Rede-ing Disabled

By Jonathan Edward Feinstein

Good news: a new wizard has been initiated just up the street from Bernie's fixit shop. Bad news: that same young wizard was killed that same night along with their family and mentor when their house burned down. Now it is up to Bernie, his demon familiar, Fluffernutter, and their wizardly friends to find out who did it, why, and to make sure whoever it was never does it again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Dec 31, 2020
• ISBN: 9781716273162

Book preview

Author’s Forward

Here we go again!

I really meant to release this much earlier this year. Normally, it should have been released in e-format last spring and in print in July at the latest. I blame the Covid-19 pandemic. With so many people stuck at home during the initial lock-down and the number of public events that might normally have attracted crowds (I stay out of political events even in the best of times; Covid-19 is just the most obvious disease spread about at rallies on either side. There is no cure for stupidity and politics spread stupidity… my politics? I’m a Heinleinian anarchist; see The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.) you might think I would have had nothing but time to write, proofread and engage in all my other hobbies, but that turned out not to be the case. For me, writing goes best when I have a routine and the pandemic decimated my routines.

Consequently, I have not written anything new since the lockdown here in Massachusetts and I could not get into a regular proofreading routine. Also, I generally put my year’s worth of books into print in time to sell them at the Pennsic War held by the Society for Creative Anachronism in Western Pennsylvania. There was no Pennsic War this year for the obvious reasons so there was no reason to rush to finish this and one other project that I wrote last January (the start of a new series; stay tuned!) and, in fact I am just getting to both of them now.

So, here we are again with the dyslexic wizard, Bernie and his friends all ready for a new misadventure in the wilds of Southeastern Massachusetts. Enjoy!

Jonathan Edward Feinstein

Westport, MA

November 15, 2020

Prologue – Veni, Vedi, Coffee

The tall, dark-haired woman took another sip of her cappuccino. She looked around once again and finally spotted the man she had been waiting for. Beaufort! she called out just barely loud enough for him to hear her. There was no need to shout this morning. Over here.

Beaufort was an equally tall man. His hair was medium brown with blond highlights and he wore an Egyptian cotton shirt over light blue trousers. He slid a pair of sunglasses down his nose and looked around over the tops of its rims until he found the woman who had called his name and then joined her. Katherine, her greeted her with a nod, holding his hand out slightly. She held her own hand out and he took it in his and then lightly touched his lips to it, before letting it go. It is good to see you again. How long has it been?

A decade, at least, Katherine replied. I believe you were living in Athens at the time.

Then it has been even longer than I thought, he admitted. I moved to Napoli almost fifteen years ago.

Naples? Then why did you ask me to meet you here in Florence?

I am here in Firenze on business this month, Beaufort explained. So, knowing you had a place in Tuscany, it made sense.

Do you dine here often? She indicated the café around them. The place was busy with the breakfast crowd that morning.

I discovered the Caffe Rosano on a previous visit, Beaufort replied. A smiling woman approached their table and he turned to her, Buongiorno, Rosa. My usual, per favore."

Sì, signore, Rosa nodded and rushed off.

Beaufort noticed that Katherine was only having a croissant with her cappuccino. You should try the salmon omelet, my dear. It is marvelous.

Tomorrow morning, perhaps, she replied, if this business keeps me here that long. You still have not told me what it is.

It is important, but not so urgent as to interfere with a good meal, he told her. Rosa returned with a cup of espresso and placed it before him, Grazie. He took a sip of the steaming black beverage, topped with the tan foam or crema and savored the rich flavor for a long moment. Then he noticed that Katherine was holding herself stiffly. Ah, I was hoping for some pleasant conversation before we discussed business.

What sort of business?

Family business, of course, Beaufort replied. Her eyebrows lifted almost microscopically; just enough so that he knew he had her full attention. You have heard the news from America?

I may have been keeping to myself lately, but I am not all that isolated, Katherine replied. I know that two of our, uh, little clan, disappeared last month. Good riddance.

An interesting reaction.

They were both, each in their own way, dangerous to the rest of us, Katherine replied. I never could understand why he chose to use that name.

Beaufort chuckled, Yes. He might well have been wearing a big neon sign. It would have been more subtle.

And she had more arrogance than brains, Katherine replied. Those two were perfectly matched. Good thing they never had children. Rosa returned just then with an omelet for Beaufort. Katherine caught a whiff and regretted for just a moment that had not been her choice this morning. Instead she held out her empty cup and requested, Un altro per favore.

Sì, signora!

Beaufort took a bite of his omelet and then another sip of his coffee. She was not as bad as all that.

No? Did you know she amused herself by torturing the mortals?" Katherine demanded.

I had not heard that, Beaufort admitted.

Well, it was mostly the mortal wizards. She liked to seek them out and set up little traps to catch them. I understand there was a partially mummified body found locked up in a cell on her ranch in California. Who knows how long that had been there? It was only a matter of time before she picked the wrong target. The mortals aren’t stupid, you know and some of them can be formidable even if they do not have our experience.

