The Magician King_ A Novel - Lev Grossman [142]
“Penny,” he said lamely. “It’s you.”
Penny watched him calmly.
“This is my friend Poppy,” Quentin said. “It’s good to see you, Penny. I’m glad you’re all right.”
“Hello, Quentin.”
“What happened to you? What happened here?”
“I joined the Order.”
He spoke softly and calmly. Penny didn’t seem to feel the cold at all.
“What is that, Penny? What’s the Order?”
“We care for the Neitherlands. The Neitherlands is not a natural phenomenon, it is a made thing. An artifact. It was built long ago by magicians whose understanding of magic went far, far deeper than yours does.”
Not mine, mind you. Just yours. Good old Penny. His losing his hands the way he did was a catastrophe Quentin would never really get over, but if anybody was born to be a mystical floating monk with no hands, it was Penny. They were going to freeze to death before he was done with his dramatic exposition.
“Ever since then men and women like myself have watched over it. We repair it and defend it.”
“Penny, I’m sorry, but we’re really cold,” Quentin said. “Can you help us?”
“Of course.”
When Penny lost his hands Quentin thought he would never do magic again. Counting Penny out was a mistake he apparently couldn’t stop making. Hanging in the air in front of them, Penny joined his empty wrists together in front of him and began rhythmically reciting something in a language Quentin didn’t know. He was making some kind of physical effort under his robe, but Quentin couldn’t tell what.
All at once the air around them went from frigid to warm. Quentin shook even more uncontrollably as he warmed up. The relief was immense. He couldn’t help himself, he bent over, and his mouth filled with saliva. He thought he might throw up, and that seemed incredibly funny, and he started laughing. Beside him he could hear Poppy moaning as her body recovered.
He didn’t throw up. But it was a minute before either of them could talk again.
“What happened here?” Poppy said finally. “Who destroyed this place?”
“It was not destroyed.” Penny corrected her with a trace of his old touchiness. “But it was damaged, badly. Perhaps irreparably. And there is worse to come.”
The books and papers that surrounded Penny closed and zipped off to their places in various stacks and piles. Penny began floating in the direction of the open doors of the palazzo. Apparently those blue runes weren’t all that was holding him up. The Order seemed to adhere to the principle of suckers walk, players ride.
“It is better if I show you,” Penny said.
Quentin took Poppy’s hand, and they followed him out into the square. Quentin was coasting on an endorphin high. He wasn’t going to die—probably—and after that all news was good news. Penny talked as he floated along. His head was still a couple of feet above theirs. It was like having a conversation with somebody who was riding a Segway.
“Did you ever wonder,” Penny said, “where magic comes from?”
“Yes, Penny,” Quentin said dutifully. “I did wonder about that.”
“Henry had a theory. He told me about it when we were at Brakebills.”
He meant Dean Fogg. Penny only ever referred to the Brakebills faculty by their first names, to show that he thought of himself as their equal.
“It seemed wrong to him that humans should have access to magic. Or not wrong, but strange. It didn’t make sense. He thought it was too good to be true. As magicians we were taking advantage of some kind of cosmic loophole to wield power that by rights we were never meant to have. The inmates had found the keys to the asylum, and we were running amok in the pharmacy.
“Or think of the universe as a vast computer. We are end users who have gained admin-level access to the system, and are manipulating it without authorization. Henry has a whimsical mind. He isn’t a rigorous theorist, by any means, but he does have moments of insight. This was one of them.”
They had left the square, Poppy and Quentin walking with their arms around each other now, pooling their heat. The zone of warm