~*~
Four humans and an orc, daintily nibbling a fresh and lightly buttered croissant, looked up in alarm when the front door flew open and a middle-aged, slightly overweight man with flushed cheeks huffed in. Milton recognized him immediately. It was Ludd, Mari's father, and he wasn't here to share a light breakfast with his daughter.
His heated eyes locked on Mari. "I thought I'd find you here!" he bellowed. "I've told you a hundred times you are not to spend time with this…this…" He pointed at Milton. "…this spell-mumbling page-turner."
"Yes, father," she said humbly, rising from her chair with her head bowed.
Her humility did not placate him as much as she undoubtedly hoped. His rant was far from over.
"And with his pet orc and two irresponsible adventurers to boot," he continued, red-faced and full of outrage. "Have you no shame? You are more than pretty enough to attract a man of substance, a man with property and money. To waste yourself on this snot-nosed boy is not only disrespectful of my expressed wishes, it is irresponsible to your family. We gave you life. We fed you, gave you clothes, and for what? So you could run off and not repay what you owe? That is not what good children do." He strode over and grabbed her arm. "You are coming home right now, young lady, and you will not come back here ever again. Do I make myself clear?"
Gorbo growled softly, but Milton restrained him with a look and a word before he could do anything more aggressive. The orc reluctantly complied, but his strained expression and bared teeth proved that it took all of the self-control he possessed to do so.
It looked like Brax, too, was about to intervene because he rose from his chair, although he left his magic sword in its scabbard. Doc stopped him with a shake of his head and a few quiet words about not interfering. He was right to do so. Ludd was Mari's father and the head of their family. By law and custom, his wishes dictated what those under his roof could and could not do.
"He's right, Brax," Milton said reluctantly. "Ludd is within his rights to forbid Mari from coming here."
"See!" Mari's father said. "Even your poor little magic user knows that much."
He half dragged his daughter outside, slamming the door behind him.
"What was that all about?" Brax said. "He was almost treating his daughter like property."
Milton again wondered where these people came from. Mari wasn't Ludd's property—exactly—but she was his daughter. He was responsible for her, and she, conversely, was obligated to him. That was how things worked.
Doc placed a consoling hand on Milton's slumped shoulder. "I take it that you are not happy about your seemingly poor prospects with that young lady."
Milton lowered his head. "No, but she deserves more than I can give her. At one time magic was a respected profession. It was miraculous, once. Magicians could literally make castles in the air, or so the stories say. Now, the spells often fail, and most people see magic mainly as the academic pursuit of trivia. No one comes to us much anymore. My last job was to fix a set of broken dishes." He lifted his head and presented a weak smile. "They did come out well, though. You couldn't even see the cracks."
"But you're on special assignment for the king," Brax protested. "Doesn't that give you some status?"
Milton shook his head. "No, at least not with people like Ludd. He measures status in gold pieces, as most people do, and the king doesn't have to pay for services. It's our duty as citizens to obey his orders. If we do well, he may grant a boon, but it's not guaranteed. Ludd wants Mari to marry someone with a steady income, and I can understand that."
"But what about your master—Ferman? I got the impression he was pretty well off."
"He has a meager stipend from the king for past services, but he's far from wealthy. Magic just doesn't pay the way it used to."
"So why don't you go into another profession?" Brax asked.
"It's not that easy. My father was a tinsmith. He was good at it because he had an artistic flare that I simply don't. Maybe I just didn't see it as important. I don't know. But magic and the mysteries of natural philosophy have always fascinated me. I thought that with these I might be able to do something important, something that might help people. So I read all I could get hold of, and when my father died, I used part of my inheritance to pay Ferman to take me on as an apprentice. I have some talent for magic, he says, but magic just isn't as reliable as the stories say it is. Even Ferman's spells often fail, and the truth is, no one really understands why it works when it does.
"That was where I thought I might be of the most use. I wanted to understand magic. I wanted to become, well, I guess you could call it a theoretical magician. If I could come up with a theory that explained magic, we could understand how and why it worked, but it doesn't seem to follow any clear rules. It's almost arbitrary. Take a simple mending spell, for example. If you place the broken item between two lodestones, spin them, and recite the appropriate words while holding the broken pieces together, they will rejoin. But sometimes they don't, even though the spell is the same each time. And even when they do, no one understands why. I want to know why."
Doc gave him a sympathetic smile. "It sounds to me as if you want to make a difference. You want to improve the world."
"Yes, that's it exactly. And making tin candleholders and pitchers, or whatever, doesn't do that. I knew magic wouldn't make me rich, but I thought it was important."
"Well, maybe you shouldn't restrict yourself so much."
"What do you mean?"
"Rather than just trying to understand why magic works, maybe you should try to understand how everything works. Non-magical things are important, too."
"Mundane things? But everyone already understands those."
"Do they? I think you'll find they don't, or not as well as they might. And understanding them better can help you use them better." He paused a moment in thought, as if debating if he should say more. "You've seen our ship. What do you think about it?"
"It's an amazing use of magic. For some reason, adventurers' magic seems to work better than ours tends to. I don't know why that is, but I'd like to."
"It's not magical," Doc said. "Nothing about the ship is magical. It's simply using natural things in clever ways."
"But that's impossible. It flies! Only magic can accomplish that."
"Birds do it all the time, Milton. Rocks do it—if you throw them. Flying isn't easy, but it's not impossible. All sorts of amazing things are possible, but it takes knowledge and understanding to make them happen."
"Not magic?"
"No magic at all," Doc said, "unless you count the magic of imagination. A great number of very imaginative and creative people worked on that ship and all the technology behind it. I certainly don't understand all of it, but I do understand that it is understandable. It's not magic."
Milton found this almost inconceivable. No, that wasn't quite right. It was definitely inconceivable. Doc was undoubtedly just trying to make him feel better, knowing that Milton could never hope to match the magical skills of someone like Commander Chang. He appreciated the effort, and perhaps Doc did have a point about learning more about how mundane things worked. He would have to consider that.
"Doc," Brax said. "We have to get back to the ship and Milton needs to take care of those things we talked about. Commander Chang will get snippy with us if we take too long."
"In a minute," Doc said.
"Milton, here's my advice. Look to see what your people need, and see if you can find ways to help provide them. We have a saying where I come from. 'Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.'"
"Mousetrap?"
"It's just a metaphor, and not really as simple as it sounds, but it's where you should start. Find something you can make better. You don't need to base your solution on magic. In fact, it's probably better if you don't, given what you said about its erratic nature. I think you'll find that you'll learn the answers to questions you never asked and that those answers will prompt even
more questions, which is, oddly, a very good thing."