“The winner of the auction must promise to allow Devi to go home through the portal as soon as they figure out how the cabinet works.”
The Mural and the Cabinet
part 7 of 21
by Trismegistus Shandy
Thanks to Lucario and Maplestrip for feedback on story ideas, and to Yuki Kitsune for beta reading the manuscript.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Some of the wizards who’d come to examine the cabinet placed their initial bids in person; others mailed them in a few days later. Four days before the auction, Syuna sent a letter to everyone who had placed a bid, informing them of the high bid — 655,000 crowns. Those who were willing to bid more were invited to the live auction on the sixteenth of Tuspir, at an hour past noon.
The day of the auction arrived. After lunch, Syuna made sure Devi was wearing her best girlish gown, and led her downstairs with Zindla following. Three people had arrived for the auction, and were talking with Tyemba and each other at the front counter; a fourth rushed in just as Syuna, Devi and Zindla arrived, puffing for breath and saying “I’m not late, am I?”
“You’re on time; we were just about to start,” Syuna said. She led them to the furniture aisle; it was crowded, but with only four bidders she thought they could manage.
The four bidders were Kashpur, Nidlaya, Sumshar, and Hanshi, another Stasa woman; Syuna didn’t know her as well as the others. Before starting the bidding, Syuna said: “I know all of you have examined the cabinet, and most of you have talked with Devi, the child from the other world.” She gestured toward Devi, who was standing at her side, looking apprehensive. “My daughter Zindla saw the portal just before it closed. Do any of you wish to ask further questions of Devi or Zindla before we start the bidding?”
No one did.
“Very well. Let me remind you of the conditions I set in my first letter, and add one more. The winner of the auction must promise to allow Devi to go home through the portal as soon as they figure out how the cabinet works. They must also promise that, if they do not discover the workings of the cabinet within a year, they must allow other researchers access to it, and to their research notes on the cabinet; that if they sell the cabinet before Devi returns to her own world, they must impose these same conditions on the purchaser, and the same if they give the cabinet away, rent or lend it out, or leave it to someone in their will. Do you all agree?”
They all did.
“Very well. The bidding starts at 655,000 crowns. Am I bid 660,000...?”
Hanshi dropped out of the bidding at 750,000. Nidlaya dropped out at 900,000. When the bidding passed a million, Syuna allowed herself a slight smile. This one sale was going to pay their rent for months to come. It wasn’t every month that they sold one of the big-ticket items, and this would be the second-most expensive thing she had ever sold. And to think she’d only paid 15,000 crowns for it at Tirishkun’s estate sale!
...Most expensive thing, she amended, when the bidding passed 1,300,000. Finally Kashpur bid 1,400,000, and Sumshar turned to him and said, “Congratulations, Kashpur. Let me know if you want any help figuring it out.”
“I doubt that will be necessary,” Kashpur said.
Sumshar left the shop, and Kashpur came into the back office with Syuna. They sat down at the desk, and she set the contract before him; he read through it silently.
After he signed it, he said: “You may wish to consider sending Devi to live with me. I am reasonably sure I can send her home eventually, either by getting the portal to open on demand or by accurately predicting when it will open. But I can probably do so sooner if she is on hand while I am experimenting with it than if she is living halfway across the city.”
“How do you mean?”
“There will probably be one or more partial successes before I discover the full workings of the cabinet. Instances where the portal opens for a few minutes or hours, but then won’t open again for some time. If Devi is in the next room when that happens, I can call her and send her through right away. If she is here... the portal will almost certainly have closed by the time I can get word to you.”
“That is something to consider. But I wonder how you will handle having a small child in the house. She is more mature than most five-year-olds, true, but still a child, and you have never had children.”
“No, but my housekeeper, Tashni, has had four — they are all grown now, but she knows how to handle children. I will put Devi in her charge.”
“Perhaps so. We will discuss it and speak with you soon. When will you take delivery of the cabinet?”
“I will send some men with a truck tomorrow morning.”
“Very well. I will send you a letter tomorrow letting you know what we decide.”
When Syuna, Zindla and Tyemba came upstairs for supper that night, Devi asked, “How long do you think it will take Kashpur to figure out the cabinet?”
“That is something we must discuss,” Syuna said, “but let’s sit down to eat first.”
“I thought you had it figured out already?” Zindla teased; “it will open after you’ve had an adventure, right?”
“Maybe,” Devi said, scowling at her. “It would be easier to go on an adventure if I didn’t look like a five-year-old.”
“Even ten is too young for adventures,” Tyemba said. “And the city is no place for them.”
