The Warlock's Curse (12 page)

But then the Malmantic Generation had come along. They could not use magic as their parents and grandparents had. Those who even attempted it would suffer bouts of violent illness, the result of their inborn allergic sensitivity. And the more magic they used, the sicker they would become.

People born before 1878—like Ma’am—came to be called “Old Users.” They suffered no ill-effects from channeling magic. There was nothing stopping them from using it as they always had—and so they did. Why shouldn’t they? They had grown up in a world steeped in it. They were used to its conveniences, and they were unable to comprehend the fear and resentment they engendered in the distinctly different species of human that was destined to replace them.

But now the century had turned. The Malmantic Generation—the first generation of the twentieth century—was coming into its own. The youngest members were already well into their thirties. What form would those fears and resentments take, Will wondered. Would the day come when his Ma’am would be truly
hated
for what she was, even by her beloved goddaughter?

Jenny broke what had become a long silence. “You sore at me?”

Will had slowed the Baker to a crawl. They had come to a place where irrigation runoff from the hill above had made the road soggy.

“You asked if Otherwheres are magic,” Will finally said, as he looked down along the running board to gauge the softness of the mud as he brought the Baker across it. “Otherwheres are just different dimensions of our own reality. Back in the day when witches and warlocks were more common than they are now, Otherwheres were mostly accessed using magic. But now we access them using science. So ... nothing to worry about. All right?”

“All right,” said Jenny, relaxing visibly. “But I still don’t quite get what an Otherwhere is, exactly.”

“It’s a different plane of reality, a different ... shade.” Will struggled for the right words. “Scientists believe there must be an infinite number of them. Some Otherwheres are very much like the world we know. Some are very hostile places, where human beings can’t even exist because the laws of physics are so different. Exploring Otherwheres has always been dangerous for just that reason. You don’t know where you’re going to end up, or if you’ll be able to get back.”

Jenny tapped a fingernail against her chin. “I wonder if anyone’s ever tried using Monsieur Poincaire’s hyperbolic geometry to mathematically map this infinity of universes,” she mused. “It seems perfectly suited to the job. And it might be kind of fun.”

Will emitted a low whistle, looking at her sidelong. “
Fun
?” He pulled down the bill of his tweed touring cap against the glare of her blinding intellect. “I’m beginning to think that math professor of yours was staring into your eyes out of pure confusion.”

Jenny snorted derisively. “It’s all just numbers, William.”

“Well, let’s get back to my Otherwhere Flume, which is what you asked me about. It all starts with finding an Otherwhere compatible with our own universe’s physical laws. Maybe Poincairian hyperbolic geometry could be applied to finding one, but that’s neither here nor there. Because over two hundred have already been found, as the result of decades of risky exploration. They’re called the Golden Dimensions. They’re uninhabited and mostly physically identical to our own universe.”

“Wait, there are some that are
inhabited
?” Jenny’s eyes became big as plates. “By who?”

“I’m an engineer, not an anthropologist,” Will shrugged. “Anyway, over the years, bright industrialists have built power plants in these Otherwheres. Coal plants, steam—whatever unique generating resource is available. There’s one Otherwhere that’s filled with enormous waterfalls; they’ve put in hydroelectric turbines just like they have at Niagara Falls.”

Jenny was rapt.

“Anyway, all that power is transmitted from the Otherwhere into
our
world. That’s what an Otherwhere Conductor is. It’s the power of a whole coal plant, or hydroelectric plant, or steam plant, whooshing through an infinitesimal transdimensional portal into our own reality, where we can put it to whatever use we like.” He paused. “Hey, could you dig out some of that food? I’m starving.”

Jenny reached under the seat for the bag she’d packed, and from it, withdrew a whole apple pie. It was clearly a condemnation of the quality of pie to be found in San Francisco that Jenny expected to be able to break his Ma’am’s pie into neat wedges. But the flaky pastry crumbled in her hand, and she frowned at the pie filling on her dainty brown leather gloves.

