Chapter 14: Gypsy Magic?

The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe around us, the less taste we shall have for destruction. – Rachel Carson


Although Karl was able to sleep soundly Zere’maya woke up in the middle of the night.

She grabbed a shawl and found a dry hill where she could watch the sky. It was an Earth-like sky, with a slightly smaller moon and some other orbiting bodies, as well as a star pattern minus any Milky Way. She was rarely on any world long enough to learn their stars.

I suppose it was right in front of me, she thought. Magical leak, so someone has found a way to make real zombies – all the power I have with none of my brains nor any of my will. I’ve handled zombies before. Never been tagged personally, though. Horrible to think about it being me, but finally I have some sort of working theory on how magic has gone wrong here – Magicians – dead ones – still pulling in all the power they would have if they were alive, powering – something or someone.

“How did it come about?” she asked softly, in English. “There’s no poverty in that society – no one worries about going hungry or homeless in their society. They treat the gypsies and for what I understand other people as if they were all brutish animals, but empathy to their own with callousness to others is part of the dreadful nature of human beings.”

Was that what a society of all girls would be like, she wondered, a clique – only bigger?

In theory destroying all of their trophies – grotesque bookmarks stored somewhere – she should be able to pinch off the problem, and maybe buy some time while we try to reach them and get them to not pee in the community pool.

She suddenly thought of the possibility that two sections of neck skin had tags in them. Zere’maya didn’t think that the Alelieans would be able to recognize a transmitter if they saw one, and if two transmitters were placed in contact and started to feedback?

In her mind she saw one hell of an explosion and a large crater where that city was – goodbye Maia, Maia’s mom, that sweet little boy Tomas – or their equivalents in another city if her skin wasn’t in Cucuteni.

Physically there was more reason now for everyone to keep her alive as long as possible. As long as she had her own will there would be power draining two ways – her own physical strength, her mechanics were strong enough to draw the attention of the people who watched out for new magicians on Earth – and enough to cause a good deal of damage before she was stopped and dragged out of there.

Mostly, Zere’maya was supposed to be discounted as unimportant. She was a magical housekeeper -- her job was to do what was needed to be done so that no one noticed what she was doing. If all went well she and her Rhea got in, got out, and the dishes at the local eatery didn't so much as jounce.

If it was a close call, rain of toads, mudslides, natural/magical disasters of various sorts, but in some way the worst was mitigated if not prevented. People didn't eat their children. The children grew up and had no idea how close they came to not. Parents grew old and died and planets didn't explode.

If the task failed, all of the above and usually more, and the magic in everything faded -- the closer to the disaster the more magic left the area. Eventually the situation was so bad that the magic user had to pack his or her own power, there was none to draw on, and even that world itself would be greedy enough to drain the resources dry. Earth had had failure after failure. This world had also been unfortunate.

That's why an older woman was sent -- more experience, more unlikely to be noticed. Zere’maya stopped, then thought it out. More likely to not be rash, either -- young people had been found to love life more but lay it down far easier. The old broads are tough to kill.

Zere’maya sighed. It was true that of all the places she could be, serving as Karl’s wife was the best she could see. Zere’maya and Karl would have to have one of the young, virgin girls make the cuts in her wrist and his to mingle their blood before they could be considered husband and wife. How that could be done Zere’maya hadn't a clue. It was true that Karl would have to buy her, and that he didn't have any money, and that her family was as out of reach as anyone could be. It was also true that somehow, some way that she would then be providing for *her* Rom -- her man. it was also true that she could leave such a marriage any time she wanted to -- and so could he. That was part of the freedom gained from being part of a caravan -- the whole group supported the whole group.

So -- for Karl to actually marry her he would have to have enough money to buy her, enough money to throw a wedding feast, and there was no source for any money that Zere’maya could see. He may be an invulnerable and very skilled man (who could possibly have the ability to become a dragon) but at the moment he was squinchy broke because he had no family among the gypsies.