After supper, when Pasyala was getting the pastries out of the oven, Syuna said: “Devi, I spoke with Kashpur about the cabinet. He suggested that you might get home considerably sooner if you go to live with him while he is studying it.”
“Leave here?” Devi wasn’t sure he liked Kashpur well enough to live with him. But going to live with a wizard — well, a more powerful wizard, not like Pasyala and Tyemba — could be the way to the adventure that had eluded him so far.
“It might be for the best. Kashpur said that he will probably have some partial successes before he completely figures out how to make the cabinet work on demand. It might open for a few minutes here and there at unpredictable intervals, you know — and if you’re living in his apartment, you can just run right through it when he calls you. But if you’re here... it will probably close again by the time he sends us word, and maybe he won’t be able to make it open whenever he wants for months to come.”
“I guess so,” Devi said. “I’ll miss you, though.”
“We can come visit you, or you can visit us,” Zindla said. “And you’re still invited to my coming of age ceremony.”
“Thank you.”
The next day, two burly men came to the shop in a small truck, rolled a little wheeled platform into the store, and lifted the cabinet onto it. Then they took it out to the truck and drove away. Syuna told Devi she had sent Kashpur a letter, and expected he would send for him soon.
Indeed, the very next day Devi was sitting at the dining table listening to Zindla and Syuna doing math — it was geometry, more advanced than what Devi was doing in school back home, but not completely over his head — when Tyemba came upstairs.
“Kashpur is here for you, Devi,” he said.
Devi suddenly had second thoughts about this. He wanted to cry at the thought of going away from Zindla and her family. But crying would be like the little girl he appeared to be, not the going-into-fifth-grade boy he really was. He put a brave face on and nodded. “I’ll miss you guys,” he said.
“I’ll miss you too, Devi,” Zindla said, and hugged him. “I’ll come visit as often as I can.”
He went and got the bag he already had ready with the Transformers pajamas he’d arrived in and all the clothes Zindla and Pasyala had made for him, and followed Tyemba downstairs, where Kashpur was waiting with a woman not much younger than him. His wife, Devi wondered? She was darker skinned than him, but with facial features more like most of the people Devi had seen in the city than like Zindla’s family or the people at their church.
“Good morning, Devi,” Kashpur said. “This is my housekeeper, Tashni. She will be taking care of you while I research the cabinet and figure out how to send you home.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Devi said, remembering his manners.
“My, you’re a well-spoken child,” Tashni said. “But, master Kashpur, I thought you’d said the child was a girl?”
“She says she was a boy originally,” Tyemba said, “and turned into a girl when she came through the portal. We’ve been letting her wear boys' gowns and hair ornaments.”
“Ah, I see,” Tashni said, nodding sagely. “I’m sure the master will put you right again, poor child.”
“We shall see,” Kashpur said. “If you’re quite ready?”
They took a taxi across the city to Kashpur’s building. Kashpur’s apartment took up the entire top floor of the building, with an office next to the elevator, and a garden on the roof. Tashni showed Devi around the place, which was much fancier than Tyemba and Syuna’s apartment.
“This is awesome,” Devi said, looking out across the city from the arbor in the garden.
“It is right pretty, isn’t it? Master Kashpur says you’re from another world; do they have cities like this there?”
“I think we’ve got taller buildings back home,” Devi said. “I don’t know how many feet tall they are, but the tallest are over a hundred stories.”
“Ah, you must have some powerful wizards then.”
“No, we haven’t got any wizards at all.”
“Go on!”
“It’s true,” Devi insisted.
After they went downstairs, Kashpur introduced Devi to Sashtun, his intern, who’d been out running errands while Tashni was giving Devi the tour.
“You mean he’s like your apprentice?” Devi asked.
“More like a journeyman,” Kashpur said, “if you must use archaic terms. He has completed his studies at the Academy and now is getting practical experience in talisman-crafting under my direction. Obey him as you would me or Tashni.”
“Yes, sir,” Devi said.
Sashtun was by far the closest one to Devi’s age in the household, but that wasn’t saying much — he was at least twice Devi’s real age, and four or five times the age he appeared to be, and didn’t have much time for a little boy. Or girl, or whatever.
As at Syuna and Tyemba’s shop, Devi spent much of his time sitting and watching the cabinet to see if the portal would open. It was set up in the middle of a room, surrounded by a circle drawn on the floor in black; the walls were lined with cluttered shelves, and there were a couple of chairs, one of which Devi sat in while he watched. Kashpur strictly warned him not to touch anything except the chair he was given to sit in. “Or this bell,” he said, pointing it out. “If the portal opens and I’m not in the room, ring the bell before you go through it.”