“Great,” she muttered. “Now my gloves will smell like pie. Here.”

Resting one hand on the tiller, Will took the ragged hunk of pie in his other and quickly devoured it, licking the sweet sourness of apple and cinnamon from his fingers then wiping his hand clean on his trousers. Jenny eyed him with mild disdain as she used a corner of the laundry bag for a similar purpose.

“No wonder you want to go to Tesla Industries!” Jenny said as she tucked the bag away. “But what I don’t understand is why everything isn’t powered by Otherwhere Flumes, or Conductors, or whatever? This car runs beautifully! It’s quiet, and not at all dirty or smelly. And as long as there’s power coming from the Otherwhere, there’s nothing to stop us, isn’t that right?”

“Not a thing,” said Will, knowing that it wasn’t entirely the truth. But he liked the glow of Jenny’s admiration, and thus he had no immediate interest in explaining Old Randall Rudge.

Of course, Old Randall Rudge had to be explained eventually, but Will preferred to wait for that discussion until it became necessary.

They were passing through acres of almond orchards, the trees stretching out in neat rows as far as the eye could see, when the Baker began to slow. Glancing at the dash, Will watched the ampere gauge plummet to below five, and knew that it was futile to continue; he steered the auto off to the side of the road and brought it to a stop beneath a brilliantly colored billboard advertising the premiere of Edison Studios’ moving-picture version of
The Warlock’s Curse
. The enormous advertisement was dominated by the sharply handsome features of the idealized Sophos of the Stanton Institute. The famous warlock’s eyes were rendered particularly prominently; large and green-glowing, rimmed with blackest movie-idol kohl.

Given that they were driving along the well-traveled main road between Sacramento and Stockton, they had already seen several such billboards—and each time, Will had wondered about the letter from Ben.

“What’s wrong?” said Jenny. “Why have we stopped?”

Will took his hands off the tiller and leaned back in his seat. Pushing his motoring cap back on his head, he looked at his wristwatch.

“It’s noon,” he confirmed. “Old Randall Rudge in New Jersey runs his experiments every day at this time, and he draws down just about all the power the system has.” He turned to Jenny apologetically. “I have a charging system for a secondary battery all worked out in my head. If I’d had time to set it up, we could have just switched over to battery when the Flume was low.”

“What are you talking about?” Jenny tucked back a thick tendril of hair that dangled before her eyes; that particular curl had already escaped its pins several times, Will had noticed.

“The biggest problem with my Flume actually lies with the Otherwhere it draws power from. If I were a high-and-mighty industrialist, I could own my own power plant. But I’m not, and I don’t. So I have to buy a license from someone who is, and does. That license entitles me to a slice of the output of a single power plant.”

“So, what happened? You didn’t pay your Otherwhere bill?”

“No, I’m all paid up through the end of the year,” Will said. “But the particular high-and-mighty industrialist from whom I bought my license has demonstrated that he doesn’t particularly care how many licenses he sells.”

Jenny made a sound of understanding. “Oh! So when your Mr. Rudge, for instance, runs his experiments, it drains the pool for everyone. Why, I just call that bad business!”

“Profiteering is what we licensees call it,” said Will. “We’ve all complained about it, but there’s not much we can do.”

“You know the other licensees?” Jenny said.

Will nodded. “We circulate a newsletter by post.”

He got out of the car to stretch his legs. The morning had warmed up and the air smelled of smoke and sunshine. Judging from the white mile-markers they’d been passing—and the increasing numbers of driveways stretching off from the roadside—he figured they were only about ten miles out of Stockton. They had plenty of time. He reached back into the car and retrieved another chunk of pie, leaning on the hood of the car to eat it.

“We all banded together and made Old Rudge promise to limit his experiments to an hour a day.” Will brushed crumbs from his sleeve. “Boy, what an hour that must be in New Jersey!”