Not only was Mother Faa not throwing her out, she was leading the others in encouraging her to not spread her gifts elsewhere, so Mother Faa must think that I should start a family in the caravan. She probably thinks that I can take care of Karl, that he can be my Rom. Anyone can see that I have indeed taken care of him so far.

Think, old woman, think. What have I missed in a rush of feeling, what assumptions am I making when there is no reason to think that way?

You don't know where your Rhea is. Be fatalistic; be a gypsy, don't worry about what you can't change.

You don't know where Karl's mother is. Zere’maya sat down, staring into the sand, trying to find the holes in the story that she had filled with her own narrative, holes that needed to be filled with what was actually there.

"I'm assuming," Zere’maya said to the open air, "That Karl is hatched from an egg, that he is a dragon, that he was sold because people I trust have said so." She repeated herself at least three times, listening for any part of what she had heard that was from within her own assumptions and not what was said. She decided at last to take these ideas as true until proof arrived of otherwise.

"I'm assuming that Karl is born of a dragon mother, because he came from an egg, and also a dragon father. That may be wrong, as I am a demon in human form and can sleep with a dragon in man form. First question to ask someone who knows -- can dragons sleep with humans? And, if they do could the dragon back in human form lay a man's egg?"

Zere’maya asked herself the question aloud in several different languages, several different ways, looking for herself working into the facts. Finally she remembered, "Man of Steel, woman of wet tissue paper" and laughed. It was more than just two different species looking alike. On a magic weak planet, who would even know if it was possible? It was improbable at best.

Assume that Karl is a dragon, no special cases apply.

Zere’maya squeezed a handful of sand, wanting to do some magic on it. The night's private festivities had left her not only sated but in fact painfully overcharged. It felt as if she had a hard ball inside her, pressing outward. She couldn't think of anything to do with the sand, nor anything else at this time of night. Waking up Inkchin and Aruin would be cruel.

And this was after someone was draining off her magic energy, she thought. Zere’maya could see her own shattered spirit beginning to repair.

"Ehhhhh." said Zere’maya, staring into space. She could almost see the problem. It slipped into her mental line of vision then infuriatingly -- was gone.

At the moment Karl was not unhappy. He was no longer alone, a state almost impossible to come by physically in a gypsy caravan, but emotionally being by yourself can be done anywhere. She carefully replayed Karl's story.

The problem slipped back over her eyes, and locked. She had already looked up the class of dragons that people had described. Karl would retain his invulnerability at any shape he took.

Certainly she could not kill a dragon of any size, and the same would go for any human. Dragon eggshells, however, could be affected by human magic once the dragon was out. Could they then be able to be affected by human magic when still containing a dragon? The eggs waited in an open area exposed to human beings until they were ready to be forged -- and every human knew how dragon eggs were hatched.

Could dragon kill dragon? And if not, why did the dragons attempt to kill Karl? Not only as a new hatchling, but as a one year old, two year old, three year old, four year old baby, as the dragons, highly intelligent, still kept on trying? A being invulnerable enough so they would simply drop him down a cliff and hope he could not follow them home?

Somebody, probably a whole group of somebodies most likely decided at the time of his wait on the wall that this child would live. Not likely a dragon. Not possible a gypsy -- if a gypsy had blessed (or cursed) a baby like this they would have focused on the baby's heart and nature not the baby's simple survival.

The gypsies see a woman who always meets with Karl, who they can hear Karl screaming at. They do not know that this is his mother, they do feel that this is the sort of relationship. The woman never looks the same way twice, yet everyone is convinced that this is the same individual.

Why?

Zere’maya poured the sand on to the hill, then scooped it up again, poured, and scooped. It didn't matter that she had no idea how it worked. Sand poured. It was simply the truth -- Zere’maya's future was in the hands of people -- beings -- she had yet to meet.

