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---Letter-From-The-Editor---

Once again, I'm not drunk.

I hate sober Fridays.

-Editor-on-the-Edge-
Hari Michaelson
---
The Tinkerer

Like all great stories, this one begins with a simple man.

This simple man’s people lived lives of relative complexity. Long ago they had combined the powers of science and the mysterious workings of the world’s magic, and they were easily the greatest innovators of their kind. It was in this society that this simple man lived the majority of his happy, if fairly simple, life.

Like all great men, this one was undone by an innocent musing.

It came about that the man’s young niece had a Birthday approaching. Having no daughters or sons of their own, he and his wife treated her as their own child. He had promised to build her a toy unlike any she had seen. A flying toy, one that would fly about her on its own free will; a mechanical pet bird so to speak.

The going was slow. He had exhausted all his knowledge of mechanics, and he could not construct the plaything. His knowledge of magic was of no use either. The spells for levitation and movement were too powerful, useful only in the vast industrial complexes for moving hulking loads of metal. Each attempt to float the toy sent another prototype crashing into (and more often than not through) the ceiling of his workshop. As another failed attempt went sailing towards the heavens, a simple, yet powerful idea fell upon the simple man.

“…What if…what if the spell can be changed? All things in nature behave according to laws…why not magic?”

It was an unheard of idea. To him and his fellow inventors, magic simply was. They used it as best they could, and they formed their machines around its function. For the first time in the history of a civilization that had applied Magic to Science, the simple man decided to apply Science to Magic.

He dragged out his equipment, and began to run tests. No longer were the skyward objects failures, but experiments. The readings made no sense, of course. But they were consistent, and for any scientist, consistency points to law. As the days passed, he found ways to alter the effects of the spell. By applying certain energies at certain moments during the spell’s execution, the results became wildly varied. Sometimes the toy would seem to jump halfheartedly. Other times it flattened, as if the spell had reversed itself. Oftentimes it simply remained where it had been.

On the day of his niece’s birthday, the simple man produced a wondrous sight for the chil😛 A toy that floated in the air without any means of suspension.
“It will float forever” he promised her.

Though he watched her play with joy in his heart, he often found his mind wandering towards the possibilities that awaited him in the workshop.

The following months were filled with frustration and elation. Each new discovery brought on a dozen more challenges and even more questions. The possibilities were, for all practical purposes, indefinite. The simple man had stumbled upon a discovery of infinite complexity. His wife would playfully remind him to come to bed, as there were other areas of study that required his attention. It was not without a slight, if easily forgotten, pang of regret that he leaving his exploration on hold.

To say that matters worsened is an understatement. No longer did the simple man spend his days in the parks of the city. He spent them in his workshop. No longer did he use his eyes to watch his niece grow. He strained them to observe the minute displays of energy from his work. No longer were his hands intertwined with his wife’s in affection. They only now took up the tools that had become an extension of his being. His workshop had begun to fill with notebooks full of hastily written scribble. Symbols of his own design, used to record the patterns he saw in his work. No longer could he be pulled from his work, not even by the most passionate pleas from his wife. “A breakthrough…” he would reply “I’m on the verge of a breakthrough”.

He was working on altering the nature of light the night his wife introduced herself to a young man from across the way.

He was deciphering the source of a brick’s strength the night his wife laid with her new lover.

He was pondering the cause of man’s mortality the night his wife whispered “I love you” into the ear of a man he had never met.

He was asleep from exhaustion the night his wife left the house they had built, without the need to provide him a goodbye.

The simple man looked up from his work. Had…where…how long had he been here? He touched his face, and found a beard that had not been there. He tried to stand, but his legs…they…he couldn’t. No matter how hard he tried, his unused legs would not obey his command. So he turned to the thing that had been his focus for the countless years, and within minutes he rode not upon fragile legs, but a contraption of metal, powered by the magical connection with his mind.

The simple man searched through the dust-filled house, and could not find his wife. He rode into the street, and found himself looking at a foreign street with strange buildings. He began to search, using his knowledge of magic to hear the words and thoughts hidden from him by time. Far. She was far. But he knew where.

It was dark when he came upon her house. She no longer looked as he remembered, but she was still her, and because of that she was beautiful. She played with a child, a young girl, one he had never seen.

Wait.

She laughed as another child, an older boy, came running into the room to surprise her.

No, wait.

A man slightly younger than her came and put his arms around her, kissing her softly on her neck. She smiled a smile that had once warmed the simple man to the core.

No.

As with all great horrors, this one was done in the name of love.

He rode into the room, altering the nature of the brick to the consistency of water. Cries of terror; screams and tears. The simple man looked at the woman he loved and croaked out a desperate plea:
“Love me.”

There was no response in her shrieks, only fear. Not for herself. For her…her children. The simple man felt his heart crack. And as it had so very long ago, a simple, yet powerful idea fell upon the simple man.

“There is magic in all things…even love. If I can master even death…I can master love.”

With his mind made up, he stole his love from the family of imposters, and brought her back to the house they had built. He hated himself for it, but it was the only way to save their love. He used his knowledge to calm her, to set her in a sleep as he moved through the city. He laid her down gently in their bedroom, her beauty still shining as bright as it had when he had met her so very long ago. As he left, the openings that had once been doors and windows meshed with the surrounding walls, and the room that had once held so much love had been transformed into a prison.

The simple man visited her daily, brought her food and water. Although he tried to talk with her, he could never rekindle the conversations they had once shared. She only demanded, pleaded, begged for her freedom. As he continued to work towards unlocking the code that dictated love, he stopped his attempts to speak with her. He brought her food, and she asked to be freed. His response was simply “...a breakthrough. I’m on the verge of a breakthrough.” And thus was their relationship.

The years passed, and soon decades had turned to centuries. Long ago the simple man had conquered the trivial issue of mortality, and so death came neither to him or his love. Their bodies aged, his face soon covered by hair he never bothered to trim, her body shriveled and wrinkled yet undying. There was no point is wasting effort on these matters, he decided. First, the code must be unlocked.

Like all great tragedies, this one ends in pain.

He rode into the room that had for so long been her prison.

“I’ve done it!” cried the man she had loved so very long ago. “I’ve done it! Our love will…will…oh I can’t believe it! This is…I…I will love you forever” he promised her.

Tears of joy streamed down his withered face. Every aspect of him showed his age, except for the metal horror to which his torso was strapped. Only now did she truly realize how long she had been here. Only now did she truly understand what had happened to those she loved… and what a monster she was looking at. What little hope had caused the simple woman to hold onto life was crushed under the cold, metallic heel of this being before her. And so, she surrendered.

The simple man, who could no longer be called a simple man, wasted no more time in casting the spell upon his love. Finally. Finally things would be right. Finally he could leave this house, finally they would be young again, finally his heart would be healed.

His love only stared.

He tried again, for a moment fearing the spell’s failure.

His love only stared.

He flew into a panic. He demanded, pleaded, begged that she respond, that she answer, that she love him once more.

His love only stared.

The Tinkerer left the prison and the empty husk of his love, returning once more to his workshop. He slowly moved to pick up a half-filled notebook, pages of The Code spilling forth from its binding. As he slowly dragged out his equipment, he began to once again run his tests.

“… A breakthrough. I’m on the verge of a breakthrough”.
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The Muckraker: Now with 84% more text wall.