“Sounds like you’ve had this license for a while,” Jenny said.

“Almost a year,” Will said. “I got it for a project at school, and I’ve been tinkering with it ever since, hooking it up to various electrical devices, perfecting my Flume. I finally decided to drop the whole thing into Pask’s car because—” He stopped, suddenly feeling kind of sheepish. But Jenny was two steps ahead of him.

“Because I bet the license isn’t cheap and your folks don’t give you as much pocket money as the grandson of a de la Guerra gets,” she concluded. “If he liked the car with the Flume in it, he’d have to renew the license, which meant you’d get to keep tinkering with it. Right?”

Will blinked at her. “You sure you don’t have some witch in you?” he said, thinking of the uncanny perceptivity his mother’s magical skills gave her.

Jenny shuddered. “No, I don’t have any witch in me,” she said. “So we have to just sit around here waiting for Old Rudge to finish his experiments in New Jersey?” She crossed her arms. “We
do
have a wedding to get to.”

“Can’t be helped.” Will bent down to peer under the chassis, idly examining the axles and leaf springs. “It’s the curse of a shared resource.”

“So, what if we had our own Otherwhere?” Jenny asked. “All the power from one coal plant whooshing straight through your Flume, without anyone else tapping into it? Could we drive fifty miles an hour? A hundred?” Her eyes gleamed.

Will paused to consider. “The chassis probably wouldn’t stand that kind of speed for long,” he concluded. “Especially over these roads. But you could build one that would. And with the right kind of roads, you could really fly. A hundred miles an hour would be nothing if you had thousands of horsepower. Someday, I bet you’ll see machines that can do it.”

Jenny was silent for a long time, lost in thought. When she lifted her head to look at him, there was awe in her eyes.

“Why, William, you’re a bona-fide
genius
.”

“Lay off,” he muttered, blushing. “People have been fooling around with Otherwhere Conductors for years. I just figured a way to get around a few things. My shabby Otherwhere license was the least of my worries. Getting around the Connection Drop Problem, that was the hard part.”

“The what?”

“Like I said, people have been fooling with Otherwhere Conductors for years. But you don’t see them in automobiles like this one because of a technological hurdle called the Connection Drop Problem. See, it’s easy enough to open a connection to an Otherwhere, but it’s always been impossible to maintain that connection reliably. The connections drop seemingly at random—and usually at the most inconvenient moment possible. But everyone knew that it couldn’t just be random—something had to be causing it. People have been trying for years to figure out what that something is. They’ve looked at fluctuations in barometric pressure, at global temperatures, all sorts of things, but no one could figure it out. But I did. And once I figured it out, I built the Flume and ...” He trailed off, spreading his hands as if further explanation was unnecessary.

Jenny leaned forward, elbows on the dash. “So, how did you do it?”

“You ever hear of Röntgen rays?”

“Röntgen? He won that big prize from the dynamite mogul, didn’t he?”

“The Nobel, yes. Ten years ago. When I was at the Polytechnic I started getting interested in Röntgen rays. I learned that they were all around us, just as a general background state. It was supposed that they’d be at a higher level when sunspots flared up. I wondered if there was a correlation between these sunspots and the Connection Drop Problem.”

“And was there?” Jenny asked.

“Several observatories around the world have been watching sunspots since 1849,” Will said. “They have almost a hundred years of data on them. So I wrote away and requested copies.”

“So that was data about sunspots,” she said. “But how did you get the data about dropped Otherwhere connections?”

“Tesla Industries,” said Will. “They’ve been working on this problem for years. They maintain a steady-state Otherwhere connection, and they’ve been keeping records on it. Every time it’s randomly knocked off line, they make a note of the date and time. My teacher at the Polytechnic, Mr. Waters, knows one of the lead researchers there. He got me a copy of those records—but it sure took some doing! Tesla Industries is pretty secretive.”