Unless her Rhea simply showed up and scooped her up she had to go forward as if she was to stay here, that she had failed -- Jauqueline would see her vanish, and for the rest of time drink her coffee alone. At least she would know quickly. For Jauqueline, she would know within minutes, her time. For that Zere’maya had to be grateful. Fatalistic, like a gypsy. Out of everyone's control.

Zere’maya imagined, briefly, appearing back in her garden. "Darling, I got married this time!" she would say. Out of balance, out of Zere’maya's control. She let that dream pour out of her hand, pour out with the sand.

Zere’maya walked the bank of the river, carefully checking -- she picked up a piece of dragon shell. It melted in her hand as if it had been coconut butter at the merest touch of magic.

Woman of wet tissue paper, indeed. Her balanced trained magic and what gypsy magic she had learned made the eggshell as pliable as frozen butter. There was quite a bit of shell, and she could see that other people had stood here and melted shells before, and the temple used it as in her childhood had used plastic, taking matches or lighters to melt plastic picnic silverware into new toys. It was possible -- though unlikely -- that dragons knew that their shells were held together by magic rather than mundane forces, but it was possible that they did not know what humans could do with it.

It might have not even been important, seemingly. Zere’maya could read the gender of chicks through the shell -- chicken shells were just calcium carbonate and applied after all the biologicals were completed -- if you would open up a chicken you could see eggs pre shell, just bags of white and yolk. If Zere’maya could reach through a mundane shell and reach the outer membrane a magic user could reach the outer skin of a dragon egg. How much deeper, was the young dragon itself within reach?

Zere’maya expected that with the right magic, maybe the right tools -- it would be. Her best conjecture, then, is that somehow Karl had been affected in the shell, and that she was affecting that spell in some way. Either the original spell was a real doozie, incredibly powerful for this world, or he had some connection to a continual flow of magic.

Finding out which of the two -- if indeed it might not have been both as it was for a creature like Zere’maya -- was well worth trying to do here, not futile, and not something she had been trying to do again and again for the past months.

Zere’maya sighed. At least she had something different to do now. Task number one -- understand dragon magic, especially as related to human magic. Most likely gypsy magic would be outside and invisible to both so she could fairly safely assume that her input would be difficult if not impossible for both sides to perceive for what it was.

Old women hold on to life. It was a habit for Zere’maya, making sure she would continue. Younger people had other priorities.

Dragons -- what were they in relation to the people? The people seemed to be ordinary human beings, though she could not tell Karl from any other being without touching him, bare skin to bare skin. Next task -- identify another dragon, not Karl, and learn all she could about how to detect them. Seeing them well up in the sky didn't count. They fairly often now saw dragons overhead, which passed comment as much as an airplane trail overhead would do. These beings seemed to be out of sight of the ordinary people -- unlikely to land and do anything frightening.

In her overhearing the gypsies talking about the local people there had been no mention of dragons being involved in any way -- the conversation was about the very usual -- what the locals' customs were, with perhaps an aside of the dragons being more involved in the distant past.

Still involved, but hardly important to the necessaries of life, it would seem, thought Zere’maya. They weren't worshiped, at least not at the Temple Zere’maya had visited. Sacred cleanliness, sacred eating, sexuality, the sadly ordinary occasion of a mother Goddess without any effect on the standard in society of the women in the community -- all that brilliant energy is spent for mere superficial indulgence, thought Zere’maya. Playing with pleasure for the sake of playing being wonderful, and her experience at the temple was a sensual delight even for a creature made up of and for the sake of pleasure like Zere’maya was, but it was pleasure without pain, without temptation, without strife. Pleasure run wild, unable to be built into anything better.

Pleasure, in effect, grew like a weed here, choking out and poisoning out the more valuable competition.

Zere’maya's visual mind spun through, ideas coming in and out of focus. One locked.
"I have read Brave New World too often." she said to the open air.

Something to watch out for, all that I have learned may interfere with what I can see here.

