The Wizard That Wasn't (Mechanized Wizardry) by Ben Rovik Read Free Book Online Page A

security, logistical support, or (in the case of the Parade squad) entertainment for the royal feastday in two weeks.  The Princess would go through the First Ordeals only once, after all, and marking this important step on her road to adulthood with anything less than the full resources of the state was out of the question.  So tomorrow, the Council’s liaisons to the Petronauts, the earnest Baron and Baroness Quinish, would begin personal inspections of every piece of equipment to be employed for the feastday—a task made both easier and harder by the fact that neither of them had a clue what they were looking at.  The best tactic to take with the Honorable Quinishes, the Petronauts had found, was to make any broken or unreliable equipment as shiny as possible, so it received an automatic stamp of approval, and to make any important, sensitive equipment look dingy and grimy to deter clumsy white-gloved hands.  (Just because Petronauts spent more time with machines didn’t mean they couldn’t handle people, too.)
    Lundin shifted the weight, his hands throbbing as they continued their crabwalk across the warehouse.  “What was I saying?” he asked.
    “Nothing.  I was enjoying it,” Samanthi said.
    “Oh—right!  So!  So the Invocation is the first part of any spell.  Real consistent. There’s this text, the pingdu calabra , that they always say.  A few pages of text, tops.   And it connects them to the spirit world.”
    “How exciting for them.”
    “Part two—now this is a much longer one—is called the Illustration, and it’s what you want the spell to do.  It’s where you say, you know, ‘this is a spell that makes a person fall in love,’ or—well, ‘this is a spell that makes a person burst into flames.’”
    “By the living spheres, are you insane?”  Samanthi hissed, glaring at him.  “Don’t go throwing words like that around, magic man!  There are drums of petrolatum everywhere in this place!”
    “Don’t worry,” Lundin said, his face red from the strain.  He really couldn’t feel his fingers anymore underneath the generator.  “No danger in talking about this stuff.  We aren’t speaking in Mabinanto—and, anyway, speaking one part of a spell without the other parts in the right order is a recipe for instant fizzle.”
    They finally reached the wagon and, with a heave and a grunt, set the generator down in its place.  Once inspected, it would be palace-bound, like the rest of their gear.  Their little Reconnaissance squad had been assigned to assist the Palace Guard, making sure nothing unexpected came in or out of the royal wing while the Princess was undergoing the First Ordeals.  A plum assignment if there ever was one.  They’d be among the first Delians (outside of palace regulars, of course) to see the Princess in her newly grown-up state, with her hair cut back and dressed like a midling, not a girl.  It would be strange to see her without the long, fawn-colored hair that shone through all her childhood portraits.
    Lundin and Samanthi caught their breath, leaning against the wagon bed.  He looked at her as she watched other teams’ gear go by with an appraising eye.  “Have you heard of Mabinanto before, then?”  Lundin asked.
    “If it’s not a type of alcohol I’m not interested,” Samanthi said, absently.
    Lundin smiled and raised his hands in a gracious gesture.  “You know, we could talk about this later, if you want,” he said.  He prided himself on his ability to read signals from other people.
    “No, you know what?  Let’s hear it all at once.”  Samanthi drummed a little rat-a-tat on the wagon with her callused hands.  “If little Princess Naomi can take two weeks of Ordeals, I can listen to you blab about magic another few minutes.  Please tell me, Horace, what Mabinanto is.”
    “It’s really okay, Sam.  I don’t want to bore you.”
    “For fire’s sake—!  Just bore me already!”
    “Mabinanto, then!  Language