Well, that answers a few questions, Beaufort nodded. So, now we shall have to avenge them.

What? Why?

Beaufort saw Rosa returning with the cappuccino and held a finger up to pause their conversation. After she had left, he finally replied, First of all, they have apparently exposed our existence. If what you say is true, she seems to have been doing so for a long time and he… well we already discuss his foolish choice of a name, but, second, they exposed us to someone capable of killing them both. Someone quite… uh… he searched for a word.

Formidable, Katherine repeated.

Yes, perhaps, Beaufort replied. Attacking them in the manner she most preferred, through cursed objects, has probably exposed still more of us to the mortals. We have been mentioned on Sorcenet, I understand.

That is nothing new, Katherine denied. We are legendary. Most think that’s all we are; interesting, but fictional.

He called himself Eli Oud, Beaufort pointed out. To the wrong person that is an admission. Many mortals believe the myths and legends and think they are real. They think we are real.

We are real, dear, Katherine pointed out.

But now whoever killed them think we are a threat. They might be seeking us out.

How would they know who we are? Only a few of us are foolish enough to advertise our nature or go out deliberately picking fights.

Would whoever killed them know that or would they assume we were all alike? Beaufort countered. In their place, I would be out looking for other Elioud right now.

You’re over reacting, Katherine told him. We have no evidence anyone besides the usual conspiracy nuts are looking for us and, so far, none of them have come anywhere close to the truth. Most are still looking for Nephillim and have us confused with that old myth.

The Nephillim might not be all that mythological, Beaufort pointed out.

Oh, they’re a myth, all right. Maybe they existed in the past. Maybe some were even our ancestors, although I doubt it.

It is clear they used to exist.

Not to me, Katherine denied, and I do not think it matters.

You cannot just ignore a possible threat, Katherine, Beaufort maintained.

True, she agreed, but I do not have to assume that a threat actually exists. She paused to sip some of her coffee before asking, Do we know who killed them?

No, Beaufort shook his head. They probably live near where those two died though.

She might have picked the wrong target and whoever it was tracked her down just to get even, Katherine pointed out. I know I was tempted to do something like that several times over the years, but for the sake of argument, let’s assume they live somewhere in New England. Why are they a threat to us?

Maybe they are not, but we will not know that without finding out who we are dealing with. Whoever it is was amazingly creative and subtle. The house was nearly filled with popcorn of all things. If our people had not found traces of an annihilation spell, I might have thought the popcorn was, somehow, the cause of death.

Merely looking for them could expose us, you know, Katherine pointed out."

So, we shall have to be careful.

We are always careful.

This time, even more so.

Just Another Day in the Life

One

Bernard Elliott Aspinwall glared at the vacuum cleaner currently sitting atop his slate-covered workbench and said something impolite. If an angry expression and profanity could fix machinery, that vacuum would have been running around on its own and cleaning the dust out of the corners an hour earlier.

A cat with long white and tan fur and the unfortunate name, Fluffernutter, laid curled up on a pillow a few feet away. Fluff raised his head and looked around. While he might have looked like an ordinary housecat, Fluffernutter was actually a familiar; a spirit in animal form and Bernie was a wizard. The two of them had been partners since Bernie was a young boy.

Bernie continued to glare at the machine and Fluff decided that he could probably go back to sleep. Bernie made a living fixing things for his customers. At least half the time he fixed computers, but just as often he worked on less complicated machinery or even furniture. Bernie ran his fingers through his short, dark brown hair, making it even more disheveled that it had been and swore again and Fluff asked, What’s the problem?

I just cannot figure out what’s wrong with this thing, Bernie admitted.

So just cast a spell and fix it, Fluff suggested, once again showing that while he knew a lot about magic, he still did know have a firm grasp on human technology.

In order to fix something, I first need to know what is wrong, Bernie reminded him. It was a very old conversation.

It’s broken, Fluff replied. That had been his usual response. This time, however, he had an additional suggestion. Do you have a diagnostic spell that would tell you how it is broken?

Maybe, Bernie admitted as he poked around the machine’s parts, but it’s just a vacuum cleaner. The motor runs just fine. I checked that out first. The brushes were worn out, but I replaced those and changed out the air filters as well. Not sure why the manufacturer felt it needed more than one, but there you are. I made sure there were no clogs in the hoses, and yet it still does not work right. Insufficient suction.

So, something is broken, Fluff concluded. Cast a spell.

I guess I’ll have to, Bernie admitted, reaching into a drawer on his workbench. He pulled out the three-ring, loose-leaf notebook that serve as his grimoire and started flipping through the pages. Yeah, he nodded after a few minutes. This spell should work with just the usual adjustments.