The skies had no more to tell her. She went back to bed, drained.

Lying next to Karl Zere’maya slept, and fed. All she needed was to touch him and his free will. After he rose she remained sleeping through the day. He had been full of energy, energy to gorge on.

Karl shook her gently.
“Zere’maya, you need to wake up. The elders want to see your neck.”
“It’s still holding my head up.” She said sleepily.
He quietly walked her out, turned her around and showed them her neck.

“There it is. She’s lived among us, put her life at risk for us. Proof – she died as one of you. Now you need to stop treating her like she doesn’t belong among you. She’s born to you and she’s earned the right to whatever she didn’t get by having the wrong father. If it was good enough for her to be murdered as Gypsy then we have no right whatsoever to deny her.”

She could feel Karl tying up her hair. Out of the corner of her eyes she could see all the gypsy men gathering in a crowd behind her.

“Please – it’s not safe for me to touch you – if you give me time I can make myself safe –“ She paused. She knew how to pull back to draw directly on human life. None of them had seen her as what they would see as fully vampire, not even Karl.

“If you are to be ours, remain as you have been among us. We have to meet you.” Said the oldest gypsy man. Zere’maya looked around desperately for Mother Faa, anyone she had confided in depth about her abilities.

“You are going to do magic on me. I don’t want to harm you, I don’t know if this is safe.” She continued.

Karl held her steady, warning her not to move.

The youngest of the boys counted as man touched the scar on the back of her neck. It burned, hurt. He grinned in response to her look of motherly concern.

One by one each one of the men touched the long scar, naked of skin. Each time burned, made her body shake. She guessed it was like emergency surgery, needed, as she sickened, her stomach burned, she was unable to stand Karl holding her up against the ongoing row of touching hands.

Finally they were done, each having made contact with her scar leaving her hurt rather than the opposite.

“Young man, you end too soon. She is one of us, and it is not proper for a gypsy woman to be with any but a gypsy man.” Mother Faa’s husband gave Karl his knife. Karl gasped.

“That’s it? That’s all?” asked Karl.

“What do you want, a circumcision or something?” asked the old man, amused.

“Now you two are a Rom and his woman. That’s what you wanted, yes?” said the old man.

“And our gift to her is on her neck. We all are her father now, and it will be much harder for anyone to find her among us. She’s far less dangerous to the tribe now.” He finished.

Zere’maya ran her hand over her neck. The area was filled in again with skin – and their rich, untrained magic was running through her. It was jarring – like hearing two songs at once, both loud, unlike each other and moving in and out of tempo.

“I’m going to need training. It’s too much.” She said weakly.

The oldest man offered her a skin of wine. “Drink.” He offered.
“I can’t eat or drink. Other than people -- I’m sorry.” She said.

Karl offered her the skin. Zere’maya shrugged. She carefully took a swallow. She smiled.

“Thank you.”

“It’s a patch, it should make your life more normal as well. I don’t think that you will have to eat, you may need to drink, I don’t know, but this will bind you more closely to the world, to all of us.” Said the old man.

“I am about to be very disrespectful, ungrateful, probably more.” Said Zere’maya tentatively. The old man cocked an eyebrow at her.

Zere’maya took a breath to speak. “Sir, I can’t look in my materials and see “what to do when some people who are supposed to be 18th century technology remove your scars and mend your micro-implants. I know you, as a group, are as technology savvy as I am. I’ve suspected it for a while, and now I know. I’m thankful, please understand, but, I’ve got to tell you – I know.” She coughed in embarrassment.

“Can’t just call it out on Gypsy magic, huh?” said the old man.

“Magic is technology that you don’t understand.” Said Karl, firmly.

“Well, then. That is a problem. And you’ll still have that problem when you’ve healed from what we did to you.“ said the old man with the air of someone who has made this speech again and again. “To you – it’s magic because you don’t understand, and you’ll just have to come to your own conclusions as to why ~~~you~~~ don’t.”