But day after day went by and the portal still didn’t open. Some days Kashpur was too busy with other work to look at the cabinet. Other days, usually in the afternoon or evening, he would go into the cabinet room — sometimes alone, sometimes with Sashtun — and work spells on the cabinet, trying to figure out how to make it work. At these times Devi wasn’t allowed to watch, but was sent into the next room to wait. “If you hear the bell ring, come running,” Kashpur said. But the bell didn’t ring.
During mealtimes, if Kashpur and Sashtun weren’t engrossed in talk about their work, they would often ask Devi questions about his home world. There were a lot of questions Devi wasn’t quite sure about, or had no idea about, but he could answer a lot of them.
One afternoon — Devi had lost count of the days since he left the shop — Zindla, Syuna, and Tyemba came to visit. Devi wasn’t allowed to go up to the roof garden except when an adult came with him, and Kashpur, Sashtun and Tashni were usually too busy, so he was glad to go up there with Zindla and her parents, accompanied by Kashpur and Sashtun.
“You have a great view here,” Zindla exclaimed, and Tyemba said: “It’s even taller than the Rashna Building, isn’t it?” It seemed strange to hear them speaking Stasari instead of Zyuni, the language they spoke at home.
“By almost thirty feet,” Kashpur said. “No spellbreakers are allowed in the building or the buildings on either side, lest they damage the spells that keep it standing.”
“I wouldn’t like to live in a building like this,” Syuna said. “If the spells on our lights or stove or plumbing broke down, we’d be inconvenienced. If the spells on the walls of this building broke down, we’d all be killed.”
Devi started to worry. She hadn’t realized the building was so unsafe. But if it really were dangerous, Kashpur and the others wouldn’t want to live here either, would they? Indeed, Kashpur went on to argue that the building was perfectly safe.
“Keeping spellbreakers out is a precaution,” he said, “but even if a spellbreaker entered the building, he’d have a hard time doing more than black out the lights. The spells that hold the building up are worked deep into the walls, and a spellbreaker would have to cut into the walls and touch the wires and threads between them to damage the building. Long before that, the building security people would drag him away or kill him.”
Devi remembered Tyemba taking him to a spellbreaker that first day after Nidlaya had been unable to detect any transformation spell on him. He’d later read something about them, or nulls as they were sometimes called, in Zindla’s storybooks and histories. They were people who were kind of the opposite of wizards; they weakened or broke spells by touching them.
“Then why not allow spellbreakers into the building,” Devi asked, “if they can’t hurt anything?”
“Well, they can’t knock the building down, but a strong one could put out the lights or make the elevator stop working,” said Sashtun. “They’re better off living in their own neighborhoods where they can do things their own way, without magic.”
That made Devi feel uncomfortable, but he wasn’t sure why.
When Zindla and her family were about to go, Zindla gave Devi a small bag. “I brought you another book,” she said. “I thought maybe Kashpur might not have a lot of books good for someone your age.”
“Thanks,” Devi said, opening the bag and seeing another storybook by the same author as two of the books he’d read when he was living with them. He impulsively hugged Zindla — around the waist, because he could hardly reach her shoulders.
“Don’t forget my birthday,” she said, and looked at her mother significantly.
“I won’t,” Devi said. Syuna stepped forward and gave him another bag she’d been carrying.
“This is your gown for Zindla’s coming-of-age ceremony. You must not wear it until that morning; don’t put it on until after breakfast, lest you spill something on it.”
“All right. Thank you.” Devi peeked inside the bag, and saw that the gown was green and long-sleeved.
“I’ll come by to pick you up early that morning,” Tyemba said, “and bring you to the church. Zindla and her mother and grandmother will be going straight there, first thing in the morning.”
“I’ll look forward to it.” He sure would. Things weren’t the most exciting at Zindla’s apartment, once the novelty of being in another world had worn off, but they were even more boring here. You would think living with a powerful wizard would be interesting, but Devi never got to watch him cast spells, and although the apartment had more magical conveniences than Zindla’s family’s home — hot running water, for instance — he’d soon gotten used to them.
After Zindla and her family left, Devi went back to the room with the cabinet and sat down with the book Zindla had given him. He read almost a quarter of it before bedtime.
If you want to read the whole novel (51,700 words) right now without waiting for the serialization, you can find it in my ebook collection, Unforgotten and Other Stories. It's available from Smashwords in epub format and Amazon in Kindle format. (Smashwords pays its authors better royalties than Amazon.)
You can find my earlier ebook novels and short fiction collection here:
Comments
still no closer to an answer
oh boy ...
beginning to wonder if the
beginning to wonder if the magic was in the cabinet or in the mural in his world and it just happened to open in the cabinet