the forgetting boy

LUCA SCORDATO

AGE 25 (1345)

 “You can­not stop time.”

Leonar­do threw a small wood­en ball into the air, and just above his head was where it hung, on its own, under no effort at all. She watched it intent­ly, his words caught in her head the same way the ball was caught in the air. It appeared, she thought, to have frozen in time alto­geth­er, for­ev­er, but she was not about to argue with a Mag­is­ter like Leonar­do Soran­zo, espe­cial­ly when she had no place, and espe­cial­ly when an Illu­sion­ist like Luca Scorda­to was not say­ing a word oth­er­wise, either.

Her atten­tion quick­ly went from the ball to the young man sit­ting beside her. His eyes were trans­fixed on the toy with much the same inter­est, if not more. His brows fur­rowed at it, but soon he glanced away and met her eyes, his expres­sion fad­ing instant­ly into some­thing calm and pleas­ant. She returned the look, and they both went back to giv­ing Leonar­do their full atten­tion.

“You can only slow time down,” he con­tin­ued as he crossed the room to the roar­ing fire. The flames licked at the black­ened bricks and stone behind them, and teased to spill out over the clay-red semi-cir­cle of stones jut­ting away from the alcove and chim­ney.

“Until its very exis­tence is impos­si­ble.”

He slow­ly waved his hand in front of the fire, and almost one by one, each rib­bon of flame slowed, and then final­ly held itself in one place, like a paint­ing. The fire looked so inno­cent and harm­less, that she want­ed to go over and touch it, to see if it was sol­id like a bright crys­tal, or even stained glass. She knew bet­ter, how­ev­er, for Leonar­do and Luca had both played with fire respec­tive­ly.

It also was not an uncom­mon trick for the street Illu­sion­ists to play, or even the mor­tal magi­cians — though the lat­ter would fake the sight with rib­bons and wire and some sort of box con­trap­tion that Luca had explained to her once before. This fire, how­ev­er, was still very much alive, and still hot to the touch. The warmth could still be felt in the room, puls­ing from the glow.

“And once you have done that,” Leonar­do said, voice strict and sym­pa­thet­ic at the same time, his breath and his words sim­mer­ing with a cer­tain, unaged excite­ment that she had grown to love about the old man. “Once you have done that.”

He swept his hand in front of the fire­place a sec­ond time, and it crack­led back to life, bring­ing with it a rush of hot air that silent­ly stole her breath.

“You will only real­ize that noth­ing is impos­si­ble.”

Wilsa Schuttman smiled, then, even with goose­flesh crawl­ing up her arms. She was full of a child­ish delight, mixed with the awe of a young woman. There was lit­tle that Leonar­do could say that would not leave her short of breath, his lec­tures always inspi­ra­tional and as mag­i­cal as he was. The only oth­er times she heard words used so beau­ti­ful­ly were when poets and bards would per­form in the streets, or when Luca would read aloud to her from books and jour­nals and scrolls old­er than she could have imag­ined once, a short time ago.

“Why?”

Luca’s voice was young, then. Though it did not chal­lenge his age, it was still sweet and smoother than that of any of his peers. He took care of it with warmed drinks and hon­ey, and nev­er spent it scream­ing at the dog fights in the street or shout­ing in argu­ments. If his voice had a flaw, it was that it took his tem­per to make him seri­ous over sin­cere, and his tem­per was not an easy thing to come by.

Leonar­do turned, rest­ing his back on the wall beside the fire and cross­ing his arms over his chest. His head tilt­ed down and to the side the small­est bit, eye­brows ris­ing togeth­er and then slow­ly drop­ping and leav­ing his expres­sion close to cross. Wilsa was scared to shift in her seat, lest she draw his sud­den mood her way, and kept still enough that she only glanced at Luca from the cor­ner of her eye. He moved for­ward in his chair, back straight­en­ing and then slouch­ing as he leaned in.

“Why can’t you stop time? Why can’t I?”

It was a jus­ti­fi­able ques­tion, she thought. That was the mythos of the Immor­tal­ists, after all — that they could stop time in its place, and move around it and through it like it was water or air. Wilsa her­self had grown up lis­ten­ing to sto­ries about great old men who had seen the first sun­rise, and who would live to see the last sun­set. Men who were young for­ev­er, men who thought of their lives in years, not days.

Immor­tal­ists knew when time began, and they knew when it end­ed.

She looked over to the wood­en ball, and there it still stuck in the air, as if held there by an invis­i­ble thread. It may have been a trick of the light, or per­haps she had moved, but it felt like the ball had moved up the small­est frac­tion, as if it wasn’t just there, but still being thrown up. She want­ed to point it out to Luca, but besides not hav­ing the courage to open her mouth at the moment to inter­rupt the two men, she knew some­where inside that Luca was already aware.

“Because time has no end, Luca. Time does not die, time can­not die. It will go on, for­ev­er, and the only thing you or I can do is be there, with it, for as long as it will allow us. A tree will con­tin­ue to grow, a rock will age into dust, and you, and I, and sweet Wilsa, will, one day, be unable to keep up with time, no mat­ter how slow­ly we let it go by.”

Silence fell for an awk­ward length of time, and through it, Wilsa watched the ball. She won­dered, with every blink, if it was mov­ing at all, and if Luca would accept the answer that he had been giv­en. Her cheeks were warm from being brought into the con­ver­sa­tion, and grew hot­ter still know­ing that her name had only been used to keep Luca at bay. It had, indeed, struck him silent, but she, of all peo­ple could see tell-tale signs pinch­ing the cor­ners of his eyes and tug­ging at his bot­tom lip.

“Luca,” she warned in the qui­etest whis­per, almost inaudi­ble over the crack of fire­wood. He did not heed her, expres­sion chal­leng­ing.

“I won’t let that hap­pen,” he said, voice as close to stern as it could be, but still so gen­tle that Leonar­do did not take it seri­ous­ly enough. The man smirked, and looked Wilsa in the eye.

“Next he’ll want to stop the sun from ris­ing and set­ting, I sup­pose?” He stepped away from the wall, and head­ed towards Luca slow­ly. With his every step, ash and dust kicked up from the floor, swirling soft­ly, par­ti­cles glit­ter­ing and pos­si­bly stick­ing in the air. That may have been her imag­i­na­tion though. Time meant noth­ing around Immor­tal­ists, this was some­thing Wilsa had come to accept. They manip­u­lat­ed it with­out any effort, sim­ply because they could and they want­ed to. The old Magister’s ener­gy nev­er fad­ed, no mat­ter how many things he decid­ed to con­trol in one moment. She had once watched him boil water in the blink of an eye while at the same time revers­ing the smash, spill, and fall of a cup that Luca had dropped.

Cer­tain­ly, he had done much more extra­or­di­nary things with his gift, but she her­self had yet to expe­ri­ence them in her own life­time, short as it was in com­par­i­son.

“Luca,” Leonar­do said, stress­ing the lat­ter syl­la­ble with some­thing harsh and lec­tur­ing, “the only thing an Immor­tal­ist could ever achieve by stop­ping time, is his own destruc­tion. Ban­ish the idea from your mind, before I do it for you.”

The sulk that swept over Luca’s face brought anoth­er to Wilsa’s, and were she clos­er, she would have reached out to brush his arm or knee in com­fort. Mor­tal as she was, the rules of Immor­tal­ists were for­eign to her, and not of her con­cern, so she could only sym­pa­thize with the young Illu­sion­ist to a point, but it stopped there. Leonardo’s lessons were not for her, though she seemed to fol­low them more than Luca did. She nev­er ques­tioned him, for one thing, and nev­er tempt­ed fate.