You’re not going to ad lib again, are you? Fluff asked, worriedly. Last time you did, I sounded like a high school drama student trying to recite Shakespearean verse.

That was over a year ago and it turned out all right, Bernie replied as he got to his feet. He walked to the front door of his shop, flipped the Open sign around to show he was now Closed, and then closed the front door which had been left open to let air in through the screened outer door. But, no, he went on as he closed the blinds on the window. This is not an ad lib spell, just an adaptation of my usual general-purpose diagnostic. I need to specify the object, in this case the vacuum cleaner. I just fill in the blanks, is all.

He returned to the workbench and pulled a legal pad out of the drawer along with a purple Papermate Flexgrip Ultra pen. Ready? he asked his familiar.

Do you want to test the spell first?  a different voice asked, hopefully from a nearby shelf.

Not this time, Ronnie, Bernie replied. Ronnie was a Dell Inspiron notebook that had become self-aware over a year earlier. Bernie was still not certain how that had happened, but had concluded that it had been a side effect of a hostile curse combined with his own attempts to dispel the curse. Before he had finished, several other pieces of electronic equipment in his apartment had come alive as well.

At first Bernie had thought that Ronnie would be able to cast spells on his own, but later experimentation showed that while Ronnie could complete a work of magic, a human wizard and his familiar had to be involved in most of the spell. What Ronnie was very good at, however, was the creation of a virtual environment in which new spells could be tested safely before trying them out for real. Even the virtual environment spell needed Bernie’s and Fluff help to create, but Ronnie could maintain the environment so long as his battery remained charged up or his power supply was plugged in. Given Bernie’s mild dyslexia, having a safe place to test new spells was essential to his continued health.

Once I know what’s wrong though, Bernie went on, well, we’ll see. I may want your help when we do the actual repair.

Sure thing! Ronnie replied happily.

Fluff jumped up onto the workbench and sat down on the slate top. Nice cool surface, he commented.

Are you hot? Bernie asked. I can turn on the air conditioner.

I’m fine, Fluffernutter admitted. and we were getting a nice sea breeze from over the harbor before you closed the door. Let’s just get on with this and then you can open up again.

Okay, Bernie nodded. You’re my spell-checker in two ways. Keep an eye on me, though I don’t normally make a mistake when simply copying a spell.

Fluff sat up at attention and Bernie went to work. Casting a spell did not, as many of the uninitiated believed, involve verbally speaking the incantation. Many wizards did tend to speak their spells as they cast them, but it was the act of writing that actually initiated the magic. The spell came to life as Bernie inscribed it on the top sheet of his legal pad.

Ah hah! Bernie exclaimed a few minutes later. Found the problem. One of the hoses was ruptured. I should have thought of that. I did, actually, but the break was way up here, he pointed, and facing away from us.

So now we repair it? Fluff asked.

Normally, I’d just order a new part and install it, Bernie admitted, but I’ve been working on this monster for days now and I promised I’d have it ready tomorrow if at all possible. So, yeah. Let’s concoct a repair spell. I have one that ought to work although it was devised for fixing a garden hose. I’ll sketch a variant for an air hose rather than water and you can check it for me.

He went to work as Fluff watched on. Had the windows been open and someone had looked in they would have seen an adorable scene in which a man’s pet cat sat attentively with his head cocked to one side as though actually reading what his master was writing. In this case, of course, that is exactly what Fluffernutter was doing. Bernie knew that most wizards’ familiars did not get involved in the crafting of spells, they were really there to add the mystic power that was behind all magic. A wizard without a familiar was not a wizard. The familiar did not have to be physically nearby when casting a spell, but it helped.

In Fluff’s case, he did more than merely power the spells Bernie cast. He also helped to make sure Bernie constructed the spell correctly. Also, spells had to be written almost entirely in the Elder Tongue, an ancient language that no mortal could adequately pronounce. Elder Tongue’s written form was a combination of alphabetic and syllabic symbols, difficult for most mortals to master and far worse for a dyslexic wizard to use. Although he had been a wizard for over twenty-one years, Bernie continued to have trouble when crafting new magic, and nearly every spell he used was at least partially new.

Most new wizards had enjoyed a thirteen month-long training period with a mentor who showed them the basics and usually started them out with their own grimoires or books of spells. Sometimes those mentors left after the training period and were never seen again. Sometimes they stayed nearby and continued to guide their young charges. Bernie, however, was one of the very rare ones who taught himself. He had found an interesting book in the children’s section of his local library. He only understood part of it and thought that he was creating a pet that his parents could not see. He used that book, however, to teach himself the basics and as he went, began to understand more and more, but most of his spells were self-created. There had been no one to teach him. Fortunately, with Fluff’s help, he had become pretty good at inventing new spells, but it was dangerous work and he had come close to disaster several times along the way.

So, as Bernie worked, Fluff helped him and made corrections when Bernie made a mistake, but sometimes, even with Fluff’s help, Bernie wrote something