Sourcery

powerful. Quite powerful as wizards go.”
    “Good. I challenge you. Show me your strongest magic. And when I have beaten you, why, then I shall be Archchancellor.”
    “Why, you impudent—” began Spelter, but his protest was lost in the roar of laughter from the rest of the wizards. Billias slapped his knees, or as near to them as he could reach.
    “A duel, eh?” he said. “Pretty good, eh?”
    “Duelling is forbidden, as well you know,” said Spelter. “Anyway, it’s totally ridiculous! I don’t know who did the doors for him, but I will not stand here and see you waste all our time—”
    “Now, now,” said Billias. “What’s your name, lad?”
    “Coin.”
    “Coin sir ,” snapped Spelter.
    “Well, now, Coin,” said Billias. “You want to see the best I can do, eh?”
    “Yes.”
    “Yes sir ,” snapped Spelter. Coin gave him an unblinking stare, a stare as old as time, the kind of stare that basks on rocks on volcanic islands and never gets tired. Spelter felt his mouth go dry.
    Billias held out his hands for silence. Then, with a theatrical flourish, he rolled up the sleeve of his left arm and extended his hand.
    The assembled wizards watched with interest. Eighth-levels were above magic, as a rule, spending most of their time in contemplation—normally of the next menu—and, of course, avoiding the attentions of ambitious wizards of the seventh-level. This should be worth seeing.
    Billias grinned at the boy, who returned it with a stare that focused on a point a few inches beyond the back of the old wizard’s head.
    Somewhat disconcerted, Billias flexed his fingers. Suddenly this wasn’t quite the game he had intended, and he felt an overpowering urge to impress. It was swiftly overtaken by a surge of annoyance at his own stupidity in being unnerved.
    “I shall show you,” he said, and took a deep breath, “Maligree’s Wonderful Garden.”
    There was a susurration from the diners. Only four wizards in the entire history of the University had ever succeeded in achieving the complete Garden. Most wizards could create the trees and flowers, and a few had managed the birds. It wasn’t the most powerful spell, it couldn’t move mountains, but achieving the fine detail built into Maligree’s complex syllables took a finely tuned skill.
    “You will observe,” Billias added, “nothing up my sleeve.”
    His lips began to move. His hands flickered through the air. A pool of golden sparks sizzled in the palm of his hand, curved up, formed a faint sphere, began to fill in the detail…
    Legend had it that Maligree, one of the last of the true sourcerers, created the Garden as a small, timeless, private self-locking universe where he could have a quiet smoke and a bit of a think while avoiding the cares of the world. Which was itself a puzzle, because no wizard could possibly understand how any being as powerful as a sourcerer could have a care in the world. Whatever the reason, Maligree retreated further and further into a world of his own and then, one day, closed the entrance after him.
    The garden was a glittering ball in Billias’s hands. The nearest wizards craned admiringly over his shoulders, and looked down into a two-foot sphere that showed a delicate, flower-strewn landscape; there was a lake in the middle distance, complete in every ripple, and purple mountains behind an interesting-looking forest. Tiny birds the size of bees flew from tree to tree, and a couple of deer no larger than mice glanced up from their grazing and stared out at Coin.
    Who said critically: “It’s quite good. Give it to me.”
    He took the intangible globe out of the wizard’s hands and held it up.
    “Why isn’t it bigger?” he said.
    Billias mopped his brow with a lace-edged handkerchief.
    “Well,” he said weakly, so stunned by Coin’s tone that he was quite unable to be affronted, “since the old days, the efficacity of the spell has rather—”
    Coin stood with his head on one side for a moment, as though listening to something. Then he whispered a few syllables and stroked the surface of the sphere.
    It expanded. One moment it was a toy in the boy’s hands, and the next…
    …the wizards were standing on cool grass, in a shady meadow rolling down to the lake. There was a gentle breeze blowing from the mountains; it was scented with thyme and hay. The sky was deep blue shading to purple at the zenith.
    The deer watched the newcomers suspiciously from their grazing ground under the