winner of the Nebula Award, SFWA Grand Master, SF Hall of Fame honoree — is the author of nearly five hundred short stories, nearly one hundred-and-fifty novels, and is the editor of in the neighborhood of one hundred anthologies. Among his most famous works are Lord Valentine’s Castle, Dying Inside, Nightwings, and The World Inside. Learn more at www.majipoor.com.
For most people, learning magic is no easy feat. It’s not really the sort of thing you can just puzzle out for yourself in your spare time. I mean, what are the chances that anyone’s going to accidentally stumble across just the right incantation or just right quantity of eye of newt? Sure, you might be one of the lucky ones who gets invited to some sort of amazing wizard academy, but most practitioners of the arts are just going to have to suck it up and apprentice themselves to some crotchety old coot.
Being a sorcerer’s apprentice typically involves a lot of scut work — sweeping floors, emptying chamber pots, polishing beakers. And the most frustrating thing is, you’ve probably learned just enough magic to get an enchanted broom to do the job for you, but not enough to actually make it stop.
Our next story points out that while fiction would have us believe that most wizarding masters are ancient graybeards, some aspiring magicians may in fact find themselves apprenticed to attractive female wizards. However, for an amorous young man, this can be a mixed blessing. This story also points out that the ways of the heart can be as tricky, mysterious, and potent as any other form of enchantment.